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Dedra & Kleya parallels; Cassian as Han’s drunk friend; Jyn Erso spinoff: more highlights from Starfury Invasion - Diego Luna and Elizabeth Dulau panel

1. The most emotionally difficult scene to film? For Elizabeth: the hospital scene with Luthen. She did little preparation as she wanted the emotional impact to be real for her so walked into the room and let her instincts carry her. Diego said that while Cassian has so many losses, the loss of Maarva was very painful to have to go through, especially with the music and for him to have to witness it from afar and not be able to participate.

2. Diego was asked about a Jyn Erso series or movie with Felicity Jones - “Yes, that would be very cool!” … “obviously I would say yes because I’m ‘audience’ first… I’m a fan.” He added that there are amazing stories that are possible about the characters in Rogue One because it is more about an event and we don’t know much about the people behind it. But he indicated that Jyn is the character who we do have a fair bit of information about already in the film thanks to the flashback scenes to her family.

3. Elizabeth’s favourite costume was the blue velvet dress Kleya wore to the party in 2.06. ‘Chic and dangerous’ - like Kleya herself. It “had a little tail” but didn’t get much airtime. Diego mentioned how obsessed he is with costuming, adding that his mother was a costume designer and how each costume tells a story, even when the narrative doesn’t have the time. The Narkina 5 outfits he compared with “white envelopes” that you have to put yourself in and immediately become just a number. But he narrowed down on Cassian’s jackets because they helped keep him warm because shooting in the UK is ‘freezing’ and they were ‘a good ally’. He expressed yet more venom re “freezing and raining” Blackpool and admiration for the extras wearing shorts. Re. the ending of episode 11: “It’s a very silent scene… because I couldn’t open my mouth’ because he was just so cold.

4. They were asked about what their characters would be doing in a different timeline (as per the Lego series). Elizabeth said this would be tricky as Kleya absolutely lives for and embodies the rebellion - that even she wouldn’t know what she could be without it after being raised by Luthen to embrace it. She did suggest that she would still have a no-nonsense attitude and be ‘bossing people around’, whatever she might be doing. Diego imagined Cassian as Han’s permanently drunk friend who lives in the bar because “it’s too cold outside” (bit of a theme emerging!)

5. They were asked if they had stolen something from the set. No! Elizabeth constantly asked for tiny things but was refused - but she was tempted with Kleya’s earrings. She praised the detail on set, eg. things in drawers, that were just there for their immersion as actors and would never be seen on screen. Diego emphasised that you do not steal from set as “I really wanted to be welcomed back” and after a little hesitation told of a friend who “broke the rules in casting” for Rogue One and was found out and not cast at all. So he now takes the rules about security very seriously. But did retell the story about being given the Bryar pistol prop and being stopped at the airport. It genuinely kicks back, lights, turns and is heavy. Rule from the start of s1: “make sure it feels real” and the props team did a fantastic job.

6. The young boy Cassian’s question re the effect of the ending (I did a separate post about that) being Bix and the baby.

7. Favourite SW characters from when they were children and would they put them into Andor if they could? - Elizabeth is fascinated by Anakin and his journey but is glad that they steered clear of showing him though. Diego ‘grew up having nightmares with Darth Vader’ and spoke about the reveal at the end of Rogue One. But he loved working with ‘regular people’ characters for the show so no, he would not have liked Vader to be in it.

8. Diego was asked about when he was cast in Rogue One and his reaction to the ending. He told the story of the long 4-5 months of getting cast from the first meeting with Gareth Edwards through to the final confirmation. He was shooting somewhere in Europe, got very drunk that night, looked “very pleased” the next morning and had lots of fun making up stories about why (family friendly audience here but in other interviews he’s gleefully talked about saying things like “I got laid last night!”) His father, however, was unimpressed with the news (just saying “Okay…?!”) because as far as he was concerned ‘if you’re not doing theatre you’re wasting your time”. Re the ending - there were lots of rumours about that changing and the ending reshooting but when he was cast he knew that would be it (ie that everyone dies).

9. Elizabeth also talked about being told she’d been cast (her first job!) and apparently told her friends/family “It’s part of a franchise you’ve definitely heard of but I can’t tell you what it is”. She had had a couple of auditions but they were still wavering about her and her agent said - ‘They need to know you can walk onto that set and be OK and able to handle the pressure… so walk into your next audition like you are the dog’s bollocks” (this is a very British expression - “the best there is”). And she was then told it would be at Pinewood - and with Stellan Skarsgård. Lots of praise for him for meeting her first for a coffee and putting her at her ease ‘because he has that magic’. She only found out about Kleya’s precise backstory just a month before s1 came out - had a conversation with TG when he went over it all. Elizabeth thinks that there’s a ‘beauty and love to their story but also something horrifying and dark’ so she loved all the contradictions.

10. What resonated with them in the scripts? Elizabeth - this is unlike anything she had read and apparently TG mentioned Kleya’s eyes at about 15 different points throughout the s1 scripts. The dialogue itself is “brilliantly sparse” - every word has to be there so you have to work hard (which is also a gift for an actor) because your ‘internal life’ has to be so clear. Diego agreed and added that TG’s first ally is the production designer - it’s so much easier as an actor to envision a scene on the page if everything has been worked through first - even something as simple as where a character is in a room and which door they would use (because they are closest to it) So he writes for a specific space and you don’t have to interpret that when acting or blocking the scene. Normally he would need to invent a backstory but on Andor it was all worked already and it’s wonderful that “there’s a logic” to the scenes. (I think this is what Tony Gilroy meant by the scripts being ‘director and actor proof’)

11. Elizabeth was asked about the parallels between Dedra and Kleya - said she didn’t pick up this when filming but did when watching the show (had seen others pick up on the found family link between Cassian and Kleya too). Dedra is the way she is because of her particular upbringing but added that she believed people in her situation can also find their own path ‘so maybe there is scope for Dedra’. Diego laughed at this and pointed out Denise’s very different attitude at the previous panel: “Elizabeth wants to give hope to people but Denise is like “NO”!” :)

1. Method acting … Denise is not a fan. Janus Metz (director of the 3rd block) wanted to lock Denise in the room to ‘get into it’ for Dedra’s breakdown scene - she said “nah”, got the camera operator in there with her and they did the scene in three beats. Idea is that it’s a ten second break down but then she’s fine. So it’s - Choking collar, shaking hand, straightens herself up… ready to face the world again when the door opens. They elaborated later - Robert Emms said that getting too into a process is like trying to eliminate the leap of faith when acting - sometimes you just have to take the leap into the darkness. Denise added that only rich white men do method acting these days (!)

2. Denise addressed a rumour that a leaked shot from the filming showed Dedra in armour - was this ever in the script? No, never. She was told everything on day one of the whole arc. There WAS going to be a baby Dedra episode but that was the only victim of the cuts and “I didn’t care much as that wouldn’t have been me in it anyway”, lol . Did address the supposed inconsistency re the Empire’s age: Dedra calls it a “Kinderblock” because she’s been brainwashed. In her mind, it’s always been that rather than the republic orphanage it used to be.

3. It was Kyle’s first time hearing the cat attack anecdote that inspired the fight and Denise did an excellent impression of Diego Luna telling it. She also did a really great impression of Tony Gilroy, in connection with expanding the writing to fit the brilliance of the acting in season 1 - as with Genevieve - “You’ve got a *fucking Steinway* to play on!!”. Denise was asked also about the ‘Hannibal Lecter’ role mooted for Dedra in a Kleya and Vel spinoff where they track down Imperials with her help and Denise was cynical that Dedra would ever want to help as she is so deeply brainwashed - “I don’t think Dedra is going to unlearn any of that… it would take a LONG time to get to the core of her” But she did say that she’d be interested if - and only if – Tony Gilroy were writing it. They were both so impressed with the scripts, especially the ‘unfilmables’ in italics. “It makes your work as an actor so much easier“ (Kind of the same point as Elizabeth, but with a different conclusion ). They got sent all the scripts; Robert only got those with his scenes.

4. Denise repeated the difference in her mind between the Empire as a “gang” and the Rebellion as a “tribe”. Thinking of the parallels and differences between Dedra and Kleya, she commented that “fascism hurts you in order to join” while the tribe finds you at the time that you need it. Kyle expanded that Syril is very deeply affected by the actions of others. He has a conscious awareness of what he’s done to affect others too - his “heart was opened up by living among the Ghorman people”. But he did not change enough to want to join the rebellion. It’s extremely difficult to change sides. He’s too disillusioned by the Empire to want to immediately join ‘another structure’ because that would require a LOT of work and Syril just wants out. It’s relatively easy to leave one side if the trauma is there… not so easy to join the other side. That takes MORE than trauma for that to happen.

5. Syril and Dedra are really hard to play “Because they’re weird and we’re not weird” (!) . When he says “If I said this was the greatest day of my life, would it ruin everything?” she genuinely doesn’t know how to process it. It was the most complex moment for Denise to act. She’s ‘narrating her feelings’ there by saying “It’s good to see you happy”. Dedra ‘doesn’t know what’s happening in her body… doesn’t know how to hold him being happy”. In a healthy relationship she might have hugged him. But if becomes about what’s going on for HER, not him.

6. Kathryn Hunter was a joy to work with - she’s “Playful and egoless”. Could have had that scene as Dedra steamrollering an old woman but instead Kathryn played her as “lighting up”- impressed and respectful of Dedra standing up to her. “Two deeply sociopathic narcissistic women” - this makes the scene more interesting than the one line on the page.

7. Kyle: Syril’s journey is one from child to adult. He has very delayed growth. He’s never had individuation from his mother - this is the journey he goes on. He would never dream of standing up to her - . There’s also an absence of leadership. His mother subsumed the two roles of father and mother… but this warped her and it became toxic (presumably because of her bitterness towards Syril’s father). He has NO male role models (no mention of Uncle Harlo!). Only the Empire, and its model as a ‘father figure’ is the “achievement only” one. So Syril thinks in terms of achievement and reward. This is all behind the rage in that attack on Cassian. The spider as a gift is a representation of the devouring mother - they’re survivors but they’re locked in this bleak tiny flat. The tears at the end of ep 8 - she loved him. She has nothing now. Syril therefore shows the danger of having just one set of ideas in your upbringing… and how you need an open heart. Community. It’s not trauma that does this. But he still loves Eedy and she loves him - it just becomes toxic because of the isolation. It’s just the two of them. The bleak little apartment.

8. Dedra’s ruthlessness - she deliberately selected Syril, early on, as the one to go to Ghorman as a mole because she knew he trusted her and would believe the lie. At the same time, Denise said that Dedra absolutely did not want the Ghorman project. Didn’t elaborate…

9. What was improvised apart from Syril’s bed flopping? Denise improvised the smile in the mirror! Robert (lots of dry humour despite the poor guy struggling with losing his voice) - “my death was improvised. Lonni was meant to live but I did such a good improv they changed the script”. Robert also revealed that Lonni’s moustache is fake. It was apparently really irritating.

10. Who would they be in an alternative SW universe? Denise would ‘like a go on Han Solo” (!!!) (she has finally seen A New Hope) . Kyle said he could see Syril hanging out with the Ewoks. Robert said he’d be one of the oiled up people chained to Jabba (no, no mention of Diego Luna in this context !) Dedra and Syril would also apparently have liked to visit Mon’s house ‘especially the plates”

11. What would you say to your characters if you could? Robert to Lonni: “You’re fucked, mate!” Kyle to Syril: “Chill the fuck out!”. Denise to Dedra: “You’re a fucking evil bitch!” Another stupid question about whether they would ‘rather fight a zombie the size of a chicken or a chicken the size of a human “ (or something) - Kyle chose the chikcen ‘I don’t wanna fuck around with Zombies’ but a visibly fading Denise said she wasn’t answering that and said “I’m too tired for that shit” (lol).

12. A rather sad thing from Robert: Lonni views Luthen as a father figure of a kind. He had an invented backstory about Lonni’s father being a rebel and Lonni wanting to honour him in this way. He also could never make up his mind whether Lonni’s wife knew he was a spy or not.

13. Robert worked with the same production designer - Luke Hull - on Chernobyl. He said that the powerstation control room and the ISB room were very similarly immersive - and this a great for actors. His next film is called ‘The Choral’ (you can see him playing piano in the trailer) - he was always going to be a musician before he came an actor.

14. Kyle is currently in a play called Romans, which explores toxic masculinity. Denise is relishing playing nice people at the moment… her next stage role being in High Noon, in the Grace Kelly role. (She didn’t mention the Narnia casting)

The final photo here – I think it’s of the exact moment when they were asked the chicken versus zombie question. Robert is mid-blink rather than nodding off but it captures Denise’s in increasingly deep “what the actual fuck??” expression at some of these audience questions. (Diego Luna’s agent was vetting those asked of him and I bet these three were wishing they had that kind of clout :) )

It’s fascinating to watch Luthen play certain characters like a fiddle and in season 1 he is an absolute master of it. It’s seen clearly in the way he uses different methods according to the character.

He fully exploits Cassian’s anger against the Empire when they first meet, and when he realises that this isn’t enough to guarantee him an operative for Aldhani (one he clearly thinks is indispensable) he offers payment. The two scenes in eps 3 and 4 play like one continuous one, and it’s clear that his words set Cassian on the path to joining the rebellion even if it needs encountering other characters and experiences to get him to the “Kill me or take me in” stage, and much more again to get him to the man of Rogue One.

With Vel, Luthen exploits her ambition to lead and prove herself as a leader. He presents Cassian’s presence on her team as a paid mercenary (something she is instructed to keep from the others) as a fait accompli and brushes off her concerns with a mixture of direct imperative (“You take him in or you call it off”), reassurance and encouragement (“It’s good to hear you say that!”), and emotional blackmail (“We need a win, Vel! Failure would be devastating!”).

With Mon, he’s different again. There’s a little disdain mixed in that she’s not yet suffering for the cause as much as she could be, clearly seen in the way he seemingly dismisses the for-her stressful situation with the PORD bringing increased Imperial scrutiny of her accounts. He doesn’t even seem to care enough to remember that she hasn’t yet had the meeting with Tay Kolma, and in retrospect that seems manipulative too. He needs her, for the money and for political leadership in the longer term, but she is a lot more trapped than she would like to admit and he isn’t afraid to remind her of that. This comes to a head with the superb “People will suffer” - “That’s the plan!” exchange in 1.07.

Luthen exploits Saw’s paranoia, along with his simple desire for equipment. He’s also sometimes very honest with him, as he is with everyone he manipulates at certain times: the truth can manipulate as much as a lie. Luthen makes it very clear that he is the more ruthless out of the two of them and that both impresses and horrifies Saw. Perhaps that last scene where he sows the doubts about even Two-Tubes’ loyalties is the final straw for any further collaboration. But it’s also the one where Luthen’s priority is Saw’s survival so he will do anything it takes to convince him not to join the doomed Kreegyr raid.

Lonni is the most trapped of all and perhaps this is why Luthen is honest enough to give him the sacrifice monologue. Yes, I think that is also a little manipulative. But I also think it’s from the heart. Both can be true. It’s a lesson Cassian learns too, with his monologue to the wavering Niya at Sienar in 2.01.

What’s interesting is what shifts in season 2. Mostly, Luthen is presented as simply less able to manipulate others in the way he used to, because of either having taken things too far in the past or because he is ‘found out’. The latter is seen most clearly when he attempts to come between people who care about each other: Cassian & Bix, and Vel & Cinta. This drives them eventually to desert him for a more community-based structure of rebellion on Yavin. It also creates deep suspicion about his methods. Vel in particular is clearly initially reluctant to toast him even two years on from losing Cinta.

“I don’t know much, Mon, but I know what I owe you,” he says to her in their last ever meeting, where he surprises her outside the Senate in 2.09 - he is without his gallery disguise and instead appears as he usually does with Lonni, indicating he rushed straight here with the news about Bail’s corrupted team. By this stage, she doesn’t trust him. “Do you remember my old friend, Tay Kolma?” she says pointedly, “How quickly you decided he was a risk”. I think she knows he was right but is realistically frightened here that he is more concerned about the cause than her as a person; that tension has pervaded all of their encounters. Luthen acknowledges that his methods create distrust, and I think he also realises the limits of them. Maybe he is starting to change. Wilmon Paak regards him with respect and apparent affection, going by the way Cassian breaks the news of his death. Still, Luthen did once again manipulate Lonni - with the promise of safety before a deadly blaster bolt.

But as Cassian puts it to the council in the finale: “When I say I know Luthen, I mean I know the good and the bad. I know what was wrong with him. I had a front row seat on that… but none of that can take away what he did and how hard it was.” Cassian doesn’t have any other ammunition for this argument, no hard evidence either way, but his ad hominem defence shows the conclusion he has come to after years of working for Luthen. The cause was everything to him, so why would he have risked everything to share this information from his agent if he did not believe it to be true.

Maarva’s death in season 1 ep 11 was one of the most unexpected - not because we didn’t think that she wasn’t going to die at all but because it seemed so anti-climactic: we were expecting at least one big final moment from her. Of course we get it, but posthumously: the incredible speech she delivers in the season finale (pic 1), leading her own funeral with words of community, inspiration and a call to revolution. Just as poignant and more personal: her final words for her adopted son, delivered so movingly by Brasso just before Cassian embarks on his first solo rescue mission and really needs to hear how proud his mother was of him, especially after literally just missing a last chance to be with her…. He tries to call home from Niamos after breaking out of Narkina 5, and tells Xanwan: “Tell \[Maarva\] she’ll be proud of me, and I’ll get back as soon as I can” before Xan has a chance to tell him that she literally died less than a day ago.

In season 2, Maarva is only mentioned by name in the script twice: both times in conversation between Cassian and Bix, and I think that’s particularly telling - Bix is Cassian’s oldest surviving Ferrixian friend in addition to being his partner/wife, and it’s clear in s1 too that Bix (who has lost her parents) would have also been very close to Maarva. Ferrix is as much family as community. Still, both s2 mentions are interesting in context.

The first is in the testy but realistic argument in the safe house in 2.04. Torn between feeling crippled by her PTSD and desperately wanting not to be over-protected, Bix tells Cassian: “I’m not Maarva, I’m not your sister!” - meaning seemingly being, ‘Don’t treat me as something to feel guilty about because you’re afraid you can’t protect me’. Bix acknowledges that every goodbye might be the last in a way that Cassian is still deeply averse to. It also recalls his own complicated feelings about Maarva: yes, she saved his life but she also took him away from his sister.

The second mention is at the start of the Force healer scene in 2.07. Cassian scornfully notes “You’re lucky Maarva’s not here - she hated Force healers!” and we find out that Maarva apparently saw one ten years ago and came away with a very low opinion of them.

(Cont. below)

There are a couple of interesting later echoes from one of my favourite sequences in 2.04, when Cassian and Bix discuss their most recent (off-screen) mission - where Cassian killed an Imperial soldier apparently just because he saw Bix’s face.

Bix’s nightmare of the tortured dead soldier ^

Bix is clearly so haunted by what happened that it’s crept into her PTSD-fuelled recurring nightmares about Doctor Gorst. In the one at the start of 2.04 where she sleep walks and appears to encounter Gorst torturing the soldier, we see not only his corpse in the chair but also a brief glimpse of what appears to be part of the uniform he was wearing. It’s the helmet and armour of an Imperial Security Trooper - and specificially of the kind we have seen already during the riot on Ferrix and that we’ll soon see again - on Palmo Plaza.

Imperial security troopers on Ferrix ^

On Ghorman, we see how exactly how young the cadets are. The somewhat sympathetic Sergeant Bloy clearly feels protective of them, reacting with horror when Captain Kaido orders him to get them patrolling into the crowd. “They’re green, sir. They’re useless”. Kaido simply says: “I see Imperial uniforms, Sergeant.” So they are sent out into Palmo square. In the still here, one of them can be seen clearly just before his riot gear visor slips down over his face. (Possibly an accident, but a great choice to leave it in the edit if so)

^ Under orders from Kaido, Bloy prepares his “green” cadets for facing the crowd in Palmo Plaza. He has no idea they will be lambs to the slaughter. In the next second here, that cadet’s visor slips down.

Cassian and Bix are both affected by the killing of that one soldier, even though both of them have killed before. From the visuals and dialogue we can probably conclude that he was as young as these troopers on Ghorman, who Bloy couldn’t even bring himself to describe as ‘men’. Bix refers to the soldier at one point as a ‘boy’. The Gorst figure, presumably a manifestation of Bix’s own tortured conscience, taunts her with the details. “His family will never find him” suggests his body was dumped somewhere remote or completely destroyed. “Not much of a soldier, was he?” suggests his youth and also that he probably died ignobly - begging for his life, maybe even crying or trying to run away. “I know you wanted him to live” suggests that Bix possibly argued about it with Cassian at the time.

^ As she cleans their weapons Bix confronts Cassian again over the killing: “ I can’t stop seeing his face”.

Later in the episode, the couple debate what happened, with Cassian attempting to be cold and detached about it - and Bix trying her hardest to move on too, but it’s clearly deeply troubled her. Particularly the idea that she is the reason for the killing: “You didn’t kill that boy because we are at war, you killed him because he saw my face!” Cassian’s defensiveness causes him to repeat himself: “Hey, he was a threat. He was a soldier. Bix, you put on the uniform, you take your chances”… and a little later: “He was a soldier. He was a threat. He was an Imperial threat. You and I are here now because he’s dead. It had to be done.”

“It had to be done” is also what Kleya will later say to Vel, concerning what she did for Luthen. Vel wryly responds: “It gets tiring saying that, doesn’t it.”

^ Vel can see how much Kleya is in shock here over causing another necessary death… that of Luthen.

This is one main difference between the rebels and the Empire. Both do ‘terrible things’ for the fight. But the rebels feel the horrible weight of it, of taking lives even when it was a ‘necessary’ choice. “It fades,” Cassian eventually concedes to Bix after she tells him that she can’t stop seeing the soldier’s face. “I want to say it goes away forever but I’d be lying.”

While the rebels are beating themselves up in this way, the higher echelons of the Empire spares its soldiers no thought at all. On Kaido’s orders, the sniper coldly selects one of these young cadets, one of these “boys”, and deliberately shoots him dead in a false flag move to kickstart the Ghorman Massacre. The cadets become as much victims as the crowd, and of course this will play into the propaganda on the Imperial news. Exactly as designed by Krennic, and Palpatine. 

Will it make Kaido feel uncomfortable? No. His concern is that he has “a comfortable ride home”.

We got a chance to ask questions in person and when one young boy got to the lectern he said “My name is Cassian…” - and immediately Diego went “Your name is WHAT?” in a delightfully exaggerated way. Turns out they had actually met at the photo opportunity session the day before. Diego added that this is the first time he has ever met a Cassian, “ …from this galaxy, at least”.

Cassian asked a great question and I remember one part of the wording exactly because it was so cute : What is the effect of ending Andor with “Bix and his son rather than something more insane like the Emperor?”

Diego gave a really thoughtful answer, basically saying that the baby embodies hope, gives meaning to the line “Rebellions are built on hope” and that although “the events of Rogue One are very sad” at the same time “it’s beautiful to know there is a kid who knows he had a father who gave up everything for the betterment of a community“ and how proud they would be. He said also that he liked stories like this “without a definitive ending”, where you could imagine something like the child becoming “somebody really useful for his community” because of the love and support they will grow up with. As for Bix: “She’s as good a mother as you could get!”

Perfect ingredients all round for a genuinely heartwarming moment. From one of the youngest attendees, I soon afterwards met probably one of the oldest, a wonderful 78-year-old woman who was also attending her very first fan event of this kind. Another one completely obsessed with this show. We have friends everywhere!

Back in season 1, Maarva passed on - via Brasso - beautiful words of faith in her wayward adoptive son: “Tell him, he knows everything he needs to know, and feels everything he needs to feel - and when the day comes when those two pull together he will be an unstoppable force for good”.

In season 2, Cassian moves step by painful step closer to that day, the one where he can walk out across Yavin towards whatever destiny might be awaiting him. He’s self-assured. He’s known love and loss, but he’s also learned to balance his emotions and his reason. Bix, knowing that his love for her was tipping the balance too far towards emotion and that he would give up everything if he gave in to the old fear of losing her, removes herself from the equation and Cassian goes into Rogue One able to love without it disabling him, without it clouding his judgement. He has a desire to save people but it’s no longer entirely centred on a desire to assuage his own guilt about his sister. It’s balanced with reason. He can calculate risks and act on them. Kill quickly, if necessary. He knows what is most important, that there is a cause larger than himself. That his own death might be necessary if it saves countless others, but that he should still hope to live for a better future. He’s also strongly intuitive - intuition itself being a reason-emotion combination. He knows when to trust, whether people or to his instincts. This will lead to him disobeying his order to kill Galen Erso and placing his trust in Jyn (and we’ve seen him do that already with Kleya). These are decisions showing a perfect balance between his reason and his emotions.

In contrast, Dedra fails to find that balance. An incredulous Krennic finds it ‘terribly perplexing’ that Dedra could “balance such passionate competency with the mindless decision” to confront Luthen alone. He genuinely doesn’t believe her, and it’s so telling that Dedra, who was praised by Partagaz for her individualism in her dogged pursuit of Axis in Season 1, is now condemned for having let her feelings get in the way. “Passionate competency” is a perfect description … depending on the exact balance, this could be a positive quality. In s1 it was. But in her blind pursuit of Axis in the final arc, seemingly fresh from the raw and no doubt unfamiliar feelings from Ghorman and the loss of Syril, she seems to have made the most basic of mistakes: not realised that what to her was an irrelevant by-product of her search - the leaked Death Star files - was evidence against her of the most damning kind. Her pursuit of Axis became a dangerous obsession in the same way of Syril’s obsession with Cassian.

I’m underway with a new series of regular posts on r/andor some of which I’ll be sharing on here.

……

Continuing my series of analyses of Andor characters’ first (and - briefly- last) appearances.

One of the amusing things about watching new YouTube reactions to Andor is the way many almost immediately call out “WALL-E!” at the opening shots of the little robot as he moves through the scrap yard on the edge of town towards the hulk of the old Andor family ‘hauler’ (where Cassian likes to sleep when he doesn’t want to go home to Maarva). The first appearance of the droid is a dialogue-free scene accompanied by one of Nicholas Britell’s most brilliant compositions: a delightfully quirky mechanical sounding piece that perfectly sums up the little red droid who immediately wins our hearts with his combination of vulnerability and pluckiness. There’s WALL-E but a variety of other influences too.

Cont.