BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) 鈥� In the galaxy of 鈥淪tar Wars鈥� super villains are relegated to the shadows. The Disney+ series is more interested in what might be called supervisor villains: the bureaucrats, planners, schemers and petty functionaries who make tyranny possible.
Instead of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine, we get Dedra Meero and Syril Karn, a pair of ambitious middle-managers who become an unlikely couple in their .
鈥淚t鈥檚 so nuanced, these villains are operating in a real gray zone, and they鈥檙e representing a side of the empire that we have never seen before,鈥� said Kyle Soller, who plays Karn. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e getting a real like cogs and nuts and bolts view of how the empire machine works, from the very bottom to the upper echelons.鈥�
In a joint interview with Soller for The Associated Press, Denise Gough, who plays Meero, added, 鈥淚t can鈥檛 just be brute force. An empire can鈥檛 survive on brute force, it takes all these Machiavellian, tiny movements here, tiny movements there, ripple effects everywhere.鈥�
Gough is a 45-year-old Irish actor who is also currently starring in the thriller 鈥淭he Stolen Girl鈥� on Hulu. Soller is a 41-year-old Connecticut-born actor who has long lived in London with his wife, actor Phoebe Fox.
Their characters came together during Season 1 as each sought to collar the mysterious figure of Andor amid the burgeoning Rebel Alliance 鈥� Karn from the police side, Meero from the police-state side.
The Ghorman problem, and a Nazi-style solution
In Season 2, Meero and Karn each become caught up in the exploitation of the powder-keg planet of Ghorman, a previously peaceful place where the Galactic Empire needs to gouge-mine a mineral essential to building the Death Star. The process is likely to kill or displace its residents, among whom a rebellion brews.
A group of imperial bureaucrats meet secretly in a conference room to plan the planet's destruction, in scenes that see the return of actor Ben Mendelsohn's Orson Krennic, the Death Star builder who was the chief antagonist of 2016鈥檚 鈥淩ogue One.鈥� (鈥淎ndor鈥� is a prequel.) He's a senior leader but is still a functionary subject to the mercy and whims of the dictators he serves.
鈥淎ndor鈥� creator said the meeting was his chance to make his version of the oft-dramatized Nazi Germany Wannsee Conference, what he calls a 鈥淧owerPoint meeting鈥� of middle managers over lunch in 1942 to drily and practically plan the extermination of European Jews.
Krennic singles out Meero during a lunch break, seeing a strong thinker in counterintelligence. She smartly suggests encouraging the Ghorman rebellion to become violent.
鈥淧ropaganda will only get you so far," Meera says, in one of the season's key lines. 鈥淵ou need Ghorman rebels you can depend on to do the wrong thing.鈥�
The plotline pushes Karn and Meera, neither of them ideologues, out to moral cusps where it seems they may switch sides.
鈥淵ou get to see how the empire is using its underlings,鈥� Soller said. 鈥淣o matter how high up they achieve power, they鈥檙e all being used, they鈥檙e all pawns, and disposable.鈥�
Gough said the difference between the two sides is that of 鈥渁 gang and a tribe.鈥�
鈥淭he empire is the gang and the rebellion is the tribe,鈥� she said. "The tribe has heart and loyalty and all of those things, and values all of those things, and the gang makes it seem like they do, but they don鈥檛, they disperse at the first sign of trouble, and they dispense when it鈥檚 no longer needed.鈥�
An awkward imperial romance
Meero and Karn's overlapping ambitions also lead them into a romantic coupling. That had Gough worried at the end of Season 1 that they would end up in an 鈥渋nsipid鈥� world of common couple tropes, but she said 鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 have imagined how weird it would get."
鈥淭hey鈥檝e never had an example of love,鈥� Gough said. 鈥漈hey grew up in a controlled, cultlike environment. So actually the story we鈥檙e telling is how do two people, when they grow up like that, how do they function in relationships?鈥�
The domestic scenes between the two are both tense and awkward, especially with the large presence of Karn's tiny mother Eedy, played by the always-magnificently-odd actor .
鈥淵ou have this extraordinary meeting of these two women," Gough said, "and in the bedroom is the man that they're making a deal about.鈥�
These moments can feel tangential, but the duo's arcs through their personal lives, their moral compromises and their final choices become an essential part of the overall story.
鈥淚 think it's going to be really profound as you layer that into 鈥楻ogue One鈥� and into the original trilogy as well,鈥� Soller said. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e just like, 'Oh wow I got like the complete history of the modern empire.鈥�
How 鈥楢ndor鈥� is being released and when its finale will will air
Season 2 of 鈥淎ndor鈥� is being released on Disney+ in a novel format. The episodes drop in clusters of three each Tuesday night at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific. The three-part series finale running May 13. Here鈥檚 the whole schedule.
April 22: Episodes 1-3
April 29: Episodes 4-6
May 6: Episodes 7-9
May 13: Episodes 10-12
Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press
