How does resistance turn into rebellion? What are the inciting incidents that escalate things? And what are some real world examples that may have influenced the showrunners of Andor, and how they managed to still insert some cyberpunk themes? Join us for part four of our five part series looking at Star Wars Andor with the three episodes released on May 6th, 2025 titled "Messenger", " Who are you" and "welcome to the rebellion". Things are heating up as the new media reality of the Star Wars universe begins to unfold with more dangerous actors and actions coming to the forefront as well.

Welcome to the ImplausiPod, a podcast about the intersection of art, technology, and popular culture. I'm your host, Dr. Implausible, and as we return to Andor for week three, and hopefully you have a chance to listen to this before week four, we're witness to some amazing things. The pace has increased. The intensity has increased, and we are getting some really cinematic storytelling.

When it comes to a story like this with an ensemble cast, multiple locations, things taking place all over the place, often concurrently, I've often described the way this storytelling happens as a fractive, as a fractured narrative where things bounce around from person to person, from place to place, often with really quick cuts.

We, as the audience, are given fragments of the story, and asked to put it together all at once. Some of this is the quick cuts in editing that we've become so accustomed to since the dawn of the MTV era. But some of this is just traditional storytelling as well, and it takes place not just in audio visual storytelling like television and film and video games, but also in novels and comic books, and pretty much anywhere we tell stories to each other.

So in light of this fractive, this fractured narrative storytelling that is taking place during these three episodes of Andor. We'll try and consolidate the storylines and rearrange them a little bit. and tease out the key elements that we're seeing through each of these threads. So without further ado, let's see what's been happening in Andor we start off week three with episode seven titled Messenger, or perhaps that should be cha cha cha changes as things are noticeably different, the vibe has shifted and we see evidence of that vibe shift right from the opening crawl.

We're once again told it's one year later with the BBY or. Big Bad Yam, I'm counting down to two and right from there we pan down to some ziggurats in a jungle and oh ho it's the Yavin base one that's shown up again in season four of Andor I'm sure, but we have a spacecraft approaching it, stepping out as our young Bruno Mars-ish mechanic (who's name is Will), strolling through the landing area. And here the vibe is suitably cinematic. There's a lot of people moving around. We see droids and rebels and aliens and the like. And the feeling is that there's some action going on. Will meets up with Bix and Cassian deep in the Jungle and there's some tension.

Cassian is a wound from a fight we didn't see. And will passes along a message from Luthen wanting to know if he's ready to work. And Cass has a simple question, "do you wanna fight or do you wanna win?" The vibe is also different as we shift to Ghorman. There's an audio overlay of talks of increased terrorism and terrorist of attacks actually taking place, and the plaza first seen in episode four is changed.

Lots of imperial officers and reporter types as we saw in the previous block of episodes, and this is around at the eight minute mark or so. There's fewer locals, just a few people in suits, and Syril Karn is walking through it and. There's something about this that sits oddly with me, and it's the reporters.

I'll try and explain. There's a philosopher by the name of Mark Fisher who wrote on capitalist realism that we can't conceive of a future without capitalism, but maybe here we're seeing what we could call Media Realism. We can't think of a different way to show the manufacturing of consent than having obvious reporter types doing on scene standups, ala Anderson Cooper, or so many other disaster reporters.

It's one of the threads I was talking about in our episode on Soylent Culture where writers of shows have grown up in a landscape and can't imagine a different way of presenting it now. There's a big caveat here, of course, given that the writer's using Star Wars as a vehicle to talk about current situation is something that often happens in sci-fi.

I mean, Lucas originally was using Star Wars as a commentary on the Vietnam War, and we can see parallels with what is being done here too. It's just something to keep in mind that the reporters are very and the way they're presented here are very much analogous to our situation and don't really necessarily fit within the Star Wars universe.

There's something anachronistic there where we can see elements of other things within the Star Wars universe, but that have been part of it for a long time, that kind of fit within it, and we've become accustomed to them. It makes sense, but let's put aside this anachronistic media realism, and let's get back to what's going on.

But first, quickly, one other thing I'm noticing is that there's a lot of cuts going on. We're jumping around from place to place. It's like the pace of the storytelling has increased. We're moving around rapidly through the different locations and characters that are already established. Touching on each one briefly, and this increased pace brings an energy and an urgency to the show that we're watching.

As I mentioned, we briefly see Syril Karn moving through the square and with the increased imperial presence, he's not afforded some of the same privileges that he was used to through Syril. We once again meet Dera who had been previously identified when Will showed Cassian a data slate with her face on it, and she was singled out as a target.

Dedra is conferring with her supervisor, major Partagaz, and once again, he name drops the Emperor as saying that he's taken an interest in the plan that's going, but they're going with the original plan, which is apparently bad luck for Ghorman and the app fleet will soon be arriving. Dedra is told of her possible career moves based on the success of this operation, and she lets the major know that.

You're aware the insurgents have weapons at this point, and the major says we're counting on it so we get the sense that they're looking to go the Ghormans into a rash action. Touched quickly in a few other places as well is hearing of the Senate security asking for schedules and audio of media and news reports are saying there's an escalation of the terror.

Terror campaign. We check in with the Ghormans and they're arguing as well, stating finally that we are the gore, and if they aren't, then what else is there? What's left? And we bounce back to Yvan. And here's the other major event of this episode. Cassian's clearly in pain due to the blaster burn and Bix convinces him to go visit a force healer that's available on site.

And this is, I think one of the few times within the entirety Andor up to this point that we've had. Any even mention of the force, let alone someone present that's able to like to wield it to a small degree. I mean not a full-blown Jedi, but force-sensitive nonetheless. And she is able to heal the blaster burn on Cassian and says, thank you for the clarity.

And she gets a sense of. What Cassian's fate may be that some people gather as they go. There's a purpose to it. There's a place they need to be, and this is the role for Cassian. He's moving through. He's our instigator, and we have a sense of what that place is, and we know what that'll be coming soon.

There's a really nice segment after this meeting with the force healer. Between Bix and Cassian it's, it's outside their cabin in the forest. And visually it looks a whole lot like Return of the Jedi. There's a callback in the imagery to when Leia was a guest in the Ewok Village, and there's a bit of the sense that Bix might become a bit of a force convert here as well.

From there, Cassian will soon leave, and there's some words exchanged with the rebel commander, and we're getting the sense that things will be changing here soon too, that they're becoming a much more cohesive fighting force. This is echoed by Vel who comes to visit Bick soon after Andor leaves, and still grieving the loss of Cinta from the previous episode.

She says that they're not Luthen's puppets anymore and they're building a real army. Casting as leader and needs to, you know, step up and actually show that he is one. And while this talk is taking place in his absence, he lands once again on Ghorman, posing as the fashion designer from episode five.

But there's a curfew in effect. The imperials are much more present and we hear on the loudspeaker that an all around group shuttle has been canceled. So Cassian sits in the hotel room. With a completely different vibe,

and by episode eight, that vibe has shifted and gotten even more intense. Episode eight is titled, who Are You or AKA For me, it was Tuesday and we start with an overhead shot of the main city of Ghorman. It's a nice city, and I love these overhead establishing shots that we get of these cities. It feels, again, very Game of Throne- esque, but it gives us a sense.

Of place. As we zoom in, we see that Andor is preparing a sniper rifle when the imperial start moving things around. It looks like they're opening up the plaza, but according to Cassian, we see that they're building the cell around the building, turning it into a fortress, and this disrupts his assassination attempt of Dedra.

She's in the middle of a conversation with major par toga, and in it he says. Our struggles with Ghorman are well documented at this point, which means there's a bit of a change in the narrative that's been going on in the last year, and that change is echoed by the reporters that are allowed to be in the otherwise mostly empty plaza.

They're echoing the ISB words. They're saying that. The Ghormans are resistant to imperial norms. I'm wondering how long it's gonna go on and there's rumors of a general strike. Syril's mom is watching all of us from tv, of course, and Syril has a confrontation with the old man who asks him, what sort of bean are you?

The mining stuff is getting set up on the planet. The population of Ghorman is aware and the Ghorman are wondering what the heck the Imperials are actually up to. This meeting seems to actually cut through to Syril a little bit. He took a slap last episode well deserved from one of the Ghorman woman who had brought him into the circle and is.

Realization is fracturing his dedication to the imperial cause. Somewhat. Cassian is checking outta the hotel, sharing a few words with the concierge who he spoke with originally in episode five, telling him to stay safe. And from there the concierge gives us a great line. He says that rebellions are built on hope.

As Cassian dives into the square, we're teased the near miss between Cassian and Syril in the crowd. As more and more people are coming in, there's a chant going on. “We are Ghorman, the galaxy is watching.” This soon shifts to song, led by the man, the one with the elbows up forearm gesture from episode four.

News stumbled onto the heist in episode six. The song’s in the native tongue of gore, they were using this a lot during the various scenes from week. Two, but I didn't talk about it then, but I wanna bring it up here. It's a vaguely European sounding language sounding at times Eastern European with a little German thrown in and talking about it.

Now I'm curious enough to look it up, so forgive me for a quick moment and, okay. It's apparently a novel language created for the show with French roots to link it to the French resistance from World War ii. That is really wonderful. A real credit to the actors and everyone involved for being able to work in a made up language.

That's amazing stuff. As more and more goers show up in the square, things are getting decidedly worse. However, the intensity is definitely rising and we know bad things are about to happen. I. Captain Cato shows up positioning his troops. I know he was introduced in the previous episode and I kind of glossed over it, but there was a lot going on.

He has a well orchestrated plan of how to escalate a bad situation and much like the FBI guys in diehard, he's following the playbook to the letter. Syril is then. Back in the Imperial building and moved to a side room to stay until it is safe and he meets the combat droids and it starts to click for him what is likely going to happen.

He sneaks outta the room and confronts Dedra and uh, they are done. Of course, Dedra has known what's been really going on for a while and has no misconceptions about it. Syril's kind of finding out in real time and maybe not realizing what he was contributing to. Dedra drops a line on him as they're breaking apart here.

He, she says, it didn't seem to mind the promotions. He's been moving up quickly over these years and maybe not realizing that one came from the other. I. As he storms out, Dedra is reminded that she has to give the command and all heck breaks loose. A couple comments here is I find it difficult to interject commentary on action sequences.

There's usually a lot going on, and in this one, more than most it. Rivals and perhaps exceeds the frantic chaos of the jailbreak in season one. So I'll just try and cover a couple major themes. The first one is that aesthetically with the dress of the Ghormans and the language that we mentioned before, I'm wondering how much visually this tracks with the movie like Reds, the movie from 1981 starring Warren Beatty about the October revolution.

I was young when this came out and only remember it being long and definitely not something I wanted to see, but from what I remember, yeah, that there's this really close visual similarity with the long coats and the dress and the flags being waved by the Ghormans, just the single color flags that they're flashing around at various points.

Given the French language origins, maybe I need to go watch. Lay miserable or something too, but that's outside my frame of reference. Another thing I'd really like to commend the showrunners on is their use of the storm troopers within the scenes and in the show more generally. For the most part, it's been pretty reserved.

The storm troopers are of course, an iconic symbol of the empire within the Star Wars universe, a signifier that's reached beyond just. Popular culture within the show. We've largely seen human faces on the imperial officers, and even here the Imperials are often un helmeted and unmasked. We saw a number of storm rivers with the Imperials in the first week of shows accompanying the inspection team during the harvest and cut down by Cassian and the tie fighter.

And of course in season one they were involved when Cassian was arrested in episode seven. But they're used sparingly here in episode eight. They're much more prevalent, and it's not subtle, at least not to me, but maybe it goes unnoticed by the audience. Within the square, the plaza, there is one set of steps that is manned by nothing but storm troopers, a literal wall of death, not the one you find at a mosh pit, at a metal show.

Part of the reason I think I might go unnoticed by the audience, though not the Ghorman Rebels, they know something is up, is how much the storm Trooper has been accepted through its normalization of popular culture. They can be seen making jokes and skits and cartoons. They're dancing in the exhibits of Disney World.

They're adopted into the culture here. They are not. There is no attempt to make them cuddly, to defang them. We have to remember they're soldiers with a name chosen to echo the soldiers of Nazi Germany in World War II and deliberately designed aesthetic to match that of a skeleton to look like an army of the undead.

This is why so much of the normalization of storm troopers and the empire by groups like the 501st and others seems so regularly through cosplay and comic conventions and the like is deeply problematic. Fascist cosplay is fascist dress rehearsal after all. So credit to the showrunners and producers for emphasizing how deadly and dangerous the stormtroopers are.

They, along with the other Imperials clash, the Ghormans as Captain Kaido's Sniper, takes out one of the Imperials to light the match of the powder keg that's been building, making it look like a shot from the Ghorman started it and it soon turns into a massacre. The rebels are insurgents, blending into the crowd, really only identifiable from the civilian population by the weapons they hold firing back at the imperials and inflicting casualties themselves at Kaido's order.

The combat droids are unleashed and the battle turns into a slaughter. The weapons that Ghormans have can barely scratch them, and the droids need little aside from mass and. Physics to deliver lethal destruction upon the crowd. Cassian is still attempting to take out Dedra, missing one shot due to a nearby explosion, and another to Syril him saving Dedra's life once again, unbeknownst to her.

And it is on. We get a fight right out of John Carpenter's They Live between the two. One with no holds barred furiosity, and in a brief moment of respite, Cassian utters, the titular phrase, who are you? And while Syril Karn seems to be winding up to deliver a soliloquy to let him know. Fate delivers a blaster shot.

This was likely how it was always going to shake out. As I mentioned in our review of week one, the show wasn't called Karn after all, but I'm wondering what Karn was feeling there, learning that the object of his obsession did not even know of his existence. One of the driving motivations for him was this quote unquote mean character syndrome, something we could see time and again to his chafing at his lot in various points, or thinking that he was taking a bigger role in what was going on than was what was actually taking place.

I'm wondering how much allure the Empire has for individuals like Syril who join up and like his mother said in the previous episode, don't be such an individual. There's a further irony to this of course, because if Syril had felt just a smidgen less guilt for his actions, had stayed inside the Imperial compound and been less of an individual, he would've survived the Fer Riot just fine.

Of course to Cassian will and the escaping Ghorman Rebels. Syril doesn't register much at all, but for us, the audience, this is a major shift. Honestly, I did not expect him to go out this way. I thought he might manage to fail upward a little bit more to a position on a newly formed battle station perhaps in the next couple of years.

But for Cassian, Will and the others, the escape isn't quite over. They need to flee into the surrounding streets, along with the other citizens and rebels retreating as best they can. We hear from other radio stations that the crackdown is coming everywhere, and the combat droids here are terrifying, relentless hunters attacking indiscriminately in the street.

I think this echoes our own fears about autonomous war machines as they become something more likely to. Deployed in our timeline as well, but drawing on inspiration from the Weyland Yutani cinematic universe. Sometimes the best tool at hand to defeat a relentless predator is a power loader, or sorry, a hover truck.

It could go by many names. It's able to pin a combat droid into a brick wall, effectively disabling it, providing some redemption for the driver that Ghorman rebel, whose blaster got sent to killed. Maybe here's the right place to talk a little bit more about her death. I think Vel's reaction to Cinta's death stated, though not shown last episode in her conversation with Bix, that she threw herself into her role as a smuggler, as a means to process her grief about Cinta's death, and she realized she was getting reckless interactions and decided to step it back and take a different role. 

And as we've noted before Andor as a show very much about the dualism between these competing groups, the Imperials and the rebels, the high class and the underclass, et cetera. And we see this here too, with veil's reaction to Sintas death and the brief showing of Debra reacting presumably to the news of Syril's body being found in the aftermath Klein at the collar of her imperial uniform.

That collar that drew so much attention back in episode seven of season one. Vel and Dedra are mirrors in some ways, both in their position within their side and their ability to be active agents and sometimes caught in demands from superiors. And I wonder if we'll see Dedra follow Vel's lead perhaps becoming more reckless or ruthless in her service to the Empire.

We have a comment on the TV within the show about the heroes of the empire, and I wonder if Syril will posthumously become one of those, his role as a simple bureaucrat, slain in the action taken up. He may become one of those. Empire action figures that were on the shelf of his room in his mother's apartment back in season one, as we see his mother watching the news of the riot and the massacre on screen with some friends sitting on couches.

This media realism that we were seeing in the previous episode continues through to here, and I feel like we will soon see her. Interviewed by the media apparatus given a heartfelt tale of how she begged him not to go.

The pace keeps accelerating though, and the momentum does not let up. As we shift to episode nine titled, welcome to The Rebellion McKay. Come with me if you want to live. In our analysis of last week's shows, we noted how the heist was so central to the cyberpunk genre, and here we have one that is almost.

Equally important, the extraction. This is where the heroes have to get a VIP, often a scientist or a rock star or a politician, and know of things out from wherever they are within the cyberpunk genre. This is often from a mega corp or occasionally a prison. And we can see it in novels like Count Zero in shows like person of interest and in video games where they often take place as quote unquote escort missions.

So with Andor as cyberpunk Star Wars, it's no surprise to see a full on extraction plot line taking place. There's some fits and starts to it as Cassian is hesitant. Telling Luthen, I make my own decisions and Luthen replying. Is that what you've been doing? Sometimes I wonder, this is after Cassian got some clap back from Kleya earlier and the sass game is strong from the rebel side.

So Cassian is sent in under the guise of a journalist. It seems to fit a bit with the idea of the media reality we talked about earlier, which is also taking place, but here it is also just, I guess it makes some sense as a realistic cover for someone that would be dropping in on a floater basis to a Senate hearing.

The whole idea that Cassian has with a highlight on the pass key that Clay had forged from earlier kicks into, um, an idea that's called securitization. This is something particular to the study of international relations, and I was first introduced to it by a colleague giving an academic presentation on it and how it related to the early stage MCU movies like Avengers Age of Ultron Securitization is where issues and events are suddenly framed as being issues of quote unquote national security requiring extraordinary means to address them in it. 

A threat is identified and then the justification for it is presented and I'm taken up by the audience for myself. I sometimes conflate this with security theater, which we also see on display here with the gates and the ISB monitoring the entire Senate. But these are not the same thing.

Securitization is about the speech Act, and we can see this here as various cut scenes of the Senate as the other events are going on with various senators speaking out on behalf of the empire against the Ghormans and the massacre that took place. And owl headed Alien delivers a list of fallen imperials from the massacre and other aliens speak out.

Though a few human presenting senators do as well, they're all speaking out against the Ghormans and I found it odd that we were seeing alien voices deliver this message working as proxies for the emperor. I'm not sure if this is meant to echo back. The prequel trilogy in Jar Jar Binks role in speaking to the Senate, or if there was an intentional point that the showrunners were trying to make here, and we'll keep an eye on this.

As things accelerate, we get to the Senate with Senator, he drops the S word, which is perhaps the first time I've heard a swear in a Star Wars show. You know, not a made up swear. Perhaps I haven't seen everything obviously, but it did stand out to me and there's some procedural adjustments that's taking place.

Some very Sorkin esque dialogue, very West Wing kind of thing. The kind of stuff that I'm most definitely am not the right audience for, but through some work in Organa invoking article 17 dash 252, we get to Mon Mothma's speech. And much like in Maarva in season one. Mon Mothma delivers. 

Here she states quote, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous thing. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. This chamber's, hold on. The truth was lost yesterday. What happened was unprovoked genocide, and the monster who will come for us all soon enough is Emperor Palpatine. And once again, we have a show that was written in 2023, perhaps filmed in 2024, being very relevant to current events. 

We also kick into full on cyberpunk extraction mode, and casting is quick and ruthless when needed does not play. Of course, we have to recognize that he had just gotten here from the Ghorman massacre less than a day ago and has had not had. Any moments of respite since that began? The various ISB schemes unraveled with two quick blaster shots, one for the plant on Organa's, team, one for the driver, and we are soon off evading the stormtroopers. And remember, they are the baddies. 

And they soon arrive at one of Luthen's halfway houses. The one previously inhabited by Bix and Cass in when they were trying to cosplay as normal just a few episodes ago. And things are changing fast. Mon Mothma will get a military escort from Gold Squadron. Cassian takes the rescued Will back to Yavin separately.

And on Yavian we find that Vel is doing the intake that she mentioned in episode seven, inspecting blasters, and she finds one that is unique. I. Bix and Cass are reunited and he tells her that she is out and Bix is listening, but she seems hesitant. But, uh, Cassian knows his place in things. He says, quote, the only thing special about me is luck and I've overplayed my hand already and he wakes to find the Bix is not there. A video recording saying, I'm choosing for the both of us. I'm choosing the rebellion.

Well, things are definitely heating up. This has been a fantastic three episodes of television. It's very cinematic. It definitely feels like it could have been a movie, but the fact that it isn't doesn't detract from it at all. Join us next week as we look at the final three episodes and see how any of our speculation might have turned out based on everything that we've seen to date.

I think it's gonna be fantastic.

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