Andor – Season 1 Episode 2 Recap & Review

Moving The Pieces

Episode 2 of Andor Season 1 starts with the Kenari tribe, who are on the move. Their destination is the crashed ship. Kassa is among them and she leads the group forward through the forest. As they pass through the clearing, thy come across a monstrous chasm. Going around this, the group continue on and eventually find their target.

One of the crew is still alive and shoots at the tribe. The Kenari children fight back with their blowguns but despite besting him, the Kenari leader is shot dead.

Cassian heads out at the break of dawn; the clanging sound of a metal chest echoing through thte air. This signifies the start of the working day as numerous manual laborers prepare for a hard day’s graft. Timm is suspicions about what Bix may be up to, and of course we know she’s in collusion with Cassian.

After losing her in the market last episode, Timm’s alarm bells start ringing when he notices the bulletin come through on the computer. The Pre-Mor authority are looking for a Kenari male. A Kenari male that matches Cassian’s description. Uh oh.

Speaking of which, Cassian receives a frosty greeting from Maarva back home. The bulletin has reached her too and she knows it’s in relation to Cassian. Given he whispered to that woman on the bar about his sister, Cassian realizes he’s been compromised. Maarva presses for more details but he simply tells her “he messed up.”

Cassian heads off to meet Bix, revealing that he killed those two guards by accident. Or, at least the first one anyway. The second he killed in cold blood.

Bix updates him on the deal. She has a buyer ready to take that NS-9 Starpath unit off his hands. Unfortunately, Timm happens to be watching them from afar. As a result, he decides to call it in to the authorities, tipping off the Pre-Mor guards about Cassian Andor.

Sergeant Linus shows up on command of Deputy Inspector Syril, who encourages him to head off and bring Andor in, complete with 12 guards. This man has the same ideologies as the Deputy Inspector, claiming that the affiliate planets are “fomenting” and they should do something to rectify that.

At times it’s almost satirical how these guys are portrayed but we’ll hold our judgment until we’ve seen more of their role in this show.

As for Cassian, he heads out where we gain some crucial exposition about Kenari. It turns out the whole planet is supposed to be abandoned and considered toxic after a mining accident. As we know, the kids have survived. Anyway, Cassian wants a run to Tassan but it’s going to cost him 900 credits. He only has 500 so he bargains on 700 as a middle ground. It’s an expensive job, keeping one’s mouth shut, but it seems to do the trick. First though, Cassian needs to make his meet.

That’s going to be cutting it fine though, as the authorities show up to take out Cassian Andor. After Sergeant Linus briefs them all, he turns the floor over to Syril, who thanks them for being there but his speech is not the most charismatic and it ends rather awkwardly in scattered applause.

As the episode closes out, we cut to Cassian Andor running toward the camera, intending to meet his buyer – but time is of the essence.

The Episode Review

It’s a good thing 3 episodes are releasing today because Andor’s story moves at a glacial pace. I appreciate that there’s a larger story being told here but scenes like the Kenari tribe moving through the forest spliced up across the episode, add absolutely nothing to the story beyond their leader being killed.

Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for Andor to meet his contact while the only real movement comes from the Empire, who have their force moving down to collect their prize. Although they’re made out to be the bad guys, you can actually understand their plight and why they’re intent on taking out Andor. I mean, he may have killed one of the guards by accident but the other he killed in cold blood.

With all this in mind though, the third episode looks set to really kick things into high gear and I would imagine we’ll see a good deal of action, especially if the Empire manage to get Andor before he can make his trade.