Star Wars Andor S1E12: "Rix Road" (continued)

As dawn becomes morning, Dierdre and her goons stand on a hotel balcony and overlook the street that the funeral will be marching down. Oh...their own HQ building is on Rix Road. The procession is going to go right in front of the hotel that they're in.

Hehehe, okay, yeah, no way in hell is that building surviving this. I doubt it's going to be as simple a matter as the coffin exploding, since that would kill more funeral marchers than imperials, but it's going to launch something or release something that will bring down that hotel.

The procession was originally set for around noon, but Dierdre's people have pushed it back two hours and limited the number of marchers to no more than thirty people. Not for any actual reasons, just to apply the squeeze and see if any Axis-associates are provoked into revealing themselves. Unfortunate, that Cassa really is back in the neighbourhood. Val and Sinta wouldn't bite (and they probably aren't attached enough to this specific culture or people to be provoked by this anyway). Cassa also wouldn't bite, if he were similarly detached from the situation. But, with this being his own town, I could see his emotions overcoming his reason, potentially. Honestly, his emotions already HAVE overcome his reason in his act of coming back here in the first place.

Back at ISB headquarters on Coruscant, it appears that Mon Mothma's ploy was successful. The spooks think that Mon's recent banking changes are to hide money from her husband, and are happy to turn this over to Sheevy's political hatchetmen so they can use it to smear an opposition senator when the time is right.

This just feeds into a pervasive high permeating the ISB headquarters right now. The (offscreen) ambush of the CIS holdout cell was a complete success; the group has been neutralized, with its leadership and the majority of its members confirmed dead. No prisoners taken, though; if this cell really was behind the Aldhani fiasco, then it needs to be made extremely dead extremely quickly in order to appease the injured egos of the security establishment.

Dierdre isn't happy about this. The ensuing hyperwave call she makes to Coruscant when she hears the news is...kind of amazing, honestly.

Dierdre is furious about the indiscriminate force. No attempt at taking captives or gathering evidence? Really? Is this seriously what she put all this work and all this brainpower into setting up?

ISB bossman tells her that a statement needed to be made, the reputation of the agency repaired, and also that, frankly, with the cell wiped out this badly, it's doubtful they have anything left to worry about that would have been worth the risk and bother of taking prisoners over.

Dierdre says that she wishes she could have at least been part of the conversation, since this ambush was at least largely her brainchild in the first place. To which ISB guy asks the burning question that's been on my mind since the start of this episode; if that's how she feels about it, then what the hell was she doing running back to Ferrix to chase some other loose end at a time like this?

Dierdre doesn't have a good answer for this. Because seriously. What the fuck was she thinking?

Bossman tells her to just find out if Axis is still at large or not, since that's what she seems to care the most about, and get back to him when she has something to report. All she can do is silently fume.

On one hand, not taking prisoners was an extremely dumb and irrational move here. On the other hand...really, what the actual fuck made Dierdre think that pursuing a small chance of Cassa showing up on Ferrix was more needing of her personal attention than the giant sting operation? They're both right, but they're also both less right than they are wrong, lol.

Across a few streets from the malding Dierdre, Cassa is slipping through some ancient tunnels. Oh right, the old undercity passageway that Mom was looking at before her death. Supposedly there's an access point to the hotel basement through there that the imperials might have overlooked. He has an encounter with Mom's friend (the guy who babysat Cuckcube the other night) down in the passageways, which sadly is the closest thing that he can have to an encounter with Mom at this point.

Man, if he'd just been able to escape from the prison a week earlier. :(

It's a touching moment. Cassa stammering out apologies, pleas for forgiveness, all the things that he'd want to say to his mother even though he knows it's too late. Friend Guy tells him that Mom knew he'd say all those things, and that she'd told him to tell Cassa that he doesn't need to hear anything else from her; that he's already feeling all the things he should be feeling, and that he already knows all the things he needs to know. Mom died knowing that Cassa will one day grow to be, in her own words, "an unstoppable force for good."

He also informs Cassa that the ISB have (foolishly) kept on some of the original hotel staff to keep the place tidy. Including some individuals who Friend is on good terms with. Through them, he's aware that Bix is still alive, and he can tell Cassa what section of the building she's being kept in.

The words they part on are Friend telling Cassa that he needs to take care of himself and not go doing anything stupid and risky. And Cassa replying, simply, "too late."

...yeah, in retrospect "not taking risks" has never been Cassa's strong suit. Honestly, I'm not sure why I ever doubted he'd come back to Ferrix, given his track record lol.

Meanwhile, these two nincompoops are riding the airbus into town.

I wasn't expecting Linus to come too, but yup, that's him sitting across the aisle from Cyril. I guess Linus is seeing this as a possible reprieve for himself too, though I'm less sure of how he was able to get out of the foundry long enough to try whatever hairbrained scheme they're going to try.

I'm kinda disappointed we didn't get to see their reunion at the spaceport or wherever. Probably could have squeezed some very amusing and awkward dialogue in there. Like, did these two even really know each other much at all prior to the Cassian fiasco that ended their careers? Do they each harbor some unspoken blame and resentment for the other screwing up "their" perfect operation? Would have been fun to see that meeting. Ah well.

Also, it, um. Turns out that Luthen is also here.

For some reason?

No joke, his presence here had me pausing the video and just squinting at the screen and scratching my chin for a few minutes.

When he meets up with Val and Sinta, he just talks about wanting to kill Cassa. But...does he really need to come here to do that, when he already has two of his most trusted agents in place? Does he not have anything more important to do, in the immediate aftermath of losing the ex-CIS guys when his other contacts might be wanting reassurances?

And um...he also says that if the Imperials catch Cassa at this event, they'll have to kill him before they can interrogate him. So...are they planning to snipe him out of ISB custody? How is he planning to do that without exposing a much more critical agent who knows much more sensitive information?

Hell, why is he even being so confident that Cassa WILL be coming back here. The ISB themselves are far from sure about this. He probably knows that they're just acting on a hunch the same way he is. The certainty he displays...

...

You know, I'm going to have to just look passed the characters and directly at the writers to explain why everyone is back here. The writers simply failed to come up with a good enough reason for everyone to be lurking at Mom's funeral. All three of these parties unrelatedly having the same hunch, and being totally confident about it, and then being justified in that confidence...it's just hamfisted writing to force a conclusion that doesn't flow logically from the setup.

I have a feeling that - as originally conceived - the main reason Cassa comes back to Ferrix is to rescue Bix. That gives him an urgent, time-sensitive reason to return. If any one of the parties chasing him then got wind of this, the other two could presumably come to the same conclusion by watching them.

They just couldn't come up with a convincing way for Cassa to find out about Bix and for one of the pursuing groups to find out that he found out. So instead they just threw together this thing where he comes to Ferrix for the funeral, and ONLY THEN happens to find out about Bix needing rescue (and promptly spending his entire time on Ferrix doing that, rendering the funeral attendance a totally moot point from almost as soon as he actually lands). And the pursuers all just happen to guess lucky.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's exactly how this sequence got written.

...

There's an extremely long, extremely slow sequence of the funeral procession assembling, the imperial garrison assembling back, people catching glimpses of each other in alleyways, and characters staring tensely into the camera. I feel like it's supposed to be building tension, and while it IS doing that, I feel like they overshot the mark considerably. Kinda wish they could have spared a couple minutes of this to show Linus and Cyril's reunion, or Saw and Co's reaction to the Separatists getting merc'd, but whatever.

This finale is doing a surprisingly large amount of shit that annoys me. Not enough to ruin it, but still, a noticeably large amount.

Anyway, the marching procession and orchestra comes down the street, gathering a crowd of watchers at the sides of the road.

In flagrant defiance of the ISB's orders, many of the watchers join the procession itself. And many of these extra marchers brought their traditional musical instruments for the event. As they reach the Rix Road junction, imperials in riot gear start rallying out of the hotel and positioning themselves in the way before the now intimidatingly large crowd.

Leading the parade is Cuckcube, rolling with a purposefulness that he doesn't usually appear to have. Hidden somewhere in the tail is the young man who we saw doing amateur munitions work during the first few minutes of the episode. Probably with one or more devices hidden on his person.

And, all the while, Cassa slinks through the tunnels under the streets. Making his way into the basement of the hotel. Perhaps correctly reasoning that the dumb overreaction that the imperials are doing for the funeral will leave them understaffed within the hotel itself.

Seriously, why would they keep local prisoners inside the hotel while also doing this provocateur shit, when they have limited manpower? It's not like they're normally shy about flying prisoners offworld even when there aren't security risks.

Finally, the procession stands before the arrayed riot cops. Stormtroopers stand at the sidelines, waiting to jump in as soon as there's a hint of disorder. Dierdre told the garrison not to have snipers at the ready, since she wants to take persons of interest alive if at all possible, but the troops are heavily armed and armored aside from that.

There's a long standoff. The marchers - who are looking and feeling more like protestors with every passing moment - shift their music to a faster, more aggressive pace. Did they actually plan this, or is it just a point in the traditional funeral-march song that happened to arrive during the standoff? Hard to say. The imperials glare at them. They glare back, still playing their instruments. If Dierdre wanted to provoke them by giving them so much trouble with this occasion, she appears to be succeeding.

Then, Cuckcube moves up into the middle of the standoff and plays a holorecording of Mom's final message to the townsfolk.

It looks like she actually is dead, then. Not faking her death, but using the large funeral that she knew they would hold for her as an opportunity to strike from beyond the grave.

With that in mind, the tone of her holospeech is somewhat apologetic.

It's easy, she acknowledges, for someone with nothing left to lose to tell others to fight and risk what they still have. But, at the same time, the ONE regret that she has in her long life is that she only found the will to fight in her last several weeks, when her ability to do damage was so limited.

She appeals to the living history of Ferrix. How they've always worked, and given the Powers That Be what they wanted, and luckily been left alone aside from that. They did so for the Galactic Republic. They did so, briefly, for the Confederacy of Independent Systems. They did so for the Galactic Empire. They were never happy with this, but they could deal with it. They could sleep through the hard times when tribute was taken, and preserve their little bubble of a world in the times between.

But that time is over. She wishes - really, truly wishes - that she'd woken up in time to preempt this. To get enough other people awake to preempt it effectively. But, oh well. She likens the Galactic Empire to an infectious rust that crumbles its way out through the galaxy in corroding tendrils, leaving in its wake weakness, then ruin, and then empty space that can never be filled again. The disease is here on Ferrix now, and it's here to stay. Clean it off before it erodes everything away to empty space.

She was clever, to first aim her ire against the Republic and the Separatists, and only bring up the Empire by name at the end. When the speech first gets political, the watching imperials appear to be relatively okay with what they're hearing. Sounds like it might be a boilerplate speech that perhaps gestures in dangerous directions, but ultimately punches only at acceptable targets and goes nowhere practicable.

Then, when she starts getting really seditious...well, honestly, they still could have avoided a riot. The violence only actually starts when an imperial riot cop, unwilling to tolerate any more of this, runs up and kicks Cuckcube over to make the recording stop.

Then, a couple of the closest marchers get mad and tackle him.

Then the other imperials rush in to beat/kill/arrest the couple of attackers.

And then the riot begins.

This is, ostensibly, what Dierdre wanted. So, yay for her? I'm not sure if this actually produces an environment conducive to nabbing specific high-value targets, but it's a gamble she seems to have been willing to take.

It also seems like Mom knew there'd be an imperial presence at her funeral. And she knew - or at least hoped - that they'd be baited into provoking the riled-up crowd.

As the brawl begins, a young man who most likely has a bunch of explosives under his coat slips through the imperial lines. And Cassian Andor infiltrates the all-but-empty hotel from the basement up.


Next time, the conclusion.