Hello there!
Welcome to my latest review for Star Wars Resistance. It took me a few weeks to get into the show, but by the end of “The High Tower” I knew that I was in for the long haul and have decided to start writing about it. This post will be focusing on episode 16: “The New Trooper”
Plot Summary
Commander Pyre arrives on the Colossus with a squad of stormtroopers and goes to a meeting with Captain Doza. Doza tries to get Pyre and his troopers to leave as the pirate spy is now gone, but Pyre says that someone helped the spy escape and that the troopers will find the accomplice.
Kel and Eila are fishing elsewhere on the Colossus when they are found by a stormtrooper, CS-515. Finding that the children have no identification, he tries to take them but is knocked unconscious in the struggle.
At Yeager’s repair station, Team Fireball are discussing the First Order presence on the platform. Kaz is against their presence but Tam feels safer with them there and is unhappy when Yeager agrees with Kaz. Kel and Eila come to the garage to ask Kaz for help but are not sure how to explain what’s wrong. Kaz agrees to go with them and invites Neeku and BB-8 to come along. Tam decides to come with them.
“You grew up in an age of peace, you have no idea what the Empire was like.”
The kids bring the group to the unconscious trooper, who begins to come around, but Neeku – who has panicked at Kaz’s worry that the trooper will kill them – knocks him out. Tam suggests the group turn themselves in, but Kaz stops her. They hide the trooper as a patrol goes past, then carry him to engineering, where the kids hide him in their room.
The group hear a voice through the trooper’s comlink telling him to check in and report for duty. Kaz decides to impersonate the trooper as they need to check if he had reported in about the kids before being knocked out. Kaz takes CS-515’s armour while the remainder of the group stay with the knocked out trooper. While he is away the children tell Tam about how the First Order attacked Tehar, which shocks her. CS-515 wakes up, but Neeku knocks him out again.
Kaz successfully gets onto the First Order’s shuttle where he finds that CS-515 had not had a chance to report the incident with the kids, before managing to take a data rod from a First Order BB droid. Leaving the shuttle, he runs into the stormtrooper sergeant who says they are going to see Commander Pyre.
“Kaz, whatever happens, do not get caught!”
“Well if I do, I hope the First Order’s as friendly as you think they are.”
In Doza’s office, Pyre and Doza are discussing why Doza left the Empire when the stormtroopers (including Kaz) arrive. Pyre dismisses Doza and once he is gone announces that a full garrison is on its way. He instructs that citizens may remain on the Colossus as long as they are sympathetic to the First Order, all others will be arrested or dealt with. Pyre requests personal reports from the troopers, beginning with Kaz. Pyre and the sergeant agree that “CS-515’s” conditioning is erratic and order that he be taken to the transport for a full mental wipe and reprogramming.
Kaz is chased by the troopers but uses a crowd of protesting Colossus citizens to escape, contacting Neeku via comlink. Kaz runs to a dead-end, but Neeku and the rest of the group appear through an underfloor vent with the unconscious CS-515. The troopers use the tracker in CS-515’s armour to track him down as he is coming round. Still dazed, he is taken away by the troopers for reconditioning while he asks if they have seen his “green friend”.
Team Fireball return to Yeager’s station, where Yeager immediately summons Kaz to his office. Kaz shows Yeager the data rod and BB-8 displays the information on it, showing a star map with a number of red dots. Yeager speculates that the red dots represent First Order fleets, which Kaz finds impossible as the New Republic fleet does not have that many ships. Yeager concludes that the First Order want the Colossus to use as a military supply line for the fleet, leading Kaz to realise that they will be willing to destroy everyone to get it.
Review
After being so disappointed by last week’s episode due mainly to the silly use of humour, I was happy to see this episode get the balance right. Neeku’s habit of taking everything people say literally worked well with him helping Kaz deal with CS-515 and his response to Kaz saying that he could kiss Neeku was perfect. Kaz was so clumsy last week but was much more accomplished this week and though he did not do a perfect job of impersonating a stormtrooper with some of his actions, he was much more mature and these discrepancies in his actions were likely so that we could differentiate him from the other troopers and could also be explained by his career as a pilot rather than a soldier.
While I do find myself a little annoyed with Tam’s insistence that the First Order are good, I like the way it was dealt with in this episode, with her asking if working for the Empire made her grandfather a bad person, while the fact that Yeager has repeatedly gone easy on Kaz earlier in the season was a great payoff for Tam feeling like he is taking Kaz’s side rather than listening to what his experiences were. I also really like how she was shaken by the kids’ revelation about the First Order attack on Tehar and that she tried to figure out a reason for their actions rather than immediately hating the First Order or calling Kel and Eila liars.
“Hello Kaz!”
“Neeku! Oh I could kiss you!”
“Hmm… I’m sorry Kaz but I do not feel the same way about you.”
The few times I did find things a little too childish in this episode was the scuffle between CS-515 and the children and how easily he was knocked unconscious, also the moments when the troopers were being pelted with rotten food by the protesters, as I felt that these moments made the First Order feel and look less threatening, though I am able to look past this as the troopers stunning a couple of protesters and also somewhat seeing through Kaz’s deception stopped them looking like complete fools.
As for the story I really like how Pyre is beginning to throw his weight around with Captain Doza now that the First Order is on the Colossus and I also really like how the First Order’s presence is getting Yeager more involved now, though I still wish he was playing a larger and more active role in the show. Kaz’s reasons for impersonating the trooper made sense and I really like the way it was handled, including Pyre and the sergeant’s suspicions that CS-515 needed reconditioning due to his actions – the arrogance that one of their troopers could not be bested by someone on the Colossus! The plot moved along at a good pace and at the same time did a great job of expanding on the characters, from Tam’s feelings about the First Order to the showing of the stormtroopers as individuals (I liked that they gave CS-515 a moment of near-lucidity and also the trooper Kaz talked to moaning about the work they are doing), while also building on the relationship between Pyre and Doza.
“Leave us, Captain.”
“This is still my office.”
“And these are my troops.”
I really like how this episode started to really expand on the First Order’s capabilities and motives. We see that the stormtroopers can be tracked through their armour, which makes sense as other canon material has shown that the HUD in a helmet can identify individual troopers from each other, we find out that the reconditioning of a trooper can be done relatively easily in their shuttles and we also see the strength of the First Order fleet that we know is about to take over the galaxy. I also like the reasoning that the First Order want the Colossus as part of their supply line as this reason makes sense, though I would also not complain if it revealed that there is more than one reason the First Order want control of Castilon.
Moving forwards, I think we will continue to see more and more residents of the Colossus starting to turn against the First Order and I can’t imagine it will be much longer until people like Doza and Yeager have to take more action. I imagine Tam will continue to see that the First Order are not here to protect everyone over the next couple of episodes and with Kaz’s new information it will be interesting to see how the Resistance react to news of a garrison coming to the Colossus and the apparent strength of the First Order.
Moments in Canon
- Inferno Squad also discovered the size of the First Order fleet when they infiltrated the First Order Star Destroyer Resurgence, shown during the “Resurrection” DLC for the story mode of Star Wars Battlefront II
- Yeager makes a comment on how the Empire gives security and takes away your freedom “all under the guise of protection”, which we saw throughout the stories set during the time of the Empire
- The crowd protesting the First Order was largely non-human. Like the Empire, the First Order are biased against non-humans
What did you think about the episode? Thanks for reading and May the Force be with you…
The Canon Padawan 