Transcription
Wow, talk about a redemption arc. It's no secret that Andor has been a pretty divisive show over the past couple of years. Its slow pace, gritty, but infrequent action, labyrinth-themed storylines, and complex, mature, and yeah, slightly sterile characters didn't fit all that well with a franchise that was always about grand adventures, epic storytelling, big emotional beats, and clearly defined good and evil. Season 1 was well-received critically, but failed to make much of an impact on the Star Wars fan base.
And I've got to admit, season 2 didn't get off to a great start either, opening with a trilogy of episodes that felt weirdly clunky and poorly written, badly paced, wasting too much time on stuff that wasn't interesting or compelling and capped off by a controversial assault scene that ended up overshadowing everything else about the show, and probably driving a big chunk of the fan base away at the same time. It seemed like we might well be heading for another Last of Us situation. Another show that opens strong only to squander it with a crappy second season that failed to cement its success.
But then something interesting happened—Andor got good. What? What the [ __ ] Episodes four, five, and six really began to move the plot along, bringing together all the wandering storylines that felt so disjointed at the start of the season, gradually ramping up the pace and the stakes and the tension. The show was building up to something big, and we knew it. Suddenly, I was getting invested again. I was eager to see where the story was going next, and I began to feel like we were in good hands once again. Then we got last week's episodes. Proceed.
You know, there's probably hundreds of fancy, pretentious ways that I could eulogize this show, but what the hell, let's just call a spade a spade here. Andor is really [ __ ] good. And I don't mean slightly better than the usual bottom-of-the-barrel Disney Star Wars slop kind of good. I mean, sitting on the edge of your seat in complete silence knowing you're watching the sort of TV event that only comes along once every few years kind of good. I mean, this is some of the best Star Wars I've seen since the original trilogy kind of good. And even now, I can't quite believe I'm actually saying this about anything made under Disney Star Wars, but what the [ __ ] Credit where credit's due, and this show deserves a [ __ ] ton of it.
Everything that's been building up since the start of the season all comes to fruition in these three episodes. Every plot line that seemed so meandering, every character you'd begun to question their purpose, every decision and little piece of setup, it all gets paid off right here. And I guess what I'm saying is it's been worth it. It's all been worth it. Honestly, I could spend hours going over every single character beat and plot point, but for the sake of not getting too self-indulgent, I'm going to try and stick to the main events here.
The premise of this episode arc is that the Empire needs a rare mineral to finish construction of the Death Star, a mineral that can only be found in large quantities on one planet, Gorman. A wealthy and influential trading hub, and not the kind of place they can just march into and take over at will. See, as powerful as they are, the Empire are not omnipotent. They can't just do whatever the [ __ ] they want and get away with it. Instead, they have to play it smart. Gradually isolating and turning public opinion against Gorman, pushing them closer and closer to the brink, stirring up a rebellion that'll give them the perfect excuse to pacify the whole planet. This season's been all about turning the planet into a giant powder keg. All it takes is one spark to ignite it.
And that spark finally comes in episode 8, where all the major storylines and characters converge on the central square in Gorman. Honestly, if you want a textbook example of how to marry complex manipulation with slow-building tension, pathos, character drama, impending doom, and epic tragedy, then I don't think you could do any better than this episode. I'm so [ __ ] happy this episode got made. I'm so glad they didn't compromise or dumb it down or sanitize it. This is exactly the way it needed to be. And god damn, it makes for good viewing. Watching the Imperial forces methodically slot each building block into place. The propaganda manipulation, the quiet deployment of military forces, the barely disguised provocation of the locals, the convenient opening they make to let them into the central square, and the false flag operation they have on standby. You realize the cold, calculating, ruthlessly efficient machine that's at work here. This isn't the cartoonish clown show from the sequel trilogy or some pretentious moron's idea of an intellectual supervillain. This is the real face of evil. The monster in the shadows that swallows you up by degrees. That takes just a little bit more each time without anyone realizing where it's all leading. That sets the trap knowing you're eventually going to walk into it. That's more powerful, more intelligent, more cunning than you—the one that wins because it convinces everyone else that it's doing the right thing.
And nowhere is that brought home more powerfully than this scene where Sirill, a willing pawn of the Empire throughout the whole show, always convinced he's on the right side of history, finally realizes that he's being played, that it was all a big lie. "How long have you known about all this? How long? We can discuss this later." Holy [ __ ] man. Nowhere else in Disney Star Wars would they even think of allowing a scene like this to happen. "You tell me it's a rumor and I will throw you out that window." This is a man whose entire worldview is collapsing in front of his very eyes. A man who's finally seeing the Empire for what it really is. A man who's too late to stop what's about to happen.
Needless to say, the Empire gets exactly what they wanted. They get their massacre and they're able to spin it into the propaganda victory that they need to take over the whole planet. I can't emphasize enough how much work this show has done to make the Empire a credible threat again. They're not cartoonishly evil for the sake of being evil, but they are ruthless, intelligent, highly organized, and brutally efficient at pursuing their aims. And you can absolutely see how and why they were able to take control of an entire galaxy.
But as it turns out, they're not the only ones who use the Gorman massacre to their advantage. The Rebellion also gambles everything to get the word out on what's really happening there, sacrificing their last shred of political influence to light the spark of revolution throughout the entire galaxy. It is a fascinating culmination of multiple storylines that have been building up all season and in some cases since the beginning of the show itself. But just as important, it's also an absolute emotional roller coaster that's going to leave you feeling exhausted by the end. I'm not kidding when I say that these episodes made me feel things about a Star Wars project that I haven't felt in 20 years, which is saying a lot for a Scottish guy in his 40s who doesn't experience normal human emotion anymore.
And it's pretty interesting now to look back on all the criticism of Andor being too clinical, too intellectualized, too sterile for people to get invested in. [ __ ] man. Some of it even came from me. And although I 100% stand by what I said at the time, that assessment inevitably changes once you see a fuller picture of what the show's trying to do. And well, now I have. Those big emotional payoffs that people expect from Star Wars were always coming. But unlike other shows and movies that try to force this stuff out of cheap melodrama, Andor makes you wait for it. It makes you work for it, and it forces you to pay attention. And part of me wonders now if that's why a lot of Star Wars fans have struggled to engage with it.
There's no getting around this. It is not as accessible. It's not as fantastical or epic or adventurous as so many other Star Wars projects. There's no Force, no Jedi, no lightsabers, no quirky aliens or moments of levity to lighten the tone. No epic confrontations or grand heroic gestures. Just people with all of our frailties and our strengths, our drives, our desires, and our infinite complexities. People with ideals and beliefs they're willing to fight and sacrifice and die for.
And all of this brings me back to the question that I asked a couple of weeks ago. What even is Star Wars now? What does it mean to be a Star Wars story? Do you want the cheap and easy dopamine hit of seeing a bunch of stuff you recognize paraded across the screen, like the greatest hits of some tired old band that lost a creative spark decades ago? Or do you want something more challenging, complex, and mature that takes the setting and the world that you remember and asks, "How would this actually work if it was for real?"
I'm asking this because the answers aren't as easy or obvious as you might think. Like it or not, there's a kind of magical bubble, a mystique around classic Star Wars that's only solidifying the more the original trilogy fades into the mists of time. Or maybe I should say what this franchise has come to symbolize in people's minds. And the more time that passes, the more shitty projects that explode from Lucasfilm's shattered rectum, the more difficult it becomes for people to accept ideas outside of that bubble. Instead, it becomes easier to segregate real Star Wars into some safe, secure, untouchable comfort zone that nobody can ever mess with and anything made since about 2005 into some shitty, barely acknowledged piece of fanfiction. Something that might carry the Star Wars name, but is no more connected to it than an unlicensed bootleg sequel.
And therein lies the problem. Because if we set such a narrow path for what Star Wars is allowed to be now, then we lose any chance for it to grow or mature or experiment as a brand, we end up ignoring extremely well-made stories that have more effort, time, and passion put into them than a dozen seasons of Keyjang Dave Fona slop. And we send the message to Disney that all we really want is to keep rehashing the same tired, predictable, played-out themes and ideas over and over again until there's simply nothing left to exploit.
And I think maybe that's the real tragedy of a show like Andor. Yeah, it's getting rave reviews and its core fan base clearly love it, but it's not going to be enough to move the needle. We'll probably never get another Star Wars project of this scope, scale, and level of ambition and storytelling maturity ever again. This was it. This was the one chance for Star Wars to grow into something more, to expand beyond lightsabers and space battles and goofy-looking aliens. And I suspect that chance has just slipped away because really, why would any company want to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into a show that nobody [ __ ] watches? So, get ready for a lot more low-effort, low-risk corporate slop because I think that's the real future for Star Wars at this point. Andor tried, and it tried valiantly, but I don't think it's going to be enough. Anyway, that's all I've got for today. Go away.