So, it turns out — and stop me if this is too shocking — that having pirates on board your ship isn’t always a recipe for success.
Who’d have thought?
In this week’s episode of Star Wars Resistance, “Hunt on Celsor 3,” we learn exactly how much the residents of the Colossus are willing to put up with as they run from the First Order. The problem is, it’s not much.
What Resistance does so well, since its inception, is show how the rest of the galaxy lives — the ones who didn’t sign up for a galactic conflict between good and evil. The station has several hundred beings crammed into a small space and at the end of the day, they don’t care about escaping from the bad guys as much as they need to know where their next meal is coming from. It’s oddly relatable to know that (aside from Neeku) the galaxy needs to eat just like the rest of us, but it doesn’t bode well for Captain Doza as he tries to keep the peace.
Faced with the choice between business as usual and the promise of something better, it’s not surprising that Kragan’s pirates swoop in with some shiny promises like “we can get food” – and give us our first real look at the consequences of fighting for what’s right. As Hype noted last episode, the vast majority of the passengers never signed up for the Resistance, and are tired of being dragged along for the ride. The population of the Colossus — and the galaxy at-large — fairly wants to avoid getting involved in a war, even if they just don’t know it’s unavoidable yet.
In the guise of a monster hunt, Resistance is diving surprisingly deep into the morality of bystanders – it’s not just Luke’s famous “I hate [the Empire] but there’s nothing I can do about it” that our heroes are dealing with, it’s an even more sinister complacency that the First Order being in power won’t make a difference one way or another. That’s the attitude that let them rise in the first place (and one that I hope we get a deeper look into in the upcoming Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse), and it’s a topic that’s a lot more complex than we usually see in Star Wars animation. The Force knows that, between Tam (who, even in a season where she’s got top billing on the poster, continues to be underused) and the rest of the galaxy, we should have plenty more opportunities to see this conflict play out this season.
Big themes aside, this episode of Resistance was… fine. I’ve never been a big fan of monster content in Star Wars (unpopular opinion) so aside from the primo grade-A Buggles content and the joys of a Torra-centric plot line, this episode was kind of a classic early-season filler episode. Still enjoyable, but not one we’ll remember at the end of the year. The lack of a B-plot (again, where the heck is Tam?!?) hurts this episode a bit, too – it just doesn’t feel like there’s as much going on as you’d expect in the final season of the show. But, them’s the breaks – onward and upward to episode 5.
See you next week! Light a candle and ask the Force for Tam and Synara to be reunited.
