Star Wars: The Bad Batch‘s Series Finale has been one of the more highly-anticipated stories in recent Star Wars lore – mainly because of morose curiosity about how the end of Clone Force 99’s story fits into the larger Star Wars Saga.
So, did The Bad Batch kill off Clone Force 99, creating a clear ending to their place in Star Wars continuity? Read the SPOILERS below if you want to know!
Star Wars: The Bad Batch Ending Explained
(Photo: Lucasfilm Animation)
In The Bad Batch Season 3 Episode 15, “The Cavalry Has Arrived”, Clone Force 99 and Omega are both (respectively) working to break into / break out of Mount Tantiss. Omega frees herself and her fellow child lab rats by releasing the Zillo Beast against the Imperial forces; Hunter, Wrecker, Crosshairs and Echo infiltrate the base, but their arrival is an ambush by Tantiss head Royce Hemlock, who releases his “CX Operatives” (enhanced and brainwashed clones) to capture Clone Force 99.
Thanks to Omega, her “mother” cloning engineer Nala Se, Echo, and Hemlock’s researcher (and female clone) Emerie, the tide gets turned and Clone Force 99 is saved from Hemlock’s CX conversion process. Hemlock and his “Project Necromancer” research are both destroyed – and Nala Se sacrifices herself to achieve that objective, killing the Bad Batch’s nemesis, former Vice Admiral Rampart.
What Happens to Clone Force 99 & Omega After The Bad Batch?
(Photo: Lucasfilm Animation)
An epilogue to The Bad Batch Series Finale reveals that Clone Force 99 settled on the Planet Pabu, where they had previously stashed clone brothers who were defecting from the Empire. Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshairs knew their fighting days were done; Echo and Emerie pledged to join forces with Captain Rex and continued helping clones who wanted to live free of the Empire’s oppression.
A final scene reveals a time jump to years later, during the era of the Rebel Alliance’s fight against the Empire. An older and more mature Omega decides to end her peaceful time living with her clone “brothers,” and takes the squad’s old ship to join the Rebellion. A grey and aging Hunter is there to bid Omega farewell, finally confident that Clone Force 99 raised Omega well enough for her to handle herself in the war.
How The Bad Batch Ending Connects to The Mandalorian & Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
(Photo: Lucasfilm)
The big mystery at the heart of The Bad Batch Season 3 was Hemlock’s “Project Necromancer” research and its goal of “M-Count” transfers. Star Wars fans quickly discerned that Hemlock was Emperor Palpatine’s appointed scientist for solving one mystery of cloning: how to transfer Darth Sidious’ Force powers to a clone body through Midi-chlorian manipulation. Omega’s DNA turned out to be the key to completing M-Count transfers – critical knowledge that was lost to Palpatine when Clone Force 99 and their allies killed Hemlock and destroyed his research files completely.
Because of the Mission on Mount Tantiss, Palpatine lost a key breakthrough in his cloning research – a loss that would ripple across the eras of Star Wars following the Galactic Civil War. In The Mandalorian Chapter 23: The Spies (Season 3 Episode 7), Moff Gideon and the Imperial Remnants’ “Shadow Council” mentions that Commandant Brednol Hux (father of future First Order General Armitage Hux) had finally restarted Project Necromancer.
Decades later, by the time of the Star Wars Sequels and First Order-Resistance War, Project Necromancer had presumably been enough of a success to allow Darth Sidious to transfer his consciousness and Force powers into a clone body, when he seemingly died in the Battle of Endor during Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.
…But that’s where The Bad Batch’s ending may have had a pivotal effect on things. We know that Palpatine had to keep transferring his essence to new clone bodies – and use “Strandcast” bodies like Snoke as avatars – because his cloning process wasn’t complete. It’s now fair to theorize that losing out on Omega’s DNA was the small but very crucial factor that kept Palpatine from ever full achieving the kind of cloning “immortality” he was chasing.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch, The Mandalorian, and The Sequel Trilogy are all streaming on Disney+.
