Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 9 Ending Explained
Contains spoilers for "Star Wars: The Bad Batch," Season 1, Episode 9: "Bounty Lost"
Last week's installment of "Star Wars: The Bad Batch," titled "Reunion," was one of the darkest to hit the small screen thus far. With Clone Force 99 cornered on Bracca, Crosshair (Dee Bradley Baker) and his Imperial forces did their best to root them out, thankfully to no avail. However, just when it seemed as though our heroes were in the clear, feared bounty hunter Cad Bane (Corey Burton) swooped in and abducted Omega (Michelle Ang), severely injuring Hunter (Baker) and leaving the "Star Wars" fandom in a state of panic for an entire week.
Luckily, weeks only last seven days, and the follow up to "Reunion" is upon us. The 9th episode of "The Bad Batch," titled "Bounty Lost," picks up right where its predecessor left off. The team is aboard the Havoc Marauder, attempting to escape Bracca and certain death at the hands of Crosshair and his underlings. All the while, they're bent on locating and rescuing Omega, who's trapped on Cad Bane's ship en route to Bora Vio. Waiting for them at an abandoned cloning facility will be Taun We (Rena Owen), as well as a handful of surprises.
This is "The Bad Batch" Episode 9's ending explained.
Bounty hunter brawl
As planned, Cad Bane, Todo 360 (Seth Green), and Omega arrive on Bora Vio to rendezvous with Taun We, but the young clone doesn't make the exchange an easy affair. She manages to escape Bane's ship upon landing and does her best to contact the rest of the Bad Batch before he catches up to her and destroys her wrist communicator. Bane's headaches wouldn't end just yet, as fellow bounty hunter Fennec Shand shows up, kills Taun We, and attempts to steal the credits he was promised in addition to Omega.
At first, the duel between Shand and Bane seems to be a simple skirmish between two bounty hunters looking for a quick payday. However, as is revealed by the conclusion of the episode, they're each working for a different employer. In Bane's case, he planned to deliver Omega to Lama Su (Bob Bergen), who wants to use her genetic material for various experiments. On the other hand, Shand is working with Nala Se (Gwendoline Yeo), seemingly the only Kaminoan who wants to keep Omega safe from harm.
Despite Nala Se's instructions to Shand to leave Omega alone so long as she's with the Bad Batch, it's doubtful that Bane will so easily give up on his bounty. Surely, their paths will cross again.
Omega's discovery
Cad Bane and Fennec Shand don't hold back during their brawl over Omega, buying her time to use the abandoned facility's computers and contact the Bad Batch. In trying to find ways to get ahold of them and avoid drawing the attention of the bounty hunters, she stumbles upon a disturbing sight. In a dark, dusty room, she discovers a few cloning pods with long dead, grotesque specimens inside of them. Mortified by what she sees, she momentarily examines them before returning to her mission.
Cloning has been a constant across "Star Wars" media, but it has taken a more pronounced role in recent years. Season 2 of "The Mandalorian" revealed the Empire's attempts at perfecting live clones, which likely tie into "The Rise of Skywalker," where Emperor Palpatine's (Ian McDiarmid) survival after "Return of the Jedi" was a direct result of attempted cloning. Could these previous plot points tie directly into what the Kaminoans have in mind for Omega, should she wind up back in their custody?
In the closing moments of the episode, Omega tells Hunter that she doesn't want to end up in a test tube as one of Lama Su's experiments, and he reassures her that will never happen. Bearing in mind the horrors imperfect cloning can create in the "Star Wars" world, we can only hope that he's right.
Fett family ties
During their search for Omega, the rest of the Bad Batch starts hitting the books to find out any information they can about the situation. They eventually learn a bit about Cad Bane and his history, but what Tech (Dee Bradley Baker) deduces about Omega is even more shocking. According to his research, she contains first generation Jango Fett DNA, hence why she's so valuable to the Kaminoans. The only other individual with such genetics is her brother, Alpha, better known as Boba Fett. This line wasn't treated as anything more than a brief namedrop and a subtle revelation about Omega, but it has major implications for the universe at large.
First and foremost, is Boba aware he has a sister, or is Omega aware she has a brother? If so, why haven't they made any attempt to contact one another? Also, why didn't Jango take Omega under his wing in the same way that he did Boba? Or was he too unaware the Kaminoans created her from his DNA? Could this tease lead to the "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" showdown between Cad Bane and Boba Fett that never was? Finally, and perhaps most crucially, will we see a Fett family reunion by the end of "The Bad Batch" Season 1?
As if there weren't enough unanswered questions on the table, "Bounty Lost" went and threw a few more at us. Now, we must sit and wait for the answers.
All's well that ends well
To make up for the disastrous ending that "Reunion" provided us with, "Bounty Lost" gives us a cheery note as a finale. Having successfully fended off Todo 360 and jettisoned a flight pod away from Cad Bane and Fennec Shand, Omega was reunited with the rest of her squad. They picked her up in the Havoc Marauder, checked up on her health, and consoled her after a long day of fighting off two of the most dangerous bounty hunters in the galaxy.
Seeing Wrecker, Hunter, Echo (Dee Bradley Baker), and Tech embrace Omega to round out this week's episode was a truly sweet moment, but it did little to lessen their monumental danger. They're still in heavy debt to Cid (Rhea Perlman), Crosshair is injured but still motivated to eradicate them, and the Kaminoans continue to hire bounty hunters in hopes of securing Omega once again. The squad has no choice but to continue living on the run, or else they flirt with certain doom from one source or another.
The essential question here is where could the Bad Batch possibly go from here? We'll have to tune in next week for the tenth edition of "Star Wars: The Bad Batch."