This show’s hitting on all cylinders, and I’m not being cute about it. Last week we told you how excited we were for where Andor was going. This week we got the heist, and we got what we wanted.
This was an amazing episode. They get you from point A to point B without any hesitation. There’s ups, there’s downs, there’s fighting, there’s revenge. It’s everything I want the show to be. Andor is doing the Lord’s work, and to me it’s an excellent successor to The Mandalorian. By that I just mean how good it is. The Mandalorian has told an amazing story over a couple of seasons, and this show is telling an amazing story too. The intention, as it’s been reported, is to butt right up against Rogue One, and I can very much see how they get there.
We talked about there being 24 episodes. Think about some of the stuff that comes out on streaming now, where one season is nine and another is ten. They basically took three seasons’ worth and said, there it is, 24. I’m excited, man. It’s going to be good.
No More Practice
The episode starts with the group having to face that it’s time. There’s no more practice. You’re doing the thing.
You meet the guy who’s the commander of the entire place, and he’s a greasy, horrible guy. He’s got his family there, and his family is apparently very important to him even if the rest of the place isn’t. He’s talking with the lieutenant, the gentleman we’ve been following this entire time, and it’s very Imperial in terms of how the place is being run.
You also find out this is the last time the Empire intends to let the Dhanis do this ritual, which is to come to this valley and see this thing in the sky. They used to have something like 1,500 people who’d make the trip. Now they’ve barely got 60. He explains the Empire’s mentality. Along the entire pathway they’ve set up places to buy things and places to stay. They’ve whittled everybody down by giving them what they want, which in turn gives the Empire what it wants and puts everyone in a stranglehold. It’s a very particular set of situations, and they’ve orchestrated it for this purpose.
The cover is that the lieutenant had to bring up help from another outpost, and that’s who Cassian and the rebel guys are supposed to be. So it’s not weird that nobody recognizes them. They work somewhere else, they don’t work at this particular base, and that makes a lot of sense.
Diego Luna Is Carrying This Show
All that tension builds from the minute the episode starts, and then there you go, you’re into it.
Diego Luna is carrying this show and doing amazing. And we’re already in spoiler territory, so I’m not worried about it: you get the moment I said was going to happen, where you get to see him be the Cassian we know from Rogue One.
Mrs. Know-It-All believes he’s already there. Her read is that he’s made a couple of those calls already, and you see that in this episode. I think the defining moment is the one with Skeen. I was going to call him Skeeter.
The Heist Slams Into High Gear
The whole thing slams into high gear very quickly. One of the things they do is take out the audio on every channel except the one. The tower’s saying we have no signal, what’s going on. The team is hoping that before anyone has time to do anything about it, everyone assumes it’s the meteor shower, this Eye thing happening in the sky. That’s what lets them move through and get where they need to go.
They’re very fast in taking the commandant and his family hostage, and they’re flat out about it: listen, we all live, just do what we tell you. They don’t want this to go south, but they’re willing to go there if it does.
He takes them down. The vault requires certain things and they don’t care, because they’ve got the ability to blast it, and they do. Then they’re stuck with the fact that there were guys down there, people assigned to the vault. So now it’s, we’ve got to load these things, let’s go. It’s high tension, because the audio people are saying, hey, I don’t hear what’s going on, and the other tower’s trying to communicate: we’re not hearing from you guys, we’re sending a squadron to check on you. Time’s of the essence. You only have so many minutes, and they know what those time frames are.
I’m talking very fast, I know. That’s how this was all coming at you.
There were points where Mrs. Know-It-All forgot we were watching a 45 minute program. She thought we were watching a movie.
Oh, You Slimy Coward
They lose the first guy because those people from upstairs come down. The audio engineer grabs a group, the emergency group, and now they’re on a catwalk above everybody asking what’s going on. The team’s still trying to play it off. Everybody shut up, keep moving. Dude’s coming down the stairs, the first shot goes off, and that’s when it breaks. Everybody’s shooting, back and forth. The kid’s hiding behind some stuff.
You’ve got the more seasoned guy, Taramyn, the one who’s been leading the little marching drills. He and Skeen get pinned down at one point. He says cover me, jumps out, and tries to run and do something. Skeen covers him for all of two shots and then backs off. You see him back off. Dude gets shot, and we’re just sitting there going, oh, you slimy coward.
Cassian finally says we’ve got to go, I don’t care, get on, we’re leaving. Sure enough he does the thing, unlocks the little grippy thing we talked about last week, and the ship’s in the air.
How You Get Into a TIE Fighter
Once the ship’s in the air, you have a squadron of TIE fighters on the way. And you get to see how the pilots get into the TIE fighters. You see the buttons and the knobs and all of it, and I was like, oh, that’s so cool. You never get to see that. You only ever saw it with the X-wings. They’re running along this little catwalk, they get to their ships, they slide down in, and sure enough they’re unhooking and going. It almost reminded me of Voltron in a weird way.
The TIE fighters have trouble following, which is exactly what the team intended, because of the meteors. They’re crossing the sky and cutting through the atmosphere, and that’s creating these wonderfully glorious, beautiful colors, this light show. They’re all continuing on toward space, so in the middle there’s what looks like an eye. It looks like your eyeball. That’s where they’re headed.
Because of how hard they had to slam out of the place, a giant rack of the gold, whatever the heck it is, slams into the kid and paralyzes him almost immediately. He’s the only one who knows the codes and the path out, the ups and downs and everything. And he’s very much for the cause, so through it all he says, get me to the thing, and he starts reading off where to go and what the coordinates are. That’s all Cassian needed.
The Choice at the Doctor’s Door
They manage to escape, and they get to where they’re going to be holed up. They’d built a doctor into the plan as a contingency in case someone got injured, and they insist on trying to help the kid, so they stop at the doctor’s place. There’s only a handful of them left: Cassian, Skeen, Vel, the kid and the doctor.
Cassian and Skeen are outside, and this is where slimy Skeen comes in. He says there’s probably 80 million credits in there. I say we go 40/40, take the ship, I know some place to hole up. Cassian almost has to repeat it. You want to betray them? He’s telling Cassian, look, man, you’re like me. Since Cassian’s a mercenary doing it for money, this should be okay.
This is where we realize Cassian has no arc. Cassian is Cassian because he makes this choice, and it’s the same kind of choice we saw him making in Rogue One. He whips his gun out and repeats it to make sure he understood. You sure that’s what you want to say right now? You’re going to betray them, you’re going to leave them? And Skeen says yeah, whatever, man, I’d rather be alive, and we all rebel in our own way. He’s twisting the words we loved so much from last time. Yeah, but there’s a wrong way to rebel, bro. Betraying your people? Nah, man. I’m not okay with that.
I think I paused it and jumped off the bed, because we watch right when we wake up. I said he should walk right in with his gun in hand and say, I just had to kill dude, and this is why: he was going to do you wrong. And he kind of does that, sort of. He walks in and tells her, I’m just going to take the money I was promised, which is 200,000. Not even a million. I’m going to take it, I’m going to leave you your stuff, and I’m going to go. I’ll take that ship, and I’ll pay him for the ship. He’s literally trying to set the whole thing up so he can just go. He’s tired of this.
The Empty Senate and the Officer Who Called It
At the same time all of this is going on, there are other storylines in play. Mon Mothma’s in the middle of the Senate chamber, a very conspicuously empty Senate chamber. Remember Episode I and the prequel trilogy? That chamber was maxed out, people everywhere. Here there’s maybe a couple of hundred, if that. She’s talking about some legislation she wants to put forward, the way we do on our own Senate floor, and she notices people looking at their pads, talking to each other, then walking out. She picks up hers, only to see that this heist is already getting major attention.
Then we cut to the intelligence group, who’ve all been called in. The guy in charge says don’t get comfortable, I want everybody’s projections for a response. It’s essentially the same stuff Dedra Meero wanted. Denise Gough plays her. She’s the intelligence officer who said last week that if she were going to start a rebellion, that’s how she’d do it. So now it’s, oh, you mean the thing I warned you about? And I’m just like, yeah, honey, you stick it to them. They weren’t listening. Jerks.
The Smile in the Back of the Shop
The episode ends on the best part, in my opinion. Our boy Luthen is in his shop, at his day job, and you start hearing things going on. A customer asks if he has any Aldhani artifacts. Apparently it’s all over the news, this whole rebellion thing, so Dhani culture’s going to be very relevant soon. Luthen says, oh, I’ll have to go take a look. He walks to the back, turns around, and he’s smiling. It’s so genuine.
I immediately looked at Mrs. Know-It-All and said, remember the first time we saw him smile? That one looked like somebody making an effort to remember how. This one took no effort, because he’s so elated that the mission happened and that it worked.
Remember what we learned last week through Mon Mothma and her exchange with him. Money’s the big issue. The Rebellion needs financing to move forward. You learn in the sequel trilogy that there are arms dealers working both sides, so the Rebellion has to be able to buy weapons and equipment, and fund a lot of what it’s doing. At this stage it’s still a couple of groups trying to unite, a ways off from being a cause.
I was buzzing. But just recapping it and showing you our excitement isn’t doing this episode justice. Go watch it. I don’t think there’s anything more we could say.
The Verdict
Andor Episode 6, The Eye, is a 10 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index. Mrs. Know-It-All said 10, and I said the same.
This is the first 10 for Andor, and probably the first in a while for the shows we’ve been watching in general.
What makes it a 10 out of 10 is that I find no flaws. The story’s tight. They’re keeping us engaged at the right places and it moves at the right clip. You get everything you want, from the tension points to the people acting and doing what they’re supposed to be doing. I feel like we’re on an amazing journey, and like she said, it’s movie quality. That’s what made her give it a 10: she couldn’t find anything technical, and she thought it was a movie. When it was over, we were both sitting there wanting more.
It also continues what I feel is the tradition of every three episodes being a movie. Episodes 1, 2 and 3 tell a complete story, and now Episodes 4, 5 and 6 tell a complete story. I believe you could jump in and watch either set of three so far. I don’t know if that’s the way it continues. We’ll know next week if it starts something new. If it does, that’s eight little short stories, and I’m down.
Your turn. Are you hyped up for Andor? Tell us what you thought of The Eye. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above. And never forget: everyone loves a know-it-all.
