Andor Season 2 Will Return To A Famous Star Wars Location

The debut season of "Andor" well and truly put the "war" back in Star Wars, documenting the (literally) explosive origin story for the rebel without a cause Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and his arc to becoming the Rebellion leader we first met back in 2016's "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story." The Disney+ series instantly made waves for its more grown-up approach to the franchise, prioritizing tight scripts and a strong narrative over fan-service references or franchise-expanding cameos. Thankfully, season 2 is bringing back showrunner Tony Gilroy and his writers for the next stage of Andor's journey ... but who says this creative team can't have their cake and eat it, too?

It's already been revealed that the upcoming batch of episodes will bring back fan-favorite characters like the droid K-2SO (voiced and mo-capped by Alan Tudyk) and the villainous Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), but diehard fans can look forward to even more classic Star Wars connections. "Andor" is set to return to one of the franchise's most famous locations, as revealed in a new issue of (the fittingly-named) Empire Magazine. This season will have a tall task ahead of it, taking this prequel storyline and bridging the gap right up to the opening moments of "Rogue One." With that in mind, perhaps it was always inevitable that this show would bring us right back to where it all started: the famed Rebel base known as Yavin IV. Not only did Gilroy confirm this tidbit while speaking to Empire, but he even teased a new twist on the legendary locale, too:

"I mean, we have to end up in Yavin, right? So, we'll tell the story of Yavin. No one has quite dealt with Yavin the way we will be doing it."

If you thought season 1 of "Andor" was a planet-hopping adventure, bringing Cassian from his childhood home world of Kenari to that thrilling heist on Aldhani to the planet Ferrix (the setting for that stirring uprising and the memorable "Fight the Empire!" speech), we ain't seen nothing yet. This next installment won't quite unfold the same way the first 12 episodes did, taking place in a relatively short period of time. Instead, this second and final season will introduce a time-jump spanning four years of Cassian's life as it catches up to the events of "Rogue One." Reportedly, that will give Tony Gilroy and the writers all sorts of room to travel throughout that galaxy far, far away.

In the same issue of Empire, star Diego Luna promised that, "We move in space more than ever — the amount of planets and sets you're going to get to see. There are some familiar and new locations." We already know that one familiar setting will be Yavin IV, but there's no telling where else this prequel may take us. "Rogue One" took us back to unexpected places such as Mustafar, the volcanic planet that once hosted the tragic duel between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, so it's safe to say that Gilroy likely has even more surprises up his sleeve this time around. As for other lingering mysteries to be fully explored, we'll also get to see how Cassian and his sarcastic droid K-2SO became buddies in the first place. According to Luna:

"From an audience perspective, they've probably made their own story about how Cassian and K-2 got to work together. It tells you a lot about Cassian that his best friend is a droid. And a droid he had to reprogram. But how did that actually happen and who was he before? Those questions are going to be answered."

"Andor" season 2 will debut on Disney+ April 22, 2025.