Warning: This article contains spoilers for Star Wars Season 2 Episode 3: The Bad Shipment.
There could be a new recruit in Clone Force 99, as Dave Filoni’s Star Wars: The Bad Batch has just brought back a fan-favorite clone from the forgotten depths of Star Wars fandom. As Hunter, Echo, Tech, and Wrecker battle Crosshair’s betrayal in The Bad Batch season two, they may have found a new ally in the form of the infamous Commander Cody from the prequel era.
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 review who was Obi-Wan Kenobi’s second in commandand what his big appearance as a guest in the third episode of the second season of Star Wars: The bad consignment could mean for the rest of the series.
Who is Commander Cody from Star Wars?
Introduced in Revenge of the Sith, Commander Cody was like most other clone troopers and was played by Temuera Morrison. Cody is a close friend of Obi-Wan Kenobi. of Ewan McGregor, which makes his betrayal of the beloved Jedi all the more heartbreaking when Sheev Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) enacts Order 66.
As General Kenobi’s right-hand man, Cody oversaw the 212th Attack Battalion of the Grand Army of the Republic and the 7th Air Corps, fighting against the Separatists and developing a close friendship with CT-7657 (Captain Rex), the favorite of The bad consignment. We already saw Rex in the first season of the series, and now Cody has also reared his head in a post-Order 66 world.
Although Obi-Wan survived his assassination attempt on Utapau, Cody truly thought that he had taken down the guy he had helped take down General Grievous moments before. It has been confirmed that Cody was active beyond Order 66, helping to enslave the Wookiees on Kashyyyk. When we pick it up in The Bad Shipment, it’s clear that she has changed her mind.
Cody begins to question the Empire’s promises of a better future in the months after Order 66.
Episode 3 is titled “The Lonely Clone”, and while you might think it refers to Crosshair, his clever name is also paints Cody as a lone figure. When he accompanies Crosshair on a mission to the planet Desix, Cody begins to question the Empire’s promises of a brighter future in the months after Order 66. It’s not just clone troops landing on the planet, and by the time the clone troopers appear credits, Cody realizes that Ralph McQuarrie’s Imperial stormtroopers are beginning to replace them.
In front of the memorial to the clones killed in the First Battle of Geonosis, a hesitant Cody explains that the difference between clone troopers and droids is that clone troopers have to live with the consequences of what they’ve done. After refusing to kill the Separatist Governor (but being gleefully carried out by Crosshair), Cody goes into hiding and leaves his post before the end of the episode. But, Is this the last we’ve seen of CC-2224?
What’s next for Commander Cody in The Bad Batch?
We know that the clones are implanted with a biochip that makes them obediently obey orders, leading to the iconic phrase “Good soldiers follow orders.” It’s not just the political movements on Kamino and the cost of creating clones that are leading the Empire to phase out clones in favor of Imperial stormtroopers. The fact that his inhibitor chips eventually wear off is another decisive factor in why Emperor Palpatine retired his previously loyal puppets from service. We saw the tragic effects of this with an outcast clone begging for money in the Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series.
In the last few episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Ahsoka Tano helped Captain Rex de-chip himself, while Rex returned the favor to Clone Force 99 in Season 1 of The Bad Batch. It seems like, Cody’s inhibitor could already be fried without surgery. As Vice Admiral Rampart (Noshir Dalal) points out, those around Crosshair continue to go AWOL. It is important to note that Cody is the second clone to go rogue in as many episodes. In “Ruins of War”, Captain Wilco refused to falsify a report on The Bad Shipment, leading Rampart to murder him.
Introducing Crosshair as the show’s big bad, presumably he’ll soon be hot on the heels of both Cody and The Bad Batch. Considering we didn’t see where Cody went at the end of the episode, there is a small chance that he was killed off-screen by Crosshair.
Unlike Captain Rex who has an expanded story in Star Wars Rebels, the lack of Cody in that series has us worried about this charismatic clone. By now, it’s likely that Cody has tracked down Rex, and that the two of them will meet with the Bad Shipment later to discuss Crosshair. Remembering that there are 16 episodes in the second season of The Bad Batch, It will give us plenty of time to see Cody again..
Speaking of which, we almost have him back in the main Star Wars canon of a very different way.
Could Star Wars bring back a forgotten Cody story?
In some alternate reality, Cody had a much bigger arc before his return in Season 2 of The Bad Batch. At Drag-Con 2018, screenwriter Henry Gilroy confirmed that had ruled out Cody’s return in Rebels, where he would have had a more villainous role. With his chip still intact, Cody was originally going to work with Grand Admiral Thrawn to track down the Ghost crew.
More recently, screenwriter Stuart Beattie revealed that Cody was to play a major role in the first of a trilogy of films about Obi-Wan Kenobi.. Speaking to The Direct, Beattie confirmed that the draft for his first Obi-Wan movie included Cody as a “secret friend” of the outcast Jedi on Tatooine. Reflecting some of what we’ve already seen in The Bad Batch, Beattie explained: “He’s had the biochip removed from his head and now he realizes what he did was wrong. And [estaba] guilt-ridden, as much as Obi-Wan is guilt-ridden.”
The draft for the first Obi-Wan film featured Cody as the “secret friend” of the Jedi outcast on Tatooine.
In addition to Cody and Obi-Wan “squabbling like an old married couple,” the Jedi was leaving Tatooine (as he did in Deborah Chow’s Disney+ TV series that replaced the movies), leaving a young Luke Skywalker in the care. from Cody. It appears that many of Beattie’s ideas did not make it to the series, including Cody and Obi-Wan’s encounter with a drunken Jawa, as well as their feeding dead stormtroopers to a local Sarlacc. But before the Obi-Wan Kenobi series premiered, there were repeated rumors that Cody would appear. Instead, Beattie believes that Temuera Morrison’s involvement in The Book of Boba Fett caused Cody to miss the cut.
Having Cody back at Obi-Wan’s side would certainly have taken some of the loneliness out of Kenobi, but in the end, we know that was largely filled by Vivien Lyra Blair’s young Leia. But maybe some aspects of Beattie’s Cody story will make it to the screen. For now, We don’t know what the future holds for Cody.but with the potential of Obi-Wan season two, as well as The Bad Batch, this relic of the Clone Wars could soon be making the rounds with Obi-Wan and the ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn.
