Warning - This article contains spoilers for Part 2 of the Season 1 finale of Star Wars: The Bad Batch.
For years, fans of Lucasfilm Animation mourned the fact that Disney's Star Wars sequel trilogy and its stand-alone films somewhat ignored the saga's animated series such as Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels.
That all changed, however, upon the release of The Mandalorian, Star Wars' first live-action series on Disney+.
Now that Lucasfilm's Dave Filoni - who worked with George Lucas on The Clone Wars and created Star Wars Rebels - is firmly rooted in both Star Wars live-action and its animated projects, it appears that the MCU's signature style of interconnected storytelling has finally made its way to the galaxy far, far away.
While Star Wars animated characters have been crossing into live-action and back in recent Lucasfilm projects, one of the best examples of the studio's renewed attempt at connectivity occurred in the final scene of Star Wars: The Bad Batch's Season 1 finale.
BABY YODA MYSTERY ROOTED IN THE BAD BATCH?
Star Wars: The Bad Batch - Lucasfilm Animation's latest animated series - followed experimental Clone Force 99 and its new member, Omega, through Order 66 and into the early days of the Galactic Empire.
Due to a lead cast comprised of clones, the series leaned into its unique perspective of the fallen Republic, the changing galaxy, and the growing irrelevancy of clones in the eyes of the Empire.
In Part 1 of the season finale titled "Return to Kamino," the Empire destroyed Kamino's Tipoca City and its cloning facilities.
However, Part 2 titled "Kamino Lost" confirmed that cloning itself, as well as its importance to the Empire, had only begun and already had connections to Star Wars live-action.
The final scene of the episode showed Nala Se - Kamino's chief scientist responsible for Clone Force 99 and Omega - arriving on an Imperial base on Dario bearing a symbol familiar to Star Wars fans.
The two-character gray hexagonal symbol is nearly identical to the one worn by Doctor Pershing - a clone engineer - from The Mandalorian.
In The Mandalorian, Doctor Pershing extracted Grogu blood due to its high midi-chlorian count. The Empire's Baby Yoda-involved plan would benefit Kamino-esque cloning experiments on Navarro in the series' Season 2.
During The Mandalorian's run, Star Wars fans noted that his symbol was similar to that worn by clones in training in 2002's Attack of the Clones.
HOW BABY YODA, CLONES, & THE EMPEROR ARE CONNECTED
While the symbol's connection to cloning is nothing new to Star Wars fans, Nala Se's involvement is.
The fact she is going to work with scientists wearing the same symbol as The Mandalorian's Doctor Pershing indicates her expertise is likely to contribute to what Pershing and The Empire attempted to do with Grogu.
In fact, the Empire's plans for Grogu may be rooted in what Nala Se worked on in her secret lab that created Omega, Clone Force 99, and possibly Boba Fett.
Her contributions may also lay the groundwork for how Supreme Leader Soke and the Emperor were cloned in Disney's Star Wars sequel trilogy.
Clearly, there's still more to learn about Grogu as well as Omega and Clone Force 99. However, The Bad Batch is no longer just connected to The Clone Wars but also The Mandalorian and possibly the films.
The question now is whether Filoni will continue to explore this clone-related connection; and if so, how deep will the story go?
All episodes of Season 1 of Star Wars: The Bad Batch are streaming on Disney+.
