Fiona Shaw

A somber theme emerges in episode one of True Detective: Night Country.Photo: Michele K. Short/HBOIf you’ve been curious about True Detective: Night Country, but don’t have an HBO or Max subscription, prepare to be further tempted: episode one is now streaming free on YouTube. Writer-director Issa López’s (Tigers Are Not Afraid) new installment of the anthology series is an Alaska-set tale that tips its fur-lined cap to John Carpenter’s The Thing; it also features a rare TV series appearance by Jodie Foster, in a role…

As Star Wars has grown and modernized, more and more bits of our own evolving lexicon have become part of its dialogue—and cursing is no exception. For every dank ferrik and sithspit, there’s been mild curses from the “real world.” Already Andor made a transgressive step in having key characters use real cursing, but its true sweary prize remained out of reach.That is, of course, the denoument of Maarva Carasi Andor’s powerful funeral call to arms at the very climax of Andor’s first season. “If I could do it again, I’d…

Screenshot: LucasfilmOne thing that always confused me about Andor was why Fiona Shaw—a Shakespearean actor extraordinaire and multiple award-winning star of stage, screen, and TV—would have accepted the small, muted role of Maarva Andor, Cassian’s adoptive mother. That is, until I saw the series finale, where Shaw’s massive talents were put to perfect use—well, almost perfect, if Disney’s censors hadn’t gotten in the way.According to Denise Gough, who plays dedicated Imperial Security bureaucrat Dedra Meero in the TV…

Image: LucasfilmAndor’s scale is a personal one, and for much the series, the Empire appears undefined by the familiar iconography that is plastered over the rest of Star Wars—Stormtroopers largely replaced by lightly armored grunts, Star Destroyers fleeting, and then the TIE Fighter, so rarely seen that when one does appear, flying over the Aldhani cell’s encampment, it’s the scariest a lone, screeching starfigher has ever been. Image: LucasfilmAndor’s scale is a personal one, and for much the series, the Empire…

Image: Disney+Andor’s season one finale, “Rix Road,” capped off a journey taken by many, not just one, in a perfect hour of television. Diego Luna solidified Cassian as one of the most important characters in the canon—retroactively at that—and the Lucasfilm series, led by Tony Gilroy, proved it’s simply operating on a level that’s unmatched in expanding what it really means to be Star Wars. It’s going to be a long wait until season two.I’ve watched the season finale, which was directed by Benjamin Caron and written by…

Screenshot: Lucasfilm/Disney+No time is wasted in the penultimate episode of season one of Andor. “Daughter of Ferrix,” directed by Benjamin Caron and written by Tony Gilroy, is a breakneck build to the finale that drops you right into where everyone is in the final moments before their lives forever change. And you see just what they’ll do to fight for freedom as the Rebellion—or defend their control as the Empire.There’s no going back now for the Disney+ Star Wars show, and as always, spoilers ahead. What is freedom but…

Image: Disney+If there was any doubt at the end of last week’s episode of Andor that things were going to get worse for our heroes, this week’s doozy of an episode makes it clear that the Empire has everyone in a chokehold. With an unexpected arrest leading Cassian (Diego Luna) to a new prison, and Dedra (Denise Gough) coming down hard on Ferrix, there still must be a way for the tide to turn back in favor of the rebels... right?Episode eight out of twelve really took a turn to some truly dark places and it’s aptly…

Photo: Disney+Episode seven of Andor traces the ripples of the Rebel strike on Aldhani across the galaxy. Every side sees the lines drawn, and action begins to build in another tension-filled hour of the events that lead up to Rogue One and Star Wars. The Stephen Schiff (The Americans)-written episode was directed by Benjamin Caron (The Crown); it finds Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) hoping to make a clean break, but things are never as simple as that—especially when all sides begin to mobilize around him.There’s a reason we…

Screenshot: Disney+With Andor, showrunner Tony Gilroy masterfully sets up a new Star Wars universe that drops us on the ground level pre-Rebellion and explores the lives of the disenfranchised in the shadow of the Empire. No need for space wizardry here: this is a story about people. Centering on the origin of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story lead Cassian Andor— with Diego Luna reuniting with Gilroy and reprising his role—the Disney+ series takes us five years before the fateful events that led to Andor and his band of heroes…

Andor — premiering Wednesday on Disney+ and Disney+ Hotstar — revisits Diego Luna's title character Cassian Andor, first introduced on Rogue One nearly six years ago. (It's set five years prior to that Star Wars film though, where the Rebel Alliance is in its infancy, and Andor wants nothing to do with a grand resistance.) Fittingly for a movie that was darker than everything in its universe and expanded the definition of what Star Wars could be, its TV prequel spin-off is more grown up than anything we've seen before…