Andor: Season 2: Episode 1: One Year Later
What is it ? : We begin with Cassian Andor in the middle of a mission, he is in disguise as an Imperial Pilot and speaks with a Rebel agent within a Sienar Facility. She asks him if she dies it is all worth it, and he assures her it is, before heading down to a hangar where a Tie Avenger is sitting, not used to it's controls he smashes the vessel around the hangar, but uses it's weapons to slaughter the Stormtroopers that come in response to the alarms, blasting his way out of the door. As he flies away he is intercepted by a couple of Tie Advanced v1's, and flees through a cavern collapsing it's roof with his weapons to crush the pursuers and escape.
Elsewhere Bix Caleen awakens from a nightmare where she is pursued by her Imperial torturer, and we see that she and some other Ferrix survivors are living together in hiding from the Empire.
On Chandrila, Mon Mothma and her family are preparing for the wedding of her daughter to the son of Davo Skuldun. As she makes arrangements and greets guests she is informed of the arrival of Luthen Rael. She meets him, wondering why he has come, his presence is a link to the Rebellion, but he is there in his public persona hired by Skuldun.
Back on Mina-Rau, Bix is working on an irrigation device for the crops that surround their home, when they notice an Imperial Gozanti Class Cruiser arriving.
Andor clumsily lands his stolen Tie Avenger at a forest encampment, but is captured by a group of unorganised Rebels who think he is an Imperial Test Pilot. He discovers that they had been getting supplies from the person he was supposed to meet up with, but when they unexpectedly arrived while he was waiting for Andor to arrive with the stolen prototype he pulled his gun on them and they killed him.
At the Maltheen Divide a secret meeting is arranged by Orson Krennic, and attended by Dedra Meero and Major Lio Partagaz among others. He needs the mineral kalkite for processing the reactor lenses for his project, and the only place they can get this mineral in sufficent quantities is the world Ghorman. The mining of the mineral will probably destabilise and render the world uninhabitable, something problematic on a world as influential as Ghorman. He has organised this meeting to find a way of mining Ghorman, and propagandists from the Ministry of Enlightenment suggest creating a narrative about the people on Ghorman thinking they are superior to everyone else and not supporting the Empire. Partagaz discusses the construction of a new armory for military operations on Ghorman, and others discuss using a plague to force the inhabitants to leave. Krennic approaches Dedra Meero, telling her that she obviously has thoughts, and she tells him that propaganda will only get them so far, what they really need is a controlled insurgency for the Empire to appear legitimate in moving against Ghorman.
On Chandrila Mon Mothma meets with her banker, Tay Kolma, who tells her his business dealings have gone badly recently as has his marriage, and he wants to discuss Mon Mothma's secret project, but Mothma has to rush away as her daughter is having problems. She finds her daughter crying as the groom won't even hold her hand, and Mothma comforts her and apologises.
Back at the forest landing site, the Rebels argue over who is in charge, as a fight breaks out as they begin killing each other as they haven't had food for a number of days, and Andor attempt to flee in the confusion.
High Points : My absolute favourite moment of this episode is the scene with Mothma and her daughter, her daughter realising she's not entering a fairy tale wedding, but a loveless marriage for convenience. Something Mothma had tried to avoid, something Mothma is in herself, but has sacrificed her daughters future for protection from the audits which will show her connection to the Rebellion. But even as that happens we can see that her banker, Tay Kolma, is in a vulnerable situation and may become the link that reveals her dual life.
Last season it was joked that this series it is all about Mothma's marriage breakup and the office politics of the space nazi's, and this episode shows us why that was so compelling, as we get deep into a meeting as the Empire tries to find a way of strip mining a world. And it's really great to see Krennic once more, such a fantastic character and he's so much more in his element surrounded by these other bureaucrats.
Low Points : Things are very much following the format of last season, and this episode is a little slow moving. It's got action at the beginning and end, but I found it difficult to be interested in the scenes with Bix. But I'm already invested in these characters, so found it far more entertaining that the way episodes dragged last season.
So what do you really think ? : A really solid start, Andor himself seems a little sidelined for the moment, but the scenes with the Imperial Administration being so efficient and organised in their evil, and the scenes with Mothma, Rael and the Wedding, with the danger of discovery wrapped around the mundanity of organising a wedding is fascinating.
Final Words : At a guess, we're going to see the build up to Mon Mothma having to flee her role as a senator as she is discovered, so all of this politics and subterfuge will come to nothing, and at a guess it's going to be in the most mundane way. But where that remains interesting is whether she can find some way of redeeming her actions to her daughter by helping protect her from the fallout when the discovery occurs.
Score : 9.25/10
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