Is It Wrong That We Just Want Dedra And Syril To Kiss Already In Andor?
Major spoilers ahead for the "Andor" season finale.
Syril (Kyle Soller) and Dedra (Denise Gough) are the ickiest couple to exist in a Star Wars project, and that includes Luke and Leia after the audience learned that they were related. This particular "Andor" ship is horrifying. Dedra is a cold-blooded bureaucrat in the ISB who cares about nothing but order and putting down the rebels. Syril is an order-obsessed toady who is clearly stalking her as a substitute for his monster of an overbearing mother (Kathryn Hunter). He admires her to the point of devotion. Yes, they both worship order, but the idea of a relationship between them is horrifying.
... So why do we want them to kiss already?
I can practically feel you shuddering over the internet, but you know it's true. In the final episode of "Andor" season 1, Dedra is caught up in the Ferrix riot during Maarva's (Fiona Shaw) funeral and is saved by Syril. She's visibly upset and shaking, and they're standing just a little too close together. There is staring and a creepy long look from Syril. She says she should thank him. He says she doesn't need to. It's a recipe for a smooch. I know you felt it, too. We all did. We hate these characters (and love the performances), so why do we want them to hook up so badly?
Why we want to see that smooch
There are real reasons that we want these two to lock lips, even as our collective gorge rises. First of all, we as a species are always looking for connection, and post-lockdown, it's only become more pronounced. Syril wants someone to understand him. He wants someone that gets his love of order and his need to keep things the way they "should be" in the chaos of the galaxy. This is his driving force, and to be fair, on paper, Dedra is perfect for him. She understands order so well that it consumes her. She just happens to have a way better handle on it than he does.
Add in the fact that Syril's mother is constantly prying into his life, watching his every emotion, critiquing his every move, and it makes even more sense. She's ... messy. If things were in proper working order, she'd leave him alone, but instead, she's manipulated her way into every aspect of his life. Order feels clean to him, pristine, and he's focused that on Dedra.
Dedra sees him as a worm, of course ... until he saves her. Now she has to look at him in a new light. That's catnip for viewers. We all want to be seen as the heroic version of who we really are, so watching a person who is cold and calculating discover something about a person she thought was less than nothing is a sort of wish fulfillment for an audience member. We're desperate to see the softening of hard edges, and we long for someone who always fails to finally win. Even if we hate them, we're always looking for connection, and this moment near the end of the episode gave us hope for a new one.
We reacted the way we've been trained to
We've been trained by film, TV, and books to wait for hatred to turn into love — or at least lust. We want to see disdain morph into deep feelings because we've watched it happen a million times. "Moonlighting" rested an entire show on the audience's desire to see the two leads turn that constant bickering into a kiss. In the Star Wars universe, we watched Leia (Carrie Fisher) sneer at Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and we just knew they'd end up together. It's a trope, and we've been invested in it our entire lives.
It's a function of storytelling. If these characters are never going to change, why tell us about them? We don't watch stories to see everything stay the same. Where can this relationship that they've put such focus on go besides this? She's either going to shoot him in the stomach, or they'll gain an understanding. Add the chemistry between Kyle Soller and Denise Gough, and where else can it go? These are not people who will end up friends. They don't know the meaning of the word. We want to see them develop and maybe even become less awful by being together (not going to happen) or become a couple that enhances each other's questionable qualities. Plus, fairy tales have trained us to see a rescue followed by a kiss as though it's payment. (It will be a sloppy one because Syril has definitely never done it before.)
Look, I'm not proud of wanting to see them kiss, but here we are. I blame fairy tales.
"Andor" is streaming on Disney+.