‘Andor’ Recap: ‘Nobody’s Listening!’

11/3/2022

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode Nine of ‘Andor’. To revisit the previous episode, click here.

It really is quite amazing what the Disney+ series, Andor, is accomplishing from a storytelling perspective. For this is a series that is plunging us into the depths of the ‘Galaxy, Far, Far Away’ in a manner we’ve never experienced before. Since we are truly coming to see what life under the rule of Emperor Palpatine was like and how the oppression of the Galactic Empire made it easy for some people to risk it all in the name of freedom by joining the Rebel Alliance. But while the show has given us taste after taste regarding that evil, it has yet to truly unleash the horrors of the Galactic Empire and it makes sense as to why.

After all, this is a franchise that has yet to dive into sheer darkness because of its family themed roots and accessibility to audiences and going all out might be alienating in nature. But as it turns out, there are ways to express that evil without making audiences uncomfortable to the point where they feel a need to tune out, as evidenced by this week’s tale. Since ‘Nobody’s Listening!’ took the time to really put the evil of the Empire on display in a tasteful manner, one that allowed for the show to maintain its mature and bleak vibe and it accomplished this feat… by taking the Empire’s actions to the limit. For instance, this is a story that saw Dedra Meero… walk us through Imperial interrogation techniques.

For she came face to face with Bix in this tale and since Bix wasn’t talking, she pulled out the big guns and let her torture master harm her deeply with the sounds of death. Since the Empire recorded the pained final screams of a species they conquered, and those screams were so unsettling that they drove people mad. Which made for a harrowing sequence, wherein we were forced to watch Bix listen to that madness through headphones, which is the perfect way to get across that cruelty without breaking that wholesome fourth wall and kudos to the show for finding a way to really sell the evil without crossing a line and that wasn’t the only sequence that hammered home that cruelty.

After all, life in the belly of the prison facility on Narkina 5 was no walk in the park either. Because they were working everyone hard, to the point where Ulaf was struggling with his health and just getting through the day, leaving everyone worried as to whether he would make it to his release date in a few weeks. Not to mention, strange things were happening on various other levels, to the point where rumors were spreading that entire floors were being wiped out. All of which pushed Cassian to try and figure out what an escape might look like from this place, and he even tried to enlist Kino’s help to no avail. But Ulaf’s passing after collapsing from a stroke, and the truth about what happened on that other level, in that… it was wiped out when the prisoners learned that no leaves the facility since a ‘free man’ was just transferred to their level… may have changed a great deal for those two men.

Because that made it clear, that the Empire truly doesn’t care about anyone or anything. Just its goals and it will stop at nothing to achieve them and if a few ‘bad apples’ die along the way, oh well. At least in their eyes. Which of course, truly hammered home in the darkest way imaginable for this universe… how cruel the Empire actually is and how far its depravity goes. But thankfully, the closing moments of this tale, wherein Kino finally bothered to help Cassian in his potential escape endeavors, speaks to the reality that this kind of grip cannot and will not last and that people are ready to see it end, and it will be quite interesting to see if this is indeed the keystone moment in Cassian’s growth into a hero. Since he too has come to understand what the Empire is and what it will do if left unopposed. Until next time.

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‘Andor’ Recap: ‘Nobody’s Listening!’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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