Star Wars: The Bad Batch Features A Sly Nod To The High Republic Era
This article contains spoilers for "Star Wars: The Bad Batch" season 3, episode 2, "Paths Unknown."
The three-episode premiere of the third season of "Star Wars: The Bad Batch" offers us two episodes focusing on Omega and Crosshair and their travails on Mount Tantiss, but the middle episode gives us a look at what Hunter and Wrecker are doing as they tear the galaxy apart searching for Omega. Naturally, they find themselves on the trail of the Imperial Scientists and make their way to an abandoned facility. It's bombed out and abandoned (much like Kenari was in "Andor"), so the pair hunt for clues about where Dr. Hemlock and his science team went next.
While they're on this mysterious planet, Hunter and Wrecker find a group of clone cadets who had been left behind. The whole situation gives off a bit of a vibe like "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome," although there are worse things lurking in the forests than Aunty Entity and Master Blaster.
Slither vines
The clone cadets — one of which is voiced by Daniel Logan, reprising the clone role he originated as a young Boba Fett in "Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones" — warn Hunter and Wrecker about the slither vines (sentient plants that will attack at will). The cadets reveal that these vines were experimental biological weapons that Dr. Hemlock had been working on. This in itself should be no surprise. There were episodes in the second season of "The Bad Batch" that showed Dr. Hemlock still working on one of Emperor Palpatine's pet projects to weaponize the Zillo Beast.
The slither vines attack almost like the rathtars first introduced in "Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens," wrapping people up and eating them where they can. They're giant plant monsters in every way, slithering through the jungles and trying to gnaw on clones — including the Bad Batch — wherever they can find them.
One wonders where the Imperials got the basis to begin experimenting on plants like this — something that seems to harken back to the High Republic era of "Star Wars."
The drengir
One of the chief villainous presences in the first phase of "The High Republic" was the drengir. The drengir was a species of carnivorous plants, though they had definite intelligence and could have bizarre effects on Force users — which wouldn't really matter to the Bad Batch. Still, the slither vines and their main beaked mouth bear a striking resemblance to the drengir from "The High Republic" and make one wonder if these slither vines were the results of experiments on what was left of their species by the Empire, with the intelligence having been bred or cloned out of them, leaving them with naught but their instincts to kill. There's no overt indication that these slither vines are direct descendants of the drengir (although they operate similarly and were experimented on by the Imperials), but it wouldn't surprise me, given how interconnected the "Star Wars" universe has become. It would also go to show the lengths Palpatine went to in order to secure his power — unleashing an ancient enemy that took a lot of work to contain simply to prevent uprisings. It's bold and disturbing.
At the same time, it appears as though these slither vines hurt Dr. Hemlock and his science division and were the main factor that led to them abandoning this particular base and brutally destroying it from orbit. In other words, they lost control — and losing control of his creations or the things he needs for his experiments seems to be what Dr. Hemlock does best so far.
New episodes of the final season of "Star Wars: The Bad Batch" premiere on Wednesdays on Disney+.