“I have friends everywhere…”
Another triumph from Tony Gilroy! Somehow the second and final season of Andor has managed to outdo its stellar predecessor. The second season was released in April 2025, a continuing prequel to one of the few celebrated Disney-era Star Wars films, Rogue One (2016). It offers four mini-narratives, each composed of three-episode arcs and taking place one year apart. Once again, Andor presents a slow-burn, contemplative political thriller with sudden bursts of high-octane tension as we are given a key character-driven story in the rise of the rebel alliance, particularly through the war-wearied eyes of rebel leaders like Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård), Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), and others, as well as an examination of cold Imperial bureaucracy as explored through the careers of Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) and Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) as they struggle to climb the Imperial ladder, ever in search of favor from their unforgiving superiors. This is an immensely epic show that explores the moral complexity of rebellion as the rebel characters are occasionally at odds with one another, yet they believe they must force themselves to believe they are doing the right thing by organizing acts of sabotage, espionage, and terrorism; while likewise the Empire believes its ISB agents are correctly operating as a “healthcare institution” in stamping out the disease of rebellion and disharmony.
The first arc takes place one year after the Ferrix uprising (as portrayed in the first season) and it starts off with a bang as Cassian Andor hijacks an Imperial TIE Avenger ship from the planet Sienar before suddenly being ambushed and held hostage by a rogue band of guerilla fighters on the jungle moon of Yavin IV before finally launch a daring escape in order to get back to his lover Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona), and friends Brasso (Joplin Sibtain) and Wilmon Paak (Muhannad Bhaier) on the farming planet of Mina-Rau where they are facing increasing Imperial scrutiny (there is also a controversial scene of an attempted rape of Bix by an Imperial officer). Within this arc, we are also shown a highly tense political conflict in which Mon Mothma is forced to marry-off her daughter Leida (the show gives us the first glimpse of Mon Mothma’s homeworld of Chandrila), while her banking ally Tay Kolma confesses that his financial situation has turned sour, possibly forcing him to expose the rebel activities of Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, Luthen Rael, and others. Meanwhile, within the Empire, Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) announces a new project to obtain rare mineral resources from the planet Ghorman, a unique planet that provides silk from its spider-webbed silk chambers (notably, the Emperor’s cloak was made from Ghorman fabric). The project is assigned to Dedra Meero (Denise Gough). At the end of this arc, Cassian Andor rescues his friends in his stolen TIE Avenger but Brasso tragically dies, while Luthen Rael decides to have Tay Kolma killed.
Then, one year after the conflict on Mina-Rau which killed Brasso, Cassian and Bix are working for Luthen on Coruscant before Luthen sends Cassian off to investigate the construction of a new Imperial armory being constructed on Ghorman, where Syril and Dedra have been stationed in the capital of Palmo while a local working-class rebellion known as “The Ghorman Front” has sprung up. This all occurs at the same time that Mon Mothma begins losing her support in the Imperial Senate, particularly with respect to a bill intended to radically increase the power of the ISB. There is also a surprise cameo by Saw Guerrero (Forest Whitaker) who takes a different tactic with respect to his rebel activities as he steals rhydonium, and this arc also featured a sweating, nail-biting sequence in which Luthen’s assistant Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau) plays an outsized role in protecting Luthen’s secrets, particularly a bugged artifact which is set to face an Imperial audit in his antiquities collection –this was a real stand-out, high-intensity sequence! Also, in this arc there is a tragic love story between rebels Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay) and Cinta Kaz (Varada Sethu), the latter of whom is accidentally killed, while a still-traumatized Bix is encouraged to return to rebel work by Luthen. On Coruscant, Bix and Cassian invade the office of sadistic Imperial scientist named Dr. Gorst (who tortured Bix in several episodes of Season 1) before they depart and detonate a bomb, blowing up the whole office. It is a terrific story of confronting fears and overcoming trauma.
One year later, the rebels have centralized many activities on Yavin IV. Cassian is dispatched back to Ghorman to assassinate Dedra, while Dedra finds herself frustrated with Imperial oversight undermining her leadership, while Syril’s relationship with Dedra continues to suffer as he realizes she has manipulated him on Ghorman. Notably, the Ghormans were given their own unique language for this show, based on the French resistance in World War II (Disney Lucasfilm even hired French actors for this scene). With a public uprising taking place in the city’s central square on Ghorman, Dedra somewhat reluctantly obeys her own orders and commands her troops to open fire on the protestors –a fateful act that leads to an all-out scene of chaotic violence as numerous protestors are killed while Syril wanders around the spiraling battle until he accidentally stumbles upon Cassian Andor, the very man he spent all of Season 1 attempting to arrest before his career took a massive setback. When they face-off, he is shocked to find that Cassian has no idea who he is. But before Syril can respond, he is shot in the head by a leader of the Ghorman Front (this chillingly connects to Rogue One as Cassian steals Syril’s weapon and later tells rebels in Rogue One that he “didn’t get a name” from the man he stole it from). This whole violent conflict becomes known as “The Ghorman Massacre” –though the Empire pumps out a massive propaganda effort, blaming it on outside agitators. Cassian barely manages to escape from Ghorman along with other rebels and a damaged KX enforcer droid, later reprogrammed to be reprogram K-2SO (as featured in Rogue One). After the Ghorman Massacre, Mon Mothma decides to deliver a speech on the Senate floor condemning Emperor Palpatine –an extremely dangerous decision—and Luthen sends Cassian to whisk her off the Senate floor (since Bail Organa’s security team has been compromised) as they narrowly escape to Yavin IV. This another utterly brilliant espionage narrative.
In the final arc, one year after the Ghorman Massacre, Luthen learns of a secret weapon being constructed by the Empire (he kills his informer Lonni in a public park in order to ensure his silence). Luthen races back to his antiquities office on Coruscant where he destroys his secret communications/listening device moments before Dedra confronts him. When he finds out she knows he is a traitor to the Empire, Luthen picks up an antique knife (a “Nautolan bleeder”) and attempts suicide to avoid giving over any rebel information to the Empire. Dedra panics as she realizes she has made a mistake coming alone, believing she alone could take down this shadowy rebel figure. She desperately wants to keep Luthen as he is rushed to a hospital, while Luthen’s assistant Kleya secretly infiltrates the hospital, risking her life in order to snuff out her beloved father figure’s life and protect the rebellion (there are a string of fascinating flashbacks in this arc as we learn that Luthen was a former Imperial sergeant who joined the rebellion after his unit massacred Kleya’s hometown and he informally adopted her after he found her stowed-away aboard his ship). Dedra is rebuked by her superiors for accidentally allowing information about the Death Star to leak from her office and for thinking she could bring in Luthen all by herself. A manhunt is issued for Kleya on Coruscant while she sends out a secret rebel distress signal which triggers Cassian, Melshi, and K-2SO to rescue her, earning them ire from the leadership on Yavin IV who worry that the mission could expose their position. A dramatic fight ensues as Cassian and his team are saved by K-2SO while Kleya is wounded but taken back to Yavin IV where she shares her top-secret intelligence about the Death Star. The rebel leadership debates the veracity of this claim as Dedra is imprisoned in what appear to be a Narkina prison (perhaps the same prison Cassian escaped from in Season 1) and her Imperial superior, Major Lio Partagaz (Anton Lesser) commits suicide in order to avoid the shame of his own arrest. Has he seen the error of his ways? Or is he merely trying to protect his own honor? The show ends as an informant associated with Saw Guerrero urgently contacts Yavin IV, so the rebel leaders send out Cassian to Kafrene for a meeting (setting up the events in Rogue One nicely with the “Ring of Kafrene”) while Bix has settled on Mina-Rau, cradling a baby as she watches the horizon for Cassian.
Andor is a magnificent series –a true gem in the Star Wars universe. It shows us the fragility inside both the rebellion and the empire, and the extraordinary difficulties in keeping secrets in a world of spies and traitors, as well as the true dangers facing people in the midst of a rising fascistic regime. There is nothing inevitable about the heroes winning in this show. Many of the characters, like Mon Mothma or Luthen Rael, feel utterly trapped in their decisions. Risk is everywhere and things are not always morally clear. Andor forces us to consider what we might risk in our own lives in order to protect the light of freedom in a world of encroaching tyranny (a timely question indeed). The show offers a true a master-class in dramatic tension and political conflict without reducing it to mere flashy lightsabers and explosive shoot-outs. I absolutely loved this show, and for me season two even managed to surpass the greatness of season one (even though both are superb). In closing, Tony Gilroy has recently given a great deal of fascinating interviews about Andor, including an amusing conversation with comical right-wing Catholic New York Times columnist Ross Douthat in which Douthat repeatedly flails in his attempts to argue that Andor is actually a radical left-wing show, and he criticizes Gilroy for being sympathetic toward progressivism and so on (Douthat even tries to make similar arguments about Gilroy’s other classics like reducing Michael Clayton to a mere “left-wing” movie). But it was great to see Tony Gilroy dismiss these utterly silly hyper-online claims as he poignantly responds to Douthat by asking a simple question: “Do you identify with the Empire?” Discussions like these are helpful reminders as to why our culture desperately needs high art and complicated cinematic works like Andor in order to dispense with the mediocre ramblings of resentful culture warriors like Douthat who now tragically pervade our society.