In a series of recent interviews promoting Andor Season 2, showrunner Tony Gilroy opens up on The Ghorman Massacre, Mon Mothma’s path and more. Gilroy has been busy and we are pulling quotes here from four separate interviews with outlets. These quotes are only a small portion of what Gilroy had to say, so check the source links for the full interviews.

Mon Mothma

Let’s start with Mon Mothma, a key player in Andor Season 1 and the eventual political leader of the Rebel Alliance. Here’s what Gilroy had to say when speaking with EW.

“Canonically, there’s the moment where she leaves the Senate, and that’s in our timeline. So we’re definitely dealing with that, but I would say, of all the characters in the show, of all the hellacious things that people go through, and all of the difficulties and hardships, I don’t think anybody has a harder road than she does. Because she has to do everything that everybody else does with all the tension, fear, and anxiety and she has to do it in public.”

“She has nowhere to hide, and this season just ramps that up to an almost unbearable point. What Genevieve is going to do in this second season — we realized in the first season what a brilliant actress she was and that we hadn’t found the limits of what she could do. We still haven’t found them. But he opportunity to write for her and write her story large was very important to me in the second season.”

It still boggles my brain how badly this character was botched in Ahsoka and how brilliantly she is used in Andor.

The Ghorman Massacre

Speaking with Collider,

“It’s the five years. I get those five years. So, in those five years, there’s a couple of really big… You map it out on a calendar, on a piece of paper, “Okay, here’s where I’m going to go. Here are my four blocks. Here’s where these things happen.” Mon Mothma leaving the Senate is canonical. There are a couple of other events in here. The development of Yavin is canonical. Obviously, the discovery of the Death Star and whatever intelligence there is, espionage, that leads to the beginning of Rogue One is canonical. I had to get to all those things.”

“Ghorman, interestingly, is canonical but completely undescribed. It’s a total blank slate.”

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“There’s also a bit of confusion about the Ghorman Massacre, and what is the Ghorman Massacre? There’s a lot of confusion within canon. So, it was an opportunity to rebuild in a really significant way. It’s a very significant part of our show that can do a lot of different things for us. Quite honestly, it’s very expensive to build, so we really want to use it as much as possible so it carries over five different episodes. I’m really confident that the really deep, passionate Star Wars community will appreciate how we’ve straightened out that story.”

Release Structure

Speaking with TV Line, Gilroy discussed the odd release schedule for Andor Season 2. There are three episodes a week running for four weeks, giving us twelve in total. This matches the idea we already saw in Andor season 1 of each story being three episodes long. However in Season 2, there may be some larger gaps between these stories. Gilroy explains why this suits the way they’ve approached this show.

“The people who made the show, we really feel like what we did is we made eight movies in five-and-a-half years. That’s how we think of it. We made eight Star Wars movies in five-and-a-half years, and that’s how we shoot them. The directors come in and do blocks of three, so it’s baked into our whole psyche from the moment we started. “Three, three, three, three, three….” Uh, I think it makes it hard for podcasters. [Laughs] I think a couple of people are going to have to stay up late, and there’s going to be some extra broadcasting. I don’t know how that’s going to work, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m really into it.”

Yep, I am not looking forward to the amount of content I need to watch before podcasts and reviews. I’m happy they’ve taken this approach, I plan to review it in the three episode chunks rather than individually. It’s just that watch time beforehand eats into your schedule.

“I will miss…. I mean, it was super groovy to, like, roll out [Season 1] for, like, three months — it was like Christmas every Wednesday. But I’m into this. I like this idea.”

Serious Star Wars

As fans of Season 1 would expect, Gilroy reiterates how serious they are taking this show when he spoke to Gizmodo.

“That’s been our attitude all the way through: not to be cynical, and to take it more seriously than anybody ever took it. Even while we’re changing—some people feel as though it’s changing a lot—but even while we’re changing the grammar of what you can do, we’re trying very rigorously to be more serious about this shit than anybody ever has been.”

That’s what Andor is though right? serious Star Wars for grown ups. Older fans like me who grew up with the OT. However, you hope some of the younger audience appreciates how far above other Star Wars projects Andor is one day.

What do you think of his comments as Andor Season 2 showrunner Tony Gilroy opens up on The Ghorman Massacre, Mon Mothma’s path and the rest? Thoughts below, let us know if you are excited for Andor Season 2 which premieres on Disney+ April 22.

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