The last three episodes of Andor season 2 provide an emotional closure for its characters – and a satisfying lead into 2016’s Rogue One.
NB: The following contains spoilers for Andor seasons 1 and 2.
“The last act makes a film,” ran a terrific line in the 2002 film, Adaptation. “Wow them in the end, and you’ve got a hit.”
Andor season 2 may be a TV show rather than a film, but the sentiment applies: its final three episodes provide a powerful, emotionally satisfying send-off for creator Tony Gilroy’s Star Wars spin-off, its threads connecting forward to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
While watching Andor’s final batch of episodes, I couldn’t help thinking about how organic and heartfelt the show has been, especially given the path it could have taken. This is, after all, a prequel to a prequel – a story that takes place before the events of Rogue One, which itself provides background colour to the film that started it all, A New Hope (once just plain old Star Wars).
In interviews, Gilroy said that Disney’s original concept for Andor was a mission-of-the-week series where Cassian and droid sidekick K-2SO go off on adventures together. Instead, Gilroy proposed something different: an ensemble piece about the growth of the Rebellion and how people at varying levels of society shift and adapt in the face of tyranny.
It’s proven to be a masterstroke – both continuing and deepening the ground-level approach taken by director Gareth Edwards and his collaborators on Rogue One. As the director told me in 2016, “If you want people to feel something, you’ve got to be with one character, or people you care about.”
Andor’s final three episodes marked the particular moment in a story where you realise just how much you’ve come to care about its characters. There’s Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård), the flamboyant antiques dealer who’s spent the past five years moving between the upper-crust circles of Mon Mothma, Empire moles like the luckless Jung, and rebels with dirt under their fingernails, like Cassian and Bix.
Episode 12 sees Luthen finally run out of time – he’s just able to leak out a vital piece of information about the Death Star project before Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) closes in. (Though, in a brilliant twist in the tale, Dedra’s impulsiveness proves to be her undoing.)
It says a great deal about the quality of Andor’s writing and acting that, in this pivotal scene where Dedra and Luthen finally meet, we can somehow root for them both. There’s something endlessly compelling about Dedra’s snarling determination, despite her horrifying allegiance. At the same time, we want to see Luthen get away, even though it’s clear that his story is about to come to an end.
These final episodes also delve more deeply into the relationship between Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau) and Luthen, revealing that Kleya is more than simply his assistant and comms expert; their entire backstory is rooted in mass murder, tragedy and rebellion. It all serves to make Kleya’s daring hospital mission all the more heart-rending.
Although there were times earlier in season 2 where certain plotlines felt extraneous or over-extended, episodes 10 to 12 are Andor at its best: its action, characters and drama all supporting each other. In Star Wars terms, the set-pieces themselves are low-key, but Gilroy and writer Tom Bissell ensure they have real emotional stakes; when Kleya blasts an Imperial officer on a hospital stairwell, the moment lands because we’re so invested in her survival. This is Star Wars not as space opera, but as a political thriller.
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The writing and direction is so good that even Andor’s more predictable sections have a crackle to them. We know that Cassian and K-2SO have to survive beyond this series’ events, but there’s a thrill to seeing them rescue Kleya from a grotty safehouse on Coruscant.
If there’s a flaw in Andor’s final chapter, it’s that the attempts to connect the dots from this show to Rogue One are often readily apparent. (Having Forest Whittaker’s Saw Gerrera show up on a video call doesn’t exactly feel organic to the plot, for example). But even here, there’s satisfaction to be found in seeing how the ripple effect of events all lead to Cassian heading off to the Rings of Kafrene for his fateful meeting with Tivik (Danny Mays).
Besides, there are so many moments where a single image speaks volumes. Dedra, curled up and emotionally bereft in a familiar-looking prison cell. Major Partagaz sitting at his overlit desk, preparing to take his own life rather than be carted off by the Empire. Again and again, we’re reminded: the Empire itself is a vast machine, and the characters we’ve gotten to know over the course of two seasons are essentially spare parts which are worn down and then replaced when they cease to be of use.
The show’s final shot, of Bix on Mina-Rau, cradling her and Cassian’s newborn baby, says a great deal about the series’ notion of self-sacrifice for a greater cause. Cassian’s fate is rendered all the more tragic because of what he’s unwittingly given up.
Watch Rogue One immediately after Andor’s conclusion, and Cassian ceases to be a mysterious rebel assassin. He’s a believably flawed human being who, like Luther and so many others before him, is prepared to sacrifice everything for the cause Nemik (Alex Lawther) eloquently talked about in Andor’s first season.
Put together, Andor and Rogue One offer a refreshingly different, more down-to-earth portrayal of heroism and villainy. If the numbered saga is about being the chosen one who helps restore order to the galaxy, then the spin-off stories are more closer to everyday human experience: these are mere footsoldiers, hoping that the work they do will leave a ripple in history’s current.
On the Empire’s side of the equation, there’s the endless churn of ambitious bureaucrats and would-be despots who dedicate their energies to keeping the whole effort going. It’s surely no coincidence that Deedra is so swiftly replaced by Supervisor Heert (Jacob James Beswick) – a character who, by the last episode, talks and acts remarkably like her. Ultimately, they’re just stooges in smart suits, doing as they’re told until the political wind changes and they’re out of a job. Or, in Deedra’s case, thrown in prison.
Tony Gilroy has already sworn off writing more Star Wars in the future, but it’s tempting to imagine other writers and filmmakers – perhaps those who worked under his guidance on Andor – continuing the thread. Cassian’s arc may be complete, but it could be fascinating, assuming the quality’s still there, to see what the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi might look like from the perspective of other ordinary people.
As Andor has proven over its short yet superbly-wrought run, characters previously overlooked by Star Wars history can often provide the most compelling stories.
Andor season 2 is streaming now on Disney+.
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