Josh Reviews Andor: Season Two!

In my review of Andor season one, I called the show the best Star Wars project produced since Disney purchased Lucasfilm.  (I noted that the only two projects that come close are Rogue One, which Tony Gilroy — the show-runner of Andor — had a strong hand in shaping, and the final four episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, overseen by Dave Filoni.)  It’s been a long three-year wait for more Andor, and what was originally planned as a five season show has been concluded in one twelve-episode second season.  But this second season is magnificent — riveting, sophisticated storytelling — and it cements Andor as a crown jewel of the entire Star Wars franchise.  This is a superlative Star Wars show.  It’s a superlative TV show, period.

If you haven’t watched any of Andor, I implore you to watch this show.  Go back and start with season one; watch these two seasons, and then watch Rogue One.  (And then, if you’re like me, go back and re-watch the original Star Wars!)  I promise you won’t regret it.

While this show rewards attentive, hard-core Star Wars fans (my family thought I was crazy how happy I was once I realized that the Ghorman massacre — a detail mentioned on an animated Star Wars show years ago — would become a pivotal plot point this season), but I assure you that this show is terrific even if you know very little about Star Wars.  You certainly don’t need to have watched any of the other Star Wars TV shows.  If you’re familiar with Rogue One, that enhances the sense of tragedy that hangs over many of the characters and storylines on the show, which I found made the show even more powerful.  (It also made it more fun, as characters and plot points started sliding into place towards the end of this second season, as the story drew closer to Rogue One.)  But again, you don’t need to have seen or remember Rogue One to watch and enjoy this show.  (I do advise you to rewatch Rogue One after finishing this season, as creator and show-runner Tony Gilroy has described Rogue One as basically the series finale of Andor.)

Andor takes place in the years leading up to the events of Rogue One and the original Star Wars.  (Rogue One takes place just days before Star Wars.)  The first season was set five years before those films, and this second season covers the next four years.  As was the case in season one, this twelve episode season is structured in four three-episode story arcs.  (Disney+ made the decision to release each of these three-episode arcs together, one a week.  I understand this approach, and it was cool to basically get four Andor movies, one per week, for a month!  The only downside was that after waiting three years for more Andor, they burned it all off so quickly!!  I already miss this great show!!)

Whereas the original Star Wars was a fairy tale, Andor (and Rogue One) tell the darker, grittier, more realistic story of the wrenching sacrifices and moral compromises made by a variety of people, across the galaxy, in order to actually create the Rebellion that Luke Skywalker and friends would later drop into.  Andor is both a brilliantly and beautifully realized sci-fi/fantasy creation — the production values on this series are extraordinary, brilliantly creating a wealth of memorable locations on different planets across the galactic Empire — but it’s also a grounded character piece, digging deep into the individuals who made the Rebellion happen; who they were, why they fought and struggled for so hard and so long, and everything and everyone they lost along the way.  It’s a beautiful and heartbreaking story that also manages to be uplifting in the end (despite the tragic fates that await many of the characters on the show).

(This story of people engaged in a fight against creeping fascism is sadly potent and relevant to the world we’re living in here in 2025.  Andor is in many ways an angry show, a fiery cry to fight against the evils of fascism.  This show really hit me in the guts, over and over while watching this season.  I really wish this story was just fantasy, rather than feeling ripped from the headlines.)

While the early episodes of The Mandalorian were incredible in their use of the “Volume” (a stage surrounded by a dome that could display photo-real visual effects images) as a way to create a diverse array of realistic sci-fi settings, I think many viewers would agree the Volume has become somewhat limiting to subsequent Star Wars shows (as well as other sci-fi series that have made use of similar technology), that sometimes feel stage-bound and fake.  Andor season one felt like a breath of fresh air, in the way the show used actual locations to help make the worlds on display feel real.  This thankfully continues to be the case here in season two.  I remain bowled over at the magnitude of the scale of the production of this show.  Andor takes place across many different planets and locations, and they all feel fully-realized to me.  The detail and world-building in the production design, sets, props, costumes, and visual effects is extraordinary.  Simply put, this show looks amazing.  It’s a delight to see classic Star Wars locations such as Coruscant and Yavin IV brought to life in such vivid detail, allowing us to explore these familiar locations in ways we never have before, allowing them to feel all-new.  (We saw the Republic Senate many times in the Prequels, but I loved the way we got to explore many different areas in and around the Senate on this show, including the parking lot!  Then there’s Yavin IV, a familiar location from the original Star Wars.  But Andor lets us really get to see how and where the rebels lived there — we finally get to know that they weren’t all living in those huge pyramids!  I thought that was so fun and cool to discover.)

I was worried that condensing what was originally planned as four seasons into just one final season would feel rushed.  I complained about the time jumps in the first season of House of the Dragon; would having a one-year gap between each of this season’s four story-arcs similarly disrupt the storytelling, and make the transitions between arcs feel awkward or herky-jerky?  I am pleased to report that this was, for the most part, not the case.  Yes, there were some things that happened between the seasons that I wished we’d gotten to see (such as the moment when Andor and Bix first got together romantically).  But for the most part, I was impressed by how smoothly the storylines unfolded across these twelve episodes.  And having four distinct “arcs” felt comfortingly similar to how season one was structured, even though all four of those arcs took place during one year, instead of four.  So I thought this worked well.

Shall we dive into the season more deeply?  Beware SPOILERS ahead!!

I mean it!! SPOILERS from here on out!

If you haven’t yet watched Andor, stop reading this and go watch it right now, and then come back here.

First off, let me say how delighted I was that Ben Mendelsohn joined the cast this season, reprising his role from Rogue One as Director Krennic.  It made perfect sense for Krennic to be involved in the show at this point in the timeline, and Mr. Mendelsohn was, as always, a ferociously charismatic on-screen presence.  He was a delight right from the get-go, hosting the retreat at which the Imperials plotted about the genocide of the Ghorman people (modeled after the Wansee Conference from 1942, in which the Nazis developed their plan for the “final solution” and the genocide of the Jews).  And things only got better from there.  His final scene in the show, in which he unloads on Dedra, was magnificent — both hilarious and terrifying.  (The moment when he puts his finger on top of Dedra’s head was amazing.)

The other Rogue One character I was super excited for was Alan Tudyk as K-2SO!!  This wonderful droid was a stand-out in Rogue One, and ever since Andor began I’ve been waiting for him to arrive.  His initial introduction on the show wasn’t great — I wasn’t bowled over with how they wrote Andor’s first meeting with K-2SO.  It seemed narratively awkward to me, and somewhat unbelievable, that Andor would take the time, when fleeing Ghorman, to somehow load this huge, heavy droid onto his truck, and then his ship, to take with him.  That being said, I loved every moment we got with K-2SO in the final arc.  Mr. Tudyk was endlessly hilarious and droll as K-2, whether playing cards with Andor & Melshi or waking up Andor by poking him in the throat.  Just one amazing K-2 moment after another.  I loved it.  (I also loved getting to see the squad of evil K-2SO droids wreak murderous havoc on Ghorman!  That was wild.)

It was interesting that, for a show called Andor, they sort of sidelined their main character for the first half of the season.  I don’t mind this choice at all, actually, I just note that it’s a fascinating and unusual choice.  After an awesome action sequence to kick off the opening episode (the Tie Fighter heist, which I loved — and by the way, I also loved the fantastic woman, Niya, played by Rachelle Diedericks, who helps Andor steal the Tie), Andor spends much of the first arc a prisoner of a band of useless, bickering rebels… and then much of the second arc hanging out in Luthen’s safehouse with Bix (with a short side trip to Ghorman, only to decide he doesn’t want to help that rebel cell).  He only enters the main action of the season in the third arc, in which he finds himself right back in the middle of a galactic pivot point as things go to hell on Ghorman.  And I was thrilled to see Andor and Mon Montha finally meet, with Andor sent to get Mon safely off of Coruscant after she publicly criticizes the Emperor on the Senate floor.  It was glorious to finally see Andor and Mon Mothma together.  I loved that Andor was back for another rescue from Coruscant in the final arc, as he and Melshi stage a rescue for Kleya.  I have mixed feelings about the scene in which a force-sensitive woman on Yavin gives a speech about Andor’s destiny, though I did like the part about his being a messenger.  Time and again, we’ve seen Andor tasked with getting a message out to the people who need to hear it — about the horrors of the prison on Narkina 5, about the massacre on Ghorman, about the Death Star, etc.  It’s an interesting way to frame the journey and destiny of this character, who we’ve known since before this show began was going to wind up dead on Scariff.  I’ve loved watching his journey, beautifully portrayed by Diego Luna.  It’s interesting how, on the one hand, we’ve seen Andor get more heroic and more devoted to the Rebellion, while at the same time he’s become more brutal, willing to kill and do whatever he thinks is necessary for the Rebellion to succeed.  I never felt, after watching Rogue One, that Andor was a character whose backstory I felt needed to be explored, but somehow Tony Gilroy and the team behind this show have made it essential viewing.

This show is called Andor — and it’s amazing that there are now more hours of Star Wars storytelling devoted to Cassian Andor than there are to Luke Skywalker — but the beauty of this show was that it was never just about Andor.  In many ways, Andor is maybe the third or fourth most important character on the show!  To me, the most interesting — and most important — character has always been Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly).  The depth given to Mon in season one was amazing, one of my favorite aspects of this show.  They took a character who was well-known to Star Wars fans (from her brief but pivotal scene in Return of the Jedi) but who was completely one-dimensional, and they transformed her into one of the most fascinating and heroic characters of the entire Star Wars saga.  That only continued here in season two.  Mon was in the spotlight right from the beginning, with the extended look at the three days of celebration on Chandrila leading up to her daughter’s marriage.  Mon’s isolation from her family and friends, who view her as a rich, spoiled, ineffectual senator, is tragic enough, but that’s compounded when her childhood friend Tay (Ben Miles) becomes a potential liability, and so Luthen has him killed.  (Mon: “I’m not sure what you’re saying.”  Luthen: “How nice for you.”  The writing on this show is amazing!!)  The scene of Mon dancing, alone among a crowd, at what should be one of the happiest days of her life, was spectacular.  Things only got better as we finally got to see Mon’s speech in the Senate, which sends her on the run.  I was impressed by how well the show danced around the raindrops of pre-established Star Wars continuity, mostly from the animated series Rebels, which had already showed us Mon Mothma’s flight from the Senate, and her big speech rallying the various Rebellion factions to her side.  (This happened in Rebels season three, and it’s worth watching, if you haven’t seen it!  The Rebels episode to watch after finishing Andor is “Secret Cargo”; season three, episode 18.  It’s far from the best episode of Rebels, but it’s a fun little adventure, and you’ll get to see what happens to Mon Mothma immediately after she gets off Coruscant.)  I loved getting to see Mon (and also Bail Organa!) fully embedded with the rebels on Yavin in the final arc of the show.  (I loved seeing Mon wearing her classic outfit from Return of the Jedi and Rogue One!)

It was a huge bummer for me that Jimmy Smitts, who has played Bail Organa in Star Wars stories set both before and after Andor (in the Prequels, in the Obi-Wan Kenobi show, and in Rogue One) was unable to return to play Bail here because of a scheduling conflict.  It sort of messes with the smooth continuity of these stories to have Bail be recast.  That being said, they couldn’t possibly have done better than Benjamin Bratt, who is phenomenal in the role.  He looks terrific, and he brings the perfect balance of steel and gentleness to his role as Bail.  I loved seeing Bail’s mastery of Senate rules play a key role in giving Mon Mothma the ability to give her pivotal speech, and I loved getting to see him interact with Andor in the final arc.

It was clear to me from the beginning that Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård) was not going to make it out of this show alive, and sadly that did prove to be the case.  But he got to go out on his own terms, which is better than I’d hoped.  We got lots of terrific Luthen stuff this season, starting with his great quiet conflict with Mon Mothma at her daughter’s wedding in the opening arc.  His final scene with Dedra, in which she confronts him in his shop, was spectacular.  (Though Dedra is shockingly incompetent in allowing Luthen to stab himself with Chekhov’s knife.)  (Luthen’s line to Dedra, when she walks in, is amazing: “At the moment, only two pieces of questionable providence in the gallery. Any guesses?”  I’m going to keep praising the writing on this show until you’re really tired of reading it!!)

This brings me to Luthen’s assistant/adoptive daughter Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau), who was an interesting character in season one, but who really stepped into the forefront here in season two.  It was cool to see her grown only more confident and determined this season, when even Luthen started to show signs of cracking under the strain.  It was amazing to see her singlehandedly take on the Imperials in their stronghold and make sure Luthen could not give up any of his secrets in episode 10.  I was not at all expecting the show to stop and give us flashbacks to Luthen and Kleya’s backstory in the antipenultimate episode, but it was a pleasure.  (Luthen asks Dedra, in episode nine, “Do you want to know why?”, and my only quibble with episode ten is that, despite devoting so much time to the Luthen/Kleya flashbacks, they kept things vaguer than I’d hoped as to where Luthen came from, what initially turned him into a revolutionary, what conflict he was fighting in when he encountered Kleya, and other details that I’d wanted to know.  Season one hinted that maybe Luthen was a former Jedi — he wore a necklace with a Kyber crystal, he has a starship with lightsabers mounted on the outside — but season two did not pick up on any of those threads.)

Poor Bix (Adria Arjona) continued suffering for much of this season, as she had been at the end of season one.  It was sad to see this brave, intelligent character brought so low, but on the other hand I’m glad the show didn’t gloss over the repercussions of the terrible traumas she’d endured at the hands of the Imperials in season one.  I was shocked at the attempted rape scene in the opening arc of season two (it was wild to hear a character say “rape” out loud in a Star Wars story), and it was tough watching Bix’s descent into addition in arc two.  But Ms. Arjona did magnificent work throughout the season, and I was happy that Bix managed to find her way out of the tunnel and into the light by the end of the show.  This was a character who I was really rooting to get a happy ending (and survive past the events of Rogue One), and I was happy to see that happen, even though I didn’t love having Bix sidelined for the final arc, and I wasn’t altogether satisfied by how the writers concluded her and Andor’s stories.  More on that below, in a moment.

I was happy to see Brasso (Joplin Sibtain) again here in season two; after the end of season one, I wasn’t sure we’d ever see him again.  I was saddened when he was killed at the end of the first arc (the one time a Storm Trooper manages to hit someone!!), though that made sense for the narrative.  I was also happy to see Wilmon (Joplin Sibtain) back — and in a larger role than I’d expected!  When he wound up embedded with Saw’s violent partisans, I thought for sure he was in for a bad end, so I was pleasantly surprised that he wound up back with our heroes on Yavin, and that he survived to the end of the show.  Wow!

Is this a good time to talk about Saw Gerrera??  I was thrilled that Forest Whitaker reprised his role from Rogue One as Saw in season one, and I loved getting to see more of him in season two!  I didn’t love his storyline in the second arc this season (mostly because I didn’t understand what the heck Wilmon was training Saw’s guy to do, or what the heck was going on with the gas at the end of episode six), but it was intriguing (and sad) to see Saw’s mental and physical decline, as the character slides into the way we saw him in Rogue One.  I loved the twist that maybe the gas he was huffing in Rogue One wasn’t oxygen keeping him alive, but a drug/poison that was slowly killing him!  That was a surprise!  I loved the way the show continued to show Saw’s disagreement with Mon Monthma’s approach to Rebellion.  (For more great scenes of Saw in hologram form arguing rebellion philosophy with Mon Mothma, watch Star Wars: Rebels!!  Both Forest Whitaker and Genevieve O’Reilly play their roles on that animated show!  Or just click here to watch a pivotal Saw/Mon moment that I think all fans of Andor would want to see!!)

I’ve mentioned Melshi (Duncan Pow) above; I was thrilled to see this minor Rogue One character brought back in season one of the show (in the Narkina 5 arc), and I was so happy to see him back again here in season two.  I loved the moment when Val recognizes his gun on Yavin.  (That gun had quite a journey in the show — I believe Andor took it off of one of the security guards he killed in the season one premiere, before hiding it in the resort before he’s arrested and carted off to Narkina 5; he then gives it to Melshi when they part company after they escape from the prison and return to that resort planet to get Andor’s stuff.)  I loved seeing Melshi and Andor palling it up together in the final arc, and then working together to heroically rescue Mon Mothma.  This gives a lot of extra weight to Melshi’s death on Scariff.

I was glad to see Vel (Faye Marsay) and Cinta (Varada Sethu) — survivors of the season one Aldhani arc — back in season two.  Cinta’s death was a shock, and such a sad moment — as was Vel’s cold, furious reaction and evisceration of the Ghorman kid who killed her.  I was happy that Vel seemed to find her way back to herself on Yavin by the end of the series.  I liked getting a few moments of Vel and Mon together on Yavin.  (I’d have loved to have seen more of them together in the final arc!)  I loved how, after Mon asks Vel to spy on Andor, she just walks into Andor’s home and flat out asks him if they should believe him.  (What a funny, and perfectly in character, moment!)

Turning to the villains, wow did Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) continue to be a wonderfully despicable villain.  I couldn’t believe that she and Syril (Kyle Soller) were together as a couple when this season began!!  Those scenes of domesticated “bliss” between Dedra and Syril were hilarious.  I don’t know what I liked more: the shot of Syril lying face-down in bed when hiding from his mother, like a toddler, or the scene in which Dedra calmly takes his mom apart bit by bit.  I was thrilled that Kathryn Hunter was back as Syril’s monstrous mom (and I was also glad the show took a moment to show her as a real human being, mourning Syril’s death, after he’s killed on Ghorman).  I’ve been wondering since we first met Syril whether his journey was one towards being a heinous villain or being a rebel.  It was wonderfully tense watching Syril and Dedra here in season two; I’d guessed that they were heading towards a collision when Syril inevitably discovered the truth about what Dedra and the Imperials were up to on Ghorman.  But I had no idea how he’d respond.  I’d hoped that Syril would be the one to take down Dedra.  I was at first disappointed that didn’t turn out to be the case, though I loved his fight with Andor.  Andor’s devastating “who are you?” moment to Syril was amazing.  Syril had a moment, when he was standing in the square after running away from Dedra, to make a better choice and turn against Dedra and the Empire, but instead he fell back into pointless rage against Andor, who he blamed for everything bad that had happened to him.  That choice got himself killed.  (The tragedy of Syril’s choice to focus his rage on Andor reminded me of Moby Dick: “And he piled upon the whale’s hump the sum of all the rage and hate felt by his whole race… as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.”)  (Don’t be too impressed by my literary genius; I fully admit I am most familiar with that line from Captain Picard’s quoting it in Star Trek: First Contact!)

Getting back to Dedra, I was a little disappointed by her slide into incompetence in the back half of the season.  She’s clearly on the outs at the ISB when we catch up to her post-Ghorman, and as I’d mentioned above, she totally bungled Luthen’s arrest.  Still, it’s immensely satisfying to see her finally get what’s coming to her.  That final shot of her, in prison on Narkina 5 or somewhere just like it, was incredible.  What a perfect, brilliant end for this character!

None of the ISB folks made it out well.  I laughed when K-2SO brutally killed Dedra’s former assistant Heert (Jacob James Beswick), and the lonely death of ISB head Partagaz (Anton Lesser) was perfect.  Mr. Lesser was amazing as Partagaz throughout the show, a tough and scary boss who I sort of loved despite his being a horrible evil villain.  I loved that Partagaz was listening to Nemik’s manifesto (from the Aldhani arc in season one) before the end.  The shot of ISB officer Lagret (Michael Jenn), silently motioning the Storm Troopers not to react after hearing the sound of Partagaz’s killing himself in his office, was a highlight moment in the finale for me.

Then there’s poor Lonni (Robert Emms), the ISB turncoat who risks everything and succeeds in warning Luthen about the Death Star, only to get himself murdered for his trouble.  I was as angry as I ever was with Luthen for his betrayal of Lonni, though I also understand the cold calculus of why he did it.  This show pulls no punches!!  I wish we’d gotten one scene to confirm that Lonni’s family was OK in the end.  (In my head-cannon, Luthen’s murder of Lonni was done partly as a way to protect Lonni’s family; with him dead, maybe they wouldn’t suffer any Imperial reprisals.)

I’ve read a few on-line complaints that the show spent too much time in its final episodes putting the pieces into place for Rogue One, but I loved all of that!  I thought it was fun — and quite moving — seeing everything fall into place as we approached the events of Rogue One.  I was extremely satisfied with the ending of the show.  I thought it was the right balance of tragic but not hopeless.  I was glad some of our characters survived, and even if we don’t ever get to see them again in future on-screen adventures, I can imagine they went on and had happy endings (and I bet we’ll see several of them in future books or comic books down the line… which would be great).

I did have a few complaints.  First off, and I know this is a really nerdy complaint, but I really, really wanted to see the Ghost, or hear someone mention the Spectre team, on the show!!!  Some sort of actual on-screen connection to Rebels, which was taking place at the exact same time as this show, would have made me so happy!!!  It feels like a missed opportunity to me.

Focusing strictly on this show, while I deeply loved every episode, I will admit that I didn’t think all of the storytelling decisions played out exactly how I’d have liked, and there were some story threads that I felt didn’t quite get their due in the show’s end-game.  (Perhaps these were victims of having to squeeze four years’ worth of storytelling into one season.). I really wanted some sort of resolution to the question of Andor’s sister, which was such a key part of his set-up at the start of season one.  I didn’t need Andor to have found her, but I’d at least liked to have had a scene acknowledging that he’d moved on from his search for her.  As I’d mentioned earlier, I’d have also loved to have seen this season pick up on the crumbs in season one that suggested Luthen might have been a Jedi, but that was not to be.

More critically, I was shocked that we didn’t get more information on what happened to Mon Mothma’s family following her flight from Coruscant!  That was a HUGE question on my mind from the first moment this show introduced us to Mon’s husband and daughter.  I’ve been awaiting answers to these questions for YEARS, and I’m shocked that the show dodged this issue almost entirely.  Did Mon’s family ever discover that she was in fact a leader of the Rebellion all along?  What did they think of that?  What did Mon think about abandoning them?  Did she have any regrets?  Did her husband and daughter suffer Imperial reprisals after Mon escaped Coruscant?  Wouldn’t the Empire use them to try to get to Mon?  I have so many questions!!  At least we got that one tantalizing shot of Mon’s husband in the finale — apparently having a fling with his daughter’s mother-in-law!! — but I wanted more.

I was really annoyed that we didn’t hear any of the characters acknowledge they’d left B2EMO behind at the end of the first arc.  Even if we’d just gotten one quick shot of B2’s circular eye sadly watching Andor’s ship fly away, that would have given me the closure I wanted.  I was shocked that didn’t happen.  Thank heaven at least we did see B2EMO again in one shot in the finale, with Bix!

Which brings me to Bix, and my most major complaint about the ending of this show.  I’m glad Bix made it out alive, and got a sort-of happy ending, away from the fighting.  But knowing Bix is out there, safe and happy, and even moreso knowing that she’s raising her & Andor’s child, feels like it disrupts Andor’s (non-sexual, but emotional) relationship with Jyn Erso in Rogue One.  I feel like the writers needed to have found some other way to get Bix off the board.  It doesn’t sit right with me that Andor would feel so connected to Jyn, in a universe in which Bix is out there and there really isn’t a substantive reason for her and Andor not to be together.  I also find it a little hard to believe that no one in the rebellion — such as Vel, who I suspect knew about the baby, based on her comments to Andor, nudging him about getting back together with Bix — would ever let slip to Andor that he was a dad.  I dunno, I’d been wondering since season one what would happen to Bix at the end of the show, and when we discovered that Bix and Andor were a couple in the second arc of season two, I got even more curious (and nervous for Bix).  I feel like the writers wanted to have their cake and eat it too, by allowing a happy ending for Bix while also splitting her and Andor up, so he could be single for the events of Rogue One, but this didn’t work for me narratively.

It’s a tiny complaint in the face of a triumphant season of Star Wars television.  Wow, time to wrap up this lengthy review!!  Bravo to Tony Gilroy and his team for sticking the landing, and for giving us twenty-four riveting episodes of Andor.  This stands tall among the very best Star Wars story in any format or media.  I can’t wait to watch it again someday.

This is also a great excuse to remind you about my “Maclunkey” t-shirt — a Star Wars and Highlander mash-up — which is available for purchase right now at Woot.com!!