The Ringer-Verse - ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ Season Finale Deep Dive | House of R

Episode Date: February 12, 2022

Mal and Joanna take one last ride on the rancor to break down the thrilling conclusion to the first season of "The Book of Boba Fett". They discuss the divisive season (04:21), the finale reunion we've all been waiting for, and Boba's final battle stand (36:23). They also theorize about the future of Star Wars TV with Ben Lindbergh (1:49:34) and answer your questions with Jomi. Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Producer: Steve Ahlman Guest: Ben Lindbergh Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The watch is the latest and the greatest in pop culture from best friends Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald. Join them as they discuss TV, movies, music, and much more. Check out the watch on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required.

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I'm happy to see you too. I didn't know when I'd see you again. It's okay. Yeah, I missed you too, buddy. but uh we're in a bit of a bind here right now be careful you keep your head down you stay hidden until the fight's over

hey that's the shirt you got the shirt welcome back into the ringerverse your nexus podcast feed for all things fandom I'm Joanna Robinson and joining me today now that she's figured out how to transport

a snoozing rancor from downtown Mosasba. It's Mallory Rubin. I'm Mallory. How you doing? Joe, that's the shirt. You got the shirt. How fancy I am. Yeah, so we're here to talk about the book Boba Fett, the finale specifically, but also sort of the whole season.

Ben Lindberg will be here to do some forward-looking chat with us. I am in the host chair this week because, you know, Mallory is just a little overwhelmed by seeing this reunion between Mando and Grogu so she needs to take a seat and let me drive the car for a little bit so let me get a few

announcements out of the way. Number one, programming reminders. Monday, so soon, it'll just be two days until you hear from us again. Monday, it's a House of Midnight episode,

I'll be here, trials will be here, Van will be here, and we'll be talking about all the goodies that are going to drop during the Super Bowl. You know,

we usually get some fun trailers, teasers, tidbits. So we will be there not to talk about the game because, as you know, I know nothing about sports, but about the accompanying entertainment that we will get there. And then the other thing that we want to say, of course, before we dive into everything, is your friendly neighborhood. Spoiler warning. Everything, and I mean everything that exists in the Star Wars canon and Legends is on the table.

a book, a comic book, a video game, an animated series, a plush doll that we bought at Disneyland one time, anything, anything and everything, a Lego set. It's all on the table, so proceed with more caution than Luke effing Skywalker did when he threw a baby in an X-wing and sent it off unattended. I thought you were going to say to proceed with more caution than the Gimorians did when they knew. neared the edge of that cliff. That was actually my first, Joe. That was my first draft, actually. And then I decided to switch it to Luke because I thought it was expecting, actually. I was going to talk about my poor dearly departed pig boys.

We'll get to them. We'll get, we'll get to my poor pig boys. I just thought I would, I would sort of wind you up with a little Luke Skywalker frustration first. Okay. So we're here to talk about Chapter 7 in the name of honor, directed by, oh, oh dear, Robert Rodriguez. written by John Favreau,

and it is a one-hour-long episode, baby. A nice, chunky, chunky, rancor-sized episode. Joe, you know an episode of television is long if it's half the length of a house of R-Pod. We're laughing. I don't think Steve is, but we're juggling. All right, so before we get into the specifics of the episode, including the death of my pig boys

and the confirmed death of your gal, Flipp. This was a tough one for you, Joe. Charles the FIP I lost so many friends this week we want to get like a sort of

our bigger picture thoughts on the season as a whole on the finale we have to talk about the elephant

in the room which is not the rancor but Steve Allman's nemesis Robert Rodriguez listen

I want to be very clear and I said this before when we were giving a lot of credit to Bryce Dallas Howard

for an episode we really loved I don't know how much credit or blame we can give any individual

director on an episode of a Star Wars show. It takes a village to make these episodes. But what has been true is that the Robert Rodriguez directed episodes, which are one, three, and seven. It's not been my favorite, your favorite, anyone listening's favorite, I think. So he's getting like the brunt of the blame. Mal, do you think that's fair? How do you feel about it? Boy, what a hot place to start.

What a spicy place to start. We've got the spice that the Pikes are trading and the spice that you're kicking off the pod. I kicked over a chest of spicy takes. Joe, let me just say this. It's great to be here with you. Our first full season of a Star Wars show together. I want to just say to you and the listeners, I'm a little under the weather today. And if I'm a little sluggish or a little, if it's possible to be less coherent.

than usual. Then that's why. And I feel compelled to note that up front. But, of course, had to be here with you to talk about the conclusion of this season of television. I was eager to ask you that same question about Rodriguez's episode and his role in the show more broadly. Because the point that you make is a good one. Is it also fair to note that he's not merely a director on his three episodes, right? he has a larger role as an EP on the show and a larger guiding hand in shaping it.

I think that, you know, in ways both, as you noted, good and bad, this has surfaced as kind of a through line of our discussion this season and surely will in future seasons of Star Wars TV. It's a little bit hard to parse exactly who is responsible for what. I think that the way you already said it is what I would say, too. His episodes were not my favorite. I think that there are a lot of different factors that are worth assessing when we talk about. not only the finale, but the season as a whole, because I think that in many ways, the finale was like a microcosm of the season as a whole, which is to say that it was a

mixed bag, right? It was uneven. It was a little bit disjointed. The highs, you know, the Midnight Boys use the word roller coaster, and that's exactly how I feel about it, too. I think that the highs that the finale reached were incredibly high, and I loved. And when the roller coaster goes down the track, it's a little bit jarring and sometimes a little bit confounding. And I think that that was true inside of the finale and for me true across the season. Rewatching the season was an interesting experience because I think that there were

were questions that I had after the finale that, and this is, we talk about the old times as often the case, right? That bugged me a little bit less after rewatching the finale and after rewatching the season. But I also don't think you should have to rewatch a season of television for that to be true, particularly when one of those questions

is so firmly anchored inside of the titular character, which is like something we're going to talk about a lot today. Do we really understand the evolution of Boba's motivations, how he got to where he is, and why? What he thinks about that, how he is kind of wrestling with the questions that are on his mind. When a character like Cadbean voices aloud in the finale of the show, what's your angle?

It's hard not to think, hey, he's voicing that on behalf of all of us. And I think that if the characters are then really interrogating that, it can actually be quite compelling. And if they aren't, then it can take you out of the experience a little bit. So that's kind of my sweeping answer to your question. I can highlight some of the things I loved about the finale and some that I liked a little bit less as another quick teaser. But what's your thought on that dynamic among the creative team and how this all shook out? I mean, I think I wouldn't call it. I mean, I think, okay, so a couple things worth remembering is that, like, look at someone's a really secretive organization

and sometimes in really positive ways because it results in a bunch of surprises for us. But it can be hard to figure out who made what decision when. You know, if you're a fan of the film Rogue One, you should know that the credit director on that film, like, that film was massively reshot. So if you give all the credit to the credit director, you're missing out on a major creative force behind that film. And so these are the questions that we have around Lucasfilm. A roller coaster is not the word that I would use for this because I have, I think usually

on a roller coaster I have fun the entire time up and down. There's the anticipation and the release and all that sort of stuff like that. And that was not my experience with the finale. But like you, I did have a much better time the second time around and was able to focus on the things that I enjoyed and was less wound up about the things. that I didn't. But the, it goes back to, I think, some of the conversations you and I had separately about the end of Game of Thrones, you know, a podcast you and I spent years talking about. And that's a show that I think went through a major evolution of what kind of show it was over the

seasons from where it started when you and I started covering it to the end. And something that you and I both talked about a lot in our respective podcast is the idea of sort of spectacle versus substance. And I think if like, you know, I think the best version of anything has some of both, right? my preference is if I can only have one I would take substance you know and and there are some people who if they could only take one they would take spectacle that's what they love to see in their entertainment and so if you're a spectacle person this episode which is essentially like the live action version of I mean except it's done with pixels so it's not live action but like you know the quote unquote live action version of

those guys those those those like now 40 50 year old men that we've been talking about who smash their kenner Star Wars toys together in the backyard when they were kids. You know what I mean? Like, wouldn't it be cool to see a Red Corps fight like a droid? And you're like, I mean, if you love Pacific Rim or whatever, like, yes, that's really cool. And it looked very cool. But when we think about the story and in there, it's a story I really care about, which is Mando

and Groku. So that's in there, too. Did I want it to go down like this? Like, is this how I wanted the reunion to go? No. Not on the back of a speeder when, when like Amy Sedaris's character literally says, like, save your, you know, see. Yeah, save your tender moment. I'm like, no, I want to, I want to bask in the tender moment.

Like, that's, that's the show that, that I want to watch. That's Manilurian I want. For people who love the finale, they want to maybe they want to watch a rancor fight a droid. And I think it's cool, but it's not, for me, it's not ideal Star Wars. What do you think about that? Oh, okay. There is a lot there to parse. This is going to be a, this is going to be a fascinating chat.

today. I'm really excited about this one. So, Joe, you know this about me. I've got a Grogu and a BBA and an Obi-1 behind me. I've got a mule near behind me. I'm building another Star Wars Lego set right now. I love Star Wars toys. I think that's great. I was delighted to see some of those toyetic, hey, we know you're going to buy our birch elements surface in the finale. It's like, hey, I will definitively have. that in one ship with sweet little grogoo pressing his face against his bubble, holding the razor crest bubble in his hand, asking dad to go faster, I will have that in my home. Like, I can tell you that definitively now. If that is for sale somewhere, I will have it in my home, right? But of course, I agree with you. And I think that that's like, that's the thing that's a little bit hard to shake is

that those elements not only shouldn't be mutually exclusive and the best version of this thing, they will ultimately enhance each other. And we don't have to look far inside of finalees in Star Wars or inside of battle-heavy episodes in Star Wars TV to find examples of where that's worked really well. Like, I think we could just cite the two Mandalorian season finalees, which were very battle-heavy. And, you know, contrast the very sincere thrill you've felt. when IG 11 and Grogu zipped in to town to how you felt when the mods were vespiriding in. And it's like, this is just not going to go. Well, what is the plan here exactly?

And some of that is about the pace and flow, the choreography of the fight. I have some COVID-centric questions that I'm curious to ask you about from your TV expertise perspective. because one of the things that I found a little bit, a little bit like on mooring watching the episode was just the volume, like the scale of it. There were so few people, which would have stood out anyway, but was really kind of heightened

because of the number of times that the characters kept saying, we have no chance without reinforcements. We need these reinforcements. We need these reinforcements. And then the garrison arise. It's 10 people. So is there a chance?

make this without some dusty moisture farmers from Freetown on the back of one truck. Yeah, exactly. So stuff like that was just sort of strange and I think like hampered the flow of the episode. But I also think there are examples of Robert Rodriguez to get back to him, directed episodes of Star Wars TV that are battle-centric that are electric. Like the tragedy, his episode of Mandalorian season two is a battle-heavy episode that I loved. And so I think that connects to what you're saying about this just like brew of factors. and it gets back to that larger question that people have been asking us about

and discussing all season long, do we think that the season was always supposed to go this way? You know, we talked when we potted about chapters five and six about how much we loved them. And, you know, one of the things that I said last week and believed fervently and still do is that I would not have traded those episodes for more boba-centric episodes.

I think, if anything, the finale just reinforced that. But I also think it's true that, returning to a boba-centric episode when the last time we really spent with him with his arc was at the end of chapter four when he is making a very clearly ill-fated pitch to the three families

what ends up happening is that we end up in a finale where some of it works wonderfully. I could not possibly, let me just say this, I could not possibly have loved the grog who did stuff more. We'll talk about it more as we go. Do I wish it had happened elsewhere? I'm eager to discuss that with you more, but I think that the parts of this

that featured Grogo, I just adored and I'm such a sucker for it. I don't know if that'll ever change. It's just like, just a wonder to behold every time he's on our screen. I really liked most of the two CAD Boba showdowns.

I have a couple notes, including the fact that I don't think Boba should have been able to kill Cadbane and also don't think Cadban is necessarily dead. We'll get there. I loved the major domo's usage in this episode. I mean, just hysterical.

I loved Pelly. It was great to see BD. The rancor is like emblematic of both buckets of what worked and what didn't. Fun to see. Really fun to see. Great to see that payoff. Chekhov's rancor. There he is, right?

Calling back to Boba's holiday special ride. Calling back to even something like him mounting the sand, the sand creature at the end of chapter one, like similar camera angles even with like the turn of the head and him being present mounted on top. But the character choices that got us there, those moments of bonding that shared arc and evolution, we don't get to see the training. We, chapter three ends with we begin today. The seat, that scene ends with we begin today. We don't see any of that.

Not even a, not even a montage. We get the rancourt shaking the floor in chapter four, right, during the family recruits. We don't get to see the training. I had so many questions. The battle itself in the episode is the thing that just didn't work as much for me. The character choices, because it's not just. the choreography and like and filming and directing aspect of it, the character choices that lead to how the battle unfurls were utterly confounding to me. And then, you know, just some some

questions about Bobo's overall arc. I think that in terms of the lack of big reveals in this finale, not getting Kira, not getting a lot of the stuff that we speculated, I'll just say like I'm not personally in a, oh no, like we Ralph Bonert ourself place with it. I'm fine with that. I think that the choosing to actually establish the Pikes as the big bads, as we talked about at the very, you know, beginning of the season, I actually like the idea of trying to establish more character sets and villains fully inside of the universe. The question, and this will be the through line today, is was it done effectively and satisfyingly enough for it to fully land, and particularly on the heels of the highs of chapters five and six? So some stuff I loved,

there's a lot for me to respond to there. Let me zoom back to the beginning where you were asking about COVID questions, right? Like, so what's definitely true of all TV being filmed in COVID is that sacrifices have to be made in terms of like number of people that can be present in a scene or the way that those things are shots. And there's a lot of creative ways to get around that. Like, for example, I really enjoyed watching the screeners for Ted Lasso because like all the crowd stuff is done like on CG. So when you watch a Ted Lasso screener with none of the digital effects done, it's just an empty stadium. They're just like running around, you know what I mean?

And it's like, and they digitally put that in in a way that like you can't see when you're watching the episode. But it's definitely just a funny thing to think about. So like the, you know, COVID has been taking a huge toll on these crowd scenes. But there are creative ways to write around it. And I would point to the end of Mandalorian season two, which was also filmed during COVID, as an example, because that's actually a very low bat. body count climactic finale. You got a bunch of, you know, troopers that they're fighting.

But in terms of... Helps to be in a ship instead of out in the streets of both. That's what I guess. It's a siege of a ship. So it's a very contained, like, tense interaction. And there's confined spaces and one-on-one battles, stuff like that. When you decide to make... In COVID, when you decide to make your battle episode on a, you know, not just

one street of Mosaspa, but you're going to send your troops to various corners of Mosaspa. I have some notes on the battle strategy. I mean, it feels like there's only 50 people in the entire town is what this all feels like, you know what I mean? And they're like, the mods are like,

we're going to patrol this entire district, or like, let's take, you know, the Midnight Boys guest, Chupac, as an example, he alone is going to patrol this whole section. And then he's taken down, But there's like the numbers game.

Just it makes no sense to me at all in any of this. And so I just feel like in the writing of it, this isn't just a directing issue. This is a conception issue. When you're like, all right, we want to do this big finale where Boba makes a stand. Okay, make it like a saloon fight almost. Make it like, you know, people are coming in through the windows or something like that. Like make it a contained thing. So we're not feeling that empty space so much in the battle of it all.

And that sounds nitpicky, but it. ends up giving the whole thing a really shambly loose feeling. You know what I mean? When you set up your episode that way, I just, I think if you're, if you're dealing with the logistics of COVID, you have to deal with them very creatively. And, you know, that's, yeah, I don't think it's nitpicky at all in this context because I think the, the episode sort of welcomes us to think about that because there's so much time spent talking about where they should be and why and talking about the people that they're trying to

protect, right? So you kind of can't forget that variable. Like, it's actually drawn into the core plot. And I don't know if we want to hit that aspect of it here. Or maybe we can circle back to the, you know, true, like, thinking face emoji response to why Boba would listen to the mods, imploring him to stay in the sanctuary instead of holding up in his palace, like why he would be that impressionable why they would welcome the battle into the very streets that they're saying they're eager to protect, but because that is actually like text, right, the discussions about where they are, who's around them, who they're trying to protect, why, what it means to have the battle in a certain location. Of course we should be thinking about that. It would be,

it would be strange not to, I think. The other element of that is that when you have these very, like basically small meleys spread out over the city it reveals a narrative flaw in the season which is that if I cared about the mods a lot more

I mean I care about my poor Gammorians a lot and I care about black Cresantin mostly because of the way the Midnight Boys have built him up but we haven't spent that much time with him right? The mods barely any time with them. Incredible

midnight boys interview with Carrie Jones by the way If anybody hasn't listened to that, you got to check it out. It is wonderful this Wednesday's episodes. Great episode. But the most baffling example of this is a moment where a girl, a woman from Freetown, who we have spent no time with. Joe. Joe. I know.

It sounds like you're saying my name, but that's the character's name. And you wouldn't know it because he spent no time with her. So she and Drash, you know, the head mod woman, do this dramatic. you know, sniper stand thing, we've been given no opportunity to care about these characters. So why do I care that these two women are in this big dramatic situation?

If I had spent any time with them, meaningful time with them in the season, that's why you have to narratively, you know, like in something like, you know, the reason Thrones is on my mind is because Van brought up the Battle of Bastards in Wednesday's episode. But like, you know,

the reason that the best of Thrones battle stuff works is because of your emotional investment in the characters. And so what really works in this episode is when Peli Moto speeds in the town with Grogo and all of a sudden you're terrified because Grogu's in the heat of battle and you're like, you're so scared. And Grogo and his dad, like Grogo was watching his dad in danger and Grogo's saving his dad. Like all of that.

Oh, my God. All of that. So good. But then they, you know, but then they do something baffling, like send a character I am actually kind of emotionally invested in, Fennig Shand, away for 20 minutes of the episode. She's not even in the battle at all. She had to go to another town to assassinate some people. So she's just gone.

And instead, I'm stuck with some Freetowners who I don't even really know. And so it's just, I, that's, that's to me when spectacle starts to feel empty, when you haven't done the character work to get me emotionally invested. We're going to dive into some of those particular battle deployment. questions as we as we go today. But I'm curious to know just in a big picture sense, how are you feeling about the season as a whole now that it's over? And like in general, but particularly the question that we talked about the last couple weeks, did it make sense to, as much as we loved them, did it make sense to so fully shift the focus of the book of Boba

Fett to Grogu and Dinn and Luke and Asoka and other characters? I was really, I, I, I, I, I'll just keep repeating that those are two of my favorite hours. I'll start with TV ever. So I'm delighted that we got them and would not trade them for more of the episodes that we got before or after. But I do think it's worth talking about just because the flow of the season is so unique.

And I was struck, like, in the closing credits of the finale when the theme song changes instead of, to the point where we're actually hearing the words, Boba, Boba, Fett, right? The character name. And I was like, do, is because we need to remember who the show is supposed to be about at the very end. I feel like I'm being a little harsher than I actually feel about it.

Like, I actually liked the season. And I thought the finale was okay. And I liked the season of TV. Like, I had fun rewatching it. I will certainly come back to it in the end. I think I'm higher on it. Higher on it than you certainly. It's not, like, it's not close in my mind to Mando's seasons one or two, not close.

But the parts of it that worked, I thought worked so well that I will be. eager to return to them. And the parts that didn't work as well, I'm almost like viewing anthropologically. Like I'm eager to like keep revisiting them and processing them and thinking about them. And particularly eager to see, this is like a show where I will consider my assessment of it open. Right.

And I will be thinking about it as we get future installments of this show potentially and other shows to come. Because I think that that will inform both in terms of the character arcs, but also more broadly the way that these, the shared universe inside of the Mandalorian timeline functions. Do other shows work this way in terms of structure? Is this really like a kind of isolated outlier? That will I think ultimately like determine where I land on this.

And again, like mixed bag is I think the summation. The way it will always be probably is that you will love something more than I do. And that's just the nature, our natures. And I love that actually about us. But what I think is true is that the, I do. I do. Like, why would you want two people feel the exact same way about something? That being said, like, I think that, okay, I'm going to drop a phrase that people who are close to me in my life hear me say on a regular basis. I was watching a TikTok the other day.

And someone was saying, someone was talking about- Because you keep sending them to me and I love it. Someone was saying, you know, Peter Pascal was, was, you know, is Peter Pascal tired because he's carrying this entire season on his back? And I'm like, well, that's not fair for a couple reasons. And I'll shout out to specific reasons. Pader does such a good job with the vocalization of this role. But the physical Mando performance is Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder, who barely get any acknowledgement for all the incredible physical work that they do to embody this character.

And I want to shout out another, you know, performer, which is Doreen Kingy, who did the physical work for Cad Bain. and like the voice is incredible, but like the posturing and the pacing and all that sort of. Like those silent physical performances are a huge part of what makes this compelling. But I, you know, it's, it's unfair and our job

to Monday morning quarterback, to like finale quarterback a season of television. But if it was the plan all along, and I'm not convinced it was, but if it was a plan all along to have Mando and Gros and their reunion in this end of this season, wouldn't it have made so much more sense to balance that cocktail by having bits of Mando and Gros throughout the season separate. Mando, you cut to, you know, cut to Mando doing, you know, like, well, we'll spend time with Boban Tatoo,

that's fine. But cut to Mando doing something and we see that he's lonely and sad and maybe a little angry. And cut to Grosue training, we see that he's, like, lonely and sad. and Mrs. Didn't, like, show us the absence. Show us that separation. And so then it won't, it won't feel like all of a sudden we're watching two episodes of a different show entirely when they jam it at the end here. And so if they had sort of shaking the cocktail up that way throughout the season, then that

feels like an assured, confident season of television. Yes, we're going to give you Boba and his journey in Tatouin because this is interesting to us. but also we are telling you as John Favre of Dave Filoni that when we give you a show that's in the Mandoverse, Mando and Grogu are going to be there too, you know? And that's how these equations are going to be balanced going forward. I'm never going to be mad about that because any second I get to spend with Grogu is a precious moment to me.

But that's why when you look back at this season, despite its highs, it doesn't feel like a good coherent season of television. That's what I would say. I am reticent to agree only for one reason. And I agree in all other respects. And the one reason is simply, and this is just pure stubbornness on my part, I don't want to dilute. I don't want to dilute the quality as we shake that cocktail and move the ingredients around

of chapters five and six, which are so special to me. but I agree completely that that sort of structural retooling would have immensely helped, not only the other episodes, but the flow of the season overall. You're definitely right. And if I were mature enough to this is C and five and six dip in quality slightly to account for that recalibration, it would help immensely. I think, again, like, I rewatch the whole season and I was really struck by how jarring it was to go from, four to then seven in terms of boba.

And then the theoretical nominal central thrust of this season of TV. And some of that is expectation setting. Some of it is structure and intent. Like a lot of what we invested in this, this, of course, is something that we agree about, I think, and we'll talk about more today. Like, we were really invested in super high on early in this season. this decision, this seeming desire to flesh out elements of Tattoine inside of the Star Wars canon,

the Tuskins, these intriguing mentions of the oceans that used to cover the planet, all of these nods not only to the lore and the history of a place, but to the people who have populated it and given it its sense of self, And to get to the finale and have our worst fear in that respect confirmed, which is that the Tuskins were in fact not coming back and were in fact not only initially massacred to borrow the show's own phrasing, but then to have that massacre resurface in the finale once again

to attempt to unmoor and then motivate the primary character is like just a huge bummer because part of what should have been And I like the word that you use, like confidence. Part of what should have been part of that really confident storytelling choice to set something in a place that has been so central to Star Wars for so long, but intentionally focus on aspects other than the ones we've seen before. It's not a Skywalker story. It's about all the other parts of Tatooine that you didn't get to spend time understanding before.

And there are some thematic payoffs with, you know, Boba and his Gaffy Stick and the showdown with Cad Bates. but they're undercut, I think, right? Because the... And, you know, we'll talk about that scene, I think, in more detail later. But, like, they're undercut because it feels like that was ultimately the purpose of those choices in the first place. Wait, I have one more quick big picture question.

I'm sorry. I'm so undisciplined. My God. If I made a season of television, it would be a mess. No, it would be... It would just be grogoo, like, babbling and, like, playing with ball-shaped items. And you'd just be like... That sounds like...

like an Oscar winner. I'm really curious to know if you think that this, and I don't necessarily mean everything we actually got here. I mean more returning to Boba Fett as a character and featuring him in a story should have been a movie instead of a season of TV. Where do you land after seeing this? I don't think that would have been a great movie is what I think. Not as this unfolds.

It's just bizarre to me. Like, you know, as you and I were going through and filling out our notes and telling up all the myriad of references that are in this episode to the Godfather, to a bunch of other things. But a lot of Godfather in this episode. And my offer is this. Nothing. You and I talked a lot about the Godfather at the beginning of the season, too. And it's bizarre to me that they have all these references in here without giving us an actual crime story. You know what I mean?

they just throw these crime story references in here, but we're not watching Boba Crime Lord really at all, you know? And so it's just... That's in part because of what you just outlined about the structure of the show, but it's in part because Boba himself doesn't know if he wants that.

That's like the central thing that I can't shake, right? And we'll, you know, the whole like spice of it all on the place inside of this episode is really interesting to parse in terms of like, can we really properly track his evolution? a character who opens the show in Chapter 1 by saying out loud, I'm a crime, I'm a crime lord, gets to the end,

and says, I just want to help these people. And those are not the same thing. And I don't know if he totally understands that, right? Yeah. You know, the question of, do I want a movie of Boba Fett? I mean, do you want a movie of Boba Fett? No, I'm ultimately glad that this was a television show. That's part of why I wanted to ask,

because I think that's been a popular talking point. And I understand why. I think that the fact that it feels disjointed, you know, leads to some deduction that a more streamlined version maybe would avoid some of those problems. How exactly do all of these elements conduct? I think, again, I'm like excited. Even though the show was not an A plus, I am still really excited about building out the stories in the Mando timeline. Like, I cannot wait for Mando season three. I cannot wait for Soka. And I'm curious to see how Boba and Fennick and the characters inside of this show are deployed

again in the future, either in another season of this show or in other stories. Don't say another season of this show. I just don't think it's earned that at all. Do you know what I mean? But putting them in other things, for sure. I want to see Fenwick again. I want to see Boba again. I don't ever want to see those mod kids again, ever in my life.

I want to spend all the rest of my days looking at Cobb Vance. Why did he have a shirt on in the back of the tank? It was a turtle neck too. Why couldn't he have been in the same little pair of underwear that everyone else is in. I really, I was obviously immensely relieved to see that he was in there, to see him in the tank, to see him with the modifier, delighted to know that we'll be getting mod, mod, Vant in the future, thrilling. But come on. Come on. Does he need to be fully kidded out in a turtleneck? That's a great, it's a great question. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis

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I don't negotiate with gutless murderers. If that's not the quack to call in the stiffling, slimy. Clear out. All right, so let's talk about the opposite. Okay, so... Take us through it. Boba and his pals mid-s sanctuary, as you already said, they make this sort of baffling decision to have a massive war

in the town that they are trying to protect. this is the mod-led decision. Then we get to, this is where I want to talk with bigger pictures, we get to that first big reveal. You already talked about this. You talked about the Tuskins and how it feels dissatisfying

that they were in the end. I don't know, Frid is the word we want to use, but essentially there to just motivate blah, but I think my main objection beyond that premise is it also just feels inert. There are a series of things that happen this episode that just feel like,

yes, it's exactly as we predicted didn't expect, I mean, like, you know, cure is not here. Okay, fine. But like, you know, oh, yes, it was the Pikes who framed the Nictos and Cadbane tries to use it to get a rise at a boba. And then he doesn't really. And that's the payoff of this long plot. Like, that's, that's what it was all for.

It was for this. I mean, that's, that's, that's the issue for me. Anything else you want to say about that, about like, how the tough can, how it all, went down with the Tuscan review. I'll share some more thoughts, I think, on the gaffy stick part when we get to the Boba Cadbane Showdown later. I actually just want to

once more talk about the actual battle plan if you'll indulge me for a minute before we just... I can't get over this. Joanna, I can't get over it. Help me get over this. Not only that, but the way was done because it was...

It was done with a Fenne shand voiceover, and she's trying to give us like the Danny Ocean, here's all of our roles in the casino for the heist sort of voiceover, right? But without the like fun and it's just sort of like the mods will be here and BK will be here and the Gimorians will be here. We're sending two people here, one person here, five people here, and definitely the people who grudgingly promised us under threat of rancor that they wouldn't turn of us, will definitely not turn on us and it will be fine.

Exactly. So, and like, I'm glad you mentioned Fenwick, because while we are, you know, certainly rooting for Bobo, we've been, we've dunked on our guy a few times this season. You know, we've questioned some of his decision-making, as have the other characters in the show with him constantly. Are you sure that's the right call? Fenwick has some bad battle planning.

happening in this episode too. It's on both of them. The decisions that they make are not sound. When Boba opens and they're holdup in the sanctuary and there's no mention at all of Garza Fwip or anything that happened. And it's like, okay, so that was also, and I really hope that we'll see Garcifup again. I think that we could see her potentially in Obi-Wan or another show earlier in the timeline. But it's another thing where that was merely a plot. mechanic to show that Boba was vulnerable because he boasts about being a protector. You're under my protection. And then he isn't.

And so he's like standing in the charred embodiment of his failure, right? Of his inadequacy, which again is sort of like thematically potent and compelling, actually, except that the characters aren't really thinking about it that way. And then later in the, yeah, later in the episode, when the families betray him and Dinjar and says it was a smart move. And Bob was like, yep. Then I'm like, in what universe then did you think they were not going to do that to you? Very, very tough.

Very tough. Like, he opens by saying even if we win, there might not be anything left of this city. And so like right away, sort of like, well, why is this the move that you're making? Why is this the decision that you're making? And I kind of couldn't shake that all episodes. So when the mods convince him, D rash says, if you want to, abandon most espon hide in your fortress go ahead. We're staying.

The people who live here need our protection will stay. But the result of that decision is putting those people at risk. This destruction and wreckage all across the streets that they're claiming to care about. Go to the palace. Whole up. First of all, high ground, right? Second of all, the pikes know where they are. Now, we have access to information that the characters in the sanctuary don't because we follow CAD into the Pike headquarters in Mosisley and hear that whole exchange with the mayor, that fucking mayor, ma'am.

The confluence, though, of all of these variables where it's like, why are you letting the kids talk you into staying there? One, two, everything we talked about about production limitations aside, why do they actually think that enough people from Freetown are coming to make a difference? That's actually weird. They say they're doomed without those reinforcements. Why do they think that those backroom people can make more of a difference than either of the following, the Rancor, who was deployed late in the episode for dramatic effect, which again, I found dramatically compelling.

I concede. But way too late. No reason Boba should have waited that long. Doesn't prepare the people he's in the battle with for that eventuality. So they all end up firing on their own teammate. railing the rancor, what the fuck is that? Insane. How about the ships are Guy Boba Fett wrongly murdered from above?

We've been talking about this all week. Leges! When he runs back to the palace for reinforcement, why does he pick the murder kitten and not the ship that he can just hover safely above not cause any property damage? Din and Boba had a conversation. conversation about the ship. Now, it's not exactly like, hey, let's go get this and use it as a weapon. Mando's like, we could escape, right? And that's not what Boba wants to do because, again,

they're his people. But wouldn't that be a moment to think, oh, but I could, I might come in handy here. Also, DIN has a ship. Now, people are moving between most Espa and most Isle so freely in this episode that I consider no retort that falls into. Yeah, but Thing X is over here so valid. Like, none. Oh, yeah. Fennick gives it, does a real gendry run over to Moss Isley, right? But she gets there much slower than characters get from Most Isley to Most Espa. Like, Bain gets there much faster than in the other direction. So that's a little bit strange too. And then, like, the, you know, the annihilator droids that come into play in battle are, like, really, really cool. But it's this whole sequence where, again, it's sort of like you're destroying the very place that you just made it.

decision to swear to protect. And you already mentioned the three-family turn, but it's like dividing their numbers. You know what it reminded me of? It made me think of the Sinister Six and how this is something that's like Marvel comic fans, Spider-Man comic fans love to talk about, right? The Sinister Six forge as an alliance because they recognize that they cannot beat Spider-Man on their own. And then the first thing that they do is say, well, let's go battle him one-on-one. Let's go to, let's take turns. Let's, let's line up instead of doing this as a team. Ninja, movie ninja approach.

If you're that worried about your numbers, don't spread out across the entire city. No, it's probably. Here's. Cresantin around the transdotions when they're sworn rivals. Here's my, here's my cat literally arrives. And they said, I thought nobody could sneak up on us. It's like a funny moment, but they're dunking on themselves. He doesn't, he doesn't, like, slink in.

He just walks down the street. Like, you love it. What are you talking about? No, the, um, let me offer up an alternative battle plan. Stay inside of the highly reinforced palace and fly your ship above it. And when the pikes come for you, which they will, because they are as determined to eliminate you as you are them, shoot them from above and have no harm befall you or the city. Just the thought.

Almost. No? But I'll yes and that and say, do all that. And send Fanix Shan right away to just murder everyone. I mean, something she should have. done in episode two, honestly. She does it in like five seconds. War over, you know?

Can I give you my theory on this? Tell me if you think this is way off base. I don't even mean this as a critique. Genuinely, this is just something that I found myself thinking about as I was watching. It felt like in a few different moments in the episode, Fenwick being sent off

to kind of a solo side plot. One example. Mando taking all of this fire from the pikes and falling to the ground and just seeming a little bit diminished. Oh yeah, yeah. I like this theory.

Yeah, that's a good theory. Taking down Cadbane, etc., etc., etc. It just felt like Boba coming out on the raincore, even though it didn't make sense in terms of the order of like the sequencing. Yeah. It felt like they needed to,

this is something the Midnight Boys I've been talking about all season, make Boba seem really cool again in the finale, like really seem like a badass, and that part of the way to do that was to, like, remove some of the adjacencies that make other characters look cooler than him. Right, because the problem,

right at the beginning of the season of television, is that Boba and Fenwick are surrounded in the streets, and, like, Fenwick does some murder parkour and looks really great, and Boba just looks like a chump, right? Whereas in this episode, I will say, when Mando and Boba deploy their jet packs at the same time and then start using their arm, that looks great.

My guy is firing off knee rockets like a fucking baller. It's awesome. A beautiful, like, pose. He struck a pose. It was incredible. Also, like, Mando can't ride the rank work, which is important, not only because it gives that contrast with Bobo, but because it actually did feel in line with existing canon,

where, like, Mando and his own show is hesitant to ride the blurg. And Queal is like, come on, you should be able to do that. think of the Mythosaur history, and it sets up how fulfilling that will be in the future and also the bonding between the rancor and Boa. But, like, Mando shouldn't have been able to do that and he wasn't. But still, it's like one more kind of enhancing element, I think. I think you make a good point. But I, but that's terrible storytelling.

We need to remove the female lead of the show for 20 minutes of the episode because she makes our male lead look like a chump. Like, that's terrible storytelling. You know what I mean? But here we are. Some, some true, uh, um, true viciousness from Fenwick when she got to the Pike headquarters. That was like actually shocking.

Let's talk about something that happens really early, which is that we get a shot of an X wing with. Hell yeah. And you could see R2. So I was like, oh, this is it. Okay, Grogu's coming back. I didn't know if Luke was with him, but I was like, Grogu's coming back. Like, here he is.

It's come. Yeah. When it was. I gasped. When it was revealed that Luke, after Grogu pointed to the mythrill, and Luke in a scene that we didn't get to see, I guess, angrily tossed Groko into an ex-week. He was like, fine.

Go back to your dad and sent him without adult supervision. How did you feel? How'd you feel? You can't do that, Mal. It just depends on the moment whether or not you call this thing a baby or say that he's 50. How did I feel? What a question. How did I feel?

Well, Joanna, when I saw the X-wing, I gasped aloud. I genuinely could not believe. Because you know immediately, you know what it means. Grogo has made his choice. Before we even realize that Luke's not there, Grogo was made his choice. He has returned. We are going to see the reunion in this episode.

I was shocked. Because I thought for sure, I've been shocked every time we've gotten something that I thought for sure we would see in... Mando. You know, we talked about this with Charles on the mailbag. top of the week and then we were all in agreement. Like that will definitively happen in the Mandalorian season three. And it didn't.

It happened here. So I was processing my absolute like euphoric delight knowing I was going to get Grogo in this episode and get to spend time with him. And I think that he dramatically heightened my enjoyment of the episode. So I'm really glad he was here. I could not possibly have loved as always the Pelly element of this more. Like the heart and the humor that she brings in those sequences. we get the, first of all, she thinks that the authorities have found her, right, for not having

like her certification set. And she's got, you know, asking her droids to cover everything up. We get to see BD again, just a delight. And then the way that we see first R2, as you noted, and then Grogu's head, his little, his little Kepi rising. And then later when she climbs up, the X-Wing and looks down at him and he's just this little, this little like, her. Hershey kiss sitting in the scene of the X-wing, and she calls him bright eyes. And we get that like meadow wink to the audience with her just iconic line about his name. Grogu, whoa, that's a terrible name. Sorry about that, pal.

No way am I calling you that. And then sees the best car and says something shiny. Look at you all fancy. Like she feeds him. I wish more people would feed him. He's always hungry. He's a growing 50-year-old baby boy. Couldn't have loved any of it more.

did I judge Luke, which was your actual question. Yep. Next time I'm not feeling well. I'm just going to call you and say, Mal, can you describe a grogoose scene to me? Literally anyone of your choosing. It's giving me, or maybe you'll be like, do frog eggs for me this week. Oh my God. It's just giving me the energy that I didn't know I could tap into today.

I just love him so much. I just love him so much. I had a couple, I had some Luke dissonance in this moment. I had a couple different thoughts. On the one hand, I was embarrassed for him and disappointed in him because he's a petty, petty baby. And he was so hurt by Grogo's decision that he cast him off. Now, maybe that's not what happened. Maybe one day we'll be treated to a scene where we see that they had a very mature exchange

and a feast of dungworms and eggs and all of Grogu's other favorites. and they really talk through what this choice would mean for Grogo's future, what other avenues he would have to continue his training in the future. Or, or Luke said, all right, I have shit to do, R2, can you take care of it? But here's the thing that you know about me. You knew that, one, I wasn't going to answer your question for seven minutes because I was just going to talk about Grogo and that happened. Two, you know that I love R2 and I trust him.

And so I feel like Grogu was not cast aside into danger and despair. He was put with R2. He was entrusted into R2's care. I trust R2 with my life. I trust R2 more than I trust Luke. I mean, that's a fair assessment. But he didn't even have his seatbelt on, Mallory. The baby did not even have his seatbelt on in that X-wing.

I have a lot of notes. Maybe he took it off. He crawled out of his little razor-crest seat all the time. Maybe Luke buckled him in. And Grogu took the seatbelt off because Grogu, who I adore, is not a very disciplined passenger. He likes to move around in the cockpit. We've seen it before. I'm just saying.

We've seen it before. He's a restless little 50-year-old. Okay, so when Cadbane rolls up to the sanctuary. Yes. It gave me real lame-Miss, you at the Barricades listened to this vibes. Mallory's wearing her Cabbane shirt again. I had to break it out again. I just love him so much.

But you know, you are on your own, you have no friends. Like, I killed, I killed Cobbant. I didn't believe him. But he's like, I killed Cobbant. How are you doing in that moment? That I was fine. It wasn't until the Weewe showed up and was like, yeah, they did him dirty that I had a real. Gunned him down in cold blood.

That was a rough one. I was like, they would not fucking dare. And again, the person I was watching with, this is like, this is just the nicest, most reassuring thing. Maybe this, like, lifelong friend of mine has ever said to me, he was like, no, they're lying. I'm not sure why, but they are. And I was just like, thank you, because they lost my mind. I was like, they wouldn't actually kill God Banff, would they? And usually I'm way too cynical about stuff like that, but I'm too emotionally invested. So, yeah. All right. So Kathleen

does this thing. We've already kind of talked about. The family's betray, which we already kind of talked about, the montage of their betrayal, that's betrayal. That's a big godfather reference. It's a lot like the end of the first godfather when during the baptism, as Michael becomes literally becomes the godfather, like the various heads of families are killed around town. Turns out they did not abide, Joanna. They did not abide.

And the one conversation that Boba and Fennick had about whether they should believe what had just transpired, which in essence netted out in, you know, my offer's better than the other offer, which was objectively not true

given that those characters had just told them that they profited from the sputely. trade. Turned out that was a bad thing to bet on. Who saw that coming? Chekhov's three families.

A lot of Chekhovs blank in this episode. Chekhov and DeSX. Back to back, back to back, back to back, right? My poor green Gomorians... I thought of you.

I just like stepped off that cliff. It was very... They walked backwards off the cliff. Now, again, if you have a better battle plan and a better, game plan, you think about where you are on the field. Like, it reminded me, granted with more lethal stakes of when a football player in a key

moment in crunch time doesn't know whether to stay in bounds or get out of bounds in terms of like the clock. You got to know where your feet are. You got to know where your feet are, Joe. And there's another footwork football moment later when Skad did the 360 spin move that everybody's been tweeting about all week and everybody's been making fun of it. And I was like, you know, maybe earlier in his life, he was a quarterback and knows that you've got to really be able to plant your feet. You need that solid footwork, Joe. Maybe he was just about the footwork when he launched.

Style over substance. Everything's going south. The mods are pinned down. Fennick shows up and saves them for some many day's X moments. I forget, was Fennick on your sharpshooter list when we did that mailback? She was. Yes. And you and I get to take a victory laugh. Because, yeah. Yeah. She's a bad ass. She was on our list.

She deserves to be a great sharpshooter. Could have ended this whole roar by herself in episode one if she had been allowed to. Okay. Okay. And then so we get a return of the creed as Mando does, like, is really firm that he's not going to leave boba. There's another element to it that I think is a little darker because he says he's, like, ready to die if he needs to. And to me, that's, to me that speaks to, he's lost his son, his covert, his covert has tossed him out. Like, he doesn't have the roots bounding him to his life that he needs.

So he's just sort of like, sure, I'll die for honor. What else I have to look for? I didn't even get to see my son. I went all the way. I came all this way. And I didn't even get to see him. Yeah, I had the same read on it. I thought this was actually incredibly sad.

And I just want to say. thinking all of those things, believing all of those things, still, the remotest possibility that Grogo is out there and you could be with him and then maybe being willing to die for Boba instead, couldn't be me, Joanna, couldn't be me. Never. Never. But, yeah, I was struck by it too because, first of all, just his adherence to the creed after being excommunicated gives us, not that we lacked this confidence previously, but I think assures us that he is going to go.

to Mandelor. He is going to seek out, destroyed minds or not, those living waters in which he can attempt to make his way back. Now, what he might learn on that quest that will lead him in another direction potentially is, I think, one of the exciting things to speculate about heading into season three of the Mandalorian, but he is determined to find his way back into the covert and still abides by the way, despite everything that happened with the armorer and that fucker, Paz Vizla but it was just really sad because he's like,

I've got nothing now. This is devastating. Mando. A lot of, a lot of like quietly, very sad moments about loneliness in this episode, which I do think was, of course,

one of the thematic through lines of the season. Like, it manifests in the conversation with Boba and CAD later when CAD is touting individuality, the soul or pursued and anything else being weakness

and Boba taps into that lesson of tribe. But like, forging those bonds together, found family, lessons, teaching, stuff we talk about a lot inside of this show and others when, because it's not

just everything we just outline with Mando, like Mando says to Boba, you're out of friends, right? You're out of friends. And like, the fact that the characters know that they can't allow that to be true is pretty important for their arcs moving forward.

I think what's, what I think is revealed in this sequence here, all of this that happens here, is that I, firmly believe that there was a ton of stuff cut from this season of Boba Fett for better for worse, but I would say for worse because when Fennick says, when Fennick goes to save the mods, and they think her she says, manners, I like it, which just feels like such a callback to

some kind of relationship that we never got to see between Fennick and the mods. Do you know what you mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a great observation. Do you think that it was cut to make room for the Mando Grobu stuff that wasn't supposed to be there in the first place? I mean, like, maybe. Maybe there's a version of the season where we don't even get five and six at all, but then I don't know how you do the finale and everything that is involved in that. I don't know any of that information.

Maybe they go up into the gunship and to the fire spray and it's the three-minute finale. But it just really feels like the, I mean, like maybe. Sophie Thatcher will someday give an interviewer where she's like, oh yeah, I had three episodes worth of plot. And also there was an explanation for my baffling accent, like something like that, you know what I mean? But instead, we just get something that really does feel like a callback to an existent relationship that we never got to see at all.

So, you know, it's all part of what makes this season feel hollow to me. The major domo. I could not love this character more, Joe. I completely agree. I completely agree. Baffled by the people who don't like. him. Oh my God. Is that a thing? I'm honestly like genuinely not aware of that. Is that a thing? Definitely a thing. I loved it. I love that he asked Boba to write a message and Boba wrote like a epic poem very quickly. So I mean, okay, I wonder if he uses

shorthand. Yeah. When we go down the list of things that Boba is and isn't good at, we have to put, can compose an epic poem. Yeah. With some insults in it. My guy has some literary flair. I was impressed. He's got bars. Genuinely. I was like, The raw copy is clean. I love it. The editor of Mal jumped out. No notes. No notes.

No suggestions in Google Docs straight through. Hitting the copy desk. Let's pub. Does Boba have moves? No. But he's got bars. He's a soul of a poet. He's a poet.

That's what this should have been about the whole time. I actually really, I know we're like halfway joking, but I actually really think that there's something to that because if we think back to earlier in the season, and I do want to go back to, to the major domo and just talk about whether we ship him and Peli, which is the single thing I'm other than Gourabum most interested in talking about.

Obviously. So my apologies to the entire Jawa population of Tatuam, but she is off the market. She's like, this isn't the time, you know? We'll get back to it later, maybe in season two. The soul, the poet thing, I find really compelling because, like, if we think back to earlier episodes of the show and of our pod and, and why, what about the character drew us in in the first place? And we think back to Boba's like lizard brain quest, the bonding with the Tuskins, his rebirth coming out of the Sarlac Pit, the visions and the Bactapod of, you know, those shots of him solitary alone on Camino watching his father fly away.

His life and upbringing as a clone, you know, this journey that he had, this evolution across his life. I do think there's some poetry to that. And I do think that his reflection and introspection is elemental to why this version of the story was actually, like, for me personally, I can only speak for myself, more interesting than just seeing Boba like out as a badass bounty hunter on missions doing cool shit, which would have been fun, certainly. I was really excited to see a show grapple with who Boba is and what he's been through and what it means to be an unaltered clone of the one of the one of the one of the one of the one of the one of the one of the show. the most famous people in the galaxy and lose that and try to forge your own family with assholes like Ora Singh and lose yourself to the quest for vengeance against characters like Mace Windu, et cetera, and work your way through the bounty hunting ranks until this highly mortifying sequence with the Sarlac Pit and then become reborn and forge these bonds

with the Tuskans and lose that and then work your way to a moment with Thennek where you talk about the power and the need that they didn't make him weak, that they made him strong, that you need family. Like, that's in the show still. It's just very present as a central focus for four episodes and then very much obscured by two episodes

that ultimately were more successful. And then by one episode that relies on us caring about that, but, you know, bowls it over with annihilator droids. Do you, who are about to arrive? Do you think that

this show would have been better if it had, like, if Boba Fett, soulful poet, reflective Boba Fett were like journaling his way through all this and we got like a voiceover just like a Carrie Bradshaw a Carrie Bradshaw like and just like that oh my god and I had to wonder why can I always find a Mandalorian but ever a man you know what I mean like it's a it's a version of the show that I would definitely watch oh my god um yeah the nose the nose the uh the nose lizard

diaries. I would, I would read them. Bobine the city. Sex and Mosespa. So many ways we could go with that. And Jets like that. Okay. So the annihilated droids, the scorpionic, as they're called, the relatives of the Droidicas that we got to know in the prequels with their impenetrable shields. This drove me crazy. Oh, okay. Because they're not impenetrable and, all right, I'm trying to be, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to be, like, fair and reasonable. Because on the one hand, I don't think it's reasonable to expect that everybody watching the show has seen every episode of Clone Wars. We've talked about that a lot. That's actually not a thing that the people making any of these live action shows should expect.

But so much of this show does actually call upon that knowledge and that history, it's, like, hard not to think about time our characters in the animated shows I've spent with, say, Saw Guerrera learning the technique of just the slow roll. The slow roll of the grenade. under the shield and the exact annihilator tech compared to the droidic attack, maybe there are just some canonical differences in terms of the strength of that shield. I think that's totally reasonable. But there's also so many Dune comps with the shields in Dune and the slow, like deliberate entry here.

And when the shield is made vulnerable eventually after the Rancourt attack and Dinn is able to work his way through, you know it's going to net out there, and that's fine. It's fine for the characters to take some time to figure that out, but it's a large stretch of the episode spent, firing, flame-throwing,

rocket launching at a thing without, again, like the kind of strategic, wait, how could we actually penetrate that? Like Dyn says, our energy weapons aren't going to work, our kinetic weapons aren't going to work. So it's like, all just pack up and go home.

No, you got to figure it out. Try something different. Try the thing that we know from elsewhere in Canada might work. No, we've got to get it. go get a rancor, obviously. Checkoff's rancor. So glad to see our guy railing the rancor.

Just felt really bad that his own teammates turned on him. Didn't make me happy. I think the question of the shields, when it works and when it doesn't, is tied to this idea that watching Dindjarn fight before Grogu shows up versus after Grogu's showing up is just a completely different ballgame. You know what I mean? And like, is it true that the rancor reekens the shield? Yes.

But what's also true is that when Dinn is trying to use the dark saber before Pallimoto rolls up in the middle. Because again, how could she know that a battle was going on? Because they're literally only fighting in like five person pods. So like the streets are empty. And then she turns the corner. And she's like, oh, there's a war going on in this one corner of Mosaspa, I guess. Anyway. But the street's empty because of the battle.

Like everything around the sanctuary is completely abandoned in the first place. And then everyone else in these other quarters, we see them flee once. the attacks begin? Are we talking about the reunion now, though? The actual moment of the reunion? Is that where you brought us? I just want to say that, like, I just want to say that, like, when we, it has to inform the way that we've been thinking about the Dark Saber, right?

To watch Dingerin struggle with it as we've seen him struggle with it elsewhere, and then Grogu shows up and he can suddenly wield it, that's just another piece of information we have in the Dark Saber lore. of, you know, our understanding from the rebels training scenes are, you know, and the training scenes that we got in episode five is like, you know, if you, if you're, you can't fight the weapon, you're fighting the weapon. I honestly don't even know what that means. But if you told me that a dad fights better when his, when his son is in danger,

then when his son is not in danger, I do know what that means. Right. And I think that that will be significant. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great. and it's an interesting new data point because while it aligns, as you're noting, with some of what we learned, it also kind of conflicts in a way that I think is important and good

because we've talked about the dogmatic failings of some of these creeds. One of the things that we've heard in the Canaan Sabine training, in the armor training with din, et cetera, is this idea of like there's conflict inside of you. You're distracted, right? Your thoughts are elsewhere with Grogu in that case. And that that's like a lot of, limitation, but to see that the opposite could be true, that the attachment, yes, exactly, is a strength and a boon is important. And I think it's also like we get the corollary with the way that Grogu uses the force when he is around Din. Now, of course, we just are coming off an episode where we see Grogo's force training with Luke. And there are moments where

he's, you know, struggling to force jump. And Luke is a complete fucking asshole. Like, is that all you got, Luke, fuck off. Like, channeling my inner Logan Roy, fuck off. But then we also see these great force exploits from Grogo who's doing all of these wonderful things. So it's not like he wasn't using the force before. Wouldn't it be better narratively if like we had seen him and he was having trouble using his force and Luke was maybe like, well, I got a dud, I guess.

And then when Groger's back with his dad. If Luke said, I got a dud, he would never recover. Never. Never. It was bad enough to see him say you're trying to hard. Bad enough. But Grogu is able to tap in. I mean, we've seen this time and again,

all the way back with the mudhorn, the force healing, fending off the fire of Gideon's attackers, etc., on and on the list goes. And when he pulls the bolts out of the annihilator droid, which I love because it's like, and he literally receives the razor crest knob from Dinn in this episode as well.

Like he just loves these shiny bubbles. This one hit him right in the mithril, Joe, and it knocked him over, and I was very worried. And he's... safe and protected. It's a little, like a little. And of course, I know we're jumping all over the place,

but the extent of the force power that he displays, and both with the droid and with the rancor are direct, because he is protecting thin. He is protecting Mando directly. The power on display there, which again, of course, leads to his little, and we skipped over the reunion, which we'll talk about in a second. We're going to get to the reunion, don't worry.

We're going to go back. which is a little snusola. Simply put Pantheon one of the cutest moments in the history of the world. And it's like, is that that, does he actually have animal bond, which is a force power?

I think that's very likely based on what we've seen from him. But the extent of what was required there is supreme. And Dana's right there fueling him. He's the reason that Grogo is doing that. So all of you out there, Luke, anyone else who's like attachment, dangerous, bad,

eh, Yoda, Mace, from the past, talking to all of you, eat shit, okay? Well, okay, so I've been reading Reddit, which is both good for me and bad for me. But something that I've been seeing, this discussion of the question of attachment, as far as I understand, I never read the Legends books where, you know, in those books, the EU books, like, this is a good Ben Lindberg question, but he's not here yet, but like that Luke starts his Jedi Academy and Luke starts the Jedi Academy that, you know, is a kinder gentler, like more relaxed Jedi Academy, right? But this question of attachment, the parsing of the word attachment is something that

was very key in those books because it wasn't like, yeah, you can love someone or you can, you know, whatever, but attachment is something a little bit more possessive. And I think we do see that with Anakin as Hayden Christensen plays him. You know what I mean? Like Padmey loves Anagan, but Anakin has a weird, I mean, because he's traumatized because of his childhood, but like a frantic attachment to her. And that is the danger more so than love. And so I don't think, I think we think of attachment. When we look at Din and Gros, we think they're attached to each other because we're not thinking of it as an unhealthy word.

But I think if Star Wars Legends wants to put that word attachment in an unhealthy bucket, what we can look at to, I'm going to regret this, but to quote the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, Stronger Together, man, that's the theme, right? That's a whole, like Boba just out and says it, you know, it's the theme of the episodes, stronger together. And Mando and Grogu, the force power and the Dark Saber, stronger together. I totally agree. And I think that actually, there are a lot of flaws in the prequel, but that's not one of them. I think that's actually very present. And that's what makes it interesting is that there's a way of the frustration that you feel with the Jedi for the nature of their strictures at that moment in time does not negate the fact that Attican was so ripe for manipulation from Palpatine because the thing that he wanted, the level of possessiveness was actually unnatural and unholy. Unhawful. holy, right? But, but that does...

I thought the Zoom was glitching for a second. No, I was just attempting to chat on my inner palpi. Always dangerous. Somehow your palpitine impression returned. Okay, go ahead. Natural. But that just requires the nuance in the language and the idea, so that it's there for to person.

Luke literally said, however, you will be giving into attachment to those that you love. That's the way Luke put it. So I think that more broadly, you're right that the part of what makes this idea really interesting to parse across the canon is that there are some subtleties to assess. I'm glad Groger was with Din instead of Luke. Should we talk about the reunion? All right. This is exactly what I'm going to say right here, which is this. Oh, boy.

I want an entire hour of reunion between, well, first of all, I need them to be separated longer for me to really feel that reunion. It's like, you know, because... So are you back there? Because you had said initially... You wouldn't want the emotional impact of the season two departure to be sapped by returning to it too quickly. Then you thought, well, we got in chapter six was so emotionally potent that you were reassessing your initial stance there. But now you're back to this happen too quickly. I mean, it makes me sound like I will never be pleased by anything.

No, that's not how I meant it. I just want to understand what's in your heart. A feedback that I've seen is that some people are like, the fact, the fact, they're back together so quickly, makes season two the Manilorean feel like fruitless if the whole thrust of the season is, I got to get Grogu back to his people.

You know what I mean? I don't agree. But continue. I'm not. I'm down. I think the ultimate result of that is that his people all along, and he keeps saying his people, and it was an interesting turn of phrase because when you say his people, like, maybe the first thing

we think of is like, people who look like him. You know, like, other Yoda-esque characters. But then, you know, what we understand it means is, like, other Jedi. Those are his people. And then what we really understand is that his people is Mando. Like, that's his people. That's who we really needs to be with.

Hmm. I think, I don't know that it saps the separation of, of season two. But I think if you, especially since we spent some time with it at least, but I think if you watched it all in a binge with some people might do when they go back and rewatch things, it's going to feel a little like, oh, he's gone, he's back again. Do you know what I mean? Like, do you disagree? I don't disagree with the binge point, but I spent a real full year of my life wondering when I'd see them together again.

A full year of my life, right? And I think this is kind of a good old two things can be true at once. I think that I'm again shocked that we got it here instead of Amanda. It feels to me like, and I don't mean this in a bad way necessarily, like a declaration of intent in terms of how these shows will function and relate to each other. It is the MCUification of Star Wars TV. You will not be able to skip one thing if you care about the other thing. You will have to watch it all because it's all fair game.

Anything could happen anywhere. And there's no stronger way to reinforce that with Star Wars fans. than doing something with Grobu outside of his own show. So I guess in that sense, I'm not shocked, but still I was shocked. The other two things can be true at once part is I don't want to, I hate to spoil other stories inside of a Star Wars pod. I'm going to say something about Marvel, if you don't want to hear this. Fast forward 45 seconds.

Okay. It reminds me a little bit of like Infinity War and Endgame where there's, there was always this conversation about the fact that the characters who were, lost in the snap came back, like did it sap Infinity War of its stakes in some way. And for me, and like, mileage may vary and that's fine. Not everybody has to feel the same way about something. For me, it just, that was never an issue because the watching those characters mourn and process what it was like to lose those people and the impact that that had on them was real and was a part of their growth and evolution. And I think, done talking about Marvel now, the same is true for

grow going din. The impact that that had, that departure and that journey had on them is elemental to who they are moving forward, no matter how quickly they came back together. I guess I'm, I think I agree with you about the Marvel thing you just said that I won't get specific about. But like, I agree. I definitely agree with you about that. I do get a little on edge about the version of this that that drives me the most crazy is a fake out death. unless it's Cobbant and then you want it to be a fake out death because you love him. But I'm so mad. I'm like, why did they even pretend for that long that he wasn't there?

But like for stuff like I think I'm still frosty. Okay, spoilers, I guess, were season five of Game of Thrones. Like, I'm still frosty about the whole John Snow manipulation. You know what I mean? That's just like, that is something that's forever going to stick in my craw as like something that just felt unnecessarily manipulative. And so like this idea of we're going to separate, well, and the other question about all this, to your point about this larger, like now everything is must see TV if you're invested in Star Wars. If Grogu is going to get up to stuff outside of his own show, you got to watch it all, right? The other question, and I raised this a couple weeks ago and some of our listeners disagreed with me, I said, I don't think you could do Mandalorian without Grogu, right?

And a bunch of them were like, no, you don't need Grogu. and whether or not that's true, Lucasfilm believes that you can't do Mandalorian without Groku, right? And like, I don't want to watch them try. I'm not advocating for less Groku, but I'm saying I do know that some of our listeners were like, no, I want to see

Mandalorian season three. I want to see Mando out there doing this stuff without Grogu. Not that I don't like Grogu, but I don't need him. And I'm like, I think you do. I think that's the story we're watching. We're watching Mando and Grogu, and it's not the Mandalorian. it's Mandalorian, it's Groku, it's not dead.

You know, like all this sort of stuff. Like, that's the story we're watching. I believe that Faloni in particular is so interested in Mandalore and the lore of that place and all of the characters. Mandalor lore. Yeah, Mandelor lore. Who are associated with it. That I felt strongly for a while that season three would be, and I still do that season

three would be focused heavily on that. I think that, you know, murmurs and who knows how many shows will. eventually get of like a Bo Catan spinoff. Maybe more of that happens in a show like that instead of inside of this story. But even if this story does ultimately focus on reclaiming Mandelaura, the Lord of the Dark Sabre, all this other stuff we've talked about a lot. Grogue will be, he's just inextricable from the heartbeat of the show. He is the heartbeat of the show. And so to close the loop on the moment of the reunion itself and that idea of two things can be true at once, of course I wish we had not had to rush through it.

Of course, I wish that we had been able to just luxuriate in it for a little bit longer. I could have just watched them look at each other forever. It was also like... You got the shirt.

Sure. Concentrated bliss to me. Like, I love a large cup of coffee, but this was an espresso shot of love and joy, right? The moment, like, I was like fucking sobbing when...

When first of all, Joanna, he's under his little blanket. Oh, good. Oh, yeah. I can't. I'm so excited. Welcome back to another segment of Valerie Rubin describes a grocery scene. Okay. Okay.

He's under his little blanket. No, no, no, I'm serious. He's under his blanket. What happens next? I'm closing my eyes so I can just get, yeah. First of all, this is at the 34-minute mark of the episode, right? 34-minute mark. And Pellie.

rounds the band. All our characters are together. Hey, Mando, look who's here. And she's pulling a blanket off of him. And he's cooing. And Dyn says, what? And he gasped. We hear it.

The subtitle say, parentheses, gasp. It's just so precious. He says, hey, what are you doing here? And then we see what is the, like, I think just, if I ever, like, have a child of my own, I'm sure I will experience like another level of joy and love, right? But to this point, my time with Halo, my time with my childhood cat and best friend Jeremy, and now this moment are like the top of the list of pure distillation of happiness,

see, crows, force jump into Mando's arms to hug him. and then he reaches out with his little hand to touch Mando's helmet and it makes you think back to that just gorgeous moment in the season two finale when Dint takes up his helmet and lets go see his face and he touches his cheek. I wept, I shook, I felt purpose and the possibility of love and meaning in the world. I couldn't have been happier. And then, of course, he says, okay, little guy, you know, I'm happy to see you,

but like we're in the middle of something here. Keep your head down, stay safe. And then you shift very quickly to just being very worried about Grogo and hoping that he's going to be okay. And then you're pulled right back in because he pulled down his little collar and he sees the best guy,

he sees the myth around. He says, hey, that's the shirt. You got the shirt. And I just don't know what could be better than that. Other than the rest of the episode being better around it. So good. Beloved Mallory Rubin, you and I have been podcasting together now for like four or five months

or whatever. I have heard you do this on binge mode, but I have never been in the presence of a full blown. And what the listeners don't. What the listeners don't understand is that you were dead this morning. You woke up. Really not feeling well today. Dead this morning.

And your love for Grogu. Oh, it carries me through. Given you full mana and you are back in the habit. And I am, I feel lucky to have been in the presence of that. Thank you for indulging me. And it made me cry a little bit, actually. Just you describing it and crying made me cry a little bit. Oh my God.

I just love them. I just love them so much. I still think it didn't need to happen on the back of my computer. But, um, okay. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here. So celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce and some very tasty, limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, Market Peach, Apricot, Rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic

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

plus. I've known you a long time, Bobo. One thing I can't figure, what's your angle? Okay, let's talk about something that I think you like a little less than that beautiful moment, which is Bobo versus Cad, Ben, the showdown, right? Something that you mentioned before when you're talking about Saw Guerrera and the bombs, rolling the bombs under the droid shield, is this idea that, like, in a live action, Star Wars show,

it should not be required that you've watched all of Clone Wars and all of Rebels in order. And it certainly should not be required that you are aware of a scrapped episode of an animated show

that informs the Boba versus CAD showdown here. I think it's still effective mostly because CAD, Bain is an incredible evocative figure no matter what. The voice performance is incredible. The physical performance is incredible.

Boba's given me mid-delorian to quote Chuck, but, you know, Cadbane's bringing it level 11, dialed it up to 11, right? But still it is a very, it's a scene that is very reliant on, you know, it's not just reliant in an obscure way. The text

the text says, this isn't the first time I'm going to be you out on a job, right? The text is saying like, just like your father. Like all this sort of stuff that animated series watchers will know a lot of the backstory about like Cabin training under Django or like all this sort of stuff. But like it's all this meaning that would be useful information for people who are just

coming to show without having seen the animated series. And that in that way, it's something to go back to Thrones. It's something that Dave Chen and I, when we podcast about Game of Thrones for years, me having read the books, him having not. The constant conversation we would have is, okay, so I can kind of. and tell him what the book context is or something. And his constant argument is like, that's great, but the show needs to be able to stand on his own,

and I agree. And I think in a moment like this, I think the skills are tipped a little too much in like you need to have read some explainers in order to know what you're watching here. What do you think? Really good question. I am maybe self-aware enough,

unlike Boba, to recognize my own relationship to a thing. And so I don't know. know if I can like separate my fondness for that material and how happy I was to see it pay off from what it would be like to watch it without that. Though rationally I understand that that would be true. It reminds me a little bit of Mando season two, Asoka's live action arrival, Boca Ton's live action arrival, these things that were, you know, I had the distinct pleasure of joining Chris and Andy on the watch after the Asoka arrival. And the prompt was in essence, this seems to really mean a lot to you, who is this person?

And why should we care, right? And then it'll shock you to hear I talk for an hour after that, right? So I liked the, I mean, all of the Cadbane in the episode I enjoyed. And I just, again, I refuse to accept that he's gone. But even if he is, I believe that we will see him in live action earlier in the timeline. And so I can hold on to that. I can see how it would be less fulfilling for viewers who haven't watched the unfinished Dave Floney Clone Wars arc where we see how Boba got the dent in his helmet, which is

Gunfire from Cadbane, how Cadbane gets the plate on his head, which is Gunfire from Boba, that direct draw, that showdown between them, and how that itself has history behind it. You already mentioned Django and his relationship with CAD, their history, which the loss of Django, like the specter of Django is such a defining thing in Boba's life in ways that suit him and hold him back. And characters who have history with his father, that dynamic is always so fascinating for us to parse when we watch Boba. And there's an episode I've referenced it before.

It's a really incredible Obi-1 arc, actually, where they devastatingly change his face that animated Obi-1, one of the best-looking characters in the world. You know how I feel about this. They change his face, devastating. And he infiltrates a prison, ends up teaming up with Cadbane. And Boba is in that prison too and is like working with CAD.

He's kind of taking orders from CAD. They have a lot of history together. And so I think like a moment like CAD saying to him of the Tuskins and the Plikes, CAD being the one to reveal to Boba what had happened there. It's like Cadbane is a bounty hunter who's hired to do a job.

But one of the things that's really cool about him is he is completely, willing to fuck anything up at any point and go rogue. He always believes that he knows better than the people who have employed him always. And so there's a part of that where you're watching that sequence. And it's like, well, he knows that he's attempting. He's hoping that he can destabilize Boba with that information. You get the, you know it's true, which is like a great Star Wars language callback and Easter egg. But this moment where it's like a character only says that to another character if they have deep shared history together. Right. And so if you appreciate that,

really appreciate it and the moment really lands. And if you don't, maybe it's a little less effective. And then you really have to count on CAD just seeming like a cool, interesting character, which I think he probably does, and maybe those scenes work anyway. I loved the, in their first exchange, which Fenwick kind of comes out and disrupts. You know, let's do this on our own timeline, not his. Another really interesting dynamic moment between Fenwick and Boba. One of the, I don't even know if we'll talk more about Boba's relationship to the spice, like, Phenic disagree with Boba and the spice was a fascinating one that I think could bear fruit in the future too. But CAD says, you're going soft in your old age. And Boba says we all do.

And again, that just speaks to how long they've known each other. Like, Bobo was a kid, a kid when he met Cadbane. And that line was so satisfying for me because it made me think of the time that I've seen them spent together. But it also just feels true and like a wink to us as an audience also because we've been talking about Boba's evolution and change, right? And how he's so different from this other version that we expected and to hear someone inside of the show say that to him was like really fulfilling. But maybe not as fulfilling if you haven't watched them together when Boba was a kid. I don't know.

Let me compare it to, so you mentioned the introduction of Bo Katan and Assoe Katano. I think those are, it's different. I'm not saying you were saying they were exactly same, but it's different because those are A introductions of characters, not like the culmination of a season, the final showdown of a season, right? And B, they were meeting Mando who's never met them before, right? So, like, Mando meets Bocatan and Mando meets Asoka. And so we are with Mando meeting these people for the first time. We learn about them as he learns about them. Whereas this show is like, let us present some deep, rich history between these two characters for a lot of the audience. They've never seen

them interact at all. Do you know what I mean? So that's, and especially in a show that has an entire vice that serves backstory and flashbacks for Boba, there was so much opportunity. Like, Cadbane showing up was such a fun end of season, like, thrilling moment for just wandering out of the desert. Really powerful.

At the same time, would it have fueled that final showdown a bit better if we had seen in flashbacks some Boba, young Boba, Catbane interaction? So we understand the weight, how much his words can slice and cut this kid,

because he's been in, he's not a kid anymore, but he's been in his head since he was a kid. You know, like all of that stuff is something that I just wish everyone could see. Yeah, there's like a probing quality to a Cadbane line. Like he has the ability to knock you off your bearings in a way that few other characters in Star Wars do. And it is really so menacing and effective.

Like, again, I already mentioned this, but I've known you a long time, Bobo. One thing I can't figure out what's your angle line. is, I think in some ways, the biggest indictment of the episode, that line. And it's in a scene between characters I really like. Yeah, of the season. Yeah, yeah. Because on the one hand, it's like a huge moment. Kat is speaking

for the audience. We don't totally know this either. If Boba doesn't know it and is really wrestling with it and trying to figure out, where do I stand? Why? What do I want? Why? I think that would be very dramatically compelling, but to get back to a word you used before that, like, inert sense of sort of bouncing in and out of moments of introspection doesn't quite give you that clarity and ends up feeling like it's like there's this opaque, you know, the sands of Tatouine are like blowing across our screen and our ability to see that really clearly like we'd want at the end. And when he replies, you know, this is my city, these are my people, I will not abandon them.

We then get that Tuscan moment. And so it connects because you mentioned the pod and the flashbacks, but also like all of these echoes and relics of Boba's past and these relationships that have been very defining in his life, like surfacing in this crucial moment where he says, don't toy with me. I'm not a boy any longer. And again, I think there's a part of that that's like a nice and interesting callback to their shared history, to our history with Boba, to Django, to Boba's role as a clone inside of the story.

We get this amazing dig of now's about the time you jet off to your back to tank, which is like iconic. He's not wrong. For my dude. Not wrong. Yeah. No. But then this, you gave it a shot.

You tried to go straight, but you've got your father's blood pumping through your veins. You're a killer. And he's kicking him and he's pinning him down. And he says that you already mentioned, though, this isn't the first time I beat you on a job. There's no shame in it. consider this my final lesson. Look out for yourself, anything else's weakness. If we've seen those characters live their lives together and interact with each other time and time again, that's like a really immensely powerful moment. I thought it worked in some ways and didn't

in others because it leads to CAD pulling off Boba's helmet, stripping off the father that he just alluded to, stripping off the legacy of that armor. And, he's speaking about his father, the killer inside, being an individual, and Boba unmasked, closes his eyes. And he's thinking back to the opposite lesson that he learned, which we heard him talk to Fenwick about by the fire in chapter four, that strength from his life with the Tuskins, the power of the tribe, which he is now trying to rebuild, those scars on the inside that he said last longer. Our healing and the scar tissue can ultimately be the lesson for Boba, the lesson about

tribe. And so he picks up the gaffy stick when his armor wasn't enough to beat Cad who was shooting him and beating him and outdrawing him. It was faster than him was quicker than him. And he beats him with the Tuscan weapon. And there's a part of me that's like, okay, this really lands thematically because of everything we just said, the armor comes off, the individuality comes off, the singular essence comes off. And he taps back into the thing that found with other people. It lands a little bit less because we can't quite shake our disappointment that the Tuskins are not back, that the Warriors not back, that the kids not back, that they were just there as this device for Bobo's growth. And also because even just that literalization of that

lesson, we've seen multiple times this season, we saw it on the train heist when he had to use the stick when other weapons failed. We saw it in his battle with with Cresanton when the the tech, he couldn't get his hands around it enough and the stick was the thing that he was able to use. And so I was just like, man, what is Boba thinking about here? Is he thinking about the meaning of that moment? Is he thinking about, does he have any remorse for the, the kitten striders that he wrongly killed? No, they did some bad shit to channel Steve's energy from Wednesday show. They did. It's true. You know, they did. But is he thinking about that all? Is he reflecting on the fact that he opened the season by saying, I'm a crime lord? And then, and of course, you're jumping across time.

You're under my protection, Garza Flipp, nothing bad, whatever. happened to you. Right. And like he, he, this isn't the flashback, but like he tried to tap into the spice trade as a business. And a lot has changed and happened since, but you're almost forced to like stop and piece it back together in your mind rather than it feeling fully cohesive at the end, which to your point about the power of a character like Cadbean, you shouldn't really have to stop and pause and think you should just feel it all in a moment like that. The TV text that was formative to me understanding how to watch television, understanding genre, understanding all of that. It is, I will always come back to it and it cannot be pulled away from me despite the fact that...

You say Buffy? It's going to be Buffy. I'm going to talk about Buffy for a second. I always feel guilty about it, but here's what I'll say. In Becoming Part 2, which is one of the best episodes of television ever, Buffy's boyfriend, Angel, who is, like, turned evil, has her cornered. So there's so much, oh, there's so much shared history there. There's so much going on. there and we've seen it all play out. And he says to her, that's everything, huh? No weapons, no friends, no hope. Take all that away and what's left. And he has got like, he's got a sword. And he's swinging it down her and she grabs a sword. She just says, me. Then she kicks the shit out of him. And it's like, that's what you want to see is like, that's what you want to see is like,

a shared history that you understand a person beating down, a person stripped away to nothing and them just being like me, motherfucker, or my sense of community is valuable. This lesson that I've learned. That's what I have. I'm going to stab me this gaffy steak. And then insult to industry, insult to injury. There's some industry here. We heard the bikes talk about margins. We don't even think the Caddbane is dead here. Right? But I personally refuse to accept it. I mean, the beeping and blinking of the red light on his chest plate, I don't know what that is exactly. If it's maybe like a transmitter, sending a

signal to someone to come get him. If it's, some sort of tech that is actually helping to keep him alive. My guy's got a lot of gadgets on. So I'm not ready to, I'm not ready to say goodbye yet. That said, he's, you know, he's old. So it could be the end. And he could just be in stories earlier. I don't know.

Not dead. I'm saying not dead. I agree with you, not dead. We see Boba does have the respect to the people because he brought his pet to the downtown and had to destroy a bunch of things. And they're like, that's what we look for in a leader. You saved me. Thank you.

Thank you so much. And he says to Fennecannic, Shan, we're not suited for this. If you want to talk about Boba and Mando being reunited, undercutting all the season two of Mando, don't agree, but that's how some people feel. Let's talk about the final line of a season undercutting the entire season. Then what have we been watching if it wasn't, like, what have we? Been watching. I can't believe I'm repeating myself

in the second hour of our podcast. I'm repeating myself a little bit, but I do think it's probably in this context worth saying again. There's a version of this that works. The version of it necessitates Boba not being such so certain in all of his wrong decisions

along the way. Like, he doesn't really doubt his conviction. He thinks that he is right. He thinks that he is right. He thinks that he knows better. He thinks that he's outsmarting people. We talked about had that manifested a lot in the arguments and disagreements that he and Fenwick had. He fully believes that he has gotten the

better of the Lordth Appeals of the world. He believes that he's going to be able to outsmart the three families. He believes that the huts, I guess, hey, I guess he was right about that one. They didn't come back. Good for you, Bova. You were so sure. I'm so sure. I'm so sorry you didn't get your incest twins again. But I raised this because I think that part of Boba's arc and part of what's interesting about it is that there is a lot of growth and progress. That's good. We want to see characters change and grow. We just have to understand how they got there and have to be with them every step of the way.

And that more than anything is where, as much as I loved, love, love, love chapters five and six, I think leaving him for those two episodes ultimately was really for the day. detriment of being able to land his arc fully at the end. The spice question specifically is, I think, the embodiment of this, but it's, it's, it's his relationship to leadership and to what he's doing in most, that's about a question you raised in the very first pod. Why, why does he want this? It's, it's a microcosm of it. I'm going to let Ben Lindberg address your Bobo Fett season two question, but like the way that, Ben, it constantly undermines him, and she's right plenty of times. You know what you mean?

Makes us go, why are we watching? Like, this guy doesn't know what he's doing. He was right to trust in those sweet Gammorians. They stuck with him until the end. They stuck with him until they literally walked off of a fucking cliff for him. He can hold on to that. That comforting thought.

And Black Crescenton and the mods. You know what I mean? Like, he took all these, a rag tag group of people under his wing. But like... What does? But to what end was all of Phenix, like, all of that conflict, it leads nowhere, unless it leads to something in a later season. It's one of the things that makes me feel more confident that we are actually going to get another season of the show, that specifically. The fact that there wasn't, that didn't come to a head at any point. And also just that's something like, speaking of shared history, they're shared history with Omega. Now, I think it makes complete sense to me that that didn't surface here because then they would have had to say something like, Omega is alive or dead. And then we would know how bad batch ended. So like, I get that that didn't happen. But that can't not come up.

between these characters at some point. Also, let me just say on the Cadbean front, devastated that we didn't get to see a phonic Cadbean moment in live action given their history. Like, fucking devastated. Because you watch this, and it doesn't even seem like she's ever met him before.

I'm very sad that we didn't hear them talk about their history or, like, interact in a way that, I mean, she's, again, like, telling Boba to walk away, but there's no, there's no, like, I want them to face off. The last thing I'll say to just try to put a bow on the boba arc and Boba motivation of it all is that I think, think the culmination of his arc here, both the breakthroughs that he has, but also then that like comic regression at the end sort of conflates the Tuskins and the people of Mos Espa being

one and the same to him. And they're not. And actually the fact that they're not and that there are these fractures and fisions inside of Tatooine is like an important part of a story. And I think that to say this for the 50th time, there's a version of this that works really well, which is Boba actually like processing that, that he failed in one area with a group of people he cared about and doesn't want to make that mistake again. Doesn't want to let the people that he is in a position

to try to help and protect, doesn't want to let them down. Yeah. And I think that that's powerful and that overall his relationship to the idea of tribe and family is compelling to me. But you go from like a chapter four moment in the, in the flashback, but the recent flashback, to you want a head of Gatra and his response to that is why not to, to, these are my people and I simply must protect them. Didn't he say when when campaign's like, what's your angle?

I'm like, last we heard Boba thought he was smarter than the bosses and could do it better. That's what he said. Yeah. Sick of the idiocy of other. So it's a big evolution and probably just need a few more scenes where we get to see him walk that path. Where the mods are rude to Fedeng Shan and we slowly riding a banffa down that path. But I mean, I think that's such an important thing to say that Mossespa is not the same as the Tuskins because one of the ideas we had at the beginning of the season we didn't know much was like maybe his whole thing is I'm going to make Masaspa or Tatooine in general like a friendlier place for my adopted. family the Tuskins.

No. That's not what it was about at all. You know, I don't know. It's, okay. I still think this Tuscan thing is just, I don't know. The Tuskins were in Mando's season two, episode one, and Boba is in that episode at the end. He knows there are other Tuskins out there.

There are different tribes, yes, but like, just no interest in checking in with any of them? You know, you can only snort so many nose lizards in one lifetime. That's what I'll say about that. Our post-credit sequence, of course, reveals that Cobbant is alive, criminally turtlenecked. His hair looks incredible in the back to goo. I don't know how that's possible. It's like a hair product for him, I guess, just enhancing the great hairdo that he's already rocking.

He just looks fresh, always. One of the tweets we got was like, is there a GQ outpost on tattooing because he's got, a high fashion cut. Cobbant lives. I also think he will get an arm. And it's going to make it even faster and better than he was before. Yeah. It's going to be great.

I have barely a single nice thing to say about the Mod Kids, and I feel guilty about that because I really like Sophie Thatcher as an actress. So I'll just say this. The phrase womp hump hop is adorable and I loved it. And I liked how she said it. Makes us think of Luke, too, because like, you know, the idea of the, size of the wamp wrap coming into play in conversation. I grew up not a wamp hop away from here.

Great phrase. Loved it. No problem. No notes. We already talked about so many of them. I think that my favorite Easter eggs in this episode were probably like the language callbacks. Like we hear CAD say, well, if that isn't the quacta calling the stiffling slimy,

which was something that was part of a very weird and fraud exchange between Boba and Costco and the end of Manda season two. All of the verbal callbacks, probably Bobo shouting, do it. And channeling his inner palpi as Duku is about to be decapitated and the droid is about to be annihilated here. That was up there on my list. So many Easter eggs. Who's your secret scroll? Yeah, secret scroll.

So last year you gave it to Deputy Scott, right? RAPE, Deputy Scott, rest of pieces. I'm going to give it to the weak way. And here's the only reason why, W.O. Brown's. character. I just wanted an excuse to talk about his long gun, which was great. Of all the Western tropes brought into this episode, I thought his like ridiculously long, long gun was a, was a real, a real moment. You got a name too. Tanty. Tanty. Tanty. I'm sure I'm mispronouncing that, but yes. That's a real wordle buster. That's a real, if you play

wordle, that's, you don't want that in your wordal. It's a double A, you're never going to get it. Forget about it. Never going to get it. Never going to get it. Mal, Mal is your secret scroll. I believe that earlier in the season, I threw out the modifier and I feel more certain than ever given the modifier's return at the end tier.

This is some scroll stuff, you know, always in the thick of it in key moments. Still my pick. All right. Are you ready to bring up? If we can't, if we can't look ahead

to the future of Star Wars on television, who can't? Ben Limber can. Let's bring him on. we should discuss what you'd be willing to... Rate it. Following offer. Nothing.

You will leave this planet and your spice trade. If you refuse these terms, the arid sands of Tatouine will once again flourish with flowered fields fertilized with the bodies of your dead. All right, Ben Lindbergh is here. Talk with the future.

of Star Wars TV. Ben, I just want you to know that Mallory has uttered the phrase Boba Fett season two like five different times. And what was your reaction? Because I know what mine would be. Anger. Yeah, we should probably get into that. All right. So Boba's Season 2. I'm here to take my victory lap, by the way, for calling that Kira and Crimson Don crossover. You heard it here, folks.

You heard it here first, folks. You nailed that one, bud. Yeah. I made Joanna rewatch solo, so I'm satisfied. I have no regrets about rewatching the true victory. All right. So public season two, the dreaded phrase, do we want it? Do we think we'll get it, Ben Lindberg?

Yeah. So Ming Na Wen deleted a tweet on Friday because she called what we just saw the first season, which people took to mean that there was a second season, which was. not what she was implying. Then she did a follow-up tweet. She said she hadn't meant to imply that there's a second season, but that she's keeping her fingers crossed. Of course, she also has previously said that she was two weeks into shooting Boca Boba before

she found out that she wasn't on the Mandalorian. So I don't know if she or anyone actually knows whether this is coming. But I think we need it just because I have to know, will the mods get their melons? You can't keep me in suspense about these things. Will we find out if the twins have a Jamie Searcy incest situation? We know the answer to that. That's affirmative. Was there maybe a trampoline at the bottom of that ravine and my Gomorians aren't dead after all?

Here's my pitch for season two is how does Tatweens post-spice economy flourish? Because that's what we're all wondering. Here's my pitch. You bring in grief cargo. as an economic consultant to spruce up Mas Espa because you saw the job that he did revitalizing Navarro. He turned the cantinas into schools. He put up statues. I think we got to get him to tattooing. See if he can work his magic twice. But no, I think kidding aside, I don't know if I can joke about this subject of a second season of Book of Boba Fep.

But if there is one, I think it needs to be a little bit different. I have some notes, a few notes. and they're not necessarily more Boba Fett, although you would think that it would only be fair for him to have a season to himself once. But if we're going to get into theory territory, maybe there's someone who can inherit the job from him, right? I mean, in the first shot of the season or the first scene of the season,

we see Boba in the Bacta tank, right? And that foreshadows his rise to daimyo of Tatween. The last shot of the season, right? It's the only way you're going to get me. The only way we see someone else in the vodka tank. Joanna's going to be tweeting hashtag make boba season two happen before we even finish recording. Why wouldn't you call it the Book of Cobb Vance? Why would you call it the Book of Boba Fett?

Why did they call it the Book of Boba Fett in the first place? They didn't need to. Yeah. If you want to sell me and I'm already sold, I'm pre-sold. I'm pre-ordered. Yeah. On the Book of Cobb Vance, I'm here. Yeah, that was my, I mean, that was my interpretation of like,

like, well, if not us, who? And at first I thought he meant the mods, and I was like, not them. But the second time I watched it, I was like, oh, Cobb. And like if Cobb, who feels like so, yeah, like the marshal of the entire planet, which seems to have, what, three cities? You know, like, he's, he's committed. His heart is committed to Freetown. But like, can he, does he have love in his heart for Mos Isley and Mos Espa as well?

You know? Developed love very suddenly and dramatically for Masaspa, so I don't see why it can't happen. It seems like the-City area. The Freetowners were not fans of Moss Espa from some of the comments they made. But yeah, maybe they can learn to love it. It makes sense to me because, right, I mean, if Boca's not suited for it, it certainly seems as if Cobb is. He actually has the credentials, right? He's qualified.

He's the lawman. He's the leader. he has not made many incompetent decisions as we saw both this season. He hired Scott. He hired Scott. There's that. A permanent blight on his resume for being honest. Though I guess now we know there are only like 11 other people in the entire town.

So limited options. Limited choices. Yeah. But Boba can be the Western hero who rode into town and defeated the outlaws and leaves again. And then Cobbant sticks around. And he just like throws the sheriff's star at like at the feet of Cobbant that is Will his rancor fit in the fire spray? Like, where's Boba going?

I don't know where he can go from here. Yeah, well, that is the question, right? And I think we had questions coming into this about whether Boba could carry his own series. I think we still have some of those questions. And possibly John Favreau and Dave Filoni had some of those questions, too, given how the season was structured. So maybe we relegate Bova back to his role in Mando season two, right? where he comes off the bench. So I could see him maybe teaming up with the Mandalorian.

We could get into theories for Mando season three here, but it seems like there's potential crossover because this is all just one big universe, whether we call it this show or that show or Mandolorian 2.5 or whatever, it's all the same story. So maybe Boba crosses back over, right? Yeah, okay.

So do you want to get into Mando season three in a second? I just need, obviously, circle back to Cobbman for a second day. Yes, sorry. My only argument against Book of Cobbam is that it gets in the way of the show that I actually really want, which is Dindjarn and Cobbh Braes-Gro-Goo-Goo-Together on the road. But it's never going to happen because, like, Dindjarn's a rolling stone and or he's going to go rule Mandelor. Those are the two things. And Cobbant's heart, for some inexplicable reason, belongs to the shitty planet of Tattoine.

So, like, there's Starcross lovers. Star Wars somewhat inexplicably too, right? That's one of my reservations is, do we need another season on Tatween? We're already getting Obi-Wan, right? I've kind of had my fill at this point. I mean, we learned some things about Tatween. We saw some new sides of the planet this season, but I think it might be time to move on. So maybe, maybe Cobb doesn't. I have some bad news for you. The next Star Wars show, which comes out in May is set on Tatooine. Yes. Now, granted, it's early on the timeline. I want to be clear, I couldn't be more excited for Ovi-One Canovey.

Could not be more excited, but will he stay on Tasmean? That's the question. This is, I mean, look, if you put you in McGregor anywhere or you put Oliphant anywhere, I know you two are in. So the settings. I regret to inform me that you're watching. No, I'm in, too. I don't have a life-size model right behind me at this moment.

It's not life-size. You're missing out. So second of all, I put him away. He's not here. He was only here for one episode. It wasn't a little distracting to look into his eyes while I was talking to. But what if he has a bigger, broader. Wow, you're channeling you're John Snow there.

To his eyes! What if he has a slightly broader role? What if we resurrect Rangers of the New Republic, right? I like this. The canceled caradoon show. And we slot him into that role. So he's not just a marshal of one town or one planet, but he's a roving lawman. I'm crying at the thought of that.

Yeah, that would work for me. Yeah. I just want more comment. All right, Mal, is there anything you want to say about Bubba season two before we rolled to Mando Season 3? There's not. Okay. Close in the book at Cobbant.

We will open it again when Disney wants us to. All right. So Mando's season three, Ben, you sort of tease that. Do you want to talk like what your vision is for Amanda's three? Sure. Well, it was kind of a flex, I think, by Favro and Flonie to resolve the most important pressing plot thread before the season even started, which. tells me that they must feel pretty confident, right?

That they still have a lot of story to tell. Yeah, right. Because they could have stretched that out for a season, right? We would have watched just to will they or won't they get back together. We all knew they would, but still didn't expect it to happen so soon. So maybe Boba comes into the Mandelor plot that one would assume would be the centerpiece of this season. And it can kind of pick up from where we left off because Boba's looking for a tribe, right?

And maybe Mandelor and Mandalorians can become that tribe for him possibly. And maybe he can also help Din realize that he doesn't need to follow those Bantha Fada rules, or at least not all of them potentially. So maybe they help each other out. But obviously we're going to get Andalor, we're going to get Grogu and Din just teaming up to go to that place. Find the living waters. Find those living waters. Find that Mephasor.

Let's do it. Exactly. I can't fucking wait. So my hope for Grogu, I think, is that he somehow gets the Dark Sabre fuses his Jedi and Mandelor foundling lineages, right? This is our hope too. Yeah. Like Dark Sabre creator Tarvisla, which would also be satisfying because we saw Moth Gideon hold the Dark Sabre over Grogu's head in a traumatic scene. So a little reversal of fortune here have him wield it now that he passed up Luke's offer for Yoda's lightsaber, presumably.

And then you get a little sometimes the student guides the master and we are what they grow beyond theme there where maybe Luke learns from Grogu. He could stand to. He could, yeah. Put a seatbelt on that baby. I saw people complained about Luke just delegating to Artu. Artu has saved the galaxy numerous times. I'm totally fucked up also. Arta has also fucked up.

Frankly, how dare you? I'm standing right. We also, in this finale, saw Grogu's force-soothing ability, right, which could come in handy. If there's another monster that maybe Mando encounters at some point, perhaps a Mithosaur. I don't know whether it'll be a metaphorical Mithosaur or an actual one. Is the real Mithosaur the friends who made along the way? Yes, exactly, the way capital W. Wow, wow, yeah.

That could happen too, right? So if you see Grogu with the Darksaber and with the ability to tame the mythosaur, they kind of make the perfect combo, right? So I like that idea. And of course, there's the question of what will we learn about Grogu's past, not just his future. So we got a little glimpse here, but that is one of the most intriguing storylines for me here, too. Yeah. I've been parsing what Asoka said back in the episode where she revealed Grogu's name.

And she says, at the end of the Clone Wars, when the empire rose to power, he was hidden, someone took him from the temple. So it doesn't necessarily say he was saved or that he was saved. And then she said that after that it goes dark. Right. And so I've been wondering, A, does someone- Emotional damage? Yes.

And maybe that could be from seeing three Jedi cut down in front of him. But maybe it's something else. Maybe he extricates himself from this situation somehow. We have seen him force choke, stormtroopers, remember? Right? Not that big a leap to go from that to clone troopers. They look a lot the same. Maybe he was drawing on some previous experience in the temple when he did that. So I could see him. You know, we know he's very powerful. He hasn't harnessed his powers yet. Maybe in this moment, he lashes out, right? And he saves himself. We see a little dark side, Grogu, and he blocks that out. That's why it's such a traumatic memory that he has repressed at all these years. I was just thinking about the book of Cobb fan. No. I want to yes and something you said.

So you said that you want Grogur to get the Dark Sabre. I feel like after this finale, I kind of want Dinh Jharing to keep the Dark Saber. Because Mal and I were talking about a little earlier, like we've seen him struggle to use it. And he struggles to use it in this episode. And then when Grogu shows up, he can use it so much better. Like he knows what he's fighting for. He's able to wield it and he's able to drive it into the droid and stuff like that. So I want to see

Dinaran master the dark saber and like the force that he uses to do that is like the force of his child that they are a unit, you know what I mean? Right. And that like, you know, and that Grogu can use his force abilities better when Dinas or Adam and stuff like that. The other question I had is like, you know, obviously Mal and I've been talking about this idea that Mando's season three or Asoka or whatever, like that we might see Ezra again, very soon. soon and doesn't

Ezra also have the like force ability to right yeah to soothe the monsters beast the monsters so I was wondering like maybe the mythosaur is too much for Grogu and it's like it has to be Ezra and Grogu together

soothing the mythos after it but is that fan fiction then they could cuddle Grogo and the mythosor snuggling like the raincore that'd be fun guys that might be a wrap for me

if it happens I don't know if I could go forward. I'm just retiring. Because there is the pesky question of if Groku gets the Dark Saber, how does he get it from Mando? Right. Because no one wants them to fight. But if somebody else takes it for Mando. Yeah, someone else takes it or they decide that they're not going to abide by these rules.

We got some Bow-Din tension coming. But yes, I like the idea ultimately of them rejecting that narrative, right? That media narrative has to be. Right. It has to be one in combat and in battle. I like the idea that you were talking about earlier, just of in general, kind of Boba being in that din mix

because actually of the, not just their relationship, but the Boe element, like thinking back to that scene with Boba and Costco and Boe in the end of, at the end of Mando season two was so great.

Like, don't you mean your donor, careful princess, you're a clone? I've heard your voice thousands of times. There's a lot there to mine. I'd like to see those characters together. again. Yes, that would be fun. But we're going to find out more about Krogu's past and what he's been doing for the past 30 years one would imagine. But because it's Star Wars, I doubt that he's

going to be saved by the Jedi Temple janitor, right? There's going to be something interesting that happens there. And if he does kind of lash out, then maybe he passes out after that. Someone else finds him. Or maybe he was hidden, as Asoka said, but not hidden in safety necessarily. Maybe he was taken purposely, right, by Anakin or Darth Vader at that point. Maybe Palpatine told him, hey, save the little guy who looks like Yoda, right? Because he will live a really long time and I can just leach off of his force blood forever. The Palpatine possibility really stands out rewatching that scene because it does seem like possible that the 500 first is making a B-line for him, potentially. Or does Darth have a twinge of conscience there because it's

one thing to cut down a room full of younglings, but another to kill an actual baby who looks like Yoda. I don't know. I don't know how much remorse Anakin was experiencing in that particular sequence. No. Yeah. But maybe one of those two things. Or maybe someone swoops in, right? But that is, I think, one of the big draws here. And then there's always Cadbane potentially, right? I don't know which show he could be back in if he's back in either. I mean, root of him to die potentially. eventually right after I perfected my impression, but maybe he didn't. So you may have already talked about this, but I think I'm kind of torn just because he had that cool last line, right? I knew you were a killer. It doesn't work as well if he wasn't killed. But it's also satisfying, I think, for Boba's arc, such as it was in that series where he kind of destroys his past self, right, by killing Bain. And I'm all for having some stakes, I think. I don't want everyone who seems to be dead to come back. Don't worry.

Garso Fipps dead. Probably, I would think so. Usually we say if you don't see the body, then he could come back, right? This time we saw the body, but we also saw that beeping and blinking and maybe he's paging the modifier. Finnex survived the shot to the gut, the long night, and the very leisurely banter. I just cannot accept that my dude who is coated in gadgets. This is not going to be okay.

I just can't accept it. Can I talk about another blue character? I want to float a theory by you. Max Revo is alive. We did not see him die. 100%. In on it. Ryan Erie, who does great boba breakdowns on screen rant,

floated a theory that we know that Asoka is looking for Thron, looking for Ezra. What if Thron is on Mandelor? And it all sort of comes together there. I've been wondering. how exactly they're going to introduce the audience to the backstory that leads to Asoka, because I think that's kind of a more complex, maybe a heavier lift than it is with these other shows because in that case it's if her whole mission is that she's searching for Thron,

she's searching for Ezra. No one knows who Ezra is who hasn't watched Rebels, right? So I think, you know, you could just say, oh, it's a lost Jedi who jetted off into space and Thron people maybe know a little bit better. But I think it would help perhaps to introduce them in a way that would overlap with people that, you know, characters that people have already seen in live action and wouldn't need me to come on and do a lore segment to explain who these people are. I really recommend this video. I think this is in his sort of like what's next for Star Wars TV breakdown video he did or something like that. But he was talking about how all this stuff, all these plots, the Mandelor plot, the Thron plot, all this stuff,

is taking place in these outer regions of the galaxy so that you could have some of these stories happening concurrently with Ray and all of that because it's in far enough reaches of the galaxy where, yes, the First Order is coming back but all of this stuff is happening sort of on the margins of the larger story because that's been the constant issue with Asoka

is how do we explain her absence? And so like, oh, she's in another, she's another realm or she quit the Jedi Order at the time whatever it is to get out of the way and so this idea that like maybe this sort of outer regions of galaxy space is

a good setting to have a lot of these characters off the table for the main Skywalker saga as it goes forward yeah the sequel trilogy it's kind of confined in time and space really there's less time that elapses in that trilogy than there is in the earlier trilogies and it

doesn't really range over as much of the galaxy necessarily. So I think it's easier to explain why so-and-so is not there at that time. But you would think that while the lifespan of Groku sets up some sad scene with old man Mando way down the line. But I think it makes him very valuable potentially to Disney and Tolucas film as someone who can bridge. Maybe it's just ruling Mandelor peaceably while the sequel trilogy is happening, you know?

All right. Anything else we want to say? Young Garza Fhip, whip in, well, younger Garza FIPP in Obi-One. Yes or no? Yeah. It's nice if Jennifer Beals had a reason to have been cast. Yes. I have never laughed harder at the Midnight Boys than when Van was like,

next time, get it up and comer. Go to an acting class. And hire someone new to play that character. You're just going to blow up Jennifer Beals and then not say her character's name in the finale at all. Yeah. All right. I look forward to the steamy

Tatooy Knights of the Ghost of Satin and Young Garsoff Whip in the caves with a non-D-H U.M. Granger. Anything else you want to say, Ben? So the wookie gets a melon and I don't?

The quality of this series fluctuated, just a tad from week to week, but talking to you too was always a delight. Oh, my God. It was such a joy to have you here. Genuinely. Goodbye for now.

We'll always have your cat-bated present. Godbane and Ben-Lenberg will be back. All right. We have sent Ben Lindberg off into the binary sunset, and it's time to bring in our postmaster general of Tatumene. It is Jomey, dinner and I, Jomey. I'm good. I missed you too, buddies. You know, we're a bit of a bond here right now.

You've got to be careful to keep your head down. But hey, you've got the shirt. Wow, that's beautiful. The shirt, you've got the shirt. Honestly, really speaks to the quality of the bond, genuinely. That was really touching. Do you see the GIF that shows that, like, they're holding hands at one point in this episode?

Yes. Thank you for mentioning this. I can't believe I forgot to mention this. The fuck is wrong with me. I have watched that clip of Bando and Groger reuniting maybe a thousand times since Wednesday. They're holding hands.

It's so beautiful. I love them so much. All right, let's get into these questions. Our first one from Andy, how would you rank your excitement for each of the future live action Star Wars shows? Now, I don't know if we have, this podcast is going on for,

six hours. You guys won't believe this, but we started recording at 6 a.m. And it's, and it's 4 o'clock right now. So it's just been a whole thing. So we're going to go rapid fire with this one, I think.

Top top three each maybe is a way to keep it tight. Top three most anticipated shows. I'll go and I'll say this is my top three and I'm not, I reserve the right to change my list at any point. This is always the case. One, Mando season three, Grogo, obviously. Asoka, three, Obi-Wan, that's my top three.

I'm also very excited for other shows, but that's the top three. And it's really more like 1A, 1B, 1C. I'm so excited for all of them. Joe? Number one, because I like a miss, well, I'll start at the bottom. Start at the body of Obi-1.

Number three, Obi-1 Canobee. Yuma Gregor, love him. Number two, the known quantity, Mando season two. Season three. Great. Grogo. Love you. Forever.

Number one, because I like a mystery, is Leslie Headlands, the Ackole. I'm really excited for that to be something potentially very weird and cool. I'm really hyped for that. So I'm really curious what that might be. How about you, Jemmy? All right.

So my third would be Asoka, you know, excited. But, you know, I'm ready to, you know, see what's going on there. Number two, Mando, season three. Like I was just saying, I love Grogu and Dinn. So we'll be happy to see them back again. And number one, Obi-Wan, clearly. Got to see the dude.

And actually, my zero, this doesn't actually count because it's not a new show and it's not live action. But I'm ready to see rebels, guys. We're ready for you to see rebels. We can't wait. I'm tapped in. Where are you? Where are you? I'm about to end season for the Clone Wars soon.

Flying. Ventress and what's his name? Ducco. General Canobie. Canelby. Oh, Grievous. Yeah, Grievous. They're on Dathamereemir.

They're on Dathamere right now, fighting. Oh, great, great stretch. I'm about to wrap that up with Savage, and I'm not going to spoil it if you have it. Well, spoilers. Darth Mall apparently comes back at the end of season four. So I'm tapped it. I'm ready.

That doesn't count. One of our listeners on Twitter called Savaggio Press, the French Cologne, and it made me laugh for like 20 minutes. But I'm excited for rebels because I was talking to Mal about this. All the stuff on Mandelor is special. It's special television.

And so to know that like Rebels goes like, you know, deep into that, I'm ready. Let's go. It doesn't count. It's not live action, but that's where I'm going to love rebels. We're so excited for your updates. I'll just say I never thought there would be a scenario where I didn't answer that question by having Asoka number one. And again, 1A1B1C, but that's how hyped I am for Mando's season three in part because

of that, not only the Grogo and din of it all, but all of the Mandelor elements will see Asoka on that show I'm sure it's all connected. They're all in the same timeline. Not open. Right. But those two, I can't wait. Well,

speaking of Grogu, our next question comes from Lauren. And Lauren wants to know where is your favorite place that Grogu has napped thus far? Wow. I have a new favorite mailbag question.

It's a really good question. This is incredible. Holy shit. Every nap that Grogo has ever taken is amazing. If I had to pick just one, I think that my pick would be, you know, the ice planet

Maldow crease in season two of Mando episode two. They're waylaid with Frog Lady and the razor cress has crashed.

This is before the attack of the ice spiders just trying to get a snoo and Dinn sits down to go to sleep and Grogo like curls up on his hip and just

nozzles against him for a snooze. That is my pick. It is one of the sweetest things that I've ever had the pleasure to witness. I don't want my answer to be this episode, but it's definitely this episode because he like, only does he curl up next to, he like burrows into the sand. He like wiggles to get into place. It's the cutest fucking thing I've ever seen.

So cute. It's so cute. Or last week when he like, napped in the middle of the crick, didn't he? Like after he was all tired out. Because Luke's a little, little jerk. He took a little crick nap. Yeah. So. I love that for him. There's a, I can't remember the episode. but there's a gift where he's napping in the little hammock. Yeah. And I always want to be that calm and that relaxed. The hammock naps are great. Oh, to be a grogoo napping in a hammock.

That's the energy I want. When Mando takes him out of the little, the hammock bed and, like, holds him and cradles him as Grogoo naps in his arm before he thinks they're about to say goodbye. That's very special, too. Can someone on YouTube just do a super cut of all the Mando Grogoy? dad said moments and I'll just watch it whenever I'm feeling low. Thanks so much in advance for that. Inject that into my veins. I need it.

Oh, God. All right. Our last question, crumbs some S.E. Thai. And S.E. Ty asks, Boba said he's not cut out to be Darmio. What job should he try out for next? Jomi, what's your answer? We want to hear your answer. We've talked about Boba all episode.

What's your answer to this one? You take this one. Man, I don't think Boba can run a marathon, to be honest with me. That boy has no sense. He's got no sense of awareness. He doesn't know what he's doing. Right. Look, we all saw the same thing, right?

You spent all that time, man, I need to do this. I got a bar-da-da. And the last thing that we heard you say is I'm not cut out for this. You knew the whole time. You knew the whole time that this wasn't what you wanted. and you sat you how many people died boba how many people lost their life because you said this is what i want to do but in the back of your mind in your mandubla umlagata you were like hey maybe just say what i want right and here's my thing right maybe maybe you're not cut out for it right but you got

i want to try you got to be like hey man i'm going to give it a shot even if i don't believe in myself the people believe in me. Give me confidence. Give me strength if you're going to be my dimeio. But nah, I can't do it. I don't have it in me. What is that? And I'm supposed to, I'm supposed to trust you with my life, with my family? Under no circumstance. Under no circumstance. Like, if I've, if I'm like, hey, I'm looking for work, I need somewhere to go. I'm like, oh, I speak to the boss. And Boba Fetz's looking at me across the table. I'm walking out. I'm leaving. I'm taking my bag. I'm going home. I don't want to work for you. I don't want to work for

somebody who doesn't have faith who doesn't believe in themselves. It's embarrassing. It's disappointing. And frankly, the people of most ESPA deserve better. So long story short, he shouldn't try out for any job, right? He needs to go home, reevaluate, think about himself. They're like, hey, man, what do I want to do here? You know, he doesn't need to work. Maybe he said he got a lot of credits, right? maybe go sightsee, take up art, right? No job. Poetry, right? Poetry.

Don't lead people because that's not what you're about. You don't have the skills. You don't have the heart for it. And that's okay. Two things. Number one. That's the funniest thing I ever heard. Number two, I think your new Star Wars name is the Dublo.

I'm just saying to use your brain, man. You can't. What if like, what if somebody? Like, what if somebody left, they died in that scenario? And you over heard Bubba going, amen. Maybe I should have done all this. But like, you're saying now? You couldn't have said that 30 minutes ago?

You could have said that when Garza Fipp still had all of her skin. Right? I would be so bad. Nah. Not worth it. Not worth it. Whatever lesson he learned is not worth the loss of my beloved Garza Fipp and my big boys. I'm saying.

He's got to learn why he's in. He can't do it. Special spin off, Garso Fipp and the pig boys. Maybe he should run a slam poetry night, an open mic night run by Boba Fett. He's like he has a, here's what he has a knack for, taking like broken weirdos in under his wing, right?

He's like, hey, you mods seem like a waste of space. How may you come ride with me? He wasn't even a good zordon to the mighty morphine tattoo Rangers. Like, he could have, like, you know what I'm saying? Outfitted them with some cool stuff. He'd even do that. There was, Fennick is the real boss of it being real with you. Right? Like, I mean, you talked about a midnobos. Fennick was out there. She saved the mining wolf and tatarine Rangers.

You know, she killed all the people in most eyes. Like, that's, you know, let's like, is Fennick their brains in the operation? I don't want to start agendas, right? This late. But, like, where's the book of Fennick? You know what I'm saying? No. Like, what's going on? Like, let's have these, let's have these. Let's have this discussion. Who should really be in charge?

Absolutely. She was like, that's a bad idea. And he's like, I'm going to do it anyway. And then it was a bad idea every time. God. She better to me. I would have been upset. We would have had that a problem.

You know what I'm saying? John Snow, shout out to him. Every time somebody was like, hey, John don't do this. And he did it. He was always right. He didn't go back and was like, I told you so. Fennick, if I was Fennick, I would have been a Bubba's face every single minute. You're wrong.

I told you so. You need to do better. Right? I would have been his girl all the time. She had better human being than me. You know, it's probably all the metallic guts. You know, shout out to the mods. But I just couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. That's the bottom line. I would just, I would be insufferable.

All right. Mallory, do you have any, do any thoughts or feelings about what Boba Fett should run? Take some time to spend with his, with his rancor and write some poetry. I like the poetry idea. I think Boba should reflect. That's what I want for him. Yeah, he needs a break. He needs a break.

All right. Did we do it? We did it. Perfect reminder once again. And this time I'm going to say all the things I'm supposed to say, which is number one. Charles and I and maybe probably Van. Jomey and Steve probably also. We'll all be back on Monday talk about Super Bowl and what we saw there, what trailers we saw there.

I'm really excited for that. Lord of the Rings ever heard of. it. Wednesday, the Midnight Boys, Piu, we'll be back doing something. We don't know what. It's a mystery. So, come back and hear what they have to say. They're always funny, no matter what they're talking about.

So I recommend that. And then on Friday, Peacemaker finale Breakdown with Mallory, it's you and Charles and Mann. Is that who's doing that on Friday? Great stuff. I mean, a full week of content in the ringer

reverse can't miss. This episode was produced by the great Steve Allman, who would never just walk off a cliff as far as I know. And he would keep his jetpack, you know, to fuel by standards. Fueled up. All the way.

Social. King of Social, Jomea Dineron, who would not ride a rancor into downtown Mos Esva. Just let the Chips Mall where they may. And of course, our great producer, Juniper Ram DePaul for, you know, definitely deciding to not throw a baby into an X-wing

and not even fasten the seatbelt or anything else. So thanks to all of those guys for not betraying us or letting us down. And we will be back with so much for our reverse content next week. Thanks to you all. A bye. What's the difference between butter and butter made from real California? dairy? It's the real California farm families behind it. Real people. Real care. Real intention. Why? Because real matters. So whether you're pouring milk, melting of cheese, or just grabbing one more spoonful of yogurt.

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