House of R - ‘Star Wars: Maul—Shadow Lord’ Check-in

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

Mal and Jo are back to break down the first two episodes of ‘Star Wars: Maul—Shadow Lord.’ They talk about their favorite moments and characters from the show so far, where we are in the timeline, and where they think the show will go from here.(00:00) Intro(05:20) Mini Maul DiveHosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna RobinsonProducer: Carlos ChiribogaStudio Production: Jacob Cornett, Chris ThomasSocial: Jomi AdeniranAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greetings and welcome to House of our. A Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcasts network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and she is here. Real role reversal to talk about her animated boyfriend. Mall! It's Joanna Robinson. Ruben! I'm not sure it sounds the same as Canobey.

In your best Kenobi voice, you tried. You tried. You tried. And Mal... A lot of his life. is about effort and the hustle and trying. Sure. So I think you'd respect it.

Yeah. We are here to talk about the two-part premiere of the newest Star Wars show, Star Wars Mall, Shadow Lord. You've got a colon in there. And the dash in there. It's all happening. And we will get to it right after this. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market.

Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce. and some very tasty limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, Market Peach, Apricot, Rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch, as is their trending mango, Yuzu, chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring.

save at Whole Foods Market. 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-screen 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. Okay, Joe, before we dive into today's mini mall celebration, a bite-sized snack. Quick one, you're packing up your life to move to a different city. I am heading to the airport in mere hours to go up to the Bay Area for rewatchables, but we love mall. So even though this is going to be a little bit briefer than our typical dalliances with Sith Lords or otherwise. We wanted to spend a couple minutes here with one of our favorite Star Wars baddies.

And we've got some other stuff coming on the feed as well because we've already recorded the next pot. We did it yesterday. It's going to run in a couple days. Look at that. We can stay with utter and complete confidence that Buffy season four part two in the camp will be in your feeds on Thursday. Get excited. I'm probably not going to be too long of a wait before we do season five. We're excited to keep going with the Buffy rewatch. That's been a blast. We will also be continuing our Chris Nolan rewatch on the journey, the path,

the days, weeks, months toward the Odyssey. And up next is Memento. So that's exciting. Will you come to the studio covered head to foot and tattoos, having decided? You know, he's not covered head to foot, but I might, you know. A thigh tap.

I might like, you know, unbuttoned the chest tat. Show me a little chest tat. Yeah. I mean, people are going to expect it now that you've said it, you know? I'll think about it. Your adoring public is going to wait with bated breath. Joanna, how can everybody follow along? Oh, what a great question.

Listen, why don't you subscribe to the pod? That's a good idea. Follow us on social. I'm just going to zoom through this. We don't have a lot of time here today. It's Dally, right? So, follow us on social. You know where to find us.

We're on Instagram, TikTok, etc. At house of our pod. I was about saying, House of our pod, our own feed. What a thrill. What a joy. Hobbes and Dragons at dml.com. We've already gotten some of your Buffy responses, some of your memento anticipation.

I want to hear your mall thoughts. I want to hear all about them. Oh, and also, if you're one of the many people who have been emailing us or commenting, like, where are the other Daredevil episodes? We never said we were doing that show week-to-week. That was never a promise we made from us, too. So, will we check back in?

Probably, hopefully, maybe. But it was never our planned to go week-to-week on that show. So, yeah. There you go. With love and respect. Love and respect to Matt Murdoch, but not to Heather. Never.

Spoiler warning for today's pod. Obviously the first two episodes of Shadow Lord, chapters one and two, The Dark Revenge and Sinister Schemes. I'm loving these episode names. They're so moody. Very good. But here's the thing.

We're also going to talk about other mall canon today. We're going to be dotting it in, some memories, celebrating just some favorite moments that we consider crucial. We're not doing a deep dive of the first. first two episodes, but we're sort of like using the premiere of this show to talk about the premise of the show and why it's interesting, why it positions Mall as a character in an interesting moment of the Star Wars timeline, but his timeline most of all, and how the framing of the story so far has pulled on some of our fondists ties to the character from either the past or future

of the timeline. So if it's happened in the Clone Wars or Rebels or Rebels or Phantom Menace or solo hashtag make solo too happen. You just spent a lot of time on that hologram? I know you didn't doubt that I'd get hashtag Make Solo 2 happen in there. And guess what? I did. It could come up today.

It's been 27 years of Darth Maul. There are so many Star Wars fan for whom Mall has always been here. I know. It's amazing. That's really cool. What a cool character. Sometimes he's been Darth Mall, Sith Lord. Sometimes he's just tried really hard to pretend.

he's a Siff Lord, and sometimes he's just mall. Sometimes he's a crime syndicate boss. Sometimes he's walking around like a metal spider on a trash planet. Sometimes he's just half a guy. Always a full guy that mall. He's the best. We are excited to just talk about why he's such a fun and interesting character and all of his many variations. So let's get to our mini mall dive. Okay, Joanna, season one of Shadow Lord, the latest not just Star Wars show, but animated Star Wars show. and a lot of the great mall canon has existed and come to us in the animated form is 10 episodes, but it's airing over five weeks.

They're doing two a week. So we got two episodes already. The finale lines up quite nicely for May the 4th. Maybe that's just a fun way to have a great Star Wars moment. Maybe it means something is happening in that finale that will be a, ooh, may the fourth be with you, big Star Wars thing on the connected cannon front, who knows? But guess what?

The question that we don't have to ask is, will the finale end by setting up the future of the story because they already renewed it. They renewed it for season two before season one even premiered, and season one is getting really good reviews. So people seem excited about the show for Star Wars animated enthusiasts

or maybe for people who are just diving into the animatedverse for the first time because they're interested in Mall or they want some good Star Wars. This is a fun little moment. So let's start kind of just in the big picture sense. Why do you love Mall as a character? And what is your relationship to his animated canon in particular?

learn to Star Wars animation as a way to explore character canon beyond what we get in the live action. Before I answer that question that you so beautifully put to me, and I will, can I just say really quickly because now you have my like theory brain going. Yeah. I've only watched the first two episodes. They sent us a bunch of screeners. I only watched the first two episodes.

Rare moment of restraint for me. But here are some of the other episode titles, right? Whispers in the Unknown, Pride and Vengeance, Inquisition, Night of the Hunted, Call to the Abilion, the creeping fear, strange allies, and the finale is just called finale, which is a really weird name for a finale of a show that's getting another season to just call it finale. So is it a finale of what? You know, like, is there a double meeting in that? I've also seen some theories. And again, I have not watched ahead. Is it a to be announced title for that episode? Possibly. Very possibly. I am willing to consider that. But it's not, it's not written that way. Because usually if that's the case, it would be like TBA, you know. So either it's like a

title that they put out there or, you know, or it's like New Avengers and it will change or who knows, whatever. Like, is there an asterisk? Chapter 10. Chapter 10, Vader's in this one, you know, like, who knows? Like, something like that. I know that that's something a lot of people are asking, like, will we see a Mal Vader fight? Because if they can, like, sneak a couple fights in for Obi-Wan and Vader, why couldn't they do it for Mall and Vader? So something to think about.

I don't know the answer. I'm just asking questions. I will be astonished if over the course of this show, whether it's in season one, I don't know, finale would be a great place, but over the course of this show, Vader will be making more than one appearance because animated Vader is like a,

I mean, obviously, Vader is a through line of Star Wars more broadly, but Follone loves to get it. They have Vader into the animated mix. They have no chill when it comes to the video. I respect it. That's where we are. Okay.

So why do we love Mall or why do I love Mall? This is a really easy answer for me because, you know, we've been talking a lot about Spike on Buffy Vampire Slayer. And Maul really just like fits into that sort of like, that larger sort of like Loki, you know, Sawyer, Spike, Jamie Lannister, sort of archetype for me. He's less on a redemption arc and they have said very clearly in the show, we are not redeeming Mall in the show. Like, that's not something we're interested in. Like, he's a baddie. He stays a baddie. Like, that's the idea.

But the thing about Mall is there's so much nuance to, you know, the shape that his evil takes. Yes. And like Spike and I think Spike and Loki especially, if his cause aligns with your cause, he's going to work with you. And it's going to be really fun and he's going to be really good at it and you're going to be really happy to have him on his side. And then he's going to be like, did you forget I was evil? Oops, I am. So, you know, that's just the fun of Mall. I think Sam Whitworth's performance is absolutely incredible to transform a character who showed up in the Phantom Menace and looked really cool, but was just kind of like, you know, with love and respect to Peter Sarah Finowitz, who did the voice for Mal and in The Phantom Menace, like, just not much there, there, but besides the really cool look and the kicky flips and stuff like that.

And so for Sam Whitwer, a huge Star Wars fan to leverage the work he had already done in, you know, video games. and animation for Star Wars to get this gig, to then just like own this character and be so good at what he does here that Maul becomes something they can't resist bringing you back again and again and again because he's so fun to watch and to listen to. And then Sam Whitworth becoming,

like already being this huge Star Wars nerd, but becoming this like, he's like, don't call me an encyclopedia, I'm a holocron. He's just like this huge font of Star Wars nerdery. So he's excellent on the conventions circuit or on a podcast or the case may be. He knows everything about Star Wars. And so for him to have like a co-creator credit on this show,

so for this character that he took over, but then like has really taken over, that's a really cool story too. And it's a story, again, I talk about a lot when we talk about Spike on Buffy of like an actor seeing an opportunity and just really giving something his all, all the juice that he has.

and becoming just an indispensable, undeniable, a compulsively watchable kind of character. And that's what Sam has done for this role, and I just, I admire him for that. I love it. I love it. He, Whitwer, Nerd King is just such a prominent part of our lives consuming stories that we love in worlds we love for so long. You know, I've still got some notes for beloved Crashdown and BSG.

It could have gone differently for him. him, but wonderful Sam performance. Aiden and being human, one of my favorites, obviously. But not just Mall, but his voice work and his performances across a number of different Star Wars animated properties, live action, video game, central to video game canon, et cetera. He's just been such an inextricable part of the Star Wars experience for fans for so long. And he's been embodying Mall for so long. You know, we're into the second decade of it.

and longer than that for the character, but just for Sam's connection to that role. And so for him to feel such a deep tie and investment and continuing to explore Mall's story and also just to your point, like to have that authorship and partnership with the creators is just a really cool thing. And we love the enthusiasm.

And when that permeates into the quality of the story, that's like always a rewarding thing if you as a fan or are invested in a character in the story. It's great. It's also my approach to this show is so different from how I would usually feel about sort of like a, it's a sequel to a prequel to a, you know what I mean? Like it's just one of those Star Wars stories. It's like really jammed in the middle of like a bunch of other stuff. And like sometimes that could bear tremendous fruit.

And then sometimes you're like, are you just doing this to do it? Or like, I feel so hemmed in by what I already know about this world or this character or something like that. but hearing Sam Whitwer talk about like the questions, the psychological, philosophical, emotional questions he has about Maul as a character and what he wants to explore with this show, it doesn't feel like we're doing it just to do it. It really feels like, you know, to go back to like Obi-Wan, like the Obi-Wan show, I just don't really feel like they had some questions

about Obi-Wan they really wanted to answer. They were just sort of like, wouldn't it be cool if Obi-Wan and Little Leia like bopped around and all this other stuff happened. And sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn't. But like I did not feel like they fundamentally had some like really cool questions and answers that they wanted to get through on that show. What about wouldn't it be cool if Obi-Wan got really sweaty, slicing sushi and the baking? Many suns.

Disgusting. That was memorable. It didn't smell great. It looked great, though. It looked great. I love the spike comp. Yeah. I think that's, I think the combination of the,

character archetype that you're identifying, which is so compelling, and the genuine, like, open set of questions for a mall in this slice of his life. Like, it is interesting. You know, one of the things that really everybody involved with the show, Whitward, the creative team, the writers, the directors have been hammering is the idea that, like, you don't need any, to do any hope. No, crap. You don't need to have read the son of death, the mirror comics, though I'd recommend them. They're great. You don't need to have seen Clone Wars or Rebels, though I'd recommend that. They're great. You can just come in cold and start here. One of the things that we obviously like to do on this podcast is talk about the connections we have

to the stories and also that provide that context for viewers who might be coming in. But it's, it doesn't, even though it is positioned in such a fascinating spot in the timeline where there are simultaneously a lot of open room to play. Like this show, we'll run through some of the timeline beats in a second here, but this show is right after, set right after Order 66. They haven't said like the exact, this is the exact date, but it basically said in 18 BBI, Order 66, 19 BBI. And basically that means that this show is going to be telling story contemporaneously

with what Bad Batch just covered. And as everyone will recall, when Bad Batch came out, one of the big talking points was like, this is actually not a stretch of the canon timeline that there's a lot of locked in definitive story. And so in general, that seems like an interest right now is to flesh out that stretch of relatively speaking open world. But for Mall, and again, we issued the spoiler warning at the top, but we will be talking not only about things that happened to Mall before, but things that happened to Mall in the future. I think that's part of what makes this really fascinating. And this is not unique at Star Wars. We know the end point.

So this is not going to be a redemption story note that you shared. How could it be? Right. I guess there could be a mini redemption and a back. Yeah, and a backslide. A redemption. We do have a redemption blip and a backside. Very human.

That would be interesting. But like, you know, we're, we know that that moment at the end of solo is coming with Crimson Dawn and the crime syndicate. We have crime syndicate canon in the past. But what we really know is coming is what happened in. Rebels, right? Malacor and being stranded on that planet for years and the state that Maul was in when he wound up with Ezra and Canaan and our beloved Rebels crew. And we know the end point, like, definitively for this character, also on Rebels. So somehow Palpatine returned. So, like, you know, they could do anything they wanted, I guess, with Maul. But, like, his death scene in Rebels

is so good that I would be quite angry. As much as I love Maul, it would be quite angry if they figured out of a way to interact. I think that you are wise as always to remind us that somehow Palpatine returned. We should never go too long without saying that out loud. But I think like they already did it with Mall, you know, but somehow Mall returned. Like this dude got cut in half. And somehow he returned. And that is like such a delight when you realize how he survived, but they did it with him already. I don't think Whitwer would want to do that because I was actually just like watching some old interviews with him this morning. And there was one of

interview he gave where he was just sort of like years ago talking about like if palpatine comes back that ruins the fairy tale of the original trilogy he's like it ruins the fairy tale and then he's like and then later he was like okay they did it that was someone else's fairy tale i guess and that's fine but it's not it's not the fairy tale that i you know he's a he's a prequel defender and i think kind of a sequel hater which it you know makes sense for the camp that he falls into and it's star wars but um yeah i don't think he would want to do is somehow Mall returned. I think he would want to do something in that he the time period he rewrites again and again is like 15 unknown years scattered across Mall's lifetime.

Where are we going to go? And he's like, here's, this is the most important place to go because in 19BBBBWI, and I love that you're like, they didn't give us a date. They gave us a year, but she's like, what's the month? What's the day? How many minutes is a thing? Well, they're doing a lot of like, like if you read the Star Wars.com preview pieces and the way that they were kind of setting up the show, they were saying, like, a few years after his old master, Darcyt's city has succeeded in launching the imperial empire. That's a quote. And a few years into the creation of the empire shortly after the conclusion of the clone wars, it's like, is it 17? Is it 16?

18 seems to be like where people have landed. Yeah, Sam has been saying about a year. That's what he's been saying. So about a year is as close as we're going to get. Yes. And so obviously, like, part of what happens in the first two episodes is that we meet yet the latest, the newest. Okay, here's another master and apprentice who survived Order 66 on the Jedi front. Biggest flop in all orders ever.

Overrated, underrated or properly rated. Order 66. Overrated. Oh, deeply overrated. So many Jedi survived. Are you kidding me? What sloppy work? Man. But like, it's a great place to set it because, so to very quickly run.

So Phantom Man has 32 BBI. So that's in the past, right? Clone Wars, when Maul comes back into the story and we realize that he has been living on this trash planet, his brother, Savajo Press, who we'll hit a couple times today quickly, reunited the episode Brothers, and to season four of Clone Wars. That's 20 BBI.

So, like, there's a lot of mall story that comes in Clone Wars that happens actually in a very concentrated period of time, which is sort of interesting to go back and, like, reflect on. It feels like it's a much longer stretch than it is because it's over many seasons and many episodes of Clone Wars.

The Lawless season five, one of my favorite episodes of Star Wars ever, 2019-ish BBI. That is the spoiler alert moment when Maul kills my beloved Sotene and is working very hard not only to cement his control of Mandelor but get revenge on Obi-Wan.

And so much of the mall story. Canobey is rooted in revenge. Revenge against Palpatine, revenge against Obi-Wan, revenge against the characters who have hurt him directly or just abandoned him to some sort of fate of being forgotten.

This is why Mall is so fun because, like, he's so smart and he's so conniving and he's so persuasive. And he's so good. And when he decides to, like, you know, convince the whole crowd of whoever it is that they want to follow him or an individual person, he doesn't always succeed on this apprentice hunt, obviously. But, like, you know, he's so convincing. He's so smart. He's so badass. And then he just gets away from him because of his, you know, his obsessive need for revenge, his temper. And so this, like, fatal flaw in this incredibly accomplice.

man is, you know, the being evil is also a flaw, I would say, but also, you know, just blinded by vengeance. Yeah. Like my vengeance, also tough to get your job, to get the work done. Yeah. And like, it's fascinating to find him in a few stretches of a story, but in this show, this is, like, going to clearly be a big thing. This is a big emphasis and how he is pitching Devin and his like, hey, come be my apprentice

recruitment. Framing is like, all right, I'm going to tell you why the empire. is bad. Fascinating, right? Again, he just despises... The worst despises palpresent, you know, makes a great point. But he's not like Team Jedi now, right? He's also like the Jedi are still a problem too, and here's why. So he is operating from a position of all of these other factions of power have either wronged me or are wrong or both. Right. I am the one who can see it clearly, but in order to pursue my ends and these thoughts of fate and destiny, which like, of course,

the chosen apprentice of palpi, Mr. Rule of Two, you're going to have a little bit of a god complex, and then it's going to really fuck you up if you've been not just like figuratively, but literally left to rot on a trash planet while you are replaced more than once. That's going to fuck with your head. And so one of the things we both really love the stretch of season seven of Clone Wars when, you know, we get the Osoka Mall duel and also like Mall is with Asoka as Order 66 is unfolding at the end of Clone Wars. It's not just the, it's what a great time everybody had.

It's not just the like, okay, we have clarified where he is at this key moment. It's the way he talks about Anakin and Palpatine's plots and what awaits and the great hands and tides of fate. And then you move into what we know awaits because we've seen it already. Before we actually saw the end of Clone Wars, we had seen rebels. And we know that when he's dying in Obi-1's arms, and that's in twin sons, the season three rebels episode where Maul and Canobie have their fateful duel and Tatooine. That's set in two BBI.

And Maul's like, you hear about the chosen one? And like that is what kind of gives him peace, even though he has lost to his greatest foe. So this story is set right after Order 66. The solo glimpse that we got, his call with his hollow call with Kira, 10 BBI, and then his rebels appearance as Twilight of the Apprentice, the season two finale,

just iconic stretch of Star Wars. If you're like, I'm interested in the Star Wars animation, it seems like a lot, what should I do? Just start with Twilight of Apprentice and then get back to us. That's 3BY. That's the Ezra apprenticeship recruitment. So that's like a really far in the future still.

There's a lot to tell us about mall and this crime set to get path, especially because what we know from the solo moment is like he's, the Crips and Dawn stretch of the story is like a dominant force in his life then. But by the time he's on Malichor in Rebels, he's a broken man he's a husk so it's got to go right and then it's got to go wrong and that's the

the mall story anything else we can learn about him what a treat i think also just like emotionally you touched on this but like emotionally to have been told that you were a chosen one of some kind you are stolen from your family when you're a child uh ain't that the way um and then groomed by palpatine and told you are, I am the one and you are number two, and we're going to change this world. And so to find yourself in 18BBY, and the world has changed the way your master always said it was, but you have been left in the dust behind. You know, and you're at the dawn of this new era, all this stuff that you worked for that you were brought up to believe that you would be a part of and you were just not a part of it.

You're on the outside. And so in that way, he has, like, you know, his feeling about the Jedi order, which has always been so sneering. But it's also like, what are you without the institution that raised you? And this is where he finds Devin, you know, like this question of like, what have you been groomed to be? What has let you down? How can you define how you go forward? If we're not exactly Sith, what are we? If we're not exactly Jedi, what are we?

and are we that together? And, like, how can I... I just think this is so fertile, such fertile territory for this particular character to confront all that he helped build and all that he is not a part of. Yes, a fantastic way to put it. I think the crime syndicate aspect of the story

is an interesting offshoot then of his relationship to the Force and to the Sith Order and to combating the Jedi, because on the one hand, I think, like, inherently, the crime syndicate stuff is, like, a little less interesting,

just as, like, a core germ of Star Wars story than you were Palpatine's apprentice, and then you were in dual the fates. Like, Maul is a part of just such a seismic aspect of the story that this other stuff feels like, oh, and the other parts of Maul's life. But when it's done well, it can be not only refreshing in its variance, right?

There are certainly going to be aspects of the story that are rooted in a force user is seeking to become a master to an apprentice. That's clear. That's the role that Devin is going to play in this story. That is something that Maul is after, the way that he is talking in these first two episodes about to Rook cast one of his,

because the Mandalorian commandos are here as well. So he's like maintaining these different aspects of his identity. That's something else we love, obviously, is like you lose a complete sense of yourself and then you're stitching it together from other parts of you. And when is that empowering and part of some sort of journey of self-actualization? And when is it something you're doing because you need to approximate the grasp of the thing you lost? And that's part of what is so interesting to me about the crime syndicate placement and positioning for mall. It's cool to be on like a new planet like Janix and be with some new characters like Lawson and see what the actual story inside of this.

season and maybe the show more broadly will be on the road from you know the path from shadow collective which we've gotten a lot of canon about already to the new era the crimson dawn has been here but the new era of crimson dawn and what will mall's role in all of that be but the thing that's like most interesting to me about it is that he is just thinking of everything including the syndicates as a way to seek revenge he talks about that constantly across these two episodes right Favorite topic. Demis, Mario, Crem, it's just a list of the fuckers who've wronged him. Who's either going to use or, yeah, exactly,

who he's either going to try to use for his ends or eliminate. And the fact that he's mixed up in this Shadow Collective in the first place sprung from Mall and Tallson, trying to gain more galactic power to challenge Palpatine. So it's this, I think it's a really smart way to tell a Star Wars story that Threats, the needle nicely of giving us a new lens for a new story while connecting to the root of what made this character a relevant part of our Star Wars experience in the first place, because for him, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, it all ties back to that place. It's not instead of, it's in addition to end a path back to always. I think it's also really the potential here for,

Devin is a character I'm not like as interested in. obviously because I don't have all this like history with her. Right. But, you know, there's potential here. But Devon has a potential stand in for, I don't know, if this is apocryphal or not, though, it has been, it has been reported, widely reported, and there claims to be sourcing with George Lucas. But like this idea that there was his whole, his whole plan for a sequel trilogy was for Maul to have an apprentice, a twilight apprentice, Darth Tallon, and that this was like a story

that George wanted to tell. And so like, this seems to be part of, among the many other things that, that, that, Dave Filoni is up to at Lucasville, part of it is sort of like reclaiming some of these George ideas and sort of like, how can we, how can we rework it slightly? So if we're not going to put it in like exactly the sequel series spot, where can we put a story of mall and, you know, and a young woman who becomes his apprentice for a time until, you know, she doesn't because we know what is in the future for mall. But like, what parallels can we build between the antichael? in Assoca relationship and this potential Mal and Devin relationship, if this does work out that

way. I don't know. Again, I have not seen past the first two episodes. So it's possible that Devin's like, no, I want to stay good. But I don't think that's what's going to happen because that would be very boring. And so, like, what potential parallels are there for him? And like, how can, you know, if he has all this resentment, and this is, this is potential rich text for the Acolyde as well, a story that we're not going to get to follow forward. But like, given how angry he is at what happened to him, but then he's using the tools of the person who stole him and groomed him to forge his path forward.

And again, he is like, tried to make this connection with Asoka's, tried to make this connection with Ezra. We've seen him thirsting for, with his brother, like seen him thirsting for another and another who will be loyal to him, who will not abandon him on a trash planet or anywhere else, but will just be unquestionably loyal to him. Will he find it in this young woman here? Or is it forever not available to him, you know, in this lifetime?

I don't know. I love Ball's ceaseless. And that is one of the fun things. This is an area where I think knowing the future is actually really enriching for the character because it's like he can't quit. He can't stop trying to center that relationship in his life. and sometimes it goes away because, you know, when he made his brother, his apprentice, Savage,

Palpatine killed him. And then basically left Mall alive to, like, torment him. That duel of Maul and Savage versus Palpatine in the same stretch of story where Maul kills Sotin, like that is just such an incredibly harrowing stretch of Mall's arc. The fact that he was weaned on the rule of two and thinks about that kind of like master-apprentice role as many Sith, but also, of course, Jedi do as this like sacred thing,

a way to submit yourself in that dynamic, a path to power, certainly. For Mall, it's always, and I think most of all in the Ezra stretch and rebels, when he is trying to woo Ezra slash Jabba to be his apprentice, does he want to Sith Holocron? Yeah, like, is there a very practical reason he's trying to do that? Yes. Is it all leading him to try to find Canobi? Yes. Does it go horribly wrong for him?

Yes. But does he also want to be chosen and worthy? Yeah. And like the way in Twilight of the Apprentice he is not only relishing in the prospect of Ezra working with him and mall leading Ezra to the dark side and being a figure whose tutelage can lead somebody to, in a very disturbing way, tap into a deeper, more fully realized sense of self. He's also like, this guy? Canaan Jaris, pause, I'm going to go blind him and just remind everybody of House Superior. You have been doing it, password, but can we just like

quickly go back and just say like, he killed Sotene? Yeah. He blinded Canaan Jaris. What else is on his resume that we want to talk about? I mean, those are pretty significant things. I think Quigon would to enter the chat. Whygon would like to be involved, perhaps. He's done a lot. There's also like the role that Crimson Dawn plays in the future in the rebellion. Like his, as you said, Crimson Don predates his control of it. But his like wrangling of Crimson Dawn, Crimson Dawn then becomes integral to the rebellion

is part of the larger sprawling story of how the Death Star plans, the second Death Star plans, make their way. So, like, his, you know, his fingerprints are consequentially all over everything. And again, there's just, like, he's done so much, Quaghan being very important,

Sotin being very important to you personally, Kada and Jarras being very, very important to Freddie Prince Jr. But, like, that... I love Janin. That there is no coming back from that. So instead, it can only just be fun to watch him.

And also, it's fun, but it's also emotionally compelling because he's so vulnerable. He's so wounded and he's so sad that, like, for me, that's just undeniably interesting to watch. Yeah. I think I obviously normally would agree that there's no coming back from that. I think in Star Wars, there's so consistently is that that's where it feels more like the fact that we just know that's not going to be the case for Mall is more clarifying than what would feel like ethically or morally. Like, Anakin is responsible for like... In his final hours. Like, on the way out.

Ben Solo? A lot of like mass murderers who get their moment in the sun. On the way out. On the way out. On the way out. On the way out. And Mall did get a very peaceful embrace at the end. So that's something.

Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity, or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zephound contains terseptide and should not be used with other terseptide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepound is safe and effective for use in

children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type two. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop, Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be or taking birth control pills.

Taking Zepbound with a sulfonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99-9-9 or visit zepbounds.lily.com.

Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity, or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zepound contains terseptide and should not be used with other or Zepotide-containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is

safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia if you're nursing pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonel urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea,

and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99-7-9 or visit Zep-Bash-Bash-Bash-Beghack. This episode is brought to you by Sweetgreen. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window? Gone before you saw it coming. You deserve a break that actually satisfies. Sweet greens new wraps have got you.

Real ingredients? Zero shortcuts. Everything you love in one hand. Think green goddess chicken. Garlic aoli. Crumbled bacon. Corn salsa. 40 grams of protein.

Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweet green wraps hit different. Order now at order. Sweetgreen.com. How is Janix working for you as a setting two episodes in? This new planet, this kind of like hope of criminal syndicate activity, mid-rim, you've got your city, you've got your surrounding jungles. You like a new planet.

Sure. No, I mean, in its way, it's very corosant-coded. You know, you've got levels and, you know, there are some chases inside of this that could take place on Corrason if you wanted them to. But, like, I, the setting. the setting of the planet is less interesting to me than the tone of the world, which is they're doing a clear, like, noir sort of storyline in that you've got this cat and mouse game between Lawson, voiced by the Incredible Wagner Mora.

Amazing. And Mall, you've got moments in these two episodes where each of them sort of like stands in regards and image of the. other and just really is like, who's that guy? Yeah. You know, what's his deal? Very like Cyril Karn looking at Cassian Andor Hollow at the beginning of Andor. So, you know, and you get it on the soundtrack.

You get this sort of like, you know, bluesy, noiry horn music for Lawson as he's sort of stalking around the streets. It's very blade runner in that sense because it's just like, you know, like the way this sort of like high-tech noir look of everything. And then just sort of the way in which they have artistically done it with like hand painting over some things and the matwork that they've done on the backgrounds just gives it a different energy than the other animated series that we've seen. And that is just like to put such an artistic stamp on something, you know, because there's been a lot of critiques over the years of Star Wars animation and its look. for a lot of people, they don't love how it looks. And I'm, I think sometimes it can look amazing.

And sometimes I'm just sort of like, this doesn't look that, you know, the way that like a Spider-Verse movie or just sort of like I'm watching art, you know? And so I think this is like not in the realm of Spider-Verse necessarily, but it's like inching in that direction where they're just like trying to take some artistic liberties

with the watercolor bleed of the background. And all of that just makes it look to me like a rain-soaked noirie story, and that's really exciting to me. I love that. It does look very wet, and not just because everybody wants to fuck mall because he's hot, you know,

though also for that reason. I love the tracking the evolution of the, and obviously we have things like visions that are definitionally distinct because animation studios are coming in to put their specific visual stamp on Star Wars, but yeah, to track the evolution, you know, even in,

side of Clone Wars and then from Clone Wars to Rebels, it's a bad batch. And this, I agree, really feels simultaneously like it gives you that, oh, we're on a new planet. Okay, could it have been this other place familiarity, but a really specific sense? And, like, I think the styling of the lightsaber so far are reflective of that. That bleed. Yeah. Yes. And, like, because you have, you know, mall's double-bladed saber. I loved getting to hear loss and say, laser sword, like fun little moments like that across these two episodes. But this is one of the most iconic things in Star Wars.

And then to give it that, you know, we've seen things that look like this a little bit across the tails, shorts, or even that really kind of like angry crackle of Kylo Renzaber. I was thinking about Kyle Lerner. Yeah. And the way that it's like the, you know, when you think about a bleeding Khyber Crystal and what that even is and what it tells you about the dark soul and the power that the character who's wielding that saber has willfully intentionally unlocked to manifest that visually in this animation with like the the paint style.

But yeah, the sense that the evil is bleeding out. It can't be contained looks so cool. And, you know, I love the kind of like Vader Rogue One-esque dark hallway entrance against the pipes in the second episode. fight as the internet as the internet is calling it, the mallway fight. No, but like his entrance in that first episode, I think that's one of like the coolest entrances, like murder cloak, saber out, you know, dismounting of the spaceship. I saw some like visual comps around the internet of like comparing it to like Obi-1 on Mr. afar.

And in the way that it is like a face on sort of like descending of the stairs, like I can see the comp. To me, and I went back and we watched it, this is like so Kylo and the Force Awakens coded for me, and that's just like another all-timer entrance of a character. And so I was like, this is what he deserves this. He's worthy of this.

This is just like a really sick entrance and I deserve it and Sam Whitworth deserves it. I really agree. You both deserve it. You do. Do you think the fact that everybody involved in the show keeps invoking heat is how we're going to finally get CR, Chris Ryan himself to watch some Star Wars animation.

You think? I don't know. You think we can do it? I just, I love Heat, obviously. And I get it. I would just like to say this dynamic existed before Heat, and He didn't invent it. It might have codified it for a certain generation. But like, I was talking to, I was actually talking to Van and Rob about this the other day

because, like, I was talking about the Scarlet Pimpernel, which is like one of my favorite stories set during the French Revolution. But that is like a cat and mouse sort of. you know, to opposing forces and circling each other sort of story and, you know,

there's plenty of versions before that, like, but yeah, I get why heat is invoked. Like, it matters to a lot of people. Another,

another sort of, like, ancient kind of tale that we're really dealing with here is we're dealing with this sort of, like, Shakespearean archetype of the, like, wounded bastard who's been, who feels overlooked and abandoned.

If you want to talk about, like, much ado or Lear or whatever, like, this is a character that shows up again and again. In Shakespeare, I've just sort of like, I'm not the chosen one. I have been cast out and abandoned and overlooked, and I think I deserve better. I am better than the chosen one over there.

So, like, why did this happen to me? And how can I plot and plan and break everything down to have my vengeance? And so I just love that, yeah, sure, we're dealing with heat. Yes. We're also dealing with Shakespeare. We're dealing with a lot of things. The bard is always welcome. Will Sierra watch this not in a million years?

It's not. Nothing will ever induce him. Yeah, it's not going to happen. He's missing out. On the cat-mouse front, anything else about Lawson or that character set that you want to hit? So Wagner Moore is so exciting to me because I, you know, I love him in general, but honestly, it wasn't Narcos. The thing that he did that really, really got me was Puss and Boots, the Last Wish, where he played The Wolf slash Death. And it is genuinely one of the best animation voice performances I've ever experienced in my entire life.

It was scary. It was so good. And so I was really excited to see that he was in the voice cast here. But Richard Iowade is like one of my favorite guys of all time. He's already voiced a droid in Mandalorian. But he is built to voice droids. And so I'm excited for him because I know he's a Star Wars fan. So I hope that he enjoyed doing this.

I just think he's so funny. He's one of the driest people alive. This is just kind of how he talks all the time. And so to get paid by Lucasholm to do it, great. I love that for him. But on a personal level, Richard Ayawade. I'm just like, this is for the Anglophiles who love him.

So here he is. My favorite droid in the show so far through the two-part mayor is spy bot. You're right. He's elite and iconic and hysterical. And the way that he talks shit to everybody that he's trying to best as he hacks into the systems. It's hysterical. But of course, the best moment was when he sort of, like,

floated over to Mall who scratched him on the head like he was greeting his pet. I just can't wait for more SpyBot. Delightful. But I do like too much quite a bit as well. The design on SpyBot, which is like one light that looks like and then the other eye looks like it's squinting. And then his, like, a disc was like a jaunty little hat.

And then he's just like so much attitude. I'm a huge fan of SpyBot. And he does that, he does the, uh, uh, just the nedgery from Jurassic Park, uh-uh, uh-uh, which like, if SpyBot's a fan of Jurassic Park, he's cool with me. Oh, man. Jurassic Park and a wig watch on a droid. I mean, extremely joke.

My shit. Yeah, great stuff. I am really enjoying the Two Boots energy as well. And I love just like, I'm interested so far in how quickly through these two episodes, we've gotten to glimpse a lot of key Lawson dynamics. So, like, Lawson and Two Boots as partners, you had the little moment, like, two boots bringing over the calf. And Lawson's like, obviously guzzling caffeine couldn't be us, right?

And Two Boots is doing this just because it's part of the ritual. He's a droid. He's not drinking the coffee, but it's part of what they share. But we see already the seeds of a disagreement between them. Because Two Boots, more than once in this episode, is like, shouldn't we call in the empire? And Lawson's like, hit pause on that. When Lawson is talking to the chief, he's like, we don't need to bring the empire into this yet. So he seems, and this is great shorthand for us, to be suspicious of the empire, to be anti-impaired,

to not want the empire on Janix. And that, of course, warms us to him immediately. Yes. And there's also just like ways in which he is working outside the system of the institution that he belongs to, right? And so, like, again, when it comes to a potential, we're not so different, you and I, a conversation between Lawson and Mall, like these are some great early breadcrumbs or something like that.

Yes. Also some complicated family dynamics for Lawson. So that's another parallel. He has a son, Riley, who seems to be playing space lacrosse. They have said that this is called Bodekin. Can't wait to learn more. We get the uniform. We get the ball, et cetera.

But their moment is just like Lawson basically showing up, apologizing for not being around, promising to be around more soon and take some time and then immediately failing to go back to work. And this family photo, which is very... Ezra coded this photo that is like following a character around in a Star Wars animated story. Lawson has it on his desk. Riley's looking at it. The mob's not there, so we have more to learn there.

And then there are vibes with Rina Soule, this other crime figure. And the fact that we get not only the vibes between Rina and Lawson, like the allusion to whatever their shared past is and something that has transpired between them, she is going to be connected not only to him on some personal level, it seems, but also, has, he goes to her, he's like, what's the shadow collective? Have you heard of it? Um, he doesn't have you heard of it lad on the shadow collective? But literally, he's like, have you heard of it? I haven't. Can you fill me in a little bit here? And she's got intel. So we got to see a lot, actually, about like who is in Lawson's life and, and what that looks like

as he attempts to find this person who's on an ISB must alert list. Uh, the photo is, that, that photo also struck me as just like very noir quoted as well. Like, um, yeah. So So, Rina Sewell, as voiced by the icon Pamela Adlon, her daughter, Gideon Adlon, is the voice of Devin. So this is like, I love when Star Wars does this where they're like, get your mom in. Like, it'll be great. Gideon is really interesting because I, she was in this movie Blockers, which I love. And I thought she was so good in that. And I have just wanted more for her.

And I've been waiting for her to like really burst on the scene. not saying that like voicing a character where you don't get to see the actress's face is really going to do it. But like I'm excited to see her in the mix because there's like ways in which Devin like both was and wasn't super interesting to me in these first two episodes. So I'm just like excited to see where this goes because this is an actress that I really like. And so there's potential here. But like you have to start her from a place of like, no, you're evil, you know, sort of thing. And then and then we'll see where we go from there. So let's talk about the Apprentice search and Devin for another minute or two here.

We have Docky and Devin, and they're separated. Use his full government name. It's Docky because I think I think Ikudio Docki is a lot. Though having Dennis Haysburn at Star Wars is a thrill. This is a real treat. And that was one where instantly, like he said half a word. And I was like, is that to say? Yeah.

Oh, my God. So that was fun. I texted you when Charlie Bushnell, who was Israeli, who was in Percy Jackson, I was like, I know those weird muddy consonants anywhere. I know this voice, yeah. It's a great, it's really a great cast. And, you know, Chris Demontopoulos, we were just referencing one of his most iconic performances in Silicon Valley with this guy fucks. So here he is again, like, just really doing it.

Vario's been a riot so far. I liked when he was like turn around to Deimos just so that he could look into his eyes as he killed him. That was some dark shit. That was really fun. The search for The Apprentice. Mall can, he's not just like, okay, I've stumbled upon you, and this seems promising. It is, we are introduced to Docy and Devin. We see that they are not, like, totally in alignment, right?

She's like, we got to eat, bro. Yeah, she's like, I'm going to steal some fruit. And he's like, we can rely on the kindness of strangers. She gets taken into custody. She's like, I've read Street Carnade Desire. It doesn't turn out well for Blanche, actually. So I'm not going to do that. Exactly. Moll was talking to Brooke, like, the one I seek is here. I see them, the clearer, the closer I get. Something else. Our actions serve a greater purpose. Events are falling into place. She is a Jedi. I shall fashion her into a weapon which can help us destroy all those who have betrayed me, including Darth Sidious. You didn't need to say it. We knew, but it was helpful that he said it. So he feels this like magnetic, galactic pull to her and to hot power. Yeah.

She recognizes him. This is fascinating. When he opens her, because she's like a cross in the cell across from Vario, when he looks in and opens that door, she's like, Mall. Yeah. She's like hot. The legend of Mall and the pool of Mall.

Do you think Mall, like in the stranger in the Ackleite, do you think Mall will take a bath? Or can you do that with robot legs? I'm not sure. But like emerge from a pool, you know, just to do. his apprentice? It's entirely possible. I, you know, the, the, the backscar appreciation stretch of acolyte felt very specific to our

experience with Manny, but, you know, we, we love to admire a ball. He hates a shirt. He does. He loves a murder cloak, but he hates a shirt. And part of the reason he loves a murder cloak is because it helps to conceal his identity. And part of it is because it's just a real quick path to the open chest. It really is. You got to respect it.

this you know the the is this character of Devon going to be the Darth Tallinn apprentice figure from elsewhere in the legends and this idea of calling her a weapon right

for fashion her into a weapon like a towel like this is my talon this is my claw that I will use to sort of like scratch at the emperor of the empire thinking about like these great names like mall and Savage and stuff like that. I'm excited.

Devin cannot stay. Devin is like, is, I think, a very bad Star Wars name. And I would like an upgrade for this young woman. Devin? Do you want it to be Darth Tallin?

Yeah, I do want it to be talent. I think talent is better than Devin. I, I'm excited to see where the Devin stuff goes. And I think like, I agree with what you said earlier. It seems unlikely to me that she,

that the way this. story goes is that she's like, actually I have, that it stays where it starts. Because, you know, we get this great line from mall, which is part of the recruitment pitch to Devin, but is also sort of like the mission statement for not only why you do a mall show, but why Philonia co are so interested in continuing to explore more mall in the first place. You're operating under the premise that I'm somehow the villain here, but it is not as simple as good and evil. Evel. The way that Sam said, evil, I couldn't even hope with a thousand tries to get. get even close to how he, how much sauce he put on evil. It was wonderful. So he's like,

I can show you a pathway to the power that the Jedi didn't teach you, but he's also like, I'm not exactly who or what you think I am. And part of the way he frames that is, everyone's bad on all sides, right? So the idea that Devin starts by saying, I have this assumption of you and ends there seems very flat and stagnant and unlikely. And especially because not only are we meeting her and Docky on the run, but she is still with her former master moving away from the old and into the new and making that such an active choice. Yeah, she's on the run and in a perilous circumstance,

but she does have somebody, the closest somebody. And if the way this goes is that she has to choose mall over Docky, that would be really interesting. And Dea, Dea, Do you know, Do you go. That would be devastating. Or maybe he's not going to make it. And then in that even more desperate straight, that's when she goes to mall. I mean, who knows?

But then, like, the question is how if they do end up as master and apprentice, how long does that last? Or is this another just, does the failure for mall come immediately or eventually is the question, right? Like, does he fail to actually win Devin to his cause? Or I think he's got to win her. I think he's got a winner. And then loser. And then someone, Vader, who knows, kills her. So it's going to be more of the Mall Savage mold there, where he made his brother,

his apprentice, and then Palpatine killed his brother, and that was pretty rough. And that's interesting. So, you know, he's lost Savage and Mother Talzin. His brother, his mother really recently in the canon. So he's like in, even for Mall, a very raw and wounded place where he has kind of like reconnected to the actual family that he was. stolen away from and then lost them too. There's as Lanias, right, indoctrinated since you were a child.

And it's just sort of like he's just talking about himself, which is, you know. We love a villain who projects. I mean, I'm not rooting for like a young woman character to show up, be lord to the dark side, and then die to motivate a male character for his ongoing vengeance. That's not my fave, obviously. But like, I mean, is she going to like be lured to the dark side and then make a different choice and turn a different direction? Maybe.

I don't know. That could be maybe a little bit more interesting. I would like to go back on my she's going to die. I never root for that. Who knows how many seasons she'll be around for? She can die later. Changing my bed. She can make a different choice later.

Is there anything else about either Mall's history as an apprentice with Palpatine and then a discarded apprentice or his pursuit of his own apprentice, Savage, Ezra, etc., savage in the past, Ezra in the future, that you want to note here in terms of how we should be thinking about Mall and Devon or have we covered it all? I just think, you know, it's always. seduction with him. And, um,

again, with love and respect to like, Iko Diodaki, like, who's, you know, really are going to say it all every time. I admire it.

I mean, that's a great Star Wars name. Devin sucks as a Star Wars name. So I'm going to respect the, uh, the effort. But if, if,

uh, if Iko Diodaki is just sort of like croting around with a bit of pipe that is definitely also a lightsaber, you know what I mean? Like that's, that's not, and then you're like, the other alternative is this hot,

bare-chested, horny guy. Yeah. Also croning around with a pipe, but in a different way, am I right? I wouldn't say he's croning, but he's dragging around

some serious pipe. And that's, uh, oh, God. Great stuff. How does it work down there? Cybernetic,

I guess. Metal. Yeah. Yeah. So like, it gets some stuff done. Yeah. Is it like,

like articulated? What did his mom do for him down there? You know? It's a great question. When Mother Talzin used her final burst of power before eventually being killed by Grievous to say, I'm going to restore your body and also your mind, did she think about his dick and what he'd be able to do with him? I'd like to think, you know, as good mother should. I'd like to think that she gave him like a significant piece of pipe that can move. She wanted her son to have a rich in full life, you know? So there's that. And to get revenge on Palpatine,

not sure if that's come up before. If she didn't. And he's like smooth like a Kendall down there, then like that might explain some of his ongoing frustrations in life as well. I mean, he's gone through a few different bottom halves over the years. So he's not like bound to one forever.

He switches it up. You think he ever goes back to the spider likes just for fun? I seem like a blast. You know, I'm like to spice things up on a certain night. He's like, should you go full spider? Why on, baby? Yeah. You know?

The syndicate. Is there any way the social breakup from this episode is not us talking about Mal's cybernetic? It is created by his mother? It seems unlikely. Okay, cool. Do you think that's what he meant when in two sons he said to Obi-one, tell me, is it the chosen one? My day?

about his cybernetic dick. Yeah. Could be. He will avenge us, but he meets his cybernetic dick. Oh, God.

Mall and Mandelor. We've covered it a little bit in terms of, you know, Rook is the character on the other commandos

who are here, his history with Obi-1, Satine. Darksaber. We love the Dark Sabre now and always. I do, as you know. I really, I still kind of can't get over how that all went in Mando.

Not over that yet. That's a, that's a deeply painful and dramatic thing for me to reflect on. Dark Saber and animation has been consistently great. The Shadow Collective, which Lawson is trying to learn about, and we're getting some kind of helpful refresher exposition for people who are familiar with the Canada inside of these two episodes. But I think one of the things that's just worth highlighting almost more conceptually is that, as collective indicates,

it is a collection of different factions. So you have Maul with his Knight Brothers, right? And we see, like, Icarus and some other Knight Brothers are in the cast here as well. Scorn. Yeah. Great name. Again.

Savage, Mall, scorn, talent. You're making the observation on the name front. It's real, it's making me think of Kevin, really? Kevin Lannister. Like, really? Tywin. Devon. Yeah.

Kevin Devon. It's a great note. But the Death Watch alliance and things go badly between Moll and Previs Luz. They tend to go badly between either of those two characters and any other character. The Night Ows, the Super Commandos, Black Sun, Pike,

the Huts, Crimson Dawn, eventually joining the Fold. The way that he now has still like strands of that, So does everybody who enters the story know the legend and lore and impact of the shadow collective? No, but are malls, Mandalorian commandos still with him? Yes. Are the Knight Brothers still there? Yes.

Is he hunting down syndicate factions who have wronged him? Yes. Are the pikes already back in the story? Yes. Is Crimson Dawn a part of the mall story across the years? Yes. So like the idea of, okay, the one kind of holy, the ultimate, the paragon, the ideal, the thing that he's chasing is the, the apprentice, let me surround myself with like half a dozen other groups who will say I've chosen

to follow you until I can get that other thing is such an interesting manifestation of Mall's kind of desperate need to be picked to be chosen. Yeah, a real pick-me energy for Mall. And like, I think that his ability to sort of like whip up, you know, the Mandalorians, you know, and their revolution and all this sort of stuff like that is like, he can command armies, forces. During the Clone Wars, a shadow collective emerged, uniting much of the underworld.

Imagine getting Black Sun, the Pikes and the Mandalorian Death Watch to work together without killing one another. Someone did. Someone is mall. Like, he has this incredible ability, but it's not enough. He needs that sort of like one-on-one connection,

you, me, you die for me. Like, that's it. Because he's been alone. And he will be alone again, you know? So it's, you know, when you're raised from a small child, brainwashed by the emperor, turns out it's not a great mentally healthy place to be. It's tough. Also, it's like it doesn't, it's never sustainable.

It's this kind of like amazing testament to his capacity. I am the person who could unite all those factions and then a reminder. I think it's like, it's not subtle, but it is fitting that one of the, the Knight brothers who's in the story near him here is Icarus. Like, Maul is just always flying too close to the sun, and his wings are melting, and then he falls. Or he gets cut in half and falls. So, like, are all of those factions meant to be aligned? There's a reason that he has to read through in this premiere here, the list of characters who have betrayed him. There's a certain aspect of it where it's like, you allow that many people to be in a position to betray you. As the empire has risen, we have all been made to suffer. Even the once mighty Jedi have fallen.

but there are many who have prospered from my misfortune, the Pikes, Crimson, Dawn, Vario. Soon they will all pay, starting with Demas. He thought he could take what was mine. You bring people close. You make an arrangement. We learn about a truce in this episode. And then, like, you get to the point where those guys are sitting at the table

basically eating, like, chicken parm, it looked like. And they're like, it was probably mall, huh? Delicious. Intergalactic chicken parm. Oh, man. I don't want to know what those chickens look like. And the way in which his vengeance on the crime syndicate once again aligns him with Lawson who wants to clean the crime syndicate out of the city. So, like, you know, in what ways can they work together and, you know.

But I love how Lawson is this character who's like a laser sword. I know. Who's that? What's a Jedi? Like, okay, how sheltered is this, you know, gum shoe here? So. Yeah, that is one of the things I'm interested in about Janix as a place in Lawson as a figure. like how distinct is he from the other people?

Because like, Rina and what she knows is that like just because she's in that world and has access information? Are we supposed to be gleaning from that that like this information hasn't reached this place because it is outside of the flow of events that have like defined the stretch of history or is Lawson a little bit like, oh, I'm a little like out of the loop out of the mix? What's been going exactly? We know we can tell from the way he. talks about the empire, that he knows enough about what the empire has quickly meant to be

very wary. So, yeah, I'm interested to see how he kind of receives and processes what he learns over time and what that does. He's like, guys, I don't follow the news. I was a little too busy being a bad dad and probably fucking around with Rita and a number of other sources. What's going on? I know Two Boots brings me all of the coffees. Yeah. But I still have to take the time to drink them. You know? Yeah, he does. He's a busy guy. He is. Anything else? Also, that, like, mustache moment in itself, you know what I mean? It's great. How thrilled were they to be able to just slap on Academy Award nominee? Delighted. In the weeks leading up and the months leading up to this premiere, great stuff. Anything we haven't hit, Joe, about these first two episodes,

about Maul's history, about the kind of, like, core dynamics. You know, we have Maul and his followers, Maul and his family, Maul and his nemesis, Maul in the idea of the master and apprentice as these kind of core framings that have defined the canon that we've already received and that is yet to come in the future,

but we have also already received. It feels like we know a lot about how this guy thinks and operates and the mistakes he tends to make and the desires that drive him, but also a lot to learn about what he's going to do in these years. The way that Sam talks about it is he's like,

The mall we meet in Clone Wars is not the mall we meet in rebels, is not the mall. You know, like, these are very different iterations in his view. And that, you know, and it's true, like when he's abandoned on this planet or this planet, like, you know, and his horns grow unruly and stuff like that. Like, we're in a different territory. But like, the question that he likes to bring up in interviews when he's asked sort of like, what are you most interested in exploring? He's like, I have questions like, why if he's so angry at the emperor, did Maul never reveal his identity to the Jedi? He's like, he could have called them up. He could have gotten into a space phone booth and called up the Jedi.

I've been like, it's Palpatine. Bye. And he never, ever did. So why did he never narque on Palpatine, the man who was responsible for the death of his mother and his brother and all these other, you know, and like abandon him and humiliated? him and all his other stuff like that. He knows and he could tell anyone and he did it. So why? And so like is that a, is that a loyalty question? Is that like we're going to learn so much more about like what it means to be loyal? Like you could be resentful, but you have to stay loyal or, or, you know, what's the answer to that? I don't know. But that's a very interesting question.

And I love that about Sam that he's just sort of like, here's an inconsistency seemingly to me. So how can we make, we can tighten, like, make this more watertight in terms of, like, who the psychological profile of this character. So this decision seems incongruous with his other attitude. So how can we make it feel true? Yeah. That's exciting. I love that he's thinking about it that way. And I'm eager to learn more about the answer to, like, I feel like there are kind of, I feel like it's likely there are a number of reasons, all of which feel like they are true to the spirit of Mal.

on the one hand, I think that's why the really clear emphasis in these two episodes of like, I am after Sidious, fuck the empire, but also the Jedi, not super sorry that they're gone. And let me tell you, Devin, why that was never where you should have been in the first place. And why you don't understand your power because you were indoctrinated by these losers, mallsworths, not mine. I don't think he wants the Jedi to win and to be victorious. there's that, but it's also like he needs to be the one to win. It's, some of it is like probably about how he thinks about the Jedi.

And some of it is about how he thinks about himself. Like one of the little aspects of the two-part premiere that I really enjoyed that we haven't talked about yet actually was like, I love that because Devin is their prisoner. And she says that. And he's like, I'm going to make this a test, but also an opportunity. If you think you're my prisoner, that's disappointing because you can travel. in your own minds, don't mean. If you want to leave,

go, tap into your power. And like, it's so, it's, the story beats and the particulars are different, but it was so reminiscent to me of how he tried to corrupt and woo Ezra by allowing, by guiding Ezra to a place that's suited mall, but doing it in a way that was like,

made Ezra think, because it was actually happening, I am gaining a deeper understanding of my own ability. Where is that understanding leading me? If I stick with mall, not to a good place. But I can show you things. I can show you things those squares will never show you. Exactly. Including this triangular Sip hologron. Let's go. And I won't wear a shirt while I'm doing it. Think about it. No notes. Just an offer. No notes. We have eight episodes left in season one, four weeks

are no promises on when we'll be checking back in but I think our hope is to check in around

the finale we'll see we'll see how the season unfolds and we'll see if you know

maybe we can have a chat with someone involved spy bot you're getting spy bot

into the studio bring spy bot on house of R what do you think spy bot would say on House of R would he just

immediately break all of the equipment and take over Carlos's computer What if we could get both SpyBot and Rocky in the studio at the same time for you? Talk about a crossover event.

My God. Stay tuned to find out. All right. We will be back in a couple days for Buffy, season four, part two. Correct. And then we will be back next week to continue our Christopher Nolan rewatch. Memento is the plan. After that, we'll see.

Keep the emails coming. Let us know what you're thinking. of Mall Shadow Lord, thank you to you, Joanna, the biggest mall animated mall fan in the world. I didn't even tell you, I wore my animated Obi-Wan shirt because, you know, it's worth observing here at the end, I guess, that your great animated love and my great animated love are sworn rivals. What do you think that's the double day would be like? My real great animated love is the Fox Robin Hood, so let's not get it twisted. Of course.

That's established canon. That's just a fact. But Mall is your sidepiece. Yeah, yeah. You don't commit to Mall. No, no. No, that's real, I really thought you were about to, like, quote Shorzy on me. No, no.

You don't date sluts, you just take them down. In case anyone has not seen Shorsi and is horrified. That's a quote. Women talking about men, and it's a quote. Just FYI. Okay, thank you. Thank you to Mall. Our muse, now and always.

Can't wait to see what he gets up to. in the next few weeks. Thank you to Carlos Chiroboga, Scott Lee, Jacob Cornett, C.T. Or Junoamga Powell, and Jomi Adeneron. The whole crew today, that's our shadow collective. Yeah, amazing.

We will see you in a couple days for Buffy Season 4, Part 2. Bye. You can't reason with the sun. Trust us. We've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's Omni-Shade Technology is engineered to protect you from the sun.

harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your summer at Columbia.com to spend more time outside and less time slathering on allotion. You're welcome. Columbia, engineered for whatever. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava theater stage on April 30th. the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th,

and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at yamava Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. UN must be 21 to enter.