IR TV Review: STAR WARS - THE BAD BATCH - EPISODE 4 (“Faster”) [Lucasfilm/Disney+-S2]

The ideas of "Star Wars" revolves in the stories they tell. They are cyclical and yet each one shows the inherent differences and changes of the different places they take place in. Episode 4 of Season 2 of "The Bad Batch" entitled "Faster" takes alot and leans heavily from the pod racing sequence from "Episode One: The Phantom Menace". Of course, in that film, it was about Anakin Skywalker proving his heart (and mettle) simply and purely in winning the pod race to help both Padme and Qui-Gon. Here it is a bit of the reverse but it is actually the continual focus of Omega pushing the Bad Batch forward. Omega, of course, has a bigger destiny (which Dave Filoni obviously is planning) and she has a good heart (much like Anakin) but trauma and/or a lack of mentoring in the right way (or a parent figure for that matter) can both cauterize or cause a dark path.

Here Cid (who has been protecting but also using the Bad Batch) gets in over her head. Her would-be sure thing in a droid (interestingly voiced by Sonic's Ben Schwartz) with an ego to boost requires the brain and brawn of Tech & Wrecker to correct the situation. The tension of the race and the problem solving dynamics remind the viewer of why the pod race we first witnessed was so riveting. It is not the same stakes but it shows that life and death exist in the same balance as it did before the advent of the Empire. It is simply the strings are being pulled by different masters for different reasons now. The resolution is that power is just a sweeping pendulum that sometimes works out but most of the time is just the luck of the draw. This episode again sections off different members to show their strengths while not having to really move the overarching mythology. It simply shows why certain characters are. B

By Tim Wassberg