Friday 4 November 2022

Andor: Nobody's Listening

 "I can't help him. I can't help anyone."

Andor continues to be the best television exploration of totalitarianism. Where to start? With Dedra being menacingly evil while having Bix tortured, with her being scarily efficient at uncovering everything? With Mon Mothma be caught with her funding rebel activities, and by the way Vel is her cousin? 

All these things emphasise the sheer intensity of Imperial oppression. Yet there are those who benefit. Dedra, despite the tightrope she walks. Syril Kane, who seems to be obsessed with her as much as his own ambition. That's a fascinating and creepy dynamic.

But the focus is on that prison, The horror of it, the hopelessness of escape. Yet, slowly, even Andy Serkis' prisoner supervisor starts to see the hopelessness as an old man, forty shifts from release, has a stroke and is euthanised. And it's realised that no one ever leaves; released prisoners are simply reassigned. There are only life sentences. That's evil.

And even the supervisor turns against them.

This is bleak, powerful stuff.

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