The ‘Andor’ finale brings Star Wars home to itself (Chapter 4: Ep. 10-12)

The final chapter, set a year on from last week’s events, begins with a major twist we ought to have seen coming: the Emperor’s “energy project,” for which he colonized Ghorman, has been a secret front for the Death Star, a fascistic technological golem capable of destroying entire planets. We learn this at the same time Luthen does, from his long-time imperial source Lonni Jung (Robert Emms), a seemingly unwitting turncoat who wants out of his double agency now that he knows the truth. The Empire is catching up to this betrayal, so passing on this information is of the utmost importance.

Lonni wants to ensure his family’s safety, but given the vitality of this information (and the walls closing in on them both), Luthen kills him in a public park, before absconding in a particularly disorienting shot. Luthen descends a public staircase in an askew Dutch angle; the world has practically tipped on its axis. His betrayal of Lonni also introduces a key question of who is worthy (or who Luthen sees as worthy) of redemption, since Lonni—despite his usefulness to the Rebellion—has long been a part of the Empire’s machinery. However, the seemingly binary answer of his disposability becomes infinitely more complicated once the episode leans full-tilt into Luthen’s backstory, revealing him to have had a similar position in the past.

Once Luthen is finally confronted by Dedra Meero (Denise Gough), he makes sure to burn his communications equipment with acid, and he even stabs himself with a ceremonial knife to evade torture and imprisonment (and more pertinently, to avoid becoming a source of information). The botched raid lands Dedra in hot water, and opens up the episode’s central plot, as she tries to keep the critically wounded Luthen alive in a local hospital. Meanwhile, his assistant Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau) tries to sneak into the facility to mercifully put him out of his misery. This intense, clockwork infiltration is broken up by quiet flashbacks of Luthen from Kleya’s point of view, dating back to when she was a young girl, revealing the real nature of their relationship, and why they chose to give up any semblance of a normal life to take on the Empire.

We first see a younger Luthen inside a warship, from the perspective of a hidden Kleya, out of sight, as gunfire and the screams of her family echo outside. Luthen was once part of the Empire’s Nazi-esque crackdown on dissenters, but the carnage causes him to take refuge out of sight. As he takes swigs of alcohol, agonizing over his complicity, he whispers to himself repeatedly, “Make it stop.” This expression of trauma eventually becomes his mantra, and the foundation for what turns out to be a father-daughter relationship when Luthen discovers the pre-teen Kleya (played by April V. Woods) stowed away on his vessel. Their next step is to figure out how to make these horrors stop for good.

Framing Luthen as a colonial defector, once responsible for fascistic carnage, shines a light on the way he likely sees himself in relation to Lonni—a fellow father. Perhaps they’re one and the same, and Luthen deserves the gallows either way. However, Kleya’s flashbacks also reveal the extent to which Luthen was different from Lonni, as a paternal figure who not only protected Kleya, but slowly plotted revenge against the Empire on her behalf. Their slow but steady road involved walking away from horrors like public executions in order to gather money and resources. Eventually, it saw Luthen teaching a young Kleya to engage in militant resistance, by planting bombs on imperial tanks on what appears to be Venice-like planet Naboo (a key fixture of Lucas’s prequels, once considered a paradise, but now under occupation).

This subplot not only adds layers to Luthen and Kleya’s thus-far mysterious dynamic, but also makes good on a promise that went unfulfilled in Rogue One. That film begins with a flashback of its protagonist, Jynn Erso (Felicity Jones), hiding from an imperial attack on her family, and being found by the Rebel militant Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker). Saw is said to have raised Jynn, but their relationship exists only as off-screen allusion. In Andor, we’re given a sense of what this dynamic might have looked like, and the way parenthood (surrogate or otherwise) plays a key part in the Rebel ethos, with characters building a better future for the next generation. This also plays into the series’ final moments in a particularly touching way—more on that to follow.

In the meantime, Kleya makes the heart-wrenching decision to take Luthen off life support, before sending a covert radio signal to her former comrades for help, if only to relay the news of the Death Star plans to anyone who’ll listen. On Yavin—now a full-fledged Rebel base equipped with X-wing ships, as seen in Lucas’s original—Wilmon (Muhannad Bhaier) receives the emergency broadcast and urgently relays it to Cassian. Along with his former cellmate Melshi (Duncan Pow) and the sarcastic security droid K-2SO (Alan Tudyk), Cassian once again makes an urgent beeline towards the source of the signal, much to the displeasure of Rebel leadership. Luthen—who they don’t yet know is dead—has seldom gelled with the more upstanding, front-facing tactics of generals like Bail Organa (Benjamin Bratt) and Davits Draven (Alistair Petrie), leaving much concern about Cassian’s reckless departure.

The heist-like mission to rescue Kleya unfolds with heart-stopping intensity, since the Empire manages to trace the signal to Luthen’s hideout apartment, where Cassian once lived with Bix (Adria Arjona). Here, in the ruins of his former life, Cassian must convince a despondent Kleya to return with him to Yavin, if only to see what her and Luthen’s sacrifices over the years have built. They narrowly evade the Empire’s forces—another loss that embarrasses Imperial leadership—before landing back on the Rebel base, only to be officially grounded by a disgruntled Rebel leadership.

It's here, during the final episode, that Andor takes a particularly intriguing narrative turn. With its espionage action out of the way, its final half hour functions as an epilogue of sorts, but one that brings the series’ themes into stark, unwavering focus. Viewers who have seen Rogue One know exactly what happens next—Cassian makes his way to Saw’s outpost on Jedha to gather the pieces of the Death Star plot, a mission that claims his life—but this conclusion being foregone doesn’t render the journey any less riveting. The story’s final act, set in the days leading up to Star Wars (and the hours leading up to Rogue One) is about building trust before fighting for the greater good.

The reintroduction of characters like former senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) and her militant cousin Vel (Faye Marsay) allows for numerous clashing perspectives on Cassian and the information he brings (by way of Kleya and Luthen). Convincing the Rebel leaders to believe Cassian turns out to be less about the veracity of the Death Star plans, and more about bridging the ideological gap between the more altruistic Rebel Alliance, and the ruthless, hard-hearted methods employed by Luthen and Kleya. No one fully overcomes this barrier, but the mere recognition of common goals against fascism is enough. It’s a vital leap of faith. At various points during the final chapter, both Luthen and Organa mention similar sentiments about wanting to fight to win. Unbeknownst to each other, they express their willingness to go down swinging. Meanwhile, Kleya’s climactic moments involve witnessing Rebel fighters in training, as she’s finally allowed to lay eyes on what her and Luthen’s lifelong moral compromises and ethical debts have bought the Rebellion.

Near the end of the final episode, the show begins harkening back to vital dialogue from season one, both directly and implicitly. Voiceover of the political manifesto on freedom written by slain Rebel fighter Nemik (Alex Lawther) returns, scoring not only climactic moments for several Rebel characters, but for Imperial officers too, as they’re hoisted by their own petards. Dedra, for instance, ends up in prison. Meanwhile Partagaz (Anton Lesser), having failed to contain the leaked Death Star intelligence, listens to a recording of Nemik’s voice that has begun spreading throughout the galaxy like a flame:

“There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try.” — The Trail of Political Consciousness, by Karis Nemik

Nemik’s words echo over a recording obtained by the Empire: “Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.” As Partagaz pores over this phrasing, you get the sense that he’s started to believe it. His façade of certainty slips for the very first time—before he dies by suicide off screen. It’s a moment that feels both deeply human, and entirely inevitable. The war is far from over, but this is the beginning of the end. 

Similarly, much of Cassian’s dialogue—which attempts to convince Rebel top brass of how much Luthen has given for their cause—harkens back to Luthen’s own impactful monologue from season one. “I’ve made my mind a sunless place,” he once told Lonni, expressing the harm his self-imposed isolation has done to his psyche. That speech went on to include perhaps the most powerful moment in all of Star Wars, in which Luthen says, “I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see.” Although these lines are never repeated, they loom large over Andor’s final episodes, as a potent reminder of why its characters resist, and for whom they fight.

Luthen knew his days were numbered, but the flashbacks in the final chapter reveal just how much his battle against the Empire was about ensuring a sunrise for Kleya. And, in the series’ closing moments, as Cassian leaves for his final mission—a domino effect that we know goes on to topple the Empire—we finally see Bix once more, as she stands in a field, staring at a bright horizon, with Cassian’s baby in her arms. That Cassian may not even know he’s a father is tragic, and bittersweet, but it embodies Luthen’s ethos, and Andor’s, in deeply moving fashion. After living on the fringes of rebellion, Cassian fights to ensure a sunrise he knows he’ll never see—and that’s why he’s already won.