“Andor” is officially an Emmy darling. A “Star Wars” show shouldn’t have been anyone’s first pick for a Best Drama Writing award, but that’s what the second and final season of “Andor” won at the 77th Emmy Awards.
It helps that, unlike the show’s first season, it wasn’t competing against the superlative final season of “Succession” this time. (At the 75th Emmys, the “Andor” episode “One Way Out” lost Best Drama Writing to “Connor’s Wedding” from “Succession.”) “Andor” is a sci-fi series set in a galaxy far, far away, while “Succession” dramatizes America’s billionaire class with a roman à clef about the Murdoch family of News Corp. And yet, both shows are some of the most brutally honest TV about the world we live in. (More on that soon.)
Specifically, “Andor” won this prize for the episode “Welcome to the Rebellion.” It’s both the second season’s ninth episode and the final episode of the season’s third arc, as written by Dan Gilroy (brother of the series’ creator, Tony Gilroy). There’s a lot to love about this installment, which carries on from the Imperial massacre on the planet Ghorman in the previous episode, “Who Are You?”
The series’ narrative lines finally intersect as Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) rescues Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) from Coruscant, as she can no longer hide and resist in plain sight. (Hence, “Welcome to the Rebellion.”) “Andor” is a thrilling spy show, and this sort of sustained chase sequence is what that genre does best.
Then there’s the heartbreaking conclusion, where Cassian’s beloved Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona) leaves him behind; his work in the Rebellion is too important, she’s decided, and they must postpone their happy ending until the war is over. If you’ve seen “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” you’ll know that Cassian will never live to see the sun rise on a world free of the Empire. (But, as the very last scene of “Andor” shows, his sacrifice meant that Bix and their child did.)
The crux of the episode, though, is Mon giving a speech in the Galactic Senate, denouncing the Ghorman massacre and the unseen Emperor Palpatine. Like Mon dropping any pretense that she isn’t a Rebel, this is when “Andor” most loudly declares what it’s saying about the real world.
