Andor Showrunner Doesn’t Care That He Just Made Star Wars History

Warning! This post contains SPOILERS for Andor season 2, episodes 1-6.

Andor season 2 just made Star Wars history with one scene in episode 6, but Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy doesn’t want to make too big a fuss about it. Andor season 2 has released 6 of its 12 episodes so far, and this brand-new addition to Star Wars movies and TV shows clearly doesn’t mind changing the game. So far, this has included everything from Star Wars’ first use of the word rape to newfound insight into how the Empire kept the Death Star a secret.

Andor episode 6 included yet another franchise-altering moment with the first on-screen lesbian kiss between named characters, Vel Sartha and Cinta Kaz. Although this made Star Wars history, Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy told TVLine that he doesn’t see it as anything other than a “regular thing”:

“I think it’s a mistake to try to underline everything and put a halo on things….I don’t think about it, it really doesn’t come up. We treat it like a regular thing.”

Soon after this kiss in Andor episode 6, Cinta Kaz sadly also dies as a result of friendly fire. On that point, Gilroy was also fairly blunt:

“Look, this [season] is taking place over four years during a war. If people don’t go down in a variety of ways, it would really be disingenuous. I don’t think it would feel right to people. It’s a tough decision to make, tough phone calls to make to the actors….s*** happens.”

It seems that, for Gilroy at least, this moment is business as usual, but the larger implication for the Star Wars franchise is arguably quite a bit bigger than that.

Star Wars Has A Bad History With Lesbian Romance

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Has Already Revealed As Much

Although Andor season 2, episode 6 marks the first on-screen queer kiss in Star Wars between named characters, this is not technically the first on-screen lesbian kiss in the franchise. At the end of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, two unnamed women kiss during the movie’s final celebration, after the First Order (and the Final Order) has come to an end. This was immediately criticized by LGBTQ+ viewers, however, because it did little in terms of queer representation; some felt it was more a throwaway moment than a genuine commitment to inclusion.

Worse still, this kiss was actually cut from some international releases of the movie. Given that history, it’s perhaps little surprise that Star Wars has shied away from depicting anything similar on screen over the last six years. This suggests that the moment between Vel and Cinta is rather significant, which makes it a bit curious that Gilroy seems so resistant to addressing it as such.

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The Importance Of This Scene Shouldn’t Be Diminished

I’ll admit to being a bit disappointed in Gilroy’s comments on this scene. On the one hand, I understand and appreciate where Gilroy is coming from. It’s refreshing to see queerness depicted on screen (especially in a franchise like Star Wars that has so rarely included it) and to know it’s being represented as something regular. That’s frankly a wonderful way to normalize queerness. However, it shouldn’t be overlooked that this is groundbreaking in Star Wars, and that is important, especially for LGBTQ+ audiences.

I wish Gilroy had thought a bit more, at least in his response, about the implications of a character being killed off immediately after a lesbian kiss. Some viewers have waited a long time to see a queer kiss by named characters on the Star Wars screen, and it could be interpreted as offering that only to take it away to have killed Cinta so soon after. Tony Gilroy is right that things happen in war, but I still wish this history-making Star Wars moment hadn’t immediately been followed by one character’s death in Andor season 2.

Source: TVLine

New episodes of Andor season 2 release weekly on Tuesdays at 9 PM EST/6 PM PST on Disney+.

Andor

8/10

Release Date

2022 – 2025-00-00

Network

Disney+

Showrunner

Tony Gilroy

Directors

Susanna White

Writers

Dan Gilroy