The Bad Batch: “Retrieval”

Welcome to my weekly review of The Bad Batch, where I will be walking us through each episode and giving my thoughts on the show. My reviews will follow my usual format: an overview of the plot (so be aware, there will be spoilers!), my review of the show, then a few “Moments in canon” – references that link to other media and the galaxy as a whole. Today, we’ll be looking at the tenth episode of season 2: “Retrieval”.

Plot Summary

The Bad Batch attempt to fix a broken speederbike which will allow them to reach a settlement to find a way offworld. As they are doing so, Omega remembers that Gonky is on the Marauder, so by tracking him, they will be able to find their ship.

The Marauder is piloted to a mine some distance away by the thief, Benni. Arriving at a mine, Benni hands over the ship to his boss, Mokko, in exchange for water rations and the chance of being named the top earner, while Mokko also allows him to keep Gonky. Mokko notes that the ships specs mean that it probably won’t be easy to sell, so decides to strip it down and sell as parts.

Having followed Gonky’s signal, the clones arrive at the settlement that surrounds the mine and make their way in, soon finding Gonky and catching Benni. The group intimidate Benni into leading them to the Marauder. The only undefended way down is via an exhaust shaft, which expels exhausts every minute. Timing his infiltration, Hunter goes first, but as he reaches the bottom, one of Mokko’s doids appears, forcing him to fight it. He just manages to get the upper hand and escape into the hallway before the exhaust cycle ends, destroying the droid. Once the rest of the group join him, they proceed through to the hangar. Reaching the ship, they find that some systems, including the hyperdrive, have already been removed, but are still next to the ship. While Wrecker, Hunter and Tech begin to make repairs so that they can escape on the ship, Omega accompanies Benni to the central tower in order to shut down the ray shield preventing their escape. Benni lends her his jacket to help her blend in among the other workers.

“Stealing’s not a skill.”

“It is when you’re good at it.”

As they make their way through, they spend a moment with Mokko’s inner circle in order for Benni to steal an access card to reach the control room. While there, Mokko comes out with the results of who is the top earner: Drake, one of his inner circle. As prize, Drake gets a bowl of food to himself, while the rest of the inner circle have to share 1 bowl. Having successfully stolen Drake’s access card, a disappointed Benni leads Omega to the control room, where she begins downloading information from the computers onto her datapad, not noticing Benni trigger an alarm. While she is downloading the info, she gives Benni her rations. Among the data she downloads, she sees financial data that proves that Mokko has been lying to the workers that the quality of the ipsium they are mining is depleted so they are learning very little—in fact the quality and finances are as good as ever, but Mokko is keeping it all for himself. Mokko arrives with his droids and captures Omega, praising Benni for his loyalty. Benni is left behind with Omega’s datapad, which he hid from Mokko.

As the rest of the clones work on repairing the Marauder, some of Mokko’s workers discover them and run to warn Mokko. Hunter tries chasing them but they elude him, but he sees Mokko approaching the hangar with his droids so warns the others. Tech and Wrecker emerge and face off with Mokko his droids, and his inner circle. Mokko has Omega brought out and threatens to throw her down the shaft. Benni arrives and announces to the group that Mokko has been lying to them, before showing Drake the proof on the datapad. With Drake confirming that Benni is telling the truth, the inner circle turn on Mokko, who orders Omega be thrown, but the distraction has allowed Hunter to get in permission to catch her. Tech and Wrecker shoot the droids and the inner circle advance on Mokko, who swipes out at them but overbalances and falls off the bridge, though he just manages to grab it to halt his fall. Benni tries to pull him back up, but he tries to pull Benni off the bridge, only for the other workers to grab hold of Benni, and Mokko to lose his grip and fall.

While the clones complete the repairs to the Marauder, Benni gets back the rest of their goods for them. Benni tells Omega that they will stay to continue the mining operation, but will now all get an equal share of the profits. Benni thanks Omega for showing him the truth and tells her that if she ever needs a thief, he owes her. As the clones bid their farewells, Omega is sad that there are others like Mokko in the galaxy, but Tech reminds her that there are also others like them.

Review

So those who read last week’s review will know that I was relying on this week’s episode to save a poor plot from last week. In hindsight though, that was never really going to be possible as this was never doing to suddenly turn into part of the main plot of the series. The best hope we have is that Benni’s offer of help in the future actually leads to him playing a part in the main plot at a later date rather than just being a throwaway line to show the groups parting on good terms.

Now with that out of the way, the plot of this episode was pretty good on the whole, and having prepped myself that this wouldn’t be part of the main overarching story for the series, I did find this episode better than many of the other “filler” episodes we’ve been choked with this season. Maybe it was the lack of expectations (or even hope), or maybe it was just better, I can’t fully say.

However, I did have a big issue with one feature of this episode: Gonky and the way he is handled. This is someone who had a hero moment in season 1 and has been absent all season until he appeared as basically an extra last week. Now suddenly, the Bad Batch spend most of the episode treating him as amember of the family on par with any of them… and yet last week they talked about the losses of Echo, Crosshair and The Marauder but not Gonky. And this week, Omega just suddenly remembered that he was on the ship and Tech—the brains of the group—still couldn’t even consider using Gonky to trace the Marauder. It just feels like lazy writing that is angling far too close to Obi-Wan Kenobi levels of convenience.

And so, with just 6 episodes remaining, can this season be saved? Yes. But it means actually sticking to the main story for the rest of the season now. We haven’t seen or heard from Crosshair or Cody since their episode, the only real development for the Batch this season has been losing Echo, and frankly, this whole series could be summed up by “The Bad Batch have a series of largely unimportant and utterly forgetful adventures”. The longer this series goes on, the more it’s coming to be at risk of dropping behind Resistance in my animated rankings…

“The Empire’s not the only threat. We’ve seen so many in the galaxy like Mokko.”

“Unfortunately, yes. However, there are many like us out there as well.”

A few final thoughts from the episode:

• I know it’s meant to have an impact, but the clip of Mokko chowing down like a gutton honestly brought me close to vomiting as I ate my breakfast. Not sure that the animators needed to go so disgusting to prove their point
• I loved that moment between Omega and Tech at the end, seeing Tech give such a soft and optimistic response rather than his usual facts was a great follow-on and development of their relationship after last week’s discussion

Moments in Canon

• According to Benni, the Techno Union, a member of the Separatists, used to own the mine during the Clone Wars

What did you think of the episode?

Thanks for reading. Rebellions are built on hope….

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