Andor kicked off Season 2 with a three-part premiere that masterfully reunited fans with a burgeoning resistance desperate to keep one foot in the past while the other pushes ever closer to open rebellion. Last week, showrunner Tony Gilroy & company hit the trifecta once again by weaving their story with the beauty and precision of a Ghorman spider. Episodes 4-6, ‘Ever been to Gorman?,’ ‘I Have Friends Everywhere,’ and ‘What a Festive Evening,’ level up our rebels by pushing them out of their comfort zones to embrace their inner revolutionaries.
Of course, at the outset of this story, we learn that the revolution has grown a bit stagnant in the year that passed since the premiere. While the rebels continue to gather intel, The Empire continues to tighten its grip on the galaxy. Additionally, our rebels have stagnated in their personal lives. Cassian Andor (Diego Luna, Rogue One) and Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona, Good Omens) struggle to maintain a healthy relationship at the heart of a chaotic rebellion. On the one hand, their love and passion are on full display. Cassian and Bix set our screens ablaze with a passionate farewell (and later a passionate homecoming) and make Star Wars sexy. If Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman could have watched these episodes 25 years ago, they would have learned a thing or two about chemistry. Unfortunately, when the canoodling ends, it is clear that the couple is going through it. We don’t question their devotion to one another, but Bix’s dreams are still haunted by Imperial torture artist Doctor Gorst (Joushua James, Industry) and Cassian’s attempts to protect her are starting to border on paranoia and control. Even a quick trip to the bodega puts Cassian on high alert.
As a result, the pair spend most of their time holed up in a brutalist safehouse curated by the cold and calculating Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård, Dune Part 2). We learn that the only way Bix can endure her time alone in this place is through her growing drug addiction. At one point, she goes full Trainspotting while a daytime talk show drones in the background. Ultimately, we find that Bix needs to be lost in something. Only time will tell if her addiction, her relationship, or her commitment to the rebellion comes out on top, but it’s worrying to know that she is out of the picture by the time we reach the events of Rogue One.
While the rebellion stagnates, The Empire uses their time very effectively. Imperial Security Bureau (ISB) admin Dedra Meero (Denise Gough, The Stolen Girl) has finagled a way to manage her top secret Ghorman assignment from the comfort of her home on Coruscant. A week after watching her defend her ISB-wannabe boyfriend, Syril Karn (Kyle Soller, Fury), from his overbearing mother, we learn that one year later, she has handed him the undercover assignment of his dreams. Syril is an ISB plant within the Imperial infrastructure on Ghorman. His mission is to infiltrate the Ghorman Front and gain their trust so that The Empire can eventually control the narrative of their rebel activities, spark a larger insurgency, and deflect blame when they ultimately bleed the planet dry of its precious metals (and, ya know, collapse the entire planet…yada yada). We aren’t rooting for The Empire, but they are getting more mileage out of Luthen’s “using the tools of my enemy” tactic than the rebellion.
It turns out that Syril is the man for the job. Ghorman is the heart of the galaxy’s textile industry, and a beacon of fashion and culture set against a mid-century European aesthetic (with dashes of Oz and the MCU’s Time Variance Authority). It’s hard to imagine a more natural home for the man who loved to tailor his space-cop uniform back in Season 1. While it should be noted that Syril approaches his task with skill and precision, it is his inherent eagerness and naivete that make it so easy for the Ghorman rebels to trust him. Not only does he get to play out his space-Nazi fantasies, but he also gets to rock a fashionable beret for the cause. Syril even runs a victory lap during a visit back home. He earns an audience with Major Partagaz (Anton Lesser, Game of Thrones) that he almost sweetly identifies as the greatest moment in his life and a kinky hour in the dark with Dedra: “Turn out the lights,” indeed!
Meanwhile, Cassian is in the process of upgrading from soldier and thief to full-on rebel leader. In addition to his tactical know-how and street smarts, we get to see him employ a foppish persona (à la Luthen’s antiquities dealer) named Varian Skye. Skye is pretty pretty in his Coruscanti shirt and polished shoes, and, not to be outdone by Syril and Dedra’s dalliance in the dark, he earns an open invitation to the bedroom from Bix.
Ostensibly, Skye is an up-and-coming designer making his first pilgrimage to Ghorman – but really he is there to assess the readiness of The Ghorman Front. He doesn’t like what he sees. They are inexperienced, overeager, and planning to commit a dangerous crime in their own backyard. He recommends that Luthen pull the plug on this team-up, but quickly learns that the rules are changing. It turns out that an increasingly-desperate Luthen is ready to march these upstarts to the gallows if it means lighting a fire that will spark the rebellion – the time for subterfuge and intel is coming to end. It’s time to act.
We aren’t quite as shocked by this shifting strategy as Cassian because we have much more insight into the messiness and desperation seeping into the resistance. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker, The King of Harlem) breaking his pact with Luthen in order to kidnap Wilmon (Muhannad Ben Amor) for his tech expertise. In the end, it looks like Saw has a new disciple as the duo get high on their own supply of rhydo fumes and celebrate the insanity that drives a rebellion.
Even without Saw’s betrayal, Luthen is having a rough go of it. His clockwork control of his plans within plans is slipping. He is getting short and frustrated with his closest agents and confidantes. After learning that the reconnaissance bug hidden in Davo Sculdon’s (Richard Dillane, The Diplomat) collection is at risk of being discovered, he projects his frustration onto the ever cool and confident Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau, Maternal). Perhaps worst of all, Luthen pits Bix and Cassian against one another in order to assess their commitment to the cause. This violation is so hurtful to Cassian that he breaks with protocol to confront Luthen at his shop; in response, Luthen offers the harsh assessment that Bix will become a loose end if she can’t get her act together quickly. These are chilling developments, but even as Luthen’s grip loosens, the rebels under his tutelage begin to emerge as stronger leaders.
Val Sartha (Faye Marsay, Game of Thrones) finally gets to trade in her Chandi formalwear for tactical gear to lead the Ghorman Front on their first robbery of an Imperial shipment. This is the moment we learn that even the strongest of Ghorman story webs can suffer a snag or two; Andor commits a rare sin with this storyline. After making fans salivate over a badass rebel romance between Val and Cinta Kaz (Varada Sethu, Doctor Who) last season and then sidelining the romance in the first stretch of Season 2, Andor pops Cinta back into the equation just long enough to have her declare her love for Val, share a smooch, and promptly fall to a stray bullet. It is one of the most on-the-nose executions of the “Bury Your Gays” trope in recent memory and a needless unforced error in a storyline that warranted more depth and care. While the loss of Cinta isn’t handled well, the further hardening of Val makes her a more imposing and committed agent of the rebellion moving forward; her tough, unforgiving monologue aimed at the young revolutionary whose naive overconfidence killed Cinta almost makes us forget the clumsy setup for the death.
Fortunately, anyone missing Varada Sethu can see her living her best life palling around the universe with Ncuti Gatwa over on Doctor Who!
Of course, it’s not just field agents hardening for battle. While we are forced to endure a disheartening sequence of Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly, Ahsoka) taking a barrage of political losses from fellow politicians who are too scared to challenge The Empire, she doesn’t lose her fire. In fact, she steps into the gala at the end of the episode unafraid to cross (political) sabers with the Death Star mastermind himself: Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn, Secret Invasion).
Mon isn’t the only political mover and shaker hardening for the upcoming rebellion. Lonni Jung (Robert Emms, Chernobyl), the rebellion’s nervous and burnt-out informant within the ISB, learns to embrace his role with greater confidence. After endearing himself to his coworkers with a well-placed constructive criticism of the agency’s handling of the rebellion, he is able to uncover Dedra’s connection to Ghorman and later provides an earth-shattering piece of intel that sets up the next stretch of episodes (more on that later).
In fact, Mon and Lonni ultimately join forces to help Kleya evolve into an operative who is not only loyal, but willing to put her skin in the game. When Kleya’s gamble of placing a listening device on one of Sculdon’s prized artifacts backfires, she knows that it has to be recovered as soon as possible, so she steps out from behind her comms system to mastermind a heist. She lures Lonni into Sculdon’s display room during a gala; informing him of the plan while using her body language to sell the cover story that they are simply flirting at a party.
Inside the room, Kleya has to complete the difficult and intrusive process of removing the bug, which is stuck, while maintaining her cover. She dislodges the device by feel while maneuvering Lonni around the room for cover and simultaneously teaching him about the artifact so that he can maintain their cover later on (he delivers). If that weren’t stressful enough, the pressure and force of dislodging the device leaves her hand bloodied. While Mon isn’t fully aware of the situation, her sharp verbal sparring with Krennic helps buy Kleya the time she needs to complete this complex maneuver. As our intergalactic Ocean’s 11 crew emerges from the party victorious, we can see Luthen’s load visibly lightened. Perhaps he is finally learning the lesson that people don’t always fail in times of need.
For better or worse, the rebellion at the heart of Andor is evolving. In the closing moments of episode six, we see Cassian and Bix respond to a beacon in the heart of Coruscant. Presumably acting on Lonni’s intel about the intended expansion of Doctor Gorst’s torture program, our favorie rebel couple infiltrate the facility. Bix exacts her poetic vengeance on Doctor Gorst by hooking him up to the same device he used to torture her in Season 1. In fact, she is able to take him out before he enjoys a single bite of the Mendl’s Courtesan au Chocolat he carried all the way from a local bakery. On the way out of the facility, Bix wordlessly murders a curious Imperial guard before falling in step with Cassian as they blow the operation to smithereens.
It certainly feels like a victory for Bix in the moment, but only time will tell if she is on a healing journey or simply falling deeper into the dehumanizing void of war that she has been fighting all along. We have a lot of reasons to worry, but whatever happens, this moment leaves the story in a compelling place before we jump forward another year for the third installment of Andor Season 2 on Tuesday, May 6.
Until then, Vive la révolution!
I love this show and S2 has not disappointed. There’s part of me that wishes they’d been able to carry out the original plan of a season per year – rather than “squishing” four years into one season – might have let it breathe abit… on the other hand, I don’t know that I could have managed to sit through five full seasons of the tension, even I already know how it ends (but, of course, we don’t know the fates of many of the characters including Bix). Good article, thanks for the recap! 🙂