‘Andor’ drops a super-subtle homage to a key moment from ‘A New Hope’

This article contains spoilers for Andor episode 9

Andor episode nine – “Nobody’s Listening!” – is here, and shows the Empire at its most brutal and sinister. Last week we saw Adria Arjona’s Bix captured by the ISB due to her links to both Luthen and Cassian Andor. The closing moments of the episode hinted at her interrogation and torture at the hands of Denise Gough’s Dedra, though it’s safe to assume most Star Wars fans weren’t expecting the show to get quite as dark as it did this week.

In order to squeeze information from her, they used a sonic torture device derived from the screams of children they’d massacred on a distant planet, causing intense anguish, pain, and eventually brain damage. Though we didn’t get to hear this for ourselves, Bix’s screams told us all we need to know.

But this isn’t the first time the Empire has tortured their prisoners. Back in A New Hope, Princess Leia was interrogated by Darth Vader on the Death Star, using a sinister IT-O Interrogator droid. Andor recognized the similarities to this scene and dropped a fun Easter Egg, as both scenes end with the same shot of a door closing and footsteps walking away:

We agree that this is the kind of callback we want to see in Star Wars. It doesn’t wallow in nostalgia and it isn’t fan service, just a quick and subtle nod to the franchise’s history, and how certain elements can echo across the movies and TV shows.

Andor airs Wednesdays on Disney Plus.