Warning: SPOILERS for this week’s Andor episodes are forward!
After beginning out as a Star Wars: The Clone Wars visitor character, Noticed Gerrera rose to prominence when Forest Whittaker performed him in Rogue One. Along with the character standing out from official members of the Insurrection along with his extremist views and techniques, Whitaker’s Noticed was additionally visually distinctive with the pressurized go well with he was compelled to put on and the oxygen masks he continuously wanted to breathe from. Three new episodes of Andor Season 2 have been launched onto the 2025 TV schedule, and the primary two appear to have lastly revealed how Noticed’s lungs have been broken, and it makes me really feel much more sympathy for him.
One of many tales lined in Season 2’s fourth and fifth episodes follows Wilmon Paak, Cassian Andor and Bix Caleen’s buddy from Ferrix, as he was embedded with Noticed Gerrera’s Partisans. Wil was there to show Pluti, one in all Noticed’s males, tips on how to use a machine that may safely mine rhydonium, a gas supply that may simply burn somebody from the skin, in addition to the within, supplied sufficient of it’s breathed in. Utilizing the machine requires one to memorize eight variations, and Noticed refused to let Wil return to his common Insurgent cohorts till Pluti had no downside dealing with this process on his personal.
However in a shocking flip of occasions, Noticed killed Pluti after Wil taught him all of the variations for the machine, as he was spying for the Empire and was going to guide them right into a entice. So Wil was as a substitute compelled to go on the rhydonium run to work the machine on an unnamed planet. Whereas he was sporting a respiration masks through the course of, Noticed was simply speaking close by, mouth uncovered, about how he developed his unusual style and obsession for “rhydo.”
When he was youthful, Noticed Gerrera was enslaved in a piece camp in a “sizzling, moist, blistering jungle” on his homeworld of Onderon. It was so sizzling that an individual’s garments would burn off in the event that they stayed out within the solar too lengthy, and when outdated males died the place they stood, the subsequent day, there’d be nothing left of them however “a bone or two.” However then in the future, everybody began to itch, and all however Noticed ran away from the camp. This itching got here from a rhydonium leak, however She embraced his publicity to this substance, calling it his “sister.”
That’s the place it received particularly unhappy with Noticed. The rhydonium clearly messed along with his thoughts and is slowly burning away the within of his physique, to the purpose that he’ll not be capable to breathe with out help by the point Rogue One occurs. When mixed with all of the loss he’s handled over his life, together with the loss of life of his precise sister, Steela, and the way he’s keen to hold out horrible deeds in an effort to damage the Empire, there’s an argument to be made for him being some of the tragic characters within the Star Wars mythology.
However Noticed has absolutely embraced the rhydonium’s impact on him, admitting to Wilmon that he’s certainly “loopy” and that “revolution will not be for the sane.” His stirring phrases have been persuasive sufficient for Wil to take off his respiration masks and breathe within the rhydonium too, with Noticed exclaiming, “Let it in, boy! That’s freedom calling!” I can solely hope we don’t see Wil change into as hooked on these things as Noticed did in upcoming Star Wars films and TV exhibits, as I don’t wish to see him endure the identical type of bodily and psychological deterioration Forest Whitaker’s character has.
We’re now midway via Andor Season 2, with the present reaching its conclusion on Could 13. Since I solely lined a small portion of what unfolded in these newest three episodes, be sure to head to Disney+ to be taught what occurred to Cassian Andor, Mon Mothma and the opposite starring characters this week.