The Best Lines from Andor

Andor is sadly over, and has comfortably joined the ranks of the best Star Wars media ever. Between its brilliant cast, outstanding production design, impactful score and thought-provoking themes, every aspect of this show was firing on all cylinders. None more so than its writing, which featured absolutely brilliantly constructed social commentary and intelligent character development. To read more about my thoughts, read my article about Season 1 here, and my latest monthly round-up.

Here are some of my favourite quotes from the show...

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Andor was always brilliant at giving us an insight into the machinations of the ISB's ridiculous but sinister bureaucratic workings. This is one of many brilliant Anton Lesser line deliveries:

Major Partagaz: Security is an illusion. You want security? Call the Navy. Launch a regiment of troopers. We are healthcare providers. We treat sickness. We identify symptoms. We locate germs whether they arise from within or have come from the outside. The longer we wait to identify a disorder, the harder it is to treat the disease.

Genevieve O'Reilly's performance as a woman constantly having to put on a dangerous, delicate performance was one of the most fascinating parts of the show's depiction of the Rebellion:

Mon Mothma: I’ve learned from Palpatine. I show you the stone in my hand, you miss the knife at your throat.

Fiona Shaw may not have had that much screentime, but her strong-willed and warm presence as Maarva Andor was so important to Cassian's ultimate journey into rebellion:

Cassian Andor: I won't have peace. I'll be worried about you all the time.

Maarva Andor: That's just love. Nothing you can do about that.

Look, Perrin was often shallow and frivolous, but he was always very entertaining:

Perrin: Must everything be boring and sad?

A snippet of Saw Gerrera's Season 2 monologue, which highlights the volatility of rebellion but also how intoxicating it can be:

Saw Gerrera: We're the rhydo, kid. We're the fuel. We're the thing that explodes when there's too much friction in the air. Let it in, boy! That's freedom calling! Let it in! Let it run! Let it run wild!

I'd forgotten about this quote but, my goodness, what an encapsulation of Syril's character arc. A man whose entire belief system is dismantled, and who discovers the true horror of how the Empire preserves order... and how utterly inconsequential he is to it all:

Syril: Can one ever be too aggressive in preserving order?

One of many, many brilliantly withering put-downs from Syril's overbearing mother:

Eedy: Syril. You're slouching. Is that how you've been presenting yourself to the world? It would explain a great deal. Being a leader isn't something one just turns on and off. By the time you've remembered to sit up straight, it's too late. You might as well a sign that says, "I promise to disappoint you." Shame we couldn't have seen more of each other when you were flourishing. I'd have the memory to sustain me.

I had to include this monologue in its entirety. It's brilliantly written and performed, and will never leave my mind. Luthen Rael is undoubtedly one of the most compelling Star Wars characters:

“Calm. Kindness. Kinship. Love. I’ve given up all chance at inner peace. I’ve made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there’s only one conclusion: I’m damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they’ve set me on a path from which there is no escape. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost and by the time I looked down there was no longer any ground beneath my feet. What is my sacrifice? I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see. And the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice? Everything!”

The brilliance of Dedra Meero, and Denise Gough's performance, is how we can absolutely loath her and yet still massively enjoy watching her put Eedy Karn in her place:

Dedra: I will guarantee a level of engagement, but it will be inversely proportional to the volume of anxiety you generate in our lives.

One of the all-time great modern Star Wars moments, and it's only four words. The gradual build-up of Kino's disillusionment, the dismantling of a belief system and a rise to action. Incredible television:

Cassian: How many guards on each level?

Kino Loy: Never more than 12.

As they discuss what to do about a rogue Tay, we get a nice encapsulation of the dynamic between Mon Mothma, who represents the political 'front' of the Rebellion, and Luthen, the shadowy, ruthless spymaster making the tough decisions behind the scenes:

Mon Mothma: I'm not sure what you're saying.

Luthen: How nice for you.

Saw Gerrera's autobiography title be like:

Saw Gerrera: Revolution is not for the sane.

Another monologue that I had to include entirely. The Narkina-5 prison arc is, for my money, still the best thing that Andor has done. Kino Loy's journey to rebellion is absolutely brilliant, and Andy Serkis continues to prove himself as an icon. Nicholas Britell's music in this scene is insanely great too:

Kino Loy: How long we hang on, how far we get, how many of us make it out, all of that is now up to us. We have deactivated every floor in the facility. All floors are cold. Wherever you are right now, get up, stop the work. Get out of your cells, take charge and start climbing. They don't have enough guards and they know it. If we wait until they figure that out, it'll be too late. We will never have a better chance that this and I would rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want. We know they fried a hundred men on Level Two. We know that they are making up our sentences as we go along. We know that no one outside here knows what's happening. And now we know, that when they say we are being released, we are being transferred to some other prison to go and die and that ends today! There is one way out. Right now, the building is ours. You need to run, climb, kill! You need to help each other. You see someone who's confused, someone who is lost, you get them moving and you keep them moving until we put this place behind us. There are 5,000 of us. If we can fight half as hard as we've been working, we will be home in no time. One way out! One way out! One way out! One way out! One way out! One way out!

The gradual build-up in tension on Ferrix during those first few episodes is brilliant, as Syril and his team embark on their disastrous attempt to capture Cassian:

Maarva: Gets to you, doesn't it? That's what a reckoning sounds like

The central thesis for the show boiled down to Nemik's crucial manifesto, which ends up rippling through the galaxy. It's a sentiment that is scarily relevant:

Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. 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. Remember that. And know this: the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try.

Sobs:

Brasso [quoting Maarva]: Tell him, none of this is his fault. It was already burning, He's just the first spark of the fire. Tell him, he knows everything he needs to know, and feels everything he needs to feel. And when the day comes, and those two pull together, he will be an unstoppable force for good. Tell him... I love him more than anything he could ever do wrong.

Honestly, just included this because Ben Mendelsohn's line delivery - and the fact that it was in every single recap montage before each episode - had this replaying in my head for days:

Krennic: And it turns out, spiders are not the most unique thing in Ghorman.

Another monologue, another stunning performance, another all-timer score by Nicholas Britell in Maarva's eulogy:

Maarva: I want Ferrix to continue. In my waning hours, that's what comforts me most. But I fear for you. We've been sleeping. We've had each other, and Ferrix, our work, our days. We had each other, and they left us alone. We kept the trade lanes open, and they left us alone. We took their money and ignored them, we kept their engines churning, and the moment they pulled away, we forgot them. Because we had each other. We had Ferrix. But we were sleeping. I've been sleeping. And I've been turning away from the truth I wanted not to face. There is a wound that won't heal at the center of the galaxy. There is a darkness reaching like rust into everything around us. We let it grow, and now it's here. It's here, and it's not visiting anymore. It wants to stay. The Empire is a disease that thrives in darkness, it is never more alive than when we sleep. It's easy for the dead to tell you to fight, and maybe it's true, maybe fighting is useless. Perhaps it's too late. But I'll tell you this. If I could do it again, I'd wake up early and be fighting these bastards... Fight the Empire!

Too. Real.

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

Not one of the more 'showy' Luthen lines, but one of my favourite smaller moments where Luthen not-so-subtly proves that he's already two steps ahead of Dedra despite her smug satisfaction with catching Axis:

Luthen: At the moment, only two pieces of questionable provenance in the gallery.

Once all pretenses are dropped, Luthen drops one final stinger. Dedra's fatal mistake is not understanding his acceptance of never being able to see the sunrise he burns his life for:

Luthen: And you're too late. The rebellion isn't here anymore. It's flown away. It's everywhere now. There's a whole galaxy out there waiting to disgust you.

A message that gets passed along from a hotel clerk who lived through both Ghorman massacres, to Cassian, and then to Jyn in Rogue One:

"Rebellions are built on hope."

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