SPOILER First Order Occupation

I enjoyed this episode so much! Here's just a few things I loved:

• Opeepit speaks! And has his floor cleaner confiscated. Those dastardly FO villains!
• Neeku's literal thinking.
  
• Yeagar rolls his eyes at Kaz's terrible lies.
• "No time for sensitive good-byes." Oh, Kaz.
• Similarly, Kaz's dreamy look when Synara thanks him.
  
• I couldn't help it--I laughed out loud when the escape pod door beaned Kaz. It was the best of the seven times (? It's hard to keep up) that Kaz got beaned in this episode.
  
• A Star Wars elevator scene fraught with tension! And also Star Wars elevator music. That was The. Best.
• What is BB-8 saying in this episode?!? I need to know.
• Oh, the FO will never be able to figure out who that guy in the welding mask was who was wearing the same exact clothes Kaz wears every single day.
• Ditto for that round orange-and-white droid.
  
• I really actually wondered if the pirates were going to double-cross Synara and either not pick her up or kill her. It's fun not to know what's going to happen in a kid's cartoon, even for a few seconds.
• Synara's moral ambiguity is interesting, although I think Kaz is right about her, or he will be.
• The opening shot of the episode with the sun rising was absolutely gorgeous.

 

Yes, Tam says more than once that the platform is safer now, the stormtroopers are just doing their jobs, etc. From the second-half trailer though, it looks as though she's going to be getting in trouble with the FO. So I wonder if her beliefs in this episode are pure setup for future episodes, or TPTB were really trying to help kids understand some of the complexities of GFFA politics....?

Anyway, I also think Synara is going to be back in some capacity later in the show. Maybe not till next season? We shall see. While I'm fine with seeing her arc sort of completed, I wish there had been a little more time given to the impact of her leaving. For instance, I wish we'd have seen Kaz deal a little more with the hurt that knowing Synara lied to them caused him. Instead we kind of get a Rey reaction--oh, I'm fine, nothing wrong here, happy happy! His non-reaction could be because he's also a lying spy...but a good boy, in contrast. I also wish Synara had shown a little more regret at leaving her friends...I mean, not Kaz, because the poor boy is already crushing pretty hard, but that she'd at least have given a message or something to Tam. Tam does say something about Synara not saying good-bye. I guess maybe we could see that completed later on too though.

 

Yeah, that beautiful little interlude with Synara touching those bird-whale things seems to signal a return. And yes, now that there is an established go-between for Kaz/the Colossus and the pirates, things are shaping up nicely for a future alliance. Gotta love kids' shows. Saves a lot of the angst of not knowing what's going to happen.

 

It was a little weird with the sea monster (Bibo's mom) too...I wasn't sure whether she was going to try to get Synara's pod or not.