‘Andor’ Episode 6 Recap: The Raid

Andor is miraculous. I don’t know how else to put it. And I promise I’m not trying to overstate the case here, trying to make some claim that it stands with, I dunno, Deadwood or The Young Pope or Too Old to Die Young or other stuff made outside a franchise context. What I mean is that within its franchise, within the framework of Star Wars and, more specifically, how Star Wars stories are traditionally told, Andor feels like an impossible thing made real. I’m sitting there, watching it, and almost not believing my eyes and ears. 

Take this episode, “The Eye,” for example. It’s mostly a heist movie, and a very good one at that, courtesy of expert filmmaking by director Susanna White and a killer script by Dan Gilroy. It’s rooted in the minutiae of the rebel group’s raid on the Imperial compound and theft of some 80 million credits, enough to pay the employees of an entire Imperial sector. Some of that minutiae is character-based. Nemek, for example, couldn’t sleep the night before, and wonders why, given that his beliefs are so strong. Vel, the ringleader, at one point get a bad case of the nerves and has to will herself out of it while all her comrades sit and wait for her word. Luthen, the mastermind, and Mon Mothma, the bankroll, only hear about the success of the mission when word spreads on Coruscant, leaving him delighted and her stunned. Tamaryn, the guy in charge of making the disguised Nemek and Skeen and Andor into convincing Imperial troops, is revealed to have once been a stormtrooper. 

And we never find out why, or why he quit, or how he got away, or how he feels about it all now, because by the end of the episode he’s dead. So is Lieutenant Gorn, the inside man. So is Nemek, literally crushed to death by the weight of the money they stole. So is Skeen, who reveals himself as a traitor only in it for the money to Andor, mistakenly believing Andor feels the same way; Andor summarily executes him, insisting on taking only his cut before parting ways with Vel, the sole survivor once they’ve escaped. Cinta is left behind, presumably to be rescued at some point, but having willingly volunteered to be left on her own on a planet that will soon be crawling with the Empire’s forces. 

Then there’s all the physical business that goes into the caper. Jamming transmissions. Swimming through a reservoir. Rappelling down a towering dam. Pretending to be soldiers. Making it past various levels of Imperial scrutiny without getting found out. Holding non-combatants, including a child, hostage under threat of death. Forcing a high-ranking Imperial to open a vault and help his fellow captured Imperials load the money into the getaway craft, until he has a heart attack and dies. Navigating a meteor shower thick enough to pulp three pursuing TIE fighters (deployed from their hangar against a green sky in a brief scene that makes them look as menacing and cool as they’ve ever looked) without exchanging so much as a shot with them.

And the portrayal of the Imperials as human beings rather than cartoon martinets! Commandant Jayhold Beehaz (an excellent Stanley Townsend) cheerfully spewing the nastiest, most racist, most colonialist rhetoric about the local population (eg. “They have great difficulty holding multiple ideas simultaneously”) and the Imperial plan to destroy their way of life the way you’d talk about a football game. Jayhold chiding his son to dress up nice and cooperate while his wife fiddles with a belt that no longer fits him. Soldiers taking a break to make inappropriate comments about women and piss on a rock. (Pissing and sexual impropriety in a Star Wars show! My god.) Soldiers busting each other’s balls for running late, or acting legitimately grateful to be allowed to just chill out and watch the meteor shower, which all sides agree is a genuinely beautiful thing.

While we’re at it, let’s give one last shoutout to Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Skeen, who will not be joining us for the rest of his life, as they say in Die Hard. He’s marvelous during the raid itself — “Anyone who doesn’t wanna hustle for the next ten minutes, raise your hand” he says to the captured Imperials they plan to pressgang into moving the money for them, with a gun pointed at their heads — and chillingly convincing as an amoral asshole who wants to steal all the money for himself. He reveals that his powerful story about his brother who committed suicide due to the Empire’s depredations was bullshit, and offers to split the 80 million credits equally with Andor, which is without question also bullshit; Andor wouldn’t make it five minutes once they arrived at Skeen’s chosen destination. From a character you love to a character you loathe in a matter of moments, all anchored by a steely performance that shifts motivation without shifting demeanor. It’s marvelous work.

As is what Diego Luna is doing as Andor. I’ll admit that I harbored some skepticism about this whole project based on Luna’s work as the character in Rogue One, which I found a little flat. Not so here. You can see his fear, his anxiety, his determination, his cynicism, and his growing sense of scruples in every shot that focuses on Luna’s face. Thief, mercenary, rebel: These are the shapes he’s taken depending on the needs of the moment, the only constants being hatred of the Empire and a desire for self-preservation. To watch his horizons expand into a desire to preserve not just himself but everyone under the Empire’s boot, slowly but surely, is reason enough to watch this show.

But there are plenty of reasons, oh man, are there ever. Human, humane, and absolutely thrilling on a genre level, Andor, like Interview with the Vampire and House of the Dragon, proves that nerd-franchise filmmaking on television can be real television, with real stakes and real characters and real motivations and real complexities that can’t be resolved with a visit to the wiki. I’m so glad it exists.
Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.