We’re in the midst of a ton of new Star Wars content, and it’s awesome. The Mandalorian premiered last week with two new episodes, Jedi: Fallen Order released last week (my review of that is coming tomorrow!), there are books and comics being released, and we’re eagerly anticipating The Rise of Skywalker next month.
But let’s not forget about Resistance either!
The latest episode of the animated show released yesterday, and we see Kaz and his friends explore an ancient Sith temple. Let’s dive in to our review of “The Relic Raiders”!
SUMMARY:
Captain Doza and Jarek Yeager send a crew down to a planet to buy supplies for the Colossus. That crew includes Kaz, Torra, Freya, and CB-23, but Kel and Eila persuade Kaz to allow them to tag along. Once they get to the planet, however, Kel and Eila run off and find a Jedi Temple. Kaz runs after them, and they hear someone crying for help – seemingly coming from a strange black triangular structure in the midst of the Jedi Temple.
Upon going through the door, Kaz accidentally triggers a trap that shuts a door separating he and CB-23 from the kids. Triggering another trap, Kaz is stunned and dazed. He then comes to a Sith artifact and wants to touch it, but a voice warns him not to. As he persists, the floor opens up and he falls through – only to discover an older woman, Mika Grey, is there. She explains that the Jedi built their temples atop Sith Temples and that they are actually in the Sith Temple. She raised it a few days prior in search of the artifact, hoping that the First Order wouldn’t get it, but she got trapped there. Kaz accidentally causes trouble again, however, and he and Mika are thrown against the wall as the Temple springs into motion. Right before they are killed, however, Kel, Eila, and CB-23 come to the rescue.
Mika grabs the Sith artifact and they leave, but upon exiting the Temple they discover that the First Order is already there, as First Order Raiders have taken Torra and Freya captive. Mika mysteriously disappears, and Kaz and the others are soon captured as well. But when they are reunited with Torra and Freya under the watchful eyes of the First Order Raiders, Mika appears on top of the Temple, holding the artifact. She throws it at the troopers and orders Kaz and the others into the Temple. The artifact lets off an energy pulse that kills the troopers, but the others make it into the Temple just in time to be saved.
As the episode comes to a close, Mika explains that she had been searching for the artifact for two years, but now it’s ruined. She takes the others up on their offer to join them on the Colossus, and one the way back to the station she explains to Eila that the Force resides in all beings and isn’t exclusive to the Jedi or Sith.
REVIEW:
I was really excited and intrigued about this episode coming in, so perhaps my expectations were just too high, but I felt this episode was a bit underwhelming. It was fine, but I figured that with an episode focused on exploring a Sith Temple we’d get something more interesting.
What was probably the most interesting aspect was something that we’d already learned recently, and it’s that as Supreme Leader of the First Order Kylo Ren is focused on collecting ancient artifacts. The new contribution to this fact that this episode gave us was the existence of First Order Raiders, which are troopers who seemingly go around the galaxy in pursuit of ancient Jedi and Sith artifacts. It seemed that these Raiders had been in pursuit of Mika Grey for a little bit before this episode, and we don’t know where else they’ve been to or what they’ve collected. I think they look really cool though, and I think they’re a great addition to the First Order. Like the Empire had Purge Troopers (sorry, I’ve got Fallen Order on my brain!) to hunt down the remaining Jedi, the First Order has Raiders to hunt down the remnants of the Jedi and Sith.
I also thought it was a nice touch to let us know that Kaz doesn’t really believe in the Jedi, the Sith, or the Force, as he explains to Kel and Eila. The kids tell him that just because he can’t see something doesn’t’ mean it’s not real. I’m always interested in hearing what ‘normal’ people across the galaxy think of the Force, especially in a period like this where the Jedi and Sith are pretty much nowhere to be seen. I’m not surprised that Kaz doesn’t really believe in it, and I would love to see this show pay off on that somehow – even in an encounter with Rey or Kylo Ren or something! But so far the only time this show has really broached the subject of the Force is through hints with Eila, and it has been strongly implied that she is Force sensitive – so it was a great touch to have her asking Mika about it at the end.
Aside from that, though, I thought this episode was just kinda there to pass time by giving our heroes an Indiana Jones-like adventure. And don’t get me wrong, that’s cool and all, but there just wasn’t a whole lot of substance to this episode. And while I wasn’t too upset about Kaz’s clumsiness early in season one, I thought in this episode it was way overdone and the writers got a bit careless. Basically everything that happened to drive the plot forward was Kaz screwing something up by stepping on the wrong thing, and he couldn’t stay quiet either. This show did a great job in season one to explore Kaz’s growth as a spy, but it seems the writers have really regressed his character a bit this season. It’s almost like he’s now only competent when the First Order is present, but if he’s so dumb and clumsy and comedic relief whenever they’re not around, how much longer is it going to be believable when he succeeds against the First Order? Like I said, I don’t think it’s been as big of an issue in the past as some do (because, after all, Star Wars is for kids), but this episode it really felt over the top. This Resistance spy who infiltrated a station to spy on the First Order can’t realize that stepping on that tile might not be a great idea?
So anyway, this episode was fine, but it was nothing special. I’m hoping that things start to pick up pretty soon, and I think what it’ll take is for the First Order to have more of a focus. Contrary to my hopeful expectations coming in, this is actually probably one of my least favorite episodes of the series so far.
My grade: 7.0/10
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