Summary
“Battle Scars” tests the bond between Omega and the Bad Batch, with help from an old friend.
This recap of Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 1, episode 7, “Battle Scars”, contains spoilers.
After the tantalizing ending of last week’s episode, “Battle Scars” wastes no time revealing the identity of the mysterious individual who Trace and Rafa contacted — Captain Rex! We had plenty of suggestions in the comments, but Rex seemed the most fitting and obvious, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise to see his tell-tale blue and white armour poking out from under his robes while he surveyed the Bad Batch in Cid’s dingy bar, where Clone Force 99 continue to reside, doing odd jobs for Cid to pay off a hefty debt that is only worsening thanks to Wrecker and Omega putting oodles of “Mantell Mix” — space popcorn, basically — on Cid’s tab.
The squad apparently need a big score to get even with Cid, but there are more pressing matters to attend to in The Bad Batch episode 7. Wrecker’s headaches are worsening, and as Rex explains, it’s because their lingering inhibitor chips have essentially turned them into ticking time bombs. They need to be removed, and Rex can help with that, so there’s your plot setup for “Battle Scars”. The emotional throughline, though, is the relationship between Wrecker and Omega.
The Bad Batch meets Rex on Bracca, the scrapyard planet where Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order opens, and where Rex thinks a downed Jedi Cruiser will allow them to remove the inhibitor chips, assuming they can avoid the Scrapper Guild, who control the planet. Bracca is full of stark but still lovely visuals and a tentacled swamp monster who almost drags Wrecker to his doom. But he’s more at risk from the inhibitor chip which, almost as a defence against being removed, which implies all kinds of things it probably isn’t worth speculating about, finally activates. Wrecker suddenly believes everyone is in violation of Order 66 and begins to hunt them through the dark rooms and corridors of the abandoned cruiser. Here, The Bad Batch season 1, episode 7 takes on a cat-and-mouse quality not unlike a horror movie, which culminates in Wrecker finally cornering Omega. Luckily, Rex is able to stun him before he harms her, but it’s a good way to get across the power of the chips — if Wrecker was willing to harm Omega, then the clones whose chips have been activated really have no choice but to follow whatever orders they’re given.
Luckily, the procedure is a success. There’s a sweet moment when Wrecker emerges from it still comatose, and Omega refuses to leave his side until he wakes — when he does, she shares a little Mantell Mix with him as a neat callback to that earlier scene. It’s no wonder, really, that Hunter tells Rex that the priorities of Clone Force 99 have shifted — and that Omega is very much among those priorities. Rex returns to fight against the Empire, while Clone Force 99 is left to figure out their next move. Since they’re spotted by the Scrapper Guild, who immediately informs the Empire of their whereabouts, that decision might have been made for them.
