STAR WARS: THE BAD BATCH Confirmed to End With Season 3 and New Details Revealed From Trailer Debut
During the Star Wars: The Bad Batch presentation at Star Wars Celebration, it was confirmed that Season 3 will close out the story for the animated series. Executive producers Brad Rau, Jennifer Corbett, and Athena Portillo shared that the series would return for its third and final season in 2024.
This has been another great Star Wars animated series, and I’ve very much been enjoying it. The story that’s been unfolding has been fun and interesting and I’ve come to enjoy these great characters. The series follows the heroic Clone Force 99, also known as the Bad Batch, a group of elite clones — in the aftermath of Order 66 and the rise of the Empire.
A trailer for Season 3 debuted at Star Wars Celebration, but it has not been released online. However, StarWars.com did provide a description of that trailer, and it sets up Emperor Palpatine’s sinister plans. If you haven’t finished watching Season 2, you might want to skip the rest of this article because of spoilers. If you haven’t started watching this show yet and you’re a Star Wars fan, you should watch it!
It began with the Emperor (once again voiced by Palpatine actor Ian McDiarmid) visiting Dr. Royce Hemlock, leader of the Empire's cloning efforts, on Mount Tantiss. "It is imperative that this facility remain secure," Palpatine says. "Your brilliance is a great asset to this Empire." All members of the Bad Batch appear, with Hunter addressing Omega's capture at the hands of the Empire. "Omega's been waiting for us. I'm not making her wait another day." We see Omega and a sullen Crosshair, both still in Imperial custody. "I'm not giving up, Crosshair," Omega tells him. "I won't leave you, either. You're my brother." Throughout, there are glimpses of several worlds and characters, including Republic commandos, clones, Rex, plenty of giant creatures ("Why is there always a huge monster!" Wrecker asks, before dropping a thermal detonator in one's mouth.), and Ming-Na Wen's fan-favorite bounty hunter, Fennec Shand.
The end of Season 2 saw the death of team member Tech and the capture of Omega. It was also revealed that she has a sister. The story has taken some unexpected and interesting twists and turns.
Corbett said of the series: "Where we are in the bad batch, it's a bit early into the era of the Empire that we're far enough away from Obi-Wan and Andor. But that's not to say that some of the storylines that we have don't affect those shows. We really rely on, you know, the Lucasfilm Story Group, who is with us whenever we have story conferences, and they comment on storylines if some are veering into territory that could affect other things that are either in development or are currently being made, we're made aware of that. But so far, we haven't been told, 'No, you can't do that because of this.' It's really more of a collaboration and just making sure that we're telling the best stories without affecting other things coming up."
If you’ve been watching the series, what are your thoughts on it so far?