Nobody's Listening!

The show continues to be one of the most engaging and intense Star Wars pieces of media and tv shows as a whole without any explosions, and lightsaber or baster action scenes.

Meero steals the show once again and all of her scenes, especially Bix's interrogation, are just brilliant.

They're doing too good of a job of showing The Empire is not just a cartoonishly evil bad guy with troopers that can't aim, and they actually manage to make them menacing and meticulous and a bad guy that gets the job done.

Showing the inner workings of ISB and how they run things is just the cherry on top.

The prison scenes are just as brilliant and Andy Serkis has a nice little character arc and development in this episode and the writing and editing of these scenes are just great.

Andor is slowly planning his escape but they run into some problems in this episode. The whole prison arc is just bigger and more well-written than I thought it was going to be and it's just a joy to watch.

We get some great scenes with Mon too and the actress is just great, in fact, every actor has been great since episode one. There is another surprising reveal in the Mon Mothma plotline and it makes the whole story more complex. The plot is thickening in a great way.

All in all, I thought this was another great episode from this Star Wars show that I'm actually enjoying watching, which it has been a long time since the last time that happened.

With the brilliant writing team and just everyone behind this show, I'm confident they're gonna do a great job with the rest of the season and hopefully the next season too. Can't wait for the next week's episode.

Andor has been a slow burn from the beginning. I felt the pay-off coming during the terrific "heist" episode, but as the episodes have rolled out since then, it seems I was mistaken. The payoff is a lot more than what the series' most action-packed installment could deliver. Andor is exploring themes we have never seen before in any Star Wars adaptation. The last two episodes specifically have illustrated the evil of the Galactic Empire in an entirely new and terrifying way. Along with the addition of the brilliant Andy Serkis, these have been my favorite episodes in an already well-done and worthy addition to Star Wars. Without Jedi, Sith, popular major characters or The Force, Andor is becoming the best Disney-era Star Wars has to offer.

As a collective "Star Wars" fanbase, we really have to thank this show for finally giving everyone something that they can just watch and enjoy. Every reaction for this show ranges somewhere between the "good" to "great," and it has given a lot of people that sense of a galaxy in peril that they've been missing ever since the original films came out. This is definitely a huge homage to the original films in its tone, but it's also a show that is so great on its own. This episode was another great addition to that, building tension at every possible moment to the finale.

The previous episode was definitely an homage to "THX 1138" in terms of its look and overall tone. This entire arc seems like it's going back to that style, and it feels great to see a show like this take time to come up with a great arc, while still paying their respects to the guy who made it all possible. And this episode may have been the least "Star Wars" of the show, because it puts the rebellion storyline to the side to just focus on building tension and preparing the audience for the big finale of the next episode. Only the beginning is really dedicated to get some breakthroughs in Bix's storyline, but for the rest, it mostly focused on Cassian in the prison, or the ISB trying to hunt him down. It's a great juxtaposition that these two storylines are pitted against each other, but they actually have Cassian under their watch. It all goes to show that if the Empire would just look for their problems, they'd know that they didn't have to look that far to find him. There's also a ruthlessness to this episode and the Empire actually comes off as incredibly scary, which is something that has honestly never been the case before. Whether its their means of torture, or just the fact that they're willing to destroy an entire wing because they don't do as they're told. This is a different corner of the universe, and it's one that we can only hope to see much more of.

"Nobody's Listening!" is full of tension and worldbuilding, preparing the audience for something that's going to be heartbreaking coming up next week. It's still clear on its focus of setting up the rebellion, but taking a little break from that and focusing on the ruthlessness of the Empire, only sets up the threat to greater heights.

I definitely wasn't a fan when going into this prison arc, but with this episode it's really grown on me. Since the first Andor episode, I've been a fan of this realistic, gritty take on the Star Wars universe. I love this show possibly even more than the mandalorian but these past few episodes have made me understand why some viewers pass up on watching this show. Andor is a real slow-burn... mostly in a good way. This episode, however, nothing really happened and I understand they need to set up the finale to this arc but some bits really really drag. Luckily, the writing and acting just about keeps me interested in those bits. I just love Andy Serkis and his character SO SO MUCH, I'm so glad they cast him again even though he played Snoke. The final scene with Ulaf, Andor and Kino Loy literally gave me goosebumps... just great stuff! Obviously, next episode will be all about breaking out of the prison and I'm somewhat excited to see how they'll go about it. I have a feeling some characters are gonna be killed off in the next one.

Dedra continues her investigation into the rebellion, whilst disturbing news is heard on Narkina 5.

This is another high quality episode.

The themes in this story are some of the darkest portrayed in the Star Wars franchise so far and they are depicted in a plot that is ramping up the tension, particularly on Narkina 5.

The detail covered about the complexities involved in securing an empire and developing a rebel insurgency, are everything that I ever could have wished for as a Star Wars fan.

As a long time fan, the best aspect of Andor is how it explores the details of concepts introduced in the original movies. The Empire and the rebellion have largely been mythical notions outside of the dealings of the elite characters on both sides, however episodes like this help bring it to life.

For me the best scenes involve Dedra and Mon Mothma as they are well plotted and give plausible faces to both sides of the conflict. I feel a sense that they are exactly the type of people who would be drawn to each ideology.

With Dedra and the scenes involving imperial officers, it portrays the horror of a totalitarian system (as well as fiction can) including aspects like torture, mass murder and euthanasia and does it with great tribute to George Lucas' legacy, such as the homage to the Princess Leia interrogation scene in the original Star Wars movie, complete with doorway/footsteps transition.

Visually it is a superbly filmed episode with excellent production design. Particularly the scenes on Narkina 5, that also pay tribute to Lucas. These are very well made, but there is no real tension associated with Cassian's fate here as we know the outcome. However, the writers use characters like Kino Loy and other prisoners well. I do want to find out what happens to them given the depiction of their plight and how the episode ends.

The standout performances for me are Denise Gough, Genevieve O'Reilly and Andy Serkis.

It's an 8.5/10 for me but I round upwards.