Andor’s back, so maybe Star Wars “fans” will actually be happy for once. The show’s rep as the only good and smart new Star Wars might be a little overstated, but Tony Gilroy’s show does boast a confidence that’s been in short supply with Star Wars since the original trilogy. The first season took itself seriously but wasn’t self-serious in the way so many “prestige” genre shows are, wasn’t overly manipulative when it got emotional, and was fun despite hardly ever trying to be funny. It didn’t feel like the heavily test marketed product of a 21st century corporate IP mill the way so many shows and movies do today, eager to please and making the most obvious moves to do so, but instead came off as the result of a careful, intentional plan, with a firm grasp on its own personality and tone. And, despite some tight structural restraints, season two maintains that level of quality throughout.
Andor isn’t the kind of grand space adventure you expect from Star Wars. The mystical side of this universe is almost entirely absent. It’s basically a tight procedural that focuses not on a real-life human job like “cop” or “doctor” but the process of creating the Rebellion as we know it at the start of the first Star Wars movie. And if recent real-world events have made its politics even weightier than they were in the first season, well, that only increases the anticipation, right?
Fortunately Andor’s second season is a strong follow-up to the first. It’s only partially hurt by this season’s unique structure, one necessitated by the show running for only two seasons: every three episodes serves as one year in the life of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and the nascent Rebellion. That collapsed timeline bridges the gap between season one and Rogue One, the movie Andor is introduced in, and essentially turns this season into a series of four movies. Disney’s even releasing three episodes a week, so you won’t have to wait to see how each year’s arc wraps up.
That structure has its obvious drawbacks. More than once the third episode in a year ends with a notable character (potentially) dying; when the next episode picks up a year later, we’re robbed of seeing the immediate impact that death had on other characters. It deflates these losses and lessens their narrative significance. Andor fans wouldn’t want some maudlin exploration of grief—one reason people love this show is because it’s the least sentimental Star Wars has ever been—but completely fast-forwarding past the grieving process removes the personality and a lot of the power of these moments. It’s the best Gilroy and Co. can do given the need to condense four years into 12 episodes, but in a different galaxy this show would have the space it needs for these moments to be truly felt.
This speed-run approach does help in other ways, though. I don’t think five seasons of 12 episodes each would be all that better an alternative; the first season generally avoided the kind of fat you expect from TV shows, but I doubt any show could’ve pulled that off for 48 more episodes. This season of Andor always moves at a brisk clip, laser-focused on the increasing entrenchment of space fascism and the gradual alignment of the disparate movements against it. Characters might not have the amount of screen time you’d hope for (one season one standout basically disappears after one or two episodes, only to return very briefly at the end), but most of them get the time their storylines require.
One of Andor’s primary goals is showing how disconnected, decentralized pockets of rebellion against the Empire, often suspicious and even downright hostile towards each other, gradually work together to create a strong, unified front. Andor is a crucial field operative in that process, but Stellan Skarsgard and Genevieve O’Reilly return as two crucial figures in the cause working from the Empire’s capital Coruscant. Both are excellent in their roles, Skarsgard as the secretive spymaster and fundraiser willing to sacrifice anything or anybody for the cause, and O’Reilly as the Imperial Senator who gradually becomes the public face of the Rebellion. And Forest Whitaker makes a handful of cameos as the militant resistance leader Saw Gerrera, representing the pockets of rebellion that don’t agree to work with the main movement—which, as Rogue One viewers know, becomes a dead end.
Andor, meanwhile, represents the bodies on the ground who have to implement those leaders’ strategies, always prepared to die in the process. Adria Arjona returns as Andor’s close friend Bix Caleen, and the two grow much closer during one of the gaps between years. And since season two has to get us all the way to the start of Rogue One, K-2SO, the movie’s Alan Tudyk-voiced Imperial enforcer droid who’s been reprogrammed to work for the Rebellion and serves as Andor’s droll muscle, enters the fold late in the season. It’s the one major note that feels a little off for Andor—a little too IP-driven, like a cameo in a Marvel movie—but it would be weird if K2 didn’t appear, given where this series has always been headed.