<em>Andor</em> Season 2, Episode 11 Recap

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"It would be you, wouldn't it?" The disappointment in Kleya's (Elizabeth Dulau) voice deafens like a flashbang grenade. Even now, at the end of it all, it still feels unreal that out of all the characters in the Rogue One ensemble, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) got his show. And the fact that Andor has been exceptional? It's miraculous. But from Kleya's point of view, it's a crushing blow to learn that the only one answering her urgent call is the guy with one foot out of the ship. The Empire holds a secret weapon, a marvelous monstrosity whose only purpose is to eradicate life at will. The chances for Rebellion victory now seem impossible.

Yet Star Wars is a saga of miracles. Like Andor salvaging the Star Wars franchise at large, Cassian is actually the hero Kleya needs. In the penultimate hour of Andor, its protagonist finally returns to begin his march towards his fate: stopping the Death Star. Though we know Cassian will not be the one to make the Trench Run and will not live to receive a hero's honor, his sacrifices and growth have been as monumental as any Jedi training. Cassian will die as an unknown in the history books. But his obscurity is not cruelty from an indifferent universe. There's simply virtue in being the anonymous hero no one expects to see coming.

Let's dive into season 2, episode 11 of Andor, "Who Else Knows?"

Cassian Andor is finally ready to accept his fate.

In the last episode, Dedra was arrested for pursuing Luthen (the now-written off Stellan Skarsgärd) against orders. Unbeknownst to her, underling Lonni was one of Luthen's informants and so his suspicious activities now seems like her doing. It doesn't help that a load of Death Star-related emails—sorry, "intel bundles"—were forwarded to her by mistake, a strange lapse in error from an otherwise strictly regimented bureaucracy. "I didn't read them all. Most of them I never opened," she insists to a now hostile Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn, again chewing up his recurring appearances). But Orson doesn't care for excuses. He only knows what he sees, and what he sees is Dedra being no asset for the Empire.

Later, in her cell and missing all of the action, Dedra speaks to Heert (Jacob James Beswick), another one of her underlings with similarly cutthroat ambitions to rise the ranks and pick up where Dedra was forced to leave behind. Dedra provides a reluctant tip to check specific signals—"Old frequencies, pulse codes, my best guess"—before offering, "It's probably too late." It's not too late, but how is Dedra going to know that from where she's sitting?

Though Luthen burned most of his contact files and dossiers, his radio remained relatively untouched. It's by sheer dumb luck that Kleya's repeated attempts at getting her message out is received by Heert and other Imperials sitting behind Luthen's working radio, allowing them to her location at Luthen's grimy Coruscant safe house.

We’re (still) pouring one out for Syril.

Just as Andor can be unsuspecting as a Rebel spy, so too can Kleya, who has transformed from Luthen's unassuming assistant to assertive revolutionary. Now that we've glimpsed her life, every word she speaks carries weight. You just feel all her years of fighting and survival.

With her hospital carnage opening the episode, Kleya now holes up in Luthen's safehouse to broadcast a signal that is slowly received by Andor—and K-2SO, who has grown attached to Cassian in a short year's time since his awakening—back on Yavin. Cassian slips away to Coruscant to see Kleya, a meeting that is immaculately timed to when the Empire is also closing in on her.

Though Cassian isn't exactly who Kleya was hoping to see, she breathlessly spills everything she knows about the Death Star project to him. (As well as news of Luthen's death.) It's a critical handoff—while Cassian plans to get Kleya to Yavin, if she dies in this apartment by Imperial gunfire the baton is now in Cassian's hands. We know how this all ends. But how this information is handed from one source to the next is where it seems Andor will hinge its primary dramatic question from now until the end.

After Cassian receives the Death Star information, he and Kleya have a more important chat about their roles in the revolution—again, a conversation that is strangely concurrent with the Stormtroopers' advance on them. (Thankfully K-2SO is present to run some helpful, and hilarious, interference.) "You told me you were done once," Kleya questions. Cassian replies, "And you told me I was wrong."

Kleya defends Luthen's memory that he died for the information that Kleya just shared. When Cassian confirms he'll relay it to the Rebels, she reminds him: "You owe him that." Andor ends its second-to-last episode with Stormtroopers closing in on Cassian and Kleya. It wouldn't be Star Wars without a hallway shootout, would it? With just one more episode to go, Andor sets up a grand finale for its titular hero. We know he's not going to die—not yet, anyway. But how Cassian will get out and relay the information to the Rebels is a pure shot in the dark.