Warning: This article contains spoilers from The Bad Batch season 3 premiere.
One of the common complaints about Star Wars: The Bad Batch, and for many animated Star Wars animated series, is that there are too many "filler" episodes. This is a term for episodes that are seemingly unrelated to the overarching story and do not move the overall plot or character development forward.
While an episode's larger relevance may not always be immediately apparent, The Bad Batch has always proven that none of its episodes are simply filler. The season 3 premiere continues to prove this in the second episode, "Paths Unknown," as characters and events from the season 1 episode "Infested" unexpectedly become important.
As a seemingly standalone episode about the Batch helping Cid, "Infested" is one of the episodes most frequently criticized for being filler. Yet, it is quite important in "Paths Unknown" as the episode opens with Hunter and Wrecker bringing a captive member of the Pyke Syndicate to Roland Durand and his powerful mother, Isa Durand, in exchange for information about the secret location of Dr. Hemlock.
In "Infested," the Batch helps Cid regain her parlor from Roland. The Batch returns the spice Roland promised to the Pyke Syndicate. Cid convinces them not to kill Roland as it would start a war with Isa. While the Pykes don't kill Roland, and despite Omega's best efforts to stop the Pykes from hurting him at all, they cut off one of his horns for losing the spice and keep the severed horn for themselves.
In "Paths Unknown," Hunter and Wrecker deliver the same Pyke who did this to Isa and Roland, along with the severed horn the Pyke took, for which Roland gives them intel he has about Hemlock's location. This location doesn't lead Hunter and Wrecker directly to Omega or Mount Tantiss, but it does lead them to data revealing the sector where Mount Tantiss is located and has them cross paths with three young clones who are now headed to Pabu.
Omega and Crosshair do escape Mount Tantiss by the end of the following episode, "Shadows of Tantiss," but Hemlock will do everything in his power to find her now that he knows her M-count may be the key to Project Necromancer. Omega could still end up back at Mount Tantiss, and even if she doesn't, all the other captive clones there still need to be saved.
Without Roland and the episode "Infested," Hunter and Wrecker wouldn't know the sector where Mount Tantiss is located. When Hunter asked Omega at the end of "Infested" why she stuck up for Roland, she says Roland was "not all that bad." This turned out to be more important than anyone could have realized. With Hunter and Wrecker now showing what they can do for the Durand family, the well-connected Devaronians have the potential to return as allies to the Batch later in the final season.
Beyond Roland, "Infested" was also an important episode for how it further developed Cid's relationship with the Batch. This led them to eventually cut ties with her in Season 2 and her betraying them, which got Omega captured and taken to Mount Tantiss in the first place. It seems inevitable that Cid will also return in The Bad Batch Season 3, potentially making "Infested" even more important.
The next time you want to call an episode of Star Wars animation "filler," remember how "Infested" became important. Remember how the Star Wars Rebels season 2 episode "The Call," which introduced the purrgil, was also considered filler, only for the purrgil to end up being integral to the Rebels series finale and the entire Ahsoka series. Remember that each episode is a piece in the larger puzzle that takes to build before the whole picture is revealed.