I don't know if it's exactly wise to regurgitate thoughts that one has in therapy into a blank WordPress field with the intention of hitting "publish," but — well, "What would Mon Mothma do?" She'd take the risk. She'd do the right thing. She'd tell the truth.
That's what is — in a series that is unbelievably moving, so powerful it feels like it could bowl over an AT-AT — so striking about Andor Season 2, Episode 9, "Welcome to the Rebellion." It's not a heist, not a riot, not a massacre (although all of those moments are breathtaking in their emotional frankness and intensity). The moment that guts me, wrecks me, that smacks my face like one of those mallets swung by a Ferrix bell-ringer, is when someone in a position of power — like, near the tippy top position of power — tells the fucking truth. It's when a person in power does something.
The moment is so straightforward, exactly as straightforward as the truth should be: The Empire ran a long con against the people of Ghorman in an attempt to smear their reputation, turn the galaxy against them, and push them to the point of protest and political insurgency — thus "justifying" the genocide that the Empire had planned all along. And like the lies told in the lead-up to the Ghorman massacre (as seen in the so-harrowing-I-can't-believe-it's-on-the-same-streaming-service-as-that-Turner-and-Hooch-revival-no-one-watched previous episode), the Empire has plenty of lies to spout about the dead. They shot first. The raged too hard, bit the hand that fed them, were ungrateful, were subhuman — they deserved it.
Mon Mothma knows the truth. She knows that all of this is a ruse by the Empire to secure power, permanently. She knows the truth that so many other senators know, yet all the rest shirk the responsibility or flee the planet. Not Mon Mothma. Mon Mothma hears the drums of war, and baby, we know she doesn't back down from a pounding beat.
It's cliche to say, "If you'd told me 20 years ago that watching a senator compose a speech would make for the most riveting television of the year, I'd laugh in your face" ... but, well, if you'd told me 20 years ago that watching a senator compose a speech would make for the most riveting television of the year, I'd laugh in your face. But here we are, with a full speech written by Tony Gilroy and performed with the steely resolve by the fantastic Genevieve O'Reilly (Star Wars TV's first Emmy winner, if there's any justice), one that actually feels like it's shaking a tree of decorum, one with roots that cut so, so deep into the earth.
Just ... damn, an excerpt. Here's an excerpt:
I believe we are in crisis. The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest. This Chamber’s hold on the truth was finally lost on the Ghorman Plaza. What took place yesterday … what happened yesterday on Ghorman was unprovoked genocide! Yes! Genocide! And that truth has been exiled from this chamber! And the monster screaming the loudest? The monster we’ve helped create? The monster who will come for us all soon enough is Emperor Palpatine!
The truth, said, stone-faced, staring unblinking, unyielding, into the eyes of the galaxy. A truth that has to be said out loud, to pull it from obscurity and into the realm of reality. A truth left unsaid leaves room for doubt. Plausible deniability. Twisting words, meaning, context — all the things that Republicans and right-leaning pundits are so, so practiced at. Mon Mothma had to say the words, and it had to be her, someone from within the system, someone who — she admits — was complicit in creating the very problem they're facing. She had to stand up, in the Emperor's house, and tell the truth: Objective reality. Death of truth. Monster. Genocide. Genocide. Screaming. Palpatine.
Rebellion does not always involve the explosions and the lasers and the space ships and the daring escapes (although this one does involve, well, lasers and a daring escape). Rebellion — we all have to rebel in whatever way we can. We have to take the space we occupy and make it radical. We have to make it right. In a reality where everything is falling down around us, we have to stand firm for something. And I choose the truth.
And that's why I'm writing this — 790 words and counting that, honestly, I don't know if this is even worth your time! But hey, that's my anxiety talking. That's what I'm pushing past, along with a whole cadre of imaginary dummies labeled "imposter syndrome." I just want to say that, as a pop culture critic, as someone (cursed?) to constantly see deeper meaning in literally everything he encounters, I will not stop telling the truth.
And for me, my rebellion looks like telling right-wingers that they can not claim G.I. Joe, and telling conservatives that they have no place in all of superhero fiction. You don't get to enjoy that stuff, and you don't get Star Wars either. Right now, our genre fiction is sinking its teeth into the hell that we currently live in. And all this stuff was written years ago. Imagine what kinda stuff is being written right now. And there will be no mincing of words, no ignoring the messages encoded into our entertainment. I say this as someone who an hour ago used an extended Thunderbolts* metaphor to talk his own mother down from a depression high. Everything is terrible, use what tools you have.
So if you're getting the urge to rebel, to speak up, to come out, to fight because of something you see in a TV show? That's valid. That's real. That's as good a reason as any to take action. I don't know what action looks like for you. For me, sometimes it looks like turning a Daredevil recap into an angry screed against bigoted superhero "fans." But that's why Pop Heist exists — because I don't have to run these feelings, the truth, through someone with "both sides" in mind. Neither do the writers you see on this site.
Maybe this is navel-gazing, inside baseball claptrap. Delusions of grandeur are part and parcel of Star Wars. But what can I say? Mon Mothma got me riled up and the written word is my protest.
Check out Get Free's Project Fulcrum for more info on how you can put the lessons of Andor into action
