I must confess that the start of second half of Resistance has been, so far, slower and less interesting than the first part. Maybe it is because there is nothing objectively significant happening (yet!), and at the same time, the novelty of meeting the Colossus’s inhabitants has fallen into daily routine. The fact that we’ve now had two episodes in a row where chief part was played by a cute little animal probably contributes as well. That said, lovers of cute little animals probably have no reason to complain.
The story itself was an adventure, according to a basic scheme. Kaz is asked to guard Flix and Orka’s shop for a day (they are still naïve enough to let him do it unsupervised). The two aliens are off to visit Flix’s mother (are we sure we understood the fact that the two of them are “partners” correctly?). Kaz’s day starts stumblingly and ends with a disaster. An alien from the Mining Guild, Teroj Kee, steals a phase connector from the shop, despite BB-8’s resistance. (Is it just me, or does BB-8 seem to be somehow sidelined as opposed to how effective he is in the films?) It is then up to Kaz (with the help of Flix and Orka’s pet gorg) to recover it – or rather, to let it drown once Kaz learns that it would end in the hands of the First Order.
As a stand-alone adventure, “Dangerous Business” worked well enough, but was in any way remarkable. The cute gorg added a bit of entertainment, and for me personally, the most interesting part was seeing more characterisation of Flix and Orka. I have said many times and I will say it again: one of Resistance‘s qualities is that it takes care even of its background characters, so that they are not only flat and stereotypical.
People who are all serious and down-to-business can find some value in following the clues about the First Order. It seems to be one of the sub-themes of Resistance that Kaz is inadvertently learning more and more about what we assume will be the Starkiller Base project. The way he is doing it, piece by piece, brings to mind heroes of the old Star Wars novels and video games who had, in similar way, uncovered clues about the first Death Star. Knowing Filoni and his team, this may be an intentional or unintentional homage to some of these characters, now relegated into “legends”.
What else have we learned? The appearance of Teroj Kee confirmed the link of The First Order to underworld elements. On the outside, it preaches order, but the means to achieve its goals include employing pirates and shady alien bullies to do the dirty work. And there was the stolen phase connector the First Order wanted so badly. Flix and Orka suggested to Kaz that it may be used for asteroid drilling, but we all know that the First Order wants to “drill” something more than that.
Let’s hope the wait for the epic events to unfold won’t be too long.
