“There’s a war goin’ on outside no man is safe from You could run, but you can’t hide forever.” These bars from Prodigy of Mobb Deep on the song Survival of the Fittest on their classic album The Infamous are some of the first words that pop into my head when thinking about Andor season two.
The Star Wars prequel series to the film Rogue One follows Diego Luna as Cassian Andor and continues the story of the creation of the Rebel Alliance, which leads to where we meet the character in the film. Broken up in four chapters with three episodes each, we see a more experienced Cassian than we had left him at the end of season one. We’re beyond the point of a political awakening and the initial urge to fight the Empire; we’re now in the thick of it from all the characters we’ve met in the first season.
Luna’s Cassian is more confident this season than last, as now he’s basically a galactic superspy, with the weight of each mission weighing on him more and more. One of the season’s main themes is just how much resistance and the effects of the acts of that resistance affect one’s humanity.
We see this also in Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona), who’s now in a romantic relationship with Cassian, as well as Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) with Bix still dealing with the trauma she endured during the last season and how that affects how she works in the rebellion and how others see her in it. She’s a point of conflict because of just how deeply Cassian is willing to go for her and how she sees herself within the struggle.
Mon, who benefits greatly from this series, is such an essential character in the original three films that we know absolutely nothing about. While the last season saw her conflict with being in government, this season shows how she decided to become the leader we know she is. If season one was about Cassian’s awakening, her arc this season is about just how far one can go within a democratic turned-fascist system to fight against Fascism. Arjona gives an excellent performance this season, showing this ideological struggle, especially in her scenes with Stellan Skarsgård‘s Luthen.
On the whole, Luthen is now one of the most critical and crucial characters added to the Star Wars mythos, and most of this is because of Skarsgård. This isn’t to degrade what the showmakers have done, but boy, oh boy, did he bring their ideas to life. This complicated, paranoid, and driven man is a foil to Cassian and others as much as he’s the motivator to overcome their odds.
I couldn’t help but wonder as I watched if the Luthen and Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) were, at this point, crazy. If they could ever feel like they won the battle? With Saw, if you know the stories, no, as he went from fighting the Trade Federation to fighting the Empire without stopping, but Luthen seemed so driven and focused on his methods of terror and spycraft that peace might not be something he even function in. All the while, he was fighting for something he thought he’d never live to see, and that is an idea that, sadly, with events in the real world, many can empathize with through living and knowing the history of the many struggles against tyranny in the world.
One of the things that stood out to me this season is just how much the leadership of both the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire, both intentionally and unintentionally, are controlled by paranoia and not valuing their people, and the sacrifices of those are on the front lines of the battle. That might be surprising to read, but as the season goes on, the feelings of Cassian, Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay), Cinta Kaz (Varada Sethu), Bix, and others as the Rebel Alliance grow into a more organized opposition. This isn’t the Western-themed adventures of The Mandalorian or the space magicalness of the film with Jedi vs. Sith, and it’s not even the elevated children’s entertainment of Rebels or The Clone Wars; this show is in the gutter with people doing bad things for the hope and possibility of peace as the shadow of what the Empire is planning slowly descends on top of everyone.
I can’t forget to say just how good the storyline of Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) and Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) are as people on the Empire’s side—working there with all their heart and belief in part of the upkeeping tyranny. While we see Syril in the first season, he isn’t totally in, and more is there to either get Cassian or his deep love of Dedra; it’s her journey through the system moving up and up the ranks that have you pondering just what is all this for. These people aren’t happy or satisfied, and the system they’re part of won’t let them be happy – just paranoid people of each other, the citizens, and of themselves not to be looked at by their peers as the enemy. What is the dedication to this cause for? Did it make any of them safer? More prosperous than when it was the Galactic Republic? It doesn’t seem so, but with these characters who’ve grown up in this system, they don’t know anything else, and you end up rooting for them to get it.
Anton Lesser‘s Major Partagaz, who gets to do a bit more with less this season, might have one of the best and most subtle examples of factor as it’s clear he lived through the before and has the power of running the ISB worked out for him? This season gets to expand so much on all these side characters as it moves through the years of rebellion, yet you never feel lost in the story being told. While for me I don’t always remember the names of all the characters as I have to watch too many television shows, and watching a show the binge method is not my preferred way of retaining information, I was never lost. The cast is memorable and manageable to keep track of, even as they add in newer characters and groups.
You can also see just how much went into creating this season. In contrast, last season, it felt like the locales, and seeing a new Star Wars entry shot in real places was awe-inspiring; this season, what stood out to me were the interior sets, costuming, and production designs. The clothes were amazing as they would go from rebels in the jungles and on the ground to grand Impreial Senate gala events through to the very many types of outfits of the Empire’s many forces of control.
This is also the first time for me that the blaster in Star Wars felt like a real weapon. They made sure to show you how these are guns and had the look of guns like you’d see in movies from around the time of the original trilogy in our world. Pistols and rifles but with interesting sights and barrels as each blast, no matter where on a body, equals death. They didn’t look cool like Han shooting Greedo, which is a cool toy to play with, but things carried to kill people. It adds so much heft to the world that hasn’t really been there historically besides this show and Rogue One.
The many computers, terminals, and vehicles’ retro-futuristic design differs from the old lived-in and rusty ships. The rebellion is ad-hoc, taking everything they can to fight their fight, from old Republic tech to earlier Imperial tech that we’ve never seen before. The battle hasn’t made everything worn as the Rebel Forces are making new things that we know they should have. As well as seeing the Empire with more than just guys in Nazi-like suits at terminals or Storm Troopers. We see the bureaucracy and the people just doing jobs and trying to live in the society they have in front of them.
Well, let’s get to it as I wrap up this review is how I think the public and critics will react to this show. I believe the very political nature of this show and its use of clear political ideas that are well conveyed and communicated is surprising, as Star Wars has always been political but very hamfisted at times. Even more than the first season, which came out at a very different time within the Western world and the United States as a whole. It came out post-Trump term one, and this one is coming out within the first one hundred days of Trump term two. While talking about dictators, autocrats, fascism, and constitutional crises, I was utterly surprised that Disney and LucasFilm put something like this out at all.
This isn’t a show about marching, passive resisting, or non-violence. It’s a show that brings up ideas of direct action against undemocratic powers. People get hurt, people do bad things to people, and sometimes civilians get caught in the violence. At the same time, we never see the Rebels do so on purpose; seeing the Empire essentially manipulate these things around them just for control and crush any idea of resistance was captivating to watch in a universe like this. No glowing swords or space magic. While they have laser blasters, let’s be honest, that’s not too hard to imagine for our world with drones and things that look like stuff from cyberpunk anime being debuted each week.
I could see this causing some people to say this show endorses terrorism. I can see people connecting it to a multitude of ongoing conflicts in the world, along with many figures affecting our society. I think this will be a cathartic piece of art for some and for some to spark imagination for their own stories. I hope that for some, it spurs them to look into the real history of people, battles, and books that clearly inspired Tony Gilroy and the amazing team of people to craft this story about Rebel Alliance in this science fantasy of knights and princesses to a different type of genre that’s just as hopeful and may be more fitting for the 21st century as the earlier entries were to the late 20th century. Andor is right now the best Star Wars thing by a long mile, and it feels like the first time they’ve completely succeeded in making something for the fans who grew up in a post-Star Wars world and not just something that works on nostalgia.
Score: A+
P.S. Chapters 2 & 3, the middle of this season, are the best of the season and the whole series. This show will have you wanting Jyn Erso miniseries. It will also make you wonder what Palpatine really wanted in all this. He feels more cartoonish now.