The latest episode of Star Wars Resistance has dropped, so let’s dive in to our review of the episode, entitled, “The Voxx Vortex 5000”!
SUMMARY:
On the Colossus the Aces are getting restless with nothing to do, so Hype Fazon makes a suggestion to Captain Doza and Yeager: let them go to a cantina and race for money. Doza agrees that this is a good idea, so the Aces, Doza, Yeager, and Neeku travel to a casino operated by Vranki the Blue (a Hutt). Vranki and Hype reunite, as it was Vranki who first gave Hype a shot racing. Vranki is a fan of Hype and wants the Ace to race for the Hutt again, so Hype makes a wager with Vranki: if Hype wins he gets credits, but if he loses Vranki gets him to stay and race for him. Doza isn’t a fan of this (as he doesn’t want to lose Hype), but Hype is confident.
Once the one-on-one race begins, however, Hype soon realizes that he’s racing against a droid ship. This droid maneuvers at the end of the race to overpower Hype’s ship and throw him out of the way, defeating the Ace. Doza is furious and prepares to leave with his Aces, but Vranki’s guards stop them from leaving with Hype. Neeku, meanwhile, discovers that the games at Vranki’s casino share similarities with the droid ships, so Kaz comes up with a plan to race again – only with Neeku feeding them the information needed to beat the droid racers. Doza reluctantly agrees, seeing it as the only way to win Hype back.
First up is Freya Fenris, but she loses. Then it’s Bo Keevil who races, and he loses too. Next up is Griff Halloran, but he too loses. The Aces and Neeku are continually caught off guard by various tricks and weapons that Vranki employs throughout the course, further angering Doza as he watches his Aces continue to lose and fall into Vranki’s hands. Torra Doza volunteers to go next, but Doza doesn’t want to let his daughter race. Kaz steps in and says he’ll run a tag-team duo race with Torra, and they wager the Colossus against getting their Aces back – along with a lot of credits.
Torra begins the race, and almost immediately things don’t go according to plan as the ever-cheating Vranki employs weapons to stop her. She passes the race off to Kaz at the checkpoint trailing the droids, but Kaz manages to catch up and evade the mines Vranki employs. The droid racer fires at Kaz, but he takes a shortcut and wins the race. Vranki is upset that Kaz went outside the boundaries, but Hype reminds him that anything goes in racing – something Vranki had taken advantage of in the races.
Having lost, Vranki sends the Aces back with Doza and Yeager to the Colossus, equipped with plenty of credits that will help the Colossus get much needed supplies.
REVIEW:
It was good to see racing again, as much of this episode centered around the Aces actually getting out into space and racing against droids in the midst of an asteroid belt. This show does flying/racing really well, so it was cool to see. We got a lot of racing in season one, but since circumstances changed (and now the Colossus is on the run), we obviously haven’t gotten as much of that in season two. It makes perfect sense, but I liked that the showrunners were still able to give us a bit of racing action despite the circumstances.
I thought the result was pretty predictable (several Aces try and fail, only for Kaz to be the one who succeeds in the end), but they still managed to tell the story well enough that I was engaged and rooting for Kaz at the end. Often times Star Wars is rather predictable, but good storytelling can overcome that and still engage the emotions. I’ll leave it up to each viewer of this episode to decide whether they succeeded, but I would have liked to see another one of the Aces step up and be the hero for once. I can’t complain with Kaz winning, however, as it’s always great to see him be the competent hero. It has felt at times this season like the showrunners forgot the growth of the character in season one and have resorted to using him for comedic relief (the recent episode “The Relic Raiders” did this way too much), but one thing has always been constant: when Kaz is flying, he’s as good as it gets. So I do like that we continue to see Kaz’s skills as a pilot, and it does make sense why he would be the one to actually win. So I’m not going to complain about him being the hero again, simply because he should be the hero when flying.
This episode fit into the overall story of the season by providing much-needed credits so that the Colossus can purchase supplies, so it does have a relevance to the plotline of the season, but it still felt like a side-story nonetheless. It was a fun little adventure, but I can’t help but feel like this season has been a lot of starting then stopping, then starting again only to stop again. Last week we got one of the strongest episodes of the show’s run so far, but that came after a bit of a disappointing episode. Then this week, we didn’t get any glimpse of the First Order whatsoever as the heroes of the Colossus went on a side adventure. All of this is fine, and it makes for an entertaining half-hour of television, but I’m still really hoping that the show finds its footing in telling a compelling story beyond just a new fun adventures each week that feel somewhat disconnected from one another.
Anyway, I feel like I’ve been too negative about this episode. It was fine, it was fun, and I loved seeing more of Hype Fazon. But I do hope we get to see more of the Resistance/First Order stuff soon, because I think that’s when the show is strongest.
My grade: 7.5/10
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