I don’t know if I belong to the more popular Star Wars fans, but due to my age my impact came with the original trilogy and my reaction to the prequels and sequels was lukewarm, but I consider Rogue One one of the 3 best of the entire franchise. And Andor is, without a doubt, the best Disney series. It’s good that it will have a second season (and too bad it’s only in 2024).

The final episode of Season 1 is perfect and heartwarming. Ties up some important Rebellion threads. And nothing forced. Tony Gilroy signs the script and, with the direction of Benjamin Caron, makes a final episode unique in the quality of narrative and characters. It’s a rising tension, well-sewn, and completely perfectly contextualized. Enemies that cross paths without realizing it, friends that become opponents. It’s perfect.

We see that Cassian (Diego Luna), shaken by the news of the death of his mother, Maarva (Fiona Shaw), makes the expected (wrong?) decision: he returns for her funeral. It’s what the Empire expects and with that, there’s a conversion of almost all characters to Ferrix. That’s right, from Imperial agents Dedra (Denise Gough), Syril (Kyle Soller), Partagaz (Anton Lesser), and Blevin (Ben Bailey Smith) to Luthen (Stellan Skarsgard), Cinta (Varada Sethu) and Vel (Faye Marsay), everyone is out on the streets looking for Cassian Andor. The incredible thing is that while the imperialists want to take Cassian alive (to reach Luthen), the rebels want to eliminate our protagonist.

In addition to showing the daily life of the “common men” of the rebellion, without including Siths or Jedis, Andor is a more “realistic”, deeper story, without such clear good guys and villains. There’s dirt on both sides of the fight. Cassian is, as I said before, the best anti-hero in the entire franchise. Not only does he go back to honor his mother, but he also goes kamikaze to save Bix (Adria Arjona). The best of all.

I won’t go into detail on the plot twists to avoid even more spoilers. They’re all perfect. Dedra’s vulnerability of seconds and, above all, the Maarva speech scene, coupled with Nemik’s (Alex Lawther) reading of the manifesto make Cassian the rebel leader we know in Rogue One. It’s creepy.

A hint? Don’t skip the credits. They explain (confirm) what Andor and the prisoners of prisoners from Narkina-5 were building. Amazing.