A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 85: A Princess on Lothal, The Protector of the Concord Dawn, & Legends of the Lasat (Rebels 27 - 29)

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

As we return from the midseason finale, we get a trio of episodes that represent the three major emerging categories of Star Wars Rebels stories so far. One is a story driven by a cameo from the larger Star Wars universe. Another is a big swing at some brand new worldbuilding and an exploration into tone and style that is totally brand new for the show. And the third is, unfortunately (and of course), a lackluster Sabine episode that doesn't even have the decency to give her credit for her own good ideas. Ah well, maybe next time!    Support the show by going to Patreon.com/civilized! Show Notes Journey into the Star Cluster by Kevin Kiner Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny) Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson) Produced by Ricardo Contreras (@a_cado_appears) Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)  

Let us return once more to a more civilized age, a Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zackney, joined by Alia Kampora, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. We are, as always, supported by you, our listeners, by 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. This week, we get three adventures that revolve around new alliances and old affiliations. and if you're about to say that's the entire fucking show copy some slack I'm trying for a pithy topline summary here anyway a princess on Lothal picks up where we left off

with the white loth cat of sadness leaving Ezra behind while the gang meets Princess Leo she's there replenish Phoenix Squadron's depleted ranks with new ships but the only way she can do that is by running an insurance scam in which she has the rebels stage hijackings of all trainian ships and that's how they end up being transferred over to rebel control.

Channeling its best Hogan's heroes the gang commit their crimes almost in plain sight of a watchful imperial commander during which Ezra and Leia connect over the burdens they're shouldering as young fighters and what can feel like a hopeless cause and Ryder Azadi recommits himself to that

same cause. I actually kind of wish it, like it's funny, the show opened so abruptly I kept backing it up being like it cut off the start of the episode. Right. The audio was so odd. I literally rewinded.

It doesn't feel like a good. It feels like it just picks up from the end of a shot at the last episode. It's real abrupt. But it isn't like a... I guess there are ways I want you to more direct continuation than I expected.

There's a great scene in the middle where Ezra gets back to the ship and they like found the time for a 15, 20 second beat where Zeb and Sabine are like, man sorry about your parents and like I was shocked that they found the space to recognize that yeah these characters would say something to Ezra about that but there are other ways which is like it doesn't at all feel like an immediate continuation um mostly because like

it's a big cameo episode you know it's like it's a it's you don't do the big moving midseason finale and that normally and then like the next episode is like and guess who this we want it had But it does have that very special episode energy of this week on Rebels. Ezra is visited by. He loses his parents. Yeah. And he's comforted by someone Star Wars fans know very well. And it's like Princess Leia.

And it's a bit like after school especially, but they don't really address it. Like she only touched on, like she only engaged with it a bit. It's really funny you say that because the voice actor for, for, for, Princess Leia here actually has a lot of background in after-school specials. Like, that is one of the spaces she is. That's very funny. Practiced in. This is Julie Dolan. She also was Leia in the Star Tours. She's the Star Tours Princess Leia voice. I'm going to see her. For years and years. And she's done Star, or she's done Leia in like Star Wars Lego and some other stuff. I think from this point forward, maybe, something like that.

She was in five episodes of Gilmore Girls. She was, she's like a real, like, been in your show at least once, right? If you're a Dexter person, if you're a, if you're a, you know, without a trace person, if you're a whatever, like, she's like does the one episode. A lot of soap operas, a lot of, you know, she was in an episode of Angel. She was in an episode of, et cetera, you know, so. She's, also she's Ayrrith's mother in Rebirth and, yeah, she's Elmira at Gainsborough. So, right.

Wow. Wow. In the presence of royalty. Yeah. Is what you're saying. I don't know that I like her performance here. That much. Her, yeah.

It's pretty muted. It's like she's speaking from the back of her mouth. Yeah, well, because she's doing a character. Fischer. Yeah. But Carrie Fisher has that voice. So not Princess Leia, Carrie Fisher, I think is the other problem. Her voice changed a lot.

Yeah. She sounds a little bit more like Carrie Fisher. Today. Not very much like Princess Leia in A New Hope. She doesn't sound 16. No, she does not. She's supposed to be 16 at this? Yeah, she's 16.

They're both 16. They're the same age. She feels like his mom. Yeah. Oh my God. It does not work. There's really about 16-year-olds. Wait, that's so weird.

weird. Remed to the Sith is 19 years BBI. We're now three BBI. She's 16. She's born a day or two. Why does she have adult face? She has grown face. She is all the way grown. She has 32-year-old pays taxes face. That's the other half of this is when she and Ezra are in the same scene, it's like seeing like Cinderella in an episode of Zeta Gundom. Like they are not from the same show. No, no. It's like iPhone face. Exactly, yes. Ezra has looked at an iPhone. Princess Leia has never seen an iPhone before. And they cannot be in the same room. It's weird. She's so, she's so smooth and like. Well, they cheaped out on the character model.

Because also, it's all like form fitting clothes. Oh. So that like once you've done the, like basically you rig it, you texture it and you're done. And you're done. But like Princess Leia is, walking around in those heavy like terry cloth toga type shit outfits yeah and look only one person gets the budget for draping fabrics and that's dark vader in this show only one person gets to have nice billowy clothes everyone else uh here's your here's your uts art the um supposedly

it is based on this outfit from a ralph mccari uh ralph mccary piece let me find Let me drop it. Yeah, you can't pin everything on Ralph. You know, it is this piece. It is this drawing. It is that. It's just not good. I just don't think it's good, you know.

But it has the stuff, you know. They took all the youth out of this drawing, though. This is what people are horny for in the 70s. That is what I see how you get this picture. Yes. But then their rendition of Princess Leia is not horny. That's right. Well, good.

Because she's 16. She's 16. But her face is 30. for sure she has like young soccer mom energy in yeah yeah so which is where the whole scene of them like connecting over like hey we and i understand what you're going through i think if they've done a better job of like making it feel like they are contemporaries i think the scene probably works a bit better but the problem is also the other reason she seems like she's 32 is because she's she already feels like she's so deep in this that all the rebel stuff just comes second age she's she's she's done

she's very practiced at it and so it seems like she's been doing rebel stuff for oh i don't know like 30 years because that's how long star wars has been a thing and we want to see like oh it's princess lay in she's already in full like get this walking carpet out of my way mode yeah and i think the the thing that's kind of missed here is like one suspects even though you know a new hope would only be, what, a little ways down the road? Three years from here. How many? Three, three years.

Yeah. Yeah. So she's 19 there, like Luke. Right. But then you, like, the thing, because you're kind of not allowed to show the character as anything other who they are in the films, that's right. You can't see a, an uncertain. Well, now we, that I was going to say, it's the only, we're a little baby

Leah has to be like, she's always got to be exactly the person we met in a new hope and onwards. Yep. Totally. I do like her plan. Her plan is fun. It's a fun plan. I thought like I generally liked

Leah being here as much as it was, it felt kind of inserted. I was like, oh, okay, well, I'm glad that like we're going to hear about what's going on with her. What is she up to? Like, if this show is actually going to get into, like, what Leah's up to as a young resistance member, you know, kind of, um, uh, masquerading as, uh, you know, imperial senator, I'm into that. Like, I want to hear what's going on with her. But if it's always going to be from the, like, from the rebels group perspective, it could, end up being a little, I don't know, it could just be, that perspective could be too limiting to really dive into what's, what could be interesting about what Princess Leia is up to.

I wonder how much more of her we even get because it's, oh, God, is this it? I would bet. I don't know. I truly don't know. That would make this so much worse for me, because I feel like if this is setting up future cool plant, yeah, like an arc of, um, an arc of, um, You know, the Phoenix Squadron working with Leia to do more resistance acts across the galaxy. Like, that's cool to me.

But if this was just the Princess Leia episode, that is not as fun. That is not as fun. Mon Mothma in that role instead. Because we can't, you can't, you can't touch her, right? You can't have her be shitty. You can't have her be wrong. You can't have her be. And she's not a protagonist, right?

So, like, there's, there's, it feels like she's a little hands off. Whereas I think, I bet we get Mon Mothma playing some of that role, Alderani and Senator who, or Shandrylian senator, but like, you know, off-world senator who wants to make right and who's part of the quote-unquote mercy missions and which I like, again, the idea that, like, oh, what Leia has figured out is she can pretend to want to go help people on planets where there has been rebel activity in military action, go give them food or whatever, give them supplies, and then actually what her plan is is have the rebel steal her own ships out from under her is really fun.

Like, that's great. Whether or not we get more of that as we go forward, I just don't know. Well, and I think kind of what makes this episode work, honestly, is poor lieutenant list who knows the minute she shows up what she's out. He's a baby, first of all. He's a little child. They gave him a spaceship. he looks younger than Leah

yeah he should have gotten the touching scene with Ezra yeah hey I know what it's like man like listen I just graduated middle school and I'm running a blockade yeah exactly

hey you lost your parents I've killed a bunch of parents and that's been hard too maybe I killed yours something to connect over but the thing I like here is that he knows what she's up to Like, he's put two and two. Everyone's put two and two together.

She always shows up. Her stuff gets jacked by the rebels. And then, you know, that's, then, you know, it happens again. And so I love his solution for this, too. And I can't believe this never came. I can't believe we've never seen the Millennium Falcon get booted. They got booted. They rolled out on there.

Yeah. He boots the spaceship. I've never seen this in Star Wars. It's so good. It's really funny. You're gravity locking my ships? Yeah. She's like, no, you can't do this.

that because like she doesn't have a good answer they should gravity lock her ship so that's what they should do yeah it's very funny and then like also brings in some ATAT walkers and you know it's it's which by the way later i'll have some thought i'm just gonna say it now canaan cuts through the legs of these things later look Skywalker ain't shit look Skywalker ain't shit imagine being princess lea and you're on hawth and everyone's like I don't what are we supposed to do and in her mind she's like canaan just jumped up and cut through two of the legs of these things. Like, it was nothing.

Luke, can you not do that? Fire the toe cable. Give me the radio. Let me talk to Luke. Look, get out of the ship. Get out of the ship. Do a double jump. Cut through the legs.

One hit. It's one hit. We got the wrong Jedi. There's got to be a Faloni zone where Pablo's like, this is the Mark 1, AT ATAT locker. There's a cortosis or alloy. They added to prevent. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Uh-huh. He just didn't have it like that. Let's be real. I mean, he didn't. I mean, Luke wasn't trained by even blabba or whatever. He didn't go to the Jedi school. He's the first Jedi we see in the movies, too. So every later one's like, we got to see some even more Jedi shit.

So unfortunately, poor Luke Skywalker, like the second coming of Anakin, like a massively powerful like Jedi in his own right. On film, we're like, this is pretty mid. It's pretty mid. And every other Jedi, it's like, you want to see some epic Jedi shit? I mean, I think, you know, the thing is, could Canaan have talked Vader back to the light side? Probably not, is my guess. But Luke could. So Luke was like a duck's in many ways and really pumped up that charisma for the big endgame confrontation.

That's what I think. I don't think Kane could have gotten the Death Star kill shot. That's true. Yeah, Asver could have too. I believe that. Yeah. But I think it's the emotional stuff. The ghost crew gets aboard the Death Star.

They don't need secret plans to bust that thing off. Like, it's Dunzo. The second the ghost is inside the Death Star, it's curtains. It's going to be like baby Boba fat aboard that Republic Cruiser. I guess it has to go bad. It has to go bad for our crew at the end, huh? Because otherwise, everything's different. Why wouldn't they be there?

Yeah, exactly. There's something terrible is going to happen. happened to them. Yeah, because otherwise, they would have changed all this shit. It's okay. They were just busy. I think Rogue One implies they're just off screen, having a great time. No way.

We get a really good, they're just off screen moment later in one of these episodes. We'll get there. The other thing that's remind me of, it reminds me a little bit of Grand Budapest Hotel. Hear me out. Okay. I'm listening. You know how, there's two encounters that sort of bookend the film with fascism and Grand Budapest Hotel and the first one they're able to get out of through like let me speak

to your superior let's let's go over my paperwork my papers are in order this is a disgrace and the second time they try that they just stand someone outside the train and shoot him yeah the world has changed yeah and I think lieutenant list is in that first mode of like the empire is still bringing order to the galaxy right I'll put a boot on the ship new hope arrives Bader's like, fuck that. This ain't no mercy mission. Right. I'm boarding.

I put these people in an airlock. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're totally right. Yeah. Which is a fun thing to see. Yeah.

I hope we get some of that in the rest of the season or the rest of the show. And then I hope we get more of that in Andor would be very fun too. The sort of like, okay, how do I mean, this is the Saw Guerrera school of thought. No, it's the Luton School of Thought, right? It was, is like, we have to provoke them into revealing who they really are to people where you have to make them squeeze the gauntlet closed because they're going to, that's what they're going to do eventually and they're going to do

it quietly and softly until it's totally gripped or we can make them do it in big showy ways and then people will... And they want to. Right. And they want to. They're not doing it. They want to close their jobs. Yes. Totally. The other thing I dig here is that

you know, part of the arc is that Ryder's going to be like, no, you know, it turns out you have some fight left in me, but I do like at the opening he's like guys support what you're doing i can't do prison i just did it i'm out i'm out yeah i get a lay low and like you watch andor and you can't fault anyone just knowing about prison right you can't fault anyone who like does hard time who's like i can't wrist back in i would rather gotten killed he gets arrested off screen right he just he's in the first scene

and then the next time we see him he's been arrested i don't Were they part, like, was that a no-parking canyon or something? I don't know. It's just getting booked. It's so funny. I don't know how they got him, but they did. Maybe I missed it. Maybe I missed it.

It's very funny. Yeah, were they being tracked last episode? I don't think so. The implication is that, like, Canaan and Ezra led the, the, uh, imperial's there. I guess so, yeah. And now we got to save him. Well, they do.

You know, it's fun to see him around. again, but he's another character where it's like, seeing him on screen with this Leia model makes my brain bend in, like, they're not from the same show. Because he has the most weird cartoonish proportions. His face is like long and wide up top and cartooning. You know, like they're really, all of the main characters are built like cartoon characters. Their proportions are changed in ways to help sell some big, you know, idea about who they are personality-wise. And then Leia is

young Carrie Fisher. A replica. Yeah. It's like, this is not it's like having different types, like having action figures from different shows on your shelf at the same time. It just doesn't. Or like they change the action figure company. Right. Yes. Yes. Like, oh, I miss the, I miss the old ones.

Like, Mattel really had this shit together or something. Yeah. Yeah. It's very funny. And so there's lots of hijinks. We get a little, we see after their escape from writer and chopper being booked

Leah and as I have this conversation she sees him sort of coming to grips with the loss of his parents he stares at the photo but then we also see her in girl boss mode where everyone's like sorry there's just no way we can steal ships that have got boots on them

and she's like I hear a lot of problems and not a lot of solutions and everyone's like damn here's some solutions boss everyone's like damn i'm with her i will say like they need a bitch like her like she is just putting it to to them straight like she yes and like how do we move forward not not knows not not you know the thing is like her would do that normally it's in this moment she can't do it so that lea yeah yeah yeah yeah it that's

a really good point. She does fulfill very much like the role that Hera typically does when when everyone else is like, well, can't do anything. Yeah, when Heron gets to be around, exactly. They get a lot of Yeah. Well, it's basically

make sure this guy doesn't turn around until it's maximally funny. Shoot the shit out of the ATATs. Yeah. Profit. Yeah. Yeah. We get our first, uh, weedanism here, unfortunately. Oh, yeah.

Did you notice that? I was wondering if that was a Star Wars reference or a, it's just, because it really stuck out. It's, they're taking prisoners. They do that now. We get that, that hit. And then in a lot of the later, like two episodes or now, we get, we're taking prisoners now again. And it's like, wait. Did you not notice that?

Wait. Yeah. They hit it twice. Oh. They hit it in this. episode and then when it's yeah they did yep i forget the second time it's the second time was uh hera when they bring fen row right um into on board when she wakes up from her coma we're taking prisoners now yeah it's it's just that format which is the like they fly now

famously which is not which is not weed right it's just that it's the rise of skywall or script, but it has that, that, like, mid-2010s, Avengers, Buffy style, bantery, quality. And it's interesting to see, you know, at the time we're watching this, or at the time that this comes out, Force Awakens has just come out, which is the very beginning of that style of dialogue starting to dip into Star Wars a bit, right? I'm very curious to see if we get more of it as we go forward. Not in any sort of, like, you know, destroy this show reactionary way. but like in terms of just like taking the temperature of media we are in mid 2010s we are hitting

this era of genre writing how long how much will it penetrate how long will it stay well and there's a bit of like i will say this not to defend like not to defend the honor of joss weden but i think what made a lot of his stuff work is that it particularly played well on television where it's it's a lightweight of fourth wall breaking it is the creeping awareness on all the characters that like this feels increasingly like things that happen to characters in story and not necessarily like in reality right and this shows begin to inhabit that space of like everyone's a little bit aware that they're in this like heightened or dramatized reality the thing that makes weed nest writing really grating is it starts popping up everywhere

in places where characters, it doesn't feel right that characters have that sort of awareness. It doesn't feel right in Star Wars. Star Wars is heightened in a different way. Mytho poetic or tragic or whatever, but nobody's going to turn and be like, well, that just happened.

Right. That doesn't feel right. Like, Han Solo might make a weird crack. But he's not going to say, like, they destroy planets now or something like. Right, exactly. Buffy has watched Star Wars is the thing, right? In the universe of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, they have television and they have the sort of reference points that allow the sort of like meta humor to work in that way.

Star Wars doesn't, you know, the guy watching, you know, and again, I'm not, I don't have a, this is not, has not ruined the series for me. I want to be 100% clear, but in terms of voicing why it doesn't work for me, it's a really goofy thing to say when you see someone who you're supposed to be protecting be pulled away into a fighter, an enemy, you know, ship or whatever. And maybe there's a way to deliver it that's actually kind of interesting. Because like if the premise is, oh my God, the rebels normally just kill people. They don't take prisoners. That's something you could hang something on. But it's not really. It's just meant as a quick gag.

And then it's just meant as a quick gag again next episode, which is like, it's funny. Doing it back to back is bizarre, is a bizarre choice. I get the, like, the, you know, being kind of culturally referential, I guess. Like, I don't prefer it. I'd prefer it not be in Star Wars because Star Wars is not like, Iron Man takes place in this world. technically, like Star Wars is a galaxy far, far away, and a long time ago. But also, do they not take prisoners? Have we, we've seen them take prisoners, haven't we?

The rebels have never taken, why would Harrow be surprised? They have knocked people, they have knocked people out. Yeah, have they not brought someone into interrogate somebody? Yeah, yeah, maybe that's true. Which I think, which I think if, if we offer a charitable reading, it's the stormtroopers are surprised because this doesn't happen, like legitimate armies. take prisoners but terrorist groups they just kill people

and later when her wakes up there's a bit of like oh wait we've got a prisoner now this doesn't like you could argue that I could argue I feel like they put somebody in in someone's bedroom as a you know what I mean like we I think we've seen this happen

maybe I'm wrong I think we I think we've seen this happen but it's not about the sentiment like yeah it's yeah it's it's the delivery like it's it's I like Rob just like the fact that the stormtroopers are like oh this is a new like we haven't known this rebel contingent to take prisoner prisoners which actually I thought was going to be like revealing their ploy at first I was like ooh and they're going to figure out they don't they don't take prisoners Leah's layas in on it but they can't do that because Leah has to keep doing it for three more years yeah yeah yeah so I mean it's not it's i i could i could make the argument for why either hera or the stormtroopers would make this observation it's just it's all in the delivery that is just so like did did that

just happen like exactly that that's the that is the it's like the whiteboard version of that line was like i can't believe is i did that just happen is exactly that you know yeah i hate it it's fine it's it's again i'm mostly interested in indexing how that style of writing shows up in this space and if it continues to because that's the era where it's from you know yeah for what it's worth this is i think that's a good point because i think a lot of my fatigue with that type of humor comes from it us being in the year 24 and like it just have been it has been used to death And, like, I, it's, it wasn't as grading at the time. Like, I think there, like, there's a jovialness to it that I can appreciate in the right context.

But I think, and I think it's worth kind of forgiving rebels for this because, like, yeah, like you say, it's, this is the time in which, like, people are trying out that style of humor in different contexts. and especially in like superhero fantasy so yeah and this is this is written by stephen melching who's written a ton of stuff that we watched from the jump i think wrote the first i think wrote yeah wrote clone wars one wrote ambush the yoda with the with the three troopers wrote rookies wrote the malevolent stuff wrote bomb bad jedi wrote zillow b strikes back wrote a sphere of influence, wrote supply lines, wrote the Academy, wrote slaves, the slave queen arc, has written a ton of it, has written a ton of bangers. I mean, you know, there's some stuff in here.

Memorable episodes. All memorable. All memorable. I look at the list of this list of episodes and I think I know what almost all of them are, basically, right? And then it had wrote Relex of the Republican Wings of the Master this, on Rebel so far, and a bunch of stuff to come. Relics was the Boys Are Back in Town episode with the, with, with the, with the, with, the, with, the, with the, with the, and then, yeah, we know. Yeah. And then, Wings was the B-Wing episode. So it's like, totally, and, and I say that because I wouldn't, a joke like that would not have popped up in those previous episodes. So, again, I didn't mean to have a 10-minute discussion about it. I was just trying to be, ooh, interesting fact. But it is interesting. And I'm, and I'm, as a writer, I'm curious to see if it sticks, you know, Um, notably I am now in the, on the IMDB, uh, do you know what he was working on at the same time? The Guardians of the Galaxy show. Okay.

Yeah. Right. So like, there's drift. Yeah. This is how it happens. It's interesting, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that's fascinating. Yeah. So the other, other thing we should keep track of, speaking of drift, maybe drifts to the dark side. Oh. Passes over very quickly, but there's a moment where they need to beat up some stormtroopers, uh, who are about to intervene in the fight against writer and chopper. And Canaan knocks one of them out. Uh, and then Ezra jumps on one's back, rips his helmet off,

drags him to the ground. We see this from behind. He's straddling his neck and just like hammers him in the face. And the guy goes slack. And both Canaan and Leah in the reaction shot, particularly Leia, look a bit concerned. And it feels like whatever happened may have been more violent than necessarily we see. Interesting. And it just did feel like yet another moment where it's like Ezra does something at some point in there, it starts to feel a little nastier than maybe you want to see from a Jedi in training. I mean, it makes sense, I suppose. He's in a pretty, I think the fact that a through line through this episode is his continued grief over the realization of his parents' fate.

Like, we are just coming off of that. So I think I like that we have hints towards him being in a more heightened emotional state through doing like actions like that, like being more heated in a fight or whatever. and I'm here for just like more rough how like you know I want to I want to see Ezra back I want to see Ezra ignite a lightsaber through someone's back at one point eventually we'll see I don't know we'll see if it'll happen it feels like the version of the scene they really wanted is he rips that helmet off and then full Tarantino just pulverizes somebody's face with that oh with his own or with the helmet with the helmet just like

ridiculous like spatters of blood going everywhere and everyone and just be like whoa Ezra well calm down yeah um yeah let's keep paying attention

dark side Ezra where are you who will bring you who will bring you to us yet again I do love the sense of scale of an almost like animalistic qualities

the ATATs have in all this um the fact that initially you're like these things ain't shit because the missile fire, like, knocks them down, but then they get up and each time are more dangerous.

But it does feel like, like, Canaan knocks them out way too easily. It's like too easy. Bad booking. Well, it's the quintessential, you have to be really careful about what you say a lightsaber is allowed to do. Yeah. Once you depict it doing that, you're going to have questions about, like, well, if you could just carve through,

what can't you just cut through that, Why can't you just cut through the wall of the Death Star? Why can't you just cut your way through the star destroy reactor? Don't give people ammunition. You know, again, the thing I always say about stuff like that, when I get frustrated with continuity errors or stuff, it's because something about the storytelling isn't working and it's giving my mind time to wander. And then you've also given me something continuity-wise to latch on to and complain about, right?

So, like, if a season from now, they're up against an ATAT and they're like, we can't do anything. And it's a bad episode. My mind is going to go, well, what about that time Canaan just cut through its legs? Like, no big deal. Like two of them at once in a single motion. Why can't we just do that again? And if it's a good episode, that won't enter my mind at all, right? You know, they've sold it in some other way.

But you're giving bad Austin ammunition. You're giving frustrated Austin the excuse to be. mad when I'm already frustrated on something else, you know, which, which again, I will kind of, uh, we're about to do a Sabine episode and I'm going to say that like I'm frustrated with that episode, partly because it's a part of a pattern of them missing on Sabine. And if there wasn't the pattern, I bet I'd like that episode more, you know, sometimes you give me the pattern and it's not great. Um, Rob, to your point on scale, I just want to shout out, there's a shot towards the end of this episode of the ships taking off. And there's like, they're lit from

below and you see like the whole little base and it's just great. It's just really really pretty. They know how to shoot ships. Or it's like the moment Sabine looks down to see what's happening and you get her PO V shot and it's like so steep and everyone is so small down there. It's like oh yeah, she's at the top of like a multi-story

building and that is how tall these ships are. Yeah. They do scale and perspective like that so, so, so well. Have we seen these ships before? No. these are new and will they'll be in the philoni zone i show for the next episode there's an answer for where they came from which is interesting so because they have they have

they have logos on them that i was like are those are these like clone war era relics like have these seen action somewhere have we seen chips like this before we have we have seen ships like that but i it we from a very unique place you know we just tell you or because it's not a big thing it's the pablo it's the pablo little one-off thing in the in the second philoni zone of the the set of episodes. They, in universe, they're just a Clone Wars era ship we haven't seen before. Or pre-Clon Wars era ship, right? Because they're from before a time that we've seen.

They're from Cotor. They're Cotor ships. Oh, yeah, of course, yes. These are the sort of like, the ships that you're describing are, they're almost like the Tantif Four blockade runner style ship, except on its side so that instead of having the, like, hammerhead front thing, it's a vertical-like. um tall block and then a long corridor you know center um and they're based on some co-tor style ships some republic yeah yeah okay now now that definitely i remember seeing those

yeah totally um so the heist doesn't go out without a hitch it has lots of hitches but they they they do bring it off uh and at the end uh writer is decided he's going to stay behind on lowthall and continue to work to liberate the planet. I forget, do they have any sort of interesting sentence? They just stun Leia and she's like, make it look good. It's really funny because Ezra doesn't get that that's what he's supposed to do. She like takes his hand and is like, come on, like, you got to make it look good. He's stealing my transport.

And he's like, oh, right, we got to make it look good. And then she steps back and does a little bow to him and is like, you have my permission. And then he stunts her and then gets. away, you know. Damn, I wish I could get stun blasted. Just go to... Damn. Doesn't that sound nice?

It kind of, you know, I bet it hurts. When you throw in the towel on therapy, I don't, I don't see my therapist anymore. Just give me the stunblaster, like, once a week. Way cheaper. Yeah. And honestly, like, you're just, you just, you're just stunned. Yeah, uh-huh. I don't think that's a good idea.

No, you don't, that's not, you don't like that. Just like once a week. it gets sunblasted for a little bit. It's like when you watch like a mortal combat fatality and someone's bones all break, you're like, damn, I need that. I just someone please just. Someone just fuck me up. Do that to my neck.

Do that, please do that to my neck. Scorpion, scorpion, scorpion, just real quick. Yeah, spin it 360 for me. Thank you. I need it. I need it. I have to make a confession about this episode. I kind of love Ezra after seeing him be so sad.

And then when he, Austin's disappointed. I'm not disappointed. I couldn't figure out your way in. And then I, then you said sad. I don't want, how could I not? You're not engaging with his Stormtrooper Academy. How could I not see that that's where I was here. That's how he was going to get you?

When he, when he was sitting in, in the cockpit. looking at the of the hologram photo just being so sad I felt I was like damn I'm sad for him I care about him being sad now and when he come and the part the moment you mentioned earlier Austin when he like returns to the ship and you know Sabine and everyone are like consoling him and like we you know we care about you we're here for you I'm said we here for you from it I wish that was me

I wish I could have been there not really like not in that way more so in like just I care about this kid like he finds his way and I hope he figures his stuff out

like yes I guess he's 16 now like he can be kind of annoying but like most 16 year olds are But, you know, I mean, I love teens. I'm a teen ally.

Don't come for me teens. Yeah, please don't. I love teens. Telling teens not to come for you famously. That will do it. If you don't want teens to come own you, you just tell them. Please, I can't. I'm just sunblast me and said, please, I can't get owned.

I can't handle it. But I do feel myself like I'm hopeful that. And in the next two episodes, he didn't, like, ruin it. So, you know, I still have this sort of fondness for, for Ezra that I just, yeah, now that he's sad. Yeah, exactly. All right. A lesson for all you, all you young fellas out there. You want people to really start to warm up to you just shut the fuck up.

Shut up. And, like, people will be like, people project virtues on to you. Yeah, it's true. I thought, oh, yeah, it was this moment. It was the moment where he's like, oh. Oh, we got to make this look good. I wrote, oh, we got to make this look good, quote unquote. This kid stinks.

Allie's right. So I had the opposite reaction to this episode, Natalie. He's in like a slightly like a few, you know, he's in an emotional place right now. Allie's out of face. He's skeptical. He's bonded with Leah a bit and he's resist. Like he doesn't, his first instance. instinct isn't a harm isn't to do harm so that's the bar the bar is at his first instinct

isn't to do harm most people just like punch the shit out of that lady just so yeah so I'm I'm on team Ezra now like I'm like I'm like half of half of my foot is on team Ezra like like what half of your foot? You're towing you with one foot in? Is that the phrase that you're towing in? This is yours. Dig up, stupid. It's a simpsis card.

I'm not calling Natalie Steele. I like Ezra. I think I'm generally with you. If Ezra was a pool, I've got a tow in. Okay, I see. Yeah. Yeah, testing the waters. Testing the waters.

Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. So next up, we have protectors of Concord Dawn, needing a secret route around the Imperials. Sabine suggests the Mandalorian system of Concord Dawn. However, while trying to gauge the allegiance of these Mandalrians, Hera and Sabine learned to their cost that they are already serving the empire and Hera is wounded in the ensuing dogfight. While Sabine wants revenge on the Mandalians and their leader, Ace Pilot Fenrao, Canaan still wants to pursue diplomacy. He managed to make a connection with the disillusioned Rao over their shared experience at a particularly bad battle in the Clone Wars. But then Sabine is caught while sabotaging the airfield as a backup plan and calls out Fenrow. She wins their duel non-lethaly to everyone's surprise and blows up their ships. Then Canaan wing walks his way into Fenrao's face as the Mandalorian attempts to flee the planet aboard his fighter. Reluctantly, Rao agrees to Grant the Rebels' safe passage, and Sabine and Canaan both. both end up having made a point about their respective methods.

Now, who could have, who could have foresaw that we, so soon were to get another Sabine backstory episode. Who could have foreseen this, uh, this, this, this happening? Was it you? It's sort of, a Sabine. I'm not saying it was a good one. I'm just saying. There's parts I quite like

You were like we're going to get more I like this episode fine I didn't think we were going to get it so soon because we just we were Just complaining Yeah we were just complaining About how bad

Sabine's background With Ketsu Ketsu Ono The right right right Yes The bounty hunter Yes That episode maybe told me more About Sabine's background than this one

Outside of like a lore drop We got like a sentence That means a lot to us because we're nerds, but like if we were just watching this show, that sentence would have meant nothing to us. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but counterpoint.

Yeah. We got to know a lot about our new favorite supporting cast member, Fen Rao. I hope we get tons of this. Why do you both, everybody on the show keeps thinking these characters are going to come back?

This is a huge introduction for this guy. What are you talking about? There's no way. What, you think they just introduce an awesome Mandalorian pilot? maybe he's like got a cool connection with Canaan they're not going to

they're not going to investigate that further I thought he was going to be a part of the crew now maybe you're right they're going to be broing the fuck down like get ready yeah okay they do have a background connection you're right

his his designated bro is Rex he's not allowed new bros we've pros at home is what you're saying to Canaan right out here it's not my rule it's not my rule I'd love I would love it

I was gonna say I would love an ironcloth situation for her for but I don't want an ironcloth situation I want like the first like the beginning and then it stops and everything's happy just brothers

I want brothers for for Caden in general yeah agree that's fair yeah so So where this all takes off is It's the real The thing the episode is about

The tension in it at least is A question of method When it comes to reaching out to these Mandalorians No one knows really what they're up to No one knows how to like Reach out to them Commander Sato That they're not

We're told that Mandelor is occupied by the empire But this system The Concord Dawn system is not, that this is a Mandalorian system, which is interesting. Yeah, it feels like an outpost, right? Like sort of a forgotten outpost, like some, like, also a mercenary company is still out there. As a reminder, which we've seen of the Mandalorians.

Right. Rako Hardeen was supposed to be from here, from the cover story, the cover identity of Obi-Wan in the Cube, the box arc. Yeah. Wow. So, Commander Sato offers up this opinion, which is that the only thing, the way you talk to the Mandalorians is through violence. They're warriors and they respect warriors. You don't come at them with diplomacy.

They'll think you're weak. Now, there's a bit of essentialism happening there. I think, Commander, I think if, I think, I think the diplomatic part of building the Rubble Alliance is maybe not Commander Sato's bag. And we should keep him. we should maybe not bring hey thanks for waiting waiting in on this one uh commander but you know what your lane over here yeah we will uh take your advice into consideration and we'll let you know what we decided to go with but then sabine is like you know that's true my mandoloreans do think diplomacy is for cowards and do respect violence she says some weird shit here

where she says stuff like um she says stuff like uh The Mandalorians or like, I know the Mandalorians. And like, I don't, I don't, she doesn't say I'm a Mandalorian ever. Yeah. And maybe that's because she has a, I don't know. Maybe we'll get more eventually about what her relationship is. It sounds like she is not down with the cause the way her mother was, exactly, which we'll get into in a little bit. And so maybe she's like, I know them, but I'm not one of them in that way.

But I expected her to be like, I know firsthand. how Mandalorians work. You're like, I, I grew up with Mandalorians. I am a Mandalorian. We value blank, but she ain't we. She is, she is I who knows they, you know, and that's an interesting, that was an interesting departure from my expectations. Yeah, she, yeah, go on. She, she does a lot, a lot to

separate herself from like outside of identifying Mandalorian as her, where she came from, she definitely does not continue to identify as a Mandalorian, which is interesting because, I don't know, I'm so confused, yeah, I just, we need to know more. I'm so confused as to what being a Mandalorian means right now in the world and how that will change, like trying to, trying to paint a map. or paint a path from the Mandalorians of the Clone Wars

through to the Mandalorian? The Mandalorian TV show. What, it feels like it starts here a little bit. Obviously, things like the Dark Sabre predate that and show up in the Mandalorian, but like, and Death Watch and stuff and, like, the idea of different sects and cults. But, like, this is where it feels like Faloni has said, aha, finally, it's time to start talking about the, various subsects of the besides death watch because before all we had was there's death watch

and then there's peaceful mandolian peaceful mandolian excuse me um and now it's like oh there's also this other group called the protectors which i don't really know what they are outside of like they have cool ships you know yeah i yeah um who is this faction right they clearly have very strong opinions about Death Watch which yeah well we'll get to that because there's sort of a pivotal exchange there but the thing about the scene

that also kind of bugs me or that they don't get at is Sabine's like yeah no diplomacy's not going to work with the Mandalorians and then everyone's like nah I think it will and if we're going to lean on the fact that like Sabine's the mandolarian in the room yeah yeah

like to me if someone's like you know basically you got to go in there, and it's like the cliche about prison, you know, you just walk, you got to walk up to someone and punch him in the mouth, right? You got to start a fight first day. If that's the rules you're dealing with, with the Mandalorians, and she's telling you that, then you think people take that a little more seriously. Instead, Harris, like, no, we'll try to talk.

I mean, the thing is that's kind of confused here is, what she's saying is that is that is diplomacy for them. Yes. We are, the way you communicate is through a show of physical force. Yeah. Is communication. That's not. That is the negotiation.

Exactly. And let me tell you, that is what wins the day in the end. They don't convince them via talking, despite the fact that the end of this episode is them being like, I guess we negotiated. No, you fucking didn't. Yeah, but yeah, exactly. But through ass kicking. Yeah. Through mediated form-wise ass-kicking.

Yeah, I mean, it's episode one shit. It's, what do the Jedi always talk about? not hostile negotiations whatever that phrase is the Jedi use and the prequels that'll kill me aggressive negotiations so instead their plan the trying to diplomacy is they go in

with we're just going to fly in there and our A-wings we're going to ask them nicely to join us and it's very corny like Harris pitches we are those who would stand with Concord Don and they're like now we work for the empire

and then everyone gets killed like it's such a bad like her leads a squadron of fighters in there and like three pilots get killed because they sort of just stake it all on this coin flip of like well maybe they want to be rebels and the answer is no they work for the empire

they are they're being used as basically state troopers or guardians of this bridge effectively by the Empire and also they're really good at this Fenrow and they're flying these cool Mandalorian ships doing the B-wing thing again

like big wing rotating around a central cockpit pretty cool and they just they slaughter the rebels there's this great sequence where there's no music playing it's just the sound of the ships and the laser blasting stuff happening and speaking the B wing, where's the B wing? You know what you should have brought to this thing?

The B wing or the phantom or the ghost. It doesn't fit its mission profile. The mission profile is just jump here and communicate. I guess that's, they're like, let's not risk the B wing. Let's just go out there in a wing. It's fine. If they did this to A wings, the B wing's not going to, you know what I mean? It's like, the B wing's a bummer.

Yeah, you're not wrong. I just think that the A wing was not the, showing up with three A wings to do the negotiation was not the play. They talk a big game about how like if we brought the whole fleet, we would have gotten our shit wrecked. Like, I don't know that that's true. Like, they crushed you with three ships. Like, maybe if you've had 30, it wouldn't have happened. I don't know. Bring all the A-wings, all the gunships. Yeah. And be like, so we can do this or not? It's really pretty. By the way, Concordaun has these, like, it's like a giant fucked up planet that has been like torn to shreds. And then there's two moons. And it's like increasingly, it's like,

like deep like low saturation purple than big bright purple than blue so is a really fun part of space here has this really great color flow to it that's that's just really pretty so great skybox oh yeah great skybox uh so harris saves the day through ace piloting but before she can jump out her ship gets shot and the controls fry out and we cut to Canaan aboard the rebel flagship. Sabine comes in first warning him that it went bad and Harrah's hit bad and we see Harris like knocked unconscious in her in her crippled away and they get her out she is in the ICU bed basically of the rebel flagship. And now the question becomes, what do we do?

Sabine's like, I want revenge. Gotta, got to make these, got to make Fenrow and his, his gang pay for what they did to Hara. And Canaan's like, no, let's try diplomacy some more. We do get a good line. Which, uh,

which is that or no, it wasn't the, uh, when it, is it right if they make planet fall? The, you know, your diploma. Your Jedi philosophy stuff. Oh, yeah, she says, that's why we're at war.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it? Is that one we're at war? It's just so, like, I think it shows the narrowness of the Phoenix Squadron in general's perspective as a whole. And I mean, especially Sabine's here. I respect that the Jedi philosophy stuff doesn't work for everyone. I appreciate that. I respect that.

I don't think it's why the galaxy is at war currently. It's very funny. It's very funny that she's like, this shit sucks, actually. We have to have a different way of doing it. And just, again, like, that's a way in which she does get to feel like a Mandalorian, even if she isn't saying that that often.

And also, there are times in this episode where she says, like my people are blah blah blah so it's all she never says it it's just that sometimes she seems like she skirts away from it and sometimes she is more direct um uh but but yeah that is that is i'm glad that she is on that side of it and like that's part of what makes this team work is is is you know you need someone who's just here to blow stuff up sometimes you could not have a team of four or five canons it would not work i guess there's a weird there's a weird thing happening here that what you just said made me realize is that like the reason why Sabine keeps feeling undersold is that like she doesn't get to be the one who provides the

Mandalorian perspective because like all of that Lauren stuff is going to be coming from the MPC of the week. She has like this backstory that's being hinted at but like in theory she should be the one running this mission. Right. Like the fact that everybody is. like, oh, well, let's just do it a different way, and you should stay home is weird, especially when, like, she hasn't been utilized in the show.

Right. This is what I mean before when I'm like, it's a pattern. This, she goes on this mission twice. She doesn't get to, it's not her mission, you know? And it feels like it would be better, an episode would be better suited to let her own the mission than to be along for the ride twice and need to get saved from it the first. time and then like sort of screw it up the second time without it being up it's not from her perspective right she's in the camera but canaan is the perspective character in the most of the

episode and hera is in the beginning and that's kind of like it's it's a it's a weird thing i don't know i it just doesn't quite i we'll talk about the next episode which is the zeb episode and the zeb episode is like all in on zeb and i wish we had gotten an all in on sabine episode this episode, where we really, I don't know, it's, it's, so far we had two Sabine episodes this season and both of them leave me going, are you holding back on Sabine? Because you know there's a lot more coming later. Are you trying to drip feed it for us? Like, what's how, what is the strategy here? Because it's not landing for me right now. Yeah, and there's a really good point there are characters that like you can leave them so ambiguous like hinted they're

being an inner life or something like make them sort of a mysterious figure on the show and build suspense and mystique around them for a while doing that but they haven't done that because the problem is we don't know very much about her but she's not a closed book she doesn't feel like a closed book I mean that's the other problem like it feels like character who's always more than ready to volunteer her opinion or volunteer something about herself. But then we just don't know very much about it because there hasn't been much interesting to say when that occurs.

And so we're kind of left wondering, where does she fit here? And I don't think it helps that we get a much more compelling character in this. When Canaan goes and infiltrates the base, like we've had a lot of characters get like, You know, we've got a lot of no-cell interactions on this show. Fenrow being there with two bowls to sit down and break bread with Canaan before he even walks in the room.

Yeah. Is awesome. The guy is just cool. And like immediately, like, start, like, they do the thing where they sit down at the table. It's, this is a Michael man type moment, right? It's, it's like, you do it. you do best. I shoot down Ripple pilots. Exactly. And they realize they, I mean, they have an overlap, which we, I don't know that we mentioned exactly, but Canaan's final,

Canaan lost his master at the battle of Megito III or something like that. And while there, uh, or in that big battle, uh, maybe that wasn't where she, maybe that wasn't where, no, that's right because that's also where Keati Mundi dies actually. No, but I think it's a Clone Wars battle, not a, not a, not a, or a 66 battle. But those are the same, remember? That's the whole point, is Kiyadi Mundi was surrounded by dudes in a battle, and then they turned on him in the middle of that battle. That's that battle.

I'm 90% sure. But he's there, and he at some point in that ongoing fight, his squadron saved Canaan and Canaan's master. So they have this fun overlap. They're both old soldiers. They both lived through that war. They both can connect on that level. also all of this stuff is

I don't know how much it works for me but there's a real like they're going for Western here there are some like musical twangs there's a lot of like the way the stuff is shot and eventually there's a firefight where they like hide behind cover in a real Western way

it doesn't not it feels a little out of place for me but it all works and there's a sort of like two old gunslingers at the bar but then they do the gunslinging because the the The call it moment comes with Sabine.

Right. And so there's a little bit of like, we got to get Sabine in here somehow, so she's going to be the gunslinger here. Right. And that's where it kind of, you have like two big confrontations happening back to back

that feel a bit clumsily thrown together. And me being me, I'm always going to prefer the one where like people are talking, right? Like she gets the part where we just get to, I think this is the other thing. the the the the the duel uh the the quick draw duel the showdown right she only works if it's properly framed by some like two guys two characters drawing pistols is not inherently interesting the whole reason the the motif works is because you feel a sense of stakes you don't

feel the stakes were built up with different character and now it's kind of like all right well now something else is happening right right so being wants to kill this guy, and she's going to draw and shoot at him. And there's no extra emotional leverage there. The emotional stuff comes from Canaan would like not to kill him and like to work something out. But the dual, I'll be honest, like, she invokes the sort of like, I'm a Mandalorian. I invoke the rule of, you know, personal combat. I forget the exact name of it.

It's like she said, invoke the code to seek justice by single combat. There we go. And so challenges their leader, basically, to a one-on-one fight. And because of how it's delivered, and it feels when she delivers it almost like a gag, or not a gag, but like a gimmick to try to, like, get ahead. RPG, role knowledge of Andoran culture. Right, exactly. Their duel doesn't even feel like a duel because it doesn't resolve like a duel.

She shoots the guns out of his hands. and then it turns into a rolling gun fight, right? It's not the showdown at noon, you know? It's not the shootout at the OK corral or what. I mean, it is. It's a shootout. It's not a duel. And so it turns into a big rolling fight.

And I don't know. Yeah, it's bizarre that it's, I think, one, a couple things threw me off in this encounter. One was the fact that one of the one of the protective. kind of responds to Sabine invoking the code and says, like, oh, we haven't done that since the Clone Wars, or we haven't done that since the empire, since we started working with the empire or something, and Sabine responds

it is like, well, is the empire in charge or is Mandelor? And that is like what convinces them to allow her to do the duel, I guess. But I thought that was like, I'm, again, like, where is Mandalorian culture at right now? Not just that. For me, like right before that, there is a, she makes a reference to family. And the rest of them are like, oh, yes.

Oh, well, that's pretty fucking rich. Yeah, they ask her who she is and she's like, I'm family, family ren. But the implications they don't have family names that mean anything, which makes me feel like we're dealing with a different brand of Mandalorian here. Well, when they, when she says that she's from House Vizla, they say, oh, so you're from Death Watch, you're a traitor. And she's like, I don't. My mom was. Yeah, she's like, I don't, you know, abide by whatever my mom did or whatever. So, wait, did we know that Sabine was Vizla?

No, this is the reveal. It feels like it should land hit harder. But again, the ways this is fumbling with it is like. yeah that it's it's kind of thrown in there like oh yeah well i'm you know what it is it's like it's it's a either sabine is convinced she's a very big deal and not pulling it off or the show is like man sabine's such a big deal and we're still sitting there being like why though like you need to like give us a reason like why is

why is destiny attached to this character yeah uh it's time to go to the Lonely zone. Yes. We can talk a little about some Mandalorian stuff. Here. Let's let me screen share. If Discord will let me let me. Discord. Please work for me. Okay, here we go. Rebels recon 212 starting at 104. Three, two, one, go.

See more of Sabine's story in Protector of Concord Don. Is there anything else you can tell us right now? What I love about Sabine's story, it's unfolding. We're getting more and more bits about her history, where she comes from, and kind of why she left the Imperial Academy and her connection to larger Mandalorian factions we've heard about. These are all the questions I have. We wanted to get more into the story of who she is and where she comes from. This episode kind of starts us down that path. You start to understand where Sabine's mother's affiliation was. I would argue that Sabine's mothers in the throne room

when Previsla gets killed and Darth Mall takes over. You would argue? You could just say she was. She's there, just out of frame. Of exploration that Dave and I did back during the Clone Wars. He had this rather elaborate tapestry in mind of how the various Mandalorian clans connect to one another and what the tensions may have been in the timeline leading up to the

It's all here. A rather elaborate tapestry. Can you explain more about exactly what House and Clan represent within the Mando culture. It's all structured, kind of like a pyramid structure to me. There was a ruler of Mandelor. The ruler of Mandelor has for themselves the protectors, and they make up these King's God. This is important. Oh my God. This man has bringing so much money to make headcan real. Yeah, dude. Houses are like the big faction. There would be house Crees, which is Sateen, house Vizla, and beneath them, they have clans. Multiple clans will work under a house. So they're

like smaller families. Wren is one of these families that has actually allied with Vizla. We learned that Sabine is House Ren, Clan Vizla, and that's really important for fans of the Clone Wars. Have you gotten a chance to see me? Not, is it? I mean, not press me on this.

He's like, you gotta do your homework. I was like, no, tell me. Like, what can I watch to sort of have a better understanding before we record this? So he told me which episodes would serve me well to watch. I realize, I understand the importance of that Vizla name. A lot happened with the Mandalorian.

in the Clone Wars. But this is the first time we've seen them in this era. What has happened with them since we last saw them? Great question. The untold story of the end of the Clone Wars would have centered on the tensions on Mandelor and would have left the planet in a certain condition. After the end of the Clone Wars, Mandelor was very likely occupied by the Republic.

And that became the Empire. And because Mandelor has a lot of political power in the Senate and also are known as a military power, the Empire probably has like a soft occupation, meaning they probably probably found someone that could control within Mandalorian society or leadership and put them in charge. We're thinking how does Mandelor deal with the Empire and how does the Empire deal with Mandelor?

And that's something that we're gonna get into. I hope so. Sorry, Chopper's here now watching videos. We're just watching Deroid Splats, Lull. No, it's not cool to watch videos when you're supposed to be working. You should probably turn it off. That's like watching Snuff film. Yeah.

MOLBOLS. I forgot my notebook. Chopper, dude, you're still watching it. Chopper's such a liar. We're still going. If you don't do it three times, the bit is not done. That's right. Roll of three.

But when I emailed him this morning, he said he was out of office. That's not stopping me. Right now we are on here. We are angry at the Skywalker Ranch and see, we can track him down. Let him have a day off. This is a Sunday. Herolo finally found you.

Hey, I thought a question. So Darth Cinema wants to know. Relays ships from the newest episode. Hammerhead cruisers from Knights of the Old Republic. There we go. Nice callback. Well, there's two ways to answer there, right? From the perspective of the universe, what are those things?

We think they are more or less modern ships, but they were deliberately designed in an old style to throwback to a different time of shipbuilding. But then from the outer universe perspective, yeah, they were absolutely a callback to Knights of the Old Republic. There's a lot of fans of that game involved in production. So whenever we can kind of make a nod to that, and it makes sense. Don't be surprised. There we go.

Nice. Thanks, Pablo. Even by Pablo standards, he works with too many fucking nerds. That's true. That's true. All right, what's this? Another Cotaur callback? Yeah, okay.

Sure. Yeah, if you got to do it, fine. That's fine. That's fine. I would need you to know that there is. The next episode, we're not going to watch the next Rebels Recon, but on the next Rebels Recon, they continue the gag about him being out of office. And she calls him on a video phone while he's on a boat. And the question that gets asked comes in from, let's see here, from Quarks Rilsma, who says, is Sabine's father, Obi-Wan Kenobi?

Is Ray Sabine's daughter with Ezra? and he goes, no, and the video cuts out. That's very good. That's really funny. It's very good. They're having fun. They're having fun. They're having fun.

So, I think we just got some insight, though, on why this ain't working, which is there. So, throw all this. Everyone's trying to make a show about Star Wars shit. And Filoni has an elaborate tap. that the lore master of Star Wars is like trying to find kind words around like, this is a lot. This is a lot to take in. I think he might be in on it, Rob, because he, I think he said, maybe he said, he said, didn't he say Faloni and I had a lot of conversation?

Dave and I had a lot of conversations. Yes. Okay, I guess you could read that different ways. You get lots of conversations you don't want to have. I'm not letting Pablo off the hook. These boys wanted to make the Mandalorian. And they said, we've got to start feeding information about what's up with land in the back into this show. And that's important.

Sabine's mom was probably right there in the throne room. She just didn't have any lines. We didn't see her. And we never heard of her. And then like, here's all the stuff about Mandalorian culture and society that we're going to start. Like, we've got it all mapped out, folks. And I feel like some of the stuff ain't landing in part because they're like, we're going to, we're slowly. parceling out, like, where she fits in all this.

Right. But without that context, we're sitting there being like, I, I struggle to see, like, this ain't resonating. And it's not, doesn't feel like it's building toward a grand reveal. At most, it's stuff that kind of makes you go, huh, which is kind of how I reacted to the exchange between her and the other Mandalorians was like, huh, that's an odd interaction. Like, they didn't know, didn't know that about her mom and feels like they, like they, like, Like, it feels like, even though they were both Mandalorians, they define that differently and see that differently.

But it doesn't feel illuminating. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're doing a very slow walk and to hear them be really excited about like, ooh, we're leaving these little crumb trails is like, where in the second half of season two? Yeah. I, you know, I have a good sense of the rest of these.

characters. That's it, yeah. And part of it is like, for instance, I know a big Hara thing is coming, right? What Hara's backstory is has not been fully elaborated for the show yet. And nevertheless, I feel like I have a good sense of who Hara is as a person, as a character. Her episodes have not been all timers, but they've given me a sense of who she is, where she's come from, why she believes what she believes in. Maybe part of this is down to character acting, too. Hara's just so well delivered constantly. I'm not taking shots at Sabine's voice actor necessarily either, but just like,

Hara really has it, has that energy on screen where like she can own a scene. I don't know that Sabine's ever owned a scene. Sabine's been in some cool scenes. Sabine's done some cool actions or whatever. But again, we've talked about Sabine a lot on the show as being a really busy character in terms of like, what's her deal? Well, she's an ex-mandelorian who went to the Imperial Academy and she's into explosives and also she does graffiti and art.

She's a big artist. And that's just like a lot to, it's a lot of, that's a lot of shallow water. Yeah. Like, what about character qualities? Also, she was a bounty hunter briefly. Right. What about like shy or confident? Like, let's break it.

down because I generally like the thing with Sabine is I don't I could give you like a mock situation in which like I could I could write like a Phoenix squadron adventure you know and this is Harrah's role and this is Zeb's role and this is you know everyone and when you say role there you don't mean does explosions you mean narrative characterological role exactly for the story Hey, this is the character who's going to prod at someone's weaknesses and try to get them to change what they believe or, you know, get them to explode in a fit of rage. And this character is going to be their support structure and da-da-da-da. Exactly, exactly. And Sabine, I don't have much to go on beyond is going to mounts up explosives somewhere. And that's just, like I said, we're too far into the show for this to still be a question. Sabine has affiliations and, like, an inventory, a character inventory, but is like, is like Bethesda protagonist coding.

We haven't found her logs yet. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like there's, there's like a writer disinterest here even, because, like, the fact that, like, Sabine has to sneak onto the ship to get into the second part of this episode, and there's no like, you know, with what you did last time, I can't let you do this. Like, you know, there's no like, there's no reason for Canaan not to trust her. There's no like digging into why that decision would be made. It's just like, oh, I guess it would be funny, which I, you know,

maybe she smells bad. Have we considered that she smells bad and no one wants her to be around and it doesn't come through visually? Like maybe in season four. She didn't seem like she's not bad. But we're always talking about how Zeb smells. It's a way to. They're disinterest, but if they were to be smelled, I would know about it. It's true. Everyone hates how that smells. You're right. You're right.

I don't want to fly with the Batman. Sorry. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Oh. So it is, there's a little bit of, you know. But the last, are we at the end? There's the big fight.

She bought, so they do the duel. They do the gun duel. First of all, why is it a Western standoff to, like, I said, I don't know where that themeing comes from here because the rest of the episode doesn't feel like a Western in any way. I mean, it's like, it's really tortured because the idea is we need to get our caravan through the wilderness. But the wilderness is patrolled, but I don't know why I'm doing this voice. The wilderness is patrolled by the Mandalorians. And so we got to make peace with the Mandalorians, right? That's the premise that's sort of westerny, if that's what

you're going to, if you're going to, but they don't dress it up enough until the Barcy. The bar scene is like a classic two old duelists in the saloon pour on each other drinks and then there's the gun duel and then it turns into a Western firefight, but like, it's out of nowhere. The other thing is like, and sorry, this is like, Fen, we learn a lot about him. Like, good, good pilot was a war hero. Doesn't believe in anything anymore. Right. Just wants to take the money and also doesn't like the empire, but if the money is, on the table right now, let's live

well while we can before like the curtain gets brought down on all of us. And classic cynical position you're not going to win this fight against the empire. You guys aren't. You're not strong enough to win that fight. Why would I ever side with you? Prove it to me. Right?

And again, this is the wild thing is Sabine's right. That is the way that he thinks. She knew that from the beginning of the episode. And then the story, the episode pretends it the lesson is that she was wrong and that

you're like again she doesn't kill him but there's the part that I wanted to talk about is the is the end is the is the is the moral of the story so yeah big gunfight they the uh ral tries to get away canaan climbs on his ship and like there's some like daring

do you know he he ends up stabbing into the ship with a lightsaber which is sick and then like it grabs him and jumps into the other ship that that Sabine is piloting, really fun high wire actiony stuff that mostly works for me. Natalie, do you want to set up this, this finale, the end in the conversation and whatever, whatever you want to talk about here? No. Oh, you don't. You don't want to? No, I just, it's so disappointing.

Oh, okay. So disappointing. No, I mean, it's, so what happens, I'm like, all, all I, all I can say is that Sabine and Kane or first they come back in and and hera's woken up right and she and that's when this like we take prisoner's now line happens which is just we already yeah we discussed that and then I think I forget exactly like what led up to. Does anybody have the conversation before the raised right point? Yeah, I mean, I mean, what happens is so the beat here that we're missing is they, so they've captured Rao and he calls back and said, they call him rather, his men call him. And Canaan lets him answer and he says, hey, I'm okay. From now on, let the rebels through. Let them through. Don't interrupt them. don't attack them. It's fine for now, right? And the idea that gets explained between Ezra and Canaan and then a little bit through, through Hera and Sabine, is the empire is not going to come rescue him. If they know that they've lost the Mandalrians here, they're just going to come

wipe everybody out, right? So for now, he'll be a prisoner and play along and let them all go through because the alternative is he loses the ground he has and he loses his people. And so then she goes in to, Sabine goes in to talk to Hara and is like, hey, we captured him. You know, I hear we're taking prisoners now. And Sabine says, it's better than the alternative. You know, we're not at war with the protectors. And we didn't need to take their lives. There's no reason to take their lives if we didn't have to.

And Hara says, you're sounding more like a Jedi than a mandolone. And then Sabine says, I guess I was raised right, which the thing for me there is that- Who were you raised by? I thought you were raised by, oh, who the fuck? What are you talking about? Weren't you raised by Mandalorians or are you talking about the Imperial Academy? No, I'm just talking about her mom and dad. That's a way to tell your parent figure that you accept them as your parent, right?

That is a like, you're my mom. Not having to do that. She was a bounty hunter She was paying rent She was paying rent You know We keep going back to You are also my parents

I'm some glad I found you After those years Of working as a bounty hunter Oh No remember it was like A year is what Pablo ends up saying He's like well there was like a year between To me that's enough though

How many bounties did you bring it That's a real question Is it like you call yourself Like, is it like, yeah, wow, true. I worked as a writer for a while. It's like, well, where did you get public? I didn't. I did.

But I really wrote a bunch of tweets that year. Yeah. I mean, for me, the thing that's interesting is the goalpost moving, right? Because at the beginning of the episode, the conversation is, do we use force or diplomacy? And at the end, it's did we kill them or capture them? Those are two different sets of stakes, right? And in fact, again, Sabine's original point and Sado's was the Mandalorians respond to force. Mandalorians respect power.

So we should go in and clown on them and then that's how we do it. You know, I think maybe Sato is all the way to conquest, right, is all the way to we should go in, see what we're up against, attack them, right? And then Canaan is like, we should go talk to them. And Sabine is the one who has it right from the jump, which is, no, they don't respond to quote unquote diplomacy. They respond to force. And so for her to now, like, you know, I was just raised right. And I believe in diplomacy now. I believe in the Jedi way, actually, a little bit.

It's just, it's weird. They couldn't let her have the dub, you know. It's so weird. Especially because I think you could, you could spend the episode as, to accept both their approaches are vindicated, right? Right. Like that. Right. That's the classic children's cartoon ending is we needed, we need a little bit of your plan and a little bit of my plan.

We couldn't have done it without you, Sabine. She doesn't get that. Well, I think the other, like, the weird thing for, and part of this is just sometimes the script doesn't get refined, right? Again, the Clone Wars version of this is an arc. I know. And instead, we had it happen. in 23 minutes. Yeah.

Because think about how differently this goes if instead of Sabine making the escape with Hera. Hair gets captured. No, Sabine gets captured. Sure. And we have the conversations

with Rao being between like then you can do your Mandalorian exploration shit. You can do all that. You have the space to have Rowe. Because Rao doesn't say shit about Death Watch really, right?

It's the other guy say you're a traitor. We don't know what he believes about Death Watch. I mean, it's actually kind of weird that he was flying cover missions for the Republic back in the day because Mandelor was demilitarized

and it's kind of weird that it went that way. Yeah. But again, I just want to know more about Fenrow. But the other part of this is... You're so on board. You are the number one Fenrao fan. He's so cool. Like, what do you want me to say?

I do hope we get more of him now because you're so... You love him so much, you know? He reminds me of like, you know, the first season of Sanson. There's that really hot British aristocrat dude He's so mean, mysterious. Sanditin is the adaptation, Allie's looking confused,

of an unfinished Jane Austen novel that is about a, like a British seaside resort town that's trying to be built with lots of investment money. It doesn't go great. But Jane Austen startup culture type. I've only seen the first season, but I really like the first season. First season whips.

that actor does not reprise his role in the second season is kind of the problem with season two is that they can't he moves on but the good news is he's on Netflix as the gentleman doing the same dark mysterious omnacompetent presence so good times point is y'all didn't follow this

there was a much of controversy about Sanditin because there was a hand job in like episode two or three and everyone was like there's not hand jobs and Jane Austen stuff let them in hand jobs that's what I'm saying so you're telling you're telling me that era where like everything is about people getting married or not there wasn't a little like yeah

out on the lawn damn anyway it's good people should watch it it's like it's i think the pitch i gave to you rob was like it's like jane austin meets deadwood which is a kind of a self-perity yeah it meets deadwood yeah uh-huh because it's like it's this little frontier town it's just the frontier town in england you know and it's like dusty and dirty and they don't have a shitty is a shitty part of the coast, and they're like, we're going to build a city of dreams here. And so you have all these rich people, part of it from, that's like, Deadwoody is, you know, part of the best bits of early Deadwood. I mean, throughout, but it's like, people showing up to Deadwood and being like, oh, I am rich. I don't belong here.

This is not a place I should be. Time to get rolled. Time to get fucking rolled. And like, you know, it's a lot of rich people out in Sanditon being like, oh, we're going to, this is going to be a great place to live one day if this weird, you know, real estate venture comes through. but if it doesn't, and until then, I don't get to have a bath, you know? Also, I'm just going to say this. Oh, my God.

You can't argue, like, Jane Austen wrote Lydia Bennett. Yeah. There's 100% hand jobs in Jane Austen. Like, 100%. You tell me, Lydia Bennett. Come on. No, I don't think so.

Come on. Keep up, you know, grow up. Grow up. So, anyway. But I think, like, imagine how different this episode is. If, like, if the other part is, maybe because it's their children's cartoonie. The thing they've had, a bomb is not a super subtle weapon is the problem.

Like a bomb going off is not like, ooh-hoo, good fun hijinks. And they've tried to do that with the art bomb thing where it's like her bombs go off and it's showers of color. Whoa, what happened to my tie fighter? But I do feel like the where this would kind of fit is like the willingness to be like, it's kind of, it is kind of compelling watching her go under command of thing. I think they undercut it by the fact she just bongs her head. blows her cover and like hangs on the side of his ship to hide they can't give her a win but you can imagine her like basically you know bending fenrow's arm back by by saying like I've wired

this whole place to blow like we either do it my way or this whole place is going up either way so you can imagine various versions of this but it has to lean in on the fact that Sabine is the kind of person who will blow a lot of shit up yeah and the kind of a person will blow a lot of shit up is, I think, by definition, going to be okay with a little morally gray outcomes. And I think that's maybe the thing they're missing with this character is like, Canaan's always going to be on the side of the angels. He's trying to raise Ezra the same way. Hair is a bit more of a realist about the nature of the world. Zeb and Chopper are kind of down for whatever. But like, if we're going to say like,

especially about a show about the like the nascent rebellion where you would see sabine's ability kit sort of slot in is like I'm willing to be a little less precise in my violence I'm willing for things to be a little more definitive as far as the outcome but they have to keep sort of shoehorning it into nobody dies except the odd stormtrooper in full armor who just goes down yeah yeah we don't get um and maybe we'll get there. Maybe we'll saw Guerrera's in the picture. Sabine can be a big saw booster, you know. But yeah, let's blow some shit up. Maybe that'll work out. We'll see. Fingers, fingers crossed. But either way, that is, that is protectors of Concord Don. We move on to

Legends of the Lestat. No. Ezra. Legends of the Lassat. Yeah, Lestat has not showed up. We have, we have not moved into the Anne Rice averse. We do not have a hot vampire rock star. That would be great. Yeah. More vampires and Star Wars, please. The crew of the ghost is thrown into chaos when a mysterious and compelling stranger shows up.

I mean, you know, there are some mysterious strangers that you show up. There sure are. Ezra surprises the ghost by leading them on a rescue mission based on a tip from Honda and their targets turn out to be. Hondo apparently is now just farming, diming people out and then betraying. It's actually the best, it's the best scheme we've seen how Hondo come up with. It's like crop rotation.

He sells people out to the empire, then sells the empire out to the rebels to rescue the people Hondo sold out, and he's just kind of rolling it. It gets paid four times off one job. Anyway, I can't believe we already have another Hondo episode this quick. Their targets turn out to be a pair of Lassat,

one of which is an exciting new Cron edition. Lassat. The crone is a Lassat seer, Chava the Wise, who tells Zeb he has a destiny to lead them to a new home for the Lassat. Her companion, Gron, is a former subordinate of Zebs in the Honor Guard, but in the wake of Lassan's fall has renounced violence. Ezra, frankly, loves this shit, and he wants to get down with Lassat's groovy way of connecting to the force. Zab is much more resistant, seeing Gron and Chava reflections of his failure as a warrior and his lost faith in the ways of his people. Fortunately,

Hondo, and of all people, Agent Callis, show up to force Zeb into a kind of religious revival, as he must trust in prophecy and his role in it to guide the ghost through treacherous black hole cluster. On the side of it, Zeb finds not the grim refugee camp for the few surviving Lassots he expected, but the legendary world of Lirassan, the original home world of the Lassat. just off screen my people are great

what do they look like what's the world like that don't worry about that you the camera is no cameras we spent half a season creating crone we basically turned we basically made bam bam big from the Flintstones it's big bam bam

but purple with white hair but we're not allowed to go to the planet we spent all our budget on these new characters so no going to the planet It's a really beautiful episode The ghost can come back any time Do you say that? Yeah

We got a Zep episode This is the first Zep episode This season, like real Do we get any other Zabaps? Yeah You can count the first Season episode Where like

Callis almost kills him Yeah Yeah yeah yeah I think that that's right Yeah but I meant this season I guess some of the Zeb The Zeb have beef Had beef with like the The sort of had beef with

clones on the first with the second arc or whatever and we just haven't like a Zeb episode until now this season though yeah I'm happy to have one yeah that's cool

happy to have one we get a new word for the force oh yeah ashla which is apparently from George's original or some book of George's some notes of George's George once wrote that the

There are words for The Force are I want to say it's like Ashla and Bogan or something like that Which is like the dark side So those are just random Like he was just like Al-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-hla

I mean I think the way it's presented Here is that they are tied to This other cultures understanding of the force, right? So, yeah. You know. It's an episode.

I like when I get to see another culture have some relationship to the force and they get to do stuff that the Jedi don't do. I like that Zeb gets to do some weird force mysticism shit where he reveals that his gun actually extends all the way out to like a wizard staff. And it can like interact with space and space map. magic and guide them into like a weird galactic Philip Glass concert like yeah I wasn't I if you would have asked me like what is Zeb's backstory gonna be like what do you think what do you think he's hiding I would not have guessed he's a oh a secret warrior wizard yeah I don't One of them is a warrior wizard. I think he, I think he, I read it as him being like part of a prophecy.

And so in this moment he can do some warrior wizard shit. But I bet once this episode's over, he doesn't actually get to keep doing it. This is a different, this isn't Uncle Zeb. This is like a different Zeb. No, no. Now listen, here's the thing about an uncle. An uncle always has some time unaccounted for. And you're like, wait, where was it?

Where was Uncle during? Where was Unk at? Unk was gone from 97 to 99. What happened? And sometimes Unk had gone on, you know, a world tour and like was with Greenpeace trying to like, you know, do some environmentalism. Sometimes Unk had gotten into some like local underground racing circuits. Sometimes Unk went to get his electrician's license but then got banned as an electrician.

And I think like what we learned about about. about Zeb is that Unk had been the captain of the Royal Guard. Which he says he forgot, which is a lie. Wait, I think we already knew that, though. We knew he was a member of the Royal Guard, but no one knows that he was the captain. Yeah, that's true. I think everybody thought, oh, yeah, you were like a, you were like a soldier. You were like a house guard.

You're part of like the Royal, whatever. But he's like, the guy. He was like the guy in his culture. and now he's just a guy which is the most uncle thing there is because that's why he's around if you're the uncle who's around the core family unit

that's because you're not you've decided I want to be part of this family I'm not off going to be my own thing you know like Unc belongs to the crew now because he ain't busy doing hero shit you know right right he's retired from

His former life. Right, when he was a drag car racer or whatever. Exactly. And now he's, he's, he's just, it's about spending time with his nieces and nephews. With his nieces and nephews. He's just around. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. I hear that. I hear that. And for him it was, oh, I was part of this prophecy that I never told you about, I guess. That's the thing for me is like he, he knew he was a part of it. I don't think he. It's not just that there was a problem. prophecy that's like, oh, so the prophecy is basically, there is a warrior, there are three

people that will find the way to, uh, the land of the Lassat, like the, the, the, Lera, something, Lira, I didn't write down, I should have written it down, Lera Saan, Lera, yeah, and, um, there is the warrior, uh-huh, the child, uh, and the fool. Yeah. And the, and the child must save the fool and thereby save the warrior as well. Yeah. But it's also weird because the way that it's, the thing that she says is the child, and then there's the child to destroy him, to destroy the warrior? What are you talking about? And then she says, then the warrior, the child has to save the warrior and the fool. So there's a lot of classic, strange prophecy talk that contradicts itself. in ways and they're like drawn stuff

and chalk on the ground I you know none of the stuff super hits for me but like you know it's a Zeb episode and I can tell you

a lot about what Zeb's deal is again in contrast to the last episode that we just saw we get lots of Zeb you know the thing that you're talking about

happens the high level again Hondo has sold out these Lassat they rescue the Lassot, Hondo gets captured, everybody escapes, and then they begin doing this ritual. And like you said, the ritual is the child, the fool, and the warrior, they draw it out. They start doing some chanting.

Like you said, Ezra likes to do the chanting. Yeah, he hops in. He hops in. Zeb leaves, and Ezra goes and talks to Zeb, and we get the heart to heart. Zeb being like, well, I'm a fuck up is the thing. You need to understand Ezra. I don't have the belief that we're going to find anybody. They're all dead, you know.

I was there. This is my big burden to carry. You know, I fought, I did the best we could. I held the palace, but there was a bomb. The bomb went off. And then when I woke up, you know, I'd been rescued by Canaan and Hara. And then that's that, you know? And so the, the, we get at least Zeb's pouring.

out his soul, you know, and in some ways it does feel like, we'll get more, I'm sure. We'll get more of something. Maybe we will get to Lear-San on a future episode and get to see it. Maybe we'll get further development of Zeb and his relationship to his people. We know that, remember, Callis has some relationship to his people that we know we'll get developed out at some point. I don't know if you all remember that from season one. It was a while ago. Well, isn't the gun that that Zeb has taken off Callis? Yeah, Callis had I don't know if, I think they maybe both had one.

I don't remember exactly. I thought he like exterminated them. I thought he was like part of the genocide or whatever. Yeah, that sounds right. So I bet that comes back up, right? But it feels like in contrast to the Sabine stuff, they're more willing to be like, yeah, okay, here it is. Here's Calis' deal.

He was part of a prophecy. He found the home world. All right, we're done with that. here. And I actually think that might be better because now that's been done, we can build from that instead of it being like hung over our heads for another two seasons while they slowly develop it. Maybe I'll eat all these words and say I'm wrong because they'll have stuck the landing with Sabine. I'll be really happy that they slow rolled it. But we are watching three episodes a week. I cannot fucking imagine watching this week to week with huge breaks between seasons and be like, is Sabine ever going to get to be a person? You know? Yeah, I'd like Like I liked this one It's it's cute Like I like the the hijinks with

Hondo The Honda hijinks Yeah like you know It's it's good like him like Leaning in on his uncle relationship with Ezra Like wow like this kid's a real piece of shit Just like me I'm so proud And just sort of gleefully selling everyone out

Basically to their faces But the other part I did like was that the thing I like that they handled here Zeb could be a tricky character to give a meaty episode two because Zeb is so often used for comic relief and it's such a again like the dirtbag uncle character that to have him sort of express real shame and doubt

like this could strike as discordant but the weird thing is I think they're dialed in enough on Zeb that you totally buy that like outside the persona he has on the ghost there's this other life he led that went real real bad And not just that, but like to a degree the, I don't know, the lack of seriousness, everything is sort of protective of like this really profound disillusionment, this sort of sense of shame and the fact that everything he dedicated his life to was kind of lost. I think this episode sort of carries that off pretty well. And the other thing is this, of epic things we've seen this season, they deliver the goods again. The pursuit into the, the maw cluster is incredible.

stars that have collapsed inwards um is incredible it's really beautiful the music that's playing during the scene yeah i actually grab that drop i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna here it is for all of us to play in the background uh kato feel free to put this behind us maybe as we as we go um a little bit this is journey into the star cluster it's kevin kiner who does i believe most of the the rebels music you might recall from a episode or season one philones own a rebels recon um it's so good

and I actually think the full version gets to a climactic point that's better than the, where it gets in the show. Like there's a, it gets, it goes even bigger here in the full cut of it, um, that it did in the full show. But it's beautiful.

Um, again, the sense of scale of the ships, like pinpricks of light heading into the cluster. Uh, and then I love when, I love when the Empires confronted with powers in excess of their technology. Yeah. And the moment of the ship getting too close to the cluster and watching huge sheets of

armor plating just ripped off like tin foil. And that moment of fear you see from Callas and Hondo where it's like, we're going to die. Uh-huh. It's beautiful. It's really gorgeous. They know, you know, there's the bit where the, uh, the tie fighters just literally get shredded by the gravity well of it all. and their wings all like...

This was so well done. I was like, this is like the dry run for Aldani in some ways, right? Like this is a similar sort of you're gonna watch the empire fly into the teeth of the natural of the profound.

And a thing that's happening during the sequence as they're giving chase is like they're shooting at the ghost and the bolts, the blaster bolts are being curved away. Which gives the whole thing this sense of

of sanctity and like this is, they have reached a point of galactic protection, right? The force works in many ways, here is one such way, like improbably the gravity well of this place is at the last second pulling the blaster fire away from them and protecting them. And again, part of what I, we say a lot, hey, I wish we could see other, other belief systems and other instances of force worship and how do people relate spiritually to the force? And how does, how do those things bubble up as abilities and as, as, you know, forces in the world? And we, I did not expect to get it from the Zeb episode, I will say. And so, even to the degree that, like, Zeb seems kind of oddly placed here in some ways,

or it feels like really, like, front-loaded Zeb-wise, it's, it's still, it's still checked that box for me in a way that was just incredible. So, you know, I'm here for the track. It's such a good track. It's so good. You just hit the big. moment, it's great. I hit like 2 minutes 30. Yeah, 2.30 goes. It's just

and again, I love when they're not doing Williams. They're not covering Williams. They are engaging with the world Star Wars in a different way. And that is matched musically as well. Yeah, I mean, they start passing through this thing and the

colors start coming in like it's 2001, you know, it's wild. Yeah, and Zebs like got his like staff, you know, raised and electric yellow static is jumping off and surrounding the... God, that is really cool. Nobody's flying the ship. His dowsing rod is basically like working through him.

It's cool. I don't know. Let him be a wizard. And the whole ship is like electrified. And it's Ezra and Canaan have their hands on his back, right? So they are working together in an unspoken way to navigate this thing with the force and support him. It's sick. Damn, that's his sense.

Again, they would never give this one to Sabine or maybe they will later, but they will later, but they're not doing it, and you're driving me crazy. Let her cook. Well, the other thing is, I remember, I think I might have talked about this first season where, like, I sort of had a feeling that there are, like, Calus is a figure again who, like, seems dedicated to order rather than sort of like the nihilism of the SIF project. Right. And like that from the first, he had kind of an odd interaction with Ezra, because he takes Ezra Prisoner in those opening episodes and like there, I don't know,

there's something between them, like the calluses of sympathy or empathy for being in Ezra's shoes. But something comes up here is that Chava assigns a role in the prophecy. Now, Chava's doing the prophet thing of, well, look, we're all, we can all be represented by these three archetypes at different times. It's real hand-wavy.

Yeah, we're all the fool, the child, and the warrior at different parts of our life. But right now, callus is the warrior. Yeah. Yeah. And part of that is callous as the impetus to force them through the maw, certainly. But is there also, this is twice now we've brought him out in connection to the Lassan. And like, well, and what, what's the, the actual prophecy is that the child has to save the warrior, right?

Oh, shit. I thought the warrior, yeah, yeah, yeah. And if the warrior is callous. But how is. Oh, but. Oh, Natalie, did you think the prophecy was over just like that? What do you mean? Maybe there will be more.

Maybe we're going to get the child who is. We already got to what's it called, though? But maybe that wasn't the end of the prophecy. Maybe we're going to get some. Here's what I'll actually tell you is I looked at the thumbnails for the next set of episodes. And one of them is the honorable ones, Zeb and Callis get stranded together on an ice plant. it. What? Yeah.

Is there only one bed? You know, maybe. But at all points, I just need us to remember, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we're misremembering, but I'm pretty sure Calist did the genocide, which of course, by the time out. He was like 100% I killed a bunch of Lassan. Is it a genocide still now that we've learned that it, meanwhile, the whole planet of the Lassat. just didn't know that basically it was like sieve you wiped out every city but they had like their capital on an island it still counts i feel like you still did it agree i agree i agree but i see

this thumbnail and i go oh buddy here we go i don't like that i don't like it either i don't but i mean to your point rob i think that sorry you were going somewhere with that with with callus part of what we see here is callus gives way if callus is callus is let's let them go and let them be destroyed by this thing as what he says. But his delivery is almost like he is in all of the universe. And there is a sort of, he sees this too. He can't deny the incredible power of, you know, this is the force, even if it's not calling it the force, right? It is the rare example of the force being so powerful and visible even to a non-force using person.

and the kind of sublime nature of reality has revealed itself. And he is in awe of it in that religious sense in this moment and sees them. You know, he's going to see them again. He's going to see that they survived to this thing that he thought would destroy them, right? He says, let them go. And someone says, what? And he goes, to their destruction, let them go. And here we are.

you know, let's see where it goes. Let's see where it goes. Is God. I mean, that's going to be the question. Like, I, I'm curious to see where, how they continue to develop both them and callus after this. They, but, you saw the thumbnail. I'm real fucking curious.

I mean, yeah. We're not so different, you and I. I could not think of, we both like the big gunstick. We do both like the big gunstick. That's true. And we do both have to. sleeping his bed. We are both tired.

We are both what if we're both cold. We could also find like secret Uncle Energy and Calus right like oh man what's this what's this escape pod? What's it got what do we got here in the survival shelter? A pair of dice

right. Let's start rolling dice. Let's start shooting them bones. I don't believe Calus got it like that. Yeah. Why couldn't we go to the planet and see the land of the Lassat? I would love to have gone. I don't know how you make this episode.

What if it's real fucked up? What if it's like? It's so crazy that everyone is just sitting on the Phoenix Squadron. It's so funny. While Zeb is on the planet that we just spent this whole episode trying to get to. And then he just comes back and is like, yeah. Actually, everyone's there. Actually, like, all of the LaSot, they've already found it.

So also, so what happened to Ron and Chava? Were Gras and Chava just missed the bus? No, no, no, no, no. This is the thing. This is the fucked up thing. He wasn't, this is where his people are originally from. Right, right. His planet was a colony.

He thought that was their home planet. But he's wrong. They're originally from. This is Eden, right? Like, they found their species Garden of Eden, where it's just a bunch of them, which actually raises a bunch of other different questions to me, which is like, did they even know who you are? Like, do they even fuck with you?

You know? Like, are you even cool like that with them? Because it's not like you're from this place, you know? That is true. That is true. Yeah. What's the vibe going to be? I mean, he seemed like the vibe was pretty, I don't know.

He was happy. He seemed cool, right? He came back and he came right back up. Maybe it didn't go well. He was like, no, guys, I'm so glad that, like, they're all fine here. But let's go back to, let's go home. Yeah. Let's get back to work.

Yeah. Could be real awkward when the rebel starts trying to stage, like, factories and, and, like, fleet facilities out of Lerison. It's like, nobody knows it. It's here. I mean, you know, wasn't this whole thing? We need a new base of operations. Like, hey, hook us up. You found an entire civilization.

Yeah, and they can't get, the other guys literally can't get here because they need the special wand to guide the spaceship through the maelstrom. Just make your base here. Go get everybody. Put Zeb, like, you could do like a taxi system or something. Like Zets can just go Or you can make Like a public storage unit

As Alan pointed out They say we can always come back Because we've been here once Right Hera's like It's charted now We have the charts We can get here

Oh my God Probably no Sith taint on it Yeah Maybe yeah maybe They got it all They all got it all figured out On Lear Sahn That's

Oh wow that's that's an episode yeah it was it was good i think it's surprise surprising for an episode that opens on hondo hijinks and like features features zeb as the central character but it does hit that height of like wow something profound happened here and potentially all the characters are somewhat altered in its way except hondo who does not see move but profundity of it all i mean but that is hondo i feel like hondo is going to be like oh yeah i've been here before like somehow right has already gone through a bunch of mystical shit

over the years just off screen that I feel like he's unflappable in that way so yeah yeah so I guess next time we'll figure out what happens with Callis and Zeb and just that one bad

yeah that's only one of the three episodes though we have two other episodes we're staying on threes right is my understanding yep what else we got we got the call the crew I'm not going to read the I'm not going to read the summaries the call homecoming

and the honorable ones and I think these are Ezra, Hera and Zeb episodes so from the screenshots anyway you know this is going to be a big hero one so get ready

put your hair put your hair put your goggles and headphones yeah that's right I'm ready we finally

to talk about Harris Heritage Honda's heritage Honda hijinks, Harris Heritage We're just throwing out segments That you could do with Pablo here Oh, I want Pablo to come on the show so bad We have fun

But we have fun You just never need to never hear it is the problem Right Yeah No I mean the worst he's going to say is no Right To a question we ask

To be on the show Yeah Yeah, yeah. I still feel like we exist in a weird space, you know? You'd be like, I was quite proud of the work we did on Obi-1. Exactly. And we're like, and you should be. Right, but that's the thing, right?

You'd always be proud of your work. You can always be proud of your work. It could always be worse. And someone says, no one couldn't. They're wrong. It could always be worse. Damn right. And with that, we've 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. Until next time, please rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. And let's get Zeb and Calas in a room together and just see what magic happens. Oh!