My Predictions for The Bad Batch Season 1 Finale

This post contains spoilers for The Bad Batch.

I've been really enjoying The Bad Batch so far. Some of the episodes are pure Mandalorian filler, like watching a walkthrough of a Skyrim sidequest, but even the episodes that don't advance the plot are doing what I basically wanted from this show - giving me a 20-minute blast of Star Wars energy every week. It's got the vibe, the aesthetic, the connections. There's also a sense some of this stuff might be significant to the larger plot being told with the Disney+ shows (we know there's a culminating story event planned for all the Mando era stuff in a few years). Fennec Shand, owner of the best Star Wars name, is a recurring character here, filling in her early history before she returns to live action this December, and it turns out Omega is Boba's sister from a certain point of view. If this was a Marvel show I'd say this was absolutely set-up for Omega to appear in The Book of Boba Fett. With Star Wars though it's a bit harder to say. I do think there's more to learn about Omega - she still might turn out to be force sensative. If she is, I expect we'll find out before the end of Season 1.

Right now I think we're headed for a finale shaped a lot like a Mando finale. Hunter has been captured, so the Batch is going to get a squad together of characters they've met along their journey. Rex and Cid are both safe bets at least. Now that the Empire have Hunter, they might try to activate his chip, but since he had it removed he'll need a new one. That'd be an excuse to take Hunter to Kamino, forcing everyone to go back there for the big finale. While the Batch and friends try to rescue Hunter, I'm sure we'll see the clone uprising that's been set-up quite heavily, with the clones fighting to defend Kamino from the Empire. I'm sure Fennec Shand will also show up to defend Kamino too since she's been working for them throughout the season.

In Episode 13, we were introduced to Roland Durand, who dropped some obvious set-up about his family. Either he'll be back in the finale or in Season 2, which we now know is on the way in 2022. I'm looking forward to what The Bad Batch will do as it moves away from the immediate aftermath of Order 66. I expect Crosshair will be dealt with in the finale - either he'll get his chip removed and rejoin the Batch or get killed off - and after that, the Batch will have to settle into some sort of new role going forward. A lot of Season 1 is about them searching for their place in the galaxy, and in Season 2 they might actually find one. Also, it's becoming more and more clear that The Bad Batch is bridging the gap between The Clone Wars and Rebels, not just in terms of placement on the timeline but in the characters it's focusing on. We've already seen Kanan, Hera, and Chopper in the show, and I wouldn't be surprised if that bridging of the two shows continued.

Of course this is a Dave Filoni animated series so Ahsoka will be in it, the question is when. There's a slight chance she'll show up for the Season 1 finale but at this point I think she might be saved as a big exciting thing for Season 2. Sticking with more wild, out-there predictions for the finale, we might get an update on the potentially Snoke-adjacent cloning experiments we briefly saw in Episode 9 (both of The Bad Batch and of The Skywalker Saga). Like the reference to Snoke cloning in The Mandalorian Season 2, it could just be a reference and nothing more, but since this show is actually about clones and Kamino, it's more likely this show will follow up on it.

So yeah. Not long now until the finale, and I trust Filoni to do something satisfying with it. It's amazing how each episode of this show manages to pack in a full adventure with worldbuilding and developing emotional themes, all in a fairly limited runtime.

It's still a shame we didn't see Cal Kestis on Bracca though.

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