– Spoiler Review –
The Colossus needs credits and the Aces need races – who better than Hype Fazon to come up with a solution? But can any plan involving a Hutt go well? Join me as I review the latest episode of Resistance, “The Voxx Vortex 5000!”
Bear with me as I tell you a quick story about Star Wars Rebels. The show, a grand tale of a small rebel cell facing insurmountable odds against an incredibly large Empire, occasionally took breaks from the main narrative to tell side stories. In the instance I am thinking about right now, “The Call,” the main group of Rebels came across a subset of the Mining Guild who were actively harming a race of animals called purrgils. The cell, defenders of what’s right in the galaxy, took on the Guild to help save the purrgils and restore their natural habitat. When the finale rolled around, we learned that this aforementioned episode was not truly a side-episode: in fact, the purrgils played an instrumental role in defeating Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Why do I bring up an episode of Rebels at the beginning of a review of its follow up show, Resistance? Mostly because I hope this episode, “The Voxx Vortex 5000,” eventually becomes as central to the main plot of Resistance as the purrgils were for Rebels. “The Call” taught me that it’s probably unfair to call some episodes filler just because we don’t know how one particular episode fits into the main plot of the show. That being said, this episode is probably the first that I would want to call a filler episode.
I think part of my problem with the episode is that it feels like we’re mildly retracing the basic outline for the past few episodes: the crew needs something, there’s trouble getting it, they get it and nothing really changes in the long run. The past couple of episodes of the show have focused on the Colossus‘ major needs: hyperspace fuel, food, and supplies, and this episode touches on the ship’s need for credits. Unfortunately, their lack of credits isn’t the only problem that the crew is facing. The Aces, who recently (and somewhat begrudgingly) accepted Kaz into their ranks, grow tired of staying cooped up on the Colossus. Hype has a solution for both: his old pal Vrankie the Hutt (which, until I read Bucket’s List, would have sworn was Frankie) handles a casino. This casino hosts racing for credits, and who better to win gobs of credits from racing than the Aces?
You might expect that working with a Hutt doesn’t work out as neatly as you might initially imagine it would. Or, you probably didn’t imagine that it would work out well at all! But, Hype is persistent, convincing both Captain Doza and Vrankie to let him race for the opportunity to win big against the Hutt. Vrankie offers some fairly disproportionate terms to the Aces: if they win, they get a couple thousand credits; if Hype loses against Vrankie’s pilot, he would have to stay and race for Vrankie forever. Vrankie’s business has been suffering lately as most of his more valued clientele have been taking their business out to Canto Bight, so he has been “forced” to rig his machines in order to stay profitable. This includes rigging his hologames and his droid pilots, giving him an unfair advantage over Hype. Hype loses his first race, which means that he is forced to work for Vrankie.
I don’t want to be too harsh on this episode just because I don’t think it fit in with the main plot. It would be even more unfair of me to say that this was a bad episode because it didn’t fit with my idea of what the show is about or what the show is aiming to accomplish. One thing that I can say in this episode’s favor is that it brought the racing element back to the show. The initial descriptions for this show seemed to say that racing would be a central element to the show, but the show didn’t feature it nearly as much as I would have expected it to. In this respect, the episode is a return to its roots, bringing the racing back, even if it is divorced (mostly) from the war between the Resistance and the First Order. As much fun as the racing is, though, I think I struggled to engage with this episode because the central plot (the need for credits) felt too repetitive. At this rate, I would love to see the show push past this need and explore different aspects of war-time living.
+ A return to racing is a return to the show’s roots
– A low-stakes adventure
– Prevents the season from gaining too much momentum
STAR WARS RESISTANCE REVIEWS:
Season Two (by Chris) – Ep. 2.1: “Into the Unknown” | Ep. 2.2: “A Quick Salvage Run” | Ep. 2.3: “Live Fire” | Ep. 2.4: “Hunt on Celsor 3” | Ep. 2.5: “The Engineer” | Ep. 2.6: “From Beneath” | Ep. 2.7: “The Relic Raiders” | Ep. 2.8: “Rendezvous Point”
Season One (by Ryan) – Ep. 1.1/1.2: “The Recruit” | Ep. 1.3: “The Triple Dark” | Ep. 1.4 “Fuel for the Fire” | Ep. 1.5: “The High Tower” | Ep. 1.6: “The Children From Tehar” | Ep. 1.7: “Signal From Sector Six” | Ep. 1.8: “Synara’s Score” | Ep. 1.9: “The Platform Classic” | Ep. 1.10: “Secrets and Holograms” | Ep. 1.11: “Station Theta-Black” | Ep. 1.12: “Bibo” | Ep. 1.13 “Dangerous Business” | Ep. 1.14: “The Doza Dilemma” | Ep. 1.15: “The First Order Occupation” | Ep. 1.16: “The New Trooper” | Ep. 1.17: “The Core Problem” | Ep. 1.18: “The Disappeared” | Ep. 1.19: “Descent” | Ep. 1.20: “No Escape” – Part One | Ep. 1,21: “No Escape” – Part Two