Maxance Vincent
Warning: The following article contains major spoilers for episodes seven to nine of Andor – Season 2.
This week’s bulk of episodes for Andor – Season 2 may be the show’s very best. That remains to be solidified depending on how Alonso Ruizpalacios’ final episodes are, but for the time being, director Janus Metz Pedersen and writer Dan Gilroy visualize one of the most horrifying events in Star Wars history that fully demonstrates the Empire’s despotic powers in ways none of us have seen on screen. It proves to me that not only does showrunner Tony Gilroy fundamentally understand what George Lucas wanted to discuss when making the first Star Wars, but he also engages its central thesis on the Empire further through the shocking images Janus Metz presents in the season’s eight episode, which few filmmakers seem interested in doing when discussing war, and, most specifically, genocide.
We are now setting this chapter two years before the battle of Yavin, with Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona) living a peaceful life at that specific location. Bix’s health has drastically improved, and Cassian is also more hopeful for their future, as the Rebel Alliance grows stronger by the day. The two are visited by Wilmon (Muhannad Bhaier), who tells Andor that Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) has tasked them to travel to Ghorman and kill Supervisor Dedra Meero (Denise Gough), who is always out in the open, waiting to be killed. The seventh episode gives us the final pieces of plotting as, a year after we’ve last seen Ghorman, tensions have risen against the Imperial forces and the Ghorman Front, who are planning a large-scale protest to stand up against the fascist regime of the Empire.
What they don’t know, for now, is that the Empire is fully aware of their plans and is currently arranging their final preparations to trap them in the plaza and kill as many citizens as possible. When Cassian arrives at Gohrman with Wilmon, the two are immediately struck by the fact that the climate has changed since they last came here. Even Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) begins to question whether or not trapping the Gohrman Front was the right thing to do, when he is purposefully kept in the dark by Dedra and Major Partagaz (Anton Lesser), who has told her that Syril must never know what they are truly doing.
It’s only in the eighth episode that he becomes fully aware of what the Empire was doing all along, but by then, it’s too late to stop Dedra from enacting her plan in motion. Out of the blue, the Empire decides to reopen the plaza to the public, and it’s there that Carro Rylanz (Richard Sammel) begins to realize that it’s a trap. However, he also cannot stop his resistance group from rallying to the plaza, repeatedly yelling, “We are Gohrman! The galaxy is watching!” Cassian is also in the square to get a good shot at Dedra, but he does not know what will occur. When it eventually does, with TIE Fighters hovering in the air, in the most terrifying display we’ve seen this spaceship been used as, stormtroopers blocking the exit, and snipers randomly beginning to shoot civilians to enact chaos, the word ‘genocide’ becomes clearer-than-clear, and what unfolds in front of our eyes is one of the most harrowing sequences Star Wars has ever put on screen.
The violence is so unflinching that it becomes hard to look away, even when the Empire unleashes a horde of KX robots to continue the senseless killing of as many innocent people as possible. The shock of seeing them throwing citizens on a wall, as if they’re a bug to be squashed, is so petrifying that one feels helpless watching all of this unravel, almost as if there’s nothing tangible the rebellion can do ever to fight the Empire and make a difference.
Cassian, horrified, is still willing to go ahead and kill Dedra, but is stopped by Syril, who fights him off in an almost comedic hand-to-hand combat scene. It takes guts to add a flourish of physical comedy in a scene where there shouldn’t be, but that’s all Soller’s credit for being the great actor he is, fighting someone he has held a grudge on for the past four years, having ruined his reputation within the Empire, all while Cassian doesn’t even know who he is. They’ve never met each other, but he’s the reason why Syril was demoted.
As they fight each other, Syril ultimately gains the upper hand, but begins to question if this vendetta was worth it when Cassian tells him three words: “Who are you?” He lowers his gun, resulting in him being shot in the head by Rylanz, dying instantly. A rather unceremonious end for one of the show’s most interesting characters, whom you couldn’t get a read on for the entire season. One wonders if Dedra is aware of Syril’s death, but I assume this will get explored in the final bout of episodes, set a year before the Battle of Yavin. Before Andor leaves Gohrman, however, he picks up a dead KX unit and brings it back to the rebel base. Astute viewers instantly know who this is, though that character will only make his first official appearance in the ninth episode, which discusses the political fallout of the Gohrman Massacre.
Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) has found a listening device in her office and plans to make a speech that calls out the Empire for their genocidal actions, before heading to Yavin with an escort set up by Bail Organa (Benjamin Bratt). However, Luthen suspects the escort may be compromised, with an ISB plant, which turned out to be true after Andor rescues Mothma from an agent who planned to arrest her. The sequence itself is a great demonstration of the increasing climate of tension Imperial dissidents are living through, and must risk their lives to speak truth to power before leaving Coruscant to stand up against its oppressors.
It’s also the showcase for Genevieve O’Reilly’s performance as Mon Mothma, a scene that feels like the culmination of the performances she has given since Revenge of the Sith. Though her scenes in that film were cut, she eventually had a second chance to play her in Rogue One, but it wasn’t until this particular scene where she says something that is more than gutsy for a show set in the Star Wars universe to take on. Her speech is a reflection of the current horrors the world faces, whether it was intentional or not, and, more importantly, tells us exactly how fascist regimes operate, and what the biggest threat to us all is:
“The difference between what is said & what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil.”
You can’t get more timely than this, and you can’t write more politically cogent dialogue than what writer Dan Gilroy put to paper in these episodes. It’s major stuff, catapulting as some of the best storytelling Star Wars has ever seen. It’s also one of the first political pieces of media this decade to actively say something about what it wants to depict, and not take a neutral stance on the matter. It has more guts than many mainstream titles ever did, and for that reason, it deserves all of our admiration.
When Andor eventually returns to Yavin, with the KX unit, after Mothma is safe and sound, he reunites with Bix and tells her that he is done. He is willing to give it all up so they can live the rest of their lives together. However, Bix does not accept this as their fate, and, when Cassian wakes up the following morning, she has left, explaining in a video message that he cannot give up the fight against the Empire for her, and that they will reunite when it’s all over. Sadly for her, she does not know that Cassian never made it out of Scarif, so their final scene together is all the more tragic.
The episode ends with a bit of a hopeful note, for the future of Andor’s arc before Rogue One, as the KX unit turns on, and has been deprogrammed as the senseless killing machine it once was. In fact, this is the beginning of Cassian’s adventures with none other than K2SO (Alan Tudyk), who politely tells him to remove the blaster pointed at his face. A funny reminder that the character may have been one of the best things to have come out of that prequel film. We’ll get to see a bit of their banter in next week’s batch of episodes before this series comes to an end.
The seventh, eighth and ninth episodes of Andor – Season 2 are now available to stream on Disney+.
Very well said, excellent recap and timely indeed.