'Ahsoka' Episodes 1 and 2 Deep Dive
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I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And together we host The Big Picture, the Ringer's film podcast for new releases, career retrospectives, director interviews, movie drafts, top fives, and so much more. Twice a week, we break down the latest releases, argue about whether movies are doomed, and debate our modern film canon. Listen to The Big Picture on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Subject to credit approval. Savings is available to Apple Card owners subject to eligibility. Apple Card and savings by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Member FDIC. Terms and more at applecard.com. This episode is brought to you by Alien Romulus, the scariest movie of the summer. Alien Romulus is now playing in theaters everywhere, including IMAX. This movie looks terrifying.

And I cannot wait to see it. Alien Romulus comes from Fede Alvarez, the director of intense horror movies like Evil Dead and Don't Breathe. And it is produced by the legendary Ridley Scott, the mastermind behind iconic films like Blade Runner and the original Alien. Can't wait for this one. Alien Romulus, rated R, now playing only in theaters. Get your tickets now. I bet your master found you difficult at times. Anakin never got to finish my training.

Before the end of the Clone Wars, I walked away from him and the Jedi, just like I walked away from Sabine. Sometimes even the right reasons have the wrong consequences. What do we do then? Greetings and welcome to House of R, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to Ezra's Tower, but also to our new House of R podcast feed.

Joining me today, fresh off a cuddle and feeding session with our beloved Loathcat Bubba. It's my house of our working title. I don't know. Is it permanent? A permanent title? Co-host Joanna Robinson. What's up, bad babies? How's it going? I'm

I'm floating that as a catchphrase and I've decided it's a no. But bad babies are here to stay. I think you should stick with this. Yeah, Steve, can you add that to the soundboard? Yeah, so we have the actual bad baby clip, but then just Joe saying that. Perfect. Done. Done and done. Yeah. Joanna, my dearest, we're here today to dive deep. Deep. Profoundly deep. No runtime promises.

We have cleared our schedule. Cleared our evenings. Into the two-part Ahsoka premiere. But before we climb into the Phantom, some quick programming reminders.

You probably know this if you're here, but just in case, House of R is now twice a week on this feed. So follow this new feed. Please give us the five stars and thank you to everyone who already has. It's very meaningful to us. It's wonderful. It's tremendous. Come back on Tuesday because we're going to have our next episode for you at the top of next week. That's how this is going to work. This new schedule and our next pod is one of our favorite seasonal traditions.

It's the hype meter. We're going to call this one the 2023 fall slash winter hype meter. And no, we will not be bound by the actual definition of either of those seasons. We can't wait to talk about what we're excited about for the rest of the year. One of our seasonal favorites, depending on your definition of season, is the hype meter. Yeah.

We found out today tragedy has struck the fall hype meter because Dune 2 has been pushed to March 2024. Not even we can stretch the definition of the remainder of 2023 to March 2024. So we have to find something else to fill the Dune slot. I know. I think it's safe to say that would have been number one. But there's a lot that we're looking forward to. So that'll be a fun pot. A fun pot.

We will be back here at the end of next week for our deep dive into Ahsoka episode three, of course. And you can get the instant reaction to Ahsoka episode three on the ringer verse with the Midnight Boys. Pew, pew, pew, pew. Junior Mints, we have great news. There's also going to be a Mint edition next week. Top of the week. Topic pending. Something.

inspiration is doing something now. They are brainstorming now. I've been witnessing it and it is, it's going to be a fun pod. I have absolutely no doubt, Joe, that's a lot. How can the people follow all of it? I love how you said that's a lot as if like, I'm not going to add one more thing on top of that. I just want to float this out into the ether. Cause we've had some questions. When are you guys doing your next doctor who podcast? And I,

If all goes according to plan, and it may not because things shift and change all the time here in House of R, two weeks from Tuesday. So I think around the 5th of September is when we are perhaps... A week from Tuesday. Yeah. A week from Tuesday. And then we're going to perhaps be covering...

Perhaps. Yeah. Be covering Matt Smith's entire era. Entire era. Can't wait. And this is the slight change we've made to our Doctor Who coverage plans. Because we are now twice a week, because we have a little bit more time on the schedule to have fun and experiment, etc., we will be doing episodes for every single Doctor Now. That's right.

Capaldi heads and Whitaker stands. We will be doing entire episodes based on those doctors runs. So now the question of like, what do I have to watch? The answer is everything. And when do I have to watch it by pending, but Matt Smith, all of Matt Smith's entire run, including the anniversary special. And the special that comes after that is what we will be talking about potentially in a week and a half thereabouts. Amazing.

How do people, how do you keep track of all that? Great question. Follow the podcast. That's the easiest thing to do. Would you like to subscribe to this podcast? We would love it if you would. So yeah, if you're, if you've been subscribed to the ringer verse, we would love it. If you would also subscribe here, that'd be tremendous. You can follow us on social. We are still, you know, under the loving embrace of the ringer verse umbrella. So you can find us on Instagram, on Tik TOK, on Twitter, where Jomie is just,

crushing it constantly with his social media coverage of, he had a great, did you see the Qui-Gon tweet that he did this week? Smashing. Simply smashing, Jomie. And then if you want to email us, and boy did you this week, hobbitsanddragonsatgmail.com. We got many Ahsoka emails. Hobbitsanddragonsatgmail.com.

Not purgles and loathcats at gmail.com. Stillhappensanddragons at gmail.com. Not Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan chest hair at gmail.com, despite Molly Rubin's preference. That's just what we use to communicate with each other. That's our own secret communication channel. Oh, God. All right. Last programming note at the top. It's the same one as always. It's our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning.

Today's podcast will feature plot points from the episodes of television that you have come to hear us discuss. The first two episodes of Ahsoka. In addition to that, anything that's ever happened in Star Wars. Star Wars The Clone Wars. Star Wars Rebels. Tales of the Jedi.

Bad Batch, Mando, Boba, the Zan Thrawn novels, some Legends canon. Anything that has ever happened in Star Wars could come up today. Certainly anything that connects to Ahsoka's canon and the Ghost crew. Rebels canon is on the table. Okay, grab your lightsabers. It is time to begin again. There's no perhaps about it. It is definitely time to begin again.

Two episodes in question today. Part one, Master and Apprentice, written by Dave Filoni, of your own of a blood. Filoni, the scribe of all eight episodes in this season of television. He also directed the first episode, part one, and he will be directing one other episode during the run. He's directing episode five as well. This part one checks in at a

A hefty 57 minutes. Chunky. Yeah, this was a medium one. Part two. And if you're wondering, will Joanna be talking about the significance of this title at some point in today's episode? Just put your mind at ease right now. The answer is yes. You will be heading to Willie Shake's Corner with Jo Robb. Toil and Trouble. Written by Filoni. Directed by Steph Green. Watchmen.

Boba Chapter 5, et cetera, et cetera. 44 minutes. And of course, those runtimes include credits. Okay. We have so much to get to today. Ben Lindbergh will be joining us a little bit later for a lore look. We're going to dive deep in chronological order through both episodes. We're going to hit some Easter eggs. We're going to hit some theories. Of course, we will be spending some time in Wigwatch with Joanna Robinson. But before any of that, just like old times...

We have to begin with the opening snapshot. The soundboard is back. I love the soundboard. Steve! You're the best, Steve. Joanna Robinson, you'll expand on all of these feelings, all of these thoughts as we go. Give us a little taste, a little amuse-bouche.

We're not going to linger long here. We have a lot to do. How did you feel about these episodes? I had a great time. I had a great time with these episodes. I had a great time. I got to watch them with you. That was, you know, a thrill of a lifetime. And we got to watch them on the big screen. That was also incredible. And...

Yeah, I had a tremendous time with these episodes. We're going to be talking about all the different tastes that people have, and I've been really curious to interact with people who didn't enjoy it as much. And I'm hoping that the kind of coverage that we do will only enhance people's enjoyment of the show, and then maybe everyone can enjoy it as much as we did. Mallory Rubin, how did you feel about these two episodes of Ahsoka? Oh, I absolutely loved them. I had...

Such a truly special and wonderful time watching these with you up at Lucasfilm. It was a real, like, genuine treat and memorable experience that I will think back on fondly for the rest of my life. I loved the episodes. It's Rebels Season 5, you know? Rebels live action with one of my favorite characters in Star Wars history at the center of it. I found the pace, the clip at which it moved, uh...

To be to my liking, I think that, you know, we'll chat more about like the question of how effectively this double premiere picked up for people who have spent a lot of time in the animated canon in the Filoni-verse, but also like welcomed people who maybe don't have that history with the characters, right?

I will not presume to speak on behalf of people who don't have the Clone Wars and Rebels connections to the characters that we do. As someone who loves those characters, I thought this was genuinely...

a pleasure to be back with them. And I can't wait. It's so exciting to think about how like everything that comes next is unknown to us. Yes, we know that in the distance, we are building that bridge to the first order and to the sequel trilogies. But for the bulk of these characters, like what happens next is a complete unknown to us. And that is so exciting to be with people we're attached to and not know what's next for them. And I thought that

I thought that the episodes deftly handled the exposition and the, like, let us tell you who these people are and what their relationships to each other are aspect.

of prior canon considerably better than Mando season three, which I thought often skewed too heavily either into, wait, they're just like literally never going to mention in this season of television that Bo-Katan was a terrorist in multiple seasons of animated shows. That's just bizarre. Or let us repeatedly mention inside of one episode, all the stuff you might've missed off screen. This just felt like much more

and successfully calibrated on that front. What did you think about that? Does this work as well as an initial offering for people who haven't watched a couple hundred episodes of animation? It's kind of on top of mind for me, honestly, because we want to make sure that our coverage of the show is as friendly to everyone, like entering at all levels of knowledge. And I believe very strongly that the show is

should be friendly to people who haven't watched a single frame of the animated series. And when we walked out of it, you know, you and I talked to a pal of my Mike, who was at the screening, who hadn't seen any of the animated shows. And he was like, I loved it. I had no problem. You know, that was his anecdotal response. I've heard from...

Plenty of people that they had, you know, without that background that they enjoyed it. And then I've heard from a lot of people who felt alienated and also from people who have seen the animated series, but we're sort of preoccupied with this question of like, are the non-animated fans going to enjoy it? We got a really lengthy email from,

Um, better cut down a little, but it's still kind of long from listener Natalie. And I, I'm including this much of it just because I thought she did a really good job sort of summarizing some of the pros and cons of being kind of an outside, feeling like an outsider looking in on this. Um,

She writes,

And that was that the war victories were won, but those that fought them are scarred by it and fissures have occurred. Clearly Sabine is younger, misses a friend lost in the war, Ezra, and she and her mentor had a falling out. Ahsoka struck me as a warrior who doesn't know how to settle and also has become super hardened and built up walls. Hera was the general involved in the actual rebuilding, trying to bridge the gap between the disillusioned and resistant members of a former group of fighters.

My assumption at the end was this was going to be a story about redemption and growth as told between a master and apprentice, but not in the Jedi way, but in a more old guard, young guard way that may mirror challenges of rebuilding an empire. Spoiler alert, doesn't end well. Everything felt like it hit

the right beats, even if I didn't have a ton of emotional resonance, but why would I? I'm still in the setting up the character stage. Definitely fell in love with the cat thing with its little chicken legs. Star Wars can definitely do a critter. Also enjoyed Hera and Chopper's banter immensely. Okay, so that's part one. And that's Natalie saying this is how she felt coming out, not having any animated series context. And this is sort of, I think, what I would hope for people is to know that it's okay that you don't know everything, but

Let what is there wash over you in the way that Star Wars is often accessible because it treads familiar archetypes and storytelling trips. Okay. But then Natalie writes...

Then I listened to The Midnight Boys and saw other reviews, and I realized just how meat there is to the story. And while it didn't affect how I felt about it, I think I have a new appreciation for how much our discourse around fandom can confuse or annoy the hell out of others. I felt like a 100-level student in a graduate thesis listening to them talk about it all. That's not a criticism of them as much as it feels like a sign, just a sign of how unique and precarious of a place this show sits in the fandom landscape.

Usually, when a beloved property makes it to the screen, it's all of us who know and love it introducing it to the general population for the first time. You expect the show to onboard people and satisfy yourself with Easter eggs and the anticipation of what's coming. Maybe it's also a reboot, so even if it's characters you have experience with, you know it's a new story or starting over in a way that you expect the slow build. Ahsoka is different because not only does it take characters that already exist and

and have existed for years on television, it's telling a story that is a continuation of their journey. It's new material for their closest fans who want to dive right into the meat, but also needs to set the stage. I can't comment on how much it resonates with closer fans, but I can see how if you're a newbie or just someone who knows that these are supposed to be established, well-beloved characters, you may be impatient or feel, and this is key, I think, feel left out of the journey, that you are not on the same engagement or emotional level of the other fans as they see this.

You're not, quote, starting at the beginning. You're coming in in the middle in many ways and want to swim in the deep end with the rest of the fandom, but that will take time. I don't know if there's anything that could have been done to avoid this. It might be on us, our perception, or just what happens now in these large universes that now have really well-established online spaces around them, but I'm looking forward to watching more. So thank you so much for this email, Natalie. Natalie, who's a longtime listener, someone I have...

enjoyed interacting with over the years. And I think that point, one thing I want to say to people who are feeling confused or frustrated or any of those emotions is that I actually think you're not missing as much as you think you are. We're going to talk about a lot of the ways in which these episodes actually leave gaps and mysteries and questions for the animated fans as well.

And I really think that I don't want to tell someone to just like, just relax. But like, I really think if you just sort of, I think, you know, what's going on. And I think what you don't know, the show is going to fill in for you. And we're going to talk about the very specific moments in which the episodes do take a pause to try to wrap their arms around people and bring them in. But if you are feeling frustrated and alienated, hopefully this podcast can help you bring you in to enjoy everything more.

Mal, what do you think about what Natalie wrote here or this general sort of sentiment? May this podcast be the pathway to Paridia for all of you. Yeah, I really... I mean, so I have a couple thoughts. Wonderful email. Thank you for sharing these feelings with us. I think...

sort of always feel a compulsion in these moments to like maybe more than is strictly necessary, emphasize and then repeat time and time again that I never want to feel like I'm like speaking on behalf of other people. Cause like, I genuinely think that people can feel however they want to feel about this stuff and that it's okay at the end of the day, if each show or movie or book doesn't work either way,

equally well for every single person in the fandom. I think in some ways, Star Wars in particular has aired trying to make something and then like losing itself in that back and forth seesaw of like, wait, is this what this group wants? Is this what this group wants? Right? That's part among other, many other things that we've cataloged at length, part of what went wrong in the sequel trilogy. That said, I agree with you, obviously, strongly that my hope is that everybody feels like this can be a show that they enjoy and that it's like,

the barrier to entry is not prohibitively high to opt in or see if it feels like something, like a slice of the universe where you'd enjoy spending time. So I think the show had, I think what Natalie is saying

identifying is correct that obviously there are myriad examples of adaptations of books that people bring a lot of knowledge to or connection to. But I think specifically what Natalie is citing about the continuation of the journey and feeling like, okay, there's all this stuff that happened before that people have spent time watching that I didn't. Maybe people are feeling a heftier sense of like, I'm behind or I missed something than in some other stories. And

I agree with what you were saying near the end there that like,

From a plot perspective, and again, it's not for me to convince you or talk you into this if this isn't how you felt. I think if this isn't how you felt, that's completely valid and fine. I thought that the episode plot-wise did a good job of giving us these snapshots of this is this person's history. You need to understand that Ahsoka was Anakin's Padawan. You need to understand that Ahsoka left the Order. You need to understand that Sabine was a Mandalorian. You need to understand Sabine's emotional attachment to Ezra, etc., etc., etc., right? Yeah.

these like larger looming things, where are Thrawn and Ezra? What went wrong between Ahsoka and Sabine? We don't know. We don't know. We do not know. And so we're all on that journey together. What I think is maybe more difficult to account for than the plot catch up is the emotional attachment. Like some people are just coming to the show with like, why should I care about Ezra? Who is he? And yeah. And then some people are coming to it with a like,

I it is like one of the most important things in my life that I get to be back with this character. So I don't think the show needs to try to force like a bridging of that gap. I think people can either forge forge those bonds with the characters in a new way now. You know, hopefully that will happen. I think like that's the thing more so than the plot elements that feel like they will just take time. It's going to take time if you've never seen Sabine before to like grow to love her. Right.

I completely agree. I was trying to make an analogy on Twitter, probably fruitlessly, to being a book reader. Not only outlines in her email a distinction between being a book reader for something like Thrones or Harry Potter or whatever, but I do think there is some similarity there to when you're watching Game of Thrones...

And you see Pedro Pascal walk out as Oberyn Martell. There were a bunch of us who were like immediately emotionally engaged with Oberyn Martell as a character. And there are some people who are like, that guy looks hot in a saffron robe. He seems kind of cool.

But those people eventually catch up because that's the show's job to get those people who are like, I don't know who the fuck he is, but okay. And then they catch up to the book reader. So it's not one-to-one, but I do think that emotional gap or emotional investment in a character is kind of similar between an adaptation and whatever this is, which is a new thing. And the other thing, to zoom back to that plot question, is...

What I found anecdotally in a one-to-one basis, talking to friends of mine who are watching the show but haven't watched any of the animation or, like, listened to our pods but, like, didn't watch the episodes, is they don't know what we don't know. And so the mystery of Sabine and Ahsoka, which is still a mystery to us...

They're like, wait, what did I miss? They would text me like, wait, you didn't explain this. What did I miss about this? And I'm like, oh, no, we don't know either. So they don't know what we don't know. And so then it all seems like, wait, I'm so lost. What happened? And so while I do think the show is very smart in establishing these new mysteries for all of us to puzzle out together, if you're a newcomer watching the show and you don't know that that's a shared mystery, then maybe you feel, again, left out. So

Again, hopefully this is something that we can all hang out together and enjoy together and grow in our love for these characters. Yes. I also do think, like, I think this is an important thing to discuss, but I do think a lot of people really liked the show, and this isn't necessarily like 95% of the response falls into this bucket. So yeah, this will be an interesting thing to track, though, over the course of the season. I mean, we've been talking about this since we started seeing...

posters and trailers and even hearing that they were doing the show, this was always going to be a particular challenge. I don't want to, it is, and I don't want to dwell on it forever. We're going to move on in a second, but I just want to say that like, I,

I do want to say the bottom line, I feel like this is what you and I and our various podcasting partners before this have always done, which is try to make these dense genre properties as friendly and welcoming for whomever. That's what we do. So we're going to do it again. On Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be here every week. Queens of context to steal a title from our pals at BlinkCheck. So, yeah. I love it.

This episode is brought to you by Peloton. You know, for me, fitness has always been about finding that groove, whether it's hitting the pavement outside, which I've been a lot of, or dialing up a sweat session indoors.

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or the Peloton app. It's like having your own personal coach with you or right at home in your living room. Call yourself a runner with Peloton at onepeloton.com slash running. As Morgan would say, nothing can prevent our journey. It is time for the episode one and episode two, a deep dive.

I really forgot. I forgot about that. It's been a minute since we heard that. Wild times. Oh, boy. This really is a trip down memory lane, this whole pod here. Okay. Truly everyone, yeah. The opening scroll.

We get an opening scroll, like a tethered OG Star Wars canon here, Jo. How did seeing this make you feel? This is sort of like the first note that's going to pull on something for you emotionally as a Star Wars fan. Did you dig it? Were you happy to see it? Yeah, I was thrilled and excited. I liked that it was a little different. Yeah. Were you alarmed by the red? Yeah. Ominous? Yeah. Troubling? And also...

you know, in the, in the opening flashes, we usually get blue and red and we do an episode two, but an episode one, it's all red lights. So, you know, yeah, I'm feeling, I'm feeling a chill in the bone. Um, I do want to say that we did get an email from our listener, Greg, who had sort of like gone through and, and marked and underlined this, the scroll, not to be confused with the scroll for us. And, uh, I just want to say there's a, there's a misplaced, there's a dangling modifier. Can't get around it. There's a dangling modifier. But,

I just love the way that Greg phrases. He says, I nearly had an aneurysm at the beginning because there's a dangling modifier in the opening crawl that never would have happened on Carrie Fisher's watch. So shout out grammar queen, Carrie Fisher. There is a last dangling modifier in this opening crawl, but, but, um, very tough. Once presumed dead rumors are spreading of Thrawn's return. Terrible. Presumed dead rumors. Oh no. Um,

Anyway, but I'm not getting caught up on it. I thought it was funny more than anything else. And here we are. What about you, Mel? What do you want to say? Do you think that instead of being a text scroll, this should have been a Clone Wars-esque Tom Kane opening narrative? Base! Arctic Empire has fallen to take its place! No? No.

Isn't that how we really bring the Filoniverse to live action? Anytime I hear that, I always think of, because on Korra, they did the Republic City voice. It was like, and our friend Dave Gonzalez has a really good impression of it. Hello, benders and non-benders alike. This is what happened previously on Korra. Wonderful.

We are actually going to talk about the plot of these episodes momentarily, we promise. But I do think before we dive in, based on the setup of the scroll and then the first sequence we see, which is Morgan...

centric, it's worth talking about like the timeline clues and the placement of this episode. And we should say kind of as the initial caveat here, we don't know when these episodes are set exactly. And in fact, the episodes kind of go out of their way to like not specifically orient us in time. We get that several years ago from our guy, Governor Azadi on Lothal. But yeah,

You know, a couple things for sure. We will build toward the Rebels epilogue in the second episode, which we'll obviously chat about at length later today. And we are after season two of The Mandalorian's fifth episode, which is chapter 13, The Jedi. That is the episode where Ahsoka interacts with Din and Grogu. That is the episode where Ahsoka is hunting down Morgan to try to find Thrawn. But my question is, did it strike you...

as likely that this is right after that episode, meaning potentially even before Ahsoka's appearance in the book of Boba Fett and season three of the Mandalorian, because this is a, how long can you transport someone? Yeah. Well, it's the new Republic. So unless, I mean, they're constantly moving and losing prisoners. It literally anything is possible, right? It's amazing. They knew that she was on the ship, frankly, run on time. Yeah, exactly. Um,

I guess it depends how long Ahsoka was interrogating Morgan to get all this information. Interrogating is carrying a lot of weight there. Possibility. Did not follow standard Jedi protocol. Her braid was quite must when we first see her in her prisoner jumpsuit. But I don't know how it could possibly be.

after the Book of Boba Fett appearance, right? It feels like it's in between, but I feel like they're trying not to confuse us. So they're just trying to be like, don't think about it too hard. I agree. It just feels like so much of the vibe of what we are seeing from Ahsoka in this episode is a very somber period. We talked a lot in our preview pods about shaken faith and

The Ahsoka who we see with Luke in From the Desert Comes a Stranger, chapter six of the Book of Boba Fett, even though she wasn't like, actually, yeah, I changed my mind. I want to train Grogu now. Sign me up, Luke. Do you have an opening at the school? As we talked about, there was a note of...

and possibility when looking at the school, when talking about the future, when guiding Luke. And it just feels like what we're seeing here is ahead of that. I think the other clue that we have to parse is the Shadow Council exchange in episode seven of season three of The Mandalorian about Thrawn. Because...

We get that Gideon line talking to Pelly. Ben's not here to yell at me for saying Pelly. He's not on yet, so I'm rocking with it. You always speak with much authority, and yet I see once again that Grand Admiral Thrawn is missing from your delegation. Any word on when he will be able to participate in the Shadow Council?

And the Pellion says, with respect, our one hope for success relies upon the secrecy of his return. Now, Ben wrote about this in his piece and called it inconclusive. Ultimately, I agree. I think you could make the logic work either way. It's like you can find the stat on a baseball reference page that you need to make your case. If Morgan does succeed in bringing Thrawn back...

then would he like just be sitting out Zooms still by season three of The Mandalorian? If I'm being really honest with you, with love and respect, and I know you love a timeline, I don't think we should get bogged down on this until we have more information.

Because they're doing such a, they're working so hard to make it nebulous that, like, I think if we try to nail it down, they're reserving the right to change their minds about what's going on. Several years ago, it's just a declaration. Yeah. And, like, I think, like, if Ahsoka gets stranded in another galaxy at the end of the season, like...

Are we like, oh, don't worry, she'll be back for that episode of the Book of Boba Fett? That's kind of one of the cases for all of this happening after that, though, I guess. Again, you can kind of make the logic work either way. Whispers before... My interpretation... Whispers led Ahsoka to Morgan in the first place, so those whispers in the Shadow Council chat could have been...

From that, good work. My interpretation of the Shadow Council stuff is always like, oh, you just missed him. Oh, Thrawn's in the shower. Oh, he was just here. He just ran out for groceries. Like, that's the way you cover for someone who is absolutely not in the same galaxy as you. Went to the gallery. That's what those calls always felt like to me. Yeah, yeah. Picking up some new art. Okay. Yeah. Let's get to the first scene of this episode.

where we say hello and then instantly goodbye to one of the most remarkable figures we have had the pleasure of spending time with inside of a Star Wars show, Captain Hale. We hardly knew you, but we do know that you were a fucking idiot. This is an astonishing... We were cracking up watching this. This was just so funny. Joanna, we get that classic overhead starship shot and then Balan and Shin arrive. Unlike us.

Captain Hale has not been studying the season preview trailers for Ahsoka. And so he does not know what is about to go down on this prison transport vessel. But we do. Do you have any notes in general before we break down on the scene on the New Republic prison transport success rate? You know, episode six of the first scene of The Mandalorian, they sprung Quim. Obviously, as you know, as you're familiar with what happened to Moff Gideon aboard Ahsoka.

His transport vessel? Yeah, there was a shard of Beskar, but other than that, he got out. I know you think about the shard of Beskar every day. Nightly. Nightly, honestly. They don't have a great track record here. No, it's not great. It's not great. But I mean, what I like is that that is like a feature, not a bug in terms of showing us what a fucking mess the New Republic is. Yeah. A lot of ample fodder in these two episodes. This guy, I mean,

By the way, watching this was such a joy. Watching this with you was such a joy that I'm kind of actively mad that I don't get to watch the rest of the season by your side. But we were just like, yeah, giggling and shaking our heads at everything Captain Hale said. Every single thing he said, we were like, you fucking moron. Should we just trade, like, trade weeks? You'll come down here, I'll go up there. Yeah.

Let's do it. Let's make it happen. I love it. Yeah. It's only another month and a half. We can do it. I think the thing that got the biggest chuckle out of us was you are no Jedi. Just some overconfident Imperial trash who just pushed their luck too far. Balan tried so hard to warn this guy, telling him he was making a mistake. But Captain Hale...

is on the power trip heat check. I have to assume that things were going well for him at work before this, and he was just feeling it and hurling up shots from midcourt at this point. What was Balin's reply? You're right about one thing, Captain. We are no Jedi. And this, of course, is when...

Yes, Rebels fans got really excited because Ahsoka Tano has this very famous line in Mallory's favorite episode, Twilight of the Apprentice, when she says, I am no Jedi.

to Darth Vader. So to hear we are no Jedi got us really excited because it puts us exactly where we want to be, which is where Mallory. We talked about this kind of in an anticipatory way heading into the show, like really when we saw the orange lightsabers for the first time in the trailer, and I was like, that's new. And the thrill of seeing those activated here. Exactly. Like, we're not the only ones hyped about Gunnar Henderson this season, playlist.

Talon and Shin, they're in the birdbath. They're in the splash zone. Look at you. You're making Orioles jokes on podcasts now. We also went to a game together. We went to Azo's and the Orioles won and we shared it together and it was beautiful. Just as it was beautiful to see these orange lightsabers activate. Until that guy right in front of me was like...

I remember he was like, she's being really patient with you. No, I loved all. I loved getting to talk with you about baseball. It was so fun. I loved it. It was a great night. It was a beautiful night. Allow me to show you our identification as an instant entry into the Hall of Fame. It was just perfect. Iconic. We should say we both adore Ray Stevenson, longtime favorite of ours. It was like so sad to see him as Balin. He's absolutely wonderful. And he, he passed away.

after production and before the show. I felt kind of uplifted because I was like, I'm so excited to get to see him do this as like his curtain call, you know? It was wonderful. And the episode was dedicated to him, of course. That was very moving as well. So yeah, that we are no Jedi. I am no Jedi connection. Like this premiere was,

really succeeded in cementing this connection across the character set. We talk often about Ahsoka and her singular white lightsaber blades and the bold decision to leave the Jedi Order and how unique that makes her. Well,

A lot of the characters in this show, including the foils, and how compelling is that for the foils to be these mirrors? That's something that we obviously always love to talk about. Are operating outside of these traditional rigid Star Wars binaries or Star Wars bodies of power and structures of power. She's not a Jedi. Our orange-bladed antagonists are...

Not Sith. They're mercenaries. Morgan, we'll talk about this more later because this was a fun one, that Nightsister lineage. But when the question, are you a witch, is posed, she says, I'm a survivor. Maruk, former Inquisitor, still wielding the blade, but he's out working on his own too. We're going to talk about him a lot. So you take a character in Ahsoka who represents this rebuke of the constraints. Yes, of systems. And you craft all of your characters in that image. How wonderful. Yeah.

Yeah, the fact that thus far we don't have a single person in the show who is using the Force the way that we are used to seeing it used is astonishing and incredible. And I think also, we talked about this a little bit on our podcast.

Ahsoka prep pod, but that line that Ahsoka has to Ezra in Rebels, you don't need to know who Ezra is, just know that this is one of Ahsoka's philosophies about the Force. She says, my experience, just when you think you understand the Force, you find how little you actually know. So the opportunity for this show to give us all of these people operating outside of the rigid system's

of power, the rigid systems of the force, allowing us to break open the possibilities of the force is tremendously exciting.

We also broke open a cell. It was tough, I will say, not to think of Ezra then. Just very used to seeing Ezra sprung from some sort of cell that he made his way into. To give some credit, to make the New Republic not seem so bad, this all starts with the jailbreak of Princess Leia, right? So it's not like the Empire was holding on to their prisoners either. So jailbreaks are in the water here. That's a great point, though...

In drawing that parallel, it's just one more way that the New Republic is ultimately like the Empire. Fair. Disaster. Their outfits are not as good. But other than that, yeah.

When Morgan tells Balin that he's a man of his word, right? He followed through. He showed up. He got her. What does he say? Well paid for it. So this idea of these characters working as mercenaries using their abilities to act in this fashion, really interesting. Like what are his motives? Well,

We'll talk a little bit about the power quote later on. What's his history? We learned something about Order 66 from Hu Yang. We'll talk about that more. But at the end of the day, what does this character want? What is he seeking and why? Good example of something where we're all on equal footing here. We're going to find that out together. Don't know. Can't wait. Yeah. Can't wait to learn. But first, we have to get a map. Joanna, please take us down into the Ruined Temple.

the Nightsisters of Dathomir on Arcana. Great planet name. Love the direct tie to Arcane. Fantastic. I think every planet name that we get here is Sea Toss. Tossed by the sea. Sea Toss. Love it. We're in these ruins.

It's an ancient Dathomirian Nightsister enclave on Arcana, as you mentioned. And as you point out in our notes, it's a ton of trailer footage here. This is something that we had theorized that most of the stuff we had seen in the trailer was probably going to be in these first few episodes. And I would say, what, 75% we've already seen? Maybe even 80%. A lot. A lot of it is in these first two episodes, yeah.

And we talked on our Ahsoka Prep Pods about the first Ahsoka Prep Pod, a lot about temples in Star Wars and Dave Filoni's fascination with temples specifically. But I just wanted to talk about

for a second about temples and ruins in Star Wars and how it connects to sort of the larger way in which we use these things in specifically, I would say, fantastical genre storytelling. This is a tradition that goes way, way back to like Beowulf and like Tolkien's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Like the Green Chapel is actually like a barrow mound. And then Tolkien himself was like the king of this, obviously. Right.

I was reading this great, I was trying to find this letter that Tolkien wrote about this and I couldn't find it, but I did find this great academic paper called Archaeology in the Sense of History of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth by Deborah Sabo. Great read. I really recommend it. But she talks about when the fellowship or

Bilbo and the dwarves travel through Middle-earth. They are constantly encountering broken-down ruins and just relics of the past along the way. Deborah writes about a landscape which carries tangible relics of the past. Here and there, this highly realized imaginary landscape is punctuated with the material leavings of more ancient inhabitants.

of lost and ruined kingdoms, which are remembered by the rustic and the learned among the book's characters through superstition, legend, poetry, and oral and written history. These memories contextualize the story's present events simultaneously for the reader and for the characters, end quote. And we're going to talk a little bit later about legends and oral history and all of that, which is also touched upon really beautifully here. But

To use the thrones example, because you and I have spent so long covering thrones, when you think of things like the Blackened Towers of Harrenhal or the Ruins of Old Valyria or the Decay of Summerhall, like these are physical ruins.

reminders of previous cycles of these same fights, or it just deepens the world to have these decayed ruins around you. And that cyclical idea, I think was like really interesting when you think about Tolkien and when you think about Star Wars, because like Tolkien is writing Lord of the Rings during the second world war, second world war of his lifetime. So he's like,

Sauron's just going to keep coming back. That's just the nature of the world we live in. Evil just keeps returning and keeps returning. So Tolkien wants these characters to pass through a scarred landscape full of all these reminders of what came before, that this is not a new battle that they're fighting. This is an old recurring battle that

And Tolkien, basically Tolkien, when he writes Lord of the Rings, dreams of like centuries and centuries and centuries of kingdoms and history and all this stuff just to collapse them into ruins for his heroes to wander around. Like, I just think that that's incredible. And I want to...

To go back to the cyclical idea, which is where we are with Star Wars, I want to finish this little mini segment by quoting the great prophet Freddie Prinze Jr. in one of the most iconic Star Wars rants of all time that I know most of you, hope most of you have seen, but you haven't, just Google Freddie Prinze Jr. Star Wars rant. I'm going to, I've elided a little bit of it for the time, but he says, I know more about the Force than most people because Dave Filoni taught me and George Lucas taught him.

All these video games have fucked people up on what the force is. Luke's skill doesn't dictate whether he wins or lose. The emperor doesn't dictate whether he wins or loses. The force dictates who wins and loses based on balance. These are George Lucas's words, not mine. So fuck you if you think you disagree with me. And if you look at the movie through just that simple perspective, you will not only know why every single bad guy loses and every single good guy loses, you'll know who's going to win and lose in the next fucking movies. I can tell you, I just don't want to wreck it. So...

I think thinking of that, I mean, genuinely iconic stuff from Freddie Prinze Jr. Tremendous, right? I mean, truly could not disagree more, but love it. Well, even if you disagree, it's true. I mean, it's like poetry. It rhymes. Star Wars is a cyclical story of evil rising and falling, et cetera. And so I think,

And we know that Dave Filoni is a huge Tolkien fan and thinks about Tolkien and Lord of the Rings all the time. It's not necessarily what George Lucas cites as a primary example. He talks about Dune and stuff like that, but Filoni loves Tolkien. And so I think his fascinations with ruins, of which we get two phenomenal ruins in these first two episodes, is part of that idea of...

leaving a physical reminder to go along with the oral tradition of what came before and how you're just in the same old fight that the heroes before you were in right and all this has happened before and will happen again all this was just very Battlestar-ian the best I love that that was awesome

when Ahsoka first finds the crest on the ground and has to run her hand over the gravel and the soot and the ash that has obscured it from view over the years. And like we build toward this vaporization and characters standing there talking about everything that has crumbled and it barely looks any different than the state she found it in, you know? Um,

This first moment with our titular protagonist, Ahsoka herself, we get this really fancy, badass lightsaber maneuver to slice into the cavern below. Thought it looked extremely dope. I do think that if you're trying to make your way into a secret chamber...

Who knows what you might crush beneath it? What if the star map had been right there? Maybe she used the force to sense that it was a safe landing spot. I also feel like every archaeologist cringed when they saw that. They're like, that's not how you treat

An ancient ruin. Listen, again, it's it's just a clear Indiana Jones homage. And our guy was just constantly like knocking over graves and hurling precious skeletons to the side to advance in his journey. So we're proud of a part of another proud Lucasfilm tradition here as well.

Joanna, inside, Ahsoka finds three mysterious carvings, these etchings, engravings in the wall. Now, this was what we thought based on the trailer. This is what we referenced. We thought, okay, maybe this is the daughter, one of the ones, the Mortis gods. Now...

I think that is seeming, it's not a complete impossibility, and Ben will explain why a little bit later when he joins us for our lore segment, but it is seeming less likely, I think, for a couple clear reasons, most of which have to do with past history. Ahsoka would have recognized these figures as the Mortis gods, given her time, her

on Mortis, her death and resurrection by the daughter. I think similarly, Sabine, you know, we get that three figures, three faces line, but she's not like, hey, wait a minute, these look familiar to me, like another version of the figures I saw in the mural on the Jedi Temple on Lothal and Wolves in a Door and World Between Worlds. So we're dealing probably with something else, maybe something that is connected deep in that history, as you're noting, and leads to another rendering and another cycle. We will theorize with Ben later.

This was one of the scenes similar to the Sabine puzzle solving sequence with the map itself later that moved quite slowly. Now, I really admired the pacing of this stretch. It was...

So methodical and deliberate as the tension built and mounted. And I also enjoy more broadly the mystery box element. Like we have to solve something. We're on a quest that requires answering questions. And then those answers will just give us more questions, right? Which happens here as well. Like we have the map in Ahsoka's hand at the end, but we're wondering like, okay, we know that

Ahsoka's there because Morgan's information led her there. How did Morgan find this place? Is it the Nightsister tie? Is it those whispers, those mysterious whispers she thinks Thrawn is calling to her? Is that what's happening? Is somebody else leading her there? We'll talk about that more later. I really dug the piece. What about you? I have a mini theory about that that I am going to drop here, but I... And I should say, we're going to do our main theory section at the end of the pod, but we will have little mini what-ifs here and there, of course. Um...

The pacing was a one... When you and I got out of watching these two episodes back to back and I had the best time with you...

I thought the show did a really good job of telling you who the people were. I did think all of that would be welcoming. I thought the pacing was like the one thing that I was a little worried about for other people. It didn't bother me, but I was just sort of like rewatching the Jedi, the Dave Filoni episode of the Mandalorian where we meet Ahsoka. It is very much like this. It is very slow and methodical. It is very samurai film-esque, samurai cinema. And, um,

So, you know, the Midnight Boys... We have our cub there. Here we only have our lone wolf, you know? Yeah, the Midnight Boys, you know, Van specifically was talking about how he misses rollicking Star Wars. And I would just say in general, I don't think any live-action Star Wars that we've gotten so far has been rollicking the way that some of the films can feel. I feel like we talked about this a bit with The Mandalorian where...

Mandalorian is a stoic character and the way that the Mandalorian bounces off of Grogu is adorable. But when it's like the Mandalorian and Bo-Katan, sometimes you're like, oh, two stoics walk into a room and they take their time saying what they need to say, you know? And so I think that that is something that like is across all of our Star Wars live action. You know, the Obi-Wan we meet in Obi-Wan is like a somber dude. Like we are in somber territory with a lot, you know, and obviously Andor has similar traits.

So, yeah, I mean, it worked for me, but I can see why people are flagging it as something. And then to get to my, like, little theory about...

This map, which we're going to continue to talk about. We got this email from my pal Seth, so I'm going to read it because Seth's a long-time listener. He says, I have a question about the star map business. I get that Ezra and Thrawn got zapped away by the hyperspeed space whale thingies at the end of Rebels, and that's why they're quote-unquote missing. But how could there be a star map to where the space Moby Dick's fucked off to? Who made it, et cetera? Am I missing key canon info, or is this just an open question for everyone that we expect the show to get into? So,

Here's my theory, is that if Thrawn is calling to Morgan, as she sort of says later, my theory is that this is not a map of like, this is the map to Thrawn or this is the map to Ezra. It's this is the map to where the purgles like to hang out and, you know, spawn or whatever. And so in my imagined scenario, Thrawn through the Whisper Network is like, Morgan, I'm

There's a bunch of space whales here and they're spawning constantly. Come find me where the space whales spawn. And, you know, shout out chapter 94 of Moby Dick. And I think that...

I think that's what we're looking at is sort of a Pergal-based information and not necessarily, like, Thrawn-specific information. Because I had a lot of people ask me about, like, how could something so ancient be used to pinpoint Thrawn who only disappeared, you know...

several years ago to quote Clancy Brown. And I would say I think it's Pergal-based rather than Thrawn-based. Yeah, I mean, I guess we can talk about this more when we get to the Cetus scenes where they're talking about the pathway and we'll talk about it more with Ben after that. But it's the pathway in these two galaxies, like that all...

Obviously, well and long predates. That's what Thrawn and Ezra traveled along. That's where the Purgles took them. But there would, in theory, be a marker, a map left to how to travel between these by those beings long ago.

But how does Morgan know that that's the path is the question we are all asking ourselves. I am wondering, I'll throw my little theory out here, which is I think clearly they're going to find Thrawn. We know Thrawn's in the show. That's not a mystery.

I think that Balin, there have been a number of times in these couple episodes where he seems very wary of the course that she's setting. And I think that is priming us for a surprise that she is not anticipating on the other end. Will Thrawn be there? Yes. Will Ezra be there? Who knows? But perhaps whatever these ancient beings are, whomever they are, whatever else is there in the Purgle pathway network, maybe

What if this is like the beast from Doctor Who or like the Dweller in Darkness from Shang-Chi and something needs someone to open the door? I'm not sure that whisper is thrown. It's a trap. Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. We'll see. We'll see. Let's spend some time in one of our happiest places. Let's go hang out. You just invoked Doctor Who. Yeah, it's perfect. Joanna. Joanna.

David Tennant is a main character in this show. Hu Yang is a main character in this show. We're shocked. We're losing our minds. Delighted, but shocked. Was there a single scenario where you considered that Hu Yang would have this prominent of a role? I thought he was going to be in like three scenes tops. I thought we were getting like, he's just going to like, come give us a little lightsaber lore download and then leave. I had no idea because we were talking about it and we were like,

We think he's, I would say he's the third lead of the first episode and the fourth lead, like he and Hera sort of flip and he's like the fourth lead of the second episode, but that's still way higher than I thought David Tennant was going to be on the list. So we're thrilled. What a time to be us. Voiced this droid when he appeared in Clone Wars. But yeah, hot David Tennant summer rolls on. So you mentioned the Clone Wars. So Ahsoka and Hu Yang,

have this history. We watched them together in the gathering arc of season five of The Clone Wars. Hu Ying was, he is an architect, professor droid, but his role during the heyday of the Jedi Order was to help younglings forge their blades after they had found their kyber crystals. So Ahsoka has this history forging her blade

herself, her initial saber, but also she, and we got to see this in the Clone Wars, took younglings to Hu Yang to find their crystals to forge their blades. So I'm so... It's really fun to see them back together again, even though we only got like a little bit. That's a four-episode arc, and I think Hu Yang is in three of those episodes.

When did they reunite? Like, which of them sought the other out? How long have they been together? I'm so interested to find out. Clearly, from the context clues in these episodes, specifically the way that Sabine and Hui Yang are interacting, he was around during the master and apprentice stretch where she was training. He's very familiar with everything that happened there. But how did he come to be in their lives again? To be clear,

We don't know about the initial Sabine and Ahsoka training. We don't know about that. If you're watching the show, you might think we do. No, no, definitely. But I just want to make it clear that there was a time when Ahsoka trained Sabine in the past. We've never seen it. It didn't happen in the animated shows. So this is all new for us as well. So we don't know when she got...

a hot Scottish droid sidekick. But here... I mean, actually, he's using his British accent. But, like, here we are. All right. His English accent is happening. He should go full Scots, I think. But that's fine. Here we are. I love this. I think it's phenomenal. I think it's a great way to... Like...

It's not convenient that this droid can identify the hilt of a lightsaber. This is literally what this specific droid does. This was our theory that he would be like, this is how I'm going to tell you that Balin was ours. I'd like to get credit where there's credits too. So...

He's piloting the T6, the old T6 shuttle, Ahsoka, loyal to her ride. And this is another stretch where we get a little bit of like, let's clarify some relationships to things you know in Star Wars, like the Jedi Order, right? So we get to hear who Yang talk about following Jedi mission protocol. That's why he was keeping the ship at a distance to put it out of comms range. She's reminding him that the Order doesn't exist anymore. So...

I also thought that was like a maybe a, oh, this is before the Luke scene in Boba kind of vibe. But again, who knows? You're right. Shouldn't harp on it. Can't help it, but shouldn't. And we'll try not to. But you're you and I love you. You know, I love to try to put together a timeline just so I could be utterly dismayed when the show. You're just like itching to type BBY into the notes somewhere. And yet you cannot. So here we are. The.

That is the job of a Jedi Padawan learner, which I am not lying, was a great one because she's like, just have my back. Just be there. Just watch. And this is going to be a through line of these two episodes where Hu Yang and Hera both are trying to push Ahsoka and Sabine back together. Yeah.

And when we were talking in our Ahsoka prep, our last Ahsoka prep pod, we were talking about her as like in isolation, as the wanderer, as alone. And I mean, it turns out she has a droid psychic, which is not, I don't want to leave him out of it. Like she's got a droid psychic, but this idea that like- This podcast is on the record. Sorry. Two of the three members of this Zoom are on the record.

that droids are people. And eventually Joanna sort of conceded the point after an impassioned and beautiful speech from Steve. Catch up on Armando, Paz. Droids, I mean, the thing about Star Wars is that droids are people until they're not, until like the needs to explode one happens. Anyway, um...

I mean, he's basically saying, like, I'm just a droid on the spectrum who knows every, like, hilt of a lightsaber that ever happened. You need someone who's going to, like, engage with you a bit more. You need a Padawan. You need a trainer, someone to train. You need someone to interact with. So you shouldn't travel in the TARDIS alone just with me. Get a Padawan. You need a companion. Before you can really push the point, they receive a summons from Home 1, and they receive it

fulcrum call sign. I need to read this email from Courtney though, because this is astonishing. Courtney, Courtney, let us know that in the recent novel, the canon novel brotherhood in describing this character that David Tavit voices, who Yang is,

It says, Professor Hu Yang was so old, the ancient droid supposedly arrived at the Jedi Temple in a big blue box thousands of years ago, which is just a dorky Doctor Who reference that they put into a canon Star Wars novel. Love it. All right. Absolutely tremendous. Do you think that Hu Yang wants to join us for one of our Doctor Who pods? Hu Yang, yes. David Tennant, less so, probably. So we'll see. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, do you cross? Cross-promoting the soundboard. Incredible stuff, Steve. That would not have been my guess for first deployment of the soundboard, but I'm overjoyed that it was. To home one we go. Fulcrum call sign still in use. You love to see it. Nice to know that some people never change their cell phone numbers, Jo. My sister still has a Brooklyn area code. She hasn't lived there for like 20 years. Morgan. Morgan.

It's just a big pod today for Morgans. Yeah. When they land, Hera is there to greet Ahsoka. This was wonderful. This is great. Hera, Spectre 2 from the Ghost Crew from Rebels. Top tier pilot, one of the best in the biz, Republic General.

The kind of mom of the crew, as we talked about on our primer pods. She and Ahsoka work together. They have a long history in the rebellion. Hera was the one interacting with Ahsoka as Fulcrum in the early stretch of Rebels. Very fun to see them together and, like, again, kind of wonder while...

They seem really happy to see each other. How long has it been? We're going to talk about some things in a minute that clearly they are not aware of and have not shared with each other that indicates, hey, maybe it's been a minute. That's kind of sad. We get a fun little wink to us with the, this is specifically about somebody being busted out of prison and something going wrong and the mission completely falling apart. We get that fun little just like old times line followed by an unfortunately, you know, not unfortunate for us. Very fortunate, Joe. This was wonderful. Mm-hmm.

When Hera shows Ahsoka the hollow of Balon and Shin, who are not yet identified here, Hera observes that they have abilities, that they seem like Ahsoka. And Ahsoka says, and there's a lot of despair in her voice as she says this, these days there are few who can wield the Force.

Back in that episode of Season 2 of Mando, the Jedi, she told Din at the end when she was telling him, let Grogu choose his path. He can reach out. Maybe a Jedi will come. Then again, there aren't many Jedi left. So this idea is very top of mind for Ahsoka. How could it not be? How many Force users are... How many Force sensitives are out there? How many people are out there who would be fighting for the light and...

It's extra fascinating for us to hold on. In every new story. More than you realized were there before. More than you thought when you watched the original trilogy, but that's okay. But it's so... This is so interesting to me in the context of knowing now, which we learned in this episode, that she walked away from training Sabine and in knowing she refused to train Grogu because she is... And how could she not? She's very focused on the fact that this is a dwindling total, but is...

incredibly reluctant and resistant to being the one who is directly helping to fuel those ranks again. Now that we know a bit more about Ahsoka and Sabine's past, we can go back to that interaction in that episode, The Jedi, when she says she does not want to train Grogu. And as we discussed on one of our primer pods, like,

She's talking about Anakin when she says, you know, I've seen the best of us. I've seen this go badly for them. But is her reluctance to train Grogu flavored by her attempt to train Sabine, which went poorly? It has to have flavored that. So that's fun little information, new information for all of us about Ahsoka's journey from

to Jedi to not a Jedi to a master force wielder, even though she's not a Jedi, technically. Absolutely. Absolutely. So fascinating exchange after this. Ahsoka's like, it wasn't a total waste of a day. I found this star map. This one holds the secret Morgan's after, she says, which is, Hera asks, the location of the last missing Imperial Grand Admiral. Then she pauses really dramatically and

Silence on the other end. Thrawn. Now, I... This was one of the most interesting little things in the episode to me. Realizing that Ahsoka has not told Hera or Sabine that she is on Thrawn's and thus...

Ezra's trail, like that they might be out there. Now you could say maybe she's just waiting until she had like enough to go to them with. And that would be, I think, valid, right? You don't want to get their hopes up until you have a way. But I was thinking back again to that moment earlier in Chapter 13, The Jedi, that initial interaction between Ahsoka and Morgan when Morgan says, I've been expecting you. And Ahsoka says, then you know what I want.

which sort of indicates to us that her search for Thrawn had reached the level that people in his orbit would have been aware of it. So, like, she'd been doing this for a while and never told them. Lone wolf indeed. Yeah, I guess, I mean, that's a good character analysis of it. To me, it feels like a slight fudge in order to, you know, seed a little exposition in, right? To have this interaction with Hera informs us, the audience, of, like...

Someone named Thrawn is missing. Right. Someone named Ezra is also missing. Remember when I was telling you about Thrawn? Yeah, that's it. Remember how I told you I was talking to you about Thrawn? I mean, that's so dumb. Yeah, and so Hera says that's not possible. That's not possible! Anyway, she says that's not possible. Thrawn died in the Battle of...

a Tosche station because of power converters. Oh, God. Thrawn died at the Battle of Lothal. And I, you know, and his death was never confirmed. And so... What did you make of this? Something that... So, yeah, something that we are asking ourselves is, you know, at the end of Rebels, a character named Ezra sets up a scenario where a bunch of space whales called Pergles take him and Grand Admiral Thrawn to another galaxy. Yeah.

sacrificing himself to take Thrawn off the board, right? Whatever happens to me happens to you now. That's what I'm counting on. Takes him off the board to give his pals a victory. Takes him off the board so that we can understand why Ezra is not in the original trilogy of films, but never confirmed dead. And so I like the idea that you floated this idea that enough time has passed that they're like, well...

they're probably dead. You have to fill out the death certificate paperwork at some point. So at this point, they've been gone so long, they might as well be dead. I've decided that they're dead. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah, this did strike me as odd just because in the immediate moments after Ezra and Thrawn and the Purgles poured away, Hera's like, Rex, bring up every star chart. Ezra's last known trajectory. Like, they are intending...

Now we know, of course, from the Rebels epilogue that they haven't found him and that they're setting out, right? But Hera found out she was pregnant. She had a baby. She has a kid to raise. Where is Jason in these episodes? You think our guy is like at, is he with the babysitter? Where is he? What's he up to? When will we see him? Is that Chopper's job? No, Chopper is too busy yelling at Hera for going through his stuff.

Valerie Rubin, I would never promise you. I would never. I would never promise you that you would see a character. Not after you promised me that I would see Cobb Vanth and I didn't. I still feel bad about that one. Jason Sandula, I hope we see before the season is over. I'm a little worried about

I'm a little worried that Hera isn't going on this journey to the other galaxy and that Mary Elizabeth Winstead is only going to be in, like, the first half of the season. I have no evidence for that. I'm just a little worried because, like, she's got a job to do and a kid. Like, is she going to go on that adventure? I don't know. Maybe he's with a really good babysitter. Okay. Maybe that's where Zeb is.

But here's what I will tell you right now. I told Lindbergh this when we were working on his column. I'm telling you this now, Steve, I'm telling this to you too. You know, Ezra, everything we've already said about not getting too hung up on the exact timeframe. It's been at a minimum a decade since Ezra disappeared. Ezra disappears close to, but before the battle of Yavin.

I think that this like idea of this hope that he could be found, that he's okay, mixed in with this guilt that if he is, oh my God, he's been out there waiting all this time. And he said to us in his farewell message, I can't wait to come home. And we didn't find him. Like, how would that, God, how would that haunt you? I will not wait 10, let's just say somewhere between 10 to 12 years.

10 to 11 years, 9 to 11. I will not wait around a decade to go look for you, Joanna. And I don't want you to wait that long to look for me. I would never would. I'd be confirmed dead. That's the thing. You won't have to wonder. I'll just be like, whoops, I didn't get out of the dome in time before we blew it up. I'd be like,

Fuck the Battle of Yavin. Fuck rebuilding a new empire. I don't care about my kid that I had with the love of my life. I gotta go find Mallory Rubin. It's very important. Does that... Wait, I'm not the love of your life? Okay, tough way to find out, but... Wow. We all have boundaries, I guess. Here we are. Bad baby. When Ahsoka reveals to Hera that they can't unlock the map, Hera has an idea. Sabine, she'll be able to figure it out. Guess what? Hera was right. However...

There is some emotional weight that is standing in the way of making this a smooth journey. I'm not sure she'll want to help, Ahsoka says. She'll do it, Hera replies for Ezra. And so it is time to go back to Lothal. Live action Lothal. I thought this was like one of the more emotional moments of the...

Of the double premier as a rebel's head. Just being in Lothal? Just being there. And, like, being there, but, like, in all the little things, you know, the helmets in Ezra's room, the Lothcats, obviously the new Lothcat, who we'll talk about, like, but in general, the Lothcats out in the grass, like, Sabine riding her speeder down that road that we'd seen Ezra and our specters travel down so many times before, the comms tower, the mural. But, like, also...

especially toward the end of Rebels, the Imperial presence is so oppressive. The shipyards, the factories, the fuel centers, there are troopers everywhere. There are star destroyers blotting out the sun. There's smoke clogging the air. And like, Lothal looked beautiful. And they did that. Sparkling, white city. And that was just like, really, yeah, it was, I thought, amazingly emotional. Absolutely.

As was realizing that we were at the reveal of the mural, the mural from the epilogue. This is like the dedication of the mural. So we are, this is another, okay, definitively we are before the Rebels epilogue in these episodes and build toward that inside of the second episode. Joanna, who do we see up there leading the ceremony? Yes.

So exciting. But, okay, like, I feel you on your emotional reaction to this, and I love that, and I support it. I also, I just don't, like, all these things are true. At the same time, I feel like if you're seeing with his fresh eyes, it doesn't, you don't need to know that Governor Ryder Azadi is a character that we met in Rebels. You can just be like, fucking Clancy Brown is here. How exciting. I love Clancy Brown. I love when he does literally anything, whether it be on Lost or Carnival or who cares. I'm a big Clancy Brown head. Like,

or Jai Kel, who's played by, I believe it's Vinnie Thomas, who I know from like literally TikTok sketches. So I was like, good job, Vinnie. You're in a Star War. He has a great aliens coming to Earth for the first time. TikTok, you've never seen it. But all this talk about how there are hardly any force wielders and everyone's just letting Jai Kel's force powers wither on the fucking vine, Jo.

Our guy sprung by Ezra back in the day from the Imperial Academy, put into hiding. But this is my... I mean, that's great context, but you don't need to know that in order to know where you are is, I think, the point I'm trying to make. And I think that...

I loved seeing Lothal. It reminds me of Gondor, like the beautiful white sparkling city. Like it's just absolutely beautiful. But I also love this introduction. I love this introduction of Sabine so much. This was amazing. She ditches. She doesn't show and then we cut to her. It's like Bueller. Like it's very like, you know, Sabine, not again. Sabine.

Um, and we just get like, we get fun. First of all, we get punk rock music, which we like never get in Star Wars. And first of all, it sounds like it belongs versus like some of the shit we got in, you know, a book of Boba Fett. Um, and then she's just speeding down the road, fucking with space cops.

She's got chip nails. She's got her incredible hair longer than we've ever seen it before. Yeah, it's like reminded me of like meeting Marty McFly. Like I just love I love this intro for her. And again, I just don't think you need to know who she is to be excited to meet her because she's someone who's like, you know, ditches important ceremonies, has no respect for the cops, listens to cool music.

I loved her. Thrilled. Charting her own course. It was really fun to see the signature Sabine paintings, the doodles on the helmet. Got some E-Wing action here. They're using the Spectre call sign, Spectre 2-1, like the idea that the Spectre call sign is still in use and more and more people are adopting it and the ranks of the Spectres have kind of like swollen in this way.

Did you get a these two have fucked before vibe from Sabine and Porter? When you literally said that to me when we were watching it, then did you agree? Felt some energy between those two. Sabine gets such an interesting. I mean, yes, there's definitely like a history of like they know each other. And I just I hope so.

I know that Sabine gets, like, she gets an iconic Lonely Girl intro, and we'll talk about that in a second. It's a Star Wars staple. But, like, I think that I don't like the idea of her just, like, being in the tower with her cat all the time. Maybe, like, most of the time. And then sometimes she goes down to a Lothal bar and just, like, picks up a space cop for a night or whatever. So, yeah. Let's talk about that cat. It is time to discuss. Or she knew him before he was a cop, and then she was like, too bad you're a cop now. Okay. Um...

Lothal, Lothcats, let's do it. This is just absolutely sensational. Not only is the Lothcat who is in Ezra's Tower where Sabine has made a home a main primary figure in these two episodes and absolutely wonderful. The puppet work is sensational. The chirps, the meows, the purrs, the hisses, the arched back, all of it. Wanting to knock around the star map like a ball.

This is just a full-on cat person scene. Like, there is petting and scratching and affectionate exchanges. There is a feeding session, a bowl of food, rubbing the loaf cat's back as he eats. We don't have a name for the cat.

And I will also say we do not have the merch that we should. This is just like, I don't know if you went to the like, hey, scan your QR code for exclusive merch thing on Disney Plus like I immediately did. Nothing. On the Love Cat plushie front. But I know this because my friend Lana told me this. But like, I don't, I was actually gratified to see that because in the THR review of this episode, which was not as favorable as ours, I

There was this very snarky comment about the Loath Cat written by my friend Dan Feinberg. I love him. But like a very snarky comment about the Loath Cat just being there for merch. And I was like, I mean, like we talked about this when we watched this. We are diehard cat people. And watching every single thing that this Loath Cat does, we're like, this was made by a cat person. Which caused me to Google Dave Filoni again.

What'd you find? And find out that he is a massive cat person. That, in fact, Bo-Katan Kreese is named after his wife's cat. That he has named things after other cats in his life. If you go to Wookieepedia, it is just littered with references to Dave Filoni's cats, both living and deceased. This man loves cats. This, I believe, solidifies once and for all that Grogu is cat-coded, not dog-coded, because Dave Filoni... I mean, we already know.

Canonical cat guy. And it comes through. We got so many emails about the loathcats because people know how we feel about cats, but I'm just going to read this one from Rebecca because it made me laugh.

Rebecca writes, does the loath cat know how to use the elevator? Because Sabine kind of seems like she's holding that cat hostage 200 feet in the air, not feeding it after coming home from an unknown number of days away getting repaired. Just saying it might be better off frolicking in the tall grass with its other LC buddies catching food and whatnot.

And I kind of agree. Like, I feel sure this cat comes and goes. Definitely. But like in a mysterious, like T.S. Eliot kind of way where it's just sort of like you don't really know, like Macavity, the wonder cat or something like that. I mean, the loaf wolves could create a portal that goes halfway across the planet in an instant. So who knows what's possible? These are magical creatures, but also, you know, cats can climb, they can scale, they can certainly jump and press buttons. I refuse to believe this loaf cat can. He's the elevator. Yeah.

I simply refuse. And when the merch that I coveted crave arrives, I bet. I want you to have the merch. I don't want the merch to not exist. I just want it to be proven that it's like not there just for merch. Um,

I love that you said cats can climb when we're talking about the like LaFalle equivalent of the Burj Khalifa. Like the cat is not Tom Cruise. It cannot scale that tower. No. Maybe there's like a system that they've set up. Yeah. Of pulleys. I like that. Yeah. Like a little basket that the cat can move. I'm here for the portal theory works for me. The portal theory works for me. Okay.

It's time to talk about Ezra, a character who had quite a connection to the Lothcats, that force power, that animal bond. Because as Sabine is making her way through this room, again, this is where Ezra, after his parents were imprisoned and he was on his own before he joined the Spectres, this tower was where Ezra lived. This was his hideout. So Sabine has chosen very deliberately to make her home in Lothcats.

This place that on the one hand is like surrounded by memories, but also kind of surrounded by ghosts. It was very, very sad. And she's going through a box of stuff. We get to see when she's petting sweet Bubba. I'm just going to call the Loth-Cat sweet Bubba because we don't have a name yet. We see her Mandalorian helmet kind of tucked away underneath on the lower shelf of a table. And she pulls out this disc and boots up the hologram. We had seen this in the trailers, I had assumed.

that she was watching over and over again, the final transmission, the message Ezra had left to all of them. But we learn that this is a message just for her. Steve, can we hear this? Hey, Sabine. Sorry for disappearing on you. I made this recording because more than the others, I need you to understand. As a Jedi, sometimes you have to make the decision no one else can. So that's what I did to defeat Thrawn. We've been through a lot, grew up together in this rebellion.

Joanna, this made me weepy. This was extremely emotional for me. I did have inside of the incredible tenderness and despair a... I believe I turned to you and said, a sister you want to fuck?

Like, when he says you're like a sister to me, does he mean in the Targaryen, Jaime Cersei Lannister way? Shuby clear. Ezra spent at least the first two years on the ghost, like, with a hard-on for Sabine. Like, 100%. Yes. Like, so when he says you're like a sister to me? Okay, but...

On a writing front, this is a brand new little hollow that we're all seeing. On a writing front, let's take off the exposition information that they put into this little speech that Filoni wrote here, right? As a Jedi, all right, this guy's a Jedi. He's disappeared. Sabine is more important to him than anyone else is. The eye did something to defeat Thrawn.

We grew up together in the Rebellion. We're not literally family, but you're like a sister to me. A sister I want to fuck. But also found family is beautiful. You know, so like, I'm a Jedi. We're close, but not blood-related.

I'm not going to admit on this hollow that I want to fuck you, but not as close as I want to be. But you know what I mean? When people are like, I don't know who Ezra is. I'm like, this hollow just told you who Ezra is. That's all you really need to know about Ezra, honestly, at this point. And let me just say this.

I do have a question about verb tenses. So that's what I did to defeat Thrawn. When did he, did he make this hollow with a tremendous amount of confidence that he was going to defeat Thrawn? Because we assume he made those hollows before he had to have before his showdown with Thrawn. So here's my assumption because Chopper plays the message to the group in the Rebels finale. I think he left Chop with the instructions. Hey, if this goes well,

If I get him out, I think Chopper knew his plan. And he's like, if this, if I did it, it's like, it's like on that episode of, it's like on that episode of full house where they get Joey a cake. And if he does well, it says congrats, Joey. And if he's not going to do well, they're going to, it's just going to say rats. Joey. How many other messages Chopper has? Like maybe he's got a Tony Stark. And it didn't help at all whatsoever. Yeah.

I always wanted to fuck you and I never got a chance to tell you that. XOXO, Ezra. But you knew. Let's be honest. You knew. I just want to say this about if you don't, if you like, I heard the number one complaint I heard from people was why should I give a fuck about Ezra? I don't know who he is. And I'm like, well, he matters to this character Sabine. And the point of these two episodes is to get you to care about Sabine. If you don't care about Sabine, that's a different issue. But I don't think you really need to know or care about Ezra yet because

And in that function, he is very much this like very classic trope, except we usually see women play it. And I'm, it's the dead wife trope, right? So like Memento, Fugitive, The Crow, John Wick, Gladiator, Braveheart, Punisher, The Revenant, Shutter Island, every Nolan film ever. It's, it's the, it's the like, she's standing on a beach. She's playing with the kids. She's under the sheets laughing. It's the dead wife, but it's Ezra. And he loves her like a sister, but also not like a sister. So,

I think that's all you need to know. He's the MacGuffin, essentially. And really, like, I genuinely think the big mystery of this show, at least for the first half, is not where are Ezra and Thrawn. I mean, that's a literal mystery, I suppose. But it's like, what the fuck happened with Ahsoka and Sabine? That's the real mystery. And in that respect, we are all on the same page. So, yeah. Beautifully said. Overjoyed to see Ezra, who I love dearly. Yeah.

I loved when he did the little like neck rub thing. Like that was like a classic Ezra. He's just very special. Very special. I can't wait to see him more. I hope we see him soon. Who knows? This episode is brought to you by Vitamin Water. Food, entertainment, sports teams. New York City is one of those places that oozes choice. It's got something for every taste. So it's fitting that Vitamin Water was born there. It's a product of its environment. Colorful,

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Baelin and Shin, the Padawan braid, very visible here. I liked this, that Baelin has kept this tradition intact. Ask Morgan what this place is. And Joanna, she says, an ancient temple built by my ancestors, the Nightsisters of Dathomir. This is where we get that Yorowitch, a survivor line.

Tell us about the Nightsisters of Dathomir. Gladly, because I have heard from a bunch of people like, what? LOL, there are witches in Star Wars now? Guess what? They've been here since 1994. So we talk a lot about legends versus canon. So they have their origins and legends in this truly demented book, Courtship of Princess Leia, written by Dave Wolverton, 1994.

But he creates the Witches of Dathomir. George Lucas liked them and then ported them over for Maul's backstory, very much simplified the Witches of Dathomir. And in the canon, most of the Nightsisters were massacred on Dathomir during the Clone Wars. Like that's the canon story of them. And they are in the Clone Wars quite a bit. And they are in the, yeah, the Clone Wars TV series. But Dathomir itself in Legends is a long history of the Force.

There's a Sith Academy there. They are part of like the founding of the Jedi. I never know how to say Jedi in that way that makes it sound ye olde timey. Jedi. Jedi. The founding of the Jedi. Yeah.

is interesting is that in the legends version and we know how much that dave filoni loves porting over legend stuff that is not um canon yet there are it's the the night sisters are just one of many tribes within the witches of dathomir there are much more like northern california hippie sounding tribes of the witches of dathomir singing mountain dreaming river misty falls like those aren't dark side users in fact like they had a book of law they followed

The main law was never concede to evil. And if you did, you got kicked out. And all the people who got kicked out were like, guess what? There are enough of us to form our own clan. And we are the Nightsisters. We had a badass name. We wear red. We are extremely hot. And we use the dark side of the force. And it manifests as like green fire, which you see Morgan use a little bit later in episode two.

In as recently, though, as 2020's Clone Wars Stories of Light and Dark Anthology, there's a story in there called Bug where there is a witch, not to be confused with my cat's name, where there is a witch of Dathomir who is not a Nightsister. So that does establish in canon that it's not just the Nightsisters who are witches of Dathomir.

re-expanding the concept of what a witch of Dathomir could be. This woman, like very much like in Greek mythology has created a daughter for herself out of like the very earth. That is a very like light side one with the forest kind of thing to do. Um, but even if you're like, okay, I don't know anything about these witches. I've never seen witches in Star Wars before. Um,

Sidious himself is like fairly witchy to be clear. Like blue lightning is one thing, but I will say that in both Clone Wars and Rebels, we have seen him use a literal cauldron with like blue flames coming out of it. Like there has been some very witchy stuff from good old Palpy as well. Anything else you want to say about the Nightsisters? They're very hot.

I love all of the Nightsisters action in Clone Wars. There's a fun Maul comics arc that has a lot of good Mother Talzin Nightsisters action in there. Maul is the son of Mother Talzin, who was the leader of the clan that we spend time with in Clone Wars. Love a Knight Brother. There's a lot of great characters across canon associated with the Nightsisters and with Dathomir. I guess the only other thing I would mention is just that

Ahsoka and Sabine both have direct history with these magic wielders. In Sabine's case, she found the Darksaber in Maul's, like, fucked up Sabine, Satine altar lair on Dathomir, and there was, like, a possession. And so the fact that Morgan...

It extends from this lineage. It's just something that will be meaningful to those characters. There's also the mention of Survivor. We did get an email from a listener, George, who mentioned that just a hell of a cause back earlier this year. There's a Jedi Survivor video game and one of the main characters was a Nightsister named Meryn.

main character of both Survivor and Fallen Order. And so when Morgan Elspeth essentially looks at the camera and says, I'm a survivor, George says he and his brother did the Leo pointing meme of like, oh my God. Anyway.

The Nightsisters, they're out here. I haven't played that yet. I did enjoy Fallen Order, but I still have to get to Survivor. In George's email, he's like, Mallory, might I play this game? Joanna, I know that you have not. And I was like, factually true. I wanted to mention to you, Jo, because this is something that we both really love talking about and that you drew particular attention to in the preview pods. When...

They're here like, oh, okay, is the map here? Did she get it? What happened? Oh, wait, this place blew up. Good. She got out of here with it. And Balin says they're lucky if she left with it. And Morgan says luck has nothing to do with it. Fate has decided our next move. So a character here driven by that idea of fate and a guiding hand, always something that we like to track. Yeah.

I'm going to have more to say about that a little bit later, but she says the threads of fate also later. Yes. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. She sends... We won't spend much time on this because this is just total speculation. I have no idea what the answer is, but I did think this was intriguing. Morgan tells Shin to go to Lothal, and when Shin asks Bailen, like, hey, what's up with this? Also, why is she ordering me around? Aren't you my guy? He says Ahsoka Tano's former apprentice is on Lothal. You're looking for Sabine Wrenn.

How does he know that? The number of people who would know that

that Ahsoka had taken Sabine as an apprentice would be exceedingly small. So is this meant to tell us something about we do get that great scene later where he's like reaching out to kind of censor through the force? He senses things. Like he is, maybe this is an insight into his power. Maybe he's just like us. He's like a big prepper. You know, does a lot of research before a pod. And he's like, I think my work is on Mike Mercenary seriously. Wiki-ing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Can I put a completely baseless theory question? I mean, absolutely. Do you think Shin is his daughter? Because the Jedi wouldn't do that, but they're not Jedi. I like it. I like it. I kind of like it. Yeah.

I don't know why not. I dig it. Let's do it. I like this idea that he's like, Order 66 happens, he's traumatized by it or whatever, then he has a daughter and she's a, is, you know, has connections with the Force. He's like, I'm going to train you and we're going to make a bunch of money while we do it. Let's go. You and me, babe. I love this. The idea of her also having the orange blade, like, kind of, I

I mean, you could pass down and have an inheritance regardless of a bloodline, but that would be really great too. I thought you were going to say Order 66 happened. He went out and just started having a ton of sex. Maybe that would be the backstory. Bad baby. I'll just do it for Steve. Okay. Steve's getting dinner. You know, we work in the evening hours. No, he's... I'm not.

Joanna, one thing that we love in a Star Wars episode of television is a title that applies to many different characters inside of the episode of television. Master and Apprentice is no exception. Vaylin and Shym, Ahsoka and Anakin, Ahsoka and Sabine, and it is time for them to reunite on LaFall. This is where we get the first but not the last Sabine sleeping and falling

fretfully dreaming sequence. Twitching and muttering. The old force twitching and force muttering. Very active sleeper, Sabine Wren. And she's dreaming about Ezra. And as she wakes, she says his name. And then the ding of the motion sensor indicating that Ahsoka, that her ship is flying overhead, activates. And it sort of seems to indicate to us like there is a tether to the force that

These are force streams in some capacity. She sensed something before it activated. This is just like one more little data point to kind of keep in mind as we get to a discussion later about the question of Sabine Wren's force sensitivity. When she sees the T6. If you could put force in front of any other word and that would be your special power, what would you like to force do? Let me think about it. What's your answer? We're running long. Cut this out, Steve. Let's move on. I'm at it. Next time you ask, I'll be ready.

So she sees Ahsoka's ship. Obviously, she recognizes it. She heads out to meet them. Very sad little moment where when Governor Azadi's like, you were missed, you know, everyone was there. What does she say? Not everyone. And she's just this grief is heavy in her heart. Missing Ezra, missing Kanan didn't feel right to be there without them there, too.

We see this little shorthand, these in-jokes, the charm, the affection between Hu Yang and Sabine. Still in one piece? Oh, yes. And still 75% original parts. But the tension with Ahsoka is palpable. They both have the body language indicators, the crossed arms, kind of leaning back away from each other. And...

Ahsoka does not lead with Thrawn, which is what she did with Hera. She leads with Ezra. She's making the appeal to Sabine that she knows will get Sabine in the door. I think I know how to find Ezra. And so they go back to the T6.

What does Sabine look at? Where does she go right away, Jo? To her bunk. She goes to her bunk and she sees these little doodles. And those of us who know Sabine's artwork, we are something of an art appreciator ourselves. The context clue there, again, we're just guessing because we're all on the same page, is that this is where Sabine slept when she lived on this ship at one point as the apprentice of Ahsoka Tano. And this is brand new information for us, but it is like...

an exciting little context clue. Yeah. Sabine can like whip up a doodle very quickly, but it definitely seemed to be like, okay, this was where I spent time. This was where I would like lay down at the end of the day to sleep. I'm curious, like, what do you think...

is most likely for how we fill in some of these gaps, like the question of what went wrong between them, what happened. Do you think that we will learn that through the course of conversations, through them telling us and discussing it? Do you think we will get actual flashbacks? Do you think we will get kind of pseudo flashbacks in the form of like dreams or force meditations? How do you think we will, we will get this information and fill in these gaps? Yeah.

I think, you know, Obi-Wan, I think, used flashbacks. I mean, I liked those Anakin-Obi-Wan training flashbacks. But, like, it's so funny. I'm still, like, I'm still trained off of Thrones where they were like, we don't do flashbacks ever. I think it could easily do some flashback, especially since we track Ahsoka by her hair so fully that, like, there could just be a new wig enters the mix and then we know we're in a flashback. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. I think we'll get some flashbacks, too. I guess the meditation thing could achieve the same thing, but I feel like we'll see this. I'm excited. Ahsoka tells Sabine about Arcana, about the Nightsisters.

about the possibility that they might be out there. Nothing is certain, she says, when Sabine asks, like, you really think that Ezra's still out there? Our enemy is actively seeking Thrawn. That's the one thing that they know to be true and they can kind of expand and expound from there. So Ahsoka... It's so interesting to hear Ahsoka use a word like enemy. That sounds so black and white to me. Do you know? Like...

Ahsoka, who seems such a balanced or seeking balance or seeking the great sort of character. I don't know. Enemy sort of made me bristle. Even though, of course, yes, space fascists are the enemy, but you know. Yeah, it's a good point. It did feel like a very firm and extreme term. I think, though, like when we talk about

Asoka defying some sort of convention and charting her own course. It's much more in how it relates to the light side and to the Jedi. I think at the end of the day, like fighting and yes, of course, like you, you know, you, you sketched out everything with Lux and the separatists. And that was more about like, I think learning how people can mislead you. Right. But I don't know, but when Asoka is faced challenging an inquisitor, she's, she's not reluctant to cut that person down.

True. I just think Star Wars gets this message a little muddled because in a post, Luke takes Anakin's mask off and Anakin is redeemed at the end of Return of the Jedi. Are we really thinking of these people? And Rey's whole quest is to

bring Kylo back to Ben, like, is this idea of, like, that person is the enemy and there's no redemption feels a little weird to me. Well, maybe this is, like, a marker for us inside of the show with her so that if a character like Balon, for example, who gives us some very interesting I'm-living-in-the-gray assessment of the idea of hunting Ahsoka, which we'll talk about later, like, what if having to face him, she has to confront the fact, like, he doesn't want to

He does not... This guy does not... I am calling him my enemy. And that's not how he's thinking about me. And then she can kind of work her way back toward this place that we... That's interesting. That could be really cool. That would be fun. That could be great. Art aside, Jo, Ahsoka hands over that map. Ahsoka...

So this is Sabine, you have the artist's eye. And what I heard in my head is, what do your elf eyes see? Like, that's what I always hear when someone says, like, what do your elf eyes see? And this is why Hera was like, oh, you got a puzzle box? You got something with some designs on it? You know who's great with puzzles? You know who's got an artist's eye? Good old Sabine Wren. And I just want to shout out, we were talking about this a little bit when we saw this in person because we loved it.

the closing credits, we thought they were so beautiful. This idea and like all of the design work in the show, this idea that Dave Filoni is an artist, like was an artist before he was a writer, was hired to be a storyboard artist for the Clone Wars and has become one of our most important storytellers and art is storytelling. But so when you have, when he has taken Sabine Wren, who was not,

maybe in season three, but largely not the lead of Rebels, and made her the lead of this, the co-lead of this show, the artist, Sabine. Thrawn, the art lover, is our villain, right? And we are using our artistic skills and know-how to crack this puzzle together.

He loves art, he loves cats, and I love him. So that's where we are. And the pathway hinges to the idea of a fairy tale and the stories we tell each other. This is like extremely our shit. Love it. There's this kind of sheepish Sabine moment where she pauses from the map examination to ask Ahsoka where she calls home. And Ahsoka says, this ship.

And Sabine says, still, don't you ever get tired of moving from one place to another? And I thought this was like a very striking moment for both of them. How they think about purpose

and how they think about belonging and how they think about home. Because for Sabine, like, she has put down roots, right? She's honoring Ezra. She's staying there to protect Lothal for him, but also because this is the place that all of the Spectres, as we talked about with that Kanan and Hera exchange that we discussed in our primer pod, had been drawn to and had felt had become home for them. But she's... she's stuck. She's not moving forward in her life. Ahsoka...

Who we talked about already today is a wanderer. This idea of kind of the nomad is free to roam. She's journeying and also not just like journeying. She's seeking, actively seeking, right? But there is also this restlessness that is ever present with her. So she has no tether anymore. And she kind of hasn't since she left the order. So this conversation, this little line and whether they can kind of help

Each both of them push the other one into a more comfortable place. That's one of the things that I'm excited to watch as they journey forward. It's almost like birds and droids are not enough and you need more connection in your lifetime.

Love both of those things, though. Ahsoka says, I go where I'm needed, kind of to defend the idea of living this way. And Sabine says, not always. So this was interesting and telling because it's not just that they split, that they went their separate ways. It is that, seemingly from this line, at some point, Sabine Wren needed Ahsoka Tano and Ahsoka was not there for her. We're going to talk about this a little bit more in a couple minutes when we get to this Ahsoka Hera conversation about being an apprentice. Yeah.

But I think also, yes, and it's possible that this circles back to your theory that you were floating in. You touched on a little earlier in this episode of this idea of a split motivation for Ahsoka and Sabine that Ahsoka is focused on Thrawn and Sabine is focused on Ezra and they're focused on...

happens to align in this particular moment, but maybe in the past when Sabine is like, I need you to be on this Ezra beat with me. And she's like, I'm going to be on the Thrawn beat. They're the same beat actually, but you know. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk for a minute about

Sabine ran Force Wielder? Because obviously we're in this conversation here about just clarifying for us definitively that Ahsoka took Sabine as an apprentice. Sabine was training to be a Jedi. There's nothing easy about being a Jedi, Ahsoka says. Well, then I should have made a good one. Yes, you should have.

There's a great who Yang line in the second episode about how he did in his all of his years. He has never seen a Padawan less adept at the force than Sabine, which was quite rude, but very funny. I want to ask you, what is your read two episodes in on that question of Sabine Wren force user question mark? We talked about this so much in the lead up to the show and what we were hoping for or anticipating. Where are you on this right now?

Well, you dropped in our notes two of my favorite words in all of Star Wars history, which is a broom. Broom boy? Boy. Yeah, same. From The Last Jedi. We loved that idea that Ryan was going for, that J.J. absolutely obliterated and why is it Skywalker, that Ryan was going for in The Last Jedi, which is like anyone can tap into the Force. I want to cite one of my favorite exchanges from The Last Jedi, a divisive and yet perfect film, where Luke says... Of that movie. Luke says...

To Ray, breathe, reach out with your feelings. What do you see? Ray says the island, life, death, and decay that feeds new life, warmth, cold, peace, violence. Luke says in between it all,

And Rey says, balance and energy, a force. And Luke says, and inside you? Rey says, inside me, the same force. And Luke says, this is crucial, and this is the lesson. The force does not belong to the Jedi. To say that if the Jedi die, the light dies, is vanity. Can you feel that? Right? Yes. The force does not belong to the Jedi. And you definitely don't have to be a Skywalker or a goddamn Palpatine in order to have it. And you don't have to be...

Deeply strong in it. You can be light, you can be weak in the force, but still have a connection to the force. Yes. And this idea that anyone can use the force, that the force connects us all, this is something that George Lucas himself has been talking about for quite a long time. If you Google Huffington Post excerpt

making of Star Wars Return of the Jedi. You can read this. This is an off-sited exchange, but they have it compiled in one place here where Lawrence Kasdan is asking Lucas, this was back in 81, the Force was available to anyone who could hook into it? And Lucas says, yes, everybody can do it. Not just the Jedi. It's just the Jedi who take the time to do it. And then he goes on to compare it to yoga, which is the thing that people always cite. But...

The quote, I love that you cited that last Jedi quote, which I think sums it up perfectly. The thing that popped into mind for me, I think in part because it gets at that idea, but in part because it is in a Sabine episode and is about Sabine, is a Kanan line from...

Possibly episode of, it's got to be the episode of Rebels we've talked about more than any other. It might not be by the end of the season, but to this point. Season 3, episode 15, Trials of the Darksaber. Steve, can we hear this? Maybe I'm trying to do things differently this time. Or maybe because she doesn't have the force, you don't believe she can do this?

No. The Force resides in all living things, but you have to be open to it. Sabine is blocked. Her mind is conflicted. That's Kanan and Hera. And Kanan says later in that episode she can't or won't find balance within herself. So I...

You know, I said a lot heading in. I really hope they don't make Sabine force sensitive. Yeah, like I really loved the idea that Ahsoka would say you don't need to have at any point shown any aptitude for wielding the force. I think that's still on the table here, especially because of that Hu Yang line. And I actually think this is like maybe the best of both worlds where Ahsoka's saying like,

you're not midichlorian Jesus and that's okay. Like I will train you and teach you how to unblock yourself, how to find that balance because anybody can, if they decide that they want to, like, that's a beautiful idea. Unblock your chi. No. And I think that, um,

I, you and I both were like, we don't want Sabine to be force sensitive, but I don't want it. But like, let's say, let's say good old midichlorian Jesus, Anakin himself. Let's say he's, I don't know what, I don't remember what his M read is. I don't know if we know it, but it's like, let's say it's a hundred. And then like, let's say Sabine is five. I think that's fine. I think that's still, are you Googling what Anakin's M read is? I was going to say 20,000 is my memory, but let me check.

Over 20,000. Oh, great. More than 20,000. Okay. So let's say Sabine. Who makes it sound like Sabine? I think you're still right with the five for Sabine. Between five and 100. Under 100 is probably where Sabine is. There have been some fan theories that she was Force-sensitive before this. One was, and I found these going way back. And one was in Trials of the Darksaber,

When Kanan, Ezra, and Sabine are training, you see three convoy birds, the bird most associated with Sokka, with, you know...

The Mortis gods, three of them are sitting above and you get a shot from high above looking down. So this idea that there are three birds for three force. Love this. Wielders? There's also the mural in the temple. Yes. As we're saying, it takes a master and an apprentice. Yes, it takes two. And then also that she's part of House Vizsla. So long descended from Tar Vizsla who was...

Tough moment for Jomi if House Fiddles comes back into it. Mandalorian Jedi. She's the descendant. Do you remember what they did to the Darksaber? No, I don't want to talk about it, but I know that you don't have to be a Skywalker and a Palpatine and you don't have to be a Vizsla, but she is in some degree, maybe 5% of her, a Vizsla. So, you know, it's there. Could there be a tension point with...

Thrawn versus Ezra, we get some fodder for it in that this isn't just about finding Ezra, it's about preventing another war. You think I don't know that exchange. Okay, like, will there come a point where that tension proves decisive?

This is also a line that is here to remind us yet again, much as an ample chunk of Mando season three did about the Mando versus interest, this slice of the canon and timelines interest in telling us how the First Order rose and how the New Republic failed. So it's in the scroll for a reason, like this reminder here that war is just, we're on the brink at any minute. And if Thrawn returns and rises again,

It's that heir to the empire idea, right? So we got a number of moments like that across these episodes. Do you want to tell us what Space Ollivander has discovered? Well, don't worry. He remembers every wand he's ever sold. And that this hilt... There's two hilts in question, right? Shin and Balon. Balon's hilt is recognizable. It gave one other feather? Just one other? They have...

Twin course. Baelin's is Jedi Temple. The other one is a little slapdash, but this is Jedi Temple quality construction. Yeah, who was like, I don't know what the fuck this one is. This homemade bullshit over here. I don't know. But this one, Jedi Temple quality. So this is a former Jedi, like,

That escaped Order 66 is what we believe. Right. Did you take this to mean, because of how, like, Hu Yang said, in the last 500 years, I've only known one student who built a saber such as this, that it was always orange? Because we had kind of speculated, was this about bleeding the crystal but only to a point, maybe not, like, full Sith territory? Or do you think that it was always orange? Yeah.

I like the idea that it, I like the idea that the orange is special. Like we've been harping on the orange being really special because we haven't seen it before. And we've been harping on it as like a sort of slightly off, off red sort of color. But if this is just like another purple situation, like it's not as special to me. So I, I think, I hope that he's just talking about the hilt and not the color of the crystal.

So can I hear a debrief? Cause Sabine has left. She has left. She's absconded with the map. What the fuck did you think was going to happen? What do you think? When, when she's like, I want this. And you're like, no rebellious former Padawan of mine. I'm going to leave the room.

You stay here with the thing that I don't want you to have. Great stuff. I do like that Sabine put the table away. Thoughtful. That was thoughtful. Yeah. In case Ahsoka wants to angrily pace around the living room. Ample space now. Plenty of room.

I thought that Ahsoka seemed, obviously she's annoyed that Sabine didn't listen about this specific thing, but certainly seemed like this was more about a general reminder of how difficult Sabine can be in Ahsoka's mind. And Hera, classic Hera here, she just looked the picture of patience as she's running through

All of the reasons that Ahsoka should not be surprised. This is your history. Sabine is a Mandalorian, et cetera, et cetera. And then we get that opening clip, what we started today's episode with. That's the conversation they have here. And when Hera says the thing about your master to spark that exchange, she's got this big smile on her face. And Ahsoka turns and looks over her shoulder and that smile melts away. Because this is serious shit for Ahsoka. Yeah.

All of the trauma is brought up here, and this is when she talks about walking away from Anakin, walking away from Sabine. She uses that just-like language to cement the parallel, the parallel that she feels in her heart and mind, and then says sometimes even the right reasons have the wrong consequences. What do we do then? We talked a lot in our top most essential Ahsoka Moments primer about where is she on this decision to leave the Order? And I thought this idea got to this nicely, like,

Leaving the Order was the right thing for her, and that's true, but she's carrying this immense blame and guilt for what happened to Anakin when she wasn't there. Now, that's not fair to put that on her, but it clearly is something that she's carrying. So how do we reconcile this idea of Ahsoka as this fiercely loyal person? This is something we talked about. We talked about it through the lens of Rex, but we talked about this a lot on our primer pods. With this reality that Ahsoka is a character,

To be clear, who we love, but Ahsoka's a character, and we love her in part because she's flawed and makes mistakes, right? We talked about that for a while, too. Who left her master and then left her Padawan. This is a top-of-mind struggle for her. Clearly, this is something that she is wrestling with. Well, what's the same about those things? What's different? If you're the learner and you're branching out, you're on your journey of discovery. If you leave behind the person you're guiding, does that sit with you in a different way? Like, it's hard to think that anything could equal the Anakin-shaped character

But this Sabine thing clearly has a hold on her in a seismic and consequential way. I think this is a good opportunity to talk about Rosario Dawson's depiction of Ahsoka Tano because, you know, for some people, they see a big gulf between animated Ahsoka and live-action Ahsoka. But I just want to, like, remind us all of the timeline, which is that Ahsoka finds out

for realsies, once and for all, for certain, that Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader in Twilight of the Apprentice. We see her pulled into the World Between Worlds in season four of Rebels and dealing with Ezra there, but she's still very much in the immediate aftermath of that. And then we see her silently, perhaps somberly, in the epilogue of Rebels.

That's all we see. And then after that, all we have of her are these two previous live action appearances. So what we are seeing is this is Ahsoka who has had to sit with the fact that Anakin is Vader and sit with, again, I think, uh,

misaligned guilt. I don't think it's her fault. I don't think we should blame her. You and I absolutely agree on that, but it doesn't change the fact that she feels guilty or she feels personally responsible because she decided to walk away from the Jedi order. So if you're, if you're meeting an Ahsoka who is much more somber than the bright and chipper Ashley Eckstein version that you knew in the animated series, I think there is a plot reason why, right?

That would be the case. And I will say, I do think there's a difference between having recently rewatched her live-action introduction in The Jedi. She is a bit less stoic and a bit more warm in that episode, but of course she's bumping up against Grogu, the world's, like, strongest defroster. Like, who could possibly be frosty in the face of Grogu, right? Right.

But I think that that stoicism from her makes a lot of character sense. I don't think it's like Rosario Dawson watched the animated or Dave Filoni was like, do whatever you want, Rosario. I don't care about continuity. I think they had a lot of discussions about where Ahsoka would be

All these years later, working with a lot of solitude, a lot of on the run, all this sort of stuff that happened to her in that time period. What did you want to say about it? Yeah, I mean, I don't, I think this has been, I completely agree. I think a very steady progression. I don't think of Ahsoka and Rebels as boisterous at all.

And I think that she started at this as she's like, but it's always been a journey of evolution, right? From the beginning, like the, the snips era is day one. And then she grows out of that into another thing and out of that into another thing. And I, yeah, I think that like, not only is she processing everything that has happened and everything that she's lost and everything that she's learned inside of these particular episodes, she's then confronting the,

And facing again, for the first time in some time, we can glean this person who brings all of this back up for her, right? Like, who was going to make her think about Anakin more than Sabine, the Padawan she took on? No one. So, I mean, so I agree that I think there's potential for...

tremendous cracking of these walls that she has built around herself. And that is something I am eagerly anticipating and looking forward to. I do think that if a character is just stoic start to finish, like,

You know, we talk about this with Din Djarin where, like, it's important that we see the moments in Din where his facade cracks. Like, that is extremely important to feeling connected to that character. And if someone is just as stoic, then... It makes sense to me right now that she's in this place, though, for sure. Yeah. I think, like, it's also interesting to think in terms of the Grogu element.

As you noted, she and Sabine split before she decided not to train Grogu. So did she see something similar in Sabine to what she says about Grogu? You know, that fear, that anger. Oh, the Anakin cop. I don't want to lead him down that path. Did she see something in Sabine that made her walk away or did she see something in herself? I would say Sabine's attachment to Ezra. Would you not? Yeah.

That seems like the most likely thing. And so, again, that's an incredibly rich text. If Ahsoka was one of the characters who understood that I know line from Clone Wars Season 5 finale, what Padme meant to Anakin, if the character who could have maybe unlocked something for him there...

Is like repeating some of these mistakes. You know, we talked about this idea a lot in our primer pods. I just think that's like very, very rich dramatically. And would be like quite, quite tragic and sad, but also totally understandable. Like people, people constantly repeat the patterns in their lives. That beautiful point you made earlier about the temples around us. That's also an individual. Yeah. Yeah. Individual way. Emotionally. Speaking of temples and that map and cycles, we've got a little, little circular, uh,

puzzle to solve here the star map incredible behavior great stuff when when he like batted at the and you and i were just sitting there being like do it do it knock it around that's what the cat would do that's what the cat would do i loved it uh do you want to talk for a hot second here about the the rise of skywalker map fatigue that has popped up a few times map guffin i love a map same same

I think it was used very poorly in Rise of Skywalker. I think it's also not... Quite right. ...perfectly used in Force Awakens either. So, like... But I feel like that's more of a JJ problem than it is a map or a star map problem.

I don't have an issue with the map. I'm a big fan. Also, like, Thrawn and Ezra have been gone for a really long time, and it actually makes sense that the characters would have to quest to find them. If they were just suddenly there, that would be extremely weird to me. So you have this cool visual template and, you know, mystery solve that

allows us to think in this really exciting way about the size of the universe and what mysteries are out there for us to find. Like, that's kind of Star Wars at its best. We'll talk about that stuff a little bit more when we get to the mysteries later. It's so cool, but I will say one... I will shout out one thing that I have a note about, which is, like, when...

Sabine just like ran out to her balcony and got her binoculars out. Yeah. I was like, what do you think you're going to see? Going to take a trip. What do your artist eyes see? What do your elf eyes see through your fucking binoculars? Oh, man. She's always looking to solve a problem. I respect it. I think as long as a Palpy clone is not at the end of the path to Pyridia, I'm fine with this. I'm good. Oh, my God. I'm good.

The binocular stargazing is interrupted first by a hiss from Sweet Bubba the Loathcat and then by the HK assassin droids and then eventually by Shin. What does Sabine reach for, Joe, when a fight is afoot? Not her Mandalorian armor, not yet.

And what I love about her finding that holodisc earlier is we already saw it. The saber is in that same like pin, you know, that says like Ezra stuff on it or whatever. Yeah, she goes for the saber, not the armor. Saber, to be fair, saber easier to use than like, hold up, please hold. I need to put all of my armor on, put my pauldrons on. Good note. That's a good point. Good point. There's a mighty duel. Yeah.

And taking a wound. This is where Jomie's Qui-Gon tweet comes in.

This is very silly. This is so silly. Because like, of course she's not dead. I'm glad they showed the episodes back to back. It was just like, I thought extremely silly to like do a kind of like, dun, dun, dun, like her body prone at the end of the episode. Do you think it was to make us think she was in mortal peril or just to show us that she's outmatched? Like that she has lapsed in her training and stopped practicing at all. Like,

I definitely think if there had been a week between those episodes, there would have been a million. Of course. Is she still alive? Crucial email from listener Tim. Yeah. Is this Timothy Oliphant? Is this from Timothy Oliphant? I don't know. Listener Tim writes in.

With the Ahsoka premiere, where are we at with the official Cobb-Vanth count? Look how fast Sabine got healed up from a goddamn lightsaber. Are we just to believe that our guy Cobb is soaking still?

Holly Rubin, it has been 561 days since we last saw a fan. That's a long time. It's a long time. I'm sorry. I feel truly sorry about this. It's dismaying. We get the end credits, Jo. You mentioned the beautiful visuals. Gorgeous score here. Shout out Kevin Kiner and the score in the episode. I thought the end credits score in particular was very ringsy. It had a ringsy in. Yeah. Absolutely beautiful.

Okay, Joe, let's get to the second episode. Part two, Toil and Trouble. Let's just talk about the title of it right now before we get to the actual first scene. Take us to Willie Shake's corner. Oh, yeah. We are here in Macbeth with the three witches.

Toil and trouble. I'm, I like was so giddy to see this. And I do want to talk about witches really quickly. The witches and Macbeth who show up a few times to tell Macbeth his future in cryptic terms are a core literary device. And I already mentioned earlier that Morgan later uses the phrase, the phrase, the threads of fate, right?

And I think it's really interesting to think about that idea of the fates, which in mythology, the fates are three women who are in almost any mythology. You'll find this in Norse mythology, though they're called the Norns. You might remember them from Age of Ultron. And in Greek mythology, they're called, wait for it, the Morai.

which is the name of the bird that follows Ahsoka around, the mori. And the mori are often depicted as a young girl who's the spinner, an older woman who's the measurer, and an elderly woman who is the cutter. Or as you might have heard more pithily said, a mother maiden crone, these like trilogy of trinity of women.

And I was just thinking a lot about our like three core characters in the show. And like with love and respect to Ahsoka, who I would never call a crone. I think we could put Sabine in the maiden and Hera in the mother, literal mother, and then Ahsoka in the elder, let's say elder role of those three women. And I,

What's important about the Morai, the fates, the spinners and cutters and weavers of the threads of life and death and all that sort of stuff, is that they are the personification of destiny, which is that question that we were discussing earlier and we've been discussing throughout our prep up to Ahsoka, which is choice versus destiny. So this idea of like,

Your thread is as long as it's going to be. And not even the gods themselves in Greek mythology can tell the fates not to cut a thread if the fates are going to cut your thread, which is to cut your life short. Also, I want to shout out while we're talking about like the power of three and

and witches and all that sort of stuff. I want to shout out that the symbol that Sabine reveals at the bottom of that star map when she's like three faces, dot, dot, dot, and everything melts away and there's just a three-pointed shape that's called a triquetra. And it is not necessarily an occult shape. It is more, you see it in illuminated manuscripts and it is associated often with the Holy Trinity symbol.

the father, the son, the Holy Ghost. You see it in like the book of Kells and stuff like that. However, if you are around my age or a little younger, see WB Watcher, you might recognize it as the symbol of the power of three or the book of shadows logo from the TV show Charmed, which was about what? Three witches. I thought you were going to say from dark. It's a very prominent symbol in dark, which is about

Choice and destiny. There you go. Oh, TV. Isn't it great? It is great. Willie Shakes. Wasn't he great? Good old Bill. Good old Billy. Okay. We have a couple scenes at the beginning of episode two that set us up, that put us in our new locations and then position us for some of the more emotionally fraught conversations to come. One of them is in the medical bay where Sabine is dreaming. Ahsoka seems to be like,

force peeping on the dreams. Maybe Sabine's just really palpably force emanating, but it made me think of the Simpsons Halloween special and Willy being like, lots of Willy time. And there was just some almost unbearable disappointed dad energy from Ahsoka here with Sabine when she's like, um, they got the map. I unlocked it. There was a second galaxy and a pathway between them. Thanks for asking. I didn't

successfully identify the origin planet in our galaxy and the droids destroyed all my records. The you've done enough for Ahsoka was just so brutal. Yeah. She goes to the tower and kind of like

senses the force echoes of the duel between Shin and Ahsoka that took place. And then, of course, Sweet Bubba, loyal companion, is waiting on the precipice with a warning. You could tell that he's like, there's an HK assassin droid in there, and I need you to know. I think in addition to issuing that warning, he is presenting his cheek and chin for a scratch, Joanna. Okay, we were really disappointed that Ahsoka did not scratch the Loth-Cat.

This is my actual one note. That's my main note for Ahsoka. No scritches for the low cat. Did you get Prince Humperdinck in the Princess Bride vibes from Ahsoka when she was wandering around? There was a mighty duel. I love this. This is what happened here? Yeah.

Lots of vibes to many different pop culture touchstones across this beginning of part two because we're on C-DOS with Balin and Shin. They put the map that they have successfully retrieved on one of the pillars. There's an activation. It's clear they're in the right place. He mentions the reflex point that he wants Shin to tell Morgan about. I love this shit.

Do you think they went home early when they came up with a reflex point? They're like, we're done for the day. Yeah, absolutely. Home by five, yeah. The color of the leaves, it seems like we were in a werewood, like a god's wood in A Song of Ice and Fire. The fact that this looks so visually similar to Stonehenge made me think of actual Stonehenge, of course, but...

Forgive me for a moment. Thor, the dark world. And that idea of Stonehenge is like a focal point for the convergence. And these, have we just invoked age of Ultron and Thor, the dark world to have famously the best Marvel movies coming up with reflex point. It's like, we're done for the day because we're ashamed of ourselves. Steve is cutting our mics. Oh boy. Um,

While Sweet Boba did not receive a scratch, Ahsoka did find the HK assassin droid that was waiting in the rafters and cut off its head and bring it to Sabine. I just need to say really quickly that when we were watching this show, we weren't talking to each other. It was almost like a psychic link. And when...

the assassin droid like lunges at Sabine and the cat was like right nearby you like grabbed me because we did not see the cat again for a little while and I was like sort of trying to make reassuring noises at you like no way do they does the cat die dot com like no way the cat is dying here so when the cat showed up here we were disappointed that Ahsoka didn't give scritches but you finally visibly relaxed because you were like confirmation that the cat is alive I knew peace at last yeah

Oh, stressful viewing. And listen, it's a stressful story because Sabine is pretty sure that she can use the backup systems in the memory core to figure out which planet this droid came from. There is one problem and it's that everything might explode. Now, for Rebels watchers, this is just vintage Sabine. It's like,

Our gal loves an explosion. She's finding the comfort of home here. This was, I think, the laugh of the episode. This definitely got the biggest chuckle in the theater when Hera's like, go for it. By far. And Yu Yang says, because you're a hologram? Because you're a hologram.

No, biggest laugh in our theater. I confirm with the Midnight Boys, it was by far the biggest laugh in their theater. Like, I think Tenet got all the best lines, honestly. Great stuff. Absolutely delightful. The origin point is Corellia. This is not only the shipyard for the New Republic and where Morgan's operation used to be based, and I'm using used to quite liberally there, folks, as we'll get to in a second. Of course, this makes us think of Han. How could it not? I enjoyed when...

Hera observed that Morgan's operation should have been shut down, and Ahsoka said, anyone check on that? This is just, again, like...

It wasn't just like, oh, here in the middle of episode three of season three of The Mandalorian, we're going on a big, like divergent plot point to show you that the New Republic is incompetent. Half sentences here, questions and moments there. And then we do get this big stretch on Carilli at the shipyard, but constant little reminders that they are falling short, that they're not on top of the things that they need to be on top of. Unlike Hera. Did you feel like... Who knows when someone needs a pep talk?

Did you feel like going back to Corellia was like, they were like, we know that Mallory and Ben, the only two people who like Solo Star Wars story are watching. Hashtag make Solo 2 happen. Thank you for the opportunity to say that. You're welcome. That's why you're a pal. Hera asks who you hang to bounce.

gives Sabine a little pep talk, says, you're both difficult. I always thought that made it work. I loved that. And then Sabine said, until it didn't. And Hera's trying to convince her that they still need each other. Sabine doesn't think Ahsoka wants that, but Hera is trying to convince her that she does, just as we've seen her trying to convince Ahsoka and will continue to. And this was like so reminiscent of so many Hera scenes from Rebels, often with Kanan, but with many characters where she is trying to give us, here's what Ezra can be.

here's why you're not being fair to Sabine. Here's why you shouldn't bring your Order 66 trauma and put it on top of Rex over and over and over again. Like, Hera has this ingrained commitment to helping people find their way toward each other. It's really one of the lovely things about her character. So I was glad that we got this little moment here. I don't feel like she would call people her enemy. That being said, perhaps the problem with the New Republic is that they

stopped thinking about the Empire as their enemy. So maybe Ahsoka has a point. Our girl was also like, I'm a general. Nothing's classified to me. And I was like,

Should we be quite this bold in a moment such as this where everyone around you is shouting for the Empire and attacking you in real time? Before we get to that scene. That was before they started doing that, but they were making shifty eyes at her. No one noticed the shifty eyes? The volume of side eye in the control room. Bombastic, honestly. Frankly shocking.

Before we get to the control room, we've got to talk about this pathway to Paridia scene, though we should say we're going to keep this very quick here because this is what we're going to be talking about with Ben when he joins us for his lore look later, and he's going to be speculating about this. But we do want to chat about it for just a minute here because it was so compelling and intriguing. Joanna, what does Morgan say? What does she reveal? What do we see here? She only says...

people from a distant galaxy. Whose work is it? He says, an ancient people from a distant... You know that meme of the guy when it's like aliens? This is what this moment is to me. And I think the Stonehenge thing that you mentioned earlier is good because a lot of people are like, aliens built Stonehenge or the pyramids or whatever. This is sort of what we're talking about here. And Ben will go into far more detail about this, but

We did get an email from our listener, Sean. I don't need to read it in full necessarily, but Sean is as excited as we are. But like, I just don't think that people who don't spend day and night thinking about this understand what a big fucking deal it is for there to be

a galaxy further and further away. Yes, exactly. Because we've talked about the outer rim before and we've talked about far-flung planets, but this is another galaxy. Right. It's important to stress that. When we talk about the unknown regions and Thrawn and the Chissus Senses, that's all in...

This galaxy still. This is a different... We are like stargating to another entire system. So this has the potential to just crack open the world that Star Wars... It's not Star Wars anymore. It's Galaxy Wars. It's a huge, huge moment.

ancient people from a fucking distant galaxy is one of the most important lines anyone has ever spoken in a star war this is very exciting and very bold it was wonderful to see the pergol encircling that far away galaxy i also loved the way that the actual language here is invoked and like how balin and morgan discuss it steve can we actually can we hear this exchange pathway to peridia some call it that the children of the jedi temple call it that it comes from old stories

Very chill, mysterious voice. I'm sure we'll all be fine.

Totally not evil. Definitely not an evil voice calling you across. I mean, but she seems down with you. That's okay. That's true. When she says, when he says you speak of dreams, like, do you think we're meant to be connecting Morgan's powers with Sabine's?

Force dreaming? I think it's like, it's a good question. I think like this larger idea of recontextualizing how we think about using the force and wielding the force and connecting to the force and showing us these through lines across the character sets, even though they all have a different relationship to it. I was so...

I mean, we love one of the things we love talking about, like across all of the stories we cover is this. When do characters take something that's a, Oh, Oh, that's just a fairy tale. That's a, that's for kids. The old Voldemort, right. With the tale of three brothers, but also like I've, we'll be now mentioning the Thor franchise for a second time in mere moments, like Selvig, uh,

finding the book of myths, of Norse myths at the library. And his reaction is like, right, that's where this guy got this. Not like, oh yeah, this could actually be the chronicle of this real thing in the world. But I suppose this is big truth and legend, Mallory. Exactly. The children at the Jedi temple call it that.

So there's the role of myth. There's the role of fairy tale. There's the question of which characters take that seriously and heated and which dismiss it as being beneath their consideration. Why is this something that the children at the Jedi temple in particular talk about? Could there be a connection to, I was thinking about our wonderful conversation on our dial of destiny, great movie podcast, our chat with James Mangold, who shocked us by answering a star Wars question. And, um,

One of the things he told us was that he was really drawn to the idea in making a movie about the origin of the Force of not being boxed in by any. And I had a little bit of worry for him watching this, but other than that, it was like titillated. Well, can I go back to... I agree with you. Can I go back really quickly? Yeah, obviously. I'm always thinking about Thor The Dark World. No, can I go back quickly to...

I now have a vision in a far-flung galaxy of like a sort of octo, like they're on a cliff and Ezra's on one cliff and Thrawn's on another. And they're both sort of sitting there cross-legged, meditating like Don Draper at the end of Mad Men. And Thrawn is going like, Morgan, Morgan, Morgan. Ezra's going, Sabine, Sabine, Sabine. And they're trying to see who can call their person to them through the force faster. And they each have a coke?

Yeah. They want to buy the galaxy of Coke. And they had competing huts on each different cliff face. And they just watched the Purgles frolic and fuck around them. And that is what they've been doing this whole time. I mean, I'm excited for episode three. Oh, boy. Nothing canonically established here about Purgle fucking, though we do get Balan talking about power.

Yeah. When Morgan says the Eye of Sion is on its way, we'll talk more about the Eye of Sion with Ben. Did you say the Eye of Sauron? We will slip up no fewer than 5,000 times over the course of this season, without question. This is like some of the trailer material that we had heard. Shin is asking him what awaits when they find Thrawn, and he says, for some, war. For others, a new beginning. And for us, power, such as you've never dreamed. A little bit of power. It is a power. Yeah.

What is his motivation? What does he want that power for? Can't wait to find out. Absolutely no idea. I hope he doesn't have a wife who's in danger of dying of sadness and he needs that power to keep her alive. Oh, the prequels. As you know, I unapologetically love Revenge of the Sith, but it makes me laugh every time you say that. Every single time. It's never missed, not once. Joanna, can you please take us to the Corellian shipyard? Can you introduce us to Min Weaver, Regional Supervisor?

Oh, my God. Assistant to the regional manager. Loved this. Peter Jacobson is a character actor that you and I were both sort of thrilled to see. I think a lot of people know him from House, but he's been in a million different things. But my joy to see a character actor that I enjoy was...

seriously overpowered by my thrill to see my favorite psychopathic trident yours. I know. Chop. Good old Chopper. And I feel like Chop was a hit with like even people who are like grouchy about feeling like they don't get it. I think you get Chop, right? Chop has arms. His little head wobbles. He's the most expressive droid we've ever met in our life. Voiced by Dave Filoni. And Dave, and you and I both noted this. In the

the animated series, Chop is like, wah, wah, wah, wah. Here, it's like barely concealed human words coming out of Chop. You know exactly what he's saying all the time. It's pretty great. It was, you could, yeah, like, did you go through my stuff? You could just

Hear the sentence. Yeah. Why don't you shoot it down? I loved it. Absolutely fantastic. Great to be back with Choppy. So special. Did you get a Jorah Mormont vibe? You know, the common people pray for rain health in a summer that never ends. They don't care what games the high Lords play. When, when our guy Min Weaver was like the average worker doesn't care about the nuances of galactic politics. They have loyalty so long as they're paid.

But he was lying. New Republic Amnesty. He was because they were all like hardcore, hardcore fervent fascists in that room. For the Empire. For the Empire. Joe, this is another Tethered Amanda season three, the New Republic Amnesty program. There's a discussion here about, well, you can't,

You can't keep the operation going if you fire everybody who loved the empire. You gotta let the space Nazis keep working, yeah. How else can we strip down the old imperial vessels and then let, this is a thing he says, our board members and top investors get first dibs on the most proprietary technology? Like what could go wrong with any of this? Absolutely, absolutely wonderful. There was one key point

I thought it was quite strange that this conversation happened with Min Weaver sitting there listening, but there was a key Ahsoka conversation here. Another push. Rectify. Be together. Embrace some structure in your life. And when Ahsoka says she's not ready, Hera pushes, right? I'm curious. What makes someone ready? You just know so do they. And...

It was interesting because in the moment you could kind of be like, well, much like Hu Yang will say to Sabine, that's an excuse and not a very good one. But I think the episode kind of embraced this idea for both of them because we get a literal, I'm ready, hollow hail from Sabine to Ahsoka later in the episode. And then Ahsoka has to have her version of that too when she says, when she calls Sabine Padawan and tells her to take them away, they are both...

Yeah. Saying that they're open to something that they weren't before.

I love this. Yeah. Because I fucking love complicated... Like, you know, the fact that, like, the majority of the main characters so far in the show are women is something that I don't need to harp on. I think it is a cool thing that we don't always get in Star Wars, and I think it is a very cool thing. But I think in general, I love when women are allowed to have really complicated relationships with each other, which is not always the case in our storytelling. And I think this idea that these women are both...

you know, mouth tendrils yearning for each other on one level, but too stubborn or, you know, sort of walled away in order to take the first step. So someone has to take the first step into a larger world. You know? Yeah. There you go. Mouth tendrils. Wonderful. That was a great television program. Wasn't it?

That was the last of us in case you guys didn't listen to our coverage and you were like, why did you just say mouth tendrils? That could have been concerning out of context. Good point of clarity for everyone. It's not just Rebels canon that we need to clarify. It's House of R canon. That wasn't even on House of R. Oh, that's right. Classic. Great stuff.

Hera's giving Ahsoka that nudge, Jo, and in tandem, Hu Yang is giving that to Sabine. This was one of my favorite scenes in the premiere. I thought this was wonderful. There's some humor. Have you kept up with your training? Obviously not. Obviously not. It's just hilarious. I loved their discussion about the saber when Sabine calls it Ezra's, and Hu Yang says...

That he passed it on to her, but then crucially, you modified it, you changed it, you made it yours. Like, we've been talking a lot in our primer pods about this idea of, like, what is the Force for you? How do you connect to it? And Hu Yang, in the Gathering arc, like, how does the Force feel in your hand? This is, like, a really wonderful, special thing that he can unlock for these characters, right?

I also remember, like, I like when Lucasfilm does its very specific thing about, like, renaming Sabers, which is just, like, a very specific thing that they have to, like, have a whole board meeting discussion about doing. Like, when they were like, no, this is Rey's lightsaber now. It was, like, a whole announcement that I got to write in Vanity Fair. And it was like, and the internet lost its mind. They're like, what do you mean it's Rey's lightsaber now? So anyway, it's Sabine's lightsaber now. Who youngs that so? So, you know, there you go.

It just means that if Ezra does come back at some point, he'll get to have his third lightsaber. So that's exciting. Maybe he's already forged a new one over in the secret galaxy. Maybe he's beyond lightsabers now. Maybe he's ascended and he can just shoot lightsabers from his eyeballs or something like that. New force powers. I don't want that. I don't know why I said it.

No one wants Cyclops on this show. Let's move on. We're in the same headspace as Hu Yang because we get the trailer line here, perhaps it is time to begin again. And we had wondered if this was like a pep talk to Ahsoka about opting into like helping to rebuild the order. It was about Sabine. And I loved that because like that idea that it's about one person and one relationship and one decision and one life. And then like you build and build and build from there. I thought that was a fun little, I mean, there's always trailer misdirects, but I thought that was like a fun little surprise.

The past is the past. Move forward. This guy's got great advice. Yeah. And I love, I love how he's just like, not like he's holding her feet over the fire. Right. He's not letting her get away with anything. Yes. That is an excuse. He's not indulging. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what Steve says to us when we're like, here's why we can't keep this south of three hours today. And he's like, that is an excuse and a poor one. This is lies. I don't accept this.

Oh, God. It's true. Every pod, I have a meltdown at the beginning. Steve, quit on me. And then Steve's like, it's fine. It's true. Dual action back on Corellia. Hera and Chop trying to get that tracker on the transport, and they fucking do it. It's so good. I mean, you're right. Being with Chop, wonderful. I loved just being with the Phantom again, too. I can't wait to see the ghost in full. Ahsoka facing off with Maruk and an HK.

I loved the, I am ducking slightly to the side, very casually and coolly as your Inquisitor blade boomerangs back to you moment. I thought that was great. We talked about Ahsoka Tano, the Banff, badass motherfucker. That was the Banffiest. This was so cool. Pure Banff. Pure Banff. I loved that. Um,

Sabine is not battling. She's been healing, but she does have important work to do, and it is on the wig watch front. There's a haircut. Please take us through it. Yeah, she kneels in front of her helmet. She takes a blade, and she hacks off her...

Her hair. I just need you guys, if you're thinking about doing this at home, I just need you to know that what she winds up with is not cut by a knife. It was a skilled professional with scissors. You can't do that with that. You can't give yourself an adorable little pixie cut by sawing at your hair with a knife. I have to promise you that. Okay. This is very like, you know, it's giving us like samurai ceremony vibes, but also we should say that Kanan Jarrus is

voiced by the icon, Freddie Prinze Jr., Jedi Knight, who dies in Rebels, does a similar thing right before he goes off to die. He gives himself, I don't know, is it a mullet? I'm very confused by what happens to his hair. But he does it with a knife. I mean, listen, put it this way, one of the last things Hera says to him while he's alive is, I hate your hair. Yeah, it's just totally like that.

could have been cut with a knife. That is what happens when you cut your hair with a knife and you are literally blind. That is true. Caden Jarrus, a blind man, cut his hair with a knife and the results is what he died in. So there you go. Is that what you wanted from Winkler? I can barely breathe right now. This is just remarkable. I loved every second of it. Did you think of Thanos when Sabine was balancing the blade back and forth? I did.

Thanos must be a huge Star Wars guy. Balance is all things must be. Where does that bring you? Back to Star Wars. Back to the Rebels epilogue.

Back to the Rebels epilogue. I thought it was moving, genuinely moving to see Sabine lay out each plate of her armor. Like you spoke so beautifully in the primer pause about like, well, what does it mean that we're not really seeing her in that armor in the trailers? What might that like point us toward in terms of

her current life and preoccupations and state and identity and seeing her like forge. We're always like, you know, we talk about most with Grogu, I think, but you can live in more than one world and to have the saber on her hip and the Mandalorian armor on her body. It's like,

this is the stuff Lionel. Yeah. And we should say like, she has been disconnected from her Mandalorian identity. And it seems like her force wielder identity. She's hiding out in her brother who wanted to fuck hers, uh, old hideout on Lothal. She's not from Lothal. There are no Mandalorians on Lothal. There are no force wielders on Lothal. She's just been like hiding out. Yeah.

Brutal! You know, so she's like, she's a, you know, it's a, you know, a Mandalorian alone in the world is a terrible thing. Like, she's just been out here without her connections to her various cultures or families. And so this is her...

rejoining the Force wielder side, rejoining the, the like ghost family side, rejoining the Mandalorian side all at once. And it's, you know, something we've talked about a lot with Grogu is this idea of being able to be both Mandalorian and Force wielder, like at the same time, it's the Fizla way to be. It's just such, such welcome news that Ahsoka never sat Sabine down, or at least, I mean, I shouldn't say never, but not here. And she said, I made her pick between...

This pauldron or your brother who wants to fuck you's lightsaber. The armor. You found the armor. Maybe we'll get that next week. Who can say? So what we do get here is the live action. When Sabine force jumps herself into Ezra's arm. I mean, I am here for it. I would melt. I would cease to be. Jo, live action version of the Rebels epilogue. There are some differences.

Ben wrote about how he was very focused on how the lightsaber is here in live action and not in the animated version. The cloak color on Ahsoka is different. Lost track of the number of times over the course of Ringer Paws that I've said the journey of Ahsoka the gray to Ahsoka the white. Well, guess what? Been in that because it hasn't happened in the live action. She's still Ahsoka the gray. There's a piece about the...

Way Gandalf has influenced Ahsoka on EW from Devin Kogan. And here's a quote from Rosaria Dawson. In the animation, you saw her go to the white.

But what I loved is the idea that there was even another level to her. Dave and I talked a lot about Gandalf the Gray and Gandalf the White, talking about that transition and how she's someone very capable and excellent and looked up to as a leader, but she still has levels of development to go to. And of course, there's the clarity that this interview was conducted before the strike. So I'm going to be real with you. When I...

rewatch rebels. This is how I know I've been like internet pilled. This is like the product of like, we're about to go there, but like all our time on theory corner.

I've talked so much about Ahsoka the White. I rewatched the Rebels epilogue in the finale, and I was like, did they change the color of this? This looks great to me. And it didn't before. I was always certain this was white. And I'm like, is this just my mind? I mean, they would. They totally would. Has it happened? It looks, it's still much lighter than the live action color, but I was like, did they change this? Anyway, regardless, here's where I am with this. Sometimes I get very hung up on retcons and tweaks. I'm like,

Ben wrote about this beautifully in his column. This is where I am too. It's just going to be more fulfilling for us as viewers if we get to now watch that journey to her becoming Ahsoka the White, right? If she's Ahsoka the White, she's arced out, right? She's not on an arc. And we want to see her still in the gray struggling and figuring things out. What do we love? Character on an arc. And if you're wearing a white cloak, you're done. You have no more growing to do. Those are the rules. I don't make them.

Tolkien makes them. Oh, God. Don't think about Saruman. It's fine. Okay. We get the little cheek rub, the Ezra cheek rub here of the mural. Steve, can we hear, this is actually from Rebels, what Sabine says to us in the epilogue. I used to think that Ezra was counting on me to protect Lothal, the planet and the people he cared for so much. But one day, I realized there was more to it. There was something else I was meant to do.

Oh, score. Yeah, chills. Ezra's out there somewhere. Oh my God. And it's time to bring him home. Now we know, Joe. Now we know what sparked that moment and that decision. We were talking about this in real time after we watched, and you made a beautiful point about how building toward this felt and how it felt like a bridge and a welcome for everyone. Can you run us through that? I thought that was really insightful.

I thought so. Definitely plenty of people disagree with me, but like, I feel like if this had been the end of episode two. Yeah.

you know, it would have hit with a very like, uh, overpowering aroma of member berries of like, this is significant. And you've seen it before in animation. If you've been committed to the cause, um, but I, but I really liked that. It wasn't the final, that there was more to the episode after that. So then it's just like a thing that happens. Um,

And like, yeah, it's a significant moment. And yeah, probably if you're watching it, you're watching her like rub Ezra's cheek and you're like, I still, this is just a dead wife to me. I don't really know what to tell you.

I understand that it doesn't hit the same way for you, but what follows is something that is like immediately resonant for all of us having spent the last two hours with these women, which is take us out, Padawan. Right? Like that's the emotional pow, not this thing we've seen before in animation. It's the payoff of the last two hours of these women trying to reconnect with each other. Yes.

Absolutely. And then the immediate debilitating anxiety, wondering who is caring for sweet Bubba, which we were freaking out about. I was like, what's my number one question? And she was like, who is taking care of the cat? Is it that space? Very concerned. Yeah.

Is it Jack? Is it Jack? He's just a senator. What else is he doing? I will say. I will say. Porter has been in that room. I'm sure. I am sure of it. Final scene of episode two. In the eye of Scion. In this golden deck. And then we stop because you're going to make me think that's actually what it is. They did this to you, not me. You're right. You're right.

Going to mention a thing from the trailer quickly. If you don't want to hear this, hit the fast forward 15 second button twice. You'll be fine after that.

We have seen Thrawn on this deck, flat out. We see it at the 55-second mark in the teaser trailer, the 22-second mark in the official trailer. They would not, I think, prepare to be wrong, that they would not show us him on a location that is now instantly recognizable to us as the ship and portal they are using to go find him unless he's back soon. That makes me think he's back by episode four. Because...

Because why show us that otherwise? We know it works. They get them. End of four at the latest, I would say. Yeah. Beginning of five, maybe, but end of four. The gold plating was not the only visually striking thing, Jo. Some new hologram tech?

Oh my God, I love their holograms. So like, it's not, so like we've, we've had this like blue glitchy holograms since the dawn of time with Star Wars. And Dave Filoni's like, what if the witches do this cool, like particle misty green? Cause green is the color of their force power. Like,

you know, magic hologram and it's higher resolution is better than the, than the holotech that they've got. Yeah. And I, I mean, I think overall, I think it's really fun to track that, you know, Lucas inspired by Dune, inspired by Buck Rogers, inspired by all the sci-fi, but also like a lot of mysticism gave us Star Wars. We've had stars for so long. Filoni's playing in that, that pool for so long that,

this is such a Tolkien lovers, Star Wars, fairy tale, witches, our holograms are spells now. Like, I just think we should continue to track the way in which this is like such a cool fantasy folklore kind of journey into Star Wars, you know? Delighted to. Yeah.

Yeah. We had a couple lines from Balin at the end of this scene and the end of this episode and thus the end of this premiere that gave me chills. The first one is the one we alluded to earlier. When he's expressing his concern, it's not a good sign that she was on Corellia. I'm worried. Let's see some hustle people. Much like Steve to us on recording Zooms. Not true. Sorry.

Morgan asks him, like, what do you see? And he says, of Ahsoka, after closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, one tear out of my eyes.

Oh, God. Her presence in the Force is elusive, yet her determination is vivid. She is coming. I love this. This idea of Ahsoka as a shadow on the wind, a shadow in the Force, not a conventional, typical figure, but also a shadow that can wrap itself around you and...

At any moment, and that Balin sees that and respects it, which gets to that next line, nothing can prevent our journey, Morgan says, to kill her will be a shame.

There are so few Jedi left, Balan replies. Sentimental? Truth. Really showing us again how different he is from the flavor of dark side adept that we might be accustomed to seeing. He thinks it would be tragic to cut her down. This is not something that he is longing for or seeking. This is going to be a burden for

And a matter of necessity, not power or longing. But then how do we reconcile that with his power line? Fascinating character. I'm really into Bailey. I like him a lot. I'm all in on Bailey and Shin. I think they're great. Skip ahead 15 seconds twice if you don't want to hear another trailer mentioned.

But we've seen in the trailer Ahsoka, Bailiff fight at that witchy Stonehenge. So that has to be episode three, right? Like we're not hanging out there for a really long time. They have the tracker. They've got to be like, we're here. And he's like, let me, I've got a lot of lamps around me. I'll be with you in a moment. So many lamps. No shots. Yeah.

You don't love putting up fairy lights when you're camping. It's very nice. God, I haven't been camping since maybe fifth grade, but I had a blast. I love a s'more. Here's the thing I love, a s'more. I knew I had made an error when I said when you go camping. No, that's not true. That's not true. Because we would go on overnight camping trips, sleepaway camp. So 13 years old would be the last time I went camping, I think. I think. Yeah. Should we bring in Ben? Should we talk to Ben Lindbergh? Let's do it.

Joining us now, that is the job of a Jedi Padawan learner, which we are not. It is Ben Limburg. Ben! Ben!

Ben, can't believe you made the time to be with us today. I assume that you had been spending your evenings reading through the comments on your Thrawn Explainer video on the Ringerverse, Instagram, and TikToks. Here's my favorite, because there are no fewer than 100 that we could read. A whole lot of people.

down bad for Ben after this. Runner up for my favorite. Oh, God. I thought Ben was my mama's age. I'm 41. I thought Ben was there when Yoda was born. That was my favorite also. People are just astounded, Ben. How does it feel? Yeah.

It feels nice. I'm glad the public appreciates me. Clearly, I need to be on camera more often. There we go. You get the pleasure of Zooming with me often, but other people, I haven't shown my face. Shouldn't I be reading those comments? Shouldn't this be like when Pedro Pascal reads tweets about people calling him daddy? But you did it for me. I mean, do you want to? I know you don't have Instagram, but I assumed Jessie showed this to you. She did. Yeah. She considered leaving one as well. Interesting.

Incredible. Oh my gosh. Fantastic. Let's give the people what they want. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. Read us some. I don't have them up right now, but they were flattering. Yes, you don't have them printed out just sort of pasted all around you? I don't have them saved to a document on my desktop. No. Ben, tell us what you're going to talk about today.

I'm here to talk about Star Wars lore. I can't imagine why people drew certain conclusions about my appearance from just hearing me talk about the nerdiest aspects of Star Wars. Just really just hurtful stereotypes. But I'm excited that it's Ahsoka season. Thrilled to be back on House of R. Pretty pumped for the prospect of intergalactic travel in Star Wars, which is a real rarity. We're going to the galaxy far, far, far away.

So we are used to ships in Star Wars just kind of crisscrossing the galaxy, lickety split. Mostly there's no real concept of how far anything is from anything else or how long it takes to get there. You just go to hyperspace and you see the stars blur and then next thing you know, you're there. So...

You might wonder if these ships can travel faster than light, what's so hard about going to another galaxy? But we're not talking about the 12 parsec Kessel Run here. This is intergalactic travel. It's a whole different deal. If we put this in our universe terms, we're in the Milky Way, big galaxy. But the closest neighboring galaxy, Andromeda, is more than 20 Milky Ways away.

So the farthest point in the same galaxy is next door compared to the closest point in another galaxy. We haven't had dinner yet. You can't say 20 Milky Ways. We're starving. Sorry. I know you've been recording for a while. But in Star Wars, you sometimes hear about the unknown regions, which is what women were to me in high school. So in Thrawn's species...

The Chiss. See, now I'm just playing into the stereotypes here, but that was not untrue. But Thrawn's species, the Chiss, they...

They're in the unknown regions, right? And their enemy is the Grisk. And who knows what else? They're all going about their business far from the core worlds, even far from the Outer Rim. But as far as they are, they are way, way closer than where Thrawn and Ezra evidently ended up, which is why you need the Eye of Sion and its daisy-chained hyperdrives to get there. So...

There's just not a lot of precedent for this, which is why it's pretty fresh and exciting. There's a quote in a 2016 novel called Catalyst where a smuggler says to Tarkin, the empire won't stop until it reaches the edges of the galaxy. Is that it? And Tarkin says, why stop there?

But basically, exploration has stopped there. There is that one shot at the end of Empire where Luke and Leia and the droids are on the medical frigate staring out the window at what looks like a galaxy from far away. But it's sort of disputed what that is or where they are. So we'll just sweep that under the rug because in current canon, anything outside the galaxy is essentially unreachable. It's like Valeria after the doom in Thrones. You know, it's like

here be dragons or here there used to be dragons in Valeria's case. Yeah.

There's another 2016 novel called Aftermath Life Debt, where unknown space is described as the uncharted end of the galaxy beyond which lurk terrible nebula storms and gravity wells. Those who have tried to traverse the space outside the galaxy have never returned, though distorted, half-missing communications have come back, messages warning of geomagnetic anomalies and slashing plasma winds.

sounds hazardous. So you really have to go to the old expanded universe, that non-canon legends material to find anything relevant to what we're seeing in Ahsoka. And usually in these lore segments, I stay away from that, but I think it makes sense to briefly dip into it here, both because there's just so little to go on in the current canon and because we know Filoni loves salvaging stuff from legends and making it canon. Right.

as he did with Thrawn in Rebels. And as Ahsoka says in Rebels, there's always a bit of truth in Legends. So in Legends, there was a barrier that surrounded the known galaxy. The known galaxy was called the Sky River, and that barrier was a region of hyperspace turbulence that prevented most travel in and out.

But dating back to Marvel's Star Wars comics in the 80s, there were various visitors and invaders from outside the galaxy, most notably the Yuuzhan Vong, who were the adversary at the center of the New Jedi Order books that came out about 20 years ago. So they and some other species traveled from a distant galaxy in world ships that took generations to make the journey. There were also some attempts to leave the galaxy, including the Outbound Flight Project from the Timothy Zahn books.

So that was a Jedi-led expedition to pierce that force barrier, that galactic barrier using the Force, which was ultimately thwarted by Thrawn at Darth Sidious' direction.

That hyperspace barrier is relevant to Ahsoka because of the mention of an ancient people from a distant galaxy. So you could do a good tropes course episode on this probably, but it's a sci-fi staple, right? The ancient alien species that engineered everything and then disappeared for some reason. So if you've ever seen the History Channel's Ancient Aliens, you know what I'm talking about. Or basically any sci-fi show, right? I referenced that earlier, Ben.

Perfect. Okay, great. So you have the firstborn in 2001 Space Odyssey or the first ones in Babylon 5 or the ancients in Stargate or the engineers in Alien or the Protheans in Mass Effect or the precursors in Halo. I could go on there. Many of them. And Star Wars Legends has that too. So you have the Rakata,

or the builders, an ancient species that sort of settled the galaxy. They originated in the video game, Knights of the Old Republic, which Jessica Clemens and I discussed on Button Mash recently. But they've also been mentioned in the current canon, including Andor, of all places. However, supposedly some even more ancient entities put the galactic barrier in place to stop the expansion of the Rakatans. And that takes us to our final bit of lore here.

the celestials, right? So the entities that put this galactic barrier in place. And I know I'm dropping a lot of proper nouns in this segment, but the celestials, not the celestials from Marvel, although sort of the same idea. So-

The Celestials existed in the Force and they controlled the light side, dark side balance and they assembled and populated some star systems and structures. So they were also known as the Architects and nobody really knows what happened to them, but they disappeared eons ago. Now, in the Clone Wars...

Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka go to Mortis, where they encounter these ancient force beings known as the Ones or the Mortis gods. And in legend, in the old EU, the Mortis gods were supposedly surviving celestials. They were members of that ancient race, but not in the current canon. That connection has not been drawn.

But you have to figure with Bologna's fondness for legends and with the Clone Wars Celestials connection and the Thrawn outbound flight connection, there might be something that he is bringing back into canon here, right? That was sort of...

hinted at or described in the old EU. I mean, why go to the trouble of expanding outside the galaxy that this entire saga has taken place in unless you have some reason to do that, unless there's some bit of lore or mythology that you really want to resurrect?

So I don't know how much screen time there is. I don't know if there's time to introduce an alien species and have invaders from another galaxy. I mean, we've only got eight episodes here, right, at least in this season. But I'm excited to see what, if anything, from all the lore I just described ends up sort of seeping into Ahsoka.

I mean, the point is, it's just so thrilling that this is even a possibility. Right. It really is. It's incredible. Yeah. It's not like we were running out of real estate in the known galaxy. It's a pretty big place. There's a lot of those unknown regions that we could explore. Mm-hmm.

But I think people have criticized Star Wars for being a little too stuck in its ways, right? At least temporally speaking, when we talk about the Star Wars timeline. Yeah, that too, right? Stuck on Tatooine, stuck with the Skywalkers. Exactly, right. So now we're leaving the galaxy entirely. So no constraints anymore. Just unlimited power, unlimited possibilities.

Unlimited power. The Eye of Sion, Ben. Yeah. Do you, as a big coder head, maybe a big coder two head too, do you think this has been a buzzing topic on the internet? Do you think that this is a Darth Sion connection? Could be. Yeah. You never know. I mean, when there is some name that...

recurs, then you always assume that it's probably not a coincidence. Now, there are just so many names and so many Wikipedia pages out there that inevitably you do get some duplication that's just kind of a coincidence.

But I don't know. Qui-Gon said nothing happens by accident, right? There's no such thing as a coincidence. Filoni certainly is aware of all the Wikipedia pages too. So if he's choosing the same name as an existing thing, then that might mean something. I feel like the close encounters, this means something, but it might. Do you think the Eye of Sauron is named that so that we will confuse it for the Eye of Sauron every time that we say it on this podcast? Yeah.

That's definitely a downside too. Yeah. Thanks, Ben. It's fantastic. Wonderful. We can't wait to have you back next week. I'm so glad we're back in Star Wars so we get to hang out with you. Me too. Yeah. Happy to discuss this galaxy or any other with you. Bye, pal. Okay, Joe.

We just heard this quote. There's always a bit of truth in legends, and that means it's time for Theory Corner. We've done some theorizing today. You had one that you wanted to talk about. We met a helmeted individual who we had seen in trailers, and people have had questions about this helmeted individual ever since they premiered in the trailers. I'm going to do my best to pronounce the name correctly. It's spelled M-A-R-R-O-K, and it's pronounced, I believe, Marukh.

And it is the individual who battles Ahsoka in episode two who wields an Inquisitor blade. Yes. Is that person an Inquisitor? We don't know. Probably. We'll find out. But who is under the helmet? And here's the question. Do you want there to be someone, before we get into the three main theories about who it is.

Do you want it to be someone or would you rather this just be someone and we never see under the helmet and it doesn't matter and they just have a cool lightsaber and who cares? My preference would be, as always, I'll try to be open-minded, a new character. I think also just like we've met so many Inquisitors across the canon, across now the live action, the animated, the video games, the comics, et cetera. It doesn't feel like this needs to be anything other than a continuation of that where we learn this was...

brother X or, you know, sister Y, whatever number we're on by then. And it's working as a mercenary now after the Inquisitors crumbled. And, uh, it's, it's Maruk. And that's just it. Just Maruk. That's enough. Damn it. That's enough. Maruk, you're enough.

You haven't seen the Barbie movie yet, but I kind of feel like you have in that sense. You've like really digested the Ken sentiment for Merrick. I can't wait. I can't wait. Oh, I know. Circumstances has kept you away. But like, I tried to make Molly go see the Barbie with me. We'll get there eventually. Merrick. Yeah. I agree. I think it is completely unlike...

Me needing to know who the spy was on Mandalorian season three or where Cobb Vanth is. Still wondering. I am completely content. I'm completely content. Yeah. If Mark is exactly what he seems to be, which is a helmeted person who once was an Inquisitor or picked up an Inquisitor blade somewhere. Here are the three main theories. The internet is hopping. Yeah. What do we got? A light. Okay. First of all, we should note that

that one other piece of evidence we have is that balan said he him he said he right so the pronoun says this is a probably a male but just in case i will engage with this

Theory about Barris Offey, a character that we talked about in our Ahsoka prep pods. Someone from Ahsoka's past. Yeah. And we got this email from Olivia who identifies as Honeycrisp who says Dave Filoni stated that Barris is originally... I've seen a lot of Honeycrisps lately. I'll just throw that out there. You're not reading all the emails and I am and I've seen some Granny Smith lovers. It happens. Um...

Dan Filoni has stated, many people are saying that Granite Smiths are fine, Mallory. Anyway, Olivia writes, Dan Filoni has stated that Barris was originally supposed to die at the end of The Wrong Jedi. Hmm.

But he decided to keep the character alive, knowing Dave Maloney. There has to be a reason for that. A final showdown between those two characters feels inevitable to me, but I could just be looking at it through rose-colored glasses. So, it bears off. He is a character who framed Ahsoka Tano, is responsible in a way for Ahsoka Tano leading the Jedi Order. Yes.

I just simply do not buy that Ahsoka wouldn't sense that it was Barriss and that Barriss wouldn't take the helmet off and be like, remember when you got expelled from the Jedi Order and Moff Tartan put you on trial because of me and Flex. There's just too much history between them for it to not be acknowledged. I also just don't think that's a character, like when they like whip the helmet off and it's like, tis I, Barriss Ahsoka.

Ferris Offey. And like 85% of the audience watching at home is like, literally who? Like, I just don't think that's going to be a satisfying moment. But yeah, fair. Okay. What are the other possibilities then? The other one that I think is somehow worse is that it is Ezra under the helmet. And I'm just like- Absolutely not. I'm rarely like- Absolutely not. I rarely refuse to consider a theory, but that's absolutely not for me. No. It's a hard no.

No. Here's my favorite. And you knew it would be. There is a character. Speaking of like, as Ben was of like looking up adjacent names on Wikipedia, right? Yeah. There's a character from the video games called named. You definitely said that like a person who plays a lot of video games. I said that intentionally, like I was 900 years old.

That was the joke, man. I loved it. It was funny. I laughed. Video games. Anyway, Galen Merrick is the name of this character, a.k.a. Starkiller, not to be confused with the base. And he was pulling the transport back with the force before it was cool, Joe. It's your boyfriend, Sam Witwer.

It is Sam Witwer, not my boyfriend, but the voice of my boyfriend who is the animated Darth Maul. I don't know Sam. He's a real person. Let's be cool, okay? I don't know him. The voice of your boyfriend, Darth Maul. Good. Yes. Okay. Sam Witwer voiced that character in the video games. And as our producer Steve pointed out to us before we started recording...

Sam Witwer actually has a deeply, deeply buried on like page 12 of the closing credits of episode two, an additional voices credit for this episode. Now, could it have been him whispering indistinctly? Morgan, maybe. Like there's a million things he could have done in this episode. Was he...

for the loath cat? Maybe, possibly. But I love the idea that perhaps he was voicing the, I don't know, does Maruk say anything? Grunts and groans of this helmeted individual. Strong silent type. Take the helmet off and it'll be Sam Witwer. And then the entire viewing public would be like, but if you're Sam Witwer, why did you have a helmet on? Yeah.

I like that. That's a fun one. I still say this is just a new character, but that is a fun one. It's always great to have Sam in Star Wars. Always. Played by Sam Witwer. It would be nice to have Sam Witwer in live action. Wonderful. Let's do it. A great person who I don't have weird feelings about. It is an animated character that I have weird feelings about. Okay. One of my favorite points of clarity ever. I don't have...

I have weird feelings about that person. Would you say you have a crush on the voice of animated Obi-Wan Kenobi? No, you're in love with animated. The voice, yes. You're in love with the animated Obi-Wan. It is, yeah. It's a hot cartoon that I want to fuck, you're right. It's weird to be weird about real people who you might meet something. Like, let's be cool. All right. That's all I have to say about Theory Corner. We love hot cartoons around here. It went in a direction I did not anticipate that it would go in.

But we're done. Bad baby. Oh, yes. All right. Wonderful stuff. Okay. Rapid fire here to close. Still 75% original parts. Easter eggs. I'm not sure if it was 75% original parts and 25% Easter eggs in this episode, but it felt right for the title of this segment. Joe, there are too many to go through here. We've talked about a ton of them already. Pick a couple favorites.

I'm just going to pick one for the sake of time. And it is the fact that we got a clone trooper helmet in the opening credit helmet montage, which keeps the dream of Rex having a little moment in this show alive for us. I love it. Can I get you on board with the Star Wars Lego building if I if I give you the Rex helmet? Is that the one you would build?

no oh boy that was a no that was a long pause and then a no fine more for me that's okay uh my real answer is every single thing on Lothal as I already said but uh to shake it up I'll mention something else we've also talked about a ton the the purgel in the circling the new galaxy from the pathway to paridia

of purgles spawning grounds. We gasped and grabbed each other's arms. It was so exciting. And then more purgle in the end credits. I love a purgle. I can't wait to be with our beloved space whales. Okay. Nice haircut. It's more me. It's time for Wig Watch Trademark with Joanna Robinson. The trademark should have gone after your name.

Do you wear wigs? I love... Okay, by the way, this is just a good opportunity for me to gush over Natasha Liu Bordizzo, who I just thought was incredible. Wonderful. I loved her. She's absolutely captivating and intriguing and gorgeous. And I loved her chipped nail polish. And I just thought she was just incredibly cool. I thought her hair looked really cool. I loved it. I loved the hair. I loved the hair.

on her. I did not. I mean, like it looks, I don't know. It looks fried, but that's what hair that is constantly dyed, which is what we know Sabine does would look. So I love that realism for it. Um, like you watch, it's still not my favorite in live action. I'm still going to like, keep thinking about how I feel about it. How do you feel? I like, I liked it. I think they've improved something about the, the Ahsoka Leiku since the initial live action debut. Um,

It was fun to see Hera's head tails. Enjoyed that. It still feels a little like made of foam-y for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah. Are we going to wear our Ahsoka leku to the next recording like we promised each other? I can't believe we have matching lightsabers and lekus now. It's a lot. You can't? Is it or is it just the beginning? This has been a wig wash trademark with Jonah Robinson trademark.

It is time for our last segment of the day. It is a House of Art tradition. Born during the Stranger Things podcasting run. If this show had Netflix subtitles. Hell yeah. Steve, you're the best. Thank you. Here's what feels really true is that we're probably not going to see the Loathcat again. I can't bear to think about it. The Loathcat's not coming.

Yeah, when will they be back on Lothal? Hopefully we get like a someone to check in on him. I need to know if he's okay. Genuinely, if they just like every episode said, meanwhile, back on Lothal and it's just like a... Be thrilled. It's Clancy Brown. It's Ryder Azadi like feeding the cat. Yeah. And then he's scratching his chin and then Jykel is like, will anyone teach me how to wield the force? And then we move on to the rest of the episode. It would be great.

Just in case, perish the thought, but just in case we don't see Sweepo again, I do feel compelled to dedicate this award to him today. And so the short version is chin extends expectantly, but I will instead be going with the long version. Fluffy baby lovingly presents darling chin and cheek for tender embrace, chirps expectantly. Faith shaken former Jedi, still a house of our favorite, but earning a formal demerit in this moment, refuses to issue soothing scratch.

I was like, is Mallory going to go long on this one or short? I feel like we're never on the same page on that because mine is sprightly and it goes like this. Mandalorian viscera sizzles and then instantly and miraculously cauterizes. Beautiful. Short and sweet. You're ready to be a medical droid. You know, good old sizzling viscera. You love to see it. Anything else? Is that how we're ending with sizzling viscera? I can say it's not so. Unfortunately, I think it is.

Did Ben get any comments about how he's sizzling viscera on Instagram or TikTok? Oh, boy. Well, friends, it's never a straight line with us podcasters, is it? And yet we have still somehow managed at last to reach the conclusion of today's podcast. Thank you for joining us for this podcast.

First Ahsoka deep dive. We're so excited to talk about the show all season. Join us again next week. Thank you to our favorite force wielders, Steve Allman, for producing this podcast. Great to have you back on the soundboard, Steve. Good luck with this edit. Arjuna Ramgopal for his additional production work on this episode and Jomi Adeneron for his work on the social for this episode. Until next time, remember, the past is the past. Move forward. ♪