‘Andor’ quietly brings back ‘A New Hope’ and ‘The Clone Wars’ villain

This article contains spoilers for Andor episode 7

One of the best parts of Andor is how seriously it treats the Empire as a villain. The show takes inspiration from real-life fascist regimes and colonial history, resulting in an all-too-believable vision of an invincible repressive state. Over the show’s seven episodes we’ve seen how Imperial rule has affected every aspect of life in a galaxy far, far away, and it’s practically impossible to escape anywhere not touched by their long reach.

As this week’s episode began, we learned that the already bad situation is about to get much worse. Enraged by the Rebel heist on Aldhani, the Empire has begun a new campaign of fear: Raising prison sentences for minor crimes, creating new offenses of guilt by association, and strict new taxes on any systems that harbor separatists. And the man making this announcement? Well, to The Clone Wars fans, he’ll be a familiar face.

As confirmed by the credits and subtitles, this is high-ranking Imperial officer Wullf Yularen, first introduced as an unnamed background character in A New Hope, but vastly expanded upon in The Clone Wars, where he worked closely with Anakin Skywalker. After the fall of the Republic, Yularen rose through the Imperial ranks, becoming an Imperial Admiral, and eventually a key alley to Rebels‘ General Thrawn. His story comes to an end in A New Hope, as he was aboard the Death Star as it exploded.

It makes sense for Yularen to be making this announcement, as well as being a nice piece of connective tissue between this and the CG animated shows. We may yet more of Yularen as the Rebellion grows in stature, but perhaps we should be keeping an eye out for more The Clone Wars and Rebels characters to come.