There are many good times on the other side Andor season two—there’s a good reason the show, one of our absolute favorites of the past year, made a regular appearance during our celebration of the year’s favorite TV moments. But in a series full of giddy, gut-wrenching highs, it’s easy to forget that it was immediately captivating from its opening sequence—a round-about time that gets even better in retrospect for knowing where. Andor it’s over.
The first scene of the Andorthe second installment “One Year Later” introduces us to Niya, a low-level technician at the Imperial research facility in Sienar, a naval manufacturing facility for the Empire. After a quick inspection of the TIE avenger, Niya looks for the reason for the season, Cassian himself, who has entered the scene with his inside help as a new test pilot.
It’s a long way from where we left Cassian at the end of the first season, his eyes determined but teary as he gives Luthen Rael the choice to bring him to his rebel circle or shoot him where he stands. Not just because of the cool person Cassian cut into his twisted driving gear, but also the way his personality changes throughout his conversation with Niya. At first, he is the Cassian we know: that hand that moves over his gun when he hears someone pass the room, silent, eyes on the prize, carefully following the details of the plan. But there was a moment when he realized before he told her that it was Niya scared. He can’t bear to look at her, because that’s what he’s been told; he can’t bear to look at him, because this is the person he completely depends on for his life.
So when he tells her part of the cover that he’s a test-loving freshman flirting with her, she laughs, a smile on her face—and Niya’s whole body cracks up. He is surprised, he steals the idea he was told, he told himself that he is not stealing. He admits that, and it all comes out of him as Cassian gets closer and closer, not so much but to comfort him: he’s afraid of what he’s doing, he’s afraid of admitting this when his whole life changes, and he’s afraid that, if he dies that night, he won’t know the right choice if he commits rebellion.
But that’s when Cassian becomes something different than we expected. For a moment, he’s not a charging bolt ready to explode, and he’s certainly not a Lutheran: this Cassian Andor is the kind of hero you’d imagine the Alliance putting on a propaganda poster one day. It’s not about him; Cassian firmly puts all of this down to Niya’s choice and her courage to do it. But she’s enjoying the moment, and she’s charming as she sings about what Niya is doing—and what she’s going to do, too. “This makes it worth it,” she whispered, begging him to look at her again. “This. Right now. Being here when you entered the circle.”
It’s not a moment Cassian was given in his recruitment, but it’s one he’s willing to sell to anyone he meets now that he’s been brought in, because it enables people like Niya to take small steps that push the boundaries of rebellion forward, as Nemik once told Cassian himself. It’s the moment when he becomes someone else’s hope that he had to build for himself throughout the first season, and it electrifies him as it does Niya and us as listeners. We see more of Cassian’s smile in this scene than we did in all of last season: fighting the Empire will always be worth it, we know that, but being the catalyst for someone else’s moment of rebellion is exciting.
A moment of hope is also seen in that final sequence of the show, as Bix looks towards the horizon at Mina-Rau with her child, hoping against hope that Cassian will return to her, as we know that his upcoming sacrifice will give their child hope for a free future. It’s just as important that we don’t see Niya again after that opening scene as it is that we never see Bix’s reaction to Cassian’s death, for the same reasons: what mattered about those journeys was the hope Cassian gave them to keep going, not the final destination. The season ends as it began, with silence after the noise and anger, but most importantly, with that message of hope.
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