This article contains spoilers for Andor episode 11
Andor episode 11 – “Daughter of Ferrix” – was a tearjerker. At the very start of the episode we learned that Fiona Shaw’s Maarva, Cassian’s adoptive mother, had died. Her droid buddy B2EMO was refusing to leave her house, the people of Ferrix were paying tribute to a fallen elder, and both the ISB and the Rebels recognized that her funeral is a prime opportunity to snare the title hero.
Tragically, Cassian was just about the last person to hear the sad news. After returning to the beach resort of Niamos to grab his abandoned gear, he reached out to Ferrix with a message for his mom. That’s when he learned the awful news, and was clearly crushed. After hugging Melshi and handing him his blaster, he stared out at the ocean with the sunlight barely peeking through the clouds.
It’s a shot that many fans see as an intentional parallel to his eventual death in Rogue One, where Cassian and Jyn Erso witness the Death Star laser’s apocalyptic explosion from a beach and hug each other as the blast wave consumes them.
Is Cassian thinking of Maarva just before he dies?
We’re here for any Rogue One callbacks (call forwards?):
And him reassuring Jyn that her father would be proud of her neatly mirrors him being sure Maarva would be proud of him:
It’s like poetry, it rhymes:
This is how you do a prequel:
But yeah, maybe he should have taken this as a cue to stay away from beaches:
Next week’s finale is sure to be a wild ride. It’s going to be a long week until it all goes down, but at this point we have absolute confidence that Andor will deliver the goods.
The Andor season one finale will air on Nov. 23.