‘Andor’ episode 11 recap: the penultimate chapter in Star Wars’ best series so far

The recap takes quite a while this week as the threads of Andor’s last 10 episodes are all slowly starting to tie up before the finale. Long story short: everyone is waiting for Cassian (Diego Luna) to come home.

Now stuck in the middle of a desert looking for an escape ship with Melshi (Duncan Pow), Cassian is desperate to get back to his mum, Maarva, on Ferrix. But he’s too late. Passing away unceremoniously offscreen between episodes, Maarva’s body is now preparing to be cremated and baked into a brick wall – both a weird Ferrix death custom and a very apt metaphor for the strength of the people.

Living up to his name, B2EMO is now the saddest droid in Star Wars, not wanting to be left in the house alone now that Maarva is gone. But the old lady’s death is a trap just waiting to be sprung. Cinta (Varada Sethu) is working in the bar across the street, keeping an eye on everything. Meero (Denise Gough) grants permission for a funeral, just to lure in the rebels. Even Karn (Kyle Soller) gets a call from an old friend and finds out that he might finally have a chance to redeem his name (and to get out of his mum’s house). If Cassian shows up at the funeral, everyone will be waiting…

But first he needs to get out the desert. Trying to steal a ship from a couple of toad men, Cassian and Melshi instantly trigger an alarm and get caught in a sticky net. Luckily, the toads aren’t all bad (they hate the Empire too), so they let the escapees take the ship and head off.

Back on Coruscant, Bix (Adria Arjona) is still being tortured. Now barely able to stand up, the Empire is showing her pictures of Anto Kreegyr and trying to connect the dots of the rebellion. What they don’t know, of course, is how deep the insurgency actually runs – or how weak it is in division.

Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård), Vel (Faye Marsay), Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau) and Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) are all sort of on the same side, but it’s still not clear how much they all trust each other. Mothma has her own problems to deal with – still agonising over the idea of marrying off her daughter for money – but the bigger loose end is Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker). Now finally agreeing to help Kreegyr on the Spellhaus mission, Luthen is forced to tell him that the Empire are going to be waiting. If the attack happens, Kreegyr and his men will die. If it doesn’t, they’ll know the rebels have someone on the inside. Whatever Saw decides to do, it’ll be all on his own terms.

Caught in a stop and search on the way home, Luthen almost doesn’t make it back. When talking his way out of a tractor beam doesn’t work, he flips a trigger and turns his ship into a James Bond car – spiky mines spitting out the back, secret rocket launchers popping up and twin lasers jetting out the sides to take out a load of TIE fighters and (just) get away.

As Cassian phones home and finds out his mum is dead, he has no idea how big of a trap he’s walking into for the season finale. And that’s not even the bigger arc of the story. “30 men for the greater good?” asks Saw. “Call it what you want” replies Luthen. “Let’s call it war…”

‘Andor’ releases new episodes on Disney+ every Wednesday

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