Maybe I’m gushing too much, but there really haven’t been any weak performances.
I really feel like they’re wasting this guy in the show by having him as the assistant to the blonde imperial agent, when he so clearly should be playing Grand Moff Tarkin, either in this show with some aging makeup, or in a different series set before the Clone Wars when Tarkin was a junior officer.
Maybe he’s Heert Tarkin, son of Moff Tarkin.
Aside from his Roddy McDowall eyes, I agree.
Another terrific episode. I’m reminded of a quote from another SF franchise:
The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.
Agreed!
And kudos to Disney. This show with … its complexities … is clearly aimed at adults and won’t have a large segment of the usual SW viewers, the little ones, into it at all (and no obvious merchandising opportunities). The decision makers going with a high production value, read costly, show that does not bring the kid eyeballs and the associated merchandising dollars is certainly not a typical maximize short term profit choice. It likely is good longer term strategic thinking, to have quality adult shows too, and keep the adults subscribing even when the kids grow up, or when they are new adults who had been kids … but impressive to see them thinking that way.
This Episode was great. I could probably watch five seasons of a show set on Coruscant during the early days of the Empire.
I’d happily sit through a full episode of bureaucratic bickering with Dedra etc.
I think Andor accidentally discovered that the next TV project should be a Mon Mothma series.
A question - the woman who met with Vel, and asked her to track down and remove Cassian - that was Luthen’s partner in the antique store, right? Presumably she met & instructed Vel without Luthen’s knowledge, since his whole point to adding Cassian to the heist was to get him interested in the Rebellion.
The arrest/conviction for walking to the store was completely terrifying, since you know that’s happening today somewhere on Earth. And that’s exactly what Meero was concerned would happen, and what the Rebels planned on - increased oppression only drives more people into open resistance.
And I’m completely loving Anton Lesser as Major Partagaz (the guy who runs the ISB meetings). He’s literally playing the same character he plays in “Endeavour”, except evil and humorless.
But compared to Vader he’s really nice. You’d expect him, after admonishing Mr. Jung for his underperformance, to have him taken away and shot. But no. Mr. Jung asks for guidance and Partagaz tells him to have a report ready the next day on the Ord Mantell hyperspace lanes. We all know what would have happened if Vader was leading that meeting.
But that’s the point of my comparison to his “Endeavour” character - he’s a mid-upper level bureaucrat, whose job is to keep the ISB running. He’s just dedicated to an ultimately evil cause, but doesn’t have the need to express how evil he is every moment of the day to his own subordinates.
I assumed it was indeed with Luthen’s knowledge. When Andor took his cut and left instead of joining the rebellion he went from being a potential recruit to a loose end.
The thing is, as much as that scene was meant to show the oppression of the Empire, that stormtrooper was actually right! Andor was acting nervous and fidgety because he is wanted for a double murder on Morlana One and for his involvement in the botched Ferrix mssion and the Aldhani garrison heist. The troopers just assumed it was related to whatever incident was happening around them.
Quite frankly, the most surprising thing was that will all the data the Empire seems to process, they didn’t quickly tie Andor to any of those other incidents as soon as they picked him up.
The ISB aren’t being portrayed as specifically “evil”. At least not cartoonishly Sith Lord evil. Pretentious and bureaucratic, yes. Full of arrogant careerists, definitely. Certainly a toxic organization to work for. But they are also responding to criminal terrorist attacks on the Empire, albeit in a heavy handed manner.
FWIW, the Rebels aren’t really portrayed as any more ethical.
The “banality of evil” again.
Shoretrooper. They use shoretroopers on beaches (probably air conditioned armor?) and snowtroopers in snow (probably insulated?). I don’t know why they don’t reserve the stormtroopers for storms, but I guess their armor is especially grounded and surge-protected. If only they had come up with gettingshotattroopers with armor that was any protection whatsoever against anything at all the Empire might have survived.
The shoretrooper’s helmet has a special attachment for affixing beer funnels and a Margarita mixer is integrated into their armor for deployment on the Spring Break planet Andor was visiting. I assume they are no more accurate at Beirut/Beer Pong than they are at firing their blasters.
That’s no moon… that’s Margaritaville!
Exactly. Similarly the Empire couldn’t function without vast numbers of accountants and middle managers and other space-cubicle jockeys like what’s-his-face from Morlana One. And what makes it interesting is that they don’t know they work for an evil empire of space Nazis. They think they are just doing their duty chasing down murderers and terrorists.
It’s an uncomfortable feeling, the strange sense of familiarity of the lives and careers of these functionaries of the Imperial Military-Industrial Complex, so similar to my own career.