With the release of Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 1 episode 2 cut and Run, we finally
revisited the Clone deserter, Cut Lawquane and his family on Saleucami after so much
time and discovered that he managed to defy Order 66, something only a rare few clones
managed.
Cut was soon after able to escape Saleucami with the help of the Bad Batch, after the
shockingly fast imperial crackdown on the planet, and search for a better life, somewhere
more remote…
But there is one major question still remaining.
Does Cut Lawquane still have his inhibitor chip?
So, lets find out.
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So with it being made pretty clear that Cut Lawquane had no idea about the inhibitor chip
in his head, or the behavioural modification programming that affected the Clones and caused
them to turn on their Jedi generals, he obviously didn’t execute Order 66.
So why not?
Well the first and most obvious answer is that he likely didn’t receive the activation
message at all, considering he was pretty much off the Grid and disconnected from anything
related to the Republic, for security reasons.
If he was discovered by the Republic, he’d be executed for his desertion very quickly.
It’s possible that Palpatine simply sent the signal through the actual chips themselves,
rather than requiring an actual audio signal with the words “execute order 66”, but
we’ve seen no real examples of this, so that’s probably not the case.
The need for an audio queue in order to activate the programming inside of the inhibitor chips
is actually backed up by the fact that Tech and Clone Force 99 heard a single, repeating
command being repeated over and over again on the comm channel, which was specifically
“execute order 66”.
If palpatine could simply transmit the order through the chips themselves, then he probably
would have repeated the command through the chip, rather than through the comm channels.
So if this is the explanation for Cut Lawquane not executing Order 66, that would mean he
still has his inhibitor chip in.
The next possibility is that he did somehow receive the Order, but there simply are no
Jedi around to kill.
This one is definitely possible since he was force to live on the outskirts of Town on
a farmstead, away from much attention, but there certainly were Jedi on Saleucami, as
we know from Revenge of the Sith and the comics.
This is probably not the case, since Cut didn’t seem to have any clue about behavioural modification,
so when the Bad Batch and Omega brought it up, he probably would have at least mentioned
hearing a strange command.
Now moving on from that, we have the theories that involve him not having the chip or having
a damaged chip due to some incident.
We know that Cut Lawquane deserted from the Grand army of the Republic at the first battle
of Geonosis.
Lawquane was fighting proudly and fiercely for the republic aboard a gunship, when he
and his men were attacked by a separatist gunship, badly damaging the vessel and causing
it to crash down harshly into the sandy surface of Geonosis.
Cut was then forced to watch almost all of his brothers die around him, or be horrifically
injured, leading Cut to know that he couldn’t fight a single day longer in this war, even
though it had just began.
Because of this he fled the battle and deserted the grand army, eventually finding his Twi’Lek
wife Suu, marrying her and taking on her children.
And no, for those of you still wondering, these are not Cut’s actual children, because
they were about 7 or 8 years old when we first met them in the clone wars, while the Clone
Troopers had only been off Kamino for around 2 years
Now because Cut’s transport was taken down and crashed into the surface of Geonosis,
it’s very likely that he sustained at least some form of head injury.
It’s possible that the crash damaged the chip in his head and made it completely unable
to activate if the words “execute Order 66” were spoken around him.
We have seen quite a few clones take hits to the head and still execute Order 66 at
the end of the war, but strangely, we see Commander Grey, or now Captain Grey after
the retcon to the Kanan, have his programming and inhibitor chip start to fade away after
taking a knock to the head at the hands of Caleb Dume.
Initially, Grey and his clone brother Styles are adamant that they must hunt down and execute
the young Jedi boy, travelling between the system to hunt him down and kill him.
There is no sight of any wavering for either of them.
The two clones go to extreme lengths, harassing locals and brutally beating them to discover
the location of the young Caleb Dume.
They do eventually capture Caleb and bring him aboard their ship, after such a fierce
hunt, but they leave him a little too unrestricted, allowing him to use the force to brutally
slam their heads into the walls and floor of the shipi, injuring them both pretty badly
and allowing him to escape.
It’s at this point, where Grey’s entire demeanor and personality completely switch,
almost back to before Order 66 was delivered to him.
Grey then pulls style aside and begins to question why they killed Depa Bilaba and tell
styles that the kid was right, she was their hero before the words Execute Order 66 were
spoken.
While telling styles that they shouldn’t be hunting the boy, he grabs his head and
somehow comes to the realization that he was put under some kind of spell that compelled
him to follow the order without thinking.
Grey literally begins to realize that it was almost like he had no will of his own, and
that the memories of the battles he had fought with Master Bilaba and Caleb dume were temporarily
blocked.
These statements then lead the two to get into a very heated argument, with styles clearly
still under the influence of the chip and behaviour modification, causing great conflict
in Grey.
Things get so heated between the two brothers that Styles, who’s still under the control
of the chip, tells Grey that he’s starting to talk like a Jedi traitor, which just isn’t
comprehensible to Grey.
Eventually, Grey becomes so disgusted with his actions while under the influence of the
chip, that he refuses to fire on Caleb Dume’s ship when they get one final shot at killing
him, and instead pulls his blaster out and destroys his own control panel, in turn brutally
blowing up his ship and taking both himself and Styles to the grave, all because he realized
that he had killed his once great friend, and not by his own will.
In his final words, Grey says to styles and the other troopers on board that he has to
make things right.
Clearly, the chip lost it’s grip over Grey’s mind, most likely because of the hard hit
to his head.
There’s no other way it could have faded.
Now the part where this happens in the Kanan comic was not touched by the Bad Batch and
not retconned, so it almost certainly still occurred.
This is pretty strong evidence for the damaged chip theory, and I strongly believe that this,
combined with not hearing the Order at all will be the reason given for Cut Lawquane
not executing Order 66.
And his inhibitor chip being damaged also plays right into the next possibility, and
where the Story of the bad batch might go.
So another thing that a lot of people have been saying is that Rex must have taken out
Cut’s chip the day before the Bad Batch arrived on Saleucami, as we know he visited
and would not stop going on about behavioural modification and the chips.
Right away this in unlikely, as we don’t see any type of scar on the top of Cut’s
head, like we saw from Rex, Gregor and Wolffe and with the way his hair is, we got a pretty
look.
Because of this, I think all signs really do point to him still having a chip in, but
it probably being damaged.
And this is where the story will tie into Rex’s return for the bad Batch.
We know Rex was trying to warn cut about the horrible dangers of the inhibitor chips, but
Cut just couldn’t understand because he was away from the war and most things going
on deep inside of the republic.
It’s likely that Rex wanted to have Cut Lawquane’s inhibitor chip removed as soon
as possible, but that’s not a very easy thing to do without the right medical equipment,
which of course he wasn’t going to find the farmstead, or probably on saleucami at
all.
Because of this, Rex probably promised that they would come together again in the near
future, and this time rex would be able to remove his chip with the proper medical tools.
We all remember just how dangerous it was known to be to remove the inhibitor chips
from the Clone Wars, so Rex definitely isn’t going to take a risk as large as that without
the proper equipment… especially knowing cut has a wife and children.
The damaged chip theory will probably play a role when we next see Cut in the series,
when another attempt at activating the chip might be made by someone high up in the empire,
possibly even Palpatine himself.
If Rex hasn’t taken his chip out by then, we might see an attempt to get Cut to turn
on the Bad Batch, but have it ultimately fail because he won't be beholden to Palpatine's
programming and the inhibitor chip.
If Rex tries to remove the chip, there might also be some complications because of the
damage done to it.
Maybe it has fragmented inside of his brain, making it extremely dangerous to attempt removal.
Now the one final possibility is that Ahsoka was with Rex when he visited Cut Lawquane
the day before the Bad Batch arrived and used the force to either disable the chip, if that’s
possible, or to help him get it removed in some other way.
The timing with this would be a little bit tricky, as the Ahsoka novels says that Ahsoka
spend the first year of the Imperial Era on Thabeska, working for the Fardi clan in order
to survive.
But really, The Bad Batch Episode 2 is only a few weeks after the creation of the Empire
at max, so it could probably fit in there.
But either way, i’m leaning towards him still having the chip, but it being damaged,
and will soon be removed by REx in upcoming episodes.
Let me know what you think down below.
Thanks so much for watching, really hope you enjoyed the video.
Cheers guys hope to see you in the next one!