In the Flesh: Andor s2e01 'One Year Later'

“If I die tonight,” asks Imperial research technician Niya (Rachelle Diedericks), taking her first steps into the world of rebel action, “was it worth it?” Andor’s second season premiere leans hard on the dueling themes of the cost and method underpinning revolution, juxtaposing a rocky instance of grand theft starship and a traditional Chandrilan wedding slowly falling apart as well as the administrative woes of both the empire and its rebel foes. It’s a clever structure, contrasting and comparing with brusque efficiency and a wry sense of humor. On the one hand the bluster and timorous ass-kissing of the secret Imperial conference to plan the occupation and subjugation of Ghorman, a kind of interstellar Wannsee Conference, on the other the wild-eyed, leaderless chaos of the rebel partisans Cassian (Diego Luna) meets in his attempt to hand off his stolen TIE variant. 

Director Ariel Kleiman’s rendition of the Star Wars universe is sharp and bright, its colors distinct, its imagery stark. The opening shot of an Imperial maintenance bay is so white it practically burns itself into the viewer’s retinas. Cassian’s thrilling skin-of-his-teeth escape from the Sienar research facilities may be dark, but it’s unfailingly clear, and the sense of speed and terror Kleiman manages to elicit is the best the series has seen since Lucas’s magnificent podrace sequence in The Phantom Menace. Even the agricultural world where Bix (Adria Arjona), Brasso (Joplin Sibtain) and the rest of the Ferrix refugees are holed up incognito feels unfailingly real and interesting to look at. The grain waving in the gentle wind, the grimy machinery of the band’s farming equipment, the weathered faces of their friends and lovers. There’s nothing onscreen that wasn’t thought through and positioned with care.

It’s a visual approach which mirrors the incredible delicacy of each character’s position. Mon Mothma (Genievieve O’Reilly) smiles through the agony of pushing her daughter, Leida (Bronte Carmichael), into an arranged marriage with a gangster’s son as her faltering ally, banker Tay Kolma (Ben Miles), whines drunkenly about the hits his portfolio has taken since he started moving money for the Rebellion. The Ferrix crew wait for the hammer of an Imperial audit to fall on their heads. Uptight ISB agent Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) watches the schemes and bluster of her fellow conference members like an inbred designer dog contemplating getting its paws wet in the rain. Everything is ratcheting tighter and tighter, parts beginning to fail under the terrible pressure, but there is no relief in sight except the impossible pinhole of the empire’s defeat.