– Spoiler Review –
“The Doza Dilemma” finds the First Order making a smart play with their protection racketeering plans to gain control of the Colossus, helping raise the stakes as we fall into the back-half of Star Wars Resistance‘s first season.
While it wasn’t hard to predict the pirates led by Kragan Kor were in league with the First Order as a bit of old fashioned protection racketeering, and I even saw the FO’s double cross coming this episode, but I didn’t quite expect their final play. It seemed far too bizarre that despite the pirates doing terribly, the First Order caves into their demands for more money in exchange for a very important mission: stealing Torra Doza, Captain Doza’s daughter. The pirates, brought aboard by a reluctant Synara, manage to steal Torra and deliver her to the First Order on their mega-pirate ship (um, how cool was that thing!?), only for the First Order to double cross them, keep the money, and take Torra. Then the FO took me a little by surprise, which in retrospect I shouldn’t have been, and claimed they were rescuing Torra from the pirates, saying they had been monitoring communications and knew what was happening. As a little reminder of their hand in saving Torra, they leave Captain Doza with two stormtroopers, as he once again turned down Commander Pyre’s offer earlier in the episode. As long as Torra doesn’t mention Major Vonreg, who comes to the pirate ship in a FO shuttle, wasn’t carrying a briefcase, this might be enough for Captain Doza to be sucked into the FO’s trap, though he doesn’t look favorably at the troopers assigned to him via Pyre’s commands. I had hoped we’d learn more about Captain Doza’s underworld connections, hinted at in “The High Tower” as blackmail against him, and they’d be what would bring him into the FO fold, but it seems this could be all they needed.
Synara’s loyalties are tested once again and she’s quickly becoming my favorite character on the show because of it. Kaz’s loyalties haven’t had as much push and pull as Synara’s, making her spying job considerably harder, though her disposition means she’s made for it more than Kaz has been (and maybe ever will be). Kragan knows Synara is becoming too friendly with the people of the Colossus, though she’s been attempting to distance herself lately to keep them at arms length, but since it’s Kaz who informs viewers she’s been distant lately, it sounds weird considering we just saw them together two episodes ago, especially since we don’t really have an idea on how much time passes between episodes. Regardless, Synara gets to hang out with Torra, Tam, and Kaz in Torra’s room up in the High Tower, and for convenience’s sake to the plot and to Torra’s friends, Torra gives them all her personal code to access the Tower, which Synara needs because Kragan tasked her with escorting two new pirate arrivals into the High Tower for a mission. Once Synara realizes who they are after, her new friend Torra, she recruits Kaz for help (who is only basically along to be a witness to events). Kaz still saw her sneaking around with the two pirates AND saw them as the two who captured Torra, so when he goes to confront her about it and she just says they are customers, he doesn’t trust her anymore. Synara is left in the wind now, as Kaz has his doubts and Kragan, betrayed by the First Order, doesn’t quite know how to continue with her either, making her path ahead one of the more compelling of the show, as she’ll be making a fateful decision at some point where either Kaz and friends or the pirates will find her solely in their camp. I’m pretty sure she’ll prove her worth to Kaz and Yeager’s team, and therefore the eventual Resistance, but that’s only speculation at this point.
Back in “Secrets and Holograms,” the last time we had people playing video games in Torra’s room, I threw out a wild theory that SHE was the spy for the First Order aboard the Colossus. My reasoning was based off a few things, like how much she knows about her dad’s dealings, how she knows so many nooks and crannies and passcodes around the station, but mainly that she’s bored and her dad keeps her cooped up in the High Tower, something the FO could’ve exploited by saying having them in control would mean the station’s safe and she could fly/go out more often. This episode only raised my suspicions more, from how she gave out her personal passcode to everyone, though after making sure Synara came along with them, and the long, prolonged stare from Pyre when she bursts into her dad’s office, as it felt more like a “you know what you have to do” than a “get away little girl and let the dudes talk,” though she’s certainly glum about leaving due to how her dad dismissed her, but it could also be due to knowing what’s coming. I could be very wrong and it’s still Yeager, but it feels more likely to be her than anyone else at this point.
Here are a few other things:
- Seriously though, that pirate ship? I’ve never wondered what a Star Wars version of a pirate ship of yore would’ve looked like, but I was not disappointed in the slightest!!
- It was both odd and nice how Kaz essentially took a backseat to events here, as it’s really Synara who drives all the action this episode, as Kaz is either sneaking after Synara and friends or piloting the Fireball to keep up with Torra and the pirates just to be there as an audience surrogate for a witness to events, as he has no effect on the outcome to anything this episode; It’s almost like the show found Synara to be the more interesting character.
- I really liked the design for Valik, one of the two pirates Synara helps sneak onto the Colossus. And returning to Star Wars again to voice Valik was none other than Jennifer Hale herself! In canon, she previously voiced a Death Trooper in Star Wars Rebels, though most fans will know her as Bastila Shan in Knights of the Old Republic (and/or of course, Shepard in the Mass Effect series). It was also nice to hear the return of David Shaughnessy (who voiced Drell, the other pirate), as he had the unfortunate fate of having TWO characters, in one episode of Rebels, be killed off.
- Once again, it feels VERY odd to see a group of characters chilling in someone’s bedroom, playing video games, but it’s fitting both for their ages and for the era they were born into, ‘peace,’ as it were, in this cold war. Would be a great game to create in real life for fans to pick up and play too…
- Episode descriptions are live for February’s episodes: “The New Trooper” and “The Core Problem” and “The Disappeared,” the last of which has a “1” at the end of its URL, so mayhaps it’s a two-parter?
- This is the first time we hear Bo Keevil speak in an episode, though we heard him first in one of the shorts released on Resistance‘s winter break, and of course he’s being voiced by Dave Filoni, considering he’s such a Plo Koon fan and Bo is the same species. For awhile in the build up to the show, I figured the Aces would prove more vital to the show, or at least their distinct personalities and backgrounds, but unfortunately as this season hits its 14 episode of 22, they feel more like background characters used to draw people in via marketing than anything really important for the show. I could be wrong in the next 8 episodes, but if not and they survive into S2, I hope they can have more time to shine there at least, but who knows, as we’ll have to see how this show handles the events of the first two sequel trilogy films.
- Bo was involved in one of my favorite little moments of the episode: as he scrambles off to his ship, leaving the bar and his glass behind, the server droid catches his glass before it falls and breaks.
- The Bucket’s List gives a better look at the big pirate ship, the Galleon, and shares the reveal that Aurra Sing and Valik are the same species. While it doesn’t name the species, that name was separately put up on the official site’s Databank without any fanfare: Palliduvan.
Star Wars Resistance pushes along the First Order’s operations in “The Doza Dilemma,” though some of its choices highlight both strengths and weaknesses within the show.
+ Synara rightfully in the spotlight
+ First Order stepping up their plans
– Felt weird how Kaz was used this episode (even if I liked how it gave Synara more importance)
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website @MynockManor.
STAR WARS RESISTANCE REVIEWS:
Season One – 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. 1.15: “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