Andor (Star Wars: Andor) - Disney+

[Duke Togo]

I have a theory on Syril Karn:

Spoiler

Seems like he feels he isn’t getting the attention and respect he deserves. From his mom, from his job, from the Imperials, and from Dedra Meero. He has an obsessive personality. Wouldn’t be surprised if this dude snapped and ended up killing some people.

 

Edited November 3, 2022 by Duke Togo

[Big s]

Spoiler

8 minutes ago, Duke Togo said:

I have a theory on Syril Karn:

  Reveal hidden contents

Seems like he feels he isn’t getting the attention and respect he deserves. From his mom, from his job, from the Imperials, and from Dedra Meero. He has an obsessive personality. Wouldn’t be surprised if this dude snapped and ended up killing some people.

 

 

My theory is slightly different.

Spoiler

They’re gonna partner up and have an awkward will they won’t they thing while killing off a few people along the way. Then when it finally seems they will, that’s when one of them dies. Possibly the lady and it will end up That Jared story from Zeta Gundam.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

8 minutes ago, Big s said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

My theory is slightly different.

  Hide contents

They’re gonna partner up and have an awkward will they won’t they thing while killing off a few people along the way. Then when it finally seems they will, that’s when one of them dies. Possibly the lady and it will end up That Jared story from Zeta Gundam.

 

I'm more or less with you on that one... Karn is a little too gung-ho about this and sooner or later he's going to get his chance.  The more obsessive he gets, the more he becomes exactly the kind of psychopath the Imperials want.

Either way, Javert your eyes... it's about to get awkward in there.

[azrael]

2 hours ago, TehPW said:

I wonder. Is the reason Mon Mothma was on Yavin because she no longer had a job (with the disestablishment of the Imperial Senate) or had she been on the lamb since around or before Rogue One?

2 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

This is covered in Rebels. She’s on the run/in hiding.

What we are seeing in this series is Mon Mothma's last days as a senator, right before she was branded as a traitor. She's still working below radar here which will lead into the Rebels episode "Secret Cargo" (S03E18) which will take place between this season and next season or right at the beginning of next season for Andor.

[Duke Togo]

Season 2 begins filming on the 21st. It’ll cover 4-years time, leading up to Rogue One.

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Duke Togo said:

Season 2 begins filming on the 21st. It’ll cover 4-years time, leading up to Rogue One.

Last season then?

[azrael]

4 minutes ago, Big s said:

Last season then?

Only 2 seasons. Announced WAY back.

‘Andor’: Tony Gilroy Reveals Story Plans for Time-Jumping Season 2

[Duke Togo]

5 minutes ago, Big s said:

Last season then?

Yes

[Big s]

7 minutes ago, Duke Togo said:

Yes

I hope they don’t rush things. This season spent what feels like a lot of time on only a few ideas for the main character. There’s a lot going on, just not a lot for Andor himself. At this point he did one job and doesn’t feel like he set up his notoriety yet. Then again maybe the prison break will get him some major credit with the rebels

One problem I have with these prequel stories about side characters is it kinda feels like they took legendary moments that happened in what seems like a short amount of time. Like in Solo, everything legendary that you thought he had been doing all his life was just one crazy weekend that he’s still reminiscing about years later and hasn’t done anything between then and when the first movie takes place 

[MikeRoz]

On 11/2/2022 at 10:25 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Spoiler

I'm more or less with you on that one... Karn is a little too gung-ho about this and sooner or later he's going to get his chance.  The more obsessive he gets, the more he becomes exactly the kind of psychopath the Imperials want.

Either way, Javert your eyes... it's about to get awkward in there.

Spoiler

As much as I want to hate the fact that he's still in the show, at this point I'm intrigued, because I cannot see where this is going.

I do not think a romantic entanglement is in the cards. Meero's actress convincingly portrayed disgust in that scene. The only bit of ammo the romance people have is that she didn't immediately put a kill order out on him when she got back to the office. (He and Andor could have an Enemy Mine buddy comedy, working together to fend off assassins from all sides!)

It would feel wrong at this point for Mr. I'm-the-main-character-syndrome to suddenly get everything he wants, even as a monkey's paw. I think he has a few options:

1. He snaps and becomes The Joker a depraved Coruscant serial killer. Spinoff, anyone?
2. His disillusionment causes his political alignment to undergo integer underflow, and he becomes a ride or die Rebel.
3. He decides to clumsily infiltrate the Rebel Alliance himself, but he does so just as incompetently as he does everything else in his life, causing problems for Meero and/or saving Andor at a critical moment.
4. He does #3, but just competently enough that Meero is overruled by Qyburn and told to use him on an op? Which could then go horribly wrong due to his massive incompetence. Still don't like this because it rewards the stalker too much. Don't reward the stalker, Disney!

And on a note unrelated to Syril Karn, does anyone else think that the reveal of her relationship to Mon Mothma is a death flag? Not that Mon needs any further galvanizing...

 

Edited November 6, 2022 by MikeRoz

[Seto Kaiba]

52 minutes ago, MikeRoz said:

  Hide contents

As much as I want to hate the fact that he's still in the show, at this point I'm intrigued, because I cannot see where this is going.

I do not think a romantic entanglement is in the cards. Meero's actress convincingly portrayed disgust in that scene. The only bit of ammo the romance people have is that she didn't immediately put a kill order out on him when she got back to the office. (He and Andor could have an Enemy Mine buddy comedy, working together to fend off assassins from all sides!)

It would feel wrong at this point for Mr. I'm-the-main-character-syndrome to suddenly get everything he wants, even as a monkey's paw. I think he has a few options:

1. He snaps and becomes The Joker a depraved Coruscant serial killer. Spinoff, anyone?
2. His disillusionment causes his political alignment to undergo integer underflow, and he becomes a ride or die Rebel.
3. He decides to clumsily infiltrate the Rebel Alliance himself, but he does so just as incompetently as he does everything else in his life, causing problems for Meero and/or saving Andor at a critical moment.
4. He does #3, but just competently enough that Meero is overruled by Qyburn and told to use him on an op? Which could then go horribly wrong due to his massive incompetence. Still don't like this because it rewards the stalker too much. Don't reward the stalker, Disney!

And on a note unrelated to Syril Karn, does anyone else think that the reveal of her relationship to Mon Mothma is a death flag? Not that Mon needs any further galvanizing...

Yeah, I was as surprised as the next guy that Syril Karn's story didn't end when he was discharged in disgrace when Pre-Mor's security forces were disbanded.

Looking back at the dominant themes of the last few Star Wars movies, I'm less surprised that he's still around.  What was it Snoke said?  "Darkness rises, and the light to meet it."?  

Once you strip out the incidental characters who are only there for a story arc, a lot of the Andor cast seems to be set up around contrasting pairs of characters aligned to the Rebellion or the Empire.  They're even mostly gender-flipped, like the Rey-Kylo pairing was.

• The Rebel faction's activities are nominally led by Mon Mothma, and the Imperial Security Bureau's crackdown on suspected rebel activities by Major Partagaz.  Both are calm, measured, statesman-like leaders who advocate caution and consideration before taking action.  Where they contrast is that Mon Mothma's a weak and indecisive leader because she's sheltered and afraid of the moral compromises needed to mount an armed rebellion, while Major Partagaz runs the ISB with an iron fist because he has few, if any, scruples when it comes to having to hurt people to achieve his goal.
• Both Mon Mothma and Partagaz have a "main" subordinate who is the one actually coordinating all the effort seen in the series, whether it's covert rebel activity or the counterintelligence effort aimed at suppressing that rebel activity.  Both Luthen and Lt. Meero are more than slightly paranoid, suspicious, maverick agents who believe that the ends justify the means and won't hesitate to die (or kill) for their cause.  Luthen, of course, hides his true nature in his cover as an affable and harmless seller of fine art and antiquities and avoids directly confronting Mon Mothma on her hypocrisy by going behind her back while Meero wears her ambitions openly and will even publicly challenge the decisions of her superiors if she feels they're not in the organization's best interests.
• Cassian Andor and Syril Karn are pretty much polar opposites linked by a crime.  Cassian's a bit scummy, he's got a criminal record, he's known to get up to shady stuff from time to time, he has a moral code he lives by but is disdainful of the law and of authority, but for all that is still a bit of a momma's boy who makes extra effort to take care of his aging foster mother.  Syril, on the other hand, is a snobby, disdainful man who believes the law and morality are the same thing and adheres rigidly (if not completely inflexibly) to the letter of the law, and as we saw after his disgrace he couldn't wait to get away from his mother.  

IMO, it feels like Syril Karn's being built up to one of two directions and both of them involve him chasing down Cassian Andor.  He's charting an opposite course to Cassian, so when Cassian joins the Rebellion he's likely to end up joining the ISB.  Major Partagaz admires people who show initiative above and beyond the call of duty and go that extra step beyond the bounds of protocol to get results, so if Karn lands a post in the ISB it's likely to be through him.  Alternatively, and much less likely IMO given his very insistent and almost fetishistic fondness for the rule of law, he'll become a vigilante and somehow end up involved in exposing Luthen as a Rebel operative.

 

 

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, I was as surprised as the next guy that Syril Karn's story didn't end when he was discharged in disgrace when Pre-Mor's security forces were disbanded.

I didn’t realize anyone was surprised by that. It seemed kind of obvious since as you put it that he’s the opposite of Andor and in some ways , but kind of the same. Unliked failures on opposite ends of the spectrum. But you could see the jealousy of Andor’s success. It’s basically setting up his nemesis even if he’s barely a nemesis.

 

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Meero's actress convincingly portrayed disgust in that scene.

I don’t know about disgust with him or with herself for considering it. They both seem to be portrayed as obsessed lonely people and her disgust could have just been a reaction of surprise that anyone knowing what she’s like would ever try to approach her. Giggiddy 

Edited November 6, 2022 by Big s

[electric indigo]

I can see Meero & Karn being deployed to the Death Star in the end and forwarding an analysis of the Rebel attack to Tarkin...

[TehPW]

1 hour ago, electric indigo said:

I can see Meero & Karn being deployed to the Death Star in the end and forwarding an analysis of the Rebel attack to Tarkin...

*CLAPS* The irony...

[Seto Kaiba]

My money's on them finally squaring off, face-to-face, at the end of the series proper.

Karn'll get to confront his nemesis and will be gunned down anticlimactically for it.

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

My money's on them finally squaring off, face-to-face, at the end of the series proper.

Karn'll get to confront his nemesis and will be gunned down anticlimactically for it.

I have a feeling it will be a more demeaning end to his story.

[Seto Kaiba]

55 minutes ago, Big s said:

I have a feeling it will be a more demeaning end to his story.

Ah, so you're expecting him to survive Andor and the Original Trilogy so he can be digitally added into the sequel trilogy's Special Edition re-release ten years from now?

Or become an Expanded Universe character until he's been worn down to a one-dimensional nub of the character he was onscreen?

 

Syril Karn's so pompous and so self-important that the only truly fitting way for him to die in Andor would have to be a complete anticlimax.  Something with no weight or significance to it that draws a line under how utterly inconsequential he is in the grand scheme of things.  Like being the first mook to die in a firefight.  Or dying in a car crash early in a long chase scene.  Or getting shot by his own troops for ordering a suicidal charge because they don't like him.  Y'know, that kind of thing.

[Mog]

Uncle Harlow will get a low-level minion to shoot Syril for not helping “skim” some extra fuel for his uncle.

Or his uncle is trying to profit off the Rebels and Syril’s meddling screws the whole operation up.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Mog

[jvmacross]

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I have been watching this show and episode 7 & 8 made me fall asleep. I was just so bored.

[Big s]

2 minutes ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

I have been watching this show and episode 7 & 8 made me fall asleep. I was just so bored.

That seems to be the problem most people are having with the show. The first two episodes were the worst for me though. Personally the show is kinda growing on me. Although I think I’m in the minority that I don’t like the heroes and they kinda make the empire feel almost like a necessary evil.

[Duke Togo]

57 minutes ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

I have been watching this show and episode 7 & 8 made me fall asleep. I was just so bored.

If a drama first and a spy thriller second. If you’ve come for an action show, you’ve come to the wrong place.

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Duke Togo said:

If a drama first and a spy thriller second. If you’ve come for an action show, you’ve come to the wrong place.

I think the other problem is that the drama and spy stuff is kinda basic in this show. The bit of tension though is what’s keeping me watching each week, but I could see how the majority of people gave up on the show 

[Seto Kaiba]

On 11/7/2022 at 3:58 PM, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

I have been watching this show and episode 7 & 8 made me fall asleep. I was just so bored.

To be honest, I can understand why Star Wars fans might struggle to enjoy Andor.

Star Wars up 'til now has been almost entirely dominated by simple, straightforward narratives that depend heavily on action and are driven (literally and figuratively) by in-universe self-enforcing moral absolutes.  Good things and good people are aligned to the Light Side of the Force.  Bad things and bad people are aligned to the Dark Side of the Force.  The audience doesn't have to invest any real time, energy, or thought into understanding the characters.  It doesn't have to establish why the good guys are good and bad guys are bad, they just are.  The Chosen One rises up to defeat the forces of Evil because Destiny Says So... which means they can skip directly to the exciting laser gun battles and swordfights between space wizards.  It's storytelling at a level appropriate for all (read: "young") audiences.

Andor is a much more mature story.  It's looking at the why of the Rebellion and of Cassian Andor's involvement in it.  Through Cassian Andor's eyes, we're seeing the cruelty and oppression of the Empire that begins to drive people normal people who were previously indifferent to, or ambivalent about, politics and the government to take action against a profoundly unjust system.  We're currently watching Cassian's personal journey from being apathetic about the system of oppression he finds himself living under to being angry enough about the injustices he's seeing (and being subjected to) that he's willing to do something about it.  It isn't a Good vs. Evil story with cosmological consequences like the nine main movies.  This is Cassian Andor's journey from dissolute young man to driven revolutionary and, in parallel, the evolution of the Rebellion from a double handful of tiny, squabbling terrorist groups and ousted democratic ideologs to a serious and united movement bent on overthrowing an autocratic government.  It's slow, yes, but right now it's gradually building towards critical mass and the eruption of organized rebellion.

 

On 11/7/2022 at 6:16 PM, Big s said:

I think the other problem is that the drama and spy stuff is kinda basic in this show. The bit of tension though is what’s keeping me watching each week, but I could see how the majority of people gave up on the show 

The drama's not basic, it's just not high stakes yet. 

After all, we're not yet to the point of "Cassian Andor, Rebel Intelligence".  Right now, we're watching "Cassian Andor, Increasingly Pissed-Off Private Citizen".

[Roy Focker]

I wonder if Scorsese thinks Andor is more cinema or more theme park.

[Big s]

35 minutes ago, Roy Focker said:

I wonder if Scorsese thinks Andor is more cinema or more theme park.

Probably theme park after the cartoony beach episode 

[Duke Togo]

DUDE. What an episode. Wow!

[Duke Togo]

Top-tier episode of television. The writing, the performances. This is one of the best things we’ve seen out of Star Wars before.

Edited November 9, 2022 by Duke Togo

[Bolt]

Thoroughly enjoying this show. 

[Roy Focker]

The events that happened in the prison during this episode had more of an impact because they gave us a couple mundane episodes of Andor learning the routine and working alongside his fellow inmates.  In regular paced show Andor would instantly befriend the first prison he meets and start a prison escape 10 minutes later. 

Maybe the build-up to action in Andor is more than a little slow but so many shows have barely any build-up at all. This is a welcomed change.

[Bolt]

Agreed. 

[Mog]

You know Stellan, the actor, loved doing that speech!

And can we just take a moment to realize that

Spoiler

Luthen just sacrificed 50 men just so he could keep his spy at the ISB.

Some cold-hearted calculus there.

And is Andy Serkis reaching

Spoiler

Sean Bean levels now?  We don’t necessarily see him die, but staying at the facility is probably a guaranteed death.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

Climaxes don't come much more explosive than "One Way Out".

I'm half tempted to check that my eyebrows are still on.

Spoiler

The episode opens on the deceased worker from the previous episode being wheeled out by the medic while the entire room watches.  Cassian makes an appeal to his shift leader that they need to make an escape attempt during the next shift when a replacement is brought down.  He makes a compelling case that a riot is all but inevitable with five thousand prisoners discovering that there is no actual parole... just transfer to another prison work camp.

It's interesting to note that Cassian implies the workers don't know what they're building any more than the audience does.

Cassian spills the beans to the entire shift, and Kino backs him up about what they've been told regarding never actually releasing prisoners.  

At the ISB, the coverup of their interrogation of the Rebel agent and his subsequent murder proceeds apace as they discuss ways to keep the Rebels from figuring out that they already know about the attack his group was being planned.  One agent suggests having the ISB launch an investigation of the coverup they just executed to make the coverup look more genuine.

Over on Ferrix, someone escorts a doctor to Maarva's place.

Mon Mothma's had a visit from the dodgy moneylender.  They spent a bit of time beating about the bush before getting down to the price he's demanding in exchange for his services covering up the princely sum of money Mon Mothma transferred to the Rebellion and providing back channels to continue funding the Rebels without attracting any undue scrutiny from the Empire.  The deal falls through when his fee essentially ends up being an arranged marriage meeting between Mon Mothma's obnoxious daughter and his (I'd assume equally scummy) son.  

Luthen apparently needs to meet with an agent that demands a face-to-face meeting with him... the first in a year.  They discuss that it's probably a trap.

Down in the prison, Cassian's room are psyching themselves up for their jailbreak.  Cassian's in the loo, tinkering with some kind of conduit, sawing at it like he was doing in previous episodes.  Turns out it's a water pipe for the loo.  He puts his back into breaking that pipe as the guards bring the new guy in.  The men in the room stage a fight to distract the guards, which allows Cassian to jam the lift and start the attack.  The guards open fire on the prisoners, killing severa, while Cassian climbs and the rest begin to throw parts at the guards.  The guards shout for the floor to be activated, and the prisoners get on the tables as the leak in the bathroom spreads.  The floor shorts out, and one or two prisoners who were still on it die.  The entire room goes dark with a power failure.  Cassian knocks one guard down and shoots another with the gun he steals, before taking down the supervisor and allowing prisoners access to the guard-only levels of the facility.  

Water starts to drip through the floor into the levels below as Kino and co. hand out guns to the prisoners and the revolt picks up speed.  Other rooms see the 5-2-D day shift breaking through guard station after guard station.

Just as the guards are starting to finally get their heads in the game, Kino and Cassian reach the central control station.  They gun down one of the guards to show they mean business, and the floors are deactivated on their demands.  They shut off the hydroelectric power station that drives the prison, and the whole place goes offline and switches to backup power.  Cassian exhorts Kino into announcing to the entire prison that the prisoners have taken the facility and are staging a mass breakout.  The prisoners swarm out of the prison chanting "One way out!".  There's a shot of anxious guards hiding in a closet to avoid being massacred by the prisoners as the prisoners make it to the loading gates and start jumping off into the water to swim for shore.

On Coruscant, the ginger gofer from the ISB is walking around some vaguely cyberpunky markets looking out of place, heading deeper and deeper into grungy, dimly lit corridors.  He finds an earpiece in the elevator, and Luthen calls him and congratulates him on the birth of his daughter.  The ISB agent warns Luthen about Axis and the suspicions of Lt. Meero.  Luthen is pleased at the news, and claims Meero is wasting her time.  He also warns Luthen about the captured pilot and the coverup.  Luthen decides to let Kreegyr's 50 men die rather than forfeit the man who appears to be his inside man in the ISB.  The agent wants out, he's had second thoughts now that he's a father, and after six years he's terrified to go on.  Luthen shoots down the excuse he was planning to use to quit the ISB.  He asks what Luthen sacrifices to keep going... and Luthen goes on a rant about everything he can't have because he's devoted his life to the Rebellion and has spent fifteen years building the Rebellion up.

Back on Narkina 5, we see Cassian and one other prisoner running down the beach away from ships with searchlights.

Now that is some damn fine writing and acting on display.

If they'd had that level of talent on display in the sequel trilogy then movies 7, 8, and 9 would've made roughly all the money.

This is headed towards displacing Rogue One as my all-time best Star Wars title.

[Mog]

So, we saw the Attack of the Melshi, Revenge of the Melshi, and A New Hope (for Melshi) all rolled into one.

But back to THAT scene,

Spoiler

Lonni had every right to ask that question, but Luthen absolutely delivers a monster of a speech:

Still don't completely agree with the way he does things, but the imagery he used, the phrases he utters. . . . I can understand where Luthen's coming from.

 

[azrael]

Good episode. But spending 2 episodes again to build up to this does feel like a drag. Since this will probably be the only season of the 2 seasons where this happens is fine.

Spoiler

Luthen, another unsung hero of the Rebellion. We know he's gonna die. He knows he's gonna die. But it's all for the cause. Guess that makes him the most dangerous.