I Loved 'Andor' Season 2 and I Still Thought It was Hard to Follow

Despite its 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, there is significant quibbling online about whether or not Andor Season 2 was boring. I did not think it was boring. However, I do think the show struggled with a lore and pacing problem, which alienated a lot of viewers and left them lost. Season 2 gave us a deeply human and political look at Star Wars, but the storytelling alternated between crystal clear and cryptic; when it chose to explain itself to its audience, versus when it expected us to figure something out on our own, made the season feel disjointed overall, like a roller coaster that kept starting and stopping. I think this is the root of what’s frustrating a lot of people. Or at least, me. I write this story knowing it may be interpreted as a public announcement of my own stupidity. But I’m writing it anyway to hopefully make someone out there feel less alone, and encourage similar attempts at mature storytelling in Star Wars.

Andor Season 2 was as equally committed as Season 1 to telling the pulse-pounding, tragic, hopeful, messy, human story of what rebellion against government overreach really looks like. Sometimes it’s hard to believe something this raw and real is coming from Disney. The themes are timely and savory: there are no perfect bad guys or good guys on either side of a war; government actors use activists as pawns in order to destroy their movements; imperial power relies on dehumanization.

The trouble was that the story couldn’t quite decide whether to patronize us with too much information or leave us with such little information that many of us couldn’t figure out what was going on sometimes.

Some plotlines and points were very easy to follow, verging on pat. The best example is when the show calls the refugee farm workers on Mina-Rau the same thing we call them on Earth: “undocumented” and “illegal.” Or, when Bix is attacked by an Imperial officer, and all but breaks the fourth wall to make sure you get the point: “he tried to rape me.” I have little sympathy for people who say this scene doesn’t belong in a Star Wars show. It absolutely belonged here, and frankly, it’s overdue. This is the kind of stuff that happens when legal enforcers interact with people who have been branded illegal. Yes, we are not used to seeing graphic, real-world themes like this in a traditionally kid-friendly franchise. But at the same time: what exactly do we think the rebellion was fighting against in A New Hope? Darth Vader’s humongous codpiece? The Empire has always been disturbing; we’re just not used to feeling the full weight of it. The point is: it was extremely clear what we were supposed to be taking away from this scene and the subplot.

Other times, however, the show’s tone was the opposite of pat. Plotlines were presented so quickly or so suggestively, I ended up feeling lost and unsure what I was supposed to be taking out of them. For example, what actually happens to Tay Kolma after he gets in the car with Cinta (which, however you personally felt about it, left a wave of viewers scratching their heads). Or in the first two episodes, when Cassian gets stranded on a random jungle planet with the Lost Boys from Hook the Maya Pei Brigade. I ended up guessing that Cassian is on an early Yavin, and the Maya Pei Brigade are the first whispers of rebel soldiers. They are messy, immature, too busy shooting at each other over petty disputes to remember their common enemy is the Empire (insert joke about Twitter here). We watch them fight and disbelieve Cassian for two episodes. Then, Cassian escapes, and we never hear from them or see them again. This is also where the show lost a lot of people.

It’s not super clear what the writers are intending to illustrate with the Maya Pei Brigade subplot, despite giving it two episodes of screen time. I have my own interpretation above, but that’s just me. My point is, if we can have Bix say out loud, “he tried to rape me,” can we not have one single side conversation where Cassian states the thesis of this subplot?: “I don’t know how the rebellion is going to succeed, if these kids don’t learn to stop fighting with each other over bullshit.”

In many ways, Season 2 required a podcast companion, or at least a full rewatch of Season 1 before digging in. Disney’s official Season 1 recap was of shockingly little help despite being a whopping 14 minutes long.

If you are wondering if I am just kind of dumb, I assure you, I asked myself that several times while watching Season 2. But I also do not remember having to ask myself, “Wait, what’s going on here again?” this many times —- if at all —- while watching Season 1.

And here’s the thing: I like Star Wars, but like most people who watch it, I’m a casual fan (unless we’re talking about The Last Jedi). Being a committed nerd —- with time and love to binge previous content and dig deep into articles and podcasts —- should enrich a watching experience. It shouldn’t be required to understand the basics of what’s going on in the plot one-quarter of the time, even in a prestige TV show. If we build shows only for the die-hards to follow, that’s going to lose a lot of us in the wake; that’s not going to give Disney the numbers it wants to see in order to produce more political, thoughtful, mature Star Wars content like Andor. I also think it is possible for a show to be political, thoughtful, and mature without being impossibly cryptic.

The real crime, I think, is that we only got 12 episodes of Season 2. You can feel what’s missing. I understand Tony Gilroy wants to work on other things, but I wish so badly we had gotten the full five seasons originally scoped out for Andor. There’s certainly enough story here to fill them, and enough writing, acting, world-building, and directing talent to fill them well. Perhaps much of the jarred storytelling in Season 2 can be explained by this forced condensation. I cannot imagine how hard it must have been to try and elegantly smash four seasons into one, and still retain a number of human dramas that are so poignant (I’m looking at you, Kleya and Luthen), they brought many of us to tears. I still think Andor overall is a masterpiece.

I understand some people didn’t like Andor because it didn’t have lightsabers and categorical good guys and bad guys. I disagree, but you’re entitled to your opinion. Others were bummed that a franchise they are used to watching with their kids was suddenly adults only. Fair, but also, isn’t it nice to have adult swim sometimes?

I have to believe there are others like me: we liked it, but felt jarred by the alternating tone in storytelling, and perhaps, resented we couldn’t watch the show without significant outside handholding to help us simply understand what was going on. We also hope it can survive this backlash, so that Disney will understand a lot of us do still want mature engagement with the original themes of Star Wars, which are primarily about fighting government control, sacrifice, and redemption of our evil deeds through service to a greater good. Star Wars, through the decades, has always been a wonderful sci-fi mirror for America to look at itself through the lenses of rebellion and government overreach. The themes are certainly not boring. But it would be nice if they were more accessible to the casual fan.