A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 45: "The Axe Forgets" (Andor 05)

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

We finished last episode with two desires: To sit in on an absolutely terrible dinner evening and to watch the beginning of a high intensity heist. We got neither, and instead have received a feast unlike any we could've hoped for. From Coruscant to Aldhani, we trace four stories about families bickering. A mother dressing up insults in the language of care. A father leaning back and watching in glee as his daughter tears into her mother. Brothers-in-arms at each other's throats. It's drama time, baby. The action can wait. NEXT TIME: Andor Episode 06 Show Notes Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny) Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson) Produced by Austin Walker Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)  

Let us return once more to a more civilized age, a Clone Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zakeney, joined by Ali Akampura, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. The day before is always hard. Andrew tells us at one of the tensest moments in today's episode, The Acts for Gets. And if the accumulation of doubt, frustration, and fear that ties this week's plot lines together, before what will be presumably a climactic raid on the imperial payroll next week. Not much necessarily plot advancement happens in all of that, but in watching all these fears and suspicions work on these characters,

I think we see a lot of great character establishment and world-building detail. I would say the seeds of distrust and frustration are sewn most densely, among the rebels themselves who are concluding their preparations and who march to the operations jumping off point while Andor is tested by skein, proselytized by nerdy little nemic. He shows up different members of the band during their final preparation, and I am pretty sure he thinks about shooting his shot with Sinta. Lieutenant Gorn spends a sullen final day with his garrison

of bored and lazy imperial soldiers, playing a row. role and letting himself be manipulated by his recalcitrant charges in order to further his own secret designs against them. Our various ISB officers continue marking time in bureaucratic territory while waiting for their vague sense of threat to concretize. Meanwhile, down in the thickets of concrete and steel towers, Cyril Karn sulks while enduring the hen-pecking admonishments of his mother. when motham's double life is revealed or at least it's underlined to be something of a triple life where the secret dissident and the wealthy liberal senator both appear to be personas that had been built up at the expense of a relationship with family and luthan broods on the upcoming operation waiting to hear news and suspecting that he gave and or too much information to maintain his own safety by the end of the episode not like the plot has advanced right up until till like the eve of the actual strike, but mostly what has been served is outlining again, who these people are and what world do they inhabit.

So how do this all land with you? Well, my first note is just like the first five minutes of this episode were just absolutely. delicious content for me personally and I would just I just think they're they're truly I need to read

sorry Natalie I'm gonna need to read your actual first note I don't know what it is I want to know you you made this you phrased it in a way where you were gonna read your note and then you read

your first note and then you're like I'll just summarize so I'd like to know what your first quote is your first note I'll give you line too okay it's

yeah Yes. Zero Carnus Year! Mine is Karn's little twin bed, his puffy face and red eyes. And then it's Italian mom confirmed

with eight exclamation points. Allie, do you also have a note? Mine says my tearful little man, terrible boy. Okay, here is my note. The brief moment of natural sunlight that Carmen gets a sublime. We should do, we should do like a moment, no comparison. This is very good.

We found a bit. The fact that the thing is, in the past, I don't think the shows we've been, the show we've been watching would not support. It's such a compelling exchange of notes, but this opening moment of broken domesticity, one of many in this episode. This whole episode is just bad families everywhere. Especially if you can't, a rebellion can be a family, right? It's just bad family vibes and like people trying to figure out how to be, get through the fucking world surrounded by people they don't trust or don't like.

And it starts with a bowl of cereal and blue milk. Oh, man. God, the fucking cereal, dude. The little, like, cocoa puff. The little pea, the little galaxy puff, pee. It's just so, and what I love about the cereal is that it's still there. Then, like, when we, when we advance further and we come back to them sitting, he's still sitting at the table, untouched cereal, still, like, It's so good.

It's so, it's so, I think they're trying, it's almost as if they're trying harder to paint a parallel with like our real domestic, you know, like human beings on earth, domestic. We know that scene. We know the scene at the breakfast table with the untouched food and, and the quiet, just familial hatred. We know that. and I love that they're using the like the symbol of the untouched cocoa puff cereal here that is so recognizable to us and they you know they put a Star Wars skin on it in a way but it's still the thing is that Star Wars the original trilogy is defined by little moments of they're just like us like Luke is a farm boy the can'tina is the the shitty bar that you know. You're playing chess in the shitty pickup van that your friend knows. You know what I mean?

Like the Millennium Falcon is not a sleek, you know, Buck Rogers spaceship, right? It is a beat-up, you know, held together by duct tape and spit. Like, it feels real. And that style of- The creatures we see on Dagaba are real animal. Like, they're snakes and lizards. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A hundred percent.

There's just a snake in Yoda's house. Yeah. People don't remember that, but there was just a fucking snake. Just a normal ass snake there. And it's like, and Yoda's like stealing Luke's candy bars and ration and stuff. You know what I mean? There is a Star Wars was sold on its grounded sense of groundedness. And Andor feels like it wants to keep that and focus on that and make it legible for people in 2020 who don't necessarily live on farms as much as they live in, you know,

know, public housing or in bad, you know, upper middle class family situations, in the case of Mon Mothma's shitty vibes. And I think that that is core to what Star Wars was once. And it got turned into like a fetishization of like rustiness and greebles. And it left behind that like the actual thing that's happening here is the co-pilot for the for the for the. The spaceship is a big hairy guy who likes to play chess and threatens you if you win. Like, that's just normal shit. You just know that guy, you know. Do we want today to stay on plot by plot the way we've kind of defaulted to doing in the past?

I think it's best. Because I think we want to talk. I mean, I think we can speak to some transition moments going between story to story, but I think it makes most sense to, yeah, just go through the whole plot. So what's up with Karn? What's actually happening here? Oh my God. So, I mean, what, like, the detail, like, honestly, the detail where his house only gets that minute of sunlight.

And I'm not even sure it's direct sunlight. It's glinting off of another building his window faces. And, like, it is such a grim little detail about what life is like for people literally at that stradum. And this is Khorisat, by the way. happened that we thought would happen. Star Wars.com put up trivia for last week's episode, and one of them was like, you can see, here are some of the places that are being advertised at Correscent from Coruscant's spaceport. This is, that was the Correscent space port. This is Corrasson. I knew it. But also, I am curious. Okay, so. And it's just like he wants

out, right? That's the whole thing. Every day he woke up and looked out his window and the sun touched his face for a moment. And he was like, how do I get out of here? And his mom's an enormous personality. She, like, what's implied here is she fills the house. Yes. And he cannot make himself small enough or hide deep enough within it to get any sort of privacy. And that includes, like, emotional privacy.

Because she does the thing of, like, I am going to read to you how you are coming across so you can better control it. And here's the other thing I wonder. Uncle Harlow, this is definitely an ex-boyfriend who was, like, call him Uncle Harlow. Oh, that's not what I read. All right. What are you getting? He's a mobster.

He's in the mafia. He's going to find you work. We can finally call on that favor to Uncle Harlow. That's, this is, the other thing he could be is like a mid to high tier imperial bureaucrat. That's what I think. But the result is the same. He's going to find you a job moving boxes from one room to another room. Yeah.

He's going to make sure you're on the payroll. I get the, I get the read that. that Cyril and his mom are like not disgraced family members but like are definitely like the other like feel like they're on the other side of the family like they're not like fully as integrated in the rest of the family but they're still claiming claiming ties yeah it felt like there was almost like an income difference between definitely carne and his mom and like the supposed uncle of like oh we don't talk to them that much and we could be

asking them for more favors than we do but I have to save up this one. She specifically calls it the family favor. I'll call in the family favor. That's what you say when you go to the godfather. Oh man. And God is the favor owed because like Daddy Carn

like end up wearing a pair of some end up at some point. Yeah. Yeah. Or that right. Yeah. They they She's Italian. literally and we know Star Wars is racist yeah we're wondering where's the where's the race we've been asking for mob we've been asking for this like I'm sorry but we manifest of this we what we shouldn't ignore like to rewind a little bit Rob you were talking about she's a huge personality

and she sees right through him and he can neither he can neither puff up up his chest and like punch back in in dialogue strong enough to get her to back off nor can he be small enough and she just sees through him constantly the first thing she says to him I think when she comes in the room is tell him to sit up and then specifically says by the time you remember to sit up straight it's too late she's like no wonder the thing that happened happened you might as well wear a sign that says I promise to disappoint you fuck a notable detail and then the bit about him being like why didn't you come visit me? Oh, God.

And there was always an invitation. And she says an open invitation. Any civilized being knows an open invitation is no invitation at all. It's so like, it's so, yeah. It's so like your mom being like, well, you never, you never really asked me to come. You didn't, you told me to come, but you didn't tell me to come and visit you on. You never made me feel welcome. Right.

And it's just, it's so real because it's both, it's both things. It's like, yeah, I didn't put the time in to call out this weekend, come this, but I also have my shit going on, Mom. Like, I'm, I want you. You know what I mean? It's just. Well, we all love our family, and we all want to be with our families. And also, sometimes you're a mid-level cop on a bad mining planet, and you got a lock, and you're trying to fix it, right? But you can tell

No sympathy No sympathy for car But he's like But the way he says I had an open room It feels like he did ask her to come But he didn't ask her to come In the way that she

Wanted him to That's what it really feels like What do you think his room was like At Prymore I think that empty room Was a twin bed in an empty room I think there's nothing on the walls I think that place was

though maybe not maybe he had a nice little maybe we may have seen it briefly i don't know maybe maybe i feel like the implied he was standing outside the door to his room sometimes but not like yeah but not in it i don't like the you know so as it follows up she she mentions that she does go to uncle harlowe and he's mulling over uh what to what to do with this favor and she sort of advises him maybe you know maybe you'll study uncle harlowe more uh more carefully in in the future. And I think, you know, where we sort of leave him is he's, he's, uh, brooding over the, uh, prison headshot of Andor. Uh, and this is, see what was in the background during that sequence? No. He has like little action figures, right? He has little action figures of what

I think are either clones or stormtroopers. I couldn't tell. I was like, I got to know. It's it's not especially, I just put a screenshot in the chat. Oh, that looks like clones. Yeah. I think I know. You are such a cornball. Rob, do you want to, yeah, explain the thing he's looking at that's not the clone trooper? Yeah, he's looking at the, he's looking at the Imperial Prison photo of Andor, and it's clearly like this, andor is turning into his Moby deck. You know, this is, this is the guy, the author of all these misfortunes that are starting to

dog him. You ever hate someone so bad? You just sit in bed at night and think about them. And look at their picture. Look at their face. But also, like, I mean, you know, the thing that Val mentions later is everyone has their own rebellion. And I'm still like 50-50 on whether like we're seeing a villain, well, are we seeing a villain origin story or are we seeing like who, the origin story for what is going to become a really important turncoat at some juncture of this? Because like, like, again, Karn fits the.

Bill for somebody who, for not good reasons, not like, not moral or, or like, uh, open-minded, uh, reasons, like, will, will turn on the people he once desperately wanted to be accepted by. Right, right. The, the two versions of this that seem possible are Carn in pursuit of Andor ends up hurting everyone around him and causing a disaster and effectively furthering the destruction of the empire or Karn dies to save Andor's life. These are the, this is the direction of drama, right? One of these dramatic ends needs to be met is, because we know he doesn't get Andor, because we know what happens with Andor, right?

And it's like either he ends up, and again, there's 80,000 things that could happen here. But I think that those are the two dramatic polls here for an arc is either he has to go from being, he has to become Moby Dick, Ahab obsessed until lots of people die because of his obsession, his stupid obsession. Or he has to be, he has to find his way to being the person who's in the right place, at the right time to make a decision he never thought he would make at the beginning of the story, right? And I'm very curious. I mean, I guess he could also be, and we just don't know if this is the type of show it is, he could also just die miserable in his mother's apartment, right? Which would be the most subversive thing to do of all, that his story never goes anywhere. Yep.

Where he touches it again briefly and then never, you know, but I suspect it's one or two. We'll see. That's all of our card for the day. That's all of our car. I have to call out one of my favorite lines so far. I know what you tell me I intuit the rest was one of my favorite

which is what which is a little mirror of Luthan saying I know I know what I know and I imagine the rest about Andrew right there's lots of people

filling in the gaps in this show there's lots of people trying to make sense of other people which again is just not a thing we've seen a lot of other Star Wars content as a Well, you know, there isn't too much happening with this subplot, but let's check in with the people that, uh, that Karn really wanted to be, right? The, the Imperials. Um, particularly there are two ISB officers. Both of whom, like, I think you're, both are little check-ins with them to me feel like they capture two different flavors of rot. Um, you know, first we get, we get, we get to say, Blevin, who is establishing an ISB headquarters on. In the neighborhood that got shot up in the last arc

They've taken over an entire hotel to To create this outposts which feels like way over invented Like this is a place that needs like a small local police station And it looks like they are taking a they take up like a five-story building Effectively to house ISB operations But it's being handed off to a dude Captain Tigo And I think you'll find he is a new title Rob Yeah, I want to

Want to take us through? What is Captain Tigo? What figure does he cut, Austin? Man, what does he cut? He is, he arrives. I mean, I think immediately one of the most interesting things is he shows up. He's in all his black officer uniform. He has his rank on his chest, little three blue little squares.

And Blevyn is in the all-white trench coat of the ISB. No rank shown, but very clearly in control. Tigo is offered the hotel. I mean, what Blevins says is, do you want it or not? And Tigo is like, do you mean the job? And it's like, no, you idiot. You have, like, you're going to take the job. Do you want to work out of the hotel?

And he's the sort of person who, it's not even power he wants. It's not authority. It is the, I don't even know if it's actually prestige, but it is the fashion of power. It is the symbol of power that he wants to put on because what is, request is, is could I, he literally says, I know that there's no, you know, pay increase, but could I be prefect? Could I be prefect de ferrics? Which, it's so funny, I literally was just talking about this fairly recently, feels like a direct punch at Paul Bremer, who was the effectively self-declared viceroy of America in Iraq, uh, during the, the, the, the, um,

2003 invasion, a viceroy, a title that, like, is not a, no one has viceroys anymore. That's a fucking title that you pat yourself in the back about. And Bremer has since, like, if you look up interviews with Bremer now, he and the people around who are like, well, you were never viceroy, which is just a lie. This is just wrong. He's absolutely referred to himself as a viceroy. He was referred to as a viceroy when he first got there. And then later, like, clearly because don't call yourself viceroy, he started.

becoming envoy instead and things like that, right? He ended up getting another, like, administrator was his official, official, official title. But that was only after he'd served as viceroy. And that's what's happening here. This is someone who wants the symbols and status of a different era of rulers, of empire, right? Like, this is someone who's like, we're in an empire, so I should be prefect, even though that doesn't mean that he has the role or responsibilities or even in. of a governor, right? He isn't actually in charge of ferrics in any different way. He's here to administer. He's here to make sure it's up and running that the taxes are coming in the way they're supposed to be, that ISB agents get access to whatever they need to do here. And all he cares about is the title. And of course, Levin is like, yeah, sure. Like just make sure that by the time I have my next fucking stand up, you have things up and running. That's all I care about. All I care about. All I

I want as results. And that is like the difference between someone who can play the game at the ISB and someone who is like just going to be, you know, a piece of furniture effectively. That's why Blevins is Blevins. That's why Blevins is in the position he's in. It's why. It was interesting to see him do this because I thought that he was, I thought that he and DEDRA were like at the same tier. But I, I, because they were both in that meeting, I thought they were like at the same.

But this does not seem like a thing that she would be doing ever. So Partigaz outlined when he was shutting her down. He was like, yeah, Blevins is more traditional. He also has like eight districts that report to him. And his reports coming on time. So like Blevine is like a master administrator. And I think DEDRA is like more of a special investigator with like jurisdiction that crosses these district lines.

That makes perfect sense. but it's interesting like where does the ISB it's interesting that this is an ISB project getting ferricks under imperial control and not an imperial army mission do you know what I mean or or Navy or you know yeah I'm curious to see the equivalent of the CIA being in charge of setting up

an American occupation this is the thing I feel like we're we're going to see more evidence of like how transitional all of this is that like Like, there's, like, what are we using the Army and Navy for? What does, like, is the, like, because the ISB is also, like, it seems like a power-hungry institution. And so you can see we're like, we want to be, we want to be the FBI. We want to be an intelligence agency. I mean, this is also the FBI.

Really, like, the FBI is this. The FBI is an intelligence agency that is also a huge law enforcement agency. Always has been. And has always, like, been ambitious and territorial for that level of, like, wide-ranging authority and ability to have, like, different types of operations like there's the FBI field offices and then like where they do cop shit and then there's all their like intelligent stuff and I think and I think that's but and but this is the thing like so to me it feels like like you're forced to hand it off to guys like Tigo who are going to blow this like you like you would have been better off with the checked

out corporate security like police chief than a dude like Tigo because Tigo is going to suck at this yeah Tico, like, there's, what, what they had before was consistency. They had just, we're hitting the status quo. We have, we know not to interfere with the locals. The locals, like, we're not, you don't feel the corporate securities fist in that world as it was until two stupid security guards, like, I don't know, just had their shit. coming to them. Do you remember the king of Anderon, the second king of Anderon, who ate fruit and threw it away before he was done eating fruit in Clone Wars?

That's Tigo. That's how Tigo's going to rule. Yeah. Yep. You know what I mean? Yeah. And our other example of like what's happened in ISB, we check back in on DADRA. And she's brooding over like, you know, these plots that she's these, these machinations for the rebellion.

but also it looks to me like she is popping uppers right and left to like so she's like speeding through her duties as like intelligence chief and weird seems to be getting like paranoid and like hyper fixated on a theory literally seeing her pop that pill was like this is star wars I was like we're there you can do that is this allowed I'm with it. I mean, hell yeah. I,

I, I, I'm. Her and her little intern staying late to do two more files each and just like like smacking their lips like and then just like popping pills to like stay and and follow this like conspiracy red string plot that there's that they're putting together.

And it's funny that like she's she's making herself out to be like this is how I would do it type of cop like I'm the cop that can put myself in their shoes I'm the cop that can like that can like think like them it reminds me a lot of the speech

from inglorious bastards like the Christopher Walkin where he talks about like thinking yeah Waltz yeah Christoph Waltz um it like it reminds me a lot of that type of of uh self uh aggrandizing like mentality of like i i'm different because i i unlike other cops can put myself in their shoes um and that's what like is her like superpower essentially um and and and i think it's meant to i think that addition of like the

popping of pills is it's meant to feel like I don't know how to describe it but like heightened and like and intoxicated like that think not thinking both drug related and and not drug related like this intoxicated like way of being consumed by this type of obsession with her theory I am still so curious We do know that Luthan is out there Like spinning many plates But on the other hand Whenever you get someone being like

It's too random to be random My antenna I start twitching Where it's like This is a theory that cannot be disproven You're so wedded to it That like you just want like Do you think Do you think she's on to

Like do you think she's on to the real thing or do you think she's taking like data points that are genuinely at this moment unconnected right and events are just going to overtake her theory and like prove her like because it seems like luthan does want like this payroll heist is a foundational element to whatever is the next stage plus whoever madama's other contact is like there's two things in the wind that are going to like sort of kickstart a wider rebellion but the fact that like when we check in with luthan and Mahatma, it all seems so early. Dedra's theory to me feels like it is

way cart before the horse. The thing that it makes me think is, I think you might be right that what we have is a bunch of factions doing stuff that Luton wants to tie together, that Mahathma wants to tie together. And she's anticipating that being tied together. before it happens and is making the mistake that to go back to Iraq, right, like in the years

during the occupation, there were a ton of factions inside of the civil conflicts that would emerge there from the various Sunni and Shiite factions to people who are still loyal to the bath party, two outsiders coming in, you know, opportunistically, and obviously all of the Western PMCs and security forces and everything else also there as part of, also as combatants there. And I think that there is a totalizing perspective that you found in lots of people in the West that were like, we just have to beat them as if there was one them on the other side of that conflict and as if I mean this is part of the thing without with al-Qaeda right was that like in in after 9-11 there was again this totalizing thing this idea that like all you've do is cut off the head of the

thing and then the whole thing falls apart if only we get bin Laden this all falls apart not understanding that contemporary terrorism has lots of autonomy across its various cells it isn't a single military faction with one leader and I think that there could be some of that happening here that Dedra is like, well, if we're losing in a bunch of places, we must be losing against an opponent who is well-armed, well-resourced, super-organized, because it's us who's losing, right? We couldn't just be losing to local upstarts. Yeah, yeah.

We have to be losing to a conspiracy. And I think that that could be an interesting angle, Rob, on what you're saying. Alternatively, the Luton stuff is further on than we think it is. But given the end of this episode, that doesn't seem likely. Yeah, I am just wondering if one of the ironies of the... this subplot is going to be they're going to will it into existence because like part of the story of Iraq

is like your presence creates the problems and you'd be vindicated you'd be like look see we knew there were terrorists in here and it's like yes because now you've just filled you've stocked it with targets and like I can see

it because we already saw what went wrong on Farrex was presence they went into a neighborhood they should not have gone into and all hell breaks loose and that's gonna be like does that get repeated I'm very curious

and that is also just a classic thing of we already talked about this in Star Wars right that like the we know that Saul Guerrera is out there and that the most fascistic elements already in the Republic were part of who trained him Anakin trained Saul Guerrera

Saul Guerrera is now out there fighting the empire That's in this story as it stands. For people who haven't listened to Clone Wars episodes, there's an arc on the planet of Anderon, in which Anakin and Anakin's Padawan, Asoka, and Obi-Wan train some local partisans to fight back against a separatist occupation. We also know that, like, Champs and Dula's group in the Twylex are, I believe, part of whatever becomes the eventual rebellion. And it's like those groups were very closely aligned with the Republic during that war.

And so there is a degree of like you've invented your own. 20 years later, you're fighting these people you armed 20 years ago, right? Which again, it's worth saying again, if people who either didn't listen to that episode or have forgotten, that Anderan Ark ends up being very directly analogous to the U.S. giving stinger missiles to the Taliban in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviet. And so, like, here it is again. Like, is this, is this Dedra, like, when is Dedra going to pull up the thing that says Saul Guerrera got his missiles from, from the Jedi? You know what I mean?

I want that badly. Yeah. Anyway. I do wonder where they are going to end up going with her, though, because it does feel like you're supposed to be more, like, sympathetic to her. Especially when you see, like, you know, you have the scene on Phenix where it's like, like um i forget uh belvin is like he doesn't have any relationship with his superior superior is a joke he's overextended but with dedger you have this thing of like oh well i'm gonna stay here if you're here like you're supposed to like think that their relationship is closer or that like she

if she had the support she would be the person who could have knocked this down right yeah there is a there is a there's definitely like two college students staying up all night to do their term papers together energy between these two that is like they're going to power through and that's a weird energy I mean and it's again the last thing that we see is her popping a pill and you know getting ready to sit down to do the damn thing so it's not like it is untinged by some some amount of cynicism but you're right that there is a sort of, are we supposed to be sympathetic for her? She are Kevin Bigelow

Hera. Right, exactly. And I think kind of. Right. Yeah. See, there's always someone smart on the other side. They only, they just kept this girl boss down. She knew the rebellion was coming. But nobody wanted to listen to Dedra.

I still think that that's fun. Like, this is the thing, right? Both are fun. In a real way, for reasons we're probably about to get to, this show earns a lot of wiggle room in terms like it would be very hard i think to read this show as sympathetic generally to the imperial cause what it might be sympathetic to or what it asks you to what it what it triggers is a is a sympathetic response to individuals inside of empire which by the way we're we're individuals inside of empire but black dynamite the taxes from this go to the

U.S. Army. Like, that is happening. And so I don't think it's that strange for us, especially those of us who've worked in offices or who have pulled all-nighters or who have felt like we understand something and somebody else doesn't to, like, have some, or who've had tough relationships with our families, to find some sort of sympathy with Karn and Dedra. What is important, and I think the show totally understands, and it's doing the opposite with, like, Von Mothma, is that, like, your politics don't make you, your, Politics alone can't save you as to make you a person that other people want to like. Nor does being even part of a machine like this mean that you won't, as someone else might not feel sympathy for you.

That doesn't mean that they should like, they should root for you. But I think sitting with that sympathy is super important for, or sitting with that response is pretty, pretty important. Shall we talk about the cursed breakfast table? oh my god I'm so upset they have a kid you're upset they have like in what way that house did not need a kid in there

to well maybe maybe give time maybe the kid will fix it yeah oh sure yeah yeah yeah do you think that you don't think the kid is going to be the one who rats out Mon Mothma in the end

because I do I can't snitch so where do we first do we first see them out and about Or do we see them in the house? In the house? Yeah.

Okay, right. Okay. Yeah, so they're sitting down for breakfast and... Right. And he comes out in his tan Jedi robes again. It's fucked up. It's fucked up. Like, every scene with him is like, you see the meme where the fuck's given?

Zero. Yes. This motherfucker. And the kid... What's her name? Leda. It's Leda with a D and... Oh, man.

The, like, text is getting rich. And she's, it's just, this is just Anakin and, and Padmae. Yeah. Yeah. The name, the kid's name is the same. Dog. Anyway. They have her wearing.

She has the fucking, uh, paduan braids wearing them like it's fashion. Oh, shit. Like, she was wearing that little robe with the, the Republic symbol on it. I couldn't tell us that robe was a uniform. or was it was a like a chosen like a school uniform? So the symbol on it, I don't know what the symbol actually is, but it feels to me like a minimalist version of, I'm sending you an image of it, the Jedi symbol,

which is the, you know, the big like wings with the saber in the middle. You know what I mean? It has that exact shape in terms of, uh, so like, What is happening? Anyway, Allie, or whoever was talking, continue, please. I'm just curious. Does the kids suck, or is the kid just, like, speaking some truth about, like, family dynamics here? Well, so here's the thing is the adults in the room don't need to be having their own arguments in front of this kid.

And, like, I mean... You know, I don't want to, Mon Mothma might be making some mistakes. She might be busy at the office. But there's such like, there's such a satisfaction that the dad takes as this conversation is happening. Yeah. It seems like they have some conversations alone where he's like, well. Because when she's like, hey, dad, are you driving me in a school? And he immediately says, well, you have to ask your mother and not just like, yeah.

entire thing up. He goes there with her. He wants the fight to happen. He grins and smirks as it happens. He gets so much joy out of her being, him being her favorite over the mom. And like, it's gross. He's a piece of shit. It's, it definitely comes off.

Like, he spends, he's able to spend more time with Leda because the mom, because Mon Mothma is, like, working late, working late hours is on, like, a lot of, like, work trips and things like that. so naturally Perrin and Leda have just spent more time together and it definitely feels like Perrin has fucking instilled a lot of his own opinions about his wife in on Lada and Lada's like it like I can't the thing that I can't tell is if it feels like Lada is parroting Paren or if these are, it definitely feels like Leda has her own resentments against Mon Mothma for like lack of attention. It comes off like, like, Mon Mothma hasn't been there when it's important and

like is only there when it's visible, like when it's, you know, when it's something to be perceived. Well, the specific claim that Lada makes is so, you know, the thing that's happening here is they're like uh mon mothman was supposed to take yeah the fact that this whole conversation is who's taking her to school today it's just and it's just mom mothma is like go get your coat we're supposed to be on the way already we're running late basically i planned on this we're going later says you're only doing this to show off and mom mothma is like what are you talking about to show off and latest argument claim is that like you're trying to show that you're a good mom you're trying to show the people at school that you're involved in my life, um, that you're actually,

like, here, but nobody cares. Nobody cares if you're in my life. Nobody's thinking about us in that way. Uh, you're just so selfish. Uh, and, and, and Mothma is like, that's so hurtful of you to say. And Leda says, well, there you go again. You're making it about yourself. Hold on that, but that's the part where I'm like, I don't think that came from dad. I think that's like, that feels like, I'm, yeah, yeah, I'm agreeing with you. I'm saying this is her. being actually I do think that she has recognized something in Monmouthma

that is real about her absence from the family and about her desire to be all appearance is perfect I mean like it cuts back to the shot of Monmothma looking pristine like her no hair on her

head is out of place everything is smooth all of the lines on her outfit for wherever she's going are perfect. She is all about presentation. She is all about public perception. And we know that that's because she's secretly helping to put together a rebellion. And she can't let, she has to be the perfect image of a liberal senator, right? And so I do think that there is something happening there. The way that she, that she describes it as, we planned for this. Like this was, this was a

It wasn't, it's not a given that Mon Mothma takes Leda to school every day. Like this was the day that Leda was going to do it. And it's like, it's not even, I said last night I would take you to school. It's not even like it happened out that way. You know, sometimes that happens. Oh, yeah, I'm going to go, I'm going in early tomorrow so I can drop you off. That's not a plan. But this, what she's describing is like, at next Wednesday, I'll drop you off, which is such a different vibe.

Yep. Very different vibe. And, and what Lada said. is you're off the hook. You don't have to have this obligation to me if you don't fucking want to because you clearly don't fucking want to. So you're off the hook.

Like that attitude of you don't have to do this for me because I know you're not doing it to take me to school. You're doing it for your ulterior reasons. It is very telling. Okay, but counter argument,

famous tweet, why do we bash deadbeat dad they're not being there for their kids, but we never question if the child has bad vibes or if they're just unpleasant to be around. Maybe the kid sucks. Maybe like, I mean, that's the other thing. I feel bad for Mon Mothema.

She's getting up from the table. She's like, I so appreciate the support. Maybe Mon Mothma is going for a campaign for something. Kids, dad, we need to rally together and be the NeoLib family that Mott Mothma's trying to fucking emulate. Like, come on. Like, support your girl. The problem is, it is, like, you can do it for a campaign.

It is tough when it's your life. And the vibe is that it's the life. It is the show that never ends. And it is, like, it is as yet unknown when the wheels flew off this. Like, one question I asked. I was about to get on Twitter, make tweets about what a bad mom is. Well, one question I come out of this, too, is, is this a nightmareish, like, does the marriage have its roots in like political convenience i think so i think he's a soldier had friends from

his regimental days uh what could be better to burnish the credibility of a left-leaning politician than a happy idyllic marriage with a uh you know chancellor loyal war hero of some of some stride does this the whole like does the is the self-founded to a degree on like optics I definitely read it as a politically minded marriage At least I could very well see that Like I imagine Mon Mothma as this like mastermind That was like I am going to carefully choose and carefully craft my life For the visibility of it all

And Perrin like and her maybe feeling like she can control parole Perrin and Perrin just ending up being this shitty like I does not care is not engaged. I just wonder what if there was a, was there a honeymoon period here? Like was there like a point where they were in love and then like but didn't weren't seeing each other for who they truly were but like I don't know. I just yeah. I read an interview with Geneviva O'Reilly, who's the actress for Mon Mothara, and they were saying that part of what they wanted to, like, establish with her as a character

is that she's been in the sentence when she was 16. So, like, what happens to somebody's life when you're ingrained about this for so long that, like, you didn't have a childhood, and you didn't have an experience outside of it. And I think that, like, being in a loveless marriage might be one of those sacrifices that you take. Do we think that Perrin knows the name of the driver and is choosing to, quote, unquote, forget it to needle. No, I think he is. No, I think he's just, he's just like, and I think that's sort of like, because there's such a

fundamental, like, mismatch between these two people that doesn't even make sense that they're married. And I think that, like, in a way that there are tiny things that you hate about a person, the fact that he doesn't treat service people well as one of them and like well hang on that service person is a snitch sure sure but he doesn't know that or he would like him more maybe maybe cloris just has bad vibes I think I think he does know their names and and but he knows how much it just incenses Mon Mothema to forget the like to not pay attention to the kind of things

and he's doing it on purpose in that moment particularly Oh Well because also they needle the shit out of each other This is like how you know it's so it's so fully Just a nightmare because now he's like Well why didn't know I know about this foundation You were starting when she's like why didn't think you'd be interested

It's charitable You selfish manchild piece of shit That's why I feel like the fair Yeah. It's because that's the lead-up that it feels like he's forgetting again. Or that he's forgetting on purpose, rather. But she's also like teeing him up to go to a party and have some guy be like, oh, what's Mon working on and him not having a response?

Like, by shutting him out, which is fair. I mean, bad vibes. Don't let him into your life. But, like, if there's social people. like letting him be on the the back leg there is also like a microaggression amongst many in this episode right they're just they're just constantly at war with men are from Mustafa women uh chandraela oh shangela okay which where she's from there you go so i think it's really like some some basic like maybe decoding each other's uh secrets

like they just need a good book uh you have to learn about what the roles of the family are yeah you know, or who's in what role. That's the big reactionary. We need to invent a new kind of guy for parenting to be, and that's Trad House Husband. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think his Instagram is like?

Just, I think he posts every morning. He posts. I want to see, I want to see his Instagram likes. Yep. Yeah, that's true. Or those follows look and like. Oh, yeah. I think he.

I think he posts a fit check every morning, but not intentionally. It's always like, like a off angle of sort of the details. Like he would post like the sash or like something very close up. And then he posts like the view from his apartment every day. Every morning, sunrise. Do you think he does gym updates? No, I actually see him much more as a like. a photo of him

like with it a pricey antique or like military relic or something being like it means so much to touch this history as an ex-soldier you know it makes me makes me deeply reflective about and just like all that bullshit

just like on the regular like him in a expensive place doing something wildly expensive and then like being spent on Christophis meant so much to me 100% God I want more to be stolen valor guy so bad

I want him to not have served anywhere oh yeah somebody finally just called out you're not even a clone yeah yeah uh huh I need that I want him to have Don Draper did it so he's an epitism baby that's what he comes off like well okay I've had one

but I've one of the theory the Don Draper thing that what if he's even deeper cover than Mahatham they just don't know what if he's a Jedi what if they just don't know no He's like, if I just keep wearing, I just, I look natural in robes. Oh, I have to wear these robes. And then they're going to meet each other at the rebel base and they're going to meet eyes across the room and be like,

and there's going to be a love scene. Yeah, they're going to always, the first real sex scene in Star Wars history. Oh my God, it's definitely them. It would be so hot. I do think that there could be, because we've left off something. We've left off a possibility that she knows exactly what he is and he knows exactly what she is

and they both like it that way. Yeah. It's a nightmare, but it happens. Yeah, yeah. You get your center left, you know, NeoLib, you know, Instagram posting, you know, about what charity to donate person

who is like deep into someone who posts their pickup truck stuff and it was like, we just don't talk about politics. And that relationship gets bad, but sometimes there's still a little bit of a spark there. Yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep, I, I, I, I, I, I, this is, I, I, I subscribe to this. I'm not saying that that's a good scene. I don't want that scene, but it would be in the, that's the sort of scene that would pop up in the sort of movie Tony Gilroy would make.

You know what I mean? And that a lot of these filmmakers would make the sort of like bad relationship still very intense. intense sex life. Yep. I don't know that we're going to see that, you know. We get a hint that sex might happen in this episode else. We're going to hit that lesbian sex might happen elsewhere in this episode. They're like Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise and eyes wide shut.

Like that's... This is what I'm, yeah. That is like the like, I fucking hate you, but I love you. You fucking is. Yes. This is what I'm saying. Yeah. That's what I'm reading for them.

I can't believe the first Star Wars fuck is going to be a hate fun. But it's lying They just increasingly treat each other like shit To get the rise they need out of each other And to get the attention they need out of each other Yeah This is like the literary fiction You know, prestige drama shit

That the show is pulling from So I could see it I can see it Anyway Justice for Raylo You know what fair They could have had it They could have had it all

They could I like the car scene. I like them driving around at night in Khoras. I'm obsessed with her space Cadillac, by the way. We didn't talk about it. It's so sexy. So here's the thing. Is it also, that could be a real car brand that did that.

Because, like, there's a spaceship that pops up in the Obi-Wan show that was, like, designed by Porsche. Oh. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Interesting. And so they are working product placement into this shut. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that.

Yeah, but I didn't see any logos. I'm not going to go look in, so they can take that money all they want if this is what they want to do. I don't mind this being that there was a sponsored article on some website somewhere being like, did you know that all of the cars in Andor were made by so-and-so? That's fine. I don't care. Didn't get in my way. Yeah.

Take the check. I mean, if anything, I think it's just, like, it's, it's re, the fact that that design is coming from, like, an actual car manufacturer is, is moving back to, this is grounded in, like, a familiar reality. It's like the real details, like the cereal, like the bar, et cetera. Why does he ask Chloris to go to take the expressway? Is he, I want to be home faster and let's get the, get out of here. Okay. I think, okay, I could read that. That makes sense.

I also just think it's the thing that we just talked about in collateral, Rob, which is, like, sometimes you have the person who wants to tell their driver to take, which way to take, because it's about exerting control. You think it's like the same amount of time, but it's just a different way to go. And it's just like. I think he thinks it's the faster way to get home. Right. And I think he's undercutting the fact that the driver probably knows the best way to go. Yep. Yep.

He's the sort of guy who's like, well, I've been at Choruson for five years. or whatever and I know that the expressway is better and they're going to go on the expressway and then the Lakers

game is going to get out and they're going to get stuck behind all the traffic um Corrissot definitely the home of the Space Lakers

sorry I just have to get one thing this is just a stray thought but um Karn's mom she has the thing she justiculates a lot when she's talking and I don't know if this

but there is there they're like in in old EU novel there was like reference to the fact that like like I thought this is going to be another Italian No it was like that high like high cast like chorus on society like did a lot of underscoring

of meaning with like really pointed gestures with their hands and something about the way she was like gesturing to him to like make her points also just made me think of that like just the fact that like she speaks like no other character we've met it's like the way she uses gestures

different than everyone and like I couldn't stop staring at it I love it it's so good it's so incredible I don't know any I want to look up the actress and see what else she's been

because I don't know her and she's just fantastic Speaking of people who just can't stop needling and testing each other, we probably should go to Andor over on Aldani, and him waking up to discover all his shit has been turned out by Skeen. And they have a conversation before the rest of the camp wakes up. You know, Skeen sort of explaining that Val asked him to just check all his gear and sort of make sure that everyone. Everything was on the up and up, but they had the most Michael Man movie-ass conversation. Dude, like, comparing prison cred. And, like, are we on a good crew?

And can we trust each other on this crew? It's incredible. And are specifically recognizes prison tattoos or gang tattoos. Have we seen tattoos like this ever before in Star Wars? Ever before, I would say probably in EU stuff, we have something equivalent. I wonder if on the Raco Hardin arc, we saw stuff like this in the prison in the background. The only people who got tatted off like crazy were clones. Yeah, this is true.

And yeah, he's like he recognizes the crate head tattoo and the by the hand tattoo. And scheme specifically is like, the rest of these folks don't know, don't have a clue. They have no idea what these are, which is so fun. that they don't understand that they're working with someone who's done some dirt, you know? But also, like, Skeen so clearly does not trust Andor, because when he asked where were you? Ander says he went to Cepo, it's a youth center,

did three years there. And Skeen is immediately with, like, I never heard of it. And Andor plays it off the right way, which is like, yeah, I don't care. Like, you didn't miss much, but it's real. It was a juvie facility. What do you want from me? But we also get, an incredible line from Skeen.

They built a lot of cages, huh? The X-Forgets, but the tree remembers. Now it's our turn to do the chopping. Which is the name of the episode is the axe-for-gets. Excellent line. So good. The axe-for-gets, but the tree remembers. Good shit.

Their relationship is also great at this moment. I mean, it remains tense, and we'll come back to that in a bit. But there is the bit of Skeen looking out among the group. and kind of giving the run down again. You know, obviously at this point, Andrew says, like, he's like, I like to work alone because groups always, it always breaks at the weakest point.

And the weird thing is Skeen immediately says, oh, you're thinking about the kids. But Andrew is actually looking at Skeen, too. So, like, I do think, like, I don't think Andrew trusts anyone. He's just trying to figure out who was the weak link. Skeen's had those same questions. Yeah, totally.

And so he goes through the group and, you know, You know, Nemick is green, but he's like a true believer. He's all the way in and talks about Sinta being like the hardest of them actually, just like absolutely stone cold. And also is like, and also, by the way, she's already sharing a blanket. Not knowing that that's what gets Andor fired up. Like this is this is what Bix alluded to is Andor's rep was like married women. on fairness and or

please don't hit on the lesbian please I'm begging you sorry he's done it it did already happen he didn't say any words you know if you can say words with your eyes

it's true I speak volume so like you know but be careful please don't lock the boat don't rock the boat you're here to get paid

not to get late shoot or shoot shooters do shoot though Oh, we know he's a shooter. He shoots first. We know he's first. You miss 100%. Well, the shot he should be shooting

is with the theory, the cute theory boy, Nemek. Agreed. We stand. He's probably a little bit young for him, but is so charming. And he's exactly the sort of person, the rebellion, the sort of person Star Wars has needed for a long time. I will probably just drop this conversation in about the

the navigation device and what follows from there Uh-huh Yes That's a long one Old and true and sturdy One of the best navigational tools ever built Can't be jammed or intercepted

Something breaks you can fix it yourself Hard to learn Yes, but once you've mastered it, you're free. We've grown reliant on imperial tech, and we've made ourselves vulnerable. There's a growing list of things we've known and forgotten things they've pushed us to forget. Things like freedom. That makes these oppression everywhere. Scheme pretends not to listen, but I know the message is sinking in.

He's writing a manifesto. Did he tell you? Apparently the only thing keeping us from liberty is a few more ideas. Few more ideas. I mean, it's so confusing, isn't it? So much going wrong, so much to say, and all of it happening so quickly. The pace of repression outstrips our ability to understand it. And that is the real trick of the Imperial thought machine.

It's easier to hide behind 40 atrocities than a single incident. But they have a fight on their hands, don't they? Our elemental rights are such a simple thing to hold. They will have to shake the galaxy awfully hard to loosen our grip. I'd like to hear what Clemberleaves. I know what I'm against. Everything else will have to wait You're my ideal reader

I love that And then There's this one last little analogy right In which he lifts up the The book and the camera thing And is like, you know Look, you know

One of these is one of these charts A Path Through the Stars And this one maps political consciousness They both help us navigate towards achievable outcomes. It's bad. This kid is going to have reading theory

and a trench on Hoff and that's where he's going to die. It's very funny that it's, and I love him for it. It's his own manifesto that he holds up. Like it's not like

somebody else that he admired. Who else is there? Right, right, right, right. Someone has to fucking do the work. You got to back yourself. You got to, you know, I... You need this boy so bad. They needed, they need an ideology master.

So bad. Yeah. Because someone has to give these, disparate groups the language to understand that they're all on the same fucking side this boy is doomed which is a follow-up like he he I feel like he dies I'm just saying yeah I feel like he's gonna die my only question is does he die in a way that radicalizes and or that pushes him further towards distance and cynicism I think it radicalizes him I think

this show is I think this show is a hopeful show like does Andrew leave with the manifesto in his in his pop yes I think so alley I yeah I don't know No, I think there's something with Andor where it's like, I think what makes Andor an interesting character, especially in this, like, context of like, people's motivations for doing what they do can be shallow, but the fact that they're doing it is what's important. Like, especially in the first arc, the, like, the third episode drop of realizing that Andor is not just a person who will shoot first. He is someone who has, like, this resentment already, even if it's not for a great reason. Like, I don't feel like Andor needs to have the moment of like, oh, I feel differently about this now. Like, you know, like, he already, the anger is already there. And that's what sets him apart from like the Han Solo moment of like, I have to go back and get my friends.

Like, Andor's in it. He's already in it. He's there. Yeah. Yeah. But the, there is also, there is a focus on personal reasons for being there, which we see again later when we get, when we do get skeins, right? The thing of like, and we get gorns. also, right? We consistently get to, like, why are these people here? That's important to this show.

And I could imagine it becoming important to Andor, if we are going to see Andor ever get close to other people. And it's hard to know because, like, I mean, I haven't rewatched Rogue One in forever. And it's hard to know, given some of the incredible quotes that have come out, whether Tony Gilroy cares about linking up with that and whether the folks on this. I mean, again, Gilroy was part of that production. but I guess I'm referencing a quote that I should I should read Tony Gilroy on Kat this is from Phil Zostak on Twitter Tony Gilroy on casting and predestined death well why should we care it's a prequel of a prequel I said we're all going to die and yet we get up every day and on Andor's slow burn Gilroy said you can't cash a check if you haven't put any money in the bank which is like the lines

someone in this show was it's true and I think that that bit is like I do think it the show does feel kind of radically free from Rogue One in a way that for instance Obi-Wan could not let itself be from its source

shows which we'll talk about sometime soon on the Patreon it sounds like Rob is watching that show so yeah anyway I do think that it's important I'm still not I do think Nemik is probably dead you know, by this time

he has strong doomed like the doom is heavy upon him He's too wholesome He's too good He's too pure He has the purest Relationship to this I guess that we can see

Or at least the show wants us to believe that On the other hand Tolkien never killed any of them hobbits You know He's got strong hobbit energy Think about how much worse It'll sting five episodes from now When Nemik dies for real

if they all get out of this one alive if they all get out of this one alive and the end of the season and some of them get got and or hits rock bottom but then gets super committed you know I think how much it was staying

if Nemek dies next season in an internecine rebel like cell war that Saw Guerrera's exiled because he was like Nemek was holding us back his scruples his words were valuable

but he'd served his purpose better a dead martyr Yes. Yes. This is the most honest ending to the radical theorists is to be killed internally. Yeah. So let's actually like talking about these motivation things. I think it touches on, obviously the climax comes when Skeen grabs the Skykeber and sort of calls that.

Ask the very good question. With a knife. Yes. And ask the very good question, who brings a treasure? to a robbery, but also, like, I feel like it ties into when they give him the briefing on, like, they're asking him a question, they're like, how, hey, pop quiz hot shot, how do we, how would you fly this freighter out of the imperial payroll hanger? And he sort of figures out real quickly that it's not, like, they don't know the answer. They're trying to be like, prove you can do it, and they just

have no clue what's going on. And it dawns on him. They can't, without him, they couldn't have done this robbery. They'd come this close and they had not answered key questions about like the practicalities of carrying this off and he laughs at them. That is astonishing that they get to this point. They don't know this stuff. But I think one of the things that comes up here is he's a mercenary. Everybody else is a true believer. But also I look at him and like to an extent I would say like is the story of Andor this is how a mercenary becomes a true believer. Or is there something about the fact that he is a mercenary that lets him see things and do things in a way that true believers cannot that the show is getting out? Right.

Is there a value in the objective role of the mercenary in a rebellion? A thing they didn't ever do is go to Gorn, who is a reminder of people listening who aren't watching, is the imperial lieutenant at the base who is a turncoat, who's on their side for reasons we'll get into. And they never went to him and said, hey, can you get a, like, can you, can you super confirm that there's nothing in there that we don't know about? Here's a question we want confirmed. They didn't do that. I think part of what it seems like the show is saying in regards to what mercenaries can do that true believers can't is doubt themselves, right? That, like, if Vell and the others verbalized all of the doubts that they had and all of the weaknesses that they knew that they had, they might break because they are a character. carrying so much of the project on their backs already.

Cassian can have a distance from it and be the guy who cares about practicalities and can say this thing, you don't know how this thing actually works. We don't know how this thing actually works. Are you sure about details A, B, and C? And he's like, free to do that because... Because by doing that, you're not sowing seeds of doubt in the potential success of the mission itself. Like, I feel like there's a hesitancy to call. question things because you don't want to open up

holes in the plan and then just go and spiral down well this is impossible this is unsolvable we can't do this also they're rookies is the other half of this they're rookies and they've been here for months like meticulously

strategizing something that is almost an impossible mission to pull off like you've been here for months trying to at the whiteboard solving an impossible problem and you're still here days before it's time to do it and you still don't have the answer. You never played the big game before.

You've never been in the playoffs. You don't have that it's scary out there. You know what I mean? And they're not familiar with those jitters. They don't have the familiarity with stage fright that they need to know that stage fright is part of the problem, right? or part of it is normal it's not part of the problem

that everybody gets staged right and that's part of the process I think there's also like the fact that he's you can press them on these points and there's also an element of it's not that like he has his reasons for hating the empire

but he's not going to throw his life away like he's seen happen with other people you know who've tried to strike a blow and that's it you know he's very much you can see him giving the Michael

manspiece do you see me holding up like liquor stores the boring to lose tattoo you can see that but it also

enables him I think to he can sort of make as a precondition if he's there it's serious like that is the

role he's carving out for himself is like I work with the best and the reason I know I'm working with the best

is because only the best would be willing to pay what I'm going to ask um like if if it's like

a crew like this could easily be thrown away you know what i mean like just in like it wouldn't matter if a half-ass terror cell or a rebel cell like you know try something it doesn't work but like if you invest someone like andor um it's at least a more a more serious plot than a bunch of people who are like we're going to be the spark that ignites the fire let's try something uh that's that's partly what andor is uh fulfilling here and i and i am curious, you know, it has been a while since I've watched Rogue One. I'm not sure him being a true believer or mercenary is inconsistent with what we, who we see in that movie at all. I don't quite remember. I'm not going to weigh in until I rewatch it. Yeah,

that's the thing that I just don't really remember what Cassian's like vibes are like in that movie, to be honest. I, like, Jin Erso, like, you know, famously says that some of us don't have the luxury of political positions and so they put that on her a lot yeah um but i don't remember how he is situated against that um so i don't want to guess a small detail having now looking at these these scenes again i just want to shout out it's just the costuming in the show is so good um one small very specific thing is for imperial folks from the isb from the the base where Burr Gornes, and even Mon Mothma and Perrin, a lot of their, the materials on their fashion are very smooth.

You're not seeing the cotton twill. You're not seeing any sort of detailing or texture. You know, you might see some pleading or some seams or something. You know what I mean? But you're not seeing everything is flat. And I also think historically thinking about like the prequel sets of fashion. Everything is flat. You know, Jedi robes are like a flat beige texture almost, right?

But if you look at the stuff that the rebels are wearing at the base from the shirt that, that Cass is wearing, to the hoodies that people are wearing, all of the pants, everything has this extra, very visible texture that, that, you know, the materials are not hyper refined. Right. They're not, you know, put through, you know, I mean, they're all probably machine manufactured, obviously. But they all have that texture of less industrialized clothing. You know, the skein is wearing pants with a print on them. Like there is a sense of an extra layer of physicality to all that stuff, and it's great. even even i mean i'm reminded of the conversation we had of the the the difference with the corporate cop the corpo cops right like all of them in the offices and stuff like that the difference between the tailoring i you see it

it almost feels more emphasized karns like the effect of him tailoring to really emulate the clean flat like pristine, you know, texture, look, feel of the imperial clothing. Like, I feel that so much more as we, you know, spend more time with these characters in their clothes. I wanted to call out the scene where they're marching. Another great transition here, too. So after the whole interrogation between Vell and or, figuring out what the strategy was going to be.

Now they sort of question Clem and say, hey, do you even know how to walk like an imperial? Do you know how to walk like a soldier? So they do this little practice march outside, which is like it is at the same time like a bit silly and like almost childlike. It's like watching kids play, you know, army or play soldiers in the way that they're like,

marching but you're also like tomorrow you're marching on the base like tomorrow like this is very real but there's still like a weird feeling of like a mad like we're a mad imagination um in this moment the the the match cut at the end of the scene is to the one we already talked about with tigo and blevin where imperial soldiers are marching right in pharix and the revelation via tigo they're all fucking pretending right The imperial soldiers don't have it. They never had it. Like, they're a bunch of, they're all just like every, they are also pretending to be important people.

Right. And they want to be called prefect. So, like, I think that that, that, you've hit exactly what's happening. It's like, they're going through the same process that these soldiers. And, I mean, we also just see other soldiers getting, you know, scolded in this episode who clearly, like, they feel like they're in school. They do feel like little kids. I think that the reverse of that here is very fun. You're right.

Yeah. They also, sorry, go ahead, Rob. Well, I just, like a detail I like, just like the practicality of it, that they built their entire base in scale with the location they're going to be hitting. So they've lived this place for months, but also the way they've, like, dressed up this little, like, Shepherds camp. Also, just happens to be a completely unrecognizable one-to-one mock-up of the base they're striking. yeah it's such a good it's such a good it really makes you feel like they've been here for months

and like this like the whole their whole lives all of their mind and focus and everything has been about this one day this one mission and everything is an extension of that including their living quarters and everything

I love Cassian mansplaining walking and guns I just I love this moment because it's like how does Cassian knows that from having served question mark just but we know that he was a cook does Cassie know that from having observed watching you know soldiers like is that like just an image burned into his brain like how does he where does that detail come I think he's kicked down doors in heists and stuff before because we know he's done like whether how much he

the degree to which he served is like many things clouded but we know that he used to run jobs and steal stuff right and like I guarantee there are times that he's gone into the door and the person to his left is cross shooting him and he's like brook like yeah

door stuck yeah I think like but also they don't know that he has done this before he has walked on an imperial based like he owns it and walked to the Starpath unit and walked out of it and that's all looked looking like he belongs. They

don't know that like one of the other skills he brings, he's this chameleon. And there's one thing I was thinking is like they're trying too hard as they're marching. I'm like I don't think this I think you stand out at a garrison like this. And that's what we learn when we cut to Lieutenant Gorn

they don't like as you said Austin none of them have it like that but especially here. Yeah, they're drinking. beers and doing target practice at the old Raleigh up the old druidic temple Yeah, uh-huh This is We get the

You know, the sort of cut here is we have the Oh wait, wait, wait, wait, because the end of the marching thing Yeah, this is... Is the tie fighter coming back? Which is just Nope. Hell no. Hell fucking no.

No, thank you. And yes. It's like a shark. It is. It is. It's so good. It's so scary. It is so scary.

And it is so violating. Like the way it cuts through space feels like violent. The way it hovers for a moment. Like it dips around the corner of a mountain. Yeah. And someone's like, I think it's gone. Nope. And then is it, is it Sinta?

Who's like, I don't think so. And it just kind of pops back up over the mountain, over the tree. tree line and it just hovers there for a second like like like it's making a decision yeah totally something leaping up like it's making decision and then it does that sweep yeah and it's just fuck off it's awful it's so loud it's so like unbearably loud um but don't worry they'll soon see a surprise from a buddy's never shocking his one from below see this is the thing i'm not actually that's sold on them because he's got to have his little fucking quotable with everything That's not what he's, but what is he doing in that scene?

He's trying to, he's putting words to the feeling that everyone's feeling. I think he's, I think he's trying to go calm down Andor. He goes over to Andor and puts a hand on his shoulder. And he's like, listen, they'll see. Like, it's okay, buddy. He's trying to care for someone. As my little red book tells us, a surprise from above. Yes, 100%.

Comrades, I know you fear the, the, the enemies. I know we cringe beneath the umbrella of the tie fighters, but the empire does not know that a surprise from... And they're right. Yeah. He's right. I mean, it's also just a good book for, like, such a petty aggression. Like, the thought that the ship would stop and, like,

just, like, rev engines around them to, like, intimidate them, when, like, the person in that ship knows that there's going to be a bunch of travelers to this specific place. And they both really want to, you know, see how cool the sky is, but also are, like, disgusted that they have to see people. Yeah. That, like, it's the perfect moment to be like, yeah, they can throw their punches, but we're going to throw ours. Yeah, I do like that because it's like, this isn't even like, quote unquote, real, like a real attack. You know what I mean?

Like, this is just intimidation. This is just, you know, these cops being fun. fucking petty and just being disruptive and disturbing because they're not yeah so they don't even believe in what they have which is I think part of what comes out

of these Goren scenes which Rob I know you wanted to get to these yeah I mean there's there's a couple things one is that like there's layers of performance to what Goren is doing right where he's playing a bit of the Martinette trying to like whip this garrison into shape and badgering them

about all the shit they've been up to in the ways they're not keeping up to standard. But it is based on real disdain for them, a real dislike. But also, because he's playing that character, he backfuts them so much. Like, when he sees they've been shooting up the temple. And he's like, we're going to get this clean for when the Aldani show up.

Like, clearly, at least, we haven't gone this far, where it's like we still at least pretend to respect these traditions, these people, we chased off this land, which they might be paving over next year is sort of the implication he has with a, you know, a conversation he has with that corporal. But like by backfooting them.

Looking out over the valley and being like, it's beautiful, isn't it? And the corporal's like, is it true they're going to tear all this down and move the airbase here and just kind of flatten it? And like the thing that's so fascinating to me is just like this guy, the two people you're about to talk to inside, his other two, like, I guess it's this guy again and another different guy maybe. they don't have they don't have any wonder for what the empire is doing even they don't even they're not bought in in any meaningful way they're not like

when he says again they're going to turn it into an airbase he neither can say oh it's a shame it's such a beautiful view but oh well that's what's best for the world nor can he say I can't wait to see it go this you know what this place needs is more efficiency or more you know what I mean he has nothing he's not he's fully

a cog in the system and has no vision for a bigger project. I think it's so interesting to contrast that with, you know, it's very visibly a part of what is being contrasted between the rebels who all have their particular reasons for being here and these guys who are like, these smelly Donnies, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, which is wild. Just, poof. I mean, it's... And the fact that then the next two guys are like, well, everyone's...

Everyone says that, like, the whole reason to, like, get, get, uh, you know, uh, uh, enlisted to Aldani is to see the eye and, like, I think it would really mean a lot to the soldiers if you could let us, like, have the night off to go see the eye. And it's like, and in the same, and in the same sentence, shitting on the people who fucking live here and who have, like, a real relationship with this event, like, you are going to be posting. And they are going to be seeing and experiencing and living. And it's just, it's just, it's peak fucking gentrificate. It's like, call it like colonization. I don't know. Like they've, they've come to somebody else's land. They've pushed them into, you know, other, other areas that they didn't live in prior.

They grant them the ability to come back to perform their little ritual as I guess a, you know, a piece. like oh well we we were still respecting the culture we just we have to be here because this is where the best possible place for this military operation to be we just it's unfortunate but we just have to be here i'm sorry that's the official imperial stance like that's the official imperial PR statement that's going to come out but in reality the people patrolling that make up this base fucking hate the aldonis and think that they're and are just racist and so there's no like I don't know I that's how I view it

I view it as this like outside force coming into somebody else's land and but still having an appreciation for or quote unquote appreciation for the phenomenon that exists here and a complete disregard for the people and culture that have existing relationships to it it is so exactly that like

colonize your thing of we can truly appreciate the beauty here shame about all the people who lived here and not like not shame what we had to do with them uh shame that they were here at all shame like shame that shame at the fact of them um and you know but there's there's a weird

I don't know it's what's interesting is I find like this is a sad imperial base basically like the soldiers are lonely they're bored and they they hate this job but the only thing the only perk with it is that it's in this like

you know, you can, like, when the job sucks too much, you can go out on the dam and, like, stare off into this incredible vista, but you also can't fully see, like, that you're the ones destroying it. You know what I mean? That, like, the, like, the reason, the, the thing that sucks here is not the place. It's the job you've been sent to do. It's the, the people you work for. And the next people who garrison this place are going to have it even worse because they're going to flatten this entire range and build a job. giant like airbase. Right. Slowly but surely. The logistics facility. Right. Slowly but surely the planet will lose all of all of its original makeup and will become an industrial like mechanical planet.

It'll be a like the whole planet will be metal and and, you know, walls and facilities and there will be no vista. The vista will be like Mustafa. our vibes, like, just like, you know, big structures and... Or like that base that Tarkin had that entire, like, where Asoko was held prisoner at the end of last season, where it's just like endless expanse of concrete and barracks and like to the horizon, effectively. Right, that's what I imagine.

Which comes back to this conversation we've had now multiple times about the place of technology in Star Wars and the like, I think that there's a really nice bit of texture added by the Nemek scene that we played earlier with the navigation tool because it, you know, in the same way that the rebels also have spaceships and the relationship between imperial technology and rebel technology is like a little complicated in the original series. It's not as simple as nature is on one side and machines are on the other, but the force is on one side. And one of the things that the forces is like knowledge and connection. And the thing that Nemex zeros in on is we used to know things. We used to be connected to things. We've been

deskilled. We're using machines that deskill us. We're using machines that take away our relationship to knowledge and our relationship to the world because technology can connect us to the world when it's something that we understand and is part of a daily, you know, part of regular life. And so I think that this continues to develop that core thesis that we've been working through since, you know, since the first imperial symbol that we ever were introduced to was the Death Star, was a big fake moon and so seeing them continue to play on that

is really fun. Austin, you'd call out the excellent manipulation Gorn is doing like by berating the soldiers he backfuts them so they don't ask questions

about where he fucks off to he does things I'm going to be gone for an hour when I get back this place better be fixed up what did he do in that hour? Not for you to wonder

you're just actually praying he doesn't show up because an hour 15 you're frantically trying to be like how else do we desiccicciccored? create this temple and like how can we scrub the evidence off and meanwhile he's out there being like and so when you walk into this room kill everybody immediately but he's literally but the way he

convinces them to strip the guard it's amazing that's the specific big one it's their their idea they asked to leave they're like I think it would be like we really want to go see the eye like do you mind if it's just essential employees down here and he's like I guess I can allow that yeah that but you're double duty on monday yeah oh there's gonna be double duty on monday let me tell you let me tell you oh my god it's so good it's so good he's doing he's doing he's doing great like everything's coming up corn right now it's names i definitely i definitely hear that spelled okay too me too it's gorn everything's coming up corn uh uh God damn it.

They heard about, like, the corn songs trending on TikTok. It's corn. And so he's kind of an example. Somebody make a fan cap for Goren with that, please. Thank you. Uh-huh. He is the example, too, of, like, a character, like, they don't spell out exactly what his background is, but there is something vaguely, like, uh, anthropological about him.

Like, he feels like there's an academic bent to him, uh, in a way that's unlike. He, I mean, we know his wife was from, was out of Donnie, right? And that it feels like, this is the classic thing of, like, I don't know how they met. I know, yeah. Did he come here like to study this place? I don't know. But he fell in love with the people. He literally fell in love with a woman from here and then fell in love with the place. And has been part of the experience of changing it. I wonder if he came here with the original. That's what I think. That's what I think. I think he was already here. He was already married somebody here. He'd gone to this place a bunch. He spent 25 years as part of this. place and now he's part of the group that is tearing it the fuck apart and it's killing that's why he's doing this that's why he's and what that dude said is like

you imagine like there were like a thousand of them not realizing that like radicalization intensifies yeah yeah I can it's so good it's like the parasite rearview mirror moment because he's literally standing behind him you can't see

his you can't see Goren's expression and it's just so fucking good I just also he literally says it's not just can you imagine this list he says there's still enough of him around to smell them though right can you imagine this place with a couple thousand of them yes i can oh he's also just the smoothest motherfucker we've ever seen he just carries himself into every scene so much power so much authority and the funny thing is i don't think he actually has much i think it is entirely like vibes based authority is like because the engineer is showing up has rank on him he's not the commandant but but But, like, he runs that base. Yep. Yep. Oh, I'm worried he's going to get God.

I'm worried it for everybody involved. Well, especially because I feel like having had Andor talk about, like, but what if the thing's not loaded on day of? I feel like something about that ship being, being readied up may not be, may not be good to go. The clutch is going to be broken. Something's going to be wrong. Yeah, I mean, this is clearly a not maintain, like, they aren't taking care of this base. Like, they don't give a shit.

all the cops here are chilling outside doing shooting practice like they don't like it doesn't seem like they really that operations are you know up to Is they going to have to steal that imperial shuttle that just landed

Can that carry all that money? Someone's going to say that out loud and someone's going to say it should be able to it's just going to be crams So here's the other thing They're stealing a lot of money They're saying so much money And, like, they're all true believers.

Money. But, like, again, Austin, your point of it in the last arc, we've gotten a sense of what things are worth. Like, the most valuable things that were traded on Farrex were, like, a few hundred credits. His StarPath unit was 40,000. And we saw what that worked out to in terms of, like, credit chets. And then we see this, like, warehouse full of money that they're robbing. And there's a... there is a line from way of the gun that James Kahn gives where he tells like a junior criminal he's working with basically where he's like five million dollars is a money kid its motive with a universal adapter and I saw that pile of money and I was like yep okay are we sure once you run you know what I mean once you rob something you're all robbers like that's the weird thing right like if the four of us like five million dollars should be

shows up. We have no problem. Like nothing. Like we all be like, yeah, what do we do this? Five million dollars. If we go and we kill a bunch of people and rob a place and we're, we've got, we're back in our hideout with five million dollars, just the fact that we've done that changes the dynamic because we all know we're capable of it. Mm-hmm. It's a simple plan, Sam Ramey. Yeah. Which I don't know if you've seen it. It's like Sam Ramee doing a Cohen Brothers movie, basically, um, about three people who stumbled their way into, into, like $4 million and a murder and then like it turns out to be

the death of their relationship you know it's great and that's exactly the risk right who here though breaks so we I mean we should say really quick Vell and Sinta do not are not going in we don't know what their role is yet in the team yeah there will be a day before we see them again right

do you think scheme could be the one who wants to just run off with it Do you think it's somebody else? So Skeen, so Skeen tells us what his motivation is. She wants me to tell you about my brother. There's a long version, but what matters is they killed him. He was a farmer. Imperial Prefect came in, took his land, flooded it.

You couldn't fight him. He couldn't bear it, so he went to boat and filled his pocket. with stones. I always hated the Empire. I don't really know what to call how I feel now. What kind of farm? Trees. Pepper trees.

Centuries of them. That's as close to an apology as you can. going to get? It's close enough. Andor asks what kind of farm was it? And after a beat, Skeen replies trees, pepper trees, centuries of them. And, like, the little beat, I couldn't help but think the same way that, like, skiing had asked, like, what facility were you at?

Like, and or just wanted that one last detail. Like, just real quick. And there was a little hesitation. To me, I thought, I thought this move was so interesting. because the most telling part about this is that Cassian doesn't respond with something, like, you would almost feel like,

you know, as... They killed my dad. Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, something equally, not equally as intense so that he's also like, yeah, I've been through shit too. Like, we've both been through shit, and this is our mutual apology. But it's the fact that he doesn't respond. It's like, what is Cassian's beef

with, like, where, Where does it really, really, really lie? And I feel like that's yet to be known. There was a small scene we skipped over earlier, which is during the marching. Is it during one of the preparatory scenes, someone comes over and maybe it's during the Locket, finding the Khyber crystal scene, I don't remember exactly, but someone touches him. And he's like, don't touch me.

And one, I couldn't remember if we'd seen that happened before that he pulled away from physical contact in that way. I don't remember what the situation was. I checked my notes. I don't have it. I didn't have time to go back through and find whatever that scene was. But like the way he pulls away is like deep trauma response pull away. And like maybe he wasn't on CIPO. Maybe he was somewhere worse.

Yeah. I don't know. That's kind of what I read. I feel like Cassian's silence in that moment is like he can't talk about the thing that is truly, you know, um, fueling his hatred for the empire. He can't put words to it. We know that he was taken from his home. We don't know why the kids were alone. We don't know what happened to his sister.

Like, you know, I, I do also have a memory of him. like recoiling from physical touch before um and i think it's like in that moment that you can really feel that cassian has been through something too uh in that in that silence yeah um i do love that beat of that's as close as a apology you're going to get for me i it makes me feel it makes me feel that skein is genuine and isn't like a double you know i don't i don't believe he's a double-crosser. If anything, I think Skeen will get so wrapped up in his hatred for Imperials that he'll maybe do something that will do bigger damage to, like, he'll like try and kill more Imperials than get away with the money. Do you know what I mean? Or he'll be the one who's like,

leave me behind to save the day here. You and the kids get out of here. Like that clone, the It's more nemic surviving and finishing a stupid manifesto is more important than me surviving. I had my time. You know? Pepper trees. Pepper trees. Right? Like, that's, that's, that's, I think that there's something there.

We'll see. It's curious. I'm so excited. It's curious how much this show talks about, like, violent death openly. Like, we've had, like, multiple mentions of, like, hangings or suicide or just, like, these really intense like versions of death um compared to you know i mean obviously we've seen in the clone wars like really gruesome things but it's not but even when you see it's not spoken about in with that gravita of with that like intensity behind it um it's just it's it's

it keeps coming back to me and it every time it's talked about it really hits me because it's it's it just feel so unexpected that we're being so candid about the realities of the type of violence that the empire is inflicting on people um we have one more scene i mean we you know we could go on a fine tooth tone i'll comb on the rest of this thought long and short is just vell is no longer in charge uh after and or reveals after being pushed because of the the Kyber crystal, the Skyiber, that he was paid, that he was a mercenary. They're all on board on that now. They understand that. He makes the, you know, he does the big speech about how, like, if it wasn't this, it would be something else. There's some, it's the day before a heist.

It's the day before the big job, people get butterflies. It happens. Again, they kind of reach a new equilibrium. Vell, you know, Vell again says, hey, we're not, we're not going to be part of this thing. And Tamarin is in charge now. Now, who is the guy who touched Andor during the marching scene and who Andor kind of pushed back at. We get, I think this is where we get Andor maybe standing next to Sinter. Maybe that was earlier. And slightly making eyes and Vell, best of been earlier, Val stepping between the two of them to be like, uh-uh. She asked like, how's the wound going?

He's like really good. Yeah. You're a healer. Oh. Mm-hmm. He, in fact, she, in fact, she, fact specifically says you dress yourself from now. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Meaning

Sinta was done dressing your wound and putting your shirt on for you and all of that. Well, but Vell was saying that, that Sinta wasn't. I think Vell was just detecting just, I know. I know. It was just detecting just the raw sexual magnetism of Cassie and Andor. She was like, I can't, this is this is a dangerous element.

Yeah. God. You got to, you know, it's, andor is just, we got to get this guy off. He's trouble. He's trouble. He's trouble. Anyway, finally, we end on a scene with Lutham, who I think has holicrons behind him. Yeah. Is that correct?

These are, bro. They're just, there's like, there's been breakdowns of the various things in his shop. They include things like a gungan shield. Sith, the relics,

Mandalorian armor, all sorts of bullshit back there. But those are, that's holocrons, I believe. That's hologrons to me. Bro, what are you doing with holocrons? I guess so.

You know. That Perrin has some holocrons up on his shelves, like Funko pops. Yep. Yep. He can't open them. No. You don't think he can? Oh, these are very valuable Jedi artifacts.

Who? Do you think Luthan can't open? Oh, Perrin can't open them. No, Perrin can't open them. Unless he can. I don't know. Luton, I don't know. I think Luton's a Jedi.

He's giving, he's giving Ben Kenobi vibes. I think he's giving. nervous guy struggling with all the pressure vibes but he's too yeah yeah it's true he's not at peace enough for a Jedi

oh Jedi would be at peace right now yeah because he would trust in the force that you're right yeah no one here nobody here trusts in the force be with you like yeah

nobody says that shit you know by the time the rebellion happens before they go on the death stop because Nemex kind of die and they're not going to have a secular creed that ties them together. So they have to go back to the Jedi bullshit.

God damn it. I could imagine Nemick also becoming Jedi-pilled, though. Because he's young, which means he wouldn't have seen that they were, that they failed so hard. And they all died fighting the empire, like the moment it became the empire. You know what I mean? Yeah. I could see him valorizing them in a way that's, like, wrong because he wasn't around to do actual material analysis. and instead he's like, let the force be with you, you know?

The force connects us. It guides us. It connects us to everything. It's elemental. You know, like, I can see him. That's the spiritual, like, that's the spiritual, like. Components of the, this is the real sacred knowledge that the empire is taken from us and suppressed. Right.

It ties it all together. Yes. Anyway. Yeah. And we end up connecting to those monks on Jedda in Rogue One eventually. who aren't Jedi, but they do have the force stuff going on. So, like, there's a way to think about it. Anyway, talk to me about this scene.

What happens in this last little sequence? Ali, do you have something about this thing? Oh, no, I was just going to say, my home for, like, because the Jedi wouldn't be exceptional, right? Like, if you're in Nemic shoes and you're thinking about the, like, destruction of the empire, think of how many cultures he's aware of that have been destroyed by the, by the Republic of the empire at this point

so like oh yeah the Jedi was one of them like the Jedi had their own really here's my counter nerds love Katama so much little nerds

love it when a guy has a robe on and a cool sword and they stand for justice and they died heroically shot in the back my man's there with like a map and his cell phone being like these are the same

object. I don't think that he's like, I love swords. I think that he's like, wow, but think about the people on this planet who invented the... You don't think that motherfucker. He said a more elegant camera

for a more civilized age is what he said. He did. Sure. He just, he just supports the right to repair. Yeah, definitely. That's true. Like, right to repair,

flex server. But so does Anakin Skywalker. oh he does support the right to repair shoutouts shoutouts to my man anyway luthan yeah so luthan is spiraling a little bit first of all you shouldn't just be standing in your shop that is absolutely not a suspicious

antiquities dealership with your fucking shortwave radio just like anything happening any crimes to report and so the woman who works in the shop with him is clearly his top aide because she's the one who sort of gives him

the like a like it's it's a dressing down like the power dynamic flips where like you've been assuming this entire time that he's sort of running the show for I'm not entirely sure

who is running the show at this point because he looks so old he does he looks so weary the veneer has worn off it's like he yeah The wig has shifted Like it's the end of the day

He's not Wig shift It's happening We're in the middle of a wake shift Right now The wig is shifting But he's just genuinely So scared

And it's such a different vibe From the Luthan that dropped Cassian off At Rebellion School Like It's It's all a performance It's all a performance Is this the only real

Like is she Like, is this real Luthan, scared, old antiques man, holocron collecting guy with his, like, protege sidekick? I think this, I like, I think he did his little, the little, like, pirouette he does, you know, in the, in the ship in episode three, I think, or episode four, he did that same ship before he got off his ship on fair. except he did the other way where he had to like feel like he was like a hard-ass rebel guy looking for looking to recruit andor he's you know he's the he's the actor in the dressing room yeah preparing to play the role and we're seeing him with the makeup off here we're seeing him with the lights off and he has butterflies too and he knows it could all go away instantaneously like instantaneously like when he's out in the field or guys like andor if it

goes bad it'll be over fast probably one way or the other um or you're like or there's no mystery as to where it's going to end up but like you know he the knock the door could just happen and and it's all over that's why he sort of asking like do you have your your uh bugout bag packed basically uh you know are you ready to run um and these are questions she doesn't want him asking right now uh they're not helpful and also yeah you're spiraling a bit but i think the other part is uh you know this is just he can't affect this and the thing

that's sort of wearing on him as well is he knows he gave and or too much information about himself and what's funny

is like you say I made a mistake and such but when I think back to that conversation they had aboard his ship it's more like he confided

like he saw it like he sees an andor a mente that he really wants and told him too much to get into that place but it's not like

it's like Like, he didn't, I don't think he let slip the key identifying information so much as, like, he just showed way too much of himself to Andor. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. And it's like, it's such a different relationship that he had with Andor in those sequences than what we saw him have with Vell, which was, you know, professional but tense. There was, there didn't feel like there was a lot of seeing himself in Vell. Maybe there had been at one point. Maybe he did the whole song and dance with everybody there.

And now it was Andor's turn. and you know that's just part of it but he did feel like he was opening up to Andor in a different way so it's such a good scene his assistant here whose name I don't recall because I think she's only named very briefly um rules

Clea what? Clea Laida and Clea Star Wars it's Star Wars it's happening it's what's happening I love her so much I love how just no fucking nonsense like she's just like get pull yourself

the fuck together we have clients in the morning we need to Clayah all of us the the mission is going to happen or it's not it's going to be successful or it's not

you've done everything you can it was never going to be perfect Cassian is not perfect bell is not perfect none of these people are perfect you have the tools you have and that is it and there's nothing else to think about

what a good episode of just this conversation happening over and over again with it's Dedra and her little assistant guy it's Karn and his mom it's and or on both sides of this with the rebel group and it and it's Gorn and the engineer and the guards it's everybody is like all right you got to be better than the way you're fucking being right now you have to pull yourself together it's that conversation over and over again yeah in different configurations it's great and you see the moment of insecurity like you see as we glazed over this, but Deidre, as she's walking in the hallway and Blevins is walking towards her,

he's just come back from Farix. He doesn't even look at her. And it's, it's like he, it's not even like an intentional, I'm not looking that way. It's, I don't even perceive you. You're not in my realm. I'm in, I'm in, I'm in, flanked by four people and one of them is reminding him about a speech he's supposed to go do. Exactly. And Deirdre, and, and Deirdre keeps walking and she stops and she turns around and stares at him. for like a while and it's just you see she you see the insecurity pouring out of her and then you have this this moment with her and her and her colleague and it's like we have all these moments of insecurity cyril's insecurities luthens insecurities cassian's insecurities like everyone is

is in a precarious place i think that's like we're we're constantly sitting in this in this feeling of precarity because everything is balancing on a dime essentially yeah yeah we didn't even mention it but one of the things that she says to her to the guy that she's dead just working with is like i don't i don't know what the fuck i'm doing i don't know what i'm doing yeah and he has to be like yes you do you've been working on this it's okay so it's very fun anyway i want the next episode to be out right now Me too. I need this heist. I need the heist. And we'll be back next week to see how it all plays out.

Once we wrap this arc, which I'm presuming that'll be after the next episode. I expect there be some sort of shift that is happening at the end of this next, this trio we're on. But I think for our Q&A, we'll take questions on these first six episodes. Like what we discussed maybe so far, but like maybe keep it to these first two large arc. for this month. Feel free to ask us questions we haven't thought of or throw some well-supported theories our way. You know, if you'd like to hear that

or just want to support the show, you can do so at patreon.com slash civilized. Until next time, please rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice, but, you know, especially Apple. We do, mm, Apple reviews. Yum. So delicious.

And, hey, like the tree, remember, the axe forgets. We're going to be able to be. We're going to be. I'm going to be able to be. We're going to be. I don't know. I don't know.

We're going to be. We're going to be able to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be able to be.