ANDOR season 2: Electric Boogaloo

Three episodes for the price of one

Andor Season 2 is a prequel series to film Star Wars: Rogue One, focused on the exploits of Cassian Andor. It is currently streaming on Disney Plus.

Gather ‘round kids as I clamber up on this soapbox and hold forth on Andor season 2. I must preface this by pointing our Andor season 1 may very well be the best work of fiction ever set in the Star Wars universe. You may disagree, but you will be wrong. The reason I hedge my bets and use the qualifier “may” rests on the simple fact that season 2 may turn out to be an affront and a travesty to all that is good and right in the world, thus dragging the previous effort with it. After all, we live in a world where The Matrix was a groundbreaking reimagining of what movies could be, and each subsequent sequel reveled in the concept of diminishing returns. So there’s that.

For those laggards who are late to the party, let me sum up what made the first season of Andor such a stunning entry into the Star Wars oeuvre: The series tells the story of how apolitical Cassian Andor becomes radicalized by the Empire’s casual, institutionalized cruelty and indifference. That sounds simple enough, but as the story unfolds over the course of 12 episodes viewers are treated to an array of secondary characters, such as Mon Mothma, a skill politician who sees the dangers of encroaching fascism yet is reluctant to take an unambiguous stand out of fear for herself and her family; Dedra Meero, an Imperial junior officer determined to climb the rungs of leadership no matter the cost; and Syril Karn, a civil servant in the Imperial Bureau of Standards who epitomizes the banality of evil.

Let me be very clear here, those fans of the J.J. Abrams sequel trilogy are not likely to be fans of Andor. Those seeking a weekly fix of Pew! Pew! Pew! or Make-spaceship-go-boom! are not likely to be fans of Andor. There are no Jedi here, not lightsabers. There aren’t even many stormtroopers, at least at first. While there are indeed some action sequences—impressive ones at that—this series is a slow burn character study, following Cassian (and the other characters) and the Empire’s increasingly oppressive policies and arbitrary abuses push the working class peoples of the galaxy closer and closer to rebellion. This isn’t about the glossy corridors of power (sorry, Mon Mothma) but rather the dirty slums and subsistence farms where people who are already scrapping to survive are suddenly confronted with jackboots to the neck.

It’s grim. It’s gritty. But it’s absolutely necessary. Look, in the original trilogy of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, it’s taken as an article of faith the Empire is terrible and must be defeated. But the concept is abstract. Yes, Darth Vader chokes a rebel to death the first time we see him, and Grand Moff Tarkin uses the Death Star to destroy Alderaan, but none of those acts are as remotely tangible as the casual cruelty the inmates/slave laborers are subjected to at the Narkina 5 Imperial Prison Complex. There are no action sequences for the sake of action sequences here—each one is the culmination of a long, deliberate buildup and has something to say.

That’s not to say I want every Star Wars project to take the same desperate, oppressive tone as Andor. Absolutely not! Empire is effective precisely because it so starkly contrasts with the resounding triumph of Star Wars. The galaxy is a big place with room for many different stories. I have zero problem with Andor sharing the same space with Skeleton Crew or The Mandalorian or even Star Wars: Visions (yeah, I know Visions isn’t canon by definition, but roll with me, okay?).

GET ON WITH IT ALREADY!

If you’re expecting a detailed plot recap like I did with The Acolyte or QUARK Revisited, sorry, but this isn’t that. Here I’m offering my thoughts on the episode, some potentially spoilery, some potentially not. First off, Disney Plus dropped the first three episodes simultaneously: 1) One Year Later, 2) Sagrona Teema and 3) Harvest. This is effective as season 2, like the first, appears to be broken up into discrete story arcs. We get a beginning, middle and end here, although the overarching narrative remains a work in progress.

Let me say that drunk Mon Mothma gettin’ down to Space Abba was something I didn’t know I needed to see. For arguably the dullest character introduced in Return of the Jedi, Genevieve O’Reilly is doing a fantastic job of fleshing her out as a three dimensional character. From her failed marriage that persists through inertial to her desperate attempts to connect with a teen daughter who is oil to her water, Mothma really, really stinks at the domestic bliss thing although she’s great at keeping up appearances. She’s more skilled at political intrigue and is committed to financing a rebellion—any rebellion—against the Empire so long as her hands remain clean. When that cleanliness comes into question, she doesn’t exactly rise to the occasion. I love this. Nobody is perfect and Mothma’s flaws, subtle and hidden though they may be, are part and parcel of great storytelling.

As is sympathetic villains. Any scene with Dedra Meero is worth watching, but her matching wits with Orson Krennic as he passes off the Death Star project as the Emperor’s “energy independence” initiative is a great, low-key “dispense with the small talk” interaction. But that is just the warm up for the main event: Dedra has shacked up with Syril since season 1, and she is meeting his overbearing, condescending mother, Eedy. Dedra is initially taken aback by Eedy’s scathing, passive-aggressive comments but as soon as Syril is out of earshot, brings Eedy to heel with ruthless efficiency. Denise Gough, who plays Dedra, is an unambiguously attractive woman. But the way she plays Dedra, the character radiates the sour bitterness of one who has never experienced joy, and likely would not like it if she had. Dedra is unattractive, severe. The one time she attempts to smile, in preparation for meeting Eedy, the expression is nightmarishly unnatural and repulsive. The fact the audience finds itself rooting for this foul woman is, again, the sign of skilled writing.

There are moments of levity here, but for the most part the show never lets the viewer forget the oppression the heroes are struggling against. A sequence where Stormtroopers round up undocumented farm workers could just as well have come from today’s headlines. Far more harrowing is an Imperial officer’s attempts to use his authority to coerce Bix (played by Adna Arjona) into a sexual encounter. When that fails, he does what any fascist would and attempts to rape her in a messy, violent sequence. Events of this type are well-documented throughout history and the fact that Andor is willing to go there shows it isn’t pulling its punches. Nobody’s going to confuse this show with The Accused, but neither is it Ewok Adventures.

That’s not to say the nascent rebellion gets off unscathed. Cassian, after successfully (barely) absconding with a prototype advanced TIE fighter from an Imperial research facility, sees his plans go immediately sideways when a band of stranded, bickering rebels crashes his mission. Starving, scared and leaderless, schisms quickly devolve into shooting with Cassian caught in the middle. Again, cribbing from ample examples in real-world history, instead of putting aside their differences to focus their attention on the real enemy (the Empire, not the Judean People’s Front) they invest an inordinate amount of effort attempting to exterminate their former allies. It’s a stupid, senseless conflict and ultimately accomplishes nothing.

For those viewers who found the first season of Andor a fascinating examination of the background events and people that culminated in the events seen in Rogue One and Star Wars, this first three-episode arc is a worthy continuation of that narrative. The main characters are more proactive and the stakes are higher. Some characters we’ve known are lost or left behind, while new ones step into the scene. That’s as it should be, because Andor was never going to be about maintaining the status quo.