Review: Star Wars Resistance “The Disappeared”

Kaz rescues his friends from the First Order but has to face the consequences.

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Ace pilot Hype Fazon has gone missing! After the upcoming race around the Colossus gets canceled by the First Order, Hype storms off to his ship. There, he finds Stormtroopers disabling it. Unable to help himself, he confronts them and winds up in a cargo crate with Aunt Z, the bartender.

Luckily, Tora is looking out for Hype. She goes to Kaz and his friends to ask if they’ve seen him. Immediately suspecting the First Order, Kaz joins Tora to hunt for the truth. They uncover the location of the hostages and stage a daring rescue, which goes off with barely a hitch. However, there’s a nasty surprise waiting for Kaz back at Yaeger’s bay… everyone is under arrest.

Our Take:

After several episodes of setting the stage, it looks like the First Order may have finally caught Kaz and his friends in the act of rebellion. In The Disappeared, we get to see a heroic rescue that goes perfectly until it’s over. Kaz has selflessly freed Hype, Aunt Z, and some other captives, but at what cost? The episode is fairly straightforward for the most part. Everyone is excited about the races, Pryce cancels them, everyone gets grumpy. To Hype, racing is everything. As Tora says later, there’s no way he would leave without his ship. It means too much to him. All it takes is a little lip to make him a target for the First Order. They’ve been actively getting rid of people who talk smack about them, with patrols regularly coming into Aunt Z’s, getting in the way and demanding to put up ugly holo advertisements. (I love how even the First Order’s droid is a little bully.)

One of the more fascinating characters to me these past few episodes have been Tam. She’s clearly a protagonist at this point, and yet she sees the First Order very differently than most. Due to her own personal experiences, she associates them with safety and order, whereas Kaz only thinks of tyranny and lost freedom when they show their bucket faces. How she is going to deal with Kaz and his real reasons for being on the Colossus remain to be seen, but at this point, we may find out more about her response next week. Right now, Kaz isn’t really telling Tam or Niku anything about the disappearances, despite them helping him protect the kids from a Stormtrooper just last week. Their differing views raise an interesting question: how much safety is too much?

I have so many questions about Captain Doza. At the start of this episode, I was hoping to get some answers, but I think I only have more now. We know he used to be in the Empire and left for ‘personal reasons’. Up until now, I think a lot of us assumed that he left because he became aware of the true nature of the Empire, and preferred to live a more peaceful life away from their constant surveillance and interference. He seemed reluctant to accept help from the First Order, and even at the beginning of this episode, is struggling with Commander Pryce over who has more control of the Colossus. I’ve been waiting to see the point where it became too much for him, and I think this episode is a missed opportunity to show it happen. One second, he’s accepting the First Order’s assistance with security, and the next, he’s planning a rebellion to overthrow them with Yaeger? If the tipping point was the cancellation of the race, why? And if it was the people disappearing, what has Doza’s plan been? He had to have known this was coming, and yet he doesn’t seem to have prepared any back-up plans that we’re aware of. Tora asks him when it will end, and he replies that he doesn’t think it will. Just how much of the First Order is he aware of? Maybe we’ve been giving him too much credit, and he’s just a poor old man trying his best to stay under the radar. Somehow, I still doubt this.

This episode had some great comedic moments, like Kaz getting kicked right in the face by a Stormtrooper’s boot. That’s gotta hurt. At least it wasn’t Hype, because it might have jeopardized his looks: “I’m too handsome to die!” When used effectively, Hype can be very funny. It’s too bad we probably won’t be seeing him again anytime soon now that he’s safely away from the First Order and the Colossus.

All in all, this was a good episode that finally shows that the First Order has caught on to Kaz’s escapades. There were some solid action sequences when Tora and Kaz fought the Stormtroopers, and there was also some suspense, like when they were creeping over the pipes and almost fell multiple times. While this episode wasn’t the funniest, it doesn’t have to be when the main point was Kaz’s discovery of the First Order’s plot… and their discovery of his.