'Andor' Season 2 Episodes 10 - 12 Review
Image Source: StarWars.com
Andor has come to an end. After an incredible Season 2, the series has certainly left an impact on Star Wars fans for years to come, with a great deal of new information added to the canon that sheds new light on certain characters and events. This finale was no exception, and was a tense final chapter that brought everything into position before the events of Rogue One.
We’ll be able to tell things in rough chronological order this time around, as the final arc had less weaving of storylines due to so many of the characters being centralized, and the final plot boiling down to this: the Death Star has been found out. Lonni Jung, who we’ve neglected to discuss this season, was able to access key files held by Dedra Meero in her personal storage. She was not fully aware of the depth of secrecy around the Death Star, and simply accumulated the files for her private hunt for Axis. After years of searching, she finally had enough leads to pinpoint Luthen as her target, something Lonni also reveals when he meets with Luthen in the open rather than Coruscant’s underbelly.
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Image Source: StarWars.com
Throughout the show, Lonni has proven to be an excellent source of intelligence for Luthen and the Rebels, likely giving them the location of Dr. Gorst, thus leading to his death at the hands of Bix, and also likely informing Luthen of the ISB plant in Bail Organa’s team trying to extract Mon Mothma. He was brave in the face of Luthen’s threats and bullying in past situations, but when he needed the man’s help most, he was sadly killed by Luthen, who likely viewed him as too great a risk in the heavy hand about to come down on the remains of the Axis network.
Realizing the gravity of the situation, Luthen then moves to destroy evidence while sending Kleya to safety with the same information Lonni told him, only for Dedra to interrupt his destruction efforts. Unfortunately, her smug satisfaction and self-assuredness leave her blind to Luthen’s dedication to his cause. He mortally wounds himself and is stabilized by the Imperials, but Kleya is able to infiltrate the hospital where he is being kept alive by a desperate Dedra and kills him, fleeing before she can be caught.
Image Source: StarWars.com
She and Luthen have had a fraught relationship across both seasons of the show, but this arc finally revealed the nature of who they were to each other. At some point in his past, Luthen was a stormtrooper. While on a campaign of extermination on a muddy world, he fully cracked, hating what he was hearing as dozens of people were brutally executed. Then, he found Kleya, just a girl hiding aboard the shuttle he had taken refuge in to escape the noise. Luthen left the Imperial military with Kleya under his protection, and over the coming years, he taught her how to haggle, presenting her as his daughter, but also described the cost and weight of their rebellion against the Empire. Their moment of no retreat came on Naboo, when they remotely detonated a pair of Imperial transports, affirming their status as revolutionaries, before walking away together.
Having completed her task, but in incredible danger as the ISB pursues her, Kleya locates and uses a backup communication device after the one at the now-thoroughly-raided antiquities shop was largely destroyed. The person who picks her signal up is Wilmon Pak, with Cassian, Melshi, and K-2SO taking off from Yavin without authorization to answer the distress call. General Draven is furious, but can do little at the moment. In a gripping confrontation on Coruscant, the ISB manages to track down Kleya, only to have K-2SO ruin their carefully considered tactical positioning with murderous effectiveness. The ISB is shown to be a mess in this arc, with Dedra thrown into a cell as the ISB realizes the scale of Lonni Jung’s betrayal, and suspicion falls on everyone. Krennic takes charge and aggressively demands Kleya be found, which splits ISB resources on Coruscant enough that the rescue crew slips through the ISB’s fingers. Back on Yavin, the news Kleya and Cassian bring is a hard pill to swallow, but the pieces are set in place for what we see in Rogue One after a tense night and early morning across the Rebel facilities.
Image Source: StarWars.com
The finale of Andor was ultimately a surprise for how many characters ended up surviving. Kleya, Wilmon, and Vel are all with the Rebellion presumably into the Galactic Civil War, while Bix is off safe with her and Cassian’s child (who is NOT Poe Dameron despite what some surprisingly popular theories are already positing online). Dedra, meanwhile, is thrown into prison, the very same system she helped support her entire life, turning on her.
There is a poetic calm at the end of this season, because we know what happens next, but also because there is hope for the future despite all of the gritty, tragic moments from across Seasons 1 and 2. This show’s conclusion paves the way for a greater understanding of this era of galactic history, and for many fascinating stories to be told in the future regarding all of these characters across the five in-universe years their lives interacted with each other in so many diverse ways. CultureSlate praises all of the work on the costumes, sets, props, score, and, of course, the actors, for their incredible dedication to such an amazing series.
Rating: 9/10
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Source(s): Andor
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