The “Star Wars” movies, TV dramas, animated series and sundry other content-shaped products have shown us some spectacular sights: underwater civilizations, planet-choking cities, mystic swamps, ice worlds and volcanic hellscapes fit to forge a demon.
“Andor,” whose second and final season began on Disney+ on Tuesday, has some of that world painting too. But perhaps its most memorable, and certainly its most definitive, physical feature is: bricks.
The brick walls on Ferrix — the childhood home planet of the series’s hero, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) — have a somber origin story, revealed in the first-season finale. They are the cremains of the dead, baked into stone and placed into edifices to support those who come after.
These bricks are the symbol “Andor” is built out of. Like many “Star Wars” stories, the series is about a battle against a fascistic empire. (In the melee that ends the first season, set at Cassian’s mother’s funeral, her brick is used to clock an imperial soldier in the head.)
From a street-level, brick-level perspective, “Andor” shows what resistance means, how it works and what it costs. It emphasizes not just individual heroism but also collective loss and sacrifice. In “Andor,” rebellion is more than a joyride: It is a construction project.
A sense of tragedy is built into the series’s premise. “Andor” is a prequel to the 2016 movie “Rogue One,” in which Cassian goes on a fatal mission to retrieve the blueprints for the Death Star, the planet-killer that Luke Skywalker destroyed in the original “Star Wars” (now known as “A New Hope”).
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.