Star Wars Rebels season 3 trailer features Grand Admiral Thrawn

There’s something about the voice. Silky. Ice cold. Calm.

It slithers right under your skin and lays eggs there. Or maybe drips a little poison into your veins.

This is the voice of Grand Admiral Thrawn, a character previously seen only in the pages of the now-decanonized 1990s novels from the Star Wars expanded universe. But he is returning to the official storyline soon as part of the animated Star Wars: Rebels series when Season 3 begins on Sept. 24.

In this new teaser for the Disney XD show, we hear a little of the blue-skinned Imperial officer’s plan to turn the nascent Rebel alliance against each other. He’s voiced by Lars Mikkelsen, best known as the Putin-like Russian president on House of Cards, who delivers the cadence of a 007 villain. Collected. Sophisticated. Untroubled.

We’ll see how that works out for him.