The Ringer-Verse - 'Andor' Episode 11 Deep Dive | House of R

Episode Date: November 18, 2022

We don't want to be alone! So Jo and Mal are here to talk about the eleventh episode of 'Andor' (10:50). They also discuss the bizarre braid ritual in this episode and what Mon Mothma is facing in the lead-up to the season finale (50:20). Later they are joined by Ben Lindbergh to talk about all of their favorite 'Star Wars' creatures (98:26). If you would like to email Mal and Joanna about the show, you can reach them at [e-mail]. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Guest: Ben Lindbergh Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Addition Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An Instagram post gets an unexpected boost. A TikTok catches in the algorithm. Sometimes that's all it takes to launch someone into internet fame. But then what? This Blue Up is a new podcast documentary that reveals how social media stardom is made. From the glow-ups to the online drama to all those viral content houses. I'll show you how it all adds up to a new kind of fame. From the Ringer Podcast Network, I'm Alyssa Boresneck.

You can listen to This Blue Up on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis.

Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.com. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks.

If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to suffice. active Crohn's disease, and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis, serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more, or visit Trimfairadio.com. Hey, time to go.

Go, go, where? Back to my place. I've work in the morning. I'm charging. You've been there all day. I'll take the afternoon off. We'll come back tomorrow. She's not here, B. She's in the stone now.

She's on her way. I can't, we'll wait to, make sure. I can't leave you here alone. She wouldn't want that. Stay. The ring or verse, your nexus podcast, feed for all things fandom. I'm Joanna Robinson. I'm crying because of B.

And I'm joined today by my House of Our Working Title co-host, Mallory Rubin. I did that to her while she was taking a slip of water. Hi, Mallory. How are you doing? Working title. Joe, I don't have lately. I have always. Oh, yeah.

I almost used that as our opening quote. And it really, it felt like Clay's little breakdown there about how busy she is felt like how we felt a couple weeks ago when we were in the thick of House of the Dragon Rings of Power. Anyway, we're here to talk about Andor, obviously. It's a Friday morning.

What else will we be doing with our lives? Before we get into talking about episode 11, Daughter of Farrix, this latest Andor episode, we wanted to just let you know what's happening in the feed in general. Wakanda Forever, there's two episodes up in the feed from Midnight Boys and from yours truly. Us truly, it's actually what I meant to say. And there's also a Midnight Boys episode breaking down this very episode of Andor,

which is a really good time, really good listen. If you want to hear Van have an emotional breakdown about Johnny Five from Short Circuit, I really recommend you listen to that episode of the Midnight Boys. Poo! Poo! We'll both be back next week to talk about the Andor finale. Even though it was a holiday week, we will be here with you probably, if all goes according to plan. And then I just want to give you your home.

work well in advance. I have somehow manipulated Mallory Rubin and no arm twisting required with Van Leithen to do a podcast about the incredible Lucasfilm classic film Willow. Mallory. No arm twisting required here either. Instant yes. Instant yes. So Van Allen. Zipp in and zoom in like B out of my charging dock across the floor to be by your side. I love badly. Um, so. So So in anticipation of the new Willow TV show, we'll be doing an episode in about a week and a half about Willow the movie, which is on Disney Plus. So you can go watch it and then listen to Mallory, talk about it for having seen it the first time. Van and I have loved it all of our lives, and we'll just have a chat about it.

And then Van and I will be talking about Willow the TV show probably in a separate episode. But anyway, Willow's coming. Now is your morning. What a great thing to watch with your fam over Thanksgiving holiday. Just a fun, fun, fine fantasy time at the movies, Willow. So that's what's going on with you. There might be some other stuff going on. Anything else we want to talk about, Mal?

I think that's it for right now. Some Guardians' holiday special action coming. Mint edition, minty boys. A minty pie. On the guardians. Yeah. Come soon. Minty fresh.

All right. So that are, those are your programming reminders. Mal. Someone wants to make sure that they, in the words of, Stephen Tyler, Dome is a thing. How can they make sure to keep up with us?

First of all, I'd recommend following the pod on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I would also recommend following the Ring Reverse on whatever social media platform you're currently engaging with and choosing to spend your time on

or wherever you want us to be. Seek us out. Also, if something's on your mind, maybe it's about an apple variety as you're prepping an apple pie to pair with a pumpkin pie and other various baked goods for the holiday. Maybe you're making an apple sauce.

That would be an appropriate time to use a Granny Smith apple. If you want to send us thoughts on and or anything else that we're watching and chatting about hobbits and dragons at gmail.com. Yeah. Not hobbits and or dragons,

not bothens and dragons. But hobbits and dragons at Gmail.com. Speaking of, we need to get several people emailing us and tweeting at me and all this sort of stuff, this website, Apple rankings.com. It's an incredible website, Mal. Have you had a minute or two to peruse it? No. No. That is fine and dandy. Is this a fishing scheme? This is like... No, it's incredible. There's reviews, like, complex reviews.

of every apple you could think of. And I did not expect you to pruse apple rankings.com, but I just want to let you know just to, like, give you a treat for the weekend. Under pure shit apples, number 53, not worth eating designation, the old Granny Smith. Oh, my God. Wow. Steve, can you edit out my prior statement? I'd like to instead say, yes, this is my new favorite website.

And can I just, I'm just going to self-deprecatingly read a little bit of the review of the Granny Smith. How sad it is that so many unfortunate souls still cling to the stray bits of personality they gleaned from proudly declaring themselves a Granny Smith fan when they were but mere tots. Is the dawn of a new age in Appalandia and Granny Smith, an actual British expat who lived in Australia, is long dead. It's time to bury her apple along with her. admittedly, this is a superb baking apple. Mallory, did you write this website? I have a question for you. Anyway.

I won't confirm or deny why I said, no, I haven't visited this website. Right, right. Because I've created this website. If you have just been listening to our ender episodes, this Apple debate is left over from Ranks of Power, I'm pretty sure. Great holiday-guing, though. Lord of the Rings? Yeah. Rings of Power?

Absolutely. That's a Thanksgiving tradition. Rings of Power? Catch up on the pods. Pow-W. Honeycrisp is your favorite, right? No. Pink Lady and Honeycrisp, top two.

Yeah. Top two. Honeycrisp second on the list. Pink Lady, like, they're both in the top tier top apples. I should hope so. This isn't really a great moment. I love this. Apple rankings.com.

Genuinely a great website. Every review is hilarious and like really, the writing's really zippy. I would expect nothing less from Mallory Rubin. Okay. Last but not least, some like Andor news this week is that Disney is putting Andor out on a number of non-Disney Plus platforms, EBC, FX, Freeform, and Hulu. They're putting out the first two episodes, sort of like a little mini movie to run over the Thanksgiving holiday. So sort of like you're home with your fam, why don't you show them first two episodes of, maybe they don't have Disney Plus. Why don't you show the first two episodes, get them hooked.

I think it's an interesting little, they used to. do this back in the day when we didn't have like on demand. They would sort of do mini marathons of shows. I remember, I've talked about this before, but I remember that they did that with Aalius. That's how he caught up with the first season of Aalus. They like did a 10 episode little like mini marathon on, I don't know, ABC family or something like that. Now, how do you feel about this little move from Disney?

Kind of a shocker. Yeah, it's, there's like, I think the initial, uh, shared, reflective 10-second response that everybody who really loves Andor had, which is like, you almost can't help but think, oh boy, like, is this just because not as many people were watching this as they were hoping? And that's like a little bit of a bummer.

But if that's the case, then I love that they're trying to get it in front of more people, right? And trying to make sure that as many people as possible, whether or not they have Disney Plus can discover it. I think more broadly, though, like in the streaming era, being creative about these like families of streamers under certain share parents or if there are relationships among these streamers, like, yeah, get their shows out in front of people. Now, the more sinister read on it is you're going to get hooked with two and then have to go sign up for Disney Plus if you want to see their ass, which is certainly part of the, part of the strategy without a doubt, right?

But if this, at the end of the day, like if this helps more people discover, and or and have this show, which is a jam and a treasure in their lives, then I will be grateful that they did this. So that's where I am on it. What about you? Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's stunning to think about all the platforms that Disney owns at this point, ABC, FX, Freeform, Hulu, Disney Plus. And at a certain point, we anticipate that Hulu and FX and probably Freeform will wind up being sort of under the umbrella of Disney Plus, though all sort of to become tiles up there with like the Marvel tile and Star Wars style. That's TV business.

That's not your business today. But yeah, I think it's like a anything to get more people watching this amazing show. I am all for it. So I support it. All right. Last but not least. Friendly Neighborhood, spoiler warning. Rogue one.

Ever heard of it? It's a Star Wars movie. We're going to talk about it. All the Star Wars movies ever heard of them. We're going to talk about them. The animated shows. The comic books. The tie-in books.

All of that is on the table. That's how we do it here in House of R. So here we go. We're going to talk about episode 11, the penultimate episode, daughter of Ferrix, written by Tony Gilroy, directed by Benjamin Karen. Mal, do you want to just like give us a, do you want to go straight to B or do you want to give us an overall impression of the episode first? Let's just talk about B. Let's just talk about B. Because this was like the saddest and most touching and most moving thing that I've ever been.

ever seen. I was in tears. I was clutching my chest. I wanted to scoop him up and cradle him in my arms and swaddle him and hold him like my own newborn baby. Like, I just love him and feel a depth of affection and tenderness toward him. And I think that, like, I've always, Joe, this is a thing that you know to be true about me. I love droids. I've always. I've always. I have. I have always. love the droids in Star Wars. They're often some of my... You love to rank an apple. You love to rank a droid.

Often among my favorite characters, I've made the comparison many times before to like the beeps and boops of BB8 or R2 reminding me of the way that I feel like I am able to completely and perfectly communicate with my beloved cat, Halo,

even though he is meowing and I am speaking English. Now, B is speaking basic. He's speaking English. And so we literally hear the words coming out of his mouth. I don't don't want to be alone. I want Mama Marva. And of course, that is a knife into our hearts.

But even if we couldn't hear exactly what he was saying, the way that he's emoting, the way that he is behaving, it is just so human and the relationship and the loss and the grief, the way that we watch Be grieve across this episode for the loss of Marva, the loss of his comfort and routine and the reality and. context of his life and then look to latch on to a familiar friend like Brazo is just incredible and was like such a treat and also so heartbreaking to watch. I love B. How did you feel about B? I feel like no one is, everyone is delighted and no one is surprised by your reaction. I just want to let you know that I went full Valerie Rubin. I went like feral emotionally for B

in this moment. I was like the clutching of the chest. The, like, the rending of the garments. I was so upset. And, like, part of that is, so first of all, bees, I mean, we've loved bees since B first showed up, but B's design, you know, a van invoked Johnny Five, a great robot of cinema, the 80s cinema. But Johnny Five, one thing that Johnny Five had that made it so easy for him to a mode is he had these little, like, panels that were above his eyes that looked like eyebrows.

So it's so easy for him to look like vulnerable or confused or happy or whatever, because the eyebrows can move. Similarly, like, Wally's design. We talk a lot about the eyes and the eyebrows. I know. And Wally and B have a lot in common, I would say, right? Yeah, they're perfect. And so I think the B designed, the way that his, like,

head accordions into his body, the way that it can tilt, the way that that one panel over his little eye scope looks like an eyebrow. Like, I think they've done a really good job with both the audio. design and the physical design to give us like peak emotive. I mean, his name is BT emo, like the most emo emotive droid we've ever seen. And from a filmmaking, TV making perspective, we are in B's

POV in this scene, which is what I don't think, I mean, correct by I'm wrong, I don't think we've ever been in a droid's POV exactly this way. We have some, some Clone Wars arcs. That's the first thing that comes to mind that are like R2 episodes and C3PO episodes and where we are like with them, primarily or even exclusively. You're right that the camera positioning for the live action verse here of like watching the daughters of Farrix move Marva's body from her home out through the streets of her community, the way that like we are looking through the lens of B's perspective quite literally out the window and then also reflecting, seeing his reflection in the

window and we get this like volley effect of of the circumstances of that area. But just like the way he positions himself and moves or moves about their home, also like even the moments where we're not looking out of his eye, I think too, like the, when we cut back to and we're hearing, we are hearing these snippets of dialogue and piecing together what happens before we see. And we have this kind of like blurry, blurry, like initial visual through the, this like unstable, unsteady liquid, and that really, like, heightens this sense of drowning and fear and terror and the uncertainty and, you know, thankfully the toppling of the cup that's some

fucking piece of garbage put on top of me. I mean, I just want to say, I love the daughter of ferrics. They obviously are pillars of the community and they're great, but if one of those bays put that cup on B, there's some other people in that room, so I'm hoping it's not one of the daughters of the barracks, but I'm like, whoever did that, you're out of here. Fuck you for using B as an end table. And that's sort of like, it's so pivotal in that moment because B, who is this treasured member of the family and Cassian's gone and Marva's gone. And one of the daughters of ferrics says that droid. Doesn't say B says the droid, right? Not meaning to be mean, but she says the droid. And that's when B starts to like shake. And it's like, is my identity now

just a droid? And not just that, but like, an old droid. who can't, who can hardly hold a charge. Like, who's going to take care of me? And the way that he's, he's not, in this opening scene, he's not on his charging station. He's, like, nestled right up next to Marva's chair where her cane is and her gloves are still hanging and stuff like that. And the camera is kept low, like down on, you know, Brasso gets down on B's level. Like, bless Brasso in this.

Steve, will you play this exchange, please? We're going to take her out in a minute if you want to say goodbye. I'll have them clear the room. If you want to be alone. I don't want to be alone. I want Mama Marva. Jay's going to be here till I get back. I can go with you.

Jess? Yep. Right here. B's going to help you get organized. There's a lot to be done. You said I could go with you. The daughters of Ferrex require your assistance in matters of grave importance. We need to pull together, B, all of us.

Oh, my gosh. So, Jesse, jazz, Jesse here, who seems to be sort of like the leader of the daughters of Ferrix, at least in this setup. I think that line we need to pull together, B, all of us, of course, is like an underpinning of the entire series of Andor. And I also want to note that the actress who plays Jezzie, Pamela Navetti, is Sophia Navetti's aunt, and Sophia Nevente plays Disa on Rings of Power. So I just got, like, I saw that last name. like, is that? Oh, it is. So yeah, and I, we've heard the daughters mentioned for a couple episodes. I think we saw Josie with the doctor last week and stuff like that. But to see them, you know, wrap Marvathus way, take her out, we see, we can see Be's little head peeking out

through the window once we get outside and everyone stops and takes a moment. In contrast to the Narcina, when Ulav is taken out. of Narcina 5 and the Narcena 5 workers, they have to go on program. It's not really about Ulaf in that moment. You know what I mean? But to watch another body be carted out and how this episode is called daughter singular of Farix.

It's Marva's episode, even though she's not in it. What is your sense of community in a moment like this where you see everyone just pause and pay homage? I thought this was beautiful. and I'll ask your forgiveness in advance if I jump around a bit across the episode and answering that question. But I think that that was one of my favorite parts of this episode. And especially something like Marvel where I think you have this initial, there's the heart wrenching part of watching B grapple with us in an attempt to come to terms with this.

Then there's also like the rational part of our TV viewer brains where we're like, wait, did Marvel really just die off screen? Like you're kind of juggling all of that in your mind at once and what might that? mean. And then there's like the, the impact of that, the emotional heft of that hitting much later in the episode, which we will talk about more later when we see Cassian learn about this. And it's like, well, that's like the realest, most true to life thing in this episode where like we think, okay, well, we've spent time with Marvel. We knew that she was ailing. We knew from her conversation with Bix that she was having trouble breathing. We knew that she had fallen. We knew that she was refusing to take her medication, et cetera. We still expect to be in that. We still expect to be in that

room with Fiona Shaw one more time, but like learning that somebody you thought, think of the last conversation that Marva and Cassian had and like learning that you, that someone you thought you would be able to return to and be with again is just gone and that you will never get that hit so hard at the end of the episode. The people who are there, which Cassian is not, and who have been there with Marva in those final days, you have like the stuff that we have gotten to witness firsthand, the way that Brasso and Bix and others, the daughters have tended to Marva, Marva's relationship with B. All of the conversations, think back to the very beginning of the show about the temperature in her home and the concern that permeated across the community about whether she was going

to be okay. We hear the ISB kind of like leverage this shared communal affection against Farix, this idea that because Marva is a pillar of the community, she rates a certain kind of service and send off. What an incredible thing. I can't wait to talk about the brick that we learned about in this episode and the way that you literally become a part of the fabric of the streets and the walls and the buildings and the world around you. And like Marva is so central to that. And I thought back to that final scene that she had with Cassian and her refusal to leave. And like, it all makes so much sense when you watch everybody come together to, you know, march her body down. Another salvaged droid helping there too is B-watches from inside.

It's like this was her home. This was where she belonged. And these are the people who love her. And so, like, it was just really emotional, even just the process of moving her body. like wrapping her. There's that like very familiar rust color of the cloth around her, Jo. But then there's like the

plant life, like the flowers. There's this like green and a little bit of like an injection of color and just like the treatment of the body there was just, I don't know. It was really lovely and really deeply sad. And, you know, Cassian makes a call to Zan and it's like, of course, he's able to tell him

because everybody knows. Everybody knows what happened to Marva. Everybody. There's a couple of things I want to say about that. I think that's really profound. I think that because, you know, you and I talked about this when Cassian says goodbye to Marva, and she said, you know, he says,

I'll worry about you all the time. And she says, that's just love in that incredible delivery, that's just love. And we were wondering, like, is this the last conversation they're going to have? Like, you know, we weren't sure. But from like a TV watching perspective, you expect to have, as you said,

like one more moment with Fiona Shaw, the dying moment or something like that. But I was, you know, and because we didn't physically see her die, because her body went out wrapped, you know, we have the TV rule of like, if I see the actual body, before I believe someone's dead, right?

Theory, theory corner always, yeah. Hashtag Kino Loid lives, right? So then there's all these, is Marva the not dead theories? I don't think that that's the show we're watching, I just want to say, and I think that, especially, I don't think Brasso would ever do that to be, to be honest with you.

But we got this email from Sean about the abruptness of this death. And Sean wrote, they set us up to think we were getting more time with her and then subverted that expectation. This was genius because it resulted in depiction of grief that mirrors real life. When someone we love dies, one of the most overwhelming and difficult ideas to wrestle with is the thought that we had more time. Making the audience think we had more time with Marva allowed us a window into Cassian's crushing realization that he thought he had more time and

makes us feel devastated with and for him. And it's interesting because, like, from a, I've watched too much TV point of view, I had a similar journey with Nemick because when Nemek got, like, crushed by the payload, and then they were, you know, and then they did the whole climb sequence and they were frantically trying to get to a doctor. I was like, well, we're going to see a dying scene with Nemek, right? We're going to see his final moments. And we don't. Cassian is off, you know, dealing with someone else.

And he comes back in and, you know, they pull the sheet over. Nemic, Nemic's already gone. And so this is like... But he lives on. Through the manifesto. He does. But this is the language of the world. And then for that like communal point, I've seen a lot of really interesting discussions

about ferricks, what kind of town Ferricks is. Because we, you know, you and I weren't doing this podcast when we first were introduced in the first three episodes to Ferricks. But like this is an industry town, like a steel town or a coal mining town or a mill town where everyone is part of the same industry, which is this like process. of scrap, of imperial scrap. This is like a working town analog in Star Wars, an industry town. And I think what's interesting in terms of a rebellion is that these industry towns,

historically, are such a strong starting point for usually union-based rebellions. But we get something like the Daughters of Farrix, like we're aware of when we see the gloves on the wall. Like, we're aware of these traditions, these groups, this spirit of rebellion that is, like, baked into the very brick and mortar of this town in terms of, like, the anvil, you know, alarm at the top of the tower and the Morse code SOS, like, bits of metal hung all throughout the town that we saw at the beginning of the season as, like, their way of, you know, shit's getting fucked.

up. And pharix, you know, we've seen, we're watching the Empire sort of slowly crush these various outposts, Aldani being one of them. Ferris has been under the imperial boot since Cassian was a kid. We saw a flashback. We saw the stormtroopers there. So Ferrix has like been going through it for a while. And I think it's really interesting. I was thinking of this great film that I love Matawan, which stars Chris Cooper. And it's about union building. in the 20s, or you think something like Norma Ray, which is Sally Field, like a great film about the textile workers, you know, so like you, you think about these industry towns or these industry communities and the worker in general and how that might bump against

imperial rule. Any thoughts are feelings about that now? Yeah, I love, like, so we heard about the, this tradition, the debtor-bricked. We learned about this through the empire, which I thought was a really interesting choice, because the description from them is so technical. And this is a data point, right? It's something to understand and know about the person you are trying to control. And from the perspective of the people of Farrex, this is like the heart and soul of their community and their way of life. So Corv is explaining this custom to Miro to Hurt. The debtor brick, they mix your ashes with mortar and local stone dust, put your name on

and fire it up. You become a block of Farrix brick. And then what? Mero asks, they find you a wall. And, like, I was really, like, overwhelmed by this idea of the people and the place of Farrix being inseparable from each other. and like literalized in that way. And what is strong point of contrast that is to the empire,

which on the one hand inside of the rise of the empire and the height of imperial might is presented, like we've talked a lot about the fist and the closing of the fist as a presentation inside of this show. But what is the empire for us as Star Wars fans ultimately? It is a thing to be toppled and removed and eliminated. What does a brick make you think of? It makes you think of structure and permanence.

It makes you think of something that's going to be there forever that you can always walk by and pass. And just even thinking of the number of times that we've heard characters mentioned, like Rick's Road, including in this episode, or the tunnels. Like, the physical structure of the place is such a part of the way people move about it and connect to then their memories.

Like in Marva's case with Clem, when she told Cassian that she was able to walk through the square with a smile on her face for the first. time and like the pain but also the strength that you can take from those physical reminders is so interesting. So I went to I went to college in Syracuse and there's a there are a lot of different like architectural styles across the campus. There's this one really cool part of the campus that I really loved. It's about Maxwell and Eggers and it's a really old building, brick, and a new building was built to connect to it. And there was this there was this one doorway that

you walk through that connected them, where instead of knocking down, like, the outside wall of Maxwell that became an inside wall of Eggers, they kept it. And the outer brick was then inside the hallway. And I just used to like, I love that. I just would like put my, I don't know why. It just like always was something about it really gripped me. And I would like walk in, walk through the door going to class. And I would like put my hand on and think of like all the things that had happened in front of it. And like all the people who like learned something. or protested or did something meaningful in front of that wall over the many years and decades

that make up the history of that place. And then it was incorporated into this new thing instead of being removed. And I always loved that idea. So, like, I don't know. I just thought this was one of the coolest things in Star Wars in a while. And it makes me think of, like, a really important and excellent point you've made numerous times not only in discussing and or,

but across our time potting together, you talked about this a lot in rings of power. It's like, what is the way of life? Like, yeah. What's worth defending? Yes. Like, what makes up the day for somebody? What's a family like? What's a community like?

And, like, we just understand that better after seeing this, or hearing about this, rather. First of all, I love, I love learning that about Syracuse. I want to shout out my university at UC Davis. We had this, like, poured concrete monstrosity that was our social sciences and humanities building. That was, like, an impenetrable maze. Like, you would get on elevators and they would go to, like, It was impossible to navigate. We called it the Death Star.

I just wanted everyone to know that. The Death Star is the name of the social science and humanities building on the UC Davis campus. The point that you made, I think last week, maybe two weeks ago, about the way in which the empire infiltrates to the very heart of a community. The thought of the empire moving into the hotel, now knowing. that potentially the bricks of the hotel are made of the people of this community feels like even more of a violation, right? And yeah, to your rings of power point, when Brasso says, she's in the stone now, she's on her way to be, that is such minds of Moria rings of power conversation. We were talking a lot about when we were doing rings of power. They had so many phrases

that had to do with the rock and the stone and the minerals and stuff like that. And that's like, she's in the stone now, she's on her way. It's just like really incredible. Let's talk about bakes before we go from the section of Ferricks. Oh, and I do want to say just really quickly, we got Anvil Guy is back in this episode, and I didn't know until this week that his official title in the credits is Time Grappler. Iconic. The Time Grappler?

Unbelievable. Oh, my God. Can we go as time grapplers the next Halloween? All right. Absolutely. Yeah, so core of that piece of shit, as you mentioned, is really poor disguise. Like, Sinta's already made him. He is, I think, not made Sinta.

But Sinta's like, hey, your hat is just like an imperial hat. And it's a different color. And you're sitting at this table in my tea shop, clearly watching this one area asking super pointed questions about what has happened and who has died and whether I knew this person. But I will say, I mean, like, Corv, what's interesting about Corv is he's not on 24-hour Brasso babysitting duty because we also see him in the hotel

like with some of our other bad guys here. And they grab Bix from her holding cell. Bix going like full Ophelia and Hamlet. she's just like lost to the world. What really perturbed me about this sequence is actually how gentle they are with her because they don't need to be harsh with her because she's already just completely broken. So I think he would pronounce it, K-Sex, K-Sex, lieutenant, or like, you know, with a shaved head, like, comes to get her.

And it's just gentle with her. And she can't barely walk down the hall. And it's just, it's more disturbing to me than if he had. like roughly grabbed her and dragged her down a hall and she was resisting, the fact that she is completely broken here. Well, take us through the rest of this Bix sequence, Mel. So there are a couple notable things about what we're hearing or what Bix, what Bix is hearing at the beginning of this sequence and what we're hearing at the end of this sequence, when we first see Bix, who is a shell, she is replaying Dr. Gorse pre-torture speech in her head.

head, like the idea that they make a sound as they die, a sort of choral agonized pleading. It won't feel that way to you. And that one in particular really hit here because this idea of the prison of time and the prison of your own mind, like you're feeling that she is still keenly in that. Sunless face. Yeah. Exactly. Yes.

The movement of the security cameras panning in and out, this sense that she is always being watched and how that tend that gent that gentleness is just one of the many sinister facades they're asking if she knows they show a hologram of jo we've got a hollow face now to the name anto creaker anto cregar that name this face have a good look is this the man you introduced to cassie and and andor they are wondering if creaker is access and There is once again this whole idea of, like, lies and truth inside of this interrogation. And I expect an honest answer. We as viewers have the sensation that whatever Bix says, which we don't hear, will ultimately be irrelevant.

Because if we think back to the Bix Dijra exchange from a few episodes ago, it's like, you're not going to believe me anyway. And that's part of the horror. I don't know what her move is here. Like, I'm like, what's the good move? If she tells the truth, are they going to believe her? If she lies, are they going to believe her? Like, I don't, I don't know.

And then we don't see, you know. But I felt her despair in that moment. What's the move? And then what do we hear, what do we hear play us out of that sequence? So before we visually leave that scene, we are hearing later, Monmothamah's child, daughter, who we've talked about all season long. What's going on here? What's up with his family?

What's up with this kid? Yeah. And her chintrally nationalist friends chanting about the old ways and we're learning

inside of this episode about this thing that is first we know new to us and new to canon. It's creepy and it's it's I think very specifically children that she's here is and we know that in her torment

at the hands of gorsed, it was the screams of children that they tormented her with. So the fact that we are on her as she's making this impossible decision to identify Anto Krieger. By the way, spoiler not spoiler,

I don't know what to tell you, but like Anto Krieger, like I was like, who is that guy? Anto Krieger is not listed in the credits and that to me looks like a CGA person. So I just feel like we're never going to actually see Anto Krieger on the show.

Interesting. Like, I don't know. I was like what's what's interesting is like a bunch of a bunch of SEO people hopped on the who is Anto Krieger because like I was like oh is this an actor I know like who's playing Anto Krieger and then he's just not listed in the credits so I just think it's it's a digital confection that's who I think that is you already mentioned Dedra getting the report yeah I do want to mention Tigo Tico's the one who was, like, so excited to hang. Yes. You know, a citizen of Ferrix because just to make a point. And also the one who couldn't wait to ask Cyril for a promotion, Blevin for a promotion way back in the day.

Yeah. I just, I haven't mentioned it yet, but Tegos played by Will Skolling who played Prince Rhaegar Targary and Game Thrones. And what's so funny about when he showed up is I was, like, what's funny about Wilf scolding, and I know earlier this week when we were talking about Wakanda Forever, I mentioned that I follow Winston Duke on Instagram, and it's true,

but I do not follow that many actors on Instagram. It's just like, that's not how I use Instagram. But I do follow Wilf scolding from back in the day when we were all like trying to figure out if Ragar was going to show up in that season, and it was rumored that he was going to be Ragar. So I was like stalking his Instagram,

and then I just never unfollowed him. So I just get if updates from Will's scolding all the time. And so he just looks like familiar to me. He looks like a friend of mine. So I was like, is my friend in this show? I was like, oh, no, that's good old rig our Targaryen. Okay. The prince who is promised, who's now a real piece of shit on Ferricks. But we get the succession. So this is how Dedra finds out that Marva's dead. And then we just get a succession of people finding out this news. And like, when talking to Ben Lindbergh about this episode, which is, we all agree, a sort of table-setting

episode, which is quite common in TV storytelling, like ramping up to finale, you get a table setter, which just moves all the pieces and the places they need to go. And that's fine. I'm not, I'm not usually down on a table setting episode in general. But I would agree with Ben that there are just some repetitive conversations of like, do I need to see everyone learn about Marva? Do I need to hear it all the way through every time? like this is the same information being presented over and over again.

And actually, I already knew it, you know, before the first person hears about it. And then we see several people hear about it. And so let's like, you know, we already talked about DEDRA. Inside the DEDRA conversation, we learned that thing about the brick, which is hugely additive. With the Vell and KLAIA interaction, which is how KLAIA finds out about Marva, what did this add to your understanding? of Andor between these two characters. I'll say more broadly that I really didn't mind

that aspect of the episode. I think that the one part, the Monvel conversation about the money problems was the one part where I felt that a little bit more. But in terms of like, in general,

the episode is finale set up and table setting, but also the many people finding out about Marva, etc. I actually really love. liked the fact that two things. I think, like, the show has been operating at such an incredible frequency. And every episode, I think particularly, I mean, three was amazing, but particularly six through

10, it's just, like, week after week, you're building in this extraordinary fashion. And I actually kind of, like, like, like, having a refractory period to, like, reset and, like, get our bearings. But I think, like, what I... Well, like, that's what seven was, right? And I like... I like that episode too. Yeah.

I think so, but like to your question about maybe how multiple characters are receiving the same information, I like that because like we are learning something about each of them in that exchange. And it's not just about the mechanics of everybody needing to understand that something meaningful is happening on Farix. So, of course, it's a TV show. So it's also about that. It is. But when Cyril hears this, like, I was like, we're watching a social experiment with this guy that I am like riveted by. When Mero learns about it and has to tell her absolute moron lieutenants. Confidence.

This is actually the thing we want, like a perfect excuse in casing to have key players, together in a space where we can watch, you don't. How did you not know that? Like, that's an interesting insight into, on the one hand, the, the kind of idiocy of the cog in the empire machine. And then that, frankly, like that pull that Mero had on us in the earlier episodes where we're like, she gets it and sees it in a way that a lot of her colleagues in the ISB are actually missing.

And that was the thing that drew us to her. and now we're, of course, terrified and very concerned. And then you have a moment like that again where you remember that she's just better at this. And you're like, man, now I'm really afraid because of that. And then Clea and Vell, I got to tell you, Claya is like, every Clayah scene works for me. I'm just like, this is like.

Also, Vell just seems like a really bad spy. I just want to say. Yeah, that's great. Claire. I'd be like, what are you doing? Why are you here? It's like, yeah. Why are you here?

What are you doing? This is reckless. So many of these characters are behaving recklessly. So many of them. When Belle gives Claire the old Lonnie to Luthin, what have you given to the cause lately? Clay doesn't get a full monologue. She gets a mini monologue. Steve, can we hear it?

I don't have lately. I have always. I have a constant blur of plates spinning and knives on the floor. and needy panicked faces at the window of which you are but one of many. I mean, she could have gone on. I would have been happy for her to have a full monologue, but that's, that's well enough, you know. It's a heater.

I don't have lately, I have always as an absolute heater. But also, like more broadly, Joe, that tension, like the way that the show keeps taking us inside of the tension between nominal allies is, like, important. And I think especially at these, like, fever pitch moments where something could go really wrong, obviously that recurs again in the Luthin-saw exchange. We even get it when Luton and Claire are...

I love the conversation where they're speaking in code right before he's caught in the... Oh, so fun. Yeah. The tractor beam in the thondor. She's like, no. Too many buyers are interested. The antique space is just a buzzer.

Leave that into... But, like, these characters are behaving. Not only are they not all on the same page, which makes it really rewarding and exhilarating when we see that they can figure out how to be. But, like, the mistakes that they're primed to make, like, I think that's also an important thing that the show is really focused on. Like, you've talked about this a lot throughout, like, the real boldness of the endeavor in some respects is just, like, you've, you've talked about this a lot throughout.

this isn't the binary. This isn't dark side, light side. This isn't good guys, bad guys. There's a lot of the moral gray, but also a lot of the complexity and nuance and side of the decision-making

of the characters we are, regardless of the lack of that binary, inclined to root for and side with and hope we see succeed. But like, why are you behaving this way? Like, why is this a thing that you're doing? What mistake might you make? And it's like, it heightens the tension

even in a quieter episode. I can't wait to talk about the Luton Space Escape later, but, like, there was a part of me watching that, I was like, just let them board. I'm glad he didn't because it was amazing TV. That was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in Star Wars. I'm like, what did you just do?

This was fucking astonishing. But let them board, letting them board is the safer course, actually, than what he did. And that's interesting. That tells us something new about him. Well, he wasn't in his wig in costume. You know what I mean? I was like, he's always got it waiting, though, in the little secret closet. Well, when that secret first started, I was like, get your wig on now, man.

What are you doing? Anyway, our pals who do great, you know, genre breakdowns on YouTube, Brian Erie, Eric Voss, both pointed out the way that the conversation between Clea and Vell is framed, which is like it would be so easy to put these women in a two shot, meaning like they're both, or they're both together in the frame or over the shoulder or verse or a shot, which we get at one point. But when they're first talking, it's a shot of. of Clea with a lot of empty space behind her and a shot of Vell with a lot of empty space behind her

in two different frames. So going back and forth, they're almost lit differently, whereas, like, Clay is in this sort of, like, gray or darker space, and Vell is in this brighter, warmer space, even though they're just on the other side of a counter in this shop.

And it just makes them look like they're in two different places entirely because they are talking at cross-purposes, and Vell is being just super messy and bad at her spy job is my assessment. of what's going with Phil through all this. The Cyril Carn Cyril Learning the News,

first of all. Mosh, shout out Edy, though. Like, shout out Eadie, her absolutely fucking glam, glam wear that she takes to bed.

She looked amazing. But yeah, Moss, who is like the bulldog of a man who we met at the beginning of the season, is back to to give Cyril this information about Marva. This actor, someone pointed out to me, this actor's also from Chernobyl.

So shout out to Nina Gold, just grabbing all the Chernobyl actors for the show. This went on too long for me. I was frustrated because there's all this cutting in and out. And I'm like, he's delivering news that I already know. And, like, Carn's going to carn about it. And, like, you know, I love spending time with Cyril, as you know. I love watching him break into Mommy's safe and steal her. money. Like, I loved all of that.

Those two can't stop going into each other's private boxes, Joe. Troubling. No respect the sanctity of a private box anymore, Valerie? Oh, my. Do you think Eadie also has ways of knowing just as Cyril did? Boy. What do you make of the sentence from Eighty? The mystery of your former triumphs have been vanquished.

I can sleep peacefully now. Yeah. So that... Literally, what does that mean? That also bothered our... our beloved Bedlimberg, he wrote about that of the piece. I, I, first of all, I'll say, I thought this, this scene, this, you know, space time phone call between Cyril and Mosque was genuinely hysterical. Like, I was, I was in stitches.

I was laughing just so much. I can barely hear you. Yes, Marlana Juan's still here. Just speak clearly. Indeed. Like, it's just, I don't know. It was a moment of levity that I really appreciated inside of a very heavy show. And the Edy moment to me just felt like more of that viciousness that Edy and Cyril are constantly like a volleying back and forth to each other.

And she's just basically like, you think you're hot shit. You think you're self-important. You think you're on this grand crusade. and you and your, I guess, closest confidant can't even manage to get a sentence out to each other while your mom is watching you in pajamas and he's talking about the smelter at his night job interrupting the connection.

Like, she's just dunking on him and saying that he has nothing to be, nothing to be proud of. I get the dunk. I get that. That's the vibe. Yeah. She didn't even have to say that for that to be the vibe.

It's withering. I just think the sentence, the mystery of your former tryans have been bank are kind of word salad. Like in a show that is so elegant with the language. I don't mind it because I'm like not every character in Andor

should speak as beautifully as Tony Gilroy writes. But it's a fair point. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy,

seasonal produce and some very tasty limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, market peach, apricot, rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic

or brunch, as is their trending mango, Yuzu, chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale sign storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. This episode is brought to by Paramount Plus. Beth and Ripper back in a new series, Dutton Ranch. Kelly Riley and Colehouser returned, and this time they're taking on Texas. As Beth and Rip build a future together, peace will have to wait as they face corruption, danger, and a ruthless rival ranch willing to protect its secrets at all costs. Legacy is a beautiful thing, but only if it survives.

Dutton Ranch starring Colehous or Kelly Riley, Annette Benning and Ed Harris now streaming on Paramount Plus. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activio yogurt today for two weeks and see if you feel a difference. With billions of probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise, Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual. Try Activia today. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. Let's go to the braid. What do you

think the Chandrillion translation of Hitler Youth is? This is my, this is my, this is a is my fear around later here. This was alarming. Will you play us this creepy child chanting section of the show? Safe in the knot in the binding. The old ways teach us. Found against the wind tied to shore. Tethered in permanence.

So creepy. This is a hard pass for me, Joe. Everything happening here with the elder in the old way and the chant and the, the braid, I'm out. It's a no for me. We got an email from Rio asking us if we could do like a lore dive on this. The answer is this is not known in canon. So like I'm just telling you if we knew about this, if it were known, this would be where

Ben Lindberg would take us on a lore dive. But he's showing up later because we as Star Wars fans and Ben is a Star Wars hardcore expert do not know what the what the fuck the braid is. but we can infer that this is Bible study, like Bible study, Ben made the great make Shendril a great again joke in his column. But like, do you think this concept of the braid? Because what we see is all the girls are wearing the same blue robes that we've seen later wear wearing the exact same hairstyle.

And so like are the braids in latest hair a literal evocation? of this as part of this sort of like religious or culturally conservative youth movement that she's a part of. What are you things going on? It seems so. I think that's a reasonable deduction. It's certainly not the way that her mother styles her hair, right? It's not the way that Vell styles her hair and they are both like appalled by this. Yielding in acceptance, like this is just really like harrowing to see. It's, it's, Mormon shit. Like a lot of what we, you know, to Rio's question, like a lot of the insights that we have about Shandrel

and customs have culminate earlier episodes of this show through conversations with Mon and Vell and Davo and Perrin and like Tay and learning about how Mon feels about these things, right? And so like, or if you think about the great scene, the dinner table scene, with Perrin and Vell and Vell's mortification that Perrin was somebody she even had to speak to, somebody who clearly didn't understand anything about her life. And I'm interested in that part of it because obviously Vell's, Belle was like repelled seeing this and very alarmed. And we know that Vell and Leda have like a real fondness for each other.

So there was like a, I don't know, there was like a, sadness at play here, I think especially when we heard Mon say to Vell that it was even stronger, like this custom, the return to this custom was even stronger here on Corrissant than back home, that kind of like cultivating of this jingoistic, nationalistic pride

and like surrounding yourself with like-minded people who are very focused on one and the same thing. And even inside of your own family, people who know that this is wrong or fear it, like can't, reach you or tell you that. Like that is the antithesis in so many ways to the pursuit of something that is like good

and provides safety and like a welcoming embrace and the, the encouragement and protection of various different ways of life. So that was just a real twist, honestly, because we were like, wow, what's going to happen if Mon, that's the first untrue thing you said. dagger from Davo last week. It's like, what's going to happen if Mon Motho has to grapple with whether to put her daughter into this, no, it's just a hello. It's not a betrothal to this guy's son, the thing that she resents about her own history and her own life. And what kind of hatred will that lead to and resentment from her own daughter? And now we're like, her daughter

seems to be like embracing those customs. Yeah, and those old ways. Yeah, the other thing that Davo said to her in that conversation earlier. He says, many cultures don't fully appreciate the clarity of the chendril in marriage. Even our own people are confused at times. Boundaries can be liberating the old ways have value. This show was about climbing past the boundaries. And if later had been there, she would have been like, yeah, love this. This is my jam, you know.

And I think, but something we do have to shout out. And again, this is the eternal complication of Andor is as repulsed as I am. to see these like young women dressed all the same, wearing the same hairstyle, and chanting something about being safe in the knot and the binding. These are the kind of specific customs, similar to being put in the brick and put in a wall, that the empire would gladly wipe out and homogenize.

Like this is also a unique cultural custom that I guess is worth fighting for, according to some people worth defending. Yeah. So I, here's the one thing I would say is like normally I would agree

and like if we're seeing something about a way of life or a culture, political, religious, spiritual, whatever the case may be, yes, we would be inclined to think that way

like this is soon that the empire might seek to stifle or tear down. Because we were presented, because our glimpse of this came through, one, the overlay with Bix, and then two, the conversation between Vell and Mahn, where Vell says, I thought this was over. Like, through a line like that, we understand, I think,

or we at least maybe suspect or can glean that this is something at some point, the people of Chandralla actually said we need to move beyond. This is not healthy. This is not good. if it were at the heart of their culture at large right now, that would be different. But, like, it seems from that conversation like it's not. It's something they thought they had evolved past. Can I just say, you know, what's really hard for me in Star Wars is that we talk about

whole planets, like, their one community. Sure. You know what I mean? Of course. So it's like, who's to say what corner of Chindrilla believes this, that, or the other thing? You know what I mean? Like, on Tatumine, we do this.

And I'm like, you know, that's ridiculous. And these, like, two towns on Tatooin and the stretch of dust. or we understand that. So, like, you know, where Mon and Bell are from, they have a more, I would say, liberal point of view, which is that you shouldn't conscript teenagers into an arranged marriage. Do you know what I mean?

I would say it's progress to move past that. But who's to know what's happening in the southern hemisphere of, or, you know, the Western or whatever, who knows where exactly that's from, you know? Yeah, I hear you. I hear what you're saying. And this feels like a deeply conservative chindrilla movement that is building in Corrassant. I just think that largely, even something like that, I'm not saying it is worth defending.

I'm saying it complicates that whole concept of specific cultures. And we're used to thinking of specific cultures versus the homogene of the empire. And in this instance, Gilroy and Company are complicating that by making that specific culture. even if it is a splinter cell that exists on Choracont, something that repulses us, you know? Are those worth defending too? You know, who knows? You already mentioned that this, like, Val and Mon conversation is, again,

a little repetitive because we already knew all this stuff about the money. I will say, for me, like, this worked a little bit better for me because, first of all, we're seeing Mon in a mode that we've never seen Genevieve O'Reilly get to do, which is, full vulnerable. She doesn't quite let the tears stream down her face, but this is the most undone we've seen Mon in the safety of talking to Vell here. Like, we've seen her talk to Vell grab little conversations

here and there where Leda's out of the room or her driver's watching, you know, like all this sort of stuff, so she still had to keep a lot of the pretense up. This is the most, like, undone we've seen her. And then for Vell, because Aldani is mentioned here, when Mon says because of Aldani, they're now looking at the bank accounts. And she doesn't know that Vell was responsible.

As Vell reminded us earlier in this episode, Bell was a leader on the Aldani job. And so Vell is now understanding on a more personal, it's hitting literally my home, the consequences of the Aldani job that she did. I think we could have gotten all of that without like feeling like we're going through some of the beats again with information we already knew.

But those aspects did feel additive to me. We got this funny email from Luke. Speaking of Mon being kind of undone, it's like wig corner, but it's a little different. Luke wrote, having so many of the characters skip the hair gel this week felt incredibly appropriate. The statuesque styling of Mon Motha's hairdo has transformed into a relaxed look.

We finally see her in an all-female setting where the posture of political male-dominated parties allow her to let her hair down. Now, Fais was making the most personal, traditional play abiding her daughter to an arranged marriage. Mon gets to share her fears with Belle. Up until this point, her language politicking with men, has been as controlled as her hair. Currently in the depths of true personal stakes, she's now able to organically vent to Vell, and the relaxed hair helps us understand that this conversation is like no conversation she's had before.

Cyril's pristine cut, ideal for getting low-level bureaucratic jobs, now reflects the manic state he finds himself in having heard that confronting and or could be very possible. All the has to do is rush and get Mama's money and get to Farrix. Also, 80's night look is a new goal of my life, complete icon. So, yeah, we get, we get Cyril's bedhead and Mon, like, you know, Maun looking like she just stepped out of the shower and combed her hair that way. Still looks beautiful, but it's not as-stunning. It's not as stiff and styled as we've seen it. I thought that was kind of interesting, this kind of like, burrowing deeper into the core of these.

various families and homes that we've been in. Great email from Luke. Yeah, with Ma, with Ma, I definitely read that less as I am so relaxed and comfortable inside of this conversation with Vela, a person I trust and more, even like the initial glimpse we get is like her with the glass of wine watching her daughter and this collective chanting. And just like the stress has reached such a boiling point that, there's no time in the day to like worry about if your hair is done.

She's got a lot of plates spinning and knives on the floor. Nives on the floor. Yeah. Claire still has time for elaborate hairdoes, but mom's a little stressed. Yeah. And I do, before we wrap all this up, I just want to say, you know, to reflect back on some of the things I said, I just want to make sure that people listening know, I respect most religious practices.

this is very coded as creepy conformity and stuff like that. This is like Handmaid's Tale kind of shit and not like, you know, were Protestants having a Bible study or whatever. This is not a, yes, a presentation of, oh, look at this young person who has discovered faith, how cool and interesting. This is like, yes, I think the way you put it as coded is exactly right. It is coded for us to be on guard. We will eventually, I swear, get to Cassie and Andor,

the titular character of the show. Let's go through Luthyn's. Luthin, who is definitely not a secret force user, question mark, on this show. Goes to see our guy saw. Mal, take us through this visit to Saw that he has here. So the first thing that happens that inspires your definitely not a secret force user setup is that as he is returning to Segre Milo, where we last saw him visit, he is stopped.

Two tubes. Orders did he be searched? We get a very funny, he's in a mood. Good to know exchange about Saw, which made me chuckle. And the guy who is searching Luton pulls out what Limburg described in his piece as a peppercorn grinder. That's just very funny. Pepper grinder, yes. Charles noted this on Midnight Boys.

This appears to be the same hilt of like, If you go to episode three, you can see this pretty clearly when Luther arrives on Ferricks. And he's walking around holding what basically is like a walking stick. Except he's not using it that way. Now when I rewatch that, I was like, it just, I'm sorry. It just looks like he's holding a lightsaber. I was chatting with Ben about it. And, you know, he's like, it just doesn't seem like, like, that's a show where we're going to learn that this is a lightsaber.

But the way that Luton responded, put it down or give it back and seemed very like, anxious to not have somebody handling this hilt? I was just in full, like, you can't not think about it. And I think that they must know as they're making the show that we can't help but think and wonder. This has been an ongoing theory. It's sort of actually what inspired our secret force user corner that we've been doing every week is like the Luton is the secret Jedi or force user.

Yes. Yes. But the pepper grinder, Lightsaber Hilt's question is where we all start. Boy. Saw has changed his mind and he's decided he's all in on Spell House. He's going to help Anto and Luton's like, ah. Wonder if Saw will apologize at any point for the rude things he said about Anto Krieger in the past.

Steve, can we hear what Saw said about Anto Krieger in the past? The man is an ox. Slow and stupid. But let him know I'm ready to help. Even slow stupid oxes need help sometimes. Anyway, so Luton's trying at first to get him to, he's like, no, it's okay. Now we're good. And then Saws persistent and then Luton has to, you know, give up the game that he's about

to sacrifice Anto here. Before we get into Saws very on-brand, paranoid reaction to all of this, we got a couple emails from listeners about this real-world comp of the Spellhouse sacrifice. Greg wrote a really great email, but I'm going to read this one from Emily, who wrote, Luthens need to sacrifice Krieger to the ISB as to not cause any suspicion,

reminded me of what happened when the German Enigma Code was cracked during World War II. This was outlined in detail in the movie The Imitation game and what happened with convoy PQ17, an allied convoy that was headed straight for German forces,

and because the Enigma Code was cracked, they had a chance to go and stop it. But their own forces were nowhere near where the convoy was, redirecting would ruin. and all the work that was done to get even this information. The convoy was attacked and losses were heavy, but the Allies had information to move them forward.

I thought this was such a smart connection with Luthin's urging to stop saw from outing the ISB's plan. The moral gray area is something all people fighting for history's good guys have to step into. But we don't like to believe that. I'm continually impressed by how I'm afraid this show is of showing us that space. So, yeah, it's not just that, like, Tony Gilroy is like, wouldn't it be interesting if a hero to make a choice like this? Like we have throughout history are like the allies in World War II have made these choices.

Yeah, the KGB has made these choices. Like, you know, this happens time and time again in Spycraft. Emily mentioned the imitation game. My favorite film about Blushley Park is just simply called Enigma, Kate Winslet, hero. A great, great film. Tell me about Saul's reaction here. Mal? How'd your guy take this?

well, there are a couple stages and phases to his reaction. And for both of them, it builds over the course of the exchange. I think in a way that makes it interesting to ask what Luthan's intention was in the first place or what he was hoping to spark and elicit from SAU and if that's what he got. There's this really interesting duality at play

in Luthin's approach here where, like, when he reveals that the ISB knows what Krieger's plan is and that they will be waiting and Saw asked how he knows that he says, I won't tell you that. So there's this, he's maintaining this shroud

and secrecy and control inside of a conversation where he is making himself vulnerable and confiding a lot. I think that's important when we think about Saw's reaction and the paranoia that builds and that frankly Luthin

is like cultivating and then weaponizing. Stoking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I loved when when Luthin said of Saa, I don't know what you'll do. Like, neither of them really knows what to expect from the other person, but this idea, you're willing to burn him that Saa says here. Like, we talked about that last week for the Luton Lani conversation.

Now, Lani is not a character we know as well as Saw Guerrera, of course. But I think it's, like, really fascinating how many of Luthan's most important. important allies and what does like trusted confidant really mean to Luthan? I don't know. But like for the sake of shorthand, let's say most trusted confidants like people who have seen his face. People who could. That was key. Yes. People who could, which he even brings up here. Like you're a bigger threat to me. I can't have you go there and get caught because you know who I am. And Anto Krieger doesn't. He can't hurt me the way you can. Like there's an honesty and a candor a play there that is like remarkable. But when Saw is thinking about this, like, well, what if it was me instead of Krieger? What would you do? Similarly last week, Lonnie's like, you're willing to sacrifice all these people. How long until you're willing to sacrifice me?

And how many people in Lutheran's orbit have that top of mind for them? When is the day that I'm the person you're talking to me about right now? How long? And so I was watching this from Saw's perspective. And again, Saw as a character we think of and talk about often inside of Star Wars as an extremist. And I'm like, this is like real pathway to bore gullet stuff for, saw Guerrera, like pulling two tubes, taking the blaster

holding it to... Oh, yeah, the two-tube stuff was... So funny. So funny. Like, genuinely... Oh, it's tubes. Obviously. He's my man. He tells me everything. It was so funny.

But it's like, this is a huge brick on the road to Saw being a character who torments people and penetrates their minds because he is so unsure if he can rely on the word of anybody. Disception. Oh, God.

Steve, can you remind us one more time why Anto Krieger might be someone more willing to sacrifice than this math? The man is an ox. Slow and stupid. It's a tough beat for Anto Krieger. I got to say.

It's rough. I liked how I liked how every time Saw mentioned the 30 men, Luthin said, and Krieger. And like, was reminding himself

because I think like, I'm really curious to hear your read on what Luthan was after and why he went there and what it means. Because he has that moment where he says, when I asked him, you think it's worth Luzon Krieger. And Luton says, I did. I'm not sure right now. You know, we think back to the iconic scene from last week, the incredible speech. We know, Joe, that he shares his dreams with ghosts. He's made his mind, a sunless face.

Wait, ghosts or first ghosts? Yeah, great question. He's condemned to use the tools of his enemy. Like, he's not there seeking absolution. He's not a character who believes that someone can say to him, I would have done that too. I understand why you did that. So you should feel okay.

He's well beyond the place in his life where feeling okay is something that he believes he deserves or is possible for him. I did think, though, that in addition to, like, kind of making Saw complicit in this. Yeah. And checking off the like. He's like spreading the responsibility. Yeah. The risk factor and assessing the risk factor, there was.

was also an element to me of like, if we think back to their prior scene, the initial Krieger recruitment pursuit, there's a weird kind of warped alliance building aspect to this. Like, share the load with me. And that's a thing that Luton, despite, share the load, despite, despite not telling him everything here still, despite the fact that he wouldn't tell him about Aldani last time, he's like. He's like. like bringing him further into his confidence because he needs to be able to piece the different factions of this of this rebel of these rebel cells together or there can't be a rebellion. Man cannot live on Cleo alone. You know what I mean? You need someone else in the mix.

All right. So they have this exchange line that I love, right? Soss is for the greater good. And then Luton says, call it what you will. And sauce says, let's call it war. I loved that, right? We have this email from Charlotte that I definitely wanted to include because guess what Mallory Rubin has to do with Harry Potter. So I wanted you to have a moment with this, all right? So Charlotte wrote, as a sci-fi fantasy fan, this phrase, for the greater good, perked my ears.

I'm currently reading Wise Man's Fear, the sequel to Name of the Win, part of the King Killer Chronicle. Glad Ben's not on the Zoom right now to yell at me. Joe, he mailed that book to me eight years ago. Like a decade ago? And I really look forward to reading it. Maybe you'll read it when the third book finally comes out. That's my, yes, correct. I can't do it again.

I can't. I support you with this. I've read both books and I'm still waiting for the third. Anyway, in the King Killer Chronicles, there's a mysterious group of church nights called the Holy Order of the Amir, who were equal part knights and vigilantes with judiciary powers in both the religious and secular courts, meaning they could never be tried for their crimes regardless of the horrible things they did.

These all too powerful order members had a credo. Ivarie and M. UJ., how did I do with that? Who knows? Or, aka for the greater good. The other thing I think of when I hear, quote, quote, for the greater good, is Grindalwald, who used the phrase to justify his actions during the Wizarding War and inscribed the phrase into the prison where he held all that opposed him. This raid was not coined by Grindalwald, but rather by Elvis Dumbledore who wrote to Grindalwald, we seize control for the greater good,

and from this it follows that where we meet resistance, we must use only the force as necessary and no more. What jumps out at me is that this phrase, historically speaking, is primarily used to defend the actions of fantasy villains,

yet here it is in the mouth of a rebel. Before I turn to Mallory Rubin, Harry Potter expert, to talk about this, I just want to say, I Joanna Robinson, I'm legally implanged to talk about hot fuzz, because in that film for the greater good is again

a phrase used by Shadowake Ball of business owners who are the villains of Hot Fuzz and they repeat it. So literally, my friends and I, I've seen Hot Fuzz, I have it memorized. Anytime someone says for their greater good, I repeat either aloud or in my head depending on where I am, for the greater good, because that's how it goes in that movie.

So definitely when Saas said it, I mumbled to myself for the greater good. Anyway, Mal, Grindwold. What do you want to say? Grinnavald was my, my first thought as well, I think it would be impossible for it not to have been after reading Deathly Hallows

as many times as I have. But it's a great email from Charlotte and the Dumbledore point is a very important one to remember for a few different reasons. I think like, spoilers for Deathly Hallows, I guess.

I'll keep it pretty, pretty brief. and pretty vague here. You know, we got a brevity's encouraged, so forgive me if I'm a bit hasty line in this episode. I'll apply that to not spoil Deathly Hallows in full

for anybody who doesn't want that. But pull, that idea, that shared history with a young Albus and a young gallard, the pursuit of the Hallows, was the defining regret of Dumbledore's life.

And the thing that made him afraid forever to be in. a position of power. And that, I think, is an interesting thing to think about, right? Because, like, we chat a lot, Joe, across various stories about intention. And the thing that's always, like, interesting to me in those conversations is it's, like, a luxury we have as viewers that the characters do not.

Because, like, when Tony and Cap are going back and forth, and the Avengers are going back and forth of the safest hands are still our own idea inside of Civil War, very few characters like make us feel all safe and sure inside of an idea like that the way that Steve Rogers could. It's a very rare thing. And like, we always talk as well about the idea that the villains typically think they're the heroes. That's one of the things that makes villains compelling to us and interesting to us. So the characters don't have the clarity until something goes wrong as it does for Dumbledore until they are are confronted with the loss or grief or pain or suffering

that their hubris and flicks to like step back and say it's like it's the it's the Gandoff Frodo idea that we also love to return to so many of our favorite story strands here like you don't get to decide and it's actually the

the thinking that you should that leads people down the dangerous path so I think it's amazing that inside of this show we are getting that idea of like who is right and what is right across the across the character set and it's not neat and tidy. It's not clean. There's not like we're riveted by Luton.

I think we would agree that he's like one of the most interesting characters in Star Wars in years. Ever. Like we, decades. Yeah. So the Midnight Boys were having this interesting conversation about Luton, to your point, about like, is he a hero?

Is he a villain? Like how do we feel? about him? This is the question. We talked last week about how he's coded rather sithy in his, you know, speech in the bellowing cloak on the walkway, very vatery. We got an email from Matthew that I really loved where he wrote the opening scroll to Revenge of the Sis says that there are heroes on both sides. This is the first Star Wars property I can think of that asked the obvious question that is prompted by that sentence. Are there villains on both sides too? What do you think of that. Wow. I think it's a great

a great email and a great point from Matthew. I think like it's always been inherent, I think, in the prompt, but like is made central text in and or in a way that it does feel new. And, you know, like, even if you think about the crawl for Revenge of the Sith, it's a great example to cite because like, what are the sides in question there? It's not the empire.

And the empire, it's about the dawn of that. This is the false war, the puppet war, you know, Palpatine's entire long con. This is the old republic and the separatists. And a war that is engineered and manufactured to lead to an outcome that one person or will do two to sis can control and weaponize to remain in power and then continue to collect and absorb power. Yeah.

In a way that is unnatural. Little Unlimited. We already talked about Luthen and Clay as coded conversation that was really fun. We should just mention

really quickly, though, when she says there's nothing more you can do and he says that's never true. Great line. Great insight into Luton because we get that immediate payoff for that, right,

with this battle, air battle that we get, space battle. Yeah. When this Imperial Patrol, the Cantwell class, arrest or cruiser, which is a nod to Colin Cantwell. The late Colin Cantwell tries to stop him. And Luton throws up an Alderan transponder ID. Takes him a little time.

They get suspicious. They want to board. It gave me hardcore. We're all fine. We're all fine here now. How are you? Luton is doing all this. The Thai fighters come out.

Lutthin uses the tractor beam to his advantage, I think is so brilliant, right? He makes a futile, he knows his futile, attempt to escape the tractor beam. So they have to ramp up the power of the tractor beam. And then he uses that. It's not suction, but I'm not a space scientist. He uses the increased force of the tractor beam to space scientist. To make his projectiles fly that much fast. into the dish of this ship.

Very using the tools of your entity to defeat them. Yes. Like, that's what he's using. This worked on so many levels because there's that, like, thematic return and that was really rewarding. But, like, this just also looked amazing. This was so fun and cool. Like, it reminded me of Mando's whistling birds.

Oh, yeah. Like, at scale, you know, at mass. It was just amazing. and then, like, learning about the Fondor. And again, I'm just so interested in, like, how Luther thinks and how he behaves. Because, yeah, they were able to get the Alderon ID. And, like, in theory, there's protection there.

But, like, you do something like this. Well, that's got to be reported. It's got to be discussed. It's one more data point. Okay, we had this interaction with this vessel in this space. Now, that's, like, more information to, like, that the empire can use to pursue. him. Like it was a, again, I think there's like a recklessness, but also the that's never true

conviction and like unflinching pursuit. It's the one way out. Like only one conclusion, the line from his speech last week. Only one way out. The recurring mantra of our escapees. He's starting to say a version of that again here to Clea as he gets cut off. But what was one of the other things he said to saw about why they had to let, why they had to sacrifice Krieger. He was talking about the alternative of if they wave him off and he says, they'll know they have to wonder. And like, that was such an incredible line because it's not just about Krieger. It's moving forward. They'll know they have to wonder about what, about everything. Not just about who is the mole inside of the ISB or what happened with the Spellhouse connection. They'll have to question everything. Something like

what Luthan did kind of makes people think that way too. So that was all amazing and you have it inside of the Fondor basically like folding up like a piece of origami and a classic spin move. That was the other thing

with the force user for sensitivity theorizing. It's just like the Anakin barrel. Yeah, the Anakin barrel. But like also this level of flying, this level of precision. We've certainly seen very adept pilots

who aren't force sensitive of Hara, one example, an incredible pilot. But, like, that was pretty remarkable, Han, chewy, et cetera. But the particular, like, visual parallel when he unleashes the side laser beams and slices the tie fighters, it's like, that's just, like, what the Inquisitors. Lightsapers look like. It's, like, difficult not to think about that. It's just so similar visually.

All right. So we're going to talk about that in a second. And I do want to say, I loved all this. I have no notes. I do think it's interesting. I haven't heard anyone say, like, this breaks all Star Wars, Lauren Kian. What doesn't everyone have leases on the side of their ship?

The way that I heard about the Holdo maneuver. So I'm just saying like, Here's my take in the Hold on maneuver. Perfect. Incredible. One of the best movie theater moments I've ever had. The whole place went silent. Could hear a pin drop.

Incredible. This has been your requisite. We defend the Last Jedi moment in our Andor podcast. Okay, so here's this email from Brody. I noticed Luthan's reference to using the tools of his enemy and ideological changes after letting his mind become a suddenless place. By the way, Brody wrote this before episode 11. And thought it sounded very much like the words of a fallen Jedi. Combined with his numerous Jedi artifacts and his shop on Coruscant, the khyber crystal he gives to Cassian,

the fact that he's been a rebel for 15 years when the show takes place 15 years after Orde's 66. And what appears to be a lightsaber that he... Oh, no, never mind. And what appears to be a lightsaber that he brings with him meeting, saw, I've come to the conclusion that Lutheen used to be a Jedi,

but after seeing the Empire rise, felt the Jedi teachings were not strong enough to stop the rise of fascism, which opened him to the influence of the dark side, while he may not be actively using dark side force powers. The way of thinking of the Sith has likely influenced a lot of Luthen's actions since the fall of the Jedi,

which is why he feels like he has to adopt the tools of his enemy. If any thoughts, I'd love to hear them. So, like, there's a couple of possibilities here, right? Like, Secret Jedi, secret force user, which is not the same as Secret Jedi, secret Sith working for the rebellion or, you know, accidentally Sith because you've let too many dark side thoughts invade your life. Where are you following?

Like, where do you fall with all of this, Mallory? The 15 years, the Kyber crystal. Yeah. There's a lot of compelling, there's a lot of compelling evidence that's at least worth noodling on and fun to think about on the force sensitive front. I'm, I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued enough to keep talking about it and thinking about it. I would be surprised. I'm curious if you, of you agree. I would be surprised if this story ultimately went to a Luthyn fell to the dark side place. Because I don't, I think that would be like a, that would actually feel kind of contrary to the moral messiness of the approach so far. Like, again, that's light side, dark side binary. We prefer Luthin to stay in the gray, right?

Yeah, I don't. So I would be surprised if it went there. Force user maybe. Yeah, I do think I do think he's being Sith coded in certain I mean the Inquisitor, Blade, the

you know, black cloak like all this sort of stuff. Like yeah, all of that Sith coded, you know, but again, I think that's just, that's just dark,

pooling into the light to give us the gray. Yeah. Not like a full fall to the dark side sort of thing. And that's also potentially a really interesting way. Like we've spoken a lot

more broadly about like Tony Gilroy's feelings about Star Wars and how much Star Wars there is in this Star Wars. And I think that that coding and like incorporating dark side or stiff visual connections or elements into a character who actually doesn't end up fitting into that bucket is a nice way to play with our expectations of like what we anticipate when we see things like that. Giving us like faint echoes of something, but not the like the literal thing. The antiquities shop thing, which we've, from time to mention the fact that we have all these, like, items that we recognize from Star Wars lore, you know, a Gung and Shield, Padme's helm, like, all this sort of stuff sprinkled around the shop.

This feels like a literal embodiment of the antithesis of what the empire, like he's fighting to preserve in via this antiquity shop, these specific cultures of all these different. places. The shop's a great cover. It allows people like Ma'amatha to come visit him. But also, it serves that larger symbolic idea of these are the elements of our disparate galaxy that we want to preserve against the homogenous invasion of the empire. There's also... Footnote, that we want to preserve against the homogenous invasion of the empire. We might have to stoke the empire's desire to destroy a lot of this first. Just putting that down in the small pod at the bottom of Lippins' plan.

But then we'll be built. It'll be great. Also, I've been thinking a lot about the – this is insufferable English major corner, but I'm thinking a lot about – you know, Gilroy said from the jump that he wanted to make this show DeKensian. A lot of people have been comparing the show to The Wire. The Wire is based off the DeKensian model, which is show us little stories in all corners of this ecosystem. We're in City Hall. We're in, you know, these detective offices.

We are with the, you know, drug dealers on the corner, like all this sort of stuff. We're in all layers of the stratosphere. And that's what we get from the top of Ma'amathma's tower to the bowels of Corrassant with Luthin to Narcina 5, all this sort of stuff. Yeah. And the Dickens' comp is so interesting because I've been thinking about Mamma. It reminds me a lot of this character from Bleak House. which is Lady Deadlock, which is this like, you know, noble woman with a secret and a lot of anxiety is eating away at her in this double life.

Or you think about Cassie and you think about PIP in Great Expectations. You think about, and then I was just thinking about, like, the old curiosity shop. Like, Luton's old curiosity shop. I'm not sure all these comps are one-on-one, but it's kind of fun to think about, like, again, Dickens, if people didn't, you know, I've never read him or never studied him or whatever. Dickens gets his reputation for being like musty and dusty and Victorian. Sure, if you want to, like, Chris's Carol, whatever. But like, he was a reformer.

Like, he, I mean, he was an aristocrat, but he was, he cared about, like, pollution and the workers in the boot black shops and all this sort of stuff. You know, so like, he came from nothing. He cared about all stratas of society. and that is on Tony Gilroy's mind as he creates this universe. And there's just details everywhere. Like, to go back to that Cyril Karn video calls, space time call that he made, the way that I love that that shot is framed is you've got Edy in the background, of course, like rolling her eyes and doing all of her shit.

But right on the right, in that frame on the right side of the monitor, is like a picture of pink lemonade that's just sitting on a counter with ice that's just like in Eady's kitchen. And that's just like no detail spared in creating the reality of this universe, you know. That's great. Joe, as a Dickens enthusiast, are you also saving our mutual friend to read until right before your death like Desmond? Yeah, I have got a cherished photo of my beloved penny and yours truly, not in front of an actual harbor, but in fact, in front of a. a roll-down backdrop of a harbor?

Is that you, pen? Penn. You answer. All right, let's talk about Cassie and I'm sorry. Never miss a chance, too. Never be sorry. Cassie and Milsie on the run, there's like a million different prison break movies that you can pull for, and I was thinking of, like, the defiant ones.

There's this, like, bizarre one called wedlock that I think about a lot. That's not worth mentioning. But I mentioned it. Anyway, take me to Cass and Melchie hanging off the side of a cliff here, Mel. So one thing that we're thinking right away as we see them because they are holding on, they're hiding as they're being searched for, these ships flying overhead in pursuit, we see like their fingers and their toes nod and chewed. And Melchie is saying, like, my hands won't work.

Like, I can't do this anymore. We get another climb mention, Joe. We're tracking the climb mentions. Climb alert. That's very present here. I can't climb back up. But Cassian is, we've chatted a lot over the course of the season about, like, that go-r idea of the education of Cassian Andor and his evolution.

And like, when is he thinking about himself? When is he thinking about other people? When are those working in harmony? And, like, he will, there's not a moment where we think he's going to leave Mel Sheba. which was just wonderful and heartening and amazing. And like he's not only not leaving him behind, the way that he focuses on encouraging him and the shift of like the,

they're leaving, they're leaving. Stop saying that into like, tell me they're leaving. That like this repeated idea can be like a creed and a prayer and a pathway into that hope that we love to talk about inside of Star Wars. But like,

we hear them at the end. to go back to Nemos and Mel, she asks Cassie and like, what if we were the only two? And it was, it was interesting to hear that voice in the episode because when we saw them at the beginning and I'm like, what if they, like, until we meet our new friends, like we don't see anyone else from the prison escape, which is like harrowing to contemplate.

Heroin. He also says, I hear you, Joe. I know. Nobody's listening. I hear you. I love Diego Luna's deluxe. of, I hear you. They're leaving.

They're leaving. It's just calmly reassuring. You know what I mean? And similar to the way that he talked to Kino, like that idea that Ben floated of like Cassian leading from behind, just sort of like not come on, let's go. Get your shit together. Let's go.

But like, I hear you. They're leaving. They're leaving. Let's go. There's, you know, to go back to that Gilroy idea of like how much Star Wars is in the Star Wars. What I like is that a lot of the little like Easter If you want to call them that, references that we get, are often Rogue One specific, right?

The Thai Reaper, which is the ship, the specific ship that flies over them, that was a ship the design for Rogue One. The various Sawhenches, including this, this, like, Yeti-looking Moroff character from Rogue One in the background at Saw's compound, that's a Rogue One thing. And then the Corridians, who we see, Friddy and Dewey, the squiggly fishermen, The Cranians were also first, that species were first introduced in Rogue One. But you know it was not introduced in Rogue One, Mallory Rubin? A quad jumper.

That's true. That takes us over to Jack Who, with our, another escape attempt. And Finn and Ray, yeah. Oh, boy. Were you thinking about Gallum at all when we were talking about? Like, look at this, some squigglys and thinking about, like, and being in the water, I was kind of getting a chuckle about that because obviously Andy Circus is still top of mind for us. But on a more serious note, hearing them talk about like

the way that the water has been destroyed and this is their livelihood, like fishing and looking for aquatic life in the water that the empire has destroyed and polluted because this is where they have built these prisons and these factories. And it's yet another insight. into that imperial rot and the way that it literally like it seeps in to every planet that they enter. I think the really smart point, I believe it was the minute, forgive me, I listened to a lot of Star Wars podcast and watch a lot of you too, but I believe this was an eloquent Midnight Boy's point, which was this idea exposes like that the empire is sinking itself, right? It's not up to the rebellion to create cracks. It's up to the rebellion to expose the cracks that already exist. The resentment that's already there.

On Aldani, do you resent that your beautiful eye ceremony has been diminished to nothing? You know, on Arcina, do you resent that your, you know, your fishing waters have been polluted? Like, the empire is doing all of this themselves. And the rebellion is just here to gently underline it. highlight it. Or, in the case of Luther, make sure that the fist tightens a little, a little tighter.

The, I mean, the Credians had this, like, I don't know, it was a slightly abrupt change of heart sort of situation with the net. I didn't really fully understand it. I also, it seems like the Credians just, like, decided to fly them to Nemos for them. Like, it was like, it wasn't just, we'll let you live,

we'll take you in our quad jumper to Nemos. like pretty chill, pretty nice. Maybe there's better fishing on Neimos is the point. There's certainly no one else around on Neimos anymore, which was harrowing. Yes. Before we go to the end of the episode, let's just stop over in Critter Corner with Ben Lindberg and hear what Ben has to say about the Coretians and other non-human species in Star Wars. Yeah, but I've always wanted to touch him.

I like the texture of Yaba is something I need to discover. And the texture. I'm just like... The texture, I'm very curious to actually touch that texture. Yaba, come on, touching his, you know, like his belly. Like, oh, I'm so tempted. Well, now in honor of Fridie and Dewey are two incredibly instantly iconic Star Wars characters, let's go to Critter Corners, what I'm calling it, with Ben Lindberg.

Ben, it was your idea to talk about sort of, I know this is an important. something you've been thinking a lot about, about the use of non-human characters in Andor, and Tony Gilroy has been asked about this a lot. So what do you want to say about, I mean, I feel weird calling them aliens, because isn't everyone an alien in Star Wars, but like, which is why I keep saying non-humanoid,

but like critters, aliens, whatever you want to say. Yeah. Well, if I can quickly share my Nemic manifesto about non-human characters in sci-fi, And specifically Star Wars, because, yes, I've written about this multiple times. I don't know if it's a pet peeve, but it's definitely a peeve. So non-humans have always been integral to the scenery of Star Wars more so than the story, right? I mean, think about the iconic canteena scene in a new hope and just how important, how memorable that scene is.

It establishes that this is a big exotic galaxy and that what we're seeing is just a small slice that left a lot to the imaginable. nation that we could fill in ourselves or in the expanded universe. But the conversation in that scene, at least the speaking parts, comes down to Luke and Han and Obi-Wan. And isn't that always the way in Star Wars? And so this is kind of my tongue-in-cheek hobby horse, which is that Star Wars is speciesist and anthropocentric. Why are humans so supreme in this galaxy and even more central to the main stories events? I mean, the good guys are human, the bad guys. guys are human. It's a galaxy far, far away and long, long ago, but everyone looks like us, except for a few supporting characters and a bunch of background creatures. And the biggest exception,

of course, is Chubaka, but he proves the rule because he's constantly insulted and slighted. I mean, he is a fearless, intelligent, 200-year-old warrior who has commanded an army and helped liberate his homeworld and left his homeworld and his family to give everything to the rebellion and the resistance. And he still has to put up with Leah calling him a walking carpet and Finn saying, you can understand that thing, that thing. And everyone else condescending to him, it is unacceptable. Let him have his own metal, not a hand-me-down. Let him have his own ship or fly the falcon full-time. And let him have some subtitles. Let us understand him without an interpreter. Let the wookie win. And which character did they kill in the old expanded universe when

they needed to sacrifice a character from the movies but wanted it to be someone expendable? Chewbacca, of course. And again, this is the character who gets the most respect. Like, how does every human in the rebellion become a general overnight? Just like you enlist after a life of crime and you're a general. We'll just hand you the keys to the fleet. But Battle of Endor hero, Nyan Numb, is still flying a starfighter and taking orders. from Po Damran in the sequel trilogy, Admiral Akbar dies off screen. Why did Jin and Cassian get a whole movie

about finding the plans for the first Death Star, but the Bothans get a single line about finding the plans for Death Star 2. It's unbelievable, unacceptable. You can tell, I'm getting heated about this. And obviously, it's not solely a Star Wars phenomenon. When a non-human plays a prominent role, it's usually as an antagonist.

It's the predator or the xenomorph or the blob or Thanos or Darkseider Galactus, right? And non-humans make amazing villains. So I'm all in on the thing and alien and prey, but there has to be some balance. They can't all be bad guys or sidekicks or comic relief. And even when the non-human is the protagonist, the rare time when that happens, almost invariably, they're aliens who look like humans, like Superman or the doctor from Doctor Who or Goku. or Klatu from the day the earth stood still, or they're undercover aliens, like in Third Rock or Morkin Mindy or the man who fell to Earth.

At most, we have, like, half humans, like Spock or Peter Quill, and Spock is constantly trying to balance his Vulcan and human side. So, like, where's the Wharf show? Where's the Martian Manhunter movie? Give me more of this, please. Am I alone? I would definitely watch a Wharf show, first of all. Michael Dohert's been trying to get a Wharf show made for years.

There's like 17 Star Trek shows. I love them all, but give me a Wharf Show. Secondly, I can't believe we got a third rock from the sun reference in 2022. Thank you so much for that. I wanted to ask Mallory about the non-humans and or specifically and sort of float this quote that Tony Gilroy gave THR. She's so much politics in the show to begin with. And we're trying to tell an adventure story, really.

So adding strong alien characters means that all of a sudden, There's a whole bunch of new issues that we have to deal with that I don't really understand that well or I just couldn't think of a way to bake them into what we're doing. You'll see more as we go along, but it's a legit question and one we'll be answering as we go. There is a more human-centric side of the story and the politics of it. There's certainly no aliens working for the empire, so that kind of tips it one way automatically. Like that the empire is definitely has specieses baked into it. Just ask Theron. Mal what do you think?

I think to the last point about how it's tipped because the empire is so specious, that's probably all the more reason to mix it up on the side of the Rebel Alliance. Exactly. One more reason to show how different they are, all of this forged fellowship across different cultures and planets. Ben, to your point about central figures and shows, I am excited to tell you about a little, it's a small independent upcoming project that you might not have heard of. It's called Asoka and it's coming next year. Yes, yes. Yes, I'm pretty excited. I know. This is going to be a milestone.

And obviously, there are practical reasons why we don't see this more often. I mean, you don't need special effects or prosthetics. If you have human characters, you don't have to invent a new species or culture. You don't have to have subtitles. And most of all, I guess you don't have to challenge the audience to identify with a non-human character. But are we so insecure, so small-minded that we can't empathize with someone who doesn't look exactly like us? I mean, probably yes is the answer, which is why historically we haven't even had enough diversity among human characters. But I'd like to see us push to do that.

It doesn't always have to be humans carrying the sci-fi stories or saving the day. And I think this hurts the product in Star Wars sometimes. Like the director of Jedi Fallen Order, which is a really good game, said, personally, I think it would be really cool to have an alien protagonist. But the developers ultimately didn't go with one because, quote, we felt like, no pun intended. that would alienate a lot of people. We wanted to make sure that there was a real human connection to the character we have in the game. So instead, we got white-bred generic calcestism.

Oh, wow. I'm sorry. I mean, I just... Area poster child, Cal. Yeah, I just didn't particularly connect with him, even though he was human. So if we can connect with a droid the way we did with B in this episode, then why not a biological non-human character?

And yeah, I understand in Indoor, it's supposed to be a very grounded story. there isn't an unlimited budget. Tony Gilroy isn't an expert in Star Wars species. And you can explain away some of this stuff by saying, well, this prison on Narcina 5 is for humans. And the other prisons are where the other species goes. I get that. And I also understand that the human presence is supposed to say something about the empire.

And it's sort of supposed to be a Nazi-ish allusion to the Aryan race and Ubermensch. And the empire is racist and sexist and also speciesist. But, you know, like, as you were just saying, Mal, I mean, doesn't that say something about the rebels on the Aldani mission all being human? Or if the rebel leaders are Mon Mothma and Bail and Luton and Saa and Clea and Cassian and Vell, like all humans, it makes the alliance seem more insular and possibly prejudice too. And, you know, like, if Dedra and Gorsd weren't human, I guess you could say, like, maybe it would let us off the hook as human viewers. we could just, you know, dismiss that as like, well, we wouldn't do this. It's because of there's some alien species or something. But I just think, like, you have to have at least on one side just to balance the scales a little bit.

And, you know, as you just read that quote from Gilroy, like, to his credit, he's heard this critique. It sounds like he's planning to address it in the second season. He's brought it up himself in a couple of interviews, even without being asked, including on the watch, where our pal, Chris Ryan, asked if he's going to do anything different based on feedback on the first season. And he brought up on his own that he maybe wants to put more non-human characters in there. So we were talking last week about ways that future Star Wars stories could emulate Andor without actually imitating Andor. And I think this is the most obvious one in my mind because Andor has helped cure Star Wars of its attachment to Skywalker's. But it's just doubled down on everything being about humans.

And, yeah, Asoka, huge milestone. I mean, Asoka and Thron, right? I mean, non-human, non-silent protagonist and antagonist in a live-action show. And Ezra and Sabine and other humans in supporting parts, maybe. You just threw Grogu under the crate driving by saying nonverbal. Yeah. He makes some sounds. They're very true.

Well, you forget our recent meaningful years with Dear Sweet Grogo. Yeah. I mean, Osok and Thron. Who is definitely the star of that show. Yes, of course. And Asok and Thron, they're humanoid, you know, so they're only taking us so far afield. But it's a start. So I'd like to see a live action series really lean into depicting a non-human mindset and culture the way that Andor depicts pharics, right?

And we really get a feel for this planet and these people and what they care about and what their practices are. So to do that with another species entirely could be even more fascinating. Or you could do something like the Mandalorian. did with Queal, where you take an ugnaut, a member of the species that is previously shown as this like subservient second-class citizenry, and you make him a noble hero who speaks basic and helps our heroes. And that's a pretty ripe territory, I think. So there's a lot of grounds. Are you going to end this speech with I Have Spoken? To properly honor our fallen pal. Yes. Good call. Spoilers for all of Star Wars.

Yeah. But there are some great examples. I mean, if we want to name check some favorite characters or creatures here, because there are some exceptions. Yeah. And this is how much... Lots of them in the animated verse, too. Yeah, animation is really the perfect medium for this because it doesn't really cost that much more to animate some non-human character. You don't have to have anyone wear a mask or sit in the makeup chair for seven hours before they start shooting.

So that's perfect. But I still want to see more in live action. And this is how much I have Star Wars species and creatures on the brain a couple of weeks ago. I was on a very long subway ride with my wife on our way home from a wedding. And we were trying to pass the time by playing a game where one of us would name an animal. And the other would have to name another animal whose name starts with the last letter of the previous animal. This is precious. Very sweet.

Very wholesome. So she says, say hawk and I say kangaroo. we have fun and we've been going for a while. So sweet. I had to think of one that started with an E, and we had already done like elk and emu and eagle and elephant and all the obvious ones, and I was stumped for a minute. And then an answer popped into my head, and I just said,

Iopee. Oh, yeah. And she was like, what's an aopee? And I'd forgotten for a minute. I only just, I knew it was an animal. And then we got to a subway station and got reception. and my wife googled Iope and it was like a quadruped herbivore native to the planet Tatouine or whatever. And she was like, prone to flatulence and disqualify.

Yeah. She's like, I chose to marry you. But apparently like real animals and Star Wars animals have totally blended together in my brain. But anyway, I think for my favorite like non-human characters, I guess I would say, you know, Star Wars is sci-fi, but it's not. hard sci-fi. It's like closer to comics and fantasy. I mean, how is the air on Mustafa breathable? You know, don't worry about it. It's a cool-looking place for a villain and a lightsaber battle. And they don't even nod at those things, unlike, say, Star Trek where they at least go through the motions of like scanning the atmosphere and saying it's a class

M planet, so it's safe to walk around. And that's fine. That's the way this universe works. But I do enjoy the characters who need some kind of accommodation for their natural habitat. So like Zuckus, who's a Gand or Plokun, who's a Kelder. Always a couple of my favorites. Like breathing masks look cool, see Wakanda forever. But I like that they just can't like automatically acclimate. They need their native atmosphere and they can even use it as a weapon like Zuckus does. And I like that Clokun is a good guy despite masks often being portrayed as something scary.

Like Plokun and Kit Fisto in my mind, just two of my favorite alien designs and Jedi, period. A lot of good that did the Jedi order, Ben. I know. Gotta give it up for Mall, too, just for bucking the trend of being a one-note villain because he's a Zabrak, he has horns, he's devilish, he's angry, he wants vengeance, and in the Phantom Menace, he doesn't have a whole lot to say before he gets sliced in half. But then the character had a really rich afterlife in animation and comics and solo, et cetera, right? Being a spider.

Yeah, he's still villainous, but he's... Yeah, he's not in his right mind always, but he's perceptive and persuasive and complex and just a lot of fun to watch. So he's up there. It's a heartbeat for you to shout out like aliens with breathing apparatus in this episode when two tubes appears and you're like no love for two tubes? No, not so much. Maybe he can nerd it. Well, this is my question. We get some blue pelicans and Nemos. We get the Coretians. We get two tubes. Like, this is the most non-humanoid-centric episode of Andor so far.

And also, Ben, I've talked to you and read your column, this is your least favorite episode of Andor. Correlation. So how do you square that? Not causation. Yeah. I don't want to discourage, Tony. Put more aliens in there. But, but, yeah, like, also, I think one thing about Star Wars is it's not like the expanse or arrival or annihilation, these things where, like, aliens are really alien and almost undemones.

knowable in Star Wars. They're mostly just corporeal, mortal beings who look a little different. And it's not like Star Trek where first contact happened pretty recently and humans are constantly encountering new mysterious, sentient species. It's all just kind of old hat to them. So I like when one comes along who is very, like, mystical and tough to explain. So I know Maori's favorite Bendu, right, who we don't even know like who or what Bendu is. But I like it that way, you know? Like, there aren't like Q equivalents in Star Wars so much, just like all-powerful type of aliens. And Bendu, maybe one of the closer things to that that we get. So I like a little mystery, like Yoda's species, you know, largely because I have to describe it as Yoda species or

Yadal species or Grogu's species. The fact that we only know about three examples and they're all force sensitive and that's it. Like, that's one of the biggest mysteries in Star Wars. And I think I think I'd rather keep it that way, right? Like, would you want Mandorian season three to, like, explain the Groku origin story, like, where he comes from? I mean... What's wrong with you? First, Mallor does. There's like, more lore, please.

All the lore. Give it to me. Yeah, but what if it turns out to be like... Mon has never said, give me less. No. I don't understand the question. It's just like a real plater platter. I don't understand the question, and I won't respond for me.

But what if it turns out to be, like, midi-chlorians where, like, the answer is worse than the mystery or like, what if it's just a whole... Then you can come in in the Damon Lindelof role and say, and I've never thought, what is the force exactly? Yeah, right, exactly. It'll be another subject for a pod in the future. It's all content, then. A whole planet full of Yoda's or Yaddles or Grogu's,

and they're not even special anymore. It's like Collel, like before his planet blows up and it comes to Earth, and it's just like everyone on that planet is like that and looks like that and talks like that and has the same powers, like wouldn't that detracts from the specialness of the three examples. Is Star Wars going to be special anymore now that we're in the Disney Plus era? And look, here we are. You're on a tweet and an Instagram post that show on TV, Ben Lindberg, the ringer.

I got posterized. Yeah. Ben just kicking dirt on Krypton and Grogu in this segment. Mallory, do you have favorite non-humanite characters in Star Wars you want to talk about? Oh, boy. Well, you know, Ben mentioned mall. I mean, so too many to mention is what I'll say at the time. as the kind of like blanket caveat for not listing 50 things in response here.

Then you mentioned mall. I mean, I would just say more broadly, like the whole Dathamere slice of the canon is fascinating to me. I love the Knight Sisters, Mother Talzin, Ventress, everything there is very fun and cool and interesting to learn about. As I think you both know, Honda is one of my favorite hangs in all of Star Wars. So I don't know that I necessarily extend that personal passion to the weeklay. large, but I do sort of like the like pirate bodyguard, general approach to galivanting about

the galaxy. On Moncal, I've always loved, there's a really fun Clone Wars arc that centers on this, the perpetual duel and lack of harmony between the Moncalamari and the Quaran. You've got two aquatic species on Star Wars sharing a planet. Can they get along? No. Is that something for us to think about? It is. So they're top of the list, too. I mean, obviously the Twilac, you know, everything on Ryloth in general. We've mentioned the animated, the animated shows. We talk about our love for rebels a lot. Hara, top of the list, of course, just in general, a lot of fun with the Twilac across the canon. As you know, Osokos is one of my favorite characters. So shout out the Tagruta. Wonderful. We already talked about the wookies in terms of just like design and aesthetic. I love, I love Siena Rodian. you know, love it. Not just because it's always an opportunity to shout McClunky. It's just one of my favorite things to do when talking about Star Wars with friends.

But the design, like the constellation, like a galaxy and the orb of the eyeball, just wonderful stuff. Uncle Ono, we miss you still. You both know how I feel about Zero the Hut. Yeah, Ben and I were talking about this last week. how, like, it's so funny when Davo, Davo, Skolden shows up, this mobster from Chandraela, and we were like, you know, usually this is a hut.

Yeah, another example of speciesism, right? And it's a guy and the non-humans are henchmen and gangsters. Yeah, right. Sometimes they're babies, nicknamed Stinky, who need to be rescued by our intrepid Jedi and Fadawan. Yeah. First of all, in my head canon, the name of this podcast, is the Knight Sisters. It's not how some are.

I like, I like Knight Sisters for you too. But also... Was that one of the names? Someone threw our way back in the day. I think it was. Because it was the Midnight Boys and then the Midnight Sisters. Perfect.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, still a working title. You could change it. Anyway, I think also like I appreciate because so many non-human species in Star Wars, like anatomically speaking, they're either human shaped basically, like, thrown with like a different skin color, eye color.

We do have to shout out the chest though. We have to. Especially because of how central they're about to become to the live action. Right. And the pergill for that matter. I was just going to mention the pergill. Yeah. Hyper space whale and porks.

Those are more, I think, creatures. Right. Like, often the Star Wars creatures are modeled on some non-human earth species. So they're basically like space pigs or space squid or space elephants or frogs or lizards or teddy bears or whatever. Ice foxes. Yeah. So I do like when there's some deviation from that.

Like, you know, let's use our imaginations. I mean, if we did not grow up on Earth, then Earth creatures would seem alien and exotic to us, too. But now that we have to just, like, port them into space, and that's how we come up with creatures as like the Star Wars analogs of what we have on Earth. We could be more imaginative than that, I think. But I like the ones with mystery, as I said, the ones where we don't know the backstory fully, like Jawa's or Tuskins and their speculation about, like, where they came from. Yeah, we know. I mean, you're seeing a great show. Yeah.

I'll book of Boba Fed. You know a lot more about the Tuskins now. I like Clawdites, right? Because like shape shifting isn't something I associate with Star Wars. It's more of a Star Trek thing. Or, you know, in Star Trek, there's shapeshifters or like you're possessed by energy beings or you're just. How about the MUN? Yeah.

You love a banking clan. You love, have you ever loved Darth Plagueis the Wise? Yes, that's a good one. Yeah. Have you ever heard of it? I've yelled out of a lot. I'm out of a lot. I'm yelled out of a lot.

Is Jeff Plague is here? Yeah. I'm not aware. My favorite, though, if I had to narrow it down to one, I think. And, Mal, you said you weren't going to list 50. You came close. He was like a soft dozen. Yeah.

My favorite is Massimeta, okay? Problematic fave of Star Wars. He's a Chagrian. Maybe that's how he says it. He's like a blue guy with tusks and horns and headtails. He's the guy who is always like lurking. next to Palpi and whispering in his ear or presiding over the Senate. If I had to write a Star Wars book or like pitch a Star Wars show, it would be the Masameta story because this guy had such an

incredible political career. Like this guy is a survivor. I don't know, like he blows with the winds and he bends one way or the other and it doesn't matter who's in power, Masa Mata. He's just like, he's the cockroach of the Star Wars galaxy. He's the lalo of Star Wars. Like he will survive anything. And so he, like, comes to power, I think prior to Palpatine. He's, like, there when Valorum is there. And then he's, like, the chief of staff for Palpatine. And then, like, he's one of the few people who finds out that Palpatine is a Sith at some point. So, like, what was that conversation like?

And then he just continues to serve him as he becomes the emperor and he's, like, still in power. And then, like, after the emperor is deposed Masameda somehow still in power, like, he's the guy. He's the figurehead of the empire who, like, hands over the empire who makes the concession. to the new republic, like years and years later. Like, this guy, he's just like, yeah, I want to know. His headtails have, like, horns at the end. He has horns and then his headtails have horns. Yeah.

And they always struck me as like, it's like when you watch women with like, or men with like extremely long nails type. And I'm like, how do you do that? That looks like magic. How do you get through your day? That's one of my questions about the really scary, pointy headtails on Massimena. Yeah. For sure.

Yeah. But this, he must be super charismatic. or he must have secrets on everyone. Like, how does he hold power, despite, like, being so implicated in all of the empire's wrongdoing? So I'm just giving away free ideas here, the Masa Meta story. Please allow me just, we're going to wrap this up in a second. I just want to say really quickly my quick, my quick faves.

I'm going to talk about salacious crumb, one of my all-time fave things that exist in the world. I want to shout out the fish nuns from The Last Jedi. That's not their actual name, but that's what Damon Lindelof called them all. also condescended to, also called Things by Ray, things. What are those things? Who are those things? Come on.

They almost kill them. I think you know I'm a Dexter Jester apologist. So, like, truly a horrendous piece of CGI. But I love a working critter. So shout out to Dexter Jester. And then I just want to say, like, one of my favorite things about these non-human critters is the fun that the writers have. And sometimes it's just like not the writers.

but the story group at Lucasulmas, they put together the visual dictionary of coming up with the names for all of these critters because there are some really fun, dumb examples. Like, I mean, Mon Colomari, I think, is pretty fantastic. But the fact that Mascanada is named for a Sergio Mendez song, Maskenada, like, that's really fun. And or Elo Asty, named for Beastie Boys albums,

Hello Nasty, Slow and Low. Do we talk enough about Kalamari Flan? The currency? Do we talk about them about that? I'm not sure we do. I just think it's really fun, like, fun to imagine Kira, Pablo, and all of them, the story group,

just sitting around and being like, what are some of our favorite albums? What are some combinations of syllables we like? How can we anagram someone's name? Like, that's a fun thing that they do with all these non-human critters in Star Wars. And then last one at least, I just want to pour one out for a critter

we never actually got, though we might still, you know, there was a, as Ben pointed out in his column, there's a cruiser that was designed for the original trilogy that shows up in this episode of and or many, many decades later. But in the early, like, elite concept art for the rise of Skywalker, there's this spider on a baby's head that, like, our pal, Dave Gonzalez was describing to me. And I was like, what are you talking about? This is terrible. This sounds terrible. they shouldn't do it.

And then I saw The Rise of Skowker and I was like, would a spider on a baby's head have made this movie different, worse? I'm not sure. And you can see it in the making of there's like the design for it as in the creature shop. So like the spider on the baby's head exists. This is something that they were like, what if there was a spider on a baby's head? And that's just like, and it was like an oracle of some kind. I don't know.

I just like, I like the idea of pushing yourself to the boundaries of imagination. Yeah, or with the Beaumar monks on Tattooing, right, with the spider body and the brain in the liquid. Exactly. Yeah. Yes, yes. So, you know, it's exciting for all of that to be possible. That being said, I don't have this complaint about and or personally, but I'm excited to see where Tony Gilroy might take it. Yeah.

Oh, please, Tony, call me. You're doing a great job. Fantastic. Almost no notes. This is one of the few. Ben had to get his take off before we wrapped it up. All right. Anything else I want to say?

Are we good? Do we do it? I've gotten everything off my chest here. Excellent. Love that for you. Go into the weekend with peace in your heart, Ben Lindberg. Thank you for joining us. Bye.

Bye. All right, Mal. Speaking of critters, there's one and or two, I think two, asleep in the hotel bed that Cassie just like sneaks by to grab the case that we've been worried about above the shower. in the Nemo's hotel, what does he find in the case now? I mean, everything he left.

He's got the credits. He's got the blasters. He has crucially. Yes. Nemex manifesto, which he opens, and we hear two words, and we realize that this is like an audio book,

basically, which I did not know. So that was amazing. Very cool. I don't know why I thought the manifesto was on paper. I'm sure we had seen it. There's something about, like, the leather bound cover. that just makes it look like a journal.

You'd be like scrolling your revolutionary thoughts inside of. Yeah, Nemick just had a sweet little case for his Blackberry. He's been doing, yeah, voice memos. Voice memos. You and I love a voice memo. Love a voice memo. Amazing stuff. I was like, I mean, again, we understand why Cassie needs to go back and get the case.

We've wanted him to. We've been hoping he would. So it was very cool that that happened. But it is almost like shocking the, how bold. that is given what happened to him there. It's like this is where he was arrested and sentenced to six to six years on Narcina Five. This is where everything happened.

And when we pan the beach and we see all of those empty chairs and empty tents and it's like, were all of those other people arrested too? It's just like horrific to think about what happened to everybody else. So that becomes such an inhospitable place that, like that was popping last time that we saw it.

It's a barren. It's a wasteland. It was like really, really, really apocalyptic and unmooring. Tierney requires is the only thing we hear our beautiful Nemek, the lovely voice of Alex Lothar. I love Alex Lothar's voice. I've always been a fan. He sounds like Ben Wischaw, two of my favorite voices and all of everything. We hear him say tyranny requires, but the arabesh that we see on the screen has been translated.

And the full quote is, control is so desperate because it's so unnatural. So unnatural. tyranny requires, dot, dot, dot, which makes you think of power doesn't panic. Control is so desperate because it's so unnatural. It makes you think of power doesn't panic. It makes me feel like Cassina is already absorbed. When he says power doesn't panic, Tchino, last week, it makes me feel like he's already absorbing some of Nemek's lessons.

You know, we just didn't know. Interesting. But he may be that he had already been listening a little bit here and there. That's, I like that idea. And I also think it would work if he had. hadn't yet, but we're realizing that he is much more primed to accept this than he even understood. Because that's something else we've talked about, like, seeing the flashbacks, seeing the way that he challenged the troopers on Farrex back in his youth, like, even the way that he spoke to Luton

in their first meeting on Farrix. Like, these ideas and these beliefs are inside of him, and it's been about forcing them into this, like, cohesive doctor. and shared doctrine for his future. And it's similar to Kino, you know, I keep going back to this thing that Andy Circus said, which is that Kina Loy is a natural leader and that instinct was just like sort of suppressed or warped

by his experience in Arkinah. Like that Kassi Nandor is a natural leader, he just needs the opportunity to do so. Cassing calls home. Zan, who we've seen earlier in Farix, answers the phone. They do not really bother with any code here, right? Cassian's like no names.

He's like, don't use my name. And they're just like, oops. Cass, Cassian, Andor, Cassian, Andor. I need to get a message to Marva andor. But he tells us to Marva's dead just after Cassian says, tell her she'd be proud of me. She'd be proud of me and I'll get back as soon as I can. I turned into a fucking puddle.

This was so sad, Joe. Okay. So first of all... Where he's standing is this sunset on Neimos, right? Yeah. And the beach sequence with the sunset, of course, invokes his death, the last shot of Jin and Cassian on the beach. Which makes us think of that luthin line. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I'll never see.

And the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. So what Cassian wants is for more. Marva to tell him, she's proud of him for the prison break on Narcena. But Marva will never be able to tell him that. He will never get that medal ceremony from his mom for what happened in Narcina 5. Because, like Luthen, many of his heroics here will be unsung and unseen. It's heavy. I was thinking again back to their last conversation because one of the things that she said to him was

you have a different path, Cass, and I'm not judging you, and told him to go find some peace. But what did he say in response to that? I won't have peace. I'll be worried about you all the time. And that's, of course, what leads to that. I love nothing you can do about that. It's just absolutely heart-wrenching.

Heart-wrenching. We were, like, pretty sure that Marvel was not going to make it, not just because, like, she's been, like, doing the old, Chekhov's rattle cough for a while here. But because of what Cassine says to Gin and Rogue One, he says, you're not the only one who's lost everything, which has to make us worry about every single other person that Cassian cares about on the show, right?

Brasso, Bix, B, et cetera. He lost everything. Hopefully it just means I put them on a safe planet and I never got to see them again, right? Please. But also in that... Okay. In that final moment when Jin and Cassian die on the beach there, he says to Jin, your father would have been proud of you, Jin. Her father's also already dead at that point.

So he has given, you know, Ben pointed the sound of his call. And he is giving to Jin in that moment what he doesn't get here, which is Marva telling him she's proud of him. He's like, your mother, your father would have been proud of you, Jen. Galen or so would have been proud of you, Jin or so. devastating. It's heart-wrenching. It really is. The guys made a great point

on Midnight Boys about like this idea of like you escape the prison and then you are right back into another one. And you know when Melchie says

all this space, fresh air, like a dream, right? It's like it doesn't feel like that's a Cassian right then. I mean, he just heard one of the worst things that he could have

possibly heard. And that, that relentless nature of the fight is, I think, something that the show has really been, like, unflinching in showing us and reminding us about. I just think, I'm fine that we are parting ways with Melchie because, like, we already have so many people going to Ferrix. I don't need Melchie there. I got a lot of people to worry about Mel and Sinta and Luton and Cyril Karn and, like, all these people, you know, Dejra, I assume. All these people are going to Ferrix. It's fine that Melchie's not going to Ferriks.

I just thought his leave, like, leave taking there was a little awkward and weird. Like, somebody's got to tell people what's happening back there. We need to split up, double our chances, one of us to make us, people have to know what's going on. It's just like, here's a blaster by. It was just an odd goodbye. And an odd beat to end the episode on and something we talked to Toby Haynes about was this idea of like the act out in television and how his episodes ending with like, the luth in speech last week or never more than 12 the week before

like these big defining boom here's the end of the episode and like with this we get of course Cassian looking out thinking about Marva that's upsetting but like the mostly leave take again like it just felt like a little unformed but again as we bleed into the finale maybe that's why this is such a soft sort of it reminds me of the first three episodes which, you know, Disney Plus put out all at once.

Right. Because those did really feel like 90, no, three hours of one story. Whereas even these other three episode arcs feel like they have a beginning, middle, and end more distinct episodes of television. That makes sense. Should have ended on a mechanical whimpering or excited word from being in the spend. A sweet bee. Okay.

Marma's in the stone now. She's on her way. There are no cups on B anymore. Malibin, let's, it's time, it's time to take our own leave. Thinking, dreaming of the beautiful clothing that Andor and Melchie found for themselves on Nemos, the, uh, the Tommy Bahamahua where? Before we go, Mallory Rubin, it's time to talk about the secret force user, Steve, do we have a sound cute for this now? Delightful.

Wonderful. Steve, you're the best. Joe, what's your pick this week? So you're, but you're establishing as a rule that we can't pick Luthan because obviously the answer would be Luton otherwise.

I wrote in the document Secret Force users other than Luton, I guess. So you can pick Luton if you want to, but like... I'll be picking Luton if I'm allowed. But if I'm not allowed. I'm going to, how about Klayah?

Because I'm trying to figure out their relationship still. And so this is a smuggle to still just pick Lutthing, I'm like, what if it's like a master paddle on? Yeah. Yeah. Like, I'm trying to figure out their history otherwise.

There's always two, Mallory. There's always two. All right, we both pick play. Great stuff. Steve absolutely crushed it with sound design. Thank you so much. That's it for us. I think we did it.

Thanks to Ben, always, for his hot critter takes. Thanks to Diego Luna and his fondness for Chabha the Hut. Thanks to Steve Allman for the sound design. Thanks for Jomey at Dinerantan on the social. Thanks for our general call for the additional production work. Thanks to Mallory Rubin. We'll all be back next week for the finale of Andor. And to make sure, because I will be very mad, make sure our sweepie's okay.

Right? Well, excited worrying. We'll see you next week. Bye. Feels like every profit claims. real protein these days. But real doesn't start on a label. It starts at the source.

Like real California milk from California farm families, it's real dairy delivering high-quality, complete protein, with all nine essential amino acids to help build muscle, give you energy, and keep you satisfied longer. So keep it real. Look for the seal. Real California milk. Did you know if your windows are bare,

indoor temperatures can go up 20 degrees, turn the temperature down with Blinds.com and get up to 50% off custom window treatments like solar roller shades and more during the Memorial Day mega sale. Whether you want to DIY it or have a pro handle everything, we've got you. Free samples, real design experts, and zero pressure, just help when you need it. Shop up to 50% off site wide and huge savings on doorbusters right now during the Memorial Day mega sale at blinds.com. Rules and restrictions apply.