★ apo★

We pick up quite a bit of new information about Cassian in this scene. He’s had multiple “women” and he’s likely told a few that he was from Kenari rather than Fest as per his official documents. He’s tellingly defensive of Bix over any of those women (taking real offence when B2EMO appears to be dropping her name into the list of suspects… he’s mistaken, the droid is just trying to start his message). Most importantly, although he was last seen sleeping in a ruined ship this is the place he regards as ‘home’. It’s only on returning to the scene that we have the full picture though: the ship he’s been sleeping in is the old family hauler that took him from Kenari when he was nine. 13 years ago his adoptive father Clem, Maarva’s husband, was murdered by the Empire and Cassian himself was thrown into youth prison for three years for trying to avenge his death, followed by an unclear time of military conscription on Mimban where as per Luthen “you lived because you ran”. Most importantly of all, we will soon discover that Maarva is the one who forcibly sedated young Kassa and took him from his home world; an act that undoubtedly saved his life but also one that took him away from his sister.

Knowing these later details adds a huge punch to this first scene because it explains so much of the very uneasy dynamic between Maarva and Cassian here. On a first viewing, she probably comes over as a strict but fair figure who is rightly concerned about her adult son as he’s clearly been in trouble before - absolutely no-one on Ferrix so far has seemed pleased to see him. But knowing the full context makes so much sense of the details here and especially the one that really puzzled me on a first viewing.

For the first minute or so Maarva doesn’t mention the bulletin and instructs B2EMO to keep quiet. So she’s actually setting up a kind of test to see if Cassian will tell her of his own accord that he’s “messed up”. She’s disappointed when he doesn’t but the fact she was hoping he might confess and confide suggests to me that his lying to her is quite habitual. Cassian does indeed employ an overly casual manner as he lies to her. Diego Luna made the great choice to have Cassian head to the kitchen and casually raid the cookie jar or whatever while he’s lying, apparently something the actor used to do in real life when young to make lying to his father easier. The main point is, Maarva seems really used to it. And they both know it! Just like a child he tries to keep up the act even when he knows he’s likely ‘busted’ in some way - that really awkward peck on the cheek and the cautious “Don’t you look comfortable!” suggests to me his guilty conscience; that in total contrast he is feeling reeeeeally uncomfortable here.

The whole scene makes sense to me in this context: Maarva is still feeling conflicted about what she did all those years ago and feels that Cassian is probably at least a little resentful towards her still. Looked at harshly, she is at least partly the reason for his trauma regarding leaving his sister behind. But the flip-side of that is that she saved his life and has loved him unconditionally. Because of his behaviour, behaviour she might at least partly blame herself for, her love shows most often in worrying about him. As she will later remind him: “That’s just love - nothing you can do about that”. Yet I think she’s also feeling genuine disappointment in him, and though she’s obviously not going to explicitly say that it’s something that they both silently acknowledge in this scene. He’s in trouble. Yet again.

My main evidence for that last point is the way that Cassian alters the lie that he and Brasso worked out together into something much more likely to impress Maarva. “I was helping Pegla and tripped on a cable” is trying to tell her that he was doing something to help others rather than just get drunk with a friend. But the real elephant in the room is of course the fact that he went to Morlana 1 at all. When Maarva says in their final scene together “Stop searching for your sister” it tells us very elegantly, even if we didn’t know before, that Cassian has been going on searches like this and trying not to tell Maarva. Maybe because he doesn’t want to seem ungrateful to her. Maybe because he’s ashamed that he is so consumed by his past. Either way, it makes for a really complicated relationship in the present and rather sadly it’s not something that is resolved in their final scene together either. Cassian also clearly has mixed feelings on trying to take revenge on Clem. That was probably the start of Maarva’s decline and you can imagine Cassian blaming himself for fighting back as it effectively deprived Maarva of her adoptive son as well as her husband.

From a technical perspective, it’s a really well blocked scene. One early detail I like in this clip: Cassian deliberately putting his bandaged hand in his pocket before entering in the hope that his mother won’t spot it. Maarva’s home is quite sizeable but she’s static on her chair, with Cassian the one moving around her or attempting to escape to the kitchen and his bedroom. The atmosphere is cluttered and worn but quite cosy looking, yet we already know it’s cold in there from Brasso’s comment “Tell your mother she can afford to put the heating on”. Maarva appears both elderly and quite frail so it’s a surprise when she gets so forceful later in this clip. Fiona Shaw is effortlessly charismatic and you can sense at once that Maarva is in absolute command here, from her stern warning to poor B2EMO to her humorous outrage re Cassian’s love life: “There’s some whose names I don’t know!” In turn, Diego Luna plays Cassian as furtively evasive, nervous and - very tellingly - highly respectful, despite his lies.

This is a scene that works on so many levels but I do think that its main function is to establish how important Maarva is to Cassian. Just as with the scene with Bix there’s a lot of antagonism and confrontation in the actual dialogue, but also a clear signal of a very deep and long-standing bond. In short, Maarva is so upset in this scene because she loves Cassian dearly and is terrified that he’s going to get into serious trouble once again. And because Cassian loves her dearly too, he respects her and wants to shelter her from unpleasant truths - from the pain he so often seems to cause her. Unpleasant truths about the wanted bulletin and how deeply in the shit he yet again is, but also unpleasant truths about his behaviour more generally. He thinks he’s a disappointment to her and I think the harsh truth is that in many ways he is. That’s clear in the atmosphere from the end of the scene. He hates to admit that he “messed up” because he wants more than anything to make her proud of him. When he tries to get her to run away with him after the Aldhani heist he’s clearly expecting her to be proud that he’s “scored” a load of credits and I think that’s why she doesn’t have the heart at first to tell him that she’s not going. Later, when he tries to get a message through to her from Niamos he instructs Xanwan to tell her “She’ll be proud of me”.

He wants to earn her respect because he respects her so much. In this way, Maarva will stay with Cassian after her death - throughout Season 2 and all the way to Scarif, because one of the most moving ways in which Andor ‘reconfigures’ Rogue One is to makes us believe that when Cassian is attempting to comfort Jyn with the words “Your father would have been proud of you” he is very much thinking of his own complicated relationship with the parent figure who was so important to him, and whose faith that he would one day “be an unstoppable force for good” helped carry him through.

Last scene: Everyone on Ferrix respects Maarva. She’s a totemic character, despite her short amount of screen time. Choosing her exact final scene to mention here is tricky because her last on-screen appearance is posthumous: the hologram at her own funeral, inciting her beloved community to stand up to Imperial oppression. Her final words for Cassian are delivered posthumously as well, via Brasso, and together with “That’s just love” are some of the most beautifully moving expressions of faith and love that any parent could express for their child. Her last living appearance is a sad one: she has fallen trying to check the old flood gates under the hotel and she appears weak and frail as Bix and Brasso attempt to care for her in Cassian’s absence. But even there, her words live on with Cassian literally using those same tunnels to rescue Bix a week or so later, and in terms of wanting to be part of the rebellion Maarva is in a strange way doing exactly that at her own funeral: calling her beloved community to “Fight the Empire” and then the beautiful sight of her own funerary brick being whacked into the head of one of the oppressors. It’s just what she would have wanted.

All of these are also great examples of how a character can continue to “haunt the narrative”. Tony Gilroy has even said in one interview that the very last scene of the series shows Bix as Maarva, on a metaphorical level - Bix is hugely influenced by her too. Even the series title isn’t necessarily exclusive to Cassian.