Andor in the Rear View Mirror

Of course I have thoughts on the extended finale of Andor:

Andor doesn’t simply mimic Le Carre, but rather understands how Smiley’s world works on a deep level. Just as Le Carre built his plots around richly drawn, deeply flawed characters, Andor comes by its character notes honestly. In the Karla Trilogy the victories and defeats of the Circus and Moscow Centre come down to the advantages that each has in exploiting the personal flaws of their opposites. Smiley is vulnerable because of his philandering wife; Karla is vulnerable because of his deep affection for his mentally ill daughter. 

The drama doesn’t work if the characters are shallowly drawn, something that showrunner Tony Gilroy uses as an excuse to create some of the most richly developed characters in all of Star Wars.

The central players have implied or explicit backstories that make their reasoning intelligible and their flaws natural. Dedra Meero, senior officer in the Imperial Security Bureau (roughly the Star Wars equivalent of the KGB), leverages a personal relationship to achieve an intelligence coup on Ghorman, accidentally leading to the death of her partner. Indeed, information about the Death Star becomes available because Meero determines to go rogue in her hunt for rebel intelligence operatives, inadvertently collecting and then making available a trove of information about the Imperial battle station. 

The analog nature of the entire Star Wars universe (switches, buttons, and levers instead of digital interfaces) serves the Cold War comparison well; Andor even references technologies (radio pulse crystals) that are key to some of the more obscure corners of the Smiley canon.

Other reactions:

• Shirly Li in the Atlantic…
• Roxana Hadidi on Little Cassian…
• Interview with writer Tom Bissell on fitting Andor’s final arc with Rogue One…

Here are the UConn Popcast boys:

Photo Credit: By Eva Rinaldi – Tony Gilroy, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=164874649