'Star Wars: Resistance' Season 2 Episode 5 review: 'The Engineer' sees the spotlight shift from Kaz to Neeku
‘Star Wars: Resistance’ has set up a good cast of interesting characters, but the series’ greatest weakness is in giving the lion’s share of the show’s focus to its far less interesting protagonist, Kaz(Christopher Sean). Episodes that shift the focus away from him, like ‘The Engineer’, underline just how much the series’ extended cast have been tragically underserved.
The show itself does not seem completely unaware of this. The episode opens with a quick but telling scene that highlights everything that’s been wrong with how Neeku(Josh Brener) has been handled on the show. As Neeku is hard at work repairing the many damages of the Colossus, he asks Kaz to hand him a tool. Kaz, however, is too busy trying to fix the holoscreen to perform the arduous task of leaning slightly to the left to accomplish this task. Neeku’s left to grab the tool himself with his signature self-effacing declarations, as Kaz’s repairs - predictably - go bust.
Once Neeku is able to fix Kaz’s mess, the Colossus receives a distress signal from someone who’s been stranded in space by the First Order. Kaz and Synara(Nazneen Contractor) fly out for a rescue and find Nena(Meghan Falcone), a Nikto engineer with a fear of pirates. Brought back to the Colossus, a grateful Nena begins assisting with repairs immediately, bringing power back to areas of the ship that had long gone without.
She is assisted by Neeku, whose boundless optimism finally comes off as more than just a comedic prop when we see someone actually paying attention to him. Maybe it’s because he’s met a fellow Nikto for the first time, or maybe it’s the first time he’s ever really been asked, but Neeku opens up about his early life. It’s a testament to Neeku’s unbeatable positivity that he ends his story with a tone of mere surprise and without a hint of resentment: “It has been a long while since I’ve talked about myself!”
There are downsides, however, to that kind of naive optimism. As Nena tries to hint that she might not have the Colossus’ best interests at heart, Neeku laughs it off without a single follow-up question. Kaz and Synara evidence that Nena is actually a First Order saboteur, sent to cripple the Colossus’ defenses and let the First Order know where the station is. They have a harder time convincing Neeku of this, who’s convinced it’s all an elaborate prank. It takes the sight of her shooting her blaster at his friends while making her escape before he’s convinced. Even then, he tries to convince her to abandon the First Order and join the Resistance instead. Nena turns this offer down - though not without her own regrets - and gets away.
Neeku takes charge, sending Kaz throughout the ship to fix the damage that Nena had wrought, and saves the day, allowing the Colossus to escape the First Order just in time. Having failed, the First Order orders Nena’s execution. Nena is a compelling character whose return is set up, but given that this is the final season of ‘Star Wars: Resistance’, her return seems unlikely.
When the show takes him seriously, Neeku has a lot of on-screen charisma. The show’s missed an opportunity to make him the ace of hearts with their Kaz-centric focus. At some point, unless you’re going all-in on slapstick, the trials of a good-natured fool bumbling his way towards success is just not that interesting. Kaz’s predictable goofery could be funny if they didn’t grab such an inexplicable share of the spotlight. Kaz should have been relegated to a side character ages ago. Hopefully, the rest of the season sees more episodes giving the show’s characters more of the focus they deserve.
The next episode of 'Star Wars: Resistance', 'From Beneath' airs November 10, on the Disney Channel.