The Bad Batch Season 2 Episode 4

Faster Tech Kill Kill

SPOILERS! THAT’S SO WIZARD!

This week’s episode of The Bad Batch, “Faster,” is ostensibly about complicating the character of Cid, but the main action is a super-fun remix/homage to the podrace from The Phantom Menace.

The podrace from Episode I was an old-fashioned set piece that seems lodged into the plot the way I lodge my parents’ divorce into of all my plays. George Lucas’s brain just floats to fast cars, so his return to directing on the big screen featured a Star Wars version of Ben-Hur. Giant engine-chariots, filled with a kind of Cantina Scene of racers (Dudd Bolt! Ben Quadrinaros!), a lot of cameos, and some wizard canyon dune turns. It was a moment where The Phantom Menace was suddenly very fast in a way it isn’t for most of its runtime, and for a reason that was barely defensible, (this is really the only way to get them off the planet? a strange kid wins a race?) and it was blast.

The oft-overlooked Star Wars: Resistance seemed interested in recapturing some of that podracing magic, but in my view “Faster” captures it more successfully, for two reasons.