Ricky Church reviews the fourth episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 7…
The first arc of Star Wars: The Clone Wars‘ final season comes to a close in ‘Unfinished Business’ as Anakin, Rex, Echo and the Bad Batch embark on a stealth mission into the enemy’s main ship while Obi-Wan and Mace Windu lead an assault on the Separatist complex. It’s another pretty action-packed episode that features some good character moments, though the episode focuses more on the action than the themes the arc first presented and leads to a somewhat rushed conclusion between Rex and Echo. All in all, though, ‘Unfinished Business’ was a good cap on the ‘Bad Batch’ arc.
A lot of the strength in this climax comes from the interplay between Anakin, Rex and the rest of the team. Several moments between them all highlight how well they function together, particularly the Bad Batch squad members once again, that makes their exchanges and tactics fun to watch. The questions some of the Bad Batch, specifically Tech, had regarding Echo’s loyalties and whether or not he could be fully trusted given his Separatist brainwashing, were interesting but they also lacked tension as the story never really played with Echo’s mindset to that serious of a degree. His loyalty never felt truly in question enough to feel like he could start working for the enemy with a flip of the switch, even as he implemented an unorthodox plan that put Obi-Wan and Mace in more danger. If ‘Unfinished Business’ could have focused a little more on Echo’s psyche or trauma, Tech’s concerns would have felt more authentic.
Despite Echo’s reliability, Rex never once lost faith in him. It was nice to see Rex stand firm and believe in Echo and still do everything in his power to ensure Echo survived their high-risk infiltration. However, the pair didn’t get that much time together throughout the episode, making their goodbye seem rather rushed. Echo’s feeling of belonging and how he might not fit in with the standard Clone Troopers now was never brought up before the final scene so it seemed abrupt when Rex suggested Echo work with other misfit clones like himself. It would have been nice to have had a more emotional scene between the two here or even prior given how personal this mission was for Rex, but it felt over and done with quickly. One element that would have been great to see and fed into Echo’s decision would have been him asking about Fives, the only other clone who survived in their original squad but died in Season 6, now making Echo the last surviving member of that group, but that was never brought up despite the potential for Echo’s development. The one great thing about their goodbye though was Rex’s pained but accepting expression as he walked away from Echo, seemingly knowing the choice Echo would make before he himself knew. Dee Bradley Baker did knock it out of the park again with his vocal performances of the clones and how Echo gradually sounded more human than machine as the story went on.
Of course, a big part of the episode’s excitement was the action. After three episodes, it was very good to see Jedi other than Anakin wield their lightsabers and take on Battle Droids as Obi-Wan and Mace assaulted the main droid complex with a bunch of their clones. Mace’s offer of the droid’s surrender was a funny beat with Obi-Wan’s reaction to it being the selling point. Windu got quite a bit to do as he fought the droids and searched for the complex’s bomb, using a bit of ingenuity to disarm it. Anakin though got most of the time here as he helped the team on the ship and went off on his own to confront Admiral Trench. We even got to see another element of Anakin’s dark side as he threatened Trench in a way most Jedi would not. One aspect that could have made their encounter more interesting, and more personal for the two, was if they called back to their very first encounter in Season Two’s ‘Cat and Mouse (which is chronologically the first episode of the series). The action with the clones was all very good too with the standout sequences being Wrecker’s charge into a hallway full of droids and Crosshair’s ingenious method of taking out dozens of droids with just a couple shots. It was a pretty exciting episode all round, though the danger for characters who aren’t safe from canon – namely the Bad Batch and Echo – never felt very high.
‘Unfinished Business’ was entertaining with its action and character moments, but it could have benefited more from focusing on the relationship between Rex and Echo. The arc as a whole didn’t quite delve into Echo’s new purpose or the questions surrounding experimenting on a bad batch of clones so they could still be put to the field, not rising enough to the potential it held. The Bad Batch are certainly an intriguing group though and hopefully we’ll see more of them in other Star Wars media, whether later in this season, future comics or animated series.
And with that, we are officially in uncharted territory for The Clone Wars as the ‘Bad Batch’ arc was released in early animation and storyboards a few years ago in the wake of the series’ initial cancellation. The completed episodes differed in some ways to what the early animation was, but largely stayed the same it seems. Now we’ll be heading into completely new, unseen episodes of the final season and that much closer to the anticipated ‘Siege of Mandalore’.
7/10
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