One of the things that was always a bit of a dark shadow in the star wars lore was: "So what exactly happened to the clone program post the clone wars?" And obviously, that is not something that can be answered by the main clones of the clone wars show such as commander cody or the 501st because, spoiler alert: order 66 happened.
And that as such has almost to completely erased the personalities of all the clones that existed pre empire, that was kind of the point.
Now, the begining of this show kind of walked back on what was the true horror of order 66, because originally Caleb or Kannan Jarrus and his master, along with the clone unit they were leading, were hit by order 66 during a moment of vulnerability, they were sitting around a campfire, and having fun and then the order hits.
This shows the main reason why order 66 was so impactful, the clones didn't give off any ill will and they were human so the Jedi treated them as such, they became close, as they would, they became comfortable, and then... Like a switch flipping off... I mean yes, being hit in the middle of the battle is a bit of a pickle sure but your senses are heightened, can you imagine... If youre sleeping?
The show kind of walked back that scene from the comics and replaced it with a much more generic, shot up in the middle of the battle scene.
But that unnecessary digression aside, the show them proceeds to follow a mutated batch of clones i.e. clone force 99 named after clone 99 a deformed clone who was incapable of fighting but ended up sacrificing himself to help clone commander echo(who was an advanced recon regular clone before he got cybernetic enhancements) and the mutated batch escape.
The mutated batch, also nicknamed the bad batch called themselves clone force 99 to honor the trooper, these clones being mutated, have a defective inhibitor chip and therefore they did not execute order 66 and kept their personalities intact.
It is through them that we see how the announcement of the first galactic empire was recieved by people around the galaxy, specifically the clones, and then we see how through admiral Rampart the clones are slowly decommissioned for being too high cost and the the clone facility on kamino is destroyed while all the remaining clones are treated worse than war veterans in a facility in a place called tantiss across season 2.
This facility(Tantiss) experiments on clones in a very Nazi, Mengele sort of fashio... Hold on a second, a show where a group of mutants are the main characters, who are referred to as "bad" for being mutated, part of a sect(clones) that defends the common populace from threats but are instead forced to fight for their right to live and are subjected to a bunch of Mengele like experiments based on the Nazi experiments... Are we watching X-Men'97?
Anyways, that digression aside as well, this season focused mainly on two things, getting the batch back together after crosshair's betrayal, and fighting dr. Hemlock who does experiments in clones for the sake of project necromancer.
The first part was well done, for the second part I believe the show dragged a bit, but that's okay, it happens from time to time.
And this episode is mainly the conclusion of the second arc, where in omega and the children get out of the containment facility and are rescued by the bad batch, without plan 99, which is a member of the batch sacrificing themselves for the greater good, just like tech did at the end of season 2(and I'm glad he stayed dead, honoring his sacrifice.)
Crosshair goes through an interesting arc here, where in he is a character that sort of really can't exist outside of a war shown by his ptsd and constantly shaking hand, and he is sort of symbolically freed from this shackle when his hand is cut off by a special forces clone Trooper.
I'm surprised some clones are still working for hemlock, like not the special forces ones, those have gone through intensive conditioning to become who they are, like regular clones such as the one that stay with him at all times during this episode.
The batch except for echo are captured and then the freedom clones along with Omega, Echo and Emerrie go to save them, and whilst Hemlock tries his best to escape with her the batch intercept and kill him.
Just as the batch leave, governor Tarkin comes in due to an earlier incident of the Zillo beast breaking out, which I only recently figured out was a call back to the clone wars era, see star wars does this sometimes, they call back to a certain things and don't really give much further context in the episode, and that sometimes leads to a slight let's say, confusion between those who are watching this show without the previous ones.
But regardless all the operations are redirected to project Stardust(also called the deathstar.) and the batch successfully make their way to pabu which they can now rest at in peace seeing that only hemlock knew that that was where the batch was resting and now the database and tantiss is destroyed.
And it seems that the batch just decided to grow old there, hunter and wrecker being the only two that survive throughout without much permanent damage, tech is dead and crosshair lost his aiming arm.
The show them shows a much older Omega going off to become a republic pilot.
It's a good ending and it does a lot, I was however, a little disappointed that we didn't get the force sensitivity of the children play into it at all, like sure they aren't trained, but something like a feeling or a slight use of the force saving the party would have been nice.
And it seems that this show is setting up a potential Omega spinoff, where it would seem that omega will be revealed to be forced sensetive(at least the show implied that she is in the Ventress episode and the fact that she was kept with the other force sensetive children.)
And it seems another star wars show is over.
I'm kinda sad that this show wasn't you know, released in a better Time, I feel if it were, I would feel a lot better about it, however right now it just doesn't do much, which doesn't mean it's bad, it's a beat little show for what it is, much more than star wars around it is ina poor state.
Which is a sad state for things to be in.
Anyways since I mentioned X-Men'97 by name, and that also released an episode, I feel I must go and write an article on X-Men'97.