u/Charrikayu

I recently watched S1 for the third time and there's still things you pick up on because this show is immaculately crafted by people who really cared about every detail. These range from quick shots or little moments that you might pick up on subconsciously or pass by you unnoticed, to full scenes that explain characters and motivations through visual language. Some of them are very obvious but worth repeating because they help tell the story in a way that's not constrained simply to what's spoken or what happens in the plot

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Episode 2

Ferrix is a cold planet or the story is set in the cold season; it's frequently remarked how cold it is in Maarva's house and that she can afford to keep the heat on (but likely doesn't because of her illness). The temperature is kept track of, such as when Cassian gets a transport. It's hard to see in the screenshot but this whole scene you can see their breath. This bit of worldbuilding also informs the way everyone dresses on Ferrix, especially Cassian and his long coats.

The last line spoken in the episode is the friendly man on the shuttle telling Luthen "If you can't find it here, it's not worth finding." Following an aerial shot of Rix Road, we see Luthen's shuttle from the outside which pans down to Cassian running through the scrapyard.. Just a bit of visual storytelling that foreshadows Luthen isn't there for the part, he's there for Cassian.

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Episode 3

This isn't exactly a "detail" but I just love the intentional synchronicity in this episode. It's most obvious at the end with the sunlight in the ships which illustrates the direct parallel, but the entire A-story/B-story is a recurring situation: Maarva and Clem are there to steal scrap from the Republic, Cassian is there to sell stolen Imperial equipment to Luthen. Maarva refuses to leave without Cassian, Luthen refuses to leave without Cassian. They both take custody of him during an impending Republic/Imperial attack, saving him from that fate. If you've ever read Watchmen, there's a chapter called "Fearful Symmetry" where the comic is mirrored front-to-back. This whole episode is basically written the same way and makes it one of the best beyond just the actual plot/events of the episode.

There's a brief shot of Cassian looking confused at the aliens running out of the shop where Syril shot. This is how Cassian and Luthen know where Syril is and are able to sneak up on him.

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Episode 4

The first time we see Nemik he's sleeping. This characterizes how nervous he is about the heist, being obviously exhausted but telling Cassian he's unable to sleep the night before.

Similarly, and self-explanatory, the first time we see Skeen is pointing a blaster at another member of the group.

One of my favorite shots, there's a long take of Syril in the elevator descending to his mother's apartment. The whole Syril walk of shame is great but this bit right here, and the way it lingers, is really good visual storytelling for Syril internalizing the downfall of his life/career.

When arriving at camp a few days after the Morlana One incident, you can clearly see Cassian still has a bruise on his left cheek from where he got smacked with the blaster by the accosting security guards.

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Episode 5

The night before they leave, when they're burning the model of the vault, Vel takes the drink that's passed around and toasts to the Rebellion. Nemik is the only one who responds.

In order to keep the team moving, Vel commands Skeen to return the Kyber to Cassian and sarcastically remarks that they can kill each other later.

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Episode 7

This has been remarked on before, but Maarva's garden is the reason Cassian still keeps a garden and waters his plants in his Yavin home in S2. Maarva watering her plants during this conversation visually illustrates that she's made up her mind about staying.

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Episode 8

Maarva fell trying to open the Rix Flood gate. This is the same tunnel that Cassian later uses to rescue Bix and move in secret during the funeral. This set-up and pay-off also reflects Nemik's line in Episode 5 that "surprise from above is never as shocking as one from below".

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Episode 11

When the Imperial officer explains to Dedra what happens to the dead on Ferrix, she prompts "and then what?", which accentuates her disbelief. Upon being told the bricks are placed into a wall, there's a long pause where Dedra shows her disgust or displeasure at the idea of becoming an imperceptible part of something, to not stand out, recognition being both an integral part of her character motivation and ironic because she is ultimately just a cog in the Imperial machine.

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Episode 12

Although Luthen initially smiles at Maarva's eulogy against the Empire, there's a later, silent shot of him looking and listening to the chaos below. Without one word of dialogue we're fed all kinds of storytelling here:

• That Luthen is facing the real price of rebellion which he's become so insulated from in his role as an organizer.

• That if Maarva's words had this effect on Ferrix he can only imagine what effect she had on Cassian, helping him reconsider his judgement about killing Cassian to cover his tracks.

• He's almost certainly caught in PTSD or flashing back to, as we learn in S2, his time as an Imperial and the same sounds and screams he witnessed and that carnage he once helped inflict.

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This show is absolutely bursting with details so this is not even close to everything worth seeing, and there are more aspects, some obvious and some less so, to take in that make the depth in this series unparalleled. These are just a couple I absorbed in my last rewatch, among the many more I'll find in future rewatches

Full disclosure: Ebon Moss-Bachrach is an incredibly handsome individual and also a super humble and down to Earth guy so I admit there may be some meta influencing here

But in the actual context of the narrative: He is a mirror of the kind of person Cassian could have been. They're both deceptive about their true motivations for joining the team, but Skeen lies so effortlessly and never gives up the game until the end while Cassian admits to his motives and uses it to strengthen the team. Cassian adopts a pseudonym, Skeen adopts an entire persona. Skeen is the first person to tell Gorn about Cassian's arrival and is easily the most distrusting of Cassian's presence throughout the heist preparation because, being a duplicitous individual himself, he knows how thieves think. Skeen's ultimate downfall comes from assuming too greatly that a person of Cassian's character couldn't truly be influenced by something greater than self-preservation. We can't be sure if Skeen's tattoos or story are even real, and we're left with the question of whether he can know how someone so deeply affected by the Empire would cope. In being so distrusting, by projecting his own motivations onto Cassian, Skeen assumes that paying him off would be as easy as the Blue Kyber that hired him for the merc job, not realizing that the Kyber is an act of trust. He never considered the possibility that Cassian truly believed in the cause, even in the smallest way.

And that's why when Cassian asks "there's no Rebellion for you?" he's diverging down the path that makes him the Rebel hero we know. Skeen is Cassian if Cassian had never absorbed Nemik's words, or given thought to Luthen's belief that they could truly make a difference striking the Empire. Although Cassian acts in self-preservation by killing Skeen, he's electing to kill the person that most closely represents the road he could have gone down. Cassian is a sum of all the people in his life fighting to set him on the right path: his mother and father, Bix, Nemik, Brasso. That's why it's so important that Skeen distinguished his fight as being "against everybody else", because he's alone, and Cassian is not and when given the opportunity to look his foil in the eye, Cassian rejects it. Skeen becomes a part of Cassian's persona by being the manifestation of everything his life could have been if he had made the wrong decision or walked down the wrong path, and in doing so is one of the single most important people in instigating Cassian's turn toward the rebellion by letting him confront the worst parts of himself.