In “Announcement”, the fallout from the heist has gotten everyone up in arms, from the Empire to the people the Empire’s had its boots on. Word of the attack on Aldhani spreads fast — and to many people, it’s sounding like Rebellion. But where does that leave Andor, who just wants to get away from it all?
Armaan Babu: Hallo, Austin! Glad to be back for another discussion of what is fast becoming my favorite Star Wars project of all time. When I was last here, I mentioned that I was excited to see not just the heist (which was fantastic), but the fallout from the heist, and this episode did not disappoint! The Empire has been hit where it hurts, and they are furious. Their overzealous retaliation, however, is exactly what the Rebellion has been hoping for, and this episode does not shy away from just how ugly rebellion can get. It’s a fascinating episode.
Austin Gorton: After the zoomed-in intensity of last episode’s heist (and the slow-burn build-up to it in the episode before that), the decision to pull wide a little bit and spend some more time on the series’ larger concerns was a smart move. Seeing the fallout from the heist, the Imperial reaction, the dueling rebel responses from Luthen and Mon Mothma (with Mon’s own steps towards broadening the rebellion getting some more clarity), and a glimpse into the darker side of the insurgency was fascinating stuff that helped continue the broadening of the series. At the same time, I wonder if it helped highlight what is emerging as maybe my biggest concern about the show. But we’ll get to that.
A Tightening Fist
Armaan: We open with the Empire’s response to the Aldhani heist — more specifically, a meeting at the Imperial Security Bureau. The Empire is clamping down against this hard. Overtaxing people throughout the Empire’s reach whom they even suspect harbor Rebel sympathies (a suspicion that, as we all know, can be completely arbitrary), banning cultural events, taking on increased military resources…the Empire is essentially declaring war on its own people.
I was a little horrified, at first — my initial impulse was to think that this was an unintended consequence of the Rebel’s heist, that would lead to increased suffering of what must be trillions of people across the galaxy. But then I realized that this was probably part of the plan all along — the more the Empire takes off the mask and shows how ugly they can be, the easier it is to actually inspire people to revolt.
Austin: There’s a line here from Major Partagaz in which he talks about the fist of the Empire closing around these would-be Rebels, and it has to be an intentional callback to Leia’s admonishment to Tarkin in A New Hope, that the tighter they close their fist, the more systems will slip through their fingers. It’s wild to realize that while Leia is, of course, correct, the tightening of the fist was something the Rebellion was actively working to achieve, and not just something they were taking advantage of to win support to their side. It is a kind of ruthlessness of its own, which is very much the theme of this episode.
Armaan: The Star Wars obsession with prequels often exhausts me, even when they do result in good stories. This, however, feels like a story that needed telling. Rogue One showed us the sacrifices that the Rebels made, the ones we never got to see in the original trilogy. This show shows us the ugliness that we missed — from both sides, though only one clearly in the wrong.
Now, the truly ambitious know how to use chaos as an opportunity, and the ISB is filled with people all grubbing for the next rung of the corporate ladder. Sowing disharmony is the Empire’s way, even amongst its own security bureau. The dice, this episode, fall in Dedra Meero’s favor, but things could just as easily have gone the other way.
I want to take this moment to appreciate the performance of Anton Lesser (he’s certainly not the Lesser in my estimation) as Major Partagaz. Despite the dire situation, and despite him representing the iron fist of the Empire, he has what looks on the surface to be an almost laid back approach to leadership. He recognizes the petty infighting, clearly realizes how much it motivates his workforce, and handles it all with just enough derision to not quell it, but control it. His charismatic performance also does wonders with what could have been extremely dry scenes. The ISB sets have that oppressively mundane office architecture, the feel of a draining office atmosphere is there but none of it is passed on to the viewers, it’s an impressive feat.
Austin: I’ll echo your appreciation of Lesser’s performance. The “avuncular authority figure who’s actually evil” is almost a cliché, but Lesser brings a lightness to the role that contrasts nicely with the heavy oppressiveness of the setting. I don’t *like* these Imperial characters, but I do like watching them squabble and grasp for power. The courtroom-esque showdown between Deedra and Blevin was delightful, and the stinger Partagaz gives it — telling Deedra she did well but also to watch her back — hits the perfect combination of grandfatherly-support and implied menace.
Armaan: I also want to contrast Major Partagaz with another Empire employee — our ambitious, but down-on-his luck Syril Karn, played by Kyle Soller. From the start, the Empire’s been built on lies, and most people in Andor in a position of power clearly know that. An Empire like this one could only have been built on lies, and Partagaz’s power is in knowing how to play with people’s beliefs.
Eventually, though, those lies produce people like Syril Karn. Someone who truly believes the lies he’s been fed, who is thus shocked and appalled that no one seems to care as much as he does. The Empire might have been built on the lies of Palpatine, managed on the lies of people like Partagaz — but it’s the lies that trickle down to people like Syril Karn that can keep an Empire alive for generations. Soller may be at the very bottom of the rung now, but I still think of him as one of the most dangerous people on the show.
Austin: The way the show is setting up Cassian and Karn as thematic opposites is well done, and the way it gets added juice from being a prequel is really smart. Right now, Karn is far more devoted to the Imperial way of life than Cassian is to the Rebellion (at this point, Cassian is simply in it for himself, more or less), but we know, from watching Rogue One, he’s destined to become almost as dedicated to the Rebellion as Karn is to the Empire (with both seeing their respective organizations as vehicles to a better life). So we see the connection between the two forming even if the show hasn’t made it as explicit yet, even as it has kept them on roughly parallel journeys. Karn as both the ultimate achievement of Empire and the antagonist to the series’ hero makes him a fascinating character, and I can’t wait for him and Cassian to cross paths again.
Armaan: I like that, while I have no idea where the show is going, it does feel like it’s doing a good job of laying out what’s going to be important down the line, and why. Karn is a man desperate to feel more important than he is, but is continually being made to feel small. Luthen Rael is desperate for the Rebellion to find its legs — his desperation to have Andor on the team just so that the heist would have any chance of success is proof. And Mon Mothma has been backed into a corner, forced to be paranoid every moment of her life, unable to trust even her own family.
With the Aldhani heist, she can no longer play it safe.
Most of Mon Mothma’s scenes up to this point have been some mix of tense paranoia and despair, so I really enjoyed this scene at the party, where it looks like Mothma actually gets to push things forward, where she finally may have an ally she can trust and is happy to work with. I’m still deathly afraid that this may be a trap to test her loyalties, but it is clear that if her plans are ever going to come to fruition, she’s going to have to take risks. Aldhani has changed things — the time for care and slow planning is over.
Austin: Agreed, I appreciated seeing the Mon Mothma plot move forward a bit, and see her being more active in it. Trap or not, we know she eventually gets to the point where she’s even more rebellious that Luthen, so she’s almost on a parallel path to Cassian, in a way (albeit further along). I also continue to enjoy the dark humor of her having a POS husband. If anyone is going to rat her out to the Empire, it’s him.
Armaan: He really is just the worst. Like, if he gets the chance to betray her in this series, none of us are even going to be surprised, it’s just going to be another reason to be annoyed with him.
Shave and a Haircut
Armaan: Let’s not forget whose show this (ostensibly) is, though. For all the Empire-Rebellion hullabaloo, we get a fair bit of time with Andor himself. Now flush with cash post-heist, all he wants to do is take his people and run to the furthest edges of the galaxy. Maarva, the lady who raised him, however, has other plans, and aside from B2EMO, everyone back home would rather he’d stayed away.
A hero’s welcome, this ain’t.
Austin: Bless that little droid; he was so happy to see Cassian again!
Speaking of Maarva, a little detail I love: Cassian calls her “Ma”, which could either be his way of referencing her as the woman who raised him, or simply a diminutive nickname for “Maarva”.
Speaking of Cassian, his role in this episode, amongst all the wider galactic issues swirling around him, reinforced one of the concerns I have with the series at this point: is its title character the least interesting thing about it?
Seven episodes in, we still don’t have a real clear picture of who he is and what he wants, other than “to find his sister” and/or “be left alone”. Throughout the previous three episodes, he was the audience surrogate, allowing us to get to know Vel and her crew through his eyes. But the vast majority of them were far more interesting than him: Vel, the over-her-head leader, Tamaryn, the former Stormtrooper, true-believer Nemik, even turncoat Skeen, are all characters I wouldn’t have minded learning more about and spending more time with, yet it’s blank slate Cassian’s show, so he’s the character we stick with (are stuck with?).
How are you feeling about the show’s portrayal of its main character at this, over halfway through the season? Is Cassian’s arc being overwhelmed by the happenings around him, or are they doling out enough tidbits to keep him interesting?
Armaan: I was baffled when I heard this show was announced. Out of all the characters in Rogue One, Andor was the least interesting. Not uninteresting, just the least. He continues to be so, here, but even though we’re more than halfway through the series, I don’t mind. I didn’t come here for Andor, I’m here because it’s another Star Wars show, and it’s one of the best. We saw something similar in the Boba Fett show, when good ol’ Din Djarin showed up and basically hijacked the series for a bit.
Thematically speaking, though…Andor is still very much our POV character in a way that works, because despite everything, he still doesn’t understand how serious the situation is — or that there’s nowhere in the Empire he can run to just wait things out. Things have to be explained to him, he has to be shown, time and time again, why Rebellion is necessary despite its inevitable ugliness. Andor is at the heart of everything, but the story is less centered around him than it is slowly revolving around him — just enough to justify them naming the show after him.
However, would I enjoy it more if they’d just named the show Rebels and make him just another face among many? I think I would.
Austin: The comparison to Book of Boba Fett is apt, and it definitely seems problematic that we’ve gotten two series now in which the title character struggles to stand out amongst his peers. But you do make a good point that Cassian is less the central character of this series and more the lens through which we’re seeing the rise of the Rebellion (albeit in a different way than I was expecting). And we do know (again, because prequel) Cassian will eventually get with the (rebel) program, so it may just be the case of this being a point in the character’s arc where he’s more passive than we’re used to series protagonists being.
That said, there were some little touches in this episode that helped make him feel more active in the show. The reveal that Maarva is a devout rebel (if not Rebel) brings an interesting dynamic to their relationship (one that also furthers the parallels between him and Karn; both have mother figures who are disappointed in their lifestyle choices). And the reveal that the “Clem” alias came from the father/father figure who was with Maarva when she rescued Cassian and who was executed by the Empire points the way forward to how, once Cassian does accept the reality of the current situation, he will come to embrace the Rebellion.
Armaan: In some ways, for me, this was Maarva’s episode. Partially because I don’t know if we’re going to see her again, partially because the simple way she talks about love is just beautiful, and partially because Fiona Shaw’s performance was just fantastic here. A big part of this episode is about why now is the time to rebel, after, what, twenty years of the Empire being in charge? The Clem flashbacks feel like they’re less about Andor, and more about Maarva — she has lived with that reminded of what the Empire took from her for all those years, trying to avoid it, but finally, now, she can face the Empire and spit in its eye.
The scene where she reveals to Andor that she’s going to fight is where I appreciated Andor’s perspective the most. Because as inspiring as it is, the way Shaw plays it, it also looks terrifying. There is something like devotion in her eyes, she is ready to die for a cause when, up until recently, she was the kind of shrewd, cynical person who absolutely would have taken Andor up on his offer to fly away. From an outside perspective, it looks like she’s joined a cult.
Austin: One of the things this series has done really well – and which this episode really underscores – is that choosing to rebel is not an easy thing. It means a tough life and probably a short one. Luke certainly had a tough go of it once he threw in with Obi-Wan – he almost got smushed in a trash compactor! – but the threats he faced were more arch and overtly sci-fi. Here, the threats are much more mundane, and all the tougher for it. And it makes someone like Maarva finally deciding to take a stand after waking around the place her husband was hanged for years all the more heroic.
Armaan: As this episode shows us, there’s no half-hearted way to fight tyranny. Andor hasn’t quite gotten the lesson, though. As we see in his scene with Bix, he believes the Empire is something he can turn his back on. That he can clear his debts and go back to the way things were, that if he can just pay the right price, he can live his days in peace. His vacation in Niamos, though, proves him dead wrong.
Austin: The clear takeaway here is that there is nowhere free from Imperial control (at least not anywhere worth being). There’s a great irony in Cassian getting captured after two dramatic on-screen escapes just because he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time while trying to avoid the Empire (and, of course, that he gets brought down by the extra harsh security measures put in place after the heist he helped pull off). I’m still not sure this Cassian gels with the one Luthen presented in episode 4, of a zealous anti-Imperialist who just needs to think bigger, but this is clearly going to be an important step in his journey towards what we know he’ll become.
Armaan: I’m still reeling from the fact that he could be charged with “resisting judgment”. I knew things under the Empire were bad, but for some reason seeing the court system not even pretend to be fair shook me. Six years because a cop decided, on a whim, that he didn’t like the look of Andor.
With Andor imprisoned, we have either two things coming up in the next episode: A jail break, or a time skip. And I’m eager for both!
Force Facts
- The Imperial officer who lays out the new way of doing business to the ISB is Colonel Yularen, who was Anakin’s military counterpart in The Clone Wars and is the white-tuniced officer in the Death Star’s conference room when Darth Vader chokes Admiral Motti during A New Hope.
- I’m fairly certain this is the first episode of the series in which Stormtroopers have appeared.
- The K-2SO nod is obvious, but slightly less obvious, the Shore Trooper that arrested Cassian on Niamos is the same “type” of stormtroopers the rebels fight on the beaches of Scarif in Rogue One.
- Niamos also gives us a look at some of our first aliens of the series, though I didn’t recognize any of the species.
- Vel pops up again briefly (looking almost unrecognizable in fancy clothes and hair) and is tasked by the Rebellion with executing Cassian, whom they view as a loose end.
- This episode canonically establishes that a shave and a haircut costs two bits in the Star Wars galaxy.
Austin Gorton also reviews older issues of X-Men at the Real Gentlemen of Leisure website, co-hosts the A Very Special episode podcast, and likes Star Wars. He lives outside Minneapolis, where sometimes, it is not cold. Follow him on Twitter @AustinGorton
