All right. Merry Christmas. Oh, the crumbo. That's right, everyone. Merry Christmas to all of the good night. Well, that's Santa. Nothing was stirring, not even a ramp in the rat. Merry Chrysler. Oh, wait. That just got cut off. You don't know about ramp in the rat. Dang. Well, I think most people know about him. He's pretty famous and cool. Oh, OK. We were before before we started, we were talking about ramping, who is, of course, a rat.  He was not, despite being a creature on this night, in particular, nothing, including him, was stirring. He was not stirring.   Oh, no, no, no. Rampin knows that when the people have their little festivities and get-togethers, there's always going to be excess food that's left out and around. And maybe he's just like the pet rat of the family. He's not just an unpaying tenant. He's just, he just lives in the house and he walks around and he just sort of eats with the family.  Yeah, Rampin has his opinions, which is pretty neat, right? Like, it's not just a rat. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but you have a friend that can talk to you about all kinds of media. I wish I had a Star Wars rat friend. Not Salacious Crumb, not him. He would very quickly wear out his welcome because he'd always be going, meh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, how do you get a kid to do it, yeah. He most likely laughs when people are suffering, too, so. Oh, OK. Well, because this is our job and we have to talk about things, modern media, on a live format that extends for like a third of a day, there would be a great deal of suffering in my household and there he'd be. Laughing as we discussed how terrible Star Wars has become, asterisk, he would be Salacious Crumb himself.  I don't understand. You keep doing that. How does he know? Stop it. Salacious and I, we would sit down together on the couch as we do and it was his turn to pick the show and, of course, the little the little rat bastard decided to pick Star Wars as he always does. I had always kept up hope that one day he would choose something else to view, but he said no. He said this will obviously be in his voice. I'll have to imagine that at home. This is the theater of the mind section of the EFAP episode. Yes. Salacious would look up to me with his ugly rat face and he would say and he would say, let's watch this new Star Wars show that came out. That sounds just like Andorre. Yeah, yeah, you have to you have to imagine. No, I don't know that the dialogue like that just sounds like something you would say. You'd say it so blankly and you'd have like a little smirk. He does have the smirk because he's sitting here going, oh, yes, new Disney Star Wars.  Like this goes all the way back to when the OT came out, right? You guys were sitting there on the sofa and out it came. I really, I know it sounds a little cruel, but I kind of wish I didn't pick him up on the side of the road and nurse him back to health. Yeah. He's kind of a menace. You know how bad he was with Jabba. Can you imagine in this post-Jabba world how just off the chain he is, so to speak. But that was the most interesting time, right? When you guys were watching Retina the Jedi and he was showing you his, because that was obviously a documentary. It was a documentary about his lifestyle or his, he's quite young in the film. He had a lot to learn. He got involved with some bad people. There was some money was needed. It was fun at first. It was fun at first, but then it became. We got tasered. He got in too deep. He got in too deep. And he got out of there. He did, he did get out of there. That's what he decided to do next, but. Unless it was he on the barge when it exploded, but I guess it doesn't matter because it was Max Rebo. Yeah, Rebo's out of there as well. Yeah, he's okay. I've seen him around. He's fine.  Like people there who are just patrons? Yeah, because I bet a lot of them were just like people and there was like a party and everything. I suppose they're supporting the horrible system though. Or were they told that the people getting executed had broken the law to a very significant degree and they were horrible, terrible, terrible people. And so really, you know, it's just the law of the land being executed. It's not exactly too fashist. I don't see Max, like if we take Max Rebo as the example, right? Or the weird snoot mouth lady or the weird, the brown one, the CGI brown one, because as far as brown colored, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that to be, to have your fur be brown colored metal. So they were probably fine people. You know, they were probably just there to make a buck. You know, their music was good, recurring, gig, nice and safe, go to the Jabba's Palace house, play some music, sing your songs. Maybe they'll be someone dropping a rank or play music. It won't be you. Knowing much of anything about the context. I guess you'd know the Jabba is kind of a dodgy thing. You probably would. You'd be an absolute fool to not know. You'd have to have just landed on the planet. But I guess, yeah, when you accept the job of going there to play music, you should know that some rebels might explode the place and you could die. So you have to song them to a degree. There's an understanding that someone might get dropped into a rancor pit. And as long as it's not you, which it's very unlikely to be, then carry on. Yeah, as long as you're playing your music nice and chill. Play your music, sing your songs. Watch the goings on of Jabba's Palace. Back in its heyday, those Halcyon days. Not this madness that we get with. What was that show? The Book of Boba Fett. I was gonna say, jumping around the history, right? So you and Cromwell watching the OT. The OT was pretty solid and fun and cool. Yeah, yeah. It kind of kicked off a whole franchise. I don't know if anyone remembers it. Star Wars, yeah. Like sci-fi fantasy space opera. Yeah, that's pretty niche, though. You shouldn't expect everybody to know that. Well, hence the intro. You have to be into science and fiction. The Venn diagram for that is pretty. It would wait until people find out about the Y-Wing. They're going to be going nuts. Why would we talk about a Y-Wing? They would be saying that's what a Y-Wing is. So OT is pretty neat. You know, as stories go, it's considered a classic in more ways than just it as a thing itself in culture as a classic, but it tells a classic story, right? What are all the people called? The hero's journey. Standard journey for a guy who's like, oh my God, I'm unfulfilled. And then he gets called to action and eventually at the end he goes through all kinds of tribulation, reaches himself a new man. And simultaneously, the world is defended from an evil fascist government that it's something that everyone can feel pretty good about. And it was phenomenal to say the least. It got like a huge amount of attention for not only breaking all kinds of records in terms of box office and engagement, but it did a bunch of things technologically that impressed it. Wowed people, rags and salacious when they watched on this little sofa. They were like, whoa, this is amazing on our 4K. It's not a little sofa. It's a pretty normal sized sofa. No, it's a little one to me, because I'm big. You? Yeah. Okay, I guess. But it's just normal size. No, it's small. So all sizes are small. You don't have to say this. Mine isn't small. You're gonna distinguish this sofa not compared to other sofas, but to yourself. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's a little sofa. It's a little cute little sofa. Okay, it is cute though. Yeah, well, one of us is cute. So he's just is staggeringly ugly, actually. Rinpen is there as well, right? He's quite foul. I've woken up in the middle of the night and seen his shadow creeping against the wall. And let me tell you, his profile, it legitimately terrifies me. Oh, well. I should probably start locking the cage. Yeah, yeah, I've woken up and seen him sometimes. He gets around. He's busy at night, I guess. He does get around. Turns out he's nocturnal. Yes. Yeah, he didn't want to go out into the sun in Return of the Jedi, but that's why he likes being inside the palace, because it's always night there. They're always just having a great nighttime. It's dark. So you get that landscape. It's all good. It's all great. There's only different movies coming out, but Star Wars is a cool guy. And they made three movies and they were like, okay, that's good. And then sometime later, the creator of it, Mr. Lucas himself was like, I'm gonna make three more. Okay, here I go. And then he did it. It was like, whoa, calm down, Mr. And for those of you who don't even know, too much. We've covered Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith across EFAP's long, long history, two different results with different formats for them. And my God, what history? What history lay there? Oh my goodness. Recalls. Oh, right. I remember. They were interesting. They did what you could easily call, they expanded Star Wars, and I think they would have increased its overall fan base, but they were also a little bit cringe, they were all bad films as it seems to be. There was a fun to them and there was a heart to them. Yeah. And so loads of things would spawn off and be generated. They were like a catalyst for Star Wars content and adoration, kind of interesting, especially here in the generation of, a lot of the common sort of media commentators, the prequels came out when they were in more formative years. And so they hold a position of being discussed with some form of reverence, if not inspiration for different stories as well as just foundationally, hey, it kicked Star Wars onward, it kept going. It did. It was sitting over all, still laughing a little bit though. He was laughing at it. Yeah, he was laughing, but here's the thing, we were both laughing. The prequels, that was the high point of our, I don't want to say relationship, his continued presence in my own, but that was a high point of whatever we have going. It is not fraternal nor sexual. I'd rather despise him, but that was the peak because we were laughing together. Oh, we both know it's, that's the thing, right? We all know it's bad, right? We both know, I know and he knows, but we both appreciate that. Look at this fun show, look at him. Oh, he said hi there. Oh my gosh, there's Dexter Jester. Wow, that is, wow, incredible. We had a good time laughing together. We were united for a few moments. And the third one ends and it sits up right next to the beginning of a new hope. It almost like slap bang, just is like, look, there you go, you don't need anymore.  But of course, Star Wars fans out there, including Salacious were like, well, could we maybe get some more? I don't know, you know, post OT, pre OT, post prequels, pre pre, maybe even during the OT and during the prequels, why not, right? The Star Wars is pretty big. We could have more stuff. I wanna see more Jedi going, I wanna see more space. It's called, and then Hyperspace and Blasters. And so it's like, more, do more, right? And then along came a hero known as Disney.  I think you guys, you need more Star Wars and Evil Ol Lucas is only making that Clone Wars TV show. We need him to make more movies, right? And they're like, yeah. And then they bought it to everyone. Yeah, Disney. Yeah. Oh, Disney. Oh, Disney. The long came. Didn't they? The Force Awakens, which I still remember when that trailer came out. I was like, oh my God, this looks interesting and good. A Star War. Can you believe that there's a Stormtrooper and he took his helmet off and he's a guy? Oh my gosh, that might be a character. Oh, yes. There could be something with that. That could be really cool, but they do with that idea. Wow. And who is this kid? A shell-shocked Stormtrooper.  This is super interesting. We should definitely develop all of that, yeah. And then like a heroic pilot who's captured but tortured by this new guy who is familiarly connected to Han and Leia, but. I like how you said captured, but tortured. Well, you know, captured can be good for some people, depending on the service. That's true. I wish someone would capture salacious crumb off of my couch. Well, so I learned. It was so weird, right? Because you were like, you would chill with the Force Awakens, but he was cackling. You were like that way. Here's the thing. I found out why his last name is crumb. He is a crummy guy. He leaves. Crumbs. He just, he crumbs everywhere. Well. Don't ask me how I found out that his name was, why his name was salacious as well. Both the dictionary for that one, but you see, we got a position of like, oh, that was neat. Well done. I can't wait to see how this story unfolds.  And I remember you just being like, why are you laughing so hard? Like, we didn't know. We didn't know what was happening. Didn't know. You know, two years later, they're like, hey, wanna try out this new thing we got right here? Like what is this? Like they call it the final Jedi. Like what? Like the last one. That's kind of like the sequel.    Just fucks everything up. And at this point, Salacious Crumb is just losing it, offing, I mean, so for you. That's absolutely- I'm glad that he, I mean, I wish we all kind of were aware of the joke or that we could get so much joy from this movie, which I guess we did, very indirectly. But yeah. And it's kind of weird. It's like, well, the Star Wars thing was cool, but I'm not sure if it is anymore. And so, you know, that's when the Avengers assembled and we made full podcast here, talking about that thing. We wanted to know, you know, what is this going on with this Star Wars guy?  Like, you know, Disney might not be directing it in the best of directions, honestly. This last Jedi guy, he's not cool, not fan. And then they were like, well, we're making another one. Hmm, okay. But- That won't come out before we get a little bonus one in the middle. Like, what is this? Solo, a solo story. And it was like, ooh, ouch. And at this point, I think Crumb was like offing with laughter, right? He was just- It was, I was, my fingers crossed, I hoped he died. Yeah. But he wasn't laughing that much. So it's like, what does that mean?  And it had gone beyond a joke almost. Like, this is getting really bad and those sticky fingers were getting everywhere.  So what's going on here? You know, this is getting weird. Rise of Skywalker comes out and because- Oh, yeah, that movie. The atmosphere, it's just like, well, most people thought it was gonna be a joke anyway. And the thing is, it pissed off general OT Star Wars fans. It pissed off Rise of Skywalker, like, sorry, Force Awakens fans, PLJ fans. And just, it didn't really have many fans of itself. Ralo fans liked it right up until the last few minutes. They were upset that the two got separated. Just to make sure we're all on the same page. Is like, that's the Rise of Skywalker is a, what one would consider a clown movie. Nobody liked it. Everybody agrees it was terrible. Nobody remembers what happened. I feel like all three of them were clown movies. I think that the way to describe it would be that for a while, the Force Awakens was not a clown movie.  That's pretty good, actually. It's a return to form. It took a little while. Yeah, but we're in 2022 now, so. Yeah, we're at the point now where I think people accept it's a clown movie. I don't find anybody who likes that movie at all. Yeah. Well, yeah, TLJ is the 50-50 split. 50% of people think it's a clown movie, maybe a little bit more, but then there's much more art. It's not a clown movie. It's brilliance is what it is. It's profound, really. But also don't get too upset about the continuity or whatever. I mean, this is a space wizard like thing. You know, it's goofy. And yet all children are really hard for children. Things that they had to do to justify that this, the coping is what, the cope is unreal. Yeah, and there was no cope though for the rise of Skywalker. That was just, nobody liked it. Well, yeah, and it was funny because I think the angriest people were the TLJ fans. They were like, you've destroyed everything. And we were all saying they're like, how does it feel, man? You listen to the audience or whatever and this is what you get. And it's like, look, the audience didn't write that clown movie, okay? Oh, yeah, I saw people saying I was to blame. Yeah, I didn't realize that you were a co-writer. Yeah, he knew what would happen. He knew what would happen. Then it's kind of interesting because the absolute sort of decimation of the film side of Disney Star Wars coincided with the beginning of the streaming side of Disney Star Wars, which is now the prominence. An ultimate Mandalorian season one episode came out. Was it a day before Rise of Skywalker? Yes, but it had the force healing to coincide with that. Yeah, so that it probably set it up, but, you know, we asked it to be completely in-camera. Because that's what it means to set something up. That's how it works, yeah. It's the one day before the film comes out. I genuinely think that's hard to dampen the blow of being like, we're going to introduce a whole last new force power that changes everything. It's like, cool. And the thing is, you know, the new era of like streaming for Disney Star Wars was received a lot more favorably, you know? People thought Mando was pretty good. We think back to those times. Mando season one, we were not happy. And a lot of other people, dare I say, most other people were like, so you guys have got that issue then, have you? And we're like, what?  If you're not being honest, you're just trying to bank on hating. Really? No, no, it's just bad. I mean, the thing with The Mandalorian was the first couple of episodes we were all right with for a time. I watched them again. And the longer that it went, well, yeah. Because now the whole thing was like, yeah. But I mean, it was by the time we hit episode four, it's like, uh-oh. Oh yeah, four was, we're back. The first time on our first viewing of the season one of The Mandalorian, the show by the Disney. We thought episode one was good or pretty good. Episode two was fine, not as good. Episode three, uh-oh, we're getting really shaky here. And episode four was we're back in the pledge. I was done after three, but I remember me and Rags like absolutely despised four. I thought it was a complete disaster. God awful. And then we watched it again. We talked to a couple people about it to see if we were sane. Yeah. Just to be clear, it's bad from the beginning. It's always been bad. Yeah, episode one's really bad too. It's just that it sort of slinked by, I guess. I think it's slinked by because we were just talking about the thing. And I think something that was really lame for me with The Mandalorian was something that I've wanted from Star Wars for a long time. It's to get some stories. Now of course they exist elsewhere, right? Like a video game. To get some story stories. I wanted some of these bigger stories to actually like move away from the main line story of like Skywalkers and Palpatines and the solos. Like that main storyline and to focus on this massive universe's other stories with characters who don't really have much to do with that main line story and Jedi or anything. And The Mandalorian seemed like that had the potential to be that, right? It's about a bounty hunter traveling around the galaxy, doing jobs for people, coming into contact with all sorts of different groups going to different planets. But that would be the promise of that show. That's not what I got at all. I hope. Well, yeah. And I just want to let everyone know. It was like that was felt as though it was the final step in the right direction, finally saving Star Wars. When we were like, so this is just empty and it's mainly appealing to like things you know. When we were, we were almost on books, we were like, this is going to be more substantive, right? They're showing the Empire struggling. They're showing, you know, there's characters who exist in this world beyond the grandest gruggle. They're just trying to get on with whatever the hell they're getting on with. And it's like, that could be interesting. But Mando one has the same problem as season two with the efforts of trying to sort of get through the time code while convincing you a story is happening when it's not really. Yeah, because I don't really have much to say. Like who is the Mandalorian really after two seasons? It's a big problem with it. He's a... And a few episodes in Book of Boba Fett. Most characterization we got was he's bigoted toward droids. Until he was extremely inconsistent. Until he was gone. Yeah. But like, it's not even, it's not even something that I describe as much of a character trait as it is. Like the way that it's used, it's just like a fun fact that gets removed. Kind of. It's a fun fact that they sort of forget about. And then kind of remember at the end. It's cause the droid, like the separatist droids would have attacked and killed his parents. That's great. Okay, that's something. That's a lot more for us to use there too. And it's referencing something we're familiar with and generally have a liking toward, right? The, and that was, by the way, one of the earlier examples of, oh, the prequels. We're not shitting all over the prequels anymore. We're actually using them. Okay. We're acknowledging them. Yeah. We're acknowledging their existence. That's indicative of how far Disney Star was because at the beginning, they wanted nothing to do with it. They weren't very much avoiding it. In a better world, it may have been considered respect and sort of repairing. Meanwhile, in this case, it just seemed like it was pilfering. It was like, what can we use? Yeah. Cause it didn't really use. It was more than what we made. They actually liked the proof was more than what we've made. So we should probably lever it to that. Yeah. And it's definitely at this point, that was foreshadowing for what was to come, right? Cause you go back then and we had heavy pushback. We had to argue quite a bit in favor of the, of Mandalorian being a lot more flawed than people thought, but these days not getting much pushback at all for Mandos season one.  It was neat. It was fine.  Cause they're just like, yeah. You don't remember enough about it. Because the honeymoon phase is over. It's the same. It's like, it's always the same. Like, no, it's really good. And then a month or two later. Actually you were right. It's like, yeah, I know. The book of Oberfatt didn't have a honeymoon phase really. That's true. Jumping ahead a bit, right? Isn't it season two next, Amanda? Oh, yeah. But I thought we briefly touched. Well, yeah. Season two was like bad. Well, so season two, it was interesting cause our first episode, we got huge pushback. That one episode sort of pushed back. Third, it was starting to slow down. And I believe I said it was, it was fifth.  This is pretty bad. It's like, yeah, it's just cameo city.  What season two firmly established was the sort of the way that it was going to operate going forward, which is that, oh, with Mandalorian, because he is like a bounty hunter who travels around the galaxy, he gets to sort of, he becomes embroiled in the struggles of different people that represent sort of different elements of this universe. And that can be really interesting because how does the Mandalorian react to, this job that he has to take on that sees him doing this task for this group of people or that sees him have to go to this planet or interact with this faction. That that's something that you could have in a bounty hunter show in terms of developing the Mandalorian as a character. That's not what they did. The realization was, oh, just have him meet like Ahsoka. Yeah, there she is. Oh, look, have him meet like Bo Katon and have him meet all of these other characters that we've seen before. Cause like that'll get people excited. That'll get people talking about it. Yeah, cause those are really great characters. Yeah, we got to learn all about them. We did, yeah. Oh, they also have Gus Fring. And of course, make sure that people are really excited and entertained by what's going on. We need to make sure that we have at least two action scenes every episode. Usually a smallish action scene during the first act of the episode and then a big action scene at the end. That's the formula. And it is firmly established in, in a Disney TV. Well, it's Disney TV in general because the Marvel shows have a similar structure as well of like one action scene, at least per episode, usually to one in the first act and then a big one in the third act. What's worth dropping a seed for is that we had knowledge as early as I think Mando season one. I want to say maybe even earlier of this show they're making called Andor based on Cassian Andor from Rogue One. And the sentiment, of course, was why? Andor, like, really? Why? That guy, that guy person who was in the movie? Why? And then it's like, you know, shows would keep coming out. You get like Mando and then Booker Boba Fenton. It's like, yeah, Andor is still like, they're working away. They've been working on the script for a while and they're about to spend a long time shooting it and then a long time production. And it's expensive, yeah. And it's like, oh, okay. Every time it came up, why? Just why, why, why? But they're really pushing forward on it. And it's like, okay. And as we know, like projects would keep being announced and changed. There was supposed to be a Boba Fenton and Kenobi movie, but they both got scuttled into TV shows. Because of Solo. Yeah, Solo.  But to be fair, it was Solo and TLJ, that one, two punch. I think, yeah, it is the one, two punch because Solo probably would have been more successful than the one for TLJ.   Though they had given like a set of resources and time to this other show that was off in the background.  But for now it was. You know, that wasn't, yeah, that wasn't people's, people weren't that interested. It's like, okay, yeah, Andor, but like, oh man, book of Boba Fent. Well, so yeah, if you remember Mando season two, one of the cameos is Boba Fent himself. He's like, oh, I'm so cool. And the episode with him is so indulgent, it's hilarious. Like he's just unstoppable and awesome and so cool. And I mean, that episode in particular was emblematic or representative of the writing for Mandalorian. What was it that Robert Rodriguez said that like the script was not very long at all? Yeah, I think he was given, I don't know if he said something like he was 15 pages for like the entire thing, but there was huge chunks of just, there's a fight here, do whatever you want. Yeah. And one of the things that they wanted was the rockets on the, what was it? The knee rockets, wasn't it? Yeah, I don't remember the knee rockets. That was pretty good though. I'm glad they kept that.  Like just the bolder if you remember the bolder. Having, you know, it's like a sci-fi tool versus I forgot I have a jet pack.  I'm just gonna put that jet pack here and don't take it with me anymore. Well, it was funny, right? Cause he doesn't want him to take his weapons off or even his armor. He's just like put your jet pack down. It's like, oh, that's a really weird and specific thing you want. It's like, yeah, so we can't use it. So we can't get to baby Yoda when getting kidnapped. Yeah. Even though he just left it on the floor right next to him but he still couldn't get to it. Oh, and then of course, just with just highlighting the two series of events, Luke Skywalker shows up and the whole internet went wild, except for literally us. We were like, ooh, this is lame, but not Luke.  You can't actually like anything. And it's just like really not that. We're making arguments as far as I'm concerned. We're paying attention. It's not earned.  And it's being used to distract you and distract it did. People loved it. Oh yeah. Yeah. Season two. That's a good one in our books. It ain't very loved at this point. No. Not much at all. Yeah. Because what came around next? Book of Boba Fett and Book of Boba Fett, yeah.  Boba Boba. Yes, absolute disaster. I think that's the easiest way to describe it. Was that seven episodes? Yes, it was, except it was really five because there were two Mandalorian episodes that were... Oh yeah, that's right. It's the highest thing to look back on because one of the things that happened at the end of season two of Mando was that they basically changed the formula.   Thank God. I mean, it's not gonna be good, but it'll be better because it'll have... We can finally have something built instead of wasting time going on weird adventures, meeting random people and just having Baby Yoda go blah, blah, blah, blah. That's what they've been relying on. Dangerous species. Well, I love it when our protagonist, who doesn't really do much talking or emoting or really anything in any way, what they decide to do is to pair him up with a character who's not even really sentient and can't speak and really just sort of makes baby noises and can't communicate with him. So that was an interesting creative decision. That's awesome. Yeah, I appreciate that. That's so cute. Rex, so cute.  Like there are people, I've been on several podcasts and discussions about like the Mando seasons and the first thing a lot of, and funnily enough, it's like, you'll never expect it, but it just comes out. It's just like, yeah, but Baby Yoda's really cute though. Like it's just like, what does it have to do with literally anything? No offensives of the story. Like what the, but it's like, it's a really good distraction and there's so many those moments peppered in.  And it's like, that's so amazing storytelling. He cares about him. It's like, sure, it's like, man, we're really limited here. We're scraping the barrel. We've just got nothing. We're scraping. But he's, you know, Mando at this point, he has the dark saber. He has his super spear. He has like all these connections with all these famous people. He's practically, he's like Rey, the intention with Rey in Force Awakens, which is that you are a Star Wars fan being put on a Star Wars rollercoaster. That's what Mando is. He's gone and visited all these cool places and cool people and has all these cool objects. But he's not a person. Neither is Rey. Neither of them have character. And this formula has worked for lots of projects. It's made them a decent amount of money. The reality, of course, that I would push forever is that you could have made so much more if you actually had characters. This cynical like, we're gonna build an audience insert so that people can just feel through them. There's loads of stuff behind the scenes of JJ from saying that, right? Like when you see Rey using the Millennium Falcon in the Force Awakens, it's supposed to feel like a rollercoaster of you riding the Millennium Falcon. Hence her lack of definitive and defined portraits and corners is that you can more easily staple yourself onto her. You're experiencing the Star Wars world as a fan. And it really worked. And so they've sort of been like echoing that approach. And JJ does it in a lot of his stuff, right?  It's, you know, first we were only seeing the McDonald's portion and kind of like, you know having that one time off McDonald's can be nice sometimes. You're just like, it tastes pretty good, it's satisfying.  Like I actually want to die. This is horrible. I think I am dying right now. Yeah. Yeah. And so season two closes out and Boba Fett is well into it's tenure. And there he is. He pops up again. I guess it's a fun cameo. And it's like, no, it's not a cameo. It's an episode of Mandalorian. It's everyone called it this. And everyone said like, how come it looks so much more expensive? How come it feels like it's shot by different people? How come this has like got nothing to do with Boba Fett at all? It's one of the most, I think when we watch it, it's like, I don't think I've ever seen this happen before. This is actually bizarre.  I imagine all of it was a slap job that like just came together in the end and they're just hoping people don't notice. It did have that, yeah, kind of vibe to it. Like you're like, it has that, oh shit, we need a sequel, hurry, hurry, hurry, kind of vibe to it.  And the Mando episode, I think that was the one we said was the best one, right? It still wasn't good, I don't think, but we said it was the best. Yeah, it wasn't good. So it is the one that doesn't have your main protagonist of the show in it. Well, we say it's, I think when we said it was the best, it was like, because the first 10 minutes kind of felt like we were doing something interesting. Yeah, yeah. But we were kind of exploring and going places and doing bounty hunter stuff.  Yeah. But the absolute craziest part of it all was that by the time you hit the end of Boba Fett, you find out that Luke was training baby Yoda. It doesn't go that perfectly well and he just teams back up with Mando. Yeah, and they make sure to ruin Luke again because they can't help them.     It's like, oh my God, this is just the worst. Well, it was Hull. This is absolutely the worst. Hull is all Grogu don't have emotional attachment stuff.  Grogu, you have to choose your little baby or make this, yeah, exactly. Make this choice, like, oh, well, I'm gonna do the emotional thing because I'm an infant and I want to see my friend.   I don't know why we would have seen them except maybe because we're gonna have drama with the whole dark saber thing. I guess we needed to know about that, which is, that always seemed dumb to us anyway. So it was just like, all right, fine. We'll be there eventually, whatever, but this is almost caught up to the timeline. We had one new awesome cool thing coming out and you're like, what is this? And it's a TV show based entirely around Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yeah, people have been asking for that for ages. Between the prequels and the OTs. Oh my God, finally. Finally, we're bringing in Ewan McGregor, who's the perfect age to play. This is just, this is everything. This is so good. And he's even producing it? He cares a lot about this. This should be awesome, right? And unfortunately you find out that some people are asking whether or not it's worse than Boba Fett.   We're doing something wrong. Man, that show, cause I even think the trailer we were like, there's a chance. There's a chance. The fool list, the optimistic fools that we are. So what happened? What can we say?  And it's so sad because they had every resource they could possibly want. Oh yeah. They even did the thing. The thing of you can de-age these guys pretty easily and actually create new prequel content. You could, it's not too hard. Imagine the amount of meaning you can add to the prequel era and the OT era by doing that.  It was like he was trying to teach Anakin to get too aggressive or something and it makes you miss. I can't remember. It makes you lose. No, actually Anakin just won the fight.  Yeah, because he won, he was like, you just think we were done. Actually no, so now you're lost. No, you just extended the fight because he said it is not over now even though he was winning. Don't you get it reflects the modern times because Obi-Wan, God, the amount of, I don't even know where to begin. We have coverage on it. It was eight hours in total, I think, the super cut.  My God, it's testing the ability to remain in any way just invested or competent within this. Confident in Star Wars. It's so bad. I mean, I think it's safe to say, right? Like is, you know, by the time that we got to Obi-Wan Kenobi, it was done.  Yeah, it's all been really bad. And it's been all bad in some sense in different ways, like in terms of capturing different ways that it could be bad spread across a huge amount of the timeline at this point of just like damage that's been dealt to like Star Wars as a story, like as a broad universe. There's only so many times, right? That you can like show up for something and then get kicked in the nuts. And then it's like, so, looking forward to the next show, it's like, it's only so long until they start saying, so ready for the next nut kicking? I mean, a Star Wars show. Yeah. You have maybe someone be like, so how are you still watching Marvel movies? And it's like, well, that was actually kind of the thing. We talked about this well before Phase 4 even came out.  It's like, well, you've got like 20 characters you've built up ranging from like solid to great. So you gotta, you know, there's a lot of work to be done to bring them all down. And then you've got the will to destroy, you know, plot lines to annihilate. Yeah, and just Phase 4 has been making quick work of just getting rid of everything.  I think, I think it was, by the time we got to Black Panther, Wakanda forever, I think all of us were just like, all right, so I guess we gotta, yeah, we should probably like check it out, like the coverage just to make sure that we've, you know, still got some sense of, you know, just it's such a big story in terms of pop culture that it's like, it's probably worthwhile to, you know, know what it's like and just sort of keep knowing it, right? Like as for any investment in actually watched it, like. Upon reading about like the Avengers team constructed by Falcon fighting the Thunderbolts at some point. I just thought like, I don't even, like I don't even, I don't care about these characters. I just don't care.  I don't know. I don't care. I don't even care about the world's like, oh, Ant-Man, quantum mania, we're going to the quantum or it's like, okay. I guess. I don't know what that means. I don't know.  It's going to be nonsense. And I know what at the point because like, the way that Marvel makes movies seems to be just like incompatible with consistently good storytelling. And I think that Star Wars has been basically falling into that category, right? If you need to consistently, I mean, formerly it was, we need to deliver a film a year and we saw that lead. And then it became, we need to deliver like a Star Wars show like every six months to a year. We need to consistently be delivering stuff for the streaming service. And, you know, like four shows in. Yeah. You know, like it's not, not a great result. It's terrible. Um, yeah. And the point being, of course, that that's how much work it took to destroy that story.  Like, well, you got to kill the main big, big three from the OT being Han Lukin layer. So that's been done by the sequel trilogy. It was pretty much. I never even. Work.  It's like the, the destruction of this big evil force or at least the dismantling of it. And it's like, well, they were all back in an instant. And then they were brought down again. So just, it made it feel like it was pointless. What Anakin did, his big old like move with his arcs. It's like Palpatine didn't even die, man.  It's like, well, the prequels, the value you drew out of them is sort of like a big building setup to how we got to the OT and how they were, how Palpatine was subverted. It's just like, well, the Kenobi and Boba Fett and Mandalorian shows are all just like snipping away at everything we could draw out of it for being valuable. The world building. Where do I even begin? It's just like, it's so fucked. And so like, it's like, what is left for Star Wars? It's like, it's not as big in terms of story scope in a sense as the MCU. There wasn't as much to destroy. I say this knowing, of course, the legends was completely decriminalized, right? So I'm discounting that even though with it, that would have arguably have been the, like Star Wars fans are troubled with that one. I don't blame them, right? Cause they were very invested in all those stories but they're all gone. I feel like Star Wars is much smaller and of what was left, it was destroyed. And it's like this windling IP that I was incredibly passionate about. But you know, we find out, like what we're just doing our thing. And it's like, Andal's coming out by the way.  Oh yeah. I can absolutely say that it was just like, yep, this is the next Star Wars thing but it's kind of registering on my radar as Hawkeye did. I'm like, I don't know, man. It's a guy who I don't really care about in a story that's not going to be too relevant to the main story. So yeah, I'll try and get onto it, I guess. And I find out, you know, it's coming out after or during the release of House of the Dragon, She-Hulk and Rings of Power. Yeah, it got lost in the shuffle. I actually did cover five episodes on The Forge but then it just stopped because we were also meaning to do the recordings for that, right? Yeah, and then that stopped. Ideas, not everything can be made the way that we intend because I was like, oh, I'm not going to watch any more because I don't want to get too far ahead, right? Well, and by the time... Anything else happened.  Yep, exactly. So yeah, it's out and we're moving on. Lots of things still to cover, like God of War or, we'll count it forever or whatever else pops out.  I'm seeing these posts every once in a while, like seriously, they didn't cover Andal with the fuck? And it's like, well, I mean, Andal's just been missed. All right, it's gone, bye-bye.   And then, you know, like Moon Knight, for example, a lot of things have the fate of Moon Knight. Moon Knight was the closest, Moon Knight is Icarus, basically.  It didn't get its coverage. But, you know, people still like Andal, Andal, Andal. And then, something weird happened, a drinker watched All of Andal and said it was really good. I was like, what? I would have thought he would hate, he would more likely hate it than even me. I was like, oh, okay. And then I hear some other people like, it is good. Just check it out, it's just different. It's not the same. And one of the things that we noticed about, you know, the production of Mando, Kenobi and Boba Fett, they're all, I'm pretty sure, slathered in Filoni and Favro sticky juices. Yeah, juices. There's this new approach to making Star Wars content or even just Disney content.  And we were like, I don't wanna watch more of that. And then it's like, well, it wasn't made in that era. It wasn't made by those people. It's a way higher budget, way more deliberate production. And it's got basically nothing to do with all of them. And it was set in motion well before those ones were. Yeah, cause apparently this was started almost before everything else that came out, right? I imagine it was inspired soon after Rogue One. The movie was done. And so it was like, all right, fine, maybe, maybe. So we do all the Ragnarok stuff. And then I'm like, all right guys, go watch Andor. And then I watch Andor. And I suppose that is your 45 minute history. How do we get here? As if the guys listening to this were there for a lot of that. It's like, but hey. For those who weren't, now you know all the context. You're an EFAP historian now. So why don't we do a, instead of left to right or right to left, or jumble it completely? Go metal, fringy rags with me? Or metal? Oh my God. We'll just start with metal. Why not? That seems weird. You're weird. And I'm weird too. What do you think of Andor? Relatively spoiler free. Relatively spoiler free. I think it really showed that it was not made by the same people. I liked a lot of the dialogue. I think the story was fine overall. There's some weird bits and bobs here that seem contrived a little bit. But obviously we were gonna talk about those. I already wanna go into spoilers and stuff, but I don't wanna do that. But yeah, I- Well, we got 10 seconds out of you. It's not bad. It was like, the characters seem to be taking seriously, it seems very deliberate in terms of what they say. When people talk to each other, they sound like they're talking to each other and not at each other, which is always a bonus. Yeah, I did enjoy it. Well, okay. All right, fine. It's all right, because we're all gonna be here for many hours, so. Exactly. Why don't, like I said, I don't really mind which order we go, but just talk about the jumble factor. All right, I'll go. Wait, who was- Sure. Okay, Rags. I'll go. So, Andor is the best thing that has happened to Star Wars in 40 years. It is bizarre to think that we had to sludge through. I'll say, we didn't have to sludge through the prequels, but we got the prequels. We had to sludge through the sequel trilogy. We had to go through two seasons of Mando, a season of Boba Fett, a season of Kenobi, and all of those are either bad to terrible. We got, the only thing even that might approach being all right is it's probably Rogue One, but we got Andor and it is, I think it's really good. I think it is a very solid, good, potentially great, but I'm settled on it being very good right now. It is tonally and just creatively so different than anything else that we've got in a long, long time from Star Wars. This seems like someone had a very clear, creative vision that they wanted to put together. There is a wide cast of characters that are all different and all interesting. You go to interesting places. You talk about interesting things. There's so much here to praise. It's got a few rough spots, undoubtedly, generally with the plot and now some things get to being where they are, but there's so much here of value that I was legitimately shocked at how good it ended up being. We all saw the first three episodes a few months ago and then we got busy with all the other stuff that had happened and just the other day I watched the rest of the nine episodes in a day, essentially just in a straight line and I was really, really enjoying them. It is bizarre to call this Star Wars because it is so seemingly different than anything else we've gotten from Star Wars. I'm very excited for what happens next. I've got my fingers crossed and I'm hoping that people are very receptive to this, that it is successful so that they are encouraged to give this team more time and the money that they need to finish the story and to keep going so we will see how that goes. So those are my quick thoughts on it. All right, those all go next. It may be said more than once as we talk about it, but this is a time where I appreciate everybody's efforts to push me to watch this. I probably wouldn't have seen it, if not for this job slash being told to see it by more so fans this time than creators or trusted friends sort of thing. And I did feel like it should be covered because we are, if nothing else, primarily Star Wars. At least that's what the foundation of EFAP was kind of built on. So it's not, it doesn't cost too much to keep track of Star Wars when it's releasing one sort of thing per year. Like, okay, this is Marvel which can actually get to be and will be overwhelming, especially with how shitty it is. So like, fine, fine, check it out. And I mean, how could I not be utterly thankful for the fact that I was told a story this is sort of like a meme that's said, but it's undeniable in terms of almost category, right? Like the thing we were trying to go over earlier was the sort of nature of Mando, Boba Fett and Kenobi is that there's so little soul in the point that they want to make they're more so dependent on just getting people to watch it and then move on to the next thing. Slash maybe be recycled into watching again, but to be entertained enough fleetingly so that it takes them to the opening credits to the next one. That's all I need to do. Cameos after credit scene, that sort of thing. This is a show that I didn't take super seriously at first then I started paying more and more attention and I was like, oh shit, they've got points to make. Oh, they're doing full shadowing. Oh, they're doing subtext.  Sorry, I have to put on my, I'm watching. They're changing, developing. I'm watching a story mode, which is very, it's very different, but it's almost the equivalent of what I actually do in terms of turn my brain off. When I turn my brain off, I'm absorbing less and it's not something I do to enjoy. It's something I do when I'm just like trying to pass the time.  I need to be able to actually tell you what the story was and what is working, what isn't working, but like I said, this show earned its attention from me. By the time we hit episode six, my mind had changed from being like this is tolerable to, oh, this is good actually. Then you hit episode 10 and the finale and I was like, well, I am actually looking forward to talking about it because we've got something here that's really solid. There's lots of things I would tweak and change, but this is the kind of, if this was released after the OT, I'd be very curious what Star Wars' reputation would be versus after the prequels, versus after the sequels, versus after all of the shitty shows that came out. Some of the drinker said that I kind of agree with is if only this show had been the first show to release instead of all those other ones, nice and early, get it out and let it sit for a while so weird a mouth can spread it around and then build from there and take your time with the others. So this one can work as a sort of a magnet for those who are just looking for Star Wars content while the other ones can be like, now that you've seen Andor and you know the kind of power we have for storytelling, we are now gonna tell one with Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Sorry, and you find out like this is made primarily by Tony Gilroy and I've seen his comments about constructing this and let's just say it's a lot more reassuring than the people behind the other shows who are just obviously just trying to make something to pass the time, like rush jobs. So I was quite impressed what that'll mean exactly is gonna be discovered over the next few hours as we talk about it but it was really cool to have actors delivering performances to see dialogue that if you read it several times you might just crack a new meaning after the seventh.  We find- Oh yes, yes. An empire that's not embarrassing and clowny. They can be scary and they can be intelligent and they can be normal. They can be just a person that you know that made a rational decision.  Absolutely thoroughly refreshing. I can't believe this is coming from Andor, man who died in Rogue One that most people don't even remember. This is his story, so it's like, yeah, that's my take. Fringy, take it away. I really like Andor. It is, I think, yeah, the key word is refreshing. It's like, we got a story here with characters, characters who are well-realized and delivered through great performances. We've got dialogue that's interesting. We've got themes that are running throughout the season that are compelling and explored thoroughly. We have provided a whole bunch of differing perspectives of characters on the status of the world and the empire and how each of those people respond to it. And through those characters, we get to see a bunch of different lenses through which we can examine this conflict, how people respond to something like the empire, matters of self-preservation or principle, pragmatism, like power corrupting people. We get to explore aspects of the Star Wars universe that have felt very much untapped for a long time. We get to go to new planets. We get to see new things that we've never seen before, like new aspects of the empire that we haven't seen before, new ways of life within the Star Wars universe that we haven't been able to see before. And all of it is just realized through leveraging the tools that are available to them, all of the money and talent that they had in order to realize this show with really great cinematography. I really like the soundtrack, like all of the aspects of the production are working towards bolstering what actually exists there, which is like a core. It's got a core, like it's got a story and characters. It has something to say. It has a voice. And it's surprising, right? It's like Andor. Andor, like that guy, yeah, that guy from Rogue One. But it's almost as though because it was Andor and it was this project that's just been there for a while and it wasn't something that got us hyped up for something like The Mandalorian or the Book of Boba Fettel Obi-Wan Kenobi that like the people who are getting to make this show were given the liberty to actually tell a story to like create something that they had an idea for something that they wanted to say and were able to realize it. I really, really like it. It is without a doubt, like far and away the best Star Wars thing that's happened since Disney bought it. Like it's not even close. There's like leagues ahead of everything else that they've made so far. And I'm really, really, really excited to talk about it. Yes, we have. It's been pretty cataclysmic so far. The Disney Star Wars tenure, but now we have Andor and I'm like, I'm super excited to talk about it. I really, really enjoyed it. Well, those without further ado, we probably should then. The format. Something to add because I watched a couple of more episodes before. I really didn't give it a fair shake, I think, when I covered it because I was like in coverage mode basically. I was like, oh, I gotta put that on the list as well. And I guess I didn't really pay attention properly. I don't know. Because I was just like, yeah, it's not bad, but I don't know. I was just, I don't know, I'm not really into this. And then I stopped and then I started watching it again over the week and I was like, oh, I think I didn't give this a fair shake. Well, I've seen plenty of people in the Eve have audience say it's not that good.  So it'll be interesting to see if maybe we can change some minds or maybe we can discover the truth along the way as to how good it is or how bad it is. Yes, the format will be chronological. We'll go through and pick on sort of the more, they juicier segments as we approach, but tell the story broadly. Hopefully provide enough context for those who haven't seen it to follow while also breaking things down. Probably gonna be a long one. And as I said, Merry Christmas. For those who listening to this on the day of Crombonius who maybe don't have a place to go or people to talk to, they're just- Happy birthday, Jesus. Yeah, good boy. You did it. What'd you guys get him? A fish and bread. I've heard he can multiply them pretty well or at least fit them into that. They're not supreme. Yeah, I don't know. I guess we'll just get started with the, what do you think of the intro? The intro itself, the opening title screen. It's confusing and I'll explain. So the intro confused me because here we are after all that sludge we've been talking about, and then we have this intro and I'm like, wait, wait a second, what's going on? What's happening? You have like a nice, nicely paced, little developing mini story about this Andor guy and then there's the alleyway sequence and the group and it's like, no, no, no, no. Something's wrong here. The tone is like it has one and the direction like it has it. And there are very clear artistic decisions that are being, shall we say, made. So I was very confused. It just, it's like something in my brain was like, are you sure you're watching the right show? This is Disney Star Wars. And yet here we are on this weird, almost Blade Runner-esque slowly-ish paced, yet somewhat tense kind of setup. It was very strange and I really liked it kind of from the get go. Yeah, we were already just like, wait, what? What are we dealing with? What's happening? This is one of these things because we watched those together, right? So the first three episodes and it was one of the scenarios where we didn't really talk a lot about it because it was just, you know, enjoying the episode. It's like, oh, this is cool. This is happening. This is a nice little tone. And it wasn't really anything. It's like, oh, look, he just fell down and broke his kneecaps or something. I don't know. So yeah, it was very- It had a lot to make up for because of his predecessors. There's a lot of just, I was gonna say bad faith, but maybe it's just reasonable. It's like a lot of assumption of, you've been delivering lots of poo to me. Now I've got this box. I assume there's poo in it, but it's a nice box. And you're what? I'm not a fan of poo, so. No. Not even mine. But yeah, it's, dare I say, subtle and simple. I was like, okay. Alrighty then, let's see what you got. Okay. Summary is he's looking for his sister, Mr. Andor, on Molana One, a pre-ox Molana corporate zone in BBY5.  It's no way. It's funny because all of it will be relevant and worth remembering in terms of just allowing yourself to piece together everything. But again, you've got it in it, I think, from the audience. Why should I care about anything you tell me when you don't care about it? And it's funny because it has to like, I can imagine the creators of this show being like, why do I have to deal with all the baggage of these other shitty shows? It's like, because you're part of that IP, man. I don't know. Sorry. Yeah, he tries to find it and while looking for it, clearly annoys two other off-duty patrolmen who were there. And it looks like they have a sense of regularity with essentially bullying people to some degree. They just get a bit of fun out of it, excise their power beyond its typical limits for the fun of it. And they sort of chase after him because he's sort of smart talks to him a little bit, doesn't just submit and they get thrown off by the girl he's talking to. He's just there to find information. Yeah. But he kind of accidentally pisses them off a little bit by being a bit of a rebel, you could say. What?  And you get like, I think it's like a two-minute shot of it's all just his face. Just focus on his reaction, yeah. All of the guys who are approaching him are sort of bled out and they come in a bit more into focus, but we are very honed in on how and or is reacting to this situation. Yeah, he's basically trying to ignore it if I recall correctly, right? He's just like, I don't want any trouble, really. I'm just... Well, I think he's thinking, oh, fuck, what am I gonna do? Like they're coming, they're this way. Am I gonna run? Do I make a scene?  Do I try and play it easy? Do I just hope that they're nice or you just, he's just thinking, what am I gonna do? You see, you could tell he's nervous and on edge.  It's essentially a robbery, but it's like, you could call it official robbery. Like they basically tell him like, you're gonna probably be fine. Oh, so tax is then, Mahler. I know how you are. Oh. They're gonna wanna hit him for a fine for where he may have parked his car. I think they're guessing at where he may have parked it and it would be a fine if he has got it. He's heading toward that area. So basically just an assumption on maybe a thing he did that would incur a fine. And he says like, listen, I've got like 300 credits in my pocket or something. And they're like, oh good, that's exactly what it costs. Yeah. Like that's what it, I think there is. Yet another plot contrivance. Oh, I can't believe it. I'd say that's exactly what they're going for though, is that this is absolutely bullying and stealing, but done in a way that's being hidden up and dressed up as official and government legal. Like it's a, and these guys feel powerful and right doing it. Yeah. It's power without the responsibility of authority, which is something you will. And they get nice and close to get the money, but one of them gets head butted. The other one in a fist fight until he loses the gun. And Cassian finds the one he head butted, either from the headbutt alone or he hit his head on the floor on his way down, but he's dead. On the floor, yeah. Yeah. Which can happen. It's not unheard of. In fact, it's, Absolutely.  Yeah.  And then gradually like, you know, this is fine actually. Don't worry about it.  Cause he's realizing straight away the smartest thing for Cass to do now is to kill him too. Yeah. And he realized that and he's suddenly like, Hey, we can just go there. We can talk about as though it was an accident, just the thing that got out of control. Don't, don't worry about it. Begging for his life. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.  Is Star Wars doing this? Are we doing this in Star Wars? Is this happening? Well, no, it reminded me immediately of one of the things that impressed me about Rogue One when you first watched it. If you guys remember, he's, he's meeting a contact at the beginning. Stormtroopers find out where their location is. They've been, they've been discovered and they're heading toward them. And the guy he's with has like a bad leg and so he just shoots him. Like, and then runs away himself. Like the idea being that, you know too much about me.  The idea of, again, Rogue One, I think initially it didn't end up this way. It was supposed to be about all of the grays of Star Wars morality because Star Wars is oftentimes black, but it's white in terms of very obviously who the good and bad guys are. Yeah. But then, you know, this approach is much more, and it's the same for the Andor show. It's like, was what cast did here a good thing? It's like, it's kind of hard to say. It's not, it's kind of what he had to do.  It's like, yes, but you execute the guy for what he did? It's like, oh, I don't know, man. Like, you know, he gets out of there and this sort of moment is basically the reason for the whole season to happen the way that it does. Yep. Pretty much. Yeah. And just a really solid start for atmosphere and I guess character, and it felt very serious. Like, we haven't gotten this in some time. Everything's always so goofy, whether it be deliberate or accidental in Star Wars.  But when you see a guy in like a dark, raining sci-fi world getting robbed, and then he unintentionally kills one of the robbers and then has to execute the other one to save himself from authorities. It's like, damn, Star Wars, what are you doing, man? What are you doing? Pretty serious. Are you able to keep that up, Star Wars? What are we doing? Are you baiting me? Are you trying to bamboozle me? Which pushes us on to, well, he goes home, which is Farix. Is the planet Farix or is it the town? They don't. It might say so in a subtitle whenever you, whenever the scene goes there early on. I think the planet is Farix. Molana system, free trade sector. But I guess that's in terms of the galaxy, not even the... Yeah. It's the Star Wars thing of the name of the planet is this one town that you only visit. Yeah. Always strange, a little bit confusing, but it's already neat that... It's funny, one of the criticisms the Rogue One had, I don't know if you guys remember this, was that we went to like six planets in 10 minutes or something. So it got confusing, but it was still... Where are we? Help. It's still a better problem to have than... Oh, Tatooine. Oh, Tatooine. Oh, Tatooine. Here you go, Tatooine. Oh, Tatooine. Yeah. Oh, can we go to Tatooine next? One more tap it on Tatooine today. In a matter of 10 minutes, we got us two new planets with two distinct looks. And I'm like, oh, it already feels more creative, more free from the bounds of typical Star Wars production where I'm just waiting for that Tatooine set to show up, that one street. It always shows up. Come on, give me. I know you want to do it. Just get it over with. Show me that dusty street. Show it to me. Do it. And yeah, so Cas spends all of episode one basically getting everything in position so that he can successfully lie, basically. He's gonna have to get everything in place. He needs an alibi, he needs to hide any evidence. He needs to move himself around in different ways, shapes and forms. And we get introduced to E2, I think is the name of the robot, right? Yes, yes. And he's a fun, cute, interesting sort of thing. It's the kind of thing you get from Star Wars. He's not dissimilar from an R2-D2 type, but dare I say, he's like R2-D2 with less courage. Yeah, probably. He's like a little, hey, what's up? Yeah. He's more scared about everything. Yeah. And also a bit rugged. Yeah, he's also all the way. Not super efficient, lagging and stuttering a lot. Yeah.  You know, the kind of dialogue that you know that once you've seen the whole show, it'll make a hell of a lot more sense.  Who are you? Why are you talking to him? Where is this? What's happening? It's just funny to think, because in retrospect now that I'm so familiar with the worlds and the characters, it all makes much more sense. Whereas on my first time through, I probably would have ignored most of this. But apparently it takes more energy for robots to lie than it does to tell the truth. Certainly this one, that's interesting. Which is like, it's kind of true in terms of, it is true for humans, right? It's more difficult to maintain lies than it is to tell the truth because the truth is just remember as things has happened instead of remember how you told them. But it's just, it makes a significant difference to the robot to the point of actually drawing out power. And he says, I have adequate power reserves for lies.  Register a fact that overrides an actual fact in the banks or whatever, I don't know. But either way, he says, I only need you to tell him one lie. Just don't tell anybody you saw me and don't tell anybody you know where I am. And the robot just goes, that's two lies. That's all it's about. So like, I gotta tell two, geez. Yeah, and then they start up flashbacks, which I think what we'll do for the sake of this is we'll talk about the flashbacks as a whole once we hit the end of episode three. Yeah, that's probably a good idea. All right, yeah, yeah. I guess to light out for viewers, there is a string of flashbacks that occur throughout the first three episodes that are showing Andor's life on his home planet, not Pharris, but where he actually lived. It's his origin story. Yeah, essentially his origin story for how, you know, like, and that like gets scattered throughout the first three episodes. But yeah, it probably makes more sense to take it all as a whole later. Mm-hmm. So he heads over to his place of work and immediately gets to a friend and starts explaining what his alibi's going to be. Yeah, and like the conversation immediately starts with him, just like laying out a set of events of like, oh, this is what happened last night. And of course his big buddy immediately picks up like, so what's happened? Like something's happened. What's up? Yeah. And it's done in a way of the buddy just starts adding onto the story to make it more believable and even asking how he got a wound as well. It's a really cool way of showing chemistry. It's very nice. They're those guys, buddies, and they're helping each other out. And something that was really neat as well is that Brasso when he gets up on like the transport vehicle calls out, like very loudly state something that has to do with the alibi as well, just to, you know, a bit more firmly establish it. And it's like, that's neat. That's cool. You can immediately tell that they are close and they look out for each other. And this before. Yeah, and this is kind of already giving us an impression when we're watching like, oh, you're like a real bit of writing. You're like a real story. You don't have them like, hey, best friends, how are you doing today? Do you remember? This is a closer scrape than that gun fight on Sargasso 9, it sure was. Hey, let us step on this memory machine now and look at our memories. I can't believe I saved you. Actually, if I recall correctly, I saved you. Oh, you. We are joking, but in a felony thing, I would absolutely expect him to have introduced him as like, man, it feels like I haven't seen my best friend in so long, even though it's only been a couple of days, huh? And it's like, yeah, we consider how far we go back. It would be weird for us to have spent a day apart. Yeah, hard to believe that his name is Jim Davis. Yeah, I can't believe he has a name. Yeah, and then it would be really simple. Like, I need you to tell me and to understand an alibi. Here is my note of all of the story. Revise it and make it the alibi. Yes, I will do that for you friend. Like, it would just be that simple. And you're like, okay. But they achieve what they're going for while also giving us information that's not explicit. It's just like neat, good job. And then we get the scene, I think that all of us when we first watched this, we were like, all right, what's going on here? Like, it is the corporate securities reaction to the two dead members of the Corpo team. The introduction of Cyril. Cyril and his superior, yes. And this scene changes everything for me in terms of like, all right, I'm listening. Yeah, I don't hear.  Three scenes is a pattern. All right. I think it would be that the fact that the scene itself even exists is something, but the way that the scene plays out is kind of like, okay, sure, hmm, what are you up to? What are you up to? What are you doing? Cyril is like, he's a security guard, man, essentially. That's why I just keep calling him, but we'll try and call him Cyril because it's much more easy to keep track of him. He speaks really well, stands straight and tall.  Well, yeah, his superior is comparatively pretty shaggy. Like his uniform isn't ironed, it's kind of desaturated. It's, he's much more laxadaisical in the way that he holds himself. Even before our conversation really begins and we get to understand what's happening in this scene. But you already do kind of understand what's happening in the scene. It's all conveyed through all these little touches. It's even the fact that Cyril, he is holding himself well, but he feels a little bit awkward. Just a little bit like, it feels like you're trying really hard to be like this.  Like it seems like you're exerting a lot of effort to make that happen. And then as the scene progresses, we see that kind of fault, you know, sort of waiver a little bit at times. Like kind of kind of the, I don't know if I want to say facade, but like whatever he's trying to do right now, it's difficult for him to maintain. Yeah. He's trying to project a particular image that he has not fully become in any way shape or form. No. Really, he's what he wants to be. Yeah. He also like took care of his like uniform and made some modifications and stuff too. So it looks much neater than everyone else's as well. Like he's a bit brighter as well. Yeah. He's trying. He's probably just cleaning his uniform. The others don't. He says, two men are dead, sir. If that's not worth standing up for, then I'm not worthy of wearing this uniform.  Interesting. What in Star Wars? And you might be like, is he part of the empire? It's like, yes. He is technically a part of the empire. And he's saying his motivation is to, you know, get some form of justice for two men who were murdered. Like, huh. And the conversation is super interesting. His superior says, I want you to conjure an accident, get it outside the leisure zone. Because basically we need to find a way of dampening this as much as possible as an event. And his response is like, they were murdered. And he says, they died in a fight, went on the job. Clearly they chose the wrong person to annoy. Hell, people, they died being helpful, sad, but inspiring. You know, not too inspiring. Yeah, not too inspiring. And he says, you look stricken. I'm going to an Imperial Regional Command Review. I'll be asked to make a report about our crime rates and the goal of that speech, if you're ever asked to deliver it, is brevity. Which is super, super cool. He's basically explaining like, it makes everything easier for us, the less crime I have to report. And the less crime I have to report is determined by us taking crime, basically converting it into something that doesn't really matter. And to be honest with you, he's saying like, there's not going to be much repercussion from this.  This isn't like some grand scheme or anything. This is obviously just something that went wrong. So there's no need to make ripples, just move on. That's it, done. Minimizing the time the Empire spends thinking about pre-Ox Morgana benefits our superiors and by extension, everyone here, which at the moment includes you. Yeah, at the moment. Which feels like a threat. Yeah, I know, yeah. Yeah, that's true. We were rocking the boat. He would have said, don't rock the boat or I'll fire you. Yeah. But I mean, it's something that's worth emphasizing. Something that, the galaxies are, they're quite big. I imagine that the galaxy that Star Wars is set and is no different. To actually establish that the Empire doesn't have like a physical presence everywhere and that there are like contractors, private companies that are responsible for overseeing certain areas of the galaxy. That's really like neat as a detail. It just makes this world feel more believable and it makes it feel all the more interesting that there is a level of apathy and complacency and trying to fly under the radar and not draw too much attention to oneself like in that bureaucracy. And that the guy who's in charge of this company, Primoire, I believe it's called, he kind of understands that really well and Cyril is less motivated by that. Like it informs a lot less of what he chooses to do. Like clearly, pretty evidently in this scene. It's kind of a, what I find super neat about it as well is that it's super representative of just normal jobs. A new guy comes in and he's super like enticed and energetic to do well at the job but you meet this superior or even, could be a lower level person. It's just like, dude, calm down, calm down. Everything works a particular way here, okay? Everything runs, ABCD, there's none of this crazy by the book or extended extensive passionate moves in this way or that way.  Because he's basically warning through what he says of how much worse things could get if you make too much noise with stuff like this. Whatever exactly he means in terms of how that could turn out, maybe we'll find out in future but Cyril is clearly unsatisfied. It was a, yeah, it was super solid as an introduction to empire operations or at least the lower levels of security in lower level sectors. It's just like, this is cool. I wasn't even expecting to get a scene for them. And no, not at all. This is also the, it'll happen more and more as we move forwards but this is kind of that initial setup of this is Star Wars. The empire is around. You might not see them. You might not be walking around and just being visible but there is this sort of this kind of atmosphere of being wary of the empire. It's kind of like this, like a tense vibe whenever they're spoken about, which I really quite liked. They don't just go, Stormtrooper, Stormtrooper, tie fighter, here you go. Oh my gosh, good, Star Destroyer. Ah, it's the Palpatine look, brother of lightsaber. No, no, no. Everyone's like, yep, we know who the empire is. We don't want to mess around with them. We don't want to get attention. Just, mm. Yes. Then Cass heads to Bix, friend of his. She helps him sell off different parts he may steal or choir through whatever means. And he's asking now, can I sell something, basically the best thing I've ever gotten. He's clearly kept it for like a rainy day sort of thing. And it's like, I want to sell it now so I can have enough money to get off world because I'm in trouble. And so she says there'll be a contact that she can try to get for this. That's that scene, basically. She seems like, I don't have a lot to say about Bix's introduction. She's very normal. She's a character that exists here and does stuff. She's like a mechanic who spots out. She's like a connection to other people. So yeah, next up, I think we go back to Cyril, actually. It's not long before you realize he's basically a big POV character. Well, the next thing that we're doing is we've got like a real close up on him. As he's standing outside of a door, beyond the room in a hallway, he looks very nervous. Like he looks uneasy. This is a couple of guys. It's like, hey, how are you doing? And he's like, yeah, I'm fine, but obviously he's not. It's kind of like he's getting ready to amp himself up because as soon as he walks into the room, his demeanor shifts into a more assertive time. He's exerting authority properly and he's trying to big himself up, yeah, because he's gotta get these guys in line depending on if they're doing the things that he wants or not, and it's gonna be, it almost comes across as though, he has to hope they don't realize there's a little bit of this cracks in his demeanor. He could be overthrown if they knew more about him, but he's like, can hide that just by behaving strong enough, right? Which is just something like, why do you even, why is this being dealt with?  That's why, like, we're getting, there's a character behind, he's running plot, right? For the sort of antagonistic side of Cassian overall, but we're also being delivered. This is a person that's behind it with goals and, you know, intentions that go beyond just serving the empire. He serves it for four reasons and you gotta deal with his own flaws. And so, yeah, he gets in there and he's trying to figure out through the ship that Cassian left on where it ended up. And to do that, they're gonna have to trace like all of the, think of it as like a traffic cam. He wants the guy to basically search and find exactly where that ship went.  And he's like, do you want to keep your job? He's just like, okay. Yeah, I can just do it, you know, get it done. And he says, I don't know what's more disturbing. The fact that our corporate borders are so unprotected or your complacence about it. Mm-hmm. Solid lines.  Cause yeah, Cyril is not aware of all of these different pieces of their insecurity, but they're all so lax. They just like, mm. Nobody really cares. Everybody's apathetic about it. Yeah. Yeah. There's that sense of, yeah, just general apathy. Just a job. Yeah, a guy called Duchy walks up to Caspid. Like, I need the money you owe me. It's just kind of like, I guess it's a bit of comic relief because this is just a comically large alien that walks up behind him and Caspid's like, really? Seriously? And he's like, what? Like, the idea is like, how? Just tell me to stand here. I don't even know what's going on. Are you that desperate for money that you like gonna be this guy's muscle? But yeah, of course, just the point of that, I assume is to just show us that there's lots of pressures on Cassian outside of the big one covering up all this shit that's happened. Yeah. Yeah, then we find that Bix has a friend in a different area of town that she makes contact with that has a machine in his back area that sends signals to the buyer. This, for now, is only as interesting as to sell the piece that Cass has, but obviously it's going to become more relevant as to what the point of that machine is. And how it got there as we go on. So then, yeah, back to Cyril, and he's still trying to engage with the work of this system. And he's dealing with loads of really low level workers who will have access to information. Even before he enters the room, they're talking about overtime and whether or not they're gonna get more and whether or not the person that would engage with it can pay, can actually properly authorize it. Which I don't know about you guys, just that's so familiar to me from back when I was working in retail as a normal conversation. It's like, yes, overtime is on the table, but he can authorize it, right? Like I'm not gonna do overtime and not get paid for anything. That is what the concern is.  But Cyril does, that's kind of the point.  Why isn't everybody more passionate about the justice of finding this guy, of making up for the two who died? He says, we're talking about the murder of two pre-more employees and everyone's like, okay. It's like, I didn't know him, whatever, I don't care. It's just, yeah, it's an everyday thing and yeah, he's almost like a monkey wrench at this point even though he's trying to do his job properly. And yeah, he tells them that you need to flood all the channels with a request for a canary mail which is information they've gathered as a result of him looking for his sister who he's described as being canary. So that's how that would have gone out.   It's old. It's like, yeah, it's got nothing to do with it being traced or anything. Which again, I appreciate that all the scenes with Cass in the first episode are just all him making strong efforts to get his alibi and all of his tech in order to scrub as much as he possibly can from the coming storm of having killed two people. Yeah, he's been doing, clearly been doing shady stuff in the past. He's been, this is not new. He's not figuring out how to do all this stuff just now.  Well, it's something that we get that's cool in terms of the differing pair of ages. We've kind of got like three different reactions to him. So with Brasso, it's just like, yeah, I'll help you out buddy, no problem. When he's talking to Bix, it's more like, what do you, what happened? Like what are you getting up to? It's like, yeah, but you can do this for me, right? Like you're gonna do this. It's like, okay, but like, I'm kind of like, what'd you actually do? Like I'm kind of wondering.  Like I don't wanna, like it's, the tone with this guy in particular is like, you're drawing attention. Like I don't, like I don't want that. Like whatever you're doing, like I'm done. I don't want you to be doing this. Like you're gonna get me in trouble. Like it's kind of that sense. You're gonna get me in trouble and I don't wanna, I don't want that to happen because the consequences could be significant. It's kind of like this looming specter, right? The empire, even though it's not even here, right? It's not even on a ferris like directly, but everybody's still kind of, it's kind of like, you know, there's, yeah. There's like that looming dread of, I could get in trouble and I don't want that to happen because of what the empire is. Just the dread of them coming here is like something to be afraid of. You get a pretty good understanding of the empire being threatening to all these people here right now and they don't want to be dealing with them because that's just trouble and gonna make them, I don't know, less money and probably gonna do some shenanigans. You could feel like the fist pushing down on this whole, all of ferrics basically. Like everyone is kind of looking out for themselves. They don't want to get any trouble. What I like about it in this case is that the empire aren't here. There aren't any stormtroopers walking around. There aren't even any like pre-more security guys walking around. Like there's no overt like presence on ferrics of the empire, but it doesn't need to be. It's kind of like the nature of what the empire has to do to maintain control is to project its influence across the galaxy. That doesn't mean the stormtroopers walking around everywhere. It's just more subtle. It's indicative of just being more, a more well thought out scenario. And yeah, fun enough with the way that we're breaking this up. We're actually onto episode two now because the flashbacks make up some of the rest. And then of course, we're not going into hyper detail, but there are 12 episodes. So anyway, and as far as I'm concerned, they become more dense as we go on. Yeah, of course. So we get, again, there's still flashback scenes we're sort of running over, but we get, I don't even know how to put it. It's like the bell man or just Anvil man. Anvil man, he's loving his job. He loves his job so much, yeah. Well, I think I'm wondering if I'm pulling more meaning out of it than it's actually there, but I kind of feel like given the show a bit more credit. The impression I get with him having like this routine and this rhythm he goes through that he's like very into is like trying to pull some level of satisfaction out of like a mundane situation to try and find like some sort of joy or fulfillment wherever he can, even if it's as simple as I'm gonna strike the thing to make the bell chime so that everybody knows that it's time to go to work. The like in this sort of oppressive world where it feels like everybody is a lot more restricted, he's just gonna find an opportunity where he can to pull something out of it. I might be reading into it more than that. It might just be that he is a guy who rings the bell and he just, I don't know, he enjoys it. But I don't know, that was kind of the impression I got. Probably feel pretty important being up there, you know. Well, they do, they mean to show like they keep intercutting him with all the characters doing their end of shift stuff. Yeah, it seems almost ceremonial. The implication being that they do actually listen out for him. Yes, yeah. That's not, Jim's not up there just cause we need, you know, he's getting some do, make him feel like he's, you know, helpful, yeah. So, Cass meets up with his mom, Marva, who, I was saying this to Rags, I remember the actress basically only playing the auntie in Harry Potter. You got the auntie and uncle, I've even forgotten their names, like I used to know Harry Potter a bit better, but they like absurd caricatures of people, right? They're the Hogwarts, yes. What I really remember is, doesn't the uncle eat a cake and get really fat at one point, or is that some other woman? That's just a normal way to get fat, Mahler. I said really, so like more than that. Oh, really fat, okay. Really fat. I think that's fake fat. They get so fat, they like float up into the, do they actually float outside the room and float up into the air? Cause I remember being that terrifying. Is that why I remember that scene? Cause if it's like a spell that Harry accidentally casts or Dobby casts it and they get so fat, they start to just fly and they go up into the air and it's like, Jesus Christ.  Anyway, we'll come, you know what, that's foreshadowing for the eventual E-Fat movies, Harry Potter that'll probably happen some day. Why not? Anyway, she plays the auntie, I forget the actress's name, but when she pops up with this, it's just like, oh look, it's here, I guess. She, among several, impressed me thoroughly with their acting. Yes, she was great. Absolutely great, especially by the end of the season. Oh, what a great addition to the cast. Absolutely by the end of the season. I guess we haven't talked about it all that much, but just so far across the board, acting's been really good, kind of from everybody. Really good. Well, the thing is that some of the, like it has been and we haven't met some major PRV characters yet who deliver some really excellent performances. Oh, very much so. Well, that's the thing, right? We haven't introduced like 70% of the cast still. No, we're very focused on Andor right now. And in fact, it's, I'd say that like, because the show could be described as in some sense an ensemble cast, but like these first three episodes are hyper focused on Andor. Yeah. He walks in and it's announced through the droids like this, this searching for a Canary male, which he's from Canary. And so the mum is already like. But no, it's much more than that. It's a secret. Yeah, it's supposed to be a secret. So she says, who else knows? Says about what? Like you're born on Canary and he says, well, you don't want to know what happened obviously because they're searching for a Canary male being him. So what did he do wrong? That's the question. He doesn't care about that. She wants to know who sold him out, basically. He's business first. Yeah, right, right, right. Well, to me, it's not even it's it's the she is this isn't even ordinary. She's like died in the wall rebel type. She couldn't give if the empire versus anyone, if that scenario is coming up, she'll take their side. So she doesn't care what he did wrong, so to speak, with the authorities going after him. She doesn't.  She just wants to know how they managed to find that information and who we can't trust. Who is the one that gave you up? Who's the one that told you about Canary? And what you did won't change. Yeah, what you did.  And yeah, he does say, like, don't you want to know what happened? She said, yeah, we'll get to that. And because like, yeah, we'll talk about it, but it's much more important to get that sorted. So he says, like, you've told plenty of people and she's like, yeah, family. Who told these pre more bastards about Canary? And he says, that would be me. And then she's just like, what have you done? Like, because it's, yeah, it's his mistake that he made in approaching looking for a sister. It's as simple as that. So yeah, just through the lack of information being given back and forth to each other, we get loads of information. It's almost one of the best ways to describe how subtext works. It's like, we understand how much she cares about him and the nature of his history being hidden, because we've already had several flashbacks at this point, which we will go over. That inform a lot of it and that she's aware of it. He's aware of it, obviously. And we've got knowing about that narrows down being able to find him. So it's interesting. And yes, he meets with Bix again, but her boyfriend is starting to get a little more on the up and up, trying to figure out what's going on. And that might be the first place I can start being a little bit more critical now that we've established more things. He's keeping an eye on them to having a conversation. And he eventually decides to report Cassian in. He tells the security people where Cassian is. And I don't think it's bad enough to do this. I think we may as well just skip forward. You find this out, I want to say in episode seven, I think, that his motivation for doing this is that he thought those two were getting back together. Yeah. That's really lame. That is really lame. I'm not even sure it makes much sense to bring down the security of this hard on this area with his awareness of how much you don't want to do that. It seems a bit hard, right? That it would be, if it was like a better motivation would be he thought he was going to get her in trouble. Exactly. So he wanted to prevent her from getting in trouble.   He's serious, like he's a, maybe he can say like he believes somewhat injustice and that this is like we can't keep helping him get out of these insane situations. Like this is enough. But no, apparently he really was just kind of jealous.  But that's no fair. I'm going to even show him with alcohol, I guess, to try and help us understand why he made the decision. Yeah. Lame, but fine. So yeah, the security people told it could be Cassian Andor. And they're like, Cassian Andor, let's have a look at him and they get him up and then they've grabbed the girl from who Cass talked to in the first episode about his sister. So that's it. He's done at that point because you can combine the verification and Cyril is onto him, basically. Simple as that. And a few days. Yes, Cyril did good work. He's pretty good at this. Yeah. Though I guess you could say a lot of it was helped by boyfriend giving him that information. Sure. But I mean, you know, that's true. But I mean, never the less. Well, Cyril's done everything as best he can still. Yeah. It just all lines up well. He's being very competent. He's being the C word. Oh my God. I think it's at all awkward that Bix then comes to boyfriend guy and is like, hey, wanna hook up and do thing? And then he's like, yeah, let's do it.  A little bit awkward, right? It's awkward, but I mean, it's totally believable that a guy would do that. I didn't say it's not. Actually, I'm not a fan of this guy is kind of what I'm getting at. Yeah. You can tell they show shots of him looking conflicted but it's like, my dude, you've done something pretty horrendous. It's not even something that would necessarily remain super secret. Well, he gives it up anyway as information. It's just that, yeah. But anyway, we get another Chad character introduced. I'll defend him to my very death, okay? His name is Linus Mosk. Yes, of course. And he is a pretty solid reflection of Cyril. He's the security man that's been brought in to organize the team that Cyril's gonna be using to capture Cassian. Man, he's just, he's very, he's well groomed, well dressed and very much on board with this to the point where Cyril gives him a couple questions and he actually starts giving a description of how he thinks things should run. And Cyril is like almost inspired by him explaining his motivation. Yeah. Like proud to be part of sort of justice and informity and running with like a clean and startling precision sort of thing. And he's looking to impress as well. Like I would say he's hilariously competent. It's, I can't believe I'm watching this. Like it's like people who- It's really weird. The things are the same word. I remember me- She's wrong.  How many men do we need?  Like, excellent. Like, you might actually get the person you're after with that. But yeah, he said show a force to boost morale. Nothing like seeing an officer on the line. Hats off to you sir and the inspector. Two men dead in the line of duty. Colleagues outrageous. And he says exactly the thought of anything less in a case like this is unconscionable. The dereliction of duty at the minimum. I've seen it half measures. Take it slow, wait and see. It's a plague on discipline.  I've been saying this all along. We've needed a stronger hand in these affiliated planets. There's fermenting out there sir. Corporate tactical forces of the empire's first line of defense and the best way to keep the blade sharp is to use it. So thank you. So good.  Like he's a person that believes that like things will fall apart if we don't actually keep the laws in place when we enforce them. And then, you know, like this is the complication that the story starts to generate is that our Cyril and Linus, are they good people or bad people? Yeah. They let that open. Yeah, exactly. That's why I wasn't saying anything. The permeating question. Is it good people in a bad organization or people just trying to get by or are they just caught up in all this madness?  That's what I mean. And it feels like the show is coming through on the promises of Rogue One. Like there is a lot of gray here exactly what the answers are is a little bit more complicated. By the way, I'm not against stories having strict good and bad guys. I'm a fan of He-Man versus Skeletor like anyone else. But I'm also. He-Man killed two of my security guards. He must find him. Kill him. They were in my way. But yeah, then actually, I think after the next flashback, we got introduced to Stellan Skarsgard's Luthan. Yo. Yay. Yeah, this is Luthan. Stuff like this is unironically the reason where I'm like, oh, thank goodness. Especially on a sort of first run through, I'm like an actor I really enjoy. I don't even care what they do as long as I get to see them talk. This would be equivalent. There's so many actors that fulfill this role. If this guy was played by Charles Danse, I'd be like, yeah, don't really care what you do. Just do things. Just talk. He's quite a favorite at this point. He pops up in lots of things and whenever he does, he's really good.  Very talented as we will. If you didn't know it before, you will soon. Oh, yeah. So then we meet a guy called Zanuan, I think, or Zanuan. He's a, for lack of my understanding of the situation, he like organizes transport, I think, for Ferrics. And he's a friend of Cass's as well. To be fair, mostly everybody is a friend of everybody here. This is a tight, pretty tight knit community that will come up later as a big thing. Yeah, makes a lot of sense. And Cass is asking him to transport something without, I think he says irrelevant of weight, irrelevant of name and tag. Basically make it a huge smuggling secret and the more you do that, the more it costs. He's getting that in order as well. Yeah, and then we cut over to Cyril organizing with Linus, the men for when they launch on Ferrics. And it's a really cool sort of comparison, right? Linus says, he may not appear formidable, but two of our men are dead as a result of making that mistake. Remind the local and amused residents that there is a monthly opportunity for them to file official complaints if they have issue with us going through the streets.  So he provided just useful information. And then he's like, now it's time for you, Cyril, to give us the sort of rousing speech. And so Cyril awkwardly steps forward and he's like, there comes a time when the risk of doing nothing becomes the greatest risk of all. This is a decisive moment. And I can imagine, can't imagine a team I'd rather share it with than all of you. There's no room for doubt on the path to success. And justice, best of luck to us all. Yeah, so he's not very good at this.  And then so many gaps in us. And the funny thing is, I think I brought this up when he was first discussed on one of the open bars, but like the speech itself is pretty solid. Yeah, but the way he... It's just the way he delivered it, yeah. Yeah, delivery is just... It makes sense, he would know what to say, you know, but how to say it. Yeah, he's not there.  Like, if anything, this is going to damage things. And like the speech ends, this is pause, and then Linus just starts clapping like, yeah! Yeah, woohoo, sweet, we're doing it. All set, inspiring.  Like, he's trying to keep a... He's a bro. Yeah, you can't help but assume this, because yeah, he sees that Cyril believes in the same sort of values, it's just that he's not quite suited for the job. And you know, this is the thing, right? Like, when you get this much information on a character like Cyril, we're all sitting here sort of like, wait, is this going to be... You wonder, maybe by the time we hit the end of... I think this... Is it three seasons in total for Andor this planned? I think it is. Well, if it's three, you imagine that by the end of season three, if Cyril is still alive or whatever's going on with him, that he's going to be very different from the Cyril we know now. Ah, yes. Oh, yeah, he is. He seems like the character to pick for giving a significant arc. We'll change him up. Yeah, he's probably going to get like, competent and finds his mojo and whatnot. It's going to be great. Luthan takes a transport to get from the outskirts of barracks into the main town, and there's just this little grandpa dude that starts talking to him. Yeah. It's kind of interesting to watch in retrospect, because I've seen the show twice now. And then the second time through, Luthan is a guy who is very much paranoid about literally everything down to like, the color of the seats he sits on, sort of thing. Like, you'll be, you want to make sure everything is going well and good, and be careful about every single decision you make. Old grandpa dude just being like, hey, man, how are you doing? This definitely, who are you? Why are you here? Why are you talking to me?   Like, oh, you know, the prices didn't used to be so bad. And oh, you know, these transports used to be quicker, man, just saying, what's going on these days? But you know, Ferrex is fun to visit, plenty to do here. We find out like Ferrex is a transport hub, basically. It's a big area in the galaxy that's popular for everybody to sort of go back and forth from. Kind of like Tatooine as a watering hole sort of thing. But obviously for trade. And yeah, it's just, I think the scene only exists to be like, there are totally normal people doing totally normal things in this world that you... Yes. But things are still being noticed. Things are still changing gradually. Yeah, Luthan is just doing his best to get through the conversation without actually addressing him. Yeah, we're already near the end of episode two, damn. So much to cram into these things, you know, that they have to sort of do relatively fast. But there again, like I said, there's a lot of flashback stuff. In fact, I'm kind of surprised how much there is. I forgot. Yeah, but I mean, that'll be, that's a sizable amount. Yeah, we're nearing the discussion. Yeah. So, yes. I think Cassian's preparing to get everything done now. Cause this is the thing. A lot of people consider episode one and two to be boring and eh, the episode three is one that people consider to be the good one because things happen. Well, this is, that's why we need to set up from the first two episodes. Well, so that would be the clear defense for those first two episodes, which I think are stronger than the third episode anyway, is that we're laying down a lot of groundwork where building things up. We're establishing character and a sense of place and beginning to set into motion some of the core thematic through lines that are gonna carry through the rest of the season. Yeah, but it doesn't feel bad or poorly paced.  Everything seems to be intentional. The show is pretty expeditious in terms of how much it's achieving at the same time. We've talked about it briefly and we'll get to talk about a lot of things go on. We've got a lot of scenes that are achieving multiple things at once in terms of advancing plot building character, establishing a sense of place in this world. And yeah, it's like pretty efficient storytelling. And I want to mention, it was widely considered to be poorly paced the first two, but this is the problem with pacing. It's the pacing argument. There's not much that can be done beyond saying, I think it's poorly paced, I don't. Okay, my argument for why it's not is that we get a substantial amount of information per time. I don't know what the response would be to that exactly. Some people may say, well, the information itself wasn't interesting or that really there wasn't that much information. You're sort of overblowing it. Like there's different things that could be said. We found it to be pretty well paced if not distracting at all in that department. I have never had trouble with not having an action scene. It's not something I need at all. I know. In fact, now I'm sick of it. Yeah, and it's got a lot of refreshing that we're not having action scenes. Especially in Star Wars.  I get worried when there's an action scene a lot of the time. Yeah, because it's high variables. It's high variables, which means it's a lot harder more things can go wrong when you're doing an action scene compared to two people talking to each other. Speaking of, Luthan and Bix talk about the situation with Andor, the fact he's being hunted, the thing he's trying to sell. And they do so of a relatively hearable volume among just all kinds of people everywhere. Not a scene I like for that. It seems very uncharacteristic of him in particular. Yeah. Luthan and Bix. I maybe would allow it for Bix, but not for Luthan. Yeah, he wouldn't do this. As much as they do imply throughout the season he's taking more risks. This isn't one I think that matches the kind of risks he takes as pointless as a risk. You just talk quieter, it goes someplace slightly different. This one just stands out as being, they just messed up. They just did a whoopsie. It's a problem. Yeah, Cyril and his team are heading to barracks and Marva's house is the first place they go. That's obviously where Cassian lives. And as they move through the town, there's a lot of eyes on them. Everyone sort of sees them and realizes what it means. I think someone says, it's been a while since we've seen the boys in blue. It means a lot that they're here. This is significant. I mean, someone's in trouble. They're looking for someone. Yeah, and the way that it works in Star Wars, right? This feels like a much more serious example of it. The droids are, they're like people. They're not too far away from them. It's a little bit awkward sometimes to think more on it than you'd like to. Kind of, E2 seems to be like a character. Yes, he's not just a functioning program following ones and zeros in the Star Wars universe. And I'm pretty sure there's more on this, the deeper you delve, like it can get creepy in terms of just how peopleish they are. But they want information from here and she ain't going to be given it to them. But then they say, they are starting the droid and it's like, I don't know, and then they go pull the power supply and it's like, no.  If it's like, is that like the equivalent of like drawing your blood out of you sort of thing? Like I wonder. Yeah, and she even says like, they can't do that. Like it's illegal to pull the power on a droid, potentially, I have no idea. I don't know exactly. The Star Wars has never really taken the time to explore, let's say droid rights other than cartoonishly in the solo movie. And the thing is it's difficult to do it because of what we've said in Stone already, right? Which is that you can't really establish suddenly that these are all living creatures that deserve rights when we've been having so much chill fun with them. Like 3DO and RTT2 are fun. We don't really try to think more so about they're like souls trapped in machines or something. That's not really good direction. So anyway, yeah, it's worth saying I think the first two episodes are pretty solid. Episode three, this is where the hot takes can begin. Episode three is the weakest of the three. Yeah, I think so. Even though it's considered the strongest by everyone other than I guess us, it feels that way. But especially on rewatch, right? So I think I said when we were rewatching it, they're in Marva's house, they're trying to get information from the droid. And unfortunately at that moment Andor contacts the droid and he's like, hello, droid, how's everything going? You okay? And I, when we were watching it, I was like, I know what this is. He's, they've set this up because Andor can then distract them to a false location and he can save Marva and the droid. I was wrong. It is as simple as it appears. He literally contacted them by chance at the worst possible time. If he had done it five minutes earlier, he'd be fine. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty lame. Pretty lame. They all drew that information, find out where he is. It's like, well, okay. I don't know, I'll be winners. Yeah. There's no, be checking that it's okay for him to talk if he shouldn't even really be doing it. Well, it's just to facilitate that it's the thing that allows him to track him to the warehouse. Like that's basically the only reason it happens. And yeah, so we got Cass and Luthon have a big old chat and obviously Cass is here to sell a spaceship part, but Luthon turns out it's here for much more than that.  Soon enough, they'll have something else to listen to.  Like, why, what's going on?  And he says, will they hang me? Yeah, like your father?  Like, what is with you, my dude? You're so mean. Probably could have had a different approach to, you know, get to him faster, but hey, it's fine. And he says, it seems like a waste of talent to let them have you.  Like, what is happening here?  Luthon has a thing that starts going off. Like, what's happening? And he says, can I grab my thing from my pocket? And I was like, yeah, sure, okay. And he's like, oh no, my thing in my pocket is telling me that you have a thing that is allowing people to track your location. And he means the com link that he spoke to the droid with. And so he takes it out and smashes it.  And I remember sitting there thinking like, ah, so if Luthon had detected that, immediately, well, think about it, right? If he had detected it from the moment he had entered, they would have smashed it and left the place and done their deal somewhere else. And so the whole plot changed. It's far out of a different way that way. It needed to be late. So I was just like, ah, that's lame.  The character stuff's been so solid. Stop using these as like really cheap. By the way, these are stretches that are appearing. They're not holes and they're not even, they're not huge stretches compared to what we're often delivered. It would be nice if it was Taito. Yeah. So yeah, they realized too late that they're being attacked and they start preparing. And somehow, I guess, the way this job worked is that Cassian put the special, special part down on a table and then was like, give me the money. And he seems very thingy about like, I need to know that you have the money before we're doing this deal, but he still did that. And the reason I bring this up is had he just kept it in his pocket, it wouldn't have been found by the Empire because he can't get it out of this room. He loses it, basically. Which I'm not hugely thrilled by either. It's another example of what going a particular direction that kind of deals just a, all of these deal little pieces of damage to character. It means like, Luthan wasn't more careful than he obviously would be as he's characterized and or isn't more secure with his part before giving it up that he obviously would be. He wasn't more careful with contacting the droid than he obviously would be. But each of these choices allow for grander plot elements to happen, that part needs to be in the wreckage because it needs to be registered as something that was here so it can be traced and it's gonna be a big part of someone else's plot line. Yeah. So this thing, I want these things highlighted because they're not small, they have huge effects and they're not entirely in character. So they're little, what I would call maybe cheats on the rightest part to be like, I want this to happen and it's happening. The quantity though that exists in this show compared to the rest of Disney Star Wars though. Yeah, it's not even close. And so some guys try to see what's in the building and Luthan has charges on the doors he came in that he detonates, I guess it's sort of like security thing. And what I like about it is that the Linus finds out and the first thing he says is like, I told you not to go in without a sort of thing like we're supposed to do this as a team.  Like, well he is of course upset at any man dying, it's just that there was a way we were supposed to conduct this and you're not doing it the way that I told you to. Yeah, Cass is shot in the arm during the fight which is a little bit satisfying in terms of just repercussions or hanging around for as long as they do. Yeah, getting into a gun battle, people get shot.  Dropping, yeah these engines and stuff rigged up on the ceiling that just drop everywhere. It is an action-packed room, it just, it's just wicked.  They store machine engines on the ceiling, it's really odd. Move them later, to keep them off the, so they're not dirty. Yeah. Okay. Plus they like it when it's for the birds. So, there is commotion, of course. And during the commotion, this is all the things I'm highlighting right now, this is why I'm not a fan of this episode compared to the first two. Bix starts running and her motivation we find out is to warn Cassian about what's happening. Okay, and so the way she's running is going to necessarily be in the opposite direction of most people who are fleeing from the explosion and the men in blue. And so she happens to go down a street. Remember there are, what was it, 12 men in total? She goes down the one street that has four of them. Yeah, in a whole city. And they see her, they see her running. And he's like, you're running in the different direction. Hold right there, you're probably evil. Well, yeah, because imagine if she was running to her house that was in that direction. Yeah, that should be so beyond unsatisfying to be. It's like, really? Okay, fine. It's not a hole, like I said, it's not a hole. It's just, okay, that's what happened, I guess. Because whenever a character gets captured, it's significant or released. Yes, it is. So it's like, okay, then. Star Wars doesn't have the best track record of just kind of having, you know, characters be captured and released later by factions. And then we get something really strange to happen. Boyfriend finds out she's been captured, I guess, because he was chasing after her and he finds out that she's there. And I think this moment was the moment that we, when we were watching it, were like, holy shit, what's going on, this is a bit, like, what the fuck? He tries to escape and they like throw it back into the walls, not much she can do. And Boyfriend turns up and he's like, hey, what are you doing? Leave her alone.  And then he's just like, no, it runs towards her. They just shoot him. And then shoot him. It's shot immediately. It's like, yeah, of course that happened.   You're gonna be using that one. Four men pointing blasters at you. What were you doing? And I know that I want to try and represent as strong as a defense as possible. It's not even a strong defense, it's just the strongest word. It's that he was emotional. He saw that she was covered, her head was blood on it, that he loves her. It's like, okay. I think it's just that they wanted to give him some sort of moment of redemption before they killed him off. To make you feel a bit sadder about it, but it's just a really awkward sort of moment of redemption. They wanted him out of the story maybe, but they just, you gotta do stuff. Yeah, I got a bit lost on that one. I feel like it was a bit rushed. It's like, we didn't really know what to do with him, but we wanted him to be seen as not irredeemable. See, he's a good man. He really did love her. It's like, okay. Okay, I haven't got anything else. So that happened. So yeah, Andor then and Luthan making their way back through the town and Linus orders the men to basically prepare some form of a kill box ready for them because they're not sure where they are, but they know they'll be heading through this area. And they're all prepared. And Cyril is the one that Andor actually gets a gun on. Something that was worth noting though with that scene is that the guy who shot the boyfriend, they took the gun from him. It's like, go back to the drop ship. That's your job now. You're not doing this. Go back to the drop ship. The reason I didn't bring that up, I don't know how much I value that in terms of like they were all, I don't know that it's that. I'm just saying like, so that people, cause I think that the scene is like super like riddled with problems. It's just so that, because there's something that happens later with the drop ship. Oh, that's true for plot. Yeah, that's all.  It's the thing that happens, right? It's like, I wouldn't blame the guy too heavily. I'm not even sure what you're supposed to do when someone does that. I'm not sure exactly what training says. It's just that, I wouldn't see it as him punishing him for that decision or anything. Like you go back to the ship now. Yeah, it's like you, it's like whenever there's an officer-related shooting in America, at least, that pretty much regardless, the first thing they do is like, yeah, you're on leave until we figure out what happened. Yeah.  He walks into a room.  Just kills them. Jesus. Luckily, they managed to get away. You can tell he's not holding themselves together well. He's not ready for this kind of situation. He is like the guy who's in the office. Right, it was as was pointed out, right? The officer in the ranks is like, yeah, he's normally not there. Yeah.  And he says, I don't know. And then in the back row, Luthan just says, just kill him. I'll kill him. Then he goes- Yeah, he's like, Jesus.  And he says 12, 14, 14. Yeah. Like, because obviously they are 12, but I guess you should probably make yourself sound bigger than you are. Or he was just like legitimately having trouble remembering how many there were. I can believe he fell for that.  He's all about the facts and stuff, but he realized he should probably tell them that. In that circumstance, you know, with a gun and everything. Yeah, well, he did get it right. It's just that he decided to fluff the number up. They are 12. Oh, I got you, I got you. He's, he went with 12 and then he changed it to 14, because yeah. But yeah, he's just absolutely terrified and he gives up the information. Like, and this is the sum in that, I appreciate it when we don't have characters that are always the, I'll never give up any information. It's just like, he gives it up pretty quickly. No, I wanna live. Yeah, this is a normal dude. He's just terrified, he doesn't want to die. It's interesting because if he would, probably if he would put the Linus guy in that situation, he totally wouldn't have said anything. I can believe he wouldn't, yeah. I believe he would be ready to die. Yeah, you'd see it as his duty to protect his man. Yep. So anyway, the guy gets to his ship and he lifts off and something is very strange as he like gets caught down. He's like, there's a wire attached to a weight. And I'm not sure how you guys feel about this. I'm not even sure how I feel about this, but it comes across to me as something that's like, it would have been rare for this to have fucked up to the point where he crashes. You'd think he would have had enough time to be like, oh, there's an absurd weight, something's wrong with my ship. I should chill out and not just stubbornly trying to take off. Yeah, he keeps trying to go.  He's like, yeah, I'm okay. But yeah, things aren't going well for Team Cyril. No, not really. They're still trying to make use of everything. They free Cyril because he's been captured and I'm pretty sure this is a deliberate choice on theirs to not kill him. He tells them they're escaping in that car and the thing, the reality is that that is a decoy. It explodes and kills several men and then they escape on a different transport. So I think the reason like Luthin and Cass probably would have been okay with leaving Cyril alive is that he actually sells the decoy story by accident. Yeah. Which is kind of neat. Yeah, and so several wounded, possible several dead, the whole mission failed, the ship exploded.  He is distraught. You can see he's got that out in the yard stair. Clearly, yeah, he is traumatized. He was not ready for this. It's all gone wrong. But then we always forget a lot of reactions because throughout this scene as Andor and Luthin are escaping, we see sort of the reactions of several different important characters. We just sort of intercut like Bix is seriously hurt. Just sort of very out of it. Physically under version. Yeah, Brasso's getting a drink just sort of sitting there thinking. And we've also got Marva as well just sort of this sense of unease, right? And sadness as well. Andor's leaving. Who knows if she'll ever see him again. Who knows if he's even okay, you know? Well, and all of this comes from those security guards kind of bullying Andor. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. Andority abuse, people abusing their authority. Yeah.  There's going to be trouble now. The Imperium is going to do something here. The Empire, I mean. I'm not sure if we went into it in too much detail, but after they had harassed Marva, there were a bunch of people outside the house. Like, what are you doing? Like harasses, she's just an old lady. Like, what are you doing? He's white. Why are you doing this? She's quite popular in the town. She knows. She's well respected in the town. And as we've already established, it's a tight knit community. And one of the things that we see as the crowd scatters is they all have a bunch of, just sort of metal, like loose metal, scrap metal. And then they start banging on it. It's like an intimidation tactic. So as they're moving through the town, it's just a lot of loud rattling noises. Kind of gives an indication of where they are too. Just like these tactics that are being used to get to them. And as we see, it gets to some of them. Like it's working. Some of them are really nervous about it. And then I love the line that Marva has where it's like, you know, I know it gets to you.  And then I think she says something along the lines of it's when it stops. Like that's when it gets scary. Or that it should worry you. Which is really great or shadowing. Yeah, because I think it's pretty clear what she, I guess the easy way to read it is once that stops, you know that they're like actually like ready to fight you. Kind of like as a, I guess a broader statement about like what would be happening in this world. Like just the sounds of discontents. That's like one thing. But when it stops, it's like, that's when shit's hit the fan. That's when everybody's had enough. That's when it's over. Yeah. That's one way to read anyway. Well, and that closes out the Luthan and Cass make it out on a ship.  He's with someone who's offered him a chance to fight the empire for real, quote unquote. But he's not that into it. Well, that's the thing that's worth emphasizing. It's obviously worth the escape, but yeah. Like what exactly does this mean going on? But it's worth keeping in mind is that this is far from an ideal situation for Andor. Even his means of escape is not great because he knows that it's going to tie him into stuff that he doesn't want to get involved in. I think if there's like a way to describe Andor at this point, self-preservation, not at any cost, but self-preservation, you know, not getting minded too much trouble. We get a lot more of that in four, five, six, I would say as well in terms of because it's, well, there's the thing, a lot of people said it, but the arcs in this go one, two, three, and then four, five, six, and then seven, eight, nine, 10, and then 11, 12. It's, they are splits just to create sort of a grander, sort of smaller stories that tell a big story overall, which is a good strategy, I think for a season. It can be quite engaging.  So let's talk about the flashbacks. I agree. All right, here we go. Flashbacks. The idea with the flashbacks is that Cassian's homeworld canary is essentially taken over fully by the empire for mining. And we discover in the present time that there was a disaster there that killed basically all or many of the inhabitants of the planet and the workers, like a toxic mining disaster that made the empire move out once it happened. A ship crash lands near where they're just hanging out in a little, little tribe. And because they're like native to the planet, they don't have much of any technology other than what they've clearly scavenged. Like they've got pieces of plastic and metal that they're fashioned into different tools. And yeah, so they just like, they clearly when ships crash or arrive, they go to try and find them wherever they land and just see what they can make of the situation. There's like a distinct, I wasn't sure what to make of this. There's distinctly no adults among them. The oldest you get is about like younger teenagers. They're clearly, yeah, they're quite young. I'm not sure what the idea is exactly. I don't know either. I think it just might be some, just some material. Just something to think about. Cause it's clearly a deliberate choice. Yeah. Well, and we never necessarily got the answer to whether or not you were supposed to have subtitles with them or not. Well, no, there are no subtitles. It just says speaking canary. That's all it says. There you go. By the way, I like it. Yeah, it's neat. I like that. Cause what it means is that they want you to watch the scenes not knowing what they're saying and only picking up what's happening through tone. Yeah. And, you know, body language. It's neat. They didn't have to do that, but they did. They make it to the craft ship and there's just bodies outside of it. I guess, I don't want to, I really like the shot where it's and or looking at the massive mining operation as they're moving through because they move through the world. It's like the gradual reveal of the nature of this planet. Cause at first it's like they're living out in the forest, but then as they sort of walk through the jungle, you see a couple of signs of more industrial things like some, you know, worn down equipment and then big mining operation. And then they head to the ship. Yeah. Like I said, the, the mining sort of efforts were abandoned apparently through disaster. Yes. That's what we know now that the planet was abandoned and quarantined. So they get to the craft ship. They send what I think is their leader to, you know, check out the place. See if it's safe first. She checks if the bodies are alive. They're not seem to be moving, but then one of them wakes up and yellow shoots her with a blaster. Yellow and there's some gas leaking out of nearby as well. It's kind of crazy.   He's a pincushion by the end of it, which yeah, that obviously kills him. And then they all like desperately struggle to get her presumably back to their village. I don't know if a medical care or she is just straight up dead. But either way, Cassian out of curiosity and partially fury goes into the ship. They go and check it out.  Breaking his little fist. And he happens to bump into Marva and Clem, who are a team of scavengers. That particular transition into that scene is super smooth. It's actually really cool. Yeah. B2 is like worn down. He's very worn down old. He stutters. Oh, yeah, I remember. Worn down, a little hard droid. But then when they do the transition, it cuts from him to like a very sleek, clean B2. And immediately it's like, oh, that's neat. It's cool. That was really cool. That's what we call visual storytelling. Yes. And yeah, it's funny as well. Cause in that moment, he checks the oxygen and atmosphere levels to make sure it's safe for them to breathe, which is hilarious.   Or rather, it's Alien Covenant specifically is what I always pick on. In Prometheus, they're a little bit better, but it's still bad.  There's no reason not to have it. They had it. It was cool. But yeah, he's like panicking and terrified of them. She has B2 make like a knockout stuff for the kid.  That would be insane. We got to get out of here. We got to get what we can and get out of here. And then she's like, if we leave him, he's dead.  They'll execute. And I thought it was interesting to refer to them as the Republic as well. Cause this would obviously be soon after Palpatine takes over, so it's not the Empire yet, or at least it wouldn't be called the Empire. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. Obviously it's the Empire by now, but again, just that kind of attention to detail is super cool.   So she grabs him and takes him with her. So that's how Cassian, like I said, originated. So for lack of a better term, she's just kind of thinking. And yeah, Clem says, you better think about this. And she says, plenty of time for that.  Like the implication being, yeah, I haven't thought about this, but I can't go further than I can't let this kid die. That's as simple as that. A good person? Gross. Just principled thinking, right? Like it doesn't matter what the repercussions are. I have to make, I have to do this action. We do a lot with a little if you haven't noticed. We really do. Well, and it kind of reflects, funnily enough, what Linus said about how can you really look your own men in the eye if you knew you didn't do everything you could, sort of thing. Is saying in that moment, it's like we can do something to stop this kid from dying. Are we just gonna leave him? Like I can't, I can't do it. What can happen? So yeah, she rescues him and we have his sort of, these flashbacks are being shown at the same time as the present story progressing. And her rescue of him is being shown at the same time as the present of him escaping. She's rescuing him from the empire, likely killing him.   And the squeeze of the empire is being felt more thoro