You can definitely tell Andor’s been written in a set of very specific pieces. The first three episodes belonged together. That was Cassian, that was Andor the movie, the origin story, part one, and it literally felt like it belonged in the same universe as Rogue One. Episode 4, Aldhani, is where the next piece starts, and I’m not gonna lie, it’s not my favorite. That’s okay.
Mrs. Know-It-All wasn’t able to be here for this one. She’s really sorry about that, and she can’t wait to talk more about these episodes with you next week.
Out of the Frying Pan
We pick up pretty much right where we left off. Right after the recap we’re back on the ship with Luthen and Cassian, and Luthen’s trying to explain what the deal is. You can really make a difference. If you really want to hit them, poke them in the eye. He’s sussing him out, playing with him a little bit mentally. And Cassian says to him, so what is this, what am I doing, what do you want me for?
In essence, Luthen is using him as a mercenary. I believe this is more of a tryout. I don’t think Luthen is a hundred percent recruiting him yet. I think he wants to see how he’s going to do on a very serious mission. So it’s the literal case of out of the frying pan and into the fire.
There’s a really great part on the way to Aldhani where Cassian asks him, oh really, who are you supposed to be with? Are you with this group, this group, this other group? Those are all Rebellion factions. Cells. Groups that are all trying to do the same thing but aren’t currently organized under one banner.
A lot of this is going to make sense to those of you who’ve been watching Clone Wars or Rebels. In Rebels, and I’m talking the very beginning, before it turned into the awesome show it became (not that it wasn’t an awesome show early), you found out that the group you were watching was a cell unto themselves. They were their own little thing, and they thought they were the only ones. At this point in Star Wars history, every one of these groups is fighting, rebelling if you will, but they’re not organized yet. I feel like we’re going to see that organization start to come together.
The Cell on Aldhani
Luthen drops Cassian off on the planet Aldhani, and we meet several people. One of my favorite things about this episode is you get to see an actress named Faye Marsay. She plays a character named Vel Sartha, and Vel is clearly the leader of this cell.
According to Vel, Aldhani isn’t close to anything, but it’s not far from everything, and I was like, okay, that makes sense. The whole place looks almost Scottish. Highlands, lowlands, a lot of rolling green hills, a very lush type of area. There was a river that ran through most of it, which is why the area was so verdant, and the Imperials cut it off. They cut off that river and built their power base right there at the end, probably running some sort of hydroelectric power. There’s a garrison there, a pretty big one, and that’s the mission.
They’re going to use a festival. Each time this festival happens, the sky lights up. One of the characters calls it meteors, and another guy corrects him and says it’s actually a sort of crystal, pieces and debris in the atmosphere, and it ignites. He says it’s gorgeous to see from the ground, but it creates chaos in the sky. Exactly the kind of thing you need if you’re going to pull off a heist.
So this has very much shifted into being their version of a Star Wars heist film.
And here’s the part that interests me. Apparently nobody knew Cassian was coming. Vel has instructions from Luthen that she can’t tell her people about him. As far as everyone’s concerned, she’s the one who connected Cassian, who’s going by the name Clem, to them and to this mission. And it’s three days before the mission. I believe Luthen purposely put him in this very compromising position to see what he’s really made of. Because remember, this guy will eventually be the guy leading 45 or some odd people to come join up with what’s her face in Rogue One. He’s going to have to build that team, and eventually you’re going to get an organized Rebellion.
The Officer Nobody’s Listening To
We’re also introduced to some high security people over at Imperial Security. Essentially they analyze all these different points of intelligence. Each of them secures a sector, or several sectors, and based on the information they’re getting they’re able to push better information out into the field and get people moving.
One of those officers is a very interesting character, and man, I don’t see her in the cast list yet. That’s the bad part about IMDb when you’re doing this at three in the morning right when the show drops. They haven’t updated all the actors, because a lot of this stuff needs to be a surprise.
Anyway, she’s relatively brand new to security. She comes from enforcement, you find out. She finds out about the Starpath unit, that box Cassian was trying to sell to Luthen in the beginning, and in her mind that puts it under her jurisdiction. Then she’s confronted by the lieutenant who controls that particular sector, where all of that went down, and he wants to give her nothing.
So you’re starting to see the beginnings of what later becomes that Imperial backbiting, that jockeying for position we see down the line when they’re in the darker gray uniforms. The white uniforms, I think, are part of R&D, security and several other divisions.
She has three case files on her desk. She’s the person shouting that there’s an organized Rebellion coming, and nobody’s listening. Nobody. She’s the one who later on is going to be like, oh yeah, and here’s the Rebellion I told you about. I guarantee it. Guarantee it. And she clearly has motivations to improve her position and her station, and why not.
There are a lot of players doing a lot of things, and I’m seeing the chess pieces come together.
A Second Movie Just Started
Then there’s Mon Mothma. You get to see her and her husband, and she meets with Luthen, though at this point Luthen has changed his look a little bit. She’s there under a pretense, and you find out she’s being surrounded more and more by people she doesn’t know.
We’re getting a lot of her backstory, and that should be more interesting than it is. I feel like we’re in a movie, and then a second movie has just started. Some people would call it the B plot. My problem is it’s so diametrically separate, and there’s very little connective tissue other than Luthen.
I’ll give them this. Last video I was asking you guys when we’re going to get Coruscant, because they always use these deserted planets. Here we are on Coruscant, and I’m actually really happy about that.
This is the time period when the Empire is really, really securing its position. It obviously did that in the initial rollout after the Clone Wars, but now it’s starting to grip, to get its hands firmly around the people of the former Republic, now the Empire. It’s growing very quickly into what we’ll eventually know: jackbooted thugs and the whole bit.
It Just Stops
The episode ends pretty startlingly. It ends abruptly, with very little satisfaction. It’s sort of like, we’re going to do a thing, this is happening, this is happening, Mon Mothma has an engagement with her husband, and that’s it.
But Mr. Know-It-All, why so abrupt? That’s kind of how the episode ends, bro. I don’t know. Sorry.
That hit me hard. So hard that it’s going to affect my score.
The Verdict
Andor Episode 4, Aldhani, is a 6 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.
This ending hurt you. You had some interesting points and some confusing parts, but if this felt unsatisfactory or unsatisfying, yeah, that’s how the episode felt. I’m a little bitter about that, because when we get up at three in the morning, you’d better give me something interesting.
Hopefully next episode. If this is all going to be a series where every three episodes makes a movie, this series has 24 episodes coming. That’s right, 24. So you’re in for a long one. This is like old school series television, and that I’m okay with. Let’s do it.
So there you go, now you know, and if knowing is half the battle, you’re halfway to being a know-it-all yourself.
Your turn. Did Aldhani leave you as unsatisfied as it left me, or did the setup work for you? Mrs. Know-It-All would love some questions to dig into next week, too. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above. And never forget: everyone loves a know-it-all.
