Andor

Being back in a version of Star Wars where people act like this, talk like this, think like this, is simply too exciting to get slowed down with splitting hairs. The party’s kicking off, and the bolts are flying: I’m simply humming with excitement to see where Andor takes us next.

An example of multifaceted worldbuilding that stresses the importance of complex character arcs and terrific writing. It’s layered with intrigue and full of intricate rebellious acts and is relevant to today’s turmoil and troubling times.

At 12 episodes, it leaves a person yearning for more time with Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor while appreciating that the best TV series are insistently finite.

The second — and final — season not only delivers a masterful conclusion but cements “Andor” as one of the most remarkable works of “Star Wars” storytelling ever produced. .... Gilroy has delivered a collective work that feels both personal and mythic.

When “Andor” reaches its inspiring conclusion, the viewer is rewarded with something symphonic, breathtaking, and awe-inspiring. Not in its size or brawn, but in its faith in people and humanity, rising to meet the moment in the darkest of times.

This second season doesn’t just cement the show’s standing as the best Star Wars project ever made. .... 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.

It’s not just a great Star Wars show, but great television as a whole and hopefully sets a blueprint for how other franchises can operate moving forwards.

This 12-episode arc, which really unfolds more like four interconnected feature films, is the best season of television so far this year, and one of the best of the current decade. It is what “Star Wars” (and all sci-fi TV) can be at its peak.

"Andor" remains deeply compelling because of sharp writing, magnetic performance from Luna and his co-stars and plots that keep you guessing even when you know the ending. Season 2 is everything fans of Season 1 could have hoped. The only complaint is that this marks its endpoint.

Stands toe-to-toe with any of the great series currently airing. .... The series is beautifully rendered, each episode rich with precise visual detail and evocative music. The performances are sharp and flinty, pitched somewhere between realism and modest melodrama. There are dazzling action set-pieces—some giddily thrilling, others bleak and harrowing.

All the performances are outstanding — O'Reilly has played Mothma in various movies and series for two decades — but the ones that'll knock your socks off are by Kyle Soller and Denise Gough.

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.

Beautifully made, cleverly structured and genuinely moving, Andor Season 2 solidifies Tony Gilroy’s spin-off as one of the greats. This is Star Wars — and small-screen storytelling in general — at its best.

Season 2 exceeds those expectations at every turn. The only flaw in the entire series is the fact that it’s over now. A decade after his creation, Cassian Andor’s story has finally come to an end. Luckily, it is an end worthy of one of the most impactful characters Star Wars has ever created, with this grand finale a triumph for both Gilroy and Luna.

The end of the season feels a bit muted in comparison to Season 1, unfortunately, especially as the last few episodes focus in on making sure that Cassian’s on the path that will lead to the events of Rogue One. Yet it does still deliver the same powerful themes, never once forgetting to ground its storytelling in moments that feel relatable to modern audiences.

Season two of “Andor” stands proudly alongside season one as the most sophisticated, smartest “Star Wars” storytelling to date, thanks to showrunner Tony Gilroy.

It's the best "Star Wars" series by far, a triumph for Lucasfilm, and a masterwork within one of genre's most venerated franchises.

At the end of Andor's two-season run, we need to recognize the rare gift that we've been given as viewers, delivering a standard of adult drama we're unlikely to see from Star Wars again.

Thrillingly intricate, suspenseful, tragic and hopeful, it fulfills the promise of the galaxy far, far away, telling a uniquely nuanced, mature, and gripping story that’s at once distinct from, and yet inherently wedded to, the Skywalker Saga upon which it’s founded.

How “Andor” elevates the agony of a life lost and the exhilaration of a life well-lived — a sacrifice that’s worth it — is what makes it a “Star Wars” story that’s at once a remarkable aberration and the epitome of the franchise.

The first [triad of episodes] is the weakest of the four; Cassian’s storyline, while thematically resonant, is less than compelling. But Gough — who hasn’t historically gotten to express much range — gets some juicy moments. The good is very good. .... And the last triad of episodes is as close to perfect as TV (or film) gets.

With Season 2, “Andor” cements itself as the gold standard of what modern “Star Wars” can be. .... Only the last of these [episode] blocks falls victim to the burden of exposition, seeding the characters and setup of “Rogue One” rather than serving as a climax in its own right. But even this decision reads more like tying “Rogue One” into “Andor” than the other way around.

Once the momentum begins to pick up in the next triplet, the rest fly by in chapters simultaneously too intense to binge, and too gripping not to. .... In its second season, Andor shows us what a good story can accomplish — its capacity to dull empathy or amplify it, to placate people or awaken them.

Season 2 of Andor builds on nearly everything that worked so well about season 1, and continues fleshing out the prequel era of Star Wars. .... The most engaging the Star Wars franchise has been in a long time.

The plots are lean and clear, the emotional climaxes avoid saccharine sentimentality, and series-long mysteries are paid off without any official on-screen confirmations for either the characters or the viewers.

If the early episodes take a little while to get going and the regular time jumps every few episodes feel a little jarring, it's a small price to pay for an overall production that's so laser focused on telling a self-contained story.

Andor finishes its work in doubling down on what Rogue One started, pushing Star Wars beyond its old boundaries for a potency and relevance that none of its other properties have ever achieved.

The rich texture of the show’s sprawling social portraiture sometimes undercuts Star Wars’ origins in the thrill of pulp storytelling; Luthen’s elaborate schemes have more to do with John le Carré than they do Flash Gordon. And while it packs a cumulative wallop, the second season lacks a single storyline as galvanizing as the first’s mass prison breakout. .... But even though it’s a prequel to a prequel, Andor still finds a way to give its story a sense of weight and finality.

Even when it’s in a lighter mode, Andor is Star Wars for grownups. This rebellion is a serious business.

So while the opening of the new season, in which Cassian flies off in a stolen TIE fighter, is as kinetic and thrilling as any classic “Star Wars” dogfight, it is also oddly conventional. But the season soon finds its grounding, centering on a resistance movement on Ghorman.

The frequent leaps in time makes it feel like substantial pieces are missing in the emotional journey he takes in these final years of his life. But even with these hiccups, Season Two, and Andor as a whole, impresses with how effectively it uses the pieces of this hugely commercial brand to directly grapple with the ways that fascism rises, and the ways it can be fought.

There is no Skywalker heroism here – this is the desperate, last-ditch resistance of ordinary people left with no choice. Andor is Star Wars’ earthiest instalment yet.