TV Review: "Andor: A Star Wars Story" Season 2 is a Slow-Burn Anti-Fascist Masterpiece, With Some Minor Reservations

Next week will see the three-episode debut of the second season of Andor: A Star Wars Story (formerly titled Star Wars: Andor), and Laughing Place was recently given access to advance screeners of the full twelve-episode season. Below are my mostly spoiler-free thoughts.

Back in 2022, filmmaker Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) gave us the first season of Andor, which I tend to describe as “Star Wars if it took itself extremely seriously" or “Star Wars for grownups," whichever sounds more appealing to you. And now, a full two and half years later, Disney+ is finally delivering the second and final season of the show, which is set in the four years leading up to the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story… not to mention the original Star Wars film (AKA Episode IV: A New Hope) that immediately follows it in the franchise’s larger timeline. I think it’s safe to say that a lot of fans have high hopes for the conclusion to this series, and I’m thrilled to be able to tell you that Lucasfilm and Gilroy have absolutely followed through on that promise, though I would stop short of calling Andor season 2 perfect. As a whole I consider it an ever-so-slightly flawed masterpiece; allow me to go into the reasons why.

The season kicks off strong in its first act, which reunites the title character Cassian Andor (played once again by Y tu mamá también star Diego Luna) with his friends, former lovers, and allies Bix Caleen (Morbius’s Adria Arjona), Brasso (Memory Man’s Joplin Sibtain), and Wilmon (Muhannad Ben Amor from Mariah: The Diva, the Demons, the Drama)-- this happens in the trailer, so I don’t consider it a spoiler– along with that loveable dog-like droid B2-EMO (voiced by Star Wars: The Force Awakens BB-8 puppeteer Dave Chapman). But while that group struggles to remain in hiding from the evil Galactic Empire, we check in with ISB supervisor Dedra Meero (Robin Hood’s Denise Gough) as she gets a secretive new assignment from Major Partagaz (Anton Lesser from Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) that may or may not involve the ever-antagonistic Director Orson Krennic (Secret Invasion’s Ben Mendelsohn, returning from Rogue One)-- you’ve also seen him in the trailer.

There’s also Senator Mon Mothma (the excellent Genevieve O’Reilly from The Dry)-- who keeps finding herself entering into agreements that she later regrets, all in service of the growing Rebel Alliance– and rebel organizer Luthen Rael (Thor’s Stellan Skarsgård), working behind the scenes to make sure the alliance is able to congeal before it’s squashed like a bug by the imposing boot of the Empire. And let’s not forget wannabe fascist Syril Karn (Anna Karenina’s Kyler Soller), his overbearing mother Eedy Karn (The Tragedy of Macbeth scene-stealer Kathryn Hunter), freedom fighters Vel Sartha (Game of Thrones’s recurring “Waif" Faye Marsay) and Cinta Kaz (Jurassic World: Dominion’s Varada Sethu), and Luthen’s long-suffering assistant Kleya Marki (Wicked’s Elizabeth Dulau, who really gets a chance to show off her acting chops here). But you know the cast of memorable characters returning from season one, so let’s get through what bugged me about this batch of episodes before I sing its praises to the heavens.

As you’re likely already aware, Andor season 2 is made up of four three-episode arcs, and indeed it will be released in that manner over the course of the next four weeks. Consuming the screeners over the course of two days, I found the second of the four arcs to be the weakest and narratively least compelling, and between my first and second day watching I actually found myself worried that the season overall might be underwhelming– though that definitely did not turn out to be the case, as I’ll get into in the next paragraph. My second minor complaint has to do with the handling of the beloved droid character K-2SO (Firefly’s Alan Tudyk) from Rogue One, who gets far less screen time in this season than I had expected and hoped. And in introducing K-2SO to Andor, Gilroy has also overwritten a key moment in the droid’s origin story– which already played out very differently in Marvel Comics’ canonical Star Wars: Cassian & K-2SO one-shot from 2017. I plan to write an op-ed about why that bugs me when the time comes, but for now I will say that the time we do spend with Tudyk as K-2SO is much appreciated… I just wish there were more of it. And speaking of things I still wish there were more of: alien characters. That aspect has improved a bit this season, but by and large the various alien species are still relegated to the background. For a franchise where human superiority serves as a metaphor for white supremacy, that comes off as odd and unfortunate to me.

Okay now onto the great news: I already mentioned I thought the first arc was really good, and the final six episodes of the season might be some of the best television I have ever seen. The third arc, especially, I believe will be remembered up there with the Narkina-5 prison arc from the first season… but maybe better and more nail-bitingly intense? Honestly if Genevieve O’Reilly isn’t at least nominated for an Emmy award I will not be able to comprehend. And as Gilroy has stated a number of times in interviews, the final arc serves as an elegant, enticing, and above-all emotional bridge that connects the series to the beginning of Rogue One. I also want to mention the apt and timely message that this series conveys in one of the most fraught periods of American history (at least in my lifetime, anyway). There’s a warning here and a call to action for anyone willing to listen, and the iconic Star Wars franchise serves as the perfect place to couch those ideas, though occasionally real-world political anxiety does shine through the analogy. All told, I feel like I’m going to want to revisit the back half of this season time and again, and you can read my upcoming recaps (that will be released along with the three-episode chunks) to see how I felt about each individual installment. Andor, as a completed series, is a remarkable achievement that Star Wars fans are going to be dissecting and discussing for decades to come.

The first three episodes of Andor: A Star Wars Story season 2 will debut on Tuesday, April 22nd, exclusively via Disney+.