Every time an episode of Star Wars: The Bad Batch lands, Fantha Tracks will be giving their responses, and here are our initial gut feelings, deep dives and thoughts on episode five of season two, ‘Entombed’. Beware of spoilerific elements in here.
Eric Onkenhout
‘Entombed,’ the fifth episode of The Bad Batch season 2, was another love letter to Indiana Jones. There is a lot of that going around between Willow and now, The Bad Batch. Much like the last episode, Faster, Entombed could be mistaken as a dreaded “filler” episode. But each episode serves its purpose. While Faster displayed Tech’s leadership side, Entombed opened up an entirely new world to Omega. Meanwhile, the guys are caught out of their element, leaving Phee Genoa in charge.
The events of ‘Entombed’ can be wrapped up in two paragraphs. Phee Genoa convinces the guys and Omega to accompany her to Kaldar Trinary to go on a treasure hunt. What sparked this idea was an old compass Omega found in a junkyard while scouring it with Wrecker. When the Marauder lands on the scorched planet, the crew advances towards a mountain, and of course, they must go through it. Because going around is no fun. Once they enter, there are clues of an ancient civilization called the Skara Nal all throughout.
That’s not all that’s inside the mountain. A sizeable reptilian creature attacks and nearly kidnaps Wrecker, but he is rescued. As the group progresses, they continuously have to solve puzzles and riddles until they find a rare crystalline stone. Eventually, they activate an enormous robotic creature. Something out of Godzilla. Like a four-legged Mechagodzilla. Dave Filoni is a big Godzilla fan, so that makes sense. The creature is deactivated once the stone is reinserted into the wall inside the creature. The crew then escapes and makes their way back to the Marauder.
The End.
Entombed was beautiful to watch, but it left me wondering what I just watched as far as the plot. It reminded me of the Rebels episode on Malachor with Ezra and Maul. And also the Star Wars Resistance episode, ‘The Relic Raiders,’ in which Kaz goes inside a temple of the Force where a bunch of weird stuff happens. The Bad Batch is working towards more ancient stories, possibly linking to Jedi: Fallen Order or The High Republic. And don’t forget The Seeing Stone in The Mandalorian. There’s something there. I’m just not sure what yet. Look for clues in future Star Wars content.
Jen Sopchockchai
This week’s episode featured a fun treasure hunt, full of puzzles and booby-trap-laden peril. The Indiana Jones comp is undeniable, and is just one in a slew of homages or references we’ve been in getting in Lucasfilm stories lately — namely Andor and Willow. This jaunt through an ancient ruin actually reminded me a lot of the LucasArts point and click adventure game from 1995 called The Dig, which is basically Indiana Jones in space. It has lots of runes and markings that you have to line up, and, as all great point and click adventures demand, you had to put different objects together to make things happen.
I saw The Bad Batch doing this all episode, especially Omega. It was always very satisfying to see her take the compass-like object and reveal glowing markings invisible to the naked eye. We didn’t necessarily need to be reminded of how bright and intuitive she is, but I like that the series has maintained that consistency — that she’s noticeably more perceptive than everyone else.
The treasure hunt isn’t only a fun way to showcase Omega’s sharp mind; it explores and expands on Star Wars lore in mysterious and scintillating ways. The second Phee says that they’re searching for an ancient relic called “The Heart of the Mountain,” I did a double take. I’d heard that phrase in Star Wars before, in a run of Marvel comics in 2015, starting with issue #26 of the main Star Wars title, written at the time by Jason Aaron. These five issues take a break from the main plot and, through a frame narrative of Luke reading Obi-Wan Kenobi’s diaries, chronicle “Yoda’s secret war” in the Vagadarr system, before the Clone Wars.
Just as Phee does with the “Heart of the Mountain” in this episode of The Bad Batch, characters in these comics attribute the mystical blue, living stone to “The Ancient Ones,” who predate the Jedi. That’s the most mysterious and fascinating aspect of this from a lore expansion perspective. The blue stone, as far as I can tell, seems to be different than kyber crystals. And maybe more powerful, since one hunk of it can apparently power a giant four-legged mech Kaiju that can obliterate its surroundings with lasers. Who built that giant mech? And why? What were its creators originally trying to destroy? Why did someone hide the giant mech here and create all the booby traps, presumably in order to prevent anyone else from using it?
Beyond the blue stone comprising The Heart of the Mountain, not much of this Indiana Jones-esque temple seemed familiar to me. And that’s super exciting for me as a Star Wars fan. I felt similarly about another ancient being, The Bendu in Rebels. He seemed to operate outside of the Jedi/Sith, Light Side/Dark Side binary; I’d never seen anything like him in Star Wars before, and I wanted to know more about him and his backstory.
I expect that in a few episodes something will light a fuse and spark a major change for this team, this family. I think the evocation of Indiana Jones and therefore Harrison Ford and therefore Han Solo (maybe not necessarily in that order) reflects a similar inner conflict that iconic character faced in the Original Trilogy. George Lucas once described Han Solo as “A loner who realizes the importance of being part of a group and helping for the common good.” Will the Bad Batch continue to be loners, or will they become part of a bigger group like the rand help for the common good, or, as Echo said in the premiere, for “others out there who need our help”?
(This is condensed and edited – with permission – from Jen’s The Long Take review, which you can subscribe to here)
Mark Newbold
In this weeks thrilling episode of Indiana Clones and the Jedi Temple Goes BOOM, the Bad Batch and Short Round, errr, I mean Omega join Phee Genoa to hunt relics on a one-off intergalactic treasure hunt that while steering well clear of the bigger picture was, like last weeks excellent Faster, a fun rollercoaster ride that reminds us of the adventure serial roots of the saga while remembering to tell a thrilling story at the same time.
Indeed, it has all the Indy tropes that the man in the hat borrowed from those 30’s and 40’s action romps. There’s puzzles, traps, some sumptuous music from Kevin Kiner and the requisite beautiful lighting that makes the show look more expensive than it likely costs by a factor of 10. In addition, it really does show how smart young Omega is. She’s figuring out the puzzles and pitfalls quicker than anyone else, and while the military skills and capability to work as a team means Clone Force 99 are able to keep up, she really shines here. Plus her enthusiasm at getting to know Phee is adorable, even down to her mimicking the older adventurer despite Phee being laser focused on the treasure at the heart of the mountain, a mountain which turns out to be a Mecha Kaiju that is surely the stuff of Dave Filoni’s dreams.
Season 2 has gotten off to a strong start, and while the wider mythology has yet to really kick in these standalone, group stories are doing a great job of giving us more of the characters, allowing us to get to know them better as they head towards the tricky waters of the future. Echo seems dissatisfied with their focus, while Hunter doesn’t seem himself at all. Wrecker is, well, Wrecker while Tech seems to be growing by the week. With last weeks advice regarding the trustworthiness of Cid and Crosshair still being a good soldier and following the orders of the Empire, surely the next big arc is only a short hop away. Until then, enjoy these side missions and let’s hope Clone Force 99 are ready for what’s inevitably coming their way.
