Andor Episode 7 Review: Aldhani and Andor Wants To Show A Despotic Reaction In All His Cruelty

Stars: Diego Luna, Stellan Skarsgård, Elizabeth Dulau

Director: Benjamin Caron

Streaming Platform: Disney+

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

We ask and Andor replies, in essence, this is the mechanism that is being established with the new Star Wars series: since the trailers, we had hoped for a different tone than the other productions related to the franchise conceived by George Lucas and it is useless to stress again how much the objective has been achieved; more precisely, last week among the various praises of a simply wonderful episode, we had hoped for a much more decisive return of the fascinating political subplots only glimpsed. And in an episode titled “The Hand of the Empire” following the rebel success on Aldhani, what could happen?

Again, we ask and Andor responds with surgical precision, with the stigmata of the series who knows what to do and how to do it and, perhaps even more surprisingly, with a show of strength since for the first half of the episode there is no trace of the homonymous protagonist. Yet the interest, attention to detail and general charm don’t drop in the slightest, except for a small slip at the end.

Andor Episode 7 Review: The Story

It is a somewhat confusing Empire that has awakened following the events on Aldhani, a perfect manifesto in which the words of Cassian (Diego Luna) resound when he described their arrogance and pompous satisfaction. The measures approved to counter such an outrage are what is expected of a totalitarian system: news comes directly from the leadership of the ISB in terms of controls, taxes and penalties much more severe in practice for anything that could have even a minimum of dealing with anti-imperial sentiments.

In this context, it is then possible to notice different moods, from the even more gripping anxiety suffered by Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) to the ecstatic satisfaction of Luthen (Stellan Skarsgard), up to the growing determination of Deedra (Denise Gough), increasingly convinced in her crusade that she must prove the existence of a rebellious effort. And the painting described by Andor is tragically majestic and at the same time suffocating, which plays continuously with the viewer making him swing at every opportunity between the joy of having inflicted a real blow to the Empire and the horror of their reaction, to the consequences of such actions. Of the consequences, however, that are not merely words whispered in aseptic white rooms far from reality and it is here that the Tony Gilroy series makes a further qualitative leap, something that we have been waiting for from Star Wars for a long time.

Andor Episode 7 Review and Analysis

In a product set in the galaxy far, far away we have once and for all evidence of the daily cruelty of the Empire, only savored in Rebels and Rogue One and which replaces that phantom aura of being bad because the background music is threatening, or plans are markedly prepared. exaggerated and unlikely. And here after almost half an hour of episode Cassian comes into play, who decides to return to Ferrix as he now has the financial resources to take away his mother Maarva (Fiona Shaw) from a desolate planet that is rapidly turning into a nightmare despotic.

On Ferrix, the ocean of words uttered by Partagaz (Anton Lesser) and approved by his subordinates suddenly becomes reality, just as the urgency of privacy and deceptions to be perpetuated by Mon Mothma or the precautions taken by Luthen’s associates are deeply felt. a banal as well as rapid encounter. Situations in which Gilroy’s experience in the field of spy thrillers makes itself felt and undoubtedly makes a difference. We find more than anything else a small mole right at the end, a bit too casual if not downright didactic for our tastes and more generally for the high-quality level that Andor has accustomed us to so far. Nothing irreparable, mind you because, in the end, it will almost certainly be a simple passing circumstance and nothing more, but it could perhaps have been staged in a better way.

Again, Andor shows that the series wants to distance itself from everything established by Star Wars before, except for Rogue One, of course. For us, the BSI plot works best in this chapter, and not just because of that appearance by Colonel Wullf Yularen at the first meeting. This plot partially settles the internal struggle that Lieutenant Dedra Meero has had since the fourth episode and directs it so that Ferrix becomes a powder keg while he carries out his investigation. It is necessary to highlight, again, the role of Anton Lesser as the greatest Partagaz of the BSI, who contributes to giving that touch of Game of Thrones, and not by chance, to the imperial organization.

Cassian tries to move on with his life, only to discover that Aldhani’s heist has brought him more than just those 200,000 credits: a whole host of new problems. Maarva has no interest in leaving Ferrix, instead wanting to stoke the rebellion that has been brewing since the Empire took over the planet. Also interesting are those flashbacks to the end of the Clone Wars and the arrival of the Empire. Mon Mothma’s plot moves a bit further with her mysterious contact. The series continues to insist on the senator’s family conflicts, so we imagine that, sooner or later, they will be relevant in the face of the fight for the future leader of the Alliance.

In more secondary shots we find Syril Karn, who finds a new job to “clear her name”, and Vel Sartha , who must “connect the dots” after Aldhani’s coup so that no one discovers the identity of Luthen Rael , come on, who has to get rid of Cassian, yet another problem for poor Andor. And it is that the character of Diego Luna ends the seventh episode of the prequel series of Rogue One with a rich sentence of six years in an imperial prison for a crime that, ironically, he has not committed. Everything is for that nod to K-2SO that the series leaves us, with that KX-series security droid about to decapitate Cassian.

Andor Episode 7 Review: The Last Words

Andor had already hinted at intriguing excerpts about it, but the seventh episode puts on a very different scale an aspect that we have been waiting for from Star Wars for a long, too long time: the imperial cruelty in his daily life, his suffocating grip on the galaxy and the individual planets. And it could only happen now, following the events on Aldhani that shook that armor of arrogance and satisfaction of the Empire, which never expected such a blow. Instead, it happened, and the reaction was not long in coming, with measures that to define despotic would even be an understatement. A mare magnum that immediately becomes real and concrete thanks to the suffocating anxiety felt by Mon Mothma, the excessive precautions that Luthen’s associates must take to have a simple and quick meeting, to a Cassian returning to Ferrix to find it drastically different. A wonderful and disturbing picture, perfectly painted by that veteran of the spy thrillers that is Gilroy. The only drawback on the final, perhaps a little too random and didactic, is you could do something more, even only in the staging.