It Could Happen Here - The Gang Reviews Andor Season 2, Ep. 10-12

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Robert, Mia, and Garrison discuss the final arc of Andor Season 2, covering how empires cannibalize their own, revolution as an infectious disease, and the politics of Yavin.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything. CoolZone Media. Welcome to It Could Happen here, a show about things falling apart. And today, the thing falling apart is the Galactic Empire. This is episode four of our four-part series talking about the politics of Andor season two. Andor has sadly come to a close. This will be our final discussion episode talking about Andor season two, episodes 10, 11, and 12. I'm Garryson Davis, I'm joined

by Robert Evans and Mia Wong. What a exhilarating four weeks this has been. Yeah, I'm gonna miss it. Yeah, we're getting relief from the horrors to live the horrors in another universe. Yeah, no, it sucks now that we have to just do all this stuff except like the eight years in the past version, because the level in which they've advanced here is far beyond certainly the US's revolutionary potential. Alas. Yes. Tragic.

Hey, if anyone wants to be Armand Mothma, take it applications. You can be the good liberal. You can be it. Oh man, I'll take a fucking Krieger at this point. That's right, Robert. So I think we're gonna do these episodes a little bit differently. I'm not gonna do a whole synopsis for each of these episodes, since for these last three the show has mostly a shoot plot for emotional and character beats.

So instead, I want to quickly go over each of those character points and then we can discuss those in detail. And most of our discussion will probably be around episode 10, Make It Stop. Yep. Let's start at the beginning. Lonnie's last meeting. Oh, yeah. So the ISP double agent Lonnie Young calls Luthen to an emergency meeting to give

him one final batch of intel after burning his cover. It's really shocking and worrying when we see Luthen and Lani meeting in public. That already lets you know, like, oh, this is like, this is the end. This is stuff is like the most Jover it's ever been for Lani. There's a great line. They got one of the strongest reactions with the folks I was watching it with when Luthen's about to head out and he's talking with Clea and she's like, don't do this meeting.

If it doesn't look perfect, we don't engage. Yeah, and Luthen responds, I think we've used up all the perfect. I think we've used up all the perfect. Yeah. It's this really good, there's some very impressive like face acting from Skarsgård here, where you see, there's so much he wants to say to this person, who as we'll discuss is essentially his daughter, but ultimately all that happens is she says,

Tuck your shirt in. Like... It's insane. Yeah. So, he meets with Lonnie. Lonnie needs, like, assurances for, like, him and his family's safety. Luthen tells him that they'll be able to flee to Yavin together. Sure. Sure, buddy.

Yeah. Um... So, by accessing Dejra's computer files, able to flee to Yavin together. Sure, sure, buddy. Yeah. So, by accessing Dejra's computer files, Lani learns that the Emperor's new energy project, the Kalkite mining on Gorman, the Kyber on Jedha, are actually part of a massive superweapon. Luthen is warned that Dejra and the ISB are preparing for a raid on Coruscant and he may be the target. Luthen ends up killing Lani to tie up loose ends and passes off the information to Kleia to relay it to the Rebel Alliance while he goes to thermite their computer hard drive saying, quote, I'll do the burn.

I'll do the burn. Again, it's, it's, it's Jover, like our, our shop, our little home, our little base of operations in Coruscant is getting destroyed. This is truly the end of an era here. Luthen either knows or has decided that he has run out of time. And the only way to be sure that the information safely reaches the Alliance is to give the ISB a distraction, and that distraction is himself. Yeah.

And again, it's very consistent. He's clearly trying to buy time for Kleia to escape, right? Like, that's part of his purpose here. And I think he's also just done, you know? Totally. He's done. He's tired. And he doesn't have it in him to run anymore. That's kind of what he discusses in this next section, which is such an efficient piece of screenwriting when Dejra arrives at Luthen's gallery.

You can only hide and play in sight for so long, and that time has come. As Dejra arrives, Luthen says, here you are at last. Every line in their exchange, like before she lets him know, like, hey, I know who you are, but every line leading up to that is a double entendre. Every single exchange they have is actually communicating something else, and it's wild. Forgery is the sad curse of antiquities. At the moment, only two pieces of questionable Providence in the gallery. Yeah Insane stuff. It's great

Writing and it's it's perfect that like she keeps trying to like get some sort of acknowledgement that he she's won That's all she wants out of this is for him to basically She's actually kind of desperate for him to say you did good kid You caught me crazy and all he does is throw shade at her. No. It's like, he's shit sucker, rebellion's already gone. You dipshit fascist. Like, you fucking failed, too late.

No, but like referring to himself, and in some ways her as like, as antiquity, like you said, like he is tired, he is done, he is kind of a relic for the current era of the rebellion. And you don't know it yet, but so are you. Yes, and so is her. Only two pieces of questionable providence are in the gallery. Amazing. So, Lutha Nihansdegra, a ceremonial dagger, she asks if it's real. He smiles and remarks, we still don't know. And the tension mounts.

The tension mounts, yeah. It's amazing. I get every single line. It's like the screenwriters playing with us. Just amazing. I think Tom Bissell and Tony Gilroy from these episodes, just phenomenal. Dejra, now I'm nervous. Luthen, you've come all this way.

And then she unveils this artifact that she has brought to Luthen for evaluation. She says, it's a little damaged perhaps, but I'd say it's held its value as she looks Luthen up and down. Again, same thing, very efficient. Luthen is a little damaged, but he is held as value. And Dejra reveals the vintage Imperial Starpath unit that first brought Luthen's operation under Dejra's eye. And now that both of them have their cards displayed on the table, they get to exchange a little bit more clearly without having to use these coded phrases like they were before.

And they had this fascinating back and forth. She talks about how Luthen's been hiding in the shelter of Imperial peace and quiet and just wants to burn the galaxy down. And Luthen gets to poke at her for how he's been aware of her this entire time and she's only learned who he is. Quote, I've known you all along, hardly seems fair. She says, you disgust me. Everything you stand for. And he says, do you know why? Freedom scares you. This is what Dejra's last arc is like really about, and it eventually, you know, paradoxically leads to her fate.

Now, I think probably the best line in this little exchange is Luthen telling Dejra, quote, You're too late. The rebellion isn't here anymore, it's flown away, it's everywhere now. There's a whole galaxy out there waiting to discuss you. Great light. Amazing. Yeah, again, this whole time he's been increasingly cooking her.

And also cooking his hard drive, buying time as his hard drive burns up. Yeah. Yeah It's just it's just some great some great stuff and the Deirdre we get some great face acting Oh, yeah, what is it Denise is her name, right? Yeah, Gal I think where you just see in a second She sees the smoke and then Lutheran collapses because he has stabbed himself in the heart Which is also like it serves as another kind of repose to every argument that she's been making. Like it's his ultimate counter to her claims that like, you're fundamentally selfish.

You're just doing this for yourself and your own, you know, desire to create chaos. He's like, no, bitch, I'm going to stab myself in the heart. Like, you don't know what commitment is. It's great. I'm gonna stab myself in the heart. Like, you don't know what commitment is. It's great, yeah. He uses this ceremonial dagger that he earlier hands to Dejra and stabs himself so that the Empire won't be able to torture and try to extract information from him about the rebellion. But you gotta have some explosives.

You can't be reliant on stabbing yourself with the dagger. This is like a screenwriting thing. Like, Dedra has to get out of this. They have to access the computer later. I was like, come on buddy, come on. I think this is very like, poetically written. Yeah, you know, it's beautiful. I like like the romance of it.

But man, Dedra fucked up so bad here. She fundamentally ruins absolutely her entire life. The emotions really got the better of her. She really wanted to like win one over on Axis to like validate herself and her obsession the same way like Cyril does and it fucking bites her in the ass. It destroys the Empire. It destroys the entire Empire. Yeah.

I like that they had her simultaneously. She's both right in that if she had been listened to, she could have stopped the Rebel victory, but also she fundamentally destroys the Death Star as a result of her insistence on being right. Death Star as a result of her insistence on being right Fits into that old Marxist category of objectively revolutionary What you know, I think we've talked about how how like the the Death Star plans got stolen like from her fucking hearts, right? Yeah, or like the the the learning of the Death Star existence through the hard drive. Oh, yeah. Sorry hard drive. Yeah. Or like the learning of the Death Star's existence through the hard drive. Oh yeah, sorry, I said yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, they don't have the plans yet. Yeah. So, Luthen's transferred to the hospital and then we get a flashback with Luthen as an early Imperial army sergeant involved in a massacre on Kleia's home planet. We see him like huddled over in his ship with a flask, repeating the words,

-"Make it stop." -"Make it stop." -"Make it stop." -"As, like, sounds of, like, carnage and destruction go on in the background." What's interesting to me is, yeah, they have... You're basically just hearing what's happening outside. He's in an Imperial Army uniform, and you're hearing radio chatter. And it's radio chatter that could have come from

any war of the last 20 years. It's very much modern radio call. It sounds like a lot of the shit you heard and the collateral murder video, like some of the stuff that got leaked by Chelsea Manning, where people are like, yeah, hit everything on that hill, dies, anything past this point this point in this like line of buildings, anyone you see on the heat scope, kill them, like it's that kind of stuff, right?

Yeah. And it's, it's, it's very much like, it's very non Star Wars chatter. Totally. You know? He's, he's like horrified at like what he's doing. He's trying to find ways to cope with it. He's drinking out of a flask and yeah, just like, repeatedly, repeating to himself, make it stop.

Just this, like, very short scene, like, recontextualizes a whole bunch of things about Luthen's character. Yes. Including his behavior on Pherex during the riot, where he, like, doesn't get involved and instead looks on from a distance with, like, a very, like with a very blank expression. And when I first saw that episode, to me, it felt like Luthen was first confronted with the fatality that he's dealing with.

Confronted with the consequences for actually engaging in revolution. He's always been kind of in the shadows. He's been more of this like orchestrator. He doesn't see like the tactile death that accompanies his actions. So like that's how I first saw that scene. And now this has been fully recontextualized as like, Ferex is like a PTSD moment for him. Like this is, that's not the first time he's seen combat. This is, it changes the way you can now look back at that scene, which is very, very cool.

Yeah. And it's also interesting to think that he's putting himself in the perspective, as much as anything, of the Imperials doing the massacre. Yes. Yeah, as opposed to the civilian victims of the massacre. I had an interview with Tony where apparently, because they did not have Lutheran's backstory set up in season one, like they didn't fully know where he was going to go. They didn't have a single one nailed down yet. And it was apparently Skarsgard who was like, don't have him be another person who's pissed,

like who just hates the Empire because it took everything from him. Like a normal revenge story where like the Empire like kills his family so that he becomes an insurgent. Yeah Yeah, yeah And I really I think it's beautiful that like yeah his backstory is that no he was made complicit Like however, whatever got him into the army in the first place, maybe just conscription, you know He may not have even had a choice to join

But the Empire forces him to do like puts him in a position and he's it's as much discussed with himself That he goes along with it as far as he does and forces him to do, like, puts him in a position, and it's as much discussed with himself that he goes along with it as far as he does. And you get in those lines that he's just repeating him to himself over and over again, as he like, make it, like, that's his whole motivation, right? Like, that's the next 20 years of his life are him trying to make it stop.

Yeah, that's the title of the episode. Yeah. We'll talk more about that and his motivation at the end when we discuss kind of Clea. Speaking of which, in this flashback, it is shot from the perspective of Clea hiding in like a cubby on this ship. Yeah.

And Luthen named, I think, Lair, Lar, which is- Lair. His last name spelled- Sergeant Lair is his original name. Well, we don't know what his first was, but he just reverses it. Yeah. Come on, man! No, but like, this is also like poetic, right? This is-

Oh, it is, it is. This is like- This is Star Wars poetry, right? It's like poetry, it rhymes. Obstet wise, don't do that. I just gotta put this in there. Don't do that. Do better, but sergeant layer finds of claya as like a six-year-old hiding hiding on this ship

We then go back to the present as claya infiltrates a space hospital to get to luthin intercut with flashbacks showing how luthin used his military experience to train claya in insurgent warfare. So here we see Luthen being kept alive in this Coruscant hospital for later interrogation. And then suddenly, Dejra is arrested in the hospital by an ISB Marshal for at first unclear reasons, which we will get into later. The ISB has found Lani's body, so there's a dead ISB agent in Coruscant. They've heard of how Dejra did this raid without authorization, without notifying the agent

now in charge of the Axis investigation, and then she's taken into custody. In these flashbacks, we see Luthen and Kleia going town to town, pawning historical artifacts, while he teaches young Clea in surgeon warfare one of the most devastating exchanges is when Luthen describes Clea as his daughter. Yeah to a shopkeeper to help like negotiate a price and Afterwards Clea asks am I your daughter now and he replies when it's useful Yeah, she's and then he and then he says I'm Luthen, you're Clea. Like, that's all we need to know right now.

That's who we are now. Yeah. Clea says, like, I'll have to think about that. And Luthen says, sometimes it's not up to us. Yeah. Another exchange happens after Cleo watches this, like, Imperial firing line kill a batch of kids who are allegedly suspected of shooting a stormtrooper, I think it probably could have actually been Luthen, it's unclear and it essentially just demonstrates

like collective punishment right and and Cleo gets very upset at watching this massacre and runs off to Luthen. And also like interestingly, like when Luthen knows this is gonna happen, he like chooses to like not watch. He's like, we don't need to be here. We can just leave. But Clea chooses to stay and watch and then runs back to him. And he tells her, we fight to win.

That means we lose and lose and lose and lose until we're ready. All you know now is how much you hate. You bank that. You hide that. You keep it alive until you know what to do with it. Yeah. And I love both that he's attempting to give her as much agency as he can within this situation where he's also like crafting her into a person. And so like if she decides she wants to go see this massacre, he'll let her do it. Like he's not going to, he's not going to try to make her,

but if that's what she wants, he's not going to stop her. And then when she's seen what she needs to see, he's going to give her the best advice that he can give her. There's another line coming where she asks if he's scared, and he's like, only about what I'm doing to you, right? That like, he is still deeply, he feels deeply compromised by this position he's put himself in with this only other person that he really can trust. Yeah, they do their first large-scale direct action together on the emperor's home planet of Naboo.

He teaches her how to blend into the surroundings as they remote detonate an explosive planted on a bridge. While in the present, Clea disguises herself as a nurse to disappear into the hospital where Luthen's being held, and blows up the hospital parking lot as a distraction to get to Luthen. These two things mirror each other. It's like poetry, it rhymes. Clea says to Luthen, you're afraid. He says, I'm only afraid of what I'm doing to you

as he hands this child a detonator. Yeah. And she's not willing to, she can't like make herself use it yet. I mean, I feel like she was almost willing to. She was psyching herself up to it. Luthen actually took it away and had himself do it. Yeah. But that scene by itself where he's like telling her not to like look at it to make sure you're like looking at me only turn after everyone else has turned. Very fun stuff happening in Star Wars. Yeah, it's it's it's great. Like the whole the decision he made he makes here is like you like you see a lot about their relationship. And again, this like deeply how

deeply compromised he feels by it of both like, I have to get this person ready for what's necessary. And also I have to protect her from like, the worst things that we're going to have to do together. Like he does want to remain primarily the one complicit. So I think in part because he does believe I mean, fundamentally, that's the core think in part because he does believe, I mean fundamentally that's the core of his character. He does believe she has a future outside of this. Totally. And that's the entire point of what he's doing. Yeah. Do you know what else is necessary, Robert? For us to throw to ads because otherwise we can't keep this movable feast on the road. fighting, Japanese street racing, Brazilian favela life and much more.

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like, extract him. And no, there's no time for that. She takes him off life support and lets him die. There is no escape for his character. Yeah. Like, Luthen never gets to see that sunrise, but he did everything he could to give the rebellion the best chance. And Kleia gets to finish and live out what he started. He wants to give Kleia that sunrise. And this relates to his core motivation as a character.

He's not getting revenge against the Empire for killing his family or something. That kind of cliched story is not what they're doing here. Instead, this is all about Clea. It's about how he's found Clea, and both of them are broken by what he has done. So then he spends the rest of his life building the rebellion for Clea so that she can live on and she can she can beat the Empire and That's the entire like point of him like that. That is what's driving him. He is like the most selfless character Tony in an interview said quote there are only a certain number of reasons that you can change your life And one of them is just absolute self-disgust

So we found a way for him to have a belly full of it at the right moment. Yeah, and I love that that like that's his whole motivation ultimately is like undoing the only part of what he was involved in that he can undo, which is saving this person and like saving this person involves destroying the thing that took her life away from her. Yeah, the entire apparatus of the Empire. Yeah, yeah. I think we're kind of wrapped up with this episode here, but the Clea Hospital infiltration sequence is superb.

So good. One person doing all of this stuff to the absolute befuddlement of like the Imperial troopers. She's really embodying the line from Rogue One, make ten men feel like a hundred. And yeah, she's able to infiltrate this hospital. Like she's working with a team of like ten people and it's just her. Shout out to the granny alien in the elevator. Very fun. Great little comedy moment. Yeah

But Leslie you there anything else to say about episode 10 I mean, yeah, I like this this is obviously like my favorite episode of oh, yeah particular batch By a mile best in the whole series like this is absolutely. Yeah. I love the Luther and Clea moments. I love seeing like how, at the same time, this like hint, when you're seeing them kind of haggle over the price of this antiquity that they've got. That like, okay, so Clea always had this degree of like cunning and this ability to kind of like recognize what's going on, which probably has survived in the first place, right?

She was always someone who saw more than other people, kind of like recognize what's going on, which probably has survived in the first place, right? She was always someone who saw more than other people, which probably like- She's the girl. She's the girl. She's this. Yeah. Yep, yep.

And at the same time, you get this piece of Luther. Like there must have been, like whatever he was before he joined the military, it was somebody who had this kind of deep knowledge of antiquities and probably this desire to make something of his life other than what became of it. And all that he's got left of it is like utilizing that real piece of himself to make a fake person, right? Which is such an interesting character beat for him that like this thing that is probably closest to the real Luthen, the one that existed before his military service,

before the Empire ruined him, is completely remade in the service of making himself into something he's not. So, when I first saw this, I was really worried, because I think one of those interesting parts about Clay as a character is that she is the only person that Luthen trusts absolutely, right? She's the only person that he sees fully as an equal. Yeah. She's the only one who has all the information that he

has and you know I was like kind of worried that it was okay well now she's effectively his daughter and it's like no it's actually like she is still the only person yeah like even though Lutheran has been sort of raising her like is like he's been trying to raise her as an equal as much as much as he possibly can yeah that's a really, really sort of fascinating way for this thing to have gone. The actress of Kleia has said, from Kleia's perspective, she doesn't really fully see Luthen as her father figure. Because inherently he was involved in the actual killing of like of her family.

Like she, she has found a way to kind of love him through that. But it's not like that immediate familial love. Like it's a different rationalization that she can still like give him like a final kiss on his deathbed. And like does like does care for him. But like it's so much more like complicated and murky and like they roped in with politics and roped in with. Yeah, but here's here's the thing what I'll say about that. And this is kind of my favorite part of that is I can see how she would be like this feeling

I have towards him like isn't like what someone would feel towards a father, but also she doesn't really know how people feel about their parents Yeah, you didn't get to have them very long people can feel like that Their father that feeling both this deep sense of love and disgust towards your parents is an Incredibly normal experience, and she just doesn't I think maybe there's a degree to which she doesn't even really realize how how common that is Taken from her no, that's a good point. That's a degree in which she doesn't even really realize how how common that is because of what was taken from her No, that's a good point. That's a good point. Yeah All right episode 11 who else knows?

Krennic and Dejra queen out together. Hell. Yeah. Look at look at them go So Dejra is in this interrogation chamber and Krennic grills her about how this piece of information has escaped containment. And Dejra's face throughout this whole scene. Oh my god. If she comes into it, you can tell she thinks, I'm gonna get out of this. I'm gonna talk my way out of this. Yeah, surely I'm... We'll sort this all out. Yeah, no, once she realizes that this is actually about, like,

the leakage of, like, the Death Star plans and not just a simple raid. On a rebel, like, weapons dealer, she realizes the kind of gravity of her situation. She complains about how, like, she's been forced's been forced to scavenge for information because there's not an efficient intel sharing operation across different imperial branches. And Krennic says to her, if you're not a rebel spy, you missed your calling, which is the biggest insult you can say to her. Oh my god. Right?

This destroys her. This is the same mistake that Cyril makes, right? They're trying to like, to like, do this like try hard stuff. You think initiative is rewarded here. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, you think people care. No, you follow orders. You do not take your initiative.

You are not your own person. You follow what you're told to do. You don't take things into your own hands. This is how the whole system crumbles. It's phenomenal how, like, she is so much, like, you know, like, especially in Cyril's eyes, right? She has, like, everything that he wanted to be, but, like, couldn't. And yet she has all the same flaws as him. They're both children trying to, like, grab and seize their spot like in the in the Imperial world. And they can never escape the logic of children. Yeah, it's phenomenal. So yeah, basically,

because she was sent memos, accidentally, she was accidentally added to who the PC small group she had information on the desktop that she shouldn't have that she started that she stored on her computer that then Lonnie was able to access with a stolen code cylinder, and this is why she's detained. And I love too that Lonnie makes a statement that he didn't tell Luthor he had this, because he's like, well, you would have made me use it.

Well, yeah, super cool. And there's this, yeah, Lonnie has gotten very good at this. He was right to not tell his boss. Sometimes you share and sometimes you don't. And yeah, no, the idea of him holding on to this code cylinder this whole year, knowing that you can only use this once before you're kind of found out. And then like waiting until he's heard chatter that like, Luthen's going to get raided, uses the cylinder, then discovers all these other files. It shows how like important Luthen's operation is. I think this is what these last two episodes are really about, is kind of like the redemption of Luthen in the eyes of the other rebel agents. So yes, Dejra is completely fucked,

and it's hilarious, and Ben Mendelsohn is prancing around the scene. He's having such a good time. It's so good. This is like this and and the thing where he's going cowl kite Yeah, so good. It's like his two best like yeah, that's also just really like God They didn't let him cook in and or like oh, it's a human like in my time to know how to cook you know Oh, yeah, but it's like, it's like, like these, it's like, You mean in Rogue One? This series is, you've been getting to watch, Oh sorry, yeah, in Rogue One, yeah.

It's like, you've been getting to watch these people who have just been playing like, kinda generic Star Wars characters, and you get to watch them cook. It is a thing of beauty. The real freak gets to be let out. Oh, it's amazing! They're all freaks! There's that glorious moment when she realizes how fucked she is, when he puts his finger on her head.

Finger on her head? Yeah. Like she's just an ob, she's there for him to act off of. She's a button, right? She's a button. We can push you when we desire to, but you don't go off by yourself. It's phenomenal. Yeah, and he's turning her off. Yeah. push you when we desire to but you don't you don't go off by yourself it's phenomenal and he's turning her off yeah he has this line where he's like you

think I would come here for the death of an ISB clerk say yeah say the word phenomenal yeah say the word death star yeah amazing and then yet he turns her off and is like yeah we'll get. We'll get by without you somehow Hopefully we'll be able to get by without you. Yeah, and it's both funny because like he is just he is nuking her There's nothing left after this and also He's dead like two days in like two days. Tarkin's about to obliterate his ass with a button. Tarkin's about to be space dust, along with Y'allara and everyone else.

Yes, everyone's a button. And it's crazy how much of the ISB gets totally wiped out, the week of the Death Star's destruction. This shows the real decline of the empires, this administrative bureaucratic state that's been running the real day to day operations gets completely wiped out. And now these two like Sith lunatics have to personally run everything themselves and they can't do it.

They just can't. They were relying on all of like the Republic holdovers that actually knew how to like run a state. Yeah, these guys like Yalarin and whatnot who were like... Parthigas! She was like good at his job! Yes! Yeah! Yeah, these guys like Yelurin and whatnot who were like Yes, yeah, yeah, oh part of gas they all get iced out. Yeah Yeah, I mean and this is a dynamic that I think like cuz like everyone you were trained from birth in the US to know the like the revolution devours its children thing and

The Empire ever talks about this side of the fire It's just like no the liquidation rate for these people is astonishing They also all like turn to these people it's like you can you can watch like Vader doing this to people We're like Vader like yeah Vader just keeps fucking killing his officers Yeah, yeah on his super star destroyer all the time well and what and what we what we see throughout and or is Rebels fuck up all the time. They fail all the time. We see moments of failure from Luthen. We see them from Cassian.

We see them from Draven and the guys at Endor. Bael, Mon Mothma, they all fuck up. And then they get the chance to learn from their mistakes and get better, which is ultimately why they win. And that privilege is never extended to the Empire. Even if you're really good, you're going to make some mistakes.

And the first time you do, Darth Vader chokes you to death. And so the Empire never gets better. It's interesting, cause this was a point in the old canon where one of the arguments of why the rebels won the war was like X-wings have shields and TIE fighters don you can so you can make a mistake in an X-wing But if you make a say a tie fighter you die yeah So the rebel pilots end up being better than the Imperial ones because they survive and there's there's another like

There are lots of these interesting parallels to where like the death of the administrative state was also sort of an old cannon thing Where it's like so the way it plays out in the old canon is like at Endor and this like is the thing in the new canon too I guess, but like all of the best officers are trying to get promoted up the ladder and so they're all on the Emperor Super Star Destroyer. Yeah. And when that thing goes down it's like yeah it like, and this is partially just a thing also about like how Imperial administration works is how centralized it is is that they have single points of failure and this is for, for example, how Rhodesia fell.

It's like, yeah, they put all their fuel reserves in one spot, it got blown up. And it's like, we don't have a state anymore because everything's so centralized and it being so centralized and everyone being so essential and also you killing all these people because your organization doesn't tolerate failure,

it creates these dis-cascading failure points where you knock out a couple of people on it and suddenly it's like everything's destroyed. I do want to return to the point of how fascism like eats its own at the end because Tony has some quotes on that. I'm just going to speed run through these next few kind of points here. The ice bee tracks Cleo's movements via hospital security cameras, even though she tries to avoid and evade detection. She is basically stuck on Coruscant and starts hiding out in the old safe house,

broadcasting an emergency pulse code to her comrades on Yavin. Meanwhile, a divorced Cassian and Melchi get drunk and start bullying their autistic robot friend while playing poker. It's so funny. Yeah. In such cases. Hey, I know. Oh, I know. I'm well aware. I am the sober autistic girl in every one of these things well And they they understand the most important thing about television sci-fi

Which is an a robot awkwardly playing poker with his human friends? Data k2so holding hands me and I love the k2so is also constantly be like you guys are drinking a lot like Yeah, I love that when they're about to go on this last mission Cassian is drunk driving Shot away from blacking out. It's time to pilot a spacecraft most most realistic insertions No, it will be this drunk again until like no like many many years later in it in this galaxy until like there's Generals yeah are fighting each other's next up. It will be this drunk Ulysses Simpson Grant is the last person to be as drunk as Cassie and and or was in this scene

Grant is the last person to be as drunk as Cassian Andor was in this scene. Willman's old, like, Luthen radio goes off with an SOS message. She takes it to Cassian, who then, yeah, drunk drives their UA off Yavin. Let's have a shout out to our man Draven here, who is... He's kind of, he's kind of, he's kind of he's kind of he's kind of based I like I loved I love that they managed to both make him be he has to be the foil to Cassian because Cassian does not want this chain of command bullshit. He's so sympathetic, but he's not wrong and he's not a dick He's like look man. I've got like 400 other freighters. I'm worried about right now There's like a bunch of rifles that I that I have to keep I have to keep all of this in My head, I can't write any of it down. I haven't slept in days I eat nothing but Tums like I can't even drink hot coffee because otherwise my fucking ulcers light on fire

I don't even remember when I ate solid food my IBS has IBS Can you please stop taking off in the middle of the night? It's so funny that the thing that Cassian does at the end of Rogue One is just like a regular occurrence on the F'ing base. He just keeps doing this. But no, like consistently Draven, even if he gets pissed off at Cassian, consistently has his back still. Which is I think really, really sweet. Yes. Yeah. Krennic realizes how fucked they are and tries to get the entire ISP to mobilize to locate

Kleia as she is probably in possession of the Death Star intel. Quote, there will be no horizon to the scope of your inquiry. And this is where we have some of the most interesting stuff from Partagas and how he views rebellions and revolutions as a disease. And this relates to some of his lines from season one, where he describes the ISB as quote unquote, health care providers. We treat sickness, we identify symptoms, we locate germs, whether they arise from within

or have come from the outside. The longer we wait to identify a disorder, the harder it is to treat the disease." And then when the ISP decides on what grounds they are looking to apprehend Clea, Pardagraz proclaims that, quote, she's diseased. She escaped the hospital with infectious condition that threatens everyone with whom she may come into contact. I'm so glad they did this because this is such a core part of the ideology of fascism, right? Yeah. Of seeing the body as a nation and there being these sort of like

parasitic infections that are inside the nation that are like undermining it. That's like just the core of fascism and you're just getting, you're just getting to watch like the people in the middle of the empire just literally trying to do the thing in the most literal way possible. Right? Like, they're just coming out and saying what the ideology is and how it works. It may still be a level of metaphor that is slightly too high for the average Star Wars viewer but they are just telling you the politics.

And I really appreciate that. Yeah. And I really appreciate that. Yeah. Now, while stuck in an ISB holding cell, with an unbuttoned collar, Dejra is crashing out. And you can tell because the collar is unbuttoned. But somehow, she is still able to give the ISB a lead to track Klea through her use of obscure radio signals. Yeah. One of the cool parts here is an Imperial radio technician is impressed at Luthen's radio setup and can't help but be excited when learning how it works.

But they say that Luthen targeted the storage files and the radio signal library when he burned the console. But still they were able to track Kleia's pulse code to a nearby apartment on Coruscant. In preparation for the raid on the safe house, the ice speed jams comms around the area right as Cassian, Melchi, and K2 arrive to extract Kleia. As Cassian gets into the apartment and finds not Luthen, but Kleia, and then tries to plead with her to come to Yavin, he also kind of lambasts Luthen for not coming to Yavin sooner, because he couldn't swallow his pride. And then Kleia says, quote,

Thank the galaxy he didn't. He stayed for this. The people in Yavin have to know what they're up against. Thank the galaxy he didn't. So good. All right. Let's go on break and then we'll return to discuss the final episode. I'm Jake Hanrahan, journalist and documentary filmmaker. Away Days is my new project, reporting on countercultures on the fringes of society all across the world.

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know. Now you can come along too. Listen to the Awaiday's podcast, Reporting from the underbelly on the I heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And it's going to take us to heal us. It's mental health awareness month and on a recent episode of just heal with Dr. J the incomparable to Rajee P Henson stopped by to discuss how she's discovered peace on her journey. So what I'm hearing you saying is healing

is a part of us also reconnecting to our childhood in some sort. You said I look how youthful I look because I never let that little girl inside of me die. I go outside and run outside with the dogs. I still play like a kid. I laugh, you know, I love jokes. I love funny. I love laughing.

I laugh at myself. I don't take myself too seriously. That's the stuff that keeps you young and stops you from being so hard. To hear this and more things on the journey of healing, you can listen to Just Heal with Dr. J from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything. I have a question for you and I want you to be honest with me. How are you? It's a really

hard question to ask. It's a harder one to answer, but taking care of our mental wellbeing has never been more important. All of May is Mental Health Awareness Month and on the Psychology of Your 20s podcast, we are taking a vulnerable look at why mental health is so hard to talk about and all the science and psychology behind some of life's hardest moments and transitions. Prepare for our conversations to go deep. Everything from grief to heartbreak, career burnout, anxiety, all of the things that you would only talk about with your closest friends.

I spent the majority of my teenage years and my twenties just feeling absolutely terrified. I had a panic attack on a conference call. Knowing that she had six months to live, I was no longer pretending that this was my best friend. So this Mental Health Awareness Month, take that extra bit of care of yourself and your brain. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Your gut microbiome and those healthy bacteria can actually have positive effects throughout your

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Listen to Dope Labs on iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we are back episode 12, Jha Kyber Erso. So, Cass is trying to convince Clea to leave like right now, right this very second. Please, dear God, come with me. And Clea is still like kind of pissed about the whole situation. Like, Gavin, after all these years, what a bitter ending. Cass tries to argue that if she comes, she's helping to keep Luthor alive, which she calls big words. The Imperial SWAT team, importantly not Stormtroopers, instead these goofy-ass SWAT guys, surround the apartment trying to locate Kleia. As the ISB locates Cass, Kleia, and Melchi. They throw a stun grenade, which,

this is very interesting to me, does not really affect Cass and Melchi as much. Like, Clea gets knocked out, but the Narcina V prison shocks conditioned Melchi and Cass against the stun grenade, which is, again, phenomenal. It's so good. And I think just generally, like, Clea has, again, Luthen has protected her from a lot of like the direct

She doesn't have CTE right if Cassie and lived another 30 years like his fucking brain would have been melting because he's been around too many Goddamn explosions, and he's been electrocuted and the same things true a Melchi right they just barely feel it To be fair. It's not like she hasn't blown up a bunch of things distance from a distance We just watch her liquidate an entire imperial security complement to go kill Luther like it's not like she hasn't done this She's raised by an old soldier who does the responsible thing that you do if you have the experience But you tell the younger people no no no use your ear pro for the notes you do if you have the experience, which is you tell the younger people,

no, no, no, use your ear pro. No, get further back. I know you don't think you need to be, but get further back. Like my ears ring all the time. Don't fucking take risks. I also kind of wonder if maybe there's a level of protection from the stun grenades you get, again,

when you are still right on the edge of a blackout. Yeah, that's compelling. So as K2 just completely demolishes this Imperial Riot team, the ISB calls for backup, but everyone is spread too thin because they're out searching for the emergency disease warrant from part of grass They say so good. Yeah, so play up does get to Yavin and Here we see a lot more of like the tricky aspects of Yavin politics Saw is kind of getting impossible to deal with he is huffing way too much fuel

He's huffing an amount of fuel. I don't know if I'm gonna say it's too much, but I do love his insistence. I think it's like too much. Dude, we know you're on Jedha. We know you're on Jedha. You have no idea where I am. You don't know where I am. You know, yeah, like, Mom's trying to argue with him about how they're trying to get to the bottom of the Imperial Kyber mining on Jedha. And they're like, we know you're on Jedha, and he tries to deny it.

You don't know where I am. Yes, we do. There's also this great thing at the end of that where Moth was like, we're just trying to help you, and Saw just cuts the line. And I think it's Draven, whatever the rebel intelligence ghoul in the room, cuts the line, and Moth was kind of just going like uh, and he goes oh no We've absolutely been sending spies into his group We've been bugging him. He's he's absolutely right I think it's interesting about because like it in rogue one saw is like seems like such an unbelievably paranoid asshole

I think no like the rebels really have been like trying to the rebels and the Empire really have been trying to infiltrate his group For like so fucking long that he's completely lost his mind from just like the paranoia Oh, so he is canonically again a 46 Huffing all that fuel really does rapid-age you yeah, yeah It's not great for you. So then we have, I guess, the most frustrating part of the episode. Like, good, but frustrating to watch with this rebel spokes council meeting about Luthen and the Death Star intel.

Oh my god, are these people annoying. Ugh. Yeah. What pieces of shit. These people who have done basically nothing. Yeah. There are senators who have defected to Yavinavin and they don't know the cost of things that they're actually dealing in.

Bale says that Lutheran stayed on Coruscant too long. And again, no. No. Lutheran stayed for this piece of information. And Mon's getting increasingly frustrated as everyone's kind of like bad talking. Luthen, again, we've been very clear on this show about how Luthen, as a complicated character, was some people more pro-Luthen than others. But, and Mon, like Mon herself has a lot of reservations about Luthen.

But she also knows, like, her directly and everyone else are only here in part because of what he's done. That's not saying he was right about every single thing, but that still is true, right? Like he is still very important to this. And everyone's being quite dismissive of Cassian and the intel from Luthen and Cassian kind of gets, you know, put into confinement and it gets dismissed and requests to visit Clea in the hospital. And this is where Mon finally speaks up and immediately grants him permission because she knows all these people. And she's the only one on this little council

that knows all of these people and knows how much they have sacrificed. Yeah. But still, Mon is still a good operator here. And she asked her cousin,ell to like talk with Cassian and like suss out how real this Death Star Intel is. When Vell does this, she doesn't try to do it like covertly. She like talks to talks to Cassian very like flatly being like, Hey, like Mon sent me here to try to figure out if if this is legit, is is this legit? And they discussed the

Intel. Meanwhile, Cleo gets up from her medical bay and starts walking around Yavin in the rain. And like, oh my god, somebody please hug her. Someone do something. She should not be left alone. She's had one of the most traumatic days of her life. Someone take care of her. And Vel runs into Clea. And Vel and Kleia have had like kind of like a dicey relationship but like in this moment we see like just the importance

of like sheer solidarity and Vel like cares for her, gets her to like cover, gives her like a place to sleep and it's a really touching scene. And I want to talk about this moment a little bit because I think it's an interesting character thing with Kleia here. Where Kleia throughout this entire show is the only character who hasn't put together the entire time. Yeah. Like even partagast at like the very end starts to sort of crack, right? Clea is the one character who like even everyone is falling apart around her when Andor is falling apart when like even when Luthen is falling apart. Clea is always on it. Fuck you. Pull yourself together. You have to hold this together

Yeah, yeah, and it's like her and you have to just go like her task. This is when she's finally is able to break Yeah, yeah, she's been holding in so much Yeah, yeah, yeah, like one her task is finally over and so she can like let herself fall apart and two it's like a Thing that could finally actually drive her to fall apart is the fact that she just had to fucking She to kill losing kill the person who raised her yeah She's a fucking kill Lutheran and then get out and you can see this thing where that I think is like very familiar A lot of people were like she's been and she also has to hold all this information in her head because if she forgets Any of the information that she's been told by Lutheran the rebellion is doomed and and and when and or like first meets her on

Coruscant she's like it's spilling out No, just only a jumble of words. Yeah, it's like It's it's this thing where like you're she's she's finally reached the point where it's like she has one last thing to do and she Can fall apart and then she can finally instead of having to be the one Who's caring for literally everyone and holding literally everyone else together? She can finally like Rest and she doesn't know how to do that everyone and holding literally everyone else together, she can finally like rest. And she doesn't know how to do that because she's always had to be the one who's holding everything together this entire time.

I do love the moment when Luthen first gives her the information and he like forces her to like repeat it back to him. Like make sure you can, you can express it to me. And then she does the same thing to Cassian and Cassian like doesn't like a Cassian doesn't repeat it back to her and yeah like that small like you know Like you have to have like a ritual you have to have like you have you have to have like a protocol To make sure you actually like to make sure that I know you actually have this information You need to like express it back to me. Yeah, it's it's just a nice little short moment in the next morning We see Cassian taking care of Vicks his plants good for him

yeah, and then this is when Cass and Vell talk and they say that they're going to drink to Luthen just this once, which again, Cassian's drinking right in the morning. Good stuff. Yeah. As soon as he wakes up. Like he does every day. Yes. But they say, you know, like, we can't toast them all. Like Lieutenant Gorn, Nemec, Cinta,

Ferex, Marva, Gorman, the Eldanis. And one short little tidbit here, Vel talks about how there's people falsely claiming that they were part of the Eldani crew, which is the most accurate thing I have ever seen. Yeah, where they're like, everybody keeps taking credit for this and she's like man if someone did that in front of me I just fucking killed him They're the only two people from the old on e-raids still still alive and like yeah like the idea that we're getting like rebels stolen Ballers, but very realistic, you know, I actually I actually punched Richard Spencer as Spencer as like a 14 year old. Yeah.

It's very cool. We all did. Yeah. We then start hearing Nemec's manifesto playing. And it's unclear if there's playing it for the show. To remind us of it, yeah. But then we realized that it's part of us listening in the Imperial Security Bureau's briefing room.

And it's a really wonderful thing to return to. And one of Paragraz's underlings walks up to him and says, it just keeps spreading, doesn't it? And he says, it's been hard to contain. Again, using this like a disease, uh, like rhetoric. He then asks for a moment to collect himself and then shoots himself in the head. This is one of the most fascinating parts of the show, like, like knowing like the kind of the tear that he's going to face for like, for failing while also being confronted with like how much of

his work for the empire has been worth it. Like it's not, his emotions here are not clearly laid out to you because it's more interesting for you to think about them yourself. Yeah. And I've seen everything from like, oh, he realizes he was wrong to he realizes like the Empire is the disease or just he realizes the disease got out of control, like more than they had realized. But either way... And the punishment he could be facing from the Empire's not worth it. Like he is he is he's a career man and why would he be sent to Narcena five?

Like he is not going to El Salvador. Finally, Cassian is sent to meet a source on K'Fring. That's that's one of the guys infiltrating S.A.W.'s operation to learn the location of Galen Erso, the designer of the Death Star. And then we have this final montage across all of our characters. We have Mon and Vel having breakfast with the Grunts. You have divorced Perrin flying around on Coruscant. You have Dejra in an arc in a Narcina prison and Clea gets to see the life of the rebellion. Saw is at Jedha, Krennic is at the Death Star. B2emo has a new friend and Bix is holding a baby watching the sunrise. So I want to talk mostly about Bix here.

But first, I think Mon eating with the rebel troops is like very cool to have her just like with the regular people. She's not like with like bail and like not like not like often like a special like counselors room. She's like just with everyone. We'll also talk a little bit about Clea here as well. But I think I think I want to just do Bix to start if that's okay. Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Tony has talked a lot about this ending scene and about how he wanted to end with a sense of hope and like the hope for like life beyond, you know, the Empire, like life beyond Imperial oppression. And Bix with the baby is supposed to like symbolize this. And

Bix is literally like looking at the sunrise, right? Like this metaphor of the sunrise has been something for Luther and how he's never's never gonna actually get to see life beyond the Empire, and he knows that and he sacrificed that. It also calls into view Cassian dying at the false sunrise of the Death Star. And I've seen, I guess, some people upset about Bix just being off planet with a baby and feeling this is kind of like relegating her character. And I think there's a lot of things going on here. This show goes so, so

like way, way beyond like simple politics of like, of like representation and like woke casting, right, which can often end up feeling like shallow boxes to check. Because this show actually like depicts things like carceral injustice, manufactured consent for genocide, how structural patriarchy drives imperial oppression. The depth of the political mechanisms the show is tackling I think is so much more worthwhile and it's not immune to criticism for those reasons, but I think that aspect can be overlooked oddly.

I think we kind of take for granted how good the show is at so many aspects of politics. And like this show specifically has women in so many different roles beyond like the you know, pop feminist girlboss badass, which has been linked to Star Wars through Leia, Ahsoka, and to a lesser extent like Rey and Jyn. And this trope is itself kind of low key misogynistic. But in Andoror, we have Mon Mothma, we have Vel, we have Cinta, we have Clea, we have Dejra, we have Marva, we have Bix. And I think motherhood is something

that characters should be allowed to embrace. And like motherhood's always had a very tricky relationship with Star Wars because of Padme. But like being a mom is not the issue with Bix's character. You can still critique how she was relegated to becoming like the punching bag for the show, but being a mother is like not bad. There's a quote from the Palestinian militant Layla Khalid, like revolution must mean life also, every aspect of life. And she specifically referenced motherhood. And like Bix is a fighter. She's a survivor. She fights her way out of depression

and PTSD. And she does spend years engaged in revolutionary action. And yes, it may have been nice to see more of that revolutionary action on screen. We do see some. It might have been nice, but this is also, right, a limited series show with a ton of characters, like 400 speaking roles. And that has not been afforded to everybody. And that can be unfortunate, but I think I understand what's going on with this character. And I do not think the problem is the baby itself. I think that's actually fine. And her deciding after years of fighting to take like a few years off to have a baby should

be viewed as a choice that she's allowed to make, I guess. I also think there's something, there's a lot of agency in the choice to like, I'm done, but I'm not gonna make that decision for this other person. For Cassian, yeah. Yeah. But I don't know. It's scanned to me. I do like thinking that in this last scene, as

we're watching these last bits of all our characters, not only, as people have pointed out, is Cassian gonna be dead in two days, along with Ben Mendelsohn and shortly thereafter, Grand Moff Tarkin. But all the other stuff that's canonically going down, right as fucking Kleia sees that first sunrise like you have to imagine Han Solo somewhere is doing a line off of like a space prostitute and some sleazy bar. It's like 4am in the morning where he is he hasn't slept in days. You know Luke Skywalker is looking at his aunt and uncle being like well they're never going to be lit on fire. Obviously, just beautiful.

To kind of reiterate on the point about how fascism also eats its own, something that Tony has discussed before specifically in relation to like Cyril and Dejra and part of Graz, right? Tony says like, quote, fascism doesn't just take down the oppressed. It doesn't just come from the people trying to control. It inevitably destroys the people who have worked the hardest to build it. And that's been true all through history as well. In a different

interview he says that the empire is just shattering, fragmenting, grabbing, destroying and taking. And then the people that are doing it on the imperial side are all isolated. They think they're part of something, but really they're not. Look at what happens to Dejra. Look at what happens to Parnagras. Look what happens to Cyril Karn. He tries to believe in the dream. It's the carelessness and the cruelty and the lack of empathy. That's what I'm pitching. Even in this little final montage, we have this brief shot of Perrin, which is interesting. That's Mon Mothma's, uh, strange husband, I guess. And Tony has discussed Perrin as well. And during like the wedding scene, we

learned that, that like as a kid, like while he was in school, he was kind of a quote-unquote political fire brand. And he has sacrificed that a little bit. Tony says, quote, there are a lot of sacrifices in this show, all variety of sacrifices. He's made his sacrifice for hedonism. He doesn't look happy in that car, unquote. No. I do like the little wrap up we have on parents' character there. Although, I also love, if you'll notice, he's with the wife of the way their daughter off to its golden You have to assume has gotten purged at this point

Because they realized that he had been funneling funds to the rebellion But I I do like we even get that this is this is the only little private Rebellion that he can manage right now as he's fucking this guy's wife Everyone has their own rebellion Oh man, I guess I finally like I at least for me Um, I guess part of me wanted to see more of like the development of yavin as like how like revolutionary cells come together And tony has addressed this as well quote Yavin makes me nervous if you want to know the truth

And Tony has addressed this as well, quote, Yavin makes me nervous if you want to know the truth. There's things about Yavin that make me nervous. And the logic about Yavin that makes me nervous, even within the Star Wars canon, the security there and how some people know about it, but the ISP doesn't know about it. And there's some places where you don't want to poke too aggressively because you don't really want

to get into the undercarriage. That was a place where I didn't really want to get into the undercarriage very much. That was a place where I didn't really want to get into the undercarriage very much. That is understandable. And then finally on Clea and Luthen, and specifically, Clea's last look there in the morning after her walk in the rain, after all of this frustration between Luthen and Yavin, Tony says, quote, Clea and Luthen are over-amplifying the distrust and hate in the same way that some of the people on the Alliance are over-ramping the disagreement. I think one of my favorite moments in that montage at the end is when Clea wakes up the next morning after her night in the rain

and she looks out and sees that there's people running and people carrying supplies and she's seen how big Yavin is and there's this Mona Lisa smile that she has that's almost beginning to take pleasure in some sense of ownership of what she's helped create. She realizes how much of a contributor, how much of an investor she and Luthen are in Yavin. She's watching the people there and just a little moment of pride comes on her face that she warms up just a little bit and begins to take ownership of the rebellion. That's everything to me."

Unquote. There's something I love about Yavin. Where you get to see sort of the beauty of it and the beauty of what's going to destroy the Empire. Where it's like you keep just seeing like people who survived all of this shit and make it to Yavin. Like, Meshi is like the other survivor of the Narcina V prison break, right? And he's like one of the people going out with Andor. What's the other rebellion twink's name? The kid who threw the brick? Willman.

Yeah, Willman. Willman's French resistance girlfriend makes it there. Yes. And like, all of these- you get this little microcosm of like, all of these people who are like the survivors of all of these imperial sort of like horrors like have gathered in this place and it's like these are the people who are going to destroy the Empire and I think something really beautiful about that and then I also think there's a really interesting thing in the Yavn politics we do see which is that like you know so like I get I am notoriously the shows like Luthen hater I'm not really a hater of Luthen I just I just don't want the most annoying people in the world to try to replicate him in real life

But also like the central rebel command is a shit show. It's complete disaster They're like top-down hierarchical command from that council those people at every every single instance of this attempt to lose the boar, right? They're too pissed off at Luthen to like listen to the information that he literally fucking died to give them right like this entire operation a bit about giving them the information to destroy the superweapon that will destroy the Empire and they don't listen to it they're like in Rogue One like that council tries to surrender like they literally vote to be like yeah sorry we can't fight the Empire they're too strong and then like the rebel military defects and is another is not the fact like they stage

an insurrection they go right they rebel Yeah, yeah, they go rogue and they and they're the ones who do this and I think there's this interesting Thing here as much as Gilroy doesn't want to like touch Yavin that much there's this there's an interesting political dynamic of like yeah Okay So like we finally developed this sort of like centralized political force capable of bringing all these things together and they're useless They are worse than useless. They nearly destroy the rebellion that they had been sort of like trying to bring together on multiple occasions and they're only stopped by doing that by these sort of like unhinged guerrilla like

people who are completely out of control and like these like rogue operator people who like fundamentally like the the inheritors to Lutheran's legacy right like which is Cassian Yeah, by the actual rebels not the fucking senators, and I think that's like a cuz I've been I've been seeing There's been I've been seeing some small attempts to like recuperate Mon Moth But from this is like no Moth was the only senator who backs the like go for it like we're carrying out this raid to Seal the Death Star planch Like she's the only one. Right? And I think this is like the actual fundamental break here is between these people is it's

like when the chips are down, are you willing to fight? And most of the sort of like liberal sort of like defecting noble leadership isn't. Except for Mothma. And she should like, and Bale at the end too, is like, I want to go down fighting. And that's the fundamental difference. Yeah, Bale saying like, I'm gonna go down swinging, yeah. Yeah, and that's the fundamental difference between like, someone who politically I don't like, like the Marquis de Lafayette, like, that motherfucker went down swinging. Like, he, that man, at every single point of his life was always funding and insurrection

Was always like I will take Let's throw a punch. Let's throw a punch. Yeah And then it's like you can prepare that to like the German liberals or like like the liberals who win Pinochet Like takes power were like yeah When Pinochet called them all to like report to like have meetings with the government they all went Yeah, we're gonna go report to like talk to the secret police and they all got like killed right and that's different She knows those two things and that I think is a really really is a crucial political distinction To draw out is like it's not even necessarily like your class background

It's not even necessarily like what your politics are because a lot of people believe the same things It's like when the chips come down, will you fight or will you try to surrender? Yeah. And that's something I think, I don't know, like that's to me the best part of Andor is like that. And I think that's the part of it that's like being set up in this episode that I love. The very last thing I'll say because this has gone on way for quite a while. Yeah, I'm so sorry. Is like I was talking with a friend after we watched these episodes, and we were talking about

how this show, really, in the end, is a call for internationalism. Planets are stand-ins for different countries and different cities, right? They aren't doing the full revolution on Coruscant, like the center for imperial power, right? The imperial core. There is some organization happening there, right? There is people based out of there, there's networking, right? The Imperial Corps. There is some organization happening there, right? Like, there is people based out of there. There's networking, right? Like, Luton's intel shop is there. But most of, like, the physical armed struggle is on other planets. The first base for the Alliance is built on Yavin IV. But the rebellion isn't initially, like, overthrowing the Empire on

Coruscant. Though, through their interplanetary efforts, the whole galaxy gets liberated and the seat of power can be seized. And that sort of galaxy-wide cooperation, mirroring a worldwide cooperation that we have really lost in the past few decades, I think is one of the points that should be taken away from Andor here. Yep. All right, well, I think that's our episode. Yep. Bye right. Well, I think that's our episode.

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