Saw Gerrera’s post-Rogue One career has forged him into one of Star Wars‘ most fascinating elements of the Rebellion. A sometime ally and often outside detractor to the unequivocal heroes of the original films, Saw became the embodiment of an unsanitized look at the reality of resisting a totalitarian regime like the Galactic Empire, a fascinating foil put up first against Mon Mothma, and then Andor‘s own Luthen Rael as one facet of the greater whole of the Rebel Alliance. But while he’s regularly made some very valid points across his appearances—often alongside him being othered or in some ways villainized by the eventual tellers of the history that is the Alliance’s victory against the Empire—this week’s set of Andor episodes gave an incredible moment over to the partisan leader to articulate his perspective.
Across Andor season two’s second trio of episodes, Saw’s narrative is experienced less through the man himself directly, and more from the perspective of former Ferrix native Wilmon Paak. Wilmon himself is already an interesting mirror to Saw’s own origins in Clone Wars—Wil’s father, Salman, was tortured to death by the Empire in an attempt to hunt down the insurgent operative codenamed “Axis,” leading to Wil throwing an incendiary device that further ignited the riot at Maarva’s funeral in season one, an interesting mirror to Saw losing his sister in Oderon’s Republic-backed insurgency against Separatist rule in the Clone Wars. But over the course of this act, we see Wilmon, sent to provide technical support to Saw’s partisans by Luthen, transform from an initially wary, almost captive tool manipulated by Saw through equal parts fear and duplicity to a willing adherent of Saw’s vision.
It climaxes in a wild moment to see on screen in Star Wars, where, having used Wilmon’s engineering knowhow to help steal a supply of volatile starship fuel, rhydonium, Saw invites the young man to join him in huffing the toxic vapors that make it so dangerous to handle in the first place. At first, Saw waxes lyrical about “rhydo,” as he almost lovingly calls it, a symbol for everything he idealizes about resistance to the Empire: it’s violently powerful, essential, a substance practically yearning to defy the hands of whoever seeks to control it, and reward that desire for control with painful, inevitable death. Up to this point Star Wars‘ inherent need to other Saw’s stance in contrast to the heroes of the eventual Rebellion that we meet in the movies—a canonical necessity to prove their way of resistance was ultimately the justified one—has previously been defined by presenting Saw as too distrusting, too unpredictable, too stubborn, even, no matter how valid his sentiments, to ever effectively lead a broader coalition against the Empire. But in this moment you really get to see the charisma that belies that prior framing of him, as we watch Wilmon go from abject horror at Saw to willingly joining him in inhaling the spoils of their victory.
But what helps sell that cult of personality is that in this moment Andor treats Saw’s volatility not as a potential liability as it has been across his prior appearances since Rogue One, but the inevitable conclusion of a life lived under the authoritarian jackboot of an organization like the Empire. Saw’s fuel-huffing is simultaneously presented as the actions of an unstable person and also the almost tragic extent of what he’s been pushed to by, at this point, decades of resistance against first Republic, and then Imperial, occupation of every part of his life.
“You think I’m crazy? Yes, I am. Revolution is not for the sane,” Saw gasps to Wil as he coaxes the young man into breathing in the rhydonium, the substance that is both a death sentence and, as Saw has just evangelized to his latest follower, the symbol of everything resistance to the Empire should be. Saw has endured fighting to survive since he was a teenager, internment in labor camps, losing his family and his home, and exchanging it for a life where, as he describes to Wil, for his willing to fight back at any cost he is both hunted by his oppressors and left unloved by his would-be allies. In the face of that evil, what alternative is there for him than to lose his mind, to burn from the inside out, knowing his days in this fight are numbered whether he wants them to be or not?
In that moment—reflected against the struggles his counterparts in Luthen and Mon in Andor have faced as they both reckon with becoming part of a greater alliance against the Empire—Saw is presented not as he has been while making valid points before, but unequivocally justified in his actions, even if the justification is a tragic one. Star Wars is Star Wars: even if we know Saw’s final fate, there’s still plenty of opportunities to return to his character in the run up to this moment. But here Andor has given us a Saw that is, chronologically speaking, on the edge of oblivion, pushed closer and closer to the end of those numbered days we see in Rogue One.
If this is to be the last time we really spend time with him before that closing chapter, then it’s only fitting that he is finally presented with justified vindication—and allowed to burn as brightly as his beloved rhydo.
Andor season two is now streaming on Disney plus.
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