Andor Andor Episode 1.10 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Just like how I’m saying R2 is Sidious. It’s so obvious…

 

Also - MASSIVE EASTER EGG!

Luthen is cleaning the Naboo Crest Headdress worn by Padme!!!

 

Another fantastic episode.
A quick question, sorry if it's been asked before. Is Lonni the same guy that runs out to Mon Mothma in R1 to inform her of the attack on Scarif ?

 

I wonder if those guards are dead anyway? Vader and Tarkin are not known for forgiving failure easily.

 

It’s war. If you’re not willing to get your hands dirty when needed, then you should not be fighting one.

 

Glad I'm not the only one who got that.

 

Hope that Kino will not be recaptured by the Empre, otherwise it is possible that the next episode will start with something similar to this

 

As nasty and ruthless? Alright, Luthen's choice is probably the worst moral choice and course of action that we have ever seen by the Rebels, but casually killing 200 prisoners so that word doesn't get out or destroying entire planets with billions of lives just to make a point is far worse. Luthen is being pragmatic, and yes, dooming 50 people to their death even though he has information that could save them is not as nasty and ruthless as cold murder in my opinion.

The right that a spoiler aristocratic teenager has to choose her own husband, is borderline luxury in the GFFA and the specific state that it is in during the reign of the Empire. I understand that Mon Mothma has her morals and does not want to break them, let alone betray her daughter like this, but at the end of the day what the banker suggested is merely an introduction. It was specified very clearly that he was not asking for an arranged marriage. And no one could force Mon Mothma and her daughter to accept Dano's son in the long run. We should probably start putting things into perspective when we make these comparisons or even place them in the same sentence. There are probably a few dozen life choices much worse than having an arranged marriage that I would actually be happy to make, before being sentenced to death for betraying the Empire. Most people in this show have sacrificed a lot more than Dalia would.

I would even go as to say that "Announcement" was a transitional episode and not actually part of the 3 episode block in the prison. After all, it was directed by Benjamin Caron, whereas the Prison Trilogy was directed by Toby Haynes.

Here, maybe I can help. There are 6 Star Wars movies that are better than Rogue One, and Episodes II and III have the best visuals in all of Star Wars

I don't remember any examples where Andor has killed someone without reason. He killed the Rebel on Kafrene because they would have gotten caught if he didn't. Or the Rebel would have been interrogated and spilled the beans. He was on route to kill Galen Erso, but eventually didn't. Cassian is very pragmatic and he can be cold and ruthless, but only if it serves a purpose towards the greater good. This is why Luthen chose him, because they are both the same. They will sacrifice lives if necessary, and they will kill simple pawns of the Empire that perhaps didn't even actively cause harm to anyone, but only if there is something out of it. There was no reason for Cassian to kill two unarmed prison guards who cooperated and did exactly as they were told. They were not a factor anymore.

 

Now I'm picturing the new guy on the floor waking up to an empty work room after being zapped and wondering, "what the hell just happened?"

 

I am pretty sure that the new guy got a nice laser bolt on his chest and is almost certainly dead

 

So did everyone other than Cassian and Melshi drown? I sure hope not.

Kino is likely dead. The only way I could see him surviving is if he went back into the jail and found something he could use as a flotation device, then jumped. But if he only went back in once all the other prisoners had jumped, he likely would be killed by the guards, who would emerge from their hiding places as the place grew silent. That gives him a fairly short window to find something that would suffice, probably no more than 10 minutes until all 5k men have dived overboard.

IIRC the only two guys ever to escape from Alcatraz made it all the way out of the inescapable prison, and then were never seen again. Presumed swept out to sea and drowned. They timed their attempted swim from the island at the wrong moment, when there was an outgoing tide. All of SF bay empties through the narrow Golden Gate channel, producing an intense current, and Alcatraz island is pretty much in the mouth of it. A man pushing off from Alcatraz on an outgoing tide would inevitably be swept out into the ocean.

 

As far as I could tell, only Cassian and Melshi escaped of the group.

That’s why the dialogue in the scene demonstrates that killing then is not necessary for their survival. As mentioned in the scene, shutting down the hydropower system means it’ll be down for months. So the implication is that they can’t do anything else, really.

Lol. I think most audiences are smart enough to understand that once they jump, they’re still in trouble. Cassian and others do talk about it, too. And the plan is that there’s no plan. Just get off the prison and into the water, and then we’ll see. They had no choice as they were all going to be die or be stuck there forever anyway.

 

Quoting this so that it can perhaps appear every few pages so that we don't have to go back to page 3 every time we want to artificially create shivers in our spines, goosebumps, and hairs standing on our necks.

 

After Luthen's meetup with Lonni, it cuts to Cassian and Melshi already have made it ashore, so an opportunity for further peril in escaping was bypassed. Yeah, they're not in the clear just yet, but my point stands that the only real obstacle the prisoners faced in escaping was turning off the floor.

It all comes back to how much I'm led to doubt the prisoners' ability to succeed. The more doubtful I am, the greater their eventual victory feels. In this case, it was relatively low. Only Kino's hesitation and eventual resignation elevated the drama.

 

I was there for that thread. Didn’t the way Sidious beeped sorta give it away?

 

My mother always has the strangest takes from this show.

Of all the episode, the thing that excited her the most was the hydro-electric system to power up the prison.
And then she said "you see? That's why we made you take swimming classes when you were a child "

 

All of this plays into the idea that has been introduced since the premise of the show though. That the Empire is arrogant and powerful and at the end of the day, stupidly vast. They don't care to apply more safety contingencies to this prison, because they rule by fear. And quite frankly, when Andor was first incarcerated, the display of how the floors work was supposed to crush his dreams of escaping, and I would say it worked. The show executed perfectly the idea that if people work together, they can face adversity and escape from even the worst conditions towards their survival.

The evolution of people's mentality within the prison was shown amazingly well. During the first episode of this informal trilogy, you see the shock and trauma on Cassian's face as he realizes that he is in prison, deprived of his freedom, and has to go through a miserable routine for (at least) 6 years. Then a glimmer of hope appears when he realizes that there are loopholes if one takes the time to explore them, and we see him carving the pipes. And finally, a bureaucratic error led to someone getting "released" and then imprisoned again in the same facility, which triggers the anger and the desperation in the rest of the inmates, and all of that leads to hope, which leads to action. I strongly disagree with the notion that the escape from the prison was anything but extremely dangerous and difficult. How many inmates died? The cost was huge, and it only led to a hail mary in an ocean, without guaranteed salvation.

Honestly, I was also fascinated by that.

 

If you look closely, you will notice that there are footprints ahead of Melshi and Cassian when they are running.

 

All valid points, but to me that's strong buildup with too simple a payoff. It just seemed like everything basically went according to plan, and the understanding that not everyone was going to make it out alive was kind of a given for me. I guess I was just anticipating some other surprise to change the stakes. Again, the leap into the ocean was nearly that factor, but the only person it affected was Kino. Cassian and Melshi made it ashore without much drama.

 

I have said earlier that this **might** be the best SW show, maybe even better than The Mandalorian. Yup, after this episode, I'm calling it (for me anyway) that it is the best SW show so far released from the Big D.

Have we EVER seen a Prison break in the SW universe? If not, this was just awesome for it being the first one. Absolutely LOVED this episode. To have to wait over a year for the nest season is just criminal. Can't wait for the last two episodes fr this season.

Just fantastic!!! So overwhelmed with Gratitude that this was produced. Thank you Tony Gilroy!

 

I felt bad for Kino. I appreciate how you shared the actor's view of him as a labor leader. That makes sense. But I do think it's good that we don't learn that in the episodes. It's better to see him as an anonymous person who is shown to care about his fellow sapient beings. Also, the point of the Empire was to remove aliens and to de-humanize humans...which is one of the most asinine and self-sabotaging forms of totalitarianism I've ever seen in fiction. But it's fairly common, though, since Orwellianism tends to get pretty out there.

Overall, I think Allen on Generation Tech had a good analysis of Luthen. Luthen wants to do the right thing. I consider many of these folks to be reflections of Cassian. Cassian is going to get toward Mon Mothma's position. But right now, he's closer to Luthen's. And Luthen's position is quite understandable. He doesn't enjoy his position, but he feels like he has to do all this in order to liberate the galaxy. As Mothma said, learning from Palpatine takes a hefty price. It's taxing but also invigorating. Not for the faint hearted.

 

Mando season 1 episode 6.
Yes, this episode was vastly superior, useless to say.

 

OMG, Yes! Damn! I forgot that! I'm old, I'll catch up!

 

This show doesn't seem to value plot twists very much, and it tends to be rather focused on slow burn and building the atmosphere. Even the Aldhani mission kind of went the way we expected, more or less. Then, the Empire lnowing about Luthen's plan could have been used as a plot twist, but they rather chose to ahow the ISB casually talking about it. And the same is true for the rebel spy.

I tend to roll my eyes to cheap plot twists most of the time, so this is fresh air for me, but de gustibus.
@ewoksimon