Breaking Down the Details in Andor Season 2’s Riotous First Trailer

The first trailer for Andor season two dropped today, giving us a long-awaited look at Cassian’s return—and a rebellion coalescing into full, explosive effect. It’s full of tiny little glimpses of what we know are going to to be four distinct chapters setting the year-by-year stage for the Cassian we met in Rogue One, familiar faces from the first season, and even a few intriguing Star Wars Easter eggs. Here’s everything we spotted.

The Many Lives of Cassian Andor

The clever opening cuts between several shots of Cassian’s back, and individual acts of rebellion, that seem to presumably pull on the broader structure of season two. We now know that the 12-episode season will be split up into four “chapters” of three episodes each, with each tale jumping by around a year between 4BBY and 0BBY—ending Andor just days before the beginning of Rogue One. Those four distinct eras are marked here: Cassian in a slick, fancy disguise on a planet of white structures and what appears to be a busy transport hub (that descends into chaos rather rapidly, more on that later); Cassian in a more Andor-esque leather jacket in a moody interior (that cuts to him disabling some kind of large cargo transport sled); an even moodier interior of a more claustrophobic, dingy corridor that seems to match up with some the shots we see later with Saw Gerrera (which cuts to Cassian, seemingly again, as he casually executes an Imperial guard in a spartan facility). That all then cuts to…

The Eve of Rogue One

Cassian, at the Massassi Temple, an agent of the unified Rebel Alliance on the precipice of an all-out galactic civil war. This is, presumably, the final arc of the show, the one we know that will culminate just days before Rogue One and A New Hope are set to begin. How do we know that, beyond the fact that Cassian’s clearly on Yavin IV? Well, he’s wearing part of his Rogue One costume: the jacket is the one we see Cassian wear in the opening of the movie where he meets his contract at a station in the Rings of Kafrene, and the undershirt is one he wears throughout the film… until his very end.

Fight or Win

“We’re in a war,” Cassian growls to someone over a series of shots. “You wanna fight, or win?” He seems to be doing a bit of both—these all appear to come from the same arc, and are all built around elements we’d seen previously teased: there’s an agri-world, covered in oceans of crops that we see Stormtroopers blasting at an unknown figure running through. We see whoever Cassian’s talking to, as he himself is dressed in an Imperial disguise we’d seen in previous promo images of him stealing the final element of this brief montage: a prototype TIE Fighter, from which we see Cassian unload a salvo of rockets to blow a vehicle up in those aforementioned crop fields.

That prototype TIE, while still unofficially named, canonizes the overall design of what was formerly known as the TIE Avenger. Introduced in the classic simulation game TIE Fighter in 1994, the ship was the EU’s iteration on Darth Vader’s TIE Advance, an experimental prototype that represented the potential future of space superiority fighter craft in the Imperial Navy: a capable ship-to-ship dogfighter that married high speed, an improved arsenal of blaster and heavy payload armaments, and deflector shielding, all in one package.

Three Faces of Rebellion

The next trio of shots are very interesting. We get a quick glimpse of Saw, looking much more like he does in Rogue One than he did in Andor‘s first season, suggesting we’ll meet him again a little later in season two’s chronology after some crucial events (more on that later). The next is of Mon Mothma, wearing an elegant gown as she’s surrounded by crowds of similarly elegantly dressed dancers at a party (more on that later). The last is of Luthen Rael, seemingly back in his foppish disguise as an antiquities dealer… and more on that right now, because this is the only shot we actually get of him in the entire trailer.

This is very interesting, not just because Luthen was such a major character in season one. But because he’s also the character we largely know the least about, here. We know where Mon Mothma ends up by the original trilogy. We know where Saw ends up, too, for better or worse—same for Cassian. Luthen is a free radical in many ways, but it’s especially going to be intriguing to see what he ultimately contributes to the formation of the broader Alliance as we come to know it, as a revolutionary and political entity. For now, Andor is giving us very few clues.

The Revolution Starts Now

Cool insurrectionists don’t look at explosions. But tropes aside, the intriguing confirmation here is that Cassian’s rebellious actions will, at some point, see Bix directly partner with him. Season one ended with him saving her from Imperial interrogation and getting her (alongside Brasso, who we also see in this trailer later) whisked away from Ferrix—but it looks like season two is going to give us a look at how she herself is forged into an agent of rebellion.

We Stand Here Amidst His Achievement

As if to remind us where this is all ultimately heading again, we get some satisfyingly smug shots of Andor‘s biggest “cameo” yet: the return of Ben Mendelsohn as Orson Krennic. We already know from previous teases that Krennic and Dedra are going to butt heads this season, but we’re also clearly going to see some of the earlier stages of Krennic’s work on developing the Death Star, now in much closer-to-operational state than when we saw it at the end of season one.

The Partisan Front

The next shot features a grim perspective: a corpse in the foreground as X-Wings and another ship are seen in the background. We see that ship a little later in another shot entering hyperspace, and while it’s hard to tell specifics, it has a lot of design similarities to the Aurore-class freighter, a class of ship that first appeared in Clone Wars as a ship in regular use by the Zygerrian empire.

But the thing to note here is that the X-Wings carry the distinctive black-and-white livery of the Partisans, Saw Gerrera’s guerrilla faction. Given that when we met Saw in Andor‘s first season, he was struggling to acquire material and needed convincing to work on operations with other disparate rebel cells, it seems like that when we meet him in season two, the Partisan front is going to be much more readily established—and, presumably at this point, already largely distanced from the broader Rebel Alliance as it pushed its own, more aggressive path to resistance against the Empire.

Prelude to a Massacre

The port city Cassian is seen at throughout this trailer is also shown repeatedly to eventually devolve into absolute chaos. There’s bodies everywhere, Stormtroopers firing indiscriminately, complete carnage. The timing of Andor‘s second season, and even a few potential teases from the first, could indicate that this will be our first on-screen look at a fundamental moment in the Rebellion’s history: the Ghorman Massacre.

Taking place in 2BBY, the Ghorman Massacre saw Imperial forces slaughter crowds of civilians engaging in peaceful protest on the planet Ghorman, after years of crisis over Imperial control of shipping lanes around the world. The massacre sparked Mon Mothma’s public withdrawal from the Imperial Senate, and the formal declaration of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, openly uniting a series of rebel cells across the galaxy into the organized rebellion against the Empire as seen in Rebels‘ third season.

Kleya’s Rage

Luthen might not be in this trailer much, but this very intriguing shot of his assistant and fellow operative Kleya might give us a better picture of his final fate—considering she looks incredibly upset and absolutely furious to see Cassian, it’s clear something very bad has happened.

Brasso!

Sadly he’s got no brick to beat them up with this time, but four Stormtroopers vs. one Brasso is a fight we’re itching to see, even if he’s getting pretty manhandled here. Interesting to note that the agricultural environment here seems to place Brasso on whatever world Cassian uses the TIE Avenger on. Is this the world Cassian got him and Bix sent to after the riots on Ferrix? Does that mean the young person being chased by troopers earlier in the trailer might be Wilmon Paak, the kid of the salvage shop owner on Ferrix?

Not Quite a Soldier, Not Quite a Trooper

This very interesting moment matches up with that tight corridor we saw Cassian roaming through in that opening montage of shots, but from an altogether more antagonistic perspective: Imperial soldiers, who are wearing a fascinating mishmash of Imperial army gear (as seen on the many soldiers we saw in Andor season one, like those stationed on Aldhani and the riot officers sent to Ferrix) and the white plastoid armor plating of Stormtroopers.

This doesn’t appear to be an impromptu get-up out of necessity, as we also see similarly dressed troopers in the background of another shot shortly—are they a sort of stepping stone between the regular forces of the Imperial ground army and the Stormtrooper Corps? It’s interesting to note that while Stormtroopers themselves were pretty spartan in Andor season one, they’re much more prevalent in all this footage, showing just how Imperial response to insurgency is going to escalate over this period of time.

Dedra’s Back, and Very Annoyed

Speaking of that other shot! We see another one of these hybrid-troopers milling around in the background of another familiar face only given single glimpse here: the return of Dedra Meero. In true Dedra style, she’s clearly ticked off about something. Cassian slipping out of her fingers? Krennic getting under her skin. Syril being… well, Syril? We’ll have to wait and see.

Krennic’s Intriguing Orbit

Speaking of the good director, this next glimpse of him in a slightly swankier get-up is interesting less for him, and more for who’s in the blurry fringes. We’ll get a much better, and equally brief, look later on in the trailer, but this certainly appears to be Davos Sculden in the blue robes, the seedy Chandrilan mobster Mon Mothma is forced to deal with to secure clandestine ways to funnel money to the Rebellion. And seemingly Mon herself on the left of the shot, looking a little more like her appearances in Rogue One and Return of the Jedi.

Welcome to Chandrila?

After a brief glimpse of the TIE Avenger causing chaos in an Imperial facility (no doubt at Cassian’s hands) as it guns down a bunch of Stormtroopers, we get a few shots of Mon Mothma furiously dancing at that party we saw her at early on in the trailer. This might be our very first look at her homeworld, Chandrila, on-screen—the attire certainly matches the aesthetic we regularly saw Mon and Perrin enrobe themselves in in season one. Might we visit the world to see the traditional customs that will see Mon’s daughter Lieda wedded to Sculden’s son?

The Revolution Will Be Televised

Speaking of Sculden and Mon though, we’re seemingly back on Coruscant here, and that event we see Krennic attending—we get a clearer shot of Sculden welcoming Mon and Perrin, and it’s clearer too that Mon has had a bit of a trim compared to what we just saw on her homeworld. Yes, the pixie cut from Rogue One that Mon will seemingly wear for the entirety of the Galactic Civil War is making its debut here. Style icon!

Hello, K2…

We knew he was coming this season, and we’d got to see him briefly in our first public look at season two a few months ago, but yes, Cassian’s ex-Imperial droid bestie is back! Presumably we’re going to see just how Cassian and K-2SO teamed up this season—I’m sure no trauma around Cassian’s brutal arrest on Niamos at the hands of another KX security droid will be involved.

… and Syril, We Guess

Another one-shot wonder in this trailer, our first and only look at Syril Karn is suitably dweeby, as he haughtily scampers through a group of Imperial technicians. Clearly he’s gone up in the world since saving Dedra on Ferrix… but will he have really wanted to, we wonder, considering his formal attire and the environment suggest that he’s in that port city that could potentially be Ghorman based on the other shots in the trailer. Will everyone’s least-favorite little freak meet his untimely end there?

The Making of Melshi

Another brief glimpse, another familiar face: this time it’s Rogue One‘s Ruescott Melshi, who we saw liberated from Narkina Five thanks to Cassian’s help last season. Although we last saw him and Cassian parting ways on Niamos after they’d managed to flee the Imperial prison, it seems Melshi’s still going to be caught up in chaos here—makes sense, considering that, like Cassian, we know he’s going to be signing up for the Rebellion.

Clarity of Purpose

The trailer climaxes with another fast montage of action shots: more of the TIE Avenger going crazy, more of the carnage on maybe-Ghorman, Cassian being blasted around as he’s smacked up against walls and careening over surfaces, Bix fighting an Imperial officer hand-to-hand. There’s even a shot of the most chaotic force of all, Syril’s mother Eedy, for good measure!

But the trailer ends with a moment of dialogue from Saw, as he shakes inspirational sense what appears to be one of his own partisans. “You’re here, right here, and you’re ready to fight!” We already have a lot of evidence in this trailer that whatever arc we get with Saw in this season is going to be after he’s largely cut ties with the broader Rebel Alliance—a moment we got to see coalesce in Rebels. But it’s going to be interesting to see just how Saw makes his case to his forces that his way is the right way, especially knowing how it all tragically plays out for the partisans by Rogue One.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.