Andor season 1 review: Breaking down its hero by building up his home

It creeps up on us, but how good do you know Ferrix at the end? Andor’s first season. At first it’s deceptively like Tatooine: a miserable place that’s meant to be left behind by its protagonist, swept away by more exciting things that we’ve come to expect from Star Wars. Cassian Andor leaves to experience the Star Wars adventures. AndorFerrix is never completely gone. It is attracted to the small details like the wall on which workers hang their hands after each shift. Or the bell tower, where an old man with ceremonial grace beats his anvil. The Daughters of Ferrix is a social movement that is active but not inactive. Corporate cops are another option.

The viewer is never fully informed about any of it. They’re just visiting, and AndorYou can overlook Ferrix for the first time. But maybe not at the end. By the end the viewer might feel like they’re part of something.

Andor’s season 1 finale does something remarkable with its climax. It gets smaller, bringing most of its disparate players — ISB officer Dedra Meero, the remaining rebels in the burgeoning movement, saboteur Luthen Rael, and wannabe Imperial Syril Karn — back to Ferrix. It’s Maarva Andor’s funeral, and the many people hunting for Cassian Andor correctly anticipate that he won’t be able to resist paying respects to his adoptive mother.

Andor’s last few visits to Ferrix, the Empire has effectively taken over the place. Imperials have slowly increased in number on the town’s crowded streets, watching everything, making an already meager existence almost impossible. People who might be aware of any rebellious activities, such as Bix, are being taken by them and tortured until they cannot stand. They’re a blight on an already bleak horizon, and that’s before they get even more troops in to hunt Cassian down.

A young Cassian looks over as hordes of Stormtroopers march through the streets of Ferrix

Lucasfilm

Much of the final episode is centered around Maarva’s funeral. It’s an elaborate, beautiful, and somber thing, steeped in ceremony that both honors the working-class roots of Ferrix and imbues it with grace. There’s a processional and a marching band and a stone to honor her, all of it juxtaposed against the increased Imperial presence, like two lines of fuel spilling through the streets. Then, when a posthumous message from Maarva speaks of resistance, of the boot that’s been on Ferrix’s neck for too long, a spark sets the town ablaze.

Andor, as The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer wrote, has always been concerned with WhyStar Wars Universe characters choose which side they prefer.

“The show is populated by ordinary people who become revolutionaries or Imperial cronies, not just magic monks, space-cowboy smugglers, or ruthless bounty hunters,” Serwer writes. “Similarly, the show’s factions, whether part of the Rebels or the Empire, are not monolithic but troubled by their own divisions and rivalries. In other words, the show is interested inWhat kind of person are you? joins the Rebels or goes Imperial, and why.”

Ferrix is the place where this philosophy roosts. You can find this philosophy at Ferrix. Andor’s first season, nearly every character has to decide where they stand, and that inflection point is different for every character. Some, like the young, radical manifesto writer Nemik, are morally opposed to the Empire seemingly from the start, and stand in opposition simply because it’s the moral thing to do. Others, like Mon Mothma, think they can safely resist from inside the system while still holding on to their scruples — something she is disabused of when, in the season’s final episodes, she is forced to deal with a white-collar criminal if she wants to do her part. Surprisingly, she agrees to the marriage offer even though this means that her daughter will be heir to a criminal family.

Mon Mothma sits in her large, recessed couch perfectly in the center of a the frame as two others stand at either end, addressing her.

Lucasfilm

Cassian Andor, on the other hand, is a convincing example. From the start, showrunner Tony Gilroy and the writers he’s collaborated with have made it clear that Cassian is no fool. He’s a man who knows what the Empire is doing and will never play along, but as he regularly insists to rebels like Vel Sartha, there’s no use in fighting the system, just getting what’s his. His outlook was not changed by going to prison, but it only strengthened his determination to run away.

Cassian runs from the person he knows he is in. Rogue OneEven though he has a strong sense to protect himself, he’s not the isolated person that he would like. He has people, and those people are on Ferrix — even if, like with Maarva, all he can do is say goodbye.

Cassian Andor goes back to Ferrix. Ferrix is the place that gave Cassian his name. Ferrix was also where Kassa and Kenari changed, which made him angrier. And it’s on Ferrix where he finally sees the limits of his lonely form of anger, as B2EMO broadcasts a posthumous message from Maarva that inspires her mourners to action, to rise up against the Imperials that have been slowly suffocating them for no good reason. All of Ferrix participates in the revolt: the man at the belltower and the workers, traders, and the Daughters of Ferrix. The rebels gain something as powerful, but Andor also loses all.

Andor writes its thesis on the streets of this forgotten little town — rebellions must be personal, but that is only the first step. These must be shared, transcending diverse ideologies and socio-economic borders, with a common idea. It’s enough. When this happens, a rebellion is transformed into a revolution. It’s on the streets of Ferrix that the rebels become Rebels. It’s the place where Cassian Andor is broken, and ready to be rebuilt into someone that can help shape this communal anger, after finally reaching the limits of his own.

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