Well, although episode 13: Infected felt like little other than pure filler, episode 14 put the series really back on form. Returning to the Kamino plot and exploring the transition from clones to stormtroopers is really taking advantage of the current state of the star wars galaxy to make the series more interesting. Sure, we got a bit of the same ‘hunter doesn’t want to do thing, omega says it’s the right thing to do, hunter reluctantly agrees, they do the thing while omega sits it out but steps in to save the day at the end’ story that we’ve already got a number of times with this season, but it definitely felt like there were higher stakes and a much better focus on the characters of the Batch - for example Echo using the comparison of his rescue from Skako Minor to show his personal investment in what happens and to move the plot forward.

Also, something that Star Wars Explained picked up in his review of the episode was that the intermediate clone-stormtrooper design seems to be inspired by Ralph McQuarrie’s stormtrooper concept art. Lucasfilm animation has a great track record of using McQuarrie concepts as direct inspirations and I’m glad The Bad Batch is continuing that!