‘Andor’ Season 1 is a Brilliantly Written Star Wars Show, But It Doesn’t Do Justice to All Its Characters
Andor
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| Andor key art courtesy Disney+ |
Tony
Gilroy (creator)
Diego Luna, Stellan Skarsgård, Genevieve O'Reilly (cast)
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| Andor key art courtesy Disney+ |
The first
season has several intertwined stories, with myriad characters all playing a role
in this intricate game of chess. The main players are Andor, who is a mercenary
at this stage in his life, and he is introduced to Luthen Rael (Stellan
Skarsgård), an enigma with an agenda. Luthen has dealings with Senator Mon
Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly) on Coruscant. These three try and keep their heads
above water while the Empire’s Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) starts unearthing signs
of Rebellion activity. You can never tell how the actions of some people will
affect others. Nor are we privy to who has connections to who else. We can all
agree that Andor is an excellent work of storytelling, with espionage,
politics, and social commentary all thrown into the mix. This review isn’t an
argument against how brilliant this show is—that’s pointless. I thoroughly enjoyed
this show and was swept up in the intrigue. What I didn’t care for was some of
the characterizations in Andor Season 1.
It’s
important to note that while critiques of the show praise its writing, direction, and world-building, the show isn’t perfect. I want to talk about the female characters
in Andor. The show has many women at the forefront of the story, but it
underserves most of them.
Dedra is the
only woman who is vocal and present in the Imperial war room. While we can see
other women in the background, none of them have a line of dialogue. Now, I get
it—the original trilogy didn’t have many women in it. Princess Leia and Mon Mothma
were the only ones of note. I get that setting a story prior to that known era has
its limitations, but we don’t need this consistency in 2022. The continuity and
consistency of Star Wars stories have been shot by the Disney+ shows, so why do
we have to be sticklers when it comes to poor representation of women? Dedra is
a great character, and Gough has so much gravitas. But she needn’t have been
the only woman speaking in the Empire. Like, come on. Even among the soldiers
and the ISB, etc, no women. This is the same problem that Rogue
One had, and it shouldn’t have been repeated in Andor. But here
we are. I’m also worried about where Dedra’s story is headed after watching the
finale. I suspect she’s going to become embroiled in an uncomfortable romance,
but I’m hoping I’m wrong.
That’s not
to say the rest of the show lacks women characters, but how much screen time do
they have, and, more importantly, what kind of agency are they given. Bix
Caleen (Adria Arjona) is Cassian’s friend, and maybe more. She owns a repair
shop on Ferrix and is the proxy through whom Andor sells his stolen Imperial goods.
I didn’t care for Bix’s character arc, because she has none. She’s embroiled in
a love triangle in the first episode and then disappears for a chunk of the
show. When she reappears, it’s to be captured and tortured by the Imperials.
Who is Bix? What does she want out of life? I know Bix is going to have a much
better arc in Season 2, but why was she so underserved in this season? Bix feels
like the worst kind of noir character trope you can find.
I’ll group
Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay) and Cinta Kaz (Varada Sethu) together because they’re
both part of the Aldhani storyline. I love that we have more South Asian actors
in Star Wars, but Cinta hardly speaks. Her arc became more interesting in the
last two episodes, but she has so little screen time, and every time I felt like
she was coming into her own, they’d add Vel to the scene, and Cinta as a person
would disappear. I like the dynamic the writers have created for Vel and Cinta,
but Vel is absolutely insufferable around Cinta and it makes me question why
this passionate and dedicated person is even interested in Vel, or letting Vel
take the lead. Vel, as a character, is inconsistent. She’s the leader of her crew,
and yet has no say in who is added to her crew or what to do with them. There’s
a twist in her characterization that made her more interesting, but it also
stagnated her arc. Vel and Cinta, I feel, may have suffered from a story with
too many characters.
I’m not
even going to start with Maarva (Fiona Shaw), a character who had so much
potential but is once against little more than a plot point. She plays an
essential role in the finale, and yet, we know nothing about this person or her
motivations for acting when she does. She is a bare-bones outline, not a
character.
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| Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly) in Lucasfilm's ANDOR, exclusively on Disney+. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved. |
Now on to the big gun—Mon Mothma. The moment I learned about Chandrilan traditions I knew Mon Mothma’s character arc was doomed. And I have to say, I was really disappointed in her entire story arc. Yes, she’s smart, and she’s resilient. But I can’t reconcile the Senator we’ve met in the films and shows before with this mousy woman who is undermined by her useless husband and her insufferable daughter. Mon Mothma’s domestic life was the worst part of the show because it felt regressive and had an old-school type of characterization. She deserved so much better than this archaic storyline. I’m tired of seeing successful and triumphant women in pop culture reduced to being domestic tropes. I do not see her arc being any better in Season 2 either.
Moving on
from the women characters, I want to talk about the man himself, Cassian Andor.
Over at Collider.com,
I wrote about how Cassian was a passenger on his show in the first four
episodes. This problem never really goes away over the course of the season,
but Cassian does become the centre of one arc partway through the season. The
issue is that the show is called Andor, which sets up a basic
expectation that we will learn more about who Cassian is as a person. But we
don’t. We learn the things Cassian went through, but he is often a plot point.
There’s a segment in the middle when Cassian’s facing some of the worst
hardships of his life, where the character comes to life. But it’s bookended by
large portions where Cassian is just swept along with the tide. This is not the
man we met in Rogue One. Growth and development are one thing, but the
Rebellion should be a much larger part of Cassian’s storyline than it is. He suffers
from a lack of agency throughout the season. His character is essentially on
cruise control for the majority of it. I didn’t expect Cassian to be a lone
wolf who lit the spark of the Rebellion all on his own, but I would have expected
the person claiming to have been ‘part of this fight since [he] was six years
old’ to actually be part of the fight. He isn’t. That doesn’t mean that Cassian
isn’t interesting to watch, especially post-Episode 4. It’s that he too
deserved a better story.
I also
found it strange that background characters, whose faces hardly registered,
would suddenly become key players and I’d be left wondering who this person even
is, let alone why we were following them. In a way that works to advance the
story, because after all, in the nascent stages of a war, who can you trust?
But, perhaps adding actors with more distinguished features or a little more
presence would have been less confusing.
Andor is a ‘big ideas’ show that is compelling to watch from start to
finish. But at the cost of some of the characterizations. The world-building is
spectacular, and there are so many plot threads that I am looking forward to
being tied up. It is the best Star Wars show so far and is an unmissable
experience for any fan.
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