Andor is the best Star Wars show

It’s not hard to take a new Star Wars show with a bit of apprehension. Like Marvel movies and shows, they’re announced at press conferences as a collection of titles and dates, maybe with a couple actors and a logline if the executives on stage are feeling generous. This isn’t how art is created.

This was the reason for my first apprehension towards it. AndorEvery new Star Wars project is a Star Wars project, so it’s a good idea. Even with the things that sound exciting with the limited information we’re given (The Acolyte sure sounds neat!), none of it matters until it’s here, in front of us. Each episode has to convince viewers to view the next. It is halfway through the first season. Andor It has done so with astonishing ease.

With this week’s “The Eye,” AndorThis is what clinches it AndorA Star Wars live-action show that is likely to be the best, is fast on its way towards being regarded as the best Star Wars story ever. The Last Jedi. This is largely because it’s just good TV, and sinks into Star Wars in a way that only a television show with a particular focus can.

Lucasfilm

“The Eye” is what happens when careful plotting is accompanied by painstaking character work. It’s a heist episode the series has been building to, but its success is not just due to anticipation, but restraint. It’s been much discussed. Andor’s careful resistance to traditional fan service — no one, blessedly, has a bad feeling about the droids they’re looking for while trusting the Force and hey that’s no moon — but also, the show has excelled at simple drama. People talk to their overbearing mothers, to their political-minded comrades and to dull government workers. It’s not flashy, but it’s TV, and it’s why we watch — so that the spectacle of episodes like “The Eye” hit that much harder.

What a stunning spectacle!. The titular “Eye” — a celestial phenomenon that’s kind of like a meteor shower and an aurora borealis happening at the same time — gives any scene with an outside view a soft emerald glow that’s both entrancing and ominous. It’s the kind of effect that recasts very normal Star Wars scenes, like pilots climbing into their TIE Fighters, with mesmerizing grace, an effective contrast to the tense scenes deep inside an Imperial vault as Andor’s heroes risk their lives.

[Ed. note: Spoilers for Andor episode 6, “The Eye,” follow.]

This episode is the longest of all. Andor thus far, it’s also the most straightforward: Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and the small group of rebels (not yet Rebels) he’s been hired to finally execute their big heist of an Imperial vault. The plan works, but it goes wrong. This escalates the tension and leads to a dramatic escape. Not everyone survives.

Lucasfilm

Ending the episode on that note would likely have sufficed, but “The Eye” goes a bit further, choosing to ditch the easy ending for a more difficult story that’s committed to the complicated characters AndorThe team has been working on the plot for half of this season. The rebel team is not brought closer to one another at the conclusion of the heist. Actually, they only make it to the end: Taramyn Barrcona (Gershwyn Eustache Jnr), dies just before they flee and Karis Namik (Alex Lawther), a young radical, is mortally injured in their spectacular escape.

Only Cassian, Skeen (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and leader Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay) make it to safety, and even then, there is ultimately no greater cause that binds them beyond the job they’ve just finished. Skeen suggests quietly to Andor they run with all of the money. Andor responds by shooting him. He then tells Vel about Skeen’s plan and his personal decision to take his cut and run, like he always said he would. A lesser story would bask in these characters’ success; Andor It is only the raw nerves that are offered instead.

It would be disservice to do anything else than that. Cassian Andor will be introduced by Rogue One, he’s a man who would die for the cause. To discover what cause you’d die for, is not a small task. So far Andor is succeeding because it’s taking that journey seriously, and not dodging a fundamental truth about organizing: It is hard for someone to look past their self-interest and dedicate themselves to a cause. It is up to them to identify their purpose, and to reach it in a way they can understand. Maybe for Cassian, that’s in Nemik’s final act, leaving Cassian his political manifesto, the thing he chose to die for. Maybe it’s a multitude of things. I have never been so eager to find out what the next Star Wars episode will bring.