Star Wars: The Bad Batch’s Surprise Guest Appearance Is More Important Than You Think

Full spoilers follow for The Bad Batch Season 2, Episode 3.

There could be a new recruit for Clone Force 99, as Dave Filoni’s Star Wars: The Bad Batch just brought back a fan-favorite clone from the forgotten depths of Star Wars fandom. While Hunter, Echo, Tech, and Wrecker struggle with the betrayal of Crosshair in The Bad Batch Season 2 (review), they might’ve found a new ally in the form of the Prequel era’s infamous Commander Cody. 

For those who consider themselves experts on 2005’s Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, the name Commander Cody will mean a lot. For those who don’t, let’s dive into a refresher on who Obi-Wan Kenobi’s second-in-command was, and what The Bad Batch Episode 3’s big guest appearance could mean for the rest of the series.

Who Is Star Wars’ Commander Cody?

Introduced in Revenge of the Sith, Commander Cody was just like most other clone troopers and portrayed by Temuera Morrison. Cody is a close friend of Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, which makes his betrayal of the beloved Jedi even more heartbreaking when Sheev Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) enacts Order 66.

Serving as General Kenobi’s right-hand man, Cody oversaw the Grand Army of the Republic’s 212th Attack Battalion and the 7th Sky Corps, battling against the Separatists and forming a close friendship with The Bad Batch favorite CT-7657 (Captain Rex). We’ve already seen Rex in The Bad Batch Season 1, and now Cody has also reared his head in a post-Order 66 world.

Although Obi-Wan survived his attempted assassination on Utapau, Cody genuinely thought he’d gunned down the guy who he’d helped defeat General Grievous just moments before. Cody has been confirmed to have be in active duty beyond Order 66, with him helping enslave the Wookiees on Kashyyyk. By the time we pick up with him in The Bad Batch, it’s clear he’s had a change of heart. 

Cody starts to question the Empire’s promises of a brighter future in the months following Order 66.

Episode 3 is titled “The Solitary Clone,” and while you might think this refers to Crosshair, its clever naming also paints Cody as a solitary figure. When accompanying Crosshair on a mission to the planet Desix, Cody starts to question the Empire’s promises of a brighter future in the months following Order 66. It’s not just clone troopers landing on the planet, and by the time the credits roll, Cody realizes Ralph McQuarrie’s Imperial stormtroopers are starting to replace them. 

Standing in front of the First Battle Memorial to commemorate those fallen clones from the First Battle of Geonosis, a wavering Cody explains that the difference between clone troopers and droids is that the former have to live with the consequences of what they’ve done. After refusing to kill the Separatist Governor – but it being gleefully carried out by Crosshair – Cody tucks tail and abandons his post before the end of “The Solitary Clone.” But, is this the last we’ve seen of CC-2224?

What’s Next for Commander Cody on The Bad Batch?

We know the clones are implanted with a biochip that makes them dutifully obey commands – leading to the iconic line “Good soldiers follow orders.” It’s not just political movements on Kamino and the cost of creating clones that leads to the Empire phasing clones out in favor of Imperial stormtroopers. The fact that their inhibitor chips eventually wear off is another deciding factor in why Emperor Palpatine decommissioned his previously loyal puppets. We saw the tragic effects of this with an outcast clone begging for money in the Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series.

The final episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars featured Ahsoka Tano helping Captain Rex remove his chip, while Rex returned the favor to Clone Force 99 in The Bad Batch Season 1. By the looks of it, Cody’s inhibitor might’ve already been fried without the need for surgery. As pointed out by Vice Admiral Rampart (Noshir Dalal), those around Crosshair keep going AWOL. Importantly, Cody is the second clone to go rogue in as many episodes. “Ruins of War” had Captain Wilco refusing to falsify a report on the Bad Batch, which led to Rampart murdering him. 

Pitching Crosshair as the series’ big bad, there’s the assumption he’ll soon be hot on the tail of both Cody and the Bad Batch. Bearing in mind we didn’t see where Cody went at the end of the episode, there’s a small chance he was killed off-screen by Crosshair. We doubt it would happen, but it would be very “Sophia in the barn” on The Walking Dead for us to later learn Crosshair took him out.

Unlike Captain Rex having an expanded story in Star Wars Rebels, the lack of Cody in that series has us worried about this charismatic clone. For now, Cody has likely tracked down Rex, and the pair will probably later meet the Bad Batch to discuss their Crosshair conundrum. Remembering there are 16 episodes in The Bad Batch Season 2, it gives us plenty of time to see Cody again.

Speaking of which, we nearly had him return to mainline Star Wars canon in a very different way. 

Could Star Wars Bring Back a Forgotten Cody Storyline?

In some alternate reality, Cody had a much bigger arc before his return in The Bad Batch Season 2. Speaking at Drag-Con 2018, writer Henry Gilroy confirmed he nixed Cody’s return in Rebels, where he would’ve had a more villainous role. With his chip still intact, Cody was originally meant to work with Grand Admiral Thrawn to track down the crew of the Ghost. 

More recently, writer Stuart Beattie revealed that Cody was going to play a major part in the first of a proposed trilogy of Obi-Wan Kenobi movies. Speaking to The Direct, Beattie confirmed that his first Obi-Wan movie draft featured Cody as the Jedi outcast’s “secret buddy” on Tatooine. Mirroring part of what we’ve already seen in The Bad Batch, Beattie explained: “He’s had the biochip taken out of his head, and now he realizes, ‘Oh my God, what I did was wrong.’ And he [was] driven by guilt, as much as Obi-Wan is driven by guilt.”

The first Obi-Wan movie draft featured Cody as the Jedi outcast’s “secret buddy” on Tatooine.

Alongside Cody and Obi-Wan “bickering like this old married couple,” the Jedi was going to leave Tatooine (as he did in Deborah Chow’s Disney+ TV series which replaced the movies), leaving a young Luke Skywalker in the care of Cody. It sounds like a lot of Beattie’s ideas didn’t make it into the show, including Cody and Obi-Wan meeting a drunk Jawa, as well as them feeding dead stormtroopers to a local Sarlacc. But before the Obi-Wan Kenobi series was released, there were repeated rumors that Cody would appear. Instead, Beattie thinks that Temuera Morrison’s involvement in The Book of Boba Fett meant that Cody didn’t make the cut. 

Having Cody back by Obi-Wan’s side would’ve undoubtedly taken away from some of Kenobi’s loneliness, but in the end, we know that was largely filled by Vivien Lyra Blair’s Young Leia. But perhaps aspects of Beattie’s Cody story will still find their way onto the screen. For now, we don’t know what the future holds for Cody, but with the potential of Obi-Wan Season 2 as well as The Bad Batch, this relic of the Clone Wars could soon be riding around with Obi-Wan and the ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn.