‘Andor’ season 2 will ramp up the political paranoia and galactic tension

The two-year wait until Andor returns is going to be excruciating. The Rogue One prequel show has defied low expectations to become the most praised new Star Wars entry in years, delivering a complex and weighty story that treats the setting way more seriously than its competition.

Fortunately, work is already underway on season two, with the shoot beginning in the U.K. on Monday 21 Nov. Showrunner Tony Gilroy seems set on matching the quality of the first season, teasing that the first scene that went before the cameras involved Kyle Soller’s Syril Karn.

But, though Andor season one ended on something of a high note with Cassian Andor dedicating his life to the Rebellion, it sounds like things will get even darker next season. Speaking with The Rogue Ones podcast he explained how the Rebel origins will develop:

“What do you do? If your product is paranoia, how do you collaborate? How do you scale up the secrecy? How do you take that out of the garage, and how do you play with other people? So over the next four years in the second [season], you know we’re going to be dealing with—you know we’re going to end up in Yavin, and the rebel alliance that alliance is really messy. There are heroes in there, there are losers in there, and there are wannabes in there; it’s really messed up. But it’s like any political coalition.”

He also went into detail on how existing characters will fit into this new framework:

“What happens to Saw Gerrara? What happens to the original gangsters? What happens to all the real hardcore maniacs who built it, are they welcomed in? How do you do that? That’s going to be one of the things we’re really going to be exploring and what Luthen says in episode 10 is true; that’s no game there. He’s opening a real vein there, and I’m never going to undercut what he says there, but how do you go forward? How do you do that?”

We know from Rogue One that Saw is on the outs with the broader Rebel Alliance for his extremism and violence in coming years, so it seems the next season will show both disparate groups coming together under the banner of the ‘Rebel Alliance’ while others find themselves left out in the cold.

However this ultimately shakes out, we now have rock-solid confidence in Gilroy to deliver the goods. The only downsides are that Andor‘s return is so far away and that upcoming Star Wars Disney Plus shows now have an awful lot to live up to. Oh well, it’ll be nice to see Grogu again in The Mandalorian season two… I guess.