The latest episode of Star Wars: The Bad Batch, “Faster,” brings us plenty of callbacks, gambling and… pod racing. For fans of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, this episode was probably a fun reminiscence of The Phantom Menace and young Anakin’s pod racing adventures. For the rest of us, not so much.
Cid’s side adventure
While Hunter and Echo are delivering 50 cases of nerf nuggets (which sounds delicious), Cid brings the rest of the gang to a planet called Safa Toma to back her up while she gambles on riot racing. The difference between riot racing and regular pod racing seems to be that riot racers can shoot and destroy other contestants. Cid has a sassy robot named TAY-0 (voiced by Ben Schwartz) that races and maintains her speeder.
After TAY-O wins his race, Cid gets involved in a wager with another speeder owner named Millegi, who Cid has A past with. In the next race, Millegi’s racer attacks and destroys TAY-0 to win the race, putting Cid in debt to Millegi. When he shows up with his crew to collect, Millegi is convinced by Omega to partake in another race, double or nothing, for Cid’s freedom. Millegi agrees, but takes Cid as collateral while Omega, Tech and Wrecker have a day to repair TAY-0 and the speeder for the next race.
Cid’s Loyalty
Millegi and Cid share a drink in his compound, where Millegi hints at Cid’s past. He toasts to old times and says that the Bad Batch will get to know the real Cid sooner or later. Millegi says that hustlers like them never change, foreshadowing a possible betrayal by Cid.
The Big Race
The Bad Batch are able to repair everything before the race, but TAY-0 is again destroyed by Millegi’s agent just before he is about to compete. When Millegi calls a forfeit and demands to get paid, Tech volunteers to pilot the speeder and compete in the race.
A group of bombastic and truly George Lucas-esque characters compete in the race, including “Steel Claw” Kane, “The Trickster” Flash Raktor and “Quickdraw” Quasar. Tech successfully makes it through the race after avoiding being disintegrated several times. At the very end he is able to dodge Millegi’s dirty tricks to win the race and Cid’s freedom.
Millegi agrees to give Cid over peacefully, and admits that she owes the crew a favor for saving her. Before they leave, Millegi warns that Cid’s loyalty is fickle, and advises them to watch their backs.
Now this is filler!
This was a filler episode if I’ve ever seen one. There was next to nothing that advanced the plot, and two of the main Bad Batch characters did not even appear in the episode. In addition to reopening the pod racing wound, we got a healthy dose of embarrassing prequel era Star Wars motifs and characters.
The one redeeming aspect of this episode was the set up for Cid’s betrayal. While it isn’t confirmed that she will stab the crew in the back, the events of this episode at the very least will make the Bad Batch question her loyalty in the future.
Verdict: D+
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