Star Wars Andor is back just over two years after its first season ended on Disney+. The first three episodes of season two premiered on Disney+ on April 22 and the show is just as good as before, with lots of great dialogue, intense action, and a whole bunch of tension. And sprinkled throughout all of this are some fantastic Easter eggs and references to greater Star Wars universe.
Like season one, Andor’s second season (so far) hasn’t been packed with Easter eggs and callbacks. Instead, these nods to the rest of the Star Wars franchise are a bit more buried or integrated organically with the story, so you might have missed some of them. Don’t worry, I’m always here to help. Here are 11 Star Wars Easter eggs, secrets, and references I spotted in the first three episodes of Andor season two:
Let’s start with the biggest and most exciting Easter egg. When Andor finally escapes the dysfunctional rebels, we get a shot of his ship flying away and see that all of this has been happening on the jungle moon of Yavin-4. Yes, the same Yavin-4 seen in the original Star Wars movie. This will eventually become the HQ of the Rebellion, but for now its temples remain abandoned.
A smaller Easter egg I spotted was the appearance of a AT-ST puppet held by a child as seen in the third episode, Harvest. Bit odd to let your kids play with a war machine controlled by the evil empire that rules over you. But hey, parents let kids play with US military toys so… (Oh and yes, another kid has a bowcaster toy, too. Chewbacca would be proud. Or confused.)
Back in season one of Andor, Luthen mentioned the Rakatan invasion. This is a direct reference to Knights of the Old Republic and some old “Legends” era lore.
Now, in season two, Luthen has given us more detail and confirmed that, in canon, the alien invasion happened 25,000 BBY. That lines up with the dawn of the Jedi and could confirm that the Rakatan will show up in James Mangold’s Star Wars movie set that far back in the timeline.
At one point, during Director Krennic’s super-secret meeting with other Imperial higher ups, he mentions that the Emperor wants a power source that could provide “unlimited power.” Of course, this connected to the Death Star, but that specific line calls back one of the Emperor’s most famous quotes from Star Wars Episode III.
Also during that same super-secret-space-Nazi meeting, Krennic explains that the only people who can know about this gathering are the people in the room. He then directly namedrops two Imperial higher ups: Moff Tarkin and Wulf Yularen.
Of the two, Tarkin is perhaps the most interesting namedrop, as we know the two of them have some beef, which we see in Rogue One. It’s very funny to think that Krennic specifically made sure Tarkin was kept out of the loop on his Ghorman plans.
In the opening minutes of the first episode of season two, we see Andor steal a prototype TIE Avenger. This is an advanced Imperial starfighter we had only previously seen in some “Legends” stories. Seeing it in live-action was a treat, even if Andor nearly crashed it like 10 times.
When Andor steals the TIE Avenger he is attacked by Stormtroopers. But we also see a different kind of trooper during the fight. This fluffy soldier with a rocket launcher is a Range Trooper. We first saw them in Solo: A Star Wars Story on the planet Vandor. They are highly-trained troopers normally deployed in places where the Empire needs a lot of security.
I don’t need to explain how awesome it was that Erskin Semaj appeared. Okay, I probably do. During episode three, when Luthen is talking to a young man about where he is from, they are interrupted by a drunken Tay bumping into them. That young bog is Erskin Semaj, an aide of Mon Mothma first seen in Star Wars Rebels. Is he an important character? No, but hey, it was cool to see the show include him as it makes sense he’d be at that wedding.
The password, Kafrene, given to Andor by the Imperial engineer at the start of episode one isn’t some random planet or made up nonsense. (Okay, well, this is all made-up nonsense, but you know what I mean.) Kafrene is actually where we first meet Cassian Andor in Rogue One. Specifically, the Ring of Kafrene is a seedy mining colony where Cassian learns of the Death Star and kills a dude. Kafrene is set to appear in Star Wars Zero Company as the squad’s HQ.
In Star Wars, the planet Ghroman is the site of the infamous Ghroman Massacre, an event that we know happened in canon, but we don’t know the specifics of it. This season of Andor seems to be building toward the massacre, which is a pivotal event in Star Wars as it kickstarts the rebellion and pushes Mon Mothma to publicly stand up against the Empire.
We actually see Mothma stand against the Empire and then escape into hiding in an episode of Rebels. So it seems Andor is going to fill in that part of the timeline and show us the massacre.
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