Andor: "One Year Later", "Sagrona Teema", "Harvest"

Note: My weekly Andor posts are moving to Saturdays the rest of the way. After that, we'll see if the newsletter stays a Saturday thing or not.

Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Episodes 1-3 of season two of Andor ahead! There shouldn’t be any spoilers from later on in the series, but there will be spoilers of other Star Wars movies and TV shows, so consider yourself warned about any Prequel or Original Trilogy spoilers!

"People fail, that's our curse." - Luthen Rael, "Harvest"

4 BBY*

The first half of my Andor series all happened in 5 BBY. The second half, however, covers the next four years right up to the prelude of the Battle of Scarif. During this time the rumblings of civil war would grow to become an eruption, as so many disparate Rebels coalesced into the Rebel Alliance. The growing conflict would affect far-flung places like Ghorman and Yavin 4, Chandrila and Scarif, and of course the Imperial capital of Coruscant. Few planets and their people would emerge unscathed. Some planets would effectively be ruined for all lifeforms, and one (Alderaan) would be obliterated.

*Years Before Battle of Yavin

These years of conflict preceding the bigger conflict would see the rise of Luthen Rael’s (Stellan Skarsgård) dream of a Rebel Alliance come to be, as he and his associate Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau) continued to build a Rebel intelligence organization. Mon Mothma, always staying one step ahead of the Empire while gradually isolating herself from everyone around her, would reach her breaking point, her covert Rebel support becoming overt. Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay) and Cinta Kaz (Varada Sethu) would navigate the tricky path of love in a time of war.

Meanwhile, Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) would see his foresight of the coming war come to be, while at the same time he would find himself alienated from the forming Alliance. The survivors of Ferrix, like Brasso (Joplin Sibtain) and Wilmon Paak (Muhannad Bhaier), would look to find new lives as both refugees and Rebels. And Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona), would also look to find her way back from the torture she endured at the hands of Dr. Gorst and ISB Director Dedra Meero (Denise Gough).

On the Imperial side, Dedra would play a pivotal role in the events to come, far beyond her search for “Axis”. But she would never let that obsession of hers drop. Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) would continue his own search to bring Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) to justice. In the process, he would be exposed to the true nature of the Empire.

As for the titular Cassian Andor, his journey would continue as well. He was a Rebel now, but what exactly did that mean? And where would it take him, as he made his way to his destiny on Scarif? Wouldn’t you know it, that’s what I’m here for!

“You’re Coming Home to Yourself” - Cassian Andor, “One Year Later”

In the time between the Battle of Ferrix and where we pick up with Cassian in 4 BBY, he’s been at work for Luthen’s organization. For the time being, it appears he has been gathering intelligence and stealing equipment for the use of Rebels. And he isn’t doing it alone, fostering relationships with people on the inside of the Empire. Such as Niya (Rachelle Diedricks), an Imperial technician stationed at the frigid Imperial installation on Seinar. 

Niya is an interesting case as a Rebel. She’s not been mistreated in her service for the Empire. Quite the opposite in fact, as she loves her life and the team she worked with. All things being equal, she could have just taken the easy road, looked away, and continued to exist contentedly. But she didn’t. Something made her see what was going on was not right and did not sit well with her moral compass. She made a choice to give everything up to stand against the Empire. Including possibly her life.

Which is how it works for most rebels. Very few people who stand up against tyranny do it from the word go. We can’t all be Saw Gerrera. For the rest of us, it takes a moment where we can’t avoid looking directly at what is happening. Where the cost is too great, where we must say enough. And then, right then, a rebel is born. It’s never a decision made easily. To stand up means to risk everything. Our comfort, our home, perhaps even our life. And for most of us who do, it will be a decision made without any expectation for glory or recompense.

Cassian respects this decision of Niya’s, and interacting with her shows his innate leadership skills. He never judges her having complicated feelings about the choice she made, but instead reinforces that she made the right decision. He interacts with her with compassion and tact and solidarity. We don’t know what happened to Niya after she helped Cassian with his mission. Maybe she survived and played a larger part elsewhere. Maybe she didn’t. But she moved the flag forward for freedom. She played her part despite the cost.

Meanwhile, on the planet of Mina-Rau, Brasso, Bix, Wilmon, and B2EMO are trying to put their lives back together. They are working as migrant mechanics, going from farm to farm to make sure the machines that are essential for the grain harvests don’t break down. 

Known as “toolies”, the refugees and migrants come from many places. Many, if not most, are undocumented, including our group from Ferrix. Despite both Ferrix and Mina-Rau being under Imperial control, the Empire is strict about migration between planetary systems. They are also adamant about meeting grain production quotas. The result is a pretty typical authoritarian system of labor control. That is, an underclass without any rights as understood by the authorities, who are exploited for their labor and subject to arbitrary punishment at any time. Every day, someone is getting picked up by the Empire, and interrogated, tortured, and ultimately shipped off to prison factories much like Narkina 5. Assuming they aren’t just executed while “resisting arrest”. Such is life on the margins of the Empire. 

But the refugees aren’t alone, and not everyone sees them as an underclass to exploit. Some local farmers and local storekeepers, like Talia (Claire Brown) and Kellen (Ryan Pope), do their best to protect their neighbors. And though the work is hard, and the threat of the Empire is unavoidable, life goes on. Refugees and legal residents alike break bread, celebrate, and mourn together. Brasso and Talia have even fallen in love, and young love is budding between  Wilmon and local farm girl Beela (Laura Marcus) as well. It’s a hard life, but not necessarily a bad life. They all wait for Cassian’s return.

Elsewhere in the galaxy, Mon Mothma and her husband Perrin Fertha (Alastair Mackenzie) are back home on Chandrila. They are hosting the wedding of their daughter Leida (Bronte Carmichael) to her arranged fiancé Stekan Sculdun (Finley Glasgow). In the traditional manner of Chandrilan society, the weddings are a heavily ritualized and very expensive three day long ceremony. Everyone who is anybody on the planet is there, as well as many luminaries from Coruscant. This includes Stekan’s father Davo (Richard Dillane) and mother Runai (Rosalind Halstead), as well as Mon’s friend and banker Tay Kolma (Ben Miles). It also includes Mon’s cousin Vel, and Luthen, who was there as the broker for Davo’s incredibly expensive wedding gift to his son and daughter-in-law. It’s going to be a heck of a bash for sure, in more ways than one.

Finally, on Coruscant, Syril is doing great, all things considered. He’s been promoted! No longer is he sitting at one of the terminals in the Bureau of Standards doing whatever Bureau of Standards-heads do. He’s now at a terminal watching others sit at their terminals! 

But wait, he also has a new home, and a new girlfriend: Dedra. How did that happen? Well, look, Syril loves Dedra because she is exactly the woman Syril wants to be, while Syril is the only person that Dedra has met who seems to want nothing from her besides attention and protection. It’s a perfect match! 

Dedra even stands up to Eedy (Katheryn Hunter), getting her to be more amenable to Syril by using both carrot (regular visits and calls) and stick (Dedra is well aware of Uncle Harlo and his criminal activity). I guess even Imperials can find their way home, huh?

Growing Pains

With Niya’s help, Cassian’s mission started pretty smoothly. He disguised himself as an Imperial test pilot, and obtained access to a new version of a TIE fighter. But that’s where the smooth operation fell apart. It wasn’t the ship he trained with, which meant he would learn how to operate it on the fly. He escaped Seinar with the stolen ship. But it was a close run thing.

But his troubles weren’t finished. On Yavin 4, he was supposed to meet a Rebel contact to turn over the TIE Fighter to. Unfortunately, an unexpected group of different Rebels were already there, and they had killed his contact. They were the remnants of the Maya Pei Brigade, who were badly beaten in a recent engagement against Imperial forces. And all they knew about Cassian is that he showed up in an Imperial ship wearing an Imperial uniform. Despite his protestations that he had met Maya Pei, and does business with Maya Pei, no one believed him. 

From that point on, things got worse. The brigade divided over what to do with the TIE fighter, and with Cassian. They started to run out of food, and then turned on each other. It was a pathetic squabble, and ignominious end to one of the potential arms of the Rebel Alliance. And Cassian knew it. At some point he stopped trying to convince the survivors, and just tried to escape. These people may have been Rebels, but they weren’t concerned with keeping their eye on the job. Not everyone who is ostensibly your ally can be pointed in the right direction, and sometimes the best course of action for a leader is to not waste your time. Cassian eventually escaped, as the pathetic remnant of Maya Pei’s brigade fought each other and the beasts of Yavin to a pointless draw.

Between the mess up about what kind of TIE fighter Cassian was stealing, and the sorry state of the Maya Pei Brigade, it was clear that the Rebels still had kinks to work out in their system. This was not yet a force to take on the Empire. To be fair, even when they finally were a solid fighting force, they weren’t able to take on the Empire for years. It takes more than determination, courage, and a willingness to die to win a war. You have to have discipline, unity of purpose, and a coherent strategy. These were…well they were still a work in progress.

No Notes Were Taken

When one thinks of the machinations of evil in the pursuit of horrifying atrocities, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the dramatic. In our own history, images like the Klan gathered around a burning cross, or Nazis goose stepping in front of Hitler at Nuremburg, or a military parade in front of aging, half out of it dictators often come to mind. These are all signs of authoritarianism and tyranny for sure. But they are merely displays. Where the horrors are truly created are in the decisions made in nondescript rooms. These rooms are often full of mid-level functionaries munching on food from a buffet spread as they languidly go about their business. The best example I can think of from our own history is the Wannsee Conference.

Back in the GFFA**, the Empire put together its own secret meeting at a lodge high atop a mountain ridge on the planet Maltheen Divide. The subject of discussion: Ghorman. Yep, the space Alpine planet was more than just funky looking spiders and the valuable cloth woven from their output. Deep below its planetary crust sat a giant deposit of Kalkite, a mineral necessary for what Imperial Research Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) claimed was an “unlimited energy” project. To recover the Kalkite, the mining process would be so invasive it would destroy the planet, requiring the removal of all 800,000 Ghor living there. Whether it was relocation or eradication was a secondary matter; what was truly important was getting that Kalkite for the Death Star superlaser lenses unlimited energy needs. 

**Galaxy Far Far Away

It’s clear this could cause issues for the Empire, as the destruction of an entire society, particularly one so well known as the Ghor, would not come without significant cost to public opinion. Thus a multifaceted approach was suggested. The Ministry of Enlightenment, led by a group of “mad men” who were also madmen, would put together a campaign to reinforce how arrogant and unpleasant the Ghor were.

But a nasty whisper campaign would not be enough on its own. At Dedra’s suggestion, and with the support of Major Lio Partagaz (Anton Lesser), Krennic approved of a plan to foment the extant resistance group on Ghorman. By riling them up and giving them targets of opportunity to attack, they could then use the resistance group as pretext to crack down on the Ghor, and to build a permanent garrison for Imperial troops. Without necessarily meaning to, Dedra ended up being given the assignment to subdue Ghorman. It was not her preference, as she wanted to continue her search for “Axis”, the shadowy figure coordinating the increasingly more elaborate and damaging actions by Rebel groups. But after two years of work, she had almost no results to show for it, and Partagaz’ patience had grown thin. Whether she liked it or not, she was Ghorman bound. Would Syril go with her? Only time will tell.

In an authoritarian system like the Empire, nothing is ever safe. No institution, no state, no alliance, no person, no idea is safe from their degradation and destruction. Especially if it’s in the way of their own greedy purposes. The list of atrocities committed by the Empire as of 4 BBY was already quite long. But with their plans for Ghorman, they were entering a dangerous new stage that would ultimately end in the destruction of Alderaan and the ruining of many other planets and peoples.

A Bitter Harvest

Sure as the cycle of the farmer, things deteriorated for our refugees on Mina-Rau. The Imperial audit moved to the same area where Brasso, Wilmon, and Bix were currently living. They attempted to flee to another district, but it was too late. Lieutenant Krole (Alex Waldmann) and his stormtroopers were looking for undocumented workers to detain. Or worse.

Brasso got caught by the stormtroopers outside of Kellen’s store as he tried to rescue Wilmon, who went to say goodbye to Beela. It’s here where Brasso does something truly brave by acting as if Kellen turned him in. He knows that his fight is likely done, but he will do his damnest to make sure it goes on for Kellen. The path freedom takes is not always a clear one, and there are many ways to ensure it makes its way home. 

But through this, Bix is left alone at their soon to be vacated home. And that’s where Lt. Krole heads. The Imperial Lieutenant engages in the “nuanced” behavior so many exploitative authorities have of those they exploit. He’s willing to overlook her “illegality” in exchange for sex. This starts a chain of events that ultimately leaves Lt. Krole dead by Bix’ hands. Wilmon races back, and arrives just in time to get in a shoot out with Krole’s driver, which leads him to radio for backup from the troopers guarding Brasso. And to top it all off, suddenly Cassian appears with the TIE fighter, having been alerted by Kleya that something was going down on Mina-Rau.

Cassian saves the day by burying a bunch of stormtroopers in grain from a destroyed grain bin. But not before Brasso was killed by stormtroopers as he tried to escape on a speeder bike. Though he may have only played a small part in the fight against the Empire, he was still a Rebel. And farewell for now to B2EMO, who won’t be following Cassian, Bix, and Wilmon to wherever they are going next. Instead, he’ll stay with Talia, the love of the fallen Brasso. Because the Rebellion, especially in the early days as we are right now, is no place for a droid. Well, a droid like B2EMO, at least.

“How nice for you.” - Luthen Rael to Mon Mothma, “Harvest”

Consider, for a moment, the life of Mon Mothma. When she was just a teenager, her marriage to Perrin was arranged by her parents. At the age of 16, she was both married and a Senator in the Senate of the Galactic Republic. And that’s been her life ever since, growing into adulthood and now middle age as a member of the Galactic Senate. It’s a privileged life, bolstered further by a large family fortune. But it’s also a life that never gave her true privacy, while also constantly isolating her from both those around her, the people she represents, and even herself. And that was before she decided to secretly support the Rebels.

As isolated a life as she lived, she stuck to her ideals. Even as her friend and colleague Padmé Amidala died and the Republic became the Empire, she held on. Things were changing even on her tradition obsessed planet. It was her desire that her daughter Leida would be able to chart her own destiny, rather than being forced into a marriage to a virtual stranger by her parents. Even as Leida turned to the traditions of Chandrila, even the ones Mon disfavored, she still held out this hope. She also supported her cousin Vel, supporting her both as she turned towards the Rebels and came out to her as queer***. Even as her battle in the Senate for freedom and against Imperial overreach became more and more hopeless, she still had her ideals

*** Although she does it in the most eye rolling way, calling Cinta Vel’s “friend” in that way all of us queers know exactly how it sounds

But eventually, the Empire ramped up surveillance on Mon’s activities, and she had to call in Tay Kolma to help. And then that didn’t work. And she had to make a choice. She could take a chance she wouldn’t get caught, which risked the Empire discovering the entire operation or (more likely) Luthen determining she was a liability and getting rid of her. Or make a deal with Davo Sculdun, exchanging her daughter’s agency by giving her away in an arranged marriage for hiding her money, protecting the Rebellion (and herself) for a while longer.

From last week, we know she made the deal, and now her daughter is getting married, despite still being, for all intents and purposes, a child. As much as Mon fought against it, she still ended up exactly where her mother was when she gave Mon away to marry Perrin. It’s a moment of clarity, where Mon both understands how her mother felt in that moment but doesn’t excuse what she did. To assuage her guilt, she gives Leida a choice: forget this all, we’ll say it’s off for now, and it will be hailed as a courageous choice. It’s a fascinating moment, but it’s also questionable in how attached to reality it is. Oh, and it’s entirely self-serving for Mon. She denied her daughter that agency she wished to give her, but now, with all of those relatives and luminaries, her friends, her cool cousin Vel and her father and her betrothed waited for her, now Leida can choose this embarrassing course of action?!? As if.

So that’s an understandable no for Leida, which she gives in that way only a teenage girl can be cruel to her mom. And Mon responds, in that guttingly cold way only a mom can respond to her child who has hurt her. Whatever chance for a relationship these two had is done, and the responsibility lies at the feet of the future hero of democracy, Mon Mothma.

As if losing her daughter weren’t bad enough, Mon has other problems. Tay is clearly distraught and heavily drinking. Turns out the Rebels he was helping Mon finance ruined his investments, leaving him in a precarious financial shape. On top of it all, his wife left him. The whole situation makes him feel unappreciated by the Rebels for his “support”. Mon wants a number to make him whole, but he isn’t forthcoming. As he stumbles along through the wedding looking miserable and threatening to tell Davo everything, it becomes clear to Luthen, and ultimately Mon that there was only one way out. As much as Mon protests to Luthen that she can keep him in line, she eventually realizes what’s about to happen. Tay isn’t leaving Chandrila alive.

Vel also realizes Tay is a goner when she sees that his replacement driver is Cinta. It’s the oldest tale for lesbians. The lady you yearn for shows up out of the blue, only to kill your cousin’s best friend. All you can do is find a quiet window to sit in and stare at the mountains of Chandrila for a while.

As for Mon Mothma, she has successfully alienated her husband and her newly married teenage daughter. She sits at the dangerous intersection of overt “loyal opposition” to the Empire and covert rebellion. And she just agreed to the murder of her oldest friend. What is she to do? Why, what so many other wedding attendees have done throughout history. She slams a few shots, walks out on the dance floor, and gets down to the catchy beat of the dance remix of “Niamos”.

Now when I say she dances, it’s not the tentative dance of the unsure. Nor is it the dance of the confident and self-assured. Instead it’s the feverish dance of complete abandon. It’s the kind of dance one does when the world, the galaxy, is just too much. Later, she can worry about what’s next. Right now, there is nothing left to do but dance.

Next Week: We go to Ghorman, Bix drops in on a certain doctor, and we learn to love the smell of fresh rhydonium in the morning.

Amy Wren Says What? is a newsletter that comes out at least once a week. In it I talk about television shows, books, video games, and other topics. Right now I'm running a series of posts about the Star Wars Television show Andor, which will go live every Saturday for another three editions. If this is your first, be sure to catch up with the rest of the Andor series!

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