‘Andor’ Season 2 review: A thrilling but sometimes frustrating race to Rogue One

There’s no denying Andor is one of the best stories to come out of Star Wars. Tony Gilroy’s vision of the rebellion roots itself less in the magical elements of Star Wars and more in the on-the-ground efforts it took by regular people to build the rebellion. While Andor Season 1 was near-perfect television, Andor Season 2 took some missteps. Overall, the back half of the season makes up for the first half, but the season’s structure and release schedule means sacrificing a lot of story for the other characters.

Andor Season 2’s three-episode arcs leave some characters behind

Mirroring Andor Season 1’s arc structure, Andor Season 2 sped-run the remaining 4 years between the start of Andor and the start of Rogue One by releasing 3 episode arcs across four weeks. The arcs themselves play out like a movie but the tension would get lost week-to-week. The time skips mean there’s a lot of time missing in the years leading up to Rogue One. While it works in telling the necessary parts of Cassian’s (Diego Luna) story, it’s ultimately a disservice to characters like Vel (Faye Marsay) and Cinta (Varada Sethu).

The manner of Cinta’s death is an egregious miscalculation. Not only does a lot of her character growth happen off-screen, but she dies by unceremonious friendly fire the episode in which she returns. This is Andor, and characters were always going to die. But when they’re killed off without much on-screen development, it’s indicative of a larger issue in deciding who gets the screen time and who does not. In the case of Vel and Cinta, the only lesbian couple on the show gets hardly any screen time, and when they do, it’s for one of them to die.

Andor Season 2’s Ghorman arc saves this season

But when Andor Season 2 hits, it really hits. The Ghorman arc, particularly Andor Season 2 Episodes 7-9, were some of the most thrilling and emotionally wrought episodes throughout the entire Star Wars canon. Tension built over time across at least four episodes, all culminating in Andor Season 2 Episode 8, “Who Are You?”. Cassian and Wilmon (Muhannad Ben Amor) find themselves on Ghorman to carry out an assassination of Dedra but get caught up in the bubbling of tension between the Empire and the Ghorman rebels. It’s a masterclass of tension.

The following episode, “Welcome to the Rebellion,” is another great entry to close out this arc. Mon Mothma’s (Genevieve O’Reilly) speech, in which she calls the events on Ghorman a genocide, is a powerful moment for Star Wars that also reflects real-life events. Her thrilling escape with Cassian through the oppressive walls of the Senate is a long-time coming in the story of how she becomes a rebel leader.

The final moments of Andor honors the heroes

The final arc of Andor Season 2 closes out Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau), Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård), and Lonnie’s role in this story. While the relationship between Luthen and Kleya didn’t necessarily call for a fleshed-out backstory, what we do get is another example of how much the Empire takes and takes, and how it’s a choice to fight against them. Cassian’s final mission before the start of Rogue One involves rescuing Kleya from Coruscant, and reveals the true origination of the Death Star plans the rebel alliance receives, and what sends them off on their journey in Rogue One.

These final moments for Cassian, Melchi, Vel, Mothma, Wilmon, and all the other rebels feel like a proper send-off of heroes right before their big sacrifice. Running parallel to these scenes is the remaining ISB following their failure to keep the Death Star plans a secret. Dedra and Partagast’s ending is a poetically chilling one, and emphasizes just how much fascism comes for everyone, even the ones who fight for it.

While a lot of Andor Season 2 suffers from it’s release schedule, there are plenty of thrilling moments that cement it as one of the best Star Wars stories to exist.

Andor Season 2 is available on Disney+.

Katey Stoetzel

Katey is co-founder and tv editor for InBetweenDrafts. She hosts the “House of the Dragon After Show” and “Between TV” podcasts and can be read in various other places like Inverse and Screen Speck. She wishes desperately the binge model of tv watching would die, but still gets mad when she runs out of episodes of tv to watch.