After finishing my rewatch of season one, I came in extremely hyped for this season. Pretty solid, but definitely a big drop off from the phenomenal first season. Once again, excellent production values, visuals, and music. The show also does solid work on connecting Andor season 1 to Rogue One in their main plot line between the Empire and the Rebellion, which was the main task. Acting continues to be a strength in the series, but the main strengths of season 1 – plot and character development – are significantly worse this time around.
I’m mostly addressing the plot in the spoilers section, but the short version is that the show felt like a long, slow buildup towards a central point of conflict. Last season the payoffs were more frequent, and kept the show moving at a fast, exciting pace. It also seems like other than Kleya, the show was content to fall back on all of the character development from the first season. All in all, these are pretty major downgrades from the first season.
Spoilers
Unlike season 1, there were not a variety of interesting stories combined. It felt like the season was setting up for the main conflict on Ghorman, which means some episodes dragged. Way too many scenes regarding Cassian and Bix when that didn’t really affect the show, and not nearly enough time focused on Syril’s growing disillusionment with the Empire and Dedra. Every time Bix came on screen I cringed. They drew out her psychological problems until it was boring, and the only character we really got to know more this season was Kleya. Syril, who I think was the most interesting character of the season, was killed off in a super unsatisfying way that undercut a lot of the tension between him and Dedra. I was also disappointed that they skipped the entire relationship building between Cassian and K2SO. All around, it wasn’t great.
My Score
IMDB Score
RT Critics
96
RT Audience
90