As a people, we are in love with the idealism of taking a stand against something.
In the hallowed, lofty part of our minds where noble intent and purity of belief exist, there dwells an incorruptible part of us that sees the world in the possible and the hopeful, that embraces promise and potential and which can’t conceive of the notion that things won’t work out perfectly and precisely as we envisage (this applies by the way regardless of what you believe, with all of us, in a glorious act of self-delusion, happy to believe might and right is unquestionably and infallibly on our side).
And, then we meet the harsh glaring lights of reality where soaring intent meets grindingly grounded execution, and we discover, as does Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), Syril Karn (Kyle Soller), Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) and Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay), that what we see in our mind’s eye is not what is yielded when we finally enact that vision.
The only person in the three middle episodes under review who seems to be getting exactly what she has in mind is Dedra Meero (Denise Gough), a supervisor for the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB), who sets about, with ruthless efficiency and narcissistic intent born of vaulting self-belief and preservation, to bring the burgeoning Rebel actions against the Empire to heel.
She ends up having considerable success, pushing aside fellow ISB supervisor, Blevin (Ben Bailey Smith) to take oversight of Ferix, the planet from which Andor hails and on which his adoptive mother Maarva Andor (Fiona Shaw) and former love interest Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona), who’s rapidly emerging as a character to watch, and seeing a pattern of Rebel activity where her more conservative and blinkered colleagues see nothing untoward happening.
She is a rising star, and though she works with horrifically, quietly violent intent, having no issue with torture and genocide if it gets her what she wants, the sort of work approach that makes more human hearts blanch with moralistic disgust, she is at peace with the fact that what she saw happening is, in fact, that is happening, her world a perfect realisation of what she’s already had in her twisted heart and mind.
So, as an example of noble envisaging – it’s important to keep in mind that while those of us with more humanistic tendencies see people like Meero as monsters, they see themselves as uncorrupted idealists waging the good fight – meeting purity of execution, she is unparalleled.
Elsewhere, in storytelling that is hauntingly, affectingly resonant, delivered with a brutalist 1970s vibe, both in setting and soundtrack, we see people who are not failing to realise what they want but who are far from bringing it to fruition either.
Chief among them is the titular antihero of our show, Cassian Andor, a man who has a good heart but who appreciates that, in a world wrought by compromise, utilitarianism and self-protective pragmatism, that he must do what he must to look after himself and those he loves.
Fresh from the Empire-rattling events on Aldani where he and the Rael-orchestrated Rebels successfully, well, sort of successfully, stole a ton of credits while besting supposedly unbeatable Imperial fighting forces, Andor first returns to Ferix to get his mum, who refuses to leave, convinced she can fight for her home planet’s independence (or current lack thereof), check on Bix and then find a life free from Imperial control.
Does such a place exist? Maarva Andor doubts that’s the case but Andor persists, fleeing Ferix for the pleasure planet of Niamos, all long beaches and relaxed vibes, only to find that authoritarian power abhors anyone even beginning to think it can be bested.
He is scooped up on entirely spurious grounds by Imperial forces determined to crack down hard in a post-Aldani galaxy – interestingly this is what the Rebels want with Rael observing that rebellion is birthed from oppression, a piece of realpolitik, the existence of which might surprise given the black-and-white purity of outlook of the first three, now middle three, Skywalker Saga films – and cast into prison on Narkina 5 where control is enforced with an enviably, unrelenting intent.
While he is no surging idealist bent on making the world better for those of good heart and mind, like his fellow soon-to-be Rebels he is well on the road to standing up against the Empire with each action taken against him building another brick in a heart that is beginning to realise, and with ferocious rapidity, that you can’t do nothing when great evil looms.
Granted, his is a more utilitarian response but it’s no less worthy or potentially effective, and as circumstances in the prison begin to deteriorate as it becomes clear there is no end to the Empire’s imprisoning cruelty and their capacity for punitive hell-making, we are beginning to see a man who will soon make his brutally-born intent become a highly and devastatingly impactful reality.
But as Mon Mothma, caught between public persona as a Senator standing up for democracy and human rights in an Empire rapidly careering toward full, bleak totalitarian control, knows all too well, the road to bringing your dreams to fruition is a long and painfully frustrating one.
In these three episodes – “Announcement”, “Narkina 5” and “Nobody’s Listening!” – she is caught again and again by Imperial manoeuvring, her work with childhood friend and influential banker Tay Kolma (Ben MIles) and, surprise, surprise, her cousin Aldani Rebel leader Vel Sartha who, like Mon, hides her ideals behind a spoiled rich girl facade, coming to nought more than it yields results.
What makes Andor such a richly engaging show to watch is that it peels back the gloriously perfect curtain that cloaks A New Hope / The Empire Strikes Back / Return of the Jedi and reveals that for all the great and glorious storytelling moments that accompany many epoch-making events in the Star Wars franchise that there are an awful lot of blood, sweat and tears hellishness to get there.
Suddenly that immortally intriguing line from Return of the Jedi when Mon Mothna notes, in regard to plans for the second Death Star, that “Many Bothans died to bring us this information”, takes on a whole resonance and gravity.
Far from being a simple case of downloading some schematics, setting things up for one big final blow to the Empire involved all kinds of sacrifice, much of which, as many of our characters discover to their rueful chagrin, do not lead to the hoped-for results, at least not immediately.
Andor, which pulsates with hope falling into grim despair for much of these three episodes, does a masterful job of showing us that while ideals are necessary and good in order to bring about real change, the kind we see realised in the middle three movies, that they don’t always find their realisation as envisaged and that, for a while at least, a whole darkest-before-the-dawn vibe exists long before what is dreamt of comes into being, assuming of course that it comes into being at all.
At this stage of the 12-episode act, some characters could be forgiven for thinking that’s not going to happen at all, making this superlatively well-executed series, which brims with the flawed nature of things in just about facet of its storytelling, the sort of nuanced and thoughtfully told series that the Star Wars franchise needs to take a step from purely escapist fare, to something more muscular and real and true to the imperfect galaxy in which humanity often lives.