A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 05: Rookies and the R3-S6 Arc (Clone Wars 05-07)

Episode Date: February 10, 2021

"I have a bad feeling about this." - Commander Cody, Rookies "I have a bad feeling about this." - Anakin Skywalker, Downfall of a Droid "I have a bad feeling about this." - Captain Rex: Duel of the Droids This week, we've finally hit a truly solid episode in our first Clone-focused romp, "Rookies," which raises questions not only about Clone individuality but also the Republic's handle on... everything. We also delve into Droid personhood (and beef) in a two parter that separates Anakin from true series protagonist, R2-D2. It's a story that has one real lesson: Do not fuck with R2-D2.   Next time: Episodes 8-10 Show Notes Fallen Clones: Cutup, Hevy, O'Niner, Droidbait, Nub, CT-327 ("sentry") Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny) Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson) Produced by Austin Walker Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)  

Let us return once more to a more civilized age, Clone Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zackney, joined by Ali Akapora, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. Today we're going to be talking about a one-off episode that sheds a little light on the nature of the Republic's war machine and how its army of clones become seasoned soldiers or swift casualties. then we're going to be back on the hunt for grievous with downfall of a droid and duel of the droids in which Anakin gets a replacement astromic droid and struggles to bond with it. We can start with rookies, which follows a bunch of bored, newly trained clone troopers, Manning one of the Republic's countless listening posts.

And we get a brief taste of their day-to-day boredom and the losing battle their veteran sergeant is fighting against complacency. But then the base is struck by complacency. command of droids who quickly sees control without the base being able to turn off its all-clear message. This opens the door for General Grievous to bring his fleet through undetected and strike at the clone production facilities on Camino. Meanwhile, our main clone troopers, Cody and Rex, you know, the yellow guy and the blue guy. And the blue guy, yeah. They're coming through on an inspection tour. They realize the bases fall into the droids, link up with the surviving clone troopers and retake the base.

But then there's an unbeatable onslaught of droid reinforcements when Grievous realizes something has gone wrong with his plan. So one of the rookies has to stay behind to blow the base up with explosives and knock it off the airwaves, thereby warning the Republic. And at the end of the episode, Cody and Rex welcome the remaining rookies, the survivors, to their frontline regiment, the 501st. I'm surprised how dense that episode was. Like, even that summary, I'm alighting a lot of details.

So there's a lot to dig into, despite it being a single episode. But first, I thought I'd start with a quick check-in. How does everyone feel about how this war is going? And do we like the way the clones are being deployed, the way they're being used? Do we feel this is all working well? Big important note here, which is they're coming out under Cook. They're not finishing their training, right? Yep.

First 10 seconds of the episode, and you're like, what the fuck? Like, intense to me. They're rushed into service, says the opening narration. Yeah. I feel like every opening of the show so far is like, we're losing. Like, every time it's like, we just lost again. We're losing again. And I feel like at the end of every episode, it's a little.

small dub so like why ever at the beginning of every episode it's ls across the board it's just like that's the thing it's not like it's not like basketball the dubs don't add up like that you know what i mean like there's cumulative score you know what i mean so it's like you could you could win every game but still have such a point deficit that you're last in the league somehow you know it's kind of the difference between like strategy and tactics right like the republic has some really gifted tacticians like aniken tends to pull some rabbits out of his hat and notch these little wins uh clearly like cody and rex are pretty good when when the chips are down but it's not adding up to anything that's going to change the dynamics of this war and so i i do feel like in some ways it is

an interesting thing this show is doing which is that the frame is always that things are getting worse and fast. And then the plot following our heroes is always that, oh, they did it again. They pulled it off. But it doesn't move the needle. The war has been going on for like a hot minute and they're already basically promoting their next draft class like ahead of time. And that's usually like, that's a trick you can pull once, right? Because the next group now is even more underbaked. So are you going to just pull them with even less experience? Or do you just not have replacements coming in for a while? The Republic's already at this point in the war, which is not a good place to be.

No. Also, I think that these episodes really, all three of them, but, you know, especially the kind of ploy at the top of this one, indicates kind of why the war is going bad for the Republic, which is like, Grievous is actually kind of a good commander in terms of the plays he's making. Like, go down there, shut off their shit, and then let's go hit, Camino is a big swing, and to even be in that position to begin with, suggests that he is, he is, we see him making decisions at that, at that high level strategy layer that we just don't often see the Jedi making. They're much more reactive and he is in a much more aggressive

position. So I like it. Yeah, I think we get a sense of how devastatingly passive this whole thing is just the entire listening post concede where a lot of these clones they aren't ready for real frontline combat and so they're being scattered across these huge like watch tower positions basically and their only job is like if you get killed you'll go off the air and will know something is wrong and we'll know where to respond to and so like by its very nature that's reactive and It also means that every fight is going to open with a little bit of a loss, the entire thing. Right. I don't know.

Did you ever read The Quiet American? No. Really good Graham Green book about like the dying days of the French War in Vietnam. And there's a scene where the two protagonists, this American spy and this British spy, go out to these watchtowers. the French have scattered all down like Highway 1 and they're there during the night and what they've been told is

well when one of the towers like gets attacked the others can respond etc and like rally the defense but they're in there with like the French troops and they see another tower get knocked out and they're like we're going to go do something right and the French troops are like in your mind no like we're just if we respond

they'll get us too like it's actually good if another tower gets hit because that means you won't get whacked and so like they realized like their first night basically out on this highway they realize like all these listening posts are just full of dudes who are like just praying that it won't be them tonight and the entire strategy is premised on this like lie that somehow by sacrificing these little groups of units you'll somehow be able to finally get the battle you won and it feels like that's kind of where the republic is at where it's like yeah you know if grievous tries something will we'll be sure to find out

but it's not even clear that they can fight grievous even with the fleet so yeah totally and you know we uh

we though do get a we do get a mix of clone troopers including people here who are like super eager to go fight one of the recurring bits in the first kind of the lead in to the episode is is it heavy or is it five

which is the one who's like heavy is it heavy who, like, wants to, like, go hard. He's ready to go. Yeah, we also, I guess, get more, like, clone differentiation as we get fives who is, I forget what fives is, like, deal is. I don't remember. He's called fives because he's a bunch of fives in his number, right? He's, like, CT3-2555 or something like that.

That's really good. That's good. It's good. He has a little five on his, in his hair, I want to say. Does he have, is that correct? I think so, yeah. which is sick. And then, and then we have Echo who is like a book nerd who like is like, I can check the regs manual.

Like, it's cool that it's quiet because I want to, I want to check the manuals. Yeah. Yeah, apparently it was, it's CT5555, which is great. Fantastic. Yeah, I like the kind of clone differentiation here. Rip to Century and cut up and heavy and Sarge. but we don't know Sarge's name, but I think we will eventually know Sarge's name

because eventually there is a prequel to this episode that we get like three seasons from now. So I'm excited for that. Oh, great. We also get a really interesting thing in the setup to this that I wanted to call out, which is when we first come into the listening post, they're listening to like military radio

with like a holographic VJ who we don't get her name, but apparently she is what is called a betty bot, which there's like an official name for it, but I forget what, I forget what that is, but colloquially they call them Betty bots. And the thing that they're listening to sound a lot like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Fives,

the message, the like, da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. It's like spot-on for the message, which is a foundational rap song from 1982. If you go listen to the two of the back-to-back, I promise you will hear this. In fact, I'm going to try to just drop in the two samples back-to-back, first the rookies one, and then the actual message, just right here so that people can actually hear it. And that's so fascinating for me, because it is not a thing you would

associate with war films or with that style of there is a pretty standardized pull of what war sounds like in the American filmic consciousness and it's you know it's a certain subset of um you know the sort of the sort of songs that played during uh Vietnam and then again in the Gulf War and then in the second Gulf War and then going back you look at like mid-century standards right like, and for World War II, and that's not where they go here. They go for this, like, very familiar electro-hip-hop beat that isn't one-to-one with any historical moment, and that's an interesting choice to make. So I haven't, like, fully unpacked it yet, but it dodges a lot of obvious comparisons, right?

Because if this had come in on a sort of, like, languishing electric guitar from 70s rock, you would have immediately made a certain association. Right, exactly, right? Or if it had come in with a sort of like early 2000s rock or rap, like reference, you would have again placed it in relation to Iraq. But that's not what happened. And so that's like, it's a choice. And it's the sort of choice that I'm so fascinated by.

I would love to find, I looked and couldn't find anyone who was interviewed about this choice. But it's something I'm going to listen for going forward. I like the image of just the board troopers hanging out. They've decorated their little listening post with posters. We get more lewd art. We get more horny Twilic pinups. The clones are so horny for Twilock pinup girls. They just, they can't contain themselves.

Do you think that that's like they have in the commissary there's like 12 things they can buy and three of them are Twilic pinups? maybe it's all one right like maybe like she's the betty grable of uh you know star wars um you know the iconic like looking over the shoulder uh pose um but the the other thing is their sergeant is trying to keep them on task and it it's interesting uh this war has been going on for like a hot minute again but the sergeant has already been through a lot of shit and is trying to keep them focused. But it's not quite enough because they are still going to be caught unawares by a pretty

cleverly set up infiltration where a bunch of meteors hit the planet they're on. And one of the lookouts outside gets just like gets a brief glimpse of one of the landing craft that came down with the meteors and then gets killed by a commander droid. not one of those really awesome ones this isn't like I like these though these are sleaking yeah and these are new to them

like this is they say that like I think after they encounter them inside the base or whatever they talk about them being like these new newly issued droids or new models

or whatever I think it's the first time I've seen yeah totally I think they're like oh these must be the new commando droids we've heard about or something like that, right? Yeah. They're cool.

I like them. They're sneaky. They are, and the station falls pretty much instantaneously. They get right in. They kill the sergeant. They don't manage to sound the alarm. I have a question. Yeah.

If I had a scanner to view the sky, And I was, you know, anxious about incoming spacecrafts. Yeah. I would build a scanner that could differentiate between a meteor shower and spacecrafts, which seemed pretty different to me. It's like literally the spacecraft from shadow, or not shadow, from rising malevolence. It's literally one of those like the crushers. Yeah.

With the claws. Yeah. Pretty distinctive silhouette. Clearly not a big rock. But counterpoint, I'm droid in the droid army, right? And I'm looking at research of this planet, and I see, oh, they get meteor showers a lot. That's how I get in. That's how you get in.

They're going to think that they're seeing these media showers that we see all the time, and it's going to be fine. They move really quick for what it's worse, right? It's not like they land, and I bet if they had looked at that data long, long enough, they were like, wait a second, that's not a meteor. But instead, they were like, another meteor shower, fuck off. And by the time they could even, like, do anything about it, those commander droids were rolling through.

But I would just install a beep, beep, beep for when... You got to make a beep-beep. When it's metal and not a meteor. Meteors have metal in them. That's where metal came from. Okay.

Well, not all of them. No, but a lot of it. Earth is a meteor in some... It's just decreed enough to matter. Big things filled with metal hit each other enough that it became the planet. But there's a density difference. I feel like I would just build a laser into my scanner. I would simply.

That would measure the density of the object approaching. And there would probably be a difference there. I don't know. I think you've identified another reason the Republic is losing the war is they don't have the technology they want to. partially because think about who is of who is the group rebelling against them it's all the industrialists all the technologists have left so they're not going to have the cutting-edge shit that the techno union or whoever has right yeah that's true and there's a lot of things like they're just really bad at this for instance the notion that they're honestly

I really do think it comes down to that so often is that they're just so bad at this. Like, they get by on the skin of their teeth so many fucking times that it's a losing, like, they are beyond the underdogs. Like, it's, they are unprepared. They don't, they don't have shit. They don't have lasers that can measure the density of incoming space material to differentiate between meters and spacecrafts.

Well, and their fucking generals don't have war experience. they're fucking wizards like so there's a few things that are like there's just things for instance any sort of safety system where it's like if something goes wrong call us is worse than a confirm things are okay

system right like yes the notion of oh like there's no way to get the warning out unless this watch tower goes off the air or sends us direct message saying that everything's fine but otherwise Otherwise, if they're just broadcasting normally, we assume everything is fine, and we don't have to confirm that. That's a terrible system, but it's what the Republic has kind of done. Yalarin has so many scenes in this episode where he's like, can't get in touch with Cody and Rex.

I hope everything's okay. Everything's probably okay. I hope that everyone's okay. Can't talk to anybody right now. I mean, here's the other half of this. Is this entire episode's premise of Cody and Rex coming to check out these seven dudes is absurd? Rex is a... Wait, you don't buy the...

They're on an inspection tour? No, I do, but it doesn't make sense given what their duties are. Rex is a captain, which means he commands 144 troopers, right? You've pulled him off

to go do this. Maybe that makes sense. He's very capable in this episode. He's like a king in this fucking episode. He's constantly doing a wild shit. And honestly, like, outclasses Cody throughout.

Oh, Rex rules. Rex, let's be very clear. And Rex is is Anakin's dude. right like that's an important like rex is anikin's dude cody is is uh obiwan's dude they even have that little like proxy fight for a moment where aniken is like or i think obiwan is like well maybe if your guy followed the regulations just like you don't but here's the here's the real one does anyone want to guess how many troops commander cody isn't in charge of so he's commander right yeah okay so

rex was like 800 oh 800 is that what you think it is Yeah. I don't know where Matt. Any other guesses here? That feels right. Because you imagine that Cody is in charge of multiple rexes. Right, sure. I'm going to say 10,000.

Can I tell you something absolutely absurd? What? Sure. You are under by 26,000. He's in charge of 36,000 troopers. I'm sorry. Don't send him to check out. Seven dudes.

He doesn't get to do that. So he's a Corps commander. Yes. He is in charge of the... What is the thing? It's the... It's the 212th... No, it's the 7th Sky Corps

is what he's in charge of, which includes the 212th Attack Battalion and many other... Many other battalions. The 7th Sky Corps is... Let's find out the exact number for you here. Where to go here? 36,864 troopers,

into 18 regiments. Austin, I have a quick question. Yeah. Are you pulling that from Wikipedia? I'm pulling it from Wikipedia. Yeah. But the question is, is that a where he was at the end of the war type number, right? Like, is that...

He's a commander all the way through. He's committed... He is given command of the 212th attack battalion at the start of the war. And that is, let's see how many that is. Maybe you're right. Maybe it's less dudes. I still bet it's a lot of dudes. This doesn't say how many the 212 is.

so yeah maybe you're right by the end but he's still a commander all the way through so it's too many dudes they are so bad at this you couldn't find anyone else to like go and do like they're doing an inspection like this is like they have a fucking checklist like they have a fucking what are those called clipboard with like 10 square 10 to do items on it and they're just going to walk around and be like, boop, boop, boop, bye-bye. This is such a retail thing, which is that you have your regional manager who, you know, is in charge of a lot of different things and wants to walk into the space and see that everything's going on.

And then you take like your best manager from a different store and you bring them to the base to be like, well, this is what you can change and you should organize those and you should change your systems here and that's what they expect wrecks to do and like that's not there's like a war actively happening totally well you should be doing things and also it's like what are you inspecting you're inspecting groups of like you're inspecting squads of like hey everything good uh watch post bum fuck like that's kind of like hey how's going still nothing happening right awesome well stay alert yeah i feel like that could have been an email i'm not they didn't even spring for these guys to get a good front door.

Like, the door is so easy to cut down. I keep thinking about this. Throughout the entire episode, I was like, just stay inside. Don't open the door. But the fact that they, the fact that they can't do that is indicative of the fact that they just don't have like a fortress-style door. It's so easy.

They're meant to fall. They're meant to fall. Yeah. The front door leads to a hallway that leads straight to their command center. There's not even a turn where like we can rally up and, like, create a barricade and, like, shoot this out a little bit. No, like, once they open the door, you were in a shooting gallery. And it's, like, just buy a better door, put the thing underground so it's hard to get into.

You just need a little antenna somewhere sticking out to be fine. But, no, instead, these guys are basically, like, put inside this matchstick bunker and are told, like, you know, I hope this goes well. If they're really meant to be like these, you know, just a disposable, like, you know, let us know if things get a little hairy, then there should be a button that just things are going down. Right. Alert, alert, alert. Immediately. So that there were fools inside there that new droids were coming in. They could have just smashed that, smash that button.

everything's solved why don't they have an emergency button yeah so they get rolled fast and the droids immediately do take control and they get the they make sure that the message now can't be taken off the air

the droids see the base hard wire it so that it's sending the all clear message the surviving troops pull out good plan yeah and they're like we just need to get out of here but then they run straight into the giant monsters that live on the surface of the planet

check the fuck off eels yeah there's big eels there's also those um they definitely double dip and reuse the mantas from shadow of malevolence in this they've just scaled them down to be like smaller in this episode oh yeah it's definitely them i looked it up also i did just confirm that the seventh sky core or whatever the fuck i said comes into being immediately after the Battle of Genosis in 22 before the Battle of Yavin is given in command to Obi-Wan Kenobi and Cody. So it's not extant yet.

No, no, no. We're pre-Jit. We're post-Genosis right now. It's right after Genosis. Oh, it's before Genosis, too. It's before Genosis, too. Yes, sorry, not Genosis, too. Correct. So he has that command. He and Obi-Wan have that command. So don't send that dude on this mission. I love everything that happens, though, from here.

because we have two sides trying little ruse de garres and or ruses de guerre I suppose but so the the battle droids the command of battle droids are a little bit clever where like they get the idea of we can like we can put armor on and people don't know that it's not we can we can fake a kiwi accent all those dudes sound the same we We've heard them. Let's just fucking do the accent back. And so when Cody and Rex show up and they land, the commander droids try to bear face their way out of this

by doing the men in black thing where the dude wears the skin of a dead clone and like does that fucked up puppet walk out to like try and like bear face his way through the meeting with Cody and Rex where he's like, everything's fine, please leave right now. But to be fair, they'd already done it. Once and the first time, it was clear that Rex and Cody, like, hmm, but they didn't, they didn't call them on it immediately. Was it clear?

Because when they call, when they called the base, the droids are already inside, one of the droids puts on the helmet, fakes the kiwi accent, and then signs off. So if, here's the thing that I'm saying, Roger, Roger, Roger, Roger. Here's the thing that fucks me up. If the droid can think of putting on a kiwi accent and putting on the helmet and everything. The fact that Cody and Rex are like, Roger, Roger, like, that sounds

a little suspicious. This is such a good war movie trope. So it's like in, like, movies about the Battle of the Bulge, like the Germans sent like troops who were coached in like, how do you pass as an American. And so like, there's always the moment where like, how do you find out if this guy's on the level, on the level?

Hey, uh, buddy, who won the world series and, or you overhear someone in spy movies, somebody does something totally instinctive, like in Inglorious Bastards, where the guy holds up the three wrong. And it's like, that's not how Germans do it.

So it is great. It's just reflexively, like, yeah, Roger, Roger. It's so stupid. Oh, no. You guys don't say that. Are the droids incapable of saying goodbye or, like, confirming anything without saying Roger, is this a hard limit in their programming?

Yeah. Yeah, maybe that's the only thing in their affirmation, like, dictionary. They're just too strongly acculturated. to do it. You know, it's like, is there Hua? Yeah. I'm going to start saying Roger Roger, and you're not going to be able to make me stop.

It's kind of fun. It's going to drill in my head. I like it. It's cute. I like it. Yeah. But, yeah, so Rex just waxes that dude the second and a half. Oh, yeah.

Oh, that moment is so good. It fucking rules. Rex is good. I was like, this is a children show. This guy just got head shot at point blank. I'm sorry. You also have a children's show. They murder a wounded clone.

Oh, yeah. Totally. Absolutely. Yeah. They don't give a fuck, dude. It's nuts. So they blow up Cody and Rex's ship. And Cody and Rex end up stumbling across the remaining guys who are posted to the listening post.

And we get an interesting exchange because first we get the clones commenting on, hey, we don't have Jedi with us. And there's kind of a sense that, without Jedi, what good are we, really? But also, there's kind of a, okay, maybe I've reading too much into this, but let me know if you find this weird. So Cody and Rex make the point of calling out the rookies as shinies. And they get that name because their armor is still like newly issued, still shiny. And so are they.

They haven't seen anything yet. They don't know what they're doing. but also it does occur to me. Do these guys ever get reissued fresh equipment, or are clones not really around long enough to require a reissue? And so, like, clones just gather battle damage until there's no clone anymore.

That's kind of where I'm like, I'm like, huh, okay. Yeah. Is the Marker clone, just the number of near misses you've had until you're kind of used up? well like and you know one of the big things that happens in this episode is cody or rex uh after killing rex kills the big eel with a single shot again being like i'm hot shit y'all can't do this and then he i think it's him he puts his hand on echoes like chest to be like they're there son or whatever and leaves the leaves a handmark on his chest and marks him right and so like yes

the marking of armor in a way that i would read as like if not intent, even if maybe they get new armor, there is a certain, like, desire to keep it marked at the very least. That said, I don't know how often they get new supplies. It seems it seems rough. Rhex is out here creating the fighting Urukai of clones. 100%. Like, here's some blue blood. Splash. We're good, bud. Yep. Now you're a commander or whatever. Are there other big moments in this episode? I'm trying to think of anything else that really...

Well, I... Go ahead. Breaking back in is fun, where now they do the little head on a stick thing. Oh, yes. To get in the door. That part is pretty good. Again, the fact that this time they finally fall for it, where they're like, oh, now it's all good. We've seen this clearly dead clone head waved in front of this camera.

I found it interesting that Ventris is like the whole Camino mission is dependent on information from Ventris where she's grievous says that Ventris has already been positioned on Camino as a spy and I feel like if I had had a few encounters with someone that was pretty clearly working with, you know, the bad guys. I might send, you know, their image out and just say, watch out for this one, you know, their known Sith conspirer or whatever. Like, what is she doing there? Like, I really want to know what she's doing with me know. My guess is she snuck there more than she's been placed there. But, you know, we know that.

they are, that the Sith and Sidious and Duku are like, tight with some people on Camino. We know that they were involved to some degree with that shit. That would be so wild. That would be so wild. I would love to see that wrap around. Like, I would love to see a Camino, I don't know, like, backstab. Like, just Camino being a part of, like, just Camino being a part of. like some larger plot, you know,

Duku with his chest with his like whiteboard. I would love to see Camino work back around in some way. That would just be beautiful to me. Without getting into spoilers, we will return to Camino at some point. Yeah. Because I'm always sitting here wondering like, what have the Caminoons gotten out of this?

Really? Like, why are they like just taking on this open end of commitment to raise and train clones forever based on a one-time payment? and and take care of them and shit like being paid you know are they getting yeah the money had to be right yeah they did oh they're getting paid they are getting paid they are getting but that was all in advance is they're like what's the what's like yeah when you need that second when you need that second class is got another yeah exactly exactly yeah I'm not sure I'm not sure and I'm I know we get some answers eventually but I don't know what they are yet so

that's that's kind of exciting do you think Yoda put down like a credit card would He picked up those clothes, like, charged to the Jedi. Yeah, put it on the... Once the Republic authorized that spending, I made it out of Pallotine. Yeah, Palatine's out here just letting you go shopping. Yeah. It's something you like. We got Daddy Palpatine's card.

We're buying clones. So, once the clones retake the base, Grievous immediately knows something is wrong. I can't reach his team. So again, better at this than the Republic. Yes, instantly was like, oh, I can't contact them. Better send everything. So he sends his entire army down there.

There's a cool moment where they're all looking up at the sky and they're seeing grieves his fleet sailing past. And there's a slightly pathetic moment where the clones are like, well, you know, we're the last thing standing between this fleet and Camino, which is the closest thing we clones have to a home. And like, I don't know if that's how Camino feels about the clones, but it's all the clones have and so they like decide to stand or die

here to protect Camino and their sort of extended clone family and all they have to do is get the radio message off the air they can't do that so they decide we can blow the base and then Bluetooth bites them in the ass

and they can't pair the detonator to the charges got to hit it manually someone's to stay behind yeah damn RIP heavy

yeah he takes that palm to the face like you see an epic yeah this is like one of the more viscerally like I don't know just brutal episodes that we've seen so far just like yeah people are getting like

fucking killed people are dying just a hundred percent yeah just sacrifice like jumping on the grenade it's so gnarly and heavy goes out like a champ though where the where he's like mortally wounded and the battle droids look at each other like uh do we take prisoners and heavy from the crowd is i don't and detonates the entire base and i'm like yeah heavy yeah they programmed comedy into these fucking clones because they definitely take prisoners as definitely the republic a hundred percent has a prisoner policy in the way i'm sure the separatist clones or drones hmm droids do not no people who count get taken prisoner yes clones and droids probably do not definitely not

um but officers get paroled wait well we do know that some droids get taken prisoner because maybe they know too much because anakin refuses to wipe their memory that is the arc of the next set of episodes. And this one ends with how many of the rookies survive? Three, two? Two. Three, I think. Three, I think. Is it three? I thought it was just five's in Echo.

You're right. I think it's just two. Yeah, heavy. Heavy. Dead. Sarge, dead. Cut up. Dead. There's probably other ones whose names I don't remember. Dead. But it's just like, yeah, I think it's just the two. And they graduate to join Rex in the 501st. Which, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there later irony that the 500

First becomes, like... I hate this. Okay, so here's just a small thing. Austin already knows that I hate this, but I'm going to tell you. Yeah. So there is a cosplay, like, fake Stormtrooper unit called the 501st. And mixed messages, whatever, but like they do charity events, they show up at little events. Like, hey, if you want, if you need a bunch of stormtroopers to show up at a thing to look like some imperial shit,

going on the 500 first shows up i've seen them at like a parade in berkeley it is kind of cool it's like hey there's like 150 stormtroopers marching down the street we love the stormtroopers don't we um but so they kind of got like some recognition in canon where now a five like a unit was created the 501st vader's fist um the personal stormtrooper legion of lord vader correct um which was the nickname of the cosplay group to begin with yes and so they were recognized and brought in in that way so now here we have rex being like you belong in my 5001st the hardest fighting unit in the well and rob who does rex report to anakin skywalker who is Darth who will be Darth Vader this is not a mistake or I think the mistake is

is bringing the Vader's fist shit in from the cosplay group. That part feels like icky in a way that I don't love. But boy. Is this that announcement? Or does it happen? Like, at what point does that come into canon?

So I don't know if it is still canon, really. But I do know that like, in the old expanded universe, the 5001st was. So I just finished a couple Timothy Zon books. where the 5001st comes up, except it's the 501st unit that was created by... Okay. So in the expanding universe, real quick,

Grand Admiral Throne goes out there and creates like a second empire for himself. But instead of the ethno-nationalist fascism of the empire under Palpatine, Thrawn is very open-minded. And he's like the enlightened despot ruler. Sounds nice. And so it keeps all the pomp and circumstance of the empire,

keeps all their symbols. But he's like, we welcome all aliens. of all creeds, if you have talents to bring to the empire, please join us. And so later on in the Expanded Universe, you find that, like, Thrawn's 501st is, like, a multi-ethnic, just elite strike force that is just like, what if stormtroopers were really good at their jobs and kind of awesome. And so that's kind of the arc that that follows. Yes. as time goes on Zahn and a lot of expanding universe

authors start sympathizing more and more with like the good empire and the imagined like values of a professional military officer corps it is it is an echo of what happened to historians and pop

really pop historians with World War II's German infantry corps right where you kind of like, well, okay, listen, sure, the high-level Nazis are bad guys, but the day-to-day folks, the tacticians and strategists who are just doing their best for the German people, it's that shit and it sucks, it's miserable. Yeah. But it is kind of cool that, yeah, so, yeah, you're right.

Good point, Austin. Rex is with the 5001st, and they're not yet the 501st of this legend. Correct, but they are that 501st. Like, that is where this goes insofar as Clone Wars has been. on irony. This is an example of that. Here's this big heroic moment of inducting these characters into a thing that will become known as, like, one of the most elite units of hunting down and killing good people in the galaxy. What I will say, too, is, like I said, we're going to return to these characters. Fives and Echo are not done. We're going to get some more Fives and Echo

down the line. And there are, from what I remember, from when I first went down this path, and I didn't finish the path. But when I first explored this path, I remember being like, fives is all right. I like fives. So, we're looking forward to more fives. I think there's something worth addressing in the scene here because, like, I'm not sure if it's on our Star Wars things list yet, but like metal ceremony is a huge Star Wars thing. And, like, it means something that this episode ends with that.

And, like, especially because this ceremony is eight dudes in an empty room, right? And, like, it's just watching it. I was just like, what does it feel like to be in that room? Especially when two of them don't even think that they deserve to be there, right? Like, immediately after they get those medals, they're like, well, we're still kind of new and we didn't pull those other guys through. But, like, who initiated this? Who is this important to? What does this mean to Obi-Wan and Anakin that's, like, different than what it means to Cody and Rex?

Like, it's a very interesting scene for something that happens in a minute. Yeah. It's a contrast between this and the New Hope metal scene, right? where it's like bah, bum, bum, bum,

bum, and it's like, oh, look, there's hundreds of people at that's, like, who's my medal, that's the thing

we always do. Or even when Jar Jarger gets his medal at the end of, yeah, Jarger is fucking leading that parade down to the world.

Totally, totally. And this is no parade. This is like, we're going to do a metal ceremony, everyone get in the fucking hangar. Yeah. All eight of you get in the hangar.

Yeah. Everyone else stay on your stations. Is Anakin there? Yeah, it's, it's Obeyon and Anakin standing at the front being the like

okay so they'll at least show up it's not like yeah clones you want to just induct the new guys and then come a medal or something make them feel good about what happened down there go ahead alley no I just because it's structured an interesting way because it's the two new clones

across from Obi-1 and Anakin and then like other older clones like kind of crowded around them but it still only is eight dudes like it's just yeah that's interesting also this is nothing, but there's a moment in the middle of this episode, I guess before things really pop

off, where Obi-Wan is looking out the window and just looks really pensive, and is like looking at the galaxy. And I just like that shot a lot. It's a good, it's good for pacing to occasionally just let your characters be like, hmm, what's going on out there in space? And it just looks good. We're all thinking this. We're all thinking. Yes, totally. So now, Austin, you alluded to, um, sometimes prison. get taken. And with that, I think we'll get to our two-parter that I think, for me, I'm going to editorialize a bit here, feels a little bit less substantial than rookies in some ways.

What if I told you there are structural and formal reasons for that, Rob? I would be fascinated to know them. Do you want to get into that now? Sure, I'll just, because I think it's worth setting this up before we even get into what the episodes are. Downfall of a droid is a snapshot of this show at the earliest stage of production imaginable. This is actually the second episode they produced, the first being, I believe, some of the Christoph's stuff from the film, right? And unlike that stuff, it didn't get a special pass to be a film.

I was going to ask about that because I noticed that these two episodes, especially episode six, look so unpolished. they look really unpolished a lot of the animation is like seems unfinished or like it's like very keyframe focused there's got a lot of like there's a scene where like it's it's the medical scene yeah medical base scene that is like completely blown out yes there are other scenes that look really good with lighting in a way that I suspect they just change their lighting model because I couldn't get this to work throughout an entire episode but I think like cockpit scenes the war room scenes there's a there's a there's a a softer ambient light in some of those sequences that look really good, but everything else is just a step behind. And so in some ways, this is like so fascinating because it really is, this is like the beta version of this show in a real way, because by the time they moved on, they had to keep moving forward. They didn't have the time or attention to come back and hit this episode. I want to say dual the droids did get produced later in the second of these two episodes, did get produced a little bit later in the chronology, the development chronology. And so it

still looks a little bit better, but I still don't think it looks great, especially coming off of, like, Rookies looks pretty good. Rookies has some, some fun sets, everything moves in, you know, exciting ways. So, yeah. Yeah. Also, I think narratively, really quick, last thing, and this is a throw to you to set up what the fuck happens in this arc. I also think, narratively speaking, you can tell this is a very early arc of them being

like, well, what's the show about just? Jedi doing stuff. What do we do? What's Assoca's role in all this? Totally. Yeah, and so this opens with that dastardly General Grievous, still picking apart the Republic Fleet on the Outer Rim. As always, in the opening narration, we discovered that the Republic position is crumbling on every front. And the music is dire in this intro. It's like a different cut of their intro music. Go ahead,

Natalie, what are you going to talk about? You're talking with the other music in this episode? And the next one is like heist music. It's like heist drum and bass music, but they still kept the like. Also a little Euroclub. There's some Euroclub, but the orchestral hits are still there. So it's still, it's a mess. Again, second episode of production.

They really try the thing. I kind of love the music aboard that dude's scavengership, though. where he's just kind of like I just like I put this on loop I can just group to it all day because I'm going to run picking up trash So So

Yeah so grievous's fleet is just like Shattering the Republic everywhere it goes And the Republic is kind of about to cut bait and just try to gather its forces up but Asoka and Anakin have decided to stand their ground at Bothaway rather than retreat.

And it looks like it's going to be a complete suicide mission for them to stand and fight Grievous here. But through a clever stratagem, Anakin wins the battle and sends Grievous reeling to lick his own wounds. But the victory is soured

by the fact that during all that fighting, Anakin is shot down and R2 goes missing. What ensues is Anakin's frantic search for R2, who's been taken by a scavenger who intends to sell the droid and the sensitive data it contains

to the separatists and General Grevis. Meanwhile, as Anika is trying to find R2, Asoka is trying to play matchmaker between Anakin and a new Astromec droid and R3 unit. This droid can't quite seem to do anything right, and Anika is just so mean and dismisses of this...

Dude? Of this droid, but Osiris... is like she keeps saying give another chance be nice to Goldie he's trying his best except it turns out he's not the droids incompetence he is actually malice and it's working for general grievous you're right yeah he's trying his best doing a great job yeah he's crushing it i i do not understand the setup of this like this episode feels so like When they made this episode, they did not know the next episode was coming. And then they're like, ah, let's fix it.

Because the opening fucking epithet of this episode is trust in your friends and they'll have a reason to trust in you. Yes. Which is like, the whole episode is about the fact that Anakin's a big jackass to fucking Goldie. And then he's vindicated in the next, it's just in the next episode. Yeah, the fact that he's, ooh. And then it's like, what was the point of the episode? before like what can I tell you that the original moral was different when this show was first written it was not what was what you just said trust in your friends and I'll have reason to

trust in you yeah it was uh I just had it friends are hard to find difficult to leave impossible to forget yeah that's better that's better that's better we'll never forget about R2D2 R2 forever baby yeah yeah instead the first episode sets you up for look he's not going to like really he's not going to really warm up to this droid but he should he should give this droid he should open his heart to little r3 as as as soka is trying to do um well and there is a reason that that feels awkward to me and it's because goldy is positioned like asoka is yeah it's there's a new person in aniken's life who he doesn't know yet who doesn't always get things right who is positioned who's framed as

I'm trying to do this the right way and I can't do it and Anakin's response is just 100% fuck off you're not you're not a real one I don't know you no new friends no no no and and then just like he's right and he's right he's right no new friends

R2D2 forever that's it everyone else all our three units fuck off also just to finish this recap real quick Please. So they have to do this rescue mission that Grievous's a secret base. Associc gets in a fight with Grievous. That's pretty well. That fight's fun.

And again, brutal violence in the show didn't imagine that one of the most grisly killings we'd have seen yet is R2D2 sending another AstroMec to hell. Like basically just like shoving him off a cliff. It's like less than Mohicans, but with Astromec drawing. As he just kicks this thing straight off a catwalk. That motherfucker gets, like, dissected the way Darth Malt did, right? He literally comes apart on the way down. It's incredible. I loved the droid duel.

It worked. The beginning I was like, I'm not sure about this, but by the end, it was working for me. I was like, I hate to say this, but R2, he pulls up. He pulls through. Natalie, like, I felt the first time, was it in episode two, where it's like, Arthew has jet packs

now. He has little jet like boosters in his legs. And at the time, I was like, I don't know about this. And now I'm like, come on, Artu, use your jet jet pack legs and go fuck that dude up. He fucking uses it to set like, your chainsaw.

He uses his like his rocket booster to set a fire on like a line of Is it like oil? I don't even know what it is. Yes. It's incredible. It's so hard.

Like, I was so into it. I was like, shout out to R2. As someone who owns an R2D2, who owns many R2D2 things. I've eight R2s in this room that I have in right now. That's incredible. Amazing. Okay, but if you lost those R2s. Yeah, I would be really upset about it.

Would you form a new bond with a new Asthmaic convention? Yeah, and I think that that's a weird, it's a weird perspective for Anakin as the junkyard boy, right? You're right. Because you think that he would be the person who would be able to, like, see potential in droids and, like, want to nurture that or repair them or figure out the firmware update or like. What's going on? The Anakin I know and love would be like, hey, this R3 is having problems. Let me take a look inside and see what's going on. Hey, wait a second.

There's something weird here. Let's clear that out of you, little guy. Oh, it's General Grievous's foot. Passwords or whatever let's delete that shit it makes no sense like also he has to have another art like he goes in a fucking ship and everyone has there are three units in there or are two units so he's gonna be like even if it's not attached to your install of ways I it's yeah it is yeah it makes no it like well I mean but you're but your ways does not have a chainsaw or so a memory the memory of you getting married to your wife Also, your ways is not a sole survivor from the Nabu attack, right? Like, Artu fucking does that shit. It's true.

Artu... I'm not saying that his missing of Artu isn't justified. I'm just saying that, like, obviously he was going to be paired with, like, a temporary new droid. So why is he so, like, fuck you, you piece of shit? Like, the whole time when literally this thing just works for you, like, he's not, like, this thing has no motive that we know of obviously we know it has a lot of motive but he's like this little thing's just doing the it's tasks it's just doing its little tasks and Anakin is just like so I don't get why he's so resistant to having to work with this guy so I think there's a couple

things and it relates to one thing that Ali brought up so And Anakin grew up repairing droids, but also seeing the move out of that shop right away. Like, you didn't form bonds. He formed bonds with 3PO, a droid he created. And R2, a droid he met when he was freed and was sprung from that life. And so it's like that relationship was going to be different. To the point that Natalie just raised, though, about like, why is he so resistant to this? It's because this is what the Jedi would want him to do.

The thing that, like, sets a lot of this thing off is he's like, hey, Artu has gone missing. And Canobi, being an asshole, as always, not missing an opportunity to, like, fumble these big moments. He's like, oh, well, that sucks, dude, but, like, get a new droid. But, but, but, counter, I don't know that it's being an asshole in, except for in the way that all Jedi are assholes because they don't understand attachments in the way that normally. people do. He literally says attachment is not acceptable for a Jedi. Right. But Ben needs to get this program. Why the fuck do you care about

this droid, dude? It's a phone. It's, yeah, it's like ways on your phone. You know what I mean? It's not even like a phone. It's like an iPhone 5 at this point and Obi-Wad have fucking iPhone 10. Also, guess who fucking loses shit all the time? Annick and Skywalker, how many lightsabers you on, homie? You lose that shit

every episode. You don't cry about that shit. I get it. It doesn't have your wedding photos in it. But I'm not supposed to know about that anyway. They got a mine of those crystals just for Anakin. They just got like, they got to keep bringing them through because they keep... God damn.

You was skilled, though. You need R2. They'll find more lightsabers eventually anyway on the bodies of the Jedi he kills. So it evens out in the end. Anyway. No, I'm sorry. You were continuing.

It's an interesting scene where Kenobi's like, yeah, it's no problem. We don't need to worry about like where Artu's gone. You don't have permission to go, like, looking for this doorway. We don't have time to deal with that ship. Anakin throws out at this point, almost as a gambit, like, to get out of this.

He's like, Artu has secret information in his data banks. And, Cody's like, what the fuck? He's not supposed to. And it's unclear, like, is this a Hail Mary pass that, like, Annequin's coming up with? Grievous doesn't think so. Grievous wants to buy this Artunia, because he thinks it knows shit. But that's a material. For me, the question is kind of...

Is Anakin created a situation where Artu's more valuable than other droids? and so he has to be like precious, right? Where it's like, hey, R2, here's another like batch of secret republic military data because then he's not disposable. Like he has to be protected and cared for because the Jedi won't let him, the Jedi will not care about this droid unless there's a good reason to. And so Anakin creates a situation where one way or another R2 has to be accounted for. Totally.

If, you know, you have to go looking for R2 one way or another, why not make it a rescue up? Yeah, the The way that conversation goes is like there is an expectation that R2 should be like regularly memory wiped and the fact that Anakin isn't doing this is like holding on to his version of R2

this entire time, right? Yeah, I don't know. Which raises a really interesting thing for me, which is, is the reason droids are memory wiped a sort of social fix to prevent needing to think of them as people if you wipe their memories

they can't develop personal characteristics because their memories get wiped that's where R2's weirdness and like personality comes from is that he is not regularly memory wiped I believe the same thing is true for C3PO So this was an answer And so they were yeah go ahead This was an answer that you came up with

There is a moment where I think Marjade raises this question with, like, Skywalker, where she's like, wait, you don't wipe your droid? And he's like, no, like, why would I do that? Like, Artu's great. And she's like, well, how great. And he's like, well, here's the stats on Art2. Like, Artu is, like, 30 or 40% more efficient than other droids of his make and model.

But also, he's the only one who can talk to my X-Wing now. Like, the machines grow around each other. And so, like, and in the X-Wing series, the longer a droid goes without a memory wipe, the more personality it shows. And so, like, a big thing in the X-Wing series is pilots have major, like, post-traumatic stress episodes triggered when their astromat gets shot out of the ship because, like, it is, like, losing your co-pilot. It's, like, goose dying in Top Gun. Right. And one of the reasons that they wipe droids is so that, like, a freshly wiped droid is just, like, a blank.

And it just does the job, and it doesn't really show much in terms of character. Uh, sure would be a bad thing if, for instance, you created a new organic, uh, set of people to start filling roles in a very similar way, but you couldn't wipe their memories. And instead, they slowly became increasingly personified and, uh, individualized. And long term, what could that lead? Who could say what would happen in a situation like that? Um, I also just briefly have to shout out Ghost in the Shell standalone complex, which, uh, if, if you haven't seen that, everyone should see that. It's one of my favorite TV cop procedurals, despite being an anime show. It's as good as any, like, live action show ever. And there's a huge, you know, kind of multi-season arc about this exact thing. And it's very good. And also, standalone complex is just great, so people should watch it. That's my recommendation.

Anyway. This is not on the topic of this in the shell, but it is on the topic of R2. So this whole two-episode arc, I feel like, is justifying this thing that so far has been time and time again justified to us, that R2 is a very special droid. And I feel like for the first time, I'm okay with that. Like, I really didn't like it for a really long time because I was just like, who cares? Like, why does it have to be like that? Why does it have to be that, like, I don't know, why does Artu have to have this, like, chosen one aspect to him that, like, out of all the droids in the, in the lineup, or like, he's the one that's the one that survived the crash or whatever? And I feel like, finally, I'm cool with it because it's, like, environmental learning is what has really shaped Artu as.

a droid in his relationship to his surroundings and his ability to like react and think creatively and things like that like that for me works so much better than any of the other like our two special moments would you say that art two has in the kingdom heart sense developed a heart because of continued experience over time yes and that's the thing thing that separates him. He's in Anakin's heart, I think. Oh, 100%. 100%. 100%. So.

It's just... But there's not supposed to be anything in there, but duty. That's right. Whoops. Whoops. Just a quick callback, though. I do enjoy the opening battle.

It's kind of nifty strategy that Anakin's like, I'm going to hide a bunch of tanks in the asteroid field. And Grievous is going to put all his shields forward. and we're just going to blast the hell out of his ships. I also do love the bit where, like, grievous realizes, oh, I've lost this and just leaves. I will never get over that. I love every single time the droids are like, fuck, what will we do about the fact that we're going to die? I guess I'm in charge.

And then Grievous is like, not me. I'm out and like just dips. I got a sick ship to hop in just for me. I got my fucking catty out back I'll see y'all next time It's so good I love it He's out like he leaves these things

Like he's at a party and he heard someone Who like wanted to fight him Was on the way in He's like yep all right I'm gonna go y'all got a back door Because I got to go This is nice seeing you all I had a great time

I'll catch you with the next function You hear something like oh the cops are gonna get called Cause of that And you're like, I need to go. Like, you all don't know it, but this party is over. But in five minutes, you'll know it. And everyone running is going to get caught. I'm just going to leave now.

I'll be gone. I'm going to wait at the speed limit. Magic Johnson, I'm not going to be here anymore. Just so good. Hey, someone find, uh, uh, Darth bus for me and let her know that, um, I, like I quit. I quit. Let her know for me. me. I love her.

Very hard to have that conversation. But anyway, so they got to go looking for the droid. They go searching through the asteroid debris after Anakin has gotten the sign-off from Obi-1 to at least look into where Art 2 has ended up.

And he's got Goldie with him. Oh, do you mean stubby? A nickname? I don't understand. Because it's the same unit? It's the same unit. He doesn't. It doesn't look more stubby than R2. No.

No. It's just... Anyway. It sucks. It sucks. But they go to the Trandashan traders ship, and he basically looks like one of the dinosaurs and the TV show Dinosaurs. Doesn't look like the Trandoshans that we meet in the original trilogy. Isn't the dude with the cool visor?

That doesn't narrow it down. Bosque is a classic... Oh, is it Bosch? Is it a Trandishan? I believe that's what they're the dinosaur people right yeah I think you might be right okay so then yeah this guy does just look like a uh what of instead of being a heavy set one of those you know what I mean he's got a lot more roundness in the face he's got some he's got some creases going on a lot of his time driving a truck around yeah he does look

like a space trucker yeah I like him so yeah they try to buy uh the droid but the guys like I don't have the droid you guys can check out my wares I will let you know that there's some exotic material in the basement. And so they go down there into this guy's creepy, like, curiosity shop. And there's, like, assassin droids down there. There's all sorts of bivs and bobs, but there's no R2. Except that they do, like, Anakin thinks he hears R2. We hear R2.

And I don't get why they make it so that, like, why they wrote Asoka to be like, no, it's not. Like, why? One of my least favorite things about this arc is the characters are written like idiots. And or mean, right? Osook comes off, like, way too naive and trusting and, like, can't keep up with the plot. And Anakin is just, like, cruel from the jump in a way that doesn't feel earned to R3. And that combination is just like...

And also just, like, the moral of, like, don't judge a book by its cover. Actually, no, never mind. It's like, definitely do that. Just, oh, anyway. Yeah. But here we have our first, boy, things just seem to go wrong around old Goldie. Because Goldie seems to somehow wake up the assassin droids and turn them loose against Anakin and Asoka. And they win.

They kick those droids asses. but they do get thrown off the ship where the guy comes downstairs and is like, what are you doing to my shop? Get out of here. I got some trivia for you here that is actually probably not trivia so much as if you looked in the credits

you would have seen this. Do we have, does anyone notice who plays this salvage guy? I did not. It's a fucking get. It's Ron Perlman. What? Hollywood's Ron Perlman

plays Gah Knock the salvager, the transgender. magician, Savager. Is this the only voice he's done on the show? I think so. And, you know, he's out here. He does a lot of voices, so I'm curious. I'll have to look into seeing if he's done more stuff.

But I should mention this entire scene was scored by that, like, kind of peppy, like, you know, Eurohouse beat, where, like, yeah, the entire, like, the entire fight, even, is scored like you're driving in the back of a cab. a hundred percent to like an airport somewhere in minsk or something at three in the morning it's just it's not great it's not a great uh like audio landscape uh for this for the scene so it turns out though that the guy had good reasons for keeping our two under wraps which is that he's already made a deal with grievous to return this droid there's There's one thing I want to shout out really quick is I love that while they're walking through the aisles and stuff, you have Anakin doing casual force usage to like move the boxes around.

I love seeing like mundane force usage. It just it rules to me. So it's it just it demystifies it in a way that's like it doesn't have to be, you know, fucking holding a board. boulder over, like, a bunch of clones or whatever. It can be just, like, integrated into the daily, like, how you... I'm browsing right now. Yeah, I'm fiving. I'm just chilled. I clean my room with the forest. Yeah, that sounds tight.

I love that. And is that, like, do other Jedi do that? Or is this a sign of Anakin already being, like... I feel like we don't really see other Jedi do... Like, sometimes, you know, they'll be chilling with a rock or something. Like, I don't know. You know how Jedi be, killing with rocks and whatnot. But they don't really, like, grab their cup of...

Blue milk. Blue milk. It's the Star Wars joke. Yeah, thank you. Or whatever, like, slide it across, you know. Or it's, like, used in very, very specific, like... Whereas Anakin's doing the full Mickey and Fantasia thing. Yeah.

I'll just have a million things going at once because I can. Yeah. But unlike Mickey, he doesn't suck. And doesn't lose it. Well, I guess he does. in the end. I feel like the only other time we've seen something like this is the pair moment, right?

This is Anakin's trick. You're right, Anakin's trick. Let me just lift that pear over here, take a bite. I hate that. Chomp. I had a great pair yesterday, by the way. Oh, yeah. Shout to the boss.

Yeah. Shout out to the pair. That's the real one. That's my favorite pair. It's a good pair. Delightful. Perfect. So, pears this week.

Speaking of people really being required to be obtuse in this episode. So, well, one, R2 does a great little escape attempt, gets loose. He's so clever and crafty. Like sends one of the assassins droids out the airlock, but gets recaptured. But meanwhile, like now Anakin is back in a spaceship, like combing space looking for R2. and the R3 sets off his like tracking beacon yeah and basically the thing that's just sort of screaming

in every direction like hey I'm here I'm here I'm here and brings down like Grievous's force like on Anakin and Anakin's like we got to get out of here start calculating a light speed escape and damn R3 just can't Calculate an escape jump. Oh, man.

It's just a man. It's so hard for Astromack. It, like, drops the thing that is required that, like, the glue. It drops the hyperdrive. Yeah. It's just like, you don't need this. Whoops. Sorry.

And Anakin's like, damn, why are you so bad at this? And it's like... Anakin pulled through in the scene, by the way, in a way that rules. What? What can do? I forget. He, like, does this, like, weird spin thing. and then like zooms forward and then turns around towards grievous's um like the line of ships or whatever

and shoots them because he like maneuvered really cool yeah yeah and he's a good pilot great pilot one of the best but then his lasers turn off because uh because the r3 shuts those off too also the little fucker the little fucker every time something goes wrong makes this little little who me noise. The fucking droid. What the fuck did I do? Did I just do something bad?

Did I do it again? Oh, I'm so sorry. It's like, the droid is bad. The droid is bad. We just need to accept the droid sucks. But instead, Annegan's like, oh man, why are you so incompetent? And it's like, man, I don't know if like we're beyond incompetence. Like the guy turned up.

Yeah, pick a fucking thing, right? Like, at this point, say you don't trust the droid. At this point, just say, I don't trust this fucking droid. We need to investigate this droid. This droid is trying to kill me. But I don't think he doesn't trust it. I think he just thinks it's completely incompetent, which is so fucked. Because this episode opens on Anakin saying, like, talking about grievous and being like, seems like grievous always knows when to attack us.

There seems like they know. They always know. Someone on the inside. But they don't even say, they literally know. Nobody thinks there's a mole. How do you not think there's a fucking mole? If every single one of your plots goes unravelled, like every single time you go to the spot,

like fucking Grievous is there waiting for you, it's not a coincidence. Like, Brevis is in someone else's group chat. It's getting. You never get a sense that there's any sort of counterintelligence effort being run by the Republic. They're just like, damn, like things are just going wrong.

weird like there's no counter spying they don't there's no word of like oh our spies are reporting this they're just completely in the dark no intel at all and meanwhile it's just like boy it just feels like they know what we're doing weird so infuriating i've just three p o new there's something really interesting about this move from grievous here though that he's able to recognize that droids are like a vulnerability for the Republic here. Like, this is the clone versus droid army. Grievous has access to droids.

The Republic relies on droids in such a way that he could just be like, let's just go put this evil droid in here and really fuck them up, and it like almost works. Also, like it fully. How did he get that plant? Like, Grievous is running fucking spies and shit.

Yeah. Scamboy shit. How did he get Goldie in there? he's they're good at this this is what they do how did they get how did they get ventures on Camino this is what they do

Palpatine is the king of the ship Palpatine's like oh yeah by the way I just put a little extra discretionary fund for you pick up a droid In fact I have a good droid for you Here you go Bob It's easy it's easy

You move that money around What that one's from grievous? What? Okay Yeah oh damn shit Got another one on us Yeah So what the fuck Meanwhile Asoka is just like

damn, I think, you know, if we just believe in this droid a little harder, it'll turn good again. And the thing I do like about this. I wish it was true. Me too. What? I said, I wish it was true. I wanted it to be true. I kind of admire.

Like, yes, does the moral of these two episodes mesh at all? No, absolutely not. On the other hand, there are so many shows where it's like, you know, if someone is completely malfeasant and routinely is like

failing in ways that like let everyone down it is just a matter of like giving them more chances and believing harder and like you know just like show more faith and i kind of like that in the end that's not what's happening here it's like this droid isn't your friend this droid like bad things keep happening around this droid because it's a danger to you um and after a certain point like you you probably should have just cut bait yeah like this is not a dog that like you needed just like okay with positive reinforcement we are going to teach it how to sit or whatever like this is a crucial thing that you need to be able to rely on you were in the fucking you were in space with this little shit and it tried to kill you get another one

like if it ate R2 then what's the difference like get another one it's no problem they probably have a bunch back at the base or whatever the fuck honestly just trade one out with a different pilot I'm gonna say it Anakin needs the droid that isn't trying to kill him no offense to cut up or whoever match stick I don't know what their fucking names are R3 probably wouldn't even fuck with that droid

because it'd be like well time to go I gotta get back in good so like now I'm with this nobody I'll just do my job better until I get a better posting just shuffle those droids up yeah yeah so

R2 manages this is the other part like same pop beats are repeated R2 like manages to get a message out after his first escape at the end of this first episode next episode again manages to get a message out where like he alerts

Anakin that he's out there and needs help despite R3 trying to like fuck with the radio message so it doesn't come through and so now that they know R2 is in custody Obi-Wan Kenobi

authorizes a strike to kill R2. We can go after Grievous's secret listening base which is like a bit Death Starge but mostly a Ninja Turles Technodrome. Wait, I don't think that's only after

Anakin decides to just go to R2 and because Anakin's mission is to find the listening base. It's not to find R2 and when he shows up he realizes that he realizes that R2's location is the listening base.

So, and, and when Artu calls him, Asoka's like, that's not R2. That's not R2 again. And I was just like, yo, you need to stop. You've hit L's on every single one of these attempts. Like, truly, you need to stop. Anakin supported Asoka with the Plokoon thing. You can't just have his back for R2.

It's the same situation. So again, this is one of those production things. He was on the Jedi Council. Yeah, yeah. R2 is a navigator. They are not the same. He was a war hero. Artu is a war hero.

Artu is got medals. Artu is getting medals? I bet he does. I bet he does. And the EU definitely got a metal at least once. A little magnetic like boop. That would be cute. Like a refrigerator magnet.

Yeah, but you're right that Obi-Wan is like, hey, wait for reinforcements. Then we're going to go blow this shit up. And Anakin's like, dip. And he's going to go get R2. Well, and also, like, Obi-Wan just being like, this is not a rescue mission. And I'm like, dude, have you met Anakin? Like, what do you think is about to happen here in 30 seconds? The minute you hang up the phone.

I mean, you just don't know which Anakin you're going to get. Are you going to get rescue mission Anakin? Are you going to go get, I killed them all, even the children, Anakin? And Obi-Wan was really hoping for the latter in this case. That's true. Point him in the right direction, let him go. I do like, again, here we get the. they do

what's called a halo jump you know high altitude low open where like Godzilla where the guys were all on like the C-130 and the back hatch opens and they go jumping into the stratosphere

and like plummet towards their they do that here where you know Anakin and Soka and all the clones just go vaulting into the unknown out the back of this transport and the Jedi can just sort of float down there.

The clones have sweet jet packs. They're all like the Rocketeer, which is probably intentional because their armor or their mat. Their helmet is certainly very rocketeerish. Yeah. That movie's all right. I think that might still be on.

Rocketeer is cool. I haven't seen it in forever. I loved that movie as a kid. It's still real good. But, yeah, so they get down there. And from there, kind of turns into a classic, like, Star Wars. Party has to split up.

All hell's breaking loose in a few different axes. Anakin is on a mission to find R2 Asoka and the clones are on a mission to like blow this place up basically right but they're trying to keep it on like on the DL that they're there they're trying to like they don't want to go loud yet they get trapped in a corridor

between two patrols all the way loud and they just need they just need a door to be unlocked I think we've seen our two do a million times in 30 seconds he's got to do like the put little thing inside the little circle make it spin the door opens. It's called slicing Rob, come on.

Really? That's a sick name. Yeah. Star Wars hacking is called slicing. But he doesn't unlock the door. He doesn't do it. Even the clone troopers are like, I could just do this. I know.

We do this. Yeah. Yeah. And Assook's like, no, let him, you guys, he's trying his best. He's trying so hard. He needs the experience. And again, she is projecting herself onto this droid, right? She is saying, like me, this is a young, up-and-coming hero of the war.

And when he needs another shot. I made mistakes sometimes. I understand. So good had confidence. She doesn't make mistakes. she thinks that she does the right thing she thinks that she's better than the clone she wouldn't be like

she does do that sick like maneuver in the ship either this episode or the previous episode she does it like 360 spin and like takes it between the two frigates or whatever it's great she should also be recognizing that like oh Anna can almost died because of destroyed

like that's my mentor that's my boy I gotta have his back Nope Nope We also I would like to point out We mentioned it earlier

But the droid Torture sequence Oh yeah Oh right When What's his name? Gondacht is Taking apart

R2D2 And Grievous is like Looking over him Or when he first introduces R2D2 To Grievous And Grievous says We're all droids here

I loved that. I ate that shit up. I was like, yeah. Also, except Garnockt, which then he gets yeated. Don't change prices on people. Like, especially if that person's a Dark Jedi, do not renegotiate a contract like at the point of sale. Like, don't do that. I literally wrote this in my notes.

I was like, Gondock really is talking to grievous like that, like saying, I prefer to get my reward in cash. Like, Grievous will fuck you up. Like, he has a light, he has multiple lightsabers. He's to give a shit.

What do you think he's going to honor, like, he's going to, like, give you a fucking bonus or whatever for your R-2? It's just. Yeah. And like, you don't have,

you're in his ship. Like, the sale's done. Like, you're just, you can't be like, okay, if I'm going to give you this droid,

put you giving it to him. It's done. This is done. Like, take, the money and go but yeah um just has to get uh knifed um pointlessly um so aniken does rescue uh our two while all this is going on meanwhile the clone troopers and the battle droids uh starts shooting out with battle droids and we discover that they have a special weapon um

droid poppers Sorry, I jumped on that one Natalie was just smiling They're droid poppers Joy Poppers Gotta kill the tinnies They seem effective Yeah

I think so I think they must be some sort of like special Anti-Robot shit They're incredibly powerful I don't know why they don't have a million of those things They like immediately disable every droid You know pass them out See what people do with them

just see what they're also caught eMP grenades i just did i just did a search yeah that's what they are that seems like a very uh strong weapon against like the majority of the forces yeah you're fighting especially when they're usually like walking in lines in groups one would say like maybe you should not just use that for like grenades they're thrown but like maybe put it in a shell that you can like fire for a longer range shoot it yeah like maybe not Take an eye on cannon? Could be a good idea. Who had that idea?

Oh, it was Grievous. Grievous did that and put it on a ship and wrecked shop. Grievous stays winning. Shout out to Grievous. Shut up. We do get a very... So we get a duel between Grievous and Asoka, where she puts up a pretty scrappy fight against Grievous.

But I don't feel there's much tension here. Like, nothing in this episode feels like... This is just a... nothing's happening. She immediately gets bodied and then immediately gets, like, it just, there's no. Well, he shows up and drops like six clone troopers and knocks her back, right? Yeah. So he gets like the first win, but then can't finish the deal.

Yeah, yeah. I do want to say, this is the first time we've really seen how big and, like, talonous his claw feet are. He's, he is big all the way through. And talonous. I don't know if that's a word, but I said it. I agree. His talonenessness here is interesting. His talonosity really shines.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It really does because the scene we get immediately after this. And one of my favorite parts of Grievous is that he has really cool velociraptor eyes. He does. And then we immediately have a scene with him in a dark room that's cluttered with, like, shelves and stuff where he's hunting. Yeah.

Soca, and I was like, he's a velociraptor, and that's cool to me. He's a velociraptor with lightsabors. What's going to insane? Like, you're trying to hide from Grievous and him tracking her down. Cutting all the vents and stuff. That stuff all works. You're right that there's no stakes because you know, you know this isn't going to be it in any way. And also because that's just not what this arc has been.

Grievous has been an antagonist in this arc, but he's not emotionally involved in any of the stakes, right? And so, yeah, of course, it's not going to feel like anything. thing when he starts like swinging down on Asoka. It just feels like they're in a quick little duel. But good for her. She stood her own. She did all right. And didn't lose her lightsaber. Forrest pulled it

from across the room. It was like, I'm keeping this shit. You don't get this shit from me. You didn't get a trophy off me, motherfucker. And gets out. Yeah. Meanwhile, Anakin and the clones getting a good gunfight in the hangar. And we learned that those little droid fighters have a secret power, which is they can just sort of

land and they're like little bats they sleep in the uh on the roof of the hangar but they can wake up and just land on their little wings and uh they look like the um turrets and like portal uh where the like boldest uh like fuselage like reveals like little eyes um and they can start fighting the uh the clone troopers unfortunately they have very vulnerable neck things very thin you know easy to target blop you're dead you get one lightsaber in there it's over yeah which is kind of the entire

republic strategy now that I think about it pretty much get some lightsabers in there why do why invest in like decent weapons or clones when none of this poses a problem for the Jedi so yeah there's a Jedi around we win

just have a Jedi to every 144 to 20,000 clone troopers and this war's going to get one. There's actually two things, there's short things, but there's two things about the grievous, Assook a thing that I wanted to say,

which is it's fucked up that she calls him a tini to his face, right? Yes. Though I don't, does she not know? And this is a question writ large. Like, what is the understanding of what General Grievous is among the republic? There doesn't seem to be one, right? Do they assume he's a big droid?

I don't think so. I think, I mean, They, you look at his eyes. He has flesh. He has flesh. Yeah. So I feel like, I don't know, it feels very, like, derogatory in that moment where she's, like, really patronizing him. Like, you fucking.

Yeah, you can't drop the slur like that. It's a little much. It's rough. It's, and then. It was gnarly. Yeah. Flipside, there's the plot of this episode. how does it feel to be R2D2 on the

the Clone Wars ship hearing people say this shit all day true damn that's fucked up and not just that shit all the shit around like droids are as good as people they're not smart right totally they're not creative in the back of those ships every strike force like that's how many kidneys did you kill like ooh

word it's like that hide you. I'm in your ship. The ones you killed, you did that because I ran your ship. Maybe R2. You shot that guy because I figured out your like, whatever. Yeah.

Your flight path or whatever, right? Maybe R2 is all the way like, oh, but I'm not like them. Oh, don't do this to me. That's bad. It might be true, though. I got memories. I'm different than them. I get to remember things.

My memory hasn't been wiped. think about it i'm not mere cannon fodder like i am i have a role i fulfill it i'm given a great deal of like individual initiative like i've got it good um yeah i can imagine it's so it's tough like it all just falls apart if you think about it for too long it really does like what does three p o make of his lot in life yeah i feel like three pio does three pio get his memory wiped? Because if so, that explains why he hasn't figured out the vast conspiracy, even though he has all the data. I don't think 3PO does because it's like a huge issue in The Last Jedi, right? And then also, see, 3PO's position is really weird because like,

also looking at the Anakin-R-2 relationship, C-3PO is like, I made this robot for my mom and she died, so do you want to have it? My wife? Thank you. Have fun together. Watch him for me, yeah. Right? Like. Okay, but to be fair, CDb is a protocol droid. She needs a protocol droid in a way that. Yeah, he doesn't need to be out on the warfront.

I understand that the relationships are different. I don't think that Anakin cares less about C3PO. But it is two completely different relationship dynamics. But I think C3Pio is like recognizes he's always like, he like recognizes that he's a droid and that that role is. different from the roles of like the humans around him but also because of his proximity to humans constantly sets himself apart i mean he's always giving r2 shit not to mention like any other droid so i feel like i don't know maybe there's some like i don't know how tight like the droid identity well i think i think it's very clear droid solidarity is not what it could be

otherwise this whole story goes in a very different direction out of the gate. Yeah, totally. But yeah, it is a weird dynamic where the clones especially, well, and also that is also defensive.

The clones throw that language around the most because I can imagine psychologically it is critical to the clones to draw a mental barrier between battle droids who come out of these like fucking coat racks and like deploy and like March of the Lollinger ranks versus them who are trained as part of like family units and our individuals so no it's completely like clankers are disgusting but we are clones yeah and in that sort of um i guess

like you know cosmology of uh you know what the what the star was universe looks like your republic droids are servants and they fulfill a role yep and they have some individuation but fundamentally they are in a place they are they know that place and they're good with it and they're fine the battle droids are just like drones their machines they're they're nothing they're but they're they're nihilistic about it like they're just they have complete detachment from existence they're just I I'm here, and then I'll probably be back, and I don't even know it in, like, a day because they'll reprogram me into a new body or whatever the fuck.

But they have similar customization techniques to the clones. Like, every time we see a droid with paint on it, it seems hand-done. Like, we see that cool droid in this couple of episodes who has, like, the yellow circle with the yellow hair bits, I guess. And, like, yeah. Is that not just like a rank thing? I think it is, but like it's drippy. And like who painted that?

Right. That little droid is proud. Like they're always very quick to believe like, I'm in command here. Like they're very eager for these. I've got a good idea, right? They do have that. Anyway, we all know droids are people and this whole situation is just fucked from the jump. They would love to get little medals.

Oh my God. You would be so excited to get a metal. It's disgusting. It would be so cute. Someone give them medals. For your service to the separatists and killing all those foul clones, I give you this discarded to ban a gas canister. Oh, what's that?

A ship just jumped in? I'll be right back. D-da-da-da-da-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d- gone. So, well, it also raises the question. Is R3 programmed to be a double agent, or did R3 get two? turned by Grievous. Because Grievous speaks to R3 and kind of a like, hey, good job, agent. He doesn't say, like, it's not like R3 is like Manchurian candidate, it has no choice but to do this thing.

Like, R3, in the way Grievous interacts with it, is like, this is my spy. This is a being who, for their own reasons, has chosen to turn on the Jedi. Damn, maybe Goldie was sick of hearing it. sick of hearing about these clinkers, about these tinnies. Maybe Goldie sent out a little message to Grieveson was like, what's up? You need something? Let me know.

Yeah. Do you have room for me over there? Y'all do astromagroids or not? But R2 is not having it. So everyone's trying to make their escape from this spaceship, from this listening post that Grievous has The whole thing is coming down

and the Jedi and the clones are trying to make their escape R2 is also trying to make us escape but his way is blocked by R3 and so we get kind of a we get a duel of the droids we see a one-on-one hand-hand

combat encounter between a pair of tiny lastromack droids shaped like trash cans. And it rules. Yeah. If you fight like on a walkway, it's great. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it's specifically because like R2 is there not only to save himself, but like to open the door for the rest of the squad. Like this is a life saving mission here. Right. But you got to go all the way out there. When have you tripped? That's crazy.

It's got those little jet pack lights. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Art2 pulled through. I mean, Art2's fine. But it's risky. R3 is not. R3 gets his ass kicked by R2

And then As the sort of catwalk is collapsing And R3 has been sort of bodied to the edge Like in danger following into this gas giant or whatever He's got his little like His little tether cable Stuck to R2 And he's like trying to pull him over the edge

It's very like Holmes and Moriarty and he's trying to just haul him down and then Art2 busts out his little spinny bone saw and I can't let him say this but you see the fear in R3's eye for a second when Art2 starts sawing through that little thing like it's like oh no this droid just realized he's gonna die he combos him

and he does he hits him with first the oil then he brings out the saw and blaster light boom and he's out of there Arto knows combos that's sophisticated behavior Art2 saved up

all his super meter he got to do all in a row that's his ultimate he got the a he dropped his old 100% and R3 is just like broken into pieces just body destroyed in there

yeah it's wild The most killed we see a droid get in all of Star Wars And we've seen a lot of battle droids get killed But nothing like this This is just brutal He had to die because of how dirty he did Anakin Like they were not going to let that go unpunished

I think Like I feel like why else I don't know Is the version of the story where In episode two he starts to get things right And then like sacrifices himself to help save R2. What do we think of that version of the story?

If the situation... Is that worse? If he was helping Asoka the whole time, that's the story we would have gotten. Yeah. You're right. But because it was Anakin, he had to die.

Yeah. You're right. Well... The weird thing about him dying is R3 doesn't have grievous secrets on there. You know? They don't know how to do... They don't even think.

like having grievous's like email address you're right I would have Rob is right R2 is like nah I don't give a fuck I would have loved to see R2 like suck the data out

last minute you know damn shardy okay damn R2 okay just instead of Roboskis and like just suck the brains that wouldn't that wouldn't make the scene more horrifying.

No, I think it would rule. I mean, the thing is, the past couple episodes have been, like, well, not so much this, these two, but Rookie was like such a visor, like, such a violent episode that let R2 get a little, I mean, he does get a little vibe, he lights that guy on fire. Yeah. Yeah. Let him get a little bit violent. We see R2 like zap humans and stuff and aliens, but this.

This is the most we've seen him, like, go to war in a real way. It's a duel. It's a duel. He gets the music. It's true. Yeah. And then we get a weird moral at the end where, like, Asoka and Anakin, like, what's the meaning of this whole story? And Anakin's like, you know, R2 is more than a droid.

He's a friend. And I'm like, I'm sure that would have been the end of some episode that you could have written. I'm not sure it's this one. He's a friend. It's like, we, we know, we knew the droids your friend, Anakin. That's the whole premise of this two-parter. Yeah. And so, yeah, I guess classic Anakin, just imparting a totally useless lesson to Asoka,

it's like, well, you know, we've all learned a lot here, which is that R2 is people. R2 is family. And I don't get how you have that, and you don't have, I don't know, it's just, it's such a weird follow-up to what Allie was saying earlier, to the Asoka Plokoon saga. Yeah. Again, this is an instance where that hasn't happened yet in the production order, right? Right, right. This is one of the reasons why people say you should watch it in chronological order is for things like that. Right.

But for me, it's just like, oh, we're just hearing this story now. It doesn't necessarily have had to have, you know what I mean? Yeah. This is like this still even feels many steps behind where she is in the movie. Totally. Oh, sure. Just like the development. This is like the loosest idea for the character of like, yeah, she's kind of a naive little kid who's going to be like Anakin's little buddy.

Yeah. And you don't see the version of the show where like she does. become his little kid sidekick and is like oh gee like why don't we just like very polyanish all the way through whereas I think even by the time the movie like we look at the movie she's already a more complicated character than that like she's a little bit arrogant a little bit insecure very powerful incompetent but also unseasoned and here like her one note is let's give a little guy an extra extra chance and it's that for two episodes and it's just a yeah um and so yeah then we just kind of we just kind of wrap it there is something interesting

about the order that's like a credit to these episodes though is that you end up getting this arc after aniken has already dealt with like a lot of grief right this is coming off the the him fucking up and like losing three different clones and taking that super personally so there's like a version of it that's like oh it makes sense why this becomes the more important to him in a way that it wouldn't for the people around him. He's in that headspace already. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting.

I like that. I like that how he suffers. That's what I like. I like how Anakin is suffering. And this is what I'm saying. He's there for. That's why you like Anakin. That's the show.

Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, so for me, I end up feeling like, um, we see the show still like figuring, itself out. I think the next group of episodes go a long way. Like, the next, the next group of episodes

feels like some of these, like, tensions we feel about the show. We step on the gas through all of that, and we see, like, three iterations of the show in quick succession, and all of it centers on our old friend, Newt

Gunray. And so, from here, after this kind of perplexing pair of episodes that we just got through, we get a really thematically and tonally disparate triptych of episodes around Newt. We start with the ill-conceived

Jar Jar Jar Binks comedy episode Bombat Jedi. I'm not prepared for this one. You are not. I read just like the description. Except it's also so critical. It's so critical. critical it's so important it's

we'll get there one third of that episode is crucial and brilliant we might spend an hour on that episode because of that one third of that episode I hate it so much the Padmaid quarter of that episode is important but then the rest is bombad Jedi

I'm so afraid I just I saw it like in my next episode and I was like you've got to be fucking kidding me was it Jar Jar wearing a Jedi robe? No, I just read the description for it. Okay. Because it was like, here's what's next.

And I was like, there is nothing. Give me the teaser. It's, here it is. It's, I have. Okay. It's, oh, Jar Jar Binks is a Jedi Knight question mark. So think the separatists when the comically heroic Gungin and C3Pio fight to save Padme Amadala from doom at the hands of evil vice right, Newt Gunray.

And the mini, the mini stinger is separatist forces mistake. Jar Jar Binks for a Jedi Knight, which is just like, I saw that. And I was like, man. It's only 22 minutes. That's the thing I should keep telling myself. It doesn't be like 22 minutes. It's long. So it's that one.

And then what the next two after that. Go to a much, maybe the strongest of this. three episodes, the much more tense and cynical cloak of darkness, which is basically the we have a high value prisoner and they're not going to let us keep him. So it's one of those like Rio Bravo type situations or it's like you've got a tiger by the tail. And then that sets up a series pivot to horror, really, with the layer of grievous. So we see, like, this show begins with some of its worst tendencies to mimic the prequel trilogy and its excesses. And then we also have two episodes where it's really kind of carving out its own identity and doing a lot more within the setting and creating a little more narrative justification for a lot that's happened and that will happen. So the next three of episodes, I think, is pretty critical. It was certainly critical for me watching the show. I think, like, it was, once I got through Bombad Jedi, I was like, okay, like, every episode after this kind of started filling me with more confidence.

Yeah. So we're at the turn, I think, to some degree. We still have some rough ones coming up, for sure. We got to, there's a second, I believe a second Jar Jar episode this season. Listen. That is not good. I, people like Jar Jar Jar. I, I'm fine with him coming in and out, you know.

Yeah. he's allowed to have some episodes I'm not you know but I do I don't remember that episode being particularly good is what I'm saying yeah

yeah we'll see maybe I have misremembering I would like to make one formal request to Mr. Star Wars which is that I don't think

you should be allowed to say I've got a bad feeling about this more than once in a single episode so So, I mean, agreed with you, again, this is an element of these episodes being early production, that, like, if you dig into, like, the behind the scene stuff, they leaned so hard on that stuff because it was supposed to be the second and third episode or whatever of the, of the series, they, like, there's way more than even that. There's, like, seven or eight callbacks in that way in this, in those episodes that are intentional, explicit, like, oh, yeah, this is a saying from the show type shit and I agree with you that it is too much so yeah

we but I mean Star Wars goes that well to way too much as well like I feel like you hear it one in the original trilogy you hear it like when when Luke says it in Return of the Jedi as they go to Endor um he's like I have a bad feeling about this the moment kind of lands because it's like it's full of like import and it is a menacing scene it just turns into a Star Wars saying where people are just like always the drop of a dime will intone slowly I've got a bad feeling about this and it's like yeah dude that's because you were staring at a monster coming at you like it's not even you're not even foreshadowing you're just being like you're seeing death coming at you and you're being like

this could be bad it'll be sure of you guys it loses all weight it just it has no meaning anymore it's like if you say i love you to everyone it doesn't where is the significance of that do you really love everyone do you know how are you really have a bad feeling about this i don't think all you have are bad feelings are they really yeah um before we go just real quick uh where can people find you all uh alley um i am over at alley underscore west on twitter Austin Austin underscore Walker Natalie

At Natalie Watson You can find me on Twitter At Rob Zakene And we hope you'll join us again For another return to a more civilized age But until then If someone offers you early graduation from clone school Decline

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho. Thank you. Thank you. No, no.