A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 109: A World Between Worlds, A Fool's Hope, and Family Reunion – and Farewell (Rebels 72 - 74)

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

It took us a little bit longer than we planned, but we've done it: We finished Rebels. And hey, in the process we sort of learned that time is sort of a malleable thing anyway, right? So kick back and enjoy this finale--and this final episode before the Spring of Syril kicks off in earnest. That's right: We're covering Andor Season 2 as it releases, with our new episodes releasing on MONDAY every week from now until the show finishes. We haven't seen any of it yet, but early buzz seems great, and we cannot WAIT to feast. So join us, and make sure to tell your friends to listen too! Next Time: The first three episodes of Andor Season 2! Support the show by going to Patreon.com/civilized! Show Notes https://www.tiktok.com/@patrickhwillems/video/7161835913016773930   Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny) Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson) Produced by Chia Contreras (@a_cado_appears) Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)

Let us return once more to a more civilized age, a Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zakening, joined by Alia Kampora, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. We are, as always, supported by you, our listeners, by patreon.com slash civilized. So head over there. If you'd like to support the show and get access to all our Q&A episodes and other special editions. So this week We've arrived at the end We finished it

We finished it everyone We hit our goals You know you've come to the end One of the episodes we watched Family Reunion and Farewell For now For now Until until tomorrow

Until a later series Until Asoka shows back up With that staff she has Apparently She looked cool She did look cool Is that the staff she had at the beginning in Mandalorian?

I think so. I don't know that I agree she looked cool. Damn. I think to me that costume says Asoka's entered her cop era. Oh, sure. Mind you, could still be a cool cop. Like, in terms of the aesthetic.

That's because. Like, ooh, like got her staff of wisdom. She's in her Gandalf, Gandalf mode. It is very Gandalf coded. We're poisoned by the future. That's the problem. I don't think it would. this cop except she's like slapping that little green fucker around we are so poisoned by the future

i've been thinking that there's a lot in terms of like these episodes specifically have a moment like we at no point we're like what happened to asoka did osoka where'd she go did she live through that fight did she i mean we guess we saw her walk back into that temple at the end of that sequence so i guess we kind of already knew she lived through the fight in retrospect you know what's kind of weird is i don't know how now i don't know how we were meant to interpret that yeah because I mean like oh yeah she's alive she's she got like she didn't leave the temple were we not supposed to parted ways were we not supposed to feel like that because huh I thought it was like she's she had she was descending further or the the the shot that we see is it is it her walking I always get this confused is it her walking away from the temple the original down into it is walking down into it deep Okay, that's what I thought. Yeah.

So, yeah, I thought it was like, and she's hurt, right? She's, like, kind of hobbling. Right, I guess we could have imagined she was going in there to die or something. That's what I think that's. She looks super fit, though, if, you know what I mean? Like, robust to, like, that is not someone who's shuffling off to die deeper into the temple. To me, it was like, she dropped out of school. Mm-hmm.

Now everyone thinks she's dead. Mm-hmm. She's going to squat here. Right. Right. She's going to hang out here for a moment. She's got herself a Sith temple. No one knows.

Yeah. Now she has a cool turtleneck. Maybe it was hanging out in that Sith temple that eventually made her a cop. She was like, maybe there's something else out there besides. She had Iran to some things. Right, exactly. Which reflects, again, the fact that the Sith are such cartoonish villains in Star Wars that, like, she was like, I'll open my, you know, my heart to other perspectives. And the other perspectives were just like, Sidious cackling, you know, reading through history.

of all about ex-Arcoon being a kind of goofball you know what I mean like just going through the history of all the Sith dudes that we now know about and be like Malik was kind of a punk actually I'm not gonna fuck with this issue I'm gonna double down on being a Jedi even though I just said I'm no Jedi who knows it's it's like if so in like class in classics history everyone has like their authors who are like basically dog shit and then guys you basically think are like true and correct and it's like Kevin j. Anderson is our plutarch and like the bear with me the analogy here is plutarch is this like Roman noble who has access to these incredible archives and gets to write all these like propagandistic official histories yeah he's a terrible historian

but he's who's definitely have now exactly we're stuck with plutarch because he was the guy who got tapped to like, you know, let's, let's, let's like, uh, organize some of this history. We lose his sources, but we're stuck with him. Right. And I kind of feel like Kevin J. Anderson is the plutarch of early Jedi history. And then you get like a text like that's a Tacitus. And that is, of course, uh, Duku Jedi lost. Right.

I see. Where it's like my God. Like there's, what a rich tome. If only there were, I am sure there were other volumes that this, that this master created. We just don't have that. They've been lost. In fact, maybe they were lost on purpose, you know. What else did the person who wrote?

We need to, like, do a deep dive into the writer of Duku Jedi Lost. What else did Kaven Scott contribute to the world of Star Wars? Because he... We need to get an interview with, actually, like, this person. We literally need to talk to him. Yes. Maybe that's the same person, because it's like kind of a weird, it's like a radio problem with a novel.

right because it does like we we right because it was a radio it was an audio book first and then there was a transcript available or like a radio play script which i mistakenly bought well you know mistakenly buy it necessarily no i 100% thought that was like the i mean i thought that was dukew jen i lost like a book but it was it was it is just a straight transcript um it looks like kavin or kavin scott i don't know wrote some uh like more um middle grade stuff. I think that Adventures in Wild Space, oh, it's a young reader's book, which I think is the same as middle grade. I'm not 100% sure. And then did do a one of the High Republic like key novels. The High

Republic Rising Storm, which is the second of the major, like, core novels. Charles Sol wrote Light of the Jedi, which was the first of them, and the Rising Storm was the follow-up. And it seems to have also written Path

The Vengeance, which I think is another one of the High Republic novels, but I might be wrong. I love books with titles like that. It's another young reader one, so. Actually, it's a young adult one, so, you know, we could say, could be good. Anyway, but does not seem like, does not seem like, it seems like Duke Who Jedi Lost was like the big swing at primary core character backstory type stuff. What about the Star Wars Adventures comic book miniseries Tales from Vader's Castle written by...

We're really scraping the bottom of the barrel. I'm pretty sure that seems like the sort of place where stories are pointedly not happening. I feel like Vader's Castle is like the less that happens here, there could be big things happening in Vader's Castle. Big, big things. There could be. You're not wrong.

Huge character development. You're not wrong. It could be fun stuff in there. We found a tome in Duku Jedi Lost. Who knows what else there is to find? The pitch for Vader's Castle from Scott is, you know how you get those spooky Halloween stories where a car breaks down and there's a creepy castle on a hill? Well, imagine a spaceship landing on a lava planet and the only place is a castle on a hill.

Vader's Castle in this scenario. Well, he needs friends. That's probably good for him. Vader? Yeah. I guess. This is the dinner party we're all asking for. This is the dinner party we're all asking for.

We are asking for this. We have too much to talk about to do this. We have to get to these episodes. I have worked in a wall. Right. Yes. Can we please, please go back to. We already were like, how do we not talk about it?

I know. No, I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Do we have? Is there Hateration? No, I'm very excited to talk about these three episodes. All right. The last three episodes of Star Wars Rebels.

That's right. We, in fact, already listened to or watched together the first minute of the first one. Can I just say I am so glad we watch that first minute together. Me too. Looking back. Yeah. I also. So glad.

So, Rob, what happens in these episodes? So, Ezra. runs through the wolf portal into the phantom zone a world between worlds which we've apparently fucking seen before and I didn't realize it I didn't the rebels recon was like

hey remember this and I was like I thought nothing of that no it is possible when we saw the space before in the Jedi temple they no sold it a little bit it just kind of seemed like how are you going to depict like force astral projection where like Yoda and Ezra can talk without him being

in Dagoba. To me that seemed like it was just this is how we are depicting Yoda shooting the ship but I guess Yoda didn't do that with Canaan. In some ways isn't that exactly the difference between like Lucas Star Wars and Faloni Star Wars that there can be a space that is abstract and

representative in what we think of when we put the Lucas metric onto a Star Wars versus the Faloni Star Wars where it is a literalized place where Ray and Quigon's voices can both emerge. You know what I mean?

Like, the force as a vast, powerful, ambiguous thing versus the force as a particular set, a power that moves to particular places that have specific capital, you know, pronoun, or not pronoun, Jesus Christ, proper nouns, etc.

Um, God, they're going to yell at me for saying that Faloni added pronouns to Star Wars. They're running pronouns to the force. Anyway, sorry, Rob, I did not mean to interrupt literally in the first sentence, but I couldn't help it. It has become an increasing problem with us doing the summaries, too, because there's so much stuff where it's like, I can't, I can't walk past this. I know. I know. It's hard. I know.

It's hard. Uh, so, yeah, what's wild, though, is he comes in and he's hearing audio samples from all over Star Wars. like it's uncourt like stuff that is like has that even happened yet no ray is in this yeah we hear obiwans like last lines to vader before he dies uh we are yeah like we are we are so clearly hearing things that uh have yet to happen and uh the the whole place is this uh you know null space deep within space and like uh sort of a desaturated rainbow rose situation, little trace outline walkways leading to a variety of portals. And across this episode, through those portals, we are going to realize that they open doors to

possible universes, the past, the future, alternate versions of the past and future, a mystery of the force that I'm not sure this episode or the subsequent one entirely resolves. But either way, this is a place where the events of the Star Wars saga are all sort of happening through these portals. Meanwhile, Sabine is stuck in the history's worst graduate art seminar. I love Minister Varis Heiden, who is... what's the way to put it? More academic than Thrawn, but cut from a similar cloth.

And also does a good job of one of my favorite types of like fascist character that shows up in these things. The fascist who's really sick of like, you have no one to talk to. Yeah. Because all the, all the people surround you are like evil dipshits.

And so the only chance, This is like in Star Trek, the Cardassian who interrogates Picard for days. He's really just doing it because he likes Picard and wants to hang out with him. And it's mentally breaking. But either way, Various Heiden needs help. Again, you have to bear in mind these are fascists. He's sort of Palpatine's researcher in like Jedi Temple art and he can't figure out what these symbols mean. And Sabine shares with him rudimentary interpretation of art, introduces him to the concept of archetype and blows his mind.

But also he's trying to use her to figure out how to open, how to do what Ezra did. How do we interact? We've seen these things throughout the galaxy. It's implied that Palpatine has uncovered a lot of these like doorways. Can't quite access the keys to them. and yet Ezra just has and so he is asking he wants Sabine's help

in doing that meanwhile Ezra walking around looking through portals holy shit that's Asoka facing down Vader in the temple

and he pulls her out of there he gets her out and now because now we see like what we see the other side of the last thing Ezra sees which is the temple Bulls collapsing and her fighting Vader,

the implication is that she did not escape this fight or was not about to escape this fight. But he pulls her out before Vader can administer the coup de grah, and they wander, they wander the world between worlds together. And Ezra has

faces his great, faces his first temptation. Which is that he also comes across through the portable glimpse of of Canaan in his last moments. Does he intervene? Does he not?

He chooses not to. Shortly thereafter, another portal reveals Palpatine. He threw there. He fucking made it. He made it to rebel. All I can say, well, because I think this moment will deserve.

Palpatine attacks and menaces Asoka and Ezra, and they have to split up. up, Asoka dives through her portal, implicitly dives through the portal into where we saw her at the end of that episode where she sort of departs the series. And Ezra makes his own escape again into kind of a strange, like, null space. And this is sort of him saying farewell to Kane and Wolf and the Jedi Temple. Meanwhile, out in the, out in the real world, out in the, you know, out at the dig site, basically, Sabine, Sabine realizes the temple is collapsing. And they have to, they have to make, they have to make an escape. I forget. Now, what else?

There's a bit of Zeb adventuring, right? There's, there's some like infiltration happening in here as well. Karen Zeb are trying to get Sabine out of the graduate art seminar, a.k. interrogation she's in. Yeah, right. And they pick up the entire trailer, which is a good bit. Yeah. And then there's the sort of like, you know, my friends are here already type Sabine. Like, I know what that sound means. I don't remember the exact punchline there, but. Sabine is like, you know, you think you're, you have me captured, but actually, my, you know, my crew is about to show up and kick your ass. And then that happens. Sabine's got great in this episode. I am glad we finally got Sabine getting to talk about art to someone. I definitely think the inclusion of this dude is valuable because they would have never let Thron take the L that this guy takes consistently throughout the whole episode. Do you know what I mean?

Nobody's allowed to be is unimpressed. Yeah, Thron can't look incompetent. Yeah, like, Thron can't look like, can't seem like he, that the analysis is eluding him. His whole thing is analysis. Yeah. So it's nice to have someone for Sabine to bounce off of that she can kind of flex her, her character skills.

Yeah. But yeah, as Ezra makes his escape, he closes the portal by sort of entreating the art of the Mortis family to shut the door and that triggers a temple

collapse that very poltergeist the entire temples sucked into a black hole basically and only the little manhole cover thing that sort of announced the location of the Jedi Temple

when they first found it that's kind of all the remains. And then the white loathe wolf, you know, disappears into the ether. Bycane. And that's it. We'll never see those wolves again. Right?

Yep. They've served their narrative purpose. Yeah, they definitely won't show back up. No. Immediately. Yeah. And also, remember, they were like, we don't want Ezra's like Dr. Doolittle abilities be like a big thing.

I forgot about that. We're not trying to imply that, like, Ezra talking the animals is, like, a huge whole, like, thing. Yeah, I don't like that. So, anyway, I have a pin in that. No superpowers, yeah. It's very funny. It's fine. And that's the thing is, like, it was always fine for Ezra to have animal talk.

That's fine. It's fine. Of course. And he does. Let him have a Jedi superpowers. So many Jedi have superpowers. Let, literally so many Jedi have superpowers. One of the other things that comes up in these are.

We're not going to listen to the rebels recons for these episodes because they're just so long. And, like, I don't want to play 14 uninterrupted minutes of Disney content and get this episode, you know, Death Star. Testing our limits. Yeah, exactly. But, nevertheless, it is, it is, you know, it is a thing that in one of these rebels recons, someone explicitly says, you know, all the Jedi have different special powers, basically. And with Ezra, it's animals. The convergence of Jedi and X-Men is truly gathering force. Yeah, I guess.

So the Rebels Recon also reveals, again, this is sort of a, to the point you alluded to, Austin. This is kind of a, let's explain what this is. And it's funny because Faloni kind of, And Pheloni kind of points the finger at Lucas. But he doesn't. Okay. I'm going to read the Flotny quote. Yeah.

Okay. Andy Gutierrez, who's great, who's hosted all of Rebels recon, says, can you give us some insight on the mortis gods for those who need a refresher? This Rebels recon is about this episode and the previous episode. We know that those two are kind of, they came out in the same day. There are a linked pair of episodes, but just in terms of how much we had to watch for this one episode already. And given our timeline with Andor coming up, we had to. split like this. Dave says, the mortis gods were a concept created by George when we worked on the Clone Wars. Uh, and he had us do this arc that basically dealt with Anakin being tested

by these force wielders, as George called them, to see if he were the, if he was this prophesized chosen one, which seemed to be a common prophecy among many different force wielding groups. And they were the first creation by George of somebody other than a Jedi or a Sith that could wield the force and do it on an almost godlike level. So I'd been working on somewhat on, I'd been working somewhat on a history of what they are really and where could they have come from and what all that meant back when we did Clone Wars. And then I resurrected it here in Rebels to tie the things a bit together and make certain

storylines possible. So yes, Rob, he tries to say the Mortis family, the mortis gods, as they are commonly, as Andy calls them, right, are a George thing. And they are. But in Dave's own words, what George was, what George made was a test for Anakin Skywalker, another set of force users in the world. Are they gods? Are they not? They have godlike power, at least on mortis. But they, you know, there's a sort of parable like quality to them. There's a sort of like a tale inside of a vast saga of tales in which the prophesied one comes to a test, right? And will they pass the test? That's the sort of George version, as given to us by Dave here. And then Dave says, I want to

explain where they come from. I want to give the history of who they really are. I want to tie things together. And to me, this is aligned also with a later thing Dave says, which is even longer. Dave says, I always have several small goals, presumably while making the show. And one of the things I wanted to do was find a way to tie together all of the Star Wars films and animated series in one place so that people get this idea that it's all a connected thing, that they're not separate from each other, that they are inclusive of one another. And I believe that Star Wars has this grandeur to it. I believe the Force has this infinite space to it.

So I started seating in season one this idea of a place where there are. stars. When Ezra's in the Jedi Temple, and he gets his lightsaber crystal, he's in the world between worlds. He just doesn't know it yet because he's too naive and he's not fully unlocked. The next time he's there with Yoda, and Yoda obviously knows about it because Yoda is talking to him through this some kind of conveyance where they can both exist in the same place, but they probably aren't very far from where they are physically. It doesn't have anything to do with the physical. It has to do with kind of where they believe they are and where they are mentally. So finally, when he unlocks all the secrets, he can go into this place and have more

of an awareness of what's actually going on. And this is when the full world has revealed, has been revealed to him. And then he knows also that evil wants it, because things like that, that are too good to be true, evil always wants those things to destroy them or use them for ill purposes. So, like, this is the philony vision of Star Wars in a real way, right? It's like, the mortis gods aren't just force users who are testing Anakin. They are gods. They are beings who are important to the history of the force in some way. They need to have an explicit history. They can't just be mythological figures on an island that Odysseus runs into. Do you know what I mean? They can't just be one blink in the, or, you know, one node in the story of the Skywalker's.

They have to have some sort of larger mythopoetic importance, a kind of, maybe mythopoetic is actually in some ways the wrong word. They have to have a franchise importance. They have an IP importance here. And likewise, the world between worlds has to be a place where, by Dave's words, everything in Star Wars is connected. But it's like, Dave, everything in Star Wars is already connected. It's Star Wars. I don't need. I don't need the mythical, I don't need the black and white space world that ties together, Asoka being fighting Darth Vader with, you know, Ben Kenobi fighting Darth Vader. Right, with Ray Skywalker. Which is, those connections already exist. It's called the Skywalk.

walker saga um but i do think that there is i think this is like a i don't need it i know lots of people like it i do think that this is like one of hearing dave say that was like clicking a puzzle and puzzle piece into place for me and make oh this is how you see this stuff i don't see the stuff this way this explains some of the friction i have with the feloniverse but it also explains in some ways there's stuff in here in these in these in these rebels recon i'm like this is why you're the fucking goat there's a bit where we're later on he talks about like someone else says Faloni never let me put any blue sky into the Lothal skybox ever until the very last episode where the imperial sphere takes off into space, we'll get there later.

And it's like, yeah, that fucking kicks ass. That comes from understanding how to tell a story visually and like all of the power of color and the power of everything in your disposal is a storyteller. That stuff rules. But I just, I didn't need the space bridge necessarily to understand that Ray, Quigon, and Obi-Wan, we're all in the same sort of world as Ezra, and part of the same grand story as Ezra. Star Wars is already grand.

It doesn't need, I don't know, I'm not trying to rant on this. This is not what my intention was. No, but it clicks so much into place for me. It almost like commemorates the Disneyfication of Star Wars to me. Like, that's what it feels. It feels like a celebration of the Disney LucasArts merger. Because it feels like it's, it's, yes, this is, you know, we have all of, all of these worlds together and they're all in one place and they're all accessible by this, by the core thing that was the, was the, you know, the initial gem all along, the idea of the force, the thing that unites everything. Yeah, Smash Brothers, everyone is here, you know.

Exactly. Also, quite literally is the, like, why are we in Fortin? in here. Like, I don't need to be, I don't need all of the, all of the characters here in one place to know that there is something beyond ourselves that connects all of them. Like, I, I really like what, I really like what Pablo says about Mortis, which is right after when Dave talks about the, this being the first creation. by George of somebody other than a Jedi, Jedi or the Sith that can wield the force. I love that in the same sentence he calls the Mortis gods force wielders and then gods

and then describes their wielding the force to an almost godlike level. Like you can just feel him like towing the line between are they gods, are they force wielders, etc. But anyway, Pablo says the thing about Mortis is the notion that, the force can take you places. Yeah. The force is basically deeper and more powerful than anyone can ever imagine. And I love that follow-up.

Like, I love that coming immediately after Dave talking about force wielding, literally using the force. And then Pablo immediately saying, actually, like, people using the force, Jedi, Sith, that is like the very surface level of what the force. actually is, and it's more powerful than anyone can ever imagine. I feel like that gets at what the force is in my brain. Like, I really feel like... The most exciting version of it for me is the version that is a little more ambiguous, that it can take you places, question mark, what places? I don't know, including strange places. And I should say, actually,

watching this episode, I was frustrated by the idea that, like, everything is in there. But I will say, Like, we did not, there's a different version in this episode that could have existed where Ezra is looking through every portal and seeing young Luke Skywalker, seeing the Death Star blow up, is seeing, and like, at least it's just restrained to voices in the, in his ears. That's a good point. Like, the episode is more restrained than if you're just hearing this, you might think it is. You know, he gets to Asoka pretty quick. The Asoka stuff, you know, they see the Canaan stuff, which is tied to this episode.

We don't even get any like Asoka looking in and seeing stuff from Clone Wars. Do you know what I mean? Which I think would have also been perfectly fine. But I do just think that it's a great, you know, sort of, it's emblematic of a broader approach that has been frustrating. Yeah. Rob. I think the thing that bombs me out here a little bit is also just when the Pergill first jump in the hyperspace, when the wool. lead them through the planet.

Yeah. Ooh, mysterious. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, mysterious. Like, there are things, again, I like stories where, like,

there's certain things just outside your understanding that, like, in the, especially in the realm of the natural, in the realm of the animal, like, there's things that just, like,

making intuitive sense to them that's, like, no idea how or why that happened, but, like, you have this moment of, like, you know, grace, understanding and, like, seeing these other understandings and reality.

and to have the and the punchline that being a depiction of all right so it's kind of a highway they've built through space and time and it's sort of a space goganheim situation and star wars history is the exhibits you can walk around and stare at is just kind of I think for me this episode falls kind of flat I think part of it is just I don't think that space is super interesting I don't think the I don't think this temptation of Ezra is particularly compelling and I really don't think Palpatine

trying to kill you through a Zoom call with blue fire yeah it's a weird thing where it's like the cartoon version of when he said their fucking Palpatine. When they said...

Okay. Yeah. And then for Dave in the Rebels Recon to say, to say there's a point in the Rebels Recon where they're talking about working with Ian McDermott who does the voice in this episode. And Dave says to hear Ian say Asokatano and Ezra Bridger, he's like, that's, you know, it's what it's all about, basically. You're like, that's, that's what, that's what I do this for.

And I'm just like, this is the meme. This is the meme. This is, oh, yeah, as for Bridger, there were. Like, this is like, a double jump he could do. Yeah, yeah, it literally is. Yes. Well, it's also a bit of like, Dave Filoni, like, you changed my life meme. Yes.

And Ian McDarmid being like, yeah, so here's my day rate. Yeah. What lines do you want me to say? Yeah, for me, it was a Tuesday. Truly. Yep. I get it. Like, if I, if I invented characters, and I was a fan of Star Wars as a kid, I get to work at Star Wars HQ, I get to make a Star Wars show, I get to make characters, and then I get to hear, you know, someone so, you know, prolific to that franchise.

Yeah. I can, like, I can, I can totally, you know, give him that. Yeah. We do have to acknowledge that, like, Rebels Recon is a product that is sort of like aimed at fans who are going to be as deeply like, ooh, I got goosebumps when. And so they're going to lean in that, like, we feel the same way. Like, they're going to play up the degree to which, holy shit, we actually got like Palpatine to be in this.

100%. And now, like, he's interacting with our story isn't this cool. Yeah. And I don't think these, these people are not as a starstruck as they. they come across in Rebels Recon. But it is just funny when you hear those moments. And then the episode itself, I think is kind of, no, I do think, when in the episode we're in discuss in a few minutes.

Yeah, that whole shit kicks ass. I think he has a great fucking scene. Yeah, we'll come to that. You know, I think it's, I will say while watching these and watching the Rebels recons about all these episodes, I did feel a little like twinge of my heart when I thought about the old Faloni zones, which were cheap DVD featureettes where they got Dave into a fucking booth and made him talk about the episodes for, you know, three minutes each episode or whatever.

And he said, remember the old Filoni zones that we used to go to? And that represented a way different budgetary level of what the whole product package was, but also how the show was being thought about. Pre-Disney acquisition, you know, one of the last things keeping the lights and Star Wars on when Clone Wars begins, you know, or especially by the time Clone Wars gets acquired by Disney, you know, or when Star Wars gets acquired by Disney, Clone Wars is like carrying a pretty heavy load by itself, you know, along with a handful of other things.

And at this point, the question of whether their canonicity, you know, is way up in the air. And so, like, there is a real, the team, I get why if you had made Asoka back in the mid-2000s, late 2000s, and now she's like a cornerstone of contemporary Star Wars, you might feel some sort of way about Ian McDermott saying her name and like, wow, look, my character. So I do get it from that might think about it that way. But it again actually aligns with the way that Dave talks about the sort of unifying the franchise materially in the story.

It's like, I don't know, I didn't need Palpatine to say Asoka for me to think Asoka is cool. Asoka's cool because Asoka is cool. Asoka was always cool, you know, like James from Twin Peaks. We don't need the literal connection of the dots between these characters for it to be interesting. And again, we will get there. The next episode has some Palpatine stuff that I think is great, but it is just not quite there. And Rob, to your other point, so I don't want to forget this, the thing that I kept thinking about while looking at the world between worlds, this kind of highway between different portals and stuff is like, so are the doors always human-sized? Are they wookie-sized ever?

Are they perjal-sized? Did someone build this place? Does it, does it, because the second that you put human-sized, human-scale stuff, you have to say, oh, did someone shape it this way? Did the mortis gods make this? Does the force do this by itself? Or is this a crafted place? And I don't, I never thought that about the cave on Dagabaa, right?

I never thought, even when reading the old Republic comics that we read and reading about places like Yavin IV, where X-Arcon goes to, you know, try to make it his base of operations, and then we know from in the EU, Luke ends up having a great conference, great, a major confrontation there with the spirit of X-R-Kod. All that stuff feels nebulous and dangerous because even if we know the particular history, we never think of these force-touched places as mechanical or structured. It's like evil has seeped into them. Remember when I read that fact about how the Jedi Temple was built on like an ancient Sith burial ground or whatever?

And it's like, oh, yeah, all the fucking evil of the Sith that lingers in this place has kind of cursed the Jedi Temple. That's fun. I don't need like, I don't want to see that there's a button you could hit in the interface that gives you the overlay of the Sith evil energy. You know what I mean? And that's sort of what the World Between Worlds feels like. It feels like we were playing the grand strategy game. you could hit the world between worlds button to see the fast travel map, you know what I mean, or whatever. And that's like, I like the force when it's creepy cave on Dagaba.

I like the force when it's an urge you get to go save your friends or a temptation to destroy everything. I like the force when it's an old ruin. I like that Jedda has strange vibes because it's tied deeply to the history of the Jedi. But I don't necessarily need it to be person-shaped. you know, uh, aura highway in some other astral plane. And I,

and I, this is just, we want different things, me and Dave Faloni. And that's fine. Dave Faloni has the keys, you know, and people love it,

you know, in those Faloni zones or in those rebels rebe rebel recons. There's some like fan fest type footage. And like, those folks fucking eat this up. There is an audience. There is a real diehard group for whom this sort of storytelling really works. So like,

I'm not saying I'm going to shut my mouth about it, but I just, it is 100% like, this brought into clarity where the friction is for me in some of the contemporary Star Wars specifically contemporary Philoniverse stuff which I, we say Faloniverse

we know a bunch of people work on it that isn't Dave but you know that sort of you know comes through all these stuff and it's it can be tiring sometimes I think in the Rebels Recon there's something that Taylor Gray

as Bridger's voice actor says as an aside I think he's asked like did you did Dave brief you on the world between worlds like did he give you kind of like the overview of what's what that's about and uh Taylor says uh the world between worlds was pretty clear it was way way more clear than those loath wolves basically like I got the world between worlds had no idea what the fuck was going on with the with the loath wolves which Like when I heard that moment, I was like, that perfectly encapsulates my problem with this, which is the fact that the world between worlds, probably the most, like the deepest and most

powerful manifestation of the force that I could imagine, literally manipulating fate and destiny and time and et cetera, is quote unquote clear. It's direct. It's very, you know, obvious in kind of what it's portraying and what it's manifesting itself to be, whereas the loath wolves, these just force-sensitive creatures are the ambiguous ones? Like, to me, it's like, it's almost like where, if the force is an ambiguous, you know, hard to conceive of, impossible to fully know thing, it's just there is a tension there for me that there's so much directness in this like deepest manifestation of it. And then the loath wolves have that I like the ambiguity. Like I love that the loath wolves for this season have this ambiguity around

their intention. Who do they serve? Like they serve. We've, we come to understand. they serve lethal, but like do they have like kind of like evil vibe, you know, dark side? Is Canaan one of them or is Canaan's will just? Yeah, we still have questions about them. Exactly. I love that. I think that should be. Yes, exactly. I think that is what makes it cool and like fun to think about and to think about how the force can manifest and be, again, wielded in all these different ways. we'll get to the next time they come back, which I feel like walks back a lot of what's really cool about the Loth Wolves. But yeah. What a really nice thing about the world between worlds while also docking on another one of our favorite complaining targets?

I'll say this, it doesn't look like anything else in Star Wars. And I contrast that with the sequels where I always complain about how there aren't like super distinct cool plays. that we all remember forever in the way that we do. And I'm not saying that this is necessarily, we've just gone over why I don't think it hits necessarily. But I will say I'd rather the version of this, if I could have this or they wind up on Tatooine again

or they wind up on Tatooine 3 and it's just another sand planet, like I'm rather than take the swing and me kind of missed for me than it just being a redo of original trilogy or prequel stuff again. Yeah, I think something, when, when Filonius talking about wanting to tie everything together and, like, have it all, I was like, boy, is that decision going to be more questionable once you see how the whole sequel trilogy wraps up? It was like, whoa, we're really wrapping our arms around that, around that sequel timeline, huh? We're, don't worry, it's all going to hook back in. And I'm like, I don't know. Okay, it does give us.

It does give us an out. Gives us our out. We joked about this last time. Who is it that we talked about? Oh, my God. We talked about we're going to pull Cassian out with the wolves.

But he does it with Osoka. He does with the Sok instead. If he just turned left, he would have been like, I don't know who those two are, but they have incredible aura. I got to save them. Pulls them through.

It's like, oh, shit, that wasn't aura. That was a super laser. That was a super laser. Oh, but then, Cassian is like, I'll have to go through another one of these doors.

And it's just him getting back to Farix at the beginning of Andor he's just trapped in a fucking loop forever. Oh, my. beginning of Andor and the end of Rogue One and, uh, and, uh, what's her face gets away. I forget what is her name, uh, Jin, Jin or so. It's like, I'm just going to lay low and ends up again, going to the beginning of Rogue One.

It's great, simple, easy. King Ian. So, well, other things like, how does this whole space work? Ezra's only got one chance to maybe change the past, like these things are just the, the, the, the tape starts playing at a moment that is relevant to Ezra, but then once it plays past that moment, like sorry you missed your chance yeah kind of weird like what's going on with these portals the port the point being there the one there is the one with uh canaan blocking the big explosion right that's just his first major temptation and hypocrite asocatano being like no

Ezra you couldn't you couldn't save him uh you it would mean it would it would mean undoing his sacrifice and everything he fought for and it's like the why don't you get back in your portal okay how about you let me figure out how to get my dad out of this piece of shit and you go back in your portal since you're so cool with how with how things turned out oh you know it's it's different because you know canaan died it was a sacrifice so it made it possible for everybody to can't help it's now engineered to make it so you can't pull me through the porch that's the real thing is like sorry the quicks saves in a bad place yeah it's a quick save in a bad place you're right that is fair but uh so

going into the temple is her trying to save her master ultimately. To begin with you mean. Or do you mean at the... Yeah, to begin with. Right. Yes. And so but I guess it wasn't her choice to realize that she couldn't save him. Well, right. That's the thing. Right. Exactly. Exactly.

For her. He couldn't be saved from his moral destiny choices. is it that is it that she's going back in the temple and like she actually got and ored and got reset to the beginning yeah that she that is correct she goes back to season two when she leaves the portal she is back in season two and then it has to live the time through the she's the first person canonically to see as a post haircut right she goes back in time and is like my my mental She's going back in. Yeah. I don't know what she's doing. Where Darth Vader is waiting for her. We have no idea.

Maybe eventually we'll get another fight between them or something. Maybe in Asoka we get a flashback to her going back in the temple. I wonder if somehow Clone Wars is going to touch on that? Oh, it could. Oh, my God. It totally could, right? It could. Wait, isn't there, yeah, there's something that we haven't seen, right?

Like, there's, there's, like, something major that we have it. I mean, obviously, all. There's Clone War stuff. The Clone War stuff that I know is actually not that, like, big twisty. Maybe there's stuff that I don't know about. I think it's just a season of Clone Wars that's, like, about the lead into Revenge of the Sith, you know? Right, right. Or it happens, like, kind of, it happens sort of along the same line or along the same timeline as Revenue of the Sith.

I'm super excited for it. I'm like, I can't believe we're going back. I'm like, cannot fucking wait to go back. I'm so hype for it. But, yeah. But there is stuff around, like, Tales of the Empire, Tales of the Jedi, I think there might be stuff.

And then, because there's the Tales of the Jedi Asoka backstory stuff, that that could theoretically touch it. Or she's Baby Asoka. Or she's Baby Asoka. And then there's the Tales of the Jedi or Tales the Empire thing with Barris Offey. We don't know what's up with that. There's a Tales of the Empire thing. I think it's Empire that has another character who I think is an Asoka character,

which is why we haven't watched that yet. So much to consider. I did get, I did get, um, I did get affected by Asoka saying, you can't save your master and I can't save mine. I'm asking you to look down. Like it did in the moment, it did hit for me. I was thinking of her and Anakin.

I, but I do think there was a little bit of a, of a leap there from her fighting Anakin. Like we, we skipped a couple scenes perhaps of, between her fighting. Darth Vader in the temple as we're pulling her out because he just saw that she was gonna get got like it wasn't even like he was like no you can't save him he's like oh your ass is getting beat

like I need to pull you out of there and then in that walk across the highway it you know I yeah I'm curious I guess she's like I guess the reason why you pulled me out is so that I could teach you this final lesson that I'm now learning for myself.

Obviously, I can't live that lesson full. Well, no, you're right. She can't save her master. Yeah. But the past can be changed. That's cool. Just don't think you can save your master when, like, that book is done and dusted. I guess.

Well, what does that mean? If she goes back, does that change the timeline? Because it's clear she didn't, like, go back in time and then become fulcrum again. It's like she survived. Back in time and is hurt. She doesn't... And so she's carrying her... Yes.

Her current self. Well, to be clear, she doesn't go back in time at all. Because the world between worlds is not in the time of season four of Rebels. It's in all times everywhere forever. For her, she went through a weird magic door and then popped out the magic door seemingly in exactly the amount of time it took her to go in the door and then walk around to the other side of the temple. Do you know what I mean?

But she's carrying her... her present self into a moment that she's already experienced. That's not true. But she's hurt. Right, right, right. But she doesn't go back in, right, because the final shot that we see in season two of her of rebels is after that fight. She has those wounds.

She doesn't go before the Vader fight. She goes after, she goes to exactly where we see her after all that stuff. I see. So that's how she got out and is going back in. That is correct. I remember when we watched that, we were like, wait, how is she outside the temple? That is right. And is going back in.

I see. Okay. So we actually are seeing the timeline that has, has, as we're pulling her out of the thing, out of the confrontation with Vader. Right. Because we also got to see her walking back in at the end of season two. If she didn't go anywhere in time, she went the normal amount of distance in time. She, like, teleported outside. She basically teleported outside.

That's exactly right. Yes. Yeah, okay. Yes. Okay. It is going back in. Which is also, think about it this way. It's also what Ezra does here.

He goes into the place, and then eventually when he leaves, he just goes back to where he was in the right time and timeline. He doesn't even come out like three seconds later or something. He comes out exactly one episode after he went in. Right, right, right. Imagine how sick it would have been if the portal showed him the interior of that ATAT, where Governor Price is up to him to fire on the tank. And just like, you. Yeah. What if he'd come back?

back and like and I got us the ally we needed and he had Minister Tua and he'd saved her from there we go this is the other reason both all needs a true patriot that's right this is the other reason why draft Tua the world between worlds exists is to enable fanfic writers to come up with sick what ifs you know totally everyone's always asking like what if minister Tua live this is the only great what if of Star Wars um I have a question. Yeah. What alien language do we think Palpatine was speaking when it was subtitled.

Allie, do you have thoughts about this? No, I just have mad about it. Well, I don't know. It's not like there's like some language that's like inherit to the force or like. Is he speaking ancient Sith? Is he speaking? Yeah, maybe. Is he speaking night witch language?

Night sister language. Oh man. What if Sith believe in speaking in tongues? I'm glad you just keep getting cringier The Sith spirit's just upon me Uh-huh Okay Prosperity Gospel Sith

Yep It's here Yeah it's so It's so funny that he's like It's like Palpatine speaking in alien languages And it's like ah I guess that That's I get

I like it when a Sith speaks in alien languages I hadn't just crossed that bridge With Palpatine yet And it gives us a vision of Palpatine That's kind of in line With pop cultural understandings of the Nazis who are into supernatural shit, right? Like, it's, it's that style of occultist fascism.

Yes. Palpatine is one of those. He's, you know, we know he has that big mural on his wall, for instance. Okay. According to some guy on Reddit a year ago, they say that they, this literally translates. I don't know what they mean. But they say that it's blackest born flung spears. Black is born flung spears, integrating the Shadow Jedi,

integrating the Shadow Jedi, according to what their understanding of what the Sith language Balkis. Okay. I don't trust it. If he was like speaking Klingon, I'm like, yeah, that's a language. Is it Urquit? I don't show Star Wars to have.

No, it's fiery. Sorry, the name of this thing, according to Wikipedia. In fact, this article is nominated to be highlighted as a, quote, good article, it's called fiery energy. A dark side force user could unleash quote fiery, or bold, fiery energy to attack their enemies. The Sistler

Darth Sidius could use this power, which is created through Sith alchemy. Yeah, that's the other thing is that he has a little burning sterno thing. Yeah, the visual of him like

throwing flames at them that is like, expanding eternally and also has like some sort of like physical force whip thing that can hold Ezra back and then I I think I put in my know I forgot about that but I think I put in my notes like I have to have a talk with a person who decided to visualize their force push with like a white light in their hands as they're like pushing the flames back was really frustrating for me as somebody who has seen the force push happen again and again again again

again. They never have any sort of Dragon Ball Z energy in their hands when they do it. So could suddenly knows Kamehamea Mea and is just using it. Like what do we I also like

it's just it's tough to stage a thing like this because like literally it's the portal opens Palpatine whips his chafing dish out of sight and then like conjures the sterno canister into like never-ending fire. But crucially, it is literally like he's trying to kill you through a monitor. It's like he's, it's like a conference call. Yeah. Just try to kill. Now, maybe we should turn it around, say, as with crypto, like this animation team was anticipating horrors that hadn't happened yet. Like that, uh, the, the, the, the,

the, the, your greatest enemy would appear to you in a virtual conference setting. Uh, and inflict psychic arm on you. Like maybe they were, maybe, maybe they were cooking. But nevertheless, it's tough to stage this in a way that's, like, compelling where he's like, I'm going to try to kill you from this TV screen. And then they sort of run around this, they run down a little track and the fire chases them and then they leave. That does happen exactly like that.

Okay, I have to say one more nice thing about the world between worlds. Yeah. It's really funny in the Rebels Recon, where it's, when Andy meets Pablo there and all is Pablo being like, hey Andy, hey Andy, as the, like in the voices in the world between worlds. Also, Pablo's wild facial hair kicks ass in that in these episodes of Robles Recon. Biker Pablo. Biker Pablo has arrived. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I dig it. And like, the flat cap, no, it's, it's fantastic. It's weird. I, like, I was always charmed by Rebels recon, but the final run of them actually did, like, sort of hit me in the heart. It's like, it has good one-up show vibes. It really does have a fun of show vibes. It really does have a cool, like, documentary team making, like, a lighthearted comedy show about their workplace. Yep.

But also about the primary creative work they're doing is kind of cool. I was reminiscing about the one-up show, not three weeks ago, Rob, and fell down a path of rewatching some of those episodes. And we didn't know how good we had it in that, in that little era of the internet. Neither did Zip. Neither did Zip. Like, again, the one-up show, like, one-up basically figured out where the internet was headed. Yeah. Just a few years too early.

Yeah. And, but yeah, the entire podcast's short and long-form video content, it was all there. True. And it really talented staff to do it with. But, yeah. Is there anything else this episode that we want to hit? I'm looking at my notes. It just cracks me up when, uh, suburb.

Bean has to introduce the scientist to the concept of like symbolism like it is the most it is the most like right wing influencer type moment of like what does this mean and it's like it's an archetype

bro it's like this is a real person right no no dude it's so that symbol implies certain things like carrier of value and meaning what no what's the I like this is so And ironically, kind of a send-up of Star Wars and the impulse behind some of like Wikipedia's lowest moments of like, what does this mean? And it's like, well, there has to be a literal answer, right? And it's like, no, it's fucking metaphor, bro. But fandom in a lot of ways doesn't deal with that. It's it is like, no, this has to be like concrete and fit into a timeline basically that we can sort of pin down. And not just a symbol.

Uh, two other little things. Um, there's some really great soundtrack work here. Um, I don't know if we're at the point yet where, so, so the, the music for Clone Wars, I believe Clone Wars was mostly done by Kevin Kiner. Uh, but then, uh, Kiner's two kids, uh, Deanna and Sean Kiner end up doing music for, uh, bad batch, I think Clone War season seven. And I think rebels. And I don't know if it's already happened here. or not, but there's just like, all throughout this whole show, I have really loved any time the soundtrack has gotten to be a little more exploratory, you know. There's some really fun piano triplets being played, I think, during the portal's closing here. So there's a documentary on the who is there about Kevin Kiner. Interesting. Frustratingly, as they're talking about like the important work he's doing, like trying to give it its own musical identity and all that. Yeah. they used the John William soundtrack to backdrop the entire.

So they're talking about his score and then it's like John Malame is playing in the background, which is kind of frustrating. But yeah, like they do like have interviews with him and discuss, in particular for this final season as they're trying to create sort of a series of motifs for this final season to really carve out its own identity. But every time Rebels does step forward. forward as having a distinctive musical identity, like the music is what makes the passage to

Lassan, like absolutely just like takeoff. Like the animation and art is great. But like the music is like we are just going to hit a different gear at this moment. And it's going to feel you're going to feel it in your chest, even though a lot of what's happening is kind of silly. Doesn't matter. The music makes it. Like when you see, when you see Agent Callis sort of go slackjot and awe. You feel that because the music is evoking that as well. I wish everyone, this is the first time and a long time I've wished we were a video podcast because of how the rest of us, we're all just, we're all just sitting on the biggest new thing to talk about. We can't talk about it yet today. We'll get there. Can't talk about it. Can't talk about it quite yet. One last thing

about this episode, I think it looks so sick when they, when Ezra comes out and wakes up and is in the kind of wild, you know, horizon mist seeing the Jedi Temple being gone. And it's just like walking around a mat painting of like the sunset and the fog. And to me, this is what the world between worlds could have made me look like. I think this looks so good. This looks so. And it's playing in that space of ambiguity of like, okay, well, the, the Jedi Temple's gone. But like this isn't what Lothal looked like ever before.

Still feels like you're in a dream. You're in a dream. there. Exactly. Exactly. It's the end of the Wizard of Oz, but you're not out of Oz fully. Exactly. I love the way this looks. This is so good. And, you know, I'm glad we didn't get, I'm glad that this didn't turn out to be like a special Jedi space or like a force war. You know what I mean? Like, it's just a sort of, it's almost impressionistic, not in the particular art school, but in the broader idea of you can communicate something about emotional truth through non-direct representational art, you know, like it's, this is where he's at coming out of that temple. It's communicated through

the environmental art. We don't need him to explicitly go into that. We can just kind of see it and feel it as he's walking through. You know, the other thing that reminds me of is actually the lighting that we get when Asoka leaves the Jedi Temple. And we have that same similar, the golden light, the dark blue walking into the sunset, except he's walking towards us instead of away from us because he's returning to us, right? And so it's good. last thing I want to shout out I am always happy to see a fish called Wanda reference which is of course what they are quoting

when Chopper attempts to mow down all those stormtroopers with a drill steamroller this is obviously a reference back to sort of the slow-mo slaughter of Kevin Klein in a fish called Wanda that of course like looms large in popular imagination of course he could be though that's the type of thing that if you're working

going to show like this you might sneak in you never know mm-hmm you just to me i'm like that's probably that's probably you know what yeah just like fly away home you know with a reference everyone loved by the way everyone all all y'all hear like shut the fuck up you watch some more and our adoring fans are like what a great movie of course this of course of course that's what uh rebels was pulling that's right yeah is it time to move move on to the next episodes let's do it a fool's hope yeah

guess who just got back today get who just got back today the pure elation that I had seen sorry I would have to do this again because I wasn't recording my local audio one second Cato

when everyone went quiet it's because I did this guess who just got back today get who just got back today There we go By God, that's Ketsu Anyo music Allie, please continue what you're saying The fucking elation that I had when it was like Rex is back

And we're back with the team And then immediately Honda arrives as well And then Katsu was there It's like, did you earn getting the gang back together? The gang is back together I literally, I literally My first three notes are in all caps goes to Jupa B's

1,000 exclamation marks and then next line Honda, what the hell are you doing here and then the next line in all caps, girl you're back too Two things One, did anyone notice

Maybe not I don't know that we've talked about this before Did anyone notice that Rex is in his return of the Jedi outfit No. Okay.

So, so there's a, there is a fan-like belief, and I don't necessarily, I don't know where it stands in canon at this point. But there's a guy in the return of the Jedi crew who looks sort of like Rex. I will post a picture of him here. Let's analyze this. And then here is how, this is the two of them standing next to each other. He's in the fucking, that's the uniform. That's the return of the Jedi uniform. Huh.

Yeah. It's close. Oh, yes. I'm close. I'm seeing sleeves. Yeah, I'm seeing sleeves. Yeah, sure, but you get what they're doing here. More of an off white undershirt.

You get what they're doing here. And in fact, and in fact, and in fact, I've just found confirmation in this, in this Instagram post of D. Bradley Baker. Oh, my God. From this children's book that says years later, Rex and other. clones join the rebellion to fight the empire. That's a real simplification of what I think happened. I think Rex and other clones.

Other clones is doing a lot of work, I suspect. I guess we'll find out. Oh, wow. Anyway. I mean, the beard is pretty damning. Yeah, it's pretty straight up, right? Now, here's the other thing that I wrote, and I have to say this. I think this is a long way coming for me.

I teared up when Hondo said no madam for that boy there is nothing I would not do he got me after all I hate him so much I've hated him for so many years but the way he dropped it he dropped everything to be like listen I'm serious

serious uncle mode I would give my life for Ezra it got me I'm not above melodrama I'm not above it. I rolled my eyes at it a bit, but MK was also like, I don't know. That feels like he's been sending us up for a while, though. Like, Ezra and Honda do have, like, kind of a special connection.

They do. And, like, Ezra pulls something out of Hondo, and I was like, I don't. I'm with MK. Shoutouts. Am I the last hater left standing? I'm still a hater, but in this moment, he got me. And I'm going to give him the dub. I'm going to give them the dub for this one thing.

He was great in this. this series of episodes. That's what I'm saying. If ever there's been a good Honda arc, he's pretty good in this. Quick, just quick summary here. So yeah, they need to put the gang together to liberate Lothal

and save it from Governor Price. And so they go to Jupa base, they grab the boys. Holy shit, the whole gang is here, including people that you were like, Is they still in this? We literally asked if any of these characters were going to show up again. We literally did.

They got Gina Torres to go to a recording booth somewhere off-site and just like speak some lines flatly into a microphone or maybe into an Olympus travel mic. Who knows? But it doesn't sound, never to any point, does it sound like she's fully in the scenes with the other characters through this? but hey remember you know if rex is there they also sort of dumped agent callus here too like everyone is we're putting the gang together but also is it isn't enough it doesn't seem like this is going to be enough to get the job done uh and one of the people who seems to be losing faith in fact is rider azati uh as as they're trying to figure out like what they're going to do about Price and how they're going to bring her down.

And Azadi has just sort of reached the point that the rebellion doesn't have the resources and they're not going to have the resources to come liberate Lothal. This is this is done. And the next thing we see is him basically calling Governor Price to sell out the rebels and give them the location. And now she's got her chance to salvage this before Thrawn gets back and is like in the whole risky business thing. Like, she wrecked the Porsche and, you know, turn the whole place.

The Ferrari gets wrecked. Oh, it's different. The Porsche is risky business. God damn, you got my ass. Yeah. You're right. You're right. Different 80s movie.

Adam to the letter box. Yeah. So this is her chance. She can sort of unfuck this whole situation. or she can just bag the entire rebel cell in one go with Azadi's help. And so she launches her surprise attack with a group of, you know,

they're sort of helicopter, they're sort of like basically helicopter transports, but you know, the transports they've been using. And there's a huge gun battle on their, on their cliffside base, and slowly but surely the rebels are cornered, driven back. You know, it, even as you know things are looking looking at their worst uh the ghost comes back into the midst of

this and starts uh you know starts mowing down uh you know troopers but in the end uh you know the governor price sort of gets the gets the upper hand forces forces the surrender and uh that is That is where the trap has finally sprung. Sorry, this is where the ghost shows up. Yes, correct. Along with, along with wolves. Yeah, we get the same shot that we got before back in episode or season one or two, maybe it's season one with, as we're controlling the space spiders.

Do you remember that and like a merging from the dark with the spiders all around? I think they were spiders. Not the spiders. No, the ones in the hangar. Yeah, there's some sort of weird critter. weird critters from that episode. And except this time it's the wolves and they're not secretly, they don't secretly have an evil mom or whatever. And so it's okay this time.

Yeah. Yeah. So the whole thing has been revealed to be a, you know, a trap for price and her arrogance. The ghost shows up. They start mowing down the stormtrooper transports. And now they've, now they've got price. And so now they're prepared to begin their final step to save Lothal from from Thron. I cannot believe all these characters are back.

Why? When, okay, first of all, let's start from the top. When, when Hondo says prior to the moment that apparently got you, Austin, not apparent, not seeming.

It did. It did. Yeah. I'm proud of it. I have a heart. And Hondo says He reminds me of a time Where there was something to believe in And Kestu says The Jedi What

What are we talking about? What are we talking about? What are we talking about? What are we talking about? How old is Ketsu Onio again? Did she read some books? Did she remember the Jedi? She listened to some old, you know.

She's like a zoomer that was like I remember. 9-11. No, you don't. No, you don't. She's turned a bunch of holocrons of old Senate meetings and she's watching them on long flights and shit. Like she, you know.

She was born in 23 BBY, which is, I believe, in the middle of the Clone Wars. Isn't it? No, it couldn't. No, no, no, no. No, it is. I think it is in the middle of. Clone Wars. This is like if you, if a child only encountered James Comey's autobiography and like their vision of history or something where it's like, ah, like, yes, the good FBI agents.

God. They were the, they were the thing that held the society together. Listen, it's not even that she was a baby when all the Jedi died. She's one when the Jedi are killed. one or two when all of the Jedi get killed, I think. Maybe three. It's 20 BBI, I think, is when Order 66 happens. It's just like, why is she saying this?

Why is she saying what do we know about this character that would give us any context for why she's like? She was a bounty hunter, right? She was a bounty hunter. An amoral cynical criminal. Remember, she worship a black son. So, I don't know. What's the jump we're supposed to make here that, like, at one point, she believed in the Jedi and then she was... But, like, she grew up in the era of Jedi, of anti-Jedai propaganda.

At the early, when she was a kid, everyone hated the Jedi because the empire was like, there's a few Jedi out there. I remember, they tried to kill our dude. Maybe she, you know, maybe she's always just been kind of countercultural. You know what I mean? She's always been like, maybe. Maybe, maybe. I'm just like, what... Yeah.

Maybe you can hang out with bounty hunters, though. Right. It's like, remember the Salwood days? Right. Where we were taking those huge consultancy paychecks. And we were going to that, like, water resort. Yeah. And just, like, torturing vat babies and, like, having them play laser tag.

And then we just, like, got paid. And she's like, damn, the Jedi sound awesome. It's like, you have no idea, kid. They were the best. Maybe that's it. Maybe that's it. My actual point is just give this moment to someone else. Like, give it to one of the clones.

Give it to what, give it to hera. Give it to hera. Yeah. Give it to hera. Don't, what is, and Hondo saying, this is funny to me. Honda is saying he reminds me of a time when there was something to believe in is like, what have you ever believed in Hondo? That is a joke.

That is funny to me. but and I can I can ride that like that irony there but then Kestu following it up immediately with being like the Jedi is like wait it's like it's like well also I think I think there is something Honda believes in he believes like in the innocence and decency of children in the end right well no actually kidnapped the child but he does like that one kid but sometimes he's good Yeah, I know. But sometimes he's not in the mood to kidnap him, as he says. As he says.

Children and some hondoes want to kill them. You know, he's kind of all. He does like Boba Fett. Remember, he hangs out with Boba Fett that time. Right. He does. I guess. Convincing him to turn.

Allie, the, I just scrunched her face as if a headache had come on. Yeah. No, I was going to say, like, because I think it hangs together if you just exclude the part where he kidnaps all those kids. Yeah. Yeah. But if you exclude that, for the most part, he tries to be like by kids.

But maybe we have to read, I mean, again, I think you're right, Natalie, that his is kind of a funny punchline, and that's how we have to understand it. But there is also the world where it's like, he liked the world when there was, when people believed in things and there was like conflict between two grand visions of the world because it made it easy picking for him as a pirate. And in the cynical imperial era, there's nothing for him anymore. He's just, it's not like, he can't play on anybody's beliefs anymore because no one believes anything except I'm trying to get to Tuesday. I'm trying to get through the fucking week. You know, I'm just trying to get through the day. I do think there's something there because is it just before this or after this? I think it's just before this. Somebody refers to Honda as a smuggler. And he's like, I'm not a, he like can't even get out smuggler the word. He's like, I'm a pirate. You know, there's something romantic about what I do.

And like, again, obviously a joke, but taking it sincerely, I could see him, you know, nostalgic for the kind of romantic glory days of pirates past. Like I see him as kind of, yeah, the sort of retired pirate that longs for the days that, you know, there was a pirate code and, you know. Yeah, totally. Whatever. All that shit from from skeleton crew, you know what I mean? Like there's like, he likes all that stuff. I'm so surprised he wasn't in Skeleton crew, by the way, still.

Shocking. Season two, baby. Season two. Anyway, you're right. The core of this. is they gave Ketsu Onyo the line, the Jedi, because they just needed someone to say it. And she was the one who was up next. And they needed her to say another line on the screen because she doesn't have much to do here.

Because she's the most, you know, like, I don't know how they put her in this episode at all. So they're just like, give her some stuff to say. I'm laughing, thinking about us when she was the first time we met her. And we were like, is this person ever coming back? And we, I remember having this. And you, I think you looked up other appearances and you were like, we're going to see her at least two more times or something like. I did say that. And we did. We saw her once more that season, very briefly in the space fight, I think. And the fight, maybe the fight were a, ooh, I don't remember the exact fight, but it's a space fight. And then, and then we see her here. And her and Sabine. In the penultimate episode of this entire show. Does she talk to Sabine at any point in these episodes? Have I forgotten this?

No. Sure doesn't. No. Not significantly. Sabine's friends with Ezra now. She doesn't need to hang out with a 40-year-old. Yeah, they're, I'm not going down this path, but there are energies at play here that are, I've seen the world. But it's like, I'm trying to think of like a different character who could be in this place.

Like, don't bring her. What role? There's the real answer. as Sabine's brother Right, yeah, that's another Like one of the other bounty hunters The blonde guy who What's his name?

The Mandalorian guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The one who's like, I believe in Sabine. Fenrao? Yes. Fenrao. Yeah, Fenrao could have been here. Her mom.

Yeah. I mean, I do think part of the, okay, here's my argument for the inclusion of Ketsu Onyo and they should have just had her in more of the show and she should have gotten to be a real character whatever the budget, but Gina Torres is notwithstanding.

My favorite thing about this episode and the next episode is that, contrary to what we all thought, Lothal turns out not to be a big win for the rebellion. The rebellion never fucking shows up for these people. And they have to do it themselves and they have to do it with whoever they can get, whether that is, you know, a Jedi without a master, a pirate who won't be called a smuggler, a criminal bounty hunter or somebody else, or a band of clones who were discarded by the empire they helped build. I think that that's good. I think that it's good that we didn't get any of the major factional powers showing up to help the people of Lothal.

If the Mandalorians had sent somebody, then this becomes a Mandalorian win. You know, I know Sabine is here, but she's not, she's a ghost, right? She's part of this crew. And so, like, I think the idea of being like, oh, it's these people from the outside of the system who come together. It's the imperial trader meeting with the Black Sun bounty hunter, meeting with the pirate, and they all come together to help. I get how you make that decision. and I think that's clever. Unfortunately, Ketsu Onio has not existed as a character ever,

except for the first episode she was in and only there in ways that were caught up in some of the bad timeline stuff with Sabine's backstory. Right. Yeah. I mean, part of my question of asking, who else do we bring here is like, now that we're at the end of rebels, what other character would we even have an emotional attachment to?

Who would we have popped for at all? Right, that we would want to see in this position. AP 5 And he shows up Who? Oh, Matt Mart Madden or whatever Mark Matt

Matt Little Lord Fauntleroy Yeah, remember the guy The kid who was in that episode recently And we're like Why the fuck is he back? Oh, but he was in these episodes

Right? No, wait Is he not in these episodes? He is, he is He's setting up an eweb blaster When they're waiting for Price to show up Anybody from

Any of the Lassat The Lassat could have shown up that would have been sick. But no, Zab just doesn't get to exist as a character either. I know we've hit the Sabine stuff a lot, and I am increasingly frustrated that Zab has just been completely obliterated as a character in the last... The last time Zab got to do anything real was the callous thing on the ice planet,

and they have felt so embarrassed by that since it feels that they haven't given Zab a fucking second of character work. It breaks my heart. And so to get where we get to in the next episode, which I won't talk about until we get there. is unbelievable. We'll talk. I can't even, I can't think about it for more than one of a second.

I know, we have just keep moving. We have just keep moving. I'm looking at the list of all of the characters. Saul Guerrera could have shown up. What about Sebo? Did Sebo die? Sebo. Remember Sebo?

The, uh, Lobot rodion. Oh, yeah, he's dead. He died in that episode. Right, right, right. I think so, didn't he? I think he did. No, he was taken away by the rebellion. And they were like, we've got info from him.

Yeah, and your dog is upstate at the farm, Rob. No, no, they totally, they worked through some stuff. Okay. They could have brought back the Inquisitor. Wait, I love this Reddit, a question on the R slash Star Wars Rebels when I looked up Sebo. One of the first searches is a question about Sebo. I always wondered about what happened to him. He's like the only character that doesn't show back up. Anyone got any ideas?

It could have been here. We could have answered this for this deleted user. Uthinized by bail or gotta. Six B, B, B, B, Y. I'd forgotten that he lived. But yeah, right, we could have had Zaire Leonis, the kid from the first season where we were like, is this kid ever going to show up again? The answer was no.

No, but you're right, Allie. I think that you're right that, like, we're kind of hitting a, the realization that there, there haven't been the style of really interesting side characters in rebels the way there were for a lot of Clone Wars. Like when Barris Offey shows back up in the Asoka arc and see, it's like we all popped so hard and they did so much with her that was like built on her earlier little bits of characterization and then that whole sequence is so good. That doesn't really happen here.

Or you know, it sort of happened with Callis and then they kind of threw Calus in the mix all season and then didn't do too much. So, like, imagine if that hadn't happened and Tallis had shown up here as a goodie. Maybe we would have felt that. I don't know. We just didn't. So, Follone seems to know that this part got was unsatisfying, too.

Like, in the Faloni zone, in the Rebels recon about these episodes, he's like, one of the real challenges they got is, like, we just don't have enough stuff for characters to do this, not have screen time and such. Which is correct. I understand how I got there. But also that I don't understand why some of these characters are here for already, like, sort of crowding the, if people are sort of crowding the, if people are sort of crowding the, frame and give it more space you're right we could have just not had ketsu onio and it would have been fun yes yes it's also kind of it's it's it's an odd thing maybe just because they ended up having like some really long seasons of clone wars but like also just the structure

of it being more of a um not quite anthology is the right way to put it but it's much more like novelistic in some ways or epic in terms of that show could just leave a good portion of its core ensemble on the shelf for you know several episodes right rebels or clone wars sorry clone wars yes you're right yes clone wars there we'd go eight episodes without seeing asoka or without seeing anakin or obiwan or something you know right and like this show never has the room to do that because it's all about the crew of the ghost and primarily about Ezra and Canaan and Sabine, really, in a lot of places. But the cost here's felt a little bit because it doesn't quite land.

Like, there's a reason the boys are back in town sort of hits here because we have this relationship built with the clones from a previous series where they were able to build these characters out. Yeah. And these are sort of the last friends we have from that series. and the people they're pulling here that's like, and they're also here to help out the Rebels crew, our guest appearances in a clip show is kind of the thing.

Hey, remember this guy? Yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah, it's tough. Mark, not even Iron Squadron, just Mark. Just Mart, yeah, not the rest of your crew. And, you know, again, Hondo is an old character, who we already have a relationship with the new. Wedge doesn't even show up here.

I guess that's part of it, right, is the rebellion can't show up because that is the whole thing. The rebellion can't show up. The Mandalorians can't show up. But, like, yeah, it's tough. It's funny because it's like, I feel like it reflects the fact that we've been in this show for longer than the show should have gone for us because it feels like we've been sitting with all of this show for years and years.

And it's like, we would have been done forever ago, if not for our breaks. And that maybe makes it feel like, wait a second, we've been in the show for us. Where are all the characters? And the answer is if we had finished this a year ago, we might be like, oh, right, yeah. We remember Gina Torres's character. That was not that long ago. Maybe we would still be like, why the fuck is she doing here?

But it wouldn't feel like, shouldn't there be someone else? It feels like someone else should be here. You know what I mean? It's like when you're at like a party at 3 a.m. And you're like, why am I fucking still here? No one came out tonight. It was just like me and these losers and like, what are we doing? I should have gone home.

I'm feeling a very, I should have gone home about some of this. That's what I'm saying. It's like you're in a conversation with people you know and you're like catching up. And then there's like the fifth rando that's just like lurking the convo. And it's just. Ketsu-a-a-o approaching. It's giving inserting themselves into like an ongoing conversation that like, like, I didn't even know you were still here. Do you remember that bust that it was all busted and we had to ride it all the way back from Boston?

And then they go, ha, ha, ha, yeah. And you're like, you weren't there. Why are you laughing about that? That was me and Natalie and Danica. That's literally her saying the Jedi. It's literally her saying the Jedi. You literally weren't there. Anybody had been like, oh, do you know the Jedi?

What was your experience with the Jedi? Literally like, name a Jedi. Name one Jedi. Ezra. Ezra Bridger. Ezra Bridger. And, and, and, in Canaan Jars. She wouldn't even know Canaan's real.

she wouldn't know can she'd be like and canon canon what your guy canon and you're like okay and hair his boyfriend yeah exactly more than boyfriend yeah harrah's hair is hair is well we'll get there so much Jedi secrets revealed oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah I can't play very okay we have to keep moving we have to keep moving uh so yeah the fucking cooked that's one of the notes I have I love how cooked she is She is fucking done. She is so scared of Thrawn coming back because she is, just as a re-contextualization

who don't remember this, she blew up all of the fuel on the planet somehow that is used to make the Tide Defenders, which are his big ploy for more power and control inside of the empire. And so the Tide Defender program is like off the fucking rails. And she is, I love how cooked she is in this. We love to see women win.

And we love to see women live. lose that that is that is the truth of it we love we love to see a girl boss and we love to see a girl fail damn true that's great in this episode preface has turned out to be kind of a hit for me she's no Tua but i am happy with her as a recurring mid-tier villain it's yeah it is important it's like it's a feminist win for her to be an empty suit basically of an Like, she is a kind of crap middle manager. And what's cool is they really do play against expectations here because she's introduced as part of Thrawn's entourage. Yeah.

And, like, this is, like, Minister 2 was obviously a goody two shoes. Like, I went to Imperial Model UN and learned to govern this planet. Like, Governor Price is like, I'm here to torture rebels and, like, put the jack boot down on this planet. And she's kind of scary. And she's like playing up that whole, that whole aspect. And, you know, I'm, I'm Thron's, I'm Thron's right hand. And yeah, the revelation here is that, okay, I suck at this. Every time he gives me a job, I fuck it up. He's going to come back. And at best, I'm going to jail. But she doesn't think she's going to jail. She thinks Rook is just going to be like, yeah definitely

and he probably would be that seems like his that's why he should have just steer clear of her though he should he should have just he just should have sented to fail on her and just been like

sorry man like I'm not going on any ops good luck to you in the stormtroopers but until Thrawn gets back here I'm not doing shit but he wants to even score man he's like on that trail like his hunter's instincts

really lead him astray here well like he'd never you know he had never fought Ezra before, right? Is this the first time he's fought a Jedi directly? Did they fight? Maybe they fought when they were escaping. He fought Canaan? Did he fight Canaan? Yeah, I don't remember this.

He did all right. If he held his own against Canaan, then I don't know how, I guess the wolves. The wolves are the, the epic. When did he fight Canaan? That's what I'm saying. I don't remember this. They get into it before Canaan escapes the Imperial Detention Center, the Center of Lothal. They get into it and then Canaan and,

Hara have to hop back on the glider and leave. And leave, right? Yeah. Canaan should kill him right then. Maybe we didn't have it like that. Well, Canaan was committed. He's knocked off and he's like dangling. He's like on the side of him.

Oh, right. Right. And Canaan's committed at that point to like, you know, going to die for his people apparently. He's had that vision. So, um, yeah. Yeah. Uh, anything else here that's like.

At any point, did you think Azadi had sold them out? I did. I did. For a brief moment. I also had that moment. I was like, he's being really snaky. I think specifically there's some stuff that is a little cheaty about it where they are playing dumb about the incoming attack to each other when the attack is come. When the imperials are showing up, the way that some of the dialogue is written around like, uh-oh, here they come is set up to make them seem surprised instead of them knowing that it was coming. And I don't know, maybe they're playing along, you know, but I just felt like more like a gotcha for the audience than it was a gotcha for the fellow, like for the cast for the for the characters in the show. Yeah, it's like Sabine's like, wait, do you hear that? And then Ezra looked shocked and surprised. And Ezra's like, Zeb, they're coming, but not in the sort of like, all right, get to your positions.

It's time to play the game. And Zeb is like, ah, carabast. And it's like, if you had set this whole thing up so that they would come and get you, why are you being like, fuck, here they come. Maybe they weren't ready for it yet. Maybe it's because they don't want all the red shirts around them to know that they're being sacrificed. Maybe, yes, yes. Everybody acts like you're super upset about this, but make sure nobody from the ghost goes out to, like,

defend the outer perimeter of the landing platform. You guys just hang back a little bit. Oh, no, guys. Hey, somebody get on that machine gun out there. there were some cool red shirts here a cool alien guy with a gun there's a cool lot of 70s mustache guys yeah exactly

yeah for a brief moment I was like damn did he really sell them out that would be weird we haven't really gotten enough of an arc for that but and then no well I yeah them referring to each other by their first names when he calls her Arenda in the Zoom call

and she's like what's up? I was like y'all know each other. Y'all know each other in a way that we don't. Did I forget something? Like, was she his protege? Did they have like a little thing? Like, what have I forgotten about the two of them?

The answer is nothing. But I think that it's a, it communicates a lot that they feels like they had a lot of connection, you know? Well, yeah, the thing sort of, like, Lothal had politics before the Empire shows up. And like, she saw the avenue to power on Lothal and just like completely. burn that that relationship was like literally her relation with Azadi as like a fellow like lowthal politician but also like completely turns her back on her homeworld and it's just like I am going to be the you know uh uh quizling who who like sells this planet out I've looked into this and I believe the like the specific connection the two of them have that's not shown in

this but is talked about in a book or something is that she grew up on like like the place where she grew up was like neighboring the Azadi estate or something. Like they were basically neighbors when she was a kid. She, her family owned a mine on Lothal that was located on land shared by Ryder Azadi. Yeah, well, he does too. So. Yeah, I was going to say estate, writer estate. Yeah.

She was kind of like a young socialite that had a connection with the Azadi family for that reason. you know um anyway yeah big battle big battle it's a long battle like the most of this episode is battle yes uh you've got hondo using his smuggling wiles to sneak into the play it's a good bit where he's like we're gonna have to hang here and risk getting bug splatted on the windshield of a of a transport uh to get through this to get through this it's it's a fun bit the the attack the surrender is cool Yeah, but yes, it is a little bit cheating, you know. Zeb Unlocked Super Jump.

He also grabs the heavy machine gun and just starts like Arnold and Terminator 2. Yeah. For me, it's like the Halo battle music was playing and its Master Chief takes the whole fucking top of the Gatling gun off the stand and starts walking around with it because he can do that. Zeb would make a good Halo character, I think. Zep could hang out with the Arbiter and Master Chief Yeah This whole battle has like video game

Oh yeah, big time energy And yeah they are eventually You know They are eventually You know Cornered You know

Rook gets in there You know And They That is that is where there's the And but they're gonna go to this well a lot in this episode and the next one. Oh, that thing you just saw happen?

Oh, there's a little contingency plan built into it. Oh, yeah. And so here, they let Governor Price really start, like, celebrating on the one-yard line. Yeah. And then... She should just shot all these people in the head. Right then. I know, I know I'm having the most stupid 16-year-old response to this shit.

come on pull the trigger price what are we doing don't let their friends show up don't let the wolves show up i hadn't i hadn't realized until this moment and i these are things we knew the wolves are the wolves because it's dave pheloney's show and he loves wolves i hadn't thought about it until wolf starts working with the wolves and rex is like you got your wolf pack back, and it all clicked into place for me. No, like, because Dave loves wolves. Filoni, if he hasn't appeared wearing the Three Wolf Moon shirt, I think he has. He has to have.

He owns it. He definitely owns it. He definitely owns it. Wow. That's a lot to process. It's a lot to take in. I'm taking it in and processing it. Um, yeah.

That's fine. You can love wolves. You can love wolves. You can love wolves. Why are the fucking magic wolves also weapons? They're friends now. They were friends. This is the thing, right?

It's like, I wish they would just disappear into the mist than that they had been. Is Canaan back again? We just said goodbye. No, that's not him. That's just a big white wolf. It's not a big. It's just different. Yeah, I mean, I do.

Are they forced creatures? Yes. But they're also creature creatures, right? Ali, you feel like, it feels like you had some complicated. I just, there's something to be said that they also have an investment in the future of Lothal. So I don't hate their inclusion here, especially when we get to the end of these episodes. And the thing is like, we did it and we don't need the rebellion. Yes.

Like, that is a direct quote from this. That's a good point. Like, you know, it's goofy. I did not super enjoy watching it. Well, it's cool. I don't know. I, you know, see a bunch of wolves, destroy a bunch of evil people as fun. But I was also like, really?

But, you know, when you're thinking of, you know, the wolves as an actor of the scene that's, they're allowed to also want to kill fascists. Yeah. And it's not the Canaan wolf. The Canaan Wolf, I believe, is not here. It's the big white wolf, but that's not. the wolf that has the cane wolf would be like a fucking kaiju right the cane wolf is gigantic the cane wolf is like twice as big as the big white wolf these are just regular loath wolves also like the cane wolf knows that like here i can't see him that's right it'd be super weird it would be

it would be really weird for reasons we'll get into yeah yeah yeah i guess i guess in that framing it in that... It's hard when we just came from what we came from and now they're like creatures of this planet again. They've always been for this planet. That's never not been true.

Right, no, no, no. But I mean, just in the way that there was something that felt more ephemeral about the loath wolves in the sense that we... No one on the Thal had seen them in hundreds of years. right?

That was a part of it. A hundred years, yeah. A hundred years. Ezra could see them and other people couldn't. Ezra could communicate with them in some way where they had like earned their respect. And then Canaan kind of becoming one. I was just like, and then Ezra saying he's ready to let him go. I was just ready to kind of leave them in the plane of the mystical and not to see them with stormtroopers in their mouths.

Don't love them as a druid. summon basically I think is where I'm yeah but in the but when reframing them in the way that we first met them in the sense that they're creatures native to lethal they have like a strong significance here I yeah I I can see it working I guess I'm just yeah I'm caught between the the mystic their mystical nature and also them as just like giant super dog Super Wolves Yeah I don't know

I think that's fair I think it's very fair I did write in my notes Let's go Loth Wolf Army A woo So I did I did enjoy Them fucking up

Some baddies But you know I think some of the stuff Like I think some of the stuff I'm a little bit cool on Because I see it executed Literally better In the next two episodes

Like the two-parter that there's a lot of beats here that are kind of like trial runs for things that are going to pay off here in the series finale and I think the wolves like don't hit quite the same because one they've just been using these wolves

as such a DeusX Machina for a number of episodes here in the you know in the latter stage of the season but also we're going to see something similar you know with the with the Pergill and I think that is cooler and has been in some way

ways, they're allowed to remain more mysterious because they haven't been like instrumentalized so frequently for plot reasons and to be like, and to hear to literally be like a, you know, press two on your hop bar to send wolves after stormtroopers. Small detail here, I dig because they don't do this often in Star Wars. When Hara is, like, and Honda are doing sort of the smuggling run through the blockade. Oh, right. I kind of dig that they're using gas jet propulsion to like maneuver the ghost without turning on the engines. It's cool.

You never see Star Wars spaceships moving like spaceships and it's just kind of cool to have them doing that for doing that for a minute. Agreed. But yeah, like they defeat Price. She's cornered. She gets arrested by them. They bring it out of arrested. By the wolf. Yeah.

So the end of rebels with family reunion. farewell. We discussed various tricks the show's going to play and we're kind of going to pull those again. They have to liberate Lothal before Thrawn can get back and consolidate power. With Governor Price in their custody, they can use her to sort of get to get control of the big imperial like installation at the center of Lothal. And if they do this before Thron can get back, they can sort of seize control of the planet and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, holding the city of Lothal, um, hostage, uh, against them, demanding their surrender. And really, it's a bit

odd he's like I I guess it is because we know that Palpatine wants Jedi he wants he wants Ezra and his secrets of the world between worlds but Thron

is like bring me the boy just give me give me that kid and Ezra's like it's time for my sacrifice and I was like no Ezra

there has to be another way, and he's like, you're right, let's look for another way. And then the Irish goodbyes. His entire, his entire family. What if we do something with a shield generator? And like, before they know it, he's fucking gone. Yep. He's gone to turn himself in to Thron. And I just think it's totally improbable, unbelievable that Thron wouldn't also demand

Hera as he, as the number one fan. He would be like, obviously, I need General Sindhu. and I need Ezra. What if the emperor's already told him no? What if he's been like, well, and General Sundula, of course. And the emperor's like, no, only the boy, you know, and he's like, fine. What's wrong? Give a shit?

With Drawnot have a little sneaky, sneaky her. I think he's worried about this high defender thing fucking up and the deaths are coming online and all that, you know? Yeah, yeah. So Ezra shows up And just like with Hera Thron has a little tte-a-tat With Ezra

Sort of demonstrating the futility Of his Jedi ideology And then And then Ezra faces his real temptation Palpatine In Sheave form V-tuber Palpatine is here And

He gives him a glimpse you could have your family back. You could be transported to a reality where it is morning on the weekend and your parents are alive and they're in the kitchen and breakfast is almost ready. You can just step into that life.

And Ezra stares that vision, forsakes it, turns against Palpatine. Palpatine. Ah! She, no, it's, it's hideous. I'm so mad But you know

It's it's it's it's it's too late This is his his his temptation his plot Is foiled And Meanwhile Key to this the whole The whole group is is kind of kind of checkmated

At this at this moment But there is a moment back at the Lothal base We're marked Of all people is awakened by a loath wolf God I forgot about this and he realizes shit there was something Ezra told me to do

we got to go and activate frequency zero and wolf is with him and he's like nobody's on that frequency anymore that's even truckers don't hop on that CB channel and shoot the shit. And Mark's like, I just got to go do it. So the gang begins, the gang begins like working to cease control. They're continuing to work to cease control of the, of the imperial base, the dome.

The dome. Yeah. They, you know, they're, they've got the entire imperial garrison. They've lured them in there and trapped them inside. but now they're trying to break through into the command center. So it's kind of a race to seize control of the dome. They're down there in, you know, it's classic Star Wars stuff, the big generator room.

They're trying to activate the shields, you know, to prevent disaster here. And, you know, with the emperor turning against Ezra, some royal guards try to show up. they don't have it like that. Ezra's now in full in full Jedi mode. Just just flinging rocks around.

But meanwhile, crucially, the rebel gang sees his control of the shield generator. Rook gets his foot stuck in a conductive loop and just gets zapped. Unbelievable way for this

to go out after we read his much cooler. I'm so fucking mad. Ending in the Thrawn trilogy. I'll come back to this because it actually does fuck me more than a little. So Ezra having sort of refused Palpatine and made his escape from the Annalian Bridge, or you will die. He goes and he faces Thron on the bridge of the chimera. And at that moment, as Throne is starting to feel confident that this situation, yes, things are not going to plan, but he can get the situation back under control.

But uh-oh, the pergill are emerging from hyperspace and swimming toward the imperial fleet. And like an army of Moby Dick, whales, like come and smash the imperial blockade to smithereens. and then crucially Thrawn is like whatever happens to whatever happens to this ship whatever happens to one of us Ezra is going to happen

to both of us and Ezra's like well I just happen to love dream with a fisherman's wife and that's when the tentacles come swooping through the windshield the Star Destroyer

and uh oh it's Bendu's vision all those big pergill tentacles grabbing throng And then they pull the chimera Into hyperspace And

Ezra Thrawn The Pergill Gone Lothal Free We better get ready To defend this

Yeah From the empire But the empire A lot of things Happen now Can we pause here And do the epilogue It's own little

mini thing Because I think if we Open the door We're not going All right. We will be able to, yeah, right. Because we can't, we can't do it. The epilogue has to be something.

Yes. We'll lose our minds. We'll lose our minds. How do we feel about, um, being like, uh, I brought you this temple. You don't like it? You don't like it? Ezra? It's very funny.

You don't like this temple that I brought to you? Your mom is in the temple. You don't like it? Your mom is here and your dad. I'm just having to have she even my life again. I'll be honest. So am I. I love picturing this.

I love picturing this as one of like four Zoom calls he has that day. Like he's like imagining Palpatine, zooming into this and then after having to like go take a take a lunch or like having to hop in the next call Afternoon Death Star stand up You know

It's so funny to me It's so so funny He couldn't come He couldn't come to the To the temple he is so obsessed with He's busy He's busy He's booked and busy

He can't I'm curious about this Can he present himself as non-fucked-up now? I mean, we now know, well, I think this is, like I said, I think this is a V-tuber. I think this is a hologram. Yes. Though it seems to break when Ezra makes him mad and rejects the temptation. You know, it's like...

I'm just curious, like, is there any imperial propaganda of, like, this vision of, like... I think this answers... She, the level of the grandpa. This is one of the longest running questions we've had about. the show is what's up with the emperor in the imperial era what do people see and this suggests to me that he is able to do he's able to appear on a hologram as good guy sheave your friend but his last public appearance remains the speech at the end of revenge but he shows up as a like right I was disfigured but now he's like I'm good now right I guess right I guess that's I forgot about that

in Revenge of the Sith he shows up all fucked up right and it's like they might I definitely didn't, huh, like, start just discharging Sith energies, like, wildly and, and get all fucked up. That didn't happen. It was the Jedi. But, like, because it does kind of feel his persona as sheave gives him a certain degree of flexibility. And I kind of like this that he plays the hits, right?

Like, present a kindly, like, elder face to Ezra. and offer himself up as like another potential mentor. Uncle Sheave. Yeah. One more uncle before it's all over. But it doesn't work because he's a false uncle. Also like this to me, like I think the other thing that I kind of don't love about Palpatine in a lot of ways is I just don't, you know, character's nothing. Again, it's nothing interesting character.

It's just like, you know, cackling. you know evil uh like kindly sheave is a more fun character i think for an actor to sort of dig into it right and mcdarm is very good at projecting that like you know this guy's no good on some level anakin kind of knew this guy was no good but there's just enough like oh really i didn't know you had i didn't know you felt that way you had such low expectations of me i thought I thought I was doing a nice thing and sort of playing on you that way. At some point

I'm going to really advocate as a little special edition we really need to watch the British mystery series Touching Evil or at least the first episode which is an Ian McDarmid tour to force of like what if he were like Hannibal Lecter but of the UK and up against like

a cop on the edge. Touching Evil was like a really cool series had one good season one kind of bad season but had one great mystery the pilot and it's all about Ian McDermott in that. Sounds good. Great shit but he's fully in that mode of like

again they do a similar thing in that mystery where it's like once he appears on the screen you're like oh this isn't good news. This guy is not this guy is clearly fucking evil but he's very good at playing a character where it's like oh he disarms you even though he kind of know that like there's bad vibes around this guy. He's still disarming And he's disarming here with Ezra.

Yeah, I like the stuff. The stuff works. I fun to have him get a temptation that actually feels a little more real. You know, we don't have to do any of the timeline weirdness. I mean, obviously, it is a weird timeline thing. It kind of, it's kind of a rerun of the world between worlds without any of the iconography of it, which is interesting. It makes you wonder if they could have just done all that stuff in the temple instead of it being a, special secret space highway, you know?

Because this is all just a Jedi temple. It is fake, but they could have used this vision instead, right? They could have used this version of the visuals instead is what I mean. Is it 100% fake? I don't know. Like if answer been like, fuck it. Yeah, his parents, but this is a time travel thing being offered. But this is, I don't, I think this is essentially the same as Palpatine offering to Anakin,

I can save, I can say, I can show you how to save those, who you want to save. Right, but we know that this is, I can show you how to save Padme. The difference is we now know that it is hypothetically possible for Ezra to enter the world between worlds and go back to when he was a seven-year-old and see his parents again, right? But you're right that they're not secretly alive and having a great time just off screen. But presumably the world would perceive the exact same. Like, it would be Ezra just going back in time to being seven years old and getting to, and then getting to be with his parents and then, like, fate would continue as it was. Like, we saw the soap.

Mom and Dad, the empire's coming. We got to get out of here. We got to go live on a different planet. You're going to get killed or whatever. Does he get to return with his 16-year-old consciousness in his seven-year-old body? I don't like it, actually. So another reason to say no to this. Because Pelopaline's argument here, or his, like, the spin he puts, right, is, like,

you know that there's all these pathways and et cetera, right? Doesn't he say all that shit? Yeah. You know that it's possible to change fate. There are infinite paths and infinite possibilities, but you must open the door. And I don't, I mean, I think the thing that's fun about that is that Canaan explicitly a few episodes ago was, like, all of the paths are converging. And so there is kind of like a two different. visions of how time and fate and the force work, where Canaan is like, listen, man,

sometimes all those possibilities can track down and you've got to stop the explosion so that your family can get away safe. And Palpatine is like, it's my little Lego set and I can do whatever I want to it. You could go back and hang out with your parents with all the knowledge you have of a 16-year-old. It's a little weird, but don't let it trip you up. Well, it's even like his parents look through the portal. I know, it's weird. And so I do wonder, would he just be stepping into, like, a Marty McFly situation where, like, you're not back to your seven-year-old self?

Yeah, right. You step into the version of you where none of this bad shit happened. Yeah. Maybe. Like, what if Palpatine was offering him, like, you go through this portal? You're entering the world where I never rose and took over the galaxy. You were in your own. Little bubble world.

Yeah, Matt Hatter couldn't offer this to Bruce, Bruce Wayne. That's why that fell the fuck apart. Right, right. But here, like, you'll just go through and you get to be a normal kid. Yeah. Well, here's the reason I think it might be real. Because when he makes peace with it, and it's like, you'll always be a part of me, they smile back at him as if to say, yeah, we will. It's not, they're not like, no, come through, be with us for real.

Like, we miss you. You're our son. It's like he's seeing a vision of them. It's like they're seeing a vision of him in the future and they know he's going to be okay. And they're like, yeah, that's our kid in the future. I don't know how it works. We're not Jedi or anything as far as we know.

Yeah. Though I don't think this, I think this is his cave moment, right? Yes, yes. This is his Dagaba Cave moment. I don't think this is purely constructed by Palpatine. Palpatine didn't program this. Right, right. This is not the programmed fake.

That was real. Ghost. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. So I think that what he's seeing, you know, his desire, the desire he's had for since the moment we met him, which is to reunite with his parents, he's seeing his deepest desire in this cave. And then having, you know, his own acceptance, if he was truly. feeling tormented, I think you would have more extreme reactions from his parents as a reflection of his inner turmoil. But I think he's, he has largely accepted that he must let go. Like, I think

this second temptation is almost not as big of a test as the temptation of Canaan because he's already kind of practiced with letting go basically his third parent that now seeing his original parents I think he's like a little bit more mature than Palpatine assumes he is in that he's able to kind of understand that he's seeing a reflection of himself

rather that's I guess I at least how I choose to interpret it as it's more of a reflection of himself rather than an actual portal that he could pass through and return to that time. I think it's even more than that. It's like, oh, I can't leave. I'm not done here yet. Even if it was real, even if I could go live a happy life by myself with my parents and everything could be perfect in that world.

No, his fate must converge. Right. I have to go do the thing I have to do with the space whales now. That's what I'm here for. I have to go do that. Just like Canaan with the fuel explosion. I have a responsibility to my friend. Which is also just like, for me, one of the highlights of this whole episode and this whole final half of the season has been his relationship with Sabine and the both of them feeling like they've grown up and matured.

And there's a great moment before this sequence when Ezra has slipped away and Hara is like worried about him and is like, I hope he knows what he's doing. And Sabine is like, I forget her exact line, but she's like, listen, you got to like trust him. Like, we've been through so much. Like, you have to trust his plan and, like, we have to focus on what we can focus on here. And it's throughout this whole arc, but especially in this episode, it has felt like the Ezra and Sabine are the next generation's Canaan and Herob thing, which is part of why him disappearing with the space whales actually is kind of interesting because it's like, well, no, they're not going to get to be that. they don't get to hang out together. They don't get to be friends who are fighting against the empire, you know, that he's gone. And I like that that comes on the heels of Sabine becoming,

Sabine and Ezra becoming each other's biggest advocates in these arcs. Yeah. It's nice. Yeah. Can I throw something else out there? Yeah. I think there's one other reason Palpatine's appeals fall on deaf ears. Because there's another little guide.

There's another guide that Ezra has at this moment. Uh-huh. feeding back to what is thrown up to. He has a little pre-meat with Ezra in the green room before he goes and meets Palpatine. And it's classic villain, bond villain shit, where it's like, I didn't mean, I didn't want things to get this far, but you know, you've consigned Lothal to death and all your friends, of course. Pity. I've got Sabine's art. That's all that will be left of her is her art in my collection.

election. And Ezra gets fired up. He's like you, you know, called the sort of thing Harris said, you know, you're taking what you didn't make, what you can't create, what you don't deserve, uh, and you think you can take it for yourself, but you can't. And Thron replies, uh, galaxy is not about who deserves what. It's about power. What matters is who has power. And he adds, do you note this, Rob? Uh, what's the, what's the follow? But that isn't something the Jedi would teach you. So I'll take you to someone who will.

We got a little, the Jedi wouldn't teach you about this. Except actually, this one hits better than the Jedi wouldn't teach you about the Darth Plagius the Wise magic savior power. He's saying like the Jedi don't teach you about

the true workings of political power in the world. That power is what guides history, not right. But also he is wound as retider than drum. Yes. And crucially, he's like,

don't kid. Don't get it twisted. Nothing is about what people deserve. The galaxy doesn't work this way. And the moment Palpatine loses Ezra completely. Ezra is like sort of like debating whether he's going to like embrace the, the vision. Palpatine to seal the deal is like,

you deserve this. And it's like the spell is broken. And it sort of feeds back into this notion that like, do I think Thron intended to be abducted by the Pergill and sucked across? No. Do I think he really wants Palpatine to pull the, you know what I mean? It's like so much of what Throne does anticipates the line of attack Palpatine is going to open on Ezra. And Thron fortifies Ezra against it. Yeah. Before the before the meeting. That could speak dramatic irony. I don't want Palpatine. Presumably. No.

Throne doesn't want Palpatine to have access to the world between worlds and be able to reshape all of history and time and space because he understands the power of power. And that would actually eradicate his own plays and everything, you know? That's the thing about Thron is that he is not a Palpatine minion. He is not, he does not live to serve Palpatine. He is not like under Palpatine's sort of,

like brainwashing control. Yeah, his sway. We don't ever see that. I mean, I think it's important we never see the two of them talk here because it lets us not see Thron have to, you know, be subservient to Palpatine.

Like, he has been the kind of king of the villains this whole time. And now that you're actually bringing in the guy above the king, we can't see them interact because it would ruin the sort of like power dynamic that we've already set up and begun to

or have already sort of solidified behind Thron Can I just say that? And he's not like he's not Sith coded Like he's not like he doesn't care about that stuff As we've said again again Maybe his great weakness is not understanding the force and not recognizing that it is also part of power

in the world of Star Wars. You know, that like, what he doesn't understand is that is that the way history bends in Star Wars is often aligned with the force and those who can control it. The force is, it's not just a weapon, but it is something that can work,

it can be stronger than any weapon, and so it needs to be respected and feared. And he doesn't get that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think I don't, a thing that I think is very funny. I do get it. I just think it's very funny and it's very, it's one of those moments like,

oh, right, we're watching a cartoon. All we have to do is do, is hit the button that calls everybody back to the base in the whole and all of Lothal City. And they all get in the big dome and then we launch it into space and blow it up. That's all we got to do. I forgot the dome is a spaceship. Yeah, the dome is a spaceship. The dome takes off into space. That's part of their plan.

A thing that I think it's fun visually. The idea that, like, it's been in the middle of Lothal this whole time, Lothal City. We've always seen it dominate the skyline. We've talked about how we've seen past Lothal and how it's been like, wow, look, how much more space there is without the dome and the skyline. But it's very funny to be like, we hit the button that says Protocol 13, and that says everybody gets to come, everybody come home, everybody go back to bed, and then we're going to hit the button that launches it into space, and then we're going to hit the button that blows it up. it is and then we're going to hit the button that brings the pergill over well that's like a backup we're gonna it doesn't blow up right set the frequency yeah uh-huh yeah but another button yes another button yeah we hit the we hit the pergill button and then ezra hits the the pergol

launch us away button it is a very it's they have two episodes to do what is probably a four episode arc in clone wars i get it um but uh just quick thing i dropped in there i the degree to which the dome is a structure that is like capturing the moment of an atom bomb explosion is like it really does look like photos of like atmospheric tests of of nukes but it is it is kind of a goofy plot I'm kind of you know I'm glad it mostly didn't work right such a silly thing but in the end it does is you know in sort of a backwards way but yeah I probably wouldn't I probably wouldn't have a, everyone get back in the imperial closet type thing as a code that should go out. Like, everyone get in here, quick.

Allie, what were you going to say? When you said that it, it's a four, it's a two-episode arc that could have been four episodes. It's weird to think about it in that context when you think about the two episodes before this, just hitting the same beats. Yeah. The animals show up at the end to save the day. Right. Yeah. Or the like, you know, Ezra's going to look into a.

portal and think about his life like you're totally right yeah it feels like another three weeks in the writer's room could have done some different work here you know in terms of structuring the season and getting us here in a different you know i i am still of the mind that the episode number eight crawler commandeers could have disappeared and we could have gotten an episode back from that and then i kind of do think that um A Fool's Hope, the previous episode, the material there could have been squashed into some, you know what I mean? Like, I think we could have gotten a little bit more breathing room here and maybe could have

combined a world between, like, what if, what if Palpatine had projected himself in the world between worlds and had walked around with Ezra and been like, look at all the worlds that are available to you, my boy, you know? That could have been great, you know, but instead we have to... There's countless they use. In that one, in that one, my child, you're working. working at a university coffee shop with all your friends. In this one, Sabine's a pop star.

And in this one, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. In this one, you're aged up, and Canaan is still your mentor. Don't worry too much about that one. In this one, you're a wolf boy. It just sort of works. I don't know. Ezra, do you know what no mega is?

And I wouldn't teach you about this Anyway Yeah, it's a weird plan I do have a note here Which is, you know, they send the They have to get the shields up Because Thron is doing the fucking scouring of the shire out there They're really doing a lot of retreads here

I know this adds a lot again Yeah, but that at least is explicitly kind of a callback to add a lot Yeah We know Thron does this. Throne will, you know, rain terror from above. And so you got to get the shields up the same way that Sabine, or Sabine didn't do it at the time. Zeb did it that time because Sabine was like on her way with the Mandalorian to come

helping space. Anyway, there was a moment where like Sabine and Harris send the two crews out. And the two crews to go, like, do this stuff are the clones, which are Rex, Gregor, and Wolf. Or no, because Rex is with Matt, right? Wolf is with Matt. Wolf is with Matt, you're right. Gregor is here because Gregor gets got here, right?

Yeah, love that we brought Gregor back to kill him. Gregor, one of our long-running characters, Gregor from the void, the droid episodes. Yep, yep, yep. It was all leading to this, to this great sacrifice. Hondo and his little husband, Melch. Maybe that's the thing that's really, like, melted his heart, is that he's got a little pig husband. He's a little pig husband now. They're small and its whole.

He was so sad. when Melch got shot. He was so sad when Melch got, poor Melchie. Dead for a little bit. It was dead for just a second, and then he's fine, don't worry about it.

And then we get Zeb and Callis run together or in the same part of the crew with Rex. And I'm like, are they going to get to talk? Are they going to get to like, can you believe we're here? You know, look at us. Are they going to get any of that?

No. What we do get is some foot versus foot action between Zeb and Rook Oh yeah I forgot about that Anyone clocked that The feet fight?

I missed the fighting with the feet I did they are doing a foot fight If you need if you need To be pointed It is Yeah I got a time step At At 16

40 40 seconds left We've got some About 31 minutes clenching together. Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah. So ironic that one of those feet will be the author of Rook's undoing.

It's so stupid that he dies like this. Okay, so here's what I hate. This is not respectful of Rook. No. This is not respectful of what Zahn was doing with the Nogre. So Thron in the novels we read, swans back into the galactic core. And like a returning viceroy, oh, I got one of the talented little natives from one of my many conquests, these worlds that we brought under our dominion, and we've tricked them. They believe I'm basically like practically a god to them. I've inherited their loyalty, the sort of vestigial debater. And it's so simple to play on their, on their little peasant beliefs, all this.

and in the end they understand way more than he gives them credit for and the second that they are brought up to speed on what's actually been going on Rook is past the word and bides his time

and is the one to kill Thron like the ultimate undoing of Thrawn the thing that makes his defeat irretrievable is that his bodyguard is you know far from being this exotic adornment to his to his achievements

is a person with agency and like loyalties and like literally puts the knife in throns back and here he's odd job yeah he's just a a minion who

gets his foot caught in the zapper and he gets zapped at the end there's you hate it when that happens it's such a bummer because of how much the no gray story in the Thrawn books is so interesting for all of its all of its resonances with the history of the rebellion and the republic and the republic of the empire with all the stuff with leah and vaders relationship all that stuff and then their own history and they had you know

they're not a perfectly executed idea for like tribal alien hunters or whatever but like they have their own thing going and their whole thing is about them reclaiming some control over their place in the galaxy and in history. And here it's a little gray alien who hunts good until he gets undone by bad luck, basically. I'm really shocked that he was reduced to such a non-character given how, like, if you're going to invoke Rook, it seems surprising to me to leave it as a name Easter. egg rather than like a name recognition Easter egg rather than anything about his actual character at all and then to kill him like he doesn't even get to leave on the spaceship with with at least

if he like left with thron we can imagine the world where we end up you know in in the thron you know uh trilogy eventually in that eventually yeah like assoca might be hanging out with matroch uh you know right like that'd be cool sure yeah it would be it would be but to to only use him as you know the threat the threat to the ghost team to the ghost squad um just like the missile that's been deployed the homing missile that's been deployed and then to him to finally get got uh on a basically on a technicality like i just it it feels it it it I don't know. It takes away a lot of the cool.

I was really excited that Rook was here for this, but as episodes went on, I realized that we were not going to get any sort of... Well, and I think it's of a piece with, like, some of the things we brought up with going back to Clone Wars. Like, this is a series when dealing with issues of ethnicity, race, like who who is identified as like advanced civilization and who is you know who is who is tribal who is who is savage this creative team doesn't always handle that stuff the best and you know

I mean I'm thinking back to um the fact that all the little clone kids are little white kids all the yeah of course yeah that like uh this is this is the universe where in a lot of ways like whiteness is default and when an alien standing in for other groups can end up sidelined or playing the stereotype like rook here playing the you know ah he's an assassin with his martial arts from don't really nowhere, but he picked it up somewhere. The, the martial arts of his people.

And you have Zeb kind of reduced to like standing characters like, oh yeah, he's brute muscle, comic relief, but like none of the oh, he was like the royal guard of, you know,

the LaSotte when the boot came down and he used to be a very serious, dedicated, like, warrior, you know, in this, in this culture. And now he's just kind of a smuggler who doesn't believe in that stuff. That was a cool idea for a character. They abandoned it. That character's been fucking gone for seasons. Yeah. Yeah. None of that left. And so, like, the fate of Roo, it's kind of fitting that he, he ends up being the person to sort of administer the coup de grotto Rook, uh, and not even there, just like sort of again,

yeah, and that'll be said, kind of tripping him into a technicality. It's kind of a bummer because this is something that, like, in Clone Wars in the series, they, they tend to stumble into, even at moments. It's like, this is a series that loves to, like, make references and homages to, like, other cool stuff in Star Wars. But this is a case where it's like, oh, you didn't really, you're not doing the work that Zahn is at least trying to do in those books, imperfectly, but sincerely. doing some, yeah, uh-huh. Yeah. Yep. And here, it's like, what if the opposite of what the Air to the Empire trilogy is trying to carry off with the no-gray?

And that's a bummer. It is. Well, Ripturuk, foot trapped by Zab in a zapper. The end. We know who's got the better feet, basically. That's true. That's true. The upper foot, if you will.

Wow. Yeah. You're not wrong. Aser does some four stuff in the, in the, you know, the space whale show up, the pergill, pergill, pergill, pergill. Pergill. Yeah, they should, I guess like gill, like gills, maybe. I don't even though whales don't have gills, really. But pergill show up.

They're way more tentically than they were in that initial episode. They have the technicals in the original one. They were in a nebula, so it was kind of hard to get, okay. I went and looked, they have them, but I don't think they do anything. any of this stuff where they're, like, grabbing stuff with all of their tentacles and breaking it. Thron manages to escape from their tentacles like three times in a way. Like, I don't know what dexterity check he made to get out of there. But he should have just been snapped in two by these guys.

And that wasn't been dealt with. None of this. They set that up with his workout room. Oh, you're right. He is a tough boy. I forgot about that. He is putting in the reps. And also implicit, like, it's not his first time escaping some ropes.

You're right. Yeah. He's practiced. Yeah, in many ways. Yeah, they, they show up. They beat the shit out of a bunch of stormtroopers. He does a lot of holding throng in place. Ezra does a lot of holding thron in place with the force.

And he says his big goodbye to everybody, you know? I'm a sucker for this shit. Like, here's the thing. One, I like the Pergill. I don't know why this works for me a way the wolves don't. In part because, like, the Pergill do feel like this, like, they communicate with Ezra in a weird way. that they are sort of the people who initiate him

into this understanding of like how he can connect to other creatures that in that first story they don't really use each other for anything, he just kind of helps them you realize they need the gas to live and move on and here they sort of come back and it's just a cool visual of these things just like swarming the imperial fleet

and what's kind of funny here obviously they've made the decision the series needs to end with Ezra disappearing. Yeah, which answers one of the big questions we've had since the jump again, which is like, where was Ezra during the Death Star run? Like, where's this kid during the rebellion? And the answer is somewhere else.

And the answer is his space squid whale friends. Yeah. Just towed Thron's car with him in it. To places unknown, I guess. Yeah. But at the same time, like, I dig it. I dig his and Thrawn's final showdown on the bridge. The entire, like, our fates are bound together at this moment.

And for Thron, he thinks that's like, you know, you're going to die up here with me. And Ezra is completely comfortable with that, this notion that, like, you know, Thron, having said, I don't really get all this Jedi stuff about to once again be undone by Jedi stuff. and the willingness of a Jedi to forego what he wants, which is, you know, live, reunited with his family. Right. To be self-sacrificing

a way that continues to elude Thron. Right. Yeah, this is the thing where it's like, first Ezra rejects the temptation of saving Canaan and bringing him back into his family, then Ezra rejects the temptation of going back to be with his biological family, the family of his youth.

And here he overcomes any sort of fear or temptation that he might lose the family that he's made for himself. It has faith that they will somehow come find him because that seems to be what the, I guess I'm getting into the epilogue here a little bit, but that seems to be where things might be headed. In any case, yeah, the stuff worked for me too. Yeah.

The, it did remind me of something else that we were talking about before that I wanted to maybe not clarify, but I was talking about how the world between worlds is weird because it's human shaped and human scaled. And like, hey, is that always the case if a pergul goes into the world between worlds? Is it pergill shaped? I don't know. But what the reason why the world between worlds doesn't work for me as well as the pergill do is like the pergill, even the loath wolves feel like they are creatures in

the world who are tied to the force and that stuff is weird. And it's not built around the human or humanoid experience of the world. They have their own unique relationship. to the force and to the power of the force gives you. And sometimes those intersect with human desires and human needs and human intervention, but that it's not universally built around that necessarily. And so that works for me in a way, and this all works for me in a way that the world between world stuff and the mortis gods stuff doesn't as much, especially the mortis gods as the philoni. I'm filling them in. They're important to the history of the

world. They're important to the history of the force. They're not. just force you know the mortis gods got to be the force witches they got to be the night sisters and that was just like oh and there's another group of force users out there and they have a different weird they're very powerful on the planet of mortis they can maybe see some some stuff through time but that's kind of limited to that and that can make them very powerful in the way that like the witches in macbeth are powerful you know then awesome but the second that it spills out into you know the witches of macbeth are not powerful in hamlet you know I mean. But here, the mortis gods have become, are being positioned as being tied to something

so much grander and so much more connected to. I don't ever need to think about them and Luke Skywalker in the same sentence. You know what I mean? And I think that they're just, it's the whole show is better. The whole series is better if they get to be one little thing. And likewise, the pergol get to be cool, weird force creatures. And here they actually do get to be that. And I think it just works in a way that's just so much stronger so farewell to Ezra who's gone off into who knows where peace out they're going to hang with Bendu they're going to they're going to take him into like the realm of pure nature it's Bendu it's it's Wolf Canaan yeah it's you know it's the spiders the evil spiders from Adelon they weren't evil they were just you're right

they were just we're all going to be wrong to be hanged out now. The geonotions, which is weird because they're kind of like people, but that sometimes they treat them like animals anyway. You know, maybe they'll find like a cool, a cool egg that's not all fucked up, the way that Pablo was very clear that that poor little geonotion thought he was saving his race with that little egg. And, nah, this queen's kind of a reject. Sorry. Yeah. Oh, just a small side from earlier in the episode two. Thron just continuing to stunt on price uh price going out with no dignity in this uh thron being like i expected her to fail but not this completely yeah hell yeah it's so funny again this guy's just out there ripping

the wiring out of the uh out of the empire yeah just like bit by bit let's see let's see how this goes uh now ezer's gonna train him to be a jett i can you imagine if that's were very funny I do like that he had the Inquisitor helmet on the, I mean, the Grand Inquisitor's helmet. The Guardian, the Jedi Guardian helmet from Clone Wars on his desk. That's very fun to me. And also, I guess, you know, no Inquisitors left, just the Royal Guards, just the red-robed, imperial, you know, Emperor guards or whatever. There were no more inquisitors come out here and do this work for the emperor. I guess not.

So, interesting. No, they're all, they got reassigned to the capital. Calcestus. Oh, right. I forgot. Yeah. Calcase trial. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, and finally, before we get to the epilogue, because we do, we already said this, the great, there's a great bit here where, where they say, perhaps the rebel alliance will see, we'll see our victory and finally send support. And Zeb finally gets to have an opinion, his first opinion in seasons. He says, we took Lothal without them. We can keep it without them. Good job, Zeb. That is sick. God, you got to say anything.

Yeah. I mean, probably not true, except the sort of contrivances of, like, what is happening in the version of the rebellion. Yeah. Feels like reconquering Lothal would be, like, pretty easy. I think shockingly easy if they wanted to. I think, like, one Star Destroyer, like, shows up, put one AT-A-T on the ground, like,

what's good. It's toast, yeah. I think the thing that's, the thing is, we just lost the whole Theron fleet. That does actually change things. I think it's very easy for Tarkin, whose sector this is, to be like, nah, we're done with Lothal. Who gives a fuck? The whole project we were building there is toast.

I don't care. Yeah, they were already like burning, burning credits, trying to fund this and the Death Star at the same time. And there's no way the second Death Star isn't already on order. That's right. Like, they're all, like, you know what? Build two. Yeah.

Give me another one more again, you know? Yeah. Also, so the rebels can. can't just like summarily execute someone, they're good guys. Uh-huh. So Azadi's going to be like, come on, Governor Price. You should come with us and not die aboard this, this, uh, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this space.

Because we, again, we've locked everyone inside. Now we're going to blow it up, but since we're not showing them perish, it's fine, uh, it's, it's all good. But you should come with us. And she's like, I serve the emperor till the end. Literally, we just saw her 10 minutes ago. I will do literally anything to not have a bad meeting with Thrawn. Yeah.

Of course she's getting on the ship. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Yeah, go do your time. You'll be out of prison in 15 years. This is someone who in 10 years can be like, I wasn't really a member of the Nazi party. That's right. Yeah.

You had to be a member of the party to have a good civil service job. And that's really all I was. You don't tell me you're telling me she doesn't have any information she could sell to the rebels for her own freedom. Come on. give me a break she 100% you're telling me fucking

what's the same failure whatever from the thrott trilogy wouldn't be like yeah she told me where there were secret stores of guns

so I freed her or whatever you know yeah she's not so bad well yeah there's no way

she would have gone down with that shit but she does because they don't want to have this villain escape so she's like don't worry

I choose to go die all right Bye. Hi. So, Ezra leaves a message. Ezra says, says, Hey, everybody, if you're reading this message, I just appeared with the space whales.

And Sabine, remember, I'm counting on you. And Zeb, you can have the top bunk back. I forgot about the top bunk line. Yeah. Uh-huh. And everyone's sad. And Hera, I left your favorite Maylu run in your bedroom.

Uh-huh. Hope you still like them. Yeah. Of course she does, because who doesn't love a good mail run? Who doesn't love a good Maloo run? This, and then Zeb gets to say his epic line. Yes, yes. This work for me.

I was really, I was really proud of Ezra for kind of, I don't know, just getting to make a decision for himself. execute like execute on that nothing gets in the way he he sees it through he acknowledges each of not everyone but he acknowledges you know Rex I'm not going to talk about you chopper you yeah oh Mark I didn't think you'd be in the room for the so wow you let you open the cock right now am I wrong is like you've lied have I lied I just really that he does not say anything to chopper i was going to be like well he talks to everybody the the no no no he gave chopper the message though

oh yes that's true message bearer so like chopper's been across this the whole time right chopper's in no chopper and ezra chopper's his confidant like this again uncle right like chopper is hera's baby or was right and and he adopted esra uh huh and ezra now repeatedly has been like chopper here's the real plan right and so like so we can imagine he already said his goodbye to chopper yeah because it's like i'm not coming back from this mission chopper's like blah blah right and as was like i just know how it's going to go and so here's a message but you got to play it after i'm gone yeah and you y'all saw the thing the in the second colonie zone and the second rebels recon that this episode finally gives credit to dave as chopper and then they knew

part show it. Yeah, they did. He wakes up from, he wakes up from a bad dream and Pablo's like, don't worry about it, buddy. It was just a dream. Wait, that wasn't in the rub. It's in the second one. You maybe only watched the first one. Oh, yes. Yes. They're having a lot of fun here at the end of Rebels Recon. They really, really are. Yeah. Again, I was actually surprised how much the Rebels recon affected me. Like, they're probably the creative team and their favorite moments. And I was like, damn, this show, like, something I think I've, I've, sometimes lost side of across the series. Rebels has some of my favorite Star Wars moments like ever, right? Like Vader reappearing there. Allie looks so skeptical. Sorry. Oh. Okay. We was misreading that

that I, that I movement. Okay. Sorry. No, but I think the return of Vader to that's up to the field like this that stuff is is awesome. Like when this show has been like sort of at a high it's it's been very high. Yeah. There are moments where it's, like, kind of goofy children's cartoon. But, like, as they're sort of citing their favorite moments, when this thing is hit, it's really hit. Yeah. And I was, like, kind of bummed that it was ending.

And also bummed, like, it got me reflecting about how, there's a moment where Filoni's talking about how Star Wars animation is really important to him, and you want to make sure this, like, pipeline stayed together. And how much Disney Plus and their content strategy for Star Wars now is, like, make stuff live action. Well, and... We've got three seasons

a bad batch, right? That's still Star Wars animation. That's, yeah. It's true. Tales for the Jedi. Tales from the Jedi and Empire and now the one we can't see the trailer for even

because it has a big spoiler in it. I wonder if we are about... We're recording this on the 16th. I'm very curious if we're about to learn about another new show, a new cartoon. Because you're right,

Rob. The celebration is about the happened. You're right, Rob. He makes such a big deal about how important the animation pipeline is to him and how much like, we cracked this thing. We know how to make TV now in an animated format. I don't want to lose that. It was important to make the continuity between the old Lucas film and the new Disney stuff. And it's such an important point because like good creative teams that make like complicated collaborative art, it is hard. It is harder than you think, even with the right people, it takes time to build the sort of familiarity

and habits and workflows. And so, yeah, to be at the point where it's like, we can make great Star Wars stuff here. You don't, you hope they don't, like, just let that machine spin down too much. I'm super, I came out of, like, super hype for whatever season seven of Clone Wars. I'm so excited for it. I am so, like, I'm, I'm ravenous for it now. seeing like especially because it's such stylistically a different show and Rebels is occupied

such a different place that I'm so curious what like returning to Clone Wars is going to be but yeah the Rebels Recon I was like definitely in my feelings I was actually probably it almost hit me

a little bit harder than like the end of the series in fact because like the end of the series is setting up like these characters will return we know but Rebels recon I'm like as far as I know

there's not more Rebels recon why did you say that like Yoda Oh, did I say it like, yeah He said These characters will return, we know Oh, I meant like But like comma, we know Because obviously Asoka

Yeah, I know That's how Vyota would say Return they will Return they will Is what he would have said, you're right Yes Not we know, yeah Uh huh

Anyway And we definitely know These stories aren't continued Because we get this Have a walk Okay So it's a beautiful, bright blue day on Lothal. Yep.

And the empire never returns. They're like, we have to prepare for the attack, but the empire never came out. Sabine is narrating. Sabine is like very clearly positioned as the inheritor of protagonist power here. Yes. The once invincible empire had begun to fall apart or whatever because the Death Star got blown up. And the next thing you know, it was, everything was just kind of cool. The Battle of Endor happened.

All that happened off screen. Okay. To interject, I think what's so interesting about this moment in Star Wars, I think, but from the time they start making rebels, the TV series to now, they've realized, oh, the New Republic pretty, they shit the bad. Like, that's not, if this is all, if this is all building to like the rebels, getting the rebel lines together and they're to liberate Lothal and all that, if Lothal's going to have a happy ending, can't be through the good offices of Monmothma and, the new republic. I think that was a really interesting thing here at the end where it's like, and don't worry, the empire never showed up, but neither did the rebellion. And we just became an independent like star system. Yeah, I'm curious if they're in the new republic or not. Either way, though, their future freedom and prosperity, not dependent

on that. Right. This, as a note, this episode airs March 5th, 2018. Mandelorian starts November of 2019. So they would have definitely been at the very at least in pre-production of Mandalorian and figuring out the thing of what is the New Republic in this new continuity, et cetera. For sure, for sure. So I think that that's probably right, Rob, that, like, they knew the New Republic was,

you know, the audience didn't have that image of the New Republic quite yet. Outside of the sequel trilogy's New Republic, which seems ineffective and seemed unable to address the rising threat of neo-fascism or whatever, you know. But yeah, I think that's an interesting An interesting point for sure

And maybe the last interesting point I think most of us would have expected Because the rest of what's about to happen is Wild Awesome Okay So step one The Imperals never come back to Lothal

The rebels never come to Lothal The Empire falls apart Cool Step two Yep Is Step 2 Zeb? Is it Zem McAllis? Step 2 is Zabb

Step 2 is indeed Zubb McAule I cannot I'm sorry Austin can you Can you get the screen grab of the moment It's a pain in the ass a little bit I bet we can find

Once give me a second Let me see if I just snap a picture Yeah because I know Here we go I got it I can just we can just here Listen I'm just going to link everybody to This is just on The YouTube channel

everything Star Wars. Thank you everything Star Wars here from seven years ago Star Wars Rebels ending and yes what's the part that you want? Do you want the hand over the hand over the eyes? The hand over the eyes The hand over the eyes. The surprise party

the little So we cut from Lothal to the nebula outside of Lassan that they you know the eye they had to go through the eye and all that and everything is like orange and black and Sabine I believe is still narrating and she's like After the war, Zeb took Calus along the secret hyperspace path to the planet Lirassan,

and it cuts to Zeb with his hand over Callis's face, like he's about to show him the car he bought him for Christmas, you know? Oh, my God, that's so true. It's like, hey, babe, check out this little two-door coop, I got you. And then the door opens up to reveal that there are actually other Lassat still alive. He didn't kill them all. I cannot believe the show reminded us of that. It was then that Callis realized he hadn't destroyed the Lassat people and that they were thriving on this new world.

And then Zeb, like a proud partner, puts his hand around Callis's shoulder and smiles at like the elder of the Lassat who he brought to the planet, you know, a world where he was welcome as one of them. Are you fucking kidding me? They didn't earn it. They had every opportunity. I was ready for them to earn it. I wanted the yowie to be earned. I wanted them to get to be like bickering and bantering and flirting for the last two seasons if we're going to fucking do this.

I can't believe they actually gave us the ending we wanted. It's so funny. But in a way that makes me want to arrest people. I'm sorry. I keep backing the scene up. The layers of this. So it's not just it's not just the love. Nothing like covering of the face to present the world.

But then the cockpit door snaps open. I know. And the elder and all the sot are back there. And that's when Sabina's like, and they weren't all dead. And he's like, oh shit, I didn't kill them all. Here's four of the rain in front of me. Wait a second. You're telling me I didn't do the genocide all the way?

This is, this is like a, like, like. an SS officer who like has come to regret it's like hey guess what good news brooklyn exists and it's like cool awesome i thought i really fucked up there for a second it's Brooklyn exists and I'm coming I'm bringing you here to introduce my parents to you because we're we're a couple I it's so bad what if the night porter had the happiest ending you've ever fucking seen So funny. I want to do the, you know, the terrible right wing thing where they, like, draw the line of who's leaning on who? You see who's dominant in a relationship so they can be like, look at how the guy is leaning and she's standing straight.

I need to do that both, Callis and Sam. It's so bad. It's so funny. We've, they had no interaction. They have not made eye contact. the only time that they even were in the same room together in the same scene was last episode when Sabine was like, hey, everybody, come look at this TV so Ezra can escape. Well, they're on the same fight in this scene, in this episode, and they don't even get the

shit that fucking Honda and Melch get. Like, there's never a moment where Cal is like, Zeb, look out. Rook is here. They're nothing. I. They even had a whole deal where Callis had mass. their combat I know style and like none of this pays off that like callus was was walking around with like an iconic lasot weapon they could have been like back to back like fighting dudes off

and it would have been like it would have been like ray and ben and it would have been like oh this is like again this is sex in Star Wars this is what you get is like all right buddy I got your back you're Right. And then they don't even get a ass. They don't get any. We don't get any of it. It's so shit. And then literally it's like, and then Tiny Tim, who did not get massacred by Agent Callis. It's, it's, it, it, I, I, I can't even like put into words how flabber.

I just like, I think I went, my body went into shock when I saw this scene. Like, my, like, things shut down. I felt myself dissociating. I, like, the, the hand on the hip. I, I, if I'm his mom, if I'm Zeb's mom. That's not who that is, but yes, continue. If I'm Zeb's grandma. Still not, that's the spiritual mom.

Spiritual mom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Matriarch. If I'm anyone that knows who Zeb is and is from his planet. and you bring this full back home to meet the parents I just

I I can't even I don't have words Is this why the Royal Guard couldn't put more of a fight you just saw that you just saw the Imperial transports like lower it lower the ramps

and you just like swoop like what's going on here Zab I think maybe you know what maybe just out of frame after that cut they slap him in cuffs and it's like he lured him there. Like Honeypot Zeb

lures callous to his war crimes trial. Right, that's great. Love it. Do you want me to tell you what Dave Filoni said about it? Oh, please. To I-09. Okay. This is about whether there's a relationship.

That kind of seems to be the framing of the... I-09 had the chance. This is Gizmodo, I think repeating something with my own nine, I can't seem to find the original thing, but the whole quote is here. So I-N-9 had the chance to speak. with executive producer Dave Faloney in the wake of Rebel's End. So we asked him about Zeb and Callis' relationship over the course of the series,

and if there's anything to the interpretation of their final scene together as a romantic one. Quote, I put everything up on screen and then let you the audience react to that. I think that there's just two characters, even on a very base level, they're two men who care about each other and love each other. And instead of embracing a path of anger and destruction and looking at where each of them came from and seeing their differences, they try, and through the adventure and through peril, they find a common ground, and they chose

the path of forgiveness. They choose a path of, it's better to see something good in somebody else than to live in fear. Because that's what you do when you're destructive. It's because you're afraid when you're trying to destroy each other. It's because you don't understand each other, and I think that's the core of it. I don't want to take anything away from people that want to believe what they believe is so far as how close two characters are. I mean, I think that's completely open, and I appreciate all the interpretations of it.

As a creator, you're always interested in how the work interacts with the audience and what they feed back to you about it. I also think growing up over the years as a young man, it's kind of a deficit, especially in America, of expressing ourselves as men and about caring and loving and what that even means. We're always told to toughen up, and I understand that. But at the same time, it can be troubling when there's a deficit of compassion extended to one another and different things. So I think the story worked out. I think that whatever people think of it, they understand that they chose a path to be more selfless and caring for one another. That's very important, and they seem to like that outcome. Some people, I think, earlier on, were like, how could he ever forgive Callis for what happened?

But you kind of have to go, exactly. How can he and what does that mean? Isn't that amazing if he can? Does the outcome have to be those two characters would destroy each other? Or is it more compelling that they find this ground together and start this new life? What does that mean? So I think that's more interesting, encouraging, a more interesting, encouraging ending, frankly. What ground do they find if they don't talk to?

each other. I would love to know what I found. This reminds me, okay, so I... You like sports? When I watched the first season of Cora, right? And then I was like, I can't watch the rest of Cora because she has so much better chemistry with the girl. And they're setting up this romance with this guy and I'm just going to be mad the whole time. And then in the season finale of Cora, the two girls kiss and they go into a portal together. and they're like, they were,

they were the end game. They, Utena it? Basically. Have you not watched Kora all the way through? Have you not finished Kora? Did I just spoil Kora for you?

I'm sorry. I was saving it. Oh, yeah. Well, okay. Well, now you're not going to be like me and you're going to be like, I can't watch the show

because I don't think that they're going to get together. But like, at least in Kora, she had chemistry with the girl. She didn't have chemistry with the girl. They do not kiss. I just want to be clear about that.

They do not kiss. They don't. hands and look at each other. They absolutely do not kiss. It's left, it's left ambiguous. It's so fucking, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe, oh, oh, oh. They're best friends.

Sorry, you know what? I forgot about this. Netflix, I believe, maybe, mm. Is it ambiguous in the show? And then they have the comic and the in the comic they're kissing? It's definitely in the comic, it's definitely kissing. Yes. And the comic there is unambiguous.

Yes. But it's the same exact ending of like the queer couple goes through the portal together. It is, yes. They don't even get to be up cut? Like, I just... Right, the whole show of Kora, she clearly has... The whole show of Kora is often about Kora and Asami in their relationship. This show is not about Zep and Kallis.

The dudes do not get to grow together at all. You're right. But they do just out of frame. I would have loved to have seen any... Like, one follow-up episode? Is that really too much to ask for her for these two? A follow-up scene. My God.

Like, they never talk about... Being in the cave together. I am. How could they never talk about... I am white knuckling, not IMDBing the Assoca series to see if Calas is in it. I don't think Calas shows up. I'm pretty sure he doesn't. I...

Because Zeb exists in that timeline. Like, we saw Zab in... We've seen live action Zab. Yeah, but isn't that after... Didn't that come out after this book of the show? No, it's right before. Oh, is it? No, actually...

No, actually. So do you think maybe he... I think it was before. It's the season after Asoka is in that show. Well, and that's my point is, right, well, but I meant, the thing that I'm thinking in my mind is, I remember when Callis shows up in Mandalorian, everyone, yo, that's Callis. And if he was in Asoka, the TV show, that came out before, but maybe it didn't. Maybe that came out after that Mandoah season. I think it may have.

You mean Zab in Maddo. Sorry, I said Zeb, not Callis. Oh, my God. I was like, Galas, was it, Mandalorian? I meant Zab. I meant Zep. Yes. Okay, yeah.

So we know that there is a live action Zep. CG character because he shows up in Mando Season 3, right? And then I think Asoka premieres right after that, I think. That might be right. But it's pretty egregious because, like, you have this entire labored redemption arc for Callas.

It all starts with him and Zeb connecting. They never speak another word to each other after that. But then at the end, it's like they're besties. And then you have Faloni, bless his heart. I can be read lots of ways, but I also want to depict male friendship. And it's like, Dave, if you're like, there's a dearth of depictions of male friendship. And then you're like, but here's what I did. I depicted it.

And everyone's like, they seem gay. I think maybe we also missed the mark on the male intimacy you were going for, too. Again, like, flushing things out would have been the play. Even if, yeah, if you, even if they both ended up, if it was like, Callish shows, up with his white girlfriend and Zeb has his Lassat wife, but we'd still gotten them being buds together and having scenes together over the rest of the season. Or the series since Calus came around and became a rebel or whatever, like at least we would have gotten the scenes between the two guys.

Even if that is what, what Filoni was. We could have had good uncle vibes. Like, we were, like, we were cheated of so much because we could have had them working, like, it's alluded to when callus first like tips them off that like hey i've actually kind of turned my coat here like let zeb know that like callus is returning the favor and they kind of have that joke of like wait did you recruit callus to the team and he's sort of sheepishly like oops i kind of uh you know they kind of make reference to the fact that like wait you just turned our you turned our primary antagonist yeah good by hanging out with him and

we don't pay off any of that and then yeah this ending where it's like hey man come on down yeah he just does nothing this whole season the refugees of the genocide want to hang he has a line in the last i forgot we skipped one line from him this not to zeb or anything but he tells he tells price like the day i betrayed the empire is the day i stopped betraying myself whatever the fuck that means something that we could have had any insight about if he and zeb had ever talked. He should have said that to Zeb. Zeb should have been able to like, why did you do this? And Callis says to him, I have for a long time had doubts. You know what I mean? Like, and again, we would all be like it's really tortured, blah, blah, blah. It really feels like they

were trapped between the absurdity that we keep calling out about the genocide stuff. And they don't want to be, they don't want too many scenes where people could point out and be like, those two are gay. That is what it feels like. I have no idea what the talks were internally. I'm not accusing anyone of anything. But when you don't put the two cases, characters who are clearly being shipped by the fandom and by the show's final ending together on the screen, one must wonder, what is going on back there? Who is, who, why, if you're, if you want to go here, why did you not build the road to go here? Mm-hmm.

Yeah, if you want to show beautiful male friendship, why didn't you show any beautiful male friendship throughout the full fucking- They could have been cracking beers with Ezra and Sabine, like hey kids let's uh like you could have had a fun like zeb's all about the beer and like calis like come on man like give these kids a little taste of champagne oh fun stuff right like and hey rob speaking of ezra and sabine in the rebels recon for the final episode feloni brings them up and what's he he says he explicitly is like it ain't like that he says a lot of people want to ship them Ezra and Sabine, and I think that that's fine, but it's a shame because it defaults idea that men and women have to be understood in romantic ways, and that there's a breadth

of personal relationships that go beyond that relationship, and we think we've done a pretty good job of showing their friendship grow over the last four seasons, and guess what? They have done that somehow. Despite it all, I think where Ezra and Sabine are at the end of the series is like one of the great things they've pulled off in this final season of the show. something that if I had gone back six months ago and said, where do you think you're going to feel about Ezra and Sabine at the end of this series?

I would never have guessed that they would have pulled that off. And they did none of that for Zev and Callis, a couple that we've been rooting for. Even just as characters and friends, we've decided to root for them. Well, and the fact that he's willing to be like, hey, shippers, shut the fuck up. Don't intend to be read that way.

Exactly. Okay, what's going on with Zev and Callis? Whatever you see. what is there all right it's also it's also such a shame

when Zeb has been reduced to such a non-character since that episode anyway like it's not only that Zeb and Callis don't have any

meaningful screen time together it's also that Zeb himself as a character has no meaningful character development or screen time

since it's like we might as well have just skipped to now there's nothing that happens between for zeb as a character or between zeb and callus or i mean callus has some moments i guess when he's like going up against thron and and sort of doing that whole thing um or like you know whatever it just it's just frustrating because it's it's like they're coming in in the like in at the 11th hour and being like here you go here's like the thing that you all have been tweeting

about on your on your alts for you know your Star Wars fan alts for all this time and here it is and it's it is so unearned from Zeb's standpoint we have no idea how he's worked out in his head

that he could forgive callus to this extent to bring him to the fucking secret planet I yeah Yeah, it's such a disservice to Zeb because Zeb's ending doesn't even get to be Zeb's ending. It's callous's ending. Exactly.

Exactly. That is, yes, it is so frustrating. It's callous getting to absolve his sins. He gets the blessing from the LaSot people. You know, he gets to be welcomed and absolved of the sins that he had committed in the past. This has nothing to do with Zeb. I think it's also just such a miscue to remind us at this stage that he was like part of like the war crimes division landing on Lasson or whatever the planet was. Lerison, I think Lerison, yeah, something like that.

Because like I like a lot of times the stuff that's discord in the show, I'm like they figured out a lot of stuff when the plane was already in the air and they moved in some directions. and I think as long as they didn't like go back and revisit the part where Callis is like yeah I killed them all and you know I loved doing it as long as you bring that up like I'm willing to get around this notion of like all right

we're kind of reconning where like he wasn't really super like up to his eyeballs in this but then to be like hey just so you know some of you remember he did yes he did take part wiping out Zeb's homeworld as people but that didn't happen

there were other people on a different planet that he didn't kill that's just as good as not killing any of them and now they want to meet him because he's cool with them yeah great

it's like you'd have been better off not reminding me of this you could you could have just ended with them like hanging out on Ezra's tower like cracking a cold one that would have been so good I would have loved if they were cracking a cold one on Ezra's Tower.

And like Ezra's helmets were behind them. Throwing another jupe on the grill. Come on. That would be that would be the level of intimacy that they had earned by this point. In fact, this is the actual secret. If the thing that they had ended with was the two of them like needing eyes and then being like, I guess we have a lot to talk about and opening the possibility for them to bond instead of jumping to the bond, the bond happened off screen.

you know like okay the war is over we can finally have it out about this do you know what i mean that's super intense i'm just how many friends of any type am i doing the whole life of your eyes i have no friends like that i have no friends like that but maybe this is the this is the curse of masculinity rob maybe you should be able to put your hands over my eyes and and reveal to me the secret home of your people who I destroyed. Okay, well, it's not only...

It's not only... That's right. It's not only the new love of... Step three. There's also love of the past coming home to roost as the ghost emerges

into some clouds above Lothal. We learned that Harrah fought in the Battle of Endor. As did Commander Rex again, perhaps evidence that that was Rex in that in that part of Return of the Jedi.

Quote, by that time, there had been a new member added to the crew of the ghost and the camera pans from Hera to the seat to a little boy with green hair and blushing,

kind of reddish, white face. Spector 7, Jason Sindula, Jason spelled like Jason Solo, the son from the Thrawn Trilogies. He's got, little green-tinged ears.

He does have green-tinged ears. He doesn't have Twilac Braintails. That's right. But he does have Lecu. Lecoo. Yep, thank you. But he's got little green-tipped ears. Born to fly, just like his mother. Just as we're completely clear.

And, well, we all know what his father was like. For his man as I am about the Calistuff, to have to believe that that came out of Hera is he's just a human boy like they can't even do anything mixed race

they're like he I just He has little green ears Oh yeah yeah he has little green ears And they're kind of a little bit long I guess And he's green he's like overwhelmingly green for some reason Also okay He's a human little boy So I googled this kid fucking immediately

And I will say there I'll send you two screenshots The first one is from this show And you can see they kind of made his ears kind of big. And they made him a little green. Now, unfortunately, the second thing is a live action photo from what must be Asoka. And it's just a little boy. This is just a kid who got cut from skeleton crew to me. That's just a human.

What the fuck? You know what? We don't need to be mean. Also, that outfit sucks. Sorry, it didn't mean to be mean, but you let him go out like that? Oh, my God. I hate this. I hate this so much.

I think that I hate this. I hate that I hate Harrah's makeup. I hate that she like it's like just to show that time has passed now like just like has like dark eye shadow and like dark lipstick on like it

just it feels so weird she's in her post end or phase. This is what this is the fashion. She has dark lipstick on. She's a milf now. That's literally it. Right? that's what they've decided is that's mom hera so she needs to have like she has to get momified so she wears like

bad eye shadow and and and like bad I just she looks so tight like she doesn't look happy she looks so does not to me I don't know it she looks I don't know there's something really weird going on in the spaceship I just don't I don't like

any part of it I don't like okay can I ask the question because you don't like any part of it you don't even like that it confirms that her and Canaan were hooking up for real for real no because because my question is when you're like about this

like she was tortured a week before that happened Like, what do we do? No, no. What do you mean a week before that happened? Well, no, like a week after this kid would have been conceived. That's the thing, yeah. When was the kid conceived? Also, she was shot full of drugs. Full of drugs. But that couldn't have happened. We saw everything that happened between him rescuing her and him dying. Right, no, so it happened before.

Right, okay. The thing I like about this is it, I think actually explains a lot of the weirdness of his and Harry's interactions. My read on this is, if they did not already know, that this was, this was in the off thing. But to me, I think it is a, that is why Canaan is pressing this so hard. Right. That suddenly it isn't okay anymore.

He's not comfortable anymore with like, we'll just figure out what the future is. Right. Because now like the future has a due date. And he really wants to know like, what is this and what are our plans? And that explains like why he's pressing so hard on this. But also she,

He is a child of war and, like, grew up in the midst of, like, a, you know, resistance to a colonel, like, a imperial power. And so, like, it kind of square that they would be, like, for Canaan being a Jedi with all the sort of baggage that comes from, like, not being with your family, sort of having the Jedi order, like, occupy that space. it kind of does make it make sense that Canaan would suddenly spin out over this was kind of weird with Hara in the later stages of the series and that like she was suddenly really protective of her

prerogative to continue prioritizing the rebellion yeah I think it works explaining that stuff I hate this kid I don't like the kid I just hate the kid. I'm happy for what it means for the two of them. The kid is like when the Penny Arcade guys would try to draw.

It does. And they're all the most twee, nauseating little shits you've ever seen. It is a Penny Arcade kid. This kid's going to go to the game stop with Gabe and get a fucking game. The only thing missing is the fucking snot that, that Gabe always drew into the kids because it's so cute with the. I'm not a toxic asshole. look at these cute little tykes I drew I can't believe it

I hadn't realized it's like shit Canaan for some reason we didn't name this kid Canaan or Caleb we named him Jason as a reference to a book from a different continuity Yeah what's going

Belonging to a different person Belonging to a different set of parents Yeah a really traditional Twilic name, Jason. Like, what the fuck are we doing? I hate that this, I think for me,

that is the thing, that is it. That is it for me. That is exactly what I was going to say. Yes. It's the same thing again. Why is this Canaan's kid and not? Where's Cam?

Where's grandpa? Why isn't them adding a new thing to the fucking the thing? But my point being, that like you all pointed out the way that, I think Ali, maybe it was you, you pointed out that like Zeb's ending doesn't get to be Zebs ending

against its callus's ending. Here is Hera's ending has to be Canaan's ending not hair like none of the hair stuff with Ryloth or the Twilac is here at all. I know that she was like key to the rebellion. That was like one of her big thing. So that is still here obviously. But like yeah, why couldn't it be a little

twilight looking kid who maybe had a slightly more human looking face or something? I don't know. maybe this is just maybe they've been hemmed in by canon and this is what it's established in the Disney timeline and maybe even in the EU this is what twilight kids look like I don't know or twilight it doesn't have to look like it doesn't have to look like both of them it could just he could just you could just make a baby twilight like I don't know I just think that it's yeah it puts the emphasis on Canaan who

who's not here. He's here through this child. I'm going to lose my mind. I'm going to lose my mind. We've seen Twilic hybrid kids before. Oh my God. No, no. We haven't. Those weren't his kids. Really? On the farm. They are 100% hybrid kids. Those weren't cuts kids. That is 100%. What Wikipedia says, Rob. Those were cuts kids. Those were cuts. The clones haven't been around long enough for those to be his kids. He defected. But they didn't have hyper aging, you know, and how long was the Clone Wars? I'm checking. I'm putting them in.

I'm going to, this is, I bet this is in the talk. Let's see here. Is there a, is there a? Oh, but no, yeah. There's, they're hybrid kids. Those are hybrid kids. They're very clearly what they're going for here. Yeah.

Damn. So what the fuck? That's baby mama. Oh, it was such a baddie. I don't remember this at all. I don't actually remember. Wait, what's her name? What's her name?

Sue. Sue. We don't know how good we had it. Cut adopted Sue's children together the four of them lived on and maintained a farm on the outer rim. It does say adopted. Interesting. No, what? Hold on, though.

Around the time of the separatist crisis, Sue conceived two children with a human male. See? Yeah. It's a different guy. We back. We back. We know that. Well, because you look at their faces and those are clone faces.

That's how you know that. Oh, Sue met. Oh, wait, there's, though. Yes. Sue married, though she was eventually widowed. Marriage. Okay, that's not what I want. This must be in some secondary source.

Star Wars helmet collection 36. The Clone Wars character encyclopedia. Yeah, there we go. There we go. I don't think that's super well thought out. Well, you know, what are you going to do? Yeah. What are you going to do?

Anyway, this is not. That's how I'm saying. We can concede that these are higher kids because they're under. They're under. Yeah, they do look. It's giving Renzmae. It's giving Renzmae. Here we go.

Oh my God, the Renzme from the thing. I got it. I got what we needed. Of course, we got the dude. We got what we needed here. Quote, let me see where I can get the exact. I want to link it. It's Pablo.

It's Pablo on. Here we go. I'm going to copy this image. Thank you to whoever archived this. Pablo says, in front of a whiteboard upon its squares. There are half twilight, half humans seen in the Clone Wars for what it's worth. And Andy Gutierrez says, wait, really? The deserter?

I thought they weren't his kids biologically. And Pablo says, they're not cuts children biologically, but they did have a human father. And Andy says, that wasn't set out right, though, right? Makes sense their looks, though. I have to rewatch. And Pablo says, it wasn't said, but it was part of their character design. This feels like they wanted cut to have their arguing kids and that they wanted to have kids that would be half human, half Twilac. But the time is out there knowing this sucks.

She knows this sucks. Well, no, but part of the character design was. because this was from 2018 so this would have been aligned with I want to find the original context for this conversation so about it but it's been all deleted anyway I miss Sue was so fucking cool

I miss Clone Wars I miss Clone Wars yeah that's I think I think that's what puts such I just I think it yeah I think we've said it all on steps three. I don't know. Well, maybe I can come around on Harrow's makeup. It just, it looks, girl,

you know what? I didn't see it at first, but now that you've, like, pointed it out, suddenly the ghost cockpit has minivan energy. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. It's like kind of shit. It's given retired. It's giving like your, like, the war's over. But not in a cool way. Yeah. Not a cool way.

This is like a best years of our lives outcome. Wow. It's like, well, we're going to, okay, let's finish this thing and then I want to do a thing, maybe. Okay. Step four. Step four. We get new haircut Sabine. The worst step of all. And Sabine has shaved her head down to like a, I don't say a fade, but it's not even a fade, really. It's a pixie. I guess it's a pixie cut. It's like a micro-pixie. Yeah, it is.

And then she looks up with the mural that I guess she made of her whole family, which is to say, the family of the ghost. And she touches Ezra's face on the mural. And she's like, I read, you know, for years I thought, I don't remember exactly. For years, I thought Ezra just meant I had to be there for the rest of the ghosts, you know? But actually, the rest of the spectres, but actually one day I realized that he was counting on me for something else, something specific, you know, and who walks in behind her with the big Gandalf staff? But Asoka in the white robe. Soca the white. The white is here, yeah.

We are going, we are going to hate the Asoka show. Is it time to watch the teaser trailer for the Asoka show? Yes. Yeah, you know what? We can do that because then I want to talk about this moment a little more. Well, let's talk about the moment, and then we'll watch the teaser to see if you're, or are you hedging? No. So, the mural sucks.

You like the mural? I think it's bad, man. Do you not like the big white and big black wolf? I like that. The wolves are good. Like the wolves. What don't you like about the mural? She can't draw people, man.

It's not her background. It's her art style. I know, but the problem is like, I'm gonna pull it up. She can decal a helmet. She can draw like, she can draw bitch and flames on your car. But she can't do a family portrait.

She made that one while she was in grief. She has the same hair as she did when Ezra left. Look at Zeb in the mural. I'm sorry. Look at Zepp. This is a hit job. She should not have done Zeb like that. You're right.

This is bad. I like the loath cats. Loath cats look great. Chopper looks really good. Why is Hera like Kauai? She's trying out a new style. What the fuck? Canaan didn't look that way.

Caden didn't look that way. What do you do? Like, can you imagine? Sabine doesn't look. Hera, like, hey, I'm working on something. You're not wrong. I've been working on something. It's really special.

I hope you guys like it. Curtin pulled back. Cool. Oh. That's us. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, look at. I love how small you made my head.

There is so tiny. You're right. It's so tiny and she, her eyes are so sparkly. heart on this. Ezra's lips did look like that. That is definitely how Ezra's mouth was. I will say something here that I meant to say earlier.

When we saw we saw Ezra's parents and they were way more dark-skinned than the way Ezra is. Did anybody pick up on this? They have not whitened him over the years the way some other franchises will do with their characters.

But he's light-skinned compared to them. I don't know. He's light-skinned. compared to Canaan. I mean, it's like she fucked up her in here, especially,

yeah. And it's like, oh yeah, don't you remember the episode where Canaan fell asleep in a tanning bed and everyone had a good laugh for the rest of the episode?

It was one of many amusing incidents, the one where Canaan buys a tanning bed for the ghost. I do think the bet the highlight is Zootid Zeb, though. Bro is off the shit. Yes, bro is off one. It is incredible.

He's simultaneously like, thick as hell oh yeah but also like she it's like she ran in a room in the mural so she's like

big muscles like he you know Uncle Zeb like strong towering over everyone oh fuck I can't reach

I can't paint the head yep I should get a ladder but fuck it I can reach I can reach

the next the head ratio alone is outstanding it's so funny she's trying she's trying Mustaches are tricky They're tricky to grow

And they're tricky to paint They are They are And fuck yeah Just draw a big A big Brown U Across his

Across his face And then poor Poor Sabine with the little pouty lips Like Sabine Yeah It's hard to look back at yourself You know what I mean

And draw yourself I couldn't do this I couldn't do any of this She says to Asoka, or she says to herself, she's the audience at home, as there's out there somewhere, and it's time to bring him home and she walks away with Asoka.

Also, she has a pergul. I don't if you notice this on her armor. Her, like, new paldron has a pergall graffiti on it, or pergall, like... The owl's gone? Oh, you know what? Maybe she doesn't have the owl anymore. Maybe it's replaced the owl. That's interesting. Yeah, she has the... Or maybe she's at one now on both shoulder? No, she's the rebel symbol on one,

and then the whale on the other, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I also, like, I guess, what a power move from young Ezra. Like, I'm going to say something super ambiguous to this girl. Yeah. And you're going to think about me for the next five years. Hey, I'm counting on you. Leave him wondering. Leave him, be mysterious. And obviously, Ezra's not really built for that. So he did the only thing he could Which would be kind of mysterious

But then literally disappear Yeah All right Is it time to watch The trailer for Asoka The show we've gotten to know nothing about For years and years Oh my God, yes

Please I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared All right I'm streaming I just want to let the record show In case you did not If you are not a Patreon subscriber I welcome you to doing so But I made...

Patriot.com. Civilized, please. Go subscribe. I made a wish on a shooting star when we recorded one of our recent monthly Q&A's that we would like

the Asoka show. I made a wish. I've prayed about it. I've put it in a little... I just, I really I want to like it. Like I really want that. for us. I want us to watch Asoka

and have like a good rolling time and really enjoy it. Okay. Are we ready? Here we go. Three, two, one, go. Something's coming. That's Assoca talking. Something dark.

Why is she looking like she's in a 360 cutscene? This is giving that one prince of Persia. It is. Lightsepar circle. This is a new beginning. Loth Cat.

Long hair, Sabine. She reconsidered that fixing cut. Yeah, apparently. There's a, there's chopper. We have some people with orange lightsabers. There seem to be baddies. There's Assook ship. Might just be the lighting.

This is just the end. There's the tower. That's the tower and the ship. Things have changed. That feels like the scene we left off from the desk. Yeah! Manmothma sided. Oh, blue.

Speaking of all blue. As heir to the empire. That's the name of the book. They said the name of the book we fuck with. We have to prepare for the worst. Hair drops? He hair drops? The Jedi fell a long time ago.

There aren't many left. That's the hologram of Ezra. With Jedi, she's no Jedi. Jedi, she's not a Jedi. That's, remember him? I think so. No. Who's that little droid?

You don't remember the David Tennant character who was nominated for a... Oh, fucking A. Oh, my God. For an Emmy. Huying, the librarian droid from the Jedi Youngling's arc in Clone Wars. We just want to give David Tennant an Emmy. Can we just give him an Emmy?

Please. Meanwhile, Sam Whitwer is right over there. I got to tell you, Rob, I've seen some Sam Whitwer talking about Star Wars stuff that drives me off the fucking wall. And so I need to just not be... Oh, no. He's such a good job as a voice actor. but he has really taken on the idea that he understands Star Wars in a way that nobody else does

that drives me up a fucking wall. And I don't think I understand Star Wars right. I think I have interesting Star Wars opinions. And I know I have not been in Star Wars. I have not a Wheaton energy? It is like, it is like, Jack Will Wheaton energy. It is like, what if Will Wheaton was like even more of a confident smug guy about the franchise he was part of? It drives me crazy.

Freddie Prince Jr. is like that too, though, right? He had, Freddie Prince Jr. has a particular quote about it that's like from one interview about like the nature of the forest. And I talk to George about it or I talk to Deney. But it's just the one. I keep seeing Whitwer and like Whitwer because Whitwer is in Star Wars stuff still. Freddie Prince Jr. has also come out and been like, I'm fucking done with that. That was kid's shit. I should have never. No, he doesn't say I should have never done it. He's like, it was a point in my time of my life. I'm over it. I was never, I was more of a Star Trek guy anyway, which is like a wild thing to say. It feels to me like maybe some contract negotiations

broke down or something. The degree of like antipathy on display. I don't know. It's wild. But anyway, that's Asoka. We'll see that at some point. I have so many questions. I've so, there are so many evil light saber. Yeah. Let me. So it's been a while. since Sabine and Assoca have seen each other. Seemingly. So seemingly. So it's not picking up immediately after.

Well, yeah, we know that this is a Mandalorian era show, right? So it's New Republic era pre-sequel series. Quick thing that's jumping out of me when they shot, there's a medium shot of Sabine and then there's Assoca. Yeah. Cowboy Bebop live action problem. Shut the fuck up.

There's stuff that looks good in animation, like hair colors that are cool and tough to, like, come across in nature. And you try to like one-to-one that in live action, it can look a little bit goofy. You're not feeling this? I actually, I would counter that with, I actually like it because I think it's, to me, it's, to me, It's decartunifying and humanizing and thus humanizing Sabine a little bit more. And like I see her like in the bathroom dyeing her own hair. Right. Sure.

And in doing those changes to herself. Like I, I think at first I was like, yeah, I think I actually like it. I think it kind of jarred me at first because I feel like we're so used to seeing her hair so like pristinely presented in the way that cartoons facilitate, but I actually like that as kind of transitioning her from cartoon to live action. I'd like it more if Asoka didn't look like she wearing such a goofy little prosthetic. I think, I don't know, something about the headpiece, it's like I can feel it. It's like I can feel the like foamy texture.

Yeah, I have the same problem with Hera. I don't think Hara looks really good I feel like you can see the separation between the paint on her face and the prosthetics she was wearing I was looking for her again I can't find her She's right after mom MAPA?

She's in one shot at like the back of a bridge Hera does not look good She's in the shot Where there was her there was her there But she's also flying there and that wasn't great Yeah You see she doesn't have the mom lipstick on though Thank God

No Oh, no, those goggles are way too small. I think that's what it is. I think that's what it is. I feel like the goggles are throwing off the proportions. There she is. Yeah, the goggles are not right. Well, the thing is, they gave her motorcyclist goggles and not aviator goggles.

True. Yeah, I don't know. There's some force users. We don't know what their deal is. They have orange lightsabers. Are they Sith? Are they just evil-coded? They're fighting.

the Republic? The New Republic for this. The New Republic? It's Ray Stevenson who unfortunately died after this came out. Really?

Yeah, he died in 2023. So I have no idea what's up with that character, but it's good. Yeah, he looks cool. This character is in, this character I'm looking at now who has like grayish hair

and a symbol on her head and red robes is in one of the Tales of the Empire cartoon. So there's like the two episodes of that. And that's why we've never watched those, even though the other one is about Barris Offey, it's because it's about this character who we don't know what her deal is yet because we haven't watched Asoka yet.

So one day we'll get to Asoka and get to talk. Rick Stevenson was Gar Saxon. That's interesting. Oh, yeah, that is true, yes. Yeah, I think that Asoka herself, I'm not feeling it. I'm not a fan of the Rosario Dawson. I mean, yeah. And I've never been a fan of,

It has never landed. Even before I knew Asoka from Clone Wars, like in Mandalorian, I just, I never really thought with it. They cast her at a moment where, like, also they were casting her in fucking everything. They made her, like, a linchpin of the Marvel stuff on Netflix. How is she? She was night nurse. Yeah. Oh, I had not follow that stuff.

It was like, so, like, you know how, like, there's just moments where, like, casting agents just start saying, fuck it. Like, this is the person we're reaching out to for these projects now. Those happen in phases. And you just call, like, you know, well, actually, I don't think Sheila Jaffe's operation would do that. But I think lesser casting agents might. But, yeah, like, I don't know that this was a great call for the character. Maybe we'll, maybe we'll come around on it. I guess it's mixed up in feeling like the Mandalorian version of Asoka is so unaligned with the Clone Wars version of Asoka and subsequently the Rebels version of Asoka.

Maybe season 7 of Clone Wars will like leave us in a place where we're like, bring it all together. Oh, she did turn into a crap Jedi. Right. And then later she still said, I am no Jedi because Rebels happens after Clone War season six. But whatever, you know? Right, right. Yeah. This feels like the Sabine show. Why is it called Asoka?

Yeah, I don't know. It does kind of feel like that. I mean, this feels like Rebel Season 5 to me is actually what it feels like. Yeah. Yeah. And then I'm thinking about how much I would love for that being animated show. That'd be great. Air to the Empire.

Anyway, that's Asoka coming up. We're not going to this anytime soon, I don't think. We've so much We got the original trilogy to get through We have so much to get through I think before we reach here No matter how you cut it That city as character

It was cool to see him I wonder what happened to him I wonder if he ever did anything Is this in? Is this in no this is not actually In the world between worlds Oh my God The world between worlds

Could it be? Oh boy I don't know man Could it be? No I don't know I think this is just Like a Like a temple or something?

A temple, a temple with a... Why does it have like floodlights? Oh, yeah. This feels like it's a different dig site. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, they're still working on the world's project or whatever. That's right.

Yeah, exactly. The world's project continues. Oh, Ray Stevenson was Titus Pullo. Yeah, yeah. Ray Stevenson's great. Ray Stevenson. 13. Anyway, we'll get to this at some point, but not soon.

Because we actually know what comes next for us. Andor Andor season two We have not watched I have not watched any other trailers The season two of Andor I have not I've abstained since we said

We were going to start abstaining I watched that immediately The second it appeared on YouTube I was just like Okay well I did start rewatching Andor season one in preparation And

My golly What a show I do have the four case It's worth getting the four case I don't have have a 4K TV, though, so. On a PS5. Oh, you have a TV?

I see. My TV is 1080. That makes sense. Do you have a 4K monitor? Nope. Did anyone... That shit's expensive. That shit's expensive.

That's just expensive. And let me tell you, it's tax season. We make money on freelance terms where we got to pay our taxes. They don't know. Hold that shit. You know. Uh-uh. Did anybody watch the, like, recent Disney short, though,

that was like, I think it was on Disney's YouTube of like Tony Gilroy and I think some of the cast watching and or, I think you linked that a little bit ago. There was that, yeah, there was like a live stream where Tony Gilroy watched, yeah, like some of the episodes from season one and like did like a director's commentary over it or something. I didn't end up watching it. I think I'm just scared of having absolutely anything revealed to me at this point. I don't even want to see screenshots. I just want to be able to...

Even kind of watching season one after having seen it, I'm just like... I yearn for the first time I saw Andor. It felt so impactful. And even seeing it now, again, is like... I'm just like, wow, fucking television, fucking Star Wars. It's so good. I'm in the Eye of Aldani episode right now.

Ironically, that's where I've paused, too. It's like, I hit it and I was like, I need to watch the Eye of Aldami when, like, I can go full, like, concentration mode. Yeah. Yeah. That is a silence notifications. Yes.

It's dim the lights. Yeah, for sure. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. I'm going to be emotional when things happen to my dear Nemik. Oh, for me, it's skein. miss you

like yeah he was a real one you almost you almost ended up on the right side of this can't wait

can't wait we're a week away officially from the time of recording we are a week away from Andor's season two is it a week away

it is six weeks it's a week away we're gonna have to drop this early I'm terrified yeah uh huh about to be late April well we're having a meeting tomorrow

about like what we're going to do that is correct we are but our plan is to cover this as it comes out like we did last time are we going to stay up super late and that sounds grim well we didn't okay but our art sorry but as a reminder we didn't we didn't stay up super late every week last time we didn't have to we released the episodes

ahead we released the episodes on the Tuesday before the Wednesday episode drop for and or season so we were not doing like day of release, you know what I mean? Yeah, we can talk about this tomorrow. Yeah, well, we will talk about this probably. You're allowed to sleep. We are allowed to sleep, yes, 100%.

But we are hoping to cover the show as it goes, so. All right. And we even have experienced covering three episodes at once because we did that with the first three episodes of Andor. So it's true. We will see how it goes. I want to go back and listen to that episode of ours. Never in my life. I've, I've, well, actually, I was going to say I've never listened to AMCA.

But I did listen to your episodes when I was away on medical leave. So I have listened. And hey, it's a great podcast. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. It's a great podcast. Amazing. So, you know, I'm excited.

I just want to be in my brain again with the excitement that I held two years. When was it? Two years ago? Last year? Two years ago. It was like two, three years ago, man. It's no minute. When did Ander's season one come out?

September 21st, 2022. So much has happened since then. So much has happened. So much has happened since then. Questions seem a lot more pressing now, don't they? And with that, we've reached the end of another episode of a more civilized age. Our show is produced by Chia Contreras and supported by our listeners at patreon.com slash civilized. Next week.

Also, send rebels questions in, though. Because we're going to do the Q&A for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that has to drop somewhere in here, too. Yeah. So more civilized age at gbilt.com. I wonder what Cyril Carnes up to. Oh, if anyone can find the fan cam.

mastermind edit that was about Dedra and Cyril it was deleted from like it got copyright struck because obviously it's just a Taylor Swift song but I desperately need it because the editing was so fucking funny

and I desperately need to behold it again but it's it's been swallowed up by the internet much like Austin's Armored Corps original edit did you is it this yeah did you look for it Google are straighting it

yeah listen I'm very skilled at what I do oh you know what I have made the mistake of because I do think it disappeared for a while but then I think I made the mistake for it on YouTube there you go there's your problem

it's on TikTok stuff ends up on YouTube all the time and I just like do my searching there I understand and obviously I'm a patriot so you know I'm terrified of what happens to my data if I click on this video.

Yeah, I see. Yeah, of course. Of course. I'm not going to be okay. I'm not going to, when I see, when I see Dedra and Cyril interact again, I am going to be so deeply sick and unwell. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know. I might just explode on.

I hope it's, I hope I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready for it. Get some anti-naugals. I like when he rescues her and she's like, I should thank you. She looks like she wants to throw up on him. It's so good.

We are very close. We'll be there very soon. All right. Until next time, please rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. Unless, of course, you know, you're huge Sabine fans. No, you also do that. Understand that we came from a place of love and we even kind of came around on the character of the final act. I wish that they had treated her as well as they did in this final few episodes.

They did all, you know. Yes. Faces are hard. Matt will do it. Five-star runtime, five-star podcast. Give us those reviews. Thank you.