Alone media, Welcome back to it could Happen here?
A podcast normally about it happening here, being you know, the real world where you live. But for the next two weeks after this, and for the week before us, and for this week, we're talking about it happening in a galaxy far far away. That's right. This is the second in our four part series reviewing and discussing and Or Season two, which, due to a series of incredibly unlikely events, has become the most radical media to reach a wide audience in the United States and quite some time.
I am here with Mio Wong and Garrison Davis. How are we all doing today?
Hanging in there, hanging in there as we always are.
Yeah. I just watched episodes seven through nine last night, which is really helping with the hanging in there.
I have not seen that shit yet, so yeah, that's for next week, though we have to say that for next week.
Yeah, well, we're not talking about them now, but we watched them this week and I'm happy.
I did watch them, and oh boy, but we still have a lot to talk about for episodes four to six. It does kind of set up what we see later on, but I think there's a lot of interesting stuff there with like building an underground resistance, a lot of spies an espionage mixed in with like the personal cost of rebellion and how it affects like your personal life, your relationships. So there is a lot to discuss here. But oh boy, I am excited for next week.
Yes, I am very excited for next week. I'm very excited for this week, which we should talk about so kind of there's a few themes running through these three episodes.
One of them is, yeah, the cost in terms of your personal life on being part of a rebellion, And yeah, I'm interested kind of what are some of the I mean, there's one real standout moment in these episodes that I know we're all going to want to talk about, which is a speech given by Saul Gerrera saw Yeah, played by Forrest Whitaker, just amazingly.
Yeah, the speech, Yeah, the nitrous We'll get to it.
We'll get to that. But yeah, we should start with the first of these episodes.
Yeah, episode four. Ever been to Gorman? I guess once again, if you do not want to be giving Disney Plus your money, you can be like Hondo a Naka and acquire the show that way.
Remember the torret combinations. Remember the variation's got to keep the ball.
In your head?
Yes, yes, all nine or eight variations. Let's do a quick recap of this episode, then we'll talk about some of these aspects. So one year later from the previous episodes, Cassiine and Bix are on the planet Coroissant, staying at a safe house in between running missions for Luthan. Bix is severely struggling with PTSD, while Cassian is stressed about having to avoid surveillance while hiding in the capital city.
And Bix is also we find out abusing space stantics.
Yeah, later on we can we can see that she's she's using using space drugs to help her cope with the massive amounts of trauma that she's been forced to deal with the past few years. Now, our favorite weasel, Cyril Karn, has been transferred to the planet Gormant, where he's running the local Bureau of Standards in the capital city of Palmo. He refutes Imperial propaganda about Gorman while on a FaceTime call with his Fox News addicted.
Most talking about like, yeah, the Imperial the Imperial News says the Gormans are super arrogant, just real assholes.
You gotta stop watching Imperial news Man. But this may be a ploy from Cyril, because Cyril knows he's being monitored and surveilled by members of the Gorman Front, a small underground resistance group, while working as a double agent for his ISB girlfriend Dedra. Sirtle gets invited to a town hall meeting where he's introduced to the leader of the Gorman Front, a local businessman and city councilor, and then Cyril is recruited into the resistance.
Yeah. I want to say a little about the Gorman Front because they're very clearly French resistance in World War II. Coded they developed a whole like language for them to speak, which is basically like French.
With French phonics, but different words.
But different words, and so it sounds a little bit like French and German, like got mashed together. People who speak both have told me, I don't know, I'm not a not a language guy, but it sounds distinctive and they're very clearly like Again, their whole the whole industry of this planet is high quality textiles that come from like spider silk, but also clearly the the the guy who's leading the resistance. His business is kind of meant
to evoke sort of like a classic like French vineyard. Like, so he's like he's not a poor man, right, Like.
No, He's like he's like wealthy, he's like well off. Yes, yes, I mean that's a big part about like Gorman is this is like a you know, middle upper class like status planet.
Yeah.
This is like a big part of like Luten's interest in the planet is if he can bring a planet with that status into the rebellion, that could have a whole bunch of advantages. And that's kind of why he's at least like looking into them as an option and eventually kind of setting them up for like an accelerationist push.
Yeah, because I actually think it's a slightly different even than that. But we'll talk about that and up when we get to episode nine. Yeah.
Sure, there's an Iceby board meeting where they discuss a batch of new raids and arrests on rebel activity and how to deal with this influx of arrests that's making it hard to process and obtain useful information. Luthn's Iceby spy informs them of the Empire's increased interest in Gorman and that the ice be is running covert operations on
the planet. Meanwhile, Senator Manmathma unsuccessfully lobbies against the Emperor's resentencing directive, and at Sagereri's hidot Willem teaches Saws partisans how to safety deploy a fuel pipeline of verter.
Yeah, and specifically, Saw puts him with one of his guys who's kind of coded as being like a close to Saul, Like this is somebody that he really trusts, and it's kind of implied fairly soon that like Saw doesn't want this guy going back to Luthen with information, right.
He wants to keep Willim.
Yeah, he's just like kidnap this guy. It's like, well, he wants to kill him at first. That's the statement he makes to his guy, is like, once you have these variations down, we're going to ice him.
Saw doesn't really trust Luthen very much anymore. He never did Luth and slowly losing a lot of the trust that he's built up throughout the galaxy.
Yeah. But like one of the things that's interesting here is that like we kind of see saws paranoia where there's a bunch of variations you need to know to get fuel out of any number of different things, and the guys like I have to memorize too many if you just let us know which one we're trying to go after, but that would make it clear which fuel station they're going after, So Saw doesn't want to say shit initially.
So this episode we're introduced to the planet Gorman. Like in person, it's basically like northern Italy mixed with French culture. Yeah, the massive set they built is just gorgeous, huge town square for the capital city of Palmo.
The amount of money they spent on this show.
The protesters I think is really interesting because it's.
Like protesters at like the monument of the Tarkan massacre.
Yeah. Yeah, they're kind of fascinating because like the way that their banners are designed really really remind me of like pictures you see from like nineteen seventeen. Is it's like very very similar to that. And also they have a thing that's a very common protest thing where it's like there's as you know, there's protests going on, so there's like just like ten guys in the square all the time, yes, kind of like chantons, Yeah, always making noise.
They're kind of keeping a vigil because basically what happened.
And this is another interesting Tony Gurroy is kind of famously not a Star Wars fan like prior to working on this, and so there was a lot of like anxiety from big Star Wars nerds that like, oh, this isn't going to feel like Star Wars, but it clearly has a lot of folks who understand, not just like the stuff that's come out, you know, since Disney started, in the different books and comics, but like the legend stuff because in legends, like a major spark of the
whole rebellion was the Gorman massacre, which is in tarkan Lands, and Tarkan's the old guy in the Death Star in a New Hope, right, Like, he's the guy who's Darth Vader's boss in the first movie, and he lands a craft on a crowd at Gorman, and that's supposed to have been one of the major sparks. And they've retconned it a little but to the point where that still happened, but it's clearly the setup for a larger massacre that this season is building towards.
Yeah, Man, Spacebox News very good. We see the Ministry of Enlightenment's efforts to weaponize public opinion, and how much it's working on someone on someone like Cyril's mother, who who then becomes convinced that like that the propaganda that she's being fed is stuff that she like already believed absolutely right, is stuff that she she's like red conned into her own memory of being like no, like I've
I've always never trusted the Gore. Yeah. Meanwhile, she's like sitting in front of her like TV like twenty four to seven, watching this like garbage get beamed into her brain.
And I'm wondering, did y'all wonder for a second if Cyril was legitimately getting pilled by totally the GORMANSI yeah, because it's good. Right, there's like that moment where like, well, fuck is he is our boy like starting to have a break already, and then he realized like.
No, that's what we're getting.
Like that's kind of what's being set up, is like like will will this experience for Cyril change him as a person? And like, I think, yeah, the audience is meant to not fully know, and I think I think it's it's definitely like possible. But but Cyril might be more of a hard ass than what some people give him credit for. Yeah, because he is. He's very excited
to get invited to this meeting. He purchases a spider from one of like the Gorman Front like recruiters that has information on how to how to go to this like public town hall, where he talks about, hey, you know if maybe maybe we can start working together, maybe we can start feeding information. One point, hilariously, he gets he gets accused of being an Imperial spy in like a joking manner, yeah, and denies it. And then he gets on the phone with his IP girlfriend and he's like.
I'm in also, this is this is this is one of the first time we see is the Gorman Front people. These people have no idea what the fuck they're doing. They are amateurs there they are like yeah, like their operational security is unbelievably dog shit. They like wiretaffed one guy and were like, hey, let me introduce you to the leader of our organization. We have met you one time. We have listened to one phone call. You're in now.
I just I think they probably listen to more than but it's yeah, they've definitely been watching hi him much.
They just were kind of like, hey, you're going to meet their leader now at the first meeting you've shown up to he.
Met Like the public facing aspect of it, Yeah, I guess yeah.
You can see the gorman like they have some degree of sophistication and that they're tapping like him and they've been listening probably for quite a while and they sweep their shit every day for bugs, so you understand that, Like they have an idea of what they need to
be doing. But when it comes to all of the in person stuff, that's where they're incompetent right where they they don't have the actual operational experience to know when someone feels off right, Like that's the stuff that they're missing, Like man to man on the ground is where the problems come in. Like you can tell they're thinking this stuff through, but they just don't know what they're doing enough.
This is this is the thing you I mean, this is the thing you genuine wine you run into, like in the field a lot where there's people who like have read a lot of self bought operational security but haven't done anything and so they don't under and there's there's varying levels of this right, but you get this to do people where it's like they don't know what
the important things are. So they do some of the stuff right that they've read, but they don't understand how to put all of it together to like do something securely. And so you'll get these things where like some of their stuff is like unbelievably secure to a point where it's useless, and then some.
Of it is like very open.
Yeah, they're just like, hey have I don't know. Yeah, they'll just bring people into stuff that instantly compromises everything that they're doing because they haven't like bought it through. Yeah.
I mean, and this is something that that Cassian talks about in the next episode, which we will get to shortly. I mean, so much of these episodes is built around like paranoia and like surveillance. We like Cassie's talking about not wanting to go like on a walk in the park because the Empire just put up cameras. He's nervous
about like where they go grocery shopping. Like he's trying to like do everything right, but it's like hurting his relationship with Bicks, and it's making their life like very very challenging. En core assant as they're like stationed there in between missions. Like meanwhile, like Luthan's just trying to gain as much information on Gorman as possible. He has a line that I like, a smear campaign is an
opening move, not an endgame. I need the end game. Yeah, talking about like the limits of you know, the Empire's Fox News style propaganda is only is only like a starting position, like this is obviously leading somewhere, and I need to know where that is. And he's going to obtain that information slowly over the course of the next few episodes. And then I think the other thing I want to talk about before we go on break is Mon Mathma's
lobbying against like the prison sentencing guidelines. She says, quote sector boundaries, civil liberties, personal freedom, respect for local traditions. You've been voting with me on these issues for years. And the Gorman senator replies, this is security. Mon, You're confusing criminality and politics here. Mon says, really, are we
finding criminals or are we making them? Yeah, this is where you see senators parroting like fake crime stats about how there's been like you know, this increased wave of surgery.
But that's not true.
Yeah, because just because they're arresting more people, that makes there be more crime. And like you see this in season one where Cassiean's arrested at the Beach planet for like no reason and then sentenced to the Forever prison. Yeah, like, yeah, they are arresting more people. So if you just look at those stats by itself without any context on like how how other policing is working, then yeah, I can
look a certain way. And this is what Mon's trying to push back on, and and the other senators are just too like bought into the empire or too scared, like the Gorman senator believes that voting against the Emperor at this point would further endanger his planet. Yeah, even though this type of thing is actually going to end up biting him in the ass in the next few years.
Yes, and yeah, he is like very much desperate to like, no, please, we can we can calm this down if we just don't piss the empire off enough.
No.
The thing I think is actually it's interesting about the crime statistic stuff is that this is actually a more sophisticated operation than what happened in real life. We're in real life, all the actual crime statists were like crime is falling, but everyone just kept saying there was more crime totally. Yeah, this is like arrestly more people to jack the crime rates. That He's a more sophisticated thing than what we actually dealt with, which was the media just.
Live our own version of this are not outer space version of like propaganda news. Media can just say something and you don't even need this tats to back it up. Yeah, let's go and break and we'll come back to talk about episode five. I have friends everywhere.
Ah and we're back.
Yeah. So yeah, let's start with the summary of this episode.
All right, Luthen wants a first person assessment of the Gorman front, but he's like too high profile to go himself, so he sends Cassie and undercover as fashion designer variants Sky. The ISB stage is a performative raid of Cyril Karan's office to gain more cred with local rebels as Cyril begins to feed them select information, and.
He does such a good job of seeming pissed at it.
Oh yeah, he loves he loves pretending to be pissed at the ISB. He has so much fun kicking his little trash can across the room. This is outrageous. Yeah, very good stuff. And I do like, like, yeah, like the weaponization of like state repression as a tactic to actually increase state repression, like long term doing this like performative show so that Cyril like builds trust and like
solidarity with the other rebels. Very good. Luthen visits Bicks at the safehouse and grows concern for her well being as she uses space drugs to cope with trauma.
Yeah.
Cyril arrives back on Coruissant to report to ICE B Command, has a one hour meeting with his girlfriend where they turn off the lights.
Yeah, after arguing because she's had him followed.
Yeah, he's a little the pause that she's having him followed, and then she orders into Toronto lights and then they do something for an hour in their apartment.
God only knows.
I don't want to know. I don't want to know what this fascist weirdness.
But at ICE the Command they plan how to like carefully push the Gorman Front into taking action against the Empire. Cassian makes contact on Gorman and is unimpressed with their operational security and Warren's against trusting an imperial source, as the ISB could be feeding false intel.
Some of the best moments in the episode so far because it's it's they don't know shit about Cassian, so they don't know who they're talking to. And when he's like, you guys, shouldn't do fuck right now because you don't know shit about fuck, they're like, well, you're not a real revolutionary.
You don't get it, And like, honestly, I understand what what's being expressed there too, and like, well, we'll get ahead in a sec Like the Gorman Front is adamant that their source is vetted and reliable, even though they
haven't really been vetted. The plan is is that the resistance seeks to expose the construction of an imperial military based on Palmo, something that the Empire denies, though it seems most of the citizens actually already take this to be true, so and Or questions the necessity of this plan and relations sour with the group. Back on Coruscant, Clea learns through radio chatter that one of Luthan's listening
devices may be discovered. During an artifact reappraisal, Saw kills an imperial spy and his crew forcibly recruits Willem, and while on mission installing a fuel diverter, Saw convinces Willem to huff the fuel fumes.
Yeah, we'll talk about that in a second.
I want to talk a little bit about like Cassian on Gorman. Yes, And there's a lot of interesting stuff there, and like specifically when the Gorman Front leader like calls Cassian out for like not being a real revolutionary, which I think is kind of true. Like Cassia at this point is a thief and a soldier. He thinks about things purely from that like operationally like like tactical point of view. He doesn't have like a larger like politics.
He's like focused on right, like like Luthin is more of like a revolutionary, a very like manipulative one, but like he is focused on like this like larger political game. And this is something that at this point Cassiean's not fully like interested in. He's more interested on like on the ground like tactical preparedness.
He is interested in what he can do and get away with right exactly as opposed to Luthan is interested in what does more damage to the Empire. Now, what's interesting to me is that the Gorman Front are actually in the middle. They think totally that they are willing to do whatever, but they don't understand what that is. And part of what you are seeing here is the Gorman Front are adamant, we are ready for war. We're already in a war. Yeah, and they're not technically wrong
about that because the Empire is planning to wipe them out. Right. We know the Empire does not plan for there to be a Gorman in the future. So the stakes are where they're saying they are. But even though they're saying that, most of them don't truly believe or understand it. And Cassian understands what war is, and what he is telling them is that you are and he's right about this. You are not ready for what you think you're ready for totally because what you're going to do is die all of you.
That's what makes all their interactions so interesting, because there is that unspoken tention which slowly gets like aired, because like they're really assessing different things, Like what Cassie's assessing is different from what Lusen wants assessed, and that's different
from what the Gorman Front actually want to do. Like they're okay with a degree of casualties like being had because they just want to like have control over their planet again and put up any resistance even if it ends up like leading to hardship.
But I think the other angle of that too, though, is it like they don't know what they're doing, right, No, likeha, they like their plan. Their plan is not genuinely really bad, right. Like the plan is that they want to like steal an imperial weapons shipment and then reveal that the Empire shipping weapons in. But if you do that, then you've just like and Andrew points it out, like, okay, so if you if you do this, then you reveal that
you did you hijacked the shipment. So they're just going to like.
Raid you all, and they're okay with that, yeah, And they're like okay with that visibility at this point.
And there's this this very standard. It's also this very common and this is part of what Casside recognizes, this common myopic thing that you get with people who again think they want a war that they don't truly understand the meaning of, where they're like, we need, we need weapons, and when they think of weapons, they think of guns that they can hold, and so that's what they're focused on getting and that's what they think will let them
fight the Empire. When Casside understands there's no fighting the Empire with what you can possibly get from a raid like this. All there is is suicide. And then there's the other level of what Luthan understands is so the fuck.
Was sometimes that needs to happen.
What matters is that these people die in public and it pisses people off. Yeah, right, And that's there's this there's this escalation of like the Gormans think having guns means you and fight.
Back, or like guns guns means that they'll be safer.
Right, and they're wrong. Cassie and thinks staying alive for a future moment means that you can fight back, and he is wrong. Luthan understands that the only ammunition that really counts in this war is human life and that sucks, and that sucks. That's why he's lost his mind and soul.
Yes, and that's why people are starting to really like dislike working with him, because he's even though he might not be like completely wrong here, Yeah, I like so much of this episode is built around finding bugs. Yeah, the ISB looks for bugs, in Cyro's office. The Iceba's planting bugs in Zero's office. Bugs are hidden in the artifacts that Luthen's selling to high society. Everyone's listening, everyone's always, everyone's trying to collect more intel.
And there's this this this issue the Empire and Luthan's organization are of having with like we're getting too much, you know. The Empire's like we're arresting too many people, like yeah, number one, it's like cutting into our ability to get into these organizations. And it also is just like we're drowning. And Lutan says the same thing. I'm always spacing on her name, but she's wonderful to his his his consent, lady, like, we're drowning, we have too much shit.
Yeah.
Something I love is when when Cyril's talking with the Gorman Front about the ISB rate of his office, the Gorman Front remarks, quote, we think the ISB is running a shadow government without the Emperor's yes.
Yes, And it's a real You hear this when you read about histories of like Tsarist Russia, like even a lot of people who take part in the nineteen seventeen revolution right right up till it started, their attitude was like, oh, if the Czar knew what his advisors were doing in his name, he'd exactly it'd be on our side. And the same thing happened in the Third Reich. If only Hitler knew was a common phrase. We're like, well, Hitler, who doesn't know the Gestapo's doing all these awful things?
Of course, And it's it's so sad because like this is this is their like local like resistance group who still has that level of delusion because they come from the high society, right, they come from this like diplomatic background where they can like solve solved through through like free trade. And they're like, sure, surely, surely the Emperor doesn't actually know what's going on here. It must it must be like the CIA, it must be the FBI. It's like the is SB is running a shadow government.
They're the ones that are actually like ruining things. Yes, And you're like, no, your enemy is the entire empire. Yes, your enemy is the ISB, but it's also Cyril Karn and it's also Emperor Palpatine.
Yes. And I love That's part of what I love about that that laddered interaction between them and Cassie and Cassie and Luthan is they're not really revolutionaries either. They they are protesters right totally. They still think that the overall Empire, once it realizes how bad things are, will be on their side, and Cassian thinks they can wait. Yeah, it's it's Luthan who's like, no, no, no, there's one way out, right, you know, back going back to season one, there's one way out.
Before we talk about the Sagerera stuff at the end, I do want to point out how wonderful it was to see Cyril Karn in the ISB control room where he remarks that this is the greatest day of his life.
Oh god, it's like Libby finally getting to spy.
And part of Guys even makes that great that great comment where he's directly talking about the Gorman Front and he's like, yeah, there's a lot of people who think they understand shit better than they do because they're new to it. But he's also he's clearly talking to Cyril like you don't know what you're doing, but I'll use you.
Fine. It's so good.
Cyril gains cred amongst the Gorman Front when they find out that his background is that he lost his job because the ISP found out how badly he fucked up Ferricks Like They're like, ah, I see, Cyril must have good reason to hate the Empire because of that. You're like, No, he's like fuckers, He's desperately trying to like become some like ISP secret agent. Yeah, Like he just wants approval from like the daddy state, like.
And from his girlfriend right and has taken over for his mom in being like the primary source the person he's trying to impress.
The last thing I want to talk about in this episode is this episode displays like two different types of drug use. Yes, we have Bix who's trying to get over the immense amount of fucked up stuff that's happened to her by taking space XENX if you will.
She's barred out every night holding a gun watching TV and yeah, and it's like who amongst us? It is disrupting her personal life.
It's also disrupting her like operational capacity.
She has been sent out in the recent past and she can't be sent back out again. And the specific we don't even see the mission that most recently fucked her up, but we're through her nightmares were lid to in first she and Cassie and captured an Imperial pilot and Cassian killed the guy because he'd seen her face, and she's, in addition to having been tortured in season one, fucked up because like we didn't need to kill him, and Cassiean's like, yeah we did, Like he saw your face.
That's it.
The weight of Resistance is really getting to Bix. Yeah, and like Luthen comes over to like check on her and also like see if she's able to like work and see if she can like appraise some like weapons or something, and he realizes like she is not like well enough to work at this point, yeah, and becomes like getting worried for her and like like try to like plead with her, like you have to you have
to make sure that you like stay healthy. I don't know, it's it's it's definitely it's it's definitely hard to watch. I think this is definitely like this moment. It's like, I don't Bix has always had a lot of agency taken away from her, Like we see this like in season one, and we see this kind of now and I definitely would like to would like to see her get put back in like the driver's seat of her
own life at a certain point. But like like like living through like PTSD and living through like these types of like you know, political movements does does like destroy people and like this does happen.
Well, and just what torture does, right, Like, Yeah, torture breaks people, that's its purpose, you know.
So we have space n X and then we have Salgerera.
Yeah, we fucking do.
So let's I want to talk a little bit about his background, some stuff that's not in the show. And the show you see him when when he is already basically the hardest son of a bitch in the rebellion. Right, he is the only leader of a rebel faction that Luthen treats as an equal right where like Luthan is meeting with him, we see Luthan meeting with him directly. Luthen is not willing to sacrifice he and his men in like in order to maintain the cover of a spy, which he.
Is serious militants.
Yeah, they are serious and there and every time we see them, there's more of them and they have more ships. They're the first ones, they're the first rebels.
To use X quest ones, X wings.
Yeah, and Saws background and you have this is way a bunch of the expanded stuff. But he's he started out as essentially a local rebel on this planet during the Clone Wars that was not aligned between either major faction, but basically the Jedi, taking the role of Space Cia, armed him and his sister to lead like a rebel group against the other power they were fighting in the Clone.
Wars occupation, like separatist forces.
He was meant to be Mujahideen coded right initially, right, So he's like a space musja Hideen who's armed by the Space Cia, who are the Jedi y and then when the Republic ends, he immediately starts fighting the Empire. And one of the kind of like moments that Form saw is his sister dies in the in the process of this failed attempt to gain independence for their homeworld, this place called Hoduron.
Right.
You don't need to know any of that to perfectly get and enjoy his character in these shows. But the moment that we're talked about to talk about means more if you understand his backstory with his sister, right.
Yeah, and he's been doing this ever since he was like a kid, like.
Yes, and yet this has been his whole life, right, I think he's supposed to be like forty six when he dies in Rogue one.
Hard forty six.
If you look at him, you know, he looks clearly older, but also he looks like, well, yeah, he's been fighting his entire life. That age is a teenager and he has this. So the first thing that he does is he executes this guy who was set up as his friend. When it becomes clear that that guy was a spy and it's insinuated, he than it's a spy for the Empire. That guy might have been a spy for Lutheren or someone else. We don't actually know.
Sure, we know he was sending info to someone he was transmitting. Yeah, saw things that they were going to set up like an ambush at their next mission. Yeah, And instead they evacuate their base.
And Saw blasts him and basically says, hey, to the kid, your mind now, and we're going to go steal this fucking fuel. Yeah. So the next time we see them, they've they've busted onto this Imperial fuel lot and they're fueling up their ships and while the kid is like working out to set this thing up to allow them to take the ribo, which is the rum Riydonium rhydo sorry, the starship fuel. While the kid is like doing this job that we've been told if you don't do it perfectly,
it kills you and everyone around. You saw his monologuing and he's talking about his childhood where he was like, I was a child slave, you know, forced to labor in these rhido mines, right, and one day there was a gas leak and all everyone ran and you know this stuff, it was so bad out there. The old people would die and you'd come back the next day and the jungle was so thick they'd been eaten down to bones and want everybody has to flee because of
this leak. But I don't run away because, like I'm huffing this gas, I get high and I like realize for the first time I'm alive, you know. He has this like yeah, this moment. And then when the kid figures out how to get the fuel hooked up, Saw immediately leans in and starts huffing what is effectively gasoline
and going and the kid's like what the fuck. The kid who's wearing gas mask, who's like wearing a gasp is like, what are you doing, and he's like, she's my sister, right, Oh, she's my sister and she loves me.
I want to read it here. I have this back of the monologu quote. Yeah, you feel how badly she wants to explode. Yeah, remember this moment. You think I'm crazy? Yes, I am. Revolution is not for the saane. Look at us, unloved, hunted cannon fodder. Will all be dead before the Republic is back. And yet here we are. Where are you, boy?
You're here.
You're not with Luthin, You're here. You're right here, and you're ready to fight. We're the rido kid, We're the fuel. We're the thing that explodes when there's too much friction in the air. Let it in, boy, that's freedom calling Let it in, Let it run, let it run wild.
And he is just for one thing.
The kid is choking on the on the fumes, is.
Nearly dying from the gas fumes that clearly saw as barely affected by anymore. Right, it's again this thing I love that they do in terms of they're calling back to the older lore when he calls this his sister. Yeah, but you don't need to know that his sister died to get this moment. It just makes it adds an extra layer of meaning if you're a nerd for the lore, which I appreciate a lot. And it also sets up in Rogue one when we see Saw Near Death he's
huff he's on he's on the oxygen. He's well, I think he's on O two because he's destroyed his lung suffing.
He's having this now, this is this is what he's hughing that it has been like like like RETCONND.
Confirmed it wasn't oxygen.
Okay, yes, bo the writer, yeah, old Tony Gilroy and said, hey, what if we have him huff and fumes and they went for it.
Well yeah, but I but I think that was to try to explain because because Tony said he didn't know why Saul was on oxygen when yeah put it in Rogue one, and so they came to explain it. But I think he's on oxygen because I.
Think it's been reckon to being that he's just huffing rising.
I don't know.
I saw it in an article. You yeah, so either way, we'll see, we'll see. I could be wrong. I was wrong last because of one thing. I miscredited the quote about about the empire's grip tightening and systems falling through because the theory twinks British actor has a has an accent very similar to the one Carry Fisher poorly tries to imitate in a New Hope where she says that line so sorry, George, Sorry George, that was your line. Good line. The theory twink just has some very similar ones.
So I got confused accountability.
Wow, mean to Carry Fisher Garrison.
Everyone knows her accent's been in that movie.
We all know it.
I fucking of this speech by Oh.
Yeah, this is the most Robert thing I've ever seen.
Yeah, it's perfect. It's perfect. Everything about it makes me so happy. Bo Willman continues to be like maybe the
best monologuest writing for TV right now. It's just such a raw scene and it explains both like why Saw is still around, because he's the most paranoid, crazy son of a bitch there is and because he unlike everyone else and unlike the Gorman's, unlike even Cassie, and he's the only guy who understands what Luthan understands, which is that like totally, we're not here to see the other side of this now we're here to catch on fire, you know, like that's the.
Whole thing, and hopefully that fire will grow.
Yeah, and yeah, if that means we get burned up in the process, that is that's how it be. Yeah, if the fire will burn very brightly. Yes, all right, let's go and break and then come back to discus the final episode in this arc. Okay, we are back. And Or Season two, episode six, What a festive evening. Luthen sends Mon Mathma's cousin Val to re establish relations
with the Gorman front after Cassian's icy reception. Cassian and Bis reunite on Corrossant, but then Cassian shows up at Luthen's shop to confront him about checking in on Bis at the safe house while and Or was on mission. In a possibly like OPSEC irresponsible huge.
OPSEC fuck huge ox Casian Andor's face is known.
Yeah, not good. This is like the Cassian's emotions getting the better of him here. Senator man Mathma and her husband Paren attend a party of the Empire's elite, where she debates Krenik on imperial cruelty and the mindset of a rebel underdog. Meanwhile, Claya uses their undercover ice b agent to help remove a listening device hidden in the Price collection of artifacts. Vell reunites with Sinta as they helped to lead the Gorman Front's first attack, stealing imperial
weapons on a cargo transport. At first, things go according to plan. Cyril watches from a distance and reports to Iceby headquarters.
We should note ahead of this that during the meeting where they had about this, one point that they had made is none of you have guns. None of you carry guns on this Me and her are the only people with blasters. You don't need them, you're not competent to use them.
Yeah.
So, near the end of this operation, a civilian confronts the rebels, but what they're doing and in the struggle, Sinta is accidentally shot and killed by one of the members of the Gorman Front, a guy named Sam with two ms. I love Star Wars. This episode ends with Bix and Cassian going on a mission to kill the Imperial interrogation expert doctor Gorst, which they succeed and then walk away heroically from the explosion, similar to.
Kill him by torturing him the way he tortured her.
Yeah, and then then they love the building and they play the music que from the very first arc, Yeah, the very first season where Cassian is walking away with that fast drum beat. So this episode has so much about like like relationships complicating political activity.
Right.
We have we have and orn bicks. We have the lesbians of Valen Senta killed lesbian. They did kill your lesbian. We'll talk about that. Yeah, we'll talk about a second. They also have They also have Cyril and Dedra. We have like like a lot of a lot of like how relationships and politics like function, how where there's friction, when things can go well, with things can go bad.
Let's talk I guess a little bit of about this party where where where uh Luthen talks with Cretic very very briefly and at the end, I mean this is this is a very effective scene where they like build tension with Clay trying to remove this bug while critics like in the room seeing seeing these other artifacts and
it's like debating Mond. But when when Luthen and Claya leave they jokingly remark, oh, good man, we should have killed critic when we were up there, and they laugh and you're like, yeah, you know, you guys should have that's.
You really should have killed critic.
You really should have killed critic. It would have bummed things up. But then the Death Star may not have been completed. Yeah, and this whole thing would have gone differently. Although you know, you know, in a way, the death sto Operation does lead to the Ball of the Empire in like a paradox way.
To be fair, they don't know exists some.
Business, but he's like he's like a super high up guy. Yes, and man, yeah, that is tough. That's that's a tough scene.
It's a tough's Also what's interesting is that it's a tough scene in light of the rest of the lore. It's a really nice because they've been fighting, bickering for this whole cycle of episodes and like you're, yeah, things are breaking down, and this is a moment where like they get back on the same page and you're like.
Tension eases, Yeah, because part of it, because like part of what's going on here is like Lousen is losing it, right, and this is the thing because like he's he's struggling to the part and like, yeah, everyone's fucking seen this, Like, yeah, your friend is jruggling fifteen products at once. They're losing their goddamn minds and then like the girl in your group was on top of it has to just slap them and be like locked the fuck in.
Yeah, Nola is a scary monster. She is on it.
Well, it's made really clear in these cycles. She is not his subordinates.
Oh no.
They are handling very different parts of the operation, but she is not working under him. No, and she is like the one who like is the reason any of the shit works. Absolutely, And it's like that's the thing you see very often. There's a line in the season one where things are looking bad for them and he specifically asks her is your go bag ready? And he doesn't check his own, so he I think he understands if one of us has to get out, it should be you.
She has to survive, yeah, utally yeah, and I think that is that is where things are going to are going to be moving.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean when when Cassie's coming back from Gorman, like Luthen picks him up and they start like arguing over like is the Gorman front like a real thing to like spend effort and like time on Like they're kind of all like like green, they don't really have good op sect they're not. They're just not like ready yet. Yeah, and and and Luthen pushes back and says to Cassie and like you're thinking small, you're thinking like a thief. And cassiean robuts like, no, I'm thinking like a soldier.
And you have to think like a leader. You have to actually and like from Luten's point of view, a leader is like a very like manipulative role and like like you you have to start using these guys as pawns for this like larger game, because the empire is bigger than just Gorman. The Empire is bigger than us. We have to think bigger. You can't just you can't just think like a you know, a small illegalist who's gonna steal your food and not pay for parking and
and just like get by while still doing crying. But like you know, try to like outsmart the empires like no, like we we are, we are, we are beyond that.
We ain't robbing banks anymore.
Yeah, exactly right, like we are beyond the illegalist like point of view. We have to start thinking like much more, much more like strategically and with like the bigger picture in mind, because like we are we are slowly getting closer to the Battle of Yavn here, Yeah, and I find I find their little argument they're really really interesting.
And then their secondary meet up where where Cassian's mad about Luthen checking in on bicks and I think, like I can understand both their point of view here is this.
I think this is still a big fuck up from Cassian, but it's like it makes sense, but like, yeah, the relationship is getting like the better of him on like a strategic standpoint, like yet at this at this plot point, and Luthen still trusts them though, Like Luthen still gives them the assignment to kill doctor Gorst, so like Luthen still is able to work with these people, and he's still actually like oddly enough, like prioritizes empathy and like he says like like like empathy, like you can you
cannot have a you cannot have a revolution without empathy. That's what this is built on. And and and even though he's a bit of a hard ass sometimes he still does like trust.
Them, yeah, yeah, but he's he also is deliberately fucking with him like one of these Yeah, totally, he's very minific, Like he like he's like he's being unbelievaignaive like like one of the things here is like he deliberately gives Bis tells Bigs about this assignment that he was going to give her and then doesn't specifically just see if she would tell Andrew about it. And that's how Andrew would react to that, which is like, don't do that.
That's unhinged, Like that's like not And this is like also part of like, you know, the thing you have to like balance youre right is like you know, you have to be able to balance like getting people to do things that need to be done with like not being a fucking asshole and alienating everyone. And this is like a and especially when you yourself, because like Luthor is also falling apart.
And he's not going to change. He's not he's never gonna change.
He's not changing, but.
He's like he's like the thing though, that's not his job, right, His job was to make the later stages of this where people act differently inevitable totally, and he understands that you need something that horrifies people to do that, right, like, and that's that's all he's trying to set up Luth.
It is absolutely like a moral very manipulative I am. I am still I'm still teaming even though he like sucks as a dude, like I would hate to work with him. Well, it's like like I still gotta the team.
Luthen in the yet Yeah, well I would just say like like if the thing is like, if you try to act like this in like an actual organizing space, this isn't gonna work.
You're just gonna.
Put organization's not doing that, right, That's that's what I'm saying though, right right, Like like this this works because of the exact specific thing that he's doing, which is he.
Is the guy who is coordinating a bunch of networks. The thing is, in order for networks to hold together and work, people have to have relationships with each other. And if you behave like this in that situation, it will funck out everything. And this is like the conflict that's happening, like even inside of his own limited network is that like he's he is like fucking with everyone. And we'll get to that with the lesbian.
You see you see how you see the different levels at which networks work. Here, like the Gorman Front works because they're all friends and neighbors who care about each other, right, and that's why they are like real, tactile, solid, and they're able to stick together even though they're not. They don't have perfect competence. We see Saws group where someone made the comment that like, well, he's basically a fascist and because of like the hold, he has a nice group,
which is not what I saw at all. I saw as soon as he shoots.
A spy, he has but he's not a fashion.
He has to prove to the rest of his group that guy was a spy and needed to die. And once he does, they're like, all right, well back to the job, right, I mean yeah, But and he gets he has to get fucked you know, he gets fucked up as part of like the just the necessity of it's it's literally the only thing he has in between acts of terrifying violence. But that's how that group bands together.
And then we see, you know, these smaller cells of experts, right who they have their connections with each other and they have their little moments of vengeance and that's what keeps them going. And the only thing that keeps Luthen going is the pure logic of the calculus of what he's put together. That's all he's got.
Yeah, information collecting boyfriend, always collecting information. All right, let's talk about the space lesbians who are running the French Resistance. So I liked. I liked a lot of what they did with them in this episode. I liked how they were like reuniting. I liked the way they talked about the on again, off again style of their relationship based on like having to live in this rebellion like life, like they can't always see each other, they're always being
moved around by Luthen. But they both specifically took this assignment like hoping and like and I think like knowing that it would mean that they could see each other. So I liked the development that we had with them as people who like your are like in the same spaces, but do not have the luxury of actually having like a life together at this point in time. They advised the little resistance group there, they're much more friendly than than Cassie and is.
Oh, well they do come in or like all right, you motherfuckers like you people are amateur yes, oh yeah, yeah yeah, no fucking guns.
Yeah, it's like no, Like, I guess they have more of a willingness to put up with the amateurs than Cassie does. I think, I think is kind of what's going on there. And you know, they're they're hoping that after this mission's over, maybe they'll be able to spend more time together. And then Cinta does get killed. And I've seen a lot of criticism of this. I've seen people invoking like a like a like a barrier gaze type crope, and I don't think that's my personal outlook
on what's going on here. I think a lot of people die throughout this show. We had Brasso die, and this sort of thing like just happens.
That's that's the point is, Yes, she's really good, she's really good, she's incredibly it.
Feels so like purposeless and like welcome to war. I think that is part of the problem, part of the point. And like the upset like a reaction that you have I think is like that's that's showing I think the strength of the strength of this, Like it sucks to see a lesbian get killed, but I think we're seeing so many relationships get like fall apart. We're seeing a lot of people get killed.
Brasso didn't die, if for any better reason, right, this is just how war works.
No, I mean I think I think the reason and this isn't It has been an interesting part of this. I talked to me about this last episode was like, this is the most like, this is by far the most like gay Star Wars we've ever had, right, and it's the most like I'm trying to think of the number of other shows the.
Only time they didn't lean away from it or insinuate it.
Yeah, no, like well just kissing this episode. It's like I'm legitimately like I'm like racking my brain. I'm trying to think of like the number of like major TV shows I have ever seen in my life run non white lesbian gets to kiss someone. It's like not that high, And I think that's why people just like, yeah, like this is this is this is an this is the best representation of my culture, which is like the leftist lesbian Yeah, you're gonna see each other I've ever seen
and then it's like, yeah, she fucking dies. It's it hurts.
I think like we were able to watch these characters develop over the course of like a few arcs, right, Like we saw these in the Aldanni Heist, where they were like basically the only two people to survive besides casting and like everyone else on that ant heist died, right, Yeah, so they the lesbian's made it out of that. They they struggle to maintain their relationship in the interim as
as things happened. They had this emotional reunion here. I think, you know, you could you could make an argument maybe you'd be better to kill Val. But we've had more development with Voal because of being related to mon So, Like, yeah, it is, it is, it is. It is tough with like the disposability, but that is that is that that is a part of us fighting in an environment like this.
Yeah, it's not that they're disposable, it's that combat is random, like and fuck ups are random, like this this exact thing. Somebody screws up and shoots when they're not supposed to, and the bullet doesn't stop. Happens all the goddamn time, and like it's part of what fucks people up. If you talk to people about there who have war experiences, one of the things that will fuck someone up the most is watching someone they know and care about get
turned into pink mist. And it's usually a situation where somebody hits or steps on or whatever an ied or takes a rocket a bad time, and there's this person that you knew and you care about and they're three dimensional to you and you probably plan to keep knowing them after that, and then they're just fucking missed and it just it shatters people's minds and that's what happens.
Like and then like yeah, vow's little like speech to to Sam afterwards, being like like you are you now have to live your entire life knowing that you took this person away, and like every action you take for the rest of your life is going to be like it's gonna be all in all an attempt to like make up for this, Like every every every imperial you kill will just be one for Santa. Yeah, because like the Cinta was like a professional. This is like the life that she led, Like you will never be able
to understand how important she was. You'll never be able to understand like how good she was at this and you're like a fucking like French kid. Yeah, like you don't know what you're doing, and now you have to spend your entire life making up for it. And it was a very hard speech, but I think Val did a really good job with that and like understanding like the political necessity of like you can't let this be like in vain either, like you have to like push
back guy using him, making making his life like worthwhile. Now, yeah, and I mean yeah, it's it was rough. I mean I would love I would love more more like gay characters living happy life in Star Wars, but we rarely see anyone living a happy life in Star Wars.
This is not about happy lives.
I also, that's not what we're seeing love.
The thing that doesn't get a huge amount of attention in these episodes but is interesting to me is the guy that he was he pulled that Matt or whatever his name was, Samama, the guy that Sama man told his gun to try to stop. Is just this random Gorman dude who's like, hey, no, I'm not gonna like leave, this is like my city. What are you doing here?
What's going?
Realized he carries her body like he goes with them, you know, and we it's kind of unclear is he likes some sort of spot or is he literally a Gorman who it the whole time was looking for a way to get involved, and once he realized what was happening. He's like, yeah, these are my people. I'm with this.
Was that the guy from the meeting or was it a different the one from the He wasn't he wasn't the men?
Yeah okay, yeah yeah yeah, so I guess he just wasn't in the inner circle. But like he hops on, you know.
Yeah, but no, I do understand like the racial disposability and like the barrier gaze like aspect that could be read into this. It's a tough thing to to thread here. And I think if if you view this in context of all of the people that we have seen like get killed, like the entire Aldannie Crewe, like Brass so basically, you know, the droid from season one gets like abandoned on that planet, I think, like it does it does
make sense. I think in that larger context, I think there's a way that not everyone like has to die to lead to rogue one like besides Cassian, No, not everyone, but but someone like Since and like frankly, like someone like Santa, the type of militant she is, they do have a short life span, like that is that is part of the specific thing Sinta is doing is like you burn fast, and you burn bright and sometimes you will die in a way that's like really purposeless, and
that fucking sucks. And that happens in war, that happens in like activist spaces, that happens that happens in the United States with people here, and often they are like non white gay people. Yep, Like that's what happened in Atlanta. So like these these things happen.
The number of people who committed suicide too after twenty twenty, you know, like, yeah, do we.
Have anything else? You want to want to say me? Do do you have anything? When I close out on as the resident non white lesbian on the podcast, they killed by lesbian. So it's sad.
There aren't What.
Is the next time I'm getting a non white lesbian in Star Wars is gonna work? Like I Am going to be right, like raising a black flag over Shensend. But the next time we get another one of.
These characters of the series, you know, we had we we had a non white lesbian uh in acolyte who also taught it. Yeah, yeah, I do not see people talking about the barrier gay stuff with the acolyte as well.
Nobody because.
Because it wasn't bad, but I think it's.
Also worth I think it's also worth remembering like like this is this is a show starring like a non white leading role, like like a Cassine is not white. So I think the racial politics are a little bit a little bit more more complex. I think some people are discussing.
But yeah, all right.
Well these episodes have been amazing. Everybody get into inhalance and steal fuel from the military. That's the message of andand or.
Run wild.
Don't do that. That's a joke.
Legally, Okay, It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for it could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.