A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 47: "Announcement" (Andor 07)

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

After a nail-biting heist, what could follow for Andor? Unsurprisingly, a talky episode all about the Empire's response to the fledgling rebellion, filled with juicy details about galactic policy decisions, intelligence agency maneuvering, and a bunch of difficult emotional conversations. And, of course... Space Miami. NEXT TIME: Andor Episode 08 Show Notes Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny) Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson) Produced by Austin Walker Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)

Let us return once more to a more civilized age of Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zakney, joined by Ali Akampora, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. We are continuing with our weekly coverage of Andor before we resume our analysis of the Clone Wars, supported as always by our listeners at patreon.com slash civilized. But, gang, first, you know, I feel like this week's episode, announcement manages to be Exhibit A for the people who call the show boring and

the people who think this might be the best Star Wars has ever been. And I one, I do kind of, I do secretly, not so secretly maybe hate the people who are like, I think it's boring. But also I look at this and it does feel like a real

Roar Shock test of how you feel about Star Wars. I have two things really quick. First is it's worth saying that that last episode I talked about the numbers being bad for the show. Well, one of the people who had made a study saying that the numbers are bad for the show has since come out and deleted all of that and said, oh, I fucked up my data. My bad. Whoops. I don't think that that person has put out new numbers. Twitter, everybody. I mean, this is like somebody who's like, this is the job. He's an industry strategist and an analytics company. You know what I mean? This wasn't just a rando being like, but it's doing bad. He ran numbers. He has access to some shit. He has some tools, et cetera. Right, which led to a whole news cycle about how nobody's watching and or. Ain't that the way? A hundred percent. You know? So, yeah. So pulled that, retracted that. Some other stuff has made it seem as if, you know, there are lots of people

in that dude's mentions being like, actually, it's doing pretty well, all said. So I have no idea what to believe at this point. But it is simply true that lots of people are like, it's a boring show, or at least there are people who are doing that to us directly, you know? So, fuck those people specifically. The second thing, the second important thing for me is, I'm going to need another note comparison as we start this episode off. What's everybody's first note of this episode? Allie, you go first.

Sure. I wrote, this is a quote for the show. it says look at me I don't believe of myself I am desperate for approval oh it's a great quote wow another sad boy window moment opening

mine mine was in all caps of course my pathetic little boy and his pathetic window and his terrible mother Rob my note

and please bear with me. The following measures will be adopted empire-wide as of today. A tribute tax equal to five times the amount stolen from Aldani will be levied on any sector harboring partisan activity. We will make it clear that no one steals from the empire. The use of any local custom, festival, or tradition, as cover for rebel activity will trigger permanent revocation of imperial tolerance. I spoke with Emperor Palpatine last night,

and he's assured me that the ISB will be taking the lead going forward. No one in this room should have any trouble accessing Army or Navy resources in the future. Okay. The Emperor will be convening an emergency session of the Senate to propose legislation package of bills and amendments that will free our hands in all matters of surveillance, search, and seizure. We will be invoking the public order resentencing directive later today. Pored. Hey, really quick. Who said that, Rob?

Because it wasn't part of guest. New guy alert No, no, I wish Wait We always knew this was coming If you paid very close attention Who is it? It's my boy

Admiral Helleran It's Admiral Yalarin Oh It's Obi-Wan's boy Admiral Yularan It's Annen Skywalker's boy Admiral Yilarin The cool officer who's always in charge

The Fleet On Operation with a little mustache Yeah You hate to see it A very funny thing here is that my understanding, and I could be getting some of these details wrong, so Yelarine is in a new hope. He's one of the background officers in a new hope. He's a, you know, a guy with the mustache, et cetera.

Philoni, or I guess not Faloni. You know what? I'm just going to read this directly from the Wikipedia, direct, from, now drawing on Clone Wars film DVD commentary. quote, in their commentary, the creators of the Clone Wars described how they were under the assumption that Yalarin had been a grand admiral during the time of episode four, given his white uniform. As such, they opted to portray Yelaren as an admiral

and as a means of showing him in the process of rising to the ranks. But in fact, and this had already been clear due to a card game, Yelaren, or maybe this card game was actually later. I don't remember which card game identifies him as such, But he has always been an ISB guy. He's always been, you know, a security bureau CIA guy. Ah, even in the Clone Wars?

No, I mean, in the Clone Wars, he's an admiral because the ISB doesn't exist yet, right? But I mean, in the fiction as it stood before Clone Wars, he was an ISB guy. Gotcha. So they were just wrong about this, I guess. Very funny to me. Well, I mean, you know, the issue with the original trilogy is you're making, you're making a lot out of characters who appear in the background briefly. There is so much about

like, man, what would the rebellion of Ben without Crix Maidine, someone you see for like literally seven seconds during the Manmotham, many bothans died for this information speech? Like, he's just there. He's a tiny little dude who's there and it's like, well, obviously

he was the most badass rebel commando leader of the entire war. And it's like, well, obviously. So yeah, so he was originally in, he was originally just background guy who's unnamed, obviously. Unnamed background character in Star Wars episode 4,

A New Hope, whom the fan site Avalry Man claims is portrayed by Robert Clark and was given the name Wolf Yalarin by the Star Wars Legends card game, Star Wars customizable card game. It's weird. That Wikipedia is an impossible thing too.

The Star Wars CCG, basically, which was created in ran from 95 to 2001. Here is the original Wolf Yilarin card that he appeared as. And it says Imperial Security Bureau officer assigned to brief Tarkin. Also ordered to ensure absolute loyalty to the emperor leader will stop at nothing to fulfill emperor's will. Power plus one if at the same site with Tarkin, Chief Bast or General Dodona.

I love a card game. I love card games. He's a one-power-two ability imperial card type, I guess. So that's it. This is how canon gets made. You make a card game. Someone in the card game company goes, uh,

that's Wolf Yilarin. And now here he is determining that the imperial tolerance act or whatever will be, you know, undone if any locals harbor any rebels. Extremely, extremely fun timeline to live in. so before we dig into our breakdown we can go through the major beats at least so in the seventh episode of andor

announcement you know i had to say there's a theme it is that a lot of delusions are falling away across the course of it in the wake of the payroll robbery on aldani you got cassian returning to ferricks to settle old debts most importantly the debt he feels he owes to marva only to discover that the peaceful and prosperous future he thought he was buying is one she wants no part of, as she is now eager to develop a rebel cell here at home, unwittingly inspired, of course, by what Cassian has done on his vacation, as it were. But Malthamah is realizing just how little control she has over Luton, who is forging ahead with his program of direct action against the empire,

against her wishes, continue laying groundwork for a wider rebellion. That groundwork, she is laying entails its own sorts of mind-boggling risk, because she reveals to an old friend that she needs him to become the treasurer for the entire rebellion. Luthan's lieutenant, Clea, meanwhile, and I'm very curious, we'll get to this scene, but she sneaks off to hand, strike team leader Val, her next assignment. Finding and killing Cassie and Andor,

who knows too much about Luthin for the operation to be safe? And indeed, the galaxy is far less safe as the ISB launches a massive cracktown to send a message in the wake of Aldani. The only dissenter to this program is Dedra, who sees in the knee-jerk oppression the gasoline that these small sparks of rebellion desperately need. Before she can propose her own strategy, however, she has to counter yet another attack from her bureaucratic rival Blevyn. No such victory seems to await Cyril Karn as he begins a job in the faceless imperial bureaucracy, a prisoner of his abruptly curtailed prospects and familial expectations. His face

at the end of the episode is almost as grim as Cassians as the mercenary enjoys his loot on the planet space Miami he is swept up at random by Imperial Patrol's ironically innocent of the charges of rebel activity they levy against him and is sentenced to six years his money and his dream of a easy retirement gone in an eye blink

so I think we'll open so the episode does open on Cyril as as you all noted but I think we'll come back to Cyril in a bit and just really take in what's been happening to him and then just the vibe of the Karn household and his new gig. But yeah, so here at the start, we get maybe not our old friend,

but I considered him my old friend, Admiral Ularin. I really like David Niven, and I think that character model in the cartoon is really inspired by David Niven. But anyway, now he's the head of the ISB, and he's called a meeting, of part of guys and all party guys as deputies

to announce, yeah, this severe program to stun the rebels by showing that really the only question the empire has is how tight to close our fist. Echoing again, your point last episode, Rob. Yeah. This is the strategy, and this is the strategy that Leah calls out

in a new hope, quote, the more you tighten your grip talk and the worst star systems will slip through your fingers, right? Yeah, but also, of course, like hinting at, you know, the way the ISB is going about this is a very different approach than like what the what the death star represents and so it's interesting to hold in our mind that like they've already referred to construction going on at Scaref which is what you know the construction of a death star and it is interesting to hold in the back of our mind that like you know while the ISB is doing all this the decision has already been taken to build a giant planet destroying super weapon and Palpatine is greenlit that so when he's saying to you, Lauren, oh, yeah, the ISB is going to run this from here. We've got you all the way.

It does feel like, it does feel like our boy being his best self, which is. I feel him in the background here. He's running the empire the same way he ran his conspiracy of like absolutely 100% go make some plays. Go make some plays. We'll see what turns out, you know? If there's a little infighting, more chaos for me to enjoy. Yum, yum, yum, yeah. What was everyone's reaction to the Palpatine named Rob?

Beside myself. Yeah, all caps. I spoke with Emperor Pal. I basically wrote everything that Rob read at the beginning that Yilaran said, except separated into, I wrote these down like I was taking notes in a class. So I was like, all right, tribute tax equals 5x stolen from El-Doney, leveled on any, levied on any partisan, you know, harborers. Local customs, no. was for us. Level activity.

Yeah. And then all caps. I spoke with Emperor Palpatty last night. That I literally was like yelling. I was yelling. And I was waving my hands in the air to like get someone's, I was home alone watching this. But I was like, I was like, has anyone else seeing this?

Is anyone else hearing what I just heard in this episode of television? Oh, to see that conversation. Oh, my God. I wish I was there. so cute. I'm like, I think we're going to get like a gravelly little frogy voice. Yeah. At some point. Oh, I don't know if we'll see him.

I want, I want, or Karn. I want the, whoever is the lowest. Karn needs to like bump into him accidentally and then get like zapped into space. Dead. That's what, that's Karn's, it's destiny. Yeah, this, this, the, the, I also wrote down every word of the bit that Rob read, because I was just like, it's, it's, it's for us, it's policy talk. We're talking empire-wide measures being, being, uh, uh, in the P-O-R-D.

We're talking, yeah, we got names for these, the Pord, which, which is such an interesting and, uh, important element to this, which was the public order of resentencing directive, which is that like, hey, which we will come back to at the end of this, probably, or towards the end of this, anything that has an even indirect effect on the empire is now getting max sentencing, is now getting higher, it's being treated as a first-degree crime or first-rate crime, whatever their first-tier, whatever their language was, meaning to say, meaning that something in the past were like, okay, maybe this was a robbery and you rock, let's say the stuff on more on, on premore, right? Where it's like, Primor is a, is a effectively, you know, outside of the state as a state client or state contractor.

Presumably, working against them now would indirectly hit the state. And so, though you're getting the same sort of sentences for hitting them that you would, if you'd stolen direct, if you'd done the Aldani job. And also, it ties in so neatly to, we've already seen what the. where this logic leads because the way this series kicks off is and or doing the math of realizing that like if you're already in a jam that's going to send you to jail forever you might as well start like killing people to get out of it and like we're going to come back to a similar moment at the end of this and think about how different that could go so like it's it is like you know you Lauren's laying out this plan of like yes massive massive repression

just like direct from the shoulder response with the idea this is going to sort of scare everyone straight and and sort of break down the capacity to resist. But we have already kind of seen, well, one, you know, the whole point of Aldani is like attacking and subverting local cultures and traditions and identity is also what feeds this kind of resentment. But we've also seen, yeah, that Andor is kind of his entire like shift to rebellion has kind of been driven by a similar sort of logic of, well, once, you're already in the jackpot the only way is through

and that's and that's sort of now a logic that is going to be made clear to to a lot of people and you ironically it's it's Dedra who spots this is the ISB is an interesting like plot in all of this it's an interesting body and it's Dedra here

who spots that uh she gives the episode its title in her reaction to this where she notes that this response is basically exactly what the rebellion would probably want the empire to do. And she notes that they're making a mistake in treating Aldani like a robbery. And her little sycophant asks, well, what is it?

And she says, it's an announcement. Right. Right. Which is not what I expected when I saw this episode title. I fully thought it was like, oh, an announcement from the emperor, an announcement from the ISB, an announcement from the Navy or something like that. Yeah. And so she sees right through it.

I think this was the moment for me where I think I laid some questions to bed as to what the show wants us to think about Dedra's perspective on what's happening. We kind of had lots of conversations back and forth over the weeks as to whether she was right or wrong about the rebels getting stuff together, whether she was, she, you know, was ahead of the curve or imagining things. I think increasingly, especially with this episode, another scene that we'll get to momentarily, it's clear that Dedra is the person who's supposed to be, or to me it feels like Dedra is the person who is supposed to be ahead of the curve, who's supposed to have put together the pieces before anybody else,

and who is stuck inside of a stuffy bureaucracy that is preventing her from taking the action that needs to get taken to squash it. Again, we'll see how that develops. That doesn't mean she couldn't have been wrong about some things or whatever. but but i think that speech was very clarifying in terms of the pov of the story uh yeah you know let's just close the loop on the ISB stuff here because for one i think it's important

that you laryn comes in and delivers that kind of ham-fisted speech about like and we're just the beatings will continue uh until morale literally all already established sentences are going to be re uh re analyzed and people who are like about to get out are going to have their sentences expanded upon. And again, I just really want to zero in on the weasily, flexible, you know, framing of the PORD as anything that is even indirectly tied to harming the empire. That's anything. That's anything.

You're giving judges a ton of power to be exactly as, you know, as life derailing as as they want to be. We live in a world in a country where the ways in which judges apply sentences by going longer than they should. I mean, the four of us live in the United States where sentences are as long as they possibly can be in which there's often political consequences for encouraging your justice departments to pursue more, you know, reasonable sentences. And so again, like, I think emphasizing that sentences are a place where where state power can be used to not just punish wrongdoing, but provide a sort of bravado to it all is, I think, an important quality from that sequence.

And it is, it is also posturing, like you said, Rob, to some degree. It is, it is Eulerin sticking his chest out and finding new ways to beat it, right? Well, and I think the fact that it's Eularen makes it interesting in the next scene where, party as now is once again back in a briefing with the staff with yes with this this whole new order you know in the backdrop of this but he's going back to being the sort of the department chair of the ISB faculty meeting right as it were well first before that Deja crucially takes advantage of the new sort of emergency state that the empire is in, in which essentially she's able to use a workaround to avoid having to file

like an official request for the documents from, or like the information from Farix that Blevins has been so unwilling to share with Dejra. So she walks in on this very, very tired. Boy, he's just so tired at work today. He needs na-ee. He's really done so much. Yeah. He's been so busy.

Well, hang on, hang on. Imagine in a universe where technology is developed in such a way that, like, Google searches don't exist. All those have to be, like, built and designed by hand by a person, but all the information collation still exists. Yeah. So, like, imagine, like, your Google for the, for the, for the. imperial bureaucracy and you're also a dude making like

just a really minimal salary and working like eight hours a day in a closet next to a server rack. What's amazing is this dude basically has the same job that Cyril ends up with in this episode except he gets his own little office in a droid instead of a cube and an open floor plan, you know?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So she acquires, I think she asks for every piece of missing imperial like high value or high importance imperial equipment that has gone missing like across an entire, the entire Morlana system. So. Empire wide. Is it empire wide?

So she's asking for every time a decent piece of imperial kit has gone missing. Has reported missing, yeah. Yeah. She's like, I want all of it from the entire empire. Which from the clerk's reaction seems like it sucks, fulfilling this. Yeah. I honestly, it seems impossible. But so, yeah.

So she walks into this, you know, like a stand-up with Partigas and Blevins and the rest of the whole team. And Part of Gas just instantly roasting like three people off the top, just like seems like you're giving me lots of excuses for why you're fucking up so let's get a full report on why you're fucking up but on my desk by tomorrow

and then I forget what he said to the other guy of like also berating him over his perceived incompetence and then Blevins has an announcement or has something that he'd like to

you know raise to the to the group and share with the class and he basically snitches and guess what? Snitches. Stitches good stitches.

Snitches good stitches. It is astonishing Levin's lack of his inability to detect like how thin the ice is he's like to be fair like I'm starting to really get a sense of like from the beginning

I've like sort of tagged part of gas as like graduate school sadist. Guy running the most ruthless seminar on campus, like pitting his little charges against each other. And he already cut Dedra off at the knees publicly once between her and Blevyn, but then privately was like,

don't put me in this position again, do better, basically. But this time Blevine cannot see the fact that, like, Partigaz is eager. It's like Palpatine. He starts to send someone getting a little dark-sighted. Part of guys is so easy. It's so eager to have this come out in the open. Oh, you think this is an appropriate forum?

I do. It's a serious charge. I believe you'll share my sense of urgency. Supervisor Mero, do you mind having your integrity ventilated in public? No, sir. Supervisor Blevine obviously finds my conduct a more interesting subject than the advancement of integrated imperial security. He's put a lot into it.

I'm curious to hear his insights. This is Ferrigus. Is it not? Yes, sir. Your sector, there was an unusual piece of naval equipment recovered. Mero wanted your crime reports. You determined her request was out of order and in violation of the chain of command. That's not accurate.

You advised me to reinforce my suspicions with data and to be careful in my work going forward. Careful? Is that your defense? You've been careful? I'd be curious how many people at this table will think are careful that you found a way to access our sector data without ever filing a request. filing a request. Is that true? Detere?

Yes. I use the Imperial Emergency Act in the wake of Valdani to gather data across multiple sectors without official sanction, but that is the wrong question. I'd like to know if anyone here believes the rebellion plans its actions around the artificially constructed boundaries of our sectors. Major Partigas created those sectors. As organizing principles, not personal playthings, do you really think the rebels care about the lines we draw on maps?

You think the relevance of my work is been supplanted. Systems either change or die. Sir. Thesis, please. There is a focused, organized rebel effort to acquire highly restricted imperial military components. Your evidence? By accessing unfiltered sector crime reports, I can now prove a link between the theft of our most secret equipment and its distribution to rebel groups across the galaxy. This is hard, verifiable data. You are prepared to present? Yes, sir. I believe Supervisor Blevine is aware I have a documented file ready to go. I believe his accusations here this morning have more to do with self-preservation than any sense of urgency.

What's more urgent than a renegade intelligence officer? Imagine if everyone in this room played as loose with the rules as you. Excellent suggestion, Blevitt. I'm wondering where we'd be right now if everyone here. I showed the same endeavor as Supervisor Mero. I have to think about that. For the moment, I'm reassigning the Morana sector to Supervisor Mero.

Ferrix is of great interest to her and has clearly become a distraction for you. I see no urgent problem, but as always, I salute the provocative exchange of ideas. Supervisor Grandi, you will accelerate your schedule. Young, I will expect your report on Ord Mandell tomorrow. Thank you all for the lively session. Dedra, if you'd walk with me a moment.

You'd walk with me a moment. Blevine is like so pleased to present his little accusation. Another supervisor has been actually. accessing information inappropriately. And basically, yeah, as Natalie laid out, Deirdre's crime is that, and we saw this established early, all this information is like privileged to the sector commanders at ISB

by doing an empire-wide search. She's breached those boundaries. And so Blevine has got around technicality of like mishandling classified info, et cetera, and against the organizational rules. and he sets himself up perfectly by saying you know

what's more urgent than a renegade intelligence officer imagine if everyone in this room played as loose with the rules as you and Partigas just fillets him with the excellent suggestion I'm wondering where we'd be right now if everyone here showed the same endeavor

as Supervisor Mero I'll have to think about that and it was like oh my God walks right into it I mean, it's what you said, right, Rob, which is, like, this is someone who, Blevine doesn't understand that part of gas, part of gas wants to drop people. He doesn't care who he gets to drop. He wants to make an example of everybody.

And in fact, has probably been, like, itching to put Blevyn in his place to let him know that he also has a ceiling, that he can also fuck up. And I think he enjoys doing. Totally. Yeah, that's why he's given him. This is someone who thinks this is a good pedagogy. Yep. you know um and and i think that that is like it's it you you made the grad school comparison i've had this i've had this seminar you know a hundred percent i've had this person who is just

like you the person who gets it right all the time is actually slowly drawing a target on their back not only to their peers but also for the the professor so but there is there is the other thing here like if there's a a thing that ties together a lot of gilroy's work it's that Like, it's about the drama of organizations themselves, like the way organizations change people and act on people and the way people act on organizations. And I think one of the things that runs through this, and Deirdre sort of puts her finger on it, she asks, you know, I'd like to know if anyone here believes the rebellion plans its actions around the artificially constructed boundaries of our sectors. And people point out that Partigaz designed the sector system. And she says those are organizing principles, not personal plaything. which she's got them dead to write on.

We've seen evidence of how this runs. But what's really, boy, if the grad school thing wasn't clear enough, party guys gets impatient and it says, thesis, please. But the interesting, one of the things I find so interesting here is that these moments we catch of the ISB, it's like the difference between you can build an organization for like everyday like sort of the peacetime or wartime model and like part of gas is losing his shit in every scene we've seen quietly with the sense that like it keeps turning into a sclerotic bureaucracy and it can't help itself it just keeps happening and he wants it to be a dynamic

creative insightful organization but somehow it keeps turning into a place where people present their metrics and they do things to generate metrics rather than doing what DEDRA is doing, which is try to see patterns and try to see opportunities and threats. And I don't know how to be resolved, but it's, it, like, these scenes captured to me so well, the fact that, like, the ISB probably does need

to think and act and see the way, see the galaxy the way DEDRA does. But also, you can't put 30 DEDRAs in a room and expect anything good to happen. Right. And so Partigaz and the ISB have this problem, which is what you need is antithetical to what the to how the organization also needs to be set up right and also there's still i mean that that creativity has to be productive um like he

even Dejra is not rewarded for like her uh you know workarounds or whatever until party guess asks her you know do you have all of the facts to to back this up do you have the evidence do you do you have data um and at this point now she does now that she's had gotten access to everything now she can draw her her lines um and i like that's still i think you you have to be you have to have results like that that's really what part of gas wants from from everyone here is is something to show for the policies and you know, infrastructure that's being implemented across the system is like, I want to see real results, real patterns, real, like, actionable things, not just here's a crime report

for my sector, you know. I am curious, just as we tie off the ISB thing, like, Austin, you said things we're sort of clarifying for you about where these characters sit, sort of the meaning of the plots they've been. And one thing I'm finding myself wrestling with is I've been doing a very good job of like DEDRA's ambition in the service of fascism is wildly off-putting. You know, it's a character that is very unlikable in a lot of ways. And yet also in the context of these meetings, there is something like in a weird way she ends up being the protagonist of a lot of these scenes as well because like she is the you know she's the prophet right that nobody's listening to in some

way she's the person who's saying how all of this is going to be fumbled and how everyone's doing the exact wrong thing and i don't know like i'm not sure where i where i land on this like i don't Gilroy talked about this in an interview for Star Wars.com two weeks ago, 10 days ago from when we recorded this. He says, let's see, even when we know this is not a direct quote from him, this is from Star Wars.com leading into him quoting.

Even when we know the means of the empire, minions of the empire are the bad guys that we still can't help but find them a little relatable in their struggle. Quote, I can't imagine writing black and white. I mean, I've believed in every villain I've ever written, you know, you've really got to believe in him, you've got to love him, you got to know why they're doing it, you've got to feel for it, and there has to be a reason for it. You've got to get behind everybody. Star Wars.com. For Miro in particular, Gilroy was hoping to build in a sense of empathy from the audience, quote, you go quite a few episodes where this is a woman who's fighting her way up in a male environment. This is a person who's really trying. I'm on her side and she's doing the right thing and other people aren't listening. She's better at her job than everyone else. And then all of a sudden you go, oh my gosh. God, I wish she wasn't so good at her job. If you've been rooting for somebody all the time, can you stop rooting for them just because they have some occupational flaws?

I don't know. So we will see where that moment... That moment hasn't quite hit for us. Or for the... I'm not rooting for her, but I think the film is rooting for her. I think the show is rooting for her. And I don't think that turn has hit the show yet. The show has not hit.

Ooh, I wish she wouldn't... You know, I'm not rooting against her like I'm rooting against the cops in a heist movie yet, you know? Yeah. The camera isn't rooting against her in that way. I feel like we're rooting for her, but with the very, like, with the contentious effect of, of the consequences of her findings and her actions. Like, I think we will, we will continue to feel like the empire's presence across the galaxy throughout these next few episodes. And I suspect a lot of that is going to feel much more directly linked to Deirdre in a way that, I don't know, I think when she's positioned sort of against someone we really do love like Cassian or, you know, someone like that, then she'll really make a turn for us. or I think the show will

be more motivated to sort of like cast her in a more villainous perspective right she needs to have power for us to be afraid of her using power right not that she doesn't have any power I think right now we're like rooting for her

to get that kind of power in a way and then like once it hits we're going like we will rue we will regret like having become so fond of her I also think her line of systems

either change or die is like just like owning your boss is incredible incredible play I wish I knew where she got that from or what she went through that made her believe that I want to know what her background is sorry Al you also had something

yeah actually I agree with you there though because definitely her being the only character who's able to say the word rebels really made me think of what her beat cop experience was and like has she touched ideology in this way and then ended up going to ISB? The thing that I was going to say is the like

the show seems so outside of like Disney's influence and we've talked about that in the way that like there hasn't been the like merchification or the funny little guy or the mascots or whatever. But like every time I see Dieter on screen And she just seems like the foothold for the people who, like, shop at the Imperial Shop at the Star Wars Zone. Like, they want to sell her coat so bad.

Oh, yeah. You're right. 100%. I love how committed the show is to showing us people getting dressed and getting ready. Like, every time we have a little sequence of, like, a belt buckle or, like, the, you know, preening of one's feathers, it's just delicious, delicious food. Yeah, you can, I think the show is definitely is going in on, like, um, costume aesthetics, like really, really hard between, um, like, Vell and, and, um, and, what's her name? The assistant that works with Luthen. Clea.

Clea. Yeah, Vell and Clea's outfits, Mon Mothma's, like, dinner, dinner party dress was in just, just so good. The fashion is really... The boot, the butt window on that one, by the way, when she gets up, because the sleeper hit part of that dress, yeah. So she has the sash that goes all the way down,

and it goes all the way, like, under her butt and up around. It's like this perfect. Yes. Oh, okay. I thought, I thought, like, you got more of a window than... Oh, yeah, not the, like, JRP. Yeah.

You're talking about, like, more of a, almost like, a toga rap thing. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, that's good. Great dress. But window would be a hell of an adjustment to how the character is like, yeah. You know, it's sort of symbolizes her secret rebellion. Yeah, exactly. But, so, what's the, what's the law?

My politics might be more. Might be. A little extreme for you. A little extreme for you, yeah. Stads up and leaves. So, you know, I think the, The other thing is, you know, obviously when this scene, when this moment hits, when, you know, when we hear, when we hear DADRA sort of saying that this is exactly, this is what they want, this was they've been counting on, that's sort of, it's interesting, we learn immediately that is how Luthin conceives of this, but Mavah swings by the shop. And I was fully set up for, all right, it's time for a, hey, well done, we did the thing.

time for the for the next stage and instead it turns out that what i thought was a partnership is like way more of a financing financing an outside operation and just seeing what they'll get up to she's given seed money to luthin to see what turns up and what's turned up is a bloody rebellion um and so like she swings by the shop and we get them having established these characters in front of her driver who is like an imperial snoop they're able now to carry on this conversation with all smiles and you know gestures of sycifancy and perusing perusing the where's the shop and carry out a pretty tense argument about how far out of pocket when madma thinks luthan has gotten with launching this operation before before things were ready and maybe jeopardizing

the partnership she's teased. But Luthan's counterargument, and I think in the show's perspective, they're both probably right here. They're both very competent at very different sorts of organization building. But Luton's point is, once you build the network, it has to be used.

Networks have to operate, or they wither and die. Holding some sort of ancient sword, has anyone ever built a weapon that wasn't used, he says. Yeah. Yeah, which also kind of calls out, yeah. Yeah, to her argument is like, I thought we were building a network.

Like, I thought it seems like very much she was sold in this sort of like, we're going to, you know, spread the idea of, you know, not having to be in the republic, or, you know, not having to be a part of the empire anymore down with the empire. and Luthan is very much like I told you when you handed over the money that there would be no turning back you asked for a rebellion that is what I'm going to deliver on

and like no questions asked from here on out there are no rules get me more money like ASAP and I think it's just Mon Mothma is like she the look she she she's experiencing this like horrific like disbelief that maybe it's that she's like connected that this is a direct result of like an action of hers of giving money to Luthyn but at the same time like she knew this was she did she had to have known

this was going to be the game all along like people Luton says to her or she says people will suffer and luthan is like i i know and they should the empire will tighten its fist um people will will feel the struggle and um you know uh and i think this ties in really beautifully to marva's um scene with cassian later in the episode uh people will resist people will will as as as as it tightens people will want to escape it that much more but she's just I don't know she's I think maybe this is giving her the freedom to like be brave in the dinner in the dinner party scene also is the dinner party seen no I don't know I think she just does a bunch of dinner parties right the people who were supposed to be at the dinner party or we're not at that dinner party so I'm 90% sure that happened off screen also the dinner party was like tomorrow night and then that was like six tomorrow nights ago, you know? Right, right, right.

It was a while ago. I think I want to, I want to, to your question of like, does she become braver from this, et cetera? I think in Luthan's mind, she always knew where this was going. He says as much, we went to where we are eventually going to go. She might not have been ready to go there quite yet, right? But she is not, not committed to it. She is, she is surrounded by, as her friend will tell her in her dinner scene,

In the dinner scene, she is surrounded by imperial rhetoric, imperial language, imperial culture, and it shapes the limits of what you think is good and bad, even if you are committed ideologically to something else. It can't not change you. To that point, think about what a big deal the Aldani shipment being stolen is. 80 million credits. That's a lot of credits, but it's not 80 billion credits. How many people died?

8, 10, something like that? Mon Mothema has been her like her like pet issue during this first half of this season has been reparations for the Gorman massacre an incident where the empire slaughtered this is this is the canon on this still canon current canon slaughtered peaceful protesters right you know those numbers are more than 10 you know it's not three people it's a massacre I mean maybe it's 10 people maybe it's 20 people the empire kills hundreds or thousands of people every week every day. I don't know what the galaxy is big and the empire is vast. But those numbers are abstracted. That's the Gorman massacre, right? It's not seven Aldani, you know, imperials killed. There's no particular number given to it. There's a lot of work that goes on in obfuscating the death of empire in such a way, the death caused by empire in such a way that even someone opposed to it, but someone embedded in it like von Mothma has a sort of emotional back of the neck hair standing up

reaction, you've gone too far this time. You've killed seven people and stolen money. And it's, I think that it's Luthin's attempt to bring her back to like, we had this talk, you were on board, you know where this goes.

And I hope deep in her heart based on the next scene with her, she does know where it goes and is going to follow through on this. Just that she doesn't necessarily like the taste of it. yeah I especially bringing up the massacre there because like what it seems like is a different a difference of perspective right like her fear is you've set in motion this thing that is going to hurt so many people and she's aware of that because she looks at like world issues and sees the way that like the ISB is going to respond the way that like you know she's going to get a thing on her desk about how those um like you know uh a and stuff have gone up and she sees those sort of numbers of like how many people like across

the galaxy are going to get hurt over this where Lutheran has to be the guy who's like in touch with people who are upset and doing the like I have to find people who are angry enough to build an army out of this and that's what he wants to do he wants to make people upset by what the empire is going to do and show them what they do loudly because what they're doing quietly isn't being noticed by most people I do feel like in a way like the ramification I mean just on

Aldani the effect of like the heist or whatever also led to something like what 1,200 Aldani being arrested for like supposed you know being under under a suspicion of

having helped the heist as well I forget what the other ones were but they're like all listed out So it's, like, the Aldonis who truly had jack shit to do with the heist are now, like, essentially, you know, 1,200 of their, of their people are, are being wrongfully held. So I think, like, it's that, that scares Mon Mothma. It's, like, not, like, the localized event, but it's the reaction to it.

the um and i think becoming comfortable when she says later like i've learned from palpatine i think there's a definite shift between mon mothma and the scene and the mon mothma we see at the dinner party where she's ready she's desperate to own to own this she just needs that push um and and i think she finds that in her old friend from where is it sarah chendrla yeah it's a friend from home but here's the thing i don't think i don't think anything changes really because that's seen very much like this is like so my reading on this is is i think monmouthma in some ways even even though she's like willing to cross the line and to outright like rebellion and she's been helping to finance Luton's activities. I feel like one thing that comes through there is

on some fundamental level, as part of his, we're not ready to do this, you know, this sort of uncorks whatever Palpatine had in store for threats to his power. I feel like to a degree what Lutthin has identified is that Mnmathma would build a rebellion the way you build a legislative coalition, right? A slow process of like broadening out alliances, expanding the block you control, and then moving when the pieces are in place. And to be fair, like, so she's thinking galaxy wide in that sense

of what would a massive rebellion look like with the sort of the resources that are required. And what Luton knows in a really fundamental sense that when Mavah Kant is the sorts of people, who are hiding out in a fake, you know, Shepherds farm on Aldani cannot wait there forever. Like people, like, need to be given the go ahead. You know, you, this energy, this anger doesn't linger forever.

These operations can't be kept safe forever. And also, there is a point where the perverts, the enemy of the good, and you just have to, you've got to go when the moment has arrived. And he thinks the moment has arrived, at least in the case of Aldani, And I think, you know, the scene kind of ends on on a breach between them. You know, she, you know, as she sort of, as they both resume their character, which again, I love how much the show emphasizes the switches between public performance and the projection of character versus like the intimacy of like honest conversation. you know, when she ends the conversation, she basically tells Luthan that she doesn't, you know,

I'm not taking this piece. Yeah, no, she says, in fact, she says, I'm afraid I won't be taking either of these pieces this morning, meaning the sword that she's shown, nor presumably whatever the other option is, right, which I guess she brought in the piece. Oh, the thing that's actually in the frame when she's saying this or right around it is Plowcun's,

mask by the way or it's no way it's a mask from um another member of plocoon species um uh yeah that's fucked up i only just now realize this that's so bad man day polone's gotta be hawking his shit now it's rough oh it's brutal um the the the to me the thing that's being said there is like i'm not going to take the she she isn't she's on the fence right she's not going to take the sword she's not going to bring back i'm not getting rushed by you right but also i think that it's representing that she is not, she's not getting rushed, but she's also, my read on her, I'm not taking either of these, is she isn't sure which thing to do, and so she's going to hit the brakes, right? Or she's going to, I think that she is not yet

committed to, like, violent action that she wants to be directly involved in, nor is she committed, nor does she not understand that the method that she was using before, or her public presence, her, like, senatorial irritations, as they get called momentarily, effective either. I don't think she sees the right gift. I don't think she sees what the right method is in her mind yet. And I think she needs time to realize what that is. Again, maybe to some degree this conversation she's about to have will help show what that is. But I will say, I think, so I think where this, where there is some direct connection is, I don't think she realizes how badly she's perceived until she was going to have this conversation with her old friend,

take home uh regardless this was the meeting that she i think she's been she's been floating somebody can be an ally and uh somebody can help deal with the financial crisis that the that the nascent rebellion is experiencing but yeah so they're having a dinner party and it is being used as a cover to allow her to allow her to have a frank conversation with take homea someone she introduces as one of her oldest friends whether this is an ex or just an old ally from chandrala or uh part of extended family not entirely like middle school together they're like old old old friends from private school yeah um but so there is a moment where um she begins to float hey i want to ask you if ever want to like have a pretty frank conversation with you and maybe maybe ask for some help on

some stuff and he waves her off as you know as as as best he can without like he basically he thinks he's about to hear something centrist something like I want you to buy into some project that's like pro-senate effectively and he waves her off and is like is this personal or political political

then I'd suggest you hesitate why like I said we've both changed I've done more than grow weary of the empire I'm afraid you'd find my politics a bit strong for your taste Your world is an escapably linked to the empire.

You're with these people all the time. I'm not sure you're aware how far afield some of us have taken our political allegiances these days. Sorry, I think I've had a bit too much of Perrin's embassy punch. Mm-hmm. Drink up. Drink up today and keep smiling. As if we're having a happy chat about child for days.

for days. I'm not sure I understand. No. You don't? Do you see what people say about me? It's a clear picture, isn't it? I'm a polite, sometimes, indecisive senator who spends it is fighting and failing to protect separatists do good as battle empire overreach.

And irritation, as he so harshly put it. I've made you angry. No, no. I've been wondering all day how I could be sure of confiding in you. I don't know what we're talking about. It's a lie. The Mon Mothma people think they know. It's a lie. It's a projection. It's a front.

Smile. I've learnt from Palpatine. I show you the stone in my hand. You missed the knife at your throat. Where's this going, Ma? Grand Vizier has infiltrated my separatist coalition meetings. My driver is an ISB plant and reports on my secret humanitarian programs. I know they watch me, and I want that.

Because as long as everyone thinks I'm in irritation, there's a good chance they'll miss what I'm really doing. really doing. What are you really doing? Raising money. I need to access my family accounts. Until recently, I was able to dip in and out of my family fortune without concern. That's changed. I need help. Raising money for what? I'm forming a chandelion charitable outreach program. I'll ask you to be chairman. We will involve visits here to Coruscant. It will appear to be another of me. my benevolent and useless irritations.

I've explored the alternatives. You're my best shot. You've never answered my question. And I won't. You're better off not knowing. Or perhaps you find my politics a bit strong for your taste. This was such a tense, tense moment because I really had no idea if he was going to say you should hesitate because Palpatine's my homeboy. or you should hesitate because, yeah, because I heart saw Guerrera.

Yes. And when he continues to basically say that, like, you're surrounded by all these people. You don't understand how far some afield some of us have taken our political allegiances these days. Stuff is happening, basically, which the irony is extremely funny. And also, how can we trust someone who's thriving so materially under this regime? Right. The whole conversation opens with him saying, I don't know how you live like this. Like, I don't know how you do.

Like, you live like, like, like, I don't know how you, how you do it here on Coruscant. Like, it's, it seems like it sucks. It's gross and terrible. And you're surrounded, like, by opulence and, and. And you know where that opulence comes from. Yeah. Oh, you're mad about the Gorman Massacre?

The Gorman Massacre paid for these plates. Yeah. But I think through this through the conversation perhaps Mon Mothma is having like this like you know galaxy brain moment where she's like this is my closest friend who's probably like closest friend who's probably only entertaining this conversation with me not based off our relationship as senators but as as friends like the only reason why I think a senator would feel open enough to. admit that they're anti empire which it like truly seems he he later says you know I think I've had a little bit too much to drink but that's like in a time where you know they're calling for a national uh you know uh increase in security and surveillance and stuff like that and a senator is like at a party with other senators being like yeah I don't really fuck with the empire like that like I'm not really it takes one person to overhear that and that

dude is like toast he's done but it's a curious thing because is it does he feel a certain sense of immunity um being in the space amongst this class of people um or is it you know can we imagine that they're having you know a more private quiet conversation amongst us like it's loud party and that they're probably not me it is I think there's cover here that he can like it seems to me like it seems to me like maybe he's had this moment more than once in a smaller way and that his he's a banker right it comes out that he's a banker and i imagine that being a banker means being in parties like this a lot even if they're the chandrilla version of these parties and not the croissant version of these

parties um where else do you in a real way you have to have this conversation in a semi public place because if she just went and met with this dude it might draw more attention to her accounts it might make it clearer that some other shit might be actually going on Right, this is actually the perfect cover Because as she is telling him Like, yeah, my driver's a plant Everyone here is essentially

Observing us surveilling each other So in a way, in plain sight is the perfect Is the perfect cover I mean, parent is certainly not taking his fucking eyes off them As he's just like, just being so gross Like you can just tell he's being so slimy and annoying. Just the worst.

I love that she's like, don't trust parent. Parents like untrust, like fuck parent basically. I'm like, yeah, you hate your husband. Yes. The thing that she ends up unfolding is her identity. Not necessarily, like directly in relation to Lutheran or anything like that. But that the centrist senator bit is a bit, that it's an act, that it's a performance that she puts on.

Again, performance center stage for us in. door. She says she's raising money. She won't say what for. She explains that all of her little irritations, all of the little fundraiser she does, all the little charity acts that she does, all the little committee she starts. All of that is to draw attention to her as an ineffective, you know, liberal centrist senator. Galaxy brain shit. Right. And in the process, it means that there's a perfectly good reason for the two of them to be talking. She's here petitioning him for some new initiative she wants to she wants his help on which is true but everyone will think it's initiative type i'm starting a new committee to look into making sure that kids have laptops and not

i'm starting a committee to blow up the imperial power station you know um it's it's unimaginable for it to be the latter you know uh this is the like can you imagine pete buddhajudge trying to give leftist's rocket launchers. No, you can't, right? But here she is doing it, you know? And so... And it's kind of an astonishing thing that when she tells her friend, oh no, you can trust me, I'm actually more radical than you, and I've been working with the people blowing up Imperial like substations and shit, that he's like, he believes her, which says a lot about their relationship, that he is willing to be like,

if you are telling me that this entire thing you are doing is just a prestige-like projection of like your entire life is dedicated to the role I will go with that. It feels almost like it clicks things into place for him. He's like,

you're not, you didn't change in all the terrible ways I thought you did. And maybe you didn't change it all. You just followed the destiny of your character. Right, exactly, exactly. I mean, who knows, I mean, we know her as, from Clone Wars,

as someone who's been in the Padmay crew, for a long time but like and the Padme crew is an effective centrist senators right right

but you know at that point maybe that seemed like a more reasonable thing when the thing is the republic and you can't quite

the whole point of the prequels and the clone wars is you don't see the people of the world didn't see their slip towards fascism oh no

Padmay was the brutus of the of the Senate where you got bail or Ghana and Mamma being like we should fuck we should fucking go

we should kill him. It's like, no, let's pass a bill. I was starting to hand a kid last night, and he said. Things are going to get better soon, actually. So quick, shitty marriage check-in. Two things. One, again, the parent move of making Madmah be the bad guy in every parental conversation.

Lita just wanted to piece out from the party, and he's like, go ask your mom if it's okay. Also, is he chatting up a woman at the party, a different woman at the party every single. time we check in on him and that's why he's not solid. I think so. Yep. Yeah. He's making his rounds. Uh-huh. I want Mon Mothma

to cheat on her husband. Absolutely. We'll say it. With Tay? With anybody. No, with Tay for sure. Like, I want them to have a secret rendezvous where they discuss funds and banking

and then they kiss in a passionate fever. Oh, yeah. Sure. Yeah, I mean, like, we got that whole situation is ripe for a bonus rubber. For sure. So, sorry, Allie, do you have anything on that scene?

I, okay, if you're going back and watching this, I need everybody in the audience to, like, look at her face when he's saying, I've done more than grow weary of the empire. I think you, you know, my ideals are too extreme for you because it's so good. and the other thing that that made me think from what we've been talking about too is like I wonder how much ahead of the game she is on him especially him being like well I'm

secretly anti empire like I feel like because she makes note of like how how she's looked into other options like did she know before entering into this conversation like oh I can talk to this guy because I know his reputation right that'd be interesting. It'd be interesting if she like, besides having the personal relationship also knew that he was already leaning this way, maybe even spent money this way, maybe even backed some local causes, blah, blah, blah. I could imagine it's hard to know what her network, what her info network is. You know, Luton seems to know a lot, but I don't know how much she knows, you know, but also Chandrilla, maybe she was able to check in on that stuff through other sources.

That's kind of the thing is it feels like one part of the texture of this is like there's the galactic and there's the local and in a weird way like like it's very clear like madama is thinking like big picture but also right now where she can operate is her own backyard that's the place where she can operate safely so like the first treasure of the rebellion is going to be a chandreland financier also somebody I'm pretty confident will be executed before this series it's over you can only hide this kind of money so

long. Uh-huh. I'm sorry. I don't know this man. He is dead by the time the movie start. Last thing on this important scene, there are aliens at this party. They're cool.

I wrote that down. The Thorian with the cool, like, formal scarf. Yeah, there's all sorts of shit popping off in here. Also, just great fashion. Do you have the entire sequence. Great haircuts. And hey, there's great fashion going on as Clea has a rendezvous with Val in the deep in the deep in the,

deep in the city of Corrassant. She's got her cool evil red riding hood outfit and Val is doing commando dress up day really like it's a really good version of she's dressed

to the nines and looks deeply uncomfortable in this presentation but I almost didn't recognize her at first. I did not recognize her at first. Her hair is just so different, you know? yeah she's glammed up she's glammed out yeah

but yeah oh no I was just gonna you spend months sleeping on a rock the first thing you do at course is get that like head massage at the salon

it's self-care day you go yeah you're going to the salon get the nails done get the toes done except I think she's sitting there being like I miss my rock and my and my can't yeah she misses Sinta

She misses Sinta. Okay, so real quick. So we do keep getting, like, nothing happens here, but we keep seeing little shots of Sinta, like sort of escaping on... Traveling. Aldani, traveling on a little, like, rugged industrial speeder.

It's so sick. We see the Star Destroyer breaking through the clouds and flying overhead. This is a trailer shot. I'm God we got this. But there's one of a thing... Star Destroyers, by the way, terrifying.

It's so low to the ground. It's so big, yeah. But this is not in the text of the episode. but I'm curious if you all noted it. You all notice how many times we saw Terriman specifically being shot in the recap of the previous episode, how prominently he was centered in the recap. How I did we pick up on that?

So they briefly dispensed with Nemek and Skeen, but they show every single moment leading up to Terriman being shot, we presumed dead and left behind. You thinking he, in fact, has lived and will get, I think he's getting interrogated Like this is like I They show him so much That's interesting

And since he's still on planet at all right And no that's the thing I was like maybe I'm just misreading this Because like there was no check in Like there's no follow up on that I did notice I spent a whole episode Saying tamarin instead of tamerman And I was like

Oh shit Blevine Blevins Tamarin like this is all going to trip us up Dedra Dairdra Maze window Mace window Yeah it's all the same It's just how this works. But I do have this feeling that the Sinta thing might end up tying to, oh, shit, we left a loose end.

It would be brutal if Sinta ends up, if Tarrman or Sinta end up being a loose ends and and or doesn't, given what Vela is about to be told to do. Right. So, first, there's a lot of, like, recrimination in the wake of what appear to be a pretty successful robbery. Clayah points out that you know Austin you you raised this last week if Luthan had had a bad feeling

about if anyone knows that Andor was getting paid will that change things and it seems like Skeen was the one he was thinking of because she said he never truly trusted Skeen but Val is pretty is pretty gutted by the fact her team was largely

annihilated over the course of this mission but Clea is handing out a mission which is that, yeah, and or is a loose end and you need to find him and kill him. And I'm really curious. Is this Luthens orders? Or is Clea just acting in what she sees

as his best interest? Clea definitely has a bunch bigger role than we've known her to have until this point. I mean, the way in which Clea and Vell, like the way this conversation plays out Clay is clearly in a position of authority here she you know Val says at one point

she's talking about the losses of the mission she says every mission's different or every loss is different and Clay is like every loss is the same like I recruited Terraman myself scorn and corn and gorn

it's not corn that was pretty easy that's just one letter Gorn Gorn Gorn and Nemick You know

They'll be They'll be remembered Um But God The makes you to look at that line Like they'll be remembered On a memorial wall somewhere I don't care

Yeah like Moving on Like next Like she truly has like Focus here Like I got a text While we were recording this

For my friend Ariane Who said Wait Is Claya actually in charge Of Luthan I think so This was one The first moment is losing the face.

I know. You raised this before. None of their conversations actually clearly establish a hierarchy. The only thing that implies she's not in charge is that she's the servant girl in the shop. But when you play it back. But what great cover that is. And when he's like, do you have your bug out bag basically ready and packed? That is also a thing you ask of the person whose escape is more important than your own.

I just think the way that she has like scolded him and tried to like, it's hard to know. Is she the assistant that if she wasn't there, the whole thing would fall apart? Right. She's doing the hard work of making things go and going to. Maybe she's done this outside of his permission because she knows it needs to get done and doesn't believe that he will do it. Or is she actually the one who's in control or is an equal partnership and not a, there is a flat hierarchy at that level. I don't know how to read it at this point. I think she does a lot of groundwork alongside Lutha.

I mean, doing her own recruits, you have to imagine that she's probably, you know, the resource gatherer for a lot of this. And, and Terriman is, uh, Tererman, uh, uh, Luthin is, is prime to be the financier. Like, maybe Luthin came in as a financier. I don't know. Like, Lutthin's whole backstory, I'm still have a million questions about. Oh, no, she was, he was apprentice, uh, and no. Right.

course um i also feel i also feel a southern draw yeah and also you have step four arms yeah right trust us bro trust us um i also feel like uh claya and vell extremely have exes energy like the way that bell uh the way that claya like instantly reprimand uh bell for asking about cinta she's like cinta's doing what she's told aren't you doing what you're told like do what you're told it's just like like it's a little heated little intense here's the thing that makes me nervous

though about well I mean first of all we're not rooting for Andor to get God as part of like we know he won't but like the thing about this is if this is being done behind Luthan's back and he did to a degree maybe paint a target Andor's back when he said I wasn't careful yeah

and he basically admitting he slipped and revealed a lot but also at the same time it is so clear that like that that swag that that swag that that makes everyone forge an intimate bond with him

so quickly like for Nemek it was like here's someone who can get it here's someone who yeah here's someone who can come to an understanding of the ideological struggle

that we are in and I think Luthan you know in that in that recruitment scene he sees someone who like this is someone who has the same like burning anger and tradecraft that I do this is someone who can do what I do and like be that kind of like asset in the field and I do feel like I feel like if it like my suspicion here is Clay is giving an order behind his back to have this guy killed and I also suspect this is not an order that he would have been happy

with um that like perhaps and or someone you bring in like to be and or is not the guy you kill and or it's the guy you buy right right i i wonder though because i on the scene it felt like especially the the the way that luther spoke to vow the last time we saw them it like it makes sense to me that he would be cagey in this way that he wouldn't think the both of them wouldn't think of hers in her circle like obviously she's she's important to them and she she did this huge thing but like luther at the end of the day needs the money that's what they call it money and like you know he said the things that he needed to do to and or to get him on board but i i believe that there's a part of him that's like okay and also luthens are are bad thing like

and or didn't get bought in he's already gone because he's already gone and he's already gone and because he's already gone, he's got to get gone. If he'd come back, maybe he's not in the crosshairs, right? If he'd come back home with Val and been like, you know what? Yeah, I think it's a join or die sort of situation. I think that's what likely happens with, with Andor. I mean, he, Vell is right now probably his only escape route out of the fucked up shit he's got going coming from.

This is the irony we're going to get to in the end. But I do think There is an element of He gave very clear instructions I'm going to forget your friend You should forget me And this is like remember in Fargo season one Where they all like where

You know the The little Okay what's the actor's name We played Bilba In the Hobbit Martin Martin Freeman Martin Freeman yeah

Remember when Martin Freeman's character, like, long after the action of the early part of the show, reconnects with Billy Bob Thornton, and, like, commits the crime of not having forgotten him, and that is the transgression that, like, all hell breaks loose. I feel like

it might work out that, like, this ends up being the thing that is the rope ladder to save Andor, but at the same time, like, this is also a huge breach of trust, right? Like, we all understood we go our separate ways, and forget each other. And now, they're taking out an assassination order against him.

I am curious how that ends up playing when he gets wind of that. But I do, I do think Natalie's right about how that is going to end up working out ironically. Maybe he sneaks his book into jail and he reads the book in jail. That's also, yeah, we're going to get there. Oh, we have a full episode. It's the first half of Malcolm X. Yeah, it's like it's Malcolm X. It's going to be a art mark, an African mammal.

Yeah, uh-huh. But that was the other thing that I was thinking of, because, like, if he's going to jail and they search him and that book is on him, like, isn't he going to be, like, put onto the wall? Like, how is that? Oh, he's going to get got if they find a book. Well, it wasn't finished, and it's speaking mostly in metaphor, and the cops are dumb as hell. Right. Obviously, what's going to happen is that we're going to get Endor translating it into code the way the Gramshy's notebooks were written in code in the Italian fashion. prison and then that will be disseminated and we'll have a whole new ideology obviously

duh it's not going to happen but he's going to read those books in jail but while he's in jail he's he's going to do some edits and be like okay so the the compass metaphor is not doing okay what about the force you guys like the force you know the force who here who here out here believes in a universal force that connects all beings who yeah so that's what we're fighting for gang it's worth saying that book doesn't show up at all in this in this episode right it doesn't we don't see him hold it we don't see him clasp it close to his heart are we a hundred percent sure it wasn't in his little in the in the in the in the in the in the in the fuck room it could be in the it could i was definitely in the fuck room no the fuck room was the adjoining room he was in the

fresher station right yes it might be in the money box that money box in Miami we're gonna we'll get to get to Miami so that's what we'll just get to and Doris Hall Okay, so first of all, I have a very, like, this is revealed to me at a very particular medical condition, which is that it burst in tears every time B2 Emo shows up. Oh, yeah. Like, every time that little dog droid shows up and he's old and confused and, like, just wants everyone to be a family, I'm like, well, I'm done, but we get, we get Andor, uh, he goes home, and it feels like, a thing I love here is it's so easy to forget how young he is

in a lot of ways at this point in the story and like he goes home because he's got his money and he wants to take his mom and buy her house and like for them to be a family like safe and far away from all this you don't got to work no more you know and it just

Barbara doesn't want to leave leave her home it's her home It's so clear, literally immediately in this scene. It's so hard. She doesn't want him to be back. No. Well, she doesn't want him to be back because she loves him and knows that if a single

Stormtrooper sees him, he's gone. Which, by the way, Stormtrooper's here now. Stormtroopers here now. It's not the first time. You know, she breaks the news to him that he was sold out. He never understood the Tim was the one who did it. And I love the way it's just like, he goes to this, he has this whole moment of like, oh my God, Tim did this to me and immediately it's like it's all relevant now who cares he's dead um he was

he was trying to get to bix uh because bix didn't know and she was trying to warn you and just the whole like it's what's what's great here is this this whole sequence where he's returned back all this is so small now we have this three episodes where he is like staying one step ahead of all these debts and all these relationships that are burning down around him and now none of it matters. And it feels like when you go home to your small town, where, you know, where, you know, these things used to be huge and they used to be your whole world and now they don't amount to watch.

No one remembers that shit anymore. Yeah. That shit's all yesterday's news. No one cares. You've been building this up in your own mind for so long. Everyone else has other shit going on. And they might have an opinion about you, which apparently no one. Everyone is mad at him because it was him who brought the Imperials here to begin with, you know?

Basso pointedly. not volunteering that actually he's the one who explored their space shuttle. But the other part of this is this whole sequence also reminded me so strongly of the Springsteen song Meeting Across the River where it's, you know, the entire narration is about

like a small time criminal believing the magical power of like money to fix everything that's gone wrong to make good on everything. And so he has a meeting with Marva and she puts him off and he realizes you know of course not ready to go and then he goes to see Bix

who is shattered from where we from where we last saw her and of course it's confirmed they were sweethearts as kids like it seems like if they weren't each other's like first loves

is very close that you know he like you know he's going over the same wall he used to scale when they were teenagers and her dad used to like try to chase them off but they have a secret knock which is shaving a haircut

two bits the like the like yeah exactly and it's like does that exist in Star Wars does now is that where that's from originally

long time ago party galaxy far far away God it's on there now it has to be right yeah but he wants like

fuck it is shaving a haircut was a short rhythmic figure in 4 BBY Lando Calrizian tapped the beginning of shaving a haircut onto the deck plating covering

of the hidden floor compartments in the Millennium Falcon which the Imperial Narcotics Officer Waywa PhiBot was therapeutiously occupying at the time PhiBot recognizes the pattern responded by tapping its final two beats thus confirming he was inside the compartment

this was before this this is originally this is a legends only article from the book Lando Calrizian and the Flame Wind of Ocean a novel by L. Neal Smith so this is the second time The knock was in the novel?

Yeah, does that mean that they had to, like, write David haircut in prose? I really want to know how it was what it was actually what the deal was. There's no talk page on this. Very weird. Very weird. Anyway. That's a lot of title.

So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, the conversation with Bix definitely feels just a rehash. of old, you know, old resentments, Cassian's old patterns. And, you know, Cassian is not the savior of Bix's story. Cassian doesn't come back and things get better. Cassian has, like, lied and cheated and, you know, scammed a lot of people. And so it's kind of hard because I think when Bixie, and Marva talking about how people blame him.

It's clear that Cassian also had like beefs with a lot of people and maybe that was just further fuel for their sort of resentments against him and ability to project sort of all of the imperial occupation now on Farrix onto him. It's sad, it's bittersweet. I mean, it's, I think what he's really doing is saying goodbye to a life

he can never live again. Like he will never be jumping over the ladder and like hanging out in the scrap yard with Vicks ever again. And this is a closed door. It had previously been tilted shut and now it is slammed.

And I think I often have moments where I think about like how good Diego Luna is in this role. It always has been. But like he does something that there's he can channel a almost wounded like child like innocence or hurt and pain into his scenes well also like not casting it out that he's also an incredibly hard man when the situation calls for it and that he is capable out of necessity to do like do the kind of violence we saw

with skein right like where he will kill someone off hesitation and also he wants to take care of his mom and be told everything's going to be okay and the way things that seen as with bix were like yeah it's the realization that not only is the door closed but he kind of wants absolution right he kind of like do you see i'm not who you think i am that like i'm not the deadbeat i didn't do all this like i'm i promised i would fix everything and here i am fixing things and all he can do at the end is here's all the money i owe people and take care of it for me but like that's all he can do to try to prove that her picture of him

is not accurate and I'll add an element of this too is like yeah he can be the wounded puppy the wounded child but he can also be the fact that he thinks he could come back and buy everybody back the fact that he says there's a bit where he goes your boyfriend Tim tried to sell me out

and I'm the villain he's a little prick like he's a little bit of a brat he's a little bit of a jerk about this and he's very you know her boyfriend did sell him out Tim fucking sucks we are not no Tim appreciation club here we are all fucked him but throw it in his face but throwing it in Bix's face Bix lost someone that she was living with her boyfriend who she loved and is guilty about what he did is a hundred percent feels guilty that he sold out Cassian exactly so I think that there is that that desire for absolution like I have been that person I have been

the person who was like, I can just make it all right. Let me just send an email. Let me just get everybody in a room. Let me just try to like, I'm going to talk it out. I'm going to get this all fixed out. And that is like deeply, it took a long time for me to understand how self-righteous and self-centered and narcissistic that behavior is where it's like, dude, the best thing you can do for the people in Farrix is not be on Farrix.

You want to send some money home? Awesome. Go for it. But and like if that's going to make your conscience feel better, cool. But you're not, these people don't. you shit. Bix doesn't owe you anything. You know, the situation with your mom is a lot more complicated for lots of reasons. But Bix doesn't owe you anything and sometimes it seems like you think she does. And I think that this is like accredited to Diego Luna's acting that he can

pull that all of that out because he's also, Tim fucking sucks. The situation is not his fault. The empire fucking sucks, right? Like he's been walking around with the death of his father on his head on his head for his whole life. And, and, and he's adopted, father who kidnapped him from his own planet and his actual family. So, like, there was a lot going on there. And Luna does a really great job of, like, bringing that forward. You know, we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't linger on a lot of the acting in this show. And it's all great. It's all, it's all been so good. And, and I think that, like, the fact that Luna has continued to steal the show in these episodes is, is incredible because of how good some of the other actors are, you know?

Mm-hmm. I think, yeah. also like a shadow goes to the editing because this is not carried through performance when he is making his way back through like the the pre-dawn hours and we get a sequence that like shows that the ways in which the streets are haunted for him like literally the town where they live is the place where Clem has his adoptive father was killed and we get those like he sees stormtroopers approaching and he hears their footfalls and we get the cut to their footfalls as they marched past like the day the empire declared martial law in the early days establishing the empire and we see how Columbus

just caught up in you know he tries to stop guys from starting a riot and he's out there when they're throwing shit at the imperial soldiers and they just round him up and later we get a brief cut to

when Marva is explaining to him the ways that she's had the seething anger over all this and we get a brief cut of like well so did he but he masked it like do people not realize like why he got arrested you know we see that moment of you know him walking past Clem's dangling feet where he's left to rot on you know post and grabbing a cudgel basically and just trying to rush the imperial guards

like at a checkpoint in the street and like all of this is, but they're quick cuts, they're just brief glimpses of these moments, but I love the effect it has of deepening the character and also, I think translating how like your

inner monologue or your mind's eye does work in a lot of cases of like you're in one place, but actually you're not. You know, like, in some places of like powerful memory or trauma or whatever, like you kind of end up infinitely divided.

in sort of recursion of, like, memory and feeling and sensation. And, like, they get that in these moments. Another thing that I, that I, it's small, but, like, I was brought back to Taraman, I believe, asking if he knew how to march, if he knew what Imperial marching was like because of the way the march is deployed here. And obviously, it's a different thing. Like, the skill of doing it is different. But he has the rhythm implanted in his mind, right?

The rhythm of the march is what pulls him back to this memory. It dominates the memory. You know, seeing Clem go out there to stop the people from throwing rocks and telling them. I don't know. Clem is respectability politics, you know, a guy, I guess. But, like, it's like, hey, guys, this isn't going to, this is going to make things worse. Or he just knows they will shoot people in the street. He knows.

No, I know he knows this. Yeah, I know. But, like, you got, you're going to be the guy who goes out there and tries to stop them. It doesn't matter. They're going to shoot you too. They're going to hang you by your neck. Being the respectability politics guy is not going to save you. That is not, you know, in his hope it's going to save these kids, but it is not going, we are learning that is not going to stop the Imperials from hanging you from your neck.

But hearing them stop, hearing them about face, hearing them turn, he is intimately familiar with the way in which the sound of marching boots is the sound of the empire moving into people's lives and crushing them, right? And I thought that was a nice thing to come back to as a clean return to that thematic. Yeah, absolutely And then he goes back home And then he goes back home And B2 Emo hasn't packed yet And neither is Marva And as we said earlier

I think we all knew Marva wasn't leaving She made that very clear What's particularly devastating about this scene Is how little Faith Marva has in Cassian and his, like, perspective on the empire, I guess. Maybe he's saying having little faith.

I think Marva looks at Cassian's relationship to the empire as, you know, here's someone who's faced a lot of tragedy, like, you know, predominantly the loss of his sister and the rest of his peers and friends. on, you know, his home planet, then being taken to another, you know, being taken by Clem and Marva to, you know, who knows where next and then ending up on Farix. Obviously, Clem seems to have had a lot of trouble as a kid, run into the law, or Cassian has had a lot of trouble, run into the law and stuff. But in, from Marva's perspective, that's never manifested in,

There's always been anti-imperialist sentiment in Cassian, but there's no anti-imperialist resistance action. Like Cassian won't take shit from an imperial officer, but not because he believes in a different world because he doesn't fuck with imperial officers and he doesn't, and he resents the empire. So this is like, this is one of the harder moments because I think, Cassian is reflecting on how much he's separated himself from engaging with the thought of resistance and the action of resistance. And Marva at her old age is like ready to die for being free.

I think that's, I think it's kind of like, it's extremely humble. for Cassian, but I think it's also, it's a hard switch from that, from that type of, like, your mom, like, rides harder for this than, than you do. And you just, like, did a whole heist, and you just saw Nemek die. And, like, you just left Vell in, you know, at the doctor's house, at the planet, whatever. And yet, the next switch is to Cassian. in space Miami, like fucking all the way off from anything that resembles or is a reminder of pharix and what he's left, except for the fact that, of course, imperial militaries have been stationed across the galaxy and so are here also on space Miami.

Yeah, I think, you know, there's echoes of the conversation between Mamabma and, uh, uh, Tol. Tay. Tay. Tay. Tay. Tay.

Uh, te calva. Uh, comma. Calma. But like the degree of you play a role to a point where the people who know you best don't even think they, they know the role now.

They don't actually know you anymore. And yeah, I do think it was a, it's a painful scene because like, it's like both of them had a box full. of like anger and sadness and rage that they kept closed off from each other to some extent and couldn't fully reveal it like the vex she tells him you know i couldn't even walk into that square in you know the the place just a few streets over from where they live she could never

she could never walk down it and the fact that he he is the short person has been seething at the empire for forever um and what marva kind of believes is that fundamentally at some point he turned into a bit of a selfish deadbeat, uh, who just wants to get his and get out and live a good life. And she tries to grant him absolution for that of like, it's okay for me to join this rebellion because I don't have a future the way you do, but you deserve, you deserve a nice life. And I mean, yeah, the way she specifically calls to the thing of like, I don't expect you to understand. You've been through so much. You had everything taken from you as a young kid, et cetera, feels, it's not, it's not patronizing, but there is a sort of condescension

that she never attempts to even bring him on board with this idea, right? Obviously, she is right that he probably can't stay here. The people here will turn, someone here will turn him in, right, if they find out. But there isn't even a conversation about, you know, you, you know, the conversation is, is there a rebellion happening? And he plays dumb because of his association with El Dani. He doesn't come out and say, uh, I did that. That was me, uh, because he's protecting people and protecting himself in a way, right, from, from her. But she's, there's never an attempt to bring him on board with the, with any sort of revolutionary perspective. There's only the sort of like, go live your quiet life. You've earned a quiet life. Yeah, I'll be sad that

you're not here. That's love, you know? But it was, it was, again, condescending isn't quite the right word. Patriotic isn't quite the right word. But it indicated something to me about the relationship. It's like dismiss dismissive of, yeah, of like, as a full person in the way that she is. That she's already closed the door, she's already closed the book on what type of person he is. Right. And in any chance at him having the belief, like the kind of beliefs that, that, that she does. But I, but I will also say in there, it's like, what I think is captured so beautifully is there, there is like, there is a point where family and parents sort of have to accept, like, this is who you are. And I'm not, and you, and I love you. No, totally.

But who the fuck is Marva? Where did he learn this? shit. She's out here stealing from broke down corporate ships and then kid taps this kid and then presumably brings him up as a salvager, right? Like, she isn't out here living that life. Like, she's ready to live that life now at 70, 80 when now that like the bells have stopped ringing. Like I, like she's all in on it. But it's not like she's been part of some coalition to do da da da da da da. You know what I mean? So it's like, where's this energy from? Like, oh, your boy didn't grow up with revolutionary values. Who raised him? So like, I take a little umbrage at

the way that she closes that off for him. I don't think it's about revolutionary values, though. I think it is like everything, like everything we have seen is that, like, he's a bit of a low-level crook and a hustler. But that's what she was. And so, and yet she is now someone who believes. So like, you know, where, like, she is not doing the thing. Nemick said, you're my ideal reader, right?

Yeah. Nemick understood you're a low-level crook and a hustler. I was wrong about you. But if I can bring you on board, then I'm not. I can do it. And I think that there is something dismissive, to use Natalie's word, about the idea that she is saying, like, you know, you've been dealt a rough one. Just go cash out. And like, it comes from a place of love, but I think that it's the parental relationship that prevents her from being able to maybe try to bring him in on this. You know, again, it doesn't help that he

is, in fact, denying that he is already more in, in a material way than she hasn't been. Right. Right. Either. Like, it's a weird combination of, there's, there's two, like, what I love about this There's this weird combination of, one, I have seen who you are and accept who you are, and it has not been particularly admirable, and that's okay. I love you. Like, it does not matter. And two, I actually don't want you to get caught up in this because you're my baby and this is dangerous. And I want you to go, like, just be free of all of this.

Including. Well, because what she's doing, she's not doing this for herself. She's doing, well, I mean, she is, but she's doing this as a representation of I will not, I will no longer live under the empire. I will be free or I will die trying. And that's not Cassian's fight to fight if he doesn't believe in that. Cassian can't fight that fight with her just because he wants to protect his mom. Like this is way bigger than Marva.

And I think she's dismissive of and or of Cassian and like honestly comes off just like sort of disappointed but also but also really. resigned to this is this is who he is and i don't have any other expectations from him i don't believe that that uh you know that he has some greater uh purpose that he identifies for himself it's not like she's assigning it to him but this is the way cassian has has identified himself for as long as we even know and he just showed up with a mysterious fortune in cash which you can't Like it is like it is which presumably has happened before in in ways that yeah and it's never been a good story behind it and the other she was always ready to drop and I think this is what's what's so greatly the layers of irony here is that that whole mission you had the band of rebels being like this is going to send a this is going to send a signal this is a shot across the bows you've got deadra being like this is going to be announcement you got nemic being like they're going to see and they did and or is like I'm just here. to get paid and we're going to win and we're going to run and skiing is like no it's not how it's

going to work it's nice to think so but it's not how it's going to work and he goes home and came and marva's heard the trial she has heard the summons she she has heard the call to action and this was supposed to be the payday that allows him to be quit of all this ain't no quit it's great how do you what do you all feel about the final thing she says to him for your sister. Oh, God. This, like, felt like... She, I have a marvastan.

I'm going to sign myself up to the army, but she's a fucking horrible character. That should is so mean. That would mean. Okay, so do we think that this is meant as a revelation to him that or as a... No, this is her final... This is something she's told him before. That's my question.

Has she told him before they were all dead? Does she know they were all dead? Or is she judging that it's a fantasy of his versus something she truly actually has knowledge of? I personally feel like she knows that he's looking for her. They don't talk about it. But she, she, she's told him, like his knowledge of his backstory is everyone died on, I'm forgetting the name of the planet. Canari. Canari right sorry

Everyone died on Canari Like that's that's been the The story But Cassian's always Harbored this idea that Well If anyone could get out it'd be my sister And like she has to be out there somewhere

And I think they haven't It kind of reads to me Like they don't really talk about it But They kind of both know that the other knows This thing but this was like the final thing like Cassian

I'm probably never going to see you again please stop you know following this fantasy you are going to drive yourself crazy looking for someone who doesn't exist I think it was kind of brutal

kind of brutal Marva kind of needs her to be dead because otherwise there was another life that Cassian could have had with his sister her, whatever that life is, maybe it's really bad also. Who knows? But what she took from him when she took him will have been a different life where his adopted father wasn't killed, or he didn't fall into the life that he fell into, or he hasn't done the things that he's done. And so in some ways,

it reads to me, like, there was a sort of a guilt in the way she said it, but I couldn't read if the guilt was, this is a hard truth I'm giving you, and I feel bad that I have to make you feel bad. or if it was an attempt to shut off that possibility because that possibility absolves her or rather if that possibility is real. If he goes on and finds his sister, she is not absolved of having brought him into the life that he now lives.

Ellie? Yeah, I do feel like, because like her position in this conversation is so tough because she has to do two things, which is I'm saying goodbye to you for the last time And also, I have to say that I'm not living this dream with you. Right. And also, like, she's been the one who's stuck on Phoenix and has lived through the fallout

and has had this anger and is like, oh, I'm going to be a rebel now. Cool. But, like, she's put the pieces together why she, why those two guys got killed. Like, the rumor mill has been going. They know why they were looking for an Aldani. It's because he was looking for an Aldani. So, like, I think. Or a canary.

A canari. Yeah, yeah, sorry. So I think that there's part of her, like, you know, The shoe that dropped was because you were doing this. And if you're going to go off and live your happy life on a planet that the empire hasn't ruined yet, they're going to keep ruining it if you do this. Yeah. And you're going to get caught or other people are going to get killed. I do think that, like, I think two things being true.

I think one, like, it is a nightmare if, like, it turns out you took this kid from his family and, like, you didn't need to do that. But I do think she believes two things absolutely. and that's why she's faced with a tough choice and she had like seconds to make a call people do not live long on Canari the fact that it's a village full of kids one indicates like something bad is happening there and you know

like it's just it's an ecological disaster has made that planet like borderline uninhabitable as far as everyone knows and two specifically when she arrived like his little like clan had just killed two people and she's like when when the cruiser gets here they're going to light this jungle up uh like in reprisal and so you can't be here when that happens i believe that she believes those things yeah i don't believe that that means that his sister is dead or or has always

been dead i think those are two different i believe that she believes those things but i but i think that's a motivated belief yeah in a real way that comes back to clellis original caution around taking this kid from his family, you know? So I think that I'm very curious if this really is the end of the sister storyline. Oh, no, I don't think so. And at that point, we are going to have to prepare to confront a world in which she was wrong about this, right? And I'm curious how the show will. I'm laying the groundwork for that inevitable conversation.

So he does, so he does fuck off to space Miami. It has a name, Rob. Niamos. Niamos. Namos. That's, okay, wait, I have to say, as I was writing, I wrote, I was trying to write Niyamos down in my notes, and it auto-corrected to Miami. It literally auto-corrected to Miami. I was like, oh, my God.

I immediately when I saw it, I was like, fuck, hello? Are we in my, yeah. Yeah, the music shift is so wild. It turns into Miami Vice. This is the Michael Man Star Wars show. I was ready for a whole Miami art. I almost thought Honda was going to show up. I really truly, I was getting.

I believe he's been here in my heart. He's got a place here. Somebody else shows up, though. Another suggestion for the audience, please listen to the song as the credits roll because they play the song again and it gets like fucked up after a minute and it's like worth listening to.

It's so good The decision to get away from the John Williams compositions was Yes When this lady wakes up in the bed And she's like, Keefe Keefe I'm like

Bro What's about to happen On my screen right now? It's It's He's on I don't Keith Gergo

Keith Gurgo Yeah Keith Gergo showed up Keith Gurgo is here He's here New Glob shit just dropped.

Where's my Pizos and Rev Nog? Where, okay, it's Reveni Rev Nog is in this season. We all want the Pizos, we all want the greeny Rev Nog. You said you like the Greeny Rev Nog. Okay, we didn't have the Nog conversation in a previous episode. We tweeted about this. In Andor, Nog is everywhere. We've had Rev Nog, which the guys weren't supposed to have at the club in episode one.

We've had Med Nog that heals you, medical. nog, I guess. What do you think revnog is? Is it some sort of like uppers beer? Yeah. It's a stimulant. Yeah. It's uppers beer. Oh, it's just for loco. It's like there's

Star Wars runs on four loco Like OG for loco. Like when it was good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Pizos. I mean, have to be. Are Pizos just pizza combos? What do we say in Pizos are?

Pizos, I thought, were, like, pills. Okay. It kind of gave off her. She's popping. She's, like, eating pills. You're right. It kind of feels like there's a speedball thing happening here. Yeah.

Where it's like, but I don't know, maybe in space, Miami, you can't just go down to the corner store and get that shit. Because he's like, okay, I'll just go up the beach to get the Pizos and rep-on. He's up, yeah, up the beach, you know? Dude, I want to go to, I want to go to Niyamos. I want to go to there. It looks lit. I want to sit on the beach. He has new flavors.

and we need Pizos. Don't forget the Pizos. We ran out of Pizos. Pizos and Revnog. The greeny greeny green ones. Oh, I love it. It's the greeny Revnog. Windy, shout out to Wendy.

Shoutouts to Wendy for delivering all this and making it not sound just totally ridiculous. It's like... Oh, that's perfect. It's so good. I don't get the people chilling on the beach or on the stairs. Hard cut to girl with silly straw, a woman with silly straw and alien.

homie Just walking the beach from the cement brutalist like stairs Yeah It's great Did anyone catch

The Star Wars Beach chess in the background Because I sure did Are people playing Star Wars beach chess People are playing Star Wars beach chess Oh I love that

That rules I want to come back here So bad No you don't Let's talk about why Because the empires You can't find a planet that the empire is not ruined When the shore troopers shows up

Yeah crucially they're called shore troopers It's crucial that they're called shore troopers The way they are painted They have described where they're painted Rob When you see this motherfucker starting to run down the beach So this is not the varsity To be very clear I don't think you get a shore

You don't get shore trooper duty By being really good at being a storm trooper these dudes are painted you can call it camo but I think it's more they're supposed to blend in with the resort senior without freaking people out

because on the one hand they're painted in sort of a sandy color but then also they've got bright accent colors on their paldrons and helmets that makes them look like literal clowns

these are not people you take particularly seriously which and or makes the mistake of not taking them particularly seriously too I love the way this entire sequence unfolds because it's almost like a zombie movie where he sees people running he doesn't know what's going on

it's just an average day he's just totally checked out on it and does not realize that like something extremely dangerous is happening this whole sequence Diego Luna walks like a guy who's been in this exact situation before where he's like

okay something was happening what's going on let me just walk past let me just keep walking let me just keep my head down I'm going to take a different route than I was walking I'm going to turn off and unfortunately he came he came to Nyamos he got fitted here he like he he you know just dressed up and kind of like the local vibe so he blend he he looks

like one of the guys running away according to the short trooper's report's going to say that's yeah that's what the short that's what the short that's what the short trooper says to him um as as as he tries to walk past them and he's like, no, seriously, I'm just trying to go to the store. I'm just trying to get my Pizos and my rev nog for my, for my girl back at the crib. Like, please, sir. I don't know anybody.

I don't know anything is happening. I'm not trying to get in your way. I'm just trying to go. Like, I'm just trying to be. That like this. So they're on the beach. It's a beach. They're on the beach.

Andor turns around and looks at the waves as he's walking past the stormtrooper. And the stormtrooper says, you're glancing around. That's very suspicious. It's a funny beach. I can't look at the waves, man. He's like, I'm just trying to figure out what's going on.

I'm just trying to figure out, I'm not running anywhere. The, like, immediate needling. Are you part of it? Part of what? Don't play dumb. Like, oh, you haven't had this conversation with a police officer. I don't know. You don't know what it is.

And, like, the, like, who's on first quality to it? But also the way the cop, like, he knows he's a dipshit. The cop knows he's an idiot, but also he kind of exalts and like, look at my stupidity and the power has over you. Yeah. Look at my incomprehension of what you're trying to this point. Were you running? No, it's hot out. It's hot out.

He knows he can ask him whatever dumb-ass question and put cuffs on him and call the KX unit to come basically almost murder him. And, dude, at first I was like, yo! And then I was like, oh, no. I forgot. Genuinely, I thought Alan Tudick was secretly in the show as the cool robot. And I was like, here comes his homie! And then I was like, that's right, he was reprogram.

Because the guy's carrying two bodies up the beach. And I was like, they're not cool. Yeah, they're dead. They drop like corpses. Oh, boy. Their luggage now. It was wild. And then the other guy tries to run past and he just grabs them and tosses him down.

It's so scary. It's wild to me. It's really scary. This broke, like, or this episode came out like days after the shit in Oakland. with the shotgun robot stuff. I don't know if y'all read that. In Oakland, in Oakland, there is a robot that is like a classic bomb disruption-style robot.

And they were having a meeting with a civilian oversight council. And the lieutenant who was there was like, oh, you know, what we're going to do is we're going to fix these robots with this thing called a disruptor or pan-disruptor that uses a shotgun that fire, but it has a blank shotgun shell to fire out or, like, pressurized water that will, you know, detonate a bomb safely while this, you know, 800-pound robot tank is there. And so someone was like, well, wait, it's a shotgun. It's not like a special thing that uses like a proprietary thing.

And you know, no, just use a shotgun round. So we just load shotgun blanks in there. And the commissioner of the oversight committee was like, does the department plan on using a live round in the robot pan disruptor? And the answer was no. And then, I mean, is it possible? We have an active shooter in a place we can't get to, and he's fortified inside a house, or we're trying to get a person, and suddenly the excuses start coming out, right? Well, of course there will be exceptions when we use our robot killers.

Oh, my God. Of course there will be. But, you know, it's not what it's built for. It's just de-escalation. It's a de-escalator, you know? And we can use it for the bombs. And, like, reading that and then immediately seeing the, like, Shore Trooper, be like, get any one of those KX units up here,

deal with this real quick it's it's just impossible not to draw those lines you know yeah and and and and just leaving the matter like this is an unsupervised KX unit at a certain point like he he leaves the matter in the KX's hands like knowing that the robots are literal and vicious yeah yeah yeah um and doesn't and doesn't give a shit yeah what's the actual does he tell him like hang on to this one for me Hang on, right, yeah. And And Orr's like, he meant just like, watch me. And he said, hang, lift you up by the neck, put you up against the fucking wall, choke you. Knowing how his stepfather, his adopted father died.

Dude, so dark. So fucked up. And we have the hard cut to him being in the court as everyone is being booked to Mac sentences. And he's like, I'm a tourist. There's no presentation of the counter argument. It's just, you were there here, the charges. The judge is like, well, sorry

sorry if you were just a tourist this used to be a short sentence now it's six years used to be a short six months sentence which is still not sure it's absurd what they booked him for

when she's like be careful don't pick up a resisting judgment charge like fucking resisting judgment get out of the year well and this is like again like you know the criminal justice system

the judges are fucking tyrants of their own court. Like, they fuck with people all the time. I remember there was that, you know, you listen to the Cleveland series of serial where they talk about that one judge who, like, he thought he was a really good guy by, like, being compassionate. You told him a sob story, he'd be like, I will spare you.

But also he really loved having that power of, like, if I deem you worthy, I will, you know, I will show mercy. Judge and juror, yeah. If I get the sense that you're not a good person, and then I will, like, hammer you at the hardest sentence possible. Stuff like that. Yeah, like, this is, this is in play, too, where it's like you can't even,

you can be caught up in this, like, dystopian nightmare situation, and if you even, like, protest too much, then they just add more to the charges. And so, yeah, he's booked for six years. Yeah, no such thing as a defense, no such thing as a trial. No. Take it up with the emperor.

Take it. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to get back to eat my pistachios. This is the seventh episode. This is the first time that we've heard the word palpatine on the show. We hear it like three times. To hear palpatine ever so time, I feel like a baby bird. And especially at this last one, I was like, you're.

It's so good. It does feel like a little treat. Like this is, I guess, what other Star Wars, like, what it feels like to see an Easter egg that, like, you really get hyped on. Is that what this feels like? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that what this is? The Easter egg of Palpatine appearing in this show.

Easter egg, Chief Palpatine was the emperor in the original. It's so good. It's so good. So, delicious. I do think, like, ironically, the fact that the rebels are planning on killing him means this is going to be his salvation,

is like they are actively looking for him. Yeah. And so the only people who are in this galaxy, because I suspect Pizos and Revnaug did not immediately wonder where did he go? Why isn't he back? I suspect there will be more Pizos and Revnog found

to sort of dull the pain of his absence. So that is probably going to be what is going to save his ass is the fact the rebels are out there trying to kill him. But you know, someone else ended up in a prison of sorts, and maybe has been there. his whole life. You know, when we open on Cyril Karn,

he doesn't even get his little sunlight moment. And I do wonder, it's a horrible thought of good to me. What if his little sunlight moment is seasonal? Yeah, I think it is. Like, what if it's a yearly, you know? Or, yeah, once every seven weeks. Or at least only in the summer, the sun track goes there. But then the rest of the earth's like, no sunlight.

Do we need a final note comparison here, too? Oh, God. As the camera is slowly zooming out on. My final note is not about that. It's about the soundtrack at the end. Okay. What is yours, though? Mine says his whittled tie.

It's from W-I-D-D-L-E. Well, fashion is very important with him from the jump here when his mom comes out and sees him in his little outfit. His mom just fucking roasts him over the goddamn collar. Like, goddamn. It was so much worse than I imagined it would be. Because it went to a different level. You know what I mean? It's like, this is the line that somebody already, was it,

Ali, was this your first thing? Look at me, I don't believe in myself. I am desperate for approval. And she says this after he's like, because they keep doing the sniping thing at each other. And he tries to get hits in. That's what I'm saying? Well, what is my caller saying to you right now?

And she. No effect. Right. He with the K.O. With the super effective. The super ultimate. armor piercing rat like it's the first first first they're like uh you know so they're talking about he's going to go for his interview at the bureau of standards which you have to imagine is some sort of like

exactly what you think of like some standardizing bureaucracy bullshit it's like your weights and measures or like the u.s has an organization missed but basically all like they talk about like fuel purity and stuff like the like the things that are in charge of making sure that you and buy gas somewhere. Gas is gas to the same quality wherever you go. And she crucially says to him, do you think that they are in the market

for individuals after she sees the way he's dressed? And I was like, it's an ugly brown suit. The collar is high. He keeps, yeah, he keeps maintaining it's a brown suit, like it's nothing. But the problem is it's not nothing

because he had it tailored and she points us out. like you've had the collar taken up and he's like no I just had it tailored and she says everything says something and he says well what is my caller saying to you and that's one yeah she says the thing is I swore she was going to be like that you you think you're special you think you're above everybody else and the fact that she goes that next level and hits the actual thing that's like deep in his heart where like it's all an act because he doesn't believe in himself when he's desperate for approval?

She's ruthless. She's ruthless. We got to get her in the rebellion. We need her. We do. We need her. Put her in a room. Put her in a room. Who comes out? He doesn't. It's over. Oh, my God. Where's he looking for approval, though? Like, you know. Not to care for it. It was too hard, but it all starts at home.

It's a nice. It is such a nightmare because it's like, it's this loop of you act like a like a like you act like a wimp who doesn't have any confidence in yourself you ask like someone who thinks he's worth nothing which of course you are

because you are worth nothing because you wear shit like this and you give that and it's this horrible loop and you don't understand like bro now it makes clear I thought it was like he didn't want to come down in the world and go back to his like

you know middle class or impoverished background it's like no actually he just needed to it far away from this and like the fact that yeah trying to dress up nice for your interview is like even that is like somehow oh you fucked up again

you you misread it and you know you can sort of see like the fact that she always wanted Uncle Harlow to set him up a job like this that like my useless son is only fit to like

hit checkbox is basically on an interface. My dude's doing severance work. Like, he's doing literally the shit from severance. Yeah. Just click on boxes. Feel out the numbers. That's all he's good for.

And it keeps him here at home. It keeps him under my thumb. He's not going to be making money to buy his own place, to rent his own place. You know, that's not what they're going to get paid. And it's going to always come through a favor from her, through Uncle Harlow. Whereas she will always get to hold this over him. Right. Whereas him going to Primor and all that shit.

I think it's 100% just I want to get up as far away as possible I want it to be my own paycheck I don't care what I'm doing I'm here to get paid and it's equally as pathetic which is the most ironic part of all like his like his way of proving himself is by becoming just the world's greatest herb and yeah and causing chaos and other people and again knowing that he has this republic clone trooper action figures on the desk is so like think of him as the little boy who's getting told he's dressed bad for school and then he comes home at the clone figures

the clone troopers wishing he could be a hero yeah and just like how go on he's literally the Navy SEAL copy pasta guy like he yeah he are you don't know that Navy SEAL copy pasta?

I don't know that Navy SEAL copy pasta? Um It's a classic it's a classic you like he's doing that on the Star Wars internet. He is that reply guy. 100%.

I highly recommend you look this up, Ali. Navy. Yeah, I'm I'm going to have to do some. Oh, here I have it. You want me to read it? We got it. You read it. What the fuck did you fucking say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class of the Navy SEALs and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al Qaeda

and I have a 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in guerrilla. warfare. I'm the top sniper in the entire US Armed Forces. You're nothing to me but another target. I will wipe you from the earth with precision of the likes of never been seen before on the earth. Mark my fucking words.

You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the internet? Think again fucker. As we speak, I'm contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes the pathetic little thing you call life.

You're fucking dead kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I'll kill you in over 700 ways, and that's just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps, and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. Of only you could have known what unholy retribution your little clever comment was about to bring down upon you.

Maybe you would have held your fucking tongue, but you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you goddamn. idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo. So Serial has definitely written this in his little journal. A hundred percent. And he's written Andor's name a bunch of times. And instead of like a little heart, it's like a little gravestone. A hundred percent. So at the job interview, he also tries to give an account for, because what happened was she I wish he didn't say shit.

Because what has happened has become somewhat infamous. The guy interviewing him realizes like, hey, wait a second. Preax Morana Security, Morlata won. This is all ringing a bell, basically. And Cyril replies, I was punished for trying to uphold the law. And he presents his version of this, how he sees all this. And the weird thing is, from his point of view, this is all literally accurate. like he did like he solved the crime he did realize like what had happened he was just told not to

and he was told why he shouldn't and he was like no we have laws for a reason i'm gonna i'm gonna show them uh and so he he leaves out the part where he does confess like two people died uh you know well actually hang on it was double murder he leaves out the part where he got an additional all, like, team wiped out. Yes. But the funny... His specific explanation for it is he says... He starts to stammer a little bit, and then he says,

there's a rebel murderer running free because of corruption and laxity in the corporate authority. I was punished for trying to uphold the law. Do my job. Maintain public safety. Like, he, first of all, he acknowledges that he has an ongoing obsession with the fact that there's a rebel murderer running, like, that is giving conspiracy guy. You're giving conspiracy guy with that first one. And then, and then, of course, he leaves out, he says two men dead, co-workers, I believe that we have laws for a reason.

I fully intend to clear my name and have my record expunged. Like, he's proud. He doesn't think he did anything wrong. Is that true? Or, alternatively, is he, does he not believe in himself? Is he desperate for approval? And this is the act that he puts on. I don't think he believes any of this anymore.

I think he does. It had the sense of like, I was like, is he like, it felt like a guy like dropping like Q and on conspiracy during a job interview. you're showing your hand a little much here it turns out whatever whatever fucking Uncle Harlow's connection is here is strong enough can't fail this job interview none of the can you not fail it but the guy immediately

edits the fucking profile let's start it now yeah he was like yeah yeah this will be taken off your record I got you here's your chair you're at the office of bullshit information you can just open up the spreadsheet and be like don't worry about this part

I love how much Bureau of Standards is really rubbing his little nose in it because all he cares about his standards and like doing the right thing and looking right and good luck with that fuel buddy well so the one thing that occurred to me though

is dead was just him but like in a higher level right yeah it is it is just funny how like all the shit that like marks him as an annoying little shit uh like forcing that one guy to do the search

on like local traffic the night of the killing and all this she's doing it on this like much grander scale and like in a weird way even his time of security it was the same dynamic of like I want to do stuff

and show how good I can be and his cop boss was like kid don't be an idiot like you're not here to like you can't do good like trying this stuff you need to just like accept that like this is not the job here and we're going to let this lie

and that's you know he sort of is is trapped in this loop but yeah he gets he gets his job in the in the fuel purity department and as the episode ends we see that he is just yeah doing the work from severance and like effectively watching the clock watching watching the different face of god i don't know as he sits there in that like Billy Wilder-ass like endless rows of cubicles deep in the imperial bureaucracy. Do we think he's doing his job or do we think he's digging around for... I thought he was digging. Like him looking around

kind of gave me... Oh, you think he's looking for surveillance? Well, he doesn't look up at... I think it was the intensity of his stare at the screen was what clued me into him probably looking at shit that he shouldn't be...

Or is actively research. I mean, he, just before this, you know, he's something that we, we glanced over or jumped over was at the very end of his scene with his mom, the news is on in the house. And he's like, wait, what happened? He sees the news from Aldani. And she's like, oh, yeah, there was this, you know, robbery on the garrison. They'll regret it. And that started fades the background. And I think this is, this is going to be the start of his, obsession. And I think being at this, you know, another bureaucratic institution is going to give him some degree of access to information that will help fuel his conspiracy theories.

I mean, he's right. Like, everything he believes about and or is right. Andor is just not like a rebel genius. Andor's just a guy who's been around. So, you know, there are no small jobs at the Bureau of Standards. And I guess there is a bit of irony where like, Andor gets swept up randomly, even though he absolutely is, like, affiliate with the rebellion and has done a lot of shit. But he's swept up unjustly in this case. And in a weird way, I think you're right. Like, Cyril sees that news and he's like, that's the guy.

I was on this. And that is a wild thing to assume. Like, there is zero reason whatsoever to think that the two shitbag cops were killed by the guy who went on to do the big Aldani heist. But, like, in a weird way, because of his weird, like, narcissism and sense that, like, that he's the center of a great story. He actually probably is stumbling on the right intuition for what's going on. but I still have no idea where his arc ends. I genuinely, does this end with him being discovered as like he's going to become Andor's nemesis at the ISB

or is he going to stumble into becoming like an important rebel source like in an overlooked part of the bureaucracy? Both are credible to me at this point. Yeah, both are credible. I just hope he doesn't have to live with his mom much longer. I just truly think the inevitable team up between him and Dejaro too too juicy for it not to happen it's got to happen soon it's got to happen he's going to send an email he's going to send up uh uh of you know a message to anybody at the

well dedger's going to find him yeah dead just going to give him all the validation he's ever ever wanted she just took over ferricks from levin she took over ferricks all that data i need to interview this man where is i need to interview him yeah i need to interview him yeah exactly Maybe she doesn't just find a source, but a soulmate. He, she is going to give him the approval he always wanted from Mommy. God, that relationship is going to be a lot. No, he should, he should hook up with her secretary who probably records TikTok dances at her office. 100%.

100%. I was obsessed with her. On the ISB hallways? That is so funny to me. Okay, the guy who is sleeping absolutely makes TikToks in, in the, like, Google room. I meant the, yeah. No, that guy does do.

They do all together. You're working late at your office because your boss is coked up and working out of conspiracy board. Oh my God. I want to be on, on like, I want to be on Star Wars TikTok so bad. Oh, my God. It's hell. I'm sure it's hell.

I'm sure it's bad. It's probably terrible. The TikTok I have is already bad. Like, let me get the Star Wars one. That's true. wrong. What is he what's going on there? I don't know.

I feel like I've seen some cool aliens on TikTok. I've definitely seen some people who ain't from here. I don't know. Like, you know, closing thoughts, I think for me, like, I love this kind of episode. And that's the thing, like, Andor is feeding me stuff I have a bottomless appetite for in terms of, like, fleshing out an interesting universe. And also, like, making explicit, because, because, like, the, the, metaphors were so broad that Lucas tended to work in

even though he could be explicit being like this is meant to echo Vietnam the American military industrial complex is the empire like it didn't draw those parallels sharply enough to like have Star Wars be understood in that way and and or is like doing all this interesting work of like hey the world of Star Wars can have direct relevance to like things

and processes and institutions and power structures that aren't work in the world today. And so episodes like this, which are entirely about that stuff and people discussing their motivations and positions in these systems, I'm like, hell yeah, this is the action as much as a cool heist.

Definitely. It's also impressive that an episode like this can maintain the motion and like tension of the obviously episode six was like a huge peak in terms of action you know a lot of fulfillment of like longer term plots that came to came to resolution a lot of twists and and then we come to an episode like this which you know factually does not have as many like high intensity We're not climbing into the eye, but it's able to carry and maintain a lot of that snowballing, like, this is getting bigger and bigger and bigger through these very localized individual one-to-one conversations. A lot of this episode is just one-to-one conversations, like conversation between two people or in some cases, conversation between two people.

or in some cases a conversation between a small group of people but it's like it's quite an intimate episode primarily and yet like I still have all of the leftover like energy from

the first two arcs like waiting still waiting to continue paying off through the rest of the season so that's really impressive to be able to maintain that kind of energy through these through a more low-key episode.

I feel like we're definitely getting prison arc next as two-parter. 100%. And then, or three-parter. This next thing is three episodes. The Toby Haynes, Bowel, Willemann arc is, or these next three episodes are by those two.

So it's going to be, that's up. That to me feels like it's prison arc, you know? And then there's one arc after that? Then there's a finale two-part. Correct. Correct. So we're, and that's, you know, not too harder. I'm going to be so sad when we're done with this because it will mean no more and or.

It's going to suck. My life is going to suck. I want to catch up with our old friends. And I wonder what Fives is up to these days. Great question. Great question. But we're going to be watching rebels and be like, we can be watching Anil right now. It's a problem.

It's a problem. It's going to be hard. I'm getting ready for that. I think, I think. I've seen some people who, you know, raise similar concerns about our impending drop in quality as we move over, especially because Rebels apparently starts off pretty mid and then eventually gets better, but like doesn't start there. So, you know. Deep breaths. We'll take, we'll get through it.

We'll get through. We'll find things to love. You know, it's just going to be the thing it is. There's no way something worse than D Squad is waiting for us. No, no, no. I've just heard it's just like, it's a mid-children's TV show for a little bit. bit, you know? And then the Faloni crew finds the stuff that they like and we will come back around on some stuff and it will have some highs, you know? It is, it is very fun to be in someone else's

vision of Star Wars for a little while, is what I will say. Yes. And I hope, yes. I hope these episodes are doing well because I would love to see more of it, you know, beyond even just one more season of Andor. Agreed. Can I just say one thing that's perhaps foolish? Yes. Because I really wanted Nevik to meet Sao Guerrera. I know. I feel you. And I was thinking about that this whole episode.

Me too. Again, Saul could be in prison. Yeah. And or could have the book. They could read the book to, you know. I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I,

the thing that makes me excited about all the Marba stuff is that, like, I'm waiting for the, like, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, to seem generational. Like, there are going to be these people who remember the Clone Wars, who are involved in the Clone Wars, even remember the Galaxy, like, pre-clone Wars, and now have all these kids like Nemek who are just, like, in it. But, like, don't, there's, like, this, this, like, situational gap in terms of, like, what they think that they're capable of and what the future could look like, even.

Yeah, that's interesting. The, the, Marva, Marva was alive when Chancellor Valoram. Marvel was an adult when Chancellor Valorum was in charge of the Republic when Anakin was a little boy, you know? Nemex is Zumer. Nemex is a zoomer. Right, right, right, right. And Andor is a millennial. I think Andor is probably 10 to 15 years on Nemeck, right?

Yeah, Andor's family millennial. Because Andor was a little kid when the Republic was still around. Like, that was a republic. The Republic came into Canary, et cetera. That was pre-empir. That's one thing that we actually didn't get in with the Mon Moth. I'm sorry that we were closing. But, like, she was talking about working with the separatists.

Oh, yeah, we did not mention. So presumably, like, presumably, yeah. And, yeah, and separatist coalition meetings. Yeah. So the empire, you know, during the Clone Wars, there was the Republic and the separatists. Separatists were not with the chancellor, but with Palpatine. So the Republic then slurps up. all of the separatists after Palpatine, you know, goes mask off.

But then there's all of these still, like, people who are like, no, I'm not riding with the empire. I think the stuff that Momothma is, when she's like a separatist, part of the separatist committee, when she's the separatist do-gooders, et cetera, my understanding from what I've read is that it's more like we won the war against the separatists. and I'm ensuring that those people and the civilians there don't get crushed under the boot of an empire who wants, you know, vengeance or retribution. People that were under, like, from separatist planets,

but presumably didn't have any, like, steak or skin. Or even were, but, you know, there are, there are laws around what happens when a war ends and what, you know, in our world, there are ways in which a war is supposed to end. and a victor is supposed to administer whatever the outcome of a war is in a just way.

And I think you can see her and her allies because there were all those marks in the separatist Senate who were like, we're a functioning democracy. Exactly. And that's who I'm imagining when she says that.

Are like people who probably like, you know, came over back into the under the empire from the separatists and are now, you know, back in the Senate and, you know, former separatist now imperial, like, turn. Exactly. Yes.

So that is the sort of thing where it's like, okay, I think that that's what she's, she is, she is, again, this is why it's a little irritation. It's like, are you fucking kidding me? That war was 20 years ago or whatever. We won and it's, and the people who are there who are suffering or suffering because of whatever the fuck they're doing today. It's so easy to imagine the dismissal of her perspective on that, you know. I want to say even Gorman might end up being connected to that stuff,

but I can't quite shake out the exact connection between that and separatists. But that's the type of thing that she's getting up to. I don't think she's currently rocking with people who are absolutely, who are open secessionists, you know? I think that's probably a little too hot. So, I think from here, so obviously we're going to see what happens next week with our regularly scheduled episode. But somewhere in here, we are also going to record our Q&A and drop that for this month's Patreon backer Q&A. The timing, I think, is TBD a little bit because it's a packed week.

We're recording this episode late. and we got another regular recording coming up fast, but we're going to try to squeeze it in there. People are, we already have, by the time you're listening to this, our call for questions, we'll have already gone out.

But remember, like, the Q&A will be covering the first two arcs on the series, so the three-episode Farik's arc and the three-episode Aldani arc. And, yeah, if you'd like to hear that,

or you just want to support the show, you can do that at patreon.com slash civilized. It's $5 a month. every month we do a Q&A that covers things we hadn't considered, people write in but also is you know, you think

this episode, you think our regular episodes have like weird tangential Star Wars thoughts. You don't have it. You're not prepared for what the backer Q&A's frequently turned into. So we will be recording that and we're going to be recording our next episode

of our next episode of Andor very, very soon. Until then, please rate and review us on your podcast platform choice. That is how people learn about the show. It's especially useful on the Apple podcasts. So if you do that for us, that is hugely helpful. And until next week, please remember, a high caller will just make you look like you are going to disappoint someone.

Alright, tie what that is I thought they were nice though I thought he looked very nice in his little brown suit I love the color wasn't a bit much I really did Wow, you agreed with mom? Yeah, 100% It doesn't

It looks bad It didn't get to skin tone Yeah It's not a good color for his skin And it's not a good cut for his face No that for sure I think that's better It's a little bit more

Nice. Thank you.