Did Star Wars Just Retcon Cad Bane’s Story? The Bounty Hunter’s Latest Star Wars Cameo Explained

Warning! This post contains SPOILERS for Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 3, episode 10.

Cad Bane’s appearance in Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 3 seemingly contradicted something he said in The Book of Boba Fett, but it wasn’t a retcon; it actually fit his character perfectly. Cad Bane was one of the best bounty hunters in Star Wars, partly due to how many jobs he took over the course of his career. Throughout the timeline of The Clone Wars, Bane became incredibly prolific. He fought Jedi, killed Senators, and, in keeping with one of Bane’s best quotes, took any job, as long as the price was right.

The Bad Batch season 3 saw Bane hunting down a Force-sensitive child for Dr. Hemlock as part of Project Necromancer. Finding a bounty hunter willing to take a contract on a child was difficult, but worth it, since Hemlock explained that he preferred children to adults both for their M-counts and because they caused less trouble. Cad Bane proved to be one of the hunters willing to take on that work, but this particular job threw an old quote of his into question.

Cad Bane Had A Problem With Boba Fett Working For The Empire

It seemed like Bane saw working with the Empire as a bad thing

Bane came to The Book of Boba Fett late, in its final two episodes, but he had a very explosive introduction to the show to make up for it. His first scene in the series saw Bane threatening Cobb Vanth, the marshal of Freetown who had allied with Boba Fett, against working with the former bounty hunter. To convince him, Bane told Vanth, “Boba Fett is a cold-blooded killer who worked for the Empire.” That effort was an attempt to show Vanth just how bad of a person Boba was, but it also seemingly revealed something about Bane.

Bane’s words to Vanth suggested that he thought of taking contracts from the Empire as something morally despicable, even for him. Bane has been responsible for some of the most heinous crimes in all of Star Wars, so for him to condemn something like that would indicate he saw it as truly egregious. It also implied that Bane hadn’t worked for the Empire in the past, as if he had, he wouldn’t have been justified in critiquing Boba for it. His most recent appearance in The Bad Batch seems to have made Bane into a hypocrite, though.

Cad Bane Never Worked For The Empire, Before The Bad Batch Season 3

He now has a definitive history with the Empire, which makes him seem like a hypocrite

For most of Bane’s career, he was never confirmed to have taken a bounty hunting job for the Empire. He was most active during the Clone Wars, and The Book of Boba Fett confirmed that he survived well past the Galactic Civil War, but he had never been seen on a job for the Empire. Even in The Bad Batch season 1, when he was hired to hunt down Omega, he was working directly for the Kaminoans, not the Empire. It seemed that was a line even he refused to cross, but it was also strange he would take that stance.

The fact that the Empire never hired him was especially odd considering Bane’s track record of working for villainous employers like the Hutt Cartel and Darth Sidious himself. It also supported the idea that he saw the Empire as especially evil, though. That view was seemingly undone in The Bad Batch season 3, episode 10, though, as Bane was working directly with the Empire. His cameo seems to have made his words about Boba in The Book of Boba Fett hypocritical, but his involvement with the Empire didn’t actually contradict anything.

Cad Bane Working For The Empire Isn’t A Retcon

Bane wasn’t trying to make himself look good, he wanted to make Boba Fett look bad

Cad Bane’s first scene in The Book of Boba Fett is also an often-misunderstood one. Bane’s work for the Empire didn’t actually retcon his previous words about Boba Fett’s employment history, as he never claimed he hadn’t worked for the Empire, he just pointed out that Boba had. The only reason he even mentioned Boba’s previous job was because he was trying to convince Vanth to keep out of the Pyke Syndicate’s spice running operation. It didn’t matter if Bane had also worked for the Empire, as his morality wasn’t on trial.

Bane’s objective wasn’t to make himself seem like a better person than Boba, it was just to undermine Boba’s reputation. Bane just wanted to show Vanth that Boba wasn’t as good a person as he claimed to be, and his association with the Empire accomplished that. The fact that Bane also worked with the Empire also doesn’t go against his jab at Boba, because it was never self-righteous to begin with. Bane knew he was a bad person, partly due to his involvement with the Empire, but he just didn’t care. He just wanted to drag Boba down to the same level as him.

Cad Bane’s Job For The Empire Perfectly Fits His Character

It’s always been about the credits for Bane, nothing more

Throughout his career, Cad Bane has been motivated by one thing alone: credits. No job was too dangerous, or too morally ambiguous, for him. One of the worst jobs Bane ever did showed that, and it was extremely similar to the one he took in The Bad Batch season 3: kidnapping Force-sensitive children for Darth Sidious. That job proved that Bane had no qualms about working for evil employers, or taking bounties on children, so there was no reason for him to suddenly refuse a job on moral grounds once the Empire started footing the bill.

Refusing to work with the Empire would also have been a terrible business decision by Bane. After the fall of the Republic, the Empire was by far the largest client in the galaxy for years. Bane would have missed out on countless credits if he felt he was above their contracts, something his love of money never would have let him do. Cad Bane’s job in The Bad Batch earned him quite a few credits, so it was perfectly keeping in character for him, and it didn’t retcon his line in The Book of Boba Fett.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 3 episodes 1 – 11 are available to stream on Disney+