The Ringer-Verse - The 'Mandalorian' Season 3, Episode 7 Deep Dive | House of R

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

Yes! Yes! Yes! It's time for another deep dive with Mal and Jo for the latest episode of 'The Mandalorian'. Ben Lindbergh joins them to discuss the Shadow Council and what the remnants of the empire are doing in the Galaxy. Later, they theorize who the titular "spies" might be in this week's episode (02:07:48). 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

Hey, it's Bill Simmons from The Ringer, and this is a podcast called The Rewatchables. We have been doing it. Really since 2017, it started with how much we love the movie Heat. We decided to structure a whole podcast with categories, most rewatchable scene. Who on the movie, Apex Mountain, what age the best? But here's the thing. If you want the full archive, you can hear them only on Spotify for free, by the way. So make sure to follow the rewatchables on Spotify.

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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 the Shadow Counsel's Zoom meeting, but also to join us on the Ringers Nexus podcast feed for all things. Fandom joining me today, now that she's finished stripping IG11 down to his base motor functions. It's the pilot who provides. provides cognition on this podcast. My house of our co-host, Joanna Robinson. Hey, Mallory, put some mystery meat on the fire. So why don't you grab yourself a slice and scurry around a corner and eat it in secret away from everyone else? Oh, boy. I do have some

questions about that, that hunk of roasted meat. We are, of course, here in case you can't tell. to dive deep into the seventh episode of the Mandalorian's third season. It's the penultimate episode of this season, Amanda. But before we sit down for what will be a very calm and chill and civil game with axe and pass, some quick programming reminders, if you want to hear our thoughts on the Asoka trailer and all of the other Star Wars Celebration film and TV news, there's a house of Midnight Pod already waiting for you from the top of this week in your feeds. go listen to it.

There's also already a wonderful Midnight Boys episode, Poo! On this episode, Amanda, catch up on that if you haven't. Next Wednesday, the guys will, of course, be with you to talk about the finale. They'll be there immediately after the finale. We will be with you on Friday on the House of Our to dive deep into the finale.

We will also be with you on Fridays on our sister feed, the Prestige TV podcast to break down Yellow Jackets. We had a delightful time talking about the fourth episode of Yellow Jackets this week. Please join us over there. I, like, let me just say this. I don't know that I've ever gotten that wound up talking about anything in front of you. Like, I don't know that I've ever matched your energy on something the way that I did for a good few minutes on this episode of Yellow Jackets this week. It was a big yellow jackets for one of your most fervent passions.

I was a thrill for me to witness, honestly. Thank you. Joe, that's a lot of podcasting. How can everybody find all of that? How can they follow it? Oh my God. I'm so glad you asked me, finally.

Listen, if you want to subscribe to the podcast, that's something I would really suggest you do. Ring averse, get all that good content. Press SisiV, get all that good content. Why not? If you want to be even more on top of it, you might want to follow us on social. Jomi is just crushing it across all the social feeds,

Twitter, TikTok, haven't checked in on Peach for a while, but I'll do my best. And of course, one can always send a raven to Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. Send us your Apple takes. People have just started signing the emails with their Apple takes, and that's a grand tradition as far as I'm concerned. Apple takes, I'll still take a mushroom recipe. I'll take any old theory you have about why this episode title is plural. Anything you want. Hobbits and dragons at gmail.com. Glad you mentioned that, the spies, which is the name of this episode, because it brings us to our spoiler warning, but also a little tease, which is that we've got some double Limburg coming up today. He's going to join us in the deep dive for a lore look on the

Shadow Council. And then later, he's going to come back for a little theory corner on the The spies and who they might be. The spoiler warning, folks, it's the same one that we give you every week. It's our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning. Yes. We are here to talk about the Mandalorian chapter 23, the spies, all of Mando to date and all of Star Wars canon. And guess what? Also Legends canon today.

If it has ever happened in Star Wars, whether or not Disney decanonized it, it is on the table for discussion on House of R today. So if you don't yet know why we are once again running around shouting, I don't care if you win, I need Kylo Red to lose. Please proceed with caution. Hux, Hux, Hux, Hux. I got to say, your Hux impression is not your best one. That was like Carl Weathers does Hux. You can't really capture the...

You really can't. Energy. It's a specific thing. Chapter 23. The spies. It's a long one. We're back up north of 52 minutes. This puppy is directed, once again, as was the premiere, by series EP, Rick Familua.

And it is written, co-written by Favs and Faloni. Joanna, let us start where we always do. the opening snapshot. Quick overall impressions, Joe, of chapter 23, and then a quick temp check where you are on the season heading into the finale. Yeah, I mean, I think some of those credits

you read out are very crucial in this episode, the fact that Filoni is a writer on this episode. We have had our ups and downs with this season, we should say, but I was reading a lot, I was going back and reading a lot of Rick's interviews that he gave because he gave a ton of interviews because this is the first season that he's executive producer. They sort of promoted him up the rank,

so he did a ton of press when the season started to sort of talk about his new EP status on the show. So I think we should think about it as like a show almost getting a different showrunner this year because something that he said in an interview was he was like, Dave was very busy launching the Asoka series. So how much was Faloni working on Asoka? And so is the creative team on this season

Rick and John versus John and Dave. I mean, it's all muddied up, I'm sure. But, like, that's a creative complication. And I will say that, like, this episode, I thought was incredible. I thought Rick did a great job directing it. Rick has always done a great job directing episode. So I'm not, like, besmirching Rick, but I'm just saying, like, the creative lineup behind the camera

is, like, a little different than it has been in seasons past. And I really liked this episode a lot. It does not erase for me some of the bumps in the road that came before it. But as we kept expressing the last couple weeks, like, oh, that was kind of shaky, but hopefully they'll land well, they'll end well. You know, the fact that it seems to be ending well, I'm really hoping that the next episode just feels in this similar vein. then, you know, I will be glad to have watched this season of the Mandalorian. How about you, Mo? Yeah, I loved this episode.

This was easily my favorite of the season, and I think clearly the strongest of the season. And it gives me restored hope for a strong finale and a strong conclusion to the season overall and a strong setup for this larger connected universe and this first. first order rise stretch of the story that is clearly a, a primary of focus. But the things that I really loved about this episode, we chatted about this back in our chapter 18 at the season three episode two pod. It struck the balance that felt like it had been missing so often from other installments in the season. And that I think because we see here how deftly it can be achieved and we've seen it in a couple bursts elsewhere in the season, it makes you long for it

even more in those moments where you're not getting it. It is possible to do it to go big with the connections to the sequel trilogy, to go big with the character set expansion, and to go big with the Mandalorian lore and still give us that beating heart of Din and Grogu at the center, characters talking with each other about the mistakes that they've made, the regrets that they carry, the things that they long for, like so many of the... Expressing their wants, which is what we've been begging for weeks. weeks now. Yeah, absolutely. So many other things that, like, you know, last week we were,

we were citing us, oh, we were craving thing X. We got in this episode in a way that was just full Godfather three meme territory for me, you know? Pulled me back in. Pulled me back in. We have a lot to get to today. This was a loaded episode. So let's head to the living waters. It's time to dive deep. First time I remembered that was coming. First time. But I did get there. before the end of the season. It's still caught me by. I'm a rationally proud of myself. Wait, can I take a quick, I mean, you should be proud of yourself.

I want to take a quick second to address the email caw sound. First of all, we got something about, some people don't know why it's a caw because they don't listen to us cover House of the Dragon or Game of Thrones at all or whatever. It's a Game of Thrones reference. That's what the ca is a reference to, first of all. Secondly, why does Joanna that dumb dumb laugh every time? Doesn't she know it's coming? Yes, but I don't know when it's coming.

It winds me up every time. And Steve is like a master of moving it around. So I get really wound up. And that's what that is. Love Steve. Love the house of our soundboard. Me too. Steve, you're a gem.

You are. I was waiting for him to get on mic and say thank you before we gave him a compliment, just like before we started recording. It was half that and it was half like me. Should I say bad baby then or no? Oh, boy. Okay. Yeah.

Let's chat about the spies. Let's chat about this episode. And the episode called The Spies starts with a spy. Who are the other spies again? Stay tuned for Theory Corner to hear us speculate about that very matter. We begin back on Coruscant. We just can't shake it, Joanna. We are in that very neon blade runner, pallet once again.

And Cain ducks into an alley for a probe droid skin. This killed me. I'm absolutely stunned that the New Republic failed when they're letting imperial probe droids roam the streets. Just meander around, not even trying to disguise it with a hat or anything. Displaying hollows of Ma fucking Gideon and escaped war criminal barely hidden from view in an alley. Get that probe droid like a trench coat and a hat. And like, you know what I mean?

It's remarkable. Yeah. Do you think it's so it's a hat and a coat you're saying, do you think there's like glasses and a little mustache? Like what level of disguise are you? You can fit a whole layer under a coat and no one will possibly see it. So like, why not throw a coat over that probe droid? Wigwatch Probe droid edition? Yeah.

One day, maybe. We can dare to dream. Keene does not give. The new Republic Amnesty ID of G68. No, it's that old imperial ID. Code TK.K. 2755. And that's when the droid activates this hollow at long last. Not just whispers.

Not just murmurs. Not just the suggestion. The whiff. The promise of Moff Gideon. But a hollow of Moff Gideon in season three of the Mandalorian fucking finally. And guess what? It's not a coincidence that this was a really good episode and Moff Gideon was in it.

The first part of our conversation, and I think we can say that this was, this specifically is why this was your favorite episode of the season. We got to spend another minute thinking about Pirate King. No. I think you know that Pirate King, Gorian Char. Is Ben Lindberg's favorite part of the show. It's that in Perch, like the double team of Pirate King.

Gorian Shark. This is big for Ben. But I was thrilled to hear about Pirate King. in Gory and Shard. May he rest in salad piece. But, and this is fantastic. We're just right away tying together loose ends. Yeah.

Was in fact a Gideon Stoge, the connection that our guy, Garcantava speculated about, was in fact there. Gideon seemed very, very upset to hear about this. And it made me wonder, like, what he wants with Navarro so badly. Like, the cloning facility, the lab, the old imperial base, was destroyed in the fourth episode of season two. Is he motivated by some of the same location considerations that grief is? Like, is it something about the asteroid belt? Is it the proximity to the Heideon way?

Is it just that he wants to have some sort of oversight in as many places as possible because of it's part of his overall power play? like, what do you think it is about Navarro that he's obsessed with? Well, I went back and rewatched the siege episode where they blow up the facility. And, you know, right before they blow it up, there are these two scientists being like trying to destroy. They're like, they're like, destroy it. And she like shoots the screen, real, like, Han Solo approach to destroying evidence. And then, yeah, I mean, the base does blow up, but you think there's something there? There could be.

You know what I mean? like Pershing found equipment in like, you know, a tow yard essentially earlier this season. So like I feel like there could be stuff lingering around the, I mean, where's, call Ray, where's the scavenger when you need one to like, you know, go through the remains of a bombed out something. So, yeah. I like this. I like it. I think there might be something still there. Yes.

Well, he is definitely very centrally focused on cloning, as we will discuss many times in today's podcast. So great theory. Okay. She tells them. Wasn't the new republic that stopped our Kaley pirate overlord? Was Mandalarians. Which ones you ask? Steve, can we hear this exchange?

Boketan Crees led a squadron of Mandalorians alongside Din Jaran and his covert. This cannot be. Those two factions are sworn enemies. Which is why I contacted you with haste. Normally when we select soundbites for the pod, it's either because the delivery, the writing, something is so memorable,

so beautiful, so astonishing that we have to hear it. Or it is such a seismic lore download that we don't want to miss a single, we don't want to miss a thing. This time we have selected this clip simply to thank Bob Gideon for hammering home a key point.

Yeah. Just a little clang of the hammer and tongs that we have been obsessing over all season long how so many of the central characters seem to have like forgotten about this deep, toxic history between these factions. Look how easy it was to say this. And then we will hear it time and time again

across this episode. Thank you. Thank you, Mof Gideon. We missed you. We missed your bold leadership on the Mandalorian. So something I will say, you know, we have so much to talk about Theory Corner this week.

There's a lot of questions that are intentionally being left vague for us to puzzle over. And I'll get into a bigger speech later about hiding the ball and how to effectively hide the ball and how to not effectively hide the ball. And I think this is one of those cases where they didn't want to hammer at home for reveal reasons later. Do you know what I mean? So they were just kind of not talking about it. And we talk about that as a sort of dismaying possibility a couple weeks ago, that if that ended up being the reason that these characters weren't addressing this history that we know is there. Well, I'm excited for all of your thoughts in Theory Corner and throughout the pod.

A lot of theories to talk about today. Good. A theory-rich episode. Gideon tells Keane, you focus on your mission. I'll deal with the Mandaloreans. And then he closes the holidays. turns. And he walks into one of the key scenes of the season. By God, is that the Shadow Counsel's music? How many cups to coffee, do you think I've had today? He walks by a few key things, Joe,

before he gets to the council and question. And through a few key things. We're going to talk about all of this. Besgar-clad troopers. Yes. The way that I thought of you instantly when he went through the series of Lasergates, though. Like, my heart was fluttering. You know how much I love those laser gates from the Phantom Menace. Do I love the prequels? No, but I love those laser gates

from fucking Dual the Fates. You love watching Obi-Wan stuck behind one. Hoping. No. Hoping ready for a fight. Yes. It's the best. Crucially, Gideon also walks by

a number of cloning tanks, which we will talk about more. I do, I don't want to say something really quickly about the phantom menace laser gates, which are not there just to set my heart of flutter. But I think also this episode, like we talk all the time about the deft hand feloni has and sort of weaving and dodging and weaving

in between properties and filling in the spaces. Between the red laser gates and the Praetorian guards that we're going to talk about later, like those are little touches that make this feel like a cohesive story. to me, even more than like a D.H. Luke Skywalker showing up. Just like all these little,

so it's not distracting. You're just like it's an element, it's there. If it makes you think of Phantom Menace great, if you're new and it doesn't make you think a Phantom Menace, that's okay too. It doesn't matter. It looks cool. So, you know, yeah. Love those. That's great point. We have so

much to break down in this scene, which was really one of the most crucial that we've gotten in some time. We were going to talk about the shriemed. I mean, to have Hux back in the fold, it's just... Like a literal scream at like 12, 20 at night. Like, just a real cool thing for me to do.

This is Brendel Hux, not Armitage, but still, the Huck's bloodline is back in our lives. We were talking about Hux just last week, and I'm just like, I can't, I'm so thrilled. Anyway, I don't think we, Mallory, I don't think we can break all this down by ourselves. No. No. Hux. Two of us. Shadow Council contingency, Thrawn Whispers. Yeah.

Palayan. We need to become a clan of three. Welcome into the House of Our Council to talk about all of this. The Shadow Council, the Contingency, all of these characters. We have so much to break down. We're going to go through the scene with you and you're going to just inject us with more. like ivies as we go. Can we start before we get to some of these new old faces and to some of the tension brewing with these imperial remnant warlords? Thrawn versus Gideon who says no, not me.

I say yes. I push the yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Can we start with the shadow council? Yes, please. Yeah. Thank you for hollow conferencing me. And it's evening on the evening on the East Coast where I am. So as usual, I'm shrouded in shadow. So this is just perfect. So the shadow cancel, this is really a relic of Halpe at his most petty, which is really saying something. This comes from his secret plan, the contingency, which is basically like, if I'm dead, then the empire deserves to die for not protecting me better. So let's burn it all down and start all over. And it and I will be. reborn from the ashes. And if I don't get to be emperor, no one else gets to play with my toys and

my empire. So the Shadow Council, which is kind of a on the nose name, it's like one step below the Legion of Doom. This is introduced in the aftermath books. And it was founded by this guy, Gaglius Rax, who's an imperial admiral and a palpi protege. And Rax is the one that Paupe puts in charge of carrying out the contingency, which starts with Operation Cinder, which we may have discussed at some point, which is basically orbital bombardment of a bunch of worlds.

And it's just this scheme to orchestrate the downfall of the empire all while sowing the seeds of its rebirth by sending select hand-picked imperials out to the unknown regions where they'll work in secret to restore its power and build the first order and somehow help Palpatheed return.

And so the whole thing, I mean, just let's destroy the empire so that it can come back even stronger. I mean, it sounds a bit galaxy brains, but Palpi is the ultimate galaxy brain guy. He is governed in a whole galaxy. And hey, it works. Always playing the long game, that sheave. Rex is the one who puts together this shadow counsel. He's killed at the Battle of Chiku, and the shadow counsel is kind of disbanded, but that's part of the plan. So this sort of spells the end of the empire proper, but the building blocks survive and go out to parts unknown.

It's like the second foundation. I know I made a foundation reference last week. So really catering to the foundation fans here. But it's the handpick leaders. And so obviously this is a few years after that. And it has reformed under the leadership, seemingly, of Brendel Hux. We'll get to Hux in just a second. I know Joe can't wait.

Cinder. Operation Cinder, of course, that makes us think of Mayfield in season two. And what a incredible scene and sequence that was. I know we talked about the battle of Deku briefly last week, but just in case people don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, this is like the last battle, you know, of post-endor, the last gasp sort of thing. And that's why in the Force Awakens, there are like so many downed imperial. ships and stuff like that on jacu because there was a mighty duel and the empire lost once in for all. Yeah. And by the way, before we continue, can we just acknowledge and address the fact that they're talking at all that they're conducting this conference from Mandelor, right? Which either Gideon has a way to bypass the interference or he's the one generating the interference. He has AG, I think, is what he's operating with. Right. Yeah. It's like a.

different Wi-Fi protocol or something. But that might explain also how he knows that there's a fleet in orbit, although maybe he just assumed that they would have brought his old ship or a spy told him, but we'll get to that later today. Yeah. Right. And if he can bypass the communication block, he can also communicate with his spy. Exactly. Yeah. And the Empire is big on conferences like this. Obviously, we saw some in Indoor right at the ISB, but this one reminds me of the Death Star conference room in episode four where Vader chokes Admiral Mahdi. And that conference, I believe, also has eight participants. So maybe that's the max. The empire just isn't big on all hands meetings. But even in that meeting, yeah, right. Even at that meeting where the empire is at the height of its power,

you have squabbling factions and people angling for power and protecting their fiefdoms. And that's exactly what we see here. So we only know who two of these people are for sure. But you can kind of tell it's like different ranks and different backgrounds. And this is the leftovers, right? This is the survivors. And obviously, the crisis has not exactly brought them together and put them on the same page because they're still conspiring against each other while they're conspiring against the New Republic.

Well, and speaking of the New Republic, crucially, these are the threats that the New Republic is failing to properly identify an account for, which I thought it was interesting. You know, we've chatted a lot in recent weeks. we chatted about this on the Asoka trailer pod, about the Mandoverse, the Mando timelines increased focus on the rise of the first order. And you could feel it so much at the very beginning

of this conversation, things like one of the unnamed characters saying, we must be cautious and show no sign of our true strength identified as man one. It's all great stuff. They're just, you know, well, let's put it in on that and figure out we want that to be later.

But then we hear our guy Pelly, who we're going to talk about in a second, say, if we are perceived as anything other than a group of unorganized remnant warlords, the New Republic will increase their efforts to hunt us down. This specifically is what our guy, Carson Teva, has been begging people to pay attention to and to heed for seasons now. We heard him mention this to Kara in season two.

There's something going on out there. And then, of course, in the middle of this season, to tuttle there's something dangerous happening out there. All these events, it's not a coincidence. By the time it becomes big enough for you to act, it'll be too late. he's right. And that's what we're watching form and take shape in real time. And so it's fun to kind of simultaneously know how valid that portent is, but also to see the utter dysfunction among these Imperial Remnant

members. Like that was one of my favorite things about this scene, the bickering, the infighting. And before we talk about that a little bit more in how they're behaving with each other, let's talk about who some of these people are been because we had a couple really, really throw in debuts. Can I read this email? Can I read this email? Can I read this email. Please. Yeah. Okay.

So we got this funny email from Chris who says that like this, this idea of the squabbling warlords and the like, let's do little isolated attacks and not let them show our full strength. Chris was like, this reminded me of the moment in Andrew episode five when Dedra has the epiphany, this is how I do it while analyzing the seemingly random attacks. It feels awfully pressure after watching this most recent Mandalorian episodes. The Shadow Council talking about being random warlords to not do. draw suspicion seems right out of Deidre's playbook. What better way for her to counter the

rebellion's victory than to do the same to them with the imperial remnant? While I don't foresee a Debra appearance of Lamrong, I couldn't help but draw a line from Andor to the mandolorean here. I'm always thinking about Andor. So thanks so much for that. But also, like, we do have to think about the internecine, like, squabbles that we saw between the leaders and the rebellion. What is the right way to rebel? What is the right way to rebuild the empire? And that's that brings us to the players. So Hux is best known to us for fathering our fave, Armitage, Hux. Of course, who's a lad of 14 or so right now, but I hope he makes the next conference call,

just crashes the call just to get some face time for us here. But his dad, Rendell, he is a former officer in the Grand Army of the Republic. So like the other guy we're about to talk about, Pellion, he has roots that trace back before the empire, but he became the commandant, which he's still referred to as in this scene of an academy, a training center for imperial officers and also child soldiers and a bunch of shady stuff going on there. But he's seen by Galleus Rax, who I mentioned before, as this visionary who's going to be instrumental in ensuring that the empire comes back. So he's sort of building around racks. He's building around Hux. He's the glue guy on the shadow count.

basically. So he's kind of the ranking senior member here. And he has been, you know, he's, he becomes a general of the first order. He's in charge of the Stormtrooper training program, hearkening back to his training earlier. He sticks around long enough for Snoke to rise up. And then Hux serves Snoke, who of course is Palpi's puppet. And then eventually he's betrayed and killed by, Captain Fasma, who is in league with Hux's own son, Armitage, who showed an early talent for traitorousness and betrayal. So he betrays his own dad, although I think his dad would be proud by how his son eventually rises to take the first order to new heights and blow up the Hosnian system and use Star-Killer base. So really, you know, if he had to sacrifice himself to

paved the path for the younger Hux to take the first order where he would have wanted it to go, then maybe he would have been okay with that sacrifice. But he's a big wig, basically, and you can tell that by how everyone is deferring to him here. I think I'm so excited for this appearance, not just because I love a Hux. Not just because you love a Gleason? Not just because I love a Gleason, right? So Brian Gleason, Donald Gleason's brother is playing his father hair. What a moment for bad sisters.

There's a grade and mother exclamation mark, which is where I first learned there was another Gleason. There is another Gleason. Yeah, exactly. But I was, I was got so excited about Brennell Hux that I was like looking at some of the aftermath novels by Chuck Wendig. And I just loved this description of him in the third aftermath novel. Still, Brendel Hux is not a popular man. He is an army. He isn't Navy.

He's cold, smug, stubborn. He spends his time alone. Even his own son stays away from him, and that boy has no friends here either. With the fall of the empire, Hux and his son have been increasingly alienated. And this is a way back in and this being like an assassination attempt. And also those child soldiers that you mentioned are described as bright-eyed monsters. They're so scary. And I have a little theory about them.

Like I don't, this is like a far-fetched theory and I could not find any evidence for this to back this up. But like the timing lines up where the purtorn, like the fact that he is. in charge of the Petorian Guards. Like, could those be his child assassins grown up? Like, the children that he is abducting all often into the Stormtrooper program, essentially, like, that is part of it. But, like, he starts with these children of Jeku, 24 children of Jeku, child assassins. And I'm like, what if these children assassinations, these bright-ed monsters soon clad

themselves in shiny red and all get cool, different-looking weapons? Yeah. Maybe this is the plot of skeleton crew. The kids become child soldiers under Brendel Hux. Amazing. Wow. That would be fucking dark. Also, I was talking to a friend of the pod, Dave Gonzalez, and he, like, put this hope in my heart.

Because Gwendolyn Christie never took her helmet off his phasma, like, we could easily get phasma back in the habit. You know what I mean? Around here and around this time. Because, like, she killed him, but he's also, like, the one who brought her in to the fold. gave her her armor in the first place. So, like, Gwendolyn, stay by the phone. I'd be excited to see you. I love it.

Speaking of people who've been staying by the phone, it's time to talk about Pelly. Okay, question. I know we love a Pellie motto. I know we love a PERS, but can we call him Pellie since there's another Pellie out there? What if you call him Gill? If you are in any way involved in the Star Wars Rebel finale

and or Thrawn treason, two of my like favorite things in the canon, I reserve the right to give you a nickname, even if it is the name of another character, literally in this show, and thus immensely confusing, needlessly so. I'd love to call him Gil,

because I can't decide which syllable in that name to stress. Is it Glad? Is it Gillid? Gillagallad. Gill Gillallon. Let's go with that. So Pellian is, I would say,

maybe a top 10 expanded universe character in terms of reps and prominence and also popularity. So he originated back in Erd to the Empire in 1991, the same book by Timothy Zahn that gave us Grand Admiral Thron. So he goes back to the beginning of the Thron story. And that kind of kicked started the entire Star Wars expanded universe. And he was there throughout that. So in Thron's books and many, many that followed not just by Zon, but also many other,

other authors. He was kind of Thron's right-hand man. He was, you know, he was one of the good ones, you know. He was one of the honorable imperials. He's a principled man, you know? He's just, he's a career. We've reached the part of every pod where he emerges as pro empire. I don't know how this happened that I became an empire apologist all of a sudden, but, but Pollyan, I feel like I was conditioned, you know, reading Air to the Empire in fourth grade or whatever it was. I was a big Pelian fan at the time. And he really, like, he's a naval lifer. He goes back to the Republic.

He's at the Battle of Endor. He escapes and survives. And then Thron shows up and Theron takes Pelion's ship as his flagship. And they work closely together. And Pelion grows to admire him and his tactical genius and his artistic taste. And he's kind of the point of view character. He's almost the Empire's point of view character for many of the books. from that period. And after Thron was assassinated, no, this is not a spoiler. This is in the old

expanded universe. So this is no longer canon. None of this is. But Pellion went on to command the imperial remnant against the new republic. And then eventually he made a truce. And even after that, there's a galactic alliance, which is formed from the new republic and the remnant. And Pellion's in charge of that. So he's like in his 90s at that point. And he's still just getting shit done. He's leading the Navy. So I was enjoyed a nice Pellian appearance. But he was then rendered not canon anymore until- That's what we're going to be saying about Harrison Ford at Star Wars Celebration in 10 years, guys. Oh, I hope so. Yeah. He's in his 90s still getting shit done. Yeah. Oh, not he was rendered non-canon? Okay. No, never. Barish the thought. Can I, can I talk about another casting thing with here?

This is Xander Berkeley, who is like one of the iconic. What's your association? What's your main number one association. I couldn't decide. I still go George from 24. It's a reflex. I can't help it. Oh, I didn't okay. Never mind. I'm not going to say that. I didn't watch 24. I watched some of 24. But I wasn't like a, I did watch someone 24. I wasn't a huge 24 head. But like Terminator 2, Gattaca, Air Force 1, Heat, a few good men, the Rock, et cetera, et cetera. He's literally in a documentary, a great documentary that people should watch called That Guy Who Was in That Thing. Like that's who Zander Berkeley is. So casting Zander Berkeley here is Pellian. and Brian Gleason as Hux.

I mean, Mando could do whatever it wants. It could put Lizzo in. It could call Titus Welver in for one episode. Like, whatever. I'm not saying this is like a casting promise that we'll see these people again. But like it feels like we're going to see them again. Oh, yeah. Oh, I will be a stounded if these are not recurring figures.

Yeah. Yeah. And Berkeley is the spinned image of what we thought Pellian looked like from various book covers in the past. But he was saved, he was salvaged. He was brought back to the current canon by none other than Dave Filoni, the foremost plunderer of the expanded universe and savior of the expanded universe. So he's mentioned and heard in the series finale of Star Wars Rebels. He's the last person to talk to Thron, really, other than Ezra before they're hauled away. And Faloni confirmed that he survived.

And he said in 2018, I don't think that's it for him. I would like to see other stories with the guy. So he has co-written one right here. And he also is in the interim appeared in another Timothy Zon Thron book, too. So we don't know how much of his legend's history is going to be part of his current canon background. But clearly, he's going to be a big deal, too. Something else that we know is going to be a big deal of a path to somehow Palpatine returned. Cloning.

A lot of cloning talk in this conversation. Project Necromancer. Ben, you made a Lord of the Rings joke in your column. Joanna and I obviously on reflex. Think of that when we hear this. Boy, we'll be mentioning Lord of the Rings, I think probably 15 to 20 times today. A lot of a loader.

A forge. That's literally what I wrote in my notes. I love you. The Necrowancer is, guys, the necromancer is sorrow in case you don't know from Lord of But here. Some house are on returns. Project Necromancer, very clearly, this is the code name for the cloning plot to bring back Palpatine. When Gideon is pushing for new leadership in a sequence that we'll talk about in a minute,

Huck says Project Necromancer is in place for that. Hux asks about Dr. Pershing and this research that he says Gideon, quote, promised them. Gideon says it's lost. And there's a really interesting exchange where after Gideon is saying some things about secrets being his stock and trade, which is a Thron conversation that we'll hit in a minute, Hux says, I also hear whispers Gideon. You held Pershing and were attempting your own experiments on Navarro. And Gideon says, the creation of clones is your obsession, not mine.

I account for what goes on in my sector no more, no less. Well, after walking right by his clothing tanks. Hopefully those are off camera. Ben, did you get that old like fring feeling when he like smiles and lies like honey? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Pellian's talking about Thron here like we don't know exactly, right?

We don't know if he's in contact with him. He's sort of like, yeah, I'm Thron's sidekick. You know, I have the hook up to Thron here. but he started talking about him like he's his girlfriend in Canada or something. Like he may not know where Thron is either. And of course, Gideon is trying to undercut them by saying, maybe we shouldn't keep waiting for Thron. Maybe you don't actually know where Thron is.

Maybe the rest of us need to get a little bigger in our bridges because you two have this master plan, but it's dependent on this person who's so shadowy, he won't show up for the Shadow Council meeting. I want to get back to Thron in a second, but I do want to ask you both what your read on the cloning exchange was. Do you think that Gideon,

even though Hux is in charge of Project Necromancer, that Gideon also has genuinely been working on cloning efforts for Palpatine, that he is working on his snokes. The clones in Navarro look like a snoke. The ones he walks by here do not. They look like regular humanoids. So is Gideon, and we have the context,

of the speech he gives at the end of the episode to Dan and Bo and co. Is Gideon trying to clone himself? I think, I mean, he's either trying to clone himself or... So, two things. Can clone troopers? Number one, this connects a huge stop for us in terms of, like, what the fuck Kane was doing, like, what the plan was, why we were, like, honeypotting, parsing, and it was like to, you know, to gather equipment and also to erase that information from his brain so that the Shadow

Council couldn't use it. That's what it feels like to me that acting on Mof Gideon's orders, she's taking Pershing off the board so that Hux's Project Necromancer is fucked without Pershing. But is that so that Gideon can be the one who gets the win for Poundy or so he could do his own thing? Okay, so I think it's because of his own thing because of some of the things he says later. but I just want to say two things. Number one, this feels like there's this idea of hiding the ball well, as I mentioned earlier and not.

And I feel like hiding the ball well is when the Thai fighters come out when they're in Mandelor early in the season. And we're all like, do you think there's a Zegro rebel base? But ultimately, it doesn't really matter one way or another for the episode. The Pershing episode, which I think we all agree is like one of the bigger stumbles of the season, is like, we were so confused as to what was going on, and it was the core plot, that that's an example I think of hiding the ball poorly.

And I'm going to use an example that I usually use and I lose people because the Battle of the Bastages is considered one of people's favorite episodes of Game of Thrones, but it drives me absolutely bananas. When Littlefinger shows up, because Sonsa absolutely would have told John, and the only reason that happens the way it does is so the audience can be surprised.

prize. And when you compare that to Gandalf showing up with a Roe Hiram in the two towers, which we knew was coming, but we're still delighted by it. You don't have to hide the ball that hard, is what I'm saying. And so I feel like the Pershing thing was a poorly hidden ball.

But I also want to, because I did rewatch that season two episodes of Manilori and The Siege about the lab on Navarro, I wanted to read out what our guy Perch says in his little hollow in that episode, right?

I love that that's caught on, by the way. Man, Ben really got to you. It's for you, Ben. I did it for you. Telly, I'm rejecting Persh, I'm adopting. Okay. Persh says, he's cut off, he starts mid-sentence.

He says, replicated the results of the subsequent trials, which also resulted in catastrophic failure. There were promising effects for an entire fortnight, but then, sadly, the body rejected the blood. I highly doubt we'll find a donor with a higher M-count, though.

I recommend that we suspend all experimentation. I fear that the volunteer will meet the same regrettable fate if we pursued with the transfusion. Unfortunately, we have exhausted our initial supply of blood. The child is small, blah, blah, blah. If these experiments are to continue as requested, we would again require access as donor. So the meat of that, which even Dinger and Hymbo himself understands is that, like, the child is in trouble because Mof Gideon has to, like, get some more blood for him for this experiment to continue.

But that idea of, like, a transfusion of blood. Even Gideon wants force powers. I think he wants good old M counts in his blood. Absolutely. Sweet middies. Yeah. Give me the mids. Yeah.

He wants to be a Voltron of all of the various people that he's conquered. So that would make sense. And yeah, I think that he's, you know, subordinate to Thron here, but he's not waiting with bated breath for Thron to return. He would be happy if Thron never showed up, right? So he has to sort of, you know, pay lip service to the idea of, sure, we all want Thron to come back. And also it'd be great if Project Necromancer worked and we could all serve palpour. again, but I get the feeling that he thinks the whole palpi effort and possibly Thron.

It's just, it's all vaporware. It's not going to come to fruition. And so he's positioning himself as the one who is going to have the real power and step up in this vacuum to be the central figure. I loved this part of the scene. What I, what I perceived as Gideon being threatened by Thron and dreading his return and hoping that it does not come to pass because when Pelly Gill mentions Thrawn and says they mustn't waste their strength

and that Thrawn's return will herald in the re-emergence of our military etc. Gideon smirks and then says this. Steve, can we hear this Gideon clip? Captain Pett. Pellian, you always speak with much authority. And yet I see, once again,

that Grand Admiral Thron is missing from your delegation. Any word on when he will be able to participate in the Shadow Council? With respect, our one hope for success relies upon the secrecy of his return. This is just so funny. the subtitling literally says scoffs. Yeah. And then you could hear it. Also, Xander Berkeley just, that's why he is who he is.

Just making a meal out of the word secrecy for no reason, really. And Joe, you're right. This is Fring talking to the Salamancus. This is, oh, 100%. Yeah. Yes, of course. Yes. I certainly wouldn't make my own meth.

I am only here to serve your meth organization. Yeah. Not mine. this is obviously a Soka setup, but in terms of like we've we've theorized and speculated a lot in the mandopods about whether we would see Thrawn at the end of the season, I'm curious if this exchange makes you both feel like it's more or less likely that we see him at the end of this season and the stinger and a hollow and a mystery location in any capacity. Because I feel like Gideon has to be taken off the board. Ben, you wrote about this a bit in your piece. Like we can't really go into a fourth season where he's the final boss at the end of the season.

Right. They best him and then somehow Gideon returns. So maybe somehow Gideon and his midi rich clones will return. I guess that could be part of season four. But maybe like we had talked about and speculated maybe he and Thron were aligned. Maybe Thron has to answer a hollow call because Gideon is beaten. And we still don't know where Throne is. that remains a mystery heading into Asoka,

but he's got to answer the call from Gil that Gideon fucked up, that he lost Mandelor. Like, where are you on Thrawn Watch after this exchange? Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, any good boss fight, boss battle has three different forms,

and then you finally vanquish the guy and he goes down for good. So to have three straight finalees where we think he's done, and then somehow he returns, that might test people's patience. Then again, he's a great villain. I mean, this season came alive when he showed up, right?

I mean, gosh, when you take the helmet off an actor and they actually get to act with their face, it's just something's different. Facial expressions. Wow. Market inefficiency. Yeah. But, you know, to wipe Esposito off the board and to take Gideon off the board, that's a significant loss, right? I mean, he's been the nemesis. He's been the big bad all along.

so that puts the pressure on Thrawn to be the even bigger bad, right? And to make us forget Gideon because Thrawn's so great. So I think this scene makes me think it's less likely that we see Thrawn in the flesh, at least anywhere in the vicinity of Mandelor,

let's say. It certainly makes me think that we will see him in some form, but either in some distant, unidentified location, or just via hollow, because, you know, for him to just show up, I mean, I guess it would not be out of character for him to confound everyone's expectations by just, you know, jumping in when

everyone's like, Where's Thron? We haven't seen him forever. But then does that set up Asoka, given that we think that one of the big hooks of Asoka is, where's Thron? We got to go find him. Well, what I loved about this sequence is it's ambiguous whether or not he's back or not, because they could just be like, oh, yeah, yeah, no, he's in the next room. Thron? Yeah, no, you can't be on this call, but like, no, he's talked to him today. He's in the shower. Say hi. Yeah, he's definitely not still out missing in the middle of nowhere. Double both done as Google Cal.

It's definitely back. Yeah. In terms of taking Mof Gideon off the board, though we would miss John Carlos so much, there's this quote from Rick about the ending. He says, we're ending a chapter in the storytelling by the end of season three that's been built since we first met these two characters, meaning Din and Grogu. So I do think is a little bit more of wrapping everything up, but we're hoping. you're still screaming about where we're going next. So, like, I do feel like, because we're going to

talk about this, but, like, you know, the Bescar, the Kemptono of Bescar from the very beginning is, like, threaded all the way through to this episode. And so, like, this would be a very satisfying, like, three-season arc if, like, Gideon is our big bad for the final two episodes of every season and then he's gone. And there's a convincing, very convincing and very exciting theory for how one of our heroes could take Gideon off the board. But I also came can't help but love the idea of like Gideon slipping away once again only to be taken out by Thron or someone acting on behalf of Thron because he had, yeah, because he had undercut the authority of the Shadow Council by doing his own cloning thing, you know.

Yeah, I like that a lot. And I think that that was one of the really fun things about the way that Thrawn was incorporated into this conversation, even though he wasn't present and so consistent with the way that members of the empire who, again, are like often, the and or email you read hit on this, like bickering with each other at odds with each other. But with Thrawn in particular, so few fellow imperials are initially ready to embrace him, right? He's a threat to them actively because of his competence and his efficiency and his proximity to Palpatine. This is earlier in the canon, obviously. So I really think you can like sense that jealousy in everything that Gideon says here when he's talking about new leadership in the

for it. And the way that he ultimately, because that's a source of divide and debate and contention, the way that he brings everybody in that council together is to take their focus away from the guy they don't agree on and shift to the one enemy that they can agree on rallying around, which is, of course, the Mandalorians. Pellie says a research of Mantleur would hamper our efforts. And this specifically is how Gideon gets them to give because Hux, he's, they, we receive your request.

They've got the resources. Gideon needs, right? And they can't lose Mandelor. And so Gideon has this ability to compel people to do the thing that he wants that they don't think is important until he convinces them.

This is like a great bit of inception from him. I love seeing him not only go against our heroes, but go against, in theory, his peers, these other warlords. Genuinely, no one is better at this than Jun Carlos, but he's tough. Like, smiling and smiling and smiling and smiling and pulling his own shit behind the curtains.

It's great. And also, Gideon has some skin in the game here in that he's stuck around. I mean, he's less in the shadows than the other members of the shadow council, right? I mean, he was just a new republic custody. He's out there trying to get the dark saber. He's been on Mandelor this whole time,

mining Baskar. he is going after Groku. All these other people, we don't know where they are. They're completely off the radar. Thron is missing entirely. Everyone's just sort of squatting in the unknown regions, just plotting and consolidating their power. I would posit that makes them better at what they're doing than he is, though.

That's fair. The fact that none of them have wound up in new Republic custody, granted, it wasn't hard for him to break out. No, that at all. Even so. Okay. Ben, that was wonderful. Thank you for all of your insights.

You will be back. I will. Later in today's episode to theorize with us about who the titular spies might be, so we will see you in, I don't know, like an hour or so, 90 minutes, who can say?

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We go next to Navarro where the shadow of an imperial fleet. No, it's not the Imperial Fleet. There's a gigantic, to absolutely positively gigantic. Who painted. Who painted and win. I know.

I need like every single detail of how this was painted. I kept thinking about Dinn and BD repairing the N1 like under the ship and trying to do a painting that way. I mean, I guess gigantic light cruiser. Axe and Costco were just like parked on that lawn outside for a really long time. Yeah. People playing catch. Yeah. Playing bocce ball or whatever.

Might as well tag the bottom of the ship while you're, at it. I love it. I love it. I love some arts and crafts in my crew of privateers. In the gauntlet, Klan Mudhorn, they're having a chat and Bo is thinking just what we are. What if everyone's not prepared to get along? Bo says they've never met. And what little they know of each other they hate. This is how I felt when I started podcasting with you, right? Joe's kidding No, I thought you were going to say that That's how we felt with the next thing

You know, Grogo sitting in Bo's lap Just like a happy family Like this was always meant to be That's how I felt about it No comment Oh boy Oh, I forgot to do my Cobb Vance watch Anyway, it's been way too many days

Since we last saw a cop-in Yeah, what's the counter? I don't know, 700 something Only one episode left before you will hold this against Lucasfilm and you and Disney for promising me I just wanted you to believe that's okay we have we have justified city

primeval coming in a couple months so it's true and also with like a lot of love in my heart for Cobb as well you know this is a real this is a real Dinbo shipper episode we've got a big moment coming later we have a lot of like family vibes here in the gauntlet and you know why can't they all just hook up and have a big orgy together?

Yeah, why not? Let's get to Axon Paz doing a scene from West Side Story. Wear it off, Joe. Sharks and the jets lined up ready for a dance number. When you're a jet, you're a jet all the way from your cigarette. This was like on the one hand kind of weird because everybody knows what they're getting together for, right? But it also felt right. and how these people would behave

and like the exact kind of moment that we've been longing for more of throughout the season, like that palpable tension between characters who we know don't agree and don't align. This is kind of the vibe we were looking for

with the armor and bow earlier in the season. So I actually liked that we got this here before the offer of the welcome feast to the fellow Mandalorians and I just love the idea of the whole covert saying, welcome to the welcome feast, we have to go because we can't take our helmets off and eat in front of you.

I have so many questions about how this quote unquote feast and we'll see more. There are multiple feasts and I'm like how what's the logistics here? What are we talking about? How do we do this? I mean, it's just, it's wild stuff, but it is worth noting that it's not the only welcome gift because our guy Grief Carga shows up with a beautiful bottle of booze. It's from Corrassant. Is it?

It must have been pricey, Joe, because he doesn't want Dint to open. open it in front of the large group. I mean, okay. For smaller crowd. Let's be really honest, that's what I do with a pricey bottle of tequila. Like, I'm not opening it in a large group. That's like a couple people only. Clan of two and the bottle.

Our listener Anthony wrote in with some fun information, which is that the bottle grief gave in when they returned Navarra was very clearly 100% a bottle of Sincoronejo tequila with an arabesh label. It's a very distinct bottle. And it's notable because the brand is co-owned by Michael Jordan and Basis Boston Celtics owner, is it Wick, Grousebeck? How do you pronounce it? Is this actually this bottle?

I don't know what this bottle of alcohol is. Anthony, Anthony sent me a photo of the side by side of the two bottles and is definitely a bottle of Sincorro and Neho tequila owned by Michael Jordan and the Boston Celtics owner. Great stuff. It is $139.9 retail. So that's how much. What does that translate to in Kalamari Flon? Oh, it's like $139,000.

I think a flawn is like lira. I think. So, yeah. Oh, boy. You and I are going to drink a bottle. We're going to drink a bottle of this on a special occasion. I'm going to find it. I'm going to use some Sharpie and write some arabesh on it,

and then we're going to have some. Is the message going to say that's IG 11 now? That's IG12 now? Because that's our next scene, Joe. We go. What did you call this in our notes, Mallory? Corpse car. This is Grogo's new corpse car.

I have so many thoughts and feelings about this. There's the horror that we must discuss, but also when you put the horror aside for a second, it is the most important sequence in television history. As far as I am concerned. Grogo, the way that he drops his little skittlesnacks when IG walks in, the shriek of laughter that he emits when he sees his little Anzell in pal, we get the return of bad baby.

Bad baby, no squeasy. Let's hear it, Steve. Let's hear it. Bad baby. Yay. Yeah, no, when they, like, little puppet walked, like. Remarkable stuff toward each other and then quickly away from each other. Oh, my God.

It wants nothing to do with Grogo. Just listen. Boy. So we learn. It's not IG11 now. It's IG12 now. The Enzel is driving. IG 11's hollowed out corpse.

They have stripped him? Okay, sorry. You're on a... On a righteous tear. I'll let you go. Yes. Some of us care about droids. I came to your side last week.

You did, but will you remain there today? We're about to find out. Well, I really like this premise that a bunch of people actually emailed us about, which is this idea of like, can IG11 be an organ donor? Can we believe in the sanctity of a droid, but that the droid would willingly give their organs to the betterment of other people? You know what I do. me IG 11's license and the organ donor.

It's got the little pink dot on it. Yeah. And then I am. The jaw was touched. Yes. Yeah, right. Touched by the sacrifice. Otherwise, all I can deduce is that our characters only cared about restoring IG

when it suited them that forgot about him and then emptied out his chest cavity so that they could turn him into a vehicle for, again, Grogo to Darling in darling fashion, driving. They pulled his memory circuit. The pilot provides cognition now we hear. And it's difficult not to think about IG-11 alive and well, vibrant and thriving in his nurse-troyd days because that was when he had Grogu nestled against his chest swinging into town to fight to help our pals. And now, Grogloor.

He's still helping. He has donated his body to the cause to science. Let me ask you, do you think this is what project necromancy? are really refers to. Oh my God, I hope so. Let me just say, I'm going to make a... Anything on the horror frontier before we get to the sweetness. Nope.

I'm going to make a reference that I'm so excited that you're going to get, you know, what it reminded me of, a Dalek. And now you know what that is from Doctor Who. You open up the metal casing. It's a cute little squid creature in there. So, you know. You know, one of the points Ben made in his column this week that I thought was a great call was Grogo observed, you know, our old pal spider bot in the second episode of the season, this little

critter inside of this metallic exoskeleton. And that was a hellscape in that sequence. But to bring it to the side of good, you know, again, hopefully with IG11's blessing. How nice of Grief Cargo to think of this. Do you know what I mean? Like, what a thoughtful gift. It's true. I mean, Grobu is delighted.

Hollow out a droid like a pumpkin, like so many jack-a-lanterns, and pop a little Grogu candle inside of it to, you know, light up our lives. He did. He did light up our lives. Let's talk about how precious this was and how wonderful this was. Daddy Din, he's not ready for Grogu to get his learner's permit yet. He says he's too little. But Grogu fits perfectly into this little compartment,

and he's just flat out, flat out driving a Mac, and he's thrilled about it. Steve, can we hear this? So what do you think? They do nice work. I'll give them that, but Grobu is too young to operate heavy machinery. Maybe when he's older... No. What do you mean no?

No. I think he's saying he's old enough to operate it. Yes. Get him out of there. No. At least let him try it out in my office. Yes. No, this is not a good idea.

Come on. That's the stiff arm right there. Grogo gave in the fucking Heisman with that one. And like, all the way. It's just, this is just unbelievable stuff. And the way that this then bleeds into the next sequence out on the streets of Navarro

heading to the fruit stand where Grogu is still pressing the yes button. I just, okay, the marketplace scene I absolutely loved. And again, this is like one of those, like something that we've been missing all season, which is Grogo actually feeling like he's present.

Like since episode two, I haven't really felt like Grogo was present. But I just want to point out, like, you sometimes when you put together notes, right, you grab things from the closed captioning, close captioning has Grogu and the suit as I Grogu? That's just what I'm going with. Oh, do you? You did that? Okay, I Grogo. Because he's I, it's IG, it's Grogo, Eye Grogo.

Felt a good shorthy. Yeah, I robot, like iPod, iPad. I love it. Joe, you know, did you, we like to cite Yoda and his wisdom a lot. Did you think that there was any part of this, despite how precious it is, that's a bit of an odd rebuke of the size matters, not Star Warsism? Yes, I was definitely thinking about that. That Grogoon needs this suit to be able to participate?

I think he was doing fine. I will just say, well, I mean, I think it solves some logistical issues because, like, otherwise he always has to be, like, in his basset, and that's not very, like, I'm heading into battle. But unless they wanted to give. of like din a little like you know

papoos to hold him in but I like I love I mean the yes and no stuff is amazing and I need to ask you does this technically count as Grogu talking before the end of the season?

I think this is genuinely brilliant. Genius. Genius. To allow Grogu to evolve to the next step of communication where he's can really say and share what's on his mind. And again, I felt like he was doing that, but he's got

a new way to do it now without having to yet commit to what his voice will sound like when he speaks. Masterstroke. Absolutely brilliant. The marketplace seems so good, like how Harriet and stressed Din was like it was fantastic. I love this. You mentioned already how this gave us just more Grogu in a central way, which we've needed. But I also think this gave us a lot of that specific Din Grogu Bond. Yeah. And Din,

their relationship and their energy together and how that is still just the beating heart at the center of the show. Din wants to

protect Grogu. He's worried. Grogu wants to start making more of his own decisions. He feels like he's ready to try new things.

They're learning new ways to communicate and interact with each other. Yes, what? And then the yes button 5,000 times in a row

is precious beyond description, but also is like a genuine new way of Grogu's saying to him, like, I don't agree with what you're saying and I'm going to make my own decision now. And that's like a really, really meaningful thing. As is yet another reminder that Din is not feeding him enough, Joe. Grogo's starving. He's fucking starving.

I disagree with this entirely. As I mentioned, I rewatch the siege. He is resorted to stealing food. When he just shoves so many cookies in his face that he vomits. It's a baby. He's over since he's not. Okay, anyway. I think you should stop besmirching Dyn's parenting tactics. This is part of the character growth I want to see from Dinn in season four. Well, to your point earlier this season.

Protein always on hand. Oh, jerky. Mallory Rubin back on your jerky agenda? Yeah, exactly. All right, let's move on. Let's move on. Let's move to the Council of Elron. Excuse me, the council of Boatatan.

Which is convening over some roasted meat, some mystery meet Joe. And Bo calls the group to order and says it's time to retake their home world. Talks about the dormant species that have awakened from the bombing. Not on us at all. Yeah. Wants to basically send, move the whole fleet up into orbit, above Mandelor and send a scout party down,

see what's up with the Grave Forge, establish a perimeter, make sure it's safe before they can bring everyone down. Anyone going to volunteer. Din is unsurprisingly first. There is a darling moment where he also says that Grogo will be joining. And Grogu stands up, Joanna, stands up to help take the ring to Mordor. Kaska, axe, Paz is like, you have my vibro knife. Yeah, you have my helmet.

You have my hammer. You also have my helmet. And my jetpack and my blaster. My helmet, too. The Fellowship of the Forge is born. It's wonderful to see. And it is time to return to Mandelaar. Yeah.

Grogu is NIG-12 in the gauntlet on the way. Would you rather... I mean, did that bum me out because he wasn't sitting on Bow's lap? Just like, it's just he's ready for action. Our guy wants to get down onto that glassy surface. I was, by the way, speaking of characters going down to the glassy surface, absolutely appalled to see that they brought R5, who was genuinely traumatized by his experience on Mandelor or earlier in the season.

I didn't give him skates. I mean, what the hell? I loved the sequence when they're all sitting there in the drop ship waiting to go down, right? And we hear from Paz that, like, it was worse than he thought. We hear from Axe. We're pretty sure that he says he was there when it happened. But then we cut to Dyn, who, again, we don't get to see Pedro Pascal's face. and we actually don't know who was in that suit of armor that day.

But just from the inclination of the head and me mapping emotions onto someone, you know, we've talked all season about this idea of like Mandelaura as a home planet that Dinn doesn't have a real connection to. So the fact that like Axe and Paz, who come from different clans but can unite over their thoughts and feelings about, you know, the purge and everything that happened and stuff like that. And Dinn is on the outside of that in this moment was really impactful to me. that's just that's such a a great observation

and like it makes me think to our conversation about the second episode of the season and how we were like what sweet summer children we were oh my God they went to the minds of mandolor they went to the Living Waters

they gave us the Mythosaur in episode two what awaits and at the end of the day it still ultimately was at the end of the season getting everyone back It's Mandelor. Yeah.

But this moment, when we see what that means for all of the different characters, as you're saying, really landed. And to still be able to pull that off was obviously very, very important and necessary after some of the bumps along the way. When they land and they set off, they spot something on the horizon. It is a skiff holding other surviving Mandalorians who, like Grogu, are looking for food for sustenance. They ask if it's Lady Bocatan Crees. And she just says yes, which I thought was bold and kind of cool.

Like she's not afraid or hiding. She's like, yeah. Where we met her. It's Mihaya and the drama's me. Like where we met her. The beginning of the season just like crumpled over her throne. Right. Send everyone away sort of thing.

And here it is like ready for either outcome. Either these are going to be more Mandalorians who can be a part of our mission or blast her up and. ready if they're not unprepared. Who is under those helmets, Joe, when these three characters land, only two of whom end up being really relevant in the episode? We've got Charles Parnell. People might recognize from Top Gun Maverick.

And we've got Charles Baker, a.k. sneaky Pete from Breaking Bad, et cetera. The Charles is double chuck under the helmet there. Really excited to see both of them, honestly. Yes. And, but, like, really excited to see sneaky Pete because, like, Charles Baker, I felt so bad. Like, he, like, almost everyone got called back for a cameo and better call Saul, but, like, not Charles Baker. So I was just like, well, okay, he gets to be in a Star Wars show. That's, that's very cool.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty good. We are going to talk in our theory corner about who some of the potential spy candidates might be. So we're going to chat a little bit more about this. the skiff crew and what may or may not be up with them with Ben later today. It's difficult, though, we could say here to see Skinny Pete and not wonder if something's up. It's just difficult to not wonder. He's got that face, you know what I mean?

But it's a face that can mean, like, I'm up to something, or, but also it's just a face that means, like, I've been having a bad time. I've been having a really hard time. Yeah. And he says, you know, we knew you would not forsake us, Lady Boca Tan. We have failed you. but our blasters remain in your service. I'm like, man, they, it's been a long time, a long time,

if they really have been waiting since the Birch, a long, long time. These characters have a lot to discuss with each other. And we get this kind of found family, forging in real time conversation around a table, and we get some really interesting insights and backstory in the span of this exchange. we hear a little bit more from the survivor captain. That's the Parnell character.

Talks about how any ship that tried to leave was intercepted. They took to a prisoners. They bombed every surface twice. I initially thought that he was explaining how, why they were never able as survivors to make contact. Like this is what happened anytime anybody tried to leave. But it turned out that he was talking about the events of the purge because he said, they punished us as a warning to the whole galaxy because we refused to surrender.

It's so important to, and, you know, Gideon says this in this episode as well. Like, it's like that mean girl's line. Like, why are you so obsessed with me? Like, why are you so obsessed with the Mandalrians? And, you know, it's, if you haven't watched the animated series, you might not know the history. We have talked about it here and there. But, like, this idea that they are, they have been historically, like, leaders of separatist movements, you know, like people following, people following. people following their lead, other planets following their lead,

refusing to go along to get along, and just being a thorn in the side of whoever is trying to rule. You know what I mean? And so, and I think that goes to the whole Mandalorian, very, you know, an outsider will never rule Mandelor, like all that sort of stuff, but just like a very, like, very stubbornly individualistic, like this is our identity, this is our culture.

Yeah. Which is part of why the ensuing reveal that we got from Bo was so massive. Like the question, even the timeline of the purge has been a very open one throughout the series. And Bo's response about this idea of surrender gives us a lot of new information about how Bo lost man to Lord Gideon in the first place. Steve, can we hear this in full? That's not true. I did surrender. After our forces were annihilated in the night of a thousand tears and defeat was imminent.

I met with Mof Gideon. The ISB had reached out to me to negotiate a ceasefire. In exchange for submitting to the empire and disarming, all remaining cities in Mandalorian lives were to be spared. That is how Mofkidion came to possess the Dark Saber. I didn't trust him, but it was the only chance I had to save our people. And then he betrayed me, and we were helpless to resist the purge of Mantelor. Okay, this is like a huge deal.

Yes. Huge deal lore-wise, but I just want to say, guess what? Katie Sackoff is a great actress. Yeah, yeah. This was an amazing Katie Sackoff episode. Absolutely. Yeah. Incredible.

Gideon did not win the Dark Sabre for Bocatan in combat. And it makes this, like, season two. two attitude around it like really weird. Do you know what I mean? And again, I know it's the story of the saber and stuff like that, but it's just like, what are you? I mean, you didn't win it. What are you? I don't know. That's why I loved this. Yeah. Because the idea that this thing that has like haunted and plagued her isn't really what happens, but because nobody knows or understands that and clarifying it for them would like compromise her in a different way. That's just such an interesting. interesting thing to know the character has been carrying that the whole time. It's a huge admission.

And like, the question I have, and well, she sort of hits this theme again, but remember in our conversation with Katie at the beginning of the season and you were asking her about like her background with, I think more specifically with Death Watch, but like, you know, the implication that Katie gave without trying to spoil anything was like, we will see Bo grappling with this. Right. As the season progresses. And every week, you and I were like, where's that grapple? We're looking more. Like, Like, where is it? And I feel like we hit it a couple times this episode, but I guess my question is like, do you think this is all the grappling she needs to do?

Or will there be more internal grapple to come? Grappling, I've said it so many times now that it doesn't feel like a word anymore. But like, will we grapple? Or do we live to grab again next week? Will we grapple to fruition? Yeah, exactly. Bad, baby. I do, it's a great question.

I do think we will see more. of that from Bo. I think that the most compelling version of it we got in this episode is actually in the conversation between Bo and Dinn later where Bo talks about this idea of selfishness, which I'm really, really eager for us to discuss. But like this idea here that this thing that has been the source of disappointment and bitterness and consternation for like the last swath of her life, that she did it to save her people and they don't fucking know that or care.

is so devastating. Like, imagine carrying that with you every day. I was really glad we got this exchange. I loved it. And I think also, I want to come back to this in Theory Corner as... Ooh. Yeah. Ooh.

Ooh. I just can't ever skip an opportunity to talk about Grogo, so I will note that he was listening. It's so intense. Very politely. Learning his history, thinking about how to be a great leader himself one day. You mentioned Death Watch a minute ago. We also had a... actual conversation.

I mean, it was two lines. I don't know if that counts as a conversation and exchange about Death Watch here, Joe. So there's a lot of exposition and downloading of information here because Scouty Pete asks how the other character survived. We get the Moon of Concordia,

answer from the armor. And so the captain says, are you Death Watch? Which is a reasonable thing to ask. Also, just a visible Death Watch Paldron Signet, on one of the members of the crew, which is so funny to me.

Just a good old swastika on the moldron. It's fine. We can paint that, you know? Like, the armor's doing a lot of paint work all the time. I think we'll touch up. Interesting is like, finally they underline,

underscore that these two factions despise each other, as we heard, you know, both Bo and the armor of voice. But we should note that there are like, many, I mean, the skiff crew is an example. There are many more factions that exist in Mandelor. And I think it's so funny, and it just underlines the point that these two spring from Death Watch because Bo is in Death Watch, you know what I mean?

And the Children Watch are from Death Watch. So it's like, we're not even multi, many, many generations apart. We, like, one generation ago, we're the same. And that's what's fascinating with something like that. Both splits from Death Watch because of the Mall takeover. Yeah. Because their boss died, essentially, you know. When the armor says Death Watch exists no longer, it shattered into many warring factions, yeah, we can really easily trace the history.

Because it's recent history. You're right. It's a great point how close those ties really are. The mission statement, the thesis of the season is just spoken here by Bo. Talking again about all of this harm, this infighting, the way that their people have suffered. from those squabbling factions. Bo says to the assembled, Mandelor has always been too powerful for any enemy to defeat. It is always our own division that destroys us.

My question for you, ahead of the finale, is if you think that line is there, to reinforce that they are about to overcome this at last or to prime us for the cycle kicking in again. And you're welcome to save your answer for theory. corner. No, I mean, I think, I think, I mean, we'll talk about it a bit more specifically in theory corner, but I think to our grapple point earlier, I think that this is, you know, what lessons

or what moves to Bo, like, when you have your hero and they're facing the big boss battle that it presumably is in the finale, what is the other lesson that they have to learn to overcome that, et cetera? And she says stuff like stronger together, but I feel like there's got it, it would be It's satisfying to me if there were a real test of that. Yeah, absolutely. Can I shout out an email we got from Rabbi Tillman, who's the one who sort of started us down Judaism corner several weeks ago, which has been like a really fun thing to track as it moves into the larger Mandalorian conversation. But Rabbi Tillman wrote and off the back of that very Boca Tan line says, you know, Bo tells them that no other people have been strong enough to defeat the Mandaloreans. It's only the divisions and infighting that has brought them down throughout history. Compare this to the Jewish Roman wars that began in 66C.E.

And eventually led to the destruction of the second temple in 70C.E. Historically speaking, the Jewish rebels fought more strongly than they had any business doing. But in the end, the Roman army proved too powerful. Having people like the Praetorian Guards will do that. Theologically speaking, though, the rabbis needed a reason for their defeat and destruction of the temple, which is why the Talmud asks the question, why was the second temple destroyed on account of the senseless hatred of the time?

The Jewish community of that era was particularly divided among at least four factions, the Pharisees, the sadis, the zealots, and the Essenes, and if I mispronounced any of those, I apologize. And instead of standing together, they were torn apart by their divisions. Sounds a lot like Mandalorians to be. And I love what I love about that,

and I didn't know the etymology of that, that zealots comes from, like, one of the warring Jewish factions and that word has been turned into mean something, you know what I mean? So it's like, if you took Death Watch and made it into like a word we used all the time for everything, and that's how it's associated with one of many factions, you know. Ooh, what a fascinating email. Some great emails this season. Rabbi Tillman, you're just really crushing it everywhere.

So thank you. On the heels of these reveals, we had a really great. conversation between two of our main characters. And it was wonderful to watch. Din pledges his blaster to Bo. He asks if he could be in the Queens Guard. This is just like a Game of Thrones conversation. This was wonderful.

Bo is reflecting alone. And Dyn comes over and says, basically I had no idea about any of the stuff that you just shared that he was taught that everyone but the members of his covert the group that he grew up with

had quote forsaken the way that you were selfish and uncaring Beau's reply is another one of these moments that we have been longing for all season. You were right. I was selfish and this is what I wrought. This accountability and culpability

but mixed with the tragedy of actually carrying a weight that isn't yours to shoulder alone. And this is Bo, Bo again, like, you know, Bo is such a long, complicated history in the animated series, but like this idea of, like, again and again, trying to step up and lead your people in the shadow of your dead sister,

who was a tremendous leader of the people, and failing again and again and again, and how often we've seen that as tied into her ego, but how we're learning here that there is this other aspect which is like genuinely wanting for the greater good to protect her people.

Absolutely. And like one of the things in that rebel stretch at the beginning of season four when Sabine eventually gives Bo the Dark Sabre, one of the things I always love is what comes before that between them

which is Bo rejecting it, which is Bo saying I had my chance to rule and I fail. I am not. I just don't want it. I am not the leader you seek is something that Bo says to Sabine in rebels and to find Bo in a moment of doubt

and vulnerability again here with Dinn and to have Dinn go full, Coach Taylor, clear eyes, full heart, can't lose. To have him go into that AFC Richmond locker room and tap that belief banner. In the clip that we heard of the top of the episode. Yeah. he's talking about here rebuilding.

Isn't that our history? And again, there's an idea of a larger, like, this gets us back to the last of us conversations and the us or them. And like, let's make it an us. Let's make it a we, right? Our shared history. Isn't that our history?

For thousands of years, we have been on the verge of extinction and for thousands of years we have survived. And what I love is that that is just like a spin on, like the messaging we've heard over and over and over, And especially like when Bo several times earlier this season and elsewhere resentfully turned all the blame onto, you know, Children of the Watch or whoever else, like other people. But isn't that such an interesting spin on the Manalore's, they keep fucking up. They keep infighting. They keep like, well, blah.

But he's like, Dyn's like, and we're still here. Right. Right. And yet we are still here. Right. Yeah. I love that. Bo is not sure that she can keep the group together, though, right?

That she can be the one who helps them do that yet again. And the way that she talks about the Dark Sabre here, you know, we think back to that throne slats at the beginning of the season and are saying with such bitterness and resentment to Dinn, you just go wave it around. Well, now she has it. And it's not like the confidence just came surging back, right? To say that, well, this is the only thing I have to unify them.

was so interesting. And like the insecurity that those prior failures have wrought in her. And then Dindja's saying that blade doesn't fucking matter. And like, again, like, given how disappointing the Dark Sabre's handoff was last week and will remain for forever. I mean, maybe, okay, okay, Brightside, maybe there will be another more impactful Dark Sabre triumphant moment next. week that we can feel whole and healed from. Well, it's just practically speaking, it's good that Dinn didn't have it because he was disarmed by Gideon and Go in this episode.

So there's that's that I guess. There is that. Dean's saying that the blade just doesn't mean anything to him or his people. Or his people. Yeah. I had like a still and bumping a little bit, even in a scene I really loved, on like, it definitely mattered to the armor in the book of Boba Fett chapter five when she talked about how Bo's run with it was responsible for bringing about the doom of their planet and their

way of life. That was interesting. But he moves into then this really wonderful sequence, which is the part we heard at the start of the show, about how what matters to him is that Bo is a leader worth following. And this specifically is also why Sabine gave her the saber in Rebels. You have the wisdom of a ruler. There's no one I trust to wield the dark saber more than you, and I am not alone. A beautiful moment, a powerful one. I do have to ask you

if you think when Dinn says your song is not yet written, I will serve you until it is. He's talking about sex and making sure.

Get out of the back to tank Cobb Vance and kiss during this scene. Oh. I'm true. I'm pure of heart.

I'm loyal. This was amazing because we got from Din here what we've wanted all season, glimpsing what he's thinking, what he cares about, what he's motivated by. What means more to me is honor and loyalty and character.

These are the reasons I serve you. This is what he cares about, what he wants, and what he believes. And what I really like, because we're obviously making a John and Danny comp here, or Jamie and Brian,

as you've mentioned in past weeks, but, like, it's closer to Jamie and Brian than it is to John and Danny, because one of the failures at the end of Thrones is, like, John's allegiance to Danny just never, it was never grounded in a like simple

three sentence paragraph like this of like, you know, why you are loyal, you have character, like blah, blah. With John, it felt like you're hot and you have dragons, you know?

Let's fuck out of a boat! Let's do an incest, you know what I mean? So, yeah. Let's do an incest. And then a coup. Incest. Check,

Koo next. Yeah. Anything else you want to say about this Dinn and Bo conversation before we head to board game wars? I mean, like, and this is the thing is like,

what does DIN want? Like, he doesn't want Mandelor. He wants, you know, he wants his kid to be healthy and happy and not, you know, stealing for all the streets or whatever.

Does he want him to have his proper daily caloric intake, I wonder. He's not a growing boy because that's like how big he's going to be. You know what I mean? He needs it to use the force. I hope he got enough of a meal

heading into the fucking finale. He better have had like an entire roasted bird himself. If he's like shit, I needed another sleeve of baccaroons. I can't fucking animal force bond with the Mithosaur. I'll never forgive D. Dan will deserve what he gets if that's true. Okay. So.

But Dinn wants to fuck. Follow Bo, maybe because he has a crush on her, but also because, like, he has seen what she can do and he believes in her. Yes. Wow, you gave your main character motivation. Who knew? It was great. And it was wonderful to watch. Fantastic.

We move onward and we have a few different things that happen before we actually get to the secret imperial base. Let's quickly talk about the armor here, even though we cut in between the armor sequences and some of the others. The armorer tells Bo that many of the skiff folk are too weak to fight. Volunteers to take them back to the fleet on the gauntlet. Totally normal and fine and not suspicious at all and we won't talk about it again in Dairy Corner. Absolutely not. We got back multiple times to her assent up to the fleet and to her calling to the fleet. We will be coming back to this in Ther Corner.

Put a bit. Yeah. The captain tells Bo great news. We know where the forges, we can take you there. And so on the skiff on the way, you gotta pass some time during a journey. Should you be doing something other than playing skiff chess, maybe? But I'm glad we got this scene because Paz and Axe, two of the resident hotheads here in the Mandalorian season three, immediately start to go at it.

Axe says, is there disagreeing about the rules, which I thought was just amazing. Let the wookie win, man. You know? X says these primitives make up their own rules for everything. And Paz immediately draws his fibro blade because he's fucking Paz Vizla. And I can't claim to be an Axe woes fan. But when he responded to this by saying, seriously, I was like, am I in on Axe? Don't you feel like Axe should like always have a white claw on his hand, like whatever he's talking?

Like that that's his energy at all times. Oh, man. I will say. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. What flavor? Like black cherry? What's the green one? I don't drink white cloth. What's the green one? That one. No one. Yeah. Lime. I'm sure.

He seems like a Corona guy. I was going to say, maybe hinto lime corona. I'm not always a huge fan of howl Mandalorian's fight. Like sometimes it's incredibly cool and sometimes it's incredibly awkward. But I thought that Axe's like jetpack launch knee to the face or the helmet was a great opening Sally in this fight here. I loved it. Absolutely delightful. Dan is watching and he's like, should I, you know, should I help out? Bo says, we can't interfere. Now, we talked about this actually last week, this Mandalorian custom. You got to stand by and watch how we've seen this before in Rebels and elsewhere.

The Midnight Boys had a great debate about this and how like this could have been a moment where Bo said, but that's a custom we need to move beyond. And here's a moment where I will make another decision. But she doesn't. And ultimately, thank the old gods and the new alike, because it leaves room for Krogu to show that he is also a character who has walked in both worlds. In this case, the world of the Mandalorians and the world of the Jedi.

Because a Mandalorian cannot intercede. But what about a Jedi-Laurian, which is what Grogu is? Ben the rules. The way that he plays peacekeeper Joe, pressing, not only using IG's arms to separate them. There's some force behind those arms, we should say. Oh, yeah.

He presses the no button. Yeah. I got it. Din nods at him, and Krogu nods back. It's just darling. I couldn't have loved him more. Genuinely, where was this all season?

Amazing. When Bo says that Din taught his apprentice well, Din gives us not the first of the season. I didn't teach him that. You know, this happened during the challenge sequence at the covert. And Boa said, did you teach him that? And didn't said, not me. And so it makes us think yet again,

okay, well, maybe he learned this from Luke during their training. Or maybe, like Luke said in Boba 6, it's more like he's remembering. Like Grogu's Jedi pass when he learned at the temple, this other part of his being. Coming to the fore here, a Jedi peace. keeper in IG-11's corpse car that we now have to call IG-12.

And all of this is great. And will I just say, and maybe I'm in the minority here, I don't need another monster. I just don't. Like a monster goes up. It's been foretold. The bombing has awoken some monsters. We're obviously getting some Mithosaurus shit next week. And that I'm invested in because that is tied to lore and will be tied to heroes, something like that.

This just seemed like monster for monster's sake. And like, I just didn't need it. We've had so many not monster moments. If it is in fact just another monster rising to attack our Mandalorians, then I would agree with you. Let me ask you, though, if you think there's any chance this could be a Zillow Beast, because I've actually been surprised because I felt like this was a Zillow Beast watching and this doesn't seem to be people's read on this. And they don't look all that similar.

I saw that you have gone. No. But what about the profile shot? That long neck? Well, like, in the dark. If you've had, like, a bottle of tequila, the Greek cargo brought you. It's definitely possible that it's not.

It's not at the bar. It's definitely possible. It's not as ill obese as it's just another Favro creature that is attacking the mandoloreans because that's happened 27. But if it is possible, if it is as ill obese,

what are the larger implications of that? Even if it's like a 0.1% possibility. I want to at least mention it because I think it's, I think it's, it could be interesting, specifically because of the cloning connection and proximity, like the fact that this is next to a happening next to what we learn is a cloning facility. The Zillow beast first appeared in the Clone Wars. We've talked about this before. Actually, in the part of the, one of the Choracons stretches, we got a Malisterre call out, which made us think of the Zillow beast because that's the planet in Clone Wars where a bombing unearthed the Zillow beast from below the surface. They have to fight them.

The very quick version is that Palpatine wants to clone the Zillow Beast because it's armor. It's like hide. It's skin. It scales is like unbelievably strong and penetrable armor. The best scar of the animal world, right? I hope it's a Zillobese, babe, but I'm afraid you're going home with another Dino Turtle. That's what I'm worried about. It's closing time.

Let me just say to see if this compels you that after a long time away, the Zillow beast returned to the canon. Somehow. Literally weeks ago. Yeah. In the Bad Batch. Yes. Where we learned that the cloning was ongoing, Joe, that this effort was going strong. And this, the Camino Tech that had been, like, absorbed by the empire, by this Royce Hemlock character.

He's a great villain in this season of Bad Batch is Gideon using a Zillow Beast in his, is cloning efforts. Why not incorporate the Zillow Beast armor DNA into the fucked up. Do you think he wants to shoot... Frankenstein's monsters that he's making?

Shoot up midichlorians and Mandelor blood and Besscar armor and Zillow blood. I do. Okay. It's a lot of blood. That's the Mof Kideon that I know and love. Damn it.

All right. Nobody else on the internet agrees. That's fine. What do you think the M-Count and a Zillow beast is? Oh, man. Can that just be my secret force user? This may be Zillow Beast. It's definitely just another dinosaur, like you said.

All right. I had my fun. Thanks for allowing me to go to Zillow Bees corner, one of my favorite corners. Let me just tell you that if like the Zillow Beast, much the way that I hope that you were happy for me when Bridal Hux showed up in this episode, if the Zillow Beast is somehow mentioned or directly,

crucially involved next week, I will be so happy for you. Thanks, buddy. You're welcome. the proximity to the cloning facility, it's proximity to the secret imperial base that we've speculated about all season long.

There it is. Extremely Admiral Akbar voice, Joe. It's a drop. Now listen, Mallory, we all know how you feel about Paz Vizla. I know, okay. But Grogu's in danger, Karen.

Who saves Grogu? I have to give Paz Vizla his props. I will be mercilessly shredding him in mere moments, but right here, right now. Much like a Praetorian guard. I will credit him right now for being one of the two who takes the time to help our beloved Grogu in his IG12 corks car. Is Axe the other one or is it unclear?

I kind of thought it was Axe and Paz, and I kind of like that. Just really, they're uniting. Save the cat. It's a screenwriting thing. Didn't ask in Grogu when they get into the tunnels, you good? You good. You killed me. You good.

But Joe, where do we go? Is it into Moria? They call it a forge. A forge. Oh, my God. It's amazing. This is an incredible moment. I think it looks really good.

Axe says this is what's left of the Great Forge. This is once the heart of our civilizations. The fires have been extinguished. The other day, the armor said, large and ornate, the air rang with the music of a hundred hammers. I just love how she talks. So, you know, it's like... We just heard about the glory.

Yeah, we heard about the glory. Still extinguished. Very, very sad. Very sad, Joe. As was everybody walking. into Moffieldian's very clearly laid track. Just the floors go from being rough hewn stone to shiny imperial. Smooth.

And nobody noticed. Okay, you know how I hate a crevice? You hate a crevice. Yeah, you love an ocean, but you hate a crevice. I hate a crevice. I know this about you. Yeah. I also, if I were in Star Wars, I would just avoid all hallways if I could.

Like, nothing good ever happens in a hallway as far as I'm concerned. Interesting. Yeah. It's like the opposite of falling down a very. large shaft, which is almost always fine. You never want to go into a hallway. Unless, like, console is there and you're going to, like, smooch him or something like that.

Other than that, Stanah Hallways. Well, they're led into this hallway by these new troopers. This is interesting because as soon as they fly in, decked out in white, ultimately white, best scar, as we quickly learn, there's a moment if you, you know, if you've watched rebels where you think, like, okay, we've seen Mandalrians

who have aligned with the imperial faction before wearing this white armor, but this is different. Very clearly, Bo just says, these are not Mandalorians. This is part of this Bascar takeover

that leads to the Gideon armor reveal. Maybe they're just TK. Troopers. Maybe they're clones. That's definitely a possibility given the cloning operation. And this is when,

we noted that the armor departed. This is when Axe departs, which we have to mention and we'll return to in the only corner as well. He's like, I can make it. Axe finds a skylight and...

I can make it. Dodges all fire and makes it out. I do want to... I just need to pause really quickly and shout out. Our listener, Angelica, who pointed out that female Mandalorians don't get Bescar thigh plates. And she said, don't their thighs deserve protecting too. And I don't want to hear that it's a real estate issue because I'm out here in these mean streets with plenty of beef to sheath.

Angelica said, I'm out here in these mean streets with plenty of feet to sheath. Wow. Bars from Angelica. But yeah, protect thick thighs, save lives. Give the, give the Mando ladies their protection. I haven't heard you say that since we talked about in Namor. I missed it.

Ficti of Sain lives. As they're following the retreating Baskar-clad troopers into Mavgadian's secret base, Din tells Grogo, okay kid you gotta keep up Grogo nuts. Just amazing stuff. And this is exactly what Moff Gideon wanted, Joe.

We see the interceptors. Bo. Now there's a lot going on. Says, what is this place? And as this moment of speculation is happening, two doors drop and our pals, our heroes, they're cut off from each other.

The bulk of the party is in one chamber between these two doors. but a few characters are in front of that first door, Joe, and Dinn is one of them. Grogu and Bo are separated from Dinn and the look of fucking anguish on Grogu's face as he sees them lasso-daddy Dinn and disarm him.

Does your heart pang here? Here's a problem I have. And I think it's because we're going to talk about some things we expect to have in the finale. But a big question people have in this moment is like, why does Grogu not try to use any force to help his dad? And why does Bo forget that she has the Dark Sabre in that moment? And in fact, does not use the Dark Sabre in the fight against the troopers who got Besgar suits on.

And we will talk about why we think that is, but it adds a little like, why are we just standing here like assholes when DIN is being lassoed to the ground. Yeah. The Grogu force question is it's impossible not to think about in this moment without question. It just feels like it absolutely has to be saving it for the finale territory, which I think is reinforced by the look on Grogu's face as Moff Gideon mentions the Jedi in his big speech. And let's hear that now. Thank you for gathering the Mandalrians into one place. You were a talented people, but your time has passed. However, as you can see, Mandelor will live on in me.

Thanks to your planet's rich resources, I have created the next generation dark trooper suit, forged from Besgar Allo. And the most impressive improvement is that it has me in it. You see, every society has something to offer. The cloners, the Jedi, and even the Mandalorians. By aggregating the best of each, I will create an army that will bring order to the galaxy. 10 out of 10, no notes. Junkarlow, we've been missing you. You're amazing.

But yeah, I mean, so we both think that Grogu is going to have a big force moment in the finale. It has to. Again, the way his face moved, the Jedi, Oh, the force? What do you think it's going to be? And we've seen him have to go rescue Daddy Dan in this season already, also on Mandelor. And use the force. Talk about using the force with bow.

Talk about how he must be very good at it. Is it going to be an animal force bond? I mean, like, this is what we've been building to again and again and again. Though I don't like, what I, you and I talked about this, I can't remember if it was on pot or off. But like this idea that like if it's what I don't want is a repeat of Boba getting on the rancor and coming in and that's like end game. So we anticipate the Mithosaur is going to be used in some way. Right. But I don't want it to be a repeat of that moment.

But I do think we can need. I think there's a way to use it. I think there's a way for Grogu to for spawn with the Mithosaur. Though I don't know how like Grogu really know. I guess the Mithesore would have to emerge and then Grogo would have to force him. It's not like he knows where the metasaur is necessarily. I don't think Bo talked to Grogo about it, but maybe she did. But yeah, I mean, I think that's the only explanation for why he doesn't use the force here

is that they have to be saving it for the finale. It has to be. I'm curious if, like, Bo will go and try to get it with, you know, and take Grogo with her because she knows that it's in the Living Waters now. And that'll be part of how they attempt to rescue Dan and beat Gideon. Or if Dan, who was taken to this debriefing room in this sequence and is separated from the rest of the party and is like deep underground

will somehow, and we had speculated back in episode two, like, did the Mithosaur pull him? Did he choose him? And there's a lot of like, just waterlogged armor. Like I stepped off of an earthquake-caused ravine. But maybe Dinn is the one still

who ends up on that, on that Mithosaur and Grogu comes into it at some point. You and I are pretty enamored of like a dark saber moment for Boe. So like it would make sense with Mithesore to be like... Yeah. She's got the savor and he's got the Mithosaur. It flips what we thought. Power couple, honestly.

Delightful. Just wonderful stuff. On the Grogu front, I also think it's notable. We've tracked this since before the season, even in our preview pod. Grogu, this character who brings in these different strands of societies and cultures and groups in the story and shows us how you don't have to pick one way, right? That you make your own way, like we've talked about. And that Gideon is like the dark, noxious. version of that, a character who picks and takes and appropriates and steals and borrows from other

societies, like he's listening in this speech, right? The cloners, the Jedi, the Mandalorian, to make this super evil and bring that into the world and like how they are really the opposites in this sequence, which I think makes the force usage from Grogo against Gideon, even more likely, even though Bo and Gideon obviously have to fight after their back and forth here, which was incredible. I also think that, like, I mean, it's similar to some of the things we talked about in terms of the empire specifically in Andor, that idea of like what happens in Aldani, like what the way in which the empire will cherry pick things and use things and smash other bits of individuality. But I also see it in an episode where Gideon in his own mind is positioning himself as a replacement for Thron, like how it's also putting him as like a foil for Thron and Thrawn's a person. most of things because one of the tactics that Theron is famous for, which I think Ben mentioned

in a previous episode, is this idea of learning a lot about the culture. He's got this great quote, I think it's from Air of the Empire, where he says, learn about art, Captain. When you understand a species, art, you understand that species. And so it's like this idea of Thron is someone who like appreciate, even as he's conquering, appreciating these other cultures. Yeah, like he keeps the art in rebels in his office. And if, if, if Gideon, if a huge key part of his downfall is that he fails to understand exactly what makes the Mandalorians, Mandalorians, that will be incredibly satisfying. I love that. I don't want to relitigate the, the Dark Sabres scene from last week.

I think we talked about it well. But that does just remind me that I wanted to very quickly answer a question we've gotten from some people about the elder one. comp and like, oh yeah. I just want to say, part of the reason that I think the elder wand aspect of Deathly Hallows was so strong is for exactly the reason you just mentioned, Joe.

Harry understood something about Wan lore and the depth of magic and nature of magic and the way that connections forge that Voldemort could never have been bothered to understand. That's why it landed. Anyway.

When he shows up in his, I love that. And I think, again, like, it's satisfying to us as, like, lovers of genre story or any story if, like, an inherent lesson learned or an inherent lesson forgotten is a key. You know, it's not just who punches harder. It's, like, why are you able to punch harder in that situation? And so, like, I think. Right. And what does Gideon even mean by you were a talented people? It's just, like, what visible strength can I take from you? Right.

What's at the heart of that talent? The other thing that I was thinking about in terms of Gideon is like, you know, when we talk about Kylo Ren, we talk about Kyle O'Ren as like a Vader fanboy. And it really feels like Gideon's a bit of a Vader fanboy when he shows up in his shiny black armor. And like earlier when he was stalking down the hallway and his cape was billowing behind him, you know what I mean? Like this is real Vader's shit.

He's like forever pissed that he has zero M count in his blood like, you know, daddy Vader did and stuff like that. And it's also this Besscar reveal, which we had been speculating. about ever since the shard of Bescar was in a shuttle or whatever is such a satisfying payoff from when the Besscar first appeared at the beginning of the Mandalorian and the Imperials had it. There is in season one episode three, when they're looking at the ingots that eventually become Dinn's armor that he got from the child mission, Paz says in the scene with the armor

and Paz mobile, Paz says they were cast in an imperial space. These are the spoils of the Great Purge. The reason that we live hidden and like sand rats. And the armor says, our secrecy is our survival. Our survival is our strength. And then Paa says our strength was once in our numbers. Now we live in the shadows and only come above ground one at a time. Our world was shattered by the empire with whom this coward shares tables.

And the armor says the empire is no longer. And the best guys return when one chooses to walk the way of the mandolore. You are both hunter and bray. So like that payoff of like the empire had Baskar that they stole for Mandalore, but maybe they like ran through it, just handing out Camptona's of it to like any which way to bounty hunters. But the Bessgar Spears, Morgan's Baskar Spear also. It's like where did she get that? Who gave that to her? You know?

That also, though, if you remember when Dan returned that to the armor or Mboba, I think it really, it really connects to the point you're making of like, what does she? she say this could also pierce Mandalorian armor. And like the idea that the empire would make something without understanding how it could undermine their own strength is just perfect. I also just loved that when the dark troopers were such a big part of the season two finale, there was this big aspect of like eliminating the final weakness, which was the human being inside. And now Gideon is like, actually they're better because I'm inside, which just shows that he doesn't

think of himself as a human, right? He's a god. This is like so clearly his downfall. This idea of like, it's better because it's gotten me. And again, I'm going to hit you with another Thron quote that I really love. This idea of like Thron, you mentioned, like, we've talked about this idea that like Thrawn is an outsider. Thron is like not welcome. But Thron is a manager was actually like quite good to his men.

Of course, you know this. And so like there's this quote where he says, I have no qualms about accepting a useful idea merely because it wasn't my own. So does Thron have like an ego? Yes. But he is also just like, it's not on the same. the same way that Gideon does where Gideon puts himself above all others. Thron is like, what's that? Someone swapping the deck?

What's your idea? Okay, I'll go with, you know. So it's like, if we're setting Moth up as like a, to the final boss that is Thron, it is interesting to see the ways in which his weaknesses stand in, like, direct opposition to Thron. So that when we roll over to that threat, it will be something new that we have to learn how conquer. I love that. It's like we know that Kane remains loyal to Gideon, though we don't really know why, right? Is that about Gideon? Is that just about the empire? And that through line,

this is like really, I'd say more central in those Zon novels than even in rebels, like that loyalty that he engenders. And it's often misinterpreted by the people around him because they, again, literally can't understand it. Like, they're, I won't get into, specific plot points and spoil things from those books. But like, there are multiple moments where other characters, other members of the empire think that Thron is basically trying to embarrass one of his lieutenants or a commander or captain. And like, then they're genuinely disarmed when they realize, oh, they were working together to, like, he's coaching.

And it's like, it's because that's just not happening elsewhere. You know, everybody's trying to one up each other. I think that's a great call. Very specifically, Moth Gideon is just like a megalomaniac. I'm excited to see his downfall. How do you think is going to happen? A megalomaniac who definitely is not properly forging armor.

Okay, so this is your main theory that like, however they're making this has to be wrong. I think that there are a couple things. One, we get the shard of Baskar that Captain Tava spots in the shuttle at the end of the fifth episode. it just doesn't break off unless they fucked it up. I feel very strongly about that. That is a signal to us that they are not properly forging it. Well, why not?

We have talked about all of these lingering shots that we've gotten of the armor pouring the living water into her particular brew. Does Gideon know that? It just feels like maybe the crucial ingredient that he's missing, which again connects to the point you're making. Do you actually understand this place? Do you actually understand the heart of the thing

and what makes it special and unique? What the magic is. That lore, right? And again, this is, like, I think a very potter-esque comp or, like, the horrockses or hollows, the idea that Voldemort would never have heard the tale of the three brothers, right? It's the same with, like, Sauron and the Hobbits, like, right?

You know, it's just sort of like, you don't understand what you're trying to conquer at all. Right. You have not bothered to learn. and it's going to be your downfall, right? Right. And so while what you said earlier about Bo not using the Sabre is, like, confounding in the context of this scene, setting up her using it against him in the finale, they get like, it's delicious. Sorry, go ahead.

I should have killed you when I had the chance, Bo says to him. And the way that he turns and says, Bo get down, we have to stop meeting like this. John Carlo. It's just absolutely I'll make sure of it. I'll make sure of it. He tells her to return the Dark Saber to its rightful owner, or first himself as his rightful owner,

is baiting her, right? Surrender again. Like fail again. Prove that you can't protect your people again. And so while it is weird that she doesn't use the Sabre to fight, I actually liked, not only because it preserves it for the finale, the head to head where his poorly made armor will crumble

in a way that properly forged Beskar shouldn't against the Dark Saber? Do you feel like she'll be like, here's me returning it to his rifle owner and then just shoves it into his chest cavity? Okay. That would be fucking amazing. I loved that...

You want the Dark Saber? Here. I don't know. I'll work on my banter. My quips. She didn't use it as a sword. She used it as a shield. She used it to protect her people

and cut away out. And that's powerful and cool and shows growth. I just need you to know that I was literally screaming at the set of it. because I've been so mad about people not using the Dark Saber, like, all season. I know. So they're fighting these troops, and I'm like, why the fuck are you not using the Dark Saber right now? But we're saving it. Okay, fair.

And maybe just part of the practical answer is, like, she, it knows they're wearing Baskar and thinks it won't work against them. Though, the way that they were attacking the many. Yeah, she could stab them in the neck. Yeah. It would have been pretty easy, actually. Yeah. Speaking of people getting stabbed in the neck. By the way, when I was watching that, I just watched John Wick for this last week. and, like, you know, the whole thing with John Wick is, like, all these assassins now wear

bulletproof suits. So you got to shake them in the neck or else it won't work. Yeah. Can we chat for a few minutes about the tragedy of Pas Vizla the death? Not everyone follows Bocitan through the hole. If I'm being fair and honoring Paz Zizla's sacrifice, I would say to you, as a person watching this show, Paz Vizla sacrificed himself for the good of his people. He killed so many of those Baskar-clad troopers,

and he genuinely did prevent those fighters from following the Mandalrians and harming them. What a mitzvah. Instead, I will say to you that this is up there with IG-11 season one finale detonation as the most needless deaths in the history of the Mandalians. And yet you continue to honor IG-11. Because he was, he didn't need to die.

It's been part because of that. Pass Visla just, this is my thing with this fucker, just wanted to go out a hero. I don't know why I'm... Wanted everybody to talk about his sacrifice now. Fucking gradient. Did he want that or did John Favro want that for himself? That's the question you have to ask yourself.

Do you think Fass just like didn't want to do this anymore? Well, I mean, one of the great tragedies is we'll never get to talk about what Paz Visla's hair looks like on wigwatch. I'm absolutely shocked. Curious. Honestly. I mean, I think it was really... Okay, first of all,

screamed as delight to seeing the Pretorian Guards. Last Jedi Hive. Completely obsessed. So excited. Just delightful. Just this week, I tweeted a Pretorian guard gift that Twitter reliably melted down over.

I did not know they were in this. This made me really exciting. The lubiton of guards. I'm so happy they're here. Fantastic. I like... I thought it was cool the way his canon melted. That was great.

That was really fucking cool. And one of our listeners, Claire wrote it. We got a bunch of emails about like comps, various comps, Barrison and Sell Me and the Harpies, you know, like, this is, this is, we could do a hold trope's course about the last stand of so and so. Absolutely. But Claire wrote in this like, I can't share the email because it's all screenshots. She wrote this Duncan Idaho from Dune Comp and did an exhaust.

side-by-size green grab of like Duncan sacrificing himself and Paz Vizzlis. And it's like pretty pretty stunin, honestly. Great email, Claire. Thank you so much. That's wonderful. Dude two. Dude two this year. I can't wait.

Fall of this year. Thrilled. Thrilled. My. I have prepared some words for Pazen for you. Oh? And another conversation that we had earlier in the week when we were talking about succession.

this is not a spoiler for this current season of Succession and Promise, mentioned thinking back to Connor Roy's eulogy work in a prior season for Mo. And so I have taken inspiration and I wanted to share with you, Joe, my final words to Paz, inspired by Connor Roy delivering Moe's eulogy. Hello. I am here as a fellow human to acknowledge that Paz has as we know, passed on.

Pass was a man. Also, Pass was a member of the Armour's covert for many years. And when a man dies, it is sad. All of us will die one day.

In this case, it is Pass. It was done so. Pass was alive for a certain number of years, but no more. Now he is dead. Pass' son is Ragnar.

He is a foundling. who gets eaten. Now Ragnar is sad. Wow. That was just like give you the, like, screw Alan Ruck, give you the enemy man. Incredible stuff. I'll never speak of Paz Vistla again. We will definitely be speaking in Paz Zizl some more. When Ragnar Vizla becomes the wielder of the Dark Saber

and the Uniter of the Gens. Parrish the fucking thought. Should we talk about who the spies might be? Should we go to Theory Corner? Let's bring Ben back. All right. We have to talk more about the title of this episode. We have to talk more about the spies in question.

It is time for Ben to come back. It is time to head to theory. Corner. This is the way. This is the way. We have an episode called to Spies. Ben. Sorry. I have to do it. Thank you.

We have a clear yes in the episode. So this is a spy in Kane. We have the larger rising first order, Imperial Remnant Warlord Network. But we have some other enticing possibilities that we want to talk through about who the episode's name might refer to. Typically when we talk about the name,

oh, the foundling, the apostate, the convert. The pirate. The pirate. We have inside of the episode clear matches to the title. This is a rare Mando title where we leave the episode with a lot of possibilities and a lot of compelling possibilities

that we will presumably get an answer to in the finale. What's really fun is that, like, Ben Lemberg and I are from our time in the Better Calls All Minds are highly trained to pay close attention to episode titles. And Ben asked me last week when it was called Guns Plural for Hire. He's like, Joanna, why do you think they broke their streak of doing the apostate, the like singular? Why are we moving into plural territory?

This must mean something. I feel like this is why. So we can get to the spy. So shall I go in order of ascending likelihood of our theories, our explanations here? Although, please feel free to disagree with my ordering. I'm actually genuinely, genuinely of two minds about all of these. I have pros and cons for all of them, which means what an excellent little mystery they've set up for us. This is great hiding the ball stuff.

Wonderful. This is unusual for this series. Right? Because I wouldn't say the Mandalorian is that twisty a show. Totally not. With the exception of surprise character introductions, but just purely on a plot level, it's usually not something that's, you know, that tough for the really Reddit brain theorizers to see coming. You know, if like the secret imperial base on Mandelor and Gideon's Bescar, that's kind of a twist by Mandalorian standards. But that was pretty telegraphed, whereas this one, I don't know which way they're going.

So here are a few ways they could go. One way is that they don't go anywhere, that we're actually just. just overthinking this, that there were multiple spies in this episode, right? Because we saw Kane, we heard Bo mentioned the ISB. We saw Gideon and Hux basically describing themselves as masters of whispers, right, and talking about how they hear everything and spying on each other. So there's definitely spying going on in the Shadow Council. So it could be, as you said, the episode title seemed to correspond with what we see on the surface. So could be that this is a Mr. X, and they've just been coaching us to think that all along just to set us up.

Or it could be that, no, it actually is just what it looked like. But, you know, unless, like, the Mythosaur is a no-show in the finale and Gideon's fancy new Besscar suit functions flawlessly, like, those would be twists. I'm always stunned of either of those things. Yes. It's not happening. But we will absolutely see that Mythosaur. We will see that fucking armor crumble. I would certainly think so.

But early in the season, it sort of seemed like Cain being a double agent was almost portrayed as a potential twist, even though it seemed obvious to everyone except for Persh. But maybe they made Cain's spyhood extra obvious so that we would think we had IDed the spy and we would miss the real spy in our hero's midst here. Spice. Yeah. So it could be that we're overthinking it and we've already seen the spies. but there's some suspicious spy stuff going on that seems pretty compelling here. So let's get to the next possibility.

Yeah. It's the skiff crew. Yes. So when Mal was editing my recap, Mal, you left a comment about the skiff people being spies. And I was like, how dare you be smirch this inspiring skiff crew? Yeah. And I was like, how dare you not have this possibility in your piece? These survivors scratched out a living on the surface of this planet.

they stuck it out on their homeworld when everyone else fled. How dare you doubt their motives? And also Charles Parnell would never because I've seen him in Top Gun Maverick and the last ship. And I trust him implicitly. Upon further reflection, though, their story is pretty fishy. And Charles Baker definitely would. Yeah, Charles Parnell would never, Skinny Pete from Breaking Bad, definitely would. So one suspicious thing, they come across Bose's scouting party pretty much right away.

and yet they have no idea that there's an imperial base on this planet where they've been for years. They also then offer to take Bo directly to that base. Granted, that's where she wanted to go. Sure. Yes. They wanted to go to the Great Forge,

but also they took them directly to Machinian. Directly. Yeah. Also, a lot of them who are supposedly sick and wounded get ferried to the fleet, which would be a perfect cover story for infiltration if that's what's going on here.

So there's a lot pointing to potential spies. That wasn't their idea. Right. I should say. True. Here's my big case for not the Skiff crew, particularly the Charles's. And it's because they don't have character names. I find it very weird that they don't have character names because Manilorean is quick to name.

So actually, that could go either way for me, honestly, in case there's like a name. Are they moths? Like, who cares? But it's very odd that they're just scout and captain. That is a very odd thing. And I feel like if they were going to, you know, pull a cane, they would get names. Right. That's a good point.

I think that part of the reason we were also excited to talk about this and why it does seem like there's a non-keen ISB outcome here in the title is like because of the thing we've talked about all season, these fractures, this infight. It's such a central focus of this episode. And this also fits the other two candidates we're going to talk about in a minute. And frankly, probably would be more impactful with them for the reason that Joe just mentioned. Their characters we know and have spent time with, the skiff crew isn't.

But like, narratively, it would hit us with those hammer and tongs if after these characters finally push through those divides and find a way to unite, the call was coming from inside the house all along. and it was another group of actual Mandalorians or people masquerading as Mandalorians whatever the case may be

who ended up turning on them. The other thing I can't shake with this group in addition to just them leading them right there is like how did Gideon let them live unless they're his spies? Because the, you know, the Thai interceptor we see all the tie interceptors in the base. We hear Gideon order them into action.

It's very clear that these are the ships that pursued Bo and Dyn after they left Mandelora in episode two heading into episode three, is the answer there just it's easier to detect ships entering the planet than it is a skiff on the glassy surface? I just don't think that Gideon would miss these guys for that long or let them live. Like, that's kind of hard to buy.

Well, isn't it? You know how we talked about earlier? That theory that the droid that attacked, packed in, like, that maybe they were out there collecting Mandalorian blood for some reason or another for, like, into the cloning cocktail. I mean, I do think that when Gideon is talking about what he can take from the Mandalorians, it's the best gar.

But, like, what if it's also their blood? And so he needs a couple Mandalorians out there to, like, harvest from time to time. Yeah. My thought on that was that they're not a threat to him. I'm not convinced by it. that they can't leave, they can't get a message off the planet, whereas Bo or Dinn, they could bring back many more Mandalorians

and spread the word that actually the atmosphere isn't toxic. That said, it's not like he needs an excuse to wipe out Mandalorians. Yeah. He does that for fun. It's also a classic get help from the Ragnarok maneuver, right? It's Sauron on a raft. Absolutely. Absolutely.

You know. Just get help. You're right. Yeah. So I had on my. list also. We just met them so it wouldn't be that shocking if they turned out to be spies. It wouldn't be a finale worthy twist necessarily. And also, yeah, it seems elaborate like Gideon has these fake Mandalorians roving around just in case other Mandalorians land, which I guess

he knows is going to happen. But it's not like he really needs them to lure Bo to the base. They would have found it anyway. They're not necessarily fake Mandalians, though. They could be real Mandalians who he's allowing to live by being brought into his service. Like, I think we should remember that there's a long history of Mandalorians aligning with the Empire. Now, you could fairly respond to that by saying, he's never even talked about that. Yeah, you could fairly respond by saying

pre-purge, but, I mean, is it impossible to believe that Gideon could compel somebody into his service? Well, spoiler alert, the rest of our candidates are Mandalorian. So, like, one exact number, he's duped a Mandalorian to his side, you know? But, yes, you're right.

You know, they don't know that they're going to be ferried back up to the fleet. Are there enough? of them to overwhelm the fleet. I mean, with Ragnar up there, the situation is under control. Ragnar's on the scene. Also, don't some of them seem to take part

in the battle? Sure, but maybe they're in deep cover. Yeah, I mean, well, we'll get to that with our next candidates too, I guess. But if they're really... That is one of the arguments, I think, that's more in favor for our next candidates than saying, Survivor Captain,

who's there. Yeah. I didn't sense the strongest spy vibes from the Skift folks is all I'm saying. But that's why they're early on my list here. So the next candidate, at least for me, is the armorer. Oh, interesting. Interesting. Okay.

I guess this ordering is a twist. But the armor... I have these flipped, I think. I also have these flipped. All right. I can't wait to talk about it. So this would obviously be an enormous twist, right? If it's the armor, that's a season three finale-worthy reveal.

This is a character who goes back to the series premiere. and I was not seriously contemplating is the armorer a deep cover Gideon agent until very recently. So if they go there and they pull it off, I'd just have to tip my cap

and hand it to them. That would be a great twist. So here's the case in favor as I see it. First, she volunteers for this away mission in the first place. Yes, very suspicious.

Out of character for her. Not just as she volunteer, though. Yeah. The music changes in such a notable way as she's like, I'll leave and take these people up to the fleet. And there's this lingering look from Bo.

Yes. It's just really drawing our attention to this moment in a way that I think is very difficult to shake. Yes, although it's almost too obvious. I agree. It could either be it or a very... Yeah. But, I mean, the fact that she's there at all,

I mean, usually she's just like sitting back saying, yeah, you go look for the Jedi. Yeah, you go, you know, so she's in person. She went to the Battle of Navarro, and actually that's a point against. Yeah, well, yeah, I was going to get to that. So right, so she's here at all. Then she very suspiciously pieces out, you know, anyone could fly the skiff people back to the fleet. She leaves right before the battle. And you'd think she'd be first in line to tour the forge, right? Like, you'd think she'd want to get a look at that. But she leaves with no provocation. It's just eye voluntary. to leave, right? Second, I mean, going way back, if we're connecting dots, she was the only person left at the covert in the season one finale when all the other mandos were dead or departed, which is perhaps in retrospect semi-suspicious. She also sent Din out to find the Jedi, which ultimately led to Gideon getting Grobu back. Third or fourth, I don't know how many I'm up to now. There are a lot of reasons why it could be the armor. She could have

shared her armoring expertise with Gideon, right? Which would explain how he forged the Besscar. Now, maybe he didn't forge it expertly, but if she was involved, then that would explain how they figured that out. There are other ways he could have done that. As far as we know, she doesn't have a ship, so I don't know how she was going back and forth between like lizard, alligator, dinosaur, raptor planet and Mandelar in secret. But perhaps, right, we know that Besscar was forged somehow and she is known to forge it. Her helping with the armor forging is one of the reasons I don't want this to be true.

I know. It's an against because it was Mallory's other favorite. He's got to, I mean, the fucking best guard, we didn't see the Bessar shard in the broken out of prison shuttle for no reason. Like it has to be priming us for the armor being ill

forged, poorly made. Like not, maybe they're not using the living water. Why couldn't it just be, I mean, I love, I love the poorly forged Besscar theory. I'm a big fan of it. But could it not also just be like a hint that he has Besscar and is... I'll be mad, honestly.

I'll be mad if that's the case. Because you just should not have a chunk of Bessar coming off your armor unless you fucked it up to the point where you would then lose in a duel against Bocatan who's wielding the dark saber in the finale because the Bessar armor should stop a lightsaber if it is properly made. And I have to assume that it's not. And thus that dark saber will slice. there would, or maybe a Mithosaur.

Yes. Talent. Talent. Another piece of evidence is that Gideon's Bessgar helmet has two little horns. Yes. Yes. Horn hive. Super commandos.

Almost too obvious, maybe, but there is that. Well, it gives us an excuse to talk about Joe's fave, Darth Mall. Yes. And all super commandos on their horned helmets. What a tie this would be. Also, if she were a spy, it would explain. some of our confusion earlier in the season, right? This is the biggest one for me.

This is why I would like it to be her, really, because she was so gung-ho about bringing Boe into the covert and having her remove her helmet and not really acknowledging that that was just a huge. Go recruit this fleet of capable warriors with the ships that you took from. That seemed too easy. And again, you know, we were pointing out that that kind of didn't really ring true to us. And if it turns out that that's because she was. is a secret spy all along? Great. You got me, you know, which would be great. So that's another

point in favor. Also, as you said, we get these lingering shots of her flying back to the fleet, which sure seem to foreshadow something involving her or the skiff people, I suppose. And also, lastly, I mean, she's just a little shady in general, right? Like, we still don't know her name. We know nothing about her. She's just the arborer. So the fact that we have no backstory or anything, would make it a little easier for her backstory to be actually she's a spy. So we just listed, are there any other pieces of evidence here? Okay, what else you got? When she's like, don't go to Mandelor, the air is unbreathable, don't go find the living

waters. You couldn't possibly go back to that planet. I think the confounding change of heart around, the confounding change of heart around Bo and the failure to address the things that she said in Book of Boba Fett that Mallory and I've been scratching your heads around all season. Like, that is the biggest thing in their favor. But I think that, what else I want to say? Oh, fun fact I learned from an Emily Swallow interview that I read was that the armor was originally meant to die in season one, the end of season one.

But she lived, much like Jesse Bankman to fight another day. So, yeah. Also. I guess would argue against her survival in the season one finale, perhaps being a clue unless by that point they had already decided she will live. So I don't know. It's, I mean, it would have to, I would really be impressed if they had been planning the armor spy reveal for three seasons. She was gone for all of season two. They had a lot of time to think about it.

The other things that I would say are that have seemed fishy. A lot of people noted is that when she crafted that thing for Grogu, it had like wiring in it and, you know, the little piece of armor. And folks were like, is that a tracker? Like, what is she doing? Like, what is that? I don't know how to forge armor. I don't know about that because I think when we see Dins busted breastplate earlier in the show run, he's got wiring in there too. I guess she could be tracking everyone.

But I think there's just tech like embedded into the armor. Interesting though. I'm just saying it's a thing that people noticed. And then many people are saying Mallory. And then also another big question we had this season is how did the armor and Paz-Visla go from a clan of two to the whole clutch that they have at Dino-Turtle, Raptorberg? Cove, you know what I mean? And so is it a case where, and I think Bo telling her story about how she, like, gave the dark saber over in order to protect her people, like, I feel like the reason the armor

would do this is to make a deal with Moth Gideon to protect her way and eradicate other Mandalorians who are not like her, you know what I mean? And if he somehow, like, helped facilitate. the growth of their Klanche is a reason to I like that a lot. Anything else pro before I get to the case against? I just think that the

to all the stuff that we've all said about the Bo Armour relationship, like I think that it's important that we got really big reminders in this episode about her past positions. Like we have a Death Watch conversation, right? We have Din coming up to

Bo and when he's like saying, that he didn't know, he says that he was taught that they had forsaken the way that you were selfish and uncaring. Like to remind us that the armorer was teaching her people to feel this way about Bo and her people. Like to give us that reminder here, it just really feels like we're being primed for something like this. And when Gideon says, thanks for gathering the Mandalorians into one place, I know he's not talking to the armor in that moment, but she was probably as responsible as anyone for making sure that the Mandalians were gathered in one place. So there are some argue against pieces of evidence here.

So, I mean, obviously, one is that she has the complete trust of Dinn and Paz, right? So either this is an extremely long con. Paz trusting you is a mark in your favor? The man is dead, Mallory. Come on. Have some respect. Give him some peace. The least we could say about Paz.

Give him a moment for pity's sake, Mallory. We at least know where he stands. He's not the spy. We can say that. That's true. Safety. We know that he's on the right side of history here. So at least in some ways.

So the fact that Din, I mean, Din's been in this clan almost his whole life, right? And presumably he knows the armor from way back and they all do. So either this is an extremely long con. Like she was embedded years and years and years ago. I mean, even that would have been before the purge, before Gideon was on Mandler, probably. No, but I think what Joe already said can be used to account for this, right?

If it's less, it doesn't necessarily have to be that she believes in Maff Gideon and wants to follow him. It can be a bargain that she struck. Like, I think that's the, that's the way of her compelling. She could be bitter about being exiled to Concordia in the first place or the moon. She secretly, you know, just is the fundamentalist that we thought she was all along. and she just wants all the other clans wiped off the board or Gideon promised her that she could be the new mandolor or whatever it is.

Yeah, there are a lot of reasons why she would decide to back him. The old Dennis Green, they are what we thought they were, you know? Yeah, right. So we have seen her kill lots of stormtroopers. So there's that, right? Which I guess we were just talking about with the skiff people, and really we could say for any of these candidates. So either that's part of the.

commitment to the bit, or there's just enough animosity that, hey, if you can wipe a few stormtroopers off the map while we're also furthering this other plan, then that's all to the good. But, you know, we have seen her fighting the bad guys, which might lead you to believe that she's good. So, again, could be a misdirect. Also, like, you know, she had an opportunity to take the dark saber from din a long time ago if she'd wanted to. Again, if her plan is to plot and bring everyone together so that they can all be wrapped up neatly and delivered to Gideon, then maybe it would have been premature for

her to say, I'll just take the dark saber and I'll kill these other people and I'll be the leader and I can do what I want if I have this blade because she's familiar with the prophecy and everything. So I mean, there are definitely more points for than points against. If she, wait, let me hit you with also this

email we got from Matt. If she is a spy, she's a shit spy because this is what he says. Gideon didn't seemed to know that the Mandalorians had thwarted the pirate attack until he got a third-hand after-action report from Corrason's sloth-like bureaucracy. He also wanted to know which group it was and was surprised that Bo was working with Dyn's covert. If he had a direct line to the children of the watch, he should have already known. That mission in the quest to retake Mandelor seemed to run counter to his goals. Why would his sleeper agent push to retake his base of operations

without being a more clear ambush or with a smaller, weaker force? And Matt's pro our next candidate, So I'll save that for a second, but that's Matt's argument. And then I want to hit you with Emily Swallow quote that actually this is my main against the armor thing, even though it would solve a lot of problems with the season. But Emily said when asked about like what she hosts people take, Emily Swallow who plays the armor, when asked about like what she hosts people take away from the season, she says, well, I hope that people will see that there is value in allowing yourself to be uncomfortable and in listening to opinions that are challenging to you and working through that discomfort. Okay, so that applies to this whole like two warring clans, finding common cause, playing a peaceful game of chess, like some, you know, Grogu's like stand down, right? If Pasvisla dies and the armor is a traitor with love and respect to Ragnar, there's no one left in Dingeran's like extremist cult to, because I feel like the show is trying to push us to like, it's okay to keep your helmet on if you want to. and it's okay, take your helmet off if you don't. And so if both paths and the armor are off the board,

like we don't have anyone in the covert anymore to, like, advocate for that. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I think too, like, I think this is the most compelling case against because while we would agree and have said many times that it's been a bit of a confounding

and naughty and an elegant path to this outcome, it is ultimately the landing spot that we thought we would get to and hoped we would get to, of these characters embracing something that they previously stood opposed to. And so if that winds up not being true, that's like a huge thematic bummer inside the season. We could still have that growth from Beau in the other direction. But if it's not actually something where the armorer is meeting her in that journey, there's just a much less impactful message behind the season, I think. Yeah. You could say that there's the, you kind of like, didn't, stands in for it maybe.

Yeah, and that there is something thematically interesting about the Mandalorians and their culture of being caught in this cycle. That's not uninteresting. But it's less of an uplifting message, which, you know, this is Mando, right? This isn't it.

And I also just, I go back to the heavyheadedness of the seeming to tease the armor as a potential spy here, because if you've kept your powder dry this long, And you've got us all guessing and you have this big twist and you're just ready to set the hook. Why make it extra obvious right before you can do that to reduce the impact of the reveal? The old bronze, the bronze herring. That's what I'm calling her.

Okay. Sounds great. So that takes us up to, I guess, our last candidate, unless we're missing someone. There's a shadow spy somewhere. But axe waves. It's Ragnar. Sorry. Yeah.

Raggar is a spy. The alligator knew it all along. Never trust a visla. Animals don't like him because they sense that there's something off about that guy. All right. Axe woves, right? Like the armor, he also left suspiciously immediately before the battle. Hey, I'll go get help.

They're like, no, it's too far. Oh, nope. I'll just, I'll go get help. Don't worry about it. So there's that. Even more notably, of course, he left in a prior attack on Givisland. in the season two finale, when, as you recall, just none of us could concentrate on Luke Skywalker because we were all wondering where Axe Woves was.

Where the fuck is Axe Woves? And Katie Sackoff said there was a reason he wasn't there. Simon Cassinidis said there would be answers, and there are not answers yet, right? I mean, we know that he left Boe, but we do not know why he left Boe prior to her not reclaiming the Dark Sabre. That is still very much an open question. So the answer to where was he? Why wasn't he attacking Gideon is that he's a spy in the employee of Gideon, right?

Right. Also, you know, he's already referred to himself as an individual for hire and that his job is not to judge, but simply to complete the task for which he was hired. He was talking about breaking up the Mon Calamari love story of our times. But perhaps there was a subtext there about another job that he was contracted to do. Yeah, and it's not like when all that happened with the Dark Sabre at the end of the last week's episode, like a reason why it felt so anticlimactic is it's not like Axe wove had that big like, oh, okay, my lady, I will serve you. Yeah, he's like, all right, I guess. He's like, I'm not into this.

Yeah, right. Yeah, Axe. Maybe your order is right, Ben. This does seem very likely. Yeah, it doesn't undercut the themes of the season either then. Yeah, there's like the armor is a big swing. Like if they go for that respect to them, if they can land it, but this is a little less risky. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. He has a name. He is a recurring character. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So it's like, okay, it's noteworthy, but it's not like, oh my God, the armor

was just by a long. And, you know, the case against, I mean, we've seen him attack Stormtroopers 2 right on Trask last season on the assault on that ship. He's part of that, but really all of these candidates were anti-empirate at some point. And I don't think that's mutually exclusive with working with Gideon now. Bo used to trust him, right? At some point, at least for a while, they were working together. And presumably she knew something about his character at that point, though, obviously there's no love lost between them lately. Yeah. And notably, like when Bo reveals the surrender,

Costco is the one who's like given her eyes and head shakes. Like she's the one who Beau has shared this truth with before. Axe isn't a part of that like closeness in that moment at all. Axe woves is like low stakes enough that it won't bum us all out

if he's a traitor, but also was recently given a very strong reason for us to actually know who he is in last week's episode. Right. And it has like we always talk about this question of like, how does this impact our central characters? Yes. And like, this would be devastating for Boe, even with the falling out that they've experienced,

like to think that somebody she, who served her and who worked with her for that long, would be capable of this. I'm curious what was he? So on the drop ship, they're all wearing their helmets at that point. But when Paz has that moment where he says, you know, it looks even worse than they thought we hear, I thought it was Axe who said that he was. said that he was there at the time. That was axed.

I'm curious about whether you think that makes this more or less likely. Because if you lived through the perch, again, you can make the case either way. On the one hand, that maybe makes it impossible that you could ever align with the person who was responsible for that. But you could also argue the other side. Maybe that's the bargain that he struck. You let me live and I'll be your agent.

It reminds me of like several scenes in succession when a character will be like, I've never seen Logan Roy lose, you know, Tom outside the diner. Like, I'm not going to go with you, Ken. I've never seen Logan get once. Yeah, exactly. And so, like, if he's like, I know what Moff Gideon can do, like, I'm not, we have no hope so. I'm only self-preservation.

Yeah. You know, something like that. And I, yes. And that goes the Kendall in that scenario. Joe, yes. Another, another idea. I've always thought the Boatad was the Kendall was a situation. Another idea, I, like, given, given that.

Emily Swallow quote, and I'll read it again. I hope that people will see that there's value in allowing yourself to be uncomfortable and listening to opinions that are challenging to you, working through that discomfort. What if the identity of the spy is not uncovered by whatever, and we get to the end of the season, the end of the episode, I don't know how long next week's episode is. We get to the end and they're debating who the spy is. And Bo has to decide whether to trust the armorer who she is naturally sort of, you know, suspicious of or, you know, one of her own. And if she, like, makes the right decision to be like, no, it's the armorer. We have forged this bond. It's not U.S.

Then that reinforces that stronger together sort of idea, you know? Or, oh, I love that. But what if it just, what if it shatters her trust more broadly? Like what if just the prospect that somebody undermined this mission and was aligned with Gideon makes it impossible for her to believe that everybody has done the thing that has been the thrust of this whole season, like gotten over their opposition and their prejudice and managed to align and come together. Like when I see Grogoo sitting on Bo Catan's lap, I think basically we have to retire our will we get a Bo Healturn at some point take, right? Yes. It's like a member of Clan Mudharn at this point. So like what's the only way that we could still get a Bo Heel turn, like a fall to the dark at some point?

I think, like, if they lose, basically. And it is just, it's a level of defeat and despair that she can't recover from. And, like, the trust in her followers is kind of the only thing that could take her to that point. I just don't think that's how the Mandalorian ends its seasons. I don't know what I don't either. I would be surprised if, again, the ending is not Bo using the Dark Sabre to slice through Gideon's shittily forged armor. I mean, the way that the Mandalorian ends at seasons is, like, fully, you know, fully. shit-loose Skywalker is here or, you know, for a family.

The Dark Sabre. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, the bleakest possibility would be low on my likelihood list, but it's possible. Why not both? The armor and axe are both spies. I like that idea. And even maybe the skiff crew, too. Yeah, I mean, everyone's a spy. Why not? We're all right. Because the presence of spies in both factions, all groups would really reinforce the idea that Mandalrians are always squabbling and sabotaging themselves and they just can't get out of their own way. And the only thing that can defeat Mandalorians is other Mandalarians. And it turns out that Gideon has turned someone within both

of their ranks, right? And then it's just, you know, who can you trust except Clan Mudhorn? Gideon making false promises to both sides? Classic, honestly. Ironic move. I believe it. I love Theory Corner. I'm excited for this finale. The Middle Way is not a theory show. And so, like, how delicious for them to wrap up this little best gar-plated package for us here at the end of the season. Thank you. Great stuff.

Watch it just be keen. Spiza. Spiza. Ben, thank you. Thank you, Ben. Thank you. All right. What a delightful theory corner that was.

It's time for delights in another form. Easter eggs. Joanna Robinson, what is your favorite Easter egg? I would like you to guess what my favorite Easterer. Has to be the guards, right? Is it the laser gates? One of those two. It's got to be.

Oh, God, it's not. But like, let's make it a trio of like red. So like the red gates, the red Praetorian Guards, and the ginger hair of Brindle Hux. A gingy trilogy. That's beautiful. I'll actually stick with the orangey color palette. of the Hux Hive, Ameliorun,

and not just because I want Grogu to get a proper fucking meal, but this is Harrah's favorite snack. This is Harris' favorite fruit. It's a big part of the rebels' experience. They don't grow on the fall. A big part of our favorite part of Book of Bobavet. Less of that. Who can forget?

Oh, God. Speaking of rebels, I'll note, too, that the skiff, when it first emerged, It really made me think of when we first saw Rex and Gregor and Wolf in season two, episode three, The Lost Commanders, that vessel that they were inching toward our heroes on it. That was a fun visual connection. Speaking of Rebels, there's this like, I don't know if it's based in fact or anything like that. I don't know anything that's happening this season on The Mandalorian.

But there is a rumor, a tasty rumor, that Kevin McKitt is. is Van Rao is going to show up. Would you lose your marbles if he did? Oh my God. I would be overcome. Yeah. All right. So Ginger.

That would be unbelievable. Ginger Hive. Keep a lookout. Rome stands and Ginger fans. Keep a lookout for Kevin McKidd. I mean, that should happen in Asoka because then he and Ray Stevenson are back in the same show. Yes. Rome on Rome.

Yeah. Delightful. Ku Corner. Yeah. Let's do Coak Corner. Netflix subtitle award. All right. Is yours the same as our listener, Tatum's?

It is not, but this is a wonderful. Okay, we're going to add something to Koo Corner, a rare listener submission. We're not usually taking soliciting add-ons, but Tatum really crushed this. Did you catch the growl subtitle that came off Dinn this episode? Sweet Obi-Wan Kenobi Jesus, take the wheel. Pedro is growling and I cannot handle it horny and unhinged on Maine Tatum. Unbelievable. Bad baby.

There's a growl close caption when Din is like, I think, lassoed down, honestly, which just makes it even more. When Gideon lifts the horned helmet. Delightful. Mine is, I can't believe I didn't make this about how cute Grogo is, but I feel like I'll have plenty of opportunities to do that in the future and only one more opportunity to dunk on past. So I'm doing that.

My nomination, if I were writing the subtitles for this show, if it aired on Netflix, would be. Loser Warrior dies showily and needlessly, fails to shout signature apostate catchphrase with final feeble breath. What do you think? Should that have been in the episode? I feel like there's some, there's, like, between, My, like, fairly exhausting love for Cobbant and you're endlessly burning, Hager for Pasvisla, there's something just sort of like it evens each other. It's like a yin and a yang. Like, I just think it's beautiful.

Mine is much shorter than yours, and I'm actually, I'm trying to bump up my game next week to try to match. You always bring this. It is foundling corpse roasts juicely. Oh, my goodness. So do you, are you officially, do you think it was the family birds? I'm probably. It's upsetting.

It seems like it was. I mean, there are other critters out there in the salt flies that it could have been, but like, I don't know. Where are those birds? It's just awful. Where are they? Just bring them back and say, here's dinner then. Don't, don't say, there are three new families. Very upsetting.

Secret Force user. Steve, I'm going to miss that. So great. Who do you have? It is one sneaky Pete. That's what I have. Yeah. Scottie Pete. How else did he survive without Gideon detecting him, you know? Give that character a name and a lightsaber. He's either a spy or a secret force user, one or the other. So he's sneaking about something. It's sneaky Pete's what he does. So, you know, there you go. Anything else about this episode of the Mandalorian?

I think we have said quite enough about the episode of the Mandalorian. All right. Well, then that's a wrap on Paz Visla and that's a wrap on this podcast. Thank you to our skiff crew, Steve Allman, for producing this episode. Arjuna M Gapal for his additional production work on this episode and Joe Mia Denneron for his work on the social for this episode.

Remember to pop over to the prestige TV feed for our Yellow Jackets chats every Thursday night slash Friday. And, of course, head back into the Ring ofverse next week. Midnight, boys. Mando finale instant reaction coming Wednesday. House of our finale, deep dive coming Friday. Until then, it's all the way from Corrason. You might want to wait for a smaller gathering before you open.

Preaching at the blank page before you. The rest is still unwritten. Incredible. Steve, why don't you sing more on the pod? I was never asked to. We're asking now. Standing invite, bud. Uh-huh. Don't want to miss a thing.

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