Andor’s best new character is the villain’s pushy mom

polygon.com:

Even in a universe full of space wizards, laser swords, giant robot walkers, and little murder bears, sometimes the most intimidating thing a person can face in Star Wars is their mom.

The bulk of “The Axe Forgets,” this week’s episode of the Rogue One prequel series Andor, is full of stuff you’d expect. The scrappy group of Rebels that Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) has signed up with as “Clem” make their final preparations for their big Imperial heist, work through some jitters, and also process their mistrust of the new guy who was brought on last minute. However, the episode opens far from them, with milquetoast baddie Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) sulking in his childhood bedroom.

As the episode starts, Syril is at his lowest, disgraced and on the outs with his corporate rent-a-cop job, and his mother, Eedy Karn (Kathryn Hunter), is happy to give him a full dressing down. She knocks him for his posture, his lack of prospects and ambition, and his failure to hit up family connections to better himself. She is, in this fantastical world of flying cars and blue milk, the most mundane and real-world of things: an overbearing, pushy, and passive-aggressive mother absolutely steamrolling her child, in ways that probably will make him an even worse person than he already is.

Yet Eedy Karn isn’t just amusing; she’s emblematic of what Andor is doing so differently in its angry corner of the Star Wars universe, and how the show’s more grounded approach is succeeding. “The Axe Forgets” is full of loaded conversations between characters, each moving the plot forward while also hinting at specific resentments bubbling underneath. Consider:

In all this, Andor feels more like a costume drama than a traditional Star Wars production. It’s