‘Andor’ Episode 1 Recap: The Killer

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. 

To be sure, there’s something potentially, if not innately, cringey about the concept of “Star Wars for adults.” While adults have been able to enjoy Star Wars since the inception of the property, it has always been, and will in the main always be, a story for children first and foremost. There’s nothing wrong with that! The problem comes when people who were raised on Star Wars as kids and have since grown out of that original age group demand that the franchise continue to contort itself to their increasingly complex lives and attitudes, a demand it’s impossible for any franchise to weather. Sometimes you just have to let kids’ stuff be kids’ stuff and take what you can get out of it. It’s not for you anymore.

This does not appear to apply to Andor. Written by Bourne franchise impresario (and Rogue One writer/substitute director) Tony Gilroy, who also serves as showrunner, and directed by British TV veteran Toby Haynes, this premiere episode of Andor really does seem to have been tailored to Star Wars fans who want to see a genuinely adult story play out in the recognizable Star Wars milieu, i.e. a juxtaposition of multi-racial cosmopolitanism, weather-beaten poverty, and futuristic space travel. There was really nothing like this particular combination till George Lucas and friends dreamed it up. 

And as it turns out, there are all kinds of stories you can tell in this setting. There’s no need for them to be as slavishly indebted to past glories as the previous Disney+ TV shows or the JJ Abrams/Rian Johnson sequel trilogy; the setting is so replete that you can get away with virtually anything, if you’re willing to go there, and willing to go there this show most definitely is. The hero accidentally murders one guy, then kills another in cold blood while he begs for his life, inside the first ten minutes. The hero! Of a Star Wars show!

So, here’s your story. Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), future hero of Rogue One, is a refugee from a remote planet and has a childhood we witness in (miraculously) untranslated, un-subtitled foreign-language flashbacks. He winds up as some kind of scoundrel nibbling at the margins of a planet dominated by a major corporation, which is navigating the tricky space between its own autonomy and the demands the totalitarian Empire under which it operates. (Ask any arms manufacturer in Germany during the 1930s how this particular dance works.) 

After killing the pair of rent-a-cops who trail him from the brothel where he’s looking for his long-lost sister, Andor networks with his various friends and acquaintances — most notably a mechanic named Bix (Adria Arjona) and a beat-up droid with a stutter — across this sector in hopes of getting the hell out of town. On his heels is a corporate functionary named Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) who’s determined to defy the orders of his superior and nail those security-guard deaths down with an actual suspect in hand instead of covering up the crime to make the business look better to its overlords. 

Maybe it’s hard to explain if your job isn’t watching TV shows for a living, but the sense I kept coming away with while watching this episode is that this is a real television show, not just some exercise in copyright maintenance. The untranslated flashbacks, the genuinely adult subject matter, the cold-blooded killings, the sex workers, the working stiffs arrayed against corporate running dogs and their imperial masters — this feels like a real show, with real characters, with real style, with real things to say. 

Can it keep it up? Who knows? But as a critic, I’m in the liking-things business, and so far, I like Andor. More, please.
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.