After the first season of the fan-favoriteStar WarsseriesAndorcovered just one year of Cassian Andor’s pre-Rogue Oneespionage career, season 2 is covering four years in the same amount of time, which could lead toHouse of the Dragon-style pacing issues. The second and final season ofAndoris one of the most highly anticipated upcomingStar Warsprojects. Although some fans initially questioned the necessity of aRogue Oneprequel focused on Cassian, those naysayers were quickly silenced by the most refreshingly bold, inventive, and insightfulStar Warsstory in years.
Tony Gilroy has created a gritty spy thriller set in a galaxy far, far away. Gilroy doesn’t have the personal ties toStar Warslore that creators like Jon Favreau and J.J. Abrams have. He’s much more interested in exploring new characters and storylines on the vast canvas that George Lucas left behind than rehashing the past to evoke the audience’s nostalgia. The result is a bona fide TV masterpiece that would still be a must-see show even if it had no connection toStar Wars.Andoris a politically charged storyabout the cost of rebellion and the sacrifices that have to be made to topple dictators.
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The first season ofAndoris a near-perfect piece of serialized storytelling, so theStar Warsfan base has high hopes for the second season. But season 2 might be biting off more than it can chew. It has to get through four years in 12 episodes. According toEmpire, the final three episodes will cover the last three days beforeRogue One, which points to an even more disjointed pace. If the last three episodes are only covering three days, that means the first nine episodes have to get through three years and 362 days.
Andor Season 2 Is Covering Four Years
After writing the first season ofAndorto cover the first of five years beforeRogue Oneand seeing what a gargantuan undertaking the season was, Gilroy decided against doing four more seasons to cover each of the remaining years and chose to instead bridge the gap with a single season to wrap up the series. That means that, in the same number of episodes,Andorseason 2 has to cover four times as much ground as season 1. Historically, when it comes to TV shows, less is more. It’s better to wrap up the narrative in a couple of seasons when the show is still great than to keep going and going until the show has lost all its magic. ButAndorseason 2 could be giving itself too much story to tell with this approach.
Gilroy has confirmed (viaEntertainment Weekly) that season 2 will cover the remaining four years beforethe events ofRogue One. He gave a rough outline that every three episodes would represent a year: “From a narrative point of view, it’s really exciting to be able to work on something where you do a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and then jump a year.” This calls back to a storytelling technique from season 1, but season 1 used that technique in a much more limited timeframe.
Andor Season 2 Might Have A Few Time Jumps
Since the final three episodes are being dedicated tothe build-up toRogue One, it seems as thoughAndorseason 2 will follow the same structural trick as season 1 with its episode count broken up into three-part chunks. Season 1 had the table-setting early installments, then the heist arc, the prison arc, and the fugitive arc in three-episode blocks. Some of these season 1 chunks came with time jumps, like introducing the new life that Cassian had built for himself on the resort planet of Niamos with his loot fromthe Aldhani heist, but they only ever skipped a couple of months at the most. To get through the gap between the first season ofAndorand the beginning ofRogue One, season 2 might have to skip entire years.
With this approach,Andorseason 2 could end up withthe same problem that plaguedHouse of the Dragonthroughout its first season. At one point,House of the Dragonjumped so far into the future that it had to switch out its lead actors. No matter how great each individual episode was (and there were some really great ones), the season as a whole felt very disjointed and uneven. Each week, new spouses and offspring would pop up without giving the audience any time to get emotionally invested in them.
SinceHouse of the Dragoncovered around 20 years in one season andAndoris only covering four years, theStar Warsspin-off’s timeframe problems won’t be quite as drastic as theGame of Thronesspin-off. But there is a very real possibility that cramming years’ worth of storytelling into some episodes and only fitting a day’s worth of events into others will result in a very bumpy season 2 forAndor. Having said that, Gilroy has proven his mettle as both a writer and showrunner, and he has a team of equally talented storytellers helping him concludeCassian’s on-screen journey, so there’s also a very real chance that they’ll pull it off spectacularly.
