Warning: SPOILERS for this week’s Andor episodes are forward!
“Who Are You?”, the second of the three Andor Season 2 episodes that premiered on the 2025 TV schedule, depicted the Ghorman Bloodbath, an occasion that had already been talked about in Star Wars historical past. Kyle Soller’s Syril Karn was killed through the tragic occasion, and the slaughter of so many innocents pushed Genevieve O’Reilly’s Mon Mothma to brazenly condemn Emperor Palpatine within the following episode. Nevertheless, followers of Star Wars Rebels could have seen that this second deviated from how the animated present offered Mothma talking out towards the Empire, and Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy defined why he and his workforce determined to pivot from canon with this.
For these unfamiliar, the Star Wars Rebels Season 3 episode “Secret Cargo” exhibits Mon Mothma delivering a speech decrying the Empire’s atrocities that was broadcast throughout the galaxy far, distant whereas she’s being transported to Yavin IV by Gold Squadron. Whereas it was established in direction of the tip of “Welcome to the Rebel” that this second continues to be going to occur following the occasions of this episode, Tony Gilroy defined to EW that he and his brother/fellow author Dan Gilroy weren’t fascinated by having O’Reilly recite the very same speech for Andor, saying:
In canon, she’s rescued by the Gold Squadron and the speech that they gave within the cartoon, which was a canonical present, [is on that ship]. And Danny’s like, ‘Do I’ve to stay to this f–ing speech?’
I can perceive perspective, particularly from a writing perspective. Though Andor and Rebels each exist inside official Star Wars canon, each really feel fairly completely different from each other. The latter present is accessible to followers of all ages, whereas the previous present gearing itself to the older members of the Star Wars fanbase with its extra mature storytelling. So whereas there’s nothing unsuitable with the speech Mon Mothma offers in Rebels, it was additionally high quality for Tony and Dan to give you one other speech that extra successfully match Andor’s tone.
However once more, the speech we noticed in “Welcome to the Rebel” isn’t retconning Star Wars Rebels. It’s merely increasing this nook of Star Wars lore, as Tony Gilroy laid out:
In a very sneaky manner, we’re minimizing what they did in Star Wars Rebels, however we’re maintaining it constant. We’re simply saying you do not actually know the entire story of what occurred.
The speech Mon Mothma gave to the Imperial Senate was minimize between motion scenes involving Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor and the operatives Bail Organa despatched to sneak Mothma off planet, one in all whom was an Imperial spy. Nevertheless, a full speech was certainly written and filmed for “Welcome to the Rebel,” and Genevieve O’Reilly informed EW that it felt “particular” getting the recite the entire thing. Alas, the video feed broadcasting this primary speech from the Imperial Senate chamber was minimize a part of the best way via, which is why it grew to become mandatory for Mothma to ship that second speech from Rebels as soon as she was in Gold Squadron’s care.
There are simply three episodes left to go in Andor, and with Mon Mothma now on the run from the Empire, we’ll lastly get to see her as that public Rebel chief we all know so effectively. These episodes will lead immediately into the occasions of Rogue One, which was technically O’Reilly’s theatrical debut because the character since her scenes from Revenge of the Sith had been deleted.