It Could Happen Here - The Gang Reviews Andor Season 2, Ep. 7-9

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Robert, Mia, and Garrison discuss the third arc of Andor Season 2, covering the Ghorman Massacre. Terrorist cells are uniting under the boot of the Empire, a riot pits undercover agents vs outside agitators, and we see the consequences of bending the truth.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Brazilian favela life and much more. All real, completely uncensored. Listen to the Aw way days podcast reporting from the underbelly. It starts May 19th on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women found themselves in an AI fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts. This is Levittown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg, and Kaleidoscope about

the rise of deepfake pornography and the battle to stop it. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. CoreZone Media. Oh my God, it could happen here? It is, and it's talking about it happening here. You know, about what we're, you know, what's happening in a galaxy far, far away. These are the Andor episodes.

We're talking about episodes, Jesus, what is it? Seven through nine? Seven through nine. Seven through nine of Andor Season Two. When this is done, we'll be three quarters of the way over with, I mean, one of the best seasons a television ever made. So, you know, savor it, folks. Enjoy it and enjoy these podcasts.

Yeah. Arg. Arg? Eloquent garrison. Thank you. Thank you. ARG me hearties. Raise the Hondo Anaka flag and let's watch some Andor. This is episode three of our Star Wars Andor Politics Review podcast. The person grumbling in the intro is Robert Evans.

I'm Garrison Davis. We are also joined by Mia Wong. Let's start with episode seven. I think this arc in general might be my favorite arc of the whole show, frankly. They did some really fun stuff. And the seven's mostly set up. This is episode seven, titled Messenger. I'll do a quick overview and then we can discuss some of the setup to the Gorman Massacre. So rebel militias are forming an army on the fourth moon of Yavin. Wilman returns from the planet Gorman with a special mission for Cassian. Luthen wants ISB Agent Dedramiro assassinated to protect the Axis network.

The empires fail to secure an alternative to the Gorman mineral calcite, and ISP command tells Dejra that an imperial fleet will be sent to Gorman in two days and to prepare for a declaration of martial domain. Yeah, I want to note at the start of this kind of what we see, because we're watching one year jumps between these. This is the first time where it's been made really clear the rebellion has moved on from scattered insurgent groups to a functional army. Oh yeah.

Like when we're introduced to Yavin, there's a transport landing, a group of soldiers are getting off and they're being told like, okay, your ration cards are here and like, you need to report in here and here, this is where you're billeted. It's very like standard professional military stuff. So we are now at the point where the rebellion that Andor has been portraying previously is not around anymore. The rebellion has moved on largely

and those old networks still exist to some extent, but that is not the heart of it anymore. Yeah, and that's a big part of what this episode is starting to set up. Now, on Gorman, Imperial presence on the planet has already increased dramatically in the past year. A new Imperial headquarters towers above the capital city of Palmo. Security forces are stationed throughout the city with checkpoints and a mandatory curfew. The past few weeks, there's been stories of insurgent attacks against the empire, most recently the bombing of a naval depot.

Imperial News reports that quote-unquote inexplicable Gorman terrorists... Their hate for imperial norms... ...are getting help from quote-unquote outside agitators. Which is not untrue, actually. For once! But also not like the core of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that that's part of the point, right? That's part of what Luthen's going for is he wants to keep them sort of obsessed with this side of things. In part because Luthen knows that it's moved on, right? Like Luthen knows that the Re the rebellion is in Yavin now. You know, he is, he's not entirely a sideshow, but he's no longer the heart of it. And every resource they waste looking at his network is a time they're not spent looking at Yavin. Yeah, and Luther's still trying, I mean, like the outside agitators here is probably most of the, like,

Luther's guys who've been trying to build up the insurgency on Gorman, simply to make some sort of political crisis and then, you know, also help the people who've already committed to resisting the Empire, help them actually, like, do that beyond what the Gorman front's been, like, parading around and doing, you know, little protests in front of the memorial for the past few years. Luthen was like, if these guys want to do this seriously, let's, let's see what happens when we do it seriously. And then that's kind of what we've resulted to here. The Empire has sent a quote unquote crisis specialist

and a riot team to assist Deirdre in managing any civil unrest. Cyril Carn starts questioning what the Empire wants with Gorman and what he's really been doing these past two years. Yeah. Dejra tells him to pack his things as they'll soon be leaving together for Coruscant. Back on Yavin IV, Bix takes a skeptical Cassian to a Force healer to help with a stubborn

blaster burn. Though Cassian resists, the healer can sense that Cassian is somehow important. He has main character energy. Cassian is split between Luthen and the growing organized rebellion, but decides to take a rebel U-wing starfighter to Gorman and undercover as a journalist. Cassian checks into the hotel at Palmo Square and sets his sights on ISB agent Dejra. Mm-hmm. So yeah, a lot of this episode is like showing how the rebels are actually like growing an army before they've really put together the formal rebel alliance.

Like they're getting much closer to that. But at this point, it's like a whole bunch of little like militias that are operating under the same base and are starting to set up like rules and guidelines. And like Cassian butts up against some of those rules a little bit here. Because he can't go and come as he pleases anymore, right? Like it gets him in trouble with General Draven. Yeah. It's not just rebel cells that are operating independently.

Now they are trying out working together and that has some growing pains. Yeah. Well, and it's not just working together too. It's the command structure. Totally. The organizational structure is becoming increasingly centralized in a way that it hasn't been. Well, the previous to this has been like the centralizing thing has been like Luthen kind of being an asshole to everyone, but like moving stuff between them.

And now it's like- Or Saw Gerrera, right? Where he operates as like a cult of personality type thing with his own militia. Yeah, yeah, right. Well, but I mean, like between all of the different networks, the central figure has been Luthen. And now it's like, no, we have this place where we're developing a chain of command and we're developing these sort of like...

Totally. We're going to become increasingly rigid like hierarchies in this whole thing. Luthen's becoming a somewhat controversial figure and is kind of getting pushed out of the actual organized rebellion because he's a little bit difficult to work with. Yeah. Because he's an asshole. Like, it's like... Yeah.

He's doing what he has to do. I mean, I'm Luthen's last defender. If he's only got one fan, it's me. And Luthen is doing, is handling this exactly how he has to. There's no room to be nice. And there's no room for anybody's feelings in this. But that, what we do see is people choosing now, I want to be involved in this kind of bigger and more structured thing where the

way I am treated is less dependent upon the whims of this guy at the spoke where I don't get to know anything, where there is a command structure, where there is a degree to which it's more like predictable how things will be day to day, right? A lot of people do prefer that. And also at this stage of the rebellion, if you're going to take on a military like this, you need a formalized force. You need more of a command structure. You need a chain of command, and people need to know who is calling shots in what situations. Because you simply can't function effectively in a large scale in combat without it. Yeah, we'll talk more about kind of Luthen's situation in episode nine.

Yeah, the Luthen of it all. Yeah. Because that kind of gets more into what his current place is in the rebellion. But really, the role that he occupied is frankly no longer needed. And he's even acknowledging this. They're going beyond the sort of small, you know, like small scale, like Intel network, arms deals, like all this type of like, like covert, you know, the Aldani raid. They're growing beyond what Luthen really specialized in. And now they're doing a full on military and Luthen's always been operating kind of

like a DIY, like spy agency. And now they're doing a whole military and that kind of butts up against how Luthen wants to operate and what he's frankly just capable of doing. He understands the importance of Yavin, but he's also okay with not being there in person. Well, I don't think he thinks he fits there, right? Exactly. Yeah, totally. His whole thing is such an idiosyncratic organization that's just based around him and Clea, you know, this young woman that he works with.

Like, there's no place for him in a military command structure. That's not his thing. The other thing this episode really focuses on is, like, you know, news propaganda and like the idea of like, like terrorism outside agitators and using those things as justifications for state crackdowns. The Senator from Gorman talks with Mon Mothma about, about how he believes that like the empire is lying about what's happening on Gorman and these bombings must be like a false flag attack.

So you get to see a whole bunch of different people's perspectives and like validity of the actions that are happening on Gorman. Like there's, there's questions over like, who's doing this? Is the state just making these things up so that they have a justification to crack down on us? Are these things genuine? Are they being done by people on Gorman who are like aligned with the resistance, but maybe are getting like, outside help? You have all those sorts of questions. And then the news media is like manufacturing consent for an imperial crackdown, like what was discussed in like the very first episode.

It's very 70s Italy. Like because there's these bombings happening, because there's all this weird shit, because nobody knows exactly who's doing what. Everyone is like kind of become conspiracy brained, and like half the conspiracies are true, but not the ones people think are the ones that are true. And it's just like the information space just becomes so messy when you're dealing with such a combination of like, of like, of these attacks

and of these like, different kinds of above and below ground organizations where nobody knows exactly, no one's exactly talking to each other. And yeah, it just gets so messy so quickly. Even the Gorman Front itself is like debating this. Like they had this whole meeting where they discuss tactics, like the role of violence. And as these big arguments erupt, they start to reflect on how the Empire has actually set them up for infighting.

And the more time they spend doing this, the less time they're actually doing anything helpful on Gorman, or doing anything that actually can secure their own liberation or their own combat against this oppressive force. There's a good part in that scene where they're debating it where the guy who gets, who kind of stumbles upon them doing the robbery. Yeah, in the last part. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Has a speech where he's basically like, look, man, whatever they're doing, whatever their attitude about the right way to the resist They're all Gorman's to me. And so they're all on my side Yeah, right And I like the way that he that he expressed that because it very much as we're gonna talk about next episode Comports with who that guy is as a as a resistor, right? there's like national identity is a big concept in these episodes, but not in like a Fascistic nationalist sense.

No, as in we're all in this we're all going to hang together is what I think he's saying. But like like national solidarity. Yeah. Yeah, it's like 1820s kind of like. Or even like Ireland, right? Like yeah, yeah, and like, you know, I can give a speech here about where this is going and how Sinn Fein's like, trying to get immigrants and trans people, but it's also like, that's just not what's happening right now.

This is like 1820, not like 1920. The last thing I want to talk about in this arc before we go on break is this Force Healer that Cassian reluctantly visits in the Yavin 4 mess hall. This was a super interesting scene to me. This is the first time we have seen any mention of the Force. Yeah, this is like the big spiritual moment in this series. Andor has veered away from the mystical side of Star Wars

in favor of the more materialist politics. The Star War. The way that they included this here, I thought was really interesting and really well done. And the reason why I like it so much is that, like, throughout the Rebel Alliance, they always, like, greet each other and, like, say goodbye by saying, may the Force be with you. Which is a little bit odd because the Rebel Alliance isn't, like, a Jedi revivalist cult. They're not, like, a Force cult in the way that so many other groups in, you know, Star Wars TM are.

And the fact that you have people who engage with the Force in this more like regular manner, more similar to like kind of like hippie woo spiritualist stuff that props up in like radical spaces, I find really interesting. And obviously in Star Wars that has more of like a legitimate backing because we all recognize the Force is real in Star Wars. The Force is fake, it's a psy-op, it's just the alien god thing in the black holes. Force-treater. In part, what I love about Andor is how big it makes the universe seem

because Cassian isn't like a, he doesn't have like the, you know, there's that line in A New Hope where basically, Han's like, I don't know, like Han's clearly heard of the Jedi, but he's like, I don't need, like, I don't give a shit about this. I don't need hokey religions or special weapons. Yeah.

It's like somebody talking about, yeah, like, Wicca, right? Like if you're just like a dude who's a fucking drug dealer, you're like, I don't need to hear about that, man. I got fucking heroin to move. Yeah, it's very much like, it's very much like faith healer coded. It's like, oh god, no, I'm not gonna see the faith healer. Come on. Like, no, yeah. And he talks about how him and his like, his mom had like a bad experience with a horse, with a horse healer like 10 years ago. And you're like, this is a whole scam operation as well, like fake horse healers.

And beyond that, the thing that's unsaid is what we know about Cassian, is he was raised on a planet completely cut off from the rest of the galaxy. His childhood was as a hunter gatherer in the deep jungle. And he was presumably, as all peoples in that situation always have, raised with a set of beliefs about the universe and spirituality that were completely shattered when his entire planet was annihilated by the Empire. Was it by the Republic? Well, it was in that transitional period.

The fuzzy period between the Republic and the Empire, yeah. Yes. But of course he doesn't believe in anything, right? Like, he had some sort of set of beliefs and the entire cosmology of his planet was annihilated Like why would he believe in anything? I just like what this does for like the Alliance itself and it shows that the force is like a regular part of these people's lives and like specifically the way the Force Healer talks is more about like the force as this as This like operator of like

fate and destiny. And it can sense that Cassian Andor is the main character in Rogue One, a Star Wars story and is important for the story of Star Wars. And she can feel that this is important. And so can Bix. And Andor is also freaked out by that like feeling. And I do like that version of the Force a lot. I think that's a much more interesting way to do it than just like, you know, Force cults in like a forever religious war with each other for thousands of years. Yeah, if you pay us an unbelievably large amount of money, Garrison and I will have our six hour argument we have every time

about the Force and Star Wars. We will debate the Force. I do also like that it's not a hundred percent clear that this person is even force sensitive She can like feel through the force but like everyone can with some degree of training Yeah, but it's but it's well, but it's also like not clear that it's like Like she's just a girl. Yeah. Yeah, but it's not a hundred his back seems to feel better Yeah, no, yeah, totally. Yeah, but but but also like that's a thing like it's not it's not like a thing like

Okay, this is like a Jedi right there using the force and you could tell using the force This is a lot more kind of like Nebulous and it's not a hundred percent clear if it's happening or if it's everyone is like think just thinks that it's happening or like What's you know, it's it's very no. Yeah, that's why I like it like It's not a Jedi. That's why I like it. Like, it's not a Jedi. It's just someone and everyone in this universe can have a connection with the Force because that's how this universe works. And some people don't want to or think it's fake and other people get really into it.

Some people get way too into it. And then they do genocides in the name of their religious order. But for a lot of people like this who aren't like a Jedi or aren't like a Sith or, you know, a whatever, a guardian of the wills. Oh, God. It's just a thing you can like connect with and you can like feel your way through like fate and destiny. Well, and I really like that they must have,

there must have been a discussion, should we have her say she used to be like a Padawan, right? Who somehow escaped Order 66. That must have been- And thank God she's not. And thank God they just didn't, we don't know what she is. We don't care. But they don't need to tell us.

Doesn't matter. Because no one in the situation would give a shit. Yeah. Cassian's not gonna be like, so yeah, tell me about like your fucking back. He doesn't give a fuck. There's so much else going on in his head at that moment. It's so much better that she's just a random person.

Yeah, and we never know. We never know. All right, let's go to break and come back to talk about the Gorman Massacre. Yay. 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,

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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 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's the one with the green guy on it. In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts on my body parts that looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. It happened in Levittown, New York.

But reporting the series took us through the darkest corners of the internet and to the front lines of a global battle against deepfake pornography. This should be illegal, but what is this? This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide. I'm Margie Murphy.

And I'm Olivia Carville. This is Levertown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. That's the fun part about being an artist that you need to have the patience for finding your hands. I'm La Gata, the culture's favorite reggaeton historian and musicologist. On an episode of my show, the Reggaeton con la Gata podcast, I sit down with Goldie, a boricua reggaetonera who's demanding her place in the male-dominated music industry.

That's the game, like who stays and who leaves, you know? Listen to Reggaeton con la Gata on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow Reggaeton Cuella Gata and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today. Giving yourself that agency to not just be one thing, right? I don't have to be the perception that is crafted or the version of me that everyone is kind of projecting onto me. Like, I am having my human experience and it is faceted. It's so faceted and it's fascinating. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and deeply well is a sanctuary for your healing. I'm Debbie Brown, healer, wellbeing expert, teacher, and fellow seeker and each week we explore what it

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T. Connecting changes everything. -♪ MUSIC PLAYINGan Okay, we are back. Andor, season two, episode eight, who are you? Yeah, uh, I just, I will talk a lot about the name of this episode. Oh yeah, baby.

Because I love it, because it's just some of the best writing that this show or any show has ever had. Yeah. Yeah, please, go ahead and give us the over there. Let's do a quick rundown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As mining equipment lands across Gorman, troops barricade the Imperial headquarters in Palmo Square as they prepare for a mass protest.

The Gorman front prepares to retake the town square, distributing weapons and rallying just regular Gorman citizens to march on the town center. The old leader of the front realizes too late that this protest is probably an Imperial trap and is powerless to stop this unfolding spectacle. He encounters Cyril Karn on his way to the Imperial HQ and confronts Cyril about misleading the Gorman resistance and why the Empire is mining on Gorman. Ugh, and this scene is the guy who plays Ryland...

There's so many great monologues in this. The dude who plays Ryland, who is the old rich guy, who's kind of the organizing center of the Gorman front. The original one, yeah. Has a beautiful speech here, where he's just, how can you say these things? What kind of being are you? What kind of being are you?

Yeah. It's excellent. It's perfect, It's devastating. Yeah. Seril breaks free and makes his way through the chanting crowd that's filled as a square. After arriving at the barricaded Imperial Tower, Seril sneaks into Dedra's office to demand to know what the Empire wants on Gorman. He chokes Dedra as she confesses that this has all been for the Emperor's new energy program,

and she promises that they will soon return to Coruscant as heroes. We'll get everything we want. The Empire will reward us for our loyalty. This is it. This is the last fucked up thing we have to do, and then we can live happily ever after. Yeah, didn't you want this promotion? Yeah, yeah. She says that, this might be the previous episode or this one, but like when when Cyril like kind of like protests, that was like, yeah, but you you weren't complaining when you got promoted into this into this job. But Cyril wishes Dejra good luck and he leaves to join the crowd outside.

Cassian is stationed on the outskirts of the crowd of trying to line up a shot to take out Dejra. But stormtroopers soon kettle the crowd and Imperial riot cops are sent into the square to jumpstart a flashpoint. Protesters throw rocks and bottles, but it's an Imperial sniper who is ordered to shoot their own riot cops that starts the Gorman Massacre. And they make a beautiful point. The kettling is done by stormtroopers,

who are the elite, right? These are their very best infantry. The riot cops, from the moment they're introduced, because we see these guys land with their kit bags, their sergeant clearly has a lot more experience and is like, these guys don't know what the fuck they're doing. We cannot put them in any kind of danger.

And that's the point, baby. And that's the point. That's why they're doing. We cannot put them in any kind of danger. And that's the point, baby. And that's the point. That's why they're there. These men were handpicked to be the worst of the Empire because they're expendable, right? And because you can count on them to panic, and that's what's needed. They're cannon fodder. Yeah. They're sacrificial lambs. Yeah.

No. Serol watches the chaos unfold as the Gorman front tries to defend against the imperial slaughter and KX security droids are sent into the town square, but when Cyril sees Cassian He suddenly lunges at him and the two get into a brutal brawl Cyril gets the upper hand but is shocked when Cassian does not remember who he is While frozen pointing his blaster at Cassian, Cyril gets shot dead by the old leader of the Gorman Front. There's Rylans.

It's an incredible moment. While trying to exfiltrate, Cassian meets up with Willem, who decides to stay and help the resistance in the aftermath of the massacre. The Gorman Front broadcasts the final message about the Imperial siege, claiming there are thousands dead in the streets. Cyril's mother is in tears watching news reports coming out of Gorman that frame the Imperial troopers killed as fallen heroes. Yeah. Oh boy, what an episode. Maybe the best episode in the series. Just phenomenal. It's phenomenal. I'll give you that. I don't know which I'd pick as the best, but...

It's tough. I think it's the Prison Break one still. Prison Break one's very good. I'm gonna go on a little rant about the name of this episode. Who are you? Because that moment between Cassian and Cyril is one that Tony Gilroy has said in interviews, he had to fight for.

Everyone was like... Just crazy. And Diego Luna said, it was one of the hardest lines for me to deliver because Luna likes the show and is a fan of the character Cyril and his acting. And he knows every... And it has the degree of sympathy

that you almost have to have for Cyril at this point. Totally. And so it was such a difficult challenge for him to be like, to really sell, who the fuck are you? Just shatter Cyril's self-perception? And it's not even... I'll even push against a little bit that, because I don't think it's entirely that. I think what I like about Seral's journey,

and what I like about this episode, is that who are you is not just about that line. It is about every character that we see in this. We are learning who they all are, and they are learning who they all are. Rylance in the beginning, right? This guy who had been so gung-ho about the Gorman resistance, who had been the, when he realizes what's happening,

that they're all going to be massacred, his family and his culture are going to be wiped out as a result of this act of resistance that he's helped to organize. He tries to stop it. He says, we have to pull back. And he learns he's not a rebel, right? He's not a rebel.

There's always been hints of that. He's not a rebel. He's like, you know, the emperor can't know about this, right? We've seen hints of this from Mark Rylance. He learns that about himself. And then a little later in the episode, when it's become, cause we watch his kids get massacred. He doesn't see them, but he knows they're dead.

He hears the gunfire, he understands no one's making it out of there. He's not a dumb man. And when he comes in and shoots Cyril in the head, he learns again who he is. And now he wasn't before, but now he is. Because they've taken everything from him. Right? Yeah, the quote from earlier when he's like arguing with people in the streets,

he's like, the only path forward is silent resistance. Yeah. And by the end of the episode, he is a little beyond that. And I love for him that he gets a chance to learn who he is and be wrong and then learn again and be right. Right. Which is not a chance Cyril is going to get. Cyril does. And I'll Cyril is going to get. Cyril does and all Cyril is we see we see a lot of characters in this who could only have been themselves in a fascist state Dedra is one of them, right?

Dedra could not have been the person she is outside of the Empire I think part of Gauze probably is too could never have been himself fully outside is certainly well, I I think if you put Pardogaz in the CIA, he is mostly the same guy. I think he must have been in the Republic CIA. Yeah, he feels very, like, Republic transitioned into the Empire, like, guy. Yeah. And I think Krennic, obviously, is one of our best—Krennic is only his whole self. Krennic is an Empire guy.

Yeah, Krennic is only— Yeah, under fascism. Yeah.rennic is only. Under fascism. Yeah. Cyril is not an ideological fascist. Cyril never really embraces fascism as a belief system. He never understands the empire that way. He just understands the empire as law and order. Law and order.

If you look at it from Cyril's standpoint, he gets brought into this not because he wants to clamp down on the evil rebels and he loves Palpatine and wants to kill freedom. It's because two guys are murdered that he considers colleagues and he thinks it's wrong, right? He has a sense of like justice. And he believes he's following that. And he believes that his girlfriend is invested in that. And he truly believes he doesn't want

to hurt the people of Gorman. He wants to find the outside agitators who are driving them to disaster, right? And the moment when he learns that that's all a lie, he beats the shit out of his girlfriend in a... Very violent. I had an argument with someone online about like, is this domestic violence?

And I'm like, in a literal sense, these people are in a domestic partnership and he is doing violence to her. In a moral sense, if you find out that your significant other has been hiding a genocide from you, I think it's okay. And you've been made complicit in it. It's such a fucked up, it's such a, it's such like everyone is, everyone's fucked and everyone's

evil and everyone's complicit. And they're all like calling their own commitment to like the state and what they view as justice and law and order into question. And like for Cyril, like he is just committed to this idea like justice and what he sees as law and order. And the empire is the physical manifestation of law and order. So therefore the empire must be good. Right. And that's his view. And when he realizes maybe the empire actually doesn't really care about law and order no they just like it

So confused like he he doesn't know how to orient himself in the world He doesn't know where a sense of morals can be derived from no if the state is not the represent is not like the lawful good Representation of like justice and we've seen from Cyril previously that he has physical courage, right? He's not afraid of violence. He's not afraid of putting himself in physical danger, right? Like, he's not a Cassian Andor level comfortable with it, right? Because he just doesn't have that kind of experience. But he's not physically a coward, but he's a moral coward the whole series. And that changes.

And again, going back to Who Are he under he learns one thing about himself Which is that he is not a genocide committer, right? He is not someone who will consciously participate in the annihilation of a race, right when he learns that those are the stakes He hits he chokes DeDra and he fucking runs. He doesn't know anything else about himself at that point and my interpretation of his reaction to that line from Cassian isn't just... Because I think what I love about the scene when he chooses to attack him, it's not him making a decision to go back to the Empire. He's not trying to fight Cassian because he wants to get back in good.

It's just the only thing that makes sense. Nothing else. He's like referring to his child self. Yes. Yes. It's crazy. And it's animal. The way that he goes after him is like a rabid dog charging, you know? Like, this whole situation on Gorman calls into question how he sees the Empire and therefore how he sees himself,

as he realizes that he's just been a pawn in the Empire's larger game. And like, in a way, Gorman's the first time that Cyril's been part of a real community, maybe since he was a Corpo cop. There's no solidarity in community on Coruscant. There's not in the Bureau of Standards. Gorman's the first time he's actually been a part of a community. This happens with FBI double agents infiltrating radical organizations sometimes. It's very odd. So when he decides to join the crowd, this is like he's aligning with them.

But then when he sees Cassian, all of this psychological progress and the questioning that he's done just gets immediately rolled back because then he sees the guy who he thinks kind of ruined his life, who altered the trajectory of what Cyril's life was supposed to be. And therefore he just, yeah, he turns into an animal. He undoes all of this psychological progress and attacks the guy that he views ruined his life. And then in his final moments is in part confronted with the idea that the guy that he's been obsessing over for years doesn't even remember who he is. And Cassian's been living rent-free in his head this whole time. And he didn't need to. Cyril could have moved on. Cyril didn't need to. Like, Serol could have moved on. Serol didn't need to do this.

And he's been obsessing over someone who doesn't even remember him. So I think the other thing that's really important about Serol's character is, like, if you remember him in, like, the very beginning of season one, right, he has, like, what do you like, goes home. Like, he has, like, a storm trooper, like, figurines. Yeah, clone trooper, like, action figures. Yeah, and he has, you know, He's like storm trooper like figurines clone trooper like action figures And he has and you know and he's like tailoring his own uniform because he has this conception of

himself as this like you know as like this like this brave cop as this like sort of like like this like this is a very Specific kind of like a fascist bureaucrat with a gun like platonic figure Yeah And the thing is Dejre Miro is that actual person. And this is a tension that is kind of worked out over season one of like, Dejaro Miro is a character who in a conventional show is a hero, right? Like she is like the cop that's willing to work outside of the restrictions of the thing in order to get the job done. Yeah. And you get to see what that actually is in real life, which is she's just fucking torturing people. And, you know, she's torturing people and

she's going and she and when she gets offered a chance to do the genocide in order to do her investment, she gets that. And I think part of what's going on with Cyril is like Cyril's whole thing is that he has been trying to be this cop. And then he has this moment where he's like, oh, shit, none of that that's like real the actual thing that it means to be this cop isn't just this isn't this like I Dress up in my in my clothes and he gets this in season one too where he like actually goes into the field and it's just like Everyone's fucking dying around him and he's shell-shocked and things are exploding and it's like he's getting that here again where it's like his like thing He's been cultivating this like intelligence person and he he sees. And it's like, he's getting that here again, where it's like his thing, where he's been cultivating this intelligence person.

And then he sees it and it just like, it just sort of, it rips away the facade that's like, that is the facade of how, like on a kind of macro level, like how film and television and how American media thinks about like spies and thinks about cops. Sure. And you see that the actual brutal reality of it, which is like through the eyes of this person who like through this sort of like media stuff has always wanted to become this person is like, oh, you're just doing a genocide. The one part of being a cop that I can do is like choking

is like choking my partner. So my interpretation of kind of his ending moments is that number one, I don't really feel it is necessarily that he undoes all the progress. I think that there's this animal moment when he sees Cassian that just overrides that because nothing else about his life makes sense anymore. He's completely lost any sense of sanity. Sure.

And Cassian makes sense, fighting him makes sense. And so he does it. And we do see he has a chance to shoot him and he hesitates and he lowers the gun just a bit. And then he's immediately shot. And in that moment, remember one of the themes of this is that like everyone has their own rebellion. There's an argument you can make that him not doing that was his last little act of that. There's an argument that like maybe he would have, you know, tried to engage him in

conversation or like, you know, monologued or whatever, but he didn't get the chance. We just don't know. We'll never know. And he's kind of contrasted with Rylance in that Rylance does get the chance to see who he is and have it be not enough and then become enough. Serol gets the chance to see who he is and he does do one, he gets one win and it is a win to realize there's a genocide going on and I refuse to be a part of it, right?

That's not nothing that he makes that choice. We don't know where he would have gone from here. There's a version of Serol that could have been a part of the rebel that could have, if he had just left Cassian, helped some Gormans escape on a ship, used his Imperial credentials, gotten them out of there, it becomes something else. We'll never know because he doesn't get the chance. And I see in that last moment, not just him being like, you don't know who I am. Oh, that shatters me.

But him being asked, who are you? And realizing I have no answer to that question. Yeah. Yeah. And he just doesn't get the chance ever to do that. It is a very like Greek tragedy. Like, moment here. Yeah. Phenomenal. Phenomenal screenwriting. I will argue it's going to get paid off a lot in the next three episodes.

But this idea that does run through the series that even if you are someone working within this machinery of death, within this evil empire, you're not unredeemable or unsavable, but you don't have unlimited time. Right? Yeah. You can be something else.

You have that chance, but you don't have infinite days to make that choice. This is like the entire message of Star Wars. This is like Luke and Vader in the throne room. This is like what this whole series is about, is this moment. Yeah. Yep. I do have a few other things I want to talk about in terms of like the massacre. I really like that we see a return of like Imperial military police, not just storm troopers, I think putting a face on the riot cops is really good for the

audience because storm troopers are, uh, backpacks and t-shirts and little fun, uh, toys and riot cops are riot cops. I really like that Wilman is sleeping with a French militant. Many such cases. Many such cases. Um, whomst among us? I really like that Wilman is sleeping with a French militant. Many such cases. Many such cases. Whomst among us? Hardagraz in a phone call with Dejra is talking about how,

yeah, propaganda news media's been useful and spreading rumors and Cointel Pro, that sort of stuff, it's been useful. But now the quote is, now the only story is Gorman aggression. This is all that we can focus on. There's no more of this like outside agitators thing. No more of this like long term slow planning.

We just have to focus on how like savage these Gormans are. And meanwhile, like Fox, like Space Fox News is outside, stoking divisions on Gorman, talking about how there's rumors of a quote unquote general strike. How the Empire is negotiating for like a peaceful demonstration. Even though, even though, even though the leaders are obviously, you know, making, making people agitated in this, in this growing insurrection. The chance got me. Uh, I have heard way too many, the whole world is watching chance.

So as soon as they started going, we are the gore. The galaxy is watching. I started like soon as they started going we are the gore. Yeah the galaxy is Like I started like it like sweating I started having like a panic attack. No that gave me a little breakdown too. It's my least favorite Oh, no, it's happening again The galaxy isn't watching no, it's not It's not! You don't understand! It's not! Oh god, I hate that chant.

I hate that fucking chant. Retire it. But it's very real. It's very real, right? Like these are these guys, right? Yes. We get like a real proper riot set up, right? Like the last riot in Andorra was on Pharex.

That was like a funeral riot, right? It's almost like some of the rioters have seen kettles. It's almost like some of the rioters have seen kettles. It's crazy. And like this time, this is not like a morning ritual like it was on Ferris. This is a protest riot. There's signs, there's banners, there's fireworks, there's smoke, there's space molotovs, there's state affiliated news crews, there's Thai fighters flying overhead like police copters and police drones. It's excellent.

I got a little flashback of being buzzed by a police helicopter at Standing Rocks so close that it knocked my car off the road. That's what happened with the TIE fighter. It was so good. Yeah. And it's like, I mean, like right down to like just like the micro dynamics of like how the crowd is interacting with the riot shields. It's like, oh, shit.

And I got the same knot in my stomach when I can tell that shit's about to go down. I get the same knot in my stomach watching this. Like, they really nailed it. What's great too is just in the face acting, with Cassian and with Wilman, you can see they know too. They've been in this, they know Wilman is sp— Like, okay, okay, okay. I know what's happening.

I also really like that- Okay, so- okay, so the challenge that Gilroy has here is we have to introduce the concept of Kettling to the average Star Wars watcher. And with the average Star Wars watcher, you can't be like, okay, the police are gonna form a wall. You have to physically make walls come in around the thing. Some people have said that the Gorman massacre is very clearly inspired by what's happened in Palestine. These episodes, I'm sure were informed by other massacres in Palestine, but these were written prior to the most current outbreak of really intense genocidal violence. In like 2021, 2022, probably. Again, there were other similar massacres that occurred in Palestine, but also like this is very

clearly patterned off of Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland. This is very clearly patterned off of, I would argue, my suspicion, the Amritsar Massacre in India by the British government as well Like I think that there are pieces of all of that in here There's also elements that I heard friend of the show Emmy who's great talking about like the Toledo Loco massacre, which is like that massacre in 1968 in a square in the middle of Mexico City Which is massacre where there's like these giant student the 68 student protests are happening and they just like put snipers on the roofs and shoot everyone. And I think, so when I saw this like I thought it was gonna be a lot more of just like a straight massacre everyone dies and it kind of turns into a shootout and I wasn't sure how that was gonna play. Although I think it is also worth remembering that like also a lot of the

sort of famous historical massacres aren't Like some people do shoot back Yeah, because I think it's a gentleman like some of the some of some of the students like take workers from soldiers that they fought And like well, yeah This is more the workers and by the time they get into the square with the students like those people don't have guns Some of the workers like try to fight back and just get massacred But it seems to have been really effective? And just like conveying that like, yeah, this shit happens constantly.

It happened in Maidan too, right? Where you have, both you have Barakut snipers shooting and killing protesters, and you have protesters firing back from behind the barricades. Yeah. I really liked the singing the Gorman National Anthem as a way to like stop the chanting, which is like calling towards, you know, like, we're safe because the galaxy's watching us.

And like the guy who starts the song realizes like that, maybe that's not true. And instead the song like unites people in like national solidarity to prepare them for what's about to happen. Instead of like gesturing outwards at like this at like you know those those off planet watching this and that ensures our safety like no our safety is from like each other and the fact that yeah so many of them do fire back and like it is it they do not like lose their agency

and that doesn't like make this less of a massacre. Yeah there's another example this is like the red summer which is like a whole bunch of like anti anti black race riots in the US. And it's another one of these things. It's like, yeah, it's remembered as like a bunch of white supremacists just murdered a bunch of black people. And that's true. But also people fought back. Like people had guns, people fought back, people resisted them. And, you know, a lot of people fucking died. And also people in these situations fight back. And it's good. The last thing I want to discuss in this last section is the based hotel porter who throws that bomb. Oh my god.

Oh yeah. And again, yeah, we are learning he already knows clearly he knows who he is. He never has any question about that, but we don't know who he is. Cassian doesn't fully until he's like, yeah, I wiped you from the system, bro. Get out of here. Right? That's what I'm gonna talk about. Yeah. Is this base Hotel Porter and also that the way

Cassian works as a spy is different from the way that other like Lutheran operatives do. Like Cassian gets to know this guy in the previous arc of episodes when he's like going to like survey the Gorman front like a year ago. And he gets into a conversation with this hotel porter who was at the Tarkin Massacre, and was there when those 500 people died.

And his dad died. And his dad died. And his dad died. And Andor converses with him in his hotel room to learn about the local people, and to learn about the actual history from a regular guy who experienced it. And this isn't something that V Vel and Cinto really do.

This isn't something that that Luthen really does. Like, like Andor has a connection or like Andor values making connections with just like the regular people in wherever he's operating. And this, this always like turns out to help Andor in the long run, even if he doesn't really know it in like the immediate. Because when Andor comes back a year later under a different name with a different job, the hotel porter recognizes him and is like,

I got you, buddy. I... I... I... I know that you're up to something and I will protect you. Like, we're... We are in this together. Like, I recognize you and I like value you. And that is what like Andor in this episode. And then also the grenades that he throws is cool. And there's a beautiful...

Andor's last line to this kid is, I hope things work out for you. And the last thing we see that kid do is detonate a bomb to kill himself and a bunch of other people. Rebellions are built on hope. Yeah. Yeah. And he tells him rebellions are built on hope, which is where we get that line from Rogue One. I like that Sam, the guy with two M's who killed Cinta last arc is still in the fight

and is killing Imperials. He is killing them in the name of Cinta. He is showing up. He is real. And he, he, he, again, he learns who he is in this episode, right? Like, he's not just a fuck up. He rams a truck into that K2 unit and saves Andor. Saves Cassian. Saves the whole day. And. Yes. He learns who he is.

Saves the whole billion too. Yeah. He learns who he is. I do like that everything good that happens to Cassian, all the people who do it are, in part, responsible for the destruction of the Death Star, which shows how like the butterfly effect works in a really fun way. Yeah. Yeah. And like a good Luthen operative, Cassian takes K2 to get reprogrammed.

But like this episode like ends on this Gorman cry for help, this like final broadcast done by Wilman's French GF. And I was legitimately tearing up at this. It got to me. Andor starts tearing up, but it really got to me. And then we zoom out of Gorman, and you can see how unnatural the imperial tower is above the regular Palomo skyline with its like, you know, historical architecture. Then you have this like, just, just like hideous, like imperial, like Citadel, like casting a dark shadow over the town.

And then we, we cut to Cyril's mom crying, watching Fox news where they're talking about how outside rebel assistance helped the Gorman front. And they questioned what's the price we'll pay for our own safety. And that's how the episode ends. Mm-hmm. What a sod. What a sod. All right, we'll go on a break and then come back to briefly discuss this last episode, which is also quite good.

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.

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts on my body parts that looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up.

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that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide I'm Margie Murphy and I'm Olivia Carville. This is Levittown a new podcast from I Heart podcasts Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast find it on the I Heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Dime a ven, I'm La Gata, the culture's favorite reggaeton historian, musicolega, public scholar, and recording artist. Yes, that means I've done the work.

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AT&T, connecting changes everything. ["The Rebellion Theme"] Okay, we are back. Episode nine, welcome to the rebellion. Clone Wars heads are feasting, so much Senate. Very fun. So on Coruscant, fake news spreads about what has happened on Gorman, and the Gorman senator is arrested with no warrant and no charges. Mod Mathma plans to make a final speech in the Senate and then leave Coruscant with Bail Organa to lead the Rebel Alliance on Yavin. But Senator Organa doesn't want to leave yet.

He wants to stay and buy time for Yavin to get fully up and running. But he advises Mon to go through with the speech and offers an extraction team to help her get off Coruscant. While writing her speech, Mon Mothma's Senate aide Erskine finds an ISD listening device in her office. She goes outside to practice the speech, while Erskine continues to search for more bugs. Waiting outside for Mon is Luthen, who tells her that Erskine's been secretly working for him for two years, and that Bale's extraction team is somehow corrupted. Mon grows upset at Luthen's deceptions and secrets, and is unsure of who to trust.

But Luthen says that he is sending a highly trusted operative as an alternative extraction plan. Cassian, still undercover as a conflict journalist, agrees to escort Mon Mothma as his last job for the rebellion. Other senators mourn the imperial martyrs slain by the savage Gormans, before Bail Organa invokes a Senate article to hand the Florida Mon Mothma, where she gives her speech calling what's happened on Gorman a genocide, and labels Emperor Palpatine a monster that, empowered by the Senate, has hijacked the truth and reality. The ISB orders to shut down the Senate feed and detain Senator Mothma, but as Mon exits

the Senate chamber, Cassian is waiting outside. As Lucent suspected, one of Bale's extraction team members is an ISB double agent and kills another one of Bale's operatives once they're found out. The undercover ISB agent tries to arrest Mon, but is killed by Erskine and Cassian. Mon helps navigate through the Senate building as it's put into lockdown, eventually reaching her vehicle outside, where Cassian kills her driver, Cloris, who's also an ISB plant. Well, was. Maybe. We'll talk about that. Yeah. Cassian takes Wilman to Yavin for medical attention,

while Gold Squadron finishes Mon's escort to the Rebel base. Back on base, Bix breaks up with Cassian via Snapchat message and leaves Yavin to fight for the rebellion elsewhere and to keep Cassian on Yavin. And later that day, Rebel engineers reprogrammed the salvaged KX droid. Okay, this episode has a lot of politics, a lot of politicking, a lot of capital senate stuff. I want to read a little bit from Mon Mothma's speech here.

Sure. What I think is kind of the nut of it here. I believe we are in a crisis. The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest. Uh, boy. It's a little orange man bad,

but hey, the orange man is bad. It's not just orange man, it's making a broader, more historical point. Totally, yes. All of this works by destroying any kind of shared concept of reality. If you can get people to believe absurdities, you can get them to commit atrocities, right? I mean, this is what, like, the Nazis understood as well.

Yes. And I love that speech. I think it's really one of my favorite bits of this is that it continues to show the degree to which, as in Nimic's manifesto, tiny, spontaneous, individual acts of rebellion are constantly occurring and are a key part of the movement even when they're not organized, Mothma only gets through her speech and maybe only lives because a team of door repair guys who do not appear to be anyone's secret agents just fuck up purposefully at their job and like we can't get in I don't know man we can't get into the fucking thing like you're gonna have to wait we're still working on this yeah and it's kind of inferred that like it's it's weaponized incompetence, right? And I really appreciate that bit. We have a showdown with her and her driver,

because she becomes aware before her speech that her driver, who she's been taking in as a confidant in the last couple episodes... Well, no, no, no, no, no. Like, her driver, she's known her driver, Cloris, has been, like, ISB for, like, two seasons. This is a different driver, I think, than's known her driver, Cloris, has been like, ISB for like two seasons. This is a different driver, I think, than first season. No, this is the same driver.

Cause she's been talking to Cloris a couple of times. She makes a comment about how this one hurts. She's been talking to like, Erskine. Like... Oh shit, yeah. She's been getting closer to like, her Senate aide. Cloris has always been like, a dipshit who they've kept around because he's like kind of bad at his job. He is bad at being an ISB like, like paid informant.

So they like keep him around even though they know he's reporting to ISB. There's a little bit of an insinuation with him looking at his gun and listening to her that maybe he's rethinking things. But again, we never get the chance to see that because Cassian just shoots. I think he's like thinking about if he's gonna have to arrest or shoot her. Yeah, that was my breed on it. I think he's making up his mind about what he's gonna do. And I don't think we actually see that. But I mean, I think it's open to interpretation.

Yeah, because Cassian domes his little thumb head. Because Cassian does not take chances like that. He does not take chances. And also, Cassian employs great tactics in asking Mon what his name is first to engage him in conversation, to distract him enough to totally surprise him. Yeah. Very good. I also, I like the, one of the kind of, it's not stated directly, but like Lani, the Imperial

deep cover agent within the ISB, is the guy who put these people there. Particularly the incompetent ISB agent who Cassian first shoots the lady. The person who's infiltrated Bayle's team, yeah. The reason why Luthen knows that there's something wrong with Bayle's team is because the agent that has infiltrated Bayle's network is one of Lonnie's agents. So Lonnie was able to get word to Luthen

that there could be a problem with Bael's extraction team and that's what helps get Monty Yavin safely. Yeah. And it's just kind of more confirmation of the value of Lonnie. Of like having him there and how much he was worth the sacrifice of Ando, Krieger, and his rebels in season one. of Ando, Krieger, and his rebels in season one? No, Lonnie is MVP. Uh, like a lot of this episode is kind of showing how much Luthen's Accelerationist project has kind of succeeded. Like how much he's somewhat set up Gorman, or at least like fed the fire of Gorman slightly

to create this political crisis, to further his like Accelerationist goal of creating this like big conflict. And like we see some of that start to work out, even though Luthen himself is having a much harder time and the House of Cards he's built is starting to crumble, and he's probably not gonna be able to work with many people for very much longer. Yeah, and that's the other thing I wanna mention about this episode, about the way Luthen operates, is that because the way Luthen operates

is by fucking not telling anyone anything and by manipulating people and by spying on them and by like having this whole network of double agents and like people who doesn't like The problem with operating like that and this is the problem that he's running into here is like Mon Mothma does not fucking trust him Because the thing that she learned when Luthen comes to tell her like hey the the you can't go with Bale's team Yeah, Bale's team is going to kill you. She's like, you fucking... You've had my own aide spying on me for two years.

My own assistant. What the fuck? Yeah. Like, it's like, this is like a persistent problem with the... And you start to see this... Have we... Sorry, I don't understand. Have we seen Vell, like, not working with him anymore?

I think we have in these episodes. Vell does not seem to be working with him anymore. I think we have in these episodes Vel does not seem to be working with him anymore She's more or less completely gone in on the actual like military part of the Alliance. Vel's on Yavin Yeah, well and this and this is that this is the thing about this is like you get a watch Everyone walking away from you get a watch everyone who Luthen had worked Yeah, everyone walks away with him because they're like this guy keeps being an asshole and he keeps hiding things to people and he keeps Manipulating everyone and it's like It's like he's doing and this is this is like also. This is a kind of person

Also that you run into words like they're doing really important work and also interpersonally they're impossible to fucking work Yes, and like like and you can you can watch it. It has to be dealing with this having like real political ramifications Yeah we're just like no this guy has been just like jerking our chain around and like, lying to us and manipulating us for so long, that all of the relationships that he needs are breaking down. And it's no longer a position where, because he's the guy with the money in the arms and the coordination, everyone has to work with him, they now have a choice to like, go do literally anything else. And everyone keeps walking away. And it like almost gets Mon Mothma killed because

she's so pissed at him that he's been like having her spied on. But it also saves her. Like it's a double-edged thing. It does see distrust with Mon, but it also is what got her. Because it is him who gets Mon out. Yeah, yeah, it's like it's just this like really messy That's what makes them a good character is that he is both like understands who he is He's like fucked up and morally compromised and is obviously hashtag problematic

But it's also completely necessary within the plot that they've created Yeah, and like somewhat defensible and like he knows that he's like fucked. Like he says like, there's no Yavin for me. I'm not going to Yavin. I'm never going to see the sunrise. Like that's not what my role is. I have to be the asshole here. And yeah, it sucks. And we start to see like his fake Luthen like gallery persona is starting to collapse here too. Like this whole episode, he's not in his like wig. He's not in his like fancy clothes.

He is like insurgent Luthen. Like this role that he's cultivated these past few years is no longer needed. And it does have negative consequences. Yeah, Mon is not trusting him in this moment where she kind of really has to. Like, Mon thinks that Luthen might just be trying to like, protect himself. That Luthen might not actually care about Mon's own safety. Cassie is tired of always being a tool for someone else and is dealing with trauma and burnout and Erskine's just caught in the middle of this whole,

this, this whole shitstorm. Um, and yeah, this is, this is what makes it compelling. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's just good character writing. We've all been bent by secrecy is what he says. Yeah.

And, and by God he has. And there's a couple of really good moments in this that I don't want to skip over. There's the next year in Yavin moment between Mon Mothma and Baal Argana, which I saw somewhat on Twitter decree to be Zionist propaganda. Oh, some of the worst people in this. That is definitely based on next year in Jerusalem, a term that has been in use for way more than half of a millennia that has nothing to do with Zionism. You're just being racist, I'm sorry.

And it's a nice nod to the travails of what what we are seeing is like a diaspora, right? As people have to flee their homes to participate in the rebellion, right? I think it's an appropriate kind of callback to real world history there. And the line where I think that moment between her and Bale works really effectively. And the thing that he's doing works really effectively. This interaction between her and Bale also shows like the difference between how Bale operates and Lutheruthen operates because Mon asks Bale if he trusts his people, if he trusts his extraction team.

And he says, of course. But he has to admit he doesn't actually know them personally for, quote unquote, safety. And this is where it shows the difference between someone like Bale, who's maybe less manipulative than Luthen, maybe a little bit less morally compromised than Luthen, but also in moments like this, like in specific moments like this, comes up a little bit short compared to Luthen's semi-destructive and bridge-burning tactics, which he openly describes as bridge burning. I think this episode, like, are there any bridges you haven't burned yet? Well, we're going to deal with that soon.

Yeah, we will be dealing with that soon. I would like to call out Mon Mothma's face acting in both the scenes where Cassian just immediately domes a motherfucker. Her soyjack face. Oh, my God. Incredible stuff. She's known intellectually and it's even hit her, cause she had a friend of hers killed, right?

A former lover. She didn't order it, but it was done and she knew it was happening. So she's not- She had to cope with it. Totally naive. But the Rebellion's I would argue not fully real to her until she sees a man shot through the brains. It's funny because she like minutes earlier has a line where she's like hiding in the

Senate this whole time will have been the hardest thing we've ever done. And then it's immediately faced with the lethal consequences for her actions. Yeah. I don't know if I can do this. No, this is actually much worse. Well, and it's also like it's things too, because it's like the second person she's seen shot in this episode, right? Because like, there's also like the first ISB agent who they have shot, but it's like...

She doesn't know the person. Yeah, exactly. That's not someone she knows, right? No, it's just like some cop and then... She's known Cloris for years. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And she's just watching just like, yep, nope.

And the way Andor just instantly is like, yeah, nope, fuck it, dead. Immediate. Yeah. And she's like, holy shit, yep, nope. And the way, and just instantly is like, yeah, no, fuck dead. Immediately. Yeah. She's like, holy shit, what have I gotten myself into? Luthen's strongest soldiers killed two undercover ISB this episode. Give him a hand, folks. Yeah. No, this is this is a really, a really, a really sleek episode. I do like that, that like Bale's like infiltrator

has like a real ISB look to her face. As soon as I saw that actress, I'm like that Bale's infiltrator has a real ISB look to her face. As soon as I saw that actress, I'm like, that one has got to be the undercover ISB, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She just got that fed look. She has that ISB jaw. Very good. There's one thing I'd like to bring up at the end of these episodes that's kind of a callback to the very first episode of the show is the first time we see our boy Cyril. He's just convinced that something is and people I've seen people point out, he was

actually really good at his job. He points this out that like I solved a murder in two days, right? He figured out who had who had killed these officers very quickly. And one of my favorite little undercutting of Cyril points is that his boss solves it even faster. Like in that first conversation, because his boss is an older guy, he's a corporate cop, he clearly has been doing whatever he's been doing since probably before the Clone Wars, right?

He's been near the end of his career than the beginning, and he doesn't like the Empire, right? He's not even that much of a law and order guy, he's more of a get through the day and do my fucking job guy. When Cyril brings up Cassian killing these cops, he's like, yeah, man, they're at a brothel. I know their salaries. They can't afford that.

They were shaking people down. They shake the wrong guy down and they got killed. Best to ignore it. You don't want the Empire over here. And every aspect of Cyril's life would have been better if he'd listened to this guy, who I'm sure spends the rest of the empire sitting on like, barely notices the end of things. You know, he's probably retired by then. Just a shout out to the smartest guy in security services we meet over the course of these entire series.

That old dude at the desk who's like, not worth it, not getting into it. Yeah, I wouldn't ask anybody anything. Poor Cyril. What a little weasel. Yeah, no, he fucked up. He fucked up bad. I love, I always love being in the Senate. She does call the Gordon Massacre a genocide. Mm-hmm. Performs a whole speech. Very, very solid acting as usual. Genevieve O'Reilly, fantastic work as Ma in this entire season.

Everyone's great. God damn. Oh, we should also talk a little bit about Dedra's breakdown after the Gorman massacre. Yeah, in episode eight, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Which also does fit into the whole who are you thing where we learn we see that she's not like a Complete sociopath right? She's not absolutely devoid of horror over what she's doing She's just willing to accept the horror in order to get what she wants out of life

Which I think is just like a much more realistic portrayal of human evil than we tend to get Yeah, she finds ways to cope and justify Yeah, and like, you know Lonnie Yeah. She finds ways to cope and justify. Yeah. And like, you know, Lonnie is having to find ways to cope and justify, but he's doing that through being a double agent and feeding Luthen, like very, very important intel as we see in this episode and the next. Mm-hmm. Let's see. I think this is most of what I had on this.

So, oh yeah, I mean, Vix, Bix breaks up with Cassian to force Cassian to stay in the in the alliance, even though he's probably not to be working with Luthor and again, I'll have more to say about Bix next week, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I have a lot to say about this, but I think we'll wait until last episode to fully discuss Bix. I think that's probably best. Yeah. Yeah. But but this this batch specifically, I think we'll wait until last episode to fully discuss Bix. I think that's probably best. Yeah. But this batch specifically I think is some real solid. Real solid so is... Wow. Star Wars. The stars have never been more wars, Garrison. The stars have never been more wars. We all agree on that.

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