Cue the drums because it’s the march of the First Order in this episode. When pirates kidnap Tora Dorza, Captain Doza will do anything to get her back… including accepting help from the First Order? Find out how well that turns out when we dive into this week’s episode of Star Wars: Resistance in our Five Thoughts. Ready? Then let’s begin.
1. A Dark Night On The Colossus
This was about as dramatic an episode as we’ve seen of Star Wars: Resistance as we’ve seen so far and, honestly, the show was all the better for it. I know I can be harsh on episodes that are ~filler~ or pretty light on story, but a lot of that comes from a place of having to write about this show every week and wanting some meat to chew on.
This episode was big, the kind of episode that dramatically changes the status quo of the show. It’s the kind of story that you have to go through in order to get where they story is going and it made it feel like the show as fully realised in what it wants to be.
Having the story centre around Synara being torn about helping Kragen and having to sell out those she is becoming close to before switching gears to a Kaz-centric action scene as he tries to chase down the pirates only for the arrival of the First Order to signal a change in regime, it hit all the right notes exactly as it needed to.
2. Synara’s Dilemma
To me, Synara is at the core of this episode more than any other character. She’s quietly become one of the most interesting characters in the show because of the way her shifting allegiances have left her stranded on the Colossus. She’s a pirate a heart looking for ways to sell out Doza and, by extension, Kaz and the rest of the characters on the Colossus, but she’s been in deep cover so long she can’t help but have found her place amongst Kaz and his friends.
It’s the kind of character with such depth that she could hold the show by herself, but played against Kaz, who can’t help but fall for her, and Kragen who uses the notion of her coming “home” to get her to put one of her, for lack of a better word, friends in harm’s way means that she has this corner of the show all to herself full of a quiet, lonely tragedy. And I hope she gets a happy ending.
3. Kaz’s Realisation
Speaking of which, this episode ends with Kaz pretty much figuring out that Synara is not on the up and up, that her ties to the pirates is more than just a coincidence and that there’s a more than decent chance that she’s been lying to him from the start, which she has. And that sucks for him. Synara could have been the first relationship on the Colossus for Kaz that wasn’t a transaction. He owes his labour to Yaeger and his assistance to Tam and Neeku and even though he’s friends with Tora, there’s an uneven balance there due largely to Tora’s isolation in the tower.
With Synara, there’s something ironic in the fact that both of them can be themselves while also hiding this massive, earth-shattering secret from one another. Excited to see where they take this.
4. The First Order Dawns
I was waiting for this moment, when the show decides to move past the pirates as introductory adversaries and really establish the presence of the First Order on the platform and they did it beautifully in this episode. Having the First Order introduce this episode and charge Kragen with kidnapping Tora as the price for payments was a great set up to be subverted by the end of the episode where Vonreg guns down the pirates and save Tora himself. Sure, I saw it coming a mile away, but that doesn’t stop the swerve from being executed perfectly.
It’s exactly the move that the First Order needed to pull in order to put Doza in their debt and allow a foothold on the platform going forward. This is why I say this episode felt important and dramatic and why I’m suddenly real excited for where this show is headed next week.
5. Clone Wars Callback
I’m not going to lie, I kind of ran out of thoughts after four, despite how much was going on in this episode, so I wanted to point out that the pirates rolling the droid poppers between the legs of the security droids was the same move Anakin and Ahsoka taught Saw and Steela Gerrera on Onderon during the Clone Wars. It’s nice to see those kinds of moments still being referred to in the show.
