Andor episode 5 includes another surprise Indiana Jones Easter egg

Andor episode 5 spoilers follow.

"Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?" Although we don't mean Kyle Soller's snaky Syril Karn, there IS a bizarre trend of Indiana Jones Easter eggs popping up in Tony Gilroy's Andor.

Diego Luna warned us himself that this won't be your traditional Jedi-style Star Wars series, plus early reviews also claimed Andor would be skipping the usual Death Star references. Strange that it looks like the sci-fi spy thriller is instead tying itself to a completely different franchise.

We're now at the halfway point of Andor season one, which has definitely proved itself as the thinking person's Star Wars series. We've had deep cuts to nixed Legends lore like the Rakata, the live-action debut of Jedi and Sith Holocrons, and even the canonisation of Galen Marek, aka Starkiller, from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

While there's been some well-hidden intel worthy of the Rebellion itself, no one expected to connect the dots between Indiana Jones and Andor.

In October 5's 'The Axe Forgets,' there was a last-minute appearance from Stellan Skarsgård's Luthen Rael. The mysterious man behind the Rebellion pulls double duty as a Rebel leader and well-jewelled seller of antiquities on Coruscant.

If you've been paying attention, you'll know Luthen has some interesting artefacts, and that continues to be true in this latest instalment. When the episode ended with a shot of Rael among his memorabilia, fans spotted the Sankara Stones from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Indiana Jones does sort of exist in this world, but instead, she’s an artefact-hunting badass called Doctor Aphra.

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Sounding like the kind of ancient relic someone like Emperor Palpatine would seize to try and conquer the galaxy, the Sankara Stones were key items in 1984's Temple of Doom that the villainous Mola Ram tried to acquire. Even though they were something of a MacGuffin, the Sankara Stones were loosely based around the mythology of the Hindu god Shiva.

In 2008, Star Wars creator George Lucas admitted to Vanity Fair that the Sankara Stones and the intended story behind them was too complicated for its own good, so why are they here?

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Mythical MacGuffins are all well and good, but jumping back to episode four, Andor included an even more obscure Indiana Jones egg. Alongside a Kel Dor breathing mask to honour the fallen Plo Koon, it looked like there was a whip sealed in carbonite. As well as a fedora, a whip is a must-have in the Indiana Jones wardrobe.

Given that Han Solo was sealed in carbonite in The Empire Strikes Back and Indy carries a whip — with Harrison Ford playing both characters — it's clearly a subtle nod to these two sci-fi staples.

It's about time Star Wars returned the favour to Indiana Jones, because those up on their movie trivia might know hieroglyphs depicting R2-D2 and C-3PO appeared in the 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark. Elsewhere, Indy visited (and narrowly escaped) Club Obi Wan at the beginning of Temple of Doom.

Remembering that there was an ET cameo in The Phantom Menace, an Indiana Jones Easter egg isn't that out of the ordinary for Star Wars. It's just odd that we've had two of them for two weeks in a row, and that makes us question whether we've missed other winks to Dr Jones in the first three episodes.

Also, are there more to come? Will Cassian end up running away from a rolling boulder before the final credits roll?

Since Star Wars backed itself into a corner with Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian and Qui-Gon Jinn in Obi-Wan Kenobi, tin foil theorists are guessing we'll get Han Solo as Andor season one's "big cameo."

It's true that there's been lots of talk about Alden Ehrenreich returning to the role after Solo: A Star Wars Story, however, it would be a huge retcon of what we know about the nerf-herding smuggler's backstory if he appeared in Andor.

The timelines do marry up, but as those Book of Boba Fett theories about Solo’s Qi’ra return were well off the mark, we're not falling for this one again. Still, we wouldn't be completely surprised if Andor had an Indiana Jones musical cue next time we head to Rael's Coruscant collection.

Andor airs weekly every Wednesday on Disney+.

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Tom Chapman

Tom Chapman is a pop culture-loving writer and NCTJ-accredited Broadcast Journalist with over seven years of experience covering the small and silver screen. 

Starting his career with a post at Movie Pilot in Berlin, Tom took on freelancing full-time with regular stints at Digital Spy, Screen Rant and Comic Book Resources.

These days, you can still find him covering all things Marvel and Star Wars at Digital Spy, while dipping his toe in bylines at Yahoo! and IGN. 

Tom likes to think his spirit animal is a cross between Gale Weathers and Olenna Tyrell.

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