Well, That Just Happened | Andor S1E12 | Dudes Daily
I'm marinating on thoughts for a broader reflections post on the whole season, but this finale embodied a lot of my difficulties feeling engaged to the show's story.
At a high level, Maarva's funeral feels intended as an emotional anchor to the end of the season, but the character has always been too lightly drawn to have much weight. We haven't seen enough of her family life to share Cassian's personal grief, nor any meaningful on-screen development to attach us to her in her own right. Aside from her speech to Cassian, all of her resistance has been off-screen, as was her death. I don't think "show vs tell" is the best analytic, but none of Maarva is on-screen outside of exposition and monologue.
Bix is a similar case - so underwritten prior to her capture that it's hard to feel invested in her in particular. Her state of constant traumatized semi-coherence now would feel different if she'd been more than Cassian's old flame / love interest before, and it's hard not to feel like her plot is fridging-adjacent in its willingness to revel in her suffering.
The Coruscant characters fare better - Karn and Meero get a lot of development and interiority behind their actions, and Mon Mothma's home life and political position are probably the strongest season-long character writing in the show. Luthen's a cipher, but his characterization is consistent enough that it doesn't feel like a problem. And no doubt, they wanted to keep an air of mystery around him for subsequent seasons.
The real dud is Cinta and Vel's relationship, if one believes it exists. Beyond the lack of any meaningful physical affection onscreen, Andor refuses to show moments of emotional connection or care between the women outside of action-movie "what if I never see you again" chaff. It wants my buy-in to Vel's frustration at Cinta prioritizing the cause over their relationship, but without ever showing what's lost, the issue is never more than academic.
I'll save broader reflections for another post, but thoughts I have percolating: pacing, #droidfeelings, the show's apparent theory of resistance, and how it deploys Black characters.