ANDOR RECAP — EPISODE 2: “That Would Be Me”

Hey beautiful Andor nerds—

Remember when I said I’d do recurring Andor recaps and then kind of ghosted on the schedule? Yeah. Episode 2 recap is finally here, below (just in time for Season 2 to drop on Tuesday), Going forward, here’s what I can promise:

• Weekly rundown for the new episodes of Season 2

• Then back to weekly Season 1 breakdowns once the new season wraps

I’m figuring out what works, what hits, and what I can actually sustain with Chicago 312, especially since the episodes are dropping in sets of 4. Thank you for sticking around.

And if you'd like these to arrive slightly faster, consider becoming a monthly subscriber here.

This Week On The Sad Space Show:

Last time: Cassian killed two guys, pissed off all his friends and ex, and hurt his droid friend’s feelings. We learned Imperial cop Syril Karn takes menswear really seriously.

We start with a flashback scene in Kenari, where everyone is 12. It’s very beautiful and ominous, and baby Cassian is there with his sister. You know things are going to go badly because of the beautiful, tragic lighting. We hate a tragic lighting flashback. The first time I watched this I did not know what was going on and even still with knowledge about the rest of the season I’m like HMMMMMM. If you have thoughts or insight on this, please share it with me!

In the present day, we’re on Ferrix today, with Bix, who is working at her house garage junkyard welding station. I don't remember the original source of this quote, but someone wants to describe the Star Wars universe is distinct from Star Trek or any other space world and it's aesthetic because "every piece of technology in Star Wars needs to be whacked a couple of times or blown into like a Nintendo cartridge before it will work. “that is one piece of the original movies that stuck around – – everything in Star Wars space looks like the 1970s. In some ways, it makes Andor even more effective because we, uh, actually had unions in the 1970s, remember that? I don’t, but I’ve heard.

Anyway, Bix and Timm — two Ms, zero sense— are hanging out. Ugh Timm really does look like space JD Vance. At the time of writing this, I just finished reading the Trump Signal thread, and I hate everyone so much. He’s all like ‘heyyyyy are you mad at me’ and she’s like ‘no I’m tired’ which means YES. YES, SHE IS mad at you. But she’s also waiting up to hear back from her off-planet supplier + connect them to Cassian…

Cassian goes home and lies to his mom, Fiona Shaw, which is bad and wrong for so many reasons, but especially because HE DOES A BAD JOB. His lie is not good, and Maarva/Fiona Shaw is unimpressed. But even if he wasn’t lying badly, Maarva has BEMO read out the official Imperial wanted message: they’re looking for a an extremely hot guy from Kenari, Cassian’ planet of origin!

“Who have we told you’re from Kenari, over the years?” she demands to know. Cassian says “uhhhh” and the two of them bust into a well-worn fight listing family, friends, and Cassian’s exes, best summarized with the screencap below:

The fight is interrupted by a call from Bix, and Cassian is mean and I’m sad so we’re skipping the end of this and Fiona Shaw’s face ughhhhhhhhh.

Cassian rushes to meet Bix, who demands an explanation for why he’s trying so hard to get out of Ferrix, ie what’s he’s done. She HATES the explanation (ie, security guard murder) — but not as much as Timm, who is observing the whole situation then goes to a Space Pay Phone to lodge a tip to the Imperials

Remember our friends from last episode who made this face?! There they are!

They’re still at work and it still sucks. Bummer. They receive Timm’s complaint about Cassian Andor, the girlfriend-stealing guy who matches the description they’re looking for, and are skeptical, but pull up files they have on Cassian anyway, including an image of his face. Syril walks in, just in time to stare down 3D Cassian Face — and he’s brought our friend who works at the bar in for questioning. Investigationnnnnn. Back on Ferrix, Bix comes back from her annoyed espionage plot to hang with Timm, who is SO excited to see her in spite of having just turned in her friend to the police :)

Syril Karn confers with Sergeant Mosk, a man who loves his job and loves copaganda. Mosk has always thought that this team needed more human rights violations for morale, and the two of them psyche each other up “the best way to keep the blade sharp is to use it,” he says, which clearly THRILLS Syril. I’m not going to get to stop thinking about that fuckin’ Signal thread today, am I?

In flashback city, Baby Cassian and his sister are on a mission with the other older teens in the woods, investigating an explosion of some kind, which looks like a ruined spaceship.

Back to the present, where we are about to meet PATRIARCH SKAARSGARD, also known as Luthen Rael, also known as the guy whose embittered monologues play in my head every time canvassing takes longer than I think it will (every time).

He is Bix’s buyer, and he is flying his Cool Pop Tart spaceship to Ferrix. He asks his Google Maps droid how far out of town he will have to park and walk to meet Bix, and the ship answers, “Nothing safe.” In this introduction, we also meet the Tower Hammer Guy, who is important not narratively but emotionally. He whacks a giant forge with his hammers, presumably to keep time on Ferrix, which doesn’t make sense, except that this is a working town, and also it looks cool as hell.

The next morning, Timm is clearly having second thoughts about being a loser snitch, and Bix is confused. Cassian has another sad fight with his family, this time with BE2MO, who tells him (while he does his emergency on the lam packing) that it’s a bad idea for him to flee. Cassian ignores him.

We flash back to Kenari, where Cassian’s sister and the whole teen gang find a dead imperial soldier — AND AN ALIVE ONE WHO SHOOTS AT THEM. They shoot him back until he dies, but he kills one of them. Cassian, who is slightly younger, looks on. MAN! This kid has too many ACES already.

Present-day “even more ACES” Cassian barters with a transit company for transporting a passenger quickly and efficiently. We learn from their banter about the Imperial Wanted ad that Kenari was the site of a horrible imperial mining accident, no survivors. We’ve seen giant craters in the landscape of the flashback, which makes it safe to assume this has already happened by the time Cassian is running around with the teens. Fun!

Syril and the rest of the Imperials are in full regalia, getting briefed on Cassian Andor. It’s like 9 people. Syril makes a speech — he is in Independence Day. Everyone else is at work. It is painful to watch.

Luthen is riding the Space CTA, and an old man starts complaining to him about the price of parking. He says a bunch of things that honestly are pretty standard for old guys on the CTA to say to you if they’re trying to talk with you, but in this context, it is setting the stage for the ways that Imperial exploitation is just business as usual, part of the status quo. Luthen is pretty quiet for this whole monologue, and I have a hard time telling if he is having a good time. I don’t think he knows either. That’s honestly how I feel every time someone talks to me on the CTA about class struggle, which sounds like a joke, but feels… common? Is this more common in Chicago than in other places?

Anyway, Luthen really is just like us.

📜 Historical Parallels:

In episode 2, Ferrix is one massive powder keg of resentment and neglected infrastructure, but the Empire hasn't even shown up in force yet—still, the feeling of repression is already everywhere.

Mike Duncan, podcaster, historian of revolutions, and a definite influence on Tony Gilroy and Andor, describes many different revolutionary cities before the tipping point of insurrection in this way:. a world where the old order is visibly cracking but has not yet fallen. Rewatching made me think of pre-revolutionary France, Haiti, and Russia, where authorities ignored local rhythms, norms, and emotional truths—until they exploded.

Although especially in later episodes, the planet of Ferrix is evocative of the Irish Republican Army in terms of aesthetic and overall depiction, before anything gets underway, there are several historical parallels to many other moments pre-insurrection in history.

In Duncan’s Haitian Revolution series, a constant theme emerges: mid-level colonial officers overexert themselves, stoking fury, and then the higher-ups scramble to catch up. Syril’s fixation on Cassian is exactly that—unhinged, small-scale repression that spirals into an uncontainable revolt.

I’ve also been thinking ESPECIALLY this Duncan quote on pre-collapse Rome, which of course I’m not thinking about for any other reason but this space show:

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