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Warning! This review contains spoilers for Andor episode 11.
Following last week’s thrilling prison Fracture, Cassian is a fugitive once again in “Daughter of Ferrix,” the penultimate episode of Andor’s first season. Ahead of the latest installment in the Star Wars series, Disney announced that it’ll be airing the first couple of episodes of Andor on ABC, FX, Freeform, & Hulu over Thanksgiving. The Mouse House knows it has a great product – a series that deserves a place alongside the very best of “Peak TV” – & that all they have to do to market it is get it in front of as many eyes as possible to allow them to get hooked. “Daughter of Ferrix” only provides further proof that Disney has a TV masterpiece on its h&s.
Benjamin Caron returns to the director’s chair for the first time since “Announcement” explored the aftermath of the Aldhani heist. Thanks to real shooting locations, gritty h&held photography, & effects shots framed from a plausible camera perspective, Andor has been much more immersive than the usual VFX-heavy Star Wars fare. Planting the audience right in the middle of a galaxy far, far away, Andor maintains the escapist tradition of the Star Wars franchise while playing with darker themes & bleaker storytelling than fans are used to.
Showrunner Tony Gilroy receives his first writing credit since the series’ triple premiere with the script for “Daughter of Ferrix.” Andor continues to have arguably the best writing of any Star Wars media since The Empire Strikes Back. The characters are well-rounded, the political discussions are nuanced & two-sided, the themes are clear as day without being preachy, & the dialogue sounds like things people would actually say. Gilroy has such a strong comm& of his supporting cast that there’s no dead weight – even when the title character is pushed to the sidelines. Whether a scene follows Dedra Meero or Luthen Rael or Mon Mothma or Syril Karn, the audience is captivated.
Stellan Skarsgård shares another powerful scene with Forest Whitaker. It’s always a joy to see two great actors sharing the screen, especially when their characters are this three-dimensional & their dialogue is this well-written. Luthen Rael & Saw Gerrera – the former a sophisticated revolutionary with a solid cover & the latter a dangerous extremist – have to overcome their conflicting ideologies for the greater good of achieving their common goal of taking down the Empire.
Genevieve O’Reilly continues to give a stellar performance as Mon Mothma. This character is in the unique position of being a part of the bureaucratic government that the Rebels are trying to take down. Serving in the Senate that she’s secretly plotting to overthrow is putting a great deal of stress on Mon, & each week, she gets a little more overwhelmed & a little closer to her breaking point. Like Cassian, Mon’s fate has been determined by previous media, & the show is doing a fantastic job of charting her journey to renounce the Empire altogether & join the Rebellion full-time.
Voice actor Dave Chapman is one of the episode’s st&outs. When Cassian’s droid B2EMO was introduced in the show’s first episode, Chapman played every comedic beat with a robotic deadpan. This week, that same line delivery style gives the audience an emotional gut-punch when he says, “I don’t want to be alone. I want Maarva.” This heartbreaking scene turns B2 from dry comic relief into a vulnerable dramatic character. His fear of being left alone makes him just as human as any other character on the show.
This week brings Andor’s first straightforward dogfight sequence, & it doesn’t disappoint. Luthen has established himself as a badass with impassioned monologues & undercover Rebel dealings. But up to this point, he’s delegated all the anti-Imperial field work to mercenaries like Cassian & diehard Rebel operatives like Vel Sartha. In “Daughter of Ferrix,” he’s accosted by an Imperial patrol ship & held in its tractor beam. While he calmly stalls the Imperial officers interrogating him, Luthen readies his ship’s hidden gadgets & weaponry. Within moments, he destroys the tractor beam, takes out every single TIE fighter sent after him, & disappears into hyperspace, leaving the Imperials with egg on their face. This show doesn’t indulge in action scenes as often as The M&alorian or The Clone Wars, but when it does, those action sequences are well worth the wait.
Cassian himself doesn’t appear much in the episode, but he does get a poignant moment in the final scene when he finds out his mother is dead. There’s still hope that Maarva’s death is a fake-out & that she’s alive & well in hiding, but that seems unlikely, given the bleak tone of the show, & it would undermine the heartbreak of this reveal. Diego Luna nails the emotions of this scene; Cassian is quietly devastated, but masks his feelings & tells his fellow escapee that everything is fine. Like Luke Skywalker, Andor has lost everybody dear to him & all he has left is vengeful rage against the Empire.
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