Andor Andor Episode 2.02 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

So when the Rebel Alliance sets up base on

Spoiler

Yavin, will they have to deal with those clowns? surely they won't take them into the Alliance!

 

My take is that these people would've been able to make better decisions if they weren't starving, desperate, and scared. The combo of all three make people do stupid things. Just look at the world we live in!

 

Exactly, utterly harrowing to say the least... the wealthy thrive (the Empire) when commoners dispute... dividing us, separating us for their own wicked endeavors... the more the chaos, the better they can thrive, but common folk can not... Saw Gerrrera mentions Maya Pei of the neo-Republican collective( the groups leader who died ) to Luthun Rael , in season one of Andor.
"Kreegyr's a separatist. Maya Pei's a neo-Republican. The Ghorman front. The Partisan alliance? Sectorists. Human cultists? Galaxy partitionists. They're lost!"
―Saw Gerrera rants to Luthen Rael

I must emphasize- They're lost! both groups are lost once their leader Maya Pei is gone.

 

Well, I doubt that's an episode I'll be rewatching.
What was the point of the idiots vs. morons plot?

 

I'm confused as to why they stranded Andor with the RIBs but S1 had slow buildups with good payoffs too so I'm willing to be patient. I'll be disappointed if it was all just to show Y4 and how divided the rebels are at this point 4 years before ANH

 

I'm being patient. Its just the first 3 episodes and I've heard on the interwebs that the series really picks up with episode 8.

I have a funny feeling that Tony Gilroy is speaking through Saw Gerrera, a character that most do not like at all.

"Kreegyr's a separatist. Maya Pei's a neo-Republican. The Ghorman front. The Partisan alliance? Sectorists. Human cultists? Galaxy partitionists. They're lost!"
―Saw Gerrera rants to Luthen Rael

DIVIDE AND CONQUER a tactic the wealthy (Empire) use to keep us fighting amongst each other.

 

There are zero lesser shows with Mon Mothma in them.

 

To tell us the rebellion is a rag tag collection of infighting cells that don't know what they're doing. Reminded me of a clone wars episode for some reason

 

Are they even rebels? They didn't seem like they were supposed to be there. As Cass was supposed to just drop of the Tie Fighter. Maybe they just happened on the place, saw something important was happening and wanted to figure it out.

 

I think the RIBs illustrate just how lost the rebellion would have been without the leaders Andor is showing us to unite them. In Rebels and TCW, the various groups of "rebels" are all pretty competent. The need for an overreaching command structure is clear and it's just coming together at the beginning of Rogue One. I get the feeling the RIBs of the rebellion are the ones that went to fight on Scarif, and they are just as needed as the Lutherns, Bails, and Mon Mothmas.

 

He was supposed to meet someone there after stealing the TIE. However, his contact was neutralized by the rebel cell on the grounds that they were “hostile”(we later see them start shooting each other over being called names, so you can only imagine how that happened). Whether those rebels were expected to be there or it was just an unfortunate coincidence was less clear to me, however I had a hard time hearing some of the dialogue so it’s possible it was mentioned and I just missed it, but what was clear is that they had recently been in a battle and had a haphazard retreat. Their leader is MIA and now they’re not sure what to do or if anyone is ever coming to retrieve them from amongst the beasts and their dwindling supplies, hence why the tension is so high.

 

This group was only a tiny part of a cell of Maya Pei’s, and it looks like Maya Pei abandoned them on the planet, based on some of the dialogue. I imagine for a reason. They were left in a dangerous jungle, cut off from food and supplies, and were deteriorating into what we saw (they were also being hunted by viscious beasts). Desperate, hungry, frantic, paranoid, making short-term insane decisions to survive. There’s no indication that they were supposed to represent a representative or significant sample of rebellion. They’re just a bunch of desperate-to-the-point-of-insanity castaways in a very dangerous place.

 

A group of people angry about the Empire but not being able to find their own rear end with two hands is sadly timely.

 

If I understood it correctly they've only been there 2 days, they seem to have come undone rather quickly.

 

I don’t remember the 2-days bit. Seems short. But they are also being hunted by these jungle creatures. For me it was a perfectly believable bunch of hungry, desperate people making poor decisions. Until the rock, paper, scissors. lol

 

From some of the dialogue in the episodes it sounds like Maya Pei was killed, and then their ship was stolen by the brother of one of the RIBs. So they were abandoned, but not because their leader deliberately marooned them. (She definitely should have, though.)

 

One of the many things this show does brilliantly is display how awful the empire really are. There is a clear tone throughout the mandalorian, the ST and somewhat in the PT that the republic/New Republic are awful and have just as many failings as the empire but that just isn’t true. The imperial roundtable in Ep1 was very well done and straight out of the nazi playbook (some things more pertinent to current times but I won’t open that can of worms in here) and I felt so uncomfortable watching the scene with Lieutenant Sexual Assault and Bix

Like S1, the pieces are all moving, the scenes with Mon and Luthen were gripping and I can’t wait for the rest of the ride. Unfortunately won’t be watching Ep3 until later!

 

Ah, the tricky middle episode.

This is where I'll pick up on the rest of my Cassian thoughts: I think my issue with these Rebels on Yavin IV is that the series has already done a better job elsewhere demonstrating the difficulties of unifying differing opinions against a greater enemy. There was plenty of uneasy tension throughout the Aldhani arc, and Saw Garrera is a key character who always has trouble playing well with others. Yes, it's clear that Yavin IV is now going to have a season long arc, but this initial part of it didn't really work for me. Also, having your lead character essentially sitting on the sidelines for an entire episode just doesn't make sense to me. Hopefully the Yavin IV arc gels better as the season progresses.

Dedra continues to be one of the most engaging villains we've ever had, and I also love that she gets to play off of Partagaz more. He's got this gentle sternness to him that I find really unusual for an Imperial yet completely authoritative. And wowza, seeing Dedra and Syril officially together brings all the awkwardness I could have hoped for. Rewatching season 1 really helped me better track their development to this point.

My other big takeaway in this episode is Mon Mothma's confrontation with Tay Kolma, which was quite unexpected, but I applaud that boldness to take one of her most trusted friends and make him one of her most vulnerable.

7/10

 

With revelation about Dedra's backstory in the next episode, seems even more like Partagaz is not only a boss for her, but a father figure as well.

 

What I love about this show is how vast the Empire is, and setting up just how difficult it would be take it down. Not just because of the disorderly Rebels, but because of the vast and intrenched bureaucracy.

We know that in ANH, the visuals left us feeling the Imperial dominance as it took over the entire screen. (Or the entire galaxy) But in the OT we mainly only saw the Imperial Naval Fleet. And that was it. It was enough. But here, we're seeing the whole rest of the command structure. How it all works together in different ways. The hierarchy. How this civilization orders itself top to bottom. And its massive and daunting.

 

Yes I agree. And then the reveal at the end solidified the entire sequence(s) and reasoning behind them. Such a great start to S2.

 

It's a little unclear, but the gist seems to be a case of miscommunication or mistaken identity. Andor says his people have been supplying these folks, by which I mean the bigger group to which they belong. If I'd have to guess, I'd say this group (or a larger cell of it) was on Yavin to begin with. They ran into trouble, lost their leader, and Andor's contact arrived after they got jumpy. Clearly these people are not leaders of anything.

Andor told Kleya that he had been there for 2 days. I don't think he meant those fools had been.

 

The fools weren’t on Yavin three days earlier when Cassian dropped off his spaceship. The wrecked ship on Yavin was Cassian’s. I’m assuming the monsters in the jungle trashed it.

Not sure why the fool rebels were on Yavin or what happened to the rest of them so they were stranded. Were they actually there to support Cassian but never told that was their mission?

And Cassian’s relief pilot was there too. I’m not clear if he arrived on Yavin after Cassian or if he arrived with Cassian and was waiting in Cassian’s ship. If he showed up later, where is his ship?