‘Andor’ Recap: A ‘Star Wars’ Icon Appears & Cassian Joins the Fight

[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Andor Season 1 episode 4.]

Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly)! Mon Mothma’s here!

Granted, she doesn’t show up until about three-quarters of the way through Episode 4, but it’s thrilling to finally see her. Her appearance promises another intriguing storyline for Andor, a show that’s full of intriguing storylines.

The main man has a significantly less action-packed episode after escaping Ferrix. At first, Cassian (Diego Luna) just wants Luthen (Stellan Skarsgard) to drop him off at a planet where he can continue to run from the Empire and from Pre-Mor, but eventually he decides he does want to hit the Empire where it hurts. He and Luthen land on a new planet, where he learns about a plan to steal Imperial payroll.

As Cassian watches, Luthen steps into the lush, green hills to meet with the leader of that Rebel team, Vel (Faye Marsay). If you’re thinking she looks familiar, it’s because she played the murderous Waif on Game of Thrones. You know, the one who hated Arya. She’s none too thrilled that Luthen is bringing another person onto the team with three days until the mission, but he convinces her to let him join. Before he leaves, he gives Cassian a blue kyber sky stone and tells him that he “expects it back” when the mission is over. Death flags! So many death flags!

Cassian goes with Vel to their camp, where he meets the other members on the team. Most of them aren’t super happy he’s there, although they come around on him by the end of the episode and explain their plan. That involves sneaking into the base, stealing the payroll and weapons, and then escaping on a freighter. They’ll be covered, though, because of a once-in-every-three-years event that flushes the whole sky with stars like a meteor shower.

The real intrigue this episode comes from Luthen. After he drops off Cassian with the Rebels, he heads to Coruscant and steps into a new identity as an art dealer. There, Mon Mothma comes to see him under the guise of looking for a birthday present for her husband. In reality, Luthen and her go to a back room and discuss the Rebellion, which, in its early days, is an extremely dangerous thing to be part of. Especially for Mon, who’s a member of the Imperial Senate.

“I feel under siege,” she says, mentioning the number of spies in the Imperial Senate. If she can’t deliver, he needs to know —they’re watching her, and she can’t “move money around” like she used to. And her marriage is seemingly on the rocks, too. She goes home to find her husband invited a bunch of boorish politicians to dinner who make life difficult for Mon, just because “they’re fun.”

There’s also a unique side story about Imperial in-fighting in the security division on Coruscant. Cassian’s stolen Starpath unit has greater implications than he realizes, as two officers squabble about their ability to access the file on what happened. Leftenant Meero (Denise Gough), who feels she has “jurisdictional access” to the case, suspects it was part of a Rebel operation and thinks they need to look into it further; her colleague feels otherwise and thinks she has no right to the file. Their boss, Major Partagaz (played by Anton Lesser, another Thrones alum), denies her the right to see it, but it’s pretty obvious that storyline isn’t over. And in addition, on the Empire side of things, Karn’s (Kyle Soller) antics on Ferrix not only lose him his job, but also lose Pre-Mor jurisdiction in the Morlana system. Dejected, he goes to see his mother, who greets him with a slap across his face… and then hugs him.

Rating: 5/5. Andor continues to blow me away. While the show’s balancing a lot of characters and storylines now, all of them feel interesting in different ways. I’m fascinated by how this show not only delves into how dangerous being part of the Rebellion would’ve been, but also how it’s humanizing the Empire in unexpected and surprising ways through Karn and Meero.

Andor, Wednesdays, Disney+