Diego Luna is back in the lead role of Cassian Andor for the show’s second season, available on Disney+ Plus starting April 23. First seen in the 2016 film Rogue One, Cassian is one of the countless unsung heroes of the rebellion against the Empire.

The first season dealt with Andor’s more formative years, how he became part of the Rebel Alliance, and all the things that forged his worldview, including being locked up and forced to assemble parts for what would eventually be the Death Star. 

The second season picks up some time later and covers several years worth of events, about how Andor fits into the Rebel Alliance that is slowly forming to combat the spreading tyranny of the Empire.

Being about a rebellion, there’s plenty of espionage and secret meetings and lies and cover ups in season 2, as you might expect. As such it behooves any viewer to go see season one first.

This isn’t a show you jump into, even if you’re not new to Star Wars. A lot is going on, and even with a 14-minute catch-up episode already available on Disney Plus, there are many things and characters to get to know to get the full effect and be able to follow along with Season 2.

New characters introduced in the first outing, like Stellan Skarsgård’s Luthen, a sort of Nick Fury-ish spymaster character return for the second season. Other more legacy characters also make appearances. Characters like Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker), Mon Mothma, played by Genevieve O' Reilly, and a couple of others I won’t spoil, help to further weave the story of Andor in with the bigger tapestry of the Star Wars Canon.

Doing a prequel or a show set in the past is always tricky. There is a very real chance of doing or saying something that contradicts an already well-established or well-loved fact of the universe, and no one wants to open that can of continuity worms. So far, though, Andor has kept itself clean on that front.

Like season, however, Andor still takes time to find its footing. The first few episodes are slow. But at around the halfway point, it picks up and doesn’t stop, pulling you in over your head, in a good way. The show is probably the most pragmatic of the Star Wars shows, the most practical, and that is appropriate as the subject matter is something to take very seriously.

On the surface, you’ll see the heroism and righteousness of doing the right thing, fighting for freedom. Everything the rebellion was about in the original trilogy. But behind that is the loss, sacrifice, compromises, and blood it took to get the rebellion off the ground. It looks at the entire conflict of Star Wars through a different lens, one with no Jedi or Sith or the Force, just regular sentient beings doing what needs to be done.

If I were to have a critique of the show, I’d say it needs more aliens. The struggle is a galactic one, it would have worked if we saw a bit more of the alien races pulling their weight in the rebellion.

That little oversight aside, Andor Season 2 is a solid piece of Star Wars storytelling that presents a more nuanced and complex view of familiar events in the Star Wars universe. Definitely worth a watch on Disney+.