Star Wars: Andor, both its brilliant first season and its (nearly) equally great second season, contains almost nothing that I usually love about Star Wars as a franchise. There are no lightsabers, only one cute robot, barely any aliens, and the space battles are hardly what we call epic. The Force is barely a whisper. And yet, Andor is one of the best sci-fi TV programs in years, and the fact that it uses Star Wars iconography to tell it story is secondary to what makes it so excellent. Three episodes in the back half of the second season are among the best television so far this decade. No, we’re not being hyperbolic, they really are that good.
Lucasfilm
The first season of Andor was twelve episodes long, covering about a year of story. For season two, showrunner Tony Gilroy decided to break the twelve episodes into four story arcs spread across four years of time leading right up to the moment Rogue One begins. This approach mostly works, but it leaves some arcs much stronger overall than others. At times, it really does feel like four movies that are three hours long, whereas season one never feels like anything less than one big meal. Because of that, Andor season one remains slightly stronger overall, even if the highs of season two arguably surpass the highs of season one.
Lucasfilm
The season opens relatively strong, with Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) stealing a TIE fighter from an Imperial factory planet. This portion of the story is more compelling than what follows, with Cassian trapped on a jungle planet with some of the worst rebels ever. This is the weakest storyline of the season, and had me slightly worried that season two was going to be spinning its wheels, getting to the good stuff too late. Some plotlines with minor characters feel superfluous, especially as we have limited time to wrap this story up. Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) for example is there because he needs to tie into Rogue One, but he takes up screen time from better storylines. The other familiar faces from Rogue One, K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) and Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) ease in much better.
Lucasfilm
Still, the first arc would have benefited from being two episodes rather than three, as some of the story simply drags at this point. As with the first season, the bulk of the drama is split between our title character and Genevieve O’Reilly as Senator Mon Mothma. In this first arc, the storylines surrounding Mothma are definitely more compelling than Cassian’s as she realizes the moral compromises she has to make to defeat the Empire. Watching these episodes, it’s odd that the show was ever even called Andor. It has always been an ensemble. We suppose Star Wars: Rebels was already taken.
Lucasfilm
What this series does best, and is highly unusual for Star Wars, is that it continues to give nuance and depth to its main villain characters, Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) and Syril Karn (Kyle Soller). But the biggest magic trick Andor pulls off is how much it makes us care about these two unapologetic fascists. And trust me, they are unapologetic. Some moments early on make me think that maybe Syril has turned a new leaf. But no, his awfulness is baked in. Yet, Gilroy and company still keep us invested in following his story and almost rooting for him despite everything. All of this applies to Dedra as well who is even worse than he is. Andor never forgets that the people who do the worst things are still human beings. Sometimes human beings who get super embarrassed by their mom in front of their girlfriend.
Lucasfilm
There’s also some great character stuff for Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona) this season. Season two doesn’t brush off what she went through in season one and deals realistically with her PTSD. However, one development with her character is surely going to be cause for great controversy. We imagine this episode will carry a trigger warning, but it’s just weird that a chapter in Star Wars carries this kind of content, in a world where Jar Jar Binks and Ewoks are just somewhere offscreen. This development makes sense within the story though. If you want down-in-the-dirt, realistic Star Wars, it will come with unpleasantness like this.
What truly elevates season two of Andor to greatness are episodes 8, 9, and 10. We won’t give away what happens in these chapters in this review. But they bring to the forefront the political messaging of Andor in a big way. Without getting too into the weeds here, these episodes feel more timely than ever. Everything in the series has been setting up these chapters of the story from the very start, particularly for Cassian, Mon Mothma, and Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård). Luthen isn’t in Rogue One of course, so we assumed his story would come to a dramatic end. But it goes to darker places than I was expecting. Season two does more than just perfectly dovetail into the events of Rogue One, it makes Andor feel like a complete story within itself.
Lucasfilm
That’s when the realization set in; Andor isn’t Star Wars as much as it is Star Trek. The original Star Trek aired in the tumultuous 1960s, using an allegorical sci-fi universe to tell stories about what was going on in the world. And it did so in a way the network would have never allowed in a straightforward way. Andor is doing the exact same thing. We highly doubt Disney+ would produce a show ripped from the headlines of our current climate if it were literal. But set it in a galaxy far, far away? Then it’s all just space fantasy, right? For this reason alone, Andor will stand the test of time. It’s more of a reflection of Earth in 2025 than most shows actually taking place on Earth in 2025.
In lesser hands than Tony Gilroy’s, Andor’s ambitious second season might have felt really “try hard.” Using George Lucas’ popcorn mythology to tell a story about political espionage and the burden of living under fascism? Who would have imagined “Star Wars as Prestige Drama” would work? And yet it does. As a huge Star Wars fan, I will admit, it’s sometimes frustrating. Simply because you want at least some “Glup Shitto” moments, and Andor denies us almost any of them. (Even when the story calls for it.) But the truth is, we have the rest of the Star Wars franchise for that. Whatever small ways Andor doesn’t work as part of a larger mythology, it soars as a piece of television drama. And we should be grateful something so wonderful exists at all.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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By Nermeen Nabil Khear 
