Why Andor season 2 will be the Star Wars TV show’s last
By Richard Edwards |Andor season 2 arrives on a wave of acclaim. The first outing of the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story spin-off was critically adored back in 2022, and – thanks to its grown-up themes and complex story arcs – turned out to be the Star Wars show that even non-Star Wars fans could enjoy.
Normally, when a show gets nominated for multiple major awards, broadcasters and streamers do everything they can to stretch things out. The upcoming Andor season 2, however, will be its last. Here’s why…
It’s not because Disney+ has lost faith with the show and ordered its premature cancellation – a fate that befell Star Wars stablemate The Acolyte after its one and only season streamed last year. Instead, Andor season 2 is going out on its own terms, with the full blessing of its creator and showrunner Tony Gilroy.
As a prequel to Rogue One (the film that tells the story of the Rebel Alliance operatives who recover the Death Star design schematics pivotal to the original Star Wars movie), Andor’s ending has never been in doubt. Indeed, Gilroy has confirmed that the show’s final episode will lead directly into Rogue One, with lead character Cassian Andor heading to the Ring of Kafrene to meet a Rebel informant.
The show’s grand plan has always to tell the story of Cassian Andor – and a few other figures pivotal to the formation of the Rebel Alliance – in the five years leading up to Rogue One. Season 1 unfolded over the first of those years, and the original plan was to follow a similar pattern over a five-season arc. However, the storytelling is going to accelerate rapidly in Andor season 2, covering four years over the course of a single 12-episode run.
Gilroy told SFX magazine that the change of plan was “born out of desperation” as he realised that time was not on the show’s side. After all, it’s now nearly three years since Andor debuted in the summer of 2022, while it’ll become increasingly difficult for 45-year-old Diego Luna (the lead in the vast ensemble of the Andor season 2 cast) to play a younger version of a character he first played in his mid-30s.
“We were halfway through shooting season 1, coming through Covid, and the monumental size of the show, the effort and everything else was just dawning on us,” Gilroy said. “We realised that I didn’t have enough calories to do it, and Diego’s face couldn’t take the timing, because it just takes too long to make it. We were saved by Disney saying, ‘Okay, if you guys can figure out a way to do it, we’re into it.”
Gilroy’s ingenious solution involved breaking the season up into four three-episode “chapters”. Each chapter will focus on a few pivotal days (for example, a Thursday, Friday and a Saturday) in each of the years leading up to Rogue One. It will then leap forward a year or so to the next major turning point in that famous galaxy far, far away. And because the three instalments of each respective chapter will debut the same day on Disney+, the Andor season 2 story should play out like a succession of weekly Star Wars movies.
“It’s a fascinating experiment and I don’t know if anyone’s done it before,” admitted Gilroy.
So, born in part from desperation, in part from the unstoppable march of time – and definitely not from premature cancellation – that’s why Andor season 2 will be the critically adored show’s last.
