Non-spoiler alert: Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’ Reilly) gets away from the Empire. While the events of Andor season 2 episode 9 are unbearably tense, anyone who’s seen Return of the Jedi (a 42-year-old movie) knows that the senator for Chandrila always had to make it off Coruscant in one piece.

But a brave speech in the Galactic Senate, during which she calls out the Empire’s actions on Ghorman for what they are – unprovoked genocide – and confirms that Emperor Palpatine is complicit, turns her into an enemy of the state. It also helps to mobilise people across the galaxy to the Rebel Alliance cause.

Here’s why Mon Mothma’s bold actions in Andor season 2 episode 9 are so pivotal to the Star Wars universe.

Spoilers ahead! Proceed with caution if you’re yet to watch Andor season 2 episodes 7, 8 and 9

How did we know Mon Mothma’s speech was coming before we’d seen Andor season 2 episode 9?

While the Ghorman massacre had never been depicted on screen before becoming part of the Andor season 2 story, it had been mentioned in animated series Star Wars Rebels, set during the same time period as Andor.

In season 3 episode “Secret Cargo”, we see a snippet of the speech Mon Mothma gives to the Senate in response to Imperial forces gunning down peaceful protesters on the Ghorman Plaza. While Mothma’s oratory has been rewritten for Andor (she’s also wearing a different outfit), the basic sentiment is the same: “The monster who will come for us all soon enough is Emperor Palpatine.”

Why is her intervention so important?

Because free speech – particularly overt criticism of the Emperor himself – is effectively outlawed under Palpatine’s totalitarian regime. For this very reason, many good people have chosen to stay silent for their own safety, but Mothma believes that the events on Ghorman are the tipping point that makes raising her head above the parapet imperative. She risks everything to blow the whistle, knowing that she’ll be branded a traitor and forced into exile, leaving her family (including her recently married daughter, Leida) behind.

Why does Bail Organa opt to stay behind in the Galactic Senate?

Princess Leia’s dad, Senator Bail Organa (now played by Benjamin Bratt, who’s taken over from Jimmy Smits in the Andor season 2 cast), feels he can do more good if he remains a player on the political stage, stalling until the Rebel base established on Yavin IV is ready to mount a serious assault on the Empire. In the meantime, he does everything he can to assist Mothma and facilitate her escape – though one of his agents turns out to be a traitor to the cause.

We know from original Star Wars movie A New Hope, of course, that within two years the Emperor will have dissolved the Senate and that Bail (along with all the other residents of Alderaan) will have been blown up by a fully operational Death Star.

What happens in the immediate aftermath of Mon Mothma’s Andor season 2 episode 9 speech?

Despite the Empire’s best efforts to cut the video feed from the Senate chamber, Mon Mothma’s speech is broadcast to the entire galaxy. They then turn their attentions to preventing her escape, and it requires all of Cassian Andor’s skills – and the ruthless execution of her driver/Imperial spy, Exmar Kloris (Lee Ross) – to get the senator offworld.

That’s where Andor season 2 episode 9 leaves Mon’s story.

But even though there won’t be an Andor season 3, we already know from Star Wars Rebels that spymaster Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård)’s much-repeated refrain that “I have friends everywhere” proves extremely prescient, as numerous Alliance operatives work together to ensure Mon’s safe extraction. Mothma is the eponymous “Secret Cargo” picked up in the aforementioned Rebels episode, as the crew of the Ghost carry the senator for a section of her journey back to Yavin.

While with Hera Syndulla, Ezra Bridger, Sabine Wren and the other members of the crew she makes another speech to the galaxy. During this rallying call, she announces her resignation from the Senate and her intention to continue the fight from the frontlines. Part of her plan involves bringing numerous disparate Rebel cells across the galaxy together under one banner, and the tactic proves remarkably successful as numerous ships (many of them familiar from the original trilogy) answer the call. “This, my friends, is our Rebellion,” she tells her new allies.

What’s in store for Mon Mothma later on in Star Wars?

Having been one of the leading lights in the formation of the Rebel Alliance, she becomes its de facto leader – particularly after Bail Organa’s death on Alderaan.

While she and the rest of the Alliance council veto Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor’s mission to uncover the Death Star plans from Scarif in 2016 movie Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, she subsequently supports the plan once they’ve defied orders to go there anyway.

She isn’t on Yavin IV when the Rebels narrowly escape death by Death Star in A New Hope – it’s subsequently been written into canon that she was evacuated to ensure the Rebellion lived on, even if the base was destroyed. She is, however, at the Rebel briefing ahead of the successful assault on the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi, during which she famously laments the demise of the (never seen on screen) Bothan spies who’ve recovered key intel about the battle station.

After the Empire is overthrown, Mon Mothma is elected the first Chancellor of the New Republic. She immediately repeals many of Palpatine’s non-democratic powers, and is still in the role in the Ahsoka TV show, set around a decade after Andor. And yet, after all she’s been through, she’s remarkably complacent about the prospect of Imperial lackey Grand Admiral Thrawn’s return from a galaxy even more far, far away…

The final three episodes of Andor season 2 stream on Disney+ from Wednesday 14 May.