Andor: Season 2: Episode 12: Jedha, Kyber, Erso
What is it ? : The Imperial Squad led by Heert arrives in the wrong apartment, and realise they've actually come to the floor below, so begin repositioning. Inside the safehouse, Kleya continues to try to pass the information on to Andor, wanting left behind, thinking she has no place on Yavin, but Andor convinces her to go with them. As they begin to leave, they encounter the Imperial Squad outside in the corridor, and a gunfight breaks out.
K-2SO heads for the Imperial Transport, the guards are confused by an Imperial Droid arriving when they haven't summoned one, and the comms chatter is confusing to Partagaz back at their control centre. K-2SO kills the team aboard the ship, and heads up to the gunfight outside the safehouse, where Andor has been stunned by the blast from a flashbang style grenade. Heert, commanding from the read is the first agent encountered by K-2SO who grabs him, using him as a meat shield as the other Imperials turn to fire on him. Shot after shot slams into Heert, and K-2SO finishes off the rest of the squad, rescuing Andor, Melshi and Kleya.
They board their ship and fly off through the city canyons of Coruscant as Imperial Gunships arrive to secure the area, too late.
On Yavin, the leaders of the Rebellion are trying to warn Saw Gerrera that his activities are attracting too much attention to his forces on Jedha, as they Empire has already placed a Star Destroyer over the city there, but he reacts in an unstable fashion, taking their words as a threat to him and terminating the call.
Arriving back at Yavin, they are intercepted by X-Wings and commanded to land, as they do they are met at gunpoint, but Andor convinces them to treat Kleya's wounds. Andor goes before the Rebel leaders to explain the information they've received, who reject it as they find the source, Luthen Rael, to be untrustworthy. Tynnra Pamlo, Nower Jebel, General Raddus and even Bail Organa make comments about Luthen, and Andor aggressively responds that without Luthen none of them would be here, that he sacrificed more than any of them for the Rebellion. Only Mon Mothma listens and considers his words.
He is sent back to his shack, and Mon Mothma goes to speak to Vel Sartha, her cousin and the only other remaining team member from Aldani except Andor, and asks her to speak to him to determine whether she believes him. Vel goes to Andor and is honest with him, telling him what she has been asked to do, as they share a drink and toast all the dead they've left behind, from the people of Ghorman and Ferrix, to their friends and team members.
On Coruscant, Major Partagaz is sat alone in the meeting room when he is approached by Captain Lagret and told that he has been told to bring him down, where he will be taken before the Emperor to explain his failures. Partagaz asks if he may have a few moments to compose himself which Lagret allows, leaving the room where two Stormtroopers await. Partagaz takes out a blaster, and outside we hear a single shot, as Lagret calms the Stormtroopers.
On Yavin, Vel returns to Mothma to tell her what she has discovered, and on the way out encounters Kleya wandering aimlessly towards the jungle, and comforts her.
General Draven tells Bail Organa and Mon Mothma that they have been receiving a message from an agent they have within Saw Gerrera's forces, but they only will speak to Andor.
Andor is sleeping, dreaming of his sister, when K-2SO awakens him, telling him that the man he doesn't like is here to see him. Bail tells Andor of the message, and tells him that he wants him to make contact and discover what is going on within Saw's rebel group, to meet the contact on the Ring of Kafrene, and the two somewhat come to terms, with Bail telling Andor, "May the Force be with you."
As Andor walks through the Rebel camp towards his ship and the mission that begins Rogue One, we see glimpses of the other characters, Mothma and Vel eating alongside Rebel troops more comfortable there than they were within the high society of Chandrila. Wilmon working away as an Alliance engineer. Kleya looking at sunrise over the Rebel Camp her and Luthens efforts built. Melshi leading his squad on a run through the Yavin jungle. And elsewhere, Dedra Meero alone in a prison uniform in a Narkina prison complex, Saw Gerrera looking out of his window at the Star Destroyer hovering over Jedha, Perrin Fertha drunk and having an affair with Sculdun's wife in the back of their limousine, and finally Bix, carrying a young child through the fields of Mina-Rau with B2-EMO nearby.
High Points : Usually Andor took it's 3 episode blocks, and did 2 slow episodes followed by an all action one, but this time the action has gone through the first two, continuing into the third, and then everything slows down. But that is the series taking time to wrap things up, and it does so in a very satisfying fashion.
The action at the start of the episode is great, and the way they use K-2SO is satisfying and very funny. But then we're right into Rogue One, the leadership of the Rebellion frozen into inaction, the people who have actually been taking the fight to the Empire being ignored by the politicians (and it's disappointing to see Bail Organa among those, I'm sure Jimmy Smits would never have done that).
And while I have problems with the ending of some of the characters, which I'll come on to. The endings for Kleya, Vel and Mon Mothma are fabulous, Vel and Mon Mothma have become part of the Rebellion, sitting with the ordinary people, I so want them to take advantage of Mon Mothma's character more from now on. We've had them struggling to put Leia into The Mandalorian and Ahsoka, but Mothma makes so much more sense, and wouldn't involve CGI trickery.
And Kleya, she gets to watch the sunrise that Luthen told Lonni Jung that he would never get to see, although she never believed she would see it either, the future he was building was for her.
Low Points : So the endings, well first of all Bix having a child initially annoyed me, but it makes total sense. Rebellions are built on hope, both this series and Rogue One have told us this, and what carries more hope for the future than a newborn child.
I'm sad we never got to see Eedy Karn or Leida Mothma, as it would be amazing to see the effects that the Rebellion had on their lives for the negative, but I suppose we are trying to end on hope.
But Dedra's ending, while it's amazing and very satisfying to see her stuck in the same type of prison that Andor was in last season. Stuck doing grinding repetitive work, broken, and having lost the love of her life. But it's only temporary, the Empire falls in around 3 years time, and the prisoners will probably be all released, especially as on her record she's imprisoned for being a Rebel agent. This makes it just too tempting for future writers to put Dedra into The Mandalorian, or Ahsoka, or the like. And that would just be wrong, she's had her story, and Denise Gough is astoundingly good actress who deserves more work (and is hilarious if you watch behind the scenes stuff and interviews), but we really don't need more Dedra and it would cheapen it to bring her back, so I feel they probably should have killed her off.
Oh and it's easy to hate Tynnra Pamlo and Nower Jebel, but that's good scripting and acting, because you're supposed to. But I really do hate the two of them, what the hell are they doing in the Rebellion?
Andor, Melshi and K-2SO are confined to quarters, (K-2SO ordered to shut himself down, an order he ignores), for disobeying orders. They left to respond to an emergency signal sent by a member of their Rebel cell, which seems pretty dodgy that the Rebel Alliance would begin ordering people to ignore their original comrades. Especially as later helping your friends is why Luke, Leia and Han are so respected by the Rebels. The feeling that the Rebels are better than the Empire because they stick up for one another, protect one another, and would risk their lives for one another. But Andor and his people are punished for showing these same qualities. Just makes me think that the real reason that the heroes of Yavin got away with it, was because one of them was a princess.
So what do you really think ? : Damn this was good, and damn it's made me greedy for more. Andor wraps up pretty much as we expected it to, with this episode overlapping with Rogue One. And having gone and rewatched that movie, I realise that this is only one of the Rogue One prequel series we should have, it'd be great to have a Baze Malbus and Chirrut Imwe prequel series, or a Bodhi Rook prequel series, or even a Jyn Erso series as we know she was one of Saw's best agents, and it would be interesting to see her activities leading up to the split between her and Saw, did she ever have any interactions with Kleya or Luthen? It'd be a solid way of linking all this together, and if they can make Cassian Andor into one of the most remarkable Star Wars series ever, then they can do pretty much anything.
Final Words : So while this is my last Andor review, I think I'll come back to the series with an editorial at some point, as I feel there is so much more to explore in the series itself, as it's really embedded itself in my brain.
Score : 9.25/10
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