The long-awaited seventh and final season of The Clone Wars is almost upon us, and ahead of its Disney+ debut on February 21st, the titles and plot descriptions of its first two episodes have been released.
The season opener, titled “The Bad Batch,” is synopsized as “Captain Rex and the Bad Batch must infiltrate an enemy base on Anaxes,” and the second, titled “A Distant Echo,” follows on from this with “Anakin Skywalker, Rex, and the Bad Batch make a shocking discovery on Skako Minor.” And that’s all we’re getting, although given the fast pacing that episodes of The Clone Wars typically possess, much more than that really shouldn’t be needed to pique viewers’ interest.
The two episodes are the first half of a four-part arc that was scheduled as the opener of what was intended to be The Clone Wars’ original seventh season, which would likely have aired in the fall of 2014, but was scrapped after the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney that resulted in the series’ untimely cancellation. As such, it follows that the next two episodes will be titled “On the Wings of Keeradaks” and “Unfinished Business,” these being the names the subsequent installments were given, the former of which references the giant flying reptiles seen in the most recent trailer.
The ‘Bad Batch’ of the descriptions are a quartet of elite clone commandos, the result of an abandoned experiment to incorporate desirable genetic mutations into clones to enhance their combat capabilities, in this case resulting in heightened senses, sharpshooting skills, tech genius and superhuman strength. They were envisioned as a variation on the Dirty Dozen, down to the same suicidal gung-ho attitude and alliterative team designation.
Even as The Clone Wars comes to another, this time definite conclusion, its creatives are still finding new ways to bring variations on established material, giving it a chance to go out on a much deserved high.