Star Wars: The Bad Batch - Episode Nine review

Sometimes we don’t know how special we truly are and others want to use us. 

That’s what Omega and the Bad Batch discover in Episode Nine, “Bounty Lost.” 

Hunter and the Bad Batch set out to rescue Omega from the bounty hunter, Cad Bane.

 

Of course, they first have to escape Crosshair and his Imperial forces, who are pursuing them.

 

Making the jump to hyperspace is a hard decision Hunter had to make. He blames himself for not keeping Omega safe and didn’t want to leave without her. Echo tells him that since Bane is long gone, there is nothing left for them on Bracca.

 

This reasoning makes sense to Hunter, and he orders his team to go to light speed. He needed his friends to show him logic and reason in order to focus his mind on protecting themselves and finding Omega.

 

Meanwhile, Omega finds herself a prisoner aboard Cad Bane’s ship.

 

It is revealed that Bane was hired by the Kaminoans to retrieve Omega. The Kaminoans view Omega as a product instead of a person, just as they treat the regular Clones. To them, she isn’t a living person but something they can profit off of.

 

Only Omega’s Kaminoan handler, Nala Se, shows the slightest emotion for the young female Clone, which is enough to make Kaminoan Prime Minister Lama Su insure she doesn’t go to bring Omega back from Bane.

 

Hunter and the Bad Batch discover Bane’s identity and his exploits during the Clone Wars.

 

It is here that Tech reveals a key to Omega’s identity: she has pure First Generation DNA taken from the bounty hunter, Jango Fett.

 

Fett was the original template for the Clone Troopers, but they were genetically-altered with growth acceleration and to be more compliant in following orders.

 

Omega is a complete unaltered Clone of Jango Fett, just like Fett’s Clone son, Boba Fett (who also becomes a bounty hunter).

 

This revelation reveals the Kaminoans true motives for Omega and why they didn’t want the Empire going after the Bad Batch. 

 

After Jango Fett was killed at the start of the Clone Wars during the events of “Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones,” the Kaminoans’ supply of his genetic material started depleting, resulting in later generations of Clone Troopers having less of his DNA (and less effective fighters). 

 

Since Boba has been missing since the Clone Wars started, Omega is the only known source of Jango Fett’s complete genetic template.

 

Without an unaltered Jango Fett Clone, the Kaminoans have no way of continuing to make Clone Troopers based on Jango’s template.

 

Now that the Empire is in charge and threatening to revoke contracts for more Clones, the Kaminoans are desperate to keep their cloning operations alive and intend to kill Omega once they have her so that they can extract her DNA.

 

Hunter and his friends determine that the Kaminoans placed the bounty on Omega’s head because she is vital to their cloning operations. They work hard to locate her. To them, Omega is special because she is their friend. She is a unique person, not some experiment in a lab.

 

Bane takes Omega to an old Kaminoan cloning facility, where he’ll rendezvous with the Kaminoans to hand her over.

 

Hoping to escape, Omega tries to trick Bane’s medical droid, Todo, into letting her out of her cell. She’ll fix his broken leg if he lowers the shield keeping her trapped. She uses her wits to outsmart the droid.

 

Now freed, Omega shuts down Todo and looks for her communication device in order to contact Hunter and the others.

 

Omega manages to contact the Bad Batch, but they can’t establish a good signal in order to track her position.

 

Bane manages to catch Omega, but Fennec Shand shows up to steal Omega. She kills Taun We, the Kaminoan sent to retrieve Omega, and holds the payment in her hands.

 

A firefight breaks out between the two bounty hunters, and Omega manages to escape. She plans to establish a communications relay to pinpoint her location to her friends.

 

Shand claims she wants to help Omega and that she was hired to stop the Kaminoan Prime Minister from getting her back.

 

Omega is able to escape in a flight pod and she’s picked up by the Bad Batch before the pod falls to the ground.

 

Now reunited, Omega and the Bad Batch leave. She is informed about how special and valuable she truly is to the Kaminoans. This revelation shakes Omega to her core and she doesn’t want to end up as an experiment in a test tube.

 

Hunter reassures Omega that their team won’t let that happen. She isn’t an experiment to him. She is his friend, a part of the team. He is determined to keep Omega safe from Lama Su.

 

Shand flies off and it is revealed that Nala Se hired her to get Omega, making sure that the Kaminoans can’t kill her in order to continue their cloning operations.

 

Since Omega is with the Bad Batch once again, her handler knows she is safe from Lama Su and pays Shand for her services.