Andor: Season 2: Episode 6: What a Festive Evening
What is it ? : Luthen collects Andor from his mission, as Andor reports about what he found, Luthen is critical of his appraisal of the situation, where Andor thinks that the Ghorman Rebels will get wiped out, Luthen sees value in that, that Rebels on such a high status planet will inspire others into rebellion.
Returning to Coruscant, Luthen sends new agents to Ghorman, and speaks to his assistant Kleya Marki as they make plans to retrieve the listening device from Sculdun's office.
Mon Mothma is present in the senate during a reading of an oath to the Empire, she is angered by this and storms out of the senate.
Partagaz meets with two of his officers, revealing that Doctor Gorst's torture techniques have been decided to be too valuable for just their department, and he will now be shared with other Imperial intelligence departments, and he assigns the two of them to monitor this, one of the two being the officer, Lonni Jung, who is reporting to Luthen Rael.
Vel Sartha arrives on Ghorman, and meets with Cinta Kaz who she has demanded to be teamed with, and they share a few moments, with Cinta revealing that she was wounded in a mission. They meet with the Rebels and likewise see that the Rebels are unprepared, but will help them on certain grounds, firstly that they follow orders, and secondly that no one is armed except the two of them.
Andor arrives home, and finds that on first appearance everything is better, Bix has cleaned the place up, and looks as if she's looking after herself better, she reveals that Luthen had asked her to go on a mission, but changed his mind. Andor is angered about this and goes to the shop to meet with Luthen demanding to know what game he was playing in speaking to Bix without telling him, and the two part angry at one another.
Mon Mothma and Perrin Fertha arrive at Sculdun's party, as does Luthen and Kleya. Inside they mingle, and Kleya locates Lonni Jung, knowing he is Luthen's agent within Imperial Intelligence and gets him to accompany her. They enter the room where Sculdun's relics are stored and she tells him about one, to help him be a cover for her activity as she attempts to remove the listening device.
Mothma tours the room with Sculdun when they meet another guest, Director Krennic, Mothma and Krennic spar as he's been a witness in countless of her senate inquiries, and the sparring becomes more hostile as the differences in their politics are revealed.
On Ghorman the raid goes well, the stop the Imperial transport and begin offloading it's cargo of weapons into their own vehicles in the sewers. They are being watched by Syril Karn who reports live to Partagaz and Dedra back on Coruscant. The heist goes wrong at the last minute however when a civilian approaches and tries to see what is going on, and one of the Rebels pulls a blaster, in the struggle the blaster goes off, hitting and killing Cinta Kaz. On orders from Partigaz, Syril orders in security to come in loud, giving the rebels warning they need to evacuate, which they do.
At the party, removing the bug takes longer than anticipated, and the group with Mothma, Krennic, Sculdun and Luthen approach, and Kleya and Jung need to speak about their interest in that particular relic, which they do, and afterwards, Luthen and Kleya leave the party laughing, mentioning they should have assassinated Krennic there and then.
Doctor Gorst returns to his office, to find Bix awaiting him with a gun, she straps him into his torture chair, leaving the recordings which damaged her mind playing into his. She calmly strolls out of the building, gunning down a guard before rendezvousing with Andor, and the two walk away from the scene as explosions go off in the building behind them. . . .
High Points : Another tense episode, with the tension of Kleya extracting the communications bug while Krennic and Sculdun get closer and closer, with the rebels stealing the Imperial weapons shipment. And while it was obvious that there would be a cost in one of these, the tension comes from not knowing what that cost will be. And I have to admit that I never considered that it might be the life of Cinta Kaz.
The show continues to look fabulous, the sets look amazing, the special effects are stunning, with the tracking shot of Luthen's ship leaving Steergard into space and making the jump into hyperspace being one that took by breath away. But also the fashion throughout is brilliant, seeing Andor go from his fashion designer cover, dressed impeccably and looking very smooth and suave, to dressed down for the streets of Coruscant is great. And I really liked that Andor and Bix joke about it, with him telling her that she would have loved the way he looked.
Speaking of Andor's fake identity, it was great to see him switching back, in an echo of the transformation we saw of Luthen in season one, where he went from Rebel agent to dealer in antiquities.
Low Points : First up, the elephant in the room. As Mothma and Perrin arrive at Sculdun's party, they are met by Bail Organa, but not played by Jimmy Smits. If this was all they recast the role for, then they should have just left him out of the series, as this appearance was totally pointless and could have easily just been left out without any effect on the storyline at all. I'll continue to keep an eye for future appearances by Bail to see whether they likewise could have been cut, as recasting the role was always going to be controversial, but if the character is vital to the story, it might be forgivable due to Jimmy Smits unavailability. But likewise, if the scenes could just be assigned to another character, then recasting him is just a stupid and annoying move.
As the heist on Ghorman ends, we see the security services arriving through the streets, at the same time, we see on a lower level of the city the Rebel's vehicle emerging from the sewers. A great and lovely shot, but one that does make me ask where are the aerial vehicles, in a galaxy where everyone uses Repulsorlift vehicles, and the Empire uses LAAT/le gunships to patrol planets (as we saw in Rebels), so this should have been very obvious. It's not that the scene couldn't have worked, just show the Rebels vehicle emerging further away from the crime scene, and showing gunships overhead concentrating their attention on the scene, but as it was it just looked flawed.
So what do you really think ? : I really enjoyed this episode, although this story arc now seems like it was weaker than the first. It looks as if they're still leaving some elements to build towards the later part of the season, so unlike the first arc where all the tension was released, this time it feels more like a part of an ongoing story.
Final Words : It occurred to me how fragile Luthen's position on Coruscant is, not only does Mothma know his dual identity, but so does Andor, and so does Lonni Jung. Who will be discovered at some point, bringing down the entire spy network, as that will link to Kleya and her communications systems and to Mon Mothma. It really feels like the Rebellion should be acting in the classic cell structure, where only members of a cell know each other, and know one member of another cell. The way Luthen is operating is way too vulnerable, and the image of Luthen as this massively competent spymaster we saw in season 1, he now looks far weaker and less professional, the image cracking under the pressure he's under.
Score : 9/10
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