A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 46: "The Eye" (Andor 06)

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

Wow, what a season. From the opening at the rainy PreMor leisure district to the climactic conclusion in highlands of Aldh- What's that?  You're saying this is only the halfway point of the series? The halfway point of the first season of the series?  No, that can't be right. You're saying that after this—perhaps the best pound-for-pound filmmaking we've covered on the podcast—we get... more?  Wow. A better world really is possible. NEXT TIME: Andor Episode 07 Show Notes Heads up that next episode may come a day late, as we're dealing with scheduling difficulties and dental recovery! 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 of Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zakney, joined by Aliaqompora, Austin, Austin and Natalie Watson. Yo! The energy is boiling. We put the pot of water on and left the room, and now it's boiled over. The suns are coming out of the water. washing machine. The fire is burning. The hot tub jets are popping up. Like, y'all, what? We saw television. Television is happening on the screen. I have a note here that I just need to start with. It's not my starting note. I mean, my starting note is Diego Luna with a hat, great hat, great coat, great everything. But my The actual, the first note that I need to just say, and this will only make sense to true Waypoint, you know, fans, which I mean, that's probably everybody listening to this podcast, honestly.

And it is just, I'm going to fucking cry from the spectacle. Rob, can we please ever so slightly give in to the astonishment? There are... I also threw an astonishment note in here. I was like, bro, I'm in the motherfucking astonishment right now. Like, we are in it. This is why we don't give into the astonishment normally. For this.

Because it lets us have this and own it and love it. Yeah, we've been dying too. I think we all watched it at different points yesterday. I just, I came in from vacation and this was like, usually I'm Canada, I watch this together. She's like, I'm exhausted. I'm going to balance. I'm like, I am not waiting. I'm sorry.

I have to do this now. I have to see how this. heist goes and boy did it. How's it go? Yeah, yeah. Let's get into it. So I would say betrayal is really the theme of this week's episode of Andor

of people, of organizations and to a great extent maybe even of the self. Of the self, that's exactly right. If Vell told us last week that everyone has their own rebellion, this week we learned that just about everyone on some level feels like they're choosing

between betraying others or betraying a code. I don't think there's a lot of table setting we need to do here because this episode, the eye, does not jump around much until the very end. This week, the Rebel Band on Aldani launched their raid on the Imperial Payroll, and mostly we watch each step of the plan unfold almost perfectly, and then increasingly imperfectly culminating in a bloody shootout in the hangar, which wipes out most of the gang and the characters we've spent the last couple weeks

getting to know. And then we have a harrowing and breathtaking getaway into the eye of Aldani. But among the casualties of the heist, as we expected, is poor little Nemek, who was crushed nearly to death during the escape. A shot, I didn't want to call. I didn't want to call and I didn't want to make. I don't think we could have guessed that he would be killed literally by loose imperial capitals.

His frail little body couldn't take it. He has to be taken to a black market surgeon at Skeen's insistence rather than going straight to the rendezvous. But as Skeen and Andor wait for Nemex operation to conclude unsuccessfully, unfortunately, Skeen asks Andor that most dreadful question, what if we just split this two ways? With Skeen's mask fully off, Andor shoots him dead, takes the pay he was promised,

and leaves Vell with Luthan's crystal as he takes his leave of this depleted rebel cell. Meanwhile, on Coruscant, we see the jolt this heist sent through the ISB, the Senate, and in a brief moment, at Luthan's shop, through the upper crust of Imperial Society. And that is where we leave things. The spark, as we see Luton this time truly reenacted in that moment, we saw him have aboard his ship alone as he's left in.

character, now having that moment genuinely and fully. And exhaling, like all of us watching the show, finally, breathing a breath after holding it for the entirety of this 43 minutes or whatever. This truly took, this episode truly took my breath away. Like, I felt I was audibly gasping and yelling and asking question. And who was I talking to? No one. But I couldn't help, but like, I was like, it, there was so much,

it was like kinetic energy that I just needed to expel because I just felt so tense. The first, like, I want to say half of this episode is very quiet. There's not a lot of score. I mean, most of this episode is quite quiet with not a lot of score, a lot of just environmental sounds. And you feel it. The silence feels heavy.

We've said this about scenes in the past, but especially in this episode, with so much on, like here it is. It's on the line now, right in this moment. And if you don't make it this moment, you're fucked. You're done. Just an incredible pacing between,

and I think another thing this episode does so well is leave you in the suspense of the outcome. Like sometimes you watch a thing and you kind of know how it's going to go. But especially with the sort of parallel bouncing back and forth between the heist progression and the presence of the Aldani watching the eye, it's so unsettling. Like you just, you really don't.

know what the presence of the Aldani, if what kind of effect it's going to have on the outcome of this night. And I don't know about y'all, but I was constantly like, when are the Aldani like knocking these fools out in like running? Like I thought they were going to, I thought they were going to hop in for sure in like revolution time. I immediately clicked into place that this was about their moment and their relationship to the eye and presenting this cultural and religious moment for them in a sort of you know the show doesn't say the force in fact late in this episode the word luck is used where the force might traditionally be used in a conversation um but nemick says that he has faith and then he believes in something and then we see what faith and awe and the sublime you know look like for the al-dani in the middle of this episode uh and i think

it's so effective at communicating some notion that you, that people, that part of what it means to be a person is to have a relationship to other people and the world that is on some nature ineffable, that is on some nature at some level more than hard rationality. You know, we don't get a deep dive. We got like a little bit of a touch on like what to the Adani believe the eye is a few episodes ago. We're not getting like a big speech here about what the eye means or what its place is in the mythology. Again, we don't get Nemex using the word the force. We don't get, you know, again, we get the word luck laid on. But there is something communicated here that reminds me a little bit of the, the one of the shorts in the Star Wars visions. There was the,

I forget which one it was called. It was it called the village, the one where it's just like this very natural environment and you're seeing like bits of the world. fall away and the force reconstructing memories and it's doing all these weird things. The eye had that sense of like, wow, the galaxy is an incredible place. And I think I immediately, and this is just like, I would have been surprised if the Adani had like turned on the empire in that moment. I don't mean that by set to say that like, I would have been surprised as in you're wrong for having that feeling.

I was, I was captured by this religious. experience that they were having, which made the moment of intersection with the eye as the ship gets away that much more potent and overwhelming for me, because you get this, I mean, a small thing is a detail throughout this episode is that the eye is starting to arrive. The comets are beginning to fall. They're beginning to move across the stratosphere or whatever. And at first, they are orange and they're lost in the overcast sky and they are, you know, they are yellow. they're just kind of like fire in the sky. And then at one point, you get one that's green.

And you're like, whoa, wait, are the comets? What color are the comets? And you realize eventually they're all just this rainbow. They're not a rainbow, but they're orange and yellow and green and blue and red, right? And they're just like this incredible mix of color and majesty. And like it builds the eye. The eye is also like a clock ticking down. As our friend Wren mentioned to me privately was like, this feels like a clock is advancing in blades in the dark or in the sprawl.

something. It's like we're getting closer to the moment. And I think that like it's such a compelling way to to pay off on this thing that for, you know, weeks we've been, you know, we've been hearing about it. We know the eye is coming. And I didn't think it would live up to the hype. And that particular effect did. And I think that like the relationship between the Adani or the, do we know if the people are called the Aldani or if they're called the Donnie? because I've seen write-ups refer to them as the Donnie. And I couldn't, in my watching, I had assumed that that was a shortcut slash slur that the Imperials were using. But I'm not 100% sure if that's actually just...

I do feel like I hear the Imperals, but the Imperals use it because, like, we don't really know the Aldani. Because, like, it's not even clear how many of the Rebel band are actual Al-Dani. Right, from Al-Dani. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Anyway, yeah Let's Go ahead Let's talk about this first scene though

Because I think one thing I love here right at the start is You know I was wondering when we have fallout From the revelation that Andor was a mercenary Which Val had sort of anticipated this is not This is not going to play well And unsurprisingly, it is Nemek Who is most bothered by it, wounded by it You know, we could say

And he's also got his pre pre-heist jitters And he sort of strikes this conversation up as they break camp in the fog on this morning. Man, it's just an incredible location they're in. The weather, it looks like the weather fully cooperated. Maybe some of this is digitally enhanced, but like it looks gloomy and awful and wet and hopeless up there on this hillside. And he talks about the fact that, you know, he's kind of astonished at how composed and Dorsey. seems he's had a he's had a restless night he's exhausted um but to comfort himself he sort talks about he's been you know it's very passive aggressive he's been writing uh about the

the role of mercenaries uh in the galactic struggle for freedom right trying to process his his disdain from and or his motivations for being here uh with his own belief uh in sort of the the moral righteousness and rectitude of what he is doing. But I may just drop that audio in here because I think this conversation is pretty strong. Yeah. I couldn't sleep. It's natural.

I need to be at my best. Don't worry. The excitement won't kick in. Struggling to understand where my faith doesn't calm me, I believe in something. Why am I so unsettled? I mean, you have nothing. You sleep like a stone.

I write when I can't sleep. I wrote about you last night, not you, specifically, not Clem. Although I'm assuming that's not your real name anyway. The role of mercenaries in the galactic struggle for freedom. My conclusion is simple. Weapons are tools, those that use them, are by extension, functional assets that we must use to our best advantage. The empire has no moral boundaries.

Why should we not take hold of every chance we can? Let them see how an insurgency adapts. Well, you have right. The empire doesn't play by the rules. And how am I wrong? They don't care enough to learn. They don't have to. You mean nothing to them.

Perhaps I think differently tomorrow. Be careful what you wish for. So you think it's hopeless, do you? freedom, independence, justice. We should just submit and be thankful. Just take what we're given. Do I look thankful to you? No.

But I'm glad that you're here. No matter what the reason. Don't worry. You'll be fine. You'll sleep when it's done. but there's kind of two things there's two things happening here right is one he is kind of trying to express in his way his anger at andor for not being a true believer in the way he thinks everyone here should be it shouldn't you shouldn't have to be bribed to be here you shouldn't

have to be a mercenary but he try he's trying to frame it in but you know the rebellion is going to have to have to make use of people like this it's going to have to we can't get caught up in our self-righteousness and not use valuable tools against the empire but also all of this is he's scared to death and he needs Andor to help buck him up for what they're

heading into and so it's this interesting dynamic of like I'm angry at you I'm hurt and also please tell me it's going to be okay and then I'm not going to fuck this up Right he also has a crush on Andor like and I mean that in both in every way possible I think he's like it's anger at him but it's

also disappointment because at first blush, we know that Nemek was like, oh, Andor is legit. Everybody, hey, I'm getting good vibes from Andor. Yeah. And, you know, when he says stuff like, you're my ideal reader, he's, sometimes you look at a person and you realize that they are a puzzle piece that fits into you. And I think that there is that relationship between Nemek and Andor from Nemek's perspective, which is that like, he's done this with skiing. He's done this with everybody else here.

He's pitched in the manifesto. There's something in Andor that feels like, you know, I could get him excited about this stuff. I could eventually get him to engage at this level, which, again, we will wrap back around to. And I think that working through that feeling of disappointment and then finding like, how do I justify my own feelings that have not, I still want you to be part of this at a personal level. How do I find room for that in my idea? Not that his ideology is wrong. He's right. You do need to make use of mercenaries in a situation like this.

But I also think that there is a personal motivation here that comes from squaring the circle of, I know what you are, but I'm still happy you're part of this in this moment. What's happening there? And I love that. And again, you know, the end of that is the thing where he says, don't worry, you'll be fine. You'll sleep when it's done. Uh-huh. What's up, Allie?

I watched it take a time I was like don't say that I don't write the show this well you you said that you

I mean the two things that you messes me that we talked about how many times did you gasp out loud for watching the second thing is you and I both

independently almost just hit the start button on Rogue 1 at the end of watching this episode it prompts you it's like oh do you want to watch Rogue 1

and it does that at the end of every one of these episodes and every time I'm like no I'm good and this one time I was like Like, you know.

You know what? What is he like? Maybe I should watch Rogue one again. Maybe, you know. I just want to stay here. You know what? I want to stay here. Let's see more of this.

Yeah. It's, it's so hard the way that Nemek, uh, positions himself at this like, at this, like, odds with, with Andor. But it's like, it's an enviable, it's, it's wrapped in envy and confusion. and failure to understand like this first sort of bit of the exchange where he says I'm struggling to understand why my faith doesn't call me

whereas you you sleep like a stone you have nothing is so foof first of all I was like you have nothing he said and I just I love nothing the way that he described

his ideology as faith is really, really, really compelling to me because I think so often, you know, we talk about the rebellion. We talk about like, you know, do you believe in the rebellion or not? And it's very like, rah, rah, like, are you here or are you not? Are you going to be a hero or are you not? And this is like, do you believe in a different world? Do you believe in a different society do you believe do you believe in in your the day you wake up after this that things are tangibly and materially different across the galaxy um and that just feels so much meteor of a of a rebellion like this is the fucking rebellion right like this is what's behind all of that like do you believe in the rebellion are you with us are you not like

This is the real faith and trust and belief in something that I think I've been craving from the jump. When we think about our Cold War's episodes, how often are you at least gesturing at wishing there was someone who... There was a third. There was another thing. Speak at, speak from this perspective. Sorry, Rob, go ahead. But I think all, like, part of what I love about this exchange is also that, Nemek thinks if

if you are morally awakened to the danger and the crisis that the imperial poses that therefore it follows that you devote your life to this cause that Nemick has and is in the process of defining and so part of this exchange is him like calling on Andor

like well I you know very much sort of calls out like what he views as a selfishness to Andor for not being fully bought in on this and he goes too far in this kind of which I love you know just the I agree what he says like sitting back and being being thankful or something like that yes and or gets in his grill and you have this moment of like how scary andor can be of like do I look thankful to you and like what I love in this exchange is like the rebellion is harnessing a lot of like people's motivations are complicated there's inchoate anger and frustration and hopelessness and all these things that things are swirling around. Nemek has that he has this idealistic vision. We are navigating toward a better future toward freedom. There are people and Dore is partly in it for the money.

Yes. But he's also in it for I want to hurt these people. And if I can hurt these people and make money doing it, then that works for me. But I think it is fundamentally from from experience, he has seen things like this play out. Fundamentally, he thinks you're nuts if you're going, if you think you're going to beat the empire. Like, and that, and he doesn't need to know they're going to beat the empire. He just needs to know that along the way he's going to have some good times and he's going to kill these bastards. And that's all he needs.

And he thinks fundamentally, like, in that exchange, I don't know if he thinks, Nemick is foolish for this, but I think the thing he tries to get out with that bit about, like, the empire doesn't care about the rules. They don't need to. I think the thing he is trying to get home is like, you are setting yourself up for failure and disappointment here if you think that like we're

immediately going to start like teaching the empire a lesson here we are a long way from the galaxy taking much note of this at all but i mean so so there's two things there one is that he's saying the thing that he says he's right you know nemec says that they don't play by the rules they're in agreement on that front what ander says is they weren't they're not going to learn from it because what Nemek says basically is we'll teach them that they need to adapt if they want to keep up with us. And And Orr's like, no, they're not. They're not going to learn anything about this because, like you said, we're too small to notice. But Andor's wrong, because the end of this episode is the Empire noticing is they did it. They punched them in the nose hard enough

that it's the thing everybody's talking about, that people are leaving the Senate to go deal with this, that the Empire, the ISB is calling emergency meetings. And, you know, we'll see where that all goes, but I think they both get to be a little wrong here, right? I mean, Nemick is chewing on it's what you just said, right? The thing of like, in Nemick's view, there is, if you are, if you understand what's happening, then you have no reason not to, to oppose it, give your life opposing it. And otherwise, it was like chewing on the problem of false consciousness. He's like, the reason that people don't oppose it is they don't understand it, because they're living in some sort of, you know, bubble because they, they've been deceived, right? I mean, the

is the thing he kind of outlines last time. And it's worth saying that is the question of basically all 20th century Marxism after the war, right, was what happened? We were so close in Germany and in Europe in general. And in all around the world, fascism rose and kicked us down the fucking block. And so you look at Altiserie, you look at Gramsci, you look at the Frankfurt School, everybody's trying to answer this question that Nemek is laying out here or that you've identified that Nemek is struggling with, which is like, bro, look around. It's so obvious what is happening. Why aren't people taking that leap?

And I think that having so much of this episode grounded within this arc, grounded with those answers, which is that like, it is really hard to unravel yourself from the feeling that even if you know what's happening, the feeling that hegemonic power is, is controvertible, that you can make an impact, even, you know, even a small impact, that it's very easy to make the cynical play. And, I mean, we should talk much, much later in this episode about how understandable some of that motivation is to get yours and fuck off, because I think it becomes very important at the end of this. We should talk about the imperial techniques that help chip away, because we get a great

example of it basically immediately. That is once again grounded in real imperial history. Yeah, we go from this conversation about, you know, ideology and, you know, ideology and technique in some ways, to a scene of two imperial officers. talking through the logic and technique of their empire as it exists here on Aldani. And so the person giving this speech is the commander of the garrison, Bihaz, I forget the commandant. Commandant. Last episode we heard commandant.

Yeah, Commandant Bihaz. And he's very much in his element sort of explaining how this entire, ceremony has been undercut and undermined by decades of imperial, not maybe not in decades, but years, imperial rule, as they have executed a series of strategies to break up Aldani culture, to break up the connection between their traditions and the people who live there. And we're in this montage, we're cutting between their conversation in the air traffic control tower overlooking the valley and the remaining Aldani people like trekking up the hills to to come for the eye ceremony and we hear about it's it's a it's a hell of a

description that they outlined but yes there are a lot of resonance to different techniques that have been used throughout history to break up ethnic groups ethnic identity nationhood just to break down the sources of resistance to imperial rule. And one of the things they mentioned here that jumped out at me is, in addition to the fact that fewer and fewer people make the trip in general out of the lowlands, that along the way, they've placed lots of little roadside taverns and rest stops and refreshment zones and portage hans. and along the way

like at each stage there's little temptations we're able to just give up and say it's too hard to make it up there let's just party down here let's let's you know who cares about the eye ceremony and so what begins

is a trek of thousands by the time you get to the top of the valley where the ceremony takes place most people have dropped out and it is literally just a handful of all Donnie, who've made it this far.

You know, it's obviously looking at things, or it's drawing on things like the French colonial policy of assimilation, the Canadian policy of forced assimilation with First Nations tribes. The term used here is comfort units, which has a particular potency in relation to the so-called comfort women forcibly used by. the Japanese Imperial Army in World War II, which has been in the news recently, of course, because the late Abe Shinto Abe was a denier of the genocide and use of comfort women. And obviously, this is not analogous to comfort women. This is not a one-to-one thing.

It is about assimilation. It is about the use of material, you know, distraction. and material draw to pull people away from their kind of cultural practices. But I still think the use of that term is extremely loaded. And I don't mean that people say loaded in like a detrimental way. And I don't necessarily think that that given the history and given what we're talking about here, I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing. I think it's underscored by the fact that like so a lot of this, you know, obviously because

the terrain and I think just where Gilroy is writing from, there's a lot of like echoes of like Scotland and Ireland, but here when you see the Aldani, their dress is an amalgam of a lot of different like people. There's traces of like, you know, plains Indians that you can see there. There's traces of Mongolian. I think probably that's actually the strongest influence to me is like stuff that is recognizably like bits and pieces of like Mongolian dress, which I think again, speaks to, you know, to a degree of the Japanese imperialism that's sort of discussed there as well. So, like, it's a very, like, you know, what we see outlined here, and then the way this is all depicted, I think it is meant to spark resonances across a lot of different, you know,

cultures where a lot of, a lot of historical powers, you know, are implicated in this. And a lot of people have been on the other side of this as well. I think it's trying to sort of cast a broad net here of associations to bring home how universal these tools are in the course of empire. I think it's worth saying that the Aldani don't, don't like visually all look of like one. They're not all white. You can just say they're not all white.

They're not all white. Which I fully was like, oh my God, are we about to? Because when I first saw them, yeah. I was like, oh my God, are we teeing up an anti-globalization thing where the empire is like black and brown because there's lots of black folk in the empire, there's some brown folk in the empire.

And then here is this like pure Norse Lodi. Yeah, like red-headed, like yeah, I, well, and I also given that we've made so many comparisons to Ireland, I was thinking of like that visually. But, but yeah,

so at first you have this like really striking shot of like two like multiple red-headed people like walking you know in these like highlands and then as you see more of the Aldani people you see that

you know they're not all they're not all white which I really appreciated about this grouping like I which is smart because like you have to do it or it will be taken the other way like you have to be

deliberate about these things or it will be taken as Yes, see, the empire is crushing traditional, like, northern European culture. This is exactly, yeah. And so much of the way that Star Wars defines, like, people and races is through homogeny. Like, we think of the clones. Think of, like, you know, any, like, alien race. Like, not very much variation between different, like, individuals of the same alien race.

alien race um so i i just think it's it's interesting that they that they're not doing that here um my suspicion is they just cast a net of of auditions for extras locally in scotland and like yeah it turns out three percent of scotland is Asian or southeast Asian right is east Asian or southeast station and so like okay yeah we're going to get some Asian folks in here we're going to get a couple of black people in here we're going to get like a mix and that's a good way of depicting al-Dani and and pulling from a local a local group of folks right so for sure um you know but the the other thing happening here of course uh well we'll get into more detail on this guy i think maybe a bit later but uh this is also a sales pitch this is this is the commandant

trying to show what a good job i've done here because also you know here in a weird way um it might be that this is all ending this is at the end of this conversation uh the the colonel the imperial engineer here who is basically here to survey and then probably build uh this giant imperial air base and facility you know he asks at the end that they know this is the last time they're going to be allowed up here um and the answer is no they don't but they think at this point they've done enough to diminish the ceremony and of course there's the uh there's the imperial viewing locations down in the enterprise zone they'll have that going forward

that was like one of the most like sinister details to just like include in passing of a path we've we've spent the past decade building up the Imperial sponsored viewing festival you know with like the fucking corporate branded drink and like all of it in my brain was just like oh my god that is it just feels especially sinister for it to just be they just said it like they're saying everything out

loud that well to me i think about like i hear that and i flash back because the way things like happen and it's not properly noticed the time we're not properly resisted but i flashed to the free speech zones that popped up around uh again like the early days of like post 9-11 where it's like you know we don't we don't allow protest uh to just happen anything. anywhere, but you can have a free speech zone, you know, a little place near where, you know, the Republican, and I think it was, I don't remember this being a thing at the DNC, but maybe they did. But I know it's a Republican convention in 2004, as the incredibly controversial war in Iraq was getting rolling, you know, they had free speech zones, you know, at their convention where the First Amendment still applied, but anywhere. else you were getting hauled off. And, of course, that sets up things like, you know, we now, we do now.

We always have, but I think it is more curtailed in terms of, like, right to protest. Because now the things have shifted to, well, there's a place in time. If you're not in the appropriate place in time or redesignate for protesting, then anything can be done to you. Yeah. you're always already breaking a law, right? Do we want to talk about J. Holden and Roboto's little fail son, Leonard? Sorry, I should have said little frail son. My note actually says a little frail son.

Sorry, All right, you had something else to say. Yeah, I just want to say, before we move off of the scene, because I think that there's, like, when we talk about how good pacing is in this show, in terms of this being the opening scene, we've had two episodes of, like, knowing that this heist is about to happen. we are going to see the imperial taking down to introduce this guy as a villain here is like throwing like chum into the water of tension of wanting to see

what the result is going to be because he's like so immediately unlikable and they like they don't pull any punches characterizing this guy as like just a disgusting person like the when we hear his voice over the almighty people like talking about how they've bred certain traits like they have.

they're not the donies they're a simple people they breed a sad combination of traits that make them particularly vulnerable to manipulation on a practical level they have a great difficulty holding multiple ideas simultaneously what a piece of shit which is also just like one of these great examples of uh you know racist ideology that doesn't hold up under any screen the argument he makes is like we give them as many options as we can think of and then by the time they they're so busy trying to decide which option we've given them as the best one that they they no longer even care if they get what they originally wanted and of course you know jump 30 minutes ahead and this is just happening to this dude who's like all right here are your options buddy do you want us to kill your family or do you want us to go open the vault it turns out when you give people options they don't like at the end of a gun they're going to pick one of the fucking options because they don't want to get shot that's what you're actually happening. Yeah, it's not that they're, yeah, yeah. Right. You didn't give them the option they wanted. It's not there.

You've taken it away and you, and you are holding them at force. So you're not some fucking genius mastermind. You're using physical and, and, um, material, like, no, I'm trying to say militarial, but that's not a word. military old not a word it's military military uh yeah well and i think also like you know part of this ideologist you put people in boxes where they can't help but end up confirming your your ideology just in the way things play out from there right like the the aspect of like oh they're too fractious they can't you know they can't figure out they can't figure out what we're doing to them

They argue once themselves and don't even notice that we're, you know, that basically we are, you know, continuing to change the boundaries and sort of renegotiate the deal. And it's just, you know, that's just how they are. And the weird things you can easily imagine, you know, this is, this is often, it is true, often among the people, you know, who have faced, they've been staring down the barrel of colonial and settler aggression that there is. wild infighting as people try to figure out what the fuck are we supposed to do about this. Like what any course you seem to be on seems to be the wrong one or insufficient for the moment and things keep changing on you. But at the same time, like, they are keenly, you know, they are keenly aware of it. You know, we will see later just how, just how barely under control this is and how keenly aware

the Aldani are of how bad things have gotten. and the insufficiency of these imperial methods because I was with Natalie here during this episode I was like is this thing going to blow up is the heist going to get blown up by the fact that the uprising accidentally kicks off because a fur trade went bad I want to call it one more thing before we move off this

which is I think this is one of those things that's it's knowledge but I don't know how far that knowledge just spread. A common, a thing that this recalled for me is the common story you hear that is, you know, the Native Americans sold their land for a blanket, right, for a bag of trinkets, that style of story that gets told. You know, Manhattan was sold by the Lnape to the Dutch for, you know, 20 bucks. This is like a classic myth. It's how I was taught it as a kid. I'm sure lots of people in my generation, at least I don't know how the generation

Aftermoose taught it. But in my generation, in my parents' generation, this is like a canard, right? This is like a classic way in which they just, you know, they were deceived and they were tricked. But it wasn't, you know, they just didn't understand things the same way. Contemporary history is pretty clear that in the case of something like Manhattan, the deal was never about giving land to anybody. It might have been about using the land along with, you know, for hunting and things like that. But the myth helps produce an image of Native American people and tribes as being somehow backwards or, you know, savage and uneducated and, you know, less than intellectually European colonists.

What actually happened, tended to happen, is treaties were made and then broken by European colonists. it's not a matter of oh they had treaties that were less than I mean yes manipulation was happening it turns out when you have guns and cannons it's pretty

to intimidate people by the early 1700s the treaties are real like the tribes have figured out they do understand the language of the speaker it's just that nobody observes the treaties no one observed the treaties

that's what actually happens in the colonization of North America it's not you know clever negotiation which is way that this Imperial dude, J-Bo Hood. What's his fucking name? Bihaz. No, it's J-hold or something,

isn't it? Jay-Holt Bahaz. Oh, J-hold. Bahaz. Jay-holds. Uh, J-Bo Hood's somebody else. Jay-Boh hit's the kid with the droids from Cone Wars. J-bo! You think J-hold is like a... No, it's not. It's not. It's a reference. Yeah. This is actually

J-Bo-Hood. He grew up and became an imperial asshole now. He just named to J-Mold for more... I can see it. Yeah No, his His mom was just on Star Wars baby daves.com

And He's like, oh, Jayholt, yeah. I'm gonna put my own spin on it then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Times are changing.

McKayleanne. Yeah, 100%. A couple quick things I'll call out here just because they're cool little details that I dig from the show.

So I like that, one, this plan is going to hinge on their communications are on the plotters. And they are using a stolen Imperial field radio. But they don't, and this is the part that set my alarm bells ringing. They don't have, like, a dedicated private channel that they're on.

They're just broad. They were trying to find each other on the radio moving up, you know, 10 frequencies, down 10. And I'm like, are they just broadcasting in the clear on Imperial channels? That seems, the answer is yes. which, hey, I don't know if this is intentionally setting up what we're going to hear, but like, a point in the original trilogy is rebel battle communications sound very weird and different. Remember, they're always hyper-compressed.

Do you think about the Battle of Yavin when the whole Dutstar attack? Like, it's all compressed and weird when it sounds. And part of, like, what you see in the scene is stolen imperial tech can take you so far, but, like, it's going to introduce vulnerabilities and this is going to come into play. Which is exactly what Nebuch called out in the one where he was talking about his field navigator

last episode. He said, we've become too reliant on imperial technology and they will fail us. And the only true freedom is... Yeah, but then this little dummy's like, this radio is going to work great during all this. It'll still be working when everything goes to hell. Well, it will against us.

It did work. They didn't need it. They should have just killed that guy in the tower This is the thing There's one guy That's truly That was like In every hitman mission

You know you can go for the no kill But like Kill the one guy Make it easy on yourself You don't need the Chevo Like just it's okay Just drop them over the ledge The ledge is right there

It'll be more fun It'll be more fun They could get going up to the line They couldn't get them up to the And you need to slit All these people's throats Yeah And they needed to get them there

the we get the um so we see sinta and val uh sort of like uh in their in their jumping off point i i just further establishes the imperial soldiers are kind of douchebags uh all over this planet uh but in peeing in star wars confirmed peeing confirmed wukypedia.com slash yorin slash canon updated recently B-de-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-be-bo-bo-no. No breaking news. Yorin is canon in Star Wars. We know that humans pee in Star Wars now. You're right.

That's all we know. That's true. We can't make broader statements than that. Also, the conversation between Skeen and Animal. I have to just read from this. Yorin was a waste product. Yeah, urine was a waste product that was excreted by organic beings. What?

Humans were capable. Yeah, everything in Wikipedia is past tense because it was a long time we're going to galaxy far far away. Humans were capable of urinating and disposed of liquid in facilities known as refreshers. Rebel Alliance pilot Wedget Antilles was a human who attempted to urinate into BPUI, but he is prevented from doing semi-annibal destroyed AP5.

The thing I actually wanted to know, appearances in universe list is incomplete. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. And or CASA, and or the eye, indirect appearance. Oh, Star Wars Rebels, double agent droid, first mentioned, indirect mention only. Damn. Spoilers, I guess, for upcoming Rebels episode.

The first piss ever was in Rebels. The first piss. No, but in Andor, now I'm like, wait, did I miss a Pitts moment? Yeah, when did someone piss in the first episode? Oh, outside in one in the alleys, a guy is peeing. A guy's peeing in one of the alleys. Yeah. Did Kar and piss his little pants that didn't happen?

because it should have a little baby baby boy I'm so glad Carn was in this episode because I know I'm going to see his time I would have been so losing it would have been too much it would have been like oversimulation I would have just exploded honestly

if there was like a yeah anyway they need me if the final shot of this episode is him reading the news Oh, I want They should have done that They should have done that Holes

Just practicing saluting in the mirror Over and over and over again Okay, yes Little detail here The Skeen mentions that Andor is like kind of getting As we get closer to this all going off Terriman is just getting more and more

of a like Martinetteish aspect to him As he's getting them into character to be the guards here and Skeen sort of fills in a crucial bit of backstory here. The Terraman was a stormtrooper, and he alludes to, you should have been here. This shades in so much of why introducing him to this group was so fraught.

He was like, you should have been here when Sinto found out because Stormtroopers slaughtered her family. Yeah, like the fuck? They've been working through a lot of stuff here on Aldani waiting for this heist. Also, investing, in the Stormtrooper as a thing to be afraid of in this show.

Investing in the Thai pilot to be as a thing to be afraid of in this show. Like, there are no stormtroopers in this episode. People who are only listening, first of all, stop it. Go watch the show. We're going to yell at you every episode. You know what I mean? But there are Imperial soldiers

here who, by the way, their designs are taken from an old EU tabletop role-playing game supplement, which is amazing. A lot of this shit comes from old West End Games era, tabletop stuff, which is incredible. But no stormtroopers. And the idea that Tameran is a stormtrooper,

and that carries different weight than I'm an imperial soldier, is incredible. Because it means we're going to get stormtroopers. We're going to get stormtroopers, and it's going to mean something. This is something that's the first time ever. Actively being developed. Like, stormtroopers are being created. We're in the extremely early phases of stormtroopers being deployed. across the galaxy.

They may have been here for 10 years. We don't know. But they're not pervasive in the way that they will become by the, you know, by a new hope. Yeah. We don't ever see soldiers like this. All we see is stormtroopers, right? Right.

But seeing them here or seeing them mentioned here and knowing what they did to since his family and all that is like wild. And again, we get, again, here is, we got two black dudes in this crew and they're both Imperial. Something is, something is happening, bro, in terms of, I actually really deeply feel that this show is engaged with the recent, like, the recent turn in Star Wars and Prophural Star Wars material to diversify the empire. It's in conversation with that shit. I haven't quite unpacked, but I know, Rob, this is like a hobby horse for you. This is a bug bear for you as, you know, video games have come out and stuff where it's just like they've they've absolutely made the they've hired more black and brown prison guards right for real in the empire and in this show the fact that we've two you know two members of this rebel cell who are both imperial and also have turned against it be two black men something is happening here right so well and that's sort of picking up work that like you know you had work that ultimately was mishandled but you know you

Finn being someone who was sort of impressed into imperial service from like childhood. This idea of like it's true like imperial forces, like a smart thing they are trying to get at. When it's done poorly, there's a bit of like, you know, anyone should be able to dream themselves being an imperial officer without wrestling with, but should people want to be dreaming themselves an imperial officer? Should people be seeing themselves? And there is useful work in implicating, like, there's useful work in making explicit. Yo, the empire actually should look a lot like the ruling class of Washington or like the leaders of like the American military. But also, like, you don't want to lose the sense of like, by the way, though, these are echoes of historically oppressive forces that work on all of us in the real world. and, like, uphold classist and racist power structures.

And I do think, like, there is something happening here that, yes, like, the two imperials who've sort of turned their coats are black men, is interesting. I think, like, there is something at work here. I suspect, like, everything I see, Gilroy's hip to a lot of cross currents in Star Wars in a way that I think certainly has not been true in Gamesland. and has been inconsistent in TV and movie land. Yeah, I think, so we get to the arrival of the pilgrims, you know, at the viewing site, and it is so tense from this point forward.

It just feels like there are so many ways. this to go wrong. The interactions between the Imperials and the pilgrims are just absolutely fraught and tainted. There's the fact that, you know, Nemek, Terriman, and or skiing, all them are cosplaying in disguise as, as imperial troops, but also it means that, like, they could be engaged by the pilgrims and an outlet for their anger. So they have to be as disciplined, if not more so, than the imperial troops they're with. But also, they have to be prepared at any point to explain why nobody remembers seeing them here before. Mm-hmm.

And their line here is that they're from Al-Kenzie, Al-Kanzi, Al-Kanzi, the imperial airbase that's like... But if you run in anyone from Al-Kenzie, just by the way... You're not from Al-Kinsey. You're from the garrison. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Fantastic. The way they fall in line behind the pilgrimage is they're like honor guard, extremely good. All of the maneuvers are just so slick.

And I think here, you know, we get, you know, in addition to we get the ceremonial exchange of goods here as part of the ceremony and sort of renewing the goodwill between the empire and. and the Aldani. And the fact that, like, this relationship is at the breaking point. I really thought we were going to see a break here. Yeah. Like, that the exchange is so bad that the headman here that the pilgrims have is now openly confrontational, but Goren is the only one who speaks the language and is mistranslating intentionally to make this all go smoothly.

but the fact that like the Aldani know like the Aldani here at least know what's up yeah they react to him mistranslating in a way that they know that he did not say what they he asked them to say they say to tell the

I mean they tell they tell Gorn what they say may the eye find some good in you or something right and then but then when when they're in the actual ritual of exchanging goat hides which is the actual thing they have to come do

they actually tell him to tell the commandant tell him that our ghosts have strong hands and long memories and at that point Gorn redeploys the line that they gave to him about the eye finding good in them incredible also again I just want to note that the commandant has the little frailist boy who everyone is

who's everyone's afraid he's going to get hurt his mom is so afraid for him it's clear they don't want to be on this fucking planet anymore there's a whole sequence of them like in the commandant's quarters

you know the sweet getting dressed and getting ready and he's just a miserable father he's just a piece of shit like again Allie to your point instantly hateable

like they really put in the effort to make you want to see this guy have his day ruined yep absolutely um And, you know, we have our first, like, Vell kind of freezes here. You know, she and Sinta have this harrowing, like, their phase one of the plan is to basically swim for it through the, through the reservoir to get in position.

And it's on them to sort of signal that everything's in place and we're ready to to start the mission. and Vell can't bring herself to do it and it is it's so funny because this is the kickoff for the entire thing and you know if you think about the entire tension here is Vell just needs to send a signal over the radio and she can't bring herself to speak it

and Tarroman is increasingly worried and having to like he's staying there around a bunch of Imperials having to be like are we go or not? Hello? Yeah. Because it's clear when they do I don't have to get the message and do go.

There's a moment where Terriman has to talk to Gorn, and Goren's like corporal, and Terriman's like, at your service. And that seems to be the code for, all right, it's go. We've gotten the approval from Vell. Vell says we're good to go. Vell and Sinta have gone into the tower. They've placed the jammer on the tower. So that means that we're good to go forward with this.

And I love Vell's grounding herself and feeling overwhelmed and Sinta helping to ground her. her, you know, struggling to breathe, her looking out over what's about to happen and needing to confront what she needs to do in a moment. And I love it all the more because then she fucking does it, right? Like, she has the jitters. She has stage fright. She's thinking about who she needs to be in a moment. And then that's gone. She is not, she is not compromised in the rest of this. It is the thing that, that Andor said would happen. And she is carried forward on her belief of being who she needs to be. And she becomes, effectively becomes the leader of this off again.

In the last episode, there was a point where she was like, from now on, you listen to Tamarin. I'm no longer the leader. She kind of indicates it's almost as if they've lost trust in her because Andor revealed his mercenary status. But as soon as we get into the heist proper, there are moments when she's in command again, ordering people around, telling Andor to take the lead on a door. She falls right back into rebel commander status in a way that I think is like really good, especially coming through. this emotional trial you know well it's no point

like she's there with a girlfriend right 100% the way that like the relate like it's not enough to the role cannot is not always enough the responsibility the belief is not always enough it is about the people who are around us at the moment of the crisis

you know and that's also part of the stress is she also has more skin in the game than anybody in a way because she has to be thinking since you and me could just go we could just go right now, we could go steal that ship and just leave. We could go over the hills and move down into the enterprise zone and live our lives and it won't be, it won't be glorious, but we'll be

alive. And, you know, Nemek isn't thinking that, you know, the rest of that crew does not have someone with them who they care about, who could also be hurt and what's about to follow in the same way. They care about each other, obviously, right? But like, that's part of this. And it's, it's very, it's good to see her overcome it. It's good to see her move forward. I like this whole crew even the worst of them and then speaking of the crew briefly just before we move on too far there are a couple moments uh in the lead up to this to this where one of first it's skiing and then nemik does it but when the eye is like when comments are shooting across the sky there's a moment where skein breaks focus and looks up in awe at the eye and it that happens

and then slightly later, Nemek does the same thing where a comet shoots across and he looks up and he's like, then he looks at Andorans says, you're right, I feel the excitement. But these two moments were two of the most unsettling moments in the whole episode because I was like, fuck you guys, stay focused. But they're looking up at the goddamn eye.

Well, you know, what are you going to do? I know, it's amazing. Sometimes you're confronted by the natural beauty of everything around you and you can't do anything but gape in awe It's true, which is what I was doing at this episode of Andor Especially, I have to

like commend the CG Of this entire episode Is just like, bruh, like I needed to know that two days ago I was in a discord Where someone was saying That they thought that it was Kind of an unfair comparison to Obi-Wan

Because of the budget difference between these two shows And I was like, well, the budget in the show is more per episode, but it's also a longer series. And like, you know, fundamentally, I don't think it's the budget that makes the show good. I think that it's the writing and the acting and the direction that lift it and elevate. I still think all that's true. But bro, the CG in this episode is something else. And it's way better than anything at Obi-Wan. It's unbelievable.

I mean, the whole, the underwater sequence is extremely cool. so curious about like I would love to watch it behind the scenes of that not to mention the actual eye and then the final uh you know uh tie fighter stuff yeah yeah yeah um that we'll get to but yeah it's it's it just feels that underwater shot is that just what's in that reservoir though too because it looked like a it looked like a reservoir power plant it might be i think part of it is cg is being sent to do cg's jobs here and not being sent to produce the location and set that we are in,

produce objects that people are interacting with. Instead, you make blasterbolts look and feel and sound like real in a way that I don't know have ever felt in Star Wars. No. Those guns are shooting. Yeah. Also, man, I am just, listen,

I love to go Heistin, and there's nothing better than the moment where the masks, like, Like where the masks go on and it's like everybody put your fucking hands up and we get that the minute the honor guard gets the commandant and the colonel like into the facility the door and or shuts the doors behind them and it's guns out pointed at their heads uh and here is the thing oh the thing that the commandant is saying at the time did you make note of it uh i did but Like, you're probably the exact wording.

He says, you know, it's the old ones causing all the problems. And he's saying, all we need is this new generation that's been assimilated. And all of these problems are going to disappear. The days of passing, skins and ritual nonsense will soon be behind us. It's not as if there's much Aldanay civilization to even forget about in the first place. Drop it on the floor. It's like seconds later. It's so good.

You got got, motherfucker. And also, one of the. key things here. I think this may become also one of the themes of this series is that sometimes smart, gutsy people exist on the other side too. And so Bihaz, they've called their shot correctly. This guy folds up like a tent basically here when his family's being threatened, obviously. He's just like honestly, like whatever you need. Nobody needs to cause any problems here but pedigere immediately draws his gun and tells them to let the kid go which his first priority is like let the hostage go we're going like and you've got and or in the unlikely

position of trying to cool like cool everyone out nobody has to die uh cinta begs to differ oh loved it loves down one shot one kill you don't need more than that you need that you need that need the person that you need this in the highest that like I don't give a fuck I will murky right now. Skeen called it. Nothing. Yeah, you're right. You said Sinta was the hardest one of them all.

It's true. That's the thing about like the characterization in the show like if we've talked about like mortals being left behind in terms of not being like fulfilled seeing the way that these characters act sometimes is like like

licking the pudding of the lid of the thing like because the way that tamarin is able to be intense the one that he's the he's the one who strikes the cormorant after finding out that he's yeah the stormtrooper is just like oh you're the guy you're the guy in this team who would be this person and then cinta having an episode to sit on it and be like well why is she the most hardcore and then having her dig her blaster into a 12 year old's head is like okay yep yeah thank you thank you yeah she's sure does the thing she sure does she sure does

and then they move into the fuddiest door switch in the world where I mean we get the great beat of go and telling the other guard that he can go on his way and go down to the eye and then it's the next place where they come out the elevator and there's like guys with jello and green juice

or whatever ready to serve to the commandant and the corporal or whatever the yeah uh colonel it's so funny they get a little buffet table set up oh it's going to be a delightful it's eye night everybody can yeah so funny

and I love that they get they get tied up at the dinner table that they're meant to have their feast at right like that and they're just and they're sitting in front of the observation window looking out you can watch the eye you're going to be cuffed the fuck up

don't miss the eye once every three years don't miss the eye Austin you know you pointed it out but you know we had that speech where it's like we give them all their bullshit options, et cetera, and they don't know which way to pick. And Val, in full now, like everyone do exactly what I say, basically screams at the commandant. You know, tonight you have one path, you're on choice. We win

or everyone dies. And it starts now. Such an incredible, yeah, we're on to your game. And now the two is on the other foot and here are your options. You have to hope for us. You have to be rooting for us. Yes. I'm so glad that this mission turn it turns out that they were right about every like I love that that they weren't wrong like I think there's a version of this where you know what's his name is telling the truth I don't have that one piece that you need and then they're fucked or whatever like I think they're you know there's the potential there's that version of the story I love that they're right they did their research

They've been on this fucking planet for six months watching you. Like, they are the most prepared they will ever be and could ever be. And nevertheless, it costs lives. There is no planning perfectly. It's like, it's a win on both sides for me. It's like it doesn't undercut their sharpness. It doesn't undercut their aptitude at being able to pull this off. They did the research.

The empire can bleed. Regular people can stand up against them and get wins. and also it's going to cost lives to do it. And you've got to be ready to do that. You just have to be ready to lose those lives. You have to be ready to do the damn thing if what your goal is is decolonization or, you know, taking down an empire.

You need to look among your friends and ask who here is willing to shoot a 12-year-old. And the answer is Sinta. Sinta would do it. Also, Vell shows up with the fucking AK. It just looks so good. Oh, my gosh, she looks so good. How are we feeling about the Nemic fake out here?

Did they almost shot Nemic? his face. I know. And the bolt, the blaster bolt just misses him. It just goes past him. I was like, oh, he's done. He's fucking done. Well, then I was like, okay, that was the moment for him. Somebody else is going to die now. I was like, Sintas

dead. Well, you were right about that. You were right that somebody else is about to die. I didn't think so many people would die. I really, I was shocked how bad it went once it went bad, but I was also pleased because if there's one thing I love in a heist movie, it's when it all goes wrong. And it's time. It's time for the bodies to start dropping.

and the source for all this misfortune is the least likely source is our lazy piece of shit Imperial Radio Man Corporal Kimsey Who I knew he was trouble Once the subtitle gave him a name When he wasn't Imperial Radio Officer

And he had a name I was like, oh fuck He chooses this night of all nights To be somewhat good at his job Because the minute the comms are cut And he notices that like His boards aren't showing him the right stuff He begins to wonder what is going on.

And somebody even gives him the alibi. He's like, oh, it must be the, must be the eye. That's all he, at worst version of him. He could have been like, hmm. I guess so. It's the eye. Yeah, the eye must have knocked up. Yeah, the eye, man.

Just go. Just leave it be. Just enjoy the eye, bro. Exactly. Just go. You know, who even cares? Just go and it's just, just stare at the majesty of creation. Time theft.

Time theft. Do it. It's, if there were ever a moment to quietly quit, because nobody benefited from, like, everybody lost from Kinsey's decision to do this bullshit. Everyone else is they're fucking playing cards down there in the motherfucking fall. They don't give a shit. I got to, you got to get on some hexpa out here. I know, that shit looks like, hexla.

Hexla. Yeah, I'm playing this. It's real fun. Well, also, I love that, that too, when the way it all flips. And, okay, guess what? You're all our porters now. I love that. You all need, you're going to bust ass

in the next 10 minutes or you're dead. You're going to help us steal the shit. I love making bad guys do stuff. Uh-huh. Anyone who doesn't want to hustle for the next 10 minutes, raise your hand. Oh, I dare you. I wish one person would have so you could have gotten that.

Same, same, same. But they know. But they know. Skeen's good at this part, man. Uh-huh. gain is good muscle for a he is like he kind of wants somebody to raise their hand he's got a gun

like taller than he is and that one guy kind of just trying to do something he pushes him the fuck down it's great they tosses the shot and he cocks it like a command dot start getting in there yes it's so good the way they make these guys hustle this is what kills him in the end

if they let the commandant not push the trolley does this all go off different well this thing is like this money is so heavy it's so heavy also it looks so sick it looks like casino chips on their side in rows like these round you know they're not

it's like they're carriers for the little golden credit chits but they look on the side like poker chips almost these long cylinders and they're so heavy they communicate the weight of them so well yeah I fucking love this show

it's just every detail is communicating something to the viewer. I love that the commentant is like, you can never get them open, you need the code from Alkenzy. No, we don't, bro. We got bombs. Like, we'll be good.

Get on the cart, bro. Get on the way, honestly. If he had, I know, just like, just, yeah. If he had been pushing the cart, I think it would have gone worse because he would have been like, help me!

Maybe, but I think he was shook by well, the thing that's about to happen. Gorn showing up. And I think Gorn could have kept him in line for long enough. His family is still hostage, right? I don't know. I think he would just become so irate with the betrayal of it that he would lose his

head a little bit and not think about the family. So, I mean, ultimately, like, all this is also hinging on the fact that there is one part of this plan going wrong, which is that everything takes longer than you think. and moving a Star Wars metric fuckload of Imperial hard currency to a freighter takes longer than you think Even though it's right next door They have their hand carts and like dude

I start to sweat watching this Like it is hard work When the cart over balances Because it's got to go on a ramp And you're like of course that happened Of course that always happens When you're doing things like this Yeah of course

Yeah And so like they fall horribly off schedule long enough for Kimsey to realize that something is up and he convinces a group of passing soldiers to come with him to inspect what's going on. But honestly, the other thing that's already off the rails is part of this was maybe I'm misremembering. I thought part of it was whoever is running the show

at the Alkenzi Air Base would just realize you're grounded during the eye. Yes. When they are grounded originally, But once they do not get a response, because they have it on their, they have it on their board that they showed that the vault was just opened. Right. And this is, like, this moment is so fucking good. And we still using the best of the eye. But as the sky is like turning green, we see the Thai fighters, the Thai pilots racing to their fighters.

And I don't know why this stuck with me so much. But the, the multifaceted reflection of the sky in the Thai cockpits. Yes. knocked me on my ass. I was just like, this looks so Star Wars is real. Like, it's just, it just hit me so hard. They shot this on location in Star Wars.

Yes. They were in the, they were on El-Dani. No, it looks so good. And it's the first time we've seen faceless representation of the empire, right? Like, we've seen the Thai fighter go by before, but this is the first time we're seeing a pilot, I think. We haven't seen Stormtroopers before.

Everybody's had a face until these Thai pilots are taking off, getting in their ships, getting ready to come, fuck this up. And it's so ominous. And you get that sense that like the other foot is going to drop. These dudes are real. Like the, this is the imperial might because our dudes do not have X-wings on their side. There is not, oh, we're going to win this in a dog fight on the cards. They have the eye and they have their luck. and they have their guts and that's about it, you know?

The refinement and like scale of the deploy area, like, hangar of, like, dropping, like, you feel the, like, the technological difference between the material difference between the rebels and the empire here. It just feels like, God damn, they got these things dropping on fucking the arms and it looks scary and there's even such like an incredible gap between what you see in that scene and even just looking at that Aldani base because like what was striking to me especially in the like masks off scene is like how fucked up those doors looked like we haven't seen star war spaces that are that like scratched up or ruined paint or like look dusty or dirty in that way especially in

imperial spaces so like especially to have this like this other mode of like we see the pristine empire again during this. It's just like, oh, you're totally right. Yeah. Well, again, this is a base that I think pre-existed from before the empire or the early days of the empire. This is not the imperial might has carved out a space for itself. That's the air base, right? My suspicion is to an extent, like, you know, the garrison is like your small first,

like that's your old fort. The Alkenzi is a small first-rate facility, but they are. are the next stages we're going to do the Tarkin thing of the huge planet sector dominating facilities that outmodes both Alkenzi and the old garrison and it's going to be a giant version of what we see at the air base totally I just want to note really quick the intercuts during this sequence in the lead-up this is where the Aldani singing is happening the chanting the waiting for the eye to open for the comments to start coming in mass it's so good

again I didn't have that fear that they were going to ruin the heist I had like a brief thought of it but I was pretty saddled like okay this is just about this thing but it's still so emotionally overwhelming the like the cut between those two these two places the hectic loading of the ship and the people awaiting the arrival of this astronomical phenomena is

the editing the music the sound design in general is all so overwhelming in the best possible way. The head, the sort of leader of the Aldani is also making these like call, like it feels like he's calling to the other

Aldani and like speaking it almost feels like a call to action like you feel like they're about to do something like something's about to change and especially they're not phased by the lights going out like the

the whole light things go out like they're still in their in their moment in their world and it just it just it's amazing to see like everyone is having a different experience of this moment in the same place and it's just just so it's so unsettling I keep coming back this is just such an unsettling episode the thing that really struck out to me in terms of like how much time is spent with all, Donnie, is like, how often we've talked about faith in Star Wars, but have never seen religion performed in this way. And, like, been on screen and, like, lingered on and, like, celebrated in terms of, like, here's a real ritual with people and something that means something to them.

It fucking ruled. It rolls. It's so, so big. And, again, just, like, the way the dots of these green comets coming across the sky, in the backdrop of them singing of Kimsey's group and looking for the stairs to go down. Kimsey's great line of, it's a long way down is very good.

There's just so many little details. And I never lose sight of the basic shape of the facility where people are moving to. Gorn is cutting down through a little side hallway when the power gets cut and bust out this little great dual-headed flashlight, which is such a great little detail. everything is just like it's building yeah and then the eye gets there the tie fighters take off

and kimsie arrives yeah and goren has to face like back to back he has two moments where people like see the mask falling uh you know uh behaz sort of realizes uh you know he's known this guy for for years and he's done this and goren sort points out seven years serving you i deserve he says he tells uh goren you'll hang for this and goren says seven years serving you i deserve worse than that again we have we have one hates himself i know you feel it you feel it's the betrayal it was working for the empire that's that's been the betrayal he's been this is the first night he's been this is the first night in years that he's not been a traitor to something right um but of course it does mean betraying these people he's worked side by side with and and kimzi who i think does kind of

you know, in a weird way, he fears Gorn, but maybe also does admire him and has no idea what to make of the fact that, like, it is obviously a heist happening down here. It is patently a heist. You've got a bunch of Imperial soldiers sweating like literal stevedores. He literally says...

He uses Goren as, like, a motivation tool to the other soldiers. He's like, don't let Gorn. He's like, he references him in a way that, like, Goren is this intimidating, authoritarian force. in this in this base but how lot like gorn that's gorn's costume that's his right you know gore is not quiet quitting no goren worked for seven years hard for the empire so that he could

earn this moment and you know he did some shit he he was like instrumental in the devastation of aldani culture he knows he was it feels like uh a ex a ex a ex a a more localized but also expanded version of Madd Mickelson's character in Rogue One. Not Jen Erso's, Jen Arso's dad. Yeah, Jen Erso's dad. Mad's dad. Mads Erso.

No, I don't remember. But, you know, if you haven't seen Rogue One, Swazure Rogue One, but he's working on the Death Star against his will. you know he's like captured by by imperials to work on this and the whole time he's building like a secret you know uh uh weakness in into the death star the whole time like that's his way of of fighting back against the uh empire boy what this does so much better is give us the people that that he's specifically hurting right yes one is not particularly interested in like

alderan i mean we see we see the weapon get deployed Again, spoilers for Rogue One, but like, this is a prequel. You should probably go watch Rogue One. I know, can I just say a thing? People like to watch us doing a Clone War show and doing it in canonical. We're not people. I mean, we're like doing this now. It's proof that we're not people.

But a lot of times people will be like, oh, well, watch the prequel first. Prequels are not meant to be watched first. Prequel does not mean watch it first. A prequel is made, canonically made. Wow, really putting my horrible initial conception of how we do clone wars on but we've already seen all this shit so it doesn't really I don't mean people who build a project to watch something chronologically I think that makes some sense right I get I get the there's a practice happening there there's a process what will the

process reveal etc but I often see people say shit like you should watch X movie and not even just Star Wars just in general first because it actually comes before the other thing no it doesn't it was made in conversation with the original thing. It's in response to it. Yeah. Like, that's not... It is literally a progression of the story.

Like, you're filling in questions. Imagine listening to a song where the first verse is about someone at 50 years. The second verse is about someone at 30 years old. And the third verse is about someone at 10 years old. You wouldn't listen to the third verse first. The point isn't to put that shit in order. There's a holistic narrative project happening. Chronology doesn't work that way in storytelling.

Anyway, sorry. This is a real pet peeve of mine inside of fandom. It drives me up the fucking wall. I'm with you. I fully co-signed that. People should go watch Rogue One. And also because I think this show is doing some stuff better than Rogue One. Having now, like, I didn't go back on much the whole thing, but I watched some scenes. I was like, damn, this is and or is just better. The fact that it is not being, like, written and directed and shot by committee and rewrite, I think probably goes a long way to fixing this. Anyway, where are we? So, Goren, so Kimsey shows up. So unfortunately

Gorman turns to Bejas and says, tell him sir, tell him he can't be here and Biaz responds by falling dead out the floor. By just dying. And that it's on. And Gorg gets shot immediately. That's it. He's done. And the firefight

is awesome. Again, has that great heat thing of like, hey, sometimes the terrain people were covering effortlessly five seconds ago is now hot they can't like they can't get across the room everyone's fighting their own

desperate little gun battle with these with these imperial troops and or makes his way into the ship to get it ready and some try hard fucking imperial the scrub who is one of the dipshit making eyes the whole time the whole time

he was making eyes like he wanted to start some shit yep he finally does and starts that whole brawl Tamarin wants to make a run Oh man, that shot where He needs to rescue Val Who's pinned down He needs to reposition to support her

And so he needs cover from Skeen Who is already being shot at Like, the pillar he is in Is just getting shot to shit And I love that beat where he's like I need you to cover me And Skeen takes this long moment to steal himself To take that step out of cover

To take that shot One thing, like... He only takes one shot, too. That's... This is the thing. This is the thing. Is Skeen already... Is Skeen already cutting the numbers?

Hmm. And I don't know. I don't know either. I don't know that Skeen knows. I don't think... Which is part of... In general, I don't know Skeen's heart, which makes him great to me. To the end, I don't know his heart.

Like, we're gonna get... It's over. I don't know his heart now. I just... Yeah. I don't know what, like, I, to me... I think he does his best, like, because, again, the best odds for everyone is to, like, get out of this and work together. I think he shook.

I think he shook. I don't think he pulled back because he wants Tamerun to get shot. I think he pulls back because he's like, uh, like, yeah, he's scared. It's a scary firefight. He's not a, he's not a, you know, he's a competence soldier and fighter, but, like, he doesn't, he, he fears death. Like, that is truly it. He's, like, he fears, he fears death. and in this moment

he tries he puts himself out there he shoots and he coweres and he retreats and tamer who doesn't cower you who does make the fucking shot

Nemmic the hardest shot I couldn't make that shot I failed this cut scene five or six times I was like Neming is gonna yeah I've saved scummed this moment

like Cass Cass Cass. I would definitely just shoot him in the fucking head. I'd miss and shoot Cass in the head. Cass is rolling around with this Imperial soldier on the ground in the ship and Nemek has to slide over and take that one shot

to pull him off of it. And you know, Ander rolls just enough to give the back to Nemick and Nemick has the moment and takes the shot. Also, a quick thing here. This is not doing the Rogue one thing where everyone gets a big important death. No. Tarroman breaks cover. He just gets shot and he's gone. And that's it. That's the end of his

I blinked in corn was dead. I was like corn. Yep. It's over. That's it. That guy's dead. Yep. And I lost Sinta in all this, by the way.

I forgot that she was watching the tower. She was up in the tower on comms and watching the people who they tied up. And then eventually just walks out, changes in an imperial uniform and walks away, hitman style. You know? I was like, when she can pick up? Where is she going? She's going to walk down to the... She has to walk down to, like, the Enterprise Zone, right?

And just get lifted out, maybe? Yeah, she's going to... It looks like she's going to fade in with the pilgrims, and... Yeah, that's my guess. Disappear, but... Wild. But the meantime, they need to get off this planet. And we get the...

They can barely make it aboard the ship. They're under such heavy fire. Nobody has time to get strapped in. And so they're just standing in the hall with unsecured... makes me want to cry. I am going to cry. It is, well, and also, like, Star Wars is very fitful about when physics is real. Yeah, it's extremely real right here, though. It's extreme. The acceleration when he hits the, when he hits the burners, and you see it

knock the remaining imperial guards to their, like, to their feet. And the ship is up on that rail? The release from the rail, and it feels so, like, you're like a roller coaster, like, from zero to 110 in a second. And the blaster bolts, again, coming in, slam against the side of the ship. The blaster bolts in this sequence, the whole, this whole fight sequence, I said it already once. I'm saying it again, they're that good. They feel hefty. They feel dangerous. This is not, like, it's a concentrated force. It's not a little light flash. It's like there's a fucking physical thing. There's concussive energy. These are cyclops blasts, not little laser gun thing.

You know what I mean? Like that's happening. Not pew, pew, pew, pew. bang bang Anyway But everyone gets thrown We see that Imperial's horse You know it did get banged Yeah Our little

Pew Pune Mepic Oh Literally crushed under capital His little bones His money slams right into him Right into his gut He's caught I mean it's his whole torso

It's everything It hurts so bad It's hurt so bad. I've now watched it too many times. Sometimes you ever do a thing where you're watching a thing? I would talk about this with Revenge of the Sith, and you're like, I just wanted to go differently this time I watch it. This time I'm going to watch it, and it's just, he's going to move out the way.

He's going to hit the QTE. Again, it also just feels like just such bad luck. It's bad luck? Like, everyone else is fine. There's just that one piece of cargo that just slides and hits him. Some people would say that luck drives the whole damn galaxy. It just crushes him He can't feel his legs

Well, and then the cruelty of it is He does the damn thing Yeah Sorry, they still leave him in the game They need him in the game Which do you think this kills him? You think if they don't touch him And he just lays there

They get to the doctor He's fine But they can't do that It feels like that shot they hit him with Is not a thing that does do things That's exactly right They say, what did you give him? When did, is that what the doctor said?

No, Andor does. No, Andor says that. But I still feel like, like, and especially because like, the way that Star Wars has been an injection based medical society this entire time. And I have never seen anything as visceral as that fucking giant thing she puts into him. Like, I, I don't want to feel skeptical of Val here. No, I don't think it's, I think she did the right thing. I think it's pure adrenaline. I don't think it's any healing agent.

She says it's a med spike. Med spike. Like spike adrenaline. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's the, it is the adrenaline shot from Pulp Fiction, right? Oh, yeah. Literally is that thing.

Straight through the sternum. Into the fucking heart. Yeah. 100%. And that will get us into the air and maybe off this fucking planet, but it's not saving his life. It's just pure adrenaline. It's just pure adrenaline. It's just pure adrenaline.

It's not any type of healing. They pull him over. He has his little space sextant, right? He has the little navigation Polaroid camera. Amazing, amazing cut between him setting up the camera and the Thai fighter system is not working because of the eye. They can't hold a lock. They can't find a flight path up into the comets. He's so confident, too.

He's a climb, full climb now. It's there. all of the fear and timid and trembling and nervousness even like when he's marching into the base he has this like look of you he looks different from everyone else in this moment he's so competent yep he knows what the fuck he's talking about climb now his entire life force his entire like everything is here in this moment yes like he's all used up and god just the the violence of the storm, the way the, you can hear the hits on the hole and the cracks forming in the, uh, the cockpit, the cockpit. Yeah, it's not that it's that, that, the one ex-wing that, that, that, uh, or the one tie fighter that gets, tie fighter, right? Yeah, tie fighter. Um, the one tie fighter that gets, um, knocked out first is, it, it, it, it literally feels as if the, the, the windshield is, is, is like, sizzling. It's like erupting, like, it, they don't even, it's no big collision. It's just the sheer, it's, it's just the sheer, force of the eye around it is like melting and exploding it from the inside. It's so

harrowing. And also I think something at this is like, you know, in the original trilogy, the Imperials are just like faceless automaton's in some ways of efficiency. You just do the thing. It doesn't matter. Stormtroopers just die in droves doesn't matter. Tide pilots die in droves doesn't matter. Here is we've met a lot of Imperials who are like, no, my problem. I'm not I'm not paid enough to do this shit true there are motherfuckers it draws out there are people who believe as hard as the rebels do there are people here like fly into fucking fire yeah these type pilots go into something that's clearly they're going to die trying to do this and they do without hesitation

that's the other part like you know you're up against this too like it is it is not just like pure technology it is not just you know we have God on our side we have God and belief on our side some people on this i believe that too and that's like if go ahead i was just going to say they're reacting to it like you see you see the the pilots struggling to find like the the right uh uh you know uh positioning on their on their monitors in front of them like they're they're not these

like faceless robotic like incompetent people that we've seen figures that we've seen in the past and past movies where you know you just see the face of like uh and then they explode it's that both thing yeah it's it's both it's they're struggling but they're but they're they're sinister they're they're a real force they're highly capable

but also what they're doing is flying into a fucking storm of millions of meteorites and it's good you're people are going to get got like it's this is not smooth sailing by any means rob we talked about this back when the Wolfenstein new colossus came out that sometimes you have this sort of like fiction about fascists and Nazis either plays them as incompetent goofballs or hyper-competent authoritarian, perfect on logistics, over-emphasizes that they somehow have unlawed. I mean, we talked about this with Tarkin not that long ago.

The fiction, that is, if only you do things a little harsher, a little more cruel, there would be a more efficient, a better outcome for your side and a war. for instance. And I think that the show is doing a pretty good job of not falling into either of those camps, right? Where, like, the Imperials are, you know, too egotistical to imagine this could happen to them. They can't even imagine. We've talked about this a lot on this show. But they are not, they did not fall into power.

They took power because they're willing to use it and because they do have people like these Thai pilots, like they do have technology that does put them on a different level. on top of they have a monopoly on the technology that puts them on a different level they've monopoly

on using that technology in violent ways and that is an important distinction from the idea that they are and this has always been in Star Wars

I think this has been in Star Wars since the jump is you do get the stormtroopers who are not Darth Vader but you also

get Darth Vader you know you get the like the heroes can get one over on them but also they have the fucking

death star and I think that balance is really important and the show has done a pretty good job of continuing with it and expanding on it because of how our villains have had faces.

And again, if you're just listening to the show, I know those people exist because I'm that person for other shows, this sequence, with this, this could be an absolute disaster of a sequence. Flying up through the comet storm through the eye could look cheesy. It could look cheap. I don't hate Solo a Star Wars story, but there's a Kessalon, run sequence in that that I don't think hits. There is, there are so many instances of this style of, I'm in a ship trying, going through

a perilous place in science fiction generally. It often doesn't hit. What happens here is legible, but also still chaotic. And it's, and it's intercut with with shots of things like the Aldani looking up and seeing the eye in all its glory and people crying over. the confrontation with the world, with nature. Well, even the imperials are disarmed. Everybody.

The soldiers who, like, you know, are colonial assholes, like, are unmoved by so much. And they're rendered mute in speech, like, just absolutely overwhelmed by the same thing. And this is, and what did he say? What did the boy say? He said they have a fight on their hands, don't they? Our elemental rights are such a simple thing to hold. They'll have to shake the galaxy awful hard. to loosen our grip. It's an elemental thing. It's so easy to look out and know that you are

supposed to be treated with dignity, that we are in the world, and the world is beautiful, and we ought to share it and be part of it. It's an elemental thing. And giving that moment here, as Nemik is fucking dying on the spaceship, of seeing even the shittiest imperial guards be overwhelmed at the sight of this thing. It doesn't lead to solidarity with the Aldani. They don't drop their guns, but there is a, there is a, there is this moment of shared, you know, awe and introspection. And, and they are humans also. And there's a way forward here somehow. Allie, you were going to say something.

Well, yeah. I mean, there's something about the scene also that's, like, important. There is still a gap between them. And the way that it is acted is really important where, like, we see the imperial guys and they're interested, but all of the Aldani behind them are taken aback. They're crying. Their hands are over their faces. Like, this is such a bigger, more profound experience for them.

Whereas for the Imperals, it's like, oh, it's the thing that I said, you know, that I wanted to see. Like, oh, it's cool. That's nice. Yeah. Yeah, I got to check that off my bucket list of this, you know, residency at this base and, like, move on to the next one in a couple years maybe or whatever. Yeah, there's a specific, there's like a very like, I'm not. I think even among the Imperials, there's a divide, because some of them are, like, mouth open. And, like, three of them look like frat boys who are, like, excited at fireworks, right?

Yeah. And it's like, okay, how do you... There's one that looks like Andy Sandberg. Yes, 100%. And it's like, one of those could be your next gorn. One of those could be your next hammering. How do you get that guy? Something awakens some of these guys to realize, like, I don't want to be a part of this anymore.

Yeah. So how do you pull on that? It's amazing to me that the... like the escape, the heist, is irrelevant in this moment. They're all looking out at the same horizon. Yes. The people in the observation deck, you know, at the dining table, their perspective you see is very clearly the ship leaving the base and flying off into the sky, into the eye.

I couldn't stop thinking about that line where early on in this episode, at some point, someone says like oh how long does it last and they say oh i love this line he says yeah yeah goren says according well according to the aldani it never stops yeah and just seeing them look up and feel it oh it goes right to what you were saying alley about seeing faith seeing religion on screen for the first time really it helps emphasize what a missed opportunity so much of star wars has been it really does what we fucking doing imagine of all of star wars we would be I mean of we didn't hold on we are not meant to feast this well though all the time I know I know no Rob a better world is possible what did George Lucas say but I do like movies I love movies and I know a lot of movies aren't popular and you can say that going in one of the reasons I retired is so I could make movies that aren't popular because in the world we live in in the system we've created for ourselves in terms of it's a big industry You cannot lose money.

So the point is that you have to, you're forced to make a particular kind of movie. And I used to say this all the time when people, you know, back when Russia was the union of Soviet social republics. And they'd say, oh, but aren't you so glad that you're in America? I said, well, I know a lot of Russian filmmakers. They have a lot more freedom than I have. all they have to do is be careful about criticizing the government otherwise they can do anything so what do you have to do you have to adhere to a very narrow line of commercialism

and there's only certain and look when I started in the 70s it was like this you know I could say Russia was like this but we were like this you could do a certain kind of movie and I flaunted that system I mean THX my first film is definitely not an American film and I shoved it in sideways and Francis helped me trick this movie. Nobody, they would have never let me make that movie if they knew what I was doing. George Lewis said that the problem with filmmaking in the West is that you have to listen. Fundamentally profit motive is the guiding thing.

Do we talk about this quote on this show? Did we talk about him talking about Soviet directors and artistic freedom? Oh, wow. Did he have to apologize to Disney for this? Are you fucking kidding me? To your point, Rob, the reason why we don't get more of this is because people are tweeting at me that they don't like watching this show because there's too much talking in it. You understand that's where the world is?

So there was, I think IGN gave this episode specifically at 10 out of 10. So I was looking at the responses to the tweet. And it seems that most of people's disappoint with and or is that like nothing happens. It's really slowly pace. Somebody said that to me. We watched the first three episodes and like a friend who's not very into Star Wars texted me. He was like, yo, are you watching Andor?

It's like pretty mid, right? I was like, we are not the same. We are not the same. We are not the same. Quote, I have no interest in a super slow, super slow-paced talky drama. I'm trying that to review the audience here, but the audience is mid. you should want better for yourself that's really the thing they do but for them better is something else right like and that doesn't come from nothing people aren't born with taste you know

what i mean taste and that's not good or bad taste my taste was shaped by the things that i watched do you know what i mean i sat down in the theater 15 years ago i watched michael clayton was like god damn and now i'm sitting here doing that you know what i mean those things you build towards that my dad used to sit me down every sundays and my parents are divorced i don't know if i talked about this. Parents were divorced when I was like from when I was a child, child, child, right? But when I saw my dad, it tended to be on Sundays and we would watch a classic movie, right? Like, he'd be like, all right, we're going to watch the sting today. We're going to watch, I was the other Paul Newman. We're going to watch Bush Cassidy

and the Sundance kid. Watching international films, watching all, like, that was a process by which I grew to have a broader understanding of film than I would have had if all I was doing was like going to the movies to watch stuff with my friends as a teenager. That comes from something. It doesn't help that at the time, I could go to the movies with my friends and see movies that included things like talking and sex and a human connection. And those could be popular movies that had buzz. And today that just isn't the case, right? Like the industry has changed in such a way that like popular, what is a popular movie has just shifted so dramatically that the taste for this has been replaced by a taste for something else. And so I'm not surprised that it's not doing the numbers that, you know,

Obi-Wan or Mandalorian did, right? I guess I don't know if it's doing the Obi-Wan numbers, but it seems like it's not doing the numbers that Mandalorian did, right? And, you know, Mandalorian's got a cute little guy in it and some gunfights in every episode. Little freaks. No one shot a gun last two episodes. There's no little freaks.

We haven't even... Wait a second. We met a little freak. We mean a big freak in a second. We do. This is the first freak that we get. I love him. I love him, though.

Dr. Quad pause? So hang on. We need to like, an important question is when does it, when do we begin to converge on how this is going to end because you know when.

Nemek wounded. And he sees an opportunity. I think he liked Nemek. I also think he like Nemek. I think you can have two things in your heart at once. Right. I think but I think

Nemek, I think he cares about him but I think also going to the doctor buys him time to talk to Cassian. And, right, and it's the only place to do this. If they go to the drop-off point, the door closes. They've dropped it off. Yeah. So, what are we talking about, Ali?

But I do think what's significant in the scene is that Andor is the one who makes the decision. Andor is the most, I don't care about y'all. I'm getting out of here. But once the decision is made, he sits down and says, where's the doctor? Yep. He takes that from his hair. Because Skeen says, this kid is the reason we're here. And it, like, and it's true.

Like, they all owe, they all owe. Nemick this chance but also it really serves Skeen's agenda real nicely but they it opens the door. They take him to the most clone wars looking planet I've seen in the series in the series

yet they land in a fucking cornfield with some like dome housing. Yeah it reminds me so much of a sequence, another sequence with the doctor in ancillary justice. Ancillary justice has a sequence I want to say that planet was snowy but there's

The doctor facility, in my mind, it looks just like this. And in fact, this whole, I started thinking about this whole sequence or this whole series in relation to that book trilogy in terms of how sudden the violence can be, which speaking up, we're about to get to some more of it. This feels like sci-fi. This doesn't feel like Star, like, I mean, it feels like Star Wars, but it feels like the way that he's operating on him is so scary. and it's but and you feel like his life is on the line this isn't no fucking back to tank

where he's going to magically pop out and be better or even in in boba fat like the the you know augmented um you know bodies like the body modification where you're adding like god how far we've come in star wars television i thought at first i was like oh is he going to get body like he's going to get robo legs like no no we're vell is holding up eye V bags in this scene. Like, and this guy with, this is a fucking Star Wars alien. We found a Star Wars alien. Who wants to describe our friend?

I love him. He's big. He's big? He's got four hands, four arms, coming out of the shoulder. They're not low. It's not, it's, some of them are up here in the shoulder. There's some of them are like, peck arms. Yeah, they're coming out of like the side of his rib cage.

And he's got the big glasses on Is he Maas? Is he Maas Kanata? I don't think so, but maybe. She has the same eye thing going on, right? It's like the eye thing. Her eye things are glasses, though. Oh, okay.

I guess she could be. She was like little, though. But she's like a billion years old. Yeah, we don't know what her species is. She's another fucking Yoda type, right? Not literally, but. Yeah. Anyway.

Anyway, he so, and he says, you know, essentially, like, virtually nothing throughout this whole, like, he's, the, the, his, his lack of, of, like, consoling or like, it's going to be okay, I'm going to be, you know, there's no, there's none of that. He's going to do his best, and we're going to see what turns out. And just the, the expression he makes is he's ratcheting around in his spinal column, Where, like, this is a doctor who approaches it like a mechanic. Yes. And just seeing what I can do here. But yes, this is not, we're not going to throw them in the back to tank and things are going to get better. And we're not going to unearth some magical cyberpunk doctor who's going to, oh, this person got their torso blown out.

I will just, uh, book of Obi-Wan style, give them a brand new torso that just works. Uh, this is like, yeah, doing my best here. They should say Book of Obi-Won? You did say Book of Obi-Won. Uh, sorry. Sorry, Book of Boba. I mean, I think Konging those two things, Book of Obi-Wan really, really sells the lows

that we've gone through recently. Yeah. We need to record that episode for patrons because... We do, we do, we do, we do. I want to talk about why it doesn't work as well as this. First, we need to get this conversation. The episode had already been an all-timer. Yes. Yeah, it could have ended there.

It could have ended with them breaking the galaxy, breaking out of the orbit, jump into hyperspace. We all would have lost it. One last thing Yeah One last Also the like Silence returning

In terms of it being bookend Between how intense The heist noise is And then just cutting to these two people Sitting in the dark Next to all Did you know immediately Did you know immediately

Once it was them Did you all feel it? That was about to happen No I did I literally Didn't These are my two guests

We cut to the two of them sitting alone in the wheat and at the edge of the little facility and the note that I made was, no, Rob, you're right. He wants to take it. No, Rob, what the fuck. No, fuck. Rob, you saw right through it. Incredible. Because last week, Rob made a prediction.

Rob, do you want to describe what happens here and how you were right all along? so the thing I the thing I mentioned was that Skeen when he told his story about why he was there with the rebels there was that bit where Andor asked that follow-up question what kind of farm was it

and there's just a brief hitch and he says trees pepper trees centuries of them but that little hesitation and the fact that and the fact that Andor asked it still meant that Andor

hadn't fully bought in on him and that little hesitation like just we've been sort of talk we talked last week about like when you're sitting on the greatest treasure you're going to see in your whole life

what comes over you and in that darkness this is the first time this is the first moment they've had a chance to contemplate it and and so a great like here's the thing

like I think we'll put in the audio the thing that we can't get across is how perfect the like physical performances throughout the scene as well between these two actors but especially like Diego Luna

has to his whole thought process he's actually having can't play out in his words it plays out on his face has to be in his eyes it is perfect you think he'll make it

he could get lucky yeah luck it drives the whole damn galaxy doesn't it You want to guess how much is in there? 80 million, give a take. What'd you tell me? You want to win and walk away.

Well... 40 million apiece. Don't tell me you haven't thought about it. See, I can't fly the trawler, but I do have a safe place we can hold up. Between the two of us, we could be the winners here. It's not a rebellion for you. Oh, I'm a rebel. It's just, uh... be against everybody else.

Where would that put me? 40 million credits is enough for me to forget all about you. Your brother with the orchard? I don't have a brother. So just leave them here. Don't play the high mind with me. You're not here to save anybody but yourself. I saw the first minute you came in there.

first minute you came into camp you're just like me we're born in the hole and all we know is climbing over somebody else to get out there's a moon a parsecs from here with nobody home put that thing down catch our breath split up the winnings and you just see he like as as this conversation progressive progresses, you see Diego Luna calculate. Every word, every choice that Skeen is making

here, Cassian is taking in and evaluating and predicting what is the next thing that's going to happen. And it's, I mean, it's obviously a parallel to the confrontation that starts off this whole show between him and the two cops that, you know, doesn't end well for them. But

I think I have to imagine that the turn is the same it's the promise that Skeen is making that Cassie never take a fucking promise from a traitor well just and yes

like he looks there's a moment where he just looks so sad that's exactly he knows he's gonna have to kill him he's gonna have to kill him fucking are you just like like let us get out of this please let this be over

like let's get through this this doomed heist where we've seen three of ours fall we have no idea they don't know how scent is doing like they have no they have no clue she could be dead for for all they know um please just let us get to the end of this please and it's so it's such like an like an act of almost like obligation and resignation and and hate it's like it's such a hateful like thing that

Skeen is doing to to Cassian right now that he's forcing his hand into and also I think part of it is like I think you know so why is Andor such compelling figure because what's implicated in that movie

and we're going to see throughout this is like he is the hardest man you can imagine when he has to be and unfortunately he keeps in positions where he has to be. He knows He, like, why does he kill, why does he have to kill Skeen? Because he can't, you can't trust, one, the deal can't be taking. You can't run off and split money with a guy like this.

Like, that can't be done. But two, he can't take it to Val. He can't put this decision on Val because he knows she'll fuck it up. This is the decision she's not equipped to make. And we see in a moment when he shows up, like, explaining what just happened, she doesn't believe it. She doesn't want to believe it. He also can't abandon Val with him, right?

like he can't leave that he can't leave val with skein knowing that scheme is capable of this um and yeah i think the fact that it speaks a lot to cassian's character that he goes in val has no reason to believe him but she knows she she she knows she does i mean our mcguffin comes back with the the perfect use for it it wasn't a power source it didn't secretly reveal luthan was a jett i it's evidence that i could walk away with more and I'm not. I'm not motivated by money here. I'm not like running because of this. Like, you believe me or not, but this is who I am. This is who I am. Here's evidence of it as clear as I can give you. You didn't even, you didn't even, this is, this was mine. This was a down payment for me. I'm taking my cut for money. I'm giving you the special thing back. We're good.

and also just like so much of that sequence with with uh skein the end of it it is it is cast looking at a mirror and and needing to confront finally this is not who i am luthan couldn't pull this out of him because it's words you know what i mean like with luthin it was hey i just want my money and i'm going to get out of here right that's still where he's at here to some degree um but seeing a very version of where he might be of the most sinister and cynical version of himself in Skeen who would use people in this way. I think he's seeing a little bit of like, you know, if things had gone a little bit differently, I could be the one asking Skeen this. And I won't be that. And the easiest way to not be that right now is to kill this guy. I don't like looking at him because I'm seeing the worst version of myself, the speed

with which he pulls out the gun and aces him. is. Yeah, he keeps asking questions and each answer to each question is confirming this in his mind. It's just pushing him further and further. And how many backstores has Cassian invented? Like, how many, how many

like different, you know, past or, you know, context has Cassian given for himself? How many different identity, like, you know, histories has he told about himself? Like, we've already caught him in a few lies of his past. and so to see that reflection of him asking your brother with the orchard

I don't have a brother and I think it's worth saying that it's it's ambiguous I still don't know skin is completely ambiguous here and it's not even worth it's so much more fun to be in this ambiguity because does he not have a brother because his brother's dead does he not have a brother because he never had a brother in the first place like all of Is he saying what he thinks Andor wants to hear? Is he saying what was he saying that before? I don't know. And like the only thing that's true is I think he's right when he says that that the thing about you and I is that we are both born in a hole and we've crawled over anybody we've needed to to get out.

Right? Like that's the truth. Yeah. And Andor is making a decision in this moment for that not to be the truth about who he is anymore. Or that there's a limit to who he'll crawl over at the very least, right? Yeah. He's not crawling over You know, good

Well, I don't know what he said on in the past But like good people He's not crawling over a Nemick He's not crawling over a Vell Right, he's at this point He thinks Nemick could still be alive I mean I think he knows he'd have to get very lucky But he doesn't know that Nemek is dead yet

He was, I'm so sad So why did they have to kill our suit? A small detail here I love to is Andor makes this decision a lot earlier in the conversation But keeps it going Because you see him adjusting his coat to clear the holster. Like he

half that conversation is him casually keeping the conversation going while making sure that when he makes his move there'll be nothing to stop him from doing it. And Skeen just keeps digging thinking that the sales pitch is working and it's not.

He just can't, he can't, like he doesn't see how every single sat like all the sad confirmation of what just remember in the last episode he tells Skeen it always breaks the weakest point and he's looking at Skeen looking at Skeen again you called that

yeah uh-huh here it is the weakest point but also like but here's their thing and or is being paid to do this if Skeen like also were here on a commission basis because here's the thing and this I think is part like here's my read on Andor to some extent as a guy is that like beliefs values causes these things are

these things wax and wane like they are vulnerable to like is it going to stand up to the heat of 80 million credits sitting in your freighter a hundred yards away with no one between you and it and it doesn't for skein like because if it would for I don't know that it would for and or either but he made a he made a specific agreement and he's getting paid, like he said. Right. It's not like he's walking out empty. And here's the thing. So, like, for me, it's like, when did Skeen cook this up?

And I think it was pretty late because if Skeen's plan was, I'm going to join rebels and do heists, that's a terrible plan. At some point, I think, like, I think there was a genuine desire to like fight the empire, but then also somewhere in all this. First, it occurs to him as a thought,

and then it turns into a wish and then it turns into a plan. Do you think Luthin, knows this and he's like do not let them know you're a mercenary because if you do

it rocks things not just because of the Tamarin formerly being an imperial but it reintroduces this idea that we could be getting paid for this

and he's like there's somebody in that mix that they start thinking about money again it's over yes yes yes I think

and Luton knows this I don't know if Lutthin knew it was the guy but I think Lutthin had a dread of what dropping the

you know some of us are getting paid for this thing would do to an ideological group I think Skeen was always so so thrown off by the fact that Cassian was hopping in on this so last minute

like Skeen's been there for months preparing for this right I think it's hard to imagine I just I wonder if Skeen was like, I could have just come in at the very end and gotten my cut and left. Like, why did I have to be here for months with these people?

And again, it's opportunity, right? It isn't, I don't think this was the plan all along because how would he know that they'd be here with someone hurt, you know, and he'd be the only, there'd only be three of them left. Do you know what? Again, he was not shooting people in the back stealthily. They could have told that story. They could have, we could have seen him shoot Tamer when no one was looking. We could have seen him be the one who sends war to the imperial.

Do you know what I mean? That heist story gets told. That's a type of heist story to tell that there was actually a traitor in the midst the whole time. This is betrayal of opportunity, you know, by opportunity's sake. And I think that that is so much more honest about how people are. How often when we're describing things like the Jedi Code, do I talk about it being like, these are best practices that everybody veers from from time to time? I think that's how people generally are.

I do think that fundamentally Scheme would not have been here suffering on the fucking mountain on the potential that one day there'd be a payday, walking into an imperial trap like this, like you have to believe a little bit. You have to believe a little bit to have been there for months. And I think that there is, it is much more interesting to me that there is a character who sees the opportunity and is compelled by it has been, again, taste is not something you're born with ideology and belief and worldview. your relation to things are shaped

and we know where he came up he came up through criminal groups he knows not it came up through the dirt he sees an opportunity he's gonna consider it he's gonna consider it I'm leaving here with something you know like Denzel said he's from around the way

I'm leaving here with something so like anyway again the episode could end right there and we'd be like damn And we get two more scenes! Yep. So, they're short, but...

The showdown with Vell, where he comes in, three more scenes. They're pulling the cloth over him. He fills Vell in. She views this as a betrayal. He makes very clear it's not. The other thing is this, the thing that hit me here is, so much of the show is like,

hey, there's a million potential of Han solos out there in the universe, and things just break differently for all of them. Like, because, like, Han comes in, like, I'm getting paid. and I'm getting out of here. This is this whole goal for like a movie and a half is like I'm going to settle up my accounts and like be free and clear of all this shit. And partly as, you know, smuggler with the heart of gold.

It's such a golden heart. They had to retcon him murking a bounty hunter years after because Han wouldn't do something like that. But the other part is like, you know, it's very easy to be like, I'm going to commit to the cause when that also brings you the beautiful princess who is the head of that entire cause.

et cetera um like and all your best friends are like part of that cause like you get a uh you know you basically you're you'll turn out to be uh your brother-in-law in all this process but like your best friend is also in this and like skiing just sees a shot like here's here's the money and this is the best i'm to get out of life and and or just wants to get his pay and be clear of these people like this is exactly the shit he did

like the feeling I get from what is Seamovall is this is exactly the shit I didn't want to deal with like things are murky and they're weird in a way they weren't when I was working people like Bix

and it's just like whatever we can like fence and now it's all fucked up and I just had to kill a guy a guy I kind of liked a guy resonated with me because we've been through some similar shit he knows made me fucking kill him.

He made me kill him. Are you kidding me? This is not supposed to be how this went. But he can't get away clean because Val, he has been bequeathed the gift of ideology. Let's go. He gets the manifesto. He refuses it. Val says he insisted.

Oh, God. He insisted. He wanted you to have it. Like on his deathbed. Do you think he woke up from? No, I think Vell's just. before singing on him. I think it was before. I think it was before this happened. I think before the mission, Nemek was like, hey, listen, if anything happens to me. Oh, you don't think this was

like a deathbed moment? He's out. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I've, the, like, Andor has never seemed as small as he does when he says, I don't want it to Val. It sounds like legitimately terrified of taking this object. It's hard to open your heart to other people. To ideology, to belief, to wanting to be part of a thing, he knows he's going to, he knows what's about to happen, right? Like, he's tied to the train tracks of history. He knows he's about to get hit in the face by theory, by analysis, by understanding what's happening out there.

I don't know if he even opens the book. He doesn't need to. He heard the conversations with, with Nemik. It's a totem in some ways, right? It's an object of power in his hand. something that will represent Nemick's hope and optimism. Like, I could, I truly could imagine it's getting a season and a half away from here, which again, wild.

We're only halfway through the first season. There's a whole other season to come, start shooting in November. We're going to get to the end of that. I can imagine him having never opened it, right? And it not, he doesn't need to open it. He knows what it is. I would like him to open it and read it. I would like that to be what he does.

But I think just him taking it is the act of being like, fine, I'm going to let these feelings about this person and the way this person saw the world into my heart. And you're right, he's, he's scared of it. He's terrified. He just shot a man and he's terrified of a book. Disney accidentally kicks off a major revolution by feeding fans, their endless appetite for fan service by actually paying someone to write and produce Nemek's book. And it becomes a bestseller and a ton of people then rise up against their oppressors. truly if only if only they could fuck up so bad

I would love it weapons or tools is a banger you know he's the right idea so meanwhile at ISB headquarters all hell is breaking loose and we get a tape like we don't see much happen

dead was called into the full meeting of all hands on deck everyone's staying here tonight is major part of guys outlines, it is time to dust off every star sector and planetary emergency retaliation plan. And again, looming over all of this

is Leah's thesis, what she says to Tarkin is, the tighter you grasp, the more planets and systems will fall through your fingers. And this is just who they are. And the thing is, this process is already out of, like, spun out of control by a new hope, but we see it here.

One heist happens. There is no rebellion. It is people stole money to maybe finance other jobs later but there is nothing here and part of gas is out there being like we need to prepare for a massive galaxy wide crackdown because of yeah one shipment of credits yep and a few dead not even the full shipment yeah they only got they didn't get all of it they got 80 mil that's a lot don't get me wrong it's a lot it's a lot it's a lot of money it's not it's not the full quarter payroll that we had been talking about before That's right.

And it's also just one sector. One sector. We also get a glimpse of, hey, how's the old galactic center of Lufkin? This is an incredible sequence. Cursed, I would say. Empty. No one cares. Nobody's there.

Like, even when we first start to look at, you know, over the course of Mon Mothema is giving a speech on the offering protection. Yeah. The Gorman had suffered a massacre on behalf of the empire. She's been, like, hitting this now for the last few episodes here and there. There had been the, the Gorman had suffered at the hands of the empire, and she's trying to find some legislation that'll make things right. And the first shot as we, as we enter the Senate, we're on her back and we have her perspective what she's looking out at.

And it's empty. Like, there's no one there. There are a few senators. You can see, like, it's. in the, in the distance, but primarily these seats are just, are just empty. And those people who are there, like, having little side conversations. Yeah. And they're what, they're hitting the watch on the news.

They got their iPads open. They're checking their iPads. The feed is going off. It's unbelievable. And, you know, shout out, a friend of ours was saying, like, what do we see here? We see two ways. Her way is standing in the Senate. and talking to nobody about maybe getting, you know, conservative reparations for a terrible act.

And the other way is you go to Aldani and you take their fucking money. You blow up the vault. You take direct action of the most direct sort. And it has to be sinking into her at this point, right? You can't do it this way. This way does not work anymore. This route has for change has closed. Well, she's been playing footsie with it.

Yeah. But she hasn't, like, she's financing Luthan, but isn't fully, like, bought in on it yet. And, of course, you know, unexpectedly, you know, Lutthin, we knew was awaiting news of this. And, boy, this is such a good fake out. It's such a good fake out. He is in his store. and waiting news on this and his aide

and like the shop girl is her front she's like talking through the offering the wares that are on offer and we hear from the end of the room do you have anything from Aldani and at that moment my stomach dropped because I was like how did the cops get on me

I was just going to shit myself I was like if you're not giving one last thing like one more fucking punch of my stomach I already saw fucking Nemek died and now fucking Luthan's going to get arrested and Montmothamah's probably going to get got to and this whole fucking shit is over. The guy says you...

Yeah, go ahead, Natalie. Okay, he says, do you have any Algoni stuff? They just got hit at it. He's like sort of pointing in his iPad. And he looks so well-dressed. He has like main character energy even though he's just some guy. And Luther is like, yeah, let me go check in the back.

And then he says, I was joking. And I thought it was a moment of like, Like, oh, my God, it hasn't been published yet. Like, oh, my God. He's the one being, like, do you know about it? That would have been, yeah, uh-huh. I, he goes in the back, and we get just, I mean, cacklingly. Cacklingly, spinning around, the hands up, yeah.

Joy, relief, his breath. He finally exhales, again, like us. Incredible. And like, like, all the, like, all three these episodes, right Susanna White is directed all three. What a treat like a series that so far is unfolding the series of short trilogies

is how this all feels but an absolutely an absolutely incredible episode like look I just it's just the best thing I've seen from Star Wars also it's called the I

about the self it's even the title it's about everything just works thematically it's conceptually everything just fucking works it really could be the end of the show and I'd be like wow best show they've put out yeah like we get six more six more episodes something interesting is about to happen in terms of the you know what the the the credits are going to be on the future

episodes this next episode episode seven is directed by Benjamin Karen written by Stephen Schiff then we get three episodes episodes directed by Toby Haynes and written by Bo Willemann and then we go to the final two episodes which are Benjamin Karen directed written by Tony Gilroy and so I don't know are we getting like because we're getting another trio from Toby Haynes which is our third director of the series so far Toby also directed the first three episodes right and so it's like we're going back to Toby Haynes does that mean that we're going to be back in Farix for those three episodes but before that we're getting this one-off with

Benjamin Karen. Like what's the we're not getting 3-3-3-3. We're getting 3-3, which we just finished. Then we're getting 1-3-2 in terms of creative teams. And I'm curious what the divide is going to be there. Are we still getting that sense of arcs? Are we going somewhere

else? Are we going to go look at the broader picture of the rebellion? Is it Saw Guerrera time? Like, what's popping? Oh, yeah. Saw-Garerat- It might be. Is Zah going to be he's in the

trailer he's in the trailer he's in we marked out when we saw him in the trailer oh okay you're right lots of exciting

I love forgetting things are coming for us here yes great great great do we think Dedra just gets to be like what do I say at this

because they're going to believe she seems unable to stop trying to like say everything is confirming her brilliant theory and they should listen to her So, yeah, I think she will

I mean, it's going to be really interesting how we see, like characters like Blevin, Dedra, Karn, Karn, Uncle Hondo, where the fuck his name is. Oh, could you... Could you imagine it, they throw it all the way? The first alien walks, oh, not the first alien, one of the few aliens that we see in the show's fucking Hondo and Oaka.

Cassia needs it. Cassie's like approaching. you know kind of a little mercenary it's hondo time might be hondo time Austin things got a little heavy with skiing there at the end we've got a light and say that

this one this is the hondo that I would want right like this is the only whatever hondo they're going to write and put in this fucking show let me see it let me see the height of hondo let me see Gilroy's hondo just let me see him

just want I just want to have a conversation Oh my god Hondo Anaka is a criminal and not a rebel But if we can find a use form I mean There's oh there's a mum mum the role of mercenaries in the galactic struggle for freedom There's a whole chapter about it Austin have you not read your theory? Yeah, you're right. I guess I should return. I should read my nemic Does Nemek have a last name? What's Nemek's last name? Nemek cute adorable boy

who shouldn't have died Nemeck is his last name. His first name is Karris. Keros Nemek. I do want to give a shout out real quick to the doctor again. I have a note here. He has one vocal line and I wrote Italian doctor confirmed. Wait, what?

He sounds exactly like Natalie's Italian voice when he speaks. Oh, Natalie's Italian voice. Oh, my God. I did the best I could. that was a clip for the show right yeah it was I just dropped that in that was amazing thank you for dropping that in oh what an episode

I'm just out of one other lines like genuinely I think this line is great the thing of the they're looking at the jewelry in the shop and there's an inscription on that one in a language no one remembers how sad no it's liberating you decide what it says your own secret language

bro these people in Corrassan got to go this is how you sell stuff to them and they get excited they gotta go The first order was wrong about a lot of things But They didn't that wasn't chorus on

They got blown up If they stalled I thought there was Corrason That's not Corrissan First or you're telling me right That's not Corrason That's not Corrason That's not Corrason

That's the place where the That's the place where the New Republic moves its base to It's come up in this show The name of it came up in this show, it is Hosnia.

It's Hosnian Prime. Oh, right. That's where the New Republic's spaces. It's not on Corrassan. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway, we'll see how I am so curious what this next one is.

It feels like there's enough dangling threads, of Corrason. They're going to have a big old imperial focused episode at some point. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And this might be, given that we end with Luthan, Manmavam. B. I suspect

we're going to be checking in that with that whole tree. You think we get a little opening with Karn? A little intro. I want him to Oh, I want. Here we go. No, it needs to be him sitting on the couch watching the news

with his mother. What's on the news? Who's on the news? Who's on the news? Who's making a statement? 11. Who's making a statement to the people to assure them that everything's fine? Emperor. Emperor Palpatine. If we see Sheave, I'm going to shit my pants.

I, like, truly... I want to know how they're doing it, because I know he has to be a face for the Republic still. He's the emperor. But it also, it's really swaggy to just not use any of it. Just like, nah. You know, it's kind of swaggy. I guess, but I feel like...

What your devil vizier talks to the people? Maybe the devil vizier talks with a message from Palpatine. Maybe he's got a hologram that he uses. maybe he's got a mask like that's the thing that they have to do they have to in the like continuation of like being a star war show that is looking at star wars they have to have al palpatine use some fucked up like oh we dached his face we daged oh in the show we don't even need to use him we got his voice on record we could just fake his own voice and his own his old yeah why not do that he's alive he's speaking for himself

people want to see the face that they don't. Let's see how a problem. Normal guy. If they literally do that the Empire is doing, if the Empire does what Disney did, if he comes out and he looks like fake Tarkin, are you fucking kidding me?

Give me the Emmy. Give me the Emmy. Well, we'll see if any of these theories are confirmed when we come back next week. But hey, we're also looking for questions. About next week, and we might be late next week. Yeah. Right?

We will have all watched this show probably on Wednesday night. But Rob, you have something going on this week. Yeah. And Natalie, are you coming in for this? It's just a Rob. Yeah. Okay. I'm going.

So Natalie and I are going to be doing SavePoint, which is WayPoint's annual charity driver doing it for National Network of Abortion funds this year. And so we're going to be in New York. streaming for three days like October 19th to the 21st over on Twitch.tv slash Waypoint but that also means that's our usual recording nights and so we are not going to be able to record those nights

we're traveling back to our homes on Saturday Austin will have also had a wisdom tooth right? Two wisdom teeth extracted on Friday so I'm not too worried about it but there's a lot of pressures on our schedule usually am I going to want to talk into a microphone the day after or the day after that we we thought about like what

if we all did this like in the middle of that busy week but it's not feasible so we might be late yeah but we will be trust us we what we want to give you we want to deliver we want to talk to each other about it like Dracula you we want to give you the episode I want to give you the podcast about is is there not a basement in Brooklyn New York that we You can watch the show in, though. Yeah, I know. If the schedule winds up, it does, but, yeah, I've done those marathon streams, and it's brutal. And then you've got to do, like, you have to do, like, meetings with, like, oh, we're on me off for dinner tonight.

Just wait until we all watch the episode and we'll see how we feel. Just wait. Come in live. When the fire of Andor's episodes. Natalie and I, drag around Brooklyn trying to find a huge mixing board to plug in at Austin. So, you know, I'll just, like, pause. in the nice new apartment and podcast. I got to take this shit.

And hey, we're also going to be looking for questions for our October Patreon backer Q&A on these first two arcs. So we're probably not going to address on that Q&A. Anything happens next week, but these first two arcs and what we've talked about so far, feel free to send us questions. 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. Also, real quick, I just want to say, like, it is, It is totally cool to, like, support the show for a month or two.

If you're like, hey, while they're doing Andor doing all this extra recording week in, week out, I'll toss them a couple bucks for a few months. That is totally chill. I don't think of Patreon stuff. A lot of people think of it this way. It's like, you have to, it's a commitment for life. You're subscribed. You're subscribed and buying a year. Like, you don't know.

If you're like, hey, I've been enjoying the show. They've been putting a little extra effort. I want to support that. I want to encourage them to do stuff like this in the future. I'm going to go listen to the last year of a very funny Q&A stuff. I want to see them play Outer Rim, a game about being Andor and Skeen-like Criminals, a board game that we played a little while ago. That video was up on the Patreon. You know, there's other stuff out there that's very fun.

Five bucks a month is, I think, a pretty reasonable fee for access to that stuff. And it's just a good way to say, hey, we support all the stuff that you're doing. So all the stuff that we are doing. It goes a long way, for sure. Totally. It really, really, really does. And if you're ever looking for updates of when, I realize we never talk about the Twitter on the show. But if you ever need updates of like when the next episode has been dropped and things like that, you can always follow the more civilized Twitter at more civilized.

Also, if you want to see memes, if you want to see videos that people have made. If you want to see. And like, yeah, stuff from the community, sometimes we, the real, the real. delicious treats, we will share those. And we read a lot of the replies there. All of them. I read all of them, for sure. I didn't want to say all of them because the meanies, but, okay, we see you.

I see the meanies. I see when you guys set us spoilers, which is so rude and mean. I know you're excited, but it's rude and mean. The amount of tweets that we got for this specific episode. I really appreciated that nobody was like, I didn't see any spoilers from those tweets that everyone was just like, please, please watch it, please, please, please. So I appreciated that.

Agreed. So anyway, we'll be back in roughly a week or so. Robbie on Twitter down bad. Hey, Atmore Civilized, we need it tonight, please. We got that you up. Yeah, we really did. Yeah, so, listen, just please, like, rate review the podcast, especially on Apple, super helpful. And just remember, if you ask someone a question, like, hey, what kind of farm did you have that explains your entire rebellion against the empire?

And someone hesitates and goes, trees. Maybe, maybe take note of that. We don't trust the person who just blurts out the first plant that comes to mind when pressed on their origin story. He could have been telling the truth, but I don't think so. Pepper trees. No. No. No.

He was bullshit. I don't know. I'm going to be. I don't know. Weean. Weean. Weean. I don't know.

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