By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
For Star Wars fans, it was almost impossible not to compare the failure of The Acolyte to the immense success of Andor, though many felt the two shows had almost nothing in common. Now, though, they will have at least one shocking similarity: Andor season 2 is going to use time jumps to tell its story, something that The Acolyte tried to do in its first and only season. Fortunately for fans, Andor is only jumping forward in time, meaning that its second season will avoid the back-and-forth time jumps of The Acolyte that simply left everyone confused.
The Time Jumps Of Andor Season 2
What time jumps in Andor Season 2 are we talking about, though? Previously, showrunner Tony Gilroy confirmed that the show’s second and final season would have 12 episodes and that after every four episodes, the story would jump forward in time. In this way, the show will explore its titular character’s service to the Rebellion over four years that lead up to the events of Rogue One.
Now, The Acolyte also had time jumps, but that show approached them in a very different way that left far too many fans unsatisfied. While Andor season 2 will regularly jump forward in time, The Acolyte used multiple time jumps back in time in order to explain things like the origins of the mysterious, Force-sensitive twins Osha and Mae and Sol’s culpability in killing the Force witches who raised them. The obvious intent was for The Acolyte to throw us into the story in media res and leave us with many initial questions that the later flashback episodes answered.
Why am I convinced that the time jumps in Andor season 2 will make for more effective storytelling than in The Acolyte? Personally, my main problem with The Acolyte’s flashbacks is that they killed the show’s momentum.
The Problem With The Acolyte Time Jumps
The series already had pacing problems, but the time jumps made this problem infinitely worse: just when audiences began wondering why Jedi Master Torbin willingly killed himself, for example, we got an episode set 16 years in the past that did nothing to answer the question. It would be answered four episodes later by another flashback episode whose timing killed all interest in the growing relationship between Qmir and Osha.
Basically, The Acolyte did everything backward, using flashback time jumps to provide answers to mysteries that weren’t that compelling in the first place. Getting those answers meant destroying all of the storytelling momentum and destroying any interest audiences might have had in the current plot. Fortunately for Star Wars fans everywhere, Andor season 2 is on track to take The Acolyte’s mistake and make it right.
That’s because the show will be time-jumping forward, allowing us to see the progression of Andor’s character after he completes major arcs. We won’t lose any momentum because each arc will be wrapped up by the time we jump forward, meaning that we won’t, say, suddenly be jolted out of a Mon Mothma subplot to spend an episode dedicated to Andor’s tragic childhood. And there won’t be a frustrating mystery to solve…unless, of course, you count the mystery of how Andor ended up jaded but with a heart of gold in Rogue One.
It’s so simple, but Tony Gilroy’s plans for Andor season 2 reveal a stark truth: time jumps aren’t an inherently bad idea as long as they help shows tell a story without disrupting the narrative momentum. Jumps that don’t really help the story, meanwhile, are nothing more than gimmicks…in the case of The Acolyte, frustrating gimmicks had a habit of killing the pace right when things were getting good. Thankfully, Gilroy has discovered there’s “one way out” for making these jumps work: by simply telling a great story and letting everything else sort itself out.
