Andor Episode 10 Review: Escape and Reflections On What One Is Willing To Sacrifice For A Cause
Stars: Diego Luna, Stellan Skarsgård, Kingsley Amadi
Director: Toby Haynes
Streaming Platform: Disney+
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
While the plot of The Acolyte is revealed, complete with filming already started and casting now completed, Andor Episode 10 continues his race undaunted towards the conclusion of his first season. A parallel to tell the truth is very interesting because seeing the marketing of a series almost start as well as the release of another smaller one Tales Of The Jedi – when a further product is still on the air it does nothing but bring the galaxy far and far closer to the typical Marvel modus operandi. And, the volume of productions, especially serials given the confusion that seems to reign in the film department, begins to be quite similar to the MCU, unfortunately also accompanied by fluctuating quality.
Andor remains, however, the exception, the white fly in this first real wave of Star Wars productions designed for the small screen and the tenth wonderful episode only confirms its immense strengths, even though we can already draw a balance. ultimately definitive of what has not meshed. We are fully into the final stretch of the first season of Andor, which begins today on Disney Plus what becomes its third and last block with the premiere of the tenth episode. However, as we have indicated in the previous episode, this tenth episode is more of a continuation than the beginning of the block, so it gives the feeling that the structure that was initially discussed has not been 100% fulfilled.
Andor Episode 10 Review: The Story
We then find the homonymous protagonist (Diego Luna) still a prisoner on Narkina 5, although he has by now convinced Kino (Andy Serkis) and the others to try a desperate attempt to escape after realizing that the Empire would never free them – we refer you here at our Andor 1×09 review. A plan founded on a very solid basis: the guards are few and scared after committing unimaginable atrocities on one of the floors of the prison, with the hatred of the inmates only increasing day by day. The episode is essentially contained here, it is just an escape from Narkina 5 which manages to be amazing always thanks to the cornerstones put in place by Andor from the beginning.
In short, we can say a lot about the created by Tony Gilroy, such as the fact that he does not have – and in the end, he does not even want to have – at all the times of a normal show with all the consequences that derive from it. But it is undeniable the extraordinary ability to delineate rich and credible settings, to populate them with personalities that are perhaps simplistic due to the times yet not trivial and functional to the context and finally to surgically collect, in the climax episodes, the juicy fruits of this harvest.to forge an emotional involvement in the viewer which, like it or not, is rare in today’s serial landscape. A mechanism that takes on even more value, in our opinion, when it turns out that the action is very linear, almost elementary in its development.
Andor Episode 10 Review and Analysis
The great moments of Andor are not based for now on mammoth action sequences, but on small direct acts with wisdom and above all directorial clarity, the importance of which is multiplied precisely by the fact that we have known those places and those people quite well. To put it in a nutshell, the escape from Narkina 5 has absolutely nothing to envy to the first meeting between Cassian and Luthen (Stellan Skarsgard) or the mission on Aldhani, which at the moment reigns supreme in our hearts for a glance at a level superior aesthetic. To occasionally break the rhythm with a necessary pause, the episode then focuses mainly on Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) and his omnipresent search for a way to allocate funds to the Rebellion without getting noticed by the Empire.
And it pains us to admit that it is once again the weakest storyline of the series, repetitive and far too poor even if this chapter finally puts the senator in front of a painful moral dilemma. To get there, however, too many delays and repeated dialogues with no real advancement have been taken, with the excuse of the short time on the screen that does not hold up when compared with the exceptional scenes that see Luthen as the protagonist, full of charisma and savage wickedness sublime. The parallelism between the two storylines is obvious, regarding what it means to sacrifice everything and sacrifice yourself for the Rebellion, but Mon Mothma was not at all exploited to the fullest.
In addition to advances, and the odd surprise, in the plots of Mon Mothma and Luthen Rael, the new episode of the prequel to Rogue One leaves us with some action worthy of a block finale. Again, we’re not going to have a classic Star Wars-style spread of gunplay and massive battles. We are going to see concentrated action and more focus on the anti-authoritarian discourse that the series gives off. We want to highlight Stellan Skarsgård again, who returns to sign a brilliant scene towards the end of the episode, making it clear what a great actor he is.
It is not a brilliant episode, but it stands out after the previous chapters for improving the rhythm and continuing with the revelations. Andor is a series that is simmering, but sometimes it seems that they put out the flame altogether. The audience needs some life, not all of us like slow stories. Even though today’s episode focused on the Narkina 5 breakout, I have to commend Stellan Skarsgård again for his role and Tony Gilroy for his practical touch on the character of Luthen Rael.
I anticipate, although I could be wrong, that the BSI’s ambush on the rebels will be the final culmination, or almost, of the first season. How Andor enters the game remains to be seen, as the means at his disposal at the end of the episode are not exactly plentiful. I was half wrong with Andy Serkis’s character Kino Loy: he doesn’t die but stays in the Narkina 5 facility because he can’t swim (bad luck). It is unlikely that, after his speech, the guards will give him a medal. Although there are still some surprises…
The plot of the breakout is pretty functional, but a bit of action is welcome after three such slow episodes, especially the last two. Mon Mothma – Following the revelation of her parentage to Vel Sartha, the Star Wars series presents the senator of Chandrila with a new family challenge. Will you accept this arranged marriage in exchange for the funds the Alliance needs? Luthen would have already bundled Mon’s daughter up with a bow.
There are two episodes left to finish the season, and 14 to conclude the series. For now, Mon Mothma seems to me to be the most wasted character in Andor, considering whom he is going to become. The fate of Diego Luna’s character is uncertain, to say the least, after his escape, but we will likely see him return to Ferrix since he has his only family there. Andor will return next Wednesday to Disney+ with the premiere of the penultimate episode of its first season.
Andor Episode 10 Review: The Last Words
New week, a new episode of Andor that once again fully convinces. We are now at the end of this first season, yet that mechanism of creating credible settings and characters and then making them explode in a sublime episode continues to surprise us with a quality that is simply out of the ordinary. The escape from Narkina 5 is no exception despite its extreme simplicity because, in the end, it is the characters that make it exceptional, from Cassian to Andy Serkis’ Kino Loy. The episode at the bottom is enclosed here, with just a few short sequences focused first on Mon Mothma, finally placed in front of a real rather distressing moral dilemma (which, however, does not yet save its storyline from being the real disappointment at the time of Andor), and finally on Luthen, the protagonist for the umpteenth time in a goosebumps sequence. A doubt remains: only two episodes are missing and Andor is not exactly known for her fast rhythms, will there be enough time to strike up a worthy ending?
