What I really appreciate about Star Wars Resistance right now is that Lucasfilm is resisting the urge to make Kaz a super-spy by the end of season one. Sure, he’s gotten (marginally) better at… existing by now, but he is still the worst spy in the galaxy far, far away this side of Jar Jar Binks in The Clone Wars. It’s endearing, and it leaves a ton of room for character development.
This week’s Resistance gave us a great reminder of just how far Kaz has left to go, as he sought to help Synara escape from the First Order’s occupation of the Colossus. Put simply: dude has no sneak to him whatsoever. We still see him tripping over BB-8, bumping into stationary crates, and utterly failing to come up with quick responses when Neeku (who is a galactic treasure) tells the First Order literally everything he knows about Kaz. After the announcement last week of the upcoming novel Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge: Black Spire by Delilah S. Dawson, in which General Organa’s best spy goes to Batuu, I saw a few people on Twitter theorizing that hey, maybe it’s Kaz! After this episode… well, let’s hope that the Resistance isn’t doing that badly.
Kaz aside, this episode also continued to flesh out the pre-The Force Awakens world for us – including giving us an even better view of how the First Order was able to rise to power so secretly. There’s no better example than Tam (who is still, inexplicably, only showing up for about 2 minutes per episode *grumbles*), who doesn’t have any particularly strong political opinions, and so doesn’t understand what’s so wrong with the First Order. They’re just here to keep the peace, right? If that’s the image that the whole galaxy has of stormtroopers these days, it’s no wonder General Organa needed to create the Resistance as a covert operation.
Finally, this episode saw some particularly cringe-worthy flirting from Kaz towards Synara, who continued to show no romantic interest whatsoever. Which, thank god, really – the whole episode, I was really worrying that we’d get an out-of-nowhere kiss goodbye when Synara escaped, defying logic and sending a not great message about how pursuing people who have no interest is actually a good idea (spoilers: it’s not). However, credit to the showrunners here: it doesn’t even appear to have occurred to Synara that Kaz could possibly be the object of any romantic feelings. That’s good for the show’s development as it gives Kaz more room to grow and learn about managing his relationships like an adult (and leaves the door open for the Tam/Synara pairing that we deserve).
As the first season of Resistance marches on, we draw steadily closer to the moment we’re all dreading – when the show catches up to The Force Awakens. If this week’s episode, and the First Order’s increasing power, is any indication, that moment is just around the corner; but thanks to steady writing and even development of its characters, Resistance appears to be well-prepared for the challenge of overlapping with the sequel trilogy.
