“Rampage” Feels A Little Soft For “The Bad Batch

“Rampage” gives “The Bad Batch” a little, well, one might call it a romp. We’re late enough in the season that it feels like it should be ramping up the stakes. It isn’t a bad episode, but it also feels like filler. The audience doesn’t learn anything. There also isn’t much growth for the team, aside from establishing a bit more sorrow over their departed teammate Crosshair.

The team seeks out Cid, who the Jedi used to work with a lot before the Emperor wiped them out. Cid peddles information that might be otherwise hard to get. Hunter and company want to know who was chasing them last week and hope that Cid might be able to identify her. Cid agrees to get them the information they need after they fix a problem for her. She needs them to rescue the kidnapped Muchi, who Zygerrian slave traders hold.

Things go awry in the rescue mission setting up yet another Omega saves the day scenario. I understand that Omega is a clone and comes from the same Jango Fett stock as Clone Force 99. She’s more advanced mentally and physically compared to her peers. That she frequently rescue her supposedly more experienced guardians is bothersome, however. You have to wonder if Clone Force 99 are the heroes here.

Eventually, Omega creates a distraction that allows the team to free themselves from captivity. It also frees Muchi, who is not the child we expected but instead a toddler Rancor. Reviews across the internet point out that Muchi is not the same Rancor we see in “Return of the Jedi”. The writers go out of their way to leave the audience thinking it is, though. Why else have Bib Fortuna retrieve Muchi for his boss Jabba? Is Jabba the only creature in the universe that keeps Rancors? Sure, not everything in the “Star Wars” canon needs to be directly connected. It doesn’t ring true to make an allusion and deny it, though.

Five episodes in, and I’m still waiting for this show to grab me. That’s a problem Dave Filoni’s other Star Wars series have not had. I think it’s because the themes exhibited here are beginning to feel overplayed in the Filoni “Star Wars” universe. With any show, you need a solid lead to connect with on an emotional level. “The Bad Batch” isn’t giving Hunter and company the space to achieve that, leaving them ineffective in most cases. Hopefully, the coming weeks will focus on why we started watching in the first place. The clone troopers who did it their way and now are on the run.