Andor(2022)

[Drunk Monk]

E7 A cooling off ep. More set up for the finale? Enjoyed the tourist planet. Still enjoying this show. It’s pacing is glacial but it does deliver and the world building is solid. Plus Rylance is killin it as the new imperial baddie.

[Drunk Monk]

E8 - I love how oppressive the empire is. It explains a lot and gives this show such a dark vibe. It’s still a slow burn but enjoyable for its fresh vision of the franchise. And finally - as revealed by the trailer - it’s Saw.

[Greg]

Mark Rylance isn't in this.

Ep07 The empire is bad! Nice to finally see the K-2S0s. Lots of buildup and machinations. I do like Flamboyant Skarsgard.

[Greg]

Oh, Ep08. You are quite dystopian. The whole setup of how the prison factory runs comes right out of Orwell. Especially with the prisoners being in charge of the other prisoners and the way they keep productivity going. Ew. We were ready to jump in to episode 9 but we were caught up and now have to wait. I'm really beginning to love/hate the blond security officer. Just on the edge of pretty but not quite. It's like her bitterness is eroding her features from the inside. Lots of good squirmy scenes floating around.

[Drunk Monk]

E9: I’m really starting to enjoy to slower pace of this series. It lingers on suffering and oppression with a washed out fluorescent kind of lighting that reminds me of Kubrick or THX1138. The torture inquisition was surprisingly effective. The end of the previous ep had the door shutting in homage to the Leia torture bot scene in the original, and that just had a threatening hypo, but the torturer casually detailing what the torture was going to be was chilling. 

I’m going to have to watch Rogue One again after this is over.

[Greg]

E09 Concur. It's really effective. You have to feel for Andy Serkis. Mon Motha is also in an untenable position. I caught the homage to the torture scene as well. I thought for sure they were going to bring in the flying ball. And the whole "Sorry, to bother you, but I'll be torturing you now" vibe was really effective. So many good twisted relationships going on.

[Drunk Monk]

Prison break! An exciting ep with lots of blaster play. Fun and tense. Serkis delivers a solid performance. Things are coming to a head. The cold blooded ness of the rebellion is horrifically played out in a tight dialog scene. When does this end? Soon? It’s feeling like things are setting up for a few more tight eps.

[Greg]

Two more episodes.

Stellan Skarsgard can do a monologue about What he has given up. I am curious what happened to Kino. Another really solid episode.

[Greg]

Spoiler.

Calm. Kindness, kinship. Love. I’ve given up all chance at inner peace, I’ve made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there’s only one conclusion: I’m damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they’ve set me on a path from which there is no escape. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost, and by the time I looked down, there was no longer any ground beneath my feet. 

What is... what is my sacrifice? I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life, to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see. No, the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror, or an audience, or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice?

Everything.

[Drunk Monk]

That was a gripping speech.

As for Kino, he gets severely injured in the collapse of the prison, gets recovered by the emperor and returns as Snoke.

[Greg]

Kino sounded a lot like Snoke when he was speaking over the intercom.

[Greg]

Mmmm, build up. We're circling the wagons and bringing back everyone to Ferrenc for the big finale. I thought we would have seen Alan Tudyk's Droid before this but it's nice to see a healthier Saw Gerrera. Lots of sad robot in this episode. It felt like a very short episode to me. The Queen thought it dragged. Poor Krieger. And nice space battle. Still no word about Kino.

Had to turn on the closed captions for one bit with some aliens because I couldn't understand a word they said. It was kind of sort of English. Still don't understand what happened.

I'll be sad to see this show end for the season.

[Drunk Monk]

I always have the cc on so when they went into the alien language, it threw me because I was just merrily reading along and suddenly nothing matches. Thought my hearing went out or something.

I agree it felt short. The light saber space battle move was fun. Finally some Star war in Star Wars.

Still digging the overall tone of this. Definitely will have to watch Rogue One again when this concludes. I think I only saw that once. 

Sad droid was sad.

[Drunk Monk]

Season finale - it didn’t quite stick the landing. There was some good stuff but it didn’t feel like a finale - not enough closure. Not enough blowout final battle (although there was one, it just was a bit underwhelming). Of course, this isn’t the end. Season 2 is green lit. And the real finale is Rogue One so I suppose they don’t have to stick it.

[Greg]

The Queen was mad at this episode for not delivering.

They went to all this trouble to get all the players in the same place and then nothing really happened. The build up to the big scene was awesome. I really enjoyed whatever song they were playing. And watching all the Empire people lose their minds was great fun. But then, not much of anything.

Meanwhile Mon Motha is setting up a first date.

I explained it to myself that this whole season was watching Andor's journey to actually joining the rebellion.