Did Andor Just Tease the Return of a Major Star Wars Villain?
We're at the midway point of Season 1 of Tony Gilroy's Andor, and while so far the series has been focused on an Ocean's Eleven-inspired heist in space, it also drops some tidbits of information regarding affairs of the Galaxy as a whole, as befits a series set in a big, shared universe.
Episode 6 ends with the news about the main cast getting away with a whole load of Imperial credits rippling through the Galactic Senate. As the discussion in the Senate goes on, Mon Mothma mentions the planet Ghorman and how the Empire is taking away its people's rights by cutting off trade.
This mention might be significant for the future plot developments, and might foreshadow introduction of new villains to the series. In the Legends canon, the Ghorman Massacre was an important event that pushed Mon Mothma and other leaders of the future Rebellion from political opposition to organizing violent resistance. And it involved no one else than Grand Moff Tarkin (then a lower-ranked officer), who landed his warship on peaceful protestors, killing hundreds of them, and was promoted by the Emperor for his brutality.
The event was referenced in Rebels, so we can be reasonably sure it is going to occur in the Disney canon as well. Tarkin, one of the most veteran Star Wars villains, had recently appeared in a number of animated shows, and digital likeness of Peter Cushing, who famously played him in A New Hope, was used to portray him in Rogue One.
Another, much more obscure, Imperial villain was mentioned in relation to Ghorman as well. Mon Mothma showed her distaste for the guest list of the dinner party, staged by her husband, Perrin, because it was full of people, responsible for cutting off the shipping lanes to Ghorman, including, particularly, Sly Moore.
Sly Moore is that pale shaved-head female you can see next to Palpatine in a number of prequel scenes taking place in the Senate. She is supposed to be one of the closest, most important confidantes of the Emperor, his Chief of Staff, and one of the handful of people aware of his true identity as a Sith Lord, but so far she had no opportunity to actually do anything, besides looking mildly sinister, on screen in either canon (and little opportunity to do anything on page). Time will tell, if Andor is going to change that.