The Watch - ‘Andor’ Season 2, Episodes 4-6 and the Many Faces of Cassian. Plus, ‘Everybody’s Live.’

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Chris and Andy talk about an interview HBO head Casey Bloys gave on the Town podcast and what it revealed about the streamer's strategy in 2025 (6:55). Then they talk about the latest episode of ‘Everybody’s Live’ and how the show has started to improve after leaning into more traditional late-night practices (21:32), before they break down Episodes 4-6 of ‘Andor’ Season 2, which has leaned fully into the spy genre (27:34). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Video Production and Editing: Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimphaya, gusalcumab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur.

Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world.

The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the run. Stand up and walk now.

Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio with his sister Rydodium, it's Andy Greenwald. You watch Andor like a chemist. I watch Andor like a cat. You can't get nothing by me. It's amazing.

Whiskers are twinkling. Greenwald, great to see you. It's Thursday. We are going to be talking about episodes four through six of Andor's two today. Quick housekeeping. I've been remiss and mentioning that you can email us at the watch at Spotify.com, please, you know, ask us questions about Andor, ask us questions about TV shows. I feel like that email address was pretty much exclusively used by medical professionals

to share their own experiences watching The Pit. And I think it's time to open it up. Any rebels out there currently engaged in revolution? What about fashion designers? Exactly. You can do that. You can watch us on the ringer dash TV, YouTube channel. You can watch us on Spotify, where you listen to us, and you can follow us on Instagram, the watchpot underscore. Kai has been cutting up some fire clips. She has a nose for viral moments.

I'll give her that. We're here to talk about Andor, but you wanted to do a couple of things at the top. You know, I was going to make a joke to you. Yeah, yeah. This is good. I want to put the most important headline up top. I want you to be happy. I was operating all week that it was rideronium that saw Guerrera and

Woolman are sniffing at the end of episode six of Andor or episode five of Andor. Huffing, I think is the term. You know, sniff, huff. Wow. Which one gets you there faster? I'll ask hervine Welsh. And I thought it was ridronium. And I spent a solid five minutes today

trying to come up with the right young dro joke for rideronium. And then I found out it was rhidium. I had added an R. But it did lead me to reading about a bunch of young dro mist tapes. Fantastic. That I kind of forgot. Should we name our favorites? I don't know if anyone's ever been better in the game at naming his mixtapes.

Okay. So after he opens up in 06 and 08 with Day 1 and I Am Legend, just kind of very typical rap mix tape title. 2009, RIP, parentheses, I killed that shit. 2009 again, just a month later, black boy swag, white boy tags. That was when he was dressing all in pole. This is a great Atlanta rapper that Andy and I enjoyed. But, okay, I appreciate you explaining the... Did Young Dro ever get canceled?

This is a bit late to be asking that question. Anyway, young dro had really good. Mixed tapes. I also think people should understand that for the last, I mean, this is always the case with you, but particularly like the last two, three weeks, every waking moment you have just been grinding tape and content.

And so for you to say, I took five minutes to go down a young grow... Equestrian dro. This is a beautiful thing. 2011's I co-signed myself. These are just smart ways to live your life. Drogabulary? Of course, RIP2, I killed that shit, the sequel. Ralph Lauren Rifa.

Adderall Flow. I gotta get that one. That's 2018. I wonder if that's good. I don't know why. I just need to get that off my chest. I did the work. You did the work. Never let it be said that you don't do the work. You listened to The Town this week. I listened to it as well. I listened to Part 1. I haven't gotten to Part 2 yet.

Matt Bellany, who has an amazing podcast called The Town, that he does my buddy and co-worker Craig Horlebeck over here at the Ringer, and it obviously gives an inside view into what's happening in the halls of power in the show business industry and the entertainment industry. Matt had Casey Boys for a two-part conversation. We can talk a little bit about how we felt about that. Thank you. Did you feel away?

No, I think that Casey is a busy guy and a lovely guy, and clearly he should be talking around the town. I thought it was very nice that Matt began his podcast by saying he knew how special this was because Casey is a watch fan. And that's when Casey lost me a little bit because then he started listing the other Ringer podcast that he enjoys, including sports card nonsense, which kind of surprised me. That was a shock. Him listening to New York, New York with John Strimski. No one saw that coming. I thought it was a really, really good. It's a two-part interview. And I recommend people check it out. There's a lot of stuff in there that's worth

listening to if you were a fan of HBO shows or the industry in general. But I do, I do. I did think that Matt started in a place that helped me reframe something that I think is that we have been talking about and talking around for a while now, which is that maybe there has been a demarcation. Let's say if there was a Wikipedia page for the streaming wars, this would be the beginning of a new chapter. Oh, okay. We often talk about... You spend a lot of time on Wikipedia? Yeah, I learn a lot of stuff on Wikipedia. I spend a lot of time on the Wikipedia page for Chris Ryan, the British War novel writer.

and I still you have a Reddit fan community that is robust and yet I don't think you have a Wikipedia page devoted to your Let's not give anybody any ideas I just did I just did

I think someone should create a completely fictional Wikipedia page for you about just the legendary shit Kay khaki king just like everything RIP I kill Ben shit yes

all my mixed tapes from 2010 bang bang bang all the hits we often talk about how it's very hard to even talk about whether things are successful or whether one service is, quote, unquote, beating another one or doing better because it is such, it's just like existentially different businesses that some of these companies are in. The move over the last few years to shift into streaming did seem like, you know, a bunch of

rebels on Gorman trying to organize against the empire. What was interesting about what Casey and Matt, how Casey and Matt framed it, and this is also, I guess, backed up by a recent Wall Street Journal article, is that the major skirmishes of the David and Goliath era of streaming are over, that companies like Warner Brothers Discovery with their Mac service have pretty much admitted that their initial dream of creating a Netflix killer, or at least a Netflix competitor, is gone. Yeah.

that they simply cannot compete on scale of a established global brand like Netflix. And similarly, you know, trying to keep up with the deep pockets of your Amazon's and your apples might also be impossible. The takeaway, which I thought was really fascinating, is that they are leaning on the horse that brung them there in the first place, which is quality scripted programming. And credit to our guy Casey for not gloating about that, for keeping, you. very, you know, level-headed in the company line and basically say, because remember a few years ago, and it's only been like two and a half years since Max launched, two years? That seems incredibly wild to me, but go ahead. But, yeah, I guess you're right.

But the play was it is the irresistible combination of new seasons of White Lotus and Last Us plus new seasons of Dr. Pimple Popper that will elevate this new entity. I think it was Zazlov's idea was that, or the idea that was articulated by Zazlov was that everybody in your family will be using Max to find something to watch. And that there will be Food Network, NHGTV stuff. And Magnolia. And Magnolia, but also prestige television, but also kids programming, but also sports. And it was just going to be a one-stop shop. And in some, when you turn on the Max app, you can kind of see the outlines of that.

You know, I think everybody gets different stuff programmed to them algorithmically. but you can see the the broad strokes of that it's just there's as you'll say it's like it's difficult to sustain that kind of scale and that kind of breadth

as Netflix it doubles and triples your subscription. It's also just sort of just simple in a way it's just sort of simple you can't really be great at everything

you can barely be good at everything but certain people certain places certain companies certain development teams are gifted enough to be good to great at one specific thing. And it helps when that one specific thing is still not just the driver of this podcast, but largely the driver of entertainment culture at the moment, which is scripted television shows.

So I thought it was really interesting that they are positioning themselves or the market has positioned itself, positioned them for it, that they are a secondary service, right? That like the hope is that if you, once you've paid for your Netflix, you probably have Amazon just for shipping, what else are you going to spend money on? And the draw will be to watch the shows that people are still talking about. Which in a way is like coming home to what HBO always has been, which is a prestigious extra channel for people who have already got a basic cable subscription and want to have access to, yeah, movies, but also.

And documentaries and comedy specials. Yeah, for the last couple of decades, for Sunday night television and for big takeout prestige TV. Now, the other thing that I thought he articulated really well, and I'm not just saying this because this complements our coverage here, is how crucial the success of the pit is for the gambit that they are now attempting. That it's intentionally that I think they're saying scripted content at a high level. They're not saying Sunday night prestige HBO shows. They're saying we can be a place where you will watch the shows you want to be talking about.

And they could be high, they could be low, they could be mid, but that's the, but we are really good at this. That's an enormously important plank in what they're going to be doing. Absolutely. I think, you know, it's funny, I was listening to Casey and then reading the Wall Street Journal article that sort of prompted this conversation between Casey and Matt. Were you happy to be getting some value from your subscription outside of the editorial page? Well, I'm glad. That's good for you.

And for as much as I was thinking about Max, I was also thinking about Netflix. And what does a company behave like once land is no longer in view? you know, once like the pack is gone behind them. Oh, they no longer feel the pitter-patter of... So, I mean, I think that we've tried to... I think we can have a laugh at some of the stuff that's on Netflix, and then we are also pretty staunch defenders of like the big swings and its reach especially,

and the fact that you can see something like adolescence, baby reindeer, get brought to so many eyeballs and become such a sensation. I also think they still take chances. There's tons of really interesting international programming to say nothing of things like Ripley that they saved from like sort of network limbo and Showtime Limbaugh. And gave a full FYC rollout and pushed for awards

and it's just a gorgeous piece of television. But in the same way that you think about what happens if all of our information and communications are run by Apple and Google, or everything that we watch is through this one app. You know, you wonder how not the company behaves ethically, although I suppose you could, but what kind of decisions get made at what point

when they're like, well, we have everyone. They're a captive audience. Now, yes, you can get in and out of your Netflix, you know, subscription and some people still do that. I'm going to sign on for Stranger Things, watch it for a week, and then cut my subscription. The churn, as they call it. Yeah.

And those people who do that, I think, are very, like, they're very active TV watchers. And they're very precise about how much they're spending. And they're very precise about when they're going to be watching what they're watching. NFL draft experts call that Twitchability. Twitchability. But I'm curious whether or not, like, we see in a year from now, if Netflix is arriving at, I mean, where are they at, 300 million subscribers? It was where they ended last year to give people a comparison. Max is hoping to hit, expects to hit 150 million, so half of that in 2026.

So we're talking about a 2X thing, right? You know, and if that's the case, what does Netflix look like when there's nobody to hold Netflix back? Do they continue to invest $9 billion in content per year? Oh. Do they start buying sports? Do they start going after some of... So this is like the marathoner who's been sprinting and looks back and the field is gone? Right, but it's more like, I'm not even saying a monopoly, but what, if Netflix creates a monopoly-like hold over the global television audience, what does global television look like?

Yeah, I mean, I think, I think it's a valid question. It's certainly not settled because for as much as we say, like, oh, they've decided there'll be a second place or a third place or we're fighting over scraps. Like, Max is continuing to build out globally. Like, that was one of the many things that it was behind on. it's launching in different countries. And if you were a country where maybe you saw Game of Thrones, you watched it on Sky or through a licensing deal, Max is probably going to be the home of it going forward in your country,

and they expect you to sign up for it all over again. It is a really good question, and it makes me think also about something that came up in the conversation between Matt and Casey, which was Matt's, and he said this before, insistence that he doesn't understand why Netflix doesn't diversify internally what it does. basically have channels within itself

because he rightfully says this, and I know there's some personal experience, if you meet with people or you talk to people who work on the Netflix scripted side, they are, a, justifiably proud of a lot of the work that they do and the shows that they make and adolescents being the most recent Sterling example of it.

Also, do not consider themselves in a first place position because the business that they, feel that they are in is still competing with the programming and developmental gold standard set by FX, set by HBO, the other programming executives that they themselves are competing with within their corner of the larger Netflix structure. You know, I don't feel like their attitude towards scripted is, oh, thank God the floor is still lava because... Right. Now, you could make an argument that if they did operate from that point,

of you, maybe we would see bolder swings. On the scripted side. On the scripted side, knowing that the other 70% of the company is going to keep hitting no matter what. Yeah, I mean, there was an old idea back in the day of, you know, like early days, like 2010's blogging. I think Gawker Media was the point when somebody very much popularized this was that they had somebody who was basically blogging like viral moments all day long.

And because of the reliable traffic that they would get from that, they would then try to pay for some of the more like specific or individualistic flights of fancy of the journalists that were working at the company. Right. It was just like you make the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so that you can experiment in the kitchen with something else or try to give somebody like a very unique experience. I don't know whether or not that works on the level of Netflix, but that's an interesting idea.

So you think almost like if they've got this baseline of Drive to Survive and Flores Lava, and all the dating shows where people are held in a redacted site before they can meet the person that they're in love with. Rendition, the romance, the hookup show. That they should then be making almost bigger swings on the scripted side. I think they could be. I mean, this is not something that I've spent a lot of time thinking about, but the sort of existential fear and fear of missing out and save my job,

stay one foot ahead of, say one step ahead of everyone else, is prevalent in this industry. Maybe it always has been. You rarely see anyone operate from a position of confidence or strength anymore. And it is interesting to note that Netflix doesn't really either in terms of its scripted stuff. Now, you could say that's good because it keeps them young and hungry and nimble. But there is an argument you could make that they are better positioned than anyone else to really be trying to shape the future of the industry and not being reactive to what's happening right now or to the past, which is, you know, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. But in the conversations that I have,

it is not so much at the moment, I said it enough for it to be a cliche just for podcast listeners, let alone people who are actually like going to meetings and things, the whole like, you know, let's bring back 90s procedurals, let's the PIP being the best example of that. The conversations that I'm hearing much more now are how do we bring back the early 2010s? Like how do we bring back? And your friends and neighbors might be in attempt to sort of address that.

Like nostalgia for the first era of prestige TV, of difficult men shows, of ongoing, you know. So we've already gotten out of how do we get hospital shows and friends hanging out in apartment shows and now we're back to we need to get Damien Lewis versus Paul Giammati? Kind of.

I mean, didn't you say that you are being serviced billions on Instagram reels right now? Yes, I am. Seen by scene? I mean, it's not a bad play. Anyway, the main takeaway, though, and I think the one that we could just end this conversation on as being slightly heartening was there is, and I feel like this also tracks with Cassie and Andor's belief about revolutionary struggles. Do your best to be calm and take the long view and be patient because the things that you're good at, you know, the things that got you this far might be able to get you out.

And you get in trouble when you change, you know, when you're overly reactive to the winds of change or of the moment. Just as a, since we're talking about Netflix, I think it's worth, you wanted to mention Malian's most recent episode. I'll just say today is the day that

Tina Fey's new show. Oh, I want to bring that up to you. And I really enjoyed this show quite a bit. I see it's gotten some mixed reviews. I think it's worth it entirely for Coleman Domingo's

performance. It's a great, great comic, but also dramatic performance. And it is, personally, I just find it a very enjoyable dramedy with much more of an emphasis on the comedy than the drama, but it has some elements of drama. It's based on a 1970s or early 80s Alan Aldo movie. Yeah, with Carol Burnett. And it's just about a group of friends, some of whom are couples taking trips together over the course of a year, whether it's to visit kids in college.

Everyone's couples. What's that? Everyone's couples. Yes. It evolves over the course of the season. At the start anyway. Yeah. And yeah, I thought it was really, really enjoyable.

I know some people, I, I was, it's kind of cool to see Coleman Domingo get to be like a comic lead in this way or a comic player in this way. Yeah, and I think it's fun also to see people like. Have you seen the Alin-Aldo movie? No, I never saw the movie. Okay. Will Forte just, you know, getting to do what he does and, and Steve. Karell getting to kind of what we were saying the other week, like walk that line between drama and comedy that he excels at. I'm mixed feelings about it. I enjoyed watching the show

a lot. How many did you watch? I watched four or five, I think. Because, look, it's very pleasant. It's a very enjoyable, easy watch. And maybe that's all it needs to be. But it is pretty soft and gentle and like yeah i think that's okay yeah but i think that might be okay but it it's interesting echoing in my head is still this idea that like what does netflix look like when no one's chasing them anymore and i'm like is this what look what it looks like when for comedy writers when no one's chasing them anymore oh i see it is in tina fay's interview she very intentionally said like i wanted to do something that was not go joke joke better joke yeah go go better joke and no one is better at doing that than her and robert carlock and and the the associates and teams that they've created

and worked with for years. So in the sense of wanting smart, created people to adapt and change and try new things, I love that for it and for them. But I did find it a little squishy at times and maybe that was the intention. Speaking of Netflix, and speaking of things that aren't squishy,

and I think there's even a relevant segue here, the only reason I'm doing Malini Watch on the podcast is, I think, that in a more abstract, sense, we will refer to, like, the development process or network notes or creative executives and things, you know, and we talk about, you know, from an outsider view often, the, like, perceive tension maybe when you could see it in the final product. We were talking about that with your friends and neighbors. Like, was this Apple's kind of high middlebrow sensibility

pushing the show in a direction maybe where it would be more interesting in the other direction? The incredible thing about watching everybody's live week to week is because it is live and Because it is a limited, I think 11-week experiment, you can actually see that tension happening every Wednesday night in ways that are fascinating and ways that don't always net out the way you might be predisposed to believe. What I mean by that is, like, it is unquestionably becoming a more conventional late-night show.

Like, there's a Bill Belichick and his girlfriend bit. It's like, what's in the news this week? Malaney's monologue is leaning into the fact that he's one of, if not the best stand-up comedians alive. And so there's just more time spent on that. Last week when Conan was the first guest, he was literally the first guest, as opposed to one of three people, one of whom is an expert who's not good at being on television. Isn't that what they did this week, though? And then, yes. And then even the most...

I was watching The Lakers, so I have... No, I know. This is airing at a time where I'm not like... No, it's fine. And it's fun also to check in with it later. But I was preparing a take for a podcast that I do with you when I was watching it live last night about how, wow, they've even gone so far as to pre-plan a bit. Famously on late-night shows, like there would be someone on the staff who pre-interviews guests

so that they're ready to say like, you know, I have a funny story about you when you were a kid, right? And then they have it all teed up. And it's last night when Ronnie Cheng, who I love in his own show. Was Robert's new cool on set? Oh, it's so funny you should ask that. Yeah. Crazy thing that happened. Ronnie Chang was prepared not only with a story about how he broke his arm when he was a kid

and his arm was in a cast for so long he became ambidextrous. They like had a pad of paper for him to show. And I was like, these are the most conventional notes that they are getting, but they're not wrong. Like this feels more welcoming. It feels like a late night show, not like a weird public access, L.A. experiment, which it started as. And I was like, it's kind of interesting.

Like sometimes the conventional note shouldn't be fought. And it allows things like he looks through his telescope and sees the members of fish dressed as the cast of Seinfeld. It makes that pop more because there's a little bit more security in the rest of the show. And then just when I'm preparing this take, he clears the couch and Ronnie Chang and Molly Shannon go away. And John Kale and Maggie Rogers come on the couch. They are on the show as the musical guests. I don't know who had it in their bingo card that they would be panel guests for 10 minutes

talking about surgery and it went about as well as you would think. Like, John Cale was in the Velvet Underground. That's awesome. But I don't know if, I don't know if like Ted Serendos was like, get that 80-year-old Welshman on a couch live tonight. I thought they were performing live like music. They were.

Did they perform together? Yes. Okay. But 20 minutes before they performed live, they were interview couch guests for a pretty excruciating eight minutes. Yeah. But again, this is why I find this fascinating

because it's a little bit like, okay, well, take the note, but guess what we're going to do next? Right. And it is oppositional sometimes, and it's lurching its way towards something truly amazing, I think, just in time for it to end.

Do you ever wish we knew less about how stuff gets made? Hmm. I was watching Thunderbolts this week. Obviously, it's the new Marvel movie that's coming out this weekend. And at one point in the middle of it, I was trying to figure out whether Sebastian Stan was wearing a wig.

Trying to figure out. You mean like looking closely or like Googling? Well, no, because it like basically had like the way wigs kind of look at weird at the very back bottom because they're not like, it's not hair. It's not real. And I was like, oh, I wonder if this is a wig because he had to reshoot something because of Brave New World. And, you know, he's a congressperson in Brave New World.

And now like he's a congressman in the Captain America movie. Is he? Yeah. Did he primary, like an established dem? No. Oh, my God. Well, anyway, I was like looking at that. I heard there's a red Hulk in it.

And then I was looking at, you know, there's a couple of moments during Thunderbolts where I was like, ooh, I wonder if this is a reshoot. I wonder if this is. Oh, I see what. And then I was like, what the fuck am I doing? Like, who cares? Yeah. Is the movie good? And did it work?

I'd rather just save all my takes on it for when you've seen it. Yeah. But it was, I was like, maybe I need to chill out instead of looking at Sebastian Stan's wig and wondering if it. was retcon for Brave New World. But aren't we all kind of cooked in that way? And certainly people who listen, people who listen to our podcast, I feel like are a little bit self-selected

as people who are, they want to know the story behind the story. That's true. That is definitely true. But when you're watching Mullaney, and you're like, ooh, I wonder if this is a reaction to a note they got from Ted Cedos. Fair. But then inevitably, the other reason why I love it

is then Langston Kerman will come out, and in this case he came out as a, like a celebrity moyle offering different kind of circumcision cuts. And it's so funny, and I can't believe what that guy particular is doing week to week on the show, and it's just a great comedy. But no, I feel like, I wonder if maybe one day we'll get a chance to talk to Malini about it.

But like, I think that one of the things that is appealing to him is the process and the process being exposed to something, like getting to workshop and work it out in real time. I think if it was just in like a pre-made box. I don't know. Do you think that the Malaney show would have been better served if Malaney had taken the entire writing staff on a retreat to Las Vegas where they did race car driving? This is a hack stroke.

Do you think that would have made a better show? I don't know, man. Kyah, do you think it would have made a better show? I mean, I can't tell if you're negging hacks or... I'm just seeing if you're going to take it. I don't know if you want to run with it or not. I'm a little bit by it, not hacks. Let's take a quick break and we'll get into Andor at 4 through 6.

I'm not, it's an Emmy-winning show. I'm not nagging. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last-minute beach day, a spontaneous hike or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for. That's when Prime's same-day delivery as you're back.

Getting you exactly what you need, fast and reliably, so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sidelines. Same day delivery, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas. Terms apply.

The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch.

Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. This episode is brought to you by the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets at the game or grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases.

Say it with me. The active cash credit card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals

with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandul

predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. All right, brother. Three episodes of,

honestly, for me, straight napalm. Just absolutely brilliant. Do you feel, when you found out, when you started to realize that this second trilogy of the second, season of Andor was like it was a French resistance wartime spy movie. Did you just feel like Tony had scooped out the soft matter of your brain and put it on the screen? Like did you feel so...

I did have a very funny text message conversation with Jason Concepcion who was reacting to something that Mansookas and I talked about when he was on here talking about rogue heroes. And we were listing our favorite World War II campaigns. And Jason just texted me his like Concepcian. it was just like blind text. These are my favorite campaigns. Okay. And then we started talking back and forth. And it turned,

I was like, we both were basically doing like French, French resistance deep dives. Yes. So yes, episodes four through six spoke to me on a very deep level. I feel like, and as much as I love these episodes,

I feel like your experience was similar to when I turned on my television yesterday and saw that leading Apple TV's homepage was Kerem, a French historical drama about the best chef in the world who's also a spy. I was like, are you kidding me right now? Did you fire that up yet?

I am so ready to fire it up, but I didn't want to... We had business today. Yeah. I want to start here with you because this is the second now episode we've done about specific episodes. Obviously, we had our interview with Tony for the premiere. I saw an interview that Tony gave to the Hollywood Reporter where he referred to the project of Andor as making eight movies in five years. Yeah, yeah. I want to talk about this too.

There are two things that really jumped out at me about 4-3-6-6. One, this is the second time where I have watched the episodes twice and found the second run through them deeply rewarding, where I am now picking up on maybe plot lines that feel like they are happening in some other district of the story clearly now related. You know, like I think it actually took me two runs through the Lonnie plot and what he's seeing in these meetings. to understand

the gross plot and the Bix plot and like how everything is connected because they will the writing staff and the creative team behind Andor will keep it

they will keep you in the dark for as long as they possibly can and then even after the event has happened that seems like a

domino falling from some other thing they still don't throw a spotlight on and say to da da it was Lonnie all along you know

like they don't do that you're just like, okay. They don't do that. I like the way you said that. So that is a marker. It's a gauntlet thrown down to the audience where it's like you have to watch every scene and listen to every line because even though there might be some toss-offs

and there's some ambiguity and there are these great human moments, everything matters. I think also there is just this very interesting developing experiential thing that's happening with Andor where the, the space in between the trilogies, the sets of episodes, are becoming increasingly important, at least in so much as they are being referenced. Oh, events that occur.

In the blank year. Or months or whatever the case maybe. Yeah. And so there have been some references to things that have happened, specifically I think Sinta's lost year, whoever the guy is that Cassian and Bix have killed that is haunting Bix,

which I don't think we have seen. Maybe we did. I mean, I think it's worth admitting that I have no idea what that was about. I understood it emotionally and texturally. And you could tell me that that was a soldier on the farm planet from episode two or three of the season. Or you could tell me that happened in between. That's what I assume. In the blank space. And I think you could argue it both ways. You could say that's a sign of the show's triumph that it doesn't matter. Or you could say maybe it's getting a little too clever. Unclear. I mean, it's a missing chapter of a novel. And you can, you could say that's a sign of the show's triumph. You could say, it's a sign of a novel. And you could say, it's a sign of a novel. And you could say, could say that's very interesting or you could say I want to know everything about what led to and how they felt about this. I think it's two different ways of wanting the story. So talk to me a little bit about how you're watching this and how you're experiencing this based on this idea that even the creator of the show is like it's eight movies in five years. I we will get into if you're listening we are going to get really into the weeds in the specifics of these episodes. We're going to talk about you know touch points references you know I'll maybe even recommend

some things for a larger syllabus of a content and media that this reminded us of or clearly was influenced by. But it's impossible, I think, to talk about the show at the moment without talking about the delivery method. And I had to go back and check because, you know, when we talk about the first season, we talk about like Nankina 5, like that was an incredible Aldani trilogy or the buildup towards Rick's Road at the finale. Like, it was cinematic and it was cumulative and it was built, you know, with story arcs within the larger season. The season, though, was not delivered this way.

And there were, quote-unquote, standalone episodes. So I had forgotten that there were 12 episodes in the first season because, as listeners now know, we have no idea how many episodes there are of anything. The reason I'd forgotten that was because I didn't remember getting four, three-hour movies. And the reality is we didn't. We got three to start, and then it was weekly after that.

And our experience was, you know, mirrored that. Separate and apart from how challenging it can be to just devour or something this dense in a relatively short amount of time and then podcast about it like we're doing, I was actually starting to become very, very into the Tony method. The experience of watching the first three of season two and then rewatching large parts of it prepared me, I think, for this second trilogy

in a really strong way, where when I watched Ever Been to Gorman, which is episode 204, I felt very comfortable in its barrage of new circumstances, new characters, new context. And I was starting to feel like I got the hang of how these trilogies would go. Like many trilogies, there would be a kind of discombobulating introduction, there would be an escalation, and then there would be a zenith or crescendo of some kind. And I'm into that.

I was like, this is, I don't think we've ever gotten. That's my kink. I like that. And that's my love language. I don't think we've ever gotten a TV show like this. Not that, you know, I've made a 10-hour movie, not that every episode is just a chapter and a book. But specifically, these are four three-hour movies, right?

Basically. They're like, yes, these two-and-a-half three-hour films in the context of a larger season. I am, it helped me through these episodes quite a bit up until the end of, uh, the last episode of this, of this run. Okay. Which I think, which is the Gorman front trying to steal weapons and it going wrong. Yeah. And Clayah cutting her hand with a screwdriver and all that.

That scene was excruciating. It was wild. Awesome. Um, this is the, this may be the, only small criticism I have of these episodes, just that I found the gains character-wise, plot-wise, of these three episodes to, okay, let me say it this way. I went into it being like, let's fire up this next movie, expecting this is going to be, once I saw The Lay of the Land, like, oh my God, this is the French Resistance film. The gains of the episode for Luthon, for Luton and Cassian's relationship, for Cassian and Bix's relationship. for where the rebellion is, all felt relatively subtle in the moment. These were all developments.

They're actually momentous kind of in the larger scheme of things. Exactly. And at that moment, the show became a TV show again for me. In a good way or a bad way? It doesn't matter because I really excited to fire up the next three. And I have really, I'm not even going to pretend a concern troll here. It was a change in my experience of watching it because I was dialed in to have a contained arc that would be like, okay, this is now a natural stopping point. And if the show

ended here, which it won't, I will feel sturdy about where I'm standing. But instead, the gains felt very incremental and definitely a lot of cans now being kicked forward, which is what episodic TV does, but it seemed to run against the delivery strategy. Do you think that any of that is tied to the bad vibe, you know? That it ends with? Not that it ends within Rogue One, but that we're seeing the fracturing of Cassian and Luthan's relationship, not that it was ever based on mutual trust and respect in the first place. It was more of a kind of psychological warfare on Luthan's part and Cassian needing to be a part of something or go get killed by the Empire. It's kind of the origin story of this podcast.

That's right. Who's who? You see Luton losing is cool. you see Cassian feel like perhaps he's got enough going on in his personal life that he's going to start prioritizing that as much as he's prioritizing the rebellion

that Vell goes to this place to lead a rebellion a al-a Aldani or just do an operation and is confronted by a bunch of well-meaning but very naive and unprepared rebels

who make up this sort of you know, everyday members of this, of this resistance in the first place. And even strangely, like, the signals that we're getting that there's more to this serial double agent operation than we, I almost felt for him. You know what I mean? Like, you can't help it feel for somebody getting dunked on by their mother that much. But, like, there is a part of me where I'm like, oh, this is the turn where we find out why they had to make three more movies before they could finally conquer the rebellion, you know?

The, um, I mean, the first, you know, four, five, and six of Star Wars. It's, it's beautifully, beautifully illustrated, this idea that when you start something, any project, let alone a galactic rebellion, uh, it starts small and you can control things and you can dictate the pace of events, but in order to actually succeed, it's going to have to outpace you. Yes. And you are going to have to recruit not just, tactical geniuses or born spies like Cassian, but... Canon fodder.

Just people who have their own passions and you cannot control it. In a certain point, the fire burns out of control. I thought it was interesting that they mirrored each other. The Clea conversation where she's just like, you just basically have too much shit going on. Like we're underwater here with the amount of ops and counterops and secret ops you have going. Combined with Lonnie telling Part of guys, like,

we're literally arresting too much. too many people to even understand what the what the pattern is here um and then even on top of that loni like is loni doing that because he's also trying to help their rebellion i mean it's just like the the sort of the the little pirouettes that are going on and the plot are are part of the joy for me i agree and there's there's a there's just such a there's a profundity and it's kind of beauty in how the show illustrates not just like oh rip from the headlines here's here's a here's how part it is to fight fascism or the plight of a migrant worker, just like kind of small, evergreen ideas that, especially in modern, well, the modern world and modern warfare,

that absolutely horrific things can be happening, that rights could be being leached away, that like one's control over one's own life might be, might be diminishing, but it's happening over there. It's not happening here yet, and life is still happening here, and at what point do you start to pay attention or to start to feel personally affected and in a show set within a galaxy of planets

I find that kind of beautifully illustrated. The other thing that I want to say before we get into some of the specifics is when I when I had the pleasure of working at Lucasfilm a little bit one of the things that was

told to us, said to us when by Pablo Hidalgo who's Tony mentioned just by first name And he is kind of the... He calls Pablo up and he's like, I need the name of a thing that happened in... Pablo is one of the most fascinating people in entertainment, loveliest people,

and he is like the keeper of the flame. Like, he knows everything. In the canon, yeah. But he is also not Pope Benedict, you know, to draw from the headlines or like a character. He's not a more doctrinaire character from Conclave. He is, for him, it's like a living church. Right.

And he's fascinated by the chance. people are taking to diversify and change it. He sounds like a librarian in the greatest sense of the word words. You have a question about what did the Senate do? Yes. He's like, well, they happened. Or we've never actually talked about that. Anyway, one of the things that he drills into everyone who works there is that unlike some

of the other major franchises, Star Wars is history. That every single thing that happened at a point on a timeline that is fixed and static and there are no multiverses and there are no redos and there are no retcon. These are the things that happened, and then there's a very strict order in which they happened. It's why, and it's something that Tony's adopted with like three years before the Battle of Yavin, stuff like that. That's how somehow Palpatine returns.

Well, careful. Somehow. But if Star Wars is history, and it's not myth, the thing about Andor, the project of Andorah that I find so thrilling is that it is worthy of historical, it's worthy of that idea of history. it's not history being written by the victors of like there was a magic boy who turns out was the son of the evil guy

and then they used magic powers and like it's not binary like that it's not good side dark side it's it's not reductive it feels more like living history and it feels more like our history and the thing that really drilled at home for me in these episodes was that luthan kind of sucks he's definitely losing his cool that he is incredibly complicated And there's the scene when he is, when he and Casson, when Casson comes to the shop and they have this collision. I had this like, it was like a Howard Zinzing go up my spine of like, oh my God, like we're seeing the raw text.

We're not seeing like Paul Revere just hung a lantern. It's like, what if Paul Revere was also a dickhead? Like did some good things. Also maybe not always good things. The complexity of that was actually exciting in a historical sense. Like there's so much more here and we're seeing the first draft of it as opposed to the sanitized post-galactic post-ISB whatever. I think that the fascinating thing about what's happening with Luton is that clearly he feels the need to motivate people by meddling with their personal lives. The idea that Cassie and Bix are stuck in this kind of shabby but not altogether not home home, you know, like in Bix is talking about how if we just,

just get some towels and some curtains, like maybe this place will be okay. That said, if they want the comforts of home and some normalcy, I would recommend cooking dinner with something other than melons and hot peppers. Yeah, that's not a protein forward meal. This is a downtime between missions. Different galaxies, different cuisines, maybe even different metabolic standards. Like, I don't know what a guy. I thought maybe it was like in a moose bush or like a past starter.

You know what I mean? Like just something to sort of get the palate going. And then what are we eating? But he seemed to be cooking it in some kind of convection of. Mm-hmm. Yeah. What did you think of that? I want more. I mean...

You want more turkey or chicken or something so I don't wake up and eat chips in the middle of the night, please. No, you know, detail. This is my fever dream of a show. Like, one of the first scenes in Ever Been to Gorman is what we're talking about. It's Bix and Cassian go to the bodega where they sell like... They have like plates and they have towels. They're talking about plates and towels and they go to the bodega and he's like,

oh, this is pretty good. Well, when Cassian's not around, Bix is going to... somewhere else to get that young dro. Do you want to talk about it? So Bix has developed a little bit of a dependency on, I suppose, sleeping medication, but it also could be some kind of psychotropic drug. It's obviously a painkiller of some kind. Whatever she's taking, I'm sure some Star Wars person is going to be like, actually.

Space melatonin. It's quite safe if taken in proportionate. It's illegal in the Europe planet, but here... Just don't fly a tie fighter after taking it. Luthan's using, and he always has, but he's specifically using the frailties of these people for and against his purposes, you know, and it happens with Vell and Sinta as well,

where they've been separated since Aldani, I think, is the indication? That's the implication. And Sinta, in the end of the first three episodes, it's implied that she is going to assassinate Tacoma. she talks about an accident that she had and how she needed to recover for a while and cut her hair and then wanted to do this job and even in that episode

it's not like Valen Sintic like fully are like great and now we're gonna get a dog together it's like we're still soldiers in this thing but can I just say on that scene and that relationship that's when you really feel the benefit of having a film screenwriter at work you know like laying down the markers of that relationship and getting them back to a place where you would feel

the loss as intensely as we do as the audience, that takes an efficiency and an economy. That could very easily have been a McPain conversation. You know what we should do? We should get a boat tomorrow and sail off together. Forever. Not just in the specifics of that conversation, but just being able to do all of that emotional storytelling labor in such a short amount of screen time. Like if you went back and ran and crunch the numbers of like how many minutes were devoted of Andor to the valence into a relationship. It's 12 maybe.

And, you know, prestige TV has definitely disabused people of that skill set. Well, you have to do different things if you're going to be sharing the screen and sharing the storylines with so many other things. And you're going to be the F or G plot of a alphabet of story. I thought Vell's speech after Sintz's death is actually so powerful because it does all of the emotional work without it feeling like you got gut punched because you were like in these two they were just about to go to Cabo together.

Like they were just about to go open a B&B. What you're just pointing out is such a specific screenwriting thing and I think it's so important. I think it's just a brilliant observation and a brilliant execution that it's almost tell don't show, isn't it? Yes, because you don't have the space to show. So just that decision, it feels natural in the flow of things. But when you watch it and you try to like parse it, yes, she doesn't, the event happens and it's shock and Val is in shock. And there is no reaction.

And then what her reaction does is backfill everything as well as give us almost everything we need to know about the rest of her life, whether we see it on the remainder of the season or not. So I basically had these episodes divided into their major kind of plot lines for the most part. And even in doing that, I was like, oh, and I forgot this. And I forgot that. I wanted to start if we could, unless you wanted to go episode through episode, I find it a little bit more difficult to pinpoint things. Oh, in episode four, it's like this.

Because it's really across four, five, and six, you get this arc of each of these characters, right? Yeah, I think that's fair. they, yeah, there are things that like, I find myself wishing we had more time for or thinking, you know, if only we could have devoted more to this. But you're right, it really is storyline by storyline. So I wanted to talk about the many faces of Cassian. Okay.

Because he plays a lover in this run of episodes. He's an agent. He's also clawing back some individualism. And, you know, working through his role as at one time, On one hand, a spy master, someone who's able to go assess a situation and say, nope, they're not ready, and this is just going to be a disaster, and we should pull out to versus, you know, still being Luthan's protege and tool, you know, and Luthon's sort of twerking, tweaking his, like, twerking. Lutthin tweaking his life and putting Bix in a situation, I think, where they're ready to now go back and fight because they've kind of cleared the. gorsed stuff from their psychological backwaters. There's a particular scene with Cassian that I want to talk about, but what did you think of

his arc over these three episodes? I almost want to punt the conversation because it's fascinating how easy it is to forget who the star of the show is. And I don't mean that as any slight on Diego Luna's performance or the way the character is written. There's actually a beautiful consistency to it. if you think about the way that Aldani was the planet, right?

Aldani's where he shows up in the Scottish Highlands. Oh, not Aldani then. Where was he living in the beginning? Ferris, right? Ferriks, thank you. Yeah. I was noticing this is just inevitable when you have a lot of made-up words,

but like, Ferricks, Ricks Road, Bix. Yeah. Okay. These episodes featuring an interesting turn for the character, Wilman, were written by Bo Willemann. But we'll move on from that. But like the central conceit of the first season, right,

was that Cassian was on a journey of discovery, but was constantly pulled back by familial attachments and emotional attachments and a feeling of obligation or service. And in theory, he grabbed his found family and got the hell out of there. The fact that that continues to pull him back and does that, is that his, sort of fundamental flaw or is that his blessing remains an open question. So I do love all that.

But there are times, and I found it particularly so in these episodes where he is not the central character in the show. I don't even know if he's the central character in his romantic relationship right now in this point in the show. I mean, but I think that that's a testament to the wonder of this project is that at any given moment it can feel like Cyril is the star of this show. And in some ways, I think that that's kind of the coolest way to watch Star Wars is to go back and be like, is this a movie about Darth Vader? You know? Yeah, but also you're like, oh, is everything just the same story if you really love movies?

And like, there's an element. I mean, yes, you certainly know that better than most these days. But I was thinking back to the first episode of Andor and how Cyril's story and Cassian's story were intentionally twin from the beginning, that Cyril becomes interested in Andor because of the two people that he kills in the opening moments of the first episode and that their journeys are always going to be in tandem. And that's not groundbreaking.

And I don't feel like, I'm not feeling smug that I noticed that. I'm just deeply appreciative of it. That that's not reinventing anything. Yeah, I feel the way about Luthen and Saw now. You know? Yeah.

These different ways of, in some ways, Lutthin has all these people held captive too. Mm-hmm. Just in, you know. He doesn't shoot them in their face. Yeah, exactly. The scene I wanted to talk about with Cassian

and just in generally singing Diego Luna's praises. Just his arrival on Gorman, pretending to be this designer. Kind of flirting with the bellhop a little bit. He was. But also just kind of that breadcrumb trail he leaves of like, I'm, you know, it's like the joke about like going around the neighborhood on November 6th and being like, are you happy?

No? Is that what you did? No, I was in England. I know. Everybody there was like tough shit. We walked the heath and we're like, we're not happy, but no one else does. And so that whole bellhop scene and then especially the interaction with the head of the Gorman Front's daughter. I can't remember her name off the top of my head.

But that whole, what is it you think you're doing? You don't know me. Let's start over. And he's like, you know, my friend suggested that I meet your father. And she's like, well, your friend might have come himself. And he says, unless I'm the friend. Or maybe I'm a snitch and you're my payday.

Maybe I'm ISB. Maybe you just put everyone you care about into a cell. I am who you want me to be. But that's just you getting lucky. Fuck yeah. It's so sick. It also bears noting that like we cannot, Chris, we cannot take for granted what Luke Hull is doing on the show.

That he has recreated Viennese Cafe Society in a space version of kind of France. everything in that cafe is considered. Yeah. It looks like the way the brochury is described in Allen first novels in 1930. That's exactly a reference I wanted to make. I was just staring at the tile on my second viewing. It's beautiful. And it is, what's it for? It's for pleasure. You know, it's for detail. It's for substance. And it makes a difference. and I just don't think we can ever get numb to that when we get to see it on this scale. That scene is a really, really fantastic encapsulation

of what has always motivated Tony Gilroy as screenwriter, which is the fluidity of power and how it shifts and how it shifts in that scene between them. And the actress whose name we don't know playing a part that we don't remember the name of does a fantastic job as she realizes she's not in control. within the scene. I think that I could, you know,

it sounds like I'm diminishing Diego Luna, but he is playing a character who is playing a character many, many times, which is a hallmark of spy fiction and film and I love it. It was also just like, just pull it back. These were the Gorman episodes, I imagine there will be more, maybe in a different context or a different point

in its, what seems inevitable. Well, we'll be getting much more and just fabric production in the future episodes of Andor. I want more spiders. Yeah. The,

but just how about that? Like, tourist stuff. Yeah. Come on. Give me more of this detail. I love it.

But that, like, Cassian's involvement was to go there briefly. And again, this is not manipulative. This is actually just artistry that, like, he arrives

when Cyril leaves and they trade spots. Yes. But that he arrives just to be like, nah. Like, that's his role in these three episodes. It's non-traditional,

let's say. And this idea that Luthen is like, if it works, great. If they all die, it's an outrage and it draws more attention to what they're doing to Gorman and it makes it it's a wedge for the rebellion to keep chipping away.

It's almost impossible to keep up with the layers of artifice, which is also intentional. I mean, remember in the first season, a lot of it, and this is when Saul showed up in the first season as well, there's the guy Krieg or something who's who's uh it's the guy who's basically gonna do he's the one they haven't told about his the mission and so he's gonna like fly in and they're gonna lose 30 guys and

but they're gonna lose 30 guys to protect the bigger cause to because if they pull creg out the empire will know somebody's snitching exactly then they'll go quiet if creg dies they'll they'll feel emboldened and they can hit them more so this is also the main vein of lacaree cold war fiction, which is, I know you know that I know that you know what I know, which is that you're faking it. And then how do you live in that world when it's just a hall of mirrors? Yeah, there's, I mean, and for as complicated as it gets into and or like, Le Carre, that you're often on page 300 and be like, I just don't know what's going on. I can't tell whether this is like a fake operation, a real operation, a real operation, a real operation, masquerading as a fake

operation, you know. And so that's what we have here with the ISB intentionally feeding correct information and running its cargo so that it is disrupted. Yes. To have a rebellion to crush or more. And that's when the Cyril's involvement becomes a little. A little ambiguous. I mean, just these small little grace notes that I enjoyed with the passage of time and Cyril is there, it didn't last for long, but there's a moment when you're like,

oh, is he good now? not good, but is he showing some humanity? I never thought he was good, but I wasn't surprised and almost heartened that it wasn't just Deidre and Cyril are running an operation against Gorman. Right. You know, it's like, Deidra keeps getting confronted with these other men around her

being like, well, you're a glory hound or I need the glory. And she's just like, she has a higher calling, you know? But that scene when they get to talk to Parthagost, and he's like, would it offend you if I said, this is the greatest day of my life. And she goes, it's just nice to see you happy. He gets an hour with her.

That's like when I got the the Blu-ray, the 4K edition of Blood Simple. You were finally happy. It was like, it's nice to see you happy. And then she's like, turn off the light. Yeah. So you can watch it as the codebodies intended. Yeah.

Want to talk about Bix? Just because she's sort of linked to Cassian throughout the series? Yeah. I think that for me, the Bix runner was the most challenging. Look, living alone is hard. Your wife's been traveling.

There were some overlaps, I would say. Your love of morning television. Take a couple of drops, watch them inside the NBA. Get to takeout, maybe not do the dishes until the next day. That plot line of the... I love the detail of her manically cleaning the apartment for him to come home. You know, it's like, it looks really nice, even though you're clearly high out of your mind. I mean, that's the thing.

Like, she, the plot line of the woman who has been traumatized, um, becoming, you know, potentially an albatross or having, you know, and basically being sidelined is a trope and sometimes a challenging one to navigate. I think that this was in many ways the best version of it because it had room for her to have agency and a fuller arc of wants and needs in relationship to Cassie in which, You know, again, it wasn't always, you can tell I was revisiting some of the first season, but like I was just trying to track their relationship and remember that my guy, Tim. Tim, two M's.

Yeah. So that it wasn't just like, it isn't just like, you know, shipping these people who have always been meant to be together. I'm not getting my hopes up. No. I really like the Luthan scene and I liked, you know, just that that kind of spymaster shit of like, I'm just going to. visits her at the apartment. I'm going to throw a pebble in this pond and see where the ripples go.

Yeah. He's pretty good about finding little stash houses within the stash house. He's a little permissive too. He's just like, you know what? You got to be sharp on the job, but... Oh, yeah. I thought he was kind of like...

You thought he was cool? I thought he was just like, I like to party. I like to sleep. You know? It's challenging to sleep. I don't know if this is the... I mean, so you want to go a storyline by storyline. So should we talk about the Gorse thing as well?

The Gorse thing, I think, is something that helped, and maybe people got this immediately. And, you know, if you're watching these episodes all together, it's kind of like trying to play full court press defense for 48 minutes. It's... Trying to keep track of everything? Well, you're basically, you can't take plays off. And the whole thing falls apart if you miss one thing. And I think on the first pass, I maybe was like watching some of the interactions between Lonnie and the guys who are also getting their. ass handed to them in the ISB meeting

and was like, okay, I can kind of like bring my brain down to 75% while these guys are like, man, it's fucking hard working for the empire, isn't it? You know? But what happens is Lonnie is ingratiating himself to these guys by taking this shot, but then like giving him this, but then taking that.

So that when Gorsd is bringing his fun factory to town to Corson, he hears about it, doesn't get deeply involved with it and it is implied is able to tip Luthan off. I assume, right? Like, did you feel that that was rushed?

That this was... I thought it felt a little bit like we need Bix and Cassian off this planet for episode seven. Yeah, and we need to wipe some of the board clean in terms of what's motivating her, what's keeping her traumatized in that way. She needs to get her revenge moment. I will say that, like, the show is one of the best things about it is that it is not sentimental and it creates entire worlds.

So you were hoping for a grace note with Gorsed? No, I just think that like the show casually, the show, you asshole. The show created like just casually a all-time Star Wars villain. Yeah. And shout out Joshua James, who plays the part, who is also an all-time industry villain in his role as the HR guy on industry. It's incredible. What a two-role run.

It's amazing. he's probably a lovely guy but I did this was the first we don't know we don't judge it's the first time in the run of Andor

where I was like oh maybe there was a five season plan or maybe there was more story to tell and it's hard to squeeze in everything into the self chosen um vehicle of three episode arcs

you know what I mean Like it just, it felt a little vestigial. It felt a little rushed. And it did the thing that I actually, that always rubs me the wrong way, which is, it's so disorienting when it happens that I was like, is this a dream sequence? Is this Bix? Is this another one of her? I mean, she had been having these. She had been having these sleepless nights and these nightmares.

And I thought for a second when he is going into his office where the torture device is just sort of sitting there. Yes. And there's no security, even though he's this super important guy who's going to. changed interrogation for the entire empire. Yes, I was like, how did that happen? How did they get in there? How is she hiding inside of his office? All that, but...

And look, if this is the first and maybe only time that a show that actually is trying in 24 episodes to tell the story of a galactic... The birth of a galactic rebellion, if this is the first time I felt something was a little rushed or underserved, then okay. Here's my argument for it. But I did, just to your point of like following the path that is laid for us, us. I was able to say, okay, there was the Lonnie scene where they talk about it.

There is the moment when Bix is up and she does not seem to be having sleep terrors and she says that the lights blinking and so we know they have another mission. They did the work, but I still felt a little underserved to me. Yeah, I guess I would be, I have seen someone need to get vengeance on their

their captor a lot. I've never seen. Oh, I thought you were talking about in your real life. No. That's my... Kyah, zoom in. I feel like we're about to get really good content. No, I feel like that is one of those things that you would watch over the course of, say, six episodes or season and be like, I'm pretty sure Bix is going to kill this guy eventually. And instead we get it in like five minutes or whatever, the cumulative scream time of him putting her in this situation, her experiencing the PTSD from it.

And then Luthin making good with the two of them by giving them this target that maybe in his political or his, cost effective his cost balance sheet he might be like maybe not yet we would do that some other time we would get like the most bang for our buck but he needs both of them operating especially if he was a centaur.

Yeah and I think that's exactly right and I also think that you know for as over weighted as the autore theory is the reason why ultimately the captain of the ship matters is for just kind of tough decisions

and there are few people that I would trust more than Tony, looking at the game board of the story he wants to tell and the real estate he has, you know, making some tough decisions, killing some darlings, killing some sadistic doctors. Yeah. Like, we have six episodes left in this whole story. And if there wasn't room for more of this, then it would, I'm going to give him the benefit of doubt that that was the right decision. Who would you like to talk about next? Um, well, I think I want to talk about just the world of Gorman as it was created, as it's presented. Um, I am always, always, always, just enthralled and delighted

by the attention paid to local customs, local language. There's sort of a very, very, very obviously French influenced, made up tongue here. Richard Sammel, who is in Glorious Bastards as the Nazi that the Bear Jew

bats his head off, playing a French resistance leader and Andor is fantastic. Some people might know him as from the strain as well. An FX show that appears, I think he's like totally memory hold. I think we talked about that quite a bit. We did. Yeah.

Well, we really had a lot of, what's his name stock, the guy who played Hemingway, our bald king, you know, character actor, billions. Even Kaya can't get it. The guy, oh, Corey Stole? Yes. You know what's funny? You know where my brain went? I mean, my brain is barely functioning anymore, which makes it great that I do this.

We just improvise a podcast twice a week. But like there was a, right before I left New York, there was a. character actor Nexus in Park Slope at the corner, at the F stop on 7th Avenue. Don't blow up their spot. Right by, it's been years. Right by Smiling Pizza,

where like invariably, at least once a week, I would see either Corey Stahl or Noah Emmerich, or you'd see sometimes see a Busemi. They were probably all on their way to the billion set. Generally. I mean, it was a good life. Anyway, yeah.

Why am I talking about Corey Stoll? Because Richard Samel is... strain. In the strain. Yeah, that was cool of him. He was in the strain. He was like the main Dracula guy. Do you want to clear out and talk about the strain? Um, Kai's got some strain takes that are a decade old. She's ready to fire off. Guy's trying to upgrade her heim tickets. I know. I hope. I can't wait for an update. Um, anyway, uh, the gestures, the sort of the way that they speak and relate to each other. The, the little berets. I mean, it's, it's such a, a choice and honestly a not a very,

I was going to say not a very Star Wars one, but this is a franchise that began with the Imperial Forces having stormtroopers. So I would say that Star Wars was born from a place of World War II iconography, but it was a, in that sense, a nice return to it, that it was just so specifically like with the catacombs and, I mean, this is the French resistance. Yes, absolutely. And when we talk a little bit at the end of this about some of the stuff that we're enjoying on the outside, on the outer rim of Andor,

like for the Andor syllabus, we can get into that. Do you want to do Clea and Lonnie at all? Just that one scene? What a glow-up for Clayah and Lonnie. First of all, Clea might be my low-key favorite character on this show right now. You have a type. I think this is...

What? Strong women. What? I think I was going to say something untoward? People who know a lot about art. Yeah. And radios. People who like to touch the art, you know?

It's Elizabeth Dulao is the actress Yeah, and she's pretty much right out of the Royal Academy of Drama And this is like her first big role, I think. Wild. She's a background player, not a background player, but like a supporting character in the first season And now feels increasingly important in the second season. I just love that scene where you have two people

who are the third or fourth person in a meeting. And who then have to hold Yes. Everything. And I thought maybe the most significant part about that, other than her grinding her hand into shreds to get this transistor out of an ancient piece of braille, which in itself as a communication device, was just credit. Clocking all of these people, Mothma, Luthin, being in the same place. What are we doing over here? Do you feel like the Star Wars universe should have a little bit more subtle bugging technology?

Like it did feel a little like analog The thing I always love about Star Wars is like The kind of vintage future futuristic vintage aspects of it So yes You know I also start a fire in the gallery or something like I mean I guess this scene proved it

Because there was a moment where I was like The value of placing a bugging device And Clay had disagreed with the placing of it to begin with But like in Sculpin is his name A Sculton Skoldens Scolpin is an IPA That's an IPA from

Yeah yeah yeah I don't like it I don't drink IPAs. No. No, just you and your strong women sipping light loggers to see our lifestyle. Look where it's got you. I would like to try and do that at LACMA just to go up to like a really important piece of art

and start. I just have a transistor under this. Or it's like the thing about Alexander Calder Mobiles, you think they're hanging, but they're actually a living book language and you just sort of just really just grind your hands on it. The idea that it would be a tart target-rich environment in his chamber of antiquities, but clearly it's where he brings powerful

people. Yeah. So that scene was excruciating in the best way to watch. Yeah. It also was connected in a nice way to one of my favorite runners in the episode, which was Mon Mothma as El. For people who, what's a runner? Oh, just something that you hit more than one time in an episode.

I definitely knew it. I just wanted everybody else to be able to hear it. You just, you know, so what you should have said is, you're right, that you were just testing me. The Mon Mothma is LBJ. Yeah. Like doing the Robert Caro version of this particular time in Imperial history. I'm just trying to like buttonhole like all the different senators, some of whom are fantastical creatures. I do love Loki like when Tony's like, okay, fine, it can be a walrus guy. You know what I mean?

Like it's never a main character. It's always someone who's looking at the art. Senator Walrus. Yeah. And it's just like, oh, mothma. And then it's like, okay, now we're moving on. The guy had Angus King vibes. Exactly.

He's just an independent. Yeah, he's caucusing. I thought Genevieve O'Reilly just remains one of the absolute spines of the show. She now does something that's very difficult to podcast about, but I suppose I can try and I can just do it for the camera here and you can describe it for podcasting, which is she has mastered the ha ha ha ha ha. Oh, the dead fit. Yeah, like I'm laughing at some asshole talking about something.

And then as soon as he goes away, I like think about the rebellion. That's why the show rewards multiple viewings, and one of the things that jumped out in my second viewing of the season premiere, is I don't know if it's a oneer in the style of the studio, for example, but when she arrives in Khorasan and there's the whole, I mean, it's just such a flex. We're reintroduced to these characters over a dispute about parking. Oh, yeah.

And then it follows her as she makes small talk with people. Including Benjamin Brat. No, no, I'm talking about it. In the premiere, there's a parking thing. And then she walks in shadows and her face falls. And then someone walks by her and it comes back up again. And it's like the thing you do to entertain babies where you put your hand in front of your face and like, now I'm smiling.

Babies love that, by the way, just a little. I know, but next time you're in a room with a bunch of them. But in this one, yes. So there was a little bit of a recasting. Yeah. This is Senator Bail Organa. Leah's dad? Well, quote unquote.

You don't think use the real paternity? You think if there's something I don't know about? Laya's dad? I'm just kidding. Tell me what a runner is. Leia's adopted father. Yes. But, you know, you know, you may have been a father, but you're sure, you know, you weren't a dad.

Like, there's different people can play different roles in people's lives. That's true. I don't think Anakin was doing the face thing with Leah. It was usually Jimmy Smith. Usually. Yeah, it was. Previously, it was Jimmy Smiths. And now was Benjamin Brad, who I thought looked great.

I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled to have him. He also seemed, by the way, that was a 30-second scene. Yeah, I hope he gets more screen time going forward. But as my now almost 12-year-old says in an alarming amount of times, he ate in that scene. He ate in that scene. The last thing I really wanted to talk about was Saw Guerrera, but if there was other stuff you wanted to... I mean, we didn't really get that deep into Sintinville's plot line, but that was pretty self-explanatory.

Dedra and Cyril, we kind of chatted about. Loved it. Oh, I did want to, a quick... It's really fun seeing them just be psyched to have ED in the show more. And I did wonder, not to make this personal, more personal than it is, but when Cyril comes back and he's playing a role, but he is also always trying to establish himself as a credible adult in the eyes of his, disapproving eyes of his mother,

he then sits across from her and slurps his blue milk cereal again. And I wondered if you felt any connection to that scene as someone who is, you know, a successful adult man in the world. But then when you go home again and you're like, mom, any chicken salad in the fridge? It's like how I feel when I go home. And I'm like, you know, I've been traveling quite a bit lately. I've been in London and enjoying cafe culture.

And then there's a bag of her sour cream and onion potato chips. I'm like, thank you. It's like, go away and just be filthy with it for a while. I thought that was a nice touch. Saw. Yeah, let's talk about saw. A couple things here. Number one is, I guess it's time to rewatch Rogue One in earnest,

because I think that the Saw stuff is on ramping to that. He is also obviously supposed to be a foil to Luthin's style of rebellion. Saw is obviously much more nakedly militaristic. He is essentially Colonel Kurtz, like my methods are unsound, and also Colonel Kilgore from Poglobes now when it comes to, Speechifying. I still don't know if I completely understand what Wilman and the variations are.

So it seems like... It's a lock pick, but it's also got nuclear power in there. Okay. I guess. Also, this is another thing that the show does. Wilman has been on the show for a while. Yes. This is a new look at him and a new role.

I mean, he is the one. He threw the, the, the bomb. Yes. So he is... And Tony talked about this in the Hollywood Reporter thing where he's like,

well, we had him throw the bomb, so we were like, all right, I guess he has to leave because he threw the bomb. Yeah. And then like just comes up with something for this guy to do, which is basically be going up the river

with Sagar era. And become a revolutionary, not just a spy or whatever. And I think that that's another one of the things that clearly different stories and books and real life history has influenced Tony, this idea of like, can you be a...

Can you keep your hands clean? in conflict? Can you be a gentleman spy? Can you continue to do, as Luthan does, like, you know, have, literally have a different hair, beautiful flowing robes and love, lovely things, and then also be down in the dirt.

Yes. And so it's just, again, it's just really, really smart story scaffolding to say we have this character, we're not really sure what to do with him. Ah, we can implant him here and give us a, you know, ground, you know, put him at the...

POV character. At the ground floor. of a different style that is all going to come to a head. Rather than espionage. Also, we can give the young actor a glimpse at another style of acting, which is a Forrest Whitaker. The Forrest Whitaker essentially gives Wilman a version of the speech that Luther gave Lani in the first season.

They both say the same thing, which is, I will die before I see this mission accomplished or fail. You know, so... Does you say, we'll all be dead before the Republic is back? I'm going to read it because it is an incredible piece of... writing. Can you read it? I'm not going to do it in Forrest Whitaker's voice. I just simply won't. Okay. So you do have a line. That itch, that burn, you feel how badly she wants to explode. He's talking about Rido,

which is this napalmy stuff inside of the thing. Like, we can get into it. Remember this, moment, this perfect night. You think I'm crazy. Yes, I am. Yeah. Revolution is not for the sane. Look at us. Unloved, hunted, cannon fodder. will all be dead before the Republic is back and yet here we are where are you boy you're here you're not with Luthin you're here right here and you're ready to fight

we're the Rido kid we're the fuel we're the thing that explodes when there's too much friction in the air would you have attempted the Forrest Whitaker voice if Clayah had told you to do it in a stern way I would do it if Forrest Whitaker could pick a voice because I do feel like he brought a lot of different options to the screen He's such a unique and incredible actor.

Yeah. There's an element when he does things like this, which is just like, what if Michael Jordan just shot left-handed for a while? Yeah. You know, which, respect. But it's wild. So you're, what was at the end?

What is Wilman doing? Is he unlocking something? Are they stealing the fuel? I don't know. Maybe that is what it is, right? But like in the beginning with the guy who winds up being a traitor quote unquote. Yeah.

Oh, was he teaching him how to do the thing that he has? It's like there's these very specific things, the variations that they have to do to unlock something or whatever. In any case.

They're learning all of them because he won't tell anyone where they're actually going. And when he tells that guy, it's because that guy keeps asking. Specifically, which makes him clear that he... Although it did seem like maybe

that microphone was planted. I mean, it seemed very convenient. He's like, look. Here's the thing. And they're all like, wah. Yeah.

It is kind of dope to just be like, shoot someone and go, traitor. Well, I think you're actually on to something. I think that is part of what they're doing. Like, who decides any of this. Part of what who's doing?

Great question. Yeah. Great, great, great, great, great question. Okay, that was pretty much my jam there. The, yeah, the scope and scale of this continues to just kind of astound, I think. And I have no, I really, just to go back to the way the delivery system, I, I, really, just to go back to the way the delivery system, The thing I enjoy most about this is that, I mean, I don't know if there was a next week on

I didn't look, so I actually have no idea where we're going, where we're going, when we're going. I mean, we're running out of time before Rogue 1, but I think it's kind of thrilling. We're BBY 3? We were, yeah, but who knows where we'll be next? I think it's BBY 2. We can save this for when we're looking back on this season,

but, God, I just, there's so, much in this show that I wish non, I wish people who make TV would take. Well, maybe we should do a lessons of Andor. Yeah. Oh, we didn't do our syllabus. I can just rattle off a couple of things.

This is sort of like a living document for folks. So I know that this can be a little bit frustrating. And maybe Andy and I or I can make a YouTube video where we just like list all this stuff and show different copies of it. I would start, if I may, with Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows. It's a film from the late 60s that Melville's

that Melville made about the French resistance and really reminds me of Andor and it's, it's how shabby and unglorious the work of the rebel is, the resistor is, and also how complicated it is in terms of internal factions and betrayals. It is an incredible film. I highly recommend anybody to see it, even if you haven't seen Andor,

but it's because of what I ask to say about the French resistance, but it's incredible. You know what else? This is a little bit more basic, but you know what else is just always worth revisiting? Like I love the way that this show celebrates potentially more obscure things. Like there are a bunch of, there's like a Robert Brasson movie called like a man escaped. There's a Schabrelle's line of demarcation.

Like there's a tradition of French resistance movies that are also not fully about it. It's like they're symbolically about resistance but are, yeah. Because they couldn't also, it was happening in real time. And Escaped is crazy. These are crazy movies. There was a movie I was inspired to start watching. It's on Max now. It's Truffautos, the Last Metro, which is about life and wartime.

And it was notable. It was made in the 80s. It was more notable because it was almost as if enough time it passed that they could really say, I mean, the movie begins with a map of France being like, here's Vichy, here's what it was like. Yeah. But also Casablanca. Like movies like Casablanca or third man, like movies about people trapped in circumstances, where shifting allegiances and the world.

inside of a place no longer matches the world outside of the place. I was thinking about that with just the throwaway line about like this cafe used to be filled with a certain type of person. Yeah. It's interesting you should mention the last metro and the different points in history where France has looked back on the resistance with different eyes. I'm reading a book called Fighters in the Shadows, which is, it's called a new history of the French resistance. It's by Robert Gildea. And it's fascinating because it's about how not only the resistance, worked, but also the way the resistance has been viewed

in French culture over the decades, because it had a much different meaning after Algeria, after some of the colonies rebelled against France's imperial colonial rule. And a lot of the people who were in the French resistance

were on the side of France's colonial exertion of their colonial power. This was in Monsieur Spade as well. Yes. So there's a lot of nuance to being against one fascistic force. There's still nuance within it. I mean, and I thought so far what I've read of Fighters in the Shadows is quite intriguing about that.

And by the way, one of the great, there are many tragedies, I think, not real-life tragedies, but creative tragedies in the wake of the Star Wars 7,8,9 trilogy, the more recent trilogy. one of which being was somehow the emperor has returned somehow the first order when it's just like actually what's complicated and what's rich and what's interesting and what is baked into I mean I've talked about this before

how like Andor feels like this incredible it's not retconning it's just like reputation saving and also fandom saving acknowledgement that George Lucas wasn't just pulling stuff out of his ass like there was it was yes it was influenced by like

you know Flash Gorman Jordan serials, but also being a child of that era that he was a child of and the global power structure and World War II and the shadow that it cast. What if the sequel trilogy had been about overreach, about we've unleashed Saw Guerreras to pursue a single goal. And then once that goal was achieved, we couldn't control them anymore. And then what happened? Like, there's so much story there.

And that's not what those movies did at all. I wanted to name, you mentioned it. So I was going to reference it just again. Like we love and we talk about a lot, the writer Alan First, who is a great, great American spy novelist. All of his books are set within like a three-year window during World War II. Mostly in France. Yeah. They're so sick.

All of them. Some of them are connected and sometimes characters will appear, but you can just pick them up. The ones that I was specifically thinking of, some of my favorites are a two book series and it's the world at night and red gold. And I was thinking about it specifically because it's about a film producer who gets drawn into the world of the resistance. and there's a little tiny echo of a fashion designer being like, what do I do now? The first novel we've talked about before that I was going to mention was Knight Soldiers, just because it is a very Lutheran-Cassian-esque premise of this kid who's been bullied by regional fascistic soldiers in Bulgaria, I think.

In the beginning of the World War II, is recruited into working for, the NKVD, right? That's right. But then winds up fighting in Spain, fighting all over. And it's basically a Zellig like figure throughout the war.

For what it's worth, and we could maybe one day do a podcast about this. Like many great novelists, the first books are so dense. I mean, these weren't his first books. He wrote a bunch of other books that are all out of print,

and then he suddenly found his voice in 1988 with night soldiers. And it's epic. And Dark Star is also epic. And they're huge books. It's almost, like he had one swing, one turn at bat, and then he settled into a rhythm of basically writing another one of these every two years for a bunch of years, and the books get smaller and more

focused. Night Soldiers is incredible. I started with Kingdom of Shadows. You could start anywhere. Dark Star is, I think the first, first novel you wrote, maybe? No, Night Soldiers is, oh, just Dark Star. Night's Dark Star, then Polish officer, the world at night, and then he kept rolling. But any of them you could pick up. And the other series, I've mentioned before, it is, slightly similar is David Downing series about a spy named John Russell. Every book is named after train station. It's in Germany. Zoo Station, I think, is the first one. They're, not only are they all good, they're more than I realized. When I was searching just to make sure I got the order right, he wrote one last year with the same character now living in 1950s Los Angeles called Union Station.

Oh, I didn't know that. So let's go. But yeah, just in the sense of like people and his girlfriend in the books, John Russell is a German film star, and it's a sense of someone at the heart of something whose world collapses around them. And then what do you do? I have a couple of other things, but I almost feel like we should keep this rolling. You should keep adding to the list. And then maybe we do a big master list when Andor is over as a video or something. That's great. And then could we pitch our All Star Wars episode 7, 8, and 9? Sure. I'm sure Bob Eiger would write a check for. Many Maoist guerrillas are still on the run. Thanks to Kyya.

Thanks to John. We'll be back on Monday talking Last of Us and a couple of other things. And, yeah, and or stuff continues throughout the season. How many Karems are you going to crush this weekend? Yeah, I'll try and check it out. It's France. Yeah. Let's go.

Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items. Then review your list and carefully choose each one. Then we pack it all up and deliver. it in as little as 30 minutes, so you can feel confident it's what you ordered. Fresh groceries, your way, with Ralph's delivery and pickup. Get free delivery during online deal days, plus $30 off your first online order. Ralph's, fresh for everyone.