Andor season 2 showrunner Tony Gilroy breaks silence on the weird release schedule: "It's a Disney decision"

Andor season 2 is finally arriving on Disney Plus next month, but some fans are confused about the new release schedule. Instead of weekly episodes, the streaming service will drop three episodes of the Star Wars show every week starting on April 22, which means the full season will be available to stream in less than a month.

Andor's showrunner Tony Gilroy has addressed these scheduling changes, saying that it was completely out of his control.

"We heard about that as we finished. We finished the show in November. We finaled the show in November, so we really had to wait for Skeleton Crew. It's a Disney decision. There's an internal logic behind it. They have their reasons," he told Collider this week.

Gilroy joked about this new schedule putting "a burden on podcasters", who will have to deal with a lot of weekly material. "What are they going to do? It's a movie a week, you know?," he said, acknowledging that fans are going to have to stay up late at night if they want to see the episodes as soon as possible.

In the interview, the showrunner also talked about some highly anticipated elements of the new season, like the Ghorman Massacre and the first meeting between Andor and K2.

"The bar is high", he said particularly about portraying the start of the relationship between Diego Luna's character and the robot voiced by Alan Tudyck, who we first met in Star Wars: Rogue One. Many fans expected the beloved character to appear in the first season, but Gilroy decided to save it for later.

"Just by delaying it off the first season, the controversy of that. Nobody was happy about that. I don't think Disney was happy about that, I don’t think the fans were happy about that. But there was a reason for it, a really, really good reason for it. But it does mean that I definitely have to deliver on the meet-cute, so we'll see how it goes. We're happy with what we have."

Knowing that the story is heading towards the tragic events of Rogue One, Gilroy teased an emotional follow-up that "it's not just whether you live or die", but "the damage".

"It's the sacrifice you've made or the sacrifice you haven't made. The five women, what they go through...Cassian is sort of Star Wars Jesus running through there—this messianic character running through the middle. We know that story, and it has its own complexities. But, really, I think the surprising and shocking, emotional punch will come from from the collateral damage and triumph of the people all around him."

Andor season 2 is set to hit Disney Plus on April 22. For more, check out our list of all the upcoming Star Wars movies and shows you need to know about.