SPOILERS ARE NOT VERY GOOD AT COVERING FOR AN ESCAPEE
“Flash Strike,” the penultimate episode of The Bad Batch, could have been titled “Slow Burn.” The series continues to set up next week’s finale in a workman-like, perfectly-acceptable, entirely cromulent manner. It’s most surprising for being unsurprising, in a way. Either the showrunners are saving up some magic trick for a finale-to-end-all-finales, or they simply trust that their story doesn’t require too much embellishment.
That’s not to say it’s an uneventful episode. There are events aplenty. The Batch finally reaches Tantiss, where three storylines are on the verge of converging. There’s Hunter, Wrecker, Crosshair and Rampart navigating the jungle (beast run after them, naturally); Echo infiltrating Tantiss solo; and Omega trying to orchestrate a break out from within the vault. It’s pretty much what I expected to see. No major reveals (Clone Assassin X was not revealed to be Tech in disguise!); no major canon additions (we don’t find out that Tantiss is somehow directly tied to, I don’t know, Exegol or something); and no big surprises when it comes to Omega herself (she doesn’t use the Force out of the blue). It’s the show you’ve been watching all along. If you’re way into it? You’ll remain into it. If you’ve been waiting for some wacky water-cooler moment? Not yet.
The Bad Batch’s animation remains a marvel. The show’s lighting in particular is breathtaking; the scenes never feels less than cinematic, moody, and vibrant. The look of the show is a testament to years Lucasfilm Animation has spent honing its craft and developing new technology.
But as story goes, The Bad Batch has invested all its narrative capital in setting up the finale. So, I’m going to honor the showrunner’s intention and speculate about what might happen as the series comes to an end.
Omega’s Death. Let’s start with the least likely outcome. This is a kid’s show, Omega is the lead kid, there’s no chance they’ll kill off Omega. Which is why I can’t help but imagine how they’d pull it off. They could want to write her out of the cluttered timeline, after all. Accounting for her whereabouts would be solved if she was, you know, offed.