Between the dogfight and last week’s monologue (and the rest), Luthen in my mind is already an all-time classic Star Wars character. That Imperial stop-and-search was so insanely tense I thought the whole thing was going to end in a Game of Thrones penultimate shock death, and when he ripped the tractor beam to pieces…

Of course the Mothma scene imparts new information. It tells us that Leida is weirdly embracing her creepy-ass Chandrilian conservative roots and might not actually MIND being packaged off to another guy. Which does little to quell Mon’s anguish over it, since she knows how shitty those arrangements turn out to be.

You might be onto something, but I also think Andor (the series) has made a point to show that death can be anti-climatic.

It’s easier to die in this world than it is to live freely.

Still, I was hoping Maarva was going to have a small blaze of glory. Maybe she still will, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Funny you say that, because Luthen and Lonni detailing their own deeply personal sacrifices for the cause also reminded me of another wonderful bit of Star Trek monologuing, from TNG’s “The Defector.”

Luthen’s speech was great. Stellan Skarsgard is just fantastic.

Boo. B grade is not correct.

Anything from JJ Abrams.  

Imagine when they get to see sector 5 where they dismantle what Cassian and his crew have assembled. :D

DNA evidence would be real reasons to send people to jail. The Empire just rounds people up to send to prison. There is no justice in the Empire. 

I’ve watched Rogue One, like....a lot!  

Syril is Star Wars version of Gabe from The Office. 

What? No reference to the fact that one of Cassian’s table mates is Melshi, future rebel soldier who dies alongside him on Scarif?

I love how Cassian both seems totally in shock as to what’s happened to him here, and at the same time still can’t help himself from clocking everything. 

I love that Syril’s superpower is annoying the hell out of all the wrong people.

My personal favorite line, from the ISB Meeting:

I usually fast forward through the credits just in case there’s a bonus scene, but I let it play out today because the credits music was just so good. I never thought Star Wars needed techno music, but it really worked.

George Lucas has always said that Star Wars was a fairy tale for children. That certainly tracked with the prequels, particularly Phantom Menace. The Abrams sequels were Star Wars for adults in arrested development.

Man, I’ve been reading that the views on this show are terrible and that’s really, really depressing. I think this is the best written Star Wars anything. That scene with Syril and his toxic mother was so well written and so well acted you could have set it in a NYC apartment and it would have still worked. I hope…

You’re very kind to say!

I want to tip my hat to Hughes for his continued work on these reviews. I don’t always agree with him or his particular Archer bugbears, but he’s clearly passionate about the show and enjoys writing about it, and that’s not a small thing on The AV Club in the Year of Our Lord 2022.