Star Wars: The Bad Batch “Devil’s Deal” Review

Season 1 Episode 11 “As the seeds of rebellion foment on an outer rim world, the Empire schemes to squash it.”

What I Liked?

1. In a similar fashion as the previous episode, we see that The Empire has now made its way to Ryloth, to take control and has a military presence on the planet, as well as a mining facility. We get introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Syndulla who are trying to lead their people into a new era. In this episode, we also get introduced to a young Hera Syndulla, (From Rebels) as well as her droid, Choppa.

2. In this episode, Hera’s uncle has her spying and gathering intel on the mining facility, although Hera and Choppa get caught, the Clone Commander named Howzer actually stepped in and told the Twi’lek General Cham Syndulla that he won’t report this but it can not happen again. Later on, in the episode, I noticed that Howzer actually was hesitant about taking the Twi’leks away as prisoners.

3. We finally see a healed Crosshair return, although he did have burns on the side of his head, we see that he’s even more brutal and even more determined to help the Empire. We come to learn that the Empire doesn’t exactly trust the Twi’leks and have their own plans, this is why Crosshair is on the planet, we see him follow, track, and learn more of the Twi’leks plans to smuggle more weapons onto the planet. For me, this one-shot that Crosshair made in this episode proved that he is the best shot in the entire galaxy.

What I Disliked?

1. The voice actor for Hera Syndulla has changed, her voice isn’t the same as it was in Rebels, I get that in Rebels Hera is slightly older and in this, she’s a young adult, but in this episode, Hera has a slight French tone to her voice, when in Rebels she was straight-up English.

2. The show is called “The Bad Batch”, I understand that the series needs a filler episode now and again, but did we truly need an entire episode with barely any of The Bad Batch? We got them for a literally 10-second scene, I really disliked this bit, this is probably my main dislike of the entire series so far.

Favorite Moment

My favorite moment would have to be near the end where we got to see the insurgent fighters go and try to save Hera from the Empire’s convoy. We get to see a badass scene where Cham goes and takes down a group of speeders, while the rest of the Twi-lek’s takedown the convoy. They save Hera and tell her to leave, this is where Crosshair makes his make by shooting a senator and blaming the Syndulla’s.

Standout character

I think I’d have to go with Crosshair on this one, it’s been a while since we’ve seen him use his sniper, with the amount of damage he’s gone through, it’s good to know he can still shoot.

The Verdict

The entire episode focused on the background and the “origins” of Hera Syndulla, a key figure in the Resistance. While the episode was fairly decent, an entire episode without The Bad Batch was a bad decision. A definite filler episode for sure.

Rating: 8.5/10

Photo: Star Wars: The Bad Batch “Devil’s Deal”.