Character Highlight: Ruescott Melshi (Star Wars)

*Melshi-related spoilers for Rogue One and Andor.*

I’ll admit it—when Melshi first popped up in the Narkina 5 arc on Andor, I didn’t recognize him. I’m not up on a lot of Star Wars Glup Shittos, so I didn’t realize how neat his inclusion was until “Narkina 5” aired and I saw people getting excited about it online. But after season 1, I have a greater appreciation for Melshi and hope we see him pop up at some point in season 2!

We’ll start with the first time we see Melshi, not his first chronological appearance in the universe of Star Wars. By the time of Rogue One, he’s working with the Rebel Alliance as one of the Pathfinders, a Special Forces unit. He’s the one who goes with K-2SO to break Jyn out of her prison transport to bring her to the Rebel base, and he’s among those who join the Rogue One crew on their fateful mission to Scarif. Though he’s a very minor character in the film, he too gives his life to help steal the Death Star plans.

But like Cassian, Melshi doesn’t start out as a dyed-in-the-wool Rebel. When he appears in Andor, he’s one of the prisoners on Narkina 5. The show doesn’t tell us anything about his life before prison, and we don’t know the details of his sentence, but no matter why he’s there or how long he’s been imprisoned, he’s not harboring any hope. On Cassian’s first day, Melshi gets in his face to tell him not to bother looking at the counter that tracks his sentence—the number doesn’t matter, because none of them are ever getting out. That might seem like a nihilistic way to greet the new guy, but that attitude doesn’t come out of nowhere. After the Aldhani heist, the Empire’s retaliatory legislation included doubling the length of everyone’s prison sentence, and it will soon be revealed that even if an inmate is “released,” they’re actually just shuffled around and transferred to a different prison.

Because Melshi seems so defeated in his first appearance on Andor, it’s even more important that we see him take on a key role in the prison break. This shift doesn’t occur as part of an onscreen journey, like it does for Kino, but it’s still significant to see. Once the men of 5-2-D overpower the guards, Melshi is one of the inmates who arm themselves and spread the word to other rooms, fighting any guards who try to stop them. The man who used to think they were all going to die on Narkina 5 becomes the man who urges his fellow inmates to fight and seize their freedom.

Once they escape, Melshi and Cassian part ways. Despite his newfound sense of purpose, hopelessness can still creep in for Melshi, and he worries that they’re the only two who managed to survive. But he remains proactive, deciding that they need to tell people what happened on Narkina 5 and they’ll have a better chance of getting the word out if they split up. We know that Melshi and Cassian will eventually find their way to one another again, but will we see when that happens? Time and season 2 will tell!