The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2, Episode 5, "Entombed," now streaming on Disney+.
The one downfall of The Bad Batch is its filler episodes. "The Solitary Clone" gave fans a dark and meaningful look into Crosshair and Commander Cody's lives as Clones in the Empire. After that, though, there have been two "meh" episodes. "Faster" was a fun and fast-paced look at riot racing, but there wasn't much in terms of plot developments. Episode 5, "Entombed" really wasn't much better.
The episode started with Omega and Cid in a junkyard looking for a compressor. When they brought it back to Cid's parlor, Phee Genoa was there telling some of her treasure-hunting tall tales. Along with the compressor, Omega brought some random junk, but Phee identified one of the pieces as an ancient compass. That compass led to a treasure hunt that disproved a huge fan theory about Season 2.
The Bad Batch's Walker Was Not the Zillo Beast
When The Bad Batch's trailer came out, the 0:43 mark showed fans a quick glimpse at a massive creature. It was a four-legged, armored monster with a long neck and glowing eyes. Most fans immediately thought of the Zillo beast from The Clone Wars Season 2. The beast was awoken during the Battle of Malastare and taken to Coruscant to be studied. Unfortunately, it escaped and had a Godzilla style-rampage before the Jedi were forced to bring it down.
Palpatine did order the Zillo to be cloned, so fans assumed that the creature in the trailer could have been an armored clone of the original Zillo Beast. However, that was totally wrong. "Entombed" showed Phee leading the Bad Batch on a treasure hunt to the Kaldar Trinary System. There, they went through multiple puzzles before unlocking Skara Nal -- an ancient walker with an unstoppable energy weapon.
The Bad Batch's Walker Could've Been Made By the Rakata or the Zeffo
The episode didn't give a lot of details about the massive walker, but it gave enough clues to get fans thinking. And the ramifications could be massive. First off, Phee said that the markings inside Skara Nal were thousands of years old, noting that they were from a time well before the Jedi existed. That means that an ancient civilization created the walker, and it must have been an extremely advanced society to possess the technology and weapons knowledge to create the Skara Nal. So far, only two species fit the bill in Star Wars canon: the Rakata and the Zeffo.
In Star Wars Legends, the Rakata were an ancient species who commanded the Force and warred with the Je'daii Order. They would have been technologically advanced enough to build the Skara Nal, and thanks to Andor the Rakata are canon. The Zeffo were introduced in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. They were long extinct by then, but Cal Kestis wandered through some of their ruins.
As it stands, there isn't any specific proof that the Rakata or the Zeffo made the Skara Nal. However, the Zeffo feel like the more likely of the two. In nothing else, Skara Nal's head was large and flat, like the Zeffo species. So, it's a reasonable prediction that The Bad Batch could be setting up a long-term connection for the Star Wars franchise by introducing ancient Zeffo history. It may not affect the rest of The Bad Batch's season, but it could be important in another project.
New episodes of The Bad Batch stream Wednesdays on Disney+.