The Clone Wars Teaches Us that Defects Make You A Valued Member of the Team as Long as Your Defects Give You Superpowers.

It’s been six long years since The Clone Wars was unexpectedly and unceremoniously axed by Disney’s takeover of a galaxy far, far away but, as they say, the Mouse Giveth and the Mouse Takeith Away… in this case, the Mouse Giveth us a brand new and final season of The Clone Wars that promises to wrap up story arcs and bring the series to a proper close.

Spoiler Alert: I think something bad happens to Anakin.

This is one of the rare episodes of The Clone Wars that follows the point of view of actual clones as Cody and Rex must venture behind enemy lines with a special detachment of clones with “desirable mutations:” One is freakishly strong, one is freakishly smart, one is freakishly accurate, and the other is a freakishly good tracker.

Overall, it’s an action heavy episode that ventures a bit into the lore of the series as it involves an death that happened a while back — it’s been years, so I don’t remember when or how it happened. The action is fun and well choreographed and I appreciate how much personality that the “defective” clones were given, even if much of it bordered on the cliche. Wrecker, for example… picture every single abnormally large and strong cartoon character you’ve ever watched and you’ve got Wrecker.

I am grateful that the episode didn’t go the predictable route of having the defective troop lament their abnormal abilities, at least. Nothing bugs me more than listening to a character with superpowers cry and whine about how the superpowers are ruining their lives. Dude, you have superpowers. Shut up.

I would not call this a particularly deep or landmark episode, but it is fun and it’s always nice to spend time with the clones without Jedi around. I even think that making this episode almost a non-event kind of adds to its charm. The show didn’t go big, it just started as if shrugged and said, “Oh hey, we’re back by the way.” It was like slipping into a warm pair of pajamas with blaster fire and violence.

A little better than average, fun, and some interesting tidbits of what is to come. “The Bad Batch” might not have been a huge and bombastic return for The Clone Wars, but I’m all the same very happy to have it back.