Maxance Vincent
Warning: The following article contains major spoilers for episodes four to six of Andor – Season 2.
Based on the ending of Rogue One, it won’t be a surprise to anyone that most of the characters populating Andor – Season 2 will meet their end, one way or another. In the first batch of episodes, Brasso (Joplin Sibtain) is killed by a trooper, and Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) has Tay Kolma (Ben Miles) “taken care of” by Cinta (Varada Sethu) after his issues have become too much of a liability for the rebellion. In the second batch of episodes, also directed by Ariel Kleiman, it’s Cinta who bites the dust, after a clumsily fired blaster hits her. It’s one of the show’s most shocking moments, and it’s bound to get much darker as the season progresses and leads up to Rogue One.
Episode four begins a year after the events of episode three, with Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona) living on Coruscant, hiding from the Imperial forces that are looking for them. Bix still hasn’t recovered from the trauma inflicted upon her by Dr. Gorst (Joshua James), so much so that she numbs herself with a substance to sleep better. However, as Luthen warns her, “it works for a while,” but the nightmares will only get stronger when she stops using it altogether.
I don’t think we’ve ever seen the Star Wars franchise discuss dark subject matters, such as sexual assault and drug addiction, the way showrunner Tony Gilroy and writer Beau Willimon treat them here. Star Wars has always been about space adventures, and while politics is an inherent part of George Lucas’ text, none of the films and shows ever treated on subjects like these. Perhaps that’s why some feel uncomfortable in seeing sequences like these depicted in the second season of Andor, but here’s the thing: the Empire are fascists. Fascists have, throughout history, abused their power and frequently did many of the things that Gilroy visualizes within the prism of Star Wars.
There’s nothing far-fetched, or “unnecessary” about showcasing the extent of the Empire’s grip within society through an officer using the power he has to rape someone he thinks is illegal. This is what the Empire does, and this is precisely the type of behavior they condone. “Vader wouldn’t condone attempted sexual assault”? As if he didn’t murder a room full of kids in Revenge of the Sith!
If you don’t think this is the case, go to school or read a history book. In fact, this is what Gilroy said in a recent interview about the inspirations that went into him depicting the Empire for his series, stating:
“I’ve been reading history my whole life. The last six thousand years of human history, there’s no shortage of cruelty, greed, the search for power, and the destruction of communities. It’s in my head. It’s not a trick, but the thing that makes it valuable is to not look at it monochromatically and realize that everyone in there is not just supporting the Empire or being a zealot. They’re worrying about their parking places, their jobs, who’s going to get the bigger assignment, if they’re going to get fired, or if they’re in danger. The human behavior within institutions and organizations is something that’s fascinated me and I keep working on over and over again. When you add those two things, the power of it and the weakness of it, it gets very interesting.”
There isn’t a person who has gotten what Lucas strived for in his original trilogy more than Gilroy. This quote here proves it. Perhaps it can often be too on-the-nose, especially in this bulk of episodes, but that’s what makes it so riveting, nonetheless. The discussions each character has, either the Empire plotting the destruction of Gohrman over tea and biscuits, or Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) acting as a double-agent for the Empire in attempting to gain the trust of a group of rebel insurgents in Gohrman, is all steeped, one way or another, in history. The history of fascism and its oppressive politics, and the revolutionaries who dared stand up against those with unfettered, limitless power. That’s what Andor is about – and, by extension, what Rogue One also discusses, albeit more messily.
Karn has the most psychologically riveting arc of this week’s bulk of episodes, as a man so desperate to climb back to the top of the Empire’s good graces that he works hand-in-hand with Major Partagaz (Anton Lesser) and Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) to infiltrate the operation of Carro Rylanz (Richard Sammel), a the leader of the Gohrman Front, who plan to hijack a transport carrier containing weapons to show the population what the Empire plans on truly doing. Karn’s plan is foolproof – he knows Rylanz bugs him during calls with his mother (Kathryn Hunter), which is why he says exactly what the Gohrman Front wants to hear: “Gohrman is hardly a threat to the Empire,” and so on and so forth. What he doesn’t know is that Partagaz and Meero are playing him, too, with the former stating to Karn’s love interest that he must never know what his mission is truly about.
Syril is so convincing that we only find out that he’s playing them a bit later down the line, once he communicates with Dedra and tells her he has been invited to a meeting. He provides Rylanz with reliable information on transport schedules, which Partagaz is fully aware of. We know more than they do, despite Cassian’s warnings that the Empire feeding false information is their specialty. Cassian himself travels to Gohrman for an assessment of Rylanz’s plans, disguised as fashion designer Varian Skye (Luna’s performance is the funniest he’s been as the character), and tells Luthen they shouldn’t be worth the hassle. He, however, does not know of the Empire’s full plans to destroy its population and is unaware that Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) put Meero in charge of the operation.
Luthen only finds this out through Supervisor Lonni Jung (Robert Emms), but even he does not know why they would want to target Gohrman, and why the Empire is so interested in their resources. The last episode of the bulk sees Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay) reunite with Cinta to help Rylanz perform the hijacking, and it’s arguably the best display of Marsay’s acting I’ve seen in this show so far. Vel is in love with Cinta. The two have been apart, it is implied, for a long time. When Cinta returns to kill Tay in episode three, it’s the first time Vel has seen her for a while. A year passes, and the two are now reunited and more in love than they were before. That’s why Cinta’s shocking death hits so hard, because she wasn’t meant to be killed.
In fact, the mission would’ve gone off without a hitch if everyone was on the same page, but a confrontation between two members of the Gohrman Front leads to a blaster shot being fired, directly hitting Cinta and killing her. When Vel eventually confronts the person who killed her, Samm (Abraham Wapler), crying and feeling deep remorse, she says,
“This is on you now. This is like skin. You’re taking her with you wherever you go for the rest of your useless life. Don’t you look away from me. She was a warrior. She was everything that you have daydreamed about. She was a blooded, fearless warrior whose loss will be mourned in ways that you will never understand. She was a miracle. And you, to die like this because of you, some whining, simpering, foolish child. Don’t you dare cry. You’ll make up for this forever.”
The anguish in her eyes, the affection she still feels for her while describing the life she lived in the past tense, are so heartbreaking that they quietly tear you apart into a million pieces.
At least the episodes end on a semi-hopeful note, with Bix breaking free from the shackles of her drug addiction, infiltrating Dr. Gorn’s office and subjecting him to the same type of torture he gave her many years ago, killing the doctor as she and Cassian blow up his office. The road to recovery for Bix will still be a complicated one, and she’s fully aware that her traumatic experiences will continue to haunt her. However, by taking action and ensuring Dr. Gorn will never hurt her – or anyone else – again, perhaps the next chapter of her life will be less nightmarish than the past two years. Time will tell exactly how she has changed when the next batch of episodes travels, once again, to one year later…
Episodes four to six of Andor – Season 2 are available to stream on Disney+.
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