ANDOR and Real Work of Rebellion (Patreon)

My word, they actually did it.

For a few years now, Disney Plus has talked a big game about their platform being the space to tell bigger stories that would round out the Star Wars universe. Instead, we mostly ended up getting more of the exact same kind of Star Wars we’ve always known. Don’t get me wrong, I know why some folks like this. And there are some bright spots in a lot of these efforts. But what began with the promise to expand things devolved into a wave of constantly moving inward. It felt like we’ve been drowning in cameos, distractions, half-hearted introductions to other series, and endless repetitions of famous beats that had come before. And given the complete lack of meaningful storytelling outside of that, it honestly made these shows feel part of recursive ouroboros; a series of repeated beats that felt like a snake eating its own tail. And thus, it felt like that promise of the platform would go mum…

And then Andor came along.

I sometimes playfully use a phrase from that scene in Boogie Nights where Ricky Jay turns back from the Steenbeck (editing machine) to tell Burt Reynolds with delighted surprise, “It’s a real movie, Jack.” Because they’ve made a porn picture that actually managed to weasel its way into good old exploitation. And I use it purely in a tongue in cheek way here. Because what does it even mean to call Andor “a real show” anyway? They’re all real shows, come on. But the striking thing about Andor is how little it ever got caught up in the Star Wars reference games. Where Filoni feels desperately eager to pump in another Rebels character I know literally nothing about (and not doing much more to get me to like them or understand them), this show’s creator, Tony Gilroy seems completely disinterested. He’s outright told us this. Even going so far as to say the secret is not to be enamored with Star Wars itself. Instead, he’s just using it as a framework to make something more complete.

Bu wait, isn’t this a Rogue One prequel? And shouldn’t that make it susceptible to all the same in-reference problems? Yeah, but first off, know that I don’t necessarily like Rogue One and I’m honestly not sure how much Gilroy seems to either? It’s a movie with strengths but it suffers the death of many masters (many of whom are artists I like), but seemed a struggle to get it to function as well as it did (thought I honestly can’t believe they let the supposedly-climactic heist operate like a game of calvinball). But here with Andor, Gilroy - along with his brother Dan, and House of Cards vet Beau Willimon and The Americans vet Stephen Schiff - had a chance to mold their own story from the beginning. And in that, they made ”‘a real show.” That is one of the most cohesive, exciting pieces of work I’ve seen in years. A show that I would like even if it didn’t have “Star Wars” in the title. A show that rarely, if ever relies on flash, or easy dramatic tactics. It’s a show that does the work. A show that, yes, asks for your patience. But where I usually am ready to blow my brains out with any other modern “slow burn” streamer, there are no cheap delay tactics or cliff-ending fake outs here. Instead it offers substance, substance, substance, moving every character along with deliberate pacing and insight, building your trust and then hitting the payoffs in ways that feel incredible.

I’ve seen people both marvel and express concern over the overall structural approach of this. After the first two episodes I was skeptical, too. But it was that third episode that sold me. Not just because it hit a climax and had all these changes in story direction. But because it had a payoff for every single character it had introduced. It’s that perfect moment of “oh, THAT’S why you were doing all that.” Which is precisely what builds trust in the viewer. So when it got to the second chunk of the heist in Space Scotland? Hoo boy, it was even better. And it helps that it does all the dramatic tactics that makes heists so fun: planning, mapping out objectives, setting out clear expectations and trials, encountering wrinkles that make us dread, and creating new synthesis in that wake (AKA everything Rogue One doesn’t do). And as they escape in that miraculous light storm in episode six, you couldn’t imagine the show having a single cathartic high that would be better. That is until we hit the climax of the prison break just four episodes later. But the great thing is these arcs are simply not the contained action stories that have little to do with the other. All the while, it is the story of a man. One that asks, how do you turn a self-focused, disgruntled ruffian into a true believer?

Well, you do it by telling a real story.

Again, I understand that word “real” is tricky. Especially in talking about Star Wars, where everyone wants it to feel like the original trilogy again, thus much has been made of the “texture” of these properties. I get why people glom onto texture, it’s a tangible detail. The original films felt dirty and lived in. And the prequels felt flat, airless, and sterile. But there were many other functional issues in the filmmaking that affected that. It’s not JUST the texture. I mean, say what I will about the Abrams films, they look great because there’s a good sense of how to make dynamic cinematic verve. But thus far, a lot of the Disney Plus shows have been stuck in the Volume Industrial Complex, relying on the same-y backgrounds and always putting the horizon in the middle of the shot (if you’ve seen The Fabelmans, you will get why this matters). Why does Andor look so, so much better than its cohorts? Some of its the increase in location work, but the rest just seems to be good old planning and know-how. Specifically the way the show embraces going up and down on the Z axis and getting in close with the actors, while constantly reframing sets to make them feel more dense, populated, and lived in. Similarly, the show is rightly in awe of human faces, not helmets, nor globs of make-up. Note how much more we get to see close-ups or medium shots of people emoting. Heck, even from the first episode it will stay with a “bad guy” and his moment of sadness instead of pressing on.

Which is an important reminder - as important as visual filmmaking is, it’s not as important as the core writing. Which brings dramatic modus operandi: every single moment of the show is filled with conflict. But it’s not simple action stand-offs that make it work, but the art of dialogue. Some of it dips into what I talked about in terms of how great the show is at “saying it without saying it” (column here), like when Mon Motha is talking about her finances potentially being watched by the empire she says: “I visit the bank, they’re all new faces.” But it’s not just fun turns of phrase. The real reason the show is compelling is because every single scene is about one person trying to convince another person of something, often to do something they don’t want to do. This is the core of dramatic writing, it’s what makes every chamber drama on the planet work. And to do it effectively, you also need to understand the interiority of your characters, along with what they really want, and how that creates conflict with another’s want.

It’s a taller order with this kind of show than you might think. We’re surrounded by people in a world of intrigue, often putting up fronts and needing to hide the thing that matters most, often to protect it. Similarly, people are always on the greater mission, letting these little lived-in truths eke out, whether it's their relationships, fears, or anger. Everyone’s feeling the strain. Everyone has these little slivers of a life they wish they had more time for. And everyone is making sacrifices. There’s so many characters I could speak for like this, but Mon Motha may take the cake. For so long she’s existed as a simple image to me. But here, I feel every ounce of pressure on her as she tries to fund a rebellion in plain sight, double-speaking her way into a deeper hole, and having to sacrifice a family she loves, but maybe is already losing. And knowing where she’ll likely end up is part of the tragedy and dread of it all.

But there is no bigger journey in the show than that of Andor himself. What I love about this season is that getting him to buy into the rebellion COULD have been treated as a boring old refusal of the call. The kind of story that had all the normal delay tactics we’ve come to hate (of say Green Lantern fame), but instead it uses his reluctance as the kind of character analysis that makes for real change. Andor always thinks he can go solo, bargain, and chase the things he wants. All to fill the parts of himself that are missing, the quest for the missing sister incarnate. But instead, he has his belief in all those possibilities stripped away. He has to experience “the death of the old self” and become a man anew; a rebel in the heart of the fire.

Bringing this to life means going step by step. I know I touched on the show’s acumen for plotting above, but I love how much trust there is in letting the scenes speak for themselves. Like the amazing moment in the finale where Mon Motha chastises her husband’s gambling (likely KNOWING they’re being listened to), all as a way to throw them off the scent of her own rebellion funding. The show never underlines that tact. But it speaks to the old adage of Billy Wilder, “let the audience add 2 + 2, they’ll love you forever.” And this patience and trust is exactly what makes the show’s action so compelling, too. So often it is the build of the pounding drum with the understanding that anything awful could happen at any moment (for instance, if they hurt my new best friend B2EMO - a huge candidate for best SW droid - I would have flipped a table said it was a bad show that should go to H E doulble hockey sticks… I mean… the scene where it mourns and stays in its charging pad *cry emoji*). But that prolonged tension is precisely what makes the highs feel so fucking amazing. I mean who ever thought we’d see Stellan Skarsgard, badass action hero mode?!?!! The counter-measures scene is a coup. Using such beautiful build-up before releasing something we would have never seen coming. If the same action beat was in Mando it would feel like a fun beat already in tune with the kinds of things they do a lot. But here? It feels part of a genuinely cathartic surprise of a show that had you dramatically looking in a different direction.

But all the fun and games of dramatic execution matter little in comparison to theme. I know I am a broken record when it comes to this stuff, but theme matters so damn much. It’s what makes things feel resonant. It’s why you’ll think about a certain movie months after it came out. It’s why moments can curl up inside you and become part of the fabric of how you see the world around you. Luckily, the themes of Andor are the soul of the show. While so many of these Star Wars efforts love to paint the rebellion as a big fun hero journey, that only works when you’re a jedi and the center of the universe, I guess. Instead, this show is getting into the nooks and crannies of how fascism really takes up space. The lives of the characters who made one-note jokes or distractions in the films. It’s not just the clear abuses of authority figures. It’s also the laze of bureaucracy. The way the upper class is often untouched by it. The girlboss fascism. The prison industrial complex and the way it builds tools of destruction for those in power. And most devastatingly of all, the way we WAIT as it all unfolds around us. Why? In the finale the great Fiona Shaw puts it so humanely, “because we had each other.” And when that starts becoming what is finally lost? That’s when all the waiting becomes the why. The big why. The deeper understanding that “there is a wound that won’t heal at the center.” And it’s why, from moment one, Skarsgard’s character Luthien is asking Andor to “fight these bastards for real.” He knows the why.

But there is not a single moment where the show doesn’t know the cost, either. Something perhaps best reflected in Luthien’s episode ten speech, which I will now share in its entirety. It’s a speech that characterizes the sacrifice of every great rebel who ever committed to the end of tyranny. One that comes in a scene where Luthien is trying to assuage his own spy Lonnie’s concerns. He has a kid and the cost could be too much. The exchange goes as follows:

“We need heroes Lonnie, and here you are.”

“And what do you sacrifice?”

We see Luthien think for a moment. Lonnie sees no family that he has to protect. No inner conflict. He’s simply an all-in zealot who is asking too. Surely, they are not the same. And then we see the corner of his humanity he rarely shares. What does Luthien sacrifice? He tells us:

“Calm… Kindness. Kinship. Love. I’ve given up all chance at inner peace. I made my mind a soundless place… I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote fifteen 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 set me on a path from which there is no escape. I yearn to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost, so that by the time I look down there is no ground beneath my feet. What is my sacrifice?! I am condemned to use the tools of 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. And the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice? Everything! Just stay with me Lonnie, I need all the heroes I can get.”

It is the theme the show conveys beyond measure. There is no glamor, no indulgence, no whizzbang heroism to be found when under the clutches of fascism. There is inescapable sadness of being forced into such an inhumane position in the first place. To even have a cost in fighting for your life is a tragedy. And yet, there is also the paradox of inescapable resolve in the face of that loss. To do what it takes to commit oneself. To give up all sense of life, so there may be a sense of life. It’s poetic. But not flowery. The kind of sentiment that hits with a dull thud. An all-too-true anchor you cannot rid yourself of. And it is where Andor finds himself too. In the finale, it's possible you could maybe find the climactic action a bit underwhelming - maybe you wanted it to feel like it could move mountains again. But I think it’s proof of how little actually needed to happen. They had been building and building for so long now. Fiona Shaw’s speech is just the tipping point. The small opportunity to throw the bomb that was already built. And for Andor, we realize it was all just a mea culpa effort to get Bix out, to save those who had been hurt by his desperation to leave. And in the end, he knows there is no leaving. Only a world of prisons. Thus, he’s anchored now. The only climax we need is him appearing before Luthien, unarmed and willing. He only has to say the words: “No game, kill me, or take me in.” It’s exactly what we meant by the death of the old self, made literal. He’s stripped away all the assumptions. And because the moment was built on substance, care, and knowhow? Because he saw everything he saw, whether it be a heist, a meaningless arrest, or a prison riot? All he has to do is surrender to who he’s already become. And in turn, there is nothing Luthien needs to say. Like any great show…

The work was already done.

<3HULK