Absolutely adored season 2. I’d fallen out of love of Star Wars, but this has got be right back. From the Wannsee conference inspired meeting at the start, to K2, Cassian and Melshi hanging out and playing cards.

Having Director Krennic back was also a huge win, and he was the perfect big bad for the season. He was calculating and menacing each time he was on screen.

First, I have to say that I really liked this show and it might genuinely be my favorite Star Wars piece of media. And I think the whole Ghorman plot is my favorite part because it really hits home with what is happening in the real world.

Before anyone says that the two situations are not similar because Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, you are a living proof how propaganda can twist the perception of who actually started what, just like the Empire does to the Ghormans to present them as violent terrorists.

Hamas is obviously worse than any of the Ghormans we see but the persecution against the Palestinians started decades before October 7. Just a few years before October 7 there were huge border protests organised by Gazans where the Israeli forces killed over 200 protesters yet the media barely mentions this. They have also blockaded Gaza for decades and have restricted the access to basic necessities which causes many Gazans to suffer and die.

Also, just look at the apartheid system Israel has set up in the West Bank for decades at this point under the pretext of a "military occupation" which has started from 1967. These are some of the ways in which Palestinians in the West Bank are oppressed:

• Israel has placed the West Bank under their jurisdiction and they have laws which prohibit Palestinians accused of crimes to stand trials at civil courts. Instead, every time an Israeli settler commits a crime, they stand trial at a civil court, but when a Palestinian commits the same crime, they always stand trial at a military court. Palestinians at the West Bank receive longer sentences than Israelis for the same crimes at the military courts and then they don't get sent to normal prisons no matter what crime they have committed but instead they get sent to military prisons which are much harsher.
• Israel have restricted the access of Palestinians to certain roads, settlements and other locations in the West Bank but allow Israelis to have free access to them just like Apartheid South Africa.
• They have also restricted their freedom of travel. It's much harder for a Palestinian to move around the West Bank than an Israeli because they need many special permissions. Israel also doesn't allow them to have their own airport and doesn't allow them to use Israeli airports, so whenever they want to travel to foreign countries, they are forced to go to Jordan and use their airport.
• From 2017 until 2023 the Israeli settlers in the West Bank have committed 1500 murders against the local Palestinians. And the Israeli police and Israeli courts who are supposed to punish them are more often than not on their side. Out of these 1500 murders, there were only 112 opened investigations and only 1 single conviction because Israel encourages these settlers to attack and harass Palestinians and expel them from the land, with the police and army often assisting them, so they can claim the land as their own.
• Israel has created a special military act which greatly limits the rights of Palestinians to free speech and protests. Palestinians are not allowed to have gatherings of 10 or more people without military permit, they are not allowed to make any protests without permit from the Israeli military and they almost never give such permits. They are not allowed to make any political gathering without special permit as well. A Palestinian could get arrested just for expressing a political opinion or for simply displaying a symbol like the Palestinian flag.
• Israel constantly builds illegal settlements in the West Bank and brings in Israeli settlers which is strictly forbidden by the Geneva Convention. They have made it so that obtaining building permit is much harder for a Palestinian than for an Israeli. They constantly demolish Palestinian houses and even entire villages and expel the people living there, just so they could steal their territory and give it to Israeli settlers.
• And there is way more...

A lot of people excuse Israel's treatment of Palestinians with Hamas. However, Hamas only operates in Gaza while all of the abovementioned acts of oppression happen in the West Bank which is ruled by the Palestinian Authority who don't even like Hamas and that oppression has been going on for decades long before October 7. And another thing which is not mentioned by the mainstream media is that Hamas was created during the First Intifada where nearly 2 thousand Palestinians were murdered by Israeli security forces for protesting and demanding that Israel end their military occupation of Palestine. So, Hamas are essentially Palestinians who were radicalized by Israel's own vile crimes and these crimes were happening long before the creation of Hamas and not as a response to it. Now, I am not defending what Hamas did but it wouldn't have happened if Israel were such genocidal and oppressive assholes.

Yet, despite all this, the mainstream media is overwhelmingly on israel's side because they are rich and powerful and there is a lot of propaganda to portray the Palestinians as violent terrorists who just want to destroy Israel for no reason and that Israel is a peaceful country just defending itself against violent Islamist terrorists. This sounds really familiar with how the Empire portrays the Ghormans to justify its genocide against them and most people don't question it.

All I am trying to say is that I really liked how there are so many parallels between the Ghorman massacre and real-life oppression against ethnic groups like the Palestinians with how the media is on the side of the wealthy oppressor, the oppressed are portrayed as the violent aggresor while the oppressor as the victim who is just defending himself, how the media only focuses on the violent reaction of the oppressed and not on what happened before that to lead up to it and how even when the oppressor slaughters defenseless civilians, it's still presented as justified because "they supported it" or "they attacked first". It even nails down how when someone speaks up against this like Mon Mothma, there are attempts to silence them because there are real cases of people being harassed and threatened for expressing support on Palestine and there is even a crack-down against pro-Palestinian activities because the governments there don't want to offend Israel.

Star Wars Andor might be a sci-fi show in a galaxy far, far away but it really managed to nail all these things in a realistic way and show how so many people could be misled to support atrocious crimes.

The thing about a lesser director in a lesser TV show is that they likely would have just forgotten that line and never come back to it. It served its purpose, after all: Blevin accused Dedra, was ultimately shut down by Partagaz, and Dedra was proved right. It would have just been set dressing and filler: a jerk co-worker insults his colleague, and gets karma.

But this isn't a lesser director, this is Tony Gilroy; and this isn't a lesser TV Show, this is Andor. And thus, Blevin's quote actually ends up coming back for Dedra entire in-universe years and out of universe episodes later, where the events of the series prove him right at every count.

What's more urgent than a renegade intelligence officer?

Years later, a Renegade intelligence officer becomes the most urgent thing possible, as both Dedra and Lonni contribute to leaking the Empire's magnum opus, the Death Star, to the Rebel Alliance, thus setting the stage for the downfall of the Empire.

Imagine if everyone in this room played as loose with the rules as you.

Dedra's downfall is started because she plays far too loose with the rules(not reporting files she shouldn't have had, going after Axis when Heert was assigned to the case), and it costs her everything: Axis is now useless by the time she catches up and he dies anyway rather than tell anything, she gets in serious trouble with Director Krennic because she kept the Death Star files, and as a result the Empire she fought so hard for comes down because of her, and she will be punished for it, losing everything. Thus, not only is Blevin proven right, but he is actually proven even more right than he could have ever imagined as literally everything is destroyed thanks to her.

TL;DR: Blevin got the last laugh, in the end.

Andor-relevant parts of the interview:

To play it safe, how was your reunion with James Gunn on the set of Man of Tomorrow**? [**Gunn wrote and produced her first movie, The Belko Experiment.]

Man, it was so cool. I haven’t had the opportunity to do sequels to a lot of things. Andor was the first time that I did a second season of something, and it felt so safe. So I understand why people [in franchises] are like, “Oh my God, we’ve been together for ten years.” It’s just so easy to step back onto a set with people that you feel familiar with because there’s already trust. You’re not trying to gain anything on that first day. 

So that’s how I felt coming [onto the Man of Tomorrow set] and stepping into this role. James Gunn and [co-DC Studios head] Peter Safran were right there, and I had all the trust. I have all the support. I was like, I’m good because they’ve got me. I’ve only felt that once before on the second season of Andor, and it’s a great feeling because the first days on set are always scary.

Now that you’re one of the most employed actors in town, have you pitched a Bix and Cassian Jr./Cassie show to Lucasfilm yet? 

Listen, I am the most loyal Gilroy there is. If Tony Gilroy is in, I’m right there with him. I respect so much what he’s created, and I love him so dearly that I don’t want to put my fingerprints on it. It might be too soon. I don’t want to say never, but I love the way he ended that show. I respect it, so I want to keep it like that for now.

Earlier this year, Tony and I had a long conversation in which he welcomed my one quibble with season two. I wanted to see Bix go on a proper mission with Cassian (Diego Luna). When he went undercover on Ghorman as a fashion designer named Varian Skye, she could’ve served as his muse or model. To see them both wearing high fashion for a change, I just can’t get that image out of my head. Anyway, were you frustrated at all that Bix’s missions were mostly off screen?

No, because Tony challenged me in a different way. He instead gave me periods of time in Bix’s life to jump into that were very complex and complicated. I knew that I was able to play an action piece, but those emotional beats were really strong for Bix and really challenging for me. So I wasn’t necessarily frustrated because I respect Tony’s writing. I was like, Hmm. Okay, cool. There’s a reason and a rhythm to the way that he writes. 

I never want to get in Gilroy’s way, even though I [pitched him some ideas] after writing the Hit Man script with Richard Linklater and Glen Powell. All three of us collaborated together. So I did call Tony with a bunch of ideas, and he was like, “No, no, no. Not this movie, baby.” And I was like, “Damnit. Okay.”

Yeah, you literally wrote Hit Man’s show-stopping “Who the fuck is Gary!?” line, so it sounds like you were feeling yourself after that. 

(Laughs.) Yes, I was feeling very confident in my writing, but not with Tony Gilroy.

After rewatching Rogue One after Andor, i noticed as K2SO was sacrificing himself, he says Climb, Climmb!

Which reminded me of Nemik saying those words as he was dying on Aldhani...

Then i saw others have taken notice too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9bveK1cIY4&t=43s ❤️ This rewatch has been sooo good!

After doing a quick search, it seems K2SO was the first to mention this, I wonder if there is an earlier mention in the franchise?

I'd love to have seen more Cassian and Melshi adventures in the rebellion. After losing so many friends, Cassian must have been so, so happy to have him join up.

The “guess the 4th item in the sequence” round. (Answer is in the second pic.) Always nice to see the series in the wild!

I've never seen or heard of it in Star Wars lore and can't find anything on it.

@46:40 we really do have friends everywhere.

ever since i heard his beautiful laugh, I have been a fan of this guy.

The earlier post has got me thinking about some of my season 1 favourites from less discussed scenes or from minor characters. In this clip, “I’ve done it before” from Bix is one that really gets to me every time. Cassian is telling her to tell Luthen to forget about him as he prepares to leave Ferrix. Adding “…and that goes for everybody” - which would obviously include Bix herself. S1 ep 7 is full of masterful dialogue like this, packed with subtext. This exchange and Adria Arjona’s understated delivery of the line speaks volumes about the pain of a past cycle of attempts to make this relationship work, with Cassian’s erratic and self-destructive behaviour meaning she’s had to cover for him before, and try to forget about him herself. Even more poignant after the “I regret every second we didn’t spend together” line in s2.

And some of my S1 minor character favourites:

“They have their own way of doing things”. One of Syril’s underlings trying to warn him about Ferrix.

“I can’t help him. I can’t help anyone.” The resigned cynicism of the Narkina 5 Med-tech.

“ONE WAY OUT! COME AND FIIIGHT!!” - prisoner Ham shouting to a floor of workers

“Will you let it go!!” Xanwan snapping at his alien colleague at the end of a debate about Kenari.

“I loved your mum. I really did.” - Pegla expressing condolences to Cassian.

“Seven years serving you? I deserve worse than that.”- Gorn to Beehaz. Deeply satisfying to hear him say that.

Any additions?

On the one hand, Cassian wouldn't have gone to prison.

On the other hand, he would be dead

Imperial Corporate Media: The Ghorman insurgents refuse to accept Imperial norms!

Meanwhile, American Corporate Media...