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It’s not often you hear the word “genocide” uttered without equivocation on television, especially on the Disney+ streaming service. So it was a bit of a shock to encounter the term in a late episode of the second season of Andor, the Star Wars spinoff miniseries that has become something of a Game of Thrones in George Lucas’s expanded space opera universe: grittier, more brutal, and more politically charged than its predecessors. In the scene in question, a liberal, idealistic senator in the Imperial government that controls much of the galaxy opposes a vengeful attack on protesting residents of Ghorman, a planet the Empire seeks to subjugate and militarize. The senator, Mon Mothma, risks her political career and her life to deliver an emergency speech about the incident. “What happened on Ghorman yesterday was an unprovoked genocide. Yes, genocide,” Mothma declares. The other Senators are instantly thrown into confusion, and Mothma must be secretly escorted out of the spherical Senate chamber to avoid being kidnapped by the defector.
“Andor” is an incredibly complex set-up. It’s easy to get lost in the plethora of planet names, revolutionary factions, alien races, and robotic helpers (I particularly liked the party-going paparazzi droid). There are entire subplots, including a high-end gallery, a Gagos of sorts, that peddles alien artifacts, some of which may be fake. But the show — created by screenwriter Tony Gilroy, the man behind the ethically wrenching legal thriller “Michael Clayton” and several of the “Jason Bourne” scripts — is best enjoyed if you can ignore the most obvious cues from “Star Wars” canon and appreciate the intricate political conversion arc that the show’s two seasons trace. (According to Gilroy, the story was originally planned for five seasons but later cut, making it a welcome exception to the pervasive streaming bloat.) Fables ultimately work partly through defamiliarization, casting an archetypal conflict into a world we’re familiar with even if we don’t live in it—the constant absence of princesses and fairies in our lives doesn’t diminish the symbolism of Cinderella. In the case of “Andor,” underneath all the laser blasters and X-wing spaceships, you’ll find some of the sharpest critiques of contemporary political gridlock on television.
The titular character is pilot Cassian Andor, played by Diego Luna, an orphan who was taken in on his home planet by sympathetic smugglers. Charming and gruff, Andor is a lonely space cowboy accustomed to the hustle and bustle of life. However, while trying to find his long-lost sister, Andor becomes embroiled in the formation of the Rebel Alliance, a guerrilla operation against the Galactic Empire, a fascist regime led by Emperor Sheev Palpatine. Andor is mentored by Luten Rael, played by Stellan Skarsgård, a grizzled spy who sends his protégé on various mysterious missions to help organize or carry out Rebel attacks on the Empire. The paternal bond that forms between Rael and Andor is the heart of the series. Rael radicalizes Andor as he was once radicalized, forcing him to work for a revolution he is unlikely to see, which will require much dirty work in the present. “I burn my integrity for someone else’s future,” he says at one point. His all-or-nothing strategy of wild provocations, often sacrificing his pawns, increasingly clashes with Andor’s desire for stability and the demands of the Rebellion’s growing ranks, which demand hierarchy and governance—bureaucrats, not assassins.
“Andor” dramatizes the nuances of political difference: everyone is someone else’s extremist. As the Imperial military director says, “My rebel is your terrorist.” (The director is in the middle of building the Death Star, but it’s hard to imagine Mark Hamill’s moralistic Luke Skywalker in the same dystopian universe.) Cyril Carn, an Imperial bureaucrat played by Kyle Soller, undergoes a radicalization parallel to Andor’s, enthusiastically supporting Imperial oppression; egged on by his own superiors, until it’s too late to stop. Mon Mothma, a senator played by Genevieve O’Reilly, is liberal compared to her colleagues, but she’s also an asset to Rael and a secret supporter of the Rebellion. Extremism may make things happen in “Andor,” but it often leaves its adherents vulnerable. To act is to become a target.
The main plotline of the new season centers on Gorman, a planet of Swiss-French-style weavers who wear elegant berets and raise silk-producing arachnids. The usually sedate Gormans are thrown into disarray when the Empire begins construction of a massive geometric structure at the center of their
Sourse: newyorker.com
