Andor Demands That You Actually Know What Rhydonium Is

At the end of Andor season 2, episode 5, Star Wars fan-favorite rebel Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker), delivers an impassioned speech about… huffing fumes?

It’s true. Saw convinces Wilmon Paak (Muhannad Bhaier) to breathe in a dangerous amount of a gas called Rhydonium as they prepare to bomb an Imperial pipeline in season 2. He tells the young rebel that his extremist faction is “the fuel for the thing when there’s too much friction in the air.” Sounds like Saw is a bit too high on his own supply. But what is Rhydonium exactly, and why is Saw so obsessed with it?

Well, as my colleague Brady Langmann discovered in Esquire’s episode 4 recap, Rhydonium is basically spaceship fuel. The toxic fumes are highly flammable and extremely dangerous to breathe in, which is probably why Saw is hooked up with a tracheostomy tube and a Darth Vader-esque breathing device by the time Rogue One: A Star Wars Story rolls around. Still, that makes Rhydonium a perfect ingredient for explosives.

As Saw explains later on, he was a child when he was forced to work in a camp that harvested the gas. The radiation was so bad that their clothes melted off their bodies and irritated their skin. “It was the Rhydo,” he says. “They had a leak. You could feel it before you could smell it. So they all panicked and ran away. But it was new to me.”

It’s clear from Saw’s obsession with Rhydonium that the fumes are addictive. Seemingly, Saw’s in deep. “I understand it,” he mumbles as he smells the fumes. “She is my sister, Rhydo, and she loves me…. You feel how badly she wants to explode?”

Then Saw convinces Wilmon to join him. “Revolution is not for the sane,” he continues. “We’ll all be dead before the Republic is back and yet… here we are! You’re here and you’re ready to fight!” Smell the gunpowder, son, it’s the rebellion! Wilmon takes one whiff of the Rhydo and has an immediate out-of-body experience. I guess revolution is one hell of a drug.