Star Wars Andor S2E1: "One Year Later"

This pedantic ultra-high excruciatingly detailed autistic review was commissioned by Aris Katsaris.


Season two starts out - you will never guess this - one year after we left off. I wish the episode could have prepared me for that somehow, really out of left field. :V

Being serious now, something that actually did slip me by when I started this series was the date provided before the pilot. "One Year Later" starts us out with this update on the timeline:

Just four years before the Battle of Yavin in the original movie. I'd gathered throughout season one that this era was already the beginning of the end for the Galactic Empire, but I'd missed the caption on just how close to that end the series was starting out. Hard to believe that the rebellion goes from what we saw in season one to what we'll see in "A New Hope" in just five years. "Weeks in which decades happen," no kidding.

Also, speaking of a lot of things happening, this episode is dense. Lots of stuff going on in it. I had to rewatch it in order to catch all the important plot points, so this post isn't going to be quite as "Let's Watch-y" as most of this series.


The episode starts out at an Imperial starfighter development facility on the planet Sienar, where a new TIE model is being tested.

IIRC, there are a bunch of different versions of these similar-looking things (the TIE-advanced, TIE-interceptor, etc), which are all basically "what if TIE fighter, but not shit?" Life support, shields, missiles, wings that aren't designed like giant flat targets, etc. Some of them also have hyperdrives, to serve in raider or deep space interceptor roles instead of short-ranged fighters.

It's probably safe to assume that this particular prototype is one of the FTL-capable types, based on who the test pilot is. He wouldn't have been interested in flying this one otherwise.

Looks like Luthen's birthday is coming up, and Cassa has decided to get him a nice present. What a sweety.~

The infiltration is being assisted by a facility technician whose name probably isn't actually Peena, but it sounded like Peena when they said it, and it's perfect for her, so that's what I'm sticking with. There's a nice scene where Peena gives him the passwords he'll need to nab the prototype before his scheduled test flight, and Cassa gives her a pep talk that does an excellent job of filling in the timeskip and what it's meant for his character.

What I especially like about this is that the show isn't being lazy about Cassa's character development. He didn't undergo changes offscreen so much as he had offscreen time to process and adapt to the things we saw him learn in season one. When he calms her fears at not having anything to return to after her vital act of sabotage, he tells her that by living her principles after repressing them for so long she'll effectively be "coming home to herself." An extremely autobiographical turn of phrase from Cassa, considering the events of "Rix Road," with his homecoming to Ferrix leading to him saying goodbye to everyone and everything he used to know for good. Especially preceded as it was by the Narkina V arc, which embodied (hyper-emphasized, really) the alienation of not living one's principles and being stuck acting as part of a machine that you hate.

Likewise, his reassuring her that fear and nervousness aren't bad things, when one's world is legitimately frightening and nerve-wracking. In his words, "it keeps you awake." He also partners that, a little paradoxically, with a reassurance that there's nothing wrong with having fun along the way when you can find it (this in response to her guiltily confessing to having enjoyed her time at Space Area 51). Enjoying oneself is fine, just as long as it doesn't let you get too comfortable with where you are. Don't get ensnared and tricked into thinking you're home when you know you really aren't.

We might not ever see Peena again. Perhaps we'll be left to assume the worst about her fate after Cassa brings the fighter home and starts gift-wrapping it. But whatever happens to her, this conversation with Cassa will almost certainly help her meet it with strength and dignity. Cassa's saved his own soul, and now he's getting quite skilled at getting other people to do the same. He's becoming not just a highly valuable rebel operative, but also a leader. On a small-scale only, perhaps, but a leader nonetheless.

Unfortunately, when it comes time to steal the prototype, things don't go nearly as smoothly.

For whatever scheduling and logistical reasons, the test-pilot who Cassa is playing as didn't have a chance to get any detailed instructions on flying the thing before the prime window for stealing it. And, it turns out that they badly overestimated how similar this variant's controls would be to the already-in-use TIE fighters. What was meant to be a quick, stealthy egress from an unguarded hangar turns into a prolonged, messy affair that forces Cassa to fight through base personnel, blast open the hangar door, and then just barely manage to elude pursuing fighters in a sequence that...well, it's not quite as featherbrained and cartoony as Luthen's dogfight with the imperial patrol ship last season, but it's definitely in that direction.

And yeah, Peenah most likely ain't surviving the aftermath of this; just hope she gets to die resisting arrest instead of being captured and tortured.

Cassa manages to escape Sienar, and lands the stolen TIE (with the amount of weaponry it has packed onto it, I assume it's a "gunship" variant) on another planet, hidden beneath a layer of foggy jungle.

In the meantime, we're introduced to another new setting for the series, if not for the franchise as a whole. The planet Chandrila has been mentioned quite often as Mon Mothma and most of her supporting cast's homeworld, and I assume it's been written about in the books and such, but I'm not sure if it ever appeared onscreen prior to this.

Granted, the part of Chandrila we're now shown is probably not all that representative of the planet's environment or population as a whole, on account of, well.

The mountains make me want to go hiking. The Mothma palace makes me want some dynamite. I don't want to know how much of the surrounding land is privately owned by the family, I'm sure the answer would just make me want to see an explosion even more.

Naturally, with this being an intra-Chandrilan wedding made for the purpose of entering House Gul'Dan into the traditional nobility, it would have to be held here. So, for the first time in a long time, Mon's entire household is back in their one-mountain-resort-argument-for-the-guillotine and entertaining an ever growing number of guests. Mostly other Chandrilan aristocracy, but also political friends from Coruscant, a limited number of weirdos from Davos' murky financial world who he's not too ashamed to be seen next to in daylight, and some other miscellaneous. Our first interior scene has Leeda bringing her fellow tradwife cadets to see her wedding dress.

It's basically "what if this house was an article of clothing," unsurprisingly.

I absolutely love what the camera angles are doing in this shot, by the way. The low angle on the dress, it being suspended off the floor, and the distance from it to the camera make it look like it's four times taller than Leeda or her friends. The shot from behind Leeda's head as she gazes up at it, like it's the beginning of a boss cutscene and any second the dress is going to wake up and trigger the fight theme. And yet, she and her friends are all just vapidly giggling at it, painfully uncomprehending of how serious of a life decision this is and how undersized and unready for it any of them are.

While Leeda's dress prepares to teach her the meaning of git gud, Mon and her husband receive the guests. Mon's actress, Genevieve O'Reilly, continues to impress with her ability to play a character playing multiple characters as we see her switch masks as needed for each of the new arrivals, showing genuine vulnerability only in the rare moments when Mon knows there's no one looking. It intensifies when she happens to look down at the airdock and sees something that alarms her, prompting a tense, hurried march down there punctuated by perfectly vacuous smiles and bits of relaxed body language whenever someone tries to get in her way.

The camera retains a fixed shot on her face, so we see her doing all this before we get to see what she's reacting to. Not that it wasn't already obvious, heh. There's also a moment where she runs into her cousin Val, and is able to actually show her anxiety to another person for just a moment when she asks her if she's seen who just arrived, and Val's face darkens just like her cousin's. Again, it was obvious before, but after that exchange he might as well already be onscreen.

Apparently his own imminent birthday wasn't enough, and he has to crash someone else's party as well. Mon is understandably less than thrilled. And probably outright frightened by the fact that Val apparently wasn't expecting this either. Shit is looking serious.

She is then surprised when her conversation with Luthen is interrupted by the father of the groom, who actually DOES appear to have been expecting him. The two of them immediately start talking, and both of them urge Mon to leave them alone for a little while as this exchange demands privacy.

Huh. Now that's a surprise alright. So far, we haven't been given reason to think that Gul'Dan's is a name worth remembering outside of Chandrila, and I don't think Luthen is running any ops on the planet. It's a remarkably unlikely coincidence that he and Luthen would have had dealings independent of Mon Mothma.

It's most likely that they only met each other because of Mon entering into her arrangement with Davos. Luthen found out she was using this guy to cook her books, and decided he needed direct lines of communication. Maybe Mon's recent successes have made Luthen decide that Chandrilan financial institutions would be suitable for the next money laundering stunt he needs to pull? Would make sense, though in that case he'd surely be wary of putting too many eggs in one basket.

Speaking of egg to basket ratios, it turns out that Luthen brought Leia-with-a-K to the party with him. Which is actually a pretty big deal, I think.

They're both away from their pirate ratio station. They never do that. In the past, they've made a high priority of at least one of them being at their Coruscant post at all times. Just to drive the point home, there's a moment here where Luthen uses pulls Kleia aside and asks her if there's been any updates on that birthday present Cassa promised to bring him from Sienar, and she has to remind him that she can't safely transmit from here. They also trade some more ominous words about needing to stay here at the multi-day Chandrilan wedding ceremony until it's completion...or at least, until something.

Whatever Luthen came for, it's bigger than just having some business with Gul'Dan. Much bigger, if it justifies both him and Kleia coming for it.

...

I have a feeling this wedding is going to end up in the news sector-wide for reasons that Mon and her family really, really aren't going to enjoy

...

For now, we're stuck with a frustrated Mon and an equally frustrated Val as they try to figure out what revolutionary business is being done in their family estate that they themselves apparently can't know about. Each of them have a little conversation with someone that only serves to heighten their frustration and anxiety. For Mon, it's whatsisname the banker whose politics are almost but not quite as spicy as hers.

He's not been having a good time recently. Investments that went south. Implicitly because of their connection to Mon's shady doings. He and his wife are now estranged, which he implies is related to the above. He also takes it rather personally that Mon wasn't aware of any of this until he told her. Not realizing just how much she has on her plate. Not able to be told even a quarter of it.

And, he can't even finish telling Mon about his problem - which he insists concerns her directly - before there's something else that demands her immediate attention. Leaving him feeling, presumably, used and unappreciated. After all, this entire wedding is only happening because of him, isn't it?

I have a bad feeling about where his plotline is going to eventually lead. Well, we'll see.

Meanwhile, Val and Kleia run into each other at the bar. And are still, no matter the setting, relentlessly catty at each other.

Kleia is apparently as surprised to see Val here as Val was to see her and Luthen. She had no idea that Val and Mon were a package deal rather than being independently in league with Luthen. Neither of them are the slightest bit happy to have to deal with each other here, but Val is definitely showing it the most.

Did Kleia run over her dog or something? Seriously, what is the deal with these two?

The final moment that has Val leave her side in disgust is when Kleia comments on them playing the role of "two single women assessing the prospects" at this party. Which Val interprets as a dig about herself and Sinta (at least, I think that's why she gets mad? It's been a year, I'm not sure where Val and Sinta stand at this point and how butthurt Val is supposed to be about it). Kleia looks legitimately baffled at her reaction, though, so I'm guessing that wasn't intentional on her part at all.

Maybe their beef is just Kleia having a tendency to spaghetti her way into Val's sore spots and never realize it? I suppose that would be a mundanely realistic reason for this sort of personality conflict, heh. I actually hope it does just end up being that, now. We've all seen (or directly experienced) something like this at a workplace or social group, and there's no reason it wouldn't happen in dissident groups as well.


There are two more major subplots to cover in this episode. Like I said, it's dense. Next time!