Saw Gerrera (once again played by Forest Whitaker) now more closely resembles his final look in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, a design evolution from his earlier Season Three appearance. He refers to the rebellion by its formal name, the “Alliance to Restore the Republic.”

This episode finally connects the crew of the Ghost with the Rebel Alliance seen in A New Hope and Rogue One. It is the series debut of the Massassi base designs that date back to the original Star Wars film.

Mon Mothma’s fiery question to Saw “What will we become?” echoes a line from an earlier edit of Rogue One, where Saw asks Jyn what she will become. This appears in the trailer to Rogue One.

This episode marks the series debut of the U-wing from Rogue One, now sporting the black and white Partisan livery spotted on the X-wings of Jedha in that film.

The rapidly descending career of Commander Brom Titus comes to a dramatic conclusion in this episode, having started off as an admiral in Season Two.

In an earlier version of the script, Saw’s pilot was going to be a new character named Lorc, who was designed to be a Klatooinian. To better connect to Rogue One, the pilot was changed to Edrio Two Tubes, with David Acord reprising his role as Two Tubes’ voice.

The astromech droid that projects Saw’s hologram, R4-C2, was originally intended to be more of a rival to Chopper, but that particular thread in this story was cut by the first draft of the script.

Among the Imperial prisoners is a Theelin male, a first time a male from that species has appeared on-screen. Female Theelins include Rystáll Sant from Return of the Jedi, Latts Razzi from The Clone Wars, and Gooti Terez from Star Wars Rebels.

The final draft of the script has the civilian spaceport named as Faos Station, but earlier in development it was named “Taos Station.” That change came too late to alter the surface texture of the station model, which has the name Taos printed in Aurebesh on its surface.

This story points Saw to Jedha; his prescence there would escalate the violence on that moon as his Partisans strike against the Imperial occupation, as described in the novel Guardians of the Whills. As seen in that story, Saw still has both his legs, meaning that the major injury that causes him to lose one (and indeed, causes his whole health to deteriorate) occurs closer to the events of Rogue One.

The death trooper commander, DT-F16, is voiced by Jennifer Hale, who has lent her vocal talents to Star Wars many times before, most memorable as Bastila Shan in the Knights of the Old Republic videogame and Aayla Secura in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

The Imperial captain of the cargo ship, unnamed in the final episode, was Captain Wells in earlier drafts of the script.