While season two of The Bad Batch has a fair amount of insanely glorious highlights, it’s ultimately a disappointing step down from the beginnings of a show that has constantly been struggling to find its footing on a weirdly unpredictable level. A lack of passion is clearly not the problem - the animation has only become more and more spectacular as time has gone by and Dee Bradley Baker and Michelle Ang’s enthusiasm in their voice acting is infectious. The supporting voice cast and writing team is very dedicated as well, and Kevin, Sean, and Dean Kiner pour their hearts and souls into the musical department yet again. Unfortunately, the season just can’t help but shoot itself in the foot again and again every time it attempts to create engaging stories and conflicts with the titular Bad Batch, and only manages to uncover new ground whenever it drifts off to explore other elements of this time period in Star Wars. Throughout the constant barrage of galactic missions and endeavors thrown at the Batch, character development for them is only handed out in specks, leaving me unable to become invested in their journey despite the writers’ best efforts to dish out thrilling scenarios and world-building in spades. As talented and energetic as Baker and Ang are, they can only take the Batch so far without a strong script to back them up, despite how likable the characters can be at times. At some points, their misadventures can be quite enjoyable whenever they make waves with the Empire’s sinister agenda of phasing out the clone army, but even those episodes can feel rather underdeveloped because of the season spending way too much time focusing on boring, formulaic Cid-assigned missions that struggle to leave any significant or interesting impact. But on the extremely rare occasion that the season decides to give Crosshair the spotlight, it effortlessly - and consistently - exceeds expectations and stands toe-to-toe with the finest entries of The Clone Wars, along with dethroning many in the process. Crosshair is given an even smaller amount of screen time here than in season one, but he continues to be an absolutely phenomenal character with a fascinating story that if anything, only gets even more powerful and tragic in this season. The Solitary Clone and The Outpost are two of the greatest episodes of Star Wars animation that I have ever seen, telling a hauntingly beautiful cautionary tale against blind loyalty and devotion, and it’s honestly embarrassing how nearly every other episode of The Bad Batch pales in comparison to them. Despite all my criticisms, though, the finale admittedly got me very excited for the future of the show, and at the end of the day I’m still on board to see where Jennifer Corbett and the team take the story next, because the potential of this show when fully realized is truly something special. It just really needs to be found more often.