‘Andor’ Episode 3 Recap: When They Kick at Your Front Door, How You Gonna Come?

Plot? You wanna know about the plot of this episode of Andor? With everything else there is to talk about? Okay, sure, we can talk about the plot if you want. Briefly. 

We open with another flashback to young Cassian Andor, exploring a crashed ship. It’s there he first meets Maarva and her droid B2EMO; along with a partner, they’re scavenging the ship for parts, and they take li’l Andor with them so he isn’t killed by Republic troops when they discover the crash and the crewmate that the kids killed outside. 

In the present, Andor meets up with Stellan Skarsgård’s character, who Google tells me is named Luthen Rael. But it’s not really the expensive Imperial maguffin in Andor’s possession that he’s come for: It’s Andor himself. Rael, who knows all about Andor — up to and including the fact that the Empire hanged his father — recognizes traits in the young thief that would make him valuable to a…well, you know what you call it when a bunch of rebels get together to fight.

But corporate security forces led by our villains Karn and Kostek descend on the town where all this is going down, thanks to the tipoff they received from Timm, boyfriend of Andor and Rael’s connection, Bix. They ransack Maarva’s place, they beat the shit out of Bix, they shoot Timm to death when he runs to her aid, and they surround the abandoned factory where Andor and Rael meet up.

A firefight ensues, and the pair escape thanks both to Rael’s quick thinking (he rigged the doors to explode and shoots the chains hoisting heavy metal girders above the factory floor, making passage impossible) and a ruse concocted by Andor in which they launch an empty speeder at the bad guys. (In other words, yes, it’s the thing from the end of Road House.) 

After getting the drop on Karn, who is stunned into near-catatonia by the total failure of his mission, they leave the planet. Maarva and Bix, both abandoned by their temporary captors, are left behind to mourn. 

With all that out of the way, we can talk about the stuff that really matters, if you’re making a real show and not just doing copyright maintenance — the way it looks, sounds, feels.

We can talk about that factory where the shootout takes place, all brick and metal, functional rather than futuristic. We can talk about how the shootout actually takes advantage of its environment, forcing the characters to bob and weave and try to use its equipment to their advantage, instead of simply arranging people on opposite sides of a boxy soundstage and having them miss at close range.

We can talk about the devastation on actor Kyle Soller’s face as Karn when he realizes Andor has escaped and his ass is on the line for it. His eyes fill with tears, he stares straight ahead, he doesn’t even respond when Kostek screams at him that they have to get the hell out of there. The show lingers on his regret and fear, emotions far removed from the usual Star Wars villain two-step of “I’m evil” and “uh-oh, what if I’m good?”

We can talk about Nicholas Brittell’s striking and propulsive score, utterly unlike any Star Wars music I’ve heard before — and, for that matter, unlike that maddeningly repetitious piano tinkle he whipped up for Succession that everyone seems to love so much for some reason.

We can talk about the lovely final shots: Maarva and B2EMO, sitting sadly, lit by the gray afternoon sun through their window; young Andor, staring into the golden sunlight as a smiling Maarva takes him on his first flight; older Andor, staring out the window of Rael’s spaceship, his expression grim, his thoughts on what he’s lost and the danger he’s now placed himself in.

And we can talk about how the villains of the piece are, unambiguously, cops — not even stormtroopers or Imperial officers, but literal boys in blue. They trash homes, they bully civilians, they beat a female suspect, they shoot an unarmed man to death for failing to comply. Sure, they work for a corporation rather than “protecting and serving” on behalf of the people. What else is new?

The point I’m trying to make is this: When George Lucas envisioned the original Star Wars trilogy as a story of rebellion against an empire, he was thinking of Vietnam and the American war machine. But that hard-to-miss metaphor kind of slipped into subliminal range because the Imperials were hard to see as American analogues; their overall vibe owed too much to Nazi Germany (“stormtroopers,” for god’s sake) and, honestly, their awesome white armor was too cool-looking in a faceless sort of way. 

Not so here. So far, Andor’s rebellion is one of normal people banding together to fight law enforcement. It’s shootouts with corporate security forces. It’s hidden nexuses of resistance to the everyday depredations of forces that seem too big to fight against, until someone does it. Success is not guaranteed, and will not entail a big award ceremony in a temple on Yavin IV. At best it might make some small part of the galaxy a bit more livable for the people in it, for a moment or too. Is that worth fighting for? Is it worth dying for? Is it worth killing for? The show, crafted so skillfully in so many ways by creator/writer/showrunner Tony Gilroy and director Toby Haynes, is on Disney+, so its radicalism only takes you so far, but still, it has its answer. What’s yours?

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.