The Wild Reed: Andor Season One Recap

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

Andor Season One Recap

Well, the wait is almost over!

Later today Disney+ will premiere the first three episodes of season two of the Star Wars series Andor. Then, every Tuesday for the next three weeks, the streaming platform will release three more episodes for a total of twelve.

I’ve previously noted that for many people Andor is one of the best TV shows out there. It’s also been observed that given recent events here in the U.S., Andor remains extremely relevant in its highlighting of the need for resistance to rising auhoritarianism.

As Ben Travers writes in his IndieWire review:

Andor’s blunt disdain for tyrants and colonialists makes it all the easier to see the series as modern metaphor. Emperor Palpatine is still, technically, held in check by the Galactic Senate, but his executive overreach seems almost timid compared to President Trump’s daily decrees. There are scenes of state media framing peaceful protests as unlawful attacks and dialogue that bravely describes genocide as exactly that, in defiance of a cacophony of boos. All the while, disconnected rebel groups strain to overcome disinformation campaigns, mass detainment, and general complacency to form a resistance that can effect change – not just in the long-run, but here and now.

For those who need a reminder of the events leading up to season two, here’s the official (and artfully put together) season one recap video.

Following is an excerpt from Nicholas Quah’s April 21 Vulture review of Andor season two.

Sometimes you don’t realize how low you’ve set expectations until something comes along that reminds you to look up. That was certainly the case with Andor. When the Star Wars series debuted in September 2022, little about its logline suggested a clear pathway to greatness. A prequel series to Rogue One, a widely admired but uneven spinoff film shrouded in lore and whispers of postproduction salvaging? Sure, I suppose, but arriving mere months after Obi-Wan Kenobi, which marked a creative low point for the anemic franchise, there wasn’t much space to dream. That its showrunner was Tony Gilroy, the venerable writer-director behind thinky films like Michael Clayton, who was responsible for Rogue One’s rewrites and reshoots, wasn’t necessarily evidence for greatness, either; many distinguished filmmakers have had their visions ground down by the Star Wars machine before. (See Ron Howard’s Solo, Leslye Headland’s The Acolyte, etc.)

But Andor didn’t just turn out to be excellent television. It ended up being the best Star Wars has ever been, a fiercely intelligent spy thriller that rendered a galaxy far, far away in terms you could legibly graft onto the world right outside your door. In between blaster shoot-outs and ships jumping into hyperdrive, the series toyed with sophisticated ideas. What draws an individual to fascism? What turns a drifter into a revolutionary? What does middle-class housing in Coruscant look like? Andor’s characters felt like flesh-and-blood beings whose lives extended beyond their service to the story; you can tell they think about their laundry. Gilroy’s take on the universe felt so rich and alive that you couldn’t help but wonder: How the hell did this thing ever get made?

The question returns, quadruple-fold, with the show’s second season, which debuts its first three-episode “chapter” this week and completes the series’ bridge into Rogue One and, by extension, A New Hope. To cut to the chase: Andor remains a banger to the very end. The premiere picks up some time after where the first season left off, with Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) now a key player in Luthen Rael’s (Stellan Skarsgård) spy ring, carrying out missions to disrupt the Empire and lay the foundation for what will become the Rebel Alliance.

. . . This second season doesn’t just cement the show’s standing as the best Star Wars project ever made. It’s also the rare spinoff that deepens the best parts of the franchise around it. A New Hope will never feel so simple again. But its merit extends far beyond that. So much of Star Wars today feels like it’s in service to its own fantasy, its fandom, its escapism. Andor reorients that fantasy in the service of something greater than itself. Its tale of political awakening, rebellion, and the struggle against fascism is so vibrant that it wills you to gaze back up at the stars – and at your own world – with wonder. Andor is a miracle, and we’d be so lucky if we see something like it ever again.