Star Wars: Andor - Disney+ - September 21, 2022

[Potiki]

The tension building and then pure chaos in the middle of this episode is wonderful. 
 

Kind of a so so ending but looking forward to Season 2. 
 

Also heads up there is small post credit scene

Edited November 23, 2022 by Potiki

[Porthos]

This show continues to surprise me.

 

In all the best ways.

 

(and, yes, there IS a post credit scene)

[Porthos]

So what surprised me?

 

Spoiler

Mothma not so much throwing her husband to the wolves so much as coldly using him to help cover her tracks?

 

Cold blooded but brilliantly executed.

 

Syril ACTUALLY  being a hero for the Empire?!?  Didn't see that coming in a million years.  Not one bit.

 

I loved loved LOVED that an Unplanned Variable upset the whole apple cart for the scheming of both Luthen and Dedra and gave just enough cover and chaos for Cassian to escape... Just as Nemik promised.   Grade A foreshadowing.

 

The escape was perhaps a bit too neat but with the brains/leading hands of the Empire either chopped off or incapacitated, I can see how they'd soon fall down to trying to contain the riot. Do think having a bit more explanation as to why Luthen bugged out wouldn't have been amiss but I can piece it together fairly easily:

 

He came to kill Andor.

Once it became clear that he couldn't find him and he didn't have the resources to find him, time to cut bait.

Too bad he used the same drop point as before.  Sloppy on his part. 

 

Loved it.  All the way through.

Edited November 23, 2022 by Porthos

[Porthos]

Also.

 

...

 

The folks over at AO3 are gonna be WORKING OVERTIME after this episode.    

Edited November 23, 2022 by Porthos

[Porthos]

I know I'm going on and on tonight, but I can not be the only one who saw the direct homage

 

Spoiler

To the American Revolutionary Fife (and Drum) Corp?

 

 

 

I mean, that was pretty fucking blatant, no?

 

...

 

Okay, maybe it's a stretch and I admit I am far more into US History and Politics than many, so maybe I'm seeing things.  And, yes, they weren't really fifes.

 

But damn, if they didn't remind me of it immediately. Like, slapped me across the face immediately.

 

...

 

This isa show about Revolution, you know. 

 

[Inceptionzq]

My only complaint is that we have to wait 2 years for new Andor episodes… Guess I’ll just have to rewatch it with all this free time I have during Thanksgiving Break.

This show is really something else. I hope it gets all the buzz it deserves at award shows.

[Marek the Jedi]

that was cool! I love it, yeah that waiting for next season is freaking long, hopefully some other SW series will help too

[Knights of Ren]

Great ending to an amazing season.  This show needs to be the blueprint moving forward on overall production, score, direction, and acting.  

[dudalb]

it's kid friendly but they have not thrown in stuff that does not fit in just because it;s cute and the kids will like it,someething that has hurt some SW films in the past.

It is also going where I think the director of Rogue One wanted to go but got held back on:that the Rebel Alliance is not squeaky clean, that it has some blood onit's hands.

 

[SnokesLegs]

Just caught up on the last two…B2 saying “I don’t want to be alone, I want Marva” stabbed me RIGHT in the feels. When that Imperial knocked him over in the finale I nearly screamed.

[Ozymandias]

alright folks where are my Dedra/Syril shippers

[MrPink]

I love this show more than anything it can do wrong. (Thanks, Ringer)

[Menor Reborn]

Strong ending to a strong season. 

Spoiler

Maarva's speech was brilliant. 

 

[MOVIEGUY]

Decent finale

 

Spoiler

I just feel like the show's lost a bit of steam after the prison arc. The big showdown at the end wasn't anywhere near as exciting as the heist and prison setpieces. The scene at the end with Andor and Luthen didn't really make sense to me. Also I'm not interested in this Mon Mothma storyline at all and it's moving WAY too slowly to have this much screentime dedicated to it. Doesn't feel like there's been any sort of payoff or reason to care. She could've defected and become full rebel like 5 episodes ago and I would've been perfectly fine with it. Death Star reveal was fun. Saw some nerds complaining about the show being above "fan service" like that, and it's like this show is a prequel to a movie about the fucking Death Star, it makes perfect sense. Nerds don't know how to enjoy god damn anything.

 

[SnokesLegs]

6 hours ago, MOVIEGUY said:

Decent finale

 

  Hide contents

I just feel like the show's lost a bit of steam after the prison arc. The big showdown at the end wasn't anywhere near as exciting as the heist and prison setpieces. The scene at the end with Andor and Luthen didn't really make sense to me. Also I'm not interested in this Mon Mothma storyline at all and it's moving WAY too slowly to have this much screentime dedicated to it. Doesn't feel like there's been any sort of payoff or reason to care. She could've defected and become full rebel like 5 episodes ago and I would've been perfectly fine with it. Death Star reveal was fun. Saw some nerds complaining about the show being above "fan service" like that, and it's like this show is a prequel to a movie about the fucking Death Star, it makes perfect sense. Nerds don't know how to enjoy god damn anything.

 

I agree about Mon Mothma, her scenes were a total snooze for me. I liked Andor for the most part, but I do feel like it could’ve used some tightening up here and there, there was at least one of the prison episodes that could’ve been chopped down considerably and added into one of the other episodes. I know the argument will be that you wouldn’t have quite as much of a sense of urgency for the pay off if the prison only lasted two episodes, but that middle episode dragged for me.

[Porthos]

There's a couple of neat things I'd like to highlight about the finale that shows the attention to internal logic and detail that, at times, other recent shows have been missing.

 

(we're butting up on of edge of the informal spoiler period [72 hours, I think??] so I'll still put it in spoiler bars but any replies tomorrow I might make might be outside of a spoiler box)

 

Spoiler

Namely the ease of Andor finding Bix and rescuing her and the restraint the Empire showed before the riot and at the beginning of it.

 

While in other situations it would be contrived, it not only makes perfect sense, it was hammered home just why the situation was like this:  The Empire, or rather Dedra, BADLY WANTED ANDOR ALIVE. They not only showed Dedra getting pissed off earlier at one avenue for "Axis" getting struck down, but they showed her berating her troops not to use lethal force.

 

That meant restraint.  Much much much more restraint than could reasonably be expected.

 

Funeral procession starts early? 

Let it roll, we need to catch Andor.

 

Hell, let the funeral procession happen in the first place?

It's all a trap to get Cassian here, so who the fuck cares what the locals do, just as long as it doesn't get out of hand.

 

Funeral procession is at least quadruple the planned size (thanks in part to misdirection with two separate marches merging)?

SHIT. FUCK. GET STAFFING DOWN HERE BUT LET IT GO (this is intertwined with the ease of Cassian rescuing Bix, but more on that later).

 

Let Maarva's speech on as long as they did? 

Part of it was just being stunned and unsure what to do as they were losing control of the situation, I think, but mostly it was because they viewed all of this as a sham and that all they really cared about was Andor.

 

Even when the Empire blinked and said, literally, "enough", they still showed restraint.  Live fire wasn't used until Shit Got Real.  By then Command and Control had evaporated on the Empire side and it was time to throw down.  

 

Maybe if Dedra was still in operational control should could have stopped that.  But Fog of War is real.  

 

The second bit is the ease of Andor rescuing Bix.  For one thing, the Empire fatally miscalculated what Cassian would be doing here.  Yes, he showed up for the funeral.  But once he heard about Bix, that's all he cared about. As an aside, it's telling that only Luthen was able to correctly deduce just what Cassian would be doing, but he wasn't in a position to do anything about it.

 

So the Empire pulled snipers down from the towers so they wouldn't be in a position to accidentally (or "accidentally") shoot Cassian.  That in turn gave Cassian his initial vantage point. 

 

Since they weren't expecting an attack on/rescue at the hotel they felt safe in emptying out its forces to be present for Riot Control.  And, to be fair, they probably needed every trooper they could spare.  But in doing so, that allowed Cassian the freedom to infiltrate the hotel with minimum resistance. 

 

Maybe they should have paid more attention to the tunnels (I think they knew about them, but I'd have to double check).  But that just goes to show that locals will always know the local terrain more than interlopers, and Cassian used that to his maximum advantage.  As well as using all of the chaos outside the hotel.

 

So not COMPELETELY perfectly airtight, but really really sound internally.  Much sounder than many shows.

 

There was one other really neat point I wanted to draw attention to that's unrelated to the above.

Spoiler

When Wilmon's bomb went off and after the chain reaction was over, there was about 10 to 15 seconds of stunned silence from EVERYONE as they processed the dramatic escalation in what was going on.  

 

Just a little touch of "what the hell just happened" from folks as they look around, blink, and realize that the stakes have been raised. A lot.

 

(Which is when the Empire Lackey had had quite enough and screamed "OPEN FIRE")

 

Just some great scripting right there on all three parts and I wanted to draw a bit of attention to them.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Porthos

[Joel M]

It was great all the way through. I disagree with all the Mon Mothma has too much screentime, this or that could be trimmed etc. For me the best thing about this show is that it actually feels like a TV show and not a supersized movie chopped up to pieces.  Scenes and character moments play out, not everything is about moving the plot forward, there's flourishes that are just there to flesh out the world and don't have to be justified. Not everything is as gripping as the prison escape or the heist that are the big look at ma shit moments of the season but the season as a whole is better for it.

 

And it's because of how meticulously they 're building up the rebellion from many angles that I'm a bit bummed about the  only 2 seasons plan. I know the show isn't as succesful as the the other ones but I would still prefer them to keep this pace than speeding up to Rogue One by the end of next season. 

Edited November 26, 2022 by Joel M

[SnokesLegs]

12 minutes ago, Joel M said:

For me the best thing about this show is that it actually feels like a TV show and not a supersized movie chopped up to pieces.

Funny you should say that because I felt the exact opposite. It felt like 3 movies chopped up into episodes, each with their own three act structure. Not necessarily a complaint as it worked for the most part.

[Joel M]

11 minutes ago, SnokesLegs said:

Funny you should say that because I felt the exact opposite. It felt like 3 movies chopped up into episodes, each with their own three act structure. Not necessarily a complaint as it worked for the most part.

 

I get what you 're saying but kinda disagree. Cassian adventures are split in very defined 3 episode arcs but Deirdre, Syrinl, Mothma arcs move independently and their screentime varies wildly from episode to episode. Sometimes they get heavy focus, some times they get one scene. Same with Skaarsgard and his rebels that are the connective tissue between Cassian-Ferix-Coruscant/Empire through lines. Every episode even the most uneventful ones felt thematically coherent and full to me which is not the case with most "it's really an 8-hour movie" shows.

[SnokesLegs]

2 minutes ago, Joel M said:

 

I get what you 're saying but kinda disagree. Cassian adventures are split in very defined 3 episode arcs but Deirdre, Syrinl, Mothma arcs move independently and their screentime varies wildly from episode to episode. Sometimes they get heavy focus, some times they get one scene. Same with Skaarsgard and his rebels that are the connective tissue between Cassian-Ferix-Coruscant/Empire through lines. Every episode even the most uneventful ones felt thematically coherent and full to me which is not the case with most "it's really an 8-hour movie" shows.

Fair point actually, I think I kind of discounted some of those bits because unfortunately those were the parts where I was least engaged, particularly the Mon Mothma and Dedra stuff. I know a lot of people liked those scenes, but they just didn’t work for me and dragged the pacing down (again, I know I’m probably in a minority there, so I’m glad it worked for others like yourself).