Star Wars Andor S1E2: "That Would Be Me"

The second episode opens with a continuation of Cassa's childhood X-Com career on Kenari. Nothing much happens in the first little clip of this; we just see him follow the rest of the painted-up investigation party through the jungle toward the crash site. However, some of the scenery they pass along the way is suggestive.

Starting to look like these people may not be descendent from shipwreckees, but rather post-apocalyptic remnants.

The most impressive artifact of this planet's prior civilization is a massive, quarried-out gorge that they pass along the edge of. And that young Cassa can't help but stop and stare at, even though I'm sure he must have seen it before, as ominous music plays.

It's hard to tell if this is a massive canyon that humans just build into, or if we're actually looking at the aftermath of an enormous strip-mining operation. In the latter case, I very much doubt that the nearby jungle was anywhere near as healthy back when it was in operation. Or for like, fifty years afterward.

His older companions quickly call him along after them, and they move on toward the new crash site. The camera lingers on the gorge after he leaves, though, and the music remains eerie.

Back to the present day, on Ferrix. As the sun sets on Cassa's first day home after the incident, the local imam climbs atop the minaret and issues the evening call to prayer with his hammers and anvil.

No explanation provided. None needed.

The POV we go to is one of the friends and neighbours that Cassa spent the first episode harassing. Specifically, a mechanic named Bix who Cassa was trying to get to sell off an expensive part he's been holding onto to help him pay his way into hiding. I kinda got the impression that she and Cassa might have had a thing once, but she's kinda-sorta starting to see someone else now. Her new maybe-boyfriend doesn't want her having dealings with Cassa, and it's not clear how much of that is jealousy and how much of it is him knowing that having dealings with Cassa at this stage in his life is a genuinely bad idea. Anyway, after Cassa twisted Bix's arm into helping him find a buyer for the part, Bix has been both doing that AND using her network of informants in such matters to try and find out what the heck Cassa has gotten himself into in the first place. And also doing her best to keep her new guy in the dark about her getting involved in Cassa's shadiest favor to date.

Unfortunately, she leaves a computer on with its monitor off for a moment, and he turns it on when she's out of the room and reads the corporate security memo that she just got her eyes on.

The look he gets on his face when he reads it is a little bit too excited to be trusted. Or for me to motivate his concerns wholly or even primarily to concern for Bix.

...

As an aside: on my first watch of this episode, I somehow got the impression that Bix and this other guy were married. Which is weird, on rewatch, because there are some lines of dialogue that make it clear their relationship is new and tentative.

I think what gave me that perception is just how goddamned possessive and entitled this guy is about Bix. He acts as if they've been together for a long time. He interacts with her - and with other people in regards to her - as if they're a settled thing. If you happen to have been distracted at a couple of key moments where the contrary is established, it's easy to come to the wrong conclusion just going by his visual and vocal cues. Which is probably why he does it.

He's not a good guy.

...

Next scene, we're back to Cassa, who's finally made it back home. He doesn't normally sleep on the floor of used spaceships he doesn't own, fortunately, he actually does live somewhere. Specifically, with the elderly woman who seems like she might be an adoptive mother to him of sorts, and her pet cuckcube.

Cuckcube faithfully relayed his lies and excuses for where he's been the last two days to her. Unfortunately, it also somehow got ahold of that memo calling for a Kenari male to be taken in for questioning. Maybe that's just been released onto the planet's public internet by this point. Anyway though, Mom doesn't even ask Cassa what he did or why he did it or why he lied to her. Her first and only thought, as far as we can tell, is about whether or not anyone in the community knows that he is in fact of Kenari origin and thus able to turn him in. She was sure that no one still alive in their slum knows it. Has he told anyone?

...

Hmm. She apparently actually lied to people and falsified documents about his planet of origin, early in his time with her (I'm guessing she took him in just shortly after his tribe's X-Com misadventure, however that ended up going wrong). That means that they had reason to lie about this.

When Cassa was asking after his sister on Morlana I, he didn't seem hesitant to say that he was looking for a Kenari. And the madame at the brothel didn't have any particular reaction to the mention of that ethnic group, besides making a comment about him perhaps "having a taste for dark hair and dark eyes," that suggests that Kenari aren't, like, being actively hunted by the government or something. Rare to find in this system, but not because they're being herded into camps.

I wonder what the story is, then? Why the secrecy about his origins prior to yesterday's incident? I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.

...

It's at least strongly implied that - despite Mom's best efforts - Bix knows, and that her boyfriend either knows or suspects. Mom furiously demands to know how the company was able to learn that the person who committed whatever crime he committed was Kenari, though, and Cassa is forced to confess that he'd told a witness that he was looking for his Kenari sister. Thus providing CorpSec with that information by proxy. Needless to say, Mom finds this insanely stupid and reckless on his part.

Without saying anything at all about how stupid and reckless him flying around the system committing crimes is, lol. I like this lady.

Later that night, Cassa meets Bix at a surprisingly nonviolent pub. I guess this one must be primarily a restaurant or something, to not be drawing in the murderhobos. She, too, confronts him with the memo, forcing him to come clean to her about the basic gist of what happened. Well, the good news is that she also found a buyer for that expensive ship part he's been hiding, and he's expected to come for it tomorrow. So, soon Cassa will have the money that he needs to make himself disappear, at least for as long as it takes for this to blow over.

She's a little bit more shocked than Mom was to hear that Cassa killed two people last night, especially with how nonchalant Cassa seems to be about it, but it doesn't change the outcome of the conversation.

Of course, Bix's bf has surreptitiously tracked her to the pub, and is watching the meeting from hiding. He can't hear what they're saying, but after seeing her dash out with that memo on her computer and then having a whispery meeting with Cassa he's able to put two and two together. Regardless of whether or not he knew Cassa was Kenari before, it's pretty obvious to him now.

So, he heads to the nearest payphone to make a good citizen's report.

Granted, if Bix finds out about this he's going to really regret having done it. I doubt the payout is going to be all that generous, given the nature of the organization we're dealing with, so he won't even have that much to salve the wound with. And she IS going to find out, no way in hell is that gun being loaded without the show eventually planning to fire it. Well, like I said, I can't really ascribe charitable motives to him at this point, so he deserves whatever ends up happening to him.

I'm amused by the fact that the company very likely would have no leads to go on if Cassa *didn't* make these escape preparations, though. Like, if it's literally only Mom and Bix who know that he's Kenari, no one in town would have reason to think of him after seeing the memo. In fairness to Cassa, he doesn't know what other evidence the company may or may not have found, so he couldn't have known this was an error, but it's still kind of grimly amusing.

...

It also makes me think of my own DMing, actually. When running investigation adventures, I have a really strong tendency for having villains commit the perfect crime, but then get paranoid and implicate themselves in the process of covering for it when they actually didn't need to do so, thus providing the players with a lead to follow.

I didn't even realize it was a pattern in my campaigns until a couple weeks ago, so it's been on my mind heh.

Granted, this might also just be true to reality.

...

Anyway, we now return to Morlana I, where Douchenozzles minions have received Insecure Boyfriend's report and are looking into Cassian Andor. They see the files Mom filled out saying he's from a different planet, and are initially ready to disregard this as someone's inept attempt at SWATing a business rival or something, but then they notice Cassa's criminal record. It's a pretty extensive one. Insurrection, destruction of imperial property, it's kind of a surprise he isn't still in jail all things considered. Exactly the type of guy who you wouldn't be surprised to learn had a fake background. So, Douchenozzle is informed, and he sets his sights on the first and only target he's been given.

Younger mugshot Cassa without the facial hair is pretty bangable, ngl.​

Honestly, from how practiced Cassa proved to be at combat, and how he had zero hesitation before shooting once he'd decided that killing was the only option, I'm pretty sure he's committed a hell of a lot MORE crimes than the government knows about. No way in hell has this man not killed before. Probably more than once before.

...

I guess it's possible that these earlier incidents were as part of a legally recognized military fighting a legally recognized war. In which case it wouldn't be criminal history even if it was known.

But I don't think that that's it. In large part because I doubt Cassa ever fought for a pro-Imperial military, and the Galactic Empire is exactly the sort of regime that would declare all of its opposition to be criminal organizations regardless of their political legitimacy.

...

As Douchenozzle prepares to send an expedition after the target, he gets a visit from one of the company's field officers, and it's one of the most bizarre pieces of dialogue I swear to god.

I said before that Douchenozzle wishes he was an imperial military officer instead of a corporate rent-a-cop. Well, this guy, Sergeant Linus, actually thinks that he is an imperial military officer instead of a corporate rent-a-cop. He gives this absolutely delusional patriotic speech, like he's been chosen to lead the vanguard in a decisive battle instead of arresting a murder suspect in the middle of nowhere. Like, HE can hear the Imperial March starting to play out of nowhere as he blathers semi-coherently about how the corporate militias are the Empire's first line of defence against chaos and barbarism, and how galactic civilization truly rests on the shoulders of the private sector's hired thugs moreso than it does on any others. Nobody else in the room can hear the Imperial March playing when he says this, but he can.

Another factor running through this conversation is how both Linus and Douchenozzle are indirectly throwing shade at Dickface the entire time. Douchenozzle deliberately strains his voice when he says that himself AND the chief both take this situation very seriously, and Linus' face hardens from its usual granite to sheer adamantium when he replies that he's glad that EVERYONE in command is taking this situation with due seriousness, as doing anything like that would go beyond mere dereliction of duty and qualify for full-on treason.

Douchenozzle himself...doesn't quite hear the Imperial March during Linus' monologue, but you can see him imagining the band that he wishes was here to play it and casting all his favorite space pop artists for the roles. Despite being the one in command, he increasingly comes across as the star-struck new recruit being swept up in the older Linus' charismatic orbit. When Linus ends the meeting by inviting douchenozzle to come along with his excessively large squad in person, Douchenozzle has this look on his face that would make more sense if he was the unworthy underling being chosen for a great honor and responsibility by the Powers That Be.

Honestly, I'm half-wondering if Linus is a plant in some kind of intracompany power play, and he's luring Douchenozzle into joining this Ferrix mission so that his death can be made to look accidental.

...heh, actually, through THAT lens, the way he prompted Douchenozzle to indirectly talk shit about Dickface and agree that he should be arrested himself for treason might actually be fishing. Like, Dickface ordered this guy to probe for signs that Douchenozzle might be plotting against him instead of merely disobeying his orders, and to lure him to his death if he is.

I'm not going to bet on this being the case. But from the way this scene plays out and the characters are acted, it definitely seems like a possibility.

So, Linus, Douchenozzle, and a dozen or so company cops will be shuttling over to Ferrix to arrest Cassian. I'm sure everyone else at HQ is glad to be rid of them for at least one blessed day. Cassa may or may not have treachery within the enemy ranks to help even the odds for him. If not, then even for a hardened combatant like him this is going to be a challenge.


That's about the halfway point. Splitting it for now.

I continue to be bemused at how, at least on paper, Douchenozzle is the one doing everything right. He's taking a double-homicide seriously, despite cynical pressures from above to cover it up. He's the hero in a crime thriller, the plucky young detective working with the grizzled street-smart veterans in his department, while struggling with obstructionism from the corrupt chief and/or mayor.

Except that we've seen from how he treats his underlings how little empathy he actually has for people like the two dead men. And the police organization he's a part of is an explicitly, knowingly for-profit one. And it's easily inferable that this is all a fantasy come true for him and he's ultimately motivated by a desire for recognition and career advancement.

I'm not sure if this is deliberately subversive on the writers' part, but it very well COULD be.