It ain't easy being a hero in the overlooked corner of the "Star Wars" universe inhabited by Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and the various figures in his circles. As shown in the Disney+ series "Andor" (and "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" before it), this is a very different kind of tale from the grand, operatic, and mythic storytelling of the main Skywalker Saga films. Here, good guys die without even a moment of glory, the bad guys succeed precisely because of the ruthless precision and efficiency in their mundane bureaucracy, and otherwise straightforward concepts like "good" and "bad" in the first place start to break down dramatically. Without Jedi, the Force, or predestined prophecies to help, the outmanned and outgunned rebels of "Andor" are truly on their own.

Nobody represents this lonely, underdog struggle quite like Stellan Skarsgård's Luthen Rael. The shadowy figure was first introduced early on as a mysterious broker,...