Tales of the Underworld — Ion Cannon #460 - Ion Cannon | Star Wars Entertainment Reviews

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
All wings reported red 10 standing by Red 9 standing.
By Red 3 standing by. Red 6 standing by.
Goodnight. Standing by, you're listening to
the Ion Cannon Podcast. Laugh it up, fuzzball.
Your source for entertainment reviews from a Galaxy far, far
away? This is it.
Hey, laser clickers. Welcome to the Iron Cannon

(00:24):
podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Steven
and I'm joined by my friends andCo host Tom and William.
Today we are back. We have some tales for you from
from another an underworld. I I don't have a good pen for
that, but that's what we're doing.
Yes, yes, it's time to talk Tales of the Underworld.

(00:44):
It's been longer than we wanted.It's been about a month since
the episodes dropped, but there was so much Andor to cover.
We've talked about this in past episodes.
There were 12, almost 12 hours of Star Wars content to cover in
the span of like 3 weeks. So yeah, 21 days, 22 days
thereabouts. So there's a lot, there is a

(01:06):
lot. We want to give you time to
digest and, or, and now that you've digested and, or and
listened to our, our recap, I hope you've all listened to
watched 1st and then listened toour, our, our recap.
It's time to talk about tales ofthe Underworld because I don't
know about you, but Cadbane, oneof my favourites, Asajj Ventris,

(01:27):
a phenomenal character. I'm excited to dive into this.
How about you guys? I'm I'm ready to give a synopsis
if you guys are. Let's let's do it.
Do it OK. So this is Tales of the
Underworld. It is 1/6 episode journey
following two notorious bounty hunters, former dark side
assassin Asajj Ventress, as she is given a new chance at life

(01:49):
and must go on the run with an unexpected new ally.
And the other part of this storyline is CAD Bane as he
faces his past when he confrontsan old friend, now a Marshall,
on the other side of the law. So.
Two very, yeah, two very different stories here.
Yeah. And you know, as you know, as

(02:10):
usual with the Tales shorts, thestory was by Dave Filoni.
They were all written by Matt Mcdevitz, who is great as usual.
And we have the usual trio of directors, Saul, Saul Ruiz,
Stuart Lee and Nate Villanueva. So yes let's see should we start

(02:31):
with Asaj cuz her episodes go are first in the.
Serial order I think we should. Let's do it.
It's either able. Yeah, it's a very.
Just a really quick summary for those who may not remember a
couple of years ago, Tales of the Jedi first came out covering
Ahsoka's origins as well as and you know, parts for her life.

(02:52):
It's kind of nice you get to like jump in different parts of
of these characters lives. We have to see Ahsoka and Count
Dooku in Tales of the Jedi in Tales of the Empire last year we
got to see Morgan, Elsbeth and Gol Thrawn.
And now in season, it's not really season 3, but it's

(03:12):
effectively season 3 of the third installment of the tales.
We get a Sage Ventress and Cadbane.
If you'll remember, when we lastsaw Asajj Ventress, she was
appearing out of nowhere in the Bad Batch.
Remember we were watching the Bad Batch and suddenly Asajj
appears in the episode, which was a shock given that she died

(03:35):
in the book Star Wars Dark Disciple which was itself
written based on the four episode arc about Asaj
Adventures and Quinlan Voss and their romance and how Asajj dies
at the end. Originally 4 episodes of the
Clone Wars. When the series was cancelled
they turned it into a book and and of course fans were familiar

(03:57):
with that. So seeing her pop up in the Bad
Batch was shocking to say the least.
And no, they did not overwrite her that book.
Instead they told us wait and we'll explain it in the future.
And we finally. And lo and behold, the future.
Yes, yes. So I, I, I'll throw it to you

(04:18):
first. Steven, what was your thought
when you saw the end of Dark Disciple as the beginning of
Tales of the Underworld? Oh, I'm I'm actually the worst
person to ask my question. I I mean, and I feel bad to
admit this, I have not read DarkDisciple yet.
It is still on you still. Haven't read it.
Oh my God. And on my my to read list.

(04:41):
Well, spoilers. That being said, I think it
creates a. Little bit, yeah.
And I know you guys have both talked about it and I've heard
nothing but good things about it.
It does make for a very interesting opening to, you
know, this particular show because, like I I knew roughly

(05:03):
what had happened is we talked about it when Assange came back
in bad batch. But it I suspect this is an
opening that means a lot more ifyou have read the book compared
to, you know, just just the following animation.
It's interesting to see. Like it was great to see Quinlan
again, Quinlan again. It was great to see Obi Wan, but

(05:26):
it it definitely feels a little bit on the random side because
you know, the, you know, they, they lower Asajj Ventris into
the the waters, the tar, whatever, you know, however you
want to call it. And then she kind of like wakes
up a minute later, it seems like, and I'm sure it's much
longer than that, But and then and then we're off.
I don't I'm curiously at your guys's thoughts.

(05:47):
Having read the novel, this feltto me like they, you know, they
said they were going to explain it later and they now feel like
they're like they can say like, Yep, see, we explained it, We're
done it. It felt a little random to me.
Yeah, I guess, is what I'm saying.
I would imagine since you haven't read the book, that's

(06:08):
why it does feel random and I understand for a lot of other
people the same way. William, go ahead.
I didn't want to jump on that. When I say random, I more mean
like that I don't know if they actually needed to do this
opening like. Interesting.
Why? It feels like yeah, OK, great.
You like you promised you were going to explain how she came

(06:29):
back, but like this literally was effectively her saying or
them like Dave Filoni saying like, and then she came back and
I was like, yeah, I already knewthat.
He doesn't really. Yeah.
Somehow Palpatine has returned. You know, it doesn't feel like
there was a a major, like nothing interesting to, I guess

(06:50):
I would say happened here. It just felt like they, they
knew or felt like they had to show what had happened.
And so they gave us, you know, aa 5 minute sequence showing that
it happened. So I I will agree with you,
Steven, in that. So I think there's two pieces.
One, I thought it was really cool to see the end of the bad

(07:10):
of the book dark disciple. But then the way they explained
it, like the what happens after the book felt very hand WAVY.
And I completely agree with you on that.
So I guess quickly to recap for those in a little more details,
we started to talk about it. But you know, she dies at the
end of Dark Disciple when she sacrifices herself to save
Quinlan Voss. And during the final, close your

(07:33):
ears, Steven, if you don't want to hear the details.
But basically during the final confrontation with Count Duku,
Voss is on the verge of being consumed by the dark side.
Duku unleashes this powerful force lightning attack and
Ventris, you know, jumps in front of it and protects Quinlan
Voss. And he ends up taking her her
body back to her home world of Dathomir, where he lays her to

(07:56):
rest in the sacred waters of theburial grounds for the of the
night sisters and kind of lets her kind of return home.
And so there's there's some small deltas with the book.
You know, in the book they enterwith a saj in a a coffin instead
of just Quinlan carrying her. Obi Wan walks away to give

(08:19):
Quinlan some space but keeps an eye on him since the place is
steep to the dark side and they're worried about Quinlan
turning to the dark side. Again, the dialogue is slightly
different but the intent is the same.
And then Quinlan used the force to lower sage into the water
instead of walking into the pool.
But these are very minor details, right?
Overall, it's very, very similaras far as the, the the the plot

(08:47):
and you know, as we we find we see later, right, he is so
Quinlan is so impacted by what Ventress did, sacrificing
herself to save him. He rejects the dark side,
returns the Jedi and, you know, ends up surviving the clone wars
and eventually helping to found the path as we see in Kenobi.

(09:11):
And that's all we we've really seen of him since.
So we don't they don't show him in in this arc.
We haven't really seen him in other things.
We just know he's behind the path.
And so in this episode, we see basically the same thing up
until Asajj is in the water and Quinlan walks away.

(09:32):
But where it all is brand new iswhen she wakes up in the water
and Mother Towson returns. And it's basically like, hey, do
you want to be alive again? Effectively, is what she says.
Yeah. Do you want to come back?
And yeah. And.
And basically, you know, the other ones.

(09:53):
Obi Wan Quinlan can't hear Asajjat all.
And Mother Towson confirms that she is indeed dead.
So. OK, that's.
That's nice to know. And that Quinlan's words were a
gift to her. And if she loves him, there are
two paths she can join, whether Talzen and the sisters in this
realm or return to the land of living at the cost of her
heart's desire. And she chooses the latter,

(10:14):
steps out of the night Sister magics.
And she seems to be in the future because Dathamere is now
completely destroyed and looks very different than it used to
be. And all of a sudden, she has a
different haircut. There's a lot of hand waving
going in there. Like, what do you like?
How does she come back? OK, Night Sister magic.
You can kind of explain it with that.
Is it the perfect explanation? No, but at least it's some

(10:38):
degree of explanation. It's.
Something. See it?
But what do you think, Tom? OK, I didn't have much of a
problem with it. I think that the biggest thing
that I think was the admittance of of Colin Voss loving her and
and which stayed true to the book.
And you just had the whole feeling, it's like I, I OK, I'm

(11:02):
just going to say I didn't have that much of a problem with it.
I had no problem with them bringing her back this way.
Sure, it might have been, you know, a little bit of hand WAVY
thing to make it quick, easy andpainless.
But you know, it, it's, it was an explanation that they did
promise with promises we would get.
And I would have to say this. What what would you guys

(11:23):
possibly have done different to bring her back?
I, I, I actually agree with withyou, Tom, right.
I think it's it was awesome to see the end of Dark Disciple.
I loved that piece. I the explanation for how she.
Got Back is like Night Sister Magic which is very hand WAVY
but you know, this is Star Wars and they brought people back
with less explanation so I guessI'll take it.

(11:46):
Right. But but that that's true.
I mean, we, we at least in this case, finally saw the
explanation and they said they were going to give it to us.
So we did see it a little hand WAVY, maybe cheap, but at least
we have something to hold on to.It's like, OK, you can accept
it. Fine, she's back now.
Now let's move her story forwardbecause she is a really good

(12:07):
character. She is popular and.
I want to. Hear your question and William
there. I think the better way to bring
her back is something a la WorldBetween worlds, not pulling her
time travel or things like that,but just if this I mean, it
wouldn't have fit into tales of the underworld, I guess, but
like if this was like a a spiritjourney kind of thing infused

(12:30):
with, you know, night sister magic where she is going through
maybe I mean, take that back tales of the underworld, but
underworld in the, you know, ancient Greek and perhaps no.
I I see what you're saying, OK. I so I think so you would have
wanted. So you would have wanted, and it
sounds like you would have wanted the story longer than

(12:51):
this because it does seem like, I think William pointed out, it
does appear that there's that bit of a time jump when she's in
the water. And then once she gets revived,
then the planet death mirrors a little bit more destroyed than
it originally was. So there was something happening
there to put the time jump, but you would have rather seen like
maybe her, you know, still within the realm of the Night

(13:16):
Sisters, magic of death, whatever you want to call it,
where she's walking through the valley of death to try and get
herself back to the land of the living, from the sound of it.
Yeah, I just, I what we got to me for me was not meaningfully
different than somehow Palpatinereturned.
Yeah. OK.

(13:37):
I'm on it. I it's 100% cool that we got to
the end of the book. Like, even if somebody didn't
read the book, like I, I could feel that vibe and.
And I thought it worked well. Yeah, yeah.
But I for this particular story,I either would have spent less
time on this, I would spend no time on this, or a lot more time
on it. Yeah, I think that.

(13:58):
I think we got real functory. It is interesting that you
mentioned that, Steve, because that's actually something I, I
had in my, my made a mental noteof to bring up later on.
I think it's something that thatunfortunately kind of plagues a
lot of the tales of shorts is that it's it's either too short
or not long enough right in or sorry.

(14:20):
It's either like it either needsto be shorter or or it needs to
be longer. And one of the one of the two
where sometimes the current running time is, is right in the
middle where it's they just giveyou just enough without going
actually deep enough to where itwould like be more impactful.
I think that's something that not just tales of the
underworld, but also Tales of the Jedi, Tales of the Empire
suffered with as well. Doesn't make it a bad show, but

(14:41):
it just that's I think one of the the challenges with this,
with this, you know, very much amini series format of 15 minutes
or so episodes. Yeah, OK.
But but, you know, ultimately, it really just is a way to get

(15:02):
Asaj Ventris back on the chess board.
And the rest of the episode is it's interest, the episode the
the trilogy of Asajj installments is it's I think if
you were to describe it as a oneline sentence, I'd be like, that
is the coolest thing of all time, right?
Because or maybe very, you know,ever.

(15:25):
But like it's up there. It's it's pretty great because
you've got Asajj ventures who fell in love with Quinlan Voss
and sacrificed herself for her comes back.
She, she somehow returns and shediscovers the path and starts to
follow the path. And guess who created the path?
We found out in Kenobi or is oneof the founding members Quinlan

(15:46):
Voss? How perfect is that?
And I think the biggest disappointment I had with this
arc is that it's actually not really that in the in the end,
kind of jumping ahead of moment,she ends up just giving up that
journey. And I know that Mother Towson's
words say that, you know, she can return to the land of

(16:08):
living, but at the cost of her heart's desire, which presumably
means she'd have to give up Quinlan Voss.
But she spends all three of these episodes searching for
him, only the last second to give up that search, with no
real explanation as to why she does like what?
What made her decide that she was gonna?
Did she realize that she wanted to follow Mother Towson's orders

(16:30):
or that she somehow something prevented her from it?
I think that was the thing that made it ultimately the trilogy
kind of fall flat for me becauseI love the concept so much.
And we'll talk about the detailsof the episodes.
But I figured since we're talking about the high level
themes here, it's it's importantto to cover this piece first.
Well OK so my thing is maybe I misunderstood this.
I thought she basically was trying to get to the path just

(16:52):
to get Lyko the the the kid thatshe ran across to the path.
I I never took it as she was actually going to join the path.
I was just trying to get him to that final destination.
Lyko mentions the path you can see her interest is like, well,
what you know he says like Quinlan Voss's name and she's
that's why she helps him becauseI think she the way I I

(17:14):
understood it was she's like shethinks it's a a way to meet and
re be reunited with Quinlan. OK.
I'm interpreted as well, like that was the thing that pulled
her her interest in and. As soon as I heard that like me
too, I was like, yes, I'm on board, let's do this, this is
awesome. And then she gives.
It. Up then I must have completely
misread the Mother Towson thing because I as you said that if

(17:37):
she were to turn the land of living she would have to give up
her heart's desire. I read that as she basically
gave up trying to find Quinlan Voss and then even though she
heard that Quinlan was still alive, she just wanted to get
this kid to the path and that was it because she was basically
following what Mother Towson said.

(17:59):
That's how I read these three episodes.
I to me, I think it was supposedto be about the conflict and how
she wanted to find Quinlan but knew that she couldn't.
I think. But they don't explain.
It doesn't come through at the very end, right?
What, what, what, what, what resulted in that final decision
of I, oh, I can't, is it, I physically cannot or I, I, I

(18:22):
need to give it up. But why did she decide she
needed quick? She could just ignore Mother
Towson, right? Presumably, is there something
keeping her from from reuniting with OK Quinn?
I don't know, I guess that was the big thing.
It kind of just left a sour taste in my mouth after the
because I was so excited for it.And then it was like.
Well, maybe, maybe that's maybe that's the one key that's a

(18:44):
little bit confusing for me because yes, mother tells and
sat there and said that you haveto give up your heart's desire.
But if you follow your heart's desire, let's theoretically say
she ends up finding Quinn and Boss at that point, then the
deal I made with you to the landof living is now moot and you
basically die on the spot, as asweird as that sounds.

(19:07):
But that to me would make bettersense to why she didn't continue
on to the path to find Quinlan Voss.
Yeah. Yeah.
And this is an example of if that was what they intended.
They just they needed to spell that out a lot more cleanly.
I think, I think that's, that's probably why I think the three
of us have basically two different ideas of how the story
went, because you guys saw it one way and I saw it the other.

(19:28):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I just feel like, again, it kindof like it either is not either
explains. I feel like the episodes are too
short to do it do the topics they're trying to do justice,
especially with the fact that it's kind of one story threw up
into split up into three distinct pieces where each each
story cannot go deep enough. If it was 145 minute episode,
you could probably go deep enough, but it was it's 315

(19:51):
minute installments. And so they either can't go deep
enough to really do what they want, but they almost are too
long to fit the kind of story that they've chosen.
I guess it's not quite like a little vignette.
It's a little bit longer. I don't know anyway.
That's we can talk about that more as we as we go, but that

(20:12):
that I think was my biggest frustration with it.
But let's let's talk about Asajj's relationship with Lyco.
So she we find out and sometime in the future after she leaves
Dathomir, she's living a peaceful life on some unknown
planet. Kind of looks, you know, some
desert planet kind of looks likea Tatooine style place, but I
don't think it's actually any desert planet we know.

(20:33):
And she's working for this this lady named Court at some point
of sort of transport station. And she's pretty happy with her
boring, monotonous life when oneday, you know, she's kind of
she's being security for for court kicking out people causing
trouble. And one day she meets a kid

(20:54):
named Lyco Strata, played by Lane Factor, and he tries to buy
passage on a shuttle and he doesn't have enough credits
Court. And then he tries to do a mind
trick on Court. Court is too smart to fall for
it. But Asajj Ventress notices what
what the kid is doing, like I was doing, tries to, you know,

(21:15):
and tries to help him hide from stormtroopers.
Initially, she dismisses the kid, but, you know, she feels
bad for the kid when stormtroopers start looking for
him, helps him hide and things kind of get out of control from
there. When you know, Asajj and
basically court turns them in and Asajj has to kill the
soldiers and the two basically end up pairing up.

(21:37):
And it's it's, you know, Lyko the kid and Asajj, the somewhat,
Yeah, slightly reformed bad girl, Right.
You've got, it's an interesting dynamic because Lyko's a young
Jedi and he doesn't really know who Asajj is at 1st.

(21:58):
And this makes for some really interesting moments, like when
later she she tells him, I, I probably killed several people,
you know, personally. And he's just like, oh, no, it's
a it's a fun dynamic for sure. What?
What did you think, Steven? I that line in particular I
think is where I definitely wantto see more of this kind of

(22:23):
like, you know, Asajj not quite being goody 2 shoes, but also,
you know, not not really evil anymore either.
We get some allusions to it. We see pieces of it.
I don't think it really pays offthough, until the I think it's,
I think it's the third arc in kind of a the desert farm area.

(22:47):
Yeah. Yeah, I, I will say this and I
know that that it was a possibility that I knew they
wouldn't go there, but I'm happythat they didn't have this
character be Jodna na Wood from Skeleton Crew.
I know it probably wouldn't havefit or they could have made it
fit or made it could work because we that is a character
that he did say he had a mentor and I could see possibly, yeah,

(23:13):
possibly Ventress could have been that mentor because I think
when the when it first started, you could have seen it go that
way. But then naturally as the
episodes progressed it, it definitely was not him.
So I'm happy they didn't do that.
I did like the dynamic between the two.
Yeah, and it's, you know, it's it's it's a nice moment where

(23:34):
Saj has to care about someone other than herself and try to
help him along in his journey tofind the path and protect him.
Even though she they have this friends, not friends kind of
dynamic, right, where he kind ofmakes fun of her for her age.
She kind of looks down on him for his lack of experience, but

(23:55):
also tries to watch out for him in many ways.
Right. You like when the Inquisitor,
for example, attacks? Really cool looking Inquisitor
and we got a great fight where Asajj grabs like a lightsaber
and she's doing her usual, you know, 2 handed lightsaber fight.

(24:17):
It's great, great stuff. Well, you knew that Inquisitor
was not going to last long with Ventress, No.
Regardless Ventress. Ventress has always been one of
the best animated lightsaber duels duelists within the
universe, and even if you take it by way of her skill, there's
no way anybody was going to beather.

(24:37):
Yeah, and that's yeah, I mean, that's basically the end of the
episode, right? It's a great fight with the
Inquisitor, but it's it's effectively Asajj's return.
She meets like O and Inquisitor attacks the end and then we pick
up and then their storyline in the next episode.
And I, I noticed this, these this section, these like tails

(25:01):
shorts. I often times they'll do like 1
early the somewhat character's life, 1 midway through one
later. These actually do tell a A1
narrative across roughly the same time period of their lives.
They don't jump forward all thatmuch in time.
It's usually, you know, after the end, at least for in
massage's case, it's you know, where did she go next?

(25:23):
And, and CAD Bane's case is it'smore of his origin story, But
yeah, I, it was, it was a it wasAI liked a lot of it from the
start. But I, I think the, the journey
to find the path is the the thing that was most intriguing
to me. So that brings us to the second

(25:48):
episode in Asajj's arc where we actually see her reunite with
some old friends, Lats Razzi andC21 Heisinger.
Tom, your thoughts when we got to be reunited with these great
bounty hunters from the Clone Wars?
Oh, it's nice to see reused characters.

(26:10):
And you know, hey, if they're good characters, why not bring
them back? But you did have the feeling
that naturally they're bounty hunters.
Yes, she's going to go try and ask them for help, But you knew
deep down inside you can't trustthem and they're going to turn
at some point, you know, becauseyou are looking at if the Jedi

(26:31):
and you going to figure it out at some point that the kid was
going to be a Jedi. They were going to figure it
out. You knew that there were going
to be a bounty on him and they were going to turn it in.
And naturally there's a thing for Assad to, you know, protect
the kid. So it's it's it's a fascinating
thing to see, but it's it's thatwhole story that you knew was
going to happen. You go to friends, they turn on

(26:54):
you. You know, it was, it was a good
episode. Yeah, not all that surprising
like you, like you say, but it is fun to see these characters
from the Clone Wars come back. We last saw them in Season 5 and
they did pop up in Dark Decipher, so Disciples.
So it's great to see them again.You know, even if like any good

(27:15):
Underworld character, they're not.
They're friends, but they don't trust each other.
You know that that Lando dynamic, right?
I I do think one of my favorite things might have been seeing
the Venators. The Venators overseeing
instruction of the the classic *destroyers.
Oh yes. Because and the, you know, the
shield Dome was, you know, always, always cool to see.

(27:35):
That was so cool, Like the the fact they were transporting the
shield Dome along that big runway basically, and it starts
rolling. That's a really fun.
I really like the sequence quitea bit, yeah.
I love the dynamic when they're running around inside of it,
just trying to get to that opening.
I thought that was really cool. Exactly, yeah, 'cause the whole,

(27:57):
the whole idea was that they needed to, you know, lots of
Razzi will help Asajj find information about the path, but
in turn they have to help steal an Imperial shield relay unit
shield relay unit from the shipyard on Cassaro.
And so they, they do end up helping and it's a whole
adventure where they have to go and, and, and infiltrate the

(28:18):
Imperial shipyard. And like you said, Steven, it's,
it's pretty cool to see. I, I like that quite a bit.
And the, the action is great. It's pretty funny to see them
keep referring to Liko as a Droid and treating him, kind of
dismissing him and Asaj kind of kind of, you know, again,
sporting Liko, but not entirely.And then, you know, of course,

(28:44):
when Las Razzi is telling Liko not to trust Asage, right?
We know that Asage is not trustworthy, but maybe she's,
maybe she's better now, right? It's, it's a great dynamic.
Nobody knows who to trust. Well, that, that's the thing.
It's like, you know, you're telling the kid not to trust
anybody, but how can he trust them?

(29:06):
That's the other thing. It's like in in this universe,
who do you trust? Can't trust anybody.
Yeah. You really can't.
Yeah, but I know it's, it is, itis great.
And you know, like the the visuals, it's just seeing the

(29:27):
the way that the, the Imperial shipyard is lit is just
beautiful. You know, it's it's really
wonderful. And lots.
She's smart enough to realize that that good old Liko, he's a
he's a Jedi. I mean, he's not particularly.
Subtle. No, he's not.
He's not at all. Also, I totally forgot that when

(29:49):
the I almost forgot to mention the stormtrooper gets crushed by
the rolling shield. Yeah.
It's every. Season you find somebody who
just gets the worst death. Yeah, but you know, at the end
of the day they end up losing the shield relay unit.
Lots tries to betray Ventris andLyco because they realize that

(30:10):
Lyco is worth twice as much as the device and so Asajj has to
force Lots to give her the Intel.
It got that lightsaber point. And what is the info?
We'll have to wait to find out. This kind of just it's just a
fun episode, right? It we don't get a a ton of
surprising things in this. It's it's just fun returning

(30:32):
characters and and more of Asajjand Lycos, dynamic as they are
on the path, to find the path. Which like how they're on the
path to find the path. Exactly.
I do think it's probably the most solid of the Isaga episodes
though, I will say. I would agree with that one,

(30:53):
yes. For sure, for sure.
And that takes us to the that was called the episode called
Friends. That takes us to the third and
final episode of Isaga's Arc 1 Warrior to another and Tom what?
What can I bring us into this episode?
Well, they're on a planet and they need water.

(31:16):
That's. Say it.
That's it. I mean, they're on a planet.
You're not wrong, is the problem.
I know I'm not wrong, OK? It wasn't.
OK. So they're on a planet they're
they basically drank their canteens dry.
They found a farm with an ex imperial and was it his
granddaughter? Separatist.

(31:37):
Sorry, sorry, Separatist. I apologize.
Separatist. And that was his granddaughter,
right? Yeah.
OK. So they're having problems, I
guess, with the local natives, the easy way to put it, because
they're having a water issue, they have to go to this little
spring or quote UN quote lake tobasically get water.

(31:58):
And the water is the only that that that's the only way to
explain it. They need to get water.
Yeah, well, you know, there are the locals, right, Who have
been, well, they, I mean, they call them, they'll actually find
out they're not locals till later.
They, they call them the, I think it was the the barauders,

(32:18):
right? The Raiders, sorry, the Raiders
have taken over the watering hole and basically forcing the,
the grandfather and his granddaughter to, to, to, to,
to, to not have any water, right?
They're, they're getting very thirsty.
They're, they're probably going to die soon.
They can't hold out that much longer and and effectively Asage

(32:43):
and the daughter, who is unnamed.
Both the grandfather and the granddaughter are are unnamed,
but they Asage and Lyco are are asked to help rescue the you
know, get them some water and inexchange they will they can get
safe passage to Cipher Canyon where the the path.

(33:07):
Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong, Tom, when you say the goal is
just to get water. We do get this kind of sequence
where they they go to the Canyon, they they, you know,
bottle up some, some river water, I guess.
And then they get attacked by the Raiders and we get Lyco gets
to have his kind of, you know, Jedi moment where I can
understand them. You know, we, it turns out

(33:29):
they're they're not Raiders. They're, you know, I don't know.
Is it either locals or just likeanother another community?
I, I think, I think they're low.If I understand correctly, I
think they're locals. Yeah, OK.
Yeah, that's, that is how I interpreted it.
Yeah. It leads to, I think what is
the, I consider the one redeeming part of the episode,

(33:50):
which is this conversation between the grandfather and
Asajj where, you know, the grandfather's like, no, we, we
are at war. We have to finish the war.
And, and he like no, or sorry, Isaw her just like, no, the, the
war's over. Like everybody lost, you know,
stop, stop fighting. It's not, this is not worth it.

(34:12):
And then we, you know, we, we have peace for however long it
lasts. Well, it also, I think it's
implied too, that the grandfather and his
granddaughter kind of took the the watering hole from the
Raiders. And they're not actually
Raiders. They're they're the locals.
And it's kind of a debate aroundlike who was there first?

(34:32):
Who's is it and should we share it?
And either one wanted to share. And and so it's kind of trying
to flip it. And I think it's and show how
initially the beginning of the episode, we think that they're
the ones being hurt and it turnsout are they both doing it to
each other? It's not quite as
straightforward as we maybe we, we thought at the beginning of
the the episode. But to your point, Steven, right

(34:56):
it, I think that the, the important part of the episode is
this ex separatist commander whois, you know, he immediately
recognizes Assaj and he thinks they're still at war and they
have to, he has to, it's a, it'sa new era, though.
The war is over and he has to operate differently now.
It, I think it kind of ultimately is none of the

(35:20):
episode like the storyline with Lyco.
I think the Lyco and Asajj dynamic is, is really, you know,
it's a, it's a nice one. And the stories themselves are,
are perfectly fine. They're serviceable.
I wouldn't say they're the most exciting storylines ever, but
they're interesting, right? Inquisitor attacks Lyco and
Asajj and then in the second episode they team up with some

(35:44):
old friends and then and the third episode they meet of ex
separatist commander. They're very interesting but
they're not, I wouldn't say particularly exciting or or or
stand out. The bigger more interesting part
is Asajj's search for the path and that's where I think it.
I feel like the the high level summary of the episodes is

(36:07):
better than the the execution. I guess as far as the the story
it goes. If we go back to your kind of at
the very beginning when we talk about kind of the challenges
with the tale episodes, these all like the sorry, we'll talk
about the cat band arc in a moment, but the Asaj Ventress
arc was a good example. We had three episodes.

(36:28):
We either needed them to really be condensed into a single
episode that they tighten up quite a bit and give a little
bit more, I don't know, narrative, narrative arc 2, or
you needed to blow all of these up into much bigger episodes.
All our Clone Wars as it was it each episode felt very

(36:53):
straightforward where it's, you know, we're trying to find the
path. The next problem with finding
the path is, you know, blah, we don't have we don't have water.
We need to get to the Canyon. We we find the person that tells
us where the next step is. We solve that problem via one
step and then we move on. Yeah, it right.

(37:16):
I I think, I think for these three episodes, what it really
gave us was some great characterdynamics between Lyco and
Assange renters. It gave us the explanation of
how she came back to the living.And they were just nice
episodes. And I agree, it either had to be

(37:38):
tightened up into one long episode or each episode expanded
like maybe an extra 10 minutes each.
But they were just very three simple stories.
Like with one main line, we haveto find the path.
But to get to that, there are three, let's say, challenges
they had to get over while they're trying to get to the

(38:00):
path, and each was very simple. You know, as a fan of Asaj
Adventures and Cadbane too, very, even more so Cadbane.
We'll, we'll talk about Cadbane later.
I think it is great to be able to get more stories with them.
And this arc sets up Asaj for inclusion and potential future
storylines. And it's just a nice it's a

(38:24):
perfectly fine trilogy of episodes about Asaj on a
journey. If you think about it like that,
they're quite enjoyable. If you think about them more as
like an explanation for her return or the search for
Quinlan, I think that's where maybe it falls short a little
bit. And and the search for Quinlan
is not something I was expectingfrom Tails until they set it up

(38:47):
with the path and then kind of didn't deliver it.
Unfortunately. If it was a more explicit choice
around like I would, you know, she really wants to be with
Quinlan, but she can't for ex reason and she decides, you
know, maybe at the beginning she's like, I don't care.
I'm going to ignore mother Towson and I'm going to search

(39:07):
after go after Quinlan anyway. And then she finally realizes in
the third episode why she can't she had to give up Quinlan and
then changes her mind. I think that would have made him
a lot more sense. As it is, she gets the to the to
the path ship. She literally sees it.
She tells Lyco to to go join thepath.
She stays behind, and it's unclear why she makes that

(39:33):
decision at that point. Like, why did she choose to to
give up on this this mission to find Quinlan?
And then even more puzzling, like, oh, he returns to her a
moment later as the ship takes off and decides he's not
actually going to go to the path.
He's going to hang out with his new best friend, Asaj Ventress,

(39:55):
and they're going to go off on an adventures together.
And that's where the arc ends. And I'm glad they get to spend
more time together. But like, she wasn't that good
of a friend to him to leave the path, the the safety of the path
and stay with this, you know, former separatist criminal.

(40:19):
I guess it kind of just left a, it kind of ends with a whimper
and and just left me wanting more I guess.
I think for me, what would have,what would have been
heartbreaking is if you actuallysaw Quelen Voss at the end of
that ramp of the ship. You didn't get to see who was
down there and you got to see her basically see, let's say,

(40:42):
what could have been her future,and she walks away from it.
Right. And they just didn't do.
Yeah, there was. There's not that payoff, that
the payoff. She did find the path.
She did find the ship, but unless they're planning if
there's any more future stories,I would have liked to have seen
her see Quinlan in the distance.Not a recognized thing, not a

(41:07):
thing to where you see him. Like with his back turn and all
of a sudden he gets this little force sensitive tickle in the
back of his neck. He turns around and boom, she's
gone. Which is to see.
Quinlan there, yes. This is a case where part of the
reason they're not doing that isbecause they don't want to
confirm if Quinlan's alive or not, which is dumb, but that is
what it feels like to. Me, but it could have at least
they didn't even need to show Quinlan, but they still could

(41:29):
have had assage and make a decision for some.
Certainly. Yeah.
She could have vocalized something about why she couldn't
do it. Yeah, yeah, I think that was the
that was the the biggest challenge.
Also I just again, I don't understand why Lego is going
with assage rather than going tothe safety of the path, but
that's fine. I hate to say it, even even if

(41:50):
she was standing up there and just going and, and you see the
look in her eye and she just sits there and just gives that
heavy sigh. I, I, I'm just not ready yet,
right? Anything like that to just make
an explanation of why she walkedaway?
I am also. She's just not ready to face
that. Yeah, I'm also curious, like how
does this tie into her appearance in the Bad Batch,
Right. We know she appears in the Bad
Batch and she gives Omega some help.

(42:11):
She tests her for for sensitivity and then disappears
again. Is this pre?
Yeah, this is. This should be pre.
That's what I assume, but I I wasn't sure.
I mean, technically, I guess we don't know that with 100%
certainty. I think it's possible that she
shows up in the Bad Batch and then the whole thing with with

(42:32):
Lyco happens. But I suspect that's not the
case. I think she gets she, she is,
she is alive again. She goes to this planet, meets
Lyco, and then at some point in the future she pops up in the
Bad Batch. And I guess I think the thing
they still haven't answered is why not just how did she

(42:53):
survive, but why bring her back?What is her purpose aside from
popping up in random Star Wars stories going forward, like with
mall, at least they when they brought mall back, there was a
very clear mall is going to go, you know, basically try to bring
Citius down, get his revenge right for being thrown away and

(43:16):
and eventually, you know, has his underworld.
He's all about his revenge and that revenge storyline.
It's unclear why they brought Assange Ventress back because
her her appearance in the bad batch doesn't do a whole lot.
She helps the characters in the bad batch, but she doesn't
there's no like real motivation or interest for her.
And then this explains how she got back and a little bit of

(43:39):
some being on a somewhat irrelevant part of her life
where she goes on this journey. But I do wonder they have to
have a reason for bringing her back at at some point.
And I hope we we get to learn that.
But yeah, and I feel like we're a little more of a downer again.
I love Asajj Avenger, She's a great character.
I'm so glad we got more of her. But it's it's kind of like with

(44:01):
the other tales of like, I love Ahsoka.
This might be controversial, butI felt like I was a little
disappointed from the Ahsoka episodes with Tales of the Jedi.
But this is is is more so I don't know, sorry.
It's I'm glad we're getting these stories.
I just wish we got a little bit more to.

(44:24):
Them. Yeah, but agreed.
Well, that turns us to the cab Bane and Cab Bane.
Yeah, here we go. He's one of my maybe top five
clone favorite clone wars characters.
Maybe top three like Cat, Ahsoka, Cab, Bane, Hondo, Anaka.
Some of my favorite characters come out of the Clone Wars.
I love CAD Bane and we finally get his origin story.

(44:47):
So we meet a young Colby played by AJ Locascio and Nero, played
by Eric Lopez. Two young Duros living on the
streets of some unknown planet and they're kind of St. rats.
They're stealing to get by. The other kids kind of keep
their distance. They don't really know who their

(45:08):
parents were. And, you know, we see them
trying to, like, steal fruit from a Droid.
You know, they're just kind of ruffians, right?
And then one day, good. Good choice of words, William.
Well, I, I hate to say this, butthey reminded me of a certain
St. Rat because that's all that I

(45:29):
remember. Yeah, I'm.
Which a lot of people made said about Ezra too early on, Yeah.
Well, that's not the that's not the street, right.
I was talking about Ezra was a little bit different.
But when it came to these, I'm watching this just going, yeah,
this had too much of A parallel to something else.
But we meet the tall man who later, we find out goes by the

(45:49):
name Laszlo. And Laszlo is interesting.
He looks just like CAD Bane. He's got the hat, he's got the
straw in his mouth. His skin color is a little more
teal than blue, and he doesn't sound anything like CAD Bane.
He doesn't have that very distinctive kind of voice and of

(46:11):
course doesn't have the same name, but he is pretty much the,
I don't know, CAD Bane V1, I guess you could say.
Right. What did you think of meeting
Laszlo? Steven, go first.
I mean I I had the same reactionas you William where I knew this

(46:33):
was the CAD Bane arc. I was pretty sure that Laszlo
was not CAD Bane, but it did have very much a I actually
don't even know what the right analogy is.
It becomes very clear from the beginning, the story we're about
to get. I don't know that it there's any

(46:56):
point throughout these three episodes where it's a surprise.
And so when not CAD Bane shows up wearing CAD Bane's hat with
CAD Bane's mannerisms. I was like, OK, I think I'd, I
think we're headed towards an apprenticeship.
I don't know. Yeah, go you go ahead, Tom.
Like I, I see it as the Clint Eastwood character that finally

(47:19):
showed up in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
You know, he had the hat. He had this.
He is definitely going to be themodel that CAD Bane is going to
base himself on. I did also think it was going to
be the apprenticeship thing. I I would like to have seen more
of him then we got other than, you know, CAD Bane and his

(47:41):
friend running around town beingruffians.
I did appreciate that he saw something in these kids to
possibly, you know, groom towarda future with working with him.
So you got to see a little bit of a back story of how CAD Bane
got into the life of crime. But I would like to see more of
Laszlo. I'd hate to say it again a bit

(48:04):
more. I will say I I kind of wish they
had been a little more subtle with the CAD Bane analogies with
Laszlo 'cause it, it feels like they paint it with a very thick
brush of like, Oh no, that is CAD Bane just copies his mentor
fully. Like just like copy paste, you
know, like it, it, it was a bit strange to me.

(48:27):
Like I think having a general style would have been nicer than
one to one. I.
Would say come up with a a good analogy off the top of my head.
I also find it a little bit disappointing that CAD Bane's
distinctive appearance and mannerisms, all of those pieces

(48:47):
aren't actually his. Right, exactly.
And there's like copies at all. But there's that.
There is one thing when it comesto CAD Bane.
The one thing you never saw in this episode is where does he
get like those neck tubes of thecharacter?
Sure. Yeah, I mean, I know, I know.

(49:07):
Look, I know it's minor, but. No, actually I'll, I think.
From Laszlo. One of my biggest
disappointments with this arc isI actually think that was the
more interesting story Tom. It's like there's AI mean this
is solo is in particular is riddled with this.
They'll like, let's explain how characters get their iconic

(49:30):
pieces. I I find that kind of a boring
trend in the first place. The.
Case where I think it's interesting is, and I mean,
don't use these examples necessarily as like, you know,
blessing each one, but like the,you know, Nick Fury's scratched
eye or what was the other one I was just thinking of?

(49:54):
Oh, this was another one. I'm not a fan of saw Guerreras
like respirator mask from Andor where a character is clearly or
actually Darth Vader is probablymaybe the best example of this
done well. Like there are clearly stories
behind how these characters werewounded or, you know, impacted
in the way that they were that gives them this distinctive

(50:16):
appearance. That story is more interesting
than CAD Bane's mentor had a hat, and after his mentor was
killed, CAD Bane picked up the hat and put it on.
But he also decided to eat the, you know, just chew on the straw
and talk the same way and look the same way and.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I wish there was just a
little bit more different. It was also a little strange to

(50:38):
me that Colby, you know, spoileralert, is CAD Bane.
You know, he kind of looks like CAD Bane ish.
He has the blue skin and the redeyes, but his name is different
in the episode. He doesn't have that low, raspy
voice. He sounds completely different
from the CAD Bane we know. And it's a little strange to me,
but that between this episode and the next one, all of a

(50:59):
sudden he starts mysteriously sounding like CAD Bane.
And I know he's growing up, but.The challenge of the and also
of, you know, you need Corey Burton's an amazing voice actor,
but maybe he isn't going to be able to do the, you know, 6 year
Old Street rap kind of voice. Yeah.
Or honestly, if anyone could, itmight be Corey Burton.

(51:20):
So maybe I should take that back, but.
But yeah. It.
Yeah, yeah, it's missing a piece.
Yeah, yeah. No, that's exactly it.
And so this the first episode isreally Laszlo, you know, this
mysterious benefactor kind of investing in in these these St.
rats, these kids. You know, it gives them the
credit they used to to have a feast with on on crunchies is

(51:44):
candy. And it's kind of fun to see a
candy shop in in Star Wars. And, you know, we see the blue.
Cereal that Searle was eating. I think so, yeah, maybe, yeah.
And, you know, it's we, we see that they're, you know, they're
not entirely opposed to causing some trouble and when, when,

(52:07):
when needed. And Laszlo certainly encourages
that, gives him a taste of the good life.
And, you know, he takes him to the shop and has them basically
distract the owner who's messingwith Laszlo's business so that
Laszlo and his associates can can basically take out everyone
in the the backroom. And this ends up resulting in

(52:31):
the police arriving. Colby and Nero try to escape,
but Colby is he he actually makes it over to, I want to say
Cadbane but but to he makes it over to Laszlo.
But poor Al Nero, Colby's best friend.
Cadbane's best friend ends up captured by the sheriff and his

(52:53):
deputies and Colby leaves him behind.
And that's kind of the end of the, the first, the first arc.
And we, we see, you know, in thesecond episode for the, the end
of the first episode. And we see in the second
episode, years later, the 2 are reunited when Laszlo returns to
Colby's old neighborhood. And, and very quickly we see

(53:21):
that Laszlo is killed, right? He's he's killed his.
Off screen, which I thought was a little unfortunate.
And his hat mysteriously gets onthe ship and returns to, to, to
CAD Bane, to Colby, who's now going by the name CAD Bane.
And he has a deeper and raspier voice.
And it's unclear why he changed his name and how his voice

(53:43):
changed and just need to be cooler.
Yeah. But that, that's the thing.
If his voice changed, it seems like when we saw originally CAD
Bane, because of those tubes, that would have made more sense
of a voice change because it it was coming from his neck.
Now all of a sudden he's talkingas CAD Bane.
Yeah, exactly. I just.

(54:05):
Yeah, yeah. And, and so, you know, I think
the second episode is more of a well, this whole arc is really a
revenge story, right? CAD Bane returns home and he he
sees Nero. And, you know, Nero is now, he's
now a, a, a, a deputy. He's a he's a sheriff.
He tells Nero not to, you know, sorry.
Nero tells CAD don't cause any trouble.

(54:28):
We also forgot to mention that CAD Bane is now in a
relationship with Aaron, who begs CAD to forget about it.
And, and, but, you know, CAD is too focused on revenge and ends
up breaking into a store and to draw out the Marshall so he can,
he can kill the Marshall for, for taking out his, his mentor
Laszlo. And at the end of the day, we

(54:52):
get a, a western style standoff that CAD wins and CAD Bane is,
well, he wins. He's ultimately sent to prison
and Nero sends him to prison. And, and while he's gone, Nero
decides to take care of Aaron and, and make sure she's OK.

(55:15):
And, oh, I forgot to mention that, that Nero, the only reason
CAD Bane is, is sent to prison is because Aaron grabs CAD
Bane's blaster and throws it to Nero.
She, you know, she didn't want CAD Bane to try to take revenge
and he refuses to listen. And so she takes away his
blaster And before he can kill Nero And, and that's why he sent

(55:38):
to prison. It's again, it's I enjoy the
story of Cadbane versus his his his good friend, now arch
nemesis Nero. But I don't know, there's
something they just felt missing.
I think well in in the arc. It felt too straightforward to

(55:59):
really even discuss the story because it was just a plain and
simple western. That's all it was.
Other than, you know, the girlfriend sitting there
throwing the throwing the blaster to the old friend.
It's like I just, yeah, it it's just, I don't know, it's hard to
discuss this one because it was just so really straightforward.

(56:20):
Incredibly straightforward. The the only I think interesting
twist is the third episode when Cadbane gets out of jail for
good behavior somehow. Yeah, sorry it.
Wasn't a good behavior. It was it was a technicality,
right? Something along those lines.

(56:41):
And yeah, you know, he comes back to town.
There's a whole bunch of panicking is Marshall Nero now
is, you know, deciding what all to do or not do.
There's an interesting scene where like the the town members
who like, I just, I assume the town members are sorry, the
council members are supposed to be like upholders of the law,

(57:02):
but they're like, oh, you shouldjust go gun down, gun down CAD
Bane as soon as it gets off the the ship.
I did like this count almost like a countdown element of we
know CAD Bane is coming back andwe have to stop him and Nero is
is who's now the Marshall himself.
He's actually the sheriff. He is hesitant to just take out

(57:22):
CAD Bane. He wants to give him a chance.
Hopefully he's changed. I I liked that whole aspect of
it. You're right, Steve.
It's a little odd that the, the town is wants to immediately get
rid of CAD Bane and sure, Cads cause some trouble, but I think
he's not. I mean, he killed the, he killed
the sheriff. Not certainly not excusable

(57:44):
whatsoever, but they're definitely almost overly worried
about the return of, of CAD. But I, I didn't mind it, right?
I, I, I like the fact that there's this countdown aspect of
he's coming. He spent years in jail in
Toronto and the his shuttle is there's a shuttle from Toronto
coming to our planet and it's likely going to be CAD Bane,

(58:05):
right? You know he was on it.
Yeah, that piece was was nice. Yeah, how how did they
definitely know he was on it, that he was going to come and
grab? But I think they just guessed
right. Yeah, I fancy him.
And also the fact that CAD Bane's former crew members Vac
Laco. And, well, that's right.

(58:26):
That's right. So it's probable that.
I forgot. I completely forgot about that.
His buddies were there, yes. Yeah.
The. No, I, I think it all it, it's
not surprising that there's this, you can tell, I mean, from
the beginning of the arc almost,you can tell Nero is going to be
gunned down by, by CAD. I think the thing that's maybe

(58:49):
most interesting throughout thisarc and this episode in
particular is Nero. Nero has a son who is obviously
very worried about him. And Nero is very focused on
trying to keep his son out of the line of fire.
And then there's, you know, the numerous allusions to Cad's
going to be, you know, so angry when he when he finds out about
Aaron because Nero, you know. Married Cad's girlfriend.

(59:14):
Right. And I believe she passed away,
right? And and like, yeah, she passed
away. They keep alluding to how this
being mysterious or, you know, otherwise some problem.
And as expected, you know, Nero's, Nero's son still still
managed to show up at the fight.CAD Bane guns down his father.
And we get this kind of, you know, last minute reveal that

(59:37):
Nero, Nero's son, is in fact CADBane's son.
Which I think for the moment we saw Isaac was hit the the son
was, was fairly obvious, but I did like that aspect as well.
It's like, you know, CAD Bane wants so much to get revenge on

(59:57):
his former best friend that you know, he kills him only to
discover that, you know, his friend has been taking care of
his own son. Even though they were enemies,
he, you know Nero is still taking care of his.
His best friend turned enemies son and and girlfriend.

(01:00:18):
You know, it's kind of a little bit cliche, but also I.
Enjoyed it, you know. What?
It's a lot big cliche I would say.
I do agree with you. But.
I, I think, and again, you know,we there's some great moments
with Cab Bane. I think at the end of this

(01:00:40):
episode is is the better momentswith CAD.
You know, the the standoffs are always nice.
It's a it's a CAD Bane staple. Although I almost felt like
there were too many standoffs. I don't know how you guys felt.
I agree there there are too manythere are standing in the street
gunfights. Right, and CAD Bane is certainly
that's that's an aspect of his personality is the gunslinger,

(01:01:01):
the Western gunslinger. But if you just think back to
the Clone Wars, right, we've gothim and Toto 360 going on
missions, infiltrating the Jedi Temple to steal a holocron and
all these things. That's kind of what I, I think
of when I think of CAD Bane, this really cool bounty hunter
who's willing to even, you know,capture children and take him to
the emperor. And I think the thing that

(01:01:24):
disappointed me most about this arc is that it's really all one
story. It's a prequel.
And we never get the cool CAD Bane.
We get CAD Bane the the child who grows into CAD Bane somewhat
inexplicably. And then we get Cab Bane the
revenge, you know, the the adultwho's only focused on revenge

(01:01:48):
and just constantly has standoffs in the streets and
then kills his best friend. And it kind of a predictable
way. I wish we'd gotten more of the
cool Cab Bane, I guess is what I'm what I'm saying.
I agree. I agree.
I. Appreciate after he guns down
Nero, he just kind of like walksoff down the street like there's
there's no other law enforcementthat has come to to deal with

(01:02:11):
him. Yeah, because the they had
robots. If I remember correct, that
whole precinct had robots, not just a Marshall the words.
To. Come to actually arrest him and
on top of that you go back to what we see in Cadbane before.
Cadbane is a very smart character.
He's not just A1 dimensional that it seemed like in this case

(01:02:32):
he was basically one-dimensionalthroughout all three episodes,
Yeah. And I think.
It just, I, I, I think this lastepisode was almost a disservice
because you never got to see himbe that smart and calculating
CAD Bane that we are so used to.Yeah.
Yeah, I, I feel like it was justa little bit of a miss as far as

(01:02:53):
is it an interesting story? Sure, Right.
But again, I think you could have told that story possibly
shorter or at least had one episode on that.
I don't know. I wish, I wish we could have
gotten classic Cab Bane from this.
And as a a cab Bane admitted CabBane superfan.
We didn't get that and it was just a little bit of a, a bummer

(01:03:16):
for me. Yeah, no, I.
I agree. Yeah, I don't know.
It was, it was. It was hard.
Hard, hard to put a score to would.
We say. A word well, it was it was just
yeah, it was a little bit disappointing.
I guess if I was to to summarizeit, I feel like I've said this a

(01:03:38):
couple times this this episode already, but you know, I love
the concept of Tales of the Underworld and the Tales shorts.
And I think if you were to give me the one sentence or two
sentence, even the five sentencesummary of of the, you know, the
plot line, the arc for each character, I'd be like, yes,
this sounds amazing. Asajj Ventress following the

(01:04:00):
path to reunite with Quinlan after she's been, you know,
resurrected and they explain howshe came back.
Amazing CAD Bane Nuff said right, CAD Bane, CAD Bane.
I love CAD Bane and even the CADBane origin story, but it felt
too simplistic, right? The they didn't explain enough

(01:04:22):
of Asajj's choices and why she does what she does.
And this the got the the navaquid like it was
interesting, but not quite as interesting as the following the
path, shall we say. And the CAD Bane storyline is
the first episode doesn't it just feels like CAD Bane is now
just a copy of his mentor, Laszlo.

(01:04:42):
And and then we know we get the the revenge story where OK, it's
it's shocking to hear that Cadbane has a son and that's
kind of cool. I don't know if it almost feels
a little bit too much like, you know, Andor at the end of Andor
Spoiler, if you haven't watched Andor, you know, we find out he

(01:05:03):
has a, a child, you know, he lives on and, or, or you know,
Jason from with Kanan and and Hera.
It felt like a Oh yeah, we killed off CAD Bane and and the
book of Boba Fett, but CAD Bane has a son.
Don't worry. But I don't know, it was, I

(01:05:23):
guess I kind of came away a little bit disappointed.
I feel like they they needed to spend more time on the episodes
or, or really focus the story oninstead of telling his side
stories for these characters, focus on something a little more
interesting. But that's just me.
I yeah, I guess I was so excitedand I was the other day.
It was it was fine. It wasn't, it wasn't great, it

(01:05:45):
wasn't terrible, it was just fine.
And for these kind of characters, that's almost
disappointing. So I don't know.
I I think I'll give it a 7 Womp rats out of 10 and.
So 7 for for both arcs. For both arcs, so that the
overall tales Underworld 7 out of 10 and you know, I think

(01:06:09):
these 7 womp rats, they're they're going to have a standoff
in the streets because that's what you do with that's what you
do with the wombrats. I don't know.
I don't know where I'm going. I I, I feel you.

(01:06:29):
I feel you. I'll go next.
Yeah, I'll go next. I I would say out of both arcs,
I, I enjoyed the Ventress 1 better than the CAD Bane.
I'm going to give that one a 7.5.
I see where they can go with it.I just hope that if there's more

(01:06:49):
stories that you know, I I I like how it can I, I like, I
like how the setup the three episodes set up something.
I wish there was more explanation for a few things,
but I like how it was set up. The Cadbane one.
I've got to give it a six. I, I just, it felt too western
for me. It felt very one-dimensional for

(01:07:10):
the CAD Bane character. You know, I kind of appreciated
the kind of back story he had, but I think it could have been
told better. And if they did 3 episodes
probably was too much for it. They could have made it shorter.
And to have basically, Steven you pointed out, almost become a
carbon copy of his mentor reallydoesn't give you a good idea of

(01:07:33):
the exact way of how CAD Bane came into being.
He basically just copied somebody else instead of
creating his own persona. So, So my womp rats, that's what
I gave A-75 and A6. That's 13.5 womp rats you.
Doing it individually I mean. No what?

(01:07:56):
You've altered the deal. Well, I will.
OK. Then I'm going to give the
overall, overall series. I'm going to give it a 7, OK,
OK, it's just just seven that way.
I'm going to, I'm not going to worry about the half womp rat
because that would be painful for him.
So I'm just going to go 7 and my7 womp rats.

(01:08:18):
They're actually helping the oldseparatist and the granddaughter
cultivate their farm to where they can actually have some
food. And they're using that water to
kind of make a little through for all the crops they're
growing. And they're living a very happy
life with the old separatist general and the granddaughter
and keeping everything at Bay and at peace between, you know,

(01:08:39):
the the two parties. So, Stephen, bail us out of
this. I don't know if I'm going to be
much better, but. Yeah.
I found the Saj ark uneven at best.
There were there were aspects ofit that I thought were
interesting, that kind of idea behind search for a past.
The seek sequence in in the first episode and the kind of

(01:09:01):
transport area with the stormtroopers I thought worked
pretty well. I really liked the sequence with
the kind of old Separatist soldier and kind of having that
theme land. But the the arc as a full fell
kind of flat for me. I think I'm going to give it a
six out of 10 for the first arc.The CAD vane arc I'll give, I'll
start by just saying I'll give it a 7 out of 10.

(01:09:22):
I think my favorite thing about it might be watching the the
neighborhood that, you know, Caband Nero are from slowly improve
over time as they it gets cleaned up and you know, they
build out the camp, the council and, you know, clean up, clean
out the crime, whatever you wantto say.
Like each arc or each episode, it's a noticeable difference in
the town, which that was a really neat detail.

(01:09:42):
Unfortunately, in some ways thatwas like the most interesting
thing in the episode. The rest of it is very by the
numbers. So I'm I'm giving it a seven.
I think it's fine the the entireso I guess that that makes for
an average of 6.5 for this the show this season effectively of
the kind of tale series. But William you like we we've

(01:10:02):
talked about this episode for, you know, almost an hour at
least an hour at this point. I think it you kind of nailed it
in the beginning. Tales is both too short or too
long for what they are, what they are going for.
And I, these are these episodes,I think more so than either
Tales of the Jedi or Tales of the Empire really demonstrated.

(01:10:25):
I think that the challenges withthis format.
So yeah, 6 and A7 average of 6.5.
And my womp rats are obviously all on the shipyard planet
helping build the new * destroyers and and you know when
in the free time when the Empireis not looking, they'd get into
the giant hamster balls and you know.

(01:10:47):
Good one. That is a good one.
I like that I. Love it.
I love it. Yeah.
I think it'll be interesting to see 'cause I would, I like the,
the premise of the Tales series.I would love for them to do like
30 minute episodes of Tales, forexample, or even an hour and
just have it be, you know, either one story or, or, you

(01:11:10):
know, 230 minute episodes or or something.
I think something like that would be very.
I think it would help the formatquite a bit.
Yeah. But.
Yeah, that I agree with. I, I think, I think that's the
one thing that hurts at least these two-story arcs is you

(01:11:30):
either shorten the arcs or you make them longer and then you
have more exposition to the characters to where you can tell
a better story. Yeah.
It's so hard though, because youknow, it's, it is, these are
such great characters and I loveStar Wars animation and it
almost feels bad saying like, oh, it's not I wish it was XYZ,

(01:11:53):
but you know, it's, it's like soclose and I, I just, we, we want
it to be so much better and it, it can be it, it was good.
It was certainly good, but I wouldn't say it was amazing.
And I, I hope they can, they canget there so well, thank you all
for listening. That catches us up on all the

(01:12:15):
amazing, amazing Star Wars content that is out now.
We'll give you a little bit of abreak, but we'll have to come
back and do some, some more reviews, even though we have a
little bit of a hiatus from the,the Star Wars content side of
things. Maybe we'll talk about some
books or some games or, you know, go back into the archive
and re review some of the, you know, maybe like we talked about

(01:12:40):
it for a long time. We want to do the Geni Tarkovsky
Clone Wars series. So we'll, we'll, we'll have some
fun content coming your guys's way over the next few months.
So certainly stay tuned for that.
Thank you all for listening and may the Force be with you.
Thank you for listening to the Ion Cannon Podcast, your source
for entertainment reviews from the Galaxy far, far away.

(01:13:03):
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(01:13:23):
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Tales of the Underworld — Ion Cannon #460

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Tales of the Underworld — Ion Cannon #460