We’re less than a month away from the premiere of the second and final season of Andor, and a new trailer has us all the more hyped.
There’s a lot of new footage that was released, even for a shorter trailer, and because of that I thought it would be a good time to look at five main takeaways from what we saw.
1. It looks like we’re going to see Mon Mothma’s speech to the Senate
We’re going to see the Ghorman Massacre – which will play out over five episodes, showrunner Tony Gilroy recently revealed. In-universe, this was a crucial moment. As the Empire committed atrocities on Ghorman, Senator Mon Mothma decided that enough was enough, and she went public. After years of working behind-the-scenes in secret to fuel rebellion, she gave a fiery speech to the Senate decrying Emperor Palpatine for his crimes. She resigned from the Senate, and from that point on she was on the Empire’s most-wanted list until their destruction. It was in the aftermath of this speech that Mothma formally started the Rebel Alliance – and it looks like we’re actually going to see the speech, as we had hoped.
The trailer shows a few glimpses of Mothma in the Senate, looking troubled, and then we hear her shouting, “The monster will come for us all!” Surely this is Mothma attacking Palpatine and trying to wake people up to the realization that what the Empire is doing on Ghorman will, eventually, spread to all other worlds if the Emperor’s power is left unchecked.
Given the stunningly superb dialogue from the first season and the thrilling monologues that we saw other characters have, I simply can’t wait to see Genevieve O’Reilly get a chance to crush it in this speech.
2. Saw Gerrera’s tactics are bringing Jedha right up to Rogue One
One of the more visually-striking shots in the trailer is of Saw Gerrera looking out the window at an Imperial Star Destroyer hovering over Jedha City, just like is seen in Rogue One. In the film, Jyn Erso notices the Destroyer and asks Cassian what’s up with it, and he replies that it’s there because of her old friend Saw Gerrera, who has been attacking Imperial cargo shipments. Piecing this together, then, it means that the Destroyer’s arrival on the planet is in response to Gerrera’s efforts. So we’ll probably be seeing Saw’s partisans fighting back against the Empire and their occupation of the planet, and their kyber shipments.
And this shot also reminds us that the series will take us right up to Rogue One. We don’t know exactly when this shot takes place, but it’s certainly quite possible that it’s happening not long before Jyn and Cassian pay Saw a visit.
3. Dedra Meero is in some trouble
The shot of the trailer that has had people talking the most, though, is a brief glimpse of Dedra Meero apparently choking, trying to loosen her collar so as to be able to breathe. It’s something we’ve seen several times before in Star Wars, and because of that, many have immediately jumped to thinking this is her being Force choked by either Darth Vader or Emperor Palpatine. That’s certainly possible. But given what we know of. this series, and the realism it’s evoking, my guess is actually that this is Dedra having a panic attack. It looks a lot like one, and that would likely fit far better into the themes of this show.
If it is a panic attack, it could be that this season we’re going to see Dedra coming to slowly realize over time the extent of what she’s actually doing, and what the Empire is doing. What if she’s coming to realize that, actually, the Empire are the bad guys? Maybe her atrocities are catching up to her. Maybe she had something to do with Ghorman and didn’t realize the bloodshed that would come from it. Maybe she’s been out-maneuvered by someone else (probably Krennic) and is now going to get blamed for something. There are a lot of options. My point is just that I’m guessing this is her having a breakdown, not her being Force choked.
4. The Empire is building a weapon…
We know that this season is, in one sense, just counting us down to the revelation that the Death Star exists and is operational. That’s how the series will end, with Cassian heading off to the Ring of Kafrene to investigate (like we see at the beginning of Rogue One). But it seems that this series will show how people slowly begin to learn some pieces of it. There’s a moment in the trailer that shows Kleya, obviously quite distraught, frantically saying, “they’re building a weapon!”
It’s noteworthy that Luthen Rael hasn’t really been shown much in the trailers for this season, and we know that almost certainly he’s going to die. Could it be that by this point in the series Luthen is dead and Kleya is running what he left behind? Could it be that Kleya is actually the one to inform Cassian and the Rebellion of the existence of a weapon, that leads Cassian to his contact on Kafrene that informs him it’s a planet-killer? We don’t know, but it does seem like the Death Star will be a big plot device this season, even if in the background.
5. The refugee Rebels
A number of those who rose up to fight the Empire on Ferrix in the season one finale have fled and have banded together in a refugee settlement on a grassy planet. Bix Calleen, Brasso, and others are there… but where is it? I’ve long thought that this planet could be Dantooine, since the Rebellion had an early base there. But there’s a shot in the most recent trailer that has me seriously re-thinking that, and it’s the shot of an Imperial cruiser arriving on the planet as the rebels look on. It’s also the same planet, it appears, where Cassian will fly the stolen TIE Avenger to come rescue them.
But if the Empire is in a conflict with these rebels on the planet, then it probably can’t be Dantooine, since Leia’s revelation of a rebel base there to Tarkin in A New Hope seems to give him information he didn’t already have. So could this be another planet – like Lothal, for instance? That’s been another common guess among fans, and the planet does fit the look of it. Plus, one of the tents in the settlement looks a bit like a Loth-cat, which could be a nod to the lovable creatures. We don’t know exactly, but I’m backtracking on my Dantooine theory, since this would create some complications.
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