In the first season of Andor, we watched Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) try to get by in the galaxy, but the Empire’s oppressive omnipresence forced Andor to begin to fight back. Now in the fight in Andor season two, Andor finds entirely new situations opened for him. In the aftermath of season one, Bix (Adria Arjona), his off and on girlfriend, and his friends from Ferrix are now in this fight as well. He works for Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård), a man he respects for his dedication in opposing the Empire but questions how far he is willing to go. This creates new pressures for everyone in fear of losing people or losing themselves.
Diego Luna as Andor encompasses all of the emotions living the life he does. He is the professional doing his work, reassuring those around him. Then, he seems lost and desperate to escape this life. These conflicting feelings are facilitated by watching Andor and Bix’s relationship. It is wonderful how they can take comfort in each other, living with the trauma imposed by the Empire and helping each other out when questioning or struggling their purpose. Bix isn’t just Andor’s emotional comfort. She has her own goals and troubles to overcome and seeing how she confronts them had me cheering for her.
Away from the direct fight but equally in it, we have Luthen and his assistants Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau) and Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) living in the belly of the beast, having to make just as many terrible choices but living in luxury. Mon has to give up more and more of herself to the fight, becoming the leader we know from the Star Wars films. She’s seeing the horror now up close and having to deal with it.
Kleya gets a lot more to do in this second season, and it’s impressive how much she transitions from a background character to being such an integral part of the show. Then Luthen, the man who gave up his humanity (something he himself has said), sees what the rebellion has become but also what it thinks of him. He knew it was coming, and how he carries it with such gravitas is a testament to Stellan Skarsgård’s acting ability.
Making compromises and rationalizing their choices are not just in the rebellion but in the Empire. The Empire is not just full of sadists willing to kill everyone, but they will justify it for the greater good or are simply too scared, ambitious, or ignorant to do anything about it, figuring, if I don’t, I will be killed and someone else will do it anyway. It creates humanity in the Empire we usually do not see.
Dedra (Denise Gough) and Syril (Kyle Soller) continue to be that human face for us from season one, but we get to see them get deeper into the Empire’s willingness to be monstrous. They are in a way parallel to Cassian and Bix, supporting each other, and I want to say more about both of them but it is better to see what happens with them. I will say I felt for them even in the terrible situations they were a part of because we see them not as inhuman monsters. These two actors are doing fantastic work and I hope the Emmys are paying attention.
One of the reasons I loved the first season of this show was how much more grounded in reality it was. There is something so liberating about watching Star Wars and hearing swear words. I loved seeing that many things are not easily black and white, and especially that death has a great deal of meaning and trauma behind it. This season goes even deeper into that with one episode in particular I am certain will be one of the most talked about episodes of TV for the entire year. Not just for the action we see on screen and how well the tension was built, before seeing it beautifully executed, punctuated in the reactions from every character involved. From that episode on, I had such nervous energy going through me, wanting to know more about what would happen next and also equally worried about it.
Technically, this show was impressive as well. I loved that we are not just on dirty backwater worlds all the time, and we see how the other half live. Middle class homes of people who just get by, not even thinking about what the Empire is doing. Seeing the wealthy elite’s homes with paparazzi taking pictures during parties. It made for some beautiful sets as well as creating a wonderful contrast to the lives most of our characters are inhabiting. The music was also equally impressive, how often I let the end credits run to hear the melancholy music that added to the tension. Then you have dance music during some of the party scenes that make the tension even greater, knowing what is happening to other people in the galaxy.
If there were any concerns I had going into Andor season two, it was knowing that they planned to jump ahead by years so that the show could end this season. I applaud any creator who knows their limit, and I hate when a show stays around longer than it should. So I will say that, while there are some issues with doing this, overall it works. The problem comes in reorienting where you are within the world and some characters’ journeys are rushed, and some plot beats take a minute to be revealed. I was thankful for recaps even while binging the season to catch some smaller details that ended up being much more important. The advantage though was quicker story telling. We know the rebellion will start to learn about the Death Star and, while there could be tons of side quests to that, in the end it is probably for the best that we didn’t waste time in getting, not just to the inevitable story ending, but also to the emotional pinnacle for these characters.
In getting to the end of this story where we know Cassian’s fate in Rogue One (a movie I still haven’t seen) and the final fight against the Empire, obviously shown in the original Star Wars trilogy, creating a fitting end would be difficult and what they do is really quite poetic. There is no big finale. There cannot be because the fight is still ongoing for them. We simply see where the characters we have followed have ended up, and it was beautiful. It made me sad that I would not see these characters anymore, yet I do not want them to come back either.
Their story is told and done and it was quite a journey.
Andor season two premieres Tuesday, April 22, on Disney+. Subsequent episodes air each Tuesday.
