A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 06: The Nute Gunray Arc (Clone Wars 08-10)

Episode Date: February 24, 2021

"This is a mission of peace. I put my faith in diplomacy. We can't solve all of our problems by throwing troops at them." -Padmé Amidala Before we get into the episode today, big news: We've launched our Patreon! Just go over to patreon.com/civilized (lol) to support us and gain access to our monthly Q&A podcast. We're keeping it super simple for now. A single tier, a single reward. We don't want to bury ourselves in work. But we also have some ideas for how we'd want to expand this down the road, and we'd love to hear ideas from you too, so let us know! Given the extra work of launching the Patreon this week, we'd love to say that this week's episode is a light one. And on paper, it should be. These episodes cover three distinct stories, with marginal narrative overlap, each tackling a different genre and theme.  Unfortunately for us and our runtime, even the worst of these episodes (the Jar Jar vehicle "Bombad Jedi") has enough to chew on for damn near fort minutes. And if that was the case for the comic relief episode, then what could we have expected from our conversation about the one-two punch of "Cloak of Darkness," perhaps our best episode yet, and "Lair of Grievous," which gives us a small taste for the Separatist Supreme Commander's backstory that we've been so thirsty for?   Next time: Episodes 11-12 Show Notes Fallen Clones: Green Leader, Bel, Niner, Commander Fil 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 at Clone Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zackney, joined by Ali Akampora, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. So today, the Clone Wars is calling back to episode one as it builds a three-episode arc around the capture of Trade Federation leader Newt Gunray, and it kicks things off with an uneven comedy caper starring Ahmed Best, reprising his role as Jar Jar Binks. But a rocky start makes this a uniquely fascinating trilogy of episodes. It opens with Bombat Jedi, which is kind of Clone Wars at its worst. It is a childish episode on a shoestring budget, reliant on a lot of movie references for

its narrative hooks. Then in the following two episodes, Cloak of Darkness and Layer of Grievous, it executes back-to-back stylistic and tonal gear shifts and sidelines most of its familiar cast and emerges as a different series than the one we've been watching so far. And that's not the only evolution happening this week because we have launched our Patreon at patreon.com slash civilized. It's so funny. I'm sorry for interrupting. I can't believe we got that, gang. We got it. We got it slash civilized. You already know what it is. So I guess one of the things I'd stress here is that at the moment we're keeping this page around pretty simple.

I think we've all been part of projects that got very complicated to the detriment of the core goal and our relationship to it. And I think from day one, we've all been trying to fight that impulse here. I think I am certainly, like, I am feature creep incarnate in some ways. And so my, you know, when I was starting thinking what I might want to do with this, I kind of want to avoid any scenario where we were doing a lot of stuff because we felt obliged to rather than like passionately excited to do it. That's also why we're doing an alternate week tempo. And that's another sort of quality of life thing where we're like,

we want to give the prep it's due. And we want every time we're sitting down to record the show to be, special and for us to be kind of hype to talk about Star Wars and so far I think that is that is worked out so that has led to a Patreon where right now we're going to have a week every month where we record a Q&A episode and we can revisit all discussions or respond to points people raise about episodes of Clone Wars that we've already discussed but so far I think that's about it this is this is very much a what you see is what you get Patreon and I think that's great but then again you know those are my needs that I just laid out

I think we all came to those like in agreement in terms of workload and you know who knows where we're at in a year or whatever for sure but but I think we all kind of came to this like you said with history of of having other projects grow more quickly than maybe we wanted them to or not more quickly but like you end up taking on a lot and being like, how do I deliver on this? How do I stay excited about this? And I think we've hit that pretty well here. I'm just excited to do another Q&A episode

because we haven't done one in like a little over a month now. We have 100 questions already in the email. So, you know, I look to go through those. They are. There are some really good ones in there. Some great ones. You want to hear us answer those questions? Patreon.com slash symbolized.

Patreon.com slash symbolized. This is me making a little, Money-rubbing gesture. But now to return to the main subject, we got to talk about Bombad Jedi. And let me just consult this bar napkin where I wrote down my plot synopsis. So Senator Amadala is on a diplomatic mission

to visit her family friend, the Rhodian Senator Ano, who has been requesting aid from the Republic. Turns out to be a trap, but Padman's companions, 3PO and Jarjar elude the snare. 3PO goes to call for help. Jar Jar is mistaken for a Jedi and manages to cause enough chaos that Padmei escapes as well.

Newt Gunray finally corners our heroes, only to discover that Jarjar has befriended an enormous stolen Bugs Life art asset, which they've re-skinned with the zero-the-hut texture. The big slug wrecks Gunray's droids and he's quickly taken prisoner by the Republic after Padma convinces her Uncle Ano to chain sides yet again. So, gang, let's get reductive here, Bomb Bad Jedi, Complete Disaster or Secret Triumph? It has some of my favorite lines that we've seen so far. So, you know, it... Can you give us an example? What's one of them?

Here's one. When Jar Jar was like... strong i i don't remember jar jar was in a situation and he said headed for misa and c3bos yes you saw and that laid me the fuck out i was i was just dead from that so that was a highlight for me why is jar jar jar wearing matching gloves and a tie all the way through this what is he doing he's on his avril living hot topic two thousand long gloves Do like elbows elbow legs

And a tie Like a tie like a tie Like a necktie Is this his like Senate Like outfit? I think you're right I'm going to go to the Senate And I'm going to look good

In my arm bands I mean This style This is coming back I'm seeing Gen Z They're trying to reclaim The The girl tie

In the arm warmers that Avril Living made famous. So I'm, you know, I think just Jarger's ahead of his time. He's on Gen Z's wavelength. You know what I mean? Like, there's stuff in this episode that is interesting, like we do. I don't think it's a good episode.

I'm not that person. I'm not going to do this. But, you know, the through line of this episode in which Uncle Ono, Senator Farr, who is the Rhodian senator, in the in the uh galactic senate has been asking for help for it sounds like years the like things have been bad on rhodia for a minute they don't have food the republic they don't have food because there's pirates there's been piracy in the galaxy for the last decade we know this coming off of phantom menace uh from digging around and the wukyapedia and whatever

i keep saying wukyapedia and that's wrong wukypedia i just need to commit um there's been increased piracy throughout, throughout the galaxy. I guess that came, that was in the movie, too. And part of that is, hey, pirates are taking supply shipments. They're, you know, they're being pirates and stealing stuff. And that includes food to Rodea. And that means that his people are starving. It's not just like, hey, our economy is bad. We need economic relief. It's not, hey, medical supplies. Like, it's food. People are starving on Rodea and no one is doing shit about it until. Yes, go ahead. Just a quick question. As the show is resident Marxist, I am curious, do you feel this episode implies that there's become a colonial relationship between the Imperial Corps and outlying planets like Rodea that have lost their ability to supply their own needs

as the specialization of capitalism strips communities of their ability to self-sustain? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably, right? Because you have to imagine there's a time at which people on Rodea made their own food. They got their own food. It's a swamp planet. You see that there is a thriving. ecosystem. There's a giant slug must. I could eat that slug. Right? We could eat that slug. Maybe

Rodian, I don't know what Rodian. Dietary needs are. Yeah. See, this is what I'm saying. I don't know about that. But we know that there is, there is an ecosystem that seems to be working on that planet. It's just not working for those people. And so, yeah, is there a great deal of specialization here where they have big exports where they're, where they're exporting, you know, manufactured goods or, you know, natural resources like oil or something and then they're importing most of their food maybe they're even exporting wheat and importing bread like who knows what the situation is but probably and who knows what what loops they have to jump through to get economic support and and you know protection for their incoming supplies we don't know what any of that is what we know is he hasn't been

able to secure it because the republic senate doesn't seem to give a fuck you know who gives a fuck about it well you know who says they give a fuck about it is newt gunwrey and the separatists my biggest note for New Gunray on this one is show up with food if he shows up with food this whole episode goes different if he lands and is like

we got pallets of bread we got you know we got some bacon here for you you're gonna eat good you're gonna feel good in this week I don't know which one I got brought both

I got both you know what I mean yeah exactly exactly yeah we got some good greens like it would be the whole table would be different and instead he doesn't

but so yes Rob I do say suspect that what we're seeing here is on at the at the most equitable quote unquote end um I guess you could imagine a world in which rhodia has become one node in a functioning global like you know or galactic economy um on the other end of that it has become a sort of like a um a subsidiary state in which some sort of manufacturing or or other sort of economic activity is happening and it's become basically, you know, it has been forced into needing constant resupply from a galactic core, some other part of the galaxy. And because of that, been stripped of its autonomy in a

real way. So that stuff is all interesting. It's not the focus of the episode. It's interesting that Padmei at the very end is like, don't worry, we're going to fix the food. The high chancellers fix the food problem for you. All he had to do is pick up the phone. All he had to do is pick up a pen and sign an executive order and make it happen. Huh, it's weird that it took a crisis is to make someone do that. And that stuff's interesting, but like it's three minutes of a full episode that's mostly about Jar Jar Breaking Things. It's interesting because when you said that someone was showing up to pretend a care,

I thought you were going to follow that up with Padme. Oh, Padmae, yes. Because it's like really interesting for her to be a senator and be like, she initially goes there to be like, oh, I know this person, I care about them. But like to look at the authority that she has. that situation to be like, I really do care about you, but we, we just rescheduled the vote. Don't worry about it. Like that's like that.

That was so. My jaw hit the floor. I could not believe that. It's extremely manipulative. There's always a choice. Yeah, the other choice was letting his people starve, Padme, fuck off. It's so bad. She, like, all of the conversations that she has in the, like, first five minutes of this episode,

she does the thing of like when you talk too much because you know that you're either losing an argument or lying it's just it's rough it's rough actually I do want to say I like there's a couple things I do like in the very opening first thing it happens is she's got a call from Palpatine who's like yo you like went off the grid nobody knows this thing was going down

you didn't take a clone escort what is this all about and she kind of stands her ground here and it's like this is a piece mission, this is a diplomatic mission, we can't approach every one of these issues like it's a military matter, which is interesting because this is the argument that nobody else in the public seems to be articulating. Like everyone else has gotten real cool. The first episode is Yoda doing the same mission, basically, but as a military mission where he's like, I'm going to

go, you know, do a deal as representative of the high command of the Jedi. Here, Padme is like trying to do diplomacy, uh, and she's getting a lot of pushback over, well, this should be armed diplomacy. And her point is like, no, that's, that's not how this should be practiced. And it's one of the few times we see a, at least a implicit strategic debate about the way they're fighting this war. And Padma expresses some misgivings about the entire framework they've adopted. I have a question. Do you think she makes that case and then also does the thing she does at the end of this episode, if this isn't dear old Uncle Ono, if this is just some random senator who's from another backwater planet that they don't deal with very directly.

Because I'm not convinced she does. So much of her motivation here is about, you knew my dad, which also was a little weird because her dad was like a contractor, not a politician. And I think that that would, this was like one of those like, your bias is showing you just like defaulted to dad in this situation when we know her dad is just like, to the degree that I looked at the trivia on the Star Wars.com page for this episode and there was a note that was literally

like, she says that he was her father's strongest ally in the Senate. Quote, it is unclear what previous association her father may have had with the Galactic Senate, though his career as an educator, builder, and relief worker may have caused him to work side by side with Senator Farr. They're like, we'll make

it fit, we'll make it fit somehow. He was part of an NGO. Yeah, exactly. He was a consultant on a project. Yeah. But, yeah, like, I don't know that she actually does this for random Senator X, who she hasn't known since childhood, which, again, speaks to the way this works. Who gets better? Who gets preferential treatment? I mean, wasn't, but wasn't she going on a diplomatic mission when she got captured by, like, two episodes ago when she got captured? Yeah, but that mission was to go talk to a person who was supposedly going to betray the trade federation. That was like the head of the Commerce Guild or whatever, the techno union was supposed to be.

Yeah. On this one, she didn't tell Palpatine, which is another interesting one, too. It's like on some level, like, where she's like, I want to make sure this happens, so she doesn't tell anyone, and she just does it. And it's like, yeah, we all know that Palpatine's on our side, but in this conversation, she hedges a lot. She sort of apologizes, but not really, and she doesn't actually concede she won't do it again. And so, like, a mission that was important to her, she kept real close to the vest and didn't, like, loop anyone in. because maybe on some level she knows this entire thing increasingly feels off.

3PO has kind of started to suspect like things are getting a little bit weird out here. Maybe Amadala is as well. But I do love that opening exchange between her and Ano, her complete misreading of his energy in that scene where she's like, hey, we go back. And his anger is escalating, like, exponentially. financially throughout that conversation as he lays out like how completely abandoned they've been

and he sort of wraps up with this this thought i know it is not your fault but my people starve all the same and i think it's it's an important point that i think uh a lot of times we don't really think about in the series because it's all through the eyes of the super friends at its heart but like this this argument that anna was making of like your intentions don't really matter to me. I know you think you're the good guys. I don't care because that doesn't do anything more. It doesn't feed anyone.

We can't eat your intentions. And that is, there's a critique here that like the Republic just isn't really acknowledging that the real reason they're losing this war is because they can't convince through like good governance people like people on Rodea that there's any point in staying in the Republic I mean yeah how many other planets are there that have left for this

exact same reason that have been abandoned by the Republic for who knows how long and they're not getting personal diplomatic missions to assure them that you know the vote is coming eventually or whatever so

if the Republic is failing as a institution to serve its citizens it's i don't know delegates whatever you want to call them then like who can blame them for leaving on the promise of protection and aid and like all of that shit for their fucking planets of course you're going to fucking dip what are you supposed to wait for a promise it's just like yeah There's a bit, go ahead. Well, it's just infuriating because I don't know how you look at someone who, Padme was in this situation.

Her people were fucking dying and were being held prisoner. And she was like, I will do anything for my people. I will, but it was only on herself, right? I think that she probably has that thing that a lot of people have, which is the like, this will fix itself. We are going to see through this troubled time and we're going to come through it on the other end. This thing has lasted for hundreds of years.

It's not going to fall apart now. Maybe there's going to be some rough times. Maybe people are going to die. But we don't need to fundamentally change how this place works. Outside of making him the Supreme Chancellor and giving him increasing authority so that he can make one-sided instant decisions. And the clone army also.

We need an army now. We've never had one of those before. but we got one now. Tamagrici is something you believe in. Is that a quote she said in this? She said, okay. She does say, wait. She does say that shit that's like while he's getting arrested is the scene for me where I was so pissed where she's getting arrested.

She gets arrested and put into the prison. And she's like, welcome to the separatist's way senator. Motherfucker, you arrest people all the next episode. This episode you arrest somebody. You're being taken to a place called the detention tower. The separatists didn't build that. Rodeans built that with Republic money, probably. Like, you were ready, you, what?

Yeah. So, speaking of contradictions being practically out in plain sight, we get a little interlude while 3PO and Jar Jar hanging out the landing pad, bickering gently as they do. Jarjar also maybe suffers from some of the same blinker worldview as anyone who spends time on Coruscant where he's like

I'm a swamp creature I know this place I'm going to be cool with the swamp creatures and it doesn't go well he gets spad at by the swamp monster he turns around he's like yeah different swamp and it's like yeah

it's a big galaxy out there man yeah you have a spaceship to get here your swamp creature wearing a 8 foot tie How do you think that's going to go down? You think even the Gungans would be like, hey, cool tie. Glad to see Corsan hasn't changed you. The Gungans would roast Jar Jar the second he walked into that bubble city. They would destroy him.

He just bought it. He was like, I think there's some real good slapstick possible if I wear this tie. Palpatine gave it to him as a joke and he's wearing it now. Oh, that's so funny. Palpatine is like the pettiest motherfucker, I bet you'll wear this stupid time. The robot chick in Palpatine, Jar Jar Jar relationship, we're just constant fucking with him. Yeah. Ja, Ja, why don't you become the new delegate for the...

Really? Me, sir? Wait, we do get one of my favorite Jar Jar C3PO moment. And one of my favorite scenes to date, which is when Jar Jar Jar and C3PR, are being, have become found by the battle droids around them. They jump back into the ship, and they're like, oh, how are we going to get through this? And Jar Jar hits something that opens a closet. And there's a Jedi robe in Padma's closet.

it. Hmm. And, you know, Jar Jar is like, hmm, why is there a Jedi robes here? And C3PO is like, who could say? Yeah. I'm positive. I couldn't know anything about this. Like, got to go.

Got to close that door. He is with a C3PO is no snitch. He knows exactly whose robes those are. And he's keeping his mouth shut, like a good fucking droid. Just saying, not saying shit. That's a good guy to keep around. We should hide in this closet for the remainder of this episode. I know, and he's like, Andrew should just chill here.

Not feeling it. But honestly, they should have. It would have been fine. Padmaic literally escaped instantly and was like, okay, where is everyone? Well, yes, but only because. So it's because Jar Jar is like, I got a great idea. I'm going to put on this Jedi robe. And once he is spotted by the battle droids, they're like, oh, shit, a Jedi.

And that stirs to mind, Pad May's idea of, like, her clever ruse, where she pretends the Jedi is already in there, freeing her. And the battle droids, like, oh, shit, I should open that cell and, like, check that out. Because if she's being freed by a Jedi, I shouldn't, that doesn't sound right. And I could definitely do something about it if I went in there by them. myself and he goes in there she kicks his ass and then we see she gets like headshots this episode she's like good at fighting yeah yeah but also the animation so like her running across that bridge she escapes the tension tower and that the the newt gun ray walk cycle that you that you talked about before yes uh not on the call but in in our chat where it's just like it's like someone's

holding up a like a popsicle stick with newt gunray on the top of it and like walking him across the screen yeah which is like and you You pointed this out. There's like two animation rigors on this episode. This is not a well-staffed episode compared to some other ones. And it shows. Three-day weekend in the Star Wars office or something. This whole thing came in so hot.

If you look at the three episodes, this is like understaffed core team. It seems like at Lucas Animation in California. The next episode, they pull out all the stops, and it's like all their leads are in the key roles and doing the, the work by hand on that episode. And then the third episode, which is also very good, appears to all have been completely led by one of the overseas studios.

And so, like, just logistically and just, like, production-wise, I think it's a weird artifact of the series and how this is all coming together. One of the big background things that I kept seeing, reading, and hearing while digging into these episodes was people on the staff basically saying,

you have to remember in season one we didn't have a budget from new models ever which is why we reused stuff from episode to episode we again in this trio of episodes are going to get the the ship crusher droid ships um in and in the next episode i think by the way those are those are nicknamed internally they're called juicers which is extremely good um because they kind of have when they're when their kind of wings are collapsed inwards or their squishers are collapsed inwards it kind of looks like a juicer um also because in my mind they juice enemy ships, you know? They're like, anyway. And then, and then also stuff like the other, some of the other characters in the next episode who have like modified droid armor. It's like, we just didn't have a budget to make new armor. And so that's definitely this. You can definitely see like the animation just, it doesn't reflect having a big budget. The other behind the scene thing I want to shout out before we leave is funny, I think, which is Faloni says he wanted, that the team wanted to pair C-3PO and Jar-Jar here, one because they're two comedic characters from two different eras of Star Wars. They're both like, you know, comic relief characters,

hey, it's fun to bring them together. But also because, and he does this thing that you do sometimes where you go like, you know, some people might say as if what you really want to say is like a thing I want to say here and need some cover to say is that he thinks that, or some people might think, that C-3-Pio is a stand-in for older Star Wars fans who are themselves critical of Jar Jar Binks. And so in some ways, it gives a, the way the Faloni talked about it was like, hopefully that means that old fans like C3Pio by the end of this episode will have a little bit of fondness for Jar Jar.

Yeah, he messes things up sometimes. But at the end of the day, the guy he is is fundamentally a good guy who's trying his best. But for me, the way I read him saying it was like, this is a way to bridge those, that fan base in because now there's a character who is saying what they're saying and now we can give voice to the angry fans we have someone here to give voice to angry finally the angry fans will have a place in this franchise but it's weird it does the trick does kind of work when she rescues 3PO by wall uh titan fall style off the wall and shooting those droids just acing the shit out of them yeah uh double kill like when she when she's

like all right we got to get to the ship right and 3PO's like oh yeah about that ship uh it's destroyed and she's like battle droids no jar jar jar jar jar and it's a good bit and it's like i think one of the things that was missing is like jar jar jar does get funnier if the other characters kind of admit like dude this guy is so much and when that was surfaced in the movies it's kind of in a really mean way. Like, you've got Obi-Wan being like, this is a pathetic life form.

I hate it. And it's like, that's nasty. I don't like it. Right. Especially when there is the question of racialization on top of it, right? Right. But when, and not that there's like,

there's always going to be something minstrel showy about Jar Jar Jar Jarvinks. It's unavoidable, but like at least here there is like, you get the heart of gold or whatever compared to. You aren't like actively degrading him. Yeah. Yes, exactly.

He saves the day, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, look, as Jar Jar things go, this isn't bad, and I'm glad they brought back the king, Amma at best, to, like, again, make that role work against the odds. He does end up playing a key role, even though he's not part of the rescue effort, he does get sort of spotted, falls back into the swamp. We hear a super-droid, super-battle-droid, I think talk for the first time,

where one of the droids is like oh he got away and the battle droid kind of says not likely or something like that it's kind of menacing, shoots a huge lightning grenade into the water and Jar Jar Jar gets ambushed by the swamp thing, the swamp monster

but it turns up they become best friends. A Ralph McQuarrie designed by the way which is wild to think about. Wait for the super be these? No, the fucking monster. The swamp slug is yeah is designed by like the de facto Star Wars

behind the scenes like concept artist well it's pulled from one of his concept art pieces you know you know it's not he didn't sit down for the clone I think he may have been he may have been dead by it now he might have been dead by the time this this episode came out so I don't know

but you know what I'm saying no he was still alive who's just very old but yeah so like Jar Jar Jar befriends the big slug it fucked up a lot of battle droids and we do get that last moment of like Ano shows up with a guns holding out of both Padme and Newt Gunray and Gunray's like all right shooter and Padme reads it and it's like, no, I'm going to create a fiction that will allow Anno to basically cross lines back to us and we can all smooth this over. But why does she even have to create that? Because like she could just capture New Gunray and tell Anno, listen, I know. I know. why you did what you did.

Like, why the whole performance? There's paperwork now. There's paperwork. She called for help. So someone is going to say, why did you call for help? And now she's going to have to say, well, it was a ploy that I came up with. Right. Yeah, like, that's, like, we're in the light treason conversation at that point.

You know, like, it's not a thing. But aren't they going to do due diligence on that? Like, go through the call logs and be like, all right, do you have, like, you know, any records to support that you. But it was just the thing she and her uncle cooked up. So they won't, like, of course, we called. We did, I did say, like, they don't know what was said on that, on that call. It's, like, she gives him a way out, and he takes it, and we get her little, it's an interesting way this ends.

It ends with the shadow of a Star Destroyer, a clone cruiser, falling over the planet, except now it's good. It's like, hey, you know, they're all here. The clone troopers are here. And we get an inversion of a new hope where, like, the empire forerunner shows up. We get the metal ceremony as Padmay, there's a tableau of, like, Padmey and Anno standing there with Jar Jar, and the big slug monster playing the part of Chewbacca, roaring triumphantly to the background. And Padmey ends on this kind of condescending note far too often. We forget that our most important allies are not always the most powerful. Fuck off.

Thanks. are you kidding me what is the point of that what what what we love you even though you're useless piece of shit yeah what makes them important then like literally what about that entire encounter makes them important to you proximity you knew them when you were a little child and so now you're important to me yeah but now you got to feed them uh-huh so i yeah this is exactly one of those lines where, so I think things like the fact that that Rodea has been put in this position, deeply intentional, very much about the failures of the republic. This line is not intentional. This is someone who thought they're like, I got a fucking, I'm going to put a great

punch at the end of this episode. Kids show morality. Yeah, exactly. This is literally like I am in seventh grade doing one of my first three page essays and I need to end it with a bang. And I'm like, How am I going to sign the shit off for Mrs. Whatever my English teacher's name is. I don't remember. Collins probably. It was probably Mrs. Collins. And I just go with far too often.

We forget that our most important allies are not always the most powerful. And that is why England had to intervene in World War I to preserve Belgian neutrality. That's a B plus paper right there. That's a B plus paper. It's one thing to end an essay like that. It's one thing to say that to that guy's face. Like, why do you have to call him unpowerful to his face? Yeah, it's, maybe we'd be more powerful if our people had food.

Yeah, like, what does he get out of that? I don't get, like, what the next sentence that comes after that is, like, fucking uncle under being, like, like, just standing there, like, waiting for the, yeah, like. Get the fuck off my planet. I'm going to put you back in detention tower. To be very clear, like the Republic's going to help you, but it's like because we go back,

but like no one gives a shit about your planet. You don't give us anything. Like you're the world, you're the galaxy's leading supplier of underachieving bounty hunters. It's, you know, I don't really know what we're doing here.

She just tells them why they haven't been helping them. She was like, you were not useful enough to us to send you food supplies. You're right. Yeah. We forgot about you.

We forgot. about you that's on us but it's on you to make yourselves a little bit more useful you know what i mean like going forward let's increase that importance in this dynamic here you figure the shit out yeah what can we do to make rhodia better integrated into the old republic uh well they don't know it's the old republics uh economy what can you know what let's put you in a performance plan the Rodea performance plan and see if you can ever justify that food you're giving you.

You said there were natural gas deposits under the city? I see. Well, maybe we could instrumentalize that a little bit and see if we could realize some of the potential here on Rodea. And if we can do that, then maybe food won't be such a problem.

I would like to see the worms domesticated. I would like to see people riding worms around. That's my goal. I would, though. I would love to see it. Why don't people, why isn't there more riding big monsters in Star Wars? We get some of it, mostly small monsters like the tauntons, which are like standing, like kangaroo llamas. That's basically an ostrich.

That's basically an ostrich. I mean, but also, if you saw someone riding an ostrich tomorrow, you would tell everyone you knew that it was the wildest shit you ever saw. If you saw some motherfucker on a saddled ostrich tomorrow coming in. down the road. You would be on Discord that minute. I would be recording it live. Yes. But I think Natalie is also asking for something a little more in the giraffe.

I got it. I want to see. Like a large creature. Yeah. I want to see. Natalie, perhaps the courtship of Princess Leia might interest you where they go to the planet of Dathamer and discover that the force witches ride the mighty rancor into battle and have domesticated a creature that we thought was just a, you know, violent

monster in Return of the Jedi. But actually turns out to be a useful life. livestock animal on Daffimer. Oh, what do they produce? Witches, mostly. They're mounts for witches. Basically, they're an MMO. Like, like, um.

That's tight. More MMO mounts in Star Wars, IMO. I want to see people riding dragons in, like, the middle of the city, like just fucking flying a massive, ancient god in the middle of Khorst. I'm with it I'm with it There is a We haven't gotten there yet

Unfortunately because Rob hasn't gotten there yet Revenge of the Sith Does have Obi-Wan on the back Of an MMO amount Okay Oh I'm looking forward to it Yeah It's a cool looking thing

It's a cool It's kind of bad Because the CG is bad But it's kind of like a four-legged Giant lizard With a beak That's cool Yeah we'll get there

all right and we're also going to try to get gun ray into a prison in our next episode with gun ray in custody clone wars kind of turns them

into a narrative as the show adopts an almost law and order approach to Star Wars where there are frontline troops there are diplomats there are law enforcement units there are commanders

and politicians these are their stories and their spheres interact with these other but at times the clone wars will remind us that there are people who have completely different experiences of and relationships to this war than what we see as we follow Anakin and friends in a lot of these episodes so here we have it's a really simple setup for an episode that is extremely dense with complications

Jedi Master of Luminar and Dooley and Assocatano, who for some reason has been attached to Luminarra for this one episode, doesn't really get into it. Presumably, Anakin is recovering his cloak or something like that. Oh, he found it. That's the cloak. I need to get out to rodeo right now. But so Master Luminar and Asoka have taken custody of Newt Gunray and have to escort him to Corrassant for trial. They rendezvous with a Jedi cruiser, and I'm not sure if that's an error, or if the implication

here is that the Jedi cruiser is, like, a separate, like, do the Jedi have their own, like, private fleet that they're using? This is, this is, so do you know how Obi-Wan has Cody and Anakin has Rex, and this is Luminar's, like, flagship? So that's why they're calling at that. Okay. And Gre, the Gre, the green clone trooper, who is, like, one of the least. in this episode. His name is gree, which they say is not about gree being just green without the

end. They say that it's, they insist that it has to do with like an animal called a gree, which, all right, fucking fine. I'm not going to complain. I'm going to complain a little bit. He, he is the Cody of this 36,000 troopers. But I get why he's on this ship. This is her flagship. He should be on this ship. I get why he's, and this is an important, an important a prisoner, I get why he's involved in this story in a more important way or a more realistic way than the way Rex and Cody were in rookies. So that's why I think it's called her flagship, or called a Jedi Cruiser. So the other thing that's on this Jedi Cruiser is a group of Senate commandos under

Commander Argyas. And this is interesting because I feel like maybe we've seen these guys in the background of a couple scenes, but, like, they're really Praetorian-looking dudes. They've got, like, uh, like Roman-esque or Greco-Romanesque, like armor. And, uh, they are not clone troopers. They are a force answerable directly to the Senate. And they're also here to take Gunray into custody. Uh, but of course, it's not that easy. Duku has sent Asage Ventris to rescue or kill, uh, gun ray. The separatists end up boarding. the cruiser and there's a huge fight. Ventris sabotages the ship. However, after her attempt to

free gunry goes bad, she flees pursued by Asoka and Luminarra. They end up fighting a huge duel in the cruiser's engine room, which is a very dramatic. You know, it's Star Wars. You can't have an engine room or a power core without dangerous catwalks and like lava lakes. So, you know, They built it to spec, basically. They end up fighting there, but while that fighting is happening, Argyas reveals himself to be a traitor. He kills the other commandos and leads Gun Ray to safety. At the end, just as he's looking forward to his bribe money from Duku, Vendris kills him. Gun Ray is back on the loose, and Master Luminara concedes that she needed Assoca more and had less to teach than she thought.

So they sort of achieve mutual respect. And the pursuit of Newt Gunray passes on to another group of Jedi who will get to in the next episode. So that's all kind of dry and a little bit confusing when I put it down like that and I look at it on the page. But how did it feel when y'all were watching it? I would like to say one thing I felt was attraction to Assange Ventress and the way she moved throughout this episode. I would like to say when she walked out of the back of Count Duku's ship

she walked out like a bad bitch she was owning that shit and was just like it was beautiful to me there's a moment where when she's on when she like drops into

after the droids have landed on the on the spot and they're all like you know fighting and stuff and she hops out of the ship and there's like one lone clone and he's like all units

there's a bald and then she kills them done he was going to say bad bitch she was going to say there's a bald baddie coming towards me I need backup please and I just I just love the like the framing

of the when she's like walking out in the ship is this like straight ass shot like she is just I'm here for it It's all I'm going to say It is so interesting The way they start The story here

Because there's a version of this That stays with Asoka and Luminara The whole time And Asage is like You know Antagonist of the Week But instead What we get is

Palpatine talking to Duku About the situation And Duku being like I have one of my best agents on it Ventris is going to go take care of it. And Palpatine is like Venturous, huh? She seems like she sucks actually in my recollection. And so when Duku calls, or when Ventress comes in, Duku is like, you cannot

fuck this up. This is make her break for you. You know, a moment ago he was calling her his agent to Palpatine. But now he calls her apprentice. He says, this is what will cement you as my apprentice if you succeed here. He also calls her a child in that same conversation. I think that's supposed to be like a British affectation of like sure listen to me child you know what I mean but it is it is infant infanilizing yeah I think so Duku has created a warped Jedi order around himself and I think this is one of the keys is that he has this episode and the next episode yeah as his lieutenants he has a group of stunted children who are all molded by his neglect or approval depending on which he uses um and so like he

very much deploy his child selectively. Also, I think to Cidius, he's like, yeah,

she's my agent. Yep, exactly. In Sith World. I can't say apprentice. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

A rule too. I can't say I'm ready to make me and her the two. You know what I mean? No, she just does a job.

She's a contract. And so suddenly because of those scenes, all of, you end up, not just because it's well shot and because she's a cool

character. but because there are stakes for her that are almost greater than anyone else's stakes. Like, yes, Asoko wants to prove herself to Luminara, but Luminara is not going to be in the next episode. Luminara is not going to be another episode for like a season or something. You know, that's not serious. What's serious is you, Ventris could be out the show if she doesn't show up and get the job done. You know what I mean?

They've built stakes in this episode. The biggest stakes are about will Ventris be able to succeed at doing something really difficult, which is taking on a Jedi master and a pretty strong, a Padawan and on the Jedi flagship filled with, you know, troopers and get this guy out without having to kill him. Like, there's all of this other stuff that's going on. And so I at least ended up rooting for her in this, you know, in the kind of passive rooting way.

I'm not like, yeah, get his ass. But internally, the quiet voice inside of me is like, yeah, get his ass. You can do this, Assange. Like, I believe that you can, you can be as good as Duku one day. Well, that she can be capable. It is not just like a stand-in for, like, Asoka and Anakin to just, like, do cool shit around. Right, be every week. Exactly.

She's not, like, she's not like the Goldar from Power Rangers or the, like, she's not just, like, the random, like, second in command or third in command that gets sent out to get her ass kicked. She could do better, right? Yeah, exactly. line where Luminara is like, I recognize, she's like, I recognize that style anyway, that's Duku's style, but it's unrefined and wild or whatever, insults her about it. She calls her, she's like, you're sloppy, you're sloppy. I was like, yeah, who wins that fight, you know? Yeah, that line is especially interesting when you compare the relationship that Duku has

between Ventris and Gravius, because he's like basically giving them the same trial here, But Ventriss is someone who he, like, trusts and nurtures enough to, like, actually teach a recognizable style of his. Or with Grievous, it's just like, you have to prove yourself to me. And that's, like, just such a weird. It's a different vibe. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. He's such a bad dad to Grievous.

Oh, it's, like, again, these two episodes, you're like, with both of them, you kind of end up more sympathetic to the Sith apprentice, the wannabe apprentices than you do to, the Jedi in some ways. I do want to call out as well. I love that a lot of things in the sequence, this entire episode, again, it feels like it's mirroring a new hope. Like to the point, the shot is reversed of the prison transport being taken in aboard the Starstorm. It's the same color scheme, but it gets pulled into the bay the same way.

It is an echo of the shot in New Hope as the Tantive 4 is tractored into Vader's ship. but here it is all inverted you know here is a good thing this is a place of safety later there's going to be another huge dust up in a detention center like there's a lot of things in this episode that are all we are in the mirror universe of the original trilogy I also kind of dig

Commander Argyas played by James Marsters Spike from Buffy is that who that is? Oh my God wow Piccolo from Dragon Ball, the movie. Very true.

He, you know, the show, not always the most subtle. It has a very slick, buttoned up appearance from the front. He turns around his hair has been groomed into devil horns in the back in case, like, it's like not too on those, but it's like, at the very least, douchebag vibes begin going on. They do let it run, though, to the degree where you get that, the timing on it's so good. And I wondered at what degree this is, Paul Dini, who's the director. on this episode, knowing how to do this pacing. Writer? Follone, I think was director.

Oh, is that true? Was it just a written by, uh, I think so. Okay, well, this is still, this is still pacing, right? This is, this is, this can still be here. Where you come into this episode, like, that guy's no good. It's weird that we have humans all of a sudden, and we have non-clone humans and not just human or not just clones. I don't trust this motherfucker, but it takes so long for him to pull back the veil and reveal

that he's betraying them, that for me, at least. And I've seen this episode again. I was like, am I misremembering this? Maybe he doesn't betray them. Huh, weird. And then he does. I'm like, all right, good, yeah, okay. And like, that's tough to do.

It's tough to have an obvious, you know, Benedict Arnold on your show and then still make you doubt if that's where it's going. And they do a good job with it. Worth calling out, like, Dini is, like, one of the lead writers on Batman in the animated series. Like, a kind of a master of, like, executing three acts. structures in the compressed timeframe of a children's like half hour cartoon and that kind of shows like

yeah you get halfway through this and you're like boy the turn hasn't happened and so much has happened and like so it is it is a really well put together episode once they've got gun ray in custody

we get an interrogation sequence where we see the two approaches Luminar is trying some cold read Jedi shit basically can I neg this guy into confessing where all the bases are

so again New Hope where's the secret base she's doing the like hey you know you're just a piece of shit right like I can tell how gutless and pathetic you are and like you're scared you probably

you know you probably just want to tell me where those bases are and he's like not really no I don't know and Assoca just decides you know fuck it I'll be bad cop this is this is this sucks and so pulls the lightsaber like throws the desk at the table aside puts the blade up against his throat and says if you don't talk i'll gut you like a rocari and dirtfish

and luminar freaks out like it's like get over here young lady come with me and she says tear is not a weapon the jedi use and a suck is like yeah of course i wasn't i didn't i wasn't on the level I wasn't actually going to do anything. And it's interesting like, what do you guys make of that? Because on the one hand, it gets results. Like a minute later, Gun Race. Oh, yeah. Hmm.

This is getting a little real. It feels so weird. It's interesting to me that Luminara decides to make that like a teaching moment. Like in the middle of an interrogation with one of the key figures in your opposition. She's like, excuse us for a second. and steps, like, out of the transparent barrier that you can see right through. And he's like, what are you doing? Like, this is not a two-way, a one-way mirror here.

Like, he can see you doubting. Like, you got to run with this for the moment and see where it takes you and just flow with it. You can't, like, pull aside. We're in yes and territory, Luminar. Yeah. But she isn't, I think that that ends up being so interesting. We'll get more Luminar in the future and her, her padamon. and she has a Padawan also,

and the two different, like, diverging styles between Luminara and Anakin as Jedi, like, masters in the master Padawan sense, not capital M. Anakin is not a Jedi master's as a Jedi knight. But the difference in teaching styles is so vast, and it's, I like it here because it's like a peek into, what do other Jedi go through, right?

How do you get to be a Jedi? How, to some degree, how strange is it that Anakin is so gung-ho are so forward-focused, so active in terms of interrogation. What's the phrase from the movies again that they used a couple of times? Like active negotiation, aggressive negotiations, right? Luminar is not an aggressive negotiations person. And it again, I think, helps to speak to why is the Republic losing this war.

And it's like, because Luminar is not a general. Come on. Luminar is not a general. She doesn't have, she isn't built like that in that way. She's a great Jedi, but is not here to do that work. What I don't know what sits with me is the classic, like, you've got to put a little pressure on. You have to do a little, a little torture, a little, just a little, can I just do a little mom? And it's hard, like, this is so of its error, right?

This is still, this is like 2009 when this comes out. We are still probably close enough to 24, like making people think that maybe a little bit of of waterboarding is okay. Midland hasn't been gotten yet. Right. So, like, I mean, yeah. Yeah, I mean. It's still important intel to get from people, dude, et cetera.

The quote is terror. That's not me saying that. That's just to be fucking clear. The, what Luminar says is terror is not a weapon the Jedi's use. And that just feels so speaking, like, setting themselves apart, speaking to, like, the I don't know what even America at that point is considering like the biggest threat is terror terrorism is like the war on terror is at the forefront of like any major like political camp especially presidential campaign so it's yeah it's a it's a weird it's a weird choice of words I think specifically using terror instead of like anything else feels poignant to me in a way that is very holier than thou. It's just like, I don't know, it's, it's weird.

It makes me uncomfortable. Well, it's frustrating right, because what's the lesson the show is even teaching us? Like, are we, at the end of this episode, it feels like you're supposed to think that Luminaura is naive or was not acting the rest of the right way or should have been slightly more aggressive or should have trusted Asoka more. And like, especially having this episode with the next episode where Kit Fisto is trying to like have the same like, well, you can't be violent message. And like apparently that one works, but it doesn't work for Lumineer. It's like, what are you supposed to think of the Jedi overall? Because it feels like, oh, Luminiara is on the

backstep, like her modesty is a problem. Yeah, no, that's an interesting, that's a kind of a tough puzzle, right? Because, and I think part of it is the fact that there isn't a clear answer speaks to making 22-minute television and different writing, different writers coming to different conclusions on their own and it being an anthology show in some, in some, not an anthology show, but you know what I mean, right? It's an episodic television show where two episodes can strongly contradict each other. Right. But I do also think maybe you can do the read. One of the big differences here ends up being about, not to get ahead of ourselves a little bit, but who the two young Jedi are, right? Asoka is not the same as, what is, neb, neb, nebb, nebbb.

Nebbbnearweb. Nadearveb. Nadarweb. Nadarweb. Nadarweb. Nadarweb. They're different people. And to some degree, maybe part of this is about.

You know, what is that, like, underlying that thing? Maybe, and this, I don't like this answer, but, like, it's okay when Assoca does it is, is what the show's formally saying. I think, right? So, again, let's go back to the Batman thing. Just one second. Because Dini's coming from this tradition where, like, Batman uses fear as a weapon and, like, you know, because criminals are cowardly and superstitious. And you know what? It's awesome.

It looks cool. It creates great scenes when you intimidate somebody into, like, bending. near well. Here's where it goes wrong. What if they're like, fuck you, I don't believe you. I think you're all talk. Yeah. Then you put yourself in a position of like, you can then become the torturer,

which you've threatened to. You haven't committed it yet, but like now your bluff is being called. Are you going to do it? If you don't do it, how does that undercut your authority in the situation? Right. And so that's the thing. Like, if Gunray was just like, eh, eat shit. Like, what's Assoca's next

move? And that's the, and the show lets her off the hook by having Gunray being like, oh, gee, you know, it might have been too hasty. And it's like, ah, see, Asoko was right. She read her man. And to an extent, you know, I mean, there is a poker game being played here. And, like, she knows Gunray. She's running to him. She knows his sort of deal.

But, yeah, it does. Maybe that's actually part of the, not message, but the read or how they make that decision to separate those two things. Asoka, the difference between Asoka and Luminara as presented is Asoka knows who Ventris is. Asoka has had that experience and has seen that Ventress is more powerful than Luminara might suspect. She's not just someone who happens to have some lightsabers. She is like a strong, you know, agent on her own right who has had some Sith training. And that then you can extrapolate out to being about naivety versus experience that Luminara has. the air of a scholar. Luminara has the air of someone who goes by the book and Asoka has the

air of someone who recognizes that reality is more complex than that because XYZ reason, which again is such a stock character of war stories from 2000, from the war on terror era, right? And even the ones who then who don't do the torture are the ones who say like, yeah, but what was I supposed to do or like, let's be realistic about this. And that was TV for 15 years, you know? Well, I found it interesting that the show, the, like, epithet that opens the show is ignore your instincts at your peril, which isn't saying instincts is different than experience. I mean, maybe they're informed by experience, but like when I think of instinct, it's like your gut feeling. It's not like, you know, what the past has told you to do or whatever. It doesn't say it doesn't say ignore the part.

passed at your peril or something, right? Exactly. So then I do think in comparison to the next episode, which the episode is the most powerful is he who controls his power, it is trying to set Asokatano apart as this like particularly adept at, I mean, so far, most of the times that we've seen Asoka succeed has been on like an instinct call or like a gut feeling call. Like, I have a gut feeling that plow coutoon, what does it say? Plow coon. Plow coon is still alive or whatever the fuck. Like, I feel like that's what Asoka's written on most of the story so far.

But that creates, like, this exceptionalism for her that doesn't apply to other padduns or even Jedi at Lart. I don't know. It's, yeah. But also, go ahead, Rob, actually. Well, actually, I just want to call out. I think Clone Wars is a really interesting show. I think like this, ignore your instincts at your peril

is both a lie and the truth about this episode. Asoka's right about a lot of key things. The big decision is to go after Luminar and be like, you are getting into a fight, you are not prepared for, I'm going to come back you up regardless of orders. But the person who finally tells her that and basically says, trust your instincts,

is trying to just move her out of the way so he can execute his dastardly plot. And so, like, what's the lesson here? The epigraph is, ignore your instincts at your peril. If you look at the text of the episode, it remains ambiguous. Sometimes, sometimes not. Right.

The text of the episode is, being a good soldier means doing what you think is right. Like, that's what, that's what, what's the name, a guy. Argyas. Argyz. A guy. Not my gaius. So I know what you call him R-Gaius.

Hashtaget, not my Gaius. But no, you're right. That's what he says, right? He says, that's the thing that he says, and then that Gree tries to say back to him before Gree gets knocked the fuck out by Assange Ventris. Well, he says sometimes being a good soldier means doing what you think is right. That's why we're superior to droids.

So, like, then there's... And he means clones. He also means clones. He absolutely means clothes. Right? Because the next thing he says, says is oh this is when this is when Grie confronts him

and says why did you do it Argyas and he's like a clone like you would never understand I wanted a life of more than empty servitude and Gris says for that you'd betray the Republic and he says like I told the Paduan sometimes being a good soldier means doing what you

think is right it's possible this you just doesn't believe in the Republic I know but it's just it's so like why is that the epit, like, it's, I feel like sometimes, like with the last episode, this show wants, like, a pretty bow on things that, like, that sounds good, but is actually so, like, either contradictory or just, like, wildly degrading or just, like, completely out-of-pocket thing to say. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, because, because, because all the epigraphs are, like,

it might as well be like here's another here's another saying of Jedi here's yeah it's like the PR marketing it's like yeah it's all yeah totally totally it's so rarely feels like a lesson learned and so much more feels like hey this is an animating engine for what happened in this episode right like this is a sort of thing

that motivates action inside of this in this case Assoca trusts her instincts and that both lets her save Luminara and also gets her trouble, right? Or gets everybody into trouble by the end of it. In the next episode, the bit about most powerful as he who controls his own power is about people who don't control their own power, but it's also about grievous trying to control his own power. And is that even true for grievous? Who could say if that's true or not? Again, we'll get there. And so I think that maybe we should start thinking about those as not claims of truth, but like as thesis statements

to be explored and investigated by the action of the episode. I think that ends up making more sense. But it does feel like a little, I mean, I think internally they maybe even called them Jedi fortune cookie messages or something. I've seen them called that before, which is like, okay. But, you know, I get how you get there because they have that sort of simplicity of form. 365 days in the year, you need a Jedi quote for all of them. You need a Jedi quote.

Jedi quote calendar, yeah. You know, just... Time dot Jedi. Sorry. Speaking to, you know, the bloodbath angle of the episode. Oh, my God. Rough day for the clones. Oh, yeah, they get it.

It's bad. The juicers, the little clone boarding party, like, they slaughter a lot of green company soldiers. By the way, though, still weirdly cute. You notice when the. super battle droids drop out of their transport they make a little like Mario coin sound

I did know I checked my phone I was like did my phone now you get a message what's going on yeah it's very cute it's bad

they like slaughter everyone yeah and we see like we see a Jedi be when when Ventriss first of all

when Ventress rides down the shaft with the two lightshairs. That was like one of the fucking coolest things I've ever seen. It's sick. It was so sick. But she impairs Luminarra, which I feel like we like moments where the Jedi don't feel completely invincible or like it's not at the apex of a fight where like something suddenly happens like somebody's arm gets fucking chopped off. Yeah, exactly. It's like real battle wounds that happen over the course of like action.

that feel, like, I want more of that. I want to see. Ventures, like, hits, like, a steam pipe and catches her in the face, making it hard for her to see, which is, like, really interesting and is not what Luminar expects. I think what Luminar expects is direct attack to try to kill me, and that's not how Ventress knows better than that, and immediately wants that extra advantage, and it rules. It's such a good maneuver, and again, feels like this is more people on this episode. We know Deany is an expert screenwriter.

at this sort of like children's television action stuff. And it's the sort of thing that immediately marks the fight so that it's not just a lightsaber fight where people also maybe throw things at each other. It's a lightsaber fight where one of the people has been impaired temporarily and that adds texture to the fight and makes it much more interesting. Allie, you've been wanting to say something about how brutal things were in this episode, I think, for a minute. Oh, yeah.

My favorite, like, shot in this episode favorite, in quotes, is when Luminar goes, like, down the elevator and she the door opens to just a hallway of dead clones very impressive it's so fucked up it's so fucked up they all died basically just holding

the line so that the battle droids would walk into a T intersection and Luminara could like flank them and kill them all again like classic Jedi tactics you guys soak damage and I'm going to do the thing where I just kick ass and it's like yes

all of you will die but I a win. And so this is kind of the Jedi tactical doctrine. You need a couple of droids to kite the clones to kite the droids for you and you just come from the back. We also do get that fun aside

where the entire attack has been this distraction for Ventress to come aboard. And she goes straight to the engine room and we meet our little droid friend, 327T. It was just a little Wally looking guy. I love that droid. What a good guy. You better say his full name.

This is the thing, right? Where the clones are like, hey, you're done with that search? And he calls him like... You keep watch here at 327, and the 327T is not having it. Yeah. It's like, okay, okay, 327T. And the captain, like, admonishes them, hey, you know droids never like to be called by their nicknames. And again, just the weird politics of life aboard a republics.

Star Cruiser at this point where it's like the drums be like, man, you know that's disrespectful. What are you doing here? Is that true for R2 as well? Meanwhile, the clothes like to Maybe. We don't know. We've got his friends.

Yeah, but we never call. Everyone calls him R2. Yeah. Art 2 talks a lot of shit though. So I feel like he'd bring it up if he wasn't into it by that. Yeah. That's true. That's true.

That's true. I do love the thing that, sets up that moment where the steam gets Luminara. Luminara is so arrogant as she goes off to this fight. Asoka tries to warn her. She's like, she is, like, Assadish Ventress is too much for any Jedi to fight alone. Let me help you. And Luminara says, I am more than capable of dealing with a lone assassin armed with

undisciplined fighting skills. And the whole thing reminds me a lot of this weird aesthetic argument that Jedi have about like the way the Sith fight it reminds me of like in boxing there are guys who are like more like dancers and there are dudes who are just hitters and I feel like there's always been sort of preference for like guys who have a little

more artistry, a little more craft you will hear people be like oh I don't like to watch the like flyweight division and shit like that because it's more the sweet science of boxing it's just there's there it's I'm not saying that the bigger guys are dumb I'm just saying you know when you're little like that, you just kind of, it's like 50% brain, 50% brawn at that weight class. Like, you get that stuff all the time, which is, again, is, again, often racially coded.

Or, or also just kind of coded around different types of bodies. Yeah. And, and all of the, like, intermingling coding that goes into that around weight and everything else, too. But it's like, as if just to be strong is, like, to cut corners in a way that is, like, less creative or less discipline. Right. It's about using it. Like, you know. Tyson was kind of the quintessential, like just, you know, 10-ton hammer of a boxer.

He's also one of the sharpest boxers out there. But this is the thing. The Jedi go into all these fights being like, well, you know, they just use raw power. And it's like, no, they just go in to win. They're there to fight. Like, you're there to duel. And, like, Ventress is there to fight. Ventress.

And I want to be, like, go ahead. I was just going to say Ventrance is always using her environment to it or her advantage. She's cutting shit down. She's throwing shit around, creating distractions, you know, using the steam or whatever to impair Luminara. She's like making use of all of the tools that are in front of her, whereas the Jedi are always like, not unless a fucking pipe is coming towards my face. Am I going to force shit that thing away? And it's like, yo, you have the same.

You could be doing cool shit like that too. You could be. And you think these people are evil. You think these people are capital. E evil. And bad. And like bad at this. Right. Do you know what I mean? So it's like, why are you not going to the mat to win this fight? But I want to just underscore that like, I think that they do such a good job of showing the elegance and beauty of like the single saber style with Luminara. Because I was like, damn, yeah, she knows how to move that sword around. She's good at this. Like, yeah, I'm really excited that we're getting someone who just uses one lightsaber in like the traditional style because it's cool to look at in the way that like it's pulling from a history. history of swordsmanship and all that other stuff. And that, like, works even on me, even though I agree with you on this stuff, it's still cool. It's just, it is, and like I get, I think that's important to understand this is like a great example of aesthetics being politics and aesthetics

guiding someone's politics in a real way is like, yes, if the Jedi understood, and, you know, obviously some Jedi fight with different styles, Asoka does do the underhand style. That's a distinct, you know, saber stance and all that stuff. We know that Anakin has used two sabers before. We've seen that happen. So we know there are exceptions, but this like, ah, yes, the classical form is everything about the Jedi ideology in one, in one image. Do you know what I mean? It's, it's, and they're going to lose. They're going to lose. Because they're on their back foot. They're never a step ahead in a fight. They're always reacting to whatever the opponent. They're just receiving, they're never, like, pushing the fight forward. They're always just trying to contain and control the fight. And, like,

But they're also the thing If the thing that I'm excited to keep getting into is Part of the reason that we Even just with the content we've seen so far Part of the reason why they're so cautious about it Is because they've seen what happens When you do take the fight to someone else Over and over again

And it's you start to become like Duku and Palpatine Right You start to give into that because it's so good And like how far are we? away from how far away are if if i'm a jedi this is the thing that so that this is the tightrope that is interesting to see them walk is they've appointed themselves the galaxy's police they've decided that uh we're going to kill people who we think are are not just we're going to try to like drop ship in and fix issues on distant planets but they haven't decided

they're the galaxy's kings they're associated with the galaxy's kings they're assigned to the Galaxy's Kings, but they haven't done the thing that they could do, right? At this point, the Jedi could throw a coup, or before there was an army, especially, let's say, could have thrown a coup and won that fight. And they never did that. And why, how does that work? And what is it that keeps them in this place where they, at one hand, they are being, they're overstepping as police. On the other hand, they're able to restrain themselves from not being tyrants, that's like, I think that's so much of the romanticism around the Jedi, so much of the draw around will they fall or won't they fall, will they find a third way of walking,

will they gray Jedi shit, et cetera, is around that struggle. So it's interesting to start to see some of that stuff here with Luminar and Asoka having differences in approaches, you know, and next episode again. It's such a great fight sequence. Also it feels like lighting is so good. Like we've seen these models before, but like just dramatic. The whole scene in terms of animation, lighting, it just looks incredible. And yeah, as you have this fight unfolding, which does feel like it's over from the minute Luminar gets like zapped in the face by the steam. Like it's the, you see her realize like, oh shit, I haven't been in a fight like this before.

And I'm not built for this. Yeah. What's an interesting undercut to this conversation, especially around Luminar being like, naive in that way is that this is a scene that Ventra set up like 20 minutes before this fight like three scenes before that she's setting up all of these steam things in like different locations so it's just such a difference of like who's prepared for this and she has backup plans right so like even if this whole thing is a distraction for getting her homie guy man to get fucking new gun ray out of here

And it's like, that's, and then she has the bombs already in place for her escape. I will also say, like, she's less bloodthirsty than I would have thought. Like, she kills that clone at the start, like decapitates him, but, like, he can't get the report out. She doesn't, like, could have aced Asoka in that, like, when she was getting gunnery out the first time, doesn't. Yeah. Doesn't even seem to really view Asoka as an actual enemy. Very much seems to regard her as, like, you're a kid. Like, what are you doing here?

Like, she'll fight, but like, there's, there are weird moments where I look at Ventris and I'm like, she's a soldier who believes in her cause, which is serving Duku, but like, she's also kind of got this professional idea of like, look, I'm going to do what the mission requires, but she is not out there to rack up a body count the way Grievous is, who's like just trying to run up the scoreboard. Give me the Io Interactive hitman, the Sancher's game. I'm begging. Yeah, do we, do we ever get into her history? as an assassin, because that's how she keeps being referred to. And, like, it's such a skill set that she's utilizing.

Like, these are, you know, like, that's how she knows how to use deep into her history. You kill a few people in secret, and suddenly everyone's calling you Assize Ventriss, the assassin. Why don't people call me Assize Ventrish, the death of Erie Enforce witch? Well, there might be an answer for that that we learn one day, Rob. I can only hope. I will say she holds back. only until getting back in the ship and then just I think that's she she knows when to yeah she knows when to tie those up well he was trying to play her yeah he was going to take credit

that guy sucks yeah I was so happy for her and I think the through line there is the other thing about her is her back is against the wall in a real way there is no safety net underneath her the way there are for the Jedi, right? There is no fucking back to tank that she's going to get with the way to if she gets cut up. Do you know what I mean? I mean, not the way that there was for Anakin who's going to be protected by a thousand clones who are all pledged loyalty to him in that same way. Do you know what I mean? Like, she doesn't have, she doesn't have a Jedi temple on Coruscant to go recover at and reflect on the wisdom of the elders or whatever the fuck.

She is in many ways, and this is, again, I think the interesting contradiction or the kind of contrast inside of her is she is someone on her back foot in a real way because she's literally being threatened with being cut loose in this episode. And we, again, I guess I don't want to look at the 2D clone worst thing too much, but we know that there's a degree to which she shows up as a free agent who doesn't seem to have many other places to go. we don't know what her home life looks like if there is such a thing we even she doesn't she isn't presented as someone who has for instance a padmay to go home to or uh whatever obi won i guess she's an obi won she's an obi want to cross past you know what i mean she could have an obiwan to go home to maybe things could change um anyway um she's she's good i like her a lot i do love uh after asoka kind of saves liminar's ass i do love the exchange where she like calls her Asoka, and Asoka's like, what happened to

Paduan-Tanao. And Luminarra, a thing I really like in the scene, so many Jedi masters never feel like you see a genuine person underneath. Like, it's always a lesson. It's always the facade. And for this moment, Luminarah seems like she sort of pulls the mask off, and it's like, I am not, I did not come prepared for this. And I'm in a situation I'm not familiar with.

you've been right and I am grateful you're here and so many other Jedi that we meet are always like everything's a teaching moment you know you call that like earlier she does do the this is everything's a teaching moment here here Asoka like this is we don't do this during interrogations

and I feel like Kenobi especially but Yoda everyone's always got some fucking moral lesson even Plokoon did the fucking from a certain point of view shit in that episode one of those episodes that he was in right and it's like chill Luminar, just unguarded. Like, you save my ass, and I have fucked up, and I'm not,

I am not ready for what is out here in this war. And so the episode ends with her and, her and Asoka kind of, you know, she's sending Asoka back to Skywalker and, you know, saying he's very lucky to have you as a Padawan. We also get them filing the report to Yoda, and Yoda says revealed all around us our enemies are

and it's one of two sort of end of episode messages we're going to get from Yoda here which is again the sense that everything's just like wrong like nothing is on a solid foundation here the fact that I think the

thing I want to talk to speak to Argyas about to the point of the Argyz character I think hanging over the series there's a question of why the clone army I understand why in episode two they needed an army right away and there were the clones

but where's like why isn't there a kitchener-esque poster of Yoda pointing it you know the viewer and being like the Republic needs you and I think you see Argyas and you realize like this is a cause without believers

the Jedi believe in it because they maintain their position at the top of this order and they serve the republic whatever that is but like our guys is a guy who should be bought into the senate and at the first whiff of opportunity he just bales um and i think it kind of answers the question of like why is this whole war being fought by uh warrior priests and their clone servants it's because nobody else believes in this it is worth uh at this point I am going to add the, you mentioned that they looked familiar, that their, like, their design looked familiar, the Senate commandos. So we do get in, I want to say this is attack of the clones that I'm taking the screenshot from, they show up with the full regalia that's not like commando, it's more like Senate Guard.

And they have like the full big, like Roman centaurian headpiece thing. And that's, this screenshot I've said you makes it look like it's darker, but it is blue. It is like a blue color. And then, of course, they are predecessors to a different type of Senate guard or, I guess, imperial guard. They are literally just a sort of reverse echo of the imperial guard that shows up in the original trilogy with the all red look, right? That particular robe plus helmet look that shows up in empire. I think they're first in empire, but maybe they're first in return. I don't remember.

Is it return? It's when he shows. up on on the second death star that makes sense um so yeah so that is that is what's happening here and um again behind the scenes thing feloni said uh in an interview basically hey um the part of why this episode is this episode part of why argyas was here was um and and maybe this is seeding too much a little bit or is uh is is revealing a little bit too much too early he says we weren't at the point yet where we could conceive of the clones we wanted to tell a story about a clone betraying the Republic. We couldn't conceive of that being like

the thing that would happen at this point in the production of the show, the production history of the show. And that's really interesting. And I think short-sighted, and they will realize that, oh, yeah, the clones, of course, have their own perspectives also. But it does speak to what you're saying, which is like the message they want to get across is humans are, you know, people are unreliable, especially when it comes to the Republic, because the Republic hasn't earned anyone's trust necessarily. Well, the war is about trust, right? Like, the thing that they're trying to do is maintain the Republic.

They're trying to keep people from separating. And, like, I think, like, it would be really difficult to draft people if the argument that you're making is, things are fine as is, and we can definitely protect you. Like, you can't say, we can protect you. give us some dudes so they can fight for us please um you have to say we can protect you can we please put a military base here thank you and again always this is speaking to war on terror politics like one of the reasons that the u.s went to an all-volunteer force after vietnam was that if you are sending your citizenry to fight in a war they will feel like they should have a say in whether

that war is worth fighting um and once you say it's an all-volunteer force the clones like oh they're they're built for this but to a degree the entire clone conceit is very similar to the way that discourse has talked about in all volunteer military which is that they chose this uh they signed up for it therefore morally they're chill with whatever they are sent to do and it is less egregious than pulling someone out of their civilian life and sending them to fight and kill and die uh for a cause that they may not believe in because you volunteer the implication is it doesn't really matter if you believe or not

you just you said you would do it and you're obliged to this is the oath you took yeah and the other thing is it suddenly takes the cost the moral cost and the sacrifice of war and moves it onto a very small subset of your population that broadly

a lot of the people in power do not have to worry or think about and so like in in the world of the clone wars the clones are kind of standing in for the way that you have these huge wars happening that have no connection to the citizenry there's no sense of we are at war

there's war all over the republic but you go to these planets and there's no war nobody's serving right uncle odo doesn't have troops yeah the Jedi have troops the center has troops that it can move here's the other analogy that you might be able to make in this moment is to a paramilitary

corporations, right? These are bought, these are soldiers that you paid for to go fight for you. They literally don't come from your population base. There is no one anywhere who is going missing to go fight in this war, again, outside of these Senate commandos, presumably, right? And that's even more denialable. And that connects to something else that that is happening while this show is being made and coming to light as the show is being made, which is who do the PMCs produce profit for? It's people that don't even get talked about. out, right? The clone troopers in the show are doing the bidding of, at the end of the day, Chancellor Palpatine, who is sending them to die so that he can, you know, make gains in his

larger plot about becoming an imperial power, right, and not about winning the war, per se. And in that way, I think it, again, maps really interestingly to the ways in which PMCs like Blackwater were used in, in the Middle East during this period, which was about securing private gains. not securing public, you know, quote unquote, public gains for the United States or something like that, right? The public is almost overwritten by a kind of continuum of private industry, right? And so there is, that is an interesting thing I hadn't thought about literally at all before this, because when I think about mercenaries and Star Wars, I just think about bounty hunters, and I think about, even though the separatists you might think about as being the private

military, you know, or the private concern inside of the world, because they're all, you know, corporate entities and stuff like that. And I hadn't thought about the kind of ways in which Palpatine maps in that way also to Bush administration people who have private industry connections. Well, I would also just say the separatists, I think one of the reasons the battle droids are the battle droids, and we never really get into like, well, who else is joining the separatists? It is a way to create the dynamics of people's war without the unsavory aspects of like mass casualty wars against populations.

The battle droids are poorly armed, frequently under-trained, but there are their legion, and they can appear anywhere. And these are really common traits to insurgent forces, particularly like communist guerrillas of like the 50, 60, 70s. And so the dynamic is often highly trained, like well-equipped forces, taking on legions of, you know, communist recruits, basically. nationalist recruits who are fighting wars of liberation

and those things are often horrifically bloody um you know if you again like if you learn about what the U.S. war in Southeast Asia, not just Vietnam but like cross that entire part of the world in the 16 and 70s it is worse than like you can

it is worse than you probably imagine um just the sheer amount of violence perpetrated but um in this show you can kind of of get at that because you can now that like all those people are represented by droids the tactical dynamic is left in place and you do not have to reckon with hey uh did obiwan just order a flight of bombers

to obliterate a planet because like if you think about what this war would actually look like it'd be a lot more 40k than star wars right and i think it is a good creative decision to leave leave that off, but I think the elision is about some of the dynamics about imperial conflict, and why these things are often unwinnable for the imperial power. We have not

seen many, like, bombed out homes, right? We have not seen infrastructure destroyed in a way that that is, in which it is recognizably infrastructure. Right? We're like, ah, shit, this highway being broken means food doesn't get in. And I think that's part of why episodes like,

or bits of episodes like bomb bad Jedi are so important, where they talk about the failure of the Republic to maintain its infrastructure in this specific case, which is food isn't getting where it needs to get. The pirates taking people's food is a breakdown of infrastructure, and it's aestheticized to be in line with space opera instead of in line with, like, natural disaster or war. But that's what's happening there, you know. Anyway. I wanted to bring up like a show error question.

That's like not story related, but is maybe. be production related. Okay, I've noticed this in a couple, definitely in the past two episodes, and I've noticed it in a couple other ones. But oftentimes, there's an example, there's a moment when, uh, uh, I almost said lady luminara, not lady luminara, although, hmm, maybe, um, when Master Luminarah, like, gave an order to a clone, and he responded right away, sir. and I've noticed this happened multiple times

where clones will default to respond with sir to like female characters and I'm just like there is this is kind of a I think this is stupid but it is representing something there I'm not sure this is still done but for a long time in like Commonwealth and X Commonwealth militaries

there was a convention that even as women officer's ranks, sir was the term of respect. And so you would address a, like, female superior as sir, regardless of, they sort of tried to turn sir into a gender neutral, like, mark of respect. Because ma'am, obviously, denotes a, you know, a married woman, so we can't use that. And so it's just a weird thing that I do not fully, like, I've never fully understood it.

It is very weird to me. But it is, I think, trying to sort of get at, well, this is how soldiers and armies with this accent have tended to operate. So we will just reproduce that. That's surprising that they would bring it to this for literally no reason. Like, I get if you have, like, not I agree with the argument, but I can see why someone would make the argument, oh, well, we've been saying, sir, for whatever. and we don't want to change it, you know, some whatever bullshit like that. But you literally have no reason not to change it.

You're making a fucking kid show. My suspicion is part of it is about like that stuff reads as authentic to certain parts of the audience where it's like, ah, yeah, I see the analogy. This is like our wars. I remember Ronald D. Moore talking about getting complaints because he got Marine terminology wrong. in Battlestar Galactica because

they called gunnery sergeants gunny but they get some other part of marine lingo wrong and so ex-marines always very quick to write in to explain marine lore to people like would write into Ronald D. Moore and be like actually you know you've got it wrong on the show

and that's not how the Marines operate and more I think in one of the commentators for Battlestar Galactica was also like yeah that's interesting I don't give a shit because this isn't the Marines that's king shit Yeah, this is the Colonial Marines. This is Battlestar Galactica.

So this is whatever the fuck we want. Yeah. And so I do find it weird when you have these decisions where it's like, but how do we make it scan right to the Clancy Bros? Uh-huh. And the answer is, you don't. And also it does mean it ages terribly because I think it probably would have passed less remarkably in 2008, whatever.

But like now, even if I was a kid, I would be like, why's like if I was a kid I would be like why is he saying sir to Luminar like that would just be a confusing thing to me until I like Googled it or asked someone that knows about military

like I don't know if like and you would still not know why yeah and it's still done there is no answer right it is just yeah yeah that's goofy I don't know why you bring that shit in but that that makes more sense

I thought it was like they just had like all these pre-recorded... I feel like Dragon Age does this too, right? They do the Sir, but with an E to get around it. Oh. Oh.

With all the like night orders in Dragon Age? Oh, yeah. I was amazed, so... I don't remember that. So, it's like any... If there's like a woman who's a Templar or something, she will be called Sir, whatever. S-E-R.

Okay. Yeah, that I've seen. And it's just so they can say, sir. It's just so that they can say, sir, that's why it's that. You know? It's like, oh, but it's fantasy because we changed the vows. Don't worry about it. They could have done that near.

Yeah, they could have at least given us a vow. We hates it, Degal. Or just make up a new world. You're literally in space. Make up a new word. Yeah. Why not? Well, you know, okay.

Now that occurs to me, they always made the Imperial Navy such an echo of the Royal Navy that I think it is all part of the, like, we want it to as closely resemble this colonial. Imperial military The 20th century So I guess they just They just rode that all the way down Even though I don't think

I don't think this is used anywhere anymore I think I'm not sure But I would hope Because it's a very weird thing It's weird Speaking of weird I'm only got one segue I've just got one segue

That's the same segue I think we just said Speaking of that's fine That's segways Yeah It's a weird episode Well it's not a weird episode But it's a weird place

So it's a perfect segue I think the interesting thing about this is the entire notion of this being a new gun ray arc falls apart at this point like we're kind of done with that conceit going to fling it out the window this final chapter he sort of shows up in this for a moment yeah but he's barely involved his escape is just an excuse for the episode setup Jedi master kit fisto and his former student, Nadar Vib, who you'll recognize as being a Mon Calamari, like Admiral Akbar, they have followed gun-raised tracking signal to a mysterious mountainside fortress. It's a creepy and scrutable facility that looks to be equal parts monument and manufacturing. Naturally, it's also a trap. Gun-ray isn't there at all. Instead, Fisto and Vib have been led to the eponymous layer of grievous so that the separatist general

can be tested in combat against the general. Jedi and proved to Count Duku, they still got what it takes to be one of Duku's lieutenants. Basically, Duku looked at, uh, looked at Grievous and was like, this dude needs a slump breaker and lured two Jedi, uh, to his base, so he could, he could notch W. Grievous, I must give grievous his groove back. Grievous previs does exactly what was expected. No more, no less. And over the course of the episode, he slaughters the clones and the junior. Jedi but Fisto manages to escape and bring his report to the Jedi Council and once again we end

on a worrisome note from Yoda uh so to me the vibes of this episode gave off if the last one's very new hope ask I feel like we took a turn straight into alien with this one the aesthetics of this episode are so good I when I was watching it I thought that this one was the one written by Paul Dini and that he had like just C C C Cs everybody on the Clone Wars stuff and but like listen we have to make dark spaces look cool let's all figure this out together because grievous's layer looks cool as shit it looks so fucking cool it looks so good yeah other aesthetics things is like the first thing that you see in this episode is kit fisto's cool boba fett colored r6 unit it's so good and um the clones that he brings

with him have this like cool like they have like brown section of their armor, but, like, in some scenes, it ends up taking this, like, sort of eggplant-y look. I'm with it. Wait, so if we're... I will say, there is just really quick on the dark, making things dark look good thing. This episode was directed by veteran animator Atsushi Takuchi, who has credits in animation departments going back to, like, Gunbuster Bubblegum Crisis, the original Ghost in the Shell, Armaged 3, like, City Hunter, like 80, like the best of late 80s, early 90s,

anime shit. I guess it's still working on things, including, like, psychopaths and the Ava 3.0, you can not redo. He was a key animator on. So, you know, this motherfucker is out here doing good animation. And so it's not surprising there probably was some oversight there being like, let's make this look good. Here are some ideas.

I was surprised that we're up to R6 because Goldie was an R3 unit and Asoka was selling Goldie like he was fresh off the press and now we're up to R6. I wonder, yeah, I don't know anything about the like how how does that scale even work? like is that when were they rolled out are they what differs an r2 from an r6 you know i'm very curious about that i should know but it doesn't feel like it escalates in that way right like maybe r3 just like is a unit that has a lot of ram and then r6 does a different thing like i don't know like r6 is like more threads more hyper threading um yeah it's it's cool droid though i love it Okay, here we go.

R6 is the same kind of do-it-all attitude in its programming and array of gadgets reminiscent of the veteran R2 unit but with update to key systems such as its sensor package and processor. It could store 12 hyperspace jump coordinates in its astrogation buffer and had many of the tools and compartments that were found lacking on earlier models that were not intended for serious space service. So more RAM. More RAM. Yeah. Had more RAM. Okay, good to know. Um, so I do love the vibe of this, though, where it's like, uh-oh, these Jedi have stumbled into a different series.

And, like, from the minute are not ready for it. They land on this foggy-ass planet. And Fisto reconnects with VAB, um, which I keep wanting to call them Webb, uh, because clearly they're like, fish, aquatic, VAB, sure. Web, right, sure. But they clear the fog. Well, so, yeah, important notes, I think, on Nadar. One, we learned that he's just got out of, he's just became a Jedi Knight, and Kit Fistow was his master, trained him, except for the final few months. He says the war took him away, basically, so he couldn't oversee the final steps of his training and was not there for the trial or the, like, knighting ceremony, which is interesting.

And again, speaks to what we've talked about before with this new generation of Jedi coming up under wartime. not getting the traditional education and being more focused and effectively soft indoctrinated towards warfare and not whatever diplomatic stuff we theoretically would normally talk about with Jedi. And he shows up and wants to show the fuck off. And he's like, I got it, master. Let me clear this fog for you. Zip.

And that's the guy he is, right? He's the guy who's going to, Anakin's trick. You know, Anakin wants to like pull a little pear over. Nadar constantly, he does the same shit with the chair that they find. inside at one point he's like let me just force turn that chair around you have just reach out and turn that chair around i don't know if i could do all that shit i would be like check this out this is the way to the dark side you know you know that's just cool that's but it's also yeah but it's also like dudes who taught themselves like basic magic tricks and like showing it off where it's like yo

kit fisto is cringes shit like kit fisto is Ricky jay and you're like showing him like is this your card like you can't be doing that Exactly. Stop it. I'm Kit Fisto. My name is Kit Fisto, and I'm still cool as shit. I was kind of wondering if you were also getting at, do you buy that Kit Fistow really couldn't make it to these things? I don't know. He's like, I have reservations about you. I think that would be a real harsh reading on Fistow.

It would get dark to be like, I'm just going to let him go through and not raise those considerations. I mean, if that's the case, then what's happening there. he's like well I can't raise those because we need more soldiers we need more Jedi out here and we can't send him to the Jedi Diplomatic Corps or whatever so it feels more like abandonment to me because especially the way that Bev is trying to prove himself and like show his power and like the signal you know what what he's able to do from his training feels like hey like while you were gone don't worry like I still got really buff and yeah uh-huh and and and Again, this is another instance where I really wish I had a better handle on what they thought the timeline was.

Or maybe what I'm actually saying is this is an example of them playing with the timeline in a way that is able to leverage the ambiguity of the timeline. He says, I had to go because of the war. But the war hasn't been going for that long if what we're talking about is the war against the separatists, which only started at the end of attack of the clones, only like a year ago at this point. And, but the difference between Nadar and other Jedi Patrick, recent Jedi Knights is so vast that it feels like he hasn't been there for years. Do you know what I mean? It feels like it's been, it feels like he left in college and he was like, I'll finish

off these next four years without my mentor. It won't be a big deal. But that we know that that doesn't add up in terms of, in terms of the years, unless we talk about war in this other sense, that includes increased piracy, terrorist attacks from proto-separatist factions, et cetera. But someone was overseeing his training. I mean, it wasn't like he was completely neglected. It wasn't the department.

He was absolutely assigned to someone else. I don't think so. He doesn't have a master. The vibe I kind of, so what I mean, like, it just feels kind of kind of a grad school situation where, like, your advisor is just like, I have to go to war. And you kind of get dumped on like, okay. Okay, well, who were the Jedi left at the temple? And they will just sort of close this out.

And, yeah, maybe they're... Natalie, I have a question for you, though, because you sort of mentioned that it seems like Fisto's mere presence is spurring him to, like, try to show off even more. Do you think Fisto being there is kind of what dooms Vib? Like, do you think this goes differently if Vib is there alone, as the guy in charge, and dad isn't there? I'm not sure, because I do think that in terms of sheer power,

grievous is stronger than VEb. Like, Grievous has four arms and every single one of them has a fucking lightsaber on it. Like, you don't solo that. You don't. And I don't know why I think it's foolish of Vib to make that choice to solo him because it's just, the math doesn't add up. Two does not equal four.

And it's just, you can't, you can't do that. So I honestly, for me, I didn't get as much of a sense that Veb was like overshooting his shot in this scenario. Like I don't feel like he was trying so hard and like in ways that we've seen Anakin like fucking jump out of spacecrafts and like just like fucking free fall into the ether of Coruscant. like i've seen anakin do some wild shit to prove himself but i i felt like nadara's whole like i don't know just his whole journey through this episode like he's not doing that much like he's doing like a little thing here and there but when it comes to like really like this when the stakes are up like he's not i don't feel like he's overdoing it like i feel like he's overdoing it like i feel like he just has that desire to end it here and now. He's seen his friends and colleagues be cut down

by grievous and I think his most damning thing is that I guess he loses perspective and that's what dams him to like fall to grievous. But I don't think he's like so I don't think he's that caught up. Like I don't think he's that hot-headed of a character in the way that that we've seen like Anna can be or even Asoka when she like tears down to chase after grievous and one on one him like I it was surprising to me like he kind of Bev feels a little bit like a placeholder character to prove a point and doesn't really have as much standing on his own but is there to like I don't know tell us the story. He's a red shirt Jenna. yeah for sure like yeah I think there is an interesting one of the things that I ended up writing down is that I think that the so there's a moment where Nadar sends his clones to kind of try to cut off grievous and so that he can loop around and get him basically and all those clones die right he sends him to their death and I think that's one of the examples of how the show wants to frame him as being thoughtless and being overaggressive and

rash in the way that we've seen some clone troopers be in the past, for instance. I think that's supposed to speak to his youth and his eagerness to do right by Kit Fisto and prove that he is that, that despite the conditions under which he underwent the trials, he really truly did pass them. But I do think that there is, to speak to your point, like, the Jedi send clones to die by the tens of thousand all the time. This is like, yeah, he sent 12 or whatever. He said three to go around the corner and try to pince or attack Grievous, and that didn't work out.

clones are sent to go do Pinter attacks to die over and over and over again in this show in huge numbers and no one bats an eyelash or says that that's faultless in the way that I think the camera wants to say about Nadar here. I will say that

I was just going to say to support your point maybe Rob that Nadar is kind of overperforming. He does say when in that moment with the clone, he says the clones got in the way I could have taken him and I think yeah not true that's not true he couldn't have taken him and I think maybe my read on on uh Nadar is like his

opening feels doesn't feel as performative but definitely by the time you get to that moment um this show wants you to see another hot-headed padawan kind of getting what's handed to them. So I actually end up a little sympathetic to Nadar in terms of just this perspective at the end. But like to get to guess to that point, you know, they get into the base and I just love the aesthetics of the base. The creepy steampunk, again, like very alien. What's the planet an alien where they find the bag? I used to know this.

It's got a never number, right? That's it. It's like they go back in alien. It does. what's it called I don't know it's got that vibe of like what is this place

this feels weird it feels like there's something ancient here there's sort of weird carved carvings everywhere a weird hallway of like lanterns that they're walking through

but they think they're pursuing gun ray ha ha he must be speaking from that chair that is perfectly positioned with back to us we get some good droid comedy of them being like yeah let's get these Jedi

and while I'm being like have you ever killed a Jedi and I was like nope never and he was like yeah me either I love that lot realizing as always their lot is exactly what it is to be canon fodder

but I do think like you get Nadar being extremely extra in the fight like there's a droid he cuts down with like 80 sword strokes basically to like he just goes into full like B grade martial arts movie where he's just stunting on a battle droid and it's like it's a battle droid man like yeah that's fair it's not even one of the big ones come on no no so that's a roger roger he's like yeah that's a roger fucking nailed that you could all kill a roger and you know i saw

i saw pad may do better two episodes yeah you know some titan fall shit But, yeah, and Fisto's like, did I forget to teach you restraint? And so then they start exploring with the, like, Duku tells them, you know, sorry to have lured you here under false pretenses, but maybe you will enjoy an alternative prize. And so the entire episode begins to hand down this question of like, who is the bait, who is the victim in this trap? And it's not clear to either side. And to a degree, this is very classic Duku.

duku is just in it for the love of the game sometimes like yes he does always set up these situations where it's like you must prove yourself but also i'm starting to get the sense that he just loves this shit he there's nothing more he loves than like i want a jedi versus sith death match and i'm a position where i can arrange that he's taking a card from palpatine he's just he's just reveling in chaos he just supposed to see things blow up yeah and it It kind of rules for him. And so he then tells Grievous. And by the way, to me, this feels so much like it is a sequel to the end of the malevolence arc.

We see Grievous alone on a ship. And last we saw him in this series, he was successfully leading fleets on the assault on Camino that gets turned back because the clones, like in rookies, saved the day. But like here and now he's alone and he's clearly like ashamed. And that's exactly where we left him at the end of the. malevolence arc and you've got duku being like hey you've been playing like shit out there son um and it's very dude i got such flashbacks to little league watching this um like grievous reminds me so much of a kid who was a pitcher on my first little league team who was like you know like

eight or nine years old but already had a really good arm on him but like was just psychologically completely brittle like once one thing went wrong you'd be sitting there back there and you're like oh no that was a bad pitch and you knew it was done and grievous kind of has that relationship with ducu where it's like one thing goes wrong and just the thought of all the blame and shame just like causes him to crumble so he's been fleeing from that he's been alone on a ship he's just trying to go home and ducu is like hey um you need to prove that you still got it and so grievous gets home and his dog isn't there his dog is isn't there the lights aren't on yeah it's scary that's a bad vibe when you come home and you're

like hmm something happened like normally you know the thing that happened normally it's just like oh the power went out and it cycled all your shit and the clock is blinking the wrong thing or whatever you know what I mean but you with that vibe or like oh it feels like someone else was here I hate it I hate it this scene between ducu and grievous fuck like fucked me like it just has added to the characterization of grievous in such a way that like Like, Duku said, like, you have, this is your deliverable. You need to get me more dead Jedi immediately. And Griffith is like, you haven't given me resources.

I don't have a staff. He's like, you expect victory over Jedi, but all you give me to fight them is battle droids. Grievous is like, I need a budget. You need to give me a real fucking budget to hit this. And you aren't giving me shit. You have given me scraps. And I just felt for him that, like, He wants to be able to do, like, all this.

But he's only one droid hybrid. Like, he can only do so much. And he already has, like, hella fucking Jedi light savers. Yeah, he's been winning. He's got the monuments to show it. He's got the trophies. Like, who shows? In this war has Grievous's kill counts.

Like, full stop. Anakin. Anakin. And that's it. And that's a secret. And that's a secret. You can't talk about it. Anakin, why are you so confident you have a higher kill count?

Look, I just noticed some asterisk on my record that I can talk about it. But look, I know the work I put in. You're right. That's just, you're right. That's fine. Yeah. But the other thing is, there is something, I don't know, again, like sports is on my brain to an extent, but like all those points about grievous are right he's a star he is an absolute star but

his power flows from his inadequacy and so to an extent nobody around grievous ever wants him to feel whole like the minute grievous like grievous will kill the entire jettie order rather than go to therapy that's kind of what we're dealing with here where it's like the minute you take that fuel away from grievous what's left and so like There's this great article where Michael Jordan had just turned 50, and, like, Sports Illustrated, had somebody, like, just sort of embedded with him around that time. And it's all about him talking about, like, he's still as competitive and driven as he ever was. It's just, like, there's no outlet for it. And I think Grevis is kind of that similar sort of figure where, like, he's able to do these incredible things, but it all flows from a place of, like, pure poison.

And getting him to perform requires, at least as far as Duku is concerned, these cruel games of like psychological pressure and abuse. How do we feel about the way that that is most readily kind of externalized or physicalized, which is as they're walking through the facility and checking in the doors, you see the kind of run of statues of grievous, starting as the Kalish warrior that he was. It's all black. this kind of like huge figure with a dope sword and then we see progressive ones where the black has been replaced in parts with gold representing the the cybernetic extensions and replacements that he gets

um and and it the you know i think when you when i see this the first time i go oh he was wounded in combat and then he replaced his arms with and then the big reveal is he chose this right he meets with his his doctor droid doctor droid stay winning in this series always the best characters This one has like a Paul Lind voice. And that, I was like, are they doing a Paul Lind? And I looked at him, I was like, yeah, they're intentionally doing a Paul Lind, a much better version of integrating a kind of queer Hollywood icon than what they did with Truman Capote's voice in the movie. And also, that doctor also has one of the best lines where he's just like, I have other things to do you.

I'm like, do you? What? What are you doing? Mutilate the dogs some more. Are you researchers of shit? Yeah. Publish or perish. You know, like, what are you off doing when, uh, anyway, uh, in that sequence, the,

the, the doctor droid basically says like, more or less like, why do you, why do you do this to yourself effectively, right? And, and Grievous is like, this is, I'm better. This makes me stronger. This is, this is the way I become a better version of myself, which does make it distinct from something like Darth Vader, right? Or, or Luke getting cybernetics or Anakin getting cybernetics. where it's always about a replacement for something lost in combat.

And I'm curious how you all think about that. That is the kind of physicalization of the instinct you were discussing, Rob, of this kind of poison at his heart about feeling inadequate and needing to address that inadequacy. I love that sequence. I love the progression in the statues. I think the two that are really key is, first we see him with the huge bionic arms, which are still articulated and humanoid, et cetera. They're just clearly like,

probably stronger replacements for what he had. And the next, the other statue is those are gone and they're replaced by big snippers. He's gone for like giant claw hands. And what I kind of dig about it is this whole sense of like, he's cutting off not just like, it's not just like body modification.

he's saying I do not need the other things arms and hands can do they could replace they give me a lot of function all I want is to be able to like cut something in half that is the only thing I need this appendage for and I do kind of dig that where he's a guy who's looking at it's like how can I make this more utilitarian how can I narrow my options and it's I think it's less Star Wars is often about like I you're reducing your humanity but I think here's a rare case where they kind of carry it off where he's like I can't consider conceptualize anything more useful to me than taking a limb that has all these possibilities of expression utility and turning it into a blunt force weapon that does one thing but does it extremely well and that's what I want to be and we see him now years past that moment past that decision and there is he is a Jedi killing lightsaber wielding dervish wall climbing, like that bit where they remove his legs and he then... Oh, Fistow, you fucking... God.

Okay. The clones have this. The clones have it on lockdown. They've got him like all tethered up and he can't get loose. And Fistow is like, hey, whatever you do, don't cut the lines. And then cuts him in half. So they had him by four anchor points. You cut him in half.

my guy has so many arms and it's so interesting to me the minute they do that grievous actually is more powerful when he's back in his headquarters and he's swinging on the like the bars at the top of his base he seems more comfortable than we've ever seen him

in the series he's always looked like an awkward character when he just started having a good dangle in his office and like when he makes this escape like the minute they cut him and half and he's like oh thank god now i can really show you some shit and he starts like spidering along the ceiling uh it's it's kind of interesting moment of like even grievous isn't like isn't really at home with some of the choices he's made about modifying himself and like there's a

simpler version of himself that like makes things easier and more comfortable uh but also just fist out like don't get in the clones away don't be like hey don't cut those lines by the way by the way you have two less of them now. An interesting thing worth raising here is that when this episode comes out, there are ways in which the fandom Reddit is contradicting the established canon for Grievous. Because at the time, what, I'm just going to read this long quote from Faloni that again, I think, helps situate it. He says, I tend to think of the episode Lair of Grievous as a look more into the mind of Grievous, how you interpret a story

largely depends largely on what your backstory, on what backstory you like. If you believe Grievous was shot down in a shuttle by Duku and put back together, I think that story is there. It's just that Grievous has invented this new story of choosing his alterations. If you don't

believe in the EU version of the story or didn't like it, then perhaps this new revelation that Grievous was a warrior whose lust for power made him choose to be altered, suits you better. Again, a great many of the truths we cling to depend largely on our own point of view. Grievous was a great warrior

in both stories. He was a caliche in both stories. The major difference depends on what you believe about his past. In the end, I have to say this, many die-hard EU fans pick and choose the stories that they think are canon based on what they like and what they don't like.

They read a novel they like and it's in, they don't like it, and it's out. Much effort goes into trying to word things or shoot things such that the existing EU can remain, if only at times from a certain point of view. I love that line when he's like, listen, fans all read,

do this. Fans already pick what they like and don't like. This is not different from that. There's a, they'll kind of featurette for this episode. He says very, very similar things here. And in that, you know, he kind of does say again, straight up the like, I like the EU. I'm happy the EU exists. But you get this hint that like, does he smell what's in the air long term? There's going to be a great purge of content coming? he doesn't know about the Disney acquisition probably, right, at this point, but there's a lot of EU and maybe we got to start trimming that down to a certain point. We can start telling stories that have, that don't necessarily line up exactly with everything else. But yeah, I guess it is worth saying at this point in the expanded universe, Grievous had been sort of, Grievous's upgrades had come from Duku directly, which is, I don't like as much.

Well, I was curious about that because the framing, the medic droids framing of the changes themselves was sometimes I wonder why you submitted to the changes. And Grievous's response is first to correct is improvements, I submit to no one I chose them. So like, there is someone on the other side of this that at least is encouraging or if not is providing the opportunity for grievous to do

this i mean i don't think grievous has the and i don't know it does grievous have like the infrastructure like is his medic droid capable of that research to like enable all of this like i don't think so it doesn't seem like it this doesn't seem like a research it's not clear it's not clear but i mean i have a lot that's specific specific exchange read to me like the writers of this episode pushing back as quietly as they could on the established canon saying I don't like it you know what I mean like because then do and again maybe we say that grievous is lying to himself here maybe that that space does exist but it does feel like them saying no whoever told you that was wrong I chose this you know guess I can see the notion of like yeah grievous has created this whole escape for himself where like it's his house and he's like in this ancient temple but it's not ancient

it's just his but I actually it all feels just much more convincing as a grievous is kind of a found character in this universe like he predates Duku and like that you look at these statues and you're like those are many modifications

behind us at this point he's fighting completely different wars and so I don't know to me I like not having that baggage because remember I had checked out of Star Wars, like when prequel E.U. was happening. I just didn't give a shit. When I look at this, I'm like, no, like, this, the whole thing seems to imply that Grievous is the product of a much older culture and has maybe, you know, like, kind of, he's kind of Highlander in some ways. Yeah. Do you want me to read, can I read something from Wikipedia that is just, please. So this is from the Legends canon section about.

All of this stuff. The setup is grievous has suffered near fatal injuries. His body was really fucked up from body damage and war damage and shit. Duku... His body was fucked up from body damage in war. You know what I mean. It was summarizing here. Desiring vengeance against the Galactic Republic, he agreed on the condition that his mind would not be tampered with.

Duku provided blood from the frozen body. And again, this is not canon for. us, so it doesn't matter, from the frozen body of Jedi Master, Sifodias, as a means of keeping Grievous's body alive during his transit to geonosis, where Pogel the lesser and his geonosin scientists implanted his brain and eyes into a geranium alloy body, reminiscent of a craft war droid, complete with an LX-44 set of robotic legs, vital organs, blah, blah, blah, of course, et cetera, et cetera. The geonotians would alter his brain against. his wishes, both to trim away disturbing memories while enhancing his rage centers,

and to enhance his equilibrium, allowing him to better employ his newfound agility. Internal implants were also produced to sharpen his vision and protect them from the vacuum of space. While the midichlorian rich blood of Sifodias may have played a critical role in maintaining his life, Grievous saw it as a personal failure that the transfusion did not give him a degree of sensitivity to the force. This sucks. I hate this so much. I hate that, like, Cifod's. Deas, who is the one who ordered the clones to begin with, that his blood winds up in grievous. Not everything needs to be connected, dude. That's somebody showing up to your RPG group with way too much backstory on their character.

And you're like, oh, wow, you're tied into that much of the lore, huh? Wow. Okay, wait, counterargument for this. Here is an excerpt from the comic. It's Duku leaning over the body of this. of Sifodias frozen in like a tube and then saying Pertagrevis off screen or off panel

Are you ready for your blood transfusion? Oh no, wait, this is the opposite. This is, what is this? I don't know what this is. Yeah, who's getting transfused into Sifo Diaz? I don't know. Why is Cepo Dias constantly getting blood transfusion? It's inscrubal and it's hot as hell.

True, it is hot. Just, just like. Asage Ventress. Only baddies on the separatists' side. It's true. It's true. It's true. So, yeah.

I have a little bit of a segue here, getting off of Grievous and talking about RPG groups about Kit Pistow's sort of thesis of this episode and one specific reason why it's really frustrating. He kills an unarmed doctor. and he like I really wanted to be on his side because like I think it's a compelling thing especially after the Luminar thing like we are super soldiers back to the Austin's point of before like they haven't taken control of things it is a responsibility to try to control the power that you have especially with grievous but to like walk into a room and just do

that to someone who's like isn't even facing you is like such a blatant. not doing that. It's really frustrating. The reason I bring up RP groups is because the first scene I ever did with my now, like, 12-year Jedi OC was specifically her doing that. She lifted her lightsaber to a person

and her master was like, you can't do that. No, no, no. We don't do that. That's a bad thing to do. So to see it, the show, I was like, fuck you. What? Well, it immediately follows fucking a conversation between Nadar and

and what's his name fucking Kit Fisto where after the whole dog scene when they take down the dog which is so painful like that was so sad and Grievous is fucked up over him sadness and grievous his voice when he's like

gore like I wanted to cry but I did but also he he was like Go on, Gore, take out of those two Jedi in this inescapable arena. Maybe Gore has killed Jedi before. Well, if I were grievous, if I'm just simply siding with grievous and imagining I'm grievous, they're intruders in my house. Fucking go for it, Gore.

These guys are here to kill me. I don't know. Anyway, he, after they killed a dog, which was incredibly, such an incredibly painful scene to watch. Nadar is like Grievous is going to pay for this I will destroy him and Fisto is like I understand your pain

but you forget your teachings Nadar revenge is not the Jedi way and Nadar is like but in this war strength prevails the rules have changed and fucking Fistow's like perhaps you were the one that has changed

like okay I literally I wrote after this, I was like, this is literally me talking to boomers, like, about, like, the rules, like, fucking, like, you just have to, you know, you just got to vote them in or whatever the fuck. Like, it's, it's, and then, as Allie's pointing out, for fucking Fistow to go in and kill a defenseless medic a droid is like, what fucking rules are you playing by? Hold on. Let's be careful how the droids aren't. people. That's the primary one. We're putting on medic droid there. Medic droid is doing a lot of work that I'm not sure

is entirely justified. He's keeping grievous. He literally just built grievous from the ground up all over again. That takes talent. He could be useful. Fucking prisoner of war him. Take him back to the Republic and have him do

some shit on some clones. I don't know. They were getting so upset that they were going to kill Padmay. I thought you didn't kill people you Prithy you wanted to bring it to Prith. Exactly. Exactly. Fucking Uncle Ono was like,

don't kill her. We don't do that. Where is the rule? No one is adhering to a fucking rulebook. Everyone is saying there's rules. We got to abide by them. And then everyone just goes off and does their own shit

and doesn't tell anyone else about it. It only happens behind closed doors. Anakin kills the village. fucking Fisto kills the medic droid. Yoda is probably done some shit, I'm sure, on a planet we don't know about. The thing worth saying is it's always

people who aren't considered people who get killed by the Jedi and no one kind of worries about it too much. The droids aren't considered people. The Tuscan Raiders, we know aren't considered people because the way that they used to be referred to is sand people. And anytime you put a word before people, what you're saying is

not people. And so even like If that had been a village of, if he had gone, if Anakin had gone in them most easily and killed as many people, Padmay would not have had the same feeling. Padmay would not have been like, oh, Annie, give me a hug. I'm sorry you did that. That would have been like, got to go. You're wanted now. You're a criminal.

But because it was people who don't live in our town, it's chill. Anyway, I think those are the rules. I think the rules are actually around who counts and who doesn't count as a person. and it sucks and we're going to be here forever because this never gets, well, there are some droid episodes, I guess, coming up at a certain point, but it's never going to get like, it's ever going to change. I do think, like, Natalie makes a really good point, though, in that to a degree, Fisto's saying the motivation is important, too. Like, where's this coming from? Like, what's the fuel we're putting in it? And Nadar, as his clones have been led to their deaths by him, um,

Fisto's like, no, you are now reacting out of anger and rage. And that is exactly why he cuts down that medic droid. Like it is, like in terms of is it people or not, that's true. That is like what gives the act moral weight, but the motivation is still very un-Jedite like, where he's very much, it's gratifying. Like, fuck this guy. Yeah. Like my student just got killed. Bip, done.

Yeah. You got to leave a path of destruction. You got to let him know you were here. That's why, that's literally why Fisto does it, is be like, I was in your fucking control room. I got your fucking droid. Wow. Grievous. He does lord it over him, too, when he calls him from the control center, right?

He absolutely does. Yeah. Yeah, I forget the exact line, but it's basically the equivalent of life. Oh, right. And I won't be here. Right. Yeah. Right.

Something like that. Yeah. So I think the, but I do think, I love that scene within the dark. where Nadar is like in this war strength prevails. We are now, we're a year into this war, and the younger Jedi are this close to doing the Mealian dialogue from Thucydides, where it's just like, who cares if a city has to be destroyed?

Like the lesson it gives to the others will save us lives in the long run. And to an extent, I think what we do see a lot of the younger Jedi circle going around the masters with is like they have been handed this bag of shit that is this war. Yeah. And no real clear, like, what are we doing here? Like, what is the actual path to?

Neither doctrine nor ideology for why this is just. Right. No. No one's ever said this is why we have to stop them from separating from the republic. It feels like being a millennial and growing up like only knowing, like the end. endless billion-year-war. Like, I want to push against it just a little bit because I don't want to lose the, forgive me for being this person, but the class character of the Jedi is fucked up.

Yeah. This is not, they are, if they are millennials, then they are like trust fund coastal podcast or millennials, not millennials who are buried under credit debt, you know, or school debt. That's a very. They have inherited something. from an earlier generation that's fucked things up. That's no doubt.

But, like, you know who else has? Is the regular people in the Republic who are now at, you know, who are now living in places that are being terrorized or abandoned by one or the other side of this, of this war or the people who are being bombed? So, like, my sympathy for this younger generation of Jedi is minimal because what they're going in a different world, they would have grown up to be the next generation of super comps. So, like, you know, I, they did get a raw deal.

it's clear that they are failing here they're being failed certainly but the cop unions aren't unions like and and i need to like i i it's hard for me to get to give them the sympathy to give nidar sympathy in that larger way that isn't out that isn't overshadowed by the sympathy that i have for for instance the people on a planet like tattooing or rhodia who have been effectively abandoned by their opponent i completely i I completely agree with you. I think more so what I'm getting at is the lack of, how do I put this? The lack of seeing it seeing, knowing any other exists, like knowing any other reality other other than living in wartime and being prepped from the time you were five years old to be a fucking general in a war. and like and this who knows how old this kid is he's probably like 18 or 19 or something and I think more so it's just the what I'm speaking to is the disconnect between the young Jedi and the older Jedi and if these these young Jedi are supposed to head like the next you know are the next generation of what the Jedi look like and they have no connection to anything, anything in regards to a motivation.

All they know is like their comrades, basically, is like the people they fight with. And that's who they get fucked up over. We see Asoka get fucked up over her, like we see it all the time. And I think that is the thing I'm pointing to more so is that their connections are only to their, and I think we've talked about this on this podcast before,

about like squad units and how, like, you have to be like the connection is not to the greater cause of like the united states of america and freedom and democracy it's like fighting for the people that are right next to you when you're like right in fucking war zone or whatever yeah yeah exactly so i think that's what i'm and the fact that that that that there it is so devoid of any fun like fundamentals or motivation or like real goals and like ways to make this world better other than let's just enlist more people in the fucking army. I think

that's more so where I'm coming from. And to your point, again, Faloni does say in that same featurette, like Nidar is supposed to be a stand-in for what is happening to young Jedi Padawans right now. They are being pushed through more quickly. They are not finishing their training with their assigned

masters. They are not coming out with a broad kind of domain of goals and talents. they're coming out as soldiers with lightsabers and generals with lightsabers. And that is not, you know, he would agree with you that that is not fair to them and to what they are being served here, I think. And that is, I think, 100% what Nadar is meant to illustrate.

I think, so I think this is a place where the Jedi is an institution and then the experience of like when Nadar is representing. I think it does start to fracture the class analogy a little bit because the Jedi do represent like a ruling order and an elite. I think when you're talking about young Jedi, you're starting to get weird into, like, there's a child soldier element, like, there's a lot of them, like, pulled out of their communities and, like, taken in by this, like, you know, you know, you'd also map them to, um, the Jedi are creating, like, an Ivy League pipeline of, like, you're pulled away from your actual communities and you are moved into a class now that has its own interests and you were told not to identify where you're coming from. but I think with the young Jedi in particular when you're stepping like we see a couple episodes where like

the Jedi Council's meeting at this point it's just it's just Mace Windew and Yoda it's two guys who in the movie we saw them both sort of acknowledged like hey we can't do the most important thing that Jedi leadership can do anymore right? No should we tell anyone? Absolutely not

and like they just kind of So, like, they're kind of, to me, when I look at that, that is very much like a decaying elite that is holding on to its power. I look at Nadar, I think he doesn't have to do a lot of things. I think there is that generational element. But I think maybe the most crucial part of that is this. And Natalie, you're your point of this. They've been told to do these things. Fight this war.

Fight it this way. But it doesn't appear to be working. king you know what I mean and you get this this increasing dissonance of you know to a degree their reality is one defined by these little Jedi thoughts of the day these little these little bits of wisdom and none of it is working none of it is accomplishing anything and so I think Nadar you sort of have this point where it's like what what good you know it's kind of the Anton Chigur thing where, you know, if, what was it, if you're, if, if the code you live by led you to this point of, of the, of the, if the rules you follow led you at this point of the, of

what use were the rules. What good were they? Yeah, yeah, totally. The younger Jedi are this close to asking that. Like, I would love to see the mask, but that's the thing is this is not an episode where we, where he frames asking that. What is only what is framed for us for Nadar is someone who, in the history. historical set of how Star Wars codes people, he is someone who is a couple bad years away

from falling to the dark side because he's so driven by rage and so driven by revenge and etc. That's what we're given. I want to get questioning, and I think the vehicle for that in this show is going to be Asoka, because she's the character we sit with the most. And I think to that end, the thing that I hope that we see develop is another response, right, a response that is neither we need to stick to the old way of doing things, the way that the master luminara way, nor the Anakin Skywalker, like, all right, fuck it, man. Give me another lightsaber. I'm going to go in and just kill whoever to get this done. I'm going to go do the wild thing, throw the rulebook on the fire, and instead get some sort of response that

recognizes, like, I don't think there's a world in which Nadar understands what has happened to him until he is someone in a position of power over someone else re-inscribing. Maybe he's a different view on what should be inscribed in a young Jedi, but he's not going to not go be a Jedi master if he lives here, right? He's going to go off and get his own padawad one day, probably. I don't think he's, like, been awoken to a radical vision of how this whole system is fucked up. He thinks he got a raw deal, you know, but I don't know that he understands that the deal is raw from the jump. I think Nadar in 10 years will just be a fascist Jedi. Like, right, totally, 100%. No, you're right. It's just like, in my day,

Vader's Hill, he's a part of Vader's fist or whatever. He's. He's a is one of the inquisitors, you know? If they hadn't even fallen. He would still think I'm on the light side, but it would be in my day, the Jedi lived by these older roles, but I've been at war for 25 years. Let me tell you, they didn't know shit.

Here's how you did Jedi. Kick ass. Right, right. Which, again, I hope we get that perspective from a different character at some point, someone who has been pushed all the way to that point of like, I'm fighting for the Republic. I brought this up recently that, like,

I might beat Old Republic, the MMO with my Jedi, my dark side Jedi character, Republic Jedi character, and the end of that is that the Jedi Council doesn't give you your Jedi master title, but the, there's a dude there from the Republic who's like, fuck that, you did more than anybody else did for the Jedi, for the Republic. I'm going to make you a general. You're a general now, and that's the title that you, that you kind of are given. I want that character to show up in Clone War so bad, because not my OC. I mean, if my OC shows up, then that's weird. But I'll allow it. Fuck. also I will say because we have the Luminara fight the way Nader goes down yet again

these Jedi think they're in duels they're in fights and there's a difference and they don't know it you got classic problem you got Grievous he's like I'm gonna kick your ass grievous of these lightsabors and Grievous is like I'm a droid I got a gun

I got a gun he pulls it out and it's like oh it's so good it's such a classic maneuver I love it so much It comes from nowhere. He's like, zip-bop. It happens so quickly, too. I was like, did he have another arm that he put back?

Like, there was, the way that it was cut, I was like, does he have a hip gun? Is it just built in there? Like, because it didn't even feel like he pulled a checker. He should get one. That's a good upgrade idea. Yeah, I'll DMV us real quick. Yeah. Hit him up.

Well, you can't DM the medic droid anymore for that. We'll never know what modifications were that last. I hope we get that medic droid again. I want him to fix that medic droid and I'll bring him back. Great. He's good with you. I love the medic droid. So good.

Imagine having the fucking guts to talk back to Grievous. He's the only one who can't. He has, he's actually valuable. Yeah. Like Duku's the absent, angry parent, and the medical droid is the cautionary hectoring mother. Like, Duke, like, Grievous's lot is so sad where, like, he goes home to be. a child, and it's just getting it

for a different angle. And play with his dog. Yeah, he's your monster dog. In the foyer. Yeah. We don't get, I believe we're, we are done with, I believe, we grievous until the next season at this point. I'm pretty sure we're out of grievous episodes now.

I might be wrong about that, but, well, I'm pretty sure. Feel like shit, just want him back. Does he, does he end up having a, so, so, Pistel makes the escape. They have a cool fight. in the midst. Sorry, Allie was asked Oh, I was just wondering, does he end up having, like, a bigger role in the show, or does he come, or does he kind of, like, slide in and out? Like, is there, like...

He slides in and out. There are grievous arcs. You know what I mean? Like, we will get more grievous doing stuff and manipulating things again, and, like, but he's not, um... I would say he is not as central as, like, Ventris. If I guessed episode count, I would guess Ventress is in more episodes. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but... Natalie, making a connoisseur. I'm just going to go check.

Ventriss truly is central. I'm scrolling a lot on Ventriss's page. That tells me she is more central. Let's fucking go. No, I think I'm wrong. I think they have about the same amount, maybe. One of them ends up being a movie. Yeah, I'm going to say I'm wrong.

That's bisexual culture. As long as we have an explicit sex scene with her and Obi-1 before the end, uh, you know, that's, you know, that's, Yeah, this show Season 7 You know, the audience is growing up now It's online We can get away with it

So We did not talk about Yoda's Sign-off Yeah When he says To answer power with power The Jedi Way This is not in this war

A danger there is of losing who we are which I feel like underscores a lot of what we've already said on this episode of like just there are two very different approaches to what it means to be a Jedi in terms of the younger generation and the older generation and like what their role is and what their purpose is on in the war in society and i just think fucking yoda is so out of touch and like it just it's so it's so infuriating to have these like in the these past two episodes to have like the jedi council skyping in from their fucking tower and just being like mm couldn't be us like you really shouldn't be doing that like don't fight power with power

just meditate on it. I don't know. Like, do better. Like, your homie just died. Like, you failed your Padawan. You failed your Padawan. He's dead because of you. You did not train him to be an elite, detached soldier like you should have.

And now he's dead. And I don't know. I just feel like somebody should fucking answer for that sometime. Yeah. Well, you know, the Jedi will answer for it all. in a certain point it's yeah it's the the lack of accountability there the the lack of like caring about endar at all and also like it's so hypocritical because like this war starts because yoda matches ducu's call to have a war right like like you you were the one who fucking rolled up with the

clones that's why it is the clone war like you fucking did that and like getting back to the thesis of like well the jedi shouldn't do that and they shouldn't be dangerous and they shouldn't be violent and we can just talk about this and we can, you know, just, you know, we can just hatch it out. We don't do that shit. The decision that he had to make that was that day. Like, I, like, I, I, right, exactly. Like, Duke who has a military? What's he going to do with it? Is he just going to enslave all of the people that he wants to separate from the Republic? No. If, like, you, you can't do anything with those droids if there aren't clones to fight them. So, like, Yoda had that opportunity to be like, okay, I'm at this, I'm at Camino, this is fucked up, we're going to figure

out a place in society for these clones, and I'm going to come back, and we're going to do our negotiations, and I'm going to do my Jedi shit, and I'm going to prove that Jedi can do this shit. And no, he says, well, a war is starting, let's go do it, and then fucking talk shit like this. Like, you've matched the power. You've matched, you've done it. You did. You answered power with power by signing that check. You signed the fucking depart. I point to Slim Charles from the Wire, who famously says, that's what war is.

Once you're in it, you're in it. If it's a lie, we fight on that lie. We're going to fight. Yudah should say that. Yota shouldn't be... That's what I'm saying. That's what Yodah should say. This is...

Yoda's stringer. It didn't go well for anyone involved, by the way, in the wire, by the way. Like, they did have to fight on that lie, but it broke back. for everyone involved. I guess where's that for Marlowe? But he's the one they're fighting. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

That's what I'm saying. Well, yeah, and this is the thing. Like, okay, what really... These are cool thoughts, Yoda. And if you were an advisor without power in this, and you were just playing Cassandra, they would be very interesting and tragic thoughts. You are the commander of this entire show.

Like, more critical than Palpatine, there's you. And the whole thing, again, it reminds me a lot of Donald Rumsfeld during the early stages of, like, the occupation of Iraq. Rumsfeld was famous for generating just endless amounts of paperwork and memos. And one of his more famous ones was where he starts musing about, like, does the American strategy in Iraq actually? seem to be making progress and he's sort of opening the question to his advisors is there like are we not sure are we sure that we are not creating more terrorists uh than we're killing and it's like that would be a great question to have asked before doing any of this um but the in fact some people had thoughts about how that would go before we started doing this and instead

the purpose of asking that question was to say years later, well, you know, I had my doubts the entire time. You know, I was never comfortable with the decisions we were making. And it's like, but you were the one making them. You were the one who closed off all the other options that existed to take us down this one path. And then midway through when you were like, this might not go well, you turned around and said, hmm, I have a bad feeling about this. And that happens in two episodes, by the way, this time, still, they're still doing it. And it's, you can't do the bad feeling about this if there is actively something bad happening. It has to be a fucking premonition. You can't fucking say it when it's right in front of you. I have an important

question just while we're on this. I'm sorry. How do we feel about Newt Gunray turning this around and saying, I've always had a good feeling about you? Oh, that's great. One of two Fantastic new gun ray lines We missed the other We didn't say the other one Which is he says Let me make sure I get it right here Open this door and I'll buy you a planet

King shit It just deserves a planet by the way He should do that Yeah Buy Assoca Tano a planet I also skip this line Now we're just talking about new gun ray shit real quick Grie also did

say, what did he call him a slippery? Nemoideans are a slippery lot, but the Jedi will wear him down. Don't call a species of people a slippery lot. Do they program him? Have we not learned the lesson of

shitty wado and noble king? Tachanka? That's not right. I don't know. You know, what's the, it's called? Ambush, ambush. I'm going to check it. It's Glop Shito. Star Wars. Club Shitto, we got it

If I got it right If I got that king's name right I deserve something I'll give you a gold star I didn't I said to Chonko It's Katunko That's pretty close

That's pretty close That's really close Yeah Quick thing So fun Star Wars things That I had listed Yeah Okay

So we had Cloak of Darkness Asso Katano Dangling off a Catwalk above the lava in the engine room. You got to have a good dangle midway through the fight. Got to have a dangerous plummet.

I loved when she hit the splits on that bitch in the middle of a fight. She did do that, that's true. I wrote that down in my notes. Deb got a bad feeling about this before they went in the fortress. Yeah.

Oh yeah. And then the floor opened and a clone plummeted to his is deaf, like cleverly disguised trap in a palace-type facility. Yeah, the Java's palace one. Yeah, totally. There's a very direct thing, which is the sound Grievous makes as the mask starts to get pulled away from his face. We don't see his face.

That scream is pulled from Revenge of the Sith. Really? It's exactly a scream that Grievous makes in Revenge of the Sith. Wow. Yeah. Does that mean things don't go well for him in Revenge of the Sith? We'll find out. Yeah.

I actually don't know. I don't know. I don't really remember anything. I don't know. I think he and, I like to think that he and Anniken become friends. Like they'd have a lot to talk about after it's all over. It's like,

you know, we're not so different, you and I. Yeah. Sorry to go back to the wire, but it's grievous and Anakin looking over Baltimore Harbor telling stories about when they were younger. Oh,

I wanted to hang out. Me too. Let's write nay you fiction where they do. Yeah, listen On it I would do that right now You're asking We're shit

We already said We're not adding more Patreon tears Support us a patron for a narrative Grievous podcast Also last thing Last Star Wars thing To happen in this

Well besides like Yoda being a piece of shit With an empty turn of phrase Rather than meaningful action But You know that old so close It's so far away trope The door coming up to cut off Vib from Fistow and making it to the Fistow can't get to him when he's going to get cut down.

You know, same way. Or the way Luke had to watch Obi-Wan go down. True, totally. It's the same shit. Baked in at the start is like, oh, no, you're right over there, but I can't help you. I can't get to you. Yeah, totally. And Yuda can't know that Kit Fistow just lived through that and be like, I'm sorry that happened at least.

Like, you have to... Like, that was his Padawan. That wasn't just some randau fucking Padawan that got dumped on him, like Asoka with Luminara. Like, I would have gotten... You're right. I don't know. I would have said at least sorry.

I would have said, sorry for your loss. My condolences to your... You don't want Yoda showing up to the wake. Where it's like... Absolutely not. Bad vibes. Horrible vibes. Just abysmal.

It's really terrible what happened to the kid. You think it's because he was a bad Jedi? Two other quick things that since we've been talking about the War on Terror with regard to these episodes. The first thing is it should not go unremarked upon that grievous is racialized to be Middle Eastern in terms of his name and the appearance. The statues are like very clearly pulled from depictions of kind of historical Crusades era Middle Eastern. scimitar. Yes. Yes. Exactly that. In fact, so he is from a group called the, first of all, he is a Kalish and Kalish is pulling in words and sounds that are, again, associated with kind of Western perspectives on, yeah, exactly. It's also obviously where you get Kalisi in Game of Thrones. It's that same like kind of pool of sounds. His born name is come, is, hmm, hmm, I don't know how to pronounce this, Q-Y-M-A-E-N,

Khome-I-S-L-L, which, again, is extremely that. And it's worth saying this is from kind of the history of the way the Kaleesh were first thought about here. According to Dan Wallace, in his end notes of the Galaxy at War RPG book, the concept of the old republic supplying the Kaleesh with advanced weapons to fight off a threat only to create a new enemy with the Kaleesh. Can you finish the sentence? Rob? What was it analogous to? It was the analogous of arming the natives in Afghanistan, most

notably the Mujahideen during the Soviet invasions of the Afghanistan, only for its successor group of the Taliban along with Al-Qaeda to become hostile towards the United States. Like literally they're so on the face about this. Well, yeah, except that it bugs me, you know what? If you want to loop that in, cool. But like, then you probably want to explore that. Like, don't be like, oh, this is the backstory for Grievous, who otherwise is just this like monster machine. If you want to talk about like, well, yo,

this is all blowback. And I'm not, I don't know to the what degree that stuff was then left

behind, like I don't know what will be left of the caliche in current canon. You know what I mean? And again,

this is the thing that's like so weird about Disney coming in and carving things away just so is that like

you end up with the signifiers, Kalish, and this very Arabic-sounding name, without the grounding underneath it that could have ever justified their usage, but you still make the mental, or viewers will still make that mental connection. I think is Star Wars is never low-key about this shit, and especially if there's all this back sort, like, you know, like, look, they built racist backstory to the Gungens to justify,

having a racist-ass fucking voiceover for it. So it's like it doesn't surprise me at all. So this has been a media episode. There was a lot to dig into. There's a lot of ideas in these three episodes. I think our next episode is probably going to be a little lighter.

I think we're just going to stick to the two episodes. We're going to deal with the Duke who captured arc. Or are we going to Is that it? Yeah, I think that that's... Because what's the one after that? It's Duk who captured the Gungin General. Yeah. The Gungin General.

And then, yeah, then there's another two-partner after that. So next week we should... Next time we should just do these two. Right? Easy work. You know, it took as this long as three episodes. Now, I don't think... I don't think the next four have nearly as much going on as these three.

Or really these last two we've talked about. Yeah. I mean, yeah. These were particularly dense ones. in my opinion I would like to shout out a teen moment I know we talked a lot

about Star Wars moments but I'd like to shout out a teen moment when Asoka arrives to the prison ship or whatever in Cloak of Darkness

in the very beginning she's like finally we're here fuck that like fuck this this is so boring transporting this fucking warlord is so

boring to me. Fuck this. And I just thought that was a cute little teen moment for Asoka to be Yeah, that's good. Just a shitty teen. Yeah. Bored. Yeah. Asoka's a fun character because, like,

you see her play the heavy in the interrogation, and you have to remember that kid's like 16, 15. Like, she's young. So it's very much, like, it's not quite like bring your daughter to work day type of stuff, but at the same time, you're trying to do your interrogation, and the kid is just like, I'll gut you like Rokarian Dirtfish. You're like, whoa, whoa.

Honey, no. I don't know how Master Skywalker does things. But in this house. Yeah. We respect our hostages. So, yeah, so next time we're going to be enjoying a prison break caper featuring strange allies. Boy, after all the character work, though, it's been done

for Duku, I'm not sure it's going to hit as well as they intended. When you have Duku being taken hostage by some buccaneers, I guess is the way. They're, they ain't quite mercenaries, ain't quite just pirates. This is a real dip after

these last ones. I'm not super looking forward to these. We'll see. I don't know. I hope that we, I hope that General Grievous gets his Scotty Pippins sometime in the future I just I want that for him I love that Scotty Pippin is still the reference for the kids

like it's not the like oh it's not I just watched the last dance I watched the last dance last year so now I know about that stuff yeah so we will get through Duku's capture and the Republic's

kind of clunky effort to buy his ransom and bringing this war to a swift close by getting the ringleader into custody. But, you know, we will see how all that goes in a couple weeks. So that is Duku captured

and then, just to be sure, the Gungan General. Right? I don't remember why it's called that. We're watching 11 and 12. The Floram Arc. Yeah. I don't remember where the Gungan General thing comes into play, though. I just don't. We're going to find out.

Can I just read you the final, the final, the final one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, lines of the Gungan General's official description? Yes. Sure. Jar Binks as their only hope. Okay. There we go.

There we go. Well, it'll be an episode. Important fuck jar jar moment. I'm sorry. Just while we're here. Sorry. When C3Bion thinks that he's dead and the first thing that he says is that such a shame, he was such a misfit, is such a roasting.

bird I just want to say it before we we finished You just didn't fit Yeah Star Wars is serious

There's another good one There's another good one Who says I think it's I think Jar Jar is dead And then C3P I think it's then C3PO says Not again

I Yeah I It does I I fucking love it I love it so much Damn

Just roast in that motherfucker Like, fuck Don't forget Before our next regular episode We will be doing a Patreon Q&A And once again You can learn more about

Our Patreon at patreon.com Slash Civilized So check it out Subscribe Send some questions I love when that hits I love when the Patreon It's so funny

We should get some horns We should one more time that's patreon.com slash civilized yeah actually that's going to be our Q&A episode

should just be a morning zoo can we get a yeah we need a soundboard oh my god okay yeah we'll look into it maybe if we get at least

X number of patrons we'll look into getting a soundboard for our Q&A episodes We need to have a stretch limit or whatever the fuck. Stretch goal. Until then, we all have our own presences on the internet. We're like little Force Spirits on Twitter that can sort of look approvingly at, well, actually, that's not necessarily true. You can look approvingly at us.

So it's sort of like you're the Force Ghost and we're like the Jedi, but like cool Jedi. Good ones. good ones like well I'm sure there were some great ones back in the day I just want to shout out really quick Martin on Twitter who just sent us a AMV that they made of R2D2 fighting Goldie set to Tupac's hit them up it's on Twitter that's a great example of how you could connect to us on Twitter and there's your homemade AMVs of droids getting fucked up But then we will be like Force Ghosts because we'll see that excellent post and we'll be like beaming with approval. That's what's happening. I retweeted it, Martin. Thank you for that. That's a gift.

I'm going to retweet that too. I'm going to be like Anakin like CG'd into like later. Right. Ripped it like dropped in after the other. Like old Anakin. Old Anakin's gone. Hot Anakin. Do kids even know old Anakin anymore, the old Anakin ghost?

Oh. If I, does anyone remember, Natalie and Allie, couldn't you pull that to my? mind. No. I don't even know when that happens. At the end of Return of the Jedi, it used to be that Anakin would show up and it was not Hayden Christensen. It was just some dude, right? It was the dude who played Vader, right? Oh, it was the dude who played Vader. Yeah, I think the first time I saw those movies is when there was the theatrical release before the prequels came out. It is kind of weird. Like, why is it baby?

Why, why isn't it? Do you know what I mean? Force Coast Anakin. Obi-Wan's like, ah, my old friend. And Yota's like, oh, man, you're great. It's great to see you again, buddy. Who's a lot of water on the bridge? That's Anakin, because he's an adult.

No, it's not. Because he's a grown-ass man. Then why isn't it baby Obi-Wan hanging out? I don't know. They should have gotten fucking baby Obi-Wan for that, too. Isn't the explanation that, like, the real Anakin died when he, He went to the dark side. And Luke, like, brings him back to the goodness.

Oh, to his unfallen state. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when he returns to his goodness, his ghost gets to be his good self. You're right. Lucas apparently says his inner person would go back to where we left it off. Shut up. Shut the fuck up. Which seems to be after he killed all those Tuscan raiders.

Yeah, like, okay, he still did some shit. he's not Mr. Jedi Perfect, man. I think there's only one thing we can do to save this. We need another edit with Jake Lloyd. You're right. Can we put Jake Lloyd in the Force Ghost trio, please? In his pot. You know what?

My understanding is Jake Lloyd has it's been rough for Jake Lloyd, but we probably can't get contemporary Jake Lloyd at this point. Like, no ill will to the kid, but I'm saying that. toddler Anakin, fuck it. Like if we're going to go back to we need to get to anakin before everything went wrong, it's before the Jedi got. Oh yes. I see what you're saying.

Oh, yeah, we should go all the way back. But I don't know. He kind of gave me like evil kid vibes a little bit, you know. That's just because you know. Have you ever met a kid who just gives you bad vibes? Like, you just give me bad vibes.

Because I've seen The Shining. Well, no. I've seen Clips from The Shining. Have you not seen The Shining? I just watched the Shining. finding like last year. It's pretty good. How was it? Was it good? It's pretty good. Can we end this podcast? Good night.

Chelly Duvall is incredible. I just want to say. She deserves so much. Also a fashion icon. Oh, yeah. Oh, true. How do we feel about Dr. Sleep? I haven't seen it. I need to see that. Follow us on Patreon. World Talk. Patreon.com slash civilized.

We hope you'll join us again. all again for another return I was going to be like hey what are your Twitter accounts fuck it I've been trying to end the show for like 30 minutes at Natalie Watson on Twitter we hope you'll join us again for another return to a more civilized age but until then remember

when you're doing a job for the SIF get that money up front Ha ha ha ha ha ha. I don't know. Thank you. Thank you. Oh!