Among the many radical elements of Andor, the most inherently shocking is the way it handles the villains of the Star Wars franchise. The story has always been ostensibly about the battle against tyrannical dictatorship, but only as far as "tyranny is bad" works as a baseline pass/fail check for human morality. Andor is unique in its ability to show the oppressive fascist state that rules its galaxy for what it is.
Looking back at the stormtroopers of the original trilogy, or even those of The Mandalorian 3 years ago, it's hard to believe that they're the same military force as the ISB of Andor. Not just because they're taken seriously or because they're more realistically cruel, but because they've suddenly dropped all the fanciful nonsense and started acting like the monsters that inspired them.
The first season of Andor isn't over yet, but if the show has a single thesis statement, it comes in the third episode. "Reckoning" is where the rubber meets the road for Andor. The titular hero has slain two local cops and is preparing to sell whatever he can and ditch his home planet. He meets Luthen Rael, the mysterious buyer who intends to bring Andor into the Rebellion. The two men meet under duress, the cops are on their way and Andor's window is closing. Under penalty of losing his sale, Luthen insists on knowing how Andor got his hands on Empire tech. Pressed and bribed, Andor explains that he just walked in and took it. He put on a uniform, strolled aboard a hostile government vessel, and pretended to belong. The Empire, he explains, is simply too assured of its own supremacy to even consider the possibility that a lowly commoner could steal from them.
Star Wars fans have seen just about every moment of the Empire's development throughout the franchise. They saw the civil war that eventually convinced the Republic to hand emergency powers over to a single strongman dictator. They saw the immediate and violent genocide of the new political body's enemies. They saw Jar Jar Binks cast the final vote that ended democracy and kickstarted an age of suppression. They've seen Empire troops in their shiny white armor commit countless atrocities in the name of a withered old sorcerer and his life-support-addled chosen one. Until Andor, however, the ways they've seen people fight back followed a certain structure.
One of the weakest points of the Star Wars franchise is its obsessive need to retread old ground. Another kid from the middle of nowhere with another blue laser sword has to defeat another fallen hero with another red one. It's like poetry, it rhymes. The stories tend to completely overlap, and not in a thematic way. Far too much of Star Wars has followed the exploits of a single blessed bloodline. Like a lot of "chosen one" stories, the idea that anyone could stand up, take up the weapons of revolution and become the hero the galaxy needs is lost in the shuffle. Luke, it turns out, isn't a farm boy who was willing to put it all on the line for his people. He's a predestined hero with unimaginable hidden power who just needed a little push to start on the correct path. But what about those of us who aren't the chosen one or one of his friends? Especially at a time when the world feels like it's under the heel of the Empire, how do we fight back?
Nearly every piece of Star Wars media features its heroes actively fighting against fascism, though the films would never use that word out loud. Andor, however, is the first piece of the franchise that can accurately be described as antifascist media. It isn't just casting a sci-fi facsimile of Nazi Germany in the role of its generic evil empire. Creator Tony Gilroy has infused the world of Star Wars with an unnervingly accurate understanding of both the power of fascism and its weaknesses. The Empire and the corpos that enforce its will aren't eldritch monsters, they're very real systems that we all deal with every day. The solution isn't a magical sword fight, it's much simpler than that. Steal their cash, band together to resist their will, and destroy what they have built. Take from them the order they believe they've instituted by force. Just walk in, they're too proud of themselves to see you coming.
It's fair to say that Andor is the smartest piece of the Star Wars universe, but it's also one of the best. Andor doesn't ruin the fantastical elements of its source material, nor does it deliberately spit in the face of the larger franchise. It's an evolution of the narrative, one could only follow what came before it. Andor may be the most powerful story ever to come out of the galaxy far, far away.
