Andor season 2: 1 BBY (episodes 7-9)

Well this doesn't look good...

The latest tranche, 1 BBY (episodes 7-9), is phenomenal. All the painstaking buildup in episodes 1-6 pays off. 

Was there some arguably extraneous material? I'd say yes, more so than in season 1, but if it'd been all focused on Ghorman, it'd have been too obvious. Ghorman needed to emerge from the noise.

Multiple storylines and characters converge: Cassian, Mon Mothma, Dedra, Syril, and Luthen connect this set. The scope is fabulous, comprehensive, and internally consistent; the sets and action sequences are feature film level. 

My only gripe is that the show was a tad too on the nose in leveraging a French Resistance vibe, right down to the berets, accents and cafes. But that's a minor gripe. 

The writing felt more on point: Mothma delivers a fantastic, and disturbingly relevant speech, and Saw waxes eloquent about vaping fuel.

Bix, tilting on the brink of a new arc, writes herself out of the show. I get it, the show's about Cassian. Silver lining: at least she wasn't killed off.

Syril's story comes to it's inevitably unfortunate end, which works incredibly well. From soaring high on secret agent shenanigans in 3 BBY, here he comes crashing down like a brick, his entire world view annihilated. In his last few minutes, he realizes the Empire is not what he thought it was, that he's been used and is just another pawn... but then sees his arch nemesis (Cassian, natch) and enters a homicidal frenzy: Kill Andor!

It's a sad end for poor, sad sack Syril; everything tracks, and it's dramatically fitting. That said, I'd have liked to see him live at least a little longer, if only to see if he can pull together his shattered psyche, and what he'd have done next if allowed time to process. How does a law & order fetishist survive in a dictatorship when they really do believe in justice? Unfortunately, that'd take time, and this is Andor, not the Syril Karn show, and there are only 3 episodes left. 

So Syril had to say sayonara. 

Personally, I am, as a general principle, against killing off interesting characters unless absolutely necessary. You never know when you'll want to explore their journey again. I believe this preference is borne out by all the resurrected characters in Star Wars, Marvel, etc. Just don't kill them in the first place, that way we don't get all these hackneyed, convoluted resurrection plots. "Somehow, Palpatine returned." So did Darth Maul, and he got bisected and fell a thousand feet down a shaft. 

Shafts in Star Wars are way less deadly than Russian windows.

In some cases, as with Darth Vader (or, for the most part, the Emperor), the villain's death is essential to the overall story. You can't avoid it... yet look at all the prequel material covering Darth Vader. It's practically endless. The writers (and more importantly their corporate masters) can't get enough of the Vademeister.

I hope there are no more deaths, so these characters can be further explored in other media. 

Episodes eight and nine have a particularly strong narrative flow, and I watched nine right after eight, against my better bedtime judgement. With all the dominoes were falling into place, how could I not? 

This has been an absolutely stand out set of episodes; they cover key events and do so in a very grounded (for a space opera with laser swords and wizards) way. I loved it. 

Andor's grounded approach bears further mention: it's an aspect of Star Wars, going back to the original, that helped cement it as relatable: rather than everything being new and shiny, the universe is worn and lived in, and the characters whine about not being allowed to hang out with their friends, pick up power converters, or attend insufferably long weddings. The mundane mixed with with the fantastical reinforces the suspension of disbelief.

This is a fantastical galaxy you can believe in.

The last three (9-12) episodes will lead up to the three days before Rogue One. That sets Andor himself (and possibly Mothma) on a very narrow path, dealing with intel on the new Death Star, which makes me wonder: does the show have any twists left to throw in front of them?

Given Andor's journey is largely set, I'm more interested in what happens to Luthen and Dedra. Luthen's been a big part of setting up the Rebellion; many are arguing that means he must die because he's not seen later. I'd rather he just continues working in the background, along with Lonni and Kleya. 

Will Syril's death hang over Dedra? Will she attend his funeral and clash with the Queen of Passive Aggression? 

And given how huge a failure it was for the ISB to allow Mothma to speak to the galaxy, I'm expecting a few Imperial heads to roll, and for an intense crackdown to follow. Will Luthen and team be able to evade it? Where was Partagaz in all this? 

What about Saw? I'm expecting him to come back, as he's been left dangling. 

We shall see. 

Oh dear

Andor season 2: 3 BBY (episodes 4-6)

"Am I getting more screen time or what?"

The second wave of Andor season 2, possibly the most political sci-fi show since Battlestar Galatica, continues to focus on Ghorman, a planet out of the old WEG Star Wars Role Playing Game. It suffers a very ugly fate.

Simpering Syril is on now planet as head of the Imperial Standards branch, while Cassian gets dispatched there by Luthen to evaluate a local rebel group.

Dedra is watching over the Ghorman operations from afar, and Mothma argues with Krenick over Ghorman at an art show. 

It’s all slice of life material, focusing on the day to day of anti-fascist movements (and their antagonists) in a galaxy far, far away. 

This is part of the problem I have with this season: the previous season saw Cassian become a rebel, Luthen plotting a great robbery to fund the rebellion, and the Imperials plotting to catch them. This season? Not a peep about all the money Luthen stole, or the plans that might have been hatched out of it. Luthen is reactive, attending weddings, dispatching Cassian places, and worrying about listening devices being revealed. He doesn’t feel very proactive, unlike last season. He doesn’t seem to have any plan now, and while his assistant mentions having many balls in the air, we don’t see it. 

Gilroy is taking a different tack here, and it looks like everything is built around the horrors that the Empire has planned for Ghorman. As such, Luthen’s other plans fall outside of the main narrative focus, whatever my irrelevant wants and wishes might be.

The theme of sacrifice, on the part of the rebels, is hammered home over and over again. You can’t miss it, from Luthen’s fantastic speech last season to the horrific wringer Bix has been put through in this one. No one in the main cast has been through worse. Well. Other than the characters who are gunned down by the Empire. 

The Rebel characters must hide their true selves in a society that is literally out to get them, hiding in dive safe houses, or in plain site like Mon Mothma, who’s situation is arguably worse, because she has to hide within herself. Same goes for Lonni. Their lives are filled with stress and the constant fear of being discovered. They become ruthless and paranoid in response, their humanity getting worn away by circumstance. 

Oh Syril, you over eager puppy dog, you.

On the other hand, Syril is flying high as a kite, living out his life-long fantasy of being an Imperial agent of law & order, playing spy on Ghorman, tricking the locals and helping to suss out disloyal agents of chaos. 

There’s some sly writing here: when Syril’s in ISB headquarters making his report, he notes that the Ghormans are inexperienced but eager, to which ISB head Pendergast (X, who played a Machiavellian priest in Game of Thrones) remarks, “How often those characteristics align” and gives Dedra a knowing look.

They’re treating Syril like some kind of pet puppy, an over-eager novice, a mall cop who dreams of being an FBI agent. 

The two trajectories here are polar opposites: rebels going down into the depths of despair while Syril soars higher and higher into the clouds of ambitious fantasy.

Of course, Syril is being set up for a fall, and when it happens, it’s going to hurt. Pendergast even lays track for this when he tells Dedra that Syril must not know what’s really going on on Ghorman. 

Oddly enough, it’s Syril (Kyle Soller) who has the clearest arc happening in the show. Cassian is a bit of a cipher; he doesn’t show a lot of his inner emotions, other than concern over Bix. He doesn’t have any real character quirks. He’s no nonsense, like Luthen, except Luthen has much, much more going on his head. 

Luthen (Stellan Skarsgard) is agency writ large, or at least he was last season: a master galactic scale chess player. It’s sad to see him relegated to being reactive, but I’ll take what I can get. Beyond his calculation, though, there’s not a lot there. He’s been ground down by necessity to be what he has to be for the sake of the Rebellion, there’s nothing else left.

Syril, on the other hand, is a collection of quirks. He’s a weirdo, emotionally stunted by his overbearing mom and absent father, addicted to cereal, sullen and whiny yet wildly ambitious, he dreams of being a saviour, of being relevant, of righting wrongs and seeing justice done throughout the galaxy… between bouts of pouting on his bed. The gap between his ambition and reality is galaxy spanning. 

Yet this makes him arguably one of the most interesting characters in the show, and so far, he’s the one who has travelled the farthest, character wise. 

Mon Mothma started out hiding inside herself, as did Luthen, and now Cassian. 

Bix (Adria Arjona) is, to me, the only other character who’s had a comparable arc, but her’s hasn’t gotten as much focus as Syril (and it doesn’t have the same range, either). She’s had nightmares and moped in the safe house for much of the season. No dinner with the relatives for her. Fortunately, at the end of 2 BBY, she leaps into action against her inner demons. That was great, and it sets her up to be more active in the concluding half of the season. 

That being said, we all know which side she is on, and that’s not going to change.

With Syril, there’s a kernel of doubt: he may, in fact, eventually turn on the Empire. Personally, I thought that door closed last season when he went all stalker on Dedra; now that they’re a duo, it seemed even more unlikely. 

Yet he’s being used, and more importantly, Syril is an earnest true believer: he does believe in justice, even if it’s a rather twisted, naive version. 

In a fascist society, however, law is a chimera. It’s of convenience, imposed upon the populace, and changed and violated on the whim of the powerful, whenever it suits them, sans accountability or criticism: mistakes by underlings are covered up, the dictator does what they will, and the masses suffer what they must. Abuse is endemic. Even in (ostensibly) law and order governed Western democracies we see abuse by those in powerful institutions. In a dictatorship, corruption is a feature, not a bug. 

Rather like this: 

Oh wait, that's America. My bad.

As such, the only real character question I have concerns… well, Syril: will he eventually see the true nature of the Empire, and turn on it? It’s possibly the big statement brewing under the narrative’s surface.

Everyone else’s course is set. Having Syril eventually realize the monstrous nature of the regime he’s embraced so thoroughly would be an effective conclusion for his character.

On the other hand, he could veer into total fascist fanboy. 

"Did you say fascist fan boy? Hold my beer."

Either way, it makes a statement.

Another standout: Forest Whitaker’s tour de force performance as Saw Gerrera, a mix of savvy ruthlessness and batshit insanity. When he comes on screen, he’s as liable to hug you as shoot you. It’s a mesmerizing performance, although I suspect it’s best in small doses. 

As they say, it’s the villains and crazy characters who are the most fun to play, and I think that pans out here, except for Luthen. Everyone is on point, I have no criticisms to level at the cast, they’re all doing fabulous work with what they’ve been given. 

I expect Syril’s upward trajectory, in such total contrast to the hell the rebel characters are going through, to take a very sharp and nasty turn.

A couple of bits of grit in the Andor eye: I found the Coruscant TV shows jarring (they look like bad local cable TV, the kind government regulations force them to make), and the very overt connection of Ghorman to the French WWII resistance is so on le nez you’d expect it to serve baguettes. The cafes, waiters, bellhops, and vaguely French accents shout, or at least hum, La Marseillaise. I half-expected someone to exclaim, “Mon Dieu, c’est l’Empire!”

It’s fun, yet heavy handed. 

On the plus side, the story is gaining steam and taking shape. I look forward to BBY 2. 

(Incidentally, dating things from the Battle of Yavin seems really bonkers. What the heck was the year before Yavin happened? It’s a silly system that only makes sense from a meta perspective…)

Andor season 2: 4 BBY (episodes 1-3)

Stellan and the rest of the stellar cast of Andor

Andor’s got a novel approach for season 2: each tranche of three episodes is set a year after the last, and covers only a few days. Then BAM: it’s a year later. The next set of episodes will be 3 years later, then 4, the five, which leads directly into Rogue One.

I admit I’ve been really looking forward to Andor season two. I didn’t have much, or anything really, to criticize about season one, so my expectations were extremely high. 

Season two begins with Cassian (Diego Luna) stealing an experimental Imperial fighter craft. Everything, naturally, goes wrong. 

Meanwhile, Dedra (Denise Gough) is attending a Wansee Conference style pow wow led by Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), the lisping villain of Rogue One, and Mon Mothma (Geneva O’Reilly) is throwing a wedding party for her daughter, with (surprise!) Luthien (Stellan Skarsgard) in attendance. Banality ensues.

The Space Wedding? Oh dear God no, not The Space Wedding!

The sets are absolutely astonishing. The production design is top notch. The costumes are sumptuous. The direction is solid. The acting is fantastic.

You know where this is going.

The writing did not strike me as being as incisive as in season one.

The biggest issue I had with the first episode one came out of left field, and is admittedly an issue of petty minded personal taste: Krennic opens his nefarious conference by flipping on a big screen TV and showing… a cheesy promo video, complete with anachronistic Fifties-style voice over. It took me completely out of the Galaxy Far Far Away and back to ours so fast I got universe-bubble whiplash. 

I also hated the Fifties-style diner in the Prequels, and I say that as someone who absolutely loves diners.

Yes, yes, obviously, there must be some kind of mass media in the Star Wars universe, and I am admittedly being unfair. Perhaps they are evoking a 1930’s style propaganda film (Star Wars is set in arguably set in a clunky high-tech analogue to earth in the 1930s/1940s). Yet everything else in Andor is SO pitch perfect! Great care is taken to present a universe that feels like a real place, one with fantastic world building integrity. They’ve made up language, machinery, architecture, technology, music, fashion, cultural practices, the works… and then they present a video that feels ripped from Fallout.

Ah well.

The wedding went on longer than I’d have liked, but that’s a wedding for you. Points for painful verisimilitude. The in-universe music was jarringly Top Forty. Another quibble, but I’d have preferred they used otherworldly, unusual music to play. That’s kind of a franchise thing, going back to the Catina band.

You need a drink? I need a drink! This wedding feels all TOO REAL.

Andor’s misadventure was… interesting. It touched on how factionalism and in-fighting hold back many a revolution.

The highlight of the first arc, to my great surprise, was the Lives of of the Fabulous and Fascist: Dedra and Syril (Kyle Soller). Turns out, Syril and Dedra have been shacking up since their high adrenaline escapades on Ferrix. Now, they’re preparing for something far worse: the dreaded introduction dinner to Syril’s ever-charming mom (a gloriously cringe-inducing Kathryn Hunter). 

Forget the Death Star: tremble before the terror of dinner with Syril's mom!

She's all about layering in subtext… with a trowel. 

Or a concrete placement hose.

Dedra mentions that she grew up in an Imperial orphanage, yet lacked for nothing, to which our gravel-voiced terror-mom trolls: except a mother’s love. Not missing a beat, Dedra deadpans back: ‘We didn’t know what we were missing.’

I laughed and laughed and laughed.

It was, hands down, the funniest line in Star Wars since Han quipped, ‘I know’ (which, incidentally, is a line change dreamed up by Harrison Ford, who didn’t like the original, ‘I love you, too’ We owe a lot to actor innovation when it comes to George’s dialogue). 

Can Syril, Dedra, and his mom get their own spinoff sitcom? Pitch it as All in the Space Gestapo Family. 

Who knew this trio could be so damn funny?

The heroes get the great speeches, but the villains... they get the character quirks!

The hit new sitcom spinoff: Fascist Friends

Genevieve O’Reilly has some juicy material to play with; sadly her character has to push feelings beneath the surface, so her performance is more subtle, and requires a lot of pained expressions. Poor Stellan has little to work with, and little screen time. He’s largely wasted. Diego is reactive, overshadowed by a rag-tag rebel rabble.

Other bright spots: the casual, day to day oppression of Imperial rule was convincingly depicted. Absolute authority leads inevitably to abuses; not everything has to be space battles, lightsaber duels and backflips. That’s not to say you don’t need them from time to time! It is called ‘Star Wars’ not ‘Daily Imperial Indignities’, after all.

So… would I recommend Andor season two, year two? Yes, but with caveats. It’s a slow burn, and there are some… jarring choices. As a peek into the day to day in the Star Wars universe, it’s a must watch. 

But season one was better. 

Let’s see what year three brings...

Recommended: Severance

Is that why I have a headache?

Severance follows the dual lives of people working for the mysterious corporation Lumon. They've 'surgically' (with some kind of chip implant) had their worklife and personal lives separated so that both are lived in isolation. It reminds me of a short story where a character only experienced driving. That was the only portion of that individual's life they got to experience.

Here it's thoroughly dystopian and gets increasingly weird as mysterious are piled on: the main characters wife, we learn, was killed, leading him, in his grief, to agree to being severed. Yet all is not as it seems, and Lumon is up to no good. 

It's in the satirical aspects that this show really shines, repeatedly skewering corporate workplace absurdities. Little things like Waffle Parties and the bizarre Wellness Sessions, complete with rigid rules and penalty points, make the show a delight. 

Season two, which recently dropped, dives into the larger mystery. I didn't care much about it, as it all seems so senseless I'm not even inclined to speculate as to the what's and why's. There's not enough for me to hang a theory on, or even inspire me to.

On the other hand, there is a 'corporate retreat' team building send up, which is very fun. 

The acting is top notch; in many ways, Severance is an actor's playground. The cast gets to depict two subtly different versions of the same person, and do so with aplomb. One of the highlights of season two sees a character conducting a converation with his severed self via video camera. And you really get the two different viewpoints coming through. The acting, directing, and writing here is nothing short of fantastic.

The season two climax, while I don't get why the antagonists are doing what they're doing, still has emotional resonance, thanks to my being personally invested in the struggle of the characters. Their circumstances I may not fully understand, the conflict may be muddled, but their personal peril, trauma and choices have impact. 

On the downside, Patricia Arquette's character I cannot stand, and season two spends an entire episode with this loathsome former manager. She's meant to be unlikeable, I think, so she's doing a great job at that, but the writers need to give her more to work with if we've got to spend an hour with her. Hers was the worst written episode of the season, with noticeably clunky dialogue and painfully on the nose exposition. 

Having said that, it's still better written than a lot of shows out there. 

Ben Stiller's direction here deserves special mention. Apparently he's quite a tyrant on set, but the results speak for themselves. This is a stylishly shot show, with wonderful sets that border on the surreal. The antiseptic office space is Kubrickesque. I've never seen a show set in an office look so good. 

I don't have any expectations for season three. I don't have the faintest idea what is really going on, but I'll be tuning in to see what happens to the characters, and if their doomed romance(s) can defy seemingly impossible odds.

Half-lost comic jam continued

What does it all mean??? Your guess is as good as mine.

Why is there so little honesty in publishing?

Pinocchio: is he in music, film, TV, advertising, politics, gambling, books or comix? You decide!

Same reason there's little honesty in Hollywood, music, or advertising: it's a business, and the impression of success creates success. Fake it until you make it, as they say. It's about manipulating human psychology and presenting the proper facade to do so. Politicians, demagogues, and Demogorgon do the same thing. 

You only want weaponized authenticity in marketing. 

Roughly ten years ago I attended TCAF and took in a few panels, including a publisher one. I have never forgotten what they said: if an artist said, publicly on the internet, that comics was hard, that they struggled, that there was no money, etc, they would be blacklisted and declared persona non grata. These publishers were absolutely adamant that they would not publish such people. They only wanted people who put forward a sunny, optimistic happy-go-lucky impression of the comics publishing industry, and anyone who said otherwise would be banned from their imprints.

Fortunately, my own publisher believes first and foremost in publishing cool sh*t, and has never sought to muzzle me in any way. The art comes first. I have always respected and been grateful for that. 

But I've never forgotten that TCAF talk. 

And you know what? 

I get it. 

We 'artistes' can be emo. Moping, wallowing in our own conflicted and emotionally tumultuous nature, and outright depression is endemic in the arts and is not a draw for the general public. Well. For most, it isn't. I've listened to normies talk about poor souls who are quite obviously suffering from depression as 'freaks' to be ostracized, and worse. That said, some comics DO dive deep into analysis of the twisted human psyche, and have built healthy careers exposing their own innermost vices and flaws. 

The world is a funny place. 

Different strokes for different folks.

But for a general audience, positivity sells. Whether it's right or not to edit yourself publicly is not the point. The point is that, if you want a career in comics, you have to manage your public persona and appear (and act) in a cooperative way that makes you someone people want to work with. 

It's also good to remember that many, if not most, publishers are not necessarily artists themselves. Some are business people, and for them, comics are not art, they're a product, like shoe laces, widgets or flea powder. A commodity. The publisher wants to make money, hit the best-seller lists, and sell options to Hollywood; they don't want miserable, cantankerous 'artistes' spoiling the gravy train with all their self-indulgent whining. They'd rather shut them up with threats of excommunication.

The resultant sunny picture leaves publishers and the public happy, and with higher sales, hopefully the artist as well. At least with success they can afford antidepressants.

Have you ever seen Pleasantville?

The down side of all this is that young, aspiring artists (and actors and musicians) get an unrealistic idea of what their aspirational field is really like, having drunk deep from the hype machine. The hype machine, however, is NOT for artists. All the puff pieces and posturing is to help sell product. It's part of the game. It greases the wheels of commerce, it has a function, but it's got absolutely nothing to do with what it's like to actually work in the field.

Remember the Me Too movement? Good ol' Harvey, champion of independent films! Little bit of cognitive dissonance there now. Comics has its Harveys, too. And the music industry... the less said the better.

If you're an artist, don't pay attention to hype, fame or fortune. Those aren't good motivators for artists. Well. Many? I don't create according to spreadsheets, focus groups and audience analysis, and can't imagine authentic art coming out of such an approach. But then, I'm a small press indie kind of guy. I'm not doing billion dollar blockbusters. And if you're investing millions into a project, you want to protect your investment and make it as sure a thing as possible...

Have you seen Matrix Resurrections? 

If you want authenticity, don't look to advertising. Go behind the scenes.

It's like sausages. 

You don't want to know how they're made unless you really have to. 

Recommended: American Primeval

Wait... is he using that kid as cover?

American Primeval follows a young woman and her son as they try and cross the Rockies, to reach her husband on the West coast. Well. That's what she says, at least. Between her and her destination are mountains, Indians, the US Army, and the Mormons. 

Guess which faction is worse?

The show is gritty and grounded, although some of the characters are unreasonably kick-ass, but they stop short of going the full John Wick. 

The wilderness is a character unto itself. The wilderness is beautiful... but everywhere humans settle, it becomes a disgusting pig sty. The inhabitants are covered in mud and shit, and only the West Coast immigrants are, momentarily, clean. 

It a grimy, messy, essentially lawless place, where life is cheap, and people are murdered over a nasty look. Hell, the cold, indifferent wilderness looks like a cuddly tabby cat compared to the treacherous monsters living in the forts.

Which tracks with Pinker's The Angels of Our Better Nature. Violence in the American Midwest was insane, both against the Indians and inside the initially male-only settlements of frontiersmen. Once women began to migrate out west in larger numbers, the levels of violence fell dramatically. 

The Mormons present as civilized and devout, but only on the surface. It makes them even more horrible than the brutal pioneer savages they look down upon. 

For the Mormons (at least as they are depicted in the show), God is a fig leaf.

I confess I've never really looked into the early days of Utah. I knew the Mormons settled there, but I had no idea they fielded their own army, or that they were quite so irredeemably nasty. It's a story that's not been told before in a big budget Western, far as I know.

Highly recommended, if you like gritty and uncompromising dramas. I'm not keen on Westerns as a genre in general, but this one was captivating.

I don't think the Mormons are going to be terribly keen on it.