Disney Plus put out the first three episodes of Andor on the same day, and having watched all three, the one thing Mrs. Know-It-All and I agree on is that you had to have all three. And that’s exactly what they’re called, by the way. Episodes 1, 2 and 3.
We’ve got a rule in our house. Any show you’re going to start watching, or any show somebody recommends, you give it to at least the third episode. By the third episode most shows know what they want to be, they know the story they’re going to tell, and they can articulate it well enough that you go, oh, I’m in, I’m down for the ride. That’s what they’ve compacted here. Add up the run times, 49 minutes, 32 minutes and something like 46 minutes, and you’re at about an hour and a half, an hour forty. At the end of the day this was a two-hour introductory origin story movie for Cassian Andor.
Mrs. Know-It-All is our Star Wars fan, and she’s with me for this one. This is an era we haven’t seen in a long time, and they’re real original stories. More stories, and more stories after that, which is what she’s learning to love about what they’re doing with the franchise.
If you haven’t watched all three yet, what are you doing here?
A Scoundrel of the Highest Order
The series starts by giving us a really clear look at Cassian, who’s somewhat of a wandering soul. We go back and forth between the past, on a planet called Kenari, and the present, which is on a corporate world.
In the present, Cassian goes to a pleasure house, if you will, and asks the hostess for information about a Kenari girl. By what he’s said, he’s looking for his sister. I don’t know how true that is, because I don’t know that he’s a reliable narrator. We know Cassian to be a liar. We know him to be a scoundrel of the highest order. I don’t mean that in a bad way, and I’m not handing him anti-hero status, but this series is Han Solo. He’s a guy who grew up rough in the streets, who’s had to deal with some stuff, and who’s now figuring out how to get through everything going on around him.
On his way out he runs into two guys from the security force for the corporation that runs that planet, and they try to shake him down. He fights back against one of them, and the guy falls and dies. Now he’s stuck with the other one, who’s literally saying we’ll go in together, it was an accident, the whole thing. And Cassian, without remorse, without thought, kills the guy.
Mrs. Know-It-All jumped. She wasn’t expecting it, and it was a very visceral response. I was more into it, because remember, we all know where Cassian’s going. We saw Rogue One. Rogue One is where he ends up, and now we’re running that backwards.
The first episode more or less ends with him realizing he’s got to get off the planet.
The Past Mirrors the Present
We both like the way they’re doing the jump back and forth. We’re getting how he became who he is, starting as a child, and it blends very nicely. There’s a mirroring happening too. It’s very reminiscent of Arrow, for anybody who saw seasons one, two and three and eventually up to five, where the show kept going between the origin story years and the present and the two stories would often parallel. That’s what’s happening here.
In the past he’s part of what I can only call a village of children. Mrs. Know-It-All says there were adults, briefly, at the beginning when they saw the craft, and I think the show just focuses on the kids. Either way, the kids see a ship crash, and they get together in their little Lord of the Flies clan and head toward wherever it came down.
When they get to the ship, there are people who’ve been infected or something. They’re all yellow, and it looks like they were trying to get air masks on. Either the yellow is their species, or the yellow is something that happened to them, and I lean toward the second, because they don’t look totally yellow. They look sick yellow. Yellow in the face, yellow in parts of their arms. Almost jaundiced.
Cassian goes further into the ship, sees his own reflection, gets angry at it and freaks out. It’s such a primitive tribe that the ship itself freaked them out to begin with. Then he’s inside looking at computers, at things he’s never seen before, and then at himself. You figure at this point he’s never seen himself. I’d assume that’s very overwhelming.
That’s when Maarva shows up with her partner. Fiona Shaw plays Maarva, who turns out to be someone very important to Cassian. They’re there to go through the crashed ship. I was going to say steal, but they’re salvagers. And the Republic is obviously sending someone after that ship.
Speaking Kenari
It’s funny what they’ve done with the people of this planet. Diego Luna, who plays Cassian, is a Latino actor in real life. In the galaxy far, far away, they give the Kenari a language that’s very reminiscent of Spanish. I’m Puerto Rican, so I have an ear for it, and I’m listening to this thinking, I can hear where they took the Spanish, the Latin influence, and put it into that alien language.
The other thing is the subtitles only ever say “speaking Kenari.” We don’t know what they’re saying. I’m used to it going the other way. If you’re going to have people speaking an alien language, you give them some dialogue and you put it underneath so we get the idea. I kind of like it, and it kind of gets a little annoying. But it leaves us some mystery, and I think it’s appropriate. It’s not like it dead ends anything.
The Guy Who Gets in Trouble a Lot
Episode 2 rolls right in. Cassian goes to visit people you assume are relatives, and there’s a weird kind of tension. Everyone treats him like he’s the guy who gets in trouble a lot. We don’t know enough about his current world yet, but it feels like this was one more thing too many, and I don’t know what all the other stuff was. He’s well known. I don’t want to say thief, I don’t want to say bum, I don’t want to say Star Wars hobo. But he’s definitely got a past, especially when it comes to Bix, who at one point flat out asks him what he did.
Adria Arjona plays Bix Caleen, and I really like Bix. I hope she stays on and gets to do some stuff.
Out the gate you see Cassian working aboard a ship, fixing some things, and we get our first droid of the show, because every Star Wars has to have one. His name is B2EMO. I’m on the fence on this one. He’s okay. He’s kind of melancholy, and it’s very funny.
Cassian keeps telling Bix he’s got this special kind of box, a piece of technology that would let someone triangulate the location of all the Imperial people in the sector, or something like it. Bix has told him before that there’s a person interested in meeting him. That guy turns out to be Stellan Skarsgård, who plays Luthen Rael. Based on what we’re seeing, he’s either a recruiter for what’s going to be the Rebellion, or a talent scout, some guy placed higher up who’s out looking for people just like Cassian.
The Chief Inspector Had It Right
Meanwhile, Cassian killed those two men, and they were corporate security.
The real Chief Inspector reviews the whole thing, and he gets it. These guys were somewhere they weren’t supposed to be, doing things they weren’t supposed to be doing. No doubt they got into a fight, probably picked on somebody, annoyed the wrong guy, and he killed them. Which is exactly what happened. Legit. That should tell you the Chief Inspector is someone with experience, someone who understands people and sees things. He’s the right guy to be running things.
He just so happens to have to go to an Imperial review, which takes him off world and out of pocket. So he leaves it in the hands of this younger guy with a lot of zeal, who’s saying security forces were killed, we have to investigate. And the Chief Inspector’s answer is, man, just calm down. This isn’t important. We don’t want the Empire’s attention. We don’t want any of that nonsense.
So the young guy draws attention. The opposite of what he’s supposed to do. If you wanted to draw attention, this was the way to do it. With the help of some other people and forces of his own, he tracks Cassian down, and specifically they find Maarva.
The Sound Before It Stops
There’s a whole confluence of things converging by Episode 3. Cassian’s already talking to Luthen when the teams arrive, and what you get is this dope shootout between Luthen, Cassian and the first group at the door. Dude blows up the door first.
But what was really cool comes right before all of that. As soon as the soldiers show up, people all over the area start banging out a pattern. Some guys are doing knock knock, chunk chunk, knock knock, and other guys are doing chunk chunk chunk, knock knock. We’re sitting there thinking maybe it’s the areas, maybe it’s whatever, and then Mrs. Know-It-All figures out that maybe it’s code. Then they cut to Maarva, and she says this is the sound of a reckoning. Don’t worry about the sound. It’s when it stops that you have to worry.
And then it stops. It’s dead silent, and all the guards are going, what is it?
It’s great.
Cassian and Luthen end up holed up in a little garage area. They put some bombs on a car, send it out as a decoy, and go shooting off on a speeder to get to Luthen’s ship. Ultimately they do escape. There’s a whole lot more that happens on the ground, and I don’t want to spoil everything. They’re really well done episodes.
It Backs Right Up Into Rogue One
I like this beginning. It felt very much like Rogue One, and I really enjoyed that connection in the tone. Tony Gilroy and the same people who had their hands in Rogue One are working on this too, and they had more story to tell. If you have Disney Plus and you haven’t watched the featurettes yet, please go watch them. They’re amazing, and I think they’re on YouTube as well.
The show places itself in time perfectly: five years before the Battle of Yavin. That’s before Episode IV, A New Hope, the Death Star, Luke, the whole thing. Mrs. Know-It-All knew it was going to back us up to Rogue One. She didn’t realize how close that was.
Right now they’re starting with the one season. I have no doubt that by the end of the series, however many seasons that is, two, three, five, it backs right up into Rogue One. It’s supposed to be five years, so who knows, maybe they do one for every year, which would be kind of interesting. I see them backing literally up to the part where Cassian’s meeting that guy on that one planet, because that’s the first time we ever saw him in Rogue One. Maybe it ends with him having to go meet that guy, and you go, oh, we’re right in.
Think about who we know he becomes. When nobody wants to move on Jyn Erso’s information in Rogue One, he’s the guy who steps up with something like 45 other guys and says we’ve done things we’re not proud of, and we need to know it’s all for something. What is he talking about? That history is what this series is ultimately giving us. He had a rough childhood and a rough start, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to get any better. In fact it’s going to get more severe.
We also learn he’s a person of conviction. If he feels it needs to happen, he doesn’t think twice. The decision is made and he goes. Shooting that dude is the prime example, and the decisions he makes later on are too.
Mrs. Know-It-All made a point I liked. The Mandalorian had a western type vibe, and she feels like they’re doing a really good job giving this one a Mission: Impossible, 007 feel. There’s a lot of secrecy, a lot of don’t tell the person I was here, a lot of politics. She’s not comparing James Bond to Star Wars, so please don’t come at her for that. It’s the espionage tone, and I like it too.
What We Didn’t Like, Which Wasn’t Much
I asked Mrs. Know-It-All what she didn’t like, and she couldn’t really find anything. And you know her, she can be really critical. If she had to pick one thing, she wanted to know what they were saying in Kenari. That’s it. She liked the way it flowed and the way it all came together.
I couldn’t find a whole lot either. The acting was excellent. It feels like we’ve gotten the complete first act of a movie, and in that, I’m in. What I don’t feel like I know is how big the stakes are. I know eventually he becomes that guy, but I’m trying to take this without that, and I need to understand what’s at stake right now.
The Star Wars-isms are all there. You’ve got the droid. And for those of you who are keen-eyed, when the security patrol flies in, they’re basically on the clone trooper transports from Clone Wars. The wings, the open sides, the one you’re just hanging out of. I believe it’s a manufacturing thing, like Humvees, how the military buys them and we can get them too. This model was probably sold to other people for their security forces even after the Empire rolled on to other things. It’s a cool little member berry, and once you see the profile fly in, you know it’s the exact same one.
I am a little bit tired of starting everywhere on a rustic backwater planet. Just once I’d love to start on Coruscant, or somewhere actually populated. Give me one civilized place. Otherwise they’re always going to the old west.
Although the guy on the flight with Luthen helps. The funny, quirky one. He’s like a space vacuum cleaner salesman, right down to the little hat, except the hat is pink. They said we’re going to Star Wars-ify this hat everybody has here on Earth by making it pink. The guy’s hilarious. And he says if you can’t find what you’re looking for here, then you can’t find it at all, so the place is known for something. It’s not too bad.
The Verdict
Andor Episodes 1 through 3, taken together as one chunk because they dropped together, land at a 9 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index. That’s from both of us.
I’m happy with this because it’s the first act of something bigger. But they haven’t really laid that out for me yet, and by the third episode I feel like I should know. I should know that Luthen is recruiting him for something specific. I want him in the Rebellion, for sure, but give me a hint at Luthen’s motivations, because I refuse to believe he’s just randomly out here going, this guy’s so talented. Give me more, man.
So it’s a nine. I know, you’re thinking that’s so critical, Mr. Know-It-All. It’s my system. It wasn’t a ten because I still don’t know where we’re going. If they keep going like this and keep giving us good stuff, it could very well be a ten of a season, or there’ll be a ten in there at some point.
Mrs. Know-It-All gave it a nine as well. She can’t give it a ten yet. It didn’t blow her mind. But she was all in, she was focused, and she couldn’t find anything wrong with it. If you want to blame the droid this time, she’ll take that.
We got up a little early in anticipation of this show. She was getting really tired and wasn’t sure she’d make it. Halfway through the first episode she told me, I’m going to do the review with you. It kept our attention the entire time, for all three episodes, and I was really impressed by that.
Your turn. Tell us what you thought of the first three episodes. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above. And never forget: everyone loves a know-it-all.
