The Ringer-Verse - 'Andor' Episodes 1-6 Catchup and Episode 7 Deep Dive | House of R

Episode Date: October 22, 2022

At long last, Joanna and Mal are back in a galaxy far, far away to discuss ‘Andor.’ They start by catching up on what they’ve thought of the show so far and briefly breaking down the first six episodes (7:56). Then, they go for a deep dive into Episode 7 (“Announcement”) to break down each story line and character (1:08:26). Later, they are joined by Ben Lindbergh to discuss Mon Mothma and her character history (2:01:18). 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 Associate Producer: Carlos Chiriboga Social: Jomi Adeniran Addition Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. You have a different path, cast, and I am not judging you. everything you've been through, everything that was taken away from you before you even started. Take all the money you've found and go and find some peace. I won't have peace. I'll be worrying about you all the time. That's just love.

Nothing you can do about that. I've never loved anything the way I love you. And I've never fretted on anything more. But this time, you can't stay and I can't go. It's your Nexus podcast feed for all. Things fandom. It's Friday morning. We're pivoting to a new show.

I'm Joanna Robinson and joining me in a galaxy far, far away. It is the droid of my heart. Someone I, I've never loved anything the way that I love her. It's Mallory Rubin. Joanna, I sense something eager in you this morning. Am I mistaken? Surely not. because we are here to talk about Andor, and we are thrilled.

Thrilled, thrilled, thrilled. We are coming in midway through the season. Obviously, we've been covering rings of power. We've been covering House of the Dragon. Now we're so excited. We get to hop into Andor. We've been watching and loving this show, but we haven't gotten to talk about. We've been listening to our colleagues, The Midnight Boys.

We've phew talk about it. But like, now it's House of Our Time. And we are so thrilled. The Midnight Boys will continue their excellent coverage of Andor. so let's just do some quick programming reminders about what's going on in on the feed. House the Dragon, I've heard of it, still has one more episode to go. The finale is this, I mean, it had a bit a lot. Is this Sunday the finale of House of the Dragon season one?

So I can't believe it. Molly Rubin, Chris Ryan, and yours truly, we'll be here for Talk the Thrones on Sunday. We're doing it fairly live, live-ish. I mean, it'll just be a show you listen to. We won't like, you know, be out on a stage somewhere, but we're doing it right after the episode. So, well, our feelings will be raw. We'll be talking about everything that's to come there. And then Tuesday, Mallory and I with perhaps a little bit more control of our emotions,

we'll be back for our final House of the Dragon season one. Deep dive. Actually, stay tuned for what's happening with the House of the Dragon deep dive next week. Who knows how many parts it'll end up being, honestly? We can't say. Multi-parts. So I'm not committing to anything right now, but... Oh, boy.

That's happening. And then Wednesday, the Midnight Boys Pewpeo will be back for Andor. And we'll roll from there. So that's what's going on. Did I miss anything, Mal on the program reminder front? You crushed it. You crushed it. Childlike content is also a show that happens where we talk about House of the Dragon.

Check it out. Great time. Even though Rings of Power has ended and House the Dragon is about to end, my pal and colleague Mallory Rubin has given me permission to continue to run the hobbits and dragons at Gmail.com. In fact, encouragement to continue to run that email, even though we will not be talking about how the hobbits or dragons unless they're crate dragons, you know, for the foreseeable future, right? So you can still email us, hobbits and dragons at Gmail.com. We already got some and or questions, comments and concerns that we will be talking about in this episode. So send us all your andor thoughts.

And whatever else we're covering in the future, we'll be checking that email feed and we love to hear from you. Revnog and Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com now. We're just sticking with it. The greedy green ones, the greedy, green ones at gmail.com. Mallory, how else can folks, you know, keep in touch, follow along, figure out what we're up to? In addition to sending us your transmissions via the aforementioned inbox, we'd love it. If you found the ringerverse on the social media platform and feed of your choosing, we're everywhere, folks.

The ringer versus on Twitter. The ringer versus on Instagram. The ringer versus on TikTok. The ringer versus on Facebook. We're out there. Jomi's cranking out memes. You can find us wherever you'd like to. Love that.

The last thing we want to say before we get into talking about and or specifically here is our spoiler warning. Now, if you were falling along with the rings of power, you remember that that spoiler wedding was a little complicated. With House of the Dragon, it's a little more straightforward. What's our spoiler policy for Andor, Mallory, or Women? If it's happened in Star Wars, it's on the table. That's the TLDR version of it.

We will be accounting not only for everything that happened in this seventh episode of Andor announcement, everything that has happened in Andor to date, but also everything in that increasingly wide Star Wars campus, So anything that touches Cassian's story, like, say, a little film you might have heard of and enjoyed called Rogue One. Anything from the comics, novels, a new hope, Star Wars, Rebels, Clone Wars, anything in the canon is fair game. Because we will be incorporating it to talk about these character arcs, to talk about key events in the stretch of the timeline that the rebellion is dawning inside of. It's all on the table, folks. So that is, we thought it would be pretty silly to try to talk about and or not talk about

Rogue One because, like, that's sort of the joy of watching a prequel like this is to think about that character and how they're growing to be the person that they become in Rogue One. So all of that's on the table, this is a show you can watch without having seen any of that. Like, I think it's one of the easiest Star Wars properties to sort of amble your way into. But so we just wanted to make sure that you. you knew what you were getting when you got into this podcast. Also, our pal, Lordmaster, Ben Lindberg is going to be joining us for these episodes for a little little lore dive. So we will be calling him what? I set up to the plate. Mallory set up to the mound so you can decide if he's a pitcher

or better. I don't know. Well, that was just you would set up to the plate. And then I, you know, Ben loves Shoha Tani so much and who doesn't and who can blame him. You know, to a superstar. Yes. Yes. So I knew he, I knew he'd love. You would. I knew he'd love. You would say. It's a toniatany so much. And then I know, you know, Ben loves. And he. And he's it if we were throwing a plate and a mound at them all at once. Right. So, you've been tracking Otani closely, Joe. Obviously, clearly. One of the best seasons in the history of baseball and the history of professional sports.

Constantly on the lookout for that happening. He is exceptional. Great. Exceptional. Much like And we're here to talk about today. And much like Ben Lumber. So many of our face. Let's get into some quick facts of like sort of, we're going to talk about the shape of

the season, just structurally. And then we're going to talk about, we're going to spend a little time talking about one through six sort of thematically what we missed. And then we'll get into seven. So that's, that's, that's the plan for today. This show is doing these really interesting arc cycles, right? So the first arc was a three episode cycle written and directed by Tony Gilroy and Toby Haynes. The second arc, a three episode cycle written by Dan Gilroy, directed by Susanna White. Right here, we're in a really interesting like sort of pause and pivot moment because episode seven.

is a little isolated announcement. This Mallory already said is the name of the episode, written by Stephen Schiff and directed by Benjamin Karen. And then we're going to go back to the third arc. That's 8 through 10. Bo Willemann and Toby Haynes will be carrying that one. And then the fourth arc is like a two part finale written by Tony Gilroy, directed by Benjamin Karen.

How is this, I mean, just like structurally, Mallory, how has this structure been working for you in a season of television? I've loved it. And overall, we know that we're getting two seasons of Andor, 24 total episodes. And so we know and knew heading into this season that the first season of Andor, which opens in 5BY, would cover a year of the timeline, a year of Cassian's life. And that the second season is going to cover them those ensuing four years. So they'll have a slightly different pace within each of the seasons. but broadly, I love the arc-based structure for a couple reasons. I think it's cool to be pairing the directors and writers in these blocks so that those episodes

have a real sense of continuity and momentum inside of them. One of the things I loved about episode seven, one of the many things that I loved about episode seven, is that those characters from the earlier arcs were pulled into it. And so we have this sense then of an overarching connectivity across the arcs, while also being able to enjoy those bursts of contained storytelling and focus. And, you know, I'm a, as you know, Joe, a massive, massive fan of the animated Star Wars shows, which often follow a similar structure. Rebels, Bad Batch, etc. often follow these three or four episode arcs. And so this feels very familiar to me and like something I've long enjoyed as a way to achieve exactly this, where you're

moving forward in an overarching way. You're moving through a character's. life, you're understanding how something monumental is happening in society and culture around that character, but you get to really, like, linger in a place or in a moment or inside of an event, and those things never feel like they're happening at the expense of the other. What about you? How have you enjoyed the arcs? I've really loved it. I completely agree that it it feels very familiar to the animated series Watcher, with the exception of, like, this episode where it also serves as a really clever way to introduce us to two. a lot of characters at the time without

make us feel overwhelmed. So in this episode, when we get Bix and Marva and Dudra and Cyril and all these people and B and Vell and Luthin and Mon Mothma and all that sort of stuff, pulled up through those arcs. So like we're leaving some things behind, right? We're like

people who've literally died, but also you know, the minor characters of the arc, but the main characters of the arc. Like we could easily have never seen Val Val again, right? But like, Faye Marseille shows up in this episode

looking very spiffy. You know what I mean? And you realize that those characters are still, you know, I was worried after the first three episodes were done that we were never going to see Cyril again. And I thought Cyril was such an interesting character. And so I'm delighted that we continue to check in

and continue to check in to what end is a question mark. But like, that's, you know. You love a brown suit and a tightly tailored collar. I love conflict within the heart. You know what I mean? You love some breakfast cereal. Also conflict within the human heart.

Yes. Like George R. Martin and Faulkner and Joanna Robinson, aligned in their fascination with color cereal and conflict in the human heart. The Holy Trinity of Storytelling. It's just Faulkner, George, and me. As you mentioned, we're in 5BY for the Battle of Y. And we got this email from a listener named Assad. Cooker, can I speak?

Hell yeah. If anyone listening, doesn't, it hasn't been listening to the house. House of the Dragon Pods, first of all, we've got folks just hours and hours and hours of content waiting for you. You're free to catch up at any point. We're there for you in your feeds. Our wonderful House of the Dragon, House of our producer, Steve Allman had introduced a cause sound effect for our emails that legitimately every time, despite having heard it, I'd say conservative estimate 547 times at this point terrifies us. And Steve and Carlos have teamed up to give us our beautiful. beautiful B2 emo sound effect for our and or emails and we are delighted. And the more B that we can have in these pods, the better because I fucking love him. And I cherish him and I adore him. I never saw this coming. And when he says, can I speak now the answer?

Marva should have been yes. Mallory. Do you want to do like, where is B sitting in your droid ranking right now? Oh, boy. It's, it's, oh, I should have anticipated this question. I've been ready, but it's too soon to say, I think that I instantly like a top fiver for me. Yeah. I just, I love.

I agree. I agree. I was watching, um. How high can he climb? Who can say? I was rewatching Rogue One last night with a friend of mine. And, uh, I was telling her that I was like, I was like, I think K2SO is in my like top three droid ranking, actually.

And she was like. I was like maybe number two. And she's like, oh, above R2. And I was like, I love that you know that BBA8's my favorite droid. Yeah, BB is my favorite. She pointed to this like giant BB8 poster that I have my wall. She's like, he's right there. But he's like, it's right there.

Anyway. B is my number one. Chopper and R2, I'd say round out. Probably R2 then chop my top three. I probably have K2SO at four though. Yeah. K2's fantastic. We'll visit this, certainly at the end of the season to see where B slides in.

My sweet B. All right. So back to the listener email who wrote Love the Pod. Do you think they should have placed the Andor series earlier in the timeline? It seems like the rebellion is about to have a big coming out after being in the shadows up until this point. But that means that there were only five-ish years where the rebellion was known publicly. So Mallory, given what you know of the larger rebellion arc in Star Wars lore, what do you make of this five-year sort of? timeline we're talking about here.

Well, I think this makes sense for a few different reasons, like one of which is just what we already mentioned, the overall scope of what the show is going to entail. If this had been, you know, a three, four, five episode season, then I could have seen the logic maybe for starting earlier in Cassian's life. But when we account for the structure, one of the things that we've loved so much inside of this episode seven in the first, the opening three episode arc, the use of flashbacks is so deftly taking us into key moments in Cassian's history and giving us that earlier time, while also then cementing this story in this very key stretch of the real birth and solidification of this essential moment in what we will all know as the alliance to restore the Republic, the Rebel Alliance.

It's the exact same timeline that Star Wars Rebels follows. Star Wars Rebels begins in 5BY. And I just think that if you're doing a story about the solidification of the Rebel Alliance, 5BY is the time to start if you are focusing a story around the Rebel Alliance at large and this key propulsive stretch heading into Yavin. But also I think the number of characters who are brought in to the story in a really meaningful way. Like if we think of everything

from rebels about when our beautiful little Specter Ghosts crew becomes a part of Phoenix Squadron, etc. Like this is just when these different cells,

all of those little bursts of activity that Miro is tracking across the galaxy. Five, four BBY. Like this is when that stuff starts to come together more fully. So if this is the focus

of the story, I think this is when it kind of has to be in the timeline. Though there are plenty of interesting stories that show us the earlier germs of what will become the Rebel Alliance. Like if you read the Asoka novel, for example,

there's some really interesting stuff in there about what Bail is doing in the earliest days after Order 66, et cetera. So there's plenty of other activity, but for a focus of a show, I think this is the right stretch of the timeline. And I think for making it, like, I think we can't go too far back

because, again, you bump up into walls in terms of believably, like, rewatching Rogue one last night, and I was like, Diego Luna does not look younger than he did in Rogue 1. So I think you can't go like too far back in Andor's life and still have Diego Luna plan, which I would always want Diego Luna plan.

You know, so. All right. So let's look sort of at one through six, take a little tour through those episodes and where we think we are in the story. I think it's really interesting, an interesting prompt we gave to ourselves before we did Obi-1 earlier this year was to ask ourselves in an Obi-Wan show, what questions do we want answered about Obi-Wan's life between where we left him in the prequels and where we find him in the original trilogy? And so a question here is like what question is worth answering in an Andor prequel set in this five-year time frame, as you mentioned?

So I think like, you know, overarchingly, because this is called Andor, but I think we've already seen from the episodes that like it's not just the Endor show. right, Mamma is a key, key figure and going on here and what's going on here. Cassian's not in this episode until like the 15 minute mark. How did the rebellion coalesce against all? You talked about these cells, these disparate cells that we learn about as, you know, a lot in rebels, etc. How does this all come together to form an alliance with a common ideology? And that's the question because we get a lot of conflicting ideologies here. How do you think this show is doing so far with that question or is that a question you had in the first place, Mallory? Yeah, I think I think you're right that zeroing in on that question is like a central through line of this experience in addition to just better understanding Cassian as a figure and a central figure and increasingly central figure in Star Wars lore because those two things are inextricable from each other. And yeah, I think the show is doing an awesome job exploring that question right at the beginning in, you know, the triple part, the triple premiere, the initial exchanges that Luton and Cassian are having together about the idea of rebellion and then we care and what the difference really is between these different factions that are directly opposed to each other, but to many of the people across the galaxy whose lives they might influence. or touch seem like some sort of amorphous, damaging, guiding hand. And then to carry that into these deeply philosophically stimulating and riveting

conversations on Aldani between Nemek and Cassian, for example. Like, that is sort of the richest, the richest storytelling that we've seen in Star Wars, period. Like, I just thought that was absolutely incredible. And you port that over into this episode, which we'll obviously talk about in depth, later, but I think it's really central to your question. Mon Mothma and Luthin are not only characters who are aligned, they're some of the only characters who are very clearly working toward a common goal,

as far as we understand it, through seven episodes. And they are in an active period of disagreement and dissent. And, like, frankly, horror, right? And I love that. Like, we talk about this in a lot of the different stories that we cover, and it manifests in many different ways. One of the things that we've chatted about for years in our respective pods and now I've enjoyed chatting about together,

we can use marvel as an example. Like, the Avengers shouldn't get along, right? It's not a natural thing for people to find their way always toward a common goal, and that's one of the real, like, tragic realities of human nature that people have to work through is like how is our instinct for and our desire for fellowship and our pursuit of a shared goal in conflict with our own individual pursuits

are the way that we see a path inside of some larger pursuit. We've been talking about that a lot of courses that pertains to Rings of Power because we know that that show is building to an event called the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. And so, like, what we have been watching in that series, you know, I know some people are saving to binge Rings of Power. I've heard that from a lot of people. So no major spoilers, but just like in general, we're meeting different cultures, very different cultures and who have very different purposes.

And we are having to sit here and try to understand how big must the threat be or how big must the threat be to a core value among these disparate values. But what is the core value that then provides the common cause that then provides the alliance and the fellowship? And that's, you know, with Lutheran and Mothma, I think it's a really interesting conflict of approaches and philosophies. But what is the core value? What is the core enemy, common cause, common enemy, you know? Like, what is the moment where you finally, like, put a name to you and a shape around something that you had maybe only felt innately or amorphously? And, like, that's very present in the conversations between Cassian and Marva in this episode, for example. Like, a lot of hardship has defined their shared time together, but you can feel in this moment that something has been defined inside of this episode and this conversation that had not previously been for them.

I think there's no better way to explore a larger clash in purpose and ideology than to, again, put that all inside the heart of one person. or many people, but like, our guy here, Cass and Andrew. So, like, understanding and or trying to see, like, what in this period does he win or lose that will turn him into the person that he becomes in Rogue One, a person is, like, uniquely qualified to... Rogue One is so interesting because it's like,

it's not Cassian lighting a spark engine or so. It's like him starting a fire, her, like, dousing the fire and like lighter fluid and then him catching fire in return. You know, it's this real exchange of, of inspiration. But I love that Tony Gilroy, um, called, that says that they called the show, the education of Cassian Andor in production. I think that was their, their name for the show. Let's listen to what it is that, who it is that Cassian is when we get to Andor via

this sort of, like, iconic speech, Carlos, can you hit us with some Diego Luna, please? We've all done terrible things on behalf of the rebellion. Spies, saboters, assassins. Everything I did, I did for the rebellion. And every time I walked away from something I wanted to forget, I told myself it was for a cause that I believed in, a cause that was worth it.

Without that, we're lost. Everything we've done would have been for nothing. myself if I give up now. That made me emotional. So Cassieander is such a fascinating figure within Rogue One because he's both deeply cynical and deeply optimistic and hopeful. Rebellions are built on hope, right? And what I love about when we meet him here is, according to Nemek, our most faithful,

true believer character that we've met so far. Nemick says to Andor, I'm struggling to understand why my faith doesn't call me. I believe in something. Why am I so unsettled? I mean, you have nothing. You sleep like a stone. So I guess my question, as we sort of troll through what we understand of Andor here versus the distance he has to cover to become Andor and Rogue One, do you agree with Nemek? Does Andor believe in nothing? Are we meeting someone without any core beliefs at all and what you see some of the building blocks towards belief for him, or do you think Nemek doesn't have the full read of and or in that moment?

I think that Nemek doesn't have the full read on Cassian and Cassian doesn't have the full read on himself. And that's why it's interesting, right? Because, like, I don't mean to keep jumping ahead to seven, but I think it's germane, like, the flashbacks inside of this episode and seeing...

Yeah. First of all, just getting the clarity of, like, some of the charges that we had heard, right? and understanding that history. But we see, and we're cutting in between as Marvin Cassian are debating and disagreeing over the worthwhile nature of a challenge, a challenge to power. And we see that this younger Cassian stormed ahead. One boy against four troopers after what happened, the horrific thing that happened to Clems. And so he actually has been in this fight for his entire life, which is a thing we hear of say in Rogue One, of course.

It's part of our origin to character. And I think that part of this journey for him inside of this show is him really interrogating and assessing, on the one hand, how true that has been for him for how long. But also, like, that these truths are not mutually exclusive. He has been in the fight, but the nature of the fight changes. The way that you wage it changes. The stock that you put into it changes and the people that you fight it with change. So it's a journey and it's an evolution, both in the way that he is assessing it. And in the way that he is thinking about his own activities is reactive versus active.

This is the thing that I have had to do to survive. That's at the heart of the skin and or exchange, the harrowing one at the end of episode six, like this idea that you just crawl over somebody else just to keep treading water. And when that shifts to acknowledging the fact that that is the reality for so many other people in the galaxy. And so in order to combat that, you have to do something that is more actively intentional. And I think we're going to talk a bit about sort of codes and all of that as it exists in the world of Andor. But I think I was thinking about this morning, this idea of like light and dark is usually the binary where you used to think. about in terms of Star Wars, the light side and the dark side. But I think when it comes to a

question of a rebellion, it's like action versus inaction, right? It's like choosing to move, to act, to stay, to fight versus choosing to lay down and let it all happen to you. So I love that you definitely put it that way. I think, I mean, I don't think it's understating to say when watching Rogue One, one of the most startling things that happens and one of the most interesting things that happened is our very introduction to Cassie Nandor when we see him meeting with an informant and then shooting that informant in the back while comforting him and telling him everything's okay. And it's this fascinating, dark twist on like us meeting Han Solo, right? We meet Han Solo shooting someone under our table, right?

Whatever that order of operations happened, depending on what version of Star Wars you're watching, like that happened. But that's a wildly different context to where we see Cassie and Andor do this. Andor's not a rakish smuggler. He's something else. He's someone who's had to do, as he said in that speech that we just heard, awful things in the name of the rebellion. So, like, that trigger finger on Andor, that decision, that quick decision to shoot at the beginning of Rogue One, I think that's a really interesting thing to track across this show what we've seen so far. We see a shot that he didn't take as a kid on Canary and what that meant.

for him to hesitate to take a shot in those flashbacks of him as a child. We see him shooting Skeen swiftly without second thought. As you mentioned after that conversation, when Skeen makes his intentions known, and Andor just bam shoots, right? And I think that something that Tony Gilroy said is that the killing that Cassian does at the start of Rogue One should play even sadder by the end of Endor. And that's really Andor.

That's an intriguing prospect. But like, what do you make of that? shoot first ask questions later, that instinctual aspect of Andor as we're tracking it here, or as it, or for what it means for what kind of character he is at the beginning of Rogue One. I think, I think it's a few different things. So, like, obviously this show also begins with, it's not a one to one in the sense that the, the, the murder of the corpus after the, the fight in the exchange at the Brock. like these are not characters who are helping him. They are characters who are antagonizing

him. So it's distinct in that respect. However, the first death is an accident. But the second one is a man on his knees begging Cassian for his life. And he shoots him in the face, right? And so that's how we're brought back into this character's life and this character's world. And I think that like it's again, one of the things, I mean, we're, we love the show. We think it's excellent. We're going to be praising it a lot as we talk about it. I think it's one of the things that has worked so well and been so central to the show's success. It's not rejection of the light side, dark side binary might be like a touch too strong, but I don't think so. You know, it's this idea. We talk a lot about moral gray when we're covering House of the Dragon and the George draw to that character set and that

conflict and that part of the Asung of Ice and Fire timeline in particular, also more broadly across that story obviously. And that is so central to Andor so far. The characters who we are rooting for and invested in and go into the story knowing that we will be invested in because this is a prequel to a prequel. We know that long roadmap, as you said, when we were talking about why we're going to be accounting for the entire canon as we go. It's not just a neat and tidy. I'm always purely pursuing some sort of sacred good. There is like a constant, a constant wrestling with what is right, with where your own desire for self-preservation aligns or conflicts with some sort of larger good.

And like everything that we get from Luton in particular in this seventh episode, which we'll go into in more detail, is I think very, very of a piece and really even like a more kind of extreme on steroids version of this, where we're maybe inclined as Star Wars viewers to think, okay, rebel alliance, let's challenge the empire, let's challenge fascism, we're on the side of good. We're about to hear one of the faces of that movement tell us and other characters in the story who are fighting for the same thing that the point of what happened on Aldaian. was to force the empire to inflict horrors on the people of the galaxy.

People get hurt and that's the point. And that's the reason to do it. That's the point. That is a heavy thing to have to process and carry. That the nominal heroes are not only capable of atrocities, but sometimes actively in pursuit of them. And this idea of like when you become the thing you hate or where that line is, is I just think very, very, very, very central to the story overall and why there's a richness

to this exploration of galactic tension inside of the Gilroy Star Wars story palette that is really just like so immersive and interesting. The last element I want to talk about here in terms of Andor and like inspiring, sparking belief possibly in Andor is of course this character of Nemek, who I am like devastated that you and I didn't get to like spend time talking about. One of my favorites in a long time. Alex Lothar is such a special, special actor. If you haven't seen End of the Fucking World, that's incredible.

A really harrowing episode of Black Mirror. Like, Lothar is just aces. Deeply disturbing black mirror episode. Deeply disturbing. But he's such like an off-kilter performer. I just thought this was incredible casting for Nemic. But we get, we know that And Orr, has this manifesto.

I mean, I don't know if it's in like, I don't know if he got all this stuff taken from him and when he got clapped in irons in this episode, but we'll find out. But not sure how well a notebook is going to hold up in the steamy shower where he's, his credits were hopefully still waiting for him. Yeah. But the manifesto is the role of mercenaries in the Galactic Struggle for Freedom. And Nemek said, my conclusion is simple weapons or tools. Those that use them are by extension assets that we must use to our best advantage.

The empire has no moral boundaries. Why should we not take hold of every chance we can't? Let them see how an insurgency adapts. And Cassing has some counterarguments to that. But I like that idea that, like, you don't have to be a wholehearted, true believer the way that Nemek is in order to be a useful member of this rebellion. And trying to think and guess and wonder where it is that Cassing Andor falls on that spectrum by the end of this because he's never he's never never never goes full nemic that's not that's not

who and or becomes but like what does he believe in what from this manifesto does he take to heart uh that forms the spine of his belief in rogue one i think that in many ways this is a story about influence and the very like toxic and noxious forms that can take and also then the inspiring forms that can take but it is a story that i think actively embraces and cast a central light on the fact that influence is incremental, right?

Like, you don't just wake up one day and decide to be a completely different person. Now, we do see moments of real inspiration and a declaration of new intent, like from Marva in this episode, for example. But this idea that people have a bearing on your life slowly and in pieces and that those conversations between Nemek and Cassian,

they're influencing each other in both directions. Nemek has changed by his time with Cassian too. And it's not about taking an idealist and making him a mercenary. It's about how an idealist can start to have a wider view on reality and meld pragmatism in with that idealism. And then how that influence of his time in front of Cassian also seeps its way inside of Cassian. And even if he's like, I don't want that manifesto, don't give it to me. I'm taking the credits I was promised. If you see your boss again, tell him I held up my end of the bargain and it's this very like neat and tidy I did my job. That's not real either.

Right. He takes it and it will remain a part of him. And the question for him then becomes and for us as viewers, when is he ready to start thinking about that and looking at that and letting it influence him? Before we get to the next thing I want to talk about, I just, I just want to, there's something so interesting about the overall approach that Tony Gilroy has taken to this universe because we now have several Star Wars shows that we can compare side by side and of course all the films. And I think this question, the prequels got made so much fun of for living in the world of taxation and trade routes and stuff like that, right?

But I think what is so interesting about the world that Tony Gilroy has built here of the bureaucracies that exist inside of an empire. feels very like specific, thought out, detailed, the very like, what is Aragorn's tax policy of Star Wars? Like, how do all these little sectors work? How do they all interact? That it's not cynical in this treatment of this IP. It is incredibly earnest. Like, this is the real world, right?

And there's no winking at it. There's no, it's just sort of like, this is the real world. We exist in it. here's the story we want to tell inside of it. But that earnestness, well, I guess my question, I think it's worth asking. We love this show. So many people love this show. It is not popping necessarily yet.

There's still time, folks. But it's not popping necessarily yet the way that some of these more familiar IPs like Obi-Wan and Boba and Mandelaun is less familiar IP, but it does have a baby Yoda in the middle of it, like these more fan-friendly crowd. crowd-pleasing sort of stories were popping out of the Disney Plus Lucasfilm era. Andor is the kind of thing I want more of, and it doesn't mean I don't have room for the other stuff, but this is, this I think is just like pure good that is possible. But I'm wondering the tone or the reception or the lack of constant connection to other

IP that exists within and or how is that resonating with you? How are you thinking about the way in which it's resonating with audiences? Is this something we should even be concerned about? Or should we just like celebrate what we love and not worry about the rest? It's a great question. I, so a few thoughts, I guess. I am also hopeful that more people will start watching and or and talking about and or. There's obviously just a lot of stuff in the nerd verse airing at the same time. And I think that as cool and fun as the like movie-esque event-tized three-part premiere was, it's just definitionally like a higher barrier to entry for people, right?

So maybe there's some people who are like, I'm going to catch up on this soon. It just haven't started yet. I think that like, of course, characters like Boba Fed and Obi-WiWed, are just inherently more popular and more likely to spark interest in people and draw an audience. That doesn't necessarily concern me, I guess. I think that it would be great if over time more people got excited about that wider world. But I think there are a lot of people who are, and not everything will reach the same fever pitch of viewership numbers, whatever the case may be there.

In terms of those, like, connections, you know, we're coming off of an episode here where we got a lot of Palpatine mentions. We had a lot of connectivity inside of this episode. And you know, Joe, I mean, we've talked about Star Wars a lot in our year of potting together. I love an Easter egg and connection inside of Star Wars. Like I am, and, you know, mileage obviously may and does vary on this. But, you know, when I watched, what's a good example? When I watched the Bad Batch season one premiere, for example.

And I saw young Caleb Dune in that moment and realized I was seeing this like pivotal thing in Canaan Jaris's life. That character's response to Order 66. What happened? I had tears my eyes because it was like this incredible moment of enhanced understanding, right? A pivotal, pivotal thing for this character who had this very fraught relationship with clones, carried so much guilt, about abandoning his master, etc. So I am just like, and again, I think it's totally okay for people

to feel differently about this thing. I have no interest in trying to enforce my personal feeling about this on other people. I'm not a, oh, I don't want, like, connections in Star Wars. I love them when they work well and are beneficial to the story. I think that the way that we're seeing that

start to surface a little bit more in Andor just feels so organic. And like it's never forced. It's never there for the sake of it. It is always telling us something about the world or the character or the moment. And that's like incredibly rewarding and cool. This is like hardly the first Star Wars story in any medium that has spent a ton of time inside of an ISB room. Right.

So I think that there's like there's just a lot of different ways to parse this. And I actually, I guess I'm like a tad worried actually. Like I think there's there's rightly been a ton of praise for the show, which again, I love. I think there's maybe been so much. Our buddy Ben, who's going to join us soon, wrote about this actually in his lovely column this week. He was like, I wonder if how people to watch Star Wars the same way again. And my hope is that we could like all carry a lot of the stuff inside of us at once. And like part of what I love about and or is that it feels fresh and different. So on the one hand, it would be very upsetting if this show didn't perform

as well. And then Disney was less and less inclined to make more shows like this. That would be terrible. I obviously hope that doesn't happen. I also think that we don't need to, like, we, the collective swing so far into, like, everything now has to be Andor. Because actually, part of what's cool about getting Andor is that it reinforces that getting different types of Star Wars stories is a wonderful good thing. Like, I always want different kinds of Star Wars stories. I mean, okay, so I completely agree.

I think we talk about this a lot with Marvel, right? Like, how distinct are the flavors of a Marvel movie? and we get excited when one feels complete, you know, like Black Panther feels like extremely flavorful and very distinct. And sometimes they're just sort of like variations in the same shade of delicious vanilla, right? But I think that with and or specifically, and I mean like, yeah, I wouldn't trade the main, like the beauty of this peak era of TV and content is that we don't have to say either or. we can say yes and and we can say that this exists for me or or this exists for Andy Greenwald right and then like you know other things exist for other people that should also be true um but to your point like I just don't think that I think what I worry is that

it would discourage Lucas Lund and I don't think that's the case because I think this show is being praised high enough from like there's enough praise for this that I think Kathy Kennedy at all at Lucasfilm have to be very pleased with what they've created here. And even if it's not the most popular thing they've created, it is well regarded, prestigious. Not that this entirely matters,

but I am confident that come like award season, there will be some like acknowledgement of the high level quality of work here. But I think that, I think with Andor specifically, I think the reason this is sort of preoccupying me is, I think Rogue One is an extraordinary movie in many regards.

and the ways in which I don't think it's an extraordinary movie all have to do with the ways in which it felt beholden to connect to the Skywalker saga when I know that the original concept for that film was to do something without the force at all in it. And so I want, I constantly want Lucasfilm to feel like they can tell us non-Skywalker stories. I totally agree with that. And that's what we love here.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Speaking of feeling liberated from some of the confines of stories that we've been spending time with, I just want to quickly pray. I mean, I swear we're going to talk about episode seven very soon. But, like, I want to quickly praise the amount of locations and, like, deep cultures that we feel like we've seen outside of all of our lovely time we spent on Tatouin in recent years. But Morlana won, Farak, El Dottie, Canari, and Corrassant, like, all of the,

these different cultures, the amount of time we spend understanding what this festival of the I means for the El-Dani or what that like interesting bell ceremony to end and start the day means for the Farrix culture or understanding the levels. I mean, if you spent time with rebels or Clone Wars, you probably know Choracinant pretty well. But if you're a live action watcher, maybe you don't. So understanding the like literal levels of Chorosan and everything that's happening there, getting this, like, rich culture of Canari in an untranslated series of flashbacks.

I think all of that feeds into, again, not to lean too heavily on Rings of Power, but it's a Friday morning, so I feel like inspired to talk about it. Something we talked about a lot on that show, which is, like, show us what's worth fighting for. What are we preserving? And it's this individuation of cultures in the galaxy

that the imperial forces are in texel. on putting under their boot homogenizing. We saw that most insidiously with the conversation around the Festival of the I and Aldani and how the empire is slowly chipping away at that to try to create a fascistic sort of oneness across the galaxy. And I just, I love the time that the show has taken to show us those moments in those cultures. What are we fighting to protect and defend in this race?

rebellion, what is worth preserving? What do you think about all that, Mallory? Completely agree. And I love the idea that that can take so many shapes and forms. The eye. It's simply one of the most remarkable things that we've seen in Star Wars, period, just extraordinary. In some ways, though, completely of a piece inside of this show's point of view with seeing the wall of workers' gloves, right?

Love that detail. Love it. Exactly. Exactly. It's just like, this is what life is like for these people here who are living it every day. And like, that is the thing that is at risk. That is the thing when a star destroyer flies over and casts you in shadow that you have lost, the ability to see the reality of your own existence. And so to like establish that for us so that we are with our characters. And again, like you don't have to have then years and years and years and years of backstory. Like the show is so nimble and giving us that in bursts and then continue. to give it to us as Ark as this awakening is dawning, just, just exceptional. The show feels very big. All right, let's talk about Jedi in codes quickly.

So as I mentioned, like, Rogue One was initially meant to be a film divorced from the Skywarker saga. We were not supposed to have any Jedi in that film, and then Lucasum got a little skittish that people wouldn't be interested in that, and so they injected some Skywalkerness into it. it. How do you feel thus far about a forceless show here? And then do you want to talk about,

do you have any thoughts or feelings about potential possible force users that we maybe have seen that have been like called force users outright? Hmm. Interesting. I feel like we're heading to Joanna Robinson Theory Corner, one of my favorite corners. I have numerous thoughts on this. I think it's a great question. I love that this is a story that is not focused on the force currently. I think it also makes sense with where it is in the timeline.

Again, like, of course, rebels with Ezra, Canaan, the Inquisitors, et cetera. Force users are a very present part of that. But as we know, this is not a stretch in the timeline where we've got a ton of force users operating out in the open, they're being actively hunted if they exist at all. So it just makes sense logically. I think also it is a way to give the story that like, as you noted, grounded the bureaucracy, but also just the rhythm of the day. This is the bar we hang out at. This is where we go to work. I love it. I also think, though, and believe that like a story can incorporate the force without losing any of that. And I think that that's where like,

I draw, and you and I believe agree on this. Like, I would draw the distinction there between the Skywalker obsession and the compulsion to always connect to the Skywalker saga with the larger presence of the force. Because I think actually one of the beautiful, beautiful things at the heart of Star Wars is the idea that the force is all around us

and anybody can tap into it and feel it and make it a part of their lives, right? Not everybody has to. We love the last Jedi here. Yes, we do. Brum boy! Like, Brum boy was just a thrill to me. Like, this is something that we both,

really felt keenly at the time and still do. The idea of widening our view of the force is a very exciting one to me. So I always welcome the force because it is a part, a central part of the heartbeat of this universe. I do not need everything to connect to Palpatine or the Skywalker's,

and I know we agree on that. With much love to the Skywalker's and no love for Palpatine, of course. A Q, Sheave. All right, we got this email from Tom Thomas. Thomas, Thomas Wright said, I had no expectations for this show and have been blown away. The only question for me is whether it takes spot two or three in my anything-go.

Star Wars ranking is competing with the village bride and animated episode. Yeah, incredible visions short. Empire comes in first, and or probably takes third. Star Wars gives us a universe where complete strangers, even enemies, can morelessly share in the wonder and splendor of the galaxy. and or that moment comes when the villagers and imperials together take in the beauty of the eye in the village bride hiding in plain sight is the fact that an entire village of people

seem to be force sensitive but they haven't needed Jedi teachings to understand what the force slash Gina wills them to seek balance and live in harmony. Why are these moments so rare in Star Wars? So I think that just sort of it reinforces your point about

what the force can mean outside of Jedi's. I mean like it's why a character like Chiro, in Rogue One works so well for me. Someone who believes in the Force. Donnie, an incredible stuff, but isn't a Jedi, right? Doesn't need a lightsaber. It just needs a stick to, or a crossbow.

Okay. Theory Corner. I don't need to get hardcore into theories. Okay. I'm excited. I'm excited. Like some questions around Nemek, who talks about, feel he's committed. I feel that stuff like that. That could just be,

Nemic is low on my list. But high on my list is dead Ramiro. Right? Because so part of guess the play by our fave, Anton Lesser, uh, Khyburn. Guyburn. Um, he says to her, you're supposed to be more competent and tucked away. That's why you're here. That's why we're bringing in officers like you. And I don't think he necessarily. means for sensitive officers, but like whenever someone said... I thought he meant to a woman. I'm serious. But whenever someone says, like you, I'm like, what do you mean like you?

There's also an exchange right before that where she's talking about her trying to figure out the web of the rebellion. And she's talking about similar items of interest, repeated methods, gut instinct. And he says, you came to us from enforcement. says, yes, sir, and he says, here we act on vetted and verified information, alert me when this materializes into something more definite, which she does in this episode, episode seven. But that concept of gut instinct and like the way in which she's constantly sort of like, I mean, it could just be her big brain.

She's got a big brain on her. But like, I like this idea that right in the middle of the ISB, the most regimented fascistic, like, whatever arm of the empire, we have a force user who maybe doesn't even know she's a force user who is able to sense things that other people can't. What do you, like that, would you dislike this? Do you agree with this? What do you think? Interesting.

Hadn't occurred to me, I do not think this is a show where suddenly within the ISB ranks, the Inquisitorious will start hunting one of its own. so I don't see something like that happening. I'm going to go with no on this just because it seemed, despite what I said earlier, which I believe and feel, that you could incorporate the force

and it would be, it would be right at home. I think that Gilroy seems very interested in the idea of establishing for us that characters can shape events and bring these grand revelations and these insights

into the world of Star Wars. without being force users. And like, so one of my favorite characters is Thrawn. I've been getting some Thron light energy from D.A. Like, I think that's more of the mold. Obviously, Theron is like a exceptionally like elite and accomplished Grand Admiral and these, we don't have time for this now. We'll talk about Thron more on other pods, but like the things that he's able to do are unique.

but this idea that somebody inside of the empire ranks who is different in some way D'ra is a woman in a room largely filled with men. Thrawn is a chis with blue skin who is constantly on the receiving end of bigotry inside of the empire that these characters who are exceedingly accomplished and capable and actually are able to see and solve something

that the people who are just so absorbed in the routine of bureaucracy are missing entirely or not even thinking to look for in the first place, which was very present in that scene in the seventh episode, are in conflict because they're challenging, they're able to thwart the enemy more effectively, but they're also challenging that comfortable routine inside of the empire. So I think that's what Dieter Mero is unlocking in this story. And to bolster your take, we have this quote from Tony Gilroy that I gave to, I believe, Star Wars.com, saying about her, you go quite a few episodes where this is a woman who's fighting her way up at the male

environment. This is a person that's really trying. I'm on her side. She's doing the right thing and other people aren't listening. She's better at her job than everyone else. And then all of a sudden you go, oh my God, I wish she wasn't so good at her job. If you've been rooting for somebody all that time, can you stop rooting for them just because they have some occupational floss? What a phrase. Just a few occupational flaws. I don't know. So that, you know, that folks is your point. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, full-blown theory cornering this at all. I like putting it on the radar.

This is fun. It doesn't matter to me, you know, if she's force-sensitive or not. I just like, I'm kind of interested in, like, how it might flicker up in a way that doesn't feel like codified. And speaking of codes, in a Jedi-less world and in a world where the rebellion is at odds with itself, as we see in this episode, I think an interesting question to ask ourselves. is like what how to what is our guiding principle if we don't have a code a clear code even in the ISB I loved this part where speaking of of Doudre and and our guy Khyburn right um earlier in the season when he asks you know what is the ISB and she gives the textbook definition of what the ISB mission statement is and he says very good that is verbatim and wrong

security is an illusion you want security call the Navy. This idea that the ISB itself is not, the most like code-seeming regimented outfit is not operating inside of its own stated code. What it means is that we have to figure out where our line is. And that's a huge part of Mamothma's story, I think, in all of this, right?

is like how far is too far to go for the rebellion? What is the code? What is their stated agenda? By the time we meet her in Rogue 1, they have rejected Saw Guerrera as too extreme for whatever they figured out their guiding code. And I think, I guess the last thing I want to say on the code front before I toss over to you is this really interesting exchange that I love in Rogue 1 between Casskin and Jin. where he says I had orders, ordered that I disobeyed,

and you wouldn't understand that his orders. When you know they're wrong, you might as well be a storm trooper. So like, in a world, in a world, where we are like so familiar thinking about codes and rules and stated mission statements, we find ourselves in this really shaky nebulous and bassoon space where we're trying to figure out what our guiding principles are

how does that sit with you? And like what is most interesting about that to you in this world? Ooh. So we hear this idea, I think, from a couple different characters on opposite sides inside of the episode where we're going to chat about today. We hear it from Miro. Systems either change or die, sir. We hear it from Luthin.

It grows or it dies. I think that that's of a piece with what you're describing. driving here because, okay, who had a very strict code in Star Wars? The Jedi. How did that go for them, really? And, like, that's something that, you know, it's really truly one of my favorite things to think about inside of Star Wars where, like, the Jedi are worshipped and there's this reverence inside of the story and among us as fans.

but also like if we are stepping back and looking at what happened, the rigidity of the Jedi Code is a huge, huge, huge culprit in the downfall of society and the arrival of tyrannical empire. So it's unsavory. It's uncomfortable. It challenges our own sense of morality and the character's sense of morality to have to interrogate that question, what does a code look like or how do you carry the code with the acknowledgement that you need to be able to do things that violate it if you're going to find

your way forward. They make you swear and swear and swear. Yeah, so many vows, Joe. And so many vows. Like the characters in this show are actively engaging with that idea. And I think that is the coolest part about it. I want to talk quickly. Like, so spy thriller.

Yeah. guy on the run, clear vibes from Tony Gilroy who has lived in this world for so long, right? Like, you know, someone who gave us the born franchise,

all the bureaucracy and that sort of conflict and moral conflict within the heart, Michael Clayton, like that's Tony Gilroy. Like, you know, you can find so much

in Tony Gilroy's existent filmography to inform what we're seeing here. But one element that I love that is, Being sort of delicately laced through this story is this very familiar noir plot. Because when we first meet Cassie and Andor, he is looking for his sister, his sister who we see that he left behind, told her not to come with him in the flashbacks. And then was, oh, let's call what is.

Kidnapped. Snatched by Marva and Cleb, right? It doesn't have a chance to take his sister with him. So where, you know, so where is his sister? what's what's going on there. And this is the plot of a million, like, classic noir's. Laura is sort of my favorite noir that the missing girl. Who is she?

Where is she? Neo-noirers love to do this, too. The Expans season one, which essentially Laura in space, love that. But it's something that we get, it's touched on again in this episode. It's not just like something that happened in the beginning and we forget about it. Cassina isn't constantly actively seeking his sister, but it is something that we know that is on his mind. So my question to you is like, how do you see this playing out in the story? Is this something that will firmly spine the whole thing? Or is it meant to give Cassian a morally gray,

sometimes blacker than gray character, a purpose, a goal that we can actively root for? He just wants to find his sister. What do you? Yeah. No, no. I, no. I was glad to hear it come up again in this episode. when Marva brought it up. And then it kind of sparked my suspicious mind to go into our favorite hive, which is the Dario, Jora hive. Love a suspicious mind. When Marva issued her,

Give It Up, a warning to Cassian as he was exiting, and we could see her face, but he couldn't, and her eyes were closed. And it felt to me like she was carrying a secret there that he was not aware of, some sort of larger.

So I think there are a few different things with that plot. Yes, there's the human heart. There's the anchor in the pull to your past. There are different spheres of life and this idea that you don't have to choose or reject one or the other, but they're all something that you carry inside of you. I think that there's the human heart for Cassie and though in other relationships as well. Like what we opened this episode with is one of the most beautiful moving moments we've gotten in Star Wars.

And that relationship is just extraordinary. So I think there's like a tie of that humanity. what we're pursuing and how that very personal goal maybe aligns and opens up some sort of larger goal, perhaps something about the lies that we tell to ourselves or each other if there is some larger truth there. And then also, I think, part of a plot mechanic because what exactly happened on Canari

after Marva and Clem and B and Young Casa left is not something that we know. Like we understand that something happened, but we don't know all of the details yet. she tells him not to blame himself. What exactly unfolded after that? When will we learn about that? So there are some actual mysteries at play there too.

And I do think that we will get those answers in this season, or at least the pursuit of those answers, because why introduce the questions otherwise? Last and at least. And then guess what? We're going to talk about episode seven. We've been talking about episode seven the whole time in a way. In a way.

I just want to give like a medal ceremony to some of the key players that are part of making this incredible world. The Nicholas Brutel score, just iconic work from an already iconic composer. The production design, which I've mentioned a couple times, Luke Hull, who did Chernobyl, which, like, of course, when I found out that this was the person who did Chernobyl, like, like, Cyril's mom's kitchen is, like, not since Owen and Burroughs, you know, moisture farm. Do I feel like I've really seen the, you know, you know, yellowing plastic of a 70s, like,

like I really feel like they went and found some like yellowing old 70s appliances and then just stuck some extra buttons on it. And I just, I think it looks incredible. And then Michael Wilkinson, who does the costuming work, Mon Mothma as costumes chief amongst them. Just iconic, incredible, incredible stuff. Resplendent party gown from Mon in episode seven. Be more dazzled. Anyone else, do you want to, you want to shut up before we just, I second everything that you said. The show is gorgeous.

The, the set design is incredible. Shout out, shout out my fellow papaya hive members, McLaren, standing in for the train station there. I was like, ah, I've watched Drive to Survive. I know what that is. Great stuff. The costumes. The score is, the score is amazing. I mean, he is just such a gifted composer.

But obviously, like, I think the score inside of Star Wars, a person. particular is something that we really like consider elemental to our emotional experience. And so this is, this is really delivering in full. Wonderful. Yeah, I failed to mention this earlier when we were talking about the various planets that we've been hops keeping around to. But I think that, you know, one one thing that people were sort of excited to see in Andor was this idea of a Star Wars show, Star Wars Disney Plus show that doesn't use the volume. And the volume has been used extremely well in some shows and not as effectively in other shows. But this idea that they filmed on location, like that

Aldonnie is sold in the Scottish Highlands or they use, like, Buckinghamshire, like all these various locations to give us a real sense of place, a real sense of a lived in environment. I think it's all contributed to our full immersion in this world. All right, that is our

one through six recap. We did six episodes in an hour and I'm very proud of us. There you go. Crush them. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals, with Fandul Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes,

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And we're starting exactly where you and I both want to start. Cassie and Ander going home, finding out you can't go home again after you've done a massive train heist job on Aldonnie. We're here with your favorite B And my favorite Fiona Shaw I also love Fiona Shaw So many of our faves present in this sequence So Cassian goes directly home This is the first thing he gets his

Cut from the Aldani job Goes home to pick up his mom and his droid And he's like, we're going to go We're going to go tonight We're going to get out of the cold and the damp We're going to find somewhere warm and easy and I can make it happen. It's all going to be different now. Ma, the three of us?

The three of us? You mean B? My heart. My heart, Joe. Oh, this family, this little family unit, the way that B perks up and chirps and greets Cassian and the way that Cassian rubs his little head. I mean, there's so much in just that initial moment because there's this fear. for Marva. Like, who is this? What is happening? And then this rush of joy and comfort,

okay, you're okay. The most important person in my life is okay. And then the fear. What does it mean that you're here? How can we make sure you remain okay? And then as they start to unlock, they're no longer on the same page as each other. So, you know, we always talk about one of our favorite stretches of the larger Lord of the Rings verse, like that idea for Frodo, like the Shire is not the same for you anymore. And I think like one of the things that this sequence really reminds us is that that can happen in a lot of different ways for you. Like that the thing you went back to is forever altered for you in some respect. And sometimes that's become of because of some amazing achievement. Sometimes it's because of some great horror or trauma. Sometimes it's all of

the above. And it's just like so got wrenching inside of this episode to see that these people want to be together and care about each other more than anything in the world. But also, come to recognize that the thing that they need is not in the same place anymore. I mean, we're going to get to the quote that opened this episode, but I just want to say, I don't know if you felt this way, but, you know, when she says, but this time you can't stay and I can't go, remind me of one of my favorite moments of any television show ever, which is the beautiful end of normal people. When we've watched these two characters work so hard to get to each other and then the

beautiful, well, spoilers for normal people, but the beautiful, like, heartbreak. I'm crying thinking about it, but it's like, you know, I'll go and I'll stay and we'll part ways and it doesn't mean we don't love each other. And it's just like, a beautiful thing. I love that show. I love, I know. And that puts a normal people pod win. Anytime.

Literally. The, um, the way in which we know from this scene, he's like, Like, we're going to go, and we as viewers can see that Marva is not going to go. But first, we have to go over to Bix's house for a moment to check in on Bix. And Bix, there's a couple things that play here. There's like a beautiful sort of, like, really sweet Romeo and Juliet. Like, remember when I used to climb up to your window sort of moment? Like, this is, we have this history together.

She doesn't come out immediately. He's sort of, he's at her door, but basically underneath her balcony sort of thing. And the shorthand of the knock calling back to what her father used to say when he would sneak over. It was amazing. But what we find out in this sort of like what was beautiful about episode three is how this whole town came together. You know, not just for Cassian, but kind of for Cassian, you know. And all of these very, these, what we learned in those first three episodes about his relationships in those towns that they were all on their last thread. all about to break.

And what Bix tells him here, what she makes very clear, is that the bridges are burnt. And he is run out of, out of, you know, favor with these people. She says, you scam, you borrow, you lie,

you disappear. And not only that, but like, she's like, your neighbors will inform on, you don't have to be Tim with two M's, to inform on Cassie and Ander at this point. And I love this quote

from Tony Gilroy on this concept of like paranoia, espionage, people on the run sort of questions. He says, thrillers are always people under pressure. Usually there's an outer problem. But what's great is all of the outer pressures that weigh down on people expose all of the other problems that they have in their lives. So if someone's marriage is bad, whether you're going to inform on the neighbor across the hall puts a whole new pressure on that.

It's regular people under pressure. And in a thriller, that's the buy-in from the beginning. So I want to take a moment. There's this moment that happens in one of the Canari flashbacks that I think is so key to us understanding who Cassie Dandor is and what his journey is because Bix is this thing. You scam, you borrow, you lie, you disappear. We have this moment in this Canary flashback where Cassian is startled and alarmed and terrified by his own reflection.

Now, part of that is supposed to mean, you know, we meet these kids in this sort of like lure the flies, lost boys scenario where all the adults are dead. and they've grown up in this kind of slightly primitive fashion. And so there's like that sort of part of it. But like you see a reflection in a water source. Like even if you do live like, you know, rough in the woods. Like you don't go your whole life without seeing your reflection. So I think part of it is Cassian being alarmed by the tech and what he's seeing here.

But part of it I think is a shorthand to tell us like this is a character deeply uncomfortable with themselves. not at ease with the, I mean, not on Kasa who's a kid, but at this point, not at ease with the various scams and shit that he has pulled in his life. What do you think about that as a way to consider a main character? I love that. And I think that we can then apply it, even though it's very specific to Cassian's particular experiences,

we can apply that and connect that to the exchange with Bix and this, to him, a startling revelation that his fellow citizens of Farrex would be right. People we know, like, have certain feelings about him, you want me money, et cetera. It's not like things were always pleasant and easy, but still, there's this, like, sense of unity and shared purpose. They're going to inform on me, what? And you think about, like, one of the highlights of the show so far, which is we're cutting in and out of the two timelines at the end of episode three. and we get that amazing spine-tangling line from Marva about the reckoning. Like that's what we're hearing, the sound of a reckoning.

And I love, again, the show's desire to explore the fact that this would not be an easy thing for people. Yes, they are inclined to stand up. Yes, Kasa is doing these things in his life. But when you look then, whether it's at your own reflection or the reality around you, at what it means, you can be ready to defend your own. You can feel the genuine compulsion to rise up. That doesn't mean it's going to be easy to deal with the consequences.

And so that feels like there's like a parallel there with what you're observing about CASA and his own reflection and really like grappling with who you are and what the consequences of your decisions wrought. Like that's what you Lauren's counting on. That's what we hear in the ISB. seen, you know, that they will be ready to tighten the fist and make life miserable for anybody who shows any inclination to challenge them. So when an idea becomes a reality,

how do you respond to that? That reckoning that you mentioned that Marva is talking about is tied intimately to her, like, personal loss of Clem that we learned the circumstance of. I love the way the flashbacks were used in the first. first three episodes. Again, this untranslated but really easy for us to understand a story of a boy and how he has been in this fight since he was six years old, et cetera. The efficiency of the Clem flashback, though, again, is brilliant storytelling because it's really just like a few brief flashes and we get the whole of the story. Marva like fills in a little bit of the info, but like we don't even need that. Like we understand what happened.

which is that Clem intercedes to try to calm the crowd down and gets shot for his, you know, attempts to keep the peace that he tells, you know, young Cassian, like, don't worry. It's just they're going to march around. It's not a big deal. Let's just keep calm. Don't rise up. And he gets killed anyway. And it's part of the chaotic morality of this universe or the complete absence of justice.

We get at this at the end of the episode when Cassian's taking in for doing nothing, right? The complete absence of justice in this world order, what that tells a young Cassian, who we then see, like, does fight back in that sequence that you alluded to earlier when he charges the troopers, he gets thrown in jail, and a lot of that is beaten out of him.

You know, all of that, I think, is really just so quickly and efficiently shown to us. And the storm troopers, I think in this show are, and the shore troopers are treated as so much more of a real threat than we often see them as like these bumbling Keystone cop comic relief can't fire a blaster characters. But I don't think there's any, there's nothing bumbling about the troopers in, in this story. What do you think? Yeah. And that's true for the troopers as we move across the timeline because one of the interesting things was in the flashback, the club flashback. the club flashback.

We see that those are clone troopers, you know, the slight distinctions in the helmet, and that's really like anchoring us in a certain moment in time. But I think, like, you just said a couple things that are deeply entwined,

like the fact that this is a very real threat to take seriously, not just like a blast or fire going amiss, but also that they're just a devastating series of mistakes, right? punishing the wrong people constantly and that ineptitude can manifest in so many different forms. And there's no, there's no escape from that, from the threat of the creep of that system and that oppression. And I loved, loved, loved, even though the flashbacks were much more contained than

in the opening arc, the filmmaking and the style of it that we were getting Diego Luna's face, adult Cassian's face. And then the camera would shift and we'd see the back that, you know, the curlier hair, like the back of young Cassian's head and that he was in that moment. And what sparks that flashback in the first place is that he's walking through, is walking through the square down the road and he sees and here's the troopers, the ones that he had just been saying to Bix, like, they're not going to get me here. And that still sparks him. It pulls him back and anchors him into that moment.

And so for as much as he's telling people that this isn't his fight, it has been again, this entire time. And I think he, I think that is going to be something that really starts to dawn on him. And I think that collateral damage that you're talking about, that, like, who gets punished? Often it's, like, not even the person. Like, that is present on when we see Bix's face, right? Like, the bruises and the damage on her face. Like, how does she get drawn into this in the first place is, like, against her. Like, Cassian has to cajole and plead to get her. And she's like, it's too dangerous. Like, what we're doing, this is not how we do it. Like, we're not, like, let's not do this way. He pulls her into it.

He's fine. I mean, he gets, he got injured. We said. saw that, but like, his face is fine. Her face is battered up. And it's just sort of, like, who gets hurt that ties back into Luthin's whole thing of, like, people will get hurt, and that's the point. Well, and we hear that, like, all of the Aldani

are being interrogated, are prisoners now. And so, like, okay, on the one hand, when we see the Star Destroyer fly over Sinta, it's, like, horrifying. It's also not the first time that the empire's had a presence there. That was why the mission was launched in the first place, the garrison.

and the stripping away of the culture and the customs and the way of life. But like to think about that, like how what they did created then this circumstance for the people they left behind, that that's not like you said, it's not only not. It's like did Luther think about it. Yeah, he's counting on it. And Cassian is not counting on a change in circumstance for his friends and fellows on Farrex. So there's a difference of intention there. But the fact that these people survive, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, let's talk about Marva in this scene. Just an all-timer. So, so, so, so, so good. The writing on the show is so good. The acting is so good. One of the best moments, I think, in all of Star Wars, honestly.

Her, first of all, when we were thinking about the show in these little mini-archs, I was worried that when we saw Marva, like, crying and looking at a window at the end of episode three, we were not going to see Fiona Shaw again. So I was so excited that we got to see her again. And the use of her in this episode, because like, when we meet Cassidy and Andor in Rogue One, he and Jen have this angry confrontation where he says, like, you're not the only one who lost everything, right? So, like, the things that Cassidy and Dor cares about are probably not going to survive

this series. That would be my guess. Or maybe he'll just never, like maybe Marvel, hashtag maybe Marble lives and he just never sees her again. but there are ways to Owen and Peru a loss, which is we barely know these people and they're like charcoal briquette, right? And there's a way in which, or like if Cassian, if Bix were Cassian's like current girlfriend and she died tragically,

that's, you know, we fridge her to push him into rebellion. That's more hollow than the richness of text that we're getting here, which is Marva, his mom. mother saying to him that she has seen too much, she has lost too much, and she is going to stand and fight. And I think that I think we have to think about age when we think about this time in the transition time in the empire and rebellion, because you have to think about what Marva's life was and what she knew versus how long Cassian, you know, Cassian was a kid.

when, you know, the imperial forces first, you know, the clone troopers or whatever, like, not quite imperial forces yet, like common invade his world. Someone like, Namik is so young that doesn't even, is dreaming of something different, but hasn't maybe even lived something different. And so I think it's so interesting to see Marva, who mentions her age. She's like, it's overdue and probably Dune and I'm too old, but I don't care anymore. And I think it's interesting to think of these characters and what have they lived under

or what do they have memories of or what do they have a hopeful dream of the future of? Yeah, absolutely. And like the, again, like the way that the different characters and storylines connect even when they're not engaging directly with each other is really so elevated in this show because, like, Luthin is a character who expresses that, like, people who are living in the galaxy

see right now, can't even really feel minute to minute the tightening of that grip. And then to hear Marva talk about those 13 years that she avoided walking through the square, like think about living your life that way every single day without that just oppressive pain weighing down on you. And when she says that people are standing up and Cassian's replies, yeah, I'm getting killed for it, she says there's work that'll be doing. Right? Whatever it takes, I've been lying down waiting to die long enough. We get a chirping, a chirp sadly from B on the subtitles there. But this sense of necessity and urgency, yes, for an older person, but also like the way that you would carry maybe the guilt of the time that had passed in a different way than somebody who's younger and having that like awakening for the first time. I got really excited when I heard some of this language from Marva because it made me think of the speech that Jin gives to the Rebel Alliance trying to get them to go into battle.

And I was like, oh, is Cassian like making a connection? Then I rewatched Word 1 and remembered that Cassie is not in the room when Jin makes a speech. But I want to hear it anyway. Carlos, will you play this generous speech, please? What chance do we have? What chance do we have? The question is what choice? Run.

High. Plead for mercy. Scatter your forces. You give way to an enemy this evil with this much power, and you condemn the galaxy to an eternity of submission. The time to fight is now. I mean, this is the question. This is the moment for Marva and to watch all these different moments for these people. What is the moment?

What is the catalyst? What is the line? The emotion I felt when she talks about how the old Donny Job has sparked this hope, in her, how we first see when she's talking about the 13 years not walking through the square and bringing up Clem, we see physical agitation on Cassian. Diego Luna is just sort of like whipping around, like he can't bear to hear this. And then she talks about walking through the square with a smile in her face. And Diego Luna gives this tiny, barely perceptible smile because.

He knows that he did that thing that brought his beloved mother a moment of bravery and hope. The Aldani job, which she just took for money, didn't do for a cause, but he sees the direct impact, emotional impact it has had on his mother who has been grieving and hiding for 13 years. And a tiny spark. A tiny spark is born in him. Inside, and what I love about it, what I love about it is it's not a moment where he's like, okay, you're right. Let's stay and fight. It's just a tiny, teeny spark, and it's not the phone flame yet.

Tell me how all of this went down for you. It's just exceptional. And I think you're right. It's like a little ember that maybe he hasn't even felt burrow its way inside of him, but he can look back at it later as events on. fold. The moment when he says to her, like, we'll find a place they haven't ruined yet. And she said, I'm already there. That place is in my head. They can build as many barracks as they like. They'll never find me. It's, I was thinking of the, the clip from, from Jen and that,

that sound bike that we just played. Like, it was just an amazing line and amazing performance from Fiona Shaw. But it's the same idea. Like, the strength. The that you find in yourself to decide to stand and fight, to make that decision, to stay firm in the face of something awful. And when he says, you know, you want to live under that, and she says it's happening everywhere, like these ideas are so intimately entwined and so crucial to this story, like fighting for your home, staying put, standing tall in the face of something terrible, crucial. Somebody has to do that everywhere, or it won't. happen anywhere. But also, as casting will find out at the end of the episode, running doesn't

mean, not only does it not mean fixing the problem, it doesn't even mean fleeing from the problem. It just means finding it somewhere else and having to really, really process the fact that it has spread that far around you. And to hear Marva, it's like such a beautiful way of something so intimate and personal and specific to one person's experience, unlock these larger ideas for the story at large, just like remarkable writing and storytelling. So good. I don't think I've like gasped and had an emotional reaction to a Star Wars line

since Yoda says the greatest teacher failure is in The Last Jedi, then when she just says that's just love and the way she says it and then what she says after. But like that's just love. I mean, what is, you know, on the page. not the most incredible piece of writing you've ever seen in your life. In the context of this speech, incredible, in the context of a goodbye, in the context of a woman who has made a choice to let go of the most precious thing to her in order to stay and fight. The sacrifice that she is making by staying and how she's not trying to convince him to stay with her.

Go and find some peace. You know. Beautiful. That's just love nothing you can do about that. Really, an all-timer, we'll be talking about that line for the rest of our lives of Star Wars fans, genuinely believe that.

Sometimes those simplest ideas unlock the greatest truths, right? And like there's just something fundamental in that moment about the relationship between two people and the nature of a connection that you build with somebody else that is at the heart of all of this.

Like that's the thing that's worth fighting to try to preserve, even if you're not doing it in the same place as that other person. She says, you know, we talked, you talked elegantly about the nature of connections and callbacks and references in this show and how organic they feel. And this is, I think, a really killer one. Where she says, tell me you understand. He says, I don't you will.

And it's very similar to language between Galen and Jenner. So when they're saying goodbye at the beginning of Rogue One. And I think, again, it's not so you can be like, oh, ho, I know that, you know, it's not like, I have a bad feeling about this, which is like, honestly not my favorite thing that Star Wars does. it's just a way to connect the separate the separate but same pain

that Jen and Cassian have experienced on their path to the beach where they end up at the end of Rogue One and I think it's beautifully and eloquently done. I think similarly

when we have you know when we have K2SO telling Cassie Nandor to climb and we get the same words from Nemek. Again, it's just a connection of centered around loss and it's not a, you know, remember?

That's what this lovely droid said when he was dying, you know? So, yeah. All right, anything else you want to say about, oh, I know you do. You want to, like, he, who does Cassie not say goodbye to? I just can't believe the Cassian didn't say goodbye to B. I know there was a lot going on. Poor Sweet B is just asking if he could speak now. Marva saying no.

It's a very intense, emotionally charged moment, a defining point in these characters shared lives. I'm sorry. You've got to walk over and give him a little nozzle and a little head rub. You simply have to. I don't know. Sweet B, the way he like pops out of his little charger to greet casting at the door,

the love, the affection. I just, I couldn't believe he didn't say goodbye to him. I couldn't believe it. He did say he'd be back though. So there's something to hold on to him. I was like, I know you will. Do you think, do you think this is the last time Marv and Orr will speak?

Ooh. Boy. I, I think it could be. I think it could be because so many of our characters, are on a collision course. Deidre, I'm concerned for pharix and Bix and Marva and B. and everybody there who is...

Yeah, because do nothing Blevine no longer on the case. Exactly. On the case. Yeah, so that's worrying. Yeah. Should we talk about the ISB? Let's do it. All right.

So you already mentioned that Yalarne is a character in episode four in Clone Wars shows up. So again, this is like... connective tissue that doesn't feel like it's hitting you over the head with connective tissue, right? This is a character that tired fans are familiar with, but you don't need to know who he is to understand what he's saying here about the ISB tightening. This is how tight to close our fist. This is why we plan. This is why we work so hard when we're at peace.

Wild that they think that this is peacetime, I guess so. You know, this is systematic oppression of these planets. what did this tightening and closing in the fist language make you think of, Mallory? Leia and Tarkin in A New Hope, the more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers and thinking about this intentional tightening. And again, this then connects to what we know that Luthin is counting on and actually actively working to provoke. there's like something really harrowing

about having to think about the fact that Luton is counting on this. It's going to happen. And the tightening of the fist is then what the rebels are going to respond to and rebel against. And so there's like a sickening kind of nature to that. But we know that over these five years

and into the galactic civil war, like that idea of needing to loosen that grip is so central, so central to the cause. So Luthin, kind of a monster, but great wigwork. Oh, man, I got such a kick out of seeing you, Lauren. Like, I mean, as a massive Clone Wars head,

this was a thrill for me because he's so present in Clone Wars, but also, like, he's, like, really involved in the Thron novels, which I love. And it has a particularly interesting role in those novels, I think in terms of like thinking about the things people in the empire are doing and the kind of infighting and politicking inside of the bureaucracy. So that was really fun. And of course, hearing him mention Palpatine was just like, palpi, always out there lurking.

She somehow Palpatine. That's several mentions in this episode. We're getting like, I want to talk about that conflict inside the ISB concept. Because so like we get this very, very strong homeland security post 9-11 enabling them to do what they want. It's called the Imperial Emergency Act, very strong Patriot Act vibes. Wild phrase used here. Permanent revocation of imperial tolerance. This was horrifying.

Permanent revocation of imperial tolerance. Just chew over that phrase and what that means. But what is what crops up here we've been seeing boiling, which is this. this Deidre Blevin conflict, we have to think, of course, of Tarkin and Krenic and they're infighting in Roeg one or Kylo and Hux.

Like, this is a classic empire, you know, but, you know, Mom Mothma and Luthen, like these divisions within the organizations are happening everywhere. But it's always particularly, like, petty and ladder-climy, in the empire particular. Lee,

let's shut out my favorite, maybe my favorite, non-marveline of the episode, which is Partgas, again, Anton Lesser, Khyburn, our favorite. Says, Supervisor Miro, do you mind having your integrity ventilated in public?

This was so funny. So good. He is just the best. At every moment, him is precious. What do you make of what we've seen overall in the ISB? We didn't talk about this a ton in the one through six recap, but like the office politics, she has an attendant, you know, a little like essentially a secretary that goes around with her. What of everything we've seen in the levels here strikes you the most about the ISB? So there are like a few different

things and I've really enjoyed all of these scenes. So like we, get a moment in this episode where Deidre says to her aid, this is exactly what they want. We're treating what happened on Aldani like a robbery. What would you call it an announcement? And you're like, hey, the episode. They said the thing. Oh, boy. Leo pointing meme at the top of the Disney Plus bar.

This key idea inside of the episode of like, there's no going back. We hear that very much inside of the ISB conversation. in this episode. We hear it in the conversations between Luthen and Mon Mothma, turning back will be impossible. So I love the through lines that are emerging across the budding alliance faction and inside of the ISB. They are often espousing and voicing the same idea. And so that gets us to a classic Star Warsism, a certain point of view. So much of this is about perspective. And I think that the show is like really deftly exploring that. The ambition and the dick measuring and the pissing contest inside of the ISB, just incredible.

And like some of that is just, okay, you can apply this kind of idea to any realm of life and any workplace and ambition. And I love that you mentioned Krennick, one of the most famously nakedly ambitious characters. Aspirational characters, one might say. Be careful. The rivalry between Blevine and Miro has been so fun to watch. And the like public theater dunking, I can't wait to embarrass this other person so that I can feel big and tall. And then like how that can come undone so quickly. Just wonderful. But also like the fact that and that gets back to the Gilroy quote that you shared earlier about this almost like you're feeling some dissonance internally. But this reluctant like cheering on as as Diedra is saying these things.

and doing what she's doing, what she says to Partigaz, systems either change or dice or challenges, the structure that he has enacted inside of the ISB, there's a boldness there that is just so starkly contrary to everybody else, like, falling in line. There's a spark of rebellion there for her inside of the ISB. And so just the parallels.

I love it so much. And also like a parallel to, to, even though the Bureau of Standards for Cyril is a very different tiny cog in this large, you know, honeycomb world, this idea of like individuality and a streak of individualism inside of the ubiquity and like it forced homogenous nature of life inside of the empire looking for moments there, like of tension and conflict, I think is really central to the show as well. Let's just do a little sidebar and talk about Cyril for a second. second because I think it's really interesting that the episode ends on him.

But I think I just want to yes and everything you just said because I think throughout, from the beginning, right, when he adds like piping and tailoring to his uniform, Cyril is such an interesting internal contradiction of someone who like, like, he would jump at the chance to be part of the ISB and put on the like the white tailored, you know, coats and the black jodd purrs. Like he would love to do that. Loves a shiny boot, would love to do that. But that contradiction of him wanting to be part of a fascistic organization

and raising the collar on his, you know, coat for a job interview when his mom says, what makes you believe the Bureau of Standards in the market for individuals, I just think that that is such an interesting, I think he's such an interesting throughline. very curious to see where he goes. I, you know, he's likely to be drawn into the Miro plot if she's looking into what happened. And Verricks, like, you know, she might pursue him. Or maybe he sees something in, you know, the fuel purity code that he's squinting at that

leaves out to him. But the fact that we end with him in a literal cog, like a cog desk, incredible production design. The fact that where he lives is this brutalist architecture structure that makes me think of Terry Gilliams Brazil, which is very much a story about conformity versus individuality and where those conflicts come. 1984-esque story. So, like, what is he doing here? He doesn't belong to any of the organizations that we are currently tracking. what, like, is this a question of, like, is this someone whose internal rebellious spirit could lead him to the rebellion?

Or is this someone whose internal conviction of law and order and right and wrong and, like, almost Javert-esque obsession with Cassie and Andor could lead him to ally with Miro? Like, where are we going with all of this, you know? It's a great question. I think, so a few things. One, I'm curious if you, a fellow severance lover, we're thinking powerfully of severance in that end shot when he's like staring at the screen and scrolling through the data.

And there's this just like sterile, corporate, controlled environment all around. And like figuring out a way to break out of that, which is our instinct to support his viewers, but also this is not a character we're rooting for because he represents a threat. So there's an interesting tension there for us as viewers. This is a guy who says,

I believe that we have laws for a reason. It's difficult to think of a thing a character could say that would make them a more perfect fit for the empire and for imperial bureaucracy. But yeah, like that individualistic streak, whether, whichever of those, like, potential plot outcomes you just sketched out, all of which are intriguing to think about,

to me, it's like no matter what it's compelling because it's another gilbert. Roy embrace of a more nuanced truth. Like, only Sith steal in absolutes, as our guy, Obi-1 would say, like, and or is fundamentally uninterested in absolutes. It's living in the nuance. And so when you have like that, just the collar and the brown suit conversation was so, so tremendous.

And when his mother says to him, everything says something, Cyril. You just apply that as a mission statement to the show. every choice that every character is making everything that every one of them is saying, everything they're wearing, everything they're doing. All of it tells us something about who they are and what they believe in, whether they can even really recognize that themselves in that moment. The visual through line of, I mean, we know that the clothing is such an interesting part of the masks that Luthin and Monmouthma are wearing in all of this, right? the luxury of her costuming is intentional for what it's hiding. But we also get curiously, interestingly, like several collar shots. We get Deidre fixing her collar, like, you know, fixing her collar perfectly at the beginning of the day, right?

And then we get, you know, an ISB employee is sloppy with his collar. And she's like, ship sharp guy, get it together. So yeah, I think that idea of like, clothing and perception and like or we see vell in this episode and bell who we've seen is like you know living rough in the scottish islands is like looking sleek uh and city ready is very it's very interesting i do want to shout out a stage legend of the stage katherine hunter who's playing Cyril's mom, I think she is just every single line raid of pure delight from her. I think she's so good.

Shout out. Shout out Arabella fig. Yes. A Potter alum. All right. Anything else we want to say about the ISB before we move on to the rebellion? Partiguez tells her to watch her back. Yeah.

Did you read that as like a, I'm looking out for you or as like a threat? I thought it was like you've won the day but not the war keep your eye on Blevine. You think it's, you've overstepped in your

questioning my... No, I interpreted it the same way you did, but I was chatting about it on the home front with Adam and he was like, was he threatening her? Oh, no.

I was like, oh. I don't know. Maybe. I think the only other thing about the ISB that I wanted to say is like you mentioned the collar fixing

little moments like that catching the tendent's sleeping, the garrison crew playing cards when they weren't allowed to go watch the eye and they're discovered in their moment of leisure when they should be like sharp, standing tall. Just those little glimpses of the rhythm and flow of the day have really helped, I think, to like fill out the world and make it feel whole. Deidre is probably, as you mentioned, on a collision course with Vicks and Marva. I'm concerned. And Sierra and.

Gravely worried. Not about Cyril, but about everyone else you just mentioned. I also want to shout out Ben Bailey Smith, who plays Blevine. Yes. Who used to rap under the name Doc Brown and is on one of my favorite UK shows of all-time Taskmaster, one season of Taskmaster. So good. And also happens to be the author's 80s and sister. So a very interesting figure who is here in the mix.

I think he's doing a great job. The transition here is pretty easy because what is what is Deja says she says systems either change or die And what does Luthan say about the rebellion? We either grow or die so again We are getting these as you say inter-episode interworld parallels between the growth of the empire and the growth of the Rebellion So let's hear let's let's let's go to the gallery of of artifacts and hear from Luther and Imam Mothma as they debate what happened in all Donnie Carlos.

You told me we were building a network. What were my words? This is something else entirely. Turning back will be impossible. You knew where this was going. You've always known. Has anyone ever made a weapon that wasn't used? The network's been built.

It's up. It grows or it dies. I mean, the scores is meant to make us a little scary. We heard the audio of him lifting that weapon. Is anyone ever made a weapon that wasn't used? Again, similar, I think, to that Tony Gilroy quote about Deidre, where we're like following her, climbing the ladder and we're like, she's right. Fuck these guys.

And then you're like, oh, no, who am I rooting for? With Luthin, like, from the start, you know, he's never, it's never been like a clear cut. This is a optimistic, idealistic, heroic leader of the rebellion. but the menace, the danger of where he thinks the line is, becomes so clear in this episode. Where do you think we're supposed to be with a character like Luton right now, Mallory?

On guard. And like Maen herself, I think assessing and questioning the cost of action, not in a way that makes us think that rebellion is not worth waging, but in a way that is honest and takes into account the actual circumstances of what is about to unfold. You know, this like, turning back will be impossible. Like, you can't unpole the trigger. This is just true. And to hear, and he, and I loved that Lutheran said to Mon, like, you just, it's the fact that I'm saying this out loud. Like, that's actually what's

freaking you out. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's such an important thing for a character to say, and for the person on the other end of that to have to really think about and process. Like, we hear so much in Star Wars. Of course, we love it. Hope. Yes. Also, sparks. We've talked about this already today, right?

This idea like, where the spark that will light the fire. The idea here that when you light the spark, you can't always control where the wind carries it and where it catches, but that also that is sometimes specifically the point is just so interesting. And like when he said has anyone ever made a weapon that wasn't used, I got a chill, like a full body chill. And some of that is how he's thinking about Cassian. Some of that is how he is thinking about the network that he then describes. You know, we've waited long enough. This is that moment, too, where we get that, that line that was referencing earlier. The empire has been choking us so slowly. We're starting not to notice. And like the real threat that that poses and how

right the characters are to identify and push against that. But then within that, this question, you know, the Obi-1 Anakin idea, right? Until now you've become the very thing you swore to destroy. Like, when does that potentially become true for a character like Luthin or for other characters in the rebellion? And it connects back to the Rogue One quote you picked for early in the episode about these characters acknowledging and having to like really wrestle with the fact that they've done terrible things in the pursuit of the good. And like, it's not just going to be clean. It's not just going to be neat and tidy, and we can never really lose sight of that, and the character shouldn't either.

Like, there were so many scenes in this episode that were amazing, but I think that this will be when we look back as, as one as one of the most important and central to what the show is interested in in exploring. And I think that, hearing him talk about weapons and thinking about him using Cassie Nandor as a weapon, we have to then think back to the quote we already talked about in terms of Nemex Manifest. My conclusion is simple weapons or tools. Those that use them are by extension assets that we must use to our best advantage.

But it's just sort of like who gets to decide which way the weapons point in. At this point, I would trust Mon to decide before I would trust Lutheran decide. And what elevates Andor above even the great writing that's here is the circumstance that we see it in, which is this glass-fronted store where Momopma's driver is outside, spy of the ISB is outside, right? So they are performing. Can I just say this guy's a terrible spy? Remember when he got distracted by ancient coins? I was like, really a coin collection?

Yeah. And also like, like, oh yeah, you're going to close the door? Sure. I'll just stand here. Yeah. I was hoping that it was like Clay is hottest that actually distracted him and not the coins, but I think it might have been the coins. But like they could have had this conversation in the back.

room where they could speak freely, but the fact that he is doing this smiling and this performing and these flourishes and these gestures, which, again, she will then have to do similar at her party later, the smiling and the performing while we're doing the dirty deeds here. So good, the tension of that. All of that, like ever since Luton put on the rings and the robes and the wig and adopted his like foppish guys that he is going to be wearing when he gets off the ship in episode four, whatever, whatever was. I was reminded of one of my favorite stories of all time, which is the Scarlet Pimpernel, which I have a Scarlet Pimpernel tattoo, actually, but like which is a story of

a British aristocrat who was so disgusted by the guillotine in the French Revolution that he made it his mission to go and rescue and listen, it's not very of the people of him but like he went and go to rescue the French nobles from being killed and he had this cover disguise of being this like foppish idiot and so he would like show up to these parties

and so everyone thought he was an idiot and then he would go and do these daring rescues and that that dynamic got ported over to first Zoro and then Batman So if you think about Zorro or you think about Bruce Wayne and Batman, you think about Christian Bale and some babes falling into a fountain. That's the concept here. That's the cover is they'll never suspect me. I'm such a luxurious idiot.

And I think they're crushing it in this. It's one of my favorite dynamics and I love to see it here. Should you talk about Claire? Yes, please. Not Leah, but Claire? What, like, walk me through this. What do we see here? So, we see Clea making her way through McLaren H.Q.

Again, the, like, born identity in space, Gilroyverse, very present here, like, seeing the little chalk scrawl on the floor as the sign of the path to where to meet Vell. This conversation. horrified me. And it's obviously horrifying to Vell, which is the point. Because Clea is there. First of all, there's a lot of, like, scalding. It's just as dangerous to receive messages as to send them.

A lot of the tradecraft and spy craft is present in this conversation. Vell very upset that Luthin is not there, which is super interesting. You know, the guys have been theorizing and speculating about, like, is there, is this like a father-daughter relationship? Like, what is the actual history between these characters? And I felt that a little bit in this moment too. But discussing the members of the team who had died, Clea says to Vell, every loss is different.

Everyone's the same. And when we talk about moments of symmetry across the opposing forces in the show, it's difficult to think of a moment where somebody who was like quote unquote nominally on the side of good said something that would sound that perfectly at home

inside of the empire. Like that is just so despicable. And these are just it gets back to that weapon and tool idea too. These people are just tools for Clea and tools are dispensable.

And this quest then, like even skiing who we know turned, it's one less thing to worry about. That's what Clea says. Vell is like, is Sinta okay? What can you tell me? Is my girlfriend okay? Yeah.

And not only is there no recognition or acknowledgement of like the validity of that humanity, which of course, as we've talked about for two hours already, is the point of waging the rebellion in the first place, protecting and preserving that. There's an active rejection of that. Like it's a threat and it's a thing to fear and try to stifle. Troubling. I want to ask you, when Clea gives Vel this assignment,

go find and kill Cassian, if you thought Cleo was acting on her own here, or if you think this came from Luthon? I mean, it's something, I... Because what she said, when she says we can't have him walking around with Luth in his head, to me, that sounded like a decision she was making. And I think that Luton thinks Cassian is too great of an asset

to burn him after this. So it does feel a bit like, Clayah going rogue. Though, as we found from Luthin, like, both of these characters, again, who we consider on the side of good, him and his little shop assistant, and now we're like,

these are scary fucking people, like genuinely scary. Yeah. I mean, on the one hand, Luthin said to Vell, hey, if it gets out of hand, you can take them out. Like, disposable from the jump.

But also, yes, it seemed like in the pursuit and the recruitment in the first place, there was a desire to incorporate Cassian into the mission in a much larger way. So I'm suspicious of everyone, but of Clea doing this on her own and with Luthin unaware. But like... And as Bix pointed out in her conversation, she's like, yeah, he knew all about you, not for me. But like, you know, Lutthin has had his eye on Cassie Dandor as an asset to cultivate. So I just don't think that he wants him off the table this quickly.

after like a successful mission from their perspective, too. That line from Clea, this is what revolution looks like, Vell. Man, it's like, does it have to? Should it? What does it mean if it does? And of course, Mon is kind of our avatar for really having to like weigh that. All right, party at a Casamothma. Woo.

Get out the fine stem wear and your creamiest cream ensemble. Lovely. We meet a new character, right? Take Colma. Bank of Colma. Take Coma. There's a lot going out. Mamatha is a fascinating character who's appeared in so many, so many, so many different Star Wars books and comics and shows and movies.

So we have to, of course, bring up to the mound and or the plate, our lore expert, Ben Lindberg. Yes. Do you have a fancy cocktail in hand? Are you ready to party with Longer? Motha. Yes. I'm so, okay, first of all, just want to say, it's been a minute since I've gotten to record with Ben and I'm so excited to be back.

Thrill, thrilled to have you here. I guess I want to just start by asking you, like, what do you make of Mon Mopha being such a central character in this show and like what in her long history in Star Wars like informs what we see here? I'm happy Mon Mothma is having a moment because. She's been part of the pantheon of rebel leaders for, what, 40 years now? And Genevivo Riley has been playing her for almost 20. And yet we haven't known much about her personal life.

You know, does Man Mothma have a horrible husband, for example? Yes. Did she ever grow her hair out? Do her... Once! Yeah. To her interior decorator and her stylist color coordinate, which shade of white they'll use for everything. Now we know the answers to those things.

And so it's like her line in episode seven where she says the Mon Mothba people think they know. It's a lie. It's a projection. It's a front. It's kind of been a bit of a front all this time for all of us. She's a leader and a hero and calm and composed. That's not untrue. But now we know that while she was busy rebelling, she also had to go home to Perrin,

which makes her even more heroic. And we've had a lot of recent shows and movies that have tried to flesh out the backstory of original trilogy characters. And I feel like this is maybe the first time that I've gained significant new insight into one of them. Maybe because she was only on screen for a minute in Return of the Jedi. But also, like, you know, did we learn anything about a lot of these other characters that we couldn't have inferred?

Now we know a lot more about Mamata. Glad to know she doesn't just wear like shapeless toga dresses, but also once upon a time how to tailor. So that's nice. Lovely champagne gowns. She's just a fashion night. She always wears white after Life Day. Mel, what do you make of the inclusion of,

of, like, her relationship with her daughter and all of this? Like, how is that reading for you? I'm worried about the daughter. They're just, some of this is just like, yeah, life is hard. Families don't always get along. There's tension between a mother and daughter, husband and wife, etc. a parent obviously like keeps asking Mon to be the bad guy in the relationship, the one that

their daughter has to go to to ask if she could be excused, et cetera. So there's this, this interesting domestic tension inside of their family unit. But her daughter seems very unhappy with her. And so I'm concerned about like how that might, where that might lead or who might try to weaponize that in some way. But maybe it's a red herring. I hope we just get irreconcilable differences at some point. And they'll just go there separate ways. Maybe Leda can go with Perrin. It seems like they're vibing more so than everyone else with Mon. I'm impressed by the way you just said Mon.

I have a very hard time just calling her Mon. I feel like we're not on a first name basis yet. It's Mon Mothba every time for me. Well, Mothba appears to be Perrin's name as well, so I'm not a fan of it. Yeah. I was wondering if the mother-daughter, to go back to that Scarlet Pepernel thing that I was talking about before, Like, in that story, you know, the hero who has to adopt this idiot personality, his wife doesn't his wife, he loves dearly, doesn't respect him because she thinks he's an idiot.

And it's like, if you only knew who I am and what I'm fighting for, like, you would love me. And then she finds out and she does. And so it's like, would, would Mamatha's sullen teenage daughter and weren't we all at that age? have more respect for her mother if she knew what she was all that she was fighting for and all of this. And that's that's one of the things that Mon Motha is sacrificing in order to maintain this facade is the respect of her teenage daughter. Yeah. But I worry that if Perrin knew he might go full Tim with Bix and just turn her in instantly. Do you think, okay, this is the question I have about Perrin.

I'm curious to know what you think, Ben. Like, do you think that Perrin is, like, just on opposite sides of the aisle from her in the Senate? Because he's also a senator, right? So, like, on opposite, you know, he's got his conservative friends and she's got her liberal friends or whatever. Or there was a way that he was watching her in the party scene. Like, or has he already been weaponized as someone to be more actively watching her moves? What do you think, Ben? First of all, is he a senator?

Does he have an official position? I know he refers to having served, it sounds like, like he wants to hang out with his old army buddies. To me, it was not clear. I think he's just kind of a consort. I don't know. And I guess if we wanted to be sympathetic to him, like maybe he didn't sign up for this public life. You know, like there was an arranged marriage evidently between the two, according to what Tony Gilroy has said. They got married at 16 and it was kind of an arranged deal, which frankly is a relief because I would hate to think that Mon Mata had.

picked Perrin on purpose. Like, you know. People change and grow apart. Right. That's the thing. Right. A lot of time has elapsed. Their lives have changed.

The galaxy has changed. So maybe she evolved in ways that he didn't. And he's someone who just wants to hang out and have fun and not talk about boring trade disputes or, you know, governmental atrocities or anything. So. The Gorman's again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I think she seems like appalled by the fact that he is unconcundated. concerned with the atrocities that are like not only very apparent, but are completely fundamentally altering and shaping the course of her life and her work. And, you know, there were also some vibes with Tay. Let's just say that. Are those vibes that are pointing to the past? I'd say, it seems that way. Are they vibes that might be pointing toward the future? One of the very wonderful welcome things about Andor is that people fuck in Andor, including in the episode. Star Wars. I was going to say, Mel, what a time this is for you.

I know. We've had the horniest Star Wars series, the horniest MCU series overlapping. Damon and Renira having literal sex on the beach, plus Laris's foot fetish. It feels like the culture is finally catching up with where your head has been all along. Oh, no, Ben, put you in the foot bucket, Mallory. That's not where I want you. Horny Star Wars is an absolute delight to me. I am thrilled, absolutely thrilled,

that people are having sex on Star Wars. We always talk about what we're trying to fight for and preserve, and, you know, people enjoying having sex with each other is definitely one of those things that we should be fighting to preserve. Yeah, I hope that's a... Great work, Star Wars. Diego Luna taking a fake shower. He put like three fingertips into the water and maybe actually washed up.

a bit before his walk. But yeah, you know, had to, had to cover up the opening of the credit case somehow. I hope that's a chapter in Nemex manifesto, the right to have sex on screen. A question for you, Ben, what can you tell me about Chandrilla, which is where Mamma is from, gets big mention in this conversation with her and Tay while they are sharing vibes, as Mallorya pointed out, what can you tell me about her childhood and background there? So it's a core world. It's one of the 22 worlds that were core founders of the Galactic Republic. So it goes way back. And it was a bastion of support for the alliance and later the new republic, which made it one of the prospective targets of the second death star.

So actually in the novelization of The Last Jedi, Luke has a dream where he sees how things might have gone had he stayed on Tatween instead of joining the rebellion. And in that dream, Shandrella gets blown up like Alderon, kind of a self-aggrandizing dream, really. Like if I had not joined the fight, all these other planets would have blown up, but probably true. And in actuality, as one character says in the book, Aftermath, Empire's End, the Empire never quite made its way to Shandrella. So it's left largely untouched. And so after the conflict, it becomes the capital of the New Republic and the seat of the reformed Galactic Senate. And it's actually where the galactic concordance gets signed to formally end the galactic Civil War on the same day that Ben Solo is born, quite an eventful time for Leia. She signs a peace treaty to end the war with the empire and then goes to give birth all in a day's work.

Leaning all the way in. You can have it all. And geographically, it's a pretty and placid planet kind of matching Monmothma's serene exterior. Though, as we know now, there's a lot going on under that. projection. It's a lie. Lies. Deceptions. In the book, Aftermath life debt, there's a

passion that says, Shandrella, a small blue-green planet, now the home of the nascent New Republic, nearly idyllic, with its calm seas and rolling hills. The weather is mild. The seasons are present, but never dramatic. The people are peaceful, if a bit haughty and pedantic and

over-invested in every political maneuver and measure that proceeds through the Galactic Senate. And finally, in the first aftermath book. There's another quote. Some think of this place as a small, inconsequential world.

But Chandraela has always been an origin point for big ideas and the citizens to carry them to the larger galaxy beyond. So that's where Monmouthma comes in.

Speaking of lies, Carlis, we play this clip because I just love the way that Genevieve Riley talks about the lie of Monmouthma.

It's a lie. Monmothma people think they know. It's a lie. It's a projection. It's a front. Smile. I've learned from Palpatine.

I show you the stone in my hand. You miss the knife at your throat. Amazing. Myruben, what's the most important lesson that you've learned from Chief Palpatine? A lot of stuff about lakeside dwelling under boo. Oh, it's moisturized.

Yeah. Some stuff I'm looking into about cloning. Yeah, but we can save that for another pod. This is great, though, like observe. and learn from your enemy, make the thing that they would use against you, your own strength? This is just wonderful.

Yeah. Should I tell you a little bit about Monmouth's upbringing as far as we know? Please. Yeah. And I should say, like, we should take all of this with a grain of salt

because they are changing some things in this show, timelines, and how old people are and when they were born. And basically, like, much like... Ben, how many slacks have we exchanged about how old Cassian is?

A lot. The various Republic. Oh, no, is this like your 17 to 21-year-old freak out on House of the Dragon? This is Ben's version of me. Yeah, this is the one I care about. He's very hung up on this, which I get.

Yeah. Tony Gilroy did say before the season started, he said it's very complicated. We are constantly in touch with the Vatican about what we do in terms of the Vatican. It's so funny. He said, in some cases, what we're saying is what you know, what you've been told,

what's on Wikipedia, what you've been telling each other is really all wrong, which obviously shook me to my core as the guy who basically has Wikipedia as his homepage. We just found out we've been reading Mushroom our entire lives. It's like the opposite of the Hun Solo. It's all true, quote. So what we think we know at least.

So much like Leah and Padma, she's born into political power. So according to the preexisting canon, she would have been born 41 years before Andor begins the same year that Padme was born, although based on interview. it seems like she's supposed to be younger than that in the show. I don't think Tony really cares that like Rogue One, the ultimate visual guide, said Man Mothma was 46 during Rogue One, which would make her 41 here. I think he's okay with calling an Audible on that. But her father was an arbiter general, a republic official who resolved disputes between member worlds and her mother was a Chintrullin governor. So she grew up with two politically active parents.

She was expected to go into politics herself. she's pretty much Nancy Pelosi. In fact, after I wrote that in my notes, I saw that Tony Gilroy had made that same comp. So much like Leah, like the nepotism. That's why the jackets are so good. Yeah. The nepotism is strong with her here. And much like Leah and Padmae, she became a senator when she was still a teenager.

And there's some dispute in the canon about exactly how young she was. So in a book from a few years ago. Like 14, right? Yeah. Well, there's a book called Queen Shadow. where she tells Padme, I was very new to the Senate when you made your speech as Queen of Nabu, referring to Padme's speech to the Senate in the Phantom Menace. And Padma is supposed to be 14 in that movie.

And if she and Man Muthma are the same age, that would suggest that Mon Mothwa was a senator when she was 14. So there's that. Now, the Rogue One novelization mentions that she had a little teenage rebellion before her rebellion against the empire, sort of this little Rum Springa period where she briefly gave up politics and fell in love. and got interested in a sport called smashball, which I think is an actual sport and not a term for sex, although that's where my mind went. And she just turned her back on the family legacy and became a historian. Smashball.

Yeah. It's a get more smashball into Andor. Yeah. And her rebellion is that like she dabbles in becoming a historian. Like that's how Mon Mothma rebels. Oh, me too. Same. That was my teenage rebellion too.

No, like tattoos or anything. Just no. I like, I got a black leather jacket. And I got really into history. Rebelling through, yeah, getting into history and enjoying some smashball with Tay. Yeah, right. In my head canon, she was definitely playing smashball with Tay, although that's not confirmed. So the Rogue One book says that this little mini rebellion happened when she was 15 and that because of inertia and family pressure and a genuine love of governance, what 15-year-old does not have a genuine love of governance, she then went on to become a senator.

So that would track with Genevieve O'Reilly saying an interview that she's been a senator since she was 16. So 14, 16, you know, one or the other. But the idea that she has is Rumspringer and then is immediately shuffled into this arranged marriage at 16 like the year later. Right. And it's interesting. Yeah. I mean, the word Senate in English, derives from the Latin Senex, right, which means old man. So the Senate, as we know it, is essentially supposed to be a council of elders.

And boy, is it ever? And I think we can say that our Senate maybe has taken the old and the man too literally. So it's sort of welcome that Star Wars has its own squad of young women in power. And obviously all of them are up to the task. But 14 or 16 seems extreme. And in the Rogue One book, Mon Motha actually thinks to herself that she was far too young when she became a senator. So I'm going to suggest maybe the Galactic Senate should have had age minimums at some point. She's like half as old as AOC, basically, when she joined Congress.

I've been a 14-year-old. I've been a 16-year-old. I'm not sure they should be representing planets. I don't know. Do age minimums work, though, when, like, for our dear sweet grogo, you're a baby when you're 50? Right. It's tough with this. Yeah, you'd need species-specific age minimums probably for this.

These are the things I think about. But if we wouldn't consider you old enough to vote in our world, maybe you shouldn't be eligible to be voted for. in this one. Yeah. What I think is really interesting is, like, what we've learned since about her, like, kind of not her, like, I don't want to call up her voting record, but, like, that her, like, core principle throughout the many times we've seen her show up, uh, as a senator, as, as a power player is, like, peace, anti-war at any cost.

She disbands a military when she is the ability to do so. Like, she is such a peace. and that is so interesting to inform. It's not like, it's not just anti-imperialist. It's like almost peace at all cost. And so to hook her up with someone like Luton who's like, let's make them tighten the fist and punish people throughout the galaxy to make them rise up. Like we can understand how that is such a conflicting partnership within a united common cause. There's always attention with her and other leaders. It almost borders on appeasement at times with her because she's just so peace at all costs. And I think all this background is important because her entire personal and professional life has been prescribed for her from the start. She's very much an establishment figure. She's born into privilege and power. Her Senate seat is basically her birthright. She has faith in the system. She thinks she can work from within to make things better, whereas Luthan and later Cassian and Sondon.

Al-Garera and others say the system is broken. We have to tear it down. And clearly, both the government and the marriage that are all she's known since she was a teenager are falling apart. And she's kind of trapped in both of these things. And she has to figure out how to break free. So, you know, leading up to the Clone Wars, she joined the loyalist committee along with Bail and Padme and yes, Jarjar, of course, one of the finest legislators of the era, which is tasked by Palpatine. with shoring up loyalty to the Republic during the separatist crisis. And during the Clone War, she still serves on this committee, but she becomes a critic of the war. And along with Bail and Padme, she becomes concerned about what the war and the expansion of Palpatine's powers will do to the Republic. And as you said, she opposes military spending increases. She helps lead peace talks with the separatists, which obviously doesn't really pan out. And in Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine takes control, the Jedi Council appoints regional governors, proto-muffs, basically, to oversee the star systems and supersede the Senate's authority. So, Bail and Padmaa and Mammah and others start

meeting in secret to discuss their opposition to Palpatine, which is shown in a few deleted scenes from episode three. And in one of those, Padmei asked the others if they think Palpatine will dismantle the Senate. And Monmothan says, why bother? As a practical matter, the Senate no longer exists, one might wonder why in Andor 14 years later she's still serving in that same Senate that she said basically doesn't exist anymore. I think that's a stone in her hand versus the knife at your throat, right? Like, this is her cover for all of this. And like, I thought the scene in the eye where we see her in the Senate was like that

chamber that we've seen filled to the brim and bristling with activity is like largely empty. Well, no one's listening, but it's also like just physically empty. no one's showing up, you know, so it's just like, yeah, it's a farce. Like, what is, what is the Senate? What does it even accomplish? And when she says, like, as long as everyone thinks I'm an irritation, there's a good chance they'll miss what I'm really doing, which is that same stone knife idea there too. So, like, using this institution that she has lost faith in as a cover to then try to bring something more potent and impactful into existence is, is pretty interesting. Yeah, but she, continuing just has to be prodded along because she's just not a revolutionary by nature and in that same deleted scene.

But don't you need that balance with fucking loosen out there? Yes. You know, she says in that same scene, we're not separatists trying to leave the republic. We're loyalists trying to preserve democracy in the republic. Now, at this point, maybe she's lost a little faith. But a lot of those loyalists were also part of what was called the delegation of 2000, which is a group of concerned senators. I guess these would be the Susan. Collins's of Star Wars, very concerned. They present the petition of 2000 to Palpatine and they're like, hey, stop seizing power, please. And Palpatine's like, no. And they're like, all right, well, we tried. And that's basically it. And on the day after he finally declares himself emperor, they arrest 63 of those 2000 on charges of conspiracy and treason, including bail and Monmouthma. And they actually saved themselves by professing their loyalty to the empire. You know, they kind of become collaborators, at least in name.

And the guilt that she feels because of that then contributes to her determination to undermine the empire from within. But basically, they save themselves by, you know, pledging allegiance, even if they don't actually mean it. So we don't have that many details about what Man Motha did between Revenge of the Sith and Andor, other than the fact that she knew Leia well and was one of her political mentors. And I guess she liked the name Leia because when her daughter was born, One year later, she named her Leida, very original. We've got Leia, Clea, Leida, all bumping around in this timeline. But I think the important thing to know for now about the rest of her history is that she just continues to clash with the rest of the leadership over tactics and how far is too far to go.

So for anyone who hasn't watched Rebels, I'd recommend a season three episode called Secret Cargo where she publicly denounces the emperor finally resigns from the Senate. it over the Gorman massacre, which Andor has already laid a little groundwork for. And there's also a two-part season four episode called In the Name of the Rebellion, where she faces off with Saul and is basically like, when they go low, we go high. And Saul's like, great when the empire wins, you can be proud that you played by the rules. So even in Rogue One, she's still opposed to Sa's tactics, right? Like, she wants to get Jin to get her father to testify about the death star to the Senate. Like, at this point, you know, she's already resigned, but that's how she thinks,

like, they're going to break the case and they're going to open everyone's eyes. She's still somewhat trusts in the institution here. So she's kind of slow to change her ways for better or worse, maybe both. Like, there's one point before the Battle of Endor where she's so outraged by an imperial massacre that she actually trains as a fighter pilot because she finally thinks diplomacy just isn't enough. But then she realizes, no, that's not how I can do. be of the most use. And she actually tries to talk Leah out of leading the assault on the shield generator by saying, no, you're more valuable elsewhere as a leader, not actually firing blasterbolts on the front line. But you kind of need the Leah, right? And you also need the Monmouthma, maybe.

So she just, even when she's the leader of the new republic later, the political opponent, she has then criticized her for being too soft on the imperial remnant. And yet, it's when she falls ill. We're far in the future here and resigns. as chancellor, that the new republic fractures and the first order rises, which kind of validates her methods. Like, you need her keeping everyone together, just being the outwardly calm center. That's so interesting because, like, I've seen some people say that because of her, like, aggressively peaceful, let's not militarize our regime approach, that that is what laid the track for the first order to rise. Yeah, you could look at it that way too, right? Because she opposes

is a military buildup that might have helped prevent or end that war. So I guess it depends which side of the aisle you're on in this universe, whether you see it as Mon Mothma was keeping the peace and it was her leaving that finally just caused this conflict to break out or Mon Motha positioned this conflict to break out by just being, you know, soft on crime or whatever. So I think it takes all kinds and backgrounds to build this rebellion. I think Mon Mothma would probably be getting killed on Star Wars Twitter with a lot of her stances, but I think, you know, her methods do prove out, at least in some cases. So I have

two questions or thoughts about her, which is, one, I wonder if she knows that Palpatine is a Sith Lord, because if Bail knows, you'd think he might have shared that with her at some point. And if she does know that, kind of colors my perception of her decisions. Ben, is Bail, when she says that she's going to tell Tate something, only three people know, did you think that that was including bail? I did. I did. It could be Clea also, right?

That's what I was thinking. I thought it was her, Luth and Clea. Mallory thinks it's Luth and Clea and Bail. Yeah, I thought she just wasn't counting her, counting herself.

Yeah. I think that's right. It was lumping in Bale. Right. Yeah. Because Bail's been in lockstep with her for a long time at this point. But she's not in the inner inner circle,

right? Because like she doesn't know about Luke and Leia. Right? So like the inner inner inner circle is Bail. and Padmae, right? And Obi-Wan and Yoda.

And she's not in that inner inner circle. Yeah, it's tough to say exactly what she knows because she's like been in Leah's life from the start and she's very close to Leah. I don't know that we have explicit confirmation that she knows about Leah's parentage. Like she was just, you know, very close to Padme. Like they weren't necessarily close friends, but they were close colleagues. And I don't know. I would think that if Bale knows about Palpi, like,

Like, maybe she might know about it. And I guess you could say that what difference would it make? But I don't know if you know that this guy's a Sith lord and he's like pure evil. And you're someone who's interested in history and knows the history of the Sith. Like, you kind of know that someone you can't really reason with or appease or work against in kind of these usual diplomatic channels maybe. But don't you know that about a fascist anyway? Right. I mean, he's not a good guy.

Half finger lightning in order for you to be like not the guy. Like he's the guy who shouts unlimited power whether or not he's using the force. Yes. Yeah. No, not a good guy one way or another. But, you know, it might kind of color my approach perhaps. The other thing that surprises me, like it shocks me that the empire hasn't cracked down more on the media in this world or like on the HoloNet news. They're just kind of like broadcasting this Aldani raid everywhere.

And in that Rebels episode, I mentioned when Mon Mothma makes that dramatic speech denouncing Palpatine, they seem to broadcast that too, like her whole speech unedited. And maybe it's like Cassian said, like they're just so overconfident and complacent that they can't imagine anyone hurting them. Or maybe they think that disseminating this news about raids and revolts will actually make people crave order instead of inspiring them to rise up. Maybe they believe in the sanctity of the fourth estate. Maybe. Maybe that's it. Yeah. But I think they miscalculated.

Like, maybe it's too big a galaxy to clamp down on all the news, or maybe it's such a big galaxy that it would be easier to control the spread of this sort of news. But that's surprise. Like, it's clearly, you know, state media. Like, they call the Aldani people, like, terrorists or, you know, robbers or whatever. But still, like, it's clear. It's broadcast to everyone that actually the empire is not invulnerable. And there are people who are rising up. And clearly it inspires some people, as we saw in this episode.

seems like, you know, there should be like a provda or like an RT of the empire here that's kind of like clamping down, suppressing this stuff so that it's not, you know, inflaming passions all over the galaxy. You guys heard it here first. Ben Lindberg has come out against free speech. Yeah. And his favorite. The propaganda minister.

This is like the ISB. Rita Skeeter is his favorite, favorite Harry Potter character. Yeah. Well, you do love Rita Skeeter. You do love Rita Skeeter. I'm, uh, I'm. I'm happy to be the Bothan bringing you this information today. Well.

Yeah. And I miss She Hulk and Rings of Power and I'm sad that Dragon is about to be over, but I'm excited that the space lanes are clear for a few weeks. So we can just let Cassian Cook here. I don't care what the wider reception to a show always as long as I like it. But I want people to watch this one, both because I think it's great and because I want Disney and Lucasfilm to get positive feedback for this, right? I want them to continue to be bold.

So this is one case where I do kind of care about the ratings and the audience and everything. So I'm glad we're getting the House of Our bump here. Yes. Everyone knows House of Our responsible for a huge spike in the ratings. Pizzo. So podcast for everyone. The Green, Gritty Green ones. This is the Maori Rubin and Joanna Robinson I read about in the New York Times, I believe.

So you got a platform. You got a pulpit here. And Halo. Oh, yeah. This is great. The only way my mom knows. Anything about what the ringer or Spotify does is when it is covered in the paper of record. So you've made it much easier for me to explain my career.

Okay. So now is pro journalism. That's great. Great to know. All right. Thank you, Ben. My pleasure. Thank you. All right. So, I mean, we can wrap up. We're almost a final stretch here. You know, Monn says about her money laundering plan, which conveniently for Mallory involves. revolts. Take him back to Corrassant regularly.

I'm in favor of this plan. Yeah. Great. But leaving Corrissont now, we head to what Mallory and I like to call Space Miami, which is actually called Namos. Namos. Cassing on the run.

This reminded me acutely of Matt Damon and Mekanos from the board identity, right? When they like go off. and leave the doom and gloom of mainland Europe behind for, you know, island vibes. We've already mentioned our appreciation for post-coital Diego Luna and the shower situation. Great stuff. Do you have anything else you want to say about Horny Star Wars? You've already been very eloquent about it. Pro.

Okay. I just want to read one last email before we go to this arrest from Jose. Tucker Canada, I speak. All right, Jose, I mean, we actually go with several emails on this topic, but this is the one from Jose, which is something I think was picked up on some of the analysis of the first arc of Andor was the extent to which it's a very Latina story, something for which I've been waiting since Rogue One showed us that there could be two, two Hispanics in a Star Wars movie at the same time. It's definitely more prominent in the antagonistic perspective from the Canary Mail with dark features to the way the Corpo's on Morlana 1 addressed Cassian is Scrano and ask if he swam over. But it feels deeper than that. It's rooted in the community we see on Ferricks, under-resourced but always there if the authorities want to hassle people.

In the relationship, Cassian, and even in the way Marva is styled in what I can only describe as Abuelita Cor. I struggled mightily with the Rise of Skywalker for a lot of reasons, many of which Mal covered back in binge mode days, but the one that really shook my confidence in Lucasfilm Post acquisition is the decision to call an audible in the new canon and change Poe's background to make him a wayward kid who went Spice Runner. They reconciled it with his child of rebellion hero story eventually and not poorly and even entrusted it to a Latina author, but it still leaves a sour taste in my mouth that this dynamic, charismatic, poster-ready resistance hero, the first Latino hero in the films, though if Marva is Abolita Core, then Yoda is Tio Cor,

was carelessly flipped into the galaxy far, far away's equivalent of a drug smuggler. Where this ties into Andor is that I feel like on paper I should be just as irritated by it. Cassie is portrayed as a hot-tempered, quick-triggered, scamming, womanizing mama's boy who really can't be trusted. It's like they've crammed a whole spice rack of Latino male stereotypes into a character. It doesn't feel crass or vulgar or offensive. It just feels like something I can see myself and my family in, and I nearly never get that in shows that also have debates about the utility of sector maps. It's just the obvious care that's being taken in this show. Is it just a matter of quality?

When fictional cultures become allegorical for real-world cultures, it's usually as certain a sign of impending doom as Waldrick with a cloth parcel. So I was curious if that's something you see in Andor as well. And if so, whether it gives you any pause or if you're all in on what it feels like Gilroy and company are doing with Diego Luna. I love this assessment of casting. And I think especially with like the Canari background, a lot of that like Canari mail language that we got in the first three arcs, the way in which the Canari flashbacks were not subtitled for us. This ties into another email we got about like the lack of non-humanoid sort of aliens in Andor and whether or not that was Gilroy's attempt to make this seem more like prestigious or serious.

But I think what's interesting is that I think Cassian's arrest here. And Clem's arrest earlier, and Ben talked about this in his column. Like, there's no way to see, like, you know, a black man being strung up or this brown man being harassed for doing literally nothing as, you know, not having nothing to do with the race of the actors who are playing them. What do you think, Mal, about, like, this, this introduction of the world here? Yeah, no, I think it's a tremendous email from Jose and a really important observation and the fact that, the characters and the cultures and the family units and the daily routines and the relationships and the customs and the worlds are something that the story is taking the real time to like explore and establish and understand so that cassian but also more broadly the characters

and places and people who are introduced into the story like feel fully realized and whole and specific and like not just flat, often misguided renderings. Like the show is just is taking the time and the care to not only avoid that, but to take the all of the pieces of who a person is and how their lives unfold and to make that an active part of their story. I found this arrest scene as it's meant to be, like, so aggravating, especially in the context of that larger conversation we've been having about not just like in just like the complete disregard for fighting the actual culprit. I guess that stands in contrast to Cyril who's like so focused on getting his man, right? But like this, I don't care.

I don't care that you're just walking. You look vaguely sweaty, so we've decided you're involved in this other thing, and you have no chance to defend yourself. We see a KX unit roll up, right? Not K2SO, our beloved, but, you know, this effortless brutal force with which Cassian is hauled up into the air. And then the frustrating courtroom scene. And then he's sent away for six years an expanded sentence that is the result of his own actions on Aldani. But again, it's like who gets caught in that web,

who is punished at the end of the day. Right. Well, and it's like an important moment for Cassian in particular because when he and Marva are experiencing their, you know, very sweet and steeped emotion parting of the ways, ultimately, like that idea you want to live under that. It's happening everywhere. and Cassian thinking they could find somewhere

that was warm and easy. It's like there's nowhere easy left. That's not a thing anymore. Not even in space Miami, man. No, certainly not. And to have to confront head on the way that that injustice is seeping into every place and every port and every realm,

like it becomes something that is ultimately just impossible to ignore and that the effort to like challenge, the empire on Aldani would spark even more insidious and unjust behavior is like something that Cassian, I mean, he's not going to be, we should just say, like, he's not going to be serving a six-year prison sentence. We know that that is impossible based on the timeline of Rogue One. But however he gets out of there, whenever it happens, however much time passes, that will be an experience that becomes one of the many that shapes him. And like it all fits very dismayingly with this like, evolution, this life of trauma, like that moment that he shared with Nemek, like the challenge of like, okay, I'm not a part of this the way that you are, but don't tell me that I'm content. And the things that everyone... Do I look content to you? Yeah. Like, the horrors that people experience are specific to them, but there's also this universal truth. And for each character, like, they have to, they have to have that awakening and that epiphany on their own. It's happening for

Cassian now. It was the last thing I'm going to say about all this. We got essentially, I'm going to call it a train heist, even though it wasn't, but it kind of was train heist. Looks like we're probably going to get a prison break. These are some of my favorite things that ever happen ever in all of media. So thank you, Tony Gilroy, for my, I mean, we got a prison break on Mando, but like I, I'm never, never tie of a prison break personally. So I'm really excited for what's to come potentially. We do know that K2SO is not in this season, just in case you're listening and had questions about that.

K2 is not going to show up until season two. We don't quite know when. There's some comics canon, but again, that's where Tony Gilroy's Vatican quote comes into play. They might be budging it a little bit to make it a more dynamic TV show. Anything else you want to say about and or this episode, the whole season that we've been talking about? I don't think so. I mean, I guess the only thing is like, you know, we've been talking in our most recent Dragon Pod,

House of the Dragon Pot in particular with the Green Council episode, about when done well, debate and dissension within what should be one rank can be the most compelling thing, actually. And so this like, or perhaps you find my politics a bit strong for your taste moment with Mon and Tay taking something that that character had said and her throwing it back at him,

the way that the show is so good. The way that the show is constantly examining the idea of context and relativity and perspective and like thinking about that with everything that Ben was running through, what's extreme to one person is not extreme to another. And I just love the way that the show is like examining those tension points, but also then what that reality unlocks. for certain people as they are moving forward on their own journeys of discovery.

And I just love the show. I'm so glad we're talking about it finally. I love my sweet B. And I hope that it's back with Cassie and soon and okay. I'm very concerned. And I can't wait to talk about episode eight with you next week. Well, that's just love nothing you can do about that, Mallory Rubin. All right.

That's it for Andor, one through six and also seven. We covered in this podcast on a Friday afternoon for you. Thanks as always to Orgena Rinkapal for his production work on this episode And also the fantastic Carlos Chirovoga Quick on the soundboard trigger And we will see you on Sunday for Talk the Thrones The last Talk the Thrones for a little while House of Our Deep Dies coming at you

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