My Illustrious Co-Host Stefan Sasse and I continue our breakneck podcasting pace with new Patreon-exclusive episodes on The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Episode 6 (disappointing!) and Andor Episode 4 (invigorating!). Go subscribe and check ’em out!

Four episodes (though just two weeks) into Andor, and I remain shocked by just how good it is. And having made similar statements on Twitter, I feel the need to clarify and caveat a bit. Is it The Sopranos? No. But is it, say, Obi-Wan Kenobi? Also, no, and that’s a good thing. This is a real show, with a real message yes, but more importantly with real moments that are not necessary to move the plot or pop the fans with Easter eggs and references. 

There are going to be viewers and critics who are so disgusted with Disney Star Wars material that this simply will not penetrate to them, and that’s fine, I totally get it, it’s not hard for me to imagine being in that position too. But I’m too shocked by the show’s many subtle, legitimately subtle, touches of personal and interpersonal drama to share that disgust. Again, Andor is a real show. Given the machine that produced it, that’s a minor miracle.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Andor for Decider.

My illustrious cohost Stefan Sasse and I have posted not one but two Patreon-exclusive new podcasts, one on the most recent episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and one focused on the three-part series premiere of Andor! We’ve got a very ambitious schedule going on right now so there’s no guarantee of future Andor episodes, although at the rate TRoP is going we might decide to switch, who knows. Subscribe and listen! And hey, they’re at two different tiers, so you can select one that’s right for your budget!

And we can talk about how the villains of the piece are, unambiguously, cops — not even stormtroopers or Imperial officers, but literal boys in blue. They trash homes, they bully civilians, they beat a female suspect, they shoot an unarmed man to death for failing to comply. Sure, they work for a corporation rather than “protecting and serving” on behalf of the people. What else is new?

The point I’m trying to make is this: When George Lucas envisioned the original Star Wars trilogy as a story of rebellion against an empire, he was thinking of Vietnam and the American war machine. But that hard-to-miss metaphor kind of slipped into subliminal range because the Imperials were hard to see as American analogues; their overall vibe owed too much to Nazi Germany (“stormtroopers,” for god’s sake) and, honestly, their awesome white armor was too cool-looking in a faceless sort of way. 

Not so here. So far, Andor’s rebellion is one of normal people banding together to fight law enforcement. It’s shootouts with corporate security forces. It’s hidden nexuses of resistance to the everyday depredations of forces that seem too big to fight against, until someone does it. Success is not guaranteed, and will not entail a big award ceremony in a temple on Yavin IV. At best it might make some small part of the galaxy a bit more livable for the people in it, for a moment or too. Is that worth fighting for? Is it worth dying for? Is it worth killing for? The show, crafted so skillfully in so many ways by creator/writer/showrunner Tony Gilroy and director Toby Haynes, is on Disney+, so its radicalism only takes you so far, but still, it has its answer. What’s yours?

I reviewed the third episode of Andor for Decider.

The Disney Star Wars Universe is a fictional world in which plot is privileged over all, in which fanservice and Easter eggs are held up as superior artistic achievements to virtually any other aesthetic consideration. With that in mind, it’s worth saluting the fellow who did nothing else but bang a metallic drum that signals the end of the work day for the working stiffs who populate Andor.

Why is he there? Why does the show repeatedly take time out of its already truncated running time to show us his routine? Because it adds something, dammit. Because little details that are unnecessary for plot movement are, outside the auspices of major franchise properties anyway, the stuff that good drama is made from. They’re like the huge, very un-Star Wars drums that hit on the soundtrack just prior to the end of the episode: They stick out, and insist that you experience them. I don’t want to make too much of the guy myself — it’s just a couple of little moments, that’s all — but those little moments linger.

I reviewed the second episode of Andor for Decider.

As a score that’s more John Carpenter than John Williams plays in the background, out-of-focus lights pass by overhead. A man walks in the rain through a red-light district of an alien city, in which various life-forms attempt to entice passers-by through Amsterdam-style show windows. The man enters a brothel — later referred to as such, by name — where an exotic-dancer hologram cavorts and employees attempt to entice him to try various wares from various exotic locales. 

The man refuses; he’s looking for his long-lost sister, not a good time. In the process, he makes enemies of two corporate rent-a-cops, who follow him out of the establishment into a dark alley and stick him up for money. 

The man fights back, accidentally killing one of his muggers before getting the drop on the other. Rather than report the death to the authorities together, as the remaining assailant begs him to do, he simply shoots the other guy to death in cold blood. More moody synths play on the soundtrack. 

So ends the first ten minutes of Andor, Disney+’s new serialized Star Wars drama. It’s true that my knowledge of the material is not exhaustive. But it’s safe to say that based on what I’ve seen, these ten minutes are more interesting than everything I’ve seen from the Disney Star Wars machine since Rogue One — combined. 

I reviewed the excellent first episode of Andor for Decider.