'The Acolyte' Episodes 1 and 2 Deep Dive, Plus Creator Leslye Headland
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She killed my family. She destroyed my life. This is grief. Let it go. You are not my master. I do not need your permission to go out there and confront her. I deserve justice. You want revenge. Look what revenge has done to your sister. I couldn't save her when you were children. Let me try now. What? Hi babies, hello. Welcome back to House of R. I'm Jordan Robinson. Joining me today, I give her her, she gives me me.

It's Mallory Rubin. Hi, Mallory. How are you doing? Joe, don't you think what we do is so stressful? Incredible. Man, Jacinto impression from Mallory Rubin off the top. We are here to protect.

We're here to talk about, why not both? Always. I assume that you're just going to scream that 20 times before we're done today. Okay. Yes. We're here to talk about Acolyte. I don't know why I just pronounced it that way. Acolyte. Episodes one and two. This is your deep dive into episodes one and two of Acolyte. We also have a very special guest today. We have an interview at the end of the pod today. We got a nice guest.

We'll sit down and chat with Leslie Hedlund, who's the creator showrunner of this show, wrote and directed the first episode that we're going to talk about today. So stay tuned for that at the end of our rundown of these episodes. Fantastic conversation between Joe and Leslie. Make sure you listen to every second of it. It was wonderful. Leslie, like genuinely...

I mean, I'll just say this. I'm supposed to be talking about program reminders, but I'll just say this. I watched the episodes. I talked to Leslie. I watched the episodes again. I think my second time through a Star Wars show is always, like, a better experience for me. But, like, watching it again with her, like, insights in my head just really changed my perspective entirely on the show. It was really helpful. So hopefully that is helpful for you all here today. Listen.

We're here to talk about Acolyte, and we're so excited to do so. Over on the Midnight Boys, pew, pew! They gave their instant reaction to Acolyte already. Fantastic podcast. I really recommend it. Great episode. I really recommend you listen to that. Wonderful conversation. Loved it. And next week, they'll be back to do the same, but they'll be coupling it with...

The Boys, right? It's a twofer episode that they're doing next week. The Boys and- Double pods next week. Yeah. Two pods. Oh, two pods. And then, yeah. Wonderful. Wonderful. Who could ask for anything more? Okay. We- Yes. Of course, we'll be back to do Acolyte as well next week, but also House of the Dragon's coming. Yeah. So we're going to be doing House of the Dragon prep next week. A little recap. I don't want to-

I'm not going to jinx it. I'm just going to say there might be a special guest on that pod, but anything could happen. So I just don't want to over-promise, under-deliver. So at the very least, you will get a House of the Dragon prep pod from us at the beginning of the week. Acolyte, episode three, deep dive later in the week. And then, Mallory, what else is happening from us? If you count Sunday as part of next week, which I do. Yeah. Steve, insert dragon screech here. Yeah.

It'll be time for actual coverage of season two, Hot D season two. We will be rejoining our third dragon head, Chris Ryan, for Talk of Thrones on Sunday nights. Everybody will be able to join us right after the Hot D premiere concludes for Talk of Thrones episode one. And then...

Stay tuned for more programming announcements because we're going to have, as always, an absolute bounty of hot D pods, not only here with our house of our deep dive, but on the ringer verse, the midnight boys, Joe and Neil and Dave on trial by content, Chris and Andy on the watch. I mean, the website, Kramer Riley, we're going to have everything everywhere. We'll give you a detailed rundown next week, but get hyped because we are.

mere days away. It's dragon time. Thrilling. Genuinely thrilling. And there's a Star Wars show on at the same time. Like, what? I mean, who could ask for anything more? Also, just want to shout out Mint Edition crew. They're covering Inside Out 2 next week. I can't wait for this movie. And the Pixar movie also in the middle of all of this. It's incredible. What a content summer. So, I'm calling it the content gauntlet. That's what I've decided to call it. You can call it whatever you like, but that's what I've decided to sort of

I like the rhythm of it. Content gauntlet. All right. Mallory, how can folks keep track of all the dragons, all the Jedi, all the feelings that are coming from all of us in the next couple weeks? Thanks for asking. My first recommendation would be that you follow the pod. Follow House of R on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the Ring of Verse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow all the pods that you're interested in on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow the ring reverse on the social media handle of your choosing. We are on Instagram, Twitter. Yes. Tick tock. Yeah, of course. The inbox is open. You can send your caught inducing emails our way. By the way, speaking of emails, we had a and speaking of House of the Dragon prep, we had all thrones, all hot deep prep.

Mailbag pod just a couple days ago. So catch up on that if you haven't yet. That's already waiting for you on the feed. Send your emails to hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com and stay tuned. Stay tuned to the pod. Stay tuned to the socials for more programming announcements about exciting things that await. And we're going to mention one more thing, which we've been teasing, but just to remind you all, we're doing a couple live shows this summer. Hell yeah, we are. So if you have not yet secured your ticket, you still have a chance. Head to theringer.com.

What a great website. The ringer.com slash events. And then you can find the link to get your tickets to talk the thrones live Tuesday, June 25th. Joe, Chris and I will be there. We will be having a blast talking about house of the dragon, talking about thrones, talking about Westeros, wonderful stuff. We genuinely can't wait. Please join us. And then later in the summer, mid July,

The Ringiverse crew is getting together for Ringiverse Live. So you have two chances to come hang with us in person in Los Angeles at the El Rey Theater this summer. Get your tickets now. Love it. Thank you for all of that, Molly Rubin. Speaking of the socials, as you were, if you have not yet watched Benjamin Lindbergh's

I saw it on Instagram. I don't know where else you can find it. Perhaps on TikTok, possibly on Twitter. His video breaking down sort of like the gist of the High Republic, which is what we're going to be talking. This is the era that this show is set, sort of the tail end of the High Republic. So we're going to be talking about that a good deal. And Ben will be back on future Acolyte deep dives to give us his comments.

Classic lore segments. So this is a double episode, and Leslie, we got the Leslie interview. We have no Ben this week, but there is Ben content available to you. Great recap from Ben on TheRinger.com. What a great website. So we're really excited to have Ben on the team going forward. Quick facts. Today, we are here to talk about...

Acolyte Part 1, Lost Slash Found, written by Leslie Hedlund, directed by Leslie Hedlund. Clocking in at 43 minutes. And then at a very light, quick 39 minutes, we've got Part 2, Revenge Slash Justice, written by Jason McAuliffe and Charmaine DeGrate and directed by Leslie Hedlund.

Spoiler warning? Have we issued our spoiler warning? Because I was just about to say, I forgot that. I'm sorry. It's just going to say something spoilery. So I realized that was when I realized we didn't get the spoiler warning. Spoiler warning. We're going to talk about the first two episodes of The Ackley. Joe just outlined that for you. What else, Joe? Anything that's ever happened in Star Wars? Yep. Oops. Anything that's ever happened in Star Wars. It's all...

All on the table, be it in a comic or a video game or a Lego minifig set, whatever it may be. If it is canon or if it is legends, we are going to talk about it. So that's all on the table. Not future episodes of the show. Just everything up through Acolyte Episode 2 and everything else that has ever happened in Star Wars. There you go. Spoiler warning issue, Jo. I just want to quickly say.

Lost slash found, revenge slash justice. We got to see the logo come to life with the little red and blue crescent moon shapes. The idea of twins, of course, this twin twist was a huge one. They kept this quiet. I was like, oh shit.

episode one twist they pull it off and to see that incorporated across the language and the framing and the positioning of the show right there in the episode names and in the logo I thought was really cool I like those little touches we're talking about twins are you emotionally prepared to talk about forced dyads forced dyads I mean simultaneously always and really never great let's go to our opening snapshot music

Mallory Rubin, you and I have actually not had a chance to really talk about. We've just had a few other things on our plate that we've been doing. We haven't had a chance to download since you've watched the episodes. So I am excited, along with our listeners, to hear your overall thoughts on Acolyte episodes one and two, other than the logo and the episode titles. I'm excited to hear yours, too, because you gave us that delicious little tease about

Looking at the episodes through a different lens after chatting with Leslie, I can't wait to hear more. From a certain point of view. From a certain point of view. Yeah. Opening snapshot. I enjoyed the first two episodes. I liked the second one more than the first one. Yeah. And...

It actually took me a little bit to get with the rhythm of the show while watching the first episode. There was a lot that I liked about it, but there were certain aspects... First of all, the pace of the show surprised me. So you...

revisiting it then another time through after seeing it, after seeing the first two episodes once and then going back to watch them both again and having a sense of what the pace was going to be. Cause we, a lot happened really quickly. Like this question of who is responsible for the killings is not really the question. Right. And, and the, the, the initial twist, um,

that Osha and Mei are twins happens quickly. Learning that Osha thinks Mei is dead. Learning that Mei also thought Osha was dead. A number of things. I can't like say Osha still without thinking of Osha from Game of Thrones, by the way. Okay. I just simply cannot. I think about it in the way that I wasn't allowed to wear flip-flops when I worked in the bookstore because of Osha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that's interesting. Yeah.

So they're jam-packed. We go, we planet hop. We go all across the galaxy. We move through places. We meet a lot of characters. We're getting a sense of a lot of different dynamics quickly, and the mystery is unfolding quickly. And then the question of what happened? What happened in the past, which we'll obviously talk about at length and in many different aspects of the dual episode breakdown as we go through beat by beat, scene by scene.

I think I had to get my bearings with that a little bit. The pace felt really good and exciting and energizing to me in the second episode on the first viewing and then felt better to me overall when I went through a second time. Something about the first episode, the rhythm of it didn't quite work for me. It felt a little like halting in its cadence. I don't quite even know how to explain it, but I don't know if it was like the fact that we got a lot of these...

May the force be with you. And then I know the, I have a bad feeling about this came in the second episode, but we have these moments where obviously like something bigger, more thematically rich, which we'll talk about, like the centrality of the idea of attachment. Something was like, I'm hearing characters say things that I wasn't necessarily expecting to hear them say. And then I think more broadly, the acclimation period for me was like,

this show is not as different from the rest of Star Wars as I thought it was going to be. That was the big adjustment for me from anticipation, hype, expectations based on marketing and positioning of the show into consuming it. And there's something about that that I like. Like the through line, it's,

Years and years and years of hubris and myopia in the Jedi Order and fear of attachment leading these characters astray that the same mistakes that their limitations are cyclical and that and we did know that this was all about the pathway to the prequels and to Phantom Menace. And so, of course, and we talked about this in our primer pods, like it's.

It could never quite be that separate really ultimately because if you're blazing the path to a certain outcome, there's definitionally a tether and a tie. So that part of it, how does history repeat itself in the conversations inside of the episodes about like learning from our past, studying our past? That's really interesting to me.

I do think that I just thought the show was going to feel more tonally distinct. There's stuff that's really different in it. The fighting style, which I thought was awesome, etc. So that was the big, oh...

initial episode one response for me. Episode two, that was less of a thing. I have not watched beyond episode two, so I'm curious to see what that, if that aspect of it evolves, if the tone starts to shift, if the mystery and the propulsive nature of that and the inward assessment coupled with the outward quest does really amplify and heighten a kind of like darker world. Right, because we were, we were,

told this was from a Sith point of view. And like, I don't feel like we're really there yet. My hope, not having like seen everything, but my hope is that there will be more room for that in later episodes. Same. And I think we ended the second episode in a great place. Like I genuinely am excited to keep watching. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the show. I like can't wait to see episode three. I thought a lot of the performances were really captivating. I think some of the character dynamics, I just like cannot wait to talk with you about

and OSHA. I just cannot wait. I'm sure we could do it for 15 hours before Steve cut our mics. There was a lot that I loved in here. It was absolutely wonderful. Wonderful. It connects to so many... That's the kind of connection to other things as well. I love that thematic connection. And then Pip was just an instant icon. I have absolutely no notes. I thought Pip was just a sensation. Wonderful stuff. TLDR. I really liked it. I had a...

I had some notes on the first episode in particular, and I think for me a little bit of a, was my expectation totally in line with the thing we were actually getting, but not in a way that diminishes or dampens my enthusiasm for what's to come. And I think there are a lot of building blocks here to make something really cool over the course of a full season. What about you? Yeah, I think

We just can't help ourselves, and I'm so sorry that it's the case, but any Star Wars TV show is going to be held up to our experience watching Andor because it felt so different and so refreshing. But something I remember because they dropped, was it three episodes of Andor at once? It was at least two, if not three. I remember the first episode feeling kind of like,

You're acclimating yourself to this new world. Definitely. And they dropped several, I think. And I think it was smart for them to drop two here because that first one, you're just sort of like, okay, there are no Skywalkers. When am I? Where am I? What's going on? What's the rhythm of this show? That sort of thing. And so I agree. The thing that really struck me actually building our notes for today is when I was pulling quotes from

for us to like drop into the episode, all the ones I wanted to pull were from episode two. And I was just like, except for the very end of episode one, but I was like, it's not like nothing interesting happens. It's just like, there's so much exposition and sort of like establishing of the world happening in episode one by design that, and I think also by design,

what you're talking about in terms of it not being as different as you expected is part of the new normal that we should expect from Star Wars now that everything is sort of under Dave Filoni's auspices at Lucasfilm. Like, Tony Gilroy making Andor is operating independently, but everything else is sort of coming under this one guiding hand, a la Marvel and Kevin Feige, et cetera. So, like, that's just something to think about is, like, by design, I think they're trying to make things...

things that feel more of a piece rather than sort of what we were hoping, which is like wild and unusual and different, uh, flavors inside of, of one world. Um, I really liked a lot and I really liked it more watching it, uh, the second time I liked it well enough. And then I like really liked it a lot more watching the second time. Um, and,

And I think Lee Jung-jae as Sol is like one of my favorite Star Wars performances ever. Like genuinely. There is something so tender and emotional about him. So if anyone listening to this listened to Chris and Andy talk about the show on The Watch earlier this week, Andy had...

a delightfully Andy, a Greenwaldian rant about how uninteresting Jedi are. Yeah. And then I had like a text debate, a debate me coward text exchange with him about that. And I...

I see where he's coming from. I largely disagree in that. I don't think it's a Jedi problem. I think it's something you and I have talked about on several of these Disney plus shows, which is like a stoicism problem, which extends to Bo-Katan and Boba Fett and Fennec Shand and Din Djarin. Like this stoic archetype is something that Dave Filoni is really interested in. There are a few, a few stoic characters in this show, but like in soul, like,

we're getting someone who's so unstoic, who's so emotional. And that is something that I really respond to. So I think Li Zhengjie as soul is like really, and Amanda's great, uh,

You know, and Manny just in tow when he comes in is like a charisma dynamite. Just like absolutely incredible. Dynamite introduction. But I think soul is this sort of like heartstring of the show is something that is just really pulling me forward. I totally agree. There's just an incredibly tangible amount of pathos coming through the screen in every line. And I

we can save our thoughts on the particulars for when we're contextually talking about the actual exchanges that are unfolding, but the combination of when the thing that is wrenching at him

has to do with another person or when it has to do with himself, how that ties into the questions that the Jedi ask of each other, the limitations and the fears that these strictures place on them. The just very human... Yeah, exactly. ...

qualities emanating from it, not just the longing and the despair, but like frustration, you know, with the other Jedi and the decisions that they're making. Like it felt so, I got some, even though it is an incredible,

incredibly different performance. And I think the particulars are really distinct. I, the character that he made me think of the most was Qui-Gon because a thousand percent. Yeah. And she's such a satisfying way that we are obviously very easy marks for because we love Qui-Gon, but this question, and especially when you're paired with like a Padawan who left the order, we don't yet know why we're going to, we, this is another intriguing mystery already established in the show. Um,

I don't get the sense from Sol in the first two episodes that there's an outcome that we're necessarily heading toward him deciding that life as a Jedi is not for him. But I do think that he's positioned quickly and very effectively as a character who does not believe that every decision that the people make around him make is right, which is so important. And like we love I mean, we've said this.

A zillion times, we might as well say it again. Like, one of our shared favorite Star Wars stories is The Last Jedi. And one of my big thoughts leaving the first two episodes, one of the things I really appreciate about what the Acolyte is clearly interested in doing, like, centrally, is interrogating the Jedi. Yeah. And interrogating the relationship to...

the force to a foothold in society. And I'm hopeful we both consider last Jedi brilliant and, and important. Yes. Star Wars installment and story. And I'm hopeful though. I feel almost foolish saying this out loud, given the like really despicable review bombing and, and response to, to the show from the bad faith contingent, which is, uh,

Very upsetting, though perhaps unsurprising to see unfolding. My hope is that on that front of interrogating and critiquing the Jedi and trying to hold the Jedi to some account...

for their hubris, that there's maybe like a little bit more of a willingness to receive that than there was when it was coming from a character like Luke. Now, for us and for people who love Last Jedi, the brilliance of it was that it was Luke. And that was really inextricable from what made it so powerful that Luke would be the character to voice those things. But I hope that

There is this very subversive quality to the focus of this story that I love and that I think is necessary to keep Star Wars big and vast and vibrant and sprawling. And so I hope people are excited about that part of it and willing to engage with that part of it. That would be really cool. Not only do I hope that people are excited about it, I think the thing that I'm concerned about in it

It's too early to get concerned. We've only, we're only talking about two episodes here, but like, I know that that's what Leslie wants to do. It is clear in all the interviews she's given and, you know, especially in the chat we had with her, that's going to be on the podcast today. Um,

How much is she allowed to do that inside of Lucasfilm is the other question. How scared is Lucasfilm of that after the reaction to Last Jedi? So I don't know how much, like, punches will be pulled in this telling or not, you know? This is what I think my favorite thing about the first two episodes is, actually, other than Saul. Mike, I have, of course, that general anxiety as well, living through the sequel trilogy as we all did. Yeah.

a lot of confidence actually after the first two episodes in that respect. I mean, this is my hope. Something, something made King Tommen, you know, meditate for a decade. So let's find out what that was. What was so bad that that happened? I do want to talk about really quickly. Wait, watch. Right at the top? No, we're going to save that. I mean, I just want everyone to know. I want to build up to that. I want everyone to know. Every now and then, you know, we like to take people behind the curtain, building the outlines prep process. Yeah.

The number of times in the process of building the notes that Joanna acknowledged the wig's existence, but literally in the notes forced herself to wait to comment. Yeah.

I just thought it was hilarious and simultaneously like an admirable show of restraint and a real indicator that I don't think the restraint is going to last for long. It's one of the first thing I texted you after like the trailer when I was like Dean Charles Chapman's wig. Anyway, we're going to talk about it. It's definitely not a deal breaker for me. It's genuinely delightful and hilarious. Sick scars and blind eyeball though. Yeah, real sick. I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. I loved it.

okay. Before we, before we go into our deep dive, which, you know, we haven't even started yet. Cool, cool beans for us. Um, uh, I do want to just really quickly talk about acolyte as a title, uh, which we have a bit in our, in our preview pods, but acolyte versus apprentice. I think apprentice is the word that is most often used, uh,

both by the Jedi and the Sith alike. Acolyte is loosely a synonym of apprentice, but more crucially, acolyte has a religious connotation that apprentice doesn't. And so I think it's important to think about that, about...

You know, we're always, I think, thinking about the Jedi as religion in a sort of like spiritual way. And then occasionally the Jedi as religion in like a constricting institutional way. But I think if we're thinking of this from a Sith point of view, this idea of...

spreading ideology. We're going to talk about that speech at the end of episode one, killing, how do you kill that ideology? How do you kill the dream? Why the word acolyte is used there. Manages into holding up some poison like a communion wafer and saying absolution. Like these are important things that are running through the show. But I think that is why it's

I mean, Acolyte's just also a sexier word than Apprentice, but that's why the show is called Acolyte and not Padawan. Yes. Or Apprentice or whatever. And Acolyte is a Sith rank. A Sith year. Yeah, it is. Sith Acolyte is a rank and a part of the Sith canon. We'll talk about this elsewhere in the pod, but that's an interesting kind of data point in terms of how we as...

Skywalker saga Star Wars fans think of the rule of two and the fact that there can be these other tiers of Sith existence will become part of like the tangible text, certainly. But I agree with you that not only in addition to that literal aspect, but it feels like more importantly, actually, the very overt religious presentation of not just...

but that deification and worship and like all consuming. Yeah. Yeah. Pursuit. Fascinating. The communion wafer for the bunta is a, is a, is a great flag. That was, I mean, great scene. Manny, you're the best. This season on Naughty Island. When we were new, they spoiled me. They even gave me a phone, but then it's like, I didn't exist.

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Let's go now to our deep dive. Oh, I really forgot about that. Oh, I missed our Star Wars cues. Thanks, Steve. All right. So part one, Lost and Found, is where we're starting. We're starting with an opening scroll of sorts. Obviously, it's scrolling on the screen, but it is, you know, a blue font and a star field.

Getting us excited. This is what it says. A hundred years before the rise of the Empire, it is a time of peace. The Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic have prospered for centuries without war, but in the dark corners of the galaxy, a powerful few learn to use the Force in secret. One of them, a lone assassin, risks discovery to seek revenge. So we're doing like three, as far as I can count, three...

key things here. We're establishing the time period for people who have not been listening to every house of our acolyte prep pod, and that's fine. You're allowed to not listen to every prep pod. It's a time to start peace and the Jedi order have like total control over who can and cannot use force in the galaxy. That's like a key part to what's going on here. That's something we talked about a lot in the prep pods, like who's power, who's allowed to use it.

The scroll itself, the language of the scroll, it's not a scroll. The language of the opening, uh, graphs here, uh, establish that non regimented force users are suspect in the dark corners of the galaxy, right? Out on rim, unknown region, whatever it is, but it's a dark corner, a powerful few in secret. This is my favorite part. This language here, which, uh,

if we're meant to take this show from a Sith point of view, which I would argue we're not quite in yet, this is not that. This is Jedi language. This is Jedi propaganda is what it feels like to me. Yes, definitely. And I think that's really interesting. And then the last...

and we're about to learn this more explicitly when we see the Mae versus Indara fight, is that this is very personal. This is about revenge, right? A lone assassin risks discovery to seek revenge. It's not an acolyte seeks to prove herself to her master. That's not what this mission is about. It's not only what this mission is about. It's about revenge. A really loaded word in Star Wars, of course, because...

Revenge of the Sith or Return of the Jedi's original title, Revenge of the Jedi, whatever you prefer. This is a classic George Lucas buzzword. What did you think of this opening moment? And do you want to talk to me about concrete BBY numbers? Okay.

As you know, I always like to put a very long, like four page long timeline in our in our docs at the start of a new Star Wars season. But I did not do that here. We can limit ourselves to a bullet point or two. We all learn and grow. But I want you to room to be your authentic BBY self if you need to. Thanks so much, pal. Yeah. So just to that would be your droid name, by the way, BB hyphen Y.

It's cute, right? BBY? It's like BB8? Purple. All right. You know, I built my own BB. Can you see? I know. It's purple. Yeah. Yeah. LJ8. It's Raven's colors, right? Yeah. Yeah. LJ8. Yeah. Wonderful stuff. Oh, I know my Ruben lore. Don't worry. Had a great time there. Drank some blue milk. It was wonderful. Got a terrible stomachache because I ate so much junk food over the course of that evening. But as they say on Billion, it's worth it, Bob! This is all so on brand for you. I love it.

BBY check-in. So the High Republic era runs from 500 to 100 BBY. This show is set 100 years before Phantom Menace. We're in 132 BBY, which means we are not only a century before the prequels. That's obviously, I think, for most Star Wars fans, the most important time marker, but

But in terms of that High Republic era, and just a second, what Joe said, like you'll be able to get great downloads on that lore from Ben and hopefully from us on this podcast all season long. Oh, yeah. We're at the end. We're in the late stages of the High Republic era, which given that the High Republic publishing push. Mm hmm.

covers a larger span of time than this and is now into its third phase. This feels very deliberate to start the screen version at this point where we are nearing the end of the thing and building toward the more familiar thing. Will we then work our way further back in future shows and films? Who can say? Obviously, eventually we're going very far back.

Very far back. Well beyond the High Republic. If that movie happens. Can't wait. So that was great in terms of how I felt about the opening non-scroll card overall. I like it. I always enjoy that's one of the hey, yeah, this is not maybe so different from other stars things after all. That is fun. It's cool. It's familiar. It feels like you're sinking into a warm bath. You're home again. I do think your point about oh, that initial note is not a from a Sith point of view one struck me as well. The

Few, the choice of few, a powerful few, learn to use the force and secret. I think few was my, that was what I really latched onto in the opening. Not to go all...

Jeff Probst on Jelensky in the most recent season of Survivor where how many is several really became a season-long recurring discussion point in a way that I found very amusing. Yeah. Very amusing. You know, few is not two. So we just alluded to this with the idea of the Sith Acolyte and the rank, but...

Where do you place few? We might have more characters in the mix than we would normally anticipate, which is exciting. Where do you put few between like smattering and handful? Like a dust, a light dusting, a dusting. I usually reserve smattering for like when I'm describing my tattoo idol, Zoe Kravitz, like a smattering of small little forearm tats. That's what's the vibe I'm trying to cultivate. Yeah.

And the music, like the sounds in the opening. Incredible. Great stuff. Steve, just want to say that we support your efforts to talk about the score. Suck it, everyone else on the Midnight Voice. Thank you. I appreciate that. It was a fantastic podcast and beautiful and important and everyone should listen. And you were within your rights to bring up the score. The score's sick. It was good. It was very good. Yeah, very Williams-esque.

But like with some cool, because as we discussed in one of our prep pause that like Michael Abels, who's the composer, that he's worked with Jordan Peele on his, like on Us and Get Out. So that like horror story.

sort of element that Mallory just loves horror scores is sort of in here for some of our like dream sequence nightmare stuff that happens in these first two episodes. It's my horror year, Jo. I'm going to see Alien with you and Chris on opening night. I'm so excited. You both promised to hold my hand and cradle me. That's not what happened. Chris was like, I don't think you can hack it. Stay home. And I said, come with me.

You can do this. Yeah. Chris was like, you're actually just not fucking invited. Chris did literally say, I don't think this is for you, Mallory. He did. It was tough. It was tough. Okay. Rough one. A wild trinity briefly appears. Right.

should have been in all caps, underlined, italicized. This is something we kind of deduced from the trailer, didn't we? Yeah. That we had said the only footage, non-flashback footage we had seen of her was from this one fight. And I said, I'm worried. And this was before I'd seen a single minute of the show. You had also called the cast list. Oh yeah, she's way far down on the cast list. Yeah. Yeah, you were reading the signs. I...

jumping to the end of the scene now at the very beginning of it, but just because we're talking about that, like, we do... We... Clearly, flashbacks are going to be a... I would say not just minor part of this season based on the setup we've gotten. It feels like going back to whatever happened with May and Osha and Sol and the fire and...

learning about the Torben and Andara and the decisions that everybody made, I would be stunned based on the nature of these first two episodes if that was like a scene. Oh, yeah. I just feel like we're going to be spending some time, some time of consequence in the past. So do you think how much more time will we be getting with Carrie Ann Moss? Because one scene, obviously it's not just going to be one scene, but hopefully it's not just going to be

One other scenes. Two or three scenes either. Like, do you think there's a chance for multiple additional appearances or? I'm...

I think it's going to be more than one flashback. Smattering? Yeah. Light dusting of Carrie Ann Moss. I was talking – I remember Sean Fennessy was texting me about like his excitement level for the Acolyte. He's like, his number one thing was Carrie Ann Moss. And I tried to be like, listen, guy. I hadn't seen – seriously, I hadn't seen the episode. But I was like, she's way down on the cast list. I think – I do think they're kind of bait and switching people, which I think is a little unfortunate. Like I understand if you have Carrie Ann Moss on your show –

You have Trinity doing force fu. Like, you want people to get excited about it. But I think a lot of, most people went in expecting that Carrie Ann Moss is a main character on the show, and she is the Drew Barrymore of the season. I think that there's a very, like, modern TV, you know, Thrones era character

to, I don't want to, I was going to mention another show entirely in a casting decision and a first episode twist, but I don't want to spoil that. But this is like a thing that people do now. Weirdly, if it had just been Indara dying in the first scene of the show, it might've felt more like that to me. Again, accounting for the fact that we know from trailers that we'll get at least like a glimpse elsewhere. But the fact that Torben was also killed in the first episode

in the double premiere, that gives me more confidence that this is just a cool and interesting structural choice. I think all of your other points about just limited footage, cast lists, all of that still stand, obviously, in terms of just like relative screen time. But if multiple people are dying and being eliminated, and then part of our journey is going back to understand how we got to that outcome, that's actually interesting to me.

Totally agree. All right, let's zoom back. We're on a planet. Yeah. Ueda? Ueda? Is that how we're pronouncing it? Who can say? I have no idea. I do like how you put this in the doc like a dateline, like you were reporting on the ground. Capital U-E-A-D. M-dash. It's a very planet-hopping show, perhaps even more, I think, than The Mandalorian. I think Andy made some good points about- Two planet-hoppy?

Did you like that part of it? Did you feel like it was exciting and propulsive? Or were you like, I can't really get my bearings? I just don't know that we spend enough time anywhere to get the true flavor of it versus like...

Again, Andy was comparing to Andor and just sort of like how we felt a real sense of place for all those places. And this is just like a little bit of like I understand there's a noodle shop on this planet and I understand that that place is snowy and I understand that. But like, you know, a little a little a little happy. We've only seen two episodes. We've already been to, I think, like four different planets. Noodle shop.

I'm starving right now. The recipes on StarWars.com for the noodles from Lomi Uski Noodle Shop. I may be mispronouncing that. Are you going to make them?

Maybe I'll make them for you when I'm in L.A. and you're in L.A. and we can eat them together. Should we? Steve sounds like you're not invited to this meal. Steve's invited. Joe and I are going to be dining together. Steve's cat is invited. Steve puts putting sick invite in the Zoom chat. Should we? I don't know what black vinegar is, but that's one of the one of the ingredients. So I'm excited to find out. Should we pair the noodles with the Count Chocula?

Gross. Absolutely foul. No? We are going to be eating some Count Chocula. Where's your sense of adventure? Count Chocula feels like an in-studio experience that Jemmy can mine for social. Yeah, save that for Halloween at this point, you think? No. The Paula Trades podcast? Is that when we should have Count Chocula? Do not invoke that.

First line of this show is, where's your Jedi? The first line of this show, establishing that every little outpost in Noodle Shop has a Jedi setting vigil, or at least they are in abundance in the galaxy. What did you feel about this? I love this, and I thought this was, in perhaps contrast to some of the clunkier exposition that we'll get to-

very deft shorthand to explain what's different about where we are now. Because contrast that to say, I mean, really any number of things, but like think of Obi-Wan or Rebels, like Inquisitor era Star Wars stories where this question, if posed, where's your Jedi, means that you are hiding someone who is evading, seeking to evade capture. Here, this is about abundance. This is about a carefree life.

a sprawling life, not about fearing pursuit or capture or discovery. So that just struck me as a really quick and tidy way to say this is a different time in the galaxy. Um...

As Ben pointed out in his excellent recap, man walks into a bar, cantina, noodle shop, et cetera, is the way a lot of these stories start. I thought of Mando immediately. Do you think anyone in the noodle shop has ever said I can bring the noodles in warm or I can bring the noodles in cold? I am going to text that to you. I'm going to bring the noodles to the office and I'm going to say I can bring it in warm or I can bring it in cold. And then...

And Dara, Carrie Ann Moss giving us cool calm collected, like her turn to the camera, all of that great stuff. You're like, this is why you hired Carrie Ann Moss. Absolutely. And Mae did not seem nervous right at first. Seemed very much like... I actually kind of disagree. You think she seemed nervous? When she lowers her voice and says, attack me with all of your strength, like that feels like someone posturing confidence. You know what I mean? I felt like the initial...

Master and Dara, we have unfinished business. Yeah.

she had maybe the nerves then creep in, but really throughout the way that she engaged, like that's a scary fight, right? If you're May and you're challenging Indara and she doesn't, she doesn't shrink from it. So there was an element of like almost, yeah, you have to like talk, what's your pregame routine. You gotta like talk yourself up and get ready. She has practiced. She did seem. Don't you think she's practiced these lines in the mirror? She uses them again. Um,

later on Torben. Yes. There is a rehearsed quality to it. Yeah. Certainly. And we have unfinished business and talk me through all of your strength. Our overt lifts from Kill Bill. So, yeah. Love getting the Kill Bill energy throughout here. The My Child return from Indara was interesting too on the other side. Like, feels like a very deliberate,

Let's remember how the master and apprentice master Padawan dynamic goes. And that it's not just always one of tutelage. It can be one of superiority. It can be one of making the person on the other end feel like they're not ready for something. And Daria says Jedi do not attack, do not attack the unarmed. Like a moment to make us think about this era of Jedi where they're supposed to just be peacekeepers, true peacekeepers, right?

Mace would do still thinks they're peacekeepers. The prequels, he says, we're keeper of the peace, not, not soldiers. I don't think so, buddy, but nice thought, but they used to be allegedly keepers of the peace, uh, or space cops, if you prefer. Um, and I think this, like this, yes, you do obviously just like loaded with personal enmity from may, um,

And then later, like, underlined in the unmasking moment when Indara says, like, you. Like, to not just her face, but the tattoo on her forehead. So, like, what are you doing here? Like, you know, we get this information actually fairly quickly via some slick and some clunky exposition along the way. But, like, just to give us this right at the beginning is so tasty to me. Totally. The, um...

The mace references are great. The thing I always think of there is the Voyage of Temptation, Satine-Anakin conversation that I love so much. We are protectors, Highness. Yours at the moment. We fight for peace. And Satine saying, what an amusing contradiction. That's the one that I always think of there. That's so good. But the yes you do, this allusion so early to whatever...

Like horror. This is not just something unfortunate that happened. It's not just their family. It's their entire village. The village. Wiped out. What role the Jedi had in it? In...

responding to it and causing it and covering it up. These are questions we will be asking as we go through the two episodes today. These are questions we will be asking moving forward. But right away, to set our minds racing in that respect, like, what is she identifying? And what is that recalling and bringing up? That was a, oof. And I just thought this fight was awesome. Oh, yeah. The way that, like, tactile, that Amanda and her stunt double and, like,

Love a mask design so that the stunt double can just like really cook. But the flips and the kicks and the turns and like all this sort of, and like her hair whipping around and all of like, all of that movement. Yes. And then Indara's stillness in response to it and just like the economy of her gestures and movement. And just sort of like stepping to the side, all this sort of stuff. Yes. May's, and we're going to come back to this a couple times, but May's like,

Frantic grabs and preoccupations with the lightsaber and Indara clocking that is a fascinating dynamic in all of this. What is your... It's in the soul fight too, yeah. Exactly. What is your take on... I just want to skip to this because I am actually very curious about this. So, Mei in both the soul and the Indara fight is grabbing for the lightsaber on these Jedi's hips. Yeah.

and missing. But when she has the opportunity to pick up Indara's lightsaber from the ground, she leaves it there. So...

There is, you know, an abundance of stories about the Sith and bleeding kyber crystals. The Darth Vader 2017 comics has, like, I think one of the more... Sensational run, yeah. ...famous storylines about this, but this idea of a Sith going... a Sith apprentice, or however you prefer, going to a Jedi Master, killing them, taking their lightsaber, bleeding the crystal. I don't think there's any specificity...

In canon, please correct me if I'm wrong, you might know better than I do, that you have to take it off a live Jedi or you have to take it off their hip or you have to kill them with it or anything. That's not part of the rules as far as I know. So what is your read on why Mei leaves Indara's weapon on the ground there? I think it's a great question and clearly something we're meant to flag. Yeah.

walking away when it's sitting right there. It's not like she's running out of the joint. The camera makes it obvious that she is deciding. Returns her blades to her hands. Takes the time to do that. It's not a pension. There's no time. Isn't there? She definitely could have picked it up if she wanted to. She chose not to. I think there are a number of possibilities. It could be, one of the

This is like unbleeding the crystals, purifying the crystals example. But I always love to talk about what Ahsoka does when she forges her white blades, takes the six brothers' bled crystals and purifies them. And part of the reason that that felt like the right thing for her to do was because the crystals were calling to her. So I think there's always a question whether it's an initial gathering style, forging of your first blade. And we don't know, right? Like we don't know, did Mei do that?

ever do that? Like, has that happened for her yet? And maybe that's like set aside waiting or is this the path to that? We actually don't know because we have a lot of blanks in the history for both May and Osha. So does she not feel the response that she needs to feel from that crystal? Does it not feel like the right one for her to take? Could be that. I think there seems to be. If that were the case, I feel like we would have a moment of her like, you know, considering it. I think there seems to be because we see her like

There's the hip pans and the close grazing moments here, but the most overt one by far comes later in the soul fight with the slow-mo kind of hip pan. And that made me think, is that the one specifically she's seeking? And then more broadly, that connects to one of the things I was trying to track on my second watch was

And we'll hit some of this in context as we go through some of the things that Chimera and May discussed together.

I'm running out of time. You're running out of Jedi. Like, it seems like there is not just one mission, but there are missions within the missions. Like, I will get one of these kills without a weapon and please our master. That was my interpretation, though, is that you're running out of... There seem to be different trials. You've got four Jedi to kill on your list and you have to do one of them without...

A weapon. Not a weapon. Definitely. But then that made me think, are there mini tests inside of these trials? Like, is it just that one challenge? Oh, it's like a full-blown Sith scavenger hunt. Yeah. One of them, you have to pull the lightsaber hot off their hip. Off another one, you have to get them to kill themselves. Like, yeah. Like, who knows? Maybe there's a certain order of progression. Maybe the blade that she's seeking needs to... Whether it's in her mind or part of the mission that she's been set from...

mystery dude who we'll talk about. He, Stranger, according to the captioning of the episodes. Maybe there's a reason that the portrayal from one of those four feels supreme and that that would be the right blade. I don't think we can say for sure, but I would be surprised if taking a blade and bleeding a crystal was not a part of this quest at some point. That would be really...

It feels like the pan on the blade is, like, setting us up for that. Oh, 100%. I don't know. There's only got two left now. Totally. What's interesting about your question about, like, has Mae ever...

you know, tried to get a kyber crystal or bleed a kyber crystal or whatever. We don't know. We have blank spots here. That feeds into this next part of like who trained you and Indara immediately calling in, I have an unidentified force user really underlining this idea of the Jedi as like cops and gatekeepers of who gets to use a force and who doesn't. We have to think about

Mother Anisea, and by the way, we learned that May Anosha's last name is Anisea, so is Jodie Turner-Smith their mom? And if so, that feeds into your hope that there's lengthy flashbacks, right? Mother Anisea's line from the trailer that we've been mentioning in most of our prep pods, which is, this isn't about good or bad, this is about power and who is allowed to use it. So the Jedi as gatekeepers of this power. I don't have you registered, Force user. Who are you? I...

But we, the Jedi, get to know everyone who's using the Force in the galaxy. You know? That's the status quo here. Right. And, like, it makes you wonder, not to get into too much speculation this early, about, like, what we might learn from their time in the past. Because on the one hand, we have the data point that, like... And I have some thoughts on this when we get to this later conversation. Stop me if you've heard this before. Osha was too old. There were some concerns that Osha was too old. Hmm.

What's her M count, though? That's my question. I don't know. Was Qui-Gon around to just, like, steal her blood? Wrong timeline for that. Yeah, I guess so. But, so, on the one hand, the fact that there was concern about the ages and the fact that we know these four Jedi were posted on that, on Brendok, clearly for some other reason than just recruitment, makes it seem less likely to me that they were there specifically to, like,

retrieve these four sensitive children. And also, like, we don't... We have not met this family, but, like, the... Just the explanation of who the characters are and what we've seen in the trailers, there's this, like, witchy quality. So, like, a presence of the Force more broadly across this family unit. So...

could that line that we've latched onto from the trailer have something to do with them going and seeing these four sensitive children and being like, we're interested in one but not the other. Like, we sense darkness here. That's not for us. And then Mother Anisea being like, wait, you're going to tell me that, like, you're only going to take one of my kids for your special school and the other one because of some mind probe you're doing on an eight-year-old, like, doesn't deserve your care and your opportunities? Like, I'm curious if it's something like that.

At the very least, it feels like a clash between an institution and like wild force users in the wild. Absolutely. Versus the institution, you know? And I thought it was really notable that Indara didn't

activate her comm link didn't call for help just because she was attacked it was only that it was only seeing may use the force and realizing that there was a force user outside of their tight net of control that led her to communicate what was unfolding which just i think the further supports what you're saying like that's the threat anything outside of their web so

And I think, not to get too far into this whole, like, Mother Anisea thing and the witchiness that we've seen from the trailer, but, like, it goes back then to this idea of, like, the Jedi institution as, like, you know, the Catholic, like, as a religion versus, like, pagan, you know, celebration of religion in the wild, that sort of clash. So we'll talk about that if and when we get to it. But...

I want to mention, I love Mae's throwing knives. I love that she uses the Force to make the knives even more lethal. It's very, like, Black Widow to me meets, like, Mando's whistling birds meets Inej from Six of Crows. The way that the knives are just hitting all over her body. Maybe think of Violet from Fourth Wing. Ooh, nice. Yeah, sure. Inej is just, like, bristling with knives at all time, and I just love that about that character. And then she says, we see, a Jedi doesn't pull her weapon unless prepared to kill someone.

And Dard does eventually activate the saber. And then we get this moment. And then like lowers it though. We get this moment that I'm like both anti and pro. I'm,

You're anti? Yeah. And Dara goes out like a chump in a way that she doesn't need to. She definitely could have stopped both knives. Absolutely, she could have. So on the one hand, yes. On the other hand, I do like the fundamental underlying idea that Mei is using the Jedi's mission statement of protection against them. And in the same way that she's going to use guilt on them.

to conquer the next Jedi on her list. Like this idea of using their strength as their weakness, that sort of thing, which is a very sithy thing to do. We've talked about this before in Star Wars. But the knife, I mean... No. I agree with you. It's always interesting to hear the opponent or the foe try to turn something that should be a...

point of pride, compassion, and warp that against the Jedi. I'm pretty much always interested in that. I do agree with you there. I can't, however, accept... I actually couldn't accept...

That she couldn't feel the other blade coming with the force and stop both. That just actually doesn't make sense. So I think that's the kind of thing, it's like little things like that that take us out of a scene. It's the opening scene of the first episode. Then that's in your mind as you're watching the rest of it. And it makes it a little bit harder to embrace a thing that ultimately we thought was

pretty good and interesting. So that was just a little odd. It's also tough in the larger universe where we've seen multiple main characters take lightsabers to the gut and be fine. And they're fine. Dark dude, dark dude.

and was, is fine. So like, yeah, I mean, that part too. So like one little throwing knife, albeit to her heart seemingly, is like... Yeah. Right to the, right to the pumper. That's true. It is tough. The old pumper. The old pumper. Like the other thing is just the adjacency inside of this scene to stuff that was really working. You know, the...

not just the you, what are you doing here? Like pulling the mask down and seeing Mae's face, but specifically the dialing in on the, on the, the forehead mark. Yeah. You know, it's not a lightning bolt scar, but it's our version of this. And like, what was interesting about that to me is, and I don't know if this will actually be right or true, but it seemed to me like that was a little, as we collect data points and clues, because this is a mystery, um,

I felt like that indicated that the, obviously the mark is going to be a way to tell the twins apart. That's like, that's one part of it. But what that made me think was that may had that already as a kid.

Because, and Osha didn't and doesn't because that's the thing that like makes it not only like, oh, I know who you are, but oh, I know which of the twins you are. And so if she had that as a kid, then what does that tell us? Was she training for something distinct from what Osha was training for? Was she involved in something in her village that Osha was not? Was that part of what led to this, whatever, whatever fracture unfolded that tore this family apart? And what level of,

did Indara have of that? Like, what level of direct action and culpability do the Jedi have? And how many in that group before? Is the you, what are you doing here? I thought you were dead. Or is it you, what are you doing here? Me not.

I knew you were alive and I thought you were like, why are you coming out of hiding? The woodwork or whatever. Absolutely could be that. Great question. Definitely could be that. I think there's something on the Torben timeline front that like makes that seem more likely to me. Delighted. And I hope it's a wig-based analysis and I can't wait to hear it. Lamentably not, but it is that we've learned that he's, the vow for him that he's been in that state for 10 years. 10 years. Yeah. So like we know that this whole period of time is 16 years. So what happened in the fire? From the fire.

Is your question. Okay. Yeah. He didn't go into the, he didn't go, he didn't take the valet away. Did something happen in the six years? He didn't take it after Osha left the order. Which was only six years ago. Ten years ago. Did something happen in the six years or six years the amount of time it takes for guilt to eat away at you? Oh, to the point where your hair looks like that? Listen, I support all hair lights. Okay.

You didn't come on. You do not. You might support all hair lengths, but you don't support this wig and don't pretend. I, I, I, okay. Um, you refer to him in the talk at one point as the wig. I'm sorry.

I was like, in tears. It's a word. Okay, listen. I just love it. I love it. We got to get out of this noodle shop. So let's just yada, yada, yada and say that like Mae looks not entirely pleased to have killed Indara. She looks a bit conflicted. And then she also does not kill the bartender slash owner or whatever when she sees that there's a little kid there. So Mae-

Not fully rotten to the core yet. There is what? Some good in her? What? Okay. Well, and of course this would make sense if part of her...

origin story is being stripped away from her family. Right. Because she doesn't know what happened on the other, she doesn't know that Osha's alive either. So she thinks, presumably, that her entire family is dead. And she's like, I know what it's like to be a kid who grew up having your family torn away from you. Makes sense. Trax, only other thing I wanted to say about that opening scene was, because we talked about that idea of compassion like being wielded

against the Jedi. Yeah. It makes me think about the scene we're going to get into in a few minutes here, but the first description in the show that we hear of Sol is...

how lucky these younglings are to have such a compassionate teacher. That's our introductory character trait for him. I just want to cry about Sol all the time. I just feel so tenderly towards him and I am so scared for him. Okay. Now we are leaving the noodle shop and we are going to meet the main character of this show. It's Pip. I'm using my Jon Snow, my injured Jon Snow voice. Sweet Pip.

Okay, actually the main character of the show is Osha, but Mallory, I'm just going to hand the mic over to you if you want to tell me your feelings about Pip. I just thought Pip was an instant star. Every now and then you have the pleasure of seeing a character who understands the assignment.

A performer who choose the scenery. Yeah. Pip was just sensational. So cute. You instantly are concerned about Pip. Yeah. Versatile, like handy, good pal, companion, communicative, lots of interesting warbles and trills and chirps. I thought that when Osha ripped Pip's head off,

in a later scene it was unacceptable and outrageous even though I was worried how your sympathy towards Osha would survive that moment but it seems like he clearly meant

part of his function. But still, were you mollified? Were you mollified when she then later like tenderly tucked him into her little hip pouch when they were assuming crash? Yeah, fastening the, fastening the latch on the hip pouch to make sure that he was safely tucked away before their crash. As they crashed. That was sweet. Okay. That was sweet. I love Pip. I will be. I assure you that as soon as Pip merch is available, I will be, I will be securing a Pip of my own. I, I,

I'm sure Adam has already pre-ordered it for some occasion coming up. Okay, so...

We meet Osha. She wakes as if from a nightmare. If we're paying close, close attention, we can immediately see that this is a different person. It's different hair. No forehead tattoo. But like, is this a flashback? Is this a vision of the future? You know, we find out like pretty quickly that this is a twin. But like, were you taken in? You say you were surprised by the episode one reveal. Were you taken in in this moment? Were you like, this is definitely the same person?

Had the exact journey that you just described the, Oh, I wonder if we're in a different point in time or wait, wait, what is there more than one person? It was the, it was in the very, uh, close to here, like sister moment that it was like, wait, what? Oh, okay. So that's, what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um,

So we get conversations between, um, Feliq, the, the, her fellow, what is it? Mech neck. And, um, we're guys, guess what? Your favorite pals, the trade Federation are here. Trade fed fun, fun times. Um, you love, you love to see them. Um, I actually thought

I thought that they were a riot. That's their response to the Jedi showing up and going, ugh, ugh, this is great. And then the female of the two, seemingly female of the two, where she was just like, you don't have to mind trick us. I'll tell you where she is. As soon as my head goes up. Just get out of here. It's fine. Happy to tell you what you need to know. And again, interesting timeline clues, right? Trade Fed never used shields.

We're in a time where that kind of thing is like just not the daily requirement as you make your way about the galaxy. So little things like that were interesting about the scene too. What did you think about just seeing Osha given that we learn, you know, that Osha left the Order six years ago? This kind of life, like choosing to live this life. What did you think of that? Yeah, as far away from Coruscant as she could possibly get. Seems like she's...

I think Coruscant's pretty fucking uggo, honestly. There's barely any trees. Why would, why would you live there? Um,

It's a planet that's just city. You need like a plum tree in the yard to make your barbecue sauce. Yes, you need some nature, man. It's a planet that's just city. Great summation. I think that sucks. It's just layers of city. That sounds terrible to me. But listen, she's clearly like licking her wounds. I mean, she later says that leaving the Jedi Order was her decision, but she has chosen to go as far away from Coruscant as possible to

She doesn't even seem to socialize that much, I guess, with her fellow mechanics, right? She doesn't go party on the smuggler's moon with them. And she's doing a job. Philip was like, where were you? But we know at least she partied one night to get that tat. She sure did. But she's out there doing jobs that our two units are supposed to be doing, like under the radar, all of this sort of stuff. So yeah, she just seems like very... Yeah, yeah. I liked this...

It simultaneously felt like an inversion of a Star Wars trope where we tend to think of a character like, power converters to Aji Station. This is the thing you want to escape so that you can go on your grand adventure, so that you can heed your call. Though it did remind me so powerfully of Ahsoka after Ahsoka left the Order. Now, Ahsoka was in hiding, so that was different. Oh, of course not.

The stretch where Ahsoka is, you know, like, living on the land, working the farms. It really, really felt, like, reminiscent of that. As...

OSHA is doing is stealing jobs from our two units. You know, on the XRX. Did you think did you have a Doctor Who moment when they were out on the outside of the ship? I was like, this is where a demon comes to kill them or something like that. Yes. And I had another Doctor Who moment because I thought the when we get to the prison break, I thought the the

speaks electronically. Yeah. Convict number three looked like a Centauran. Oh, yeah. Like a tech-augmented Centauran. Oh, my God. I love that you can just say that now. Are you proud of me? I'm so fucking proud of you. Um...

Actually, I was just thinking of the hound here because the... Oh, fire. Yeah, the fire is a trigger. Yeah, it's a bummer. So the fire happens and sends Osha into an unfortunate mid-job traumatic flashback. That's just like not when you want to have a traumatic flashback. While standing on the hull of a ship in vacuum. Yeah, I would say. No. It's not ideal. Um,

She remembers something and then the closed captioning really helps us out here in terms of like what we're listening to. We hear young Osha say, Mae, what are you doing? And then a girl, I won't let you leave, mama. Help me. No, mama. Young Osha screaming. So this feels like the fire that killed her mother's and she thought her sister and all of her village. This is like what she thinks of any time she sees fire. Genuinely very sad.

The trade fight, the Jedi are here, the trade fight, say, ugh. And this is when we activate the Yord Horde. Yord Horde? Yord Horde. I have seen it all over the internet. It is catching fire for good old Yord Fandar. Catching fire? Hopefully not in front of Osha. Not in front of Osha. She will have a stroke. So listen, Fandar.

Yord is here. He's only been with us for a few days. And the Fandar fandom is just really popping. We got an email from Jordan. We got most of our emails were about Yord, by the way.

This is so funny to me. I love this. Charlie Barnett, you are a legend for taking your kid off in a Star Wars show. Okay, so Jordan wrote, Oh, Yordy, the himbos have arrived to horny Star Wars. Thank you, Yord. More please and thanks. Incredible. Go sign. Yord, who's a knight and- As he is happy to tell you. Oh, eager. As he is happy to tell you. A freshly minted knight. Yeah.

And Tassiloa, his Padawan, I do not get good vibes off of her, by the way, comes sweeping in wearing sparkling, pristine white robes. We got an email from Kelsey about this, which I want to read, but I think this costuming is, I mean, it's obviously intentional because the High Republic Jedi look great.

wear different clothing than the Jedi that we're used to. But Kelsey says, I couldn't shake this distracting thought the entire premiere that they're wearing costumes. I don't believe they're actually wearing the clothes, particularly the Jedi. The colors are too crisp. The fit is just so. The hair perfectly coiffed. There is a too perfect quality that simply doesn't feel lived in other than some gorgeous creature design. This didn't bother me in any other Star Wars Disney Plus series, but I feel like I'm watching toys tell me I'm crazy. So what I'll say to Kelsey is like, I don't entirely disagree. And oftentimes in sci-fi fantasy shows,

being too clean does bother me. It does not in the case of, especially like your and his Padawan here, because this like idea of like,

crisp, white, officious, by-the-book Jedi who have shiny boots and pristine robes because they don't fight and they're not out there in the muck of the mire. There is a time of peace and they are just like tidy little peacekeepers. That actually really works for me. How do you feel about it? I agree. I think it's visually jarring intentionally. Yeah. And it's helpful in...

cementing that when later we'll talk about that broader moment more when we get there, but just seeing your steam is robes. And I know you're excited to talk about the flick of the robe when he stands up. Like I have already made a gift of it for myself. I would expect nothing less. An incredible, this is, um,

I think completely of a piece with a character like Cyril in Andor tailoring and put it and changing the piping of his uniform. Like what that, what that represents to your word. And there's a part of me, like we've got a lot of notes on the way that your conducts himself in the first couple episodes. Like, and again, that's by design. There's a part of,

There's a part of me based on what we hear between Jordan Osha in this exchange where it's like, maybe it was really hard for him to reach Knight. Oh, right. It seems clearly that it was hard. Yeah, you finally did it. Yeah. And so that like makes me there's a part of me that my heart goes out to him. It's like he should be proud like he did. But then as we'll talk about in other reasons, it's like, oh, wait, but.

Yeah. Like, it's the symbol of what he's achieved to him. Yeah, and he's very proud of it. Okay. This is our last Yord email, I promise. I think that's true. Yes. Okay. From Alex, who says, is Yord the biggest herb Jedi we've ever seen? Feels like he could give Cyril Karn, as you mentioned, Cyril, a run for his money even. Okay. This is where I say, I don't know what herb means. It seems like sniveling little rule follower from, like, context. Okay.

Urban Dictionary says someone who tries too hard to be cool and overzealous poser when you think you're on some next ship, but you're really on some bullshit. And from what I can determine from digging around the internet, because I really felt traumatically uncool that I did not know what Herb meant, Herb Jedi. It seems to be New York-based fiction.

like very regional slang. Have you encountered as someone who grew up closer to New York than I did herb as an insult for someone? I, I, I have. Okay, great. Cool. People in Maryland said as well, but I loved, I love this journey for you. Sorry. Uh, there's definitely some California slang that I could have, uh, hung with, but herb is, did not make it out to the coast. So I apologize anyway. Okay. I,

love this moment how yord is sitting on osha's bed as like stiff as possibly could be and then just like the way he gets up like i hope that charlie barnett like practiced that like 900 times before he executed it it's just so awkward and stuffy and and i feel so tenderly towards him while also being deeply annoyed by him um these are my complex yord feelings

This is an amazing moment. She's just like so happy to see him and she's so loose and she's just like shoving him on the shoulder affectionately. And he's like, he's, I think, because I think Charlie Burnett, who I know from Russian Doll and Tales from the City is like an incredible performer. I think he's giving us actually, not always, but definitely here, a really complicated story.

reaction from Yord because I actually do think he's like happy to see her. I think there is this like unspoken like

we dug coal together. We were Padawans together sort of energy between them. Were we, like, hooked up? Like, what do you... Maybe. What is the history here? It definitely seems like they have a history. He was very excited to find out she had a twin. So I don't know. He's like, maybe that one won't dump me or reject me. I don't know. Oh, my God. Yeah, there was a... Even though he is being so formal and he's, like...

putting on the airs of authority. There are those little moments where he breaks, where the facade cracks and you see the little smile. And he's not only proud of what he has achieved, but he's proud that someone he knows who knows him can see that, which is, I thought, very sweet. I agree with you. There was a lot at play here. But then it does make the shift into...

full-on unyielding i will chase you arrest you insist that you should be in restraints harder for me to wrap my mind around like is yord a character who it just honestly in a way that makes me eager to just learn more about him and understand him better not in a way that i thought was odd or like out of sync but i'm like what what does that tell us about yord is it that he's a uh

just a by-the-book rule follower? Is it that he is so... Because there's a tenderness when he brings up...

Like when they talk about their past here, when he brings up attachments to those we have lost are the most difficult to let go, there was a real tenderness in that. And then that makes you wonder, well, are there things in his own past that he has had to really like tamp down and not allow himself to access? And that then creates a higher wall. Oh, Jor looks like he's about to like pop at all times. Because if you track this, and you should,

He is so quick to pull his weapon, especially in contrast to everything we get with Indara and this idea that, you know, and like Sol hardly ever pulls his weapon, right? So it makes sense that he's like a brand new knight and he's sort of like insecure about his, if he had to work really hard to get there and he's like insecure about belonging there. But you're being so tightly wound and you're,

constantly trigger happy makes me nervous. Yes. Do you think this dynamic, this swing between sort of secretly pleased to see you slash chasing you down to the corners of the galaxy would have worked better for you if Osha said, you're my friend and yours had said, you're my mission? Would that have a... Mission! Mission!

Attachments to those we have lost are the most difficult to let go as you flag. Attachment is like the thesis of this show. This is it. Please stay tuned to what Leslie has to say about attachment. It is like wildly profound and wonderful in the interview that we have with her. It's so good. And this is one of the things that we have both always aligned on in how we think about Star Wars and view Star Wars. It's such a lament we share about the Jedi Order. So I love that this is at play here.

Tassie, who's like somehow even less diplomatic than you're like, it's just like a painful interrogation slash exposition dump here that I really didn't like. It's so funny. I was reading, I forget what it was. I think it was maybe Ryan Airy on Screen Crush talking about this idea of like,

A scene where two characters who experienced something together talk about it in a room. Like, remember how you and I did... Like, we know... We both know this happened. No, no, but the reason I bring it up... It's not great here. The reason I bring it up is because later...

When Osha and Sol do it, when she says, we've had this conversation so many times, it works perfectly. So it has to do with like- Because there's an emotional truth that's driving that exchange. And what's happening here with Tassie and Yord and Osha is like, Yord saying your training was difficult to say the least. It's simply there to catch us up as the audience and everyone in the room is in possession of the facts. And that's just not-

emotionally compelling so we feel that it is there purely for function. And that's just not as interesting. They brought in an eyewitness into her, like, living quarters onto the ship. It seems like not due process at all. Astonishing stuff. Astonishing stuff. I believe that Osha withdraws from membership from the Yord Horde. And she asks him...

If he really thinks that she could do this and the herb that he is, sadly says it doesn't matter what he thinks. And Tessie, who I already did not like, how do you feel about her putting her little pretty little hands all over Pip? It's violating. A scandal. It is a scandal. Call of galactic proportions. The media. Yeah.

And then, listen, I would criticize Jordan Tassi for putting Osha on this prison transport without going with her, except everyone in the galaxy does this. So, yeah. Yeah. This is just a classic Star Wars setup.

Why would we ever personally escort our prisoner anywhere? Why would we do that? Oh, man. If I recall correctly, Master Andara advised the Jedi Council to discontinue her training when you were what? Like, did something specific happen? Right. And then she insists it was her choice to leave. Yeah. So what did she do?

Yeah. When you were rejecting me for that date I asked you on and I reported you to the council. Oh, no. Yard. Yard. Don't be an insult. All right. Let's go to Coruscant. Okay. I know you don't want to. I know you hate Coruscant, but it's there anyway. It's pretty ugly. It can't be as beautiful as Scarif, you know? We're not supposed to want to spend time in the hustle and bustle of bureaucracy. Yeah.

I don't know. Some of those, like... Anyway. All right. It is interesting to see how, like, Ben talked about this on one of our trailer pods, how, again, just different the Coruscant cityscape looks. Yeah. How it's lower. Cool. It's lower than it becomes. Yeah. Okay. More trailer content for us. The Youngling class with Master Soul. We got most of this in the trailer. And at the time, you flagged a lot of the language, the...

Close your eyes. Your eyes can deceive you. We must not trust them as like Obi-Wan to Luke in A New Hope, Ahsoka to Sabine in Ahsoka. But this is a message to both the audience and himself about the twin thing, right? Your eyes can deceive you. Yep. Just because you can identify this woman who looks exactly like the woman that doesn't mean or just because you thought you saw a twin die in a fire doesn't mean you actually did. So there's a lot going on. And then I loved this next part. This part is not in the trailer. It's

Think of diving into a great ocean. Give yourself over to its weight, its stillness, its uncertainty, and tell me what comes into your mind. I love, I mean, we've heard water imagery with the Force before and like off, like we could think a lot about like Luke on Octo or whatever, the rhythms of nature. But this idea that in the High Republic era comics, the ocean is,

or the sea as a concept of the force. There's a religious, this is me doing my best Ben impression. There's a religious orders called the Felonasi who thought of the force as the massive ocean. They called the light side of the force, quote, the white current and the dark side, the quote, dark tide. And I find that beautiful language. And yeah, I just, what did you think of this ocean imagery? Yeah.

Uh, it's beautiful. We love an ocean Vista. Yeah. Love to spend time at sea. Yeah. I, this is, this is really, this is really lovely. And I, I like, uh, first of all, hearing sold like right,

before Think of the Great Ocean, say, connect to the Force, have faith. Faith is going to be a recurring tenant across these episodes. And faith in what? Exactly. Faith in the Force, faith in Jedi, faith in someone you know personally. Right. And those are not necessarily the same thing. Correct. And actually might be an active conflict with each other. Right. And it also felt very key that he said it's uncertainty. Because what were we just talking about?

control and telling us here that soul is a character who embraces uncertainty, who is trying to counsel the people in his charge and care to accept that uncertainty is not a part of life, but a part of the very power that they're tapping into is beautiful and really positions him as distinct from some of the Jedi who we will have, have notes on. So I love that. Um,

Then we get in contrast to the ocean imagery, this idea of fire, because one youngling says life, one says balance, and then one says icy fire, it grows larger, consumes anything that tries to stop it. Totally fine. Don't worry. Don't put that youngling. Do you think anyone at the Jedi Temple has a follow-up chat with this youngling? I would like that youngling to get some counseling, is what I would have to say about that.

I have a question for you. Do you think that there's any chance? I don't even know if this makes sense, but like, do you think that this is okay? This is just this youngling is, is sensing this in the force either because that is the part of the force that this young youngling is attuned to, or because of everything that is about to unfold. Do you think projection force projection inadvertent or otherwise was a big part of these two episodes? And I was wondering, like, did you think it was possible that maybe this youngling was sensing this,

Saul's memory. Saul's memory. 100%. I think that. Okay. That he is always circling this great mistake in his life that he made. And the look that he gives her on second watch, the look that he gives her is not just, that's a disturbing thing for my student to say, but it's like sort of like, get out of my head. Did I send that your way? Predator naturally gifted child. Yeah. That was what I read there too. Lovely.

His crisp little white robes and shiny boots look less out of place, I think, in the classroom setting than yours did on the trade fed ship. But here comes Vernestra Rowe. Don't call her Vern. A person who has not touched a door handle in decades. And we talked a lot about this character in our prep pods in that this is one of very few, as far as we know, characters established in canon that

who's here in the show. This is a character who shows up in the High Republic comics and books and has, you know, her own, like, teenage arc and is here as, like, an over-hundred-year-old person looking great, looking pretty fresh. This is an actress I really like. This is a character I have... I'm having a lot of trouble accessing. How do you feel? Same. Yeah. Same. So I thought...

This exchange was really emblematic of what worked really well for me and then what didn't work as well for me in the opening of the season. Sol saying in this exchange that he's the fortunate one. He's the fortunate one to be taught by his students was so genuine and beautiful and tells us everything about not only the affection that he feels, but the responsibility that he thinks he bears as a teacher. How much of that

stems from regret how much of it is passion they don't just genuine they don't have to be mutually exclusive right but how has his relationship to that idea changed because of osha leaving the order there's so much to latch on to in the span of half a sentence from from that perspective and then you know later obviously we get to him saying like maybe i wasn't a very good teacher which we're going to talk about at length when we get to it so that was like great

He looked like he was about to cry when he called Osha devoted Padawan. Like he looked like he was about to start crying. Beautiful. I cannot wait to learn about their backstory. The fire, the saving, the recruitment, the training, the parting, everything. I want to know everything that happened between them. 100%. I thought in contrast, the like instant...

I see I have underestimated your attachment to her line was just really odd. Like it didn't, I didn't feel like I was in it enough with those two characters together. We had the history between them to understand how that would be the deduction based on one moment. Yeah. Other, other than our understanding that we do have that this is like a, a creed that the Jedi are always volleying back and forth to each other. You know, that way lies danger. That way lies peril. Um,

And so that was kind of emblematic, I think, again, of the stuff that just felt a little bit off and a little out of rhythm in some of the exchanges across the episode. I think it's a tough character because her job is to be...

like, obstructive, you know? Like, to be, you know, it's helpful if you're either Yoda or Samuel L. Jackson for us to, like, you know, be excited about seeing the Jedi Council. But, like, the Jedi Council's job is to sort of, like, we talk, people talk about this all the time in storytelling when you talk about something, like,

Sorry, this is a weird comp, but like Breaking Bad, people would always come after the character Skylar White and there are misogynistic reasons, but there's also this idea that she's a character whose job is to stop the characters from doing what you want. You want Walt to keep cooking meth because that's the fun story and she's like, stop. So we want Sol to go after Osha. We want to see them together and Vern's whole role is...

is stop, come back, come to a meeting, blah, blah, don't keep, don't chase me, come back, like all this stuff. So it's like a wet blanket character. And, you know, those can be done in a way that is a little bit more effective than it's done here. But it's a tough, it's a tough job. Yeah. And again, like I recognize that there's a little bit of a dissonance in me simultaneously saying that I like that the questions about attachment are present here as a through line.

But it was really about the exact delivery of that idea in this conversation that just pinged, like, oddly for me. And some of the other stuff with Vernestra later, too, like, we go from that act of resistance that you're correctly citing into, like, yeah, take Osha with you. It's like, what? I don't know. It just, it was hard to totally understand, like, what was driving some of the decisions that the character was making, so...

Um, certainly we at least have this character as emblematic of like what the future holds for the Jedi Council in terms of concern with politics and optics, right? She's concerned about political enemies. This is a little like teaser amuse-bouche for like the prequels. At the height of the High Republic's power, they were acting very independently from the Republic, but they are starting to worry about politics. And it reminds a lot of conversation between Mace and Yoda. Yeah.

The prison break happens is what happens next. It's a fun sequence and there's like plenty I could say. We are running a little long. I just want to like, what do you want to say about the prison break? Hmm. Um, I was wondering, it's a parasite used to do violent criminals. It does weird stuff to your brain. This is die. Die book. I'm already forgetting how they pronounce it. Die book. Die book. I was wondering, um,

Because they make a point of showing us after Osha saves the dude who the parasite was attached to, him like fluttering away into the air vent. And then when everything unfolded later on Karlak with the vision, I had a moment where I was like,

Did that parasite like latch onto Osha's face? That's another Doctor Who episode. Like is something, yeah, is something like, and I'm eager to talk about what we think actually is unfolding with those dreams when we get there. But that was one thing I was just like, we're really like focused on this little critter, this little fluttering critter. Maybe it'll come back later.

But yeah, I too was like, I would keep a firm eye on a thing that just skitters into the air. Let's keep an eye on it. Guess what? Anything that skitters, I want to know where it is at all times. If it skitters, I don't want to lose sight of it. Okay. To your point about like faith in what, this is where we hear Osha say that she has faith in the Jedi. So that's an important flag for us. She's not just saying I still have faith in the Force. Even after leaving the Order, she has faith in the Order, which is like,

because that's not the experience necessarily that we have with a character like Ahsoka leaving the Order. Right. Where she's like, this is not something that I can participate in. Right.

So that was really interesting. When she and Saul reunite, there's like no enmity or bitterness there. You know, it's just like, yeah, they will love this. Okay. Did you feel that her complete inability to access the force was surprising or, I mean, she can't bring Pip to her. Now she's been away from the order for six years. What did, what did you read in this? Did you read, maybe she was, is not very, was not powerful in the force to begin with and,

Do you think this has to do with her time away? Do you think this is an emotional and mental response disconnecting from the Force like we've seen with other characters? How did you feel about this? I think it's blocked, and I suspect we're going to see it unblocked. Yes, accessed again. And I wonder if this is the, you know, when Yord's like, when you dot, dot, dot, like, is it when you... Right.

your force powers suddenly and like, you know, we're no longer able to Padawan the way you had before. Okay. Speaking of Padawans, is it totally normal to stare longingly at hollows of your old Padawan? Why do you ask? I thought this was a perfect television scene. I love this. Me too. Sol looking at his hollow of Osha as his yearning current.

on catches him good old Jackie Wan oh man and then like she's like excuse me why are you doing this this past time encourages sentimentality and nostalgia and both of those emotions can lead to

And then Saul says, our memories are lessons. If we don't meditate on the past, she says we're doomed to repeat it. And I instantly love their dynamic. Like, I'm just like, any moment with Saul is just wonderful. A couple things I loved about this. Yeah. The Saul part, wonderful. From Jackie's perspective, this struck me as right, that like, we should be meeting her as a character who, on the one hand, is kind of like,

what the fuck, dude? I just like kind of caught you cheating. Yeah. Right. In that inside of the relationship. Are you going to look at all of me when I'm gone? Like what's happening here? But like if, but she's very pragmatic about it because if she were too jealous or too overtly driven by her emotional response, then she would be the one who's guilty of the thing that she is pointing out that, that he runs the risk of doing so that, that I also just love when we get to encounter, um,

The fact that masters have multiple Padawans, like one of the reasons that I love the Claudia Gray Master and Apprentice novel is because we get to spend time with Ryle Averos, who is Duke, who is Padawan before Qui-Gon. And like seeing how all of those characters are interacting is just kind of riveting. So that's that's interesting, too. And then we get to see, obviously, Jackie and Osha interact with each other.

I think it's when we think about this trio of Jedi who are set off to go on this fact-finding mission, and we've got Sol, Yord, and Jecky. Like, I think that this is our spectrum of emotion, right? Like, that Sol is perhaps too emotional for a Jedi. I like it about him, but we'll see if that gets him into trouble. Yord, very repressed. Very, very repressed. And then Jecky is some sort of, like,

you know, in between, like, just right sort of thing, right? Where she's, like, asking these questions. She's like, excuse me, rationally, we're not supposed to do this. But when he gives her example, she is, like, repeating the other half of the lesson. She is warm to him. She's warm to Osha later. And I love the scene of them walking out of the room because she's, like, Daphne Keene is just so, like, small. And so she's just, like, genuinely just, like, looking up at him, like, adoringly. It's just, like, very sweet. Um...

But okay, anything, you know, she's alive, I can feel it. Good on him, not only for tapping into the Force, but being like, hey, can we maybe just check? Rather than just assuming that she didn't survive the crash. I would also just like to say that she's alive, I can feel it. Feels like something Mae and Osha should know about each other. This is definitely a question that I have. Twins and or even Force dyads, that they should know that each other is alive. It's surprising that they don't.

Yes.

Luke Skywalker, as I have discussed many times in The Last Jedi, I failed you, Ben. I'm sorry. Adam Driver as Kylo Ren says, I'm sure you are. One of my favorite line readings of all time. I'm sure you are. Yoda saying the greatest teacher failure is, which is like my favorite Star Wars line. And then Luke's speech charade, which is my favorite Mark Hamill performance when he says it was me. I failed because I was Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, a legend that

Mighty Skywalker blood. I love that sequence so much. So good. Me too. I just think failure and guilt and remorse among the Jedi is such an interesting way for human emotion to bump up against this sort of very restrictive, emotionless, aspiring to be attachment-less, but when you feel guilt or failure or all these other things, you are...

attached not only to your own emotions but to who it is you failed what did you do good old King Tommen had to lock himself in a meditation for 10 years because he's so failed and is so guilty so like

You know, it's just my favorite thing. And I'm delighted it's here in a character like Selma. I love it. I love it. Absolutely wonderful to see. Wonderful. What do you want to say about Yord steaming his robes and taking his kit off? Anything? I think we covered it when we talked about his feelings about his drip earlier. I did like Jackie's. She's like, it's not Yord. It's like the Jedi. Yord. That was...

That was good stuff. Jackie Lund, not yet a member of the Yord Horde. Not even when he took his robes off. And I do actually have a theory about that. Okay, so Osha wakes up gaspingly again. This is the second time. There will be a third. We're inside a nightmare because she doesn't immediately check on Pip. And that's how you know it's a dream because when she wakes up for real, immediately she checks on Pip.

hopefully making Mallory feel better about everything. This is a forced dream and we get ghostly twin stuff as Osha chases a vision into the snow. Very, of course, Luke, very Rey chasing your own reflection. And maybe at first that we think that that's what it is. And then we're like, oh, twins. There is another. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

I actually really hate it in movies and TV shows when brothers and sisters greet each other as like, hello, brother, hello, sister, or well, you know, brother, well, you know, sister. Like, it's only there to let the audience know who they are or like, how is our father doing or whatever. It's just like, except this kid who's playing little May, the evil sauce she poured over, hello, sister, delighted me. I thought it was so funny. How did this work for you? I really liked this. I'm...

Not only very compelled by what is happening emotionally for both May and Osha and then Sol, but... And Torben, every character who was involved in whatever foul thing unfolded between these people. But the nature of this dream got my theory brain racing. Because if... You said this a few minutes ago, like...

they don't know that the other... It's not just that they don't know that the other character's alive. They don't sense each other in the Force in a way that would make them wonder. So, if May thinks Osha's dead and Osha thinks May is dead, it...

I think eliminates the possibility that would be the first thing that pops into our mind here, which is that like May is force projecting actively deciding to appear to her sister. That's not what's happening because May doesn't wouldn't think to do that because she doesn't think there's a sister to appear to. I love we have the same theory. So stupid.

Someone is sending that dream. Yes. That's how it feels to me. It is similar to why Rey and Kylo were able to connect over Force Skype in The Last Jedi. It was orchestrated by somehow Palpatine or Snoke, actually. It was somehow Snoke orchestrated, right? So somehow someone, probably someone tall, dark, and helmeted

has sent this dream to OSHA, which makes me think this is my favorite theory that OSHA is the real target here. That Mays or both

Why not? Why have one acolyte when you can have twin acolytes? If they're Force dyad, why not collect both or whatever? Or if Osha is the real target all along and not Mei? Why did Osha go with the Jedi and not Mei? Is she actually stronger in the Force than Mei is or something like that? You know? So. Yeah. And there's hints throughout, gently issued forth by your, less gently by your, more gently by Sol, that, uh,

Oh, she's got some shit she has not let go of. She's got some darkness. May has some lightness inside of her. Oh, she's got some darkness inside of her. For sure. We get the twin conversation on the ship where you're like a twin. Jackie Long's like a twin. It's a little bit like I shouldn't have said that, you know, and then he says, you know, like she's she's definitely dead. And the way he says it here is.

Yeah. I saw her die. Is like, he has to believe May is dead because if May is not dead, which he actually within like the next scene has just sort of been like, yep, you're right. She's not, she's not dead. But in this moment on the ship, he's like, if she's dead, I did not just like whatever his involvement with fire is. I left her there. Yeah.

And that's just, that's enough to make someone sit cross-legged and float in a bubble for 10 years, I think. So, you know. Yes. This was an interesting scene. The

right before we get to that part, I really liked the little, um, smile that, that, that crosses Saul's face when he says, you don't need to keep asking when Jackie's like permission to speak freely. And we've heard that multiple times at that point. Like, again, he's a bit of a rogue, right? Cause there are plenty of masters in the Jedi order who would be like, I grant you permission in this one moment only to speak freely, make sure you ask again next time. And that's not who he is. And that's important for us to understand. So I really liked that. Um,

again, on the timeframe front, like this is where we learn that he was posted on her home planet 16 years ago. She left the order six years ago. They were together for a decade. Like these people shared a decade of their lives. That's no small thing. The not in her file. This is just the other thing I want to quickly hit before we move to the next scene.

her twin sister is not in her file. How much have they buried? What happened? That reeks of cover up to me. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's just, I don't know how we can have any other read on that. And so like, what's interesting about that to me is not just what will we learn? Like who was involved or even if it wasn't an active decision, somebody made to do something terrible. Did they, did they still brush it under the data banks? Um,

soul is going to have the same questions we do. I would assume, I hope. And so like the idea that he is not only going to be confronting his own, his personal guilt, but that he will have some sort of shaken faith on that idea of faith in the order. If someone is complicit, someone he knows, someone he long trusted, or is it just that these people were all this easily duped and bested by some outside force? Yeah.

That's another read that is also really dramatically interesting and certainly would not be the first time, even if it is earlier in the timeline than elsewhere, that that happened to two characters in Star Wars. Like no one thought it was worth mentioning that the kid they just brought to the temple had just had a twin sister who died. I don't know. You wouldn't think that was worth other people knowing? I don't think it's, yeah. I don't think it's not worth mentioning. I think it's definitely like we hid this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, listen. If I thought of you immediately when we saw Pip, I hope you thought of me immediately, and I know you did when Osha runs her little ass into a crevice, a snowy crevice. Instantly. Terrible. Instantly. Okay.

Listen, Yord, again, quick on the trigger with the lightsaber. This time he's using it a bit as a flashlight. Yeah, sick. Yellow saber. Very cool. Phenomenal. I love yellow lightsaber. He's using it as a flashlight. Yes. But still, he doesn't ever put it away. You know what I mean? Even when they break out to the other side where there's actual daylight again. Okay. In this moment, when Osha's backed up to the edge of a cliff,

Were you thinking of the fugitive or were you thinking of the leap of faith moment from the last crusade or what flavor of Harrison Ford moment did that give you? I went to leap of faith all the time. I went to leap of faith first, but then I went to the fugitive. And then when you rewatch it with the fugitive in your mind, the prison transport crash happened.

where she could have gotten away if she hadn't saved a criminal is exactly, of course, what happens to Dr. Richard Kimball in The Fugitive. I love this. Though, of course, instead of tumbling out

electively, she like, okay, so this was weird. Like, I couldn't tell, but here's my question. Was this deliberately weird? Like, is it just odd and she slips and like, it's actually just supposed to kind of be her losing balance and falling off an icy cliff and it's like, oh, that's okay. It almost seemed to me like she was pulled.

Oh. Like force pulled. Like the way her foot moves. I watched that so many times because I thought this was so bizarre. It was so awkward. It was like, is someone or something pulling her? Interesting. I don't know. I would like to mention, I don't have an answer for you. I think it was just sort of like clumsily executed, but I don't really know. She falls off the cliff in a way that doesn't make a ton of sense to us necessarily. But like I would just like,

If it were me, I would just have, like, a section of the snow give way underneath her rather than her just, like, tumble over her feet over the side or whatever. Before she does it, Saul, like, sags in relief when he first spots her. And it is so lovely. And then he just, like, reaches out and, like, force grabs her and yanks her up in a way that is just, like, not since...

Colin Farrell and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Have I been like so dazzled by someone doing something that like we've seen a million times, which is like, you know, Colin Farrell's wand work in that movie where he's just sort of like, I'm going to put all the sauce on it I can. That's how I felt about this like yoink up. I was just like, this is...

Phenomenal. Phenomenal forces. Yeah, absolutely. Really captivating. And also that moment... He has these gauntlets that he wears and Yord has them too that is just like a really cool look to it all. Yeah. That moment too of Osha being positioned in stasis for a second there, flat. We get like the...

same positioning for May in her fight with Sol, but like with the opposite intention. In this case, he's above pulling to try to save. And in the other instance, he's above holding her there to try to

win the day. So that was really interesting to visually that parallel, but also then that contrast, which I liked. And I, I, I really like to like, this was what you alluded to earlier where he very quickly goes from like, Oh no, to accepting the twin thing, which I believe you, but the, I believe you. Exactly. And the way he, what's the word that he emphasizes you like, I believe you, that's what convinces him. Please. Very sweet. It is very sweet.

Yord's super bummed he does not get to use his sick yellow saber. Jekyllon, pretty bummed she does not get to use the cuffs. And here we go. It's just a dude on a rocky outcropping being a guy. Just a bro on some rocks being a pal.

Just a lad being a Sith. They quickly mollify my crevice fear with an ocean vista. Love that for us. Beautiful. This is one of the moments where there's several of them where we're like, we're in a real place. We're actually on a beach. We're not in the volume. The waves are crashing here. It looks very cold. I hope everyone was well-dressed. It feels a bit Octo-y, but I think it's not. I mean, it's definitely not.

And then May watches as a helmeted and cloaked figure with a distorted voice says, Steve, will you play our first clip? The Jedi live in a dream. A dream they believe everyone shares. If you attack a Jedi with a weapon, you will fail. Steel or laser are no threat to them. But an acolyte...

An acolyte kills without a weapon. An acolyte kills the dream. Dude, steel is no threat. Tell that to Indara. Do you want to do your Saw Gerrera impression here? Wise deception. Yeah, it's...

How are we going to talk about this character? How have we decided we're going to talk about this character? So the... I think we have two choices because the subtitles label this character Stranger. So we can say Stranger. Also, in episode two, we will hear Chimere and May, when alluding to this figure, say He or Master. Master. So yeah, He. It's the He. That won't get confusing at all. I hope you can hear the capital H. Venom helmet, dude. Venom helmet.

Here he is. Good stuff here. His voice sounds a little familiar to me. Perfect. But like, that's fine. Okay. So what do you want to say about this wonderful speech that closes episode one? I mean, this was great. This was great. Like,

We cut right from the sole OSHA reunion to this stranger with May. So we have this juxtaposition of... We get it again later in episode two. This sort of like master-apprentice juxtaposition. Yeah. Exactly. Multiple masters and apprentices and what those relationships are like and what sort of lesson is being heeded or passed down. We have to wonder right away if this figure, this stranger, is also...

Like, what ultimately is the pecking order? Is this character also serving somebody else? Mm-hmm. Or is this the top? Because this could be the apprentice. And there's a Sith Master out there somewhere. We don't know. Yeah. You know, because... This idea of killing the dream. Very compelling. Yep. Save the rebellion, save the dream. I'm wondering what Palpatine says to Anakin, as we like to do. From...

He says, Anakin, if one is to understand a great mystery, one must study all its aspects, not just the dogmatic, narrow view of the Jedi. If you wish to become a complete and wise leader, you must embrace a larger view of the Force.

This different point of view. This sort of like... We talk about Jedi propaganda, this Sith propaganda. Like, what are the Jedi? You know, they're dreamers. There can be a positive association there if you're maybe a Targaryen. But like here, you know, we're trying to kill the dream not just because we're evil mustache twirling villains, but we believe the Jedi way is the incorrect way and ours is the correct way. All right. Anything else you want to say about the Sith? The Sith...

You know, they're here. Their sabers are red. Get used to them. Like, here they are in our story. Love to see a red saber ignite. Despite, in The Phantom Menace, them saying the Sith are extent they've been for nearly a millennium. Here we are in the gaps of the story. There's a little Sith uprising. The question, and Leslie has addressed this in interviews or whatever, because plenty of people are like, does that mean everyone who sees the Sith...

like, dies before they live to tell the tale? Like, what happens that there's Sith in this story and a hundred years from now we can have a Jedi Council say...

What do you mean the Sith are here? You know, like, how does that work? I say tune in to find out because I'm certain that the people who make the show definitely thought about that. Yes. I agree. Okay, part two. Revenge justice. Revenge justice. Meanwhile, at a local Jedi temple. What do you want to say about this? We got a text from CR being like, I'm going to start a podcast called Local Jedi Temple. And he should. He should. Peace time or not?

High Republic era or not, the security set up at this local Jedi temple is shameful. Laughable. On Oleg. Shameful. It took a local child two seconds to spark the infiltration. Even worse than that is that Mei strolls in a second time after this security breach. Yeah. She just walks in again later. Yeah.

Oh, man. This is where we get to meet Master Torben, Tommen himself, for the first time. But the conversation between May and Torben takes place in a later scene. So maybe we talk about the Barash vow and what passes between them and your thoughts on the wigs. Or perhaps that will wait to wig watch in the next scene. This is just a glimpse here.

Because May has to flee because she's detected. Late, but eventually. Eventually. And she does some wire work out of the skylight. Love that for her. Okay. Osha wakes up. This is the fourth time we've seen Osha wake up. Maybe talking about dreams and dreamers. Osha wakes up, not gaspingly this time. Gently. On the ship surrounded by the other Jedi. She is tank topped. Tattoos there. I texted you.

Yeah. Full Starbuck core. Yes. What were your Starbuck vibes coming off of OSHA here? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean. Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica, not the coffee. Okay. Right. Just making sure. Good clarity. I was waiting for Sol to come in and say, what do you hear, OSHA? And for OSHA to say nothing but the rain. Seriously. And I loved that. I loved it. Should we get this tattoo?

We have... It's going to have to wait. It's like 10th in line of all the other tattoos we're supposed to be getting. Okay.

Jackie Lawn and Osha have this moment. I think it's flirtatious. And if it is flirtatious, it might explain why Jackie Lawn is not very interested in shirtless Yord. And if it's flirtatious, it might speak to why Yord might be excited if Osha has a twin. She has a twin? Is her twin interested in dudes? I don't know. I don't know. It seemed a little... I caught some vibes here. It's Pride Month. I would just like to celebrate. Okay.

Yeah. Two young, uh, a Padawan and ex Padawan enjoying each other. Uh, your does is, is, uh, not having a straight up having a bad time. Right. With this quote unquote twin theory. Uh, he is not in theory corner with us. He doesn't enjoy it. No, he's not a fan. Um, he likes when TV seasons drop as a binge. He's like, why would we need to talk about this week after week? I don't understand. Uh,

in on the twin theory and she's like as you pointed out take Osha with you she might be helpful go to a lega find out who's just strolling into the Jedi temple without much of muss or fuss our colleague our beloved Ben Lindbergh in his recap of this episode called May's murderless Arya Stark like but we just and it is and I hope that May does go to sleep every night muttering Indara soul Torben Torben

Anyway. Yeah. But it's also, we're also doing Kill Bill, which is overt, the overt reference that Leslie has, Leslie Hedlund has mentioned since the dawn of this project. She called it Frozen meets Kill Bill. We understand the Frozen a bit better that we understand that there are sisters at the center of this story. Yeah. And,

Maybe the evil one isn't as evil as we think or whatever. But the Kill Bill Vengeance list is, you know, straight up the text here. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. The professor is always welcome and so is the bride. Yeah, the bride is always welcome. Yeah. I agree. Let's put some respect to her name. I agree. Sorry, Hanzo Lightzaper. Okay. Okay.

Sol wanting Osho to join on the mission made sense to me because he knows her, he believes in her, and he probably also, I assume, thinks it is important for her to be a part of this for her own understanding and healing. Vern thought she was a murderer 12 seconds prior. Shh.

weird. Yord saying may would not have the training to defeat a Jedi master was just another bullet point on the ever growing ledger of like classic beat for beat note for note Jedi hubris, exactly the kind of blindness and arrogance that ultimately allows Palpatine to rise. But also it's not just like she couldn't, she's like, if we didn't train her,

Who could have possibly trained her, right? We're the only ones who are doing force training, right? No one else could do this. If they were, we would know. This is going to be a pattern that repeats. I also just thought Sol saying to Yorg, don't let fear affect your judgment was interesting because it didn't have the tinge of you're on the path to something damning that it doesn't.

Often does when a Jedi master invokes fear. So I thought that was yet another point of distinction for Sol's character. Sol likes to use gentle parenting tactics and I love that for him. Hold on to your hats and glasses. Here comes the man who just didn't know. It's just a dude being a guy being in an apothecary and we're very excited for him.

This was wonderful. When May walks in, throws something at him, and he just like pratfalls out of bed. And I'm just here to tell you, and I'm always in the back for Manny Jacinto, but every single thing he does delights me in all of his scenes in this episode. Just absolutely incredible. He's bumbling, he's fumbling, he's pratfalling, his hair's in his face.

He's very stoner concerned about Mae being out all night. He's wearing the clothes of the old apothecary. What happened to the old apothecary? Nothing good. Nothing good. I'm going to go with nothing good. Nothing good. Nothing good. This was a great introduction. It was interesting to see how Mae behaved with him in turn. She's quite rude to him and dismissive, which we're going to theorize on later.

who we think what we think is going on here. We've been theorizing from the start about this. Minute one. So we're not going to pull our punches on what our favorite theory is. Is that

Manna Jacinto as Chimera is the Sith Master, or at least if he's not a Master, the guy with the saber on the rocket. He's under the helmet. Yeah, he's under the helmet. I would be astonished if that's not what happens. If you watch these scenes with that read, everything works out. He is counseling her like a Master would from the cover of this bumbling, fumbling character. He's doing nothing but giving her- In a way that just a supplier wouldn't.

No, he's just giving her advice and telling her how and successfully training her on how to defeat the Jedi. I'm reminded so much a Rings of Power scene that was a real alarm bell for us about spoilers for season one of Rings of Power about the real identity of

hot, sexy Sauron, who was also Halbrand, who next season will be Annatar. In that jail sequence, Halbrand says to Galadriel in an instant like this. It's Galadriel here. It's Galadriel here. He says, in an instant like this, it seems to me that you'd do well to identify what it is your opponent most fears. And Galadriel says, I'd exploit it. And he says, no, give them a means of mastering it so that you can master them. And you and I were like, evil guy. This is an evil guy. Right? So like,

It's slightly different with Chimera because he's like, you know, he's one of the bad guys. One of the bad guys to begin with. She knows he's bad. But he's pretending to be a low-ranking bad guy. We think he is the top main bad guy going on. Find his weakness, says to Mae. She says he doesn't have one. He says everyone has a weakness.

But also, to further praise Manny Jacinto's performance, the way he throws this stuff away, he's like fiddling with this lamp, like doing lamp business. And then later cocktail shaking business, like to distract from the fact that he is counseling her, you know? He is so casually, effortlessly dispensing this worldview on humanity. So good.

Really, really, really good. And this was like, this builds right into the, when May asks him to make her the poison and she says she's running out of time. Like, what do we think that means? Literally? Like, is there a clock on this quest? The Sith scavenger hunt has to be completed. Is this like draft day? In a month. I don't, sure. Yeah.

Before the full moon. Something like that. You mentioned that and I will kill one of them without a weapon and please the master. We discussed that already, but let us hear. Do you think this requires, is it an interpretation? Yes, an interpretation, but do you think that this will mean killing without a weapon means using the force as your weapon, which means reaching a new level of dark side corruption? Right, because if it's killing without the weapon, I mean, I guess poison's a weapon, but I feel like

If I were writing this, I would be more specific than this because I feel like getting someone to poison themselves is somewhat killing someone without a weapon, but obviously it doesn't count. So yeah, I feel like it's, as Vader did, it's cracking someone's neck with a force, something like that. You know, I think that's the implication here. So we get the kill list, right? You know, we get Saul, we get the Wookiee, we get Torben. This is the list, the remaining list.

Here is Chimere essentially quoting the Sith code. Steve, will you play this? - Very normal. - Yeah. - I do really believe that though. Everyone has a weakness. The Jedi justify their galactic dominance in the name of peace. And peace-- - Is alive, I know. - Torben is not the serene and as you say, impenetrable meditator. Like every Jedi, he only thinks he's found peace.

What he really needs is something only you can give him. Oh, man. Absolution. Absolution. The sound of a cocktail shaker. Poison. Cocktails. Whipping up some poison. All right. There was so much humor in this stretch. The way he transitions from saying he needs a drink to don't you think what we do is so stressful. It just killed me. It's really good. Flawless. I thought this framing was fascinating. It

Absolution, not punishment. Yeah. Freeing them. Now, this obviously connects to what you were talking about earlier with this very religious cloaking of the doctrine. Is this what he personally really genuinely believes? Is this some sort of

Is it a tactic framing it this way? And then there's the other framing around peace where he's talking about the galactic societal state, but he's also talking about the inner state, which is very much in addition to the actual like parallel language that he's using here from the Sith guy.

um that idea that like inward a state of being that's very sith code coded pieces why there is only passion through passion i gain strength through strength i gain power through power and i gain victory etc etc um and like this idea of critiquing the jedi yeah who deserve critiquing for their dominance dominance is the word

but then believing that you can and should be the arbiter of justice and absolution is just like base hypocrisy, which is the Sith way. So I love that as well. Like really pings what would Gandalf say here, you know, do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment. So this was all great. This scene was fantastic. Would you say only a Sith deals in absolution or would you kick me off the pod? Now I will. Absolution. Um,

May says, please don't tell the master. He's like, yeah, sure. And we're like, because he is the master. Or to your point, he might be an apprentice and there might be a Sith master out there somewhere. Either way, like, we just feel very strongly that he's not just...

Chimera supplier. He outranks her. Getting drunk and napping on the guy. She's giving, she's trying to like threaten him. And it's. Yes. Cute. And so then there's like, that is interesting to me too, is why is he choosing to enact this farce? Yeah. What is the like, show me who you truly are driver of why he is behaving this way. And what will, what he sees. Me. Form. Yeah. Who he wants. Yeah.

We're going to get to that. Okay. This literally happened to me. That feeling when dad sees your tattoo. My dad, when I, I don't know if I've ever told you this story, but I like hid my, I got my tattoo right when I was, my first tattoo right when I was 18. And I like, like just kind of casually hid it from my parents. Just like,

Did you wear very long sleeves for a very long time? It was on my ankle, so I wore like... Okay, the wrist tattoo was not the first one. No, no, no. And so I just like wore like, you know, like jeans or whatever around them. And then I was like at home for Christmas. I was wearing PJ pants and I was like sitting on the ground and like the leg of the PJ pan had just sort of like ridden up enough. And then my dad, this is like actually very sweet. He was like, he was just trying to be, act so cool, which is very similar to what Saul does here where he goes...

Oh, I didn't know you had a tat is what my dad said. Oh, I didn't know you had a tat. Oh, man. Okay. Great stuff. Great stuff. To your earlier point about mirroring master and apprentice scenes, if we think what we just saw with Chimera and May was a sneaky master and apprentice scene,

Then we flip right to Sol and Osha, right? And we get this email from Alex who says, I love the car. I missed it. I feel like we haven't been using it enough.

Alex says, we've seen a few of the former Padawan and Master dynamics on the small live action screen now, and this brought some needed variants. Both the Ahsoka Anakin and Sabine Ahsoka mind a fraught and frayed dynamic, the former being much more successful in my opinion. I thought it was a nice development to start with a scene with Sol, Jackie, and the hologram to set up Sol's relationship with the Ahsoka.

with the past and attachments as a much more nuanced view than we've known. And it pays off when Sol and Osha have that interaction about the tattoo. You can feel the warmth Sol has for his former Padawan without shame. And you feel it was reciprocated by Osha. It's like a former boss at a company you left for being a toxic mess, but your manager was never a problem.

Meanwhile, if you lay out how their monastic order child force service kidnaps children and tells them not to feel anything while training to become Superman cops, it becomes pretty evident there might be something rotten in the temple on Coruscant. So that was sort of like a hybrid of Alex's full email. But how do you feel about the different master plans?

former Padawan relationship we're getting here. Yeah, I mean, again, like, if we think we're seeing what we think we're seeing in the prior scene and part of that appears to then be, like, not just the active test that Mae knows she's undergoing in this trial, but the secret test of, like, how are you conducting yourself, then this is the opposite. This is, like, when there's the really cute little moment when Osha says, and you hate it, and Sol kind of, like, gives this, like, gentle little laugh and says, it doesn't matter what I think. And...

Both sides of that are important because her saying that that way shows us that

she actually does care what he thinks, you know? And from the little laugh to the substance of what he's saying, it's like, he's, I think, genuinely like touched and flattered that she would say that, right? And that she would care. And he also is then going to give her permission to be her own person, which is just completely like anathema in this world. And so that's like really lovely, really, really lovely. And it's a subtle way to show us that distinction, but an important one.

Let's hear this conversation between them, please, Steve. I wanted to save you both. What happened that night wasn't your fault, Sol. I've told you that. You did. And I have made peace with what happened on Brandog. I know you have. That was a lesson you tried to teach me many times. To accept what I'd lost. And I wasn't a very good student. Perhaps I wasn't a very good teacher. Incredible shit.

Please stay tuned for the conversation with Leslie where she talks about this. I don't want to spoil what she says, but I thought it was absolutely incredible. I've told you that. You did.

I know you have. Again, as I mentioned earlier, this is a retread of a conversation they've had many times. It should be one of those moments where we're like, why are they having this? But it's not, to your point about its emotional vitality. And also, the repetition of the conversation is part of the point of the conversation, which is like, no matter how many times we process this, this is a thing that has wounded us in a stubborn way, both of us, right? Yes. Like, you know...

I have made my peace with what happened on Brenna. I don't think he has. She says, I know you have. I don't think he has. Certainly not. And, you know, and then she acknowledges that he tried to, you know, teach her how to let go of what she had lost. Her mother's, her sister, her entire village. And she's like, evidently could not do it.

Is that part of what's blocking her in the force right now? Is this exactly why she left the order? You know, all of those questions come up for us. It's so interesting because there are very like emotional, spiritual, mental centric questions there. And then there's also like in tandem a plot question that this brings to mind for us. You know, we hear like she must have survived somehow, even though we saw her. Well, like, was she again like this question of

Was someone else's deception at play? Was this an accident that then spawned something bitter in its wake? Like plots and schemes? Schemes and plots? And to pair that question really nimbly with these emotional questions is just incredibly compelling. I think also like the other thing here is

In addition to what you said, which I agree with about it does not seem like he has made his peace with this. Certainly if we think that the youngling in the temple is like sensing his trauma, this is very present on his mind. What wanted to save you both? Like what choice did he have to make? And then what's what put them in a position where that choice had to be made. But also like, I think everything you said about failure and the role of failure in star Wars earlier, it was beautiful. And I agree. And I love those conversations in those scenes. I think like,

often in Star Wars, we get to a moment where a character admits that they weren't, that they didn't do enough too late. Right? Like when Obi-Wan is saying, I have failed you, Anakin, I have failed you, it is too late. Yeah. And that struck me too, that Sol is saying, perhaps I wasn't a very good teacher. A very hard thing to say out loud, a hard thing to admit to another person, a hard thing to admit to yourself, a hard thing to consider whether or not it's true.

When it feels like there's still time. Yeah. Which not everybody does in Star Wars or in real life. Like, that's a hard thing to be able to say that to somebody else. It's a vulnerable and scary thing. And so I loved that. And the contrast of that between that and, like, and I don't blame him for it, but the way that, like, Obi-Wan talks to Anakin on Mustafar, right? And it's never, like, it's never really, like, I failed you. It's, like...

You let the side down. You were supposed to do this. You were the chosen one. You were supposed to do this. You really like, you know, not like I fucked up and didn't do what I was supposed to do. Oh, we won't get to that eventually. Okay. The Barash Vow. Yes. This is a, you know, this is a canonical. I don't think you need to know all the details of it to understand what is going on here. But is there anything detail wise you want to say about the Barash Vow?

I think if you're getting the sense that this character shut himself off from the world because he's carrying a great trauma, you're good. The...

The oath. We love to talk about an oath or a vow in a story. What does it mean to take one? What does it mean to make one? Are you making it with yourself? Are you making it with someone else? Swear. Swear and swear, Joe. Make you swear and swear. We're going to be back in Westeros soon. But the penitence. Yeah. And...

cutting yourself off you can go to a swamp you can go to a rocky island in the middle of the ocean or you can just lock yourself a little bubble and you can meditate hang out in your your cave yeah and the boiling desert oh yeah uh and work at the meat factory and then take breaks from the powder

slice meat under the sun. But yeah, the, the, you were communing only with the force when you were taking this vow and you were cutting off everyone and everything. And so what would lead a character to do this? And we learn that again, that's like the, what we learned about the amount of time. It's like, this is not just what time passed before he made this choice, but then how long Torben Tommen has been doing this. And so like,

accepting that this is a thing he did is also interesting because, you know, when Sol arrives, he's like, well, he'll talk to me. Not like, wait, what do you mean? He's taking the bribe.

the brush now and isn't speaking to anyone. So that's interesting too, just because like, I do wonder how much of this would be like the kind of monk-like aspect of life for some Jedi. This is a thing that, a choice that people make and someone at some point you'll cross paths with someone who does this. And like whether a character like Sol who knows a character like Torben would be like, what led you to make this choice?

I'm curious. Like, I wonder if there was a moment where he wondered. I mean, I'm interested in that part of it, too. But what did you think of the actual exchange between May and Torben as she pulled him out of the stance? I thought...

Dean Charles Chapman, our guy, gets very little to actively do, but we expect again that we will see him. We know we will. We've seen him in the trailer in a different way. So we will see him in the flashback. I believe both eyeballs intact as well. Yeah, exactly. I've been waiting for you, May, through one dead eye. Just – Give me a chill. I loved it. Just like the way he just like slowly descended and then just sort of like, yeah, the way he delivered that. Forgive me we thought we were doing the right thing. Dude. Yeah.

What happened? What happened? I wonder how long we're going to have to wait to find out. Like, will that be a reveal at the end of the season? Will we learn that soon and then the story will unfold from there? I'm so curious how this is going to be structured. I really can't wait to find out. I do have to think that at least some of those flashbacks are coming early because I think, as is the case with all Star Wars properties, a lot of the trailer footage we saw came from, like, the first half of the season, you know? So, like, I don't think we're going to have to wait until, like, the finale to see Tommen in his wig.

other wig. Right. Osha and Sol like both follow the force to get to Mei though down different passageways and again if Osha is like sort of blocked in the force who's sort of

Pinging her radar to go down the back alleyways to get to the body. We hear a little baby May... Oh, shit. A whisper on Karlak to draw her. I mean, this just feels like puppeteering. Yeah, exactly. Sneaky. So, all right. Unless it's just like, I don't know, mysterious force twin tingle, which it might be. Who knows? It could be. It definitely could be. But I like the puppeteering. I don't think so. Very. Okay.

Yord is in on the twin theory because he finally in on the twin theory because he literally followed Osha down a hallway. So welcome to the party, Yord. Um...

And then we go to just a dude being a guy dumping his trash in immersion's basket. This cracked me up. This is so funny. Just nosh it on his snack, walking down the street, dumping his trash into the basket that somebody is carrying as they go about their hardworking day. This is so funny. So perfectly casually shitty. I loved it. Oh, Manny. Yeah.

Yord, ever eager to pull the trigger on something, is so excited to use a stun gun. But Jackie has a better idea. Jackie comes up with the undercover twin, Gitbit. Yord is shocked and appalled that this is the plan. But Pip is in. Pip is all in. A plan that involves violating 13 precepts? Pip gets to be the hot mic. Oh, she does? Sweet Pip.

Pretty unconvincing may cosplay as far as I'm concerned. Let's just call it what it is, which is slapdash nonsense. Both from, from OSHA and the Jedi. This is the prep work. Really? Now I'm sure it feels very time sensitive. They need to get in there while they have a window, but like, this is it. It's not a great plan. She's found out an instant. Well, but that's what I, that's what I love. Okay. When do you think,

Chimera, if you want to call him that, knows it's her and not me. Exactly what you put down in the doc is what I thought as well. Because the second... So there's the hello, hello, hi, hi. The second hi, there's the uptick. Yeah, hi. There's the change in intonation. And he's like... Part of what was so funny to me about this is like...

You just know that he's like, not only are you speaking differently, carrying yourself differently, wearing an imposter's cloak. You did not check in with Damon Targaryen on murder cloak etiquette at all. You don't have the forehead tattoo. Why are you not like laying into me for drinking on the job and napping at work? Why are you being polite? Yeah. What's going on? But so here's my, my, I'll lob a question back at you then. If he's onto her that quickly,

which it seems like he is. What do you make of him then? Because they're waiting on the other end for the confession. Yeah. What's his motivation to say, like, the poison? He did use the poison. The master. All of this. Is it that he is just totally, utterly unafraid of the Jedi? They are no threat to him? Or is it that giving them that intel is actually part of leading I think it is. these characters toward the goal, the end goal that he wants? Yeah. Yeah. I do. I think he's got

Plans within plans within plans. Like... Schemes and plots, would you say? Both. Plots and schemes? The way he says, you look exactly like her, I could do an entire podcast about this. It is so predatory. So... I talked to Leslie about the use of the word, like, seduce to the dark side as part of it. It's just like, it's very...

And it's scary, you know, because he's like, he's playing the fool and then immediate switch to this like predator character. And then immediately back to the fool when the other Jedi is like storm the shop. Watching this, if you believe that he is a Sith master of some kind, watching him like fumble up, please don't wipe my mind. Please don't do all these things. Like his way around the shop is so funny. The fact that they all just leave him there.

sheer incompetence of the highest order. I just don't know what else to say. Just so weird. This is like... I'll leave him there. You're on perimeter. Jackie, you got to get to the ship. Oh my God. Osha, you're with me for no reason. And we'll just leave him, our best lead, alone in his shop.

Okay. Anyway. Ludicrous. I needed one like side exchange where someone was like, let's like let him go so we can try to follow him. Or you're on perimeter. Make sure he doesn't leave the shop, I guess, from both entrances or whatever. I don't know. I will say on the comedy front very quickly. Manny's just so funny. Because they've heard everything via PIP. So now from our perspective, I read this kind of planted information. Yeah.

Um, soul saying, who is he? And I'm pointing to your, and I'm saying, I thought he was with you.

It's just hysterical. Just hysterical. Oh, my God. It's so good. Oh, boy. I wonder if the mind wipe, because again, we have this question of like, how are the Jedi going to suddenly forget that the Sith popped up 100 years previous? Is this planting of a seed of a mind wipe as a possibility of something people can do with the Force? Like a seed that will bear fruit later in the season? I don't know. That's just a question I have. Because it's not like a...

Jedi don't go, they're not the men in black. They don't usually go around wiping minds, right? Like that's not a thing that they do, right? So it's just weird for him to bring it up, I thought. Okay, Solveig May.

Yort says, I got a bad feeling about this. I don't like it. We're just going to move on. Don't want it. Sol and Osha have a great conversation about grief and revenge that we heard at the top of this episode. Fantastic. But Sol ending it with this idea of like, I failed to save her. I couldn't save her when you were children. Let me try now. Is this repeated Star Wars idea we love about like someone insisting on saving someone who everyone else thinks is beyond saving? Right.

Yes. Rey with Ben Solo, Luke with Vader. I just absolutely loved this. And then this is, do you want to talk about the use of faith here? Who has faith in whom here at this exchange? She wants to kill you, Osha says. And then Solo replies, have faith in me. Then have faith in me.

He says, have faith in me. And Anosha just sort of like tearfully, slightly shakes her head like a little bit. Then have faith in me. Have faith in me. This is absolutely beautiful. And there's such an intimate quality to how the relationships are driving these big, sweeping, potentially cataclysmic outcomes. I actually was thinking in the look what revenge has done to her sister line. It made me think of T'Challa and Zemo.

You know, vengeance has consumed you. It's consuming them. I'm done letting it consume me. That idea. So like how the characters, because the past is so present, like soul is being driven by the past here too, but he's seeking redemption. He is, this makes me nervous. I know you're feeling nervous. Like,

He's seeking absolution, which is the thing that we heard Chimera and May talk about, so that's a little bit scary. But he's not driven by revenge. And he's brimming with compassion, which is the thing that took down Indara. They weaponized. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Sol! Okay. You know, I've just made my peace with the fact that Sol's not going to make it out of this season alive, so I'm just going to say, make it to the season finale so that I can just spend as much time with you as possible. That is my hope.

Meanwhile, we get a caption that's just Pip trilling and warbling. That's just a thing that we get. Sol and May have this fight in the streets. This was dynamite. Wonderful. The first, like, catching by the ankle? Yes.

Dude. Wonderful. The only question I have in this fight here is she tries to, she's going through the saber on his hip as we talked about. Yeah. Like, very similar in many ways to the Indara fight. She tries to pull the same move on him that she pulls on Indara with the hidden knife.

and it gets redirected away. Is your reading that Saul redirected it away or that Yord yanked it out of midair? That Yord yanked it. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I thought that it seemed like Yord pulled it off. If Yord pulled her knife away, because it means two different things.

If Sol did, it means he has a better read of her than Indara did. If Yor did it, then it speaks to more like stronger together. You know, we got to be a team in order to tackle this. Live together, die alone. Yeah, I love it. Love it. I liked when he said...

Because the fight is not only physical, there's the penetration, right? There's the probing. Like, I'm sorry. That's not what I meant! No! That is not what I meant! The Jedi mind probe. I see your master has taken great pains to hide his identity even from you. That was interesting to me.

obviously in terms of theory corner and all that, but like, is that the kind of thing where when it's brought to me as attention in that way, it's going to build resentment. Like, why won't you tell me who you are? You know, does that lead to a rupture from May's side between May and he, the master is a stranger. He is him, but not in the meme way that people say, like gutter Henderson is him. It's like, he is him. Um,

This is just, we need a character name soon. So yeah, that was really interesting. That was interesting. And then we learned that Mae thought Osha was dead. That's where we get it. And Sol really, really clocks her reaction to that, which I thought was interesting. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Mae airbends a bunch of dirt and dust in their faces while

She force pushes. Why has no one ever done this on a desert planet? And if the way that some people feel about the hold'em maneuver, this is how I feel about this. Why have we never seen a Jedi do this? Maybe because they're too busy like chopping and slicing with their sabers to like force push a bunch of dirt in people's faces. But I thought it was a really effective move. Yeah, this was great.

May and Osha equally unable to attack each other. Osha perhaps more significantly so given that she has a big fuck off gun and they're just sort of like, I see you, you see me. Just stun her. You thought was dead the whole time. Bring her in and then you're together. You can figure out what happened. I just want to talk, May. Instead of continuing in where the plot is interesting, Sol has to go back to meet with the Jedi Council, which seems... I don't want that. I don't want that. I don't want that.

I want them to now keep going on their mission. I know. It's a very silly move. Also, this was interesting because we do get from Vern this kind of like, okay, the game has changed. The facts on the ground have changed. It's not just that your Padawan went rogue. Now a trained outsider is responsible. From Sol's perspective, this is where, when I mentioned earlier, the frustration, it's so palpable here. He's just outraged that this is the thing that they think makes sense. And...

The refusal, Vern's refusal to let Sol go to help Kolnaka, who is obviously by every aspect of the fact pattern at risk, is like real, wait, what the fuck is happening here? Is this like just incompetence or what stuff? I hope that Sol goes rogue and just goes there anyway. Yeah, because I don't want to go back to the Jedi Temple. Okay, Coruscant, who wants to go there? Not me. All right.

Last but not least, it's just a dude being a guy being better than a highly trained dark side assassin at knife fighting. If Chimera's not supposed to be force sensitive, just a scavenger, just a traitor, just a scoundrel, why could he beat Mei with a knife in an alleyway? He couldn't. That's the only read on it. That's the only answer. There's no way he could. There's no way. It's impossible. It's not possible!

Next time on the Acolyte, we get a little tease, right? Kofar and a Wookie. This looked nice. Looked gorgeous. The establishing shot was amazing. Building a forest abode out of like a rock-covered shipwreck. It's a great stop. Telling some scavengers to get off your lawn by breaking their gun. Kelnock is my favorite. I love his little top knot. I'm a big fan. Okay.

Theory Corner. I feel like you should go right from that to Wig Watch, honestly. Okay. From the top, not the Wig Watch. It's time. We're actually not even going to stop at Theory Corner because we actually have already talked about all our theories. Sorry, we couldn't restrain ourselves. It's a theory show. I don't know that we're going to be able to wait for Theory Corner as we break down these episodes. All right, let's go straight to Wig Watch. Do you wear wigs?

Thank you, Steven. You're the best. Yorda and Jackie have interesting hair. I'm actually not against it. Midnight Boys had some things to say about Yorda's hair, and I support them. I like Jackie's little space mullet David Bowie look. I think it's fun. I don't understand what has happened to Dean Charles Chapman's wig situation. I don't understand it at all.

Because I've also seen the flashback wig and it is also confounding to me. My only thought is that Dean Charles- That's the like curly one in the trailer, right? Yeah, it's the curly one. His hat just looks so big. My only thought is like, does he have a lot of hair that he needs for another role and they had to like shove it under something? Like what's happening? I don't know. I understand that they were trying to make him look, you know, Dean Charles Chapman, like if in the flashback he's like,

a Padawan or untranged or like whatever. He's a young looking guy. Even like for his own age, he looks younger than he is. But the beard and the receding hair, it's just, it was an astonishingly strange look to me. So maybe that's just what happens to you if you

sit and meditate for 10 years. Don't get a lot of blood flow happening. I don't know. Anyway. Not my fave. Wig watch doing a lot of work on the twin front. There's a forehead tattoo, but there's also, you know, like the slightly different extensions happening on the wig watch. That's all I really have to say. I mean, I don't know what else there is to say. Except,

That is Wakewatch. All right, we skipped past it, but I think now we have to go to Easter eggs. It's an old code, but it checks it. Anything you want to shout out on the Easter egg front, on the reference front? Deathwatch heads will recognize Karlak. That's a fun one. We spent some time in the Clone Wars animated television program on Karlak. So fun to be back there and think of Ahsoka and think of Bo.

Always thinking about Bo-Katan. I would say the fact that Ghost Dream May leaves no footprints in the snow the same way Force Projection Luke leaves no footprints in the salt on Crait. Great stuff. So is it your theory that, like, little Ghost May is, like, actually the stranger Force projecting himself or just Force projecting an image?

Like, is he pulling a full Luke or is he just like planting images in her mind? In your theory? Interesting. I don't know. I guess it would. I guess I like the idea that, yeah, maybe act actively driving. This isn't like a self-driving car that someone just sends out into the world. Like you're you're at the wheel. Yeah, I think I like that. Yeah. What do you think?

I don't know. I like the idea of, if that's the case, seeing like little May like transform into. That would be fun. You know? Yeah. I think that, that seems right. Maybe just. Okay. The Netflix subtitle award. Did you do one of these?

The reason I put this in the doc is because there is literally a caption that says squelching. Squelching. Yeah. Should we just then make it addled brain distends wetly like to honor the spirit of the origin? The squelching happens when the Dybbuk is on the prisoner's mouth and it just says squelching. Yeah. Addled brain distends wetly. All right. Great. Or we could go with a sweeter end note, you know, pip trills and warbles. Charmingly. Sweetly. Love it. Okay.

And on that note, speaking of Trillian warbling, we're going to go to our interview with Leslie Hedlund. She was so generous with her time. So lovely. So wonderful. I just want to set up something really quickly, like pretty early in the chat when we're talking about Mae versus Osha, this idea of like opposite ideologies and characters. I made a reference to Russian doll. And if you've never seen Russian doll,

a show that Leslie Hedlund co-created with Natasha Lyonne. That show has a main character as played by Natasha Lyonne, but there is another character, Alan, played by Charlie Barnett. Charlie Barnett, a.k.a. Yord himself, the legend, the one-man horde, Yord. Charlie Barnett plays a character named Alan in Russian Dolls. So anytime she's referencing Alan, she's talking about Charlie Barnett's character in Russian Dolls, and that's all you need to know. So let's go now to our chat with Leslie Hedlund.

I want to start by asking you about, so we've been hearing for so long this Frozen meets Kill Bill sort of elevator pitch that you gave. And now we can even better understand it because we know that this is a story about sisters and not just sisters, but twins. And so I wanted to ask you about sort of

What the Star Wars' own rule of two, this idea of twins or forced dyads, if you prefer, whatever, how does that feel integral to your idea of Star Wars? My instinct is always to start with one story or one character and then flip the paper and turn the paper over and start writing what's the opposite of that. Like,

Like when... What's the yin to that yang? Like when Charlie shows up in Russian Doll and you're like, oh. Exactly. Like who... I remember that in the writer's room. We had a breakthrough when we were working on Nadia fighting against this supernatural maze that she was stuck in. It was a real breakthrough in the writer's room when we started to circle this idea of

Who would like this? She very clearly is fighting against it and looking for a way out and frustrated by the repetitive cycle, struggling with the loss of control. And then when Alan, Charlie's character, shows up, we thought, who's the guy that would be comforted by consistent, repetitive, what happened to him on that day or that evening?

that he would want to keep reliving over and over again, that he would be interested in reliving and trying to, quote, get right. Once you have those opposing views

those opposing themes, then you've got conflict. If everybody's on the same side, is there a story? I don't know. In that regard, do you start with OSHA and then come up with May or start with May and come up with OSHA or do you come up with them together at the same time? Well, definitely they were, the pitch was the same time.

meaning we're going to introduce twins. We knew one of them would be Jedi-affiliated and one of them would be Sith-affiliated. It was a bit easier to write Osha at the beginning because he is a fish-out-of-water protagonist, not unlike Nadia trying to untangle the jewelry of how did I get in this position? What is it about my past that's contributed to my present?

Is it something that I did wrong?

is everything I know challenged by this new information? I don't want to say it was easier, but it lent itself to more conventional storytelling to write Osha's character. May was a bit more difficult because you didn't want to just fall into the evil twin trope. This person completely is in conflict or opposing this other character. It was more if Osha is questioning her inability to quiet her

quote-unquote negative feelings, then who is the character that would completely embrace her negative feelings? It was our goal to, while they were both created at the same time, to answer your question, as they developed, we definitely ping-ponged. We didn't want that cliche of like, one of them is evil, one of them is good.

Um, even if it began that way, meaning one is capable of murder and one is a former Padawan who, uh, as far as we know, is guilty of any, of anything. And if she's guilty of something, it would be her internalized judgment of herself because of her perceived failure.

to become a Jedi. So we've got family, we've got, you know, the classic Star Wars. This is a story of, you know, good and evil and intergalactic war, but also just basically family issues, which I love about Star Wars. Well, that was the nice thing too of setting it where we set it because you couldn't actually have a galactic war. Right. You know, like, you know, everything. Yeah. So everything had to be personal and the familial dynamic. Yeah. Yeah.

Something that Mallory and I go back and forth on, and I will say that I struggle with when I wrap my arms around Star Wars, is this idea, the idea of attachment.

And this idea that the Jedi have that attachment is bad. And you've got a character like Li Zhengjie's character, Sol, who is so tender and emotional in his connection to Osha. So I was just curious, you know, when you think about that idea of master and apprentice and attachment, how do you view it, you personally, and how does that work its way into the show? Well, as we all know, because...

The mythology of George creating Star Wars is almost as impactful as the mythology of Star Wars. Yeah. We know that George was very influenced by, you know, Eastern philosophy. And it is a concept in Buddhism that attachment is suffering. But there's also the concept that suffering is inevitable. And if I were to criticize the Jedi at all, it would be the latter.

that suffering is inevitable. So when Yoda says like, hate leads to suffering, I sort of disagree. That would probably be where I disagree with Yoda. I think suffering is inevitable. I guess that makes me a cis. Peace is a lie. It doesn't, you know, this is, I don't know if it's because I'm telling a story from the cis

perspective or I just, I myself personally feel this way, but it seems to me like you may feel like you're in balance. You may feel that you have freedom from attachment, but I think the Sith perspective is

is that's not possible. You know, the Sith may be wrong, the Jedi may be wrong, but I think writing a story from the Sith perspective, a character like Sol is the perfect culmination and example of the incongruity of avoiding attachment or resisting attachment in order to circumvent suffering, in order to stay away from being seduced by the dark side.

And I think this is so evident in JJ's performance. He's a light-sided person. He's a glass of clear water. And there's this drop of food coloring, let's just say, that's dropped into that clear glass of water. And that drop is OSHA. So I think you asked me originally before I started talking, was what does it mean to me? Yeah. And...

I do believe, Filoni says this about Ahsoka and Anakin as well. There's a tinge of a family dynamic or a more obvious connection to a family dynamic with Master and Apprentice. When Anakin calls Ahsoka Snips in Ahsoka, it's very much the older brother teasing the younger sister. Yeah. With Sol and Osha, it's a profound connection that I have had with my father.

which is there is love between the two of us. And my father passed away in September. I'm so sorry. Thank you. There's a love between the two of us. But in a way, that love, that deep love that's just ingrained in you is what can curdle and...

wreak havoc on your own independence and your attachment. Everyone can remember the time where they started to realize that their parents were people. I think everybody can really pinpoint that moment. And I don't think Osha is there yet with Sol. I think she still sees him as this flawless master, this master that she failed, this father figure that she let down. What I think JJ...

does so beautifully and so in such a nuanced way is portray how much Sol feels he let her down. I think in episode two, it's one of my favorite scenes in the show is when he and Osha are reconnecting

They're kind of reconnecting for the first time, meaning it's not a high-press situation. They're just sitting on the ship finally talking to each other. And Osha says, I could never calm my negative emotions. I guess I wasn't a very good student. And then JJ, in this, my opinion, this heartbreaking way, says perhaps I wasn't a very good teacher. I would say that echoes so much of the paternal relationship between a father and a daughter. And definitely was my relationship with my father. Why not?

When I said to him, you know, in so many words, you know, I guess, you know, I guess I'm not a good daughter. You know, he's able to come back and say, you know, perhaps I wasn't a very good father. And that's not a conversation you really get to have with your parents. But to me, that's the antithesis of the Empire Strikes Back, the declarative statement, I am your father. It's more like I... It's almost like Sol's starting point is Anakin's ending point. Oh, I love that. In that scene where...

solanosa are talking about um being master and apprentice she's uh wearing a tank top and she's got this tattoo on her arm uh and i wrote in my notes starbuck core is this is uh his battle star and starbuck and inspo in that look at all i mean what do you think what's your thought on that starbuck was in a lot of like my sister inga and i do a lot of um image work ahead of time we've

We make... Well, she really makes them. I just give her the, hey, pull from this, pull from this. I think it's a little bit of this thing. Starbuck was on the OSHA board many times. What else was on the OSHA board many times? Oh, Katniss was there a lot. A lot of times, Inga chooses editorial photos, meaning they don't reference a particular person or actor. Um...

A lot of times because you don't want that to get stuck in people's head as it's supposed to look like, you know, this character is supposed to look like Jennifer Lawrence. But we did feel that Osha had that heart, but also that courage of like a Katniss, for example. But then the sort of grizzled, that's the right word, courage.

toughness of a, and, and likability of a, a, a star bug. I know you have a Leah tattoo on your hand, which is sick. And I'm just curious. Yeah, it's great. I'm curious. I don't know. This might be too big of a question to wrap your arms around, but like what, what have you loved about women in star, in star Wars? And what did you want to expand upon in terms of women in star Wars and making this? Well, when I think of the,

iconic female characters in Star Wars media, which the three that come to mind are Padme,

Leia and Ahsoka. What I, what I think of when I think of them is what I think of is women put in very high stakes circumstances that, that rise to the occasion that they go through, uh, character transformations due to situations that they never thought were, were possible. I mean, I think Leia knew Leia of course knew as a, as a, as a, as one of the leaders of the rebellion, uh,

that

She was willing to sacrifice her life to face off against the Empire invader. But when her planet is destroyed that way, you know, who can deal with that? Who can deal with the love of your life murdering children? Who can deal with being accused of bombing the temple after years and years of faithful service and people knowing who she is? So I hope that May and Osha follow in the footsteps of those characters.

I love that. I like that you just referenced the Clone Wars episode, The Wrong Jedi, one of our favorite Clone Wars stories. My favorite line from the trailer is not in these first two episodes, but is...

Jodie Turner Smith's character, mother Anisea saying, this isn't about good or bad. This is about power and who is allowed to use it. So this idea of, we like to talk about this idea of democratization of the force, like who's allowed to use the force. Do you have to go through the Academy? Do you have to be midichlorian Jesus named Skywalker? Like who's allowed to be in control of this power? So,

obviously part of the story is sort of muddying the waters on the Jedi or interrogating this idea of an institution and establishment. And I was just wondering like sort of if you could expand a bit upon your thoughts on that idea of who gets to use the force or,

the Jedi as, you know, the villains of Ahsoka's story to a certain degree in the Clone Wars. Unchecked power, whether good or bad, is susceptible to corruption. It just is. It doesn't... I just believe that. I mean, I didn't come up with this, you know? It's like, you know, George put it in the prequels. Yeah. You know, as good as the intentions are,

you know, the strength and the force had diminished so much that they didn't recognize that the Sith had reemerged and were right in front of them. So at that point, I believe George, you know, and this is just my personal opinion, but what I believe George

is highlighting by making that the story of the prequels. No power lasts forever. Not even the best, most well-intentioned, most benevolent institution can rely on their collective power to keep peace, to restore peace.

remain unchallenged, to protect themselves, to protect others. Like it doesn't, it's so susceptible to either corruption from within or corruption from an external force like a city is. So I think the point being that in the Star Wars, in our Star Wars, everyone's worried, so worried about who's good and who's bad, that I think the larger community

the larger threat is, but who's allowed to use this power and who isn't. You mentioned sort of in the, in press leading up to this premiere that I know you're a longtime Star Wars fan, fan fiction writer, RPG player,

EU enthusiast. You mentioned this idea of like, quote unquote, really big EU ideas like early in the series. Is that something that you feel like has emerged already in these first two episodes or are we going to, should we still wait for this? Oh, well, the Barash vow is one. Mm-hmm.

Name checking that. Obviously, there's a little nod to the prequels by calling the poison Bunta instead of Bunta. I have this whole background in my head about the Hutts co-opting natural resources, natural resources and, you know, naming plants after them. But pieces lie, obviously, like that's not a sanctioned.

canon thing. It exists, but it's not necessarily, the Jedi code and the Sith code are not necessarily within the recent years of Star Wars. That's not necessarily considered something that characters are repeating to themselves. It's more of a, that's more of a wink to the people that know what it is. Yord Fandar is the name of a character that

be played in my RPG. So my group couldn't believe that I had slipped him in the show. They were like, you named a character Yord Fandar? It's such an RPG name. It's just like, Yord Fandar of whatever. So it just seemed like the silliest Star Wars name we could think of and now it's canon. Obviously there's this like

It's, you know, the, the Jedi is not pulling their weapon unless prepared to kill is very much a feeling I got from the high Republic, which is, it's not like they're fighting, you know, in, in, in our story, they're not fighting them. The, the, the hill or the high hill, depending on how you say it, they are pretty much unopposed. So why would they pull out lightsabers? Why would they do that? I mean, I guess they could for like, you know, blaster shots or like maze knives or, you know, but, but,

It's not like there are other lightsabers to fight against. There are not battle droids to fight against. So it's essentially criminals and civilians. So that thought led me to the martial arts of it all and the hand-to-hand combat, that they would eventually phase that out in favor of lightsaber training in order to...

uh, not just become, you know, uh, politically allied. Like, look, we have a lot of like militaristic force in addition to being a bunch of monks. Um, uh, in one Oh four, Basil is a, is a tenant, which is a, which is a, um, uh, species that, uh, I believe has only shown up in the EU. I don't think they're canon. Um, Pablo was so happy we were using them. He

He was so excited. He was like, he was like, oh yeah, they exist and throw them at, you know, definitely get them in there. This idea of seduction to the dark side, that word seduction, which can only come into play more given that the darksiders we've met so far in your story are Amanda Sandberg and Manny Jacinto, like two of the most

Most alluring people that you could put on screen. What do you want to say about sort of this idea of seduction, like, you know, versus, I don't know, even temptation or any other words you can use? Why is the word seduction so interesting to you? It's so funny that you say that.

I brought that up a lot in the initial pitch and then in the writer's room once we had convened them. Because when Obi-Wan says it in episode four, and I was, you know, obviously a bit younger when I was watching. A zygote, really? A zygote, yeah. You know, which was when I was seven, which was 20 years ago. I think that...

That was something that I emphasized over and over again. That was the first, when I, oh, sorry. What I meant to say was when Obi-Wan says that in episode four, and I was a young girl, that was the first time I'd heard that word. I'd never heard that word before. He was seduced by the dark side and whatever it was, it felt very, you know, salacious really. It felt, it felt, I knew it felt like, oof,

Like it's, you know, kind of sent a shiver down my spine, even though as a young girl, there's no reason I would know what that meant. As I got older and I thought about that line more and more and, you know, watched, you know, episode four more and more, I thought seduction takes two people. It takes a person doing the seducing.

And it takes a person drawn in by that energy. He could have used so many different words. He could have used defeated by the dark side, tempted by the dark side, like he said. But he said seduced. Yeah. So...

There's a bit of agency on the part of the other person there. I mean, when I thought when I think seduced when I when you know, when I was like younger and then 12 years old, I thought of those like romance novels covers. What is Fabio doing? Yeah. By the way, I thought of the the poster for Empire Strikes Back where Leia and Han are in the same position as Leia.

Vivian Lee and Clark Gable for the Gone with the Wind poster. Like that was seduction to me. That, you know, the way he seduces her in Empire Strikes Back, like that feels like whatever that is, is what the dark side did to Vader. I think what I love so much about a movie like The Last Jedi, which is one of my favorite Star Wars stories, is this idea of Rey and Kylo and this like, or Rey and Ben if you prefer, and this like,

forbidden Skype calls for Skype calls. You know what I mean? This like forbidden, like bad romance sort of idea that is... Oh, when he... Absolutely. Like he says, join me. And then Adam says, please, in that really beautiful, you know, distinctive, intimate way. I feel like you could have ended the movie there, to be quite honest. I mean, I enjoyed the rest of it, but...

You could have been like, stay tuned to two years from now. You're going to find out what happened. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, I love you. I know it felt, it felt like the, I love you. I know moment to me. Totally. That, that not that he was declaring his love for her in that moment, but that he was saying, I need you.

Yeah, please. Um, I really need you not, not I love you or, um, even though I'm recalling that moment, but he's not declaring his romantic feelings for her necessarily in that moment. He's saying, I can't exist without you. And if you don't come with me, I'm not sure I can do it. That's what I get from the please there. Um, I loved how you talked about this. People get so confused between TV and film. Um,

And that bothers me because I think TV is an important, distinct medium. And I saw you talking about this when it comes to your show and this idea of taking a beat to digest things. I think the quote you had was, when you hear it's time for the Jedi to end, when Luke says it might be nice to have a week after that to sort of process. To just chill out. Just think about it. Holy shit. Luke. Yeah.

Coming in hot. So in between audiences watching episodes one and two, and episode one ends with the Jedi live in a dream, a dream they believe everyone shares. If you attack a Jedi with a weapon, you will fail. Seal or laser are no threat to them, but an acolyte kills the other weapon. An acolyte kills the dream. What do you want

in an ideal world, your audience to be chewing over in the week between episodes. I mean, I could go on forever about it, but, but because you asked about that line, I mean, how do you kill a dream? You wake up. So the question is what's getting, what's who's waking up, what's being awoken. And it's not force awakens by the way, you know? But I think that that's how I, I think that line is so beautiful. I mean, I wrote it, so I can't say that it's so beautiful, but I,

I do think that when we stumbled upon that line and when I decided to use it as the button of the pilot, it felt to me like a nice setup for this isn't really... Yes, she's murdering people, but this isn't really a corporal problem. Or the murder is like a side effect of the philosophical and spiritual destruction that's coming.

Um, so I would hope they'd think that I feel like the show has, this could be a good thing or a bad thing, but I feel like the show has a lot of story packed in every episode. Um, there certainly isn't a lot of vamping in terms of like OSHA's arrest.

A lot of people that watched the show early on or like yourself saw them before. They said, I thought that was going to happen in episode three. I didn't realize that five minutes after the murder happened, she would be arrested for it. I figured it was this whole thing that was going to unfold. So I think having a break between each episode will be a nice way to...

digest the amount of story you're being, you're being, that's being delivered. Perfect. Thank you so much. Thanks for all the extra time. I really appreciate it. It's nice to see you again because I love you and I love your guys' podcast, even though I'm going to have to stop listening to it. This has been your deep dive into two episodes of The Acolyte and an interview with the creator, Meaty.

A chunky little episode. I think our future Acolyte episodes will be a little... Two episodes to break down and an interview? That's what I'm saying. Our future episodes will be a little... A little swift. No such promises. He told us he thought it was going to be four hours. We came in an hour shy of that. Listen. No such promises for future House of the Dragon episodes, which is what's on the horizon on this feed. Yeah.

So stick with us. We're about to talk about dragons for a very long time, but we will also still be talking about mysterious Jedi twins. I'm excited to keep watching and chatting about the show. Oh, I know. Me too. And what did they do? What did the Jedi do? I don't know, but I really want to find out. Okay. Thank you to Mallory Rubin, the other half of my force diad. Thank you to Stephen Allman, who's invited to every single noodle party we ever have.

Thank you to Jomi Adinaron on the social. Jomi is also invited. And thank you to our Jinaronga pal for his additional production work on this episode. He is also invited to noodle with us. We will be back, House of the Dragon, next week. Till then. Bye.