*Episode premise spoilers*
This is a first: an episode of Andor that Diego Luna isn’t in. We’ve had episodes that are light on Cassian or where he’s less prominent, but we’ve never had one entirely without him before. Because we’ve gotten this far, I still want to review the episode, just for the sake of completion.
On Coruscant, it looks like Luthen’s luck may have finally run out—after years of searching and chasing leads, Dedra Meero is onto him. With Luthen in a perilous position, Kleya readies herself to get to him at all costs.
Getting Luthen and Dedra face-to-face in a room is great. As you can imagine, the dialogue is killer, and both actors are at the top of their game. I especially like this line, showing us Dedra’s assessment of Luthen: “You don’t want freedom. You want chaos, chaos for everyone but you.”
Really, though, this episode is a showcase for Kleya. We’ve seen more of her out of the gallery this season, and this story puts her in what amounts to a full-blown mission. It shows us what she’s capable of, in every sense of the word. Elizabeth Dulau’s acting is superb throughout—she’s so good at showing how Kleya puts on and drops the mask of her hasty cover identity, and she’s especially wonderful in her final scene of the episode.
It's another episode where most of the action is confined to a single setting/storyline. Here, the only scenes not set on Coruscant are the flashbacks giving us Kleya and Luthen’s backstory together. Their dynamic has been fascinating from the very beginning. Here’s another banger of a line, from Luthen as young Kleya longs to fight back against the Empire: “All you know now is how much you hate. You bank that, you hide that, you keep it alive ‘til you know what to do with it.” Fantastic!
I’m not gonna lie, though. This is a strong episode, but it’s a little soured for me that Cassian isn’t in it at all. I have my biases toward Diego Luna, clearly, so I know it isn’t entirely objective. And while Andor is the name of the show, it’s always been about the creation of the Rebellion as much as it’s been Cassian’s story. But I do think Cassian’s journey has gotten somewhat lost in the shuffle this season, a byproduct of all they’re trying to cram into such a limited number of episodes.
Season 1 of the show is fascinating in how far it takes us from the Cassian of Rogue One, but over the course of that season, we’re allowed to see the hints of the man he’ll become—is becoming. We get to see the start of that transformation playing out in front of our eyes, and I can see the lines drawn between season 1 Cassian and Rogue One Cassian. This season, though, I can’t feel that trajectory as well. Although Diego Luna consistently turns in masterful work, the story has rarely been drawing those lines.
There are two episodes left, and since they’ll be leading directly into Rogue One, I suppose Cassian while have already arrived at the end of that journey by the next time we see him, but we won’t really know how we got there. While I still think Andor is an incredible show and this season has given us some brilliant scenes and stories, I worry that its interest in giving us Cassian Andor’s journey has waned.
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