The New Driver

Andor Season 2 Episodes 1-3: "One Year Later" "Sagrona Teema" "Harvest"

SPOILERS ARE COMING HOME TO THEMSELVES

Andor returns with feature-film sized trio of episodes, the first of four. The word on the proverbial street is that the second season of Andor is incredible, and from what I’ve seen, like Huey Lewis, I believe them. This first arc (let’s call it Andor: The Avenger) is bursting at the seams with creativity, chilling political resonance, action and even humor.

The main plot line is a kind of ticking time bomb narrative: Bix, Brasso, Wilmon and (wonderful, heartbreaking) B2EMO are waiting for Cassian to return to Mina-Lau, where they are working as they hide one year after the revolt on Ferrix. Andor is held up, out of contact, which leaves them hoping for his return as the Empire closes in. Tragedy feels like it’s coming. (And, this being Andor, it certainly does.)

There, on a classic Star Wars single-biome planet (Wheat Planet!) we find our heroes as migrants and refugees, working without visas. We can see that those without visas are doing no harm: in fact, they’re helping. This dynamic that is very true to the real world - people are migrants to escape threats, they’re often welcome workers and members of their community. The best thing the Empire can do is leave them in peace, but the Empire is not designed to make peace.

Andor’s daring mission, to steal a prototype TIE Avenger, and subsequent hold-up is felt elsewhere: Chandrila, shown for the first time in live action. This is the Mothma estate, where Mon and Perrin are hosting Leida’s wedding. Present at the wedding are key members of the burgeoning Rebellion, including Luthen himself, in full glad-handing disguise. With growing alarm Luthen asks Kleya, his assistant at the gallery and confidant, why Andor has not checked in.

Other alarms are sounding at the wedding, though. Mon Mothma’s family life is a traditionalist terror, her daughter is (rechecks what I wrote down) the fucking worst, and Perrin makes his sad-eyed plea for finding pleasure wherever you can in this miserable galaxy. (He’s never seemed more like a guy who just needs an SSRI.) And, what’s worse, Mon Mothma’s old friend, Tay, who in the first season felt like a lifeline, is coming apart. His marriage has crumbled, his business dealings are not going well, he’s drinking too much. With stakes as high as these, Tay’s indiscretions aren’t something that can be ignored.

While all this is going on, there’s a truly amazing, if less intersecting, digression, with the ISB. Syril and Dedra have skipped the will-they-won’t-they and have shacked up, even going so far as to host classic dinner featuring Kathryn Hunter’s Eedy Karn. Syril is now a dedicated civil servant, but Dedra is on the rise in the Imperial world. She has been given a horrifying assignment by a returning Director Orson Krennic: to subjugate the citizenry of Ghorman, to get rare minerals. (Read: Rare Earth Minerals.)

The Ghorman Massacre is, to my mind, Andor’s equivalent of cortosis, the lightsaber-shorting metal used in The Acolyte: mined from the deepest caves of Star Wars expanded lore and used to great effect. The Imperial meeting, where Ghorman’s fate is being planned, is a masterclass in fascism: there’s a blend of casual genocide (“why not just a plague?), wicked propaganda (“we control the story”), and the corrosiveness of personal ambition. One gets the impression Dedra, for example, is not enthused about being tasked with leading this effort. But she was raised from three years old by the Empire. She’s not going to reject a direct order, and can’t turn off the part of herself that knows how to get this done, even if it costs her her soul.

Annnnnd… that’s a lot going on! For regular readers of Ahch-To Baby, it may be surprising to see me recap, as that’s not really what I do here. I like to respond, not retell. But I think in this case, it’s worth it to show just how much is being packed into every frame of this story, and so I can highlight a few things that really struck me, beyond the intricate plot.

First, this arc is significantly funnier than just about anything the first season. The opening sequence, which I personally loved, would feel at home in a Steven Spielberg movie: an action sequences that doubles as physical comedy. Cassian flailing with the controls of his ship, unable to drive this equivalent of a TIE Tesla, where nothing is in the right place, is a trip. And humor is definitely a significant part of Syril and Dedra’s dynamic. And there’s absurd, dark humor to be found on Yavin 4. Oh yes Yavin, I left out exactly what is holding Cassian Andor up.

It’s the Rebellion itself. When he arrives in a jungle (later revealed to be Yavin) to drop off the TIE Avenger, he finds a band of rebels who have killed his contact and believe he’s an “Imp” because, I mean, he’s flying a TIE fighter and he’s dressed like one. He can’t tell them what he’s doing, they don’t know what they’re doing, and they soon descend into fighting each other, because they’re lost, have no food, no working ship. They eventually play a Star Wars version of rock, paper, scissors to resolve their idiotic conflict.

As a person who is proudly on the progressive left in the US, I can tell you, the Rebels lack of coordination, planning, or competence certainly feels too familiar. The Empire is analyzing their threats in board rooms, and the Rebels are asking each other “Which Rebellion?” while forgetting to drink water. The first season was passionate and single-minded, driven to be different, but very rarely funny. In the second season, we get far more chances to laugh wild amidst severest woe.

Second, and this goes without saying, but of course I’ll say it: Andor’s political world is far too close to our own. In Star Wars, it has always been thus. For those of us living in it, the prequels were very clearly responding to the Bush Administration. Back then, it felt like George Lucas was responding in real time. In Andor, I get the creeping sense that this is becoming our reality, not just reflecting it. In the first season, the Narkina 5 arc was about a government that whisks people away with only the whisper of an illusion of due process; that was in 2022. Now, in 2025, Kilmar Abrego Garcia remains in a prison in El Salvador despite having no trail, despite the US having admitted he was sent there due to an error, despite him having fewer felon convictions on his record than our current President, and despite an order from the Supreme Court.) Andor anticpated this. It feels more and more like a warning.

Finally, even as a show that’s getting more comfortable with letting a joke slip in, it’s still Andor. The ruthlessness of Tony Gilroy’s vision stands in contrast to every other Star Wars storyteller. I did not expect to ever see a traumatized victim of torture be forced, one year later, to survive an attempted rape by beating an Imperial Officer to death as he yowls like a wounded animal. Bix Caleen might as well be playing the lead in a Lar von Trier film. (I remain skeptical that we need sexual assault scenes in Star Wars.)

I never expected Mon Mothma, hero of the Rebellion, to guzzle down drinks so she can dance hard enough to suppress her regret at arranging her daughter’s wedding. And because she knows that she’s about to look the other way.

In the frightening final moments of “Harvest,” the third episode, Mon’s friend Tay gets into his vehicle to be driven back to his estate. He believes he will be meeting Mon Mothma next week on Coruscant. But we know better. His new driver (a parallel to Mon Mothma’s new driver in season one) is none other than Cinta, Luthan’s loyal agent, who we have not seen yet this season. This new driver is an assassin. Because Luthen can allow for now risk, cannot let Mon Mothma be exposed. Not even by someone she has known and loved her whole life.

It is astonishing how many voices and stories Star Wars can contain, and how bravely the Lucasfilm team has put that on display. From Visions to Skeleton Crew to Andor, we’re living in a world where you can get Amblin Star Wars for the whole family; Star Wars as anime; Star Wars as mythology, and Star Wars revolutionary thriller. Anyone who decries the last few years of Star Wars as somehow impoverished is just not paying attention. Star Wars is really for everyone: from the most sophisticated viewer who wants impossible choices and moral compromise; to the viewer who wants a wholesome affirmation of the kindness of the galaxy. What ties these things together is something intangible. More than design, or music. Maybe it’s the belief that the fight is worth it. Maybe it’s the ever-present story of the evolution of a person’s character. Or maybe it’s because every Star Wars story comes back, in the end, to hope.

Regardless, this first arc gives me quite a lot of hope for the next three. If this wild, messy, human ride is any indication of what’s to come? Thrills and anxiety are on the way! Everyone better hold on to something… or get ready to start dancing!