In this week’s episode, a horror movie open leads to an uncertain ending! Also, is the Resistance full of incompetent spies? Maybe.
Remember, to tread lightly — there are spoilers ahead.
1. Is this The Purge?
Honestly, the cold open for this episode was kind of creepy. It starts on a dark and stormy night where a dude and his droid are clearly running from something with an air of murder about it. It’s not a murder, of course (at least not this time, who’s to say that isn’t one of his skills), but a bounty hunter who basically looks like if the Predator and Boba Fett’s skull symbol had a baby (tell me I’m wrong). He’s after Norath, a Resistance spy, who I find it difficult to believe is actually good at that role, but more on that later. He’s able to send a distress signal out before the bounty hunter captures him and, judging by the tone of the surrounding scene, takes him back to his ship where he proceeds to dismember him just in time to make his dinner plans with Michael Meyes and Jason Vorhees. Seriously, it’s weirdly dark! I honestly kept feeling like I was watching a scene from The Purge instead of one from a child’s Disney show. It was… an experience.
2. The spy who failed me
Honestly, if Kaz and Norath are shining examples of the Resistance’s best spies, then I’m no longer surprised that the First Order has managed to reclaim the galaxy so quickly. First of all, in the real life that is the Star Wars universe, wouldn’t Norath have some sort of lullaby pill (for those unaware, lullaby pills were carried by Alliance Intelligence officers and are basically the Star Wars equivalent of a cyanide pill) to ensure none of their secrets got out? I mean, I guess there’s still the opportunity to escape the bounty hunter before he takes him to the First Order, but the entire tone of the beginning scene makes it feel very much like that isn’t an option. Also, I don’t know, he seemed a little too frazzled to be a convincing and successful spy… to which I suppose I remind myself, Kaz.
Speaking of our fearless hero, he’s able to decrypt Norath’s data pad with all of his important information gained about the First Order in a matter of seconds. So, either we’re to believe that Kaz really is some amazing super spy, which I’d argue all of the information we’ve gathered about him up until this point makes that almost impossible, or Norath is literally the worst spy in existence, which, maybe!
3. Who run the world? Synara.
Thank god Synara is along for the ride on this one, because otherwise I think that Kaz, Yeager, and Norath would either be dead or being tortured by the First Order after the bounty hunter dropped them off. She’s pretty much the only one who seems halfway capable of handling things this episode and single handedly fends off the bounty hunter not once, but several times. Girl power!
Synara is also the one that issues a proper threat to Lechee, the Gran who ratted Norath out to the First Order. Kaz’s idea of a threat is to have CB scratch the wall like nails on a chalkboard, which admittedly isn’t a bad idea in terms of torture, but it mostly just annoys everyone. Synara then fires her blaster at Lechee, just barely missing him, and very commandingly tells him not to snitch. It’s convincing.
Also convincing is how Synara is the only one to not get captured by the bounty hunter and continues to rough him up. What a badass. They could all learn a thing or two from her.
4. A wise man once said, sand is coarse and rough and it gets everywhere
Anakin’s lamentation about sand is one of the most lampooned lines in Star Wars history. While I still maintain that it’s horrible dialogue, I’m beginning to think loverboy might have had a point.
This week’s episode takes place on Varkana, a desert planet. Just how many desert planets are there in the universe, anyway?? I understand the galaxy is vast and contains multitudes of planets, many of which must have overlapping ecosystems and climates, because there are only so many to go around, but still. Still! Does the Alliance-turned-Resistance just spend all of its time clustered around sand dunes? It would feel so novel to have a bustling spaceport on a water planet, or mountainous, or literally just anything that doesn’t look like the concept artists just got back from their inspirational trip to the Grand Canyon.
Continued belowI realize I’m being silly and nitpicky about this, and in fairness it doesn’t really bother me enough to take away from the episode, but just… man. Sand. It really does get everywhere.
5. Tune in next week!
As the episode came to an end, I was wondering how they were going to neatly tie things up in 30 seconds; ends up the answer was to make it a cliffhanger. Cliffhangers can be annoying, but I was honestly kind of excited about this! Resistance really does have some good stories to tell, but it sometimes suffers from the constraints that come with developing a concise beginning, middle, and end in 22 minutes. This was a smart choice by the writers, and it especially ups the stakes as Kaz, Synara, and Yeager are now on their own — with the arrival of the First Order, Doza and the Colossus can’t swoop in and help them. I’m honestly curious how they get out of this one. Will turncoat Tam make an appearance, and will the situation somehow force her and Kaz’s reconciliation? We’ll have to wait until next week to find out.
