The presence of Melshi had already indicated that this was a scene from the reshoots, as he was a character Tony Gilroy introduced when he joined the project, but here you can just about spot Gilroy himself over to the right despite the grainy image.
Source: “Cobalt” on Twitter.
Re-watching possibly my favourite Tony Gilroy interview with House of R - this one is so much fun, with some genuinely unusual questions. It’s the one where he entertains the “Vel & Kleya Nazi Hunters” spinoff idea and mentions that B2EMO was named for his son‘s corgi.
But in a serious moment, Gilroy is asked about the effect of rewatching Rogue One where Krennic is very much lower in the pecking order than he is in Andor. Gilroy was actually nervous to rewatch the film when making season 2, concerned that he might’ve got something wrong, but ended up being relieved at how well the story, themes and character arcs continued.
Link to the interview. Even if you never watch interviews usually, try this one. https://youtu.be/mGBXFWvPRsE
Revisiting one of my favourite Tony Gilroy interviews from a year ago, where he really dives deep into the writing process, and is here tackling the question of how to convey all the “negative space” in the gaps between the seasons and 3 episode blocks.
The vaguely seductive tone in season 2’s opening scene between Cassian and the young defector Niya really struck me when I first saw it, especially with the line “This makes it worth it. Being here with you at the moment you step into the circle…” which is echoed in the dialogue and the visuals of the wedding ceremony a few episodes later.
“It’s a leader’s speech”, Gilroy specifies. And one Cassian has given before.
Great way of showing how much Cassian has grown into the leadership role and how he really can be a seductive - in every sense - recruiter for the cause. A few beautifully motivational words and this woman is ready to give up everything in the hope that it will be “worth it”. “You’re coming home to yourself” also connects poignantly to what Cassian will one day say to Jyn: “Welcome home”.
Interview: https://youtu.be/21FS7CVClxo
First of all, I just have to say it: Avril is a hilarious choice of first name for me as the only Avril I have known was a sweet little Christian old lady neighbour, so I think of her and her parakeet Timmy every time I write Heert’s first name (especially the time when she tried to maintain a serious conversation with teenager me while Timmy was energetically trying to have sex with her hand, bless him).
There’s nothing particularly funny about Avril Heert himself though, except for the dark humour of his final scene which I’ll get to shortly. His first, however, is so inauspicious that I had to check to see exactly when it happens, and I’ve rewatched season 1 a LOT :) It’s fairly early on in ep 4 and is Dedra’s second scene.
Dedra is investigating the link between the stolen Starpath Unit recovered from Ferrix and her theory that at least one of those involved in the ‘incident’ is part of an organised effort to steal Imperial equipment to supply rebel groups. To this end, she wants the case file from Ferrix - but it’s not her Sector. It’s Blevin’s, a man with whom she has an existing antagonistic relationship. In this scene she sends Heert as her assistant to ask Blevin for the file. “It might be better if you went” Heert immediately tells her, with a pained expression. This might come over as reluctance and some fear of Blevin, but I think it’s also interesting for being a way of establishing that Heert is less afraid of Dedra and happy to voice his opinion here. This in turn indicates already that their working relationship is a good one, an amicable one.
Furthermore, this is the dynamic played out in their next scene where they are both working late. Dedra notices the time and seems to show something like genuine empathy - that she shouldn’t be keeping Heert from going home. There’s a note of sycophancy I think when he says “I’m staying if you are!” and maybe a warning about his ambition, but the scene’s main function seems to be to once again establish that these two make for a good team. They almost seem like friends. But of course on a rewatch you can see the warning signs there from the start. Sycophancy and admiration does not necessarily make for loyalty, especially in the world of Imperial office politics.
Heert’s last scene is memorable in a way that effectively mocks him by having him as a very literal and twisted version of a human shield for K-2SO, with all its gruesome imagery of Heert’s lifeless stare as his body flops like some grotesque marionette in the droid’s merciless grasp. It’s the one of the most ignominious deaths in the series. The ‘Imperial death march’ that Krennic threatened him with becomes the inexorable death march of a reformed Imperial droid on a mission, and it’s interesting to consider that juxtaposition of two beings who were both at one stage effectively ‘programmed’ by the Empire.
In a way the more interesting scene for Heert’s character development is the one just before it, where he visits the fallen Dedra in her cell and manages to get her sharing her ideas for how to track down Kleya. The conversation there turns bitter when Dedra, correctly realising that Heert is staring down the barrel of a blaster if he fails, says “It’s all on you now. Jung’s best friend”.
Heert replies “We were never friends” and Dedra’s blistering response is: “I know the feeling”. It’s an open indication of how she’s realised that Heert’s betrayal was inevitable in the Imperial power structure that she sought to serve but has now cut her off completely. It’s a bitter lesson for her and perhaps serves as the only clear equivalent that Dedra has of Syril’s moment of realisation that the Empire ‘eats its own children’, as Gilroy puts it. Lonni’s role in playing Heert’s ‘friendship’ all this time is fascinating too, as both actors have headcanoned a queer dynamic and in their performances leaned into that slight tension between them, something that Lonni would have had to be particularly careful navigating but which would have been very useful to him nonetheless.
But Heert’s desperation to survive prompts him to revive something of the old working relationship and he tempts Dedra to cooperate: “You know them. How they think. Where they’ve been. Where would she go?” and this does the trick. It revives the old ‘thrill of the chase’ in Dedra, giving very Hannibal Lecter vibes, and she gives Heert the clue he needs. But it’s a bitter ending to a relationship that had a veneer of something like if not friendship at least camaraderie and cooperation. As with so much else that Heert pinned his colours to, it’s a lie.
TLDR: Heert’s increased role in season 2 makes me wonder if he took over plot beats originally intended for Blevin, but either way his arc works as a way of illustrating how even the most seemingly cooperative relationships in the Imperial structure come crashing down once self-preservation, ambition and petty rivalry gets in the way. As Denise Gough eloquently puts it: “The Rebellion is like a tribe but the Empire is like a gang… and will hurt you when you leave by discarding you”.
Next: Cinta Kaz
… a subtle way of implying that Perrin genuinely misses his wife, I think.
I thought this was a good question and a reminder that Cassian wasn’t Gilroy’s choice of character in a spin-off series, as he inherited a pre-existing project. I think that with the right writing any of those self-sacrificing characters could have worked, although the one I’m probably most intrigued by is Bodhi Rook and his relationship with Galen Erso.
From this 2022 interview. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/andor-tony-gilroy-talks-luthen-rael-monologue-easter-eggs-1235258961/
It’s also my third year anniversary since watching it. I was almost exactly a year late, not having Disney+ before.
Absolute masterpiece, and it’s hard to believe these first three episodes had relatively low ratings. They now rank among my absolute favourites.
… from Chester Carr, who has been sharing some Andor gems via his IG account. Final panel gives the context. Fascinating that much of the action would have been filmed inside an “eerily dreamlike” factory.
More here https://www.instagram.com/p/DdCLC1ogjY7/
A few interviews deal with this too but I think the book has the most detailed account. Three extracts here.
In the same first scene as for my last two posts (in s1 ep 4) , Lagret and Blevin are introduced as ISB supervisors having to deal with a testy Partagaz. I’ve decided to deal with these two together as there’s some overlap in their narrative roles. The similarities between them become more obvious as the series progresses but Blevin’s fate being unknown is an intriguing difference.
Blevin has popped up a couple of times in recent posts and comments, with a main theme of these being how time eventually proves him right about Dedra. In that sense, it’s interesting that in this first appearance he is sticking very much to accepted protocol and is (unlike Lagret) seemingly doing his job to Partagaz’s satisfaction. The evidence for that is simply that he is not hauled over the coals like his colleagues. While Lagret is chastised for failing to provide the required information on time, Blevin isn’t addressed at all until the meeting moves on. In reporting about “This incident on Ferrix” Blevin keeps strictly to the facts, offering no deductions whatsoever at this stage. It’s as if he’s satisfied that this is all Partagaz wants. It seems that it is: Partagaz asks for expansion on his words and gets it, and says that they will speak more before Blevin leaves for Ferrix.
The most interesting thing to me is that the way Blevin sums up the situation could be something that Chief Hyne would say: “They tried to serve a warrant and ran into more trouble than they were expecting” has echoes of “They chose the wrong person to annoy”. But unlike Hyne he’s not dismissing the idea that further action is necessary and indeed in a later scene Blevin dresses down Hyne alongside Syril and Mosk for his “total disengagement”. This is the Empire working with smooth efficiency. Blevin further proves his competence by getting his quarterly reports in on time. He’s dislikeable to the viewer as he’s set up as an antagonist to… well, Dedra is very much an antagonist herself but at this stage we are kind of rooting for her, especially once Blevin starts being smug and condescending in a way that even Partagaz recognises as sexism.
But there are also cracks in this Blevin-led efficiency that would frustrate someone like Dedra (and later on, Syril) even without thinking about the bigger picture, as she desperately wants to do. They misspell ‘Ferrix’. Syril is forced to sign a report without being allowed to read it. Blevin is only as good as the bureaucratic system he has to work with. But for most of the successful ISB Supervisors, that’s enough for a successful career.
Lagret, in contrast, is introduced as being chastised for a very accountable failure and it’s interesting that in his first ISB scene in season 2 the same thing is happening. Partagaz attacks him for being inefficient or imprecise or both. You can be praised for taking the initiative but chastised for failing to get the basics of the role right. So these ISB senior Supervisors walk a fine line. This is the environment in which Dedra will ultimately go too far, because in ignoring the mistakenly forwarded files as a problem she fails to realise that she has stepped way beyond the barriers of what Partagaz - or Krennic, or any one above - could possibly tolerate. “You might want to steady the ladder before you start climbing” are words that must haunt Dedra at the end. Blevin was all about keeping his own ladder steady and not climbing at all otherwise.
Blevin’s final scene is in the S1 finale, as usual expressing his dislike of Dedra after the Kreegyr raid. Being reassigned from Ferrix was clearly not the end of his career but his in-universe absence is interesting to speculate about. (Irl, the actor was unwilling to return for s2). I like to imagine that he simply applied for a similar ranking job in a different department. Maybe he was even promoted. His absence is realistically (considering the time jump) never explained.
In contrast, Lagret’s last scene in the series finale is a very memorable one. He comes to collect Partagaz, who is listening to Nemik’s manifesto. Partagaz asks him if he’s heard it before, and Lagret answers: “Bits and pieces… It’s been hard to contain.” He doesn’t answer when Partagaz asks what he thinks it is. Picking up on Partagaz’s own ‘health care providers’ metaphor is an interesting choice, if it’s a conscious one from Lagret. One thing is certain: he clearly knows exactly what Partagaz is planning to do and the way he stands outside the door, doesn’t even flinch or blink at the blaster shot and raises just the fingers of his respectfully clasped hand to still the Troopers all suggests that he’s experienced this scenario before - being a witness to “the ever-lengthening ISB death march”, as Krennic puts it. As he bows his head he’s probably thinking of the Star Wars equivalent of ‘There but for the grace of God go I”. Lagret is an older man; a survivor in a system that is absolutely merciless to its acolytes should they put a foot wrong. The kind of background Imperial character who sums up the whole ‘bureaucracy of evil’ concept perfectly. Just like Blevin, Lagret played the game unremarkably but correctly, with just enough competence to keep his job - and his life.
TLDR: Blevin and Lagret are the Empire at its most human. Neither man gives off vibes of being particularly ‘evil’. Neither have dialogue concerning political ideology so we don’t know how devoted they are to the Imperial cause. But both know how to negotiate the ‘office politics’ of the system and perhaps do this more successfully than those who try to do more as individuals. Perhaps an innate fear of a fascistic system lies behind these survival instincts.
Next time: Lonni Jung
The “guess the 4th item in the sequence” round. (Answer is in the second pic.) Always nice to see the series in the wild!
The earlier post has got me thinking about some of my season 1 favourites from less discussed scenes or from minor characters. In this clip, “I’ve done it before” from Bix is one that really gets to me every time. Cassian is telling her to tell Luthen to forget about him as he prepares to leave Ferrix. Adding “…and that goes for everybody” - which would obviously include Bix herself. S1 ep 7 is full of masterful dialogue like this, packed with subtext. This exchange and Adria Arjona’s understated delivery of the line speaks volumes about the pain of a past cycle of attempts to make this relationship work, with Cassian’s erratic and self-destructive behaviour meaning she’s had to cover for him before, and try to forget about him herself. Even more poignant after the “I regret every second we didn’t spend together” line in s2.
And some of my S1 minor character favourites:
“They have their own way of doing things”. One of Syril’s underlings trying to warn him about Ferrix.
“I can’t help him. I can’t help anyone.” The resigned cynicism of the Narkina 5 Med-tech.
“ONE WAY OUT! COME AND FIIIGHT!!” - prisoner Ham shouting to a floor of workers
“Will you let it go!!” Xanwan snapping at his alien colleague at the end of a debate about Kenari.
“I loved your mum. I really did.” - Pegla expressing condolences to Cassian.
“Seven years serving you? I deserve worse than that.”- Gorn to Beehaz. Deeply satisfying to hear him say that.
Any additions?
Dedra’s first scene in 1.04 is basically the same one as for my last post in this series (about Partagaz) but we do also first see her approaching the ISB Headquarters, establishing that she will be our ‘point of view’ character for the coming scene. The cold clean monochrome exterior of the building is very much reflected in this woman, with her WW2-coded trenchcoat and boots, and her stern hair bun and focused expression. “She destroyed Ferrix. She killed my father. She’s a monster,” says Wilmon Paak of Dedra in season 2 ep 7. Hard to dispute any of that, but it’s fascinating that in her early scenes, including this first one, we are largely sharing her perspective and are encouraged to empathise or even sympathise with this woman - seemingly one of only two female supervisors in a male-dominated workplace.
Partagaz expresses his frustration with Grandi (the one other woman) and Lagret, and asks room at large “Why are we here?”. Dedra is clearly expecting praise for having memorised the ISB Mission Statement and an early moment of sympathy might come from seeing her be obviously taken aback. No-one likes being publicly told they are “wrong” by their boss, and Dedra is clearly isolated among her male colleagues. But she doesn’t stay unsettled for long and when Blevin starts describing the “incident on Ferrix” we see her start to pay close attention. She hears about the stolen Starpath Unit that was recovered at the scene and immediately looks up something on her datapad - we don’t need any translation of what she’s looking at to get the main point: she’s onto something.
So from just this first interaction we can deduce a few key characteristics. Firstly, Dedra is someone who respects authority, and Partagaz in particular as the embodiment of that. Secondly, she isn’t resentful or deflated by being chastised. Thirdly, she’s seemingly intelligent. Blevin describes the incident but Dedra is already working on a thesis about it. There’s an obvious competence about her, even if it’s coupled with a certain degree of inexperience. We could even perhaps deduce that she’s a few steps ahead of her colleagues.
Because Dedra’s first scene is pretty innocuous it’s absolutely fascinating to rewatch with the full knowledge of what is to come. With the benefit of hindsight the most important of these clues about her is that unfailing loyalty to the authority she serves. Denise Gough has been particularly enthusiastic in sharing her views on her character, and one that has always stuck with me is particularly relevant here: that we root for Dedra early on because “she’s a woman in a world of men” but we later realise that she’s “a fascist in a world of fascists”. The brilliance of the writing and performance is that even on a rewatch you can still find yourself rooting for Dedra… not as a person perhaps but as a fictional creation. She’s smart, she’s hardworking and highly competent: attractive qualities. The turning point for many is in episode 9 where she appears to take delight in interrogating Bix. In this same arc she also suggests the murder of a pilot, and casually allows the execution of a man who has already been tortured into insanity and has effectively been proven guilty of nothing more than keeping a radio he no longer uses. She does some truly awful things.
Dedra is someone who is both an instrument of the Empire and a victim of it. She’s a child of it too, quite literally raised in one of its institutions without any knowledge of “a mother’s love” - or a father’s either, making Partagaz perhaps the closest thing she has to a personal mentor. She believes she has had everything she needed. Her burgeoning relationship with Syril is fascinating on a rewatch too because although I’m positive it started as deliberate exploitation of his naive enthusiasm I think that she does develop genuine feelings for him - maybe even something close to love. But those feelings are ultimately warped and selfish, even if this isn’t necessarily her ‘fault’ considering her background and loyalties. Dedra would struggle to understand the concept of sacrifice. To her, the rebels stand for ‘chaos’ but it’s clear she doesn’t care at all about the general population. In another early scene she is praised by Partagaz for her ‘detention numbers’ because they are “well above the quota”. This is before the PORD is brought in but suggests to me that she is enthusiastically subscribing to the idea that whatever the Empire supports is right - or at least is what she supports too. It’s one and the same to her.
Dedra’s last scene is in the montage. Utterly disgraced and humiliated by Krennic - and arguably used as a scape-goat too - Dedra is seen in one of the Narkina 5 prisons, in a state of shock. In an ironic echo of “Turn out the lights” we see the lights go out - and at that point she hides her face and weeps. Maybe it’s shame. Maybe she is unable to show vulnerable emotions unless it’s in the dark. Maybe she’s a monster, exactly as Wilmon Paak describes her. But as a villain and antagonist Dedra Meero is a compelling character: utterly committed to her cause. I don’t know if she’s evil in the way that Palpatine is, but for my money she’s more terrifying because she is so obviously human. Sometimes admirable, sometimes vulnerable, sometimes someone we could even feel sorry for.
This is what Andor does so well: present human monsters of different kinds. Dedra is a child of fascism but also one of its victims. Gough compared the Rebellion and the Empire in an interview with Collider: “The Rebellion is like a tribe. It’s full of people who have loyalty at their core. They trust each other even when they have to do things that are difficult. But the gang is vicious. They seem like they’re the best place to be. Everybody’s well dressed and looks like they’re having a great time, but the gang will hurt you when you join, physically, and hurt you when you leave by discarding you.”
“You fall here, you fall alone,” Blevin warned her.
What a prescient turn of phrase.
TLDR: Dedra is in many ways a monster, but she’s also a human being and that’s what makes her both compelling and terrifying. She embodies many of the traits we admire but her singular focus is in service of a tyrannical
regime.
Next time: Supervisors Blevin and Lagret
She’s flavour of the month thanks to the Wonder Woman rumours and her new film Onslaught, and this new photo seems to show the original X “stick and poke” tattoo in honour of Bix, done on the Andor set by make up artist Molly J Bowen-Schofield.
(Diego Luna is embarrassed to have forgotten all about it when asked about Adria’s tattoo… about 2 minutes in here. They really did have to put up with some excruciating press interviews for Andor. https://youtu.be/7T8c3apKJVA?is=6t9Xt-HvmallP-IS )
Edit - 2nd still for the close up on the ‘X’
The full scene (in s1 ep 4) is not only the introduction to Partagaz but also to Dedra, Blevin, Lagret and Lonni and as such is the first scene in the series to introduce more than one significant character simultaneously. Obviously, a meeting is the perfect scenario for that.
Partagaz is a big fan favourite, especially for a “side” or secondary character. It’s not hard to see why because in this scene he absolutely dominates the meeting, ruling over proceedings with a charismatic and natural leadership. Already before this clip he has hauled Supervisor Grandi (the only other female supervisor) over the coals for inefficiency, and he’s doing the same here with Lagret. Exasperated that none of them seem to be seeing the wood for the trees, and met now with a literal by-the-book answer from Dedra, he launches into this monologue. In describing the threats to the ISB as a disease and their own role as “healthcare providers”, he is not only eloquently summing up what he sees as the real issue they are supposed to be dealing with but also giving us a glimpse of his own world-view. And popular as he is as a character it’s a very dark and disturbing man who is revealed with this metaphor.
‘The bureacracy of evil’ is a term often associated with Andor and I think that more than any other character Partagaz embodies this. Thanks to Anton Lesser’s superb performance he can at various times come over as supportive, fair and even caring of his underlings. There is a crispness and intelligence to his lines; he is not only eloquent but also able to go from complex and sophisticated language to something very direct. For example, he wastes no time in telling Dedra that she’s simply “wrong”. He’s not just educated and intelligent - he’s genuinely someone with emotional understanding, with empathy. He’s obviously very familiar with ‘office politics’. In short, he comes over as somebody who on paper sounds like an ideal authority figure: the kind of boss we might even dream of. Firm but fair.
But of course, this man is a fascist who is seeking to help bring about unchallenged authoritarian rule. The series will constantly remind us of just how evil the Empire is.. but because we don’t see Partagaz killing, torturing or assaulting anyone himself it might be tempting to see him as ‘less bad’. It’s part of the brilliance of the series: the acting and the writing combine to make Partagaz immensely attractive as a character in this first scene. We like seeing competence and we like hearing intelligent language. He’s not a cackling obvious villain but instead Evil at its most insidious. You can see why someone might want to be praised by Partagaz, because he’s clearly highly respected by everyone in that room. For anyone who has unquestioningly accepted the Empire’s orthodoxy - and by this time that’s a great many beings - Partagaz is the ultimate role model.
The metaphor itself comes back to bite Partagaz in the most delicious way and in his final scene he’s listening to Nemik’s manifesto. He asks Lagret what he thinks it is, and Lagret says that it’s been “hard to contain” - just like a disease outbreak. Partagaz takes his own life because he failed to recognise the disease within. Not just the corruption of the Imperial system he had dedicated his life to but also the simple fact that for years a Rebel mole had been one of his team of Supervisors. With Lonni spreading the word of the Death Star to Luthen, and Luthen to Kleya, Partagaz realises that this is an outbreak he needs to stop in its tracks. In perfect irony, one of the reasons for the failure of the raid to capture Kleya is the consequence of his own cover story: that she has a disease that is putting thousands of lives at risk. On calling for backup he’s told that everyone is dealing with the health emergency. A perfect case of ‘hoisted by your own petard’ and I like to think that in a similar way Partagaz is brooding on his life’s choices as he faces the end.
TLDR: From “Thesis, please?” to “Calibrate your enthusiasm!” Partagaz has some of the best lines in the series and he’s a big fan favourite as a result. He is evil at its most attractive and a true believer in a system that ends up destroying him.
Next time: Dedra Meero
From his IG. As very briefly seen in episode 1 when Brasso comes out of the Grapplers’ meeting hall.
Clip is from one of a series of excellent interviews from last year. Dan (brother of showrunner Tony Gilroy) wrote the Emmy winning ‘Welcome to the Rebellion’ episode along with the other 2 in that block, and from about 17 minutes in he starts discussing the Force and Cassian being called a “Messenger”.
Of all the Andor writers, he’s clearly the biggest fan of the Force. He mentions how it was deliberately kept out of Season 1 but that Tony agreed that it was necessary to bring it in to Season 2 albeit in an elliptical way. He discusses the Force healer scene in detail, including its impact on Bix and Cassian. Crucially, he highlights this encounter as the moment when Bix becomes a full believer in the Force - but also as when Cassian starts to open up to the idea of “an organised principle behind all this”, simply because he’s aware of how many strange occurrences have happened in his life. With the “Messenger” idea, D Gilroy makes interesting comparison here to the biblical apostles. So that would make Cassian not “the chosen one” but still somebody with a message they need to spread, and someplace they need to be - with Bix and his sister as driving influences.
I was intrigued that Gilroy wondered about Diego Luna’s thoughts on the matter. So at a Q&A panel at a Con last year I plucked up the courage to ask Diego about all this - and specifically what Cassian believes about the Force at the end of his life. He said he agreed with what Dan says here… that he does have some sense of continuation and of a greater purpose. So his apparent resistance to the Force healer in ep 7 comes initially from cynicism but then from fear that it is all, in fact, right. Implicit in this also is understanding and acceptance of why Bix abandoned him. After all, if he doesn’t start believing that she’s maybe right about the Force and about him the alternative is the bleak concept that she left him for no good reason… and it’s pretty clear in the final arc of episodes that he doesn’t believe that as he’s not bitter - he’s bruised but purposeful. It also gives considerable new weight to his line in Rogue One: “ I’m starting to think that the Force and I have different priorities”.
Interview Link: https://youtu.be/KeXed1Kozwg?is=ls8CWAMWF6gXNrhj
Vel’s first scene is another of those that drops us right into the middle of a pre-existing relationship. It’s happened several times so far with Cassian: the first scenes with Brasso, Bix and Maarva are all interactions with him. But in this case the pre-existing relationship is that between Luthen and this new character, with Cassian as the outside observer. Quite literally - he’s waiting in the ship and can’t hear what’s being said. He can only pick up from observation that Luthen’s words about this woman are being proven true: “She’s not going to like this. She’s going to argue with me.”
The “this” is of course Cassian being forced upon Vel as the seventh member of the Aldhani heist team. The scene is, as with so many others, built upon the conflict between the two characters. Vel is horrified at the idea of having to take in this complete stranger for several highly legitimate reasons. Firstly, she has no say in the matter whatsoever, and Luthen is adamant that it’s a case of “Take him or call it off”. Secondly, she seems to have a genuine distaste at the idea that this man is a mercenary and draws an angry contrast between his being a last minute addition of uncertain loyalties with the rest of the team “eating roots and sleeping on rocks for this rebellion”. Finally, the combintation of both of these: the angry resentment that she is not the one who gets to decide about this despite being supposedly the leader of this team… and the related trepidation about how the rest of the team are going to react to this newcomer. As their leader, she knows well enough that it’s going to be extremely difficult for her to lie convincingly about this being a fellow committed revolutionary who was “able to fight his way free”. Luthen tells her that this all part of her role: lying about it. She’ll end up suggesting that “Clem” was supposed to join them all along but didn’t mention it in case it didn’t happen. All highly ironic considering the immediate and deep-rooted suspicion about “Clem” that will become a major feature of this arc.
What’s particularly fascinating about the scene is that this is immersing us in a conversation that feels completely natural yet contains absolutely no obvious exposition designed to help the viewer. We just have to lock in, concentrate and pick bits and pieces up as we go along. For example, “we go in three days” versus the “five months” spent on preparation tells us now why Luthen was so desperate to recruit Cassian as well as why Vel is so reluctant. It’s easy to see that Vel will not have an easy time of convincing the others and has a reason to resent “Clem” before he even steps out of the ship.
To be honest, it’s Luthen who dominates the scene. He is the obvious authority. His commanding “LOOK AT ME!” when Vel acts petulantly distracted had me jump the first time. But in terms of Vel herself, very little about who she is is given away at this point so it’s one of the many scenes that’s worth re-evaluating on a rewatch - that way, we can see how what we later find out is shown in glimpses here too.
Unlike the Ferrixian characters, we are meeting Vel well away from her home. But even once we discover, much later, all about her Chandrilan background - that she’s “a rich girl running away from her family” as Cinta harshly yet accurately puts it - we realise that Vel is a driven rebel despite or even because of these origins. Unlike others including Cassian, Kleya and Cinta, Vel has no obvious traumatising incident that kickstarts her journey towards being a rebel against the Empire. Instead, the story concentrates on her commitment rather than the origin. This is seemingly her first time leading a mission (“You wanted to lead. This is what it takes!”) and it makes sense that she would have self-doubt about her abilities. But that still means that she’s an experienced operative, and is the first ‘boots on the ground’ agent that we meet in the series. Her obvious antipathy towards Luthen is interesting as it’s hard to tell whether it comes from the situation here or some pre-existing tension, leading some at the time to even speculate if they were closely related, eg father & daughter.
He spins the situation positively in the way he later does with Lonni, suggesting that this is good news, and of course he’s ultimately right. Repeating that this new addition can pilot already suggests that they simply weren’t very well prepared before now. (Was Vel going to be the pilot?) So the scene is full of that tension from her resisting the situation… and yet it also ends with Vel and Luthen reaching the agreement that he had wanted all along: her acceptance of Cassian. She puts up a fight that she knows she’ll ultimately lose but eventually gives in because she does realise that Luthen is right. So she grudgingly puts aside her emotions and accepts the logic of it all instead.
The series’s major theme of choice vs no choice runs throughout the conversation. “Are you giving me a choice here?” “Yes - take him or call it off”. So that’s really no choice at all - it’s a Hobson’s choice, the illusion of it. Similar to what so many other characters will eventually face too, including her cousin Mon. But this is what revolution looks like: making a choice to be a rebel rather than to live a life of luxury is still an act of free-will, and what I find particularly admirable about Vel in general is that despite times of crushing uncertainty and loss she remains committed to the cause. Even when she loses the love of her life she keeps going however she can and gives strength to others, knowing herself well by that stage and confident that she is doing the right thing. Being gay in a conservative society also likely means that Vel’s earliest acts of rebellion were quiet ones: against the heteronormative expectations of “finding herself a husband”. As she herself will later tell Cassian, “Everyone has their own rebellion”.
But we don’t find out any of this until later. The knowledge does enrich this first scene though, and I think you can see here a glimpse of the woman Vel will become over the next five years: accepting that “This has to be a win”. Luthen knows that the rebellion consists of lots and lots of losing “until we’re ready”, as he explains to young Kleya in the flashback.
In Vel’s final scene we just get a glimpse of her in the finale montage, chatting away (we can’t hear the words) to a contemplative Mon. She looks at home. They both do. By this time Vel has come to know and respect both Cassian and Kleya better and her interactions with both in that final episode are some of my absolute favourites; they show her selflessness and drily humorous pragmatism as well as her vulnerability. She also pays due respect to Luthen despite having good reason to at least partially blame him for her personal loss.
TLDR: To be honest, I would not have guessed from her first scene that Vel would become such a personal favourite character of mine but her quiet strength is harder to detect there, at least on a first viewing. Another reason why, imho, Andor is always better on a rewatch and I’ll be forever grateful that it was written this way.
Next time: Lio Partagaz
The first official trailer from ten years ago includes a lot of footage that never made it into the final cut. Gilroy’s additional scenes were filmed over five or six weeks from June into July 2016 but the footage that is definitely known to be his doesn’t appear in this trailer except for two shots of Saw. Pre-reshoots, he was shown as bald. Gilroy directed some new scenes and the characters of Tivik and Melshi, along with the Ring of Kafrene and Wobani as locations, were entirely his additions. In the official “Art of” book Kafrene appears as an appendix and apparently, as of the time of its publication, the place was still unnamed.
The dialogue in the trailer features a descriptive statement from Saw “Imperial flags reign across the Galaxy”. In the final version, this line becomes instead a challenging question to Jyn: “You can stand to see the Imperial flag reign across the galaxy?” to which she replies “It’s not a problem if you don’t look up”. I’m confident that was a Gilroy tweak because Jyn’s character was changed from being pretty much a full-on rebel from the outset to someone who starts out as seemingly apathetic to the cause because of the pain the Rebellion has caused her. Very like Cassian in the series. And that entire dialogue now reminds me of the 1.07 flashback scene with Clem and teenage Cassian, where Clem explains that the Imperials are “Just going to raise their silly flag and fly away again”. Just before he is killed for trying to stop Ferrixian protesters throwing stones.
The podcast “Going Rogue” is a fascinating breakdown of all this and identifies a few other Gilroy rewrites … such as the post Eadu argument between Jyn and Cassian. Diego Luna recently revealed that the line “We don’t all have the luxury of deciding where and when we want to care about something” was a late alt take and it probably links to Jyn’s earlier line “I’ve never had the luxury of political opinions”.
But my favourite fun-fact is probably that Gilroy is almost certainly responsible for one of the best comedic moments in the film - where Jyn shoots a KX unit and an aghast K-2SO turns up a second later and says “Did you know that wasn’t me?!” .. “Of course!” The evidence for this one is a fascinating “watchalong” with two of the pre-Gilroy writers Gary Whitta and Chris Weitz from 2020. Neither of them wrote it; they suggest it’s likely to be Gilroy. After Andor, I’m definitely open to this idea as the series frequently featured humorous moments, including visual humour like this.
Vel gets a moment to look appropriately thoughtful when she recognises the Pre-Mor blaster that Melshi has brought with him. A little awe-struck, even.
I imagine that by this time Cassian has filled her in about his history but it’s interesting that she remembers the blaster in particular. Back in season 1 ep 5 Skeen tells Cassian “Vel told me to take a look” at his belongings. The blaster must have been a big clue that “Clem” was in trouble with the law and Skeen tellingly recognised it as “Corporate issue”. I always wondered if Vel had genuinely told Skeen to go through Cassian’s things or if it was an excuse to snoop on this newcomer. I suspect the former - Vel was genuinely suspicious.
I think it’s particularly interesting that Vel looks a little awe-struck at this connection across time, as if she’s fully appreciating this is a significant moment of some kind. So it implies to me that Cassian also said something about giving the blaster away to a friend from the Narkina breakout. The suggestion is that she’s becoming very aware of the “coincidences” surrounding Cassian that also make even Luthen a little in awe of his life’s path hinting at some Force-related destiny.
It’s also interesting that Melshi and the blaster arrive the day after Syril himself is killed, and the day before Bix leaves and K-2SO is re-animated. I also wonder whether Vel is implied to be thinking a lot more about the bigger picture these days, as she is probably still struggling to make sense of Cinta’s death.
It’s a bit disheartening also to see a majority of YouTube reactors completely miss not only the significance of the blaster but not even recognise poor Melshi.