Andy Serkis was a pleasant surprise! I had no idea he was appearing in this. And his acting has been fantastic. As others have said, him slowly accepting that him playing by the rules meant absolutely nothing was fun to watch.
I think it’s a big theme of Andor that an authoritarian regime doesn’t care if you play by the rules. If you get in their line of fire, there will be no mercy for you. Timm helped the Corpos, but he got killed by them anyway. Clem was trying to break up a riot and keep things peaceful, and the Empire killed him anyway. For years Kino has been effectively acting to benefit the Empire, keeping his workers “in line” and as productive as possible, but he’s ultimately trapped there just like everyone else.