*SPOILERS AHEAD*
I’m of two minds when it comes to Andor.
It is unquestionably a great TV show. Andor’s first season is rivaled only by the first season of The Mandalorian in terms of Star Wars projects that approach the quality of the original trilogy.
The story, the pacing, the compelling characters, and the judicious use of well-crafted action sequences are all excellent. The second and final season of Andor is nearly as good, but faced a higher degree of difficulty, as it was already sandwiched between the events of the first season and those of the looming, inevitable Rogue One.
To put it into nerd-ese, the show had to get from 5 BBY (for you non-geeks, this means five years before the events of the original movie) to just before the events of Rogue One, which, in turn, lead directly to Episode IV.
In other words, the minds behind Season 2 had to decide whether to cover four years in 12 episodes or have one major time jump toward the end of the series or not have the series leave off precisely where Rogue One picks up.
The creators of Andor chose the best of several imperfect options, electing to make each three-episode arc a snapshot of a single year, followed by a time jump to the next year. So, episodes 1-3 take place in 4 BBY, then episode 4 jumps to 3 BBY, and so on.
While it did make the overall arc feel just a bit crammed and rushed, this was still a far superior path to that of something like Obi-Wan, which stretched what probably would have been a quite good 2.5-hour movie into a sometimes paper-thin six-episode streaming series.
Beyond that wise decision, Season 2 does several other things well. It connects a lot of dots to show how the Empire went from a repressive-but-still-democratic regime to a fully totalitarian menace. It gave closure—good or bad—to nearly every character who has more than a few lines. Even little Bee-two, the stuttering droid, got a nice send-off in the last episode. This is darned rare in a series with so many fleshed-out characters.
The one exception is Cassian’s sister. It’s easy to forget this (In fact, I did forget before I re-binged Season 1 prior to binging Season 2), but the jumping-off point of the entire series is Andor’s search for his long-lost sister. The series’ final episode provides a quick dream sequence in which she appears, but that’s the end of it. Especially for those who hadn’t revisited Season 1 recently, that was probably an “Oh, yeah—whatever happened with that?” moment.
Character closure is a major strength of the show. Its enhancement of Rogue One is another.
I remember when Disney announced Andor, my first thought was, “Ugh. They’re making entire series about one-off supporting characters now from the spinoff movies now? Get it together, Disney.” While my concerns about Disney’s Star Wars strategy have proved well-founded over the years, I was dead wrong about Andor. In fact, I remember telling a friend that the first season really could have been two very good, separate seasons, with the break coming just before Andor is arrested and sent to prison.
Now, with the entire series complete, Rogue One looks a lot different. Andor introduced several excellent new characters, such as Luthen Rael, Syril Karn (my favorite), his mother, and Dedra Meero, played so expertly by Denise Gough that it initially feels like she walked directly off a set in 1977.
But what the show does best is enhance existing characters, often converting minor or supporting roles into very consequential ones. Details about these characters are far more robust thanks to Andor, making audience investment in Rogue One more intense.
This obviously applies to Andor himself, but it’s especially true of characters like Mon Mothma, as well as Saw Gerrera, General Draven, K-2S0, and Bail Organa (here played by Benjamin Bratt, who does an admirable job pinch-hitting for Jimmy Smits). Even Director Krennic’s additional backstory makes the character fuller in Rogue One.
Thus, for someone like Melshi, the fact that he has a relatively small role in Rogue One becomes fairly irrelevant–we already know a lot about him now, so seeing him in action in that film has a different significance than it did back in 2016.
Put another way: Andor transforms Rogue One from “just” a good movie into something that is also a spectacular series finale.
True to the grittiness of the series, Rogue One provides a tonally dark bridge between the grimy, callous world of Andor to a world that has hope, leading us to the more swashbuckling tone of Star Wars.
But therein lies my dilemma.
I was watching an interview with wrestling superstar Cody Rhodes years ago, and he said that Rogue One was his least-favorite Star Wars film. I was surprised to hear this, since RO is generally considered to be among the best of the movies. I was expecting his explanation to come from a place of hipster-ish contrarianism.
Instead, he made an excellent point that I hadn’t consciously considered.
Essentially, Rogue One is the least “Star Wars” Star Wars movie. Yes, it has spaceships and droids and Darth Vader and so on. But it exists in a grimy, gritty world devoid of hope until the very end of the movie—and that’s after nearly all of the characters introduced in Rogue One die!
As a movie, Rogue One is good. As a “Star Wars movie,” I don’t think it succeeds quite as much.
All of which leads me directly to the weaknesses of Andor Season 2. It moves even harder in a depressing, all-too-gritty direction, making everyone’s lives seem miserable, even the lives of those who are in power. The series takes a misstep when it touches on themes of migrant workers and an attempted rape by a military officer. Much like Cody’s reaction to Rogue One, I guess part of me doesn’t want to see issues like those explored in a Star Wars project.
Mostly because it’s so unnecessary.
Remember that a key influence on George Lucas’ original vision for Star Wars were 1930s sci-fi movie serials. Good vs. evil is a given. And self-explanatory. Evil pursues power for its own sake because they are evil. That’s pretty much all we need to know.
While the exploration of the practical applications of that kind of evil in Andor Season 1 were fascinating, I think Season 2 may have taken things too far in terms of how specific and dark the tone got.
An easy counterargument to all of this is that the arc of the end of Episode III to Andor Season 1 to Andor Season 2 to Rogue One quite correctly and expertly tracks a world in which the light of hope is extinguished and the last embers fade until finally being rekindled in the closing scene of RO.
This argument holds that it therefore makes sense for the world of Star Wars to be increasingly brutal, harsh, and sad. If you accept that premise, then Andor Season 2 is nearly perfect. If you don’t fully buy it, as I don’t, Season 2 is “merely” very good.
Either way, I don’t think we needed that much “Mon Mothma wedding rave” footage.
The Axis of Ego 
Timely Streaming Review: Andor (Season 2)
I’m of two minds when it comes to Andor.
It is unquestionably a great TV show. Andor’s first season is rivaled only by the first season of The Mandalorian in terms of Star Wars projects that approach the quality of the original trilogy.
The story, the pacing, the compelling characters, and the judicious use of well-crafted action sequences are all excellent. The second and final season of Andor is nearly as good, but faced a higher degree of difficulty, as it was already sandwiched between the events of the first season and those of the looming, inevitable Rogue One.
To put it into nerd-ese, the show had to get from 5 BBY (for you non-geeks, this means five years before the events of the original movie) to just before the events of Rogue One, which, in turn, lead directly to Episode IV.
In other words, the minds behind Season 2 had to decide whether to cover four years in 12 episodes or have one major time jump toward the end of the series or not have the series leave off precisely where Rogue One picks up.
The creators of Andor chose the best of several imperfect options, electing to make each three-episode arc a snapshot of a single year, followed by a time jump to the next year. So, episodes 1-3 take place in 4 BBY, then episode 4 jumps to 3 BBY, and so on.
While it did make the overall arc feel just a bit crammed and rushed, this was still a far superior path to that of something like Obi-Wan, which stretched what probably would have been a quite good 2.5-hour movie into a sometimes paper-thin six-episode streaming series.
Beyond that wise decision, Season 2 does several other things well. It connects a lot of dots to show how the Empire went from a repressive-but-still-democratic regime to a fully totalitarian menace. It gave closure—good or bad—to nearly every character who has more than a few lines. Even little Bee-two, the stuttering droid, got a nice send-off in the last episode. This is darned rare in a series with so many fleshed-out characters.
The one exception is Cassian’s sister. It’s easy to forget this (In fact, I did forget before I re-binged Season 1 prior to binging Season 2), but the jumping-off point of the entire series is Andor’s search for his long-lost sister. The series’ final episode provides a quick dream sequence in which she appears, but that’s the end of it. Especially for those who hadn’t revisited Season 1 recently, that was probably an “Oh, yeah—whatever happened with that?” moment.
Character closure is a major strength of the show. Its enhancement of Rogue One is another.
I remember when Disney announced Andor, my first thought was, “Ugh. They’re making entire series about one-off supporting characters now from the spinoff movies now? Get it together, Disney.” While my concerns about Disney’s Star Wars strategy have proved well-founded over the years, I was dead wrong about Andor. In fact, I remember telling a friend that the first season really could have been two very good, separate seasons, with the break coming just before Andor is arrested and sent to prison.
Now, with the entire series complete, Rogue One looks a lot different. Andor introduced several excellent new characters, such as Luthen Rael, Syril Karn (my favorite), his mother, and Dedra Meero, played so expertly by Denise Gough that it initially feels like she walked directly off a set in 1977.
But what the show does best is enhance existing characters, often converting minor or supporting roles into very consequential ones. Details about these characters are far more robust thanks to Andor, making audience investment in Rogue One more intense.
This obviously applies to Andor himself, but it’s especially true of characters like Mon Mothma, as well as Saw Gerrera, General Draven, K-2S0, and Bail Organa (here played by Benjamin Bratt, who does an admirable job pinch-hitting for Jimmy Smits). Even Director Krennic’s additional backstory makes the character fuller in Rogue One.
Thus, for someone like Melshi, the fact that he has a relatively small role in Rogue One becomes fairly irrelevant–we already know a lot about him now, so seeing him in action in that film has a different significance than it did back in 2016.
Put another way: Andor transforms Rogue One from “just” a good movie into something that is also a spectacular series finale.
True to the grittiness of the series, Rogue One provides a tonally dark bridge between the grimy, callous world of Andor to a world that has hope, leading us to the more swashbuckling tone of Star Wars.
But therein lies my dilemma.
I was watching an interview with wrestling superstar Cody Rhodes years ago, and he said that Rogue One was his least-favorite Star Wars film. I was surprised to hear this, since RO is generally considered to be among the best of the movies. I was expecting his explanation to come from a place of hipster-ish contrarianism.
Instead, he made an excellent point that I hadn’t consciously considered.
Essentially, Rogue One is the least “Star Wars” Star Wars movie. Yes, it has spaceships and droids and Darth Vader and so on. But it exists in a grimy, gritty world devoid of hope until the very end of the movie—and that’s after nearly all of the characters introduced in Rogue One die!
As a movie, Rogue One is good. As a “Star Wars movie,” I don’t think it succeeds quite as much.
All of which leads me directly to the weaknesses of Andor Season 2. It moves even harder in a depressing, all-too-gritty direction, making everyone’s lives seem miserable, even the lives of those who are in power. The series takes a misstep when it touches on themes of migrant workers and an attempted rape by a military officer. Much like Cody’s reaction to Rogue One, I guess part of me doesn’t want to see issues like those explored in a Star Wars project.
Mostly because it’s so unnecessary.
Remember that a key influence on George Lucas’ original vision for Star Wars were 1930s sci-fi movie serials. Good vs. evil is a given. And self-explanatory. Evil pursues power for its own sake because they are evil. That’s pretty much all we need to know.
While the exploration of the practical applications of that kind of evil in Andor Season 1 were fascinating, I think Season 2 may have taken things too far in terms of how specific and dark the tone got.
An easy counterargument to all of this is that the arc of the end of Episode III to Andor Season 1 to Andor Season 2 to Rogue One quite correctly and expertly tracks a world in which the light of hope is extinguished and the last embers fade until finally being rekindled in the closing scene of RO.
This argument holds that it therefore makes sense for the world of Star Wars to be increasingly brutal, harsh, and sad. If you accept that premise, then Andor Season 2 is nearly perfect. If you don’t fully buy it, as I don’t, Season 2 is “merely” very good.
Either way, I don’t think we needed that much “Mon Mothma wedding rave” footage.
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