[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 1 finale of Andor.]
A lot of major plot points are packed into the Season 1 finale of Andor, but really, one of the year’s most powerful episodes of television came down to a speech from a dead woman.
Fiona Shaw’s work was the definition of Emmy-worthy in the back half of the season, as Cassian Andor (Diego Luna)’s adoptive mother, fully aware that she was nearing the end of her days, became fully committed to one goal: doing whatever she could to combat the rise of the Empire. Her passing in Episode 11, as seen from the point of view of her loyal droid B2EMO, was already a heartbreaking moment for the show — the childlike sadness of “I want Maarva” jerking tears from anyone who’s ever lost a loved one. But then came her speech at her own funeral, courtesy of B2EMO projection.
Here is the whole damn speech, because it was worthy of transcribing:
My name is Maara Carassi Andor. I’m honored to stand before you. I’m honored to be a Daughter of Ferrix, and honored to be worthy of the stone. Strange, I… feel as if I could see it. I was six, I think, first time I touched a funerary stone. Heard our music, felt our history. Holding my sister’s hand as we walked all the way from Fountain Square.
Where you stand now, I’ve been more times than I can remember. I always wanted to be lifted. I was always eager, always waiting to be inspired. I remember every time it happened, every time the dead lifted me… with their truth. And now I’m dead. And I yearn to lift you. Not because I want to shine or even be remembered. It’s because I want you to go on. I want Ferrix to continue. In my waning hours, that’s what comforts me most.
But I fear for you. We’ve been sleeping. We’ve had each other, and Ferrix, our work, our days. We had each other and they left us alone. We kept the trade lanes open, and they left us alone. We took their money and ignored them, we kept their engines churning, and the moment they pulled away, we forgot them. Because we had each other. We had Ferrix.
But we were sleeping. I’ve been sleeping. And I’ve been turning away from the truth I wanted not to face. There is a wound that won’t heal at the center of the galaxy. There is a darkness reaching like rust into everything around us. We let it grow, and now it’s here. It’s here and it’s not visiting anymore. It wants to stay. The Empire is a disease that thrives in darkness — it is never more alive than when we sleep. It’s easy for the dead to tell you to fight and maybe it’s true, maybe fighting is useless. Perhaps it’s too late. But I’ll tell you this. If I could do it again, I’d wake up early and be fighting these bastards from the start. Fight the empire!
Andor (Disney+)
The violent riot that erupts after an Imperial officer tries to cut off the speech — well, we’ve seen this scene before. We’ve even seen it in the context of Star Wars. Here, though, it doesn’t end in triumph but in retreat; because the sad truth of most rebellions is that those on the street level often get crushed.
But what’s so powerful about her words (credited to creator Tony Gilroy, who wrote the episode) isn’t the call to fight. As Maarva says, it’s easy for the dead to make these calls to action; the real impact comes in what she says earlier. “There is a darkness reaching like rust into everything around us.” she says. “We let it grow, and now it’s here.”
As a franchise, the concept of rebellion against an evil empire has always been embedded in Star Wars, but what the core films have sometimes struggled to capture is what it means to find yourself complicit in that evil empire. For when we don’t act, we are complicit in some way.
Maarva’s funeral also exposes another way in which Andor proved how much more richly television can explore a narrative — Star Wars is packed with exotic worlds and alien races, but Andor really dug into the idea that these aren’t random planets, but fully-realized cultures.
It’s not just the idea of Ferrix as a real place, with its own history and traditions, is showcased beautifully by the opportunity to see a Ferrix funeral ritual, unique and specific to how these people have come to live together. We also learn that those from Mon Mothma’s home world of Chandrila often marry as young teenagers, a custom considered old-fashioned but also now increasingly popular. We never hear Cassian or his sister speak a word of “Galactic Basic” on his original home planet, but we still discover a lot about his original tribe of scavenger children in those flashbacks. From the Aldhani festival surrounding “The Eye” to the intricate rules of a prison where as a reward your food can have flavor, the world-building across all these different worlds really shone.
Andor (Disney+)
In my initial review of the season, my notes were relatively simple: The first four episodes suffered from a key structural problem, specifically that most installments just kind of shrug their way to a conclusion, as opposed to delivering a strong cliffhanger that propels the viewer into the next episode. (“Will Andor read those manuals before dawn?!?” Oh, the drama!)
Later episodes did get a little better about this, and the season finale ends on a perfect final beat. And beyond that issue, from the beginning of the series there was already a fascinating undercurrent brewing, of what it means to face the realities of an increasingly corrupt and/or controlling system when you live inside it. And in its quiet way, Andor shone in its first season thanks to its capacity to explore those gray areas.
As a writer who often covers shows and movies like this, stories told from within the confines of a corporate-owned story-verse, what becomes most exciting about reviewing them is discovering what they can get away with within that corporate structure. Whether it be a superhero movie that’s also a portrait of grief or a Matrix movie that directly acknowledges the disease of sequel-itis, creators often find ways to deliver powerful themes within the context of blockbusters — media seen by millions, with the resulting power to make a real impact.
Andor deserves a lot of acclaim for so many facets of the series: That incredible three-part tale of a prison without escape, and the lives destroyed by it. The way it’s so far resisted the need to include cameos from pre-established characters of this era — with the exception of Forest Whitaker as Saw Gerrera, whose story was already entwined with the Rogue One narrative being set up by this prequel. The fact that while it’s yet another prequel, it’s a prequel largely focused on characters whose futures haven’t been fully written already (yes, Obi-Wan Kenobi, that was directed at you).
While Cassian Andor’s eventual fate might be known to anyone who’s seen Rogue One, where his journey takes him in Season 2 remains thrilling to anticipate. In part due to Luna’s exceptional performance, which leans heavily on his ability to communicate a lot while saying little. In the final moments of the episode, he says just eight words: “No game. Kill me… or take me in.” But he packs them with an entire season’s worth of change and anger and determination to do what Maarva says… and fight.
And in case you needed a reminder as to why this fight matters, what lurks on the horizon, here comes a real gut-punch of a post-credits scene: The camera captures a small insect-like droid hard at work building something, before zooming out to reveal the project in progress: the Death Star. The scope of this moment, the way the superlaser cannon well seems so vulnerable in its half-complete state… It’s like looking at a wounded scorpion, except not wounded — simply incomplete.
That chilling moment of film is what Andor as a series captures: How the small things matter, because they can add up to something so much bigger. Inspiration to resist the darkness can come from anywhere, whether it be the funeral speech of a dead woman, or a TV prequel produced for a streaming service, based on a decades-old franchise. It doesn’t matter where the inspiration to resist comes. It just matters that it happens.
Andor Season 1 is streaming now on Disney+. A second season is expected to premiere in 2024.