After obsessing about tracking down Cassian Andor and bringing him to "justice" since the very first episode of Andor, Syril Karn finally got his hands on the Rebel pilot in season 2, episode 8 - but a moment's hesitation ended up costing him everything.
Towards the end of "Who Are You?," Syril learns the truth about the Empire's plans for Ghorman, and stumbles through the protestors in a daze before catching sight of Andor just as he's about to assassinate Dedra Meero.
Karn brutally attacks his sworn enemy, ultimately managing to gain the upper hand when they are both knocked down by a nearby grenade blast. Syril is about to shoot the man he blames for causing him so much strife and misery, but Andor's question - "who are you?" - causes him to hesitate, and he is shot dead by revolutionary leader Carro Rylanze.
“He built up this totem of Cassian, this kind of voodoo doll, and the fact that he wasn’t even a blip on Cassian’s radar is crushing to him,” Syril actor Kyle Soller tells The Hollywood Reporter. “He’s so desperate to be remembered and to make a difference, and it’s a cut too deep by that point. He’s been betrayed by Dedra and the Empire, and now his one true obsession doesn’t even think he’s worth remembering. He’s heartbroken.”
Despite witnessing the Empire’s massacre of innocent protestors, Soller doesn’t believe Syril would’ve defected to the Rebellion even if he had survived.
“I still don’t think he would’ve joined the rebel side. I don’t think he would’ve joined a side at all,” Soller speculates. “I think he would’ve been so traumatized by those last ten minutes that he would just wander off somewhere to live alone.”
Season 2 will see the characters and their relationships intensify as the horizon of war draws near and Cassian becomes a key player in the Rebel Alliance. Everyone will be tested and, as the stakes rise, the betrayals, sacrifices and conflicting agendas will become profound.
Rife with political intrigue, danger, tension, and high stakes, the series is a prequel to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which portrayed a heroic band of rebels who steal the plans to the Empire’s weapon of mass destruction: The Death Star, setting the stage for the events of the original 1977 film.
Andor sets the clock back five years from the events of Rogue One to tell the story of the film’s hero, Cassian Andor, and his transformation from disinterested, cynical nobody into a rebel hero on his way to an epic destiny.
Says creator and executive producer Tony Gilroy, “One of the great thrills of making ‘Andor’ is the scale of the story and the number of characters we’re able to meet -- ordinary people, Imperial overlords, passionate revolutionaries. They are real people making epic decisions, all of them staring down questions with terrifying consequences. Cassian’s journey is the soul and spine of our story, but it’s the choir that makes the show. I’m so excited for audiences to see where we go in Season 2.”
The final season will unfold over 12 episodes, broken down into four chapters of three episodes each. The first chapter will premiere April 22, with subsequent chapters debuting each week.
Andor Season 2 stars Diego Luna, Stellan Skarsgård, Genevieve O’Reilly, Denise Gough, Kyle Soller, Adria Arjona, Faye Marsay, Varada Sethu, Elizabeth Dulau, Alan Tudyk, with Ben Mendelsohn and Forest Whitaker. The series was created by Tony Gilroy, who also serves as an executive producer along with Kathleen Kennedy, Sanne Wohlenberg, Diego Luna, Luke Hull and John Gilroy.
Gilroy wrote the first three episodes, with Beau Willimon writing episodes 4-6, Dan Gilroy penning episodes 7-9 and Tom Bissell putting pen to paper for episodes 10-12. The directors for the series are Ariel Kleiman (Eps. 1-6), Janus Metz (Eps. 7-9) and Alonso Ruizpalacios (Eps. 10-12).