blogging andor: dance yrself clean
season 2, episode 3. we are so back.
After a water-tread-y episode last week, we’re back in the saddle today. How much of that has to do with the illustrious return of Syril’s mom, Eedy? I love you, Eedy. And we can confirm now that Syril and Dedra are in fact the capitol’s latest power couple, and the event that Syril was trying to avoid last time was simply a dinner with Mommy Dearest. But there’s a new Mommy in town, and Dedra snaps a leash on Eedy the moment she gets her alone. My only gripe with this (hysterical) scene is that it’s got some very confusing blocking. Syril is laying facedown on the bed in the next room with all the doors open but doesn’t hear any of their conversation? What is this, Frasier? To be fair, Syril is the most Niles-coded man on television in many years.
On Chandrilla, Mon Mothma earnestly offers her daughter an escape hatch on the wedding, only to be very flatly rejected. Many people have pointed out the very realistic way ANDOR depicts a rightward turn among the youth in times of upheaval, especially those among a certain privileged racial and socioeconomic subset. (Wilmon can’t be much older than Mothma’s kid, but he’s on the opposite side of the political spectrum. As is, we can gather, his farmer girlfriend. Workers of the world, get after it!)
In both Star Wars and real life, it’s not hard to explain. We olds were born into one world and watched it collapse into the new world, but Gen Z was born among the ruins. Religion and traditional values appeal to them because they are purely abstract. They were not around to see the role those forces played in The Decline. They see a ride out of here. We see the getaway car.
So Daughter Mothma ties the knot (or, I guess, cuts the braid, according to ancient Chandrillan custom). And Tay continues to be a problem, and so Luthen takes care of that. We don’t see it, but when Tay drunkenly stumbles out to his car, Cinta is his new driver. I don’t think he’s getting home in one piece. Vel spots Cinta, but they don’t speak. I take back my critique of episode 2’s belaboring of their breakup—when we see a crumpled Vel near the dancefloor later, it really hits.
Truly one of the best scenes we’ve received so far comes when Luthen and Mon come to a head ahead of this hit. Luthen insists that Mon must be protected and that the threat Tay poses is not one that ever goes away — she keeps insisting they will “find a number” to pay him off. Luthen knows there will always be another number. And when he indicates his intention, Mothma says, “I have no idea what you mean.” “How nice for you,” Luthen replies. God, Skarsgård is so good.
Mon Mothma is rocked by the emotional double whammy of her daughter’s wedding and her complicity in the near-certain-death (Cinta don’t miss) of her longtime friend, and in the episode’s bleak closing montage, she aggressively dances at the wedding, trying to get the weight of all of it off of her. It’s an affecting, unsettling moment.
I also just want to track the continuing thematic echo of “circles” — in episode 1, Cassian refers to joining the rebellion as “stepping into the circle.” Krennic also refers to his task force as being a circle. And at the wedding, Mothma’s daughter and Sculdon’s son literally step into a circle.
Elsewhere in the galaxy, Imperial Inspectors close in on Brasso, Bix, and Wilmon. B2EMO is sent to live on a farm (literally, not figuratively!!!!) and Bix is cornered at camp by the bad lieutenant who hit on her last time. What happens next is a deeply uncomfortable, upsetting scene, as the lieutenant sexually assaults Bix. I was terrified that Cassian would suddenly arrive and prevent this because I really did not want poor Bix to be helplessly victimized and without agency once again. Luckily, that’s not what happens. Instead, Bix kills her attacker with a hammer. It is a brutal, dark scene, and the savagery of his death by blunt force trauma is, in an ugly way, kind of gratifying. But of course, Bix is not safe, nor is Brasso or Wilmon, as there’s a whole squad of Space ICE casing the farm.
Cassian does arrive here though, and continuing with the brutality of this episode, mass murders the inspectors and their associated Storm Troopers from his TIE fighter. He just blows them the fuck up! The violence here is heavy, real. Brasso draws the last group of troopers out into a field so Cassian can safely take them out, but before he does we watch one Stormtrooper take decisive aim. It’s a very tough moment, because we know what happens even though we don’t see it. Cassian kills them all, lands, and finds Brasso’s body in the wheat field.
Brasso! A true G until the end — he even has a great final moment after his capture, in which he performatively lashes out at the farmer who has been housing them in order to ensure the man’s safety. They share a look — it’s a really powerful thing.
He will be missed. His revolutionary roar on Rix Road is one of the greatest moments of television ever — a pure and electric vision of morally righteous violence. RIP, brother.
More ANDOR here late next week!