I’m pretty sure Palpitine was secretly up to no good for many years before he overtly took over. Also the Republic was often corrupt and could also be negligent, arbitrary, capricious and inadvertently cruel, from my understanding. I think the Republic prior to the Empire was much more like the old Roman Republic before Julius Caesar than a modern Republic. And in my head canon, I imagine Palpitine being part of that badness, well before he outed himself and became Emperor.
Palatine is chancellor as of the end of Episode 1. And even before that he is orchestrating the conflict with the separatists because he’s, you know, a Sith Lord. But even that aside, the Republic is extremely dysfunctional and corrupt.
Great show, but its pretty crazy to reconcile its serious tone with the camp medal ceremony at the end of ANH!
Agreed, but one is a celebration of what was considered a major victory while the other tells the background to the suicide mission that led to that victory.
It’s not like they could give Andor the medal!
It is set in the same universe as Jar Jar Binks haha.
Imagine if the exact same character could do noir, camp, crime procedural, action mashup, in both animation and live action, print and film. No one man could ever have such a batting average. What joker would suggest such a thing? Riddle me that.
There’s nothing to reconcile. They’re distinct takes on a shared mythology. Superheroes have done it for decades.
Great finale to a season I liked from beginning to end and got better and better as it went along.
It was a mini version of the season in that the show takes its time to slowly build up everything–in this case: all of the ceremony–just so it can really rev up the engine at some point. Figured Gilroy wouldn’t let Maarva just die off-screen without giving the actress one more moment, and it was nice to see all the different reactions to her speech, especially Luthen’s.
Post-credits scene: good reminder of the overall context, but not much else. Thought it was always clear that the prisoners in some way were contributing to the Empire’s war machine. And whether that’s pieces for TIEs or something else, doesn’t really matter.
Lot to appricate about the episode - even absolute miniscule things I get enjoyment from. You’ve seen the Bell Guy™ in three episodes, and all we see him do is hammering that bell with his metal rods and seemingly taking pride in his job. So when the Storm Trooper comes up the bell tower, there’s the immediate expectation that Bell Guy™ is gonna clobber him with said rods. And then he just kicks him off the tower. Loved that. It’s in line with the whole narrative of the show being hard to predict, but whatever happens is not unearned and arbitrary.
When the ISB woman was saved by the ex-security guy (I know, but I am bad with names) there was a point I thought they were going to embrace and ruin everything. Thankfully it didn’t happen.
My thoughts exactly! I was sitting there thinking, “Don’t fuck it up, don’t fuck it up, don’t fuck it up…”
Thankfully, they did not fuck it up.
Just gonna say Neil Bell (the “time grappler” - person who hits the anvil) has the absolute best part with no lines.
Hahaha, I’m glad that didn’t occur to me.
Of course, you jerks reminded me that this DID happen in Episode 9.
I think that tension has more to do with her heightened state of fear, relief, and conflicted emotions over whether to despise him or be grateful. I felt it too, and I think it plays with his admiration for her, but the tension is simply coming from a tense situation. I do think Syril earned himself a ticket to ISB, but I doubt it will fail to be professional… until he fucks it up.
100%
Which thing?
The kiss.
I was re-watching the Andor finale (3rd or 4th time) and I was struck by similarities to events in my own country in 1989 Revolution, and watching the news right now, China.
The CCP will squeze really tight trying to hold onto power.
This show’s writing really captured the zeigeist, imho.
What would you say to someone grumpy (in a debate between friends, so it’s all good) about this show because “there was no reason Andor would have gone back for the funeral.”?
I think that they established that he feels homesick when he’s gone. He already snuck back once when it was a dumb idea. And he’s lost his taste for wasting his life on party planets. And he loves his mother and could barely tear himself away from her the first time he left.
On some level I have to concede Cassian is a hero and big things happen around and to him, but what else am I missing?
As we’ve seen, it’s pretty easy for him to get on-planet with relatively minimal risk, and once he got there and learned they had Bix captive, there was no way he was not gonna at least try to save her, after seeing first-hand how the Empire treats it’s prisoners.
As to him missing his mother’s funeral…I see this trope in movies a lot, of people missing familiy member’s funeral because of work or some argument, but I never really could symphatise with people who did that.
Part of the answer is that the show Andor is to some degree about the power of symbols. Maarva’s posthumous speech was a symbol of defiance. The manifesto is a symbol. The Empire is replete with symbols and rituals trying to impose control. And that last illustrates that symbols are not just mere “optics” as we say nowadays: they can be crucial to how people view things and how people live.
At this stage, the Rebellion is more of a symbol, more of an idea, than it is a material fact. They don’t control planets or have mighty fleets. But what they have is the symbol of defiance to the Empire.
In that context, Andor going to his mother’s funeral is a symbol strong enough (as they say in the Blues Brothers) “to turn goat piss into gasoline.” It seems a superficial thing but in terms of Andor’s character, it was a crucial thing.
And in the big picture, Andor is really a show about character, which is why it is so good.
It is absolutely a stupid thing for Andor to do. But it is a stupid thing that is 100% in keeping with his established character.
Well… it’s stupid only if the only things that matter to Andor is just to keep existing in some form.
He could just accept that the Empire won, and that they control Ferrix, and that he should give up his former life and all the values he had before to just keep living.
But he’s willing to risk it for his family, for his friends and for his home. And we see this exact same thing from many characters in this episode, some of which actually do give up everything to fight back.