WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 1, Episode 9, “Bounty Lost,” now streaming on Disney+.
The break between Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: The Bad Batch wasn’t random. Order 66 literally reshaped the galaxy, and nothing about Star Wars would be the same again. The two shows simply make the clearest demonstration of it. That bears out not only in the Bad Batch themselves – now struggling with their purpose in a galaxy operating under new rules – but to supporting figures who have either arrived at the end of their respective stories or the beginning of them.
Season 1, Episode 9, “Bounty Lost,” carries an unexpected entry in that list: Taun We, the first Kaminoan ever seen in canon, who played a large role in both The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of Clones. Her end here – sudden and perfunctory, but revealing dark secrets to the young Omega – is another signal that an entire era in the Star Wars universe has come to a close.
Officially, Taun We served as a senior aide to Prime Minister Lama Su, and oversaw the creation and training of the Clone Army in Attack of the Clones. She was the Kaminoan who greeted Obi-wan Kenobi when he arrived during his investigation, and accompanied the Jedi and the Prime Minister on a tour of the facilities. She didn’t appear in The Clone Wars themselves – the Kaminoan presence in the series was limited – but returned in The Bad Batch as Lama Su’s attaché in Season 1, Episode 1, “Aftermath.”
She remained loyal to her leader and dedicated to carrying out his agenda, as she had in Attack of the Clones. Lama Su removed Nala Se from the operation to retrieve Omega, considering her maternal feelings for the clone girl suspect, and sent Taun We in her place to make the exchange with Cad Bane. When she arrived, Fennec Shand shot her and claimed Bane’s payment — intending to negotiate for custody of the girl.
We’s death is another example of how well Star Wars – and The Bad Batch in particular – follow through with their respective world-building. A random Kaminoan might have sufficed just as easily as a named one, but selecting Taun We provided continuity and a weighted tragedy to her loss that might not have existed otherwise.
We’s also an apt representative of her species; delicate grace and beauty hiding a slowly rotting core. Taun We has no problems with executing Omega after her genetic material is extracted, since the Prime Minister wants it. Her execution comes at the orders of a fellow Kaminoan and fittingly takes place in the faded ruins of a former Kaminoan facility on Bora Vio. Her death was an ignoble afterthought in what amounted to human trafficking for money — a long way from the grace and beauty that they present to the rest of the galaxy.
It’s likely a sign of things to come for her species, who didn’t appear in the later movies and are fighting desperately to avoid political irrelevance in The Bad Batch. Their position will likely grow more desperate as the series goes on, and figures like Omega increasingly become their only bargaining chip. Taun We’s death is likely fitting for a planet whose time is passing. The Bad Batch found an excellent way to connect that to Star Wars’ past, and a character whose quiet misdeeds finally caught up to her.
Created by Dave Filoni, Star Wars: The Bad Batch stars Dee Bradley Baker, Andrew Kishino and Ming-Na Wen. New episodes premiere Fridays on Disney+.
About The Author
