Reviews

Star Wars Resistance Season 2 Episode 10 Review: Kaz’s Curse

Kaz thinks he's cursed in an unfunny, uninteresting, unnecessary episode of Star Wars Resistance.

By Kevin Johnson | December 9, 2019 | | 0

This Star Wars Resistance review contains spoilers.

Star Wars Resistance Season 2 Episode 10

I don’t have Disney+ yet, so I haven’t been able to watch The Mandalorian. It sounds amazing. Everyone seems to be having so much fun watching this exciting, entertaining space Western that also includes a Baby Yoda, the perfect icon and meme-bait that’s all over social media these days.

Instead, I’m watching Star Wars Resistance. It’s an absolute hit-or-miss show, with more misses for sure, and “Kaz’s Curse” is no exception in that regard. I am a big supporter of the idea that animated shows can be as powerful, significant, and memorable as live-action shows, and I think that an animated Star Wars show could be as sharp as its live-action counterpart(s).

“Kaz’s Curse” is an argument against that.

This episode is both clichéd and frankly, stupid. Mostly, it’s unnecessary. I keep harping on the fact that this is Star Wars Resistance‘s final season, as such it should be preparing its endgame sooner than later, but the last couple of episodes have been treating its approaching, climactic denouement like it’s no big deal, with episodes that barely bother to scratch the surface of its tricky, harrowing situation.

Once again, the Colossus is barely holding it together, and the First Order is out there chasing it down, and Tam is struggling mightily with her growing reluctance within said group, but “Kaz’s Curse” appears to just run through the same exact beats as any “made up curse causes the protagonist to lose confidence, notices more bad crap than usual to happen” plot line that you’ve seen before. We learn nothing. Nothing new or exciting happens. It’s not funny. It’s even weird avoids the more obvious beats that could pull something interesting from its premise.

Everything about it is clumsy, silly, or frustratingly nonsensical. Why is Katz gambling in the first place? Why did the pirates act like the “curse” was such a big deal, only to be laughing about it later? Why aren’t more people concerned about the sudden blackouts that are occurring on the ship? The ending, which shows another blackout after Kaz’s curse is cured, suggests there’s more happening here. I’m at a loss as to why no one even seems to remember that the Fireball, Kaz’s ship, is supposed to be a barely functional vehicle, which raises the question about how it’s been working for this long so far.

Referencing the Fireball’s poor history of functionality would have flavored the episode a bit, and perhaps a more clever script could have played around with the idea that Katz IS in some ways lucky to have survived so much, to have learned so much, to have done as much as he did, in a meta sort of way. “Kaz’s Curse” does neither. It makes him look dumb, it makes the Aces look like assholes (when they just heap complaints on him after losing a Guavian scout), and it makes the pirates even more useless than usual.

Even Mika Grey served no purpose. She recognizes that most people on the ship are idiots, and just exploits them for credits, which makes her unique and specific connection to the force look like a pure sham. Which, honestly, could be neatly, smartly utilized, a bit of a clever bait-and-switch if the show brought in a Jedi-adjacent character, only for them to be a conman. But it’s clear that with her interactions with Katz, there is more going on with her, but it’s hard to muster up any ability to care about her–or anything in this episode, really.

Katz gets the curse nonsense into his head, and Mika gets it out of him utilizing shrug-worthy, Jedi-Koan double-speak. “Kaz’s Curse” isn’t so much a bad episode as it is a lazy one, and with the season almost done, it’s mostly sad to see the creators slump their way to the finish line.