This article will contain discussions of sexual assault and attempted rape. Reader discretion is advised.
Andor has a penchant for shocking the audience, but nothing like this one sequence from Season 2's episode 3, "Harvest," has ever been done before in Star Wars history.
The season starts in BBY 4, a year after the Rix Road incident that saw Bix, Brasso, Wilmon, and B2EMO escape Ferrix. They have been hiding on an agriculture-focused planet called Mina-Rau, but they do not have the legal documentation to be there for obvious reasons. They help fix things around the neighborhoods, putting their skills as mechanics to use.
When the Empire comes knocking, checking everyone's papers and citizenship statuses, they prepare for the worst. In episode 2, "Sagrona Teema," one of the Imperial officers, Lieutenant Krole (Alex Waldmann), finds Adria Arjona's Bix Caleen working alone and asks her out on a date. She refuses and tries to brush him off by mentioning her "husband," who is off-planet.
Krole relents but only after Brasso (Joplin Sibtain) shows up. However, the man does not give up. He seeks her out in the next episode, "Harvest," alone in their safe house in the middle of a crop field, and informs her that he knows they were "illegals." In exchange for his silence, he makes an abhorrent demand - have sex with him, and he won't turn Bix and her friends in.
However, it is not really an offer for a deal, because he plans to follow through with it anyway. Bix backs off, requesting him not to do this. Krole pays no heed to her pleas and repeatedly attempts to force himself on her. At one point, he throws Bix against the furniture when she fights back.
Eventually, Bix gets her hands on a wrench from the tools scattered all over the floor because of Krole's acts of violence. She strikes him across the face as he tries to approach her once again. A second and third blow sends him staggering out of the house, bruised and bleeding. He falls face-first on the ground, dead.
The scene has stirred some critical discourse about surrounding the inclusion of attempted rape in Star Wars lore. Some said it was not necessary, given that the franchise is something kids watch and enjoy. The truth is, Andor had never been that kind of a show, and Tony Gilroy had never been that kind of a showrunner. He promised us an accurate, authentic depiction of what really goes on in an authoritarian regime like the Empire, and has been consistently delivering on it.
When asked what made him do the scene, Gilroy told Entertainment Weekly, "The history of civilization is rape. We're all the products of rape."
"That's certainly the pain of being a refugee. Whether you're in Paris in 1939 and looking for papers, or you're in Casablanca, or you're in Shanghai — pick your place," Gilroy added. "It's a huge element of the history of displaced people and women being forced to do all kinds of things."
In an episode that tackles the fates of refugees and undocumented migrants, the sexual assault was a very true portrayal of reality. After all, it's not like the concept of women being forced into sex is a new thing in Star Wars. Whatever Jabba the Hutt had in mind for a golden bikini-clad Leia Organa in Return of the Jedi would not have involved consent.
However, the one thing Disney and Lucasfilm should not have missed out on was a content or trigger warning. Rape is not something that is shown in a Star Wars production often, or ever before, in this case, which makes the note for discretion all the more necessary.
Bix Caleen actor Adria Arjona on filming for the rape scene
Adria Arjona found shooting the scene taxing, but credits Gilroy and director Ariel Kleiman for creating a safe environment for the cast.
"It was challenging because everyone involved in the creation of that scene felt the importance of what this scene meant, not only for the show, but for Star Wars," Arjona told Entertainment Weekly. "But I also felt incredibly safe and cushioned in the process of doing it. It's something Tony Gilroy does. He brings this mirror effect that shows the things that happen in our world can also happen in a galaxy far, far away."
Arjona also addressed the time-tested "husband" excuse that Bix initially offered. Of course, Cassian and Bix did not get married off-screen, although they did seem to have gotten back together in a relationship. But it is something women have been doing for ages - mention being already associated with another man whom the predatory individual may respect, if not her.
"It's a way of escaping," Arjona explains. "It's very different for her to say, 'My boyfriend is coming.' She might feel that he won't respect her, right? But if she says, my husband, there's power to that. There's respect to that. She hopes in her wildest dreams that he respects that. Of course, he doesn't, but she feels incredibly cornered at that moment."
"It's more complex than a cute wedding in the gap year. She's trying to get out of a very tricky situation that, as women, we unfortunately are stuck in quite a bit."
Arjona added that she studied real-life accounts of women who survived sexual assault and rape to prepare for the scene. While the process was draining for her, she felt like she was telling the story of those women, too.
"It felt like I was making them proud. They have no idea who I am, but it was a little homage that I was carrying through."
If you or someone you know needs to reach out about sexual abuse or assault, RAINN is available 24/7 at 800-656-HOPE (4673), or online at RAINN.org.