Paul: Bix's Baby

05 Jul, 2025

Obviously I watched the second season of Andor, and then I watched it again. The second time was with Molly, who (to my delight) very much enjoyed it.

Gretchen Felker-Martin is one of my favorite critics, and I inhaled all of her Andor S2 reviews as soon as I finished it. I don't remember her precise wording (which is paywalled behind her patreon anyway) but I have the distinct impression of phrases like "this is as good as television gets". I agree.

In the end, Andor's achievement is so complexly good that it's defied my belief. And this post isn't even about that! This post is about a tiny, stupid, culture-war bullshit footnote to how good it is that has stuck in my craw.

The final image at the end of Andor's 24 episodes is a sweetly sentimental postscript: Bix has had a baby, clearly Cassian's, and she's raising it on Wheatworld¹.

I'm not going to track down specific tweets, but seeing Bix in a maternal role really annoyed some people, and the complaints were along the predictable lines: Frustration at seeing a woman reduced to the default of motherhood, or at the implication that this was a fulfilling way to end Bix's story of loss and fear and trauma.

I don't agree, of course.

One of the fundamental themes of Andor is that it is worth it to fight for a better future even if you never reap the benefits of that future. Luthen literally says this in his late season 1 monologue. It only makes sense to accept that axiom if you think that somebody else is going to benefit from that better future. Perhaps...the children?

Not to belabor the point, but those children will have to come from somewhere. Some of the people who can have children are going to have to choose to do so in order to populate this better future. I'm not making a pronatalist argument here, but I am pointing out the latent antinatalism in the constant grousing about a character having a baby.

There is every reason to believe that Bix chose the circumstances that we see her in at the end of Andor. Even if the viewers weren't saddled with the foreknowledge that Cassian is days away from his death and therefore unavailable for parenting duties, between Cassian and Bix, only one of those characters has the ability to contribute a person to the future. It is thematically appropriate for her to choose to do so—it represents Andor putting its money where its mouth is. It is a material and deeply consequential act of rebellion, and it's one available only to Bix. Cassian has the privilege of dying for the rebellion. Bix's privilege is to enact death's opposite.

Her choice to do so is a reminder that the choice exists at all.