Andor Recap: Benevolent and Useless Irritations

There have been moments in previous episodes of Andor where the titular character felt surprisingly inessential for short but noticeable stretches. “Announcement,” however, is the first instance when focusing on Cassian Andor himself, nearly halfway through the episode, might make viewers feel impatient rather than relieved to be checking in on the main character. Right now, the repercussions of last week’s Aldhani heist are so much more compelling than our ostensible protagonist. The writers have managed the neat trick of making the inner workings of the Empire entertaining without that cool-helmet-centric glamorizing of their gleaming-badass aesthetic.

Instead, the episode starts with Syril’s mother haranguing him about his apparently ostentatious raised collar, prior to a job interview that his well-connected and obviously loathsome Uncle Harlow arranged. Then it cuts to Dedra selecting her uniform in preparation for the Imperial Security Bureau meeting in a sequence that is itself intercut with her march down to one of those white imperial hallways. (Later, she’ll chastise an underling for his rumpled tunic.) In other words, the Empire’s pomp is made to look fussy and ridiculous — even as the Imperials are making a play to up the scariness factor. The meeting includes announcements of the Empire’s plan to, ah, strike back in the wake of the Aldhani incident, including a “permanent revocation of imperial tolerance” (terrific sorta-doublespeak there) and a “public order resentencing directive” that imposes heftier sentences on any actions perceived as anti-Empire. Dedra isn’t impressed, convinced that the organization not yet called the Rebel Alliance on some level wants this kind of harsh reaction to their own “announcement,” as she describes it.

And, hey, she’s right, at least as it applies to Rael, who has another clandestine meeting with a surprised and vexed Mon Mothma. She wasn’t aware of the Aldhani job, and she is upset to learn that Rael was behind it, given the ramifications she’s dealing with in the senate. Rael counters that this is “part of the plan,” even — or especially! — if it increases suffering. Though Rael often gets the juiciest scenes in this series, full of Skarsgårdian pronouncements (“Can’t hide forever” and all that), it’s Mon who really shines this time around as she maneuvers for more funding. At one of her lavish parties, she recruits an old banker friend to help her funnel her family fortune into a charity program that will serve as a shadow fund for the Rebellion. (Feels like a bit of a convenience that Mon Mothma’s personal wealth would be that vast, but she must be part of the galactic one percent.)

She’s conscious of her reputation as a “polite, sometimes indecisive senator who spends her day fighting and failing to protect separatist do-gooders,” and if this feels like an apologia for, or fantasy of, wealthy and well-meaning centrists who seem vaguely (or extremely) ineffectual in the public eye, it’s also a crackling dynamic on this particular show, having a revolutionary Mon Mothma politely bristle when her friend smugly describes his politics as more radical than hers, as she figures out how to put her money where her mouth isn’t allowed to be. In another elegant turn of phrase, she notes that her fake charity will hopefully be seen as another of her “benevolent and useless irritations,” using the increasingly tight Empire stranglehold on the senate to her advantage, just as the Rebels will presumably use it to rally more people to their cause.

Good as the Mon Montha material is, it’s just a highlight of this week’s full prestige-TV-style ensemble. The sheer number of not-quite-subplots knocking around this episode, especially after the clarity and focus of its predecessor, should make it feel like diffuse piece-moving, and yet the pieces fit together relatively smoothly, only occasionally feeling like check-box fodder. We glimpse Cinta back on Aldhani just long enough to see a Star Destroyer move in ominously; we see just enough of Syril to follow his job interview at the Bureau of Standards and new position among the bureaucratic hordes; and we meet a red-cloaked Rebel spy who orders Vel to find and kill Cassian as a means of tying up loose ends (recalling, both productively and perhaps a little reductively, the murder of convenience he commits at the beginning of Rogue One).

So where is Cassian, anyway? With his 30,000 credits, he heads home to Ferrix, visiting three of the life forms that mean the most to him: His mom, Maarva; his special lady friend, Bix; and his droid, B2EMO. At first, this feels a bit like a “Why does everyone want to go back to Jakku?” moment; Cassian had fled the planet in a way that felt pretty final, and having him roll back into this world makes the show feel like it’s relitigating emotional connections that were either resolved, or left evocatively unresolved, just a few episodes ago. Cassian does, however, experience new revelations that we forgot he didn’t know about. Timm Karlo turned him in and is dead! (Who’s Timm Karlo? Exactly.) (Okay, fine: Bix’s boyfriend.)

He stops to see Bix, pays her back the money he owes her, and tries, in vain, to find out a little more about Rael, mostly out of concern that he’ll be connected to the Aldhani job in this newly draconian environment. He then goes home to find that Maarva is not willing to use his credits to cut and run with him; she wants to stay and fight for her home. Cassian protests, first in terms of logistics and then a more emotional plea: “I’ll be worried about you all the time.” Maarva counters beautifully: “That’s just love. Nothing you can do about that.”

So Cassian leaves on his own, and eventually makes it to somewhere “warm and easy”: the planet of Niamos, which seems like a beach-y resort planet that must be where you go if you can’t afford property on Canto Bight. It’s tricky to enjoy the good life with imperial droids overhead and stormtroopers patrolling everywhere, and in a grim irony, Cassian, under his alias “Keef,” gets caught for … absolutely nothing. He skulks around looking a little too sweaty and paranoid, and suddenly he’s being detained by fearsome, familiar-looking imperial droids and casually sentenced to six years in prison. Cassian is catching hell from the exact sentencing order his mission on Aldhani helped impose. It’s a hell of an episode-ending punch that really ties the whole thing together, including Cassian’s absence from the first chunk of it. His somewhat diminished presence in the episode turns out to be a perfect representation of his attempt to keep a low profile and live his life in the Empire-era galaxy: It can’t last.

Rebel Yells

• Though Dedra can be an officious pedant with the best of them, she’s also benefiting from the Empire’s switch from puffed-up bureaucratic fascists to even more active oppressors; for her investigation into thefts of various imperial equipment, she’s awarded a new jurisdiction. I can only imagine the career counseling Syril would love to receive from her, rather than that dick Uncle Harlow.

• We sort of forgot about Cassian’s search for his sister, didn’t we? It’s got a bit of Fox Mulder quality to it, doesn’t it?

• As the show widens in scope, the Star Wars references that presumably make Tony Gilroy shudder with disgust become more necessary. The imperial droids, of course, are the same model as K2-SO, who eventually replaces B2EMO as Cassian’s best robot buddy; Emperor Palpatine is name-dropped multiple times (and frankly, though it would be absolutely fine to never see him on this or another show, he probably has more room for exploration than the overmined Darth Vader); for the obsessives, Wulf Yularen (a minor New Hope character and less-minor Clone Wars figure) explains the Empire’s expansive new powers toward the beginning of the episode.

• Over on Niamos, Andor lightly pushes the Star Wars sexuality envelope once more: Over the course of the series so far, it’s gone from the first Star Wars thing to show someone getting out of bed in their underwear to being the first Star Wars thing to include implied post-coital nudity! Cassian’s temporary bedmate has an accent a bit like the Cecily Strong SNL character Gemma.

• “You can’t stay, and I can’t go,” says Maarva, in an emotional moment only slightly undermined by cutting to repeated droid reaction shots. (I love you, B2EMO; bought your action figure and everything. But maybe keep the camera on Fiona Shaw for this scene?)

• Still, when Cassian talks to his mom about “the three of us” leaving, that means he’s including B2DEMO. Awww!