For the latest episode of The Rogue Ones podcast, hosts Mike DeAngelo and Rodrigo Perez sat down once again with Tony Gilroy, the creator and showrunner behind “Andor”, to unpack the ambitious second season in full spoiler-filled detail.
Created by Tony Gilroy and starring Diego Luna as Cassian Andor, “Andor” is a prequel to “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” (which Gilroy co-wrote and famously helped reshape during reshoots). Set five years before the events of Rogue One, the show focuses on the origins of the Rebellion and how ordinary people — not just Jedi or Chosen Ones — stand up against oppression. Season two picks up a year later in the first three episodes and jumps one year ahead with each block of three afterwards, leading directly to the beginning of “Rogue One” by the end (read our review of season two here).
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When asked about his key objectives for the final season, Tony Gilroy stresses that dazzling the audience with story and suspense always comes first, but behind that is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to say something larger.
“No one’s ever going to get another 1,500 pages and this kind of money to make a comprehensive survey about revolution and insurrection,” Gilroy says. “So if I don’t do propaganda? If I don’t get the difficulty of coalitions? If I don’t show the way people get chewed up and forgotten? Then I’ve failed.”
He adds, “I have to dazzle first. I have to be specific second. Then I have to make sure I get a couple of these big ideas in there.”
When discussing the characters of Cyril and Dedra, Gilroy doesn’t shy away from the tragic implications of their arcs. “Cyril is really a romantic,” he explains. “He has this loud internal monologue of fantasy. I’m really sympathetic to him. As much of a dick as he is, he’s a tragic figure.” For Gilroy, Episode 8 (“Who Are You?”) is the character’s defining moment. “We all get chewed up, man. That’s universal. Companies chew people up and spit them out. You could take Cyril and put him in Dunder Mifflin, for f**k’s sake.”
Constraints during production also led to surprising creative victories. One standout example being an abandoned horror-inspired episode for K-2SO set on a shipping freighter. “It was fantastic,” Gilroy says. “But we couldn’t afford it. So what do we do? We do more Gorman. And in retrospect, I wouldn’t go back and change it. I like the way we solved it.”
One of Gilroy’s most meaningful creative moments was crafting Luthen’s death, a sequence he says he had “sketched for a long time.” The emotional climax—Luthen’s quiet confrontation with Dedra in the gallery, and his ultimate sacrifice at the hands of Kleya—was both intimate and deliberate. “[Dedra] ’s got to go into that shop,” Gilroy explains, referring to Dedra’s long-simmering pursuit. “I was just dying to get Dedra and Luthen together. My God, hell yeah.” Though another version of Luthen’s arc was once imagined, Gilroy stands by the final approach. “Very often, the problem-solving is the better solution.”
As for the final shot of the series—Bix, cradling a child, walking into a wheatfield on Mina-Rau—Gilroy says the hope was essential. “There has to be a candle in the window. Or then it’s just sadistic.”
Asked about the possibility of spin-offs or a third season, Gilroy is clear: there were never serious talks about Season 3 once the decision was made to jump from a five-season plan to two. “It laid out perfectly,” he explains. “I don’t think the show would have come together the same way if people didn’t know there was a finish line.”
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All episodes of “Andor” are now available to stream on Disney+. Listen to the entire interview with Tony Gilroy below:

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