The Andor Finale Just Set Up a Brutal Rogue One Moment

Where is Cassian Andor going next? In the final moments of Andor Season 2, Episode 12, we see Cassian flying off on a mission to meet a contact on the Rings of Kafrene. We don’t see him actually arrive, and that’s because the moment that Cassian hits up Kafrene is right near the beginning of the movie Rogue One. As we’ve known for a while now, Andor Season 2 does lead right into the beginning of Cassian’s story in Rogue One.

Here’s what the Rings of Kafrene are, and why Cassian heading there is such a big deal for the rest of Star Wars history.

Warning! Spoilers ahead for Andor Season 2 Episode 12.

After busting out Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau) from Coruscant and coming back to Yavin, the Rebels finally decide to respond to an urgent call coming from one of Saw Gerrera's (Forest Whitaker) partisans on the Rings of Kafrene. That contact is Tivik, who, in Rogue One, was played by Daniel Mays.

Andor doesn’t show us the meeting between Tivik and Cassian, and that’s because the scene already exists in Rogue One. In the first episode of Andor Season 2, “One Year Later,” the word “Kafrene” was the password Niya (Rachelle Diedericks) gave Cassian before he stole the TIE Avenger from the Sienar Test Facility. So, the very first episode of Andor Season 2, which occurs four years before the finale, was teasing the final moments from its very first scene.

In Star Wars lore, the Rings of Kafrene is a massive trading post, sort of like a Mos Eisley in space. It was invented specifically for Rogue One, but has appeared in a handful of comic books and novels. It’s very clearly one of the wretched hives of scum and villainy that smugglers and pirates might frequent. In Rogue One, Cassian meets Tivik here and learns specifically that the secret weapon the Empire is developing is a “planet killer.”

This detail is the one thing nobody has actually confirmed during the events of Andor. But the new context that Andor provides is this: From Episodes 10 through 12, we learn that Lonni Jung (Robert Emms) told Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård) that Galen Erso was key to the creation of the superweapon. Luthen passes this information to Kleya, who, by the Andor series finale, tells Cassian.

So, in Rogue One, when Tivik says “Erso,” and Cassian responds adamantly, “Galen Erso?” the reason he’s thinking about this name is that he’s just learned it from Kleya. And, mirroring much of Luthen’s merciless spy tactics throughout the series, Cassian brutally murders Tivik on the Rings of Kafrene in order to cover his tracks.

Watching the conclusion of Andor Season 2 and the beginning of Rogue One might not be a totally seamless experience, but the moment we meet Andor on the Rings of Kafrene is fully set up in the series finale. In 2016, we didn’t know how or why Cassian was aware of the name “Galen Erso,” but now we do. This simple fact makes the beginning of Rogue One very different, and Cassian’s journey much more tragic than we ever knew before.

Andor and Rogue One both stream on Disney+.