Star Wars Resistance – Kaz’s Curse Review
“Kaz’s Curse” is a perfect episode for a show absent a serialized story, where characters are generally stationary and things happen simply to happen. Unfortunately, this is not the show that Star Wars Resistance is, at least most of the time. In the tenth episode of the season, the primary plot is Kaz believing he has successfully been cursed by a pirate and experiencing one unlucky event after another, until it’s discovered at the end that there’s no such things as curses after all. While some drama was attempted by inserting the fate of the platform as it flew through Guavian Death Gang space (with a subsequent attack) it came with no real consequences. It just happened.
“Kaz’s Curse” also omitted any reference to Tam Ryvora’s extremely interesting story, which has spent far too much time spinning its wheels in the background. This leads to a sensation that Season Two was not planned out well, or at least underestimated how interesting an inside look at the First Order and an individual’s struggle with identity and morality might play within it could be. The writers might be forgiven for thinking that a weekly installment which concerns the fate of the Colossus would be significant enough, like Battlestar Galactica, but that show and similar shows succeed by investing in the characters aboard those ships, making the stakes around them just as interesting and suspenseful as that of their star traveling home. Resistance has not achieved this because its characters are not evolving this season, except for Tam Ryvora.
Last season was also supported by the tension of the story happening beyond the show, the build up to the events of The Force Awakens with the breath-catching moment of the Hosnian system being obliterated in a propagandic display of celebration by the First Order troops inhabiting the platform. Again, Lucasfilm’s decision to be reticent on what happened after the events of The Last Jedi have left the Colossus and its crew adrift in a storyline that vaguely promises a search for the surviving Resistance members and perpetual flight from the pursuing First Order forces. Tying even a minimum of the events that have trickled out into the expanded universe over the course of the year might have helped the show achieve this same effect.
The writing aside, the animation continues to at least excel for television and the score by Michael Tavera was probably the best thing about “Kaz’s Curse,” even maybe some of the best of his work for the season. Next week’s episode promises a return to Tam and hopefully, more interesting writing.
For more on Star Wars Resistance, check out StarWars.com.
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