A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 82: Always Two There Are and Brothers of the Broken Horn (Rebels 20 - 21)

Episode Date: March 20, 2024

This is a week for introductions and reunions. First, Rebels offers us our first real look at the Inquisitors left behind by the now fallen Grand Inquisitor. Then, as Ezra begins to doubt his place in the burgeoning rebellion, he stumbles into an old acquaintance of ours. Yes... he's back. Yes. Him. Hondo Ohnaka. And wouldn't you know it? He just happens to be looking for a new crew member,  Support the show by going to Patreon.com/civilized! Next time: Rebels 22 & 23 ("Wings of the Master" and "Blood Sisters") 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 Zacting, joined by Ali Akimpora, 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 Q&A episodes. We just did one. And, you know, in our back issues, there are deep dives into the secret. history of the Jedi and the Sith. The stories the Jedi don't like to tell, we tell them, we find them, we're out there investigating

over on the Patreon feed. So this week, little Ezra Bridger finds himself lost and confused in the contradictions and tensions between his growing collection of mentors and the different life possibilities they present. Our first episode, Always Two There Are, features Ezra getting frustrated with his Jedi training and the increasing bickering between Canaan and Captain Rex. To escape it, he goes on what should be a milk run scavenging mission with Sabine, Chopper, and Zeb. But when they arrived at an abandoned Clone Wars era of medical space station, they were ambushed by two inquisitors.

Sabin Nezra swiftly captured. But Zeb and Chopper come up with a rescue plan that also serves to reassure Zeb, that he still has a place on a team. This changed a lot around him. I also regret to inform you that there's a possibility, Beres Offi got evil and hot. I want this to be Barris Offi so bad. I don't think it is. Wait, yo. I wanted to be her so bad, but I think when we finished Clone Wars or when we did that episode in Clone Wars, we talked about this and there is no more Barras Offie stuff.

I think you're right. But I do think it would be cool if this was Barris Offie, and I'm ready to have candid. But it would make the flirting with Ezra a little more problematic. The age gap situation, yeah, it would be not good. I mean, it's already meant to be a little problematic, but. because of the torture. And because of, I think, an implied age gap.

Like, she's supposed to be, she's supposed to be older than him, right? Mm-hmm. But we don't know how old. Like, right. It's all like,

everyone, it's child soldiers all the way down. It sure is. You're right. It's like, this might be like a junior dating of freshman, basically. Right.

Like, she's, like, she's applying to Sith colleges. Right. You know, looking at, like,

visitor fellowships. Right, right. And, you know, there's, there's Ezra. taken home act that's right he's you know he's mature

he's out on his own he's you know he's paying bills it's it's the vibes are not the vibes the vibes listen listen listen listen just what young Ezra needs yes I think this character fucking rules we we

we were sorely lacking you're right sexy evil woman in the show Well, especially post-losing our favorite. I mean, yeah, ventress also. But I met our favorite bureaucrat, evil bureaucrat lady, two episodes ago or whatever. Oh, yeah, yeah. His name, of course, I remember.

What the fuck was her name? Yeah, Minister Tua. Sorry, you don't say, Mistress Tua? Jesus Christ. Allie? You said, Mistress Tua. Hello? Ma'am.

The ISB found Minister Tua as always. Only fans. She dops a persona, Mistress Tua. What is it? Doesn't she? Minister. It's minister.

Allie just knows her differently. Yeah. Apparently. That's all is you. God damn. All right. Good for you. I guess she did escape.

Yeah. Living a different life out there. Doing other things. But now I'm with you. I think I think this is the, this is the, not the Asoka. of the um massage yeah yeah yeah that we've been missing for a minute and and we'll get there but her

relationship with the other guy I don't remember what they're I don't know that we got their names actually they're like I know that one of them is something credits but I'm scared to like Google anything yeah I you know I mean it's I think it's fair to say one of them is like number number brother and one of them is number sister and I just I don't know I think it's fifth and sixth or fifth and seventh or something like that but we they didn't say them out loud um But I like their, like, little rivalry that they're setting up is also very fun. So it's a grievous assage.

Yeah, it is kind of that vibe. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of bickering. But yeah, like, you know, where we open up, it, we return this a lot where it's like, Ezra is being trained within, within a family, which is different than normal Jedi training. Like he is, this is a little bit more like his Jedi training is literally here taking place in a busy family kitchen, with multiple generations in the room at the same time, with Rex now playing the role of like elder grandpa or like great uncle,

who has his own thoughts about like what the parental generation are teaching, teaching the youngsters. And so like it's so different from like the Jedi Temple where it's all like, you know, ancient wisdom and religious order and a sense of like being out of time, being out of family. Here it is literally, everyone is doing their own thing and Canaan just like brings Ezra over to a corner of the galley.

And it's like, let's practice Jedi levitation, use Chopper over there. And Sabine looks up from her little project that she's doing at her workstation, whispers the chopper, lock it down. And Chopper slips his little feet into the, like, I think there are like stirrups that bolt into the deck, right?

Like something like that. yeah so he like he like fixes himself to to the deck and then Ezra tries to lift him he can't and that's where Rex chimes in with uh you know while you're what is what is exactly says like he's like sure to keep your actual eyes open or something yeah he's like don't just look on the force uh you know while you're looking through the force make sure you're looking through your eyes too yeah don't forget to look with your eyes too something like that it's it's kind of mean teasing yeah uh like sabine plays a bit of a mean mean prank on him. Rex lets it happen because he's like, this is the type of lesson this kid needs. And Canaan also rolls with it where he's like sometimes life isn't fair. Yeah. But the weird thing is war isn't fair, right? Fighting isn't fair. You will wind up in those situations. But the word thing is rather than blow up, like, is not Ezra actually who acts out in the scene. He's frustrated. And you can see that like having all these voices in his in his ear starting to get to him, that makes more of a thing in the next episode.

But really, the thing that happens right away is the minute Rex is like, this is how you should be a soldier. And by the way, I worked with a better Jedi than Kane. And that's what it really comes down to is like, I don't think you got, he's like, I don't think you got the chops basically to train up a Jedi because like my Jedi master wouldn't have been doing this whole like, just look with the force shit. He'd have been saying, like, use everything at your disposal. can't wait for Rex to find out. I really can't wait. He's got like framed photos of Anarchy in his head where he's just like every night just touching the photo like miss you. Well, and it's so good because he's like, he's just constantly talking about how important discipline is. And I know I'm wearing a Foucault shirt right now, but discipline has many meanings. And and, you know, Anakin turns out to be absolutely a master of discipline. Just not, not just self-discipline, but like a literal functionary of state discipline.

in the world. It's great. And like, it turns out you can't just do that either. I also think that you kind of got out there that I think is important to draw attention to is you're talking about the generational thing of like Rex feels grandfatherly here or like great uncle or like the older generation of an uncle and then there's like a bit of a time jump and then another uncle gets born, you know, one of those things. That's also a specific type of relationship. Not only is the familial relationship not there for the Jedi normally. that sort of generational relationship is specifically denied to Anakin, right? Quigon dies. And so he can go above Obi-Wan to, like, Yoda, but Yoda didn't train Obi-Wan, you know? Not that Rex trained Canaan either, but there's a specific familial line that you could have drawn that you can't actually draw because Quigon gets lost. And it's so actually, I'm easy to imagine, Quigon's serving this role in Anakin's life down the line. but he's not around to do it, you know, to be the counterbalance to Obi-Wan's very straight and

narrow. Though, of course, maybe Obi-Wan turns out differently, too, if Quaghan doesn't die, right? So, but that sort of, like, generational relationship can exist in the Jedi where you do have, you know, you do have, for instance, Obi-Wan to Anakin to Asoka, and there's some, occasionally some Obi-Wan-Asoca, you know, conversations throughout Clone Wars, but Anakin doesn't have that. And that's an interesting offset for Ezra to get this sort of like, okay, different perspectives on time and history here, different types of, you know, coming from different people of different ages. Though, of course, Rex isn't actually a grandfather's age.

Rex is probably, in fact, exactly the same age as Canaan, if not, you know, maybe a couple years older or something. But was at the grown-ups table of the Clone Wars, much closer than Canaan was. That's the other part of this is like, yes. Like, he was at the conversations where, like, Obi-Wan and Anakin would be, like, plotting strategy and, like, figuring out what to do. And Canaan was, you know, lower down than Osoka, right? Like, again, you get the sense very much a, just go where your master goes and be, be an aide to camp effectively. Exactly. Yeah, it's, I mean, interested in the show getting into this, this notion of, like, that there's new, there's different training paradigms in play here.

what Rex gets at, the thing touches off the argument with him and Canaan is discipline. Yeah. Is it this episode? I feel like... That's this episode.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He says a soldier's... Or no, Canaan says to him, a soldier's discipline can't compare to a Jedi's.

It takes a far more discipline not to fight. And then, of course, Rex is like, oh, what are you going to do? Like, meditate your way out of the fucking war? Like, come on.

It's the empire. Which feels like a, like, Grandpa Leamer or whatever. It feels like we've revisited that where it's like, well, that's not your fucking war.

Was Rex there for that? Was Rex in that with that? I remember who all was down there. I think he was, wasn't he? It's one of them. There were definitely clones with them for it. What were they actually called? They weren't called lemurs.

They were called. They were called Lermann. Lerman. Lerman. How are we got? Look at that. Look at that. I pass.

That's wish. Natalie and I between us have like one functional Star Wars memory. Yeah. Hell yeah. But yeah. But yeah, it's, It did feel like a bit of a revisit of that, too, where it's like you get, you get Canaan sort of talking about, yeah, he's sort of alluding to a sort of idea of nonviolence. The Jedi themselves never really practice. Right. That it's kind of a, we don't. You know, it takes more discipline not to fight. Anyway, here's your laser sword. You better get really good with it.

Rex was there. That was Rex. I've just confirmed, Rex dealt with the Lerman because it was an Anakin episode and Rex was there with him. And like, you know, that was Anakin Assoca and Rick. was there so so Rex was with us he felt that episode needed some punch up oh absolutely yeah and the exact line that he says here is oh so you're gonna so you're just gonna ask the empire to lay down their weapons and give up and cana of course is like no that's what I mean what I mean is that Esther has to be in the moment you got to be present you got to do Jedi stuff alley I I don't want us to overlook the the Canaan line before the last two to like understand how like inappropriate and just like mealy he is throughout this

because the thing that really sets this off is him being like yeah you should go get that medical stuff because Captain Rex is going to need some of that soon which is like are you are you threatening Rex of all people who's like in the crew now

and then they like gets into this like this philosophical thing because he like is further coming away from that starting point Right. Yeah. It's so bad.

Yeah. There's also another angle here about Rex being a little bit of a speed bump for the team, something that everyone has to adjust to. Because we open by Rex and Zeb playing space chess and Rex kicking Zeb's ass. Yeah. No one gets owned. But this is the equivalent of beating the wookie at chess. And then the wookie goes, I guess it's okay because you're big and tough.

your, your grandpa soldier. So, and it also suggests, it's also part of what you set up in the summary route, which is like, Zeb is now like, oh, there's another tough guy here and he's like tactically smart in a way that I don't necessarily think of myself as. Not that he does, not that he thinks poorly of himself necessarily, but that's kind of the arc of this episode is, he's like, well, we already have a fast guy. We already have a weapons expert and tech expert. We already have a Jedi and now Jedi training. We already have, you know, all these roles are filled. what's my role now that Rex is here who's like tough tough warrior guy and also tactical genius and expert and et cetera um so mostly shout out to them playing to jharic playing playing holographic

love to see the the slower motion animation on the chess pieces thank you dave it's so good it's important i was surprised to see rex here when that episode started that like i really thought that this was going to be like return to status crow we're back with the crew. Where's Wolf and Greger? They're probably back with Sato, right? This feels like Rex is part of the show now, which goes back to a question we got in the Q&A, which someone wrote in to ask us what we felt about the cameos and like the, you know,

Star Wars characters showing up throughout rebels, what ones worked for us, what ones didn't, you can go listen to that whole, that whole answer. And I mean, you know, we all liked Rex Wolf and Greger showing up quite a bit. you can listen to the last episode of the show for that. And it's funny because it's like, oh, if part of what is happening here is that Rex is a part of the crew now, that no wonder we like him more, they are giving him that attention to all of that work that's like, oh, this is actually not just a one-off guest star. It's a co-star. It's another lead, you know, which is nice. Yeah, he was doing his little alpha tour, you know.

He just had to go and walk up on Zeb, make sure he knew that he could beat him in chess and it's strong. It's true. Come up to Canaan, let him know. He knows how to lead. He knows how to teach. He did war. Sabine, he was like, I can get behind some practical jokes. Listen, I know about practical jokes.

I'm a joker. He's a joky guy. Yeah. He's a jokey guy. The only one who I haven't seen him interact with too much is Hara, right? Mm-hmm. Which is interesting. Her hasn't really been around these.

Here we go again. We'll get a Hara episode soon, I think. A thing that keeps happening, though, is that, like, every time there should have been a private Hara-Kanan moment, Rex is also in that scene. Don't like it. Yeah. This is the problem with, like, multi-generational living, right? is like, sometimes it's like, hey, we need to have a family conversation and that doesn't include you, dad. Like, we're just going to have this conversation and you can hang in your room.

But I think, like, something I'm curious if they get into more and I kind of hope they do is this notion of, um, Rex's position here is like, to a degree, this kid needs to be trained like a soldier. and Canaan and I'm not sure that's correct but Canaan is like no need to be trained as a Jedi which we're even kind of dubious of like how again like how accomplished a Jedi as Canaan right? Like to what degree is this somebody who like meets the qualifications but there's nowhere near ready to teach he's also trying to figure it out and recall stuff

that he that he remembered in his training but it also goes back to the Jedi were so frequently in denial of what their role had become in the Clone Wars We talked about this so much that, like, you keep talking about, like, the Jedi orders if it's this thing that has not changed since this war began. Yeah. But the order has been transformed to basically a professional officer corps for this clone army. And here's Rex being like, we are going back to war.

You know, we are taking on the empire. This isn't we get, it's, we cannot pretend this is all going to be like Jedi, like, inner peace and religious teaching. Let's be real here. We're teaching, we're training this kid up to be a soldier because this kid is going to know war because that's what we're heading back into. And to regret, I kind of like a clone having agency here to weigh in and what they think the young Jedi are being taught. Rex would never say that in the Clone Wars era. He would never turn to a Jedi and be like, are you sure that's the most useful thing you teach that kid right now? But he feels free to say it now because one, Canaan and a Jedi like that in Rex is.

And he knows it. Yeah. But two, I like that, you know, Rex is now kind of the senior and the veteran on this team and feels empowered, it feels like it is his place to speak up and be like, I'm sorry. Like, this is not, we can't pretend we're just training him to be a Jedi like Jedi were for a thousand years. Yeah. You're training him to kill Imperials.

That's what we're here to do. Right. Right. Like that, I mean, we saw Jedi weren't. Like, well, we saw Jedi being trained by, or no, was it the clones being trained by mercenaries? Clones, trained by mercenaries. Yeah, trained by bounty hunters and mercenaries, yes. In Clone Wars.

That's like the rookies crew when we went back and got their training regimen. The Jedi just signed off on the callings. Exactly. That's correct. Right. God. But, yeah, I guess it does go back to kind of what we were saying. Was it last episode?

in the Patreon episode about how much more militaristic the like uh the way a padawan or even a Jedi night during the Clone Wars might identify um then with kind of the sole spiritual uh traditional practice that that Jedi we've known Jedi to to foster um yeah but Yeah. I think it'll be interesting to see where it goes as this kid, like, if this becomes a through line with just like how, how Ezra is being trained up. But for the moment he flees it. He's like, I cannot handle these two now bickering about effectively me. So he jumps aboard this mission as they, as Zeb and Sab and Sabine the chopper taking the Phantom out to, if it's not the same Republic Medical Station we saw from. It's the same type at the very least. Yeah, I looked it up. There's no clear, like, like determinant reference that proves but it's one of the ones from Clone Wars but we see one that's the same model type in the Clone Wars movie

we see another one another place in the first season they eventually switch I think to a different type of medical base but we do see the style a couple of times yeah it's just kind of neat seeing it again in the show because everything looks a little better in the show and style a little differently but also it's cool because when we last saw it

was all Clone Wars era like stark sparkling you know white tile white halls uh the weird gauzy light that the uh who are the who are the clone masters uh what was that uh the the tall necks people oh the caminoons yeah yeah yeah all had that like antiseptic caminoin feeling back when it was fully operational and now it is a haunted derelict station yeah uh and we get a good we get a good sequence of effectively the the gang and the kids exploring a haunted house together yeah yeah it's great and and it is it is very much in that haunted house mode

creeping around different rooms strange things moving in the dark you don't really know hey is this place like an old facility where like there's a weird droid floating around you're like oh is this like a medical droid that got loose is this like what's going on here it's a little cute it's a little cute you're like is this a beauty in the beach situation where it's like Lumiere and Cogsworth you're like oh look like Bella's scared but we know we're not supposed to be scared yeah and you're just not, you just don't know, um, uh, and they find the, the command center and they, uh, you know, Sabine asks, asks, um, chopper to turn it on. And of course, chopper turns the whole

station on and not just the command center. And that sends out a pulse or like an energy spike that the empire picks up on from long range. And so they dispatch a, uh, they dispatch someone, um, uh, which is such a great little fake out because we know they're dispatching the Inquisitor or the fifth brother, I think, is, I think he's the fifth brother. And so you're like, okay, well, that means that the, the droid that's floating around must be from the base because that was already there. Nope, it turns out they got company of another sort from another inquisitor who, how does she make her appearance? What's her? It's the droids, like, come out in force, right?

Disables chopper. And a kind of horrifying touch, it jams its little hands into chopper's, like, drum. and manipulates his circuits to make him call for help. Yeah. It's so fucked up. It's great. And again, it's a little cute.

It's, um, one of them compares it to a probe droid. It doesn't have the bulk of a probe droid, but it's a pit droid probe droid. Yeah. It has the flat disc like head hat. Yeah, yeah, hat head thing of a pit droid. But it has like the dangly arms of a probe droid, but like, they're more cartoonish, right? Um, it's really good, very toyetic design. Like, you could imagine if,

Rebels was huge, you know, they would have figured out how to sell these as a literal drone you can fly around your room, you know? For sure. It's cute. It's very cute. And that's so bad. Yeah. But once they go mask off, their movement becomes very spider-like and creepy. Like, it's very funny. Like, watching it with Tilly, the minute they turned evil and started like scuttling and creeping, like, lost her shit every time one of those things was on the screen. They make a bug to insect transformation. Wow, they do. Interesting, interesting, interesting. Yeah, I love this.

At first, all bug. And then out of nowhere, it's insect vibes from here on out. But I like that the hot evil woman has her own little droid kind of drone army. It's fun for her. Yeah, and she's a great voice. It's like a little metallic and cybor. and she has a full face mask on that's kind of like it's she's she's lady Kylo Ren in a lot of ways let's be let's be real the voice the voice has that

vibe effect to it processing the leg processing yeah it's got like a like an echo effect where it sounds like she's being like amplified yeah rules her mask is like flat which is interesting it's not it doesn't have any curvature it's like it she feels like a droid when she shows up in some ways she obviously isn't because she's using the force and if rebels had secretly given us a droid who can use the force somehow, I think we would have all been spoiled on it by now because people would have not been able to keep that in, you know? But this is like one of my favorite Star Wars characters designs that we've seen in the show

and like probably including Clone Wars too. Yeah, it's really good. Cool, like, helmets that comes up to a point and has sort of like the long back things. It's almost like you could, you can imagine it like popping off and then the mask popping off separately. I mean, it does, I mentioned the mask does come off and you can see her face. And this is the character who we earlier refer to as potentially being Barisofi, who if you don't remember, Beresofi is the person who is behind the bombings in the, the Asoka leaves the Jedi Orrarch. A heroic protester. A heroic protest. Taking direct action.

The weather underground of Star Wars is here, and it was Barisoffie. She was Luminare's perfect little pupil in the first season and Asoka's friend and pop back up in season six of Clone Wars in order to do some bombings and try to pin it on other people and eventually Assoco gets it pinned on her

and she has a really sick duel with Anakin. It's like a running duel through the whole Jedi temple. That's like Clone Wars peaked in that arc might be cloned. That or Embara maybe are peak for me. Anakin was never more badass than when he went to that when he went to see her privately.

Yeah. Just to like, all right, let's see what you're going to do here. Yeah, let's see how this goes. So, so we eventually see this character with the mask off and she has, she's in Murieland, which is her, is that right, Mirialan? The green, green-faced folks that are like Baris Offi and Luminara. I do have like diamond tattoos or markings. Yeah, it's Miri-Alan's right. I played a Miri-Alan in Star Wars the Old Republic.

my, both of my mains were Mary Allen. Um, very fun, cool. They have like a, they have a, sort of force. Their culture is built around the force, right? They are one of the rare instances of a culture that has a relationship with the force that is not just a Jedi, not just the Jedi, right? They all have some strong connection to the force, but are not necessarily Jedi. And they're not like doing telekinesis all the time, but they, there's, you know,

No, there's some, there's some vague, like, oh, these people have this sort of oneness with the world around them that can get a little into some exoticization, orientalism shit. But generally speaking, we only ever really meet Jedi Murielans in mainline stuff. This is, this is where my smuggler is Miri Allen in Swetor because I was like, I want to like, I want one of them that's just like, ah, this is for stuff. I don't know. Just some guy. But, yeah, exactly.

He, oh, he's great. I got to find, I got to find screenshots of him. He was great. His name was Cygnus Kahl, which is, which is, I did a gender-swabbed version of him and put him in that Star Wars story I wrote. So he sort of exists. She exists in the Empire strikes back a certain point of view. Go read that. She's great.

Anyway, that's incredible. Mary Allens are cool, and she's an evil one, which we do not see very often. Evil, I don't know. Jury's still out. Probably. I don't know that you get allowed into the inquisitorium or whatever if you're not inquisitorious. That's the thing that I want desperately is, like, I need to understand the training process. I need to understand the relationship each of these people have with Anakin slash Darth Vader.

Darth Vader, actually, sorry. I want to know how attached he feels to that. Interesting. Interesting. Natalie, what are you going to say? And then I'm going to take us to an early zone. I was just going to say I was going to disagree with

Rob because I presented the evidence of my first note on the sister Was that in the chat? Did you drop it in the chat? It's in the chat. Right, right. And what's that say? It says, finally, a sexy evil woman.

Yeah, there we go. All right, let me pull up Rebel's Recon 203. I have a question for everyone before we go to Rebels Recon. Yeah, that's fair. the title of this episode uh-huh

was is always two there are did anyone else think that fucking Yoda was going to show up in this episode Ali 100% I was like here we go for St. Patrick's Day and for Yoda

and for Yoda I am too wow I 100% thought Yoda was going to show up and I was just I was like biting my time. I was just like, where is this little frog going to show up in this episode? But it was a false

flag. It was a false flag. Fixer you can, young Ezra. God. All right. This is Rebels recon. How much of this? We've got to watch this whole thing, including the very good chopper moment. So get ready for that. Always two there are. Let me share

my screen. The little fist bump between Sabine and Chau. earlier in the episode. It's very good. And I know we haven't finished talking about this episode yet, but we do get some of, we get, we're about to get more on this character, who I believe is the seven-sister, and then a little bit more of the topic you just asked about Allie, which is like, what's up with these Inquisitors?

What's their deal? So, and again, these came out alongside the episodes. I think these are fair game for us to watch and respond to. So, all right. I'm going to hit this button in three, two, one, go. Earlier this month, we went to New York Comic-Con where cast and crew members gathered to talk to fans about season two.

Oh, we're going to learn who plays her in a second. Oh. Sarah, Michelle, what can you tell us about the seventh sister and what drives you? Sarah Michelle Geller. I can tell you nothing. For fear that I will lose my house. No, I think for me what I loved about her

and I always look for strong female characters. She's a thinking man's batty. She doesn't just go in for the care. True, girl. Oh, her fucking lightsaber's sick. She wants to have some fun torturing you, and then she'll kill you. I'm part of Star Wars. I mean, that's, like, kind of the craziest part that overwhelms me is that I've now created

a character that will live in the universe and the history, and to me, that's just so incredibly overwhelming. And I think that sometimes Star Wars gets a bad rap for not having these female characters, and I think that's a mistake. I mean, you go back to the original movies. And sure, you know, in the beginning, Leia was captured, but she finds. her own battles and she stood up and you introduce Padma and Asoka and all of these women that battle on their own and specifically now with rebels and I see it with Sabine and hera it's the first

female villain in this era that we've seen so that's that's pretty exciting this is for Sarah you were the reason your portrayal of all of your characters is the reason that I overcome so much struggle in my life Sarah Mitchell Galler is getting up to go hug this fan at comic con who was inspired presumably by Buffy and other Sarah Michelle Galler characters. As we saw this week, the Empire seems to have an army of inquisitors waiting to hunt down any remaining Jedi. Interesting.

We got a chance to talk with Dave and Pablo about these new characters and their place in the Star Wars galaxy. Two new inquisitors are introduced in always two there are. What can you tell us about these new mysterious characters? Well, now we're starting to understand the structure of the inquisitorious a bit more. I mean, it's still wrapped up in mystery,

and for good reason. Very 40-10. We now understand that the inquisitor from Seasitor from season one is the grand inquisitor. And these two new inquisitors follow in his footsteps. We reveal that they refer to each other as brother and sister at this point, which of course they're not related,

but it's kind of to make them feel like some kind of strange cult. They're not called darts because they're not Sith. Right. So they're first brother, second brother, third brother. They have numbers in their own. They're not Seth. Which, to me, suggests that there's a desire for advancement. Now, what exactly they mean, we're not ready to say just yet.

But it does suggest that there's... that there's a small number of them, and that there's a degree of competition among them. When Canaan dispatches the first inquisitor, that's actually the head of that group, the grand. Which is interesting, because we knew that at the time. Yeah, it creates a vacuum, too. So now they're all going to do it.

I will say as we go. But that's not leading the show. He's just the inquisitor in season. You may not get into the bureaucracy of the imperial organization, but you will find out more in terms of their origins. You will learn a great. deal about the Grand Inquisitor, you'll be able to guess at who the Grand Inquisitor was. Get ready.

This is a cruel thing to say, but it's not the first time you've ever seen him. He has been in the Clone Wars. You just didn't know it. Nouveau Vindy. What? No. No. Sorry, I'm leaving this part in.

This is Chopper doing a costume contest as Dave Filo. he has a thing that says arctic animal themed hockey team shirt on and a cowboy hat he's getting bad reviews I love it I don't know what he's supposed to be in you but it looks great except for Dave who's wearing you guys had a ton of questions about this is incredible that's cute uh all right I'm gonna stop this the next thing is just Pablo's talking about um the tie fighters someone wrote in to be like how could you fit three people into a tie fighter tie fighters are cramped and he takes the he's he's like no that's not true um he's like that's that's called photography that they're shot that way let me go take you to a real life full like size image of one here is a model we built uh this is

what they are like inside you could easily fit other people in there this is how they always were so incredible before we start reacting to this i just want to shout out the like a keri torri Toriyama like no The composer of Silent Hills Oh not Akira Toriyama The music that was playing While they were talking about the Inquisitors I'm just like

Yamayoka is that right? Yes Yamaoka is that right That fuck this is I'm not going to get this Silent Hill Yamaoka Akira Yamaoka Yeah there we go

Just like gates opening and closing Yeah gates opening and closing occasional string thing. But yeah, so one, Grand Inquisitor dead. Now there's a power vacuum. Two, there's a small number of Inquisitors because they're being referred to by number, brother and sister, and it's not 28th brother, right? And it's certainly not 100th brother, you know.

It's not 5, 4, 3, 6. It's not like the clones, right? Yeah. And we know who we apparently have already met the Grand Inquisitor before. What? That's such a fucked up good thing for Dave to say. Dave is a little gremlin, and I love it. I'm so happy that he gave us this new mystery to ponder.

I don't know. I need to know who he is. I need to know. I need to know. We're going to find out. He said this season we're going to find out. Man, things went bad for Jazzbo. Jaybo?

Who could it be? What's a respect on his name. Yeah, who could it be? Who's a Sith user? Could have been a Nubo Vindy. I'm not sure Sith users the where we should be started Right, because he's not Sith

Right, but like force sensitive So that leaves Like Knight Sister and Brother shit, but he's not a Zabrak, he's not that Jedi that we know Question Mark?

Neumvindy did not have the force We didn't know that He was just doing science for a little Yeah Maybe he don't look it up what are you doing I'm closing my eyes like this No no no no no no no no I'm just going to images I just need to see images no No you should not do that just in case you don't know what you're gonna see you're gonna see

You're gonna get this spoilt actually you're probably just gonna look at the version of him from fucking Obi-W-Wan I'm looking at that okay that's safe I'm closing I don't know yeah who is that who is that man motherfucker Maybe There's that guy who hangs out Who is Are they in Barron? Is that the

What's the guy who's Next Previsla dead He doesn't look like that Yeah He would need a forehead implant To be This is what happens

When you go set We're gonna have to Find out We're just gonna have to wait And find out I'm excited Oh God I'm excited I do need the edit

of do you know that tic-tock um of the guy hanging from the hanging from the bridge and he's like all right boys uh uh what is he say do you know what I'm thinking he's like uh he's this okay hold on skydiver TikTok hold on hold on skydiver TikTok uh uh or no he's like a base jumper base jumper TikTok. This is really important. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This guy, this guy, this guy. You just sent it. You just sent a picture of... Did you mean to paste the Grand Inquisitor in? No, no, no. This guy, but what does he say? This is not the right TikTok, but it's him. Oh, my God.

But he's like, he's like, you got the... You got the... Is it, oh, God, what does he say? Describe the video. It's him hanging from a bridge. Oh, yeah, here it is, here it is, here, it is. Okay.

Okay, uh-huh. Okay, this one, this guy, we need, we need this audio, but with the Grand Inquisitor dropping into the fire pit. Can you say what the words are? It's like He's like talking to Okay imagine a man Hanging by his fingertips From a bridge

And he's not a bridge You Or he's hanging from something scary There's no bridge this high up He's like a building It's like a sky scraper Or like a... Yeah it might be a balloon

This is wood He's standing on the edge of wood Is it wood? I guess he's Yeah you can see the I think He's doing this from wood. Yeah, it's hashtag skydavia, hashtag air balloon.

All right. Yeah, okay. But he says he's like looking up at you. The angle you have to understand is we're looking straight down onto him. And he's hanging by his fingertips looking up. And he goes, you got the framing right? And the guy's like, yeah, you've got any last words. And he's like, love you boys.

and then he just like drops So you need that but the Inquisitor He drops into like earth He like he goes into earth They cut before his parachute comes out He puts his arms behind his head Like he's relaxing on the beach

But he's actually falling Thousands and thousands of feet I'm scared I need that edit with the Grand Inquisitor Falling into the fire pit That's all I used to describe it so well I don't need the edit Yeah I can see

in my brain now. The theater of the mind now. Yeah. It's more powerful. You see it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

If it's your cube score, can someone edit that for me? Anyway. Anywho. So, I would say, so the second inquisor, the guy who we've met before, he shows up in the middle of this fight as Sabine and Ezra try to get away from the new, from the new sister. Yeah. and who also was attacking with these little like she's a bunch of these little droids it's not just the one it turns out it's one of things i like about her yeah they're like her little pets yeah like one sort of perches on her shoulder and looks up at her like a bird yeah um we're gonna be leaning to the spider thing a bit like she's like the spider mom and like carrying her little her little spider babies around yeah uh and then having them like swarm and do her bidding but uh she's like completely rolling sabine and ezra uh they try to run

get away they are cut off by the arrival of the new inquisitor and then Ezra stays to hold them off Sabine runs off to try and link back up with Zeb and then we get an interesting interaction

the guy we've met the new inquisitor he's got like he's like the sharks in finding Nemo he smells that blood he's got kind of that weird smile he's like I'm gonna I'm gonna chop little Ezra in half. And she blocks his,

blocks his slash. And he's like, it's my kill, which it is not. It is not. If anything, he fucked this up. Yeah, he fucked this up. In fact, I think, I think this guy, it's like, she's a center fielder and she's got this. And he's someone coming in trying to waive her off. Yeah. And it's like

just let her get him be here. Yeah, this is out of your territory, buddy. Yeah, she has him. And you like, has Ezra pinned down. And her plan, of course, is you are now bait. You're worth something to me, partly because it's going to be fun to tease and torture you, partly because it's going to be, you're going to be useful at getting the rest of your crew here. And sends off the fifth brother. I'm just going to make sure I'm right about this.

I think it's the fifth brother. And she's seventh sister. And she's seventh sister. I think that that's correct. I'm just going to check. Well, she also has a funny exchange with Ezra where she complements him. She's, you know, and he's like, yeah, I'm, she's like, uh, she's like, uh, she's you're just like a Jedi and he says I'm learning and she fires back but not quite enough which is just yeah I will say that there's a point where as when Ezra first pulls his lightsaber out against her the way that he pulled like hand is clearly handling the lightsaber a lot more comfortably yeah um then he has before was nice a nice detail I think like you can tell that he's been training, he

has a little bit more confidence with wielding a lightsaber. He'll note something's missing from his arsenal this season. He's giving it up. Slingshot? Slingshot. Not on his hand anymore, not on his wrist. I don't think we've seen it since he It's gone. The blaster saber has replaced

it at this point. So, you know, he's getting more comfortable with it, like you said. I also think it's fun to see that and then immediately see the 7th sister do her like twirley. lightsaber or stuff, she has a double, she has the same thing the Inquisitors all seem to have, which is this like dual-bladed mall-style saber with a circular housing that lets it rotate really quickly. But before she gets it into rotation mode, she just does like a nice

little, like, swervy maneuver with it to kind of demonstrate that she is, this is who she is. She's like, you know, kind of snake-like in some ways. She's like, that's like the genre of a villain that she is. And she also immediately just takes Ezra's saber away from him with Forrest Pool, right? She just pulls it to her in a moment of, like a moment of weakness. And we'll have it for most of this, this episode, which is fun. Well, I'll also say, like, again, she's open to playing good cop here a little bit. Like the second fifth brother rounds the corner.

She turns to Ezra and says, you and are going to have a talk. And if you're good, maybe some of your friends will survive. Right. And maybe that's just lying. She said later in front of Fifth Brother, she's like, you know, obviously the plans to kill them all, right? But here she is at least willing to extend the possibility that, like, maybe some people can get out of this life if you cooperate. Yeah. And it does not seem like either that's not the sort of deal they're supposed to offer or Fifth Brother is just too much of a meathead to, like, understand the game she's running.

Yeah. but it is like she she's going to she's going to try the the softer approach with with Ezra meanwhile Sabine runs off where's that been in all this Zeb tried to escape through an air air vent uh bro who can get into air vents is a running theme in the show rebels Zeb not great in air vents no we get a funny sad little bit like I don't want to die this way I'm the last of my kind Oh, that's so sad. Yeah.

Oh, you know, I just realized we skipped over something kind of important around this Inquisitor stuff, which is that when we get the Fifth Brother being dispatched, we get a Admiral, Admiral Constantine, I believe this is not, Cassius Constantine, both with Kay's, being like really dismissive of the Inquisitors. He says, these mystics are unnecessary. I don't know why Lord Vader insists on sending them, which is classic Star Wars stuff. This goes back to OG New Hope, where Vader himself is being seen as a sort of old-fashioned mystic who has no place in the modern technocratic empire. And it's just a fun note to hit. And then especially because of the fact that they're being perceived as mystics when they aren't Sith, right? They do not have, you know, we talked a lot about this in Clone Wars every time like Ventures showed up or Savage were like they're close to Sith, they're being used by Sith, but they're like Sith assassins. They're not Sith trainees. And here that that kind of blurriness has been made more explicit. You know, they work for Darth Vader, who is an important part of the imperial military. They do not, they are not apprentices under Vader, who is then under Palpatine. They might, learn some lightsaber tricks, and they might have forced power, but they aren't being,

the mysteries of the Sith aren't being revealed to them, right? This is, again, one of these places where I wish we had a little bit more clarity on what the Sith were in contemporary continuity, because, you know, if we're walking around thinking, okay, by this point, Anakin knows the Sith credo that we learned in Kotor, right? And, like, knows about the history of the Sith and stuff, it becomes a little clearer to draw that line and be like, oh, they don't know about, you know, through passion, there's victory or whatever, right? They just know spin lightsaber fast, do force choke, right?

And that's a fun divide, but it's one that I can only bring to the show because I know that old E.U stuff, not because it's supported by any sort of current continuity understanding of what the Sith are. And at the same time, do I want the current continuity to go into a deep dive about the Sith? I don't know. Rebels, I wouldn't mind seeing them try it. I like to see them try to give a little definition as to what. what it means to be Sith, because the show has been firing pretty well so far.

And I think I could stand a little two-parter about the Sith, you know? Yeah, for sure. I really want to know where is where the line is being drawn. Are all the Inquisitors, is this like a, like a predecessor phase to the sort of carrot on the stick being achieving? Right, right, right. That a certain point is the idea that Vader would say to one of these people, you and I could take out the emperor and I'll initiate you in the mysteries of the Sith. If not for what else would they be, I mean, they have to be motivated by some larger goal, not just serving Darth Vader. Like there's got to be something in it for them.

Otherwise, they wouldn't be the dark side. Right. What's their, yeah, what's their direct motivation? Sure. I'm curious. I hope we find out more So we get kind of an interrogation scene Here we we open on

The seventh sister perched above Ezra In like some sort of control room Again like a spider at the center of her web Or a bit like a bird with like a trophy or something With its latest kill And then she sort of descends spiderlight the same way her Her little robots tend to tend to move To start chatting up Ezra

and flirting with the kid, to be quite honest. She does call him cute at one point, right? I didn't just imagine that. As pretty as you are, I think. As pretty as you are, that's right. I only need you alive. I don't need you in one piece. It's something she says at the end of the next scene

where he stops cooperating. Yeah. But yeah, there's a bit of, you know, she points out, handles a lightsaber well but also what she's driving at there

is also that you know he says well maybe I could you know teach you a few things and she's like maybe I can teach you because your master never attained the rank of Jedi Knight did he

at this point she drops the mask she retracts the mask and we see we see her face and she sort of sits down in the oh God what is Is it the Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas movie?

Basic instinct. She does the basic instinct set. Uh-huh. She sure does. Oh, God. Ezra's just not ready for this. He didn't grow up. He didn't, he's never seen 80s, early 90s, neo-noirotic cinema.

He's just unprepared for those. The rodent thriller was eradicated by the age of the empire, you know. A tragedy. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tragedy. These kids. Yeah, these kids don't know. They, you know, the, the,

What are movies called Star was hollows? They're hollows. These hollows have had all the sex pulled out of them. You know, he doesn't, he's not just not familiar with these situations. It's fucked up. These kids have no culture. That's right. But, you know, he's in peril.

He's going to be fine. And the thing is he never, he never feels like he's in peril. He never, he's never scared in this episode, really. Like, I guess when they first show up, they're like, we got to get the fuck out of here. There's a little bit of Neo and Trinity being like, we got to get out of here. There's agents here. You know, we, what do you do when an inquisitor shows up? You run, right?

Which is something that we kind of talked about before. But in this actual interrogation, he's a lot tougher because, as he points out, like, my guy killed your guy, your guy. Like, my dad beat up your dad, my boss, my master killed the grand inquisitor. Why am I supposed to be shook about you? You're not even the grand inquisitor, you know? And I think that there's some degree. And he also points out the thing of like, if you were going to kill me, you would have killed me, you know, and you didn't. And so, you know, I think that he's, we get a lot of Ezra being really confident in himself here, which actually, I'll wrap back to when we get to the next episode, because something about the way this transitions in the next episode doesn't quite line up for me. But, but yeah, you know, he withstands this light torture. Um, and she's, she's genuinely like, yeah, she's like, why aren't you scared? She's kind of, like, she's, like, she's entertained by the fact that he's actually not scared. He's not, he's, he's so nonchalant. Yeah. About all this. And really, from her standpoint, she doesn't need him to be scared. Again, her plan is, uh, again, sort of sticking with like the spider thing. She's going to keep luring people into the web. Yeah. And sort of get them as they try to, as they try to rescue her, as they try to rescue him. You know, there's a touch start for these inquisitors that I don't think I've seen. I don't think I've,

said out loud, but it's like really obvious when you look at their costuming and their hats especially, both her helmet with with the face plate removed and especially the Fifth Brothers, like, wider helmet is their samurai, right? They're like the imperial samurai come to kill, you know, lone wolf and take shop away. Right, they're the Shinsengumi. They are the,

exactly. Whatever, whatever moment in Japanese history you want to place the like, they're the central authority samurai agent being sent out into the world to go kill the Ronan, right? Or to go kill the local peasants or to go kill whatever it is, right? They have that sort of like clean lines. A lot of their

costume work has very similar shapes. His brother has the... The open Hockama style, like, yeah, yeah, 100%. Like, there's a lot of the big shoulder pads that come down into the triangular look here. But again, her helmet

like Darth Vader's helmet, is even that sort of curve up top and then and then flare out around the back of the neck, samurai-style helm. And so, like, that's such a huge touchstone here. And it's interesting for them to go back to that, to be like, okay, what is Darth Vader? What are his actual touchstones? If they are supposed to be sort of like extensions of him, how do we play with that in different ways? And that wasn't really there in the Grand Inquisitor, like so much.

You could reach and try to find it, but it's really present in these folks, which is fun. also has moves I haven't seen before I'll just say this oh yeah like he turns off like he walks into an ambush like Sabine's set up

where she's gonna blow an entire hallway around him yeah she presses the plunger and the bombs don't go and I'm like have I seen that have I ever seen like a Sith just like block a radio signal

no I guess not and he throws them back at her which is interesting that's a weird power to have is like slow down And they explode when they hit her, you know, so. That's that's kind of, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's like some. Yeah.

God, I wish you could do that in cotor, actually. Anytime we throw a grenade at you, if you just toss it back. Yeah, you just reverse, like link reverse time. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. 100%. God.

God. That'd be great. And then, of course, now here we are. He captures, he captures Sabine. And so now it is up to our. our friends Zeb and Chopper to be the heroes in this scenario. Shoutouts to

Go ahead. I was going to say shout out to Sabine's new hair. Oh, true. Is the armor the same? Or is just her hair that's changed? I don't know about the armor. I looked back and I think it was like, I checked last, I think last episode it was also changed.

We didn't call it out. it. So, season one is orange and black, is that right? Mm-hmm. And now she has this kind of like blue, blue, teal green situation. Yeah. Love that she was also graffiti the

ship. You know, she's got a lifestyle to attend to, you know, she believes in this. Yeah, she's sick. But she does get captured, so. She does get captured. I really want to get a Sabine episode. on the other, the other, um, Faloni zone that we're not going to go to today.

They talk a little, someone writes in to ask like, hey, um, in the Clone Brothers episode, the Clone Brothers episode, what the fuck is the name of that episode where they go, the episodes we watched last time, whatever those were called. Yeah. Relics of the Republic. How did Sabine know about the weakness, the weak point on the, the ATAT? And Pablo explains that it's because she went to the Imperial Academy, which we've talked about before. And then she's like a weapons expert from there.

And I really want to get some like Imperial Academy, Sabine, backstory and some Mandalorian backstory. Like what's going on, Sabine? So hopefully we get some of that this season too. Me too. I really want to connect with her more. I feel like out of everyone out of the crew so far, I feel the least connected to Sabine, even though I like her character a lot. I just haven't really gotten the chance to bond with her as much as I want to.

Yeah, we know all this stuff about Ezra's parents. We know all this stuff about, you know, Canaan's. We're getting more and more about Canaan's backstory every episode. But Sabine were really loose on, you know. Hera too, but I think Hera's performance is just so strong that it's easy to have an affinity for her whenever she does take the spotlight. hair is one of those characters and this i think a lot of times characters in position of authority end up in in a place like this in in tv shows like it is the character who like you can always imagine them having like a really busy interesting life and outside of like the boundaries of

the show i think a lot about um one of my favorite characters on god this is an old reference nobody will get it probably uh NYPD blue back in the day sure lieutenant fancy the first commander of the unit was like a student supporting character but rarely got like lead screen time. There's only a handful of like Lieutenant Fancy episodes, but you always felt like Lieutenant Fancy really cool, like major part of the show. He only realized later like and yet we don't know very much about him. He's like sort of on the periphery of a lot of scenes and never brought to the center. And the other thing is often the other thing that's the through line there is you put put a marginalized character, a person of color

in these roles to be like and these folks are here in positions of authority but also they're not our main characters so off they go to off to the side of the plot off to the side yeah yeah yeah I don't even do that with Hara I expect when we get a lot more

of you know what what Hara's up to I'm really down on Fifth Brother I think he's trash he gets to be You just said he had moves he had a cool move and then he spikes the ball

at the one yard line he tells the two little droids who are recon droids they're little sneaksters I know I know he's like the rest is to do do what you want Zeb's huge

he sends two little he sends two little droids besides of a dinner plate I guess he was talking to them I thought he was talking to the seven sister through them but they do go and try to do it

themselves yeah yeah they do their best they do their best He said, talk about getting spiked. Zeb, one of them was zaped Zeb. And Zeb was like, all right, cool. Grab you, throw you against the damn wall.

Well, maybe it was, maybe the point is that they're in, like, he's trying to prove their ineffectiveness, you know? Like, they're not his droids to. No, no, no. But, you know, by. I think you're right. He could be like, hey, I tried to use your droids and your droids didn't work. I think you're right, but this is why he sucks. It's like, he's so busy.

Like, I'm going to show up. seventh sister here and like if if if her droids botched uh you know collecting zeb that just shows that she shouldn't be out here and it's like she had the high value target yeah yeah this is your job was to do clean up and you fucked it up this where you have like two wide receivers and one of them can can you know set a pick or like do a do a block and like refuses to and like lets them get tackled instead of letting them get the the touchdown evil defeats itself these two motherfuckers are both sending like emo tweets out you know, before the big game.

Yeah, 100%. I can only do what God lets me, but the rest is down to getting me the ball. Yeah, this is the, um, the enemy speaks kindly, kindly and holds a knife. Yeah, typical quarterback tweet, love my teammates, God is good.

Running back tweet, keep grinding, tight end tweet, derb, wide receiver tweet, the enemy speaks kindly and holds a knife. That is it. That is who they are. And by the way, sorry, go on. I was going to say, what I want to know is why Seven Sister is camping this medical station. Like, Fifth Brother.

Right, she was already here. She's like Tommy Lee Jones and the fugitive, man. Like, this is how much game she's got. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Say more. Say less. She already knew these four. She's, you're right. How did she? Did she bug, like, all of these old medical bays and it, uh, I mean, maybe she was just chilling here. I mean, maybe she was like, I already know this is the type of place they're going to go to.

But she was all the ship. She was here. Yeah, she really was. That's the discipline. Yeah, you just scowl around. She's the, like, so like, fifth brother is a pursuit predator. Right. She's more of like a, I don't know, with the.

Like a lion wait predator, right? Like just get very still, you know, slow things down, just wait. And eventually your prey enters the target area. But also, like, Fifth Brother has an assignment. She can do whatever. This goes back, yeah, as far as we know, yeah. I mean, this goes back to Robb's characterization of her as being a spider, right? Yeah.

And she has her web out and something pulls under one of the strands. And now she's going to drop down and get them, which is, like, you know, maybe she has these droids spread out a bunch, bunch of old, you know, abandoned bases and stuff. It's just one problem with this. It's lonely work. And you start to want to have company, which is why when we cut back to her

and Ezra, things are not going well. She is ineffectually torturing him. Yeah. And, like, trying to get him to basically send out a radio message to his friends. So the second part of her thing was, I'm going to use you as bait. He's like, no. And she's like,

but really, come on. Come on. Come on. send the radio message. Why are you making me torture you? He does not look particularly tortured. No. No, he's chilling. Sabine is brought in. Well, really quick, before we leave this one last moment of solitude for these two, of privacy,

she reveals something to him that he did not know. And I don't even know that he knows if he puts two and two together necessarily. I didn't know, like, does he know Asok as a Jedi? Because, yes, she says, well, I don't know that he knows her name is Assoca, does he? No, at first he's, well, she does, because when she shows up, when she shows up, doesn't she say, does she, in the end of the first season, does she say, I'm Asokatano? Or does she just say, he literally says to Rex that he's Asokatomi? Oh, yeah, you're right. So why does he respond?

So he's just, is he just trying to, like, no sell it when he's like, who's Aso Tano? No, I think he, I think he's trying to no sell it, but I think he's also. caught off guard that she, like, why would the seven sister know Asoka? Right. I don't know. Does he know Asoka's a Jedi? I don't think so. Oh, maybe he doesn't.

He and Canaan, no, in the last episode where Vader's showing up, her, Kane, and him all reach out to Vader. Yeah. She knows that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He must just be trying to lie and it comes across kind of funny. Mm-hmm. Um, but so Sabine, Sabine is brought in by, by fifth brother. Uh, and this is, this is where, uh, he is, he is serving now brushing, giving, he is giving seventh sister the brush off.

And she holds him at lightsaber point. He just says, I'm not talking to you. I know. And turns back to Sabine to ask, where is Zeb? At that point, I do feel like good cop has lost the plot. Yeah. I feel, I feel, I feel, I feel, I feel, I feel, I feel, like he's he's recognized that she does not have whatever it is in her to actually like torture and carve up like in a certain point are you going to start chopping off limbs or not and she ain't that's the thing

she's just a girl standing in front of a boy just take a finger asking him to call in his friends to the lightsaber will cauterize it you know what I mean the perfect implement of removing one finger at a time just do it it was oh it's a tv show for children come on grow up you don't have to show it show some stuff like make little little sound effect and the character wincing yeah you may Anakin has a robot hand what Ezra can't get a robot finger what are we doing

just a pinky just the pinky show show that she means business yeah uh anyway yeah they and it all goes bad for them at this point right because because it turns out that chopper and zeb have parked the the phantom or the what's the little ship called. I always get these wrong. The phantom. But yeah, it's a real 20-8-3 situation. Yeah. They just get on board and begin to fly away. They almost get force pulled back, including my, which has my favorite shot of this episode where the seventh sister and is reaching out her arm to kind of hold the ship from escaping. And the droid hops down her shoulder and runs out onto her arm as if to like reach out with her and grab with her. It's so cute.

It's so cute This droid's just way too fucking cute God they're little big red snooter Between their two beady little eyes They're good I bet they make toys of these They gotta Well if they do

Natalie will have one on her shelf In no time In no time And again the fifth brother drops the ball here Because she's able to hold The ship back She's been powerful to do that

Yeah you gotta be powerful But she can't do it alone and Sabine starts shooting at the fifth brother and he pulled out his saber to defend himself instead of committing to the bit and pulling the ship down or just holding it for like two more seconds because they have the doors closing

and if the door is closed you got body armor. Yeah, take a couple hits. We've seen Sabine take hits. Yeah, she has made a lorine armor, but still, that's the job. The job is take some hits, show some backbone. Agreed.

It's not good. The other part of this, just from like an episode construction, standpoint, Zeb's little crisis of where do I fit in this, I don't think he's well set up. Like the minute he's alone, it's like, gee, you know, you and me chop, it's, I don't know what I can do in all this, but if

I leave, we'll never see those kids again. So, and it's like his big, like, I can contribute, but it's like, in the stakes of the show, this was never really concerned. Like, you know, Austin, you said, like, we see the chess game, but that's, I think like you're doing a reading there that like the rest of the episode, like, okay, this is kind

of what sets up the episode. And the turn here at the end, but I haven't felt for a minute, like Zeb is lost on this team. No. They wanted to write that episode, but then they also had to write the rest of the core episode around Ezra and around introducing two new characters, really, because we didn't really met the fifth brother either. And the way that this, like, this is an episode that feels like it would have been two

Clone Wars episodes. Yeah. Right? They would have gotten on to the ship. And then they would have, you know, at the end of the first episode, Ezra would have gotten captured, right? And the whole second episode would be something else, right? Or the whole first episode would be about Zeb not fitting in,

and that would get final resolution in the second episode, you know, something like that. But yeah, it doesn't get to breed that much. Yeah, it's too bad because I think it's a good notion. Like, Zeb is the, like, dirtbag uncle of the crew in a lot of ways. And suddenly things are going to look about buttoned up, but we don't see his. It would have been good to have his dirtbagness be the thing that saves the day.

Like him and Chopper pull some sort of maneuver that only they, could think up because they're not clones or Jedi. You know what I mean? The clones do things by the book. The Jedi improvised, but fundamentally are like, you know, driven by not emotion, but by a sort of like sense of oneness or calmness or they are sentimental. And to have, you know, do you remember the episode of Clone Wars where Anakin just stabs that guy in the back at the Darth Vader theme plays? We need that for Zeb. We need Zeb to be like, and I'm a little mean. Like, And I'm, I don't, I'm not, I don't play by the, like, we need a little Chubacca, we need a little, he needs to actually be a little Han Solo sometimes. And he doesn't get to be that. I guess it's like his play that generates the escape, which is the like fake phone call. Yeah. But that's not very like characteristic. That's right. Yeah. I'm with you. Yeah. If it had been a little zebier.

Well, this one, it is fun to. It turns her plan against her because now this is the phone call. She's been waiting for the this is like we're going to have ezra lure them to their to their death so they don't see that like now the now the trap is swinging the other way um shall pick up on the little reference to the season one gang the command the fake commander name yeah it may lu run sounds familiar oh yeah wait wasn't that what was the may lu run thing again that's the it's um a type of fruit isn't this was yes and zeb used the name used it in in one of the episodes. Wasn't that the fruit that

Hera and Canaan were like, go find some Malurin. Yeah, and like the short. The great Thai fighter heist. Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah. That's so funny. A fun show. God damn. It's a fun show.

I mean, to me, that's my takeaway from both of these episodes, even this next one, which I don't like as much, is it's a good popcorn show. I could just keep watching it. You know, it's more than even, more than even the better seasons of Clone War. wars, we're like, I, partly it's because we're not in arcs, right? These are both standalone episodes. We have a bunch of standalone episodes coming up. And it's just like, yeah,

I'll watch another. I'll watch another rebels. If we weren't doing this show, I would be done this show by this time next week, you know, so. It's kind of telling me to watch it at this pace because I'm like, very bingeable. I might pitch that we do three episodes for a few of these, but let's see where we're at the end of this episode. Yeah, I think, but the problem is, the pairing thing still feels like thematically where it is at because these are the two like it's the same dilemma in both these episodes it is well let's talk what's like in a way in a way these episodes are because they're easier watches i have less to say like we had so much to say about clone wars because and this is something i'm still grappling with as as kind of rebels is getting along and

I'm figuring out what what there is to say about it and what my kind of take is on it. But I find myself like sitting back in my chair more and just enjoying the watch, like just enjoying the ride and not like the, I feel like there's less like crunchy stuff to, to, you know, we have less little asides about a hyperspace tax. route or whatever or little like you know one off things that we like used to latch on to and the core the core of clone wars was was the premise I think was a little meteor in some ways because it is the fall of a republic it is the failing of this great spiritual and and and military institution in the Jedi it is the enslavement of clones it is droid personhood and Star Wars rebels is like, we got the good guys and they're fighting the bad guys and they're a family unit and it fits a really great episodic sitcomish procedural. It's a procedural. It is a

procedural, right? It's like clone horse is Hillary Mantel. This is Lee Child. Right. And that is so much easier to consume and to just kind of, is the lean back posture, Natalie, I think is right, which is why I'm kind of like, I bet we could do, we'll talk, let's do the next episode and then And then we should decide, maybe don't have that conversation on air, but then, you know, make a decision. Because I do have a pitch for how we can move through this season slightly differently. But, but, but yes. Brothers of the broken horn. Yeah.

Just the closed loop on the last episode. They get back. Oh, sorry. We have two inquisitors in. We got two inquisitors after us. Yeah. And Canaan clearly didn't know that there are more inquisitors out there if he doesn't realize. I think the end, the episode ends on what have we gotten ourselves?

intel. Right. Right. Yeah. And we're not going to pick up from that because, yes, the next episode is Brothers of the Broken Horn. It starts out basically at the same place as last episode. But now this time it's Rex training Ezra in being a combat soldier. He's doing like, you know, target practice with blaster. He's trying to instill a different kind of discipline and mentality. Canaan wants to teach Ezra as a Jedi. Overwhelmed by the amount of contradictory instructions that he's getting. Ezra needs some alone time. In no time at all, he gets a distress call from our old friend Vizago.

So first wish of the season granted for me, a Vizago appears. Ezra promptly steals the phantom to go help Vizago out on his ship, the broken horn. But when he arrives, he finds that Hondo Anaka is there instead with a valuable cargo that the rebels badly need. This chiff in height. This is how I feel. This is how I feel. I knew you would come around. I knew you would. Does that what that sounds like to you? Is that what? This sounds like I came back around?

Is this like, is this like, Death Grips remix? Yeah, this is me when I'm, when the boys are back in town. Ready? This is me when Hondo Anaka came back. Guess who just got back today? It's curse. And he looks weird.

Mm-hmm. He's not my boy, but what did they do to my boy? It's been a couple years. Everyone looks different in this. It's been 15 years. But either way, mischief and hijinks are going to ensue because Honda is here. There are so many twists and turns in this, it's a very lighthearted episode. It is.

That runs just 24 minutes, summarizing it that, summarizing it would be a scene-by-scene breakout, so we're just going to skip that. The TLDR is that Ezra ends up right back where he started, but with new understanding of who he is now versus who he was. I don't get it. But yeah, we got a Vizago-Hondo episode, mostly a Hondo episode. Mostly a Hondo episode. I knew it was him from the moment I heard that voice over the, over the, over the, over the air. I knew, which voice? The comms?

Yeah, the comms. Okay. I knew from, from when they start playing the vaguely Indian music that was playing in Hondo's bar in the very first Hondo episode. It's what he's listening to in the cockpit. And I was like, that's Hondo's music. Oh, my God. by God He's introduced crotch first

The camera angle is insane It's like his POB And he's like crouched under the The like seat of this ship And when it cut to him I was like, what are we doing? Why did that just happen? You know, Honda has fans out there

Yeah, they're out there Yeah, uh-huh I mean this is Am I the only one who's fully just like like, I'm just buckled into the ride. My arms are up. Like, whee,

Hondo's back. He's gotten old. He had a couple, you had a couple, uh, I wrote down a few of his, a few of his lines. Same.

Same. Oh, yeah. The stories I could tell you. So many of them are true. Yeah. Yeah, I wrote that down. Leave your wife out of this. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. Um, uh, I wonder what happened to his crew. He says, he says, so, Let's get through it because we can't just – he gets this call from Vizago asking for help, the stress call. He shows up to the ship. The ship seems to be abandoned.

There's the cool security droids that Vizago has that are deactivated throughout it. And then, yes, crotch first. Again, a shot as if from basic instinct. Here is Hondo. And Hondo is like, hey, who are you? and Ezra says, oh, I'm Lando Calrizian. I'm a friend of Vizagos. And they start bantering and trying to figure out a deal.

Hondo says that he won the ship from Buzago in a card game and that he is going to go complete a deal. He's going to go sell some power units, some power generators, some vague. Conductors something like that And Ezra picks up this is mostly Bullshit Oh yeah 100% He's like yeah

So you won this game This ship in a Sabat game That could happen Yeah But then he crucially takes the little Like droid command module off Hondo's belt When Hondo drapes his arm over his shoulder

So they go get these They can go do a deal for Power Generators which in the start the episode There are people who desperately need them Where the planet's going to freeze There's a frost punk situation happening. Yes.

And only the Rebel Alliance can deliver the generators. Yeah, that is the, that is like the technical stakes of this, right? Asato has some planet where people are freezing. Ezra has so many uncles. Ezra is collecting uncles. The sick of condo's arm went around Ezra's shoulder. I was like, uncle added. It takes a billows up by one.

New uncle dropped. New uncle just dropped. Yeah. That's right. Oh, my God. He is. What is that about? What is it about?

Ezra doesn't have parents. The uncle's a sacred relationship. It is. It totally is. And this is the worst one. This is the uncle you never invite over. That's right. You don't hear about him very often.

Yeah. Yeah. Alcohol is coming over. Shit. They got to go do a deal. Put everything away, guys. Put away the alcohol. Whatever you do.

Whatever you do, do not loan him money. Don't loan him money. Don't. He's a little bit like Griff from Cotor. He kind of has griff energy. If he was like, yeah, Ezra, I found the, I found the recipe for Theresian Ale. I'd be like, yeah, you would, you would say that. You would.

You would find that. But yeah, he's got a scheme. He wants Ezra to be part of his crew. He's lonely. That's the other thing. He doesn't have his crew anymore. And he doesn't have his boys. And he is sad about it.

There's like 12 mutinies that have happened to this dude over the years. Like, so now it's just him. Yeah. Yeah. As someone who does not like Hondo, I felt bad that this entire episode was about how watched Hondo is, like, to the point that the lesson of the episode is like, God, I don't want to be like that. Yeah.

Yeah. Which I guess is better for me and Hondo than them trying to make him seem cool. Sure, but there's going to be a middle point somewhere where, yeah. I like this. this is good because like this is like when Anna can go back to the tat goes back to tattooing and Wato has become like he's now a broke repair man because like he's lost his business and like and he's rewritten history in his head

we're like oh it's little Annie I like I knew you since you were a little boy and he's like completely alighting me like I used to own you and your mom and like he's great and Honda's got this whole like story in his head where he's like yeah I remember the Jedi I used to be friends with that. When he was like one of my best friends. And he might believe that's true. I think he does.

I do think he does. I miss that guy. Yeah, I think he misses Kenobi. Yeah, I think he misses Obi-Wan a lot. I don't think Obi-Wan misses him or things about him at all. I don't think about you at all. You don't think Obie's in the cave just writing, writing some little journals.

My dearest captain. Yeah. Captain my Captain My Captain Honda should go visit him I think that'd be fine He should Go check in

It would go so poorly Obi-Wan would be discovered revealed Luke would be killed Everything would go wrong Yeah Hondo could have saved the Obi-Wan show Yeah

Could you imagine episode two Obi-Wan show And he's like I need a ride And the Hondo Anaka shows up In the catooni I would die I would explode I would explode

I would explode. You know, it might have been. But only half that series is like him just taking Leia and going to Hano and be like, you got to get this kid to Alderon. Take her home. And it's just a family road trip movie. No, I know you tried to kill those young legs 10 years ago. I know you took the murder of cold blood.

But as Hondo herself alluded to at the time, sometimes, sometimes he likes kids. Sometimes he tries to kill them. He's a man of multitudes. Goofy. Unlike Asmorgan, who's just kind of a grody little gremlin. And he immediately betrays Hondo as they trip. Asmorgan is the, we didn't really say this out loud, I don't think, right? That the plan is to go sell half of these converters to Asmorgan, who is the James Hong character from the first season who we saw also negatively interact with Vizago.

Was that a Vizzo? It was a Lando episode. It was the Hara and Lando episode, right? Where he was like, I would love to have a Twylic serving girl. Yes, that's right. Right. And so, yeah, they're going to go sell them these stolen power converters. And Ezra's going to keep some of them.

Do they have a plan for like what they're going to do? How are they going to come up on the upper side of this? Like, is there an actual, I don't remember if they have an actual plan here, if they're just going to go sell them. Well, I think Ezra is demanding a cut of them. Yeah, he's like, I want two of them and I want half the profit on the third, right? but I think the plan is like Ezra is going to see that it finds this way back to those rebels. I think he's still

in mind like there's people who need these generators he just wants to make sure that he gets yeah he manages to get them he wants to have the ownership stake so you can basically give them away but yeah I think I think that but the thing is like there's no real plan here because Ezra's pretending he's going to like yeah sure I'll crew up with you Honda and Honda's pretending

he's going to let Ezra take these wildly valuable generators. I do love that where Ezra's like did I just join his crew Like I don't wait a second Chopped and I just No wait a second Everyone falls under the spell of Honda At least once

At least once we have all been amazed By Honda at least one time I'm sure yeah I I bet if you go back and listen to the episodes There's at least one I think for me It was it was Ex-wife guy Honda was the peak for me

Yeah During that Hoverfet arc Yeah But Choppers says something response to Ezra? He was like, did I just join his crew? And it responds, like, I feel like Chopper says something like, well, do you really want to stay on the ghost? I feel like I'm learning to understand Chopper. Oh, hell, yeah. What do you think he said? I don't know in that sequence,

but there are times throughout this episode where it sounds like he's talking, and he is, I'm sure. But it's- It's- State Poloni. We know that. I know. I know. It sounds like he's- Austin's not about to complete this thought with talking directly to me. It sounds like he's talking directly to me. No, it sounds like he, there are times throughout this episode, maybe even in the last one. Because when they talk about how Ezra is like learning how to understand, he's learning binary, right? Which is the droid language. Yeah.

I don't remember exactly the line, but there's a bit where he's like, he says like a sentence. And it sounds, you can hear the Dave Faloni language underneath. And it sounds like he is saying something. I didn't, I really thought that I wrote it down, but I didn't write it down. Oh, in the previous episode, there's a bit where Chopper goes like, pick me up, pick me up. And you can hear it. It's just English put through a thing. And then there's another one this time that I can almost hear it.

I'm going to try to, from here forward, anytime Chopper says something, I think I can understand. I'm going to write it down. That way we can compare notes. I want you to all listen for it, too. But, yeah, go on. Well, it just feels like they're probably, they know. that Chopper's a popular character, so they're like, you know, deliberate in how often and how intense they use the filter in these moments.

Well, we also, we're going to learn more about Chopper's very humanoid capable skills in this episode. So it's also, it's like, not only does he end up getting more of a humanoid voice, he also ends up getting more. That's your inspector gadget here Those biceps aren't just for show You know what I mean He can lift and he can be at a literal gun show

We get a literal gun show here Yeah I just like that Chopper is kind of curious Because like nobody has talked to Ezra About like The fact that Ezra kind of hates being on the ghost So much right now that he Those part of him the ones just cut and run

And just not Just go back to being kind of a scavenger And like choppers You can kind of talk to about that I kind of that's kind of a cute touch the chopper is the person he can the the that would be like cool with even

you can show that to chopper because like chopper's enough of an asshole the chopper would not be like you can't possibly leave the ghost and quit on the rebellion chopper should he gets the vibe yeah he could and I think he gets the vibe but this is a little bit of a joy ride a little bit of a

find yourself step out which that's the part of this episode I don't truly get at the beginning of the episode there's the particular moment where where both Rex and Kain are talking to him and both of them are like well as a, Rex is like, if you

want to be a soldier, you got to do da-da-da-da. And Kain's like, if you want to be a Jedi, you got to do da-da-da-da. And Ezra's like, well, what if I don't want to be either? And I was like, oh, emo, Ezra's here again. Here we fucking go. I did. I did. I don't know. What's wrong? Why is he like this? In the last episode, and he's

just mad he has to do homework. Like, grow up, okay? This is what I'm saying. And so later in this episode, he finally gives a little bit of an inclination to why he's like this, which is, or indication, rather, which is, he says that he was scared by the Inquisitors. He says, like, you know, I don't, maybe I'd be, maybe a life as a pirate would be better. Because I bet pirates aren't, or I bet the Inquisitors aren't chasing down pirates. And they aren't. And of course, the Empire certainly has some sort of anti-pirate group or you got to pay us our cut group.

something. But he the last episode, he wasn't afraid of the Inquisitors. And I did, there's like a miscommunication there somewhere that's like he didn't leave that feeling like he was afraid. Yeah. But he comes back to the ghosts and the adults are still

aren't in the room. Like Rex and Canaan. No, sure. But like Rex and Caden aren't like, oh, there's more Inquisitors. We should stop bickering. Or, you know, Canaan, Asoka doesn't come back. Asoka is lying to him and seemingly not interested in training him at all. Canaan is, is not confident in his own self that, like, I, you know, he's trying to do his

best guiding, uh, yeah, Ezra himself, but like is more invested in seeming like he's better than Rex. Yeah. No, all this is great. I think this is all true. I wish we got a little bit more of it directly from Ezra to Chopper. Sure. If Ezra had just said to Chopper, like, you know, at least as a pirate, I wouldn't feel like I didn't have anybody to help me da-da-da-da-da, or whatever, you know. Instead, what we get is the message of, I could go be a pirate. I could go be an isolated person all in it for myself, but now I have family instead.

Big smile. And like, that's, it's not because anything changed at home. I mean, he gets a little extra respect at the end. this mission but that's about it you know um and that's so i think there's there's a couple things here i think one in some ways it's a brisker show then it is a brisker show it is in clone wars but i think sometimes they still have as you said austin like these things feel like there can be longer arcs than they are and now we are over condensing where it's like you you needed maybe a different incident to serve to illustrate some of the crisis that's going on here maybe that's a different

episode, but like you would suddenly have like a two or maybe a three part or to be an act of these stories, decide, try to set up like, why does Ezra want to cut and run? Like, how is he feeling about the inquisitors? Because I do think, I think he gets scared the inquisers by the end. The very, that previous episode we just talked about, fifth brother, finally decides to cut the shit, grabs Sabine's head and holds the blade to her throat. And he's not kidding around. Like, like, like, Ezra realizes like, that dude's going to do it. Um, and I think that, like, seeing his friends threatened that way kind of kind of spooks him but it's passed over so quickly it's passed and the bulk of the episode is him no selling the seventh sister and so

that ends up being a tough a tough thing to to that's my core memory of that first episode right and so yeah um i think that you're right there's a the compress the time compression happening here makes it hard to to develop some of these ideas and i guess we also don't know at this point are they setting up a seasonal conflict or are they setting up like oh in three episodes or so we're going to feel like this is relieved or not addressed again right right um yeah great question yeah i don't know if these are going to be the like themes of the series themes of the season or yeah is this going to be like well aser got over his uncertainty about his training uh in the first like quarter of the first half of the season

um anyway he does comport himself really well in the rest of the episode, as you're probably about to say, Rob. Yeah, as Morgan, you know, realizes that he's being sold a bill of goods, he's going to betray Hondo regardless, but then when he realizes who Ezra is, he's going to kill him for revenge, for cheating him in the, in the episode with Landau. And at that point, Chopper bursts into the room with a handcart full of generators, whips it at Bazaago and his guards, grabs a pair of guns. Austin, could you make out what he was saying?

This was a moment where I was like, damn, I can almost partially say, but I can't. Let me go listen to it. Let me see if I can find the exact moment and try to give you a, this is the gun, the gun attack part you're talking about. He's got a rifle and one arm. Yeah, it's wild. And then like some sort of huge revolver and Star Wars doesn't have revolvers, but I swear to God, it looks like he's got like a 38 detective special. Yeah, it's wild. And then he's doing a wheelie.

Yeah, this is one of the parts where I was like I can almost understand what he's saying. see here. Here he comes. I'm going to go back a little bit. Is it when he pulls them out? Or is it? All right. I'm listening. I'm listening. He grabs the guns from the dead body. And then he goes, yeah, he says, he says something like, so you want to get, so you want to get, so you want to get dirty, let's get dirty. Or you want to get violent? You want to get violent? He goes, br-br-br-br-brum-brum-brum-per. And it's like, it's a really clear way, you want to go, let's go. You want to go, let's go, is what you say. And I think he's still, it's forward on his one forward wheel.

I'm going to share the screen so that we can all listen together. I know, I should have just done this from the jump. I love this. But you're, you'll hear it. And I really do think it's a, it might be like a famous movie quote. You know what I mean? Well, Batman. You want to get crazy?

Let's get crazy. You want to get crazy? It is. It is. It is what it is. Or you want to get nuts? Let's get nuts. That's what it is.

Let's see if that's right. All right. Let me share my screen. I'm feeling it. All right. Let me, let me, okay, now hit the old go live button. Please don't sue us Disney. All right.

Watching. All right. We're watching. He's picking up the guns. We turn it up all the way. Yeah. I think so. No, the last one is definitely let's go.

It's let's go. Yeah, it is. But it's, it's, it's one more time. Everyone listen. It's something like, let's go, let's go. I don't know what it is, but it's so close.

By the end of the series, I think we're all going to understand the whole time. That could have been, you say you want to go, let's go, because there's one other syllable. There is.

Yeah, it's more than you want to go, let's go. Yeah. Dun-da-dun-da-dun-da. Yeah, that's what it is. And then he leans forward on that little wheel. and comes charging forward shooting.

Yeah. It is so good. And then he and Ezra drop a lot of bodies in the ensuing scene. Yeah. Ezra. I guess maybe Ezra's just stunning dudes. He's shooting a little stun round.

I think that's right. From his little blaster. I think that that's right. They launch a dude out in the space, though. That dude didn't make it. This is like when Chopper sent a squadron full stormtroopers out in a hard vacuum. He did do that.

Art two's done that too. Right? Two has done that. Yeah. Yeah. And one other person almost goes out into the vacuum. It is Honda. I'm rich.

I'm dead. But Ezra. I'm rich. I'm dead is fun. I quite like this. He's like being hurled towards the, the open airlock. And he goes, I'm rich. I'm dead.

That's good. That's good. He gets me there. He's got a lot of good lines He does, he has some good one-liners He tells Ezra You lied to me I knew I liked you

Mm-hmm Mm-hmm It's cute As Sean Bean and Ronan Would say They got the swag Kept the cash It's a good

It's a good day's work It is They go back to the show It's still like half an episode Left at this point How is that possible Hondo's ready to celebrate They're new

They're beautiful partnership. You know, Ezra decides he's going to, he's going to wander off with, uh, with chopper to go to go grab drinks for the celebration. But while they wandered the ship, they hear, uh, some sort of ringing or pounding. And what they find, of course, is Vizago in the ship's brig. Uh-huh. Uh, he didn't lose the ship in a card game. He was pirated by Honda. And he calls in the favor that, uh, as the bargain he's, struck with Ezra last season for info on where

Canaan was. Ezra owes it to him to set him loose and help him retake his ship. So he does and when we have the big conversation on the bridge, Ezra tries to do the Jedi thing. He proposes a decent settlement for everyone. Everyone's going to get paid. No bloodshed. We're all going to move on from this. Zagio and Hondo, they want to play for all the marbles.

They do. That's who they are. That's just who they are This is like in the Sopranos When Tony Soprano Who would be Ezra in this situation Is trying to negotiate between Little Carmine and Johnny Sack And it just

They can't reach an agreement It's exactly like that It's so like that It's so like that And then Tony pulls out the lightsaber To protect Give Tony Soprano The lightsaber

Please he would love it he would hate it I don't know you really cut prosciutto fine with that though true true too much heat it's a cold light

it's like a that's that's a good point that way yeah it's kind of weird it might be too much heat though they do cauterize but they don't need heat outside the blades

but it would be so useful for disposing of bodies so you would burn doors yeah well I don't know let's say for physics he could give it to he would like get it as a gift and then he would just like hand it off to Chrissy because he doesn't want to deal with it

and then Chrissy would like accidentally kill someone with it while playing with it or something I don't know anyway so Vizago tries to kill Honda with his robots with his big like the cool they're like IG droids but they're not like

IG 88s. They're like old sylons. They do have that vibe. Yeah. Big conical heads. Yeah. But either way, Canaan defends Honda

who then bounces and escapes. And we get a very good edit here where once Vizago runs off with the, with the merchandise and steals,

steals the Phantom. Uh-huh. Ezra basically tries to he sort of looks sheepish at Vizago. And we get a hard cut to him being thrown aboard in the skate pod and like kind of waving goodbye. As Ves Vizago launches him into space and says, I hate kids.

Yeah. Shout us to Vizago. But Chopper is unbothered because Chopper knows exactly where Hondo has ended up, which is that the Phantom is programmed to return home. And so as Ezra comes back up the gangway of the ghost, he hears hondo telling the gang

about the adventures Ezra got up to and how cool he was the boy stood tall between me and the Zago yeah he's he's gassing him up he really is

he's really telling him he's saying listen he's that guy he's that dude and that's something I'll give it I'll give it to him you know

if you're going to be the weird uncle you got to at least be the weird uncle who like talks up your nephew to the rest of the family. Yeah. Well, this is kind of a theme with Ezra, where it's like when,

at the end of the last season where Vizago and him strike that bargain, and Vizago is like, no, this is how you seal a bargain. It's sort of the rituals of, again, like being initiated into the world of adulthood. Right. And within his family,

as we're still the baby. And they treat him as a baby and they're like, you have to teach him this way and, like, very little agency, very little regard to him expressing preference or wish. And when he's out with the smugglers, they treat him as a young man.

Now, it might be in that way that sometimes, like, old dudes are like, no, young man, young fella, you know, might be in that way where it's still like a little bit patronizing. Yeah. But it's also real, where it's like we're going to treat you as a, you know, as an adult with, with a lot of agency. I like the Sundoff here as, as we're kind of realized is that, like, Honda's kind of a lonely figure. And, you know, running away to live the pirate's life probably does, at best, leave you. kind of an old, isolated, somewhat lonely figure. I also like to send off where he's like, he tells Hondo, you know, if things were different, if I was who I used to be, I might have run off to join your crew.

Yeah. And Hondo laughs and says, Ezra Bridger, you truly are a Jedi. Because that is a stupid thing to say. And it's a trusting thing to say. Yes, it is, it is. And it's a kind thing to say. you know um he recognizes that uh yeah i don't know i i am happy i'm happy for the hondo lovers out there that they got this episode i am not one of you

the boys are back yeah exactly uh sorry i have fallen in in the background a rabbit hole of people writing their own chopper dialogue i've just downloaded someone's fan subtitles. Oh, my God. Chopper. What? There's a whole YouTube channel that has a thing called Chop Talk, which is various episodes or like various chopper scenes with new subtitles attached.

They're not in any sort of fucking order, so I can't find this one, and I can't look at any of these. I got to get some subs files on my Plex server. Yeah, I'll send these over to you. Let me, let me, you know, I'll get you, I'll get you what you need. It's all season one and season two. They're not real. They're not, they're not

real, but they're real. you know but yeah like these are lighter episodes after the after the banquet of the Vader

episodes this is some this is some lighter fair um it does feel like it's kind of circled around an idea without fully developing it about the tensions around Ezra's training

I hope it continues to be a thing the series explores rev in this being like eh this seems like a premise for two good adventure episodes I hope it's more than that I think this is going to be one of the key feelings of this

season, right? At least maybe through the first half or whatever. That seems likely. I hope it gets resolved and not just dropped. Yeah. You know? The Chop-T-Tops.

I think the other one is fine, but it's not. I would think people should go watch it for the Chopper moment. I'm not going to spoil it, but Chopper is allowed to edit an episode of Rebels recon, and we see Chopper learn how to do that, and then we get taste of what Chopper's own Rebel Recon episode would look like it's cute but it won't play on audio so um and otherwise what we get is is um a uh what do they fucking talk about um they talk

about um uh something about this oh they just talk about like oh jim cummings is back to do more more hondo and it's you know it's nice to have him back and then the pablo question is about um we always get the pablo lore question at the end the pablo question at the end the pablo question is what I already said. Where did it be and learned where the ATAT weaknesses were? So I already said that bit. Otherwise, you know, that's kind of a, and then there's like a bunch of Faloni and Pablo and some other people saying like, it's always cool to go to shady places in Star Wars. It's cool to go to the canteen. It's cool to go to one of the ones that they say is Dexter Jester's diner, which I don't think of as like the underbelly of Khorasan. There are other

profiling. Yeah. Yeah. Man, this place is the hood. What? What are you talking about? This is a diner. My man, what are you?

Also, I did just find this person's chop talk episode for our episode. And they translate this, that sequence where we were like, do you want to go? Let's go. That's where our read was. This person's read on it is, you fuck with me. My boy, you die. I don't think that's what Chopper said. That's a little, it's coming a little hot.

That's a little, yeah, it's a little, you know. I'm not buying that one. And I just don't think Chopper feels that protective of Ezra. I don't think, I don't think chopper's ever saying, you fuck with my boy. It's more like, more like he just wants to get in to get in. Like, he just, he's itching for a fight. That's what it is. That's the vibe to me.

Yeah. Yeah, he's just, he wants to. to participate. The other subtitles file that I found says that it is

nobody laughs at chopper which I think is too far the other direction that's nothing that's not he wasn't like

nobody laughs at chopper that's not that's not a thing it's not a thing it's not a thing no it's like nobody knew

you were here bro exactly yeah no one was yeah there's the the James Hong character as what is his name

as Morgan as Morgan is like laughing right before, but it's not a chopper. That's not what's happening. No, he's just doing evil guy laughing. Exactly.

I was kind of hoping to kill him in the scene, but he is... Same. I could have... I could do without ever seeing him again, honestly. Yeah. He's not my favorite. He's not my favorite. It's not a great character design. He's based on a thrown away job of the hut design, apparently.

Well, he's just a sea lister in terms of like... He's just a sea lister. He's not a good criminal... He's not a good gangster. Grotesque fat, gangster. He's the vibe, but he's not even a cool hut. You know, like, we've gotten some cool huts over the years. I'd rather have one of them.

Swaggy huts. Give us, like, I want a hut wearing a fedora vibe. What's the fancy little hut who got killed by Sice Noodles? Oh, what is his name? Zero. Zero, yeah, yeah. Let's go. Let's go.

Drop it up right now. That's my boy, zero. Zero of the hut. Straight off the bench, sinking, sinking threes. Just. Give Natalie more minutes. That's what I'm saying, yeah. I get tired easily, though.

Yeah. All right. Load manage Natalie. Load manage, that's right. Late Arab Lake Griffin comes off the bench, does like three great dunks, and there's like, who I got to sit the fuck back down. That's why I call her street clothes. These knees.

God. Real basketball focused podcast. We're doing over here these days. People who don't know, we answered a long question about who is who. inside the NBA, but Clone Wars and Rebels characters. Inside the NBA, a show that is developing lore in history as dense as Star Wars. In real time, truly. Yep. Yeah.

Anyway, so with that, we reached the end of another episode of a more civilized age. Our show is produced by Ricardo Contreras and supported by our listeners at patreon.com slash civilized. For our next episode, we'll be watching. Well, this is my question. I think this next two is a two-for. I've looked ahead. It's all one-ups. They're not two-by-toos, dude.

I have looked all the way ahead. They only become two-by-toes in the last four episodes of the season. They're all one-off. Thematically, these are two-by-twos. They are not two-by-toes. I promise you, I've looked ahead. They are not. You can draw connections between any two of these episodes.

They are not, they are not in terms of production. Self-strike. We've got two canaan episodes following this two-fur. We get in the Heron and Sabine, two can-canes. It is not, but it is not like, those are not carried out. They're all one-offs. And then there's, as it returns to Lothal, and then the next one is a princess on Lotham. Because the story is on Lothal at that point, but they're not connected.

They're not connected. None of them have, and I mean that in the production sense, Rob. There's no, the ones that are one of twos, are the ones that are one of, are the last two episodes and the previous two episodes before that is they are not like that. So we can go to the next two, but it does mean we're going to be on the series, series for longer is what it really means like that's the thing it's like if we want to keep doing two ofs we can keep doing two ofs that's fine i like keeping these i mean we we are close to having an episode that took us less than two hours yeah i know and i think that we were i think that this is an episode where we had to

i think we probably could have done this episode in 90 and been better for it um and i yeah i don't know we are though that's literally we won't know the time is the thing and for me it's episodes. Well, let's, let's do two on this next one and see how it feels. But because we can do two on this next episode and then go to three and still be fine for, you know, it'll, it'll get weird at some point. But like, the difference is that we're going to cover this season in six episodes, six more episodes or eight more episodes. That's what it really comes down to, right? So it's like a month difference, basically. We'll be on this show for until either, you know, midsummer or late summer or whatever. You know, it's an extra month difference. I guess maybe that's fall at that point. But, yeah, let's, let's, I will tell you, they are, they are not, they are sadly not as connected as I wish they were. I would love to go back to the Clone Wars style of arc-based stuff. Yeah. But it's just not there in terms of the, again, it's not just the, it's not just topics, it's creative team, right? It's that this episode in the last episode were not written by this, you know, this episode was written by, the previous episode was Saul Ruiz, or it was directed by.

by Saul Ruiz and was written by Kevin Hopps. And then this episode was written by Bill Wolkhoff. And I actually got these backwards. Brad Rao directed the last one. Saul Ruiz directed this one. So there's no like creative continuity the way there would be in the previous season or the previous show. And so like if we had that, I would be way more comfortable being like, oh yeah,

these two because Canaan happens to be in them are Canaan episodes in that way. But I don't know. And maybe we'll watch these next two and I'll feel more like that's what it is. but, you know, I actually think it's just that the next one is a, is a Hara episode, and then the next one after that is a Sabine episode, and then the next one after that is a Rex and Canaan episode, and the one after that is a Canaan and Ezra episode, and it's just a grab bag, you know, but let's see how the pace goes. I am curious to see how we feel at the end of a season moving this slowly through it,

mostly because Star Wars just keeps fucking happening. I know. That's my incentive for moving a bit more quickly because there's just so much more I want to get to. Yeah. Yeah, totally. But we'll see. I'm enjoying the ride. I am too. I am too. As the other half of this is, I just want to watch this fucking show. That's my other incentive. I just want to move through it. That's the main reason I would want to speed up is to watch more. Yeah. But in terms of conversations, I'm like happy with this pace. Because I think if we were doing another episode, this would be able to be. longer podcast. Like I just I can't I do not think we have it in us because we have said this like our note going back years. I think that there is a podcast was like we could have sped that up.

I think that there is a diminishing returns to how much we can try to fit into one episode, but that there is a difference. I think we're going to fill two hours if we do one episode or if we do two episodes or if we do three episodes. It's just that that third episode is going to probably go to 220, two 30, you know. But I don't think we do I don't think we do I don't think we would end up doing an hour on this second episode where nothing fucking happens if the third episode had been our juice. If the third episode had been really nice and juicy, we would have spent our time there is really what it is. So anyway, welcome to our own little look inside the production chat. This is our own inside baseball episode. So this is how the show gets made.

Either way, for the next episode at least, Wings of the Master, Bloodsisters, that title, it rhymes, It's got some echoes For us Clone Wars heads Wait, what's the Oh, because of Savajan Mall? Is that Blood Brothers? Is that what the name of that episode was? Yeah, that was, yeah.

I can't remember if it was their crime spree or not. Yeah, I can't remember when that was. Yeah. I hope it's a crime spree episode. That'd be great. I hope it's like, Sabine's dirtbag, Mandelorian cousin is like, hey,

want to go knock over some gas stations? That would be so good. If Sabine ends up being, like, from Death Watch in the era of the biker gang, that would be fantastic. We'll see. No, you can still tag it after we rob it. We'll tag it. We'll tag it right above the attendant's dead body. If that's how she picked it up, that would be great.

That would be fantastic. That would be awesome. That would be so good. All right. Until next time, please rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice and let us know on the socials, whether you are hashtag Team Vizago or Team Honda. let us know, we should, we should, we should, we should tally this up. I have to know. Bazaa go to the polls.

Wow. And vote for Bazaa. Thank you.