‘Andor’ Season 2, Episodes 4-6 Recap: The Revolution Will Be Televised

Season 2, Episodes 4-6

Last week’s set of “Andor” episodes opened with a thrilling star-fighter chase and ended with a daring rescue, but otherwise the action was noticeably light. Yes, “Andor” is an imaginatively designed and richly detailed drama, filled with political intrigue. But it is also supposed to be a “Star Wars” show, with blasters, stormtroopers and narrow escapes. Season 2’s first arc, while mostly great, leaned more toward soap opera than space opera.

This week’s trio of episodes brings back the visceral genre kicks, with more cloak-and-dagger and cat-and-mouse. It also digs deeply into the meat of this season’s plot and themes.

Even more than last week, this particular three-part arc has been thoughtfully broken down into TV episodes rather than feeling like a movie roughly snapped into three segments. The first episode is all stage-setting, introducing the main plot, which involves the Empire’s appalling treatment of the planet Ghorman and Luthen’s attempt to lend aid to the Ghor. The second episode is a slick and stylish spy thriller, as Cassian assesses Ghorman’s rebels by going undercover as the fashionista Varian Sky (complete with snazzy clothes and a stylish mullet).

The third episode is one of the most exciting of the series so far, cutting between two Luthen operations: one on Ghorman and another on Coruscant. While the Ghor rebels are hijacking an imperial supply vehicle — in order to reveal to the galaxy that the Empire is lying about its intentions for the planet — Kleya is at a fancy party, trying to remove one of her listening devices from an antique artifact in an aristocrat’s personal gallery. This is white-knuckle, edge-of-the seat stuff.

I want to start, though, with an odd subplot that runs through just the first two episodes and at times seems out of place, until its electrifying ending. The story involves Wilmon, who is on D’Qar, helping the militant rebel Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) by teaching one of his soldiers, Pulti (Marc Rissmann), how to operate a complicated piece of tech. Ultimately, the strongman Saw kills Pulti (who turns out to be a traitor) and orders Wilmon to join him on a mission, to operate the big machine himself.

Saw gives a rousing speech (made more effective by Whitaker’s whispery rasp) about how he grew up as a child laborer, breathing in toxic starship fumes. He encourages Wilmon to toss off his protective gear and huff some fumes himself. He says revolution is not for the sane, given that they will all be dead before a new republic is established. But with this insanity comes a kind of freedom.

The Saw speech matters, because part of what makes these episodes so effective is that the incredibly intense action sequences are tightly intertwined with passionate debates about what an effective rebellion looks like.

Consider that nerve-racking sequence with Kleya at the gala, when she covertly tries to extract her bug from an ancient relic. Elsewhere in that same gallery, within the same scenes, the V.I.P.s Mon Mothma and Orson Krennic are admiring the antiques and arguing about their significance to galactic history. Even in the “Star Wars” universe, schoolchildren are taught to admire the freedom-fighters of yesteryear. But how should they regard the ones fighting for freedom now? As heroes or terrorists?

As always, Cassian is our Everyman, grounding these abstract arguments in something more immediate and relevant. He goes on his own journey this week. And though he is at the heart of the Ghorman story because of his undercover activities there, his time on Coruscant is just as important.

I was impressed with how Coruscant is depicted in these episodes. The rich and glamorous Coruscant — where the galaxy’s most powerful mingle — is on display here, as society’s elite gather for the annual party season, celebrating the Senate’s new members. But we also see another side of the planet, as Cassian and Bix lay low in Luthen’s safe house, a bare-bones high-rise apartment in one of the city’s more quotidian corners.

The views through their windows are spectacular, but the surrounding neighborhoods are grayer and colder, filled with funky little markets and the Coruscant version of bodegas. It feels like a real place, and not the glittering digital creation that George Lucas introduced in the “Star Wars” prequel films. That realness only adds to the urgency of these rebel missions. These physical spaces, populated by actual people, are what the resistance is trying to save.

This is also true of Ghorman, which is very different in reality from the cutesy tourist film we saw last week. In the past year, the propaganda propagators in the Empire’s Ministry of Enlightenment have successfully rebranded this highly civilized and formerly wealthy planet as an unruly, ungrateful realm, where violent thugs run amok. Across the galaxy, the “Star Wars” version of cable news pumps out stories about those dastardly Ghor.

The reality is more nuanced. Luthen sends Cassian to Ghorman to assess whether the rebels are far enough along to merit support. What Cassian finds is a broken planet, with a resistance too eager to believe what they hear from their inside sources. They do not realize that their main source is a plant. It’s Syril, who has been allowing the Ghor to spy on him, posing as a sympathizer in order to feed them only information the Empire wants them to have.

So Cassian returns to Coruscant to tell Luthen to abandon the Ghorman cause. Instead, Luthen changes tactics, sending in Vel and Cinta, who help the rebels hijack the imperial transport in that exciting climactic sequence. Cassian’s warning about the Ghor’s readiness proves prescient, though. Vel and Cinta give the group strict instructions to leave their weapons at home, but one rebel’s hidden blaster goes off during a hairy moment, killing Cinta. Vel rails against the offender, saying her lover was the kind of warrior the Ghor rebels are trying to be and that her loss is both incalculable and stupid.

To be fair to the Ghor, they are confused and scared, stuck in a fight they never picked. Their planet used to be a center for fashion and a tourist hot-spot drawing people who bought souvenir replicas of the planet’s spiders. They remember the incident 16 years ago when Grand Moff Tarkin landed a star-cruiser on a group of peaceful protesters, back when such an act had consequences, no matter how powerful the perpetrator.

A memorial to those Ghor killed by the Empire still occupies the center of the planet’s most prominent city, Palmo. But now Palmo’s hotels are empty, food shipments are dwindling, and the Ghor feel cut off from the Emperor — they are sure he would be appalled if he knew what was happening to them. Then these strangers arrive, offering assistance but also demanding that the Ghor be patient and follow orders.

Cassian understands their frustration. He had a bonding moment with his hotel’s bellhop, who witnessed Tarkin’s massacre firsthand but has been told by his bosses not to talk about it any more. These kinds of interactions mean a lot to Cassian: hearing someone fearfully describe the Empire’s menace and letting them know they are not alone.

Nevertheless, Cassian believes the rebellion on this formerly sheltered, privileged planet started too late. He sees tragedy on the horizon if they continue to pursue a course of armed resistance. The difference between Cassian and Luthen is that while Luthen sees that tragedy coming too, he thinks it could be useful. After all, if this planet goes up in flames, maybe it will burn so brightly that the whole galaxy will take notice.

One Way Out

In the third episode of this chunk, Cassian helps Bix overcome her addiction to sleeping drops by assisting her in finding and assassinating the man who tortured her in Season 1. It says something about how packed these episodes are that this mission feels like an afterthought.
The heist sequence on Ghorman is incredibly cinematic. It is all shadows and sneak attacks, looking like some moody World War II movie set among the French resistance in Paris.
Is Varian Sky a reference to the World War II resistance journalist Varian Fry? Could be!
Part of what makes Kleya’s mission in the artifact gallery so suspenseful is that she enlists Luthen’s ISB mole Lonni Jung (Robert Emms) to pretend to chat with her while her hands are feverishly working to remove her bug. Lonni’s nervousness sells the job’s dangerousness.
We get multiple tastes of what TV is like under the Empire’s control, including a quick glimpse at talk show hosts gossiping about Senate Investiture Week. Also, when Syril’s mother insists that those haughty Ghor will never get another of her credits, Syril chastises her for watching too much imperial news. “Star Wars” characters! They’re just like us!
Syril comes home to Coruscant briefly, long enough for a quick tryst with Dedra — but only after she has him followed to make sure he was being careful and then after all the lights in their apartment are off. Romance!
Mon continues to be a vocal supporter in the Senate for other cultures, raising questions about the media’s attempts to make Ghorman look like a crime-ridden insurrection pit. Her secret funding of the rebellion matters more, but it still takes courage to make these public stands.
Stellan Skarsgard’s performance as Luthen has been especially strong in Season 2, capturing both the man’s exhaustion with his burdens and his obsessive need to see this rebellion through. One especially well-realized Luthen-Skarsgard moment: When Cassian shows up at the antique shop uninvited, and Luthen quickly comes up with a cover story for why he would be there. Scheming has become as natural to him as saying hello.