#rix road

I won't have peace. I'll be worried about you all the time.

One single thing will break the siege.

Remember this.

I just finished watching the first season for... I've really lost count. I choose an analysis of episode 1.12, where Cassian sees Clem's stone and has a brief flashback. For such a short scene, Clem's words clearly carry enormous significance that helps Cassian at that precise moment; also, that smile when he touches the stone </3 (I really would have liked to see more moments of them).

Thank you for the Ask! What a beautiful little scene this is and I think it’s an important one for Cassian’s emotional development too, so this chance to write an analysis is an absolute gift!

In Aldhani, Cassian chose his adoptive father’s name as his alias and since the horrific flashback in ep 7 we’ve known that he’s been carrying a lot of conflicted feeling about Clem, for many years. I think the writers put this scene here to suggest that this is maybe the first time Cass has recalled a positive memory of Clem; a memory that isn’t coloured by his anger, grief and shock. The trauma of what he witnessed at age 13 would have been huge, especially as he probably blamed himself for the harsh punishment he received. It no doubt fed into his desire to try to keep his head down, and is added to the rich soup of his existing trauma from being taken from his home and sister. At the same time, using the name ‘Clem’ at the heist shows how much he loved his father and wanted him to be proud of him. I wonder if he ever found out that Clem, in contrast to Maarva, didn’t want to take him from Kenari that day. Cass has such a strained relationship with her, and the few flashbacks suggest to me that he might have been closer to Clem as they are shown together and without her. Maybe Clem won the boy’s trust and love in a way that Maarva didn’t, or at least hadn’t at that point. 

In this particular scene, Cassian has tears in his eyes but a slight smile on his face. I think that’s because the memory of Clem is helping him this time - not just hurting him. It’s as if he’s able to properly mourn his adoptive father… maybe for the first time? The switch, imo, is that Cassian has already done something brave and selfless: the Narkina 5 breakout (maybe you can also count Aldhani). He’s on his way to Bix’s and although he doesn’t yet know of her arrest there’s a sense that he’s here to make amends for his hopelessly self-centred previous behaviour (last seen in ep 7). Maybe to say: I have changed. I have become a better person. I was thrown onto the scrap heap by my own choices and those of others, but I can become something better, something powerful. Even the costume department have fun with this: he’s wearing a tailored coat here to give what designer Michael Wilkinson refers to as a ‘heroic silhouette’. It’s in contrast to the designs of the shapeless earlier coats such as the ep 7 one, which almost made it look as if he was trying to hide away.

Clem was a salvager. In the flashback he is cleaning a part that was disregarded and thrown away, and points out to young Cassian how valuable those pieces are now. “People don’t look down the way they should; they don’t look past the rust. But not us, eh?” And although Clem was talking literally at the time you can see the significance of this to Cassian, I think, as a metaphor. He was written off too. He’d written himself off and was happy to get by being less than he could be. But he’s cleaned up nicely and is ready to be put to use. Restored to full working order; valuable.

I share your wish that we had seen more of Clem. But I think he ‘haunts the narrative’ in s2 in the same way Maarva does, to the extent that when now I hear Cassian tell Jyn “Your father would have been proud of you” I think Clem is going to be on his mind there too, at the very end of his life.

“People don’t look down the way they should” could also be a nice reference to Cassian using the tunnel under the hotel later in the episode… while Dedra and the Imperials are shown looking up for him. Also a nice connection, deliberate or otherwise, to Nemik’s words: “Surprise from above is never as shocking as one from below.”

If you’re interested, here’s a little internal monologue I wrote about this scene a while back.

ADRIA ARJONA as BIX CALEEN in Andor episode 12, Rix Road