REVIEW: Andor – Season 1, Episode 11, “Daughter of Ferrix”

Television Reviews

***SPOILERS***

In “Daughter of Ferrix,” we learn that Marva has passed away. Cassian and Melshi are captured and eventually helped by strangers. Dedra encourages the ISB to give the Daughters of Ferrix a permit for Marva’s funeral to draw them out. Vel informs Clea of Marva’s passing. Bix crumbles in the face of repeated torture. Linus contacts Syril about the funeral. Saw agrees to join Antor Creeger and accepts Luthen’s deal. On the way home, Luthen is intercepted by an Imperial craft. In trying to get a message to Marva, Cassian learns of her death. 

I think we all saw Marva’s death coming, but I thought we would see her in “Daughter of Ferrix,” which is named in reference to her. An earlier episode revealed that she belonged to a group called the Daughters of Ferrix. I like how they did this, immediately showing us that she has already died. As well set-up as this was, this is the closest they could get the audience to the shock Cassian must feel. I really liked Marva, and Fiona Shaw is a great actress. I wish we could have learned more about her past and Clem, but this character served the story very well. Cassian’s silent contemplations over her death are the closest I’ve come to caring about or sympathizing with him. It’s also moving how the community checked in on her once Cassian left, and all mourn her now. It’s interesting for a pillar of the community like Marva to raise someone like Cassian, who lacks any sense of civic duty or ties to his surroundings. I also thought the local burial custom was really cool. In short, Marva will be cremated, and her ashes mixed into the bricks used to build the city. She will literally become a building block of her hometown. 

I feel even worse for Bee; Marva and Cassian were his whole life. Now, the former is dead, and the latter has thoroughly abandoned him. They’ve done a great job with Bee as the droid because he’s funny, sweet, and sympathetic but doesn’t overshadow the main characters at all. Rogue One did too much with K-2SO and very little with its human leads, and even Rebels sometimes focused too much on the droids. His request that Brasso stay with him in the empty house is heartbreaking; even with Marva gone, he’s afraid to leave her home. He also comments about waiting at one point, likely referring to Cassian, who he believes will come back. Clearly, Cassian will return to Ferrix for the funeral in the season’s final episode. I don’t know why else they would focus on it so heavily in “Daughter of Ferrix,” and otherwise, I think all hope of sympathy for Andor would be lost. 

The production value of this episode is incredible! It looks like a movie, especially the brief space battle between Luthen and the Imperial Destroyer. The look of the inside of the Destroyer really took me back to the original trilogy, and the tricks Luthen’s ship performs are unique and inventive. In a different show, this would have come off as a dumb, cheesy attempt to make Luthen look cool or show off expensive special effects. But Andor treats its characters and setting with so much respect that you do the same. On Narkina 5, Cassian and Melshi encounter these frog people who help them escape, and they look amazing. The costumes are insanely detailed and believable, and I like their unique dialect. We know Melshi and Andor can’t die, but I wasn’t sure how the frog men would treat them or if a fight was about to ensue. I would be remiss not to mention Nicholas Britell’s score, which just seems to get better and better. His opening theme is slightly different in every episode, and I love the attention to detail. The music is lovely when Brasso and the Daughters take Marva’s body away; you can feel what she means to her neighbors and friends. The makeup on Adria Arjona as Bix is very effective as well. She’s gone from a young, beautiful girl to a sickly zombie from the exposure to the “choral pleading” Dr. Gorst has been feeding her. I assume Cassian will be decent enough to help Bix escape the ISB in the season finale, but I wonder how much of her is even left. Is she in there? She’s unable to speak or focus every time we see her. Between this and what happened to Timm, I think it’s fair to say that Cassian has totally destroyed her life. 

 Ferrix’s customs are mirrored in Leda’s voluntary obeisance of Chandrilan gender roles. Possibly to spite her mother, she attends and even hosts meetings of young, conservative-minded Chandrilan girls. Mon tells Vel that she’s “found a solution” to her banking dilemma, implying that, unfortunately, she does plan to accept Davo’s offer and introduce their kids. While he never came right out and asked for a betrothal, that’s the logical outcome of such a meeting. I wonder how Leda will respond; she doesn’t get along with her mother at all and likely won’t want to do whatever she wants. However, her penchant for the Chandrilan old ways would point towards accepting the match. The worried look Mon and Vel share says everything; they hate this custom and fear what it will do to Leda, whether she initially wants to do it or not. 

And we get another fantastic scene between Luthen and Saw Gerrera, this time sparring over the fate of Antor Creeger. Luthen tells Saw it’s too late to join Creeger’s campaign, and surprisingly, he does tell him why. Saw sniffs out the fact that Luthen is protecting a mole in the Empire and shows genuine concern for Creeger’s men. I find it fascinating that a ruthless revolutionary like Saw and ISB agent Lonni care more about the moral implications than Luthen. This may be Stellan Skarsgård’s best performance in Andor yet, and Forest Whitaker predictably brings his A-game too. Scenes like this are why I love this show more so than the gorgeous special effects and mounting tension. 

“Daughter of Ferrix” is beautifully written, smartly crafted, and visually stunning. This episode sets up the season finale very well.