Star Wars: Resistance is back. The first episode of the final season was aired a few days ago. Was it worth the wait? Does the series pick up where it left off? You will find the answers here in a spoiler-free form.

So here we are, picking up the reviews of Star Wars: Resistance again with the first episode of a new and final season. We finished the last season with the Colossus being revealed as a spaceship rather than a sea-based platform and base. After rising from the waters the Colossus barely managed to escape the attempt of the First Order to capture it and they jumped into hyperspace in a hail Mary attempt to find the Resistance.

Where are we now

We find our friends, Kazuda, Tora, Neeku, Yeager and Captain Dosa attempting to restore the systems of the Colossus to full operationability after the Colossus has emerged from Hyperspace. With the threat of the First Order evaded for the time being, there is a chance to reconnect with our crew but also the wider community of the station.

The episode is unlike most Season starters that we have seen in previous Star Wars animation series. Where Rebels Seasons or Clone Wars seasons would often kick off with a double-episode with action-packed drama, this episode penned by Dave Filoni instead gives us a calm opportunity to get back in the Star Wars: Resistance mode. It is actually a lot of fun to see the familiar faces of the Colossus community again, the pirates and pilots drinking in the cantina, the junk-dealers exchanging their usual banter and even our floor sweeper returns to his former role.

Yet there is danger

Even though the general atmosphere of this first episode is one of a friendly ‘welcome back’ that does not mean that there are no stakes. Filoni has cleverly written a mild threat that nevertheless allows for some genuinely creepy scenes and sequences. And there is of course always the Star Wars: Resistance slapstick to lighten things up. Kaz still is occasionally extremely clumsy, Neeku is still occasionally extremely socially awkward. But watching it is such a nice reminder of the fact that, like most Star Wars, this series at its heart is about friendship.

Although Tora Dosa was only introduced in the middle of season one as an actually meaningful character her inclusion in this first episode of season 2 suggests she will become a lot more crucial to the storyline of season 2. All characters seem to have matured, well perhaps except Neeku, and even Kaz’s clumsiness is no longer as dominant as it was in Season 1. This episode references all the main events of season 1, especially the end of that season and as a result becomes an incredibly well-crafted episode.

Conclusion

Because I don’t want to spoil the episode for those who have not had the chance yet to view the episode I don’t want to touch any of the particular plot-points of the episode. Knowing that Filoni has written it there is every reason to suspect that many of the smaller details in the episode that seem innocuous will turn out to be directly relevant. Who knows?

For the time being however the Colossus floats in space, largely in communicado, not too distant from D’Qar where we know that in parallel the events of The Last Jedi’s opening are now taking place. I expect that we will get a few episodes of repairs and the crew’s valiant attempts to bring the ship back in proper working order encountering unexpected but manageable threats like in this episode. But I must say I actually really enjoyed that.

Initially while watching I was asking myself whether I was missing the larger set-pieces or action-sequences that we had seen towards the end of season 1. But after about 5 minutes I started enjoying meeting these familiar characters and their wider surroundings so much again that I became more and more appreciative of the relatively light tone and infusion with humour while keeping the stakes low, but not too low.

Star Wars: Resistance Into the Unknown will not blow you off your feet, it will not shock you with revelations, nor does it betray where this season is going. However the calm and soothing atmosphere of this return to our friends does allow for a fairly powerful depiction of how the loss of a friend, as happened at the end of season 1, weighs on Kaz. It reminded me in a way of the episode Dume of Star Wars: Rebels. It allows us to spend time with out friends on the Colossus and witness how they deal with the events at the end of season 1. It is a calm and quiet yet powerful reunion that most definitely makes me eager to see the upcoming episodes. It does not have the leaden gravitas of Dume but it has the same attention to the small intimate story that plays out within the wider story of Star Wars: Resistance. I thoroughly enjoyed it.