Andor's Undocumented Labor Subplot Hits Terrifyingly Close to Home

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the first three episodes of Andor Season 2.]

In Star Wars: A New Hope, there's no distinction between the Empire's law enforcement and its military, introducing stormtroopers as an all-purpose army who guard prisoners, battle Rebel soldiers, and question civilians at gunpoint on the streets of Tatooine. The iconic "these aren't the droids you're looking for" scene takes place because Luke and Obi-Wan get asked for ID during a traffic stop, a dynamic that Andor expands upon with its top-down view of the Empire's fascist legal system. Cassian's (Diego Luna) main antagonist in Season 1 is an overzealous corporate cop who leads an armed attack on Cassian's hometown, causing untold destruction in his attempt to arrest a single man. Later on, when Cassian does actually get sentenced to jail time, it's for an arbitrary list of trumped-up charges after getting picked up in a routine sweep. The Empire just needs warm bodies for slave labor, and Cassian was walking in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Season 2 opens with Cassian's friends hiding from similarly cruel and unjust policing, living as undocumented laborers on the agricultural planet Mina-Rau. After fleeing an Imperial occupation on their home world, Bix (Adria Arjona), Brasso (Joplin Sibtain), and Wilmon (Muhannad Bhaier) are now in hiding — although they've fortunately found a welcoming place to settle down. Mina-Rau's grain harvest relies on undocumented workers, and the community welcomes them into the fold, sharing meals and (in Brasso's case) falling in love. Yet despite this superficially peaceful environment, Cassian's friends are still at risk from government crackdowns. When Bix and Wilmon spot an unexpected Imperial vessel arriving in Episode 1, they have every reason to be afraid.

ALSO READ: Andor Season 2 review: A thrilling conclusion to the greatest Star Wars spin-off

The Empire typically turns a blind eye to people working without a visa, but random audits do happen. In Episode 2, the situation starts to get tense. The local storekeeper, Kellen (Ryan Pope), warns our heroes about inspectors closing in on a nearby settlement. "What if we stay ahead of them?" asks Bix. Making their living as mechanics, she and the others sometimes travel to maintain the equipment on other farms. 

"I'd be careful," says Kellen, adding that the inspectors "caught someone running" nearby. In a risky attempt to protect his undocumented friends, he falsifies a work order to get them out of town. But this solution comes too late for Bix, who is already being targeted by a creepy Imperial officer, Lieutenant Krole (Alex Waldmann). 

Bix's scenes with Krole are among the most intense in this trio of episodes, launching a campaign of sexual harassment that escalates from insidious flirtation to attempted rape. It's the kind of interaction that obviously can't take place in the more kid-friendly corners of the Star Wars franchise, but here it provides a disturbing and realistic perspective on Bix's vulnerable position.

Some fans have objected to Andor's inclusion of an attempted rape scene, arguing that sexual violence shouldn't exist in the Star Wars universe. However, this viewpoint doesn't fit with what we see elsewhere in the franchise. Slavery is an established element of the setting — as is sexual exploitation, albeit in a PG-rated context, like the dancing girls chained up in Jabba the Hutt's palace. Krole's predatory behavior is just another symptom of the Empire's oppressive power structure, like the automated injustice of Cassian's imprisonment last season.

Krole's introductory scene quickly sets out his particular brand of cruelty, cornering Bix while she's at work. He starts by making small talk about the nightlife in a nearby city: a conversation that operates on two levels because we (like Bix) are well aware that he's only here to locate undocumented workers. If he finds out that she doesn't have a visa, he's legally empowered to ruin her life. Still, when he eventually asks her to dinner, she tries to give him a polite brush-off: "I'm not sure my husband would approve." 

Unfortunately, this invites questions about where her husband (Cassian) actually is. "Is he a mechanic as well?" Krole asks, still smiling. "Does he worry about you?" The implication being that Bix's absent husband may in fact have something to worry about. He only backs off when Brasso arrives at the scene, appearing just after Krole drops an ominous comment about the Empire's ability to "stop things sneaking away." 

The next day, Krole shows up at their house while Bix is home alone. "I know you're illegal," he remarks, trapping Bix inside while a junior officer guards the front door. At this point he abandons his facade of plausible deniability. If he can't pressure Bix into sleeping with him, then he'll assault her by force. He's clearly done this to other women and seems shocked when Bix fights back. As she shoves him away, the scene dissolves into a brawl, culminating in Bix knocking Krole out and shooting the guard when he comes to investigate.

Across the fields, the main squad of Imperial troops have already arrested Brasso, who only manages to escape because Cassian shows up in a stolen ship, providing cover fire while Bix and Wilmon watch from afar. Then, in the final minutes of the episode, Brasso gets shot down by stormtroopers. Grieving and shellshocked, his friends flee the planet with nothing but the clothes on their backs. 

While the original Star Wars trilogy invited comparisons between the Empire and Nazi Germany, this sequence is one of many points where Andor evokes present-day America. Mina-Rau is a planet whose local population appears to be majority-white, farming a crop that resembles wheat or corn. Meanwhile, our point-of-view characters are people of color: a group of refugees fleeing colonial violence, led by Puerto Rican-Guatemalan actress Adria Arjona as Bix.

We know that the Empire needs undocumented labor to keep its agricultural industry afloat. Yet that workforce is kept in a state of precarity, leaving them vulnerable to the exploitation of officers like Krole. The system is designed to instill fear, purposefully disrupting communities where migrant workers have already settled in. 

ALSO READ: The complete guide to spring TV

The allegory here is so blatant that showrunner Tony Gilroy may as well be hitting us over the head with a tract about the evils of American immigration policy. However, it's also a moving piece of human drama — especially for Bix, who was already struggling with the trauma of being tortured in Season 1. Like Brasso and Wilmon, she didn't start out with any intention of becoming a rebel or an outlaw. Each of these characters was pushed to breaking point by the Empire's violence, leading them to lash out in self-defense.

As an origin story for the Rebel Alliance, Andor provides a sympathetic view of unremarkable civilians who become enemies of the state — a rare viewpoint in a TV landscape where cops and government agents are typically cast as the heroes. During the Mina-Rau storyline, the real-world allusions couldn't be more explicit. The bad guys are ICE officers and the good guys are undocumented migrant workers, fighting for their lives in a setting where — at least for now — there's no expectation of outside help.

New episodes of Andor Season 2 premiere Tuesdays at 9/8c on Disney+.