Andor Season Two, Episode’s 1-3 is a triumph in succinct, purposeful, interwoven storytelling.
It moves with such pace and poignancy that it’s often a challenge to fully process, or to put it another way-
“The pace of oppression outstrips our ability to understand it and that is the real trick of the imperial thought machine”
There will be 12 episodes in Season Two of Andor,
This season spans a 4 year period and is divided into 4 arcs made up of 3 episodes. each 3 episode arc represents 1 year and takes place over ‘a couple of days’ during pivotal moments of that year,
Every Wednesday for the next 4 weeks Disney+ will drop a whole 3 episode arc all at once.
Gilroy informed the press that this release schedule was ‘a Disney decision’ and if this is to be believed, it was a fine choice by the ‘House of Mouse’. While the previous Season of Andor lingered and allowed us time to sit with and observe the characters, there is no such luxury in Season Two.
Stakes have been raised, tension is rising, momentum is building, there is a constant looming threat pressing and “the imperial thought machine” never stops marching forward.
In the opening scene Luna and Gilroy set the tone beautifully via Cassian’s quintessential smooth talking ‘Star Wars style’ speech to the nervous Niya, with dialogue that would be just as at home in Star Wars Rebels as it is in Andor.
What sets it apart is the choice to juxtapose this clear moment of typical protagonist heroism with a scene exposing how messy, imperfect and gritty acts of Rebellion actually are,
as Cassian struggles to operate the ship, fails to leave the hangar before the doors close and generally makes a total hash of his exit.
Where in other Star Wars stories the struggle to pilot the ship may be played for laughs, there is a genuine feel of jeopardy and tension as we watch Cassian risking his life for the cause. Subsequently, there is no sense of victory in Cassian’s escape, in comparison to other Star Wars stories where the protagonist will give a celebratory “wooo!” a fist pump or deliver a pithy line upon reaching safety. Cassian does not, he appears somewhat silently relieved, but to again quote Nemik’s manifesto, he remains “alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy”
In doing this Gilroy subverts our expectations and informs us that while this is very much a Star Wars story, we should prepare for something of a different tone moving forwards- there is a grinding and gritty realism that is grounding and punctuates everything.
The tempo and dynamism of this arc is all-consuming. Tony Gilroy has purposefully placed the audience in the middle of multiple scenarios, it’s chaos in motion- after all “It’s easier to hide behind forty atrocities than a single incident”
There is a strong emphasis on movement, both physical and metaphorical.
Season Two’s time jump allows our protagonists/antagonists to start the season in situations and places we may not have expected, but all already in motion, I expect this to be a theme that continues from arc-to-arc, which will potentially contribute to Season Two being perceived broadly as “faster” than Season One.
If Season One was reflective of the slow creep of the Empire and the tightening of it’s grip on ‘normal people’ in the Galaxy, then Season Two shows us the acceleration post The Public Order Resentencing Directive, the subsequent stripping of liberty and dignity of innocent everyday people and the equal and opposite reactions that this causes.
It all contributes towards this feeling of being carried away with the tide, a runaway train, a car without brakes.
Any additional context we’re given only serves to accelerate or exaggerate what we can already see in motion or already know.
The casual revelation that Dedra Meero was raised in an ‘Imperial Kinder-Block’ for orphaned children accelerates concerns we had about her behaviour, suddenly knowing she has lived a life completely devoid of traditional love makes the red flags wave that little bit harder and our concerns for her future actions that bit more intense…
There is an inevitability to where all these people are heading, yet we and many of the characters are out of control.
Nothing is placed without purpose in Andor. There are equals and opposites, inverse and direct, implicit and overt-
‘balance’ is a key theme of Star Wars and Tony Gilroy is a Jedi Master of wielding it.Nothing exemplifies the marriage of this mastery more than the ending of Episode 3- which, ironically, starts building approximately half way in to the episode where the track “Niamos” starts playing at Leida & Stekan’s Wedding-
Gilroy cuts between two very different, high tension events- those on Mina-Rau and the energetic dance floor of the aforementioned wedding. While tragedy arrives on Mina-Rau, Mon is encouraged to and loses herself on the dance floor, after an uncomfortable conversation with Luthen Rael.
She pounds drink after drink, spinning and twirling like a bird of paradise doing an eccentric dance, becoming more overt and aggressive in her movements the longer the track continues.
Indeed, at points in her flowing, winged orange dress her movements make her look reminiscent to the Starbird sigil that is later adopted by the Rebel Alliance as its signet.
As we cut dynamically between these two settings it feeds the tension and anxiety of the piece, without one informing itself of the other intertextually. Disorientating spins with Mon Mothma and striking dramatic poses highlight and punctuate moments of violence and fear.
Mon’s dramatic appearance on the dance floor is carefully poised in juxtaposition alongside the terrors being experienced by Bix, Brasso, Willmon and Cassian, their lives are in more direct peril but all of our protagonists right now are about to be indelibly changed, parts of them chipped away, marking them forever.
Mon loses a daughter and a best friend and Bix, Cassian and Wilmon lose not only the Fatherly Brasso and leave behind kindly B2, but also the small amount of peace, predictability, safety and security that they had found, making repairs on Mina-Rau.
As the track ‘Niamos’ continues to play, Cassian, Bix and Wilmon hurridly leave Mina-Rau in the TIE Fighter.
Had Brasso survived, there would be no seat for him in the ship,
while I believe there *would in theory* have been room for Brasso, I feel the fact all the seats of the ship are filled is symbolic and speaks to what we mentioned earlier re-there being an inevitability to where all these motions are heading and the lack of control in these scenarios. It feels like there is an element of pre-destination, especially for the audience who know this Season will end where Rogue One begins.
The Camera pans and the music refuses to stop, to the point where it feels uncomfortable and oppressive.
There is a nightmarish quality to its continuation, punctuated by its slow unnerving increase in volume and the long lingering shots of our protagonists silent reactions to losing their close friend.
When the music *does* stop it is abrupt and jarring, there is no tidy close out or bow tied around this ending.
The next time we see everyone in Episodes 4-6 everything will be different, but the fight will be the same.
Arc One of Andor Season Two hit me hard.
Watching the protagonists struggle, while the antagonists now have the comfortable upper hand is uncomfortable – especially when you know where this story is heading. Every piece of optimism spoken is now garnished with the same bittersweet feeling experienced in Rogue One and I imagine the closer to the events of Rogue One we get to in the story, the deeper that will cut.
Those who were fortunate enough to get screeners have almost unanimously said that the Season only gets better from here on out and I have total faith in Diego Luna, Tony Gilroy and the rest of the team in hitting those heights.
In episode One Cassian states to Niya
“You made this decision long ago. The Empire cannot win. You will never feel right unless you’re doing what you can to stop them. You’re coming home to yourself” he is giving an insight into his own mentality.
Niya had asked “If I die tonight, was it worth it?” – can you really “live” in a world where you are not welcome?
Are you just going to sit and take it? Or will you “try” as Nemik’s manifesto instructs?
Season Two of Andor is currently airing on Disney+ releasing in 3 Episode blocks every week up until mid-May.
Stream the 3 episode premiere now, exclusively on Disney+
Wookie Watch 
Leave a comment