‘Andor’ Episode 7 Review: The Empire Strikes Back in ‘Announcement’
This week’s episode of Andor was all about the fallout of the Aldhani robbery mission. As we saw at the end of the last episode, news that an Imperial garrison had been attacked has spread far and wide across the galaxy, and it has affected all our characters in one way or another.
It seems Announcement takes place a few days after the robbery. While the ISB ramps up its plans to respond to the attack, other characters show us just how cold and ruthless they can really be. Cassian Andor, for his part, still seems to only be looking out for himself and those closest to him. He doesn’t care about the cause just yet, but the events of this episode might finally begin to change that.
Announcement delivers more high-quality drama and even has a surprise character appearance that certain Star Wars fans might recognize. Stormtroopers are more prevalent this time too as the stakes slowly increase. By the end of the episode, it’s unclear exactly what’s coming next, as this doesn’t seem to be the beginning of another three-episode arc. Instead, it feels more like a single installment that will connect the Aldhani arc to the next one. It’s not as memorable an episode as The Eye was, but it’s still damn entertaining to watch.
Spoilers ahead…
Cassian Andor is actually the last of the major characters to appear in this episode. Instead, we kick off with Syril, who was ignored entirely last week, as he prepares for a job interview that his uncle set up for him. He is aghast at the Aldhani news, but doesn’t seem to have connected it to Cassian yet — why would he? — and gets on with his interview.
It appears the “favor” that his uncle called in is a lowly and mundane admin position within the Empire. It certainly doesn’t hold any of the glory that Syril no doubt had in mind when he joined the corpos, but he seems to accept that he will need to rebuild from a lowly position if he wants to clear his name. It’s not exactly clear what he’ll be doing there, but perhaps this job will allow him to discover some detail that connects Cassian Andor to the Aldhani raid that he can present to Dedra at the ISB next week.
Speaking of the ISB, they have been rocked by the garrison attack as we saw last week. Our first scene with Dedra shows her attending a meeting where she and her fellow officers are being addressed by someone who looks suspiciously like Admiral Yularen — we know from Star Wars Rebels that he becomes a high ranking member of the ISB after the Republic rebrands to the Empire. He’s never referred to by name, but his uniform, the white hair, and the moustache are unmistakable. His appearance illustrates just how seriously the Empire is taking this attack.
After the speech, Dedra tries to discretely acquire some information on all ISB sectors, again disregarding those protocols that got her into hot water with Partagaz a few episodes ago. Unfortunately, she wasn’t as discrete as she thought she was, and rival Supervisor Blevin calls her out for breaking rules again in the middle of another meeting with Major Partagaz.
It’s very satisfying watching the self-serving Blevin get the comeuppance he deserves as Partagaz praises Dedra’s initiative, before admonishing all the other supervisors by wishing they all had her resourcefulness. Partagaz does take a moment to warn Dedra in private to watch her back though. It’s very clear that by winning this battle against Blevins, she has made more than one enemy inside the ISB now. The ridiculous level of bureaucracy in the ISB — and indeed the Empire as a whole — means that Dedra has painted a target on her back, and her fellow agents will be very keen to tear her down, which ironically will only help the rebel movement they intend to quash.
Mon Mothma heads to Luthen’s emporium to berate him for the attack on Aldhani. She believes that, with the Empire actively aware of rebel activity now, it will be even harder for her to support the movement moving forward. Luthen is unfazed, making it very clear that if she can’t help, then he has no use for her. The man now has 80 million credits to bankroll his rebellion, so he doesn’t need the Chandrilan senator at the moment.
Genevieve O’Reilly delivered a fascinating performance during this conversation. The way her voice catches before she berates him perfectly captures her feelings of anger and fear in equal measure. She almost comes across a bit naïve here — did she intend on funding a peaceful rebellion, or did she just think Luthen was moving too soon?
She then hosts a lavish party with the intent of persuading an old friend, a Chandrilan banker, to give her discrete access to her family funds without the Empire knowing. Her friend also seems to be very anti-Empire, so they come to an understanding without Mon revealing exactly what she’s up to. She also explicitly mentions that her husband is not to be trusted, which we’ve known for a while now.
We also get our best sense yet of just how ruthless Luthen really is. Not only is he willing to cut Mon Mothma out of the equation, but he’s also decided to have Cassian Andor killed just because he knows too much. At this point, he seems to have more in common with Saw Gerrera’s Partisans than Mothma’s more peaceful cause. His assistant Kleya meets with Vel on Coruscant to deliver the orders, and Vel clearly doesn’t like the idea of killing the person who proved incredibly important to their first successful operation.
Luthen seems to be alienating so many people that I wonder if he will actually end up cofounding the Partisans and not the rebellion. There has to be a reason he doesn’t appear in future stories, so I wonder if he might not be part of the Rebel Alliance at all.
Presumably, this order will do nothing for Cassian’s desire to join the rebellion either. Of course he has no love for the Empire, but he won’t want to work with people who have betrayed him either. It doesn’t look like he’s given Karis’ manifest a read yet. And if he has, then he’s not ready to believe in it yet.
He returns to Ferrix with his cut from the job and asks Maarva to leave the planet with him, somewhere far away that the Empire hasn’t yet touched. However, Maarva has been inspired by the Aldhani garrison attack — unaware that Cassian was involved — and is intent on staying to resist and rebel against the Empire. She understands that the Empire will reach everywhere sooner or later, but Cassian doesn’t get that yet.
He clearly didn’t count on his mission having such a profound impact on others, as he still refers to it as just a robbery, but his actions have consequences. Namely, you can’t just get involved in a cause like that and expect everything to go back to normal when you drop out. He has changed things for good now, and sooner or later, he’ll have to face it.
There’s also a brief flashback as we see his adoptive father killed by clone troopers during (probably near the end of) the Clone Wars, which gives us another reason why Cassian Andor should hate the Empire and has plenty of ammo to join a rebellion. The appearance of clone troopers acts as another way to emphasize the morally grey tone of the story. We see the clones and Republic as good guys, yet here they gun down an innocent civilian simply because he’s a separatist citizen.
There seems to be a bit of a time jump at this point, and we find out that Cassian has journeyed to Niamos, a tropical world which appears to be a tourist destination. He’s been there long enough to shack up with someone, and when popping to the store in the morning, he ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s here where we get one of the clearest examples of how the Empire’s boot presses down upon the necks of the innocent. Not only has the Empire reached Niamos, contrary to what Cassian believed, but a shoretrooper (love that they’re back) incorrectly assumes he’s part of a group of minor criminals that run past him on the beach.
Cassian tries to explain that he’s done nothing wrong and was on his way to the shop, but the trooper seems to twist everything he says to fit his own assumption that he’s committed a crime. It’s clearly inspired by real-life police forces’ treatment of ethnic minorities, and makes for a maddening series of events that ends with Cassian being strangled by a KX security droid.
The shot of the droid slowly walking up from the beach is masterful; because it looks like K2-SO, there’s a split second of joy before we realize what the ominous music is telling us. It’s the first appearance of a KX droid in Andor, and K2 doesn’t exist yet, so you realize Cassian is screwed.
He ends up in some kind of Imperial courtroom to be processed. He’s given no chance to appeal his charges — to do so would be an additional crime apparently — and though the charges read out seem minor, he’s given a prison sentence of six years. It’s an agonizing and frustrating realization when you remember he wasn’t doing anything wrong when he was arrested.
The employee reading out the charges points out that, a short time ago, those charges would have meant six months in prison, but the guidelines were recently changed. Presumably, this is a direct consequence of the Aldhani job as the ISB has increased the punishment for crimes as a way to dissuade people from engaging in any anti-Empire activity.
Either way, Cassian Andor ends up in jail, which is probably where the next episode will pick up. The irony of it all; instead of getting caught for the Aldhani raid, he ends up getting arrested for being a victim of the Empire’s own hubris. Perhaps Vel will disobey Luthen’s orders and plot to rescue him next week.
For more Andor spoiler discussion, The Resistance Broadcast will be live tonight to discuss episode 7 in full detail at 9pm EST on our YouTube channel.
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
