*Spoilers for episode 7.*
Oh man, and I thought “The Eye” was tense. For a “slow-moving” show, each episode is wound so tightly that you can feel the characters’ distress coming through the screen. This one is so good.
After pulling off the Aldhani heist and escaping, Cassian intended to run away somewhere and get lost, living off his payout from the job. But the Empire had other plans for him. After essentially being in the wrong place at the wrong time, he was sentenced to six years on a trumped-up charge. Now, at the Narkina 5 prison, he’s deep in the belly of the fascist Imperial machine. Meanwhile, on the outside, everyone is looking for him.
Seriously—other than Mon Mothma, everyone is searching for Cassian. Luthen is worried that he’s a loose end and has sent Vel and Cinta from the Aldhani mission to find/“take care of” him. Karn, stuck in a meaningless Imperial desk job, is still obsessed with bringing Cassian to justice in a way of restoring his former status. Dedra thinks he’s the key to finding Luthen, which will give her the spider at the center of the rebel’s web. And back on Ferrix, Cassian’s friends wonder where he is as they fret over Maarva’s ill health.
There honestly isn’t a bad subplot in the bunch. I really like seeing more of Vel and Cinta’s relationship as they hunt for Cassian. There’s a great conversation between them that offers so much insight into both of their characters. The whole situation with Cassian has Luthen off his game, and he tries to keep his mind off it by throwing himself into a meeting with another rebel, which gives a lot more shading to the current state of the Rebellion. Everything on Ferrix is really good, tense and emotional in the middle of a powder keg. Not as much Mon Mothma today, and there isn’t as much new ground being covered in her plot, but I really like the way the episode highlights contrasts by moving between her scenes and Cassian’s.
Dedra is still pushing up against Imperial bureaucracy to pursue her theories, and her path is finally starting to intersect with some of the civilians’. Up until now, she’s been almost sympathetic as we watch her be ignored as the smartest, most intuitive person in the room, but now we’re on the cusp of seeing how her investigation stands to hurt other characters we care about. We also get a meeting between her and Karn, and it’s so interesting to see how their drive manifests in such different ways.
Syril Karn is our character of the week. I’m not really familiar with Kyle Soller, who plays him, but he’s very effective as this officious little stick-in-the-mud. While Dedra bends rules in her determination to uncover what she believes to be a larger Rebel plot, Karn’s slavish adherence to the rules proved to be his undoing earlier in the season. He’s now bitter and demoted, a hard blow for someone as proud and ambitious as him, and he’s very much of the opinion that his reduced circumstances can be blamed 100% on Cassian Andor.
Little does he know, Cassian is already in prison, albeit under an assumed name and for a lesser charge that still gave him an outsized sentence. Everything about the Narkina 5 scenes is just so powerful. At the start of the episode, which follows immediately from his sentencing at the end of episode 7, Cassian is still doing anything he can to try and stop what’s happening, shouting that he’s just a tourist who’s done nothing wrong. But the second he gets on the prison transport, all the fight leaves him, and while he’s still utterly freaking out, it stays internal. You just see the panic in his eyes as the ship takes off.
Because this isn’t some action-packed prison-escape romp. This is prison. This is the Empire throwing people down a hole and leaving them there. Cassian doesn’t come in cocky, mouthing off to the guards or seizing his first opportunity to put up a fight and try to escape. This isn’t that type of story.
He doesn’t say a word, he doesn’t look at anybody funny, and even as he still observes everything around him, he keeps his head down. He is submitting, because he knows the guards have all the power and won’t hesitate to torture him if he steps one foot out of line. As he’s introduced to the prison, with its expectation of constant labor and the ever-present threat of severe punishment, you watch Cassian wrestling to come to terms with the idea that this is going to be his life for the next six years. Always under pressure, always in fear, stripped of any dignity or agency. All of it plays out on his face through Diego Luna’s tremendous performance.
Luna is just so, so incredible in this episode. You feel every inch of Cassian’s fear, pain, and despair. His shellshocked expression at the end of his first work shift is heartbreaking. I really appreciate Luna’s willingness to let us see how lost and hopeless Cassian is right now. There’s no need for him to be seen as the hero, that he’s someone who’s still in control of his circumstances. Instead, he portrays Cassian as utterly powerless, as someone who’s going to survive, not by defiance, but by doing the only thing he can do in this crucible of misery and dehumanization.
Earlier in the season, I compared the dichotomy between the Cassian of Andor and Rogue One to Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s similar navigation of Chow Mo-wan between In the Mood for Love and 2046. Well, I have to bring up Leung again. In my mind, he’s the reigning king of subtlety, but the more I watch this show, the more I realize how much Luna is telling us without dialogue. He’s an actor that I’ve liked for more than a decade, but it took me a while to figure out just how good he is, and that’s because he’s also an actor that you really need to pay attention to. There’s a lot that he keeps just under the surface, speaking volumes with his eyes or the tone of his voice or the way he carries himself. It’s masterful to watch, and once again, I have to thank my lucky stars that this show was created and continues to provide him with such stellar material to work with.
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