Andor Season 2 Recap: Rebellion, Reflection & Reckoning (Full Season Review & Analysis)

Now that all 12 episodes of Andor Season 2 are out in the galaxy, it's time to take a step back and look at the series as a whole — the moments that shook us, the characters that broke us (looking at you, Maarva), and what this incredible chapter of Star Wars storytelling means for the future of the franchise. Join hosts Pete Fletzer and Nick Mielke for a very special live panel featuring:

✨ Becca Benjamin from Tarkin’s Top Shelf (@urangelb)
🎥 Colton Ogburn of ScreenCrush (@coltonogburn)
🎙️ David Jesse from Tatooine Sons (@tatooinesons)

Together, we break down the entire season, reflect on how Andor reshapes our understanding of Rogue One and the larger saga, and name our season-long MVPs (besides Cassian, of course). Plus, we tackle your burning questions, explore literary tie-ins, and discuss whether the three-episode arc drop format worked for better or worse.

Whether you're here for the deep cuts or just vibing with fellow fans, this is the Andor conversation you’ve been looking for.
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This is Road to Rebellion. May the Force be with you.

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(c) 2025 Pete in the Seat Studios

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Who else knows about what it's the urgency of the
situation not palpable. All I have been told is that
Supervisor Young is dead. Is that why I'm here for?

Speaker 2 (00:12):
The motor of an ISB Clark has my reputation slid
so precipitously and just take a moment, what single thing
would drag me in this forsaken basement saying say the word.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Death?

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Starff Well, welcome to Road to Rebellion, the official ATG
Star Wars after show for and Or.

Speaker 4 (00:48):
I'm Pete Flitzer and I am Nick Milky, and we
want to thank you for hanging out with us here
on around the Galaxy part of the SSW network.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Well, now that the season has ended and we've seen
all twelve episodes of season two, Evan Or, we're gonna
be taking a look back at the series and ahead
to some of the impact of the Star Wars franchise.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
We are going to do that, and it's very important
that you hear me say this part right here before
we dive in. We do want to give you a
full spoiler warning. And I mean season one, I mean
season two, I mean Rogue one. I mean if you're here,
if you're watching this and you haven't seen Rogue One
or any of the other things. I'm hip, pause, check
it all out, get completely caught up, and come back.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
We will be here.

Speaker 4 (01:29):
We will wait for you, but we don't want to
spoil it for you, because we're going to talk about
all of it.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
And each week on Roach to Rebellion, Nick and I
have unpacked the story, the characters, the big moments, little details,
and everything in between. But this week, Nick, we are
joined by our own band of rebels, friends of the show,
who will be here to help build out our panel.

Speaker 4 (01:50):
That is correct, and I'm very excited about this. The
first person we're going to introduce is no stranger to
our network and the shows we do. She is an
expert on all things Star Wars literature, one of the
hosts of Tarkin's Top Shelf, which is the best Star
Wars book podcast out there. I'm excited to welcome back
our friend, Becca Benjamin. Becca, what's up?

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Hey?

Speaker 5 (02:08):
Becca, Hey, guys, how are you? Thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Good to see it, and of course you have seen
our next guest breaking down your favorite shows as part
of the screen Crush YouTube channel. We've mentioned screen Crush
on our show to go find them for the Easter eggs.
My Any has had the great honor of working with
him on the screencushed severed floor. Please welcome Colton, Igbur

(02:31):
and Colton.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
How are you hey?

Speaker 6 (02:33):
Any tells me great things about your Any Keeth, so
I'm glad meet up on the outside here.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
You're how he likes to watch Star Wars.

Speaker 4 (02:45):
And last but certainly not least as a podcasting and
Star Wars veteran, he and his sons have created the
ultimate family pop culture podcast and they even have a
porg that is named in Star Wars canon.

Speaker 7 (02:58):
I'm excited to welcome back our friend, mister David Jesse.

Speaker 8 (03:00):
David, what's up, man, I'm so excited to be here
talking about this crazy series.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
What an ending last night or a couple of nights ago.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yeah, oh my gosh, it was. It was a heck
of a show. And that's actually a great way to start.
So each week Nick and I would start by sharing
our first impressions of the arc of the week. But
now that we've seen the entire series, I want to
ask what your impressions were of season two? And Becka,

(03:27):
I want to start with you, what are your overall
impressions of and Or Season two.

Speaker 9 (03:33):
Well, it all goes back to twenty sixteen for me,
And I'm just going to say, just like I did
after walking out of the theater of seeing Rogue one,
because I always said Rogue one was the one Star
Wars story I never knew I needed, and watching both
seasons of Andor just solidifize that for me.

Speaker 5 (03:54):
So that's where I'm at with this.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah, and it's true. And Nick and I say it
all the time, like Kenobi, we don't need that show.
Oh my gosh, I'm glad we got it wrote but
Rogue one your one hundred percent right was one of
those that I was like, we got it in the
opening crawl, we know what happens, that's fine. And it
has turned into really I think what twenty four hours
plus two like a full day worth of story at

(04:20):
this point that that we didn't know we needed and
has flushed out the galaxy in such an amazing way. Calton,
what are your thoughts on your response to and Or
season two?

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (04:31):
Well, like season one, it's definitely i'd say the best
Star Wars we've gotten since Revenge of the Sith, probably
since Return the Jedi.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
I mean, it is top tier storytelling.

Speaker 6 (04:44):
It's a it's a spector of the Star Wars universe
that I always wanted them to explore, Like I want
to see them in the literal trenches of the rebellion.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
And that's what Andor has given us.

Speaker 6 (04:58):
And you know, I'm sure we'll talk about this as
we go, but it it's a big galaxy there. There's
room to tell all different kinds of stories in this universe,
and I'm just I'm hopeful, and I don't want them
to like beat a dead horse or overdo it, but
I'm hopeful that Gilroy will maybe do something else, like
maybe something in the first order realm or you know,

(05:19):
tell a story like that.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
Yeah, I had I had this concept on my way
home today on the train. I was thinking maybe he
could do like the mini Botin's dide stories that way
we keep mon monding, she's so great and I'd love
to see more of that. But that would be beating
the dead horse. I think you could easily make a
case that that would be just doing the same thing again.
But so no, but I won't go right back for sure.

Speaker 10 (05:43):
Yeh.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
And David, what what's what's your takeaway after the first
or after the scene. Season two.

Speaker 8 (05:52):
Yeah, you know, when we when we finished watching season
one and we were recording our podcast and talking about it,
I said that it's it's one of the most amazing
television shows that I've ever seen, and I feel the
same way about season two and the entire series as
a whole. The challenge that I've always had with it
is what Star Wars is for me, right, And Star

(06:14):
Wars for me has always been about things like the
mythology and the Force and the Jedi and the Sith
and those types of things. And so I've struggled a
little bit with this series, absolutely loving it, but wondering
if it feels as much as Stars like Star Wars
as I wanted. I've had to let this series, every

(06:35):
time we watch an episode in season one or an
arc and season two, just sit for a little bit
longer and think about it and process.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
And that's the kind of whether or not it's Star
Wars or.

Speaker 8 (06:45):
Anything else in entertainment media, anything that makes me stop
and process and think about what I'm watching a little
bit more deeply is amazing.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
Yeah, I think that's one of the things that you
were saying that it struck me that it's rare for
a season two to be as good as season one.
I mean, maybe not rare, but it's hard to keep
that streak going, right, And so not only I think
they actually I think season two is better for me.

(07:16):
I think just maybe it was because of the way
it was delivered, or maybe it was because there was
a little more action, or I don't know. For whatever reason,
it was better for me. And I loved season one
as well, So it was kind of interesting that, I mean,
the fact that it can be so continuous, and I
think just about all of us have probably at least

(07:36):
watched a scene or two from Rogue one since it ended,
and you're just I can't believe it makes the connection
so very well so, which again a testament to Tony Gilroy.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Nick. What about you? What were your first impressions.

Speaker 7 (07:56):
I have two very specific takeaways.

Speaker 4 (07:58):
The first one is like, we have said way too
many times for something that we didn't know we needed
or we didn't ask for. This story is a certain
point of view story from one of the certain point
of view books, because it's hey, here's a little bit
of a thing about how did we get the plans
to the desk star, Let's make it a movie.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
So we made it Rogue one.

Speaker 4 (08:17):
But then we went put let's dig into that some more,
and so we took a moment and the one I
love so much from a certain point of view is
the argument that Han and Lay are having in the
hallway in hath and the guy that comes through in
between the two of them while they're having the argument.
We wrote a story about that, but we took that
and like you said, we blew it up into two
seasons of prestige TV and an incredible movie. So that's

(08:37):
the first thing that I love about it so much.
The other thing is, and I'm going to pander just
for a brief, brief second to our good friend Matt
from Enid, Oklahoma, because if there's one thing I have
asked for for a very long time, is I said,
where is my West Wing Star Wars? Because The West
Wing is my favorite TV show of all time? And
or is our West Wing Star Wars? Aaron Sorkin didn't

(08:59):
write it, but it's on that level. It plays at
that level, and it gives me every I want the
machinations of the Senate, I want the things that are
going on behind the scenes. I want the conversations. I
want the little, tiny moments that lead to the spark
of rebellion, and this gives it to us in spades.

Speaker 7 (09:18):
So I couldn't be happier.

Speaker 4 (09:19):
And as somebody who's a fan of those two properties,
I didn't know they would ever run into each other.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
But here we are looking at that.

Speaker 4 (09:26):
Now we've talked about kind of what of our you know,
what are our reactions? What are you know to Season
two as a whole? I want to expand that lens
a little bit, and I want to ask our panel.
I'm gonna start with Coulton first. Culton, now that we've
seen season one, you've seen Season two, We've gone through
this whole journey with these two. How does it change
not only how you view Rogue one, which obviously it
backs right up into, but what does it do for

(09:48):
your kind of view of the Star Wars canon overall
to have and Or season one and two as a
part of your knowledge of Star Wars Now.

Speaker 6 (09:57):
Well, you know, to Pete's point, I actually haven't had
a chance to much Rogue one, or like very like
any scenes or anything since finishing and Or. I look
forward to actually doing that and seeing in fact, I
might watch like that last episode one more time and
then go into Rogue one, because I'm sure that it
ties in great in terms of how.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
It makes me look at the saga as a whole.

Speaker 6 (10:20):
I mean, I think it was always kind of clear,
like I have actually recently gone back and watched a
New Hope somewhat recently, and you can tell in that
first one. Yeah, Luken and Lea, they feel like they're
you know, very important characters on this vision, but it's
it's very well like established that there is this whole

(10:42):
other thing that's been going on that predates them, like
a lot of the groundwork for that ultimate like Luke
blowing up the Death Star. You can tell just by
watching that movie without needing to have seen Rogue one
or and Or there are a lot of people who
have given their lives for this rebellion. It feels, you know,
like an old aged universe. And so I'm just glad

(11:03):
that and Or has finally like explored and shined some
light on that wing of Star Wars in terms of
how it fits with the saga as a whole. You know,
I would think that somebody obviously, if you're a big
original trilogy fan, you're gonna I think like and Or.
But also I would think that anybody who's a prequel
Stan would really enjoy and Or, because that's something that

(11:25):
Lucas really got into with the prequels, was the politics
of it, all the trade routes and you know, the
Senate debate that this and Or is exploring the type
of stuff that I wish Lucas could have got a
chance to have a little bit more say with what
went down like in the Clone Wars and all that.
I mean, you can't exactly, like I guess, go that

(11:45):
dark and like Clone Wars, which is where he got
to explore the prequel era even more so, I'm glad
that and Or went there. And I'd really love to
hear Lucas's thoughts on and Or, at least I think.
I think I want to hear Lucas's thoughts on and
Or unless they're not great, and.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
Maybe I don't.

Speaker 7 (12:02):
Yeah, I thought it was great.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
I love that.

Speaker 4 (12:05):
And I think that you hit something really specific because
I thought about this as you were speaking, with the
twentieth anniversary of Revenge of the Sith just being in
the last couple of weeks, and with that getting a
re release in the theaters. We've had it on multiple
times over that weekend that it came out at my house,
and it was really timely for that to be on
while Indoor was on because you get a lot of
Imperial Senate stuff in Revenge of the Sith and you know,

(12:27):
heading into the end and eventually the dissolution of the
Senate certainly farther down the line.

Speaker 6 (12:32):
Well, and they're actually they're the two darkest Star Wars
stories ever told. And that's why it's so funny that
you see this like you know, like some people arguing online,
you know that say they don't like and Or, but
you know they go like crazy over Revenge of the Sith.

Speaker 7 (12:46):
Like me too, I love two sides of the same coin.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah, I'm late.

Speaker 6 (12:50):
Uh, that's like the darkest Star Wars movie ever made.
Like it pushed a lot of boundaries and that's what
I love about it. That's why I like and Or.
So I don't really know what you're going on about.

Speaker 7 (13:02):
Absolutely, David, what about you?

Speaker 4 (13:04):
As we widen this lens out and we look at
you know, Rogue one, certainly coming out of these two
episodes or two seasons, of TV, but also kind of
just the Star Wars picture as a whole.

Speaker 7 (13:14):
How does it put it into place for you?

Speaker 8 (13:18):
What I a realization came to me in the second
half of season two here at van Or. I think
I even maybe Pete and I were messaging back and
forth a little bit about this a couple of weeks ago.
What I had to come to terms with was that
we all believe this. Everybody on this panel is like,

(13:40):
they're the good guys from Star Wars scan community, right,
we all believe Star Wars is for everyone, and we
do this. But Star Wars is for everyone, and yet
there is a very different style of Star Wars that's
coming out in different properties right now. And what I
had to come to terms with going back to where
what I said a few minutes ago, you know.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
We're Star Wars.

Speaker 8 (14:00):
For me may be much more mythology and much more
Jedi and lightsabers and those types of things. This is
just as much Star Wars. And for people like Colton
and some others, you know that they're finding what they've
always you what you said with the West Wing, right,
you're finding what you really love in the Star Wars franchise,

(14:21):
and and that became when I when I came to
terms with it, It's not always going to be the
Skywalker saga. It's not always going to be about the
Force and those types of things. Even though we got
that little taste of it in the third arc of this,
which was absolutely wonderful, it's actually what makes this It
gives me a lot of hope for the future of

(14:45):
the franchise as we can see it.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, I didn't I was going to say it. I
didn't want to interrupt. It's okay, Yeah, it does.

Speaker 8 (14:58):
It gives me hope for what this franch can be
because we can come out with stories like and or
we can come out with stories like The Acolyte, which
is a very different feel to it, and there are
people that really didn't like it, and there is a
fan base.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
That absolutely loved The Acolyte.

Speaker 8 (15:14):
And we have you know, Ahsoka and those types of
shows as well, which I loved Ahsoka right with it.
So we're going to see Star Wars be of a
playground that fans that like lots of different styles of
shows and movies are going to be able to have
a place to play.

Speaker 4 (15:35):
I love that, and I want to throw it same
question to you Becca talking about, you know, putting it
in perspective not only for Rogue one but for the
Star Wars canon, but also because you are a resident
book expert, you get to put another spin on it
that you know, I am certainly not conversing in and
I can speak for Pete and say that we're terrible
about the books. We want to be better, but we're
not so. For you, after seeing Indoor season one and two,

(15:59):
how does that paint Rogue one for you? How does
it paint some of the books and things that you
know inform you know, the story that we've gotten, as
well as just kind of the bigger picture on the
whole Star Wars canon.

Speaker 9 (16:11):
Well, to echo what everyone else has kind of been sane.
I mean, if you look at the deleted scenes from
especially from the Senate in Attack of the Clones, specifically
right after the assassination attempt on Pamme, which you know,
she yells and of course this wasn't this is deleted.

(16:34):
You have to She's very forceful, which reminds me a
lot of what we get to see Amamnthma when she
takes the takes the Senate, you know, takes the stage,
center stage, and she's saying missus padme and the deleted
scene she's saying, wake up, wake up, senators, you must
wake up. She's shouting as at the top of her lungs,
letting them know something's not right here, something is amiss.

(16:56):
And I really wish a lot of that stuff would
have been kept in a specially in Revenge of the Sith. Thankfully,
in the novelization of Matthew Stiver, that stuff is extended
the whole moment when they're in the pod together patmea
Maidala and Bilagana, and she says, this is how liberty dies.
She actually turns to him, not fully around, but turns

(17:18):
to him and she says, you know, do all those things,
do all those things that we can't talk about. Promise me,
make you know. She says, vote for Emperor Palpatine, make
Monmathma do it too, do everything. So she's already planting
those seeds. You guys got to follow through. And what
the beauty of Ander is that it's really about people

(17:41):
who know they're not going to be around. They've already
sold into the cause where we're doing this for the
next generation and the generation after that. They're giving up
everything for that, as Luthern said in season one, and
it's so for it's it's foreshadowing what we're going to
see in the very final clip, is that we're doing this.

(18:02):
We're sacrificing everything for a sunrise I will never see,
we'll never see. And even pame A Madala knew that
in Revenge is that all the way back then? She
knew That's why she went off to Mustafar to confront Anakin.
She knew it was a lost cause. That's why it
took her so long to even get out of the ship.
She knew she wasn't going to make it back on.

(18:22):
I just think it's beautiful that we get this and
it all begins with her. We can't forget that. Padme's
the one who serves the petition of two thousand to
Emperor Palpatine to basically give over his emergency powers back
to the Senate.

Speaker 5 (18:40):
She planted it.

Speaker 9 (18:41):
My Mamma follows through, Bailorgana falls through, and everybody else,
I mean Cassie. And as they said, he's a gatherer.
He's been gathering so he can deliver this message. The
force works in mysterious ways. Not to sound cliche, but
everybody involved in this has some sort of part to play,
otherwise it won't come through. So I think if you

(19:02):
really sum it up with the novelizations, what Tony Gilroy
and company did with and Or is on par with
the lyrical prose that Matthew Stover put into Revenge of
the Sith.

Speaker 5 (19:13):
It's that type of writing, and it's absolutely beautiful.

Speaker 9 (19:17):
I mean, we have the best dialogue and monologues in
and Or that we haven't any other Star Wars.

Speaker 7 (19:23):
And I'm just.

Speaker 9 (19:24):
Being honest, not to mention, because I am the only
one sitting here that's a woman. We have the best,
the best women characters in this series.

Speaker 5 (19:37):
And not to mention, most of them are moms. They're moms.

Speaker 9 (19:40):
These moms are written tremendously, and what does I'm sorry,
There's nothing better than a mother's love, a mother's nurturing.
And this is what Mammma gives, not to her own specifically,
but to everybody else, right, fix you get it from
you get it from from Claya in her own way,
and I mean a heavy.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
I want to get everybody's opinion on Dedro because she's
it's like it's like Anakin, Right, horrible things they've done,
but they come from a and there's no excuse for
any of the horrible things they've done. But then you
look at the way Dedro was treated and you look
at it from it purely. And this is why I
want to get your opinion first on it, Mecca, Because

(20:28):
she's physically abused at work, right, I mean, you know,
by her boyfriend at on On Gorman and by or
synchronic she he literally grabs her by the throat and
puts her down in her chair and says, we'll be
fine without you, and she has her story. I started

(20:49):
to feel bad for her in her story a little
bit when she was talking about she's always had to
be a scavenger, and I thought of all the women
who've had to work a little bit extra hard to
get ahead at work and it doesn't get recognized. And
when they do something and it does get recognized, sometimes
it's downplayed. What was your overall feeling on Dedra, because
I agree there were other fantastic female characters, but Detro

(21:11):
was playing it in a very different side.

Speaker 9 (21:14):
I think, oh yeah, now Denise is a fabulous actress.
What she was able to portray, just even with outwards
the shaking of the hand, the pulling down her uniform
and the collar like you feel that. But first and foremost,
she is written to be a bad person. She is
a bad person period, regardless of what's happened to her.

(21:35):
She has always made bad choices because of her She's
a product of her upbringing. Okay, she was raised, as
she claims, in an imperial kinder block. We had what
we needed, you know, So she's already drainwashed in a sense.

Speaker 5 (21:52):
I'm using that because that's what it is.

Speaker 9 (21:54):
She's brainwashed to believe this is the way of life,
this is the right way.

Speaker 5 (21:58):
So yeah, she did have to scavenger.

Speaker 9 (22:00):
But see, somewhere along the line, before this unfolded the
way it did, she should it should have clicked. It
doesn't click until she's in that cell that, oh my gosh,
I completely fudged up. Ye like that, That's when it
clicks that she realizes she's been on the wrong side
all this time. Yeah, because even Krenik tells her, he
calls her out. You missed your calling.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
You should.

Speaker 9 (22:25):
So yeah, she's I mean again, the acting by Denise
was just phenomenal. But again, it's hard for me to
have some sense of sympathy when I know she's done.
I mean, I know you put her on the same
I guess scale is Anakin, but see.

Speaker 5 (22:42):
I don't see that.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
That's a little bit of an extreme.

Speaker 9 (22:46):
That is, and I'm not justifying him because he did
horrible things. There's no justifying that. But when Anakin was Anakin,
he was good. He was a good person. She was
never good, right, yeah, she was never great. Sorry, do
you have any thoughts on deadro as a character?

Speaker 6 (23:03):
Well, I mean you just have to keep in mind
that this is a war, and a war and I
think and Ors showed this great. There are not many
good guys. Both sides are going to do horrible things,
and they might acknowledge that they're horrible, or maybe they're
brainwashed enough to think, oh, well it's justified. I think

(23:25):
you'll see that on both sides of a war. I
think they show that great in and Or. I mean,
we have to keep in mind that the rebels, I mean,
they're terrorists. I mean, I'm on their side, but they're
terrorists and they're doing things that are morally gray or
maybe just you know clear, like, hey, that's immoral, but
I'm doing it for a you know, a sunrise I'll

(23:45):
never see. So I like that they gave us a
little bit of that conflict with her character in terms
of like, I love to your point about her being
a woman in this galaxy. And yeah, sure, the Star
Wars galaxy is probably a little bit more progressive in
terms of acceptance. But I mean it's been clearly established,

(24:05):
like in the Cannon and I know, you know, New
Hope is made back in the seventies, and that of
course has something to do with it.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
But and as we see in and.

Speaker 6 (24:13):
Or, you'll see that all the top ranking you know,
imperial people are you know, white guys. So I think
it makes sense that in canon we can assume that
it is hard for a woman to climb those ranks.
We've seen the Empire is very prejudice toward non humans,
you know, that's part of that galaxy. So yeah, I

(24:33):
think they handled her character really well. Stellar performance. I
was gonna grab it, but I think it's across the room.
I actually just picked up her vintage collection figure.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
Great figure. Yeah, yeah, see, you're doing your part. That's good. David.
Do you have any thoughts on Dandra?

Speaker 8 (24:51):
Well, we I mean, this is something that has been
said in so many different ways for different characters throughout
the decades that you know, the best villains are the
ones that are that think that they're the good guy.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
And that's the beauty of Dedra right.

Speaker 8 (25:07):
She never once doubts her righteousness throughout this, even to
the extent of being willing to break Imperial Security Bureau
protocol in order to go after Luthen when she's been
told not to. She's not supposed to be going after access.
Now she's going to arrest him. She's been continuing to

(25:29):
do this. She's exactly the overstepping that the rebellion needed
to be successful. Her coming in there, making all of
those mistakes opened up. If she doesn't do that, then
Rogue one doesn't exist, and what we see in a

(25:51):
New Hope doesn't exist. And that was such a beautiful
way of setting her character up because you love her
and you hate her, and you but and you understand
her throughout did.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Both seasons of this and Denise did it amazing And.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
I think that's actually one of the things that and
Or did as a series incredibly well, was and they
did it without introducing Vader and the Emperor. The bad
guys are bad guys that you love to hate, like
every single one of them. So, speaking of which, David,
let me go to you. Nick and I every week
would pick our MVP. So I'm gonna take Cassie and
off the table because it's named after him as the

(26:24):
name of his show, but let's take him off the table.
Who is your MVP of the series?

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Who?

Speaker 3 (26:31):
And define that however you like? But who was the
character that you walked away from the series with the
most feelings for in one way or another? It was
really interesting.

Speaker 8 (26:43):
How if you would have asked me this question at
because I'm in Central Times so this show comes on
at APM, if you would have asked me this question
at seven forty five pm Tuesday evening, my answer would
have been very different. I did not really get into

(27:04):
Claya as a character. I thought she was kind of like,
why do we even have her in this show? She
just there to have something to play off of Luthen
with it and I came out of the series thinking,
oh wait, so Luthering really wasn't.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
The hero that put the rebellion together. Claya was the
hero that put the rebellion together.

Speaker 8 (27:25):
Right, Because what Luthan is doing is as a way
to his own weird, twisted way, in my opinion, at
least of trying to redeem himself for the absolute horrible
things that he did to her family and her planet
and her people. And when he finds her, it becomes
real to him about what he's doing, and he makes

(27:45):
it his mission to rescue her and to be a
part of her life and to submit to protect her.
And she's the one that's pushing for what we see
on Naboo.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
I believe we've it's been established.

Speaker 8 (27:57):
In that see all of these moments, she's the one
constantly pushing. And then when you look back season one,
season two of and Or, it's always her. She's resolved,
she knows what she's doing. She's calling Luthen out, she's
calling Mon out, she's calling Bell out, all of them,
because she needs to keep this rebellion going forward. And

(28:19):
so the beautiful thing about her ending it goes back
to a lot of the things that we've been talking
about with the way that they wrap up the stories
and with it, she's the type of woman that is
so confident in who she is that she doesn't have
to get the credit, which most of the strongest women

(28:41):
I know, are like that, right, They let us weak,
insecure men get the credit for all of the stuff
while they're the ones that make it happen behind the scenes.
And that's exactly what's going on with her. So Clay is,
without a doubt my MVP.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
It's great.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
And Becka, I feel like you're in the same boat
as David, or maybe not, but certainly sharing the same
concept on that one character for sure.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Oh.

Speaker 5 (29:07):
Absolutely.

Speaker 9 (29:08):
First of all, I can't I can't thank everyone that
made Ander enough because I feel seen the whole hospital,
the whole scrubs.

Speaker 5 (29:16):
Yes, sorry, but.

Speaker 9 (29:17):
Anyway, going back to Claia, it's really interesting because I
haven't really heard too many people saying this, but it's like,
does anyone not see the parallels here? Luthen and Claia
are exactly saw in Gin. Okay, both little girls were
in a sense, you know, had these surrogate fathers, not

(29:37):
because they wanted them, but because they had to. You know,
Saw raised Gin to be this smartyr, to be this weapon,
and he left her at the age of sixteen because
people were gaining interest in the Urso connection. So he
leaves her alone with nothing but a knife on a mission. Okay,
at sixteen, then you get Claya. Like you said, she's

(30:00):
good at disguise, good at being the decoy.

Speaker 5 (30:02):
Look at what she did.

Speaker 9 (30:03):
At that whole thing with Lannie. You know she that
Oh my gosh, she's just incredible. I mean, I just
it still strikes me that Tony did this, and he
gave this parallel to the Gin and Saw scenario.

Speaker 5 (30:20):
This is exactly what this is.

Speaker 9 (30:22):
Only Luthen doesn't leave her when things get too hard,
things don't get too messy. He actually tells her I
will do the bird because he knows that if she
stays behind, it's going to be her. H. He sacrifices
himself for her. Let's also say this also messes well
because you just recently watched Rogue one when they decide
that they're going to go to Scaif and Jin is

(30:45):
so taken aback bye, she goes. I'm not used to
people sticking around when things go bad because.

Speaker 5 (30:51):
All left her. What does he say, Kasie in Welcome home? Yeah,
welcome home, because I mean it's.

Speaker 9 (30:58):
Just the again, not to be cliche, but the force
works and mysterious ways because he's gathering. He has to
gather gin because without gin, there is no message from
the messenger right right there.

Speaker 5 (31:10):
It is. It's just, yeah, Clay is awesome.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
I love that that connection. I did not get the
I didn't I didn't see it the first time until
you just said it, the connection with the saw Gin parallel,
And yeah, that's that's a really good pick up.

Speaker 6 (31:26):
What about you, Golton? Was there an MVP for you, critic? No,
I'm just kidding, you know. I made this comparison recently.
I don't know if you guys have seen better Call Saul.
That's a show that it's, you know, named after one character,
but it's just as much a story about this other character,

(31:47):
Mike German Trout, and their two stories run parallel for
a long time, like they don't really cross paths, and
then like eventually they'll cross paths for a little bit
and then they go completely separate again. And I think
that that's what they did perfectly with and or that
this show could have just as easily been called Man Mathma.
And I think that she's the MVP of this show.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
I love her character.

Speaker 6 (32:11):
I want to see more of her, like in a
post Return of the Jedi like story, like I want
them to do like a story that takes place after
returning the Jedi recasts the original three and have her there,
show her becoming the Chancellor and all that, her calling
a genocide what it is, her uh, you know, taking

(32:32):
this fight to Palpatine, calling him out in the Senate,
you know, willing to leave her family and all that behind.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
I think that she is a standout for this show.
And I think I'll add to that.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
There's two things that struck me about man Mathma, and
they both happened in the last couple episodes, last two arcs.
One was the way geneviev O Riley played her win
Cassie and shot people right in front of her. You realize,
oh shit, she's never really seen that part. She's read it,
she's got and reports on it, but she's never seen that.
And then the second part, which I thought was so

(33:05):
so great, was heard just eating breakfast with all the troops.
She was just one of the rebels and explains to
that she you know, she had to walk away from
chan Chandrilla with all the fancy hairstyles and everything, and
she's she's living with the troops. She's living in the
dirt with the troops, and that says a lot about
a leader.

Speaker 6 (33:23):
I think so, and that again ties perfectly into how
and Ors. You know, we've been saying it's just one
aspect of the type of story you can tell in
Star Wars, and then you see the same thing within
the show itself, is these different kinds of stories being
told through and Or and then through Mond. It's perfect.
It's perfect. And with her reaction to him shooting yeah,

(33:45):
that that's this great like crossover point where you realize, oh,
they've been on two pretty different paths but going on
the same mission, which I think is how this show
ties in perfectly to the whole saga.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
Who's your MVP?

Speaker 4 (34:07):
It's the favorite child question, and it's not really fair
to ask who is your favorite character?

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Who's your MVP?

Speaker 4 (34:12):
Because there are so many aspects of just how well written,
how many layers there are to this show. But they're
not going to be forced to pick somebody besides Frannick.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Obviously, I'm going to go with Bicks.

Speaker 4 (34:25):
And we've talked already about strong women. There's no secret
I'm a fan of strong women. I live in a
house full of them. But this is a character who,
despite the trauma that she went through, not only in
season two, but in season one, the torture, the loss,
all the things that she experienced to have the inner

(34:46):
fortitude and the strength that she had when presented with
the opportunity to go, let's just get out of here,
let's run away.

Speaker 7 (34:52):
We don't have to be here anymore.

Speaker 4 (34:54):
To know that Cassian was needed and to say I'm
going to go because you won't if I'm here, like again,
sacrificing for the rebellion, the decisions. So much of this
show has been about sacrifice. What mine Mouth had, the
sacrifice with her personal life, her career, her family, all
of the characters that Cleia Luthen, you go all the
way down the line, even with Cyril and Dedra and

(35:16):
all these other you know, the imperial characters. The personal
sacrifices that are made in this show show you how
personal something like rebellion can be. And for Bis to
make the choices she made, and just like you know
Luthen's speech, she sacrificed her happiness for a bigger thing
and it's so powerful and it's so strong, and then

(35:37):
to see how that pays off at the end of
the show and to kind of have that little you know,
we said it on the episode review that we did
that kind of pseudo Sopranos moment when she's on that planet,
standing there holding that baby and turns and looks and
has that little smile.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
What are we looking at there?

Speaker 4 (35:53):
Who may have swung by for just a minute before
they went to you know, the rings of Kaffrin.

Speaker 7 (35:57):
I don't know, but if I'm picking an in, it's fixed.

Speaker 4 (36:01):
And it's because of the strength that she constantly pulled
from in order to pull herself out of the trauma
that she went through the ways that she had to
deal with it, whether it was the drugs, whether it
was you know, getting the revenge, getting doctor what'son's face
and you know.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Blowing up that building and the whole deal like that.

Speaker 4 (36:18):
It just it's incredible and it you know, I was
rooting for her all along the way, but to see
how that story and that journey went was really inspiring.
As we look at this, we've kind of talked about
the seasons, we've talked about all of this. They did
something new with Indoor season two. We didn't get this before,
and I want everybody's perspective on it.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
I'm a threat to you.

Speaker 4 (36:36):
First, David, we got three episodes a week for four weeks.
We got a Star Wars movie a week for four weeks.
Did you like it? Did it work for you? Give
me your thoughts on you know how this new change
and consuming some Star Wars content worked for you.

Speaker 8 (36:54):
Well, first of all, I love the creativity of it, right,
because for years in this space, you know, I've been
podcasting with Sam and Nate for almost eight years now,
the debate was always the binge version of these releases
or the weeked week version of this, and that we
never once saw the opportunity for something like this, And
so I felt like it was the perfect sweet spot,

(37:17):
at least for this series with it, because of the
way that they told these stories, these arcs.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
With it one year at a time, and it allowed.

Speaker 8 (37:27):
It allowed there to be a chance to step back
and breathe and think through what happened with some of
these arcs and speculate. And so for all of us,
you know, doing YouTube videos, all of us doing podcasting
and things like that, we need that space, right, It's
a lot easier to talk about this series and it
would be stranger things when it comes out eight episodes
at once.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
With it, And so.

Speaker 8 (37:51):
We got that opportunity, but at the same time it allowed.
One of the criticisms of the first season was after
that first three episode arc, it was it was pretty
much week to week and it took it took a while.
I was say, I'm thinking of the uh, the uh
prison arc as well, you know, being being sort.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
Of broken up with that.

Speaker 8 (38:15):
That would have been more impactful having been told all
at once, and for you know, for some of us,
I think we could you know, if you if you
got a screen some of us got screeners, and we
got to see that arc all at once, and it
made a bigger impact for us that way, we got
to experience that and see that, you know, the entire
world experience this series that way.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
I absolutely loved it. Cool Becca.

Speaker 7 (38:36):
What about you, How did how did three a week
work for you?

Speaker 5 (38:41):
Well?

Speaker 9 (38:42):
Uh, to echo again, I mean, I'm a long time animal,
so I'm used to waiting three you know, threears in
between a movie or you know, in between you know,
eighty three and nineteen ninety nine to get another movie.

Speaker 5 (38:56):
So this was a lot.

Speaker 9 (38:58):
I felt like I had eighty for a minute there,
just you know, thankfully getting screeners does help with that
because I didn't have to stay up late on a
work night. I was able to you know. I mean,
and I hate to say that. I mean, I'm very
grateful that I had that, you know. But I actually
like the rollout because I feel like if you wait

(39:20):
a week in between an arc like that, you know,
any of them, you even though they show you those recaps,
it's not enough. I mean again, I'm fifty now, so
you know what I retain week to week is not
the same as I would have ten years ago. Yeah,
so I like it. I think they should do this

(39:40):
more often because again, it's like getting that film.

Speaker 5 (39:43):
I mean, and I think we've been longing.

Speaker 9 (39:46):
For that for a long time because the last time
we had a new Star Wars film, you know, in
the theater, was twenty nineteen.

Speaker 5 (39:54):
And when you say that, so long ago, so long,
so long ago.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
It's crazy. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (39:59):
Yeah, yeah, So Carlton, I'm gonna ask you the same question.
I'm going to pose it, even just a tiny bit different.
I know, for me, if you give me something week
to week, great, I'll watch it week to week. I'll
process it, I'll think about it, I'll rewatch it, you know, one, two,
three times, depending on what it is, But I also
know if you give it to me at all at once,
I'm going to watch it all at once because I'm like,

(40:20):
it's right there, it's waiting for me. You're somebody who
creates content, You come in on shows, you do a
lot of this stuff. How did it work for you
getting these three episodes a week that kind of fit
in this arc mode.

Speaker 6 (40:31):
Well, it's like if you have a whole cake in
your fridge, You're going to eat it, but then you're
not going to feel great after, and then a few
days you're going to wish the cake was still there.
Binging right, Like, yeah, okay, I'm of two minds of it.
There's my mind, that's you know, my job. And of
course it would be much easier better for us, like

(40:54):
workflow wise, view wise, you know, keep it going longer,
to have had like twelve weeks of one episode per
week coverage, that would have been better for our business model.
Ignoring that just as a fan, Yeah, I love binging
stuff too, Like I said with the cake, if there's

(41:14):
a cake in my fridge, it's gone. So yes, if
it's there, I'll binge the whole thing. But there's something
so fun about and I know it's frustrating, like when
there's a cliffhanger, like right now, I've been catching up
on Last of Us and I'm caught up now and
I'm like, ah, I want more, And so I kind

(41:35):
of spoiled myself on that, but I like, and I
think it's better for the show itself if you keep
that conversation going and having like those those water cooler conversations.
I think it gets the word out about the show better.
That's why I'm glad Netflix finally with Stranger Things at

(41:56):
least split the season in two, you know, drop the
first half in the second, so you can get some
word of mouth, because I think when you just drop
it all at once, I don't that's not good for
how we do videos. I also just don't think it's
good for the show itself. And or kind of did
kind of walked that middle line. They didn't drop it
all at once, but they did three arcs or four arcs, right,

(42:19):
three episodes each.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (42:23):
I guess it's fine because if that's how they plan
to do it from the jump, then, to quote George Lucas,
it's stylistically designed to be that way. But we can
diminish the effects of it, and anybody get that pretty
couel documentary line. I personally wish that they had done
it episode by episode. I'm a big advocate for if

(42:44):
you were not a sitcom, a cartoon or a spaghetti western,
I want your shows to be at least an hour long,
and I want one a week. That's how I think
that was the perfect model. I think it's proven that
that was the perfect model, Like with Breaking Bad, Game
of Thrones succession, you know, you look at the most
recent shows that are all in that same genre, I

(43:05):
think as and or, and that's the model for releasing them.
So as cool as it is to get a Star
Wars movie every week, I do wonder if they would
have had even more like word of mouth success had
they cut the show a little differently and released one
episode a week.

Speaker 7 (43:23):
That would be my preference. Yep, yeah, that makes sense, Pete.

Speaker 4 (43:27):
You and I have talked about this off and on
throughout when it was announced. Throughout the course of this
we were also lucky enough to get the screeners, and
I think honestly it helped us with you know, busy
lives and trying to do shows and that kind of thing,
so it worked out. Where do you ultimately end up
on the three arc a week, three episode a week situation.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
I think it was great for a couple of reasons.
Number one, I think it was one of the things
that I noticed, especially when we would when we would
break them down, I noticed that episode two of each
arc left you in a please it was kind of
a down show other than the other than the garment massacre,

(44:07):
but it was kind of a down moment before going
into the launch. So you would have to wait a
full week after coming out of something that which is
why I think releasing the first three episodes of season one,
they did it the way they did it. However, I
would do something a little bit different and well, and
I think you sort of leaned into this a little

(44:28):
bit when you were talking about the way Stranger Things
did things. I would have gotten four months of subscriptions
out of it. I would have done one a month,
like maybe the first Tuesday of the month. I would
have dropped it, uh ARC one, R two or three,
because that does a couple of things. It'll keep people
talking about it for that next month, it keeps your subscription.

(44:48):
I mean, I hate to just put on the business
app with the reality is you need only two months
for this show. If you had four, you would stick up,
stick around. But I also think it would give people
that opportunity to after, like after you watch you know,
Solo or Rise of Skywalker, whatever, you had that opportunity
to talk about it, and it gave people some time
to catch up and and so I think that would

(45:11):
have been a little bit better. I don't know if
it would have been better, but it would have been
a different way to do it. I think would have
been an interesting way to experiment.

Speaker 6 (45:17):
I think we're also at a point where there is
so much, especially just Disney alone. They're putting out so
much stuff, which great, but I feel like a lot
of people are getting to a point where they feel
like they just do not have time to watch everything.
It feels like homework, Like, oh, I need to binge

(45:37):
three hours of this show before I can watch this
next week's episode. So I can see that being a problem.
And can I just say, I think I kind of
brushed over this in my point about like if you're
not a spaghetti western, a sitcom or a cartoon. My
point to that is I love that we are actually
getting our long episodes and not that twenty two minute Yeah,

(45:58):
you don't account for credits stuff. So I want to
praise and or for that as well, for actually giving
us real TV.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
Amen.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
Yeah, the thirty six minute episodes, Oh no again half
of its credits. Wait a minute, let's let's take a
slightly different direction here and let's talk with them. Were
some unanswered questions and some some plot points that were

(46:28):
left open. I don't know if any of you had
any in particular I'll leave it. You know, we don't
have to do it in any particular order. Does anybody
have any unanswered questions that, even knowing what happens in
Rogue one and a New Hope, anything that you wish
they had answered? Beca, does Becca's got what hold does?
Let's bring it?

Speaker 5 (46:49):
What happened to Kaza's sister?

Speaker 1 (46:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (46:53):
I really want to know where she ended up? Yeap,
that still bugs me. I read the interview.

Speaker 5 (46:59):
I get it.

Speaker 9 (47:01):
Tony's like, well, how many things in your lifetime do
you leave unresolved?

Speaker 5 (47:05):
I get that, but this is a sibling. They were
close what.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
And they referenced it in the last episode like they like, yeah,
he reminded.

Speaker 9 (47:13):
You get a little Yeah, a little flashback, you know,
when Cae just trying to wake them up. Yeah, so,
And I think that's to show his regret in a
sense that he didn't go back, which is why he
keeps going back for everybody else, which I can understand
that that's part of his flaw. But he's a human,
you know what I mean. He can't leave anyone behind.

(47:35):
And I think in a sense, him bringing Clia back
was in a way bringing his sister back, even though
it's not his sister, If that makes a little sense.
I don't know, but that like that bothers me.

Speaker 5 (47:46):
I don't know. I want to know where she's at,
Like why show her at all?

Speaker 6 (47:50):
I think to play Devil's advocate on that, I think
the point to that might be, and I agree with
you it would have been nice to know, But that,
like as we say saw with Bicks going off, I
think the point is Cassiean's new family is the Rebellion,
Like the actual mission of the rebellion, So I guess,
like where his sister has kind of becomes like irrelevant.

(48:14):
I want to know, like about this the super weapon,
Like how is the rebellion? Like are they going to
destroy it? The Palpatine guy. I want it if they're
going to beat him, and I hope they make a sequel, right, Yeah.
I just felt like there was so much un answered,
like a lot of setup, like we're just seeing the
space station be built and like, I don't know, call
it death's something either way, Yeah, which is ridiculous.

Speaker 4 (48:39):
It up.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
Yeah, I mean that's a little on the nose. I
don't know.

Speaker 6 (48:43):
I'm hoping that maybe there's like a it'd be cool
if like one of the engineers is like secretly a
rebel or something, and like he puts in like a
you know, like a failsafe for something to where they
could blow it up.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
But that might be a little much. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
I've got a movie for you to check out.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
A couple of them. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 4 (49:03):
Recommendations, David, Were there any unanswered questions for you?

Speaker 8 (49:08):
Of not necessarily unanswered questions, I would say that one
thing that I was really hoping to see flesh out
a little bit more was I kind of wanted to
see when Galen sends Bodie.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
To Saw.

Speaker 8 (49:24):
I kind of anticipated that happening in this in this
last arc. This last arc went in a direction I
did not expect at all, and n you and I
were texting about it earlier today. Pele with it, I was
like I needed I really thought we were going down
that path coming into last Tuesday night. Yeah, and was

(49:45):
was a little bit like when are we going to
get there? And then it was like I realized, oh wait,
we're not. So now I've got to accept the story
and kind of get into the story that we're in.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
And obviously I loved it. I mean, I mean Clay
my MVP with it.

Speaker 8 (49:59):
I am glad though, to talk to go back to
the conversation about Cassie and sister.

Speaker 10 (50:05):
I am so glad that they didn't tie it all
up in a pretty bow and like give you some
big reveal where in the theories about Claya being his
sister and all of this.

Speaker 8 (50:20):
And at one point it kind of felt like they
going there, which you kind of referenced a little bit earlier,
I think, Nick, but they didn't actually make that happen,
and that would have been very It would have been
two Star Wars, right, It would have been to everybody's

(50:40):
your father, everybody's you know, all of this kind of
stuff that's going on, and that's not what this series
has been at all, and that needed to not happen.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
I'm so glad that they didn't make that happen. Yep.

Speaker 4 (50:54):
I agree with that, and I'll say mine kind of
ties in similarly to that. As great as it would
have been to see Ken o'loy pop up somewhere at
the end, because again not dead on screen, not dead wherever.
We know you can't swim, but like if at the
end and a closing shot like he's you know, ratcheting
and x wing in the background or something, that would

(51:16):
have been great. But at the same time, I'm really
glad they didn't do that, because again, you have to
be able to have people who come in and out
of your life, who come in and out and get
you on a path heading in a direction, but they
don't necessarily get to go with you on that journey.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
And so I am glad he becomes snoke just so
you know, oh that's right.

Speaker 4 (51:36):
See again, there's a movie down the road for you.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
It's all going to tie together.

Speaker 4 (51:43):
So so yeah, I don't think I just thought that
was a good I'm glad they didn't make that choice.
I think it worked better as they did it.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
Yep.

Speaker 9 (51:54):
I'm just laughing really quick though, because you know he
can't swim, but yet we see all the snokes in
a jar with I'm just sorry, sorry, I had you
too soon.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
Sorry, but they're not swimming in the jar.

Speaker 8 (52:08):
It's always it's always, yeah, cool what I read. I'm sorry,
No I didn't.

Speaker 4 (52:25):
We're thinking about snokes and jars and how we're really
not swimming.

Speaker 7 (52:30):
Becca, I do have a question for you.

Speaker 4 (52:32):
You are our expert in Star Wars literature, in books
watching and Or seasons one and two.

Speaker 7 (52:40):
This is your chance.

Speaker 4 (52:42):
What are the recommendations for people coming out of and
Or one and two that may not be booked? People,
because we know there's so many more incredible stories that
exist that fill in even.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
More of these gaps, even more of these stories.

Speaker 4 (52:54):
What would be some of the Tarkan's top shelf official
recommendations based on watching Indoor?

Speaker 9 (53:00):
Okay, so these are again not in this order necessarily Okay,
So just Rebel Rising. This is the Saw and Generous
so story, you know, and you know even after he
leaves her with a knife at the age of sixteen
by herself, and how she gets out of that, Yeah,
very very cruel, but yet she still has affection towards him,

(53:21):
so that just speaks to her moral compass. Yeah, just
so there's that. This absolutely love. This just came out
in February. Please please get this. This series is going
to be phenomenal. This happens right after Revenge of the Sith.
It's about the first year and how Bail, are Ganna
and mon Monthma deal with that aftermath, and also they

(53:45):
team up with Saw for a little bit.

Speaker 5 (53:47):
It's really good this this book.

Speaker 9 (53:49):
When when we read this on our podcast, I actually said,
there's no way now you cannot have Bail Organa show
up in season two like he needs to so so
happy and edgmin Bratt, can you just think.

Speaker 7 (54:01):
Yeah, he was great?

Speaker 5 (54:04):
Oh he was. He had that little essence of Bail
really perfect.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
If you had to replace him, he was perfect. And
I think you said it online and I think it's
a great comment. Nobody complained when they changed out Brea
for the Obi Wan Kobe series.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
Why why?

Speaker 5 (54:20):
I don't know, but you.

Speaker 4 (54:22):
And I love I love Jimmy Smith's and I love
what he did in West Wing. But I think, but
I think for what Bail needed to do in this series,
I think Benjamin Bratt did a better job than Jimmy
Smiths would have done to be that character.

Speaker 7 (54:36):
The way he played it.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
That is loud.

Speaker 7 (54:40):
I do I think he.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
I think he.

Speaker 4 (54:41):
I think he played that part better than Jimmy Smiths
would And I love Jimmy Smiths and I loved him
as you know bail in the earlier stuff. But I
think for this show and the tone and everything that
it brought to it, because it gave a little bit
of that even though I know the story, I had
little moments where I went, I don't know if I
trust him. I'm I'm not so sure he's on our side,
like he carried it in a way that I don't

(55:04):
know that Jimmy smith could have as convincingly.

Speaker 9 (55:07):
Yeah, and I love the line when K two says
the man, the man that you don't like is here.

Speaker 5 (55:13):
I absolutely love that.

Speaker 9 (55:15):
But this one always this is a prequel to Rogue one,
so it's somewhere it fits before and then even after
and or if that makes sense. So yes, it goes
right into Rogue one. So catalysts and then this one
good friend of the show, Chris Kemshaw, doctor Chris Kemshaw,
So you know the rise and fall of the Galactic Empire.

Speaker 5 (55:38):
This is.

Speaker 9 (55:40):
Ridiculously amazing, I mean just ridiculous, and it's just awesome
and it makes me wonder what saide doctor Kemshell's really on.
But no, I'm only teasing. I know it's not going sound,
but it's just it's that good and it really it
offers a lot of insight to what we see with

(56:01):
you know, Dedra and Critic and why they are the
way they are and what makes them all tick, which
we kind of get to see obviously, which is.

Speaker 5 (56:09):
Nice for change. So yeah, those are my four recommended.

Speaker 3 (56:13):
I've seen that book on shelf and I've always been
attracted to is it a story or is it a
just sort of like a history.

Speaker 9 (56:20):
It's okay, so and of course he would be very
upset with me, m show, but the character he okay,
have you read Kristen Bab's Skywalker. It's written like that,
so basically it's a history in telling you the history,
so it's written in you know, someone else's voice, and

(56:42):
actually he uses I can't think of his name from
Rise of Skywalker. He's the one that basically tells you
about you know, the Sith and there you know, and
that's when Poe says, somehow Palpatine that whole thing, you know, so,
but anyway, it's really.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
Somehow Palpatine returned. You always have to have that, right.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
Yeah, So that's a book I'm definitely gonna have to
pick up for sure.

Speaker 1 (57:21):
Colton, I'll throw this to you and we'll start there.

Speaker 3 (57:26):
But Screen Crush, of course, is without a doubt the
place for Easter eggs and things that we might have missed.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
On all of our favorite shows.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
I now watch your all of us of course, you
know if there's a show I like, you guys have
a cover, which is great. But while and Or didn't
really have as much in your face member Berry as
it did have some here and there. So how do
you and the rest of the panel kind of feel
about that sort of lack of ouvert fan servicey cameos?

(57:53):
Like there was plenty of opportunities to show us Vader
or planets like tattooing the lethal Do you think it?
I mean, I think we all agree that it helped,
but was it noticeable that it changed the perception? And David,
to your point, it's sort of like the you know,
when and Or first came out, you you sort of
compared it to pizza, right, everybody Star Wars is like pizza.

(58:15):
Everybody's got their favorite topics and so, but do you
think that there was not enough fan servicy things?

Speaker 1 (58:20):
Did it feel?

Speaker 3 (58:21):
Maybe the best way to put is has a great
question to sort of wrap everything up with everybody is
didn't feel Star Wars enough to it. I know, David
does something you've been struggling with. But Colton, where do
you start with that?

Speaker 6 (58:33):
I mean, to push back a little, I think it
feels very like Star Wars. I mean, my mom was there,
Elerghana is there that there's Stormtroopers running around? I feel like,
you know, as a as a hardcore Star Wars fan,
I'm like, yeah, this is a Star Wars show critic
is there?

Speaker 1 (58:51):
I saw?

Speaker 9 (58:51):
So?

Speaker 1 (58:52):
Yeah. I take your point.

Speaker 6 (58:54):
Like, no, they didn't drop Vader or anything, but I
was glad that several times they dropped like Emperor Palpatine.
I'm like, all right, nice, nice. I'm not huge on
the throwing a character or a reference in for the
sake of doing it. I wanted to have some meaning
and some reason behind it.

Speaker 1 (59:14):
And I think and Or walks that line great.

Speaker 6 (59:16):
I mean I could see how maybe two a more
like someone who this isn't their entire life watching Star
Wars might be like, hey, where's like, you know, somebody
with a lightsaber or something like that.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
But that's just that's not the point of this show.
So I think they handled it well.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
Yeah, Nick, and I said on the when we covered
the last three episode arc, I thought, for sure, if
there was an opportunity, I thought we were going to
see party gas we brought before Darth Vader. I thought
that was going to be his entrance. But if they
did that, that's all we would have talked about. We
would have missed the rest of those episodes because we
would have been so focused on on Darth Vader. So

(59:56):
I think I think they handled it perfectly.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
I take it back.

Speaker 6 (59:59):
I want Asian in the World between Worlds talking to Yoda.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
What he realizes that the forces driven everything he's done?

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Right? What about you, David?

Speaker 3 (01:00:13):
The you know that that I still that pizza comment has.

Speaker 8 (01:00:18):
Struck Yeah, well, okay, So the idea was you could
be at the best pizza restaurant in the world, right
and order cheese bread and it may be the most
amazing cheese bread you've ever had, but it's still not pizza,
and that's what I was trying to use as a
metaphor for if you know, this is kind of the
way season one of and Or felt for me. Again,

(01:00:41):
I've said over and over again how much this series
is amazing, right, and I love it. I think that
what the third arc of season two, I finished watching
it with Sam and Nate and we were sitting on
the couch.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
Actually it was weird.

Speaker 8 (01:00:57):
I was sitting on my couch with Nathan, and then
Sam was watching it from his new house he just
bought and listen if you have ever listened to the show.
He was sixteen when we started the podcast, and now
he owns a house, and so it's weird. But anyway,
he was he was. We were watching it, and we
were messaging back and forth about it, and I said,
this series is to Star Wars, and Or is to
Star Wars what the Biblical Book of Esther is to

(01:01:21):
the Biblical canon. The Biblical Book of Esther has no
mention of God whatsoever anywhere in it, and yet God
and his hand moving throughout the narrative is present throughout.
And when I saw the force Healer and the things

(01:01:41):
that she said to Cassian in episode seven, and then
what Luthan says to Cassian in episode nine about you're
always in the right spot, You're always here, you know.
It's it's it's clear that the Force has been guiding
Cassian throughout all of this, even though we don't have Jedi,
we don't have Sith, we don't have Vader, we don't

(01:02:02):
have lightsabers, we don't have any of that. And I
was like, that's what this is actually a brilliant story
because you see the Force moving all throughout Cassian's arc,
and you don't have to actually tell everybody that that's
what's going on.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
It's a very show. Don't tell. Yeah, it's beautiful. That's
a great that's a great observation. I love that. Beck
anything to add to.

Speaker 9 (01:02:25):
That, no, I mean, you know, the I don't know
if you're trying to like get onto like you know,
putting putting something in there for fan service type thing.
But I was just happy, like I said, going back
to my book recommendations, that they even though Jimmy Smith
was not going to be able to make it work,

(01:02:46):
they're brave enough to recast. And I think that needs
to happen more. Yeah, Okay, because let's face it. I mean,
if we're getting older, that means certain actors are getting
older and they're just not going to be there anymore.
Some of them aren't even there anymore, but yet their
characters are living on in a timeline where it's building

(01:03:08):
and it's going to be necessary. I'm I'm hinting at
lea anyway, just saying, but yeah, you know, to play
off what we were just talking about with the Force,
I mean, even in Rogue One, like you said, we
don't see Jedi, but yet the Force is.

Speaker 5 (01:03:24):
A very prominent character.

Speaker 9 (01:03:27):
Like It's funny because when you bring up that Force
killer and what she says about you know, now getting
clarity on Kasian's path, you know, as this messenger and
is gathering as he goes. It really brought me back
to Rogue one with Charut when when basics like where
are you going, he goes, I'm following jin her path

(01:03:49):
is clear. I mean, if that's not the Force making
sure these two come together to do what they need
to do, then I don't know, I don't know what
it is.

Speaker 10 (01:03:59):
You know.

Speaker 9 (01:03:59):
Let's also remember too, Lira or So was a member
of the Church of the Force, but yet somehow she
aligned with saw Guerrera. Someone make that makes sense?

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
Right?

Speaker 9 (01:04:10):
Yeah, so this is the force that will because Lutheran says,
to what cassian you know, because Cassi goes, I've been
making all my own choices, he goes, but have you
somehow you just are where I need you to be.

Speaker 5 (01:04:24):
That's the whole thing. Does the force really give each
person free will? Or don't you?

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Yep, have free will?

Speaker 5 (01:04:31):
So yeah, it's really cool.

Speaker 3 (01:04:34):
I love it and it's funny. It's like because also
in Rogue one, when when Urrett says that he feels
like he feels like Cassiane is in his own cage
or something, which.

Speaker 5 (01:04:48):
Ties you're in your own prison and you carry.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
Yeah, yep, yep.

Speaker 3 (01:04:51):
And so it's a different sort of form of what
the Force healer said, Right, he's sort of gathering things
and assurances him as he's gathering things, but it's weighing
on him. So that's really that's really cool. So cool, yes,
And I will add to your to your recasting things.
I think there was you know, people were looking for

(01:05:13):
something to complain about. And I will not name the
author because I don't know how he'd feel about it.
But Nick was with me when we were in Uh,
i'll tell you offline.

Speaker 1 (01:05:20):
Back because you'll probably figure it out.

Speaker 3 (01:05:23):
But when we were at Star Wars celebration in California
a couple of years ago, we were sitting with this
author and I asked him, I said, with Carrie Fisher
passing away, what would you have done? And he said,
I would have recast her, he said, I wouldn't have
been popular, he said, but the story outweighs the actor,

(01:05:45):
and and I think you know, uh, Benjamin Bratt proved
that this time around. You know, there's a different Dedanna
in Rogue one. You know, it's it's it's you need
the character and the story will, as you pointed on,
it out. And it's clear Star Wars will live far
beyond any of us, and if they're going to continue

(01:06:06):
to tell these stories, you need to have the character
live on. And yeah, you can base it on Carrie
Fisher's personality or whatever Mark Hamill brought to Luke Skywalker
or whatever that might be, but you need to be
able to move on otherwise the stories can't. So yeah,
So any parting comments before we go back, and I'll

(01:06:29):
start with you, any parting thoughts on the series or anything.

Speaker 9 (01:06:39):
You know, it's interesting because again, it enriches what we
already know, and I think that speaks volumes to those
creators and the actors and actresses that brought this forward
and the whole cast and crew. I just think, you know,
we all need to embrace story because like we were

(01:07:01):
just saying about, you know, pizzas and toppings and things
like that. I mean, yeah, this, I'm just not a
fan of the comparing This one is better than that one.

Speaker 5 (01:07:14):
This is a.

Speaker 9 (01:07:14):
Masterpiece com you know. Don't don't yuck somebody's yum, you know.
I mean, I don't rank the films. I never will.
I just can't. I just I won't do it. But uh,
it's just a dark gloom and doom. But then again,
so his rogue one. But you know, hey, you know,

(01:07:35):
I just think it's important that even the little guy
gets their story told, because you know, that's what it's about.

Speaker 5 (01:07:43):
It's more or less about.

Speaker 9 (01:07:44):
The people, not so much about the Jedi, if that
makes sense, because they're the ones that are going going
through it all. And this is where I think and
Or is different from everything else because we're just following
the little guy trying to make a difference, and I
think that makes for an interesting story and it's more relatable.
You know, not all of us can wield lightsaber or
used the force to open doors unless you're you know,

(01:08:05):
walking into Walgreens or something, but.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
You know, absolutely, David. Any parting thoughts.

Speaker 8 (01:08:11):
On the and Ors, I'll go back to what I
said earlier towards the very beginning.

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
I love how this show allows.

Speaker 8 (01:08:21):
Us to see a future for Star Wars where you
can have very different style stories being told to different
types of audiences, and.

Speaker 1 (01:08:34):
It can actually broaden the galaxy.

Speaker 8 (01:08:36):
And it's really interesting how that happens when by going
very narrow this this series went very narrow and went
very narrow and on a handful of people trying to
make a difference in this rebellion. But it's opening up
the galaxy to being much broader for the future. And
I feel really good because of this series. I feel
really good about the future of Star Wars. And that's

(01:08:58):
that's awesome. That's great. That's great, Colton, What about yourself?

Speaker 6 (01:09:03):
And or and like Thunderbolts, that these are primary like
these are great examples of what you can get when
you let a writer and a director just make their
damn show or movie, and don't get two in the weeds,
don't interfere too much, give them this general outline. We

(01:09:26):
need to start here, end up here, and just let
a talented creative person with an actual, like stellar resume
handle this, you know, top tier, like very valuable content.
That's exactly what they did here with and Or, and
I hope that they can continue that, learn from that
and push it into their other brands as well. I

(01:09:47):
hope to see that with Marvel, and I think we're
seeing that with James Gunn with DC. And there's no reason,
you know. I actually was lucky enough to get to
see the new Mission Impossible, which comes out in in
like a week or two. I get to see it
the other night, and the whole time, I'm sorry, I
know I'm kind of going off on a tangent here,
but the whole time I'm sitting there wondering, you know,

(01:10:09):
because Tom Cruise, say what you will about him, he
knows how to make a movie, and he has like this,
this passion for filmmaking, and you can just see that
in his movies. You can see it in and Or.
And the whole time I was watching Mission Impossible I
was like, why wasn't this Brave New World the New
Captain America movie? Why didn't they go this route? And
I felt that with and Or watching just the quality

(01:10:30):
storytelling they were doing there. I know, you guys, you
know I enjoyed Kenobi and Ahsoka to a certain extent
as well, but I was wondering, well, why didn't Kenobi
and Ahsoka have this same like I don't know, just
just quality Like Kenobi especially, I wanted this wartime like
PTSD type story that I think that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:50):
They went up to a line, but they never went
for far enough with it.

Speaker 6 (01:10:54):
Yeah, yeah, I wish they'd gone the and Or route
with that, and I hope with the great reception they're
getting from that, they'll entertain that idea.

Speaker 7 (01:11:02):
I want to thank all of our panelists for joining us.

Speaker 4 (01:11:05):
It has been such a wonderful conversation, a chance to
connect with all of you. Everybody's socials will be in
the show description in the links below, so check them
out on all the different things they do tattooine, suns,
screen crash, tark and stopshelf. You can't go wrong with
any of those. So thank y'all so much for being
a part of this.

Speaker 3 (01:11:22):
Yeah, I know, well, I think that's going to wrap
it up for this week's episode of Road to Rebellion
The and Or After Show. Thanks so much for joining
us on this journey as we've broken down the entire
season now of and Or season.

Speaker 4 (01:11:38):
Two, and just because the show is over, that doesn't
mean Road to Rebellion is done. We've got a few
more ideas, a few more conversations we want to have,
and we're going to continue next week. We're going to
look at and Or through the eyes of politics, and
we're going to be joined by our friend Steven Kent
to talk about that and to dig into that a.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
Little bit more. That will be a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (01:11:57):
And if you're joining the show, make sure you're subscribed
to Around the wherever you get your podcasts, and don't
forget this is just one of the shows on the
SSW Network one hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (01:12:06):
In addition to the Around the Galaxy podcast, you can
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Speaker 3 (01:12:23):
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Speaker 4 (01:12:35):
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Send that link, Copy it to an uncle, a dad,
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(01:12:58):
as we said at the top of the show, leave
us voicemail five zero four three two one one five
zero one.

Speaker 1 (01:13:03):
We are always up for talking starts.

Speaker 3 (01:13:06):
Well, that's it for this week. We want to thank
our guest once again and thank you for hanging out
with us. And until next time, may the Force be
with you.

Speaker 4 (01:13:14):
And this is the Road to Rebellion and we will
see you next week.

Speaker 3 (01:13:18):
Road to Rebellion is copyright twenty twenty five Pete in
the Seed Studios. For more information on this show and
other shows in the SSW network, please head over to
the SSW network dot com. Audio clips our copyright twenty
twenty five for Lucasfilm