Courtesy of Disney+
Warning: spoilers ahead
Three years after the show’s initial release, critically acclaimed and fan-favorite Disney+ series “Andor” returned for its second and final season on April 22, with new episodes airing weekly through May 13. A prequel to “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” (2016), “Andor” stands apart from “Star Wars’” usual high-octane space fantasies, offering instead a slow-burn, gritty portrait of resistance. With sophisticated political commentary, detailed production and airtight performances, Season 2 is both intimate in scope and unflinching in its urgency.
Whereas most prequels fail to hold viewers in suspense, “Andor” weaponizes the fan base’s knowledge of rebel captain Cassian Andor’s death in “Rogue One” and thrives in this inevitability. Season 2 is effective because it isn’t concerned with who lives or dies, but rather what must be hollowed out in the name of rebellion: identity, relationships, peace and principles.
It’s a season about cost. “I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see,” revolutionary Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) said in Season 1. The second season takes this line as its thesis. No character in “Andor” escapes unscathed, even those who serve the Galactic Empire. Fascism, as creator and showrunner Tony Gilroy puts it, “inevitably destroys the people who’ve worked hardest to build it.”
A strength of the narrative is its refreshing maturity, given “Andor” contains the franchise’s most explicit depictions of systemic violence yet. Fascism isn’t personified as a cartoonish villain, but rather executed through systems: carceral, economic and bureaucratic. The Empire massacres peaceful protestors on the planet Ghorman after a media smear campaign and hunts down undocumented workers on Mina-Rau with sexual violence and surveillance technology. Senators face censorship. Even loyalists such as Imperial Security Bureau Officer Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) are discarded in Imperial gulags despite lifetimes of service.
The show’s brilliance lies in its refusal to sanitize resistance or destiny, a pitfall much of the franchise has fallen into. The show doesn’t feature a single lightsaber, and there is no “chosen one” to restore balance to the force. There is only a steady crush of pressure on already-weary rebels such as Andor.
Some viewers have dismissed the show’s pacing as “slow” or “boring,” suggesting that the political subplots deviate from what “Star Wars” should be. Yet, “Star Wars” has always been political — creator George Lucas has long cited the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon presidential administration as inspiration for his original trilogy. “Andor” simply brings what has always underpinned the franchise into the limelight. Its pacing mirrors the methodical work of building and sustaining revolution: slow, tense and often thankless. Season 2 is made all the more satisfying when tensions explode during moments like the Ghorman Massacre or Senator-turned-rebel Mon Mothma’s (Genevieve O’Reilly) thrilling escape from the Senate.
In terms of production, “Andor” pays remarkable attention to creating a tactile, lived-in world. The show’s team constructed over 180 sets for Season 2, with half built from scratch. Real locations such as the Montserrat mountains in Spain and Lake Como in Italy were integrated seamlessly with sets, immersing viewers fully despite the sci-fi aspects. Actress Adria Arjona, who plays Bix Caleen, emphasized the functionality of “enormous” sets that even featured running water.
More than just backdrops, these spaces were designed for actors to move through, touch and inhabit. Elizabeth Dulau, who plays rebel courier and covert operative Kleya Marki, even learned the basics of radio building to ground her character’s technical competence. This quality of preparation paired with the physicality of the show’s sets lends a fresh edge rarely found in CGI-heavy sci-fi.
The cast’s performances are as detailed as the world around them. Diego Luna, who plays Andor in both the show and 2016’s “Rogue One,” proves himself as the show’s anchor, capturing his character’s internal shift from burnt-out spy to committed revolutionary leader with a quiet intensity. Kyle Soller, as low-level Imperial inspector Syril Karn, delivers a tightly wound portrayal of a man desperate for purpose, power and validation. Soller deftly balances the pathetic and the unnerving, reflecting Karn’s ultimate irrelevance to the Empire and his dangerous obsession with power. Across the board, the ensemble delivers restraint and emotional precision to Gilroy’s exacting script.
That nuance extends into the score, where Brandon Roberts takes the reins from season one’s Nicholas Britell to build on the show’s sonic identity with sharper edges and unsettling dissonance. A standout moment lands during Mothma’s daughter’s arranged wedding ceremony, where a harsh electronic club mix plays against her visible despair. This audiovisual clash makes for one of the show’s most enthralling and disturbing sequences as a mother sells her child’s future to fund an insurgency, drink in hand.
In a franchise increasingly dominated by fan service and formula, “Andor” is the outlier. Season 2 continues the series’ politically charged exploration of fascism and resistance, honing in on what it means for a fractured galaxy to struggle, rebel and above all else, try: a poignant subversion of Yoda’s famous “Do or do not, there is no try.” Maybe “Star Wars” without the lightsabers cuts deeper after all.
Rating: 10/10
