Spoiler Alert: This text comprises potential spoilers for Andor season two.
Andor’s second and last season concludes with a montage that gives us temporary glimpses of its characters’ final fates. Collection namesake Cassian Andor totally embraces his function as a insurgent chief as he strides by means of the Yavin IV compound and leaves for Kafrene, heading instantly into the occasions of 2016’s Rogue One. (Not surprisingly, one intelligent YouTuber has already spliced the Andor and Rogue One scenes collectively.)
Season two standout Kleya Marki, as soon as frightened of touring to Yavin IV due to her covert (and controversial) work with Luthen Rael, appears to lastly settle for her new residence. Dedra Meero has misplaced all the pieces; as soon as a rising star within the Imperial Safety Bureau, she’s now simply one other prisoner in an imperial gulag, and within the montage’s grimmest second, breaks down weeping at midnight. Lastly, Bix is again on the agricultural world of Mina-Rau. As she stands in the course of a golden subject, we study why she left Cassian as she comforts their younger baby and appears wistfully off into the space.
Accompanied by Brandon Roberts’s evocative rating, this kind of montage is probably the one method the sequence might’ve ended, giving us some measure of decision whereas nonetheless acknowledging that the revolt, and the battle, is much from over.
. . . Andor additional muddies the waters by making Perrin—to all exterior appearances, anyway—a good and respectable man.
The entire varied characters’ scenes are putting, however one second is especially haunting. After we see former imperial senator Mon Mothma now sitting amongst the rebels on Yavin IV, probably considering her life selections, we reduce to a shot of her husband Perrin, who’s hovering by means of the Coruscant skies in an aerial limo, a distant look on his face as nicely. One other girl is asleep beside him, although, her head on his shoulder and a bottle of alcohol in her lap. As he passes by means of the scene, Perrin takes a protracted drink, his total demeanor radiating disappointment and remorse.
It’s a far cry from how Perrin is depicted within the previous episodes. Whereas his spouse is a pushed and idealistic senator from the planet of Chandrila (who additionally occurs to be secretly funding the burgeoning Insurrection), Perrin is vacuous, flamboyant, and decadent. He totally enjoys the consolation and privilege afforded by his spouse’s wealth and political place and does his finest to keep away from something remotely disagreeable.
When Mon expresses political considerations, Perrin responds with a pained and annoyed “Should all the pieces be boring and unhappy?” When he will get chummy along with her political opponents, he dismisses her objections, saying “You’re on the boring finish of the desk. These individuals are enjoyable.” Perrin more and more turns into the epitome of an empty-headed fairly boy, and nowhere is that seen extra clearly then the toast he offers at their daughter’s extravagant wedding ceremony:
My hope is that you simply study to achieve previous this fixed cloud of unhappiness. Pleasure. Gaiety. Amusement. These are the hidden issues. The music buried beneath all that noise… Pleasure… However pleasure has no wind at its again. Pleasure is not going to announce its arrival. You’ll want to pay attention for it and be conscious of how fleeting and delicate it may be. However get your hands on these treasures. A second of pleasing sensation, the reminiscence of laughter and good firm, the consolation of a wonderful meal. And for me… For me, proper now, it’s the smile that I can’t disguise as I see these two younger folks sharing our best custom.
There may be some fact in Perrin’s speech. Laughter, good firm, a wonderful meal—these are all definitely price celebrating. And true pleasure can, certainly, be fleeting and hidden and should typically be sought out. However for all of its fact, Perrin’s speech in the end reveals his shallowness. It reveals that for him, consolation and pleasure are all that actually matter; they’re the one issues price chasing and pursuing in life. Such a pursuit essentially precludes discomfort, wrestle, and hardship, all of that are tough to keep away from if one’s making an attempt to stay a life that the majority would take into account good and ethical. And if one’s making an attempt to overthrow a galactic tyrant and his fascist forces, then such issues might be an absolute necessity.
Mockingly, Perrin wasn’t at all times like this. Earlier within the sequence, we study that he was the “academy firebrand” in his youth, one thing of a rabble rouser. However someplace alongside the best way, that fireside, that spirit, that revolt leeched its method out of Perrin’s spirit, and he surrendered himself to hedonism.
Perrin isn’t depicted as an outright villain. He’s no “house Nazi” like Dedra Meero, Orson Krennic, Lio Partagaz, or Dr. Gorst, neither is he obsessive about chilly bureaucratic element just like the tragically single-minded Syril Karn. Certainly, it’s not so laborious to think about how Perrin may need relinquished his firebrand standing. As he grew older, maybe he noticed which method the galactic winds have been blowing and, reasoning that there’s nothing he can personally do to forestall Imperial oppression, determined to make one of the best of a nasty state of affairs. He merely opted to “attain previous this fixed cloud of unhappiness,” because it have been, and eat, drink, and be merry as finest he might. Or maybe he simply received too used to the comfy lifetime of a senator’s consort, full of stunning folks, lavish events, and an in depth proximity to energy—and who can blame him?
However Andor’s ethical imaginative and prescient is sort of clear: Perrin’s complacency is damning in its personal method. He may not be plotting unrest and slaughter on Ghorman, undermining the democracy of the Imperial senate, instituting terror and totalitarianism, or constructing an planet-destroying superweapon, however neither is he the type to care about such “boring and unhappy” issues or converse out towards them. Not as long as they don’t intrude together with his comfy life, that’s.
(Apparently, a scene was deliberate by which Perrin confronts Mon and divulges that he did, in actual fact, find out about her rebellious actions and saved silent, anyway—proving his worth and trustworthiness if she would have given him an opportunity. Though the scene was in the end reduce from the script, it definitely would have added some attention-grabbing depths to each Perrin’s character and his relationship with Mon.)
It’s simple to take a look at Perrin and Mon and say that we’d unquestionably be just like the courageous senator. We’d clearly converse out towards tyranny and readily sacrifice all the pieces for a simply trigger. However Andor’s forceful storytelling and ethical readability implore us to actually take into account the reality of that. For starters, it’s fairly clear that Mon’s sacrifices, like these of Luthen, Kleya, Cassian, and Vel, have been each pricey and really removed from simple. (Luthen gave his life, Kleya misplaced her father, and each Cassian and Vel misplaced their lovers.)
However Andor additional muddies the waters by making Perrin—to all exterior appearances, anyway—a good and respectable man. He’s affable and charming, beneficiant and gregarious. He’s the type who pays his taxes, donates to good causes, votes the correct method, and clearly is aware of the way to throw a fantastic social gathering. Briefly, he’s the precise form of person who any society would need extra of. And if we additionally loved his standing and privilege, would we actually be so fast to throw that every one away for a lifetime of hardship, wrestle, and near-certain dying?
Andor’s closing montage means that Perrin nonetheless has his wealth and respectability. He’s nonetheless sporting fancy garments, ingesting costly liquor, and driving in a elaborate automotive—possibly on his option to a celebration or profit gala for the fallen Imperial “heroes” of Ghorman. He’s even received one other glamorous girl by his facet. In comparison with Mon, who’s now on the run from the Empire in a shabby, rain-soaked Insurgent base on a distant, insignificant moon, Perrin has misplaced nothing. Besides his soul, that’s. And by the unhappy, weary look on his face, he is aware of it, too.
