Ricky Church reviews the twelfth episode of Star Wars Resistance…
After a few weeks away over the holidays, Star Wars Resistance returned to Disney XD this past weekend. With a winter-finale that had lots of First Order action and a trailer promising the series would soon overlap with The Force Awakens, the midseason premiere instead told a largely unconnected with the series’ major events by focusing on Neeku and a new, troublesome animal he’s decided to keep as a pet. ‘Bibo’ is an episode that gets stronger as it goes on and does pepper in some subtle developments for a few characters, but it is still weak in a few areas and doesn’t do anything to elevate Neeku’s standing for an episode so focused on him.
Throughout the first season, Neeku has been an aggravating character to say the least. He’s not quite Jar Jar Binks territory, but Neeku’s comic relief can be too much at times and not very funny either. ‘Bibo’ started out this way straight out of the gate as Neeku claimed a sea creature hiding in some ocean debris as his new pet despite the problems it could cause in their workshop. It only continued as the baby creature caused several hijinks with Neeku unphased and trying outlandish ways to teach it or reign it in, eventually causing him to quit when Yeager had enough.
The first act was pretty weak because of all these scenes. Star Wars has never shied away from very slapstick and kiddy comedic moments in either the films or television series, but the results have always varied depending on how far the team went with the slapstick. In this case, it felt more forced than natural and, depending on your age or what you find funny, didn’t make Neeku any more endearing. In fact, the only parts of the first act that helped it were with Kaz and Synara as they went off on their own scavenging mission.
Synara is still a bit of a wildcard as she doesn’t seem all that bad compared to her pirate cohorts, yet she’s still very willing in helping them take down the Colossus and doing what she can to glean information from Kaz. There’s a definite suspicion that she knows Kaz is most likely one of the Resistance soldiers who saved her and the interplay between her and Kaz is entertaining while avoiding some of the typical cat-and-mouse and romantic opposites tropes normally found with characters like these that clearly have some chemistry. It furthered their development thanks to the subtle ways Kaz and Synara each tried to hide and reveal things about themselves and will be interesting to see where they go from here since Kaz most likely didn’t fully convince Synara with his story.
‘Bibo’ took a turn for the rest of the episode when a large sea monster came barrelling towards the Colossus, essentially becoming a kaiju story. It made for a lot of fun in the latter half as the Ace pilots came together to try stopping the huge beast. What was really good was how everyone had a part to play, from Synara fixing the station’s bay doors, Neeku and Tam figuring out what to do with the baby and Kaz joining in on the Ace attack. Kaz’s role also subtly moved part of the main plot along in a very quick shot of Doza taking note of Kaz’s skills, something that will either help Kaz become an Ace or only make Doza more suspicious of Kaz. Everything came together pretty seamlessly and the action was entertaining in its homages to monster movies, though it was predictable the big creature was the baby’s mother and only wanted it back. Despite that, the episode concluded very well thanks to the balance in the character’s roles.
While viewers will have different reactions to some of the comedic elements, ‘Bibo’ was an entertaining episode that improved as it went on. Its character moments were subtle, there was a great use of the main and supporting cast, the action was entertaining and the kaiju influence well done. Its a lighter episode of Star Wars Resistance than some might expect after a winter break with some big developments, but it still ended up being fairly entertaining. If Neeku’s slapstick was toned down a bit and felt more natural than forced, then ‘Bibo’ would’ve been stronger overall for not leaning on the comedy so hard in the first act, but it was still an enjoyable episode.
Rating: 7/10
Ricky Church
