In episode four of Andor, titled ‘Aldhani’, we delve further into the company of the fledgling rebellion, a disparate but radicalised group of individuals who have taken it upon themselves to frustrate and dismantle the operational stability of the ever-growing Empire. Having fled from the Pre-Mor’s ‘corpo’ forces on Ferrix, we find Cassian on board Luthen’s vessel. Skarsgård’s straight-talking agent provocateur offers Cassian a choice: he can either be dropped off at the next convenient spaceport and go into hiding, or continue the fight he inadvertently started against Imperial forces by lending his talents to a planned counter-operation against the Empire. Luna is as fantastic as always, but this episode really gives us time to enjoy Skarsgård’s grizzled back and forths between rebels and mercenaries; a character with clear conviction but a performance that begins to hint toward past trauma that might explain his motivation for assisting the rebellion. Having been won over by Luthen’s plea, an uncertain Cassian is whisked off to the plane Aldhani for a rebel heist involving a sizable Empire payroll held at an Imperial garrison.
Meanwhile, Imperial officers on the now authoritarian Coruscant are alerted to the failures of Pre-Mor’s corporate inspectors, ultimately relieving emasculated cop Syril Karn from last week’s premiere episodes of his duty. Karn, for the time being at least, returns defeated to his mother’s home – cue fragile masculinity and smouldering resentment. Picking up the pursuit of Cassian, ISB supervisor Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) is attempting to make her way up the career ladder of surveillence-facilitated fascism. Noting recurring techniques and patterns of Imperial tech and resources being stolen, Meero voices her concern about potential rebellious factions to ISB head, Major Partagaz (Anton Lesser). Here, Andor begins to flesh out the buerocracy of Imperial authority through its underling characters and wannabe despots, unafraid to depart from the more conventional protagonists of the series and its titular hero. Showrunner Tony Gilroy’s decision to extend the narrative outwards to incorporate and give screentime to the backdoor machinations and scheming allow us a nuts and bolts insight into the institutional corruption and mallace at the heart of the Imperial regime. On its surface, this might not make for the most adrenaline-pumping scenes, but elevating the Star Wars universe above the more straight-forward dichotomy between Jedi and Sith, light and dark side, ‘good guys’ and inherently evil ‘bad guys’, adds a more complex strand of thematic development that the show is clearly invested in building – Andor is a show about corrupt authority and police states, and it wants us to know this from the get-go.
Elsewhere on the Galaxy’s Imperial hub, Luthen meets up with franchise mainstay Mon Motha, first portrayed by Caroline Blakiston in Return of the Jedi, but more recently embodied by Genevieve O’Reilly in Rogue One, reprising her role here. Dan Gilroy’s scriptwriting, working in tandem with Susanna White’s direction, is particularly engaging in this encounter: a game of cat and mouse between an undercover Luthen (Skarsgård donning a flowing wig and a more genial persona as a flamboyant antique trader), Mon Mothma, and her newly employed chauffeur who may or may not be an Imperial spy. I feel ‘under siege’, Mothma warns Luthen, who has orchestrated the rendezvous in the hopes of securing more funding for rebel activity. Everyone seems to be watching her, and no one can be trusted; the familiar faces she sees amongst the senate and her workplace are quickly being replaced with Imperial stooges and turncoats under Palpatine’s grip. Despite the smaller scale of Andor, its in exchanges like this where – injecting a tangible sense of paranoia and anxiety to proceedings – Tony Gilroy as showrunner adds a real sense of consequence and weight to this long-running franchise . Rather than the Jedi-centric narratives of Obi-Wan Kenobi and the ‘Skywalker Saga’ films, Andor puts the everyday galactic citizen at the forefront of this violent clash between authoritarianism and democracy. Individuals like Andor, rebel characters like Vel, and even underlings of the Imperial hierarchy are all emphatically human, unable to shrug off or defend themselves from the outrages of Imperial violence in the same way that Kenobi, Luke or Ahsoka could in a similar scenario. The stakes feel incredibly real here, as Luthen, Mothma and Andor have to evade the iron fist of Imperial rule, hiding from the spotlight of the Emperor’s surveillance whilst working to dismantle it, not knowing who they can trust at any one time.
Doubling down on the slow but intense burn of the first three episodes, episode four of Andor introduces more key rebellion players whilst stretching out its narrative focus to showcase the generally inept but nonetheless sinister forces of the Empire. Critics of the tonal shift away from franchise’s core entries won’t feel any more at ease following ‘Aldhani’ – but Star Wars is a broad church, and I for one am completely sold on Andor‘s mood and ambition.
Notes from the Multiplex 