Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Season 1 of Andor.
Andor’s pitch-perfect Season 1 finale floats a lot of subtle and nuanced character moments across our screens. While Ferrix erupts into revolt against occupying Imperials, pivotal decisions are made by heroes, villains, and everyone in between with little-to-no dialogue to help contextualize their unfolding inner drama. One of those moments is shared between Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) and Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) after he pulls her out of the chaotic clash. Some might see their interaction as a burgeoning romance, but what they're really feeling is much more primal and fundamental than any infatuation.
Dedra’s life with the Empire revolves around maintaining order. Her work with the Imperial Security Bureau keeps her vigilant, incisive, and cutthroat. Where her colleagues might see disparate events, Dedra sees a pattern of conspiracy and disorder. She believes the Empire is a universal force – a natural entity that is crucial to the functioning of the galaxy. If even one piece is out of alignment, Dedra can treat it as if it were a symptom. Her ambition propels her up the Imperial career ladder and her keen, analytical mind protects her from anyone who might try to snipe her on the way up. Because Dedra has meticulously protected herself and her future within the Empire, she has never known real danger.
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Dedra Finally Experiences Real Fear on Ferrix
Dedra’s view of the burgeoning Galactic Civil War is from bird’s eye. At her level in the ISB, massive events like Kreegyr’s attack on Spellhaus float below Dedra as a conference brief. With a few well-placed words to her superiors, hundreds of lives are snuffed out, and all Dedra sees of it is a commendation. On Ferrix, Dedra experiences for the first time what it feels like to be on the ground level of an Imperial conflict. She’s unable to hover from above and tune into the patterns because she’s in the thick of it. Fire, blood, and mayhem make her crumble apart with fear – the kind of fear that all her executive planning inflicts on others. She feels what it’s like to lose all control and be completely helpless to what’s happening around her. She’s not used to fear. She’s not used to failing. Dedra has never experienced that before.
But Syril has. His last visit to Ferrix was marred by the violent consequences of his own zealotry. Cassian’s (Diego Luna) murder of two Pre-Mor officers sticks in Syril’s brain like a splinter. Like Dedra, he too believes himself to be a servant of order, and he can’t abide by the decision to drop the investigation into the deaths. It breaks a kind of faith inside Syril to have his superiors telling him to look the other way. For Syril, If this one hair remains out of place, the entire system is a sham – and he can’t allow himself to believe that, so he must snip the hair. Like Dedra he has never seen combat, but unlike Dedra he has never wielded real power before. Syril underestimates his opponents and Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård) absconds with Cassian in tow after detonating a decoy speeder. As his men who were caught in the blast cry out in pain amidst the flames and debris, Syril freezes and struggles to come to grips with his failure.
Syril never accepts his failure. Though he’s relieved of his duties and left to move back in with his hypercritical mother, Eedy (Kathryn Hunter), he doesn’t give up on getting Cassian to answer for his crimes. His constant inquiries attract Dedra’s attention as she looks into the Ferrix incident and its possible connection to “Axis,” the codename the ISB has assigned to Luthen. While Dedra sees nothing of worth in Syril, he is awestruck by her. Syril sees in Dedra the strength of resolve and commitment to the Empire’s order that he values so much himself. After becoming disillusioned by his previous leadership and being humiliated by his new station in life, Dedra is exactly the kind of powerful engine onto which Syril would latch. She represents everything he believes to be true about the Empire: controlled, resolute, and perfectly aligned. To top it off, she seems to be the only other person in the galaxy who gives two hoots about Cassian Andor.
Syril's Obsession With Dedra Doesn't Come From a Place of Love
Remember, Dedra floats above it all. Syril is a means to an end in her search for Axis, another footnote casualty on her climb to the top. When Syril asks her to help, he might as well be a bug asking to be squashed. She has no reason to feel any kind of similar way about Syril. Especially not after she finds out he’s been stalking her. It’s easy to view this blatantly predatory behavior as a function of some twisted romantic feeling on Syril’s part. If show creator Tony Gilroy and team take their relationship to that degree, it wouldn’t come out of left field.
However, even if there is romance to come, it’s playing second fiddle to what we’ve seen in Season 1. Syril’s obsession with Dedra comes from a place of sycophantic reverence. He specifically wants to thank her for following up on their conversation about Andor and picking up the torch. That Syril would call it a conversation shows how he views her fanaticism as equal to his, and that Dedra would call it her interrogation shows how little she regards him. Syril believes that Dedra has the same dream for the galaxy, the same drive for justice, but it’s his fanaticism that disturbs her. While he sees Dedra as confirmation that he’s on a true path, she sees him as an extremist. She’s just doing her job and she’s doing it damn well, she doesn’t have time for stalkers and their manifestos.
It’s not until Dedra attends the funeral for Maarva (Fiona Shaw) on Ferrix that she sees anything to admire about Syril in return. Because of Syril’s experience on Ferrix, because of his failure, he’s been radicalized in his own way. Unlike Dedra, he is no longer blindly confident in the might of authority. He understands how dangerous men like Cassian Andor are – how even one misplaced hair can foment insurrection. He has seen first-hand what a breakdown in law and order can look like. So when it happens again on Ferrix, Syril is rock solid. He has a steely calm about the conflict around him as the residents of Ferrix lash out against the Empire’s occupation. He finds Dedra being trampled by a crowd, and pulls her up and in to shelter.
Dedra's Panic Is Offset by Syril's Calm and Collected Energy
While Dedra was panicking in the chaos the Empire inflicts, the kind of chaos she herself inflicts all for the sake of her imposed sense of order, Syril was cool and collected. She arrogantly thrust herself into the field just as Syril did with Pre-Mor, not realizing how ugly things could get. She nearly dies in the eruption of rebellion, and she learns just how fragile she is. Like Cassian says, “power doesn’t panic.” Syril finds Dedra in a state where she’s realizing just how powerless she actually is. She stares at him bewildered, first at the fact that he’s even there, but then at the fact that she’s losing her grip. Dedra sees something in Syril that she doesn’t have. Resolve. Faith. An unshakable belief that he is just, and right, and most importantly: in control.
That resolve is a dark and inverse reflection of the kind that Luthen sees in Cassian when he confronts him on the Fonder. It’s that knowledge Cassian now has that he would rather die than live under the Empire that convinces Luthen to take him in. Syril’s resolve will be what convinces Dedra to take him under her wing as well. When we see Syril as an Imperial officer in Season 2, it won’t be because Dedra owes him a life debt, and it won’t be because she’s got some kind of a crush on him. It will be because she saw something dead in Syril’s eyes in the midst of war. What she experienced on Ferrix scared her, and she desperately wishes she didn’t have to feel that fear – the same kind of fear she inflicts on others through her work in the ISB. Dedra would rather have the emptiness of feeling and singleness of thought that defines Syril’s pursuit of order. Without that – without Syril – she has to reckon with the horrors that the Empire wreaks.
Dedra and Syril’s relationship is less about a villainous romance on the other side of the trenches and more about how authoritarians depend on each other to affirm their ideologies and deepen their dependence on them. Dedra emboldened Syril by proving he hadn’t failed by pursuing Cassian, and in turn, Syril will embolden Dedra by showing her how he is made fearless by his fanaticism. By each of them allowing the other a way out of confronting the horrors their own allegiance reaps, they're pushing each other deeper down the rabbit hole of fascism, whether they realize it or not. What further terrors they'll justify together remains to be seen in Season 2.
Season 1 of Andor is now available to stream on Disney+.
