If you thought this show was going to be lighthearted, consider that Dave Filoni is directing. He also directed Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, both of which started off lighthearted before being hit hard by Cerebus Syndrome.
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Season 1
"Signal from Sector Six"
- On board a derelict freighter, most of Kragan's pirates fell victim to a creature breakout. And it turns out that Kowakian monkey-lizards — usually depicted as annoying but somewhat intelligent pests at best and dangerous when armed — have a much larger and monstrous subspecies in the form of Kowakian ape-lizards. Ape-lizards are not only willing to eat people, they are nigh-impervious to blaster fire.
- Yeager was previously established in "Fuel for the Fire" as having had a wife and child who he misses greatly. So what happened to them? They were killed while spectating a racing match, in which a racer filled up his ship with too much hyperfuel and crashed into the audience when things went awry. The fact that they died in such a sudden yet relatively mundane way makes the whole thing even more tragic/terrifying, especially when Solo and other episodes of Resistance have already established the level of damage even a small amount of hyperfuel can cause, meaning that tons of other people likely also died in the crash and none of those deaths were pretty. And worst of all? The racer (who survived all this) was none other than Yeager's own brother.
- As bad as the Empire treated its stormtroopers, it seems the First Order is even worse. The Force Awakens alluded to the conditioning done to their stormtroopers, but when Commander Pyre and his sergeant believe that CS-515 (actually Kaz in disguise) has faulty brainwashing, they order him to undergo an immediate, involuntary brain scrape. Basically, the First Order treats their troopers (many of whom are stolen children like Finn) like organic droids, memory-wiping and reprogramming them whenever they step out of line. If this happened to Kaz, he would've been lost to the First Order for keeps.
- Everything that happened to the starless system Kaz and Poe discover. Its sun is missing. All of its planets have had their cores bored out, with most of them being shattered as a result. The one known inhabited location, the moon with the village, was subjected to a massacre. And the First Order is almost certainly responsible. Furthermore, the implication is that their actions in the system were connected to Starkiller Base, possibly as research for the superweapon.
- Kaz and Torra end up having to watch General Hux's speech preceding the Hosnian Cataclysm, as well as the Cataclysm itself, which for many was one of the most chilling scenes of The Force Awakens. To make it even more chilling, we see the First Order Stormtroopers on the Colossus saluting in unison as they watch the planets in the Hosnian System shatter, which serves to show what kind of unhinged fanatics the First Order are to cheer as they watch billions of innocent people die.
- As creative as Neeku's solution for getting rid of the Stormtroopers on the station is, it's also pretty grim in presentation. He floods the corridors the troopers are patrolling and then flushes them out of the station. Afterwards, we get shots of the troopers flailing helplessly as they sink into the depths (of the five troopers we see get flushed, only one is shown to be able to swim) and/or get eaten by sharvo fish (with one later seen carrying a trooper's helmet in its mouth).
Season 2
In General
- Commander Pyre and Agent Tierny ordered by their superiors Captain Phasma and Kylo Ren to find the Colossus, or else... Kylo demonstrates to Tierny a taste of what exactly may happen if she fails.
- Kaz, Eila, and Kel finding an "ancient power source", which seems to be related to the Sith...
"A Quick Salvage Run"
- The Colossus arrives at D'Qar after the Resistance had evacuated, and there's a glowing red spot where the Resistance base used to be that can be seen from orbit. Whether its a crater or a forest fire that's been burning for hours, it's a testament to just how much damage a First Order Dreadnought's orbital autocannons can do to a planet's ecosystem.
"The Relic Raiders"
- The Sith relic vaporizing the Relic Raiders.
"The Missing Agent"
- In case you need to be reminded, none of our heroes have any sort of special training like previous protagonists. None of them are Jedi or trained killers. At the very most, they have military training or know some level of self-defense, and that's it. So give them a pistol and pit them against a larger, fully-armored, and weaponed bounty hunter and they're forced to run with their tails between their legs. And when they can't, they resort to whatever's at hand and it still doesn't lay a scratch on him. Kaz, Yeager, Synara, and Norath are nearly done in multiple times, including getting shocked and almost getting an axe to the face.
- As Kaz and Norath flee while Yeager and Synara hold Tagrin off, Tagrin sets off some sort of explosion feature on his axe. Kaz and Norath are a considerable distance away when it happens and react accordingly.
"No Place Safe"
- After the Colossus escapes once again, Tierny passive-aggressively comments to Pyre that General Hux won't be happy to hear about this. Pyre ominously replies that it's not Hux he's worried about...
"The Escape"
- The Cold Opening. The finale begins with Tam and Rucklin winding down after a mission, only to notice that their Star Destroyer has returned to Aeos, along with an entire fleet... then cue the ships firing their cannons on the planet. Tam is horrified at this act of genocide, and Rucklin is baffled as to how she could react that way since the "subversives got what they deserved". This proves to be Tam's last straw, finally realizing that the First Order is made of Knight Templars and Omnicidal Maniacs.
- As Tierny and Pyre report to Hux, their superior steps aside to let them know that, after all their failures so far, they're gonna have to explain this to the Supreme Leader himself, who takes over the call. The duo assure him that they'll get everything under control, Ren has his doubts and decides to give them a taste of what exactly may happen if they fail one more time: he uses the Force to make Tierny and Pyre pull their blasters on each other and gets as far as getting their fingers on the trigger before letting them go. Tierny and Pyre are clearly scared out of their minds and struggle to control their own bodies as it happens, and right afterwards, they agree to double their efforts immediately.
- An oft-overlooked part of what makes this so horrifying is that Kylo is Force-choking them over a holocall from another side of the galaxy. In case you've forgotten how powerful Kylo is, compare this with Snoke doing this to Hux in The Last Jedi or Palpatine doing this to Dooku in The Clone Wars.
- The shot of Kylo making the agent and the commander point their weapons at each other (the page image) is framed in a way that makes it look as if he's physically holding up Tierny and Pyre's arms.
- As Team Fireball makes their way through the hangar, CB drops a very full load of crates on a group of Stormtroopers, crushing them to death.
- When Kaz is pinned down by rubble, Pyre approaches him with his electrostaff and is ready to beat the crap out of him. Even after everything that's happened, it's a reminder that Kaz is still an ordinary pilot and Pyre is a trained killer.
- As Team Fireball manages to get away while the Colossus's starfighters have demolished Tierny's Star Destroyer, our First Order Security Bureau officer is told that she's receiving a call from Supreme Leader Ren. Tierny pleads with him that she can still fix things, she just needs reinforcements before he cuts her off and reminds her of what he had told her earlier that day. As Tierny tries to affirm that she understands, she has trouble finishing her sentence as she struggles to breath, and the scene ends with her grabbing her throat as it cuts to her ship exploding.
