For three seasons, during Mando & TBOBF, I kept saying that I had never seen a show, like those two, that stuck with the main character for 95% of the runtime each episode, and that it would be so much better if they were constantly cutting back-and-forth between three or four storylines, like all the best TV does. Then Andor finally did exactly that and, whaddayaknow, everyone loved it, due in part the much more staccato, intertwined, and propulsive storytelling.
Here, they *finally* had the opportunity to cut back-and-forth between two storylines, at least, but they somehow managed to screw even that up. When they could have easily cut ten minutes from the Dr. Pershing timeline, given those ten minutes to Mando & Bo, and then cut back-and-forth between them, throughout the episode, resulting in the Pershing storyline feeling like far less of a siphoned-off snoozefest.
That said, the Pershing storyline made absolutely no sense to me, so, ultimately, it probably wouldn't have mattered anyway. If only because the double-crossing woman didn't need Pershing at all, seeing as the only thing he did, ultimately, is pack a few items into a Yeti (a Wookiee?). Granted, the argument could be made that she didn't know exactly which items to pack, but it wasn't a big room and there wasn't a ton of equipment there. If she knew where the lab was, and could access it as easily as she did, why didn't she just pack up basically whatever was laying around into, like, three carrying cases, by herself? And avoid this whole, elaborate amnesty infiltration ploy altogether? Otherwise, why the hell did we need to see all of that, only to incapacitate, if not kill Pershing at the end? It would be one thing if it was obvious Pershing was going to play a larger role going forward, and I guess he still could, but that doesn't appear to be the case, so I have no idea why we had to waste basically an entire episode on him. Especially when the woman could have straight up asked him in the beginning what he would theoretically need from a lab, had that list, and then simply have just killed/disposed of him at that point. Then they wouldn't have to do such a long, dumb episode, with so many leaps of logic, like why the amnesty participants aren't better-tracked/can so easily leave their perimeter.
Ugh.
Honestly, I knew the episode was going to bad the second they explained away Mando's mishap as having fallen into water he didn't expect to be that deep. I seriously laughed out loud at how stupid that was. A) That was the hardest, most violent "fall" in the history of "falls," and B) since when did falling into the deep end of a lake suddenly render someone unconscious, especially someone as skilled as Mondo, who, not to mention, just last episode, established that he could seal his mask off from outside air (and thus, presumably, water). That was the clumsiest, Kramer-est thing ever, and was yet something else that made no damn sense.
Now? Somehow, we're suddenly 40-45 minutes to the *halfway* point of the season, with hardly anything to show for it, and all I can think is that season two of Andor can't get here soon enough.
