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Michael Wilkinson!😍

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i love how equally horrifying and challenging all four storylines in andor are.

cassian: youre working for the rebellion, but the plan goes wrong. you get caught in the middle of leftist infighting and chained up like a dog. you escape because the unorganized kids decided to solve their problems with space rock paper scissors. you then get stranded in space with no communications and make it to your location a week late

mon: your tradwife daughter is getting married to a friend of a friend because you needed money so the empire wouldn't arrest you. you find out your friend is going through a divorce and also likely knows too much, so your rebel ally suggests that he gets assassinated. your shitty husband accuses you of being unfaithful. you try to tell your daughter that she can call off the wedding if she wants, but she calls you embarrassing. your only option is to get shit faced drunk and dance at the reception

bix: you're with a group of refugees from a destabilized planet finding farm work, even though you're technically illegal and without visas. (im sure this has no real world parallels at all. after all, there's no politics in star wars). ice shows up and you have to try and avoid getting caught. you can't get in touch with your boyfriend. one of the ice agents tries raping you, so you kill him. the farmer protecting you ends up selling out your friend to save his own ass, and then your friend ends up dead. all this while you're dealing with trauma and ptsd from being tortured a year ago

dedra: you have to meet your shitty boyfriends even shittier mother

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My favorite scene of this arc is honestly the first one where Cassian is speaking with the other rebel spy. He’s speaking so gently to her and genuinely trying to comfort her and calm her down, smiling when she says their cover should be flirting to try to put her at ease. Reassuring her over and over again that her efforts mean something and everyone working together in all these small steps chip away at a crumbling Empire. That if they did nothing they wouldn’t be able to sleep again. It’s all worth it. And sure it’s to calm her nerves but there’s something so sincere and genuine in Cassian’s eyes when he says it. It’s the beginning of his rebel journey and for the first time he’s discovered hope again after a lifetime of oppression and jadedness.

I think it’s a beautiful parallel/foreshadowing to the first introductory scene of him in Rogue One, where he says some of the same things to another panicking operative. He’s trying to be reassuring, he’s trying to get the person to calm down. Only to turn around and shoot him. What once begun as sincerity and kindly gift of sharing his hope now became a manipulation tactic. There we’re reaching the end of Cassian’s journey as a rebel and the cynicism and desensitization to it all has overtaken him once again. And now in Andor Season 2 we’re to bear witness to how the hope and light was stolen from his eyes once more before he’s reminded of it again.

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“i need you to start girlbossing”

Krennic calling Dedra out is hilarious. He knows she's smart and won't let her downplay things.

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Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

updated version

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i just know that cassian is going to watch his friends, his family die one by one, maybe even hold them in his arms as they pass, until he's all alone. and then, he's going to find kaytoo and melshi, and then jyn, and baze and chirrut, and then bodhi, and he won't be alone again. but then, they'll all die together. and as he goes, this time he'll be the one being held...

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The Rebellion and Infighting

I have so much to scream about in this first set of three episodes, but the one I want to yell about the most is the theme of destructive infighting that grinds everything to a halt.

It was a more background theme last season, because Cassian was still making his way toward Rebellion. But this time it came out front and center in all four storylines.

In the wedding on Chandrila, everyone was at odds with each other. Nobody could agree on what to do or how to support each other (or who should be supporting who). They sniped and sneered and took passive-aggressive swipes at each other, both personal and Rebellion-related. The one that most desperately broke my heart was Mon's conversation with Leida, where she tried to offer her a way out ("what I wish my mother had said.") And Leida slaps the offer away like a toddler slapping away a spoonful of peas, continuing the mini-theme of mothers and daughters not understanding each other.

On Mina Rau, they did a little better, but not much. What seemed like a lovely little agricultural community fell apart for the Ferrix contingent because someone who seemed to be an ally turned on them to save himself. Plus Beela's mom didn't approve of Wilmon ("a toolie") and fueled Beela and Wilmon's little Romeo and Juliet storyline and making him late for getting the hell out of there.

And of course, there was the Empire, coming around and exercising control over where they went and if they were allowed to be here. The wording in this segment was just *chef's kiss* so specific. They worried about visas and getting caught without them. The Imperial called them "illegal" and "undocumented," a speech that could just as easily be heard from the United States White House today. And then heavily implying (in a nauseating scene that just built and built and built) that Bix could save herself by trading her body. (Buy your right to exist by being useful to the overlords.) And then when she refused, made it clear he was going to take it anyway.

It was most obvious in Cassian getting held up in the jungle by the rebel group, who were so busy squabbling with each other and shooting anything that moved that they didn't even notice a) Cassian manipulating them and b) the giant monsters that leapt out and ate them. Blunt? Oh yes. Obvious? Yepper. Meaningless? Not in the least.

Interestingly, the one storyline that took this theme of infighting and flipped it around to show what it means to work together was Dedra's. Not the Ghorman part of it, although that was riveting. (And the tourist film that Krennic showed was hysterically funny in its WTFery.). But shockingly, it's the dinner with Syril's toxic mom, with Dedra watching Eedy gleefully tear her son down. Then when Syril has to leave the room, Dedra wastes no time in laying down the law that unless Eedy falls the fuck in line, Syril will no longer be part of his mother's life. I hated everyone in that scene as a person, but I admit I cheered.

To return to Cassian's storyline, the reveal at the end of the second episode that it was all taking place on Yavin made me hoot and holler and laugh like a loon. But it also points to something this set of episodes has been laying out in giant flashing neon letters.

The Rebellion is a baby. It's a mess. It's a bunch of people all more concerned with fighting amongst themselves about who's more right and morally pure then actually doing anything real against the Empire. Even Cassian's theft of the TIE fighter was a total mess. He got bad intel and bad training and mostly did a hilaribad job of flying that thing.

But one day, the Rebellion is going to destroy the Death Star. And they're going to do it from this rainy, smelly, monster-filled jungle where a bunch of idiots played Rock Paper Scissors to figure out who got to be the boss. That is going to be the scene of the Rebellion's big triumph.

If they can get their fucking act together.

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me: oh yay Andor is back what's going on gang

Andor: undocumented immigrants are facing sexual violence every day. left wing infighting will get everyone killed. rich people buying back things stolen by colonists is still an act of colonialism.

me: right so just a light season then

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oh also andor s2 comes with unbelievable return of syril’s STUPID FUCKING SEATBELT TIE

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fuck i cant believe i’ve never noticed this.

Minor Andor Spoilers

k so the meeting about Ghorman was a clear reference to the Wannsee Conference right? I’m not the only one seeing that.

little to no record of the event, spelling out how to do a genocide, justifying it with racist propaganda, all that?

you’re seeing this too, right? right?

maybe that’s just what fascism looks like but i thought it felt intentional

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Andor Spoilers

it’s a small detail but shout out to Andor for saying the word Rape.

i didnt think they’d be allowed to say that in star wars. i figured they’d talk around it or use euphemism or, at the very most, just say assault. i really didnt think disney would let that fly.

but no. they used the word rape. it’s a very intentional choice, there’s no way to argue around it. no one can say she was wrong, or that’s not what he was doing, or that the imperial officer wasnt that bad. (i mean, people will say that but people will say anything.) they chose to make it very clear what happened. he tried to rape her.

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Minor Andor Spoilers

k so the meeting about Ghorman was a clear reference to the Wannsee Conference right? I’m not the only one seeing that.

little to no record of the event, spelling out how to do a genocide, justifying it with racist propaganda, all that?

you’re seeing this too, right? right?

maybe that’s just what fascism looks like but i thought it felt intentional

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Andor Spoilers

something about the way Mon Mothma is desperately trying to get through to her daughter and he daughter is not hearing her is just

damn. she’s only 14 but she’s still stuck in her ways. she’s a baby getting married because she believes she should. she doesnt even like him and she’s offered a way out and she will not take it.

i dont even have an analysis or opinion, i just keep thinking about it

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(Minor Andor Spoilers)

really love that tie fighters aren’t intuitive to fly.

like obviously different spaceships are different. but most other star wars they hop in and just go, no matter what the ship is.

but like. that cant be the way it is. the different ships must be different in controls too.

i love that cassian struggles with it. i love that it’s weird and complicated and annoying. i love that no one else can begin to figure it out.

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imagine being Mon Mothma every day it’s ungrateful daughter gay husband crumbling democracy

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Andor doesnt have a lot of characters that are alien i species but they do have a lot that are alien in culture.

the formal wear worn by syril and dedra, the ceremony for the chandrillian wedding, the funeral for marva, and so many others I’m forgetting.

at least to me as an american, so much of this feels intentionally unfamiliar.

(especially when compared to something as familiar as the grain silos lmao)

it’s a seemingly small detail that must have taken so much time and effort