Andor Eps 10 & 11

a burning smartphone on it. A true classic Christmas scene where the only screen in sight is being burnt to a crisp Treason's greetings, crew neck, tis the season for some Treason. Follow La La La La straight from the top secret documents at mar Lago to the ski slopes of this fantasy world holiday design. Every order from the Crookeet Store will support vod Save America's Every Last Vote fund to make sure every voice can be heard in

the face of unprecedented voter suppression. Head to Crooked dot com slash store to check out the new arrivals now. Warning, this podcast contains spoiler for and or including episodes ten and eleven. Hello, My name is Jason Concepcion, and welcome to X ray Vision, the Cricket Podcast, where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture.

In this episode, in the previously on, we'll be commemorating the life and work of Kevin Conroy, the iconic voice of Batman and Bruce Wayne for millions of fans around the globe. We will be revisiting Black Panther Waconda Forever after its opening week, talking about the reaction to the film now a week out, and just the general topic of Marvel fatigue. Is it happening? What is it? What's going on? Care In the airlock, we're back in space for and Or episodes ten and eleven and in a

hive mind. We are absolutely delighted to welcome and Or creator, screenwriter, director, showrunner extraordinary Tony Gilroyd to the program. Of course, if you want to jump around, check the show notes for the time stamps. In joining me today, you know it is the number one Godzilla writer working in ink and pages today in the digital and paper medium, the number one comics historian, the number one knower of things that are related to horror movies, it's Rosie night Hella.

really overstate the impact he had. Yeah, because you're talking about a time when so the Batman movies were coming out obviously still at this time.

most silly, kind of playful elements of Batman. It also introduced Harlequin obviously and huge. Yeah, and at the heart of it is is Kevin Conroy and that performance, and for so long, Batman, the animated series kept Batman alive in the hearts of DC fans and people who love superhero movies and people who don't, people who just like

that show and love Kevin. And it's kind of like I would say, he's comparable to you know, Mark Hamill and carry They really they kept Star Wars alive for a long time when the movies weren't coming out by doing cons and being present and having cameos and connecting with fans and keeping that conversation going and that love going.

is gone. He lived through so much and achieved so much. I'm grateful it was such an important part of his story. On Kevin Conray, you will be missed, all right. We're a week plus away from Black Panther Wakanda Forever and I've been interested to see the just to take in the reaction and specifically the reaction. You know, I did this.

I did a guest spot on on the Recode podcast with Peter Kofka for Vox, and he was asking me about Marvel fatigue, and I wanted to talk to you about it, Rosie, because he was like, well, you know, what do you think about Marvel fatigue? Some people are tired of it or they're waiting for people to be tired of it. What do you think is going on?

And it's been interesting that it's you know, as phase four is kicked off, it has been really it's been a huge topic and I think there's various reasons for that. And first of all, with regards to Marvel fatigue, it will happen. If it's not happening now, people will get people like, you know, everything that is popular will at

some point become less popular and stop happening. There's no there's no reason to imagine that the Marvel movies will remain the top box office breaking movies in the world for the rest of our lives. Like they will fall off at some point. But I think what's interesting to me is, you know, having come from a writing background, is somewhat of a criticism background is I think a lot of what's happening is as Marvel was going on

its run all the way up through Endgame. I think that there were a lot of critics and people who like movies generally, just fan of movies generally, who thought, oh shit, is this what movies are going to be now? And and we're not particularly maybe they like two or three of the MCU movies, but we're not particularly fans of the movies, which is absolutely fine. Like what you

like and like what you don't like. But I but if I can, I can also understand if I was a critic who didn't like Marvel movies, I would be like, shit, am I out of a job? If I tell? And I think now that Phase four has come out and it, you know, didn't have the kind of drive, narrative drive. I think that the Marvel the somewhat disparate you know, we're telling different stories about hidden societies, and there's no there has been no central big bed to kind of

shoot for over the course of the face. I think that I think that a lot of this is people just feeling more comfortable now to say, you know, and I don't like Marvel movies. We're in the past. It would have been like you'd get you'd potentially get an email from your editor like too bad.

would get to see. And if we weren't living in an age where you know, I'll put it in brackets content because I don't really like calling this stuff that, but like content is king, you know, we probably wouldn't be getting a story based on a weird Scarlet Witch and Vision mini series, or we wouldn't be venturing into the world of Kang if we hadn't already spent ten years digging into some of the weirder parts of Marvel. But it, to me is very understandable that certain people might.

of conversation. Also, I am very much a person who says, if you don't like it, just that's fine, Like you can actually just not like it, and there's been a lot of voices who, like you said, are feeling more comfortable. Does that relate to how people actually feel about Marvel movies. I don't necessarily think so. I mean, just to compare numbers in the opening weekend of Black Panther were kind of forever arguably probably the most anticipated movie of the year on a pop culture level.

up and budgets may go up and down. They may release less movies per year, they may release less shows per year, which I think and more and more yeah, or they make more animated whatever it is. But this stuff is here, like all this this genre is here now, and it's you know, not going anywhere for the foreseeable future, although you know, the density and the cadence of them may change.

So I've never forgiven that in the second one. But like I feel like movies like Morbius, like there's always gonna be a dilution of quality when something becomes so saturated. So that's gonna happen. And the real truth is that until a new movie comes out that has almost one hundred years of source material for people to be like, oh I can make one of those two, these movies are going to keep being here.

And similar to end, you know, endgame was coming on the heels of the end of Game of Thrones, So it was like this feeling of oh have we have we exited the era of this huge, you know, piece of cultural content that everybody takes part in, and no one again, as you said, no one can predict what that thing is going to be. But if there's one thing I'm sure of is that there will be another thing like that again and again and again. Because we

create people, human beings crave it. We crave this massive story that we can all talk about with our friends or argue about and say, did you notice this? I noticed this. The whole world is based on stories.

stories really matter. And whether it's comic book stories, whether it's adaptations of Michael Crichton books like Jurassic Park, whether it's biographical films, whatever, that next thing is going to be that kind of blows up the world.

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like they don't have enough guards to watch us. They know it. They're scared of us. We need to act. When they bring a new person down to replace Ulaf, that's when we have to move. Cassian and Keina returned to the barracks. They tell the men that they what they know. There's been a massacre on two. Then Ulaf was euthanized, and the bottom line is, we're not leaving this place. It doesn't matter what your sentence says, doesn't

matter how many shifts you have left. You're gonna die here, yeah, or some other place that's exactly like this.

the lift's replacement. Down on Corssant, Mathma and Tay meet the gangster Davos. He he's there to hear what it is that mathmaonte need. Basically, they need money. Wondering, Davos sees through this kind of like cover story that they're spinning about a charitable organization that just needs, you know, liquidity. They need an injection of cash to carry on with their charitable works. He sees through this. He says, listen, I'll do I'll loan you some four hundred thousand credits,

but I don't want anything in return. You just owe me. Don't worry about it, like you know some kind of schedule to pay back. You just will owe me a favor. And was like, no, no, no, no, no no no, I don't want to owe a gangster a favor. No, Like we'll just work something out like monetarily. And Dallas is like, no, well, instead of that, what about this introduce my son to your daughter? He wants to. He wants to set up a love match. He says, two

young people, attractive and privileged Chandrilline citizens. Mathma is aghast, but Davas is like, take it or leave it. Mathma declines Claya, Luthan's assistant at the shop on Coussant, brings news that there are marks on a fountain out in the town, which is like a sign that there's a meaning to be set up, but she doesn't like the

timing of this could be a trap. Back on Narcina five, the guards bring the new man down, Cassian and the rest of the prisoners spring into action, and long story short, everybody fucking gets out. It is false pounding, you know. Keno gives this incredible speech. He gets the men all chanting one way out.

us if we all rise up. And then there's this It's a small moment, but it was so powerful when you're seeing these prisoners, you know, fighting their way to the top of the facility, rampaging through it and killing guards and you know, moving to the top taking their revenge. There is a small scene of these guards like cowering in like a closet somewhere, just terrified, and it was it really kind of closed the loop on that thing that Cassian was saying up front, which was they're scared

of us. Yes they're brutal, but it's their brutal methods that let you know that they're scared.

an unjust system. He is saying, you agree with this, You there is no question that what you are watching is right. And I just think that's so powerful in the context the conversations that we have about the prison industrial complex, and it was this is a very special episode out of all of the and not in like.

knows this is one thing he can do. It's it's not a true complicity because he didn't have a choice, but in his role as being the floor manager, every day one of his crews was getting electrocuted.

I can't. I can't swim. And it is a heartbreaking moment. Now we don't know what happens. We don't, but I think we're led to believe, and certainly because of episode eleven, we're led to believe that keno does not mean yeah and something.

them now, you know. So there's these little touches that are yeah, just unbelievable, and it's kind of this really interesting visual way of showing these people freeing themselves from the grips of the empire, like and the imperial this imperial prison on Narqina five.

how ruthless the world and this system is. Now here is something that is a hallmark of you know, the culture of Naboo and of a beloved leader of that of that place, and her regalia is just like up for sale even ye can just go buy it. Yeah no, not even forget even in a museum people. This is yeah, this is just for private collectors, for rich people. It is just up for the highest bid or if you want to just walk into Luthen's and buy it. It is It's a heartbreaking display of what has happened to

a lot of the galaxy. Luthen goes to this meeting. It's in some industrial kind of like area, of course far away and uh Luthen's contact is Lonnie, one of the ISB investigators that has been working closely with Deirdre. He has been apparently steadily burrowing into the ISB at Luthen's behest, steadily, you know, providing information to Luthen, who in turn has been we are guessing holding the man's family hostage somehow or at least threatening.

He's psychology.

sacrificed hope for like a sunrise I'll never see. You know, that's such great foreshadowing of that moment in Rogue one at the end when Cassie and and Jin watched the sun you know, before it looks like the sun's coming up before everything kind of explodes. And yeah, that it's so funny because that circus has really had two of my favorite lines in this whole show, which is the still my favorite is the never more than twelve about the gods.

And here we're getting, you know, looks like we're going through that window and seeing the smallest piece of that story, a version of that story where all these spies have like laid down their lives to overturn the Empire. And it's thrilling. It was just an it's incredible monologue. It just is like brings you to the edge of your seat.

see his family and get his money and escape. He is not all in on the rebellion, but at the same time, he hastes and he knows enough about what is right and wrong to know that he didn't just try and escape himself. He wanted everyone in the prison to get out. He wanted everyone to be freed. He wanted Keino to become the leader he could be. We're seeing the awakening of this angry, furious man that we

meet in Rogue one, and it's it's very special. I love how much this series is also setting up that, remember how annoying Gin is to everyone because she's like, oh.

But it just gives you a taste of the many, many risks that they are taking and continue to take as they flee from the prison on ur Kina FIV. Meanwhile, on Ferres, we learned that Marva has passed, and Or's adopted mother, tib is be kidnapper also, which we should talk about, and we will talk about.

mainly like nobles, royal houses, corporate interests. Yeah, like court planets that are completely run by corporations, like you know, God love them, but you're talking about like a royal lineage Like this is there's no actual democracy on a planet to planet level, and it's one of like because that's one of the one of the things I've been thinking about is, other than some of the flashbacks on phericks, you don't see protests, like mass protests against the Empire.

I know that the Empire can blow up your fucking plant, I get it, but they're not everywhere at once, and you just don't see this kind of like mass uprising against the Empire. And part of you know, and I guess I've just been like asking myself why. And I think part of where I've come to is part of the reason why is the governments that the Empire supplanted were not in and of themselves the kind of governments that you could really protest safely against.

it in a moment and a movement. But I think that kind of the interesting thing about Marva is like everyone, I would say, like the Mottrow of pretty much about every character in this show is like they're.

this planet. But it was better than the Empire. And we have yet to really dig into, other than those early episodes of this series, exactly how fucked up the Republic was. Like, we don't actually know exactly how fucked up the Republic was, and some like and as Saul super brittor Saul is noting the the kind of uh, the the early episodes of Tales of the Jedi in which we see like Count Dooku and and Qui gon Jin take down a corrupt center, we did. We we have yet to really get a real taste.

taken away, trailed by well wishers from the community. Meanwhile, Sinta from the Aldanni crew and members of the ISB are also watching. They're not aware of each other, but they're both watching, and they're all watching and waiting for Cassian and Or to show up. Cassian and melchie back on Narkeina spot a ship. There's a couple of aliens nearby. They're working a fishing hole. Cassian is like, well, that's an older quad jumper, but I think I can fly it.

Mel She's like great. He makes a run for the ship and Cassian has no choice but to follow, but the aliens are canny and they trigger a booby trap which capture the pair in this like gross kind of like snot net Deirdre at ISB he learns of Marve's death.

The local Imperials that are stationed there on Pariks are like so the local townspeople are asking for a permit to have a parade for a funeral, a funeral parade, and like should be given to him, and Deirdre is like, yes, give them the permit, because I want bait to lure Cassian and or in. I know that he won't be able to resist going to his mother's funeral, So yes, give them the permit. Back on on Narkina, the Aliens

are discussing what to do with Andor and Melchi. They realize that these two are escaped convicts from an imperial prison and that they all share a hatred of the Empire, so they let him loose and they're like, okay, where you want to go? And Or is like, take me back to Namos, the vacation planet. Val arrives at Lusen's shop, vow one of the Aldanni, you know that, leader of the al Donnie crew. So his girlfriend goes to Luthen's shop on Coruscant and wants to talk to Luthen. Claia

is like, get the fuck out it. You shouldn't be here. This is not on schedule, this is against the rules. You're being very, very sloppy right now, get out of here. And VAL's like, I got important information I need to speak to Luthen right away, and she's trying to pull rank like I did fucking I did, al Donnie, what the hell have you done? And then Claya gives another one of these like great great monologues where you know where She's like, uh, I don't have lately, I have always.

I have a constant blur of plate spinning and knives on the floor and needy, panicked faces at the window, of which you are but one of many. And she's like, but listen, what do you have with your information? And then val tell's with it, Marvit Cassian, and Or's mother has died. Tell Luthen, and Clay is like, I promise, I will let Luthan know. Meanwhile, on Ferrex, the ISP

is tightening its surveillance of the and Or Home. Brasso, one of bix and and Ors colleagues on Feryx, is in the and Or home, straightening up, trying to comfort be. The droid again doesn't is unable to like process what is happening, has gone completely emotionally to pieces, and Brasso agrees, I'll stay here at the and Or home with you just for one night. This comsby a little bit elsewhere on Ferrex, Bix is reeling from the effects of the

horrific interrogation that she was undergoing. The ISB take her to another room where they question her again, this time, you know, not under the kind of like genocide the sound treatment that they had been giving her previously, and they want to know if they show her a picture if Anton Creeker, this man that they're showing her is the man that she introduced Cassie and and or to

and that he met with numerous times. Back on Coruscant, we don't actually know if she says yes, but you would imagine, I mean, like I would just probably.

she's in with regards to the money. Imperial inspectors are nosing around the various Chandriline accounts that that mon has managed, and at some point they're going to discover that there's four hundred thousand credits missing, that she moved, you know, to she moved to the rebels. She tells val that, you know, I reached out to Tay for help, and you know, we've been working to cover up the monies.

She doesn't tell her tell her about Davos, which is probably wise, and then she said, but after all, Donnie, everything just got impossible and it's only a matter of time before the imperials figure out what's going on.

and Keris's manifesto, which helpfully the various people who have been staying in this room have not found because he hit it like on a top shelf elsewhere in the galaxy. Luthen arrives at Sawgreer's hideout and guess what, Saw has changed his mind. Saun now wants to join Kreeger on the Spellhouse.

follows my rules, We're in on it. Tell him we're doing it, and Luthen's like, no, we can't, and so I was like, no, no, we're doing it, and he's like Lusen's like no, no, no, it's going tomorrow, like it's way too late, and so I was like no, no, no, we're ready now, like we can go. If it's in five minutes, we can go. We're locked and loaded, we're ready to go, and eventually is forced to say, listen, here's why the ISB are waiting on this rate. It's

a fucking trap. And he's and Saw's like wait, so Kreeger doesn't know, and he's like no, so Sau said, you're willing to burn him. It's thirty men plus Kreeger, Luthern says, absolutely cold bloodedly, and this ruthless is absolutely shocked Saw, and he says, what if it was me? What if I was going? Luthern says, that'd be different. Kreeger doesn't know who I am, he has no connections to me. ISB can't track Kreeger back to me. He's fucking disposable. And Saw says, okay, well, what if I

want to Warren Kreeger. What if I What if I do that? Luthern says, that's your choice, but it would risk everything else that we want to do. It would blow up everything. Think about it.

very very difficult. Saw gets paranoid. Now he's like, okay, if you have you have someone with Kreeger at isb Do you have someone here? And he's like, you know, he's wondering, like, dude, do you have someone in my group? Who is it? And Lusan says, yeah, it's Tubes. It's

Bensic who otherwise known as Bensic but is nickname too. Yeah, two Tubes and he's like he tells, He tells me everything, but of course this is all a ploy to get everybody excited so that he can then steal Tubes's blaster and point it at at Saw, and Saw is amazed and he's and it is incredible display of Luthen's resolve because Luthen saw it, Nos has to know that he can't get out of this, like, yeah, maybe you kill Saw, maybe you killed two Tubes, but you're not walking out

of this place if you do that. And then is like, listen, this is just so you'll listen. Here's all the angles, and he again says all the reasons why they have to let Kreeger go down, and he says anyway, and he finishes up by saying, anyway, if I was ISB wouldn't I just let you go on the raid saw, and Saw says again thirty men plus Kreeger a marching to their desks for the greater good whatever you want to call it, let's call it war, which is a just a chilling fucking le.

were different factions that had to team up. Like here saw his having to make the decision of going against some of his ideals in order to team up with someone Krieger, who politically he was absolutely against during the Clone Wars days, who was a separatist who was like not pro republic. And this is you know, I'm reading this book Opposing Power by Elvin Ong, and it's about out how opposition forces build alliances in the face of

like autocracies and dictatorships. And it talks about like, you know, successful protest movements in the Philippines and the eighties and Korea also in the eighties, and how these groups, these opposition groups managed to to you know, revitalized democracy in those countries and over throw dictators because all of these opposition groups that didn't necessarily agree with each other politically decided, Okay, we actually need you have a good get out the

vote network, I have like the ability to communicate to people on television. Therefore, and we both agree that this dictator needs to go. Therefore, we need to team up. And here we're seeing that happen in this fictional Star Wars, these these groups, you know, Sagrera saying, Okay, I can't do it alone. Fine, I'll team up with Kreeger. He's got to follow my rules, but we can do this. And that that's how we're seeing this rebellion kind of

like slowly knit itself together. It's aristocratic people like Monnema and rich folks like Luthen, and these hard scrabble idealists like Saw and other people from who knows where, like Krieger, who politically, probably during the Clone Wars, could not have agreed on one single thing, all coming together now because they agree that the Empire's just got to fucking go.

the people they put in prison. They are not interested at all in aliens having any kind of agency in the upper levels of their leadership. And you know, it really underlines how impressive throngs rise in the imperial leadership is because this is not a group that is interested in anything that alien species have to do, or says that's it and can you help us smuggle shit? That's like that's basically it.

with Clea. They're speaking in code here because they they you know, they're they're unsure if they've been listened to, so they're using this kind of a dialogue to make it sound as if they're just talking about the shop and talking about the various things that they sell there. She is basically telling him that something is kind of off and you should come home as soon as possible because we need to adjust our plans a little bit. Then the signal breaks off, and it's because it's being

jammed by an imperial patrol. Luthen is trying to talk his way out of it as the as the Empire is making contact with him, he gives a phony transponder scan out of Aldron. The ide absolutely checks out, but the imperiors are like, fuck it, we need the practice we need for They're so arrogant. This is like what we saw in Narcina five, where it's just like fuck it, arrest anybody who's going to stop them.

beautiful beach. The waves are crashing against the beach, this gentle kind of a shushing sound, and he walks over to Melchie and Melchi asks him, like about the call, and Cassian doesn't tell him what happened. Melchie is soaking in freedom, but also Melchie has become radicalized by this, by this whole thing, this the ordeal that they've been through. He says, like, you know, first he asks how many people do you think made it out? And they're like,

and Cassian is like, not enough. And then mel She says, Okay, we have to tell people what's going on here. People have to know. We need to split up, double our chances of getting out and getting to someplace where we can speak the truth of what happened and here and let's get out of here. And they bid each other goodbye. Cassie and gives Melschie a blaster and they give this really like, I mean, I got choked up a little the way they part, because you just know that they're

going to be together again. You understand also like how meaningful it is that they're fighting together on scaif in rogue one. And then they part and that's it that leads us, that leaves us the finale. What a show. This continues to be some of the best Star Wars any one has ever seen.

disconnected to the horrors of the Empire, but are exactly still tools of it. And the one person in the Rebellion who does even know they're in the Rebellion, who just helps someone out because they think it's the right thing to do, and then that person goes on to lead it. I mean, I think that's so interesting, and I think the Start Destroyer could be a great landscape for that to take place in season two.

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at indeed dot com slash x ray. Indeed dot com slash x ray terms and conditions apply. Need to hire you need Indeed. Welcome to the High Mind, where we explore a topic in more detail with the help of expert guests. This week we are thrilled to have Tony gilroy Oscar nominated writer and director and the creator of and Or. Note. We recorded this interview while Rosie and I were on the road. Apologies in advance if the audio quality is not quite up to x ray vision

top top standards. Tony, thanks so much for joining us. I think one of the things that's really knocked Rosie and I out about your story is how it shows how regular people, not necessarily you know, Jedi, space wizards, etc. Would get enmeshed in a fight like this would either rebel or decide to join the forces that would oppress the rebellion. What was the genesis of this story?

My attitude about it, sort of from the sidelines along the way, was it seems to me it's pretty obvious what you have to do if you have this incredibly accomplished character in Rogue one, who is, you know, the tactical leader, the person that the Alliance trusts to go on the most important mission possible, and a guy who exhibits all these incredible leadership skills along the way tactically and he changes his mind and he lies and he does all the things that a leader has to do

on a mission like that, and then the guy gives his life for every willingly, But who is that person? So my idea is I said, well, you want if you're gonna do a show about that person, you know, either going what's going to happen to, then you want to take them as far away from that as possible five years ago. You want to have a show about becoming. Yeah, on our show in in many ways is about becoming. It's a revolution becoming a revolution. It's about Cacinando becoming

a revolutionary and then becoming a leader. It's about a lot of people becoming different things.

years are canonically clear to me. There's no question of the established atrocities and motivations of an empire, right, I mean, that's you know, and we know we know how how bitter and horrifying and genocidal the battle will ultimately be, and how you know, devastating it will be to Alderon and everything else. So you know all that. But all that said, I do never start anything with an agenda.

I start with characters, and I have my still beliefs that I hope will you know, in some way osmodically you know, work their way through. But I don't ever think about, oh, I have an extra grind about this, I'm going to talk about this or I didn't start Michael Clayton because I wanted to do a story about

industrial uh you know industrial uh, you know, atrocity. I started because I was like, oh, the guy is a fixture and what happens is so I'm really interested in the characters and I and I've learned over time that it works for me and it's just what I'm interested. I start very very small, and I build my way out. I know there's been a lot of you know, there's

a lot of political I've been watching. You know, the conversation is fascinating to watch all the conversations that the show is you know, engendered over the past couple of months. But and I know the show there's all kinds of people that trying to lay claim in different ways to the politics of the show. But you know, to me, I've been studying history just as an amateur, as an idiot Amazon, you know, a idiots home, a DIY historian

for years. And you know, there isn't anything in our show that hasn't been going on for three thousand years. I mean, colonialism, it's same oppression, harm, behavior, torture or whatever. It's all there. So the great thing about this show is you can sort of needle drop and do a I could take we can take something from the it takes something from heres, the Russian Revolution. So that's all.

That's the beauty of it, and that's but my way in is really through character, what happens next to the people you care about, and making you care about.

the world. In Michael Clayton, you have a guy who's you know, the scales fall from his eyes. He's a fixer for much bigger figures and realizes he's caught between these two worlds of power and powerlessness and his morality looking at looking at and or in that in that kind of context, I'm really struck by how it's uh it seems like and I know you say you don't you know, start with you know, with any with any

kind of like agenda. But I wonder if you might say, if you might talk about how you build a character and you know where this kind of character falls, and the kind of characters that you've that you've that you've built in the past. I love cutting edge again.

you're building and very and really care about them. Doesn't matter if they're you know, or synchronic or or or or or you know or Doug Dorsey in the in the you gotta get in there, you know, you got to really live it with them, and you gotta really so.

I I don't have a holistic answer to that. I have a very personal every one of them is a little temple and they're all you know, that makes it sound pretentious and bullshitty, but like they're all they're all real to me, and and and they all they couldn't sound like anybody other than themselves. And I think you

can always tell that when you read someone's writing. You know, if you read a writer and if all the characters sort of sound the same, or if someone's IQ goes up and down based on what they want the story to do or whatever, then you know you're with somebody who's not maybe maybe not. Uh, I'm not not sticking to the rigor of that. Good writing is really where the writers are invested in the people so much that they could only.

that was really what the old system was. And then you know, and then you move into a more you know, as the stories have gotten more long term and you know, and more complicated, there's a different kind of structure for how they work. But I don't think that there's any any clear I think everybody's doing everything for the first time now. In many ways, I think we're just at the frontier of streaming and we're watching these huge shows. I mean, these are the beginning of something really new.

I don't think there's any rule about what to do. And the way our show laid out, it was like, well, coincidentally, directors direct three episodes for us, the directors come in and they direct a block of three. So it sort of became a weird organizing principle in its own way, and you kind of lean into it a little bit. We're not perfect because you see in seven we drop and seven is a standalone that episode and then a kine and ten and then our last two episodes will

be sort of of a piece a little bit. I guess we're not I don't think we're like, we're not. You know, it's not it's not this rigorous, strict thing. It's kind of the way it laid out and kind of the way it worked for the directors. And I think that there are no rules. I think the main rule is do you want to see what happens next? That's yeah, yeah, that's the rule that matters, right.

just went on hold. For six or seven months and I couldn't come back to London. I didn't want to come back to London and direct in the midst. There was no vaccine or anything like that at that point, and it just turned into like, okay, let's and I started rewriting my episodes and rewriting everybody else's episodes and tuning everything up. And came time to hire directors, and

it's I've never hired director before. And that's a really that's a really fascinating I didn't take it quite as seriously in the beginning as I think I thought it would be easier. It's very very difficult. You have to watch lots of stuff, incredible amount of stuff. You have to find a way to parse your way through it. There's an incredible amount of competition between shows because there's

so many shows. Really hard to get directors, and it's really there's a limited number of directors who have you know, we need directors who have a certain amount of flight time. You know, you can't this is like flying a seven forty seven. You can't just get so so we have a different criteria than they had to be. It was, it was it's very unanticipatedly difficult. We lucked out the first time around. I think we've lucked out this time around. We have we have three new directors that are coming

back for this for this the second half. We start shooting in November. But man, it's it's I'll tell you one thing, it's the competition is really really tough to find that not to if you have a smaller show where you could swing away and be loose, you know, but you can't figure out how to do this show on the job, right, It's just like too many people have just drowned.

do to my life? Is it worth it? And it really really wasn't until you know, about a year ago we really did start to put the episodes together in a kind of way that we could actually sort of and solve some of the you know, really some of the visual effects started coming in, we started do stuff, and my brother John is sort of the over the

post production overlord. So you know, once the show started to come together and we could look at them in a whole piece and have other people outside of our little tiny community look at them, it started to be like, oh my god, maybe this was really worth it. And that's the feeling more than anything else, of like, oh my god, I haven't wasted the last three years, because it really there's times along the way where you you

could get on a movie. You could be on a movie and you could hate the people that you're in business with, or you could whatever. You could survive it. Now it seems making a movie seem nothing. This is like you're just oh my god, I'm on a whaling version a whaling pot by eighty and how am I ever going to get back to Nantucket?

More information on that to come, and you can find that through the show notes. But again, if you're in LA in the first week of December and you want to come through, come check it out, Come meet us, come talk to us. It'll be fun. Check out the La Comic Con app website plus the show notes for specifics again and tickets if you want to come see the live taping of x ray Vision. Five star reviews. We gotta have them, we love them, we need them,

we can't live without them. Here is Matt Morichie Rosie Night is amazing there, great tandem and really appreciate the branding as well. Five stars.

of takeline. It's so delighted that everybody listened to it, and it was a pleasure to give all of you some of the most fun sports content I thought out there, and it will free up time for all of us to do other stuff. Thank you for your kind words. Also thanks for everyone who wished me a happy birthday a couple of weeks ago. That was so delightful, That was so nice. X ray Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Saul Rubin.

The show is executive produced by myself and Sandy's Rhard Are. Editing and sound designers by Vascillis Fatopoulos, Dilon Villanueva and Matt to group provide video production support. Alex Rollaford handle social media. Thank you Brian Vasquez for a theme music. See it in two weeks.

don't be so nervous about it. He's getting this.