Rebellions Are Built on Hope: Andor S2E9

In episode nine, “Welcome to the Rebellion,” Mon Mothma begins to understand the cost of what she has been supporting financially for years

The episode opens with the Ghorman ambassador being arrested in the wake of the Ghorman massacre. Bail Organa (Benjamin Bratt) and Mon Mothma know now is the time for action, especially since the Imperial news is continuing the propaganda machine. As Organa says, “The winner writes the story.” To which Mothma responds, “Well, they haven’t won yet.”

It’s Mon Mothma’s moment to use her power in the Senate to attempt to make a difference. Organa decides to stay to buy more time for Yavin to develop, but after her speech, Mothma will flee to Yavin and join their leadership.

While prepping for her speech, her assistant, Erskin (Pierro Niel-Mee), finds a listening device, which Mothma destroys, alerting the ISB that something may be happening in her office. She goes to the plaza to practice her speech, where Luthen finds her. Perhaps unsurprisingly to viewers, her assistant works for Luthen and was recruited at the wedding of Mothma’s daughter. Mothma sees it as a betrayal that neither Luthen nor Erskin told her about the connection, but Luthen sees it as her assistant protecting her. Even so, feeling betrayed by Luthen, she struggles to trust his next piece of intel—that the extraction team Bail Organa has prepped to take her to Yavin has been infiltrated.

Meanwhile, Cassian is exhausted and shaken after escaping the Ghorman massacre. He meets with Kleya to receive what he claims will be his last mission with Luthen. She confronts him: “You’re tired. It’s too much, it’s too hard. You were a witness to the Ghorman massacre; one would think there’d be no stopping you.” He emphasizes he needs to “start making my own decisions,” but Kleya has a response for that, too: “I thought that’s what we were fighting for.”

Even so, he agrees to help rescue Mothma and enters the Senate as a reporter, at the same time as Organa’s compromised team also enters with an ISB agent in their group. Cassian connects with Erskin, using the now iconic line, “I have friends everywhere.” Even though Mothma immediately dismissed Erskin, he continues to help make sure she escapes.

In the senate, Mothma waits for Organa to create an opening for her. Earlier in the episode, an ISB agent had made clear that no pro-Ghorman senators would be allowed to speak, and the glimpses of the Senate narrative throughout the episode continue the Imperial line that the Imperial soldiers are “martyrs,” and that the Ghormans were not massacred but causing an insurrection. With some political maneuvering, Organa is able to break through the blockade of voices and yield the floor to Mothma. When his ploy works by invoking a specific Senate rule about emergencies, the ISB immediately orders the shutdown of the feed.

I often comment on the brilliant monologues and speeches throughout the show, but Mothma’s speech is perhaps the most important and moving in our current moment. Since I heard her speech, I have not been able to stop thinking about the line, “The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil.” Immediately after the episode ended, I had to look up when the episode had been filmed, because it felt impossible that Gilroy and his team had written this speech with such prescience, but in interviews, Gilroy has discussed they had wanted the speech to feel as timeless as possible, which they achieved. With rising fascism and the violence of empire globally, there are certain patterns, and the pertinence of Mothma’s speech comes from recognizing those patterns and exploring them in Andor.

Rewatching this episode, the “death of truth” shook me even more as the U.S. enters yet another war on the lie of weapons of mass destruction, as more of my neighbors are disappeared off the streets of my rural hometown under the lie of being “illegal” or a “criminal,” of watching the lie that Palestinians are receiving “aid” when they are instead being murdered while world governments do nothing. Mothma counters the death of truth by speaking the truth aloud, which is when the Senate reacts to her speech: she calls the Ghorman massacre “unprovoked genocide.” Saying the word at that moment is what causes the Senate to react, and is part of claiming that truth. Words like “genocide” and “fascism” are brushed aside as extreme, as incendiary, but Mothma’s speech shows the power of using the word in the right moment, of calling something what it is.

Interestingly, Andor sets up this as being one of the most important moments in Mothma’s career. In the Senate, we see moments of her advocating for different ideas—especially for the Ghormans throughout  both seasons—but we don’t necessarily see her as being impactful in the Senate. Rather, in season 1, she is useful to Luthen because she funds his actions. In season 2, her attempt to help the Ghormans with a petition is ineffective, and even she knows that. Instead, her disruption of the Senate and her speech being aired is demonstrated as being impactful as opposed to her political power. I’ve been curious about what tactics of resistance Andor shows as working versus failing. For example, Ghorman’s plaza protest fails, but Mothma’s speech scares the Empire into frantically cutting it off.

Importantly, the only reason the Empire doesn’t succeed in immediately silencing Mothma is because of two unnamed technicians. These two technicians have maliciously followed the rules in order to slow down operations by locking out their supervisor. The exchange is worth repeating:

Supervisor: “It’s locked. Why is it locked?”

Technician: “It’s supposed to be.”

Supervisor: “It hasn’t been all year.”

Technician: “We know. We fixed it.”

Supervisor: “What?”

Technician: “We checked the protocol.”

Supervisor: “Open it.”

Technician: “You need the sequence key.”

Supervisor: “So let’s have it.”

Technician: “We took it up to the security office yesterday…”

The technician even speaks slowly compared to the frantic supervisor, who runs off to find the key, while the technicians smile to each other. Much like the hotel clerk Thela, this example of how to commit malicious compliance—a way to gum up the Empire without breaking any rules—is yet another example of praxis in this show that anyone can do off the screen.

At the very end, Mothma’s speech is cut off, but she’s successfully delivered her message to the galaxy, and finds Cassian standing outside. With the help of Erskine, Cassian kills the ISB agent on Organa’s team, then they escape to her ship. The titular moment of this episode comes as they are hurrying away from the dead body of the ISB agent and Mothma is struggling with the moment of violence, getting her hands dirty in a different way than she’s used to: “I’m not sure I can do this.” Cassian responds: “Welcome to the rebellion.” 

Cassian brings Mothma to the safehouse where he and Bix used to live, and he’s informed by Kleya and Erskine that Yavin will take over Mothma’s travel, and Cassian will essentially be written out of the story in order to make a grander narrative for Yavin. Cassian takes this in stride, but it mirrors how Mothma’s very public moments, like her speech, can only happen because of the work of Luthen, Cassian, and Kleya, which they receive little to no credit for.

These types of moments undermine the larger hero’s journey that Star Wars is so known for. The only reason these heroic moments happen—like Mothma’s speech or blowing up the Death Star—is because of the unsung work of people like Cassian, Bix, Wilmon, the hotel clerk, and the technicians, and all the other large and small acts of defiance.

POSTED BY: Phoebe Wagner (she/they) is an author, editor, and academic writing and living at the intersection of speculative fiction and environmentalism.