The second and final season of Andor is coming to Disney+ on April 22, marking the return of the highly anticipated and critically acclaimed series. It will also have a very unique release schedule that’s totally different from Star Wars shows in the past.
Showrunner Tony Gilroy revealed that the twelve episode season will air over the course of four weeks, with three episodes dropping each week. That’s to coincide with the series structure in which there will be four different arcs comprised of three episodes each, much like the first season was. But while the first season spanned the course of one year, the second season will span four years – with each arc taking place roughly a year apart, leading up to the beginning of Rogue One.
Because of that, the release schedule will drop an arc at a time rather than an episode at a time. So here’s what we can expect:
- Arc 1 (episodes 1-3) – April 22 (directed by Ariel Kleiman and written by Tony Gilroy)
- Arc 2 (episodes 4-6) – April 29 (directed by Ariel Kleiman and written by Beau Willimon)
- Arc 3 (episodes 7-9) – May 6 (directed by Janus Metz and written by Dan Gilroy)
- Arc 4 (episodes 10-12) – May 13 (directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios and written by Tom Bissell)
I have mixed feelings about this kind of release. On the one hand, it’s exciting to think about getting what will be kind of like a Star Wars movie each week for a month. I’m glad that this seems to be coming from Gilroy, and it makes sense for the structure of the show to keep the arcs together. I’ve told people who haven’t seen Andor that they really should watch it one arc at a time, rather than one episode at a time, to get the best experience, so this seems to just be allowing all of us to have that kind of schedule. I definitely think the series plays better when the whole arc is considered together.
On the other hand, I’m going to miss the weekly episode releases and am disappointed that the season’s run will only span four weeks rather than ten. I think the weekly episodes helped season one have a bit of time to breathe, and give fans time to process what was often very heavy and thought-provoking material. Plus, moments like the “never more than twelve” from the first season seem to land even better when there’s a week of anticipation leading up to it.
I’m surprised that this is the direction Disney is going, considering it flies against their release schedule they’ve previously established. I’m generally a fan of the way they release content weekly, and I don’t expect that to change just based on this series (because Andor is structured differently than most projects). But it will be very interesting to see how this is received.
Regardless of when the episodes release, I’ll be watching, and I can’t wait for Andor to return. This just means we’ll get to see the full series sooner than expected, and, well, it’s hard to be upset about that.
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