Spoiler Alert: Spoilers follow for Season 2 of AndorThe moment thatStar Warslore experts have been dreading has finally arrived. After weeks of buildup,Andorfinally displayed the Ghorman Massacre in all its horror in Season 2, Episode 8, “Who Are You?”. It’s long been known as a key event in the Imperial Era, first detailed inStar Wars Rebels’ third season, and it directly led Mon Mothma to fully commit to uniting the Rebel Alliance.
It also serves as a culmination of the show as a whole, as the massacre proves a key stepping stone in Andor’s commitment to the cause, a suitably tragic end for a key character, and maybe the Empire’s most brazendisplay of authoritarianism yet. Yet while the franchise has only hinted at this event in the past,viewers finally saw the carnage in full this week, and the result is the most terrifying sequence to come out ofStar Warsin years.
‘Andor’ Displays the Ghorman Massacre in All Its Horror
At the start of “Who Are You?”, the eighth episode ofAndor’s second season, the show had built up the political tensions on Ghorman in exacting detail, and things were reaching a breaking point. The Empire, looking to extract kalkite from the planet’s core to finish construction on the Death Star, launched a propaganda campaign against the Ghorman population, deliberately turning galactic opinion against them.
Subsequently, Dedra, charged with overseeing the operation,recruited everyone’s favorite pathetic worm, Syril Karn, to push the Ghorman rebels into protesting the planet’s occupation. Finally, in this week’s new batch of episodes, the Ghormans march against the Imperial forces, united in solidarity and joined in song. It’s a heartbreaking sequence, reminiscent of bothCasablancaand “Do You Hear the People Sing” fromLes Misérables.
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Yet this moment leaves us with a pit in our stomachs: we know that all hell is about to break loose, and that the Imperials will use the protest as a pretext to open fire on them.It’s the rare instance in which we don’twantthe action sequences to unfold, and the buildup is almost unbearably suspenseful. When the massacre finally begins in earnest, it’s not thrilling or exciting — it’s horrifying, as it should be.
Moreover, it leaves none of our main characters unscathed. Andor barely escapes the slaughter, while the event is enough to finally pushMon Mothma to condemn Emperor Palpatinein a Senate hearing. Syril, horrified at a massacre that he unknowingly helped bring to fruition, meets a poetic end (complete with a final moment that’s nothing short of utter perfection). Even Dedra seems shocked by the enormity of what the Empire has wrought, even as she knows she’ll be celebrated for her work.
‘Andor’ Calls Back to Real World Events… And ‘Revenge of the Sith’
Obviously, the real-world parallels are unmistakable. Right-wing extremist movements have popped up around the world over the last decade, andAndorcouldn’t feel more prescient about America’s current state right now. But part of what makes the latest episode especially chilling is that it fully displays how fascism operates, step by step. A demographic is singled out for prejudice, public opinion is slowly turned against them, and demagogues use this to their advantage and, in the worst cases, take carte blanche to eradicate them.
Often, said singling out is done with ulterior motives; part of what helped the Holocaust unfold was that Hitler was able to take advantage of Germany’s post-WWI economic crisis and scapegoat the Jewish population. We see a similar scenario unfold inAndor, as the Empire plans to take advantage of the division around Ghorman and mine the planet for its natural resources. Additionally, the imagery in the massacre evokes that of various conflicts across the Middle East (and it feels especially timely that Mon Mothma explicitly refers to the event as a “genocide”).
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It’s easily the most disturbing setpieceStar Warshas delivered in years, and it recalls another of the franchise’s most devastating sequences: the execution of Order 66 inRevenge of the Sith, maybe the high watermark of the prequels.Like the Ghorman Massacre, it was devastating and sobering rather than thrilling, and it was a clear depiction of how fast authoritarianism can escalate into a rolling snowball, unable to be stopped, once it’s started moving.
But even disregarding contemporary parallels, the devastating impact of the Ghorman Massacre would still make it maybe the show’s finest hour. It illustrates whyAndorhas felt like the most essential corner of theStar Warsuniverse in years, as it displays a level of maturity and nuance that we wouldn’t have thought possible from the franchise, even at its best. Even if next week’s final three episodes don’t match its impact, it’s inarguable thatAndorSeason 2just left us with some of the year’s best television before it leaves us for good.Andoris streaming onDisney+, with new episodes every Tuesday.
