The space sheep are called dray, by the way. And that’s only half the fun of this week’s episode…
Recap
Syril Karn is at home with his mother, who is disappointed by his lack of prospects and general failure. She calls in a “family favor” with his Uncle Harlo about getting him new work, which Syril is mortified by.
Buy the Book
Nona the Ninth
Cassian’s things are stolen in the night by Skeen on Vel’s orders. Skeen and Cassian talk, both suspicious of each other; they chat about Skeen’s tattoos, which seem to relate to the Empire and possible compulsory service. Cassian asks about potential weakness in the team, but Skeen assures him that the younger ones are all in. On Coruscant, Mon Mothma has a fight with her daughter Leida (Bronte Carmichael), who doesn’t want her mother to drive her to school because she believes that she only stays involved in Leida’s life for appearances.
Nemik gives Cassian a piece of equipment to use that’s old, but can’t be jammed or noticed by the Empire and can be endlessly repaired. He starts in on his own manifesto against the Empire, explaining that the pace of oppression in the galaxy outpaces people’s ability to understand it. Taramyn and Vel call on Cassian to find out if he knows how to get their getaway vehicle off the runway, and Cassian realizes that there are chunks of this plan that they’re not clear on—he asks what they would have done if he hadn’t shown up. Taramyn gives Cassian training on how to walk like a soldier, and Cassian ruffles feathers by suggesting they change their lineup based on people’s dominant shooting hands. Vel realizes that Cassian has noted all of this automatically, and they wind up taking his suggestion. The area gets buzzed by a TIE fighter, and the group hide their guns and cover their ears.
Lieutenant Gorn is busy setting the stage for their arrival tomorrow, getting areas cleared up and shifting duty rosters. Lieutenant Supervisor Blevin installs a prefect to keep an eye on things on Ferrix while Dedra Meero continues to look into missing pieces of Imperial equipment against her orders—she’s certain that this is the sign of rebel activity. Cassian’s group sets out from their camp; he keeps having to tell Skeen to stay away from his stuff, while Vel tells Cassian to stop flirting with Cinta. On the trip toward the garrison, Cassian asks Vel about Gorn’s backstory. She explains that he fell in love with a local woman, which lost him a promotion and then the woman, too.
As the group is resting, Skeen holds Cassian at knifepoint and finally gets his hands on the kyber crystal, demanding to know why Cassian is carrying something of such value. When all attempts to calm him go unheeded, Cassian finally admits that he’s doing the job for money, and that he doesn’t mind if they’re all scared, but that he’s not a good enough reason for people on the team to start losing their nerve. The group makes it to the garrison by nightfall to signal Gorn of their readiness. Vel and Cinta leave to enact a part of the plan that hasn’t been disclosed to Cassian. Skeen explains that his anger toward the Empire started because they took his brother’s farm, which led to his brother’s death by suicide. On Coruscant, Rael is listening for news about the operation, and is told by his assistant to leave it since there’s no way they’ll know what’s happening until tomorrow. Rael says that with luck, tomorrow will be the beginning of something much bigger.
Commentary
This episode is the midpoint of the current story arc, which means it’s where all the meaty character work happens, and that suits me just fine.
My first question is: Am I supposed to infer that Cinta and Vel are sleeping together? Because Skeen says that Cinta’s “sharing a blanket” with someone and she seems to be walking out of Vel’s tent area when he mentions it. And Vel gets kinda snippy about Cassian being charming with her. So that’s what I’m assuming, but if that was the point, I kinda wish they’d been clearer on that. I get that it’s not that important to the plot, but given that we don’t know much about Cinta or Vel, and that Star Wars has been real bad about clarity on queer characters…
It’s the timeline here that’s interesting because Cassian was abducted by Maarva and Clem when he was fairly young, but now he’s talking about being captured at some point and possibly being forced to work for the Empire from ages thirteen to sixteen on Sipo (which is not a planet I’m familiar with). We don’t know if this forced work was military service or something else, but we do know that the Empire has a history of conscripting and enslaving people when it suits them, so this isn’t surprising. My actual question is how did either of them get free of that?
I do appreciate Cassian calling Skeen out on the difference between fear and losing your nerve when things come to a head over the kyber crystal, in part because it’s important here, but also because this episode is full of moments where we see just how canny Cassian is, how his mind works and what it puts it to use for. He notices everything, he picks new skills up quickly, and he understands other peoples’ motivations far better than his own. And in this case, he immediately recognizes what he needs to say in order to calm things down, disobeying Vel, but never giving up Rael in the process.
We’re getting a steady build on Karn’s vendetta against Cassian, pushed along by his mother being… one of those moms. And Uncle Harlo being either a very powerful businessman or in some kind of mafia (so, a businessman). Those scenes are sparse but well-written, which I know on account of nearly breaking out in hives listening to them talk to each other. Every dynamic in the episode is uncomfortable, but I’d rather watch any one of them (including Mon Mothma’s evil weasel of a husband) over the Karns.
I’m almost one-hundred percent sure that Nemik is gonna die now, and that Cassian is going to inherit his manifesto. Which I don’t want for the kid, but I am pleased that they’re using the character as a way of putting forward certain philosophical and political ideologies in a manner that feels less clunky than these narratives often manage. Nemik’s earnestness prevents his points from feeling too hand-of-the-writer, which they easily could because his perspective’s the closest to commentary that we might recognize in our own lives: about oppression being a constant strain on our faculties; about atrocities working by volume so that we become desensitized to them; about the need for technological freedom in the form of items that can be easily repaired. And Nemik isn’t wrong so much as he is a little florid and also preaching to a group that isn’t ready to hear him.
There’s a lot of discussion in this episode about people’s reasons for joining the cause, and this series is doing a much better job of something that Rogue One needed to do—show that everyone’s motives are entirely different, entirely personal, and often incredibly painful. Everyone’s lost homes, lost family, lost themselves to the Empire. Some of them have hope that they can make a difference, and some of them just want revenge. All reasons are valid, and that’s the real crux of the thought here.
I imagine that this point is going to get gnarlier once figures like Saw Gerrera turn up (provided they actually allow him to behave like an extremist, which has been super mealy in his portrayal thus far), but the arc of Cassian Andor’s story is ultimately that, in the cosmic scheme of things, there’s no “right” way or reason to fight oppression. The way that theme plays out in the coming weeks will largely determine the success of the series to my mind…
Bits and Asides:
- Skeen’s tattoos are vague enough that it’s uncertain what they actually refer to. The Krayt Head is meant to reference a krayt dragon, but the tattoo itself is a sort of bar code, which indicates that the term is likely just a nickname for the mark. Then there’s the “mark of the Hand,” which could be a reference to the Emperor’s Hand (a position held by Mara Jade in the Legends stories and brought back only vaguely in the current canon), or to the Empire of the Hand—a group that sought to bring the Empire further into the Unknown Regions of the galaxy. That group was headed up by Grand Admiral Thrawn at one point, so perhaps it pertains to that. But it might have nothing to do with either of those things.
- Got some blue milk on Syril’s space Kix. I dunno, while it kinda makes sense for this one-off prop choice to become the inside joke of the Star Wars universe, I wish they’d actually put some thought into its ubiquitousness? Tell me why the blue milk gets shipped all over the galaxy.
- I appreciate the use of the TIE fighter in this episode as it buzzes the camp. The way their distinctive sound has been recontextualized as a point of terror for those living in fear of the Empire is smart, particularly considering the aggressiveness of their engine “scream.”
Until next week!
