Main cast: Diego Luna (Cassian Andor), Stellan Skarsgård (Luthen Rael), Genevieve O’Reilly (Mon Mothma), Denise Gough (Dedra Meero), Kyle Soller (Syril Karn), Adria Arjona (Bix Caleen), Faye Marsay (Vel Sartha), Benjamin Bratt (Bail Organa), Varada Sethu (Cinta Kaz), Elizabeth Dulau (Kleya Marki), Alastair Mackenzie (Perrin Fertha), Anton Lesser (Major Lio Partagaz), Kathryn Hunter (Eedy Karn), Richard Dillane (Davo Sculdun), Robert Emms (Supervisor Lonni Jung), Jacob James Beswick (Supervisor Heert), Richard Sammel (Carro Rylanz), Thierry Godard (Lezine), and Ben Mendelsohn (Orson Krennic)
Director: Ariel Kleiman
Well, well, well, look who’s back: the galaxy’s most aggressively mediocre rebellion saga, serving up another episode that dares to flirt with excitement before tripping over its own self-importance. Let’s unpack this shimmering holiday ham of an episode.
First off, remember how last week I called that there’d be a “Find the Bugs!” sequence? Well, in What a Festive Evening, there is one at a party at Davo Sculdun’s palace of awkward social mixers. Ding ding ding — called it. Turns out Andor is nothing if not a reliable supplier of Predictable Espionage Tropes™. Mon Mothma, her walking cravat of a husband, Luthen Rael’s assistant, and her own plus one crash the party to sweep the room for listening devices like it’s an aggressively dull galactic Easter egg hunt. It’s all very Ocean’s Eleven, if Ocean’s Eleven was directed by a man who once fell asleep halfway through a game of Risk.
Meanwhile on Ghorman, Syril Karn has slipped the rebel cell enough juicy military intel to lead those scrappy freedom fighters to do what they do best: plunge headfirst into disaster with the grace and tactical finesse of a drunk Kowakian monkey-lizard. Vel Sartha and Cinta Kaz lead the charge, presumably because no one else wanted to and they lost a bet. Naturally, the whole thing is a slow-moving train wreck you can see coming from twelve parsecs away.
Andor, the titular hero in name only, quickly realizes this plan has a survival rate somewhere between slim and cosmic joke. So, what does our fearless protagonist do? Come up with a daring counterstrategy? Nope. He just whines to Rael that the plan sucks and then stands around like a spare part in his own series. Rael, meanwhile, practically twirls a metaphorical mustache, because whether the rebels win or die horribly, it’s a win for him. The moral of Andor, kids: the only difference between the good guys and the bad guys is how smugly they sip their space wine while sacrificing you.
As for character arcs no one asked for, Bix Caleen, having cycled through trauma, grief, and a brief pill habit (because Disney will imply substance abuse, but God forbid it lasts longer than a TikTok trend), decides therapy is for quitters. She instead tracks down her torturer from season one using, I dunno, Google Maps? The Force? A plot-convenient raven? Either way, she and Andor infiltrate a heavily guarded facility because apparently everyone in the Empire is both evil and profoundly incompetent. She beats the guy up and Andor blows the place sky-high.
Which begs the question: if these two are this good at stealth ops, why not just have them sneak into Partagaz’s penthouse, hotwire his espresso machine, and end this season early? Think of the time we’d save.
All in all — stuff happens! It’s nice! The writers finally remembered they have six episodes left and need to pretend this story is going somewhere. There’s still potential for juicy grey morality, but let’s be honest if it gets resolved the way Bix’s mental health storyline did (a quick doctor visit and some explosive murder), maybe it’s better left unexplored.
As always, here’s hoping Andor keeps this momentum up. Not because it’s good, but because I need something to help me stay awake while watching this show.
