'Andor' Season 2 Returns In April With A Baffling Release Schedule

This week, Disney+ released a trailer for the anticipated second season of Andor, which returns on April 22nd. The upcoming season of the Emmy®-nominated Star Wars series will also be the show’s last, and Disney says the conclusion will “see the characters and their relationships intensify as the horizon of war draws near and Cassian becomes a key player in the Rebel Alliance. Everyone will be tested and, as the stakes rise, the betrayals, sacrifices and conflicting agendas will become profound.” Sounds neat! Take a look:

Normally there’d be nothing about the news that a critically acclaimed series is returning in two months that would have me tilting my head like a German Shepherd puppy. But then I came across this line in the press release:

The final season will unfold over 12 episodes broken down into four chapters of three episodes each. The first chapter will premiere April 22, with subsequent chapters debuting each week.

Now, math isn’t my strong suit, admittedly, but I think that means that Disney+ is going to air three episodes of Andor a week across four weeks. The “chapters” thing isn’t new — the first season was also comprised of three-episode arcs, and the show launched with the first three episodes dropping at once. Plenty of streaming shows will debut with two or three episodes to entice viewers before scaling back to a weekly rollout. What is new is the decision to effectively burn off the final season of the best Star Wars series in a month’s time. That’s weird. That’s the sort of thing you’d expect from a streamer that’s got a show in the can it has little faith in. That’s the sort of thing HBO Max, when it was still “HBO” Max, did to Made For Love when it was getting canceled — they burned through the second season by airing two episodes a week. Don’t remember Made For Love starring THEE Cristin Milioti? That’s because it’s no Andor.

The good news is, I don’t think the release schedule has anything to do with Andor’s quality — or at least there’s no reason to suspect that just yet. The second season still hails from creator Tony Gilroy, and the cast remains outstanding: Diego Luna, Stellan Skarsgård, Genevieve O’Reilly, Denise Gough, Kyle Soller, Adria Arjona, Faye Marsay, Varada Sethu, Elizabeth Dulau, and Forest Whitaker, with Alan Tudyk and Ben Mendelsohn joining to reprise their roles from Rogue One. If anything, I wonder if this move has something to do with Kathleen Kennedy’s recently announced retirement from Lucasfilm. Is Disney clearing out the work of the old leadership to make room for the new?

More importantly: How will I find time to watch three hours of Andor every week? Because that’s a big ask! This isn’t a relaxing, passive, fold laundry and scroll your phone show! It’s a commitment, and one that I’d much rather sign up for across 12 weeks than four.