Prepare to see a lot more white plastoid this week in Star Wars: Resistance as, following the events of last week’s episode, the First Order is out in full force on the Colossus! How did we get here? Well, read my breakdown of the last episode before diving into the twists and turns of this week’s episode!
1. Occupied!
One of the fun things about Rebels was being able to see the day-to-day oppression that the Galactic Empire subjected small, backwater planets to. Well, I say fun, but it was certainly an illuminating context that framed the mission of the Ghost crew. It was an established, ingrained order of oppression that was slowly being chipped away at from the inside.
Here, though, we’re seeing the insidious beginnings of the First Order’s occupation of the Colossus and it’s pretty scary to see how much it can mirror real life. Characters talk of security and safety while strangers are accosted in the street for identification and arrested for “loitering past curfew.” It’s hard not to see the First Order as an allegory for real life organisations like ICE and I just hope that Lucasfilm can handle that kind of subject matter with tact going forward.
2. “They’re Just Doing Their Job.”
That being said, it was frustrating for the episode to posit Tam as the moderate, take-no-sides opinion in this episode. Sure, the episode calls for someone to think that the First Order Stormtroopers are just there, as they say, for the platform’s protection and, yes, it makes sense that it’s coming from someone young enough to not know the crimes of the Empire and not as savy in military history as Kaz.
But to make it Tam doesn’t sit right with me. Not that every black woman in media has to be a radical who only exists to fight against oppression, but the optics of a young black woman (who, let’s face it, hasn’t exactly been as major a part of this series as I’d have liked) telling Kaz that the Space Nazis are just “doing they’re job” is certainly uncomfortable to me. I hope they bring Tam around and soon.
3. Synara Stranded
The core of this episode is, once again, focused on Kaz and Synara, which is becoming something of a recurring theme. Two spies dancing around one another, two afraid to admit what the other knows. I kind of loved that angle as Kaz fights to get Synara off the platform while having to never openly that admit that he knows she’s a spy or that he’s a spy as well. It’s almost heartwarming amidst all the danger and laser blasts and it feels like the show has finally found a comfortable core to build the rest of the show around. At least, that’s what I’m hoping for.
4. Parting Of The Spies
Likewise, the final moments of this episode’s big setpiece were almost heartwrenching in terms of words unsaid. There’s clearly a connection being formed between Kaz and Synara, one that is likely to be overtly romantic because, despite everything, of course Synara’s going to be straight, and here we see the inklings of the two admitting that connection to themselves. Not that they could admit it out loud, even if Synara’s pod hadn’t launched before Kaz had a chance to say anything. It’s bittersweet, leaving the two separate with feelings that they can’t express and unsure if they’ll ever meet again.
5. Cue The Benny Hill Theme
I’ve talked before about how Resistance is what I’m starting to call “blaster-less Star Wars“. Not in the sense that there are no blasters in the show, but that the main characters don’t actively carry or use blasters. Kaz, Neeku, Tam, Yaeger, Synara and the Aces aren’t soldiers and they aren’t rebels; they’re civilians going about a normal life interrupted by larger plays on a galactic scale. When Stormtroopers show up waving blaster rifles around, all of a sudden they’re a real and deadly threat to someone without a blaster.
And yet.
Because the show is for kids, the threat of the Stormtrooper has to be undercut by Kaz (and later Neeku) running into (the same) deadend and having to be rescued by someone sneaking up on the Stormtroopers from behind. I’m not saying I don’t like slapstick, but the episode makes the same gag twice in one episode that really neuters the threat they’re trying to set up in the Stormtroopers. Once, they would have gotten away with, but twice? Not so much.
