The following story contains spoilers for Andor season 2, episode 8, “Who Are You?”
“WHO ARE YOU?”
Those are the last words Syril Karn, Andor‘s resident ladder-climbing imperial bootlicker, ever heard. And considering the phrase made up the title of the episode—which would serve to be Syril’s last episode—it comes with quite a bit of depth.
From the very beginning, Syril (played brilliantly by Kyle Soller) was presented as a character foil and a mirror image to the show’s titular character and hero, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna). As we see Cassian learning that there’s more going on (and more potential for both him and what he believes in), we also see an ambitious young Syril, then just a space cop overseeing Ferrix, also learning about what he believes in—and being stymied. Eventually, Syril loses his job for pursuing what he believes to be “right,” encountering Cassian along the way and gaining what would, in his mind only, become a lifelong nemesis.
Andor is a show in the world of Star Wars, about how things got to be the way they are. We know what happens in A New Hope. We know what happens in Rogue One. And Andor exists to show us the little, intricate things that have always been necessary to get us there.
But Andor is also a show with more parallels to real life than anyone could’ve expected when the show was first announced—and that’s thanks to the brilliance of showrunner Tony Gilroy and the team of writers who work with him. Syril is a space cop in a galaxy far, far, away, yes. But as a troubled young(ish) man looking for purpose, Syril’s life is one that makes more and more sense with the more screen time he gets. He lives a shallow, empty life, with his nagging-but-loving mother, Eedy (the wonderful Kathryn Hunter) as basically the only other person he interacts with. He has no friends. He has no hobbies. All Syril has in his life is working for, and believing in, The Empire—and so he puts everything he has into it.
This is a kind of character we’ve never seen before in any Star Wars media; Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) may represent the idea of the “banality of evil,” but at least he’s a very high ranking figure. Syril is a nobody, a schlub. He’s a horrifying example of someone who could’ve been normal, but got sucked into believing in something and never found his way out. With the way very real young minds are shaped in 2025, this is a relevant track to find someone on; the way people are misled and warped into believing something based on appeals to rage and anger is just as relevant in our world as it is in Star Wars. When Syril’s mission to pursue Cassian on Ferrix in season 1 is a failure and he’s fired, he told himself that only he can be the person to make this right. And he never stopped believing that for the rest of his life.
Syril and Cassian are presented, throughout, on parallel paths. At one point Syril gets fired from his job, yes, but at one point Cassian winds up in prison. Both have setbacks, but are relentless in their pursuit of what they believe in: Cassian even needs some convincing to ultimately join the cause of the rebellion, but Syril is all in on The Empire. So much so, in fact, that it connects him with ISB Space Nazi Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) in a relationship that at first is obsessive and eventually, somehow, turns romantic.
As Andor moves through season 1 and into season 2, we see that Syril, despite his lack of experience in anything other than bootlicking, can be smart and resourceful when he needs to. He can be charismatic, seen when his new job on the doomed planet of Ghorman gets him involved with a group of local rebels. But because he’s so obsessed with a cause he doesn’t fully understand, he’s all too quick to sell those rebels out to Dedra and the ISB, without even realizing what his deceit is leading to.
And, well, it leads to genocide. It’s not entirely clear what Syril thought he was contributing to, but Soller’s performance in “Who Are You?” is nothing short of brilliant. It takes no words—only stunned, horrified facial expressions—for Syril to realize that his lifelong devotion has been to a cause far more destructive than he ever imagined. And it’s breaks his brain in half when he realizes that the information he’s been reporting back to Dedra has been leading to this all along; He is complicit. The plan, to Syril’s horror, was always to find a good reason for the Empire to wipe out the people of Ghorman and steal the planet’s resources.
While