Latest news with #Ghorman
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The messier, the better': How ‘Andor' created the epic, heart-shattering Ghorman Massacre
For the heart-shattering episode of Andor titled 'Who Are You?,' which brings to screen the Rebellion-galvanizing Ghorman Massacre, editor Yan Miles' mantra was: 'The messier, the better.' What begins as a peaceful protest among the people of Ghorman turns into a slaughter incited by the Empire. Screams pierce through as flares, smoke, and death consume every chaotic, yet controlled frame. As roughly 350 extras fight for their freedom and lives, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) attempts to assassinate Imperial officer Dedra Meero (Denise Gough). 'The whole thing unravels in front of him,' Miles tells Gold Derby. 'He's not there to protest. He knows these people, he knows what happened before — but now he becomes the witness. He becomes us. The plaza is a circle. You could call it a clock face. People go around, people go in and out of buildings. Cadets come out. People sing. It was always moving, but Cassian stayed centered.' More from GoldDerby 'Hope for the best, prepare for the worst': 'Overcompensating' breakout Wally Baram on making her acting debut, defiling prop toilet The case of Leslie Abramson vs. Marcia Clark: Ari Graynor and Sarah Paulson on 'defending' their characters In Pixar's 'Elio,' Easter eggs are literally written in the stars - will you be able to spot them all? Lucasfilm In the chaos, Miles creates both emotional and visual clarity — often in a matter of seconds. 'There's a nice example of it where it's less messy,' the editor said. 'There's a [shot of a] group of Ghormans coming through with the flares, going underneath the colony now; we're sort of with them. And then we cut to the guy in the café, the waiter, seeing people walking past behind the glass, all moving in the same direction. Then a profile shot of an oblivious stormtrooper, turning his head and watching the Ghormans go by. It's three shots.' Lucasfilm Another impactful sequence concludes Imperial lackey Syril Karn's (Kyle Soller) arc — all without any lines of dialogue. Amid the mayhem, Miles shifts to slow-motion, an out-of-the-ordinary but fitting stylistic flourish in the otherwise grounded Tony Gilroy-created series. 'He's witnessing it — it's gone beyond the beyond,' Miles said. 'Lasers going past, people being shot, but he's just standing there like he's bulletproof. He's lost in it all. He doesn't care anymore. Everything's just gone.' Then the question becomes for Syril: 'Who are you?' It's posed during his hand-to-hand brawl with Cassian, the man he's spent years chasing. 'In the scene with 'who are you?,' there was a lot of debate on set,' Miles shared. 'Tony wrote it, 'Who are you?' Tony, [director] Janus Metz, Diego, and the people around asked, 'Are there any other versions where Cassian does remember Syril?' We did a cut where he does remember and says, 'It's you,' and then Syril lowers the gun.' Lucasfilm That debate was quickly resolved in post-production. 'I told Tony I have the other version,' Miles said. 'He went, 'No, no, no, no, it is, 'Who are you?' Andor doesn't know this guy. This guy's a nobody. It's the worst thing that could happen to any of us, isn't it? You could be doing something for years and years and one day you wake up and you're like, 'Who the hell am I? What am I doing?' That's life itself. Tony's words were, 'Who are you?'' Gilroy joked to Miles that if he didn't use that line, then he couldn't keep the slow-motion shot of Syril. 'Tony's genius is, if you're going to do something bold — like a slow spin shot or a poetic line — you have to earn it,' Miles added. 'Otherwise, it doesn't belong in this universe.' After Syril's death, his former partner, Dedra, displays startling vulnerability. She is alone and out of control — perhaps her greatest fear. 'Denise did lots of different stuff in that scene, which I was going to show all in one shot,' Miles explained. 'But then I gravitated toward three or four shots. It starts when she raises her head — just the vulnerability to it. In the next shot, she's focused on her neck — which is Syril, what he did to her earlier, the grappling. Then I jumped to where she goes to the wall and does that thing with her hand — there's fear in it, and then she stops it. She controls it. Then I hard cut to her straightening her jacket — imperial, composed. It's the beginning of her demise.' Lucasfilm Miles continued to tell the story of 'Who Are You?' even as the credits rolled. When the Ghorman anthem is first sung, it's like angels singing in the quiet before the storm. But in the aftermath, a lone voice remains. 'We were finishing the episode,' the editor recounted, 'and I had this solo recording from one of the assistants. She sang the anthem right there in the cutting room, on a USB mic. The most amazing voice. I thought, 'Why not put her voice over the credits [as temp music]?' A year later, I watched the episode on Disney+ and there it was. I'd forgotten I'd even left it in. Gave me goosebumps.' Best of GoldDerby Adam Brody, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, and the best of our Emmy Comedy Actor interviews Kristen Bell, Tina Fey, Bridget Everett, and the best of our Emmy Comedy Actress interviews 'It was wonderful to be on that ride': Christian Slater talks his beloved roles, from cult classics ('Heathers,' 'True Romance') to TV hits ('Mr. Robot,' 'Dexter: Original Sin') Click here to read the full article.
Geek Tyrant
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
ANDOR Creator Tony Gilroy Explains Why the Ghorman Massacre Had to Hit Hard — GeekTyrant
When Andor set its sights on the Ghorman Massacre in Season 2, the goal wasn't to check off a box in Star Wars lore. It was about making viewers sit in the fear, chaos, and brutality that fueled rebellion. In a recent scene breakdown for Variety, series creator Tony Gilroy explained that the Ghorman storyline wasn't treated as just another chapter in the rebellion, it was the centerpiece. 'We knew we were going to be investing very heavily in Ghorman to build a world, a planet, a city like that, at that scale, you have to really use it. We knew that it would be a centerpiece of the show. It's a centerpiece in canon. 'In the five years that I get to curate, it's a critical moment in the history of the rebellion. And yet it's very un-described. There was a mandate and a demand to do it, but there was no information about what it was, which is kind of the best thing for us.' The creative freedom allowed Gilroy and his team to imagine Ghorman as a fully realized society, with its own culture and infrastructure. The massacre unfolds in Palmo Square, a bustling, prosperous plaza built from the ground up by production designer Luke Hull. Everything here was made to serve the story. Gilroy said: 'It's not even just the architecture and the construction. It's designing a place for the story and for what the directors are going to be able to make... Luke Hull gives us this absolutely astonishing little stadium to play in. He fits it into the aesthetic of what we've already built... this is a year-long project.' The episode doesn't rely on spectacle. It's built for immersion. The camera doesn't flinch from the violence, there's no cutaway from the consequences, and it gives you someone to follow through the madness with Cassian. 'We knew that the massacre would be taking place in a town square. We also knew that we didn't want to do anything that looked or felt like anything that we had done before. We also wanted a prosperous planet. We wanted a place that was well off, politically connected, not an easy place for the Empire to take down.' For Diego Luna, that grounded brutality is part of what sets Andor apart from other Star Wars stories. The action has weight. The characters bleed sndf die, snd even something as intimate as a fistfight carries months of preparation. Luna explained: 'Just the fight with Syril was two days and a half. We worked on that fight for, I would say, months. There was many different choreographies we did before. We all agreed on one [version of the scene] that Tony was really happy about and that explained the whole story, that the fight has to tell.' And when it all comes together, Andor doesn't feel like a space opera. It feels like history, or, more accurately, like history repeating itself. 'The beauty of Andor is that you can get so deep that you might forget you're in this galaxy far, far away. You are just in a place that actually exists.' 'That's the strength of that episode, that it's a massacre that feels like personal, it's happening. You're looking at it, and you go like, 'Shit, those are people suffering. Those are people being hurt' You know, that destruction is actually happening.' Andor never wanted the Ghorman Massacre to be a reference, it wanted it to be a reckoning. One that doesn't just build the Rebellion's timeline, but earns it.
Gizmodo
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
Queerness Wasn't a Consideration in ‘Andor' Season 2's Most Controversial Death
When the heist on Ghorman went wrong on Andor season two, it only took one bad call for tragedy to strike. In the case of rebel leader Cinta Kaz (Varadu Sethu), her life was snuffed out in an instant when a misfire took her down. In a story about the early days of Star Wars Rebels uniting against the Empire, anyone was fair game, and it's something that show creator Tony Gilroy and writer Beau Willimon affirmed in conversation with Vulture, when discussing Cinta's death as one of the franchise's prominent queer characters. Gilroy explained that Cinta's fate was decided on early in the process of scripting Andor season two. 'I pretty much came up with an actuarial table pretty early in the sketching process of season two. There were a couple of actors who did not want to come back and people who were complicated to get back and whatever,' he said. 'I remember calling Varada and saying, 'Hey, I think that we're going to do it this way.' And I think I would really like to have friendly fire. I would like to have the stupidity of accident in the show. I would like to have something really stupid happen. This whole Ghorman thing is such a stupid cock up anyway. And I'm sorry, but you're, you know, you're the roulette. I don't have another piece. I either kill you or Vel and [I] can't kill Faye [Marsay, who played Vel]. And so it's your turn. And I'm not sure if she had Doctor Who at that point or she was in the running, I'm not sure. [But] she wasn't so depressed about it.' When it came to some of the criticisms drawn from the choice to toe the line of falling into the 'bury your gays' trope, Gilroy gave an even-keeled response. 'This fascinates me because you get all this credit and the first season, 'oh my God, you have a natural relationship 'cause, and we were like, 'well, yeah, it's just a relationship.' We're not making a big deal out of it. So then if you don't make a big deal out of it and just treat it like it's a normal thing and kill whoever you wanna kill, then that's a problem all of a sudden.' The choice was aimed at making it feel as real as possible for members of the rebellion, who no matter where they come from all choose to put their lives in the line of fire. 'I would discount the first side if I could get a little bit more on the second. I mean, what more natural way to treat it than to treat it like a real thing? I'm not gonna like start to socially engineer my characters for some chat room.' Willimon interjected, 'Honestly, our mentality was that almost everyone's gonna die. And that's broadcast everywhere in the show, almost every episode, someone's saying like, well, we're never gonna make it, we're never gonna see it.' Every Andor character is aware that they're gambling their mortality for a bigger cause—especially in a series that culminates in the events of Rogue One, where most of the key characters die. 'There needed to be something, something had to go wrong on Ghorman with that heist. We're always thinking about cost.' The importance of Cinta and Vel's relationship was not lost on them. Willimon continued, 'I mean, there is the fact that people did connect emotionally to that relationship. And there's a part of you that goes [its] just pure storyteller catnip.' he reiterated the questions asked in the writing process about losses that would impact the audience the most, 'I mean, we hurt you later with Luthen and Clea, we hurt you with Bix and Cassian–every way that you can feel the pain and the cost of sacrifice, that's what this show is about. And, you know, there were multiple versions of what that heist would be, but the friendly fire thing was quite early on.' The grim reality of Andor is that these are the people in the first wave that pave the way for the rebels we know in the original Star Wars trilogy. Their lives are given more meaning and multitudes, which is what made the show so great through the relationships it built. Willimon understood the emotional one-two punch impact of Cinta's loss shortly after her tender reconciliation with Vel, stating , 'One: you're upset after that beautiful scene that this relationship is not gonna see its way through. Two, you go, 'Damn it, friendly fire? That's the way this badass goes?'' He added more context how even the best laid plans can go awry thanks to ineptitude. 'What does Vel say to the guy who pulled the trigger at the end? 'She was a miracle. You will spend the rest of your life trying to pay for this moment, to earn your keep.' And what you realize is that it is a supremely noble death. If you're not willing to die by friendly fire or get accidentally run over, or [die] in a hail of gunfire in a big battle—they're all equal because really the choice you made from the very beginning is that I'm willing to sacrifice myself, whatever form that takes. And that's the magic trick, which is this shit is gonna happen and you don't know which way you're gonna go. You just know you are gonna go. And that noble decision was made from day one.' Gilroy added, 'But the problem with it is that everybody's going to identify with different people in the show. Everybody in this audience is gonna have their person that they climb in with and maybe it's multiple people, but there's gonna be a lot of people who climb. So if you're queer, you're gonna climb in to this character.' Gilroy pointed out, 'The biggest thing that that does [it] for me is not just the friendly fire or the surprise of it or the tragedy of it, what I really need to do is I'm really driving very much to tell the story of Luthen as a very poor human resources manager. And his failure to recognize the importance of personal relationships and his need to try to break them up is a much larger thing, and a much larger and more important issue to me than whether you think … where is the place where Cinta should die or what, I don't know. So I can't—that's a level of responsibility that comes from abundance, I suppose.'
New Statesman
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
In Andor's universe, real history doesn't work like the movies
Photo by 2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM A decent rubric for knowing when a TV show has become part of the zeitgeist is when people feel the need to publicly comment on the fact they don't like it. No one, that I recall, has ever told me they don't watch Emmerdale. This month, though, I have encountered several people announcing they didn't enjoy Andor, the Star Wars spin off whose second and final season just finished dropping on Disney+. Despite being a career nerd, I've never quite clicked with Star Wars, and have always suspected that you need to have seen it in a cinema aged eight to truly love it. Andor, though, has grabbed me like little else. I obsessively text friends memes about it. I seek out podcasts about it. Then every few hours I remember something clever or notice something new, and text the same friends all over again: it occupies my brain like the Galactic Empire occupies Ghorman. Against those of us who'd say it's not merely the best Star Wars, but one of the best TV shows of all time, though, there are those who say it is a pale comparison to the thrill provided by Star Wars to an eight-year-old. I can't, in all honesty, tell them that they're wrong: if the things you want out of Star Wars are droids and space wizards, then here you're largely out of luck. Andor instead shows us the people who make up the backdrop to the rest of the franchise: farmers and miners and hotel receptionists; the imperial security forces plotting oppression, and the political comms consultants spinning their crimes. The result is a story that seems to be about a galaxy far, far away, but is actually about what it's like to live under authoritarianism – to survive, to rebel, to collaborate. There is an evil empire, working on a weapon that (spoilers if you're going to the cinema in 1977) can destroy a planet. But the people working within it mostly aren't inhuman monsters with magical powers: they're nervous soldiers hiding behind their uniforms because they're scared of that angry crowd, smugly paternalistic colonial governors, bureaucrats just trying to survive their next meeting. If Andor's empire is not all cardboard villains, neither are the rebels all straightforward heroes. Some are motivated by greed or opportunism; others are so useless we see them do nothing but fight other rebels. The most terrifying character in the show, a man willing to use and sacrifice others with abandon, is ostensibly fighting against the dark side. Just as the show's portrayal of oppressive regimes draws from the histories of European imperialism, its portrayal of the rebels draws on existing insurgencies. One scene was inspired by the Wannsee Conference; the funeral parade that ended the first season was based on those arranged by the IRA. Star Wars invokes the standard storytelling kit, where the action unfolds through the life of a so-called chosen one, a kid whose destiny it is to change the galaxy no matter that he seems like a nobody otherwise. There's comfort in imagining yourself taking on that role. But even the would-be lead ends up making contributions to universe that are vital and quickly forgotten. Andor is not a hero's journey. It has perhaps half a dozen protagonists, most of whom don't get their names in the title. None of this matters: the thing that brings down empires is not the actions of great men, but the tides of structural forces, so Andor argues. Or, more prosaically: real history doesn't work like the movies. [See more: Meet Britain's Joe Rogan] Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Related
Gizmodo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
The 20 Greatest Moments From ‘Andor' Season 2
Andor season 2 came to an end this week, putting an end to Cassian's chapters of the Skywalker saga and bringing about one of the greatest additions to Star Wars' modern era. Across four arcs jumping us closer and closer to the time of Rogue One, the season delivered some of the best Star Wars has had to offer–which made looking back on the season to collect what was the very best of the best joyous and painful in equal measure. But considering we can't just say 'all of it', here's our pick for 20 of the highest highlights from Andor's long goodbye. Act 1 (Episode 1-3) Stealing the TIE Avenger Andor so rarely allows itself a big damn hero action setpiece–action is, more often than not, the terrifying climax of tense release, from the Narkina 5 prison riot to the Imperial oppression on Ferrix and Ghorman. But season 2 opens with a wonderful little display to give us a Cassian who has smoothly settled into his part as a Rebel agent, infiltrating Imperial ship research facilities on Sienar to swipe a prototype TIE (one with a fun Expanded Universe legacy). And then, just to knock him down a peg, it has him alert all the guards he can by accidentally backing it into a wall while he figures out the controls. Can't let him get too smooth. Krennic's Kalkite Boardoom Krennic's Imperial meeting room to reveal his plans for the planet of Ghorman is already a delicious example of how the Empire controls and abuses people on various fronts, but really, the reason this scene is so good is Ben Mendelsohn just relishing being back in Krennic's white cape. This is Krennic on the precipice of completing everything he's ever wanted, and all he needs is one more thing: Kalkite. Deep, substrate, foliated kalkite, to be specific. It's just a joy to watch Medelsohn dance around like he's top dog as he practically chews every word in the scene. Krennic's just enjoying being in the spotlight as he lays out how this room of top Imperial brass, from the ISB to propaganda divisions to the navy, is going to help him achieve it. Dedra vs. Eedy There is already so much going on as Andor hits you with the reveal that Dedra and Syril have started seeing each other, and the relationship is as weirdly charged as you could've imagined. But in witnessing a slice of their bizzaro domesticity, we get the diva-off fans could only have dreamed off: a dinner at home with Syril's mother Eedy, which leads to a stern Dedra turning the tables and making very clear who is wearing the immaculately-ironed pants in this relationship. Bix Strikes Back As the eye of Imperial oppression looms ever further over Mina-Rau, we see the true evils the Empire's power manifests as in a shocking first for Star Wars, an attempted rape, explicitly named as such, when one of the inspection officers corners Bix and goes to assault her. It's gutwrenching to watch, and one of the most tense fight sequences we've ever got in Star Wars, even as we get to see Bix triumph over her would-be abuser. It's a powerful moment, and a chilling way to make the Empire's abusive rot come to the forefront. Mon Mothma's Dance The sequence of Mon Mothma's crashout at Leida's wedding has a bunch of layers to it–the tacit realisation from her that Luthen is willing to kill anyone he needs to to protect her, Cinta and Vel's distant connection as the latter realises the former's there to do Luthen's dirty work, it all climaxing with Cassian coming just too late to save Brasso on Mina-Rau. But tying that all into the hypnotic, almost delirious sequence of Mon walking away from her conversation with Luthen to just give herself a moment to be lost in the crowd of dancing, exhilarated partygoers, swaying to the thrumming electro beats of that banger of a track… it's a beautiful way to climax the first act. Act 2 (Episode 4-6) Varian Skye, Fashion Elite As a nice mirror to his infiltration on Sienar, when Luthen first sends Cassian to Ghorman–a planet known for its exports of fashion–we get to see him do a bit of classic spywork and really dress to play the part, masquerading as designer Varian Skye to set up a meeting with the Ghorman resistance. It's a very cool look (those shades!), but it's also another way we get to see Cassian play his charm offensive, swaggering around with the confidence of a classy elite before he really makes clear to the Front just how much more prepared for this kind of thing he is compared to them. Tarkin's Legacy Syril's infiltration of the discontent Ghormans and 'Varian's' arrival on the planet reveals a wonderful bit of layering to Star Wars continuity: the massacre we've all known was coming this season wasn't the first on Ghorman, there was one that took place years prior under the watch of Wilhuff Tarkin. It is, of course, a nod to the Expanded Universe's original Ghorman Massacre, but Andor's choice to not just thrown in a nod to that version of events, but synthesize into its own history as further commentary on the Empire is a brilliant way to have an easter egg mention otherwise have some real dramatic heft. The Sculden Heist Andor's second season is somehow even more tense than the first a lot of the times, and one of its best moments just layers on that tension thick: Kleya recruiting Lonni at a party hosted by Davro Sculden so she can successfully remove a listening device from an antique Luthen sold to the Chandrilan magnate before it's discovered. There's so much at play, not just as Kleya struggles to manage both her own nerves and Lonni's as she struggles to free the device: they're interrupted by Krennic and more ISB bigwigs being toured around by Sculden, who then bring up Luthen, Perrin, and Mon Mothma. The butting of heads between Senator and Director, the will-they-won't they of just who might get ratted out in this moment it's all deliciously done. Vel and Samm The tragic, sudden death of Cinta after she and Vel are also sent to Ghorman on Luthen's behalf is one of season 2's most delicate moments, but after the initial shock of her catching a stray blaster bolt from the unseasoned Front member Samm, what really twists the knife in is Vel's reaction afterwards. Not content to leave the distraught young man be, Vel takes all her pain and pushes it into a terrifying warning for Samm that what he's done, the life he's unjustly destroyed, will haunt him for the rest of his life. A harsher punishment than if she'd lashed out or tried to hurt him in turn. 'We're the Fuel' Saw makes a compelling case for why so many are willing to follow him in a brilliant, charismatic scene with Wilmon after the Partisans use the young man's technical skills to successfully steal a load of highly volatile starship fuel. Inviting Wil to huff the toxic fumes as he has taken to–a predilection that we know will eventually leave Saw's body broken down even further by Rogue One. Saw's loving ode to Rhydonium as the symbol of everything his fight against the Empire stands for is equal parts rousing and heartbreaking. Admitting that he's long exchanged his life and his sanity for what he has to do to resist the evil of the Empire, in that moment Saw truly becomes the charismatic leader we've been told he is, consequences be damned. Act 3 (Episode 7-9) The Healer and the Messenger Andor has largely drawn itself to other forms of spirituality than the Force up to his point, but Cassian's brief encounter with a mysterious healer at the Yavin base is a wonderful way to bring Star Wars' core mysticism into the fold. It's treated with a sense of weight and trepidation in equal bearing, as the healer offers a portent of Cassian's importance to the skeptical man and an awestruck Bix. If so much of Star Wars is going to play with the idea of destiny and fate, this was a clever, beautiful way to bring in the inevitability of the events of Rogue One into the narrative of Andor. The Massacre The explosion of the protests on Ghorman into a full-on Imperial massacre is one of the most chilling sequences in contemporary Star Wars. A brilliant mirror to the climax of season 1 and the riots on Ferrix being putdown by the Imperials, the Ghorman Massacre not only becomes bigger from an action standpoint, but thematically denser and richer as it weaves in Syril realising just too late that everything Dedra was working him for was a horror on a scale unlike anything he could've comprehended. It's also so brutal and horrible to watch, and that's even before you get to… 'Who Are You?' Ah, what a perfect end to Syril Karn. From the moment he spots Cassian among the screaming masses being slaughtered on the plaza, to the moment a confounded Cassian hits him with the question that's haunted his whole life, Syril's final moments are a brilliant exploration of what has made his character so compelling, a deft commentary on how the Imperial machine craves young, impressionable men like him, only to forge them into useful, evil tools that can be discarded at a moment's notice. A fitting end to one of the show's best characters. The Senate Speech We don't get to hear the full version, but we hear enough of Mon's rousing denouncement of the Ghorman Massacre to matter, as does the galaxy, as she finally lets her rebellion step into the sunlight for all to see. It's already potent for the moment it represents in Star Wars, but it's a profound step for the franchise's relationship with its own political history, with the explicit invocation of Empire's actions as genocide. It's always been the endeavour of the foolhardy to obfuscate Star Wars' political message, but this was the franchise shouting it for all to hear in a way you can't ignore. Re-Writing the Story Andor has layered all sorts of connective tissue to the wider world of Star Wars across its story, but in making Mon Mothma a central figure of its story, it was always going to be running headlong towards another series almost as inevitably as it was Rogue One: her flight from Coruscant to Dantooine as depicted in Star Wars Rebels, to make the formal declaration of the Rebel Alliance. How Andor handles that is subtle, but fascinating, climaxing Mon and Cassian's flight from the Senate with a moment of realization for the latter, and just how much this wider Rebellion is going to distance itself from the part that raised Cassian up: the story of Cassian's extraction will be handed off to a more proper Yavin escort, the story told in a cleaner, more palatable way. It is by no means a knock to Rebels, but it's a brilliant way to bridge those two stories. Act 4 (Episodes 10-12) Luthen and Kleya It's unfair to practically assign an entire episode of prestige television as a best 'moment', but christ, that's kind of what 'Make It Stop' ends up being. From Dedra cornering Axis at last, to Kleya's one-woman infiltration mission to send Luthen on his way after he mortally wounded himself rather than give up the Rebellion, it's an incredible farewell to one of Andor's core characters, while passing on his legacy to the next generation, woven throughout a brilliant exploration of their history together. Andor's got a lot of finest hours in its two seasons, but this is the finest among them. Krennic Gets Dedra Not to pick a moment within the above moment, but it would be remiss to not point out the moment Dedra's obsession and ambition finally lays her low. The moment of terror as she realizes Krennic has come to bludgeon the systems she has upheld against her for hoarding all the little scraps of information that lead to word of the Death Star making it out to Luthen is incredibly played by Denise Gough, and Mendelsohn again manages to balance the delectably scene-chewing bravado of Krennic with a genuine menace. 'It's Everywhere, Isn't It?' Getting to hear Nemik's manifesto one more time might have been enough to mark this as a best moment, but the way it's deployed is incredibly satisfying: one of the last things ISB head Major Partagaz hears, as he prepares to kill himself rather than face comeuppance for the ISB's failures is an unknown voice of rebellion that's echoing across the galaxy. His final admittance that the 'disease' he sought to contain has come to choke him is a fitting end. Cassian's Dream One of the first things Andor set up was Cassian's search for his long lost sister, and in an age where Star Wars is more broadly obsessed with filling in as many details it can about its world and its characters, the fact that the show largely moved on from the 'mystery' became something of a sticking point for some fans. Andor season 2 doesn't give us an answer either–or rather, perhaps not one that would satisfy that need for cold, hard facts. One of the last things we see Cassian do in the whole show is wake up from a brief dream of his sister, and it's all we really need to know: that he still thought of her, even right up to the very end, even if neither he or we got the answer. The Final Shot Regardless of the controversy around Bix's arc in season 2, the very last scenes of the series climaxing with her living a life of peace on Mina-Rau are a potent, hopeful note to end the series on. A series that was always barrelling towards the tragic sacrifice of its titular character instead ends on the revelation that the legacy he loved and shared with Bix will live on into a new generation, one that, at least for a while, will get to eventually come of age in a galaxy at peace.
