Andor: a Star Wars series created by the phenomenal Tony Gilroy, delves deep into themes of fascism, propaganda, and rebellion – holding up a mirror to the reality we live in. Set five years prior to the events of Rogue One, it follows the journey of Cassian Andor – a rebel spy working against the Empire. Why Andor has managed to establish itself as undoubtedly the best Star Wars show and a decade-defining piece of television is because it dares to be more than just Star Wars and fan service.

It strips away the supernatural elements of Jedi and Lightsabers, diving headfirst into the essence of rebellion – the simple lives caught in its brewing. There is no chosen one here. Cassian Andor is not your typical hero; he is just a man trying to survive, to protect his loved ones, and to live to see another sunrise.

I won’t lie, I walked into the show blind, on a friend’s recommendation, grossly uneducated on Star Wars, unaware it was even a prequel. By the end of a 26-hour marathon (completed in just two sittings, with one single coffee break), I emerged a drastically transformed person.

Because a lot of things happened simultaneously: I fell in love with the world of Star Wars, my ears rang with the ghost of what might be one of the greatest soundtracks ever, my mind reeled from the sheer magnitude of what was unfolding on my screen, and my brain was short-circuiting not due to the lack of sleep but in the hopeless pursuit of processing the masterpiece it had just consumed.

Every frame felt like a work of absolute art, literally. I still can't get that one shot of Mon Mothma gazing at the camera out of my system, like a Renaissance painting brought to life. Every monologue hit like a punch to the gut. Especially Mon Mothma’s powerful plea for revolt, one of many iconic speeches. (Can you tell she’s one of my favorite characters?) The grace and grit Genevieve O’Reilly pours into the senator’s role is a fantastic feat.

She’s just one among an ensemble packed with Emmy-worthy performances – Diego Luna, Stellan Skarsgård, Elizabeth Dulau, Denise Gough, Kyle Soller – honestly, I could name the entire cast. The writing and direction perhaps surpass the acting as well.

But that's what Andor does; it elevates itself from a mere sci-fi prequel into a magnificent craft of storytelling that delivers in each and every aspect while becoming a commentary on the real-world issues. It wears politics as its defining accessory – its crowning achievement.

Fascism and Propaganda

We inhabit a world marred by ongoing genocides, wars, and authoritarian regimes. Andor isn't subtle in its parallels to the real-world politics. It doesn't fret away time fabricating cryptic clues for the viewers to decipher; it screams the similarities at us, laying bare the urgency as clear as day.

This is real. This is happening. Do you see? Can you relate this to the current situation?

Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy...The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.

Nemik's manifesto is a timeless piece of truth that can be applied in contexts throughout history and the present. And it's never been more relevant. We live in scary times when thousands and thousands of innocents could perish in a [censored] while the world goes by, unblinking. The time to take action is now, just as Mon Mothma warns in her alarming speech.

The distance between what is known and what is said to be true has become an abyss.

The Empire manipulates public perception – branding itself as the victim and blaming its own atrocities, like the Ghorman massacre, on the rebels, on the planet’s dead population murdered by the Empire. It weaponizes truth, serving as a reminder that the winner always writes history and that those in power will do anything to control the narrative.

Season 2 episode 8, which features the aforementioned Ghorman massacre, is an execution and performance worthy of all mantles, and trying to describe the experience of watching it through adjectives would be a fool's try because no words exist to do it justice.

Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.

Could it be more true?

But it’s always easier to side with the resistance when it’s fiction.

It's really exceptional how Andor shows such crucial affairs with unflinching honesty through the sheer force of fictional portrayal, whether it be the harassment faced by undocumented immigrants or the rich buying stolen (colonized) artifacts. And that maybe, fascism's deadliest weapon is, after all, a think tank.

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The Tragic (Deserving) Downfall of Antagonists

Tony Gilroy remarked, "Inevitably, in every model of fascism that there's been, it ultimately comes and destroys its early proponents and its foot soldiers and its underclass...It eventually eats its young."

Syril Karn is a cog in the imperial machine with a childlike passion to contribute something meaningful, only to be destroyed by that very same machine. It's his own obsession to prove his worth to a corrupt force, and with Cassian, whom he is convinced is his arch-nemesis and has raised on this evil pedestal, that ultimately makes him a casualty of the [censored] he helped inflict, unknowingly or not.

There are moments where we have actually been able to generate some sort of empathy for Syril, and given how affected he was by the massacre unravelling before his eyes, there was potential for a redemption arc. But then he spots Cassian, who in his eyes is the cause of all this turmoil, and he lunges. But it's Andor's "Who are you?" that crumbles any resolve left in him and reduces him to what he truly is: another faceless enforcer of tyranny, expendable and forgotten.

Dedra Meero, whose entire life revolves around her ambition to advance her career, suffers a similar fate; a rising star in the ISB who is eventually discarded, arrested, and imprisoned not for the heinous crimes she committed for the Empire, but for her fanatical loyalty to it. For being a zealot.

Partagez was no exception in being crushed by the same machine he spent his life oiling. And neither was Heert – killed at the hands of an Imperial droid. In fact, in Rogue One, even Director Krennic was obliterated by the Death Star he dedicated his life to building. In the end, they are all undone by their own hubris.

Tyranny does not care where it reaps its cost from.

Cassian Andor: A Hero?

What I love most about the series is that there is no "messiah", no chosen one to save the day. We get an intricate, bloodied look into the rebellion's birth – the beginning of the ultimate destruction of the Death Star. And it's devoid of any mystical element.

The revolt against the Empire is forged with the blood, sweat, and sacrifice of individuals whose insignificance erases their actions swifter than a wave washes footprints in the sand. That's who war belongs to on both sides – forgotten names. Cassian begins as a man who wants nothing to do with the rebellion. But he's hurled into the flaming hearth of the insurgency with a driven force, burning his life until rebellion is what he breathes and lives.

I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I'll never see.

Luthen and Cassian share the same tragic destiny, making the ultimate sacrifice to warrant a peaceful life for their children. At the heart of all the fight is love. Cassian would have left the fight if Bix hadn't chosen the rebellion for him. And Luthen would have been tortured until he yielded if Kleya hadn't done what she had to. They died so that their legacy could live.

Cassian Andor's story is not about an idealistic hero fated to save the galaxy; it's about believing, in a cause he never wanted to be a part of until it was shoved down his throat with loss. It's about surviving, beginning with stealing and running, and transcending into a vow until he could drag down the evil with him. It's about choosing to fight, knowing how it would end. He didn't do it for glory; he did it for what all the other characters in Andor predominantly fought and died for – not to let the Empire, that had already taken so much from them, win.

Diego Luna embodies the character's internal conflict with eerie precision, bringing a quiet intensity to Cassian that allows us to see him not just as a protagonist, but a human first.

Andor is a masterclass achievement. It's fun and cool while being emotionally devastating and politically urgent. There is nerve-wracking action, dialogues born out of pure genius, relationships exceeding love, tyrant monsters choking on their own filth, characters you would die for, and a rebellion. What else do you need?

Star Wars fan or not, one thing I can promise with absolute conviction is the fact that Andor will keep you on the edge of your seat. It just builds and builds until it explodes into something completely extraordinary.

I have never watched a show more deserving of all the worldwide acclaim and the phenomenal success coming its way, and take it from a person who binge-watches series on a weekly basis. At the core of any media created is its willingness to inspire, and Andor so beautifully captures that spirit, cementing itself not just as the best Star Wars series but one of the greatest television shows ever made.