Warning! This post contains SPOILERS for Andor season 2 episodes 4-6

Andor season 2 features a major reveal about Saw Gerrera, shedding new light on his Rogue One story and making him even more tragically fascinating. One of the last characters to be fully created by George Lucas, Forest Whitaker’s Saw Gerrera has a long Star Wars history dating back to the Clone Wars and spanning multiple different Star Wars projects. However, his newest appearance in Andor season 2 is perhaps one of his best yet.

In Andor season 2, episode 5, Saw Gerrera employs the aid of Wilmon Paak, a mechanical expert who normally works for Luthen Rael. Loaned by Rael to teach Saw’s Partisans how to extract and steal stores of rhydonium, Gerrera ends up forcibly co-opting young Wilson to his Partisans. However, Wilmon is eventually convinced to join the cause wholeheartedly thanks to the toxic rhydonium itself. Here’s what rhydonium does in Star Wars, and how it remarkably adds a whole new dimension to Saw Gerrera’s Rogue One story.

Just What Is Rhydonium?

A Highly Volatile Starship Fuel

In the Star Wars galaxy, rhydonium is a highly volatile and explosive starship fuel that’s incredibly difficult and hazardous to extract. In the established Star Wars canon, rhydonium first appeared in the animated Clone Wars series. However, it’s since been featured in Rebels, The Bad Batch, and The Mandalorian, to name a notable few. Beyond being extremely explosive, the fumes from rhydonium can also be incredibly damaging, both to one’s lungs, vocal cords, and brain.

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Seeking fuel to maintain their small squadron of fighters and transports, Saw needed someone like Wilmon to teach his soldiers how to steal and safely extract the fuel. However, he ultimately settled on keeping Wilmon himself after Pluti, the man Wil was teaching, failed to fully learn the skills required and was seemingly exposed as an Imperial spy (though this may have just been Gerrera’s justification for killing him out of paranoia). However, the true twist comes at the end of Andor season 2, episode 5 when Saw willingly breathes in the rhydo as Wilmon is extracting it.

Why Saw Gerrera Is Using Rhydonium

Connecting To His Dark Star Wars Past

Revealing his past before he came to fight the oppression of his homeworld on Onderon, Saw shares with Wil that he was once enslaved alongside many others in a work camp. One day, a rhydonium leak poisoned the air, killing nearly everyone present…but not Saw. Instead, Gerrera welcomed the pain and embraced the fumes. Saw now views the rhydo like his own personal drug of choice as much as a fuel source, referring to it as his “sister”, a dark replacement for Saw’s actual sister who died fighting for Onderon during the Clone Wars, named Steela.

As a result, the rhydonium has clearly affected Saw’s mind along with his physical health, driving him to be far more aggressive, ruthless, and paranoid compared to all the other Rebel cells working to defy the Imperial regime. Admitting to his lack of sanity, Saw tells Wilmon that “Revolution is not for the sane”, inspiring Will to take his respirator off and breathe in the fumes alongside the unhinged leader of the Partisans. To that end, Saw’s addiction communicates volumes about where he is three years later in Rogue One.

We Finally Know Why Saw’s Lungs Are Damaged In Rogue One

Saw’s Past “Rhydo” Addiction

In Rogue One, Saw is depicted as incredibly distrusting and completely paranoid; convinced that he’s surrounded by lies, deceptions, and those trying to kill him, and thus, The Cause. However, he’s also shown with an oxygen mask connected to a suit of armor with mechanical lungs, something we can now infer is needed due to his ongoing addiction, breathing in literal toxic fumes that have also warped his mind beyond repair. It’s a tragically fascinating reveal for Saw Gerrera, making him even darker as a character who fought the Empire in ways most other Star Wars characters never would.

New episodes of Andor season 2 release weekly on Tuesdays at 9 PM EST/6 PM PST on Disney+.

Andor

8/10

Release Date

2022 – 2025-00-00

Network

Disney+

Showrunner

Tony Gilroy

Directors

Susanna White

Writers

Dan Gilroy