An oral history of Andor’s prison, one of Star Wars’ most frightening creations

polygon.com:

Andor is a “grounded, gritty” reimagining done to actual perfection. Each week, creator Tony Gilroy and his collaborators have drilled down through the surface-level iconography of Star Wars — past the Skywalker saga and Boba Fett lookalikes — to find turbulent human drama unfolding in the shadow of the Empire. Gilroy first teamed up with Lucasfilm to tighten the screws of Rogue One, but each week on Andor, he’s brought Michael Clayton-levels of tension to the political maneuverings of the maturing rebellion. It’s astonishing to see, and it hits a peak with episode 10, a full-on prison break.

Strewn across three episodes written by Beau Willimon (House of Cards), Cassian Andor’s stint in Empire prison has been decidedly more haunting than even fans of the show probably predicted — try being a “fan” of Darth Vader after a group of enslaved prisoners break their bones on a worker line in hopes of receiving “taste” with their daily gruel. The success of the story, and the swell of emotion that comes with the prison break in episode 10, has everything to do with how the Andor team worked together to create the scenario, the set, and the players within.

Below, Willimon, executive producer Sanne Wohlenberg, and several of the craftspeople who led the design challenge of the prison deconstruct an hour of television that might be one of the best things I’ll watch in any medium all year.

[Ed. note: This story contains spoilers through Andor season 1, episode 10.]

Beau Willimon, writer: Tony came into the room with a pretty extensive bible of what he wanted to do over the course of the season, and some of the story was much more worked out than other portions of it; there were some blank spots and things that needed to be figured