This article contains spoilers through the end of Andor.
Andor, the Disney+ Star Wars spin-off series that concluded this week, traveled far, far away from the generally wholesome and fantastical adventures of the Jedi. The gritty story of Cassian Andor (played by Diego Luna), a disillusioned smuggler turned Rebel Alliance operative, trained its attention on ordinary people trying to survive an oppressive system. Andor was the TV prequel to the film Rogue One, which was itself a prequel to the first movie in the original Star Wars trilogy; like its predecessor, Andor took its Star Wars storytelling seriously. The show held on to the franchise’s core idea that there exists in the universe a constant tension between good and evil. But it boldly interrogated the origins of that dichotomy, focusing on what pushes someone to adopt one set of beliefs over another.
Yet whereas Season 1 examined how a political awakening develops, Season 2 dove further into that transformation’s messy effects. The Rebels and Imperials, within their factions, disagreed over how to achieve their respective aims of overthrowing and protecting the emperor—whether to enact violence, carry out diplomacy, or do something else altogether. Believing in a common cause, the series suggested, can be an inspiring but dangerous endeavor. Many of the show’s climactic moments were small in scale compared with the franchise’s typical showdowns: One episode hinged on a character’s ability to remove a recording device that had gotten stuck in an artifact, and another involved a scheme to help a politician escape from a building after she delivered an incendiary speech. Andor reflected the chaos of radicalization, meditating on the consequences of embracing an ideology.
That didn’t mean the show avoided spectacle. Episodes 7 through 9 of Season 2 chronicled a citizen uprising on Ghorman, a planet the Empire began occupying for mysterious reasons, and a sequence showing the subsequent massacre of its people by Imperial forces is horrifying. But the scenes of Ghorman’s ruin exemplified what made Andor stand out as a Star Wars drama: Rather than solely revealing the destruction through the eyes of its heroes, the show also tracked the perspective of Syril Karn (Kyle Soller), the devoted Imperial officer who spent much of Season 1 hunting Cassian. Stationed on Ghorman, he went from believing he was helping the Empire maintain peace to seeing firsthand what that “peace” meant, an experience that sent him into a state of shock. He was filmed in slow motion, which emphasized his disorientation. When he spotted Cassian, Syril pursued him through the crowd as if on autopilot—as if it’s easier to go after your idea of an enemy than to question whether you’ve been the villain all along.
Andor’s second season unfolded across four distinct arcs, which each began with a year-long time jump. Some people who’d just been introduced never returned. Others relocated and built new alliances, or made new enemies. As such, Andor required viewers to keep up with rapid developments, especially the characters’ emotional shifts. The show was economical with its revelations; Cassian and his partner, Bix (Adria Arjona), for example, exchanged zero dialogue about how they managed to find and kill the man who had once tortured Bix. There were hints sprinkled throughout the season, however, that Bix was planning to take her revenge. Early on, Bix, in hiding while Cassian went on Rebel assignments, was tormented by memories of her abuse. By the time she reunited with Cassian, she’d regained some of her strength and confidence. Her fear had become anger, pushing her to take action.
As character bonds formed and frayed, Andor often paused the action to concentrate on more intimate moments: Cassian and Bix practicing a traditional dance from Ferrix, the planet they used to call home; the senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), a key Rebel ally, comforting her daughter; Syril and the high-ranking Imperial officer he was romantically involved with hosting Syril’s mother for a strained meal. Episode 10 in particular indulged in observing how people come to depend on one another, portraying how Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård), the shadowy Rebel leader, raised his assistant, Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau), as his surrogate daughter. After he died, she intended to quit the Rebel operation altogether, but Cassian tried to persuade her to stay, to make Luthen’s efforts worthwhile. By the end of Andor, however, what Kleya chose is unclear. The conclusion felt true to the show’s larger point that people commit to causes for a variety of reasons—including for the communities they create.
Andor did make clear that the actions of one generation tend to affect the next. Mon, whose own marriage was shaky at best, didn’t want her daughter to feel trapped in a relationship; she was devastated when her attempt to make her child understand her perspective failed. Syril’s mother watched the news of his death with rapt attention; she’d pushed him to stand out among his peers, and his status as an Imperial martyr obviously filled her with some degree of pride. A friend of Cassian’s joined with another, more aggressive Rebel leader, in part because of the resentment he felt from the way Imperial forces killed his father in Season 1. What these characters do now, Andor made plain, would influence a future they might never see, affecting people they might never meet.
The show’s final shot, of Bix holding a baby implied to be Cassian’s, underlined this idea, while also giving Andor a bittersweet bent. There were people who ignored the Empire’s treachery, such as Mon’s husband, who early in Season 2 advised the anxious guests at his daughter’s wedding to “reach past this constant cloud of sadness,” dismissing the ongoing political turbulence. And then there was someone like Bix, who saw that true joy couldn’t be achieved while ignoring injustices. In Episode 9, after Cassian told Bix he intended to quit the rebellion so they could start a life together, Bix left him; that way, she could ensure that he would keep fighting. She seemed to realize that the Rebels had to win in order for there to be peace, even if that meant she’d never tell Cassian about her child. Andor, then, told a story not just about how rebellions start but about why they’re necessary. Anyone who watched Rogue One knows that Cassian dies; anyone who watched the sequel trilogy knows that an oppressive regime rises again. Yet in only two seasons, Andor understood intimately that attaining peace, even for just a generation, sometimes comes at a high cost—and that a hard-won sense of hope can be the most valuable kind.
The post The Bittersweet Legacy of ‘Andor’ appeared first on The Atlantic.
