Review: Andor, "Aldhani" | Season 1, Episode 4
A new heist and a double life come into play in another setup-heavy installment of the Star Wars prequel
“Must everything be boring and sad?”
Just as bored rich Coruscantian Perrin (Alastair McKenzie) poses this question in the latest episode of Andor, I’m going to start today’s review of said episode posing a question of my own. “What will Andor be about?” So far, the short answer is that Andor will move us from Point A to Point B. Point A is Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) being a proto-Han Solo type, a rough-and-tumble sort scraping out an existence in the outer reaches of a galaxy far, far away. Point B is Cassian being a trusted part of the Rebel Alliance in the days leading up to the events of the original Star Wars trilogy, so valued that he’s involved in a particularly high-stakes heist.
That journey from Point A to Point B will encompass the 24 episodes that Lucasfilm will produce over the course of two seasons, which leads to my next question: “...What exactly requires Point A to Point B to take 24 episodes?” With “Aldhani”, we are now one-third of the way into the first half of Andor. I cannot help but wonder if this show is just going to take a very circuitous route to turning ragtag fighters without a catchy moniker into ragtag fighters with a catchy moniker. More importantly, I cannot help but wonder why that route has to be so circuitous.