Star Wars: Andor - Season 2: The Canon Continues as the Death Star Looms
Review Embargo April 21
By John Kirk
Rating: A+
Rebellions aren’t just built on hope: but also on sacrifice. The extent of that sacrifice is the essence of Star Wars: Andor": Season Two.
Star Wars: Andor (S2) is an intimate, detailed history of the Rebellion against the Empire, paving the way to the most memorable aspect of George Lucas’s epic space fantasy: Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope
If you’re a Star Wars fan then you know that Andor is the series that sets the story for Star Wars: Rogue One. In turn, that film is also a prequel to A New Hope. Over time, Rogue One has become my second favourite film in the series because of its loving treatment of those details. Set four years before the Battle of Yavin (where the Death Star was destroyed), Andor, now my favourite series, continues the same dramatic throughline.
Andor (Diego Luna) is back, rebelling harder than ever.
The success of Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back lay in the way it picked up the threads of Episode IV and carried them forward to continue the story fans wanted to see. Luke’s continued training as a Jedi Knight, Han Solo’s status as a marked man, Darth Vader’s search for the pilot who destroyed the Death Star and most importantly, the Rebellion’s continued battle against the Empire. If those continuing storylines mattered to the fans of Episode IV, it stands to reason the events that led up to the destruction of the Death Star matter just as much.
Though the series has been the personal history of the reluctant rebel Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), Season Two isn’t just Cassian’s story. It also looks at all the other rebel heroes. It explains their motivations, their sacrifices and actions leading up to the most crucial point in the Rebellion against the Galactic Empire. But it does this in such an intimate way, it offers fans an opportunity to devour every scrap of information about these new characters.
There are characters like Spymaster Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgard), whose dedication to gathering and bankrolling a network of operatives for use in clandestine, surgical operations against the Empire is on such a high level of tactical precision that I can see fan favourite in his future. I can already imagine the Sideshow Collectibles Action Figure.
Masquerading as a high-society antiquities dealer to the upper echelons of Coruscant – the planet at the centre of the galaxy’s government – Rael uses the information he gathers from his associates and clients to plan his operations.
Rael’s greatest ability isn’t his network of spies though, but rather his capacity for sacrifice. In fact, that’s the angle that this second season really sells: just how far is everyone willing to go in the support of the Rebellion? We discover the extent of Rael’s limits in this final season of the series.
Then there’s Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), a recognizable figure of Star Wars lore to fans as a leading figure in the Rebellion. Her character was first encountered in Star Wars Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi, but played by Caroline Blakiston. A Senator who represents her planet Chandrila in the Imperial Senate (formerly the Galactic Senate), Mothma’s compassion hidden by her elegance and sophistication, her political canniness allows her to continue her secret, clandestine resistance to Emperor Palpatine’s machinations.
Watch for Original-CIN’s forthcoming interviews with Stellan Skarsgard and Genevieve O’Reilly.
But Cassian Andor’s name is on this series. Because he is the means that allows the story of Star Wars: Rogue One to happen, his story means as much as these other two leaders of the Rebellion. In fact, it’s safe to say that he learns from them about as much as any event leading up to that time.
Fans love history about their fandoms. They search for connections, relevance and narratives to add to their canonical knowledge. What they learn in this rich and supportively relevant series is the backstories of these characters. We learn what they sacrifice for the good of the Rebellion and for the generations of leaders and freedom fighters who are to come after them.
Speaking of which, watch for Forest Whitaker’s dynamic performance as an extreme radical rebel who is more than willing to sacrifice everything in the name of the cause. In fact, there is a massive reveal in Season Two that will certainly excite fans. Like Luthen Rael, he has to burn his future.
This all comes with a cost. Even though the eventual end is well-known to all, Andor still manages to force its fans and viewers to snort a line of tension so thick that even the outcome is momentarily in doubt. That a prequel is able to accomplish that is a mark of its narrative success.
We also get to catch up with new canonical characters who made an impact in the first series. There’s the hapless Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) who is constantly under the thumb of his mother, and is unable to please her with his career attempts. We last saw Syril rescuing ISB Supervisor Dedra Meero’s (Denise Gough) life from the chaos on Ferrix. The obvious expectations are that something is bound to happen with that development in S2, and what that turns into is definitely a part of the growing Rebellion throughout the galaxy.
Star Wars: Andor (S2) is a true part of this romantic epic in every way. It does full justice to this fantasy saga that has enthralled generations of fans. There are major sacrifices that fans will recognize and accept because they not only support the canon but also the romantic heroism that makes this franchise wholly distinct.
It makes connections to what those sacrifices have reaped and perfectly fits within the canon, and fans will instantly recognize that and love it, but non-fans will see it for the high drama it brings and will inspire them to continue the rest of the story.
Star Wars: Andor – Season Two. Cast: Diego Luna, Stellan Skarsgard, Adria Arjona, Kyle Soller, Denise Gough, Forest Whitaker, and Genevieve O’Reilly. Streams on Disney+ on April 22.