Brad Rau and Jennifer Corbett on the death of Tech and the end of their award-winning series.
It’s not easy being the Bad Batch, but lately it’s been especially rough. Last year on Star Wars: The Bad Batch, our favorite clone squad lost its brother and science whiz Tech, was betrayed by a supposed ally, and saw young Omega snatched by Imperial mad scientist Dr. Royce Hemlock. To borrow a phrase from Obi-Wan Kenobi, they were dark times.
“When we first started this show, we had hoped that we could get three seasons to tell this story," executive producer and head writer Jennifer Corbett tells StarWars.com. "We kicked Season 1 off with Order 66 and the team trying to figure out where they fit in the galaxy. We knew Season 2 was going to be a little bit darker, because we knew that the team was going to lose in some way. As the season progressed, it became clear that the way for them to lose is to essentially have the team be fractured. That's what happens when we lose Tech, and then also with Omega being taken by the Empire.”
These two story elements made for a shocking end to a critically-acclaimed season, one that just won The Bad Batch the Saturn Award for Best Animated Series — its second in a row. The death of Tech was a particularly raw moment; following the raid of an Imperial stronghold, which earned the Bad Batch the ire of Grand Moff Tarkin, the clone sacrificed himself to save his brothers. Behind the scenes, Lucasfilm took the sequence, and the decision to kill off Tech, very seriously. “There were a lot of conversations that went into that, and we even tried to talk ourselves out of it many times, because he's such an important character to the show, to all of us and the crew, and we know he is important to the fans,” Corbett says. “But what we're showing in Season 2 is that the galaxy has changed and the Empire is now very powerful in the early years. So we were trying to be logical in the sense that, the Batch keeps putting themselves in these positions and, ultimately, there has to be a time when they do lose." Dave Filoni, series creator and executive producer, agreed.
“Even Dave said, when we were pitching him ideas for leading up to the finale, ‘If you're going to have them go against Tarkin, Tarkin’s smart. Tarkin will be able to pull one over on them,’” says Corbett. “And as he should — to again show how the balance has changed in the galaxy.”
But the story of the Bad Batch isn’t over.
Season 3 of The Bad Batch kicks off on February 21 with a three-episode premiere, and finds the team scattered in the wake of this fallout. Omega and Crosshair are prisoners and Echo has joined up with Rex, leaving only Hunter and Wrecker on Bad Batch duty, as it were. Throughout, they’ll feel the loss of their brother. “It affected a lot of the logistics,” Brad Rau, executive producer, says. “The very mathematical logistics of how we normally would have the team operate was massively different without Tech there. But emotionally, the most important part, the way that the loss of Tech affected Omega, Hunter, Wrecker, Echo, and Crosshair, even throughout the whole season was, I wouldn't say heavier than we expected, but was definitely very heavy.”
“It's sort of like a reset for the squad,” says Corbett, “because when you first meet them in the very first episode [of the series], they're a unit, they have a zero fail rate, and they're very successful. But then Crosshair sides with the Empire, and then Echo leaves to go with Rex, and now Tech's gone, and now Omega is taken. Clone Force 99 is not what it was, and the question is will it ever be the same? Hunter and Wrecker are forced to change the way that they do things in order to piece together what they can of the squad.” First, the team’s two polar opposites must come together.
Crosshair, already the frostiest Batcher, is emotionally and physically reeling from a string of bad choices: leaving his brothers to serve the Empire, realizing his mistake and killing a superior officer, and undergoing experiments and torture. Omega, enthusiastic and good-natured, has been captured in an effort to force the Kaminoan Nala Se to continue her cloning research for the Empire. So while Crosshair and Omega are in similar situations, they could not be further apart in terms of outlook. Rau and Corbett found that dichotomy to be a creative drive for Season 3. “I love when the two of them are together,” says Corbett. “Crosshair is at the lowest point that he's ever been and Omega is as well. But she has a much more hopeful attitude, and it's, ‘We’re going to get out of this. There's got to be a way.’ And he's sort of given up on any of it because he's coming to terms with all the stuff that he's done, and maybe he believes that he deserves to be where he is. The journey that we take them on is one of my favorites just because it's about Omega seeing the good in people and trying to get Crosshair to see the good in himself. And it's not an easy thing for Crosshair to do, as I think it's very human to be weighed down by the choices that you make. But I'll say one of my favorite dynamics in Season 3 is the two of them together.”
Both are being held by the ambitious and ruthless Dr. Hemlock. He’s a unique villain for Star Wars — not physically imposing, not military-minded, and with no powers of any kind. But Hemlock represents the Empire’s willingness to take and twist the galaxy into whatever it desires in order to achieve power, this time from a scientific point of view. Clones aren’t just expendable on the battlefield; now they’re test subjects. “It's always a challenge coming up with a Star Wars villain because there've been so many great ones,” says Corbett. “I think when we knew that Mount Tantiss was going to be a major setting for the show at the end of Season 2 and into Season 3, the evolution of that character was obviously a doctor who's willing to do the Emperor’s bidding, but who has this kind of dark past — who was rejected from the Republic because of the things he was doing, and now he's working in this top-secret facility that not even a lot of people in the Empire know about. So he, pretty much, has carte blanche to do whatever he wants to do, as long as he is also achieving the Emperor's ultimate goal. And that gave us a lot of room to play with, ‘What would this guy be like?’” For Corbett, Hemlock has emerged as the best kind of baddie: the one you love to hate.
“He's into creating, but his version of creating is very different from the Kaminoans’ version of creating. He has a plethora of clones to experiment on to his heart’s content, and he doesn't have any qualms about that. He's voiced by Jimmi Simpson, who is just incredible and gives him this layer of eeriness. I'm always very unsettled whenever I watch an episode with him, because you never know, really, what the character's thinking and what the character's willing to do. And I think that's why he's so interesting.”
“He’s definitely not a battle strategist, but because he studied clones, he knows how they think, he knows how they operate,” adds Corbett. “So he does have a one-up on them in that sense. But the hardest thing for the Batch is that they have no idea where he is.”
At Hemlock’s side is the mysterious Dr. Emerie Karr, introduced in the very last moment of Season 2 as Omega’s long-lost clone sister. Her existence raises so many questions, including what her intentions may be. “We're going to see a lot more from Dr. Emerie Karr,” says Rau. “And Keisha Castle-Hughes is such an incredible actor. Her performance, and the way she interpreted Emerie, affected how she was written. It was really cool to see. I don't want to give anything away, but her arc was one of the more unusual ones. The trajectory — I'll just say this and be cryptic — was different than we might've expected.”
“I think even though she is Omega's sister, they're very different because of how they were both raised, which again is another commentary on clones and how the clones were treated during the Republic versus how clones are treated now that they're in the Empire,” says Corbett. “She and Omega have a very interesting dynamic that evolves over the season.”
With their work on the series done, and the final episodes on the way to release, it’s an emotional time for Rau and Corbett. Season 3 of The Bad Batch is the end of a years-long journey that started with the May 4, 2021 — Star Wars Day — premiere of the series. “It's so bittersweet,” Rau says. “It's been such a great show. But one thing that's really positive is going into this season, we knew very early on this would be the final season. That's a blessing that can be a rare thing in our field — knowing that, we were able to wrap things up the way we want it, the way that we felt the story deserved, the way that the characters should have it.”
“I think bittersweet is the word, because it's been an honor to be able to tell this story and tell it in a fitting way, and to have worked with this team and be so proud of what they've all done and accomplished,” says Corbett. “We're just so excited for the fans to see what we have in store for them.”
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