Created by Tony Gilroy
1.04 “Aldhani”
Written by Dan Gilroy
Directed by Susana White
Starring Diego Luna, Stellan Skarsgård, Kyle Soller, Genevieve O'Reilly, Faye Marsay
New episodes Wednesdays on Disney+

by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, Red Herring

Whether by happenstance or design, the most successful project of the Disney era of Star Wars (so far) is building connections between the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy. The Bad Batch and Obi-Wan Kenobi show the Empire consolidating power, and now Andor joins Rebels and in showing how the Rebellion we see emerge in Rogue One and A New Hope came about. It’s a fertile ground for telling all kinds of stories, and Andor is filling in some large gaps already in its fourth episode. But not necessarily with its title character.

Luthen explains more about the job he alluded to last episode. The planet they are targeting is not near anything, but close to many things, and the Empire has turned it into a supply depot while displacing the local population of nomadic shepherds. The Empire’s impact on the everyday civilians under its thumb is one of the show's main points of emphasis, and the parallels to colonialism are prominent throughout. It takes a lot of resources to manage an Empire, and what’s a few hundred people displaced in the name of progress?

This mission is intended to hurt the Empire’s supply chains and make off with a bunch of its payroll as well. Cassian (Diego Luna) takes his adopted father’s name of Clem as Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård) drops him off with a band of insurgents led by Vel (Faye Marsay). She makes it clear that they didn’t ask for more people, but Luthen is insistent. The rest of Cassian’s portion of the episode shows him integrating into the team and learning their mission parameters. It’s classic nuts-and-bolts genre storytelling, but there’s a lot of comfort in that. Most importantly, it gives us a glimpse at how Cassian might start to become a believer in the cause, and not just a man trying to make his way in the universe.

Once Cassian is dropped off, we follow Luthen to Coruscant, but not before he changes his clothes and hair. It turns out that Luthen’s day job is running an antiquities shop, a convenient front for the Alliance to restore the Republic (there’s a lot to be said about how the Rebel cause parallels the American Revolution as a restoration, rather than a break with tradition like the French or Russian Revolutions, but maybe there will be time for that discourse as a reaction to future episodes!). Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly) arrives, ostensibly to buy her husband a gift, but Luthen sneaks her off to a back room to talk business. The Rebellion has a funding problem, in part because Mothma is becoming paranoid. Imperial agents are everywhere, and she is worried that moving money around is going to attract attention. Her concerns are exacerbated when she returns home and finds her husband setting the table for a dinner party with a bunch of Imperial dignitaries, including Sly Moore. He calls them “fun,” which seems like a dubious claim.

The second major plotline introduced follows Dedra Meero (Denise Gogh), a high-ranking member of the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB), the Star Wars equivalent of the CIA. The Empire has taken over from the Pre-Mor corporate cops after the debacle last episode, and the ISB is trying to tackle and subvert any activity they believe to be potentially seditious. But while their director wants to only act on hard evidence, Dedra is starting to see some concerning patterns. They seem to point to Cassian’s activities, but it is also possible they point to other Rebel cells. This plotline also evokes Tony Gilroy’s take on the CIA in the Bourne franchise, which has me hyped up for more of the interworking of the Imperial intelligence machine.

This episode clearly starts a new arc for the show, and despite having a ton of exposition, satisfyingly opens up the world and connects it to familiar threads. It’s exciting for Genevieve O'Reilly to get the spotlight as Mon Mothma, a character first seen in Return of the Jedi, played by Caroline Blakiston. O'Reilly was originally cast to play her for Revenge of the Sith in scenes that were mostly cut from the final film, and then reprised the role for Rebels and Rogue One. We don’t know much about Mothma’s backstory, but her inclusion in Andor will create even stronger ties between the first two trilogies. It is also notable that this is the first appearance of Coruscant in live action since Revenge of the Sith, and our first time seeing it as the Imperial Center.

With the amount of characters and storylines introduced here, I am already glad Andor is getting a few more episodes than most Star Wars or Marvel Disney+ shows, because clearly Tony Gilroy has a lot to say. There’s so much to explore here, and the efficiency from both a writing and directing standpoint is most impressive so far.