TV Review: Andor (Disney+)

 

 

It was a Star Wars show that was set in a time before the Original Trilogy.  The characters were morally ambiguous.  The lead character even committed murder.  Much of the lore of the Jedi and the Force was ignored.  It was helmed by someone who cared very little for the Star Wars universe.  It introduced mature themes that had been conspicuously absent from the George Lucas productions.

And I hated it.

I am, of course, talking about The Acolyte, a show so awful that it poisoned every other Star Wars project that came afterwards.

But strangely, the above description could also be used to describe Andor.

And I loved Andor.

I had been putting off watching the show for a long time.  I was not a big fan of Rogue One, and the idea of basing an entire series around Cassian Andor seemed odd to me.  Also, I had heard that the tone of the show was much darker and more mature than what we had seen before, almost like Game of Thrones set in the Star Wars universe.  And as the series went on, more and more controversial things occured on the show.

But a number of people whose opinion I trust urged me to see it.  So for the last week, my wife and I binged both seasons on Disney+.  And it went from interesting, to engaging, to gripping.

The show centers around Cassian Andor (Diego Luna).  When the show starts, he is living with his aging adopted mother Maarva (Fiona Shaw) on the planet of Ferrix.  He runs afowl of some corrupt security and it does not go well.  This sets off a chain of events that leads him to Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgard) who is part of the clandestine Rebellion against the Empire.  

The show is more of an ensemble than it is about just Andor himself.  Luthen's secret network is one of the most fascinating parts of the show.  Also, we follow Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly), who tries to lead the political front for the Rebels.  We also see the Imperial Security Bureau as they work to contain the rebels.  Particularly we focus on Dedra Meero (Denise Gough), who is ruthless, intelligent, and ambitious as she tries to put the pieces of the Rebel Alliance together.  We also follow a lowly security officer Syril Karn (Kyle Soller), who believes in the order of the Empire and sees the Rebels as terrorists.  

There are a lot more characters and plotlines, but I do not want to spoil them here.  One of the joys of this show is that it takes so many unexpected twists and turns.

This is show is rougher and more violent than traditional Star Wars fare.  I believe this is the only show that uses actual vulgarity and not in-universe words like "sleemo."  This makes it feel more raw.  Showrunner and main writer Tony Gilroy has stated that he was not a huge Star Wars fan.  So with all of this mature content, why does this show work and The Acolyte did not?

The main answer is simple: the writing.

This is one of the best written shows.  The characters are very real.  Even the Imperial characters have layers and all of the Rebels have potentially fatal flaws.  Luthen is clearly fighting a greater evil, but he does things that morally compromise him. To the show's credit, Luthen recognizes this contradiction and uses all of his willpower to hold the throttle until the end.  In one of the show's best lines, he says:

".....Calm. Kindness. Kinship. Love. I've given up all chance at inner peace. I've made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there's only one conclusion, I'm damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they've set me on a path from which there is no escape. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost and by the time I looked down there was no longer any ground beneath my feet. What is my sacrifice? I'm condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else's future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I'll never see. "

Even a character like Dedra finds odd moments of humanity.  She is a wall of ice, but there are moments where there is a small thaw in her heart and you almost pity her despite her evil.  It is also a credit to the show that it can make you care just as much about Mon Mothma's family drama as Cassian's mission to rob the Imperials on Ahldani.  The show makes all of these elements feel connected so that if any one part fails, the entire Rebellion will collapse like a house of cards.  And even though we know the successes that are found in the Original Trilogy, the tension is almost unbearable.  The Imperials are smart and ruthless, which the writing shows, making them feel like an overwhelming threat.

Another difference between this show and The Acolyte is that it was clear that the latter's showrunner Leslie Hedlund was using the show as a vehicle to deal with her own personal issues and trauma.  And while stories should have a voice and purpose, Gilroy is trying to say something more universal about war and oppression.  It doesn't feel like he is using the show for a personal catharsis.  Instead, he is trying to give the audience a catharsis.

And while the show is darker and in some ways more morally ambiguous than The Acolyte, Andor was smart enough not to let it tarnish the mythology.  The Acolyte tried to impose its warped understanding of the Force, Good/Evil, and Jedi/Sith onto the overall Star Wars myth that George Lucas gave us.  Andor almost never touches the mythology of the Jedi and the Force.  This is a "street level" story told from the point of view of the common people who live in tyranny.  If you made a Civil War movie that portrayed Abraham Lincoln assassinating political enemies and disavowing his abolitionist beliefs, I could imagine that this would not sit well with moviegoers.  But if you told a story of abolitionists undercover in the Deep South having to lie, steal, and kill to clandestinely turn the tied of the war, that is much more palatable.  The same is true of Andor.  

The characters in Andor, including the heroes, do horrible things.  But the show wisely never tells you how to feel about it.  Again, unlike The Acolyte, where the main character slowly murders someone and we are told in the dialogue "It's okay," Andor presents the actions of the characters to you for your own judgment.  You can condone or condemn and the show is perfectly okay with that.  

The only part of the show that felt artificial is where Cassian randomly gets arrested and sent to prison for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  It is the only time that it felt like something extraordinary happened simply because the plot demanded it.  The story that results is heartbreakingly good, but the set up feels false.  Everything else works.

Another thing that I loved about the show is that it felt very real and lived-in.  As much as is possible, it feels like they filmed at real locations and on real sets.  It does not look overly CGI, which takes away a lot of the artificiality.  

The performances are also excellent.  A lot of people give Luna flack for his restrained performance as Cassian, but I don't think they give him enough credit.  He is cool under pressure and has learned to hold his seething anger in check so that he can let his mind work.  When he wants to transform into someone else in order to go under cover, you can feel the change come over him.  Skarsgard is fantastic in his role, playing him with such ambiguity that you can never tell if he should be trusted.  Soller plays Syril with an incredibly tight-wound intensity.  Gough does a good performance, but her face mugs a little too much so that it feels like the corners of her mouth are constantly being dragged down.  O'Reilly does a fantastic job of putting up her mask and taking it down without ever feeling false.  Some other excellent performances include Adria Arjona as Bix Caleen, Cassian's beleaguered love interest.  I also loved Anton Lesser as Major Partagaz, the leader of the ISB who directs the brutality of his council with the cold dispassion of a professor.

My biggest complaint about the show is the content.  Not only is the show more violent, but it introduces a sexual component to the show that doesn't feel at place in Star Wars, even at this level.  This includes, fornication, child-marriages, same-sex relationships, and sexual assault.  While there is no nudity in the show and it makes up a very small part of the content, this content always just took me out of the show rather than drawing me in.  If you object to the sexualization of this franchise, you may want to avoid this.

I also can't stand the character Saw Garrera (Forrest Whitaker).  I understand why he has to be included so that it can link up to Rogue One, but I feel like every time he is on the screen, all I want to do is scream.

After finishing Andor, my wife and I re-watched Rogue One, which I have not done since it was first released.  Seeing the journey that Cassian takes, his introduction in the movie feels more justified and the desperation of the Rebels feels more real.  The stakes and the costs of the Battle of Scarif have more weight and it makes Rogue One a better movie.  It also makes the opening crawl to the original Star Wars hit differently.

I think that might be the biggest compliment that I can give the show: it makes for a richer experience of the main story.  The Prequel Trilogy made the character arcs and emotional layers of the Original Trilogy deeper.

Andor does the same thing.  When I go back now and look a the Rebel Alliance from the Original Trilogy, I can feel the hard-won history that leads to those stories and it adds even more weight to one of the greatest cinematic stories of all time.