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Star Wars: Resistance closes with an epic series finale
It’s here! The series finale of Star Wars: Resistance is upon us. Tam has finally seen the error of siding with the First Order against her friends and reaches out for a rescue. Kaz, Yeager, and CB-23 go after her and reunite, but before they can make it back to the Colossus, they’re captured by the First Order.
Warning: This recap contains spoilers for Season 2, Episodes 18 and 19 of Star Wars: Resistance.
Swapna: This was a great series finale, but I’m sad the show is over!
Preeti: I’m so sad the show couldn’t go longer because this felt like a season finale and not a series finale — I wanted to see what the Colossus and the new Resistance recruits looked like with Tam!
Swapna: I agree! I am ready for new adventures, now that the family is back together. It feels like a real loss, this show only having two seasons.
Preeti: I did think this was a great season finale because it built us toward a larger goal in a really lovely way. I want to point out how frustrating the framing of Tam’s decisions have been, though… that she needed to actively see what looked like genocide in order to finally walk away? Tam! You’re better than this!
Swapna: We’ve talked about this frustration before, and I think it’s a tribute to the writers that despite all of our issues with Tam’s character (and there have been many), we root for her and we like her and we want her to do better! Writing complex characters is hard, and this show has done that well for the most part.
Preeti: That’s a really good and true point. They did a good job showing us someone who wasn’t high enough to have real power, and how easy it is to get stuck in a position. It’s interesting to parallel this against someone like Kallus (in Star Wars: Rebels), who was a high ranking officer when he decided to defect.
Swapna: Yes, absolutely.
OK, can we talk about the unredeemable douche canoe? ELIJAH WOOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING??
Preeti: I LOVE THAT HE JUST REMAINED TRUE TO HIS DOUCHIEST CANOEIEST SELF. No redemption for trashbag Rucklin over here!! You get to get Hermione-Granger-Punching-Draco-Malfoy-in-the-face-punched. And it felt good.
Swapna: I am SO GLAD he didn’t turn against the First Order at the last second. Some people are just trash through and through, and he’s one of them.
Preeti: I was a little confused by Tierney’s arc — it felt like she had a bigger plan for Tam, in a way that would use her as a lure, but instead it ended up being that she genuinely did promote Tam and saw her as being an asset to the First Order?
Swapna: I’m not sure what Tierney’s endgame was, but I agree. Did she end up actually trusting Tam? Was this just a complicated gamble that didn’t end up working out? I honestly don’t know.
Preeti: This last episode, both she and gold-armor whose name I have refused to learn were just completely driven by the fear of Kylo Ren (which we finally got a confirmation, 100% is the Supreme Leader) instead of their commitment to the First Order… although I guess it could be argued that those are one and the same.
Swapna: As an aside, we’ve talked again and again about how good the voice acting on the show is, and I stand by that. But the Kylo Ren voice made me giggle! It was so deep! It sounded kind of like a goa’uld from Stargate!
Preeti: I went back and forth like … did they get Adam Driver for this? No, no they couldn’t have? Did they though? (They didn’t.)
OK, let’s talk about the real hero of this episode, nay, the SHOW — CB-23.
Swapna: CEE BEE, MY DROID PAL!
Preeti: This WHOLE episode was CB just saving the day left and right! Yeager, Tam, and Kaz are stuck? CB will open the elevator! They need to contact the Colossus? CB’s got it! Oh, do they need someone to fly the shuttle? No worries, CB is here to save the dang day. If L3-37 ever needed a poster-droid for Droid’s Rights, this would be the episode to do it.
It was kind of hilarious, how much more work CB did than any of our heroes (as much as I love Kaz and Yeager and the gang). They would have been actual toast with that little unit.
Swapna: For real.
It’s also nice that Doza gathered the Colossus crew together to make a decision about rescuing Kaz and Yeager. Last season, I think he would have just said no and left them behind. He’s grown a lot as a leader in season 2.
Preeti: Yeah, Doza’s had great character development over the season. But it’s another one where I want to see where that character goes (give! us! another! season!). This was such a slow burn of a season, with all the things leading toward helping Tam escape the order, it just really felt like a season of growth, of potential.
Swapna: For sure. I’ve been reflecting on the show, in general, quite a bit, and I can’t decide if the name of the show is fitting or not. On one hand, this show really isn’t about the Resistance. But it’s about the resistance, the ordinary people fighting back against the First Order. I expected the former, to be honest, and I think that may have colored my reaction to the show.
Preeti: That was also the set up in the first season, the second was a pretty big departure from the first in terms of Kaz’s goals and what these characters were doing in the midst of a new galactic fight. They almost feel like two different stories, between the first and second seasons. We got the larger picture in the first, seeing how Kaz could get drafted into being a spy by Poe Dameron, seeing how the first season culminated with the end of The Force Awakens… and then the second season seemed to go ultra-small picture with it, not giving us a sense of the why of what our found family was up to other than wanting to find a new home. I keep coming back to how much this felt like a middle, instead of an ending.
Swapna: I agree. We’ve said it again and again, but Resistance ended too soon, before it really had a chance to find its footing. And I’m going to be sad about that for a while. But I am so glad we got to see it, even for two seasons.
Preeti: I’ll take two over none! We also have to talk about Kaz, our main guy, himself. I loved the moment in early in the episode where he showed his growth as a mechanic (also lol forever at Neeku through that entire exchange), but what I really enjoyed was seeing how competent and secure he was in the face of, well, death. Kaz has come a long way from the kid we met when he first got to the Colossus, and like Tam, is a testament to the writers understanding how to build these characters up. (Also shout-out to Christopher Sean who has been so, so fun to listen to over the last two seasons.)
Swapna: Christopher Sean is a treasure, and I really hope we see Kaz pop up again in other Expanded Universe stuff. His character growth has been exceptional, to say the least.
Preeti: I hope we see so many of these characters again — I love Tora so much, and I can see a ton of potential for her and the rest of the Aces. I definitely want more of my favorite lil' bird janitor. It’s a treasure trove of character!
I’ve enjoyed recapping the show and I’m going to miss our weekly Star Wars conversations! But maybe we’ll be back with whatever the next animation venture is (please give us the Ahsoka Tano–Sabine Wren buddy cop TV show we deserve, thank you).
