Bad Batch Season 2 Reaction *Spoilers*
Warning: This is the spoiler version of my reaction to the Bad Batch Season 2 trailer so if you have not watched it yet, I highly recommend you do so. I’ll be breaking down a really big (or at least big to me) reveal that occurred which I think you’ll probably want to see for yourself to get the full shock. :)
The non-super-spoiler/TLDR version is that I’m cautiously optimistic, somewhat terrified, and can’t spend time thinking about my favorite Star Wars character basically every day since I’ve watched this trailer. X_X I’m hopeful but also worried about what this story might be because of a particular, unexpected reveal.
Just to get this out of the way, I like the cinematography, the lighting, the animations, the character models...Just like in Clone Wars, the animation style really has come into its own over the years and this alone got me excited for this upcoming season. :) I actually like the new armor designs and coloration. It seems a bit haphazard but I suspect it may parallel a shift in perspectives for Bad Batch. I also like that Omega is getting older and seems a bit more capable in the trailer. I hope this means that she’ll be less likely to be constantly taken hostage like she was in the previous season. I would like to see her have more realistic responsibilities and behaviors not only as a member of the Bad Batch, but as a literal child who now has been exposed to her fair share of troubles.
I’m not saying she should be immediately traumatized or that the show should center around her grappling with mental issues that sprung up. Instead, I hope this season will explore her role not only in Bad Batch and as a clone, but function a little better at giving us an idea what being at war and hunted is like through her. How does she feel knowing that her family is quickly aging and will one day not be able to care for her? Will she ever become unwilling to participate in a mission when she finally realizes the danger? How will she help in her own way where it doesn’t feel like her life is being placed in direct danger? What are her feelings about what happened during the war before Order 66? How does she feel about regular clones and will she also accept them as her family?
Ok, so now that we’ve got the spoiler warning out of the way! Onto the reaction!
Like I said earlier, I’m both excited and terrified about what this next season might hold all because Commander Cody is featured in the trailer. I recognized him in the part of the video where he and Crosshair were walking around the hallway and then, yikes!, point their gun at what appears to be Omega and another young person. XC But it wasn’t until I saw him without the helmet that I was forced to say, “Yep, that was definitely Cody.” and that made me both really happy/excited and really sad.
Excited because this is literally my favorite Star Wars character (and one of my favorite characters EVER, if not top favorite) --- a character that I spent so many years enjoying drawing and writing about what I thought he was up to off screen in Revenge of the Sith, the EU books, and then Clone Wars. This is a character that I feel, in some way, positively guided me through my teen years and helped me heal from negative experiences.
Seeing him again, and immediately thinking, “He’s going to be the bad guy, isn’t he. He’s going to get killed.” was a gut punch. :( This might sound stupid but even though I was bitter about Cody not getting many stories or screen time in Clone Wars, I held onto the fact that this meant that his character wasn’t in danger of being used as a complete opposing foil to Rex --- which is where I think a lot of viewers just organically gravitated anyways. Which is fine, there’s nothing wrong if you see Cody as Rex’s opposite/foil.
I’ve always viewed Cody as the precursor and forerunner to basically all clones (save for Alpha, who I believe may be the first named clone to ever exist in Star Wars --- which is extremely fitting considering at the end of Alpha’s introduction he specifically states going back to Kamino to teach other officers with the Jedi’s blessing to allow names instead of numbers). For me, Cody lays the groundwork for the type of struggles clones endure (finding identity, being their own type of leaders outside of the kind of ‘divine mandate’-ish way Force users look at it, not being super powered but existing in a super powered universe and surviving...) I much prefer the idea that Rex’s character arc in Clone Wars had him starting at much of the same place as Ahsoka (which is why he really rubbed me the wrong way) and then grow through his experience with being in bad/morally grey situations, learning humility and the value of being a servant leader, into someone who actually ended up more like Cody in the end (ironically). (I should make a blog post about those thoughts as well.)
Seeing him alongside Crosshair was alarming, unless they’ve somehow magically joined the rest of Bad Batch, which I doubt since they point their guns at what I think was Omega and someone else. :( So it feels like they’re setting him up to be a villain of some kind --- either crazy and brainwashed due to the inhibitor chip or, equally as bad, somehow completely drained of all humanity, intelligence, and empathy and now just a pawn of the Empire like Crosshair. And then he’s brandishing a knife defensively (RIP whoever he’s fighting, lol) and that’s never a good sign.
Yes, the creators own his story and can do whatever they like with it but I was really hoping that he could just “ride off into the sunset” and be forgotten by Disney. :L I didn’t want to see him and Rex fight because there’s only one way that would turn out: Rex, protected by eternal plot armor, would be the victor. I didn’t want him to reprise his role as the sacrificial clone whose only purpose was to die to preserve the same hero(es) (like Climber, Hardcase, Echo kinda, Waxer, Fives, etc.). I didn’t want to see him fight any heroes for that matter because that would mean that the Cody we see in the books and Clone Wars has crossed over a moral line that I believe defines who he is: Cody intrinsically values life (his orange-painted armor would signify as such according to Mandalorian color-meanings) and aware of right vs. wrong. For me, it would signify a failure for Cody to apply the same logic and empathy he displays throughout Clone Wars and the EU, and thus his character would essentially be dead.
Nimbus goes full-clown for a hot minute >_< :
This might be going ‘full clown’ here but I always (even before the inhibitor chips --- a concept I still dislike) saw Cody’s strange execution of Order 66 as him choosing the thousands of lives under his command over Kenobi’s. When I watch RoTS, I never saw him intending to kill Kenobi but rather to do a ‘fake out’ where really only he and the gunner would be responsible for the Jedi actually escaping --- Obi-Wan sadly believing that Cody had intentionally attacked. This would make sense to me as a carry through of the kind of person Cody is --- think the “I’ll do it myself’ scene from Cherynobl --- so that instead of an entire legion paying for a failure to kill Kenobi or protect against Kenobi’s attack, only he would be responsible. This is why I think, realistically, at the end of RoTS Cody would be almost immediately executed because his failure to make sure Kenobi was dead resulted in catastrophic damage to Vader, which Sidious was not pleased with at all.
Remember, Cody is a brilliant strategist who knows the rules, knows when to make the exception to those rules (i.e. not killing Slick on sight or shooting Kenobi himself), and is able to come up with a new plan on the spot. If he could tread the knife edge of this problem, then why wouldn’t he be able to think his way out of the Empire --- because he would immediately see that it’s values do not align with the people-centered values he upheld throughout the Clone Wars. A complete 180 from saying “Cities are just buildings, it’s the people who make them homes.”, reprimanding Boil for using derogative terms for Twi’leks, and clearly having a history with 99 and Bad Batch in season 2 would be so jarring/unfortunate. Ok, enough of this headcanon before this post turns into a full-on book. x_x
The dilemma and danger of being a side character:
I guess, where I’m going with this, is that I’m tired of Cody being tied to Rex and to Order 66 as those two things are the only things that define his character forever. It bothers me that, while doing so much good for the clones, Clone Wars ended up showing that it’s only the ‘special’, hand-picked clones like Wolffe, Bad Batch, and Rex who can be redeemed/saved or do anything meaningful --- who exist as individuals outside of which Jedi they were assigned and have backstories longer than a single paragraph (Gree, Cody, Bly, and so many other clones had such rich histories in the EU that are basically erased now).
Every time someone says Cody is “by the book” like it’s a condemnation (gonna write my own post about this because it deserves its own separate rant, lol) or that he wasn’t individualistic...it’s basically like saying all other clones not directly featured in Clone Wars or from the 501st were just meat-droids that mindlessly followed orders. As we see in Bad Batch, there’s so many reasons why each clone made the choices they did. I thought the Umbara arc did a great job reiterating the plethora of reasons clones have to follow orders, change their minds, and basically be believable characters in complex, morally grey situations.
It’s because of this characteristic that I’m not hopeful for how Cody will be portrayed in this new season of Bad Batch. Just reading some of the comments where people hoped that he would lose to Rex (and literally die) or stay with the Empire made me feel fearful for how this is going to play out. I don’t think the showrunners will forgo the popular “death battle” in exchange for a more thoughtful portrayal of a good person coming to terms with or explaining what happened during Order 66 and trying to escape. Again, this show and Clone Wars really does a number on the more grey or nuanced stories in favor of a pure black and white plotline. And that’s too bad.
I would love to see Cody subtly trying to get his brothers out of the Empire or make a difference there, before escaping. Maybe my theory of the Empire killing off clones to quell possible rebellion, especially clones like Cody who are known to have failed to kill their Generals during the Jedi Purge, causes Cody to gather clones to escape. Maybe he learns about the Dark Trooper project. *shudder*
I would love to see him and Rex work together, now no longer under any ranks or being commanded by Jedi but instead by themselves. They can talk for as long as they like now, talk about their pasts (would love to hear stories about Cody and Alpha training Rex), mourn those that passed with Cody. Cody divulging that it’s possible Obi-Wan survived. I would love to know that he was one of the clones that was able to go on to live a civilian life, passing on what he had learned throughout his life to others.
I would love to have Omega and Cody interact positively in some way, maybe he tells her a story or teaches her something useful (like hand to hand combat or a trick to strategizing/anticipating enemy movements). It would be a terrible waste, I think, to have the literal first named clone in Star Wars (second if you’re counting Alpha from the EU) --- someone who literally helped lead the way for other clones, like Rex and Gree, to be allowed to show their individuality --- not to have some moment with Omega related to that aspect of his character. I would love for Cody to, for once, be able get a chance to tell his story and do more than just be support for Rex or whatever Jedi of the week was there (sorry, getting bitter about this all over again X’C).
And I’m not asking for the show to be about him, because that won’t happen. I just want him to be treated well instead of being morphed into a flat plotpoint for another character to bounce off of instead of dance with. Even if that other character is Crosshair or Gregor (maybe he can help sway Crosshair). Especially in a show about clone troopers, it could show how each clone important and a dying culture in the Star Wars universe with valuable knowledge, past experiences, and individuality that’s not categorical by which side of the Force they’re on. Regarding the desire of many fans for Cody to oppose Rex and the others, I’d argue that it’s actually less cliche for an intelligent, thoughtful character to seek to make amends and repair the damage he unknowingly caused due to the inhibitor chip.
It’s not cliche for a character who has a track record of valuing life, selflessness, wanting to raise his brothers out of ‘facelessness’ to live as people instead of meat droids, and knowing evil when he sees it, to buck the Empire and what it made him become. It’s not cliche to show the value of different types of people rebelling in different types of ways. One doesn’t have to be sassy, aggressively confident, or so powerful the plot orbits them to be a good person or rebel against oppression in a unique and thoughtful way. I just want a good story, even if it’s bittersweet (which is basically a given), which a plot and motivations that make sense.
Whatever happens, all I can say is that I will have to bring a box of tissues with me because there is no way I’m making it through any episode of this show without crying. TuT
Thanks for making it to the end! :) Hopefully I didn’t annoy anyone with my rant. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t speak up for my favorite characters enough and just gush out with all my thoughts. I don’t expect it to change anyone’s opinion, least of all a showrunners, but just wanted to share my ideas about this lovely character. What are your thoughts? Are you excited for the next season? Do you think Cody deserves a good ending or should he continue at the same level he’s at? What do you think a conversation between Cody, Hunter, Omega, or Rex would go like?
Lastly, whatever you’re going through right now, directly or indirectly, I hope you’re doing well and that there’s a brighter tomorrow for you. <3
