By George & Josh Bate
At a surprise Andor pop-up event in California this weekend, Tony Gilroy’s original pitch for the critically acclaimed final season of the Star Wars series was revealed.
The pitch describes the hit Disney+ show as “a two-part novel,” with the log line: “Andor is an adventure story about the rise of a galactic revolution, told through the journey of a nobody who ascends to an epic journey.” The pitch also hits an “epic” sacrifices, a “toxic, last minute breakup” between Syril an Dedra, and a “passionate, complex real love” between Cassian and Bix.
Check out Tony Gilroy’s full story pitch for Andor Season 2 below….
Andor Season 2 Pitch
December 2022
A quick summary of the next/last twelve episodes.
Our frame? Think of it as a two-part novel. We’re doing twelve more episodes to wrap up the second half of the story.
The one line? Andor is an adventure story about the rise of a galactic revolution, told through the journey of a nobody who ascends to an epic destiny.
When we return for Season Two, a year will have passed since the riot on Ferrix an Cassian’s take-me-or-kill-me ultimatum to Luthen. He’s now at the tip of Luthen’s spear, and we’ll realize how ambitious the network has grown and how much Cassian has changed already.
Cassian & Bix. We let it loose. A passionate, complex, real love between two people who’ve been orbiting their whole lives and are ready now to make it together. We saw the power of their connection in Season One. We’ll lean into this now. They deserve a relationship worthy of the ingredients.
No one this season is exempt from sacrifice. Bix will face her deepest dilemma as she senses the strange pull of Cassian’s destiny. In Block #3, they’ll encounter a “Force healer” who’ll dial-in instantly to his aura. Cassian can’t escape fast enough. But the encounter resonates for Bix. She can’t help replaying the miracles of Cassian’s journey and wonder. What if the galaxy’s need for Cassian is more important than hers?
Ultimately, she’ll do more than let him go – she’ll force herself to push him away. She senses what’s coming. It’s an epic decision and terribly sad, but there will (SPOILER) be a ray of sunshine at the very end.
There’s another romance in Season Two. Dedra & Syril. We’ll find them living together. Their relationship will be no less complicated.
ISB Director Krennic will order Dedra to abandon her pursuit of ‘Axis’ (Luthen) to take charge of a horrifying program to prepare the planet Ghorman for complete annihilation.
Ghorman, unbeknownst to all but a very few Imperial conspirators, is the sole source of a mineral essential to the Death Star’s operation. If alternatives are not developed in time, Ghorman will need to be destroyed.
Taking Ghorman won’t be easy.
Syril has been increasingly curious why his girlfriend isn’t more interested in his counterinsurgency progress, and utterly gobsmacked to discover he’s been nothing more than a tool of the Emperor’s “energy program.”
It’s a toxic, last-minute breakup that will send Syril into the thick of the Ghorman plaza riot as first shots are fired. All his beliefs have been trashed – his woman – his values – his respect for the Empire. He’ll wonder, dazed, as the massacre explodes around him.
And then he’ll see Cassian Andor…
Syril will die in Ghorman. He’ll be celebrated as a martyr.
The Ghorman Massacre is Mon Mothma’s canonical red line. It’s this event that prompts her stand in the Senate Chamber. She wil denounce the Emperor and be forced to flee.
We’ll be right there. The final episode of Block #3 will take place in Coruscant the day after the massacre. Bail Organa will orchestrate the politics that get Mon to the podium. She’ll deliver a barn-burning speech and make her daring escape from Coruscant with someone she’s never met – Cassian Andor.
Sadly, as she joins the growing Rebel Alliance on Yavin, Luthen’s exile will become increasingly stark. The larger movement he’s spent his life working for has brought with it a new buffet of egos, betrayals, and suspicions. How does one scale up a clandestine spy network? Yavin will grow too big to trust and Luthen’s been a one-man show for too long. Paranoia is inevitable.
Luthen’s defiance will see him so discredited that, even when he gives everything for the the intel that will lead to the discovery of the Death Star, the information will be discounted as the ravings of an outlier.
Kleya will bear the brunt of this injustie. Cassian will ignore the noise about his controversial mentor and break rank to source the rumors of kyber crystal and Galen Erso.
Their sacrifices, like so many of our characters, will be epic.
Tony