[Editor’s note: The following interview contains spoilers for “Andor” Season 2, Episodes 1-3.]
When Tony Gilroy determined that every block of “Andor” Season 2 episodes would happen a 12 months aside, he knew these blocks needed to cowl “essentially the most intense three days” of every given 12 months. That began with the marriage, the “defining clock” for Episodes 1-3.
“Mon Mothma is simply completely upended — and my God, is Cassian going to get again in time to avoid wasting everyone from the Mina Rau? And I’ve acquired Eedy coming for lunch,” Gilroy mentioned with a chuckle in a dialog with IndieWire. “On paper, everybody was like, actually? However… her arrival at lunch is as heavy as any of these different issues.”
Sure, as intense as issues are with Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), we merely can’t transfer on with out addressing the brand new dynamic between Dedra (Denise Gough) and Syril (Kyle Soller). In Season 1, the 2 empire fanatics have been separated as they closed in on Cassian (Diego Luna) and the rebels, solely coming face-to-face within the ultimate episodes (so shut, in truth, {that a} sure critic I do know whispered “kiss” in the course of the Season 1 finale).
Season 2 catches up with the fascist lovebirds not solely in a relationship, however residing collectively, a storyline that tilts into comedy when Syril’s mom (Kathryn Hunter) comes to go to. Episodes 1-3 have been directed by Ariel Kleiman, whom Gilroy referred to as a “lovely director” and praised for Syril’s neurotic lunch prep. Composer Brandon Roberts added to the farce with a “Sixties sitcom cue” that the showrunner referred to as “impressed.”
“When you see them collectively, it was scrumptious to put in writing,” he mentioned. “The Empire, for her, it’s a god. For him, it’s a spot of security — however he’s a romantic. He’s a fantasist, and he’s acquired a really loud, imaginative inner dialog inside his head … you most likely know relationships like that, the place two individuals kind of need the identical factor, and so long as the their causes for it usually are not examined, every little thing will probably be OK.”
Gough was initially in opposition to any romance for Dedra, lest it overtake the remainder of her arc, however the character may be very a lot intact within the Season 2 premiere. She’s nonetheless a hardworking area Nazi girlboss, and people who longed to see her share display time with Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) have been shortly rewarded in a scene that’s “lighting the fuse on what will probably be a very integral a part of the entire story.”
That fuse is Ghorman, a bit of peripheral Star Wars lore that will probably be central to “Andor” Season 2 — and is launched chillingly on this week’s episodes. As a historical past buff, Gilroy shared his fascination with the Wannsee Convention of 1942, the place the Nazis “principally had a PowerPoint luncheon to resolve the best way to kill six million individuals.”
“It’s so within the temperature of our present … to make use of propaganda over an extended time period to destroy a tradition,” he mentioned. “One of many issues that the propagandists will use is the insularity of the neighborhood, the pleasure of the neighborhood … take that and use it as a weapon in opposition to them, and watch that flip and see how efficient the propaganda might be to curdle that idea.”
“The idea of media, controlling media, and the best way energy controls media and weaponizes media … when you’ve got the chance to do a 1,500-page story about revolution and oppression and rebellion, it could actually be a disgrace if you happen to didn’t get that notice of the court docket in there someplace.”
“Andor” Season 2, Episodes 1-3 at the moment are streaming on Disney+.