A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 65: Empire Day and Gathering Forces (Rebels 08 and 09)

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

For the last few months, we've been getting to know the crew of the Ghost. But how much have we learned about them really? Sure, we know that Zeb's people suffered occupation and (apparently) genocide, or that Hera is able to make hard decisions for the greater good. But give it some thought: What do we really know about these folks? What's Sabine situation, besides paint and high explosives? How much training did Kanan really get? How did Ezra come to be everyone's favorite force sensitive street rat? Well, it's time to start getting answers, beginning with that last question. Today, we learn about Ezra's past and parentage. Or at least we watch a story about those things. Somehow, we still don't actually know what happened to them. Maybe that'll be stage 3 of getting to know the crew. Next Time: Rebels 10 - 12 ("Path of the Jedi," "Idiot's Array," and "Vision of Hope")  Show Notes   Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny) Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson) Produced by Ricardo Contreras (@a_cado_appears) Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)

Let us return once more to a more civilized age, a Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zackney, joined by Ali Akampora, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. We are, as always, supported by you, our listeners, via patreon.com slash civilized. So head over there if you'd like to support the show and get access to all our brilliant and weird Q&A episodes. So with tonight's episode, as central as Ezra Bridger has been two rebels, and for as much as the show sometimes seems to be about his journey, to becoming a member of the ghost crew and a Jedi apprentice, his chief role since the pilot has been to function as an audience surrogate who is coming to understand the dynamics of the ghost alongside us. Ezra has so far remained what we saw at the start, Padawan Aladdin, Aladuan, whose abandonment and orphanhood explains everything he does and feels. Today's two-parter adds a lot of depth. Well, no, okay, he's basically still someone who's abandoned in Norfolk explains a lot,

but we're going to explain it in even more detail via Empire Day and Gathering Forces, which is where we finally do get a better look at Ezra's background as he is forced to revisit the disappearance of his parents via a chance encounter with the family friend he believed failed to protect them from the authorities before their capture. I guess we can just dig into the recap. This is a short, it's a two-parter. It's very straightforward. For some reason.

They run together, like end to end. So there's kind of only an A plot. It's kind of, it's weird. It's a weird two-parter. Also, I, two parts should have been a three-part maybe because there's something missing from the end of this. All right, that bold, bold position, Allie's like, I would like more. Allie wanted more of Empire Day.

Or just, or keep it. it too, but have the thing that it's about be the thing that it's about, right? We'll get there. But there's a be continued here and then it continues and you don't know what happened. Right, and the second episode doesn't

to be continued necessarily. It doesn't actually, literally the end of the first episode says to be continued, which they've never done before. Because they're not using that model of continuity. They're using the model of continuity where every episode is a building content. We'll get into it. As you talk about what

this episode is, a lot of that stuff has built. So, Rob, hit us with the, hit us with the summary. All right. The double recap for the entire, the entire arc here. So, uh, we open with Ezra struggling more than usual with training. And during that session, he admits to Canaan that it is a difficult day for him to focus because it is empire day. We learned that it's the 15th anniversary of Order 66 and Palpatine succession. And on Lothal, the empire is having a big parade to observe the date. But the empire is also looking for a Rhodian fugitive, who Ezra realizes is his parents' old friend Seibo. While he goes to sit with his feelings, the crew of the ghost sabotaged the centerpiece

of Lothel's Empire Day Parade Float, a tie advanced. In the immediate aftermath of their attack, Callas and the Inquisitor reveal their presence on Lothol and the gang is forced to hide out at Ezra's old family home, while Zab and Hara waited aboard the ghost to pick them up. But at Ezra's house, he finds his parents' old friend Sibo, racked with guilt, but also cursed with a malfunctioning bit of cybernetic headgear. You remember Lobot? It's a Lobot thing.

It is stuffed full of imperial secrets. The rest of the episode covers their escape from Lothol so they can help Sibo get his secrets out into the world. But as they flee, he also reveals to Ezra that he knows the ultimate fate of his parents. Gathering forces picks up on the tail of this revelation as the Inquisitor and his squadron of tie fighters battle with the ghost. The ghost manages to jump to hyperspace, but not before. it is tagged with a tracking beacon.

Ceba warns them about the device and Canaan Ezra decide to return to the monster-infested asteroid base from out of darkness to lure the Inquisitor away. While there, Ezra has a breakthrough and creates a force connection with the monsters who live there,

who let the two Jedi hide in peace while waiting to attack the Inquisitor and the stormtroopers. But when Canaan is bested by the Inquisitor in battle and left defenseless, Ezra's connection takes a dark turn as he becomes enraged

and terrified of the Inquist Wizard. A little anger leading to a little something called hate. And he ends up mind controlling the biggest monster in the layer to attack the Inquisar. The effort causes him to collapse and Canaan manages to get them both to safety. Afterwards, he stops Harrow from telling Ezra what she learned about his parents before depositing Tsibo with Fulcrum. The episode ends with Sabine, giving Ezra a photo of his parents that she recovered from his home. Yeah. Yep. You can tell immediately that they're like, this is, this is an important, this is an important episode.

Like it opens with a certain vibe. You get the crew kind of, you know, Hera, Zeb and Sabine walking around and Sabine like leans up against a wall and looks out into like the fields of Lothal, like the prairies of Lothal, just to watch Ezra and Canaan training. And it just has the vibe of an important scene. Like, oh, ooh, something's going on today. This is like, we're going to get backstory. Eli's coming. Eli's coming. Yeah.

And I don't know that it, I don't, I don't know that it sticks the landing. I don't know that it lives up to the check that it wrote. I don't think that cash, that check cleared, uh, necessarily, um, because I still don't really care about Ezra that much. I, I care about Ezra's parents or want to know what happened to them, which, Ali, that's the thing you're saying, right? Yeah. Okay. What's going on here? Yeah, we've got a picture of them

That's drawn by the way By I want to say God, what is his name? Killian, Killian something Is that the guy's name Who works on these shows? Oh, yeah

I think that's right Killian Plunkett Yes, Killian Plunkett That's like that little sketch That we get of them That's just like a 2D anime, like it's just a cartoon picture of them It's not a render in the 3D style

It's like he found It's like photos in this world Are cartoons Which is funny It's a great That's great I love seeing them As for climbing on his mom

And his dad looking cool as hell It's a really cute pick Hands on his hips Yeah it's great But I don't know There's stuff about this I think was cool I think that

Like I said earlier It all is one It feels like Things are funneling together There's lots of Oh that character Is back There's that

I forget what her title is, but like the, not the viceroy. Whatever her, you know, the Donna Chancellor, what is her name? Governor. Oh, Governor. Yeah, Governor Price. Yes, Governor Price is there. Galbrae, Travis shows up basically immediately. Governor Price is missing.

Was celebrating on Corolla. Oh, no, it's Minister McHastua. There we go. McCathua. The two guys from the school are back, Mr. Grint and the other guy, the like super pale one. everybody's around Lothal, which I'd like. I like that we get a sense of what Lothal is.

We get this bar at the beginning where the Thai fighter pilots come in to cause shit, but also like take some shit from the bartender in a way that I thought was a little like risky. I don't know. So I'll say this. I think there's a lot of things I like about Canaan throughout this. Like in the opening training sequence where, you know, basically they're just fucking with one of those prairie cats out there to try and if Ezra can make a connection.

Do that thing that Obi-Wan does, Ezra. I don't know how to do that thing that Obi-Wan does. I don't know who Obi-Wan is yet. Who's Obi-Wan? And Ezra finally gets pissed and he says, give me the lightsaber and I'll make the connection. And the minute he says that, Ezra, like, Canaan gets the most, like, dad vibe.

Like, what did you just say? Yeah. Like, on a couple different levels of, you don't disrupt my training that way. You do not talk about the force that way. But also, just the low-grade sense of alarm that I think we all feel at this point whenever you've got a powerful Jedi trainee who without scratching very much at the surface,

there's a reservoir of anger and a impulse to destroy. And so the minute Canaan hears that, you can see this brief moment of like fear in terms of what he just heard. It's sort of masking with like coming down really hard on it because he wants to curb that behavior. But thematically where this gets to just isn't again, like they're you're right. Like, there are a lot of things with Ezra where the table they are setting is not particularly interesting. What Canaan tells him is you're connected to every living thing in the universe. But to discover that, you have to let your guard down.

You have to be willing to attach to others. Which is the thing he won't do, right? He won't, Ezra won't say why Empire Day is so sad for him. And it's the combination of the missing slash dead parents, he isn't sure. he's told himself that they're dead since he's been alone since he's been seven and also because he was born on Empire Day, which is a fun note. I guess we like, we almost figured that out a few episodes ago. We were like talking about like, no, wait a second, he's 15. How old's the Empire? It turns out he was born on Empire Day, which is fun. That's a fun little, I don't, I can't be

mad at that, you know, but he won't open up to the crew about these things. He won't talk to them about his past, which is also on paper a fun inversion, right? He's the guy who wants to know everything. Tell me about where you're from. Tell me what your situation is. Let me in, let me in, let me in. He's a brick wall. And I think that that's good on the page. I don't, I don't know what my, you know, I think actually at the end of the day, this is a show about characters and not ideas so far. Yeah. Clone Wars is often a show about ideas. Those ideas can sometimes be bad, but like the format of the anthology show with Clone Wars. And maybe George being in the room and pushing people towards ideas, because he's an ideas guy, meant that when there was a big episode, it was about something idea-focused, like, can you trust the Jedi order to take care of their own people when push comes to shove? Or are they going to throw them to the empire or the Republic? Let them deal with it. Or like, hey, is, is, you know, does Obi-Wan's-Colmes have a breaking point? Do clones have a breaking point?

Those things end up having There's character beats in there But there are also big idea things happening And this is just a Character driven thing It's just hey I don't want to talk to you about my parents I'm still working through a lot of anger issues I have

And that should be really good Because unlike Anakin We don't know what happens with Ezra Mm-hmm Right It feels like it feels like this episode Or these this pair of episodes Is kind of catching us up to like

to our foundation of like okay here's everyone here's everything you need to know here's all the important players here's like why everyone is like the way that they are kind of you get a sense for that amongst like the crew basically um and this felt like kind of like the final one like not the final but kind of like tying the knot on ezra in terms of like here's like here's his context and like now we can move forward with that sort of behind us and then just like be more forward-looking. It feels like this is like all

sort of been catching us up on where these characters are at this far in their lives. Which is it's like it's what we kind of need to have, I guess. It's like the material we need to have to be able to keep moving forward with them and understand like how did we get here.

I largely like that we're still on Lothal. Like, it's a really interesting place to be in, like, usually, in Clone Wars, we're moving from planet to planet to planet to planet, like, for some reason, revisiting some of them more than others. Not just Clone Wars. Obi-Wan is planet to planet to planet. Boba Fett is planet, planet, planet, Mandalorian is planet to planet to planet and too often

it's tattooing or it's a place we've already been a billion times. So, like, it's cool to be like, oh, yeah, there's a lot of places on the outer rim. this is what life is like for them. Well, and in those other shows, the places have no sense of history progressing. Right. Right. Whereas I think this is a place

where this feels a little bit like Andor in that time is moving on Lothel. People feel it moving. They feel like the city itself has this weird alien presence. Like the spaceport didn't used to be here. There's the old city, the old market. Right.

And then there is this like imperial superstructure that's grafted onto it. There's a transformation underway that sort of mirrors a transformation that's unfolding in the wider world. And I dig that because, yes, in those other shows, well, I think Clone Wars would have done this more had it not been so cursed at the outset with a disjointed continuity. But everywhere else, like, pretty much the same stuff is always cracking on tattooing. Like, you know, what's going on Tattooing can't change?

Some crime? Right, right. Whereas Lotho really does feel like a place 15 years after, after, you know, after, you know. the imperial, you know, how did they just, the 15th anniversary of the salvation of the empire. Like this, we, it feels like we're 15 years in to this sort of iteration of this universe. Do you all catch they were showing an old picture of Palpatine on the, on C-SPAN or whatever? Maybe it's doctor. No, I didn't think that's that.

He's not frog- He's not frogified. But I feel like by the time, if that is a photo from his speech that was given in the wake of the assassination attempt, it's doctored. And I think that might have been the first time the red diascars appeared. If it's the declaration of Empire Day, then it's, like, if that's the moment of the imperial founding, that's post-forogification. You're totally right. I've posted it for us to look at. So I don't see if it's a terminology post-frographication. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You got to keep the phrographication secret. Like, because if anyone had a close-up of, like, the guy telling you all this, you know some shit went down. You would know he's fucking evil. Look at it's evil. He's got evil. He's been evil-frogged. It's ridiculous. Okay, sorry, the Star Wars.com, I forgot.

I actually did already find and copy and paste this note from the Star Wars.com trivia section for this episode. Rather than show him as he is today, the file hollow of Emperor Palpatine depicts him when he was young and handsome, a common practice of tyrants using state-run media. Thank you, Starries.com. Well, yeah, but I'm breaking out the propaganda book. No, yeah, it's not him.

The Red Guards weren't there. Right, I agree. Yeah, I agree. So there is, yeah. I dig the, uh, the fact that the bar has the little old clone transport, uh, sticking out. Like, it's become decor and it's got the little, like, monkey from Java's Palace, uh, as the nose art. It's just, it's kind of cool, the sense that like, everyone's sort of repurposing the detritus of the clone wars in this world that some of the most ready supply. of like shelter, hardware is just left over crap from the war.

Just around. Yeah, it's just here. Like, why not use that stuff? You know, um, the place this bar is is called old Joe's pit stop. J.H.O. for Joe, that's the bartender.

And apparently it is colloquially known as Joe Thall. That's what people call the whole area. Which fucking rules. That's really cute. Personally. Uh-huh. Oh, my God. If I, like, if you go to,

college kids on low floor being when you're going to Jothal. Going down to Jothal tonight. Yep. I have another, there's another detail here. I'm just going through all the trivia stuff on this page because it's funny.

Old Joe's pit stop for cycle a lot of Clone Wars era junk, like you said, including what appears to be the nose of the crumb bomber, because Silesius Crum is on it, gun ship. Joe claims it's authentic,

which is actually even funnier that he'd get like a different type of ship and like retrofit it to look like a real gunship? My guess is just not one ever saw service. Right. Remember, like, in best years of our lives, there's the, like, airplane junkyard

where the planes that were made, but needed it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I bet you just, like, grabbed one of those. Extremely funny. Because I'm pretty sure, like, also that stuff pops up in, um, uh, Jedi Fallen Order, right? Is the, the opening junk plant.

It has these, like, acres of, like, decommissioned walkers, or maybe never commissioned. Mm-hmm. Um, so the other thing that, is kind of funny here is, boy, the life of a Thai fighter pilot seems to be a lot like the life

of a stady. They fly around, they park their cars, wherever the hell they want, and then they come and harass you at your bar. And yeah, here they are demanding that, you know, the Imperial Propaganda Channel be playing all the time,

but it blows up in their face because here's Gal Travis with more news the Empire doesn't want you to hear, but I'm still telling you this guy's an I don't trust because he's telling people, he's urging them to boycott the Empire Day in protest. And actually, hey, why don't just put your name on a list? Senator Gal Travis is here if you want to go to my change.org petition and put your name and home address. Right. It's either it's the two options are

absolute traitor. This is a trick or Brooklyn Dad Defiant. You know, Krasnstein brothers, this is absolute grifter. It's one or the other, and I don't think Rebels is going to go grifter. Andor could go grifter. I think season to end or, Monmouthman needs to deal with someone who's decided to make the rebellion their, like, personal slush fund, you know? We need a Sean King arc for the Rebels. I'm putting his name in the streets. Stop giving that man money.

I guess Senator in exile is a choice, right? Right. Just out of the gate, I just want to remind you, I have authority over you. Right. Even though I quit my job. Yeah. Come through. But I, when he comes on screen, I'm really excited about it, though.

I can't wait for him to like, I can't wait for the crew to meet him. I can't. I can't wait for Canaan to like regretably murk him in an alley somewhere. I think we are being, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, both of those is what I want. Yeah. I think that we are being misled. I think that they want us to think he's fulcrum.

Yeah. And he's not fulcrum. Come on. He's not fulcrum. He could never be fulcrum. He could never be fulcrum. Everything he is doing is like, hey, take an ineffectual, like, take an ineffectual action and protest. This is what I'm saying.

It will simply unmask you to the empire. Folkrum is like, here's how you make a bomb. Trayvis is like, yes, please send your name to the FBI with a note about how you don't like what they do. But he's talking to the people. That's the problem. He's just shut the fuck on the dumb asses. This is the guy who can get into the empire. This is the guy who hacks this fan?

Is this motherfucker? Come on. Right. So, but the thing that is revealed is. So the cops are there looking for a rodeo. What's very funny is there's another rodeon at the bar. And it takes a minute to realize they don't always have little like hair tendril-y things on their head. And they get different shades of spring green.

They're different shades. This recurs throughout this episode. They go up to various roeans. They really interrogate and stop every single rodeon they see on the street. They're like, does it matter? It doesn't matter if he's blue. Does it matter? It's like it's, it's fucking nuts out here.

What the fuck is going on? Minister Tua has reinstated stop and frisk. It's, it's fucked. So fucked. But Ezra immediately recognizes the guy they're looking for at Cebo. And he, so the ghosts are there to do sabotage. He says, sorry, I can't do sabotage with you today. I need to go, like, be by myself.

I have to go climb my water tower. Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, his little private space needle. Uh-huh. And he hears his mom's voice. And then we hear his dad, Ezra. We have to stand up for people in need, especially those in trouble with the empire. And then the clouds recede.

Uh-huh. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. A little on the nose, dad. Yeah. Uh-huh. It's shout out, I guess.

to the Tua's voice actress, Kath Susie, also plays Mira Bridger, and then D. Bradley Baker, who plays both Old Joe, and of course, for us, historically played all of the clones, also plays Ezra's dad here. So shout-outs to Gibbon D, some work during rebels. I appreciate it. That's fine. You know, I guess it's, is that the Force? No, that's probably just memories, right? He's probably just like, I mean, I don't know. The Force connection. next to all things, but they're not forced ghosts because they didn't go to that planet and get the training. So, I'm going to put, like, when we later, I think this is one of the things I like better about this episode. We'll come to it when there's a little

more revealed. Uh, I love the cut to the Empire Day parade where I'm a sucker for the Imperial March being presented as like a bit more of a swing in. Do you remember who stole this? Solo, sold this. Yeah. This is from here.

So this is where they got it? Yeah Or at least it was deployed here first And Vib is there Wait, who's Vib? Wait, Nidar Wab? No The dead paddle, the dead Jedi?

You think of Zeb? Zab, and Zeb is there. You know, Zeb is in Mando. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've watched too much content, right? But this is what I mean. Rebels is, feels like a center point

for a bunch of this other stuff for these reasons. they've been cooking in rebels that's right and now they're like letting it letting it filter into other into other stuff exactly

yeah I like the the like major chord version of the Imperial March I think this parade looks tiny and fake but otherwise but it is kind of tiny and fake because even the

even the the Imperial guy like one of the tricks that the Rebel Squad uses to like distract people as uh canaan goes to to put bombs on all of the ships and whatever blow up the tie fighters um this is their plan this is this is what i like about the fact that we're still on loathal it's like the they're not just like going off into space and doing

random jobs all the time like their home base is loathal esra grew up on lothull like this is like a living place like you said austin with history and that is like actively being shaped by um the uh the occupation the imperial occupation here so um they're going to they had a plan for empire day all along that they were going to like blow up these these new tie fighters that they're debuting um Cinar system advanced tie fighter when we see the city in wide shots it's a city and in this shot it's like 50 people yeah it is it is the it is the close up you do because you didn't get enough background actors or whatever you didn't do the full stage build yeah it's like it you're they're

cheating it they're they're shooting it and cheating is part of it cheating is allowed you're allowed to cheat i you gotta cheat you cannot you cannot be building cities like you got to cheat stuff um but yeah it does it does feel quite empty i think i think travis told people to stay home And this little base that they're revealing this thing in is empty. Well, he cleared those streets. Because it's not like out and about, right? It's like inside of the Imperial Holonet pictures of the difference between Valorum's big gatherings and Palpatine's gap. Look how many more people came to see Valoram give his speech on Lothal.

Then join today on Empire Day. Look, this aerial footage, you can tell. While I'm having really bad opinions, can I get a check on Minister Tua? Yeah, talk to you on Mr. Tua. How did everybody feel about her? I love her. She's great.

I need more. She's fantastic. Her little hat and the man she's clearly there to like, Governor Price is fucked off as best they possibly can. Governor Price doesn't want to be on loathole. No. The whole point of being in Imperial. And by the way, this, I think, is the other thing.

You know, there is no, like, what does the governor have to do? Whatever Tarkin tells them to. Right. You don't have a governor. Like, they're going to the Imperial Court to hang loose. Yes. And Tarkin's just like, okay, I'm going to terraform your plan to turn it into a giant. What does his name?

Governor Price. They don't call them Pricevilles or whatever. They call them Tarkinvills. What was it was? Tarkin towns. Tarkin towns. That's what it was right. Yeah, Tarkin towns.

They don't always call them Price towns. You don't matter enough for people to insult you. You know? Well, and then, like, you know, when we met Minister Tua, there's kind of a, like, careerist tryheart aspect where she's trying to sell the whole, like, yeah, no, I have a really important job. I'm overseeing the festivities on the Empire Day. She's such a keener, which isn't a word I use often. It's like a word that gets used in Canada a lot. People get called Keeners.

She's a keener. Like, she really is. Oh, me, me, me, me. I will be the one to traffic the illegal arms. Oh, please. Please let me go to the spaceport to pick up the illegal weapons. Need her TikTok account. I need to know.

I need to know what the videos are. I need to know what I need to her like, here's my routine. Here's my, here's every day. A day in the life of being a minister on Lothal. First thing I do is wake up. I get my overnight notes. And then the video just has unredacted crimes happening in the background. I've already meal prepped three weeks ago.

So I am set for the quarter. She's like showing you like a little quick look at the advanced tie fighter and is like not supposed to show you this yet. It's not all fun games. Working on some fun stuff here. Uh-huh. Like at the end of the day is the hardest part of my job. Uh-huh. Execution orders.

I do it like it takes, it's really solemn. It's really important. But then after that, it's time for some self-care. So we hit up the spa. Yep. But she didn't even do shit for this parade. She outsourced it to the dude. She's out.

She delegated to the guy. To be fair, she was working on her speech. She had to really get that right and hope that Mr. Grin, not Mr. Grin, whatever the other guy's name is, would get it right. And listen, there were fireworks. In some ways, if you're bad at your job, if you're so bad at your job that someone else shows up with fireworks, maybe you're good at your job, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it works out great for him because, like, Like, he delivered the special thing, which is the fireworks as far as an else is concerned. It's not his fault. The place got bombed. Right. The rebels then showed up and bombed everything.

He did his shit. Nobody ever pointed out like, hey, that was a fucking convenient time for the fireworks to go off. Like, that just like, he's going to get a gold star on his report card for that. Their fireworks delivery mechanism? They have crazy good arms. Yeah. Just whip that shit up there.

Can you imagine? And his form isn't even good. No. It's like doing like it's not even the under, it's not even really an underhand. It's like a, I guess he's trying to do like a, like a, like a discous throw into the sky. It's very weird. It's very, he's trying to shop put it, but it looks like he should be overhanding it. It's, it's great.

So also just listen, they didn't even need to tell me it was a tie advance. The minute they unveiled that thing, I was like, I know that one. That's a tie advance. And it was. It was. That one's really important because it's got shields. That's a big upgrade. Yeah, the tie fighter as a piece of equipment is so, you could not pay me to be a tie fighter pilot for many reasons.

But one of them is they don't got shields and they don't have hyperdrive. That's the two things that I want if I'm in space. Yeah, I'm a pass on that. But like, what if you wanted a job where the commute wasn't very long? Allie's running for minister, everybody. I will say this. Having seen a number of their missions, Thai fighter pilots have very short work days.

So they're going to, the big thing though is that the new Thai advanced, Lothel is going to be one of the production hubs for this thing. This is its real importance here is we are introducing the thing that's going to explain why are we going to, turn this entire world into an industrial wasteland. So here it is. And here also is

Baron Valen Rudor. We got a fucking Baron, which by the way, hearing the word Baron first made me think about Count Duku. And second You think of Baron Soonteer fell. Okay, we're different people. The second thing, and this is embarrassing

is it made me have a Phoenix Down moment with Count Duku. I hadn't thought about it that his name is Count Duke. His name is just two titles in a row. It just count and then Duke. So that was kind of disappointing. I never heard to me.

Why would it? I like his name less now. Yeah. Yeah. Would it be better or worse or it was Count Ducco? Worse? So Duku's not the worst it could be. That's then we're back.

Yeah. You know? Count Duka, worse. Worse. Count Duky Worse That's what Anna can definitely

cause him privately Yes Certainly Yeah So what's up This Baron So we're just

Interest this idea That genuinely I think he's there Basically to Remind us of Soonteer Fowl Who's like The Empire's star

Tie Fighter pilot And the old Expanded Universe And get back to this idea That they have Rick Toffin like Figures Who are

Aristocrats Who are going to be the face of this entire mechanized, like, military. Like Pretty Boy Aces who are from nobility, who can kind of almost be a bridge between the, like, bureaucracy of the government and, like, the national character. And because, like, you can't make, you can't keep the rich people happy by having some lowborn kid go through fighter school. But you can put their Pretty Boy sons through Fighter Pilot School. and make them seem like they're knights.

And if you do that, you can keep the, you know, established aristocracy happy. And then you keep them far away from frontline combat, like Texas Air National Guard type situation. Exactly. A thing that I never talked about, by the way, and it's like, I just want to say this out loud, is in the, that Leia book that I read, Bloodlines, there's this entire, the name Bloodlines, there's this entire, the name Bloodline. lines is partly about the fact that Darth Vader is our father and then partly about the fact that there's a B-plotted that whole book about

the Organa family and how it's like the Organa family is like one of the great houses of space and there's all this gesturing towards this era of hereditary monarchy like

it's like battle tech shit Rob it's like the great houses type stuff and it's like well where the fuck is that when I don't want it to come back, but I would love to hear people... Where to go. Where to go? What happened? What happened with that?

And so, I don't know, maybe we'll get some of that from... I have no idea when that, like, went away. But it's gone by the time Star Wars happens, so... Or mostly gone, I guess. Anyway, I imagine that this baron is part of one of those bloodlines, you know? Yeah, like, they have these people pop up, and then they never quite fully flesh out where does this uh aristocracy of like human society come from they don't they don't really get to it uh so the other thing we get a bit of canaan gets caught backstage basically planting all the

bombs and does the double rainbow bit uh to try to get out of it but it's not fully playing until ezra comes in and sells it bombs go off there's kind of a dull little chase uh like you know the point of it is really to get the group to split up. Zab meets up with Hara and Ezra takes the rest of the gang to go hide out at his old home. You also get to see who all is, like this is also the

sequence of you're like, oh, Callas is here. Oh, the Inquisitor is here. Everybody's here. This is a bigger thing. Yeah, and so like they go to Ezra's old family home and he immediately opens up the secret panel, the secret hatch in his house and finds

Sebo looking truly pathetic, weeping, in the little shelter beneath the home. And then the minute he calls out to Cebo, Cbo sort of snaps to it and appears to be almost like being

puppeted by his cybernetic device. He begins just sort of like spilling imperial secrets. Every time someone speaks to him directly, he just begins reciting knowledge that he had. It's very 29 steps. You know, if you've seen that little Hitchcock movie where Mr. Memory is

the secret to the entire thing. And, he's somebody who's so, like, cursed with all these, like, military secrets have been packed in there that they just start coming out of him. And that is what is happening to Cebo. And that is what makes everyone realize that, holy hell, we just found a really valuable intelligence trove hiding out in Ezra's house. But Ezra hates Sebo. Like, at first, he sort of, like, has sympathy and, like, it greets him as an old acquaintance, like somebody hasn't seen in a while. But once he hasn't meant it to process that, oh, Sebo is here. He's just so mad.

All, all Ezra's anger from the morning comes, comes right back out. Yeah, he's a little shit to him, kind of nonstop, especially given that, like, to be clear, Sebo has on this, like, head unit. We talked about Lobot, who's a character from Empire Strikes Back, who works for Lando. He has, like, his brain has been cybernetically altered so that he can hold more data or retrieve it like a droid. percent more productive than a that a average imperial information office worker exactly and and you know

as Star Wars' way this is like and he's traded some of his humanity for that and also it seems like it's all fucked up like it does not seem like it's working as intended which is good because it means he has his quote unquote humanity still or his he's still a person in there he's not just a

he's not just a robot who can spit out facts he is a whole person and I'm saying one of the droids are people. So this all gets messy in a weird way if you think about it for too hard. But you know, we've also seen, what was the character who showed up in the background of that of Solo? The half head.

Yeah, the half head. The half head. The decranated. Is that right? We looked this up after and I don't think we ever talked about it on podcast, but I think it's basically what we're positive. Somebody pointed out to us. They're called the decranated. Yes. And they are

it was a medical technique where wounded or in, this is from of Star Wars book of some sort, wounded or incapacitated victims of the ongoing insurgency are transformed with cybernetic technology to become as subservient as droids. Disturbing rumors persisted

that those who undergo the surgery are in fact sold into unwilling servitude and stripped of their individuality by the medical procedure. The decranated servants of Gesh Taps Cafe, keep boisterous off-duty imperial's content with tea and other libations. And then it's a photo. Describe her. What's going on with her?

It's a photo of a woman with half her head chopped off. Um, wearing basically where her nose would be is like kind of what you would imagine, like, AR glasses in Like 1980s would look like She's got a VCR up there She's got like You know She's watching her favorite movies

Yeah Now there's no head above that No it stops at her At the top of her This thing is covering her nose And there's no head No head above it I'm sure we're going to

Get more of the decranated In the future because it feels like they're supposed to be Lobot for a new age. It feels like Lobot, that style of like the stuff that we see with Sebo is not like shocking enough. And so in the 21st century, what we need is people who have parts of their entire heads chopped.

It's very 40K, right? This idea that the person who was in there is gone effectively and what has been left is a machine piloting the body. I mean, like, that's part of what, that's part of what Darth Vader is supposed to be in the initial fears, right? Is that like, when you read people talk about Darth Vader after a new hope comes out, and even if you listen to the way that Darth Vader's talked about in Star Wars, original Star Wars, it's like he's more machine than man now. He isn't a person anymore. Like, it's core to that style of fantasy. And then, yeah, it 40K, all of the big 80s and 90s, cyberpunk, like games like Shatter Run and.

and cyberpunk 2020 have this like notion of like as you get more technology in your body, you become less human. And it's fucked up because, of course, like the people who actually need technology in their body are people with chronic illnesses or who need disability age or prosthetics. Yeah, though I don't think the decranated are playing in that analogy. The decranated are not, well, no, except that the notion that the technology still does that. When there's also technological people in this world called droids who go. get to have personalities, right?

It's that something organic was replaced with something metallic and machinic that dehumanizes them. And that's the tool of dehumanization. It isn't, you know, there's no one in the setting who gets this done and then gets to still be a cool person. You know what I mean? No one can creanate them. No one can get cyberdetic brain shit in their brain to fix an arterial venous malformation, for

instance, and then get to continue being a whole person. There is no positive version of Lobot out there in the primary material. There probably is an EU. I mean, Lobot was that. Lobot is the positive version. Except that no, because by the end of Lobot story, he becomes, he's just an empty shell again, right? Like, that's, Lobot ends up, it ends up wrapping back around bad for Lobot. Does it? Yeah. Wait, in like, what story? I was just talking to somebody about this. I don't want to open up Discord. Because in an old EU universe novel, like, Lobop goes on an adventure with, like, Lando and Luke. Yeah, I want to say, I will pull up this Discord really quick and read what I was just

talking to somebody about, but, uh, while you're looking this up, what about Han Solo's nemesis? What's his? Dengar. Well, do you know what happens to Dengar? Well, have you seen what they've done to modern Dengar? No. This is what I'm talking about. This is what I mean. He's now being. That was at least a story about someone who was dehumanized. and cut off from their humanity through... Cybernetics and then... Comes back. Okay.

But there has to be a process of coming back. The current Dengar situation... Oh. He shows up in a Rise of Skywalker book as Rothgard Dang, which has now been retrofitted to be... The name Rothgar was already connected to Dengar. I mean, obviously Deng is already there. But through short stories, there have been like...

changes in references from Dengar to a guy named Roth or Rothgar. And he looks like this now. And it's brutal. And the quote, yeah, uh-huh. And it's again the same shit. It's that he's more machine than man. It's that he doesn't, that he's, he's, he's gone crazy.

He's subjected himself to, to more and more cybernetic enhancements to replace his broken body with, uh, with, you know, black market. cybernetics. Like, it's that story again and again and again. And that's just not, Star Wars is the world is the setting where you go to the cool nature planet so you can talk to the good ghosts

and the bad guys replace their body parts with cybernetics. Or, yes, you can be dehumanized by having your brain cut off and a robot brain put on there. And that's bad fundamentally. I mean, obviously doing it to a person unwillingly is bad. But you can't, there's no version of this where like, and that's in order to prevent a terrible brain disease. Do you know what I mean? Like that just, that is never the use case is, yeah, is specific to being, entering a life of servitude in some capacity. You're either being exploited or you are losing your mind and your humanity, right?

And again, we've hit this a billion times. This doesn't need to be. We don't need to draw this out further and further. And I feel bad for this guy. This guy clearly is like the tragedy of this that they're trying to impact the, the, Like, actual, the pathos of this is, oh, my God, he'd let them do this to him so he could try to make up for not being able to protect Ezra's parents, right? It also feels like he, like, the machine doesn't necessarily do this, like, by default. It's that he basically control aid, the Imperial Military Secrets file, like folder on Lothal and just pasted it over into his, like, cybern,

genetic head gear and like overwhelmed. I get why you would do it. You know, you're like, okay, I can't, I can't control F for Bridger because that would give me away. So let me just steal it all, do the local backup, and then I'll search the local backup later. Bad, bad plan. Didn't work. So, so this is why like just randomly, because it's like, it's almost like the files aren't indexed. Random things are sort of tangentially related to the topic at hand, but things are just sort of spilling out of him somewhat involuntarily as a different piece of knowledge that's associated comes out at that moment. So when people like point out, oh my God, like, you know, look what he did like look what's been done to him. Look what he chose to do having

this thing installed. He immediately quotes the fact sheet on, well, here's why this is good for people doing it, 19% efficiency upgrade. By the way, the thing that happens with Lobot is the same thing. He's totally fine for a long time. And then he almost gets caught, and because he knows it if he gets caught, it will be a problem. He reboots his own brain. So they got one story, man. They got four stories, but they're going to, like. Damn.

Yeah. We also get, I had, I had been convinced that Sebo, that Ezra thought Sebo sold his parents out. Yeah, that's what I was feeling too. What we hear is that Sebo was cautioning his parents to basically stop protesting so much that he's, you know, we hear him saying, I don't get in fights. I know I can't win. And basically telling the Bridgers that inevitably in the end, they were, they were going to get caught. But like for this entire first episode, I'm basically sitting there being like, no, at some point we're going to find that like Ezra thinks this is the, this is the person who informed that this is a family friend who was in position to inform. to inform on their activities. But that doesn't seem to be the case. I think we get an idea of what the case is in a minute, but first we have the escape.

So Sabine cracks into his data, realizes that it has all this info, so they need to get off this planet with Cebo. And to do that, they're going to have to hijack an imperial transport. We're going to be seeing these things forever, the toy with little action figure slots on the side. I can't believe it's bad.

It's so fun I like it more here where there's not literally people on the outside of it but I wish I'd see it this way first Maybe I'd like it more Same same same

Because it's a cool little ATV Like an ATV A TV like a cool little APC like Tank thing That like it's a hover It hovers around It's big and blocky

In a fun way But So for as many Imperials As the Ghost crew kills Yeah I guess I don't fully understand their squeamishness about just executing people that they, for instance, drag out of a

transport. So they can steal the transport because the way they get caught is the guy they dismounted from the car calls ahead and it's like, hey, they stole my transport. And so they're heading toward a checkpoint and they get made and they have to run the checkpoint. They have to, this part's kind of cool to drive straight at the leg in the ATST and cut it off, which is awesome. but couldn't all of this have been avoided with a single shot? It's one guy. It's one guy.

Now they kill like seven more guys. They killed like 20 Imperials over the course of this car chase. Including the hardest working imperial I've ever seen. The guy on the bike. What's with that guy? That guy on the bike who pulls up next to them hits them with like the door blasting grenade EMP thing. Then does the like Batman hide up on top

so that when they open the door to it can, front of him, he's not there, that he does the Batman jump in, start beating ass. Like, it's give that man a promotion. He really did it. That's that he just gets hurled out into a median strip at like a hundred miles an hour. And that is why you should never put your life on the line for your job. That's right. You did not work very hard. You work. Yes. He worked too hard. He worked too hard. And he came out looking like a fool for it. So. He should have not worked that hard. You know, if the Rodeon hadn't been there, if he gets confused, he's like, oh, my God,

the Rodeon's like, oh, the Rodeon's here. Like, if he had just been focused on Azra, kept his cool, it might have been okay. I do hope we find him again. I want any time anybody does, anytime one of these stormtroopers has something cool, I'm going to say it's this guy. It's this guy again. He's back. Yeah.

Maybe that one's secretly still a clone trooper, and there's like a million of them. So the other thing is, this like small thing small thing but it bugs me in car chases uh-huh if the pursuit car is an identical vehicle to the car being chased yeah uh-huh i don't care if the villain is driving it it is not faster than the identical vehicle that it is trying to cast there's more people in the front one certainly that would be three more people inside would slow it down the power to weight ratio is all off all off You know, he's getting, uh, it checked up more.

You're, yeah. It's his personal unit. He should have at least painted it. It's the force. It's the evil force that makes you better. You've heard of plot armor. Well, welcome to plot engine. Uh, it just moves you faster forward. He should have had like a cool racing strip on it to make it go faster, paint it red.

These are all classic. Like flames on the side. Flames on the side, a wizard maybe. Yes. You know. I mean, Callis does love the pomp. in circumstance of his job. I could see he has a little, like, you know,

like fake Latinit phrase written on the side or something like that. Yeah, no, I could get with that. Callis is a 40K-ass motherfucker. Callis wishes he had a god emperor. And he only has, like, a frog emperor, which is like, that's fine, but. He's doing the best he can with it. Like, he's giving it as all. And here we get, you know, we're renewing that Zeb has it in for Callis,

because Cal is still running around with the... Oh, we skipped that bit earlier. Oh, yeah, where Zeb had him dead to rights. Yeah, well, right. They were on their way out from the fireworks, a distraction, blow up the tie, advanced prototype unit. And Zeb is like, I'm going to shoot that motherfucker. It's like, shut up, just leave.

You did your job. No one knows you're here. There's chaos. Why are you pulling out? Like, what do you stop it? I think God, Canaan was there with an even better idea. If you're going to shoot somebody, shoot that guy and then he misses completely misses why do you even have a gun

does that you don't get a gun anymore give that gun to Ezra you know what Ezra's get Ezra gets the gun now slingshot aim he could do it he could get that shot he misses by so much he misses high and wide it's almost like he didn't want to hit it makes you think makes you think he's another traitor what's what's the species Lestat Lestat? Lestat Like the vampire

Exactly It's not Lestat I don't remember Zab species Lassat Lassot, okay Close Yeah

Too close I'm just saying like Yeah Lestat The vampire Lestat Did you miss me Did you

Why are you back there Did that just hit you I'm just saying this is why you don't mix and match. Your ceremonial melee weapon can't also be your sniper rifle. And this is a great demonstration of why, like you know, the two compromise each other.

Yes. But anyway, that continues. Zeb has more Zeb has a better opportunity here when he opens fire from above, from the ghost. And it triggers a very fast and the furious transport crash as Callis's

transport goes flying. But he's still on the back of the transport and we have an entire little chase sequences the whole gang makes their makes their escape and that sort of sets off the the tie fighter chase that that ends the episode um i really canaan does a weird jettai jump did anyone else feel that jump felt weird no it's because he's supposed to because he clearly didn't have the arc at all so he had to like yeah he's he had to turn on the game genie that is what it looks like it looks like he has like He's clicked his sprite in a video game and dragged it up into the ship.

Like, but like while the animation is playing. Like the GIF is playing and he's just dragging it across his screen. Good for him. It's not the best Jedi jump we've ever seen. I don't have the force. I couldn't do it. So he made it work. He found a way where there's a will his way.

Uh-huh. And here finally, Sibo has a moment of coming back to himself and he recognizes Ezra. and he says in Rhodian that he knows what's happened to Ezra's parents and we go on the and the chase continues we get the 2B continued we come right back to the middle of the chase

chopper got hit during the gun battle he's fine he's fine thankfully I do enjoy this little bit where Sabine immediately is trying to get Ezra to tune in to what Sivo is saying. And with Sabine there, he says, I already know what happened. My parents are dead and cuts it off.

And the minute she leaves, he turns to Sivo, grabs him and it's like, are they dead? And I do enjoy, I do enjoy this bit where Ezra's a little bit more, I guess, interesting to me as a character, if you view all of the annoying kid shit he's doing, the like ingratiating qualities of him, the like annoying

annoying Sabine with like irritating little flirting as all of it as a way to keep people at arm's distance like to

to be kind of off putting in a way that gives him privacy from these folks without them realizing

that he doesn't want them to know like where he's at I like that idea I don't think it's the character we got yeah I like that idea

a lot but also there was that time he fell off the ship and made cartoon wolf eyes at Sabine On the way down?

Yeah, he did a little wave. Yes, exactly. It is what it is. He's not, okay, here's the thing. I will say, he's better than Lux Buntary. Yeah. Yeah, but, yeah, but the bar is so fucking low with Lus. Are you kidding?

Yeah, like, but he could be Lusontory. Lucks, Lucks like flopped dead in the dirt so Ezra could crawl. What Ezra, what Ezra needs is more swag, unfortunately. And that is something that not everybody has At the jump and some people have to grow in Follone's shows have no Zucco energy Yeah, no, there's never there's a lot he took from Avatar But he only got young energy

And there's no There's no I guess Anakin kind of has Zucco energy From Avatar No, but except Zucco could just fix Anakin Zucca could be like we're going on a road trip And then it's cool Well, and Uncle Iro could fix Anakin

Is the other thing Uncle Iro could have fixed Anakin For sure 100% They needed to just have some money Remember how good it was When Uncle Iro just fucking unloaded on Zico For watching a fuck up for three seasons

Yeah, it was great I want Uncle Iro to do that But to Yoda Anyway I don't even like Avatar that much But that would be my life That would be great The other thing is that

it seems to me so we learn that Cebo is racked with guilt because he didn't take Ezra in after his parents were disappeared. Which is a great beat. I like that as like the actual source of guilt because it's the classic like, oh right no, like this is a person who has

this is an adult and the thing that he cared about was not, we should have destroyed the empire to get, it's like I, that was a seven year old. I could have done more for that seven year old and that's a mature real like sense of guilt versus what...

And there's something else here. Ezra thought it was. Ezra tells him, you know, you're coward, you could have stopped them. And Canaan and everyone is like, Canaan later is like, what could Sebo do against the empire? But the them is actually ambiguous. Right.

I suspect, like, my feeling here is like, is some of this actually that Ezra's like, yes, this happened. This is a tragedy. The anger is partly directed at his parents. Like, this is your, your, your activist parents. were like in the middle of a long shot campaign to just like continue like fighting the good fight, but there was no percentage in it. There was going to be no victory. It was inevitable that it would end this way with, you know, with them being sort of carted off. And I think it's kind of ambiguous as to where is his anger directed here? Is it solely at the empire or is there also a bit of anger at the fact that, you know, he is a child. He is a baby and his parents put their ideals above him.

And that's, like, very sympathetic and very noble, but at the same time, it did mean they were going to abandon their child inevitably. And that's what ends up happening. Yeah. Well, and there's something interesting then about the place that the crew of the ghost has for him as, you know, not a quote unquote found family, but as like a surrogate or replacement one in a, in a, there's a lot of, there's a lot of expectations. that are being put on them that they did not necessarily sign up for. I mean, Canaan does as like an explicit mentor in some ways, but like, do you think that they take him in if they know that he has all this baggage about his family or his parents who used to also be proto-rebels and that they might end up getting some of that, those

feelings projected onto them? I feel like that motivates them. I feel like that almost motivates them to bring him in more. and bring him back, almost framing it as like bringing him back to his roots. Like, this is where your, this is where your roots really are. It's not loathal. It's like in this ideal, in this value in like what your parents stood for. Like, honor your parents by honoring their fight, that kind of thing.

That's, but I think you're right. And also, that's kind of shitty. It sucks. Can you also, though, can't you just hear Canaan and Hera having a conversation where they come in conclusion that like, hey, this isn't, we're here to do the thing. We're here to fight the empire, not check off like a need to connect with the family that died fighting the empire. It's a difference, right?

That I could almost see them seeing it as this is why he becomes unreliable and we can't have that in this group. It doesn't feel like what Harris position would be. I feel like Canaan is such a softie. It's hard to know. And also, we don't know enough about Canaan's history. Who did Canaan lose? Did Canaan lose a master?

Does Canaan see himself? Is this part of why Cadence sees himself and Azra? I mean, yeah, it's interesting. Like, Canaan's, like, requirement for becoming a Jedi is be willing to attach to others. We've only heard, detach, free yourself from attachment, get away from attachment. Attachment is the Jedi, you know, kryptonite or whatever. I did a lot of thing at the end of this episode about this and how they don't know the word love and they, and it is killing me. Because attachment, attachment's bad in real life.

It is. Attachment is bad. I am not, I do my best to not be attached to the material things in my life. I do my best to love the people in my life and to care for them and to support them. But attachment, like not to be the guy who spent some time as a Buddhist, but like it does lead to suffering, which is what all that shit is based on, right? And the thing that the thing that's missing from the Jedi, like the code is that like compassion and affection and love can also be there without there being. being this thing that is very clear what we mean when we say attachment in the negative, which is the replacement of the self with the connection to another.

The only way you get fulfillment is through your connection to someone else or through your ownership of something or through your power relationship towards somebody else. That you shouldn't have that. That is what we mean when we talk about attachment. And because also the sense that like attachments are bad because attachments will lead to suffering because there's nothing in the world that will last. Everything is fundamentally fleeting. Time's luck. Right. A hundred percent, right? And so when you can only rely on your attachment to things and not the process of love for someone, not the moment of affection or

intimacy with someone, but attachment, it can't go anywhere. I'm attached to it. That does lead to problems in your life, mundane and, you know, much larger. And Canaan wants Ezra to understand that love is powerful and that affection and trust and belief are the things you can rely on. But that attachment can lead to anger and fear and all that stuff. But it's like he doesn't quite have the word for it because he came out through the Jedi system, right? I think he's probably on the best route we've ever seen a Jedi beyond because he's willing to talk about that other stuff. But I don't think he's talking about attachment. I think he's talking about camaraderie.

I think he's talking about all that other stuff. And that's why I'm like, I love Canaan. Like, Canaan is such a cool character for us to have in this role because I don't know that we've ever, in any of the content we've seen, had a Jedi who has gone through enough to understand the difference between attachment and all those other positive ways to relate to other people into the world, right? Sorry, I really was that. I watched this episode and was like, ah, fuck, Star Wars.

I just want the, like, flashback episodes to show how the gang originally got together. I don't necessarily need that. But with, with Kane and I want it, with Canaan and Hera especially. Yes. There is a Canaan and Hera prequel book that we haven't read.

The one call from Obi-Wan comes, and he's like, I got bad news, but I got some good news. I have no idea how far back it goes. It's called a new dawn. I don't know that it's good. I'm not here to recommend that we read it. necessarily. But this is, you know how they didn't really get a big backstory episode?

They kind of did, but they kind of shared their short. They're like, what was it before the first episode, right? The little web shorts. That's because this book was already out, which is like, hey, do you want to know about these two? Here's a book about them. I'm not saying that we should go read it. It might spoil stuff about our, I mean, wouldn't spoil stuff because it came out already,

but, you know. But I have reveals in it that are. that I'm excited to see how those come. Yeah, exactly, exactly. They do not make the show anticipating that people read this 400 page book, you know. Oh, but the print's pretty big. It has a four word by Dave. Dave wrote the foreword to this book.

They're not write the book, but, you know. Sure. So they need to get the hyperdrive working, you know, take a drink, classic Star Wars stuff. that the hyper drive is knocked out. Chopper's not there to fix it. But the minute that, you know, Ezra is trying to grope around and figure out how to like

hook a Navi computer back up, Sebo just walks in, Cooley just walks up to the Navcomputer and plots the jump and off and off they are. At which point, everyone on the ship is Team Sebo. Like, Sebo showed up and immediately everyone's like, we love having Cibbo.

Seebo immediately showed up and then immediately clutch. Like, if you, if you clutch that early into a new team dynamic, you are instantly goaded. This is the law of clutch. Yeah. So we're getting, we're getting wasted. I don't know where we're going, but we're getting waste with Cebo when we get there. 100%.

Like, this is, this is it. Sebo has all that intel. You don't think that intel has, like, where Thirsty Thursdays is? Of course it does. Sorry, Ezra. We're moving you out of your room. Zeb and Sebo are hanging. As well, you're on the couch.

We're calling it a clubhouse now. And I don't know. You can like hang out in the turret. So, yeah, Allie. I do think Sebo has a little bit of like tabletop and PC energy though. Like it's really interesting that he's like this little bargaining chip that creates conflict. But also he can walk into a room and be like, can I have plus one on this role to fix the thing? Because Sebo's here.

this is the GM be like how do we get them out of the situation the NPC he just does it there's no role he just does it he just does it for you he has cybernetic implant and this recording who in this scene would know about the tracker that you just got the

information roll on oh it's Simo it's Simo walks in he walks in he hits his head in such a way that he's exactly aligned for what you need and then for every session thereafter every time a character shows up with cybernetic implants people are like well we're Haley and that's not how it works

Yeah, that's not working with Sibo was here. CBO. Yeah, exactly. So, wait, now my character has cyber implants, and it's only like a plus one, like, what the fuck? Oh, God. So, let's see. The thing that happens next is, oh, yes, they think they got away clean. And Cbo hears them having that conversation and.

Again. Not so much. Here's a little, let me throw out a little spec sheet of the Wikipedia entry for a new Imperial munition. Which, by the way, he, that, the Inquisitor

should have just shot a missile. Immediately, like, or like a little drill. You have the coordinates. You, I mean,

hyperspace. I even mean before that. When he hits them with the tracker, he shoots a little tracking device onto them. And it hits them, no problem.

This is a classic, like, that should have been a bullet. Why did you just shoot them? If it's that easy to stay, and I'm sure, I'm sure if I open up the West End RPG book,

which this thing is from, which again, by the way, uh-huh. You don't load, you don't load a plane with munitions if you don't think there's going to be combat. You're saying the Thai fighter doesn't have missiles, the Thai advance didn't have missiles in it, ready to go? He's just there to attend a parade. He's got, so he's got guns.

Okay. And he's got like the rare tracking device. Maybe that comes, maybe that's stock, you know? I don't know. I just think he should have blown them out of the sky At that point He's clearly trying to blow them out of the sky He is like he's not faking that part

There's not Tarkin ha ha we let them go The tracker is there at least as a head strategy But he is trying to shoot them down It just doesn't work out It is just kind of weird that like the one tracker Hits dead on and then nothing Nothing else does And then Sibo happens to know

Oh there's a chance they hit you with this by the way can we do a scan? Oh, yep, they hit you with this, yes. Oh, but it's on the Phantom. Yeah. The little shuttle. I was not kidding, by the way. The XX23 S-thread tracker is a piece of technology

first detailed in Cracken's Rebel Field Guide, a role-playing game guide book published by West End Games in 1991. That is Aiden Cracken, not Pash Cracken. Pash-Cracken is his son. Aidan Cracken is the head of, like, Rebel Special Forces and later New Republican Intelligence. Gotcha. Thank you for the clarity on that one. It's useful.

So. Oh my God. That thing cost 15,000 credits. That's so expensive. That game's economy gets wild. Oh, I bet. I bet. Anyway. Memory serves a lot of playing that game was arguments about like, well, if this cost that much, then, like, we can't buy a planet.

It's like, no, you can't buy a planet. It's like, why not? I feel like this is a lot of money. We just like buy our way out of this. And the answer is no. No, these bounty hunters don't want 20,000 credits. Anyway, so with the, with the phantom having been tagged, they get the idea of splitting up. It's got to be the two force users who, you know, are the lure, because otherwise the Inquisitor will sense that they are not, that they've split up and they're not aboard the phantom.

So the plan is to have everyone split up and lure the imperials off to the, lure the imperials off to the base. Which is a tricky thing because they're in hyperspace. So they can't just go there with the whole crew. What they have to do is eject the little mini ship that's in the ghost, the phantom.

And somehow eject it in a way that drops it out of hyperspace just in time for it to land on the little asteroid station, which I got faked out so bad. And anybody else here get faked out so bad during this. Through the lead-up to this, they're like, well, there's that abandoned clone base. And I'm like, oh, shit. Are we going to run into some, like, old clones?

Is there going to be a cool clone base? like what's where are they going to go I was like oh right I immediately knew I immediately knew it was where we just fucking were and I was like I can't believe this bullshit place is is relevant

this bullshit like platform on the planet like why you know you got to cheat oh we have to go back to platform 247 platform 247 is where

is where it is where the all the creature spawned. It's literally that same place too. They couldn't go to a different place. No. No. It had to be that one because that's where the fucking cat spawner is where you can just go

to... Oh, I've an apology to make. I called those fry knox before because there's the... What are the other ones called? My knox. There are my knocks in Empire Strikes Back. They're supposed to be like the same sort of thing. Not literally

they're not literally an alien species that's related, but there are another scavenging species. So the idea in the writer's room was like they would get named a similar thing. They're not Frynox. They're fear knocks. F-Y-R, not F-R-Y. Oh, my goodness. So dangerous for a young Jedi apprentice to be around. The fear knocks. Yeah, fear is such a dangerous thing. So. Oh, I almost forgot while they're having this conversation about whatever shall we do, what's our, what's our game plan here? Yeah. Ezra's sulking in the turret. Oh yeah. And Sabine goes to talk to him because we're going to, hey, let's pour a little fuel on that fire. Let's see these two start to build a connection. And she is asking him to, don't you want to know about your family? Don't you want to find out answers? And Ezra explains, here's the key to Ezra that this episode has. It was his hopelessness that enabled him to survive. The way he explains it is if he had ever allowed himself to think his parents were out there. there, and they might come back to rescue him, he would not have found it in himself to

become the kind of person who could survive an entire childhood without parents at all. And, you know, I think the, you know, things decent here is that sort of a classic, maladaptive strategy of, you know, he's like, I had to do this because it enabled me to do X. And the answer is, well, you could have probably just done X. Like, the rest of this is baggage. But he's got this whole, like, his whole story. the thing that makes him make sense to himself and turns a shitty thing that happened into a superpower is that by giving up on the idea that anyone would be out there be looking out for him, he is able to look out for himself.

But also this is why he can't connect to other people and why he can't connect to creatures on command. For some reason, yeah, he hates animals. I guess I get it in the sense of like no patience and no, you know, it's the force. She's not opening up He's like living out In the middle of fucking note Like you don't think he sees And gets lonely

He never had a little dog He never had a little No He is primed to be To have a little guy around Maybe he's gonna get a little guy Yeah He's like the perfect

No Chopper is a 40 year old man Chopper is not Chopper is not a little guy Chopper thinking about I had a moment in this episode or I was thinking about the fact that Zeb

is calling Dave David Filoni a rust bucket like that's him underneath it's so it's just Yeah he's in there he's in the little It's him It's him inside of it Inside Chopper and I just love

thinking about that Yeah being like fuck you but in beeps Yeah I like thinking about Philoni being like Make him flex he's doing the whole little flex thing again I'm doing all right we're We'll animate the flex. We got it, Dave.

You guys already have the flex. Just put the flex back in. Yeah, just do the flex again. All right, we'll just do that script. Yeah, we'll just, you know what? We'll just load that animation. Yeah, look at him, spin. He's doing little flex.

Wob, blah, hop, all right, great. That's how he sounds. It's great. Print it. Well, the, really quick to stay on the little guy thing. I just want to say, I think it's very funny. We now have this Ubisoft, open world, seemingly open world Star Wars game

Outlaws that got announced during Not E3 and they were like all right we have a main character The main character needs a little guy But the other fuck of the EA Star Wars game Has a little droid guy So we got to do a little creature We got to do a little alien guy

We can't do a little droid So we're going to do a little creature I think that's a funny decision to get made They're not wrong You need to have a little guy That's Star Wars And I would love to see Ezra get a little guy.

Yeah. I mean, Ezra's getting animal pilled during this, right? This is like where this has to be going. It's clear.

Like, Canaan couldn't do what Ezra did here at the end. This is what I'm curious about. Like, this is a very specific Jedi ability to be teaching where that I don't think most Jedi,

I guess Obi-1 uses it. Obi-1 uses a lot. A lot. I think it does kind of feel like a Jedi specialty of a sort. like you would you would concentrate more in like animal yeah yeah you're like a druid class Jedi yeah like druid yeah exactly yeah you get the animal proficiency that's true I think that like

Obi-Wan has that ability in the way that um uh Quinlan Voss has the psychometry he can touch an object and see the past and not every Jedi can do that so I do think animal specialization is a thing and I think that it is very cartoon for kids coded to have your teen boy become the animal whisperer yeah and get like cool animals all the time yeah I can imagine it yeah and yeah the plan here is they're going to go hide out in the monster the monster cave on the base we get a great moment as they're they're headed down to the planet and Ezra sort of admits that he's afraid going into this plan we just got a lot of great cane and line

readings here I got news for you kid everyone's afraid it's like fuck yeah hell yeah It's, uh, and Canaan just watched the, just watched band of brothers and is like doing the whole, like, we're all afraid, Bly, I've been. I need, I need Canaan's watch list. I need to know what Canaan turns to in his times of, I don't know what TV shows he likes. I need his Spotify playlists. I need to know, like, who is he, what is his media, you know, consumption like, generally speaking? What's, what is Canaan's favorite band? What's Kana's favorite song? I need to know. You think it's creed? It does. Like, look. That just came to me.

I don't know. Yeah, but I don't think that's the forest. It's right. I think that like soul pad that like soul patchy thing you've got going. The soul patch is what brings Creed out. Or like, uh,

uh, uh, uh, alien ant farm. Oh, alien and farm. No. I think

this situation where if they made an Ezra playlist Alien Ant Farm would be on that but that would be revealing something about the person who made that playlist and not about Ezra

He'd listen to the young people music Like Alien I thought we're talking about Canaan No no I'm saying That's where Alien Ant Farm would show up Oh I see me On Ezra's by a mistake Of someone who thought

that they were saying something I don't think I don't see Canaan as an alien ant farm I see, I think creed is it. I think that was the right. I feel it. Yeah.

So we get the whole like therapy session of them trying to hold the monsters at bay and Ezra just can't do it. And finally he says as he's straining to connect with the monsters, he's not afraid of the monsters. He's afraid of the truth. And then he yells, I forgive you, Cebo. I'm sorry. How did we get from? How did. This was bad.

This was bad. This was, he's like, he's like scared about getting eaten by a bunch of space cats. Fear knocks. Fear knocks. And then he goes into this like wildly, uh, introspective, like self, self-aware, like, uh, monologue of, I'm afraid of knowing. I'm afraid of the From nowhere

From like It's like if the entire scene Was written out of like Shipvids on Like YouTube in some ways Like character music videos It is like that Because it is like the situation

Where you're like You're complete Where you just start running Being like Okay I love you Like okay Like I have to just say it Like or whatever

That comes out of thing The music track kicks in It's his birthday he's going through it he's the birthday boy he's the birthday boy it's out of nowhere it's out of the past 40 minutes of episode that we watch

okay the thing for me is like he's you're the thing that's supposed to be happening is he is emotionally closed off because he's a because he's caught up on his birthday he's just a little guy

he's his dead parents just getting in the way with animals in this moment. But there's no, there's no, it doesn't link in the way that you want it to. If this was an episode about doing the Jedi mind trick where it's about the truth and about, oh, you're going to, I'm going to teach you how to use the Jedi mind trick on a person and mislead them. And it's like, I can't make someone else be misled because I'm always misleading myself.

That's thematic sweetness, right? You get the, like, you get that. I mean that like a technical sense, right? not like, like there is a cleanness, an overlap of themes where those two things can talk to one another, right? Like, oh, there's that, there's that episode of Star Wars visions in the first season. We haven't gotten to the second season yet where the characters blade turns from red to blue to represent the characters like, I'm burning hot and I'm evil, and now I'm feeling good

and it's blue again. And like, it's very basic, but like when you have thematic clarity between your two different things like it could hit and it doesn't hit here because the two things are I'm sad about my dead or missing parents and I've been lying myself about it and I want to use these animals as a weapon and those don't talk to one another in any way I don't know what the situation in his life would need to be for it to be he would need we would have to be revealed that he was he did the whole fry arc from Futurama I mean no I'm going the other way how do you get to how do you get to animal control.

Oh. What in his life? What's the dark past of his life with animals? Maybe his parents were like, they were eaten by animals. They were like fear not. They ate animals. Breeders or something. I don't know.

That's the threat. The other side of this is sometimes it can be too on the nose and then it's bad. And good thematic work like hits like goes through the eye of that needle. It threads it somehow. We had both. We had, we had his dad being like, you need to do. anything that will hurt Imperials, especially people that

are affected by the Empire. You really need to help with them. Help them with that. Q, doing Empire. Imperials are doing stuff and we need to help people. And then going all the way to, I'm afraid of these Fear Knox.

So I forgive. At least I don't say Fear Knox. They don't say it, I don't think, out loud. It's only in the production documentation. So, yeah. But yes. But it is. just doesn't, yeah, I don't understand why this would be the thing

that gets him Well, and again, in real life, I actually do get it if this was real in the sense that human shit, brains are complicated in this messed up way. You can be having a terrible week because

you're thinking about some completely unrelated shit from 15 years ago or whatever and it's like getting in the way of you. Oh, like Josh and the West Wing with the music. Like Josh in the West West. We have to just do a sports night thing at some point we just have to oh no you you did sorry josh in the west wing i don't know i don't know this i don't know josh in the western because i'm not a western person

oh there's an episode of this entire therapy session about like so why was i having PTSD flashbacks during this key moment that's because christmas music is triggering flashbacks through the sound of sirens sure right you have these connections and sometimes you can't resolve them sometimes it truly is like i'm just in a shitty mood because i'm thinking about thing x and i'm trying to do thing seven and they're for whatever reason they're not matching so but in my media when you're talking about a world in a setting where the force pulls connections together like that i just want a little a little smoothness anyway it is sick when he makes the big evil monster trying to fight the inquisitive which he does the job like he gets a giant monster and monster

gets them out what's wrong with him connect so good that he connects with the biggest guy there. What's wrong than that? Maybe cross Natalie off the Padawan training rotation. Just now you're learning this? You know what? You don't need

maybe back to the younglings just work on them circles. I would not go evil. I would simply use my anger and the power it grants me for good. she's right thank you allie thank you i just do good job yeah i also love the the the shot of in in the corny version of the scene and he has the the mind thing communication

with cebo which i think rules if i'm going to see the force on screen i wanted to like be two people being empathetic with each other like i think as eras like i'm opening myself up to the force for the first time is also like this this like interpersonal connection rules but when he cuts back to him and all the little monsters just sitting in front of him he was like a really good comedy the way they sit is so cute too it is like they're around but cats yeah uh who are who are just sort of just sort of waiting uh also so hera takes siebo to meet fulcrum who travels around in a blue corallian corvette it's not the same one that way a half As right that one has the red stripe has the red stripes the tan of four

Maybe they haven't added the red stripes yet it's true No we've seen The very bail organ of color the fucking tan of four was in a previous episode or we've seen that ship already He's rich I know he's rich he can have multiple things He may he's two like sometimes are you saying that you think bail is fulcrum This is the place that you're putting your money no I don't it's too obvious But it could be because I'm just saying that bail seems like kind of guy who would say that like Okay, hon, you can take the Tant of 4.

I'll take the Tant of 3. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, why not? Tant of 2 is in the shop. Where is Mon Mothma? I don't know. I think, actually, we do know because this is. But she's not really an on the ground person.

Well, she's in Corrassant right now. She's raising funds for Gal Travis. This is 15 years. This is the same year as Andor, season one. Oh, shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I think we're moving past it with this episode, right? Is she in the show?

show? Not yet. Am I allowed to know that? Are you? Do you want to know? Sort of. We can't know. She's in Rogue One and Rogue One is like lousy with Rebels connections.

I feel like she's probably in the show. I just have a feeling about it. I just want to know if you don't want answers. I don't want answers right now. I don't say a word. I'm annoyed that I know that Zab was in the Mandalorian. Okay. so sorry for being observant

like damn no no no I already not supposed to say I'd already no I already do that too because I'd had the moment where

so when I was doing episode prep like the other week I somehow stumbled across that info because it's sort of I can't remember what it was but I did sort of realize that Yeah, the Helmonds of Mandalorian, all the shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, I mean, it is impossible.

It is so hard to not get spoiled on stuff. There are so much rebel stuff that's out there that I know and there's stuff that I don't know. And I feel like I know too much. And it's the worst because it's like me knowing as much as I do can sometimes make me feel safe. And that makes me fine shit I don't want to know yet. You know what I mean? And also, it's just easy to find, like, you know, there are stuff that is core to who characters are that we don't know yet, but would be instantly a spoiler on the, at the very top of any Wikipedia page, right? Like when I found out Hara's name.

I wish I had not found out. That's what it was. So, yeah, it's that simple. That was what I was talking about. You're just looking up an episode summary, and you get that first time, every first time of characters mentioned, it's always the full name with the hyperlink. This is why I'm like, don't look anything up. It's, it's, I don't get there.

And it's not a big, you know, whatever. It's fine. It's not spoilers. It's just like, oh, that would have been a nice surprise to get. I love not knowing. So the drop off of Holcomb goes fine, but as he's leaving, Sebo explains to Hara that he'd just been doing this to try and find information. on a mirror in a frame.

Ephraim. And Hera, he has a secret. He found stuff out about Ezra's parents. Hera takes the info and says she'll, you know, clearly she's going to pass it along to Ezra. Meanwhile, back on cat monster

planet, Inquisitor arrives, the monsters are unleashed on the stormtroopers. Stormtroopers can't handle that, but the Inquisitor easily can. And it turns out he can easily handle Canaan, too. We have two Canaan Inquisitor fights And I'll be honest

Do you think this is a matter of being I think he's out of practice? He's out of practice He's like he he hasn't been He's kept that lightsaber like Holstered for a while And I think he's just now breaking it I think he used to break it out to like

Cut things Uh huh Maybe like you know quick little Or maybe like intimidation maybe. Right, maybe. This is only 15 years after Order 66. Like, I would not, I would have, I would have buried my lightsaber in a fucking ditch

somewhere. I would not be carrying it with me. So I feel like he's just, like, somewhat out of practice. Well, and we, I suspect the Inquisitor has been out there dropping Jedi, left and right. Like, he doesn't even fight. Like, what's the last time Canaan has had a lightsaber duel in his life? 15 years ago, you know. It's not like they were out there generally.

Even if you had been using it, lightsaber duels are rare things, which is part of why it's so fun to see them. Because again, the Inquisar does have this joy still using the weapon. It's like he's having fun doing it. And there's some great beats. Caden tries to draw down with the blaster,

and the Inquisar is like, no, that's mine. Zoop. And then Ezra tries to pick up the lightsaber. And you think for a moment, you think okay earlier he talked all that shit about how he was gonna kill

that cat or he's the regular cat kind of a monster but like personality wise back on Lothal is he gonna swing on the Inquisitor he does not even get the chance

he does not even get the chance Quisitor instantly takes the lightsaber away from him starts dual wielding them marching down on him the light of the lightsaber is lighting his own face and then Ezra summons

the big mama fear knock or whatever And I just don't think this works out that well Well actually it works out like I mean they get away But they don't get the dub The monster doesn't The monster doesn't have that dog in it

First of all The monster's big But it has the vibe of monsters Maybe so big It has actually had to fight in a while Right And so the minute it gets a load Of the Inquisitor

Spinning lights in its face It's like I would really rather not Be mind controlled right now And also in this like As as does this. Canaan wakes up and has the big Ezra, no moment and then the monster's unleashed. Monsters

getting its ass kicked by the Inquisitor. Poor little monster. Didn't know what was going on. Yeah, kind of fucked up to just possess all the fear knocks to fight for you. Yeah, that's what Caden's saying. I mean, actually, Cana was fine with the little ones, just not.

Yeah, Caden brought up, the whole plan was the fact that they were going to mind meld with all the fear knocks, to have the fear knox? That was the plan. I guess you were being technical. What Canaan and Ezra did was they made it so that the fear knox wouldn't attack them.

Sure. And then they followed their nature, swarming the intruder. Ezra hauls this poor beast from its slumber, drops it in front of the Inquisitor, and is like, kill! And it's like, but I'm sleepy. I was hibernating.

And it's just thrust into this terrifying battle. battle with a killer inquisible. Master Yoda, you'll find that the ability I used was called Emerald Mind Control and it's not dark-sided at all. It's actually very good. It was Connection Plus. It was great.

The animal I really bonded and it loved fighting that Inquisitor for us. Isn't it like animal speak or whatever one of the things that you can get in Cotor? It is. This is force, you know, this is your bread of butter. Yeah. It's a classic light side.

ability. Animal force shit. Animals and Star Wars do exist to be one of two things. Like animal controlled and like bonded or monster to be slain. Or monster, yeah. The conservation values of Star Wars

are, if anything, if possible, worse than its values about like disability and body modification. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because in Star Wars, you never even have like Star Wars politics are light years behind

Avatar, for instance. Avatar is like, damn, we got to protect these woods. And Star Wars is like, you need to kill every single big animal you find in those woods. I can't believe they're making a Craven the Hunter movie. I'm sorry,

it's unrelated to everything here. I can't believe they're making a Craven the Hunter movie. Sorry. I don't know shit about Craven. Except for when I'm playing Marvel Snap. Okay. And then you know everything. Craven the Hunter is a villain from Spider-Man who's getting his own movie the way like Venom did by the say it's a

Sony Spider-Man movie. Spider-Man's not going to be in it, to be clear. It's Craven the Hunter is going to be in it. And his name is Craven. His name is coward. Like, he's not cool. He sucks. He's a hunter.

His whole thing is he's like, he's a safari guy. He's the guy who was in that trailer for Spider-Man at the Sony events. Yes, he's also the villain in that. Yes. Sorry. Well, hang on. Safari guys can be cool. Yeah.

What if it's a ghost in the darkness situation? It's never a ghost in the darkness situation. Ghost of the darkness, a movie that I think about all the time is imperial fiction. Anyway. Wait, you're telling me there wasn't a bad lion out there that they had to get the biggest badass in the empire to go get? Yeah. Once you think through what Ghost of the Darkness is like about. that Africa just contains raw, pure evil

that has to be conquered by the force of white will. Did you see the new one of these movies that is being made that's called like the, the, what's, uh, it's like, is the Idris Elba one? Yes, this is the Isres Elba one. Yeah, I did not watch that one. I did, Beast.

It's called Beast. I did not watch that. And it's just him fighting a giant, Lion. I mean, so now imagine that, except it's Val Kilmer. And is it Val Kilmer? Is that who is and Michael Douglas? Is it right? I know it's Michael Douglas. I think it's Val Kilmer because I had a huge crush on Val Kilmer in this era. Yeah. I was like, I got to watch Ghost in the Darkness. I got to watch Saint. These are, this is cinema to me. I, Shrek, get that shit out of here. I'm talking about Val Kilmer movies. I really wanted Beast to be, I didn't watch it. Yeah. But if in my mind palace,

like if I were to think about what I would want be like I would want it to have like a serenity the not Firefly Serenity Serenity the movie Serenity with Matthew McConaughey Yeah yeah yeah which we should not say any more about No don't look at anything about it If you somehow have gotten this far in life

And on the internet and in everything Without knowing anything about serenity The movie 2019, yeah 2019 with Matthew McConaughey Stop what you're doing And go watch it right now And report back to me

Are we about to watch Serenity and Trek Tonight? We need we have a double feature Allie get that screen chair going We got some work to do But yeah That's what I would want for Beast Right

Like a serenity Yeah I get what you mean Without saying it That would be great That would be I would watch that movie. I don't want that to start just happening in every, in random movies.

Oh, movies should be, like, anytime you see a movie. It should be on, like, it should be a threat constantly. Yes. The end of any movie could end, and it could like say the type of beast and then colon serenity two. Do you know what I mean? Like, I want the reveal. I want every possible movie. There should be, there should be a secret serenity two out there that you have that we have to find.

I can't say We can't say it Thompson Shaw could be Serenity too We don't know We don't know We can't say more I should rewatch Serenity Yeah

All right What's the rest of the show What are we doing? Star Wars, who? So Canaan wakes up grabs Ezra who falls asleep Because of all the force Oh right

Right Right Expended and they get aboard the shuttle And flee And the Inquisitor just notes That my master will not be pleased I felt a little bad for him here for some reason. I was like, damn, you got to go turn in that report to Darth Vader?

Yeah, exactly. That's the moment where you realized like, oh, shit, his boss sucks. Yeah. Yeah. She just chokes people for no good reason. That's just like, I'm sad. I don't need the like Inquisitor redemption arc, but I do need the like day in the life. I need the Inquisitor TikTok day in the life. I want to know what that is like. I bet it is bad. I bet it's so bad. Two hours refiling your teeth. Just got to clean it up. So on the shuttle, on the Phantom, Canaan has a sort of debrief with Ezra explained that he touched the dark side

and sort of blames himself as the master in this scenario. And it just sort of seemed like a pretty generic Jedi conversation about like, yeah, here's the other thing. If you touch the, if you use the force in this way, it's bad. Nothing jumped out at me in terms of like force. doctrine. It's like, I guess there's like, the one thing I would call attention to is he says, if your will isn't strong enough when you open yourself to the force, you become vulnerable

to the dark side. And we knew this already, but I think there's something, I guess we could kind of zero in on the idea of like, okay, the force isn't a limb that you have access to. You're not using the force in the way I'm picking up this bottle. You are opening yourself to the force. And when you do that, it is a, it's a, it's only, it's a, it's only, you know, it's a, it's almost, it's active, but it's also passive. It's like a thing moves, the force moves through you. It is not, it's not telekinesis. It's not like Gene Gray X-Men telekinesis. It is something else

that isn't as comprehensible or as reductive as that. Because the idea of like, okay, I've opened myself up and now the dark side can kind of warm its way in. And that's just like, I don't know, that's Wizard of Sea, dark shit. You know what I mean? Yeah, I feel like that's like, I feel like the Jedi Academy had like this is happening all kids have tantrums kids go through hormones like kids are going to be touching the dark side constantly like as they age and figure themselves out and deal with being basically orphaned from their families and all these kinds of things like I feel like this is probably there's somewhat of a standard practice for like so you've touched the dark side for the first time. Here's what you got to know. Like, here's how we manage this. Well, to Canaan's credit, there's no shame being or guilt. Like, he's, there's, there's, hey, you messed up here.

Like, it's good you don't remember how you did that necessarily. But I don't feel like he ever says, like, he says, your powers are growing quickly. You weren't prepared. I didn't teach you what you needed to know. I'm sorry. King. Since when? Ever seen a Jedi say, I'm sorry that I wasn't a good enough future.

Yeah, what's next? They arrive back at the ship. Well, yeah. And Hara's there, and she's like, I've gotten news. And Canaan Secret Service jumps in front of that news and is like, Ezra needs to go down for his nap now. He does. Maybe it's not a good time. It is a good time.

It's not the best time to tell him. But we know he never gets told. We don't know that. The way the show. works. That could be the next episode. I have no idea. I guarantee. No, this is the whole like... You don't think we ever find out more about... They're planting

a landmine. No, because this is the thing. This is the... Cain is scared of what I... Like, he doesn't like what he's seen at the start of the episode. I see what you're saying. There's that little jolt of like this kid is a little dark side. At the end, it's confirmed. Right. And then whatever Hera is holding, when she

tells Cainan that, he's going to be like, we're going to hang out of this for a while. And then the Inquisitor is going to say They never told you what happened About your parents Yeah

Maybe They've got great jobs on Corson They're really happy them Is the baby boy Don't you want to go Don't you want to go? Yeah, yeah, yeah Uh-huh

That's these episodes I have a message from Mirren Ephron Who are good friends of mine There's a picture of me And them Hanging out on Empire Day last year at the barbecue.

It's the same picture of me. Why are you crawling? This is me. I'm supposed to be doing that. Yeah, it's literally just that picture, like Photoshop, the Inquisitor in, like working the grill. Yeah.

Yeah. Love it. So Ezra goes back to his turret of sadness. Yeah. Sabine comes in to say hi and gives him his birthday present the photo of his family. Which he cleaned up.

appear to be cut from the funny papers of an old newspaper. It is. It's cute. It's good. And he responds positively. And the show, again, like, this is the thing, right? The show does not frame that as a negative attachment. It frames it as a relief. And him accepting that he can have a different relationship with his memories of his parents and the time that they had together that isn't negative. And it leaves that optimistic beat. So we'll see how that gets thrown into chaos, maybe. but, you know? Yeah. I'm hyped for these next episodes.

I didn't have a great time with these, but I'm hyped for the next episodes. Yeah. We have three. These were fine episodes. Like, there were parts about them. I'm like, I am still, like, really interested in the show and, like, really excited for where it's going.

I, even when, like, you know, I'm just still, like, excited to get to know these characters and see them develop. And we only have two more runs of the episodes before we're done season one. So, we have three episodes coming up, Path of the Jedi. Oh, go ahead. Rob. Well, I have the, I just cover the, uh, sure of stuff.

Please go ahead. Um, so, yeah, that'll, that'll do it for this week's episode. Uh, next week, though, Patreon backers will get to hear our Q&A on solo and rebels up through Rise of the Old Masters. We have accepted the inevitability of being a step out of sync. We haven't recorded that. All right. We have to record.

No, we have to record that. Okay. And this is, and this is to the next point. We've given up the ghost and we've accepted that we are going to be out of sync with the Q&As and where we are at with the main episodes because there's always a weird, there was always a weird skip.

I think we're back on. This comes out on the, on the 21st in two days. It's the turnaround time, though, because the thing is like if we. Well, we're not going to record the Q and I guess we won't get questions in, probably. Right. This is the thing. people not be able to write in and give us questions on the thing the most recently went up

which is this yes people could get questions in yeah if we record this weekend they have Thursday Friday Saturday to get those questions in Thursday Friday Wednesday Thursday Friday and then we're caught up forget those solo questions and think about this episode for a little bit

and those questions do we really want about solo more yes really okay rob i'll keep that in mind when i look at the email i mean don't go crazy you know like i mean a little solo goes a long way that's true it's a dash of solo like if people write in a really good solo question what in the world could be a fucking good solo question i bet we got one in there yeah you can ask me about um

What? Yeah, nothing. Nothing, okay. Nothing. I was like, maybe something with Donald Glover, just looking good as Lando Carrizian. Like, I agree.

More like Lando Calrizian, maybe. I don't know. Maybe we could have, like, done one of those. Interesting. Interesting. Hey, anybody look at the thumbnails of the upcoming episodes? No, I don't look.

Don't look. Uh, well, so, all right, so we're going to, we're going to try to, we're doing the one week turnaround on Q&As inside the week. I mean, that's, we, we have to get, yeah, we've done it in the past, but it's always, it's just the one time where we can't get out. That is the one thing. I, I, I'm with you. I get it. I get it. We were going to record 24th or 25th, and that episode is going to drop on the 28th.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. And then we're caught up. Stuff comes up and sometimes you have to push back and then chaos is in the schedule. I get you. Who needs that? But we'll roll the dice

What we're really gonna do is Move when the We just need a rework We need like at some point we'll take another break This problem is going to happen no matter what But we gotta figure out how to move the Q&A From the last week to a different week in the month And then it's not as

Because then we get a little more wiggle If we end up needing to push it You know what I mean? We need to We need to re Okay so right now we have to get that Q&A out On the 28th because it's the last Wednesday of the month. This is all inside baseball folks. But if let's say we were trying to get it out on the fifth, then we have four times that we can punt on it. Right. Before we need to

get back. Okay. So what we really need to do is tell people right now. Your June Patriot Q&A is your July. No, no, no. I'm saying we can't do that. What we need is a more natural. The way that like, because this wasn't a problem for the first year and a half of the show. It was always a problem. like this is worse now because we've slipped because it slipped to the last week every month sometimes it wasn't always

sometimes it was the third week and not the fourth week I know I was editing I don't know why I'm slipping into this voice I'm doing a bit now the point is there will come a time

is here to explain production there will come a time in our lives where the timing shifts around more naturally because we took another break and we'll find a better

place to go. We're just not there yet. So nothing's changing. Send in those questions. A better place is possible. Send in the questions. But Austin, this is basically where I'm proposing. What? Because

then the cutoff would have been the episode that dropped earlier in the month. And we would have, you know what I mean? Like, then we could always have time to go and do that Q&A. The thing I don't want to do is talk about stuff that we haven't watched in two months. That solo episode came out so long ago. Well, yeah. That's that's an unusual case

but yes that we just never that's the problem so that's that's because that thing spot was eaten up by Mando that's still the reason

that happened well that's so are Mando questions no we're not doing Mando questions I mean

people have Mando we've done no rebels Q&A yet yeah we should just ask us about rebels just ask us

about whatever you heard up until now they're gonna ask us questions about rebels. Let's say they was, oh yeah, write as questions about

rebels one through five. You were going to not talk or one through seven. No. We're going to not talk about the stuff we just, we just watched. We're going to talk about this.

We're not going to not talk about, we're not going to talk about, oh, they went to the asteroid planet, but we're not going to talk about that they go back the second time. Yeah. I'm certainly happier when I didn't have that knowledge.

Absolutely. But if someone's like, what do you think of Ezra so far? I'm not going to not talk about these episodes. That's fair. You know? This is the catch-up.

This is the catch-up AMCA Q&A. And that's a thing. We are catching up on everything. Then we, the next one only has to be about a little bit. Austin, you have to, offline, you have to explain to me your vision for how we slide it and where we just don't have this problem recurring because I just feel like the sliding

is just going to be this problem. It's because it's, we'll talk off, Mike. Yeah. The thing is, you're right that we always have the problem of slip, but we used to have more wiggle on the slip because of where it was. in the month. And that let us, let us finesse it a little bit. And we don't have that ability

to finesse right now because it has to be out next Wednesday. This is what goes into making a show, folks. Kind of you already know that too. Well, now it's in. Now it's in. Now you messed it up. Anyway, the point is, if you'd like to hear that or you just want to support the show, You can do so at patreon.com slash civilized. In two weeks on July 5th, we will continue with Rebel Season 1 as we watch The Path of the Jedi, Idiots Array, and Vision of Hope. Speaking of hope, I Sure Hope Idiots Array implies some sweet Sabak action. And maybe even some cameos from the best card sharks in Star Wars. Just imagine, rounders.

But with Ezra Bridger as the Edward Norton character, Sabine. as Matt Damon and Lando Calrizian as the John Turturro character. Okay. I thought you want to go with John Malkovich character, which would have been different. I know. I think he gives Lifetime Cart Shark giving that real talk advice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. These like, Jabba the Hut are John Malkovich in Rounders' money?

Yeah, I think that's a really good pick, especially because he's effectively sedentary. He's always in his own, like, like, card layer. And he loves to eat the Oreos, which is just like frogs. Yeah. Anyway, point is, Disney, when you're ready to pay some writers again, call us. Get them. In the meantime, please rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice, and always remember to keep lots of painful personal secrets from your Jedi trainees.

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

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Thank you. Oh!