I can't get past "I don't want to be alone" without tearing up for this little dude, forget getting to the absolutely heartbreak in his stammered "M-m-maarva," just like he's sobbing inside. I love and hate that scene, but seriously I did not ever think Star Wars material would elicit actual emotion beyond the surface. Andor's the only place to get it. He's basically an old labrador, the way he reacts when Cassian comes home unexpectedly is just perfect. They also do something strange in this scene that I think works. There's for some reason some sort of drink on him, looks like liquor, and they film the first few moments of this scene through that, as a way to give us a droid's welled up tears. They also film a lot of scenes with B and Maarva and Cassian from B's height, like when she tells Cassian she can't go with him after Aldhani, so we get some sort of child-like perspective, watching two people he loves argue. I always get like half mad at my man Brasso when B asks him to stay and he looks like he didn't want to. BRASSO, just hang out man, put the TV on and comfort this treasure. And no hell is full until the prefect who knocks him over is in it.

-You always say that. -that's because you always comethrough.

Thanks asshole, now I'm crying at my work desk. I'm kidding, that line is fucking killer too. I have toyed with a B2Em0 tattoo idea with that sentiment on it.

Also how he rests on his charging station (=dog bed). 🐕😭

That's what made me realize it! The dog just sits on the bed when nothing's going on, then when someone comes over they're all excited. "C-C-Cassian! Maarva, he's b-back!"

And the way Cassian always gives him a quick pat where his ears would be if he had them.

She said we can’t go. 🥹

In a show full of wonderful writing & dialogue, this might be my very favorite exchange.

I love watching the YouTube reactors. Universally, no matter what their take on any other character, they respond with horrified rage when Bee gets tipped.

One might say if Prefect Ballgown had just left well enough alone, and NOT assaulted B, the Empire may never have fallen. DO. NOT. FUCK WITH B. One of my favorite podcasters, Van Lathan, had the funniest line about B during the original run of the show. He said if he was at a party and heard someone talking shit about B, he'd have been the one who stood up and said "Yo, who said that? Who was it?" Had to be there.

Love it! Honestly, whatever happens to Bee in S2… if it’s particularly horrible, I might just be turning up at Mr Gilroy’s door to have a few quiet words with him. (Kidding!!)

I don't even like thinking about S2 vis a vis B2. He's not in Rogue 1, and I cannot live in a world where I have to watch B2 "sign off" in some way. He deserves to be happy helping Bix recover from severe psychological trauma, that's where I'd want to leave him. In fact, if I had to choose between never seeing B again and seeing him knowing he'd finally succumb to age like Maarva, I might choose the former.

I know we have had debate about whether he somehow gets uploaded into a security droid and becomes K2SO but they don’t seem very similar in terms of personality. Luthen’s ship droid seems like a closer fit . But perhaps K2 gets Bee’s emotions, or at least his love for Cassian. Ok, I’m going to stop thinking about this now as it’s upsetting me!

That seems wishful thinking to me. K2, who is a top level droid, has his own personality that's nowhere close to B's. K2 is an action taker, you can see his original KX programming in the way he acts around the stormtroopers, his quick wit ("And there's a fresh one if you mouth off again!" and "Well there is now" are iconic), and he has a different sort of bravery than B. I love him, but B would have scooted right the hell away from trouble at any moment. TO me, K2 is more of a German Shepherd where B is more a labrador. Occurs to me that weed, Star Wars on TV and my dog sitting with me is a combination that I either want to limit in the future, or do more. I can't tell which. DEBATE IT YOU COWARDS! WHICH DOG IS WHICH DROID AND THEY CANNOT OVERLAP! GO!

Aha, a fellow pet sitter! I see Bee as an elderly golden retriever, and he definitely reminds me of Dug from Up. Anyway - agreed. On actual personality, they are worlds apart . Whereas Luthen’s ship droid has got the K2 sass. When Cassian is eyeing the empty cockpit and contemplating making a run for it, the droid says “Something I can help you with?!” in a way that immediately recalled K2 to me.

I disagree on Brasso. I think he displays tremendous empathy towards a Droid, a rarity in Star Wars. Even our usual heroes in Star Wars can be casually cruel to droids, but Brasso is consisntely empathetic towards B. After Maarva's death he gets down to B's level and talks to him as if he's talking to a kid whose lost a parent. I take his sigh as him being exhausted after a long day of work and having to help coordinate affairs after Maarva's death (he's grieving too). He's tired and probably wants to go home and sleep in his own bed. He could tell B to kick rocks and force him to come. In his own words he doesn't want B to be alone. And despite wanting to go home, he relents for one night. It's probably not enticing to have to stay the night in the home of you someone you cared about just died in.

Oh, I totally agree, which is why I just get half mad. It's consistent with the sense if community they show built on ferrix.

I always get low-key annoyed that somebody used Bee as a table to put their cup of tea down, but I guess that probably shows how completely still he was for so long. It’s a wonderful shot, suggesting blurred tears and a terrible existential fear. And if he was dead still long enough to get used as a table, it probably means all his feelings are coming out at once in this kind of … malfunction.

How B2 says "M-M-M-Marva" is more chilling and gripping than 90% of characters arcs in whatever film, show, or franchise. How they managed to put so much emotion into a droid is one of many signs this show is a goddamn masterpiece

Yes, and also how much emotion people have for the droid. Like Brasso staying with him in his house, as he doesn’t want to be alone. They really care for him, it’s great.

It really does. And to be honest, Cassian is not necessarily a very likeable character in episode 1 , especially if you don’t know of him, but the way he obviously cares for this droid – carefully removing a bit of stuck metal from his workings – is very endearing. It’s like how you might remove a piece of vegetation stuck to your dog’s fur.

It's one of the things that makes that show so great. The tone is set so perfectly in every scene and every character has the best reactions and lines. There's so much good acting in that show, and I cannot get over the quality of the dialogue. In a lot of TV The emotional conversations are just blah blah blah, insert cliche drama sentence here, blah blah blah. But in Andor the dialogue is actually interesting and they have some great lines that stick with you, like "I will love you more than anything you could ever do wrong" I was also paying attention to the music last night when I watched it, each intro scene has a variation to the music that plays into the themes of the next episode, it's great!!

That's just love. Nothing you can do about that. 🥹

I don't want to be alone. I want Maarva. 😭

That line hit harder than anything else in any Star Wars ever.

I was in denial about her death for a good bit of the episode cause characters in Star Wars just dying of old age hasn’t really happened before in legends or canon. Or at least not in the story itself.

Yes, very true. I think she dies at about the same time as Ulaf - another desperately sad and realistic death of an older person. I hesitate to say “natural” death from old age, considering the horrible treatment he had in prison, but still ‘just’ a stroke. The show in general just seems to take death extremely seriously, which I think is another aspect of its realism.

It took me about four rewatches to figure out with they had Maarva's death off screen: it makes the viewer taste the abandonment that Cassian must, when he calls from Niamos and finds out. Like us, Cassian wants one more moment with his mom, but that's not how real life works. People pass without warning, without a send off, without a "well these are our last moments together so let me tell you how much I care for you," etc. Fucking genius.

Book-ending episode 11 with two of the saddest scenes in the whole series makes this episode a very tough watch for me. At least Bee gets some comfort from Brasso. Cassian has nothing but the horrible news and the extra cruel knowledge that he is just something like a day too late. As you say, it’s just like real life - death waits for no man, as they say. His palpable helpless shock at the news and that beautifully bleak cello music and cinematography is utterly devastating.

Samesies. But the payoff is the debate that always happens at the end of the series in my house (I can't watch 11 and then NOT watch 12). Which speech is better: Maarva's or Luthen's. It's a tough baby to split, because they're both better than all other Star Wars monologues.

I usually have to watch episode 12 just to see Cassian finally getting some cathartic Brasso comfort. Best monologue… I honestly still can’t decide. Lately, it’s Nemik who really hits me in the feels.

You know what's weird about the Brasso thing in 12? First couple of rewatches, I would have sworn up and down we heard Maarva tell him that at some point. But we never do. It comes to us only through Brasso, and it's perfectly Maarva. My vote has to go to Luthen's even though it seems like the "chalk" answer. To make that speech without it sounding like a speech is quite an accomplishment. Maarva's sounds speechy because it's literally a speech she's recording. But both have these super organic notes, Maarva's mention of holding hands with her sister makes me choke up, while watching Luthen perhaps for the first time *realize* what he's given up, and the pause between kinship and love in his speech is all Skarsgard, is just as poignant. THe crescendo he reaches, the more he catalogues, the more he has to consider what he will regret, woof, chills. Both things can be great. GIve me what you like about Nemik's. I never really register it because I think it's voiceover, it's hard to attach the actor's performance for me.

It’s so difficult! With Nemik… I think for me it’s about how it represents the sort of culmination of Cassian’s arc. I I like the way that it starts off as literally the voice from the audiobook, and then becomes a proper voiceover. And I think it’s possibly a lot to do with the fact that Cassian is finally ready to hear it, and that it represents a kind of light at this darkest moment for him. It’s another proper ‘speech’ in that it’s written rhetorically, with the repeated “remember this” etc. The optimism of it, in contrast to the bleakness of Luthen’s, makes it an excellent complement. The water imagery in it also really makes me think back to those final shots from episode 10, with the prisoners “leaking” from Narkina 5 … authority leaking, breaking the banks of the Empire’s defence. And the build up to the final word, “Try”, with the focus on Cassian’s sad but determined face with the foreknowledge that this is what he will spend the rest of his short life doing. Most of all, the sense of it all coming full circle and that Nemik knew all along but he would find his “ ideal reader”. We really are spoiled for choice with the monologues alone in this show.

>The optimism of it, in contrast to the bleakness of Luthen’s, makes it an excellent complement. What an EXCELLENT point. I'd give you ten upvotes if I could.

Ooh, thank you! I love the fact that all four major monologues, two by Gilroy himself and two by the hugely talented Beau Willimon, all represent various aspects of the fledgling Rebellion. Waking up, taking charge, finding hope, making sacrifice. And sometimes all of the above.

I think Cinta did it. "\[people dying\] It happens."

My girlfriend and I are currently watching Andor (2nd watch for me) she is not a big SW fan at all but she absolutely adores this little guy. She’s always asking me “where is B2? I wanna see B2”

I love B2. Poor little guy

B2 shown more emotion in that one scene that Ahsoka does her entire series

I never expected to tear up for a trash can talking about Harry Potter’s aunt, but life is full of surprises.

I always thought the drink on B’s head was Marva’s tea cup - she drinks from the same one after she fell - when brix and brasso find out she’s a rebel. In other words she out it there went to bed and died in her sleep

I’m welling up again at that thought. :(

His eye scares me. It looks like the Death Star eclipsing a sun and firing its superlaser at you. Just like the opening logo scene...

I think I read it was based on Hal 9000’s “eye” from ‘2001’. Incredible that they got so much positive emotion into something with terrifying connotations.

For some reason it reminds me of screen projectors you might find in an office.

😭😭

I love that little droid, I can’t wait until they exist for real.

That scene destroyed me. I wanted to give him a hug.