With spoilers, we look at how Andor season 2 brings a thematic depth to Star Wars that makes its flaws easier to overlook.
NB: The following contains spoilers for Andor season 2 episodes 1 to 3.
For all the eloquent dialogue about rebellion and self-sacrifice, it’s the simplest images that stick in the memory: a TIE Fighter’s guns turned on the Empire that created it might be one of the single most satisfying sights we’ve had from Star Wars in years.
Yes, Andor’s back for a second season, and looking at the largely rapturous online response, it satisfies an audience hunger for a Star Wars story that does more than cosset its viewers in fantasy and nostalgia. Once again, showrunner Tony Gilroy brings a historian’s eye to the story of the Rebel Alliance versus the Empire, exploring both the cogs behind the fascistic war machine and how a disparate group of insurgents organise themselves to counter it.
Where series one explored how Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) went from a cynical low-level crook to radicalised freedom fighter, series two will – in a story ambitiously covering a four-year period – relate how the Rebellion became the armed force we saw in Rogue One and A New Hope. Unusually, Disney is releasing the 12-episode series in four three-episode chunks, with each trio of entries set one year apart.
Structurally, though, we’re back on familiar ground, Gilroy cutting between multiple story threads designed to provide a broader picture of the galactic struggle. Cassian is in the midst of stealing a fresh-off-the-production-line TIE Fighter – one so new and experimental that he can barely fly it. His old friends from planet Ferrix – among them Bix (Adria Arjona) and Brasso (Joplin Sibtain) have taken refuge on an agricultural planet where they serve as undocumented workers in the hope that they won’t be discovered by the Empire.
Mon Mothma (Genieve O’Reilly) is trying to retain a respectable veneer as she orchestrates her daughter’s interminable wedding festivities. On the Empire side of things, Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) has found herself involved in a clandestine plan to strip mine a planet of a rare energy resource – a process that will likely kill its entire population.
It’s a heady cocktail of secrecy and intrigue, though it could also be argued that some of these subplots carry more thematic weight than others. Given that it’s his face above the pepper steaks, it’s somewhat surprising that Cassian Andor’s mission feels like pointless busywork – not so much the theft of the TIE Fighter itself, which is a thrill to watch, but rather the aftermath, in which he finds himself stuck on a soggy planet of scruffy oiks who spend scene after scene shouting before – bizarrely – descending into Lord Of The Flies style anarchy.
Andor season 2 starts in the middle of Cassian’s heist, and it’s a wonder why Gilroy didn’t spend more time on this part of the story – a kind of Firefox in space – rather than the planet of scruffs. The pay-off, ultimately, is that Cassian needs to get to the farm planet, Mina-Rau, to save his friends in episode three. Everything that happens to Cassian between the theft of the ship to his arrival above Mina-Rau’s wheat fields could be regarded as filler. So why not have Cassian’s subplot be about his struggle to steal the ship and get to his friends on the farm planet before time runs out?
There’s more to chew on in other subplots, but even these feel over-extended in places. As tense as it is to see Mon Mothma blackmailed by someone she thought was a confidante (Tay Kolma: what a Judas), the four-day wedding ceremony almost feels as though it’s playing out in real time.
As in the first season, Dedra Meero is one of the most compelling characters in the whole thing. Denise Gough plays her with a determination bordering on fury – a personality made all the more mesmerising when contrasted by her partnership with Syril Karn (Kyle Soller), a moist-eyed middle-manager who lives in mortal terror of his mother, Eedy (superbly played by Kathryn Hunter). In the grand scheme of Star Wars, these are characters who wouldn’t get more than a passing line of dialogue in a George Lucas movie, but they’re nevertheless fascinating to watch – perhaps because they’re grasping for power and recognition in an Empire we know is headed for destruction. (Gilroy’s an American screenwriter, but his taste for UK actors and moments of everyday awkwardness feel surprisingly British.)
Of the four plot strands, the farm planet sequences are by far the most visually captivating. It’s interesting to compare these moments with Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon: both, curiously, see space fascists terrorise a farming community, and both contain the threat of sexual violence. But where Rebel Moon looked and felt flat both visually and in terms of deeper meaning, Andor feels genuine. Bix’s encounter with a predatory Imperial officer is disturbing not because of cheap shock value, but because it appears to speak to a deeper truth about the all-too-common instances of sexual violence in warfare – something Gilroy himself has spoken about in interviews.
This strand, about undocumented migrants exploited for their labour before being sold out to what are essentially galactic ICE agents also feels almost worryingly of the moment. The series as a whole feels apt for a period in our real history where threats to democracy seem to be growing with each passing month.
It’s this added resonance that makes Andor’s flaws easy to overlook. There are stretches where the plot spins its wheels, but then there are truly effective moments to match them. Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) talking with eerie matter-of-factness about the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Cassian’s hushed reassurance to a frightened woman that risking her life for the Rebellion’s cause is worthwhile. Mon Mothma’s face when she realises that her friend turned blackmailer will have to be terminated.
It’s a story about resistance versus fascism, told through Star Wars’ fantastical lens. Where the likes of The Mandalorian and especially Skeleton Crew have brought froth and adventure to the saga, Andor brings a heft that the franchise’s fans have perhaps longed for without even realising it.
Plus it has scenes of fascists getting brutally mown down by their own war machinery. Come on – that’s just ace.
Andor season 2 is streaming now on Disney+.
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