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Five Thoughts on Star Wars: Resistance’s “A Quick Salvage Run”

By | October 15th, 2019
Posted in Television | % Comments

We’re on to episode 2 of our Star Wars Resistance recap. Be warned: the spoilers are strong with this one.

1. It’s a fine line between friends and enemies

There are a lot of conflicting loyalties in episode two. First, there’s Tam, who is definitely a lot less sure about her snap decision to join the First Order than she was last episode. It ends up she didn’t get rid of Kaz’s secret comlink message to her, and she’s even listened to it in full now. Is she ready to forgive him yet? Definitely not, but her resolve is obviously weakening. She doesn’t have a lot of time to reflect on the message, though, once Rucklin discovers she’s harboring a contraband comlink. He’s able to manipulate her by reminding her that her so-called friends used her and lied to her, constantly putting her in danger for their own selfish reasons. So of course she does the “right” thing by turning the comlink in to Agent Tierney. Her reward for this, ultimately, is a front row seat to watching her former friends get almost killed; if the worried glances she’s serving up all episode weren’t enough of a indicator of how she feels about this, the relieved sigh once they get away certainly is. Tam’s mad, sure, but there’s a part of her who still cares about those lying doofuses.

And speaking of conflicting loyalties, it’s no surprise that Synara San is brought into this week’s episode. She brokers a tentative partnership between Kaz and the pirates by appealing to their inner plunderer, because apparently the threat of imminent death wasn’t a good enough motivator?? She’s also Kaz’s devil’s advocate (just as Rucklin is Tam’s), putting the thought that Tam could have somehow betrayed them into his head. It comes at the end of the episode, so we aren’t able to really explore it, but it’s an interesting development considering that Kaz has been all guilty optimism about the Tam situation up until now. Hopefully we get a little more of this as the season goes on, because while Tam has every right to feel hurt, I think Kaz and crew deserve to feel equally betrayed by Tam teaming up with the guys who are literally out to kill them.

Kaz gets another little taste of his own loyalty conflict when his father implores him not to stay with the Resistance, because he’s putting himself and his family in danger. Which, oh yeah, I forgot to mention…

2. They’re alive!

Yes, Kaz’s family survived the destruction of Hosnian Prime. For something so monumental, it’s sort of glazed over with the exception of the one scene. I mean, I guess the transmission from his father does get interrupted, and there isn’t a lot of time in between arriving at D’Qar and realizing that’s something wrong for Kaz to really get into it, but still. They’re alive! And not too thrilled about their son’s choice of career path, it would seem. I’m sure we’ll hear more about this in a future episode. To be continued.

3. A pirate’s life for Neeku

While we’re on the subject of careers, Neeku gets it in his head that being a pirate would be a reasonable next step for him, which is… interesting? Part of it is a ploy by the writers to transition into the main conflict of the episode, but to their credit they stick with the bit for another scene or two. While his fascination for the pirate life remains, he eventually realizes that he isn’t really cut out for this life of difficult salvaging work. Which is a shame, because it’d really be something to have Neeku hanging out in the tavern, getting drunk and causing chaos with the rest of them. He’s clearly where he’s meant to be, though, as evidenced by the fact that he more or less saves everyone’s hides by knowing how to handle coaxium without blowing all of them sky high.

4. Who on earth invented coaxium?

And who in their right mind sends a bunch of kids and untrustworthy pirates to retrieve it? Honestly.

I’m actually surprised that the pirates weren’t more into the idea of stealing the coaxium considering how much money it’s worth. If this was a movie, maybe that’d be some B-level side plot, but I guess there’s only so much to explore in 22 minutes.

Continued below

The good news is, they manage to retrieve the coaxium and fix the hyperdrive, all while not blowing up the Colossus in the process. Of course the stakes are raised plenty with the coaxium turning red, which even if you weren’t up on your knowledge of various materials in Star Wars, is pretty obviously what happens before it explodes. It doesn’t help that they’re handling this hyper-sensitive hyperfuel while being bombarded by the First Order. What an inconvenience!

5. And then there’s the fight above D’Qar

This is probably the best part of the episode; it feels the most traditional Star Wars in its pacing, and really ups the tension by putting everyone in a high stakes epic space battle. It also culminates all of the various storylines into one main scene, placing Tam in the closest proximity she’s been to the Colossus since she joined up with the First Order. The conflict she feels when faced with their imminent demise is obvious, but at the end of the episode, she dons her trooper mask and we’re reminded that she’s just another number in the faceless hoards. Still, that sigh of relief she gave earlier was palpable, and Agent Tierney and Commander Pyre are no dummies. They’re using her, but exactly to what extent remains to be seen.


//TAGS | Star Wars: Resistance

Kerry Erlanger

Kerry Erlanger is a writer from New York whose accolades include being named Time Person of the Year 2006. She can be found on Twitter at @hellokerry.

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