Chapter 19: The Convert

I'm amazed this episode has so many people being negative. For my money, the Coruscant plotline - while technically a detour which takes up most of the episode's runtime - is some of the best worldbuilding, best acting and best writing to come out of any of the Disney+ Star Wars shows. It feels like Jon Favreau popped over to the Andor editing room, watched an episode, thought "hey this is good stuff, I should try that" and inserted a story of complex motivations, flawed institutions and heartbreaking intrigue. In terms of cinematography, tone and scale, it feels far closer to Andor than The Mandalorian, but what can I say? It's a welcome change from previously stilted, awkwardly structured and relatively emotionless episodes. Whatever new approach Chapter 19 was presenting, I think I prefer it.

As been said, the beginning and ending were great and relevant to the main plot.

It's the middle, which is the majority of the episode, that people are rating poorly. I thought it was very good and gave great insight into the New Republic and their way of life. The seasons are short, so this is the one exception I'm willing to give as far as filler goes.

The scientist was an interesting character and now this episode pretty much wraps him up. The acting is spot on. Coruscant was beautifully rendered.

There are always going to be people who whine about the show not being 100% about the main plot every episode. If the writers did that, you might as well make The Mandalorian a movie. If you look back at season 1 & 2 which are highly rated seasons, there were episodes with The Mandalorian and the child that were deemed filler and given low ratings.

I don't think writers should accommodate lazy and ungrateful fans.

I really enjoyed this episode once I'd recovered from the whiplash of the change in pace. The opening was so quick out of the gates and so fun to watch that the second part of the episode struggled as a result. I loved the world building and return to Coruscant and the setting the seeds for stories going forwards, characters motivations are still a bit of a mystery at the moment and I'm looking forward to seeing this continue to develop, especially with Bo Katan who is being written so well over the last couple of episodes. This series is defying all expectations so far and I'm excited to see what is next especially as this feels like the end of arc 1.

A lot of the talk that came when "Andor" was released was about the political elements of "Star Wars" and how good it could be when it actually worked. Personally, I loved what that show brought to the current slate, but I was also okay with the other shows doing what they do best. For this, it's the character development through the adventure aspect that always got me hooked. However, this episode takes a bit of a left turn and focuses on the political landscape. And it was a very nice detour, although it felt like it was a bit misplaced in everything going on.

A majority of this episode is spent with Omid Abtahi's Dr. Pershing, a character who has been featured in previous episodes but never got much more than a scene in. However, with this episode, the show tries to juggle around some of the incomplete storylines from previous seasons, and for the episode that it was in, it worked very well. This hour was directed by Lee Isaac Chung, one of the great modern filmmakers, and his abilities are put to good use, although clearly limited by the medium that he's working in. But he manages to deliver a visually interesting episode that really captures the visual landscape of Coruscant and the rebranding that it's going through on the heels of the Empire's fall. It's also interesting to see where Dr. Pershing fits into it all, and it's clear that the work he did in previous seasons is the stepping stones that they're putting into place so that we'll get to where the sequel films went in later eras. All of that is very interesting, but it does feel like they're doing a bit of cleanup after everything that went down and the unnatural nature that went through those films in terms of connectivity and plot threads that were created out of nothing, and damage control is not necessarily what is needed from this show. However, the philosophical discussions and commentary that were to be found in this episode were very well-executed and hopefully, we'll return to Coruscant at some point so this episode isn't alone.

"Chapter 19: The Convert" is a fascinating hour of "Star Wars," although it does feel like it was dropped into the middle of something else. However, it definitely works for what it is and it's a great return to a beloved planet and a fascinating deep-dive into the psyche of a so-far pretty uninteresting character.

I get it, Coruscant is a beautiful place and is part of the Star Wars heart. Although most of this episode was aimed away from Mando and focused more on some side characters with another subplot. These short shows don't have time for subplots, unless it's a short 20 minutes at the most but not an entire episode.

We had Mando at the beginning with the soundtrack department overusing Mando's two tone chime everytime he came on screen. Yes it was overused and i know it's his signature theme but do they have to use it every time we see him? The dog fight at the beginning looked weak, entertaining but it looked like something just to keep us watching.

I don't know if the rest of the episode meant something, maybe it plays a bigger part but i'm sick of sticking up for this series if it just continues to be silly like this. Please make sense, build up to something, give us the meaning. At the minute i'm confused, to the point i actually didn't care for the final scene and i know i should.