Review and analysis of “Ever Been to Ghorman?”, “I Have Friends Everywhere”, and “What a Festive Evening”
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Episode Transcript
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Stephen Tollafield (00:02):
Welcome everyone.
This is the episode of theLegal Geeks podcast where we
talk a little bit about thesecond arc of Andor, with the
episodes beginning with Everbeen to Gorman, and my name is
Stephen Tollefield.
I'm one of the Legal Geekscontributors and with me tonight
are the Legal Geeks founder,Josh.
(00:23):
How are you doing, Josh?
Joshua Gilliland (00:26):
I'm hanging in there fighting a cold, so you
take charge tonight.
Stephen Tollafield (00:31):
Excellent, happy to do it.
Hope you feel better soon.
Also with us is Judge Serinofrom the East Coast.
How are you doing, judge?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (00:39):
I am good.
How are you, steve and Joshhope you feel better.
Stephen Tollafield (00:42):
Yeah, did you have any initial thoughts on
the episodes?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (00:47):
I really loved every part of every
series and the way that thiswas set up in the chapter format
that they did, which isbasically the trilogies.
Each one was almost like amovie.
So you know, to me this was thesecond and or movie that we had
(01:08):
the privilege of getting towatch, so I really liked the way
they set up all of these.
You know, each one is it jumpedforward a year, so it allowed
them to cover a lot of groundthat they might not have been
able to do.
Stephen Tollafield (01:21):
Yeah, that's a really astute observation.
I think they even said at thecelebration panel that they had
envisioned these as being likekind of cinematic experiences
each of these three episodes, soI think that's really playing
well to the audience.
So great.
And then we also have with us astar wars lawyer.
How's it going?
StarWarsLawyer (01:37):
hey, how's it going?
Uh, I'm, I'm here, I'm ready totalk about, I think, what might
have been my favorite arc or atleast the one that I was the
most excited while watching at 2AM.
Stephen Tollafield (01:51):
It drops a little late for you there,
doesn't it yeah?
StarWarsLawyer (01:55):
But I, I watched the first two and I'm looking
at it, it's like it's like 1 AMand I'm like, ah, but then, as
the fifth one, as the fifthepisode ends, I'm like yeah, I
got out, I was too hypeafterwards.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (02:07):
Yeah, yeah, it definitely had great
momentum through the I didn'thave that energy, I would watch,
I would watch two that thenight that it came out, and then
I would watch that third one,uh, and go into a social media
blackout until I watched thatthird one, and that's the way I
did.
Uh, the whole series was was.
I was only able to do the two,and then I would watch the third
(02:29):
the next day.
Stephen Tollafield (02:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's late for you on the East
Coast for sure.
Well, let's get started anddive in with the first episode
Ever Been to Gorman, which kindof sets into motion that arc
with the kind of charactersmoving to Gorman and setting up
the eponymous massacre later onin the series.
(02:50):
No spoilers, I guess, but soany initial observations about
this episode.
I think we start off kind ofwith Bix and Cassian kind of
grappling with what's been goingon in the year between the
first arc where they've bothbeen working as agents of Luthan
(03:10):
and they're now doing somedowntime.
And boy is Bix going through it.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (03:16):
You certainly get a lot of
post-traumatic stress disorderthat Bix is trying to work her
way through.
You have her self-medicating tosome extent with some kind of
narcotic substance to try toforget all that was done in her
(03:39):
torture.
But you also did get to see,you know, a little bit of the
downtime and domestic life of acouple in Coruscant and you know
(04:03):
even there is some of thisdowntime where they can have
somewhat of a normal life inthis apartment in Coruscant and
I thought it was justfascinating in a couple of these
scenes where you saw you know,apartments and life in Coruscant
I think was explored better inthis series than anywhere else
and a couple of the animatedseries, you know, did it as well
(04:25):
.
But you really got, I think, agood feel for Coruscant, which I
found to be fascinating.
Stephen Tollafield (04:31):
Sort of a longing for what maybe their
life might have looked like ifit hadn't been for the war and
for getting wrapped up inLuthan's shenanigans.
It's kind of wistful.
You know, it struck me when wewere watching, as you said, bix
was really struggling with theaftermath of her various
(04:52):
injuries, and it struck me thatthis is what the law is
envisioning when it compensatespeople for emotional damages of
intentional injuries that happento them.
The kind of the sleeplessness,the inability to focus, the kind
of the pain that they'reexperiencing.
They're going through, themental anguish that they're
(05:13):
experiencing.
That's the kind of thing thatresults from injuries that may
just be sort of initiallyphysical injuries, but when
someone's really grappling withthe trauma of what happens to
them mentally afterwards, that'swhat the law is sort of
designed to compensate.
And I think that a lot of timespeople think of oh well, they're
(05:34):
just sad they got hurt and it'snot what.
They're just trying to get moremoney out of the defendant when
they plead emotional distress.
And that's not to say, ofcourse, that a lot of people, or
many people, might sort ofover-exaggerate their mental
consequences of an injury.
But this is exactly why the lawpermits plaintiffs to seek
(05:55):
damages for mental injuries likethis.
So then they're on Coruscant.
So then they're on Coruscant.
Then we also see it's notreally a legal issue, but Mon
Mothma.
There's a sort of a montage,like a training montage, of her
(06:15):
politicking potential votes inthe Senate, which I thought was
really interesting.
There's always been kind of aSenate as kind of especially
since the prequels has been avery integral part of the Star
Wars story, and I thought it wasreally interesting to see them
actually examining what it'slike to be a lawmaker in the
Senate.
And has any of you, either ofyou, been involved in any sort
(06:40):
of lobbying before?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (06:42):
Yes.
Lobbying before yes.
One of the few things we wereallowed to lobby our state
legislature for was after asignificant period it was about
13 years that it was beforejudges were able to get a raise
in New York State and we hadfallen well behind I think we
(07:05):
were 48th of the 50 states injudicial salary and so they made
a rare exception, knowing thatjudges knew a lot of the members
of the legislature, to allow usto lobby for pay raises for a
couple of years until they werefinally able to accomplish some
(07:27):
kind of commission that was ableto do that.
So I was involved in lobbying inthat extent and was always
active politically before Ibecame a judge and did some to
that extent, in that I knew alot of my representatives and
some of them were, and still are, you know, I knew a lot of my
representatives and some of themwere, and still are, you know,
good friends of mine.
So I found it very fascinatingand clearly foreshadowing where
(07:52):
Mon Mothra was unsuccessful intrying to get you know the
Gorman senator who, very muchthen you know another spoiler
came to regret the fact that hedid not do more when he had the
opportunity to do more becausehe was trying to stay on the
good side of the empire.
(08:14):
And I also love, you know, thenew novelizations that have come
out that are dealing with thisrise of the empire and giving
some of that, you know, realdown and dirty behind the scenes
political stuff to those of usthat are the Star Wars fans that
(08:34):
like getting every littledetail of every little story.
Stephen Tollafield (08:39):
Yeah, what did you think?
Did they capture effectivelythe process of lobbying?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (08:55):
I think so.
The scale of the Senate is sobig, so it's all of these blocks
.
And you know there were variouskey senators that controlled
various blocks and variousunions the techno union, the
banking clan that controlledcertain blocks, and clearly the
emperor had his minions withinthe Senate too.
So you would never be able to,in a body that big, be able to
(09:19):
reach out to every senator.
So it's about getting you know,certain blocks to come along
with you.
And you know Bail Organa andother people that were kind of
part of the some of the initialopposition to the emperor, you
know could only do so muchovertly because they were under
(09:45):
all.
They were all under heavy watch.
You know their limo driverswere working for the empire.
So so you know a lot of it wasjust those, those personal
connections like can you getenough of your people to come
along to do this, this littlething here that we're trying to
do as covertly as possible, andthat is a really realistic
(10:10):
version of how that kind oflobbying is done.
If you have some kind ofcontact or ability to get that
face time with a politician andthen convince them that this is
know, this is why we need this,can you get others.
And then it's horse trading andbehind the scenes, and I'll
(10:30):
support this one for you and younext support this one for me.
That's very realistic.
Stephen Tollafield (10:35):
Yeah yeah.
It also kind of shows theineffectiveness or the limits of
politicking, that you can onlyget you so far and politicians
try to make the best judgmentsthey can with the information
they have at the time, whichkind of explains why the Gorman
senator was kind of he wasreluctant to help because, like
you said, he was advising hispeople to not make waves and he
(10:58):
couldn't be their leader if hewas making waves when he was, if
he did the exact opposite ofwhat he was trying to tell them
to do.
So that was really interestingand also kind of an interesting
contrast to what we see later inthis arc with Saw and his sort
of tantalizing portrayal of whatrevolution really looks like
maybe not so political but alittle more direct action, but
(11:22):
we'll get to that.
So then we also transitioned tothe Gorman.
We start to see a little moredirect action, but we'll get to
that.
So then we also transition tothe Gorm and we start to see a
little more happening there andwe start to see that Cyril has
been working as Dedra's doubleagent and starting to work his
way into the Gorm in front tofind out what they're doing, and
it struck me that this is kindof a situation where, of course,
(11:43):
in counterintelligence and thatsort of thing is kind of a
situation where, you know, ofcourse in counterintelligence
and that sort of thing it's kindof a separate military thing.
But this is a very common lawenforcement tactic when law
enforcement will have aconfidential informant or
someone on the inside to try toget evidence to convict or
(12:04):
arrest defendants.
And it struck me that Cyrildidn't quite know the whole
story but he was gatheringintelligence on Dedger's behalf
and I wondered if either of youhad any observations about how
Cyril's job is going or what atthis point in the series he um,
he's thinking about or what hisgoals might be I found it funny
(12:29):
how he pushed back on his momjust repeating the the uh
propaganda from the uh imperialnews.
StarWarsLawyer (12:38):
They're making fun of palpatine, you know.
How dare they, those uppityGormans and Cyril's just like
don't believe everything you seeon TV, because he knows they're
listening and he's just like,yeah, I'm just gonna, you know,
seed my way in there, you know,and I wish we did have a little
(13:00):
bit more, because we know,obviously Dedra's plan is to let
the gorman front, you know, uh,spring their trap.
Um, but it's interestingbecause, you know, in season one
, which I guess is two years, uh, prior to this, you know, saw
list the gorman front, butthey're just so new you're
(13:22):
thinking that they're going tobe like some kind of, you know,
massive rebel.
So, and it's just people, justpeople, yep, yep.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (13:32):
Yeah, you know, Deidre certainly could
not have picked better in hermission to basically assist a
rebel uprising so that theEmpire would then have the
excuse to stamp it down.
Stephen Tollafield (14:16):
However, they also wanted to make sure it
was as ineffective a rebeluprising as could be.
And clearly Cyr of a potentialsomeone who would be a rebel and
it was interesting I thinklater in the series he he does
almost sort of seem like hestarts to question the empire
kind of authentically, which wasyeah I, I do think he he, you
know is spending that much timeon on on gorman and dealing with
some of those people.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (14:33):
I think he did develop a like for them
and, although you know heclearly I don't think ever was
betraying the empire down theroad, he did, I don't think,
knew the extent of theirevilness in their mind, in his
mind and, as a result, evilnessin their mind, in his mind and,
(14:59):
as a result, you know, hethought that this was, they were
going to maybe have a littlegarrison of troops, which was
what the lies that he was beingfed.
He clearly didn't know thatthis was about strip mining
their planet to the point ofdestruction, which is what the
empire needed to do to build thedeath star um so so you know he
(15:19):
he was a a very gullible uhperson, but I think his feelings
for the gorman people werelegitimate and
Stephen Tollafield (15:26):
and and real , yeah, yeah yeah, so um, so,
then the um, so then we get aquick glimpse of what's going on
on Saw Gerrera's new base,which I was really excited to
see.
We're back to Dakar.
Well, I guess maybe that's thefirst place the rebels were on
(15:49):
Dakar, which is later used bythe Resistance, of course, in
Force Awakens, and so that wasreally exciting to see, I wonder
.
It made me think, or wonder howlong Dakar has been kind of a
hideout planet.
Are either of you more familiarwith kind of the?
Judge Matthew Sciarri (16:07):
backstory of that base than I am.
There is a few references inthe novels and the comics with
regards to Sam, but it'sbasically just that it was long
utilized uh by by the rebellion,uh in their early stages and,
and you know, leia was was awareof it uh, so she knew, you know
its location and that it waskind of off the charts uh but
(16:27):
yeah it was very fascinating,all the locations, uh, that we
got to see kind of the, the, thebases, developing to the point
where we knew them to be in themovies you know Yavin and such.
It was really interesting to seehow the rebellion in each of
(16:47):
these arcs became a little bitor a lot more formalized.
You know, from literally just agroup of people that you know
kind of were working under Axisand Luther and to this you know
very regimented militaryorganization, and those that
(17:10):
were in the beginning kind ofhad some resistance to, because
they're rebels by nature to someof that formalized structure.
But when something gets big,you know, the only way it can
operate is some kind offormalized structure and rules.
Stephen Tollafield (17:26):
Yeah, yeah, it's funny that we've always
known that it was the rebelalliance but we've never really
no story has really everunpacked what that meant, like
who is in this alliance and whyare they allied and why were
they separate organizationsbefore?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (17:42):
It's really interesting to explore
that where mon motha was one ofequals, you know, kind of
fighting for her position to tolater on, where she you know she
clearly uh is.
(18:03):
Is the person in charge of uhof the the rebel alliance yeah,
and we get to follow one groupin rebels.
StarWarsLawyer (18:09):
And you know, when we see all the different
groups together, it's like, okay, there's an adjustment, which
we see in the later arcs ofandor, like working under a, a
military structure instead ofdoing your own thing.
But this is different, where inthe first arc we saw the maya
pair what was left of them nowwe're seeing the gorman front,
then you have the partisans withsaw, then you have uh, luthens
(18:31):
and act thus accesses, whateveryou want to call them, and it's
just, they're all workingtowards the same goal, but they
don't work well together andthey have to learn that.
Stephen Tollafield (18:43):
Yeah, and they need leadership that's
going to have a firm hand andexperience as a leader in
negotiating and politicking,which is why Mon Mothma is such
a great fit for the leader ofthe Rebel Alliance.
Yeah, Great.
So any oh go ahead On Gormanitself.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (19:00):
I think they did a really phenomenal
job of establishing a culture.
I thought it was verysurprising that they gave them
their own language.
Stephen Tollafield (19:10):
I've read a couple of articles.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (19:11):
You know it's based on French and
they actually developed it tothe point that you know it could
be like Esperanto or any of theother Klingon you know could
become the next geek language ofchoice and just the planet
itself, you know, is almost amix of a Roman French resistance
(19:35):
, paris kind of feel to it.
You know you saw them in cafes.
You saw them drinking, you know, coffee.
The outfits were clearly, youknow, either Florence, milan or
France.
You know it had that designer,artistic feel to it and they
(19:59):
really did a good job of thatwhich then built to.
You know you saw at themonument to the Tarkin massacre.
You know that people would begathering and the right to
association clearly comes inwhere, if a constitution of a
(20:21):
country like ours gives thepeople the right to associate,
they are allowed to, you know,get together to protest.
But there are limits to thatright to association.
You know it is legal for agovernment to require permits If
(20:42):
something is going to be alarge association for everyone's
safety.
These kind of limits to theright of association have been
allowed by the courts and Idealt with this a lot when I
handled all the Occupy WallStreet cases for New York City.
Clearly, one of the argumentsthat the occupying defendants
(21:05):
made was the right toassociation and the police were
overzealous when they would comedown on their right to
association.
And all that comes into playwith regards to the gorman and
it was very, very well handled.
I thought, uh, in in the arc atthat, in in this series yeah,
(21:27):
yeah, yeah.
Stephen Tollafield (21:29):
so yeah, they um the gormans are
definitely I.
When I um was watching andhearing them speak it, I wanted
someone to break in to do hearthe people saying it was very
French Revolution coded.
Absolutely they were very muchleading into kind of
Nazi-occupied Paris and Ithought that was a really really
cool design choice.
(21:50):
That was really cool.
StarWarsLawyer (21:52):
Does that make Cyril Javert?
Yes, absolutely, or maybe DedraJust a little combination of
the two?
Stephen Tollafield (21:54):
Yeah, totally good observation.
Does that make cyril javertabsolutely or maybe dead?
just a little combination of thetwo.
Yeah, totally.
Um good, any final thoughts onum, on that episode before we
move on to.
I have friends everywhere,great.
Well, this is the episode wherewe get to see um uh, uh and or
(22:16):
really lean into his spy craft,where he is in disguise and he's
got those cool shades and hearrives on Gorman and starts to
investigate the Gorman front tosee if it's something that
Luthan might be interested inincorporating into his more
formal rebellion, his moreformal rebellion.
(22:40):
So that's where things start toget a little complicated with
him and Luthan, because he alsorealizes that Luthan is kind of
playing Bix a little bit againstor working with Bix kind of
behind the scenes.
So the things get complicatedreally quickly.
So any observations aboutanything going on in this
(23:00):
episode?
Legally it was kind of mostlyjust spycraft that I saw Very,
very much spycraft.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (23:06):
You know the one legal issue maybe
you want to discuss is is hespying?
I don't think he would make youknow he really wasn't spying on
the empire at that point.
You know he was in a disguiseand there's really no law
against being in a disguise.
You know he did travel underfalse papers, so clearly that
(23:34):
would be.
You know various types offorgery and such were in play.
So that would be some of thelaws that he would have broken
if he was caught by the empire.
And I think you know he veryquickly sized up the fact that
the Gorman Front was notsomething that was going to be
(23:56):
successful and was really goingto get themselves into a lot of
trouble and that they thoughtmuch more highly of themselves
than they really had the rightto think and that they really
were having no chance and thatif they put a lot of resources
(24:18):
into the Gorman front, theywould not get great dividends
from that.
So I think that it was a greatepisode as far as watching and
seeing the actor play thedesigner that he was and the
interaction between him and thehotel clerk, which then comes
(24:40):
into play later down the road,where the heartfelt story from
that clerk as to the loss of hisfamily members really brought
home thatin story so that weunderstood why the gore were so
angry about that, thatparticular incident, and why
(25:02):
that memorial meant something tothem and that why that memorial
was the appropriate place toassemble yeah, and I thought
that was a nice nod to Legends,because the Gorman Massacre in
Legends was Tarkin landing hisship on protesting Gormans,
which they just made the TarkinMassacre here.
StarWarsLawyer (25:22):
And then obviously we see the Gorman
Massacre a little later, so thatI thought was interesting in
the fact that they didmemorialize it.
And then the Empire is justlike we're just're just going to
, you know, rub salt in thewound or stick the knife a
little bit further in um, and Ithought it was funny, the um
(25:42):
leader of the gorman fronttalking to cyril is just like
yes, we believe the isb isrunning a shadow government and
emperor palpatine doesn't knowwhich is.
It's just really funny, justthe irony, since palpatine's
been running a shadow governmentfor at this point what?
Stephen Tollafield (26:00):
20 years, yeah, 25, yeah several of them
actually, because yeah he'srunning the clone war by running
both sides of of the uh theparticipants to to you know, a
galaxy-wide war yeah, and Ithink that observation too
underscores just how effectiveDeirdre has been in kind of
(26:20):
pumping up the making sure thatthose rebels are going to do the
wrong thing and in feeding theminformation and then making
them feel like they couldactually succeed and giving them
confidence so that they willultimately overplay their hand,
and I think it's a really so.
It shows like what a goodtactician she is and what a mind
(26:44):
she has for it.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (26:47):
Even the success of the mission when
they're able to stop thetransport and steal the weapons.
Just gave them enough weaponsto put a great show for the
television.
So that it was clearly rightfor the Empire to stomp them
(27:07):
down.
Stephen Tollafield (27:08):
Yep, yeah, very interesting, yeah.
So, and then also in thisepisode we get to see Saw
Gerrera taking willman kind ofunder his wing after um taking
out the other guy that willmanwas training.
Yeah, good old pluty.
Yeah, we get to learn a littlebit more about rido um, and I
(27:32):
think you, you all, are a littlemore sort of um, well read in
the kind of the lore and I hadto kind of figure out what Rido
was, the Ridonium fuel had youencountered that before?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (27:45):
I only remember seeing some you know it
being referred to.
I didn't realize that that'swhat it was that Saw was kind
kind of addicted to by yeahsniffing the fumes, uh, so to
speak, and you know I also got a, you know, a vibe that you know
, although you know sore and andluthen are very different when,
(28:09):
when it came to dealing withany loose ends or weak ends,
both of them were as ruthless asruthless could be.
You know there was why, when hewas meeting with Bix, you know,
I really thought he was going totake out Bix because her, you
know, mental instability wasjust going to be a danger to
(28:34):
Cassian and to the, to his group.
And, and you know, when he waskind of giving her some more
narcotics, I had a feeling thatmaybe he was going to be
slipping her an overdose and Iwas glad to see that that wasn't
the the case that you know, bixwould be able to find her peace
, so to speak, and have asuccessful mission.
(28:56):
But, you know, clearly saw whatwas going to do, or had reached
the point in his life thatthere was no stopping him.
You know, very much like Luther, and I think he came to the
realization that he wasn't goingto see the sunrise that was
coming forth down the road, thatthey would do their best to
(29:20):
make sure that the nextgeneration would get to see that
sunrise.
But they knew that they weren'tgoing to be walking out of this
rebel movement themselves.
Stephen Tollafield (29:33):
Cannon fodder, as he called it.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (29:35):
Cannon fodder, as he called it.
Stephen Tollafield (29:35):
Cannon fodder yeah, yeah, yeah, and I
like that observation about theruthlessness because I it.
I watched rogue one again afterthe final episode of I did too,
you had to.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (29:45):
I mean, yeah, exactly.
And then I can't.
I can't watch rogue one, rogueone, without at least watching
the first half an hour of newhope so I go right from one to
the other.
Stephen Tollafield (29:57):
It just makes total sense.
A new super cut, totally,totally and in rogue one um and
or talks about how he's likewe've all done terrible things,
um in the name of the rebellion,and it's interesting that the
show is kind of showing us itactually kind well, it shows us
a little bit, but Andor havingmurdered the soldier which Bix
(30:23):
is really struggling with in thefirst episode of this arc, when
apparently he wasn't a threat,he was just kind of a loose end,
it shows that Andor has kind ofadopted those kind of ruthless
tactics of luthen and um and sawin that side of being a rebel,
um is really taking its toll onthem and it's and it makes that
(30:45):
that scene in rogue one where heshoots the guy where the
stormtroopers confront them, youreally understand that scene
just so much better yeah, yeah,because and throughout the, the
series of andor, you kind ofreally get to identify with with
andor, and in the beginning ofrogue when it first came out,
you didn't really understand himor know who this guy was, and
(31:06):
so seeing that kind of act ofcruel, that ruthlessness, was
kind of shocking, um, but it's.
But I like how the series isbuilding that into his character
and and it's and showing uswhere that comes from.
It's really interesting.
StarWarsLawyer (31:20):
Yeah, I know we saw it in the trailer.
But to get the greater contextof Saul saying revolution is not
for the sane, you know, just ina greater context, is it makes
sense?
Because what they're all doing,all the rebels that we're
following in this series, iscrazy.
You ask the, you know theaverage imperial citizen.
(31:42):
It is crazy what they're doing,rebelling against the empire.
And then the lengths that theyhave to go, you know to do it.
You know we've seen, you know,lutheran speech.
You know I've adopted the toolsof my enemy to defeat them.
And Saul is based is definitelyby any means necessary, and so,
um.
(32:03):
And then you think of thepoliticians, like mon or bail
and people like well, you're ina position of power, like why
would you ever go against theempire?
Like you've got it good, youknow you're both rich.
Like why would you do this?
You know it's.
It goes beyond just um, the,the foot soldiers, or the
captains, the lieutenants andeverything.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (32:23):
It goes all throughout the rebellion
and, and you know, dovetailingon that with the giving up um,
you know you're rich.
The series really did a reallygood job of showing how good the
luxury life in the empire was.
You know Mon Martha could havelived a very comfortable life in
(32:48):
the empire and this, you know,leads to the next episode where
you see another party on herplanet and the wedding, just the
opulence and the car she drivesaround in.
I mean it really showed thatthe high, the aristocracy of the
(33:15):
empire, that the politicians,the rich that were of the empire
, the politicians the rich thatwere in the empire, really did
not have a bad life.
The planet that had theminerals that the empire needed.
They were going to get messedup but if you live and let live
(33:38):
and and didn't resist, you couldhave a very nice life in the,
the, uh, the, the imperialuniverse yeah, it was funny that
I can't remember what was.
Stephen Tollafield (33:48):
This episode , or maybe the next one, started
off with the um, the, thehollow um net uh show is like
the talk show of the womentalking about the parties and
and how?
Um you know they wanted to talkabout who's wearing what.
What's, uh, who's wearing whatand um sort of very rung, very
true with our culture of sort ofpeople being preoccupied with
(34:11):
wealth and and status andcelebrity.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (34:14):
Um, and I thought that was a really
interesting take on tony gilroyon behalf of how like wonderful
some people have it, but foreveryone else it's um, maybe not
so great I loved some, all ofthose moments of you know
showing um the television showor even the commercial that was
about the gorman and theirplanet and the production and
(34:38):
how they produce their clothing,and those little snippets just
really round out the universe insuch a wonderful way.
Stephen Tollafield (34:47):
Yeah, the world building is really next
level in this series for sure.
Great.
Well, so we can move on to.
What a festive evening.
That we're sort of talkingabout the party, unless you had
any other observations aboutthat other show or that other
episode Great.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (35:02):
And let's go to the party.
Stephen Tollafield (35:04):
Yeah, the party was something to be seen
and this is where, as we said,Mon Mothma and Perrin, her
husband, go to the event thrownby Davo Skuldin, their new
relative, I guess their in-laws.
Their in-laws?
Joshua Gilliland (35:24):
Yeah, exactly um relative, I guess their
daughters their in-laws.
Stephen Tollafield (35:26):
Yeah, exactly, um, so they're going to
the party and get invited tosee the secret collection which,
as we've learned um, contains alistening device that luthen
and clay I have uh planted, uhin um to listen in on scolden's
uh happenings, and so, um, thisactually presented quite a legal
(35:46):
issue.
That stuck out to me was thefact that there's a listening
device planted on someone'sprivate property, and we all
know that, of course, if you'relaw enforcement or you're in the
government, you need a warrantto wiretap someone, but any
thoughts on a private citizenwiretapping someone else.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (36:04):
It's clearly an invasion of privacy
and since this was being done tofurther an anti-government
movement, you can make anargument that it would be
treason to the empire as well.
I cannot wait for the visualdictionaries of Andor both to
(36:24):
get the little tidbit stories ofthis collection and store.
You know everything from.
You know we now know thatthere's a Gungan skull that had
the crest of the Darth Revan'sempire.
So you know, the little tidbitsthat they put into these art
(36:45):
collections are beyondfascinating.
So I can't wait to, you know,flush out all the details as to
that.
But you know clearly you don'thave the right, and most states
have various laws that deal withunlawful eavesdropping and
wiretapping, and I would be verysurprised if the empire didn't
(37:12):
have such rules that prohibitsuch.
But you also clearly see invarious scenes throughout the
series that the empire has noproblem whatsoever to listening
in on many conversations,offices, telephone conversations
(37:48):
the ISB has been able to do inthe years that the Empire has
been around.
Interactions between the, thevarious players, uh, you know,
especially uh, mon martha andand the director, who's, you
(38:10):
know, building the, the deathstar as they play.
That little bit of a cat andmouse discussion was, was my
favorite part of the episodeyeah, yeah, yeah, trespass it
like.
Stephen Tollafield (38:22):
having a listening device is certainly,
uh, not a great thing for peoplein private citizens, among each
other and, as you point out, inan authoritarian society,
privacy when it comes to thegovernment is really not a thing
.
People's communications andmonitors them for
(38:44):
anti-government sentiments thatthey might take action on.
So in the intelligencegathering in an authoritarian
system like the empire is, ofcourse, very elaborate and very
intense.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (39:01):
And I have been in the position where
you know I've gotten theserequests from government
especially at least I did thatthe government has met their
various burdens, that they haveto meet in order to convince you
(39:28):
to sign off on these variouswarrants and eavesdropping and
wiretapping and tracking ofphones, and you know so there's
a safeguard that that of thoseof us that were in the in in the
judiciary role, um to to haveto convince us first, before the
(39:51):
government was was able to todo these kind of things, and
it's, you know, it's those kindof safeguards, uh that that
protect, um the rights of thecitizens and and and I don't see
the Empire having suchsafeguards, yeah, no, not at all
.
Stephen Tollafield (40:09):
They're not super into those for sure.
So while that's happening onCoruscant, of course, back on
Gormin the heist is goingforward and Luthen sends Vel and
Sinta to kind of make sure theydon't go too far off the rails
and it of course ends in tragedy.
I guess this situation, thisheist, it's a theft obviously,
(40:34):
but any thoughts on sort of how,like what other crimes or what
other things are going on inthis situation?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (40:41):
They set off an incendiary device so
that you know that would be acrime um you know depth of
government property yeah, whichjosh and I talked about last
week it would definitely be anact of terrorism against the
empire, because it was it was.
It was done in such a manner,um, as would have met their,
their terrorist, um type ofthings but, and, like you said,
(41:03):
you know it, it clearly showedthat the gorman front wasn't
ready for prime time.
But for Bell and Sintes, evenjust their participation in the
planning, if they weren't thereto say, no, you've got to do
this, you've got to do this,you've got to do this, it
(41:25):
wouldn't have even gotten to asfar as it did.
You know, unfortunately therewas uh, since life, you know,
was tragically ended by a, bystupidity of a member of the
government front.
But you know, I don't thinkthey even would have gotten
successful at stopping the, thetransport, if it wasn't for
(41:45):
their little bit of help thatthey gave um.
So you know, it clearly proveduh, cassie incorrect, that the,
they, they really should not puta lot of uh resources into the
gorman front yeah, they, theyweren't ready.
StarWarsLawyer (42:01):
And I knew, uh, that guy was gonna do something
stupid because he just had that.
Look about him like, oh yeah,it's go time, I'm ready, I'm
ready.
No, you're absolutely not.
And they were right like youneeded to listen and do exactly
what they said.
And they didn't, and senta paidthe price.
And then I knew narrativelythat I I figured like
(42:24):
something's about to go wrong,one of them's about to die.
But then, once they reconciledand Cinta was just like I'm
sorry, you know, I went throughthis, I went through that.
I'm like, oh yeah, you're dead.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (42:35):
Rip, yeah it definitely became a
tragic love story at that point,because the two of them you can
always sense that they reallycared about each other and loved
each other and and then theyhad that brief, you know, being
reunited and and you could tellthat things were going to go in
the right direction.
So that wasn't going to happen.
Stephen Tollafield (42:55):
Yeah, pretty much every couple in star wars.
Yeah, there's not.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (42:58):
There's not a lot of successful you.
Even even hannah leyer couldn'tmake it.
Stephen Tollafield (43:02):
You know they fell apart.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (43:06):
You know there's really not a lot of
successful stories In the books.
The most successful story wasprobably Luke and Mary Jade and
as a result, I don't think we'llever see Mary Jade.
Yeah.
Stephen Tollafield (43:18):
Happy relationships are not consistent
with the Star Wars aesthetic,for sure.
But I thought that it wasinteresting too that Cinta's
homicide raised just kind of avery interesting first year law
student, criminal law, felonymurder situation where anyone
who gets injured or killed inthe commission of a crime is
(43:41):
charged as a homicide.
Like that guy is a murderer.
He certainly didn't intend tokill Cinta, but because of the
because it occurred during thecommission of a felony, he's
really anyone that was part ofthat mission could be.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (43:56):
You know he clearly could.
He, he did the key, killed her,so he could clearly be charged
with the murder.
But but all of the otherparticipants could also be
charged with that murder,because someone died during the
commission of a felony and I'dbe hard pressed to say that this
wasn't in some way a felony inthe in the empire.
So, and they were all awarethat they were Well, I can't say
(44:19):
that because they weren'tsupposed to all be carrying
weapons.
They weren't supposed to all becarrying weapons, um, so
they're supposed to have rightthere.
So there is a defense to thefelony murder in some states
that if you are unaware thatyour co-conspirator was carrying
a weapon, um, some states allowthat as something that you
could plead in order to getaround the, the felony murder.
(44:41):
But that depends on thejurisdiction.
Probably the empire would notbe so forgiving no yeah yeah, so
that's all that last seasonyeah
Stephen Tollafield (44:50):
yeah, so that casts a long shadow over
kind of the end of the of thisarc.
But, um, I thought it was avery satisfying arc in the way
that it ended with a couple ofwins for our main characters.
Um, luthan and Clea have amoment as they leave Skulden's
party where they are happy thatthey succeeded in removing the
(45:11):
listening device and they shareda little moment of levity,
which is really nice.
And then we see Bix kind of gether revenge.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (45:20):
And that was wonderful to see.
StarWarsLawyer (45:22):
Oh, fantastic.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (45:27):
That was a game of thrones.
When the king finally got hisjust dessert with that poison
wine, it was one of thosemoments Watching this imperial
torturer literally get his ownmedicine was wonderful.
Stephen Tollafield (45:45):
Very satisfying and you could see
from the smile on Bix's face asshe walked away, as they you
know they cool people never lookback at explosions.
Of course, as they walk awayafter detonating his floor,
she's.
You can see that that's veryhealing for her.
Probably not something that isrecommended for um.
You know people in our universeto exact vengeance, kind of
(46:07):
like that um but um, but thatbrings her closure to something
that's really been tormentingher for a long time and I agree
with you, steven.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (46:14):
That scene where you're walking
forward and the explosionshappening behind you that you
know are going to happen is likepure hollywood yep, yeah, they
needed those sunglasses to puton.
Yeah and you know clearlycriminal wise.
Uh, you know the empire wouldbe charging them with with
(46:34):
murder of anybody that was inthat building, destruction of
property uh, probably acts ofterrorism as well yeah, yeah,
and that was a that was becomingmilitary technology.
Stephen Tollafield (46:45):
Now too, the , the torture device, was being
relocated from ISB to the Navy,I guess, and so that was, that
was probably would up the ante.
Judge Matthew Sciarrin (47:00):
Probably a much better way to
interrogate leia as opposed tothe you know the black droid
with the needles coming close up, but but you know they might
have been able to successfully,uh, interrogate her oh gosh, I
hadn't even thought of that.
Stephen Tollafield (47:17):
That's that I'm still afraid of needles to
this day because of that stupidscene.
I can.
I had a really hard time withblood draws.
Thanks, star Wars.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (47:29):
I got a version of one back there
somewhere.
Stephen Tollafield (47:31):
Oh no, I'll avoid looking at those pictures.
So yeah, so this episode, sothis that what a Festive Evening
kind of wraps up this arc.
Any final thoughts orobservations about this sequence
?
Josh?
Joshua Gilliland (47:53):
do you want to chime in?
It was a great arc and you guysdid a very nice job covering it
.
Yeah, a lot to think about withthe right to association
throughout the set time placemanner, restrictions on those
rights, uh, murder, bad couples.
Therapy should not involveblowing somebody up.
I just want to put that outthere.
We don't do that.
(48:13):
You know therapists willrecommend it.
Well, let me rephrase that Idon't think a therapist would
recommend it, and if one does,daredevil daredevils or kingpin,
and his wife's therapist might,in the next season, recommend
it.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (48:28):
So that'll be.
That'll be to be seen in futurepodcasts yeah, it's.
Joshua Gilliland (48:32):
It's a bad mojo there and the thinking
about gorman, like what couldthey do?
I mean, this is where passiveresistance probably would have
been a better play for them.
Uh, I'm not saying that there'sa lot of gandhi or martin
luther king jr in the star warsuniverse, but that probably
would have been a betterlong-term strategy for them.
(48:53):
Uh, opposed to what they endedup doing, which which does not
work for them although how muchlong term did they really have?
Stephen Tollafield (49:05):
Their planet was going to blow up there's?
Yeah, it's interesting.
I think Tony Gilroy is reallykind of pushing at our, our
sensibilities about what is aneffective means of protest and
what is an effective means ofrebelling when the government
becomes totalitarian, like thatof rebelling when the government
(49:26):
becomes totalitarian, like that.
Joshua Gilliland (49:29):
Well, and it also goes to the militarization
of the press and being able toleverage, again, the passive
resistance to a movement todisplace the people.
You know, can that work in24-hour coverage or would the
propaganda win?
Don't know the answer to that.
But you know there are examples, both historical and fiction.
(49:58):
It's one of the Tom Clancynovels, I think it's some of all
fears where, uh, you know, youhave a protest in israel and the
palestinians adapt passiveresistance and taking the page
and singing we shall overcome,and it ends with one of the
(50:21):
israeli soldiers shooting one ofthe protesters in the head on
live TV, which then the worldswings an opinion and you end up
with the Vatican deploying itsrobo-troopers to instill peace
and be the peacekeepers, and allthat.
But again, that's an example ofa passive resistance to a
(50:46):
totalitarian action against apeaceful protest.
So could that work in the StarWars universe?
Maybe, maybe not, I mean, withthe press controlled, I don't
know.
But that's where my mind wentin, seeing the guys with the
flags trying to protest andknowing that it's only going to
(51:07):
get worse and probably theplanet would become
uninhabitable.
Stephen Tollafield (51:14):
Yeah, which was the empire's?
Point Exactly, they were sortof manipulating it to box
everyone in, like that, and thenthey had a sniper who shot you
went in like that, and then theyhad a sniper who shot you.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (51:25):
Yeah, it was very well orchestrated by
the ISB.
They did their missionsuccessfully.
Stephen Tollafield (51:36):
Went all according to Detra's plan.
Yeah, this is devious.
Any final thoughts before wesign off on this episode?
Great, you want to take us out,josh, since you're here sure,
everyone thanks for tuning in.
Joshua Gilliland (51:54):
Wherever you are, stay safe, stay healthy and
stay geeky.
Take care now.
Welcome everyone.
This is the episode of theLegal Geeks podcast where we
talk a little bit about thesecond arc of Andor, with the
episodes beginning with Everbeen to Gorman, and my name is
Stephen Tollefield.
I'm one of the Legal Geekscontributors and with me tonight
are the Legal Geeks founder,Josh.
(00:23):
How are you doing, Josh?
Joshua Gilliland (00:26):
I'm hanging in there fighting a cold, so you
take charge tonight.
Stephen Tollafield (00:31):
Excellent, happy to do it.
Hope you feel better soon.
Also with us is Judge Serinofrom the East Coast.
How are you doing, judge?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (00:39):
I am good.
How are you, steve and Joshhope you feel better.
Stephen Tollafield (00:42):
Yeah, did you have any initial thoughts on
the episodes?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (00:47):
I really loved every part of every
series and the way that thiswas set up in the chapter format
that they did, which isbasically the trilogies.
Each one was almost like amovie.
So you know, to me this was thesecond and or movie that we had
(01:08):
the privilege of getting towatch, so I really liked the way
they set up all of these.
You know, each one is it jumpedforward a year, so it allowed
them to cover a lot of groundthat they might not have been
able to do.
Stephen Tollafield (01:21):
Yeah, that's a really astute observation.
I think they even said at thecelebration panel that they had
envisioned these as being likekind of cinematic experiences
each of these three episodes, soI think that's really playing
well to the audience.
So great.
And then we also have with us astar wars lawyer.
How's it going?
StarWarsLawyer (01:37):
hey, how's it going?
Uh, I'm, I'm here, I'm ready totalk about, I think, what might
have been my favorite arc or atleast the one that I was the
most excited while watching at 2AM.
Stephen Tollafield (01:51):
It drops a little late for you there,
doesn't it yeah?
StarWarsLawyer (01:55):
But I, I watched the first two and I'm looking
at it, it's like it's like 1 AMand I'm like, ah, but then, as
the fifth one, as the fifthepisode ends, I'm like yeah, I
got out, I was too hypeafterwards.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (02:07):
Yeah, yeah, it definitely had great
momentum through the I didn'thave that energy, I would watch,
I would watch two that thenight that it came out, and then
I would watch that third one,uh, and go into a social media
blackout until I watched thatthird one, and that's the way I
did.
Uh, the whole series was was.
I was only able to do the two,and then I would watch the third
(02:29):
the next day.
Stephen Tollafield (02:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's late for you on the East
Coast for sure.
Well, let's get started anddive in with the first episode
Ever Been to Gorman, which kindof sets into motion that arc
with the kind of charactersmoving to Gorman and setting up
the eponymous massacre later onin the series.
(02:50):
No spoilers, I guess, but soany initial observations about
this episode.
I think we start off kind ofwith Bix and Cassian kind of
grappling with what's been goingon in the year between the
first arc where they've bothbeen working as agents of Luthan
(03:10):
and they're now doing somedowntime.
And boy is Bix going through it.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (03:16):
You certainly get a lot of
post-traumatic stress disorderthat Bix is trying to work her
way through.
You have her self-medicating tosome extent with some kind of
narcotic substance to try toforget all that was done in her
(03:39):
torture.
But you also did get to see,you know, a little bit of the
downtime and domestic life of acouple in Coruscant and you know
(04:03):
even there is some of thisdowntime where they can have
somewhat of a normal life inthis apartment in Coruscant and
I thought it was justfascinating in a couple of these
scenes where you saw you know,apartments and life in Coruscant
I think was explored better inthis series than anywhere else
and a couple of the animatedseries, you know, did it as well
(04:25):
.
But you really got, I think, agood feel for Coruscant, which I
found to be fascinating.
Stephen Tollafield (04:31):
Sort of a longing for what maybe their
life might have looked like ifit hadn't been for the war and
for getting wrapped up inLuthan's shenanigans.
It's kind of wistful.
You know, it struck me when wewere watching, as you said, bix
was really struggling with theaftermath of her various
(04:52):
injuries, and it struck me thatthis is what the law is
envisioning when it compensatespeople for emotional damages of
intentional injuries that happento them.
The kind of the sleeplessness,the inability to focus, the kind
of the pain that they'reexperiencing.
They're going through, themental anguish that they're
(05:13):
experiencing.
That's the kind of thing thatresults from injuries that may
just be sort of initiallyphysical injuries, but when
someone's really grappling withthe trauma of what happens to
them mentally afterwards, that'swhat the law is sort of
designed to compensate.
And I think that a lot of timespeople think of oh well, they're
(05:34):
just sad they got hurt and it'snot what.
They're just trying to get moremoney out of the defendant when
they plead emotional distress.
And that's not to say, ofcourse, that a lot of people, or
many people, might sort ofover-exaggerate their mental
consequences of an injury.
But this is exactly why the lawpermits plaintiffs to seek
(05:55):
damages for mental injuries likethis.
So then they're on Coruscant.
So then they're on Coruscant.
Then we also see it's notreally a legal issue, but Mon
Mothma.
There's a sort of a montage,like a training montage, of her
(06:15):
politicking potential votes inthe Senate, which I thought was
really interesting.
There's always been kind of aSenate as kind of especially
since the prequels has been avery integral part of the Star
Wars story, and I thought it wasreally interesting to see them
actually examining what it'slike to be a lawmaker in the
Senate.
And has any of you, either ofyou, been involved in any sort
(06:40):
of lobbying before?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (06:42):
Yes.
Lobbying before yes.
One of the few things we wereallowed to lobby our state
legislature for was after asignificant period it was about
13 years that it was beforejudges were able to get a raise
in New York State and we hadfallen well behind I think we
(07:05):
were 48th of the 50 states injudicial salary and so they made
a rare exception, knowing thatjudges knew a lot of the members
of the legislature, to allow usto lobby for pay raises for a
couple of years until they werefinally able to accomplish some
(07:27):
kind of commission that was ableto do that.
So I was involved in lobbying inthat extent and was always
active politically before Ibecame a judge and did some to
that extent, in that I knew alot of my representatives and
some of them were, and still are, you know, I knew a lot of my
representatives and some of themwere, and still are, you know,
good friends of mine.
So I found it very fascinatingand clearly foreshadowing where
(07:52):
Mon Mothra was unsuccessful intrying to get you know the
Gorman senator who, very muchthen you know another spoiler
came to regret the fact that hedid not do more when he had the
opportunity to do more becausehe was trying to stay on the
good side of the empire.
(08:14):
And I also love, you know, thenew novelizations that have come
out that are dealing with thisrise of the empire and giving
some of that, you know, realdown and dirty behind the scenes
political stuff to those of usthat are the Star Wars fans that
(08:34):
like getting every littledetail of every little story.
Stephen Tollafield (08:39):
Yeah, what did you think?
Did they capture effectivelythe process of lobbying?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (08:55):
I think so.
The scale of the Senate is sobig, so it's all of these blocks
.
And you know there were variouskey senators that controlled
various blocks and variousunions the techno union, the
banking clan that controlledcertain blocks, and clearly the
emperor had his minions withinthe Senate too.
So you would never be able to,in a body that big, be able to
(09:19):
reach out to every senator.
So it's about getting you know,certain blocks to come along
with you.
And you know Bail Organa andother people that were kind of
part of the some of the initialopposition to the emperor, you
know could only do so muchovertly because they were under
(09:45):
all.
They were all under heavy watch.
You know their limo driverswere working for the empire.
So so you know a lot of it wasjust those, those personal
connections like can you getenough of your people to come
along to do this, this littlething here that we're trying to
do as covertly as possible, andthat is a really realistic
(10:10):
version of how that kind oflobbying is done.
If you have some kind ofcontact or ability to get that
face time with a politician andthen convince them that this is
know, this is why we need this,can you get others.
And then it's horse trading andbehind the scenes, and I'll
(10:30):
support this one for you and younext support this one for me.
That's very realistic.
Stephen Tollafield (10:35):
Yeah yeah.
It also kind of shows theineffectiveness or the limits of
politicking, that you can onlyget you so far and politicians
try to make the best judgmentsthey can with the information
they have at the time, whichkind of explains why the Gorman
senator was kind of he wasreluctant to help because, like
you said, he was advising hispeople to not make waves and he
(10:58):
couldn't be their leader if hewas making waves when he was, if
he did the exact opposite ofwhat he was trying to tell them
to do.
So that was really interestingand also kind of an interesting
contrast to what we see later inthis arc with Saw and his sort
of tantalizing portrayal of whatrevolution really looks like
maybe not so political but alittle more direct action, but
(11:22):
we'll get to that.
So then we also transitioned tothe Gorman.
We start to see a little moredirect action, but we'll get to
that.
So then we also transition tothe Gorm and we start to see a
little more happening there andwe start to see that Cyril has
been working as Dedra's doubleagent and starting to work his
way into the Gorm in front tofind out what they're doing, and
it struck me that this is kindof a situation where, of course,
(11:43):
in counterintelligence and thatsort of thing is kind of a
situation where, you know, ofcourse in counterintelligence
and that sort of thing it's kindof a separate military thing.
But this is a very common lawenforcement tactic when law
enforcement will have aconfidential informant or
someone on the inside to try toget evidence to convict or
(12:04):
arrest defendants.
And it struck me that Cyrildidn't quite know the whole
story but he was gatheringintelligence on Dedger's behalf
and I wondered if either of youhad any observations about how
Cyril's job is going or what atthis point in the series he um,
he's thinking about or what hisgoals might be I found it funny
(12:29):
how he pushed back on his momjust repeating the the uh
propaganda from the uh imperialnews.
StarWarsLawyer (12:38):
They're making fun of palpatine, you know.
How dare they, those uppityGormans and Cyril's just like
don't believe everything you seeon TV, because he knows they're
listening and he's just like,yeah, I'm just gonna, you know,
seed my way in there, you know,and I wish we did have a little
(13:00):
bit more, because we know,obviously Dedra's plan is to let
the gorman front, you know, uh,spring their trap.
Um, but it's interestingbecause, you know, in season one
, which I guess is two years, uh, prior to this, you know, saw
list the gorman front, butthey're just so new you're
(13:22):
thinking that they're going tobe like some kind of, you know,
massive rebel.
So, and it's just people, justpeople, yep, yep.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (13:32):
Yeah, you know, Deidre certainly could
not have picked better in hermission to basically assist a
rebel uprising so that theEmpire would then have the
excuse to stamp it down.
Stephen Tollafield (14:16):
However, they also wanted to make sure it
was as ineffective a rebeluprising as could be.
And clearly Cyr of a potentialsomeone who would be a rebel and
it was interesting I thinklater in the series he he does
almost sort of seem like hestarts to question the empire
kind of authentically, which wasyeah I, I do think he he, you
know is spending that much timeon on on gorman and dealing with
some of those people.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (14:33):
I think he did develop a like for them
and, although you know heclearly I don't think ever was
betraying the empire down theroad, he did, I don't think,
knew the extent of theirevilness in their mind, in his
mind and, as a result, evilnessin their mind, in his mind and,
(14:59):
as a result, you know, hethought that this was, they were
going to maybe have a littlegarrison of troops, which was
what the lies that he was beingfed.
He clearly didn't know thatthis was about strip mining
their planet to the point ofdestruction, which is what the
empire needed to do to build thedeath star um so so you know he
(15:19):
he was a a very gullible uhperson, but I think his feelings
for the gorman people werelegitimate and
Stephen Tollafield (15:26):
and and real , yeah, yeah yeah, so um, so,
then the um, so then we get aquick glimpse of what's going on
on Saw Gerrera's new base,which I was really excited to
see.
We're back to Dakar.
Well, I guess maybe that's thefirst place the rebels were on
(15:49):
Dakar, which is later used bythe Resistance, of course, in
Force Awakens, and so that wasreally exciting to see, I wonder
.
It made me think, or wonder howlong Dakar has been kind of a
hideout planet.
Are either of you more familiarwith kind of the?
Judge Matthew Sciarri (16:07):
backstory of that base than I am.
There is a few references inthe novels and the comics with
regards to Sam, but it'sbasically just that it was long
utilized uh by by the rebellion,uh in their early stages and,
and you know, leia was was awareof it uh, so she knew, you know
its location and that it waskind of off the charts uh but
(16:27):
yeah it was very fascinating,all the locations, uh, that we
got to see kind of the, the, thebases, developing to the point
where we knew them to be in themovies you know Yavin and such.
It was really interesting to seehow the rebellion in each of
(16:47):
these arcs became a little bitor a lot more formalized.
You know, from literally just agroup of people that you know
kind of were working under Axisand Luther and to this you know
very regimented militaryorganization, and those that
(17:10):
were in the beginning kind ofhad some resistance to, because
they're rebels by nature to someof that formalized structure.
But when something gets big,you know, the only way it can
operate is some kind offormalized structure and rules.
Stephen Tollafield (17:26):
Yeah, yeah, it's funny that we've always
known that it was the rebelalliance but we've never really
no story has really everunpacked what that meant, like
who is in this alliance and whyare they allied and why were
they separate organizationsbefore?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (17:42):
It's really interesting to explore
that where mon motha was one ofequals, you know, kind of
fighting for her position to tolater on, where she you know she
clearly uh is.
(18:03):
Is the person in charge of uhof the the rebel alliance yeah,
and we get to follow one groupin rebels.
StarWarsLawyer (18:09):
And you know, when we see all the different
groups together, it's like, okay, there's an adjustment, which
we see in the later arcs ofandor, like working under a, a
military structure instead ofdoing your own thing.
But this is different, where inthe first arc we saw the maya
pair what was left of them nowwe're seeing the gorman front,
then you have the partisans withsaw, then you have uh, luthens
(18:31):
and act thus accesses, whateveryou want to call them, and it's
just, they're all workingtowards the same goal, but they
don't work well together andthey have to learn that.
Stephen Tollafield (18:43):
Yeah, and they need leadership that's
going to have a firm hand andexperience as a leader in
negotiating and politicking,which is why Mon Mothma is such
a great fit for the leader ofthe Rebel Alliance.
Yeah, Great.
So any oh go ahead On Gormanitself.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (19:00):
I think they did a really phenomenal
job of establishing a culture.
I thought it was verysurprising that they gave them
their own language.
Stephen Tollafield (19:10):
I've read a couple of articles.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (19:11):
You know it's based on French and
they actually developed it tothe point that you know it could
be like Esperanto or any of theother Klingon you know could
become the next geek language ofchoice and just the planet
itself, you know, is almost amix of a Roman French resistance
(19:35):
, paris kind of feel to it.
You know you saw them in cafes.
You saw them drinking, you know, coffee.
The outfits were clearly, youknow, either Florence, milan or
France.
You know it had that designer,artistic feel to it and they
(19:59):
really did a good job of thatwhich then built to.
You know you saw at themonument to the Tarkin massacre.
You know that people would begathering and the right to
association clearly comes inwhere, if a constitution of a
(20:21):
country like ours gives thepeople the right to associate,
they are allowed to, you know,get together to protest.
But there are limits to thatright to association.
You know it is legal for agovernment to require permits If
(20:42):
something is going to be alarge association for everyone's
safety.
These kind of limits to theright of association have been
allowed by the courts and Idealt with this a lot when I
handled all the Occupy WallStreet cases for New York City.
Clearly, one of the argumentsthat the occupying defendants
(21:05):
made was the right toassociation and the police were
overzealous when they would comedown on their right to
association.
And all that comes into playwith regards to the gorman and
it was very, very well handled.
I thought, uh, in in the arc atthat, in in this series yeah,
(21:27):
yeah, yeah.
Stephen Tollafield (21:29):
so yeah, they um the gormans are
definitely I.
When I um was watching andhearing them speak it, I wanted
someone to break in to do hearthe people saying it was very
French Revolution coded.
Absolutely they were very muchleading into kind of
Nazi-occupied Paris and Ithought that was a really really
cool design choice.
(21:50):
That was really cool.
StarWarsLawyer (21:52):
Does that make Cyril Javert?
Yes, absolutely, or maybe DedraJust a little combination of
the two?
Stephen Tollafield (21:54):
Yeah, totally good observation.
Does that make cyril javertabsolutely or maybe dead?
just a little combination of thetwo.
Yeah, totally.
Um good, any final thoughts onum, on that episode before we
move on to.
I have friends everywhere,great.
Well, this is the episode wherewe get to see um uh, uh and or
(22:16):
really lean into his spy craft,where he is in disguise and he's
got those cool shades and hearrives on Gorman and starts to
investigate the Gorman front tosee if it's something that
Luthan might be interested inincorporating into his more
formal rebellion, his moreformal rebellion.
(22:40):
So that's where things start toget a little complicated with
him and Luthan, because he alsorealizes that Luthan is kind of
playing Bix a little bit againstor working with Bix kind of
behind the scenes.
So the things get complicatedreally quickly.
So any observations aboutanything going on in this
(23:00):
episode?
Legally it was kind of mostlyjust spycraft that I saw Very,
very much spycraft.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (23:06):
You know the one legal issue maybe
you want to discuss is is hespying?
I don't think he would make youknow he really wasn't spying on
the empire at that point.
You know he was in a disguiseand there's really no law
against being in a disguise.
You know he did travel underfalse papers, so clearly that
(23:34):
would be.
You know various types offorgery and such were in play.
So that would be some of thelaws that he would have broken
if he was caught by the empire.
And I think you know he veryquickly sized up the fact that
the Gorman Front was notsomething that was going to be
(23:56):
successful and was really goingto get themselves into a lot of
trouble and that they thoughtmuch more highly of themselves
than they really had the rightto think and that they really
were having no chance and thatif they put a lot of resources
(24:18):
into the Gorman front, theywould not get great dividends
from that.
So I think that it was a greatepisode as far as watching and
seeing the actor play thedesigner that he was and the
interaction between him and thehotel clerk, which then comes
(24:40):
into play later down the road,where the heartfelt story from
that clerk as to the loss of hisfamily members really brought
home thatin story so that weunderstood why the gore were so
angry about that, thatparticular incident, and why
(25:02):
that memorial meant something tothem and that why that memorial
was the appropriate place toassemble yeah, and I thought
that was a nice nod to Legends,because the Gorman Massacre in
Legends was Tarkin landing hisship on protesting Gormans,
which they just made the TarkinMassacre here.
StarWarsLawyer (25:22):
And then obviously we see the Gorman
Massacre a little later, so thatI thought was interesting in
the fact that they didmemorialize it.
And then the Empire is justlike we're just're just going to
, you know, rub salt in thewound or stick the knife a
little bit further in um, and Ithought it was funny, the um
(25:42):
leader of the gorman fronttalking to cyril is just like
yes, we believe the isb isrunning a shadow government and
emperor palpatine doesn't knowwhich is.
It's just really funny, justthe irony, since palpatine's
been running a shadow governmentfor at this point what?
Stephen Tollafield (26:00):
20 years, yeah, 25, yeah several of them
actually, because yeah he'srunning the clone war by running
both sides of of the uh theparticipants to to you know, a
galaxy-wide war yeah, and Ithink that observation too
underscores just how effectiveDeirdre has been in kind of
(26:20):
pumping up the making sure thatthose rebels are going to do the
wrong thing and in feeding theminformation and then making
them feel like they couldactually succeed and giving them
confidence so that they willultimately overplay their hand,
and I think it's a really so.
It shows like what a goodtactician she is and what a mind
(26:44):
she has for it.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (26:47):
Even the success of the mission when
they're able to stop thetransport and steal the weapons.
Just gave them enough weaponsto put a great show for the
television.
So that it was clearly rightfor the Empire to stomp them
(27:07):
down.
Stephen Tollafield (27:08):
Yep, yeah, very interesting, yeah.
So, and then also in thisepisode we get to see Saw
Gerrera taking willman kind ofunder his wing after um taking
out the other guy that willmanwas training.
Yeah, good old pluty.
Yeah, we get to learn a littlebit more about rido um, and I
(27:32):
think you, you all, are a littlemore sort of um, well read in
the kind of the lore and I hadto kind of figure out what Rido
was, the Ridonium fuel had youencountered that before?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (27:45):
I only remember seeing some you know it
being referred to.
I didn't realize that that'swhat it was that Saw was kind
kind of addicted to by yeahsniffing the fumes, uh, so to
speak, and you know I also got a, you know, a vibe that you know
, although you know sore and andluthen are very different when,
(28:09):
when it came to dealing withany loose ends or weak ends,
both of them were as ruthless asruthless could be.
You know there was why, when hewas meeting with Bix, you know,
I really thought he was going totake out Bix because her, you
know, mental instability wasjust going to be a danger to
(28:34):
Cassian and to the, to his group.
And, and you know, when he waskind of giving her some more
narcotics, I had a feeling thatmaybe he was going to be
slipping her an overdose and Iwas glad to see that that wasn't
the the case that you know, bixwould be able to find her peace
, so to speak, and have asuccessful mission.
(28:56):
But, you know, clearly saw whatwas going to do, or had reached
the point in his life thatthere was no stopping him.
You know, very much like Luther, and I think he came to the
realization that he wasn't goingto see the sunrise that was
coming forth down the road, thatthey would do their best to
(29:20):
make sure that the nextgeneration would get to see that
sunrise.
But they knew that they weren'tgoing to be walking out of this
rebel movement themselves.
Stephen Tollafield (29:33):
Cannon fodder, as he called it.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (29:35):
Cannon fodder, as he called it.
Stephen Tollafield (29:35):
Cannon fodder yeah, yeah, yeah, and I
like that observation about theruthlessness because I it.
I watched rogue one again afterthe final episode of I did too,
you had to.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (29:45):
I mean, yeah, exactly.
And then I can't.
I can't watch rogue one, rogueone, without at least watching
the first half an hour of newhope so I go right from one to
the other.
Stephen Tollafield (29:57):
It just makes total sense.
A new super cut, totally,totally and in rogue one um and
or talks about how he's likewe've all done terrible things,
um in the name of the rebellion,and it's interesting that the
show is kind of showing us itactually kind well, it shows us
a little bit, but Andor havingmurdered the soldier which Bix
(30:23):
is really struggling with in thefirst episode of this arc, when
apparently he wasn't a threat,he was just kind of a loose end,
it shows that Andor has kind ofadopted those kind of ruthless
tactics of luthen and um and sawin that side of being a rebel,
um is really taking its toll onthem and it's and it makes that
(30:45):
that scene in rogue one where heshoots the guy where the
stormtroopers confront them, youreally understand that scene
just so much better yeah, yeah,because and throughout the, the
series of andor, you kind ofreally get to identify with with
andor, and in the beginning ofrogue when it first came out,
you didn't really understand himor know who this guy was, and
(31:06):
so seeing that kind of act ofcruel, that ruthlessness, was
kind of shocking, um, but it's.
But I like how the series isbuilding that into his character
and and it's and showing uswhere that comes from.
It's really interesting.
StarWarsLawyer (31:20):
Yeah, I know we saw it in the trailer.
But to get the greater contextof Saul saying revolution is not
for the sane, you know, just ina greater context, is it makes
sense?
Because what they're all doing,all the rebels that we're
following in this series, iscrazy.
You ask the, you know theaverage imperial citizen.
(31:42):
It is crazy what they're doing,rebelling against the empire.
And then the lengths that theyhave to go, you know to do it.
You know we've seen, you know,lutheran speech.
You know I've adopted the toolsof my enemy to defeat them.
And Saul is based is definitelyby any means necessary, and so,
um.
(32:03):
And then you think of thepoliticians, like mon or bail
and people like well, you're ina position of power, like why
would you ever go against theempire?
Like you've got it good, youknow you're both rich.
Like why would you do this?
You know it's.
It goes beyond just um, the,the foot soldiers, or the
captains, the lieutenants andeverything.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (32:23):
It goes all throughout the rebellion
and, and you know, dovetailingon that with the giving up um,
you know you're rich.
The series really did a reallygood job of showing how good the
luxury life in the empire was.
You know Mon Martha could havelived a very comfortable life in
(32:48):
the empire and this, you know,leads to the next episode where
you see another party on herplanet and the wedding, just the
opulence and the car she drivesaround in.
I mean it really showed thatthe high, the aristocracy of the
(33:15):
empire, that the politicians,the rich that were of the empire
, the politicians the rich thatwere in the empire, really did
not have a bad life.
The planet that had theminerals that the empire needed.
They were going to get messedup but if you live and let live
(33:38):
and and didn't resist, you couldhave a very nice life in the,
the, uh, the, the imperialuniverse yeah, it was funny that
I can't remember what was.
Stephen Tollafield (33:48):
This episode , or maybe the next one, started
off with the um, the, thehollow um net uh show is like
the talk show of the womentalking about the parties and
and how?
Um you know they wanted to talkabout who's wearing what.
What's, uh, who's wearing whatand um sort of very rung, very
true with our culture of sort ofpeople being preoccupied with
(34:11):
wealth and and status andcelebrity.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (34:14):
Um, and I thought that was a really
interesting take on tony gilroyon behalf of how like wonderful
some people have it, but foreveryone else it's um, maybe not
so great I loved some, all ofthose moments of you know
showing um the television showor even the commercial that was
about the gorman and theirplanet and the production and
(34:38):
how they produce their clothing,and those little snippets just
really round out the universe insuch a wonderful way.
Stephen Tollafield (34:47):
Yeah, the world building is really next
level in this series for sure.
Great.
Well, so we can move on to.
What a festive evening.
That we're sort of talkingabout the party, unless you had
any other observations aboutthat other show or that other
episode Great.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (35:02):
And let's go to the party.
Stephen Tollafield (35:04):
Yeah, the party was something to be seen
and this is where, as we said,Mon Mothma and Perrin, her
husband, go to the event thrownby Davo Skuldin, their new
relative, I guess their in-laws.
Their in-laws?
Joshua Gilliland (35:24):
Yeah, exactly um relative, I guess their
daughters their in-laws.
Stephen Tollafield (35:26):
Yeah, exactly, um, so they're going to
the party and get invited tosee the secret collection which,
as we've learned um, contains alistening device that luthen
and clay I have uh planted, uhin um to listen in on scolden's
uh happenings, and so, um, thisactually presented quite a legal
(35:46):
issue.
That stuck out to me was thefact that there's a listening
device planted on someone'sprivate property, and we all
know that, of course, if you'relaw enforcement or you're in the
government, you need a warrantto wiretap someone, but any
thoughts on a private citizenwiretapping someone else.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (36:04):
It's clearly an invasion of privacy
and since this was being done tofurther an anti-government
movement, you can make anargument that it would be
treason to the empire as well.
I cannot wait for the visualdictionaries of Andor both to
(36:24):
get the little tidbit stories ofthis collection and store.
You know everything from.
You know we now know thatthere's a Gungan skull that had
the crest of the Darth Revan'sempire.
So you know, the little tidbitsthat they put into these art
(36:45):
collections are beyondfascinating.
So I can't wait to, you know,flush out all the details as to
that.
But you know clearly you don'thave the right, and most states
have various laws that deal withunlawful eavesdropping and
wiretapping, and I would be verysurprised if the empire didn't
(37:12):
have such rules that prohibitsuch.
But you also clearly see invarious scenes throughout the
series that the empire has noproblem whatsoever to listening
in on many conversations,offices, telephone conversations
(37:48):
the ISB has been able to do inthe years that the Empire has
been around.
Interactions between the, thevarious players, uh, you know,
especially uh, mon martha andand the director, who's, you
(38:10):
know, building the, the deathstar as they play.
That little bit of a cat andmouse discussion was, was my
favorite part of the episodeyeah, yeah, yeah, trespass it
like.
Stephen Tollafield (38:22):
having a listening device is certainly,
uh, not a great thing for peoplein private citizens, among each
other and, as you point out, inan authoritarian society,
privacy when it comes to thegovernment is really not a thing
.
People's communications andmonitors them for
(38:44):
anti-government sentiments thatthey might take action on.
So in the intelligencegathering in an authoritarian
system like the empire is, ofcourse, very elaborate and very
intense.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (39:01):
And I have been in the position where
you know I've gotten theserequests from government
especially at least I did thatthe government has met their
various burdens, that they haveto meet in order to convince you
(39:28):
to sign off on these variouswarrants and eavesdropping and
wiretapping and tracking ofphones, and you know so there's
a safeguard that that of thoseof us that were in the in in the
judiciary role, um to to haveto convince us first, before the
(39:51):
government was was able to todo these kind of things, and
it's, you know, it's those kindof safeguards, uh that that
protect, um the rights of thecitizens and and and I don't see
the Empire having suchsafeguards, yeah, no, not at all
.
Stephen Tollafield (40:09):
They're not super into those for sure.
So while that's happening onCoruscant, of course, back on
Gormin the heist is goingforward and Luthen sends Vel and
Sinta to kind of make sure theydon't go too far off the rails
and it of course ends in tragedy.
I guess this situation, thisheist, it's a theft obviously,
(40:34):
but any thoughts on sort of how,like what other crimes or what
other things are going on inthis situation?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (40:41):
They set off an incendiary device so
that you know that would be acrime um you know depth of
government property yeah, whichjosh and I talked about last
week it would definitely be anact of terrorism against the
empire, because it was it was.
It was done in such a manner,um, as would have met their,
their terrorist, um type ofthings but, and, like you said,
(41:03):
you know it, it clearly showedthat the gorman front wasn't
ready for prime time.
But for Bell and Sintes, evenjust their participation in the
planning, if they weren't thereto say, no, you've got to do
this, you've got to do this,you've got to do this, it
(41:25):
wouldn't have even gotten to asfar as it did.
You know, unfortunately therewas uh, since life, you know,
was tragically ended by a, bystupidity of a member of the
government front.
But you know, I don't thinkthey even would have gotten
successful at stopping the, thetransport, if it wasn't for
(41:45):
their little bit of help thatthey gave um.
So you know, it clearly proveduh, cassie incorrect, that the,
they, they really should not puta lot of uh resources into the
gorman front yeah, they, theyweren't ready.
StarWarsLawyer (42:01):
And I knew, uh, that guy was gonna do something
stupid because he just had that.
Look about him like, oh yeah,it's go time, I'm ready, I'm
ready.
No, you're absolutely not.
And they were right like youneeded to listen and do exactly
what they said.
And they didn't, and senta paidthe price.
And then I knew narrativelythat I I figured like
(42:24):
something's about to go wrong,one of them's about to die.
But then, once they reconciledand Cinta was just like I'm
sorry, you know, I went throughthis, I went through that.
I'm like, oh yeah, you're dead.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (42:35):
Rip, yeah it definitely became a
tragic love story at that point,because the two of them you can
always sense that they reallycared about each other and loved
each other and and then theyhad that brief, you know, being
reunited and and you could tellthat things were going to go in
the right direction.
So that wasn't going to happen.
Stephen Tollafield (42:55):
Yeah, pretty much every couple in star wars.
Yeah, there's not.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (42:58):
There's not a lot of successful you.
Even even hannah leyer couldn'tmake it.
Stephen Tollafield (43:02):
You know they fell apart.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (43:06):
You know there's really not a lot of
successful stories In the books.
The most successful story wasprobably Luke and Mary Jade and
as a result, I don't think we'llever see Mary Jade.
Yeah.
Stephen Tollafield (43:18):
Happy relationships are not consistent
with the Star Wars aesthetic,for sure.
But I thought that it wasinteresting too that Cinta's
homicide raised just kind of avery interesting first year law
student, criminal law, felonymurder situation where anyone
who gets injured or killed inthe commission of a crime is
(43:41):
charged as a homicide.
Like that guy is a murderer.
He certainly didn't intend tokill Cinta, but because of the
because it occurred during thecommission of a felony, he's
really anyone that was part ofthat mission could be.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (43:56):
You know he clearly could.
He, he did the key, killed her,so he could clearly be charged
with the murder.
But but all of the otherparticipants could also be
charged with that murder,because someone died during the
commission of a felony and I'dbe hard pressed to say that this
wasn't in some way a felony inthe in the empire.
So, and they were all awarethat they were Well, I can't say
(44:19):
that because they weren'tsupposed to all be carrying
weapons.
They weren't supposed to all becarrying weapons, um, so
they're supposed to have rightthere.
So there is a defense to thefelony murder in some states
that if you are unaware thatyour co-conspirator was carrying
a weapon, um, some states allowthat as something that you
could plead in order to getaround the, the felony murder.
(44:41):
But that depends on thejurisdiction.
Probably the empire would notbe so forgiving no yeah yeah, so
that's all that last seasonyeah
Stephen Tollafield (44:50):
yeah, so that casts a long shadow over
kind of the end of the of thisarc.
But, um, I thought it was avery satisfying arc in the way
that it ended with a couple ofwins for our main characters.
Um, luthan and Clea have amoment as they leave Skulden's
party where they are happy thatthey succeeded in removing the
(45:11):
listening device and they shareda little moment of levity,
which is really nice.
And then we see Bix kind of gether revenge.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (45:20):
And that was wonderful to see.
StarWarsLawyer (45:22):
Oh, fantastic.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (45:27):
That was a game of thrones.
When the king finally got hisjust dessert with that poison
wine, it was one of thosemoments Watching this imperial
torturer literally get his ownmedicine was wonderful.
Stephen Tollafield (45:45):
Very satisfying and you could see
from the smile on Bix's face asshe walked away, as they you
know they cool people never lookback at explosions.
Of course, as they walk awayafter detonating his floor,
she's.
You can see that that's veryhealing for her.
Probably not something that isrecommended for um.
You know people in our universeto exact vengeance, kind of
(46:07):
like that um but um, but thatbrings her closure to something
that's really been tormentingher for a long time and I agree
with you, steven.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (46:14):
That scene where you're walking
forward and the explosionshappening behind you that you
know are going to happen is likepure hollywood yep, yeah, they
needed those sunglasses to puton.
Yeah and you know clearlycriminal wise.
Uh, you know the empire wouldbe charging them with with
(46:34):
murder of anybody that was inthat building, destruction of
property uh, probably acts ofterrorism as well yeah, yeah,
and that was a that was becomingmilitary technology.
Stephen Tollafield (46:45):
Now too, the , the torture device, was being
relocated from ISB to the Navy,I guess, and so that was, that
was probably would up the ante.
Judge Matthew Sciarrin (47:00):
Probably a much better way to
interrogate leia as opposed tothe you know the black droid
with the needles coming close up, but but you know they might
have been able to successfully,uh, interrogate her oh gosh, I
hadn't even thought of that.
Stephen Tollafield (47:17):
That's that I'm still afraid of needles to
this day because of that stupidscene.
I can.
I had a really hard time withblood draws.
Thanks, star Wars.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (47:29):
I got a version of one back there
somewhere.
Stephen Tollafield (47:31):
Oh no, I'll avoid looking at those pictures.
So yeah, so this episode, sothis that what a Festive Evening
kind of wraps up this arc.
Any final thoughts orobservations about this sequence
?
Josh?
Joshua Gilliland (47:53):
do you want to chime in?
It was a great arc and you guysdid a very nice job covering it
.
Yeah, a lot to think about withthe right to association
throughout the set time placemanner, restrictions on those
rights, uh, murder, bad couples.
Therapy should not involveblowing somebody up.
I just want to put that outthere.
We don't do that.
(48:13):
You know therapists willrecommend it.
Well, let me rephrase that Idon't think a therapist would
recommend it, and if one does,daredevil daredevils or kingpin,
and his wife's therapist might,in the next season, recommend
it.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (48:28):
So that'll be.
That'll be to be seen in futurepodcasts yeah, it's.
Joshua Gilliland (48:32):
It's a bad mojo there and the thinking
about gorman, like what couldthey do?
I mean, this is where passiveresistance probably would have
been a better play for them.
Uh, I'm not saying that there'sa lot of gandhi or martin
luther king jr in the star warsuniverse, but that probably
would have been a betterlong-term strategy for them.
(48:53):
Uh, opposed to what they endedup doing, which which does not
work for them although how muchlong term did they really have?
Stephen Tollafield (49:05):
Their planet was going to blow up there's?
Yeah, it's interesting.
I think Tony Gilroy is reallykind of pushing at our, our
sensibilities about what is aneffective means of protest and
what is an effective means ofrebelling when the government
becomes totalitarian, like thatof rebelling when the government
(49:26):
becomes totalitarian, like that.
Joshua Gilliland (49:29):
Well, and it also goes to the militarization
of the press and being able toleverage, again, the passive
resistance to a movement todisplace the people.
You know, can that work in24-hour coverage or would the
propaganda win?
Don't know the answer to that.
But you know there are examples, both historical and fiction.
(49:58):
It's one of the Tom Clancynovels, I think it's some of all
fears where, uh, you know, youhave a protest in israel and the
palestinians adapt passiveresistance and taking the page
and singing we shall overcome,and it ends with one of the
(50:21):
israeli soldiers shooting one ofthe protesters in the head on
live TV, which then the worldswings an opinion and you end up
with the Vatican deploying itsrobo-troopers to instill peace
and be the peacekeepers, and allthat.
But again, that's an example ofa passive resistance to a
(50:46):
totalitarian action against apeaceful protest.
So could that work in the StarWars universe?
Maybe, maybe not, I mean, withthe press controlled, I don't
know.
But that's where my mind wentin, seeing the guys with the
flags trying to protest andknowing that it's only going to
(51:07):
get worse and probably theplanet would become
uninhabitable.
Stephen Tollafield (51:14):
Yeah, which was the empire's?
Point Exactly, they were sortof manipulating it to box
everyone in, like that, and thenthey had a sniper who shot you
went in like that, and then theyhad a sniper who shot you.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (51:25):
Yeah, it was very well orchestrated by
the ISB.
They did their missionsuccessfully.
Stephen Tollafield (51:36):
Went all according to Detra's plan.
Yeah, this is devious.
Any final thoughts before wesign off on this episode?
Great, you want to take us out,josh, since you're here sure,
everyone thanks for tuning in.
Joshua Gilliland (51:54):
Wherever you are, stay safe, stay healthy and
stay geeky.
Take care now.
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