I love this show. It has some fantastic highs, but the low episodes are frustrating. As I have said in previous posts, this season has too many episodes. It could have (and should have) been fewer episodes, combining the stories of some of the episodes into one.
As it is now, the show has a lot of episodes that can be explained in a minute or so. They’re useless, and they should have been combined with other episodes. Most of this show is filler, which is a shame. Especially after “Tales of The Jedi,” which showed stories more significant than the “Andor” episodes but with only a third of the runtime. We went through the Clone Wars within 20 minutes, while it takes “Andor” almost three hours to get through a heist.
The story that “Andor” has to tell is fantastic, but they take way too long to get on with it.
Filler
This episode was hollow. It was very uneventful, filled with fluff and scenes about nothing. Many conversations occurred and didn’t mean anything, which is frustrating after having so many episodes where every word spoken had meaning behind it.
The dialogue in many previous episodes was fantastic, but the dialogue here only exists to fill the runtime. It feels as though the writers decided the show would have 12, hour-long episodes before they began working on the scripts. It should have flowed much more naturally, allowing the story to get the time it needed rather than the time the writers wanted.
Pacing
I’m ok with slow stories. I would instead a story take too much time than feel rushed. But this show isn’t paced well. The episodes vary in quality, but not because of the storytelling. The storytelling is consistently good. However, some episodes fill their runtime with engaging, meaningful moments, like “One Way Out,” while others fill their runtime with useless noise, like this.
If one is to write a slow story, make sure it is a slow story. The tension should build over time, but it should continuously fluctuate. This show can’t decide whether it’s a fast-paced thriller or a slow-burn one. Each episode makes a different decision. Most take their time and add a lot of tense action along the way, but some take too much time and don’t add anything of substance to the story. They’re just there.
Narrative
The death of Cassian’s mom was good. It’s an emotional motivation for Cassian, which is fantastic. But I think it came too late into the episode. I think Cassian and Melshi should have escaped the planet closer to the beginning, and we should have seen Cassian get the news about his mom earlier. Then we should have seen Cassian grapple with the news, figuring out what he should do about it. That would have made this episode much more exciting and added substance to the runtime. It also would have given Cassian some screentime, which he desperately needs since he is becoming an extra in his show.
This episode was almost all talk. There was little to be seen, and we watched the characters converse for about an hour.
Luthen’s skirmish with the Empire was pretty cool, but there should have been more action sequences for a thriller than this. This was the most exciting this episode got, which is sad since this is supposed to be leading into the season finale, and we’ve had so many tense sequences before this.
Finale
I don’t know what the finale is going to look like. That’s cool, except I don’t know what we’re leading up to. I don’t know the goal, which isn’t a good thing. By the finale, I should know what I’m getting into before pressing play. I should know what the characters are striving for. Unfortunately, I have no idea what they want. If this episode is anything to go by, it will be another slice-of-life narrative without anything special. Things will happen, sure, but the tensions and stakes aren’t high. If anything, I’m expecting disappointment next episode. Hopefully, my fears are not realized, but I don’t think they will be.
Conclusion
This episode was rough. I hope they clean it up before the finale, but I have a bad feeling about this.
Thanks for reading! Have a fantastic day.