Ar_Pharazon_the_golden

Like most viewers, I remain skeptical of this killer's change. I will not say he is necessarily lying; I think it's just as likely he's convinced himself he's changed, but did it by following bogus methods. It sounds like a man buying into cheap self help nonsense - the problem is that even if you believe him, it's not really good enough. Saying things like (I don't recall the exact wording) "oh well, maybe her death was necessary for me to find myself and grow into who i am" isn't redemption: it's just a selfish thing you tell yourself to help you sleep at night.

More broadly, this commonly observed redemption through religious conversion is simply going the wrong way, though I understand there's likely no other path easily accessible to the average prisoner.

Allegory is a difficult thing. When it is too obvious and on-the-nose, it feels annoyingly didactic even if you agree with the message. There's been a lot of that lately. What Andor does so right is that its parallels are universal. Even more important is that it does not personify the evil it depicts - there's no caricature of (whoever) that is the ultimate cause of the problem: Palpatine is simply a figure in the background that barely registers - he may pick the areas and instruments of oppression to be prioritised but no more. In Andor at least he seems to be neither the architect nor the cause of the system, but a mere, inevitable symptom.

No, Andor does not absolve you of responsibility, attributing evil to a single evil mastermind, or a cabal of conspirators. Despite that being the whole Sith deal!

Thus, Mon Mothma's speech and the Imperial(ist) forms of oppression are applicable to almost any context. Widespread wiretapping of political opponents? Hey, that's Greece (not only, probably). Fake media narratives and obvious political lies told with a straight face? I think anyone can relate. Genocide presented as self-defence? I don't know when the episode was written and if it was intentional or an unfortunate accidental prophecy, but no one missed Gaza in it. Compliance and failure to oppose the Empire is complicity.

But despite its clear and powerful messaging, the episode doesn't need much time to pass it - leaving the rest to the suspense that accompanies the rather haphazard effort of Mon Mothma to escape (and in the process realise that rebellions necessitate violence - at least at the galactic scale).

I do not know if it is surprising that the last 5-6 episodes of Andor are such a coherent, uncompromising anti-imperialist/anti-colonial manifesto (arguably SW always had this kind of messaging, even if it was over-simplified), or that it does it while remaining extremely entertaining, but no one is complaining - except perhaps those who feel the message personally attacks them.