Andor 1x08 "Narkina 5" Review

This episode of Andor has to be my favorite yet, but it also wasn't what I was expecting at all.

I don't know why I was convinced there was going to be a time skip after the last episode, but I was. Something about how things ended left me feeling like we wouldn't be seeing any of the characters again for a few years, but it turns out that wasn't the case. Things pick up right where they left off, and I'm happy about that because I found this episode very interesting.

Cassian is sent to Narkina 5 for his sentence. It's a factory where they have to work twelve hour shifts. What struck me most about the setting wasn't the factory floor but their cells. They don't have any doors, but during the night, the floor will get "hot" and kills anyone who steps foot on it. It's far more gruesome than have doors, and even on Cassian's first night someone dies. 

Meanwhile, Syril gets questioned by Dedra, who's zeroing in on Cassian. He begs her to help, but she sends him back to the Bureau of Standards. Despite that, I don't think it will be the last we see of him.

We learn a bit of backstory about Mon Mothma and her husband. It turns out that they got married as teenagers, which is the custom on the planet they're from. It does explain a lot about how they're together despite being so different, and I'm thankful for that explanation because it's been bothering me since we met her husband.

Back on Ferrix, Bix is taking care of Maarva, who's fallen and is ill. I was hoping that Cassian and Maarva would be reunited, so now I'm worried that she'll die before he sees her again.

Vel and Cinta are also on Ferrix, and we get some tidbits about their backstory. In particular, we learn that Vel comes from a rich family, which does seem to fit her characterization so far. I actually wonder if she and Luthen are related in some way or, at the very least, knew each other socially somehow. 

This episode also made me curious about Vel and Cinta's relationship. Cinta mentions that she's a mirror for Vel, and she says it in a way that is very accusing. Vel has seemed almost obsessive about what Cinta is doing at certain points, but that is potentially explained by the high stakes situations they've been in. Now I wonder if it's more. This episode seemed to imply that Vel likes Cinta more than Cinta likes Vel, so I guess we'll see how that plays out.

Luthen goes to see Saw Gerrera, which is a nice surprise. Luthen is trying to convince him to join forces with similar groups around a joint cause. During this conversation, Saw makes a comment about never really know who Luthen is, and this reinforces my distrust for him. 

I go back and forth on Luthen a lot. His indentions seem genuine sometimes, but other times, it feels like he's hiding something. There are some indirections between Luthen and Kleya where I can't tell which of them is actually in charge.

There's a lot happening and a lot of characters we're following. Thinking back on the episode really makes me realize how little we actually get of certain characters during the episode. I'm curious to see how their stories intertwine more in the coming episodes.

Andor 1x07 "Announcement" Review

After the last episode, I was curious about where the story would be going next. A lot of this episode wasn't too surprising for me, but the end managed to surprise me. I'm still not sure if that was in a good way or not.

Syril's mom has gotten him an interview at the Bureau of Standards where he gets a job monitoring fuel purity. It sounds boring, and the image of Syril at a computer in a room full of people at the same computers reinforces that idea. Since the end of the episode implies a time skip, I'm guessing he's going to have been stewing in misery for years the next time we see him, which will probably make him even hard to stand.

Meanwhile, Dedra is doing mostly the same thing she's been doing in every episode so far, but this time she gets accused by another supervisor of overstepping. He's clearly hoping to get her into trouble, but instead, their supervisor praises her and assigns her Ferrix. I'm guessing that means she'll be more involved in stuff that's actually happening to Cassian and/or the Rebellion in the coming episodes.

On Coruscant, Mon Mothma realizes that Luthen is behind the attack, and she's angry. Apparently she wanted to build a network but didn't think much about what would happen after that. I can get that in the sense that all the planning in the world can't always fully prepare you for when things finally happen.

She does seem to get over it relatively quickly though and is already making more plans later in the episode with an old friend of hers. She tells the friend that her husband isn't to be trusted, which is to be expected from what we've seen of him. However, I am curious about her and her husband. They seem to have such wildly different views, so how did they end up together? Did they ever love each other? I'm leaning towards the theory that Mon Mothma's mind changed over time considering some of what her friend says. 

I don't know if we'll actually find out much about her or her husband's backstory, but I am curious.

Vel also appears again in this episode. I have to admit, I'd forgotten about her by the time she popped up. If she hadn't appeared again at all (or at least for a while), I probably would have just gone with it. However, she's instructed to kill Cassian because he knows about Luthen. That does make me curious.

I still wonder who, exactly, Luthen is working for or if he's working merely for himself. I don't fully trust his intentions, especially with his plans to kill off loose ends like this. I have a feeling Vel is going to become allies with Cassian though instead of killing him.

Cassian goes back to Ferrix to get his mother, which was nice to see. I honestly wondered if we would get to see her again. We also see Bix again, and I have a feeling that she'll show up again before the series is over too, despite how things end between her and Cassian.

There's a flashback of Clem being killed, and Maarva ultimately decides to stay on Ferrix and talks about the Rebellion. I have a feeling that the future episodes will involve Cassian going back to Ferrix as well since everything seems to be leading back there. And I'm guessing it's going to find that Maarva, Bix, and maybe others he knows are working for the Rebellion. But we'll see.

Maarva also urges Cassian to stop looking for his sister, and I doubt that will happen. So I'm curious about how she'll eventually find her way into the story too.

The episode ends with Cassian on Niamos, which is essentially this resort type of place. Long story short, he gets arrested and sentenced to six years in prison. I'm guessing this is an excuse for a time skip, but it does feel a little jarring tacked onto the end of the episode.

While the end did feel strange, I'm looking forward to the upcoming episodes and am excited for them more than I was for the previous episodes. I think the Rebellion is finally going to come into the story in a larger way, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with that.

Andor 1x06 "The Eye" Review

This is the episode where the plan is finally put into action. We're at the halfway point of the season, and I get the impression that the focus is going to shift a little after this episode. So this is kind of like a mid-season finale from back in the day when shows would actually have a break during the season.

We get to see the Aldhani in this episode as they gather to see the Eye. In the end though, they play a background role in what's happening. The group pretends to be some of the soldiers who are escorting the Aldhani in order to gain access.

When they do reveal themselves, Beehaz insists that he doesn't have access to the payroll and that they won't be able to access it. However, they do manage to gain access, and despite a few minor hiccups, nothing ever really seems like it's going to make the plan fall apart. I wasn't quite at the edge of my seat or anything like that. There are deaths in this episode, but none of those had a huge impact on me either.

The group falls apart quite quickly once they're under pressure. This is especially apparent when Nemik is dying, and Vel doesn't want to take him to a doctor. Cassian takes him to the doctor anyway, but he ends up dying. Interestingly, even though Skeen was the one who wanted to take Nemik to a doctor, he then turns on the others by trying to convince Cassian to take part in a plan where they split the money between the two of them.

Cassian then demands his cut and wants a ship to get away on his own. Obviously, we're not going to see the group members who died again, but I wonder if this is the last we'll see of Vel. I did think the group was going to play a larger role than they seem to have done, and now that they have the money, I really do wonder what will come next because I have no idea.

Andor 1x05 "The Axe Forgets" Review

This episode felt a little slower than the ones before it. We got a lot of build up, but for the most part, I just wanted to know what's going to happen next.

Syril is back at home with his mother, who manages to be a much more interesting character in this one episode than Syril has been in the first five. I'm not sure how I feel about Syril or his storyline yet. I'm not very interested in it, and I keep hoping that will change, but it doesn't really.

Meanwhile, Cassian finds out that one member of the group investigated his things without him knowing. There's a bit about the tattoos the guy had and Cassian knowing what they mean when the others didn't. I'm curious whether that's going to come into play later or if it was just as Easter egg.

We do learn a bit about a couple of the group members in this episode, including one of them who is writing a manifesto. The tattoo guy makes a joke about how manifesto guy (I'm sorry, but I can't keep their names straight) sees repression everywhere. I find that interesting considering what the whole group of them is going. You'd think they'd be more sympathetic to manifesto guy even if he's especially enthusiastic about philosophical ideas.

It turns out that the senator woman on Coruscant also has a daughter. Just like her husband, she seems to have a lot of tension with her daughter. I'm very curious about this because it seems like the senator is genuinely trying to do the right thing, so I'm curious how things got to where they are with her family. But I also like to see a character who seems good overall also have problems with their family instead of things being easy for them on that front.

Towards the end of the episode, Cassian tells the group that he's being paid. They all decide to work with him anyway. It seems like we're going to get the real action next episode, so I'm excited to see what happens.

Andor 1x04 "Aldhani" Review

This episode feels like the point where we're really getting into the main conflict of the series (or at least this season), and I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes. Specifically, Luthen tells Cassian that they're goal is to steal the payroll for an entire imperial sector, and it seems like working with a group on that project is the story.

Before they part ways, Luthen gives Cassian a kyber crystal, and it's implied that the crystal is important to Luthen. I'm assuming that's going to come back up later in the story. This episode definitely made me more fascinated about Luthen as a character. Other than Cassian, I think he's who I'm most curious about at the moment.

Because of Syril's actions, the Marlana system is put under imperial control instead of the corporation's. While this is obviously bad, the corporation didn't seem any better, and it was satisfying to see Syril laid into like he was. I'm guessing the whole thing will make him incredibly bitter, but I am curious what will come next for him since he doesn't seem to have much authority over anything at this point. But I'm assuming he will play a major role.

Cassian meets the group who he's supposed to work with, but we don't learn much about any of them. We see the most of Vel, but her story is still pretty shrouded in mystery. I'm curious about her and the others. Mostly, I want to know how the group came together and how long they've known each other. I also hope all the group members get fleshed out more in the future.

We also meet an Imperial woman (I'm not entirely clear on what her job title is) who believes that the Starpath unit that Cassian had was stolen from the sector that she is supposed to be monitoring. She believes she has the signs of an organized rebellion. With Syril being seemingly demoted, I wonder if she'll take over as an important villain from this point on or what exactly will happen there.

Luthen's backstory gets a bit more fleshed out. We learn that he owns a store on Coruscant and seems to work under the radar. It's not something I was expecting, but looking back on it, it makes a lot of sense considering what we knew about him before. I continue to think that he's the most interesting character we've met.

He also has connections to a senator who seems to be having a lot of tension with her husband. I'm very curious about her as well and am looking forward to learning more.

This episode feels very different. We meet a lot of new characters and leave behind many of those that were in the first three. I'm curious to see what comes next.