YMMV / Star Wars: The Bad Batch

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• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Did Nala Se help the Bad Batch escape Kamino out of care for them, or just Omega specifically? Is she starting to regret her role in helping the Empire's creation, is she just picking what kind of clones to care about, or is it that even she Wouldn't Hurt a Child? The ninth episode leans towards the interpretation that she does harbor some care for Omega, and doesn't want to see her harmed.
  • Did Crosshair execute Governor Ames because he was following Governor Grotton's order, or to save Cody from having to do it? Or even both?
  • When Rampart is outed as having destroyed Kamino, the senators who were firmly on his side quickly turn their backs on him and glare at him. Are they genuinely disgusted by his act of genocide, or do they truly not care, but are smart enough to cut ties with him now that the entire Senate is calling for his head? Said senators are not seen again in detail once Palpatine announces his intention to push the bill through, leaving it ambiguous.
• Angst? What Angst?: In "Battle Scars", Echo has no reaction to Rex mentioning Fives and how he found out about the chips and Order 66, despite Fives and Echo being an inseparable pair before their separation in the Citadel arc. In fact, this is the first time Fives or any of Domino Squad has been brought up in Echo's earshot ever since his return.
• Badass Decay:
  • Cad Bane seems to be suffering from this. He averts this in his first appearance due to taking out several clone troopers (albeit offscreen) and shooting Hunter in a stand off. However in his second appearance, he quickly loses Omega, gets beaten up by Fennec Shand, and his ship is sabotaged leaving him stuck on Bora Vio for the time being.
  • The titular Bad Batch themselves could be considered as going through this. As despite their status as a Badass Crew, they suffer losses time and time again against all sorts of enemies, even as early as the first episode. As a result, it makes them come off as much less impressive than they originally did. Given that they lack the resources that they previously did, one of their key members is gone, and their training and experience is primarily in fighting droids in military campaigns, as opposed to being itinerant mercenaries on a shoe-string budget, this makes a fair degree of sense - Cid even comments on how incredibly new to/naive about this they are.
• Base-Breaking Character: Omega has been a big point of contention in the fanbase basically from the getgo. She's either a likeable child character that avoids being The Load and actually contributes to the group by being uniquely insightful and who is determined to anchor the characters together as a family, or an annoying Spotlight-Stealing Squad who receives disproportionate amount of focus relative to the other main characters, a Kid-Appeal Character who feels like an irritating plot device that warps the series around her and whose presence detracts from the rest of the show, and makes the series too similar to The Mandalorian.
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • After so many years in the franchise, Dave Filoni seems to have developed a real knack for being on the same page as the fans, and casually reveals Omega is a clone halfway through the first episode since a lot of people would immediately figure it out anyway. Tech outright says that he thought it was so obvious he didn't bother to mention it.
  • Dr. Emerie Karr being another female clone was fairly obvious, given her physical appearance, the fact that she speaks with the same accent as Omega and is more respectful to the clones than her superiors.
  • Omega being force-sensitive was a common fan theory even before there was any evidence for it. Dr. Hemlock's interest in experimenting on her and the mentions of M-count (obviously midichlorians) in Season 3 removed any doubt. Nonetheless, The Reveal was dragged out until episode 10 of season 3.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • "Truth and Consequences" sees Admiral Rampart used by Palpatine as the scapegoat for the destruction of Kamino that horrifies the Senate. After Rampart had been getting away with everything in the series so far, and especially after the petty steps he'd taken to rob the clones of their humanity as he led the Empire in preparing to get rid of them, it's nothing short of satisfying to see him panic and whine helplessly as he's arrested - by clones, no less.
  • "Metamorphosis" sees the Bad Batch finally standing up for themselves against Cid, chewing her out for being unwilling to help them when they were stranded without a ship and sufficient rations. First they force her to concede to giving them 50% of the profit from their next job, and then they make clear they intend to leave altogether. As much of the criticism of the series from fans has been the repetitive stories of the Batch obediently taking jobs from Cid, it's immensely satisfying to see them ready to rise up against Cid's greed and prepare to ditch her.
  • "The Outpost" finally gives Crosshair a chance to do something good since his Face–Heel Turn when he coldly executes Lieutenant Nolan for refusing to provide treatment to a dying Commander Mayday, all because the Empire thinks clones are useless and expendable and the two failed in their mission—after Crosshair himself nearly died getting Mayday back to the Outpost. The guy not only thoroughly deserved it, but it finally gives Crosshair the harsh truth that the regime he thinks is giving him a purpose will never do so, other than as a lab experiment. To top it off, even Dr. Hemlock is outright dismissive of the officer's death and treats it as an accomplishment.
• Death of the Author: The Reveal in the Season 1 finale that Crosshair's chip was removed, meaning that all the horrific crimes he had carried out were of his own agency, has been divisive among fans of the character, as a few scenes such as Crosshair having a headache in the finale as well as opinion that Crosshair is acting out-of-character seemed to suggest otherwise. Despite Word of God confirming in a post-season finale interview that he was telling the truth, fans believe that both Crosshair and the creators are lying given Crosshair's attitude and the creators may be trying to preserve drama until this is further addressed in the future.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Tech is commonly believed by a number of viewers to be autistic, or at least neurodivergent. He has some difficulty expressing himself in ways that others understand and fixates on facts and figures in ways they find strange, but he cares about his chosen family and has a strong moral compass.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Captain Howzer became an immediate fan-favorite for being a (presumably) post-Order 66 Clone that, in contrast to most of his brothers, didn't take a level in jerkass and behaved like most clones did in The Clone Wars. He became even more popular when he betrayed the Empire to help the Bad Batch and Hera's family escape Ryloth.
• Evil Is Cool: Although he's rather Brainwashed and Crazy than actually evil at first, Crosshair can still qualify due to his skills as the Cold Sniper as well as being extremely intelligent and competent, nearly succeeding in capturing The Bad Batch and foiling their missions.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Given the similarities in setting, creators, and characters, the show is often referred to as The Clone Wars Season 8. Saw's line in the trailer about how the Clone Wars are over has only added to the popularity.
  • Clone Force 99 was dubbed "The Dad Batch" by fans after they decided to look after Omega, similar to Din Djarin's "Daddalorian".
• Franchise Original Sin: A common complaint about the first season is the sheer number of Filler episodes within it, but The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian were just as guilty of having filler as well. The difference was that the former series had a lot of ground to cover to expand upon its vast mythos, was finding its footing in a medium the franchise had rarely used up to that point, and what episodes they did have that played out as filler mostly proved to be important later on in terms of story or character development. The latter, meanwhile, had a much smaller amount of episodes (eight per season as opposed to 22 for The Clone Wars), and even then it didn't take away much time from Din and Grogu's quest. Here, The Bad Batch spends more time fleshing out the team's dealings with Cid than it does focusing on the rise of the Empire—or them being hunted by said Empire—which, while not horribly written, largely contributed little to the overall story.
• Growing the Beard: At first the series was seen as plodding due to excessive Filler episodes and weak moments between the important and well-received ones. Season 2 started fixing this by given the heroes better focus and development, with "The Outpost" giving Crosshair's Heel–Face Turn being where the plot began consistently moving forward at a satisfying, brisk pace, and nearly every episode since would be well received.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Getting to hear Tom Kane as The Clone Wars' narrator one last time, after he suffered a stroke in November 2020 and lost the ability to speak.
• He's Just Hiding: Some fans believe that Tech survived his fall and was brought to Mount Tantiss like Crosshair and Omega. After all, worse injuries have been survived in the franchise before, and it's awfully suspicious that Hemlock went to the trouble of collecting his goggles just to prove a point.
• I Knew It!:
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars's Season 7 story arc introducing the Bad Batch ends up standing out from the rest of the season's episodes as they weren't building up to the Siege of Mandalore story arc or Order 66 (to the point you could skip it and not miss anything plot relevant) and left an open ending with Echo joining the team for their adventures despite it being in the final season. Thus, many fans speculated that this batch of episodes was a Poorly Disguised Pilot that would lead to a spin-off show featuring the Bad Batch. And surely enough, they were right.
  • Many fans predicted that Crosshair would defect from the team, which proved true in the first episode.
  • Some fans predicted that Omega was a female clone of Jango Fett. To quote Tech when he confirms this, "I thought it was obvious."
  • "Cut and Run" featuring the return of Cut Lawquane and his family, due to Cut's name being in the title, as well as Hunter being spotted with Cut's clothes in the promos and returning to the Lawquanes being a common speculated idea ever since their debut.
  • Rafa and Trace joining the Rebel Alliance, due to their connection to Ahsoka and that it was considered having their lives in the early days of the Empire told as an alternative show to The Bad Batch.
  • Gregor being the clone they're out to save in "War-Mantle". He was high on the list before, but once he starts that subtle chuckle, in a startling familiar rhythm it was pretty obvious well before his name was said.
  • Many fans had predicted that Crosshair in some way was Not Brainwashed and loyal out of his own free will, they were proven right in "Return to Kamino" where Crosshair reveals he had removed his inhibitor chip and was still continuing to serve the Empire despite that.
• Informed Wrongness: "Common Ground" has the titular Bad Batch be recruited to help a Separatist Senator, which is met with Echo's distrust and complaints about the whole situation (though the others aren't happy, they move on fast enough), for very understandable reasons considering he was nearly killed and then held as a prisoner of war and tortured for a year. Strangely, instead of Hunter, Tech, or Wrecker understanding why he had those reservations due to both being in the same army and rescuing him from his hellish situation, they all treat it like he shouldn't let his emotions come into play and that he's being petty.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • Depa's lightsaber color being changed from green to blue was a disappointing change for many fans, who feel that recent major Star Wars media has been oversaturated with blue lightsabers despite having opportunities to use other colors — Ahsoka's new lightsabers for the Siege of Mandalore were retconned from the Ahsoka novel to be blue rather than her original green and yellow-green, Cal canonically uses a blue lightsaber despite player customization allowing for other colors, and Rey spends the entire Sequel Trilogy with Anakin's blue lightsaber and doesn't get her yellow lightsaber until the very final scene.
  • Similarly, fans felt that Depa's death being changed from a Mood Whiplash of going from a relaxed campfire setting to a grim manhunt being changed to her being struck down in a battlefield like many Jedi before and after her, took away one of the more interesting takes of Order 66's brainwashing, as there's now little to make it stick out.
  • Some fans feel that the series is essentially a retread of The Mandalorian. The protagonists are grizzled mercenaries with Mandalorian heritage who take in a young, cute child Living MacGuffin character who ends up becoming the team Morality Pet who has to be protected from bounty hunters and the Empire.
  • The series being yet another production set directly after the rise of the Galactic Empire, a timeline placement that some feel is being overly explored.
  • “War Mantle” ending with Hunter being captured before the season finale drew groans among those who had seen the same thing play out in the final episodes of the first season of Rebels as well as both seasons of The Mandalorian.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • The Kaminoans, including Lama Su, Taun We, and Nala Se, are a bunch of social darwinists with a severe Lack of Empathy who have abused the clones a lot and even helped cover up Order 66 from Shaak Ti's investigation. Nonetheless, it's easy to feel bad for them when Tarkin trashes their life's work, makes it clear that they have outlived their usefulness to Palpatine, and eventually destroys Tipoca City. This is hammered in by the fact that Nala Se seems to genuinely care about Omega, and even helps her escape Kamino.
  • Crosshair, even before his Face–Heel Turn, was the Token Evil Teammate under the Bad Batch, and has done several terrible things under the Empire, but his inhibitor chip being amplified to forcibly erase his loyalty to the Bad Batch, combined with the implication that he misses his old squad makes him pitiable. Then it's revealed that some time after the events of the first episode, he had his chip removed. A lot of the atrocities he commits afterwards are all on him, but he doesn't seem to revel in any of it, and he sincerely just wants to fight alongside his brothers again. When Hunter confronts him on the matter upon being told this, Crosshair just sadly looks at his brother telling him, "This is who I am." Then it gets worse in Season 2. Despite his continued devotion to the cause, even destroying his friendship with Commander Cody in the process, he realizes fully that, no, the Empire does not care about him or any of the other clones, no matter how loyal or useful they are, and will happily dispose of them if they fail or they no longer have any use. Unfortunately, it comes too late for Crosshair, who nearly dies saving the life of Commander Mayday after the two get buried in an avalanche, Mayday and his entire platoon die because the Empire wouldn't bother giving them new equipment (and worse yet, they were actually ordered to guard said equipment for a year), and the Jerkass of a commander in charge lets Mayday die—a jerkass of whom Crosshair shoots dead for his callousness. Only too late, with his brothers heartbroken at his actions and his life seemingly over does Crosshair realize he was serving the wrong side.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Those who aren't interested in the concept of a show just about the Bad Batch have expressed interest in seeing more of the Star Wars setting in the early days of the Galactic Empire.
  • The Star Wars Resistance references and the head writer being a Resistance writer also interested fans of the show.
  • Sam Riegel and Liam O'Brien's guest-star appearances in "Rampage" also earned some interest from fans of Critical Role.
  • Many fans also watched the series for the characters from Rebels appearing in the series as many claims that The Bad Batch is setting up the Rebels series.
• Mis-blamed: Due to her only other experience in the franchise being one episode of the highly divisive Star Wars Resistance, head writer Jennifer Corbett has been subject to blame for any of the shortcomings in The Bad Batch and is accused of making the show too similar to Resistance, despite the rest of the crew being The Clone Wars and Rebels alumni and that any similarities are also shared in the other two shows (such as the smaller-scale perspective, which is not only in The Bad Batch and Resistance, but also Rebels and some episodes of The Clone Wars).
• Moe:
  • Omega’s innocence combined with the Bad Batch's protectiveness of her makes her adorable at times.
  • The kid version of Hera, who was already super adorable as an adult, is unsurprisingly this. Being an Adorably Precocious Child trying to save her parents from the Empire despite the Bad Batch initially not caring, making her push them on the issue until they come around, makes her very endearing and easy to root for.
• Moral Event Horizon: Go here.
• Narm Charm: Rather than get a voice actor closer to age or modulate his voice, Freddie Prinze Jr. still plays Caleb, and though he does try to sound young, it still sounds weirdly adult and Kanan-y for a teenager. On the other hand, having FPJ back makes it hard to care.
• One-Scene Wonder: Emperor Sheev "The Senate" Palpatine in Season 2, once again under the boastful hamminess of Ian McDiarmid, demonstrates what a Manipulative Bastard he is when he throws Admiral Rampart under the bus for destroying Kamino and uses the events as an excuse to usher in the era of the Stormtrooper.
• Padding: In the first season, the sheer number of episodes dedicated to the Bad Batch doing missions for Cid without advancing the plot or creating Character Development came under criticism from fans.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The Martez sisters were disliked in Star Wars: The Clone Wars for being the main focus of an entire arc in the last season when fans would have much rather had the time spent on their arc spent on giving time to pre-established characters instead, especially ones whose stories hadn't received a proper conclusion such as Cad Bane. In this series, they only appear in one episode and are even the ones to call in Captain Rex for an appearance. While they still aren't fan favorites, fans had a much more positive reception to them this time around due to them not being perceived as a Spotlight-Stealing Squad.
• Salvaged Story:
  • It's questionable how deliberate it is, but many fans noted that the Empire's use of "chain codes" to strictly control travel between planets makes it a lot easier to believe the franchise's notoriously implausible conceit that all knowledge of the Jedi was completely forgotten in just a couple decades.
  • The franchise took some heat for the Clone Wars displaying such Black-and-White Morality despite the claim in the opening crawl of Revenge of the Sith that there were "heroes on both sides". The Clone Wars only takes a couple minor steps to showing more sympathetic Separatists. In The Bad Batch, Senator Singh represents easily the biggest step in that direction yet. Season 2 also features a resident of Serrano, who reveals that his people were just as much victims in the Clone Wars since Dooku exploited their resources for the war effort.
  • While many accepted the inhibitor chips as an explanation for how so many of the Clones suddenly turned on the Jedi despite their much more fleshed out relationship in The Clone Wars (and adding a layer of tragedy in their character arcs), there was also some concern about the chips eliminating all moral agency on the Clones' part in carrying out Order 66, potentially shooting down some interesting storylines. Throughout the first season, we not only see other "regular" Clones (who didn't have their chips removed or otherwise disrupted) visibly questioning their orders and/or defying the Empire, one of the big reveals at the end of the season is that Crosshair, who was presumed to be under the influence of his chip, had his chip removed sometime between the beginning and end of the season (presumably after he got burned on Bracca), giving moral agency to his Face–Heel Turn. Season 2 goes further by having Commander Cody undergo a Heel–Face Turn after he sees just how far his new superiors are willing to go to enforce their regime. Other clones are later still shown having regrets for their actions—and are building a growing underground network under Rex's leadership to fight back.
  • One of the biggest criticisms about Season 1 was how Tech got little in the way of Character Development. "Ruins of War", "Faster" and "The Crossing" gives him some added depth to his characterization, including realizing that not every Separatist planet agreed with Dooku, showing his Ace Pilot skills, and dealing with Echo's departure while trying to be a better support for the equally-distraught Omega.
• Shocking Moments: "Plan 99" ends with two equally shocking moments—the death of Tech and the revelation that Omega wasn't the only female clone made.
• So Okay, It's Average: How some viewers felt about the first season overall, in that it wasn't amazing, nor outright terrible, firmly putting it in the middle of the road in terms of quality. While the animation is gorgeous, the voice-acting is top notch, and it's a fun look into the canon's take on the rise of The Empire, it suffers from slow pacing, a lack of character development for Tech and especially Echo (with only Hunter, Omega, Wrecker, and Crosshair getting it directly), and an over reliance on cameos or guest appearances from other Star Wars characters set against the repeated backdrop of the Batch doing jobs for Cid.
• Special Effect Failure: Caleb's lighter skin makes him look more like a young Obi-Wan or Cal than a young Kanan when placed in an environment with intense lighting like Kaller, and has also garnered criticism for whitewashing given Kanan is meant to be Ambiguously Brown according to Pablo Hidalgo. Supposedly, according to an inside source for io9, there are plans to correct the animation.
• Spiritual Successor: A crew of dangerous mercenaries with varied personalities on the run from enemies from every corner of the galaxy while taking on odd jobs that often blow up in their faces, trying and failing to be responsible parental figures to a Mysterious Waif teenage girl with undefined special qualities that make her a subject of unwanted interest from powerful figures? Sounds a lot like Dark Matter (2015). They even both have an attack shuttle called a Marauder. Also sounds like Firefly.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • A common criticism of the first episode is the opening scene's adaptation of the Star Wars: Kanan. While cool to see animated, fans of Star Wars Rebels who read the comic were disappointed by the many retcons and changes the scene made to the original version, like changing Order 66 to happening during mid-battle rather than the Mood Whiplash of the group relaxing by the campfire, Captain Styles being Adapted Out, Depa's lightsaber being changed from green to blue, Depa's clone battalion armor being colored light green instead of red, the changes in dialogue, among other things.
  • The fact that the Kaminoan Rebellion is no longer canon did rub fans the wrong way, as many were expecting the interesting prospect of clones having to fire upon their own brothers that had diametrically opposed loyalties and wipe them out, especially with how much clones in general have been expanded upon.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • A number of fans have expressed disappointment with the fact that Echo's role in the series has so far amounted to very little outside of simple tech support for the team's plans, with even moments where he should have more attention placed on him passing over him in favor of the other Bad Batch members. Mainly, Echo doesn't get to look back on his relationships with Fives, Domino Squad, or the rest of the 501st outside of Rex — even when Rex mentions to the Batch how Fives found out about the chips and was killed to keep that secret buried, Echo has no reaction to this revelation.
  • The Elite Squad, sans ES-01 and (probably) ES-02, don't receive much individual focus or characterization. From the beginning to the end of the season, they're just the Elite Mooks who follow Crosshair and Rampart around, until almost all of them are fragged by Crosshair in the penultimate episode.
  • There's been some disappointment that recurring character Scorch has none of his personality or skills from his game of origin, and that he has been regulated to Hemlock's Elite Mook, without any sign of the rest of his team, making his addition feel like a glorified cameo. In fact, Delta Squad could have provided an opponent capable of going toe-to-toe with the Bad Batch, and made for an interesting spectacle by pitting two elite units of Clones against each other.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The plot thread introduced in the second season premiere, regarding Hunter and Echo arguing about where the Batch should be during the reign of the Empire and what role they should play, is brought back in "Truth and Consequences" for the first time in several episodes… And it’s quickly over by the end of the episode, with Echo, the main cast member who was the catalyst of the potential conflict, deciding to leave the Batch, and making his decision offscreen with his comrades barely being perturbed by it; removing the potentially interesting conflict from the show in one stroke.
  • Several episodes are spent setting up the potential for Wrecker's inhibitor chip to activate, only for it to get removed from him a few minutes after it does.
  • Rather than focus on how the clones are doing in the transition from the Republic to the Empire, the Bad Batch leave the Empire by the end of the first episode and the rest plays out similarly to The Mandalorian Season 1 with the group wandering aimlessly while protecting a Living MacGuffin child from bounty hunters. Crosshair, who does stay with the Empire, receives little spotlight from the story during Season 1.
  • After Crosshair's injury in "Reunion", many fans predicted that Crosshair would be too injured to continue fighting, and that the Empire would dump him, paving the way to his redemption. Instead, Crosshair continues to fight just as well as he did before. That said, Season 2 seems to be paving the way for him to finally be redeemed when he sees just how poorly the clones are treated under this new regime.
• Trans Audience Interpretation: Omega quickly got a lot of this, owing to being a female clone, despite the clone template being the male Jango Fett. Her being a pure DNA "replication" of Jango Fett (explicitly in the same way as Boba) only fueled this interpretation, with some even taking it as confirmation of her being trans.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Fennec Shand appearing in the sizzle reel. Prior to the premiere of The Bad Batch, she only appeared on The Mandalorian four times, making her a surprising choice for the show's first original character to turn up in a canonical Star Wars cartoon.^note Before the sizzle reel, Grogu the Child and the Mandalorian made their animated debut in the LEGO Star Wars short "Snowflake Snack", which neither falls into the main Star Wars canon, nor had Grogu's and Mando's original actors reprise their roles.
  • Caleb Dume appears in the opening sequence, again voiced by Freddie Prinze Jr. despite his age, and Depa Billaba appears with him. These characters were both unexpected because the comics that showed the initial version of their Order 66 escape didn't involve the Bad Batch.
  • On a meta level, the first episode features one more appearance by Tom Kane as The Clone Wars' announcer, when the fans had thought they'd never hear his voice again after it was destroyed by a stroke.
  • After only a year following their appearance in the final season of The Clone Wars, who would have expected the Martez sisters to come back? Even more unexpected was the return of Ahsoka's astromech droid, R7-A7, who had been destroyed at the end of the same season.
  • Cad Bane, as it was widely assumed he was killed in his standoff against Boba from a clip of the Boba/Cad Bane arc that was originally planned for the original last two seasons of The Clone Wars, and he hadn't been seen for nearly an entire decade. Interestingly enough, the character model has an iron plate over his head, indicating that the duel still happened and that Bane somehow survived.
  • Fans had concerns that Delta Squad wouldn't appear in the series — in spite of being canonized in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode "Witches of the Mist" — due to the fact that the Bad Batch were explicitly described as being George Lucas and Dave Filoni's versions of the characters. However, viewers of "War-Mantle" were pleasantly surprised to see that Lucasfilm was embracing the Expy Coexistence concept by giving Scorch a voiceless cameo in "War-Mantle", as he encounters — and puts up a decent fight against — the title team.
  • Even with the appearance of Kanan giving a nod to Rebels already, few expected to see Hera and Chopper show up as well, and get their own two-episode story to boot.
  • Gunji, the Wookie Youngling from The Clone Wars' fifth season, is revealed to have survived Order 66 and gets to have a guest role in "Tribe". Given he hasn't been seen in some time, his presence was quite a surprise, as it was assumed he died during the raid on the Jedi Temple.
  • "The Clone Conspiracy" and "Truth and Consequences" gives spotlight to a Senator few thought would be seen again: Ryo Chuchi, who becomes an advocate for Clone rights in the years since she was last seen. The latter even brings back another unexpected character: Senator Halli Burtoni, who hadn't been seen since the Senate arc in the third season of The Clone Wars.
  • "Metamorphosis" sees the payoff of a loose end from The Clone Wars that was over thirteen years in the making: the Zillo Beast returns, having been cloned by the Empire. After the plot thread was never mentioned again, the return of the character became something of a cheeky fandom in-joke, making it all the more surprising when they finally returned.
  • "The Summit" features a brief cameo from none other than Director Orson Krennic, complete with Ben Mendelson returning to the part (for three words, no less). Other obscure characters like Hurst Romodi and Barton Coburn also put in an appearance.
  • The season 3 trailer released in January 2024 however contains the probably most unexpected of all: Asajj Ventress, who was Put on a Bus after season 5 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and then died in the Dark Disciple novel. Seeing her in any way after 11 years since her last appearance is suprising enough, but that she's alive and kicking with a new lightsaber is even more shocking.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Omega, the girl from Kamino that the Bad Batch picks up, is very androgynous and even the female voice actor doesn't clarify due to the tendency to cast women as young boys, leading to several viewers mistaking her for a young boy. Omega later grows her hair longer during a Time Skip while in custody at Mount Tantiss at the start of the third season.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The Bad Batch follows in the same steps as Star Wars: The Clone Wars, including in regards to this trope. Unlike The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch doesn't even wait several episodes for Cerebus Syndrome to kick in. The first episode features Jedi Master Depa Billaba getting gunned down on-screen by her own Clone Troopers during Order 66. The third episode features Crosshair ordering the summary execution of unarmed refugees by a firing squad, which includes a flamethrower. And just like The Clone Wars, it has a TV-PG rating.
• Woolseyism: In the first episode, the regular clones bully the Bad Batch and call them the "Sad Batch". In the French dub, they instead call them "Clown Force 99".

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