House of R - ‘Ahsoka’ Episode 7 Deep Dive

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

You thought they were dead? Well, Mal and Jo are back to dive deep into the latest episode of ‘Ahsoka’ (06:56). They talk about everything that goes on in this thrilling episode leading up to the finale next week (12:54). Later they are joined by Ben to discuss the lore between Anakin and Thrawn (02:04:37) and so much more. Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Guest: Ben Lindbergh Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Learn more about the albums you love with Dysect, a music analysis podcast hosted by me, Cole Kushna, a lifelong musician. Each season of Dysect dives deep into one album, examining the music, lyrics, and meaning of one song per episode. We've covered albums by Kendrick Lamar, Tyler the Creator, Frank Ocean, just to name a few, and our brand new season just launched all about Radiohead's 2007 masterpiece in rainbows. Listen to Dysect on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast, because a great art deserves more than

a swipe. The playoffs are here, and you can predict. the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predict. Predict the spread, total points, and even the game winner. Sign up and get a $25 bonus. Offered by Fandual prediction markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant, 18 plus. Bonus is non-withdrawable and expire seven days after receipt.

Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at fandul.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips.

Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need WeatherTech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Soka. I thought you were dead. I missed this reunion. You thought she was dead?

Clearly I was wrong. All friends. Guys, getting a feeling. I think I might be going home after all. And welcome to House of R. The Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only. Back to NoDHQ.

but also to join us on our new House of our podcast feed. Joining me today, hoping she survives long enough to see the outcome. It's my House of our co-host, Joanna Robinson. Joe, what's up, bad, baby? Up, bad, babies. Bad, baby. Listen, I may not know much in life, Mallory, Rubin, but I do know better than to say something like,

I think I might be going home after all when I'm inside a TV show. So deeply, deeply, deeply worrying. Rubbling. I am concerned. Joe, we are, of course, here to dive deep into the in ultimate episode of Asoka. Oh, goodness. Where has the time gone? Remember when you were sitting next to me, like clutching my hands,

watching the first two episodes? vividly, yeah, and with a fondness. Before we talk about this episode, before we assess whether the odds of hitting a shorter runtime today than usual or pretty good or astronomically terrible, some quick programming reminders. We have a goal today, and I believe that. Me too.

Next week's a big week on The House of Our. Next week's a big week on the ringerverse. On Monday, we will have our Loki season. to PrimerPod. We are going to be talking about one of our favorite characters across the entire run of the MCU and exploring what makes

him so special before we get to spend another season with them. That's going to be a blast. Cannot wait for that. At the end of next week, we will of course be with you to dive deep into the Asoka finale. What's popping over on Ring Reverse? Glad you asked. Today, right now, by the time you're listening to this podcast, there's already a new

Mint Edition up for you on the GenV breakdown. The Mint crew loved to the GenV premiere. The Mitt people? The pod. Exactly. The non-gendered mint folk. Yeah.

Yes. Yes. For context on that reference, listen to this week's Midnight Boys. A new button mash is coming your way on Monday. And then you are getting double Midnight Boys next week. On Tuesday night, the Midnight Boys. Piu! Peeoo!

We'll have their instant reaction to the Asoka finale. And then on Thursday night, may it be Friday morning, depending on your time zone, sure. But basically, right after the Loki premiere, the crew will be with you to share their instant reactions. We will, of course, be with you a couple days after that to share our thoughts over on House of R on the Loki season two premiere. Joanna, friend, colleague, co-host. Yeah. Partner, pal. It's a lot.

How can the people follow all of it? Listen, have you heard of social media? Look into it. There's Twitter. There's Instagram. There's Facebook. There's TikTok. Follow the ring or verse on all of those feeds to get the latest and the greatest of what's going on.

Want to see what incredible stunt Jummi has put Van up to recently? Please make sure. Amazing. On your favorite social network. Also, here's a wild idea. What do you just subscribe to the pod? To subscribe to Ring averse, subscribe to House of R, the new House of Our feed that is chockful of our entire archive. That's right.

So you can listen to anything that we've ever recorded together. I believe it's something close to 100, 9, 110 episodes, something like that. So if you miss something, go find those yearning tendrils to the last of us. Go speculate about hot, sexy sarah over on the Rings of Power. I regret to remind you that the last couple spots are on a different podcast. I will never remember that. Sorry, that was on the prestige feed. You're right.

Thank you. All right. Incredible. It's a wild thing that happened to us. Anyway, last one at least, please do email us, hobbits and dragons at gmail.com. People are now just blatantly baiting me

with pro-Grady Smith, you know, propaganda in order to... You told him how to get on the pod. I did. We have an attentive, an attentive listenership. Every tactic is a good tactic.

Bad babies already. That's it for me. Okay. Friendly neighborhood's, Spoiler warning time, we will be talking about the seventh episode of Asoka today, and that means anything that happened in that episode is something that might come up today. We might talk about anything that had happened previously on Asoka, and we might talk about anything that's ever happened in Star Wars. Canon, legends, just that? Okay.

It's all on the table today. All of it. It's all on the hollow chessboard today. Just remember, Joe. Remember what Anakin taught us? Trust your instincts. It's time to pod. Part 7, Dreams and Madness, Joanna.

One of the great things that people can find in our archive is our extensive House of the Dragon coverage, and that is relevant. Who directed today's episode? Why, it's Gita Vescent Patel, who directed the Lord of Tides episode of House of the Dragon that featured one of our top moments of the year that year. The entire year of story. Saris's long walk. Wonderful. Remember when his brother picks up the crowd and gives it to him? Anyway, House the Dragon.

What a show that we watched all together. Great show, an incredibly directed episode. It was really, really, the hype meter kicked in when we saw the Gito was back for this one. Dreams and Madness. This is once again written by Dave Filoni, 45 minutes. That's including the credits. That Dreams and Madness title, you know, you noted last week, Joe, that the came of Dreams and Madness is the name of the Miyazaki doc. Of course, last episode, episode six,

part six, we heard Baylon say to shin. This is a land of dreams and madness. Children's stories come to life. So we are continuing to linger inside of that concept here in this episode. Okay, we have a lot to get to today. Ben Lindberg will be joining us later today to talk about some of the canonical history between Thrawn and Anakin Skywalker. We're going to go scene by seen through the episode as we always do. But let's start, just like old times, with the opening snapshot. Joanna Robinson, quick taste, little tease. A little moose-boosh. A little moose-bush. A little moody-sized morsel. What did you think? Um, I think the real revelation of this episode, even though we met him last week

is Iman Espondi's performances as Ezra Bridger which is just Yeah to quote Ryan Gosling as Ken in the Barbie movie Sublime! Like it is just Some iconic stuff going on over here. I'm just like

Okay so we're going to talk today a later, much later today about no sorry a reasonable pod length time later today about who may or may not be making it off this planet, as we've already heard from Ezra. He's very sure he's going home. As well, we are concerned. If in the future, we were to get some sort of like

Desert Island stranded kind of shipwrecked storyline, I am all of a sudden quite excited to be stranded with this particular group of people because I think this was an element, a spark that was missing. As much as I've enjoyed a lot of the interplay between the various characters, this Ezra spark was really additive, I will say, to my overall enjoyment. The spark that lit the fire? Yeah.

Yeah. Something like that. You know, I don't know where you got that. I think you just made it up and it sounds really inspiring. But, yeah, I think that's my, like, main. I have some questions, comments, and concerns about this episode. but I have no notes, 10 out of 10, no notes for this performance. Mallory.

Wonderful. Wonderful. I enjoyed this episode of television. I think that my ultimate feelings about this episode and read on how successful this episode is, I think invariably will hinge a little bit on the finale and how satisfying of a conclusion we get next week. I am not anticipating resolution for every single plot point that has popped into existence this season. I think we will get another season of Asoka. I think we might get another season of Asoka. And live action rebels is a separate show. I think we'll have these strands playing out. It's starting to feel likely to me.

Really? We'll explore Y a little bit later. Yeah. Okay. I think so. I mean, I have no idea. Obviously, I have no fucking clue. You don't think that they would just sort of like smuggle live action rebels as they already have into another scene of Asoka? Here's the, this relates to what you were saying We were going to talk about much later But what if Osoka is the only one who gets left behind? Yeah. And everybody else is elsewhere. And then it's a different show.

But we'll speculate a little bit more Maybe on that after we see where the finale lands. It would be absolutely amazing if Ezra Pritch were saying, guys, I'm getting a feeling, I think I might be going home after all. And then he just goes home. Like that is not. Well, I don't think it would be like everyone just goes home and it's meat and tidy and there's nothing to feel like when to miss or astray.

You know, this is, I think inside of this season, most similar to episode three in terms of a table setting for the next act, moving the chess pieces around the board episode. I thought by the standards of a table setting episode, it was really entertaining and well-paced. I thought we got a couple key character moments inside of. of that. And then I think it's also true that we had a couple like head scratching moments that I'm, we're all wondering if we have enough time left to bring to a satisfying conclusion. Like I, we can just, I think, say right now, we're going to talk about bailin and shin and whether we feel like we have enough time left to like really, uh, really follow through on the promise of these incredibly compelling characters in that relationship. We have so much to get to.

I can't wait. Let's just talk about it all with you. I have more to say. I was going to I was going to mention something about the first scene, but like, let's just talk about the first scene. Let's just do it. Let's get to the deep dive. Nothing can prevent our journey. Let's open where the episode opens. The new Republic Senate Oversight Committee hearing. We're going to talk about the overall success or lack thereof of this scene. I will spoil for you that it was by a comfortable margin, my least favorite scene of the episode. I know that with only a couple episodes left to go on the eve of the finale, the thing that everybody wanted

was to be back on Corrassant in the senator Zeono. A lot has changed in our lives and the characters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But not this. He's still a dick. Yeah, I was like, can Zionno have some of the most lines in the whole episode? That would be my preference. Yes, this was puzzling to me.

We'll hit some of the beats and then maybe we'll talk about overall what the intent of the scene was and how successful. It was the highlight of the scene for me, I'll just say right now. Two, twofold. One, the murder warble that we got from Chopper in response to Ciano's mere droid line, which was, of course, about 3PO. The murder warble and the murder, murder, like, clatter, like wiggle. Yeah. Yeah. The murder wiggle. The murder wiggle, the murder, wiggle, that's it. I love it. It sums it up perfectly. We need more chopper. We need more chopper. The other highlight,

by miles, yeah. Hair is fit. More chopper and more fits from General Harris Indola. Like, if they don't allow us to purchase this bomber jacket,

I will know a level of despair that I did not think. There's no way. They're leaving that money on the table. Are you kidding me? I would buy this instantly. You would wear it to pod every week. You're like Carson Tava,

who, Mallory Rubin, more like, you know. It looks great on Carson. too. I mean, slightly different cuts, but the same style, we need it, we want it. Still waiting for a little more Lothcat merch and for this bomber now. That's really top of mind for me after this episode. You don't want the Ezra Mithril? Or is the full look the Mithril underneath the bomber? Is it like a one-to? Oh, interesting. That, I like to have some more breathable layers than that. That feels like a real Chris Ryan kind of outfit to me. I don't know. I don't know if I can

That's a Philly boy outfit. Yeah, for sure. It is. It is. I think the thing we're supposed to really take away from the Ezra fit is like, it's DIY. You know? If you like it, you can make it, you can make it on your own. You could, I actually can show you how to make it out of La Croy Poul Tap. Like any soda, but I know you drink LeCroix, right? So like, Lecroy pull tabs off the can. You know, I love Lecroy. I know. As do I. Let's pencil me in for some costume making in October. Great. Great.

Joe, we get some firebrand Hera energy in this scene that I will say I did enjoy that, no, I protected the New Republic by ignoring you retort was wonderful. But broadly, this scene just replays a lot of the beats that we've gotten, not only in the New Republic sequences in this show, but more broadly in the New Republic scenes across the Mandovers. Harrah's trying to convince everyone standing in front of her that Thron is a real estate. real and true and imminent threat that the imperial remnants are not isolated actors but part of a unified looming push. The New Republic is unwilling to concede what should be abundantly apparent at this point. And so the scene, just in addition to maybe borrowing crucial minutes from some of the other characters, this close to the end of the season, does not actually give us anything

additive, I didn't think, on the New Republic front. I am like here for, as we've talked about before, building the bridge to the sequel trilogies, showing us how the New Republic failed, how the First Order rose, how the resistance rose. Great. The scenes all, we can't just build that bridge. The scenes have to build on each other. They can't all feel like this samey, right?

Remember how this is still a problem in the New Republic? Remember how Monmothma is just a very disappointingly inactive political figure at this point. Really cowed by the burden of the office. That chain weighs heavy on her. I just think that like I get frustrated. Let me say two things. Number one, I get a little frustrated with Hara.

This is the second time I've seen Hara in front of some of these same people. Just really bungling the message on what she needs to be saying, right? Because last time we talked about leaving whatever else I said last time about it. like, you know, when she's talking about Thrawn, she's like, he, you know, he killed people that I care about when it's like, don't make it about that. Make it about like the actual damage that Thron did to the larger, you know, rebellion. That's, that's the text. Because then Ziano comes into this and he's like, this is personal for you. Yeah. And like here, and here she's once again sort of filled with like slightly empty platitudes. We got an email from Melissa Peter who was like,

he was like perplexing that Harris response to Momatha's. query about Thrawn was, expect the worst hope for the best. Very strange. Instead of, yo, there was a giant spaceship that made an apparent intergalactic jump to go retrieve him. I lost a bunch of ships. There are mercenaries that took out of Soka. We are so far behind.

We might not catch up. We'd just love a modicum of urgency on literally anyone's part. It's his point. Okay. So saying all that, I can accept, on the other hand, that Hara is more of a general than she is a politician, like that this is not her strong. suit. Her song suit is like in the cockpit, you know, um, shooting people down, etc. Like, that's, that's, she's a soldier, not a politician. Okay. Um, but we got this other email. I'm not

going to read in full, but from, um, Mikal, who, who wrote like a really long, interesting email about sort of like some of the missed opportunities and, and to completely violate, again, Vans, Vans request that we not try to write the show. This email posits, like, what if instead of knowing Thron was coming back? we got a show that was about like the paranoia, the fear that the war isn't over, the fear that it's always out there. And like, this is the line I liked. What if emotionally scarred military personnel actually do see war at every turn and shouldn't

be leaders during peacetime? Like, that's so interesting. Like, what if Hara is not suited for these particular interactions? That's not really what the show is showing us. The show is showing us she's right. and everyone's wrong. Carson's right and everyone's wrong. And that's just like

kind of unfortunately dramatically inert to us because we have seen the sequel trilogy or we know that Lars Mikulsin is playing Thron so he definitely is out there and he definitely is coming back, you know, all of that sort of stuff. So it's just like, it's,

you can, as Andor did, work in between established stories. We know where Andor is heading and not get caught in the trap of using, of making us sit through something where we're like, but we know what happens. So this isn't that interesting. You have to add something on top of it, which I think is the point you were making, where it's just sort of like, you can't just show us, the government is hapless, a few select

heroes of ours are right, et cetera, et nauseum. You have to show us a lot more nuance or put the tension somewhere else. because we know that our heroes are not going to be listened to. And we know that the government's going to fail. So what else can you inject that is a question, a source of tension for us, you know? Yeah, exactly. And I think, like, in part because of the people

who are shaping the Mandoverse. And, you know, we've talked about this a lot before, like the comp of the Clone Wars animated series, fleshing out our understanding of what actually happened during the prequel movies that in some ways felt maybe like we got insufficient story and here is a way to rectify that. In the equivalent of that here is appealing to me. So like learning and even the kind of like willful ineptitude of a governing body that sprung out of a rebellion and is ill-equipped to handle the state of affairs and makes ultimately some of the same mistakes that its forebearers did, that's compelling. but each scene can't literally just be somebody saying,

this guy's back, we're about to be doomed and the people on the other side saying, prove it. Like, I was grateful. We shared a pre-recording chuckle because I've been, I'm always obsessed with like, clarify the timeline and Joe as a person who loves me and cares about me and wants me to like try to preserve

some shred of remaining sanity is like, don't think about it all the time. And then my guy Carson Davis stood up and was like, what about the? And Zionno said exactly my point. Gideon was a warlord acting on his own. So I was like, okay, for a minute, I felt excited and relieved

because we just have the timeline clarity. I was definitively said. Thank you. Thrilled for you. I was like, we definitively know this is set after the Mandalorian season three. Great.

But then immediately I was like, why? And I don't think, in response to like that, the email, which is interesting and just some of the general discussion, like I don't think it should be on Carson Tava or Harrington. or Hera, who we should remember, was only really brought into the throne of it all this season.

Like, this was Osoko driving the push before that. I don't think it should be on them individually to sway the government. But it is like, wait, why not in that exact same moment be like, and the cloning lab incident on Corrosan, and the Imperial Remnant Attack on Navarro, and all those guys who like mere episodes ago, stood up and shouted for the empire while stealing your fucking hyper drives. Like, what about all of that?

It's just, we've got to build beyond just the, this is a threat. No, it isn't. We just have to. I appreciate that there are different flavors between Tuttle, the Tim Meadows character and Mandalorian, who is just inept and unwilling to take a look. So totally underwater bureaucratic. who has like completely lost the plot. Yeah.

And someone like Ziona who seems like so clearly to be a plant, you know, like that. That's my read on the character is that he is not just like, how dare you call neo-Nazis, neo-Nazis? It's not that. It's just sort of like every move he makes is so obstructionist that like, I'm like, how is he not possibly, you know, a plant? Yeah, I'm trying to like think about. I had the same thought it's hard not to watching this scene.

I'm trying to think about like what we know about his resistance canon. But it, yeah, the extent of his performance is so extreme. I thought in terms of that distinction you're drawing between like a figure like Ziono and the figure like Tuddle, I thought it was also really interesting that we got that fairy tale language that we've been hearing from Thalen across the season from Zionno. Because I think we think about them as very different figures, right? And like, that specific, oh, people who believe in the fantastic, people who believe in the quote-unquote children's stories, like the just instant dismissal of anything that falls into that kind of bucket. Ziona is kind of the archetypal figure we talked about Baylon not being when he issued lines like that. And it was like sort of surprising to hear that from somebody who is actually really driven by belief in a sense.

of the possible. So I thought that was interesting. I was waiting for like Hara to just break out and I find your lack of faith disturbing in that scene. It was so like sitting around the Admiral Modi table and do hope. It's so funny to think about Baylon

because as we're grappling to try to understand what Baylon is up to, if he's after some buried something in the Highlands, Flatlands of Peridia, then I guess when I go back, I'm a little confused by his like, you know, fairy tale, you know, like I would give him a little bit more like, oh, pretty is real, you know, like, oh, this thing that I've, I heard was a myth is real. That's exciting.

Not like, I don't understand his dismissal of it earlier then. Maybe I need to go rewatch. Yeah, it definitely feels like something really changed in episode six when this thing. that had had the shape of kind of amorphous lore for a long time concretized in front of him. I'm also looking forward to a full rewatch, for every reason, but to track Baylon, I think, maybe most of all.

Let's quickly talk about the lay of it all in this scene. And when we talk about building the bridge to the sequels and where we are on the timeline, you know, we got that. Wait, wait, wait, can I, I, I'm so sorry. Can I... Yeah, please. I have a surprise. Usually I put the emails in the doctor.

We have a surprise email for you here. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. This one comes from Jonathan. And he says, remembering who directed this episode, things are not going well for Senator Zono like Otto High Tower. No, things are going well. And Senator Ziano, like Otto Tower, high tower seems to be getting his way.

When a man in gold sent by a princess saves the day, Princess Reneiras sends Lucaris, the man in a golden master, her defense, Princess Leia has sent C.3PO, a man with a golden face to save the day. Rainis is caught in the middle like Monmachma. Damon, like Chopper, is the war criminal in attendance. Incredible. The Damon Chopper cop is just absolutely perfect.

Do you think 3PO made a really rousing speech at dinner about the importance staying together? While like sort of trying to drink through his golden visage. Gaping cheekhole. I love it. Great television. program. 3PO is here because

3PO is long walk. 3PO is a long walk. Exactly. 3PO hunches and shuffles in to the throne room. And we talked about this a little bit when we got the very quick

Senator Organa reference from Carson a couple episodes ago. We actually had a mailbag question about this that we didn't end up getting to because of time that we were excited to talk about. So this is a good opportunity to spend a minute on this.

How are you feeling about this overall? Like this being, we are in a stretch of the timeline where Luke, Leah, Han, have a known impact on events. Are you in the like, well, part of the joy of the Philoniverse to date, take rebels, for example, is that it's actually not the gang from A New Hope. It's enriching and widening our view of the story

and saying these characters who were maybe just out of view of the screen you watched before had just as much of a bearing on the course of events, and you get to see that. Like, is it exciting to think about getting another version of that here? Or does it feel increasingly difficult to tell this stretch of the story without bringing, if not bringing them, at least accounting for Luke, Leia, et cetera, more often? And then does that worry you in terms of how that will unfold? Are you here for a kind of contrived and silly C3PO appearance over? I know we prefer that to CGI-Laya, of course.

But how tenable does that feel and sustainable does that feel? I mean, we should say that some of those characters do show up in rebels. Like, they don't not exist. They show up tangentially on the margins. But we do get Obi-Wan. We do get Vader. We do get whatever. I...

That pleasure of meanwhile, in the galaxy, is something that I think is interesting. Like, Rogue One is, I think, sort of one of the best examples of that, like, running and parallel with a story that we already know, kind of thing. And that's a great example because they used two, like, I thought, sort of like hideous digital recreations of, you know, characters to put in there. So I, we did get another email, Michael wrote in about this, but at least something that has been on our mind is just sort of like,

why are these characters treated as irreplaceable when like Thrones, Harry Potter, many other franchises, rest in peace, Michael Gambon, will like, recast if need be. And in this very instance, in this very scene, we have a different actress playing Mon Mothma because she was cast in the prequels or whatever, but it is not, they don't have to digitally deage, you know, someone to look like the actress who was in the original trilogy. We have this other actress here. And so it's just sort of like, I understand are attached to these legacy characters and the legacy actors who played them. But if you're going to play so closely in these waters, it's becoming increasingly impossible. And I know that they're hoping that just sort of like the digital, you know, the tech will catch up. And there will be a time when we as an audience can just like accept a digital Luke Skywalker and not like stress about it at all. and plenty of people are already there.

But I just think we lose the humanity in those performances. And I would really like to see, I mean, D.H. Hayden aside, which I really liked in this season. Like, I would like to see new actors. I would like to see new actors play these characters if we're going to continue to play in these waters. Hashtag make solo two happen? Alden did nothing wrong. He didn't. But it is, I think, it still hangs over these decisions.

Like the, that's not Harrison Ford, so it can't be Han Solo, which I think we both personally deal as like just a totally unfair standard, don't anyone do it. And Alden was great and very charming. They are, like, they are bringing Donald Glover in to do more, you know, Lando stories. That's what I was going to say. I think, like, with love and respect to Mon Mothman, love and respect to the Dumbledore, love and respect to Dario and, you know, on and on the examples go for some of the universes you just cited.

Luke Leon, Han. are just like a different thing in terms of how ingrained those performances are for people. I think to the point where it is maybe like it feels intractable in a way that is like, I don't know how they're going to be beyond it. I'm not personally opposed to experimenting with like. Here's where I think they should start. I think they should give us the like Claudia Gray like young Leah, not like young Leia in Obi-Wan, but like teen Leia,

even though she was, I think, a teenager when we met her in New Hope, but like, anyway, slightly younger teen-layer or whatever, stories from the novels. So the Leia we got in her Ripple's appearance. And then we like get, yeah, and then we like get into that actress. You get acclimated and we get excited and then like, yeah. I think they have to, but they're not, I don't think they're going to. I mean, especially with like all the kickback they got around like Carrie,

and how people felt when Carrie passed away and what happened with Rise of Skywalker, even though they were trying to be as respectful as possible. Anyway, so we're sort of stuck in the muck in the mire hair. Very tricky. Look at some call us. We have thoughts and opinions. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about the next scene of the episode.

But maybe no solutions. Maybe no solutions. Yeah. So don't know how we'll leave. But call us anyway. We're delightful. We always have a line open and a hollow running, which brings us to the second scene of the episode. The Pergill Express carries on and Asoka's training and she is training with the aid of

a Clone Wars era, Anakin Skywalker Hollow. The joy in my heart. The joy in my heart. Clon Wars Anakin back already. This was exciting because it felt like, you know, we talked after episode five, leaving the World Between Worlds, how many more opportunities would we get to spend time with Hayden, with Anakin, whether it's going back to the World Between Worlds, whether it's watch it. We learned there are 20 more of these training videos watching more of them, whether it's a Jedi Temple-esque sort of vision or dreams and other memories at some point, it just does feel like this will now be a part of Asoka's, our journey with Asoka the rest of the way,

Anakin is back in her life. I am delighted. I am delighted. I am delighted. For all of us. Genuinely all of us. Should we listen to what his hollow is saying? In this war, you will face more than just droids.

General Grievous, Assange Ventris, even Count Duku. You could face any one of them on the battlefield. As your master, it's my responsibility to prepare you. So practice these forms often, or at least more than I do. I won't always be there and look out from you. If we get separated or something happens, you need to be able to make it on your own. Don't be afraid.

Just remember what I taught you and trust your instincts. I know you can do this as okay. Wonderful. Can I tell you my two favorite parts of that? Yeah, was it Assange Ventris? Was it Ventris getting the live action shout out? Fuck yeah, Ventress Hive. Was it not that?

It wasn't that. I was saving them for you and your girlfriend, Assange Ventress. I mean, when are you going to get Ventress in live action? And what will you do when it happens? more of what you just heard. I'm familiar. All right. I won't always be there to look out for you.

So both very sweet and very Canadian from Hayden. Loved it. And then the thing that really got me is like, you know, we want to think about like, we don't get this explicitly, but like we can fanfic in our heads that like maybe she wasn't able to look at these training hollows for. a good long time after, you know, she discovered that he was Vader, and then she met him in the world between worlds, and then she's like, I can dusties off again. But she's obviously watched them so many times. And the part that really, like, struck me is she bows, but she bows before he bows. It's not her in reaction to him. It's her anticipation. She knows that he then

bows. And that just might be how they, like, ended training or whatever. But it looks so much more like an interaction between, you know, not just someone watching something, but someone interacting with something. And it is just any end, she's right in his eye line and he makes direct eye contact with her. And, you know, from beyond the grave, it's very, very beautiful. I love that. I love that part, too, the way it felt like they were actually genuinely interacting with each other and the number of experiences that we have with the characters, something that calls back to. And like, thinking about in Rebels and Shrout of Darkness, the season two episode, we've talked a lot about dating back to our preview pods.

The despair, the grief that Asoka is carrying when she discovers the Anakin, training hollows that Ezra has been watching and talks about her master. This is like right before one of the scenes we love to reference most, which is her like seeing the vision of Anakin in the temple that then turns into Vader, do you know what I've become? And she's like, no. And then it's only a couple episodes before the showdown and Twilight of the Apprentice, of course. And so, like, for that to be that last hollow that we saw her watch to be on the eve of having to accept finally that he became Vader and then this to be, like you're saying, coming out of the closure that she was able to finally gain in the world between worlds and what they were able to work, what she was able to work through.

And, like, so many of the things specifically that he's hitting here, like, all the beats we've been tracking all season, you know, feeling like her teaching prepared her rather than do. her, that idea of trusting yourself, which we've been talking about since going back to like citing the Clone Wars Jedi Temple exit in season five, that idea of like fear and not just not fearing the unknown, but not fearing your fear when you do feel it. Like this was just an encapsulation of all of that. And then just that general idea of Anakin is like a teacher who crafted something that was meant to be specifically tailored for her? I mean, Joe, this had to make you think of one of the moments from our Primer Pod that you called out

from Tales of the Jedi, right? It feels good. Anytime something from one of our Primer podcast comes up, Mallory, I won't lie to you. Add that tally to the total. But the Tales of the Jedi sequence that we've referenced a number of times now where Anakin, you know, watches Assoca train with droids

and he's like, not enough. this will not keep you safe, we're going to go harder. And he has her train and train and train with a circle of clones firing at her so she can get better and that ends up, you know, directly saving her at an important moment. But him walking around the perimeter of that circle of clones and sort of instructing her, it's a direct correlation between the two. And I think more, I mean, it's funny. So, Anika made 20 of those for Asoka.

I'm wondering, like, which ones are public? Like, which ones does Ezra get to look at? Which ones are just, like, because Osoka's name is at this one, right? So, like, these are personal? Yeah. Like, are there 20 just for her? Are there 20 and 10 the public get to look at? But 10 are just for her?

Who knows? But the part that I really love is, I know you, I know you can do this, Asoka. Yes. when when that message like again maybe she didn't watch them at all in since discovering

then again was Vader but if she did what does it mean for someone who turned into Vader to say I know you can do this Isoka right and she's just sort of like

what the fuck does that mean at this point? It's worthless and now that she's back to just sort of like he was a good master like and so that

his belief in me means something because it does come from someone who is a good who was a good man, no matter what happened, he was also a good man.

The line that kept replaying in my mind was from episode five was that Asoka, within you, will be everything I am. You're a part of a legacy and how she had come

so desperately to fear that and being able to embrace that again. Like, what a gift that is. Like, that's really what healing is, not to run from something in your past, but to stare it in the face and learn to find peace inside of it. And like the way that she closed her eyes and took that breath, which we get elsewhere in the episode two when she's trying to reach out to Sabine

through the force. There are these like physical beats and repetitions and patterns. And when she said that line that you just quoted that, he was a good master. Like this is actually, I think this was a less overall like Pantheon, the memorable episode then episode five was. But like this actual beat is kind of the thing we were saying. we wanted right at the end of that episode.

And so it, like, felt important to get it here. And especially after, like, the one scene we got with Assook last week where it's like, we're still lingering a little bit in some of the pre-world between worlds, Asoka the Grey, tendencies and inclinations on the Sabine front. She's also working through those here. And this feels like a huge part of that final push, that one more moment with Anakin that we needed to see. But that, you know, that breakthrough of that lightness, we definitely get, you know, we heard or you heard it in the opening clip.

Laughter. Yes. Yeah. There's definitely been an internal transformation in Asoka. We get a lot of laughter and like jovial spirit in the next scene as well, which is a direct carryover from this scene because Hu Yang has come down. And the reason he sees this is because he's come down to say like, we're reaching an end of our journey. Come back up to the cockpit. Okay.

Now, everything is about to get really, really grim really quickly for our beloved Pergel pals. Yeah. But there is a lot of Soka Huayang humor. mixed in in this stretch. I really feel like Tenet was on one when he recorded these lines. Like he's been funny all season, but this is like, this is like what I've, even more what I wanted from him all season was just like, be so sassy. Be as sassy as you want to be.

You know what I mean? Unbelievable. This was like a true Hall of Fame, Tenant episode. It really was. He's channeling 3PO here. They're talking about, you know, again, are we going to. are we going to end up in the place that we're meant to be? And Asoka is kind of goading him. He's talking about the astronomically terrible odds. We get two enemy utterances here from Asoka Joe.

The count will continue beyond that in this episode. I know you're tracking it. I know. I feel really bad. I feel like I've incepted everyone because I won't read any of them, but we got like one million enemy emails. And I'm like, oh no. I'm like, everyone was hung up on the enemy. I mean, there's like, there's five enemies on this episode. But like, I'm like, what if it just doesn't? I'm so sorry. If it just doesn't mean anything. I'm so sorry that I have, like, put a bug and everyone's head about it. No, I'm not that sorry. But I will say it was pretty delightful, but it was also another one of those moments where he's like, where we're in that situation where we know they're going to the right, you know, where he's like, what if we're not going where we think we're going?

You know, and I'm just sort of like, well, we know you are. So what? Am I watching? Yeah. No, that's fair. I like that it allowed them to kind of... But they're bans. I don't know, for Assook...

For them to banter and, like, Asoka, not only that lightness, but that swagger, you know, was really like on display in this exchange and it also gives us one of our many, many, many empire references in this episode. They exit hyperspace. And Osama can immediately tell that something's wrong. We hear... This is very distressing. We hear perigal cries. And then the T6 flies out of the mouth in...

to the literal fire of battle because Thron said last week, attack with prejudice if a single space ball arrives and they put an imperial minefield at the landing point, at the arrival point. This was horrifying. This is one of the most horrific things I've ever seen in Star Wars.

Cruel and unusual are sweet, majestic, pergul pals who just wanted to help are being bombed. And Hu Yang, who had risen to God tier status plummets. He is in the fucking dungeon after saying at least the whales are providing some couple. And then one of like many, many lines in this episode, he says that and then they're just sort of like, peace.

Yeah. Do you think they sense his betrayal through the force and that's why they left or do you think it was because they are being bombed relentlessly by the minefield? I think it's perhaps because as you put it evocatively in our. our nose, their flesh is coming off in chunks. Horrible. Did you pause and do a free frame to see if, like, or, oh, were these just plumes of smoke or these, like, bits of tentacle and fin? No.

I was so concerned. Yeah, because I was really worried. I wanted to know. Why would you do that to yourself? Because Ben had put in his column that they were, like, unharmed. And I was like, were they now? Just more fodder for the bone ring? Terrible.

Terrible. Speaking of the bone ring, no, I'm glad you said that because I did want to just quickly observe that, whether this will end up being relevant, I don't know. We talked a lot last week about this very heavy emphasis on the idea that they simply could not leave. They could not leave Peridia. Now, the pearl jump without issue. We don't know where they went. We don't know if they went back to the original galaxy or if they went somewhere else. But it is not like there is actually something preventing a hyperspace exit. Oh, I guess I never thought there was. Well, like that idea of whether there were some sort of magic or the force or this beginning or power that Baylon is seeking that is inhibiting them.

Is it literally just they couldn't get a ship that worked or they couldn't get a pericle? What happened to all the pericle who took them there? And sort of couldn't say like, throwing your ear now. I'm taking one back. Well, they left. They like pieced out. They instantly all died. They instantly all went to the gold bill?

Well, what if they just left? What did they just left? Like they did here. It's been 12 years. Not one came back. This is the migration. Usually, usually what they said, I believe, is that usually they come back just to die. To die.

And they didn't come back to die this time. They came back to, like, help because Asoka asked. But if one came back to die, he couldn't have been like, can you just give me like a quick lift? No, he's like, I'm dying. I can't. I am literally dying. I think the purple who took them there initially, he should have. I guess he wanted to wait and make sure that Thron was good and truly stranded.

And then it was too late. There was no ride to hitch. I just thought that they didn't have, I mean, it's not that the ship doesn't work. It's that the ship can't like hop between galaxies. That definitely. understand, but if they're a pergul who can come and go and this isn't just, because we expect what if it's just the end of the migration path? Well, I think, I think it's where they go to die usually. Yeah. And they took two unusual stops there in the last few years. One was because

Ezra was like, through the force, please help. And then one was because Osama through the force was like, please help. Well, I would guess, but Ezra seems wildly unbothered by having been stranded with just a crab claw. Like, that's all, like, he's the most unbothered I've been here for a decade person who you've ever met in a story. I have more to say about that. But I was just like, it doesn't seem like it was a priority for him. Yeah, I, I, I, um.

Fair enough. No, you know what? I'm not going to give you a hard time. Are there, are there holes in the pergel logic? I think there are. I think there are. 12 years is just a really long time. That's all.

That's all. There's a really long time. Some holes. We have some notes. We get the, well, we found the enemy when we see the eyes. So there's another, there's another enemy for the, for the, the enemy tally. Follow the pergol question.

Yeah. I mean, they don't come down to the surface, right? I think they just die and then they rot. No, but I'm saying it was it that. Was it that Ezra couldn't physically get to them because they don't land? Because Ezra contacted them in the air. But couldn't he have reached out through the force and asked one to land? They don't land.

But he couldn't have asked one to like. Can you flop up out of water for me? Hey, whale, can you flop up onto the land? I can get to your ocean. Can you flop on the land, give me a ride, and flop back out? He can't find a ship anywhere on this planet. Like, you don't think those bandits, they definitely don't have a ship. I don't know.

There's no ship anywhere on this planet other than the camera. I don't understand the culture of this planet at all. There's like three witches, five red, like, samurai people, and then a bunch of crabs. And a ton of hours. And then a bunch of night troopers who are not gas bags. So I like to think of Ezra, like stealing little pieces of tech to make. You know, you're right. He seemed very content in his notie pod.

And that's fine. That's fine. Joe, did you enjoy the actual visuals of this initial descent into the bone belt? Limburg cited in his column that, you know, there had been an announcement of an Osoka ride being added to Star Tours. Like, did this give you that? Oh, yeah, we're previewing an amusement park. Doesn't out. Traction energy.

I mean, I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. The Ringer Reverse crew last year's Star Wars Celebration, you know, the riding that rise of the resistance. Just the, oh, my God, scintillating. The roll of a lifetime. Can't wait to try this. Okay.

Speaking of the chimera, speaking of ships, we chatted briefly last week about the innuendo at play in the visuals here. The opening shot we get here, though, of the reflex point, just finger-ins. the chimera, the way in the subtitle says, quiet, humming. It was just astonishing. Just like a Hall of Fame. Save this screenshot, cherish it forever. They know what they're doing. No notes.

I can't believe you just said, what, fingering the chimera? Is that what you said? And Steve didn't hit you with a single soundcliff. Yeah, you might be in the bathroom. Okay. What? Steve. Steve.

Speaking of sound clips, Enoch gives Thron a real vintage Grand Admiral as you anticipated. You're always on it, my guy. What a gray is this actor. Really using all the parts. You're getting more of yours, as you dubbed it,

witchy hollow tech, though. So that's nice. I do love that. That greeny misty. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just lovely. We get a little throne smile here when he learns that Asoka is here.

He's, uh, he's pleased. that the game is afoot and that he has somebody across the chessboard, a worthy opponent at last. Now, this next exchange that we get, we're going to talk about the context and the history around us more later with our pal Benjamin Lindberg because, man, Morgan Hans thrown a datapad. It's got the inquisitorial database info on Asoko.

We should remember that the inquisitors were hunting Assoco when she was in hiding for years, so it makes sense that they would have amassed all of this intel on her. And as we expected, the name Anakin Skywalker catches Grand Admiral Thrawn's red, red eye. And Ben's going to join us later to go through that Thron, Anakin, Thrawn Vader history. All you need to know right now for what we're talking about inside of the breakdown of this scene is that they have history. And that the fact that Thron knows who Anakin is and has spent time with him and has a feel for his tendencies means that he is making assumptions about how Asoko will behave because Anakin trained her.

That's the context you need to talk about this scene. So let's do it. because armed with this new intel, Throne immediately begins making plans. He calls off the fighters, call off the pursuit. And I thought this was really interesting. Morgan, who is so devoted to Thron that she invented a fucking machine,

the eye of Sion slash Sauron, to jump to another galaxy because the, quote, mysterious voices kept whispering to her to do it. She's like, I have no questions. Isn't that how you made the, the ringer. Doesn't Bill like whisper to you across the cosmos? Kind of.

I mean, kind of, yeah. And I was like, I have no questions. I'm in. Much like Morgan, I have no questions. I'm in.

I'll come find you. And now, you know, we got a little bit of a taste of this last week when she was questioning the number of troops that he was willing to deploy. And here, she's like very skeptical about his approach. You know,

with due respect, Grand Admiral, without pursuit, we shall lose them in the debris field. And he response. to this. He doesn't, he doesn't say, shut up. I'm not here for this. He doesn't say you're wrong. Here's why. He takes the time to explain. We get a great knock on the Jedi. You're quite right. Of course, Jedi are very good at hiding. They've been practicing that for years. Rough one for

our guys, the Jedi. Great knock from Thron there. But he explains, we're getting to know our adversary. If she's anything like her master, she'll be unpredictable and quite dangerous, which is why we must control all variables. So this felt important for a couple reasons, like one of which is the fact that he doesn't just brush away Morgan's question, but actually takes the time to run through his plan is like a lot of what we've talked about in our run up to Thron's arrival, that openness to questions, to feedback, to talking through somebody's doubt. Like he's always happy to explain, you know, there's this great line in Air to the Empire. Pirates, one of the more

quintessential Thrawn quotes, I have no qualms about accepting a useful idea merely because it wasn't my own, my position and ego are not at stake here. This is like central to Thrawn's essence. He'll always have a conversation like this. And it also, of course, shows us his like methodical

approach to Warcraft, right? I'm not just going to try to blast you out of the sky. I'm going to learn. I'm going to watch. I'm going to observe. Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that about Thron in general. Outway outplay at last. We are going to talk about. driver premiere this week.

We're going to talk about Thrawn with Ben later. I just don't understand what on earth he means. Tell me. If I put her on a path of her own choosing so that no matter which direction she takes will always be one step ahead of her. Yes. I don't. I don't.

I didn't see that from any of this. The point he makes at the end, which is like she lost time. That's good. Like have her waste her own time. pursuing this. Distractor over there. We're filling up the cargo hold. We're ready to bounce. She's focused on someone else. That's great. That's a good plan. But this line here is almost like gibberish to me. Put her on a path for choosing so a matter of restriction, she takes as well as to be one step ahead of her. What is that?

The dialogue was a little wonky. I bumped on that too. I think the idea is like ultimately what builds toward that lost time. Calculus. Like she thinks that she is in control. I escaped the bone belt. I escaped the fighters. I slid out before they noticed. I fought bailin. I made it down to help Ezra and Sabine. I found Sabine. And the whole time, Theron was like, but I knew you were going to go find Sabine. And that was the thing I was counting on. So she thinks she's executing and he's like... I understand. You're falling into my trap. But like, I wish she had said something like, let her think she's in control or something like that. You know what I mean? Some of this stuff here is... Does not... The words don't mean anything. But let her think she's in control. And then actually like she's wasted her own time is a great. moment for Thron. Yes. But I digress. Here's the really important point.

It's not meeting the Joanna Robinson standard. Okay. Best selling author Joanna Robinson. Here's the really important point. Hit me. Who Yang has seen Empire. And he quotes Leah. Word for word.

We're going to get pulled for us if we stay out here much longer. Like, I love that movie. I'm going to quote it for you right now. A lot of, as you mentioned earlier, a lot of empire references in this. And what's the most famous thing about empire is that our heroes lose at the end, right? So, like, is that something we should be thinking about? Like, that's the tone that's being said. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it feels with every passing moment, increasingly, like, likely that Thron will be the victor. Not forever, not in perpetuity, but next week. Yeah. I think so. Which is okay, which is, which I think is interesting. Agreed. And I think is, like, I don't need everything to be resolved next week, knowing that there's going to be more seasons of Asoka, more Thron story that Faluny wants to tell, et cetera. I am perfectly content with next week being a dun, dun, and especially if it's a dun,

done, that makes us feel Thron's power because that's still something that I feel like is missing, especially for people who are not familiar yet

with his animated or, you know, in the novel's appearances. So 12 years, just a dozen years sitting in this forsaken place, as he called it, stitching his uniform

back together and trimming his hair. It's, it's, uh, we're not finding him in the exact place that we left him. It's, uh, it's, it's interesting. We are finding the Noddy. Out on the Harfoot caravan though. We are. The way that, by the way, we didn't say this was the fourth enemy tracker. What, when, uh, when, who Yang's like, yeah, they knew, they knew we were here. So, because like, it was thrown. And then so who Yang says that the enemy has already found him, positioning Morgan. And Balin, her shin is the enemy there, not thrown, which was interesting, but enemy, enemy tally, there you go. Okay, the way that, like, the score and the color, sky is lighter, the music is more like boisterous change, right when we cut to the little nody caravan.

And Ezra in his little pod. I want to take a moment quickly. Yeah. To defend our beloved colleague Van Lathan. He was made to seem, like, direct. ranged and sick for having thought, wait a minute. They got to this and Ezra is sitting there like looking like he's having the time of his life, get on his face, relaxed.

And then Sabine emerges from below. And Van said, did like everyone have the same thought that I did? And Charles and Jomey were like, how dare you? What was wrong with you? And I would just like to say, that was also the first thought. I had. That's the least surprising thing I've ever heard in my life. Oh, yeah.

I did not actually think that the seventh episode of the Disney Plus series of Sofell was going to feature a prominent blowjob plot, to be clear. But he was going to be like, wow, I'm used to the sharp, scrapy ridges of a crowd club. Yeah, exactly. This is a whole new experience for me. Wow. Is Ezra getting his first, like, John Snow, Eagrit? It's not claw experience.

I don't want it. I don't think either of you are out of line with that. That's a classic, like, visual, you know, in film and television. I will know the no-de-duct away first, so, you know, that's a variable. Asa says, you get some rest. Yeah. So she wasn't blowing him. She was taking enough.

but sure well she said a little things and so I read that it's like after they fucked all night what's your what's your head cannon on what happened here

absolutely not no and when I say head cannon I'm sorry oh yeah no because I actually I love the theory that's floating around

that Ezra has a little crab wife your crab your dick and a crab claw line from last week was immediately iconic Just like one for the pantheon. Like I've never heard you say anything better in my life, maybe. But his like close relationship, crab wife, crab spouse, if you prefer. You know, like, does he have a little crab mate, you know?

And would he just toss that crab mate aside at the first sight of a... No, I was going to say something terrible. I'm not going to say it anyway. Maybe the Noddy believe in... Stay tuned for Ring of a Reader's After Dark. What? Yeah, maybe the Nody believe in like open marriages. Maybe they're not bound by the same limited outlook on this stuff that we are.

If anyone's Polly, it's going to be... Itinerate crab people. Great stuff. I love these characters. The way that the little baby Nodie was waving at Sabine... If anything happens to them, and obviously they were in peril in this. episode and it was like heart rending. Yeah. I was so worried about them the whole time. I kept like, I was like, where is Sabine's sweet howler from last episode? And then when we saw him. Get the reveal

of him in the trailer. Nestle see me in the back of Esther's trailer. The relief that I felt in my heart. Oh, my Lord. I need that howler to go with them. Maybe the Nodi will go with Ezra too. This is their home. Go where? Where are they going? I don't think they're going anywhere. All right. And then Sabine goes previously on Star Wars. Okay, here's, okay. I know I'm like full of nits to begin this episode, but so Ezra says, I never really thought about how much I've missed.

I'm still trying to process everything you told me. The Empire was defeated. Battle of Endor. The Emperor died. That's what people say. That made me laugh. Yeah, me too. That made me laugh.

Oh, absolutely. Okay, there's a new republic. Zeb's training recruits and Harry. is commanding of flee and I missed everything. It's been a while. Right. So I love their, I do like the jauntiness of the tone again. I love this Ezra so much. I do love the seating of somehow Palpatine returned in here. That is like really, really funny. Are you glad that somebody on the show acknowledged that Zeb exists? I love that. We got a Zeb mentioned. Alarming lack of a ensuing Callis mention, though. Oh, we did get, I didn't, I didn't put it in,

but we did get an emailed request to add Callis to that it's been this many days since. So I'll consider it next week. Oh, wow. Yes. But I just find that I never really thought about how much I've missed to be, Mallory, if you're stranded for 12 years on a crab planet. Yeah. Are you going to think about how much you might be missing back home that all time?

I guess it depends how often I'm getting in that crab soup, you know? Oh, yeah. Keeping your hands busy with the arts and crafts and your chain mail. Exactly. And then just like mixing in with that crab soup. I think that this is a completely valid. It's completely valid. A completely valid question.

My read on this is like, you know, because in the later stretch where Asoka reads reaches out through the force to Sabine and we're like as Sabine is exiting the conversation with Ezra and he's just very like charmingly. giving her the rundown on his friends and how he made them and how they took care of him and gave him his trailer and everything. He has, as like a matter of self-preservation, found this peace and comfort. And like, if we had found an Ezra who was just disheveled and broken and was like, I have been waiting for you to find me for more than a decade. What took you so long? How could you have kept me waiting?

I would have bought that completely. But as a ra who has connected to these creatures and like found built another found family when that was like

such a part of his arc I feel like he's just like I need to think about the good things I have and not what I left behind because I'll just be lost in the sadness then. That's a

interesting explanation for what we get here. I and you're always very convincing. I do want to read this even the same when we got from Jessa because I thought it was actually very like beautifully written. Jessa, so Ezra says it hasn't been all bad. Obviously, you made a few friends. The

Nodi had been great, took me in when I really needed help, sent me up with his pod. That's like, that's his like previously on Peridia. This is what happened, right? So Jessa wrote, is it wasn't all that bad going to be the extent of the explanation we get of Ezra's 10 is 12, 12 years stranded on a strange planet. He's all capital G girl, capital W, who capital W waited. That's Dr. Who reference, listen to our Doctor Who Potts. He's an old girl who waited. You never came for me, but we don't see any of that on him. Did he expect that he'd barely land in the new world before his family came from?

Did he try to stay near Thrawn ship so they could find him easily? Did he try to wear his same clothes so they'd recognize him? Did he stare up at the stars every night looking for them? Did he lose faith? This is all rich, dramatic territory. But instead, we got a whole scene of Hera in front of senators, leading up to the conclusion, we all assumed anyway. of course Hera wasn't going to lose a position. I say this is a number one,

Heron's number one fan, but come on, that seemed to not give us one bit of new information other than placing us more securely on the timeline in, this is Joanna, and settling Mallory's worried mind. Absolute turmoil.

Yeah. I hear your explanation. I think it's emotionally dishonest to not have at least some of that come through in Ezra. I agree. I think we'll have to get that eventually. I feel like if we got it immediately,

we'd be like, this is, this is our, I think Batman, like, sitting it. That's not what I would. That's not at all what I would suggest. You came for me, but let me complain immediately about all the way. You failed me.

Wait for me. We almost, when we did TV, when we did our trips course earlier this week, the, like, our secondary option was we were thinking of doing like the girl who waited the boy who wait, like in honor of Ezra, stories about people who have been stranded somewhere for a long time, waiting for someone to rescue them, what that does to your mind. there's a bunch of stories like this in literature and sci-fi fantasy. Instead, we did Portal Worlds, and actually a Portal World story that I had on my long list, but we didn't wind up talking about, was Jumanji. And in Jumongi, which portals, you know, the sequels portal one way,

the Jumangi, the Robin Williams version, Portals another way. Right. In that film, Robin Williams' character has been stranded in the jungle for a very long time, and he does not come back as R. Pats is Batman. He comes back as someone who is both charismatic and energetic and delightful to be around, but also damaged by how long he was gone and how long he was waiting and stuff like that. So like, and he too made friends in the jungle, you know, like, you know, he might out of, I don't know whether or not he stuck his dick in a crab claw.

Like, you know, that, Rob of Milliamondi's a Jumonti's character. And I hope you're right that we do see it eventually, that we're just getting like, this is bright shipper, Ezra. But like, but I have, I will say with Star Wars television, I've lost a little bit of faith in the, well, surely we're going to see this kind of more profound emotional fallout at some point. I feel like we often don't. And they're playing surface notes for us, which is fine. But like, it could be more, you know? Yeah, it's completely valid.

I think, like, the reason I am hopeful in, I'll say as a caveat inside of the whole. that the math of just like how much room we have in an eight episode live action series versus like a 14 or 22 episode animated series is like a notable distinction. I think that this was always something that that seemed like central to Filoni's interest in Ezra as a figure. He could be so like the swagger and that kind of like cocksure like bravado as he's like leading the charge into some sort of like scheme that he has stitched together with spray paint that's being in real time. And then we're seeing his eyes open and the glow of the Sith holocron as he is like succumbing to the darkness. Or he's alone with his thoughts about his parents and a figure like Zbo pops is a story.

And it's like this is a person who, a figure who risks everything to like come find. to you and you're like a monster to them because you have so much pain inside of you. And like it was just as important for philonia to show us that part of Ezra as like the tenderness of the embrace with like Hera or Sabine later when he is telling them, showing them a little bit more about that history and like how hard it was for him to have to grow up alone. So I think because this is basically like another, this is a cycle now for Ezra. I had a family and then I lost them. And the first time it wasn't his choice and this time it was. Like he changed. He just, chose to sacrifice himself so that they would be safe.

Just because it's a more active circumstance doesn't mean that he wouldn't be like, I lost everything I care about again. I think you're right. If we don't get him, if we don't get to see the impact that that has had on him, that would be like, it just wouldn't be a full and honest version of the character. And including the one we have actually spent four seasons with before,

but because Falonia spent a lot of time on that aspect of him before, I'm like, I'm confident we will get it. If we don't, I think that would be a shame. I'm glad you're confident. I'm less confident, but your confidence usually booies me. I'm not necessarily saying we'll get it next week. Right. It might be a season two thing, maybe.

Maybe we'll get it eventually. But like I think that to your point about like, you know, just to underline how much I agree with you, I don't want R. Pats's Batman. I don't want someone who's like stoic. I have been like praising Ezra's like lightness and energy in this episode and how it bounces off of Sabine and how it bounces off of Asoka and Shin and every crap person in the vicinity, et cetera. And so I would want, like, I don't want to sacrifice that. But I think, I mean, obviously Robin Williams and Giovanni is not the best comp one could ever come up with.

But I think that there's a way to do both, you know. Absolutely. And show us a little bit more of that like space madness. Absolutely. Speaking of complicated aspects that are at play in this conversation. and in this relationship. Let's talk about the Sabine side of this for a second. Because she once again does not tell him how she found him and what the throne of it all is.

We have been very pro-Sabine and I think very like, here's the logic for some of the decisions she's made. So supportive. This is, you got to just rip the Band-Aid off at this point and do it. If you have not watched the wonderful video that Jomey made where Sabine is in the Russell Westbrook next question role, please treat yourself to it. It is iconic. You know, we talked last week a lot about how we would, we think that Ezra would be inclined to, even though his sacrifice was about getting thrown away and Sabine's choice unlocks the possibility of Throne returning, that he would be not only understanding, but that he would help to absolve this guilt that she's carrying. The thing that's happening right now, though, is that Thron is actually readying to escape. And she is not mentioning.

They're on a mozy in the backcountry. I got here with people who came to rescue Thron. They're probably about to leave right now. Let's go. And I wouldn't want to know that. They could be doing something to help stop it. This is like, so the thing wasn't unforgivable, but it is going to become that the longer she waits. We've been so defensive of Sabine.

but like I don't understand what's going on. I also don't understand like, again, it's just like this weird lack of emotional. Like when he's like, what's up with Asoka? Yeah. And she's like, that's complicated. And then later, as we already heard in the sound clip at the top of the episode, she's like, I thought you were dead. He's like, he thought she was like, just chilling out. I mean, and what's the being said last week is like, can't I just be happy?

I found my friend after so long. Can't I just have that? So like, okay, on the one hand, I understand that she's like decided to sink into some denial and just be like, isn't it nice? Here I am with Ezra again. After being so lonely and so lost for so long, I lost all of Mandelor. Isn't it nice to feel like I have a connection? But it- I regained family and I don't want to risk losing it again. We have been very nice to Sabine. And this, she's pushing my favor here. Yeah, it's tough. did really love a couple of the other beats in this exchange. The moment when Ezra finds out that Asoka has been training Sabine as her apprentice and he just channels every member of the audience who was like, she what? Why? I mean, congratulations. And that's cool. You? It was like girls can use the force too. It's fine. Yeah. There was just like a genuine surprise,

but then kind of like an openness and a charm that I thought very much mirrored our journey with it in a way that I like. I love this, Ezra. I love that. Yeah, he's great. And then so On that, that's asking where Osoka is and that's Sabine saying that's, Ezra saying that's complicated too. And like Ezra missed 12 years of galactic events, but he did not miss Facebook status updates. And Sabine says, yeah. And he drops it.

And this moment I loved because of like what is playing out on their faces as they just look at each other across a couple words. Because like Sabine is withholding a lot here. We've just talked about why that's a disruption. problem. But I thought you could feel their closeness in this instant. Yeah. The shorthand that you can have with a person. I agree. The emotional depth of feeling that you could convey with just a word or a look, that sense that you have about somebody important to you of like when to nudge, when to give them room and space, when to comfort. That was just like so apparent here. So I really love that little moment.

It's like it's like when you catch my eye in the middle of a draft when you just said like the rude meanest thing to me, but you look at me and you're like, we're still friends though. And I'm like, I know, we're still friends. It was coming both ways last time. It was. I tried. Oh, yeah. Joanna. One of the reasons that our bond is eternal is because of our shared love of Lord of the Rings.

I've yet of a lot. And we got some true whigs of Isohn's vibes from the howler, bandit, Baylon, shin approach. but just that like shot of Baylon and Shin up on the hill, it gave me such palpable two towers, energy, and then later when the howlers are charging, I was just like, these are the orcs, these are the works of Eisengarde. And the hill, the hillside setting really heightened that.

Did it make you think of rings? It did. And I believe that that's something that Peter Jackson just added to the film. I'm 98% sure. So to me that tells me that Faloni is not just like a book guy. He's a Peter Jackson trilogy guy. I love it. Do you think, did you wish that Baylon got knocked off his wolf at some point?

And then like it licked him back to consciousness. And his bloody shoulder. Yeah. And his hanging hair. And at some point he can really dramatically open a door. And we'll be thinking about it for the rest of our lives. Yeah. That would be great.

That would be great. That would be great. we get a we get a dismount of sex roll. Yeah, our guy is on foot now with purpose on foot. He sure is. The great mothers using their GPS. Asoka using the force mind meld. This is all happening at once.

This was a fascinating little stretch. Let's talk about it. So at the chimera reflex point, Thrawn summons the great mothers and says, I am in need of your assistance. They're like, we're in. Wants them to find Asoka in the bone belt. In the bone belt, the scans are not working.

and cannot find Sabine and Asoka says, I've got another way. She's going to reach out through the force. And Hu Yang's question is, and not in a doubting way, just he's asking, so this is genuine response, do you think your bond is strong enough?

And folks, it is. And this is part of what we've been building toward all season. This is, of course, on the things in this episode that make us think of empire front, very reminiscent of Luke calling out to Leah, reaching out to Leah through the force

at the end of Empire. The, I think, thought the like sound design of this scene was really cool. The way that like what is actively happening around both Asoka and Sabine is kind of sucked out of the scene as this like wush and whir of the force and then the calling of their names kicks in. But, you know, we think of something like Hu Yang's message to them in episode four, right? Stay together. You always did better that way, in my opinion. And now after in it, they have each, from their perspective, let each other down in some way. Everything that happened with Mandelor

not being there, the choice that's being made with the star map, et cetera. They are now, like, finding their way back together. And they're doing it through the force, rebuilding their bond, trusting it, prioritizing it. And it's not just that the bond actually is strong enough and they can't reach each other this way. The important part is that they believe it, that Asoka, who, when we met her at the beginning of this series, didn't think that they could be in each other's lives again. Like that episode two exchanged with Hera, she's not ready. I'm curious what makes somebody ready. You just know, so do they.

And we were like at the end of that episode when she said, Padam, we're like, they're ready now. This was like really the they're ready moment, the full embrace. And again, this feels like we're starting to see more of what the transformation is actually, like what fruit the transformation is actually bearing for Asoka. Right. And the fact that when she greets Sabine later, she's not like, how could you do all of this? You know what I mean? Yeah. That beat last week was maybe the last time she had to work three.

Ruid and now she's in a better place. Maybe. But, you know, we two steps forward, two steps back, these sort of things, you know. And I don't want to say like, finally they are forever connected. But this is another step in the right direction for them, for sure. And like, when you think the concept of a force connection like that is such a strong, like it's a meaningful concept in Star Wars. When you think about Luke and Leah or you think about Kylo and Ray, you know what I mean?

Like the literal force dietic. Like, that kind of connection is, you know, they're not, Asoka and Sabine aren't exactly like for Skyping here, like Kylo and Ray did. But, like, you know, that has to be, as Huying, like, interrogates, a very strong connection. So I love that. And also, you know, it requires force sensitivity from Sabine who can't move a cup, but can take a call. She's open to it. Not blocked, maybe?

To use the Canaan term from rebels, not blocked as much anymore. And I love that. Yeah. Her, like, triumph in the force. I mean, we're probably going to see her move something next week at an important time. Do you think it'll be a cup? A cup, a brick, something, you know. But I like that her first act in the force really in this season is one of, like,

it's not violence or movement or defense or offense or whatever, it's connection. And I think that sort of feeds into a bit of what we get with Baylon Osoka later, which we'll talk about. That's beautiful. I agree. Now that we've gotten the beauty of that connection, then we can see her use the force to rip Enoch's face mask off next week. And just gas, is he the one? Is he the gassy one? I don't know.

Big blow for the this is a. The army of the three-ed-a-need-hade-hine. I just want to... When we're telling things up, I just don't say, I was the only skeptical one last week. You were. You were. You were like a Morgan Elspeth-esque skeptic here, even though that would have been her type of magic. You were like, are we sure?

You were proven right immediately. When this force connection is happening, I really loved Ezra's response to it the way he immediately can see and tell that something is happening with Sabine and says, like, something happened. What was it? I don't know, a feeling and he's nodding, what kind, familiar. This, like, made me actually really emotional. Yeah. Thinking back to, and he mentions, you know, yeah, we used to train back in the day.

And, you know, the trials of the Dark Sabre episode that we've talked about a lot when he is, like, helping amid this very fraught Canaan-Sabine stretch when Ezra is helping to train Sabine and helping to coach her, like to think of everything that has happened for both of them between then and now. and the wisdom and maturity that you feel from Ezra here and like how just precocious and young and rash he was back then, even though he was very supportive of Sabine. Yeah. You just felt the passage of time. It really hit me hard. He feels like a master here, not a powerful.

I was going to say, it's like we're used to seeing him soaking up everything that Canaan, his teacher would say to him. And so to watch him sort of in that master role. And this is just the like can be the joyful cycle of Star Wars of like watching Asoka become a master, you know, watching Obi-1, you know, try to become watching Anakin try to teach, like watching Luke try to teach Ray, like all these sort of things. It's like it's, it's very poignant, I think. This, to quote Freddie Prince Jr., cyclical nature of Star. Pass on what you have learned.

Would you say? I would. Unfortunately, Joanna, Asoka, Sabine, Ezra, these are not the only force-attuned beings in the story right now. And the great mothers, peep in like our guy Haimdahl. We're in the Loki season. She should have used her force burner, right? Absolutely. A more secure line.

You got to go on incognito mode. They're just like this is where they are. We found them. They just start firing from the eye, flushing the map. Yeah. This was one of my favorite Hu Yang moments. What Asoka says, it's fine. You know, I know where to go.

And Heang's like, wonderful. So on our way, like, let's see some muscle. They're shooting. He's the only one with a sense of urgency. It's true. Joanna, it's time to talk about Bailin and Shin. And this quite sudden parting. Please share with the listeners what you have titled this section in our document.

Shin splits. Do you ever get shin splits? They're painful. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Painful. The Nody Halt. They see two figures looming on the hill.

It's bailin and Shim. Ezra. So are these friends of yours. And Sabine is like, no. And this is probably the time where I should tell you all about Grand Admiral Thron, because that's who they're here to rescue. No, that's not what she says. It's not what she says, Joe.

Oh, those are the baddies who brought me here. They have a giant massive ring. It's been meaning to mention. in them. Now that you've spotted them. Hot. Both individually and together. Let me tell you about House Hoddy.

It's a whole thing on the internet. Up on the hill, Baylon tell Shin, they have reached the parting of the ways. We have a lot to break down here. So let's hear this exchange. Contact Thrawn. Kill Sabine Ray and Ezra Bridger.

Then take your place in the coming empire. You won't help? You're Ambition drives you in one direction. My path lies in another. I've located Ezra Bridger, sending his coordinates now. One parting lesson, Shin. Impatience for victory will guarantee defeat.

That makes me really worried for Shin, by the way, that last line. Interesting. Yeah. Do you think Shin's a goner in the finale? Do you think Shin is going to... I'm not putting in. join the heroes? I think those are the two options. Assoca tried to tempt her at the end of this episode. I agree. I either, we either, well, here's my ideal version of an Asoka season two, if not everyone's

going home, is like, who's left is Shannon Baylon and Asoka and Ezra and Sabine? Like, that's a pretty great lineup. That would be really good. And a bunch of crabs and whatever. Maybe that's when you get the, the. the fracture in Ezra's very chill demeanor. He's like, I thought we were going home. That would be interesting.

That would be great. Ooh. Don't. I like it. I hope that's true, but more likely he's just going to be like, well, you guys want some crop soup. I knew what for crowd soup. Ah, man.

Well, I love that. He's like, don't worry. You can do this. I've done 12 years here. Joe, talk to me about this parting of the waist. know how like one of our favorite scenes, we never talked about specifically necessarily, but I know that it's true is like when Jora and DeNaris part ways in Game of Thrones on the on the clifftop there. Yeah. That's devastating when she sends him to heal himself. Absolutely devastating. And it's

just this like important separation of this relationship that has meant so much and has so much context and subtext to it. We have admittedly. projected a lot of meaning on the Baylon Shin relationship because we don't have a lot of actual text to go on. But I think these two performers are so good at what they do that like we are just, we have just inferred a lot of history and meaning in him, you know, and he and they talked about it directly last week when he's like, that's not what I trained you for, all this sort of stuff like that, this seems like such an easy goodbye. It seems like both a forever goodbye.

Ray Stevens, the fate of Ray Stevenson, the tragic fate of Ray Stevenson aside, narratively, this feels like goodbye forever. My Padawan, here is my parting lesson. Yeah. Why isn't this harder? Yeah. You know? For both of them. For both of them.

Yeah. there are some interesting lingering longing looks. And there's also one later the way that Baylon looks after Soka, which is very interesting. But I agree that the like rapidity of this, both in terms of the actual substance of what they're saying and this coming to a head like this so quickly, but also, wait, are you sure I can go with you?

Or let me try to convince you to come with me? Like the absence of any of that. is surprising. I think, like, we've chatted a lot about Baylon and tracking his goals and his desires and what is fueling them and when that feels really apparent us and when we're trying to, like, parse it or understand it a little bit more. What I was really struck by here, I think the Baylon thing now feels really keen for me heading into the finale. But what I was really struck by here is just how little we know about Shin. Like, we know nothing about her. Literally nothing. We know that she's Baylon's Paduan. We saw, I thought, and I was thinking

about this in this conversation because, like, we, I felt like there was a little bit of almost like, yearning, yearning tendrils last week when he was like, she was, oh, you're going to tell me about the temple? Yeah. You're going to talk about the Jedi? And I wonder if a little bit of that, in addition to everything with Thron and her questions about like what the return of Thron would, would usher in. Right. You know, that for some more, for others a new beginning and for us, power, such as you've never dreamed, the episode two exchange, like this feeling maybe that, that, that, she wants to be a part of the very kind of structures and cycles that he is now seeking to cut down. And there is this like somber element to the way he is framing this.

And for him almost a resignation about like the task that he has set himself and the doom that he seems to be marching toward. And I wonder if he wants to, I wonder how much of this is a lament. We don't want the same thing after all. I wonder how much of this is him trying to like spare her from the, fate that he increasingly feels awaits him. But my question, in addition to the ones you raised, is like, then why take her on as a Padawan in the first place if you don't want these things, like a rebuilding? If you wanted to cut down the other. And like, again, we have those elements in their conversations in previous episodes. Like, no, I trained you to be better than the Jedi.

Yeah. You're not, you're not one of the Vulcan Jedi. You're better. But does that not matter anymore? Well, so she says, she says he's like, when he's doing his De Naris Break the Wheel speech, right? Yeah. She says, then isn't it our turn now? Right. When our alliance with Thrawn finally bring us to power. And he says that sort of power is fleeting.

What I seek is the beginning, so I may finally bring the cycle to an end. And that beginning is here, she says. And he says, if the old stories are true. There's nothing in that exchange that makes me feel like Shin is so blinded by power that she isn't willing to follow him. You know, and that beginning is here. She doesn't say, like, you promise me power. That's all I want.

that's all I'm here for or anything like that. And he does not, other than that sort of power is leading, he doesn't say, like, don't you see Shin, stick with me. Like, what I'm going to do is more important. There's no attempt to hold on. Now, obviously in a story that we're always talking about attachment, unhealthy attachment, you know, what is the right way to love in the Jedi Order in the galaxy and this Eastern religion-esque ideology, all that sort of stuff like that.

you know, maybe the idea of bail in here is like, I'm not going to try to tell her what her bath is. I'm not even going to lift a finger to try to put her one way or another because that's a mistake that Jedi make and I'm not that. So I'm just going to be like, hey man, seems like you want to do this. Right. Did he want her to say, no, I want to go with you actually? Right. Right. And then she didn't. Right. Yeah. Because the only thing when I was looking back for what did we have to indicate that this might be coming was like a later exchange. from episode six when she's like

the lever, it seems like everyone wants to bounce. Should we be paying attention to that? And he says, perhaps they flee a power greater than their own. Something calls to me, can't you hear it? Something stirs here. Can't you see it? That's the one element where I'm like,

maybe he actually does things genuinely. They're not able to move forward together. Like something is happening to him that she's not a part of and he has to heed that. That's the one line that gives me that. I just feel like we're having to do a lot of work. Yeah, I agree.

To try to justify the parting of the ways of two characters that we are like so eager to know more about, so eager to explore the dynamic of, you know? Absolutely. And like they've been, I think some of it is just like the looking forward where we only have one episode left in this season. Do we have room for like satisfying conclusions to a season long arc for the two of them together, the two of them individually? but it's also like, I think much like if you, and you can't separate this season from where it airs in the run of episodes, to be clear, I'm not suggesting that.

Like, it's the penultimate episode, so it has to feel, like, worthy of that placement. If this had been the fourth episode of the season, I think it's viewed very differently. Part of it is there's one episode left. Part of it is we're all coming on the heels of this, like, banger run with four, five, and six, which were just, like, so rich and gave us so much.

And so, like, with Baylon and Shin, And I think Baylon most of all, there was this, I think, genuine shared sensation among Star Wars fans that we were in real time sharing the arrival of this, like, astonishing figure in Star Wars lore. And, like, are they going to squander that at the end? Like, we're in the red zone. And, you know, don't fumble. And what's so sad is that we as there's this tension between. between like we as an audience know, we only have one more episode with Ray Stevenson,

which Dave Faloney certainly couldn't have known. He thought, you know, maybe he thought, I have years and seasons and movies to, like, flesh this out. So, yeah. Well, we'll find out next week where we landed. Let's go into the battles. We've got a few phases of battles here.

We've got the blaster stage, the Sabre stage, and the team-up and trooper stage. So it's a lot of action, less conversation to parse here, but there's some, some interesting character moments inside of the fighting. The bandits are leading the charge. There's this lament on Bailen's face that we just referenced as shin rides off. And Thron orders two gunships sent to assist the mercenaries. He tells

Morgan, if Lord Bailen proves capable, we may yet win the day, which kind of indicates that he's not expecting to win the day, which is interesting. I bumped on that line. I don't, don't they have all the advantages? I'm so confused. They're up against crab people. Like, once he's like, The Jedi. Despite him constantly being like Canaan and Ezra are a bunch of dofuses, he knows, I think, that he's got to take, he's got to take Asoka seriously.

Sabine firing blasters. Ezra, this was so cute. He, like, gives a little, a little Yuka reminder, and the Nodi pops up with a slingshot. It's like, Ezra clearly taught the Nodi to use slingshots when we first met Ezra on Rebels. That was his tool of choice. That was just so precious.

And there's a great moment when one of the bandits compromises a pod, one of the Noddypods, and Ezra is like, we will not leave. Let's circle the wagons. Let's circle the pods. And let's go back. No crab left behind. No crab left behind. Save and protect our beloved Noddy pal.

And it's like, this is the Ezra who fought for Lothal, even when they couldn't get wider rebellion buy-in. This is the Ezra who sacrificed himself to Port Throne away. This is the Ezra who thought. will have understood. If Sabine had told him what she'd done, yeah. I'm doing this for you, just like you're doing it for this little noody. How did you feel about when they see Shin and Ezra as who it is?

Sabine's description, she's like you, but lacks your sense of humor. What'd you think? Did that sound up? As in, do you think the underlying is like, she's like you and that I want to have sex with you and I want to have sex with her? Exactly. I am. Yeah. Exactly.

Exactly. I think that was definitely the subtext, yeah. I loved when Ezra ordered the Noddy to shelter in their pods, Joe, and the little like turtle shell, like their little hermit shell. Yeah. It goes over just like their little bodies. You know? So precious. Absolutely precious.

Let's head to the Sabre stage. That was the Blaster stage. I don't know if you had anything you wanted to say about the blasters or if you want to save it for the sabers. I want to save it for the sabers. Joanna. Yeah. Up in the air, Asoka tells Hu Yang, it's time to run back the in motion drop play.

they've been workshopping and scheming it. They've been crunching the tape to see where they went wrong last time. Yeah. Can you please remind us what happened last time and how they are discussing it here? She goes, you got the timing wrong and goes, and didn't I feel terrible? She says, no. But David Tan is, and didn't I feel terrible? It's like so sassy and funny and delightful.

Just unbelievable. Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. She slides down the ski slope of the ramp and rolls right into where Baylon is waiting. Unlike before, when she sees Baylon and she's like, this is someone, I got to get sons out, guns out. I got to take the cloak off and fight. She's like, poncho on. We're doing fine.

Poncho on. I do feel, as an overall note for the show, that Assoca should be making confetti out of more people in general. I do think, um, Baylon, I understand. him bailing getting the drop on her last time because she was distracted and emotionally volatile and all this or stuff like that. I feel like she should be able to, if she wanted to, strike him down with one blow inquisitor style, if she wanted to, what I did like about this exchange, first of all, last time she tried to fight him the way that he fights, broadsword style. This time she has, she does the dual blades. She's like, no, I'm going to do it. I'm not going to do it your way.

I'm going to do it my way. We love that for Asoka, right? And in general, we like that about Asoka in terms of the way that she fights. But when he says, you can't defeat me, and she says, perhaps I don't have to, I feel like that has to be a response to his accusation of their last fight where he's like, it always has to be fighting with you. You know, inevitable, like how predictable. It always has to be this way. You don't know any other way.

You know? And then she goes to space therapy. with Anakin and it learns that I don't have to fight. I can win by not fighting. And then she repeats that lesson here. She says, perhaps I don't have to is not like, I think she could defeat him. I really would like, you know, and I think she knows she could defeat him. But she's like, let me pull a shin haddy and like run away in a smoke bomb that is my

totally. My android bombing from a head and steal your ride. and leave you to that was my haller. Absolutely brutal. So I agree. I think that that is, the poignancy of that is undercut to me

by then immediately just knocking him into a spray of turret fire from the ship and being like, that's how I escaped and didn't fight you is because my droid ball is shooting you from the air. And it immediately rolls him to another battle. But I do, yes, despite that. But a battle where she doesn't,

strike shin down. Yes. And she's not using her sabers when she's, when she's fighting shin, and there's an attempt to bring her in. So there is a, there is a subtle distinction. The last time she faced shit,

she fucking used to force the door head first into a fucking rock. She tried to brain her. So yes, there's, their degrees in this progress. And I think that like, overall this Baylon Assoca rematch, they,

they like kind of had like flipped a little bit in their confidence and in their demeanors. and Baylon is like, oh, man. And she's like smiling, inviting, taunting almost. That was more like his disposition last time. And we get the potency of that, perhaps, I don't have to, line from Asoka.

And I thought the version of that that we got from Baylon, we had these nice character beats from both of them here, was when she asked if he was disappointed. And he said, no. Like, and you feel that he means it. And I like those moments. Well, he's never wanted to kill her. Exactly.

And I was glad we got that again because, like, that's been one of the most compelling things about their dynamic and his character is just like the tragedy of these people who could be such strong allies. And that's- Constantly being at odds.

And I rewatched this sequence like five times just sort of marinating in what we will miss with the lack of Brie Stevenson. That long-lingering shot of him sort of considering her as she rides away. Yes. I think my interpretation is clearly thinking about Shin, I think there is this sort of like should I return to that? No, I feel this call of something else. Can't you hear it? Don't you see it? It's all around us. And he's like, no, I got to go. Sorry, quote high school musical. I got to go my own way. Like, you know, he has to he has to go. And so it's like with trepidation, resignation, not like the fervor of a zealot or anything like that. It's just sort of.

of like, and so to your point, his quest is laying heavy on his heart right now, for sure. And to your point, like, my understanding, based on what I've heard out of Lucasoma and stuff like that, is that they had great plans for Baylon as a character, and they are out of crossroads as to what to do. So I don't think that necessarily this is a character who knows he's like going off to his death in the next episode. I don't think that was the planned storyline, but he is sacrificing something, his ride back home. Like maybe I'm going to be stuck on this planet forever if I go do this. I'm going to miss my ride. But, you know, whatever I have to do here, break the cycle somehow with a ballrog. Who knows? Is important to him. So, yeah. Oh, now I just can't

stop thinking about the prospect of Baylon and the Nodie together. I'm going to be thinking about it for two years until we get season two of Asoka. Good. Beautiful. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which caused is joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimphaya, Gucalcumab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis,

who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before a treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphia.

Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable Internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business to keep companies of all sizes. connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply.

Services not available in all areas. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screw. Green favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more.

Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. There's a saber and non-saber fight happening below. We're cutting back and forth between that bail and Assoca sequence and what's happening on the ground with Ezra. and Sabine and Shin. And as we anticipated,

Sabine offers Ezra his lightsaber back. What's the plan? Here. Do your thing. What thing? It's your lightsaber. Take it. You keep it.

What? I don't need it. Besides, you've been training. Very funny. No, I'm serious. Take it. I gave it to you. It's yours now.

At least take a blaster. No. The force is my ally. that's all I need I am one with the force I was waiting for either I am one with the force or and the powerful ally it is

called back to so many great Star Wars moments the score is so jaunty their banter so zippy it's almost like MCU-esque they're sort of like little zippy back and forth like the good the good MCU but I think that like

there's two things that play here one is you know, I think this is a point you made to me, so I don't mean to, like, steal your point, but, like, the idea of, like, is Ezra going to be too rusty to be, you know, efficient with the blade? Yeah, like we talked during the OB-1 run

about how it took our guy, Obi-1-Ken-O-B-1 to get comfortable again, though I think the difference is that, and this was really present here, like, Obi-1 had cut himself off from the force, which was such a central thing that they broke down. And Ezra seems like if anything, has done the opposite.

He is connected to the force in like a new way. I think what contradicts that, oh, he's afraid to pick up the lightsaber thing is he won't even take a blaster. You don't get rusty on a blaster, right? He does, though. He does. The force ceases to be a powerful enough ally midway through the fight. But point being, when he's denying the weapons, it's not he's denying the blaster even.

And so then it just feels like your friend who's a vegan now, honestly. Yeah. And he was like touting earlier when Sabine was like, are they not going to use any real weapons about the Nodian? and he's like, they've survived for this long. Like, he's, like, embraced a different... Yeah. A different way of life, though, obviously,

he is still just fighting with the force. You know, the guys on Midnight Boys talked about, like, their... One of the reads that they discussed was the idea that Ezra was, like, rejecting the lightsaber and rejecting, thus, what it represents about being a Jedi. And I read it more, like, he's embraced a connection to the force that is distinctly his

and that he found here in this place around these new friends and that he doesn't like need this thing that not only doesn't feel like it's a part of his life anymore but also in tandem with that, like encouraging Sabine to embrace it and made me think of like Hu Yang telling Sabine in the second episode when she was like, this is Ezra's, you know? and Huyang said, by all accounts,

it served them well, but he passed it onto you, and you... The elder wand is yours now. Yeah, made your modification. So it is now your lightsaber. Now,

I'm not, I don't feel like Ezra will forever be saberless. Like, frankly, the moment where he uses the force to kind of bend the blade, the bend Shin's blade.

Oh, Shins blade, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I'm like, I wonder if literally next episode we'll see him use the force to, like, crack the casing of Baylon's saber, and maybe Baylon's crystal will call to him, and Ezra will take him.

it and purify it and it will become his own and he'll forge a new blade. Like, I would not roll that out. I don't think that's where it's going to be without a single for long. In one episode? Maybe. Maybe.

Okay. But how did it feel to see him here? A couple things. Number one. Fighting just with the force. It felt a little overwhelming to me. And if, like, and if he has, like, a special new force,

like, if we want to show him have, like, a special new cool force, deepening martial arts sort of thing, I would have loved to see something more akin to, like, air bending, but that being said, live action air bending also looked bad. So, you know, challenges about. Two other lightsaber-based things. Have you, two theories that are rolling around. I want to credit new rock stars videos for painting both of these in my mind. One is, Baylon has a crystal on his belt, and shin has like what looks like little pieces of a crystal, same crystal in her braid.

And so there's this theory that like, that's his old Khyber crystal that like broke or something like that from when he was a Jedi and et cetera, et cetera. And the new Khyber, the new orange Khyber is like a different thing. That's beside the point. That's just

another thing. Theron, in theory, is in possession of Kainan's lightsaber. So could we see yes, that's true. So could we see Ezra get Canaan's lightsaber? I feel like Ezra needs to construct his own saber, not inheriting somebody else's.

More than once. Yeah, he's done that twice. And like sometimes in Star Wars you make your own saber and sometimes you, sometimes it matters that you carry your teacher or your fathers or your whatever saber for a while. Yeah, I feel like, I don't know. I mean, I guess it would be a way of him like on the one hand kind of, reconnecting with that past and that version of Ezra that were like

that's so top of mind for Rebels fans but I think that part of what feels as we've talked about a lot today really distinct about this Ezra as it's just like this is who I am and this is my circumstances have made me and so to like go back to

I mean that's the only like I like that I do like finding it and using it yeah before like if we want to see Ezra use a lightsaber before the season is over. He's either going to pick up his old saber for some reason or it would be kind of fun for him to. But then, like, that's just an Easter egg for fans because no one's going to explain. I mean, we only have an episode left. So, like, who knows what the heck is going to go on?

But I kind of liked it as an idea. I see that you don't and that is special, too, to me, when I get you to make that face where you're like, no, show I don't think so. I like the idea of Ezra forging something that feels like it represents who he is now. I like him not having a saber at all. Like if we're really going to lean into I use the force differently now, I am no Jedi. But then, as you said, it's got to be better than just shoving people. It really does. I really agree.

A gentle shove. I really agree. I did like when Shin almost chopped his head off, but just cut off like one lock of hair. That was great. Here's my question. We have, I know this is like very, very first. finale forward looking. Yeah.

But we have three parties for the finale. We've got Bailen is on his solo quest. We've got team crab people. And then we've got Thron and company trying to get the heck out of there. And then Hara back home if you want to. I feel like in an episode of Star Wars that is only going to be like probably 40-something minutes, our crab folk can only go in one direction or another. So, like, are they going after Thron or are they going after Baylon?

I see a version of this story in which they, we never see anyone. Like, we just see Baylon open up the gates of hell by himself and no one interacts with him. Yeah. And no one interacts with him for the rest of the series. And they go after Thron. Probable. Yeah. I think so.

Because Sabine could be reluctant to reveal the Throne aspect all she wants. It's going to be the first thing Asoka says. We've got to go stop Thron. Yeah. And if not Asoka, Hu Yang. Yeah. And then maybe bail, exactly, bailing off on his own. And then whatever he does unleash, if that is in fact what happens, maybe that's the thing that stops them from escaping just as Thrawn pieces out.

That feels that feels most likely, I think. The night troopers join the fray. We get this like moment with Ezra where he says to Shinn, it's not looking good for you. And then immediately the two. two gunships land and all the troopers spill out, which is part of why when he says, what he says at the end, we're like, oh, boy. So it's just our guy's going to have a little of a pattern here of saying things that are immediately proven untrue.

And we get to see Thron and Morgan watching the battle, like literally these markers, watching the troopers run out of their gunships on this hollow version of like a chessboard, which gives us that Thron chess master aspect, that meta quality for the episode of moving the pieces around the board. We get to see him directing the troops. this is when he notices that Bailen's missing. And another delightful Ezra charm moment when he realizes they're pinned. And he's just like, this was such classic Ezra trying to buy time in a desperate moment.

Like, wait, wait, we could talk or we could just, we, don't you want to take us as prisoners? Prisoners? A prisoner! So it was really funny. And then Gandalf the White arrives. It's actually Soka, but it's close enough. Just rides right in. Okay. I thought it was Littlefinger.

Wow. Knights of the Vale? Yeah, the Knights of the Vale. Oh, God. Sansa. Memories. What times we all had. Joanna, speaking of four tense from our beloved pals,

when Hu Yang is flying above and sees everyone back together and says, well, they're all back together. I hope I survived long enough to see the outcome. What were your feelings? Why would you say that? I said, why would you say that out loud five different times in this episode? Why would you say that? Worrying.

I feel like nothing can happen to Huying, though. Nothing. What a, what a shooting yourself, talk about shooting yourself on the own foot? Like, because all they needed was David Tennant in a, in a sound booth for like a day. Right. In order to make this, this season like two times better than it already would have been. So maybe if something terrible happens, we'll get like a IG-11 style rebuild, hopefully, without the intermediate step of a. corpse statue and some sort of notie yard.

We'll find out. Joanna, Theron is watching as the Jedi win. They have control of the situation once Assook arrives. And he has this aspect to his character where even when he is losing, he can observe the worthiness of his opponents. And we talked about before with like Hara or Sabine, how often he was impressed with something that they did in rebels. And we get a little bit of that here with Thron and Asoka. Steve, can we hear this clip?

These are unfortunate but acceptable losses given the absence of Lord Baylon. In the grand scheme of things, one might even call this first match with Turner a success. I see only our enemies reunits. Let me show you what I see. With our enemy distracted, the cargo transfer is now almost complete, which means we shall soon leave this forsaken place. Nsogatano has lost the one thing she could not afford to lose today. Time. Time is very much on our side now, and I shall keep it that way.

Classic. Oh, unbelievable. The forsaken place language really struck me, like, his desperation to get out of here is. power amount in this exchange. But yeah, the classic Throne, like either truly ahead or ready to spin a loss as a win, learning something that he can use to his advantage next time, capitalizing on an aspect that maybe the nominal Victor doesn't see amid their spoils here. And how can I use that to help my quest next time? This is just, this is vintage Thron right here. It was a really fun little soundbite to get. Thron's, Thron's like, let's leave this for a second place. I have no,

I have no taste for crab soup. It has lost its luster. Oh, God. Never, never tired of crap. I'm all out of crab. So lost about you. On the resurrection front, if those troopers are not, in fact, gas bags or whatever, which it seems like they're not.

Because, like, they got penetrated with enough blasterfire and, like, lightsaber slashes that they should have oozed some. Yep, I use that word just for you, my darling. They should have oozed some gas at least. Nary a plume of smoke out of any of them. Yeah, not even a... Cut down night troopers. Not even a whisper.

So that's not me rubbing in. I was right to be at least vaguely skeptical. My question is, why was Murak here in the first place? Is that just to underline the other resurrection thing, which is like what it has to do with all those caskets that they're loading onto the ship? Like, is that... Yeah, I guess that's now that's my assumption. Or is Enok also?

Is Enoch the only gas bag? You know? Could be, though that would be disappointing if he immediately exited the story next week. They gave him a cool, gold mask and everything, but, you know. Brutal. Yeah, you know, inside of this great Thrawn monologue there, we get the cut, not only the mention of the cargo,

but the cut to visually. We're seeing how full the cargo bay is, how few slots there are left to fill. So we're being reminded of these coffins and whether we see some sort of activation, maybe ahead of the desired schedule, the finale out of desperation or whether that becomes a future plot. Not sure, but it does seem like we will still see some reanimation at some point.

It just wasn't with the nature. And I mean, something we should say is like if Thron felt forever resentful or on the back foot, you know, canonically that he didn't have the force, right? The fact that he's like hooked up with some witches now, he's like, well, I mean, I pretty much have the force, right? I can, I can force locate you. I got three, I got three, Nate, four wishes on my team. So, yeah.

The fourth, like the shot of Morgan just in the background chanting. Chanting. She's like, I know the words. Like, I can help. Sad to report that Thron has joined the enemy tracker. And he gives us our fifth and final enemy of the episode, which means that all of our theories about like, well, they say enemy. but Thron doesn't out the window.

So really probably folks, enemy is just enemy. Pat yourself on the back if you've been screaming that at me the whole time. Until I hear from Dave Filoni, you're right, Joanna. That language was intentional. I'll just take this as a big L. But don't get distracted by the enemy count last next week. Just enjoy the episode. Vibes.

Hugs. It brings us to the final scene of the episode, Joe. Troopers. they flee when they hear the call. This is where Asoka tries to court shin, surrender your weapons, I can help you. So into it. Love it. She has to stop Sabine from pursuing a shin.

I'm sure that was also a delight to witness. And this is when we then get the opening clip that we heard at the top of the episode today. It's a brief moment between Sabine and Assoco. They have more to work through next week, certainly. But the way that they looked at each other, the smiles on their faces. Like last week we really lamented how Asoka seemed hung up still on the decision that Sabine had made. And for her to greet her here with gladness and even if she's not saying it out loud, like what feels ultimately like forgiveness and acceptance, like this was her version of what she told Ezra to do back in Rebel season four. Like let go.

Move forward. We got an email from a listener, Holly, about this like stoicism piece. for Asoka that of course we were discussing a lot. Everyone was like, oh, Rosario is playing her so wooden, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, those of us who kept the faith, we're like, don't you think she's, that's intentional. And that we're then going to see this other, we're going to see a return to something that's more closely resembles

the animated Asoka because she needs, she has something she has to work through. And so I would never, nor would our listener Holly, nor would anyone listening say like smile more to a woman, But she's smiling now. She's laughing. This is a demonstrable change. And so I think we all have to agree that she was leaning into the wood.

Well, yeah, I don't know. Why is it that at all? No one at home heard the... I don't know if you could hear through Mallory's microphone the very distinctive eyebrow waggle. My eyebrows just shot out of my Zoom box here. Yes. She loved to lend to the... Love it. Damn me. All right. We're almost done. Look at us. No, Dermy from Steve. Steve. Steve. I just did it. You did. You're on it. God's be good. That smile, that laugh, that cheer, that embrace when we get to see that that kind of like the fluidity of that turn and missed this reunion and that hug between Assoca and Ezra. This is just like wonderful. You know, we have spoken a lot about their really formative experience.

together in rebels, the Jedi Temple visions, the quest to Malacore, facing Vader on Malacor meeting in the world between worlds, the life, death, the promise, all of these things that we've discussed. And just like to see them together at last. And nobody had to say, like, I said, when you come back, come and find me and like, what took you so long? Or like, well, I will. I said, I will, I promise. And like, finally, here I am. It took me a while to realize this is where I should be. It's just there in that moment. And they still, like, what I'm. a lot of stuff they need to work through together, all three of them. But when Asoka took this second here to linger in that love and gratitude and affection for these people, when like specifically that was

the source of the divide between Asoka and Sabine, like, should that be the thing you fight for or should that be the thing you fear? It was, it was important to finally see that. I really loved it. I am delighted to continually go back to this rose quote from The Last Jedi, but not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love. Exactly. You know, she's not like, guys, you got to go to get Thrawn now. I hope that's what she says at the very beginning of next week's episode. But she takes a moment to say, look what we've done.

We've saved what we loved. And it's Ezra. I mean, saved is dependent on getting a right home. So I was saving what you love front. Yeah. And that who is getting left behind front? This moment, this embrace, and then, like, of course, how it leads us to think back to the experiences that Ezra and Asoka had together in the world between worlds. Osoca's lesson to him there when he's trying to save Canaan is, I'm sorry, Ezra, but you must see.

Canaan found the moment when he was needed most, and he did what he had to do for everyone. And that lesson is part of what helps Ezra find the courage to do what he does. And, like, watching this was just like, now it's Asoka's. Asoka is going to think it's her turn to do that for them. And so maybe they all get left behind, but I'm really, I'm really feeling like, does she do something to allow them, to allow Ezra and Sabine to leave and she's stuck behind?

True. Assook would have a blast with the Nodi. Like, she would just vibe with them, Foreskis. I, on the other hand. Where's Hu Yang, though? Is he there, too? How are Hu Yang and the Nodi getting along?

Oh, great. Like 3PO on the Ewox, you know? They'll make him a god. Worship like a god. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wonderful. It's time to do what we promised we would earlier. It's time to talk to Ben Lindberg about the history between Grand Admiral Thron and Anakin Skywalker of Yenumloid.

Benjamin Lindbergh. You're here to talk about the AL East champion 100 win Baltimore Orioles. I'm hyped. Right? Yeah, now that you have your own feed, you can just do dedicated Orioles pods whenever you want. Man, imagine it just started dropping minio's breakdowns every day on the feed. I'd be happy to join you for Orioles lore. What are we actually here?

In our hearts, it's O's lore. But it's something that also has a big place in our hearts, and that's Thron lore. What are we here to chat about today? We're here to talk about the history between Anakin and Thrawn, because these guys go way back. And when he says in this week's episode, when he learns that Asoka was Anakin's apprentice, he says if she's anything like her master, she will be unpredictable and quite dangerous. He is clearly speaking from experience, experience of both Anakin and Vader.

So I will tell you a little bit about how he knows him, them. I don't know if they're one guy, two guys, but how that might affect. his interactions with Asoka in the finale. And most of the history between Thron and Anakin and Vader comes from the 2018 Timothy Zon book, Thron Alliances, which is the second book in the canonical Thron trilogy, which I'm holding in my hands right now. No one else can see other than you, but I have the source text right in front of me here. I will corroborate your story. Thank you. Folks, it's true.

Ben has a book in his hand. I like to go back to the original sources sometimes to just channel the lore more accurately. But in the first book in that series, which is just called Thron, Thron meets Palpi, and he alludes to a previous meeting with Anakin. He says he was a most cunning and courageous warrior. I had hoped to meet him again. And Palpi tells him that Anakin didn't survive the Clone Wars, which is true from a certain point of view. So Zahn wanted to write about the meeting that Anakin and Thron had. Lucasfilm wanted him to write about Thron teaming up with Vader.

So they combined both of those ideas and both of those meetings in one book, the sequel to the Thron book. One alliance in the alliance's book is with Anakin. The other is with Vader. And both take place on the planet Batu, which is also where the Galaxy's Edge area at Disney World is set. And it's kind of a two-timeline deal. So the initial alliance is set during the Clone Wars after Asoka's trial and departure from the order. So conveniently, Asoka does not appear in this book. But one of Padme's handmaidens disappears.

So Padme goes to look for her. Then Padma disappears. So Anakin goes to look for her. And actually, Zan wanted them to team up to look for Asoka. That was his first wish, but that got vetoed. So it turned into Padme instead, had to settle for Padmae. But when Anakin arrives at this planet, he runs into Thron, who's on his own expedition for the Chis to recruit allies.

They meet up. They agree to team up. And Thron says, I'll help you find Padme and the missing Hadmeiden, and you can give me some intel on the Clone Wars. Tell me what these Clone Wars are all about. Who's fighting? What's it about? why are we warring? Do I need to worry about these wars? So, hijinks ensue. They do some fighting. Thron does some deducing. They survive some assassination attempts. They learned that Padma's handmaid had stumbled on a smuggling ring that was funneling supplies to a separatist droid factory on another planet. So they go there, they get captured, they get imprisoned at the factory. They escape. Thron is very clever and cunning as always. They learn that the factory was,

making cortosis alloy to make battle droids impervious to blaster bolts and lightsabers, so that's bad news. They destroy the factory, but that's not enough for Anakin. We know Anakin. He can be impulsive sometimes. So he wants to destroy the cortosis, mine too, just for good measure. But Padme and Thron object. They say this is overkill.

We've already shut down the factory. Everyone, all the locals are going to be pissed here. We're going to take away their livelihoods. They're going to be out of jobs. They're going to be in danger. Anakin persists. He blows it up anyway. The locals are upset.

Not only did they lose their job, but also in the process of destroying the mine, he sort of semi-destroyed the planet. So there's just a minor lava eruption. There goes the planet. Yeah, some slight soil poisoning that may take years and years to correct. So it's just another fine mess that Anakin's got in the main. too. And Thron is just like, I'm not sure Anakin thought this through. And Padme is like, yeah, he can be a stubborn boy, but he's my stubborn secret husband. So women and the children, too. Yeah. So Anakin invites

Thron to come meet Chancellor Papatin, but Thron says he has other things to do. Thron questions Anakin's conclusion that they just foiled a separatist plot to attack the Republic's government offices. Thron's Like, are you sure about that? You sort of get the sense that he would have seen through the Darth Sidious scheme pretty quick because he figures out that Padmae and Anakin are secretly married just right off the bat. Who couldn't figure that out when they're kissing in the open behind a mere pillar on Corrason. Exactly. How much of it is Thrawn as a genius and how much of it is no one else can be bothered to pay even an ounce of attention?

Yeah, no. It's the constant. Not all those are not. are peeping and snooping behind every column, Mallory. You don't even need to be in a snoop. Sometimes you see something happening behind a pillar and you just are like, I shouldn't look more closely at that because those people are having a private moment. Not me.

I'm like the great mothers. Yeah. What's happening here that is definitely not for me to know. Throne's not even forced peepin. He's just reading the body language. Exactly. Quickening pulse. The later.

The later alliance. takes place years and years after this between the third and fourth seasons of rebels. So at this point, the emperor and Vader are pissed at Thron because he's failed to root out a rebel cell. And also because he's kind of anti-death-star. He's more into the tie defenders he's building on with all the death stars is not subtle enough for him. So Paupe says, you guys aren't getting along. Why don't you get together on this? two of my top rival lieutenants. Some real team of rivals-style leadership here put Vader and

Thron together and they'll go investigate this disturbance that the emperor has sensed on this same planet, Batu, quite a coincidence. So throughout this mission, Thron has his suspicions about who's inside the suit. So he keeps mentioning Anakin, which annoys Vader because he's trying to put his past behind him. That's not me. You must have me confused for someone else, completely different guy. So they show up at the separatist factory that they were at years before that was shut down. It's been put back into operation. It turns out that the Grisks are responsible here. So the Grisks are nomadic people in the unknown regions who go around marauding and attacking people, including the chess. So they assault this factory again.

Eventually, it comes out that the Chis use these force-sensitive kids to navigate the unknown regions because they don't have nav computers. And the kids are called Skywalker's with a hyphen. That name the full-body chill I got when I read that. It was like, I remember how it felt. I really do. That was amazing. Yeah. What are the odds?

Big Tim's on. Vader's reaction to hearing Skywalker confirms Throne's strong suspicion that this is. Anakin, really, he's kind of known all along. He's just getting very strong Anakin vibes off of Vader here. He even calls him Anakin. Vader kind of clumsily denies it. How could I be Anakin? I'm more machine than man, clearly.

I'm much taller, for one. Much heavier breathing. Just so many differences, really. Could Anakin do this? He wasn't an asthmatic? Right. So it turns out. that the Grisk, they wanted to get those Skywalker's for themselves.

So they kidnapped the Chiskids, the force-sensitive chis-kids, whose fear was what the emperor sensed in the first place because the Grisks' whole deal is that they will sort of steal something that is important to your culture and use it against you. And, of course, Theron is doing his usual art criticism and appreciation to figure out what makes the grisk tick. So it turns out that the Grisks are using Cortosis, too. Thron realizes that it was the Griske who led the separatists to the planet in the first place while they were studying the clone wars and spying on the Republic and then the empire. So that's their little buddy cop comedy frenemy expedition here.

And we may have talked about this briefly on an Obi-1 Kenobi pod when we were talking about who actually knows Vader's identity. Right. We did. Because, yeah, yeah. It's a short list. And Theron is on it because, again, he can just figure these things out. Can I ask your expert opinion on something that Mallory and I gently disagree on, which is like if Thron knows about Padmae, knows that Anakin is Vader, kind of like messes, likes messing with Vader who he knows is Anakin, blah, blah, blah. Do you not think that he would know who Asoka is or that Anakin had a bad one or something like that?

Whereas in this episode, he's like, a master is hoops, you know? So like, what do you think? Yeah. It's a little odd, right? It doesn't contradict canon or anything. It's not like he's met her before. We know that he's known this before. But given the fact that Thron tends to be a pretty inquisitive guy that he likes to acquire as much knowledge as possible and also just sort of senses things intuitively, I guess the best explanation would be that when he initially meets Anakin, they're out in the unknown regions.

he's chis, like he doesn't know how all these things work. Like, he can't just look up on the HoloNeddle or just Google the Jedi archives from where he is way out there and figure out that this guy had a Padawan who was named Asoka. And then later on, I suppose, when Thron is working with the Empire and Vader's around, I guess you could say that by that point, maybe the Jedi archives are pretty locked down that Vader's backstory has been sort of scrubs. rubbed and hidden to prevent people from digging into his past or Anakin's past. So that'd be the best explanation. But you would think that Thron has his ways of finding these things out. And you'd think he'd want to know all that he could if he's a rival of Vader, right? I just think it's interesting to get a sense of the notoriety of, like, Anakin was, you know, a well-known Jedi.

Like, there's a ton of Jedi and Padawan, and I can forgive everyone in the universe for not knowing every single Jedi Padawan relationship that has ever existed. But Anakin was such a prominent Jedi, and then Asoka having been like arrested and sort of like disgraced and tossed out and then quit, that's like a big Padawan scandal. So I feel like you don't need to have access to the Jedi archive. Like this should be a story that is out there. But he wasn't around for any of that. I think that's the thing.

Like I agree with both of you that it's, it like passes the smell test in terms of just actual adherence to canon more than it passes a smell test for like what we would expect of Thrawn is a really inquisitive person. I do agree that it seems like particularly given the Anakin and then Vader interactions and his like genuine interest in what happened to this person and how like the fall of Anakin Skywalker or something that's on his mind. I do agree that he would be inclined to find out. But I think like it's a larger version of the very very very, initial, wait, Theron and Asoka never actually interacted or had any crossover moments, like thing we had to kind of remind ourselves of with the Malacore timeline and everything with

rebels and when she exited and he appeared. I think it like... I don't mean to like pick Nitz. I just think it's a very like, it's a very unnecessary sort of own goal situation where it's like, you can have the almost the exact same exchange that he has with Morgan by saying like, well, We all know who her master was, and like him, she will be X, Y, Z. I think I agree, though. I guess my contention is if that had happened, I think people would be just complaining about the opposite thing. I think that people would say, Thrawn is not actually omniscient. Like, he doesn't actually know everything.

And so for him to be in possession of that information kind of, like, defies what we know to be true about their crossover in the timeline and, like, what information he should possess. And I think this is like part of a larger, interesting thing happening with the reintroduction of Thrawn, which is like we and our pods and our pieces here at the ringer.com, what a great website and the Ringer podcast network. What a great podcast network. As much as maybe anywhere have been so like, we can't wait for Throne because he's such a genius tactician and the way that he operates and the care that he takes and the open-mindedness he has about hearing, getting, receiving feedback and hearing other opinions.

It's like he makes a lot of mistakes still. And there's a lot of information that he doesn't know. And so I guess I'm not disagreeing that it's odd. I also was like, oh, weird, he doesn't know this? Is that true? Should he not know this? And then had to, like, go through the timeline and make sure it made sense that he didn't know it. But I think in general, the like, Thron should always win in the moment.

Which I'm not saying you're saying this, Joe, to be clear. No. Thron should always win in the moment. And Thron should always be right. And Thron should always have all the pieces. I think we have to balance his success and his precision with, like, the limitations. he faces. And because I think so much of what's interesting about his character is the way he tries to

recover. No, it's a spin. He's not, he doesn't win everything. He's a master of spin where he's like, exactly. It's hilarious that you think this is a loss when actually we've won. Yet again. Dominated this person and they just aren't going to find out until we meet a few more times. But there are times.

When I suspect that he's just saying that. Totally. Oh, totally. Got to keep up my reputation as the master tactician who's never. flummoxed or phased by anything. So whenever I lose, whatever something goes wrong, oh, it's just part of the master plan.

You don't know my next chest move. It is, even if it is spin, which I think we all agree it is that it's part of the kind of amusement and charm of interacting with his character. It is such a notable contrast to the number. Think of how often anywhere in Star Wars

we hear about patience and impatience and the rush, even in this episode, right, with Baylon and Shin. It's like such a contrast to the number of characters, including obviously Anakin, who are defined by, like, needing to act on impulse constantly in the moment and pursue something maybe, like, recklessly. And Thrawn is just, that's, like, anathema to him.

And so he has the ability in taking that extra breath and be to reposition something that no one else would even have the room to maybe try to frame that way. It's fascinating. He's like, don't be hasty. And if you're playing the Tolkien drinking game at home, that's a sip for you. There was that exchange earlier in the season when Hera did. didn't seem to know who Asoka's master was, right? Which we were kind of surprised by at the time.

That was astounding to me. More so than this, frankly. But yeah, wild. Yeah, you could see why she wouldn't have been willing to or eager to talk about her background necessarily before she just had this recent adjustment post-world between worlds. I was rewatching the moment, though, in Shroud of Darkness in the Rebels episode, when Asoka finds the Anakin training hollow. and Ezra's bunk and is watching it and then Ezra comes in

and she's just like, this was my master, Anakin Skywalker. I'm like, one thing we know about the ghost is like, nothing stays quiet for long. The walls are thin and if you weren't around to hear it in the first place, someone told you later. I just don't know why everyone in the rebellion wouldn't know that Asoka's master's

Anakin Skywalker. Anyway, thank you for... Pretending, just trying to be polite and not bringing it up. It has taken me more years of my life than I care to admit, despite ample, ample evidence in the canon and many conversations with Ben about it over the years to accept how few people know that Anakin is Vader. Like this, all of this is like, it requires a level of buy-in that is sometimes, it's sometimes difficult.

That's part of what I really like about the Front Alliance's book is Thrawn sussing it out. It's like, yeah. I think the only, they're the same person. I think the only reason why I'm like lingering on this particular knit I've decided to pick is that like it just feels like it. is a slight betrayal of curiosity of this character. It's not even just sort of like, who should know what in the galaxy? Like that's an interesting question to ask and to think about. And obviously there's going to be times when the storytellers at Lucasholm are like,

it would be better for us if you just bought in and just no one talked about this, okay? Just like agree that it's not human nature to gossip about literally everything. And let's just agree that nobody knows that Padme and Anakin were together. And nobody knows this, that, and the other thing. but like Thron, who was just like so curious, like is, is like an odd one for it. But, but I can let I agree with that. I agree with that completely. And I think especially because I'll say that Thron Alliances is my least favorite book in that trilogy.

For the volume of the Padmei plot, candidly, I think the stuff with Thron and Anakin and then Theron Invaders, like, riveting. but one of the, the thing that I really enjoy about it is that because of what Throne is sensing, because of what Vader is also sensing in turn, but also because of their respective proximity to the emperor, right? And like what the threat that the other person poses, they're allies, but they're rivals in a way that is like really intriguing. And so like, you know, you have a moment where Vader is really poking and prodding and saying like, does that bother you, Admiral? a creature you described on Adelon, it nearly defeated you because you could not understand it. I think, Joe, to your point,

Veter's specifically picking at, like, you don't have the force. There are things that I can do that you can't do and you don't understand. And so, like, wouldn't that, even more than the broad inclination, that specific tension in their dynamic, lead thrown to say, like,

well, eat shit, look what I found out about you. I got a dossier. I have a whole ad dossier. In some ways, he's, like, above that pettiness in a way that. a vaguer can, and that's part of the, I think, compelling distinction between them. But yeah, it's a, it's a very, it's a very valid point.

I guess Vader's just got his personal details locked down. He has scrubbed his credit history. No one can know anything. Yeah, it's really kept everything on lock except putting his secret son back in his family house on the statuine. No one could ever find out anything. Also, ever. Thron's been off the grid for a while.

been getting all his news via Night Sister, so he hasn't had an opportunity to Google anyone lately. So I guess there's that. But I will be curious to see if they do have some face-to-face voice-to-voice confrontation here. And if Thron, I don't know, tries to needle Asoka about what he knows about or his history, how specific he'll get. That has to happen now after this, right? It has to happen. I do wonder whether he'll refer to anything specific that happened in the primary text that we're citing here that might go over people's heads or whether it'll just be sort of broad and generic, kind of like the line in this episode about him being unpredictable and quite dangerous, right? And of course, they've got to be careful not to contradict what has happened before or else we'll be all over

them in next week's lower segment. Thank you, Ben. Pressureful note to end on. We're watching. You're the best, Ben. Thanks, bud. Thank you. Bye. Joe, we've talked a lot about what we think might happen next week.

We've made some predictions, but there's one more thing we want to hit in theory corner. This is the way. This is the way. Yeah, so, I mean, really quickly, let's just rapid fire. Name all the characters you think are to be left behind next week. You're putting your money on Just Asoka? I'm really torn. I'm like honestly like 50-50.

I think I would say if you made me for the sake of content, change that to 51-49, I'm 51, it's Asoka who stays behind. And maybe Baylon is there too, but of the like of the allies, of the quote-unquote heroes, Asoka makes the sacrifice play. Lays down on the wire,

makes the sacrifice play, so that Ezra and Sabine can go home. Okay. And 49% All of them are stuck there in Thron and his troopers and Morgan and the Knights Sisters are the only only the,

only the quote-to-quote enemies escape. I think it's Asoka, Sabine, Ezra, Shin Baylon. Unless Shin dies. Shin, Balin,

and Ezra Sabine and Asoka are all left behind. I mean, that would be great. I would feel, I mean, not for them. They'd be sad. The dynamic.

The dynamic of shin, like having to join with Ezra and Sabine and Assoca and be like angry and punky and gothy and like, you know. And I think they would, it's more like, because I guess you could say, well, why would they have to join together when like Thron and Ezra were there and they didn't join together? But Thron had the chimera. Like if you don't have like Kimer, you're probably going to have to be like, can I hang out in your Noddy pod? Yeah. Because there are a lot of bandits out here trying to kill me. Yeah. I mean, what is the culture of Peridia?

I can't wait to find out. All right. Other thing. We know that the next project cover from Lucasfilm is Skeleton Crew, and there's some like rumblings that skeleton crew, which involves Jude Law and a bunch of kiddos, loss in space, might take place in this other galaxy beyond. Are we going to get some kind of skeleton crew reference in the finale? I really hope so. Maybe it'll be a stinger. Here's the thing. I want it to happen.

We had like a 25-minute impromptu conversation earlier about why nobody could find a ship or like reach a point in space where you might be able to get a pergul. It like literally can't be like they were just like here with their ship. It has to be like maybe like the pergill jump to another place in this galaxy and we in our stinger the pergill pop out. We see they're okay. Only like a like a tentacle or two. mostly intact. And there's Jude Law and his space scarf and he looks really hot. Space scarf is so good. All right. I'm with you. I want something. Yeah.

Yeah. That would be great. Do you think we'll get a stinger? Skeleton crew or not. Do you think we'll have a stinger? I think we're going to get something like... Book Bobo Fett Season 2? No, so-and-so we'll return in Asoka Season 2.

The Nodie will return. The howler will return. Yeah. I'm just so invested in the HALA CROB. Crap soup will return in Asuka season too. They care so deeply.

Any other theories that you wanted to quickly? Rapid Fire recap your takes on, your formal position? We're good. Let's go. Okay. Still 75% original parts.

Easter eggs. You know mine. It's the ventures mention. And also, you want to talk about Zeb? I just think it's actually. actually tragic that Zeb has been relegated to Easter egg status. Like, genuinely tragic.

He is a key member of the Specters. And, like, we got to see him in Mando. And my fear at the time, I was thrilled when we saw Zeb, as you recall, but I also had this little bit like kernel of fear. What if we're getting this here to just account for where he is because he's not going to be in a second of Asoka. And I don't think either of us ever got to the point of me swearing, like, on my life that you would see Cobb Vance again by date X.

I don't think we ever got to that point, but it just felt like he would be here. And for him to just be mentioned when he's a part of their family is really, it's a bummer. It's a bummer. We need Zeb. Disappointing.

I mean, the Hera chop, first of all, we needed way more chopper. Way more chopper. And secondly, Zeb at all. Like, it's, I love, I love Carson, but, like, it's very silly that it was like Carson and not Zeb when they're both, like. Training recruits.

Yeah. love and respect for the recruits of the galaxy who need training. There's just no way that is Zeb, a whisper had reached him. Yeah, eat shit. Worse has happened to younglings in this story before. Zed always needed elsewhere. I want to shout out this very strange thing that I don't know what to make of, which is that on Baylon's wrist display thing, I think is the Arabic.

It says Luke Leahon, Chewy Ben, I think 3PO. And Ben Mayer may or not is either. Ben Solo or Ben Kenobi, probably Ben Solo. I don't know what it means. It could just be like, hey, these are some fun names from Star Wars that we put in Arabesh on his reader, or is he got like a hit list or like, what is happening? I don't know. But I am, it's either way, it's an Easter egg.

It's either an Easter egg that means something or it's an Easter egg that's like, ha ha, you spent time just coding all this Arabesh and all it was. Right. Or original trilogy names or something like that. So I don't know. So it could be, it could be a true clue and it could be Captain America. You waited all this time. So.

So you translated the watch. Gotcha. That would be great, actually. Good stuff. Joanna. It's time for our next segment. It's time for Whigwatch. TM with Joanna Robinson.

T.M. Do you wear wigs? I am smuggling once again a non-wig. mentioned in here, but this comes from one of our listeners. We've got several makeup artists responding to my discussion of them, makeup on

the likes of Hera and Thrawn and the Knight Sisters. And our, so this time for Makeup Watch TM from our listener, John T.M. And John writes, human people aren't just one color. Typically people are lighter

in the center of the face and darker on the high points of the face. When doing costume makeup and creating a new skin tone, you have to build back the natural highlight and shading that has been washed out by the single tone. Take Hera, for example. If I were the artist, I would have used four to five shades of green to give a gradient of shades and a technique called speckling to give the illusion of depth to the skin. Let's compare Hera to Gamora. Firstly, her—Gamora's shades are more complex and nuanced, due to the funky shade of green, and they also added a subtle prosthetic to her cheek to create a shadow that would be natural

of a human-alian face. With all that being said, Disney makeup artists must know this. So I'm not sure if it's intentional. I could see Fallonian crew making the choice to make the makeup look cheap to give it that 1970s sci-fi campy vibe, which whatever is not giving me life.

If it's not intentional, the lighting is doing this makeup a huge disservice or it's simply bad. So he caught me for a second with that sort of like intentionally campy vibe. Because, you know, like when you think of like the twillick in like, you know, original Star Wars, like that's just spraying them down with one color and not giving

them any sort of like subtlety. So I don't know. Did Thron look any like better to you this week after extra exposure? Were you like really bumping on it still? Were you like, yeah, this is what Thron looks like in live action now? Acclimating? Not yet. Oh, subtly defrosting. Sure. I'll give you that. I'll give you a few degrees warmer. just to see the smile in your face, just to make you happy. That made me smile. As will the segment sound for our next category. If this episode had Netflix subtitles.

This is a delight. An absolute delight. Joanna, what is your Netflix subtitle nomination for this week? Freshly singed chunks of pergill tentacle clatters into the desiccated. bone belts. Wow, a good use of desiccated. Thank you. Really good.

I also went purgle here. Majestic perfect pergul pals volunteer to swim into canonical graveyard to eat those in need only to find something crueler than actual minefields waiting as droid and pronounce Jedi seek to use magical creatures

and devoted friends as organic fin and tentacle shields. Oh, yes. I love when you give me an essay length one. That was a good one. Oh, boy. I hope the burglar are okay. Dramatic.

Last segment. You know what it is. It's the we are here to discuss our past. How many days since X? See, that's what I like about you, Mando. That big smile of yours lets you get away with anything. You set that clock. My favorite moment of the week is when we get to hear.

Like, I'm just like, I'm just like blist out on. Cobb Vance voice and then this little... I can't believe if we got to start the Zoom with Steve playing the call of the Orioles clenching the ALE East and conclude the Zoom with Cobbant into Sweet Booba the Loth Cat. Incredible. It has been 597 days. We're going to hit six-hundredage. Since we've last seen Cobbant. How about sweep up of the Lothcat?

38, Joe. More than a month. Tremendous. I would actually genuinely be thrilled if the stinger had nothing to do with like a spinoff or a future show. And it's just showing us that the loath cat is okay. Please. Love it. Please God.

All right. Well, friends, we object in the strongest terms. But that is still a wrap on today's podcast. Thank you to our force wielder, Steve Allman, for producing this episode, Arjuna Ram Gapal, for his additional production work on this episode and Jomi Adan for his work on the social for this episode. Remember, head back into the ring of the ring of you. reverse next week. Button mash on Monday, double dose of midnight boys after that. Tuesday night, Osoka finale instant reaction. Thursday night, Loki premiere instant reaction. We will be back with two house of ours next week as well. Monday, Loki season two primer pod centered on our favorite god

of mischief and then an end of week deep dive into the Osoka finale. Until then, remember, she's like you. Relax your sense of humor. All right, we are ready for the clip, I think. All right, here we go. The one-one Astoria is grounded at third. Ramona Rios from third, Baltimore, and the new champions of the American League East. Oh. I'm so sorry.

Oh, my God. I'm actually in tears right now. See, you have to wait an hour to do that. I was sitting on it. Itching to play that for us for an hour. Oh, my God. My buddy Kevin Brown on the call. That was incredible.

Steve, you are a gemstone. That was genius, you. One of the best nights of my life, guys. You're the best. You get you pumped. Ready for this four hour record. Let's go.

Two. Two. Two. All right. Real clip.