section_path: Reception/Critical response/Season 2
section_name: Season 2
paragraph_text: Season 2
  
  Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 97% with an average rating of 8.95/10 based on 185 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Investing startling conviction and gravity into the Star Wars sandbox, Andor ' s superb second season lights a fire of rebellion that heats up the screen." Metacritic assigned a score of 92 out of 100 based on 32 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
  
  Writing for Collider, Maggie Lovett wrote that "the only flaw in the entire series is the fact that it's over now. Luckily, it is an end worthy of one of the most impactful characters Star Wars has ever created, with this grand finale a triumph for both Gilroy and Luna." Writing for Vulture, Nicholas Quah wrote that " second season doesn't just cement the show's standing as the best Star Wars project ever made. Andor reorients that fantasy in the service of something greater than itself. Andor is a miracle, and we'd be so lucky if we see something like it ever again."
  
  In a review for Empire, Sophie Butcher wrote the second season was "beautifully made, cleverly structured and genuinely moving", and "solidifies Tony Gilroy's spin-off as one of the greats. This is Star Wars — and small-screen storytelling in general — at its best."
  
  The sexual assault of Bix Caleen by Imperial officer Lieutenant Krole in the third episode "Harvest" attracted a mixed reception from some viewers and fans. Other fans defended the scene for highlighting the plight of undocumented migrants, the evil of fascist regimes or compared it to the Princess Leia "slave bikini" costume in Return of the Jedi (1983). During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, showrunner Gilroy defended the scene, arguing that shying from sexual assault was not authentic for a war story. He said:
  
  I mean, let's be honest, man: The history of civilization, there's a huge arterial component of it that's rape. All of us who are here — we are all the product of rape. I mean armies and power throughout history. So to not touch on it, in some way … It just was organic and it felt right, coming about as a power trip for this guy. I was really trying to make a path for Bix that would ultimately lead to clarity — but a difficult path to get back to clarity.
  
  Caleen's actor Adria Arjona also defended the scene, stating:
  
  The fact that I get to speak it out — I felt so much power in that. I felt it throughout the day. I felt it when I finished filming, and I went home.
  
  Arjona confirmed that she worked with director Ariel Kleiman while filming Caleen's confrontation with Krole, stating that she gave input into a scene showing her character breaking free of Krole by backhanding him.
  
  The death of Cinta Kaz in the sixth episode "What a Festive Evening" received mixed reactions from critics and fans. Some critics called her death a "misstep", a "slap in the face" which furthers the "emotional arc of her white counterpart", furthers "regressive tropes" like bury your gays, reinforced the franchise's bad track record for LGBTQ characters, and said that fans were "rightfully upset", while calling inclusion of Cinta Kaz and Vel Sartha a "step forward". PinkNews and Den of Geek reported that fans were "rightfully upset" with the death of Cinta, with a "mixture of heartbreak and rage", and asserting that the series was deploying negative tropes in the process. Other critics and commenters said that the death of Cinta was a "painful reminder of how rarely our stories are allowed to be fully told", and was heartbreaking, following a trend of how "queer relationships often get written in Hollywood" by fridging the Vel/Cinta couple.
  
  Critics for Gizmodo, TheGamer, and Polygon gave a different view. They argued that the death of Cinta did not follow negative tropes, but that treating queer characters as full characters requires "sometimes...putting them at risk" and has queer characters being "treated the same as straight ones", with her death treated with weight rather than pure "shock value", with no character safe from death in the series. These critics acknowledged that the franchise has work to do when it comes to "introducing prominent LGBTQ characters", criticized the queer representation in Star Wars as "incredibly bleak", called her death "bitter", "retrograde", and praised Vel's speech to the one who killed Cinta. During an interview with TVLine, showrunner Gilroy said he treats the kiss between Vel and Cinta as "a regular thing" and described their relationship something which connects to bigger themes "about revolution and what it costs you to be involved in it, and the kind of courage it takes" and defended the death of Cinta, saying that if people don't die, "it would really be disingenuous", while adding that calling for Cinta to die was "tough decision to make, tough phone calls to make to the actors."
  
  Varada Sethu, who plays Cinta, told Variety, in an interview, that she was glad to see that "people cared about Cinta in the way that I care about her", calling it heartwarming, and saying Cinta's death was "cleverly done and...truthful in how people experience death", while saying it is "shocking", she predicted that Cinta would "die in the rebellion", and adding that if Cinta and Vel had survived, they would dream of going "into hiding somewhere if they could" but would actually "end up staying in the rebellion." In an interview with Elle, Sethu said that the death of Cinta "made perfect sense" while tragic and clever, adding that she could "fangirl about this show forever" noted that the kiss scene between Vel and Cinta was "a bit...off-the-cuff" and called the relationship between Cinta and Vel as a real and flawed which is a "mirror into the world".
  
  Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 97% with an average rating of 8.95/10 based on 185 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Investing startling conviction and gravity into the Star Wars sandbox, Andor ' s superb second season lights a fire of rebellion that heats up the screen." Metacritic assigned a score of 92 out of 100 based on 32 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
  
  Writing for Collider, Maggie Lovett wrote that "the only flaw in the entire series is the fact that it's over now. Luckily, it is an end worthy of one of the most impactful characters Star Wars has ever created, with this grand finale a triumph for both Gilroy and Luna." Writing for Vulture, Nicholas Quah wrote that " second season doesn't just cement the show's standing as the best Star Wars project ever made. Andor reorients that fantasy in the service of something greater than itself. Andor is a miracle, and we'd be so lucky if we see something like it ever again."
  
  In a review for Empire, Sophie Butcher wrote the second season was "beautifully made, cleverly structured and genuinely moving", and "solidifies Tony Gilroy's spin-off as one of the greats. This is Star Wars — and small-screen storytelling in general — at its best."
  
  The sexual assault of Bix Caleen by Imperial officer Lieutenant Krole in the third episode "Harvest" attracted a mixed reception from some viewers and fans. Other fans defended the scene for highlighting the plight of undocumented migrants, the evil of fascist regimes or compared it to the Princess Leia "slave bikini" costume in Return of the Jedi (1983). During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, showrunner Gilroy defended the scene, arguing that shying from sexual assault was not authentic for a war story. He said:
  
  I mean, let's be honest, man: The history of civilization, there's a huge arterial component of it that's rape. All of us who are here — we are all the product of rape. I mean armies and power throughout history. So to not touch on it, in some way … It just was organic and it felt right, coming about as a power trip for this guy. I was really trying to make a path for Bix that would ultimately lead to clarity — but a difficult path to get back to clarity.
  
  Caleen's actor Adria Arjona also defended the scene, stating:
  
  The fact that I get to speak it out — I felt so much power in that. I felt it throughout the day. I felt it when I finished filming, and I went home.
  
  Arjona confirmed that she worked with director Ariel Kleiman while filming Caleen's confrontation with Krole, stating that she gave input into a scene showing her character breaking free of Krole by backhanding him.
  
  The death of Cinta Kaz in the sixth episode "What a Festive Evening" received mixed reactions from critics and fans. Some critics called her death a "misstep", a "slap in the face" which furthers the "emotional arc of her white counterpart", furthers "regressive tropes" like bury your gays, reinforced the franchise's bad track record for LGBTQ characters, and said that fans were "rightfully upset", while calling inclusion of Cinta Kaz and Vel Sartha a "step forward". PinkNews and Den of Geek reported that fans were "rightfully upset" with the death of Cinta, with a "mixture of heartbreak and rage", and asserting that the series was deploying negative tropes in the process. Other critics and commenters said that the death of Cinta was a "painful reminder of how rarely our stories are allowed to be fully told", and was heartbreaking, following a trend of how "queer relationships often get written in Hollywood" by fridging the Vel/Cinta couple.
  
  Critics for Gizmodo, TheGamer, and Polygon gave a different view. They argued that the death of Cinta did not follow negative tropes, but that treating queer characters as full characters requires "sometimes...putting them at risk" and has queer characters being "treated the same as straight ones", with her death treated with weight rather than pure "shock value", with no character safe from death in the series. These critics acknowledged that the franchise has work to do when it comes to "introducing prominent LGBTQ characters", criticized the queer representation in Star Wars as "incredibly bleak", called her death "bitter", "retrograde", and praised Vel's speech to the one who killed Cinta. During an interview with TVLine, showrunner Gilroy said he treats the kiss between Vel and Cinta as "a regular thing" and described their relationship something which connects to bigger themes "about revolution and what it costs you to be involved in it, and the kind of courage it takes" and defended the death of Cinta, saying that if people don't die, "it would really be disingenuous", while adding that calling for Cinta to die was "tough decision to make, tough phone calls to make to the actors."
  
  Varada Sethu, who plays Cinta, told Variety, in an interview, that she was glad to see that "people cared about Cinta in the way that I care about her", calling it heartwarming, and saying Cinta's death was "cleverly done and...truthful in how people experience death", while saying it is "shocking", she predicted that Cinta would "die in the rebellion", and adding that if Cinta and Vel had survived, they would dream of going "into hiding somewhere if they could" but would actually "end up staying in the rebellion." In an interview with Elle, Sethu said that the death of Cinta "made perfect sense" while tragic and clever, adding that she could "fangirl about this show forever" noted that the kiss scene between Vel and Cinta was "a bit...off-the-cuff" and called the relationship between Cinta and Vel as a real and flawed which is a "mirror into the world".