Andor‘s final batch of episodes had to walk a steady balancing act, tying together myriad swirling character arcs into the overarching looming shadow of not just the events of Rogue One, but the events of Star Wars itself. In navigating those final climactic days where Andor could be itself as well as the passer of the torch, the show managed to give us and its characters alike the endings that perhaps mattered most. Luthen © Lucasfilm It’s impossible to talk about the final arc of Andor without talking about the ending it gets out of the way first. Luthen’s long-awaited confrontation with Dedra is tragic in many ways, not just because of his choice to sacrifice himself to deny her the information she craves, but because, in contrast to the other rebellious stories we see climax here, it’s so incredibly lonely. There is no grand exit, no long goodbye—he gets a brief moment with Kleya when he sends her away, and of course, Dedra’s attempts to keep him alive make the actual moment of his end occur after the course of episode 10, “Make It Stop.” He dies quietly, he dies unable to really know just what an impact he’s about to have on the people he knew, the people he loved, the Rebellion, and the fate of the galaxy itself. But Luthen’s final moment standing, before he takes the knife to himself, as sad as it is, is also a beautiful one—one that thematically then ties the endings of the rest of the rebels across Andor‘s final act together brilliantly. “The Rebellion isn’t here anymore, it’s flown away,” he tells Dedra. “It’s everywhere now… there’s a whole galaxy out there, waiting to disgust you.” The work Luthen did may have been isolatory by design, playing cells and operatives off each other, the paranoia of all the secrets he helped keep. But as he burns brightly, for that sunrise he knew he’d never see, he is defiantly steadfast that what he has helped create has connected voices all over the galaxy. That there are, as his agents’ code phrase said, friends everywhere. Partagaz and the ISB © Lucasfilm It is this particular thematic throughline sparked by Luthen’s words that also defines the endings of our Imperial antagonists across the arc in stark contrast. We’ll get to Dedra separately, but it’s interesting that the endings we get for Andor‘s ISB apparatus—represented by her, Partagaz, and Heert in these episodes, and to a lesser extent double-agent Lonni—are lonely for very different reasons than Luthen’s was. Syril’s death on Ghorman laid the blueprint here: Andor‘s vision of the Empire is defined in equal parts the abuse of its systems for personal glorification, and the deadly threat of that system subsuming even its most ardent supports and benefactors, because that’s exactly what the Empire is designed to do. Lonni might die at Luthen’s hands, it’s implied, but he dies because his use as a tool of the system he’d turned on is over. Heert’s grand chase of Kleya—a mirror to Dedra’s obsession with Axis that he’d sneered at her for—is rewarded with K2 tossing his lifeless body around as a meatshield, crumpled and forgotten. Partagaz’s is perhaps the most deliciously bitter, not just for the system he helped create crashing down around him, but because, again, his final moments are spent realizing that the rebellion is so much bigger than the “disease” he thought he could contain and sterilize. He’s alone in a room, committing suicide, after hearing Nemik’s manifesto: he has no idea who it is. He just knows, again, that it’s getting out everywhere. Kleya © Lucasfilm Kleya’s end is not so much an end, but a continuation of a legacy that she’s followed her whole life. Luthen’s sacrifice gives her a chance to flee and tell the Rebellion about the Death Star, but it also pushes her out from under his lonely world of cloak and daggers, in a way. In the flashbacks that are woven throughout her solo mission to lay Luthen to rest before the Empire can pull him from the brink, we see her story start alone and afraid and angry—and in choosing to save this orphaned child and help her point that anger somewhere as she grows up, Luthen’s final gift to Kleya is to give her something bigger to be part of. Perhaps it’s a story we’ll revisit someday, of Kleya’s life in the Rebellion, but in this moment that set of facts doesn’t really matter, it’s that she gets to carry on his spirit as the Rebellion flourishes. Dedra © Lucasfilm It’s fitting and so telling then, that Kleya and Dedra’s final moments on-screen in Andor are side-by-side. If Kleya wakes up to on the new dawn of being part of the thing her mentor helped build, then Dedra—clad in those white-and-orange scrubs of the Imperial prison system—is to witness the structure that she helped build and champion chew her up and spit her out into some forgotten hole. We know from season one’s arc on Narkina-5 that the Empire has now designed these facilities to never really grant freedom. There’s a fascinating parallel to Syril’s own death in her ultimate punishment, the idea that her obsession with Axis, as his was with Cassian, pushed her and pushed her to a point where the Empire itself could turn on her and discard her, and she’d be too blinkered to notice it until it was too late. It’s not just that Dedra’s hoarding of information she shouldn’t have lands her in Krennic’s crosshairs, it’s her drive to get Luthen, to keep him alive once he mortally wounds himself, in the hopes that she will be rewarded regardless of any transgression she’s made to get there. That the Imperial system she believed in will work for her, rather than her for it. But the Empire exists to consume even its most loyal adherents, and so her punishment for championing it so ardently is as satisfying to watch as it was inevitable. Bix © Lucasfilm If any of Andor‘s endings might prove controversial, it’s perhaps its very last one. In some ways, Bix’s isolation from the final act of Andor (a decision she makes, but one that still takes her out of the broader fight she had previously yearned to be part of), only for her to part the series with the revelation that she’s given birth to Cassian’s child—a child he’ll never know—treats her story as less her own, and more in the service of Cassian’s. But it’s likewise also compelling that Bix is the rare character who ends the series given the chance of peace, of not having to fight and struggle. Many of the journeys that close out Andor are ones that we know will continue, and more specifically that continue in the sense that their fight isn’t over yet. That she is the final vision we have the show feels, in part, that this is what it was all for: to be free to live life with loved ones, a generation that can grow up in the hope that they in turn don’t have to fight and struggle to maintain that peace. Bail Organa © Lucasfilm But wait! Bail Organa’s journey doesn’t end in Andor. He’s in Rogue One! He’s technically in A New Hope, or at least very, very tiny atomized parts of him are! But while those stories are, chronologically speaking, Bail’s last moments in the Star Wars saga, it feels like Andor actually gives the man himself a proper sendoff—more proper than the hasty one he gets in Rogue One to go meet his explosive destiny—in his brief chat with Cassian. It’s short and sweet but laden with meaning, to give Bail a little teeth, and a moment of bonding with Cassian after their initial disagreements. We don’t ever get to see Bail’s final moments from his own perspective on screen (they’re retold, if you’re interested, in the From a Certain Point of View anthology), but giving him a goal to go out swinging feels like a fitting coda. The Stories Left Untold © Lucasfilm But for all the above stories that Andor wraps up in its last act, there’s just as many—and it’s just as important—that it leaves so many paths open. There’s characters we just simply don’t see again, like Leida after her wedding, or even further flung characters like Kino Loy from season one. There’s characters for who the story just continues elsewhere, like Cassian and K2 themselves, or Mon Mothma, last seen chatting to Vel amid the hubbub of Yavin IV, or Saw, staring down the Imperial occupation of Jedha. Some of these are famous Star Wars figures, and we know where they end up, but just as important is getting flashes like Wilmon and Dreena sharing food, or, in a grimly hilarious fashion, a drunken Perrin hanging off the arm of Davro Sculden’s wife. Perhaps most fitting then is an end we glimpse, but never get: when Cassian wakes from his slumber to go on his mission to Kafrene, he dreams of his long-missing sister. Andor‘s first major story thread, the focus of its opening scenes to put this whole story into motion, never gets resolved. Some people may be frustrated by that, in an age when Star Wars fans and Star Wars itself, at times, is obsessed with checking off the facts and details of its world. But we get everything we need to know: Cassian still thinks about her. He dies never getting the answer. We will, perhaps rightfully, never learn ourselves. Not all ends definitively. Life goes on. Even as we know the broad strokes of what’s about to go down in this moment in Star Wars, some answers are just never found. But there’s a whole texture of existence beneath that sweeping saga and those big questions, and that’s what Andor was always reminding us of. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

Well, we’ve reached the end of the road. Andor’s second and final season brought us 12 episodes of (mostly) exceptional Star Wars drama released in three-episode chunks, a format which served the structure of the show brilliantly, with each chunk representing one year in the four years leading up to Rogue One, but also meant that we didn’t get to savor the show for nearly as long.Suggested ReadingFallout Season 2 Teaser Confirms Lucy and Ghoul are Heading to New Vegas Share SubtitlesOffEnglishview videoSuggested ReadingFallout Season 2 Teaser Confirms Lucy and Ghoul are Heading to New Vegas Share SubtitlesOffEnglishEach week, we’ve gathered to discuss our reactions to the show’s latest episodes (you can find last week’s conversation here), and now, we do so for the last time. Join us as we say goodbye to this extraordinary series. Ethan Gach: I’m in camp Kleya, who called her arrival on Yavin in the final stretch of Andor “a bitter ending,” but perhaps somewhat more consoled than she was by Cassian reassurance that “nothing’s ending.”The final three episodes of season 2 were always going to be somewhat disappointing and bittersweet since we knew the show was ending and in some cases we knew where it would need to funnel people to set up Rogue One, but the final chapter still managed a surprising amount of high-stakes tension and unexpected backstory. How would you both rate the final episodes and what are you feeling now that the journey’s over?Carolyn Petit: I thought episode 10, with its look at how Luthen and Kleya formed their bond and her undertaking the terrible task of doing what needed to be done, was outstanding. (It also gave us an alien who instantly became one of my favorite Star Wars creatures ever!) Episodes 11 and 12 weren’t peak Andor, but I have to admit that the final slow-motion montage sequence really worked for me, and they had a political dimension I found somewhat surprising that I’ll discuss a bit more later.Zack Zwiezen: I was worried that the final episode would run out of steam as Tony Gilroy and co literally ran out of space for storytelling and had to slam the brakes to set up Rogue One. And while I enjoyed the montage slow-walk, I wonder if that works if you haven’t seen Rogue One. But overall, the final three episodes are really good. And I think the Kleya-Luthen focused episode is one of my favorite Andor episodes ever. I’m so happy she got a big spotlight before the end.CP: Me, too. That episode also helped cement, I think, that the show recognizes how necessary all of Luthen’s efforts were, even if those fussy ineffectual bureaucrats on Yavin don’t. This is an issue I’ve long had with how Star Wars has at times sanded away its own political dimensions in my view, something that Andor not only seeks to undo but takes farther than ever before. In truth, the act of blowing up the Death Star in the first film, that act which people cheered for in theaters in 1977 and that Star Wars fans for decades since have loved and admired, would, in universe, be considered an act of terrorism. That’s what the Empire would call it. That’s what governments do: they present their own violence as “legitimate” or “necessary” and the violence of those rebelling against them as “terrorism.” But there were times in Star Wars history where I felt like the people at the reins of the franchise wanted to send a message that you shouldn’t be “too extreme” in your resistance, don’t be a Saw Gerrera, do it through “proper channels.” And so I loved that Andor gave us that scene with Bail and some other politicians all kind of hemming and hawing over Luthen while the show, I think, was emphatically telling all of us, “Luthen was right. Maybe not every single little decision he made was right, but his ethos was fundamentally right and without someone like him, none of this would have been here.” And I loved it for that.ZZ: I think, and they talk about this in the behind the scenes, it’s very important that Luthen’s fight against the empire was really because Kleya wanted revenge.CP: Right. She’s the humanity that he’s fighting for. She’s what radicalizes him.ZZ: If he hadn’t found her and saved her, Luthen likely doesn’t become the rebel we know in Andor. And it also adds a new layer of complexity to their relationship. He was part of the army that brutalized her people. So she still has some lingering hatred for him. And yet she does care about him. And in that moment when she sneaks into the hospital to finish the job, you can feel that.EG: I think that scene with the Rebel Alliance leaders also helps show the Senate mentality creeping back in as the insurgency professionalizes itself.It’s easy to see why even after defeating the Empire in key battles it might struggle to rebuild or retain power, issues explored in Ahsoka and The Mandalorian. These last few episodes help situate Cassian between the uncompromising logic of Luthen’s spycraft and the “no one left behind” mentality of the Rebellion. Luthen’s final sacrifice is to die, and Cassian’s is to go back and risk everything just to save someone.ZZ: We should rewind a bit and talk about that moment between Luthen and Dedra. Or even further actually, and pour one out for Lonni, who I knew was dead the moment he sat down at that bench.CP: Yeah. When he mentioned his wife and kid, for a moment I thought mayyyyyyyybe Luthen would be like “You know what? I owe this guy.” But alas, no.ZZ: I also loved that line Luthen gave Klaya before the meeting: “I think we used up all the perfect.” CP: So good.LucasfilmZZ: And then we get Dedra Meero walking into Luthen’s shop as he’s destroying evidence. My wife literally gasped “OH SHIT!” at seeing Dedra at the door.EG: Only two artifacts may not be what they seem!CP: In a show that so often demands that characters put on a performance to blend into their surroundings, it was great seeing those two feel each other out and Luthen pretend for a bit that she was maybe not there to arrest him. But then, of course, he tries to kill himself, and you see that he was thinking a few steps ahead when he picked up the knife, though he made it seem like it was just part of their friendly dealings.ZZ: When he picked up the knife I was so distracted by him mentioning it being a Nautolan artifact (Kit Fisto’s species) that I didn’t realize why he picked a knife.CP: Hahaha, the perils of having a database of Star Wars knowledge in your brain!ZZ: And then after he’s taken to the hospital, we get that wonderful sequence with Klaya sneaking in and taking him off life support. Anybody else want a Hitman-like Star Wars game now?CP: If that alien Kleya pushes around as she’s pretending to be hospital personnel is in it, absolutely! But yes, that was a great infiltration sequence, both thrilling and kind of excruciating because we knew what she was going there to do.EG: It included some of the best Coruscant backdrops we’ve ever gotten, I think.CP: One other moment from that episode that I can’t stop thinking about was the flashback scene in which we see Imperial officers drag some civilians through town, put them up against a wall, and kill them. It was another gut-wrenching reminder of the Empire’s evil and another moment that felt weirdly resonant as more and more people are being arrested by agents who often won’t even show warrants or identification in the streets of our towns.ZZ: On the flipside of that horrible moment that made me feel a pit in my stomach, we have Dedra getting arrested for being reckless and not following orders by chasing after Luthen long after she was supposed to be off the Axis investigation. I have to admit I smiled when I realized it was all over for her.CP: Man, I don’t know. I mean I absolutely hate her, don’t get me wrong, and yet that final shot of her, where we see that she’s in a prison very much like the one Cassian was in last season (if not the same one) was complicated for me. Like, I think that kind of incarceration is just wrong in and of itself and so it elicited this weird moment of something like sympathy for her, which in no way means I forgive her for what she’s done. It’s just one of those reminders that it’s ultimately a systemic evil that will sometimes grind up the people operating inside of it and supporting it as much as those being actively persecuted.The leopards ate her face, in other words.ZZ: Space leopards.But I agree, yes, that the Empire is evil and the way it operates (like many real-world countries) is to crush people up to fuel the fires of growth and war. And I think it was very arrogant of her to believe she would be spared. Or maybe she truly bought into the lies that the Empire was good and doing the right thing? Surely, she won’t end up in some horrible place and left to rot forever.CP: Yep.ZZ: Meanwhile, her boss, after all of these failures and letting the info on the Death Star slip out, realizes what’s coming for him and knows he doesn’t want to be ripped apart by the machine he helped create. And takes an easier way out. CP: That was the first and only indication we ever got that Nemik’s manifesto is actually spreading around, right, that people are listening to it? That was a cool moment, I thought, where at first we think it’s non-diegetic, just the writers and filmmakers reminding us one last time of Nemik’s stirring words, but then we see, oh, no, Partagaz was actually listening to it, the fire is spreading. It’s out there.EG: I loved the scene right outside when the gun shot goes off.CP: Yeah, so clear that the guy knew Partagaz wasn’t just taking a moment to “collect his thoughts,” he knew exactly what was coming.ZZ: The slight “stand down” gesture to the troopers.EG: I appreciate the minor moments of humanity Andor evokes even between the worst people.CP: Yeah, they’re essential IMO.ZZ: It makes them more evil. They are human beings. People with feelings and thoughts. And yet they still do this shit.EG: Something also given to Krennic when he and Partagaz wish each other luck at facing Palpatine’s wrath. Unlike the more buffoonish bad guy energy he gives off in Rogue One.ZZ: Also, very fun to see a character call out the Death Star name. Partagaz thinks its dumb. It’s just one of those reminders that [the Empire is] ultimately a systemic evil that will sometimes grind up the people operating inside of it and supporting it as much as those being actively persecuted.ZZ: I’m so happy to see K-2SO back!CP: Yes. Not unlike C-3P0 he can be so exasperating at times (in an endearing and funny way), but when he goes full Terminator on Empire goons, man it feels good.For me, the whole tone of the scene with Andor and Melshi in the safehouse with Kleya and the communications jammed changed from “Oh shit, oh shit, get outta there!” to “LMAO y’all are about to get owned” as soon as K-2SO left the ship to go in for them, and it was glorious.ZZ: Yeah. The moment K-2SO shows up, it’s basically over for those imperial assholes and I loved it so much. I also like that the show uses its limited time with K-2SO to really develop a relationship between him and Cassian. They seem like buds!The part where they are playing space poker or whatever was great. Gilroy mentioned that after Bix leaves the place becomes a frat house, with Melshi moving in and them all drinking and partying between missions.CP: Ah, that totally makes sense!ZZ: I wonder if Andor is trying to drink away some pain and fill his life with friends to deal with losing Bix? That’s my read. He needs some buds and suds.CP: Definitely. There’s a part of me that still feels like Andor, the title character, could have maybe used a little bit more character development in this show, that with all of its moving pieces his own journey, both ideologically and as a person, maybe got a smidge sidelined. But I do like that we see him dreaming about his sister, since finding her was the big obsession driving him in the early episodes of season one. Now, I feel like he’s accepted that she’s gone but still the idea of her, his depth of feeling for her and the pain of losing her is part of what drives him to create a better world, not entirely unlike Luthen being driven by his love for Kleya. And speaking of love and the things that drive us, how did y’all feel about that final-final image of the show?ZZ: I loved it! To me it worked perfectly with a theme in Andor: hope.EG: “There is another.” lmao.CP: Right, to me it did in part feel like a nod to Star Wars’ obsession with dynasties and legacies, like we have to believe that, though Andor himself dies, what he stands for will live on not just as an idea but because he literally has a child. And yet, I still kinda liked it. We didn’t get a lightsaber but we did get a continued bloodline!ZZ: I think the show needed some hope at the end.EG: I think it was very thematically appropriate, even if I’m torn on the merits of mixing insurgency and family. It’s a division that feels a bit too tidy.ZZ: I think it did provide more reason for Bix leaving like she did. She was pregnant. She wanted to give her child a peaceful life and knew Andor would follow her if he knew. And in her mind, she’s thinking that they’ll get back together one day after the Empire has fallen. It’s both a very tragic final scene and also this reminder that there is more. This isn’t an ending.Screenshot: Lucasfilm / KotakuCP: Vel even tells him not to wait too long to reconnect, and we already know he never gets the chance! Really loved that those two, Cassian and Vel, got a moment here, too, and got to acknowledge all those they’ve lost along the way. But yes, you’re right, it was a lovely mix of deeply sad and hopeful, that final image. Luthen, Cassian, Saw, and so many others know they’re fighting for a world they themselves will likely not live to see. But that kid might.ZZ: And before we leave, I did like that we got one more tiny moment with Mon’s husbasndHe seems to be with the mother of the boy his daughter married? It was very fast. Couldn’t tell. But him just getting drunk in a limo on Coruscant, presumably throwing his wife under the bus and pledging loyalty to the Empire, seemed like all we needed to know about what happened to him.CP: Exactly. He is who we knew he was and his sad empty privileged life is his reward for it.I’d be curious to know how that final montage plays for folks who haven’t seen Rogue One. It really worked for me, seeing Cassian all dressed up for his fateful mission, the cuts to Dedra and other characters, and all around him, the Rebel base on Yavin, active and buzzing, about to change the galaxy, and now we know it’s all because of the efforts of so many people but among them, one Luthen Rael, an unsung hero of Star Wars. Are either of you planning on rewatching Rogue One any time soon?ZZ: I wanted to hold off until after this VG chat so I came into this without the weight of Rogue One on my mind. I plan on watching it this weekend! EG: I will say, as a parting thought, I don’t know that I needed the show to try and line up so neatly with Rogue One, perhaps the worst part of which is that silly blueprint handoff that directly leads into A New Hope. I do think some of the broader thrust of Andor and the unease and disquiet within its characters ended up being subsumed a little to neatly by the end of episode 12.CP: Oh, I agree. At a certain point in the final episode you really feel the show shift into “Okay, let’s get all the pieces in place for Rogue One” mode.ZZ: Yeah. It reminds me of the ending of Star Wars Episode III, where George Lucas sets up all the pieces for A New Hope and it feels less like an actual ending and more like a checkpoint.CP: And I think heading right from Andor into Rogue One will be quite jarring because—sorry Rogue One!—your dialogue is just not on the same level!ZZ: Nope! And what happened to Bail Organa! Did he get a haircut?CP: Hahaha.ZZ: But really, if that’s my biggest complaint about Andor—that its ending isn’t as strong as it could have been because of Rogue One—I’m still really happy.I’m not sure we’ll ever get a show like this again, or at least not for a long time. Real sets. Lots of actors. Incredible writing. Big budgets. Set in a large franchise. All this freedom. Even Gilroy has stated he’s not sure if this kind of thing will ever happen again.CP: It was glorious, and while I really hope we see more like it, I’ll try to just be grateful for the miracle that we ever got it at all. Now I just need Disney to put it on Blu-ray so I have it on physical media and it’s not trapped on a streaming service forever!ZZ: Rebellions and physical libraries of movies we love are built on hope. .

This article contains spoilers for Andor season 2 episodes 10, 11, and 12 and Rogue One. It feels like the Tony Gilroy-created Andor Star WarsAndor season 2 would tie directly with the start of Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Though we all know how that tragic tale goes, the fact that a number of Andor’s major players are nowhere to be seen in the 2016 war epic had us worrying about their fates. After the shocking death of Kyle Soller’s Syril Karn during the Ghorman Massacre of episode 8, the final arc of episodes quickly whittled down the Andor cast to make room for the Rogue One crew. The inclusion of Ben Mendelsohn’s Orson Krennic, Forest Whitaker’s Saw Gerrera, and Diego Luna’s titular Cassian AndorRogue One, the same couldn’t be said for Stellan Skarsgård’s Luthen Rael and Anton Lesser’s Lio Partagaz. However, it’s arguably Andor’s greatest villain who gets a fate worse than death.  Denise Gough’s Dedra Meero seemed like the perfect little Imperial drone after being raised in an Imperial Kinder-block and being molded into a high-ranking supervisor in the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB). Unfortunately, this put her on a collision course with Krennic, who’s never been afraid to show he’s only looking out for himself. Things started to unravel in Andor episode 10, and after having dispatched ISB mole Lonni Jung (Robert Emms), Luthen set about erasing his existence as the Rebel spy known as Axis. It was too late for Luthen, but when Dedra arrived at his antiquities shop to confront him, things didn’t go the way she’d planned. It’s here that Dedra unveiled the Imperial N-S9 Starpath Unit that had put her on Luthen’s trail four years earlier. It’s her obsession with Axis that brings her here, and just like Syril’s vendetta against Cassian Andor sealed his fate just a few episodes earlier, she’s the architect of her own downfall. Luthen was never going to go quietly, but having achieved his goal of spreading the rebellion across the galaxy, he tries to take his life by stabbing himself with a Nautolan bleeder. Although he survives his injuries, the fact that a smug Dedra thought she could take him in and claim the glory for himself by making an unsanctioned arrest attempt without backup has riled Krennic. Things only got worse when Krennic learns Lonni had accessed Meero’s files regarding the Death Star, and although she bats off his (incorrect) assumption that she’s a Rebel spy, the catalogue of errors sees her sent to one of the Narkina moons where Cassian was locked up in season 1.  Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Gilroy expanded on how Meero served as an unwilling way for the Rebels to access the information on the Death Star, which ultimately catapults the story into Rogue One. “The whole ISB is coming to an end. If you think about it, if that was the CIA or any intelligence bureau,” mused Gilroy. “With those kinds of breaches and that kind of disaster happening simultaneously, it would be a cleaning of house. So she’s definitely going to go down.” Speaking to TV Line, Gough described how she was “so happy” for the audience for Dedra to end up where she is. Discussing how she’s left locked up in an Imperial prison, Gough cheered: “It’s so gratifying” to see Dedra’s location because we know what goes on in Narkina 5. Saying it’s “a perfect little button at the end of this season. You can’t have a character like that just get away with [the things she did].” As for the idea that Dedra could’ve gone the way of so many other iconic Star Wars villains, she concluded, “I’m glad she wasn’t killed. I’m really glad that we get to see her in that uniform, in that Narkina 5 [cell].” Soller similarly reflected on Dedra’s indefinite incarceration, saying how it’s poignant to see “someone who’s been so about control being put into the ultimate controlled space.” Star Wars has a habit of killing off its villains, with everyone from Emperor Palpatine (twice) to Count Dooku getting their comeuppance. Darth Maul (twice) and Jabba the Hutt all met their makers, while Grand Admiral Thrawn faced a similarly dismal fate to Dedra when he was marooned in space – although he returned in Ahsoka to presumably be killed further down the line. Just like how Syril, Partagaz, and eventually Krennic were chewed up and spat out by the system, Dedra’s fate was written in the stars as the Emperor put his plans for the Death Star into play. Even though the repeated imagery of Meero feeling choked after she was assaulted back in the season 1 finale had some believing we’d get a last-minute cameo from Darth Vader to kill her off with one of his iconic Force chokes, she gets a much better send-off.  Knowing that Dedra is presumably forced to help finish the Death Star or construct the second Death Star when the first is destroyed is equally ironic. It’s a tragic arc akin to Cassian helping build the weapon that will kill him in Rogue One, but more than this, Dedra will likely never know what happens to the ISB or the Empire. Taking Andor and Rogue One as a complete story, the high body count leaves a handful of characters like Dedra, Bix (Adria Arjona), Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau), and Vel (Faye Marsay) alive when Rogue One’s credits roll. Whereas the others get something of a happy ending, Dedra’s is far from it.  While leaving Dedra on one of the Narkina moons leaves the door open for her to return further down the line, there’s no need to. What happens to these prisons in the aftermath of the Empire’s fall is also unknown, but leaving her to rot Both seasons of Andor are available to stream on Disney+ now. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!

Warning: this article contains full spoilers for Andor Season 2’s finale. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out IGN's review for Andor Season 2, Episodes 10-12. Andor Season 2 just wrapped on Disney+, capping off what is easily one of the best Star Wars projects to come out of the Disney era. In the process, the series leads directly into the events of 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story bringing Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor full circle at last.We already know what happens next for Cassian and the Rebel Alliance. His tragic future is already set in stone. But despite that, there’s a lot to unpack in the dramatic finale of Andor, as the series reveals the fates of many major characters and drops a major twist with big ramifications for the Star Wars franchise. Let’s break down everything that happens and how the series paves the way for future Star Wars adventures.Every IGN Andor ReviewAndor Season 2’s Ending ExplainedAndor Season 2 has been busy chronicling the final four years in the life of Cassian Andor. Or, at least, the most pivotal moments in those four years. First, in 4 BBY, we saw Cassian’s mission to steal a prototype TIE Avenger and his temporary imprisonment on Yavin IV, destined to become the new operating base of the fledgling Rebel Alliance. Then, in 3 BBY, we saw the role Cassian and the Empire each played in propping up the resistance cell known as The Ghorman Front. Those actions then bore fruit in 2 BBY, as the Empire responded to its manufactured political crisis and instigated the Ghorman Massacre, galvanizing Genevieve O’Reilly’s Mon Mothma and the Rebels.The series now takes its final bow in 1 BBY, just days before the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars: A New Hope. As expected, Andor ends by showing us the final sequence of events leading up to the first major conflict between the Rebellion and the Empire on Scarif. It’s all catalyzed by Stellan Skarsgård’s Luthen Rael, who proves to be the Rebel agent who first uncovers evidence of the Death Star.These final three episodes follow what happens next, as Luthen sacrifices himself (with a little assistance from Elizabeth Dulau’s Kleya Marki) and Cassian and friends make a high-stakes trip to Coruscant to bring Kleya in. It’s a mission that would surely have ended in torture and death for all involved if not for the assistance of Alan Tudyk’s K-2SO. Rogue One emphasized the idea that the Rebellion’s victory at the Battle of Yavin was a miracle that was accomplished through many individual acts of heroism. At any point in the chain, something could have gone wrong that doomed the Rebellion to failure. Now we have a better appreciation for how far back that chain extends. If not for Luthen and Kleya’s bravery, the Rebels would have no idea of the danger looming over them. Hope persists in the darkest of times.The series ends with the Alliance High Command finally accepting the reality of what Cassian and Kleya are telling them. The Empire is building a super-weapon. They don’t yet know that it’s one with the power to destroy entire planets, but they do know it’s connected to the Empire’s supposed energy program, its kyber mining efforts on Jedha, and its actions on Ghorman. The pieces are falling into place, leaving Cassian free to meet his contact Tivik on the Ring of Kafrene. That encounter unfolds in one of the first scenes in Rogue One, where Cassian learns the full truth about the Death Star and the defection of Riz Ahmed’s Bodhi Rook.The series also shows us the fates of many of the other major players in this prequel series. Kleya seems ready to integrate with the Rebels, joining loyal soldiers like Faye Marsay’s Vel Sartha and Muhannad Bhaier’s Wilmon Paak. We also see one last glimpse of Forest Whitaker’s Saw Gerrera, who watches in paranoid agitation as an Imperial Star Destroyer looms above Jedha. On the Imperial side of things, Anton Lesser’s Major Partagaz is forced to pay the ultimate price for his failure to contain the Death Star leak, committing suicide rather than submitting to whatever other punishments the Emperor had in mind. Meanwhile, Dedra is seen languishing in an Imperial prison cell, ironically in the same facility on Narkina 5 where Cassian was imprisoned in Season 1.“Meanwhile, Dedra is seen languishing in an Imperial prison cell, ironically in the same facility on Narkina 5 where Cassian was imprisoned in Season 1. She’s clearly wracked by shame and guilt, contending with everything she sacrificed in the name of the Empire and the realization that none of it mattered in the end. The series has a lot to say about the perils of living under fascism. Dedra is proof that no amount of loyalty and sacrifice can change the fact that everyone serving the Empire is merely a pawn to be discarded when they outlive their usefulness. “I always think of it like Dedra is in a gang,” Gough told IGN in a recent roundtable interview. “These guys are in a tribe and Dedra is in a gang, and the gang just disperse at the first sign of trouble. They throw each other to the wolves. There's no loyalties. And so it was really clear to me that going through it, that when you commit your whole life and she's indoctrinated into the gang, so she can't see anything outside it. It's actually really tragic. She can't have intimacy or vulnerability or anything. And so it's a real kind of a foil to what the people in the Rebellion do have, which is loyalty, trust, love, intimacy, community, all of those things.”Episode 12 serves as a neat and tidy way to end the series, albeit somewhat bittersweet. We know that Cassian himself has only a few days left to live before he and the rest of the Rogue One team sacrifice their lives on Scarif. But there is one, final reveal saved for the very end. PlayRevealing Cassian Andor’s ChildThe final scene in Episode 12 reveals that Adria Arjona’s Bix Caleen has returned to Mina-Rau to live out her days in peace. Not only that, she’s raising a baby. As hinted at in Episode 9, Bix was pregnant when she left Cassian on Yavin IV. While she claimed to be leaving Cassian to ensure he would continue serving the Rebellion, it’s clear now that she also wanted to bring their unborn child somewhere he could grow up safe from the Empire.Cassian may be doomed to die fighting on Scarif, but his legacy lives on in a very tangible way. That’s probably the happiest ending fans could hope for from this generally very somber Star Wars series.“[Showrunner Tony Gilroy] really believes that information is power,” Arjona told IGN. “And he told me months before I read the scene where I sort of send Cassian off. He told me that that was going to happen. And so for months I was kind of lingering on that effect or that feeling before I ever read it. And when I read it, it shook me. I started crying immediately. And I love Rogue One, and I respect that movie so much. So to sort of send Cassian on this journey meant the world to me.”“For anyone who had doubts in [Episode] 9 about her motivation, it underlines it at the end. Absolutely,” Gilroy adds. “It makes his sacrifice even more powerful. So much stronger. I mean, you want hope at the end… It would be cruel and unnatural to put all these people through all this stuff and not have a candle in the window at the end.”Does Andor Season 2 Have a Post-Credits Scene?The Star Wars franchise isn’t as big about post-credits scenes and stingers as Marvel, but we have seen them in the past with some live-action Star Wars shows. That includes Andor Season 1, which ended with the reveal that the Narkina 5 prisoners were manufacturing equipment being used on the Death Star.Based on that, fans might be expecting Season 2 to also end with a post-credits scene of some sort. But not in this case. The series is done once the final credits start rolling. When Andor segues this neatly into the beginning of Rogue One, what’s the point of a post-credits scene? Besides, the final scene with Bix is all the series really needs in terms of setting the stage for future stories. There’s another Andor out there in the galaxy, and no doubt they have a grand destiny ahead of them, too. On that note…PlayHow Andor Sets Up Future Star Wars StoriesAs much as Andor serves as a direct prequel to Rogue One, the series does leave some loose ends open for future Star Wars projects to build upon. As mentioned, key characters like Will, Kleya, and Vel are still alive and active in the Rebellion. This leaves room for future Star Wars comics and novels to explore the ongoing role they play in the Galactic Civil War. Did they fight in the Battle of Scarif or other major conflicts like the Battle of Endor? Did they ever rub elbows with the likes of Han Solo and Luke Skywalker? Andor is so far removed from the Jedi business that usually dominates the franchise, so it might be fascinating to read a story that explores how these ordinary heroes react to fighting alongside a living legend like Luke.It’s also worth pointing out that, though Season 2 explores the last four years of Cassian’s life, it only focuses on very specific periods within those four years. Now that Andor has wrapped, there’s ample room for Lucasfilm to double back and commission new books that flesh out other conflicts during this era. How did the bond between Cassian and K-2SO form? What other high-stakes missions did Cassian undertake? Lucasfilm is dabbling in this area with the recently announced Reign of the Empire trilogy, but there’s room for plenty more stories spinning out of Andor. Then there’s poor Dedra. As much as the series delivers a poetic ending to her story, we can’t help but wonder if there’s more story to be told. What becomes of Dedra? Does she spend the remainder of the Galactic Civil War locked up on Narkina 5? What happens when the Empire is overthrown? How does she react to seeing her precious Empire fall? Is she freed? Is she put on trial for her role in orchestrating the Ghorman Massacre? We can’t help but feel there’s more to be explored there.No doubt the child will grow up hearing stories of Cassian’s heroism and bravery, inspiring them to follow in their father’s footsteps.“But above all, Andor leaves us to question what becomes of Bix and her child. No doubt the child will grow up hearing stories of Cassian’s heroism and bravery, inspiring them to follow in their father’s footsteps. Given the time period in which this series is set, there’s no way Cassian’s child could participate in the Rebel Alliance (unless they grow so desperate they start relying on child soldiers). But they would be the right age to take part in the war between the Resistance and the First Order. It would be a comforting thought to know that Leia’s forces have another tie to the classic Rebellion era in the form of Cassian Andor’s offspring. One intriguing possibility is that Cassian Jr. could wind up being a character in Shawn Levy’s Star Wars: Starfighter. We don’t know much about that film, other than that it’ll star Ryan Gosling and it’s set about five years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker. Cassian and Bix’s child would be in their 40s at that point, leaving them in a perfect position to take up arms in whatever conflict exists after the fall of Palpatine’s Final Order.Regardless of where and when it happens, we have to assume it’s only a matter of time before Cassian and Bix’s child makes their presence known in the Star Wars franchise. Cassian himself may be gone, but his sacrifice wasn’t in vain. The Rebellion survives, and so does his family. That’s everything Cassian was fighting for.For more on Andor, find out how the series created a major Star Wars plot hole (and why that doesn't matter), and see the cast react to Episode 9’s shocking death.Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket byfollowing @jschedeen on BlueSky.

This article contains spoilers for Andor season 2 episodes 10-12 and Rogue One. The final three episodes of Andor may not pack quite the same emotional punch as the Ghorman arc, but they definitely bring this story together in an impactful way. It was revealed fairly early on that this season was going to lead up to the events of Rogue One, but how it did so was still very much a surprise. From the reveal of Krennic’s secret weapon program, to Bail’s arrival on Yavin 4, and so much more – the last three episodes have lined things up perfectly and added new context to the events of Rogue One in the process. Here’s everything you need to know about the Andor finale and how it connects to Rogue One. Luthen and Lonni’s Sacrifice This arc begins a year after the last, as all the others have, in 1 BBY. Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau) and Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård) receive an urgent message from Lonni (Robert Emms) asking to meet. For the first time, Luthen and Lonni meet in public rather than in their secret elevator hideout in the depths of Coruscant.  Lonni begs for safe passage for him and his family in exchange for the information he has, claiming that he’s been burned and that the Empire will likely be after him soon. Luthen agrees to take them to Yavin, giving Lonni just enough hope to spill what he knows. Lonni starts by warning Luthen that Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) knows he’s Axis and is trying to covertly assemble a team to apprehend him.  Then Lonni reveals what really has him shaken up – the truth about the Emperor’s Energy program. After holding on to Dedra’s code cert for a year, he finally dug through her files and found out about Krennic’s (Ben Mendelsohn) secret weapon program a.k.a. the Death Star. He says that the massacre on Ghorman, and the Imperial occupation of Jedha and Scarif are all connected. He tells Luthen all about the Kyber crystals on Jedha, Galen Erso’s involvement, everything that the Rebel Alliance needs to start looking into this. Luthen kills Lonni after he shares this information, presumably paranoid about the Empire finding out what he now knows. He relays all of this to Kleya and urges her to flee and get this information to the others as quickly as possible. He stays behind and starts destroying their comms relay when Dedra appears. She comes alone, cocky and confident that she has him on the ropes, but Luthen isn’t going to go out so easily. While Dedra is waxing poetic about how she finally has him, Luthen stabs himself with a nearby relic. Dedra attempts to keep him alive by transporting him to a hospital, but Kleya is able to sneak in and take him off life support, as she knows he would want. Dedra’s Folly Even though Dedra is finally successful at capturing Luthen, we find out that her “victory” came at a cost. As soon as she gets Luthen to the hospital, she’s arrested by the ISB and Krennic is brought in to interrogate her. He asks who she told about the secret project and how she heard about Galen Erso’s involvement. He also assumes that she gave Lonni her code cert. She denies this, but also admits that there were intel bundles that were forwarded to her office by mistake. Instead of reporting them, she sifted through them for information that could lead her to Axis. But that also left the information readily available for Lonni to steal. In the final moments of episode 12, we see Dedra is now a prisoner in an Imperial prison like Cassian once was. We don’t know for sure that this is Narkina 5, the Empire is a fan of uniformity after all, but it’s pretty safe to assume that it’s at least a similar work camp environment. The Empire turned on her as soon as she outlived her usefulness and because her desire to capture Axis put the Death Star plans at risk. Rescuing Kleya and Knowledge of the Death Star Meanwhile, Cassian (Diego Luna), Melshi (Duncan Pow), and K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) are bonding on Yavin when Wilmon (Muhannad Bhaier) hears a mysterious transmission that Cassian recognizes from his time with Luthen. Cassian, Melshi, and K-2SO immediately set off for Coruscant despite the protocols on Yavin forbidding them from doing so. Wilmon tells Draven (Alistair Petrie) why Cassian left, and he isn’t too thrilled about it. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! On Coruscant, Supervisor Heert (Jacob James Beswick) is put in charge of finding and capturing Kleya. He seeks advice from Dedra, which she begrudgingly gives from behind bars. The ISB is able to get Kleya’s comm table functioning enough to track her distress signal, arriving at the Coruscant safe house right after Cassian and Melshi do. At first it seems like the ISB might have them cornered, but K-2SO puts his brute force to work taking out the Imperial agents and helping them get Kleya out of Coruscant. A Meeting On Kafrene When Cassian returns to Yavin, he relays the information about Krennic’s program and the Death Star that Kleya and Luthen got from Lonni to Rebel leadership. Kleya was injured in the ISB attack and is still recovering, and Cassian knows that they need to act on this information as soon as possible. Luthen died for it, after all. The Rebel council isn’t sure if they can trust this information, but Mon wants to believe Cassian. One of Saw’s men, Tivik, has put out word that he has information, but will only speak to Cassian about it if he comes to Kafrene. Mon and Draven try to convince Bail to let Cassian follow this lead even though he’s currently being reprimanded for sneaking off Yavin to go rescue Kleya. He relents, sending Cassian and K-2SO off to Kafrene, which is where we first meet them in Rogue One. What Happened to Bix? In the final moments of the finale, we return to Mina-Rau, the planet that Bix, Brasso, and Wilmon sought refuge on after Ferrix. B2-EMO is still there, playing with the children. Finally we see Bix, standing in a field holding a child that we can probably assume is Cassian’s, and part of the reason she left a year ago. She knew that he would leave the rebellion for both of them, and she didn’t want him to do that. But now she and their child look out into the distance, at a sunrise that Cassian is currently fighting for, but will never see for himself. Both full seasons of Andor are available to stream on Disney+ now.

A YouTube livestream event on Tuesday, featuring Andor creator/writer/showrunner Tony Gilroy and star Diego Luna, along with various stars of the series, inevitably touched on one of the entire series’ most devastating moments. One of the show’s running villains, civil servant and general catspaw Syril Karn, has a key confrontation in episode 8. Addressing the character’s storyline alongside Luna and Syril actor Kyle Soller, Gilroy revealed that the sequence’s climax was one of his biggest battles on the show. [Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for the Andor season 2 episode “Who Are You?”] In “Who Are You?”, Syril finally comes face-to-face with Cassian Andor (Luna), the rebel he’s been obsessed with since the beginning of the show. That obsession destroyed his career, took him across the galaxy, and led him to a satisfying, complicated new life. But he realizes it was all a lie, and that he was used to help the Empire mass-murder the people of the planet Ghorman. In the midst of the Imperial massacre on Ghorman, cleverly planned and constructed by Syril’s lover Dedra (Denise Gough) with his unwitting help, Syril happens across Cassian — and attacks him. And Cassian, who had no idea he’d become such a focus of Syril’s life, asks “Who are you?” Syril is clearly devastated. And a minute later, without ever getting to answer Cassian, he’s dead. The two men remain mysteries to each other, and Cassian moves on. “That line was very difficult to say!” Luna says in the livestream, talking about how much he had to put aside all his feelings about Syril’s history and his own knowledge of the larger story in order to make the moment work. “I think it was very smart also.” “I had to really fight for that line,” Gilroy says. “There was a lot of controversy about that.” Luna says Gilroy called him the night before shooting that scene to emphasize the importance of getting the line right, due to that fight to keep it in the script. They debated shooting alternate versions of the meeting, but Luna recounts Gilroy saying “It’s that one. You have to understand, it’s that one.” Luna says when he actually got to the line during shooting, “The moment when we said it, and that kind of ‘Oh shit!’ — the whole scene turns 360 in that moment.” “I told them, I’m naming the episode ‘Who Are You?’” Gilroy said. “I pushed all my chips on that. There were a lot of phone calls about that… I was very clear, [though] there was a lot of noise.” Because of the pushback, Gilroy says he did shoot alternate versions of the confrontation, in spite of his objections: “Whaddya do? You get alts. But, like, sometimes the building of alts diminishes the one [version] that you want. So you get half a slice of the thing that you want. My call to him was like, ‘You can get all the alts you want, but I know what I’m going [with] when I get in the cutting room. […] So make sure you get a good one, because I’m not going to look at the other ones.” For his part, Soller cites the line “Who are you?” as “the death blow” for Syril. “That line is so cutting. Everything Syril experiences in the 10 minutes leading up to that is kind of crushing, but that is the ultimate death blow for him. The guy whom he’s been funneling all of this energy toward for the past couple of years just doesn’t even know he exists. Brutal. Brutal.” One fun reveal from later in the livestream, though, is that Gilroy also had to battle for a much smaller and less telling detail in the show. In the season 2 episode “What a Festive Evening,” Cassian’s fellow rebel Bix (Adria Arjona) confronts her torturer, Imperial scientist Doctor Gorst (Joshua James). He’s first seen entering his torture lab carrying a fancy cupcake in a decorative package, which he sets down on a computer panel right before Bix reveals herself. “I had to fight for that cupcake, too,” Gilroy laughs. “I don’t know, I just wanted it! But nobody [else] wanted it.”

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