Because he wouldn’t be safe, he would have to constantly watch his back from now on. It makes zero sense to leave someone alive who KNOWS you would betray everyone at the first chance.
There wasn’t any ‘from now on’, though. The mission was over, and Andor was fully set to go his own way afterwards, at least as far as anybody knew.
Being out of his sight just makes it worse, he wouldn’t even know who he is talking to. It is just crazy risky to let him go after completely exposing yourself to him like that. He already proved he is willing to let everyone else get screwed.
So Skeen is not true to the cause. Just him climbing over anyone to get out of the hole. Then why was he spending months and taking the risk being in on the job? He can’t pilot. The others were all believers and wouldn’t pilot for him. He convinced them of his brother back story to get in on the job, why?
As to why Andor shot him? I suspect Andor was also informed by knowing the tattoos and what they likely meant. And he was pissed. Part of him was starting to care about these people as found family. He actually is the manifesto’s target audience.
Probably precisely to do what he tried to do.
Before Andor surprisingly joined, how? Who was he going to get to pilot for him?
Are they implying that one of the killed members of the group was in on it? That Andor was his improvising?
They were all planning to do the heist without Andor for months, I assume someone was going to pilot the damn thing.
And that person was in with Skeen on betraying the others and stealing it for themselves?
I doubt it, he seemed to be improvising.
So then he did this fairly long risky process of joining the job … with no plan of how to possibly steal it at the end?
I imagine he felt that amount of money was worth the risk, and the only way to have a shot was to be involved.
Skeen may originally have had a riskier plan that only got him a smaller portion of the money. Once he found out Clem was a mercenary, he switched to a new plan that theoretically had less risk and got him half of the money.
As for why he killed Skeen, I think Cassian is savvy enough to realize that anyone willing to betray his supposed friends for 40 million is even more likely to backstab a virtual stranger for 80 million. Skeen almost certainly would have shot him in the back as soon as they got wherever they were going and taken the entire score for himself.
Also, when someone puts themselves as a traitor in that kind of situation, what other choice do you really have but to eliminate them? You know they only have their own interests in mind — what’s to stop them from going to the Empire with everything they know in hopes of some kind of clemency or reward? Or what happens if they get caught or arrested for something else down the road and say “Hey, I can tell you who stole that 80 million on Aldahni. Let’s cut a deal…”
In a situation as precarious as theirs, Skeen made himself a loose end that was too big to be left untied. Cassian tied it.
Didn’t Andor pretty much straight-out murder a guy for inconveniently knowing too much early in Rogue One? He’s quick on the murder.
Also, someone needs to introduce paper money to the Galaxy far, far away. “Let’s steal the Imperial payroll! Also, the Imperial payroll is five million rolls of quarters!”
It was his contact who told him about Galen Erso and the Death Star.The guy had a bad arm and couldn’t escape. But yeah, no hesitation when he realized he couldn’t leave his contact behind to be caught & interrogated.
Wow what a terrific episode. I’ll go so far as to say that, at least based on the episodes aired up to now, Andor is the best Star Wars screen project since The Empire Strikes Back.
In the moment I saw him killing Skeen as another moment pushing him toward signing up for the rebellion full time. Right now he seems sort of “yes, I’m anti-Empire and pro-rebellion, but I’m not running out there to join this thing. Plenty of other people handling that.” But now he sees not only does the rebellion have to fight against the empire, it also has to fight against opportunists like Skeen. Killing him I thought was his frustration at how people like Skeen are going to ruin it for everybody and are just as bad or even worse than the empire.
Like the old saying goes, I rather be stabbed in the front than stabbed in the back.
That may be but he also may be rationalising it as “him or me” and adhering to what he sees as his code of honour. i.e. he was paid for a job, he did the job, he is taking his pay.
I don’t think he is admitting his full rebellion sympathies it to himself…yet. But he did take the manifesto and will probably read it, and he will have time to reflect on why he actually turned down the big bucks.
I think we also see a potential pathway for the manifesto to fall into Mon Mothma’s hands. I wonder if that turns out to be pivotal and could be the rallying text for the rebellion as a whole?
Skeen didn’t provide much enthusiastic cover fire for Taramyn who asked him to “Cover me!”. Just one shot and he ducked back in to let Taramyn get shot.
As it turned out, Taramyn being out of the way made for his scheme to take off with the coins a lot easier.
Andor had to be the one who fired first.