Warning! This article contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 2, episode 11.Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 2, episode 11 features the surprising return of the Zillo Beast to Star Wars canon, bringing with it a long-forgotten plan from Emperor Palpatine during Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The Bad Batch episode "Metamorphosis" begins with a horror-induced sequence, in which a lone clone commando is running from an unknown monster aboard a damaged ship. The clone is then killed by this unseen creature, with the ship left drifting in the vacuum of space.
This ship is confirmed to be transporting something of great importance to the Empire and Emperor Palpatine. Cid alerts the titular Bad Batch about the lost vessel, agreeing that if Clone Force 99 can retrieve its cargo they can keep 50% of the profit - Cid's way of apologizing for leaving them stranded in The Bad Batch season 2, episodes 9 and 10. Upon reaching the planet on which the ship crashed, the Bad Batch soon discovers a long-lost Imperial secret aboard the ship: the return of The Clone Wars' Zillo Beast.
Star Wars' Zillo Beast Explained
The Zillo Beast first appeared in Star Wars: The Clone Wars in season 2, episode 18, aptly titled "The Zillo Beast." In the episode, Mace Windu and Anakin Skywalker are fighting in one of the war's longest, fiercest battles on Malastare, leading Palpatine to authorize the use of a new electro-proton bomb that will only affect the Separatist droids. The bomb works in disabling the droid army, yet awakens the Zillo Beast that was long thought extinct from beneath the ground.
The leader of the Dugs - the inhabitants of Malastare - revealed that the Zillo Beast was a species of predator that once preyed on their people long before Star Wars: The Clone Wars. However, as the Zillo Beasts feed on energy, the harvesting of such by the Dugs caused the monsters to die ou,t rendering them seemingly extinct until Palpatine's bomb woke one up. Eventually, after stunning the Beast, Palpatine orders it brought back to Coruscant for testing, thinking that the Beast's attributes could aid the Republic in the Clone Wars.
Palpatine Wanted To Create The Ultimate Soldiers - With Zillo Beast Armor
Palpatine's plan in Star Wars: The Clone Wars surrounding the Zillo Beast continued into The Clone Wars, season 2, episode 19, entitled "The Zillo Beast Strikes Back." The Chancellor intended to conduct experiments on the Zillo Beast after seeing its immensely strong armor in action, which even the Jedi's plasma lightsaber blades could not cut through. Palpatine sought to harvest this power and apply it to the Republic's clone troopers as a way of securing victory in the war, likely on top of some other nefarious contingency plans as the soon-to-be Emperor was known to have.
In The Clone Wars, Palpatine suggested killing the Zillo Beast in order to synthesize its shell into clone trooper armor. This brought about a Senate dispute, with the likes of Padmé Amidala opposing killing a sentient creature and the last of its kind. The Zillo Beast then escaped and began a rampage across Coruscant, eventually stopped by the combined efforts of the Jedi, the clones, and Palpatine. That being said, the Zillo Beast's death did not stop Palpatine, whose last orders were to clone the Zillo.
Palpatine Continued His Zillo Beast Plans In The Dark Times
After years of silence, the plot finaly comes back into play with season 2, episode 11 of Star Wars: The Bad Batch confirming that Palpatine successfully cloned the Zillo Beast in the Dark Times when the galaxy was under the Empire's rule. It was revealed that the Emperor was transporting the cloned Zillo Beast to the planet Weyland, where Kaminoan scientist Nala Se is being held in custody. The Empire seeks to use Nala Se's knowledge to continue the Emperor's attempts at controlling cloning in the galaxy.
This extends to the Zillo Beast, with Palpatine likely wishing to continue his plan from Star Wars: The Clone Wars to augment the armor of the Empire's new stormtroopers. While it is unclear at this point whether the storyline will continue throughout The Bad Batch season 2, the Zillo Beast does end up in the Empire's hands. This indicates that the Zillo Beast will play a future role, as will Nala Se and the importance of Omega as Star Wars: The Bad Batch explores Palpatine's sinister plans that could end up tying into the Star Wars saga in a much bigger way than first thought.
New episodes of Star Wars: The Bad Batch release every Wednesday on Disney+.