The narrative accelerated in season two, using multiple time jumps to fill in the gap between season one and Rogue One. In a way, that's a shame, because I would happily have spent multiple seasons with this collection of deep and well-written characters. On the other hand, this is the way that creator Tony Gilroy wanted to tell the story... and in the modern TV landscape of quick cancellations, I'm happy he got to tell the story on his own terms.
There are many things I could highlight about season two, but I'll contain my enthusiasm and pick just a few. I appreciated how much this season took the real-world subtext of resisting authoritarian regime and made it "text." The story highlighted one historical analog in particular, the French resistance of World War II, with the Ghorman storyline. All the key characters had French accents, their invented alien language was crafted to sound very much like French, and the core of their struggle mirrored that of real-world history: we're suffering while the world sits by and lets it happen. It all culminated in the excellent eighth episode of the season, "Who Are You?", that depicted an all-out assault as a true nightmare, not the escapist fun that Star Wars as a franchise usually presents.
I love the awareness of Tony Gilroy and his writers about tropes -- leaning into them when it's useful and steering clear of them when it isn't. In particular, it seemed with one particular character that they'd written themselves into a corner where "fridging" the character (killing them off as motivation for the hero's story arc) was the inevitable end. Instead, they pulled out of that particular nosedive in a satisfying way.
Despite only having 24 episodes total to work with, and a definite end point to get to, I love that the writers were willing to stray from the marked path at times -- taking advantage of unplanned things that were surely found along the way. I'm thinking of Elizabeth Dulau in the role of Kleya Marki. I can't imagine that when they cast Dulau back in season one, they were thinking to themselves "and then next season, we're going to actually make one episode of Andor that doesn't even have Andor in it, and she's going to be the star instead." But they recognized how amazing she was in the role, seized upon the talent they'd found, and did just that.
I'm also mostly satisfied with how Andor ultimately decided to treat "canon," that heavy weight hanging over any long-running franchise with rabid fans. That is, they mostly treated it like bumpers on a bowling lane more than a set of handcuffs. One key example came in episode nine, where Mon Mothma delivers an epic speech basically encapsulating the entire message of the show in the most powerful way. They didn't let themselves be deterred by the fact that "Mothma's farewell speech" had already been depicted on Star Wars Rebels; they knew they could write a better speech (and have Genevieve O'Reilly absolutely crush the performance of it), so they did their own version, and then a bit of hand-waving to bring things into continuity.
My only real complaint about Andor season two is how they chose to release it: three episodes every week for four weeks. I re-watched season one in the run-up to the new season. Re-experiencing that again made me realize what an episode meal at a three-star Michelin restaurant that was, and how there was really no need for me to take the "minus" on my "A-" review of it two-and-a-half years ago. I savored ever dish season one brought before me, and left more satisfied than the first time.
Season two was like being invited back to that restaurant... except that this time, I was being timed as I ate each course. If I didn't finish it in time, the dish would be taken from me. The annoying way in which the entire internet presumed everyone would watch three hours of television in one night was maximally annoying. Tiptoeing around spoilers was impossible, as everyone treated everything from the third episode in a crop of three as old news the morning after it had dropped. And even on the rare occasions where I did dodge spoilers, I was still being forced to gorge myself to be ready for next week when we'd do it all over again. Some day, I'll need to go back and enjoy the entire series again, slowly, luxuriously. Properly.
I think I'll be happy to do just that, because I give season two of Star Wars: Andor an A.
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