TV Recap / Review - Mon Mothma Gets Assistance from a New Ally in "Andor: A Star Wars Story" Season 2, Episode 9 - "Welcome to the Rebellion"

This evening saw the release of the third arc’s worth of episodes in season 2 of Lucasfilm’s live-action Disney+ series Andor: A Star Wars Story, and below are my recap and thoughts on the ninth installment.

Andor season 2, episode 9– entitled “Welcome to the Rebellion"-- begins with chanting over the main title, and then we open on Coruscant in front of the Senate building. It’s a rainy night, and inside Bail Organa (Benjamin Bratt) watches as the senator from Ghorman Dasi Oran (Raphael Roger Levy) is being arrested by Imperial stormtroopers. Mon Monthma (Genevieve O’Reilly) approaches Bail and asks him if he’s seen how many Ghormans died in the massacre. “I can’t take it anymore," she says, insisting that she needs to speak out against Emperor Palpatine in the Senate the next day and then leave the planet. Organa says he’s “not going anywhere" because he’s not ready yet and he needs to stall. “Yavin needs your leadership; I just can’t go with you. Not yet." Mon says he’ll be a hostage in the Imperial Senate. “Let’s hope not," he replies, suggesting that he’ll help her get off-planet after her speech. In the back of Luthen Rael’s antique shop, Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau) briefs Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) on his next mission, and Cassian insists he’s “done" after this next task.

“What does that mean, ‘done’?" Kleya asks. “You’re tired? It’s too much? It’s too hard?" And then she tells him about how Mon Mothma is going to give a speech the next morning and she’s the one he’ll be escorting to her safety. Next we cut to Mon’s office, where her assistant Erskin Semaj (Pierro Niel-Mee) searches for listening devices using an electronic device, and then actually finds one, which Mon crushes on her desk. At the ISB offices, an agent listening in starts to hear feedback, and then we cut back to Mon’s office, where she says she needs to practice her speech outside while Erskin looks for more bugs. There, she is approached by Luthen (Stellan Skarsgard) and she asks how she knew she’d be there. “Erskin works for me," he replies. “All this time?" “He’s protected you in ways you’ll never know." Luthen implies that Mon can only trust him tonight, telling her that Bail Organa’s escort team is corrupted: “I don’t know everything, Mon, but I know what I owe you. You can’t leave with Bail’s people."

Mon asks Luthen if he remembers Tay Kolma, who Luthen calls a “false savior." Mon brings up how quickly Luthen decided Tay was a risk and had him eliminated. “I’m sending someone I trust," says Luthen, and he tells Mon the passphrase to meet Cassian after her speech: “I have friends everywhere." At the ISB, two officers discuss how Mon Mothma’s driver Kloris reported that she hasn’t left the Senate that evening and that the bug in her office has gone dead. Back at Mon’s office, Mothma confronts Erskin: “I’m not sure I’ve felt this betrayed in my life, and I have some experience. When did you start?" “After the wedding. Two years," responds Esrkin. “I’ve tried to protect you." “And you failed." Mon dismisses Erskin immediately and he says “it’s been an honor" before leaving as Mon attempts to regain her composure. Underneath a pedestrian walkway on the surface on Coruscant, Cassian meets with Luthen and Kleya about the plan to escort Mon off the planet, and then Kleya calls Erskin to ask whether Mon is planning on going through with the speech.

Cassian demands that Luthen join him on traveling to Yavin IV, but Luthen refuses, saying there’s still work to be done on Coruscant. Luthen gives a speech to Cassian implying that fate brought them together, and then Kleya returns to complete the planning, saying that if Mon Mothma gets arrested, “it all comes down." We see Kloris calling into the ISB and explaining that Mon was upset that morning about the news coming out of Ghorman, and next we get a look at how the security checkpoint works going into the Senate. Cassian enters using his new alias as a HoloNet news reporter, and a guard lets him pass despite not having a room assigned to him. Then we see Bail’s team of three people (two men and one woman) as they prepare to escort Mon out of the building after her speech. At the ISB, Supervisor Lagret (Michael Jenn) receives word about the possibility of Mon’s speech, and then we see Bail approach Mon in a Senate hallway. “Here we are. The day has finally come," says Mon to Bail.

“There will be an escort team of three waiting," says Bail. “You need to leave the moment you are done. Do what they tell you." Mon asks Bail if she trusts the team, and he responds, “Of course." He says he’ll see her next year at Yavin and departs, while downstairs Cassian watches the senatorial broadcast on a monitor. He’s approached by Erskin, and Cassian gives him the code phrase, so Erskin walks him up further to his destination. An alien senator pays tribute to the fallen Imperial soldiers on Ghorman while Erskin further briefs Cassian as they walk toward Mon’s pod. Two of Bail’s team retrieve their blasters from a storage room as Cassian and Erskin speed-walk toward Mothma. Then we see that the woman on Bail’s team is indeed a double agent, calling in to the ISB. The man confronts her and she murders him with a blaster shot to the chest. On the Senate floor, a senator yields her time to Bail Organa, who proceeds in invoking an Imperial article that allows him to yield the floor without interruption to another senior senator.

So Bail introduces Mon, and the ISB attempts to shut down the Senate feed, but they’re blocked by a locked door and two agents who are clearly working for Luthen. Mon takes her pod out into the center of the Senate hall and begins her speech. “I stand before you this morning with a heavy heart." Outside Cassian approaches the door with a Chandrilan emblem on it. Bail’s two remaining team members reunite while the ISB continues to try to gain access to the room controlling the feed. “I stand before you this morning with a difficult message," continues Mon. “I believe we are in crisis. The difference between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest."

“What happened yesterday on Ghorman was unprovoked genocide, and the monster screaming the loudest– the monster we helped create– is Emperor Palpatine." At that moment, the ISB finally succeeds in cutting the feed, and Mon’s pod retracts into the perimeter of the Senate hall. Outside, we see Kleya and Luthen listening to the broadcast, realizing that it has been shut down. Mon leaves her room and Cassian joins her, telling her that was on Ghorman during the massacre. He gives her the pass phrase, and talks about her cousin Vel. “We’re the last survivors of the raid on Aldhani. You have no choice but to come with me. Just keep walking; I’ll be right behind you." As they exit an elevator, Mothma is bombarded by onlookers, including the double agent working for Bail and the ISB. There’s a showdown and Cassian kills the double agent. He tells Erskin that there’s no time to figure anything out, so he makes the other man get on the ground and leaves with Mon.

“Don’t run," he says, as Mon reacts in shock that Cassian “killed that woman." “Welcome to the Rebellion," he says, leading her to the loading dock. Imperial stormtroopers and officers are dispatched as they make their way through the building’s winding hallways, but when Cassian notices that the Empire is shutting down all exits, Mon says to “forget the loading dock." They hustle downstairs as the ISB scrambles to lock everything down, and at Mon’s hovercar Kloris is increasingly frustrated by being made to stand by. Kleya tells Luthen to return to the gallery, while Kloris decides to take matters into his own hands, walking toward the Senate building. He crosses paths with Mon and Cassian, the latter of which shoots Kloris dead after Mon tells him her driver is an ISB plant. They escape down the front stairs of the building, while in the Senate hall Bail Organa looks worried.

At the ISB, panic sets in as Lagret receives a call from Colonel Yularen, surely being made to answer for his failure. In Mon’s hovercar, she and Cassian speed off toward Luthen’s safe house, while on Yavin IV we see a briefing about ordnance and Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay) finds the blaster belonging to Melshi (Duncan Pow), who stands among the troops reporting for duty. On Coruscant, Cassian walks Mon to the safe house door and does a secret knock. Erskin allows them entry, asking if Mon is all right and comforting her. “I can’t believe you made it," Kleya tells Cassian. “You must be exhausted." But Cassian wants to talk to Wilmon (Muhannad Bhaier), who is in the safe house’s back room with an injured leg from the riot on Ghorman. Mon asks Kleya if Luthen is safe, and Kleya says he knows Mon made it out of the Senate. Kleya tells Cassian that Mon Mothma is not going with him to Yavin, setting the stage for her to meet up with the Ghost crew in an episode of Star Wars Rebels. “They want to rewrite the story," she says, ironically.

Here we get a nice scene between Mon Mothma and Cassian: “I’m not sure how to thank you," she tells him. “Make it worth it," he responds. On Yavin IV, Cassian’s U-wing lands at the hangar with Wilmon in the hold, and several medics help him onto a gurney. General Draven (Alistair Petrie) tells Cassian none of his actions will be logged in. “Gold Squadron will deliver the senator to Yavin," he says. “It’s the result that matters." Cassian tells Draven about the KX droid in the ship: “I think we’ve got all the pieces." And then he returns to the makeshift home he shares with Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona) on the moon. They drink tea together and Bix tells Cassian he needs to sleep. “I’m done, Bix," Cassian says, telling her that he’s “not doing it anymore. I’ve done what I can, and I’ve done a lot." He says he wants to be with her instead of continuing on with the rebellion. “I’m going to talk to Draven tomorrow. We’ll leave before it gets too complicated. We have what we need." Bix doesn’t respond, and Cassian insists that the only special thing about him is luck, denying that he has a bigger role to play in the coming civil war.

The next morning, Cassian awakens to find that Bix is gone. He listens to a message she recorded for him on a datapad: “I have to leave. I have to go away. I’m not sure where, or for how long, I just know that I can’t stay here with you now. It is a choice; it just can’t be me– I can’t be the reason you leave here. If you give this up for me, I’d never forgive myself. We need to win, and I believe you have purpose in making that happen. I need to believe that, so I’m choosing for the both of us. I’m choosing the rebellion." Cassian runs toward the hangar but he is told that Bix’s transport left earlier that morning. “I’ll find you," Bix concludes in her message, and then an officer tells Cassian that they’re getting ready to power up the droid he brought in. “It either works or it doesn’t," a technician says, giving out protective goggles, but Cassian opts to take a weapon instead.

The technician powers up the droid, and after some twitching, for the first time in this series we hear K-2SO’s (Alan Tudyk) voice: “Hello. If I’ve offended you, I apologize. If not, I’d appreciate you pointing that elsewhere." And so ends the third arc of this season, with Cassian meeting his new companion at the conclusion of what will probably be remembered as one of the best (or at the very least the most intense) installments of the entire series. Senator Mothma’s speech is exactly what it needs to be, and her egress from the Imperial Senate is just as exciting as I had hoped, and Bix’s departure is heartbreaking but we know as well as she does that Cassian is destined for greater (and far more tragic) things.

The first nine episodes of Andor: A Star Wars Story season 2 are now available to stream, exclusively via Disney+.