Watch Andor Season 1 with Tony Gilroy live on March 13 at noon PT, and catch the first three episodes from Season 1 on the Disney+ YouTube channel or enjoy the entire first season now streaming on Hulu for a limited time.
As is the case with so many heroic characters in Star Wars – Luke Skywalker among them – life-changing events are thrust upon Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), forcing him to flee his homeworld of Ferrix with Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) and join a rebel heist already in its final planning stages. From here, Cassian enters a larger world, and will endure trials that shape his choices about the course of his life.
Now 20 years after we first watched Luke’s father, Anakin Skywalker, become Darth Vader in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (2005), a long-awaited answer to one of the saga’s defining questions of how the Sith Lord came to be, Cassian’s journey raises a new question. Andor (2022-25) is not about how Cassian will meet his fate, but how he will become the man willing to make such a heroic sacrifice. As Luthen tells Cassian with poignant frankness, “I imagine your hate. I imagine that no matter what you tell me or you tell yourself, you’ll ultimately die fighting these bastards.”
Andor’s creator and executive producer Tony Gilroy once told StarWars.com, “If the title hadn’t been used before, you could almost call the show The Winds of War.” The story told across the second arc of Andor’s first season — including “Aldhani,” “The Axe Forgets,” and “The Eye,” all directed by Susannah White and written by Dan Gilroy; and “Announcement,” directed by Benjamin Caron and written by Stephen Schiff — takes those “winds of war” to a hurricane-level.
Crossing the Threshold
After years of steadily increasing Imperial authority and oppression across the galaxy, a relatively simple heist orchestrated on a remote, occupied world sparks an equal measure of reactionary power on the part of the Empire and rebellious fervor amongst its opponents. Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) of the Imperial Security Bureau is correct in surmising that the daring operation was an announcement. The Rebels are organizing, and all-out war seems on the horizon.
While this storyline broadens our scope of the emerging galactic conflict, Cassian’s own journey comes into sharper focus. From his appearance in Rogue One, the series’ namesake has remained a slightly enigmatic figure in the Star Wars canon. Like Han Solo, Boba Fett, or even Qui-Gon Jinn before him, Cassian is defined by peculiar ambiguities. The first time audiences meet him in Rogue One, he is presented as both a committed operative in service of a greater cause and someone willing to kill an ally in order to evade capture. In the early episodes of Andor, we see Cassian struggle between conflicting motivations — ties to his past, his family, and his home as well as aspirations to go out into the wider galaxy and a fierce hatred for the Empire.
“[Cassian] has so much to learn,” Gilroy has noted. “It's the road to Damascus for him. It's a real education. There's a pivotal moment where he can no longer pretend that he's completely unaffected by the Empire anymore. He can no longer pretend that he's gonna be a mercenary. He can no longer have one foot in and one foot out. He's in such a deep, deep problem…. He has to make some really big decisions about who he's gonna be.”
The influential mythologist Joseph Campbell – whose work formed a central influence for George Lucas in the creation of Star Wars – defined this stage in a hero’s journey as the crossing of a threshold, the first step into unknown territory full of inhabitants that will present both physical and psychological challenges. As Campbell himself would explain about Han Solo’s similar journey, “The adventure evoked a quality of his character that he hadn’t known he possessed.”
A Cross Section of the Rebel Spirit
Filmed on location in the Scottish highlands of the United Kingdom, Aldhani is a lightly-populated world that has suffered Imperial occupation for some ten years. Its native Dhani are a rural people, living in kinship with the land, but with no means of actively resisting the Empire’s technological force. The small group of rebels whom Cassian joins as a last-minute addition disguise themselves as peaceful Dhani herders.
Led by Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay), the ragtag group has planned a covert operation to infiltrate a nearby Imperial garrison and steal tens of millions of credits. It’s a classic Western heist that feels apt for Star Wars. The rest of the group is composed of former stormtrooper Taramyn Barcona (Gershwyn Eustache, Jr.), committed rebel Cinta Kaz (Varada Sethu), young freedom fighter Karis Nemik (Alex Lawther), and jaded, former prisoner Arvel Skeen (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). They are assisted by a double agent, Lt. Gorn (Sule Rimi), an Imperial officer who has grown to hate his own faction.
Cassian enters this group as a mercenary, having agreed on a payment and terms with Luthen. At first, only Vel knows of this context, but when it’s later revealed to the others, Cassian’s trustworthiness comes into doubt. Although the others are equally suspicious and abrasive, they each appear to have committed reasons to serve the rebel cause, ranging from Arvel’s self-motivated desire for revenge to Karis’ aspirational vision of overcoming tyranny.
“Everyone has their own rebellion,” Vel tells Cassian. But where does that leave the central character? This question defines the entirety of Andor’s first season. “I know what I’m against,” he attempts to explain to the cohort on Aldhani. “Everything else will have to wait.” In one respect, his choice of alias belies one of his deeper motivations. The group knows him as Clem, which Cassian took from his late, adopted father. It’s only after the heist, when Cassian returns to Ferrix, that a flashback reveals how Cassian watched Clem die at the hands of Imperial soldiers when the former was still a child.
If the heist demonstrates anything, however, it’s that Cassian is a natural in the field. He doesn’t hesitate. He acts decisively. He acknowledges his fear and knows how to manage it. Vel, by contrast, struggles at first as the operation gets underway. Cassian’s upbringing — full of upheaval, oppression, and loss — has prepared him to become an effective and ruthless operative.
Turning Inward and Outward
The rebel crew that successfully pulls off the Aldhani heist represent emotional archetypes, each an ingredient in Cassian’s own complex disposition. The tension between these different motivations forms his sense of ambiguity. The heist itself demonstrates this. The rebels kill as a means of intimidation and take a mother and child hostage. After the survivors make their escape, Cassian murders Arvel, who attempts to broker a deal with him to steal their prize and betray the cause. And although their success provides inspiration to other would-be rebels, the ramifications of the mission lead to a massive Imperial crackdown across the galaxy, sparking further oppression and suffering.
But as Luthen sees it, these are necessary sacrifices in service of the greater rebellion. We will see Cassian move further in the direction of Luthen’s philosophy, with one significant exception: Cassian continues to have a sense of compassion and loyalty to his friends and family. After the heist, Cassian’s first instinct is to return to Ferrix and attempt to take his adopted mother, Maarva (Fiona Shaw), with him to safety.
The irony is that Maarva refuses, in part because she’s been inspired by the Aldhani heist and remains committed to subverting the Imperial presence on her homeworld. This leaves Cassian adrift, unsure where to turn next, stuck between his hatred for the Empire and eagerness to protect his loved ones. He feels unable to do much about either problem, and as he languishes at a beachside resort, the arbitrary power of the Empire inflicts itself upon him once again. Cassian is arrested for “loitering” — but really just simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time — and given a six-year prison sentence.
Having crossed the threshold, Cassian must now descend into what Joseph Campbell described in mythical terms as “the belly of the whale,” a trial where the hero confronts their deepest complexities, and with any luck, emerges once again, reborn.
Continue your rewatch of Andor with StarWars.com as we analyze the remaining arcs of Season 1 in Andor Revisited. Andor Season 2 is now streaming on Disney+.
