This story first appeared in Trying!, a thoughtful, funny, sprawling daily newsletter featuring essays from the mind of Matt Gross. You can sign up for them here.
If you haven’t been watching Andor, you’ve been missing out. Yes, it’s a Star Wars show, streaming on Disney+, but it’s unlike any other series or movie set in that galaxy far, far away. In Andor, there is no magical Force, no nerd lore of Jedis and Sith and padawans, no heroic bloodlines and familial dramas determining the course of history. Instead, Andor is about life under the fascist Empire, about how the authoritarian regime breeds rebellion, and about the cost of the struggle, to everyone on every side. Yes, there are some non-human aliens, cool starships flying through hyperspace, the occasional pew pew blaster battle, but Andor focuses on the regular folks caught up in the fight: farmers and smugglers, antiques dealers and politicians, intel officials and mid-level bureaucrats, criminals and idealists, textile magnates and overbearing mothers.
