Once again feeling the curse of "all the best bits were in the trailer". Okay, to be fair, the animation looks amazing, we're light-years away from Clone Wars or even Rebels; and there's a handful of really good scenes in there. I'd say out of the six episodes, there's two I broadly liked. The big issue is that these are not two 3-episode arcs about each character; these are six separate vignettes, with a vague character arc through each set. And the episodes are short enough that there's no time to develop the character relationships or to let any of the big moments land. Narratively it's kind of a big disappointment. Alright time to get into spoilers
On the Morgan side:
First episode is just the sad backstory feat. dead mom ep. It's fine, very by the numbers and I don't care enough about Morgan to really feel any of the drama. The setup with the weapon cache feels arbitrary, so it doesn't really end up saying more than "hmm revenge bad, mmkay?" It's at least cool to see Grievous have some fun destroying fools. Rip the witches 
Second episode I think I liked! It at least gestures at Morgan trying to find a place in the Empire on her own terms, having to navigate the internal politics, and exploiting this community while maybe believing (at least in her own head) that it's for their own good and that she's giving them an opportunity. We know very little about how she arrived here and took over but I can easily headcanon an interesting story of good intentions gone bad. That scene with Thrawn really hits! I was excited to learn more about their evil plans together 
Third episode: ...and then we cut to like five years later, and the empire is gone. What happened with her in all that time? Doesn't matter I guess lol. An extremely poorly-prepared New Republic agent shows up to arrest her ("hey can you surrender pls 
it'd be very nice of you") with all of five guys, they all get smoked and Morgan starts burning the forest just 'cause. What a terrible conclusion.
Why should I care about this character, again? She was a rando enemy of the week in Mandalorian and from what I hear, she's not much better in Ahsoka. Why did she get this neat (and once again, beautiful) little prequel story and not any more relevant character???
On the Barriss side:
First episode is good! Needs more of Barriss voicing literally ANY thought about Order 66 and the end of the Jedi Order, but it's cool seeing her joining the inquisitor's ranks and letting her dark side peek through a little bit. The force choke was clutch and a fun callback to the Wrong Jedi arc, we love seeing a Girlboss win here. The duel to the death and loyalty tests are all very Kotor but hey it's good stuff. Vader shows up to be imposing and sit in a chair? Boy I sure hope there is a dramatic confrontation between him and Barriss later 
Second episode: "WHAT the empire is evil and hurts people???? I can't believe it! You bastards! I'm LEAVE!!" Lol, lmao. What are we doing here. So I guess she was with the inquisitors for like, two months? And bailed on her first mission? Great, cool cool cool. Maybe she'll go back and infiltrate the base, have a big fight and get killed by Vader? That'd be something at least 
Third episode: she saves some kid I guess. Is this more setup for the Path stuff? Nobody cares about that! She confronts her friend/mentor/ex and turns her good by the end, maybe? I don't know who this lady is. I have no idea what their relationship is like or why I should care! You have to put this stuff on screen!! Also she gets stabbed clean through but survives, somehow (lightsabers effectiveness is very overstated). The end. 
I can't believe I was excited to see Barriss back and it was all for this. What made Barriss an interesting character (and her arc one of the standouts of Clone Wars) was that she was 1. pointing the hypocrisy and failings of the Jedi, and 2. kinda evil. Which is actually a great starting point for her joining the inquisitors and having to confront the Sith-adjacent power struggles in there! Except she doesn't, she escapes immediately and she's good now. And a jedi again, for some reason. Whyyyyyyyy. It's supposed to be Tales of the Empire, you have to show me some bad people doing fucked up stuff, come onnnn
Man I'm glad Andor season 2 is coming because it's not this or the Mando movie that will keep me invested, let me tell you
