For the first time, the situations in this episode seem a stretch too far. What saves it is acting, dialogue and presence. It’s still a journey worth taking.
This will be another review that contains spoilers. Read further at your own peril!
Episode 10 ended up being a bit of a mixed bag for me. In the end, I love the episode – but where the other episodes had been very tightly scripted, this was the first one that I sat up a few times and said “Hold up…you expect me to believe that?” Fortunately, the acting and the dialogue in this episode far outshine those logical fallacies, but these issues did cause this episode to drop a point or two in my eyes.
Let’s start off with the good:
1. Andy Serkis. This man deserves an Emmy for this performance. Mr. Serkis is one of the rare performers who can be an integral part of someone’s childhood. What makes that even more special is that because so many of this performances are motion capture, you may have grown up with him and not even known it. He gives his all in this episode, and you see 1000 different emotions on his face before the end. What an amazing arc completed in such a (relatively) short period of time, with such a bittersweet ending.
2. Stellan Skarsgard. Much like Andy Serkis, he elevates every project that he is in. I have never seen a movie that he starred in that wasn’t enriched by his presence, and I’m so glad he’s part of the Star Wars family now. He’s given an amazing scene at the end of this episode that may be one of my favorite Star Wars dialogue scenes ever.
3. Tension and Hope. Like the others in this 3-episode arc, the tension of this episode kept ratcheting up all the way through the inevitable jailbreak. The desperation, fear, and resolve of the prisoners in this episode was palpable – and like the best Star Wars stories, hope is what drove them forward in the face of fear.
4. The music. This far, the score for Andor hasn’t been knocking me out – but this episode, it was present in such a way that it enhanced the mood of every scene. It’s not traditional Star Wars-y music, but it reflected the fear and paranoia of the epsiode, reminding me of some great 80’s dystopian flicks.
5. Politics making strange bedfellows. The best dramas put characters in impossible situations, and often juxtapose positions between sides. Tony Gilroy has succesfully shown us another side to Mon Mothma, in a way that I didn’t expect. The contrast in this episode involves Mon Mothma being stuck at a decision point – how far is she willing to go to continue to finance the Rebellion against an Empire that crushes all liberty? This is contrasted by the ISB Mole attempting to break away from both the ISB itself, and the Rebellion, for the love of the daughter he’s only just begun to know.
Things that made me go hmmmm:
1. The prisoner transfers. The conceit of the last two episodes has been that the Empire is trying to keep secret that the prisoners don’t get out of their factories – the sentences are a sham. What has caused all the turmoil is that previously, a prisoner was “released” from his sentence on Level 4, and then ended up back on Level 2 the next day. When word got out, Level 2 was fried to keep the secret and maintain the fiction that the prisoners could be released some day. My assumption up to this point was that the prisoners were actually executed at the end of their sentence, and the mistake was in processing. This episode seems to indicate that the prisoners are just transferred to other facilities to continue to work. But how does this work? Wouldn’t a prisoner who was transferred to another facility or floor simply tell all of the other prisoners what happened? How could this secret be kept?
2. Burn-out. The jailbreak plan involved shorting out the floor on Level 5, allowing the prisoners to make a break to take the control center and shut down the operation. At the first sign of trouble, why wouldn’t the wardens immediately activate the floors on a lower setting? (Note: This point is somewhat mitigated within the episode – the wardens are preparing to do exactly this when the control center is taken, but it sure seemed to take them a LONG time – seems the revolt could’ve been quelled immediately with a couple of switches thrown.)
3. Lack of Air Support. For that matter, I would guess that factory prisons can all communicate with one another, and there have to be some air vehicles available. Why wouldn’t Cassians prison call out for support? It seems like most of the prisoners could be fried from the air while trying to swim to safety.
4. Power Generation. This one especially irked me – during the assualt on the control center, the wardens are ordered to shut down main power. They protest and say that the facility is hydro-powered, and that if shut down it would take months to start up again. When threatened, they close the spill-gates, and main-power goes off line. This is just silly. It makes a cool visual, but hydro-power literally involves opening spill gates to allow water to turn a turbine to generate power. All you have to do is literally open a door. Maybe the wardens are just lying hoping that the prisoners don’t know any better, but if it’s a lie, it’s a pathetic one.
But those things don’t matter: Despite these complaints, I still felt elated at the end of the episode. Andor has turned out to be an amazing surprise for me – it was a series that I had been looking forward to, but the first few episodes gave me pause. Now, I have to say that we’re lucky to have this show. At its best, Star Wars is a human drama – and this show delivers on that in spades. It’s true, it’s not a “happy” show, and it’s not escapism. What it does so well is show the stakes and the costs involved. The dourness of this time period pays off with Rogue One, and A New Hope – and that makes victory all the sweeter.
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