Ever since Andor debuted on Disney+ in 2022, it’s been known as the “gritty” Star Wars show. Created by Michael Clayton mastermind Tony Gilroy and focused on the everyday people caught up in the Empire’s maw of malevolence, there’s been little, if any, reference to Jedi, Sith, or the Force in Andor. That is, until this week.
**Spoilers for Andor Season 2 Episodes 7-9, now streaming on Disney+**
Andor Season 2 Episode 7 opens, naturally, one year after last week’s episodes. Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and Bix (Adria Arjona) have settled into a cozy treehouse on the Rebel Alliance’s base, Yavin IV. While life seems to have generally improved for the couple, Cassian is dealing with a blaster wound on his shoulder that simply will not heal. Bix tricks him into visiting a “Force healer” (Josie Walker) who not only helps ease Cassian’s pain, but she also reveals his larger destiny in the Star Wars universe.
So why now? Why introduce the Force at this point in Andor‘s run on Disney+?
“I think we knew we had to do something with it. We really wanted to touch on it. It would have been really just uncool to not do it, but how to do it?” Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy told DECIDER.
Gilroy said it made sense to connect the Force with this moment in the series where he wanted to start “pulling together all these pieces and saying, ‘Oh my God, there’s destiny here.'”
“The idea of reluctant destiny is really fascinating. You know, I mean, we have religions based on that. So that was the right moment,” he said.
Gilroy’s next challenge was to figure out “how subtle” or not to make Andor‘s foray into the Force. Gilroy credited the “people at Lucasfilm,” specifically lore king Pablo Hidalgo, with pointing out that the Force is actually quite mysterious in the Star Wars universe.
“Like, how many people, how many beings in this gigantic galaxy are even aware of this Force? Like nobody! Nobody,” Gilroy said. “It’s like, how many beings in the galaxy have ever seen a lightsaber? Well, probably almost no one, you know?”
“So that gave us a great deal of latitude with how to deal with it and how to make it work for us.”
Instead of introducing a Jedi, Andor deals with the aforementioned nameless Force healer. What’s striking about the scene is that she seems more moved by the encounter than even Cassian is.
“The idea of a flickering flame inside of this woman,” Gilroy said. “I think the key line there was when she thanks him. To thank him because she hasn’t felt that in a long time. That his whatever his aura is, is so, so powerful that it just cuts through all the muck, the drain that’s been clogged in her abilities there.”
Before fans start speculating that all may not be as it seems with this woman, Gilroy said, “I think everything she says is true. I don’t think she knows anything more than she says. I think she’s telling them everything she knows.”
Gilroy also shared that this moment has a twin later in Andor Season 2 Episode 9.
“It’s as important as the scene that he has with Luthen at the back of the Senate, where Luthen is like, ‘How are you, how did this happen? How are you everywhere?'” Gilroy said. “Even Luthan starts to wonder what the hell’s happening.”
Still, the introduction of the Force healer is the big watershed moment for the larger mystical ideas of destiny, fate, and the Force, as they’ll pertain to Cassian’s story in the already-made Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
“It’s the moment where I really have to start the story of his dawning awareness of, ‘Why am I still alive?'” Gilroy said.
Star Wars fans already know the answer to that question. Cassian Andor is meant to steal the Death Star plans.
The final three episodes of Andor premiere next Tuesday, May 13 at 9 PM ET on Disney+.