WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 1, Episode 8, “Reunion,” streaming now on Disney+.
Although the latest episode of Star Wars: The Bad Batch features a dramatic “reunion” with Crosshair, there is clearly no love lost between the sharpshooter and his former squad. However, there is another love in the episode that’s much more successful. It’s Wrecker’s almost giddy passion for anything that goes boom. If everyone could find someone who looked at them how Wrecker looks at a proton torpedo, the galaxy might be a better place.
From his first appearance, Wrecker was associated with explosives. He was the big guy that liked to turn things into rubble. He rescued Commander Cody in The Clone Wars and walked away with a dramatic explosion at his back. During the same mission, he also blew up a spider droid on the way to rescue Echo from the Separatists. It seems like his general response to situations is to blow it up now and ask questions later.
Despite Wrecker being regularly portrayed as the overpowered brute, he actually displays a lot of knowledge in this episode. An early scene in “Reunion” shows Wrecker cheerfully teaching Omega to disarm a thermal explosive. After showing her how to do it, he rearms the bomb and gives her ten seconds. Omega cuts a wrong wire, and Wrecker mock-panics, telling her to run for it. When the explosive goes off, it is just a smoke bomb. Wrecker thinks that the whole thing is hilarious, telling Omega that she should have seen her face. Omega is disappointed at her failure, but Wrecker is confident that she’ll be a munitions expert soon enough.
Wrecker is actually knowledgeable about explosives, not just in love with the carnage. However, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love them all the same. When the team finds the armory onboard the Jedi cruiser, the sheer joy he displays at seeing a full cache of proton torpedoes is too much to contain. It’s kind of endearing when he says, “Come here, beautiful,” and lifts his helmet to kiss the deadly weapon. The rest of the crew is excited for what the explosives might sell for, but Wrecker’s love for them is unadulterated by the thoughts of profit.
Even after Tech informs the crew of Crosshair’s arrival, Wrecker would not abandon his haul. He manages to navigate numerous precarious situations while keeping hold of one of the torpedoes and a huge case of thermal detonators. His efforts are well-founded, though, and end up saving the Bad Batch. While escaping the artillery deck, Wrecker lobs the torpedo at one of Crosshair’s elite soldiers, who is wielding a flame thrower and lands a direct hit, clearing a path of escape.
Later in The Bad Batch episode, his case of thermal detonators also comes in handy. When Crosshair tries to incinerate them inside of the cruiser’s ion engine, they use his explosives to blow the exhaust cone away from the engine’s reaction cylinder and save themselves. But none of that would have been possible if Wrecker did not lug the giant case from the armory. His love for explosives saved the group, and it probably won’t be the last time that happens.
Created by Dave Filoni, Star Wars: The Bad Batch stars Dee Bradley Baker, Andrew Kishino and Ming-Na Wen. New episodes air Fridays on Disney+.
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