Andor Season 2, Episodes 10-12
"Make It Stop" / "Who Else Knows?" / "Jedha, Kyber, Erso"
Writer: Tom Bissell
Director: Alonso Ruizpalacios
Cast: Diego Luna, Genevieve O'Reilly, Stellan Skarsgård, Denise Gough, Ben Mendelsohn, Forest Whitaker, Duncan Pow, Adria Arjona, Muhannad Bhaier, Faye Marsay, Elizabeth Dulau, April V. Woods, Anton Lesser, Benjamin Bratt, Alan Tudyk, Alistair Petrie, Robert Emms, Jacob James Beswick, Dave Chapman
The year is BBY 1.
Only the Good Die, Jung
A pajama-clad Kleya is first to notice a beacon pulsing in the workshop. There are many lights and widgets of great consequence in her purview, and this is not among her favorites. This is Lonni calling home. They're to meet in a public park. Kleya and Luthen suit up, the old man in his wig and Kleya in practical active-wear. She hands him a pistol.
"Just promise me if it doesn't look perfect you won't engage."
"I think we used up all the perfect," says Luthen. He's never looked so tired.
They exchange vulnerable smiles and she tells him to tuck his shirt in. We'll be getting flashbacks shortly, but we don't need them to confirm my suspicion from season one; this is a man and his daughter.
Lonni and Luthen, two strangers at a park bench beneath an underpass. Lonni shares that Dedra is coming for Luthen and that he's broken his cover at ISB by dipping into her private files. He's had her code certification for a year but avoided using it up til now. In digging for Axis, Dedra uncovered evidence that the Emperor's energy project — Ghorman, Jedha, all of it — is a front for the production of a super weapon. Lonni wants safe passage off-world with his family. Luthen promises Yavin, but that's just code for a hole in the chest. Luthen hurries off to rendezvous with Kleya, leaving a man and his Loth-cat to discover Lonni slumped over on the bench.
"Ghorman. Scarif. Kyber. Krennic. Erso." Kleya commits it all to memory. It's all they have. Not so much as a thumb drive. They need to get off Coruscant quickly, but first someone needs to destroy evidence back at the workshop. Luthen insists on risking it himself, and Kleya reluctantly leaves him to it.
Questionable Provenance
As Luthen pours a corrosive over the radio's circuits, the gallery doorbell chimes. He looks up, mortified.
I've never been so eager to see Perrin or Sculdun or some nameless Ithorian aristocrat. Hell, Eedy Karn and the ladies who lunch. Anyone but Dedra Meero.
He invites her inside. They exchange pleasantries, both content to keep up the act for now. Dedra wonders whether all of the artifacts on display are real. A wise question, says Luthen. There are only two pieces of questionable provenance, and he challenges her to pick them out. He shows her a ceremonial knife thought to be a centuries-old, impossibly rare Nautolan bleeder. If this is one of the questionable items, perhaps then Luthen is the other. Or is it Dedra? Or perhaps it's this game they're playing.
Dedra opens a small carrying case to reveal an item she's brought for his appraisal. A vintage Imperial Starpath unit. We're back to where it all began. Dedra gloats. She's dreamed of this moment. She sneers. His ability to sow chaos while living in relative comfort, right under her nose, disgusts her. He attributes her disgust to a fear of freedom. Anyway, she tells him, he's finished; the building is surrounded.
"You're too late," says Luthen. "The rebellion isn't here anymore. It's flown away. It's everywhere now. There's a whole galaxy out there waiting to disgust you."
She promises harsh interrogation. She turns to box up the Starpath unit and hears the sizzle of electronics from the workshop. This is distraction enough for Luthen to step away and stab himself with the knife. He collapses. Dedra radios for her tactical unit outside, demanding a med-team. She needs him alive.
Not to take away from the gravity of the moment, but an extremely cool repulsor gurney with a dome-shaped R2 astromech head carries Luthen to a waiting ambulance. Kleya watches the transport take off from a nearby balcony, eyes welling with tears.
At ISB headquarters Partagaz and Heert exchange bad news. Jung is dead. Dedra led an unauthorized raid on Axis, who may not survive the botched arrest. This was Heert's day off! Meanwhile, Imps begin investigating the workshop as well as the Fondor. The feeling of violation is harrowing. I really wish he'd booby-trapped it.
Rosh Ne Luts
Alone in the safehouse, Kleya recalls her first meeting Luthen as she gathers some gear hidden in the ceiling. We learn that Luthen was once a military sergeant called Lear — the reverse of his current alias; baller move. Kleya was a child at the time, hidden in the crawlspace of his ship like Newt at Hadley's Hope. Luthen was trying his best to ignore the radio chatter of his troops outside exterminating everyone she ever knew.
"Rosh ne luts!" he pleaded. "Make it stop!"
We intercut between past and present. Sergeant Lear found young Kleya and they escaped together, trading small antiques for credits as they traveled. Kleya was a fierce negotiator from the beginning. Together they witnessed the growing horrors of the Empire, including the public execution of innocent civilians.
He encouraged her to conceal her contempt for tyranny and use it to strike back, but only when they were ready. He reluctantly mentored her in terrorism and together on Naboo they observed the distant explosion of a military transport triggered by a fob in Luthen's hand.
Kleya makes her way to the hospital where Luthen is on life support. Dedra is apoplectic, demanding the entire floor be evacuated. Ultimately, Heert arrives to arrest his former boss. Kleya disguises herself as a nurse in yellow scrubs. She's alone against a hospital full of stormtroopers.
I'm not quite sure just when the penny dropped for me, but of course this isn't an extraction. I've seen Million Dollar Baby. She'd put it in more pragmatic terms — in the hands of the ISB, Luthen is a massive liability — but Kleya is an angel of mercy. This is her father. She won't allow the Empire's torturers to hurt him. Even if that means ending his life. She uses a similar detonator from the flashback to cause an explosion at the other end of the building. Troopers rush past her. She kills the last few stragglers between her and Luthen's room. He's unconscious. She unfastens the apparatus breathing for him, and he dies. Crying, she kisses his forehead and makes her escape.
We linger on Luthen's lifeless form. Not damned. Loved.
Say the Word
Heert leads the investigation at the hospital. An explosion? Axis dead? Kleya did this so perfectly they initially suspect she's a three-person team. They eventually get a glimpse of her in surveillance footage.
Meanwhile, Krennic questions Dedra in a steady growl. Her actions have been so reckless, so perilously close to damaging his Death Star project, he might as well treat her as a rebel spy. Dedra is defiant until she learns Lonni gained access to the files she's been stockpiling. Her "scavenging" for information on Axis led to knowledge of the Emperor's top secret planet-killer to leak out. She offers up a lead. Luthen had an assistant, maybe a daughter. She's still in the wind. And at least she brought in Axis. If they can question him while he's still alive …
She can only watch in horror as Krennic receives the news. Luthen is dead.
Back at the safehouse, Kleya busts open a wall to secure a backup transmitter. She can't voice any calls for help, but she can tap out an S.O.S.. Luckily the signal reaches Yavin 4, where Dreena spots something blinking under Wil's cot. By the time he fetches it, Kleya's paused from sending out her message. But he brings it to Cassian, who's been playing cards with K-2SO and Melshi. Wil thinks Luthen is in trouble, but they need to keep an eye on it before they rush off. Draven's clamped down on their unauthorized excursions. Soon enough they observe another transmission.
Krennic and Partagaz are old friends, but Krennic cautions that he can't insulate him from the hammer coming down. They need to find Kleya. They dispatch Heert to track her down under the hastily devised prevarication that she's infected with a highly communicable disease and needs to be put in quarantine. Partagaz fumes that it's a miracle they've been able to keep something the scale of the long-delayed Death Star a secret for this long. Krennic leaves it in his lap, departing for Scarif.
Heert visits Dedra's cell where he confirms Luthen's death. Unaware of the Death Star or its connection to the raid on Axis, he's deeply concerned that this has somehow drawn Krennic's attention. That's why he's so eager for Dedra's guidance here. She knows these traitors. Where would Kleya have gone? Ego stroked, Dedra directs him to the old Kreegyr case. They'd found radios, pulse frequencies. She can barely contain a Hannibal Lecter slurp as he hurries down the hall.
While Cass, K-2, and Melshi embark for Coruscant, Wil must remain behind. He still walks with a significant limp from the year before. Confronted with his friends' unauthorized exit, Wil offers Draven his signature Jesse Pinkman glare. None of the rebel brass afford Luthen the respect Wil knows he deserves. Draven orders him confined to quarters.
Even the ISB tech is impressed with the smoldering remnants of Luthen's pirate radio system. He did a good job erasing his contacts, but there's some chance they can track active transmissions.
They do just that as Cassian and his team descend on the safehouse apartment complex. They all converge on the building. Cass and Melshi arrive just before the Imps scramble communications. It takes a moment for K-2 to notice the disruption back on the ship, and he's unable to alert Cassian of the arrival of an Imperial shuttle and its detachment of goons. Inside, Kleya gets the boys up to speed. Luthen. The super weapon conspiracy. All of it. Cassian isn't sure what to make of it, but he wants to get her out of there. Kleya isn't trusting of the Rebel Alliance on Yavin, but he finally convinces her to get a bag together.
Heert and his team of unmasked stormtroopers search the building. When they ultimately arrive outside the safehouse, they roll in a flashbang. The blast dazes Cass and knocks Kleya out. Melshi's dumped everything into CON though, so he's able to keep the goons from gaining much ground. The troopers are boxed in as an arriving K-2 uses Heert as a human shield to clear the hallway. Again, this was his day off!
Back at ISB command, Partagaz realizes Heert's efforts to put everyone on alert for Kleya was so far-reaching that no one's left in the immediate area to offer support. Cass and crew are able to make their escape unmolested, though Kleya is wounded from the flashbang.
I Have Friends Everywhere
Back on Yavin, Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, and Draven clash with a hologram of Saw. They try to warn him of the escalation on Jedha, how his reckless movements endanger him and the rest of the rebels. He's at full Colonel Kurtz froth though, paranoid about moles within his cell, lies from the Alliance. Mon's warnings fall on deaf ears. He ends the call.
The brass greet the returning Cassian with open hostility. Bail is particularly prickly. He believes Cassian's history with Luthen has clouded his judgment, making him more susceptible to this far-fetched story of a super weapon. Though Cass makes an impassioned plea for them to respect Luthen's sacrifice and trust the intel, most of the Rebel leaders scoff. Fresh off the discouraging call with Saw, Bail is inclined to think Luthen was fed a pack of lies by the ISB. They dismiss Cassian, confining him to quarters until the rest of the leadership council returns later.
Mon wants to believe. She visits Vel to inform her of Luthen's death and to ask her to talk to Cassian for some insight on the legitimacy of the intel. Rain falls on a dark night of the soul for everyone on Yavin. Cass and Vel toast fallen friends, to Ghorman, to Ferrix. To Aldhani. And to the memory of Luthen Rael. She wonders if Cassian might reconnect with Bix. He seems content to know she is safe out there, wherever she is. He might seek her out when "all of this settles down."
Kleya wanders out into the night. Fortunately Vel spots her and brings her inside to warm up. They talk about Luthen and the impossible thing she'd had to do. Kleya says Luthen always told her to know her way out before she went into a hairy situation. She confesses she doesn't know where she is anymore. Vel reminds her she has friends everywhere. She tells Kleya to sleep while she goes to give her report to Mon. She believes what they have to say about this super weapon.
Back on Coruscant, faced with repercussions from a truly calamitous day, Partagaz listens to a recording of Nemik's manifesto before shooting himself in the conference room.
Draven approaches Cassian. One of their informants, Tivik, wants to meet with Cassian — and only Cassian — on Kafrene. With everything that happened on Coruscant, the Star Destroyer looming over Jedha, something big is definitely happening. Later, Mon and Draven go to Bail. He's ready to believe. He just needs a push.
The next morning, Bail visits Cassian, startling him awake from another dream of his lost sister. He gives him leave to fly out and meet with Tivik. Cassian wonders what's changed, and Bail says that if he's to die fighting the Empire, he wants to go down swinging. Cassian muses that Bail and Luthen have more in common than he thinks.
"May the Force be with you, Captain," says Bail. A first for this series? Anyway, Bratt crushed it. Seeing these two on screen together feels special.
Cassian suits up, waters his plants, and heads out. He passes Melshi leading soldiers on a jog through the mud. He walks through the encampment as rebels take their breakfast. Mon and Vel sit shoulder to shoulder in the mess tent, deep in conversation.
We cut away to Coruscant as Perrin shares an Uber after a long night with Mrs. Sculdun. Tea!
Dedra wakes up in a white jumpsuit in a prison block on Narkina 5.
Cassian passes a happy little GONK droid. He locks eyes with the Force healer unloading supplies. She knows something of his fate. How much, we'll likely never know.
Kleya stirs. She looks out at people going about their morning, helping each other.
Saw Gerrera eyes the looming Star Destroyer from his base on Jedha.
From another Star Destroyer's viewport, Krennic observes the final construction of the Death Star.
Cassian boards his U-Wing where K-2 is ready in his flight seat. They disembark for Kafrene, the droid glad to finally have a sanctioned mission. The events of Rogue One await.
On Mina-Rai, B2EMO plays with a droid with a similarly rough-hewn chassis. It's the best of all possible outcomes for the little guy. He's where all our childhood pets live out eternity.
Bix strolls into a wheatfield, a baby in her arms.
The child fusses and she kisses its head. "It's okay," she whispers. She looks off into the distance where sun pours through the clouds. "It's ok." And she smiles a bittersweet smile, because she knows with Cassian out there in the fight, it soon will be.
Thus ends the finest show on television.
I'll see you along the road.
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