Star Wars fans love their Easter eggs, and some Star Wars fans (hi) turn searching for Easter eggs into a job. That’s why Andor is such a gift. Like all that have come before, the latest in Disney+’s long line of live-action Star Wars shows is packed with hidden references to the larger canon. Original trilogy, prequel trilogy, sequel trilogy, expanded universe — it’s all represented if you know where to look! And sometimes finding those Easter eggs really enhance the scene.
Case in point: the dinner party that Mon Mothma’s (Genevieve O’Reilly) husband Perrin (Alastair Mackenzie) springs on her with no notice. Sure, that’s reason enough to be angry, but if you look up who Perrin invited to dinner, you really understand why Mon Mothma isn’t just angry as a spouse, but angry as the leader of a burgeoning rebellion. If these people were coming to your dinner party, you’d be pissed off too! These two are the perfect Star Wars Easter eggs.
So, who are they? Perrin invited the Governor of Hanna, which is the capital of their homeworld Chandrila. Cool, that’s fine. And then Mothma asks who else is coming and gets quite possibly the worst answer imaginable: Ars Dangor and Sly Moore.
Who are Ars Dangor and Sly Moore in Andor?
Who are they, aside from two more dinner guests that Mothma did not plan for? They’ve both appeared in previous Star Wars movies (well, sorta?) and they’re both nightmare dinner guests. Let’s start with Ars Dangor.
Ars Dangor might be this guy from Return of the Jedi:
Not Emperor Palpatine, but the guy in the cone hate and slanket behind him. There’s debate amongst Star Wars fans as to whether or not he’s actually Ars Dangor, but this dude doesn’t have any other name so I don’t know why it’s up for debate. The point is, Ars Dangor is one of these guys:
Yeah, he’s one of Emperor Palpatine’s advisors, a member of Palpatine’s entourage, one of Palpatine’s purple velvet mafia. Ars Dangor is one of the guys who helps the Emperor figure out how to do all that horrible stuff he does. Yeah, sure, invite him to dinner!
And seated on the other side of Mon Mothma’s husband will be Sly Moore. If you’ve seen Attack of the Clones or Revenge of the Sith, you’ve seen Sly Moore. She’s right there on Palpatine’s right, a fashion icon with cheekbones sharper than a rancor’s tooth.
How bad is Sly Moore? Uh, she was literally standing by Palpatine’s side when he declared the formation of the Galactic Empire.
Liberty is crumbling before her and her face says, “Yeah, what of it?” Sly Moore was Palpatine’s chief of staff, y’all! Making matters even worse, Moore has some low-key Force abilities and was, and I quote, “adept at manipulating political opponents to reveal their secrets.” Uh, Mon Mothma has a pretty big secret, what with her conspiring to overthrow the Empire and all.
These are the two best Easter eggs of the series so far because they’re actually Easter eggs. We’ve somehow started to conflate Easter eggs with “full on guest appearances of characters we have seen before” or “this prop/set/etc. unintentionally looks slightly like something else.” Those aren’t Easter eggs because the former isn’t even hidden and the latter’s something that isn’t even part of the hunt. Easter eggs are supposed to be hard to find and also deliberately hidden. These dinner guests were deliberately chosen because they’re horrible, and you don’t know how horrible they are unless you do the work of looking them up. And on top of all that, they actively enhance the scene because now we know why Mothma is angry enough to take her husband’s day of days gift back to the store.
So now when you rewatch the scene and Mon Mothma hears that Ars Dangor and Sly Moore are coming to dinner, you know what she’s hearing is, “Hey, I invited Palpatine’s evil-ideas man and his cutthroat telepathic sidekick over to dinner because lol they’re hilarious — but don’t worry, you’ll sit at the other end of the table because you’re such a buzzkill.”
May the divorce be with you, Mon Mothma.
Stream Andor on Disney+
