The Ringer-Verse - 'The Mandalorian' Season 3 Episode 1 Deep Dive | House of R

Episode Date: March 4, 2023

This is the way ... to the best deep dive in the galaxy! Mal and Jo are back to dive into their thoughts on the epic Season 3 premiere of ‘The Mandalorian’ (09:15). They then begin their deep dive with where the Mandalorian people are and what adventure awaits Din and Grogu (21:43). Later Ben Lindbergh joins to discuss the lore of a special hyperspace whale (01:58:00), all before giving out their episode rewards and theories. Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Guest: Ben Lindbergh Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you're lost in the darkness, look for the pod. Specifically, the Prestige TV podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network, where we're breaking down every new episode of HBO's The Last of Us. On Sunday nights, grab your battery and join Van Lathen and Charles Holmes for an instant reaction to the latest episode. Then head back to the QZ on Tuesdays for a deep dive with Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin. From character arcs to video game adaptation choices, story themes to needle drops, we'll parse every inch of this cordyceps-coded universe.

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Restrictions apply. See terms at Fandul.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. Do you still have the saber? I do. Then you lead them. Wave that thing around. And they'll do whatever you say. So you gave up your designs to retake Mandelor?

Your cult gave up on Mandelor long before the perch. Where were you then? And welcome into the Ringerverse. Here on the Ringer podcast network, I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only to Kalaala. There's plenty of room. But also, to join us on the Ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom, joining me today,

suddenly demanding that we refer to her as the Pirate King whose name is familiar to all in this section. It's my favorite bad baby. And my house of our co-host, Joanna Robinson. Mallory. The armor was able to build this helmet in a cave with a box of scraps. We're back. We're back with Manalorean.

I'm so excited. We've never done a full season of the Mandalorian together. We've only done Boba Fed episode. that are basically Mandalorian episodes. We only did Mando Season 2.5 together. Yeah. Oh my God. I'm so excited. This is thrilling. I'm brimming with joy.

I'm so, so, so excited to talk about the show with you every week for the next eight weeks. Before we climb in together today to the N1 Starfighter, though, let's hit those programming reminders, Joe. There's a lot happening across the network. The Midnight Boys. Beo! Of course, already have their instant reaction to the premiere up on the feed. All season long, you'll be able to get the Midnight Boys Instry Action on Wednesdays. You'll get our House of Our Deep Dive on Fridays.

If you're still wondering about some of the lore-centric history, you're like, oh, there's all this stuff about Mandelor and Dark Sabers and this, I'm interested in learning more about this Boca Tan who's popping up at the end of the premiere. Go back if you haven't yet and check out the primer pot that, We did. We went through our most essential Mando moments to ready for the season. And we went through a lot of the animated canon that's going to be really, we assume, essential for the journey to come here. So check that out if you haven't yet. If you're wondering what else we're up to outside of Mando. I was. I was wondering. We're still in the Cordyceps Apocalypse as well. A couple more weeks left. The tendrils are reaching. of the last of us, a show that we are loving and loving covering over on our sister pod, the prestige TV podcast. You can hear Van and Charles with our instant reactions on Sunday night. We have our deep dive on Tuesday. So pop over there and check out those pods if you haven't.

And Joe, is there something you want to remind folks about that's coming a few weeks from now and might warrant a little prep in anticipation? Speaking of a hot daddy. and a spaceship with a companion. We are going to be doing a year-long re-watch, revisitation, first-time watch for Mallory, exploration of the TV series, Doctor Who, leading up to the anniversary special

that's airing at the end of this year, I think in November, I believe. So we're starting with our first installment at the end of this month. So we are in March, the end of March, the first installment of the Doctor Who revisit slash first time watch for Mallory, We are starting with the first season of what's called New Who.

And it is the Christopher Eccleston season. So if you go to HBO Max and look up like the Doctor Who episodes, because they're all over there on HBO Max, it's season one. That's what it's called over there. So like that's all we're covering. It's just that season of television. It's not much to ask a quick little weekend binge, if you will. And we're really excited.

I'm like so excited to bring Mallory into this world. So, yeah. I can't wait. We got a lot of fun shows and stories to talk about it for the next few weeks. And it march is totally clear of other shows. So it's the perfect time for us to do this. Logan Roy has an update for you. Joanna.

I heard that there were some cannibal girls in a wilderness somewhere. Might have something to say about that. Joe, how can the folks listening at home follow all of that? Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you asked me. Listen, if they want to subscribe to this feed, the Ring Reverse feed, I can't see any reason not to at this point, right? First of all, secondly, Sister Pod, as you mentioned, Presti's TV, why don't you go ahead and subscribe to that one too? I would, if I were you. Also, if you want to follow us on socials, our pal Jomey and dinner on is just like crushing it all over the place, TikTok.

I saw him mention on a TikTok like he was some sort of like famous social media guy. He is. That's Jomey. And he's doing it on TikTok, on Instagram, on Twitter. Follow us at the Ringer, at Ringerverse on all of those platforms. And then last but certainly not least. We got a space skater

in this episode. We got a little grogoo. In spirit, that is Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. That is still our email address. The joint is jumping over there. The Apple debate rages on. The mushroom recipes are pouring in. We got some dipping dips take this week, Mallory.

I expected as much. Yeah. So, you know, we got some great Mando emails, which we'll be reading this week in the episode. So if you've got Mando thoughts and feelings, last of us thoughts are feelings, poker face thoughts are feelings, because that's where those go to and then like any sort of food take

that we happen to smash on you over the head with Hobbs and drags to Gmail.com. Back to you, Mallory. I love it. Keep the emails coming all season long. And last thing on the reminders front. As always, bear in mind, please, our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning.

Today's podcast will, of course, feature plot details, all of the plot details from the Mandalorian season three premiere, but also all of Mando. Anything in the Mandoverse, that means Boba Fett, Clone Wars,

Rebels. Spoilers for Star Wars. All of Star Wars. Yeah. It's all on the table today. So if you don't, want to hear any rebels deep cuts, for example, though, why wouldn't you? Proceed with more caution than the armorer did when holding a creed baptism in a creature layer. Just pick a different spot. That's all. Yeah. We'll talk about that. I have some like event planning question.

Oh, man. Event planning questions. I can't wait. All right. We have so much to get to. Let's just dive in. We are here to talk about the season one premiere chapter 17, the apostate. We love, we had fun. We had fun with the Bazvisla apostate line in our primer pot. I just have to say, like, I'm proud of us. Like when this episode title came up, but it was The Apostate, I was like, Mallory and I talked about the word apostate for literally minutes on our primer podcast. Wonderful stuff. Joe, who penned, who helmed this episode?

How long was it? Give us the quick facts. Written by John Favreau ever heard of him. Of Yadamama. Directed by Rick Famuyua. This is only a 37-minute episode with credits. A real shorty. Real shorty.

But I have some thoughts and theories about that. So that is what we're here to talk about today. Already teasing Theory Corner. And we've only just begun. That's just a pro move. It's a pro move from you, Jim. Honestly. Part of what's exciting today, not only

talking about the premiere, talking about the season. Hearing your theories, we also get to hear something else. And it's whatever new sound design our beloved producer Steve Allman has for season three of The Mandalorian, we don't know yet. We're about to find out in real time he's surprising us today. So let's start, as we always do in a deep dive with our opening snapshot. Welcome to the Port of Ringerverse, gem of the outer rim. Wow.

Peppy. Okay, John Williams. Look at you. Okay, knock off John Williams. Oh, boy. Joanna Robinson. Yeah. Overall impressions, quick snapshot.

We'll talk more about what we thought of all of the specific aspects of the episode as we go, of course. But give us the opening snapshot of your impressions of Chapter 17, The Apostate. Well, I'm really glad you asked me, Mallory. And I'm really excited to hear your impressions because you went to the premiere in Los Angeles. So I'm excited for your update. But I will just say that, like, this is a shorty of an episode. There was a lot of recap for folks who hadn't watched Book of BobaFet, not just in the previously on, but like we have repeated beats in this episode or just quick moments of exposition.

We've got two spectacle moments, right, with the Gator Fight and the Pirate Fight. And then, like, so many Googles and coos and cuteness from Grokewk, go. And so what it felt like, I mean, there's a part of me that feels like this could be probably latched on to episode two to give us like a supersized premiere. And that might have felt like there was a little bit more like textual meat on the bone. But in terms of a like mood setter of like, welcome back. Remember how cute this baby is? We know you remember how cute Pedro Pascal is. We're not going to show you his face though. But, you know. We got to see it in the previously on. That was something. Thanks for that.

But yeah, for like a mood setter, for a Favre flexing a little bit about like, this is what we can do. This is what we do here, adventure. This is the tone, especially after not just the last of us, which is like a different tone of this story that we're watching around HBO, but after and or. And we'll talk about that in a second. But just sort of like a, I think a needful dunk in the living waters of this show, if you will, to remind us where we're. How about you, Mel? I'm just so glad to be back in the Mandalorian universe. And it was really fun. Van and I went to the premiere and they surprised us in real time by show on the second episode.

It was just so fun to gasp aloud and laugh and clench my heart when Grogukud or did a cute thing and then hear that echoed in the room. Right? It's always just a really neat experience. So that was just a really fun shared Mando fandom night. I thought that the first episode was really good and really fun and had that Mando energy that we need to like reaclimate. Yes, the few lines that we get that are if you miss Boba Fett lines. Of course, if you like us watched the book of Boba Fett,

then that feels a little awkward. I think it needs to be there for the people. people who didn't, and I think it's appropriate that those moments are there for the people who didn't, because you don't want the connective tissue across the expanded universe to start to feel like it's prohibitive to continue the journey if you miss it. So I'm glad that people who didn't see Bobo. I hope everyone checks out those Bob episodes because the Mando ones are really wonderful. But I'm glad that people who didn't see those get to just pick up. And, you know, I think there's this interesting question of should the Boba hours have just been the Mando season three kickoff

instead. And I'm like of a couple different minds about this because on the one hand, as you know, Joanna, I love a connected universe. I love when we get these cross-show appearances if it makes sense and if it feels appropriate and like it's the right time and place for that. And this is the Mando timeline. That's the stretch of Star Wars that we're in now. That will also be true for Soka. That will also be true for skeleton crew. So it makes sense to see these characters appearing in each other's stories. And while episodes five and six of Boba and just a couple scenes of episode seven would have been like an astonishingly rich and compelling opening stretch of the Mandalorian season three if they had gone that way, the flip side is pretty apparent, which is we would have had to wait for our core duo,

our lone wolf and cup. Check out that pot if you haven't yet. The trope. course, always there for you, we would have had to wait to see the reunion and to kick off with them together, to have the thrill of Grogu popping up in the bubble, seeing him in his little Baskar shirt, the episode put us back in the world, it put us back with our core pairing. And now from here we move forward into whatever this season seeks to explore. So was this the single best episode of the Mandalorian ever? No. But I thought that it was kind of like unapologetically itself and really felt like a contained

adventure of the week. Here's what we need to take care of right now before we go and move on to the next quest. Like traditional Mando episode in a way that I actually really like appreciated it and enjoyed. It's not trying to be something else and knows what it is. And the thing that it is is something that we've all loved.

So it felt good to be back in the world. I still feel pretty strongly that those Bob episodes should have been Mandalorian episodes. But I'm not like as irritated by it as I was. I left those feelings back in 2022. It does make me sad if anybody like, missed those stuff. You have to go watch them. I'm sorry to tell you. You don't have to watch

all of Boba Fett, but you have to go watch those episodes. There's so much in there. And so I think it's a little like, it does feel a little like you have to watch all of them to understand everything, like the true depth of everything. So I still think that was a little shi-stie, but I think that ultimately, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. This all feels like one large story. They're telling we're watching all of it, so we're not missing anything. And I think, you know, an analogy I used to you when we were sort of texting about this the last couple days was, you know, thinking a lot about Andor and like how much we loved Andor. That Andor felt like delicious granola, like brain food of a kind, right? And that this is like your sugary Saturday morning special cereal that you get to watch with your like cartoons on Saturday morning.

I don't know if that's how cereal worked in other people's houses and it actually isn't even how. it worked in my house. But I've heard tell that you get like special sugary cereal on a, on a weekend morning, right? Every day for me. Never in my house. No sugary cereal allowed. Mainlining sugar smacks, now honey smacks and crunch berries. I think the reason I associate with weekends is like I would get it at friend's house. Like we went to a friend's house. They might have like Cocoa Krispies or something like that. So that's what this feels like it's sugary. it's it's there's not a lot of nutritional value at least in like especially I would say in this episode um I'm sure there's more to come but there's nothing wrong like both of those things are good

and it's good to have both of them and this is just a reminder like you know let's throw down the bowl fill it with milk and cereal like this is what you're eating right now and you're like okay so it's it's a good reacclamation yeah I think that it's it's not a surprise given how impactful and engrossing ander was for so many Star Wars fans, if that feels like a bit of a phantom presence, just in general, across really any TV shows. It was such a wonderful viewing experience.

But we talked about this during the Andororan, and I feel it really strongly here. Part of the joy of Star Wars and part of what makes Star Wars successful when it is operating at a high frequency is that there are all of these different, flavors and vibes and character sets and intentions and elements to the world. Like that that scope and that variance is what makes Star Wars so fun. And we chat about that often in the areas that have

been less successful, you know, the rise of Skywalker, why does everything have to circle back to X, Y, and Z? Why does everything have to feel the same? Like, it can get off the rails quickly if everybody's trying to emulate each other. And so again, that's why I said earlier, like the fact that this just felt so purely like an episode of the Mandalorian. Like, here we are. Back with our pals for another week of this adventure show. Was I thought really like refreshing and heartening. And I think that there will be a lot of richness and depth.

There's, you know, one of the things that we, I think, both really enjoyed about doing our top moments. PrimerPod is tracking those through lines of the mythology of the idea of the creed and the way and the rigidity of these strictures that have guided the characters. and how can this relationship and the foundling bond and the mudhorn and the clan of two? And the overarching questions and sort of like full, like, which are outside of Star Wars sort of fundamental questions of identity and belonging and all this sort of stuff. Exactly. And so I think that that's one of the things that the show does well in his position to do really well this season is explore those thematically compelling questions and through lines.

while we're popping across the galaxy with our pals and their N1 Starfighter. So I'm hyped that we're back. I can't wait to talk about the season with you. I did want to ask one last thing before we dive in, which is just, do you feel a compulsion to comment on the John Favreau timeline explanations that have been absolutely dominating internet discourse this week? Or does that way lie bad this? It's just what I feel overall is just like needlessly baffling.

Like I just don't think that any of us, I mean, I'm sure some of us, someone asked him that question. Like the people who need to know every granular detail of Star Wars and they exist. And often they are us need to know exactly how much time has passed in X, Y, and Z. But I don't know that was like a- Just at me, bro. I don't know there was like a big burning. I know. Mal likes to write down her like BVY dates and something like that. Yeah.

It's like at the top of every doc. You can find like a 20 bullet point deep timeline. Yeah. True. But, like, I don't think that it was, like, a big, like, point of confusion until now. Right. Like, that Favreau on, like, in, like, a couple junkin interviews, and then an attempt to clarify on the Red Carper, the premiere, was asked about or offered up information about the timeline. And this is my final takeaway, which is, and you pulled the, in our notes here, you have the quote from the Red Carper Premier where Mark Malkin asked him, this is, this is,

my final answer, which is Favro is telling us that thus far, the show is operating in real time, which is to say that Grogu has been with Dinjaran for as long as we have seen him be with Dinjaran in our lives. Years have passed. This has not been like a couple months or whatever. Similarly, Grogu was with Luke Skywalker from the time of the season two finale to, when we saw him leave him in Book of Boba Fett, which was a little over a year. And then it's been another year again since that where Din and Grogo have been together bombing around. That's my understanding.

So just to think of it in sort of as many years as we've been with the show that so many years have passed in the story of these two folks, do you agree with that assessment? This is the biggest question I have is how many public transit, space shuttle rides, Dinjaran was checking the Dark Sabre on before he got the N1 Starfighter, if that's the case. It's a great question. So that's the thing I, that is the thing I simply cannot shake. This episode is brought to by Viori.

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Is it time to dive deep? Let's do it. Is it time to bathe in the living waters of the season three premiere? Oh, Steve has a little aquatic sound at the end. A little trickle. The lapping waves. Oh, so excited. Okay.

Here we go. Great stuff. Steve, you're a one of one. treasure. You're great. Our own and Zellon, Podsmith. Remember how Steve, before we started recording, he was like, yeah, you'll yell at me during the pod. And I was like, do you mean compliment you, Steve? Is that how you receive compliments? All right. Oh, boy. All right. Let's start right at the beginning of the episode with the armor. We open with the armorer forging a new kiddo helmet leading this ceremony where a foundling we can assume will be taking the creed. A couple things here.

We get the hammer. You already quoted our guy over diastain. You already noted this, this parallel. And of course, it's all part of the extended. Vavrovers. The hammering sound, the hammer and tongs that we got in the opening helmet sequence, and then we go right into the armorer. This is a very armor-centric, even beyond just the fact that we're at a creed ceremony, a very armor-centric opening to the season, which feels notable. She came up a lot in our preview episode, Joe. She really did. What did you think about opening with her?

Well, I think because almost any time we get, like, creed or philosophy or whatever downloads they come from Emily Swallow as the armor, they just, She's like love giving her these lines because she's so good at delivering them in a way that just feels like mythic. So, and her costume design is like maybe my favorite of the entire series. So I love checking in with the armor. I love that we hear it before we see it, which not like has to make us think not only of Iron Man but of end game, right? When we hear Tony Stark's hammer is like the end sound of the Infinity saga, you know what I mean? And so it's like I felt like in such.

a Marvel headspace when this all started. But yeah, I love the opening with her. This does feel a little bit like this part of the scene is only here if you didn't watch Book of Boba Fett. And so they dressed it up with a bunch of other things, including a giant gator fight. You know what I mean?

But like, I love that we're starting with her. And I feel as we continue to look at Dingereran's identity where he belongs, like if it's been a year since the last time he talked to the armor in the Book of Boba Fed episode. Yeah, chapter five, yeah. You know, he's been spending a year

wanting to come back, obviously. So, yeah, what about you? What did you think of the armor here? I loved it. It feels like she'll be a very significant figure in the season in Dinn's personal journey and what is currently an obsessive quest to pursue this.

and to be forgiven and to be welcomed back into the covert. But also, you know, when we, when Din asked the armorer in Booba chapter 5 about Boat's hand, we got to hear what the armorer thinks of Bo. They're on these very different sides. We obviously also got to hear Bo just spew these indictments of the children of the watch. So these characters have opposing philosophies. They're both very central in Din's life. So getting both of them as the bookends, the opening and closing of this episode felt very, very purposeful. I also just thought, at the most basic level, it was fucking cool to see a helmet forged. Like, the Mandalorian helmet is one of the most iconic things, not only in Star Wars,

but in pop culture, certainly in the nerdverse. Yeah. We've spent a lot of time across the Mandalorian seeing armor forged. But to get to see a helmet forged, this was just wonderful. And I love our, our palmerian. Ben Lindberg will, of course, as always, in a Star Wars pop, be joining us later today for a little lower corner. Hell yeah.

He had a little line in his wonderful weekly episode breakdown, which everyone should read on The Ringer.com. What a great website about, you know, this liquid that she pours in whenever we see her forging something being, he assumes perhaps from the living waters that we keep hearing about, which I thought was really neat. I also just liked seeing her spray paint the helmet. We know that Sabine Renn is going to be. coming to the live action in Asokup, perhaps sooner, perhaps this season, we'll get to meet Sabine,

given how central Mandelaar is going to be. And when you think of spray painting a helmet, you just think of Sabine. So there were all these little fun connections right away that I enjoyed. And then we go out of the cave, we follow the armor out, into this cove, into this ritual. Take us through, Joe, what we hear, what the vibe is, and the very overt religious parallels on display. This is a baptism ceremony, right? And we see that the covert has grown significantly since we last thought. It was a covert of two. And now, you know, there's a ton of helmets on display here.

Mallory's merch-loving heart is salivating over all the helmet options. One of the most brazen, here's all the new merch we're going to be able to make plays in recorded human history. And I, for one, respected it. I love it. We see a bunch of foundlings already have their helmets. and some even look smaller than this boy. So it's not even like an... And we know that like foundlings, the way it works,

it's not necessarily like an age ritual. It's like a when you come to this covert and when you have been fully embraced because there are like smaller kids with helmets than this kid. Brobo might be 175 by the time he says the words. You know, you're never too old. So we get this kid standing in the water

and yeah, it does look like a class. sort of baptism ceremony. He's not wearing white, but other than that. And then we get this recitation of these words. I swear on my name and the names of the ancestors that I shall walk the way of the mandolore and the words of the creed shall be forever forged in my heart. I love, you know, forged, forging words as part of the creed. I think it's great. Yeah. I mean, we're on a, as anyone who's listened to us, talk about the Mandalorian, Well, no, we're on a pretty set fixed. Let's abolish the zealotry path.

Yeah. But the poetry of Forged. It hit the Mark Joe with the hammer and tongs. Yeah, you love a water-based ritual. You do. You do. Did you think this was a flashback? Because I definitely did.

And I think many people did. And I think it was intentional. And that's what I'm curious to ask you about. there are a few different reasons that they could have been trying to cultivate that response or assumption in us. What seems most likely to you? To me, I think, I don't know a person who didn't think this was a flashback. And that's one of the enjoyable aspects of, you know, this cult that never takes its helmets off. Like, they are ageless, right?

So you can do a flashback with the armor. She's always, she's always been here. She always looks that way, right? Who knows how old Pazzla is under there? Eternal. He's eternal. But I think that, I think what we're meant, if we think it's a Dyn Jaran, then we're thinking about how young Dinn was when he went through the ceremony, how long this has been

a core part of his personality. So it's not something that's easily shed when Bocatan, when she first meets him in season two. And it's sort of saying, like, listen, man, this is not the. way, it's a way. And he's like literally what are you talking about? Yeah, he's the only thing I know. This is the way. This is the way. It's the only way. She's like, no, it's a way. You don't have to have helmet hair for the rest of your life, my friend. And so, but these things are not easily, like this kind of programming or culture, if you prefer a less insidious word, is not easily shed in

general. And definitely not. If it happened to you or happened for you as a child, and a child who was lost and grateful to be taken in. So I think that that's, I think it's really smart in that way to sort of trick us with a, with a pseudo flashback, but make us think about young Dinger. And what do you think, Mel? Yeah, I agree. I liked, I liked being briefly duped there for the opening few minutes. I think, like, part of it is because when the attack comes, it's an interruption. from this moment on, I shall never remove my helmet.

From this moment on, I shall never, oh, wait, halt, pause. We have a battle to wage. And so in that second where we're still thinking it's din, there's a little bit of a, does our guy have a loophole? Did he maybe never finish? Okay. I don't know what you were talking about, the water-based ceremonies because I can't think of any that I love, but I do love a legal loophole.

Like, I love a legal loophole. Yeah, you love the ocean and you love a legal loophole. So I think this is all really cool. for you here. There's also, you know, what you already noted, just the surprise of the sheer, the head count,

the sheer volume of the people in the cover. It was one of the things of the Boba chapter five episode that was always so funny because it's the armor and Paz. Then they're just thrilled to have Dinn back. Paz says,

there are three of us now. And then he's immediately excommunicated back to two. So we just are amazed. It wouldn't occur to us that they could have recruited that effectively that quickly. and swollen their ranks to that extent.

But I think the main thing is what you already said. Just the reminder of how young Din was. And we had that nice moment in an episode we love, Chapter 4 Sanctuary, where in season one where O'Meara asked in how long it had been since he'd taken that helmet off and he said yesterday, which is still very funny every time you rewatch it. She says, I mean, in front of someone else, I wasn't much older than they are. And he's looking out the window to where her daughter is playing with Grogo. the children are. So we, you know, we knew that he, he said the words when he was that young.

And the thing that he expresses, because she's, as anyone, would be like, shocked and appalled, right? You haven't shown your face to anyone since you were a kid. And what he replies with is gratitude, gratitude for the group that took him in after he lost his parents, after the tragedy and trauma of his youth. And it's like you said, like, we have these moments of frustration. Dan, you don't have to do this thing just because they tell you to. The bond you have with Grogu is, That's the new way for you guys to plot together. But when you're reminded in an instant like this of the truth of his existence and the gratitude that he associates with that truth, yeah, it would be a hard thing. It would be a hard thing to shake.

And I think it's important for us to remember that, which will ultimately make it more rewarding if he is able to move beyond it. Yeah, it helps us establish those stakes of like what he would what he would be giving up if he decides to give up. Right. It's life. Yeah. Before we talk about the stakes that come out of the body of the dinosaur turtle, which, by the way, is the official name on Wikipedia dinosaur turtle.

Just remarkable stuff. That's some real avatar naming of a creature. I do have to ask you because one of our favorite corners, a corner that, frankly, you never leave. No. I love here. Is Wigwatch with Joanna Robinson. Yeah.

Big one. Boygum. Wow. Steve, you've outdone yourself. You have outdone yourself. You've broken me. That's the funniest thing. Okay.

Oh, boy. We're going to need to do wig watch like 17 times for episodes so that we can just keep hearing that. Oh, my God. All right. But I have to ask you, because in the Mandalorian, helmets, they are wigs, Joe.

Sure, they are. Characters, it's all we see. We'd ever get to see the wig. We'd ever get to see the hair. So what do you want to? say here on helmet wigwatch corner about this vast array of new armor that we got to see all of these colorways. We got to see a couple fun signets, which we'll talk about maybe in the Easter egg section later. What's to that app? Okay. So you're trained eye. I saw that you put this in

the note so I wasn't going to let you down. I certainly wasn't going to give up an opportunity to talk about wigs even though helmets aren't wigs, but that's okay. And I certainly didn't want to miss an opportunity to hear that stinger that Steve created. But I went I went back through and I was pouring over the various helmets. And there's just nothing in that scene that can top the armor's helmet, like the horns and the brass and the rocketeer vibes and everything that's, like, going on with her is so amazing.

The only thing that comes close to me is at one point when the young ones are like scrambling at the back of the crowd to get away, there is one founding with like a Kelly Green, like solid Kelly Green helmet. I love that one. It's like a Philadelphia Eagles throwback jersey. I was thinking like it was a very like St. Patrick's Day, true Kelly Green.

And since we are thinking about the Eagles throwback jersey is weird. I'm always thinking about Ireland, actually, in my heritage. But it's March. We're in the month of St. Patrick's Day. We're only two weeks away. Never too late to get your spray paint your helmet, Kelly Green, so you don't get pinch on St. Patrick's Day. So I'm going to say the Irish founding. I would also like to port in wigwatch from another show entirely.

Oh, wow. In a very irresponsible fashion and address this. We love a smuggle. What do you mean? We got an email from Kimberly. Yay. The call is back. I really did.

We got an email from Kimberly who wrote an email about, I don't think it just debuted last night, so I don't think you have a chance to watch Daisy Jones in the Six, but this is an Amazon Prime Video Show, but a lot of people are watching and talking about based on a book that I really loved. Our guy Timothy Oliphon, aka Cobb Vant, is in there. There are some truly a true.

Crimes Against a handsome man. It's the 70s wig action happening on old Tim's head. Oh, no. Cobbant has like some of the best hair in the galaxy. Resplendent. But Tim and Daisy Jones, it's a bad situation. There's also like, if you guys watch, if you wind up watching the show, I need you to be on scarf watch and tell me like exactly how many scarfs you think Tim is wearing at any given

in time. So that was just a big watch sidebar. Back to the Dino Turtle. Okay. Here's what I would like to say about the attack of the Dino Turtle. The Croc Turtle, the alligator turtle, the lizard, whatever you want to call it. Another innocent creature, slain for no reason in Star Wars, this is just an animal going about its business in its own fucking backyard.

And it did not need to die. and I am appalled and dismayed. We only, I mean, this is going to make it sound like we have a ton of you. We only have a few emails this week, so forgive me for slamming two back to back, but needs must, because I really loved this email we got from Shane, so I want to read it. Shane writes, when I saw that familiar striking silver ship, I was sure there were set to stuff for Grogo to come save the day and gently put, you don't say dinosaur turtle, but let's say, dinosaur turtle to sleep.

then take a nap with it or something. Showing the progression. Yeah. Showing the progression of his ever-growing force powers. I was not ready for Dantia just fucking blasted. I was especially not ready for the poor creature to explode the boys' style five minutes into this family-friendly Disney Plus show. I thought of the whale from the boys too.

It's hard not to. I literally explained what the fuck was left shock for a minute and then they just move on like nothing happened. And honestly, it made me think of the previous conversation in the pod about Filoni and Fab's growing up playing with their Star Wars toys in the backyard and that maybe someone should stop them for bringing too much of that energy to shows, especially after that awful boba finale. As you've also discussed in the pod before, the best fight scenes tell you something about our characters and that Star Wars is usually so good about this. And I thought all the fights in this episode were lacking very much in that department. What did the fight with our sweet, innocent, chompy boy tell us about these characters? They prioritize protecting the young

and will put themselves in danger to help another member, both of which we already knew from season one. And that's about it. The rest is just cool. They have cool jet packs and grappling hooks and FAVs has a big cool gun. And Mando has a cool ship. So that's from Shane.

My tolerance for like it just looks cool is like a little higher than Shane's appears to be. But overall, I kind of, I mean, I kind of agree. I think both the fights, this and the, you know, pirate ship dogfighter just sort of like, ain't this cool? and that's okay. If it's, as we discussed,

this is the intro back into the world. And I think Favs did want to like, you know, and Rick wanted to show off a little bit about like, here's what we can do. I anticipate that a lot of the fights we see in the future in the season will have, especially since we've got a magical blade bumping around, are going to be much more weighted,

not to use a dark saber pun, but yeah, there we go. I did think both battle sequences, were fun and looked cool. I liked the asteroid belt pirate chase a little bit more. I think that the one thing you could argue they achieved is positioning Dyn yet again as just superior in like every respect. And that that being for a group of characters who,

as we will hear Boca Tazana, again say at the end of this episode, will only follow someone who is wielding the Dark Sabre well, there's something there about this sanctioning, this nighting, this validity, but it's also what that represents, which is like supreme strength. There's a little bit of a coli-sar, you know, a call who cannot ride is no-call aspect to this, right? And so I think that continuing to show Dyn as even among a group of warriors who are supposed to be really, really fierce at another tier, like, it's just, this is, we're watching Mike Trout. However, I will say, though, that the flip side of that, and one of the things, one of my, like, we have some notes on

the Dino Turtle sequence show is that I think it was really weird, while it was fun and cool, really weird that they kind of bo-bud the entire covert. Like, you remember during Boba Fett, how could we forget what a dominant conversation that that was, like that Boba wasn't this fierce fighter that people were called, that he was getting dunked on, that he was getting posterized. I always saw it with Boba that was like slightly overblown because he was, he's like, his most famous cinematic moment is just getting absolutely clowned into a sarlac pit. Yeah. However, for the Mandalrians more broadly, given that they're supposed to be these like formidable, untopped warriors, you could go head to head with the Jedi. I'm like, a couple dozen of you really got annihilated by this lizard.

who was just going for a swim. Pretty embarrassing. Kind of a weird choice. I don't think he was just going for a swim. I think he was going for a swim on some best car, that enriching ore. I wonder what that's what that's like coming out on the other end. Yeah, on the digestive system. You know that rule about like not swimming after you've eaten?

I think you have to like really extend the weight period if what you've eaten is Beskar. Yeah, I mean, I love seeing our guy Pasvisla get humiliated because I kind of hate that guy, right? It's a thrill. Yeah, to see him embarrass himself. What I will say is, like, I did feel a little bit like, what are we doing here, a little bit in the sequence. But if you want to talk about, like, smashing your toys together in the backyard, I will never not have a nostalgia-infused thrill when a flyboy shows up to a fight out of nowhere in Star Wars. You know what I mean? Like, that's my favorite moment in the Force Awakens.

You know what I mean? When, like, Chewene Han or just. sort of like, you know, it's just like the fleets here. The flyboys are here. The Lenium Falcon is here. And you're, you know, they saved your neck once again. So, you know. It's a great look for our gal Palimato because the N1 Starfighter is top notch.

Sleke. Really doing its job. We're like, hey, there's our old pal the N1 Starfighter. If you didn't watch Bobo, you're like, wow, look at this awesome new ship. I can't wait to go buy a new toy. But more importantly than the ship arriving, Joanna. Yeah. This will be, I believe if you do a control F in the doc, you will see this line.

I think 10 times. It is one of the most important moments in TV history. And here's the first one we will talk about, which is... Italyzizing up. She italicized it. Kroku rising up in the bubble. Show us his precious, perfect little gumdrop of the face. I knew a joy that I didn't know was possible.

There's a line from the Oceans franchise that I think about a lot. And I think it's from Oceans 13. It's from one of the lesser installments. And it's The Nose Plays, right? Matt Damon wants to wear a fake nose, the nose plays. Grogo plays. Like, no matter what. It works every time.

And you can feel yourself being shamelessly manipulated by coos and babbles and waddles and little reaches and little... Manipulate me. Yeah. I'm like more. Again, sir. Every time it lands. Every time it lands. And we immediately move into the next scene with another one of the most important moments in TV history, which is getting to watch Grogo waddle in.

The subtitle here is panting. He's just baby panting as he waddles in to hear this conversation between Daddy Dinn and the Armour, which a good portion of the audience has heard before in another television program, The Book of Boba Fett. Ever heard of it? I guess some people haven't because we get it again here.

Interesting framing. Yeah. The Mithosaur skull, which we also saw in the opening Helmet Forging sequence visible over the armor or shoulder during this exchange, during this recap. Very much the camera is centering on that.

There's like a shaft of light from nowhere because we're in a cave. gleaming on to the mythosaur skull. It's like, it's like very reminiscent of you on Zoom mid-morning. It's true. When it's just a beam of light plays across your face. This is good audio. Draw the eye.

People love when we take them behind the curtain. People don't know that my face turns into this like white Caucasian glowing mass because of the sunlight in my office. But that's, you have removed your helmet. We hear the armor say, what's worse? You did so of your own free will. You are no longer Mandalorian. Just top-tier stuff from Grogo here.

He, the subtitles are Grogo Gurgles curiously. He's really engaged. He's interested. He, like some of the audience, was not present in Book of Boba chapter 5. So he's hearing this for the first time. He's the avatar for the Chris Ryan's of the world who are like the Book of Boba who? The what effect? Yeah.

Here's my one note on this. Again, I'm glad that this is here for the people who miss Boba. I would love a, as I already. told you, hey man, nothing's changed since we last talked about this.

We went over this. You're excommunicated. Acknowledge that the conversation took place before because then you still get the benefit of the information download if it's new to you.

But if it isn't new to you, it doesn't feel as purely like repetition, which again, given just the relative brevity of the episode then stands out more. I think it's so interesting

that the, you know, Dinh Jarn has like a very, like, we have let go of the previous motivator for Dinn for the last two seasons, which is like, protect the baby, find the baby's home, right? Like, where does Groga belong? And then they're like, never mind, he belongs with me. You know what I mean? Like, that's what we've decided. Great.

So now he's a new mission, which is redemption, right? And this gets underlined here. And what we love about this idea is the creed teaches of redemption. And she's basically like, no way, pal. you need the living waters and the planet's destroyed, so it is unavailable to you. But what we love about this about, like, her rejection of him, her saying you took your helmet off, we know all the circumstances as to why he took his helmet off. And usually when a character is seeking redemption, they have, like, blood on their hand,

they've got red on their ledger, right? You know, they've got blood on their hands. They've done something that we, as an audience, are trying to grapple with as we empathize with them. I think it's such an interesting, different kind of tension for us to watch a show and be like, Dindjaran innocent, Dindjaran did nothing wrong. Dindjaran took his helmet off for his son, you know, and like for that to be the redemption that he's seeking is so interesting because it's like, we're like, but that's wrong.

Like don't seek approval from these assholes who think you taking your helmet off to give your beloved son a fawn farewell for at least one episode. Before that, to do it in front of, yeah, in front of Mayfeld because he needed to find Moppedian to do it to say goodbye to Grogo so they could look at each other Or because you're literally dying you know the first time so yeah exactly it's like every time he's taken his helmet off

it's not just because we want to look at Pedro's face it's like we're like there is an emotional story centric important reason why and for the armor to have no space for that you know is puts us

introduces a really interesting tension his goal is clear redemption in the living waters, but we are not necessarily rooting for that for him. And that's a fascinating place to be. I am so invested in the moment when he says, this is the most right anything has ever felt in my life when Little Grogues puts his little claw on my jawbone. Why would you tell me that was wrong? And if that's wrong to you, then is this the way that I want to live my life? It can't be the way I want to live my life.

I love the way you put that. And because that is so top of mind for us as viewers, it is particularly, it is particularly interesting to experience the dissonance once again of Dyn. And this is a consistent thing for him, looking on the bright side of the creed. When he says, as you noted, that the creed teaches us redemption,

it made me think of the exchange that the armor and Dinn had. This was also in Boba chapter five, where they're discussing the Jedi way and the armor is explaining. to him that Jedi have to forego all attachment. And he says that is the opposite of our creed. Loyalty and solidarity are the way. And his response there wasn't, wait, let me think about how these might be two sides of the same kind of toxic limiting coin. It was, but this is how we build and foster community. This is how we protect each other. This is how we move forward together.

And it made me wonder for a second if the show will, ultimately come down on that side. If the show will embrace the creator is interested in that at all. I say no still. I think you and I are completely aligned there. That does not seem like the story that Favs and Follone

are interested in telling. I think particularly given the now long-running history that Filoni has in the wider Star Wars canon of centering his story on characters who break out of some sort of rigid structure. Asoka, Ezra, Canaan, Sabi,

Yeah, but like Assoc is like most important creation. Cherished character. Right. And her rejection of the Jedi Order is like so important. Absolutely. So I'm still there. I'm still there. That idea that you mentioned that the armor says,

sorry, you can't attain that redemption because Mandelaar's been destroyed. I thought it was interesting too that that was actually what Din voiced when she told him about the Living Waters in Bova. He's like, but wait, I can't do that. the minds are gone. And so we feel a little bit of the passage of time in a helpful way there that he has gotten to the place where he's not viewing that as a limitation. But I will find a way to do this. I must.

Because he has something. A little bit of rock candy. I thought this looked delicious. Tell us about the rock candy. I will like Grogu in one of the most important moments in TV history, pull myself up to the table, watching him, Watching him move up to the table, Joanna. Grogu grunting was the subtitle here. Just top tier astonishing stuff.

The way you and Grogu are bonded in a, is that a snack approach? Yeah. To this viewing experience is... I think we both have low blood sugar. I'm surprised Grogu didn't try to gum that shard from the Jawa, you know what I mean? Who say he didn't in the past? Not too far away from him, force zoom in the orange skin on to his mouth. Oh, yeah.

I just want to shout out our pal Ryan area over the screen crush feed breakdown of Mandalorian because he pointed out that a redid to her head figured out that the inscription on the shard here is from the Old Testament. They just like translated the Old Testament into Mandalorian fun. Exodus. Some Exodus stuff. So, you know, a people without a homeland sort of very very. I just think it's interesting that they just like decided to literally do the Old Testament.

But yeah, he's got this item that to him proves that there is some spark of life left. I guess if the Jawa's could go get this, then like people can go to the surface of the planet. Does that seem to be the conclusion that you feel like he drew? Yes, and I thought they had very different takeaways. Again, once again, they're opposed because he's saying, I got this chart, I got this piece of crystal from a Jawa who got it from traveler who said that they went to Mandelor. So do they know definitively that that account is accurate? No, but it's about interpretation and the way that they are able to see a different path forward. So to the armor, holding that crystal, holding that glass, it's just proof that the

planet is in the state they thought, that the empire's fusion rays obliterated it and turned everything into this substance, that there's nothing there anymore other than a thing you could hold in your hand is a relic, right? Again, and I don't think it's required because I think you get it, but if you want to know more about how that happened and why and what's going on, I mean, it sounds like self-promotion, but I really do recommend the Mandalorian Primer podcast that we did. A lot of these moments that we've talked about already were things that we sort of highlighted as things to drill down on, but also the animated primer that Mallory put together that I watched

that was so helpful to me to refresh, we get a download of what, happen to the planet and like the actual destruction of an entire world. So I would recommend that. But I think, I think again, because we hit the, this is the way, right? Dins says, if I visit the planet, I can bring you proof that I bathe in the living waters beneath the minds of mandolore. Then by creed, the decree of exile will be lifted and I would be redeemed. She says, this is the way. again like if you're going to pick one repeated line from the Mandalorian it's this is the way right and I think that you know even though Favro has said recently like we don't have an end goal in mind we're not aiming towards something you know this could be gun smoke we could do this forever sort of thing um favs loves talking about guns smoke um but I think that has to be something of the of what we're aiming towards is an analysis of what this is the way means like again I

already said this is a way, but like this is not the way. And is that what Jen is headed towards? We got this great email from Zach who wrote, I feel like every time the armor, I feel like every time the armor and other characters too say this is the way. There's actually a different unspoken line of dialogue meant in its place, much like I am Groot and the MCU has an untranslated meeting every time Groot says it. For example, when Mando gets exiled a book of Boba Fett, the final, this is the way is the armor saying you could never rejoin us. What do you think of this interpretation? How would you interpret this episode?

This is the way. For this episode, I sensed extreme reluctance and her willingness to admit the possibility that Mando could find redemption. It felt like, yeah, I guess, technically, but good luck. Yeah, I think that the reading of each utterance of this is the way carrying a different specific meaning and in whatever the context of that moment

and that exchanges is spot on. I didn't read her reply here as, I mean, there's definitely good luck, yeah, but I don't think she's hoping he fails. I think that this is, these are characters who've shared a lot of life together and they would welcome him back gladly. I think that that fucker, Pas Vizla and the armor were both like pretty bummed when they realized they had to excommunicate him. And again, that tells us something because if the armor feels that way and does it anyway, it's one more bit of reinforcement for. for us that the blind adherence cannot be a good and healthy way to live. I loved tracking Grogu's. I mean, of course, I love tracking Grogu's face, but like the way he was turning his head

looking before them as they were like volleying back and forth, soaking up everything that they're saying and what's happening and why jumping. I did want to ask you, though, like to that idea of proof because he says, I will see you again. He's like, you're going to, you're going to walk me back. I'm going to do it. It'll all be fine. What's the proof? What is the proof, Joe? Is it like pool selfies? Like, how is he proving that he went into the living waters? What is his, when he's, when he's saying this, what do you think he means? Did you, did you think of pool selfies first? Because you wanted to envision Pedro Pescal and like a man cany with the helmet still on? Just the helmet.

Yeah. Imagine the tan lines. Oh, my. Oh, God. Great stuff. Yeah. I take my word for it, he says. I've been to the living waters.

Yeah. I mean, I suppose if he can like describe what it looks like, you know, maybe that's interesting. Interesting. Okay. I feel like they should have gone over. Maybe he had a more specific agreement. Bring back a vial of the waters. Yeah.

Like, I'm running love. on my supplies. Ben Lindberg has identified that the particular Bescar brew I need. Can you fill up my bile? Fill up the old now, Gene. Bring it back. Exactly. Exactly. There we go. Where was that exchange? Anyway. This episode is brought to by Paramount Plus. Beth and Rip are back in a new series, Dutton Ranch. Kelly Riley and Cole has a return, and this time they're taking on Texas. As Beth and Rip build a future together, peace will have to wait. they face corruption, danger, and a ruthless rival ranch

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Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweet green wraps hit different. Order now at order. Dot sweetgreen.com. Sometimes you can't have an exchange because you're sleeping. You're catching some zes. And that's where we find din in our next scene, which is amazing and wonderful. and majestic and incredible.

It is the N-1 Starfighter in hyperspace. We are mostly going to talk about this later because we got to see Pergels in live action. This is an absolute thrill, if you were a Star Wars Rebels fan. We'll chat about the Pergill Canon, the Hyperspace connections, the Ezra Thron Rebels connections,

what this might be pointing toward in the future, the potential Grogu, Animal Bond, Force power, all of that with Ben Lindbergh later today. The thing I'll just note here is that I love, love, love these moments in Star Wars because while Dan is sleeping, Grogo was up in his bubble and he is just looking around. He's wide awake and he's just soaking up the sights. The reason he sees the pergull at all is because he's looking at the hyperspace lane. We get moments like this like with, we've had it with Ezra. We've had it with Omega. We've had it with a number of younger characters who have this awakening. I'd love to think, you know, we talk all the time, obviously, about Luke and the binary sunsets and hearing the force theme kick in as he's looking up, right? what did Anakin want to be too? A pilot, like this idea of the way that flight and space and travel can unlock, like a literal portal here to possibility. Seeing that in Grogu's eyes was honestly just really special with me. It was so beautiful. This is my favorite moment of the episode. This was great. Again, we're going to talk about about it. But I think that like the contrast of Grogu's wonder and didn't take his snoo's because he's seen it all before.

It's like a really good, like, you know, didn't, didn't see it. I've seen it, but for the Cubs. Yeah, the Cubs, it's all new. It reminds me of when my sister and I, we were younger, like, traveled around Europe and I would take a nap on the train. And my sister would just, like, press her face to the window and look at, like, everything going by. And then shame me later for missing the, you know, the Belgian Pergles or whatever. But also, what made me, like, go full Mallory or Rubin and, like, literally start crying was, was Grogu hopping up into his dad's lap.

You need to set it up properly as one of the most important moments in TV history. Okay. Because it was. Put your italics on. Put your italics on. This is one of the most important moments in TV history.

Thank you. It's when Grogu bobs down from his little bubble, down into the cockpit, hops up into Dinn's lap, snuggles himself, and Dinn's sleeping, but like adjust his hands a little, you know, to make room.

This reminds me, I don't know where he's, A little sleeps, but like my cat's just like this, in my arm, in my elbow nook as I cradle him. Yeah, my cat has to be like touching me at all times when I'm sleeping, right? And she's sleeping. And she will often, like, she likes to really, like, curl up in like the small of my back. That's her favorite thing to do. So it's just like one of those moments of like your little pal, your son or your cat, however you prefer, just like cuddles into your arms. This is a thing that, like, my cat does all the time. And it's just sort of like, you sleepily, like, make room for them.

And it's just like, and it's so peaceful, too, especially, like, in an episode that is marked by, you know, two dramatic acts of action and violence. Like, you know, this just really peaceful father and son moment. Incredible. Co-assign. Just one of the most special things we've ever had the privilege of seeing. By the way, this is something. a cat does. I'm not a dog hater, but this is something a cat does is not something a dog does quite in the same way. And I think that when we get to later, it will just be very clear that

whoever worked on this episode is a cat lover. Definitely is cats. Grover reminds me so much of Halo. You say the same way about Bog. We taught us one of our favorite things to talk about. This was a real true, true, true cat lover moment. The constant presence of danger in the Mandalorian universe, and you get a moment like this, And in addition to it just being really, really cute and really sweet and just so precious, it encapsulates so beautifully the trust and the safety. And as you said, that peace and comfort that they have found with each other. Wonderful.

And it gave me, it gave me flashbacks to like, if you ever been to like an aquarium, some of them have like the tunnels that you walk through where you're like under the tank. It's just the lighting and the whales, all that. Really beautiful. And there's just something like, okay, you're right, I do like water-based things. There's something just so calming about that. I think some people get stressed and claustrophobic. I find it absolutely a Zen experience.

Me too. I'm not sure if you find, and again, we will chat more about our beloved space whale pergels with Ben Lindbergh later today. Stay tuned for that. I'm not sure, Joe, if you find lava flats quite as soothing as an ocean vista, but I would like to take us to a million dollar listing Navarro, the newest program on Bravo. Because Din heads there next. This former shit heap is thriving. Real boom times. Flourishing. Even the, even our beloved monkey lizards. Like, if you've, if you've had a painful experience in the

moments where you've seen a monkey lizard grossing on a spit, I've got good news for you. You just get to watch them shaking their asses in a tree this time. Grow goose and thunds and Thralled. So were we. There's a band. Street music. Street music. Arch has come to Navarro. Survival is insufficient. We are living on Navarro. Traveling symphony.

This is, I think, Joe, the moment, even more so than the swelling of the ranks for the covert, where you feel maybe the truth of the timeline fast sketched out. There's a lot of development on Navarro. Yeah. We see like an arch, stone arch that was once crumbling is now. perfect condition, et cetera, yeah. We're going to talk more about IG11 later when we get to the repair attempts. But this is when we see him for the first time. We see the statue in the town square.

Dean asks Grog's, do you remember your old friend? I love a previously on, I will say, I wish they hadn't tipped IG11's return in the previously on. It was bizarre. Yeah, I was like, I guess IG11 is going to be in this? I was like, it's Tyca in this episode? What's happening? I'm wondering if you want to use this.

this moment to share your appalling droid take with the world, or if you want to do that later, when we get to actually repairing IG-11? What if I zagged and decided instead to drill down on this phrase, Old Friend, right? Wow. Expertly done. Expertly done. Old Friend is a really important phrase in Star Wars, right? Okay, so this is like very famously something that Obi-1 says to Anakin, like his last exchange

before their fight, right? Goodbye old friends. May I force it with you, etc. Some of the, a Clone Wars episode that we talked about, old friends not forgotten.

There's another, there's another Clone Wars episode that's just called, you know, old friend. I think go by old friend maybe. No, just old friend, okay?

This is a phrase that we see again and again. Din uses it to refer to Greep Karga, and I think that's really interesting because like we have to think about, again, several years ago, I guess in the canon when we first met them and like, were they friends kind of, Mendo is like how

we would greet him. But like, I thought he was saying it about IG 11 to Grogo. Oh, that's so funny. I thought he was talking about great. But he also says, I guess it's both, right? Because he says when they're flying in and they ask him at the spaceport who he's out to see. That is in reference to Greek Carga.

And then the other one is in reference to IG-11, right? And I might be reading too much into it, but I think that that I, that I, idea of like old antagonist turn for because both IG-11 and Grief Cargo were antagonists at some point in the story and now they're old friends and there's something about the passage of time and et cetera, et cetera. And I think as we, you know, we'll talk about this a bit when we get to Bo at the end of this episode, but I think this question of friend or foe, old, what does it mean to be an old friend? You know what I mean? Star Wars has always been imbued from the first we meet Ben Kenobi and he has all this old history with Anakin that is.

like reference. I wonder if he means old Ben Kenobi. Old Ben Kenobi. I just think, you know, we have to pay attention to these like Star Wars phrases as they pop up. And I'm just wondering if that idea of like old friend, a foe that is a friend, a friend that is a foe, is going to be an important part of the season. I love this. I think having this exchange in front of IG's statue is a particularly poetic place to do it because of that reprogramming idea. not only the progress that Dyn makes with his entire relationship to droids and worldview around droids with IG in particular,

and we'll hear him mention many times in this episode. This is the droid I trust. He's my friend, this amazing progress, but also with IG in particular, that idea of the reprogramming, the moving from the hunter to the nurse droid the way that parallel Dyn's evolution. That was something we chatted about in our primer pot a lot. So, and, you know, we're with grief who we had heard previously Gideon referred to as, disgraced magistrate. When we first meet him, they're working on the bounties together. Then he's magistrate in season two. Now he's high magistrate. So yeah, I think that's a great observation, this evolution that we track with each individual course and then how that morphs together on a

shared journey. Can you track the old friend thing effectively if you don't know how much time is passed in the timeline of the story? We'll find out together. It's part of the fun. What does old mean anyway? Yeah. What does old mean I mean? I stand with Steve. I'll just say it's that's IG 11's actual body it's fucking appalling to put that in the town square make a statue of him if you want to honor him

don't put his corpse there and by the way if you thought you could restore him why did you fucking wait well he didn't want to restore him until he like really needed him you know what I mean and that's because Dajarn is an an noted droid racist but also I think if you're if you're asking

is that IG-11, is that IG-11's body, are we worried about it? What does our ends up and Zell and say it's not friend anymore memory circuit broken?

Well, are you still old friend? Are you still IG-11 if your memory circuit's broken? I do think we have some ship of Theseus questions to work through with IG-11.

I think we do. However, maybe we'll come back to this when we get to the actual repair sequence, but we've seen IG 11 rebuilt before. Quill rebuilt him after he, let's not forget that Mando shot him in the fucking head in the series premiere to protect Grogo. That's how the show started. And then Quill rebuilt him and trained him. And he has that lovely sequence where he talks about the patience that was necessary, that he had to build that

personality over time, like minute by minute, much like we're getting to watch Din and Grogo do together build brick by brick. It's just, it's all connected, Joe. It's all connected, including the pieces of IG's body with the statue plinth. And it's so, it's horrifying. And now I'm on the record standing with Steve. Speaking of pieces. Yeah. Let's talk about the huge tracks of land that Agreef Karga is trying to offload here on Navarro. Did you feel like all was right in the world when you heard that signature? Mad. for the first time again. Did it just take you back?

And then I was immediately confused by the roller skate droids who were like holding his train. Why? Because you're like, why wouldn't you have even more droids holding your cape? Why wouldn't you have taller? Taller droids. Oh, okay. Right. Wow.

Why not have droids who can hold your garments higher off the dirty ground? He's only clearing like an edge. He's not saving that garment from dust. Are you kidding me? Well, what I want to ask you is what you think he's clearing from the real estate deal? Real estate scheme that he's clearly involved in because... This is like... I mean, this has to be an arrested development reference to Carl Weathers' character in rest of development.

100% has to be. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah, this is a pyramid scheme if ever I heard one. He's fixed on getting Mando to opt in to the point where he is actually infuriated. when his droid interrupts them. Like you can sense the urgency of getting Mando to commit

the number of times. I do, I will say, I thought that the Hot Springs offer set you up with a prime tract right over here by the hot springs. That sounded nice. I liked that. A beautiful parcel?

I mean, sure. Who says no? Where you're from you may be an apostate, but here you'd be landed gentry. Just great stuff. Landed gentry. Just remarkable stuff. I got a whiff here

of the only murders in the building gut milk scheme. Like, I have a certain number of bottles of gut milk. I must move. I have a certain number of prime tracks by the hot springs that I must move. Good old grief cargo is, like, always working all the angles, right? Because there's clearly some sort of like shi estate deal that he's involved. But also, he needs a marshal as we find out, right?

So he's like trying to get, he's trying to get. It's working all the angles, like you said. He's trying to get Dinn to like invest heavily in real estate. States that he's locked into Navarro and can't leave. Yeah, right, exactly, because then it's an easier, it's an easier job to lock down if he's already there. Do you think he would have had an easier job landing the sale if he had paid a little bit more respect to Grogu?

Well, while they're looking at Redfin links together, the entire time this conversation is unfolding, we're treated to one of the most important moments in TV. history, Joe, which is Grogu, they had actually released this clip ahead of the season. It was one of the little teasers they put out still landed. We got to see it in context. Grogu's spinning around in Grief Cargo's office chair using the force to spin himself. I hadn't seen the clip for some reason. I don't know why.

And so, like, my brain had him all where I was like, he has little legs and little arms. How is he spinning himself? And then I was like, like, oh, is the fucking force. Using the force, he will force him, as we mentioned earlier, a little snack into his mouth. I always love when Grogu when Grogo needs a snack. He right here on Navarro zoomed the blue macaroons, then vomited them up on the planet escape later. Whomst among us, you know, whom's among us indeed. We get an exclaiming playfully during this stretch in the subtitles, just 10 out of 10, no-note stuff right there.

I think that aside from how darling this is, it is actually significant that we get to see Grogu just more casually using his force powers without, like, needing to take a nap? You know, the Macaron thing that we just mentioned, he doesn't immediately take a nap in class after that. It's not like we've never seen him use the force and not fall asleep right away. But he's doing this for a while. It feels like a way of showing us in a cute, fun, casual way. Yes, cash.

That this is just a thing he can do now. Yeah. A thing that Dinn does now is tell people Grogu's name. Steve, can we just hear this? You win the little one? You can settle down. You can hang up your blaster. Live off the fat of the land.

Grogu. Come again? His name is Grogu. If you say so. Come again is one of the funniest things I've ever heard. Town of 10 delivery from Carl Weathers, right? So funny. Come again.

I loved this. I think the fact, because we got something from Pelly in the boba finale in episode seven, where when Grogu Switzer, she gets to learn his name from Art, too, and says, Wow, that's a terrible name. Sorry about that, pal. No way I'm calling you that. I hope this is a recurring thing that stays with us, where characters learn this and comment on it.

It's a continuing ongoing wink to the audience about what the initial... Now we all love it. We can't think of him as anything but Grogoo. But in real time, it's like... I'm not sure I love it, but I'm... Oh, I love it now. He's only Grogo to me.

But at the time, I was like, can we take another pass on this? And now he's just Grogu forever. Did you see Petter Muskell in the Graham Norton show? And he calls Grogu Baby Yoda. and he has like a complete mental breakdown because it is like against Lucasville policy to use the phrase Baby Yoda and he's like, oh no, oh no. And he has to like put his, rest his head on Helen Mirren's shoulder.

He's like so scared about the Disney snipers. Yeah. Sweet baby grogues. This was a very funny and wonderful exchange. I did think it was notable though that when grief asked about him, like I'm confused. Why is he here? I thought you'd completed your quest. This was the Boba redux that I didn't understand as much.

Not that we don't need to catch up on what happened in Boba and how the characters are reconnected, but because they didn't actually explain it here. Like, if you haven't seen Boba, you don't know that Luke forced this choice upon Grobu. You don't know that Din went to try to visit him and wasn't allowed to. You don't know that he gave him the little Mithril, the little Beskar shirt. I thought that the summary here maybe should have included a couple more details. What did you think?

Yeah. So he says, it's complicated. I completed my quest. You return to me. I remove my helmet. And now I'm an apostate. I will say the flip side is that's pretty funny. It's a pretty funny distilled version.

That's the name of the episode. It's complicated. Yeah. That's a really yada yada yada from Dindjarn here. I don't know if they just didn't want to like, they're like, oh my God. You mentioned Luke Skywalker is just going to be like too much of a pit, a salloc pit for us to get out of. You know what? We can't like just fleetingly.

One does not fleetingly mention Luke Skywalker. Maybe. You might be right. Sometimes you do have to fleetingly shoot some pirates, though, because the interruption, the aforementioned interruption from the droid is about the lurking pirates. They're loitering in the town center. They're loitering in front of a school, Joe. So our crew is summoned. And we meet Vane.

He's a Nicto pirate in a absolute creep who is insisting on drinking in a children's school, and I have to hope is on multiple galactic watch lists. This is the beginning of what becomes a recurring journey in this episode of hearing Pirate King Corian Shard uttered aloud. That name got a lot of airtime and a lot of runtime in this episode, Joe. So I have to guess that they're coming back, which is different. for the Mandalorian, which is like so often has in the past contained its antagonists and its conflicts to like, you know, an adventure of the week. This feel like is laying ground for future. I do want to shout out a couple things. Vane, the name of the Nicto Pirate feels like

a reference to Charles Vane. And I didn't need anyone to tell me that because I have seen the star serious black sails wherein Charles Vane has an eight-pack and is allergic to allergic to shirts. So if you are interested in that, may I suggest black sales to you? But Charles Sane is a famous real world pirate that, you know, is surely the info here. But yeah, Pirate King Gorian Shard. I mean, I thought the pirate stuff in this episode was like kind of baffling because like we, it just felt like we, why are you here? But if you're here to pay off later in the season, I can accept that that might be the case.

So, yeah. The thing I struggled with is seeing a week. quay pirate and it not being Honda. I was just like, surely this will be the path to Honda being in the Mandalorian. Maybe one day. I won't give up hope yet. Fair to dream. My theory,

because shortly after this, we get the aforementioned Marshall Exchange, when grief tells Mando that he needs a marshal, the way this all went down, the, you know, we get a little bit of the classic Mando DNA here of a Western-esque duel.

Yeah. Then we get later, the dog fight in the asteroid belt, don't think that Vane pirate king Gorian Shard or anyone else in this pirate gang is just going to accept Grief Cargis parting words, tell Captain Gorian Shard that Navarro is no longer friendly

to pirates. Now get out of here. I think they're going to say, no, we will not get out of here. And then grief is not positioned to challenge them after Dinn leaves because it's not remarshaler, doesn't have the help he needs, and we'll have to summon Mando back for assistance. That's my guess. Yeah, I'm really worried about the street musicians. This is like the thing we like to talk about, it's like showing us the shire before the scouring of the shire, right?

Like, show us the thing that's at stake here that's losing. So if, like, the pirates come and they take over Navarro. Right, we just saw all this progress. Yeah, and like destroy all the piece that we have found there. And, yeah, I can see a showdown of Navarro being once again. like a finale situation. Yeah. Dyn took out multiple members of the gang

when things looked like they were going to get really woolly there at the end. But before that, we did get the vein grief. Sounds like you went soft. You think so, try me moment. And that rolled. Try me. You think so? Try me.

Great stuff. You know, who would have helped in this is Cardoon. Where is Cardoon, Mallory Rubin? Okay. Let's chat about this for a minute. Shocked and surprised. Do not find her. The marshal reveal the fact that Grief needs a marshal comes with a couple explanations about a couple missing characters.

Here's what we got about Caradun. After she brought in Mof Gideon, Grief Cargha says, she was recruited by special forces. That's it. It's very special. It's a very special. Ben Shapiro is now Star Wars Canon, Joe. A special way to get rid of a character that was supposed to have her own spinoff. Oh my God.

What did you think of the handling of the explanation? It's fine. They had to do it. Had to explain it. The Gideon update that immediately follows this, I thought, was actively puzzling, though, because Dyn says what came of Gideon and Grief says he was sent off to a new Republic War tribunal? First of all, why do we need to know here, other than the fact that his name was mentioned,

I guess, anything about Moth Gideon, like presumably there will be a more natural moment for that to come up later, but also in Boba, Dyn is the one who provides basically that exact explanation. So for him then to ask about it was just weird. Paz and Boba says, did you kill him? And Dyn says, no, but he was sent off to the New Republic for interrogation and he will face justice for his crimes.

Again, they really, like, put themselves in a weird spot by like putting all this stuff and felt it the most. Yeah, like, you know, the book of Boba Fett move was a weird one. I feel like they did it because they felt like that season of television needed an injection of, like, core legacy characters other than BobaFed, I suppose, that we were more emotionally invested in. I think it was like kind of a bit of a rehab job on Book of BobaFet, but like it complicated. But, you know, all of these little moments are very, again, it's a very short episode. And they dealt with it as quickly as possible. And in some ways, if you rewatch the Book of BobaFed episodes, it jars a little.

But I don't think it's a deal breaker. But what is a deal breaker to me? Is Cobb? I'm not being mentioned here. Is to mention a marshal and not mention if he's like, if Greece's like, oh, we need a marshal and did darn. And was like, funny you should mention it. My boyfriend's a marshal.

Like, he was looking for work. Modified. Ready to roll. I don't know if Cobb would leave free town. He would not leave free town. He's a hometown kind of guy. Yeah. But like, he goes.

He goes to the Dylan Panthers game every night, like every Friday night. Like he's invested in the town, right? Like he's a booster. But, yeah, if you say Marshall, I think, Timothy Elephant. So where's Cobbant? If we don't get him the season, Mallory. We will. You promise me.

We will. Come on. I just don't want to. I just don't want to like. I'll be astounded if we don't. I don't want to set myself up for disappointment. And dismayed, but astounded. din rejects the offer so sorry i've got i've got shit to do can't be your marshal the last thing i want

to note here that stood out to me is that when din says to grief why don't you just ask the new republic for help now we know what what din thinks of the new republic but grief's response is the last thing we intend is to bow down to yet another far-off bureaucracy no under my watch navarro will become the first truly independent trade anchor in this entire sector and that made my Star Wars alarm bells Blair, because not to be confused with the Confederacy of Independent Systems, which was, of course, the separatist alliance, but when you think of a planet in the Star Wars canon that says, we're not picking one of these sides and it's whatever galactic strife is playing out right now, we are going to remain neutral and not partake and not

align. Bad things tend to happen. One of those planets is Mandelor. Look how that went. So that made me nervous for Navarro's future. I'm concerned. I'm concerned. I'm also concerned about IG11 turning into a scene

from the Terminator here. Let's talk about the zombie corpse sequence where... Again, you know, we've already talked about a lot of this, like this idea of reprogramming and the deeper meaning of that

as it pertains to IG11. But again, how can you say that this is IG11? You know what I mean? I think the ship, Ship Theseses is really good. But to defend my point of I don't think

Rief Carga was dishonoring IG-11 by erecting a monument to him in the middle of the town. And also, the point I made when we talked about this off pod before you decided to throw me under the speeder was that there are monuments or whatever that exist all the time when you take someone's ashes and you incorporate it into like, we talked about the brick. The bricks from Andor.

Andor, right? I mean, like injecting a... real piece of a person into a monument is not un-cournive. But they could have brought IG11 back to life as we see here, and instead they didn't serve a purpose before. That's awful. He's a being. He doesn't need to serve a purpose to be restored.

He's their friend. We here didn't say that the reason he's here is because he needs, he needs IG11 specifically the droid that he trusts. I need a droid I can trust to help me explore Mandelaar, and he's that droid. bond, the heart of it. Beautiful, wonderful. I love it. Where was that bond when you didn't think to try to rescue him before? That's all. I, listen, agree to disagree. Agree to disagree. Grogo perching on the table, I think we can agree, was precious the way he was watching the repair, darling. I don't think that that's IG 11 anymore. That's all I should say about that. Well,

I guess we'll track the reprogramming efforts across the season because when he wakes up here, Joe, he's, he's OG, IG-11. He has reverted to his original programming. He is no longer the nurse droid that Queal rebuilt. He is instead a hunter. And so he sees Grogo and his red lights activate. And he says the bounteous mine asset to be terminated and tries to kill Grogu. This is up there with showing us Grogu and the crosshairs in sanctuary and all of the other times that we

have seen our beloved baby boy in peril. It's difficult and painful, Lucasfilm. You are once again on notice here on the Ringer podcast network, protect Grogu at all costs. Here's my question for you, Joe, on the reprogramming front. When Dinn says, I think he defaulted to his old programming, did it make you worried? Because to me, it seemed like a warning. If we're saying, as we've talked about before, that this parallel track of IG-11 going from Hunter to Nurses, destroyed, Din going from bounty hunter to a member of Clan Mudhard, the Foundling Father, a clan of two, and this ongoing quest for reprogramming away from the way into Away, then to watch this reversion.

Is that a warning? It struck me as maybe a warning of a backslide coming for Din. Did you feel this at all? Maybe, I would maybe feel that if we'd seen him, like if he was walking around with his helmet off now. But what does he have to backslide? Like he hasn't strayed far enough that a backsliding back into, I need to go do this and I have to keep the fucking helmet on as opposed to saying, oh, great when I felt those little claws on my cheekbone. Right. I'm just saying I don't think he's, I mean, first we have to see him front slide before you can backslide. And I just don't think he's front slid yet,

is the point. Far enough. Far enough. Okay. Speaking of sliding, let's slide right into Deanne. Joy of my life. my workshop. Okay, listen. What is time to be Steve Alman, number one Boba Frick fan. Oh, oh, no, no, no, no, no. He picked him in a draft. Steve and I, Steve, get on the mic. Steve and I are co-presidents of the Bobby fan club. Shared custody here of this fandom.

How did it feel for you both? I mean, I also, I loved Babu, definitely one of the lone highlights of Rise of Skywalker. It's that and like Carrie Russell's costume design. Thank God Babu Frick was there. So this is not actually Babu. other members, other Nzelins, what did it feel like to meet all of these little workshop mates? I only have one way to describe it.

And it goes like this. I love Babu Frick. I am so thrilled that they cherry-picked one of the only good things that arises Skywalker to give us the Inzellans here. I love this whole sequence so much. There's like, though, you know, obviously this is, we saw Babu do a very similar thing with C3PO in, you know, Dry Go Black, like all that sort of stuff. Even like the idea of memory and memory.

A memory. Yeah. Yeah. It's so amazing. They look amazing. The character design fantastic. So good. Yeah.

Puppets all around. Puppets for days. Love a puppet. You know what I mean? So does Grogo. Because when you first saw them, the look on his face, the reach, even before the whole. hug. He was like another OG trilogy-esque puppet meant for the digital streaming age. This is

just top dear stuff. What we really need to talk about is Sir Carl Weathers, Knight of the Realm, high magistrate himself, getting down his hands and knees to translate. To translate in the scene. I know that this was all very funny and very cute. The whole scene was great. Absolutely do yourself the favor if you haven't yet of watching this with your subtitles turn of so they can soak up every precious gem, including, of course, this is a sequence where the instant pantheon online bad baby occurs.

Bad baby. When we pan out and we see the din is sitting huddled in this tiny workshop and then we get grief leaning down to translate. I know, let me just say, because din can't understand. He asks if they speak hutties. Now, I understand,

canonically, that hutties is the second most commonly spoken language after basic. This is actually a reasonable question to ask, but I know this was, particularly in the outer rim, I thought this was outrageous. Then, try to engage with the Anzellans,

who I thought said pretty clearly, what do you want when they first showed up? Well, eventually he gets it. They're sliding in and out of Anzellin. Yeah, but eventually he's like, I don't need you translate anymore. I get it. Exactly.

I understand how they speak now. I thought I was dismayed, you know, when we got the report, Joe, from Danzel and pals that without the memory circuit, quote, IG, no think, right? You know, you've, you've, you've, you've zeroed in on this. Friends. This is a key data point, not friend. It's not friend anymore. This one, Poodoo, though, is a bridge too far. I'm sorry.

This one, Pudu is a bridge too far. It is beyond the pale. This is the corpse of a cherished pal. Can we all show a shred of decency and respect? He scooped up Grogu after Quil was fucking murdered. He spun into town. He annihilated the troopers. He saved Dienjaran's life with his back to spray.

They had like, but let's be needlessly detonated. One adventure together. old friend they are not it was all it took for me to know that you were the one sometimes one adventure is enough damn it before i cry steve before i cry from that beautiful thing that baller just said to me that obliterated my point um can you take us to and i'm going to italicize underline and highlight this one of the most important moments in TV history. Genuinely, though. Genuinely.

Steve, can you play this for us? No! Not a pet. No, it's crazy. Not great, not sweet. Bad baby. Sorry about that. He's yon.

Joanna, we're lucky to be alive to watch this. I don't know what else to say. We are lucky to be alive to watch this. You've been tracking my progress on podcasts throughout the weeks. You know I'm like a little sick, so I can't let myself fully laugh because then I'll cough. But like, so I just had to like wheeze through that. But oh my God. Unbelievable. This is now, as you know, Mallory, this is now the background image on my phone. Yes. Yes. Is Grogoo squeezing the Nzel. And that's L'LIN. The hug was, the hug was basically the best thing ever. I love

Grogo as much as I love anything in the world other than Halo. There's like 10% of me when something like this happens after the frog lady egg escapade that does wonder if he's maybe intending to eat to eat the creature in question. But I took this as love and affection and really just embracing the cuteness all around. Everything's a snack to grow-go. Everything is a snack. He just wanted a hug in a nuzzle. If he didn't feed him more, he wouldn't need so many fucking frog lady eggs for a snack.

If you look at the Anzellan's like little feet as it's as they're dangling. and I have like they're dangling them on the image that's on my phone so I look at them quite frequently they're like little frog feet and you can like just sort of imagine them disappearing into Grogo's like gaping ma so yeah delicious uh din's saying sorry about that he's young just didn't no squeeze come on come on he's more than 50 we don't know how much more but he's more More than 50. Oh, he's a bad baby. I'm sorry.

Unbelievable. Bad baby is just, I mean, it's in the lexicon forever now. We will always be quoting that to each other. What a gift. What a gift. While Din has maybe not told Grogu quite clearly when it is okay or not okay to pick up another sentient being and snuggle them in your arms in the middle of a task that are trying to achieve, we do get another lesson.

We leave with another quest, right? They don't have the memory circuit they need. Din says, I'll get it for you. We say our goodbyes. Grief Carga expresses some real doubt that even Din is going to be able to find this. He's like, if Danzell's couldn't do it, man. I don't know if you can. Our pals head off.

They leave Navarro. And before we get our asteroid belt dog fight, we do get one of the most important moments in TV history, Grogu waves goodbye. He appears to wave goodbye to Grieve Karga. It lives as a land. I wanted to do the magic hand thing. waves goodbye. And then they go into space.

And Dinn teaches. And Grogu learns. Din says being a Mandalorian's not just learning about how to fight. You also have to know how to navigate the galaxy because you never know where you might be headed next. Now, there's one part of me, a tiny part that's like, Dan, if it really has been a year since you guys reunited, why didn't you tell him this sooner? But I get past that quickly and I'm just like how wonderful this is. Very much Dyn's experience in his life, but also the more broad. The Mandalorian scattered across the galaxy, exactly.

The Exodus, the Exodus sort of vibes. You never know where you might be headed next. We are people without a homeland. Yeah. Like, you know, we got to be ready to bounce at any given moment. And so what an important lesson for Grogo and his potential future, but really a true embrace. Grogu is he made his choice.

And he is, doesn't mean he's not a force user. He didn't have to stay at Luke's school to still be a Jedi in his own way, much like Asoka is a Jedi in her own way. But he is also a Mandalorian and a foundling. And for Din to teach him this central Mandalorian lesson was this really meaningful thing to witness. But also even beyond that, I thought it was amazing because so much of the earlier journey was Din saying, I need to get you to a teacher. I need to get you to someone who can tell you how to live your life the way that you're meant to. And now he's doing that.

That's the role that he's serving for Grogo. He's the teacher now. And this goes back to something that you like to talk about a lot, which is this idea of Grogo embodying the best of the Jedi creed and the best of the Mandalorian Creed. That he's not just a force user or Jedi if you prefer, but I prefer the non-denominational force user, right? He's not just a force user.

He's also a Mandalorian. And so these are the various lessons that he's absorbing in order to become the Uber leader and perhaps wielder of the Dark Saber, we shall see. But yeah. Just as Dinn is given Grogu a tour of the display, and he's teaching him about the enemy proximity indicator. Lights up.

Lights up. Dane and his new comrades are there to attack Mando. And Joanna, we are treated to one of the most important moments in TV history, which is Grogo buckling up in Dad's lap. He is sitting on Dyn's lap against his chest And I believe he is wearing the ammo belt as his seatbelt. Yeah.

Real baby Bjorn energy here. Wonderful. Incredible. Again, I thought pretty fun space battle. The question of the relevance of Pirate King, Gorian, shard, long term, we will find out in time. I mean, there's... I do like the... We see an asteroid.

We think of Han. We think of obi. We think of two of our faves. That was nice. Yeah, but also Django and Boba, right? I'm less. in thinking about Django and Boba, but yeah, they're part of those scenes. Again, though, also another time where we're like, Manda's just better at this than everyone.

I want to mention Gory and Schard, who some of us doesn't. Casting-wise. Yes. So he may look like a vegan Pizza of the Hut, as some people have been saying, or a tasty bowl of kale salad, as Mallory said here in our notes. I love kale salad. But this is non-so-nozzi who played Zaro's own Texas in Game of Thrones and also was in the Netflix series Sweet Tooth more recently if folks saw that. But that to me implies, that's an actor to me implies more than just like a fleeting. I agree. You know. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Do you want to go back to Carth?

Does it make you want to go back to Carth? Never again. Shall we return to Carth? Where are my dragons? Oh, boy. We are going to Castle Crees, though, Joe. Do you think Zara's Doxas is still in that vault? No, he's dead. Okay. And maybe one day someone will discover his corpse and put it in a town square. In honor of the great leader that was Sarso and Texas. Derea, too. Her corpse is in there with them. Treacherous. I did like that Valerian Stone Vault door. That was cool.

Anyway, that's a different television show. Joe, they use Grogu's favorite secret button to boost out of there to Calavala. A planet in the Mandalorian system, we've heard it mentioned. It's mentioned in Clone Wars in our intro to Satine. In Voyage of Temptation, an episode that you've heard us mentioned 5,000 times before and we'll hear us mention 5,000 more times in the future. Watch it if you haven't. You mentioned Ireland earlier.

I thought this had a very Irish coastline feel to me. It also powerfully reminded me of Dragonstone, not only the cliff and the seascape, but the kind of harsh jutting stone nature of the facade of the castle. Seems like a great place to live. however, it does seem quite lonely and very drafty inside. Yeah, I recommend some tapestries. We do have a one mural of a Mandalorian battle, so there's that. Drapes, some sickness.

Throw pillows. What do you think of our new droid pal? He is painted blue to match Boca Tan's armor, and that I thought was really cool. And then when we go inside and see that Beau is completely alone, and that without the Dark Sabre, her followers abandoned her, made me incredibly sad because it's like you're a member of my clan, but maybe you're the only one now. Kind of found that devastating. It's real like

Ray eating her little like weird bread pudding by herself and her day from Bo in this episode. Man, I was delighted to get Bo in the episode. I'll just say, like, let's talk about in just the big picture for a second. We were sending each other the links to this poster they put out.

I think the day of the premiere, right around it. This is an incredible poster. It's Grogo. on the side looking precious as always. And then it's half Dyn's helmet, half Bo's helmet split in the middle by the Dark Sabre.

Yes. Really signaling what is, as we anticipated, going to be like a central thing in this season, not an accident to end the premiere with the conversation between these two about this blade, about the Dark Saber.

About the Dark Saber. About Quest. And really about belief, more than anything about belief. And so when we see Bo D'Rourie, on that throne, Joe. That pose. What do you think?

I mean, so, yeah, broad villain energy for to be draped on a seat of power like that. Explicit Darth Mall on the throne of Mandelaar, Jerry. Not just any Darth, though. Your boyfriend animated Darth Mall. Oh, my. I regret forever telling you that. Don't. Why?

I think it's great. You know, I think animated Obi-1 is one of the hottest creatures who's ever graced our screen. And I love the chest tats on Darth Mall. I think it's great. The poster, yeah, the posters, I mean, like, what, it reminds me, not to talk about Thrones again, but it reminds me of, like, all those Thrones posters with various people sitting on the throne or the year when they had, like, people sort of White Walker fight or in the house of, you know, it reminded me of the Elder Wans splitting Old Morton Harry's faces in the Deathly Hallis poster, too.

Great. Yeah. So great poster design. Mando not necessarily known for its like poster designs. This is like a really cool like sort of piece of flair. I might have to get this poster. Yeah. It's really cool. I mean, especially depending on how this season plays out and and we just don't know. Like I expected, I mean, Bo here is, I wouldn't call her antagonistic. She feels defeated more than anything else. But I, I expected like the next time they saw each other to be much more confrontational than it is. I mean, it's still. confrontational, but she's so downtrodden that it's not two warriors clashing on each other. You know what I mean? And again, similar to like the way that the armor feels about dinting on his helmet, Dindjarn innocent. Like he didn't take the dark saber from bow. He didn't steal it from her. He didn't listen explicitly to her directions. That would have been great if he had done that. He didn't do it. She wasn't clear about why she needed it to go down that way. That would have been gray. It's a classic miscommunication trope.

But like he didn't take it like he tried to give it to her. Right? Like he didn't try to. He's not interested. Adult wants it. I don't want it. She is. My queen.

He's been to meet him. He comes to join Bo. Right? He's a real joider. Did he ask you about that before we go back to the Dark Sabre actually? I thought that was really interesting. He, he announces himself and says, I am here to join you. Yeah.

And do you? think, not that I think he's acting with any sort of malice, I think he means it when he says it, and he's been on a progression in this respect, but do you think that he's doing that because it's a helpful thing for him, joining her cause to retake Mandelor or gets him to Mandelor or because he believes in the cause? Because if we, okay, because like he, when they first meet in season two episode three, by the way, this is a caveat for our whole season. I'm going to say season one, season two, season three, episode X, even though I know they are called chapter, et cetera, because it's, I think, confused, if you say chapter 13 or chapter 50, you then have to do math

to figure out where this is a movie are. This is how we talk about television, all right? Sorry, I hate to break it to you, Favs and Faloni. I do like the idea of the chapter. Anyway, so in episode three, when, when Dinn is the one saying, you know, the planet's cursed, anyone who goes there dies, et cetera, et cetera, et and Bo says, don't believe everything you hear, which Dan will bring back up later in this exchange, our enemies want to separate us, but Mandalorians are stronger together,

and Din says, that's not part of my plan. Then later in that episode, when she asks if he's sure he won't join them, he says there's something I need to do. So it's not like he's like, I refuse to believe this could be possible totally, though, a little bit there. But he's got other things on his mind. Now, he did say fair enough when she last implored him,

which was the season two finale, If he should manage to finish your quest, I would have you reconsider joining our efforts. Mandalorians have been in exile from our home world for far too long. And he says, fair enough. So maybe it's, yeah, fair enough. I told her I'd join forces. But maybe it's just that he needs to get.

I think he's just trying to get to the surface so he can get to the living waters. But then what would he do? He'd be like, just kidding. I'm not going to help you. He's got to meet it if he's saying it. He'll help them. And then he's like, and now that we're here, I just got to dip down to the living water.

Oh, boy. Well, it turns out Joe, it's moot because Bo tells him that there's nothing left to join. She says, when I returned without the Dark Saber, my forces melted away. And she asked him if he still has it. And her reply is so fascinating. Then you lead them. Wave that thing around and they'll do whatever you say. This is part of what we heard at the beginning of the episode.

Yes. Fraising. It's not exactly a ringing endorsement of his leadership prowess. She is resentful. You can feel the deep resentment, right? Like, you don't care about this. You don't want this. You told me you don't want this.

But you have the only thing that will let you do it. And that matters more than my conviction. Resentment towards him and resentment towards the people, right? So wave that thing around. That's all they need to see. Other than the phrasing is such a dismissive. thing, wave that thing around. That thing also as if she doesn't like, absolutely covet that weapon, right? Then they'll do whatever you say. That's a,

nag on the people, right? They'll just follow the, follow the blade. They don't follow the men, because, or the woman, because, like, she's bitter that they left her. Yeah. Without, yeah. Setback after setback. How many setbacks can one character take? And so you can feel that despair here. It made me think of the other show we're covering right now, a lot of us. So maybe we think of Ellie in that line we've returned to a lot in episode four when she says to Joel, if you don't think there's hope for the world, why bother going on? I mean, you've got to try, right? And that persistence, that insistence on trying has been this really defining thing for Bo in like really dire circumstances

against really, really drastic, stark odds time and time again. And so you think back again to the way that the armor spoke about Bo to Dinn. and about the Dark Saber being gifted to her instead of being won by Creed. But what she said was Boatatan Creed's was born of a mighty house, but they lost sight of the way. Her rule ended in tragedy.

They lost sight of their way and we lost our world. Now, Bo doesn't believe in the Creed. We've heard the way she talks about it. But you still feel in this moment that she's starting to believe that this is true. The way other people think about her,

that she isn't worthy, that she can't do it, that that is actually a truer thing than her commitment. And also, like, she's, I mean, from the start, if you watch the animated series. Like, she talks about not being the one to lead, you know,

when Sabine is talking about the Dark Sabre in the first place, right? She's sort of like, that was my sister, that's not me, right? So this has been a part of Bo's character even before the setback. Right. Absolutely. But Sabine has to really talk her into taking it and convince her that she's the one. I think the line was, Bo says to Sabine, I don't want it. I don't want it.

And then, low mo'am. I saw the Night King, Sabine. I looked into his eyes. Am I mixing up my, mixing up my cannons? We returned to another one of our favorite bow talking points here in really central fashion, which is the projection, the hypocrisy that is really on full display. Yeah. When Din asked her about giving up on the quest where you take Mandelaura,

and she talks about his cult, giving up long before the purge, right. And then she goes, where were you then? Yeah, she's like, where was Gondor when the Westfold fell? You know what I mean? Like, where? Oh, God. I love it.

I do think she had a little bit of a little bit of a point there about the children of the watch, those fuckers that nestled on Concordia's former members of Death Watch avoiding the horrors of the purge. But she then says something even more pointed. Steve, can we hear this? The children of the watch and all the factions that came before, fractured and shattered our people. Go home. There's nothing left.

Joe. We talked about Slander Primer. I was happy to get this here and to have this be a central thing, I hope, in the season, because I really like, though. I'm really interested in the character. I'm thrilled that she seems to be a big part of season three.

This is, like, astonishingly hypocritical. These fractures, the shattering, she was so often directly a part of it. She was a fucking death watch terrorist in the number two for previsla. She, like, bombed the city. Like, literally bombed the city. And, like, so I'm excited to see how they grapple with that going forward or if and when and how, right? But also, I think it's so fascinating that she says, go home.

There's nothing left. Like, what's home, though? Right? Like, this is the question for the Mandalorians. What is home if it's not Mandelor or Concordia or whatever, right? go home and then we know Din has no place to go. I mean, home.

Asgard is in a place. It's a people. I was just about to say that, right? Wow. He managed in one section to hit Thrones rings and Marvel. We're talented, but I try to say.

I literally have written my notes, Mandelaar is in a place. It's a people. I swear to you. I love it. But like, there, like, his home is like

in the cockpit sleeping with his grogo. You know what I mean? Like that's home. But he hasn't figured that out fully yet, right? So go home. There's something left. And we know for him, he's like, well, I don't have a home. Like, my fucking covert doesn't want me.

Like, can I need to do this. Right. Yeah, these are two characters who feel completely cast out. And so again, that question of will they be able to then forge something together instead of feeling like they're opposed is a really rich text, just like this idea with Bo is because, you know, The character has, I think, expressed clearly this evolving view. We, back in season two, when she said to Dinn that the Mandalorians are stronger together,

that the enemies are the ones who want to divide them, it's clear that this is a character who has learned a meaningful thing, who has experienced consequential change. But will she grapple actively with her role in the very thing that she's constantly pointing to? I'm so interested to find out. just as I'm interested to find out what's next for Dinn, because he tells Bo about his spa day plans. It's like, I need to take a dip. I'm going to Mandelor so that I may bathe in the living waters

and be forgiven for my transgressions. And her reply here is so fascinating and so sad, Joe. She says, calls him a fool, and says there's nothing magic about the minds of Mandelor. They supplied Beskar or to our ancestors, and the rest is superstition. Now, the superstition she's referring to is the one that we've heard the armorer voice before.

The songs of Eon past, et cetera, et cetera. But a lot of her life is tied up in another superstition, which is the idea that the story of the Dark Sabre carries weight. And so that was so fascinating. And maybe that's why she feels this way because she's come to resent the weight that that lore carries in that respect. So she has to dismiss the rest of it. Everything is caught up in that storm of bitterness. And like as a part of that, she has lost her ability not only to believe and have hope, but specifically to believe in a Mandalorian magic, like the center of the culture that her entire. life has been built around trying to restore?

This is like devastating. I think that, you know, she's self-deluded, right? She obviously still believes in the power of the Dark Sabre, no matter what she says. And whether or not she believes in the, you know, the Mythosaur or any of that is sort of separate. But like this wholesale rejection of, you know, magic and mumbo-jumbo and stuff like that we see this time again in Star Wars. characters on this faith journey, right? This awakening, this belief in, like, the Jedi well real, like all that sort of stuff. It happens time and again, the force.

What is that? You know, Din has already learned so much that he didn't know about the force. And I think it's interesting when we think of Bo here, and especially if we think of them, I mean, we should say, I'm just going to say it, next week on the podcast, we're going to get to talk to Katie Sackoff about some of this stuff. We're thrilled. So, you know, we're going to get to ask Katie about some of the stuff directly, but we don't know exactly how much Bo Catan is a co-lead of this season. But given that poster, like, and a lot of this thematic setup here, it kind of seems like she is. And so I think we need to go back to the title of the episode because of POS-Date so clearly refers to Dindjaran because we've already heard him be called that.

We heard himself refer to himself that. Like, that's the obvious thing. But an apostate is a person who renounces religious or political belief or principles. In many ways, Bocatan is also an apostate in this scenario. And so to watch them on their twin arcs, I'm hoping, which is a new development. Again, as we talked about like this planting of the pirates, the corian shard planting, to maybe pay off with the occupation of Navarro at the end of the season or something like that.

That's a guess. We don't know what's going to happen. I think it feels like a different approach this season if we get Bo and Den on twin arcs. That's an expansion of this story, which was a two-hander for so long. And I'm excited for that because we fucking love Katie Sackoff. We are interested by Boca Tampo looking phenomenal.

I should say, we're going to talk about her lid in a second. You know, so I'm really excited for the possibility of this season. Me too. I really, I can't wait. I'm so excited. And despite everything she expresses here, she does guide them. She says, if you want to go, here's where it is.

Civic Center in Sundari. Is Civic Center a weird thing? Civic Center is where I did jury duty. It's like a weird, it's where I did mock trial. Like Civic Center is such a weird quotidian thing to say in a Star War. Like I'll see you in hell Yeah Exactly

Don't Capital City of Mandelaar Great stuff We glimps the ruins In the season three trailer But as we mentioned earlier We glimps something else Right in this episode Which are our beautiful beloved Pergill

And that means it's time To bring on Ben Limburg For our lore look It is time For our lore look With Ben Limburg Which means That we are now

A clan of three Wow. I have a intro soundbite. I didn't used to have one. That's exciting. Pulling out all the stops. I've missed you both just as I've missed Mando and Grogo. I've been on parental leave and I love spending time with my daughter, but she knew it was time to make room for the other important baby in my life.

She loves Grogu too, so it's fine. They're basically simple. I love my daughter. But my daughter butt. My first gift for... Unconditional love. It's just that... My first gift for Sloan Ben was a grogoo swaddling blanket, as you'll recall.

And I still wish I got one for myself. She uses it and likes it. We're here to talk about another thing that we love, though. Pergill. Ben, what an amazing, amazing stretch of the episode. Joe and I very briefly earlier talked about how just wonderful this was to witness, but we saved the lore for you. Let's dive right in.

to that hyperspace lane. Tell us everything we need to know about the Pergill appearing in the significance of this moment. Yeah, I thought this was a really special little scene also and a reminder that

Toto were not in Andor anymore because Baby Yoda in a Naboo Starfighter staring at Space Whales is about as on Andor as it gets and I say that with almost unlimited love in my heart for both shows just as I have unlimited love for my daughter and for Grogu.

But just different vibes, right? different pleasure centers, and I'm glad that Star Wars is big enough for both of them, because between the two, most of my itches are scratched. And I think, imagine seeing space whales in the middle of a Mandalorian episode could be a bit confusing for some people in a way that maybe Andor wasn't often to people who were not as well-versed in the animated shows. So that's what these breakdowns of lore are for, right? So Pergel come to us from Star Wars Rebels and from the fadorid head of Dave Faloni. And the idea behind them was that just as inventors on Earth studied birds to figure out how to build flying machines, inventors in the Star Wars galaxy

might have studied another kind of creature to figure out how to build ships that can travel through hyperspace. So enter the pergill, a semi-scientant starship-sized species that lives in space and can travel through hyperspace. So thousands of years before the original trilogy, not just a long time ago, but a really, really long time ago, the Pergel inspired the invention of Hyperdrives, and then the first hyperspace scouts would follow them to find safe routes and fuel, just tail the whales. And apparently the Jedi and Sith also used pergol and studied them to create wayfinders, like the ones that Ray and Kylo use to find exigal. And then the downside is that once hyperspace travel becomes commonplace, the Pergol

get in the way sometimes. Occasionally, something will go terribly wrong and they will cause a deadly accident by crashing into a ship. They don't mean to. They're just big beasts. And maybe Pergel inspired the Holdo maneuver too. Maybe that's where Admiral Holdo got the idea. So you can't have a galactic civilization without hyperdrives and there might not be hyperdrives without Pergel. So these things are pretty important to ancient Star Wars mythology. But they're also pretty important. And to present Star Wars mythology in that this sighting sets up the forthcoming series, Asoka, a series that I believe we're pretty excited about. So I don't know whether Grogu is seeing actual pergol here or whether this is some sort of vision. But either way, it's foreshadowing

for us because this connects the Mandalorian to the events and the characters of rebels, which are going to be a big part of Asoka and possibly some future crossover with the Mandalorian involved as well. And I can tell you exactly how they factored into Rebels because that has a lot to do with Asoka too. Let's revisit this moment, this wonderful Rebels moment. So before this, Pergill had been seen on screen only twice, I believe, both times in Rebels, though they've been mentioned on other occasions on Rebels and the Clone Wars and memorably Obi-Wan Kenobi. Bale.

Bale used to chase Pergill. Great stuff. They showed up for the first time. on the Rebel Season 2 episode, The Call, when the crew of the ghost is low on fuel and power and they're headed for a refinery and they come across some pergill who get attacked by tie fighters and the ghost saves them because Ezra Bridger feels a bond with the pergill through the force. It's really fun to say pergill I'm discovering as we go on here. Later in the episodes, Ezra rides the pergul king, not to be confused with Pirate King or Inchards, entirely different kings.

different monarchy lines. And he realizes that the pergul need to feed on a specific kind of fuel to power their hyperspace travel. And then the pergul return on the Rebels series finale as the rebels, the titular rebels, are fighting Grand Admiral Thron on Ezra's home world of Lothal. And it turns out that Ezra arranged for the pergul to take out the imperial fleet. And at the end of the episode, Ezra has the pergul grabs. Thron's flagship, so he's kind of communing through the force with them. And he and Thron are still on the flagship. The pergill grab it and their tentacles start glowing, which is a sign that they're

about to jump to hyperspace. That means they're about to blow their load, basically. Once they start glowing, you know, they're about to get out of there. Wow. And they do. Bad baby. We need a bad baby for that, Steve. Bad baby.

So they drag Thron and Ezra off with them to parts unknown. And in the last scene of rebels, Asoka and Sabine Wren, who has a purgle painted on her shoulder plate, team up to search for them, which is presumably where Asoka starts. So this is probably not the last time that we will see Pergill this year. My heart is racing. Couldn't be happier. I thought it was smart, too, that they introduced them as these majestic, mysterious shadows instead of just putting purple space whales front and center, which could have been. a bit jarring. Then again, I mean, there's so many space whales in Marvel and Star Trek and Doctor Who and other sci-fi series. Just surprisingly common sci-fi trope.

I was just thinking about the Doctor Who Space Whale. Yeah, absolutely. Extremely 70 sci-fi, I guess. And not to mention just the whales in Wakanda forever in the way of water. Like, you can't get a genre show or movie made these days without whales of some sort. So they had to get whales in here to get this green lit. And by the way, if you have thousands of dollars to drop on the Galactic Star Cruiser experience at Disney World, and I have not had the pleasure, but the ship slash hotel that you stay on, the Halcyon is a Pergul-class cruiser. So if you go, now you know what you're paying for.

And just a couple important notes as an editor. Two copy notes here, because even some official Star Wars sources have confused these things. it's spelled per like the sound a cat makes and Gil like Gil Gallid just two R's one L also the plural of Pergul is Pergill

so Grogu saw a pod of Pergol just so we're all in the same page Gil like Gilgallad just made me really happy Thank you Ben for that You're welcome This is thrilling It's just thrilling pals Is this is this okay I promised Ben that I would not interrupt him

in his segment. I just need to circle back for a second. As an editor, I have a quick correction, which is that Dave Floddy does not wear a fedora. He wears like a cowboy hat. Fedoras of implication. Fair.

I don't like that. Live on the pod. I would never, ever, ever question Ben's Star Wars lore. He obviously knows so much more than I do. But Shepa has not a haberdashery segment. That's wig, that's my territory. Yeah, exactly.

It's a lid. It's my beat. Yeah. Yeah. So this could be a teaser for what's to come, obviously. And you have a theory related to this, right, Mel? Yeah, I do. So I think that the main one is what you already said, which is just that this is set up for Ezra and Thrawn entering the live action and for the Rebels 2.0 focus of the impending Asoka show that feels clear, right? Give us a little taste of this thing.

It made me even more, like, feeling more confident that we'll meet Sabine. actually in Asoka before Asoka, who knows? The connection, you already talked about this, Ben. One of the most notable parts of the Pergill plot is the force bond, the animal bond that Ezra is able to forge. And that's a through line of the Ezra experience, you know, the initial attempt to connect with the Lothcat, training with Canaan, building, building, building, building. And there are a number of examples.

And Grogu is another character we're watching this happen with. When we get that rancor moment in Book of Boba Fett, we've gone from seeing him thwart a mudhorn in battle to reaching out to connect with a massive, powerful creature. So this feels like not only directly leading us to Ezra, Thron, but also evoking Ezra and an aspect of his force power to make us think about, again, how central that is to Grogu's power and Grogu's arc. And then what might that mean? Well, I think it could be a number of things, right? I mean, one of them could actually just be literally with the pergill, with Grogu and the Purgle forming a bond. And I'm interested to hear more.

I think Joe and I both made really excited faces when you mentioned the idea of a vision. So, like, you can mention a little bit more about your theory there in a second. Maybe it's just Grogu and the bond that he'll form with these creatures. That would be amazing, too. And that would connect nicely, actually, to the lesson that Din imparts in this episode about traveling across the galaxy. Like, maybe Grogo has some Pergill journeys ahead of him, too. But we all spent so much time in pods and articles everywhere.

Casual conversation with pals heading into the season talking about the Mithosaur. We've been talking about it since the last time we covered this Mandoverse together. And it was difficult, I think, not to think about that in this moment. Like if we could be building toward Grogu, forging a force connection with the Mithosaur, if the Mithesor does enter the story at some point. Do you think that that is possible? Follow-up question. How long of a nap do you know?

need after a Pergill and or Mithosaur bond. Right. Yeah. The bigger, the beast, the longer than hours. I really needs to carbode, I think, before he tries it, you know? I guess the question is who gets to ride the mythosaur. If Grogu is the one who is making the bond, then maybe he mounts up. Can we get a tiny little saddle for Grogu on the mythosor?

It would be great. Why the fuck not? He's just as much a Mandalorian as Dingerian, right? follow-up suggestion. Yeah. We get the saddle is for din, but there's like a little side car for a grok. Like a little Indianian. Presion three Sean Conner in the sidecars.

Oh, darling. A mythosaur is probably big enough for both of them. Maybe they can just sort of side saddle situation. I don't know. Yep, yep, yep, you know what I mean? What I was thinking of, though, with the vision, right. I mean, it could be a sign of things to come, not just. division for us of Asoka coming sometime in 2023, but also Grogu potentially playing some

part in that, right? Because, I mean, we don't know how Asoka and Sabine intend to follow the Pergels path and track down Thron and Bridger. So maybe Grogu is the key, right? Maybe Grogu is the one who communes with the Pergill to find out where Ezra rent. I mean, there's plenty of precedent, obviously, for Mandu and Grogu. Yeah, right? I mean, we know that if you have a spin-off of this series, Mando and Grogu will show up and take over that spinoff at some point. So why could they not start it off? I heard a rumor he's in every episode of Skeleton game.

Would that make the Skeleting crew? Right. So that would be a nice segue into Osoka, right? I mean, Grogu teams up with them and bonds with the perigal and knows where Ezra went. Plus, now that Mando is teaching him how to navigate the galaxy, right? And read maps. I mean, it's all coming together, right? Grogu can lead them right to Ezra.

Yeah. The navigational lessons did feel like stick out. Yeah. Significant. Borgal connections there. I love it. Ben, thank you so much. I really did miss you.

I really, really missed you. I'm so glad you're back. It's me really happy. It was mutual. Likewise. Thank you. Always, enjoy. Well, Joe.

We hit some theories there, but I know that you have another one. And so we must visit Theory Corner. This is the way. This is the way. This is the way. It's like Aloha. You know what I mean? It can mean whatever you want it to mean.

This is the way. All right. I'll keep a brief this week. I just think I want to zoom back to the founding ceremony that we saw at the beginning. We talked about all the reasons why that might be in there. But I think another reason why it might be in there is to say, see it then repeated, perhaps later, if we see Grogu inducted into a clan or house. We don't, Mallory and I've discussed this off pod.

We do not want a Baskar helmet on Grogu's little head. If that happens. Can't allow it. Even if it has little like holes for the ears or whatever, no. Like I don't want to see it. Right? Can't cover his face. You just cannot cover his face.

I'd love for it to have a helmet that he just held like an apple and like a little jontie Hat, Beskar hat, who knows, whatever. But it's not, no, nothing covering that gumdrop face, as you say. But being in the water, hearing or even saying the words, he's still nonverbal, getting, you know, getting a little baptism, something like that. I think that could come back around. And I'd love to see it. It's beautiful. Are you ready for Grogo to speak? I don't know if I'm ready. The idea of Groger reciting the entire creed, I'm like, are we prepared for this? It's the same as we felt about Groku. It's like, I think at first we're going to be like, no, I hate it. And then, you know, maybe we'll be like, oh, this sounds right. But at first it's going to sound wrong. They could get, they could resurrect Jim Henson himself. I mean, I know it's Frank Oz.

But I'm just saying like the, you know, the, the, the Muppet voice daddy himself, Jim Henson. Or, you know, they could call up Frank Goss if they want to. Like, I don't know. We're going to be resistant. And then hopefully it'll sound right. Or maybe I'll stay with nonverbal. We don't know. I can't wait to find out.

I can't wait to find out. Just like I can't wait to find out what your favorite Easter egg of this episode was, Joe, because it's time for Easter Egg Corner. Hey, that's the egg. You got the egg. A lot of choices.

What was your favorite? Or what are a few of your faves from the episode? I love a mural. So you mentioned already, but Beau's like warm. You love a water ceremony and you love a mural. I do.

That's what people always say about you. It's no, it's no like dragon orgy mural from House of the Dragon. I miss those tapestries. Those were remarkable. But, yeah, so Bo's, you know, I love a castle, a little mural. So I would have to say that. How about you and Elaine are you on SIDO watch? Where are you?

Yeah, I enjoyed seeing the House Vizla, SIGNET during the ceremony. The pre-death watch takeover, Sigil swap. That was fun to see. That'll be my pick, I guess, because we've talked about many of the other things that I might have otherwise selected. Though I think we would both nominate as a co-ag winner, the armorer, Tony Stark hammering barrel that we already talked about. That was just delightful. Delightful. Absolutely.

Yeah. Wigwatch. I don't know if I should transition by saying another delight or not. I don't know what's coming in Wigwatch. It's going to be a journey in real time because you have removed your hands. helmet. This one, Poodoo. Okay, the opposite of Pudu

this week, right? Because Boca Tan has a new wig. Katie Sackoff has been graced with a beautiful, sleek. We call this a lob. It's a lung bomb. It's a lob. I think it looks phenomenal. The headband is still

in place. It's still there. This is such an upgrade. I'm astonished by it. You best believe I will be asking Katie about this next week. I would have to turn in my credentials as a ringer verse correspondent if I didn't. So we'll talk to Katie about this next week. But I just want, I mean, we just need to say it. This is one of the biggest wig upgrades of our time. Monumental. Monumental. Just like the subtitles in this episode, Joe. It's time for our recurring

subtitle award. We do this in honor of the Netflix subtitles. We're going to take a different path each of us this week. You're going to actually honor the spirit of the exercise, which is to create your own subtitle. And I'm just going to share some of my favorites that actually were in the episode. What should we call our subtitle segment? Should we call it Coos Gurgles after Grogel? Yeah. Yeah, let's go with that. Yay. Steve. Delightful. That was so cute. Do you want to go first or do you want me to go first? Up to you.

I want to hear your creation, what you whipped up. Okay, so this is, what was the original Netflix? Flesh descent, wetly, right? Yeah. Yes. Some stranger things. I'm going with viscera splatters needlessly. Wow.

I think the Dino Turtle would agree with you. Yeah. Great one. Bivid. I felt like you were always like outgooping me on these titles. So I really went for it. I had guts and then I changed it to viscera just to make it that much better. But you went the cute route this week.

Mal, what do you got? Here's my pick, my one favorite subtitle that was actually in chapter 17, the apostate. And by one, I mean eight. I picked eight because there are eight episodes of the Mandalorian. Here they are. They're all about Grogoo. This is an all-time shocking smuggled. This is the new record for smuggles, is it not?

They're all about Grogo. Let me be honest, it was hard to gab it here. They are panting. Grogu gurgles curiously Grogo grunting Grogo exclaiming exclaiming playfully Grogo squeals

giggling coos What a television program Art Who needs the eloquent emotionally and philosophically and politically dense speeches of Andor when you've got Googles and coos

Why not both It's the old why not both Mean for me, Joe Gurgles Gurgles and coos and panting Our love of Grogo is no secret, but it is time for another one of our favorite recurring bits. I don't know if we need to explain this for anyone who might just be joining us in real time.

It's a long-running secret scroll Marvel bit that we now apply to every podcast, whether or not it's about Marvel. And here, it is secret force user. Oh, Steve. Phenomenal. I miss Faceless. Yes. Faceless was great. Faceless.

All right. Before you say yours. Oh, by the way, I just do, I want to shout out Shirley Henderson, who's moaning murder hole herself from the Bridges Jones films, famed actress, voice of Babu Frick is back to give us bad baby and no squeezy. So, you know, I'm so glad that they like went back to the best. I feel like there's only one answer for this question. You agree with me that there's only one answer for this question?

I knew who I wanted to pick, but then I had a second contender, and I briefly flirted with going that route instead. But I wonder if the one we both went with is the same. Okay. So I'm like really curious. So I suggest we say it at the same time. Okay. Even if it's not the same, I think it will be funny. Ready?

All right. On the count of three. Yeah. One, two, three. Pirate King. Gorge. I knew it in my heart. I can feel it down in my ventricles that you and I would have the same answer.

I'm thrilled right now. I'm thrilled. Just here in the fungal mesh network that is, Halsevar. Oh, boy. I thought maybe it ends Ellen, you can make the case because of their supreme skill. Sure. But it had to be the Pirate King. Yeah, Pirate King.

Yeah. It's not the last we've seen it in. All right. That's it. We did it. We did it. back next week to talk about episode two, chapter 18. We cannot wait. Thank you. As always, to our exceptional and zealyn podsmiths, Steve Allman, for producing this episode.

Whipping up that amazing sound design, Arjun Ram Gapal, for his additional production work on this episode, and Joomi Adon for his work on the social for this episode. Remember, pop over to the prestige TV feed for our Last of Us coverage, head back into the ringerverse next Wednesday for the Midnight Boys instant reaction to episode two, and again on Friday for House of R Chapter 18. Deep done. Until then, you have to know how to navigate the galaxy because you never know where you might be headed next.

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