What a Festive Evening

Another conclusion that manages to keep me perfectly on edge all the way right up to its bitter end!

This was a build up worth waiting for as you know what will happen, but you dont know how it will happen or the potential consequences!

It feels more and more like a war at this point, with personal losses and sacrifices! Every victory comes with a prize and more and more i get the feeling that this season is building towards an explosive sinister finale!

The writing is once again miraculous as Andor manages to craft tension from simple, yet effective scenes and moments! Those last 20min was just incredible!

I have been up all night working a night shift.. when I got home this morning, I descided to watch these three episodes, and they have managed to keep me awake, so I guess that says it all!

Its dark, its serious, its realistic!

Another fantastic arc.

The sets, costumes, effects, acting, cinematography and dialogue are all otherworldly. Truly the best we've seen in Star Wars.

The arc comes to a satisfying conclusion. I was on the edge of my seat this episode. It's amazing what the writers are able to accomplish with minimal action. It reinforces the action because there has been so much buildup.

The only thing I'm slightly disappointed by is that I wish there was more.

I think it was a good call to have 3 episodes release a week. Having this stretched out over 12 weeks would be hard. Can't wait for the next episodes!

If you don't like this show up until now, this arc won't change your mind. But if you love this show as much as I do for its writing, tension, characters, and intrigue you will absolutely love this arc. Don't expect loads of action or a huge flashy finale like The Eye, but expect a masterfully crafted and tension filled thriller of an arc where every character gets to shine.

The time jump works wonders for these episodes, letting us jump straight into the plot while smoothly catching us up on events from the lost year.

Certain characters meet that you would have never thought would meet and it's wonderful. The music absolutely holds its own even with Britells abscense. And finally props to the show for making a new language for the Ghorman.

Just go watch it.

So far this is the standout episode to me of the season. It's wound tight enough. The acting bristles with energy. The whole story has a good rhythm to it.

The only real negative is that the audio is mixed too bassy. Like someone just boosted it 3dB at 120hz the whole way through. I watched this on my studio computer, and I know this room. Trust me.

But otherwise it's a great episode. One thing that I really appreciate about this episode, but also the series in general. Is that it actually challenges the viewer with long quiet scenes. And shifts the intensity and rhythm of the editing and acting for different parts of the story. This is very refreshing. So many similar series fear losing your attention span, so they constantly barrage you with eye candy and dynamic sequences. This series challenges the viewer to keep their attention on the story and not pick up the smartphone. I like that a lot. Yes please more.

This episode does a fantastic job of starting off slow and then accelerating and increasing the tension and intrigue.

I do have to say I was a little bit confused for a moment. I happen to be watching Agents of Shield and Doctor Who in parallel with this series. And a few points in the story I got off track wondering where the Doctor was (on seeing Varada Sethu) and later I was wondering when Simmons and Tremors were going to show up, what with the green vials and all.

I wish that this show more regularly featured the round table with Major Partagaz. I love his whole British boarding school Neoplatonist rhetoric thing. We only get a taste of that in this episode. And it's excellent, I feel if that was more consistently a part of the show it could help viewers orient themselves from there.

I know I said I love how the writers push and pull with the pacing. But thats not it. There are just so many damn characters to keep track of. Wait do I know this one, or do I recognize them from Doctor Who or Mad Men?

But that's what is great about it. It's what make's it remind me of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The dense intrigues that slowly move forward a plot. Winding the tension higher until you can't bear it. However most of the time it's subtle and restrained.

Half expected to have someone whip out a brief case and start assembling a sniper rifle. Well we got 6 episodes to go.

Plenty of people are saying Andor is Star Wars for adults, finally. Others, fewer, are lamenting that Andor ruins Star Wars by depicting attempted sexual assault and drug use. (Though, the Star Wars OT movie series has gleefully depicted murder, slavery, and genocide, so it's never been as kid-friendly as those people would have you think).

Halfway through Andor season 2, I'm not convinced I'm even watching Star Wars anymore... but that's not the complaint it sounds like.

My dilemma is: Either Andor makes the Star Wars OT look quaint, or the Star Wars OT makes Andor look pretentious. It's difficult to accept that the two exist in the same universe.

In Star Wars OT, the Rebels are a league of hopeful idiots, smiling as they fling themselves toward doom. In Andor, they're still idiots, but they're not sure of why they're fighting, what they're resisting, where they're headed, or which of their comrades they should murder.

Andor's Rebels bicker over rations, fire their weapons wantonly, huff solvents, betray one another, bungle everything, kill each other out of mistrust... in short, barely the sort of group Princess Leia would associate with, nor the type that Luke Skywalker would aspire to.

No binary goodness nor Jedi sheen in sight.

When the Rebels aren't bumbling about, other characters are shooting heroin, or phoning their mothers, or conspiring to deface artwork, or enduring tedious board meetings.

I kinda love it, but cautiously.

If you heard Mon Mothma say, in ROTJ, "Many Bothans died..." and then wondered what the workday of a typical Bothan looks like, and where he buys his fruit, and how his birthday dinner went, and whether his student loan application has been processed in time for the opening semester, then this is the show for you!

Andor truly fleshes out the Star Wars universe, and expertly so, opening doors into rooms you only ever fleetingly wondered about, but in doing so, it almost becomes something other than Star Wars.

Superior to every Star Wars product since the OT. And, yes, better than Rogue One, assuming prematurely that it will stick the connective landing.