Andor returned with a shock. Not in terms of the plot or big deaths: the opening three episodes played out pretty much as expected for someone who’d watched the trailers, and that’s fine. No, the surprise was that the show lauded as dark and serious, the series Star Wars fans can convince themselves they aren’t living in a state of arrested development by enjoying, did the unthinkable: it made me laugh. Andor has gained a sense of humour.
The season opens with Cassian stealing a TIE Avenger and flying it like me playing Star Wars: Squadrons for the first time. It’s refreshing to see someone not be able to fly a ship on their first attempt, and him smashing into walls and the ceiling is hilarious. And Cassian’s call with Kleya at the beginning of the third episode gives us the funniest line of the show: him shouting “I’ve been upside down for two days!” Although I’m not quite sure how that works when there’s no upside down in space.
That might be the biggest and most explosive example but there are plenty more laughs throughout the premiere episodes. I love Luthen being particularly campy while probing for information at the wedding. We get a brilliant family dinner with Syril and Dedra ‘welcoming’ Eedy into their home. The cut to Syril laying on the bed and Eedy stabbing at her dessert were very funny. And then there are the hungry, arguing rebels on Yavin 4 (based on writer Tony Gilroy’s son and niece’s husband). That storyline may be my least favourite part of the arc but it has some solid laughs and serves a purpose. The Rebel Alliance is currently anything but, factionalised and infighting when they need to unite, with that action set against the backdrop which will eventually see them come together.
I can see people disliking this newfound funny bone. I know there’s much love for the grim and gritty feel of the first season and this arc has made the serious Star Wars show a little less serious. But this second season was never going to live up to some people’s expectations. It’s been long enough that the first season has been mythologised as something greater than it ever was (don’t get me wrong, it is great) and weaponised against any other piece of Star Wars storytelling, now including its own second season.
Personally, I love this new tone. I see it as an evolution. As counter intuitive as it may sound, the comedy shows that the series has matured. It’s more comfortable and confident. Less try hard, less cognisant in its attempt to make a grown up Star War. Other shows trying to be a ‘prestige drama’ fall into this trap, too. They think to be taken seriously they have to be wholly serious. So many shows learn the wrong lessons from other dark series. But those classic prestige dramas so often aped were funny. People trying to copy the success of The Sopranos focus on the of death and darkness and forget that it’s one of the funniest shows ever written. Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Deadwood; all the best dramas find time for comedy.
The Leftovers is a prime example, a show I adore. The first season was decent but made some mistakes, mainly that the tone was too grim. Writer Damon Lindelof was trying so hard to make a serious, affecting show and it was all too much. Once the series loosened up in its second season, found its sense of humour, it worked much better and it even helped the dramatic side by contrast. The opportunity to laugh makes the drama work better. It’s more human. It’s more like real life. The characters are more like real people, able to display a range of emotion. Andor is now embracing this.
It would be an issue if this tonal change came out of the blue and radically changed the entire show. But it doesn’t. All the comedy so far comes naturally from the characters and situations, it makes sense. And while the first season wasn’t a barrel of laughs, there were a few funny moments, most of which came from Tony Gilroy’s scripts. There’s B2EMO, Syril is frequently a laughable character, and Gilroy gave us Dewi and Freedi, the most overtly silly part of Andor. Now that the pressure is off, it makes sense he’ll have some more fun. I’m not expecting the whole season to feel as such, I doubt the eventual Ghorman massacre will be punctuated with laughs, but for this opening arc it worked. And we know K-2SO is coming, who’s sure to bring more humour to the show.
The comedy is additive not detractive. The serious drama still hits when it needs to. I might be writing about how this opening arc made me laugh but it also gave us a sad death, Mothma’s morality collapsing and world imploding, and an attempted rape, not disguised but called out as such. That’s certainly new for Star Wars. Andor is still Andor. But there’s a new sense of energy now, a vibrancy to this opening arc I loved. Fitting for the franchise, there’s now a balance between light and dark. The contrast between them greater defines each tone. Andor now has more life as it barrels towards so much inescapable death, and the show is better for it.
