When I spoke to Brad Rau and Jennifer Corbett, the principal minds responsible for this season of “The Bad Batch,” I asked them what movies we should be on the lookout for their inspirations this season. When they said “Indiana Jones,” I wasn’t quite expecting an episode that feels very much like a “Star Wars” homage to “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” but that’s very much what this episode is. As the show’s heroes descend into the mountain and solve elaborate, sometimes life-threatening puzzles to get to the treasure at the center, even the music assembled by Kevin Kiner and team echoes the mysterious tones of the John Williams score for “Raiders.”
As Phee actually gets to take the heart from the mountain, the sound design follows the same pattern as Indy taking the fertility idol from the pedestal, and all hell breaks loose. Except this time, it’s more like “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and aliens are behind the ensuing chaos. There’s even a shot-for-shot remake of a moment from “Raiders of the Lost Ark;” when Phee is grabbing the stone, the shot cuts to Omega, just like Alfred Molina’s Satipo, holding her hands up in the same way, waiting for the payoff.
Phee herself seems as patterned after Indiana Jones as Doctor Aphra is, with distinct and notable differences. In the final accounting, though, this episode takes the Bad Batch on an undeniably Indiana Jones-styled adventure.