A lot has changed in the two and a half years since Andor first landed on Disney+ screens in autumn 2022 in the wider world, and the return of possibly Star Wars’ most overtly political and subversive entry was highly anticipated. While always in production as a two-season show, the skeletons of an initially sketched five-season structure is very evident from the outset of Andor’s return. Rather than a multi-episode first week and one a week until the finale as it was presented the first time around, the second and final season drops three episodes a week. Each of these three episodes will jump forward a year, beginning one year after the events of Andor’s first season and four years BBY (before the Battle of Yavin, when Luke Skywalker destroys the Death Star) and moving one year forward each week, ending the year before the events of Rogue One and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
On paper, it is a savvy release strategy, and it gives viewers plenty to get their teeth into each week. Similarly, knowing devoted audiences will probably watch all three in a single sitting, it takes its time establishing the whereabouts of familiar faces; two key players from the first season do not show up until the second and third episodes respectively.
And yet, with this narrative background information in mind, Andor’s opening three episodes – One Year Later, Sagrona Teema, and Harvest – are set over a mere three days, and realistically, not much happens over three days. In many ways, this first batch of episodes feels very much like a set-up for the overarching story – mirroring the three episodes at the start of Andor Season 1 that see Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) murder the off-duty imperial agents and subsequently driven off Ferrix and into contact with Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård) and the Rebellion. Many factors of these episodes create a self-contained arc, but the feeling is that of a snapshot in time and that more, much more, is still to come – there is no filmic climax or a neat conclusion that brings all parties’ missions together, and barring one exception, every group of people are bound to their own location and have no contact with the other.
Thinking ahead to next week, it strikes as a bold, strange choice knowing that the immediate aftermath will not be shown on screen and that a year will have passed for Cassian, Bix (Adria Arjona), Luthen, Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), Syril Karn (Kyle Soller), and all their nearest and dearest. How the show develops structurally and narratively from here will be almost as interesting as the path Cassian will take to becoming a Rebel hero, meeting Jyn Erso, and stealing the plans for the Death Star.
Tony Gilroy’s Revolutionary Ethos in Andor Season 2
The action picks up in One Year Later with Cassian in disguise as one of the Empire’s test pilots, on base to steal a TIE Fighter and fly it to his Rebel contact. Right from the start, the revolutionary ethos which Tony Gilroy slowly brought to the fore over the course of Andor Season 1 is on full display, as Cassian calms a newbie Rebel double agent, doubting her ability to pull off the job. Everyday people, not Jedi, are the moral heart of this uprising against fascism, and the smallest acts of resistance snowball into great change. This small speech feels a harbinger of words to come as the show builds towards the Cassian Andor known and loved from Rogue One.
Cassian’s perhaps overestimated ability to fly the ship leads to an opening set piece both comedic and thrilling; even when stakes are high, odds stacked against the Rebellion, and the issues touched upon terrifyingly relevant to today (and possibly, to always), Andor is never dark for the pure sake of it. This daring escapade leads him to his three-episode arc: he doesn’t find his Rebel contact upon crash-landing on a verdant planet, but he is found by the Maya Pei Brigade a band of loosely Rebel-identified guerilla fighters who are immediately ill at ease upon seeing a new face in the Empire’s clothes. Rebellion, it turns out, is a hard job to do secretly, silently, and with good organisation – and it is even harder when the dark brings threatening beasts out of the woods.
Meanwhile, Bix, Brasso (Joplin Sibtain), Wilmon (Muhannad Bhaier), and Maarva Andor’s old droid B2EMO (Dave Chapman) have found shelter on the agricultural planet Mina-Rau, where Cassian was based until his recent mission. The effects of Bix’s torture in Season 1 are evident in traumatic nightmares, but during the day she and Wilmon take on odd jobs. Wilmon has particularly grown up in the intervening year, sporting a moustache and finding romance with a local on Mina-Rau. But a surprise Empire census in the second episode threatens to reveal the crew as workers without visas – essentially illegal immigrants – suddenly imperiling their existence and safety. Worse, the census process shuts down any comms off planet (to prevent warnings and the flight of unregistered workers), and Cassian’s return is well overdue.
Cassian’s MIA status is noted at a very different locale during a very different occasion. The galaxy’s high and mighty turn up at the Mothma Estate on Chandrila for the wedding of Mon Mothma’s daughter Leida (Bronte Carmichael) and Davo Sculdun’s (Richard Dillane) son. This arranged marriage was brokered at the end of the first season, when Mon needed a quick cover for the vast sums she was withdrawing to support the Rebellion, and Davo saw an advantageous social match in the highly ritualised Chandrilan culture. The wedding is attended by Tay Kolma (Ben Miles), strangely volatile in the midst of the festivities and threatening to blackmail Mon after previously helping her; Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay), looking out for the return of her lover and fellow Rebel Cinta Kaz (Varada Sethu); and Luthen and Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau), ostensibly delivering a priceless antique for the festivities but both with one ear out for valuable Rebel intelligence. The three days of ceremonies gives the second episode its title, Sagrona Teema being a blessing of good health to the gathered party. The frenetic dancing closing Harvest is intercut with some of the more harrowing action footage of the three-episode arc. It is more of the most memorable filmic coups of Andor to date, and with nine more episodes to go, it will almost certainly be matched.
And a familiar face from Rogue One appears when the focus changes to the Empire. In One Year Later, Imperial weapons developer Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn, eating up every line) appears to brief an assembled Imperial crew on how best to exploit the planet Ghorman for its natural resources, and how to get rid of the local population is merely an obstacle to be overcome. This is where Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) finds herself assigned after the disasters on Ferrix. She sees it as a demotion, though Major Partagaz (Anton Lesser, always a treat in ensemble roles) advises her to see it as a stepping stone to greater glory. Syril is now middle management at the Coruscant Bureau of Standards; it is unclear whether he is a true believer in the Empire or just found the best way his obsequious, officious manner can serve himself. A delicious reveal shows Dedra and Syril now in a relationship and hosting a dreaded dinner party for Eedy Karn (Kathryn Hunter, gloriously deranged). Andor has a reputation for its daring heists and high-minded moral focus, but watching horrible people have a horrible time is one of television’s greatest pleasures.
Impeccable acting
In terms of performances, cast members old and new are impeccable (a special mention goes to Skarsgård’s drunk acting during the Chandrila festivities, overplaying interest in Imperial movements with just enough merriment to seem non-suspicious, and every look and utterance delivered by Kathryn Hunter). Perhaps the only lack is merely of Luna’s presence, as Cassian finds himself sidelined and an observer for most of the second and third episodes; his ruthlessness in acting for the cause and to protect his loved ones, however, remains compellingly at the fore; Nemick’s manifesto from the first season seems to have made an impression on his sense of mission.
In terms of the production, Andor remains beautiful to look at and impeccably designed; while the first was striking in its inventiveness and minimal use of faces and places calling back to other Star Wars stories, this second season calls a bit more on the iconography and locales of the films it is directly leading into. Sadly, Nicholas Britell was unable to return for Andor Season 2 due to scheduling conflicts, but Brandon Roberts is so far proving a solid replacement composer. His score, like Britell’s and John Williams’ before it, becomes a character in its own right, deployed to add colour and texture to a scene and comment on the action rather than as unobtrusive filler. The score often continues into the credits, but when it does not – as at the end of Harvest – the effect is startling.
Harvest is when the three-episode arc of Andor’s second season opening becomes clear: the wedding is over, Cassian’s unplanned detour is at its end, a tentative peace may be struck in the Karn-Meero household, and death proves painfully random and tragic. Indeed, some twists and hints veer far darker than many associated with Star Wars and Disney’s general family-friendly brand (granted, Anakin murdered several children in 2005’s Revenge of the Sith, but bloodless offscreen deaths by lightsabre committed by the Jedi destined to become A New Hope’s Big Bad Villain feels somehow more expected, if not more acceptable, than a petty Imperial officer attempting to sexually assault a refugee and the visceral on-screen fight that ensues).
But perhaps this comes back to Gilroy’s theory of everyday people’s everyday actions: it is not just one super-powerful Jedi that will make lives miserable, but anyone who sees a chance to exploit power to get their way – the lives of others be damned. In a parallel fashion, Cassian’s co-conspirator in One Year Later, doubts and all, stepped out of line and began her small acts of disobedience at great personal risk, for a greater cause. There are no simple characters in Andor, and no one faces simple choices for the moral good or their personal comfort. That said, Andor has always had a clear-eyed view of right and wrong, and complicated or compromised positions are understood rather than excused. The consequences of these actions are real, clear, and sown from their point of no return.
While the first-week episodes feel like set-up, they do not feel like filler within the world of Andor. Motivations are established, alliances made and tested, and key pieces are beginning to fall into place. When the show’s clock ticks forward to three years BBY, the results of the seeds sown in One Year Later, Sagrona Teema, and Harvest will become apparent.
Andor Season 2 is now streaming weekly on Disney+.
Learn more about the show, including how to watch, on the Disney site for the title.
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