At last we come to the end of the road with Star Wars Resistance and it’s been an interesting yet far too short one to say the least. Are we going to miss this show and these characters? Absolutely! But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to take the time to talk about this show one last time.
The Episode
Bria: Was this the best finale Star Wars has ever done? No but it got the job done and I enjoyed every minute of the hour. At times, it felt a little rushed especially in regards to Tam’s ultimate decision to turn her back on the First Order but overall, it was well done. It felt appropriate that everyone aboard the Colossus ultimately banded together to take a stand against the First Order and for their friends when push came to shove. It’s something that ties in well to ending of The Rise of Skywalker: good people will fight if we lead them. It’s true at Exegol and it’s true here. I left this episode feeling equal parts sad (because the show was ending) and hopeful.
On the character front, this was definitely an episode that put Kaz, Tam, and Yeager in the spotlight as the A-story (deservedly so) and the Doza family in a slightly smaller spotlight as the B-story (also deservedly so.) As much as I love Synara and some of the other aces, this was to the episode’s benefit. Season 2 was supposed to be about Kaz and Tam and their choices and while it didn’t always do so, it’s really the only way they could have ended it. The strength of the episode came from seeing Tam and her relationships with Kaz and Yeagar and their ultimate strength. Everything isn’t perfect between them but Tam made the choice to be better and it’s not hard to believe that Team Fireball will become a family again. Speaking of families, I would like to reiterate that the Doza family deserves a dozen stories told about them. At least!
Chris: I thought the episode was a fitting and mostly satisfying ending to the show. I loved that we got to see the full range of emotions and growth for Kaz, Tam, and Yeager, while still getting the rest of the Colossus back involved in the story. I wish we’d gotten to see a bit more of Tam seeing everyone on board after her return, and a bit more of how she plans to atone for her actions, but that’s more of a complaint that the show is over, rather than a specific problem with this episode.
I also liked what we got from the First Order in this episode – it was the first time all season (maybe series?) that I felt like I got what was driving Pyre and Tierney in their actions, aside from just “being the bad guy.” Turns out that Kylo Ren guy has a temper – who knew?!
Overall, I think this was a very strong and fitting finale that suffered more from the context of the show than from any issues with the episode itself (more on that below). The animation of this show continues to be masterful and the team saved the best dogfight for last with a beautiful sequence that rivaled live-action Star Wars in its complexity.
The Series
Bria: The show has had its ups and downs especially in Season 2 but overall, I really do love it and the story it was telling on a smaller scale. Not everything in Star Wars has to be galaxy-shattering but at the same time, stories need to matter. At times, Resistance seemed to struggle with this. I’m all for character focused stories but we had some episodes this season that were… shall we say less than necessary? That said, the characters were the heart of the series and it says something that I constantly found myself wanting so much more of them including several characters who weren’t even the focus of the show. It honestly astounds me that Torra isn’t being promoted as the next younger female character for the next generation to love. It also bums me out that so many fans never gave this show a proper chance because when it was good, it was really really good. I’m so bummed that it only got two seasons even though I’m not sure where else they could have gone from here. There’s so much I feel like I want to say about the show but honestly, I’m struggling to move past the sadness. But what I do want to say is that the diversity in this show has always meant a lot to me and I hope we keep seeing stories with casts that look like this and who clearly love the universe so much. And if nothing else, I’m glad they got to wrap the show up with a real finale. If nothing else, Star Wars Resistance deserved a proper send off and I just hope that more fans are able to find the show on Disney+ and fall in love with it like I did.
Chris: I honestly don’t really know how to feel about this show. Season One is possibly my favorite season of Star Wars TV of all time, and made me fall deeply in love with these new characters. Season Two was… uneven, to say the least. About halfway through I wrote a belligerent review noting that the show was bad now – I stand by that. I also say that the last 5-6 episodes were nearly as good as season one, and a strong and deserved finish.
The weirdest part, to me, is that after it started so strong and felt like the creators really knew what they wanted this show’s identity to be (which is something that I’ve often complained Star Wars animation lacks), it felt like we lost all of that in season two. Season One was about a community that was impacted by a war they wanted to avoid, a kid who was in over his head and learning to be a spy on the fly, and the consequences, intended and unintended, of our actions and relationships. It was personal – it found meaning in its focus on how the small reflects the grand scale. Season Two was about… Kaz, I guess? I honestly don’t know – Kaz had an entire stretch for half the season in which he had no discernible development and indeed felt like he had gotten dumber. Tam was, and I will say this until I am blue in the face, criminally underused and ignored for far too long. Half of the episodes were just Colossus fetch quests with no context of how they tied into the larger conflict, and all of the little meaningful moments from side characters disappeared entirely (with the big and notable exception of the Doza family).
I saw a couple folks noting that they felt like this finale proved that the show wasn’t meant to end this early – I don’t know that I agree with that. If anything, this season felt too long by about 6 episodes, and it just didn’t feel like they knew where it was going. In a vacuum, it didn’t bother me that the show ended before the Battle of Exegol; Season One was always about the relationship between Kaz, Yeager, Tam, and co., and it felt right that we ended with Tam returning to the fold – except that Season Two pretty much entirely ignored those relationships, so the episode felt a bit out of place when it jumped back in like we never left. That made the ending feel abrupt – we weren’t building toward anything, but we just dropped off like that *snaps fingers*. I do buy that this show was only ever intended to be two seasons (or, possibly, that they just didn’t know when they started development where The Rise of Skywalker would be placed on the timeline, so when it was decided that it would be a year later, that was the end of that), and I didn’t feel like it was shunted aside without warning, but I do feel like it never got the attention it deserved from (mostly) Lucasfilm or (kind of) the fanbase, and I can’t help but wonder if the second season would have had more focus if more people in the building had cared.
Either way, this show gave us great moments and even better characters that I hope we see more of – Tam and Torra in particular should be added as characters at Galaxy’s Edge immediately. If the worst thing you can say about a show is that it started so great that it couldn’t live up to expectations, there are worse places to be.
