*Andor* Season 1 Episode 10 "Epic SPEECH!!" (Reaction)

I think this episode is such a masterpiece -- every major plotline includes just "one way out" -- Mon, Luthen, and most of all Cassian and the prisoners. The empire's mistake was in sending the man they "released" to 2 -- they probably do something to memory wipe them then send them to a different prison facility. Look at how motivated every man is (Kino is a great example) by their sentence of _______ days left. Finding this out is the biggest secret the empire can keep to keep the men going. Humans are cheaper because they require no individual maintenance. They are given water and tasteless paste for food through a tube to survive, 1 cell per man, a man dies or is injured, he is replaced by another instantly. It's implied that people are separated into prisons by race to automate their food/water/care. So humans in one facility, different alien races in different facilities, etc. Luthen is ruthless but he has to be. Protecting an upper-level spy is worth 50 men. I swear to God, I have to believe Kino got out. Someone helped him swim. He had to jump. This episode has two of the best monologues ever written -- Kino's "one way out" and then Luthen's "What do I give? Everything!" speech. SO gorgeous! It's worth putting down word for word: "Calm. Kindness. Kinship. Love. I’ve given up all chance at inner peace. I’ve made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there’s only one conclusion, I’m damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they’ve set me on a path from which there is no escape. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost and by the time I looked down there was no longer any ground beneath my feet. "What is my sacrifice? "I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see. And the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. "So what do I sacrifice? Everything!" This show is amazing. Thank you for reacting -- so glad you enjoyed this.

Angela D. Mitchell