Andor S2E04-06 Review | "Ever Been to Ghorman?" "I Have Friends Everywhere," "What a Festive Evening"
Can you give "everything" to the Rebellion?
[Welcome to Decoding TV’s coverage of Andor Season 2! For each of Andor’s four 3-episode drops, you should expect a written recap by Dan Gvozden, plus a bonus podcast episode. If you’d like to support what we’re doing here, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. The below review contains spoilers for Season 2, Episodes 4-6 of Andor. It does not contain spoilers for any future episodes or previews.]
At the conclusion of Andor, “One Way Out” (Season 1, Episode 10), the Imperial Supervisor and secret Rebel agent Lonni Jung (Robert Emms) presses Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) about what he sacrifices for the Rebellion. His response has become one of the most beloved monologues in the history of the Star Wars franchise:
Calm. Kindness. Kinship. Love. I've given up all chance at inner peace. I've made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there's only one conclusion, I'm damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they've set me on a path from which there is no escape. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost and by the time I looked down there was no longer any ground beneath my feet.
What is my sacrifice? I'm condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else's future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I'll never see. And the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice? Everything!
It’s a haunting mission statement that essentially boils down to the Machiavellian adage “the ends justify the means.” Luthen knows what he must give of himself and what values he needs to sacrifice—specifically, the lives of Neo-Separatist Anto Kreegyr and his men—if it means the eventual restoration of the Republic, even if he will never see it in his lifetime. For the most part, the various stories across Andor explore different characters’ shades of Luthen’s grand sacrifice. Characters like Syril (Kyle Soller) and Dedra (Denise Gough) view their roles in the Empire as ones of gains at all costs, where the pain of others could facilitate their ascent through the ranks of power. Others, such as Brasso and Nemik, had their lives sacrificed for the cause of others; they became casualties in a war that was larger than their personal gains. Even Cassian’s adoptive mother, Maarva, in a message recorded before her death, lamented that she hadn’t fought earlier and harder against the Empire, even if it meant a premature death.
With all these examples of heroic sacrifice and villainous greed on display throughout the entire series, it's high praise to say that I believe Andor, Season 2, Episodes 4-6, showcases the absolute peak of the show's depictions of morality in action. It does so by intertwining its numerous narratives so tightly that it raises the tension to incredible heights, even without a bombastic third-act action sequence. Instead, it doubles down on its investments in the lives of its fully-formed characters. It challenges each with the question that Luthen presented in the previous season: “Can you actually give everything to the cause of the Rebellion, even if it means sacrificing your humanity?”
The push and pull of how each character wrestles with their answer to this question drives the drama of these episodes, as if each person’s soul hangs in the balance. We watch as Luthen pushes himself to extremes and becomes increasingly frustrated by Cassian’s inability to do the same by abandoning Bix (Adria Arjona) and stoking the fires on Ghorman, which may lead its people to a disastrous fate. Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) returns and offers a glimpse down the path Luthen may be headed if he continues to prioritize the Rebellion above all else, including the lives of his men. Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) struggles to work within the system as it crumbles around her and finds herself increasingly on a path to irrelevance and danger, as even her most vulnerable allies abandon her. Vel (Faye Marsay) and Cinda (Varada Sethu) are finally reunited and allowed to explore the traumas that a life of sacrifice has inflicted, before their hopes of any future together are dashed by an errant blaster bolt. Meanwhile, even when confronted directly with the human cost of his actions, we explore the depths of depravity that Syril Karn can sink to, despite being offered genuine warmth and inclusion by the Ghorman Front, which has otherwise been denied to him by Dedra Meero.
Episode 4: "Ever Been to Gorman?"
The three episodes begin on Coruscant, “One Year Later…” (BBY 3), with an air of mystery as an unfocused, blinking red light and control panel fade into view, reminiscent of those that operated the Death Star laser in the original Star Wars. Bix wakes up in bed next to Cassian, confirming their recoupling, but she hears muffled sounds and sees the shadowy shapes of people outside the windows of their darkened, untidy apartment. She pulls her blaster and enters the kitchen, where she sees Dr. Gorst (Joshua James), who tortured her with the dying cries of baby Dizonites in the first season, finishing his latest sound torture on a nameless man. But, before Bix can attack him, Cassian restrains her and wakes her from her recurring PTSD dream/hallucination. There’s an exhausted familiarity between these two and the unsolved desire to have some semblance of normalcy in their transient lives so that Bix can finally begin to heal her mind. But, alas, that’s not in the cards for the two Rebel agents.
Even when walking around the streets of Coruscant, Cassian keeps his hood up, fearful of prying eyes. Bix is eager to return to her life before joining Luthen’s Rebellion. She tells Cassian, “The mission is dinner.” He responds, “I think I can handle it.” Despite the terror of operating as Rebel agents at the heart of the Empire’s power, the show gives us a glimpse into their playful and caring relationship, contrasting with the cold and calculated dynamic between Dedra and Syril from previous episodes.
However, when they return to their apartment, a rotating safe house for Luthen’s agents, it’s revealed that both are recovering from a recent incident in which Cassian killed a young Imperial soldier who saw Bix’s face during a mission. For Cassian, the fact that they are at war justifies his actions, but Bix perceives it as him overprotecting her, feeling that his fear of losing her again is “warping things.” It’s here that we encounter Cassian's first challenge in maintaining his double life; his love for Bix has compromised his ability to prioritize the mission above all else.
The following sequence evokes a feeling of mystery as we, along with some unnamed men, trail Syril Karn while he wanders the capital city of Ghorman, Palmo. His apartment is filled with crafted spiders, and someone watches him from outside his window. Is this a guard or a spy? Syril leaves his apartment and sets a wire on his door to detect if someone might enter while he’s gone. Is he paranoid, or is there genuine danger surrounding him? During a video call with his mother, Eedy (Kathryn Hunter), he pushes back against her downplaying his role on Ghorman, where she echoes the propaganda about the planet introduced in previous episodes. Nevertheless, Syril feels that he’s been put in charge of something meaningful, which seems true considering that the Ghorman Front, led by Carro Rylanz (Richard Sammel), is monitoring his every step.
Production designer Luke Hull’s team beautifully constructs Ghorman to resemble an austere European plaza built from white stone, with small tables for conversing and drinking with colleagues, entertainers, monuments, protestors, and a language that seems vaguely French. Sure, the Empire might be coded as British, but we’ve never seen such a distinctly European flavor or language in this universe, where all humans speak English, known here as Basic. The choice immediately evokes visuals of the Nazi occupation of Paris, as the Imperials build their “definitely not an armory” in the middle of Palmo.
Syril gets drawn into the web of the Ghorman Front when one of their members, disguised as a salesman of the same spiders we saw in Syril’s apartment, sells him a spider with a secret message hidden inside that invites him to an underground meeting. He immediately rushes to his office and establishes a secret communique with Dedra, who remains on Coruscant, to inform her about the meeting, but asks that she keep Major Lio Partagaz (Anton Lesser) out of the loop for now. If we hadn’t already suspected it before, it’s clear now that Syril’s involvement in Ghorman isn’t just about moving up the chain of the Imperial ladder, but a development of the calculated plan between him and Dedra that was forming in the previous arc.
Dedra escalates that plan in a meeting of the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB), led by Partagaz. The primary focus of the meeting is for Partagaz to receive an update on the Axis network, their current name for Luthen’s burgeoning alliance, whose identity they remain unaware of, despite the numerous arrests made and the weapons seized. Present at the meeting is Supervisor Lonni Jung, Luthen’s mole within the ISB, who is eager to socialize with various other Supervisors to maintain their good graces and relay information to Luthen. From the meeting, he deduces that Dedra is secretly managing the Empire’s presence on Ghorman; however, when Luthen presses him for details, he cannot provide a reason why.
Meanwhile, Syril continues his operation as a double agent in a meeting with the Ghorman Front, where a Ghorman broker, complains about the Empire’s interruption of trade to the planet, as well as their nightly convoys that roll through the streets of Palmo, disrupting the peace. Enza Rylanz (Alaïs Lawson), the daughter of Elector Carro Rylanz, approaches Syril, guided by the spider salesman, and introduces him to her father. He hopes that Syril might help make their appeals to the ISB more effective, as he seeks to confirm that the Imperials are building an armory that casts a shadow over their memorial to the events of the Tarkin Massacre. It was during this massacre that Grand Moff Tarkin, the Death Star-wielding villain of Star Wars: A New Hope, landed his spaceship on five hundred peaceful Ghormans in the middle of the plaza. For a brief moment, Syril appears to be moved by these Ghormans’ resoluteness in the face of oppression, but that couldn’t be. Could it?
Meanwhile, Senator Mon Mothma isn’t finding the same empathy back on Coruscant. She’s been working on behalf of Ghorman Senator Dasi Oran (Raphael Roger Levy) to mitigate the Emperor’s rapid erosion of the rights of his people by corralling the votes of the other Senators who have supported her causes in the past. Yet, many are now backing away in fear of retribution and a growing nationalism that has turned the legislative process of the former Republic into a meaningless endeavor. Oran has no idea why the Ghormans have been singled out, and Mon pleads with her peers, “If we do not stand together, we will be crushed.” This quick montage of Mon’s political pleadings crafts a portrait of a galaxy-wide sea change that may be all too familiar to those experiencing the swift political realignment unfolding across America’s legislative bodies. The potent political propaganda against the Ghormans has made them a powerful target for the Empire’s plunder, and Mothma feels powerless to effect change. Later, before the Imperial Ball is ready to kick off, the senators gather in the Galactic Senate Chamber for the ceremonial presentations of unfinished CGI… I mean, swearing allegiance to the Galactic Empire. Mon’s discomfort is palpable as she watches, even her closest allies surrendering their power to the Emperor.
On the planet D’Qar, future headquarters of Senator Leia Organa’s Resistance against the First Order, Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker), ally Two Tubes (Aidan Cook), and his terrorist group of Partisans guard their base, which is complete with two X-Wings and a transport ship. Saw approaches a worse-for-wear Wilmon (Muhannad Bhaier), who hides a rhydonium-extracting machine under a sheet. Saw hopes to use the complicated machine to extract the deadly gas for unknown purposes, but he has lost several untrained men during the process. He knows Wilmon has been successful, so he captures him with the promise that he will let him leave once he teaches a recruit named Pluti (Marc Riemann) how to complete the procedure unassisted. Forest Whitaker’s performance as Saw continues to escalate his madman energy, which would reach its peak before his death at the start of Rogue One. Wilmon remains a blank slate of a character, making it hard to judge any expectations we might have for him, but the danger that Saw presents to anyone in his proximity is enough to generate fear for Wil’s safety.
Back on Coruscant, a sleepless Bix watches out of their apartment window, where, through binoculars, she spots a flashing light signaling Cassian to meet with Luthen. A reluctant Cassian descends to meet Luthen and learns that he is being sent unarmed to Ghorman to assess the actions of Carro Rylanz, with whom Luthen has some history. The catch is that Cassian will be going alone. Luthen assures him that Bix will be fine, but Cassian’s anxiety prevents him from accepting the assignment. Back at their apartment, in the most tender depiction of love in a Star Wars film, they slowly dance, pressing their hands together and kissing to a slow, foreboding love ballad, as Cassian trusts Bix’s safety. He accepts Luthen’s offer, while Bix, weary from her traumatic nightmares, opens an eye-dropper and ingests a blue liquid. For a show whose former representation of drug use was as a sort of childish public service announcement about the dangers of “death sticks,” Andor continues to surprise with its mature subject matter.
Episode 5: "I Have Friends Everywhere"
In Luthen’s art shop, Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau) scans radio frequencies broadcast throughout the galaxy as she attempts to connect with a listening device they planted in Davo Sculdun’s (Richard Dillane) art collection, which is currently set to be displayed at the upcoming Imperial Ball that they hoped to spy on. When she finally connects, she overhears Sculdun informing Misko that he has discovered various pieces of his collection are forgeries. As it turns out, the dealer who sold him one of the forged pieces is dead, so they must vet every piece in the collection, including the one currently hosting Kleya’s listening device. Kleya’s relationship with Sculdun’s gallery assistant reveals that he doesn’t yet suspect any of the pieces he bought from Luthen. Still, she and an angry, overwhelmed Luthen know that if anyone finds the device, it will be traced back to their shop immediately and result in their deaths.
Cassian also engages in the art of spycraft by indulging in finer things when he assumes his new identity as a fashion designer traveling to Ghorman to inquire about their finely woven silk. Thus, he adopts the identity of Varian Skye—something a Star Wars Name Generator would create—and journeys to Palmo to seek out Carro. After settling into his hotel room with the help of a local bellhop, Tazi (Ewens Abid), he notices the Tarkin Massacre monument outside his window. He questions his cautious bellhop about his opinion on the memorial to the massacre being located in the center of town. The bellhop admits that he was present for the massacre at the age of twelve, and while they aren’t supposed to speak of it to guests, his father was killed saving him from Tarkin’s cruiser. “Haven’t gone very far, have I?” he points out. I wonder if Cassian sees anything familiar in the young man, given his familial loss and how it drove him to flee Ferrix into the arms of the Rebellion.
Eventually, Cassian meets with Enza Rylanz under the guise of setting up a meeting to discuss her father's silk business. He quickly assesses that the Ghorman Front is woefully unprepared for the challenges they face and is moving too quickly. “People die rushing. You have no idea who I am. You need to be more careful,” he tells her, to which she retorts, “It’s hard to be patient when your world is falling apart.” Still, the next day, he goes to “The House of Rylanz,” a silk shop that also operates as a front for Carro Rylanz’s political maneuvering. They’ve been communicating with Luthen through a code crystal-encrypted radio that a “lost” Rebel pilot delivered. Carro tells Cassian that they plan to use the knowledge they’ve gained from an Imperial informant, Syril, to disrupt the late-night caravans that ship weapons to the slowly assembling armory and reveal the truth of the construction to the people of Ghorman. He hopes Cassian and Luthen might provide them with an advisor possessing tactical expertise to carry out the mission, but Andor is dubious, noting that “feeding false information is what they do.”
Cassian’s dismissal of Carro’s plans is painful, but his points about their fledgling operations ring true. Just as Carro’s shop hosts a spider and web trapped in a glass sphere, so are the Ghorman people stuck in an inescapable prison of circumstance. Andor knows that stealing the weapons won’t be difficult, but for the Ghorman Front, there is no escape plan. They live at the crime scene, and the only attention the maneuver will attract is from the Empire. Carro asks, “Then what? Just let them do what they want?” But, for Cassian, it’s not that simple, and he tells him, “I’ve got more questions than recommendations.” It’s not a revolutionary answer, but one born of Cassian’s experiences on Ferrix and the damage that an unplanned revolt can inflict.
Carro’s actions are driven by his monitoring of Syril, who puts on an expert display of defiance against the ISB, throwing a fit and pointing fingers at his colleagues after they search his office, finding the implanted listening devices from the Ghorman Front. The Ghorman Front, meanwhile, believes they have the advantage over Syril after gaining access to his Imperial records, which detail his failures on Morlana One. For this reason, they suspect he’s eager to help them, prompting a meeting where they appeal to his loyalty to the Emperor, who they believe is unaware that the ISB is running a shadow government. This wrinkle in the Ghorman Front’s view of the political landscape conveys the complex tangle of conspiracies that the early Rebellion would have to navigate as their alliance formed. Even in BBY 3, the perception of Emperor Palpatine as a victim of attacks from a rogue Jedi Council—and potentially the ISB—underscores the power of propaganda, even among the Ghorman people, who have found themselves on the receiving end of the Empire’s latest smear campaign.
Syril “steals” files from his office and boards a ship back to Coruscant, where he returns to their shared apartment to a pained kiss on the cheek from Dedra. She reveals that she had him followed from the spaceport at Partagaz’s insistence. And then, in a sequence that I expect to be memed until the end of time, Syril is told that he can only stay with Dedra for an hour. For Syril, that means there is just enough time for them to have sexual intercourse. I doubt any device could register Dedra’s excitement on this or any of the many worlds of the Star Wars galaxy. She tells him to “turn out the lights,” an order that visibly turns Syril on, and lord… move over Jim and Pam, the chemistry (or lack thereof) these two have in just a look is enough to solidify their claim to television’s hottest couple. Too bad we can’t indulge in these vibes for any longer, because when Dedra says “turn out the lights,” she means to render the entire apartment in an impenetrable darkness where the disgust etched into her face won’t be visible.
But the embarrassment for Syril is just beginning! After a breakfast with his mother, where she decides to name one of his Ghorman craft spiders “Syril,” he meets with Partagaz and Dedra to discuss his work with the Ghormans. They convince Syril that their only goal is to bait the Ghormans as a prize for outside agitators, and he tells them that he will need to continue feeding the Front accurate information about the shipping routes and schedules. Partagaz congratulates Syril on a job well done, to which Syril says, out loud, “If I say this is the greatest day of my life, does it spoil everything?” Dedra sighs… yes, it does, Syril, you pathetic idiot… which comes out as “It’s good to see you happy.” Later, in a private meeting with Partagaz, he tells Dedra that she must ensure Syril never finds out their real plans. To be honest, this confused me, but perhaps these secret plans will be revealed in the next storyline.
While Cassian is away on Ghorman, Bix continues to sink deeper into her drug use to cope with the vivid nightmares that intrude upon her reality. So, when her doorbell rings, she grabs a blaster. But it’s just Luthen coming to check on her, or at least that’s what he claims. He reflects on his past, when he stayed in the same safe house as Cassian and her. Bix wishes they could stop hiding from the Empire, but Luthen reminds her that it only ends if they “bring them down or die trying.” While searching through the kitchen, Luthen discovers Bix’s drugs and chastises her for not taking care of her health. She suggests that Luthen came to the safe house to offer her something, but changed his mind. However, he denies her claim, clearly lying.
The next morning, Bix wakes to some version of “Good Morning Coruscant” on her television. This show, like “Good Morning America,” features two women drinking and lightly gassing each other up about shopping, fashion, and sometimes… dare they say it… politics! The women are excited about attending the Imperial Ball, which has quickly become the hottest ticket in town!
As fun as the Imperial Ball sounds, Wilmon has the opposite experience on D’Qar with Saw and his student Pluti, who simply cannot operate the rhydonium device correctly. The device is an excellent piece of Star Wars machinery, clicking and whirring in a way that beautifully combines low-tech gears with futuristic nonsense. Pluti approaches Saw and tells him he needs more time to learn how to operate the device or a way to simplify the process. When Saw suggests he intends to kill Wilmon, Pluti reasserts the need for Wilmon to remain part of the team. Saw agrees, for now, and tells him to see Two Tubes, who will provide codes to simplify the process.
However, Saw’s invitation is merely a ploy to isolate Wilmon and Pluti. When he questions Wil about Pluti’s preparedness, Wil plainly states that he believes he is ready. Wil’s decisiveness triggers something in Saw, prompting him to blast Pluti without hesitation. The entire squad turns to witness the aftermath of the murder, but Saw tells them that Pluti was a traitor who had been transmitting information to the Empire. He uses Two Tubes to plant a device on Pluti’s corpse as evidence of his treason. Wilmon is horrified, but Saw orders his men to evacuate the base before he can object.
Later, Saw and his men land on a planet rich in rhydonium and set up the machine for operation. While Wilmon begins the extraction process, Forest Whitaker delivers a deliriously mad monologue as Saw about his life as a child slave in the Onderon jungle. He describes how their clothes and minds would melt away after exposure to the rhydonium. “You could feel your skin coming alive.” It was the rhydonium; they had a leak, and all the others fled, but he didn't. When Wil’s extraction is successful, Saw puts his face directly into the gas, which shouldn’t be possible, but he screams that he understands it and calls it his sister! “You think I’m crazy. Yes, I am. Revolution is not for the sane.” The rhydonium is a test for Wilmon regarding his allegiance. Will he continue to work with Luthen, or is he ready to fight alongside Saw?
Wil removes his mask and breathes in the rhydo, choking it down as Saw shouts, “We’re the rhydo kid, ready to explode!” Wil screams while Saw yells into the night air, “Let it in, let it run wild!” It’s a chaotic scene of pure terror, showcasing Saw’s insanity and suicidal purpose in full effect. The only thing holding back the scene is our lack of knowledge about what led Wilmon to embrace Saw’s tactics. The show has devoted so little time to the character that we can’t properly judge his motives or the mindset leading him down such an extreme path. Just last season, Saw accused Luthen of hiding a spy within his radical group of fighters, which begs the question: Is Wilmon still working for Luthen as a mole inside Saw’s terrorist cell, with the rhydonium as the final test he needed to complete to erase any suspicion from Saw? Only time will tell.
Episode 6: "What a Festive Evening"
Luthen and Cassian meet at Port Steergard, just outside an Imperial Naval Base, carefully avoiding curious eyes. During their hyperspace jump to Coruscant, Cassian assesses that Luthen should not get involved with the Ghormans, whom he believes will be crushed by the Empire if they act. This angers and disappoints Luthen, who believes the act of rebellion has value, even if they are crushed. He accuses Cassian of thinking like a thief, not a leader. Here, we can see Luthen’s dogged mindset beginning to mirror Saw’s inhumane approach to rebellion. He’s willing to lose lives, no matter how doomed they may be, to send a signal to others who might rise in response. For Cassian, that’s a line he’s not willing to cross. Luthen dismisses Cassian’s participation, ready to let him go for good, and signals Kleya to find someone to replace him on Ghorman as their plans progress.
Cassian returns to his apartment to find it has been cleaned by Bix, who has transformed it into a home for them. They flirt over his new alternate persona, Varian Skye, during his admittedly unadventurous and potentially pointless journey to Ghorman. However, Cassian confesses that Luthen scared him the most. Bix discloses that Luthen visited her shortly after Cassian left for Ghorman. Cassian is furious that Luthen never mentioned the visit and suspects his intentions were anything but innocent, considering Luthen’s penchant for mind games and subversion.
So, Cassian confronts Luthen at his art shop, fully visible to anyone who might be watching. Luthen tries to usher Cassian away, but when unsuccessful, he chastises Cassian for his lack of creativity in assessing the potential of supporting the Ghorman Front. Regardless of the loss of life, “What’s most important is The Cause!” Luthen asserts. But Cassian won’t have it, and Luthen’s monologue echoes in his retort: “I give you everything.” Luthen, who must have practiced that monologue in the mirror, points out that Cassian’s anger and lack of control have him acting emotionally, not rationally, and that his care for Bix and her decaying state jeopardizes the cause.
Cassian may be letting his emotions guide him, but here we see Luthen’s complete detachment from the needs of the humans he has commanded to join his cause. His mentorship of Cassian, as he seemingly shapes him to become his replacement, has led him to impose his abandonment of humanity on those around him, just as Saw did with Wilmon. His statement about Bix to Cassian might as well have been an ultimatum, yet Cassian doesn’t accept Luthen’s binary choice. It’s not Cassian’s responsibility to handle Bix alone; he joined the Rebellion to be part of something, not to be isolated, and he impresses upon Luthen that if he wants him to continue as his agent, he must help him solve this problem.
On Ghorman, Luthen’s replacements for Cassian, Vel and Cinta, meet for the first time in several years after both had told Luthen they would only take the assignment if the other were also on it. In an echo of Cassian and Bix’s relationship, Cinta reveals to Vel that she had an accident she wanted to hide from her, which meant that she had to rest up out of sight. It’s a tender scene, with many details that suggest the rekindling of a relationship, which means that, in classic Andor fashion, it will be doomed to fail.
Vel and Cinta rendezvous with the Ghorman Front to make plans to ambush the transport by laying electromagnetic pulses along their route, followed by a swift exit through the underground tunnels that spread throughout Palmo. The plan must move quickly, before their intelligence goes cold. Vel impresses upon them the necessity of agreeing to the tactics and prioritizing “following orders.” When has that ever gone wrong? But again, we see an extension of Luthen’s directive to sacrifice “everything,” including human emotion, to deliver for The Cause. But, even Vel and Cinta secretly have doubts, including their feelings about Luthen. “We’re worth more to him separately than together,” Cinta tells Vel, as they make love to the rising Andor theme.
We return to Bix’s apartment for a brief interlude, before this arc’s patented Andor Third Act SetpieceTM, to discover that she’s finding the strength to resist her sleep-inducing drugs. But, only for just long enough to notice that the red light from Luthen is flashing again, signaling Cassian to another mission. This time, she insists that she will join him for the mission, and after Cassian’s confrontation with Luthen, he agrees.
The remainder of this story arc follows a cross-cutting Andor Third Act SetpieceTM that sees Mon hobnobbing with the muckitymucks of the Imperial world, including Sculdun, Luthen, and even Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) as they approach the art gallery where Kleya and Luthen have hidden their listening device. To retrieve the device, Kleya recruits Supervisor Jung as a distracting physical barrier while she painstakingly tries to remove the device from an artifact covered in braille-like text. Complicating the entire endeavor is that Krennic and Sculdun are slowly inching their way closer to them, so Mon tries to distract Krennic by arguing with him over the nature of power in the Battle of Carmeen, which she claims was a systematic execution. As a prideful fascist, Krennic cannot agree.
Meanwhile, on Ghorman, the Front executes their sabotage of the weapons transports; the plan goes off without a hitch, and the team retrieves weapons from a downed vehicle, proving once and for all that the Empire was lying about not building an armory in Palmo. The sequence is a wonderfully constructed heist, featuring a dazzling shot that follows a weapons crate from the streets of Palmo down tight, streetside tunnels into the underground, where the Front’s exit vehicle awaits. However, problems arise as the people of Palmo notice the activity on their streets. One of the Ghormans we’ve seen at the Front’s meetings, Lezine (Thierry Godard) shows up to ask questions, which prompts a member of the Front, Thela (Stefan Crepon) to pull a blaster on him. In a tussle between the two men, a single shot is fired, and, wouldn’t you know it, the blaster bolt kills Cinta.
As the Ghormans flee and the ISB police arrive, Vel chastises the young soldier whose blaster led to Cinta’s death, “This is on you now. This is like skin. You are just a whining, simpering, foolish child. Don’t you dare cry.” Here, we see Vel is unable to fulfill the emotional detachment Luthen has asked of her, with her anger creating even further fractures in the alliance with the Ghormans. How this death and Luthen’s choice to withhold Cinta from Vel will ripple out into the future will be something to watch for throughout the remainder of the season.
As sad as Cinta’s death may be, the Ghormans were successful, and so too is Kleya as she and Luthen saunter away from the Imperial Ball with the listening device in hand. Luthen jokes to Kleya about her success, “You should have killed Krennic while we were up there.” It’s the most lighthearted that we’ve seen Luthen across this entire story arc, and it’s also a foreshadowing of what’s to come in the next scene.
We join Dr. Gorst on his journey home from the Imperial Ball, as he rides an elevator up to his offices. But when he steps off the elevator, Bix is there to confront him. She pulls a gun on him, straps him down into his sound torture device, all while his slice of cake sits on the control panel. She flees the room as he screams in agony, shoots an Imperial security guard in plain sight with Cassian, and walks away. They smile while Cassian pulls out a trigger device that blows up the building as they walk away.
In this final moment, we witness the redemption of not only Bix’s security but also of Luthen’s soul. By sending Cassian and Bix to assassinate Dr. Gorst, Luthen prioritizes the humanity of his soldiers, contrasting sharply with that of Saw Gerrera. He may have erred in how he treated Vel and Cinta, allowing them to reunite only moments before Cinta’s death. Cassian’s appeals to their companionship as part of the growing Rebellion did not go unheard. Thus, despite the horrors that many of the characters have faced throughout these episodes, we observe a glimpse of softer humanity as Luthen jokes with Kleya and the shared smile between Cassian and Bix injects hope that, on the other side of this war, there may be a possibility for light to find its way into even the darkest places.
Though in the shared bedroom of Syril and Dedra, I think hope won’t be enough for any light to find its way there.
Stray observations:
Anyone who has seen Star Wars: Attack of the Clones will remember the bizarre inclusion of Dexter Jettster’s classic American diner, Dex’s Diner. When Obi-Wan begins investigating the mysterious assassin who fired a poison dart at Padmé Amidala, he turns to his knowledgeable, four-armed friend in the lower levels of Coruscant. There are many strange similarities between our universe and the Star Wars universe. Still, nothing can explain why the culturally specific aesthetic of a 1950s diner, with its ship-like interiors, booths, checkered floors, chrome counters, jukeboxes, and neon signs, appears on Coruscant, preserved perfectly from our world. But now, these episodes show us additional buildings with this aesthetic as Cassian explores the lower levels of Coruscant while acquiring his new persona. The building that Cassian enters seems to function as both a brothel and a spy facility, yet you can still see the remnants of what used to be a diner just beyond its repurposing. I’m not sure this resolves the issues with Dex’s Diner, but at least it’s no longer the only one of its kind to make us question everything we know about this galaxy, far, far away…
Let’s keep these within the diner theme. In one of the more bizarre transitions out of a scene, as Cinta and Vel conclude their reunion on Ghorman, a voice from the background of the restaurant clearly says, “I’ll have what she’s having.” Did Rob Reiner direct this episode, and want to give a cameo to his mother? Is this the Star Wars version of Katz’s Delicatessen?
Andor airs Tuesday nights at 9pm ET on Disney+. Look for recaps/reviews of the latest batches of episodes here later that evening. Dan Gvozden is a film and comics critic who lives and works in Baltimore. If you enjoyed this review, check out his Spider-Man podcast, The Amazing Spider-Talk.
I'm making a point of commenting every week - the recaps have been great!
Still not really vibing with this season so far, though. Things don't feel urgent. I feel like there's a total lack of momentum in most storylines. Even characterization feels weaker than in S1, and that was the show's greatest strength in my opinion.