The Bad Batch: 1x15-16 (+housekeeping)
Jun. 10th, 2022 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urth posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tori_reviewsSince a) I forgot to post anything Wednesday, b) I'd rather not leave an extra week before getting the finale of TBB, and c) I haven't finished putting together my Buffy s2 wrap-up post; I might as well take this chance to reset my coming schedule.
I'm putting Marvel Mondays back in the plan, at least for a few weeks. I'm still working my way through Moon Knight, but so far I haven't had that much to say so it won't take me that long to get through my thoughts. I guess we'll stick with Star Wars Wednesdays (I still need to finish BoBF, and I'll do Obi-wan, but that may be the last chance I give this verse for a while). Which leaves Buffy just on Fridays; but probably only for a little while. It may be up to three days a week before too long, so I better get back to doing the reviews (but first the wrap-up).
Also, I forgot how little I had to say on the TBB finale, I think I was intending to do a season reflection, but I never had anything pressing to come back for.
The Bad Batch: 1x15-16
I’m not altogether sure how to feel about that one. In fact I am altogether sure that I don’t know how to feel about it. The stuff that the show wants to be emotional all falls flat; and the times it almost lucked into making something that worked for me, it backtracked and made more confusing.
What are they doing with Crosshair? I remember there was something with his inhibiter chip in one of the early episodes, but I don’t remember what it was about. Maybe it never fully worked? Maybe they were taking it out? Maybe they were rewiring his brain so he didn’t need a chip to be brainwashed? I don’t remember. But even if he is just evil, I kind of still care more about him than the rest of the Batch (except maybe Echo but he didn’t get much to do here).
I guess I’ll need to go back and look at that earlier scene so that I have a better idea how to judge what happens here. But I still say most of what he says to Hunter is right and earned. The team didn’t care about him, they didn’t miss him, they didn’t come back for him thinking he was a slave to the chip in his head that needed to be rescued.
And that’s why, even if this episode is playing straight with us (which I kind of don’t think they are), I still don’t forgive the rest of the Batch for leaving him behind. As far as they knew, none of it was his choice, and they still left him. And if Crosshair wasn’t thinking with brain-wash-mind (although I’d still say there’s probably brainwashing, it’s maybe just not chip based) then he knows that as far as they knew, they were leaving him in slavery.
I kind of want Echo and Crosshair to talk about this, because they’ve both had their minds scrambled and may not know how much of what they did was them and how much was forced on them from others. Or maybe that’s just my sympathy for Echo’s issues talking.
It’s been long enough since I watched the first episode (although I think still less than it probably was if you were watching week to week), and I am largely incapable of feeling anything for Omega, that means that the emotional beats I could see they were using to try and evoke a reaction did not work on me. I don’t remember her being all that attached to Kamino and her life there; and it’s not like since then she’s spent lots of time missing it but also not being sure she should miss it, and all those complicated emotions that would have made her returning there only to see it destroyed, carry the weight the show seems to want it to have.
Shots of the normally bustling spaces now being empty…was marginally more effective than trying to make me care through Omega. But even that, it’s not like I developed an attachment to Kamino, and the characters we’re seeing through I either don’t think had an attachment to Kamino or I am unsympathetic to the one the show gives them for the moment.
What is Crosshair planning to do standing out there on a landing platform with no way out? I guess they did say that the Imps will come around to do more scanning, but then he’s going to have to explain some stuff to the people who come and get him, so he better be working on that cover story.
The problem with making Crosshair supposedly actually evil all this time is that it means there is no payoff for this season, no small victory as I was expecting. There ends up being neither rescue or reconciliation that brings the whole team together again. This is just another thing that happens, and happens to involve Crosshair this time.
Also, without going back to review the scene in the earlier episode…it wouldn’t be all that hard for someone to have just told Crosshair that yeah they totally took his chip out. It’s not like clones under chip control know that their thoughts and goals aren’t their own.
I'm putting Marvel Mondays back in the plan, at least for a few weeks. I'm still working my way through Moon Knight, but so far I haven't had that much to say so it won't take me that long to get through my thoughts. I guess we'll stick with Star Wars Wednesdays (I still need to finish BoBF, and I'll do Obi-wan, but that may be the last chance I give this verse for a while). Which leaves Buffy just on Fridays; but probably only for a little while. It may be up to three days a week before too long, so I better get back to doing the reviews (but first the wrap-up).
Also, I forgot how little I had to say on the TBB finale, I think I was intending to do a season reflection, but I never had anything pressing to come back for.
The Bad Batch: 1x15-16
I’m not altogether sure how to feel about that one. In fact I am altogether sure that I don’t know how to feel about it. The stuff that the show wants to be emotional all falls flat; and the times it almost lucked into making something that worked for me, it backtracked and made more confusing.
What are they doing with Crosshair? I remember there was something with his inhibiter chip in one of the early episodes, but I don’t remember what it was about. Maybe it never fully worked? Maybe they were taking it out? Maybe they were rewiring his brain so he didn’t need a chip to be brainwashed? I don’t remember. But even if he is just evil, I kind of still care more about him than the rest of the Batch (except maybe Echo but he didn’t get much to do here).
I guess I’ll need to go back and look at that earlier scene so that I have a better idea how to judge what happens here. But I still say most of what he says to Hunter is right and earned. The team didn’t care about him, they didn’t miss him, they didn’t come back for him thinking he was a slave to the chip in his head that needed to be rescued.
And that’s why, even if this episode is playing straight with us (which I kind of don’t think they are), I still don’t forgive the rest of the Batch for leaving him behind. As far as they knew, none of it was his choice, and they still left him. And if Crosshair wasn’t thinking with brain-wash-mind (although I’d still say there’s probably brainwashing, it’s maybe just not chip based) then he knows that as far as they knew, they were leaving him in slavery.
I kind of want Echo and Crosshair to talk about this, because they’ve both had their minds scrambled and may not know how much of what they did was them and how much was forced on them from others. Or maybe that’s just my sympathy for Echo’s issues talking.
It’s been long enough since I watched the first episode (although I think still less than it probably was if you were watching week to week), and I am largely incapable of feeling anything for Omega, that means that the emotional beats I could see they were using to try and evoke a reaction did not work on me. I don’t remember her being all that attached to Kamino and her life there; and it’s not like since then she’s spent lots of time missing it but also not being sure she should miss it, and all those complicated emotions that would have made her returning there only to see it destroyed, carry the weight the show seems to want it to have.
Shots of the normally bustling spaces now being empty…was marginally more effective than trying to make me care through Omega. But even that, it’s not like I developed an attachment to Kamino, and the characters we’re seeing through I either don’t think had an attachment to Kamino or I am unsympathetic to the one the show gives them for the moment.
What is Crosshair planning to do standing out there on a landing platform with no way out? I guess they did say that the Imps will come around to do more scanning, but then he’s going to have to explain some stuff to the people who come and get him, so he better be working on that cover story.
The problem with making Crosshair supposedly actually evil all this time is that it means there is no payoff for this season, no small victory as I was expecting. There ends up being neither rescue or reconciliation that brings the whole team together again. This is just another thing that happens, and happens to involve Crosshair this time.
Also, without going back to review the scene in the earlier episode…it wouldn’t be all that hard for someone to have just told Crosshair that yeah they totally took his chip out. It’s not like clones under chip control know that their thoughts and goals aren’t their own.
