What was the point of his character? I thought he served his purpose in the first season, and his escape from Ferrix alongside Bix and Brasso allowed for him to take on a larger role in future seasons, but his appearances in the second and final season are very strange to me. Tony Gilroy apparently saw something in the character and the actor, Muhannad Ben Amor, that prompted him to scale up his role in the final season, though I believe that something changed throughout the writing and filming process - possibly multiple times.
This post will be me trying to deconstruct what the intention behind Wilmon was and why I see it as so strange, though I'd like to hear what others think on the matter. Starting with the basics, it's clear to me that Wilmon was supposed to be a parallel character meant to reveal a larger truth. Parallel to which character? Cassian Andor. Not in regards to their origins, but instead in regards to their fight against The Empire. That begins in practically the same way. Clem was hanged on Rix Road and a young Cassian made an attempt at revenge by violently rushing at a group of clone troopers who played a part in killing him. Salman was hanged on Rix Road and a young Wimon made an attempt at revenge by throwing a homemade bomb at a crowd of imperials under the command of the officer who requested that Salman be hanged.
The consequences of this action are different for both boys, however, as Cassian served prison time while Wilmon was rescued from the threat of detainment. This, alongside the time it took for the pair to be introduced to Luthen Rael, is what separates the two. Cassian learned to keep his head down and spent the following years developing a large set of skills that would later make him indispensable to the rebellion. Wilmon, on the other hand, was only emboldened, which made him particularly easy to recruit into the Axis network. We never actually see the first meeting of Wilmon and Luthen, but I would assume that he visited Mina-Rau and discovered the boy's technical expertise.
Instead of broadening his skill set, Luthen would hone in on his innate talent to have him learn how to hack into Rhydonium pipelines as Saw Gerrera was requesting an agent with that knowledge. This is where we meet him in the second arc of season two, with it being important to note that this arc was the first to be written and shot. Viewing it in isolation as the entirety of Wilmon's story post-S1 is helpful in understanding the original intention behind the character. If we do that, we see that Wilmon's fate may have originally been much different than what we think it to be now. I think he was supposed to die during his stay with the Partisans.
It all has to do with that Wilmon represents. He's an overly idealistic version of Cassian who lacks the independence necessary to prevent himself from being used by Luthen - with this leading to his early death. As opposed to Andor, who dies a hero after going rogue to save the galaxy against the orders of his superiors, Wilmon would die a meaningless death on orders from Luthen and manipulating from Saw Gerrera. Cassian's decision to leave the Axis network in favor of joining the Rebel Alliance would be predicated on this, as - even though him and Luthen were on shaky ground following the Ghorman fiasco - word of Wilmon's death would be the last straw.
This is not what we see at all come the start of arc three. Not only is Wilmon still alive, Cassian is still willing to work with Luthen and has become a kind of father-figure to Wilmon. This breaks the parallel as now Cassian is competing for that parental role with Luthen as the two have different ideas on how he should be carrying himself in the rebel cause. This conflict is really weak as Luthen and Wilmon are never once on screen together to show what their relationship looks like, and everything gets resolved anyway when Wilmon goes his own way to save Dreena. He gets injured in this mission, but it's not portrayed as being Luthen's fault - and it wasn't. Arc four shows Wilmon receiving the news of Luthen's death, but by then he's become his own man and is able to move on pretty easily.
This was nice and all in terms of giving him a happy ending, but it's ultimately meaningless as (in my opinion) it doesn't really say anything. This is shown off well in arc one - which was written and shot last - where the writers took how we see him in arc four (being in the background with his girlfriend not doing anything notable) and just did that again. This creates some narrative coherency problems as a later vision was ported over to an earlier portion of the story. It stands out too because Wilmon has a surprisingly large amount of screen time in these episodes where he just acts like the immature stepson of Brasso and Bix while lacking any larger narrative purpose.
This becomes kind of incoherent when you watch arcs one and two back-to-back since neither Bix nor Cassian bring up Wilmon once, even though he's doing dangerous missions for the same guy they're working for. All three times that Luthen and Cassian speak, Cassian never asks about Wilmon. If we're supposed to assume that he stepped up as the surrogate father after Brasso's death, this doesn't exactly sell me on the idea. Beyond this, his relationship with Beela also brings up some strange questions. It seemed to me that Wilmon went back for Dreena because she was his first romantic relationship and he didn't want to abandon her, so Beela's very existence weakens that moment where he leaves Cassian to find her.
Sure, Wilmon was forced to leave Beela in the early stages of their relationship, with this being in contrast to the day of the Ghorman Massacre where Wilmon and Dreena are sharing the same bed, but it just looks very unnecessary and like Tony Gilroy ran out of ideas for the character. It's made even more awkward by how Bix returns to Mina-Rau after leaving Cassian, since this means that Wilmon looked to have been able to go back to Beela if he wanted to. It's not that big of an issue, but it still bothers me. Anyway, what do you all think of this? Do you think the (alleged) original vision should have been kept, or do you think it was a good idea to change Wilmon's fate?
![[Meme of the Week Contest] Winners Archive | Fandom](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
