trying to display category specific comments in sidebar PHP
===

I'm trying to display comments in sidebar only from the current category. So far I've got this:

But it does not work, it either displays 0 comments everywhere or all everywhere. I don;t understand what I did wrong...

    <?php
        // Posts per page setting
        $ppp = 8; //get_option('posts_per_page'); // either use the WordPress global Posts per page setting or set a custom one like $ppp = 10;
        $custom_offset = 0; // If you are dealing with your custom pagination, then you can calculate the value of this offset using a formula
    
        // category (can be a parent category)
        $cat = get_query_var('cat');
        $category_parent = $cat;
    
        // lets fetch sub categories of this category and build an array
        $categories = get_terms( 'category', array( 'child_of' => $category_parent, 'hide_empty' => false ) );
        $category_list =  array( $category_parent );
    
        foreach( $categories as $term ) {
            $category_list[] = (int) $term->term_id;
        }
    
        // fetch posts in all those categories
        $posts = get_objects_in_term( $category_list, 'category' );
    
        $sql = "SELECT comment_ID, comment_date, comment_content, comment_post_ID, user_id, comment_author
         FROM {$wpdb->comments} WHERE
         comment_post_ID in (".implode(',', $posts).") AND comment_approved = 1
         ORDER by comment_date DESC LIMIT $ppp OFFSET $custom_offset";
    
        $comments_list = $wpdb->get_results( $sql );
    
        if ( count( $comments_list ) > 0 ) {
            
            $date_format = get_option( 'date_format' );
    
            foreach ( $comments_list as $comment ) {
    ?>
                
                <li>
                    <a href="<?php echo ( get_permalink( $comment->comment_post_ID ) ); ?>#comment-<?php echo($comment->comment_ID); ?>"><?php echo get_avatar( $comment->user_id, 50 ); ?></a>
                    <span><strong><?php echo($comment->comment_author); ?></strong> commented on</span>
                    <h3><a href="<?php echo ( get_permalink( $comment->comment_post_ID ) ); ?>"><?php echo get_the_title ( $comment->comment_post_ID ); ?></a></h3>
                    <span><?php echo($comment->comment_date); ?></span>
                    <p>"<?php comment_excerpt(); ?>" <a href="<?php echo ( get_permalink( $comment->comment_post_ID ) ); ?>#comment-<?php echo($comment->comment_ID); ?>">Read More</a></p>
                    <div class="clearfloat"></div><!-- Very Important -->
                </li>
    
    <?php
            }
    
        } else {
            echo '<p>No comments</p>';
        }
    ?>