*One spoiler for episode 1.*
Rolling right on through to episode 2 here! Very much a continuation of the premiere, although it introduces a few more characters and starts delving a little deeper into the backstory.
In the first episode, Cassian got into an altercation with a pair of Pre-Mor officers—if I have it right, Pre-Mor is a security contractor for the Empire. One of them wound up getting killed accidentally, and he shot the other in a panic. Now, he’s desperate to get off-planet and hide out, which means he needs money. He’s got something valuable to sell and a friend who can line up a buyer, but Syril Karn, the Pre-Mor deputy inspector, is on the hunt for someone matching his description.
Like I said yesterday, it’s interesting to see folks who are Empire-adjacent without actually being in the Empire, which seems to be the case with Pre-Mor. We’ve seen nary a storm trooper or imperial uniform so far, but the Empire’s influence is still felt everywhere. As for Pre-Mor, the characters we’ve met there run the gamut from rigid adherence to the rules (like Karn) to comfortable complacency/advantageous looking the other way (Karn’s superior.)
The show is choosing to show the flashbacks without translations for the Kenari dialogue, which means we do miss out on some of the detail, but all the major stuff is conveyed clearly enough through the action/visuals alone. Between that and some present-day references, we’re learning a bit more about Cassian’s home planet, whatever horrible thing happened there, and what caused him to say in Rogue One, “I’ve been in this fight since I was six years old.” Even just with the hints that we’ve gotten so far, you can tell it’s going to be wrenching.
The character I’ll introduce today is Maarva, played by Fiona Shaw (loved her so much as Mrs. Croft in the Amanda Root/Ciarán Hinds Persuasion.) Not sure if she’s Cassian’s adopted mother or a less official guardian. Either way, she worries about him and he doesn’t do much to reassure her. In the scenes they share, what immediately jumps out is her concern that the authorities are looking for a Kenari male—not just because they obviously mean Cassian, but for the way she forcefully asks who knows he’s from Kenari. It just adds to the intrigue surrounding the planet. We’ve seen other characters who haven’t even heard of it, so what in its past makes it dangerous to even acknowledge Cassian’s origins? It’s going to be awful, but I’m so curious to learn more.
I just love the way that Cassian is so different on this show and yet still recognizable as the man he’ll be in Rogue One. It doesn’t quite go as far as Tony Leung Chiu-wai between In the Mood for Love and 2046, but it’s still an impressive needle for Diego Luna to thread. At the moment, of course, Cassian really has his back to the wall, and we’re seeing all the ways he’s trying to deal with that. As he moves through the city, he’s constantly looking over his shoulder, bringing rat-in-a-maze energy. He’s hyper-focused on his goals, brimming with an urgency that he tries to keep a lid on, but sometimes it spills out.
I especially like watching him with Maarva. We don’t know the full story on them yet, but Luna definitely plays it like a loving yet disappointing son who doesn’t want to let on how badly he’s screwed up. I like the cheerful way he tries to distract from her worries, seamlessly launching into a lie about how he hurt his face and staying in constant motion as if she won’t suspect anything if he doesn’t give her the chance to. Even though she’s obviously too smart for that, it’s like he just can’t help himself. You can tell, in both the writing and the performance, that this is definitely a younger Cassian.
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