Andor’s Emmy Hopes Rely on Voters Playing Politics

The Disney+ series Andor is not only one of the best shows on TV right now, but it’s also one of a handful of shows that can make a credible claim to urgency in this year’s Emmys race. Showrunner Tony Gilroy set out to tell the story of how Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) transformed from a petty thief into the committed revolutionary introduced in the 2016 Star Wars film Rogue One while also chronicling the formation of the great Rebel Alliance that would eventually take down the Empire in the original Star Wars films. The building of a resistance movement against authoritarian rule has, as you might expect, resonated with critics and audiences, especially in these early days of Donald Trump’s second term.

“Political ideas have always been present across the mainstream layers of the Star Wars franchise,” Vulture critic Nicholas Quah tells me. “But they tended to be buried beneath all the fantasy and interpersonal Skywalker stuff. With Andor, Gilroy took the franchise’s political dimensions and made it the main focus. You’re looking at a show that’s thinking out loud about politics across history and around the world. I reckon if you grew up in China, you might see a few familiar things too.”

The historical recurrence of resistance against fascist regimes is indeed a source of inspiration for the series. The Empire’s targeting of resource-rich Ghorman seems to have several real-world antecedents. “Ghorman being villainized so that the Empire can strip it for resources is very Iraq War–coded,” Vulture critic Roxana Hadadi notes. “And the way the Empire labels dissenters ‘terrorists,’ as Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) said in the ‘What a Festive Evening’ episode, is similar to how people who support Palestinian rights have been treated for decades. The Imperial Emergency Act evokes the Patriot Act; pretty much any demonstration scene, like the one in Ferrix in season-one finale ‘Rix Road,’ brings to mind the police’s outsize, violent reactions to on-campus encampments, Black Lives Matter marches, or any other attempt by American protesters to make change.”

That season-one finale — featuring Cassian’s dead mother Maarva (Fiona Shaw) delivering a beyond-the-grave address to the citizens of Ferrix to rise up against the Empire and fight — is but one example of the way Andor blends both timeless and timely political themes. “What’s interesting about Andor is how contemporary and alive its politics feel despite the fact that Gilroy and his writing team started work on this thing well before the current moment,” Quah says. “But that’s the mark of a good story, no? Everything that happens now is grounded in everything that’s happened in the past, and everything that happens in one place is an echo of everything that happens everywhere else.”

Andor is certainly not the only Drama Series contender to reflect upon a timely aspect of American life in 2025. Severance’s second season sharpened its ideas about Innies as the oppressed underclass of the Outies. The White Lotus was, as always, teeming with social commentary about the morality of the very wealthy. (Though because the series so rarely tackles politics head-on, that room for interpretation can also dull this commentary; see the chatter around Leslie Bibb’s character’s brief non-denial that she voted for Trump.) The Last of Us dialed down its examination of refugees to focus on its central revenge plot in season two, but there are episodes to come that will deal with factionalization in more resonant ways. The Pitt, among its revolving door of medical catastrophes, confronted a measles case with the child of anti-vaxx parents, something that speaks directly to the RFK Jr.–prescribed national health policy.

Politics feel particularly pertinent in this year’s Emmys race because the last time Donald Trump ascended to the Oval Office, the TV Academy responded by awarding The Handmaid’s Tale Outstanding Drama Series. The 2017 win felt influenced by that show’s depiction of a future dystopia where the United States had succumbed to theocratic rule that rendered women subjugated and silent; with America having just elected a sexual predator to the White House and Senate Republicans blocking Barack Obama’s appointment of a Supreme Court justice who would have likely defended Roe v. Wade as settled law, The Handmaid’s Tale was a scarily accurate reflection of the anxieties many were experiencing at the time.

The Handmaid’s Tale’s triumph was not widely predicted. With perennial winner Game of Thrones ineligible that year, oddsmakers had mostly settled on Netflix’s The Crown to take home the Drama Series award for its debut season. If not The Crown, then probably HBO’s Westworld, which led all dramas with 22 nominations. Most pundits thought Elisabeth Moss would win Lead Actress, and that would be victory enough. Moss did win, as did her co-star Ann Dowd (who wore a blue ribbon in support of the ACLU to the awards ceremony). And then The Handmaid’s Tale took Outstanding Drama Series, giving Hulu the first win in the category for a streaming platform. Accepting the award, showrunner Bruce Miller told the audience of TV professionals, “Go home, go to work. We have a lot of things to fight for.”

At that same ceremony, Saturday Night Live — which had veered heavily toward satirizing the Trump White House — enjoyed its best showing in years. This included wins for Alec Baldwin’s ever-present Trump impersonation and Kate McKinnon, who spent a lot of time that season playing Hillary Clinton, including that infamous postelection “Hallelujah” performance. American liberals and Academy voters alike craved pushback against Trump, and as a result, the political immediacy of The Handmaid’s Tale had become its strongest asset, awards-wise. Miller followed up his Emmy with a Golden Globe win in the same category a few months later, shouting out in his speech everybody “in this country and this world who do what they can to stop The Handmaid’s Tale from becoming real.”

Whether Andor comes to represent the same kind of necessary political urgency to Emmy voters in 2025 as The Handmaid’s Tale did in 2017 will likely depend upon whether members of the TV Academy still feel like it’s worthwhile to make a statement with their Emmy ballot. While there are certainly plenty of people seeking relief from the psychological terror (and economic disaster and foreign-policy fears) of Trump 2.0, it’s reasonable to wonder how much the concurrent trend of high-level capitulation will filter down into the votership. After seeing Apple’s Tim Cook, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, and a host of others pivot toward cozying up to Trump in order to avoid his wrath, it’s unclear whether Hollywood’s impulse for resistance is as strong as what it once was — and whether Andor represents the kind of resistance that speaks to voters.

“While I think season two really smartly builds off season one’s themes,” Hadadi says, “I think the suggestions it makes about opposition — that sometimes extremism might be necessary, that sometimes the mainstream arm of a resistance party is more than willing to erase the contributions of its more fringe elements to hog glory — are also critical of ‘liberalism’ in a way that might rub people the wrong way. Not me! I am eating this shit up, but I’ve seen countless very good, very political shows get blanked by the Emmys, and I’m already preparing for Andor to go the same way.”

NEWS: Gothams! For TV!

Considering how few precursor TV awards we have that fall within actual Emmy season (most of them are at the end of the calendar year, to run alongside the movie season), the Gotham Television Award nominations, announced this week, give us a window into how some folks with ballots are thinking about the most recent TV season (even if those people won’t be voting for the Emmys). The awards, handed out by the Gotham Film & Media Institute, seek to spotlight new and/or “breakthrough” TV series in the crowded awards landscape. As Jeffrey Sharp, executive director of the Gothams, put it in the group’s press release, “As the first awards show of the new television season, we are proud to bring together the industry’s most exciting new voices, celebrate breakthrough achievements, and deepen our commitment to supporting the creative community.”

Some nominees of note:

• Netflix’s Adolescence got the most nominations, with four total: Best Limited Series, plus acting nominations for lead performer Stephen Graham as the tormented father of a grade-schooler accused of murder and supporting performers Owen Cooper (as his son) and Erin Doherty (as the court-appointed psychologist).

• The Studio was among the five shows nominated in the Breakthrough Comedy Series category, giving the show some critical credibility. Chase Sui Wonders was the one member of The Studio’s cast to be nominated for acting; while I still think Catherine O’Hara is the Emmy contender to look out for from The Studio, this nomination definitely puts Wonders on the map for consideration as well.

• The Pitt’s nomination in Breakthrough Drama Series seems like step one on its journey to Emmy success. The show’s lone acting nominee was supporting actress Katherine LaNasa. Since there is a ton of debate about which of The Pitt’s supporting players will get primacy in the Emmys race, this early step forward for LaNasa is worth remembering.

• Other Drama Series nominees of note include Matlock (Kathy Bates and Skye P. Marshall also got acting nods) and Black Doves (as well as one of its stars, Ben Whishaw). My campaign to get Emmy voters to remember how good Black Doves was has gained crucial traction! Next step: Get Keira Knightley some love!

• FX’s English Teacher getting a Comedy Series nomination is (somewhat surprising) proof that the allegations of sexual misconduct levied against creator and star Brian Jordan Alvarez may not mean the end of his show’s awards chances — though the fact that the only cast member nominated individually was Sean Patton as gym teacher Markie may indicate that Alvarez is still too toxic to get behind.

• Other shows with multiple acting nominations include FX limited series Dying for Sex, which saw noms for Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate, and Hulu’s dystopian mystery Paradise, which got nods for Sterling K. Brown and James Marsden.

• The late Linda Lavin got a Supporting nomination for her final performance as a meddling Ma among a houseful of Palm Springs gays of a certain age in Hulu’s Mid-Century Modern.