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Andor: Aldhani

“It don't matter what you tell me or yourself. You'll ultimately die fighting these bastards. Wouldn't you rather give it all at once, to something real?”

This episode marks the beginning of the second chapter of the story, and opens up the world considerably while bringing a bit of clarity to the larger conflict at play.

Almost all the support and secondary characters have been abandoned from those first three episodes. Instead Andor is thrown into a new group after Luthen buys his skills and sells him as a backup to a rebel cell organizing some kind of undercover robbery. We land on Aldhani and are introduced to Vel, who immediately rejects Andor. Luthen has to dance pretty hard for her to accept him, and you can see how persuasive he can be.

Vel is a hard nut to crack, in that I don’t have a good idea who she is yet. She doesn’t seem terribly likable, but is clearly a hardliner. Someone dedicated to the Rebel cause even above her own life. It makes her somewhat compelling and definately layered, but perhaps hard to sympathize with. The same kind of goes for the rest of her crew, with only one being friendly and the rest barely civil. The stand outs were Nemik, Cinta and Arvel.

Nemik is an odd duck, but everyone seems to have an almost older sibling affection towards him. Even Andor shows him a bit of that in their few interactions. Cinta is just as shut off as Vel, but she at least seems to have accepted him. She seems a bit more straightforward, and has the medical training of the group. Avrel seems almost antagonistic, so he could probably go either way. I am curious how these new relationships will play out over however long this arc will last.


Luthen immediately heads off the planet, and we get a pretty amazing peek into who he is. Someone hard and clearly dedicated to his cause has to look in a mirror to put on his civilian appearance, complete with jewelry he wouldn’t normally wear, a longer wig, robes and a salesman’s smile. It was a stunning and telling transformation as he play acts greeting someone in his shop.

Of course who should appear once he makes it to Coruscant than a familiar face, Mon Mothma. She is a legacy character that first appeared in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi played by Caroline Blakiston. The character showed up again in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith played by Genevieve O’Reilly who then went on to voice the character in animation until Rogue One where she reprised the role. Now we are getting even more screen time with her, as we are introduced to her husband and get a sense of her struggles and connection to the rebellion.


Now enters the Empire, specifically the ISB (Imperial Security Bureau) who are basically the secret police or Gestapo. They wear crisp all white uniforms and are kind of terrifying with their administration of security. There were three main Imperial characters introduced, Major Partagaz who is in charge, Lieutenant Supervisor Blevin and Lieutenant Supervisor Dedra Meero. Of the three, Dedra is the focus, as she is the one who is in charge of stolen Imperial equipment like Andor’s Starpath unit which was recovered after the Ferrix incident. She is cold and ambitious, overstepping on occasion but is clearly quite good at her job. Her relationships with both Partagaz and Blevin are telling; she was both praised and ridiculed by Partagaz and had several negative exchanges with Blevin.

Blevin is clearly just an ass who doesn’t even take the time to hear Syril’s side of the story about the failed mission on Ferrix. Syril is simply fired and sent home to his mother, and boy, did he look defeated and pathetic. Yet he clearly wants something, revenge or maybe a second chance to prove himself. Either way, it is clear his story isn’t over, although I have no idea where they are going to take him from here.

One of the beautiful things about this episode was the change of environments. We got to see Coruscant and the beautiful rooms of Mon Mothma’s house and Luthen’s fascinating shop. But it was the green hills of Aldhani that really stood out. While dreary and cold, the sheer beauty of that landscape feels like a jolt of life to the series. I’d also like to point out the sound design, with the Tie Fighters scream used as a terrifying reminder of their deadliness and power.

Bits:

Genevieve O’Reilly looks so much like the original Mon Mothma that when she appeared in the prequel, some thought it was the same actress.

In the scene in Luthen's shop you can see a display of a whip frozen in Carbonite. This is likely a tribute to Indiana Jones.

Luthen calling out Andor’s BS involving the Mimban conflict was interesting in that we learn Cassian was only the cook during that conflict. Mimban was featured in Solo: A Star Wars Story, and was where Han and Chewy first met.

Quotes:

Partagaz: “What do we do in this building? Why are we here? Anyone?”
Dedra: “We're here to further security objectives by collecting intelligence, providing useful analysis, and conducting effective covert action, sir.”
Partagaz: “Very good, Dedra. That is verbatim from the ISB mission statement... and wrong.”

Partagaz: “Security is an illusion. You want security? Call the Navy. Launch a regiment of troopers. We are healthcare providers. We treat sickness. We identify symptoms. We locate germs whether they arise from within or have come from the outside. The longer we wait to identify a disorder, the harder it is to treat the disease.”

Blevin: “It took the combined ingredients of idiocy, ineptitude, and total disengagement for this farce to have reached the full apex of incredulous disaster!”

A soft reset for the story, and while it builds on existing characters and residual story beats from the first three episodes, this episode suffers slightly from that slower pace.

3 out of 4 Tie Fighters Screaming Through the Hills

Image Source: Starwars.com

Samantha M. Quinn spends most of her time in front of a computer typing away at one thing or another; when she has free time, she enjoys pretty much anything science fiction or fantasy-related.

3 comments:

  1. These reviews have been great. Any chance of finishing the season? To me, things just got more and more interesting as the season went on.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Måge, we're definitely continuing with Andor. They're catch-up reviews because we didn't catch on to how good it was when it first aired, but Samantha was trying for one review a week. And then Star Trek: Picard returned, and she stopped and helped out. I'm going to be taking over Picard while Samantha will be going back to Andor and the new season of The Mandalorian.

    Too many shows, not enough reviewers, is the short answer.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Woo hoo! Thank you. I’ve been counting down the days to The Mandalorien.

    ReplyDelete

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