With Andor, writer/director Tony Gilroy has arguably created one of the best chapters of Star Wars ever seen – not to mention one of the best TV shows of the year. Tony Gilroy still has the entirety of Andor Season 2 to do, with production already getting underway. But what about after that?
Gilroy has clearly demonstrated that his interest in Star Wars is leaning into a very different side of the franchise than we’ve seen in recent years: much darker, more dramatic, and serious ruminations on the social implications of the franchise’s Empire vs. Rebellion struggle. Very little of the high fantasy about Jedi and lightsabers and destinies metered out by the Force. It’s made Andor a more slow-burn case of popularity and success for a Star Wars product, but the acclaim is certainly there.
So will Tony Gilroy join the likes of Star Wars Animation guru Dave Filoni, and directors like Taika Waititi, Jon Favreau, Deborah Chow, and Bryce Dallas Howard in helping carve out his own corner of the Star Wars TV Universe? It’s a daunting question that Gilroy does not pretend to have an immediate answer to; nor is it an opportunity he will shoot down:
“I literally could not even begin to answer that. There’s no way to know that. It certainly doesn’t feel that way to me,” Gilroy told THR in response to a question about whether or not he’d do more. “It seems like at the end of the five years, I’m going to want to go do something else. I mean, I always like to do something else. I’ve never tried to do the same thing again, but I wouldn’t say never or no or anything. But what I know for sure is I don’t know.”
To be fair, what Tony Gilroy, his brother Dan, and House of Cards writer Beau Williamson have planned for Season 2 is pretty ambitious, and deserves focus. After Andor Sesaon 1 brought Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor fully into the Rebellion, Season 2 will then hop through the five years between the events of Season 1, and the start of Cassian Andor’s final mission in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Andor Season 1 set that ball rolling, by having Cassian’s time in the Narkina 5 prison link to directly to the construction of the Death Star – a mystery we know he will investigate until the very end.
If Gilroy and co. pull all of that off, then taking the big win and bowing out on top would be okay. But we’d also take more Gilroy-brand Star Wars, in a heartbeat.
Andor Season 1 is now streaming on Disney+.