Star Wars Resistance - "Hunt On Celsor 3" Review

Spoiler Warning!!!

Episode 2.04 – “Hunt on Celsor 3”
Directed by – Brad Rau
Written by – Sharon Flynn

So last week we had each side doing some pilot training and team building exercises, each one highlighted the key differences in their philosophy when it comes to piloting. Tam learned that the First Order believes in “culling the weak” and that achieving their objective is the number one priority, despite the wellbeing of others.

On the flip side, the Aces learned that if they work together as a team and look out for one another, they are efficient and stand a good shot at fighting the First Order to potential victory.

This week starts off with a bit of revolt on the station as resources, namely food, have run so low that the citizens are starting to turn on Captain Doza, threatening to leave. Aunt Z is the most vocal and has decided to leave the station, not only hungry, but feeling extremely cooped up and needing some Vitamin D as well. Neeku mutters something about Aunt Z being right and wanders off, much to the chagrin of Kaz.

Kragan, standing with the pirates nearby, knows a potential mutiny when he sees one and seems to think there’s an opportunity here because, well, they’re pirates.

Kaz and Torra try to convince Aunt Z to stay but she’s standing firm. However, since they are still hanging around the ice moon, Celsor 3, she gets a dangerous idea. She suggests going to the moon and killing a jakoosk for its meat, which is enough to easily feed the entire station. Torra and Kaz aren’t sure it’s the best idea, but when Kragan says something derogatory about Doza, Torra gets rightfully defensive and goes to see her father.

Back in Doza’s office, he and Yeager are discussing the station’s problems when Torra and Kaz walk in, telling them about the plan and that Kragan is also involved. She stresses that the pirates have an ulterior motive and are looking to undermine his leadership. She suggests that her and Kaz should go, to both represent the station and keep an eye on Kragan. Out of options, Doza approves the mission. So, the Galleon takes off for the moon’s surface with Kaz and Tam close behind.

While en route, Synara questions the validity of the mission, calling it a fool’s errand, but Kragan insists they’re just doing what pirates do, “returning to their roots”.

So, because Kragan and the rest rushed in without any clue on how to catch a jakoosk, or even how big one can get, they run into trouble almost immediately. Snarl and Drell loose their skip right away and are presumed dead. Kaz and Torra sit back and watch, with Kaz not surprised by the events knowing Kragan hadn’t put much thought into it.



So, after a mostly pathetic attempt, Kragan and the pirates retreat before they lose too many more ships, including the Galleon, which is taking damage. As they try to run, the jakoosk is pissed and goes after them. Kaz and Torra stun the creature long enough for everyone to get away.

Back on the station, an embarrassed Kragan blames Kaz and the rest for what happened, and Aunt Z still blames Captain Doza for putting them in that position to begin with. She’s finally made up her mind to leave. Torra is speaking with her father, who is stressed by the entire situation, but understands that he can’t do much to stop anyone form leaving if that is their choice.

Back in Torra’s room, her and Kaz are trying to figure out how they can take down this jakoosk, while Buggles is vying for attention. Kaz remembers a canon for the Fireball that Tam was working on before she left and thinks it has enough firepower to take down the jakoosk, by hitting its soft underside.

So, Kaz and Torra head back to Celsor 3 and on the way, Kaz gets a small surprise in the form of a stowaway, Buggles. Buggles snuck onto Kaz’s ship without anyone noticing and when they land on the moon, Torra is pissed at Kaz.
Buggles immediately runs away, and as they’re looking for him, the jakoosk emerges from beneath the ice, nearly killing Torra. Torra goes after Buggles while Kaz sets up the canon.

Just then, the pirates from earlier who were thought dead, Snarl and Drell, come running towards Kaz clearly having survived their earlier crash. With the jakoosk hot on their heals, they steal Torra and Kaz’s ships, like pirates would do, and abandon them on the surface.

Still with a job to do, Kaz sets up the canon and waits for the jakoosk to fly by, which it does, destroying the canon’s power supply. Meanwhile, Torra finds Buggles, who’s managed to climb to the top of a very high pillar, right in the path of the jakoosk. Torra is frantic and tells Kaz to hurry up.

Kaz gets the idea to plug the canon into CB-23 for power, which does the trick.

“Guess you could say the jakoosk, got, ja-cooked”

Moments before the jakoosk eats Buggles, Kaz blasts the giant creature, killing it. He makes a bad joke, Torra gives him a bad look, and Buggles comes back. He radios Doza telling him they need a pickup and a lot of tow-cable.

As they are feasting on jakoosk back at Aunt Z’s, Synara is forcing Snarl and Drell to apologize to Torra and Kaz for taking their ships and abandoning them on the moon. Kaz brushes it off, saying that’s just what pirates do, a running gag in this episode. They are all enjoying the jakoosk barbecue, and Doza makes an impassioned speech, telling them, as long as he is their Captain, he will do his best to take care of them. Aunt Z and the rest agree to stay, for now.

As for Neeku, instead of leaving earlier as Kaz had originally thought, turns out he was cooking up a surprise for his friends that wasn’t jakoosk meat. He was just working on a projector type of rig, which projects a beautiful Castilon blue sky on the roof above the market, making everyone feel a little less claustrophobic, and a little less stressed. Nice job Neeku.

The end.



So, there’s no question this was a lackluster episode for me that will likely rank low on my list by the end of the season. It’s a fun, but mostly hallow episode, that lacks any real sense of self-awareness. I’ll buy they’re already out of food and other things, but what does the Fireball run on?

It doesn’t advance any part of the overall narrative, reuses the same moon setting and creature from last week, and completely steers clear of Tam and the First Order. It seems that it was just an excuse to get Kaz, Torra and some others off the station for a bit, and into some new clothes.

I’m 100% behind examining real-world, actual logistical and critical problems the station would encounter, but do it in a way that makes sense. Imagine the effort it would have taken to get that jakoosk, something that big, into bite-sized pieces? And instead of building a projector, how about have Neeku build a desalinization machine? They next to a moon that’s mostly made of ice and water!

It also opens the door to a bit of classism, as it seems only the steerage are having food shortage problems. It would have been beneficial to have one of the mains complain about the conditions as well.

As far as the lack of Tam and the First Order, that's just a personal nitpick as it's my favorite aspect of Season 2 so far, but I get the show is called "Star Wars Resistance", not, "Star Wars First Order"

But fear not, we know from the Season 2 trailer that there’s some serious action and plot coming our way, and with 15 episodes left, there’s plenty of time. And I completely get the temptation by the show runners to ask the kind of questions they’re asking, like, what would conditions be like on the station? So, I like the direction, maybe just not the execution.

It does plant the seeds for a Kragan face turn, but that was always in the cards, because as this episode reiterates, repeatedly, pirates be pirates. Kragan is like DJ from The Last Jedi, he doesn’t have a horse in this race, he’s simply a survivalist, doing what he can to stay alive, and make some credits.

But I will say this, it’s one of the best drawn episodes of the entire series and the animation is perfect, so even though it was a bit of chore to sit through story wise, it was wonderful to look at. There’s something about Star Wars, parkas, and snowy ice planets/moons that makes for good visuals, so it makes sense why they would go there.



Looks like things pick up next week with “The Engineer” …

Kaz and Neeku discover Nena, a Nikto engineer in need of assistance, who barely escaped a First Order attack.

Looks like Neeku is going to meet another member of his species! Where they stumble across Nena and why was she involved in a First Order attack, we’ll have to wait and see.

It should prove to be very interesting to have Neeku interact with someone of his own kind and whether or not this will have anything to do with his home world. Here’s hoping we get some backstory here and find out the circumstance from which Neeku ended up on the Colossus.

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