In a surprising twist, Star Wars Resistance may provide the first TV appearance of Kylo Ren (voiced by Adam Driver, as has been confirmed). More importantly, it may provide something we have been lacking thus far: the information what Kylo has been up to before The Force Awakens.
But let’s start from the beginning.
“We. Have. Found. The. Child. Ren.”
“The Children from Tehar” centers on the tale of two fugitives, the children Eila and Kel, who are lost aboard the Colossus platform. A considerable reward is offered for finding them, and Kaz (short on money, as usual) sees an opportunity. Everything changes when he learns that the reward for finding the children comes from the First Order.
The episode opens the door into a larger world, so to speak. The children’s tale includes Kylo Ren, a hint about the First Order’s actions in the Unknown Regions, and generally seems to foreshadow deeper and darker levels of the plot to come. One thing I liked about this episode was that it portrayed Kylo Ren as an evil person performing atrocious acts. It gives some consistency to the character – that the massacre in the opening scene of The Force Awakens wasn’t some “accident”. With this event in-between his massacre of Luke’s students at the temple and the slaughter of villagers, his character is getting shape and we can more concretely look at him and imagine how he thinks and what his future might be, what kind of questions from his past may he yet have to face, especially if the film decides to give him a redemption arc.
The nice extra features of this episode include the introduction of Commander Pyre in his golden armour (seems like First Order officers have a tendency to stand out of the crowd) and the Chelidae (maybe not the most original in design, but certainly pleasant alien race).
What Did We Learn About Ren?
There are two important discoveries here. One, before the films, Kylo Ren was out and about, doing the same thing he did at the beginning of The Force Awakens. We don’t know anything about the planet Tehar (this was its first appearance), but we are told it lies in the Unknown regions. That’s the place where The First Order operates and where the Starkiller Base is.
We are undoubtedly going to learn the reason for the genocide on Tehar, be it simply a test of First Order’s strength, eliminating opposition, threat of alerting the New Republic or the presence of some rare resources (or people). Kylo Ren’s presence may be either for personal reasons (one thing that comes to mind is some surviving apprentice of Luke’s, perhaps the children might even be their offspring) or simply part of his “training” by Snoke (along the lines of “here, go and slaughter some innocents to prove you are truly the servant of the Dark Side”).
The second important news is that upon hearing Kaz’s report, the Resistance pilot Ello Asty seemed to consider it remarkable. Any news about Kylo Ren would certainly interest General Organa whatever the case, but it is also possible that there hadn’t been a confirmation of Ren’s connection with the First Order before. If yes, we may be looking forward to more dramatic events.
The Unanswered Questions
After this week’s episode, we are left with questions. Who are the children from Tehar? What does the mysterious symbol they wore signify? What does Captain Doza know about it, or what is he going to do once he learns more about it? Was Phasma completely lying when she told Doza that the two were children of some high-class member of the First Order? And then, of course – when are we going to see Kylo Ren, and how is his destiny going to interfere with that of the inhabitants of the Colossus platform? All these shall surely be answered in time, maybe very soon…
