The Ringer-Verse - ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3, Episode 1 Instant Reactions | The Midnight Boys

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

Mando, Grogu, and the Midnight Boys have returned and are ready to dive back into a galaxy far, far away with the season premiere of ‘The Mandalorian’ (06:44). They discuss the rise of Greef Karga, along with what could become of Bo-Katan and the Mandalorian people (29:03). Hosts: Van Lathan, Charles Holmes, Jomi Adeniran, Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Productional 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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and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit tremfaya radio.com. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

Trimfaya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis.

Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramfaya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Tramphiatoradio.com. Welcome! Enter the Ringerverse. This is, of course, the Ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things. Fandom, we are.

Steve, the architect, Alman, the builder of things, we are. Jomi, the explainer, dinner on. We've got questions. He's got answers. We are, old man, Van. He of the receding resurgent hairline. You guys am getting a hair transplant soon. It's happening.

Seriously. Shut up. We are Coke, baby Chuck, the 24-carried closer, better known as of the brunch haughty, the grand master of the last of us podcast. He Who Remains. All of these are nicknames that apply to Chuck.

But together we are known as Of the Midnight Boys Oh Nobody pupew A peepute Pew Pute There were some weak Pupu's I pee peeved

You pupewed The Is this a mint edition revolt? Oh my No Come on Be serious Charles

Did you hear a Poup From either Very very weak Very very weak Thank you Charles Thank you Charles Is this a revolt Are you guys

they mad because they ate on the last of the spot. I miss you guys on that. I miss you guys too. Although I will say this, we do have Kai. That's true. Good people.

Guy's great people. Honestly, you want to know what Kai is like? Kai is like, you know how in Dragon Ball Z they can like fuse? Like you have like Go-10 and trucks. Kai is kind of like a fusion

between Johnny and Steve. I don't really know how to take that. Almost says something crazy, but. No. That is the best fucking one in a minute. Oh my God. Oh my God.

Yo, that is so fucking true. That's true on so many levels. Charles is a fucking genius, man. I'm so lucky to work with the, like, it's like, he's exactly, that's what he is looks. He and Steve are so bad. Wait a minute. Bro, he explains stuff.

He has his own little corner. He sometimes rocks the guy. glasses. It's a fusion of Jomey and Steve. Oh my God. Y'all don't want to claim your son? That's fine. That's fine. I have nothing to say.

Zero comment. Hey, hey, Jome and Steve, y'all hit the fusion. Y'all do it. Do it right now. I'm going to be honest with you. That is a top five observation in the history of this podcast. You guys, unless you listen to the last of us

podcast, you're kind of not going to get it. I'm blown away. I'm blown away. I'm blown away. I'm blown away. All right. Follow us on socials. Follow us on socials.

Instit Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, save Jomi's job, which is in peril now. Well, here's the thing, right? You got like a two-for-one on your motherfuckers now. You got to tell me. I got to talk to the audience real quick. I just want to apologize for a post I made last week. we got locked out of the Twitter account. Elon said,

you're good for two weeks. And finally, finally, finally, we got it back. And I was so excited to, you know, finally be able to,

you know, tweet at you guys, to share all the ring of verse stuff with you guys, special manner coming out. I tweeted the clip of the Warriors announcers saying,

he's back with Clay Thompson. You know, just we've been gone two weeks. I was really happy. And, and y'all thought something else happened. I'm here to tell you right now. That's not what happens.

That's not what's happening at all. We're just back on Twitter. We're just back on Twitter. There's no big announcement. We're just excited to be back on Twitter after Elon shut us out. So, you know, y'all had your theories. As soon as I posted that, 10 seconds later, it was like, oh, man, but I'll let y'all cook. But, um, nah, man, we just have me back on Twitter.

Remember to follow and like. Programming reminders. Okay, moving on. Our Mando Covers is in. full effect. Guys, we're so happy to be back in recap land this Friday and every Friday, the House of Our, is going to give you their deep dive into the latest episode of The Mandalorian. And on Wednesdays, the Midnight Boys, you are going to give you our instant reactions to the latest episode of the Mandalorian today. It begins with Jen.

Today's show the reactions to the season premiere of the Mandalorian. It's here, you guys, long-awaited season premiere. First one happening, but before we get into it, guys, as always, we do something here called a spoiler warning. Charles wants me to explain some things to guys. We might have some new listeners, okay? and I feel like because of what Charles did earlier in the podcast, this is basically his podcast.

I'm going to dine out on that all day. I'm going to have somebody combined, Jomi. Somehow, Steve and Jomey became one. It's Kahn. I swear to God. So we do this, a spoiler warning to make sure that, you know, you guys who are here for a reaction podcast, don't get anything spoiled for you,

even though that's why you're coming here, which makes no sense, but Steve running anyway. We're getting ready to talk about Mando. You're listening to a reaction podcast. The spoilers are coming. All right, so these spoilers are not just for Mando. These spoilers are from Mando, Bukobovet, some of rebels,

all Star Wars. Clone Wars. This is a general Star Wars. Exactly. We might spoil Empire if you sons of bitches having to. To begin our reactions, though, we have to give you the need to know, and we do that through our very esteemed colleague Charles Holmes, who gives you the Midnight Manifest, diving deep into this episode to make you an expert on it. And this is the Midnight Manifest for the Mandalorian season three, episode titled The Apostate

directed by Rick Bamaulia, written by John Bevereaux. We begin with the armor and the children of the watch who are indoctrinating a new member when their attack by Space Alligator Turtle Guy. The members of the watch are losing pretty badly when Din and Grogu swoop in with our N-1 Starfighter to save the day. Din tells the armor that he believes the surface of Mandelor may no longer be toxic. So the armor tells Dink to cleanse himself beneath the living waters that are contained in the minds of Mandelor to absolve himself of the sin of removing his helmet.

Din and Grogu arrive on Navarro, which is now a bustling and highly chentrified independent trade anchor and Outer-Rem hyperlinked port that is led by high My magistrate grief cargo, who, after dispatching some pirates, works with Dinn to resurrect Grogu's one-time babysitter IG-11. Din brings IG-11 to a race of Babu-Frix, who say they need a memory circuit to bring him back to life. So before searching for the memory circuit, Din and Grogu traveled to Calavala to visit Bogotan who has lost her army after not bringing back the Dark Sabre.

Boca Tan tells Dan he's the leader of the mercenary Mandalorians now, while also sharing the location of the minds that are on. on Mandelor. But then we end with Boca Tan telling Den before he departs. There's nothing magical about the living waters. And this has been your midnight manifest for The Mandalorian Season 3. Boom. Chuck Wagon, instant reactions to episode one of the Mandalorian, the apostate.

I mean, what can you say? This is like, just like home cooking. There's like a nice pasta dinner. It's just like, I love this family. It makes me feel good. The nostalgia's there. baby Yoda still has the magic, all of the luster. But weirdly, I think I also got the feeling of

these seasons of Mandalorian are almost following the cultural trajectory of the first trilogy to me, where you can only be a cultural phenomenon once, which was like New Hope. And then the second one is like making good on the promise of like, okay, this is a myth, this is a story we are going to care about for years to come. And this first season premiere of,

of season three gave me a return to the Jedi vibes where, but you can't be a cultural phenomenon and we already just kind of know

what you are. What happens? You get a little freaky. You get a little muppity. There's more creatures. The budget's bigger.

And there's just a lot of table setting. So if this is how you set a table, you could do a lot worse. What about you then? I like that. I think what we have to

remember is the formula of the show The Mandalorian. The formula of the show, show the Mandalorian, even though there's been all of these things that have happened around the character, I would essentially say that a lot of this is Mando Universe, right? I didn't Asoka Mando Universe? Itten, Boba Fett Mando Universe.

All of those Mando Universe shows, things have gotten a lot bigger and there are a lot of entangled stories. But at its core, to me, the Mandalorian still has that same Western serial, the Riflemen, sort of feel where episode to episode, there are smaller things that kind of ground us in the bigger story. I think episode one was almost like a primer. We didn't jump right back into it, guns blazing. It gave us kind of what we wanted.

We wanted to hug baby Yoda again, Grogu again. We wanted to hug him again. We wanted to see how Mando and Grogu were getting on. And we wanted to kind of gain some of the wonder back. This show deals heavily in the wonderment of Star Wars, as far as I'm concerned. We saw Andor, we just left Andor. Andor is obviously tonally a completely different show than this. It deals in sort of the peril of Star Wars, the strife of it.

And this show is a little bit more about redemption, hope, connection. I thought episode one did a good job of getting our feet wet back into that world. Jomi, where you at? I loved it. I really enjoyed episode one. Yeah, it's just, it's a walkthrough, you know. They take us through everything that we've missed in the past few years. Hey, what happened to Marshall Dune?

Hey, what happened to Mof Gideon? Keep the train moving and it sets up Mando and Grogu on their big adventure for this season. So I couldn't be happier, man. Let's get this thing going. Steve. Good vibes all around. I really don't think you could have asked for a better sizzle reel, primer for what you're going to get for this first season. It's short, it's brief. It doesn't

overstay. It's welcome, but it pretty much sets everything in a great direction for where the season's going to go. And we're off to the races, having a good time. We've got a spaceship battle. We got a gunner scene. We've got a bunch of Mandalians in a lake that they didn't check for safety reasons. But a lot of it is really, really good. And I'm having a great time. Like, if you're a casual, like, let's say you didn't watch the book of O'Befat. Do you think that this episode would have been more enjoyable in terms of like, we are, a lot of the episodes to us wasn't new,

like him going back to the armorer and restating what we had saw in Book of Boba Fett was I was like, this is probably way more exciting if you didn't watch Book of Boba Fett. But for me, I was just like, oh yeah, sure. Or even like what he was like, his name's Grogoo and then fucking grief is just like,

yeah, yada, yada, who cares? Back to the thing. What I've noticed is they always do that in the movie. movies, and almost, they always do that. So I was expecting it. I will say that at the beginning of this episode, there was something that told me that this was going to be sort of a more regular episode of the Mandalorian.

I thought the first scene of this was a flashback. I had the same thought. Exactly. I thought that was young din. I didn't know that like how old Armour was. Like, she's got to be an old lady by this point. Yeah. Yeah, so I asked so many questions, just like you, I'm like, the armor has got to be older.

We're seeing Visla in a different, maybe Visla saves him, or maybe, maybe Jane is going to kill that, maybe Dan is going to kill that fucking thing. That big, uh, Crocodile monster or whatever. And then when he swoops in, I'm like, no, this is the, the universe that we live in. I thought that would have signaled to me if that was a flashback, that would have signaled to me a sort of different. narrative structure from what we've gotten before in the Mandalorian, but it wasn't. You guys were all thinking the same thing? Absolutely.

Same exact thing. I thought, because she doesn't finish the ritual, right? Because the alligator thing, you know, Big Bowser comes through. And I was sitting there like, oh, maybe that's a cop out. Maybe, you know, you never finished ritual. So, you know, who knows if you're a real Mandalorian, you know, whatever. But, nah, it's not a flashback. It's something that's happening in real time.

And I was really shocked to see the, you know, the Naboo Starfighter come through. I was like, oh, snap, this is not a flashback. This is happening right now. Charles, so did you feel like there wasn't enough weight given to Jen and Grogu's relationship? Do you feel like, I mean, what you're saying is basically they undid some of the stuff from Boba Fett? Did you not feel as captivated by their relationship in this? Oh, no, not at all.

I liked the episode. I was more so just wondering if you guys got the impression that there was some Wikipedia entry style stuff in this episode. And it wasn't the entire episode. There were just like moments here and there where I'm just like,

this is for the person who was not watching every single Star Wars thing. This is for someone who does not, never saw Din and Grogu reunited, which is fine. But there were certain moments where I was just like,

oh yeah, everybody's not hosting a podcast every week where they watch anything that Star Wars releases. Do we feel like we need to see an evolution of their relationship in this season in any way? And was there anything in the first episode that indicated that you'd see that evolution? I had a question for y'all that makes me feel like, is the evolution going a little bit backwards? Where one of the funniest parts of the whole episode is when Grogu is about to, a murder, Babu Frick. And he's like, Danny's like, sorry, sorry,

he's young. He doesn't know that you're not a pet. And part of me, I was like, wait, this is the same Grogu who spent a year or a year and change with Luke. Did this well fucking not, does he not know the difference between like a sentient creature who's talking

and a dog yet? Like he knew the choice between choosing the lightsaber, choosing the best car. Well, did you feel like he was about to murder him? I think he was just hugging him really tightly. He was just a little... I think he was just like

treating him like a little puppy or something like that. He just thought he was cute. He don't know his own strength. He might force choke him on accident. He'd be like, dog. What the funny? Wait a minute. So I love the idea of a grogud that is not

in control of his force powers. So all of a sudden he cries and lightning fucking comes out of his hand. Or he forced to choke somebody to sit power. So he's a little evil to Charles. So, um, but to me, their relationship seemed kind of the same. Grogu is, is, is, is, uh, unless in this episode, Grogu is adorable. And then is his protector. I mean, that's kind of what this show is. It's lone wolf and cub. If we're looking for any evolution of their relationship,

what would that evolution be, Steve? It would probably have to be some sort of autonomy on the part of Groku. I think we started to have hints and little sparkles of that in the small episode that we got in Book of BobaFet, where he's with Luke and he's trying to make those choices of like, no, I want to be with Mando, I don't want to train to be a Jedi. I can finally have some sort of like choice and say about who I am,

can reflect about who I was. We've seen in trailers that there might be a flashback to Order 66. Maybe we get to see a little bit more about what Grogu's part in all of that is. I think the biggest thing that would have to change the relationship between Grogu and Din is Grogu actually kind of making a decision for himself rather than basically Din assuming the father figure, parental thing of being like, okay, I'm going to teach you how to fly a starship, I'm going to show you how to do this. I'm going to tell you what to do this. Grogu's got to teach Din something. Grogu's got to show him something about himself.

Interesting. So it's maybe time for Grogu to be the hero? Maybe. Maybe he'll use the force for a little bit more than catching jelly beans. Do you think we'll get that in the season, Jomey, Grogu being the hero? Yeah, I mean, like one of the predictions I had when we did our prediction pod was that like Groger would wield the Dark Saber, you know? And so. I still think that's nuts.

Listen, nuts. Listen, a lot of game left. There's so much game left. But, you know, to Steve's point, that is part, like, that's part of his journey. We've seen him train as a Jedi. We've seen him, you know, use the force. At some point, he has to, you know, put all those together and be a Jedi and be the hero. And so I'll be really excited to see if they go with that this season or if they continue to push it back and have Dentick the forefront.

We have a cornucopia of cute Rogu moments. Nice one oration. You, like you, Charles, you're the one with the Stoneheart. Me? It is. Charles, let's just be honest, bro. I was talking to Mallory.

We were at the premiere. Shout out to Mal. We had our first date. Adam and Kalika probably punching the air right now. I was, I was talking to Mallory. And I was like, man, show me your Twitter. I was like, let's go through Charles's tweets.

You just see the percentage of tweets Big mistake right there. Big mistake right there. That are negative. Whoa. You guys are searching for a while. I've been on a positive kick. Let's just go through.

Bras, since Black Adam, you've reverted back. We had a whole, we had an era of Charles positivity. And I feel like Black Adam broke you, Doc. To be fair, when I first came back on my positive kick,

y'all, like, off mic, were looking at me in the face, like, nigger, like, come on, you're ruining the show. Get back to normal. All right? That is kind of true. That is kind of true. Y'all forced it out of me.

But it's because you don't do it right. I don't be positive, right? Nah, dog. You don't do it right. You know, like when a wrestler that's a real heel turns face, it's kind of hard to get over when you do that. You know what I'm saying? is tough.

Bro, you really, it's hard. You're a heel. You're a heel. But so I'll ask you, cute Grogu moments. We got, if I can try to remember him,

we got the chair. Spitting in the chair. Spitting in the chair. What are some other ones? I'm missing. He takes when he's in the little, the little cockpit thing, little one,

and then he sneaks out to sleep in a din's lap. That's very cute. When he, grabbing the M&Ms off of... Or grabbing the M&M's when he tries to hug Babu Frick. Which, is that Babu Frick?

No, it's not Bobu Frike. That's his race. His race. When he tries to hug. So there's... What was the cutest moment? Because in the theater, when we watched it, it was just awls all over the place.

It was, he was just... They really played up Grogu's cuteness in this episode. It has to be Babu Frick. Babu Frick was the moment where I was just like, this man is... I will kill for baby Yoda. Hugging the Anzellians, yeah. Yeah, the Anzellians.

But a second one, I'm, the office chair was just a great moment. The office chair was just pure. Was he using the force, you think? Yeah, he was. For momentum. Because you don't know what got the feet.

It was all force, right? Yeah. I like it because he's pushing in one direction, like he's pushing a wall and it goes that way. The funny thing about it for me is, number one, the way they shot it. because they shot it with Grief Carga making this really serious proposition to Mando.

And in the background, you see the chair spinning. And what I always wonder when I see parents with kids in that situation is when are they going to tell you to stop? I know that the stop is coming, but it depends on the parent. And so when he walked over there and just stopped the chair, I burst out into laughter. As I've seen that so many times,

I think that's the cutest moment. But just the most tender moment is when he got up there and took a nap on Mandel's lap. But they are so close. Those little moments like that really, really, really matter. When they were in hyperspace right there, we had a cameo from some very important characters in Star Wars lore. Jome, you want to talk about it?

The pergles, baby! The pergels. So if you all don't know, the pergels are a, man, they are hyperspace bangs essentially. And they can travel with light speed without, you know, just like that's the kind of creatures that they are. And if you're into rebels, if you're locked in on rebels, you know,

that the pergels are what got Ezra and Thrawn up out of there in the finale. And so, you know, Grogook cuteness aside, that's them telling us where they're going, right? Like, they don't just show pergels for the fun of it.

I mean, you could, but when you know that's how, you know, that's where Ezra and Thron, you know, disappeared off off with with the pergels, I don't know if you show that by accident. You guys think that's where they're going? All right, we only get, we only get three more moments where we can guess Thron is coming.

Because we've been saying Thrawn's been coming for like fucking years at this point. That's fair, that's fair. Thrawn is crazy. But it's not a guess now. Thrawn is coming. You think he's coming in season three of Mando? Oh, you mean in this particular season?

Yeah. He could. He could. Well, it depends. Like, it seems like, it seems like, Frankly, so he's going to be in Asoka series, I feel for sure. So would they do something where they introduce him here so that there's less to do once we see him in an Asokas show? So I don't think it would be as egregious as like putting Din and Grogu in an episode of Book of BobaFet because it's not like their show.

I wouldn't think that Thrawn would steal the spotlight that much. But if it doesn't happen in this season, I think that that's fine and fair because he could just just as easily not have that much to do with it. Having those people cross paths in a sensible way, like him meeting Asoka, like him meeting Bokitan, those things make sense. To know that it's not shoehorned in could work, but I'm fine with it not happening

because I feel like that Thron is very much a part of Asoka's orbit, and I don't really see at least yet how those two can intertwine. Could, though, could Throne appear in this season leading to like a big, central event type moment. Because that seems like what we're leading to, where it's like we've been talking about the Mando universe. It's the Mandalorian Asoka and all of these shows,

Book of Boba that lead to something bigger. And the way you do that is putting Thrawn is the big bad, not just in Asoka, but in season three. Maybe not, because I feel like we might be structuring this a bit too much, maybe like a Marvel situation, because like there has to be some sort of like big overarching bad thing. But like when really most of our stories and stakes have been, in with din and grogo.

I don't make, like, we've talked about this brief. We're like, how big do we want the Mandalorian story to get? Like, we know that there's like a sort of like bigger arching plot and direction that this season has to go in because, okay, we're going to go into the waters of Mandelor. We're going to absolve him. We're going to see what like becomes of, you know, the leadership of the Mandalorian people. If we kind of turn and make this about like a thron or like a resurgence of another empire or the beginnings of the first order.

I feel like that might be missing the mark a tiny bit for what the Mandalorian should be. So I don't know that it's necessarily about the Mandalorian. Let me tell you what I mean by that. First of all, every indication is that that's what they're going to do because they've used the Mandalorian to introduce several characters in live action. The first time we heard Thrawn's name in live action

was on the Mandalorian. So it wouldn't be out of character for them to revisit Asoka, But we've seen Asoka only on, only in connection to the Mandalorian right now. She was in Book of Obofeet, but, you know, it's a Mandalorian episodes. As you guys so greatly point out, you don't want to give Book of ObaFet credit for being what it is. You think that that's an episode of the Mandalorian. I don't want to go back to it. Jomi, stop.

Stop. But we know that there's some sort of crossover event that it's going to be sort of the culmination of this. They've said that. They've intimated that. They've put that out there. So I think the question more becomes how efficient can they be with story? Can they tell Mando's whole story? And then can they tell Asoka's whole story, individual of one another, and still get to where they're going?

See, Marvel got to a point where they couldn't do that. Marvel got to a point to where they had to put a Black Panther in Civil War because they got stopped making straight up origin movies and the stories have to intertwine. Spider-Man jumps in, it's just easier. Do you want that out of this universe of Mando? Do you want Mando, Osoka,

Boba-Fed, all of these people fighting Thrawn? Not at all. Okay. Not at all. I'm sorry. My first thought, I just went to the the scene on the bridge in First Avengers where they're all huddled in the circle and the camera spins.

And you got Asoka, Bobafet, Mando, Grogu, Grogoo, Boketan, and Griefcarga, just like in a circle. Man, that will, I don't know. Throne's washing that team. I'm sorry. Come on. Even if they have Ezra too? You can't throw Ezra in there. there. Not yet until he appears.

You can't throw Ezra in there. They cast him. All right there. Yeah. But I don't know how much rebels I want to get in my Mandalorian just yet. That's good. That's what I'm with Steve. The rebels is for a so. Yeah, I get it.

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Steve has an issue with that. We'll talk about it in a second. He's the high magistrate. Don't forget the high. Don't forget the high. They're always trying to do this to a black man. You know what I mean? It's like they treating him like kind of,

they kind of treat him like they treated Obama a little bit. You know, point their finger in his face, talk to him, don't give him his whole props. What's up? The droids were being a little spicy to high magistrate grief Karegha. Is this one of those things where they try to pit the marginalized communities against each other. Like the droids don't see that like together with the black folks in this

universe, we can all come up. They're looking at grief like, eh. Okay. So we might as well have this conversation right now. Steve has an issue. We see Grief Cargha. He has two droids that are holding the train of his or the capes, not trains, not wearing a dress.

They're holding this cape. So the cape doesn't get dirt. Right. The streets are not pristine. Steve thinks this is droid slavery. He has a problem with the droids and how they're treated. I think that it's a bit messed up to have a statue honoring IG-11,

somebody who was fundamental to the founding and the turning around of this town, and the droids are still carrying capes and forced to pick up the bodies of the people that the humans kill. I think it's a little interesting. They're robots. Are you this nice to your toaster, Steve?

Are they sentient beings? deserve rights or not. Push back. They are sentient beings. R2D2 is a sentient being. Do you think R2D2 is a sentient being? Do you think R2D2 rights? Do you think R2 deserves to be treated like that?

I'll put it, is B2 emo a toaster? Is that what you're saying? At the end of the day, he's a toaster. I love him back here. No, no, no, no. He's not. He has emotions. At the end of the day, he's, at the end of the day, he's in his face.

Can your toaster, can your toaster get sad if you die? If anything, I would, this is where I'll put B2 emo. I'll put him on a level of, of a Bozeman. Okay. A sensitive being. Right. And so when I say to Bozeman, come here, watch this.

Bozeman. When I say to Bozeman come here, Bozeman's coming over here because Bozeman's function is to be my dog. Right. I love Bozeman. Bozeman has a better life. But so what I'm saying is, I don't know if it's messed up. I say that he didn't come.

I don't know. He knows how you're saying. talking about him. Yeah, he knows. Like, what you think? You think I'm a bitch? Like, no. I don't know if it's, if the droid, there's never been a situation where the droids have

rebelled and it's been better for everybody. Think about it. The Matrix, the Terminator. It's never been a situation where when we had things over to the droids. All right. I mean, just something's saying. It blot out the sun. Look, we're getting off topic.

But you guys both think that IG 11 has been treated unfairly because let's get to him real quick. statue of him in the middle of the town square they tried to revive him why let this motherfucker die for all of this time if he could be brought back So fucked up This is Dinn's fault

This is Dins fault I really mad at him. Two reasons. One, if only he could bring him back to life First of all, they don't think they've tried that with like the actual people that could bring him back Second of all, as they were trying to do something Like isn't he just going to revert to his like

Terminator programming like the moment they wake him up And of course, he's just like, kill, kill, kill. Like, this is all stupid. And also when they were just like the memory circuit is really, really hard to find, I'm like, wait, what? What are you talking about? There's so many droids around. Like, it's not like a USB cable where we all pretty much have the same one.

But they got to go to fly to get the McGuffin thing. They don't. They don't got eBay in a galaxy far far away. Hey, hey, they don't. Clearly not. Yeah, clearly not. Yeah, totally. What do we do?

They don't. Whatever they, they don't have it. He's old for whatever reason. They don't have it. They got to go back in time to get the stones. Why? Fuck it. Like, they said so.

So then, answer us this. Answer is this. You don't think it's fucked up that Dan, this entire time was like, hey, maybe I should like take just the day to figure out if I can resurrect my friend. Now, here's the thing. It's been a while since he's been there. Did he know that they had turned him into the statue? Because I think he was surprised to see the statue in the center of the town.

I don't know that he knew that I don't think that he thought that IG-11 was kicking around somewhere. But it seemed like he was surprised to see him as that because he came back for him. Right? So he came back for him. The crazy thing to me is that that statue is actually him. And I thought it was just like, oh, they modeled us. made a statue for him. But no, it's made of him. And to think that like, oh, well, we could just keep those parts and just use him as a statue, which is effectively his corpse and just like, okay,

we could just take that, that little section of him out and then plug him in to see if it works. Like, imagine the droids every day got to go past their falling brother. In the town square. In the town square. This is like, this is honestly like Andor. This is like Andrew having to walk down and see his dad hanging. It's kind of fucked up if you think about it. Isn't he celebrated as a hero? What are we talking about? If you put you're like, you don't put, he's like, you know, Martin Luther Martin Luther, Martin Luther came skeleton in the town square.

Wow. Not even close to a one to one. Oh my goodness. They think it's like when you like bury the Pope in like that glass, uh, coffin thing and everybody can just look at it. They probably think it's like that. I want to let you guys know they've done that before. They went all around the country with, like, fucking Jesse James's body.

They put, what's the nigger from Russia that everybody, you know what I'm talking about? No, not, not, nigga, no, not Stalin. The guy who was like a magician. Oh, O'Don. Houdini. Dini. Oh, for two. It was real bad.

It's like, Stalin is from Russia, though. Like, Rasputin, they put Rasputin's body on display. It's been done before. and those were human beings. Yes. This is a robot. So they're doing him a solid by... So real quick, before we get off this,

you guys feel like droids have souls? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. It's interesting. We should do a whole separate episode about whether or not droids have souls. The droid sentience debate is one that I genuinely love. The playoffs are here,

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which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. Gory and Schart, the space pirates. Jomi's already shaking his head. So I'm just going to go straight to you, Jomey, because you have a problem with it. Go ahead. I don't have a problem with it. So, you know, the guys show up. They're like, hey, we want to drink at this bar.

Grief is like, hey, man, this is a school. Stop playing. We'll have a drink in my office. And they're like, no, man, we're not really trying to do all that. And then he, the, the, I forget the name of the other, like the main, not shard. The guy with the no-nose. The leader of the pyres that are trying to get in. What are you talking about?

Yeah. The main pirate that's trying to get into the school to have drinks. He's trying to drink with children. I'm like, there's no booze in there, you dummy. Let me tell you how dumb this motherfucker is. He knows if there's no drink, there's no booze in there. He says, bring me a drink. He just wants to drink with the kids.

These guys are a freak. Can't let it happen. He's just trying to swing it around and, like, call the shots in that town. But Greek car is like, hey, man, I keep that motherfucker thing on me, player. Like, you're not going to just do all that. this. And then instead for him to just walk away and be like, all right, man, you know, we keep that thing pushing. Even Mano's like, hey, you got a problem.

They start shooting. Now all your homies get clapped. And now you got to explain to a big boss like, hey, we lost four to do's. Why? Because I was being stupid. You know what I mean? Like, I don't take that dude seriously at all. So I can't wait for his pack to come.

If I was his boss, I'd be like, why were you doing that? What was the point? But he's a pirate, though. Yeah. Can you really expect a pirate to act right. You know what I mean? Like, isn't it a pirate's job to go? That dude looked like old Greg from Mighty Boosh. Nobody knows what I'm talking about here.

That motherfucker didn't shoot. He was the only one. All of his boys were like, chagre happy. And he's just like, oh no, man. Like, fine. Wait, but can, before we get off of this, I have to ask you guys a very important question. Do we feel like grief is a little corrupt? Is he going to show up in the New York Times?

Why? No. Because the minute, the minute Din comes in, he's just like, hey, yo, he pulls up the map. He's just like, yo, pick any land that you want. You and your, you're, you and your. He got him some acreage for him. He's trying to get him to be the marshal though. Yeah, but here's the thing.

You're still greasing the wheels. You got to go through the government for that. We got a whole legislative system that you need to do. He doesn't want the paperwork for that, bro. See, I like this. All that bureaucracy bullshit. You need a marshal. Here's your land.

watch over it. You know what I mean? Watch over the town. Carl Duhu can't do it. Yeah. She's too active on Twitter to be the Marshall. That was a great reason. She got recruited by the government. By the way, they laughed. The theater laughed. When it was like, what about Marshall Dune? Marshall Dune got recruited by the government. Just left.

God damn. The hell she did. Can I just say now having watched Andor, I'm just like, damn, they would recruit. oh Kara. They were just like, they saw her tweets. They're like, your empire material right away. Yeah, she got them

with the goddamn empire. Um, Bocatans at the end of the episode looking very, very, very, very sad. She was emo as fuck,

bro. And her sad castle? Listen in the juice world. It looks like they'll cover of take care. You know, when Drake's just caught. I'm playing life.

Just alone. She's so over it, bruh. Everything she tries to do blows up in her face he's got the Dark Sabre she's coming back just oh she's like what are you doing here? Don't you know

that I wanted to fight the dude I wanted to fight him you fought him took the Dark Saber when I came back without the Dark Saber it was like fuck her and they left Did you got did y'all feel bad for Boca Tan? Hell no in that castle why not?

No shot No shot feels bad for Boat she all right she don't got the heart of a leader she's she's stay fucking up too much. Like why? Also, here's the thing. If the only reason that you could lead these people is a dark saver, maybe that's the problem.

Maybe that's why Mandelaar is no longer here. And here's the thing. If she's willing to just be like, you're stupid, your cult's doing this, if you want to go bathe in that radioactive goop just to make your sins go away, whatever. And I'm like, you're the one who thinks a magic sword's going to make you the president. It doesn't matter.

Like, all of this is silly. So here's a thing of Bocatan, a little Boketan history lesson, right? She was a member of Death watch, which was the, you know, depends on who you ask, terrorist faction of Mandalorians who wanted to, you know, restore the old ways of Mandelor. She's also

the sister of Satin. Right? Satine Creed, who we know from Clone Wars was the pacifist ruler of Mandelor. Obi-Wan side piece, yes. Well, sidepiece? I felt like Ventures was a side piece, and Satine was his

main thing, you know? Like, when he had to go back to Satine, be like, hey, baby, you know, when we was broken up, I had a little thing with ventures on the side. Yeah, yeah. No, but, and in rebels, Bocatan gets the dark saber for Sabine, because Sabine believes that Bocetan could reunite Manilor. Obviously, flash forward a couple of years,

not happening for Bocetan. And so she, like, she has the blood rule, and at the time had the saber, you know, rules be like, hey, I am the rightful leader of man or lord. This is my, it's my destiny. And so you can see how far she's fallen now.

With all that belief, with all that faith, with all that at her feet, it didn't work out. She's down horrendous. Absolutely atrocious. She's honestly the Hillary Rodham Clinton of the man. Oh my God. Charles, you are two for

fucking two. The only thing that sucks about that is that makes Jen Donald Trump. He's obnox. How does it not? The armorer. The armorer is Donald Trump. How is the armorer Donald Trump? The armor ain't got the goddamn saber.

He got it. The armor got her whole, this is the way type thing. She got the whole slogan, Mick Mandelor great again. Come on. Big Mandler great again. Two for two,

she kind of is. One of the central questions to this season, for me, going in, was were we going to get a Bo-Katan redemption art? Are we going to get the story not just of Grogu

learning the ways of being a Mandalorian, or more specifically, being one of the children of the watch, which I don't know, I don't know if I want my man involved and all of that, but are we going to get the restoration of the kingdom of Mandelor in not just, I mean, not just in out there in space,

but actually on the planet, which we know has been ravaged by war, is there going to be a Mandalorian and Boca Tan redemption arc here? And at the end of this episode, it kind of doesn't seem like it. I expected that scene, which they, it was previewed in a train. to go a little differently. I didn't know that she was as fucked up and down horrendous as what she is. I'm just wondering what has to happen

for her now. I mean, obviously it would involve her wielding the Dark Sabre. What has to happen for her now to get to take the pride and the inspiration of being the hope of Mandelor back? Wait, do you, I guess my question would be do you think that

this show is interested in proving that Boketan is the right leader to to usher in Mandelor. It seems like the whole narrative thrust of this series is proving that the armor is religion and just

praying to this god or this basically fealty to this thing you can't see. Boketan is fealty to this heritage and you have Dinn and Grogu in the middle who are representing something differently. I don't think we're going to get a redemption of Boketan as much

as a realization that the way she's gone about it and the way her family's gone about this is wrong. But wouldn't that be redemption? Yeah, it would be a version. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I guess the question I asked specifically, you're saying something different in terms of

you're saying her redemption doesn't have anything to do with her being the ruler of Mandelor. It has to do with her understanding that her way is not the way. Exactly. I think her redemption is going to be her realization that not only should she not be the leader of Mandelor, that potentially Mandelor should not have this one leader united under a Dark Saber or not united under this very ultra-fascist religion.

Let's consider something real quick here. Because what Charles just said is very interesting to me and we haven't really talked about it. When we consider motivations that make people great leaders, there's duty, there's honor, but there's also love. Like someone who I would want to be, the president of the United States or the president of any place would have to love that country.

I would always ask myself, how much does a person love that country? Because if you love the place that you're representing or the place that you're leading, you can always make decisions that you feel like are in the best interests of whomever that is, you can put yourself in the back burner. You can really serve, right?

If you're doing it for selfish reasons or if you want power, whatever, you'll never be a good leader. When you think about it, everybody's motivations here, to a degree, are about heritage, structure, and rules except for one person whose motivations are about love. Didn't found something to love. He found something to love, and that, more than anything, has clouded his relationship with what he thought he was, what he thought. he wanted and how he thought things were supposed to go. He's not even much of a bounty hunter anymore, to be honest with you.

Like, he's a protector. He's a father. He's a teacher. You know what I mean? And at this moment right now, he's really not even a Mandalorian. But he's still his father. So I wonder if, as we're saying for Boca Tan, the armorer is done. She's going to do her whole thing.

She got Darth Maul spikes in her head. She's out of here. But I wonder if connection and what it really means to lead and cultivate a society where people cooperate and get along, but remember all the Mandalians have done is fight. They ruined their own. They're basically us. They're us in the future. All they've done is fight.

They've ruined their own society and their own atmosphere and their own planet. I wonder if at the end of the day will come to understand like a new form. version of Mandalorian leadership that's based upon a father and a son based upon a queen with no with no subjects all of that stuff it's interesting it's very interesting would you say that i would say that din isn't there yet the person who's actually there yet is is grogoo because we saw grogoo in book of boba fat do something that we've rarely seen any person who's about to be a jedi do which is actually like i don't choose the light side i don't choose the dark side i'm just going to walk away. I'm going to walk away from this institution. And we see in this first episode,

Din still very, very brainwashed by the institution and almost has to get where Groguardi is, where to your point, the only thing that matters is love, is connection with people, your religion, where you come from, this heritage, this big traumatic thing that's happened through history, isn't necessarily important. You're right, except for one thing. He took his helmet off. So, the fact that he took his helmet off, knowing the repercussions for taking his helmet off, showed a wavering to me in what he feels like

the structure of his life really is. Man, I don't know, it's so funny. It's so funny getting older and watching all of my homeboys and my brothers and the men in my life like find love. and when I say fine love,

but I don't just mean fine women. I mean like be fathers because it, I know a lot of guys who are really violent people. You know what I mean? Like, not violent against women or nothing like that, but just like, you know, the kind of a shoot you in your ass and laugh type niggas.

And I'm just being for real. And, you know, connection, just changes people if you allow yourself to submit to it. And that's, I think at the core of this, watching this badass who nobody can fuck over, you know, kind of feel that and seeing where that takes him is just a big part of the story. I'll ask Steve. Yes.

You have it here in this beautiful document, great document today, Steve. Who is the most powerful Mandalorian on the board right now? This is actually a good question. The armor who leads the children on the watch. Bokatan, who leads that droid that's in her castle. And Dinn and the Dark Sabre and the Mandalorian mercenaries, because Dinn is technically the leader? Not technically.

He is the leader. Boketan is like, you just got to show up. And they'll be like, yo, boss, what are we doing? Okay. So who's the most powerful Mandalorian right now? It is tough. Like, everybody has their flaws. Like, Dinn can barely wield that Dark Saber,

let alone he doesn't want to lead. Barely, that nigger sucks. Yeah. Armour, I, armor's pretty, pretty good with it. Boca tan,

like, we got a, I don't know. I feel like Din is technically the most powerful one, as far as like, overall clout and sway in all of Mandelaar

that he can just use it at will. I would have to say that. But like, again, everybody's kind of in a pretty good power play right now. You don't think, you don't think Boca Tan is dangerous, though? She got nothing to lose. She got nothing to lose.

She has nothing. She has nothing. But from what we can see, she seems a little, like, without a purpose and doesn't want to do anything about it. Here's the thing. That's what scares me. That's what scares me about somebody like Boca Tan. I put her in the Darth Mall category where it's just like, you're going to get

wash. Don't get me wrong. But you're kind of, like, indestructible. like a cockroach, you're just going to keep coming back. Volcan, each time just comes back and be like, bow, I'm all, fuck, I'm here. You know what I mean? I think the armorer for me is probably the most powerful

Manhattan. We saw the beginning episode. She still got the homies. There was a grip of Mandalorians on that beach. They got packed up, Jomey. They were like shit. They was getting fucking ran. Come on, man.

They was getting ran. La La La La Cragadal was in their ass. I don't disagree. Like, they were. was getting ran, bro. But they got, she got numbers, and they're united. So all she got to do is make the call. They couldn't take down one alien, Joe.

That was the, Jomey, that was literally almost the end of them. They was almost, all of them was the filet-o fish of the watch. I'm like, could you at least check the river? Again, again, I'm Paz-Visla's number one hater. Okay, you ain't got to say nothing to me twice. I understand. But Dan would have to make the call to all the mandolians. They'd have to come up, get out here.

if the armor was like, hey, we got, there's 25 of us, let's go rush this one dude. I can't imagine they'd be able to do much, you know. Question about the big crocodile attack. Why didn't they just run? It's great question. Fantastic question. Back into the cave.

Like, just going to the cave. The crocodile can't get into the cave. Huberus. It was hubris. Why did they just fly away from the crocodile, grab the kids, fly. They're trying to beat the, crocodile, I'm watching it. I'm like, they obviously can't fuck with him. Because I'm in this

whole time, I'm thinking that this is then as a kid who's going to do something amazing. That's not what happened. No. He came in with the shit. Did you do something amazing, but like, yeah. What I was that? Yeah. Nobody even ran back to their ship. They was getting packed up. Wait. I don't know. I have an old man van question for you. I want to be a little bit of a hater to the youth. Of course you do. The beginning of this episode, I'm like, is the Baskar armor kind of becoming

participation trophies? Like, this ain't like a fucking wreck league basketball game. Why did this little motherfucker get a helmet already? What did he do? Was that Bessar? Yeah, it was. Oh, yeah, because she was in there. How do we know that was Bessar? Because she was melting. She was going through all of the the shit that she usually does to me. All of their armor is Besscar? I would imagine so.

Well, no. When Dan first started off, he did not have Besscar. I don't know if they all have Bessar. That's true. That's true. I thought that like there might be a little Bessar in the armor, but to get something like Dinn, you need like pure, like a lot of it. Like not every piece, but they try to make, I thought they try to make the helmets at least have some type of Baskar in it.

I don't know. It could be a mix, but like, again, like the fact that he's got like 100% pure. as opposed to like they've got like maybe like 30% Besscar could be in there. But remember Besscar was the part of the Mandalorian culture. It was the right of patches. It flowed all through the planet

and they fucked it all up. Yeah, there's no more ore left. So you might be right. There's not enough ore left. So I'm assuming like he probably didn't get the real Bessar shit. But part of me when they were giving it to the kid, I'm like, bro, like this looks whack.

Like the little helmet. I'm like, he, come on, man. They weren't like the real Jordans. They were like the Foot Locker Jordan sometimes. They were like, ooh. The baby Jordans. You get like the little Jordans, you know, like when you get, but, Jome, you got something for us? Mandelorian armor was typically made from Besscar, which is one of the strongest metals in the galaxy.

But it could be also made from more common metals such as Dura steel, right? And so, Mandalorians were formed in order to protect Mandalorians from Jedi. So that's why Besscar would be used to protect from lightsaberers. But after the, you know, the plundering of Manilor and how, you know, people come in, you know, all the fighting, Bescar, they stripped the plan of Bescar. So Besscar became way more rare in the galaxy. So there's probably less than pure Besscar for the, for the Kitt's helmet. You know, so there's not a ton. Wiener coming in.

Tommy explained her coming in. He got some, you got antonium, Atamatium. I never could say it. Adamantium. Adamantium. I never could say it. I used to say it. I said antimadium.

I never could. How you say it? Adamantium. Steve. Yes. Happened to you. I'm so happy. Babu Frick's race.

They got their shine. Yeah. Very, very funny scene. We haven't talked a lot about the comedy of this episode, but it was a very funny episode. Very funny. Of the Mandalorian. Great scene between Cargum, and members of Babu Frick's race,

tell us how awesome you feel that this happened. I'm so, so, so happy because not only was it so cute to see my beautiful Anzellian's back, we get to see their workshop, which is essentially just like a very mini version of any normal workshop and seeing Din just sit like crisscross applesauce. in like essentially like a big hanger to them is so funny and cute um and i and i basically i treat them like the little like genius surgeons that would have that could fix anything but like

ah we need this one thing but don't get messed like i it's the best thing ever like the best thing that uh rise of skywalker ever did was bring bring me the the nzilians and it's it's it's a perfect day i felt sad when i saw them to be honest Why? Because they did they did the sci-fi thing where it was just like, I loved it when Babu Frick could like be

anything in anyone, but the realization that like, oh no, all y'all little niggas got to be mechanics when you grow up. Like what if you wanted to be an artist? What if you wanted to be a rap? And his parents were just like,

get in the fucking shop and fix the droids. First of all, you don't know that that can't be the thing. They contain multitudes. You don't need to be defined by what you do for a living. We've only seen them

in one job, which makes me think that the galaxy is forcing the Anzellians to literally fix all their shit. What if they want to be artists? I would call what they do with machines art. Shut up, Steve. Of course the oppressor.

Y'all, we got to pick a cause, man. Andor has fucked us up. Clearly, I'm flying the flag for droids right now. Andor has really messed us up. We are looking for injustice in every corner of the galaxy, these little motherfuckers are some handymen.

They like it. Like this, that's what they do. You know what I mean? We're looking for injustice in every corner of the galaxy. Now, Andor has really changed the way we see it. I do want to ask Charles a question real quick before we get to the mini-mediar. Oh, one concern that you had had was maybe that Andor had changed the stakes in the Star Wars universe. and that something with maybe a little bit more heart or a little bit more wonder, a little bit more hope, all tenets of what, you know, this lore has been built on over the decades, might not play as well right after Andor, which was very grounded, which dealt with strife, struggle, rebellion, key elements of Star Wars, but elements that we hadn't seen as on the surface in most fair.

that we've gotten besides Rogue One. Yeah. I haven't seen the first episode of Mando. Was there any sort of hangover for Mando for you? Not at all. I think because there is something magical about watching Dinn and Grogu on screen together that can almost transcend anything in TV,

but especially when it comes to Star Wars, when it comes to franchise fatigue. I actually got the opposite fear when I watched this episode where I was like, is it possible for Mandalorian to be a small show anymore? And what I mean by that is, like, I'll ask you this, Van. I think I like the Mandalorian the most. When you do see Grieve Karga,

when you do see these characters like Boatan come in that we've grown to love, when as much as I love Luke Skywalker and anything, that's not my favorite moment of this show. I like the relationships. I like the cast that they have. is it possible to have that show when it's arguably Mando's the only thing that's working in Star Wars

from a financial standpoint. And that's nothing, you y'all know how I feel about Andor, but was Andor as big as Mando? No. So can this show stay small and stay what it's always been when it's the spine of the entire Star Wars universe now? Great question.

To answer your first question, no, the show can't stay small. It can't. It's too big to be small. Okay. To answer your second question, yes. Can it be what it's always been? Sure. But it's not going to be small.

I saw the show last night in a movie theater with a bunch of people. The scale of what's going on now to me is just incredible. We haven't discussed it that much, but the scale of the show. The show looks sprawling. It looks cinematic. It looks different than it looked when it was unsure of its audience in the first season that we got. It's no longer one setting. Like we're going to play.

We're jumping to planets. It used to be like if we're on a planet, we're staying here. We got to like three, four planets in this episode, which is 35 minutes. We would have never gotten this big of an animal. Like, we got that animal for a long time. I remember when it used to be like, all right, y'all get five seconds of this shit. And the budget's been spent.

You know what I mean? The question with me. Mando is the question with any piece of lore, any business, if you got a snowball stand, if you got anything can it handle its scale? Can it handle itself scaling up?

And the early returns are positive, you know? I think it looked bigger, it felt bigger. Just even the scene inside of Bokatan's castle, you could feel the empty space.

You could feel the empty space. You could feel the empty space. space in there. It felt like you could feel her loneliness. It was a fantastic shot. Rick's directing in this, boom. Just fantastic. You could feel it. But it still felt like a scene that wasn't about how big that set piece was. It felt like a scene that was about how much distance there is between Bokatan and her people of Mandelaar and Boketan and D. It still felt like it was about them and not about everything else that we're seeing. I think sometimes with this lore stuff that we're into this this this era that we're in, it seems like it's about everything other

than the characters. And that's when we call bullshit on it. We call bullshit on it. when we can tell that they're just throwing CGI and making us e-pop porn. What we want and what we've gotten is stories that are about the people that are in the scene. And Mando seems to still be doing that, in my opinion. I would agree. I would agree. I just have to, it's a podcast. I had to pose it.

Nah, you, no, it's a good question. But you know what? It's the first episode. What we have to say is it seems that way now, but as things move along, move along, will we be able to continue sort of that feeling or, I guess, that narrative strength. You know what? We're not going to do to talk with Jomi right now because we want to stay focused on the episode here.

But we'll talk about it later. We'll talk about it at some point because I think it's a very important conversation in understanding some of the story arcs that we've been talked to. If you guys don't know, just real quick, you can go back and listen to it. Jomey and I and Charles and I and Steve and I We all had a conversation back in the day About whether or not the television shows And the MCU were as vital to the stories

As the movies were That's kind of what we were talking about, not really But I think with all of this stuff coming out On the heels of Ant Man, the Wasp and everything I think it's an interesting take to go back to Because I don't think anybody was wrong in the argument I really mean that I think everybody was right, but there were different factions of right and wrong.

And I think it also kind of illuminates the storytelling issue that maybe some of these big, huge studios are having. But we'll talk about it another day. I don't think today is a day. We want to stay focused on Mando right now. So let's get to the mini-meter. Midnight mini-meter now. If you guys are just listening to us because you're tuning in with Mando, we do a midnight meter. It's our claim to fame.

Okay. Midnight meteor is 1 to 12. It's 1 to 10, but it can be an 11 or 12 rating for something that is really, really special. 12 is perfect. Dark night. We're talking about dark night. We're talking about Spider-Verus, Infinity War, perfect films. I say Winter Soldier.

Because of 12. Charles disagrees. Wait, winter soldier? Winter Soldier is 12? Okay. Winter Soldier is a 12. Okay. Spider-Rine 2, 12?

12. Guardians of the Galaxy. 11. 11. It's great. The ending, the ending dings it at one point. The Ragnarok 11? 11.

In game? 11. Infinity Wars the 12. I say, yeah. I have those inverted. Just real quick. Jomey Steve, where are you guys on the Infinity War end game scale? Which is the 11, which is the 12?

If I have to give one in the 11 and one of 12. Ending games the 11, Infinity Wars of 12. Agree. Borset. Infinity Wars the best thing they've ever done to me. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, it's not the best thing they've ever done. It's top five. It's the best thing they've ever done.

Okay, we're not going to relitigate this right now. Mando, Mando season premiere. I give this an eight. It's an eight for me. Eight. I want to say, I want it. You guys, this is how really, to this episode of television.

Okay. Just, but it's, it's a premiere, the gang's riding again. It's an eight. It's an eight for me. Steve?

Eight as well. Eight as well. I couldn't disagree with anything that the show was doing, gets the tone set right, all the actions back, gangs back, good vibes all around.

Eight. Jummy. It's a nine for me. Sets the table very well, And I got to say, man, after the first scene when they fight the big alligator and then the Starfighter, you know, slides through and you see Dan Turner's head

and then Grogu just pops up from the back. Like, it restored the feeling, man. I'm just so happy the show's back. I'm so happy that I get to see my little baby Yoda back on screen with his, you know, big metal pops. Love it to nine for me. I'm going a strong, strong seven.

This is me. I know it. What's wrong with the seven? You had an eight. I'm just one point away. I knew it, bro. What? I like this episode of TV.

I know it, man. I know it, man. I know it, bro. All right, so wait, so I'll ask you guys this. I knew, I knew we was coming in disrespectful, bro. How was it disrespectful? It was a good episode of TV. I liked it.

I knew we was coming in disrespectful, dog. I knew it, bro. All right, so I'll ask y'all this. This is important because this is how I got to my seven. Do you think... that the two episodes that we got together of Mandalorian in Book of Boba Fett would have been a more exciting season three premiere than the season three premiere that we got. Oh my God, yes. Probably, but they couldn't do that.

Like, they had some story that they still needed to tell, and we really didn't need, they did it perfectly. So there's no reason to continue to compare it. The only reason I'm comparing is because narratively, both of these episodes really do the same thing, which is those book of both of the fad episodes in this season premiere, what do they do? It gets din, it gets Grobu back together. We learn that he's an apostate,

that he has to go to Mandelor, that he has to forgive himself. We get the big journey thing. We get reunited with a bunch of characters that we love. The only reason I'm giving it a seven is like, I like this episode, but it's a meat and potatoes episode if you've been following the Mandalorian tree. train. Not bad. Just like, you know, setting the tape.

Yeah, but seven is seven. Nah, fuck your seven. Seven is like, really that simply. Isn't it? Like seven. What do we just, what do we just see it rated a seven? Oh, shit. Damn. Yeah, that's right. Ant man. Like, we just, we just, you know what I'm saying? It's like, it's, come on, Charles. I didn't give Ant man a seven. My seven, here's the thing too. My seven's stronger than y'all seven. Okay, because That's actually true. Eight, nine, ten's willy-nilly. My seven is like, y'all did the thing. Y'all did a good job.

I'm a hard grader. I did what? The job? Angela Bassett did the thing. No. Mando did the thing. No, no. Mando did the thing.

Charles, that what you're saying? Randolph did the thing. Can we stop? Her fine ass. Like, Mando did the thing. Okay. Wait, so really, really honest question. if she had performed that for you, Van, like alone as a friend,

being like, what do you think? Would you have been honest? Would you be like, this is whack? Or would you let her go up on stage? In real, in real, real honesty right here. I haven't been able to watch the whole thing. Why not good at stuff like that? I'm serious.

I saw her when she did, Angela Bassett did the thing. But the moment, there's nothing to me that's more. cringe. Y'all, let me say something real quick. Ariana DeBose is a

fucking fantastic performer. Legend. As many threats, not a triple threat, quadruple threat, all of it.

It's fun. I'm glad everybody's having fun with it, whatever. I think we take things too seriously sometimes.

But for me, anytime somebody starts like rapping in a situation like that, like, yo, it's me.

Let's do a rap about the Oscars. Oh. Shawshank Redemption had a real good move and you know what I'm saying? The Green Mile was tough to grow. Anytime somebody starts doing shit like that, I can't fucking watch, bro.

It used to be something they tried more often. Like, I can't fucking watch. I've still not seen it. But from what I saw, Angela Bassett did the thing. It's pretty tough. You know, and I probably would have been like, Hey, man.

Nah, dog. You know what I'm saying? You know? There had to be one black person in the room who was just like, hey, y'all. Like, pause real, like, real quick. Like, what are we doing here? And see, and then the reactions that I saw one thing when it cut to the reaction right before she said, Angela Bastian. And it was just, you know, it was rough.

But once it, just don't make fun of it. kill the lady. She did something that was kind of campy and now it lives in internet lore. It's not that big of a deal. I really hope that she didn't have too tough a baton with it, but nah man, that's not my type of shit. The cuts to the audience are the worst part. No, those are tough. They have

no idea what's going on. Yeah, I thought no clue. So midnight meter, mini meter. We got 8, 7, 9, and 8. That probably goes along with our personalities right there. Y'all kill me for the 7. You all acting like I guess. It's not a 7. It was a seven is a fine great score. It's not, come on, man.

It's not a seven. It's not, I like it. You guys heard me. I like this episode. It's a seven. Yeah, whatever. All right, that's a wrap. Follow us on socials, Insta, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok,

saved. Jomi's job. He needs that Celine S7. Don't forget, you can catch me and Charles and Malinjo. Actually, it should be Malin Joe and me and Charles. via our reactions and deep dives into the latest episodes of The Last of Us

in the Prestige TV podcast Pedro Pascal is about to have the two bigger shows on television at the same time. I was trying to think of a time when somebody was... Pedro Pascal is the Jonathan Majors of TV and Jonathan Majors is the Pedro Pascal

of movies right now. They're just doing it. That doesn't make sense. That doesn't make sense. How much you think Pedro is, is clearing with each show. Like, what do you think he's making per episode at this point? I'm not sure.

The Mando check is probably the biggest check, right? Because that's three seasons deep. You got to be getting a super pay. You think a mill? A mill episode? I don't know. I don't know. I have no idea.

Let me tell you what. When they get Pedro Pascal in the MCU, that's when the check hits. Well, or when they get them on Euphoria, apparently. What are you talking about? What? Didn't she get like a, didn't Zendaya, get like a million dollars to come on before you? Oh, yes, she did.

Because she's all right. Because she's the only person on the show who can act. Yeah, so you get him on you for you. Get out of here, bro. No, you ain't be disrespectful like that. Last night, I'm a hater. I'm a premiere. Last night at the premiere, he had a cardigan.

This is a sweater draped over his shit. I'm like, this nigga getting money. This Friday and every Friday, the House of R is going to give you their deep dive into the latest episode of The Mandalorian. And from the conversations I had with Mallory around the episodes that we saw, we saw two last night. that is going to be an amazing podcast. You guys do not want to miss what Joe and Mal Mal and Joe have to say. On Wednesdays, of course, we're going to be back giving instant reactions to every single episode.

We are so happy to be back in instant reaction mode. Credits. Our producer is Steve, the architect Alman. Jomi, explain it. Dinner on, his own socials. Hashtag Jomi Force Ghost. Let me tell you, Steve. I like it.

Okay. But it's a tad macab. I mean, his spirit lives on. Damn, you're killing off, Jomey. You just fucking shit off. You just, you just killed. You just killed off Jomey. We all live on in Kai.

How about that? Yeah, see, you don't like it. You don't like it. I know, you brought it back to that. See, you don't like it. You're feeling away. You're feeling away. What Charles says is accurate.

I'll look at you guys now, and I can put the two of you to get. you're feeling away. But it's funny. I got nothing to say. He's got a setup like Steve. He's got to got Steve's thing, but he plays video games and all of that shit

and is like really into difference like Jomi. He is kind of, it's a little, it's not untrue. That's all I'm saying. Right? That's all I'm saying. Okay.

Additional production, an additional production from Arjuna Ramkepah. Charles, take us out. Babu Frick and Grogu have returned. They are back with the bang. And unfortunately, Mando did the thing. Which out of the three medals,

the most popular, Vibranium, uh, adamantium and Vescar, do you think could win the fight? Damn. It's probably animantium. Probably Adamantium.

But you know, it's crazy is that in... I don't know, Vibranium, though. Vibranium, so what they're going to do now in the MCU is they're going to introduce Adamatium. Ding! They're going to introduce it and they're going to make it better than Vibranium. But in the comics, well, actually, no. In the comics, it was slightly better, I guess.

But in the MCU, Vibranium was always the top thing. The MCU is depowering Vibranium, man. First of all, they took it. I don't want to get to a whole Umar's thing. But they took it and they came with the other people. But I don't know. If it's the, because think about it, the vibranium, that they have powers, their tech, they can do all kinds of things with the vibrating. It seems like it's better.

It's just unbreakable. Vibranimity, you can use it in tech and shit. Yeah. I feel like it's vibrating. It has like an energy source. Yeah. I guess, I mean, how many people in the universe have adamantium is it's Wolverine, it's X-23, Sabretooth? Sabretooth.

and then... Doesn't they have adamantium claws? Sometimes. Only sometimes. Only sometimes. I think Omega Red. Isn't it stuff that comes out of him?

Kind of. Like the tentacles? Things? The tentacles aren't those animatium? I mean, isn't the... Captain America showed originally Vibranium and animatium in the comics? It was an alloy.

Yeah. Yeah. And then you had Lady Death Strike, who I'm pretty sure has... No, she didn't. She didn't? I don't think so. You don't think so?

Let's look this up. They hate us now. We're going on it. I don't give off. I don't give off. Fuck. Lady Death Strike has an adamantium skeleton and retractable males.

Fair, fair. All right. All right, let's move on. This has nothing to do with Star Wars. Okay. Feels like every product claims real protein these days. But Real doesn't start on a label. It starts at the source.

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