We all knew it was bound to go terribly wrong. Which makes this a tense episode of television to sit through….
Recap
The crew gets in position for the Aldhani operation. Vel and Cinta swim through the waters blocked by the dam to climb up to the communications tower and leave a jamming device attached. Right before heading in, Cassian learns from Skeen that Taramyn is a former stormtrooper, hence his knowledge on Imperial bearing. Commandant Jayhold Beehaz (Stanley Townsend) is trying to impress Colonel Petigar (Richard Katz) with his handling of Aldhani in hopes of getting promoted off the planet, telling his wife Roboda (Michelle Duncan) and son Leonart (Alfie Todd) to try and impress and move things along. They explain to Petigar that they must walk out to meet the local population—who they discourage on their route to reach the valley in order to ensure a small crowd—and then they can sit down to an excellent dinner. Cassian’s group takes their place as a small squad in the valley, and Gorn folds them in, bringing them inside the base.
Once in, the group draws weapons and takes the colonel, commandant, and family hostage. When the colonel tries to insist on letting the boy go free by threatening to shoot Nemik, Cinta kills him. She stays behind to monitor communications, assuring Vel that she’ll be alright. They quickly take the base and make it to the hangar, telling the crew on guard to load the transport full of payroll credits. Corporal Kimzi (Nick Blood) notices that the communications are out and intercepts their transmissions; he assembles a team to find out what’s going on. They emerge in the hangar as the group are loading up the payroll and Gorn tries to bluff their way out of it, but the commandant has what appears to be a heart attack and keels over, leading to a shoot out. Taramyn gets killed trying to reach Vel; Cassian almost gets strangled by a soldier, but Nemik kills him; the Eye has started.
Only Cassian, Vel, Skeen, and Nemik escape in the payroll transport. The security sector of Aldhani has realized something is wrong and sent TIE fighters to dispatch them. Nemik gets pinned between the payroll palettes and is mortally wounded. Vel gives him some medication to keep him conscious so that he can guide them out through the Eye. Once they make it, Skeen suggests they take Nemik to a doctor or he won’t survive. Vel isn’t sure of that plan, but Cassian agrees that they should. As a remote doctor (Aidan Cook) tries to treat Nemik’s injuries, Skeen talks to Cassian outside—they have eighty million credits, and he suggests they split it and leave. Cassian asks about the cause and the brother Skeen mentioned fighting for, but those stories were lies. Skeen insists that he’s a true rebel: it’s him against everyone else. Cassian promptly shoots him and tells Vel what happened. She doesn’t believe him, but he insists upon it, and also upon her letting him leave with his cut right now.
Nemik is dead. Vel gives Cassian his manifesto, telling him that it was Nemik’s dying wish. Cassian gives her Rael’s kyber crystal to return to him when she sees him and departs. On Coruscant, Mon Mothma’s senate work is disrupted by news of the Aldhani operation. The ISB stops everything they’re doing to devote resources toward finding out what happened to their payroll. Rael is in the middle of selling items to a wealthy couple (Alice Haig and Joseph Arkley) when the man hears about the rebel raid and asks if he’s got anything in from Aldhani. Rael goes into the back room and begins to laugh joyously.
Commentary
So we’ve come to a conclusion on the second arc, and… look, I’m normally all-in for infiltration plots, but this one stressed. me. out.
I’m gonna complain again about the fact that we still don’t get a clear indication of whether there’s a relationship between Vel and Cinta. They seem to be signaling toward that, and I’m not saying that they needed to add a kiss or anything, but the vagaries were really tiresome, particularly when we see that Cinta stays at the compound and have no idea if she’s staying or going to try escaping on her own. (She walks toward the Aldhani group, so perhaps she’ll change out of her uniform and leave with them?) We also don’t get a clear indication on what happens to Gorn, which worries me.
Also, what was the point of refusing to tell Cassian how Vel and Cinta were entering? I was hoping they’d have a clear reason for not letting him know when everyone else was filled in on the plan, or that it would be something extra specially flash, so I could at least forgive them for holding out from an audience point of view. But it’s not—we get a few very trope-y heist mechanics and they’re inside with everyone else.
It’s unfortunate that Nemik’s death and passing the manifesto to Cassian was so predictable because I don’t dislike the idea on its face—it just would have been more meaningful if they’d spent more time together. In fact, if this entire arc had been given a little more breathing room, all the deaths would have hit harder, including Skeen’s. While it makes sense to show that plenty of people who get involved in these causes aren’t in it for real, this particular mission was dangerous enough to everyone involved that getting a broader sense of him over the long haul might have sold the betrayal better. Moss-Bachrach still turns in a great performance overall, but he deserved more moments to build the part.
Cassian’s reaction wound up being obvious, too, and that’s more unfortunate to my mind. You knew the instant that Skeen owned up to his real plan, Cassian would have to kill him. You knew that after he did it, he was probably going to try and hightail it away with his cut to avoid further entanglements. That he’d be given the manifesto on Nemik’s death. It wouldn’t be so aggravating if we didn’t know that this was Cassian’s origin story with the Rebellion—he’s a compelling enough character to deserve something more complex and weighted than this. Perhaps we’ll receive it later on in the series, but if they continue in this fashion, his recruitment will seem tragically rote.
When they said payroll it turns out that they did indeed mean payroll as in money, and I’m having a real hard time understanding the economics of this entire situation. Like why you would need the credits to be physical, and also why you would store them in this manner at this random outpost for the entire sector, and how precisely it benefits the Rebellion to have eighty million in Imperial credits in the first place. We know that type of currency is an issue in the Star Wars galaxy and that having the wrong type causes problems since there seem to be no points of exchange (which is wild, frankly, but that’s a digression we don’t need right now). Some indication of who they’re doing business with might be useful, as well as assurance that these credits aren’t traceable? My assumptions would lean toward payroll being marked somehow, which might make using the money difficult, and if it’s not… I guess this is another situation like Scarif’s VHS tapes.
And I’m also confused as to why Rael was bothering Mon Mothma about money when their latest operation seems to be about getting enough money to assuage that issue entirely?
There’s another bit that’s tweaking at me, which is that I was fully expecting the Aldhani people to cause a disturbance here. Their leader gives Gorn a look when he notices that the guy is translating him incorrectly, and we get enough pointed shots of him looking angry that I half suspected they had their own plan to enact. The lack of one only caused more confusion on my end.
Anyway, the point is that this episode was… fine. I mean, it was tense, but that was about it. A few threads got little-to-no attention this week, so I imagine that we’ll get a great deal more of Mon Mothma, Rael, and Karn when we return.
Bits and Asides:
- Not to feel bad for Imperial family members, but when the commandant complained about his son “always being sick,” I was ready to throw down.
- I do like when they pay attention to general day-to-day tasks that need doing within every organization, which is to say, seeing soldiers who cook in the Empire is A++ premium content, please continue.
- Can’t help but notice the similarity in Nemik’s device for navigation to the targeting systems on the X-Wings during the Death Star run, which is a pretty clever retcon for why all the Rebellion’s gear is arguably so low-tech—they are using the sort of technology Nemik is vouching for.
- They named the four-armed physician Doctor Quadpaw, oh Star Wars, never change.
See you next week!
