I think what Andor needs is for Jar Jar Binks to be in these decadent high class parties, where we discover he’s become a sad shell of himself. Does some wacky hyjinks but gives up halfway through because he just doesn’t have the spirit anymore, and sits down to drink too much before the rest of Palpatine’s buddies lead him away before he says something he’ll regret in public.
1 Like
God damn that hurt
2 Likes
“You need to find a husband, probably a widower at your age.”
Somebody needs to slap this man.
6 Likes
Oh no the Empire’s saddest little man
2 Likes
An excellent episode for Syril Karn enjoyers/haters like myself! Slurping his oops all berries milk to drown out his mom’s chiding?? Classic! His creepy stalker advances made my skin crawl. That guy is maybe the worst a guy has sucked in all of Star Wars and I am HERE for it!
3 Likes
I am torn between feeling really bad for Karn (obviously an emotionally-stunted, unloved, propagandized man-child who thinks any gesture of relative kindness is some kind of love proclamation) and thinking that he’s about to go do some really dark stuff.
2 Likes
me watching Andor 8: wow this is bleak
Andor 9: hold my beer
2 Likes
I really want to believe Kino isn’t going to rat them out at the end. Rare instance of Serkis not playing a villain?
1 Like
I feel like Kino is going to make some kind of heroic sacrifice on the way out the door. I don’t think Kino necessarily doubted Andor’s ability to get out. I think Kino sort of rebased his whole core belief structure on the system in which he found himself. Obviously it’s prison and therefore not awesome but there are rules and as long as Kino respects the rules and enforces the rules, the Empire will respect the rules. He’s clung to that like the last remaining board of an exploded pirate ship, adrift in a sea of his own denial. He’s heard the stories. He knows intellectually that the Empire is deeply corrupt and can’t be trusted. He knows intellectually that the only two ways out are the hard way or a body bag. But The Rules. Until today.
4 Likes
Ahhhhhhhhsk…
This show, holy crap!
Why do I have to wait 4 days for the next AMCA! 6 star run time on this episode I htink.
I think Kino knew on a deep level that there was no real hope. But that vain hope was the only thing keeping him going.
And Karn and Meero are I think both definitely moving into irredeemable territory. Kenobi did it with Reva in a smart way, maybe the only really good thing about the show. But these two are really beyond the light.
2 Likes
I’d argue that while Karn was deeply misguided and could potentially be de-radicalised (though I have low confidence he will be) despite the harm he’s caused, Meero was full fascist from the jump, we just didn’t get to see her enjoying it like we did here. She came up into this high level ISB position from some kind of police force equivalent, right? No guesses how she treated that job. It’s not so much moving into irredeemable as wallowing in it.
Calling a shot though: I imagine Meero is surviving into season 2, but I hope Dr. Gorst gets got immediately - preferably by having that genocide mixtape headset jammed on his head and left to rot.
So, there was an interview with Andy Serkis about who he saw his character as, after Episode 8. I’ve lost the link now (and if you google “Serkis Andor” you mostly just get the clickbait Austin was talking about in the most recent AMCA - frenzied “is Serkis playing Snope??” garbage) but the gist was this: he imagined a backstory for Kino where he had been a union foreman, and was jailed for standing up to the Empire for workers’ rights. We talked about this some on the Waypoint Discord and a general consensus was that if he was a villain this was a pretty curious and somewhat uncomfortable backstory for Kino (even if it was only Serkis’ idea to inform his performance, and not actual canon). Why would someone who puts themselves on the line to help others - to the point of being jailed for it - turn into a capo? I interpreted it as the series showing us how the Empire grinds even good people down until they can only operate selfishly, but it also suggested an upcoming redemptive turn. We clearly got that this episode, with Kino siding with Cassian by providing his knowledge of the number of guards, so to me it’s not a question of whether he’ll rat them out - just whether he’ll get out, or sacrifice himself in the process.
1 Like
Here’s a KarnxMeero fancam for your viewing pleasure: (spoilers through episode 9)
1 Like
Serkis has played a good guy in plenty of movies. He was Alfred in the latest Batman. He was the hero Caesar in the three Planet of the Apes movies, which ended up making him ape Moses by the end. He was King Kong (who is a tragic monster not a villain) in King Kong and in human form he played Lumpy, a good gruff crewmate.
Sure there’s more, just off the top of my head.
2 Likes
I think you’re 100% right that Meero was entirely fash, but there was always the little glimmer of possibility that they would try redeem her. These last two episodes have made it clear though that she’s exactly where she belongs, she was a bit of a fish out of water at first, but she’s found her space and she’s very comfortable. And all this lines up with Gilroy’s statements about her that Austin has spoken about.
And the way Karn has imprinted on her like a duckling has pushed him away from being deradicalized.
2 Likes
Tony wrote the first scenes for us to cheer for Dedra, but in the end you don’t do it anymore. She is not just a woman in a men’s world, but a fascist in a world of fascists. It was important to see that power corrodes women as much as men. - https://screenrant.com/andor-villain-dedra-meero-fan-response-denise-gough/
Good quote from Denise Gough.
6 Likes
I’m going to be really sad if somebody from this show Milkshake Ducks. Not only is the show great, it seems like everybody they’ve interviewed about it is great.
1 Like
I hate so much that they replayed the audio from the Syril and Deidre scene. I want to take a shower and then hide in a cave and sob for decades after listening to that again.
5 Likes
I have a physical reaction to the memory of seeing him grab her arm as she starts to walk away.
There’s so much going on in that scene.
I noticed two things:
- I’d bet money that Dedra clearing his record is the first genuinely nice thing anybody has done for Karn, even if it was from Dedra’s usual place in their “relationship:” scraping something unpleasant from the bottom of her boot. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy for whom people do favors or hold surprise birthday parties or even wish happy birthday, really. So to have her seemingly reward him for being kinda useful is probably a really profound thing for the Empire’s Saddest Little Guy. The kind of thing that can go very awry in the wrong kind of personality (e.g. Karn’s). Which leads me to
- I don’t know how much Karn is attracted to Dedra as much as he’s attracted to what Dedra represents. He wants to lick the boot of a true believer like him, and he wants someone to pat him on the head when he’s a good little fascist. He gets his head pat from Dedra and he acts like a cat introduced to ham: he isn’t going to settle for anything less than more ham.
I think that scene was perfectly done and I never want to think about it ever again.
6 Likes
A lot of Star Wars media has contended with making Imperials less marketable and showing them as actually offputting/pathetic fascists and sometimes just broader authoritarians; I like that Syril’s still just a failed corpo cop Imp Simp, and how many scenes affirm that the Republic becoming the Empire wasn’t just a magical switch-flip to pure fascism even once they were called The Empire, but nothing’s come close to the sheer volume of skin-crawling awfulness that was that Syril and Dedra scene. Both of them are at their current peak of grossness and then you drop this interaction in there what the fuck.
It might be a personal scene rather than explicitly political, but it says an incredible amount about how grody and deeply disturbed staunch Impbrains can be from so, so many vectors.
3 Likes
