REVIEW: Star Wars Resistance "The Engineer"
One good thing I can that Resistance does well is show how the regular people in the galaxy react to conflict, and the growing rise of the First Order. Usually, we're mainly focused on how heroes in the Resistance deal with the fight, but very rarely do we see how ordinary beings deal with the escalations of war, and how they react to it, and more importantly, what side they ultimately decide to serve.
That is the biggest takeaway I got from this episode of Resistance, "The Engineer," how someone can be influenced by war, whether to serve others, or to serve oneself.
The idea of serving others versus oneself is best displayed through Neeku and a new character introduced in this episode, Nena.
Neeku, being one of the only competent engineers left on the Colossus, has been working overtime to try and fix everything in the ship. That all changes when Kaz and Synara appear to rescue an abandoned woman named Nena, who said her planet was attacked by the First Order.
Throughout much of the episode, I was invested in her backstory, which of course is tragic. I was also invested in the connection she was having in Neeku, and how she was rightfully calling out the pirates for being annoying and pests on the ship. Throughout the first half of the episode, I guessed that the plot would be building up to the Colossus residents finally getting rid of the pirates.
However, at that halfway point, Synara wisely points out that it is a little too far-fetched for Nena to be rescued so easily. It is then revealed that she was used as a mole to lure the First Order to the ship. That is where my ideals I talked about earlier come into play. We have people like Kaz and Neeku, who work to protect the residents of the Colossus from the First Order, while Nena chooses to help herself by siding with the army she thinks, "is winning."
It's not a unique message for this episode, but to me, it works given the stakes of the galaxy, and how the events of the episode take place. Hell, even Kragan decides to help others out for once without thinking of himself. Granted, the Colossus would have been destroyed without his help, resulting in his death, but still, it was a relatively selfless moment for him.
Ultimately, Nena manages to escape, as well as the Colossus, resulting in her being put on an execution list by the First Order for her failure. Kaz also gets new appreciation to Neeku, willing to hear more about his past and desires.
Overall, this was a much better episode than the last two weeks, as it conveyed a relevant message based on where we are in the timeline of the sequel trilogy. I'm still waiting to get more conflict with the First Order, but as far as showing the everyday life of people in war-time, this show has been handling that theme rather well.
