I’ve had fear of how the time jump between each 3 episodes arc will be awkward and disconnected to us viewers but I’ve come to terms with a bigger picture here:
Before you continue, spoilers alert!
I understand the concern of how it might feel disconnected, rushed, having each year only 3 episodes to story-tell them. But I slowly see the point of the urgency, the disconnect. The storytelling tells the significant part of each year, omitting some details of the more mundane dailies. The nuance and subtle details they show for each arc gives us something to dig and realise about what have changed and how Cassian has grown without providing all context of his growth. The autonomy of “imagination” granted to us as viewers to view all these characters is a space for interpretation and how different people perceive grief, pain, and growth. So each and every one of us gets to insert how we imagined these characters dealt with their pain and struggles which led them up to where they are every time we see a 1 year jump. The lack of context of it all gives us all a chance to wonder, what have they done, what have they been through in those sleepless nights, what did they tell themselves, how did they even get through all those times? Sometimes there isn’t an answer, there isn’t a right way. Sometimes the only way is through. And the “how” of it all, it is up to us to define.
In the ending of episode 3, we see Mon Monthma drunk and broken, having to make one of the most cruel decision to assassinate her childhood friend who had helped her through her most difficult times. Then Cassian, Bix and Wilmon on the TIE, leaving behind Bee and Brasso, grieving his death and not able to give him a proper burial, with the ending scene zooming in on Cassian’s face that shows how much pain he is in.
So the next time we see them, on the second arc, it would’ve been a year later. Everyone would’ve had to “move on”, continue with life, continue with what needs to be done to survive. The next time we see Cassian, he’d be different, grown, carrying more responsibility, carrying his grief like a dull pain at the back of his mind. And Mon, unsure where she would be, but definitely no longer drunk, and having to move on from the decisions she made. And Bix, going through the torture trauma and we see her recovering to a certain extent by arc 1, then her SA attempt, and by arc 2 she’s probably another different person, many things would’ve changed.
In the story, it’s been a year. They’ve had a year to grief and push themselves through. But for us, it will only have been a week. Our grieves are being pushed in a way where we carry all those pain with us from each arc and leading up to Cassian’s death in Rogue One. The pain is going to compound, and I think that is the point. That although the characters in the story will go through pain in years, we as viewers are supposed to carry all that pain with us within a short amount of time, feeling the weight of it all until they all crashed down on the moment Cassian’s death happens. It’s exactly what it is meant to do, that we are now living the ticking time bomb of what is going to happen to all of these characters in the show, the urgency of it all. It’s meant to make us feel it all. I think the way it’s being dawned upon us is tragically beautiful.
vaporwave
kaledo-art
yousharknotpass
snowghoul
blakekathryn
discoholicmusic
germansingergirl
