Summary
“The Cavalry Has Arrived” suffers a little from barely comprehensible action and a lack of resolution in a couple of areas, but it’s nonetheless a poignant send-off for the Bad Batch and Omega.
It has been obvious throughout Season 3 of Star Wars: The Bad Batch that the ending would revolve around Mount Tantiss. After weeks spent escaping the place, trying to find it again, and then going back there under considerable duress, the only option for the finale was an all-roads-converge moment with Clone Force 99 breaking in, Omega and the Vault subjects breaking out, and Dr. Royce Hemlock getting his just desserts. Episode 15 is that and more.
“The Cavalry Has Arrived” begins with a three-way plot split — Omega leads the Vault kids on a Shawshank Redemption-style escape through Tantiss’s bowels, leading the Imperial guards into the path of the giant Zillo Beast she discovered in Episode 14; Emerie quietly works with Echo to sneak around right under Hemlock’s nose; and the rest of Clone Force 99 attempt to break in from outside.
Hemlock’s Last Line of Defense
This is pretty classic big episode structuring since it allows for plenty of tension, action, and some nice character moments, including Crosshair trying to do the whole heroic self-sacrifice routine outside and Omega playing big sis to the kids just like how the rest of the Bad Batch has tutored her. It’s simple, functional storytelling, but it works a treat.
A welcome complication arrives when Hemlock activates a full platoon of his Shadow Troopers, who are able to defeat and capture Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair in their weakened state. If I had to quibble — and I do — I’d point out the lack of visual clarity in this scene, with Clone Force 99 being indistinguishable from the Shadow Troopers amidst all the visual effects and explosions. It certainly looks nice, but it isn’t the easiest scene to keep track of.
Breaking Out and Breaking In Again
But it fulfills a narrative purpose since it means that Omega’s escape attempt suddenly becomes a rescue mission. Echo and Emerie hook up with Omega and the kids, and the latter takes them away on a shuttle. That leaves Echo and Omega to break back in and rescue the others, who’re being tortured by Hemlock in the hopes of turning them into even more of his brainwashed shadow operatives.
Echo and Omega free all the captured prisoners on Tantiss, including the other clones, Rampart, and Nala Se. It’s a big Spartacus moment this, with the other clones rallying together to help free their brothers, and Nala Se taking it upon herself to wipe the databanks clean of all her scientific research. The only way Omega will be safe is if Hemlock is gone and his data meets the same fate.
Nala Se Meets Her End
Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 Episode 15
But Rampart, obviously not redeemed in the slightest, follows Nala Se to the labs and holds her at blaster-point. He wants to know more about Project Necromancer to understand more about how important the research is to the Empire — to use it to his own ends in recovering his former station.
As I predicted weeks ago, this is building to Nala Se’s heroic self-sacrifice moment. Just to make himself truly irredeemable, Rampart shoots her at point-blank range, but he doesn’t account for Nala Se hiding a thermal detonator behind her back. Nala Se drops to the ground, dead, but the detonator kills Rampart and destroys the lab.
We Don’t Find Out Who Clone X Is
Meanwhile, with Governor Tarkin’s arrival at Mount Tantiss imminent, Hemlock drags Omega away with him while the others take on the remaining Shadow Troopers, including Clone X, whose identity has been a mystery for most of the season.
And, unless I missed it somehow, we still don’t know who this guy is. There are multiple different Shadow Troopers involved in the climactic fight, which is a bit more comprehensible than the previous sequence but not by much, but there’s no big moment of revelation to be had here. It’s weird how the show teased this for so long and then didn’t provide a fitting payoff, but in my headcanon Clone X was Commander Cody. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Hemlock’s Death and the Fate of Mount Tantiss
Hunter and Crosshair catch up to Hemlock and Omega, and here we get the payoff to Crosshair’s diminishing marksmanship subplot. The only way to save Omega is to take a risky shot at the bindings Hemlock has attached himself to her with. A miss means potentially hitting Omega. But Hunter believes in him, and Omega gives him the nod. He takes the shot, freeing Omega, and he and Hunter pump Hemlock full of holes.
Omega hugs Crosshair first. If that isn’t an arc complete I don’t know what is.
Governor Tarkin arrives at the remains of Mount Tantiss to find nothing of substance at all. The Zillo Beast has wandered off, the research is destroyed, and Hemlock is dead. Since Tarkin never liked Hemlock anyway, he’s happy to shut the base down entirely and redirect all of its funding to a more worthy cause — namely Project Stardust, the Imperial effort to build the Death Star.
The Bad Batch Season 3 Ends With A Flash-Forward
Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 Episode 15
With the clones having escaped the facility, everyone, including Emerie, survives Mount Tantiss. They’re all free to go their own way and, for the first time, decide their own fates.
In an epilogue, we see a much older Omega saying her goodbyes to Hunter. She’s leaving to become a pilot in the rebellion. They share an emotional farewell, and Hunter, now with a sage beard, and a significantly older Batcher watch her fly off into the stars.
