Star Wars Just Added a New Tragedy to the Clone Wars Era

This Star Wars article contains spoilers for The Bad Batch.

While the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series was a deep dive into the galactic civil war that raged between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, it didn’t delve too deeply into its aftermath. That’s where sequel series The Bad Batch comes in. Taking place directly after the end of the Prequel Trilogy and the rise of the Empire, this series about a renegade squad of mutant clone troopers explores how the galaxy changes once its under the Emperor’s boot.

Season 1 followed the titular Bad Batch (officially known as Clone Force 99) as they turned to a life as mercenaries after defecting from the Empire. While completing jobs for their new employer, cantina owner Cid, the Batch must also evade the Imperial forces who are hunting them. Along the way, they witness the many ways the newly-founded Empire is terrorizing its citizens on once peaceful and allied worlds. By the end of the season, the Emperor has all but consolidated his power, going as far as to destroy the clone facilities on Kamino so that the technology can’t one day be used against him.

As you might expect, more tragedy awaits the galaxy in The Bad Batch season 2…

The first two episodes of the second season, “Spoils of War” and “Ruins of War,” both out today on Disney+, reveal that Tipoca City wasn’t the only place to be destroyed by the Empire in the aftermath of the Clone Wars. When the Batch visit the Outer Rim world of Serenno on a new heist mission, they discover that Imperial bombardment has completely razed the capital city, leaving the once powerful Separatist planet in ruins.

While the Prequel Trilogy never visited Serenno in the films, The Clone Wars fans will know this place well. After all, it’s the home planet of Count Dooku, the Separatist leader and Sith lord first introduced in Attack of the Clones. Although Dooku’s backstory was never fully explored in the films, where he was played by the legendary Christopher Lee, several animated series, books, and comics have fleshed out who he was before the movies and where he came from. The Clone Wars, for example, was the first series to take us to Dooku’s home world and inside Castle Serenno, his seat of power during the Clone Wars.

We learn in The Bad Batch that the castle has been abandoned since Dooku’s death in Revenge of the Sith, but that many treasures still remain inside the building. In the two-part second season premiere, the Batch and stormtroopers fight to recover what’s left of Dooku’s wealth, while the city beyond the castle lies smoldering just below. While it’s not explained why the city was bombarded, one can assume the Empire destroyed it to cover any tracks that would tie the Separatists back to Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious, who played both sides of the galactic war on his way to destroying the Jedi Order. It’s also possible Palps simply had the city razed in order to kill off any remaining Separatist sympathizers on Serenno who might give the Empire trouble in the future.

Either way, The Bad Batch season 2 opens with one more tragedy at the hands of the Empire, and it’s likely that more are yet to come as the Emperor’s reign of terror continues.

New episodes of The Bad Batch air on Wednesday on Disney+.