So the first three episodes of Season 2 of Andor dropped this week on Disney plus, and I found them a little disappointing. I wanted to talk about one scene in particular that I think might be illustrative of the issues with this season. It was well done, I think, and I even enjoyed it, but I don't think it belongs on Andor.

Spoilers ahead, I am going to freely discuss content from any and all of the fifteen episodes from both seasons combined so far released.

I am talking about the dinner scene, between Dedra, Syril and Eedy. First of all, I just want to say that I did not see the relationship between Dedra and Syril coming. I do tend to have blindspots in that regard, e.g. having completely missed Elayne's foreshadowed relationships in both versions of WoT almost until her first kiss. I'm also not sure the relationship isn't something of a dead end. I had seen Syril's interest in her as professional and a form of hero worship, seeing in her what he wanted Imperial security to be. I had thought that if it was going anywhere, his rescue of Dedra from the mob would have led to his reinstatement in a security position, from which he could go on to be more of a participant in the actual story. The disaster of his previous operation tends to blind people to the fact that he was right, and the officer who discouraged his pursuit of the investigation was not correct in his dismissal of the murders. No one told Syril "Don't follow up, the situation is too dangerous to mess around with casually", he was told that it's probably not important and the victims brought it on themselves. Which was true, but also, the killer turned out to be connected to a major rebel threat, and no one had any way of anticipating that such a dangerous and highly-trained operative would be meeting with the target of Syril's investigation the very moment security came. So Syril has a lot of potential as a threat to the rebels, and it's a longer and less plausible road to get there as Dedra's boyfriend than her operative.

All that being said, I enjoyed Dedra and Syril facing dinner with Eedy with such dread. But like a lot of stuff in the three episodes of season 2, it went on a bit longer than I think it needed to, and in this case, took a turn out of Andor's wheelhouse that I think could be troublesome.

One aspect of the realism of the show, and the depth it gave to the characters, was the glimpses of their family lives, but those glimpses were not really stories, so much as backstory. We got Marva's sometime exasperation and disappointment with her husband and son, but also the love and affection within that family. Jayhold Beehaz was conducting a slow, steady and irresistible destruction of the native culture on Aldahni, but he was also a husband and father of a rather younger wife and son, and frustrated with her coddling of the boy. Mon Mothma is increasingly alienated from her teenaged daughter, by her own professional responsibilities, ideological dedication and covert efforts at rebellion, as well as Leida's gravitation toward her more indulgent father and her interest in more traditional, if regressive, aspects of their Chandrillan heritage her parents see as outdated. And, of course, Eedy's poisonous and backhanded advice to her son, Syril, grinding away at his self-esteem and confidence. This is just what their lives are like and they are normal, plausible and relatable family situations. Jayhold doesn't get his son to toughen up or his wife to change her parenting approach. Mon Mothma never gets to reconnect with Leida or arrest her pursuit of fundamentalist culture. And the Andors' relationships don't grow, they are just there, and their purpose is to inform Cassian's conversion to full-blown rebel soldier.

Except now, the Karn family dynamic has been "solved" and Eedy has been "defeated" (at least for now; I'd hope that if she plays a role going forward, she just finds more subtle ways to get her shots in). That just doesn't feel like a thing that should happen on this show, especially given how unimportant it is in the big picture. Dedra already gets plenty of wins, and she's very good at her job, as a high-ranking officer in the ISB and now leader of a project with the personal attention of Krennic, the director of the Death Star construction project. Dedra is exactly the sort of person who should be impotent in the face of her mother-in-law's barbed commentary, who should be desperately hoping to avoid, or at least merely survive, a visit she dreads, where she shows no fear at pushing back and arguing against the highest ranking Imperial functionaries she deals with. For that matter, why was she so nervous and dreading a meal with Eedy, if she had the lowdown on Uncle Harlo in her back pocket and a plan to put Eedy in her place?

Overall, the dinner scene, despite the good acting and writing on its own, out of context, comes across as a piece of fan service that doesn't really fit in with the rest of the story or offer much hope of advancing plot or character issues.