"It's fomenting out there, sir. Pockets are fomenting."
— Mosk
Bix tells Cassian that her buyer is interested. Timm, Bix's boyfriend and a colleague of Cassian's aware of his Kenari past, reports him to Pre-Mor, where Mosk, a similarly-minded Pre-Mor officer, partners with Karn to try and track him down. Cassian travels to meet Bix's buyer.
In flashbacks, Kassa is part of a group of Kenari children who approach a crashed ship. They kill their attacker and depart, but Kassa stays behind.
Tropes:
- Ambiguous Situation: Mosk is introduced as a kindred spirit to Karn, but later events, such as Karn's attempt to deliver an inspiring speech, raise the question of how much he actually respects Karn and how much he's just being a Yes-Man to keep an incompetent superior happy and out of the way.
- Empathy Doll Shot: When Maarva is searching the house for Bee, she wanders into Cassian's old childhood bedroom, and the camera lingers on a toy bantha sitting on the nightstand. This comes shortly after Cassian reveals his fatal mistake to Maarva of openly stating his home planet, which sends his life straight to hell in a way that mirrors his own lost childhood almost two decades prior and eventually brings the Empire onto their home.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Karn may be a By-the-Book Cop who takes his duties seriously enough to order a murder investigation and lead the arrest team, but he's in over his head when giving orders and making speeches in the field. Mosk is the one who delivers the En Route Sum-Up.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Timm, who denounces Cassian to the authorities, clearly thinks he's making moves on his girl Bix, when he actually wants to get off the planet as quickly as possible.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Mosk reminds the troops that the locals may not take kindly to their appearance, but asks them to remind said locals of the monthly forum where they can vent complaints. The smirk on his and his men's faces makes it clear that even this monthly forum is a formality at best.
- Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: After watching Bix and Cassian's conversation from a distance, Timm assumes it's a romantic rendezvous, because he can't hear what they're actually saying, only see how close together they're sitting, and he leaves immediately before Bix re-establishes the distance between them in a way that would have been clear even from his distance.
- Rousing Speech: Subverted. Mosk gives a decent briefing to their unit and then asks Karn, who had organized the entire investigation, to address the group. However, Karn is too tightly wound and lacks confidence to speak in anything but slow, delayed, and stumbling words. When he finishes, Mosk tries to help him save face by forcing the troops to applaud, but even that applause is half-hearted at best.
- Second Episode Introduction: Luthen Rael, one of the show's mainstays, makes his innocuous debut in this episode.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: Though nothing's explicitly stated, Bix clearly invites Timm to sleep with her. As he moves forward when she's sitting on the bed, the scene fades out. Bix's shown lying there in bed on the next morning.
- Superficial Suggestion Box: The "Territorial Forum" where Free Trade Sector citizens can submit complaints. Mosk's men smirk contemptuously when it's mentioned.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Poison blow darts are often depicted as being much more lethal and fast-acting in fiction than they are in real life. Not so in this case: in Cassian's flashback, the Republic officer gets riddled with probably two dozen or more and even with that sort of dosage continues fighting for about a minute or so before he finally drops.
- Title Drop: When Maarva asks Cassian who let the security agents know he was from Kenari, he replies, "That would be me."
- Translation Convention: When we first see the APB on Cassian, on the data screen, it's in Aurebesh. Then we get a Title In translation in English so that viewers can actually understand it.
- Villainous Friendship: Mosk and Karn do look out for each other. Mosk realizes that Karn isn't a public speaker and tries to manufacture some applause for him after his attempt at a Rousing Speech, and takes point for most of the episode as Karn grows more shaken.
- Would Hurt a Child: The surviving officer of the crashed Republic ship fires on the Kenari children who came to investigate, killing one of them.
