Every time an episode of Star Wars: Andor lands, Fantha Tracks will be giving their responses, and here are our initial gut feelings, deep dives and thoughts on episode nine of season one, ‘Nobody’s Listening!’. Beware of spoilerific elements in here.
Eric Onkenhout
Episode 9 of Star Wars: Andor spotlighted the brutality of the Empire against treason and their strategy for dealing with a galactic uprising. The Empire preaches order, control, and peace. However, how they quell rebellion reeks of paranoia. The Empire is afraid of rebellion, and will do anything legal or not to prevent it from happening. On the other side of the coin, Mon Mothma & Co. can sense things are about to boil over, and once it does, there’s no going back. Up to now, the rebellion has only been a murmur. Cassian said nobody’s listening, but that’s about to change.
On Ferrix, ISB Lieutenant Dedra Meero is about to interrogate Bix Caleen about her connections to Salman Paak and the use of a hidden radio in his repair yard. Also, Meero wants to know to whom Bix has been selling stolen Imperial equipment. Bix refuses to cough up useful information and even claims that Meero enjoys interrogating people. Obviously, the grin on Meero’s face gives that away. Meero is absolutely relishing in interrogating and torturing prisoners. Anything that gets her the answers she’s looking for, she’ll do it, as long as it doesn’t waste her time.
Bix’s torture scene brings back thoughts of Leia’s interrogation scene in A New Hope. That scene doesn’t quite go as far as this one, but if the Star Wars Radio Drama is any indication of what Leia went through, it must’ve been awful. Interestingly enough, Bix wasn’t tortured by an IT-0 Interrogation droid. It would’ve been easy to use the same droid, but apparently, the Empire has several means of torture.
Meanwhile, Cassian is doing his best to lay low in the Narkina 5 Imperial Prison Complex. There are Shawshank Redemption vibes here as Cassian plays the long game. He participates in the daily grind with his mates, but in the “privacy” of his cell, he tries to escape by using a tool to cut through a conduit behind a wall panel. Ulaf only has about a month to go in his sentence but dies of a massive stroke.
Cassian tries to convince Kino that the Empire doesn’t care about them. He claims they’re cheaper and easier to replace than droids. Cheaper, maybe. Droids need repairing and programming. People need food and clothes. Easier to replace, probably. The galaxy is full of people to imprison and use as slave labor. Cassian thinks the Empire isn’t listening, but he is gravely mistaken. If they’re not listening, they wouldn’t have shock panels on the floor or taser wands for every guard. They’re listening very closely, and things are about to get serious.
The scenes in the ISB meeting room are some of the best as they discuss dealing with the rebel activity. Yes, the ISB is horrible, but it’s very easy to see them just doing their job as a police force. They brief each other on what’s been happening and decide the best tactics to deal with the situation. They’re essentially the FBI. It’s fascinating to watch but terrifying at the same time because we all know the consequences.
As much as Mon Mothma has been trying to procure funds for the rebellion, something needs to start happening. Episode after episode, Mon speaks to Tay Kolma about getting support from a Chandrilan bank. This time it’s Davo Sculden, who apparently is a thug. Turns out Vel is Mon’s cousin, although it’s hard to tell if that’s just a cover story to keep Perrin’s nose out of it. It’s curious how Leida pokes her head in now and then. She could be an important figure later. It is easy to imagine Leida spying on her mother, feeding info to her dad, not realizing her actions could get her mother arrested.
There wasn’t much action in Nobody’s Listening, but the Empire is about to close in on the top rebel cells, which will cause the rebels to regroup and consider fighting as one. With an entire prison level getting eliminated, Cassian’s plan to escape gets pushed up, and Melshi will likely escape with him. Unfortunately, Kino won’t make it; he’s too ingrained in prison life.
Then there’s Syril Karn. At first, he came off as an overzealous security officer who would do anything to join the Empire. However, his persona changed once he stalked and nearly physically assaulted Meero. He has a dark side that is obsessive and controlling. Syril will snap eventually; unfortunately, Meero might be in the crossfire. This was a good episode, but it helps to be patient and understand that each episode builds upon the next. This isn’t your parent’s Star Wars, where everything is faster and more intense. Andor is thoughtful and deliberate. It takes time to form a rebellion.
Daniel Lo
The Island was the first film that Ewan McGregor appeared in after Revenge of the Sith. The film’s population of characters wear mostly white uniforms and live within an enclosed facility, ostensibly for protection from radioactive fallout. A lottery is occasionally held where residents can win their freedom and move to a paradise island, advertised as the world’s last pathogen-free zone. There is of course no island, and those who get released don’t actually leave.
Unfortunately for Cassian, he now has way too much in common with the character portrayed by Obi-Wan Kenobi‘s lead actor. We learn in the latest episode of Andor that inmates on Narkina 5 are now secretly being cycled through the system again instead of being released. I’m not sure if it was obvious before but it now seems clear that Snoke, I mean Kino, has a genuine soft spot for Ulaf. So far, Kino is mainly portrayed as a harsh taskmaster but we are starting to see a more human side of him. Indirectly, this suddenly made me realize that the other inmates behave more like colleagues rather than a random bunch of criminals. That is likely because few of them actually are, given the Empire’s overreach. The brutal prison hierarchy likely puts Kino between a rock and hard place. This would explain the harsh behavior towards his fellow inmates, contrasted by the somewhat compassionate way with which he treats Ulaf. When the elderly inmate passes, Kino seems genuinely upset. This is also how he and Cassian find out about the prisoner recycling, which proves to be the last straw for Kino. We can reasonably expect a prison break next time out.
The star appearance of this episode is Dedra, who kicks off the episode by interrogating Bix. I mentioned in an earlier review that Dedra in part reminded me of SS Colonel Hans Landa from Inglourious Basterds. This is no longer really the case; not because she has lost her powers of intuition, but unlike Landa whose primary mode of operation was politeness and charm, Dedra is in full on sinister villain mode now. In doing so, her behavior becomes increasingly one-dimensional, but in a way that’s well written and acted. The way the left side of her face twitches before leaving Bix… Yikes. Now we know what happened to Paak at the end of the previous episode too, courtesy of Dr. Gorst. His initial smile and wave seem friendly and harmless enough but when it comes time to get to work, he instantly takes on an incredibly creepy vibe. I won’t pretend I caught this on my own, but huge respect with the editing nod to A New Hope as the door closes on Bix again. Unfortunately for the Rebellion, she is not Dr. Gorst’s most recent victim. That regrettable honor goes to an unnamed Rebel pilot who gets randomly picked up by the Imperials offscreen before the end of the episode. Bix is “safe” for now in the sense that she is most useful kept alive as a witness who has met Luthen, whom the Imperials currently know only as “Axis”. The pilot is not so lucky. Our last glimpse of Bix is an odd one: A brief shot of her sitting in captivity bookended by two unrelated scenes.
Mon Mothma’s appearances in this episode are a mix of both passive glimpses and moving the plot forward. Not that she’s necessarily always the one doing it. We do find out that Vel is her cousin, which I did not see coming. Mon Mothma instructs Vel to keep a low profile by playing the role of a spoiled rich girl, a far cry from the Aldhani mission. In a subsequent scene with Tay, however, the senator is very much a passenger being told that a meeting with Davo Sculdun has been set up without her prior knowledge or approval.
For some reason, I did not realize that Syril is still staying with his mother. We once again have another vaguely strained conversation at the dinner table, although Eedy’s demeanor brightens considerably upon learning about her son’s promotion. Uncle Harlo gets another mention, although we still don’t know who he is. The crucial scene that Syril is in, of course, is his incredibly awkward exchange with Dedra. On a personal level, it is while watching this scene when it suddenly hits me that Syril is the only character within the Pre-Mor Authority and Imperial Bureau of Standards who speaks with an American accent. Is that a coincidence? In an earlier review, I had mentioned that he does not strike me as a villain and may even have the potential to be recruited by the Rebellion. How will he respond to Dedra’s harsh rejection? Could I be onto something?
Jen Sopchockchai Bankard
“Never more than twelve.”
This was a big week for Andy Serkis.
It’s hard to beat the impactful last line of the episode. When Cassian asks him for the umpteenth time, “How many guards are on each level?”, Kino finally answers with “Never more than 12.” Then we immediately know it’s game on. Ulaf’s tragic death is clearly the catalyst. The prospect of his own and others’ eventual release is the one idea Kino clings to; it’s what has kept him going this entire time. Early on in the episode, when he realizes that Ulaf, with 40 shifts left, is the next man out, he is so kind and encouraging to him. Ulaf’s death snuffs out that light at the end of the tunnel because Kino learns that the guards placed a released prisoner on another floor rather than actually letting him go.
Serkis’ genius acting, however, allows us to see this as a gradual change of heart and mind. Sure, Ulaf’s death is the straw that breaks the bantha’s back, but the events of the episode leading up to that point were always already priming him for recruitment to Team Prison Break. We only know this, though, because Andy Serkis tells us with his face every time there’s new input from his environment, new information that he has to process. After Cassian says, “They don’t need to care. All they need to do is turn on this floor twice a day and keep their numbers rolling,” the camera cuts to a close-up of Kino’s face as he looks down, clearly thinking about what Cassian has just said. When he looks up, we can see that Cassian has chipped away at his prickly exterior just a tiny bit, at least until Kino shakes his head to dismiss Cassian once again.
When we met Kino Loy last week, I thought I had him pegged. He was the traitor to the other prisoners, seduced by the twisted reward system set in place by the panopticon for hands off the wheel self-regulation. He was going to be an obstacle to Cassian’s escape, I thought. He seemed so intensely committed to order (And, as Syril says, one can never be too aggressive in preserving order.) and making everyone keep their heads down so he could make it to the end of his sentence. The writing of Kino in “Nobody’s Listening!”, combined with Andy Serkis’ career-altering performance, rendered an expectation-defying depth to Kino Loy. He’s still gruff and ordering everyone around, but the facial expressions we see in between the barks belie his actions and his attitude towards his fellow inmates. The way he interacts with Cassian, veiled with curt retorts about keeping his “flap shut” or “you know the drill” evinces mutual respect. He never belittles anyone or threatens them in earnest. He, rather, highlights the threat of the Empire and the Narkina 5 guards when he says “you’ll regret it.”
ISB officers, we learn, are even colder and crueler than I imagined possible, as they give us what many have called the scariest, most difficult to watch scene in all of Star Wars. Dedra and Doctor Gorst’s less violent, less invasive, yet doubly deranged tactics remind me a lot of what I observed last week with Narkina 5’s panoptic set-up. No one’s beating anybody for information. As far as we can tell, Bix never bleeds the entire time she’s in Imperial custody. Instead, Doctor Gorst has taken the dying cries of an alien species’ children and turned them into a torture device. All it takes is a headset gently placed upon Bix’s ears to get her to talk. Adria Arjona does amazing work in this scene; her reaction is so visceral and goes through many stages of fear, resistance, and torment.
As predicted, this episode complicates my feelings towards Dedra considerably, as I found myself rooting for her in previous episodes. She’s completely ruthless here, and seems to derive pleasure from intimidating and torturing Bix. That’s obviously reprehensible. And yet, I like that she’s smart and ambitious. She is quickly becoming one of my favorite villains. When she says, “The worst thing you can do right now is bore me,” she gave me the heebie-jeebies.
But after the scene in which Syril stalks Dedra at her place of work, misinterprets their interactions as undue amount of favor towards him, and intensely professes his admiration for her, I feel as though any romantic relationship that may form between the two of them will communicate to the audience that this behavior is not only acceptable but effective in pursuing a romantic interest. If it turns out that Dedra is false-protesting and threatening Syril but really this whole time she’s been into him, I’m going to be very disappointed and wonder if the series is inadvertently undermining her character. Plus, she’s wayyyy out of Syril’s league.
I’m going to confess that despite Dedra and the ISB being supremely evil this episode, I still found the emergency meeting scenes to be mesmerizin. I love seeing characters collaborating to figure things out. I love lightbulb moments. The notably mention of Anto Kreegyr —the Separatist that Luthen tries to get Saw Gerrera to meet with — makes me think that a.) we may see Saw again or at the very least this loops Luthen back in a dangerous way and b.) Anto Kreegyr has to be played by a known actor. He’s shrouded in too much mystery for too long for there not to be some kind of reveal of him on screen. Then again, I’ve been wrong before, and have loved Andor’s bucking of my expectations.
I’m once again running out of time and space to gush about Mon Mothma, but I found the revelation that Vel is her cousin to make TOTAL sense, and I love how this makes Mon Mothma slightly less alone in the galaxy. She finally has someone she can safely relate to and confide in, no strings attached. The looks she gives during their dinner conversation told me that she knows about Vel’s sexual orientation (when maybe no one else does) and that she is impressed (“No one accuses me of being tedious.”) and endeared by her cousin (“All the good ones were taken.”)
All these dialogue gems leads to Vel saying, “We’ve chosen a side…we’ve decided to make something of our lives.” This indicates that she and Mon are aware that they can and should use their class privilege to try to make a difference rather than idle away, comfortably removed from it all. A powerful message for all of us sitting at home with our cozy couches and Disney Plus subscriptions.
(This is condensed and edited – with permission – from Jen’s The Long Take review, which you can subscribe to here)
Ross Hollebon
In the Andor series, nothing is what it seems—even episode titles. In the most blatant way possible, “Nobody’s Listening!” is true as Cassian implores Kino to provide information about the facility and its security on Narkina 5. But relative to the subterfuge we’ve seen throughout visits to locations across the galaxy, others are very much listening.
Bix is in the black, leather-clad clutches of Dedra in the makeshift Imperial headquarters of the hotel on Ferrix. The scrap yard business owner has no choice but to listen to a digitally manipulated “choral, agonized pleading” of the massacre of the Dizonites, weaponized by Dr. Gorst. This latest installment in a cadre of Imperial mad scientists is a rising star with the ISB for his persuasive digital version of the Bor Gullet—complete with symptoms of losing one’s mind. It leads to what I find to be the most unsettling moment in Star Wars history: Bix’s tortured, guttural scream with the camera framed in close-up to only see her eyes and the device clamped on her head. Dedra and the ISB get what they came for.
What the ISB lieutenant wasn’t pursuing was a lost Syril-turned-Dedra-sycophant outside the ISB headquarters back in the capital. In this awkward case of creepy crush with stalking tendencies, we’re once again back to neither side listening—though I do anticipate Dedra tucking away everything said by Syril in order to use him at some point. Blind loyalty is easily manipulated for personal gain.
Elsewhere on Coruscant, Cinta has made her mark on Vel, now also known as Mon Mothma’s younger cousin. Mon voices concern for her cousin after a six-month absence, to which Vel responds, almost word-for-word from Cinta’s response in the previous episode: “The Empire doesn’t rest, Mon. The Rebellion comes first. We take what’s left.”
It is true the Empire doesn’t rest. The ISB has captured a pilot of Anto Kreegyr (the separatist leader Saw Gerrera refused to meet with for Luthen) and has used Dr. Gorst’s machine to discover plans to attack Spellhaus. As a fun side note, the pilot was headed to Kafrene, the same Ring of Kafrene mining colony and deep-space trading post where we initially meet Cassian in Rogue One. They also run their prison facility on Narkina 5 night and day to produce needed parts—and it is here that Kino finally shows he is, indeed, listening. After learning that the inmates of unit two-five were all fried because a released prisoner was re-introduced there, Cassian’s floor leader finally understands no one is getting out of there alive.
They have all listened enough and it is time for action, from Narkina 5 to Coruscant, as the heaviest aspect of the Empire’s fist is just now beginning to ball up before slamming down.
Brad Boutilier
So, we’ve reached the 3/4 mark of the season, only 3 episodes left to go. There are a lot of pieces in motion, but I think the only main plot thread currently in motion we’re going to see wrapped up by the end of the season is Cassian and the prison escape.
The story of Mon Mothma continues to intrigue. It’s interesting that Vel is her cousin, but I find the development of her relationship with her immediately family more interesting. The writers are doing a good job of slowly dripping in new info that helps us put the puzzle pieces together- her and her husband marrying very young as Chandrilan custom dictates, etc. I’m really enjoying the political intrigue of her scenes, making deals and working against the Empire right under their nose, all with a fake smile and politeness at extravagant dinner parties.
I think my personal favourite plotline of recent episodes is Syril and Dedra. These two are definitely going to end up being an item. Syril certainly wants it, and I think Dedra does too, but her severe nature and singular focus on career prevent her from allowing herself to express it. Yet. That said, this all hinges on Syril not losing the plot and getting himself killed or arrested before it can happen. He seems a man on edge and consumed with obsession. Obsession with finding Cassian, obsession with recognition for his role in what he’s done in regard to Cassian so far and what’ll come when he’s the one to find and/or capture him, and obsession with Dedra.
It’s nice to see the Empire portrayed as scary and as a formidable foe rather than as comically inept. There’s a time and a place to expose the follies of such an organization, but when it becomes frequent it’s a lazy, uninspired trope. I’m glad the writers have steered clear of that so far. I thought the interrogation of Bix was rather clever – the way they transitioned out of the scene just as the audio would begin playing left it up to the viewer to fill in the sound and our brains will conjure up something far worse than the sound engineers could ever come up with.
A few other smaller notes; Who is Uncle Harlo? I’m starting to suspect he may be Luthen. That’d be an interesting plot twist.
It’s nice to see Andy Serkis on the screen. He’s a great actor and the level of intensity he brings to Kino is, well, intense. Excellent performance. What’s going to happen to Marva? Does she survive these final 3 episodes? Whether it’s natural causes or at the hands of the Empire, I’m not so certain she will.
Mark Newbold and Mark Mulcaster discuss episode 9 on Making Tracks Reaction Chats.
Brian Cameron and Clair Henry discuss episode 9 on Good Morning Tatooine.
- Stackpole, Michael A. (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 400 Pages - 11/01/2022 (Publication Date) - Random House Worlds (Publisher)
