Summary
The return of Asajj Ventress is a little lacklustre, but it does raise some interesting questions about where the final season might go next.
Ever since the trailer for The Bad Batch Season 3, fans have been eagerly anticipating the return of Asajj Ventress, who has had an unusual trajectory through Star Wars canon. Well, they get their wish in Episode 9, “The Harbinger”, though it’s easy to imagine folks being a little disappointed with it. Ventress is certainly there, but her appearance doesn’t substantially move the plot forward, do much with her established character, or even excuse much cool action (although there’s some.) It doesn’t even go very far in explaining why Omega is so significant to Dr. Royce Hemlock and the Empire.
“The Harbinger” is, primarily, just a reminder of how cool and powerful Ventress is, and how fun she can be to have around a bunch of typically square characters like Jedi and clones. She remains cool, powerful, and fun, as expected, but so close to the end of this story, I would have liked her presence to mean a bit more.
Asajj Ventress To The Rescue… Sort Of
Asajj is on-hand in “The Harbinger” to try and decipher the most essential question we’ve had of The Bad Batch since its Season 3 premiere – what is it about Omega’s blood that is so important to the Empire and Project Necromancer? We know that Hemlock is trying to create a Force-sensitive clone, and we know that high M-Counts determine affinity for the Force. We know that Omega’s blood was receptive to the procedures on Mount Tantiss and that Nala Se knew it would be even before Omega was tested.
The assumption everyone made was that Omega was Force-sensitive, but Ventress determines in this episode that she isn’t – or at least isn’t showing any signs yet. So, what’s the deal? At this point, I’m tempted to say it hardly matters, since we know from The Mandalorian that Project Necromancer continues apace without Omega and that the Empire was still looking for high M-count candidates for their research, which is presumably why they were so keen on finding Grogu.
This makes Ventress being Fennec Shand’s contact – it was her she was reaching out to at the end of Episode 8, “Bad Territory” – on this specific matter a bit puzzling, since she doesn’t seem to know much of substance. She isn’t there to collect a bounty, she only tests Omega’s Force affinity when pushed, and she doesn’t have any new theories about her importance when it’s determined that Omega won’t become a Jedi any time soon. Unless Ventress is lying, which it’s indicated she might be.
It’s Called A Vrathean – Thank Me Later
This is what I claimed above that Ventress’s presence in this episode is mostly just to reiterate how cool Ventress is. And in that regard, at least, it’s pretty successful. She beats all of Clone Force 99 at once in unarmed combat, almost kills them when they push her into getting her lightsaber out, and then shows a softer side in taming one of Pabu’s gargantuan oceanic monsters, a Vrathean.
The Vrathean, a carnivorous leviathan native to the planet, attacks Ventress and Omega while the former is trying to teach the latter how to commune with nature through the Force, which is pretty ironic when you think about it. This thing is suitably horrifying and makes for a nice action sequence when the Bad Batch tries to shoot it from the Marauder and Ventress slices a couple of its tentacles off, but the scene takes a softer turn. Ventress ends up connecting to the creature through the Force and settling it down that way, somewhat uncharacteristically for a former Separatist assassin.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 Episode 9 ends with a suggestion that Ventress might be lying
The big question after all this is whether or not Ventress is lying, either directly or by omission. She doesn’t say outright that Omega is not Force-sensitive, just that she doesn’t have a high M-Count. The former could still be true, and reading between the lines, it’s obvious that having Ventress calm the Vrathean the way Omega would – Batcher is right there as an example – was intended to draw a very explicit parallel.
Either way, it seems fairly obvious that Ventress knows something that she isn’t letting on, which is obvious in her ominous warning that Clone Force 99 should leave Pabu since they “aren’t as safe as they think they are.” The definition of harbinger remains the same – “a person or thing that announces or signals the approach of another” – and if that’s the case, then Ventress could be the least of Clone Force 99’s problems.
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