It Could Happen Here - The Gang Reviews Andor Season 2, Ep. 4-6

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Robert, Mia, and Garrison discuss the second arc of Andor Season 2, covering the infiltration of an underground resistance, weaponized surveillance, and the personal cost of revolution.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart podcast. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, Connie Britton is here. I think you should encourage your friend to go ahead and not be holding out for any man to have her babies. She could be waiting another 10 years before she finds the right guy. Connie didn't meet her right guy until you were what, 50 Connie? 52. 52.

I kept thinking, oh, I'm going to meet the guy, I'm going to meet the guy, I'm going to meet the guy. I finally was like, what am I waiting for? And I did it. And I'm just so glad that I did. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating.

I don't feel emotions correctly. I collect my roommates' toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept,

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My husband has a secret son from a past partner. Hold up Sam, how do we know how we've done the DNA test? Well, John, luckily it's mother. May I have a DNA test week on the OK Storytime podcast? So we'll find out soon. And this wife writes, my husband received a Facebook message from a woman saying that he is the father of a five-year-old at first he didn't remember her but then he realized they had a one-night stand right before

we started dating wait but do we have proof he's a dad to hear the explosive finale listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast normally about it happening here being, you know, the real world where you live. But for the next two weeks after this and for the week before this and for this week, we're talking about it happening in a galaxy far, far away. That's right. This is the second in our four part series reviewing and discussing Andor's season two, which due to a series of incredibly unlikely events has become

the most radical media to reach a wide audience in the United States in quite some time. I am here with Mia Wong and Garrison Davis. How are we all doing today? Hanging in there, hanging in there. Hanging in there. As we always are. Yeah. Just watched episodes seven through nine last night, which is really helping with the hanging in there.

I have not seen that shit yet, so... Yeah, that's for next week, though. We have to say that for next week. Yeah, well, we're not talking about them now, but we watched them this week, and I'm happy. I did watch them, and oh, boy. But we still have a lot to talk about for episodes four to six. It does kind of set up what we see later on, but I think there's a lot of interesting stuff there with like building an underground resistance, a lot of spies and espionage mixed

in with like the personal cost of rebellion and how it affects like your personal life, your relationships. So there is a lot to discuss here, but oh boy, I am excited for next week. Yes, I am very excited for next week. I'm very excited for this week, which we should talk about. So kind of there's a few themes running through these three episodes. One of them is, yeah, the cost in terms of your personal life on being part of a rebellion. And yeah, I'm interested kind of what are some of the I mean, there's one real standout moment in these episodes that I know we're all going to want to talk about, which is a speech given by Saul Guerrera. Saw, yeah.

Played by Forrest Whitaker. Just amazingly. Yeah, the Nitro speech. Yeah, the Nitro speech. We'll get to it. We'll get to that. Yeah, we shouldro speech. Yeah, the Nitro speech. We'll get to it. We'll get to that. But yeah, we should start with the first of these episodes. Yeah, episode four, Ever Been to Gorman. I guess once again, if you do not want to be giving Disney Plus your money,

you can be like Hondo Anaka and acquire the show that way. Remember the Torrent combinations. Remember the variations. Gotta keep them all in your head. Yes, yes. All the torrent combinations. Remember the variations. Got to keep them all in your head. Yes, yes. All nine or eight variations. Let's do a quick recap of this episode, then we'll talk about

some of these aspects. So one year later from the previous episodes, Cassian and Vix are on the planet Coruscant, staying at a safe house in between running missions for Luthen. Vix is severely struggling with PTSD, while Cassian is stressed about having to avoid surveillance while hiding in the capital city. And Bix is also, we find out, abusing space annex. Yeah, later on we can see that she's using space drugs to help her cope with the massive amounts of trauma that she's been forced to deal with the past few years. Now, our favorite weasel, Cyril Karn, has been transferred to the planet Gormont, where he's running the local Bureau of Standards in the capital city of Palmo.

He refutes imperial propaganda about Gormon while on a FaceTime call with his Fox News addicted mother. She's talking about like, yeah, the Imperial News says the Gormons are super arrogant, just real assholes. You gotta stop watching Imperial News says the Gormans are super arrogant. Just real assholes. You gotta stop watching Imperial News, Mom. But this may be a ploy from Cyril, because Cyril knows he's being monitored and surveilled by members of the Gorman Front, a small underground resistance group.

While working as a double agent for his ISB girlfriend, Dejra, Cyril gets invited to a town hall meeting where he's introduced to the leader of the Gorman Front, a local businessman and city councilor, and then Cyril is recruited into the Resistance. Yeah. I want to say a little about the Gorman Front because they're very clearly French Resistance and World War II coded. They developed a whole language for them to speak, which is basically like French- With French phonics, but different words.

But different words. And so it sounds a little bit like French and German got mashed together. People who speak both have told me. I don't know. I'm not a language guy, but it sounds distinctive. And they're very clearly, again, the whole industry of this planet is high quality textiles that come from spider silk. But also clearly the guy who's

leading the resistance, his business is kind of meant to evoke sort of like a classic like French vineyard. Like, so he's like, he's not a poor man, right? Like, no, he's like, he's like wealthy. He's like well off. Yes. Yes. I mean, that's a big part about like Gorman is this is like a, you know, middle upper

class like status planet. Yeah. This is like a big part of like Luton's interest in the planet is if he can bring a planet with that status into the rebellion that could have a whole bunch of advantages and that's kind of why he's at least like looking into them as an option and eventually kind of setting them up for like an accelerationist push. Yeah because I actually think it's a slightly different even than that but we'll talk about that and up when we get to episode nine.

Yeah. Sure. There's an ISB board meeting where they discuss a batch of new raids and arrests on rebel activity and how to deal with this influx of arrests that's making it hard to process and obtain useful information. Luthen's ISP spy informs him of the Empire's increased interest in Gorman and that the ISP is running covert operations on the planet. Meanwhile, Senator Mon Mothma unsuccessfully lobbies against the emperor's resentencing

directive and at Saw Guerrero's hideout, Willem teaches Saw as partisans how to safely deploy a fuel pipeline diverter. Yeah, and specifically, Saw puts him with one of his guys who's kind of coded as being like a close to Saw, like this is somebody that he really trusts. And it's kind of implied fairly soon that like, Saul doesn't want this guy going back to Luthen with information, right? He wants to keep Willem. Yeah, he has just like kidnapped this guy.

It's like... Well, he wants to kill him at first. That's the statement he makes to his guy is like, once you have these variations down, we're gonna ice him. Saul doesn't really trust Luthen very much anymore. He never did. Luthen's slowly losing a lot of the trust that he's built up throughout the galaxy.

Yeah, but like one of the things that's interesting here is that like we kind of see Saw's paranoia where there's a bunch of variations you need to know to get fuel out of any number of different things. And the guy's like, I have to memorize too many. If you just let us know which one We're trying to go after but that would make it clear which fuel station they're going after so saw doesn't want to say shit Initially so this episode we're introduced to the planet Gorman like in person It's basically like northern Italy mixed with French culture. Yeah, the massive set they built is just gorgeous

It's huge huge town square for the capital city of Palmo. The amount of money they spent on this show. The protesters, I think, is really interesting because it's like... The protesters at like the monument of the Tarkin massacre. Yeah, they're sort of fascinating because it's like, the way that their banners are designed really, really remind me of like pictures you see from like 1917. It's like very, very similar to that and it also they have a thing That's a very common Protesting which like there's a there's you know, there's protests going on

So there's like just like ten guys in the square all the time. Yes, I'd like chanted stuff Yeah, always making noise They're kind of keeping a vigil because basically what happened totally and this is another interesting Tony girl is kind of famously not a Star Wars fan, like prior to working on this. And so there was a lot of like anxiety from big Star Wars nerds that like, oh, this isn't going to feel like Star Wars. But he clearly has a lot of folks who understand not just like the stuff that's come out, you

know, since Disney started in the different books and comics, but like the old legend stuff. Because in legends, like a major spark of the whole rebellion was the Gorman Massacre, which is in Tarkin lands. And Tarkin's the old guy in the Death Star in A New Hope, right? Like he's the guy who's Darth Vader's boss in the first movie. And he lands a craft on a crowd at Gorman. And that's supposed to have been one of the major sparks.

And they've retconned it a little, but to the point where that still happened, but it's clearly the setup for a larger massacre that this season is building towards. Yeah. Man, Space Box News, very good. We see the Ministry of Enlightenment's efforts to weaponize public opinion and how much it's working on someone like Cyril's mother, who then becomes convinced that the propaganda that she's being fed is stuff that she already believed, absolutely, right? It's stuff that she's retconned into her own memory of being like, no, I've always never trusted the gore, right?

Meanwhile, she's sitting in front of her TV 24-7, watching this garbage get beamed into her brain. And I'm wondering, did y'all wonder for a second if Ciro was legitimately getting pilled by the Gorman Resid... Yeah, because it's good, right? There's like that moment, where you're like, well, fuck, is our boy starting to have a break already? And then he realized, like, no. That's what we're getting...

That's kind of what's being set up, is like, will this experience for Serial, like, change him as a person? And I think, yeah, the audience is meant to not fully know. And I think it's definitely like possible, but Cyril might be more of a hard ass than what some people give him credit for. Because he is very excited to get invited to this meeting. He purchases a spider from one of like the Gorman front, like recruiters that has information on how to go to this public

town hall where he talks about, hey, maybe we can start working together, maybe we can start feeding information. One point, hilariously, he gets accused of being an Imperial spy in a joking manner and denies it. And then he gets on the phone with his ISP girlfriend and he's like, I'm in. Also, this is one of the first times we see this. The Gorman front people, these people have no idea what the fuck they're doing. They are amateurs. Very green.

They are like, yeah, like their operational security is unbelievably dog shit. They like wiretapped one guy and were like, hey, let me introduce you to the leader of our organization. We have met you one time. We have listened to one phone call. You're in now. I think We have listened to one phone call. You're in now Just I think they probably listen to more than one But yeah, they definitely didn't like him for a while him much

They just were kind of like hey, you're gonna like meet our leader now at the first meeting you've shown up to He met like the public-facing aspect. Yeah, I guess yeah You can see the Gorman like they have some degree of sophistication in that they're tapping like him and they've been listening probably for quite a while and they sweep their shit every day for bugs. So you understand that like they have an idea of what they need to be doing,

but when it comes to all of the in-person stuff, that's where they're incompetent, right? Where they don't have the actual operational experience to know when someone feels off, right? Like that's the stuff that they're missing. Like man to man on the ground is where the problems come in. Like you can tell they're thinking this stuff through, but they just don't know what they're doing enough. And this is the thing you, this is the thing you, Jen, what you run into like in the field a lot where there's people who like have read a lot of stuff about operational security but haven't done anything and so they don't

under and there's varying levels of this right but you get this to do people where it's like they don't know what the important things are so they do some of the stuff right that they've read but they don't understand how to put all of it together to like do something securely and so you'll get these things where like some of their stuff is like unbelievably secure to a point where it's useless. And then some of it is like very open. Yeah. Yeah. They're just like, hey, have I don't know.

Yeah. They'll just bring people into stuff that instantly compromises everything that they're doing because they haven't like thought it through. Yeah. I mean, and this is something that that Cassian talks about in the next episode, which we will get to shortly. Yeah. I mean, so much of these episodes isian talks about in the next episode, which we will get to shortly. Yeah. I mean, so much of these episodes is built around, like, paranoia and, like, surveillance. I mean, like, Cassian's talking about not wanting to go, like, on a walk in the park because the Empire just put up cameras. He's nervous about, like, where they go grocery shopping.

Like, he's trying to, like, do everything right, but it's, like, hurting his relationship with Bix. And it's just making their life like very very challenging on Coruscant as they're like stationed there in between missions like meanwhile like Luthen is just trying to gain as much information on Gorman as possible He has a line that I like a smear campaign is an opening move not an endgame. I need the endgame Yeah, I'm talking about like the limits of you know the Empire's Fox News about the limits of the empire's Fox News style propaganda is only a starting position. This is obviously leading somewhere and I need to know where that is. And he's going to obtain that information slowly over the course of the next few episodes. And then I think the other thing I want to talk about before we go on break is Mon Mothma's

lobbying against the prison sentencing guidelines. She says, quote, sector boundaries, civil liberties, personal freedom, respect for local traditions. You've been voting with me on these issues for years. And the Gorman senator replies, this is security, Mon, you're confusing criminality and politics here. Mon says, really, are we finding criminals? Or are we making them? Yeah. This is where you see senators parroting like fake crime stats about how there's been like, you know, this increased wave of crime. But that's not true.

Yeah. Because just because they're arresting more people, that makes there be more crime. And like we see this in season one, where Cassian's arrested at the beach planet for no reason and then sentenced to the forever prison. Yeah. Like, yeah, they are arresting more people. So if you just look at those stats by itself without any context on like how other policing is working, then yeah, it can look a certain way.

And this is what Man's trying to like push back on. And the other senators are just too like bought into the empire or too scared. Like the Gorman senator believes that voting against the emperor at this point would further endanger his planet. Yeah. Even though this type of thing is actually gonna end up biting him in the ass in the next few years. Yes, and yeah, he is like very much desperate to like, no, please, we can calm this down if we just don't piss the Empire off enough. No.

The thing I think is actually interesting about the crime statistics stuff is that this is actually a more sophisticated operation than what happened in real life, where in real life, all the actual crime statistics were like, crime is falling, but everyone just kept saying there was more crime. Totally, totally. This is arresting more people to jack the crime rates. That is a more sophisticated thing than what we actually

dealt with, which was the media just lying. No, our own version of this, our not outer space version of like propaganda news media can just say something and you don't even need the stats to back it up. Yeah. Let's go on break and we'll come back to talk about episode five. I have friends everywhere. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, Connie Britton is here.

I think you should encourage your friend to go ahead and not be holding out for any man to have her babies. If she is passionate about becoming a mother and she has her eggs frozen and she has her life together, go for it. She could be waiting another 10 years before she finds the right guy. Connie didn't meet her right guy until you were what, 50, Connie?

How long have you guys been together? Yeah, no, 52. 52. 52. Connie didn't meet her right guy until you were what, 50 Connie? How long have you guys been together? Yeah, no, 52. 52. I adopted my son as a single mom because I kept thinking, oh, I'm going to meet the guy, I'm going to meet the guy, I'm going to meet the guy. I finally was like, what am I waiting for? And I did it. And I'm just so glad that I did.

I want to change the narrative about single parents and also help to create a community for single parents so that they can not feel alone in it. One of the big things is it's so hard, especially for women, to ask for help. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not Those were some callers from my call-in podcast therapy gecko It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko

Therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend, and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommates' toenails and fingernails.

I have very overbearing parents even at the age of 29 They won't let me move out of their house So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head search for Therapy gecko on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts It's the one with the green guy on it. My husband has a secret son from a past partner. Hold up Sam, how do we know how we done the DNA test? Well John, luckily it's Mother May I Have a DNA Test Week on the OK Storytime Podcast so we'll find out soon. And this wife writes, my husband received a Facebook message from a woman saying that he is the father of a five-year-old. Whoa! At first he didn't remember her but then

he realized they had a one-night stand right before we started dating. Wait, but do we have proof he's a dad? Well, the author says there's no confirmation the kid is even his son, but the woman from Facebook has a meeting with her lawyer soon. I think she's going after our money. If the kid is actually my husband's,

she would be entitled to it too. So what's a husband gotta say about this? This could be his kid. Well, apparently he broke down in the middle of the living room, apologizing, but this is what scared me. His first instinct, if the kid is his son, is to pay the child support, but not be an active father in the kid's life because

he only wants a family with me, his wife. Oh, this is a mess. To hear the explosive finale, follow OK Storytime on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, my name is Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of On Purpose. And Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I am Chloe Kardashian. Chloe Kardashian, everybody! Chloe Kardashian? No one understands how it's... I'm not just a TV show. There would be times that I was like, I don't even want to go out to the grocery store because I feel like I know what they're thinking about me.

And that was scary to me because I've never been in a dark place for that long. You've always taken care of others. Have you discovered anything about why you've seen yourself take on that role in so many relationships in your life? How do you even find the courage

to trust again? Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ahhhh. and we're back. Yeah, so yeah, let's start with the summary of this episode. All right.

Luthen wants a first-person assessment of the Gorman front, but he's like too high profile to go himself, so he sends Cassian undercover as fashion designer Varian Sky. The ISB stages a performative raid of Cyril Karn's office to gain more cred with local rebels as Cyril begins to feed them select information. And he does such a good job of seeming pissed at it. Oh yeah. He loves pretending to be pissed at the ISB. He has so much fun kicking his little trash can across the room

This is outrageous. Yeah, very good stuff And I do like like yeah like the weaponization of like state repression as a tactic to actually increase state repression like long-term You're doing this like performative show so that Cyril like builds trust and like solidarity with the other rebels very good like builds trust and like solidarity with the other rebels. Very good. Luthen visits Bix at the safe house and grows concern for her well-being as she uses space drugs to cope with trauma. Yeah. Cyril arrives back on Coruscant to report to ISB Command, has a one-hour meeting with his girlfriend where they turn off the lights. Yeah. After arguing, because she's had him followed.

Yeah, he's a little bit pissed that she's having him followed and then she orders him to turn off the lights and then they do something for an hour in their apartment. God only knows. I don't want to know. I don't want to know what they get up to. These fascist weirdos. But at ISP command, they plan how to like carefully push the Gorman front into taking action against the Empire. Cassian makes contact on Gorman and is unimpressed with their operational security, and warns against trusting an Imperial source as the ISB could be feeding false intel. Some of the best moments in this episode so far, because it's, they don't know shit about Cassian,

so they don't know who they're talking to, and when he's like, you guys shouldn't do fuck right now, because you don't know shit about fuck. They're like, well, you're not a real revolutionary. You don't get it. And like, honestly, I understand what's being expressed there, too. And like, we'll get to that in a sec. Like, the Gorman front is adamant that their source is vetted and reliable, even though they haven't really been vetted. The plan is that the Resistance seeks to expose the construction of an imperial military base on Palmo, something that the Empire denies, though it seems most of the citizens actually already take this to be true, and or questions the necessity of this plan and relations sour with the group. Back on Coruscant, Clea learns through radio chatter

that one of Luthen's listening devices may be discovered during an artifact reappraisal. Saw kills an Imperial spy and his crew forcibly recruits Willem, and while on mission installing a fuel diverter, Saw convinces Willem to huff the fuel fumes. Yeah, we'll talk about that in a second. I wanna talk a little bit about like Cassian on Gorman.

Yes. And there's a lot of interesting stuff there. And like specifically when the Gorman front leader like calls Cassian out for like not being a real like revolutionary, which I think is like kind of true. Like Cassian at this point is a thief and a soldier. He thinks about things purely from that like operationally like tactical point of view. He doesn't have like a larger like politics

He's like focused on right like like Lutheran is more of like a revolutionary a very like manipulative one But like he is focused on like this like larger political game And this is something that at this point Cassian is not fully like interested in he's more interested on like on the ground like tactical Preparedness he is interested in what he can do and get away with, right? Exactly. As opposed to Luthen is interested in what does more damage to the Empire. Now what's interesting to me is that the Gorman front are actually in the middle. They think...

Totally. That they are willing to do whatever, but they don't understand what that is. And part of what you are seeing here is the Gorman front are adamant, we are ready for war. We're already in a war. And they're not technically wrong about that because the empire is planning to wipe them out, right? We know the empire does not plan for there

to be a Gorman in the future. So the stakes are where they're saying they are. But even though they're saying that, most of them don't truly believe or understand it. And Cassian understands what war is. And what he is telling them is that you are, and he's right about this, you are not ready for what you think you're ready for. Because what you're going to do is die, all of you. Yeah. That's what makes all their interactions so interesting, because there is that unspoken tension, which slowly gets, like, aired.

Because, like, they're really assessing different things. Like, what Cassian's assessing is different from what Luthen wants assessed. And that's different from what the Gorman front actually, like, want to do. Like, they're okay with the degree of casualties, like, being had, because they just want to, like, have control over their planet again,

and put up any resistance, even if it ends up, like, leading to hardship. But I think the other angle of that, too, though, is that, like, they don't know what they're doing, like have control over their planet again and put up any resistance even if it ends up like leading to hardship But I think the other angle of that too though is that like they don't know what they're doing right now like Like their plan their plan is genuinely really bad, right? like the plan is they want to like steal an Imperial weapon shipment and Then reveal that the Empire shipping weapons in but if you do that, then you just were like an end report It sounds like okay and then reveal that the Empire is shipping weapons in. But if you do that, then you just were like, and Andrew points out, okay, so if you do

this, then you reveal that you did, you hijacked the shipment. So they're just going to like raid you all. And they're okay with that. Yeah, yeah. But like, and they're like, okay, with that visibility at this point. And there's this, this very standard, it's also this very common, and this is part of what Cassian recognizes this common myopic thing that you get with people who again, think they want a war that they don't truly understand the meaning of,

where they're like, we need weapons. And when they think of weapons, they think of guns that they can hold. And so that's what they're focused on getting. And that's what they think will let them fight the empire. When Cassian understands there's no fighting the Empire with what you can possibly get from a raid like this. All there is is suicide. And then there's the other level of what Luthen understands is, so the fuck what? Sometimes that needs to happen.

What matters is that these people die in public and it pisses people off. Yeah. Right? And that's, there's this escalation of like the Gormans think having guns means you can fight back. Or like guns, guns means that they'll be safer. Right. And they're wrong. Cassian thinks staying alive for a future moment means that you can fight back. And he is wrong. Luthen understands that the only ammunition that really counts in this war is human life.

And that sucks. And that sucks. That's why he's lost his mind and soul. Yes. And that's why people are starting to really dislike working with him. Yes. Even though he might not be completely wrong here. Yeah. I like it so much this episode is built around finding bugs.

The ISB looks for bugs in Cyril's office. The ISB is planting bugs in Cyril's office. Bugs are hidden in the artifacts that Lutheran is selling to high society. Everyone's listening. Everyone's always trying to collect more intel. And there's this issue the Empire and Lutheran's organization are having with like, we're getting too much. You know, the Empire is like, we're arresting too many people.

Like number one, it's like cutting into our ability to get into these organizations. And it also is just like, we're drowning. And Lutheran says the same thing. I'm always spacing on her name, but she's wonderful to his cons lady. Like we're drowning. We have too much shit. Yeah. Something I love is when Cyril's talking with the Gohmann Front about the ISB raid of his

office, the Gohmann Front remarks, quote, we think the ISP is running a shadow government without the emperor's knowledge. Oh, yes. Yes. Unquote. And it's a real, you hear this when you read about histories of like Tsarist Russia, like even a lot of people who take part in the 1917 revolution, right up till it started, their attitude was like, oh, if the Tsar knew what his advisors were doing in his name, he'd be on our side. And the same thing happened in the Third Reich. If only Hitler knew was a common phrase. We're like, well, Hitler doesn't know

that Gestapo is doing all these awful things, of course. And it's so sad because this is their local resistance group who still has that level of delusion because they come from high society, right? They come from this diplomatic background where they can solve things through free trade. And they're like, like, sure, surely, surely the Emperor doesn't actually know what's going on here. It must it must be like the CIA. It must be the FBI. It's like the ISP is running a shadow government. They're the ones that are actually like ruining things. Yes. And you're like, No, your enemy is the entire Empire. Yes, your enemy is the ISP. But it's also Cyril Carr and it's also Emperor Palpatine.

Yes, and I love that's part of what I love about that that laddered interaction between them and Cassian and Cassian and Luthen is They're not really revolutionaries either. They they are protesters, right? Totally. They still think that the overall Empire once it realizes how bad things are will be on their side and Cassian thinks they can wait. Yeah, it's Lutheran who's like, no, no, no, there's one way out, right? You know, going back to season one, there's one way out. Before we talk about the Sagrera stuff at the end, I do want to point out how wonderful it was to see Cyril Carran in the ISB control room,

where he remarks that this is the greatest day of his life. Oh god. It's just amazing. Fucking Gordon Libby shit. It's like Libby finally getting to spy. And Pardegas even makes that great comment where he's directly talking about the Gorman front and he's like, yeah, there's a lot of people who think they understand shit better than they do because they're new to it.

But he's also, he's clearly talking to Cyril Cyril like you don't know what you're doing, but I'll use you fine It's so good Cyril gains credit amongst the goreman front when they find out that his background is that he lost his job because the ISP found Out how badly he fucked up ferrex Yeah, like they're like ah I see Cyril must have good reason to hate the Empire because of this. You're like, no. He's desperately trying to become some ISP secret agent. He just wants approval from the daddy state. And from his girlfriend, right? Who has taken over for his mom in being the primary source, the person he's trying to impress.

The last thing I want to talk about in this episode is, this episode displays like two different types of drug use. We have Bix, who's trying to get over the immense amount of fucked up stuff that's happened to her by taking Space Xanax, if you will. She's barred out every night holding a gun watching TV and hey, who amongst us? It is disrupting her personal life. It's also disrupting her like operational capacity. She has been sent out in the recent past and she can't be sent back out again. And the specific, we don't even see the mission that most recently fucked her up, but through her nightmares were led first, she and Cassian captured

an Imperial pilot and Cassian killed the guy because he'd seen her face. And she's, in addition to having been tortured in season one, fucked up because like, we didn't need to kill him. And Cassian's like, yeah, we did. Like, he saw your face, that's it. The weight of resistance is really getting to Bix.

And like, like Luthen comes over to like check on her and also like see if she's able to like work, face. That's it. The weight of resistance is really getting to Bix. Yeah. And like, like, Lutheran comes over to like check on her and also like see if she's able to like work is see if she can like appraise some weapons or something. And he realizes like she is not like well enough to work at this point. Yeah. And becomes like getting worried for her. And like, like try to like plead with her to like you have to you have to make sure that you like stay healthy. I don't know. It's definitely it's definitely hard to watch. I think this is definitely like this moment. It's like, I don't know,

Vicks has always had a lot of agency taken away from her. Like we see this like in season one, and we see this kind of now. And I definitely would like to would like to see her get put back in like the driver's seat of her own life at a certain point. But like, like, like living through like PTSD and living through like these types of like, you know, political movements does does like destroy people and like this does happen. Well, and just what torture does, right? Like, yeah, torture breaks people. That's its purpose. You know, so we have space Xanax and then we have Saw Gerrera.

Yeah, we fucking do. So let's I want to talk a little bit about his background, some stuff that's not in the show in the show you see him when we when he is already basically the hardest son of a bitch in the rebellion right He is the only leader of a rebel faction that Luthen treats as an equal right where like Luthen is meeting with him We saw Luthen meeting with him directly Luthen is not willing to sacrifice he and his men and like in order to maintain the cover of a spy which he is yeah It's like serious militants. Yeah, they they are serious in there and every time we see them

There's more of them and they have more ships They're the first ones they're the first rebels to use x-wings. First ones to have x-wings Yeah, and saws background and you have this is way a bunch of the expanded stuff, but he started out as Essentially a local rebel on this planet during the Clone Wars that was not aligned between either major faction, but basically the Jedi taking the role of space CIA, armed him and his sister to lead like a rebel group against the other power they were fighting in the Clone Wars. Occupation like separatist forces. He was meant to be Mujahideen coded, right? Initially, right? So he's like a space Mujahideen who's armed

by the space CIA, who are the Jedi. And then when the Republic ends, he immediately starts fighting the empire. And one of the kind of like moments that form saw is his sister dies in the process of this failed attempt to gain independence for their home world, this place called Onderon, right? You don't need to know any of that

to perfectly get and enjoy his character in these shows. But the moment that we're about to talk about means more if you understand his backstory with his sister, right? Yeah, and he's been doing this ever since he was like a kid. Like he's been in this life. This has been his whole life, right? I think he's supposed to be like 46 when he dies in Rogue One.

Hard 46. If you look at him, you know, he looks clearly older, but also he looks like, well, yeah, he's been fighting his entire life. That age is deep. Yeah, he's like a teenager. And he has this, so the first thing that he does is he executes this guy who was set up as his friend when it becomes clear that that guy was a spy. And it's insinuated, he thinks it's a spy for the Empire.

That guy might have been a spy for Luthen or someone else. We don't actually know. We know he was sending info to someone. He was transmitting. Yeah. Saw things that they were going to set up like an ambush at their next mission. Yeah. And instead they evacuate their base.

And Saw blasts him and basically says, hey, to the kid, you're mine now, and we're going to go steal this fucking fuel. So the next time we see them, they've busted onto this Imperial fuel lot, and they're fueling up their ships. And while the kid is like working out to set this thing up to allow them to take the the the ribo, which is the... Rydonium. Rydonium.

Rydos, sorry, the starship fuel. While the kid is like doing this job, we've been told if you don't do it perfectly, it kills you and everyone around you. Saw his monologuing and he's talking about his childhood where he was like, I was a child slave, forced to labor in these Rhyto mines, right? And one day there was a gas leak and everyone ran.

And this stuff, it was so bad out there, the old people would die and you'd come back the next day and the jungle was so thick, they'd been eaten down to bones. And one day everybody has to flee because of this leak, but I don't run away because I'm huffing this gas. I get high and I realize for the first time I'm alive. He has this moment.

And then when the kid figures out how to get the fuel hooked up, Saw immediately leans in and starts huffing what is effectively gasoline. And going, and the kid's like, what the fuck? The kid who's wearing a gas mask, who's like wearing proper PPE, is like, what are you doing? And he's like, she's my sister, Raito. She's my sister and she loves me.

I want to read it here. I have this back of the monologue. You feel how badly she wants to explode. Remember this moment. You think I'm crazy? Yes, I am. Revolution is not for the sane. Look at us, unloved, hunted, cannon fodder, we'll all be dead before the Republic is back. And yet, here we are. Where are you, boy? You're here. You're not with Lutheran. You're here. You're not with Luthen. You're here. You're right here and you're ready to fight. We're the RIDO Kid. We're the fuel. We're the thing that explodes when there's too much friction in the air. Let it in, boy. That's freedom calling. Let it in. Let it run. Let it run wild.

And he is just, for one thing... The kid is choking on the fumes. ...is nearly dying from the gas fumes that clearly Saw is barely affected by anymore, right? It's again, this thing I love that they do in terms of they're calling back to the older lore when he calls this his sister, but you don't need to know that his sister died

to get this moment. It just makes it, adds an extra layer of meaning if you're a nerd for the lore, which I appreciate a lot. And it also sets up in Rogue One when we see Saw near death. He's huffing fumes. I think he's on O2 because he's destroying his lungs huffing fumes. He's huffing this now. This is what he's huffing that has been like retconned. Oh, wait, is it confirmed it wasn't oxygen? Okay. Yes. Bo, the writer, called wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, to explain it, but I think he's on oxygen because all this- I think it's been retconned to being that he's just huffing right out now. Is he just huffing right out? I don't know. Okay.

I saw it in an article, you know? Yeah. So- Either way. We'll see. We'll see. I could be wrong. I was wrong last week about one thing. I miscredited the quote about the empire's grip tightening and systems falling through because the theory twinks. The British actor has an accent very similar to the one Carrie Fisher poorly tries to imitate in A new hope where she says that line. So sorry George. Sorry George. That was your line good line

The theory twink just has some very similar ones. So I got confused Accountability Wow mean to Carrie Fisher garrison. Everyone knows her accent's bad in that movie. We all know it I fucking love this speech by so yeah, this is the most Robert thing I've ever seen Everyone knows her accent's bad in that movie. We all know it. That's... I fucking love this speech by Saw. Oh yeah, this is the most Robert thing I've ever seen. Yeah, it's perfect. It's perfect. Everything about it makes me so happy. Bo Willemann continues to be like maybe the best monologues writing for TV right now. It's just such a raw scene. And it explains both like why saw is still around because

he's the most paranoid crazy son of a bitch there is and because he unlike everyone else and unlike the the Gormans unlike even Cassian he's the only guy who understands what Lutheran understands which is that like we're not here to see the other side of this no you're here to catch on fire you know like that's that's the whole thing. And hopefully that fire will grow. Yeah. And yeah, if that means we get burned up in the process that is that's how it be. Yeah. If the fire will burn very brightly. Yes. All right. Let's go and break and then come back to discuss the final episode in this arc.

This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, Connie Britton is here. I think you should encourage your friend to go ahead and not be holding out for any man to have her babies. If she is passionate about becoming a mother and she has her eggs frozen and she has her life together, go for it. She could be waiting another 10 years before she finds the right guy. Connie didn't meet her right guy until you were what, 50, Connie? How long have you guys been together?

Yeah, no, 52. 52. I adopted my son as a single mom because I kept thinking, oh, I'm going to meet the guy, I'm going to meet the guy, I'm going to meet the guy. I finally was like, what am I waiting for? And I did it. And I'm just so glad that I did.

I want to change the narrative about single parents and also help to create a community for single parents so that they can not feel alone in it. One of the big things is it's so hard, especially for women, to ask for help. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating.

I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains

and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommates' toenails and fingernails

I have very overbearing parents even at the age of 29 They won't let me move out of their house So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head search for therapy Gecko on the I heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts It's the one with the green guy on it. My husband has a secret son from a past partner. Hold up Sam, how do we know how we done the DNA test? Well John, luckily it's Mother May I Have a DNA Test Week

on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. And this wife writes, my husband received a Facebook message from a woman saying that he is the father of a five year old. Whoa! At first he didn't remember her, but then he realized they had a one-night stand right before we started dating.

Wait, but do we have proof he's a dad? Well, the author says there's no confirmation the kid is even his son, but the woman from Facebook has a meeting with her lawyer soon. I think she's going after our money. If the kid is actually my husband's, she would be entitled to it too. So what's a husband got to say about this? This could be his kid. Well, apparently he broke down

in the middle of the living room apologizing, but this is what scared me. His first instinct, if the kid is his son, is to pay the child support, but not be an active father in the kid's life because he only wants a family with me, his wife. Oh, this is a mess. To hear the explosive finale,

follow OK Storytime on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. because feeling is too much for me to handle. All right, we're ready. I am Khloe Kardashian. Khloe Kardashian, everybody. Khloe Kardashian. No one understands how it's, I'm not just a TV show. There would be times that I was like, I don't even wanna go out to the grocery store because I feel like I know what they're thinking about me.

And that was scary to me because I've never been in a dark place for that long. You've always taken care of others. Have you discovered anything about why you've seen yourself take on that role in so many relationships in your life? How do you even find the courage to trust again? Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Okay, we are back. And or season two, episode six, What a Festive Evening. Ah, beautiful. Luthen sends Mon Mothma's cousin Val to reestablish relations with the Gorman front after Cassian's icy reception. Cassian and Bix reunite on Coruscant, but then Cassian shows up at Luthen's shop to confront him about checking in on Bix

at the safe house while Andor was on mission in a possibly like opsec irresponsible move. Huge opsec fuck up. Huge opsec fuck up. Because Cassian Andor's face is known. Yeah, not good. This is like Cassian's emotions getting the better of him here. Senator Mon Mothma and her husband Perrin attend a party of the Empire's elite, where

she debates Krennic on Imperial cruelty and the mindset of a rebel underdog. Meanwhile, Kleia uses their undercover ISB agent to help remove a listening device hidden in the prized collection of artifacts. Vel reunites with Cinta as they help to lead the Gorman Front's first attack, stealing Imperial weapons on a cargo transport. At first, things go according to plan. Cyril watches from a distance and reports to ISB headquarters. We should note ahead of this that during the meeting where they had about this,

one point that they had made is none of you have guns. None of you carry guns on this. Me and her are the only people with blasters. You don't need them. You're not competent to use them. Yeah. So near the end of this operation, a civilian confronts the rebels about what they're doing. And in the struggle, Cinta is accidentally shot and killed by one of the members of the

Gorman front, a guy named Sam with two M's. I love Star Wars. This episode ends with Bix and Cassian going on a mission to kill the Imperial interrogation expert, Dr. Gorst, which they succeed and then walk away heroically from the explosion, similar to... Kill him by torturing him the way he tortured her. Yeah, and then they blow him up.

Then they blow up the building and they play the music cue from the very first arc, the very first season, where Cassian is walking away with that fast drumbeat. So this episode has so much about like relationships complicating political activity, right? We have Andor and Bix, we have the lesbians, Val and Centa. They killed my lesbian! They did kill your lesbian. They killed my lesbian!

We'll talk about that in a sec. We'll talk about that in a sec. We're gonna talk about this later. Yeah. We'll talk about that in a sec. They also have Cyril and Dejra. We have a lot of how relationships and politics function, where there's friction, when things can go well, when things can go bad. Let's talk, I guess, a little bit about this party where Luthen talks, uh, Luthen talks with Krennic very, very briefly. And

at the end, I mean, this is, this is a very effective scene where they like build tension with Kleia trying to remove this bug while Krennic's like in the room seeing, seeing these other artifacts and it's like debating Mon. But when, when Luthen and Kleia leave, they jokingly remarked, man We should have killed the critic when we were up there and they laugh and you're like, yeah Yeah, no, you guys should have that's not a joke You really should have killed critic you really should have killed critic It would have fucked things up, but then the Death Star may not have been completed

Yeah, and this whole thing would have gone differently Although you know, you know in a way the Death Star operation operation does lead to the fall of the Empire in a paradoxical way. To be fair, they don't know that Death Star exists. They know something's being made. But he's like a super high up guy. And man, that is tough. That's a tough scene.

It's a tough... Also, what's interesting is that it's a tough scene in light of the rest of the lore It's a really nice because they've been fighting bickering for this whole cycle of episodes and like your things are breaking down And this is a moment where like they get back on the same page and you're like Tension eases. Yeah, well because part of it, because like part of what's going on here is like Luthen is losing it, right? And this is the thing because like he's he's juggling too many threads at once Things are falling apart. Yeah. Yeah, you've, everyone's fucking seen this like yeah, your friend is juggling 15 projects at once They're losing their goddamn minds

And then like the the the girl in your group was on top of it has to just slap them and be like yeah The fuck in yeah, no clear is a scary monster. She is on it. Yep Well, it's made really clear in these cycles. She is not his subordinate. Oh, no They are they are handling very different parts of the operation, but she is not his subordinate. Oh no, they are equals. They are handling very different parts of the operation, but she is not working under him. No, and she's like the one who like, is the reason any of this shit works. Absolutely.

And it's like, that's a thing you see very often. There's a line in season one where things are looking bad for them, and he specifically asks her, is your go bag ready? And he doesn't check his own. So I think he understands, if one of us has to get out, it should be you. She has to survive.

Yeah, totally. And I think that is where things are gonna be moving. Yeah, I mean, when Cassian's coming back from Gorman, like Luthen picks him up and they start like arguing over like, is the Gorman front like a real thing to like spend effort and like time on? Like they're kind of all like green. They don't really have good opsec. They're not, they're just not like ready yet. And, and, and Luthen pushes back and says to Cassian, like,

you're thinking small, you're thinking like a thief. And Cassian rebuts like, no, I'm thinking like a soldier. And Luthen's like, no, you have to think like a leader. You have to think like a leader. You have to actually, and like, from L Lutheran's point of view, a leader is like a very like manipulative role. And like, like you, you have to start using these guys as pawns for this like larger game because the empire is bigger than just Gorman. The empire is bigger than us. We have to think bigger. You can't just, you can't just think like a, you know, a small illegalist who's going to steal your food and not pay for parking and just like get by while still doing crime, but like, you know, try to like outsmart the empires. Like, no, like

we are, we are, we are beyond that. We ain't robbing banks anymore. Yeah, exactly. Right? Like we are beyond the illegalist like point of view. We have to start thinking like much more, much more strategically and with like the bigger picture in mind. Cause like we are slowly getting closer to the Battle of Yavin here. And I find their little argument there really interesting. And then their secondary meetup where Cassian's mad

about Luthen checking in on Bix. And I think like I can understand both their point of view here is this, I think this is still a big fuck up from Cassian, but it's like, it makes sense, But like, yeah, the relationships getting like the better of him on like a strategic standpoint, like at this at this plot point. And Luthen still trusts them, though, like Luthen still gives them the assignment to kill Dr. Gorst. So like Luthen still is able to work with these people. And he still actually like, oddly enough, like prioritizes empathy and like says like, like, like empathy empathy like you can you cannot have a you cannot have a revolution without empathy

That's what this is built on and and even though he's a bit of a hard-ass sometimes He still does like trust them. Yeah Yeah, but he thought he also is deliberately fucking with him like like one of those. Yeah, he's very manipulative Like he like he's like he's being unbelievable. Like like what it like one of the things here is like he deliberately gives He's being unbelievably manipulative. Like one of the things here is he deliberately gives Bix, tells Bix about this assignment that he was going to give her and then doesn't specifically to see if she would tell Andrew about it and test how Andrew would react to that. Which is like, don't do that. That's unhinged. Like, that's like not... and this is like also part of like, you know, the thing you have to like balance here, right? It's like, you know, you have to be able to balance, like, getting people to do things that need to be done with, like, not being a fucking asshole and alienating everyone.

And this is like a especially when you yourself because like, like Luther is also falling apart. He's not going to change. He's not. He's never going to change. Yeah, he's not changing. But that's like, that's the thing, though. That's not his job. Yeah. Right. His job was to make the later stages of this where people act differently inevitable. Totally. And he understands that you need something that horrifies people to do that, right? Like, and that's all he's trying to set up.

Lucid is absolutely like a moral, very manipulative. I am still, I'm still team Lucid. A hundred percent. Even though he like sucks as a dude,. I would hate to work with him. Yeah, well it's like- But I still gotta be Team Luthen in the end. Yeah, well I would just say the thing is if you try to act like this in an actual organizing space, this isn't gonna work. You're just gonna piss everyone off.

But Luthen's not in an organizing space. No, he's not doing that.'s not that kind of person. He's not in organizing spaces. He's not doing that, that's what I'm saying though, right? This works because of the exact specific thing that he's doing, which is he is the guy who is coordinating a bunch of networks. The thing is, in order for networks to hold together and work, people have to have relationships with each other. And if you behave like this in that situation, it will fuck everything.

And this is the conflict that's happening like even inside of his own limited network is it like he's he is like fucking with everyone and we'll get to that with the lesbian. You see how you see the different levels at which networks work here like the Gorman front works because they're all friends and neighbors who care about each other right and that's why they are able- Like real tactile solidarity. Yeah, and they're able to stick together, even though they're not, they don't have perfect competence. We see Saw's group where someone made the comment that like, well, he's basically a

fascist and because of like the hold he has on his group, which is not what I saw at all. I saw as soon as he shoots that spy- He's a cult leader, possibly. He has to prove- But he's not a fascist. He has to prove to the rest of his group that guy was a spy and needed to die. And once he does, they're like, all right, well, back to the job, right? I mean, yeah, no.

And he gets fucked up as part of the necessity of it's literally the only thing he has in between acts of terrifying violence. But that's how that group bands together. And then we see, you know, these smaller cells of experts, right? Who they have their connections with each other, and they have their little moments of vengeance, and that's what keeps them going. And the only thing that keeps Lutheran going is the pure logic of the calculus of what he's put together. That's all he's got.

Yeah. Information collecting boyfriend, always collecting information. is the pure logic of the calculus of what he's put together. That's all he's got. Yeah. Information collecting boyfriend, always collecting information. Yeah. Alright, let's talk about the space lesbians who are running the French resistance. So I liked a lot of what they did with them this episode. I liked how they were like reuniting. I liked the way they talked about the on again off

again style of their relationship based on like having to live in this rebellion like life like they can't always see each other. They're always being moved around by Luthen. But they both specifically took this assignment, like hoping and like and I think like knowing that it would mean that they could see each other. So I liked the development that we had with them as people who like people who are in the same spaces, but do not have the luxury of actually having a life together at this point in time. They advise the little resistance group.

They're much more friendly than Cassian is. A whole lot of them, they do come in and are like, all right, you motherfuckers, you people are amateurs. You have to listen to every single thing that you say. No fucking guns. Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah. No fucking guns. Yeah. No, like, I guess they have more of a willingness to put up

with the amateurs than Cassian does. A little bit more. I think is kind of what's going on there. And, you know, they're hoping that after this mission's over, maybe they'll be able to spend more time together. And then Cinta does get killed. And I've seen a lot of criticism of this. I've seen people invoking like a barrier gaze type trope.

And I don't think that's my personal outlook on what's going on here. I think a lot of people die throughout this show. We had Brasso die. And this sort of thing just happens. That's the point is, yes, she's really good. She's really good. She's really good. She's incredibly skilled.

And it feels so like purposeless. And like, welcome to war. I think that is part of the problem. Part of the point and like the upset, like a reaction that you have, I think is like, that's showing I think the strength of this. Like it sucks to see a lesbian get killed, but I think we're seeing so many relationships get like fall apart

We're seeing a lot of people get killed Brasso didn't die for any better reason right? This is just how war works No, I mean I think I think the reason and this is an interesting part of this I talked a bit about this last episode was like this is the most Like this is by far the most like gay Star Wars we've ever had right and it's the most like I'm trying to think Of the number of other shows the only time they didn't lean away from it or insinuate it. Yeah. No, like, well, they just kissed in this episode. It's like I'm like, genuinely, like I'm like racking my brain. I'm trying to think of like the number of like major TV shows

I have ever seen in my life where a non-white lesbian gets to kiss someone. It's like not that high. And I think that's why people like, just like, yeah, like this is this is this is an this is the best representation of my culture, which is like the leftist lesbian Yeah, like gonna see each other like I've ever seen and it's like yeah, she fucking dies. It's like I think like We were able to watch these characters develop over the course of like a few arcs, right? Like we saw these in the Aldani heist where they were like the only two people to survive besides Cassie. Like everyone else on that heist died, right?

Yeah. So the lesbians made it out of that. They struggled to maintain their relationship in the interim as things happened. They had this emotional reunion here. I think, you know, you could make an argument, maybe you'd be better to kill Val, but we've had more development with Val because of being related to Mon. So like, yeah, it is tough with like the disposability, but that is a part of fighting in an environment like this. It's not that they're disposable,

it's that combat is random, like, and fuckups are random. Like this exact thing, somebody screws up and shoots when they're not supposed to and the bullet doesn't stop, happens all the goddamn time. It's part of what fucks people up. If you talk to people who have war experiences, one of the things that'll fuck someone up the most is watching someone they know and care about get turned into pink mist. It's usually a situation where somebody steps on or whatever an IED or takes a rocket at a bad time.

And there's this person that you knew and you care about and they're three dimensional to you and you probably plan to keep knowing them after that. And then they're just fucking missed and it just it shatters people's minds. And that's what happens. Like... And then Val's little speech to Sam afterwards being like, you now have to live your entire life knowing that you took this person away. And every action you take for the rest of your life

is gonna be all an attempt to make up for this. Like every Imperial you kill will just be one for Cinta. Because Cinta was a professional. This is the life that she led. You will never be able to understand how important she was. You'll never be able to understand how good she was at this. And you're a fucking French kid. You don't know what you're doing,

and now you have to spend your entire life making up for it. And it was a very hard speech, but I think Val did a really good job with that and understanding the political necessity of you can't let this be in vain either. You have to push this guy into making his life worthwhile now. And yeah, it was rough. I would love more gay characters living happy lives

in Star Wars, but we rarely see anyone living a happy life in Star Wars. This is not about happy lives. I also love the thing that doesn't get a huge amount of attention in these episodes But is interesting to me is the guy that he was he pulled that Matt or whatever his name was Sam Sam mama with the guy that Sam was to hold his gun to try to stop Is just this random Gorman dude who's like hey? No, I'm not gonna like leave. This is like my city. What are you doing here?

What's going on? Yeah, he carries her body like he goes with them, you know, and we it's kind of unclear Is he like some sort of spy or is he literally a Gorman who at the whole time? Was looking for a way to get involved and once he realized what was happening is like, yeah These are my people and with this was was that the guy from the meeting or was it a different the the one from the? He was it. Yeah. Yeah. the he was yeah he was at the yeah okay yeah yeah yeah yeah so I guess he just wasn't in the inner circle but like yeah he hops on you know yeah but no I do understand like the racial disposability and like the barrier gaze like aspect that can be read into this so it's a tough thing to to thread here and I think if you view this in context

of all of the people that we have seen like get killed Like the entire Aldani crew like Brasso basically, you know The droid from season one gets like abandoned on that planet. I think like it does it does make sense I think in that larger context, I think there's a way that not everyone Like has to die to lead to Rogue One, besides Cassian. No, not everyone. But someone like Cinta, and frankly, someone like Cinta, the type of militant she is, they do have a short lifespan.

That is part of the specific thing Cinta is doing, is you burn fast and you burn bright, and sometimes you will die in a way that's really purposeless and that fucking sucks. And that happens in war. That happens in like activist spaces. Like that happens. That happens in the United States with people here. And often they are like non-white gay people. Yep.

Like that's what happened in Atlanta. So like these these things happen. The number of people who committed suicide, too, after 2020, you know? Like, yeah. Do we have anything else you want to want to say Mia? Do you have anything you want to close out on as the resident non-white lesbian on the podcast? They killed my lesbian! So sad! What is the next time I'm getting a non-white lesbian in Star Wars? I am going to be raising a black flag over Shenzhen by the next time we get another one of these fucking characters in the series. You know, we had a non-white lesbian in Acolyte who also died.

She did die, yeah. I do not see people talking about the barrier gay stuff with the Acolyte as much. Well, nobody, because nobody watched it, unfortunately. Well, it's because nobody watched it, because it wasn't bad. I do not see people talking about the barrier gay stuff with the acolyte as well nobody cuz nobody Wasn't bad, but and I think it's also worth through I think it's also worth remembering like like this is this is a show starring like a non white leading role like like Cassie Cassie is not white yeah, so I think the racial politics are a little bit a little bit more more complex I think yeah people are discussing, but yeah all right Well these episodes have been amazing everybody get into inhalants And steal fuel from the military. That's the message of Andor

run wild Don't do that that's a joke legally, okay Don't do that. That's a joke, legally. Okay. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonedmedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions.

Thanks for listening. right guy until you were what, 50 Connie? 52, 52. 52. 52. I kept thinking, oh, I'm gonna meet the guy, I'm gonna meet the guy, I'm gonna meet the guy. I finally was like, what am I waiting for? And I did it, and I'm just so glad that I did. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly.

I collect my roommates' toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting.

Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I want you to ask yourself right now, how am I actually doing? Because it's a question that we rarely ask ourselves. All of May is actually Mental Health Awareness Month and on the psychology of your 20s, we are taking a vulnerable look at why mental health is so hard to talk about. Prepare for our conversations to go deep. I spent the majority of my teenage years, my 20s just feeling absolutely terrified.

I had a panic attack on a conference call. Knowing that she had six months to live, I was no longer pretending that this was my best friend. So this Mental Health Awareness Month, take that extra bit of care of your wellbeing. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My husband has a secret son from a past partner. Hold up Sam, how do we know how we done the DNA test? Well John, luckily it's Mother May I Have a DNA Test Week on the OK Storytime Podcast, so we'll find out soon. And this wife writes, my husband received a Facebook message from a woman saying that he is the father

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