'Star Wars Resistance' Gets Tangled In A Web Of Dilemmas In "A Quick Salvage Run"

Star Wars Resistance has now certainly sailed into The Last Jedi era.

After a harrowing hyperspace jump away from the First Order clutches, the Colossus is out of the needed hyperfuel to make another space jump to safety. Kazuda Xiono (Christopher Sean) hopes the Resistance base on planet D'Qar can refuel them.

But those who watched The Last Jedi know the Colossus won't find salvation in the base. Because as The Last Jedi era stipulates, the base is wiped out. Unable to reach Poe Dameron and General Leia Organa, Kaz teams up with the pirates to salvage a derelict Dreadnought for coaxium fuel.

However, Kaz's previous well-intentioned, but reckless, attempt to contact Tam (Suzie McGrath) came with a huge price, dilemmas, and reckonings. 

Now residing in a Star Destroyer as a First Order cadet pilot, Tam (Suzie McGrath) is now DT-533. And she's nerved by her new First Order mentor, Agent Tierney (Sumalee Montano), who is trying to convince her that the capture of the Colossus is a proportionate and punitive response to her valid hurt over Kaz's and Jared Yeager's (Scott Lawrence) secrets. Trying to wear her best compliant pilot professionalism, Tam has no room to disagree.

Although she is still processing Kaz's apology, she has a cabin mate and fellow cadet keeping tabs on her: that overzealous Jace Ruklin (Elijah Wood), the reckless, devious aspiring pilot who manipulated Kaz back in "Fuel for the Fire." His supervision worsens Tam's situation when he pressures the latter to report Kaz's message to Agent Tierny in order to trace the Colossus's location. He appears to genuinely think pushing Tam to suck up to the First Order is doing favors for her as it does for him.

Kaz refuses to believe Tam would betray his attempted communication, and thus their location, to the First Order. He's somewhat right. His pirate friend Synara (Nazneen Contractor) isn't too sure.

Kaz banks on the Colossus's uneasy alliance with the pirates for salvaging assistance. While Synara may be his more sincere ally, Kaz and Captain Doza (Jason Hightower) still have to reckon with the chaotic nature of the same pirates who terrorized the Colossus.

The pirate galleon takes massive hits to the point of questionable reparability. Time will tell if Captain Kragan (Gary Anthony Williams) and his pirates will lash out at the Colossus.

Admittedly, some may argue it was a cheap rebound to reveal that Kaz's family survived the attack. This early-on revelation illuminates a missed opportunity for Kaz to have a weighty grieving process. But to its credit, tension lingers in the revelation, with Kaz's father blaming Kaz for placing the family in danger.

This episode reestablishes the scope of threat with the teeth-clenching urgency of Kaz and team attaining a fuel capsule that could be their death or their salvation. The dwindling drink and food supplies also speak to the fragility of the Colossus hardscrabble society—though the episode would have benefited by showing how the Colossus residents, other than characters with names, feel about being uprooted, stranded, and ambushed by the First Order.

Most importantly, "A Quick Salvage Run" weaves a tapestry of fascinating dynamics, be it Tam and Jace, Tierney and Tam, the Colossus and the pirates, Kaz's relationship with Yeager. How Resistance may address those layers may determine the final season's overall quality.

The ending suggests an incoming reckoning for Kaz, who held back the truth that he contacted Tam. Synara counseling Kaz about Tam's potential betrayal is paralleled with Yeager ruminating how the First Order found them. Tam's betrayal of the Colossus's location is linked to a betrayal that Kaz has yet to realize he committed (even if both "betrayals" are cloaked in grey-area circumstances and motivations).

While charming, Kaz's optimism in people can be his own hubris. His rogue decision, outside of Yeager's and Captain Doza's knowledge, can leave them open for attack.