Blame the djinn.
One way out! ONE WAY OUT!
This. Fucking. Show.
I started this show late, only after House of Dragons was over but I have caught up and am fully on board with the superlatives. “Best Star Wars since ESB” is often mentioned but I will go one step further; I think it’s the best Star Wars ever. It won’t have an iconic character like Yoda or an iconic moment like “Luke I am your father” but scene for scene it has the highest level of storytelling craft we have seen in Star Wars.
For me it hits a sweet spot of a show with both a clear side to root for and a lot of moral ambiguity. And so much smart writing about the psychology of revolution as exemplified by the “What is my sacrifice” scene which showed both Luthen’s charisma and persuasive power and also his acute analytical ability.
You said it. Here’s a fantastic recap and review of episode 10. Spoilers, of course.
Excellent episode. The prison break and the Luthen speech were obvious highlights but I thought Mon Mothma’s meeting with the dodgy financier was a little bit of understated genius. She’s absolutely nailed that character.
One way out!
What a great episode of television. I loved everything about the prison trilogy of episodes. It’s some of the best Star Wars out there. Just great stuff.
Booyah!
Loved this episode although the speech at the end felt a little flat to me. It felt like I was watching someone recite a soliloquy rather than speaking. Forgivable though.
Something that did occur to me though, how effective can Cassian be as a Rebel operative (as we know he is in the beginning of R1) when his name and image are known to ISB and he is already a wanted man? Maybe the show will address it and it’s so good the question only occured to me now.
It could also be a casualty of the corruption and deep bureaucracy of the Empire. Earth authoritarian governments are notorious for inefficiencies within their government because one branch doesn’t want to work with, or share information with, another branch that they see as competing for power or influence. It’s entirely possible that only a few ISB agents know the full details of Cassian Andor’s identity and appearance, and they want to hold that close in case it can become advantageous for them in the sort of internal competition that authoritarian regimes foster.
Yeah, that episode was right up there with the best episodes of anything on TV.
So I assume Davo was basically telling Mon that the price of his help was their children getting married. He said it wasn’t a betrothal, but earlier in the scene he talked about the “clarity of Chandrilan marriage” and that “boundaries can be liberating”, so I have no clear idea what’s going on. Is one member of the marriage supposed to be subordinate to the other? For some reason I don’t see either Mon’s husband or daughter signing on to that plan.
My guess is that their marriages are openly political and spouses are not expected to love each other.
That was my reading too and it is clear that Mon Mothma, using her own life as an example, does not think that arrangement leads to happy outcomes.
That’s the challenge for her now, does she go along with it? commit her daughter to a potentially loveless marriage for the sake of the rebellion?
As we’ve already seen so many characters be conflicted and ambiguous then I think she just might.
Ah yes. Her tragic love for Manny Both-Hanz is still years in the future.
This series has superb acting. Andy Serkis as Kino Loy is the stand-out, but every character is well acted. There has to be an Emmy or several for this production.
I totally buy Luthen’s soliloquy. He’s the broody type who worries about everything and has been contemplating the situation and his choices every time we see him. He’s envious of the mole and the attempted quit set him off.
Chandrilan marriage looks like it’s about family alliances and new money buying into old-money class.
The original trilogy is still my favorite Star Wars shows, but I don’t rewatch those for the acting.
A small plot question: from something Loy said it sounds like prisoners were previously released and this only recently changed? And I think we discussed it before but how do you keep a “released” person quiet? You can’t go around purging floors all the time. It’s not efficient. Did we decide some prisoners just give up?
It’s the Game of Thrones …IIINNN SPAAAAAACE!!!
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I think that indeed, they were releasing prisoners at the end of their sentences. Is it the Rebel Alliance that is causing them to keep prisoners in to make more ships?
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It was established that they are not listening to the prisoners even though you think they would. Yeah, I’d think that blabbing would get out that they are not really getting released even if they are miles and miles away from their old group. ???
We needed to see this kind of workforce in Episode IX to establish why the not-dead-emperor has a fleet of ships.
Maybe it was part of the new bill they passed recently?
I think that was it.
There was a crackdown after the Aldani robbery that meant sentences became more harsh and I assume at that point the non-release of prisoners started.
That change wasn’t that long ago and it isn’t surprising that the policy of shuffling of “released” prisoners didn’t take long to break down, that “crack down” also takes resources to impose so it is probably one of the reasons why the prison guards were short-staffed.
This was something of an expected and hoped-for side effect that Luthen referred to. If the empire cracks down hard then the rebellion gets more volunteers.
And if the policy had been around for awhile something else would have happened but the Level 2 culling was obviously something new for everyone.