“I have friends everywhere.” It’s an innocuous enough phrase. So much so, it first appears in Andor Season 2 as simple code for undercover Rebel operatives to recognize each other on missions. However, by the end of the Disney+ show’s run, “I have friends everywhere,” is an emotional rallying cry of defiance. It’s a mantra for the dispossessed to cling to when their world has been ripped from them. It’s the foundation of a new community built on hope and not fear. And it’s the most powerful rejoinder imaginable to a fascist system banking on its trampled masses feeling isolated and beaten. “I have friends everywhere.”
The fact that a simple phrase can hold so much meaning is proof of the profound creative power of Disney+’s Andor Season 2. It’s a breathtaking show to behold simply as entertainment, but its true purpose is deeper. Andor is an incendiary piece of anti-fascist art that should galvanize those watching it to stand up, fight back, and remember that they are not alone in an increasingly awful world.
Andor is a prequel series to 2016 film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, aka the first Star Wars movie that was not a part of George Lucas’s original Skywalker saga. Freed from the structure of those films, Rogue One followed a ragtag team of rebels on the initial hunt for the Death Star plans. Their sacrifice ultimately set the stage for Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo to free the galaxy from the yoke of Imperial control. Andor specifically tells the story of how Rogue One‘s Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) became such a devoted soldier to the cause in the first place.
If Andor Season 1 explained how the thief and pilot came to be such a true believer in the Rebel cause, Season 2 is showing us how Cassian Andor reluctantly accepts the mantle of hero. Andor Season 2 also plots how the Rebel Alliance went from a few fractured cells to a veritable force, pun intended, to be reckoned with.
Andor Season 2 opens with Cassian on a mission to steal a special new model of TIE Fighter. The plan goes awry when, first, he can’t intuit the high-tech controls, and, later, when the pilot he was supposed to hand the craft off to isn’t there. What’s waiting for Andor, instead, is a literal representation of the fraught status of the Rebellion at this point.
Elsewhere, Chandrilan senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) is presiding over the opulent three-day wedding of her teenaged daughter Leida (Bronte Carmichael) to the son of a sleazy tycoon. Cassian’s surviving Ferrix friends Bix (Adria Arjoa), Brasso (Joplin Sibtain), and Wilmon (Muhannad Bhaier) are trying to live quietly as refugee field workers on a farming planet, but the Empire has swung by for a tension-inducing census. Ruthless Rebel leader Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) and his assistant Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau) continue to scheme, spy, and stay one step ahead of their foes.
However, the Imperial Security Bureau, ISB for short, is back plotting more nefarious atrocities for the galaxy. This time, Ben Mendelsohn’s Rogue One baddie Orson Krennic is overseeing the cruelty that’s being inflicted to hasten the completion of the Death Star. We learn more about Ghorman, a planet Mon Mothma references in Season 1, and how this place secretly holds the key to fueling the immense space station/WMD. Fittingly, it’s Imperial teacher’s pet Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) who comes up with the truly depraved — and all too familiar — plan to expedite the genocide they’re plotting.
Andor Season 2 has all of the exquisite touchstones that made Season 1 such a cult hit. The sets are exquisite, the performances sublime, and the scripts full of meaty, mature dialogue. Beau Willimon has once again written two utterly show-stopping monologues — this time around for Forrest Whitaker and Faye Marsay — that will have you smashing the rewind button. Even Nicholas Britell’s club banger of a planetary theme, “Niamos!”, is back, now as an intergalactic hit that gets bodies on the dance floor.
What makes Andor Season 2 next level, though, is its courage. Creator Tony Gilroy isn’t pulling his punches, drawing explicit parallels between the Ghors and the French Resistance of World War II and contemporary events in Palestine. Andor never acts like, oh, it’s so easy and simple to stand up to fascism. Rather, it explores the awful cost of doing what’s right. These characters aren’t Jedi knights or swashbuckling smuggers. They’re ordinary people yearning to be free.
Andor Season 2 is a glorious, life-affirming experience. There’s action, drama, and even romance, but most importantly, there’s fire. Andor will set your soul on fire and give your heart the courage it needs to keep going.
The first three episodes of Andor Season 2 premiere Tuesday, April 22 at 9 PM ET on Disney+.
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