The Bad Batch undertake their first mission since Echo's departure, to harvest a mine that Cid has purchased. Things are complicated when the Marauder is stolen, leaving them stranded and causing tensions to rise within the group.
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: Downplayed. When they finally reach the spaceport they've been heading towards in search of help, they find that it's been abandoned for some time, and while they're able to contact Cid for help, she can't get there in time before their rations run out. They did, however, manage to find a large quantity of ipsium along the way.
- Animal Stampede: The crew is forced to escape from a stampede of antelope-like creatures in the gorge, as they are fleeing the approaching storm.
- Armor-Piercing Question: When Tech rationalises that they need to move on from Echo's departure because "that's what soldiers do", Omega hits him with two in quick succession.Omega: We're more than [soldiers]. We're a family. Aren't we?
Tech: [clearly taken aback] Uhh... well... yes. Of course we are.
Omega: Then why aren't you acting like it?
[Tech is completely silent] - Both Sides Have a Point: While Omega rightly calls out the other Bad Batch members for seemingly not caring about Echo's departure, they repeatedly note that she cares too much, and is letting her feelings get in the way of her work.
- Brutal Honesty: Tech is called out for this after bluntly telling Omega that the Bad Batch existed before Echo joined and will still exist without him. While true, it also completely fails to comfort Omega at all and she ends up running off.
- Call-Back: While demanding help from Cid, Tech brings up the times they helped her get her parlour back from Roland Durand and settled her debt with Millegi. Cid retorts, "I didn't ask for a recap, Goggles", but caves in anyway.
- Chekhov's Gun: Given how much attention is paid to the fact that ipsium will explode if not handled correctly, it's pretty much guaranteed that it'll explode at some point. Sure enough, it does, and traps the Bad Batch inside a mine. It later helps them blast a way out of the mine.
- Did You Think I Can't Feel?: At the end of his heart-to-heart with Omega, Tech calmly explains that, while he may be processing Echo's departure in a different way than she, that doesn't mean he isn't upset about it.
- Heroic BSoD: Omega spends most of the episode in an emotional funk over Echo parting ways with the group.
- Innocently Insensitive: Tech, blunt as ever, repeatedly fails to take Omega's feelings about Echo's departure and the theft of the Havoc Marauder into consideration, not out of malice or indifference, but due to him processing his own emotions differently. Once he sits down and talks it out with Omega, they come to an understanding.
- Insult Backfire: Wrecker sarcastically rants at Tech that he should carry the ipsium - and Tech agrees on the spot.
- Kick the Dog: Even with her hands seemingly legitimately being tied, Cid is extremely smug in telling the crew they’re on their own and makes fun of them for getting their ship stolen. Even when Hunter protests they don’t have enough food to make it through a few days, Cid coldly hangs up while he’s talking.
- Minimalist Cast: This episode only features six characters, only five of whom have any lines (and even then, the lines are only delivered by three actors, as Dee Bradley Baker voices Hunter, Wrecker, and Tech).
- Never My Fault: Tech and Wrecker constantly blame each other for the loss of the Marauder and, later, the ipsium. The latter is subverted when Tech eventually concedes that it was his fault for dropping it, and promises to make up for it by finding more.
- No Antagonist: Other than the person who stole the crew's ship, there's no Imperial or anyone else for the crew to fight, and the cause of the conflict is merely a force of nature.
- Only Sane Man: Hunter remains the only level-headed member of the team throughout the episode, having to put up with both Tech and Wrecker's constant bickering and Omega's emotional troubles.
- Papa Wolf: Hunter and Wrecker are both understandably angry with Tech for upsetting Omega and they both sternly tell him to check on her after she goes off to be alone. Tech later immediately jumps into a dark crevasse after Omega after she falls in while trying to harvest more ipsium and saves her from drowning.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: On the surface, this is one of the Bad Batch's Darkest Hours: they're trapped on a Death World wracked by violent storms, with a case full of a volatile mineral that will explode and kill them if they get caught in the storm, without enough rations to last until help arrives and with seemingly no settlements anywhere within reach. Nonetheless, Omega is confident they'll find a way to get through it.
- Ridiculously Potent Explosive: Ipsium. It's so volatile in liquid form that simply jostling it enough will cause it to explode. A small vial of it explodes with enough force to cause a cave-in, and the large vein of it Omega later finds is said to be powerful enough to destroy the entire mine.
- Shout-Out: The crew getting caught in an Animal Stampede within a gorge calls to mind The Lion King, though in their case, it was caused by a force of nature and not an actual villain, and Everybody Lives. Wrecker in particular has a moment when he disappears beneath the stampede only to dramatically leap out to safety, just like Mufasa.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The Batch leaving their ship empty, unattended, and out of sight of their position leads to it being stolen and flying off before they can catch up to it or even notice the ship had been taken.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Echo's departure has clearly destabilised the group, with Tech butting heads with Wrecker (and to a lesser extent, Omega) throughout the entire episode. Though Tech and Omega mostly patch things up by the end of the episode after a heart-to-heart about Echo's departure from the team.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Narrowly averted. Cid claims to be too busy to come save the crew and taunts them about it, but when Tech brings up the multiple times they’ve had to save her bacon, she gruffly concedes the point and asks for a few days to figure something out.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Wrecker's reaction, almost verbatim, when he learns that the alternate exit Tech and Omega stumbled across is accessed by falling down a chasm into a fast-moving body of water and then letting it sweep you over a waterfall.
