House of R - The 'Mandalorian' Season 3, Episode 6 Deep Dive

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

It's time to pass along the Darksaber and to pass along this pod to you! Mal and Jo are back to give you their deep dive into the latest episode of 'The Mandalorian' (04:44). Later, Ben Lindbergh joins the pod to talk 'Star Wars' politics and the constant changing of regimes in the galaxy (01:48:30). Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Guest: Ben Lindbergh Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You won't even take the dark super from him. Enough Mandalorian blood has been spilled by your own hands. Mandalarians are stronger together. And welcome into the Ringerverse, here on the Ringer podcast network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you, not only to Plazier 15, but also to join us on the Ringer's nexus podcast feed, for all things fandom,

joining me today to ask, could I perhaps hold the baby, please? It's my house of our co-host. Joanna Robinson. Mallory Rubin, it has been 420, 20 days since we have seen Cobb Banff, but I'm ready to take a little sip-sip of some secretions and talk about an episode of the Mandalorian with you.

I'm getting officially concerned about Cobb Watch. We've only got two weeks left. I'm troubled. Grim. We are here, of course, to dive deep into the sixth episode of the Mandalorian's third season, but before we start kicking droids.

That's only Joe. I would never, Steve would never. I'm getting canceled out of this podcast. Some quick programming reminders. The Midnight Boys. Pee-Pew! We'll have their instant reaction to the seventh episode,

the pen ultimate episode of this season of the Mandalorian. Next Wednesday, we will, of course, be back next Friday with our Chapter 23 Deep dive.

We will also be with you on Fridays on our sister feed, the Prestige TV podcast, breaking down yellow jackets. Buzz, buzz, baby. Joanna Robinson, how can the fine folks

listening to this right now follow all of that? Oh, my God. Grab yourself a fish martini and go ahead and subscribe to both the ringerverse and present. Just like one to while you're at it.

Why not? Follow us on social at Reggerverse. All over any social media place you like, but let me just say the video content from the Regerverse has been popping lately. So you might want to check all of that out. Shout out to Joe Me for all his fine work there. And email us, of course, please, hobbits and dragons at gmail.com. We got more emails about this episode than we have about literally anything else,

including apples and mushrooms. So, who! Oh, boy. Final programming reminder, final note at the top of the pod, it's the same one as always. It's the friendly neighborhood spoiler warning, folks.

Today's podcast will feature plot details. From the Mandalorian chapter 22, guns for hire, all of the Mandalorian to date, and all of Star Wars to date. If it's happened in Star Wars, it's on the table today. So if you don't know why Din hates

battle droids, please proceed with caution. Okay, Joe. Yeah. Guns for hire, directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, who has previously directed Chapter 4, Sanctuary, Chapter 11, The Aris, the Book of Boba Fett, Chapter 5, Return of the Mandalorian, and here now, Chapter 22, Guns for Hire, written by Johnny Favs, checking in at 45 minutes. Let's start, as we always do, with a brief, amuse-bush. An opening snapshot.

Joanna Robinson, quick overall impressions of Chapter 22 guns for hire. I mean, we had high expectations because it's a Bryce episode, and you already rattled off her other episodes. And we, we wind up, like, with love and respect to the heiress, but we wind up referencing Sanctuary, her season one episode of the Mandalorian, and Return of the Mandalorian, the Book of Obavet episode. again and again and again. So Bryce is just like to us top tier, you know, Star Wars TV director.

So expectations were high. I came out of the episode actively disliking it. I have sat with it for a little while, though, and it stresses me out to dislike things entirely. So I was just sort of like considering. And I found some things that I did like. Honestly, there are things that I quite like about this episode. there's just like one incredible sin also contained in this episode that we're going to talk about. I will say if you haven't had a chance to yet listen to the Midnight Boys please this week,

they were absolutely on fire. And the hate flowing through them helped me sort of exorc as some of my hate. It was actually very therapeutic for me. Well, through half of them. It was an encapsulation of the divide in the fandom. Two Midnight Boys liked the episode, two did not. And this is shaping up to be the most divisive episode of The Mandalorian. in the run of the show.

Mel, what are your overall impressions? I do not know that I can give, despite the assignment of opening snapshot, a succinct answer to this. I think it is. I know that'll shock you to hear. Hey, Joanna, if you need a body part of a friend, what body part would eat?

Well, I can't comment. I would just not need a friend. That's a reference to our yellow jackets coverage. I recommend it. Oh, boy. I think that this episode is the season in miniature. It's the season in microcosm. There's a lot in the episode that I had fun with and enjoyed.

There's some stuff in this episode, even inside of the parts that I enjoyed, that just don't quite track and have the tightness and logic that we would expect out of a show that operates typically at this caliber. And I think we can, rather than say, well, spoil our take just, just say it so that we can set the anticipation for the conversation to come. The sin that you're referencing, I have to assume, is the Dark Saper scene, which I was severely disappointed by, like supremely disappointed by. So I had a lot of fun in the episode until that point, some quibbles and nitpicks and, you know, thinking face emoji questions about the stuff that was happening even in the fun stretch. I think that the, like, return to

a cameo-leaden, adventure of the week, side quests we have to take care of before we can do the thing that we're actually supposed to do. Like, doesn't, not only doesn't bother me, but actually felt in some ways a little bit refreshing, like a returning to the season one root and core identity of the show amid the kind of jumbled run of season three to this point. But the Dark Sabres stuff at the end was just really difficult to shake. And I think also, like, you couldn't have,

if we're saying that's a return to the season one form, well, you definitely can't have something like the Darksepar. or stretch in season one. And I think that's why this feels like a microcosm of the season to date, because it is a season at war with itself over what is trying to do and what it wants to be. And I don't think that it is, like, out of the question, frankly, I will not be surprised at all if next week in the finale are great and really well executed and we hope they are. And we hope they are.

And I believe it, I'm expecting them to be still. And, you know, if season four is a banger, I also won't be surprised. but the mix of pace and tone and character balance. And then I think inside of that, most of all, the understanding of character motivations and character arcs is just not at the level we expect coming off of season two, which was neat and tidy and hummed like the N1. You know, I thought season three would be the N1 in full motion

hitting that button every week. And instead, it's the N1 and Pelley's hangar base still. You know, we're still putting it together and figuring out which parts the Jawa have. Yeah, exactly. I was going to say. The Jaws have a stripped-in of some parts. But I do think, like, the fan base seems to be either I loved or I hated it,

and I feel like I have, like, both of those. I really like some of it, and I'm really troubled by some of the responses. I'm not in either or a camp right now either. Again, because, like, we'll talk about all of it. But I, so you sort of teed us up this idea, like, this is the most divisive episode Mandeloran history. I agreed with you that this sort of side quest or adventure of the week or whatever feels like a return to form. Like I was like, oh, this is like an old school season one episode of the Mandalorian, like sanctuary.

Like there's a side, there's a mission in that, which is like protect this village, you know, all this sort of stuff. And so I was surprised by so many people saying all over the place on Twitter, in emails, blah, blah, saying it felt like an episode of Star Trek or it felt like an episode of Doctor Who. that all over the place from people. And I don't disagree. It feels like an away mission on a Star Trek episode, an Away Mission sort of thing. But it also feels like Season 1 of Mandalorian. Like it doesn't feel like that distinct from other episodes of the Mandalorian.

It is just that like trying to have your cake and eat it too of like doing this sort of like fun light away mission thing and then have this big climactic moment of this long multi-es episode arc of the Dark Saber. There's some structural stuff I wanted to talk about really quick before we get into the episode based on two different emails we got. The first one we got was from Darren, who wrote in about this idea of like, of, we play this like guessing game all the time. We've talked about this a lot, the season of like Grogu and Din reuniting, if that had been part of this season rather than shoved into the book of Boba Fett, like would that have made this season feel like it had made more sense? And one element that Darren brought up that I hadn't been considering was that this interview that Kathy Kennedy gave to Empire Magazine where she's when Rangers the New Republic got canceled, she said some of Rangers the New Republic will figure into future episodes, I'm sure, of the Mandalorian. And so we can look at some of the plot lines this season and maybe see some of the trace remnants of what Rangers the New Republic would have been about, which is perhaps like some of the cloning, pershing, all of that sort of stuff, like where we're in Corrassant. And then also the fact that the season is trying to set up Asoka and possibly also set up skeleton crew puts us in, you know, what I like to think of as like Avengers Age of Ultron territory. That's that's the Marvel installment that I always think of when I think of a movie that's trying to do way too much in terms of setting up other installments or tying up loose ends on other installments.

And what strikes me is really ironic about all of this. Because obviously, like, Star Wars TV starts, we have the Mandalorian, and they're like, we have a hit, and we can like build and build and build off the back of this hit. And it is the kind of franchising that everyone is trying to do because everyone's trying to chase the MCU model, right? But what is like deeply ironic to me is that John Favro quit being a director for Marvel Studios because in Iron Man 2, he was so upset about all the franchise building that he had to do within his own movie. So the fact that he has sort of done this to himself, put himself in a position where he has to like spend some of his story time franchise building. I think that's fascinating to me. Any thoughts on this now? Yeah.

Boy, I think also if we try to like return to the headspace of Mando's season one, it was just such a vibrant and fresh surprise. And obviously a lot of that was the true lightning in a bottle. magic in real time baby Yoda experience, which can never be replicated. Just seeing him for the first time and falling in love with him for the first time. Just incredible. But the style of the show, even though it connected to many great Star Wars traditions, the Spaghetti Western, et cetera, felt so utterly specific to the thing it was trying to be. And while you know, I love a connected universe and get in Star Wars, in particular,

And I would say in the philoneyverse inside of Star Wars, most of all tend to really enjoy the crossovers and the cameos and the connected world building. It is, I think, in some ways, you're undeniably right at odds with the initial vision and formula that worked so well. And so, again, like to that, like, adventure of the week away mission nature of this episode, I would be content if the Mandalorian was that every single week. And I also would be very excited if the Mandalorian kept working on this larger Mandelore plot. and incorporating Dark Saber lore and bringing in characters like Bo and the Armour and building and building and connecting, it has to figure out how to do those two things in tandem if it remains interested in both. And it absolutely has to figure out how to not completely lose the central relationship and the characters who are at the heart of them. I thought that this episode put Din back at the four in a way that I enjoyed and had missed.

And I liked seeing the kind of buddy cop were in a CSI episode act that he and Din were, excuse me, that Din and Bo were, enjoying together. Of course I miss Grogo. But the backslide that Din was experiencing inside of that, like behaviorally, I just thought it was fucking weird. And it connects to some of the stuff

we talked about in prior episodes about the armor and bow and how they're getting to the point we want them to be. Plot-wise, the outcome, you buy and you understand, and it's in many cases where we were excited to see the season go.

It's not like we're lamenting that Bo ends up with the dark. Starzaber at the end of this episode. That's not it at all. But how they're getting to those points, it's just like a little flat and jumbled and chaotic. And so, yeah, like, if the Boba episodes had been here or there were fewer moments inside of this season that needed to set up other shows, would it be smoother? I think, inarguably, but this is what Star Wars is now. So how do they avoid? And I think, like, one of the things that the guys talked about on their Wednesday pie this week that was, I thought, really, really astute was this question of, like, the flagship and the way we think of the Mandalorian and the hype that we, we put toward it, like, really genuinely evolved in real time. We'll talk about this more in the context of specific developments inside of this episode as we get into our deep dive.

But, and I think you've made some excellent points in the last couple episodes on this front, too, but this question of, like, what Din wants and what is driving him and what his purpose is and what Grogu wants. and what is driving in and what his purpose is. If you maintain that as your North Star, I think you can then have the balance around it that works quite well and is actually really interesting and compelling and something we're delighted to enjoy eight weeks at a time and then a really sad when it's over and don't want to wait two more years to get back again.

But absent that, like season two, I think, is a close to perfect season of TV. And if you go back and rewatch it, you get to the first episode and we love Cobb Vamp. This is a Cobvant podcast. But still, you might have a moment where you're like, I waited a really long time for season two of the Mandalorian, and this first episode is about most Pelga and a crate dragon.

Yeah. That was part of the fucking brilliance of it, and it worked. And you couldn't quite believe that it worked, and the fact that it did was the magic of it, right? So how do they recapture that? Like, it's that through line of Din had his mission, right? Trying to find Grogu the teacher. And the moments at the beginning of this season,

Grogu wants to learn to be a Mandalorian. Din wants to teach Grogu. Din has gone from trying to find him a teacher to become one. I thought we're amazing. We haven't gotten something like that in a couple weeks. We need those moments here. I think you bring up a really interesting point on the timing front because you said, like, do we want to wait another two years for eight episodes?

And this is where our second email here comes into play, and I'm just going to zip through it really quickly. But like one of our listeners, Aaron writes in about, you know, if the old school model of television is dead. And I was just talking to Chris Ryan about this on the watch, this idea of like the 22 episode season where you get like a couple months off and you're back in. And when you're in a 22 episode season, you can spend episodes doing whatever. And as long as you're hanging with the characters and it makes sense, like that's great. And the example I always bring up is Trisha Tanaka is dead from Lost where the gang gets a VW bus going. And it's one of the greatest episodes. But like, is it consequential to the larger story?

Not necessarily. And you can't do those as easily in an 8 to 10 episode season, but I still think there's room to do it. I think the reason a lot of people are bumping on this Bryce, you know, more lighthearted departure here is that we're in an end run of a season of television that people are finding very bumpy and they're looking for cohesion and confidence in a strong close. I'm not saying this is a, I think if this had been episode three, people would be way less strong. about, you know, going to Pleasure and, like, having, you know, these cameos show up. And then it's that time period between seasons. We've waited so long to be with Din and Grogo again, which is why people are bumping up against Din and Grogu.

We got, I'm not going to read any of them. We got 11 billion emails being like, why was this season not called the Book of Boatatan? And it doesn't bother me that Bo is, like, at the four. But it bothers me that they're not able to balance, as you were saying, like, more Din and Grogu with putting bow at the fore of the show, we've waited so long to see them not only reunited but interacting and growing their relationship and not even in this episode to be getting any of that.

So it's a timing sort of nature of an 8 to 10 episode season that we only get one of every couple years as Star Wars rolls out its TV plan. So that's all. Cessa. Joe, we have a lot to get to. Yeah. We both have like,

fevers. Neither of us are feeling well. Steve is also ill. Who knows what'll happen from here. But it is time to bathe in the living waters. It is time to dive deep. Some week I'll remember that that's how that sound cue is. Neither will I. It is not this day. It's not this day. This day, we cackle. We have to start where the episode starts. Romeo and Julieta make it wet. Bad baby.

The opening sequence about the Quarin and Mon Calamari Forbidden Love, the Watercross Lovers, it ultimately serves to give us the Axeled Mandalorian Sellsword crew reveal, but let's just spend a minute or two on our fishy friends first. I need to ask you if you think Bryce Dallas Howard is obsessed with squids because the quaren are also prominently featured in the heiress, sanctuary, the krill.

It's more of like a shrimp crustacean. But what do you think is going on here? She's the lady in the water. She's the titular lady in the water from one of M. M. M.ichimel's finest films. Yeah. I also, she told me the other day that shape of water where someone fucks the fish is her favorite

movie. No, I don't speak to Bryce Ellis Howard. I wish. I actually really liked this sequence. The people who really didn't like this episode include this part as something that they don't like. I enjoyed it. I think Bryce is really good at this stuff.

I felt like immediately connected to these, you know, these characters we'll probably never see again. Spin off. Spinoff. The yearning tenderal kiss moment. I was so happy for you. Thank you.

President of the yearning tendrils fan club from The Last of Us Pod. in case anyone doesn't know what we're talking about. You got some yearning tentacles here. Yeah, the earning tentacles. It is interesting in Star Wars, in the Mandalorian, specifically, to know how much credit to give an individual director since, like, Fava writes the episodes, and then is this sort of like overarching executive producer slash quasi-director of the episodes as well.

So it's unclear how much individual choice the directors have, but there's something that Bryce does in every one of her episodes, so I can only give her credit for this. which is distinctive world building and just like stylistic flair. And so I don't know whose idea it was to put like the captain's chair in a tank in this. But like everything on the deck of that ship just looked amazing. And I really liked it. And Axe, who we talked about last week, by the way. Like we were just like, let's talk about Axe and Costco.

Like what a little dirt bag. And I just loved him here too. I thought he was great. If you were a quarian captain and your captain's chair were submerged in something, what would that something be? Well, you know I'm like an ocean fan. So, well, I don't think you just want to be in tequila. I feel like that's a bad idea. You want tequila.

LaCroi? Yeah, but if you love something, you don't want to be submerged in it 24-7. Mallory, what would you be submerged in? Cold brew. I don't want to be around you. I don't want to be around you, man. If you're just constantly hooked up to the cold brew tank. I don't know how the fish martini would mix with the cold brew.

That's the only problem. Yeah. Well, you'd have to do an espresso fish martini is what you would have to do. Yeah, I would do ocean water. And my hair would always have that sea salt crunchiness to it. I'd love that. When Axe shows up, Joe, he's in an Imperial light cruiser. Yeah.

he is just going full golden company. You know, full, never broken a contract. Our word is gold. And there's an interesting aspect to this because the eventual reveal of the Mon Calamari Prince, who is a part of this forbidden romance with the Quarin Captain, if we think back to season one, Dean was offered by Grave Cargo, of course, the bounty for Amon Calamari.

vice roy's kid he didn't take it because this was when he chose to follow his heart and to fight for grogou and so the contrast whether or not it is the same moncalamari prince it's literally years ago how long is this kid been on the run it was years ago and that was like for for a bail violation and this is just for forbidden love so maybe it's a maybe it's a different prince i mean we do have a lot of moncala history with the the civil strife between the quaren and the the mon calamari if anyone If you're interested in learning more, we would direct you to the really fun season four Clone Wars opening arc, which has a few episodes that take place underwater in the Civil War, where the coroner, of course, on the side of ill. And the Montal and Mari are on the side of good. There's some great animated Anakin Skywalker bubble helmet action in that stretch. But Axe, he's not guided by his heart, just by the mighty credit, by the mighty dollar, Joe. So is cost. When the prince is like, I thought all Mandalorians were honorable, Costco says, we are, kid.

All it takes is a few credits. So we have this contrast between this crew and between Dinn, even though, of course, that was where we met Dinn initially, collecting bounties one mission at a time across the galaxy. Did that strike you as a notable, a notable parallel and then distinction between our character sets? Or do Dyn's bounty days just feel so long ago? Literally only because you put it in the Nodont.

where I was like, oh, Mallory Rubin, making connections. What I will say is that the connection I made is that anytime someone calls someone kid, you know, you're like in Han Solo territory. And so like you're in like kind of lovable dirtbag territory, right? And so it's just like, yeah, right? No one says kid unless they're sort of like a rogue. And like I don't, I don't, obviously I don't love what Axe and Costco are doing here. But like they don't seem shitty about it, right?

they're kind of like Ax saves the shittiness for the showdown with Bo later and he's like I'm fond of command racism later. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The crew, of course,

this is the group that left Bo. Bo's former followers, we heard in the season three premiere, Bo said to Dinn when I returned without the Dark Sabre, my forces melted away. This is what they're doing. Though we should recall

that Axe had left Boe previously, he was not, unlike Costco in the season two finale and Joanna Robinson, he's made his, grand return, and we still don't know why he was not in the season two finale. The mystery carries on. A scheduling conflict for the actor. But like, so they, and the fleet that they have are the imperial stolen fleet.

Yes. The imperial stolen fleet that, you know, they took at the end of season two. So, um, yes. Yeah. Well, I have a note about that fleet and the way that it is presented to us in this episode, which gets us to our next scene, really, because we're heading to a new planet. We love a new planet in an episode of the Mandalorian. We go now to Plazaier 15.

This is where Axe and Co. are posted and Bo needs to make the recruitment pitch. This was the mission of the task from the armor at the end of last episode. This planet, we learn, is not on the new Republic registry. Independent planet has hired these Mandalorian privateers for protection. The outer rim's only remaining direct democracy. That's not exactly the way that the PA voice says it. But that's how I'm going to say it. Should have been.

You know? Should have been. Kind of looks like Earth as we're approaching it from afar. And then the ship gets into the atmosphere. And we see that there are these domed cities. It makes us think, of course, of Sundari. It makes us think of the domed cities of Mandelor. But instead of being surrounded by these desolate, uninhabitable deserts,

looks like pretty lush and nice all over this planet. And it looks pretty neat inside. Did this remind you or recall anything other than the domes recalling Mandelor? Anything in particular? Um, no. The domes definitely made me think of Vandalor. Um, what I will shout out is that, um, Plezier, uh, is pleasure in French. And so every time they said like, pleasure 15, I was just like, that was honestly a highlight of the episode for me is Jack Black's pronunciation of pleasure every time. Let's combine that with Otto High Towers. Pleasant. And also,

our mashup. The French from Yellow Jackets this week, it was a different vibe entirely. Yeah. It's a really different mind. I'm trying to have a good time at a party. Yeah.

It reminded me a little bit of Zalfu, metal clan base from Legend of Cora. Oh, I love that. You're like, oh, how cool, how fun, how neat. This seems like the best place to be. And then boom, shit is not as it seems. Tough times await. to get back to the fleet.

They're approaching, they see it. And I think that this conversation is emblematic of what is puzzling, again, even inside of this kind of fun stretch of the episode, puzzling about the episode and puzzling about the season overall, exchanges like this, where we have a conversation about the fleet at all,

basically just to remind us that these characters stole the ships together. More than one of them, right? There's the mission on Trask in season two, episode three, the heiress. And of course, there's the Gideon light cruiser sequence in the season two finale. And yet, Dinh Jarin, who was in both of those episodes and on both of those ships and new bow wanted them, does not seem to remember that that happened or know what these ships are.

He says about them after asking, oh, I thought they looked familiar, could come in real handy taking back Mandelor, isn't that literally why they are there to recruit per the armorer last week to get these characters, this group of Mandalorians, to get these ships, to get this fleet? Like, why is this presented here as an epiphany for Din? This was the point of them going to this place. See, like, when moments like this happen as they do, sometimes the Mandalorian, I sometimes try to comfort myself with the idea that, like, Dyn is just like a delightful hymbo and, like, doesn't think too deeply or his memory doesn't stretch too far.

But then stuff happens at the end of this episode where... Well, something happens at the end of the episode where I'm, like, supposed to believe that he's quite clever. So those two things don't mix for me. It doesn't make... It doesn't make... It just felt like one of those season three premiere lines where it's like that exists just to remind us of what's going on. And what's missing is, like, at the end of last week's episode,

Well, also, did they not speak at all between leaving the armor and coming here? Or if they did, could we have seen that scene? Like, you know, the highlight or one of the many highlights in this episode is seeing Din and Bow work together, that like sort of buddy hop dynamic that you were talking about. Like, that's great when we're not, like, kicking droids. It's great stuff. I would love to see them hanging out on the ship together. What was the ride over like?

Like that's, yeah, no, we are loyal to Cobbant. But, like, that's a great opportunity for, like, we want these characters connecting. You know what I mean? We want a lot of plot. We want action. We want delights and whatever. We want these characters connecting. And so, like, just stating the overt purpose of the mission is not bringing me deeper into their interior selves and their interior lives, you know?

Right. We are being brought deeper into the hyperloop, however, because. they can't land, they can't go to the fleet yet. They are, the ship is basically hacked. The gauntlet is hacked. Control taken over.

They are docked. A Westworld moment. Yeah. This is a Westworld moment, never getting a self-driving car. If you're in the Mandalorian or in Westworld, don't do it. It's a good note.

Before they can get into the self-driving hyperloop, they have to have a brief exchange with a couple imperial droids. We get a few ominous notes pretty early. in this episode. And we learned that this is because of the Accords, the Corrasonic Accords, which will keep,

have been popping up and are going to pop up a couple times in this episode. We're actually going to have our buddy Ben Limburg on for his lore look later in this episode to talk about the accords, to talk about the separatist mentioned,

to talk about some of the aspects of the current political fabric in the universe. One of the real ominous things in this stretch I thought was them needing to scan their chain codes because that is imperial like 101. Proof who you are. We know where you are.

We're tracking you. And it also, of course, makes us think back just inside on the Mandalorian to Hunting Grogu at the beginning of the series. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to say, it's like a lot of bounty.

Bounty level stuff. Oh, bounty level stuff. Well, so in terms of visuals, when we go into like this banquet hall, right? This lush, again, world-building incredible Cammeo Hall. Visual delights. Yeah.

That, something about the way certain shots were set up reminded me of like Vader and Cloud City like, you know, entering the room with Vader and Cloud City in the banquet hall there.

But, um, absolutely. Jack Black and Lizzo being in this episode. Tell us who, tell us who the cameos are, Joe. Who are these characters you need here? Okay.

Jack Black is Captain Bommadier and Lizzo is the Duchess. I love this, I love these names for both of them. I think they're, phenomenal 10 of 10, no notes. My literally only complaint is that we got the Duchess in a Bocahattan episode, and it had nothing to do with the Duchess Soutine.

In a flashback to Sotene and Obi-1 fucking sad. Carry on. Secretions. So I just want to say, canonically now, in the Mandalorian universe, the musical fiddler on the roof exists because as you're walking in there is like mumble mumble mumble mumble and then you hear Jack Black go

do I love you like blah blah which is a song from Fiddler on the roof and I was like he's singing Fiddler and they just let Jack Black do that which is just sort of like I guess you just let Jack Black do whatever he wants but I love that Tevia made it Tevia and Golden made it into the Mandalorian but yeah these are these are

either delightful cameos or distracting cameos depending your mileage may vary on how you enjoy this episode. What I will say is that it is the most... Actually, I don't even know if we should call it. These are the guest stars. Maniloreen has guest stars, not like really cameos. But they've always said a ton of comedic actors and other people on the show in the past,

but oftentimes they're voicing critters, they're voicing droids, they're stormtroopers, you know, like, blah, blah. Like, we're not looking at them. But it's like, here it is, it's not even characters. It's just Jack Black and Lizzo. That's who's here, right? There's not a person watching the episode who doesn't shout,

holy shit. Is that Jack Black and Lizzo the second the camera appears to them? And we didn't know they were in the season. Like Christopher Lloyd, who was also in this episode, we knew he was in the season. But this was, these were both secrets. And so if it delighted you, that's great. If it distracted you, that's a hot bummer.

But I think it's like, to me, if it were me and I, I were John Favreau or and or Bryce Dallas Howard, I would have sprinkled some of this wealth across the season and not put three very recognizable pop culture figures in one episode. Do you know what I mean? And but I will say like despite all the little, like, and of course, you know, the Mandalorian, Star Wars shows are so popular at this point that it becomes a thing that like people want to do, right?

You want you. Yeah, absolutely. If you're like pals with John Favro or even meet him at a party and like, and you're Lizzo and you've dressed up as baby Yoda for. for Halloween, which she had. You're like, hey, man, put me in your show. And it reminds me, of course, of the evolution of cameos on Game of Thrones where, you know, D.B. Weiss, who was like a big music fan, would, like, put musical acts and sort of, like,

gently integrate them into the show. And then Ed Sheeran shows up, but it's just Ed Sheareran. And that this felt like the Ed Shearin. Yeah. And I wasn't, I didn't like hate the Ed Shearing cameo, but it's very different from, you know, when some members of Cole player in an earlier. episode of Game of Thrones. It's just a very different vibe. And so this is like, you know, it's an edge share, the shirification of the Mandalorian, Lizzo and Jack Black.

From one bantha in the room to another, to quote Jack Black. I will be referring to them as Jack Black and Lizzo throughout the rest of the podcast, even though their characters have established names. We get the very quick download on who they are and what their dynamic is and what exactly is going on here on this planet. He's an ex-imperial officer. who went through the new Republic amnesty program. There it is again and helped rebuild this city, this place, where he and Lizzo, a Duchess of the ruling family, fell in love. Now, their elected monarchs in their direct democracy.

Kooos adorably in response to their declaration of love and little nose boops. And it just really made me feel yet again that he is excited for Daddy Din to find love. So he should reach out to Kapan, don't you think? Cobb, are you out of the back to take it? It's been a couple years, I think. The Duchess then channels the client's spirit from season one with some, I think, truly genuinely relatable content. If I were an incredibly famous person who appeared in the episode of an episode of the Mandalorian, this would also be the one line that I would want to have. I mean, this just feels like, hey, Lizzo, do you want to come and like hold Baby Yoda?

And I was just sort of like, you know what? For her service to the culture, I'm not mad about it. I'm like, let Lizzo do this. It's great. Absolutely. Steve, can we please hear this moment and the callback that it references? Could I perhaps hold the baby, please? He doesn't take kindly to strangers.

I would like to see the baby. Oh, it is asleep. We all will be. quiet. Still one of my favorite moments in the history of the show. I miss you so much, Werner. I would like to see the baby.

Just iconic. I would also like to credit the Duchess, in addition for channeling the desire that we would all have, for recognizing one of Dinn's ongoing failures as a parental figure, which is giving Grogu the sustenance that a growing force-wielder needs. Temps Grogo with the fish, a little fishy.

And Joanna, it works. Our guy loves a snack, and he needs more food. Force flips right into her. arms. Okay. Canotically in this episode, we find out that Grogo was a cat. Let's just all agree that that happens because later that just scratches his head and he's petting his head and he's purring. So, sorry Grogo was a dog people. But we both have cats. Would you not agree that like our cats would probably eat any treat that went in front of their face? That doesn't mean they need all the treats. I don't like this, uh, these aspersions that you keep throwing at din that he is

underfeeding Grogu. I think instead Grogu is just a food-motivated critter. We will never agree on this matter. He is a food-motivated baby. However, it is also true

that he would not have risked ending Frog Ladies' line if Ginn had fucking given him dinner. That's all. I don't know if that's true. Like, didn't he just like down a full mug of bone broth and then eat a frog.

Like he got fed and then he ate. He's like to be raw. I mean, not in any other way. Riggily. Yes. Okay. Okay. Here's our compromise.

I don't want my he's like Gallum quote taken out of context and used in any way other than that. It is only about Grobu liking raw wriggly. Steve, I've already, I've already clipped this for my own personal. Dens juicy. I will concede. Let's just compromise and say Dennis feeding him the wrong food. Mm-hmm.

And that needs more sashimi on the menu. Got it. As Groger's snacks and cuddles, we learn that this place has moved into, quote, a new age, holding these elections for the first time. Do you think there's any way that this is here to set up the prospect of Mandelor elections in the future or no? Am I reaching? Four parallels. I feel like once you get that fucking sword.

I don't know. Won't they realize at some point the error of their ways? What a stupid tradition? and no. No. Maybe. Okay. All right. Have we not established that the Mandalorians are like, to quote, one of our listeners, too dumb to live?

Still one of the best emails. We've ever gotten. Absolutely iconic. We learned that they had to hire Axis crew for protection because the charter forbids them from having a military, quote, because of my husband's imperial past, interesting glimpse into how the New Republic is truly welcoming these amnesty program citizens

back into the fold. They claim that this has allowed them to devote all of the resources to the people that we see later where that has really led. And this gets us to the mission, the quest, the trade-off. They will let Bow and Dyn speak to the privateers if Bo and Dinn deal with this droid,

quote, coordinated malfunction as they are deeming it, which the privateers can't because the charter, even though they have been hired for protection, forbids a standing army from entering the city, and thus they can't perform the function that it seems they were hired to fulfill. Slight plot gymnastics to get us where we need to be, but alas, here we are. You don't think they were hired to, like, play badminton out on the outskirts of the city.

I did love that, honestly. That was delightful. The battle droids we learned, Joe, have been reprogrammed for peace. It, of course, makes us think of our guy, Kweil, how he reprogrammed IG-11 from being a hunter-droid to a nurse droid. It makes us think of IG-11. Still waiting for our characters to think of IG-11 again. I know Steve is with me. Steve and Mallet, gather around the fire. As this episode unfolds, I will just let you know that I've been radicalized to your cause. The way that the droids are treated in this episode is absolutely fucking appalling. It's horrible. I'm with you.

Droid writes. I was wrong. You were right. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Hey, Steve, because Joe is clipping me saying Grogu's like, Ghalm. Can you just clip her saying, I was wrong. You were right so that I can use it in any context.

droid rights. This is a tough episode for the sentience, for the organics. It is. It is. So Gogo's a cat. Gorg is a cat. Joe believes in droid rights.

It's all happening. It's all happening. These droids are former imperial droids. We will learn from Hellgate, former separatist droids in some case, who should be scrapped. The droids themselves are quite worried about this. They want to have this chance.

It's beautiful. No weapons in the city, Joe. but you're not in, they still Thrac. Peace in the valley. No guns in the valley? Din and Bo can carry theirs because they're Mandalorians. This pluralistic society

protects anything that is intrinsic to one's culture. And this, again, I think, is like an incredibly interesting idea that could have been a really compelling episode if they had mined that theme and that text a little bit more instead of just using it as a plot device.

It feels like there's a lot of meat on the bone in this episode and not just for Grogo to hopefully gnaw on for a more nourishing. Plot. Maybe I just keep mentioning food because I'm also hungry. I guess that's possible.

Definitely dinner's these times. Dinner's these o'clock. Joe. Yeah. Do you understand the offer that they make here? Which is... No.

We hear from acts that you wanted to rule Mandelor. That's why you guys parted ways. So if you help, we'll formally recognize Mandelaus is a sovereign system and petition the new republic to recognize it as such. Why would that matter, given that, first of all, the New Republic not keeping up on their emails, texts, and DMs or slacks. Establish Kahneman at this point. They do not care about non-member planets, which Pleasure 15 is not. And why would that recognition be relevant before?

the character in question has a path to reclaiming it. I feel like we should ask Ben this in our politics segment that we're going to do later. I feel like Ben might be able to help us answer this question. Din doesn't need any more explanation than that, Joe. He literally says you had me at battle droids. Jerry McGuire is also canonical. It's Fiddler on the roof and Jerry McGuire canonical in the Mandalorian universe. Jerry McGuire is canon in every universe.

That means it's time to crunch tape. It's time to crunch tape with Doc Brown because Christopher Lloyd is also in this episode of The Mandalorian. Hellgate. Again, I would have sprinkled it out is what I would have done. But sure, we're all here.

The gang's all here. We got it here. The gates of hell are opening because Hellgate is here. Great name. Yeah, shout out Six of Crows. If you're a Six of Crows fan, I hope you enjoyed the name of Hellgate.

They give Hellgate prison and one of the best prison heist that was ever put to page. Yes, Christopher Lloyd is here. And on the, this felt like a Star Trek episode front, he is wearing such a Starfleet uniform in this sequence. So I'm sure that that helped people feel like they were an episode of Star Trek. But yeah. Yeah, and then we get to look at, I mean, it's like America's Funniest Home Videos,

but with killer droids. I genuinely loved this. I thought this was great. I could have watched this for 20 minutes. I'm serious. They should have done more. Did you have a favorite one? Mine was absolutely the chef droid slaughtering all of the patrons at that dining establishment.

Okay. So mine was wonderful. Mine was the personal shopper droid because like, fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck someone who walks around with a personal shopper droid to carry your bags. And that brings us to like the very much like, again, eat the rich point of this episode because, you know, Bo cuts off this like, you know, hilarious habachi situation by being like, stop it. And at first I thought she meant the tape, but what she meant is like, shut it down.

Shut down the droids, right? Right next to Chekhov's big glowing red button of this shuts them all down with one press of this button, right? And he says they can't because he says, if we shut the droids, if we shut down the droids, our citizens wouldn't know how to survive because they don't do anything, right? Like, okay. Yeah. What the fuck? Why is that a defensible position? to take in anything.

Like, first of all, on the droid rides front, these droids are not just like, you know, IG 11 at least had a job. These are slaves. Like these slave labor on plazaer 15 runs on the back of slave droids. And so the fact that like nobody wants to get a job, so we're going to keep these killer droids around. What the fuck are we talking about here?

Get a job, Plezier 15. That's what I have to say. I mean, they're busy enjoying lush meals and maybe being murdered by the droids who are preparing them. You know, who would want to give that up even for a moment? We do, I think, have to question the veracity of anything that Hellgate says, because later in the episode when he threatens to push the button, he says that it'll turn all the droids back in to war machines. So, like, you know, he's got an agenda of his own. But based on everything we see in the society, I mean, in that first banquet scene, in the Cloud City comp that you mentioned,

the floating creature in the tank, they're just all drinking its secretions out of straws. So, Pleasure 15, I have some notes. Not my personal pleasure. They've got full, full days, full calendars. Why do you think Hellgate points them on the path to ultimately thwarting him? Do you have an explanation for this?

Does he just think they won't solve it? Yeah, if this were an Agatha Christie novel, this is something the murderer would do, like, confident in his ability to have covered his tracks. Little did he know that Dindjarn would use the old kick a droid until it fights back maneuver and lead them down the path. But yeah, it seems a way to deflect, you know, suspicion off of yourself is like help them a little bit. Right. Well, speaking of helping a little bit, it's time to go visit our Ognot pals down in the, and I quote, lower levels. We go to basically an

Ugnot work camp, again, deeply troubling, given the Ugnot history in the empire and the galaxy. This was terrible. I just can't believe that this episode ends with like

Jack Black and Lizzo comfortably ensconced in their like pleasure banquet and a revolution has not occurred between droids. Like, what are we watching here? Everyone just wants to drink secretions and night baby girls. you know?

I mean, it doesn't sound so bad. It doesn't sound so bad. Something does sound bad, though, and it is the return of Dindjaran's droid racism, and we just have to talk about it. This is full. Danny kind of forgot about the Ironfleet territory. Dind Jarn kind of forgot that he learned to love and trust droids. Steve, can we please hear this clip on the way down to the Ugnaut basement?

See what happens when you rely on droids? Are you taking this personally? Just pointing it out. Let's just finish this so we can be on our way. Deeply upsetting. But, you know, I know I'm not telling you anything you don't know. There's a distinction between, like, you know, begrudgingly accepting some of the various droids and confronting literal battle droids, you know, who were directly responsible for

the most traumatic memory of his life, right? That is true. And if it were simply, if the venom were reserved for the B-Wry, wants for the B-2s, we have those flashbacks in season one of the B-2 bearing down on him in the hatch after annihilating his family. It's upsetting when he goes in to the resistor and to the droid bar later. He's just like, here are the different ways I will torture you until you give me what you want. And those are not super battle droids.

This is the other issue. It's like, I'm just like, Dinger and I love you. I'm always rooting for you. But why are you a racist cop in this episode? Like what are we talking about? about the baffling decisions to me and baffling morality of this episode. Yeah.

And I think what's interesting, like, you know, I wish instead we were watching a more enlightened den, and I wish instead he were using, like, the various things he'd learn along the ways, as he does to deal with the eggnots, to solve this case, because, like, I don't mean to, like, fanfic this episode, but, like, isn't a more interesting version of this,

Again, we agree we like a buddy cop dynamic sort of thing. We are, it wouldn't it be a nice parallel to episode two where Dan is just like hapless and useless and then Bo comes in and is hypercompetent? Wouldn't it be great to show the things that Bo is incompetent, which we do with this like Agnot exchange? And Dan rises to the occasion because he has had this adventure and learned something about the Agnots in season one. And so he knows how to do this. I would have loved to have seen him just hypercompetent through. throughout the episode and Bo have a moment where she's like, oh, Dinn knows a lot. Like, look how we, you know, again, look how we compliment each other.

But like, you know, again, it didn't bother me to see Dinn in Backfoot in Episode 2 and Bo Ascendant. Like, that was fine. But, like, I think it would be just like a really interesting flip if the opposite had had happened here. Yeah. Yeah. I liked in a way that they volleyed from who was handling it right in a given scene.

who kind of needed the assist. But you're definitely right that like it just feels kind of incongruous within there. And I think especially the season that starts with Din talking about like the droid he trusts. It's just all, it's just all very strange. But that Ugnaut lesson is present in a way that feels compelling and rewarding. And we always love to think about Quill. So that was nice. Bo botches this, like you said, the initial approach, kind of inadvertently insulting.

the Ugnaut craftsmanship, their skilled labor. And Dinn has to invoke not only the I have spoken and show what he had learned from Quill over the years, but the respect of the labor, of the craftsmanship, of the work ethic, which allows them to, you know, quite literally come to the table where both kind of like steps in it again,

and then Dinn has to recover again. And what I loved about this in this scene, this was a moment I enjoyed, is on the one hand, you see how they function really well as a team, how they complement each other. right? But on the other hand, you can see the groundwork being laid for resentment bubbling because the look on Beau's face and then the debrief right after the scene, Bo literally says, what was that?

Like, there's this subtext and also then this active text of like, A, I don't need you to rescue me, but B, why are you going off script? Why aren't you letting me lead? And then actively says later, you did it your way. Let's do it my way now. And I like those moments between them. where we see them thrive and heighten each other's skills and where we see how that could really go horribly wrong, especially in the context here with everything with Dinn, with Bo and the Dark Saber and the Mandalrians, like the way that Dinn is able to win people's affection and trust very easily and the defining thing for Bo's character has been losing trust, losing loyalty, losing followers, like to see that come so easily to Dyn would be infuriating, even if you liked

the guy. And even if you you enjoyed working with him and getting to know him and wanting to be partners, you would feel of venom inside of you watching that. Yes, that's interesting. But I just don't, I don't agree with that characterization of DIN throughout. Din has been extremely awkward, is awkward all the time with people. I would not say that Dinn is like a how to win friends and influence people kind of guy. Like in this specific instance, he picks up, he picked up a lesson from an Ugnot friend that he made hard one friendship and applies it here. But over and over, Again, we've seen Did be just like deeply awkward and uncomfortable and like spectrum, honestly. I think at first he is, but then he's able to get to the point where he and a character like Mayfeld,

who is literally tasked with leaving him in prison on a New Republic vessel can find this like forged bonds together. Reef Cargo tries to kill him and now they're best friends. Yeah, but all of those are multi-episode or multi-season relation. Like, it takes just, I'm just saying it takes in a little while to pre in the oven. He pulls a gun on. And Omera's kid when she's trying to bring him food. And Omera's like, will you stay and may I bed you? Well, that's because she's pretty sure he's hot underneath that helmet.

You know what I mean? But I think for the most part, DIN takes like it takes a well. And that's why those connections are so rewarding with grief, with Miggs and whatever. It's just sort of like we remember when this wasn't working. With Pellimoto, like these things build up and then feel like organic. I just don't think Dinn is Mr. popularity. I think he and both deeply awkward.

Maybe it's a distinction between affection and like belief and trust. I think people listen to Dan and do what he says in a way that they don't with Beau. I mean, that's true. Patriarchy. Yeah. I didn't want to say it.

Now we know what Axe woves wasn't in the season two finale. But she literally says stronger together at the end of this episode. And that's a good old Hillary Clinton slogan. Indeed. The Uggnots point them toward where they can find the droids who are going to be a problem next. Okay. It's the loading docks where Din Jaron flat out assaults a bunch of B2 droids until he finds one who is going to attack back. We get this exchange.

Any of them are suspicious? What is that strategy? They all look suspicious. He's trying to see who will break protocol. but he just wants to be a dick and abuse droids because he hates them. Stuff. I did like when the B1 in charge

warned Dinn and said their base function was warfare where like we get this corollary again to the Mandalorians overall with this being that Dinn deeply mistrusts and loathes and it's like when does the reprogramming actually stick and when do you backslide into one of your worst tendencies. What did you think of the chase scene that ensued after the speed two punches in in the head

and flees through the city into a Blade Runner movie. I really liked it. We talked about some of our critiques, or I talked about some of my critiques of shooting in the volume compared to the real world locations of Andor back in the Pershing episode. But I think, however it is that Bryce shot this, made it look like a real place that was full of people.

Like it didn't feel empty the way that a lot of like volume city sequences can feel. It just like, I thought it was great. What did you think? Yeah, I thought it was fun and gave us a sense of the lifeblood of the place beyond just like a banquet hall or a security tape room or a lab eventually or a morgue. She's so good at that. I mean, because you have to, like, when you think about Return of the Mandalorian that Bobafed episode and Dinn takes a long walk down to find the two remaining people of his covert, you know what I mean? And, like, that was just, like, that's one of the coolest sequences in the Mando world is his long walk. And again, like, I don't know how much delay exactly at Bryce's feet on that.

But the fact that she does it sort of again and again, sanctuary similarly felt that way is, like, I, you know, I want to give her credit for it. So I will. There's some fun action in this episode, including the eventual challenge between Bow and Axe. The little CSI scene over the slain B-2 leads them to discover a spark pad. for the resistor, which is a droid bar. And so on we go. This is where Dinn and Bo kind of bicker over their approach, this tension over who should lead.

And of course, this has like a macro application to the larger Mandelor plot that is still unfolding. The droids, when they enter, stop dead. Of course, this is an inverse and a callback to the canteena in a new hope. We don't serve their kind here. But seeing these droids who are just socializing and living their lives and downing their nanodroids, it makes what's happening feel even more appalling because they're just having a night with their pals. And then there's din saying you're wasting your time. You can't reason with droids as Bo is saying.

That's what's different. Let me do it, mine. That's what's different between like an appliance and like something. you should treat like a human. You know what I mean? This is something that Star Wars has had in his mind, obviously, since Solo a Star Wars story and before this idea of like what makes a droid,

you know, how many rights is a droid entitled to or whatever. But yeah, if you use your repurpose battle droids or whatever to move boxes around on a dock or whatever, and then at the end of the day, they just do like system shut down and then like you reboot them in the morning, that's one thing. But if then they then get to go to a bar and experience an altered state,

and have friends, then maybe you shouldn't just kick all of them all the time. Like, what's happening? And yet when he sees them, he's just like, nobody leave. I'm going to tear out your circuits. It's really, it's rough. It's upsetting, especially because the bar keep, he says, we don't want to be replaced.

We still have a lot to contribute. He wants to actually assist them because he knows that these malfunctions are ultimately going to lead to their scrapping, to their elimination, which is just very tragic. Can you tell us about the one drink, though, Joe, that they are imbibing and what is in it

because it is not your chosen brew? Nepenthe. No tequila. Yeah, Nepenthe. A lubricant that protects against mechanical wear while delivering program refreshing some particles. Yeah. Sign me up.

It's like a Yerba mater, essentially, is what Nepenthe is, right? It's going to, like, amp you up and heal you at the same time. That's great. Yeah, the bad droids all drank from one tainted supply. Yes. Hainted, it makes us think, of course, about corruption.

We talked about this in our primer pod, this episode of the Clone War season three, a mandolour plot where our gal, the Duchess Sotene and Padmae actually in that episode, are dealing with some spiked tea that is making the children of Mandelor gravely ill and that's about boosting profits, but there's a whole like inciting incidents around that for the state of society and government and trust. So it was, it was impossible not to think of

that here. You get to bounce between reference points, though, because we're in the morgue next. We get to watch them take the oil blood out of the B2 to, to explain. examine under the microscope. The frankly astonishing stuff. There is an unfortunate laser attack from the droid on call. At that point, Din takes out the Dark Saber and slices it in half so that we remember Dengar and has the Dark Saber in this episode. We also got like two minutes in the previous on.

But like for the first time since episode three, right? And this is, I mean, like, I guess the end of this episode answers our question as to why we haven't seen Din trying to like use it or train this season. but it just it feeds back into this never mind I'm going to save this take for when we get to the hand off of the dark saber corner

yeah yeah I'll save it okay don't forget that don't forget your Grogoo tree we get a lot to circle back to you're the one who wants to circle back what do they see what do they see on their

Aramesh infused Easter egg infused monitor here these are the particles, Joe, are nanodroids. The inscription is a chain code, and that leads them to the techno union.

Is that what? Tamboa's music. It's not actually. In this case, it's Commissioner Elgates music. They're very easily able to trace this back to the security officer

we had met. And so, we learned that Doc Brown is a Duku Stan. Who among us? The droids did not malfunction. He reprogramed them.

to disrupt and attack. This is where we get the, actually, this male staple, we'll turn them all into an army again. And we learn that he's a separatist who's been biding his time, one disappointing regime after another. Steve, can we hear from our guy, Helly? Give up?

I never give up. I didn't give up to the corrupt republic. I didn't give up to him. Empire, and I won't give up to you. You're a separatist. Separatist is a pejorative term. I support democracy. Count Duku was a visionary.

He was controlled in his prime by the Jedi enforcers. That sound at the end is him. His boat tasing him, but the sound before that was him reading from your memoir, Joe. Duke who was a visionary, he was cut short in his prime. Did Helgate request your permission to speak this way about Duke? Well, as you've already mentioned, you are feeling poorly and I'm feeling poorly. And so...

You love Dukeu. I don't know why you decided to slander me for men on this podcast. Where is he on your count power rankings? Like before or after Count Chocula? No, it goes Dracula and then the Count from Sesame Street. and then Chocula and then maybe. Maybe, do you. Yeah, so top five, firmly in the top five is what I'm hearing.

We get an absolutely iconic and just bizarre. Wait, Steve, what was it that Mallory said Groger was like? Was it Gallum? One of the most pathetic creatures in all of Tolkien? Just for the raw. fish. They just, they both have a, you know, they love a, they love a spicy tuna on some crispy rice. Sure, they're the same to you. I understand. I understand. You're saying Grogo and Gallum are the same character and that's great. No. And I support you in that. Do you support Bo who is mere moments away

from receiving the Dark Sabre and leading Mandelor and who has multiple times been the leader of Mandelor from responding to this speech by saying, and I quote, politics. Here's my note for Bo. Perhaps you wouldn't have lost your position as leader multiple times if you paid attention to politics. Your sister paid attention to politics. I mean, that didn't serve her very well in the end. But, you know, sort of for a while. So maybe you should take some lessons. You could also take some lessons in how to cheat your way to a quadro blast.

Because when we go back to Jack Black and Lizzo, get another little amazing Jack Black snippet of dialogue here. Not fiddler lyrics, but your toss lovey, which I just thought was amazing. And I will be saying that regularly. From now on, Grogo is using the force to help Lizzo cheat. And I thought this was great. I thought this was great. Do you have any further thoughts on Grogo? We have a nighting coming up, which was another thing that happened, because Helgate confesses.

He is cast off, exile to a moon, a clear, yet again, comp to Mandelor, of course. Death Watch, Children of the Watch, exile to Concordio. Just like to note that you've given Hellgate an affectionate nickname in the notes, which is Helly. Helly? So I've decided that, I mean, are you a Helligate stand?

Are you pro-Helgate? They're giving him adorable nicknames like Heli? Are you just missing severance that much? You want Severance to come back? In fact, it's about severance. I am missing severance. I can't wait to talk about severance with you. I long for it. And I think just if we're being honest and frank and fair, in our season three Mandalorian pods, Ben Lindberg has referred to Dr. Pershing as Perch multiple times. And so basically any nickname flies at this point. Any, any nickname at all.

Okay. So, Helly gets banished to the moon. Hell of your word, not mine. Yeah. Bowen didn't get this gigantic key to the city, right? Quite large. And then Grogu gets a knighthood. He does. He does. He gets it. moment, Steve. And to this little one, I grant knighthood. You are now a knight of the ancient order

of independent regencies. This is like letting Ahmed best rescue Grogu from order. Amazing. Like, Lizzo, you get to knight. Lizzo, would you like to come on the Mandalorian and knight

grogou? And also you get to say, is there no room for a little forgiveness in a galaxy so vast? You get to voice some reason and some empathy. But then you get to Nightgrove and that's really the heart of it, isn't it? As you're banishing someone to a prison man. Well, Paul is just a few minutes away from saying that they've been fighting each other too much

while holding a vibro blade to someone's neck. So, you know, we're all full of contradictions. Conflicts in the human heart. Okay. Here's where we need, I guess, we should say, you're the one off pod who insisted that we talk about this tweet. I wrote about Grogu. So this is not me pushing an agenda. You don't have to.

This is responding to Mallory's request. Mallory, who thinks Grogu is Gallum. So my question on Twitter was, my question on Twitter was, is Grogu a character or is he an accessory, discuss? And you will note that I did not express an opinion one way or another. I was just curious what the people think. And there was a raging debate. But I will just say that, like, one of the points that the pro character people brought out We're like, he's not just a character.

He's a knight now. Well, I will point you to a little show called Game of Thrones in which there is a cat called Sir Pout. So just because you've been knighted, Sir Grogue does not make you. Anyway, I want Grogh to be a character. That when Groghue is expressing wants and needs and desires, that is when the Mandalorian is most interesting to me. But this, I mean, I don't want to get, I don't want to go too far. down the well of speculation because honestly, I don't know anything. I have no inside track into Lucasfilm in terms of like what has been moved around,

what decisions were made. But you could get away with making this season without Grogo in it. If Grogu were training with Luke all season, I know, shock horror. But like... But like when the season two finale happened, that was a huge question is will Grogo not be in season three of the Mandalorian? Yeah. And like, he's been so inessential to the plot this season. and like I would prefer it not be the case,

but that has been the case where he is sort of like, you know, other than like little training sequences, like it really doesn't have much to do with Grogu at all, which is not the end of the world, but it does make you wonder, was there a version of this story

that they're going to tell where it was like, instead of Grogo and Den, it was going to be like Bo and Din and their whole like Mandelor. And then it ends with, I don't want it. I want my child. And he goes off and he gets his son back.

I've looked into his oak. You know? So, like, that makes a little, like, so I wasn't trying to be, like, super snarky with that tweet. I was generally interested in what people thought. And, like, a lot of people think that he's a character. But a lot of people think he's just an accessory or even more cynically that he's just, like, a marketing ploy or all this sort of stuff like that. And as you mentioned earlier in the pod, like, there's no doubt that the Mandalorian as a cultural phenomenon caught fire in the first place because of the, like, memeability of Groku. Grogu's undeniable cuteness.

So they had this brilliant idea. Baby Yoda. Grogu. We're going to make him a surprise, John Favro says. And then he becomes like a little bit of a mcguffin. We have to move him from here and there. He's like a little bit more of a mcuffin than he is a character.

And he were making an argument early in the season that like, you know, just because he doesn't speak doesn't mean he like can't communicate well, his intentions, his thoughts, and his feelings. I want him to be a character. I just think they need to do a little bit more work than they're currently doing to make him a character. Where do you stand on that tweet that may or may not have ended our friendship? First of all, nothing can end our friendship. We're eternal.

I thought it was really interesting. And I think that Grogu is a character. I think that Grogu is, with a lot of love and respect for Dan and for Bo, unquestionably the most important character in the short. and in Star Wars currently. And I think that the question of his deployment, I'm being serious. I know you are.

The question of his deployment, though, I think is a valid one because I would say that the moments that we've gotten with him in this season. And like I will always just love the cute, precious things like him purring when Lizzo petted his head or getting knighted, which just, like, made me smile and coup on my own and feel love surging in my heart.

And I think that, like, in terms of the plot and the themes and the character development, which we've, you know, discussed feeling, like, inconsistent and lacking overall, I do think that some of the stronger instances of that have come with Grogu when we got the Order 66 flashback, when we got his conversation with the armor.

And she asked, do you want to be a Mandalorian? like if you want to be a Mandalorian, this is what you got to do. And he ran after her. We saw his desire. And like, we need more moments like that. Because I think when we get them from him, you know, Dinn's with, with Grogo on his lap, explaining what it means to be a Mandalorian, the way that Grogue looked at him when Dyn positioned him to issue a challenge that Grogh didn't understand or want to partake in

and needed DIN to help him boost his confidence. Like, I genuinely think those are amazingly compelling moments. We just have to have more of them. Like, I would say, you Joe, and you'll. Yeah. You'll laugh, but like, I mean this. I promise you, I mean this. Grogu's decision to leave Luke, to leave his training,

and to go back to Dyn is one of the single most important character moments and choices in the history of Star Wars. Like, I really believe that because of the potential that it unlocked. So if they squander that, I think it will be as significant of a failure. And a tragedy. And I don't think that's what we're near that point, but I pray we don't get there. And I do think that that decision, which was very weighty and important, like, might have felt even more significant if he and did had been separated a little bit longer than we got, you know, the decision to, like, bring him back in Boba. But I think that this is why episode two of the season is my favorite because there is so much. active Grogu need and I need to help my dad rescue my dad.

I'm going to go and get Bo and go down and Bo talking to Grogu and all the sort of stuff like that. Like Grogo feels so engaged in the story there's so much a character. Talking about using the force but also being a Mandalorian. The two paths, walking two worlds. What does it mean to be a land? The whole preview about the Dark Sabre and Grogu and what it means to be a Mandalorian and reject an either or. All right. I love them.

Let's talk about the Dark Saber. Well, that's what I'm saying. It's like, two is great. And then I've been chasing that high ever since this season. So let's talk about the Dark Saber. Okay. Here we go. Here we go.

They head out to Access Camp at last mission in the dome successfully completed. And Dinn is trying to boost both confidence. They're Mandalorians. You're their leader. They're going to follow you. And she says, I'm not their leader anymore. And we feel that, like, deflated. you're hunched on the throne when we meet you at the beginning of this season.

Yeah. Energy kicking back in for Bo pulling down on her. All season we have seen the way that she has lost her faith to the point where she does not even have a pitch plan. She doesn't go in with the strategy for this recruitment. She's going to figure it out on the fly. It's just interesting because to go so quickly from deflated, I'm not their leader anymore, to I challenge you to combat. Yeah.

I have trouble connecting those dots personally. For me, I'm like, I would also immediately challenge ex-woves to single combat if he sat there sipping his super tea or whatever he's got there and gave me that lip. Did this make you think of mall? Your beautiful beloved. All right. You do that to me. Mall versus Previsla?

If this is the tenor of, um, the episode. No, it's a, I will just point out, I'll just point out that earlier in the doc, you underline how hot Axe looks in this episode. So if I have to claim Darth Mall, you have to have to claim Axe Vos in this episode as your husband. Fine, I'll wear it. All right.

Great. I thought he looked great. And I am happy to say it. It's House of Arcannon now, folks. I can't wait to come to your wedding to that deeply racist Mandalorian. No! This did make me think a lot of Sabine versus Saxon in rebels. There's a lot of moments where like this idea of the single combat of the challenge,

but then when will the people who are watching help or interfere even if they know they're not supposed to? It's kind of an interesting tradition to glimpse in real time. Thought this fight was really fun. I particularly loved the lasso pull down from the top of the ship. I know that one of these central passion points and areas of emphasis

of our House of Our Mandalorian coverage and of your analysis in particular is Wigwatch and that you've been delighted to see the helmets come off and to see all of the hair on the characters. But I must note that it is irresponsible for Pocatean and Axowaves to not

be wearing helmets as they slam each other's heads into industrial metal. I mean, everyone should take their helmets off when they're sipping soup by the campfire and they should all do it communally. But if you are going to challenge Mallory's future husband X woes to single combat, put your helmet on, Beau. She embarrasses him, kicks his ass, dominates. It was great. It was fun of it. And when she asks if he yields, he responds with the clip that we opened today's episode with. He says that she'll never be the true leader. Can't even take the darksaber from Dinn. And Bo responds by lamenting how the mando on mando infighting keeps leading to their downfall. This has been a bow recurring line across the season. And then she gets up and implores the group

to listen, to heed this council, Mandalorians are stronger together. Were you compelled? Were you ready to sign up? I think this is really interesting. So we had this conversation with Katie at the beginning of the season about about Bo grappling with her history as part of Death Watch, as a terrorist, you know?

And she was like, Katie basically alluded to like, yep, that's on the menu for this season. And I would argue, we have not much seen that, really, this season, except for enough Middallorian blood isn't spilled by our own hands. Our

own hands is like because when we first meet her at the beginning of the season, she's like, Dan, your extremist cult is the reason, your people are the reason why we've had all this in fighting. So I will concede in my most charitable interpretation of this sequence that this is a learning moment for Beau to take responsibility for her own involvement in the fracturing of the Mandalrians and to not just like maybe think about it. in the dead of night, but to say it out loud to some of her closest allies and stuff like that. And that's what you want.

You want like a big learning moment for someone when they're about to get a magical weapon. We'll talk about that in a second. But like, yes. I just wish it had been underscored a little bit better than this sort of brief. Yeah. I love the progress that she has made in the evolution in her outlook. It's meaningful and important. I'm waiting for the full notes app.

I was a death watch terrorist and I'm sorry version of the. introspection still. But maybe we'll get it. Maybe we'll get it eventually. We can feel the clash that she is alluding to among these different factions of Mandalorian society

in a few ways here and Axe is happy to voice all of them. He refers to Dynne as a misguided zealot who possesses the blade, the saber. Now, we don't necessarily disagree

that the children of the watch are misguided zealots. We've talked about that a lot this season. I know, but I'm starting to think that the show doesn't feel that way about them. Remember I asked you this? Was it episode three? I can't remember it was early where I was starting to get anxious.

Like, are we not heading toward a rejection of the creed and of the way? I remain concerned. Concerned. I remain concerned. Yeah. When Axe says something like this, though, the venom and the prejudice and the judgment of like like thinking back to the moment, the initial, and it was on both sides then, right? Dinn being so appalled when Bo and Coe took their helmets off in the heiress.

But the way that like acts at the time said, he's one of them about the children of the watch. Like this is the kind of rupture that has led Mandalorian astray so, so often. Well, yeah, and it's so interesting, you know, because he says one I'm at ad who has not one drop of manorian blood in his veins. And I like gasped at that moment, not just because it's like, not just because it's so like overtly racist, but also just like so much of what we've learned about the Mandalorians. But I suppose it's just children of the watch, perhaps, this idea of like foundlings are Mandalians.

You don't like, and this is the question we were hoping this season would grapple with, which is what does it mean to be a Mandalorian, you know? And for children of the watch, it's like, you know, take the creed, don't take your helmet off, walk the way, like all that sort of stuff like that. And for someone like acts, you got to be born into it. You can't, you know, be adopted into it. And so, and so I suppose in that way, then we have to think about the armorers group as virtuous in the way that they're just like opening. I mean, just let them fucking take their helmets off and then I won't be so judgmental about you.

But like, opening the door to the foundlings. And so, you know, if she and then the armor is saying bring those helmetless. people under this tent. And our fear last week, or my fear, at least last week, was like she was doing that. So then she could then make them put their helmets on and they all walk the way. But if that's not her attitude, if her attitude is like, hey, man, everyone under the tent, let's just go back home and helmet on, helmet off. It's fine.

We'll do us. And you do, you, Axe and Costco, but we're all Mandalorians in one way or another, right? Yes. And so if that's the message where it feels not as fun and a little, frictionless. But like, if that's, if that's the answer we're heading toward, and then it's the Mandalorians versus the Imperials or whatever, like, um, okay, I can probably figure out a way. I just want Peter Pascal to be able to act with this face. It's just something that's important to me. And it's definitely informing how I feel. But again, yeah, one, not one drop of Mandalorian

blood. And I was just like, I was indignant. I was like, so the fuck what? Yeah. Nor does Grogu. But if Grogu wants to be a Mandalorian, right? Never put an element on. him, but if Groka wants to be a Mandalorian, I support it. How dare you, frankly? You know? Yeah, you're totally right that the parts of the creed that make us bristle, that the balancing of the scales is that foundling idea and the found family idea and the embrace of people from all over the galaxy who have different backgrounds and different histories and find

their way forward in this community together. And that's like a beautiful thing that the galaxy could use a lot more of. And I think it was neat for that reason to hear Bo, again, showing her personal evolution and growth, challenge acts here and say Dinger and took the creed and chose to walk the way just as our ancestors did. He's every bit the Mandalorian that they were certainly as much as any of us. This is from a character who in the Clone War said of Mall, Mr. Joanna Robinson himself. No outsider will ever rule Mandelor. Right? No outsider.

I mean, there is a difference between Moll who just, like, has no interest in even anything to do with Mandelaur culture just, like, shows up and looks great and phenomenal and wonderful, but also is not respecting their culture or their ways at all. Yeah, absolutely. And Dan who just, like, represents a, you know, different. Yeah. And that was one of our questions in the preseason was, like, how would Boe's definition of insider or outsider evolve and expand? And to see how much room there is for din, for the covert, for Grogo inside of that is a heartening thing. Less heartening is that we finally get the long-awaited, long-anticipated, dark-saber handoff. Fair to say, one of the things that was most eagerly awaited and hyped heading into the season.

Steve, can we hear the clip? But according to our ways, the ruler of Mandelor must possess the Dark Saber. Then she shall have it. This belongs to you. It's not a gift to be given, no matter how well intended. It's not a gift. Okay. He goes on to explain exactly what happened in, again, an episode that we loved,

Chapter 18, episode two of this season, on the way to the minds of Mandalore and what unfolded after that. He was disarmed. Shout out Spider-Bot. We miss you. Boat beat the creature that bested din. And that means. In elder wand fashion, the dark saber now belongs to Bo Katan.

Okay, I just need to take a quick, quick, quick, quick moment to speak lovingly and affectionately to our listeners and say, a lot of you sent us emails asking us if we had noticed that these were the elder wand rules. And I just want to ask you if you had noticed all the times this season we've mentioned the elder one rules. We've been talking about Elder One rules all season. Please, please, please. Very clear comp here. Please trust me that Mallory Rubin is not going to let a Harry Potter comp go by. But I, and again, this is not surprising because a lot of us notice that this happened in episode two.

And a lot of us and a lot of people wrote in and a lot of people speculated like, well, does not, this is not mean technically that Bo, you know, owns the Dark Sabres? So it's not, it's unsurprising, but is also unsatisfying in the way that it is done. Because why is this something he's bringing up now, question mark? And also like, okay, so let's take just like a tiny, tiny moment to talk about how powerful this could have been. Yeah. Right? Yep. You and I, like one of our shared favorite moments in all of television history is when

Brian of Tarth gets knighted by Jamie Lanister and like I can just weep thinking about it it is so powerful that's not when she gets her sword but when she gets her sword from Jamie is also a powerful moment you know what I mean? They're like... Oathkeeper.

Like it needs to be a big when someone gets a magical weapon like when Steve Rogers calls Milneur right and you're like he is worthy this is a huge moment. When Arthur pulls a sword out of a stone right? when the blade has been remade for Eragorn,

like it comes at these like huge important moments. And like the Dark Saper is such an interesting magical weapon, not just because of the Elder Wand rules, and not just because of what Mof Gideon says about like the story of the blade matters even more than, you know, the technical loopholes and rules and transitive property or whatever. But it's what we talked about in our preview pod of everything we learned about the Dark Sliber.

Sabor lore, both from that episode that Bryce directed in the Book of Boba Fett and also in the animated series about the way in which, like, the blade responds to you and conflict within you, and it grows heavier, like, the less suited you are, and it grows lighter and works with you. You have to work with the blade. Like, it is a magical blade that is so tied to character development. And so what we, I think what I needed to see was a big worthiness moment from Bo. And I suppose it's her defending Din here, who she called a cultist at the beginning of the season. Like, I suppose that's it. But like to acts who we haven't seen in like a season, like it just, it didn't give me even.

Like when Sabine gives her the Dark Sabre in the anime, like that is much more rousing and emotional than what this was. And I couldn't tell you why they made this choice, but this is the choice that we're living with. And we have two more episodes and maybe like it will all, maybe the way it happened will wind up, but it can't wind up with Bo losing the Dark Sabre again. Like it just simply cannot. Like I just like narratively that would,

that would be a wild maneuver. But anyway, point being, yeah, yada, yada, we care a lot about magical blades and magical weapons. Mallory and I will be doing an upcoming episode. of the Trobes' course series about magical weapons, magical blades, hammers,

subtle knives, all that sort of stuff. We're really excited to talk about it. You love the subtle knife. I know you do. It's my favorite. And so, and that's a big moment, right?

Like, Will has this big fight and he loses two fingers, this whole thing, you know, like, when you get your, it's a thing. Anyway. Not Dan just being like,

well, actually, LOL, it was hers six episodes ago, but we have four episodes because we haven't talked about it, but it's yours. Weird, weird stuff. I agree with everything you said.

It's just, and I think it's also important to say that it's not one of those things that feels anticlimactic or inert simply because everybody left episode two and talked about it. This isn't like, oh, we guessed it. So it's a letdown. It's not bad. We talked about a lot of different possibilities. And I think that if it had gone this way, there were a number of different ways that it could have been. more consequential and more impactful and connected to what both of the characters at the heart of this exchange have been wrestling with her thinking.

You have a little bit of a sense of that with Beau. We know how utterly broken she was. She had been the leader of Mandelor twice. When Sabine gave her the Dark Sabre in Rebels, this is at the beginning of Season 4 of Rebels, we've talked about it a lot in our preview pod and elsewhere. But if you're interested in watching those first two episodes, we highly recommend them. they're excellent. Bo did not want to take that blade at first, said my sister was the ruler,

her path to going from feeling like she wasn't worthy of that, to craving and coveting it to stints, right? There's the initial, I'm not going to work with the empire, I got to bounce. And then at the end of Clone Wars, and then the later, the Sabine, gifting her the saber, a mirror presentation of what happens here

with the handing, the igniting, the followers watching, the swelling of the score. It's like beat for beat, frame for frame, similar visually, to the point where you have to wonder, like, is that because this will go better this time? So we're drawing the parallel so that we can draw the contrast, or is it because things are about to go terribly wrong again? Which I think you're right that if that happens within the span of two episodes, it would be, I think, very, very, very difficult to make work.

but for Bo to have gone from that reluctance to the active coveting to then the despair and that question of what is my purpose and what is my worth if other people can't place that worth and belief in me is fascinating and compelling. The characters who are at the heart of the show together

have not had a conversation about that. We heard Bo have some interesting conversations with the Armourer about the Mythesore, but the armorer is a character who has told Dingerin that Bo inheriting the Dark Sabre from Sabine Rand is,

and I'm paraphrasing here, the cause of the prophetic doom of Mandelor. Now these characters have just synced up, and there's no conversation about that divide. There are just too many moments like that, and the Dark Saber is too important to have been caught up in that. And what is Dinn thinking?

Exactly. What is Dyn thinking is the other thing? Because, like, if he, again, I hate to, like, fanfic a season that, very clever minds have written. I think we would both say they can do anything they want. It's not for us to tell them how to tell their story, but they have to do it well.

No, absolutely. I'm definitely not. I would never tell someone how to tell their story. But like, I think that if Dan Jarin realizes in episode two of this season that technically Bo Katan has won the Sabre, and if we see him

understand that and then wrestle with it with Furikov. couple episodes. Great. And then make, I mean, we know that he's never wanted it. That's so, that's honestly such like a boring idea. You have a magical blade and you don't want it and then you don't have it anymore. Like that's like what, like, you know, okay, listening to the Midnight Boys, a couple things.

Van made some like, made a credible argument for like the Dark Saber was always supposed to show us what did, doesn't want. And I, I almost bought it because Van is so convincing. But like, that is, that is inert storytelling. You know what I mean? And I think Jomi's point about just sort of like, why did he even have it in the first place? If it just wasn't, if we weren't going to see any sort of movement around it. And how has his character changed from when he got it at the end of season two to now? I mean, he went and got Grogu, but like he already didn't want it.

And now he doesn't want it. Plus he got his kid back. And it just doesn't feel connected to the story. So like, I would have just rather seen. in grapple with, grapple with a choice and then decide to tell her. He knew, but he kept it to himself and then he told her. But if he knew and he didn't want it, why didn't he just give it to her in episode three or at the end of episode two?

You know what I mean? That's the thing. Like, they're sitting around having soup after everything that is unfolded. And I know he's in a hurry. He's got to go. Like, there's always another thing to do. But these characters have been together constantly so often that as we talked about last pod, Paz-Visla just assumes that both of them have the exact same opinion and that it's a shared

mission and pitch, even though Bo hasn't voiced that at all. They are that bound and tied, minute to minute scene to scene in this season. The armor is like, Bo's going to go out in recruitment. I was like, okay, bye Katie. And then I was like, oh, and did and go go go. Yeah, did and Grogo go with. Yeah. Right. But so then if Dean has a moment where he says, man, I can't lift this thing. I have heard this idea that like the armorer saying in Boa 5, your body is strong but your mind is distracted during the training session and the way that we like rebelled against that because what was the distraction? It was his longing for Grogu and we wanted him to go pursue Grogu and be with Grogu.

And those are amazingly compelling things for the character to actively think about. So if he had said to Bo, like we talked about in episode two, and we described it like it looked like she was fencing and he was trying to lift and couldn't a sledgehammer, like if he had observed that to her and said, this belongs with you. And I'm not just trying to. I understand. I tried to give it to you in the bridge in the season two finale. Moth Gideon laughed in our fucking faces and cackled about the fact that the Dark Saber doesn't have power, the story does. and that you had been fucked again by the traditions and faith and adherence of your culture and that the thing that had gifted you power in the first place was now the very thing that

was preventing you from attaining it again. How miserable would your life be from that moment forward? Talk about that with each other. They're sitting together all the time. Right before that line that you cited, the armor, your body is strong, but your mind is distracted. Right before that, she says, Persistence without insight will lead to the same outcome. And that's what I'm just like, what insight, what reflective moment has Din had, you know, like in the meantime, we haven't seen it.

This leads me to the last email that I want to read this week. It comes from Sarah. It's sort of a larger thing. But it's like when I'm like, we have so many theories. I'm not in Sarah's email. We have so many theories this season. And I think it's because we're grappling for depth when sometimes that depth is not there. in this show. You and I love deep dives and deep lore. And sometimes, again, as we said at the beginning

of the season, the Mandalorian, it's just Saturday morning cereal, right? So Sarah says, throughout the mandolorean, the helmet has been a seemingly obvious barrier to knowing what Dinn and other Mandalorians are thinking. One meant to draw our attention to that very thing. Their interior lives and our desire to know characters on a deeper level. We all wear masks, don't we? Seeing the mask slash helmet further accentuates the truth that there is more than there appears to be. The helmet reminds us there's a face we can't see. There's a face we want to see. To know, to touch before we say goodbye and go with a stranger Jedi.

However, more and more with season three, the helmet seems to function as a sign that there's nothing deeper going on at all. I love the version of the Mandalorian that wants to explore internal struggles of identity and belonging. But that version can't exist when there's very little storytelling about characters' interior lives. I feel more and more alone in my sense of uncertainty. I'm not traveling with the characters through their struggles. I just feel out of the loop. And I love that lessons. I just feel out of the loop.

This, I think, it encapsulates a lot of things we've been bumping up against, which is just sort of like, okay, I'm interested in the armor and bow finding common ground. But how do we get there? Take me inside the, you know, did a conversation half an off screferral? What was Dinh thinking the last few episodes slash weeks, maybe months that he had the Dark Sabre, knew that Bowhead won it in combat with a spider bot and decided like, what is, what's going on under the helmet? What's happening? You know, so.

Yeah, I think it's a, boy, it's a really interesting point. And it's like, you know, compounded by some of the waiting, you know, a month of episodes have passed since that moment before it. becomes central plot device here, but also like you have a character like Axe who's hurling racist vitriol at Dinn. We have all of this build up to the fact that the story has to carry weight. We talked in the end of episode two. Like, well, would this story be enough? Would people buy it? And the guy that they don't know and hate and mistrust and think is unworthy says one thing. And they're like, it would? That's just bizarre. And that gets to your point from earlier about like were these the right characters to be on the receiving end of it?

And for Bo, sure, because they're the ones who left her. So for them to be the ones who embrace her again makes sense and is probably the most rewarding group of people to have in front of her in that moment. Yeah, you're saying. But for Dyn, what is his connection to Axe woves and to the magnitude of that moment for his character, for Axe to be on the other end of that? Yeah, you're saying Axe and Costco or just take Dyn's word for it. Yes.

That this happened. I just don't think makes sense. And literally no one saw this happen, except for Grogo and Din. And like, we were talking about this early in the season was like, how is he going to prove he's in the living waters? Okay, he brought back a Naljean or whatever. But like, there's literally no evidence that this happened. I was waiting for acts to be like, roll the tape. Yeah.

Like, let's see it. And that would have, I honestly think, even though it would have been a very obnoxious thing for him to do to have been more believable and probably ultimately more interesting. And so there's that question of like, and we talked about that a lot from Beau's perspective, like would she feel that this lent enough credence to her cause? Right. I think that to the point in that email and like a lot of what we've been talking about here, this question of just like, what did it tell us about Din?

You know, I think like to the van point that you cited, I think that Din not wanting it and ultimately deciding to hand it off is completely in line with his character, unbelievable to me. Yes, yes. But we need to see him learn something, think about something. It can't just be the same decision that it was at the end of last season. Do you know what I mean? And it gets back to like the other thing that we talked about a couple weeks ago.

This was also brought up in an email, forgive me for not being able to recall on the spot who sent us this question. But like that question of what does Din want? Yes. If there is the handing off, the reluctance, the passing, what is in its place? What does Dyn seek? What does he crave? Where is his heart? And if it's the teaching grogo

and wanting to live inside of Clan Mudhorn If it's wanting to be a teammate and an assistant and an aide Let's see more of that from him then Because we've gotten very, very little of it Do you think he's going to go take the Mythosur now though? Now that Bo has the saber? I'm starting to worry that no one's going to write Well, okay, here's...

If we don't get someone on that Mithistre by the end of the season, I will be astounded. On the one hand, but on the other hand, if we have a big battle on Mandalore, let's say, between Moff Gideon's forces and the United Clans of the Mandalorian's, right? Yes. And someone comes riding in a giant beast? Is that not just the finale of Book of Bobat again? It is. Yeah.

It is. They're so smart. Why would they just do the same thing again? Like, anyway. I mean, I'm really hoping that the last two episodes are gangbusters. I'm really excited. I think they will be. You know, we mentioned this in the previous pod that Rick has said that

Din will be grappling with something around like his faith and Grogu. And so give me that grapple. I would like to see it. If Cobb Vance comes in, you know, all sins will be forgiven as far as I'm concerned. You know, and Giancarlo is coming. and that's, you know, that's great. But, you know, and possibly we'll get, you know, some good fun teases towards Asoka, and that could be fun.

I'm hoping. I want to love this show. And there were parts of this episode I love. And let me just, in conclusion, let me just say this. I should have said this at the top. None of what we're saying here is to yuck your yum. If you love this episode, that's phenomenal. And I think that that's something I'm bumping up against sometime in fandom.

where it's just sort of like, just because I have critiques of something, does not mean I think you aren't allowed to enjoy this episode. If you love this episode, I think that's fucking great. I think that's great. I completely agree. This was one of the most awful things about the Last Jedi discourse was like, you are, if you think X, it diminishes you and your value, which is just not a productive or healthy way to talk about something.

You don't understand. Star Wars, you're stupid. And like, I know. I hope that is not a thing that. happens again. That was so awful. Exactly. And then, you know, you, you said that this is the most divisive episode. And I've just seen so many bad takes flying around of like, you're stupid if you liked it,

you're stupid if you hate it or whatever. And it's just like, no, people like things for different reasons. And if people just want to like show up to watch Lizzo cheat at Space Batchie Ball or whatever, like, this is fucking great. Great. Yeah. You know? All right.

To quote Boca Tan, politics. that means that it's time for our lower luck with Ben Limburg because we are a clan of three. Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, welcome to the show. It's great to see you. Your beard is lush. Your hoodie is up. It's very late in the evening where you are.

We're delighted that you made the time to be here with us as always. And we want to talk about broadly the political landscape inside of this episode where it stems from what it might be pointing to. toward some of the factions and the fractures. We got a separatist mention, a Duku callout. We can't not talk about Duku if we get a Duku mention, which is increasingly a regular thing in the modern Star Wars era. The Corrissante Accords were mentioned yet again.

We had a little amnesty program action. So we're hoping that you could just take us through some of the history that brought us to this point and share what's on your mind about what sort of window this might be leaving open. For the old first order. Well, first things first, I love democracy. I love the Republic. Which sets me apart from Commissioner Hellgate, who likes only one of those things and dislikes the other quite strongly.

But enter the bureaucrats, right? The true rulers of the Republic. Let's talk about politics and Star Wars, which we would need a hardcore history length episode to explain the state of the galaxy. but big picture, my big thought here about all the political machinations being depicted on this season, I think sometimes that maybe the most far-fetched science fictional aspect of Star Wars, more so than the force or hyperspace or sound being transmitted through vacuum, is just the pace of political change. I mean, think about something like foundation where the Galactic Empire takes centuries or millennia to rise or fall,

or forget sci-fi, think of the inspiration for foundation. Actual events in real life on Little Old Earth, where it takes centuries for the Roman Empire to arise and decline, and that's with one species and one part of one planet. Then you have the Star Wars galaxy, where you do have one long-lasting, slow-declining galactic government, but then in the span of roughly 50 years, you have four or five different galactic governments,

you have the Republic, you have the Empire, You have the new Republic. You have the first order and you have whatever comes after that, the newer Republic, presumably. And I don't think there's a- They should start naming the Republic like Fast and the Furious movies. Yeah, right. This is- Too new to Republic.

There are no sequels to the sequel trilogy yet because they're still workshopping names for the newest Republic. New Republic Corresponder. Yeah. I don't think- I would watch that. Sure. What an incredible crossover. I don't think there's a canonical number of planets in the Star Wars galaxy or in the New Republic,

but in the old expanded universe, the empire supposedly had about a million and a half member or conquered worlds and 69 million settlements. Nice. Nice. Yeah. Oh, we're also mature. That, me. Boy. and you're not starting from scratch every time. There's a handover here. But at that sort of scale,

just think of how long it must have taken to replace all the portraits of Palpi with portraits of Manmothma in the lobbies of millions or billions of government buildings. I mean, that must have been a career for someone. It's amazing that they have time to swap out the old insignias and seals for new ones before it's time to change governments again.

This is why you have something like the amnesty program that we've seen this season. Because you might think, how could you give these ex-imperials a second chance? Well, the Republic, which is the ex-rebellion, pretty ill-equipped to take on the mantle of a galactic government. I mean, you need some people with institutional knowledge, some sort of transition team, right, who can tell you what the passwords and the door codes are and how to set the thermostat and keep the hyperloups running, right? So are some of those people pure evil, quite possibly, based on what we've seen so far, the rehabilitation program doesn't have the greatest success rate, but some ex-imperials are just bureaucrats or people who traded one uniform for another, and they could do that again. And think about how desperate

this upstart rebellion turn republic would be for some experience hand at the tiller, hopefully non-evil leadership, because we're not talking about peaceful transfers of power here. We're talking about rebellions and civil wars and planets being blown up. And all of this follows the collapse of a republic that lasted for a thousand years, including an extended period called the Great Peace, and was preceded by an old republic that lasted for more than 20,000 years, which for all intents and purposes must have made it seem eternal and which must make this instability seem extra traumatic. I mean, you could look at the whole period of history covered by the Skywalker saga as kind of a dark age where the galaxy is going through this constant, violent upheaval. And it's all

happening within a single lifespan. So it makes sense that each of those movements would have adherents who are hanging around, whether that's the imperial remnant or its pockets of separatist sentiments. So if you're a commissioner Hellgate and you are a true believer in the ideals of the separatist movement whose members were seeking to free themselves from centralized control, then you might still feel that way, even though that was two governments ago. I mean, there's still a government on Corrasont that's trying to control you. So it's meet the new republic, same as the old republic. It's like Miggs Mayfeld said last season, Empire, New Republic, it's all the same to these people. Invaders on these land is all. Invaders on their land is all we are.

And they aren't actually the same, right? They aren't the same to us. One is, ruled by Sith Lords and one is it and one blows up planets and one doesn't and one tortures captives with the cries of dying children and one doesn't as far as we know, pretty important differences. But we know more about these governments goings on than the people in this galaxy do because we get to see the halls of power and behind closed doors. So to us, the whole separatist movement is this sort of false flag operation concocted by Sidious and Duku. to orchestrate the end of the republic. And the whole thing is just pulling the wool over people's eyes.

But if you were a true separatist believer, if you grew up in this movement, you may not know that or you may not believe that or you may think that's a republic propaganda. And you might still believe in those ideas. So that's what we're seeing with Hellgate here. I don't know if his motives make sense, but that's where his heart is. I like to think about like when we're considering the failure. bureaucratic failure of the New Republic because when I think about the first order, the first, like if you say first order,

the first thing I think of is like Hux Barking about, like, you know? And so you think about Hux growing, Hux is born in like, you know, around the time of the Battle of the Avenue. So he's like, he's like 9, 10, 12 in this current season of the Mandalorian. So he's like growing up in a world

where like his dad was a big time. Yeah. Spin off, prequel. I mean, Woodwatch. Hashtag make solo two happen. Hashtag make young hooks happen. But, you know, like comes from a family of like imperialists and then grows up under the shadow of this like shitty new republic and is like, let's bring order back to the galaxy. Fuck this chaos.

Bring back the good times. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Was the empire really that bad? Exactly. Yeah. You know, the train's ran on time.

I don't know. We're seeing this, this du coupsants here recently. Right? And we're getting different views of it, though, which is interesting because in episode two of the second season of the Bad Batch, we visit Duku's homeworld of Sereno and we meet this man, Romar, who's like, I'm not a separatist. I'm from Sereno. Screw Count Duku. You know, like he doesn't speak for all of us. So it's sort of layered and nuanced, right? Like you might still be a separatist believer even decades after that, or you might be from one of the home worlds, the hearts. of separatism, and you might say, Duku doesn't represent me. He screwed up our whole society, right? So some people don't want to be painted with that broad brush and others, even though it might be a government or two ago, are still clinging to that and perhaps with good reason, because the New Republic may not know what it's doing here. Speaking of the New Republic, maybe not knowing what it's doing. What do you make into these Corosante Accords? Where do they rank for

you, Joe, Ben, on your Accords Power Rankings? Above below the Sikovia chords. Just under Sikovia, I think. I need to know more about what the Khorasonic Chorus actually are before they, like, sprint past Sikovia. You need to know which side Steve Rogers is on before you formally. Listen, I'm not saying no. Yeah, we only know about a couple of chorosite chords thus far,

so it's hard to say. But I think these probably come from, there's something called the Galactic Concordance, which is not the accordance, the concordance. And this is basically the summit that happens where the empire, the remnant, surrenders. My man Masameta, surrenders to Monmouthma about a year. Your absolute favorite. You literally never miss a chance to mention him.

Forget young hucks. Please green light, Masameta. That's my spinoff. But this is a year after Endor. which means that it's only a few years before the Mandalorian starts. So again, like, this is not long ago, you know, like to us. Fresh. Yeah.

Yeah. These wounds have not healed. They have not scabbed over yet. And you can still make the case that in some places, maybe things were better under the empire because you don't know about the atrocities that were going on and you don't know that there was a super weapon and a secret Sith lord, et cetera. So you have this galactic concordance, which is basically it's a treaty sign between Masameta. and Monmouthma, that formalizes the empire surrender after the Battle of Jeku.

And it's not unlike, I guess, some of the agreements that were made after our world wars. You know, it's sort of the aggressors have to disband or disarm or make reparations or they're only allowed to exist within certain regions of the galaxy. And you have to just kind of demilitarize, right? And that's basically where we are. So you could imagine that maybe the chorus and accords kind of come out of that and are maybe also intended to prevent what we know will eventually happen, right? Which is for all of this to happen again. All of this has happened before and it will all happen again.

So they're trying to forestall that by saying, no, no more cloning. Cloning bad. We're not going to do that anymore. But it's really tempting to clone. You know, once you've gotten the taste of that cloning, it's really hard to give it up for good. So you're kind of trying to legislate out of existence these philosophies, these governments, these veterans of these old wars, but they're not really going away. And obviously, their feelings were hardened by these conflicts that they were in, right? You know, these were not peaceful disagreements.

These were shooting wars and you're on one side or the other. And then a new republic comes in and says, here's how we're going to avoid that happening again. but are you really changing hearts and minds just because you're putting some accord on a piece of paper somewhere? I have a plan for Starpiece. Do you guys want to hear it? Absolutely.

69 million planets is too many to be under one. You know, governing body. So why don't we just divvy the universe up until like, you know, it's already rimmed out. Is it not freezing? So like, why don't we just like, why don't we just have various sectors and you don't all have to be part of one fucking governing

sorry, excuse my language, one governing body like, why? You sound like a separatist. Yeah. Yes. You should hang out with hellgate here. You're a Duke who's stand.

Duke was right. States rights. I don't know about, I don't know about health. No, states, come on. That's not what I said. Don't put that on. me, man. No, you were just trying to make a lewd analogy, but I'll allow it.

So really, I think that's what we're facing here, right? Because we know what's coming, and these characters don't know what's coming. They don't know that there's a first order arising necessarily and that its triumph is inevitable, at least temporarily. So they're trying to forestall that. They're trying to do away with that. And it's hard because these are hard-fired. conflicts and feelings that won't just go away in the span of a few years. I mean, to us,

it's like different eras of Star Wars, right? And the original trilogy and the prequels and the sequel trilogy. But again, this is all happening within a pretty brief span of time. So all of those things that happen then, people are still thinking about, people are still suffering the after effects of. And that's the galaxy that we're seeing here. And that's probably something that's weighing on Bo's mind and the Mandalorian's mind now because now that they have delusions of grandeur, they have aspirations to have a sovereign Mandelor, right? Then they're already thinking about, well, what will this mean? Will the New Republic leave us alone? Will we actually be free to govern ourselves or will we take over Mandelor? And then next thing you know, there will be some tampering,

intrusive government showing up to tell us what to do again, because that's part of Mandelor's history too. So again, I don't know how Jack Black saying we recognize Mandelaar and the New Republic should too. I don't know how that carries a ton of weight. Jack Black is ready to formally recognize Mandelor as a sovereign system. It's all solved. Joe thought she had a solution, but really? You're right. I forgot.

You need to weave Jack Black into the situation somehow. Right. So I think that's why they're thinking forward. I would argue that maybe you should make sure you have control of Mandelor before you worry about who else is going to interfere. But again, as far as they know, the planet is basically deserted and they'll just show up and plant their flag and all will be well, right? Which would be an anticlimactic end to the season. So I'm guessing that's not how it's going to go. I don't know, Ben.

It could be. Sure. It would not be the first anticlimax of this season. But yes, presumably, if our secret. base theory from last week holds, then there will be some fight, but then what happens after that fight, right? And especially if our previous theorizing about potentially Gideon trying to frame the Mandalorians, right, to get on the bad side of the New Republic, then does that mean that the new republic shows up again? And here we're back to our old ways, you know, with a new republic.

Here's the great news. Colonel Tuttle's not getting that memo until season six of the Mandalorian. They have plenty of time to settle in. No, he's like, keep that off my desk. Get comfy with the Mithosaur. Yeah, but I feel for my man, Colonel Tuttle, or Captain Tuttle, or whatever his rank is, because really, like, imagine the backlog here. And this is something, like, even during more established, less upstart governments, there were long backlogs and cues of people petitioning to be members of these governments. I mean, It's a big galaxy. So even if you have faster than light travel, this stuff takes time.

And there are only so many functionaries and bureaucrats who can route the ships here and there. So I understand why the Republic just doesn't have the resources, unfortunately, to root out Pirate King Gory and Shard. Just an absolutely classic showing from you. First, you said, are we sure the empire wasn't good? then you made an excuse for all of the inept bureaucrats who have forced their will and leadership upon a galaxy that they are not ready to preserve and protect and then tried to put my name near the phrase states rights. I was going to bring up Masameda again, but also that. Also that. I stand by everything I've ever said about Masameda, but I'm.

I'm not pro-empirate. Let's make that clear. I started this out by saying I love democracy. I love the Republic. I don't love the empire. Even though. Your new empire. Democracy. Democracy. Was the emperor about to be. Yeah. So, I mean, sometimes the Mandalorian comes off almost as imperial propaganda. It's like empire, republic. Is there really any difference after all? But I think we know better than that. Beautiful. Ben. Thank you, Ben. Thank you. Always happy to talk to you about politics and Star Wars. Politics. Politics.

All right, Joe. It is time for Easter eggs. What's your favorite? Well, we love a classical illusion. So I just want to say that Nepenthe, which is the drink that the droids are drinking, is a drug from Homer's Odyssey. and it is meant to banish grief or trouble from a person's mind. And I love, you know, let's talk about Odysseus and Homer more often,

is what I have to say about this fun, lighthearted Star Wars show. And the droids need it because of all of the issues that they receive in this galaxy. They kicked over and over again. Terrible. Despicable, which brings me to my pick, which is Jack Black saying, despicable. And Christopher Lloyd saying, if that isn't the quacta calling the stifling slimy, which we have now heard so many times. Christopher Lloyd is 84 years old. I have to imagine that he has always kind of wanted to be in a Star War. Like, who hasn't? Right? And I don't

know if this is the best use of him in a Star War, but I do love that he got to read this. I bet he had so much fun reading this line. My favorite, it was of course wonderful to hear Cadby. say this, because I just adore Cadban, as you know. But my favorite utterance of this is definitely in the Boba-Casca feud in season two. Yes. Do you, sidegings get the talk? Great stuff. Whig watch.

When will you wear wigs? All right, so quite obviously, the most prominent wig in this episode belongs to our Lord and Savior Lizzo. but I am translissantly white, and so I do not talk about black women's hair, and so I am going to instead talk about Jack Black's beard, which is waxed into beautiful, flourishing curlicues. Lizo and, the casting of Lizzo and Jack Black is socially because, like, obviously, they're cultural figures in their own right, but they are also happened to be two people who are extraordinarily good on TikTok. They're very, very popular in TikTok. And so Lizzo has been posting all of these TikToks of her and Jack Black in their dressing room, like, you know, just dancing around and being goofy in their costumes, stuff like that. And then, of course, Jack Black has been dominating the Mario Brothers red carpet and his, like, Bowser fit.

But, like, his beard, that's his beard. That's just his beard. They just waxed it into, like, beautiful Captain Bombardier, like, sort of curly cues. So shout out beard wax. That's my wig washes me. I love it. Ah, we should have talked about that with Ben, given his majestic beard. Oh, it's true. I wonder what his stance is on beard wax.

We know, we know, because Ben, Ben, he doesn't want to maintain a beard. He doesn't want the, he doesn't want the wax. He wants to go O natural. Ben, we commented on Ben's beard on this very Zoom and pod a couple weeks ago, and then he was on a planning Zoom literally 13 minutes after we had finished recording and he had shaved. It was astonishing stuff. Astonishing. But it's back.

You know what else is back? Yeah. Coo Corner. Netflix subtitle award. The best. Joe, if this episode had Netflix subtitles, what would we have gotten? Metal tibia. No.

Crunches outrageously. I had crunchily in mine. Yeah. But I thought we might once again have the same one. So I came with a backup just in case. Wait, did you have the... I had the Mandalorian kicks cruelly and crunchily. Yeah.

And I love a version of it, which was protagonist malfunctions reverting to droid racist based programming to torment and ridicule rehabilitated citizens.

Amazing. Just a tough one for Den. How about flawless, foundling, force cheats brazenly. Love it.

Just another moment with Grogo before we go. You know, why not? Yeah. Last corner. Secret force user.

I don't think there's like a really good one this week, honestly. Do you have one? What's yours? I'm going with Lizos, the duchess, because the, what I think can only be described as an instant force bond with Grogo. Okay, that's a good, that's a good one. I will just do the complimentary argument case and say Jack Black for being able to insinuate himself into the royal family and be on the complete up and up into a plazure 15 out of like, you know, imperial description. Grace. Yeah.

This is not the Amnesty Program. You're looking for. You're looking for. Exactly. All right. Anything else? Um,

no, we did it. We did it. We did it. We hope you like secretions, but now that you've taken a little sip, sip, sip. It's time to wrap. Thank you to our domed

pleasure planet stewards. Our elected Monarchs, Steve Allman, for producing this episode. Argentina Ram Gopal for his additional production work on this episode, and Jomi Adoneron for his work on the social for this episode. Remember to pop over to the prestige TV podcast feed for our yellow jackets breakdowns, and then head back into the Ring Reverse next Wednesday for the Midnight Boys instant reaction to Mando episode seven.

And on Friday, you'll get the House of Our Chapter 23. Deep dive. Until then, we give you all our highest honor. the key to house farm. You think Steve is having dinnersies since he's not chiming in? I was not called upon. Wait, what did you call your meal last week? Dinsies.

Dindin. I feel like though in Amanda pod Dindon would just make me think you were talking about Dindjaran. I thought you said dinner zes because of 11 zes. Yeah, I thought you were doing a second breakfast show. I might have said dinner zes. Don't think he knows about dinner zes, pip. Oh, my God.

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