In the latest ‘Star Wars: The Bad Batch,’ Squad 99 crosses paths with a Devaronian named Roland
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After the two-part story with Hera Syndulla on Ryloth, Star Wars: The Bad Batch returns to the beast-of-the-week format of its earlier episodes in “Infested.” This installment doesn’t further any of the plotlines involving Kamino or Crosshair, but it does show us more of Ord Mantell, a world we’ve been seeing a lot of in this series. And Cid gets to come along on the adventure for a change.
How can you watch ‘The Bad Batch’?
In order to watch The Bad Batch, you need to subscribe to Disney+, the platform that serves as the online home for all things Star Wars. You can watch Disney+ using streaming devices, desktop browsers, a wide range of mobile devices, smart TVs, and video-game consoles.
A subscription to Disney+ costs $7.99 per month or $79.99 for the full year, though you can save by signing up for the Disney Bundle with ESPN+ and Hulu, which gives you access to all three streaming services for just $13.99 a month.
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What happens in this episode of ‘The Bad Batch’?
Arriving at Cid’s bar on Ord Mantell, the Bad Batch finds the place packed with unfamiliar faces. Roland Durand (Mass Effect: Andromeda’s Tom Taylorson), a young up-and-comer in the galaxy’s criminal underworld, is trying to make a name for himself by seizing Cid’s establishment and turning it into an interstellar smuggling hub. He’s kicked Cid out and set up a deal to sell half a dozen crates of precious spice to the Pykes—an alien crime syndicate created by George Lucas for The Clone Wars and later seen in Solo. But Cid has a plan to get her parlor back and teach the Devaronian a lesson about messing with her business.
Omega points out that helping Cid is the right thing to do after all she’s done for them; the Trandoshan also threatens to spill what she knows about the Batch to interested parties (like the Empire) if they don’t. Her idea is to escort the Batch through an underground cavern that leads directly into her old office where Roland is keeping his spice. Meanwhile, her other associates—Bolo (Liam O’Brien) and Ketch (Sam Riegel)—will lure Roland’s exotic pet, Ruby (a lizard that actually belongs to Cid), out of the bar to cause a distraction.
This elaborate setup works, as they usually do, but then comes the snag: a hive of “irlings.” Down in the caverns, Roland’s enforcers chase the Batch (and a whole lot of valuable spice) in a mine car, firing their blasters and waking up a swarm of flying nocturnal insects. These vicious irlings attack the two parties, avoiding light and lifting the shipment of spice off the rails—spilling all six crates down into the cave.
The Pykes aren’t at all pleased to learn of this sabotage. Roland draws a blaster as they threaten his family with war (and unimaginable pain). Then they strike a new deal: If the spice is delivered to them immediately, their dealings with Cid and the Batch will be concluded. But they’ll take Omega into their custody as collateral in the meantime.
So Wrecker and Cid fish the crates of spice out of the hive, Tech drops a light-emitting bomb down into the mine to save them from the angry swarm of irlings, and the Pykes get their spice. After their business is through, the Pykes slice off Roland’s right horn as punishment for botching their original deal. Cid gets her place back, things return to normal, and Hunter asks Omega why she stuck up for Roland in spite of what he’d done.
“Ruby likes him,” says Omega. “Maybe he’s not all bad.”
Watch ‘The Bad Batch’ on Disney+
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This article originally appeared on Reviewed: The Bad Batch season one, episode 13 recap: Infested
