Andor Season 2 Wants You to Rethink Rogue One When You’re Done

As Andor gets closer and closer to its April 22 return to Disney+, fans are anticipating how season two will further lay the groundwork for the state of the Rebellion as we find it in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. 

Lead actor Diego Luna and showrunner Tony Gilroy discussed reaching the finish line with Empire, describing how many questions about its characters will be answered. Gilroy shared, “What happens to their love affairs? Their relationships? Their homes? Their children? What happens to everything around them, if you’re thrust into this vice-grip of revolution? Those are the big tectonic moves of the second season.”

While Luna’s Cassian Andor is the show’s main focus, season two will also center on Stellan Skarsgård’s organizer of the revolution, Luthen Rael. “Now, all of a sudden, he’s going public,” Gilroy said, which is key since in Rogue One we never see Luthen—which begs the question of what happens to the architect? Does he die or slink back into the shadows by the time the events of the film take place?

Gilroy continued, “What do you do if your currency is privacy and secrecy, and failure is death? How do you scale up? How do you play with others? How do all the disparate pieces of the Rebellion come together in [Rebel base] Yavin?”

A part of me hopes Luthen doesn’t have to go out like a G and just is there all along helping the rebels throughout the rest of the canon. But that’s not how rebellions work, when the idea becomes your legend that echoes in the actions of everyone who joins up.

To that end Luna pointed out how the actions that start it all in Andor season two directly inform Rogue One. “You’re gonna hear some lines [on a rewatch] and go [gasps gutturally],” said Luna of the ways the rebellion builds on their activism’s high costs. “Before, you just passed over them. Not anymore.”

We’ve already had some theories about what this might mean: one of Cassian’s most infamous and mysteries lines in Rogue One is when he discusses how everyone in the Rebellion has done “terrible things” on its behalf, and some intriguing hints in trailers definitely make it seem like Luthen could have Cassian doing some underhanded work around the outbreak of the Ghorman Massacre, a way to wake more people up to Palpatine’s tyranny.

But what else about Rogue One could be given new light here? We’ve got Krennic and the Death Star, we’ve got Saw making his way to Jedha. Andor season two has a lot of potential to spin many parts of the prequel that inspired it in the first place in new light.

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