One of the constant complaints I hear regarding Andor is how the first few episodes are boring, nothing happens, what was the point of all this? In this era when there isn’t a Michael Bay EXPLOSION INSIDE AN EXPLOSION!!! people think a particular show or movie is slow, but I found the pacing of Andor to be nearly perfect.
We all know the over-arching plot — Cassian Andor becomes a rebel intelligence officer, steals the Death Star plans, and dies, but what Tony Gilroy did was far deeper and more subtle than that. He was giving us the theme, we just had to take a breath, slow down and pay attention in order to see it.
In that opening episode he introduces us to two young men.
One is an aimless grifter, the trauma of his childhood has left him empty despite the love from his adopted parents, and he loses his father-figure in a brutal act of injustice at the hands of the Empire. But that unjust execution doesn’t turn Cassian into a revolutionary.
Instead, he becomes aimless, lost, drifting. Cassian cheats, steals, sleeps around, he’s a coward and a deserter, a small-time crook. The only thing that gives him any purpose is his search for his lost sister and that feels more like a story he tells himself to give himself some sense of self-worth. Cassian has no idea who he is or what he wants.
Contrast that with Syril Karn. Solidly middle-class. Reasonably well connected. Uncle Harlo can get him a job. Mom has a safe in the apartment with money and jewelry. Syril knows exactly who he is, his purpose, his goals. Doubts and confusion are unknown to him.
And then all that certainly, that sense of purpose, of his very self is stripped away in the flames and dust on the industrial planet of Ferrix. For Syril to doubt himself, his choices, his certainty, would leave him rudderless, lost and forced to examine the emptiness inside. He can’t face that, so he blames everything that happened, everything that went wrong on a single individual, the man who eluded him, humiliated him — Cassian Andor.
Cassian has no idea who Syril might be, he never gave that arrogant corpo a second thought, but for Syril, Andor is his obsession. He has become Javert. Syril has lost all sense of a broader purpose and been reduced to obsessing about one man. The genius of those early episodes is to introduce us to these two men, and then carefully, step by step begin to have them switch places. One man is evolving, the other devolving.
Syril had a code that governed his life. Cassian had only the desire to get through the next day with enough money for a drink and a boink. But by the time of Rogue One, Andor knows not only who he is but what he is fighting for and indeed willing to die for, and he has gone to serving a higher purpose.
You always get these questions — “What’s this character’s arc?” Well, Gilroy gave us an abundance of arc, and braids them together in this stunningly elegant way.
There is power in a story of transformation. And there is nothing at all boring about it.
In one of the final moments in Rogue One Andor asks Jen Urso, “Do you think anybody’s listening?”
Yes, Cass, they were listening, and you made Maarva proud.
Like most people who have taken the time to get into it, I was enthralled by the totality of the series. Even so, I did almost give up after those first three episodes. I’m glad I soldiered through, and in retrospect I’m glad I had that backstory to fully appreciate Cassian’s arc.
Unfair as it may be, I’m not sure that by reason alone you can convince audiences that something isn’t boring. Sometimes, you just have to do the work to get to the meat of things. Unfortunately, we are conditioned for instant gratification in our modern media consumption, so it simply takes a certain kind of person to invest the initial attention that reaps those later, substantial rewards. I’m sure most of us found Melville, Dickens, Brontë, Austen, and any number of worthy classical authors an interminable slog before we eventually learned to appreciate their more subtle pleasures (by today’s standards—if, in fact, we learned at all).
For my part, it did take me a good three weeks to get back into Andor after those first episodes, and I’m the type of viewer who normally has no problem with slow-build, 2001-style storytelling. It wasn’t the relative lack of action in those episodes; I simply felt insufficient impetus to care about where the story was going at that point. Any residual apathy immediately dissipated on viewing the fourth episode, however, and I was immediately gratified for climbing back on board.
Which is to say, ultimately, if I was bored during those initial episodes, it doesn’t mean that the material was executed poorly. Perhaps it was my fault for being unprepared to have my expectations challenged or to be roused from my Star Wars comfort zone. But the reality is, some people are going to be turned off by such a carefully-laid setup. Perhaps the only thing for it is the kind of word-of-mouth encouragement we’ve seen with Andor: “Stick with it! It really does get better!”
I have been preaching that gospel myself since I finished watching. That may seem like a callous dismissal of the early episodes, but I see it more as a heads up to prepare for the eventual change in tone. And really, does it ever become all that action-packed? Compared with your standard Mandalorian outing, I would say not. But as soon as the bigger picture comes clear—that we are not examining the deleterious effects of authoritarianism, not just on the oppressed but also on those operating within the system—it no longer matters whether Cassian is a likeable figure.
I think that’s what truly sets the later episodes apart. That quality of being bigger than the protagonist’s personal story, and the way they make you view living in the Star Wars universe through a different prism from any previously offered—that’s what ended up hooking me. It recalls Cassian’s scolding of Jyn in Rogue One, when he downloads on her for acting like she was the only one who lost loved ones to the Empire. The same can be said of Cassian, himself: at least he *had* a loving mentor in Maarva, and a place to call home. So many had far less to hold onto.
I do think modern audiences have been conditioned to expect a rather constant diet of action every 3 to 5 minutes, and look, I love a good action movie, but some things are worth savoring. And honestly the first episode has Cassian committing a brutal murder. Yeah the Corpo guards were bullies and thugs, but it didn’t need to be a death sentence. It shows us a lot about Cassian in that moment. Watching Cassian’s growing desperation as he tries to get money to get off world. And the tension created by those people on Ferris banging on their makeshift alarms. Of course the corporate guys were getting more and more terrified.
The other really interesting thing Cassian is that he isn’t really a leader. He’s a man who inspires others to lead — Jen, Kino, Brasso.
Frankly I found Andor to be a tediously overhyped show, heavily worshipped by annoying snobs.
Well, that’s why there are 31 flavors of ice cream. Not everyone has to like the same things. Sincerely, an Annoying Snob.
My metric for good writing is how many of the characters I can remember. Good or bad, a character has to incite at least some emotion in me. This doesn’t score well by that one for me.
Interesting, I loved the characters and I thought it was powerful how we finally got to see Mon Mothma as a fully realized person and not just a plastic figure. Also a woman who makes horrific choices in service of the rebellion. And Maarva, my god, what a force of nature. And Luthen’s speech to his mole inside ISB was breathtaking. And I loved the way the two men – Cassian and Syril were echoes of each other. One man sure of his purpose who has it stripped from him and the other an aimless ne’er do well who finds purpose and devotes his life and then loses his life in service of that higher purpose. And Kino what an amazing performance by Andy Serkis.