Resistance Review: The Breakout

As we end 2019, I’m happy to say that we’re wrapping up the year the same way we started it. That’s right folks: at least for now, Star Wars Resistance is good again.

This week’s episode picked up right where last week’s “The Missing Agent” left off, showing us what happened to Yeager, Synara, and a thankfully, apparently repaired CB-23 in the wake of their fight with bounty hunter Ax Tagrin. Left without no one to rescue them except Kaz and Norath Kev (voiced by the always delightful Daveed Diggs), one might be forgiven for assuming the First Order had them in their clutches. But fear not, fellow fans – competent Kaz is back in action.

It’s really, really nice to have this show back, if not completely on its game, then at least somewhere in the same ballpark as its heights from the end of season one. I talked at length in my last review for the show about how disappointed I was that the writing seemed, well, pointless. Episodes came and went without anything happening on a plot or character level. For the past three weeks, though, Justin Ridge and co. have been proving me wrong left and right.

The story in this episode, as part two of a continued plot line, was refreshingly nuanced (and holy Force, did we find a B plot?!?) as we followed both sets of heroes around. But even more than the plot, the general feel of the episode was far more interesting than I’ve come to expect from this season. Scenes with Norath and Kaz were funny without being painful, and Agent Tierney’s long-overdue return to action was as terrifying as I remembered her being. Oh, and CB-23 tied the whole thing together like the angel she is. The variation in scenes and tones provided by these different groups gave us a far more interesting plot, both mentally and visually, than we’ve seen in weeks – and I hope that we see more like it.

Where this episode really shined, though, was Kaz – it was really a return to form for the writers and the character. Though we still got our requisite pratfall humor (I assume at this point that it’s contractually obligated), we were reminded this week that Kaz has spent the past year-and-a-half spying for the Resistance, and while “professional” might be a stretch, he’s not an idiot. He comes up with a plan to rescue his friends and executes it, dealing with problems along the way. Even better, we saw his annoying tendencies transformed back into the disarming earnestness that Christopher Sean showed us last season – Kaz is a goofball, but he’s our goofball, and we can’t help but to love him for it when things are going right and he’s staying on his feet. This clarity of purpose and writing makes the whole show around him better: potentially cringe-worthy moments of him “convincing” Norath his plan will work, his encounter with Pyre, and a delightful bit of repartee with CB-23 (“do we really need to get into the specifics of who’s rescuing who right now?”) shine as a reminder that, at its best, Star Wars is funny and heart-warming, and we watch it for the characters we love.

The episode wasn’t perfect, though. We’re still dealing with an absolutely mind-boggling lack of Tam (seriously, you were on her ship! How hard is it?) and I might’ve liked a bit more depth from Ax Tagrin aside from a (really, really, really) cool costume. But for now, I’ll take it, and hope for more: Star Wars Resistance is back, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. With The Rise of Skywalker out and The Mandalorian having wrapped up its first season, the next month before The Clone Wars returns is all about Kaz and friends, and I’m glad, for the first time in months, to be along for the ride.