‘Andor’ season 2 takes a note from the ‘Arcane’ book

Star Wars fans rejoice, as Disney Plus has revealed the Andor season 2 release date is April 22, 2025! The final episodes of the Star Wars show see Diego Luna’s Cassian accept his place in the rebellion, leading straight into the events of Rogue One.

Showrunner Tony Gilroy plans to go out with a bang, and one strategy is ripped right from Arcane‘s book. The frenetic animated show from Riot Games and Fortiche is one of the best Netflix series, and one of its key advantages is a compelling release strategy.

Andor plans to follow its methodology… kind of. The 12 episodes will be split into three-episode arcs that cover one year of Cassian’s life, writes Variety. This is much like Arcane’s strategy, just swapping out its batch releases for a one-episode-per-week approach.

Each trio of episodes in Arcane acts as an arc, presenting the overall story in digestible, pacy chunks. This strategy means the episodes’ themes and revelations flow together while stopping short of a full-on binge model where whole seasons become available at once.

Disney shows typically releases one episode weekly, with the odd two-episode premiere or finale thrown in to help onboard viewers and maintain a good finishing rate. Netflix, however, popularized the binge model and has largely stuck to it. The platform does stray sometimes — Stranger Things season 4‘s final two episodes were held back, for example — but it’s rare.

While releasing all episodes at once helped Netflix win the streaming wars, there’s been increasing negative chatter about this release strategy. Binging reduces trend longevity online, prevents fandoms from forming around week-to-week theorizing, and prevents viewers from being on the same page because everyone watches at their own pace.

That’s not to say the weekly model is inherently better, though — every show should be considered on a case-by-case basis. Disney’s Star Wars and Marvel series have largely failed to live up to their promised hype, feeling like six-hour-long movies cut into uneven parts that don’t adhere to the basic structural rules of television.

So Andor is going a more creative route but is sticking to a weekly approach that serves the pacing of its story. The batch release style orks amazingly for Arcane, so seeing other series test drive it in the future would be interesting.

Arcane‘s feats are unending, and the mini-arcs baked into season one made the show feel both cohesive and patient. You got more than one episode at a time, so could sink into the world and satisfy that Runeterra craving, but the end hook after every third episode and the promise of new revelations to come meant that you could build anticipation between the batches.

This lent Arcane a pacey quality. Fans got to discuss Jinx and Vi’s strained relationship, experience the heart-sinking finale in unison, and the extended release allowed artists to bolster the series’ reach with drawings and odes.

With a sea of “content” and declining attention spans making it increasingly hard for even the most popular IPs to reel us in, this release format may be one of several answers to streaming issues the industry has created for itself.

Whether Andor season 2 can take advantage of the mini-arcs as well as Arcane did remains to be seen, but season 1 was a breath of fresh air, so we’ve got hope in spades. And remember, rebellions are built on hope!