'Andor' Season 2, Episodes 1-3 Deep Dive
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Greetings, and welcome to House of R, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin, here to remind me that there's a future here for those who dare.

It's my favorite Bureau of Standards rapid riser, Joanna Robinson. Oh my God, thank you so much for associating me with my best friend, Sarah Karn, who we are back with. Mallory, what a thrill and a delight to be on a second podcast with you this week where we are podcasting about something truly phenomenal. I know. What a wonderful time to be us. It's an absolute thrill and a joy. An embarrassment of riches. Like when they said...

of the Gorman spiders. There's no denying their dedicated work habits, spinning from dawn till dusk, never stopping to feed or sleep. It's like, wow, it sounds like the whole Ringerverse crew during a busy pod run. Great stuff. Absolutely. Crushed it. Joe, we have a lot to get to today. We have three episodes of Andor to get to today. So we're just going to like breeze through the usual programming reminders. We want to make sure everybody knows about the full suite of Andor offerings.

We're going to be here on, depending on your time zone, Thursday nights every week. Maybe it'll be waiting for you in your feed on Friday mornings. Hopefully it's there for you on Thursday nights. The Midnight Boys, pew, pew, pew, will have their instant reactions waiting for you on Wednesdays. And, of course, Chris and Andy will be covering Andor every week on The Watch. And this week for the three-part premiere, they talked to Andor Showrunner, creator Tony Gilroy. It was great.

Stunning. Fantastic. Great stuff. You can watch it on video, of course, on Spotify or on the Ringer TV YouTube channel, and you can see the smile

of appreciation on Tony Gilroy's face every time they mention a specific thing that they love about the show. It's just made me really happy. Also, if you don't already know, Tony Gilroy has some of the best hair in the entire business, and that is worth admiring. As he says, some of the most intelligent things you've ever heard in your life. And Chris, they do an incredible job in interviewing him. So wonderful stuff. Check it out, The Watch. Over on... I just realized I'm wearing my watch shirt. Over on...

TheRinger.com, what a great website. You can, of course, read Ben Lindbergh, Obi-Wan Ben Lindberghi, every week, breaking down Andor. So that's a can't miss. We are also covering The Last of Us. Every week, we're covering The Last of Us and Andor together right now. It's a thrill. It's a joy. House of R, we will have our deep dives on Monday evenings for you. We will be there at the top of the week for you. The Midnight Boys, pew, pew.

I think they're going to be there on Sunday nights for you. Sick. Yeah. The Watch, Mondays, Joe and Rob, Prestige check-ins in the middle of the week, and then Ben and Daniel on Button Mash on Thursdays with a Gamer Guide. So once again,

Full court press. We're going all in on Last of Us, all in on Andor. We're having the time of our lives. Jo, how can everybody follow along? So glad you asked. Listen, as you mentioned, you can watch us on YouTube or on the Spotify app. You can follow the pod on your podcast of choice. That's a fun thing to do. Follow us on social. Hashtag SaveJoey'sJob. He's the best. And we haven't heard that hashtag in a while. I thought I'd bring it back.

Follow us on Instagram. Follow us on TikTok. Follow us on Twitter, et cetera, et cetera. And always email us. Hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. Your Andor email is excellent. Your Last of Us email is excellent. Like, thank you so much. I've been getting a lot of Drominey emails recently from folks. Thanks so much. Incredible stuff. People catching up on the Romantasy episode. I love it. I mean, it's great. Tom Felton was recently given a

a piece of fan fiction and I got to hear Tom Felton with his own mouth say, oh, is this one of those Germainis? Delightful. Great. Okay. That's it. Spoiler warning? Spoiler warning. Here it is. We are covering...

Three episodes today. Episode one, One Year Later. Episode two, Sagrona Tima. Episode three, Harvest. Three-part premiere, three episodes of Andorra drop in every week for four weeks for this 12-episode second season. All three of these were written by Tony Gilroy and directed by Ariel Kleinman. And so everything that happened in these episodes is on the table today in a podcast that we have not even deigned to guess the length of. Tony Gilroy, not just on The Watch, but elsewhere, has been like...

I feel for the poor podcaster. He actually seemed, I thought on the watch, really sincere about it. Genuine. Yeah. He's like, it's really a lot. I feel bad.

Tony, it's a gift. It's a gift. If Part of Kaz were here, he would say to us, like he said to Dedra, it's a gift. Take it and win it. And that's what we intend to do. God damn it. So we're talking about the first three episodes of Andor. We are going to talk about certainly things from Andor season one. And if it's ever happened in Star Wars, it could come up today. Certainly Rogue One is always in the mix when we're talking about Andor because Andor is a prequel to Rogue One. So we are not going to pretend that you all have not seen Rogue One and that we have not seen Rogue One. That's the spoiler warning.

Anything else before we dive in, Jo? Let's do it. All right. It was a pulse cold, not a conversation, but this is going to be a conversation. It's going to be a long one. Let's get to the opening snapshot. It's always fun to be back in a given fictional universe and remember what the music is. Yeah, give an almond sweet. Yeah, for the segments of that particular universe. Okay, Jo, these episodes...

long. 54, 47, 56 minutes. Thrilling stuff. And they are set in our world two and a half years since the end of Andor season one. A lot of time has passed. In the fictional canon, one year later, one year since the Andor season one finale, we are set in four BBY. We actually got in fucking Andor a BBY title card. And I love a BBY. So I was thrilled. But

Have any of the bad babies chimed in? Oh, I'm so glad you asked. First of all, and hopefully this clears up. Sometimes I just say BBY to mean anything having to do with a timeline. And that comes from podcasting about Star Wars with Mallory Rubin. Okay. Yeah, it's your version of saying like Kleenex or Jell-O for any tissue or gelatin product. I know you care about the BBYs. Okay.

Before the Battle of Yavin, in case you didn't know. Okay, so Austin, our listener Austin says, since Andor is nigh upon us, I wanted to submit a naming idea for a pod segment you all often do that I've been thinking about for a year or so now. Wow. We know that Malor will be honoring the tradition of diving into Star Wars timelines as she is wont to do. And I submit that anytime this happens on the pod from here on, that it should be clear

referred to as the bad bbys yeah i think it just makes too much sense and who doesn't love a pun portmanteau so the bad babies which also comes from star wars that's right plus the bbys the bad bbys so the bad bbys that we're dealing with here is we are in four bby four years out from a new hope etc so i think this is a great suggestion for bad bbys i love it yeah

There's some bad BBYs a little bit later inside of something we learned about Dedra, I would say. That's right. This is not our only BBY email or bad BBY email of the pod. Good stuff. Okay, Jo. The way that the season is structured, 12 episodes, four weeks, three each week.

Each of those three episode arcs is going to be set in one year as we march toward the events of Rogue One and thus A New Hope. Something that Tony Gilroy said on the watch, I know that this is just three days, we know, because it takes place over the wedding. Something he said on the watch implied to me that maybe all of them will just be three-day chunks every year. I was wondering about that, too, when he said that, yeah. That's what it sounded like to me. So that's interesting. That's new timeline info, you know? I guess that makes sense if, like...

you are going to be jumping across the years rather than trying to catch us up on an entire year, like give us a drenched and deep dive into like a notable moment in time. And then one of the things that Andor is of course so, so deft at is giving us insight into everything that's happened in between. And this opening arc was no exception, certainly, but yeah, I will be curious to see if that's consistent in the following three arcs as well. You mentioned the wedding. One of the many, um,

events, settings, plot lines, character groupings that we're with in this robust three-episode opening. Give us your very quick, little amuse-bouche opening table setting read on the episodes. How did it feel to be back in the Andor universe overall, and how did you find this three-part premiere? I loved it. I'm absolutely obsessed to be back. Yeah.

thrilled thrilled honored delighted loved my under season one rewatch loved my rogue one rewatch um just really really really excited to be here you did a lengthy notes doc for this episode i did my own lengthy notes doc for this episode there's so much to talk about i don't want to spend too much time here i will say here are a couple big picture themes that i just want to like hit at the top here and then we'll circle back to them where we may circles being one of them obviously but um i think that the the the

The thesis, the objective for Andor season two, covering these last four years up until everything that happens in Rogue One and then A New Hope, is what is the thing that tips us out of complacency into rebellion? What is that thing? And we circled it in season one, but it has to happen here in this season. Yeah.

We see a lot of the shallow comfort of conformity. Conformity is really comfortable. The wedding is very comfortable. And these are people who have just conformed versus like the hardship of nonconformity or the nourishing depth of a truer belonging to a place that the empire welcomes you into their sort of like flattened world.

But, like, as we mentioned, we talked about this a lot in season one. Something that Andor is so good at is showing us the distinct cultures and customs of various planets that the Empire is looking to quash and homogenize. We talked about this a lot with, like, Aldani and Ferex in season one. And here we get the Shandorla customs. But even, like, Mina Rao or the...

glimpse of Gorman that we get, you know, like this, or even like the Rochambeau, the Maya Pei Brigade. Like there's specificity to all of these places in a way that like Star Wars sometimes is just sort of like, it's a whole planet that's a desert. And you're like, okay. But you know, okay. Who is hungry and who is gorging was like a big theme inside of these three episodes. And then the other thing I want to mark, and we already know with

like with heavy heart that Brasso has left us, but who is going to make it and who isn't? And the tension of what it means that Bix and B2, not to mention Luthen and Perrin and Dedra and Cyril are not in Rogue One, right? And so when we talk about prequels and

which we have recently with stuff like Yellow Jackets or Dune Prophecy. We talk about the tension of knowing where something is landing, knowing that a certain character is not making it out of the wilderness in Yellow Jackets, or knowing where everything's going on Dune Prophecy. How do you still make that interesting?

when you have to clear a bunch of players off the board, are we killing everyone like Brasso? Or are we like retiring them to a farm like B2? Or like, what are we going to do with all of these extraneous characters we have on the board? Especially, and this is my last point and then I'm done, especially for someone like Cassian Andor who walks into Rogue One. Right.

you know, Melchie's there, but like, you know, with very few strings attached to, you know, K2 is there, but like two people around him. So he's in, he's got this Ferex found family, I mean, around, but like, what's,

what's going to snip all these threads for him going forward is, is I think a question that Andor has on its mind. Mallory Rubin. Yeah. What are your big, but I loved it. Bottom line. What are your big picture thoughts? Yeah. I was thrilled to be back. I thought that the return was just like totally immersive and, you know, sucked us back into the world so quickly. And so effectively, I was like, not sure how this release was,

cadence would feel and what it would mean to just be giving us a glimpse inside of a year and move across four years in the timeline in this season when the first season covered one year. And I have no doubt that I will leave this season feeling like desperate to...

go back and spend more time in all of the moments that we didn't get to actually inhabit. But I also feel certain that I will think this was like masterfully done because we're just in, we're, we're in the, in the hands of experts here, truly. And, uh,

You know, I never, like, trust a trailer just as a general rule. But the trailers for Andor Season 2 were, I think, certainly through the lens of what Andor Season 1 felt like, like notably action forward, which makes sense. We're moving toward Rogue One. We're moving toward the Death Star. We're moving toward the events of New Hope. But one of the things that, like, literally from the opening scene of this episode, I felt just overwhelming

of the first episode just utterly assured by is that there will be room not just to incorporate, but to center the philosophy, the poetry, the heart that you're identifying of these journeys. Because part of the, I think, and I know that not everybody agrees with this, but part of the gift of a prequel to me is that because for some of those characters or plot

you know the outcome. You can focus so much more on motivation, the lessons learned, the people lost. And so particularly in Andor, it's fascinating to have that mix that you're identifying. I love what you're hitting as one of the opening keynotes to keep in mind as we parse these three episodes because we do know what happens to Cassian. We do know what happens to Mon Mothma, but we have no fucking clue what happens to someone like Luthen, let alone all of the other people. So it's fascinating.

This mix of marching towards something inevitable and wanting to understand every single moment that led the character to that place. And then also...

This just looming specter of uncertainty. It's very different in Andor than I think in any other show, but it's in this respect, like very reminiscent of other Star Wars properties as well. You know, how many years were people talking about like, wait, where was, like, where was Ezra? Yeah. But in this case, they don't have the luxury of like pocket universes or like, you know what I mean? Exactly. We're going to actually have to get the answers to those questions. Like,

In the next three weeks of our lives. I know. That's just like kind of wild and I think injects a –

Kyber Crystal-esque jolt of real supercharged electricity into the fandom, and that's awesome. So I thought this was really exciting to be back. I also loved my Season 1 rewatch, and I just can't wait to see where the rest of the season goes. I'm thrilled to be talking about it with you every week. We've got a very robust text thread going with our guy CR already. I'm sad we only have three weeks left, but I can't wait to spend them with you.

I know. I'm so excited. I'm so excited about the additional reading CR is doing for this and whether or not we have time to do it. I hope so. But yeah, it's exciting. Very exciting. Should we get to the deep dive? Let's do it. We are going to go today by character cluster, Jo. So we are going to start where the first episode begins with...

the titular Andor, with Cassian Andor himself. And the first kind of cluster we're going to hit is, even though this opening scene is not on Yavin, the Yavin 4 plotline. Wild stuff to see Yavin right here at the beginning of Andor season 2. And your favorite guy is the Maya paper grade. You love them. Cassian and the Maya paper grade. Spoiler, this was my actually easily least favorite part of the three-part premiere, but even this had something wonderful to give us. I hear the critiques of it. I had a great time with the Maya paper grade.

I've warmed to it considerably on rewatches, and it's got a lot to offer. It's like one of those things where an Andor, it's all relative. If you're dealing with Shakespeare and certain other plot lines, it's just a lot to measure up to. But I actually, I think I come down on the side of appreciating that tonal variance. Let's start with the theft of the tie Avenger, because before we go to Yavin, we open on the Synar Test Facility 73, where our guy Cassian is decked out

As an Imperial test pilot, he is there to steal a prototype. And I just want to say...

RIP to this sweet little droid buddy who got blasted in this sequence. I have no RIPs to give to any of the troopers, though I did enjoy how they were in the background muttering about the way shifts are scheduled and genuinely think that something like that or Naya telling Cassie and she needs exactly 12 minutes. Those are the kinds of details that like imbue Andor with this level of texture and precision that just makes it feel so fully and richly like an actual real world or many real worlds. Yeah.

I have a really fun fact for you about Cassidy Andor's fit in this scene. Okay. So Michael Wilkinson, who's the costume designer on Andor, did season one as well, has done a lot of Zack Snyder, David O. Russell movies, etc.,

was talking about, okay, so they make this very special look for Cassian. The red shoulders are unusual, right? We're used to seeing all black on these folks. And we've seen Cassian, right, in, you know, Imperial Blacks in Rogue One. But they're like, he's our guy. He's going to be in this for three episodes. We want to make it a little flashy. But this is my favorite fun fact about this. Quote, we also scaled down the classic TIE fighter helmet to be better proportioned to Diego's frame.

Diego Luna, a giant among men in terms of performance, but I have met him and Gael Garcia Bernal together, and they are both just real little guys. And, you know, they scaled down the TIE fighter helmet for him. Incredible stuff, given that it was basically just like something people were holding up. I know. Not really relevant beyond that, but again, the level of care and attention to detail, unmatched.

I also like the way that Tony was talking about this on the watch, this idea of like this, you see the stage lights go on is how he sort of described it. And like we meet Kassian and he's in costume and like so much of what the rebellion is doing in, in this era is performance. We've seen it from Luthan and his like wig work. We see it from Mon all the time, but it's just sort of like, here's Kassian who is,

Didn't really do a lot of it in season one in terms of, like, role-playing anything. Like, he comes with a fake name to be part of the Aldani plot, but, like, how well was he really acting? Not really. So, like, as he moves... Good old Clem had people on his case in a hurry. In a heartbeat. But, like, you know...

What is new inside of his playbook? This is Cassian, the leader. Cassian, the actor, is who we're going to see here. Yeah, and it's fun to think about which parts of his evolution feel like really radical and which feel very organic. Like the heart of a thief...

Even though this is a distinct thing to do and a reason to do it, positions Cassian to, like, inhabit a play space like this in a way that maybe would be much harder for other people. We get to see him right away, like, interact with the person he is, his inside man here at this test facility, Naya. And this scene was incredible. First of all, they, like, workshop a very quick cover story. He's excited.

He doesn't want to go to bed. He's up. And she says, we started flirting. He's like, I like that. I like that. And then another one of her colleagues, like, walks by later and they're whispering. And Cassie is like, what was that about? She said, you're cute. And one of the first things that I texted you and Chris about these first three episodes was, like, about how horny they were. Yeah.

And I am just thrilled about that. Here's the most important thing about tuning into House of R. I have now, in the last however many days, listened to so many podcasts and breakdowns and read so many think pieces and whatever about these episodes of Anders. Nobody is spending enough time on the horniness the way that you will, Mallory Rubin, our expert in horny. We all have our areas of specialization. Yeah.

Know your strengths. Yeah. She is...

justifiably afraid. And they have a really beautiful conversation where Cassian is encouraging her and soothing her, but in a way that feels like so illuminating about where we are on the, the, the past, the full rebellion, but also about him specifically. Right. And his role in this rebellion. So some of it is just like, we get this gorgeous vintage Tony. Pros. Two of the highlights for me were I'm so nervous about,

Nervous is good. Keeps us awake. And then I think the collective favorite basically from everyone who watched, you're coming home to yourself. You've become more than your fear. Let that protect you. Again, we're about to do like a Thai Avenger action sequence, guns a-blazing escape. But there's room in the show for lines like that because those lines are actually what the show is about. And that was really when I was like, we're just – we're back. Yeah.

Immediately from the jump, we're back. And I think what's fascinating about thinking about this interaction with Naya is that comparing... Now, Naya is expressing her doubts about stepping into this role for the first time. She's in a different place. But comparing this to when we meet Cassian in Rogue One with Tivic and the...

the disingenuous glad handing that he's doing with that character and then the absolute mercenary way in which he treats his character, which is very controversial as far as I remember it. Introduction to Cassian where people are like, this is our hero? What are we talking about here? So I don't see them as separate because obviously, again, the two people that he's handling are different, but also we've got four years to go. So what is going to take the Cassian here who is a leader but...

in a very empathetic and patient way to the maybe more desperate Cassian that we meet inside of Rogue One, you know? That Rogue One intro was on my mind elsewhere in these opening three episodes, like when Cassian is making his escape to the TIE Avenger on Yavin. And like...

He guns down the final person in his way without hesitation. Now, those people had taken him prisoner. They were standing in his way. They were debating what to do. It's not a one-to-one to what happens in Rogue One, but it's a bridge, right? It is like the...

The recognition that he will do what is necessary in a desperate moment to move forward because the cause demands it. It's the Luthan creeping its way into the heart of him. And so like, yeah, to kind of plot when that becomes more active and what the calibration of these different impulses are, because part of this scene was like, oh, yeah.

Let's remember that Cassian is not the same as Luthan, and that's fascinating to watch the balance of those things. Before we talk about some of the other things we hear from Cassian, I wanted to ask you what you thought of this – it's a quick line, but it felt so significant – this moment where Naya says, I've had fun here. Oh, yeah. That must sound so strange. I thought making room for an idea like that was –

really important. Chris and Andy made a meal of that too and I really appreciated that. I think that like

again, it ties into what I was saying about the idea of like the comfort of conformity, right? Like she, she had a job that she liked and colleagues that she liked doing, doing a thing that was fun for her. And so there's the, there's the act of rebellion that comes from discomfort, right? You're the Ferrix crew on the run and they're checking visas. You're this, you know, you're this out of the other, you're, you're,

The Aldanis and your sacred right is being taken away from you. You're this, that, or the other things. There's active oppression. There's a boot on your neck. There's something squeezing your neck. And this is what Luthen is trying to... Tony Gilroy referred to Luthen as an accelerationist, a person who puts accelerant on a rebellion to make it...

harder and harder and harder to endure. And that's how you incite rebellion is kicking off these harsh measures, what happens in Arkena 5, all this sort of stuff like that. So there's that rebellion, but then the rebellion from inside of comfort, inside is a different kind of emotional rebellion, what Mon is doing from inside of her privilege or, you know, and I'm not saying one is better than the other, they're just different kinds of rebellion that are worth exploring. Yeah, that specifically is what I loved about it. Like,

There comes a moment for anybody who is a part of this fascist regime where you are culpable for your participation and for not challenging it, right? For anyone, no matter what. That moment comes. But an idea like this...

from a person who has decided to say, I won't be a part of this anymore. I'm scared, but I won't. It's like all of the different ways that you could wind up there in the first place. And maybe it's not because you're inherently evil or power mad.

Maybe it's because you needed a job or you were born into a certain kind of family belief system or life. And like, then what do you do from there? And if you had friends there and the rhythm of working on ships and building things was like,

rewarding to you wouldn't it be even harder then yeah to try to take it down from the inside and so even though we were with this character for like mere moments it told us something crucial about the number of different forms like you're saying rebellion it should take and I just like it's like again the genius of the show it's half a line and we know we learned something important about yeah um the spirit and and the and the the nuance and the variance of form that rebellion can take so I love that um

To the point that you mentioned earlier, you invoked the word leader with Cassian, and that was so central here. And also later on Yavin 5, when despite his dismay that this many dipshits are participating in the rebellion, he kind of can't help but guide them as he goes. You should bank water. You should set a perimeter, right? He is...

trying constantly to guide and lead and inform. And, you know, Gilroy's upset on the watch. Like, I want to show he's evolved into the leadership of it. And this was one of the many great ways inside of these three episodes that we could just feel the passage of time. Like, this is just a different energy and a different aura from Cassie and then the kind of kill me or take me in

I am responding to the urgency of the peril of the moment, but paired with still the, like, tell Marva she'd be proud of me budding, building heart and certainty inside of him. This is like, I'm going to now start giving that to other people. And I loved how we saw the distinction in form from Cassian's approach and Luthan's, or certainly Saw's. Like,

When Naya looks at him and then apologizes, you know, she says, I wasn't supposed to look at your face. I'm so sorry. And then asks a question and then apologizes because she shouldn't be asking it. And he says, like, you can ask what you want. Um...

And tells her being here at the moment you step into the circle. You mentioned the circle. We get this idea in many different aspects of these three episodes. Here, Krennic uses the circle language to talk about the inner circle that the Gorman crew has been invited into. The wedding. Wedding circle. The wedding circle. Which we will obviously...

Talk about. So this idea of like what you are outside of or what you were being invited into and what it means to take a step into that. And Cassian was on the outside of it. Well, what it offers you. What does being inside of this circle offer you?

Right. You know what I mean? Like, what is Laeda getting from stepping inside of that circle? And what is Naya getting from stepping inside this circle? And what is Dedra getting from stepping inside this circle? You know? Yeah. And there are good circles and there are bad circles, I would say. Yeah. And, you know, we actually have, like, much more insight into Saw Gerrera's history from, you know, Clone Wars and various other pieces of Star Wars canon. A lot of, like, Luthen's path to this point is still a black box to us, but...

For us as Andor viewers, Luthan has always been the guy inside the circle, directing, leading, guiding, insisting. He is the circle. Yes, beautiful. Cassian recently made that step. And so for him to be the one then extending the hand over the barrier and helping somebody move with comfort and more confidence inside of it, it just positions him so distinctly from the other people who are like in some state of authority. What I like about the Maya Pei Brigade is that like, um,

You love the Maya Pay Brigade? I do. I love this. I love this. It's like, this is so clean. Yes. Come step inside the circle. Okay, I'm giving you nourishing, calm, kind words, and we are radicalizing you in a really fun and exciting way. And then the Maya Pay Brigade, he's like,

come inside the circle. We're on the same team. And they're like, Rochambeau, maybe, you know, like they're, it's messy. And that's because like Luthan is the circle, but that Luthan's network and leadership is so shaky at this moment. We got a clear indication of this. And I know you have this, Mark, to talk about a little bit later as well, but like

When hearing Saw and Luthan talk about all the different factions that are cropping up and there's no united force, right? So like, what are we headed towards this sort of united rebellion that we get in A New Hope and in Rogue One? We need leadership. We need Mon. We need like a bunch of other people to assume that leadership role. Luthan right now is this really rickety loose connection of spies and informants and agents and...

you know, if they can't get signal on Chandrila, like no one, no one has guidance. Right. And the person closest to him, Clea is fairly routinely across season one and already in season two there to remind him that he's fucking up.

Like, he's doing incredible things. Like, what he's pulling off. Well, Donnie is this huge, incredible thing that is his orchestration. But also in terms of, like, there are different leaders for different times in a rebellion, right? And so Luthen is this sort of inciting, shadowy figure is one thing. By the time we get to the rebellion later, we need people like Mama. You know, so it's...

what is Luthan's role now, you know, at this point in Rebellion? Yeah, and like, Mon and, you know, Mon and Luthan interacting so routinely, all of the, one of my favorite parts of rewatching season one, I mean, it was one of the best parts in real time, but certainly of rewatching was the couple conversations and interactions we get between Luthan and Saw because those questions that we have as viewers are like active text for the characters. And Luthan in particular is,

I'm certain that he's right. Happy to bring up the receipts with Mon Mothma in this episode, I warned you, I told you. When it comes to the Anton Krieger decision in season one, out of just abject necessity, Gaslight saw into it being his choice at the end of the day, but is also the one to say, like,

well, you're the one sitting in a cold cave, like, fighting for scraps. This is a pretty – really? You don't think we need to band together? He's imploring everybody to align, but not in their way. And so, like, what does that really mean then? And when will people lose their patience with that? That's one of the things, like, I'm most eager to see about season two. One thing the Empire has down –

is branding and a look. Yeah. And the rebellion needs to, you know, they need their logo. They need their, you know, they need all the things that they will eventually have to be a cohesive group, you know? Krennic is just like, your droids are going to be wiped. Don't put this on your calendar. Definitive. Joe, what did you make of the actual escape and action sequence here? The theft of the TIE Avenger. We love a...

We love a tie theft. We rebels heads. I don't imagine that this one will wind up with a Sabine spray paint job, but never say never, I guess. I love that. It reminded me of Luthan does like a, there's a, I feel like Tony Gilroy is like,

Check, like space race, fighter fight, dog fight. Check. I did it. You Star Wars nerds. I gave it to you. And it was good. It was fun.

I loved when he realized he could gun down the, just gun down the wall after he blasted the one trooper. Great stuff. The range troopers with like their fur look absolutely sick, like look amazing. That was really fun. I liked one of the things, you know, the actual just like Cassian figuring out that he doesn't, realizing that he doesn't know how to fly the ship. Later he'll, with questions.

quite a bit of venom in his voice, say to Clea, like, did you know this was not the ship that I was trained to fly? And I loved a couple different things about that. I loved that

so often in Star Wars, somebody gets into any ship, any place, they know exactly what to do. And like the fact that he didn't and had to figure it out and then later, the Maya paper grade cannot figure it out. Well, it's crucial to plot that it be very hard to figure out how to fly this ship. Yeah. And like, it makes the universe feel more real. And like, we know the cast is a gift. You're saying Anakin hopping to a ship as a toddler and being like, oh,

Just like pod racing. I mean, at the end of the day, with Anakin, I'll always kind of allow it because he's midichlorian Jesus. He is. He sure is. But for most other characters, you know, a little bit of a learning curve occasionally feels right. But I also just like the idea that, like, okay, this is a space opera. This is an adventure story. This is a political thriller. Okay.

This is a spy thriller. And like part of what we're thinking about always is the trade craft and the currency of information. Why is this a different ship? Like we don't get the answers to those questions in this episode, but that's not the point. The point is that we should be wondering, right, what changed?

Who was their source of information beyond just Naya? Like, how quickly are things moving? What does it mean to be able to achieve this but not to know in full what awaited? What will the consequences of something like that be? They're always chasing the next insight and the next infiltration. It also just matters a lot to me that –

how unflappable Clea is, honestly. She's just sort of like, I don't know, get over it. We're all in on Clea. We're not at the Shangri-La wedding sequence yet, but she's already come up so much, it feels telling. Did you have a favorite, let's just do it now, Clea moment? Quiet MVP of the opening episode. She's iconic always, but what was your favorite moment? Can you even possibly pick? Genuinely, it's hard for me to pick because my first thought is actually a Vel moment when Vel gives her the old...

elevator eyes. Like that's a... That was great when she's like, you know, just two single people looking at prospects. And then like the next day when...

My headcanon is that she found someone to fuck and that's her ride home, right? Because when Luthan's like, well, yeah, you can go back, but I can't leave. So you're going to have to ride. She's like, oh, I got one. Clea can do anything that she wants. I love her. And I love that, like, she was such an interesting background. They're pulling a lot of the background characters into the four, which is really fun. And she was such a fun background character in season one. And it really seems like season two, you know, she's stepping into the light.

Taking her, not first, but second step to a larger and or world. Joanna, let's talk about your favorite characters in the, I think you've now said not only first three episodes of season two, but history of Star Wars and maybe storytelling. Storytelling, storytelling. The Maya paper game. Yeah, the MPG. MPB, I don't know why I said G. MPB, yeah. Yeah.

Oh my God. The Maya Pay guys love them. I like when we can take people a little bit behind the curtains. And one of the first things I texted you about was Bracket Redacted has rubbed a thumb over Bracket Redacted's lips.

And one of the first things you texted me was that one of the things you were most in on was these complete doofuses playing space rock, paper, scissors. So just shows that we're focusing on the truly important stuff in these episodes of television. By the way, you were trying to do redacted to save me from spoilers, but I was like pretty sure I knew what you were talking about and I was really excited. And you were right. I was. Yeah.

Joe, Cassian heads down to this jungle moon. He's there to meet Porco. Porco's not there. He's dead. Tough one. RIP Porco, you know? Tough. We lost a lot of meaningful characters in these episodes. Porco, not top of the list, but we will mourn his passing nonetheless. Yavin 4, as mentioned already, and surely I will find an excuse to mention it again later. Very fun. Yeah. Exciting stuff. The shot later when Cassian escapes and you're like, holy shit, that's Yavin 4. Very fun. Yeah.

Porco's not there, but these 15...

And Blaster Toten rebels are there. And we in Cassian know it's 15 of them because they tell them and then immediately start arguing about whether they should have shared the exact number. They're arguing before, like, the minute he gets there, they're arguing. I love that Tony Gilroy called them heckle and jekyll. I love a really dusty reference. A family affair, Jo. Yeah. So Tony Gilroy's son...

Is here. And also his nephew-in-law, Ben Norris, his nephew-in-law, I know very well from Never Have I Ever. And Ben Norris is one of those actors on Never Have I Ever where he was like a background doofus. And then he was so fun that he basically became a main character in the final season because he was just like so delightful. So I was like, oh my God.

It's the guy from Never Have I Ever in a Star Wars. It's like when Adam Pally shows up in a Star Wars. So, like, I was really excited, but I did not know that was Tony Gilroy's son until I found out later, and he looks just like him, so of course. But I don't know. I just... I loved these idiots. I thought they were great. I, um...

Maya Pay is dead, though. Rest in peace, Maya Pay. Well, they don't know that. They don't know anything. They're arguing about fucking everything. Is it safe to eat the moldy meal bars? Is Maya Pay dead? Half of them seem to think so. Half of them aren't. They've been, like, abandoned here by one of their brothers, but they don't really know what's happening. So the reason that this was my least favorite part, but again, all relative, of the opening three episodes is just because, like, I...

I just like wanted Cassian to be a little more in the mix than chained to the floor of a ship for two of three episodes. Did it feel like plot necessity for him to just be away from, you know,

made a row so that everything could go down with Ferris wheel? I mean, I guess yes and no, because he could have been, obviously he has to be delayed. They're waiting for him. There's that aspect of the clock. He's supposed to be back tomorrow and then the blockade, et cetera. But I mean, he could have been any number of places. I think ultimately, you know, the function and purpose of this, which was successful, is to give him and us like yet another glimpse into the just

And again, that variance aside of the rebellion, like this is where, you know, we can talk about what you teased earlier, those moments in season one when Saw and Luthan talked about this. Like this is one of the groups that is actually mentioned by Saw when he's like enumerating all of the different rebel factions. Krieger's a separatist. Maya Pei's a neo-Republican. The Gorman front, well, those two are just like relevant right here, right? Yeah.

to talk about the Gorman tourism video that we get at the Krennic Council. Let's go. The Partisan Alliance. It's beautiful. Sectarists, human cultists, galaxy partitionists, they're lost. All of them. Lost. Lost. Lies. Deception. Borgon.

Great. All gallants will know the truth. And then later in that same conversation, that's when Luthan replies to Saw, we'll die with nothing if we don't put aside our petty differences. Petty, Saw says? I am the only one with clarity of purpose. Well, anarchy is a seductive concept, a bit of a luxury, I'd argue, to a man who is hiding in coal caves begging for spare parts. So like the idea that not only are there that many different groups inside of the budding rebellion,

But that they're not aligned with each other to the point that they don't even recognize each other is very interesting to me. Yeah, and it struck me. It felt very... One of our listeners wrote in to sort of comp and or to Avatar The Last Airbender. We'll talk about that later. But it felt very Avatar The Last Airbender to me of just sort of like, how do these divisions start over something so stupid? You know, like, this is the thing. And like, I...

I would say now more than ever, something you highlighted in our notes from the Watch episode that I thought was so important is that Tony Gilroy was talking about how

He was trying to write a story that feels timeless, that feels eternal, that a lot of these cycles of rise of fascism and the things that come with it and the difficulties you find inside of a rebellion or inside of a leftist front are universal. He's not trying to make a commentary. This was supposed to come out a couple years ago. He's not writing a show for 2025. That being said, my personal experience coming off of this

I would say last election cycle, has made this storyline feel so relevant to me in terms of the infighting. That's not just like, there's dumb infighting here, but then there's like, Tassau's

saw a batting, but like full of points sometimes. To Sal's point, everyone's convinced that they're the only sane one. You know what I mean? And so you're just sort of like, well, if they would just get it together and come huddle under my umbrella, we could form a coalition. And it's like, none of us are forming a coalition and we're a mess over here. And so it just really hit for me, I think, in a way that maybe it wouldn't have a couple of years ago. Totally. It's many, many, many aspects of these episodes were...

even more painful and harrowing to watch than they otherwise would have been. I, I, I think that like infighting and the lack of alignment was fascinating in this, in this, uh, uh, my pay brigade, not only because it's like between the different factions of rebellion, like again, Cassian's like my pay brigade, like we've been supplying you. That does nothing. It doesn't move them at all. They ask him who he's with. He won't tell them. And he's like, you guys should be more careful. Um,

But it's the infighting inside of one faction. Like a very kind of like House of the Dragon-esque. It's sure it's Team Black versus Team Green, but the most interesting thing often is what's happening inside of each of those factions. So yeah, I enjoyed all of that as well. You're loving the Maya Pay Brigade. You're

coming around. Again, it's all relative to me. It's like the least successful quote-unquote part of an Andor premiere is still going to be like one of the best things I've seen in quite some time. Something I think is really interesting about this is that the first of all,

Once again, we get specificity even on Yavin, right? Because we get like the Dubar, which is the creature here named for a guy who worked on the creature design, right? And then the melons. We're getting all this information about Yavin. And like, I don't know, just think Yavin as a rebel base has always like

looked extremely cool with the temples and all sorts of stuff like that. But like, what was, what was Yavin up to before the rebels were like, this is our base now, you know what I mean? And it's just sort of like gross melons and, and we're scary animals in the jungle, but that's its own sort of culture, you know? Does it excite you to think that it should anybody survive? They might, they might be there.

When our rebels return? You might get to be back with some of these characters? Yes, yes. Or do you think I'm going to get eaten in the night? I am rooting for them. I want Heckle and Jekyll returned to be at the rebel base. I think I said Dubars, Dudar. Please don't stop writing your emails. Thank you so much. Love you. Love you always. Sweet Dudar. Yeah, Dudar. Sweet Dudar. The Brigade fractures, Jo. Sad to see. Mm-hmm.

They split. They're yelling at each other. They're just... I thought of you and how you like to say too dumb to live. Real too dumb to live stuff happening all around. All around from this group as is proven true pretty immediately. I did get a real kick out of when someone from each side, because half of them end up in the TIE Avenger, half of them end up in Cassian's former broken ship. And they're each kind of like, got to spy on the other side. Uh...

One, goggles and then a boot with a bloody foot. It's simply a no for me. Simply a no. By Yellow Jackets rules, they would not be starving and would not be having to eat those drooly melons. Well, Yellow Jackets is on my mind because I don't think they're lasting a day out in the wilderness with the Yellow Jackets. They're like so afraid to try anything.

to scrape some mold off of a meal bar. Now, I know that's not how mold works, but desperate times. They, as Cassian observes, really haven't gone to look for water or for food because they're scared of the animals. Now, they're proven right on that front. The melons smell, so they have to basically, like, recall prior feats achieved in water

games of truth or dare in order to like muster the courage to take a bite it's like do you know how many disgusting rank smelling black melons obi-wan and the tuscans put down you fuel up in the way you must god damn it they're not ready to eat a person joe they can't even eat a melon that smells weird well mallory perhaps they simply wouldn't eat a person out in the wilderness we'll have to get them on a podcast to find out okay uh i did like watching them try to do math

when they're trying to move the Dye Avenger. And it's like, ah, so good.

50 by 10. Watching Cassian fumble his flight of the TIE Avenger is one thing, but then watching them manually move this extremely expensive, well-calibrated piece of machinery with ropes, it's real flood of Phoenix energy. It's really good. Great stuff. Joanna, any commentary that you would care to provide on Five Hands? Run.

Roski rules. Total submission. Either on the tactics, you have to choose a second, on the facial expressions that seem to pair with the selected hand choice. Anything at all. Is this how you intend to make all decisions moving forward or TBD? I would just like to cite something I learned from StarWars.com and it is this. In five hands, there are 15 animal gestures, including rancor, snork, and snooze bird, which are displayed by two players in three rounds overseen by a referee.

Love it. I mean, I like how not a single person was like, is this how we should come to clarity? Everyone's like, yeah.

Five ants are asking rules. Let's go. Let's go. I did get a kick out of on the season one connections front when Cassian kind of senses that his moment has come and uses his foot to make his way to a panel that he then opens where he's hiding a blaster. Like we saw him do versions of this so many times in season one where something was hidden and

behind a panel that he would loosen with a fist or a kick. Like, obviously, this is a key part of the prison break, the pipe that he is working to snap. But also just in the very first episode. He loves to work pipe. Yeah, he loves to work pipe. Will and Bela, they were working some pipe in the wheat fields, man. Boy. It didn't occur to me until... Dahlia and Brazo? It didn't occur to me until your text. And I was like, okay.

That's just, everyone's fucking their way through the rebellion. Sure. And I'm happy for the people who have found happiness. This is what you wrote in our notes. You didn't say it, but this is what you wrote. Our guy loves hidden treasures behind panels he can bang open. That's correct. I stand by the take. Phrasing. Okay, go ahead. I stand by the take. Remember.

He had to go back to Nemos to get an Hemmix Manifesto, which he had left above the showerhead in the bathroom where he was drinking nog.

Crush on Pizos. Greeny blue ones. And fucking his way through a vacation. Yeah. So it's canon as far as I'm concerned. He was hiding things behind panels on the ship when Bea and him had that first conversation at the beginning. It's just like a great- Loves to bang things open. It's great. Great little touch. He gets away and he will eventually make his way to Mina Rao. But we're going to go there right now. And we are going to catch up with Bea-

Bix, Brazo, and Will, and also meet some new characters because our Ferrix found family has found a frankly beautiful wheat field to hide out in. They're working as mechanics in the grain silos.

And this was just one of the many visually beautiful aspects of the episode. Later on, when everything goes to shit, there's like that really cool shot of the stormtroopers moving through the stalks of wheat. And obviously it's very different from the troopers moving through the turquoise glistening waters of Scarif. But it did feel like there's something about the way that Gilroy is deploying the

these fascist shows of force as incursions in a natural element, in a natural world, that it feels like such a violation. Joe, we got an interesting email about

The color of the sky. Oh, I love this. Tanashi, I believe, is a listener, wrote in to say, Wanted to share the skies of a different color because the agricultural planet has a different atmosphere, which affects light dispersion, extra light hazy blue, but allows for better crop growth, hence the very unique and different color. I love that. Also, really fun fact, they planted...

ancient rye they took a year they convinced a farmer I believe near Pinewood in Oxfordshire to forget your wheat crop plant us this ancient rye crop take a year to grow it so we can film a Star War and then like because of the strike and all this other stuff they had to like cut it and preserve it and use it inside studios and like this whole thing but like they grew fields of ancient rye um

which made me think of the fields of Athenry, but that's a different, that's a different thing. We could talk about that later, but I just really love this. And I love that Tony Gilroy, he's like, this is a feeder. This is a, this is a planet that produces the grain that feeds Coruscant. So in terms of like the chain of like, who's eating what, you know, Deirdre and Cyril are eating fondue or on Shendrila, they're just gorging on every delicacy possible. Um,

You know, the poor, our poor heroes, the Maya Pei Brigade, are eating disgusting melon. And here on Mineral, they're growing, you know, the wheat for people to feast on. I just think that's really interesting. Yeah, and like we hear Kellan...

talk about in the episode, like the empire's need, you know, and how can they count on that? Like it's a risk, right? The empire needs the grain. They know we need help in order to generate it. They know everyone isn't legal. It's not really clear how hard they're going to look. And that becomes part of the calculus, the fact that this is something that the empire is relying on, but is also there to upend and disrupt and pursue as like heinous sport.

which is what we watch in this sequence. And right from the jump here, it's

we're in a disturbing kind of, literally in a disturbing headspace. I mean, we are in Bix's dream. You weren't missing, you weren't longing for Dr. Gorst? Spend more time with Gorst? No, I was longing for B and we do get to see him in this dream space before we see him for real. But this was like, I honestly did, I loved this because while it is, of course, deeply upsetting to see the way that

Gorse continues to haunt Bix's nightmares. You know, for anybody who doesn't recall, Dr. Gorse was the empire torture artist on Pharyx who put the headset... Torture artist. Torture artist. I mean, he is. It's his art. Gotta give it to him. The massacre of the Desonites, the sound of the children in particular that...

the empire under Gorse invention and oversight uses to torment people into coughing up information and then ultimately being like driven into a husk-like state. And one of the things that we know, we saw what happened to Wilman's dad, it's implied what has happened to other people is that like

Plenty of people don't even make it out of there the way Bix did. And so, like, to remember that it's not a victory, right? It's like Bix made it out, but what does she carry with her? Like what version of Bix? Yeah. And, you know, I was thinking back to how in that ninth episode of season one, Gorse said, doesn't take long. It won't feel that way to you inside. But, like, this is a show that considers it

essential, not elective, but essential to remind us of how true that is, right? That the horror...

its root inside of you and it doesn't leave. And like that trauma you carry forward with you and it impacts every day the rest of your life. And like the show takes that seriously in a way that is, of course, very upsetting to watch, but also important, important to consider. I think you, something you mentioned in the text thread that we have with CR about this was you were citing a

In our Last of Us coverage earlier this week, Alyssa wrote in about the book The Body Keeps the Score, which is a book that I've been – it's dense, but I've been working my way through it. But this idea of like what – oh, trauma lingers inside of the body and stuff like that. And so for Bix, there's this nightmare and there's just this –

Yeah, just the lingering effects, the rooting in of something like this. And what I love about this is so like, especially on re-watch, not love, obviously, this is horrible for our beloved Bix, but like on re-watch, first of all, the POV of like, we're in there, but we don't know who we are. And then we look in the mirror and we're gorsed. Horrifying, right? But then also, so she wakes from this nightmare and Brasso's there and then Talia's there. Sweet B. And B and Will, but like Talia is,

If you track her through these three episodes, knowing that B is going to be in her care at the end, every minute of screen time...

is there to show us what a nurturing, kind-hearing person Talia is. Thank God. She's comforting Bix, like, so good at it that Brasso and Will can have this side conversation as Talia takes the wheel on comforting Bix here. She wraps her arms around Brasso later in this comforting hug. You know, she's just like a nourishing,

beautiful ginger woman that I'm just sort of like, if I'm to leave B in anyone's care, I'm so happy it's this person. And there's just like very little time to know that. But every single individual decision is like, you're going to feel okay. You'll be comfortable, as comfortable as you can be. As you can be with B being left behind with this person, you know? I still have some notes, but yes, I think that's a great point. I'm glad you said it. It brings me some peace. As opposed to like the fucking

daughters of ferrets who put a beverage on top of B's head, you know, like, Hollywood never. So, you know? She knows who his friends are, as we learn. She knows all about his charger, as we learn. Joanna's sweet B. He's right there with him to help comfort B, to help comfort Bix, and he says, she had another dream Cassian will want to know. I cried as soon as I saw B. I'm saying, I'm just brought, genuinely brought to tears. He,

I love a droid, but Bea in particular just evokes something so... We talked about this a lot in season one. It just reminds me so genuinely powerfully of our bonds with our pets in real life. It is just magical. I don't know how to explain...

Like the neurotoxins that come out of the TV screen whenever I see Bea there and I'm just like a puddle. I love Bea. I loved later, we'll talk about this scene, but like seeing him zip around with his friends and he's like, he's gonna be next now. He's gonna be fine. He's got

I need him to see Cassian again. I can't accept that he's not going to see Cassian again. I just actually can't accept it. You're going to have to like scoop me up off the floor if that happens. I won't be able to bear it. You better come to LA and hold me. Okay. Pledge it to me now. Wow. I will. Okay. I can't. I will not be okay. Okay.

What did bring me comfort in addition to what you're citing about Talia was just seeing that they were all still together. I know. Because, like, years passed and they didn't have to be. You know, like, so obviously Talia is new, Bela is new, Callum's new. But for Bix, for Brazo, for Bea, for Will, obviously for Cass, who's on a mission but we understand has been with them, they –

They left Ferex together, a community that they had shared. We know, obviously, Bix and Cassian had history. Obviously, Cassian and Bea were family. Brazo and Cassian had history. Bix and Will had history, et cetera. But, like, there's a difference to fleeing out of necessity to escape

with your life. Staying together. And then staying together for a year and building something together. They're such a family. And the thing you're building is like trust, community, comfort, belonging, knowing that there are just a couple people in the crumbling galaxy that you can rely on to be there if you wake up in a fit of terror. It moved me. It honestly really moved me to know that they were still there for each other and together and to like believe that that wouldn't change. I found that really powerful. So you mentioned...

Bix is there. Will is there. Brasso's there. Bea is there. Because there's a painting of Marva up in their home.

home. By the fucking radio. The radio that is the biggest risk they take. Right? Like, anytime they receive or send a signal, they're putting their lives on the line. And to have Marva there, just like her hollow at her funeral, like, to remind them that it's bullshit. Galvanizing. Oh, my God. Like, those little details. I also was so struck by that. I thought that was incredible. It's like, it's the next best thing to actually just having her Ferrix brick right there with them. I loved that. Yeah.

Can I just tell you? Unfortunately, the Empire has arrived. Yes, please. Tell me. No, no, no. No, tell me. We'll come back to it. Is it about Marva? Is it about Bea? Maybe. Is it about Rai? It's a long walk from the silos, Mal. That's all I know. Dude, it really is. Joanna, an Imperial ship, has arrived. And what's interesting about this is that there would be plenty of moments in Andor and other Star Wars shows where the constant presence of the Empire is the...

unmooring thing. Yeah. This is the surprise of it. It's been a decade since the ship has been here. They don't know what's going on. Kellen has to go fact find and find out that it's an imperial supply census and audit spot checking for visas. And

The fact that the discomfort can come in so many forms. It can be constant. It can be sudden. You never know what to expect. Either you are in a perpetual state of disruption and fear, or the fear is wondering when the continuity and consistency of your relative peace, why can't they just leave us in peace, we hear from Kellen, is going to end. And we see it here.

But we know that it's happening in so many forms in so many other places. And when Kellen will say to Brazo later, like, do you know Cassian's friend, the big boss? Like, can you tell him? Tell him they need to know what's happening here. We got versions of that with Nelshi and Cassian after the prison escape. Like, they need to know. This idea that they need to know. And Brazo's like, this is happening everywhere, right? And the ability to juggle the constant reminder that this is vast and sweeping and sprawling while...

When we go to those new places, like you were talking about earlier in the pod, allowing us to invest fully in these people in this place, like you can't become complacent and lose the ability to care about each individual circumstance, right? You have to care about every family in every farm and every planet in the galaxy. The fact that the Empire doesn't, that they'll go gouge mine or strip everything.

Is what makes them the empire. So it's like a very difficult balancing act to not just make it feel like the kind of cold calculus of sweeping tyranny and remind us of what each individual circumstance looks like while also then always hitting that klaxon, pharynx-like chime of like, right, it's all around us all the time.

And then it's, yeah, with Ferex is so interesting because that was like they were under like corporate rule before they were under imperial rule, you know, and there's just like different versions of it. And I love what you're saying about this idea of like you never know in some places they're everywhere. And in some places they might surprise you every decade or so. And the psychological warfare aspect of that, how it looms is really interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

This is where we mentioned on the watch that Gilroy talked about, like, that pursuit of timelessness.

This is the stretch of the story where this idea of checking for visas, of checking for documentation comes into play in this audit from the Empire. They use language like toolies. Toolies. You know, people have visas, et cetera, et cetera. Yes. What are the various strations? When you run, that's when you're caught, et cetera. So all of the... Everybody runs, Mallory. I don't know if you know that.

All of the very disturbing comps. We get a little glimpse of Kellen's shop, like barrels of coffee, just like Whole Foods or Trader Joe's. And, you know, the Imperial soldiers are horrible, but they are also looking for Bezos. Do you think they like the blue-green ones?

Probably. Unfortunately, they don't have any variety here on Mineral. No party drugs at the Trader Joe's? Tough. Shocking stuff. Shocking stuff. This is where we first meet Lieutenant Kroll. Okay, here's my question. Here's my question. Okay, so Lieutenant Kroll immediately creeping on Bix. We all understand what is going on immediately here. And she says her husband wouldn't appreciate it. Yeah.

And everywhere I've read has said Bix lies and says her husband, blah, blah. Do we know? Like, how are you reading their sort of reunion at the end of this episode? Like, do you know? Yeah. Yeah. So they share a bed. Are they married? I don't know. But like she's in a she's on one side of a bed for two when she has her nightmare. Right. So like, are they are they could be married? It's been.

It's entirely possible that they're actually married. I think even if they're not, my assumption is that they are together. I mean, part of why poor Tim went down with such a quickness in season one was because, as Bix put it, thought they were back together. Like, they have been romantically entwined for...

much of their time together. But she kind of told him to piss off when he pulled his Romeo and Juliet shit in season one. But then, I don't know. I guess when he comes and scrapes you off the floor and saves you from the full gore sting, then, you know, you might forget about it. Could they be married? It's entirely possible. My assumption was that husband was maybe...

Just a thing she said. Could be. Because it's a little quicker and more decisive and definitive than like... My partner, who I used to date. And then like I did it again, but now we're back together. But yeah, maybe they are. I mean, you don't know. It's, boy. I bet it doesn't take three days to get married when you're on the run is what I'll say. So... Yeah. No hikes up the mountainside. But here's the question I have about the Bix...

of it all. Mm-hmm. If Bix and Cassian are like some sort of large love story of this season, does it change at all how you feel about Cassian and Jyn when we get to Rogue One? Do you know? That's a question I have. I've thought about this. Like, I guess I'll reserve any sort of... I don't know. I would have to see, I guess, how it felt. Like, I...

I think, obviously, like, it would depend on where, what happened to Bix. If Bix is, in fact, are they just not together? Or is Bix dead? Like, what happened? In which BBY did it happen? Which BBY? And, like, because, I mean, I don't know. Why is Bix not there? There could be any number of reasons. But, like, if something happens to Bix, and I have no idea, if something happens to Bix over the course of this season,

And Cassian found a connection after that with somebody else. I think that would be wonderful. Yeah. You know? Horrible. Oh, yeah. Is Lieutenant Krull. I thought that the, like, not just the is he here, but specifically the does he worry about you, which he uses as a way to describe

casually mention that you're not going to be able to reach this person and he's not going to be able to reach you. The comms are down. We have put in a frequency blockade, which is, of course, a very explicit threat. Like, we decide who you can talk to and when. He's not here and I am. Does he worry about you? Like, it was just, like you said, we can feel right away where this is heading. And I found that so interesting.

Shout out Bix for, I mean, later straight up a murdering dude, but also this part where she like makes steam come out of the, like the mechanical thing that, can you tell I'm not a mechanic? The piece of machinery. Let's update the list. Not a doctor. Not a scientist. Not a scientist. Not a mechanic. Honestly, genuinely unqualified for most things. Not a pilot. I guess we probably should have mentioned that earlier when we were chiming in on how easy it should be to fly a

flying fucking plane you've never seen before. The piece of machinery that she's working on, she like, she has, you know, she turns, oh God, I'm going to stop talking about it. Anyway, let's move on. All right, we'll take a brief reprieve from the horror by going to this lovely communal affair. The village has gathered. They're at these long picnic tables. This is where Bea is zipping around saying, we're,

And this reminded both of us, obviously just visually very reminiscent of the picnic as they're building the barn in Witness. Like, it's so similar. Not the only Witness comp in this part of the three-part premiere. Like, Cassian gunning open the grain silo to bury people alive. You know, it's not corn, but pretty good.

It'll do in a pinch. Yeah, I wrote space Amish question mark in my notes. But like, by the way, given the way that people are shacking up with outsiders, this isn't exactly witness territory. But it did remind me a lot of the barn raising. Yeah.

I loved it. I loved it. And we see Talia and Brazo interact more and just get to see Bea mingling with the crowd. The little droid puppet that one of the kids has. It's just the thing we talk about so much with the Shire or the other show us what you're fighting to protect and save. Just what's the rhythm of life like here? Did you think that droid puppet was cute? Because it was an AT-AT, wasn't it? Isn't it like a war machine? It wasn't.

I think it is. Okay. Then, no. But I do like merch, as you know. So in-universe merch, why not? Why not? So Brazo gets an update from Kellen. The check is coming tomorrow. They need to leave tonight. And as they're preparing, starting to pack up to leave that night, Bea finds out. Brazo and Talia tell him.

B says, when were you going to tell me? I'm telling you now, B. Now is too late. We won't be a long, we won't be away long, B. It's too long already. No. No.

You have soothed me some with your gift of an observation that Dahlia is canonically presented to us as being a person worthy of B's care. He's got droid friends. This is like, this is, okay, here's what I'll say. This is so sad to me. And I texted this to you when I was sort of finished, like did a, I did a loop back through Andor season one before and watching on the B scenes, I was just like, knowing that B is not in Rogue One. Yeah. And,

I was just like, genuinely, I would not survive if I had to watch Bea die. No, I couldn't hit. I have to hope that there is a limit and that they know that. So if the alternative of killing Bea but taking him off the board is to send him to a farm upstate where he can frolic and run up the hill with Talia with his droid friends and a bunch of little kiddos. Like, just think about the fact that, like, Bea...

like helps raise helps raise Cassian like loves kids like we'll get to buy I need Cassian to say goodbye to him I mean I think this is like I'm tapping into an actual genuine fear I have well like I'm sure yes I uh yes it definitely like the the surfaces some of the like how could you not say goodbye to ghost PTSD that I have but I actually like

I genuinely worry about this. Like, what if something happened to me and, like, Halo thought I abandoned him? Like, I think about that, like, whenever I leave, which I'm sure will sound completely insane to people, but it is true. So I just, like, need Cassian. Obviously, they were escaping. It was a hurry. He didn't have time then, but I need him to go back, and I need him to see and know that Bea is okay and tell Bea that he loves him. I need it. We got...

And B is always thinking of Cassian, by the way, right? He's like, how will Cassian know where to go? I need to know that Cassian is thinking about B too. I need that. And I don't know if Tony Gilroy gives a shit what I need, but I need it, Joanna. How many emails would you say we got from people asking, is this the last we've seen of B? Just slightly more than we got for the last of his episode asking where Shimmer the horse was.

Everyone is very concerned about Bea and very concerned about you, Mallory, and your feelings about Bea. And I support that. Okay. They can't wait for sundown. They realize. They gotta go. It's time to go. Only Will's not there. So the group fractures. They split because...

Will is with Bela. We have multiple moments across the episode where either she's bringing him like water when he's out at work or they're nestled against evaporator in the rye field. He is with her once again. Brazo gets on a speeder to go look for him. Vix is packing up. So our group has split. I did find on the Will front that

I was kind of surprised, actually, that he was as present in these episodes, but I found myself... Well, it's like Clea. I feel like it's just a background character being brought to the fore, you know? Yeah, and obviously he did consequential things in season one. It wasn't just like, oh, he's the son of the father who has the secret radio tower in the back. He built that bomb. He threw it during the funeral. And just, I don't know, to see...

To see that he could find some sliver of joy with another person after what happened to his father and what happened to his home gave me a little bit of hope. So I thought that was nice to make space for that. Let's talk about what happens between Kroll and Bix. Because he returns, Bix is alone, and he goes inside and he takes off his hat.

fixes his hair in the mirror. We got a fascinating email about this. Yeah, I loved this. Philip wrote an email and he says, I was watching the first three episodes of Andor Season 2 and noticed Imperial officers looking at themselves four separate times in the mirror with a certain air of satisfaction. It made me think of the connection between fascism and narcissism.

In season one, Cyril made modifications to his corpo outfit in an attempt to be more imperial. And I recall Andor calling the Empire, quote, fat and satisfied, and that makes them easier to infiltrate. Tyrants navel-gazing because they think they deserve to dominate is often the perfect time to strike them down. One of the propagandists at the meeting calls the Gorms arrogant, and that is pure arrogance.

It's also pure propaganda. But anyway, yeah, this, like, once I got this email from Philip, I, like, went back and looked at all the moments. And it is, you love to be on Reflection Watch. You love to be on Mirror Watch. So I say we get on it for the rest of the season. I think that's a really interesting observation. Yeah, this is a great email. I thought this was just, again, so disturbing. Like, I've used the word a lot already, but it is obviously appropriate in this context. Like,

We're about to watch an attempted rape scene and the thing that Lieutenant Kroll does is fix his hair. Like, as he is about to attempt to rape Bix. Yeah. So it's just like really disturbing and unsettling. We got a number... We got a lot of emails about this interaction between this sexual assault, attempted sexual assault between Bix and Kroll. And...

flagging that there has been a larger conversation about this inside of the fandom in terms of does this feel quote-unquote appropriate for Star Wars this question of like are kids watching this is this okay blah blah I am I hesitate to say I really like this I'm not gonna say like I liked it right but but when I saw it coming yeah I had this moment of like

How is this going to play out? You and I have spent years in the Game of Thrones trenches. And so, and I have a lot of strong opinions about like when and how sexual assault should be used and how, specifically how it's depicted from whose point of view, et cetera, et cetera. I really thought this was, I guess I will say well done is what I will say. I like that Bix is not damseled. Like Cassian is,

arriving gets to be heroic in helping what is happening here, but, like, Bix defends herself. Right. She kills... I mean, this is an incredibly violent sequence. She kills Kroll. She guns down the other Imperial officer who gives her mere seconds to emerge, and she says...

She says he tried to rape me. Yeah. And so like, which, which I was, you know, we got some emails about this. I was surprised that they said rape inside of a Star Wars property, but I'm not like, I'm not unpleasantly surprised. I'm surprised, but I think it is for all the violence that we see inside of a Star Wars for entire planets being obliterated for this, that, and the other thing. I think that showing the, uh,

real flesh and blood realities of, you know, fascistic abuses of power as their perpetrator on the bodies of the oppressed, I think is important to show. I agree with you completely. We've obviously talked about this in other shows that we cover, including, as you mentioned, Thrones. And with you, I really...

I tend to ask, you know, myself and the show, like, did we, quote unquote, need that? Right. Right? Like, what is the function of that scene? What is it achieving? And I really, like, I think it's important to interrogate the moments when any given story, like...

Says that a character needs to suffer through a sexual assault to, like, learn something, grow. We talked about this a lot with Sansa when covering Yuma Thrones. Like, it's just... Forever upset about that. My guard is always on with something like that. So that was sort of like a base operating position of just, like, how I'm going to think about...

the scene when it is presented does, but I completely agree with you. Like, I thought this was really important. And obviously, it's like very painful and upsetting to watch. I certainly understand why for some viewers it is triggering and too upsetting to watch. Yes. But...

this is something that would happen, like you said. And to show us what it looks like when people in a position of power use that power against other people for their own pleasure and gain, this would be a part of it. I think what's important too, I mean, we will see how this all plays out because we only have this first three episode arc at our fingertips here. But like,

Often, you know, Mo Ryan, who is a writer that I really admire, did a lot of incredible work in the TV journalism space interrogating basically sexual assault as a trend in prestige television and when and how it was used and how often it was used to motivate the male characters who know this person. So if this becomes like a moment for Cassian...

That is not at all what I expect from Andor, but that would be very bothersome to me. This feels very much like Bix's moment. And a moment of horror for her, but a moment of strength for her after watching her...

turn into a puddle of goo at the end of season one and suffer these nightmares for all the time after. And then to be able to like fight back here, I thought was really important for that character. So, yeah. And I thought in terms of the fascistic, um,

The chokehold of power, like, physically and literally in a scene like this and metaphorically. One of the other things about this that felt, like, really just important to shine a light on and show us was, like...

for Kroll, this attempted rape, this sexual assault scene is like a barter session, right? Yeah. Like, I know that you're not legal and... Yeah. Here's what we can do about it. And also the guy waiting for him outside, right? Yes. Sitting there. Who, like, only goes to get help when he knows that it sounds like Kroll's indeed. Right, when he lets out that, like, animalistic shriek. When Kroll was at the store... Mm-hmm.

And there's that moment where he looks at Bela and Bela's mom sees and sends her inside immediately. Like, we understand that this is what he does. And we understand because he does this that other people in a position of power and control where they are leveraging somebody else's power

Right and ability to be free against them would do this to people. And so, like, of course it is horrific to see Bix go through this, but it does feel important, like, in Star Wars and a mature show to make room for the reality of Bix.

And that's such the right word. I think I love the word mature here because like I we got an email from a listener to Nashi who is asking, like, you know, would you a lot of people like to say, oh, this is the one for and or is the one for adults or whatever.

I would say it is a mature story and Tanashi listed a couple other examples. Avatar The Last Airbender, Blue-Eyed Samurai, certainly like quite a sort of a violent, you know, upsetting show. The Dark Knight Barbie, like to varying degrees, but like,

Is there a world in which, and I feel like there, not to sound so ancient, but there was when I grew up, of like, we watched a bunch of really mature stuff growing up. And it's like, the idea of like, for kids or not for kids, like, the line of what an individual child can engage with is so fluid, as any parent could tell you. And so I just don't think it's like, I don't think this scene is,

For me, I'm not a parent, but for me, not a mechanic and not a parent, but for me, I don't think this scene disqualifies this as something that a kid could watch depending on the age of that kid and depending on how you've had these conversations about this. And it might even be a really good conversation starter and that sort of stuff.

We talked about – Rob and I talked about this a lot on the Press TV and we talked about the show Adolescence. Like, there are conversations you can have, if you're willing to have them, with your kid around engaging in stuff like this. But I was certainly watching shows that had content – like, you know, this isn't – it's horrifying and emotionally horrifying, but it's not sexually graphic in any kind of way. Right.

I don't know. I think this is a really important story. I think this is a really good story. And I would not say kids, depending on what age level you're talking about, cannot watch Andor. I don't think that's the case. And as much as I... And I love Chris and Andy with all of my heart, obviously. But, like, you know, sometimes...

Andy will talk about and or is like this is the one for us I think he just means like him and Chris honestly you know and it's just sort of like but I don't think you need to say this is the one for grown-ups like I I don't think that's necessarily uh the right conversation to have inside of a fandom space you know yeah no I I completely agree um

Okay. That was heavy. That was. And then Brasso dies. And then Brasso dies, which is really sad because he's a loyal friend and a good dude. How did you read the Kellen-Brasso moment? Did you? Oh, yeah, yeah. I have a very strong reading on this. Me too. So I wonder if we're aligned on this because I read this as they've all been caught and

Brazo basically stages a fake fight with Kellen to preserve his cover. He's like, I'm done, but I can save you. Because the way he said, use us up and turn us in, it's not actually applicable to their relationship. He's basically pretending that he's one of his toolie workers only. I think there's a very clear moment when he gets knocked to the ground and they look at each other and they kind of smile at each other. That's what I thought. Kind of smile at each other like, yeah, that's...

thank you for saving me. Yeah, I just saved you. Seemed to be like the exchange there. Okay, so we're aligned. Yeah. Because there's certainly a read that Kellen sold him out. But that was not my interpretation of that at all. No, that's not my read at all. So Brasso dies. And I just want you to know that I read one of the worst things I've ever read on StarWars.com. And it was this. No, no. There will be no stone for Brasso. Oh my God, Joanna. No.

Oh my God. Forgoing the customary funerary honors befitting such a standup for a Rixian citizen, there will be no stone for Braco, but his sacrifice will help build the foundation of the rebellion. Are we sure? Are we sure B is not going to make him a brick? Oh my God. Are we sure?

Why can't Bea make him a brick? It actually, like, genuinely kills me to think about Bea finding out about this. And especially, like, when I read No Stone for Brasso, I actually started crying because I was just, like, thinking about Brasso being the one carrying Marva's brick. Yeah. Like, how involved he was in the ceremony of Marva's passing. Yeah, Cassian having to leave him there like that. And then the look of just that haunted look on his face. Yeah.

as they escaped and Vixen and Will. Oh my God. They just all looked so shattered. I, I, a lot of people are rightly upset about Brasso's death. I love death in Andor because it's real. I think we're going to be saying goodbye to a lot of people. I think so too. And I think something we, I, I'll just say me, I bumped against in shows like Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, Awkwafina,

things like Sabine's non-death or Reva's non-death when someone can take a lightsaber to the gut and just be totally fine. I'm just sort of like, everyone but Qui-Gon. Like, let's just keep saying it. Death should be real. Everyone but Qui-Gon.

This does should be real and does should matter. And Bras's loss is important. And will be another. It will be felt. Yeah. Like Marva's. What did Will's dad's death radicalize? What did Marva's death radicalize? What will Bras's death radicalize as we go forward? What is Nemec's death radicalize? Like all of these losses are so important as we go forward. Well, here's what StarWars.com can't take away from us.

He doesn't have a stone, but that mortar, the blood and mortar mix, that's in their hearts. They take that with them. They do. Stone and sky. They carry that with them. They can't put it in a wall. Stone and sky. Exactly. Yes. Oh, that made me emotional too to hear. Me too.

♪♪

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Okay, it's time for a vibe change here. Yeah. Can I interest you in a three-day wedding? Are you ready to get sauced and dance with me? I was thinking about this as we were talking about the Bix thing. I was like, wow, it'll be fun to get to the lighter storylines. And I'm like, oh. Just the betrayal. The evil. No, but I was like, I was like the shitty rich people and Chandrila and...

Oh, the fascist couple that we can't wait to talk about their dinner with mom. Like, anyway, Star Wars, you're genuinely can't. Yeah, I can't wait to talk about Star Wars. You're so special. OK, let's go to. So, Shangela, I should just say, and I'm sure I said this in season one.

But I can't ever hear the word, and we hear it a lot in the storyline, without hearing it to the tune of Shambhala. Yeah. A very important track from Lost or whatever. Anyway, I just need you to know for the last few days, it's just been like, how does the light shine on the halls of Shandrila? Is it welcome and helpful then?

that they've been saying just Shandy. Shandy. Let's move it. Shandy Merle. Let's do it. Because we can just do that on the pod. We can just agree right now. A Shandy wedding? A Shandy wedding? A Shandy wedding. A Shandy wedding day one. A Shandy wedding without betraying your childhood friend is a dull affair and everyone knows that. Dude, I just like thinking of that.

so many times like what are the Dothraki comps here great stuff yeah it's not a slice to the gut but it is more cutting in some ways you know to realize that we won't get to see any episodes this season where Mon and Tay passionately fuck I'm in mourning and I'm sorry for you honestly okay this was really a great I just really loved honestly all of these scenes this was just a true delight um

Let's start with day one, day one of the three-day affair at the Mothma estate. Now, thrilling to be here, less thrilling to confront what, you know, had seemed inevitable, but now we face it at last, which is it's happening. Does it help? Now, these children are getting married. She had some moments of agitation inside of these episodes, but does it help that, like, Lena seemed really into it at the end of last season? Yeah.

I mean, even here, she's like... Yeah. She was drunk. Don't ask me to... Honestly, her face, Genevieve O'Reilly's face when she says that. Okay. Crushing.

Now is the time when I talk about one of my very favorite things that Andor does. Okay. And it is a person taking a really long time to walk somewhere. Yes. I love this. All these little vignettes we get as we travel with them. Yeah, this is like a very showy version because this is filmed as like a one-er sort of as she walks down the stairs. I was thinking a lot because we're like on the landing dock here or whatever. I was thinking a lot of...

uh, in Dune prophecy, how like with love and respect, how like cheap and small by comparison that like one outdoor, like long table they had at the palace at the Imperial palace was this like one filmed in the volume set that they had versus this clearly practical set of many levels. So like in season one, and this is like on rewatch, so fun to remember, um,

We follow Clea or Cyril as he walks down, down, down through Coruscant. Lonnie down, down, down through Coruscant. Vel and Cassie as they hike, hike, hike to get to the encampment on Aldani. Like, it always takes a while to get somewhere. And while we're going... Yes.

Mon's walk is much more eventful than a lot of these other walks, but we're just sort of like showing you the world we're in and making sure you know that we're in a real world and we're not just like bopping from one small, tiny set to another. But we have built out this entire world. We've built out this multi-tiered

you know, shandy set for you to show you how rich the fabric of and how real and inhabited and fully realized this world feels. Like, and everyone she greets, whether it's parents, relatives, or a different senator, or Belle herself, or whatever it is, is just like,

feel like real fully realized people and not just extras in the background as we walk through. So yeah I love this. I love that. I love your you identifying that as like a through line across the show. That's awesome. And it

And it's fun to think when it takes the time about also then who's waiting for you, right? Yeah. Like, what does the time spent mean for you, but also the people you're trying to reach? That's great. I love that. And I mean, I love in this when we get to watch, I mean, Mon's face changing back and forth depending on, like, who she's facing or who's behind her. When she spots Luthan, but we don't see that that's what made her face do that thing until later. Like, who's there? Yeah, she spots Vell. She's like, look who the fuck is here, man. Like, we know it's probably

who it probably is, but still, it's very cool. I know. It was delightful. I really loved this as well. I liked the little brief encounters with people who are ultimately not consequential, but it still tells us something. I really liked that little moment where Amman and Perrin interact with his favorite reprobate. It's tough. That was delightful. But we get like

One of the things that Andor does so well is, like, even the kind of casual, seemingly, like, just kind of, like, tossed away little lines have some level of meaning still. Like, this initial exchange where Mon says, you know, looking younger every season, and we get the, oh, how effortlessly you lie. Mm-hmm.

That's meaningful because to that person, it is just about the thing that they are talking about, right? Do you look young? Do you look old? Great to see you at the wedding, the small talk, the bullshit, whatever. But people clocking that about Man Mathma without in any way understanding the implications behind it and the way that it actually manifests and is applied in her life is like,

genius and just fascinating. And also we see it a lot in this episode and of course all across season one and presumably many more times to come the rest of this season. It takes a lot of effort, actually. Like it's driving her to the brink every time she has to plaster that smile back on and go make her way through one of these encounters. Like,

One of the reasons that I, even though it is very upsetting that the second Leda wedding is actually happening, like, that moment in season one when Davo, when Mon was like, I'm not considering it. Like, I'm not thinking about it. Get the fuck out of here. I'm not interested. This is not going to happen. There is a line and I won't cross it. And he said, that's the first untrue thing you've said. Like, the fact that he was able to clock that true thing about her when the mask is so central to all of these interactions, like,

That really bled into this three-day wedding. Can I shout out someone that we meet on the steps here? Is it Erskine? It's Erskine Simaj.

Great stuff. Yeah. Who fans of like Rebels already know who he is. I just want to shout out two things. Number one, his Bucky Barnes hair. Like it's really good. So this is her like aide who she who's talking to her about the governor. If you're going to be named, you know, Erskine, like let's let's think about Bucky and Steve in some capacity. Why not? Did you know and you probably did that Erskine Samaj is just the name James Erskine sort of

and jumbled up a little bit. This is a guy who worked at Lucasfilm, and so they named this character after him. So I was thinking, I really think Ruben Irolam would be a great Star Wars name. Irolam. Sure. Right. It's your name. What would the character be? What would the character do? Oh, Ruben Irolam. Would that character stand there at a wedding talking about how the governor is taking up too many parking spaces? And have a chat with Luthan? Why not? I don't know. I don't know.

Would Tay drunkenly bump into that character learning? Maybe that should be the name of the character. You know when she's... I mean, I know you know the moment when Mon is like losing it on the dance floor.

I'll never forget it. It's a very humanoid wedding, which I think is really interesting. And Andra got dinged for this in season one. But actually, I don't mind it at the Shandy wedding because this seems very much like it's for Shandy's only. You know what I mean? But versus like Saw's ragtag of group of rebels and stuff like that. Tubes. Tubes.

But there's a guy on the dance floor when Mon's dancing who's got like a shaped head and sunglasses and like a silver coat. Yeah. That's Ruben Arolam. That's as far as I'm concerned. I love that. Great. Yeah, I love that. Fantastic. If I'm on that dance floor, I'm finding Perrin. Let me just get that out there. He's already gone. I hate to tell you.

You're finding Perrin to do what? Are you finding Perrin to party down? I just find him genuinely fascinating. This is a great Perrin arc. It's very, very good. I loved every second we got with him. I mean, I thought he was interesting in season one. I think that Perrin and Mon are riveting together, but everything we got in these episodes was incredible. Let's talk about this very first Mon-Luthen interaction when, as you notice, she clocks in there. She's like, what the fuck is going on?

are you doing there? He and Claire are there to work. They got, someone's got to go hunt down, procure, and then bring position dust off, polish the Shandy Merle. But what an opportunity this is to work in a different way as well. I liked the, cause there's this cover of like, what is the gift? What is the secret gift? Yeah.

He's terrible at keeping secrets. And then Luthan saying, I've been practicing. To Mon, their relationship is so juicy. And again, that's a line that like to everyone observing, they're like, they know they can't clock what this is about at all. But to us, this is just like drenched in tradecraft significance. I loved it. I love that. To me, for some reason, I loved even more when he says, oh dear, you found me. I am confident again, I did not go back and listen to our season one episode.

Andor coverage, but like, I am confident that when we covered Andor season one, I talked about the Scarlet Pimpernel and what like an important story that is to me. If people don't know the Scarlet Pimpernel written by the Baroness Orsi about the French Revolution inspired Zorro, which inspired Batman. But anytime you see a...

a rich person playing the sort of indolent like fop uh who is secretly doing revolutionary work now in the scarlet pimpernel he's just saving royals from the guillotine but uh you know um you got to think about that and the way that in the scarlet pimpernel

Percy Blakeney, who is the titular scout of Pimpernel, he goes like, oh, sink me. Oh, dear me. Like, that's what he's always saying in his, like, foppish disguise. So he's like, oh, dear, you found me. I was just like, Luthen, you're the best. I love you. My favorite Luthen moment, which I actually don't know, I'd have to ask Jomie, but I hope and assume is already a meme, was, like, later on,

When he's chatting with the naval kid who says that he's been... They've all been moved on a steer car. And Lytton leans in and his eyes go wide and he says, Really? And where's everyone going? I just thought... I mean, he's just the best. Really funny. The wig. It's even...

And Whig year. Are you any any wig watch TM with Joanna Robinson TM real time commentary on the season two loose and wig that you'd like to like to share? I mean, it's perfect. It is perfect. No, but we did get an email about Leda's new mother-in-law, Davos wife, and the mob wife energy coming off of her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean.

You know, she was ready to party later. Oh, she really was. She seems fun. She kind of does. Sure, that whole family is a fucking nightmare. Nightmare, yeah. It's just a little clip. She seemed fun. I thought that, you know, I had like a second where I'm like, okay, Luther and Clea are here because they brought Davos gift. Convenient.

half a second. And then I was like, I'm all in. This is just brilliant to me as like a way, obviously just with everything happening with Tay, for Luthan to be there to observe and push and for that extra element of tension, the Mon Luthan kind of constant, like difference of opinion of like how severe to be and what is required and who is ready to risk what, when. But just the core nature of his observation, the fact that like he says to her later,

Would you have told me if I wasn't here? Like, everything that's happening with Tay is inherently so painful and intense for Mon. Everything that's happening with Leda is inherently so painful and intense. This extra element of Luthan being there as observer and pusher in the pressure cooker, too, I thought was great in terms of just their arc and their relationship. But just more broadly, like, the way that it reinforced to us a thing we already know, a thing that has been clear since season one, but here was like...

which is there is no longer any distinction for Mon Mothma between the personal and the cause. Like the work, the pursuit, the rebellion has always

bled into every aspect of her home life. And it can know that's another braid. Like that braid's not unbraiding. There's no disentangling of that for Mon anymore. And you see the way that it's weighing on her hair. Beautiful. Beautiful mowing. You're weighing with words. Gorgeous. To your point about like, okay, Luthan and Claire hair, something I love, something, so something that Tony- I loved every second of it to be clear. Yeah, no, no, no, no. I agree with you. Something that Tony Gilroy said on the watch was like,

You guys all like to throw me parades for my speeches. He's like, speeches I could do. He's like, it's getting the various people into the room so they're interacting with each other. That is the hard work for me. That was fascinating. I thought that was really interesting. And so like,

So I was thinking about that when I was thinking about season one. Vel is used this way a couple times where you're just sort of like, who's Mamata's cousin? Oh, it's Vel! Or like, who's here on Farrakh watching Marvel? It's Vel! You know, like, she's moving around through these various storylines, and I always found it really, or like when Cyril's story collides with Dedra's story. Like, you know, there's just like these moments of collision, of bumping up against each other that don't,

false and convenient that feel like we're watching a big sprawling story and there are plenty of characters who will never interact but like it makes sense that these key actors are sort of bumping up against each other so yeah and I can imagine that Luthan like wanted to be at this wedding and so like laid all the track in order to insinuate you know I mean he says as such like he sourced this

to dangle in front of Davo so he could be here at this wedding and be in the mix. Totally. The moment later when Davo is talking about this, you know, I'll let this connect you to your history and each other, this damn

That's the point, right? Like, that's the bounty is all of these other people who he can then, you know, take away from him.

use their business, this cover, I'm this curator, this dealer, to work his way into other halls of power to gain proximity to other people who might know something or have access to either information or some sort of lever of control. So yeah, the idea to him that it's like

It also is just actually interesting to see how the cover of the gallery functions. Actually, I thought that was great. To get you inside these homes. Yeah, exactly. I'm so sorry. I don't have the email in front of me, but we did get a listener saying, do you think it's ill-advised? And I do. Luthan used the same name.

for his revolutionary activities as he does for his cover. I've wondered about this. Like, I know there's, like, the Axis code name, and there's, like, plenty of people who don't know Luthan's name inside of the work that they do for him, but there are plenty who do. And I was just like, I would just simply use a different name. What should it be? Oh, um, Ruben Irola? That's taken, unfortunately. I'd be honored, honestly.

I'd be honored. Maybe Clea can help us come up with it. She's always thinking. She's great. You know, the, what are we looking at when they still haven't heard from Cass and Luthan's like, what are we looking at? And Clea said, I'm looking for a drink. I love that. Honestly, genuinely in my running for favorite moment of the three episodes. It's so good. I'm a big fan of Clea. Oh my God. Okay. Let's get to some of the sidebars from the evening. Night one. Yeah.

What did she make of this Perrin-Davo exchange? They're looking out at their kids, and Perrin says, Leda won't be easy. You know best. Is he tough enough? Not by half, Davo says. He'll either learn or be led. And then Perrin, my favorite sad boy who is in the pursuit of joy, as we will soon hear, says, well...

I wish him luck. What do you think he's seeing when he looks out at this younger generation? Well, and I can't wait to talk about this a little bit more when we get to the speech, but like Perrin, the Academy firebrand is how, you know, and Mon are talking about how Perrin used to be when they were younger. And so I'm not... The ghost of his former promise. It's like such an indictment. Exactly. Well, and he like gives this amazing speech about,

Incredible. With this like junk, this junky message to it, but an incredible speech. And it's like, what kind of revolutionary could Perrin have been? That's what that speech really is. I'm not totally giving up hope. Oh, I love that. But like, I think that he's, he, I don't, I hate this. I hate, but like,

I feel like Perrin's like, there's something about being married to Mon or being put in this world that has turned me into this. And like, it sounds like I'm blaming Mon for it and I don't want to. I don't feel that way. I think Perrin is responsible for his own. But like, there's something about the circumstance of being like the, the, the,

the plus one to this extremely powerful woman that has, has, Perrin has not risen to the challenge to be her equal. Yes. He has become this, like, husk of his former self and like, you know,

drinking or gambling or carousing with shitty other people and and it's just like but i think he's he in his view it was being married to a strong woman that did that to him i don't tend to agree but like right but like that he's saying this is gonna be your son's fate i wish him luck he's gonna turn out a piece of shit like me i guess

Yeah, exactly. Like for that idea of like she's the stronger one and I know what that's going to be like was just, whew, boy. One of the things that I love about the Per and Mon relationship is how disappointing they are to each other. Like there's a mutual letdown there that is so interesting.

to me a real scene from marriage stuff with them always. I genuinely bet if we watched like the courtship of parent, I mean, they were children, but like the courtship of parent and mom, I bet would have been like, these guys love each other. Like, I don't think you get that disappointed if you didn't like

in something in the first place or love someone in the first place. And so I believe that there was like an original young couple that actually saw a few together and then it's like, yeah, draw. And then here we are. I mean, you still see it though in some moments. I don't know. Well, we'll talk about it later, but like the sharing of the tea. The tea is amazing.

She is amazing. I was so fascinated when Toni Gilroy said on the watch that Ari Kleinman, the director, that that was like all of that choreography and that breakfast. And I'm sorry, I'm just going to talk about it now. Let's do it. I love that breakfast setup because though she still looks more beautiful than I will ever look on the best day of my entire life.

Genevieve O'Reilly as Mon is like slightly undone from who... So this is like breakfast Mon. Like no one else gets to see her like this. And then, yeah, and then just sort of like the negotiating back and forth around the table and the passing back and forth, the tea, this is just like... This is a... We know a familiarity. Yeah. There's like a rhythm and an intimacy that I found really striking and the way they moved with each other and kind of orbited around each other. There's just like...

And sometimes when you're with somebody for a long time, you either grow to despise them or you have complex feelings about them. But there is a familiarity that doesn't waver and isn't lost and like actually can then make maybe that like absence of the affection that you used to feel even more painful to have to confront. And like that just feels so palpable with them. I thought that that and that that moment, that breakfast moment is when Perrin.

brings up pay to her and he says, you know, they're chuckling about the, the Shandy Merle and like how it's, it's kind of gross. It probably costs more than the, yeah, more than the house. Um,

And then Perrin, he's about to dunk on Tay and say he was always weak. He can't handle his booze. This guy who came to us in season one as this like distinguished pillar of society, like can't hold his liquor. It's that Onion headline, the worst person you know is right. Yeah, totally. And I just thought this was like riveting to watch. He said,

you should tell your boyfriend to back off the nog. And Man, just again, moving about casually, who's my boyfriend? What have you done? Thrown him over? I don't know who we're talking about. Take Homa, is he not your lover? There was also something about that phrasing that felt like very... Yeah, just like, again, this is Andor. Like, I don't know. Is he not your lover? Haven't heard that nonsense in a while.

I was really struck by this. The kind of, like, casual mention inside of their marriage that Perrin just, like...

assumes and has kind of accepted that his wife is cheating on him. He also has the, like, cause we kind of had this, like, is Perrin, uh, actively the bad in season one. And then we kind of moved into like, is he just like a fuck boy? But there was that moment where he was like, you know, talking about how low, maybe you both let him down gently. Like it's good to do that. Or so I've heard like the, so I've heard, um, felt like it was doing the work of saying, I actually don't do this.

Like maybe you're the one who does this and I'm not. And I just thought that was all fascinating. And then there's the part of me that has long been a Taman shipper who's like, if everyone thinks you're fucking, maybe you just should. I can't believe we're not going to see those two hook up. I'm, I'm, I'm in mourning. What would Perrin say? Perrin would say, Joy has no wind in his back. Joy will not announce its arrival. You need to listen for it and be mindful of how fleeting and delicate it could be.

Well, you know, I learned a lot. Fuck them while you got them. You know what I mean? Exactly. Exactly. Like Tay's thinking about, oh, the lesson learned is how timid I've become. No, that's the lesson. That's the lesson, Joanna. Carry it with you. Carry it with you always. I'll carry it with me. The fact that Tay can't hold his liquor.

It's worrying. It's worrying for us. It's worrying for Mon. You know, we have the initial greeting with Tae and Mon the prior day where he's kind of like, we're building this tension conversation after conversation. They have many of them before we get to the kind of full, like, what are the stakes? What's happening here? But he's kind of like...

yeah, I left your message. She's like, sorry, I didn't get back to you, right? We're kind of like learning what happens before he finally just says, like, I've had some, it's been a rough stretch, bad deals. Marnie, we split. Surprised you haven't heard, like people haven't been gossiping about it in a way that's reached you. I want to talk about the foundation. The idea that, you know, we'll see him like, again, just

Kind of bumbling his way around the dance floor. And crucially, Luthan sees it later. He's going to invoke Davo. Like, it gets to a point where it is, from Luthan's perspective, not something they can risk. But the fact that Tay doesn't know how to behave, doesn't know how to behave and remain composed in civilized society, like, that that would be something to Monm?

that is inside of this great sin of the betrayal of their friendship and their history together a sin as well because that's for her not optional, right? Like she's got to remain composed. Keep your shit together. I mean, I think that's the reason she hasn't had sex with him is like everything is too fraught and it's too dangerous to do something like that. Though I support you supporting her, pursuing her joy. But yeah. Hmm.

Take Homa. I thought it was really interesting to listen to Tony Gilroy. Essentially, like what it seems like is that this was not always the plan for Take Homa, that he would be this like crash out in season two. That's interesting. That the actors weren't sure that it would work. You know, Ben Miles, I'm sure, was just sort of like, really?

uh wasn't i kind of cool yeah um and so he said he had to like go back through and like read every scene of season one and be like once you re-watch this knowing what happens can you see this in there and he's like i think you can and i'm like i'm with it i'll i'm for it and also like some people can be cool if everything's going their way and then for take a while like

And when his investment portfolio, the bottom drops out of his investment portfolio and his wife leaves him and Maslow returning his calls. And maybe, you know, we, I have seen some chat around this about like, yes, he is stressed out about his bottom line. And yes, his wife has left him and that has stressed him out. But I saw some interpretation that like his freak out here of

Has to do also with him not getting to bed Mon maybe the way that he thought he would when they started this arrangement. Then maybe he's like, hey, you're not making time for my phone calls. Me? Take home on? Have you not seen my beautiful snowy head of hair? Like, what the fuck is going on? Looks great. But like, yeah, I think it's fascinating. I like learning how...

considerate they were about whether this would be a believable arc. You know, Gilroy made the comp to Fredo, and it is obviously a very Fredo-y thing that we're witnessing here. Not just that. He said he's Fredo-ing out, and I want to make that a new phrase for you. Incredible. Let's adopt it. Let's start saying it. I love it. Just Fredo-ing out over here. One of the things I really loved about this and that felt, again, kind of like a true thing that

What happened is that Tay actually came into our lives as viewers and into the story as somebody who was kind of like pure, right? He's a money man. He's a banker. But he, one of the first things we hear him say to Manas, he's like, you know, my politics might be too strong for you, right? And so... He's like, I'm something of a revolutionary myself. Exactly. Exactly. And to see somebody who actually had...

like the conviction of a moral position,

that begin to operate so transactionally here is one of the forms of loss that you confront when this is the game you play. And like, it's important for us to confront that and for Mon. I thought that hearing him specifically say like, not just, you know, oh, he's looking around at the wealth of the wedding, right? But not just like everyone seems quite pleased with how they've landed and I'm left wondering about the risks I've taken. But specifically to say that the rebellion, right?

is what's hurting him. Like, the thing that we know he believed was right and appropriate and that he was supporting. He's like, but when it impacts my bottom line, when it makes me, even the scorn

It's the slightest bit uncomfy. And doesn't that feel true to life? Yeah, it really does. Like people can say all they want. Like this is what I believe is right and what happens when it affects your wallet, right? Like I thought it was great actually that even though I was very sad about it that this happened. I really liked it. I believe in infrastructure, but like do the tax increases need to come for me? Me? Oh, God.

What do you want to say about this just more general position that Mon finds herself in where we're going to talk more about Perrin and Leda?

She's a disappointment to both of them. They're disappointments to her. This person that she has known for her entire life, who she trusted so much that she put it on the line with Luthan. She vouched for him. Like, the don't lecture me on vulnerability, no one's more at risk than I am argument that Maude and Luthan had in season one. She had to convince him that it was appropriate, that she knew that she was right to make the call to bring Tay in. She's losing...

the ability to trust in any of the relationships or people or structure around her. We're going to talk about the conversation in a second that she and Vel had and what we learned about what Mon believes is important through that conversation. But more broadly, like this absence of the buttresses of your life, right? The familiar moorings that Mon is confronting. How did that strike you here? Yeah, I was thinking of this as like the great unmooring. This like, it is for Mon to be

Yeah.

how she snips her ties as a senator, like how that happens exactly. But like, how does she, how does she not be with her family anymore? At what point did she stop using hair products? At what point has she abandoned her beautiful tailored outfits for white caftans? Like when does it, when is all of this? Be honest. How high is that on your list of questions? It's the bangs for me. It's the, it's the hair for me. She loses her sense of style.

Inside of the rebellion. I mean, Leia still keeps it, you know, fashionable. No, I love her respect to you. Maybe just the practicality of life on the road. I don't know. Yeah, Yavin doesn't seem like it has, like, a good salon. But, yeah, like, this is the making of Mon or the unmaking of who she used to be. And so, like, when Leia says, I wish you were, like, you know, that's getting way ahead of ourselves, but, like, she offers one last kiss.

hand out to her daughter right and when her daughter says i wish you were drunk like there's just this shuddering oh and it's just a complete sever and then she's like no you go behind me right and it's just sort of like i'm not i'm not your mom anymore pretty much that's kind of how that felt to me like that we're just snip snip snipping away at the things that keep mon inside of her life and moving her towards this new person she's gonna have to be

I thought that over – I love that. I thought that over the three episodes to start with that long walk – we love a long walk. We do. To start with that long walk where we get to see all of the different masks she needs to wear and skins she needs to inhabit and the different people she needs to be for everybody she might interact with at any given moment. And then to build toward a, like, shocking –

a shocking dropping of the mask. Like I will be free and let the hair loose and drink and dance. And like the burden has become so crushing that I have to, for just a second, like shake it off. Um,

You do that not because you need it in the moment. Yeah. Yeah, but because you know there's not going to be a lot of other moments for it moving forward. Like, it's just, like, so keen. Do you think Nemos is the intergalactic version of Taylor Swift's Shake It Off? Is that what we're listening to? I think it now. I think it now that you said it. Okay, great. Incredible stuff from the...

DJ Droid. That's a banger. Oh, absolutely. Great to have it back. Also, that DJ Droid was amazing. All of that was fantastic. You know, to work the room. We go on this hike. It's part of the tradition. We get a little like, Val's like, I don't remember how this works, some exposition. But mostly the purpose of that scene, we move from Perrin to Perrin and Davo to...

the young bride and groom-to-be. But really, it's about this moment with Mon and Vel where Mon asks about Cinta, her friend. The Cinta, yeah, your roommate, your BFF Cinta. Dude, how's your friend? This is such a good setup for like...

Can I just, I mean, sorry, this is getting well ahead of ourselves, but the moment that it's Sinta as the driver, I was just like, that's just one of the most exquisite that told it as soon as it's Sinta, you're like, well, you already knew. Oh, yeah.

It's a wrap for Ty. How nice for you. Like, I'll take care of this, says Luthen. But as soon as Cinta's your driver, it's like, oh, fuck. So I love that we planted the Cinta seed here for people who didn't do an Obsessive Mander season one rewatch, you know? Yeah, yeah. Your friend, Cinta? Yeah, that was handy. I loved the idea here because...

We learn from Vel that she hasn't actually seen Cinta in a while. And she says, like, if she wanted to see me, she would. It was never going to be perfect or good, really. That killed me. Or good, really. Bad timing. Mon says she's sorry. And Vel says there's work to be done.

But then Mon says, we have to live to do it, though, don't we? And this felt like such a crucial counterweight to actually a conversation that Cinta and Vel had on Ferex in season one, in episode eight, when Cinta said the struggle will always come first. We take what's left. And Vel was so shaken by that and hurt by it. And also in some ways, like,

okay, this is a lesson and I need to learn it, I guess. And for Mon, of all characters, to be the one to say, well, yeah, there's the cause, but if we're not living our lives, then what is the cause for? What are we fighting to protect if we're not living? Felt really crucial to me. I think that's beautiful and I think it's true. I don't know that that's... Is that where Mon's heading with where, once again, she...

Has made her hair a sunless space. It's like even more painful then to hear her say it one more time and then maybe not get to experience it or to know it and not feel like she can live it. Like there's like anguish in that, I think. Luthan has given this up, right? Calm, kindness, kinship, love is like, he's like off the table, off the table, right? But Mauna's still in a place where she's like, why not both? Can't we live our lives and be revolutionaries? And I just don't know that that's like,

where it's all going to wind up for her, but we'll see. Sad. All right, let's talk about parents' speech. Amazing. I mean, we hit a lot of it already, but like, okay, what did you want to say about the actual substance of what he says? Pain will find you.

sagrona sagrona sagrona um this is great but then also like everybody's reaction to this well yeah first i want to say praise to the families and clans of shendrila praise to those who traveled to share in our most treasured tradition as the as the father of the intended maiden it's my shendrila duty just like again and again and again we are hammering tradition uh you know uh

duty, like customs, like blah, blah, blah, like all of that sort of stuff. It is displeasing to Vel and Mon, but it is just so important to get this interesting specificity. And hearing the costume designers, the production designers talk about creating this opulent world where it's like hundreds of costumes that like,

Leda's dress took half a year to individually hand bead that they like wanted to do this sort of just to get a snag. Yeah. Oh God. Just to get this like Japan meets Scandinavian sort of like, I don't know. I just thought, I thought it was like really incredible, but something that I saw, I'm going to give credit to the Redditors, the subredditors on the Andor subreddit for this is,

So Perrin says, Joy has no wind in its back. Joy will not announce its arrival. You need to listen for it and be mindful of how fleeting and delicate it can be.

Nemec famously says, the imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. So this idea of like, Perrin's like, joy, get after it. Joy requires constant vigilance. And Nemec's like, tyranny requires constant effort. I thought those mirroring, the mirroring of that language is really interesting to me. And again, I just think Perrin is so persuasive here. There's a lot of people who watch this and we're like, Perrin, making great points. And it's like, dig it.

Dig a little bit deeper of what he's telling you to pursue, which is just sort of like hedonism, right? Like, ensconce yourself in the cozy delights of this world and don't worry about the empire. Yeah, tell yourself it's all okay. Politics, boring. Like, why even talk about it? Don't worry about it. You gotta drink deep from the well of life. And so, um...

Yeah. I just think this is masterful. What did you make of the reaction shots that we got in this scene? I loved this, like, all around. I thought from, yeah, from the parent perspective, like, this insight that...

You know, you simply stand still and the galaxy will deliver a daily basket of fresh anxieties to your door. Like, that he is an unhappy, genuinely unhappy person. Yeah. Who tries to bulldoze his way to joy. Who tries to, like, constantly imbibe and –

luxuriated in the gluttony, not only because of the pleasure, but because then he can tell himself it's okay. Like, I had a good thing and I've papered over the pain. But, like, White Lotus season three was very on my mind during this speech because of, like, all of the pain, pleasure, examination at the Buddhist temple. And, like, this is just...

This is so Victoria Ratliff, right? Yeah, like Perrin's a White Lotus guest, definitely. Like, you know? We owe it to enjoy our riches. Yeah, get Perrin in season four of Cold Lotus, please. I thought that every person watching this, like, there was, I mean, this is often the case when Leta is looking at her father, it's just pure admiration. Yeah. None of the vitriol that she reserves for her mother. Notable.

Vel just looks miserable. I thought Luthen's face was really fascinating here. There was a smile, and obviously he's often like...

revealing something and covering something and projecting something kind of all at once. But there was something in his eyes there. And I think, you know, if we think back to like, what did Luthan see when he looked out at Ferex and the way that he observes people and studies how they behave and what their impulses and tendencies are, and then how can he use that? But also like, are there ever moments where he is just like,

I am not thinking tactically about the cause here. I'm thinking about human nature. Like if we ever glimpse it for a second, even the possibility of it, it's interesting to me, but I just thought Mon looked like, I don't know, kind of simultaneously. Like she had a look on her face of actually like affection for him. I thought in 10, maybe tenderness is a better word. Like almost like I pity him. And I,

thought she looked so sad. Like just that there was this like, oh, this is how he, yeah, this is how he makes his way through the despair of our life together. Yeah. And this is like the ghost of who he used to be. Like I used to hear him do this, this thing that he's really good at for like political firebrands. Yeah, definitely. But like what does it mean if the person you're married to and share your life with stands in front of a room of people and talks about how miserable they are every day?

That's hard. She's like, I prefer to murmur it passive aggressively, but if you want to make a speech about it, that's fine. Oh man, very embarrassing all around. I loved it. Let's go to the wedding day. Speaking of hard to watch, Joanna, the antechamber Mon Leda moment. Mon thinking back to how her mother was drunk and how she never understood until right now this very moment why. She's like, I never forgave her.

And then she does the thing that we have wanted her to do, right? Which is decide actually that her daughter is...

more important than the cover that she needs from this alliance with Davo and the way that she needs to set up the foundation and the 400,000 credit, the missing guys like, no, don't, don't arrange a marriage for your 14 year old daughter. Like there's gotta be a different way. And you know that again, I want, I just, I do feel like there's slight nuance to this where she was like,

Of course, reluctant to do it. But then like, but then all Davo said was like, I just want them to meet. Yeah. And she was like, okay. And I really feel like it was Leda again, a child who doesn't know any better, but Leda who was like, she's all in. This is great. The old way is new again. She likes the tradition. So I feel like it's not like Mon was like, let me shove you into this. She obviously opened the door to something quite dangerous. Leda walked through it. And now Mon's like, come back to the other side.

side of the door I'm sorry I opened it so she's like she's culpable obviously but I don't think it's I don't know I just wanted to like slightly shade that I think like my I agree I think I agree completely but I think that's what's interesting about it it's like

For Mon, it's actually a betrayal of her personal belief. Yeah. Right? Like, the fact that it's, like, a Shandrillon custom, and it's also a thing that Mon participated in, like, when they're on the hike, and it's like, when was the last time this happened? When she's like, me and parent, you know? Like, this is when she's pulled from one of the chats and hears that the kids had their first fight and goes to Leda, and Leda's like,

You won't hold my hand. He's a child. And Mon is like, I'm just so sorry. And her pain in that moment felt so real. Like,

Okay, Leda likes to study and talk about the braid and sit with her fellow young zealots at the table. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And is like, yeah, I'm in. I want to get married at 14 in the custom of our people. That Mon is like, this is not what I want for her. This is not what I think is right. This wasn't what I ultimately wanted for myself. Yeah. But I...

It's the trade-off I'm willing to make and justify to myself. I think the fact that Leda is actually like, let's do it, makes Mon's portrayal of self more interesting as like a character beat because it's more internal. So...

the rejection of Leda here when Mon's like, we can just tell him. It's not time. Not time for marriage. And she's like, it will be brave. I thought it was so beautiful. She's like, it will be a very brave thing for you to have done if you do this. Like, come with me. Like, it'll be fine. We'll go. And then just the hard rejection. And like, again, like, I don't, I love Mon and I don't want to like. Me too. But I think that she's,

the best mom ever, Mom Mothma, because, like... That's why these characters are all great. Yeah. They're all so complicated. Like, you know, when Gilroy was saying of, like,

your favorite characters, the Maya pay brigade, like, you know, my best friends, the rebellion needs idiots. Like obviously Mon is not an idiot. Luthan is not an idiot, but the idea that just like, not everybody can be a like pure, uh, I am, uh, the, the like paragon of heroic justice. Like that's not actually the story he's interested in telling. Those aren't the characters he's interested in presenting us with. They're all complex. Um,

They're all at some point not only at war with each other, but at war with themselves. And I don't know if you've heard, but conflict in the human heart. Anything worth writing about? I really agree. Did you come up with that? It's possible that it's come up on some of our other podcasts at some point. Yeah, can't remember where. Oh, George, you're with us always. George Martin, not George Lucas, in case anyone listening to a Star Wars podcast is like, George? Joanna, please...

Walk me not into the circle. I don't want to go into the circle. I'd like that to be clear. But I have a knife. You don't want this knife? But walk me over the branch. Yeah, we're jumping through. And just like to the outside of the circle and take me through this custom that we witnessed. Okay.

Everyone's got incredible headdresses. They really do. And I think that's wonderful. Wonderful stuff from everyone. The way that Mon grudgingly puts on the leg this, that, and then snaps her hooded thing over. It was so good. Also, just the kind of choreography of the snapping of the headdress and the wiping of the tear. Yeah. Oh, my God. Really, really good.

Okay, so they go out. We hop over the branches laid by Davo and his mob wife. And then we're invited into the circle. And as we've mentioned, Invitation to Circles has been happening throughout these three episodes. Perrin hands his new son-in-law a knife. Yep. And the words are, it will not return this knife until...

Paris says, do with it as you wish. And this is an observation from our listener, Meg, which I thought was really interesting. She says, the ceremonial words spoken are pretty chilling, are pretty chilling when one realizes they absolutely represent a distant past where the choice lies with the bridegroom to either take the maiden as his wife or kill her. And that choice theoretically remains his throughout the marriage. Nothing like bringing a dagger to a marriage bed to make one rest easy. Yeah.

And Meg wrote this, actually, I should say, in the larger context of the way in which Bix's assault is the most explicit, but everywhere in the world they hurt women, they hurt girls. Like, everywhere. Yeah.

What do you think the girls chained up in Jabba's palace were up to? You know, like all of the things that we have seen that have been violations of women. And this is one of them. And Leia's like, let's do it. And then he slices the braid and it's just freshly unbraided and forever united. Mal, are you into that? It's a no for me. It's a no for me as both the introduction at the...

wedding reception and just as a general idea. It's a no for me. I am interested in the cutting of the braid as like a Padawan becoming a, moving into the, the graduating to the next stage of Jedi. It's like a comp. That's kind of interesting. Let's go to the reception time to party. And Tay is wasted and about to die. We talked about most of this already. He's just like explicit here, right? Uh,

Looks out at Davos, says it's a lesson for him. Lesson for them all. Speak up, stand up, make your point. Every time I'm with him, I'm reminded of how timid I've become. Mon's like, how often are you with him? How often are you with him? This final moment between Tay and Mon, she's like, I got to go. I got to peace out. Cinta's waiting in the car to murder me.

He sighs. How do you think she did it? Great question. Do you think she opened the hatch, put on her seatbelt, and just turned the car upside down? No. Maybe. I'm going to go with, like, poison. Poison? Okay. Yeah, passes him a drink, and it's got something in it. Doesn't sound as fun to me. But maybe she... Maybe she...

dropping him out of it i just think about that all the time with those with those particular vehicles you're the best you're the best what did you make of that moment between tay and mon when he's like he sighs and then he looks at her and he leans in and then he pulls back and it was so charged and there was just such a like air of regret for what could have been yeah

I poured one out for you. Thanks. And for him who's about to die. I'll miss him. For those who are about to die, we salute you. Take home. Oh, God. We got to talk a little bit more about this exchange between Mon and Luthan about the fact that Tay needs to die because this was like chilling.

This was the good shit here. This is so good. Okay, so he says people fail. That's our curse, right? Loved. And I love that you're comparing it in our notes here to rebellions are built on hope. But like people showing up every single time that a single person shows up, that's the only way rebellions happen. Not just rebellions are built on hope, but rebellion is built on every single little person showing up.

showing up and doing the right thing. So the fact that Luthan's like, people fail, that's our curse. Like that's, to me, that means Luthan's not going the distance on this rebellion. Do you know what I mean? It's fascinating. I mean, he's such a, I do think he's my favorite character in the show just from a kind of like intellectual perspective. What does it mean to be the person, one of the people, we talked about all the factions,

Who is like the driving thrust of this thing. I think when you say something like that and you don't – you are acknowledging and owning that you don't believe in it. That you don't believe it's possible on some level. Well, I actually think that he believes –

I mean, we know that he's damned, like all this sort of stuff like that. But I think he believes, at least in his era of this rebellion, that everyone is there just merely to be a puppet on his string. And they're not going to make the good right choice. He's going to manipulate, leverage, blackmail. Lonnie's not making any choices inside of the ISB out of the goodness of his heart. He's making choices because Luthan has...

backed him into a corner. He's like, sorry, I got you where I want you and I'm going to keep you there. Right. Like, so I feel like he's like, I can't rely on anyone to make the right and courageous choice. I need to blackmail. I need to manipulate. I need to leverage all this sort of stuff like that. Yeah.

But that is not going to get us to the finish line. We're going to need, like, Jin or so to, like, find her, you know, courage, et cetera, et cetera. So I don't think that he doesn't believe in the rebellion. No, but it's like he believes in the idea of rebellion, but he's building it with the component parts who he doesn't trust to hold up to last. Like, that's just so...

I agree.

What does it take to talk yourself into doing it every day? But also, what does it mean for all of those people that you consider their failure inevitable? Oh, yeah. Like, holy shit. And then I just, I love, you know, Cassian and Jyn as the voices of rebellions are built on hope when Cassian is one of the people learning at Luthen's knee. Like, to come out of it on the other end with a different perspective on what people are capable of doing.

being for each other is incredible. Like I want to view Andor simultaneously in a vacuum and is this connected text. And this is one of the, I think really rewarding moments for that inside, inside of these episodes. I love it. Let's talk about how nice for you. One of the best moments of the episode, I thought. I mean, three episodes. Get be fucking for real mom. When she says, I'm not sure what you're saying. Yeah.

Okay. How nice for you. Of course she knows. Of course you know. But she's not prepared to accept it and say it and do it. Like a little Gail, Joel, like, say it out loud. Silly way through. Yeah. You know, like, is like Mon, how does Mon assess herself and how does Luthan assess Mon in terms of where she is in the like,

get your hands dirty. Because as we've already talked about today, she is taking quite a bit of risk and she is vulnerable and she should be credited for that. But there's like a line still for her. And what Luthan says here is like,

If you're not crossing that line, then are you in it? Really? Like how nice for you is such a withering indictment of what she is ready to do. You know who's ready? Cinta. Oh, yeah. Cinta's ready. Clea's ready. You're not ready. Oh, yeah. Man, great stuff.

Anything else on the dancing? Yeah, I do want to say this. Shot after shot after shot. The costume designer said that they designed, you know, this beautiful coppery gown that she's wearing here and all the like the pleated gauzy fabric and all this sort of stuff. They designed it specifically for this dance scene so that when you could always find Mon on that in that floor from the way that the fabric is sort of like flapping around. Me too.

Incredible. I thought, I don't know, this is just incredible to watch. This is going to be one of the most memorable moments in all of Star Wars for me. Mon, like, dancing her pain away, like, as she knows what she's done. Like, I just think that's, it's so much more chilling than, like,

michael the godfather's a mess piece this is better than god the godfather but like michael carliano like sitting there stoically thinking about what he did to freda this is so much more disturbing yeah she's just like totally so damaged by this and i'm excited to see where it goes very human too it's like what's actually worse and more damning being the driver who turns the car upside down so that tay falls out of it probably what happened

Many people are saying. That's probably how it happened. Or saying you don't know what Luthan means and then going and drinking away your anguish and allowing that carefully manufactured facade to shatter for a moment so that you can pretend that you did not just... Be the drunk mom at the wedding. Yeah. Play a role in this thing. Be your mom. Be your own mom. Okay, Jo, let's talk about...

Some of our favorite fascists here in the old empire. Nazis. Let's do it. We're going to start before we head to Coruscant at the Matheline Divide because Krennic's back. I missed him. I love him. I think this is the last. I think this. Nope, it's not because we have to do Dead or at Home. This is the second to last note I have from the costumer, which is he was like, in Rogue One, Krennic wears this like

ready cape. He was like, we were unwilling to give up on the cape, so we just had to make an indoor version of the outdoor cape. It was the right call. Ben Mendelsohn really knows how to rock a cape. He's having a blast. Caves in.

capes are here uh get used to it yeah Deirdre and Pardigas are here as well they're part of the select few who have been summoned to this secret meeting don't put it in your calendar don't put it in your calendar and Krennic does a great job of simultaneously making the assembled feel chosen special knighted sanctioned and fucking terrified because he's basically like if you blow it the emperor will you pay um

I thought specifically the mention that like your superiors, if they're not in this room, then they're not cleared for the project was a really effective way of establishing like this is what it means to have gotten the call into this room. He's like, fuck you, Tarkin. Fuck you, Yolaren. I mean, they hate each other. Oh, yeah. It's just always wonderful when we get to like luxuriate in that for a second. Yeah.

This Gorman tourism video plays, and this was, I thought, like a brilliant stretch of the episode where it's like... One of the best things I've ever seen. Very funny, but obviously in a way that is like supposed to intentionally be like tonally disarming these like odd adjacencies of things that make us chuckle. And then we're like, wait, we're at a Nazi convention about how to annihilate a people? Like, this is horrible? Yeah.

And that is what Andor is able to achieve in its framing and the scene work. You flagged one of my favorite lines here, which is the experts have a fancier word, don't they always? Which is like funny, but it's like,

But then when we get to the sort of Ministry of Enlightenment, you know, this is anti-intellectualism. The experts have a fancier word, don't they always? Like, aren't they always putting on airs and coming up with a fancier word for just play it all spiders? You know, that's fascinating. Yeah, those are great. And also just like papering over the like actual kind of true naked nature of the thing, which is part of the propaganda machine that Deirdre is here to point out is not going to be sufficient enough. Yeah.

This was one of the richest scenes of just people casting side-eye glances at each other and, like, catching each other's eye. It's just really wonderful in that respect. And...

We learn what this meeting is about, which is like there's something on Gorman that's more meaningful to Krennic and the Emperor than the spiders and the fabled Gorman twill. And it is... Unlimited power? We literally get an unlimited power mention. I thought the whole, like...

Tony Stark-esque energy independence things are so funny. Obviously, they're making the Death Star. That's Project Stardust. This is what Krennic's role in the story is. They need this mineral underground to coat the reactor lenses. But the way that he's not saying what it is, but giving us all of the... I mean, the fact that it's Krennic alone is enough for us. But even just the like... So the project's due in three years? Yeah.

It's just a power industry. And we keep fighting with the Senate. We're just trying to create stable, clean energy for the galaxy. And the Senate keeps fucking fighting us in the funding committees. What the hell? Oh my God. This is just wild. This is so good. It's funny thinking about all the ways in which...

like trade tariffs, taxation or whatever inside of the fantasy menace, menace, menace, go like, oh brother, this is not what I want from star Wars. And I'm like, tell me more about the Senate initiatives and your, and your, and your power plan. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. What was Aragorn's tax policy? It was just about to say, what was Aragorn's tax policy? I literally was.

No, we're lockstep. Not everybody in this room is. Here's the thing. It's gouge mining. The risk is total collapse. Nine cities, 800,000 citizens. And of course, this is a recurring idea across Star Wars. This is another version of what we were talking about earlier. How do you achieve inside of your story the constant refrain and reminder that this is happening everywhere while also being like, it's important to see it here?

Yes. Seeing it here tells us something. We could be here all day listing examples of this in Star Wars. Obviously, in Rogue One, we have Jedha and the strip mining of the kyber crystals. We had Corvus and Mando. In season one of Andor, everything that happened with the...

The massacre of the Desonites was because they resisted the imperial presence on their planet. The empire will take what they need from you at any cost, right? Over and over and over again, we see examples of that. So the things that we learn here, like Partagas saying, well, they're not going to go quietly. Like relocation, come on. They're powerful politically. We can think back to season one when Man was...

advocating on behalf of the Gormans, the shipping lanes, all of these little crumbs. There are other things in the canon. I mean, it seems clear that this is just the beginning of the role that Gorman is going to play. We'll talk about it more presumably moving forward. But like the PR guys get up and just basically do a Kendall Roy succession routine here. Okay. I love that you went Kendall Roy succession. I went

Don Draper, Pete Campbell, Mad Men. And there's something about their gray shiny suits and their skinny black ties that read so Mad Men to me. But yeah, they're selling you on something. And I just think it's so creepy. Obviously, propaganda is creepy. It's extremely fucking Nazi-coded, as is all of this. Tony Gilroy has talked about in many interviews that this is based on an actual event, the Vonsi Conference. And

And there's a number of resources that you can, if you want to know more about this, but...

C.R. cited the one that I'm most familiar with, which is this film called Conspiracy, directed by Frank Pearson. It's got Touch of the Tuch, some Irish guy himself Tucci in it, Kenneth Branagh. And that basically over a catered lunch, the Nazis were like, this is how we will enact the final solution, right? The phrase that Andy used is perfect, banality of evil, right? That this is just like...

When they break for like bevies and snacks inside of this absolutely horrific...

moment is just like extraordinary the admiral who's like munching on hors d'oeuvres yeah when he says have you guys considered um a plague or a natural disaster and they're like we gamed it out it didn't work the numbers didn't play we already thought about it thanks for the suggestion uh certainly seemed notable that in all of the various little debrief um over coffee and lunch uh sidebars

Part of Gaz, his reaction to learning that they are planning to install an armory in Palmo in the town center was, excuse me? Like, he was struck by this in a shocking and notable way. So that seems worth mentioning. And then Krennic makes his way to Dedra at the window. She's processing. She's quiet. He's like, he knows talent when he sees it.

What's on your mind? Demands her assessment. He's like, I know you had a plan before those idiots stopped talking. And I love the way that she said, I'd like to know what I'm talking about before she finally offered it up. But he's right. Like, he invokes Pharax. This was fascinating. Another good moment where we can really feel the passage of time because it is clearly –

The stink from Ferex remains, but Dedra is so competent and so skilled that she has been able to survive it in a way that we can glean many others would not have. And what is the assessment that she shares, Jo? It's propaganda is not going to be enough. She says you need a radical insurgency you can count on. Count on for what? You need Gorman rebels you can depend on to do the wrong thing. It's such a – It's the Lutheran plan.

Well, it's the Luthan. Yes, it's the Luthan plan, but it's also like, this is a lesson she learned from Ferex, right? She's like, we squoze and there was this, but if we're in control of that and we can spin that and we can take advantage of that. And something I think that's so interesting to think about Tony Gilroy laying all of this out, this run from the beginning of Andor to Rogue One, is that what happens with Ormen is...

core Mon Mothma lore. Yeah. And he was like, this was a bargain. We knew that we were going to have to do this storyline for Mon Mothma. Like, Tony Gilroy as a creator who's like,

how much canon do I have to adhere to and how much do I not? Something like that. But he's like, this was something, if we get to play with the character Mon Mothma, we're going to have to do this storyline. And we wanted to make sure we did it really, really well and really, really right. So to think about like Ferex as this almost like test case on the way to Gorman is so fascinating to me, even as we're like growing the character of Andor and all the other things that the show is up to. Yeah. Yeah. I, I,

I was just the sheer volume of kind of canon ties that were handled so well here in these first three episodes was fascinating to consider based on that kind of like core relationship that the big Tony has. Yeah. Of course. It's really interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I like, you've clocked a few other aspects of these three episodes where we see the mirroring. And, of course, Luthan has acknowledged this directly, right? In the famous speech to Lani, like, condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. The fact that, like, when we talked about what Luthan was saying about Aldani in season one, you know, we need the fear. We need them to overreact. Inciting the Imperial response. Acceleration. Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah.

It was, we talked about that so much in season one. Like, what does it mean for one of the leaders of the Rebellion to sound like the enemy and then to hear Luthan really like... Name it. Yeah, name it. To see Dedra, like, in essence, presenting the same playbook, but for the other side, just felt like,

What a full circle moment here and what a rich text. Deirdre's got some regrets, though, about being so impressive in Krennic's eyes because she's like full Jon Snow walking back to Coruscant with Pardigas, with our guy Pardee. I don't want it. Well, she and Cyril are bonded by many things we'll talk about in a second, but like one of them is their like- Yeah, their love of fondue? Yeah, chalky pink fondue. That one can be really gross. Vile. Vile.

Wretched. The cakes look good, though. What I love, though, is that that decision came from, I guess, the design of the table. They designed her table after this, like, 1970s design that was, like, used specifically for fondue with, like, the Lazy Susan aspect in the center. And so Tony's like, let's just have them

me fondue. And then they made this like disgusting pink jelly bug fondue. Disgusting. Anyway. Very gross. But fondue. Cheese fondue. I love fondue. Delicious. But it looked like they were dipping sushi into Pepto-Bismol, so it's a no for me. But I love that it's so...

it's so 70s and it's so original Star Wars to take fondue you know what I mean similar to like the cereal containers inside of Edie's kitchen you know okay so she and Cyril are bonded by their their white whale pursuit of Axis right Cassian Axis and

and she doesn't want to give up her desk. Yeah. She's like, this is my thing that I'm working on. And I love when Partagas says, or Party, as you have named him in our notes. Thank you. Catch them first, then make them famous. That was an incredible, he had, as usual, banger after fucking banger. Humbling, isn't it? Both of us reminded of our place in the chain of command. It was also just historic. Yeah. It's just, um,

When is it not wonderful to be with our guy party? We're not only getting a glimpse into the daily work realities of Dedra, but also of Cyril. We are back in cubicle corner, but he's not sitting in one, Joe. He's leading orientation.

I don't know what is wrong with us that we love spending time with these characters so much, but we do, and that's just true. Cyril Karn, I love you. Cyril saying there's a future here for those who dare after relishing and sharing the tale of his heroics when he uncovered a cabal of corrupt purchasing agents to this guy who's just like,

Can I get my ID and like, can you tell me where the refresher is so I can sit down and get to work? You're freaking me out. This was just perfection. And we haven't even gotten to Edie coming over for fondue. Let's get to Edie. Here's the thing about Edie. This was the best. This was my favorite part easily of the entire thing. I know. And I'm like, I feel guilty, but it's so good. Deirdre at home. Yeah. Opera. Fit watch. Fit lord.

home Deirdre. This is my last costume designer note. They talked long, long, long about what she looked like at home. And he says...

She gets home. She's probably super relieved to take off the armor of the ISB highly tailored uniform. But in a way, she just sort of changes into another version of that. The colors are the same. She slips into clothes that are more comfortable, but also in a structured and formal way. She keeps that rigidity even in her private life. She believes so much in her morality and ethics that I think she can't ever let that slip. Her mentality is very black and white, and she only wears ivory and black this whole season. So...

So we're not going to see Deirdre in ring or green at any point. Fuchsia? No, no fuchsia for Deirdre. Just in the fondue. Rock in the heels. It's like a pale rose. Pepto. Pepto. Horrible. Pink. Rock in the heels. Looks great. Cyril's like, I mean, they're repulsive people. And also when he's like, I thought maybe. I got the groceries. I don't know.

What did it do to you to know that they were together? We talked so much about what seemed inevitable in season one, but she's looking out the window, the opera music's playing, and she hears the door, and he walks in, and it's like, okay, they're not just together. They live together? They're living together? It's time to meet mom? Rubbing a

over the lip when she's like, we can't cancel again. I mean. And then watching the rhythm of their life. Scary, scary bad people.

We'll keep saying it. But riveting to watch. Like, the prepping of the dinner, I thought that the fact that they both, like, have the moments in the mirror where they look at their outfits and then we get the great moment of Deirdre, like, practicing her smile. Obviously, all of the... They're made for each other, honestly. They really are. The way that they both... Cyril fixes the, like, slightly askew fondue prong, but the way that they were both just standing there waiting for the doorbell to ring together was, like...

The other thing I love about her apartment, we talked about this a lot in season one, but like the levels of Coruscant and the way that she's like much higher than Edie, but not as high as Mon is where Deirdre sits. Thank you. It's home.

Oh my God. And then, so then Edie just like every, this is my favorite thing that's ever happened. Hacks passive aggression into every single word she says. And again, please watch the video of the interview of Tony Gilroy and watch him talk about how Edie is his favorite character to write.

And how easy it is for a writer and how much he loves writing her. It makes sense. How could this not be the most fun thing you got to do? Don't you wonder what I thought you looked like? And then Deirdre saying, I'm afraid to ask was just so fucking perfect. There were too many good moments at the actual dinner fondue scene to like, we would just be reading, basically reading the script for seven minutes, which would be,

Quite fun. I'll offer up some of my favorites to you, and then I want to hear what your favorite moments were. Okay, it's a tie for me. I'm in a two-way tie, and I can't make a decision between Edie saying, doesn't like being called delicate, and Cyril saying, I was just asking if you wanted more sauce.

After the Kinderblock tale, which was like high comedy, but actually kind of an interesting insight into Deirdre's backstory that we'll talk about more in a second. Deirdre saying we had everything we needed. Edie saying, accept a mother's love. And then Deirdre saying, we didn't know what we were missing.

It's so funny because like all this stuff is so good. And then like Cyril running into his room and collapsing like a pile of laundry on his bed and stuff like that. I'm making you a wall-sized tapestry of him in that pose with like the one foot kind of kicking out. Incredible. But Deirdre, like Deirdre not being cowed and Deirdre just taking control of the situation.

Indeed. Impressive. Impressive, Dedra. Yes. Our listener Reagan did write in to point out that Dedra says, this is another bad BBY section. He says, the opening of the season tells us we're in BBY 4, as Maui well knows. That's four years before the Battle of Yavin, or about 15 years following Palpatine's establishment of the Empire of the Republic. Dedra, in an absolutely fantastic scene, standing up to Edie, says that her criminal parents died when she was three and that she was raised in an imperial kinder block. Imperial.

For that to be true, she would have to be three years old 15 years ago. That's assuming these Kinder Blocks were immediately established at the formation of the Empire, or they were public Kinder Blocks that very quickly changed curriculums. And sure, Denise Goh looks flawless, but something about that timeline does not add up. Good flag. Per StarWars.com recap, they said, Dedra grew up in what would later be named an inferior Kinder Block. Okay.

Sure. Feels like a little covering from good old Star Wars.com to me, but you know, great stuff. At least whoever wrote that had their BBY straight. And they were like, uh, honestly, you know what? All worth it. Yeah. All worth it for Deirdre to be like, my family don't have one. My parents, criminals, kinder block from three on. Um, but in terms of that idea of belonging, like finding a place of belonging in the way in which the empire, um, welcomes you in, gives you a uniform, uh,

says, you don't have to think about it. You're in the inner circle now, Dedra. Like, someone who grew up... Trains you to be a child soldier. Very federy. Yeah. Very true. All right. I thought that before the active Dedra to Edie challenge when Cyril has his cheek pressed onto their linens, just that there's a moment where Cyril is getting so visibly frustrated in classic Cyril-Edie fashion and has been belittled and embarrassed by...

And just there was, Deirdre looked at him.

And I was like, oh, this is real. Like, is this real? She cares. Yeah. And then I guess I had to confront the fact that maybe like my kink is watching Deirdre defend Cyril to his mother. It was like really good. It was fantastic. Like, I just loved everything about this. The game ends now. I mean, she brought fucking Uncle Harlow into it. She's like, I saw the ISB file. Cut the crap. She's like, I've been doing some research.

guess what this is so good it will be inversely proportional to the level of anxiety you generate in our lives incredible incredible stuff and then Edie's like love you love a strong woman I also love that Edie was just sort of like doing her weird shit with her cake and Deirdre was like using the tip of her spoon to curl off a little bit of like frosting shaving of frosting I'm more in the Edie camp in that one

Oh, yes. I know you love a dessert. I'm just like, I love a dessert. Let me mash it up and just like inject it into my veins via IV. Those cakes did look good. Cyril saying, what are you saying? I came up for the cakes. That was so fucking funny. They're the best. I love so many of the characters on the show, but this is just...

This is actually genius watching these characters together. Great stuff. And then that little like Cyril kind of being summoned, like called by the sound of his mother's laughter and going in like, what's happening here? And then he gets a compliment. And the way that he looked at Deirdre with like- Adoration. Oh my God, you did it. That was just incredible. What a first three episodes, Jo. Loved it.

I'm so excited. Me too. I'm full-blown Z's Mallory Rubin and say I'm pre-devastated. I'm pre-graving. I know. That we only have three more weeks with Andor. Why could this show not have been more seasons? Or released in a slower cadence. Or that. Or that. Or that. Do you want to share a favorite Easter egg before we go? Joanna Robinson.

Thanks, SmileyRubin. Thanks so much for asking me. I guess the project started as Patch on one of the folks at the chronic meeting was really good. I will also say the fact that Neimos, a season one song remix, and also the name of the planet where Cassian got nabbed,

and sent an Arkina 5. Is that essentially like Will Smith's Miami? It's the name of the plan and it's the name of the track. Wasn't it Space Miami? Wasn't that essentially where he was grabbed? Okay, great. Bienvenidos a Miami then. Sounds great.

I love it. That's a great pick. We already talked about, I think, my favorites are Pizos and Yavin 4. So instead here, I will go. Khafrein being the password, Khafrein, when obviously that's the Rogue One location is really a fun one.

Is that where he finds Tivic? Yeah. RIP. Tivic, not long for this world. Okay. All right, we did it. Thank you to the team, a big crew today. Once again, Steve Allman, John Richter, as always, for producing this episode. Cameron Dinwiddie, back with us for the first time in a while today to help with the video edit. Hello, Cameron. Thank you. Arjuna Ramgopal, as always, for his production supervision. And Jomi Adeneron for his work.

the social media. Joanna. Mallory. It was so good to be back with you to talk about Andorra. It was just like the cakes. Like, they're lovely. And so was potting with you.