REVIEW: ‘Andor’ Returns Better (and Darker) Than Ever

SPOILERS BELOW FOR ANDOR: SEASON 2, EPISODES 1-3

A Welcome Return

Andor’s first season was one of the greatest seasons of television in Star Wars history.

Tony Gilroy was hired to deliver a story with the same quality and grit as Rogue One, and he more than delivered as the initial series received incredible fan praise as well as the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of any Star Wars project thus far. In the three years since, anticipation and expectation for the second season has been so intense that it has risen to almost insurmountable heights.

Almost.

Last night, Andor premiered its first three episodes, and Gilroy and company have wasted no time in telling the audience that this will be a tense, unforgiving look at how difficult and occasionally horrifying it can be to topple an authoritarian regime.

The episodes were dense. The episodes were kinetic. The episodes left you breathless.

Andor is exactly the show we need right now, and it’s changing the course of Star Wars forever.

Not a Classic Rebellion

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The season kicks off one year after the events of Rix Road in the Season 1 finale, and plenty has changed since that fateful day. Cassian is now a full-fledged member of Luthen’s Rebellion, and as we see him attempting to steal a TIE, we may assume that this covert team has everything figured out.

We would be wrong.

Soon after his escape, Cassian finds himself on a world that he assumed would be the site of a ship transfer. Instead he ends up in the middle of an internal conflict reminiscent of Lord of the Files with his co-conspirator nowhere to be seen. Through brief attempts at conflict resolution, Cassian discovers that these people are actually part of an early Rebel cell…but it doesn’t matter. They refuse to listen.

Because this is not the Rebellion of Han, Luke, and Leia.

The Rebellion we’re introduced to is messy, unorganized, chaotic, and violent. Cassian is not there to recruit anyone, after all. He’s a prisoner looking for an exit, and we begin to see glimpses of the ruthlessness required to survive an Imperial takeover as Cassian finds his window to escape and leaves the starving militia in his wake on what we learn is actually a familiar planet…Yavin.

However, there is still something more important to Cassian than the cause this early in his career…his family.

Crushing Reunions & Real Life Parallels

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After escaping Ferrix, Cassian’s found family had to spread across the stars to avoid the watchful eyes of the Empire. A year later, it turns out that Bix, Brasso, Wilmon Paak, and the ever-adorable B2 have taken refuge as undocumented workers on a remote planet in the Outer Rim.

Although this may sound like the quieter story in the first few episodes, it ends up being one of the most impactful and devastating.

Writers write for the times in which they are living, and it is no accident that the story of Bix, Brasso, and the Empire rings so close to home at the start of this season. In order to flee tyranny and death, they flee for refuge and take manual jobs in order to survive thanks to the goodness of others. They are undocumented, they wish to be left in peace so they can heal, and the Empire arrives to inspect, harass, and kill them.

Andor is not, nor has ever been, a subtle parallel.

In addition to the tension present in the unexpected arrival of the Empire, Bix is still suffering from the trauma inflicted upon her during her imprisonment on Ferrix. Brasso and the gang attempt to console her as best they can, but it is clear that there are wounds that can only heal with time if at all. Arjona’s performance throughout these episodes is striking in its dichotomous portrayal of fear and grief alongside strength and resilience.

Bix has been beaten down, but she forever presses forward.

During the Empire’s inspection, we also witness one of the most familiar and vile weapons of fascist regimes: intimidation through attempted sexual assault. The scene is handled with the utmost care and is presented without a gratuitous nature, but director Ariel Kleiman also ensures that the intensity and violence of the assault is clear.

This is the horrors brought on by the Empire. This is what weak men do with ultimate power. This is why eyes must remain open.

It’s shocking and hard to watch. There’s no way around that. Star Wars has never been so blatant about this type of assault - Bix even names it directly in the moments following her escape, but Andor is not a show that is interested in glossing over the depravities that infest the ranks of tyranny.

The attempted assault does not diminish Bix’s strength. It exemplifies the Empire’s weakness.

The ensuing battle is one of tension and frankly masterful filmmaking, and as Cassian finally arrives for the reunion he was promised…a crushing loss rips away any sense of relief both he and the audience had hoped for.

An Inner Look at Darkness

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When the cast for Season 2 was announced, perhaps no character elicited more excitement than Ben Mendelsohn’s Director Orson Krennic. The Rogue One standout was an obvious choice for the tone of the show, but little did we know that he would be responsible for starting one of the Empire’s most despicable atrocities: The Ghorman Massacre.

Krennic’s Imperial board meeting once again emphasized the bureaucratic nature of the Empire’s intimidation machine, and of course, nobody runs that machine more efficiently than Dedra Meero. In the wake of the Ferrix disaster, her career has certainly taken a turn, but her seeming reluctance to head the Ghorman project was slightly surprising - although eventually ineffective.

She definitely has a score to settle after Ferrix, and I pity anyone that gets caught in her way.

Perhaps the most shocking revelation regarding Dedra, however, is her apparent romantic relationship with fellow Imperial loyalist Syril Karn. The scene where they host Syril’s mother (as charming as ever) for dinner is a welcome comedic highlight of the initial arc, but when Dedra turns on her Imperial attitude in order to defend Syril against his mother’s machinations…you immediately remember the depths of her power.

Seeing into the everyday lives of the Empire’s leaders is a fascinating element of the series, but that’s also one of the most important lessons in Andor. The face of evil may be an old Sith Lord in a dark robe or a metal warrior carrying a red lightsaber…but it may also be a woman in white with the tightest bun you’ve ever seen trying to remember how to smile.

Dance Away the Pain

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The performances throughout Season 1 of Andor were universally lauded. Diego Luna even received an Emmy nomination for his work, and after seeing the first arc of Season 2…Genevieve O’Reilly should be next.

While violence may be the name of the game for Cassian, Bix, and Brasso, Mon Mothma’s journey through the first arc is - perhaps unsurprisingly - filled with posturing, politicking, and…dancing?

Season 1 showed the depths that Mon was willing to go to in order to provide for the Rebellion, and her sacrifices became most apparent when she was forced to arrange the marriage of her only daughter. This season, the first three episodes take us through the three days of that wedding ceremony. In addition to the parental duties that threaten to overwhelm Mon during the festivities, her secretive Rebellious nature also appears as Luthen Rael makes a surprise appearance and her old friend Tay Kolma begins…acting out, shall we say.

Before addressing more of the genius behind O’Reilly’s performance, credit must be given to the set and costume designers of the series, because Chandrila looks sensational. The wedding festivities are held on some of the grandest sets we’ve ever seen in Star Wars, and Mon Mothma’s wardrobe alone should be enough to guarantee a number of accolades once the series is completed.

Rarely have we ever seen such a cohesive, extravagant style in the Star Wars galaxy. The bar has definitely been set for every other designer going forward.

Within those costumes, however, sits a woman who we actively see begin to crumble under the pressure of her responsibilities. Throughout the three days, Mon must keep track of her daughter’s emotional health, play the devoted hostess, discover if Luthen has any ruthless plans hidden up his sleeve, and most importantly…figure out if her oldest friend is actively planning to betray her.

The result is an arc that creates just as much tension with a sentence as the others do with a blaster bolt. By the end of the final episode, the armor of resilience Mon has crafted around herself is breaking, and as the booming base of the wedding music plays and the liquor of the galaxy flows, we see her give over to the rhythms of the galaxy…if only to let the weight slip off of her shoulders for a single moment.

Just the Beginning

When Andor’s unorthodox release schedule was announced, it was met with a mix of reactions. Sure, we were going to get essentially a new Star Wars movie every week, but wouldn’t the shorter release window end up hurting the show?

After watching the first three episodes, it’s extremely clear that - intentional or not - this is exactly how the series was meant to be watched.

The first arc flows incredibly well together thanks to unsurprisingly sensational scripts from creator Tony Gilroy, and by the end of Episode 3, you know that a full story has been told with another full story on the way in just a week’s time.

Perhaps the social lifetime of the show will be shorter once the finale has aired, but given the gravity, scope, and scale of the first three episodes…that seems impossible.

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Andor is streaming now on Disney+ with the next three episodes releasing on Tuesday, April 29th.