It has been over two long years since we’ve last seen Andor, Disney+’s masterful anti-fascist Star Wars thriller. The wait has been particularly brutal — not only because of the relatively lackluster showing from Lucasfilm’s other releases (with a few notable exceptions), but because showrunner Tony Gilroy’s particular brand of incisive but rousingly hopeful anti-authoritarian storytelling feels even more prescient and necessary now than ever before. It would be fair to say the expectations for Andor’s return were stratospheric and, thankfully, Gilroy and his incredibly talented cast and crew have risen to the challenge. If this first three-episode arc is anything to go by, Andor’s second (and final) season is not only set up to be thrilling, disturbingly relevant, gorgeously realized, and emotionally stirring television, but it also may end up being the single best story ever told in the Galaxy Far, Far Away.
Picking up a full year after the climactic riot on Ferrix that closed out last season, the season premiere (creatively titled, you guessed it, “One Year Later”) finds Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) settling into his role as an agent of rebel spymaster Luthen Rael’s (Stellan Skarsgård) shadow campaign against the fascist Galactic Empire. Andor has grown beyond the self-serving thief we met at the series’ opening and into a disciplined true believer that confidently steals prototype TIE Fighters right from underneath the Empire’s nose. Meanwhile, Cassian’s friends and allies from Ferrix have settled into their roles as undocumented farmhands and mechanics on the agrarian world of Mina-Rau, an existence threatened by an Imperial inspection team arrival for the first time in a decade. And, on the other side of the galaxy, Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), a rebel sympathizer and ally, prepares to marry off Leida, her aspiring tradwife daughter (yes, those exist in Star Wars, or at least they do on Mon’s home planet Chandrila, which might as well be Space Utah) to the son of a notorious crime lord to secure a line of funding for Luthen’s rebellion.
If that sounds like a lot — it is. The scope and scale of Andor’s plot structure and ensemble cast is at times breathtakingly complex. (And we haven’t even gotten to what the series’ villains have been up to.) However, it’s a testament to the strength of Gilroy’s script and Ariel Kleiman’s direction that Andor can not only have coherent episodes that juggle A, B, C, D, and E plots but have them feel tightly constructed and effortlessly watchable, which makes for one of the show’s greatest strengths. Andor is able to give us swashbuckling Star Wars adventure alongside compelling character study, thrilling intrigue, gut-busting domestic comedy, and angry takedowns of contemporary fascism all in the span of a single episode. The premiere arc’s final episode “Harvest” is particularly adept at this, as it delivers one of the series’ most hilarious sequences just 20 minutes before depicting intense acts of interpersonal fascist violence handled with all of the maturity and weight they demand.
Andor’s bold, political anger has only grown more unflinching in its two-year absence. While Tony Gilroy insists his depiction of the Empire’s authoritarian actions are drawn from history not headlines, the series’ biting commentary feels even more pointed. One subplot sees Cassian’s surviving loved ones working as undocumented refugees while an Imperial inspections team makes its way across the planet, rounding up anyone without proper visas. Or at least, most of them. As one particularly vile Imperial officer remarks to Cassian’s on-again-off-again girlfriend Bix (Adria Arjona), the Empire knows its war machine requires a certain level of grain production impossible to achieve without undocumented labor, but that doesn’t stop the threat of sanctioned violence and arrest to those same workers.
Andor is quick to remind us the threat of fascist violence is not only cruel but irrational, motivated just as much by personal vice as it is by any sort of legible legal system. It’s these moments of recognizable, unsettlingly mundane injustice that transform the traditionally cartoonish Galactic Empire into a legitimately threatening manifestation of authoritarianism. This not only evokes unsettling parallels to our own increasingly corrupt imperial state, but it makes the scattered moments of resistance and defiant heroism all the more thrilling and cathartic.
That’s not to say Andor is anywhere close to showcasing a rebel victory against the Empire. Gilroy goes out of his way to contrast the efficient, multipronged attacks of Imperial bureaucracy with the chaotic, self-destructive mess of the rebellion’s undisciplined resistance fighters. In one particularly stirring sequence, Rogue One villain Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) leads a brainstorming session on how best to placate the larger galactic public while the Empire strip-mines a populated planet into oblivion. This is intercut with a group of squabbling, mudstained rebels who can’t help but start gunning one another down over personal drama. It’s a not-so-subtle criticism of the political right’s frequent lockstep focus and the left’s tendency to cannibalize its own. And while Gilroy may linger on this particular point a bit too long (one of the premiere’s only real missteps), it further establishes Andor’s dire but urgent worldview.
Andor’s writing and acting chops are so strong that it would be easy to overlook just how utterly gorgeous it is to watch. Unlike other Star Wars television productions, it’s easy to see where pretty much every cent of this season’s gargantuan $290 million budget went. Sure, the expected starfighter battles and stormtrooper showdowns look immaculate and easily rival or surpass their big-screen counterparts. But it’s the smaller moments of meticulous and detailed production design that make Andor such visual feast. While there’s undeniably all manner of digital artistry at work in every shot of Andor, the series never shies away from physical sets and locales which prove invaluable to its more grounded and human perspective. Nowhere is this more on display than in Mon Mothma’s storyline on Chandrila, which is filled with majestic palaces and ballrooms that cinematographer Christophe Nuyens graciously lets the camera wander through like one of Leida’s many wedding guests. The costume design for the Mothma wedding sequence is similarly stunning. For fans who’ve been missing the opulent gowns, robes, and dresses that made up Padme Amidala’s wardrobe, Andor is sure to give you your fill. One of the best sequences from this arc sees an increasingly drunk and grief stricken Mon Mothma spin her way through a choreographed wedding dress that transforms into a whirling tornado of colorful fabric.
Andor’s premiere signals that Tony Gilroy and his small army of creative collaborators have not lost any of the spark that made the series such a marvel. Star Wars fans and appreciators of excellent television are in for a hell of a three weeks. I will savor every second.
Gays in Space:
As I said earlier, there’s A LOT happening in these three episodes, and while they don’t exactly get their moment in the spotlight, our resident rebel lesbian couple — Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay) and Cinta Kaz (Varada Sethu) — still have a role to play in the intrigue. As Mon Mothma’s cousin, Vel is one of the many guests at Leida’s wedding and maybe the only other person in attendance that shares Mon’s reservations about all of the flashy but conservative Chandrilan pageantry. Last season already established that Vel not only lives a double life that splits her time between playing wealthy heiress and guerilla freedom fighter for the rebellion, but that she’s also hiding her sexuality from most of her family. A whispered conversation between Mon and Vel about Leida’s uncomfortable willingness to buy into an arranged marriage and Vel’s troubled love life with her more radical and always absent partner makes for one of this three-episode arc’s many wonderful quiet moments. It’s part of what makes Andor’s approach to its queer characters so refreshing. Not only is Vel and Cinta’s relationship compellingly flawed, but their sexuality exists as a part of the social fabric of the fictional universe that Gilroy and crew have breathed so much life into.
In comparison, Cinta’s appearance in “Harvest” is brief, but it leaves a hell of an impact. In the episode’s closing moments, Vel catches sight of an undercover Cinta offering a ride to Tay Kolma, Mon’s childhood crush turned increasingly unstable rebel asset. By this point, Luthen has already marked Kolma for assassination due to the potential danger posed by his impulsive actions. The audience knows he will not be leaving Cinta’s cab alive, and it takes Vel no time at all to put the pieces together when she and her girlfriend lock eyes. For the first time in months, she sees the woman she loves and is forced to watch as she prepares to murder a man she grew alongside. Someone her cousin loved at one point. Marsay and Sethu sell this moment with all the gravitas, shock, and pain it needs and, despite being just one part of an already stirring closing montage, this quiet moment of heartbreak leaves its mark. Andor is just that good of a show.
