Andor - Episode 6 - Review

After many set up episodes, it is finally time for the heist, but as with all things in Star Wars, a bad feeling was had going in. Would it live up to the hype or would it just fade out like a shooting star across the night sky?

The heist was successful of course, it delivered a host of complications along the way, some of them deadly for select members of the crew and some lucrative for others. The problem was that everything just seemed to go the way of the rebels/thieves until the very end and while it was entertaining at points, it really didn’t have stakes until it all went fubar. I will give the show credit, the tension leading up to the commencement of the heist was very well done, it kept introducing new elements and trying to keep track of them was quite interesting. Where it really shined though, was in the execution, not only were they forcing those they were stealing from to assist, but the escape was a sight to behold and not something we have seen in Star Wars before. But again, for all the good, the bad was just there and while the show did try to throw a few curveballs at the viewer, they were macguffins of the strangest order, but lets look at the good.

Having Cassian pretend to be a solider was a good touch and was something we got to see in practice in the last episode, the rest of the gang all worked together and pulled it off though. There was a fake out with someone from a stationed squad looking at them, but it amounted to nothing, what it did do though, was raise the stakes. Seeing Vel Sartha and Cinta, swim under the water to insert from below was interesting, if only because the show kept highlighting that they were doing something different from the rest. Of course, the inside man of Lieutenant Gorn also played a great double agent role, which made his reveal to the admiral quite impressive. Every step of their plan counted on mostly luck and naturally, it ran out at the worst possible time and due to perhaps the most annoying Empire soldier on the base, the guy with too much time on his hands.

The bad of the plan came down to just sheer incompetence of the heisters, at no point did they consider that someone might crack their ‘secure’ radio signal, I mean an Empire base that is filled with radio equipment and no-one thought to question if it was secure. The other aspect is that no-one thought to lock a door and while yes, those are nit-picks, they are the sort of lazy writing that I really dislike. Having soldiers find them mid-heist makes sense, but all because of an unlocked door, there are countless ways that it could have been done better, heck even just using the lift would have worked, rather than a door that was never shown. Where things got harder to follow though, was in the action that took place after they were discovered and the blasters started.. blasting. With everyone wearing the same basic colour outfit, excluding the two officers and Vel, it was hard to see who was who, not those shooting down as they were up high, but rather those on the ground. So when their inside man got shot, it took me a bit to realise what had happened, it was just a lot of chaos that didn’t really amount to much.

I was also not a fan of the ending of the episode, not Luthen cackling in his back room, that was fine and would have been more impressive, had the episode opened with the previous episodes end bit. No the bit that I didn’t like was Cassian and Skeen having a conversation about them taking off and leaving the others behind, taking all 80 million credits between them. The conversation itself was fine, going in Skeen was always a wild card and while the story of his brother and the orchard was nice, it seemed to play a bit hard last week and now we know why. My issue is that Cassian just up and killed him, sure he deserved it, but it highlights a problem with Cassian and it is that he will do whatever suits him best, even if he is redeemed in Rogue One. A main character that has no real character, is not one you can invest in and I can see people arguing that he does redeem himself eventually, that doesn’t help in the here and now. Hopefully they can do something to correct it in the future episodes though.

The heist was fun to see, while the countless shots of chanting in another language wasn’t needed, everything else built tension, with each step being fraught with more danger. How it fell apart was lazy and could have been done in so many different ways, but it worked well enough and while some loses were expected, it was hard to see who and when they did go. What this episode means for the future of the series though, that is harder to get a read on, with Cassian now back on his own again and the forming rebels much richer, things are getting interesting.

The Score

8.5

The Pros

+The heist was built with tension and executed quite well, with plenty of fake outs to keep the suspense going

+The escape out through the eye was a visual that won’t soon be topped with Star Wars

The Cons

-The heist went off the rails in a lazy way, which then lead to a confusing shoot out

-Cassian is not showing signs of growth and it makes it harder to connect with him