Speaker 1: All Zone media.
Speaker 2: Whoa welcome back to it could happen here? A podcast
Speaker 2: about you know it happening here, which is what we
Speaker 2: what we all you know we know what's happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, and the it being rebellion in the here
Speaker 3: being a galaxy far far away, and then now being
Speaker 3: long long ago for this episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah we are. These are our May Day episodes. And
Speaker 2: nothing could make more sense on May Day than talking
Speaker 2: about and or the new season of the show and
Speaker 2: Or if you're not familiar with and Or it is
Speaker 2: a Star Wars show, and if you don't like Star Wars,
Speaker 2: or you just don't like the Disney Star Wars, if
Speaker 2: you've not enjoyed a Star Wars since you were six.
Speaker 2: This is not that kind of thing. This is a
Speaker 2: treatise on how revolutions do, can and should work, written
Speaker 2: by people who have a deep of knowledge, including a
Speaker 2: degree of on the ground knowledge of what some of
Speaker 2: this looks like. And it is an immensely important piece
Speaker 2: of media to be getting out right now. And we'll
Speaker 2: start by saying Disney evil, bad corporation. I'm not saying
Speaker 2: pay them for Disney plus Torrents exist.
Speaker 4: Yeah, raise the black flag, Raise raise the black flag
Speaker 4: once again.
Speaker 2: I don't care how you get this. And you know
Speaker 2: what I'll say this, I suspect the people making and
Speaker 2: Or don't really care how you get this. This has
Speaker 2: been the most financially successful show and generations. Fuck it.
Speaker 2: Get it like, don't don't pay Disney money if you
Speaker 2: don't want to. I have no issue with that. I
Speaker 2: don't know whose login I'm using it. I haven't for years.
Speaker 2: Garrison can vouch for that. Just just watch it.
Speaker 3: Be like Cassie and Or and Liberate and Or season
Speaker 3: two from from Disney, and watch it however however you
Speaker 3: feel comfortable doing so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, use your.
Speaker 4: F movie is use your here's your what? Yeah.
Speaker 2: This is a podcast about the current season of and Or,
Speaker 2: which is coming out in three episode blocks every Tuesday.
Speaker 2: The second three episodes, we're now up to six episodes,
Speaker 2: came out yesterday as we record this Tuesday of this week,
Speaker 2: and there's two more weeks of and Or coming. So
Speaker 2: this episode we're going to be talking about episodes one
Speaker 2: through three. We should probably start with a little If
Speaker 2: you haven't watched it, go watch it. Just watch season
Speaker 2: one and then you know you can watch season two
Speaker 2: and listen along with us if you're not, if you're
Speaker 2: a crazy person who's not going to do that will
Speaker 2: summarize season one for you, which is that there's this
Speaker 2: guy who grew up on a planet that was destroyed
Speaker 2: by the Empire. He essentially like lived as a hunter
Speaker 2: gatherer until you know, the war came to him and
Speaker 2: he was forced out of his home and grows up
Speaker 2: very angry, is taken in by some people who are
Speaker 2: kind of like petty criminals and petty almost petty rebels,
Speaker 2: you know, but not in the rebel alliance sense, just
Speaker 2: and that well, we're going to commit some crimes around
Speaker 2: the edges and try to get by. And the show
Speaker 2: is about this guy getting inducted into a revolutionary organization
Speaker 2: run by a man named Luthan that is that is
Speaker 2: simultaneously very centralized around him and also very decentralized, and
Speaker 2: that it's primarily him arming and getting information and attempting
Speaker 2: to direct cells that are themselves autonomous and often in
Speaker 2: conflict with each other, which is very realistic to how
Speaker 2: things like this start. On a historical level, everything that's
Speaker 2: happening in and Or is based in real history. Tony Gilroy,
Speaker 2: who is the showrunner has stated that the kind of
Speaker 2: bank robbing years of Joseph Stalin were one influence behind this,
Speaker 2: But there are a lot you can see and in
Speaker 2: fact there's a little bit of Portland at the end
Speaker 2: of season one. There's a number of things that have
Speaker 2: influenced this show, a lot of moments in history the IRA.
Speaker 2: Some of the IRA.
Speaker 3: Like post al Qaeda, like prison and Yes, resistance rebellion, Yes,
Speaker 3: for how terrorist cells like form underneath.
Speaker 4: And also very explicitly he talks about this in an
Speaker 4: interview like the Revolutions podcast by Mike Duncan. Is an
Speaker 4: influence on how on how this one?
Speaker 2: Yes was an influence on this Yes. So that's all
Speaker 2: to set this up. We're now going to talk about
Speaker 2: what happens in episodes one, two, and three of season two.
Speaker 2: You want to summarize them, gear.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's start with the first episode. So undercover rebel
Speaker 3: agent Cassian Andor steals in experimental tie Avenger, crashes it
Speaker 3: on a jungle planet and then finds himself in a
Speaker 3: sectarian split between this other rebel cell who just had
Speaker 3: like a DISASTERUS operation.
Speaker 2: Their leader got killed, so no one's really sure who
Speaker 2: should be running things.
Speaker 3: They capture Cassian because they think he's an Imperial pilot,
Speaker 3: and he tries to negotiate with them as their infighting continues. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: Imperial intelligence agents converge to develop a plan on how
Speaker 3: to squash potential resistance on the planet Gorman as they
Speaker 3: plan to extract calkite minerals from the planet's core, potentially
Speaker 3: endangering the stability of the planet.
Speaker 4: To build a dust star. By the way, yes, to
Speaker 4: build a dust star.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what's happening is these minerals are necessary to
Speaker 2: collect the system that makes the death Stars big planet
Speaker 2: destroying gun work. But at this point basically no one
Speaker 2: knows that, and the Imperial like intelligence Yeah, and they're
Speaker 2: being told that it's part of an energy independence project.
Speaker 3: Mon Mathma, the senator from Tandrella who eventually becomes a
Speaker 3: rebel leader in the Star Wars movies, is helping to
Speaker 3: plan the Traadcath wedding for her daughter against Mathema's own wishes,
Speaker 3: and she runs into some difficulties with someone who helped
Speaker 3: her clean up some of her financial blemishes to help
Speaker 3: finance the rebellion. So this is most of what happens
Speaker 3: in this first episode, we have some of some of
Speaker 3: Andor's previous comrades and planet Ferriks are on this like
Speaker 3: farming planet and they're nervous about potential inspection. So I
Speaker 3: guess specifically, do you have anything we want to talk
Speaker 3: about on this first episode?
Speaker 2: Yes, I want to talk about the scene where they
Speaker 2: talk about clearing out Gorman, because when they talk about
Speaker 2: mining it for this mineral that's necessary to make the
Speaker 2: Death Star, they're talking about basically doing deep fracking at
Speaker 2: the core of the planet that is going to make
Speaker 2: it uninhabitable, right Like, they're basically tearing out the core
Speaker 2: of this world that produces high quality textiles, right Like,
Speaker 2: it's famous kind of a luxury goods exporter. That's really
Speaker 2: all they make. There's these spiders there that make a
Speaker 2: nice kind of silk. That's what the planet does. And
Speaker 2: it's got this population of people who are used to
Speaker 2: being given a lot of autonomy because they make very
Speaker 2: this nice, this like luxury product that all they're rich
Speaker 2: people like, right so that the folks running there are
Speaker 2: public and in the early years when there was still
Speaker 2: more they're a public The Empire was still more on
Speaker 2: their republican side. Still people didn't want to talk with
Speaker 2: them too much because they make a luxury good. Right.
Speaker 2: There was a massacre there kind of early on in
Speaker 2: the Empire, when Tark and the target yeah, landed a
Speaker 2: cruiser on a bunch of protesters, killing them. But other
Speaker 2: than that, it's been pretty quiet for a while. There
Speaker 2: is like a small and not super competent or armed
Speaker 2: rebel cell starting up on the planet, and they have
Speaker 2: this big meeting the Empire does where everybody gathers at
Speaker 2: a castle with the guy who's in charge of building
Speaker 2: the Death Star to talk about how to clear off
Speaker 2: this planet. The meeting itself and this part of the
Speaker 2: episode is based off of the Vonse Conference, which was
Speaker 2: a conference held in nineteen forty two by Reinhart Heidrich
Speaker 2: and kind of managed by Adolf Eichman to plan the holocaust.
Speaker 2: This is where they actually sat down and talked about
Speaker 2: how are we going to build death camps, how are
Speaker 2: the death camps going to operate, how will we evacuate
Speaker 2: people to the death camps? All of that. Right, there
Speaker 2: was a meeting. A bunch of guys showed up. There
Speaker 2: are minutes of the meeting. Tony has stated, if you've
Speaker 2: watched there's a great TV movie it's like twenty years
Speaker 2: old at this point called Conspiracy. It stars Kenneth Brannaw
Speaker 2: as Reinhard Heydrich, who is the architect who was like
Speaker 2: the guy running the Holocaust. Initially it's stars Stanley Tucci
Speaker 2: as Adolph Eichman, an incredible iikman by the way, And
Speaker 2: this scene is deeply influenced by that movie. Right. There
Speaker 2: was another German movie also that, like the movie with Brannaw,
Speaker 2: was based off of. But but Tony Gilroy has said
Speaker 2: that movie was an influence and that this is based
Speaker 2: on the Bonse conference, and there's a couple of lines
Speaker 2: that are almost word for word. One of the big
Speaker 2: differences is there's a point at which they bring in
Speaker 2: a couple of PR agents who are outside of the empire.
Speaker 2: That's like an outside PR corporation and arm. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 2: I think they're an outside contractor who does marketing normally
Speaker 2: and is doing propaganda if I'm remembering right.
Speaker 4: I thinky're part of the Ministry of Enlightenment, is what
Speaker 4: they call it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, crediful name they have. They have some of
Speaker 3: the best bits, yes, from this meeting.
Speaker 2: Their job is to put out propaganda that makes the
Speaker 2: Gorman's look arrogant and unloyal and bad to everyone else,
Speaker 2: so that when they're massacred, no one will care. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Quote, hasn't there always been something a little arrogant about
Speaker 4: the gour Yeah, very good.
Speaker 2: It's it's very good.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: They're talking about how they like create false news stories
Speaker 3: and like influence public opinion to be weaponized in favor
Speaker 3: of the imperial project, the Ministry of Enlightenment. Stuff is
Speaker 3: very good. The other line I really like is from Dedra,
Speaker 3: one of the main characters from like the previous season,
Speaker 3: who has this like female isb agent and.
Speaker 2: She's sort of being made the aikman of the the
Speaker 2: Gorman Project.
Speaker 3: And like she talks with a chronic Ben Mendelssohn's character,
Speaker 3: like about how propaganda really only gets you so far,
Speaker 3: and instead what they will need to need to work
Speaker 3: on is actually like controlling the Gorman resistance from the inside,
Speaker 3: Like you need to count on rebels to do like
Speaker 3: the wrong thing at the right time. So about like
Speaker 3: like like astroturfing some kind of insurgency that can actually
Speaker 3: in the end service the Empire's interests, and like this
Speaker 3: is what she's talking about for her project being is
Speaker 3: actually like helping to influence the way that the resistance
Speaker 3: operates on the planet instead of just just focusing on
Speaker 3: like public opinion and propaganda and like military might.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: What I really appreciate about this scene is the degree
Speaker 2: to which it shows Number One, how information is siloed
Speaker 2: in a situation like this, how people are on a
Speaker 2: need like this room is informed at the start. Whoever,
Speaker 2: your bosses, if they're not in the room, they don't
Speaker 2: know about this. Yeah, and you don't tell them, Like
Speaker 2: we do not want the tightest of closed services. We
Speaker 2: are doing a genocide and we're not talking about it
Speaker 2: to other people.
Speaker 3: They report directly to the Emperor. No other people beneath
Speaker 3: the emperor knows what's happening. Yeah, and even the Emperor
Speaker 3: doesn't really know all of the details at this point.
Speaker 4: Like yeah, and this is like like the people are
Speaker 4: cutting out, like like they're cutting out, like the Rector
Speaker 4: of Imperial of the ISP, like they're cutting out the
Speaker 4: Director of Imperial intelligeny're cutting off, like grabbing off Tarkin,
Speaker 4: like they're cutting out, Like the most important people in
Speaker 4: Star Wars have no idea, Like it's not even clear
Speaker 4: to be the Vader. I mean, Vader probably knows, but
Speaker 4: there's no fucking mention of him at all either.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he can read mine, so I assume he's been
Speaker 2: able to like glean some things. But yes, he's.
Speaker 4: Not not involved in any of this shit because he's
Speaker 4: not a Dutch star guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again, this isn't like a massive population, so
Speaker 2: they're viewing this primarily as like a pr problem. So
Speaker 2: both you need to get out messaging that these people
Speaker 2: are arrogant and bad so that nobody supports them when
Speaker 2: we start killing them, and we need a terror cell
Speaker 2: that can be trusted to carry out attacks against the
Speaker 2: empire that will justify what we need to do, right,
Speaker 2: So that that's the point of this meeting. It's very
Speaker 2: well shot, it's very well done. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: understanding of like just history in it that I appreciated
Speaker 2: as a Holocaust nerd. That's a bad way to frame it, but.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that is a bad way to frame it. Yeah, Nope, nope, nope.
Speaker 2: Anyway, No, if you've watched these episodes and you loved
Speaker 2: them and you found that scene chilling, go watch Conspiracy
Speaker 2: with Kenneth Brannaw and Stanley Tucci. Oh, the Tuc, the Tuc,
Speaker 2: the twoch playing Iikman Garrison.
Speaker 5: Damn.
Speaker 3: Alright, let's go on a break and then come back
Speaker 3: to talk about episode two.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're back.
Speaker 2: Did you guys know, Uh, Stanley Tucci super pro Palestine.
Speaker 4: That's cool.
Speaker 2: Oh nice with an actor like that that I've really enjoyed.
Speaker 2: I always am like white knuckling it if I when
Speaker 2: I decided to google that, and I was pleasantly surprised
Speaker 2: with the Tuc. All right, that's what I got here.
Speaker 4: Let's do Episode two.
Speaker 3: The Empire arrives on this farming planet to complete inspections
Speaker 3: on Coruscant. Our little slimy weasel Sarril Karn keeps rising
Speaker 3: through the the Imperial ladder at the Bureau of Standards.
Speaker 3: Man Mathma's financial schemes to help secretly fund the rebellion
Speaker 3: start coming undone as one of her like backers or
Speaker 3: like the.
Speaker 4: Guy who's moving the money around for her.
Speaker 2: Yet he's helping her wash her money.
Speaker 3: One of her collaborators, take Kola, starts to kind of
Speaker 3: back out or ask for ask for some assistance, and
Speaker 3: is getting a erratic in his behavior as he's going
Speaker 3: through a divorce.
Speaker 2: And is making kind of vague threats about well, maybe
Speaker 2: I'll talk to someone about what I know, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if I if I don't get something out of
Speaker 3: this relationship, I might be forced to do something else
Speaker 3: to ensure like my safety and financial security. Meanwhile, Cassian
Speaker 3: is still on this jungle planet, held captive by these
Speaker 3: by these sectarian leftists, start firing at each other and
Speaker 3: totally totally break down.
Speaker 2: Literal circular firing squad. It's beautiful.
Speaker 4: They go full, they go full Red.
Speaker 2: Army, Japanese Red Army, thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Japanese Red Army, and Cassie and barely barely escapes over
Speaker 3: the course of this like multi day like conflict with
Speaker 3: the U, with the remnants of this rebellion cell, let's
Speaker 3: talk a little bit about this uh leftist infighting plot point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is something something I've never actually really seemed
Speaker 4: to pick it in you kind of like mainstream media thing,
Speaker 4: which is something that that happens in real movements, which
Speaker 4: is that when when movements suffer serious setbacks or when
Speaker 4: you know, and we see this more commonly in real life,
Speaker 4: when sort of like you know, the tide of a
Speaker 4: movement falls and everything starts falling apart. And these are
Speaker 4: people who just got absolutely obliterated in a battle, of
Speaker 4: their leaders dead, a bunch of their comrades died. One
Speaker 4: of the things that happens is in this is that
Speaker 4: this is when the this is when social movements evolve
Speaker 4: into infighting, you know. And this, this is what was
Speaker 4: happening inside of like the American Left roughly from twenty
Speaker 4: twenty one to twenty twenty four was you got you
Speaker 4: got this giant, really vicious cycle of infighting. Because this
Speaker 4: is this what happens when there's no longer a threat
Speaker 4: to hold. They've one together, and people have this tendency
Speaker 4: to because they've just lost. Right, everyone's trying to process
Speaker 4: the emotions of their defeat, of like the really serious
Speaker 4: psychological damage that they've suffered. Like in these battles, people
Speaker 4: lash out at each other because it's easier than trying
Speaker 4: to fight an enemy that has just defeated you. And
Speaker 4: you know, there's a complicating factor in this, which is that,
Speaker 4: like you know, these are also the periods when like
Speaker 4: rapists tend to get rean out right and when like
Speaker 4: abusers in the scene tend to get ran out. But
Speaker 4: on the other hand, Yeah, it turns into these really
Speaker 4: really nasty sort of sometimes just sectarians. Sometimes they're just
Speaker 4: sort of like, you know.
Speaker 2: I never liked this guy. People are getting in trouble
Speaker 2: for being bad. I'm going to just accuse this guy
Speaker 2: of some.
Speaker 4: Shit personality conflicts stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: And this is something that happens like every time there's
Speaker 4: a cycle. I mean I remember this God like, I
Speaker 4: mean you see this shit and scenes are like from
Speaker 4: like like two thousand, like thirteen fourteen, there was like
Speaker 4: a huge cycle of this. We're kind of cycles of
Speaker 4: this like twenty nineteen when things were kind of falling apart.
Speaker 4: As Occupy isis, this is just like something that's a
Speaker 4: reality of social movements that you don't ever really see
Speaker 4: to pick it. And the everything I think is fascinating
Speaker 4: about it is because and Or is the person who's
Speaker 4: watching it right, Andor has no idea what the fuck
Speaker 4: is going on with the Chulton Amax of this group.
Speaker 2: No, no, my pay is famous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he knows who like the leader is because Luthern's
Speaker 3: team has been like supplying them with weapons. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: they don't know about like the internal structures of these
Speaker 3: groups for like OPSEC reason no.
Speaker 2: And the leader's dead, like the leader got killed in
Speaker 2: this ambush rights. You hear about her. She's named in
Speaker 2: the first season my Pay. She's one of when when
Speaker 2: Forrest Whitaker in season one gives that very famous rant
Speaker 2: where he's talking about all because he's the anarchist militant
Speaker 2: leader and he's talking about all the different groups set
Speaker 2: Separati galaxy, they're lost, all of them, clarity of purpose.
Speaker 2: He talks. He names my Pay along with the other
Speaker 2: different So she's clearly a fairly well known I think
Speaker 2: she's a republic restorationist kind of person, So basically a
Speaker 2: social democrat militant leader and her group's just gotten fucked
Speaker 2: and she is dead, so he knows of them, but
Speaker 2: he doesn't know them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and because of that, you get you get, you
Speaker 4: get you get two things at the same time that
Speaker 4: I think are both really important. One is that you
Speaker 4: get to see what this kind of like infighting looks like,
Speaker 4: right like like actually depicting television. You get to see
Speaker 4: what happens when when movements fail and when people start
Speaker 4: to invite. In two, you get to see what it
Speaker 4: looks like from the outside from Andrew's perspective where he's
Speaker 4: looking at these people, He's like, what the fuck is
Speaker 4: wrong with you people? All of you guys are clowns.
Speaker 3: These are fucking children, Like I'm doing a serious job.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And this is also a thing that you get.
Speaker 4: This is a real movement dynamic where it's like, you know,
Speaker 4: you're watching people who after twenty twenty or something, you know,
Speaker 4: you've been through your first movement and you're in your
Speaker 4: first movement psycho collapse, right, you've been doing this, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, you know, if you're doing this for like
Speaker 4: a fucking decade and you're watching all of these people
Speaker 4: do this shit again, and it's just like, oh god,
Speaker 4: fucking damn it. Like the kids are like, you know,
Speaker 4: they haven't been to this before. It's really traumatic, and
Speaker 4: they're doing all this like completely incomprehensible bullshit, which is
Speaker 4: also like on the outside, if you look into this
Speaker 4: as someone who's not part of one of these scenes
Speaker 4: and you're seeing all this drama, it's just like, what
Speaker 4: the fuck is wrong with you people? Like why are
Speaker 4: you doing this? And the fact that you're getting all
Speaker 4: of this like you know, fucking Disney Show is fascinating.
Speaker 2: It's why I mean, and it shows the depth of
Speaker 2: knowledge and the ya the sheer amount of understanding that
Speaker 2: the people writing this have of how movements go. Again,
Speaker 2: it's granular, and it's to a degree like based in
Speaker 2: some real experiences that some people on this team have had,
Speaker 2: Like you don't understand stuff like this otherwise.
Speaker 3: And as this group is like interrogating Cassie and try
Speaker 3: to trying to figure out who he is, Like they
Speaker 3: keep trying to dig into like what rebel group Cassiine
Speaker 3: is like a part of, and like who he's working with,
Speaker 3: and he's like refusing to give them this information because
Speaker 3: that's good security culture. And they're like, but you know
Speaker 3: who we work with and he's like, yeah, you shouldn't
Speaker 3: have told me yet, shouldn't have said that that was bad,
Speaker 3: very very good stuff.
Speaker 2: And it's God it starts, you know, we didn't say
Speaker 2: this with with episode one. Episode one starts with another
Speaker 2: beautiful Cassian speech when he's because he's he's infiltrating as
Speaker 2: a tie fighter pilot this base where he's stealing an
Speaker 2: experimental craft and there's a young woman there who's like
Speaker 2: a technician who is his in right and who's clearly
Speaker 2: just made her break with the Empire, and she like
Speaker 2: meets him briefly. She's like, sorry, I know, I'm not
Speaker 2: supposed to look at you. I'm not supposed to talk
Speaker 2: to you, and he like grabs me. He's like, no,
Speaker 2: this is what it's all about, is the moment of
Speaker 2: connection between us where we both after all of like
Speaker 2: this being frightened and alone in the dark, were together
Speaker 2: and we know that we're doing something. This is what
Speaker 2: every this is, this is everything, and this is the
Speaker 2: moment you find yourself.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, from yourself and this is an everything that
Speaker 4: that That was the moment in this season where I
Speaker 4: was like, oh, okay, so the people are it's still
Speaker 4: the same people. It's like these are people who are
Speaker 4: just of the left in a way that you don't
Speaker 4: really ever see even with like old communists who are
Speaker 4: writing stuff. It's like I have given this speech to people, yeah,
Speaker 4: like dozens and dozens of times, like this is the
Speaker 4: thing that if you do this work, like you have
Speaker 4: literally given this speech to a new person about like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: like this is the reason where and like it's just
Speaker 4: fucking I'm just like my mind is blown that this
Speaker 4: shit is just like appearing in mass media where people
Speaker 4: who aren't from these movements are just like encountering this.
Speaker 2: And the reason why again when I say and Or
Speaker 2: is like historically profitable. After the first season, every year afterwards,
Speaker 2: for a couple of years, the number of people watching
Speaker 2: it increased, which by which I mean each year after
Speaker 2: it came out, more people watched it than had watched
Speaker 2: it in the year it came out. And that doesn't
Speaker 2: happen to TV. Yeah, it simply is not how television works,
Speaker 2: which is why Disney was like, here is a quarter
Speaker 2: of a billion dollars make and Or season two.
Speaker 3: Man, this is the first time Star Wars has like
Speaker 3: visually looked good in like a decade.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god, and it looks incredible.
Speaker 4: It looks gorgeous, gorgeous.
Speaker 3: There's so many super long like tracking shots this season
Speaker 3: where they're going through like massive sets. Yeah, with all
Speaker 3: like like singular like one takes, and like you know,
Speaker 3: all the previous Star Wars shows are filmed on these
Speaker 3: like digital sound stages with like you know, led screen backgrounds,
Speaker 3: but like you cannot achieve this level of like in
Speaker 3: real life like fidelity on like a digital background screen.
Speaker 3: Like these are huge sets, Like specifically the Chandrilla set
Speaker 3: is like massive as you walk around like modern Mathma's
Speaker 3: like senate estate or whatever for this for this tradcath
Speaker 3: wedding that we'll talk more about in the next episode. Yeah,
Speaker 3: just like really really like excellent craftsmanship going into this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just beautiful. Okay, speaking of beautiful set design. All right,
Speaker 2: we're back.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about the finale of this little three episode arc.
Speaker 3: Cassian's trying to contact Lutheran and learns that his friends
Speaker 3: on the farming planet are actually being subject to some
Speaker 3: kind of imperial inspection. He's advised to not go there,
Speaker 3: but of course he does anyway to check on his
Speaker 3: friends as his Star Wars tradition a lah Luke skywalker.
Speaker 3: In episode five, people on this planet are trying to
Speaker 3: evade this inspection by forging emergency work orders, but their
Speaker 3: scheme falls apart. They might have been rated out by
Speaker 3: one of the top guys running the silo, and imperial
Speaker 3: officers arrest and interrogate.
Speaker 4: People for not having proper work visas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the people on this planet are Cassian's friends
Speaker 2: from season one who he lived with, like the guy
Speaker 2: who was effectively his big brother.
Speaker 4: Brasso.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Brasso, the guy who hits the cop with the
Speaker 3: brick in the finale season one.
Speaker 2: Your goddamn righty Brick's a cop. And then Bicks, who
Speaker 2: is his girlfriend partner type person kind of off and on,
Speaker 2: and then because of her connections to him, gets horribly
Speaker 2: tortured in season one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and as well as young terrorist Willem, who throws
Speaker 3: a pipe bomb into a crowd of stormtroopers in the
Speaker 3: finale of season one. So these three are in hiding
Speaker 3: on this farm planet and are now in trouble because
Speaker 3: these Imperial Inspections and immigration officers are are on their tail.
Speaker 3: On Triandrilla, Man Mathma talks to Luthen, who's there for
Speaker 3: for work because he's like he's like an he's like
Speaker 3: an artifact, like a dealer. But she tells Luthen that
Speaker 3: the guy that that they were working with to to
Speaker 3: help Man Mathma secretly fund the rebellion is showing some
Speaker 3: erratic behavior and and and may and may need to
Speaker 3: be like, you know, bribed to keep quiet. Luthen, being
Speaker 3: smart and serious, knows that no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 3: you cannot simply bribe this man into silence. This man
Speaker 3: needs to get taken out right now. You need to
Speaker 3: close this.
Speaker 2: He brought in the cops like he brought him the
Speaker 2: fucking cops like he brought He has to die. That's
Speaker 2: the way these.
Speaker 3: Threatening to snitch. He This guy needs to get dealt
Speaker 3: with immediately. The other plot point that I don't think
Speaker 3: we'll have much talk about but is very excellent. Our
Speaker 3: slimy weasel Cyril Carn and his new abusive girlfriend Dedra
Speaker 3: have have Cyril's wonderful mother over for dinner in just
Speaker 3: a fantastic, fantastically uncomfortable seed. In less happy occurrences, as
Speaker 3: the Imperial officers investigate and search this farming planet, one
Speaker 3: of them tries to sexually assault Bix inside their little
Speaker 3: r V home. Bix kills him, and eventually and Or
Speaker 3: arrives with a tie. Avenger takes out this this Imperial
Speaker 3: battalion and Bix and and Or and the Kid are
Speaker 3: able to escape, and Brasso unfortunately dies in a high
Speaker 3: speed speeder chase.
Speaker 2: He dies. It's it's it's an under It's like a
Speaker 2: believable move. Someone would make it under fire, But like man,
Speaker 2: there's tall fucking grass. Just drop go to the ground.
Speaker 2: Don't get on a motorbike while you're above the fucking crops,
Speaker 2: like get on the ground.
Speaker 4: High stressful environment.
Speaker 2: Rights.
Speaker 4: It sucks, but it's but it's really people.
Speaker 2: Do stuff like that all the time in gunfights. Yes,
Speaker 2: So it's it's one of those where I was like no,
Speaker 2: but also like, yep, that that's what happens. Yeah.
Speaker 4: One of the things that isn't really being talked about
Speaker 4: with the show, but I think it is actually is
Speaker 4: very important, is that it is absolutely unflinching in his
Speaker 4: depiction of patriarchy, Like I mean there's you know, there's
Speaker 4: this sort of obvious, horrifying scene of like this ice guy.
Speaker 4: I mean increasingly over over the course of this thing,
Speaker 4: like just going from like hey, if you like date me,
Speaker 4: you can not get deported because we have to maintain
Speaker 4: the I know you're illegal, and that's.
Speaker 2: Fine, and we know we need a bunch of you.
Speaker 2: We're not here to arrest everyone, right because we need
Speaker 2: the crops from this planet. But I am going to
Speaker 2: arrest some people, and I can make sure it's not
Speaker 2: you if you go on a quote unquote date.
Speaker 4: With me, yeah, and then you know, and it's just
Speaker 4: an escortates from there is just straight up like sexual assault, right,
Speaker 4: and this is really really I mean obviously it's jarring
Speaker 4: because it's you know, like it's an on screenscript depiction
Speaker 4: of a tempto sexual assault and then she like does
Speaker 4: a fight and she kills them, right. But this was
Speaker 4: also very very jarring to a lot of people because
Speaker 4: people are very and this is a Star Wars thing too,
Speaker 4: they are very used to seeing fascism depicted through its
Speaker 4: own self perception.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: People are very very used to seeing fascism as something
Speaker 4: that is strong, that is ordered, as discipline that is dangerous.
Speaker 4: And the problem is the reality of fascism is that,
Speaker 4: like a lot of it is just a bunch of
Speaker 4: tipshit rapists who are like pretending to be those guys. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and you know, and this is one of the things
Speaker 4: Andrew has always been very very good at is you
Speaker 4: saw this last season right with Withddra who is her
Speaker 4: thing is that she is, you know, of the very
Speaker 4: common American archetype of the cop who breaks all the
Speaker 4: rules to get the job done. And then you know,
Speaker 4: and then like that that's how she first is first introduced,
Speaker 4: and then you see what that actually looks like in public,
Speaker 4: which is you know, she is just straight up torturing
Speaker 4: bis with like the screams of an entire the desk
Speaker 4: room of an entire species. And that's in season one. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's the season one. And and what's powerful about this
Speaker 4: is something and Er also does int of the prison
Speaker 4: break episodes, is like this this fascist self perception, right
Speaker 4: of this sort of strong ordered, discipline, unified thing that
Speaker 4: is just propaganda. They are not actually like that behind
Speaker 4: the scenes, right, It's just these fucking incredibly violent, like
Speaker 4: petty losers doing this fucking shit. And then you know,
Speaker 4: I mean the other thing about about the sort of
Speaker 4: patriarchy side is that you see this on the other
Speaker 4: side with with mon Mathma's like, you know, her sort
Speaker 4: of like money cleaner, who's who's what her old friends
Speaker 4: take Coleman like like literally is is demanding that like
Speaker 4: mo Mathma have sex with him in order for him
Speaker 4: to keep keep doing this money washing shit. And this
Speaker 4: is also something you see in movements all the time,
Speaker 4: which is like guys with resources using their access to
Speaker 4: resources to force themselves on women, like in the movements
Speaker 4: and this, and you know, and there's there's like A
Speaker 4: third dynamic here with with take homa, which is like
Speaker 4: another thing you see all the time in movements is
Speaker 4: guy going through a divorce who goes completely off the
Speaker 4: fucking rails and starts doing shit that dangers everyone and
Speaker 4: you know, starts doing sort of like weird predatory shit,
Speaker 4: and I think, I don't know, there just hasn't been
Speaker 4: much analysis of like, yeah, this is these are all
Speaker 4: ways things like if you have been in movements, you
Speaker 4: have experienced patriarchy and all of these ways. You have
Speaker 4: experienced cops doing shit to you, you have experienced stuff
Speaker 4: from inside the movement.
Speaker 2: Fuck. A big part of how the major Greens organizations
Speaker 2: that were dismantling the Green Scare were taken down was
Speaker 2: through members of these different groups who had been doing
Speaker 2: direct action who were misogynists.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: That is always an easy, easy way to break into
Speaker 2: and shatter a movement is find the guy who's got
Speaker 2: that going on about him and turn him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, and you have that on one hand.
Speaker 4: On the other hand, with like the cops, this is
Speaker 4: like a very very common like cops just like sexually
Speaker 4: assaulting people for fun. It's like a thing that they
Speaker 4: do all the fucking time. And same thing with ice,
Speaker 4: because I mean this is obviously like o't think you
Speaker 4: say like this is this is just literally one to
Speaker 4: one they're doing ice raids and Star Wars. Yeah, and
Speaker 4: the heroes are the people who like and or coming
Speaker 4: back with a tie fighter blowing them up right, like
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Also I do want to on someone landa know, I
Speaker 4: do want to point out that like this show also
Speaker 4: quietly has had like the most realistic lesbian relationship in
Speaker 4: all of Star Wars, and this season is like, oh,
Speaker 4: someone on this crew is a lesbian because they have
Speaker 4: depicted my culture perfectly, which is h the you know, Okay,
Speaker 4: so like the rich girl lesbian and the like broke
Speaker 4: non white like gorilla lesbian who came from nothing, his
Speaker 4: family was killed by the Empire, get together as an
Speaker 4: intense item dread in operation and then the moment the
Speaker 4: operation is over there broke girl was like, fuck, this
Speaker 4: was a bad idea. And now they keep running into
Speaker 4: each other in movement things that are like they're sort
Speaker 4: of avoiding each other, and one of them is still
Speaker 4: the perfect in fiction to lesbian culture. Incredible. No notes
Speaker 4: loved the lesbian rebels. I'm happy for them.
Speaker 2: Oh incredible, Yeah, it's it's it's beautiful stuff. The quality
Speaker 2: of the writing, like everyone was worried who loved and
Speaker 2: or season one? Like well fuck, how could it? How
Speaker 2: could they possibly? How can they possibly compare with Season one?
Speaker 2: And uh, it's just getting better. It's just they did
Speaker 2: it again somehow, you crazy bastards. You did it again.
Speaker 4: The thing I want to close on was with this wedding,
Speaker 4: which is there's a bunch of really fascinating things about it.
Speaker 4: One is that okay, so on the very nonsubtle level,
Speaker 4: like they are cutting back and forth between everyone dancing
Speaker 4: to this like sort of tech upbeat techno thing, Like
Speaker 4: they're cutting back and forth between like mon Mathma dancing
Speaker 4: at this wedding, and like the ice raid that's happening,
Speaker 4: which is like, you know, this is the level of
Speaker 4: political subtlety that you need to be working on with
Speaker 4: the American people. You have to just be like I'm
Speaker 4: hammering you over the head with the point which is
Speaker 4: like all of you motherfuckers are going to brunch and like, yeah,
Speaker 4: the ice rays are happening.
Speaker 3: Well, that is an aspect. I think it also proves
Speaker 3: there you can operate in that zone because men Mouthma
Speaker 3: is still a very important figure.
Speaker 2: Yes, starting is not just a useless lib, right, she's critical.
Speaker 3: And you have someone like like Lucian who can put
Speaker 3: on nice clothes, can can do this persona and extract
Speaker 3: intel at this party In one in one of the
Speaker 3: previous episodes, he's like talking with this guy who introduces
Speaker 3: his son who is in the Imperial Navy, and he
Speaker 3: was talking about like like like a like a recent
Speaker 3: operation on a planet, and Luten was like, oh, really
Speaker 3: tell me more, and like it's like you can, you can.
Speaker 3: You can still extract information at these like places where
Speaker 3: power is like flaunted and exchanged. Yes they are still bad,
Speaker 3: but if you are like an aspiring rebel, yeah you
Speaker 3: can use these places to your advantage. But no, there
Speaker 3: absolutely still is this is this juxta position of yeah,
Speaker 3: this like you know riotous party with with like this
Speaker 3: horrific ice raid and yeah, the material conditions in these
Speaker 3: people's lives is very different. Even even if mont Mathma's
Speaker 3: doing good stuff still as like an Imperial senator, her
Speaker 3: everyday life is very different to complete someone who's having
Speaker 3: to hide from like ice agents.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: The other thing though, that is going on in this scene.
Speaker 2: It's not purely these are the wealthy partying as these
Speaker 2: nightmare raids go down. The other thing that's going on
Speaker 2: is mon Mathma is emotionally accepting this guy who was
Speaker 2: was my lover for a long time and who is
Speaker 2: a dear friend of mine is going to be killed.
Speaker 2: And I have accepted the necessity. And the only thing
Speaker 2: for me to do right now is to get so
Speaker 2: drunk that I can't feel it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, is to do drugs, wreck drink.
Speaker 3: And that's how you exist under like the horrific conditions
Speaker 3: that the Empire forces you to live under.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And there's this fascinating thing. And I know this especially
Speaker 4: watching back season one. If you look at it, if
Speaker 4: you go back and watch those scenes and you look
Speaker 4: at the way it's lit. You look at the way
Speaker 4: that there's just the stark like white light coming through
Speaker 4: the windows. This is not how it's lit in season one, right,
Speaker 4: This is a very deliberate choice. Almost everyone else who
Speaker 4: does this scene would do this sort of like warm, rich,
Speaker 4: like golden lighting, because that's like that's how you do
Speaker 4: these sort of like fancy wedding things. And this the
Speaker 4: way that it is lit is the same way that
Speaker 4: they're lighting all of the like like the stark white
Speaker 4: imperial corridors, and there's this very you know, and so
Speaker 4: like like it's working on like all of these sort
Speaker 4: of like levels of like like visual metaphor of of
Speaker 4: all of this just like oh yeah, this is also
Speaker 4: imperial space, right, and everyone here is operating either like
Speaker 4: regardless of what side they're on, they're operating like in
Speaker 4: imperial terrain in this sort of like thing. As Asma
Speaker 4: Motha also was just dealing with like her kid becoming
Speaker 4: a tradcath and like trying to talk her kid out
Speaker 4: of being a tradcat or a kid. FU share at
Speaker 4: her for being like, hey, maybe you shouldn't do this
Speaker 4: like weird marriage thing when you're like a child, like
Speaker 4: twelve year old marriage. Yea, yeah, yeah, I think I
Speaker 4: think the place I want to end on is there
Speaker 4: was a really interesting thing where like the Disney account
Speaker 4: like just posted a video like I think it was
Speaker 4: on Twitter that was just one the like one hour
Speaker 4: of monthmaed dancing. Yeah, And there was like a fascinating
Speaker 4: reaction to this of like like cause on the one hand,
Speaker 4: there's like always people like who I know, Victoria Zeller,
Speaker 4: who's a trans writer who I follow, who probably we're
Speaker 4: talking to on the show at some point soon I
Speaker 4: had this thing, but like, oh yeah, like there are
Speaker 4: also there's just gonna be weddings that are like based
Speaker 4: on this chenduline wedding thing, and like in like two
Speaker 4: or three years, we're gonna be seeing this And there's
Speaker 4: just interesting dynamic where like on the one hand you
Speaker 4: have the people who were just completely focused on the aesthetic,
Speaker 4: and then the other hand you have the people who
Speaker 4: were like, oh yeah, I like this is this is
Speaker 4: fucking me getting just absolutely fucked up as like all
Speaker 4: of the fucking horrors play out around us and having
Speaker 4: to like deal with and fight all the fucking horrors
Speaker 4: while like all of the people around me are just
Speaker 4: like kind of just completely checked out. And I thought
Speaker 4: it was just like fascinating watching that sort of play
Speaker 4: out on social media and on in real life like this,
Speaker 4: you know, they're being very very literal about how it works,
Speaker 4: and it's working. I'm seeing people do it.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The last thing I do want to mention is just
Speaker 3: a big shout out to Cyril. To Cyril Karn's Italian
Speaker 3: Jewish mother.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, the best, the best villain in Star Wars.
Speaker 2: Darth Vader ain't got shit.
Speaker 4: Not nearly as scary as Cerrel Krn's mother.
Speaker 2: No, I would take him in a fight over her
Speaker 2: any day.
Speaker 3: How However, one of the interesting parts about this little
Speaker 3: like like dinner party is how Cyril Krn's like FBI
Speaker 3: agent abusive girlfriend. The moment Cyril is out of the room,
Speaker 3: she like takes control of this mother, using like all
Speaker 3: of her like imperial interrogation and like intimidation tactics, and
Speaker 3: it's like, no, no, no, you don't understand how this
Speaker 3: relationship is going to go. I am in charge here.
Speaker 3: I will dictate when Cyril can see how. I will
Speaker 3: dictate how your relationship with your son is going to go,
Speaker 3: because like Cyril is like my pet, like I run
Speaker 3: everything and things will go according to my wishes.
Speaker 2: See. I had a very different interpretation of that really,
Speaker 2: because number one, she is not on board she's going
Speaker 2: to be doing part of the Gorman genocide. She doesn't
Speaker 2: like the plan, she doesn't like that she's involved. This
Speaker 2: is not what she wants to be doing. She wants
Speaker 2: to be hunting Luth yes, I agreed, And I think
Speaker 2: part of it is that she doesn't like and I
Speaker 2: think this will become increasingly clear she's not thrilled that
Speaker 2: Cyril's going to get involved in this shit because it's
Speaker 2: dangerous what I thought they were kind of showing. We've
Speaker 2: been seeing her like abuse him. I don't think we've
Speaker 2: seen her be mean to him other than like initially
Speaker 2: when that before they were dating, she didn't take him
Speaker 2: seriously until she saved her life.
Speaker 3: Well, I know he's like a weird stalker beforehand, he is.
Speaker 2: A little bit of a stock and.
Speaker 3: She is, like I think you can absolutely interpret some
Speaker 3: of some of her behavior as like a degree of
Speaker 3: like emotionally.
Speaker 2: Abu says fascist couple before their dating.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe I don't know fascist for fascist couple.
Speaker 3: I think there's elements and including like the earlier scene
Speaker 3: of them in the apartment, where like both of them
Speaker 3: are like very uncomfortable around each other.
Speaker 2: They're awkward people, but like they're I one of the
Speaker 2: things I appreciated about this is that like she is
Speaker 2: a monster. We see her doing exclusively evil things, and
Speaker 2: then Cyril, because his mom is so cruel to him,
Speaker 2: does the most relatable thing anyone does in this show
Speaker 2: and goes and lies down on his bed and has
Speaker 2: a panic attack in the middle of their dinner. And
Speaker 2: that's when she and that's when she says, look, bitch,
Speaker 2: this is how shit's and she's being a good girlfriend
Speaker 2: in that moment, she's getting his mom off his back.
Speaker 4: I definitely interpret this scene differently. She did also threaten
Speaker 4: to arrest his uncle, like.
Speaker 3: She does threaten to send his uncle to forever jail. Yeah, no,
Speaker 3: I can see how you would read it that way.
Speaker 3: I think I definitely do interpret this scene a little
Speaker 3: bit differ. Yeah, And I think the beauty of good
Speaker 3: writing is this ability to look at this relationship in
Speaker 3: multiple ways.
Speaker 2: What I like about the way The Empire is written
Speaker 2: is that they're not caricatures, but not in a way
Speaker 2: where they're being like, well, the Empire's got a point,
Speaker 2: but in the way that like, yeah, these are people,
Speaker 2: and I understand how folks, why folks would want to
Speaker 2: be a part of this system outside of just like
Speaker 2: the cruelty that it does. Like Partigaz, who is like
Speaker 2: the leader of the ISB section that we're watching, is
Speaker 2: a really good boss. He listens to his subordinates. He
Speaker 2: tells them when their ideas suck. He does not spare
Speaker 2: their feelings, but he's he rewards initiative and he's willing
Speaker 2: to like be proven wrong or argued with, Like when
Speaker 2: people are forceful against him and make a good point,
Speaker 2: He's like, all right, well let's try it. And I
Speaker 2: love showcasing that in the same way that like, if
Speaker 2: you talk to people who worked for, like work for
Speaker 2: companies like Raytheon, they'll be like, yeah, it was a
Speaker 2: nightmare evil that we were making, and like a very
Speaker 2: healthy working environment. And that is often the case with
Speaker 2: some of the most evil organizations on the planet, Like
Speaker 2: people who are very good at managing people often wind
Speaker 2: up Like That's what makes fascist systems so dangerous. It's
Speaker 2: not that everyone in this is incompetent. It's that there
Speaker 2: are sometimes people who are very good organizers and very
Speaker 2: competent leaders who wind up in these systems, and that's
Speaker 2: part of what allows the evil to happen.
Speaker 4: The point of Android, the point of Star Wars is
Speaker 4: that also you could out organize them and beat them.
Speaker 2: So message of hope, yes, yes, I mean fundamentally the
Speaker 2: show is very hopeful because the empire. Number one, we
Speaker 2: know the empire falls, but number two we're seeing we're
Speaker 2: seeing like why right, which is this attempt to control
Speaker 2: everything that inevitably creates more fires than you can put out.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The tighter they hold their grip, the more systems will
Speaker 3: slip through their fingers. Yeah, yep, which is the line
Speaker 3: from the theory twin in season one.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I think what makes androwsist is this, This does
Speaker 3: fill in this gap of like when we jump into
Speaker 3: like a new hope, you have this fully like complete
Speaker 3: like rebel alliance, right. It is It is an alliance
Speaker 3: of different rebel cells that have come together to do
Speaker 3: like like a large scale military action. It takes a
Speaker 3: lot of build up to get an alliance of rebel cells,
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of like individual like rebel terrorist cells
Speaker 3: have usually have a very hard time working with each other. Yes,
Speaker 3: and it's very hard forget them to coordinate and and
Speaker 3: or is the story of watching these like many different
Speaker 3: cells slowly start to figure out that maybe it would
Speaker 3: make more sense if we work together instead of just
Speaker 3: doing random small crimes and like hits on individual planets
Speaker 3: or imperial processing plants. The ability to see these cells
Speaker 3: come together is what makes I think and Or so special.
Speaker 3: And and for the rest of the season, we're going
Speaker 3: to move forward a year at a time, all the
Speaker 3: way up to the beginning of Rogue. More than we
Speaker 3: do have the like the completed Rebel Alliance. So I
Speaker 3: am I'm excited to watch that that development.
Speaker 2: Yep, all right, well, see you next week.
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