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Star Wars The Bad Batch: S2 E9: The Crossing
770 Plays3 years ago
Emotions get explosive as J Scotty and Zuhair give their thoughts on the newest episode of Star Wars: The Bad Batch, now streaming on Disney Plus!
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Transcript
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00:00:00
Speaker
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Introduction to Animation Deliberation
00:00:30
Speaker
On another exciting episode of the Animation Deliberation podcast, our Bad Batch crew goes on another adventure to find some explosive treasure. We're gonna talk about that and much more about it in these ads we have no control over. Sing along if you know the words. Animation deliberation, a conversation and a celebration of our favorite action animated series. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bad Batch S2E9 Synopsis
00:01:01
Speaker
Yeah, welcome back to another episode of Animation Deliberation, the podcast where we take action animation and cartoon seriously, but not too seriously. We are your hosts. I am Zuhara Lee. My name's Jay Scotty Sinclair. And we got more bad bats to talk about. Never have too much Star Wars content. We love it. We're here for it. We're excited to talk about it. So let's get to that synopsis.
00:01:19
Speaker
Sounds good, again discussing Season 2 Episode 9 titled The Crossing. Sid sends the Bad Batch to extract some ipsium mineral from a mine she recently purchased, but during the expedition their ship, the Marauder, is stolen. Forced to trek towards a spaceport, they are buried inside another mine when their recovered ipsium is detonated by a lightning storm.
00:01:44
Speaker
Having trouble dealing with the recent sudden turnabouts, Omega discovers an ipsium vein, but while trying to harvest it, she and Tech get separated from the others and have a talk about adapting to changes in life before they find an alternative way out.
Character Interactions and Growth
00:01:59
Speaker
They find the spaceport abandoned, but manage to contact Sid, who reluctantly agrees to pick them up in a few days.
00:02:05
Speaker
All right, so I know the character that you really want to talk about, so I'm going to get the obvious stuff out of the way so that you can get to that. And the obvious stuff being, oh my God, lighting, oh my God, sound design. Just I can't get over it. It's the most beautiful thing about the show, especially like working with lanterns and caves and stuff like that. Like it gave that feeling of when the lanterns were on, like you could feel how dark the space was. But then when they went out, just like that subtle blue light, like just so the audience knows what's going on. We're not.
00:02:35
Speaker
last season of Game of Thronesing. The lighting situation, which I know you're watching right now, but I'm sure you get the reference.
00:02:43
Speaker
I'm not even on the last season, but yeah, some of those seasons in between get pretty dark too. Yeah. So this is incredible how beautiful it looked. The sound design as always was amazing, especially with the water and like walking through the caves and stuff and like just hearing the small pebbles and stuff move. And like it's those little things. It's like, you don't need to go that far, but we absolutely love that you do.
00:03:09
Speaker
Yeah, I can't agree more with everything that you brought up, but spinning directly off of sound design, like, oh my God, the music. I've given Kevin Kleiner so much praise this season, but ooh, the spaghetti western vibes, like I almost felt like I was playing like Red Dead Redemption for a second just with those like awesome like southwestern guitar
00:03:32
Speaker
Riffs and whatnot. Oh, it's it's set such
Appreciation for Animation Details
00:03:35
Speaker
a vibe. It's set such a mood and I found myself actually kind of expecting this episode to play more into kind of like a Western a la like the Mandalorian or something like that. I still like what we got but that music was phenomenal Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say is we definitely appreciate all the music from Mandalorian and that vibe that it gives off and
00:03:58
Speaker
I mean that's kind of all I have to say about the tactical stuff but like sure there's no way that we can go each week without appreciating because the second that these episodes start up is just kind of like I'm just still blown away by it looks so beautiful but moving on I Feel like this was another episodic episode, but I enjoyed it obviously it did leave us with a little bit of a cliffhanger We'll see if we continue on this planet or if Sid actually does end up picking our team up, but there was a lot of
Emotional Processing in Characters
00:04:26
Speaker
character development in terms of like how we relate to emotion and we talk about how these stories kind of give us stuff in the real-life world and there is you know, just just kind of this conversation about like
00:04:41
Speaker
You don't grieve the way that I grieve, so you're not doing it right. You don't celebrate the way that I do, so you're not doing it right. And sometimes it feels like other people are kind of diminishing your excitement or your sorrow for things because of just the way that other people process things differently. And we had a beautiful conversation about that, but tech is your boy. So tell me what you thought about his development throughout this and what you thought about just his growth that we got between our characters.
Tech's Growth and Omega's Bond
00:05:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And just to kind of speak to the episode as a whole beforehand, I agree this was one of the more episodic episodes. And the thing I think I'm discovering about this show is that I really enjoyed this episode and exactly what you said. I really liked the character interactions and the emotional growth that we saw. That's what made this episode so enjoyable for me, not necessarily the story that we had, but the interactions that we had. And I do think it was kind of nice to
00:05:40
Speaker
Have a bit of a reprieve and a moment of pause to kind of come to acceptance with Echo not being on the team anymore. I thought that was appropriate. But yeah, Tech, I felt like at first it was a battle of who was going to come with more sass, Omega or Tech. And they were both so sassy. But I think Tech kind of won out in the end because he was giving the sass to everybody, especially Omega.
00:06:04
Speaker
and Wrecker when Wrecker was like the one that was supposed to be keeping Lookout on the ship and he lost and he's like how did you not notice someone come and take our ship? Yeah, Wrecker was definitely like instantly eliminated from the from the sass fest
00:06:19
Speaker
Yeah, he couldn't stand toe to toe. And then, yeah, Omega trying to harvest the ipsium. Like, I noticed how kind of, you know, assured of herself that she was, and it did seem like she wasn't really exercising as much caution as she should. But that's understandable. She's really, you know, been in some harrowing situations and always proven herself. So she's kind of tired of being babysat and kind of second-guessed.
00:06:45
Speaker
Yeah, I really appreciated the journey that Tech and Omega both went on and that they went on together because it's kind of what I love about Tech. He's kind of a source of great comedic relief, but also he's so proficient because of the way his mind works and really getting to like delve into the fact that like he doesn't mean to be cold and callous. He just sees the world from this very cut and dry perspective and
00:07:14
Speaker
The line that really stuck out with me is that he's like, you know, just because I don't process my feelings the same way that you do doesn't mean that they're not there and they're not just as strong. So to have that conversation, to have them grow a little bit closer, it was beautiful and that made the episode entirely worth it for me.
00:07:32
Speaker
Yeah, and I'm glad that they brought up crosshair when they were having that little heart-to-heart because that's what kept running through my mind was like he's already dealing with the loss of not only one of his members leaving, but like being his enemy essentially, right?
00:07:48
Speaker
Yeah, and it's like, that's got to be super difficult for him to deal with. But like, he's got this concept, there's this concept called EOT emotional order of thinking, where you you understand the emotions that you have to deal, but you understand the time and place for them, right?
00:08:06
Speaker
So it's like we don't know what he does in private. We don't know like what goes on inside of his head. But the matter of the fact is that he's on a mission and he said like that's what soldiers do. Like we still have to get out of this, right? So like we can't deal with dealing with the emotions right now because like we're stranded on this planet with explosive material around us. Like that's not the issue at hand.
00:08:28
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Um, but it's great that they did have that conversation and I can only imagine like how he felt about watching his home being blown up and We I talked about it a little bit last week about how Omega was upset that echo left and I was like yeah, but echo was part of Rex's squad longer than he was on force 99 and and
00:08:53
Speaker
Um, uh, tech was talking about how, you know, crosshair was part of his group and he was like, we were, we were the bad batch before echo even came around. So. Right. Like all that stuff was just kind of flowing through my head. So I'm glad that he finally had the opportunity to give Omega some perspective of just what he's gone through as well, because we know that Omega is the vocal one. Like we hear her thoughts all the time. There's no escaping it.
00:09:19
Speaker
And in terms of her being sure of herself, it's like we talked about in the first episode how I'm glad that we got to see a lot of growth and development from her. And we do see a little bit of like Hunter telling her that she can't be on watch alone, but record can. So she kind of wants to prove herself a little bit, but like she has grown a lot. And I'm glad that we do have a more mature side of her, even though she makes questionable decisions here and there because of her ethical standpoint.
00:09:48
Speaker
But overall, like, this is the next step in, like, her maturing to is actually taking the time to understand her squad, Mason, not assuming that everyone feels the same way as her. Yeah, I agree with a lot of what you said, pretty much everything you said. But I did want to mention, I'm glad you called out that line about crosshair because that really hit me in the feels as well. And him kind of acknowledging that, hey, this was a squad before Echo was a part of it, I felt like
00:10:15
Speaker
He didn't say it out loud, but part of that was also, hey,
00:10:19
Speaker
this was a squad before you were a part of it too, Omega, and it can still continue
Omega's Family Transition
00:10:23
Speaker
to be. Well, yeah. But I found when Omega, in the beginning of the episode, when she was saying, when she was lamenting Echo not being there, she's like, we're a squad, doesn't that mean anything to you? I really felt like she was using the word squad in place of family. So I'm glad by the end of the episode, she actually started to use the word family because I feel like when she joined, that's when it really went from being a squad to being a family. Yes, they're brothers, but
00:10:47
Speaker
The just the element the being vocal and being vulnerable and being you know I don't want to say emotionally immature because in some ways she's more emotionally mature than than than some of these guys because they've had to just you know stuff their emotions down and just be soldiers, but she's
00:11:05
Speaker
creating a space for them to explore their emotional maturity. So when she used family and then asked him again, like, aren't we a family? Like how much he kind of like struggled with that and like him being as clinical as he is. Like you could see that it was true to him that they were a family, but it was kind of difficult for him to kind of process that and acknowledge it and kind of be vulnerable with her in that moment. So it was, it was again, such a touching and beautiful moment.
00:11:32
Speaker
Yeah, he's a quiet introverted cousin that comes in and says hi to everybody and then you forget that he's there until you need something or when it's time for the farewells at the family union. But in regards to starting off with the word squad and
00:11:49
Speaker
ending with the word family. That's kind of a promotion, right? Because like, yeah, how could I expect you to think of me as family if I don't expect you to think of me as a squad mate, right? So there was kind of that progression of like, where is our relationship? Because I know what you're going to do for your squad. How do you respond to your family? And in regards to, you know, how he processes and stuff,
00:12:15
Speaker
On the two episodes that we had last week, there was the line of like, have you thought about like your pension and what you want to do when the war is over? You're not done fighting. He was like, we're not trained to think about that. That applies to our bad batch too. Yeah, definitely. And just to kind of circle back to something you brought up, you said it jokingly, but with like tech being the cousin that you forget about, I still kind of feel that way about Hunter. Like he,
00:12:41
Speaker
He's obviously, you know, very stable in his role as the leader, but I feel like he's just kind of like more and more just like kind of falling into the background. Yeah, he reprimands or guides Omega here and there, but he's just, I'm really kind of like, again, he had more opportunities to stand out in the first season. I'm glad that they're giving space for some of the other squad members, but I kind of feel myself at this point in the season, I need him to have
00:13:06
Speaker
something more to like chew on in terms of character development. And maybe that comes in the form of like, again, when Echo got brought up and Echo being on a different path, I think it flashed to Hunter for a second. And it was like, they were really the ones that had the ideological difference there. It's funny you should say that about him just kind of like falling into the shadows. Sorry, I was trying to process just kind of everything you said.
00:13:30
Speaker
that actually made me relate to him more. Interesting. Because he's the guy, like I've always, well, I've always related to him because he's the guy that's like high senses and uses the knife. He's just super adaptable. And, you know, like when you're building your D&D character, like that's the kind of stuff that I'm just going to like, oh, yeah, like that stuff's awesome.
00:13:49
Speaker
So for him to silently be the guy that if you get the job done you all Celebrate he doesn't necessarily need to be there. But yeah, if something goes wrong all fingers point at him That's yeah kind of the vibe that I get for him and that's kind of the vibe that I relate to so that's fair I think I have an appreciation for hunter based off of that and
00:14:15
Speaker
chemistry that he gives off, but I do like that he gets his little highlights of just showing like how
00:14:23
Speaker
This is how incredible his intuition and his senses are. Like, the second that he walks out of that mine, it's like, oh, there's something wrong. Like, nobody heard the ship. They were mid-conversation, and he just sprinted before he could even tell anybody what was up. He was the first one to come up with the plane. He was the first one to act. He's just, he is everything. He is what keeps everybody intact.
00:14:46
Speaker
Like, with Wrecker being over with his emotions and Tech being under with them and Echo being frustrated and Omega being a child, like, his stability is really what makes that team function. And if he's not there, I don't think that they operate as efficiently as they do.
00:15:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think everything you bring up is valid. He really is like the glue, and I did pick up on that. It was not really pointed out, but it was broadcasted like visually, the fact that like he touched the ground, sensed something was wrong, and was immediately able to like communicate that to the rest of the team. Like, yeah, that's where his value is, but not even just there, but the fact that like he's kind of the one that tells Tech, like he's, I think Tech says something to the effect of like, I'll fix it.
00:15:35
Speaker
What is he referring to? Anyway, he's talking about going to get more ipsium to create a detonation to get them out there.
00:15:44
Speaker
get them out of there and then he says, that's not the only thing you need to fix. Like Omega's hurting and you need to address that because he was just like, Echo's gone. What is your issue? Just the way he said that. She's like, I immediately like, I need to be alone. Like F you. Yeah. She said she needs to be alone. Yeah. She's hurting. Yeah. Yeah. So.
00:16:10
Speaker
As much as I love tech, that's part of what I love about him is his aloofness. Yeah, he definitely gives me Sheldon vibes. Yeah, now I need him saying bazinga at least once.
00:16:29
Speaker
I'm gonna start doing that now like whenever tech comes up with something to like get the job done. She could be like bazinga Hunter which is funny. That's the second Star Wars character hunter made a Sheldon reference to Who was the first one? I don't remember
00:16:48
Speaker
K2SO from Rogue One. Ah, okay, okay. The way that he just throws her bag, like, screw you at the beginning. Like, oh my god, this dude is incredible. Uh, Jyn or so, sorry. Yeah, when he just threw her bag and was like, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Really hopeful that he'll show up in And or season two when we get that.
00:17:11
Speaker
Man, I squealed when it was another K2 droid that came up and I was like, oh my god, this is where we need him. Oh, that was just another one. I thought the same thing. Such a tease. Such a tease. Yeah, yeah. But back into the animated realm of things, I'm not sure if I have too much more to say just because this was episodic. I thought it was dumb that they saw the storm changing direction and they didn't decide to
00:17:41
Speaker
stay in the mind that they were at. Sure, like story development, but also at the same time, like they didn't close the door when they left, which bothered me a bit. And oh, my God, talking about the lion in the room. Did you get Lion King vibes?
00:17:58
Speaker
Oh yeah, I meant to say, yeah, Wrecker had his Mufasa moment. Definitely Lion King vibes. Yeah. And tech was definitely the Mufasa in that, where it's like, you kind of need to protect that. He was like, what about me? He's like, well, if it blows up, we're all going to die. So he verbally kind of pushed Wrecker into jumping back into it. Long live the king. Long live the bad patch.
00:18:28
Speaker
Yeah, I'm glad you called that out. I definitely had the Lion King vibes there myself. I guess the last thing I kind of want to touch on is where we kind of left the episode with them kind of being at Sid's mercy and Sid's initial response is not one of loyalty.
Sid's Loyalty Questioned
00:18:46
Speaker
It's like, hey, you got yourself into this situation. I didn't tell you to go lose your ship, figure it out.
00:18:51
Speaker
And they finally have to like remind her of everything they've done for her. And she's like, okay, I'll make something happen in a couple of days. But then after that, she just hangs up on them and Omega's like, okay, what are we going to do? And then it brings, I can't remember who says it, but Omega gets to say,
00:19:10
Speaker
Yeah, Omega gets to repeat text line, though. We'll figure it out like we always do. So I'm kind of like I do and don't want to see it, but I'm kind of at this point. I would like to see a change to the format in the show to where it's not the bad batch always taking a mission from Sid. Maybe we'll see them come into conflict with Sid and have to break away because with that riot racing episode, I can't remember the character's name, but the one that, you know, was indebted Sid was indebted to like he told them, hey,
00:19:40
Speaker
you did something for her, but don't expect that loyalty to be returned. So I wouldn't mind seeing kind of a shake up in the show format if we're no longer in Sid's good graces or vice versa.
00:19:54
Speaker
Yeah, especially knowing that the rebellion is being formed around this point in time, too. And we're seeing a lot of the conflicts like within the Empire. I do want to see them interact with Rex and possibly Ahsoka a little more, just kind of like planting the seeds of what's going on, because we've talked about it a lot. All these sit adventures.
00:20:17
Speaker
feel episodic and we question like how much these adventures have to do with like the future of the story. And just knowing that there's so much more content to talk about and knowing that we can even have episodes that don't have the bad batch that are super powerful that just involve one character that we know in Senator Organa. I'm perfectly fine with having more of those as long as we have something that just kind of like fits this big Star Wars universe narrative.
00:20:45
Speaker
Yeah, I'm all for that. Yeah, I would definitely like to see more world building, galaxy building, and just kind of pushing the story of both the rise of the empire and the rise of the rebellion, and just the transition of clones. How do they get phased out, and what does that look like for individuals?
00:21:07
Speaker
Why don't we see the bad batch? I mean, other than the fact that they weren't written yet, what in-universe excuse do they have or reason do they have for them not being around? So yeah, I'm all for that. The Clone Wars universe is a big one, so there's a lot of stuff that we could do there.
00:21:25
Speaker
Yeah, no doubt. Okay. Yeah. I think that's everything I had on this one. Like I said, again, another episodic episode, but it was the character interactions. It was the emotional experiences that made this one really enjoyable for me. I concur. All right. I concur, doctor. Do you concur?
00:21:47
Speaker
All right. Okay. Anything to let the people know about in terms of plugs or appearances on other shows?
00:21:56
Speaker
Uh, just finished recording an episode with a 3-2-3 with Reed Murphy. We had our Super Bowl hangover talking about the ads, the game, the Rihanna show, weird things happening in this world at this time. It was definitely an entertaining conversation, so go check that out on YouTube or anywhere you find your podcasts. 3-2-3 with Reed Murphy. That's R-E-I-D.
00:22:18
Speaker
Awesome, awesome, yeah. Check it out. I just want to say no show appearances or anything like that, but just want to remind people that Vox Machina, the final three episodes released last Friday, I'm still hopeful that we can cover that in some fashion, whether or not we just do one episode talking about the first two seasons as a whole or what have you. I know TJ Stafford, I saw that you sent some feedback that was specific to my thoughts on the pacing
00:22:45
Speaker
In Vox Machina season two, I will just, you know, I'll cover it in more detail, but I'll say pacing was not an issue for me. And then I did catch the first episode of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, which is now the first six episodes are available on Disney Plus. Cannot recommend that enough. It is a very much a kid's show, but it is absolutely delightful in the art direction and the vibe is just so, so good. I can't recommend it highly enough.
00:23:14
Speaker
So you're saying it's not MCU canon? I do not believe so. There's no Marvel Studios. It's just Marvel is the marketing that you get there, the labeling rather. Gotcha. Well, that's good that they're still doing fun projects because there's a lot of stuff that Marvel has at their disposal. Oh, no doubt. There's such a vast catalog of characters to pull from. So hopefully we'll see more
00:23:39
Speaker
bizarre and out there stuff because that's what's so great about the comics.
Podcast Engagement Call
00:23:42
Speaker
But I do want to encourage everybody to, you know, like the show, give us a rating, give us a review. It would be tremendous for our esteem as well as our growth and share the show. So thank you as always for tuning in. That's T-double-O-N-I-N. And as always, stay well.
00:24:06
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Animation Deliberation Podcast, a proud member of the Strandepanda Network. If you would like to contact us, you can email animationdeliberationpodcast at gmail.com or follow us on Twitter at animationdelib1. For this and other great shows, you can visit Strandepanda.com or join the great community that is the Strandepanda Chat Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash svchat. Tune in next time and remember, stay well.