Aleya Zenieris

and convince somebody else that doing the first bad thing that they've ever done in their life is the right thing. Not only because he thinks that it is right, but it's exactly what he needs at that very moment. And he's probably been holding out for like months to get a taste of that ship and fly it out of there.

This is why I've loved this show and I couldn't wait to get back into this world because in Microcosm, how good Gilroy is at giving stakes to somebody that we will only know for five minutes and then immediately pushing that away and then we're on a freight train of conviction that is Diego Luna to try to just get off of a planet for two days to do one thing because he's so...

Not only is he completely adept at everything that he can do with the people that he's stuck on a planet for two days, he's yelling at his code talker when he's finally back on this ship. Being like, did you know that I wasn't trained to fly this? Do you even know what ship that I'm bringing in? Where am I supposed to go? Our guy's been dead for three days. Did you know that?

He's yelling at everybody else because he's the only person that's actually able to do this. And when you're alone for that long, he's been clearly strung out by the time that he actually gets back to Bix and the people that he really trusts and fucks with. They're completely distraught, and he's got to, like, band all of those things together. It was like a raucous first three episodes.

Well, not even that. It's just they don't even know. They clearly don't have an objective. They don't have an organization.

Okay, I think I see where people could be upset with this.

not just like, no, mom is like, no, no, I need to be held accountable. Now. I can't just be like, hands off the wheel. It's nuts.

Hell yeah.

The way that those characters feel more and more embedded in their circumstance by the third episode, only to have all of those things upended, is now classic Endor. Because in all of these three episode chunks we've had, set up, set up, great exposition and great like kind of finale set piece that isn't exactly even like that raucous or visual eye candy.

Sometimes it is, but shooting a grain tower and being a hero to save the day while not exactly like the most visual, like stupendous thing that we've ever seen is, It's an amazing payoff for a season one start. And in episode two, when we see Bix just like kind of accosted by this Imperial soldier, that's just like the most tense and uncomfortable interaction you can ever see.

Not only being a perfect example of like the kind of laissez-faire mentality of what the Empire is, is to the planets that it occupies, that it just kind of passively glances at it, takes interest to it, and thinks about taking something. Applying that to a third episode of a person that is only concerned about finishing an objective.

And then all of the things that mean something to him are taken away more and more and more and now all he has is an objective. I keep thinking about the last time that we see Cassian in Rogue One and the straight line that is... excuse me, is clearly being drawn from all of that mentality that's currently happening to him. It's a brilliant way to still propel this.

To know that at the end of these three episodes, we're probably going to time jump another year, two, to something else.

Get your mask, bruh. In that first episode, we're just like, oh, so this is your side piece.

That was such a heartbreaker.

If you were to ever see something north of four hours, that makes it a two-part pod, I think. I don't think that we want to put something out there that's like... Unless I'm wrong, if people want four hours... I mean, you're talking shop, really?

Do you think Mon Mothma gets her hands dirty at all in this season?

Luther's coming out like... Luther's like, is this dude... I mean, she's talking to Luther.

Oh, man, there's a lot coming out this month. There could be that video game adaptation of Until Dawn. We could be taking a look at. What the fuck is that? It's that PlayStation movie. What?

Yeah. And that's what I meant when I said getting her hands free. I don't think that she's going to actually physically hold a pistol to somebody or pull the trigger so much so, but like to know that she will be the face of the rebellion in formality as well, to know that when we see her in Rogue One, she's going to be in that bunker forever.

giving orders and actually making those hard decisions to orchestrate an entire flow chart of not only military operations, but rebellious sentiment. Right now, she's still trying to just be the smiling face that can hopefully just wrangle a couple of spies hoping that a job gets done. And now come the end of this, she's like, well, fuck.

I've got to actually just put my... I've got to show my whole ass in front of the Senate and everybody and my family, my husband, my daughter, all of these things to just be like... She's got to show her ass in front of her.

They adapted a video game that was like a horror slasher thriller into a movie with Peter Stormare. Okay. We might be taking a look at that.

I love it. From Constantine. Constantine. Legendary movie.

Oh, my God. She might be one of my favorite characters in this show. Not even close.

Constantine's great.

I find that incredibly compelling because I was literally talking about this to Chuck before. I was like, did I miss something? Or I was like, why does Krennic take a shine to her knowing that she fucked up Ferex last season so bad? Why would she even be invited to this project, let alone valued for her insight? And the insight of knowing that a rebellion kind of fucked her over...

on Ferex and that she would kind of want to lick back from that.

And the fact that she's kind of being exploited by that embarrassment to want to kind of make good on this, to have her boss be like, no, this is a gift. Take it. Because you can actually prove yourself. It's going to seem like a demotion.

In retrospect, with everything that came after it, I'm not saying it's a good movie, but it is... We've had the Thanos, I've judged you too harshly conversation about Eternals.

I scream laughed when it cut from them having that conversation to Cyril just like on the bed. I was dying.

That was funny as hell. That was so incredible.

This to me is Gilroy flexing at how good he is at this shit in the third episode of the second season of Andor. To know that like, To know that Andor saving the day and being the big hero also is counteracted with a man, his wife, and his mom arguing at a dinner table. And that being equally as compelling is just incredible stuff. Like, I love this.

No.

No, adequately hated.

I won't say it's a brave thing to put that in the same universe where all of this heroism and lightheartedness and family-friendly, fun-time universe is from.

But a show that operates like this, that has the kind of determination to tackle themes that go to very dark places, that we don't even really understand the stakes of which, because this is in the same world where people are running around with laser swords...

Those things can still hit very home and whether or not we think that they're necessary, they can be very, very impactful for showing where a character is and where we see ourselves in those people. To not exactly think of the desperation that a character is in and still see something like that handled very well and like impactfully for sure.

As uncomfortable as I was, I was like, wow, this is really something that I didn't think Star Wars could do. And come out of it being like, wow, I think that we kind of just evolved the level of storytelling that this property is able to do. And has been doing it probably since its inception. One way out was that it feels like this three-episode arc was that too.

And it's kind of nowhere but up from here. Like, I am very impressed with the level of... themes that it can show not only with family and self-determination and self-actualization on the level of Bix, but to know that she's still got to go on and carry everything that happened to her from season one onward is really, really harrowing. And this was a very good example of that.

Yeah, it'd be one thing to just say it, but showing it... And in some ways, to not handle that well is a bit of a cheat code and crass way to do that.

Okay.

like a different show like almost like the comedy of it the hokiness of it the pluckiness of it there was a moment where i'm like i get what you're doing but it just it they ended up landing the plane i was like what yeah and i think it only works for me if it's in that third episode when he's like absolutely furious at how disorganized and fucked up it is because he's like i like we're as annoyed as he is by being marooned for two days with a bunch of idiots for

that don't know what the fuck they're doing and then by the time that he gets off of that planet he's absolutely enraged by the fact that he's lost three days and was just like like basically like stranded for months to do one thing and then he was stopped by these assholes these dummies yeah like i get it because like now we need a flow chart this guy can't operate or do his job if this is what we're working with yeah it's just how like you know businesses work right yeah if he

No, I mean, you guys. Listen, when we play Kelly Clarkson, you're going to be doing this.

Miss Independent.

Celine Dion. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.

Okay.

Jeez, man.

It's really hard because I think we could all remember when we finished X2 and we saw the shadow of the phoenix in that lake, how excited we were for what that could mean. And then it was just absolutely not.

Oh, no, no, no.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Then we're there. I think that this is more like with these three episode tranches, this is probably likely going to be just capturing like a slice of life time and place of the rebellion to where like, okay, they're clearly very disorganized, but they have a lot of people that are willing to activate and like get their shit together.

And where we leave off at the end of this third episode is them just kind of marooned at the end, shoved into one TIE fighter, determined, ready to do something. Mothma is kind of getting there as far as being the leader that she's going to be. Luthen, very, very determined to get that flowchart going.

I think when we jump ahead another year or so, maybe we see Mon Mothma getting a little bit more grizzled. They're probably going to be doing another job like Bix and Andor and everybody else are just going to be like together now maybe. I'm interested to see where the progress of this Imperial project is going to be a year in. What's the propaganda going to look like?

Is there going to be an insurgency that's going to be boiling? Are they going to be dealing with that? I like the idea that once we kind of just jump ahead and be like, oh yeah, that thing that happened a year ago when we were marooned.

Can I interject here? We have major events in 4BBY from Star Wars WikiFandom. After obtaining a kyber crystal from the Jedi Emperor, Ezra Bridger constructs his first lightsaber. This is where Kanan Jarrus is captured by Moff Tarkin. Oh. And the Grand Inquisitor is killed after a duel with Kanan Jarrus. That all happens in 4 BBY.

She's probably like... Teenager? Yeah, she's in her teens, though.

Right, and then in Rogue One... She was 15.

Yeah, Bail is for sure.

So like they, it feels like these circles are just getting closer and closer though. I feel like, like maybe like I'm not expecting to see the rebels in Andor or whatever, but like these entities are getting really close to interacting directly.

This is the brilliance of what Gilroy's doing because I would say you don't need to be a lore expert, but you absolutely should re-watch the first season of Andor before you start this because the way in which these characters speak and act around each other, you need to know kind of who all these people are right from the jump because all of that context is still carrying over.

What I was going to say is there's a lot of

Wow. I don't see any scene that has those things that doesn't have nutrition with what the story is actually being served for.

I don't know Gilroy's process when it comes to his writing or what he wants to do creatively, but I could imagine easily where he's like, all right, I'm making a scene where I have all of these like emperor's bureaucrats wanting to talk about the propaganda of wanting to take over a planet. What's the planet I could use? What's their main resource? Give me something that I can exploit from them.

And then some Star Wars guru is like, oh, well, there's this planet, and they use the spiders.

Clearly.

Exactly. And the fact that Tony Gilroy doesn't exactly need to concern himself with the nuance of what all of those things and unobtainium that Star Wars has needs to be, but... What makes that so important? Why are the people in that room? What do the people in that room want? Those are the things that he can play with that actually make those things great.

Well, he is officially the fifth Midnight Boy, according to Chuck, and nobody else.

team i don't know that's a good question do you think it's cyril it could be itching he is just like i need to get out and that's why that's such an interesting character dynamic because cyril is just like yearning to be of use and deirdre is just like she can kind of like play him like a fiddle if she really wants to and that's clearly illustrated by that dinner until she until

Here's the thing, here's the thing. He's a puddle on a bed.

Oh, no. I think that it's going to be very interesting because we see a fraction of that in this storyline. And then knowing that we're going to be time jumping a year plus to where those convictions have probably calcified into something that's a lot more actionable. Who knows where that project is going to be or where she's going to be in the hierarchy of that project. I'm very fascinated.

Yes. Unprecedented levels of back. So back.

Reporting live from Planet Glaze.

Please finish the thought. Do it. Do it. Say it.

Oh, no. Big.

That's good.

I was just like, you can't even like begin to talk shit because then somebody is going to have a gun on him because.

All right. I can't talk my way out of this. I just got to figure a way to just like catch somebody slipping at the right time, which is exactly what he does. And I think what I've loved about all the three of these episodes, and I could talk about that first scene when he's just literally trying to steal that ship.