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28 Years Later has been in development hell for a long time, but it's happening, and Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Ralph Fiennes have joined the cast.
Posted in: Disney+, Kaitlyn Booth, Star Wars, TV | Tagged: andor, Cassian Andor, disney, lucasfilm, star wars, tv
Andor Season 1 Ep. 5 Review: A Pacing Issue Prediction Comes True
Andor episode five confirmed some worries that we had at the end of the last episode of the Star Wars series. If there is one thing that the Disney+ shows have struggled with from pretty much the first big series from Lucasfilm and Marvel is pacing. They all seem to think that six to eight-hour movies sound like good ideas and almost always end up racing to the finish line in the finale. It looked like Andor might be deviating from that pattern, but now it seems like it is developing its own pattern that could be concerning. That pattern is that this show isn't going to be a movie spread out over twelve episodes but four movies spread out over three episodes each that will be about two to two and half hours long.
Andor Isn't Entirely Sure It's A TV Show, But It Isn't A Movie Either
It's almost amusing how well Andor has broken these three episodes into traditional three-act structures. We called episode four a soft pilot last week, which means that is act one, and now we're in act two. That means that this episode was largely about planning the heist that Cassian is going to be part of and all of the other principal players continuing their stories. The interesting thing is that Cassian's stories seem to be the only ones that really seem to be following the three-act structure. Mon, Luthen, Syril, Dedra, and Blevin are all moving along like this is long-form storytelling. It's a weird approach because this is a show called Andor, but this weird structure almost makes it feel like Cassian's story is the B-story, the side quest, while everyone is the A-story. Perhaps this is a choice since we only know the fates of one of the other above players, Mon, and we know Cassian's as well, so there is only so much tension you can do with them.
It still might be a little too early to make the call about the pacing definitively. However, this pattern seems to indicate that Disney is still not entirely confident with the idea that they are making television shows. Each episode still doesn't tell its own self-contained story while also telling the overall story of the season at the same time. While Andor is better because the entire middle of the season isn't shaping up to be a slog, it still feels like Disney and Lucasfilm are almost ashamed of the fact that they are making television. That doesn't make any sense; this company has made some amazing television that told self-contained episode stories while telling a season-long story. Only those shows were animated, not live-action. Episodic television is not something to be ashamed of; it's something to be embraced. While Andor is still excellent, it's unfortunate to see another show ashamed of being a television show.
The Sprint Toward Oppression
Sometimes, with universes like Star Wars, you have to wonder how things got like this. How did the galaxy end up under the Empire? How could people let this happen? The prequels toyed with the idea of the sprint into oppression, but they were much more focused on the Jedi and their side of the story in this universe. What about the regular people who were just trying to live their lives? That was the focus of Rogue One and the focus of Andor. In this episode, we get to hear from Karis Nemik, the believer of Cassian's new group of thieves and someone who is 1000% going to die on this mission. He is the one who gives the long talk about oppression and how everything got the way it has. "It's easier to hide behind 40 atrocities than a single incident," he explains. However, that final fight to truly strip away the fundamental rights of freedom from people, a fight that we know the Empire will win but eventually lose, will be much harder for people to let go.
We saw this in the United States during the Trump administration, where it was like a slow walk down the plank to fascism, and, eventually, you almost get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of terrible things going on. It's hard to be angry and to fight back all the time, and powerful people can outlast you when it comes to stamina. They can and will outlast you until you're so exhausted and overwhelmed that you do what so many characters, including Cassian, do; they just stop trying because trying is hard. The Empire is beating and beating and beating everyone down until they are so tired and weak and overwhelmed that when they come for the final punch into true fascism, no one can fight back. Obi-Wan Kenobi was often touted as a show about a "broken man," but it wasn't; it was a show about a tired one. A man who has been through hell and back has seen the worst the world has to offer and is just so beaten down that he just doesn't want to anymore. The Empire's plan is not to break everyone, which isn't possible but to make everyone so tired that they don't want to fight anymore.
The show is taking the time to explore how that works for these characters in different ways. "Everyone has their own rebellion," Vel says. When we think of the Rebellion, we think of a united group of people, but the truth is that everyone is rebelling for their own reasons. A loved one, a life that they thought they could have, a planet, a home, everyone has their own reasons for turning around and saying, "no more." In many ways, this makes Lieutenant Gorn one of the most interesting characters to come out of the Empire since Bodhi Rook. He lost something, someone, and that was his breaking point, so now here he is, rebelling for his own reasons. It's such a new dynamic that we haven't seen explored yet in Star Wars. We haven't seen many defectors, and their reasons for why they defected are even less explored, but Gorn's reason is so painfully human. He's like Bodhi and like Finn in many ways, and seeing that painful bit of humanity pulling people back from, well, the Dark Side is wonderful storytelling to explore.
[Lack] Of Main Character Syndrom In Andor
The other people in Andor are going through various different arcs as well. We see that Mon Mothma's husband can be charitably described as "useless," and she also has a daughter who she is not getting along with. Syril spends the entire episode getting chewed out by his mommy and eating blue milk with cereal. He's such a massive dweeb and a tool, but it's still very unclear as to what his arc is actually going to be. We've seen rock bottom, so it's time to go up though what direction "up" is remains to be seen. Blevin will be our connection back to Ferrix, so we aren't leaving that planet behind any time soon, and Dedra is still chasing down a hunt while rocking the slickest bun in the galaxy. Luthen gets about two minutes of screen time and appears to be waiting for information about Cassian's job. Many of these plot threads feel like they are just getting started, and they really have because most of them were just introduced in the last episode. So making a judgment call about whether or not any of these threads will amount to much.
Andor, in general, remains the most fascinating Star Wars show so far. It still isn't shying away from everything we've seen about the war and how it breaks people down differently. The Empire doesn't even always have to pull the trigger to kill someone, as we learned in this episode about Arvel Skeen's brother's suicide. The next two weeks will be interesting when it comes to figuring out the pacing issues, and maybe we'll finally figure out whether or not any other plot threads will work. I'm sticking with my "Nemick dies" prediction, though.
Andor Season 1 Ep. 5
8.5/10
Andor episode five seems to confirm a possible pacing issue while also discussing how the Empire oppresses people and what it means to rebel.
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