REVIEW: With stellar and final season 2, 'Andor' is now the best 'Star Wars' show
This is a spoiler-free review of Andor season 2, but contains spoilers for season 1.
“Welcome to the rebellion,” whispers Cassian Andor to a high level asset they’re extracting towards the middle of season 2.
Stellan Skarsgard, who plays Luthen Rael, the Rebel Alliance spy master, had a very accurate soundbite in an interview when he said that Andor was “Star Wars for adults.”
Skarskard also praised showrunner Tony Gilroy for creating a series that not only allowed them to play in the Lucas-made sandbox but also adamantly refused the handholding that pervades so many of the franchise projects because the studio wanted them to appeal to a wide audience.
If you’ve already watched season 1 of this prequel series to Rogue One, then you know Skarskgard’s declarations ring true. Not only was the premiere season cast and acted to the gills with top tier thespians like main character Diego Luna, there’s also of course Skarsgard, Andy Serkis, Forest Whitaker, and underrated character actors like Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Fiona Shaw.
That, and a surplus of great writing by Gilroy and team, gave us astoundingly cool monologues—scenes where the actors could not only imbue dimension to their characters, but also set them free to be creative enough to draw a spark of living breath to the world they inhabited.
I won’t soon forget Maarvi Andor’s rousing, posthumous speech about how “The Empire is a disease that thrives in darkness, it is never more alive than when we are asleep!” or the young Karis Nemik’s sobering take on why the tyrannical Galactic Empire is bound to fall despite its strength and size (“Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.)”
This is damn good, hair-raising filmmaking. Without a doubt, this is spectacular TV and very likely the peak, the best of Star Wars storytelling so far.
By which, I mean, season 2 continues this high-level juggling act and, for the most part, succeeds truly admirably.
A good fact to know before going into the second season: the series was originally supposed to run for five seasons. However, Gilroy decided to do an Alexander and cut down the Gordian knot morass and make season 2 the last one, primarily because Luna was already getting too long in the tooth to play the 20-something brooding rebel Cassian Andor when he was already 45 years old.
The fundamental problem here is that season 2 now has to connect everything between the first season and the affairs in Rogue One. That’s about four years of events to develop the mercenary pilot that Cassian Andor was at the start of season 1 to the zealous rebel agent we finally see in the 2016 movie.
How does Cassian go from selfish capitalist to martyr for the cause within 12 episodes?
In the premiere episode, season 2 establishes its timeline four years before the landmark Battle of Yavin. Cassian has just escaped from the slave prison on Ferrix, where he and thousands of other inmates were conscripted to make parts for what turned out to be the Death Star.
He gets to flee the planet by stealing a pretty powerful yet finicky test ship from an Imperial airbase. But when he lands at a planet in an area supposed to be a rebel outpost, a faction of the Rebellion puts him in cuffs again and argues what to do with him and the impressive ship.
One of the best things about Andor is how it depicts real world ideas and events on to the space soap opera of Star Wars. The sectarian and divisive ecology of the early rebellion is certainly a frustrating but very authentic phenomenon when trying to pull together disparate parts of a dissident movement separated by light years.
Cassian Andor’s radicalization is compelling and ultimately hits home because of its template beats and significant turning points. His motive became cemented by the death of his mother Maarva in the previous season. But in season 2, he’s now running on the twin fuels of vengeance and love—for Adria Arjona's Bix Caleen, his longtime sweetheart.
Our hero now has something to die and live for. His revenge arc is taken advantage of by Luthen Rael, who previously tried to kill Cassian but eventually recruited him as an asset to the Rebel Alliance.
Crucial to all this is the absence of the Jedi in Andor. The Jedi and Sith are peripheral forces at best here, even if we all know what the Emperor really is. Without super-powered, sword-slashing, mystical space monks mucking up the place with their Force-wielding shenanigans the series has been free to focus on how ordinary and very real people fight back against an oppressive regime through subterfuge and guerilla tactics.
No returning as translucent ghosts. No fetch quests for game-changing artifacts or hibernating mentors. Just mere mortals trying to unshackle themselves from the yoke of tyranny. All death is final and, because of the eloquent writing, often meaningful.
A cross between an adventure caper and an espionage thriller, season 2 also has high stakes clandestine operations going on in both low and high places, if shooting space Nazis in the face isn’t your thing.
Most of the high-elevation tightrope skullduggery worthy of “Slow Horses” or “Tehran” is in the storylines of Luthen Rael and Mon Mothma. Rael is embedded in the mercantile class, in a planet where rare textile and even rarer minerals have made them an Imperial darling so much so that they’re fit for occupation. Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), who holds a seat in the Galactic Senate, is now preparing for her daughter’s wedding to seal a reluctant alliance from the events in season 1.
Skarsgard and O’Reilly perform their characters ably, right out of the ballpark when they deliver more impressive monologues that might just beat those in season 1.
Speaking of performances, ISB agent Dedra Meero is given wonderful dimension by Denise Gough, even if she’s essentially playing an ambitious and ruthless Imperial agent with her equally power-hungry partner Syril (Kyle Soller). Arjona’s Bix Caleen struggles with PTSD after her torture at the hands of Imperial agents and her eventual recruitment to the movement is both touching and profound—especially since she joined despite Cassian’s reservations.
Whitaker trots out his hard-nosed field commander Saw Gerrera with gusto, lending gravitas to every scene he’s in. But its Elizabeth Dulau as Kleya Marki, Luthen’s intense and clever adopted assistant, who delivers the prime heart-wrenching tearjerker of a performance on the penultimate episode.
More real world parallels make it into the season as the characters converge on the planet Ghorman. The Empire, needing an excuse to further beef up the military occupation sans bad PR, steps its disinformation campaign into overdrive. Easy analogies can be drawn from recent headlines, whether from the Israeli bloodbath in Gaza or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The rumors of terrorists and anti-Imperial agents in the capital give the Empire the Boogeymen they need, plus the excuse to fly in more troops and hardware to allegedly “suppress” the burgeoning forces that threaten Ghorman. The natives aren’t taking this meekly, of course, and the denouement of these frictions between Imperial interests, the rebels advancing their cause undercover, and the Ghormans struggling to rid their planet of both, lead exactly to what everyone fears will happen. That whole episode will elicit gasps and quicken a few hearts, too.
Since this is a spoiler-free review, we can only confirm that, yes, the loveable, sarcastic droid, K-2SO played by Alan Tudyk does make it in this season. Probably one of the few fan service moments that Gilroy and Co acquiesced to, to please studio execs. There’s also quite a few Easter eggs for the hardcore nerds to find.
All in all, despite the stuttering time jumps, the coherence of the many arcs that are pushed forward ends satisfyingly—if not conclusively for some (I would still love a spin-off for some of these characters, please).
Andor takes us down into the grit of the streets and up into the chambers of high authority to peel back what exactly it takes to fight against a vast, oppressive regime like the Galactic Empire. Through impressive writing and astounding performances we witness how much one must sacrifice, what courage means, and where you must go within yourself to battle the easy slide to just give in, to resist the lures of fascism and choose the path of struggle.
Though being a galactic opera is its USP, this series is already of a caliber that works just as well if it were set in the real world sans space ships, ray guns, or alien species. At its heart it is all too human. And that’s its triumph.
Andor season 2 premieres on Disney+ on April 23.
