Tag: Andor

Art Imitating Life

Sometimes I hate it when art has to imitate life. I hate it even more when the people being called out metaphorically by said art are too fucking stupid to realize the art is talking about them.

Mild spoilers for Andor season two episode nine. If you haven’t seen the episode, or if you haven’t seen Star Wars Rebels season three episode 18 (I think that’s the one), stop reading. You have been warned.

Last chance to bail (Bail Organa, if you will)…

In Star Wars The Return of the Jedi, a rebel leader gives a briefing spelling out the details of the second Death Star. It’s the “many Bothans died” speech. That character’s name is Mon Mothma. She was a senator who became one of the primary leaders of the Rebel Alliance. She shows up in a deleted scene in Revenge of the Sith, then she shows up for real in Rogue One and Rebels and Ahsoka and she’s one of the main characters in Andor. In a novel that is canon and takes place after Return of the Jedi she is actually elected to be the first Chancellor of the New Republic. Pretty sure that’s the job she’s doing in her brief scene in Ahsoka, but I have to go back and watch that entire series again just to be sure.

In Rebels we learn that her last act as a senator was to give a speech where she called out the Emperor as the bad guy for the whole galaxy. She gets chased out of the capital and smuggled to the rebel base by our Rebels heroes. Once at the rebel base she gives another speech that basically calls for revolution and the rest is Star Wars history.

This week’s third episode of Andor gave us the speech at the senate. It was perfect. Both in terms of the story itself and for our current shit show of a country. Replace the name Emperor Palpatine with Donald Trump, or even Orange Shit Clown, and it stops being fiction and starts being reality.

The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.

“This Chamber’s hold on the truth was finally lost on the Ghorman Palaza. What took place yesterday… what happened yesterday on Ghorman was unprovoked genocide. Yes, genocide. And that truth has been exiled from this Chamber. And the monster screaming the loudest, the monster we’ve helped create, the monster who will come for all of us soon enough, is Emperor Palpatine.”

Like I said… I hate it when art has to imitate life, and I hate it even more when the monster and his cult are too fucking stupid to realize they are the monsters and not the heroes. Fucking maga cult bullshit.

That’s all I have to say about that.

Season Two Episode Eight

Two new episodes of Andor down and still one to go. My spoiler free review of episode eight:

HOLY SHIT! Andor s2e8. Was that the most intense 40 minutes of television ever? I say again, HOLY SHIT! I swear my heart rate increased by about 300% over the course of the episode.We are the Gor!

— Rob (@robj1971.bsky.social) 2025-05-07T03:16:48.385Z

I was planning on watching seven and eight tonight and then watching nine in the morning. It’s 11:20pm now and I cannot wait until tomorrow. On to episode nine, right now. HOLY SHIT!

Another Crazy Day

Hope you are all having a happy, fascism-free Tuesday.

I was having a calm, yet somewhat productive day today. The minute I finished lunch all hell broke loose. It became a crazy, hectic, tense, productive day. You know how it is.

Now I am about 20 minutes away from the end of my work day and hopefully things are calming down. Everything seems covered at the moment. Breath in, breath out. You’ve got this, Robert.

I have half a personal day booked for tomorrow. Robin the Cat has a vet appointment. Just her annual check up. I have meetings booked all afternoon though, so it’s going to be busy tomorrow too. At least I’ll have three episodes of Star Wars Andor to plow through before the work day starts. They come out at 9:00 Eastern time tonight. I am ready. There was a new episodes of The Handmaids Tale over night last night. I watched it while doing my morning exercise today. It was excellent. Here’s hoping Andor holds serve on the which-show-about-people-fighting-fascism-is-more-awesome sweepstakes. At this point it’s anyone’s game.

Oh good. 10 minutes away from quitting time and it just started to rain. It’s freakin’ pouring out. Good, good.

No Spoilers

It’s frustrating. I watched last night’s three episodes of Star Wars Andor and I want to write a 100,000 word essay on how incredible the show is right now but I don’t want someone who hasn’t watch the new episodes yet to accidentally come to this page and read what I wrote and get spoiled.

I want to talk about what’s happening on Ghorman. I want to share what I was thinking about Bix’s future and how wrong I was (for now at least). I want to rave about the Krennic/Mon scene and how fantastic it was. I want to praise Disney for the Vel/Cinta scene and Vel’s rant at the end. I want to mention how weirdly relieved I was when Syril went home to Coruscant. I want to admit that I had to fight back the urge to literally cheer out loud when Bix and Cassian completed their mission at the end of episode six.

I suppose I could go to reddit and find their Andor sub and write it all out there, but there has been so much shit posted on the other Star Wars shows from people who hated the show based on things that had nothing to do with the show (looking at you, assholes who spewed bile at Acolyte). I just don’t want to be any place that would draw people like that. I am sure I could find other forums somewhere but I don’t know.

I am listening to a two hour podcast episode recapping episodes four, five, and six (Children of the Watch). Once that’s finished (about 25 minutes from now) I might just start watching the three episodes again. I am that invested in this show right now. I just don’t want it to end.

In the Office

Today is Wednesday and Wednesday is an in-the-office-day. Welcome to Wednesday in the office. Here’s a cat:

235/365

Did you see the season premier(s) of Star Wars Andor last night? Three episodes. I watched them all before I conked out for the night. I only got about five hours of sleep because somehow I managed to get up when my alarm went off without hitting snooze 10 times. How did I do that?

My spoiler free review of Andor season two episodes one through three, which covers the year BBY4 (four years before the first Death Star battle from the original Star Wars movie [so… 1973? Haha!]):

I dug these three episodes so much that I cannot wait for the next three episodes that are coming out next Tuesday!

There you go. There’s my review. Let’s celebrate with another cat pic:

I took that picture last night while sitting up in bed watching Andor on my laptop. The cat is laying against my foot. Perv.

Okay. Time to publish this puppy and dig into that customer issue that I am covering while the assigned programmer is on vacation. Nose to the grindstone. Crack that whip (give the past the slip).

Three Minutes

It is 8:57pm. In three minutes Disney+ is going to release the first three episodes of season two of Andor. I don’t know if I am going to be able to stay awake long enough to watch all three, but I am sure as hell going to try.

Three episodes tonight, three episodes, next Tuesday, three episodes the Tuesday after that, and then three episodes the Tuesday after that. We are effectively getting a new Star Wars movie every week for four weeks.

I am not one to put too much faith into reviews, but season two of Andor is currently at 98% on rottentomatoes.com. Yeah… it’s going to be good. Really good.

It’s now 9:00pm on Tuesday April 22, 2025. Those first three episodes should be out now. I’ll let you know how they go. No spoilers, of course.

April 1st

Oh shit… it’s April Fools Day. Never have I ever had less interest in playing along with this bullshit. The fascist states of america is already filled to bursting with fools and idiots and pure, unadulterated evil. Why anyone would think fake stories on the internet is entertaining during times like these… I just don’t get it.

Change of subject. The Red Sox are off today. We will be spared the slaughter and the constant strike outs. In five games thus far this season the team has struck out 123644258686134 times with about 86358629357 being Devers alone. Unfortunately, the Bruins are not off tonight. They will be annihilated by the Capitals. Times are tough in Boston sports-land these days. Why not? Times are tough everywhere.

Change of subject again. When was the original Star Trek given the Star Wars Special Edition treatment? After finally getting through Star Trek the Animated Series the other day, I decided to watch the original show all the way through. I’m through the two pilots and up to episode five now. I just watched Sulu take on the bridge with a sword while the Irish guy sings badly over the ship’s PA. I’m a little put off by most, if not all, of the exterior shots of the Enterprise being replaced by CGI. When did that happen? It doesn’t affect the episodes at all, but I still kinda don’t like it. I want my 1960’s models back. I want the pure form of the show back, even if it is less impressive and cheesy looking.

Change of subject again, again. Sticking with television, what is the deal with the month of April? We have the start of new seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale, Andor, The Last of Us, and Doctor Who. We’ll also see the last two episodes of Yellowjackets this month. This feels like collusion. This feels like the television industry conspiring to keep me from sleeping for the foreseeable future.

Again with the change of subjects again, again. I did not participate in the RPM Challenge’s Record Every Month thing. I wanted to. I was going to. I just didn’t. I’m thinking of maybe compensating for my failure by trying to do an April album in a month instead. Write and record 35 minutes worth of new music before the month ends. Will I be able to muster up the motivation? Probably not, but let’s give it a shot, eh?

Okay. Time to go and get ready for work. Welcome to April. Stay away from those damn April Fools jokes. It’s going to be a long and painful day on the ol’ internets. Good luck, everyone.

I Can’t Wait for This

April 22nd, Star Wars: Andor returns for its second and final season. The first season was the best Star Wars we’ve had maybe since Empire Strikes Back in 1980. It was that good.

I can’t wait!

As Good as TV Gets

Man, television is just killing it these days.

This morning before work I watched today’s new episode of Severance. No spoilers, but holy shit! Tonight as I was sitting up in bed I watched today’s new episode of Yellowjackets. Again, no spoilers, but holy shit!

Who would have ever thought that so much TV could be this consistently spectacular. That’s not even the best of it.

There is a Star Wars television podcast that I listen to pretty regularly. A few weeks ago they started a rewatch of the first season of Andor. Season two is kicking off in April, I think. Not too far away. I was playing along with this rewatch, I’d watch an episode, listen to the podcast, wait a week and repeat. It worked for the first three episodes and then the podcast had a delay. It was over a week before they put out their coverage of Andor episode four and frankly I just got tired of waiting and started watching ahead.

I just watched One Way Out. Season one, episode nine. I don’t think I am alone in stating that it is one of the best episodes of television I’ve ever seen. The tension in the prison, the tension in the senate, the speech Luthen gives at the end. Fuck me, it’s as close to perfect as you can get. Stellan Skarsgård, Andy Serkis, and Genevieve O’Reilly all give career defining performances. It’s just unreal how good everything is during that slightly less than one hour program. Damn!

Okay. It’s almost midnight. I really need to get some sleep. I have so much to do tomorrow and I want to get through it as fast as humanly possible so that I can have some time to work on music and, totally unrelated, so that I can go to the store and buy a new belt. Not that you asked or anything.

Go watch Andor. Then watch Severance and Yellowjackets too. Throw in The Last of Us and The Leftovers while you’re at it. If they are going to make television that is this good, the least we can do is watch it all, right?

Andor Season One Finale: Spoiler Free Review

The season finale of Andor was released over night. It is 6:52am and I am watching the end credits roll by. Season one is complete. Here is my spoiler free review of both the episode and the entire 12 episode season:

YES!!! YES YES YES YES THAT WAS SO FRIGGIN’ GOOD, YES YES!!! I WANT SEASON TWO RIGHT FRICKEN’ NOW!

There you have it, my season one finale, spoiler free review.