While the world was celebrating Star Wars for our annual May the 4th Be With You celebrations, the cast and crew of the series Andor had been working hard to tease fans about the upcoming second season of the highly praised show on Disney+. The series brought us Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) prior to his time in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and the series let writer Tony Gilroy show us how Cassian became the spy we knew and trusted in that film, when he met Jyn Erso to try to take on the Empire.
In a new interview with Empire, Gilroy and Luna talked about the second season and keeping the pace going from where we left off with season 1. They revealed that the second season will lead up to three days before the events of Rogue One, meaning we won’t be seeing Jyn show up in Cassian’s life by the end of the season. But it will unpack how Cassian has come to work more closely with Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly).
“The risks this season will take are very different,” Diego Luna promised during a chat, available in the latest issue of Empire Magazine, and when pressed how and in what way, writer Tony Gilroy said, “In every way. Look, man, I’m not trying to make a career here; if anything I’m on the downhill side of a long career. But this is an opportunity. This is 1,500 pages of the most dynamic material in these people’s lives to deal with. We got it right the first time, and you don’t want to let your foot off the gas.”
Gilroy continued to talk about the series and where it was heading into the future of season 2. “Some of its core ingredients are secrecy and paranoia and lack of trust and betrayal. So, how difficult is it to build a revolution?” Gilroy continued. “And what happens to the original gangsters, as other people get involved?”
The road to Rogue One
We all knew where Cassian’s journey was heading. From the moment that Andor started, we knew he’d one day sacrifice his life for the Rebellion and stealing the plans of the Death Star. But what was so incredible about Andor was that we were seeing Cassian’s life as a spy, played beautifully once again by Diego Luna, and I could have watched countless seasons of Cassian fighting against the Empire before ever getting to Rogue One.
To know that season 2 will bring us right to the doorstep of the movie that started it all—a movie where Cassian gives his life for the Rebellion—is, well, emotional. We’ve grown to love Cassian Andor. Knowing that it could be the end so soon and that we’d have to say goodbye once more was always what Andor was leading towards, but it’s just a lot to know that the minute that we get to the end of the season, there’s only a brief window of Cassian’s life left before he joins up with Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) and meets his fate.
(featured image: Lucasfilm)
