As some of you know, I’m a big Andor fan, have reviewed season one, written about the show, and have a Cassian quote tattooed on my arm. With season two premiering, I wanted to take a closer look at each episode and some of the politics and modes of resistance—and just plain great storytelling.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be reviewing each episode. Disney has chosen to release the twelve episodes in four chunks, but I’ve decided to slow down and give each episode it’s due. As I’ve rewatched season one, I continue to be surprised by the nuance of the show, and I’m hoping the same for season two (and so far, it hasn’t disappointed!). I’ll be writing these reviews with the assumption readers have watched season one and watched the episode, so I won’t be tagging spoilers. As readers of my previous Andor content will know, one of my major fascinations with the series is the anti-fascist aspect of the storytelling, so these pieces will lean in that direction. On to season two!
The first episode is titled “One Year Later,” and much like the description, the episode sets up a lot of plot lines: “An undercover mission. A sanctuary threatened. A Chandrilan wedding. A chilling imperial plan.” The hour-long episode sets up these four plotlines, which seem to have a rotating centrality to the season as a whole.
The episode opens with Niya (Rachelle Diedericks), helping Cassian Andor (with continued excellent acting by Diego Luna) steal an experimental TIE fighter model. She’s new to helping the rebellion, and she’s nervous. Part of this scene shows how Cassian has changed over the past year since he fled the planet Ferrix with his friends Brasso (Joplin Sibtain), Bix (Adria Arjona), and Wilmon Paak (Muhannad Bhaier). Cassian has come into his own and presents a level of leadership more reminiscent of the Cassian Andor from Rogue One. When comforting Niya, we get one of those great, inspiring Andor moments: “The Empire cannot win. You’ll never feel right unless you’re doing what you can to stop them. You’re coming home to yourself.”
This moment builds to Cassian confidently entering the TIE fighter, starting it, and—absolutely messing up. Even though his prominence as a pilot was a major point of season one, he cannot figure out how to fly the fighter, and his quiet exit becomes a serious action sequence before he finally escape. But this escape is only the beginning of his problems.
Enter the Maya Pei. When Cassian lands to meet his Rebellion contact, a group of guerrilla fighters capture him instead. He realizes they are the Maya Pei, a group that the Rebellion has even supported in the past, but they refuse to believe he isn’t what he looks like—an Imperial pilot. The Maya Pei are clearly part of the rebellion in terms of their hatred of the Empire, but they seem totally inept and infighting quickly divides the group.
In episode one, Cassian’s storyline is the least political, but also the most fascinating as it seems off kilter to the seriousness of the other plotlines. The Maya Pei are hilariously bad at being guerrilla fighters. Right now, their depiction lacks some nuance since guerrilla warfare has been very successful against many authoritarian regimes, so this clownish depiction seems at odds with the serious and thoughtful analysis of empire and revolt of the previous season. I currently have two ideas. First, I think the Maya Pei will return in the season to bring some of that nuance. Second, this season seems to be speaking to the problems of leftist responses to empire, especially the early stages of rebellion (which may feel familiar to U.S. viewers). I’m curious how this thread will continue or not.
Turning to the other three storylines, the Empire’s plotline held the most fascination for me. I loved how Andor season one made the Empire feel like an empire down to making it clear the people who support it are just weird, dangerous, isolated people (like all Fascists are). The Empire in Andor is rarely, if ever, cool but rather banal and bureaucratic, which doesn't mean they aren't dangerous. Dedra Meero (with an amazing performance by Denise Gough) is invited to join a top secret project led by Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn). I assumed Krennic would be a much later reveal as a major returning character from Rogue One, so I was pleasantly surprised to see him revealed in episode one.
The imperial project is a mining operation on the planet Ghorman. The Ghorman people are set up as a somewhat powerful entity—at least one that won’t go quietly—and in order to be able to mine the planet, they will have to be subdued. The Empire has already worked to undermine the Ghorman reputation through propaganda. In a move that feels so relevant to the social media misinformation of today, two hired propagandists explain how certain stereotypes of the Ghorman people were started by their propaganda.
This chilling boardroom sequence discussing how the Empire intends to destroy a people, culture, and planet for a mining operation felt particularly poignant when paralleled with the third storyline—visas. While Cassian is running missions for the Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård), his Rebellion contact from season one, his friends Bix, Brasso, and Wilmon are living as undocumented agricultural workers on Mina-Rau. Over the past year, they’ve settled in, with Brasso in a long-term relationship with a citizen and Wilmon dating a citizen, which is causing problems with her parents because he doesn’t have a visa.
In the U.S., it’s impossible not to feel the poignancy of one of our most popular franchises showing the struggles of undocumented people. This moment is paralleled with the boardroom scene as Krennic and other members of the fascist Empire work to dispossess another people of their planet, thus turning them into refugees—if they survive.
Much like season one, the first episode of season two is a slow burn (though the next two episodes build quickly). Yet, these four storylines (I’ll talk about Mon Mothma and Chandril in the next episode review), set up the gritty realism of a fascist Empire—and the real fight against it—that I have come to expect in Andor.
As such a big fan of the first season, I was deeply worried about season two. Writer Tony Gilroy could still disappoint, but I, once again, feel like I’m in careful hands.
POSTED BY: Phoebe Wagner (she/they) is an author, editor, and academic writing and living at the intersection of speculative fiction and environmentalism.
