Andor Season 2 Review – The (Still) Long and (Still) Boring Road To Rogue One

The state of the Star Wars universe, not unlike certain other media universes right now, is in a very curious position. Its last movies were financial successes, but critically divisive, not to mention fan fervor over the last year that still isn’t settling down. As for its Disney+ series, they’ve been met with measures of awe (like with The Mandalorian,) disgust (The Acolyte) and a severe case of “not caring, (like with Skeleton Crew.) For me, I feel it all comes down to the problem of “filling in the blanks.” As my Andor Season 2 Review will highlight, they tried to do that again, and it was, in my opinion, just as mediocre and boring as Season 1 was.

I’m sure many of you will be surprised at that, as MANY people online, including critics over at Rotten Tomatoes, have praised this season as “one of the best things that Star Wars has ever delivered.” Yet, I never felt that. Not once. At best, and not unlike Season 1, I could say that it had a few great episodes, which it did, but I can just as easily say that everything dragged so much that you honestly have to wonder if it really added anything to the lore of Rogue One and the Rebellion in the first place. I’d argue that it didn’t, and that shows like Star Wars Rebels did a much better job of doing things.

One of the ironies of that statement is that I felt Season 2 had a great start a few minutes in. We see Andor, full-on in the Rebellion, doing a mission to steal something from the Empire, and I’m hooked. His speech in that opening sequence to a new Rebel was awesome. He did his best to keep her calm, show her that she wasn’t doing anything wrong, and that this was arguably the most important moment of her life because THIS was the moment where she was finally taking steps to fight back.

It was great! I was inspired! …then one scene later…the entire operation goes haywire because Andor doesn’t know how to fly the craft he was tasked with stealing. Say what, now? Andor even calls that out later, and we not only get no answers as to WHY he was sent to fly something he didn’t have training to do, or why they needed the ship in the first place. That was just the first of many “non-answers” we got in the season, which was very frustrating.

What made matters worse, and something I’m addressing early versus what I did in my last review, is that Andor very much felt like a side character in his own show! I can prove that very easily, too. If you pay attention to the first two “arcs,” you’ll notice that Andor doesn’t play a major role in any significant way until Episode 5! That’s nuts. Why name the show “Andor” if you’re not going to make him a key focus in the series? It’s not unlike what they did with The Book of Boba Fett, where they brought back Mando and Grogu for their “2.5” season. It was blatant then, and it’s blatant now.

And while I did like the idea of the three-episode arcs before each time skip, they dragged so heavily that I was once again waiting for things to happen, and then when things DID happen…it went right back to “dragging” later.

Case in point, in the first arc, set one year after the events of Season 1, Cassian was stuck on a planet with the DUMBEST PEOPLE EVER for two episodes…basically doing nothing, and then when he did escape by the end of episode 2, his only “thing of interest” was saving his friends last-minute-style before rushing off-planet and…end of arc.

Then, with Mon Motha, who once again was the MVP of the series, her entire first arc was just about her daughter getting married and trying to figure out what to do about her friend, who was helping fund the Rebellion and was literally paying the price for it. They dragged out that small plotline across three episodes, then implied he was going to die, only not to show it, and then ended the arc.

Much like with Season 1, things could’ve easily been trimmed down and replaced with stuff that actually mattered. That goes double for when they DID do certain things, not explain them at all, and then did a time skip to make it all seem like it “didn’t matter” in the first place, even though it did!

The perfect example for this was Bix, Andor’s partner. She was having serious PTSD due to a certain doctor, and was even taking drugs to help get to sleep at night. Then, at the end of the second arc, she and Andor get a mission to blow up the doctor and his lab, and they do it flawlessly…and then she’s fine. No drugs. No more issues. They’re just happy and living on Yavin IV now. How did they get to that point?

Sadly, that wasn’t the only time when a time skip straight-up avoided explaining something that the audience definitely needed to know. In fact, it kept happening for no reason!

For example, a key plotline throughout the season was Partagaz, Dedra, and Cyril working together on a serious long-con gambit to allow the Empire to drill into a key planet for resources that would finish the Death Star at last. It was chilling how accurate to real-world events it was, including the use of fake news to stir the population who didn’t dare ask meaningful questions about their leaders, and it actually made Cyril an interesting character for a time. He was the “mole” in the resistance and was finally getting recognition for his work…oh, and he and Dedra were “together.” So…yeah…

Anyway, the second arc was all about getting him embedded with the resistance and forcibly “stirring the pot” so that the Empire could make their move. It worked. However, then, one time skip later, Cyril was not only “outted” as being a spy, but he actually regretted what was happening to the planet’s population, tried to stop it, almost choked Dedra out for lying/using him, and then…he saw Andor and went totally ape. Only one of those things makes sense, and it’s the Andor fight. Oh, and then he died. So…what was the point of it all?

Without a doubt, the best episodes were “Who Are You?” and “Welcome to the Rebellion.” If the other ten episodes were more attuned to what those two did, my review would be a lot higher. The first one featured the “Ghorman Massacre,” and was a much bigger “mic drop” than last season’s funeral march finale. It had everything. Tension. Drama. A question of what would happen next and who would survive. The singing helped out quite a bit, actually, as it went from a protest chant to a national song, showing that they were there to “use their voice” and not cause any harm…and yet the government didn’t care and used them to fake an insurrection.

As for the second, this was all about Mon Mothma and her bravery to go before the Senate and chew them out for being Palpatine’s puppets versus speaking the truth. Her speech was one we should all be taking to heart in these trying times, and yet, not unlike the Empire and its cronies…you have to wonder who will actually hear its words and be inspired by them. The escape from the Senate was just as compelling, and while you knew the two would escape, the close calls were enough to make you wonder if something else would happen before they got out.

And yet, even with that great ending to the third arc, the final one went right back to dragging its heels to make sure we “knew every detail possible” before we FINALLY got to the literal scene before Rogue One starts.

While we all knew Luthen would die, they went out of their way to make him die two different deaths. One by his own hands to ensure that Dedra didn’t interrogate him, and the other by Kleya to ensure he couldn’t be revived. Sure, that makes him a boss that you had to “kill him twice,” but they did a LONG sequence to showcase who he “really was’ before he turned to being in the Rebellion and why Kleya was so loyal to him, and…it didn’t feel needed in some ways.

It didn’t help that the final episode was quite literally a case of “Do we trust the information this key Rebellion figurehead gave to us?” The first season went out of its way to enforce that without Luthen, the Rebellion could never form, and it proved that in certain ways. In contrast, the second season went out of its way to make Luthen a pariah for no clear reason outside of “he’s a jerk and he burned bridges.” He wasn’t Saw Guerrera! That guy is just nuts. Luthen literally sacrificed everything for the Rebellion and saved numerous lives, not to mention brought many key people to the table, and yet, in the end it was… “Nah, he was clearly played, and this sounds dumb, so we won’t believe it.”

If you recall certain past reviews I did about how “The New Republic are idiots and deserved to burn for their incompetence,” you could argue that they got those “genes” from some of the people in the final episode.

What I might argue is the “biggest sin” of this season, outside of the episodes seriously dragging at times, it’s that there were many side characters that either didn’t serve a true purpose, are now loose threads that we’ll never likely learn the futures of, or were straight-up “written off” because the plot “had no need for them anymore.”

So, where to start? How about Wilmon? He was basically a brother to Andor, was key throughout the season, and then he’s just…happy on Yavin with his new gal pal? Okay… Syril dies, which I wasn’t mad about. Saw Guerrera is given more screen time than he arguably should’ve…and it served truly no point outside of reminding fans how crazy he had become, especially by the time the Empire was literally about to obliterate him.

Partagaz was one of the “key figureheads” of the series, and yet he was left to fall on his sword because Krennic “couldn’t protect him,” so he shot himself. Then, there’s Dedra. I REALLY liked her in Season 1 outside of the Syril relationship, and I was curious where Season 2 would take her. Then, in short order, she loses Syril, is torn up about the massacre, goes after Luthen to FINALLY get her “white whale,” it goes belly-up, she’s blamed for everything because of Luthen’s spy getting access to her files, and she…ends up in a jail cell crying. …okay. Seriously, I felt nothing when that scene hit.

Just like I felt nothing for Cinta when she died because of a random blaster bolt that was fired by another idiot. They had just brought her and Vel back together and then…she died. Oh, and Vel is also on Yavin with her cousin Mon Mothma and…we never hear from her again.

Even K-2SO was basically an afterthought in terms of actual plot. Sure, he “saved the day” in a key episode, but the reasoning for his “capture” was simply, “Oh, there’s a broken droid, can I have him?”

…oh, and Mon’s husband is alive and has another wife…I guess… Why did they show him, again?

Yet, the biggest faux pas with the side characters was the literal ending scene with Bix.

Bix was Andor’s whole “reason for living.” He said it multiple times. Then, at one key point in the series, he was going to leave the Rebellion to just be with her. We all knew it wouldn’t happen, but the WAY it didn’t happen was because of Bix, and it was truly frustrating to watch unfold.

Basically, she said that he was “needed in the Rebellion” and that she couldn’t “forgive herself” if she was the reason he left. That “feeling” was because of a “Force Healer” they met earlier on…and that just made it all the lamer. After all, if you watch the first two seasons and even Rogue One, Cassian isn’t really that special. He’s just the guy who gets things done and “has luck.” He even admitted that.

Yet, she leaves, he stays for unexplained reasons, and in the final scene…she is shown back on the farming planet they were on in the first arc…with his child. If you’re thinking, “Wait a minute, doesn’t that sound like the ending to Star Wars Rebels via Kanan and Hera?” trust those feelings.

They literally copied the ending of Star Wars Rebels to “make you feel bad for the two,” but it just made me feel angry. That means she left him with full knowledge that she had his baby and that he may not make it to see him. That’s not clever in the slightest. It would’ve meant far more if she were just on that planet waiting for him to come home, but he never does. THAT would’ve been a true tragedy. Instead, we just got a rather selfish decision.

As I wrap up my Andor Season 2 Review, I do want to reiterate that there ARE some good points in the season. Mon Mothma was great throughout, there were some great battle sequences and moments of drama, and other hints of greatness here and there that did stand out.

BUT, after all the praise I heard online about how incredible this season was, I just don’t see what other people saw. If you liked it? Nice. May the force be with you. If you didn’t? You’re not alone. Disney has been obsessed with “prequilitis” and “filling in the blanks” of the Skywalker Saga for a long time now. I do hope it ends soon, or this is one cycle we’ll be begging to be broken before too long.