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The ‘Revenge of the Sith’ Debate

2025/3/28
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House of R

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This episode is brought to you by Metro by T-Mobile. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is worse than settling for less. And we all do it to ourselves, whether it's sitting through a bad date or staying in a relationship that didn't meet our standards. Well, I think we deserve better, and so does Metro. They believe that instead of settling, you should get great deals on 5G devices from top brands like Samsung with no contracts, no credit checks, no exploding bills, and nada, yada, yada.

Yada. That's wireless without the gotcha. Stop by your neighborhood Metro store or visit mbytmo.com slash stores and find out about their amazing offers.

Oh, hi. Welcome back to House of R. I'm Joanne Robinson.

Molly Rubin is not feeling well, and so we got the next best thing. It's Van Lathan. She's under the weather. Under the weather. Yeah. You're on top of the weather. Do we know where that phrase comes from? I mean, because the weather makes you sick, so you're under the weather. The weather has gotten to you. You're under the weather's thrall. I don't know. Yeah, the weather is your overlord. I love that. Yeah. I don't know. Hobbitsanddragons.gmail.com if you know where the phrase under the weather comes from.

Van and I are not here to break down Daredevil. He already did that over the Midnight Boys. So if you want Van's take on Daredevil and the boys take on Daredevil, you can listen to that. If you want to hear Mallory and yours truly talk about Daredevil, we'll be doing that next week. If all things go according to plan today, though, you and I are doing a sequel of sorts to last summer's. What's the deal with the last Jedi debate that we did? Yeah.

Except what movie are we here to talk about today, Van Lathan? One of my faves. Revenge of Da Sith. Da Sith! Da Sith. It's the 20th anniversary. So three.

of Revenge of the, Star Wars Revenge of the Sith next month. Are you going to go see it in theaters? Of course. Obviously. How many times do you think? Probably a strong three. Strong three. A strong three. I'll do it once by myself. I'll drag you once or someone and then I'll probably go like see it again when I'm traveling in a city or something. Okay. So Van loves Revenge of the Sith. I think it's pretty bad and we're going to talk about it. Okay. We

Which is similar to our conversation around The Last Jedi. So we're going to get to that in a second. Van, what's going on with the Midnight Boys? Other than Daredevil, what have you guys been up to? We've been doing a lot of different stuff. Yeah? We've been doing a lot of off-the-beaten-path stuff. People like it. People like when we give you a draft, when we do a recasting, all of that. I would encourage people to keep an eye on the feed because you never know what the Midnight Boys are going to be up to. We're rapscallions. We're unpredictable. You are. Yeah. You're rakes. You did...

a severance finale we did a severance finale pod yes we did a house of midnight we all talk about that was fantastic it was really fun it was so good bozeman bozeman the dog there so many people there was it was an interesting week in nerdness last week with daredevil the two episode drop what people thought about that and then that coming around the same time that marvel decides to do these announcements

Plus an Andor trailer. Plus an Andor trailer. Lots going on. Lots happening. We over here are covering, of course, Yellow Jackets as well as someday we'll cover Daredevil again, like I said, next week probably. We've got a Ring of Earths recommends coming up from the whole crew. Linberg. Button Mash is doing Assassin's Creed, all sorts of stuff. So subscribe to the Ring of Earths, subscribe to House of R. That's the thing to do. Any spoiler warnings for today?

All of Star Wars? I guess so. I mean, if you don't know, no, fuck it. No, you need to know. There's no, I can't, I can't do it, man. The movie's legitimately, what, 20 years ago? And the stuff that really the movie latches on to is literally 50 years ago, almost. So I can't, I can't do it. If you don't know, you don't know. If you don't know, you don't know. So, Revenge of the Sith. Mm-hmm.

Is it a good movie? This is the conversation. I want us to start the way we did with The Last Jedi. Okay. Which is when we started with The Last Jedi, it was Vance has something he likes about The Last Jedi. Joanna offers up a critique of The Last Jedi. We're going to flip the table, right? Nice. Because I'm going to say something nice about it. You're going to say something critical about it. Right. Do you want to go first or do you want me to go first? I'll go first. Okay. This is not a particularly well-acted movie. Okay.

And there's no way, no matter how much you like it, everybody is giving their worst here. No, not everyone. Not everyone. And that's my positive. All right. Ian McDermott. Ian McDermott is good. As Palpatine. As Palpatine. He's never missed as Palpatine. No, not once. This is him. This is him as Palpatine. Oh, Anakin. Yeah.

And they can do it. The Jedi are taking over. Like...

That's him. He got so Southern. The Jedi are taking over. That's how he sounded. Rest in peace, Leslie Jordan. He sounded like at that moment. I don't even know what I tell you. The Jedi are taking over. Oh my God. Leslie Jordan as Palpatine. I would love to see it. Leslie Jordan as Palpatine. Rest in peace, Leslie Jordan. That would have been so awesome. Leslie Jordan as Palpatine.

Okay, so not a particularly well-acted movie. Not a particularly well-acted movie. Except for Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine and I would say Ewan McGregor with what little he is given to work with in this movie. He's given very little. Sure. Okay. All right. Well...

I love that you come out hot with something I completely agree with, which is it's not a very well-acted movie. Let's talk about why this movie is so important to you. Not before you say something nice. I did, Ian McDermott. Oh, you said, oh, wait, so you're saying that he was good in it. Okay, cool, I get it. Ian McDermott, wonderful. Right. Doesn't miss. Yeah. The opera scene. Oh, the opera scene's great. I have no notes about it. Yeah. What other nice things do I want to say about this movie? Very meme-able.

Incredibly memeable. Very quotable, but I'm not sure memeable is...

the quality we're looking for in our Star Wars. Not for Star Wars content. I think if for a show like White Lotus, which is a great show, but it's also very memeable because it has to maintain its kinetic energy from week to week. Perfectly okay for that show to be memeable. Star Wars, you probably don't want a lot of memes coming out of your Star Wars movie. You want some. Some. But this is the most memed Star Wars movie. You want a different kind of meme. You want a meme that is playing on...

how devastating dramatically something happened. You don't want a let's make fun of this scene meme. Right. Which is what almost all of them are out of this one. Yeah, for sure. I'm not going to deny it. No, I know. Like James Franco told Gucci Man in Spring Breakers.

I ain't denying it. Remember that? Why is Spring Breakers coming? This is like the third podcast I've been on where someone talked about Spring Breakers. James Franco's an asshole. He was good at Spring Breakers. You just want to talk about all kinds of Salinas today with me. All right, so...

Given everything that you've just said, why is this movie, why do you love it so much? I've been on tech, like, Ring of Earth tech threads. There was a span of weeks where you were just re-watching Revenge of the Sith. And you just send us voice notes and you'd be like, this is my favorite Star Wars movie. Yeah. Tell me why. So, I'm going to start off with a hot take. I'm going to start off with a hot take. Okay.

It is the most essential Star Wars movie that's ever been made. Tell me why. Because without the dramatic grounding of what happens in this movie, the rest of the story kind of doesn't make sense. It doesn't mean that you, when I say essential, I mean from a lore standpoint. This movie didn't have to happen, right?

So you did not have to tell the story of Anakin Skywalker. You didn't really have to go back in the past to do any of the prequels. They didn't have to happen. However, the things in the movie had to happen. These are the things that have to happen to thrust us into the storytelling that we get before. So the reason why I say that it's essential is because for me, what I'm trying to understand is,

This entire story, which is essentially Anakin Skywalker's story, right? It's essentially the story of how this particular person, this guy who had so much promise and was promised to do so much, falls so far away from his destiny, right? And becomes one of the most evil people in the history of the galaxy. This movie is that story, and I feel like that's the only thing it had to be. The only thing it had to make me...

uh, feel was God damn. We lost him. Like he is completely gone. He can't come back and look what it costs everyone around him. And I think that's what the movie gets right. And when you, when I look back on it and I'm looking at all the star Wars stuff,

Having the triumph of Skywalker and of Leia and of Han is exhilarating. But the tension in the galaxy, in my opinion, is grounded and rooted in Anakin's failure. I completely agree with you. And I agree that the structure of the story is a really good one. It's the baseline for some of our favorite stories. So, like, this is essentially...

Michael Corleone in The Godfather, right? Yeah. It's Walter White in Breaking Bad. It's Paul Moabdi in Dune to a certain degree where you're sort of like, look at this guy. He's got a lot going. Well, Walter White is a little different, but he's got a lot going for him. Not that much different. In that, where we meet him in our level of society, he's like...

I don't like this term, but like a beta. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like he's not... He's not Michael Corleone war hero, blah, blah, blah, blah. I get you. So we're watching... What you said, damn, we lost him. Yeah. That's what you want. Look at this...

this promising person, look at this like noble, brilliant, whatever hero we lost, even him, even he can fall to the dark side. And like watching that happen with Michael Corleone over the course of two movies, let's say one, and then really firmly into for, for Walter White over the course of several seasons. I think the failure of,

of the prequel trilogy and the failure of revenge of the sith is that i don't buy into anakin as someone that i would be devastated to lose right and a lot of people who love the prequels or love star wars um on a really really deep cellular level will say like oh but if you watch the clone wars and we get to see how anakin was you know with ahsoka or in the war so like that

On the one hand, I agree with that. They did a lot of work to sort of try to make Anakin Skywalker into this character that we're like, wow, we love him. We admire him. We love how he is with Ahsoka. We love this, that, and the other thing. I think for a big Star Wars movie, a big trilogy, that needs to stand on its own without later supplemental material. And I think without that, I think the biggest flaw that, the biggest mistake that George Lucas made

and he did it because he kind of wanted to make a movie for the kids, which I understand why, is starting with Anakin so young. I think it's a different prospect. First of all, Hayden has been good in other things. I think he's not the right match exactly for Anakin. If you cast the role differently and you have the same actor in that role for three movies and the first two movies were like really with him, but we don't get that chance because with...

No shade on Jake Lloyd at all, but he's a kid. Like, a kid Anakin, like, golly gee willikers, but not really sort of, like, I'm not giving my heart to him. Yeah. Whiny, shitty, Attack of the Clones Anakin. Yeah.

The best scenario we have is in this movie, which is the beginning, where is the only time that we see Anakin and Obi-Wan being like, you know, later when Obi-Wan's like, you were my brother. The only example we have is just like a few minutes at the beginning of this movie when they're working together at the start of this movie. And so I just feel like it fundamentally fails to establish Anakin as someone I care about losing. And by the way, I agree.

I don't disagree at all. This is the perfect example of a film for the lore heads. If the lore works for you, I'm not saying it doesn't work for you, by the way. No, no, no, no, no, no. But if the lore works for you, you...

can appreciate this movie fully. If you expected, because the prequels on their own to me, without the undergirding of the entire Star Wars universe and what you read in Legends and all of that, the prequels don't work.

They don't. Like, you want to see Darth Maul. You want to see all of these things. And because all of that stuff happens together and there's so much stuff under it, obviously the first three movies work completely well. Yeah. They establish the lore. Yeah. The prequels don't work without it. And Revenge of the Sith, I have done a lot of other supplemental work. I know you have. To invest in. I've read the novelization. To me, when I'm watching the prequels,

And Darth Plagueis, not Darth Plagueis, and Palpatine gets, he becomes Chancellor. Yeah. I'm sitting there now watching the movie with somebody. I was like, you know, he's an apprentice right now. Plagueis is still alive. And they're like, what? I'm like, yeah, yeah. He's going to kill Plagueis tonight. They're going to get super drunk.

And then they're going to be practicing this speech. Plagueis was supposed to be co-chancellor. And then he's going to kill Plagueis that night. That's the night that he kills him. And then he moves on and he takes out another apprentice. And then people go, well, he had an apprentice himself in Phantom Menace. And then I go, yeah, that's because he doesn't really believe in the rules, too. He doesn't care about it. Sith assassin, not quite a Sith apprentice. And like, so all of that stuff I really get into. Yeah. So that...

Keeps my feet ordered, my steps ordered when I'm watching a movie. And it's funny because it is a cheat. You're not wrong. I know how I'm supposed to feel. Yeah. And that, like, when I'm looking at Skywalker, I'm thinking about the ramifications of everything that he does for the galaxy. I keep watching the movie and waiting for Anakin to save Mace Windu.

I keep watching the movie and going, if he makes a different decision right now, everything is different. Yeah. I keep watching the movie. Like every time I watch it and Palpatine is talking to him, I'm like, he's lying. He's lying. Every time he's about to kill Count Dooku, I'm like, don't do it. Because I think about the totality of everything. Yeah. And that kind of infuses a lot of drama into the movie that I'll be honest with you, it's kind of not on the screen.

And I know that Anakin and Obi-Wan are supposed to be close. Yeah. I know that. You know it, but you don't feel it. Not really. And look, I'm being honest here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, the Obi-Wan-Anakin situation is one deal. The worst relationship that the movie portrays to me is Padme and... Oh, 100%. They look like they've never fucked before ever.

Anti-chemistry. Just no chemistry. Yeah. However, I'm there. Cool stuff happens. The first... The duel on the invisible hand. All that stuff is cool. Cool stuff happens. Do it. Kill him. Like, that's cool. The Musafar duel is cool. Yoda making this is... Yoda's good in the movie. Yoda's saying, hey, you go take your boy...

I'll go take Palpatine. And Yoda's fighting Palpatine and Yoda, the little dick measuring that they do. Palpatine tries to escape. If so powerful you are, why do you leave? I'm fucking with it. I'm there. Well, let me ask you from a... Okay. This is what happened with The Last Jedi too. It's like fundamentally we agree. It's just you want something different out of it than I do. And I want like emotional...

human connection and you're like, cool shit happens and I'm thinking about the lore and the larger universe. Well, I'm saying that that stuff happened for me, but it wasn't necessarily... I can agree with you that the movie isn't... I think the movie is good, by the way. I do think the movie is good, but it's not good for a lot of the reasons that other movies are good to me. Can I ask you a question about... Okay, I want to go back to... Let's do Padme and Anakin. Okay. So, I think...

If we're remaking this and figuring out how to make this work for both a Van and a Joanna, I feel like you need to get four relationships for Anakin right. Because what is a character if not defined by their relationships, right? As we think about crafting characters that we care about on screen, right? And the four key relationships for Anakin are five, if you count Palpatine, are Shmi, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Padme, right? We're all for four.

We're 0 for 4. Yeah. And the problem for me, like beyond the emotional connection stuff, the problem for me is that the Palpatine stuff really works, not just because he's good at what he does, but because Anakin's out here just like with a big hole in his heart for looking for like a parental figure. So if you're feeling the lack of a Shmi or if you're feeling the lack of a Qui-Gon and you're like, I get why he's so susceptible. Yeah.

to this, to Palpatine's seductions. He's lying. You're like, you're like, he's lying. Watching Anakin be duped by Palpatine, like you lose admiration for him because you're like, it's so transparent how you're being manipulated. And then he falls for it. Do you know? And that's, that's tough for me to watch. But if there's emotional reasons, if it's just sort of like, well, but he's walking around just like searching for a father figure and then Palpatine swoops in, you're like, okay, I get it. But the, the,

But they didn't give us enough of Qui-Gon and Anakin. They barely give us anything with fucking Shmi. And, like, this is the only time I'm going to invoke Andor, I promise, because I think that's a trap we fall into as Star Wars fans. But, like, re-watching Andor as I have been leading up to season two, thinking about, like, Marva and Cassian Andor and that relationship and what a great job they do of showing us, like,

this relationship and what it means to leave someone like Marva behind and what, what Marva's death is going to do to someone like Cassian Andor versus like Shmi, who we barely know or understand. And then he does it. Oops, does a genocide about it. You know what I mean? Like those are the, those are the misses, those like relationship misses. And then it leads to an Anakin where I'm like, first of all, I don't, I'm not emotionally invested in you. I want to believe in a love story from star Wars. I love,

Leia and Han is one of the greatest cinematic love stories of all time. By the way, looking back on it, they kind of just give you that. What do you mean? They kind of just give it to you. Han and Leia? Yeah. At the beginning of, if you go back and you watch those two movies. Yeah. In the first movie, Han and Leia have their banter and it's clear that he's picking on her for some reason. But at the beginning of Empire, he just goes, you like me.

And then they're in love. I mean, I mean, I've watched it. No, no, no. I don't disagree with you. He just goes, hey, I'm about to leave. And he goes, because of the way you feel about me. And she's like, I'd rather kiss a wookie. The whole thing that happens, they kind of just give it to you and then they're in love. Now, what I will say is the stakes are so high. Yeah. Not just in that scene, but...

In everything that happens in the original trilogy, like she's put her life in Han's hands. Like Luke is rudderless and leader. Luke goes from Luke is a, is a tip drill as far as it, as it, as it's a, his mentors is concerned. He goes from this mentor to this mentor to this mentor, goes back to the ghost mentor. Whole thing has happened. He flirts with his father being his mentor. Um,

Luke's role to be in a Jedi is crafted by a lot of people that came before him. The reason why I bring that up is because it's really in the performances. And the chemistry. And the chemistry. It's really in the chemistry and the performances because the love story of Han and...

And Leia, to me, is not incredibly well flushed out in the original trilogy. No, but it's I mean, I hear what you're saying. The mentorship between Obi-Wan and Skywalker. It's not like Obi-Wan dies halfway into that movie. That's true. Like Qui-Gon lasts longer in Phantom Menace than Obi-Wan. The Obi-Wan was out of this bitch. It's true. But Qui-Gon is mostly interacting with Obi-Wan in the first movie versus interacting with Anakin. Very true.

To your point, and I agree with you, what Lucas and the other people involved in making the original trilogy are banking on is, first of all, the Carrie Harrison chemistry, which is just off the charts. They were, you know, boning anyway, you know, like all this other stuff. And then a like sort of classic...

Screwball comedy sort of enemies to lovers, bicker, bicker, bicker until we fuck sort of energy. Moonlighting. Moonlighting. Very nice. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Metro by T-Mobile. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is worse than settling for less. And we all do it to ourselves. Whether it's sitting through a bad date or staying in a relationship that didn't meet our standards. Well, I think we deserve better.

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But like with Anakin Padme,

This love story is so clumsily, leaving aside Natalie and Hayden not having any chemistry. Right. Which is a problem no matter what. Ian Few wrote Moonlighting. Well, the first movie also. He's a child. He's a baby. And then she's like 15. And so the whole thing. I'm just saying. It's like when you first see the movie, you go, these people are going to have sex?

The arc is... She looks like an elementary school teacher from Tennessee. You've seen these pictures. It's like this woman, this lady has fucked everybody on the soccer team. And I'm like, what the fuck? Fucking tough. Okay. She's a senator. Have some respect. Are you an angel? Episode one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tough. I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Episode two. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You are so beautiful. It's only because I'm so in love. No, it's because I'm so in love with you. So love has blinded you? Well, that's not exactly what I meant, but it's probably true. Yeah. Episode three. This is a love story for our time. I get it. I get it. I get it. And then? Man. Yeah. And she dies of a broken heart. She dies of a broken heart. Now. Talk to me about that. Here's the deal. Yeah. Lore-wise, you could argue that the force choke killed her.

Okay. That's okay. So this is the stuff that when you dig deeper. Okay. Okay. You're like, get on my level. So no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not doing this, but let me tell you, I'm going to, I'm going to tell you about this scene and then I'm going to give you an example. By the way,

Everyone that's listening to this, this right here is, this is for the sake of the argument. I realize that there's not a lot of room for me to impart upon you guys that Revenge of the Sith is great cinema. I'm telling you. No, no, no. No, on the one hand, sure. On the other hand, a ton of people love this movie. I love it. A ton of people love this movie. So, okay.

So back to what we were talking about. She dies of a broken heart. The whole thing is really not well established. What kills her? They could have actually gone the extra mile and had Anakin killing her for real. And then that would have been much more emotionally resonant than her just kind of falling by the wayside. Do you think a reason to not do that is that it's then hard to get invested in his redemption in Return of the Jedi? I guess so.

choked out their mother? I guess so. But because that's a conversation that you would expect Skywalker to want to have with his dad. And then that's also something else. That's also probably a secret way too devastating for Obi-Wan to keep. Yeah. Not only is this guy your father, but he essentially killed your mother. Yeah. So you probably want to stop short of that, even though Vader has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Like Vader has killed hundreds of thousands of people, drowned a whole planet one time. Right. But going back to that, you're right. That scene works because, you know, it's the scene that is going to turn into.

Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader. You know, he's going to be irreparably maimed after that scene and that he's going to have to wear that iconic suit for the rest of his life. If you don't know that and care about that, that scene probably doesn't hold very much weight with you. As far as her, like coming down there, the most...

flagrant thing about the prequel trilogy is the lack of agency that the character has at all. She lives to be Luke and Leia's birthing cubicle. Vessel, yeah. Vessel. And then just to die tragically of nothing.

So she didn't die heroically. She didn't die even tragically, really. She died plotly. Yeah. She died very plotly. And in a way that I know a lot of people who are deep in the lore and love Star Wars and have read, watched Clone Wars or read expanded stuff, they love Padme. Padme is weird. She does so much more stuff the more you read. Right. But if you just watch these movies...

And this is about sounding, this is like more judgmental than I usually like to be. But like the fact that she is carrying children and she just like gives up on life when like, if she was like, fuck Vader, fuck, fuck Anakin, or I'm devastated, but I'm going to, and so I'm going to go off and raise my children in secret.

That's one thing. But for her to be like, and fuck these kids too. Like, I just can't go on. That is hard for me to root for. Yeah. She couldn't be mom. Yeah. She does give it the old college try to birth the kids before she goes off into the netherworld of the force. Let me give you an example of kind of what I'm talking about. Okay. I'll give you guys a scene. This is going to be a scene that is indicative of kind of the dynamic that I'm talking about. So.

The scene where they come to arrest Palpatine. He's there. You know, Kip Fisto's there. Yeah. He's with the Jedi. And Palpatine quickly dispatches of the Jedi that are with Mace Windu. And then they have their one-on-one duel. On screen, it looks very stupid. It just does. He flies over.

pauses before he impales blah blah blah but when you read it uh huh

He's moving so fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? He's moving so fast. It explains how Palpatine, who doesn't like using a lightsaber very much, he's so powerful that it is in a blink of the eye that he dispatches of those other Jedi. And then it's just him and Mace Windu. And then Mace Windu is using V-Pad. And so he is...

watching him and he's able to like not get killed in that initial wave of super powerful force attack and then they have out there back and forth um now if you've read it and you watch it you can kind of see it

But if you haven't, the scene was a little hokey. You're just like copium mining right now. You're just sort of like. Oh, I'm copping to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So that is kind of the way the entire movie kind of exists for me. Is you're just supplementing with other stuff that you know. And you're like, here's this.

subtext. Here's what I know is happening off screen right now. The first time I watched it, it was the only three of the sequels that I thought actually had a coherent story. That's true. So I didn't think that. I think it's the best of the prequels. Right. It was the only one that had a coherent story. So I'm like, oh, it's the only one that actually ended in a way that I was like, oh, wow.

This makes me interested in the entire experiment of the prequels. And the longer the movie lingered and the more I invested, the better it got as well. The first two still kind of don't have very much...

real estate with me. I enjoy them, but they don't have very much real estate with me. But, like, the more you know about Star Wars, the more important Revenge of the Sith is, in my opinion. And that's not me saying, oh, my God, you guys don't know as much about Star Wars. No, you're not. I'm not doing that at all. You're not giving gatekeeping vibe at all. I think the other element that I want to put out there, okay, I really do think this is a bad movie, and I'll talk more about... I mean, I think it looks like shit also. Did it look like shit when you saw it in 2005? I think it did a bit because...

just it was so over-reliant on CG. Yeah. Do you know? And I've always been a little allergic to that. Right. But especially when you compare it to like Lord of the Rings, which still looks great and came out at the same time. Not everything in Lord of the Rings looks great, but still overall looks, you're not like, ooh, this is so 2005 when you watch Lord of the Rings. Different worlds. One world is a rough, rugged, middle-earth world. The other world is supposed to be

Fucking cars zooming around, shining, gleaming the height of what Naboo and Coruscant and all these, the height of their civilizations. Fair, but you can, oh no, I promise I wouldn't, I won't. Go for it. I won't say Andor. Just keep bringing up Andor. I won't, I won't. Just keep bringing it up. I won't, I won't. You Andor stance. I won't, I won't. I wanted to ask you, so okay, let's talk about the final fight.

However, have I ever told you the... I interviewed Ewan McGregor about the fight for the thing we did for VF. Did I ever tell you the story that he told me about that? What did he say? This is just like a fun side story. It has nothing to do with me knocking Revenge of the Sith. That final fight on Mustafar, one of the most quotable Star Wars scenes. Everyone knows it for the means, whatever. It's a green screen and they're on like rotating green screen little like

circles, right? Like when they're in the lava. They're sort of like in the lava, like spinning around and stuff like that. Ewan McGregor was filming that. There had been rumors that they were going to have like interesting people come to set. He's on the thing and he's like turning around on the green screen, whatever, and he looks up to Video Village and Martin Scorsese is sitting there and Ewan McGregor was like,

Not like this. Not when I'm spitting like a rotisserie chicken on a green screen background. This is not how I meet Marty Scorsese. So that's just a sidebar. Okay. So the final battles between Obi-Wan and Anakin, and this is just a prequel, not a problem, but a prequel thing. I think you have to think about when you make a prequel, but Obi-Wan and Anakin, and you've got Yoda and Palpatine and we know that

that all four of those people will survive these fights. Yes. And we know who is going to come out hale and hearty and whole. And we know that Palpatine certainly has to win his fight because he's continues to be emperor, et cetera, et cetera.

How does that feel not feel sort of how do you make that not feel kind of dramatically inert when we know what the outcome is going to be? I'm saying prequels have managed that in the past. Like Better Call Saul is an example of a thing where like I know the end point of that prequel, but I'm still invested in the how. But in something like these lightsaber battles, does it matter to you that you know where everything is going to get a pan out at the end of it or not? Yeah.

So it's the one thing that I thought, not the one thing, but it's one of the core things I think the movie gets right. Okay. The entire time you watch Yoda, Yoda is so revered and he is like the grandmaster of a thousands of year old organization, right? Yeah. Really one of the most powerful men in the whole galaxy because the Jedi are one of the most powerful organization. He has to go from that

to living in a swamp on a planet in the backwoods of the galaxy. Yeah. How and why? Like, how and why? Obi-Wan has to go from being heir apparent to that same thing to being a hermit whose one job is to look after one boy for his entire life. That has to be, that has to come across in those battles, and I think it does. Like,

Yoda is arrogant at the beginning of that battle. He's very sure that he is... Palpatine calls him on it. You're arrogant. You're very arrogant. I'm about to fuck over you. And he realizes that the Sith that they didn't even know was around is insanely powerful. Like, ridiculously powerful. So powerful that it doesn't make sense to go rest up and come at him again. The only thing that you can do is flee.

Right. And then, you know, he has to get with Organa and then get off the planet. And then Obi-Wan has to be emotionally destroyed to a point to where the Jedi, the structure of the Jedi society in the galaxy, as he knows it is easy to walk away from. And the one thing that does work.

emotionally, like from an acting standpoint, is when he's looking at Anakin and Anakin is brimming with hate, legitimately burning up with hate. I hate you. I hate you. And his eyes, you see the yellow eyes of the Sith and he is still struggling with everything in his mind. He is totally gone at this point. Like,

The Padme thing is gone. It's all gone. The only thing that's burning up in front of him is hate. And Obi-Wan looks at it and he's basically thinking to his self, I can't believe this happened. I can't beat this. I can't do this. And he walks away from him rather than dealing the death blow to him because he's

he leaves the idea of Anakin Skywalker as a person. And he has to turn to the idea of Luke Skywalker and I guess it's fuck Leia. Luke Skywalker. He has to turn to the idea. What do girls know about the Force? You know what I mean? You know what I mean? You read all this stuff and it goes...

the force potential that Luke had was as good as Anakin. I'm like, well, he's got a twin sister. Did all the midichlorians make their decision in utero? Did the midichlorians go... They only touched the white crows, though. Right, they just went out. Did they make their decision in utero? I was like, oh my God. She's... And so that part of the movie, particularly the last part, that part works. Then you get to...

the Vader robotics that part like Yoda leaving Yoda failing Obi-Wan all of that stuff like you know him crawling towards him trying to get to him is one of the more dramatic scenes I agree that's Hayden's best yeah in the entire thing and then you get to the robotic the stuff that scene doesn't work the noo yeah yeah yeah the whole nine yeah yeah yeah right

The no is tough. It's tough. It's tough. Especially for like, you love Vader more than anyone I personally know. Sure. And that's just like, that's not the great intro for your guy that you want. Your guy Vader. No, but okay. Okay, so no. No, it's not. It's not. But, this is what I'll say. I hope someone gifts you going, no. Okay, it's not, but. Yeah.

Oh no, he's sweating. Yes, I'm sweating. Doing a lot of work for Disney right here. It's not. It's not. But most people leave that movie thinking that that Vader right there is a fully formed Vader. Little do they know. That Vader is still learning on the job. The clones still don't know who Vader is. The stormtroopers don't know who Vader is. Vader's suit has been rigged by Palpatine to be painful to him. He still has to use the force to walk.

You know what I mean? He still has to use... He... I mean, he doesn't have a lightsaber. Yeah. He has to go bleed. He has to go find a lightsaber and bleed a lightsaber. Really, at this point, he's still Anakin Skywalker.

inside of the Vader thing as much as he is Darth Vader. And then he will fight to suppress Anakin Skywalker and the Emperor will see this. There's a great push-pull that they need to make the show. There's a great push-pull between the Emperor and Anakin and all of that. So,

The more that I learned that when he sees the mask coming down on him, he really is scared. Like he really is like, what the fuck is going on? And so when he first pops up, he's still kind of shifting back to the mode that he was before a little bit. So it makes a little bit more sense. And when that happens, you go, no! But once again, the way the scene actually plays out on screen is hilarious. It's like, it's funny. Yeah.

It's funny. Let's talk about Order 66. Okay. Obviously, like an incredibly important story beat. John Williams in his bag in that section. Would it have been better if we were emotionally invested in any single one of those other Jedi who get killed in Order 66? You're going to hate me for this because people are going to be like,

it like all Van wants is more Star Wars content it should have been its own movie. Order 66. Yeah. If Disney Plus was around in 2005 Order 66 is a special presentation. It should have been its own movie. Because when you watch what happens to Ahsoka in the Clone Wars um

during Order 66 or if you get into The Bad Batch or whatever. All of that stuff does a great job. You are interested in what's happening, but if you just watch it in this, it's a bunch of characters we don't know or care about. You know their names, some of them, but you don't care about them. Right. Getting snacks. Especially if you haven't read a bunch of books and a bunch of comics and all of that stuff, and they look like some hoes. Like, for them to be as

As force attuned as what they are, for all of them to kind of be killed by their clones, it looks odd. And I think a part of these movies were trying to sell people on the fragility of the Jedi Order. Mm-hmm.

that it's not... The Jedi exist in legend in the first three movies. And then by the time we get to the last three movies, the first three movies, whatever, the movies that came out first. The OT, yeah. The original trilogy. They exist in legend. And then by the time we see them...

They're dudes and ladies who have a sense of duty. They're people. Yeah. They're people. They're like not... The moment that a new Jedi emerges in the galaxy in the original trilogy, he saves the day. So you think if one Jedi could do this, well, there's no fucking way Palpatine could win with 10,000 Jedi, right? Yeah. But they do.

Order 66, to me, I guess the reason why they did it the way that they did it was because after that, that kind of neuters the Jedi for a while. And I think it was important for them to kind of show that Palpatine had the upper hand. But it is one of the more...

anticlimactic things that has ever existed in a Star Wars movie. I really agree. And like, when you think, if you go back to the Godfather comp or the Breaking Bad comp, there are like mass slaughter scenes of characters we don't necessarily care about. But the reason that those sequences hit so hard in those stories is what it chills us to think about the person who calls the shots on that.

And in this case, it's the Emperor doing it. And, you know, it's Palpatine. And yes, we get to see the Anakin murder strut. We get the youngling things. But again, the youngling thing has just become so meme-ified and joke-ified. Like, that should be one of the most, like, horrific things that we've ever seen in a Star War. And instead, it has become a joke. The only problem with that scene is the only way to make that scene more hard-hitting

is you have to show Anakin killing the kids. And once again, if you show him killing the kids, you kind of see it on the security stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you show him killing the kids, I'm not sure he can come back from that. Two things. You could do that, or I guess this is like Van and Joanna rewrite the prequels, but like you could do that, or you could have shown us, you could have shown Anakin with the younglings in a previous, like,

him training them, him having a relationship with them, something like that. You don't have to show him slicing their heads off. But you know what I mean? That's going to be so tough. Anakin, can you show me how to hold my lightsaber? Sure. Young one, come over here. And then Anakin's like showing them how to do the lightsaber and then Obi-Wan's, Anakin, we have to go. I'll teach you more later. Yeah. I'll see you when I get back. I'll be back. And this little nigga doesn't know.

And when he comes back, he's coming back for the bullshit. See, that's funny. That's funny. You're like, I'll be back. I'll see you. I can't wait, Anakin Skywalker. The other critique I have of that, because again, that should be the toughest thing that ever happens in a Star Wars. Anakin Skywalker kills a bunch of kids. We see it fuzzily on the hologram monitor thing. We watch Obi-Wan watch it.

And as much credit as I always want to give you. It's terrible. He has like no reaction to this. Yeah. He's just sort of like, I can't look. Yeah. Come on, brother. Come on. You gotta cry. You gotta cry. You gotta cry. You have to cry. You gotta cry. He cried more for fucking Nicole Kidman coughing up some blood in Moulin Rouge than he did for this. Oh, what a good movie. Yeah. What a great movie. But like, you know, it's, it wasn't the moment. Okay. Okay.

Wait, can I say before we move on? Of course. You know who really has, who gives no fucks in that situation? Yoda. Oh, yeah. Yoda. I guess Yoda been around. Well, Yoda's a little like Told You. Yeah. Yoda's been around like 900 years at this point. Some people have flipped to the dark side at that point or whatever. Yoda's like, hey, bro, you ain't trying to see this.

Like, I'm just letting you know, hey, you can look at it if you want. You ain't trying to see this. Your dude, I told you something was wrong with that little motherfucker. I have, from the start. From the start. I told you something was wrong with him. Look what happened to the kids now. Now what's up? Yeah. Yoda just doesn't care. That brings me to my next point. Okay. Which is this. I'm not putting up a good fight at all. I'm telling you how much I love the movie, but you really haven't said shit wrong. The other, well, and I kind of felt that way about The Last Jedi conversation.

Because it's all like a matter of taste and what you want from the thing. You know what I mean? It's so interesting to have this conversation is because it shows what a hold the lore has over me. Because I love this movie basically for the same reason that I don't like Last Jedi as much. Yeah, exactly. Because of the consistency with the lore. I know. This movie, while it's not

incredibly well made is very lore consistent. Last Jedi is exceptionally well made. Hashtag not my Luke. And it's not lore consistent at all, which if we think about what's happening with me right now as a 44 year old man, right? Yeah. This is essentially the quagmire that Disney Star Wars is in. All IP is in, honestly. Yeah.

Like, all IP is this. Because it's like, you're trying to tell... You're trying to bring people in by telling them stories that are all interconnected. And once you do that, then everything has to lock together and make sense. And you can't hold a story that big. Stories were never meant to be that big. You know? And so, there's the...

over nitpicky sort of way in which a lot of us watch things, a lot of fans watch things, et cetera, that that's a problem. But then also just like even the Lucasfilm story group, you know what I mean? Like this is an impossible task to ask them to make every comic, every novel, every animated show, every live action show, every live action film all connect. So the best thing they can do is make something like, and art, no, like is tell,

Tell new stories in further flung corners of the galaxy and like get us out of this quagmire, you know? Do you know how dope a Terry, a Tony, Terry. I was thinking of Terry Gilliam from Avengers of Baron Munchausen. Go watch it this weekend. I love that movie. Do you? Sarah Polley. Yeah. I was thinking, you know how good a Tony Gilroy Order 66 movie would be? Sick.

Be nuts. Absolutely sick. Be like a Tony Gilroy Order 66 movie. Even if you did it like as a fucking special presentation on that. Yeah. Be fucking nuts. Yes. Nuts. Like rugged Jedi running away from clones and Jedi with one arm trying to fight off clones. Something I heard recently is that Lucasfilm, like core Lucasfilm people do not like Andor.

Fascinating. Because they did not have a lot to do with it. Oh, I get that. And they're like, hashtag not our Star Wars. Okay. On the coping front. What? Hashtag not our Star Wars. It's funny to me. It's funny to me. On the coping front. Here's one of the wildest things that I think has come out of the prequels is this sense that, because we're talking about

You were talking about the mistakes that Yoda makes or the mistakes that Obi-Wan makes. All of that's key to find them. Hermit in the desert, hermit in the swamp. Swamp, hermit, desert, hermit. You got to make a lot of mistakes in your life to get there, you know, theoretically. A lot of people come out of these prequel movies and even some of the subsequent, like, supporting lore stuff saying Jedi were fucked up. The Jedi Council was all fucked up and they needed to be kind of purged because...

You know, the way they treat Anakin or this, that, the other thing. Like, Mace and Yoda did not... Like, they were blind. They didn't see the shit coming. The Jedi kind of sucked at the time. And George Lucas is like, um, that's not the point I was trying... He, like... George Lucas is like, no, that wasn't... I was not... I was not trying to say the Jedi were fucked up. And if you talk to people...

I try to make story at Lucas now and they're like, well, let's talk about how fucked up the Jedi order is. Let's talk about their, uh, their fossil of attachment, how fucked up that is. Well, blah, Lucasfilm's like, no, that's not really, we're not here to slander the Jedi. That's not really what we want to do. But I feel like it's something that the fans have done.

In order to understand everything that happens in the prequels. In order to make the prequels make sense, they're like, oh, so you're kind of saying that the Jedi are like, they're not as fucked up as Palpatine, but they're like kind of fucked up and like kind of had this coming to them. Even, you know, our beloved Mallory Rubin, who like loves Star Wars more than anyone I know, except for maybe you, is like, Yoda, I got some notes. She's constantly like, Yoda, I have some notes for you. And that was not George Lucas's intent. And so it's this sort of like,

extra story scaffolding that people, fans have tried to build around these movies in order to make them make sense. And that to me is just like an inherent flaw in the storytelling. If Lucas is like, wait, where did you get that? You know what I mean? It's to me, the absence of one character. Tell me. Qui-Gon Jinn. It's the absence of

Digging into one character a little bit more. Qui-Gon represents the anti-bureaucracy Jedi. Yes. Someone that is beholden to the living force. Right. Someone who is beholden to the will of the force. Yeah. When... But not the institution. Not the institution. When Obi-Wan says, I believe in the Republic, in democracy...

That's actually wrong by what Qui-Gon believes. Qui-Gon believes that what he should be saying is, I believe in the will of the Force. And the will of the Force is what should guide the Jedi. And at the moment that the Jedi became an instrument

of the government of the Republic and they became essentially their police force. Yeah. And they were more beholden to that than actually following the will of the living force and letting the force guide them. Right. Then they were no longer an organization that was going to be durable. Yeah. Essentially, that is what Skywalker wanted

reaffirms to me. What Skywalker does, Skywalker listens to his instincts in the... I'm talking about Luke Skywalker now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He listens to his instincts in the original trilogy. He listens to his instincts.

Like, there's no group of people telling Skywalker what you should or should not do. Skywalker is... Not only that, but Yoda's like, don't go rescue his friends. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's listening to his instincts. He listens to what he feels. He's being an instrument of his feelings and the living force. And I think he had a little flirt with the dark side in...

uh returning to jedi by the way at the beginning he's force choking people he's talking about how powerful he is and the whole night but it's wearing all mock turtleneck mock turtleneck all black the whole nine i know what they were trying to do but he that is a new type of jedi because the old jedi had kind of expired so i think that whether or not lucas was trying to tell that story or not

The the holes in the Jedi are there. I don't think it's a story flaw as much as it is our ability to have more. Excuse me. The reality that we've had more time with them. And we see that they make a lot of decisions that are very inconsistent with the human experience. Like a lot of things that they say just don't make sense. And they lie in.

Obi-Wan is having sex on the side. We know that these guys probably got feelings. They're taking the bearish. Yeah. And when they take the bearish and they go on away taking the bearish, they probably hitting hoes. Like, so, like, the whole thing, we realize that a lot of what they say isn't real anyway. Now, whether or not the people at Lucasfilm think that we believe in institutions more than we believe in feelings and attachment,

That would be interesting if they thought that because that's just not how people are. I think it's interesting because there is this like difference between how Filoni sees it and how Lucas sees it. And there's just like, great. Yeah, you say more about that because I'm not really as well versed in. I think that like, you know, Filoni has talked about this idea of the Jedi, are they compassionate? And Filoni often says like, no. And Lucas says, yes. And that's an interesting thing to me is like, I feel like Filoni studying at the feet of Lucas, like,

has found a way to thread a needle where he's sort of like not overtly contradicting what Lucas has ever said about the Jedi. Um,

but also has a slightly more critical stance on them. And so when you get... So he has never outright contradicted him and never swung so far that people are like, you're taking us in the wrong direction. But I think he has worked into some of the Clone Wars storytelling, some of the other storytelling, this more critical, slightly more critical view of the Jedi. But he really doesn't want to be fully critical because that's not how Lucas feels about

the Jedi. Do you know? Yeah, I think that Filoni really likes Force users more than he likes the actual Jedi. A Force user...

And a Jedi obviously aren't the same thing. A lot of the characters that he writes that he thinks are really awesome are people that just, they're force users. They're not like actually beholden to Jedi or the Jedi code or the Jedi way or the history of the Jedi or reestablishing or reforming the Jedi. They don't care about that as much. Like they're people that used to be Jedi. I guess Kanan Jarrus is like,

training ezra to be a jedi i guess he is sort of but like more in in the living force than anything else right right but technically canaan isn't even really a jedi right uh because of order 66 yes um i think what it comes down to is that because lucas based so much of what the jedi are on on the principles of buddhism and and his idea in the principles of buddhism if you are

letting something go. If you are loving something, but you're letting it go, you're not forming those kinds of attachments. That isn't a sort of inhuman way to be. It's an enlightened way to be. And I think we as living, breathing humans watch it and we're like,

I mean, maybe Buddhists watch Star Wars and they're like, yeah, man, that's it. But you and me, we're like, what do you mean let something go? You know? Why would I ever do that if I loved it? Why wouldn't I want to hold on to it? And so I think fundamentally, I don't know, there's a difference there. I think I've gotten a little too far into my comparative religions class growing up. Anyway, Rise of Skywalker is a bad movie. And we're never going to have a debate about that. But Revenge of the Sith is a movie that you love.

That a lot of people love, but you understand is inherently flawed. Rise of Skywalker is the worst thing that a Star Wars movie could be. Yeah, but Revenge of the Sith. Yeah.

Rise of Skywalker, we're never going to have a debate about that because you and I just agree. Yeah, also, we agree, but also the movie is inconsequential. Yeah. Which is the worst thing that a Star Wars movie could be. Well, it's inconsequential for now until we see what they try to do next, right? Maybe. Maybe. I would be... So that's going to be, honestly, the big heavy lift of whatever happens now. Whatever happens now. To make what happened in Rise of Skywalker important. Mm-hmm. This movie is...

The movie is flawed, but it is incredibly consequential. Absolutely. Yeah. And I would never... That's the thing I want to underline. When people are like, I love Revenge of the Sith, and I would say especially...

Not people our age necessarily because we were like in our early 20s teens when that movie came out. But for people who saw the prequel trilogy when they were kids, do you know the number of movies that I can't defend their quality but I love them as a kid so I love them now? Yeah. That's something I really understand. Right. Like, of course. If you loved the prequels when you were a kid and you watch it now, you're like, okay, listen, I get it. But also I love it. The movie's not good but it's great. That's an argument I can really understand. Yeah.

You know, I love this as a kid. I imprinted on it as a kid. So it doesn't matter to me that these inconsistencies exist. I just love this movie. But for you, it's a different story. It's like, I love the lore. I was 25 when that shit came out. I love the lore. All right, anything else you want to say? This is the last thing I'll say. And this will explain a lot of this stuff to a lot of people. And it'll also...

It'll also help you guys understand me a little bit more. Not you. You understand me as much as anyone does. This stuff is concerned. So on the way over here, I was listening to Breaking Points and they were talking about the whole signal chat debate thing, right? I listened to that as Van in 2025. Yeah.

When I watch Star Wars, it's just never 2025. That feels nice. It is 1990. Yeah. And that is perpetual. Is that true even when you watch This is How Democracy Dies to Thunder Supply? Because I was just talking to someone this morning about the fact that I was going to do this podcast with you. And he's like, well, the thing you have to give Lucas is...

When I originally watched the prequel trilogy, I was like, this is a ridiculous thing. This would never happen. And isn't that what's happening in our country right now? Well, to be honest with you, I mean, I think, honestly, that Star Wars falters when it gets too into that. Star Wars falters when, to me...

I'm sure if you were of age when the first trilogy came out, you can understand, you know, having come off Vietnam, what it meant to root for the rebels against this huge imperialistic force that is, you know, has their foot on your throat. And you can kind of see some of the things that maybe were being talked about. Post Watergate. Post Watergate.

all of that belief, like how the rebels in the movie are the good guys and the order and even, you know, a post-World War II situations where you saw what one man whose entire worldview was oriented around, um,

hierarchy and domination and the culling of people, like what that could actually turn into. So I get that. I can understand how that, but it was lost on me at the time that I was watching. I didn't see none of that. Right. So, but, and so what I'm saying now is sometimes when Star Wars is making the points that it's making now, that's what it's difficult for me. What I'm trying to get Star Wars to establish is a sense of hope and

and wonder and belief in the fact that the universe operates in a way that when things go bad, it will figure itself out, which is what Luke and the rest of the people like Luke

what they actually represent to me. They represent this belief that there is a force binding us together and that when things go bad, there will be someone that stands up or someone that makes a play and figure those things out. That's what Star Wars means to me. And there have been different people in that situation the whole time. Andor, I can watch as a grownup because Andor is saying that's not what any of this is about.

This is about the exact same thing that everything else is about, which is sacrifice. How much are you willing to lose so that somebody else could win?

Because all of the characters in that motherfucker, they out of here. Yeah. But we get to watch Skywalker and Leia and Solo and the rest of those people, we get to watch them win. And now being a little older and being a little bit more cynical, I realize that's kind of what life is. Like how much are you willing to sacrifice for the things that you really want? So, you know, that's a long-winded way of me saying that the movie works because I'm still a fucking kid. Yeah.

I'm not mature. I'm not a grown up. You are. I am. Sometimes. When I'm paying bills, but not when I'm watching Star Wars. Now, that doesn't mean that everything that Star Wars makes is good. That does mean that it's got a lower threshold for me. And you guys are going to have to be okay with it. No, we all have those things. Yeah. You know, and for this, for you, it's Revenge of the Sith. Revenge of the Sith. And, you know, I will say this.

After we talked about... For you, it's that little lizard thing that Obi-Wan is riding on his way to General Grievous. We didn't even talk about the General Grievous fight. Sure. That's some Obi-Wanistic shit right there. That's Serisu being used defensive form. Anybody else might have lost to him, but Obi-Wan is here. You know, we haven't even talked about Obi-Wan and why Skywalker lost to him.

You know, Obi-Wan is like defending himself and Skywalker is so emotional that he's not focused on actually being his opponent. He just wants to show how powerful he is. So much. There is so much there.

What about the part where they're just like twirling their sabers in front of each other? Ah, come on, man. Okay. That's not great. And that's... What were they doing? What were they doing? They turned into marionettes. What were they doing? What were they doing? I bet there's an answer. I'm going to find that answer. That answer's coming on the Midnight Books. The answer I think that some people give is that they're just using the same exact move on each other because one trained the other. They've trained so much. Yeah. So they're just mirroring each other. All right. Yeah. We did it. We did it.

We should have one of these because we do the State of the MCU probably three or four times. Okay, but let me just tell you something. People were bitching about last week's episode with you and Sean and Ciara. I loved it. And it's one of the most popular episodes we've ever done. Oh, for real? Yeah.

Oh, okay. I mean, I don't know the most popular, but it was a very popular episode. So people are like, who wants this? A lot of people want that podcast. And they listened, and they watched, and they re-listened. Anyway, who wants to hear Joanna and Van argue about Star Wars? A lot of people. Yeah. This was me. This was a rollover, but I was rolling in a bed of roses. Okay.

I don't know that you could. Okay, anyway. We'll leave it there. We'll leave you in your bed of roses. We will be back next week. Mallory and I will be back with Yellow Jackets, with some Daredevil. It's coming up on The Last of Us time. Getting ready for some mushroom zombies. Fan, thanks so much for doing this. I love it, always. You're the best. Always, sister.

Thank you to Carla Shiroboga for working on this episode. Thank you to John Richter for working on this episode. Thank you to our Juna Ram. Go, pal. And of course, jump me a dinner on the social. We will see you next week. Bye.