From the start, Disney+’s Andor series occupied a weird place as not just a prequel, but a prequel to a prequel. As a result, there wasn’t going to be a lot of drama in some of the action, because we already knew the fate of rebel fighter Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) in Star Wars: Rogue One, and we already knew the ultimate success of the Rebellion from the original Star Wars trilogy. That meant, by necessity, Andor couldn’t just be a plot machine. Rather than simply being about “what happens,” it had to offer something thematically interesting to chew on.
That was certainly the case in series creator Tony Gilroy’s first season, which explored the idea of what turns someone into a fighter for a cause. It’s a notion that gets complicated even more in Season 2, which digs into the messy realities of launching a resistance when people have radically different ideas for how to proceed: how extreme, how fast, how risky. I have bad news for folks griping about how Star Wars has “gone woke”—it has always been woke, proudly so, and the way that sensibility plays out is a lot of what makes the new season so compelling.
Structurally, Gilroy and his creative team take a bit of a big swing, as the season’s 12 episodes are separated into four three-episode-long arcs, released weekly, with a one-year time jump between each arc. That includes a similar gap between the end of season one—which concluded with Cassian joining forces with rebel leader Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård)—as Cassian undertakes a series of dangerous missions, while his possible-romantic-interest Bix (Adria Arjona) is in hiding on another planet. Plenty of other familiar faces from Season 1 also return, including zealous Imperial officers Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) and Syril Karn (Kyle Soller), and secret rebel sympathizer/Galactic Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly).
Given the complications of building tension in a prequel, the individual episodes boast some terrific sequences. Many of the best directing choices involve when and how to cross-cut between different venues during climactic battles, including between a moment of violent confrontation and a wedding celebration. It helps that the performers sell the life-or-death nature of the choices they’re forced to make—particularly Diego Luna, as Cassian finds himself swinging between true believer in the cause and someone damaged enough by what he sees that he wants to retreat to a “normal” life.
At its core, though, Andor Season 2 foregrounds the premise that even when a large group of people have identified the current regime as a threat, they can still be at one another’s throats over what to do next. The wars of ideas in these episodes are often just as thrilling as the wars involving lasers, often echoing the kind of philosophical tension between peaceful protest and show of force that has also driven pop-culture properties like X-Men. And let’s be frank, it gives an additional juice to the themes at work in Andor that so many of the plot-lines echo contemporary headlines: people without proper documentation living in fear of capture; the way in which media propaganda can make it easier for a regime to achieve its aims; people who thought they were on the side of the regime starting to question the story they’re being fed. When Mothma gives a speech noting that “the death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil” … well, draw your own conclusions.
While some viewers might still be laboring under the illusion that Star Wars should be “pure escapism,” it has always been filled with political intrigue. It’s a thorny, complicated narrative, taking us right up to the events kicking off the heroic sacrifices that were part of Rogue One. If that means it’s unlikely we’re going to get a Season 3 of Andor, it certainly seems like Gilroy and company have done what they set out to do. They’ve told a story about people who refuse to live meekly under the thumb of tyranny, end up fighting amongst themselves as often as they end up fighting their common enemy, and have to grow into the understanding of what resistance should look like.
Andor doesn’t just lead into the Rebellion—it shows why it had to exist in the first place, and why standing up to oppression is the most Star Wars thing of all.
Are You An Andor Fan?
Let’s hear from you… Were you a fan of Andor Season 1? What are you hoping to see in the final story arc. And are you excited (or dreading) the series coming to an end?
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