The 'Ahsoka' Primer Watch List: One Episode to Understand Each Character
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I was beginning to believe I knew who you were behind that mask. But it's impossible. My master could never be as vile as you. Anakin Skywalker was weak. I destroyed him. Then I will avenge his death. Revenge is not the Jedi way. I am no Jedi. Greetings and welcome into the Ringerverse here on the Ringer Podcast Network.

I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only to Lothal, but also to join us on the Ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Joining me today, now that she's finished purifying a bleeding kyber crystal to forge her new and instantly iconic blades, it's my house of our quirky title, co-host Joanna Robinson. You know what they say, Mallory Rubin?

New problem, new door, new podcast. Here we go. Okay, Jo. Today...

We are here for our first of two promised Ahsoka primer pods. We're getting everybody ready for the impending live action Star Wars show Ahsoka. This will be the best show of all time ever created, right? The achievement of a lifetime for Dave Filoni. Yeah. On the record. With the expectation and the hope and the dream. Reasonable expectations. So excited.

We never claimed it was the summer of no expectations over at House of R. Summer of sky high, unreasonable, impossible to achieve expectations. Today's primer one is going to be the Ahsoka watch list primer, which is going to feature one, put a little asterisk next to one. We'll come back to that in a bit, episode that you need to watch in order to understand why

Every character from the canon who we believe or know is going to feature prominently in Ahsoka based on the trailers, based on the character posters, based on the marketing material, how they're positioning the show, etc. There are going to be a couple more than one for the titular star of the show, Ahsoka herself. Before we head to Malachor, before we explain more how we are approaching this pod, before we share some other updates, some quick programming reminders for Ringiverse.

This Friday, Blue Beetle. Next Monday, it's a button mash game swap. And then next Wednesday, the Midnight Boys. Pew pew! We'll have their instant reaction to the two-part Ahsoka premiere. Jo, before we get to some other stuff, how can everybody follow all of that? I'm just thrilled and honored that you asked me this question, Molly Rubin. And I would just say that if folks want to subscribe to The Ringerverse...

That might be a good step. We'll talk about what else they might want to do a little bit in a second. Also, follow us on socials, right? At Ringerverse and all the socials. Great idea. But where else, Molly Rubin, should people be looking for the kind of content they want and crave from us? You know, Joanna, Steve, our dear friends and listeners, y'all may have noticed that we did not mention...

In those programming reminders, any future House of R podcasts, and that is because today's House of R is the last one that you will find on The Ring Reverse. There was way too much of a pause between you will find and on this. We have to build the drama. It's like a collective gasp. Because what? Drum roll, please, Steve.

maybe the sounds of chopper whooping, you know, perhaps the sound of the ghost taking off in flight. Loathwolves running through tall grass. Yeah, loathcat chirping in triumph. We are launching a new house of our feed. Well, you will be able to find two episodes from us every single week.

I'm so excited. Me too. So also subscribe to House of R. Why don't you? Yes. You will be able to do that on Friday. We'll have a trailer. The feed will be live. You will be able to follow that on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Give us the five stars. Give us the follow. Give us all of your love. Listen to our podcast. Please tell your friends, tell your family, tell your fellow rebels.

All of it. It's a call to action. Yeah.

What will the first couple of pods on our new House of R feed be? Well, you already mentioned that we're going to do a second Ahsoka prep pod. And so we will be giving you top Ahsoka moments coming on Monday, August 21st. That's our first official House of R. It's perfectly fitting. This is Mallory Rubin's fictional soulmate, Ahsoka Tano. And we will be celebrating her for...

an hour plus on a podcast. Yeah. Emphasis on plus. And...

Just to echo what Mallory said, please, please subscribe to our podcast. Please do leave us a review. That will be really helpful to us. We don't usually put the hat up for reviews, but that would be very helpful in this instance as we launch the feed. And then also, we are still part of the Ring of Earth family. Yes. There will still be House of Midnight. We'll still be crossing over. We would never leave our pals on Button Mash and Mid Edition and the Midnight Boys. We love them dearly. So we're still...

brother-sister pods. We're just off on a side quest. Here we go. It's all the Ring of Earth family. It's like the Phantom and the Ghost. Yeah. You know? It's all part of the same mechanism. Phantom Potter off onto our own side quest episode. And then on Friday, August 25th. So as we say, two episodes going forward every week from us. So Monday you're going to get Top Ahsoka Monads. Friday you're going to get the Ahsoka Deep Dive.

from us. Can't wait. Truly can't wait. So, House of R. It's all happening. Oh, Mallory, do you want to tell our listeners that we finally landed on what we decided to call our specific listeners? Yeah. And this came via email. So that's another reminder to say, send us your emails at hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. The idea was in the inbox, along with a lot of Apple takes.

The Bad Babies. It feels right. Bad Babies. Bad Babies. I love that. So, greetings, Bad Babies. Welcome to our new feed for House of R. Can't wait. You can expect more of Steve Allman's soundboard wizardry over on the new feed. We'll be there with the deep dives that you have come to expect and hopefully love.

For all sorts of new releases, we're also just going to have more of the other stuff that we've had a lot of fun doing, like those nostalgic rewatches and revisitations, our watch lists, our top moments, drafts.

Tropes courses, Hall of Fames, mailbags, all of it. It's going to be so fun. We can't wait. Typically, we'll be coming to you on Tuesdays and Fridays, but we wanted to get that Ahsoka primer to you a little bit early ahead of the series premiere. It's going to be fantastic. I can't wait. I'm thrilled. I found the bad babies email. So shout out Richard. Richard is the one who emailed us bad babies. Put it on the merch. Let's go. Okay. Today's topic, the watch list. Let's do our little...

Friendly Neighborhood spoiler warning for a hot second here. Because we do want to be abundantly clear that we are going to be spoiling everything that has ever happened in Star Wars. So this is not going to be an episode where we guide you toward a particular episode from the Clone Wars or Rebels and give you an indication of what happens, but don't say specifically what happens. We want this to be an episode that guides you toward the...

a handful of episodes that would be most fruitful to revisit or watch for the first time ahead of the two-part Ahsoka premiere. But, and we would really encourage it because these shows are great. But if you don't have time or you don't want to, like, this pod will hopefully tell you all you need to know. And in addition to spoiling the particular things that happen in the episodes we're going to be talking about, we're going to be...

Summon up some arcs and some events and some crucial plot points that happen not only in these shows, but elsewhere in the canon. So you're going to hear about some redemption arcs. You're going to hear about some character deaths. Be prepared heading in. And I think we would both say like really fervently, do not let any of those spoilers deter you from watching these shows in full one day, because as you will hear us say many times today, they are wonderful and very rewarding.

Mallory and I just rewatched all of Rebels. Yeah. And had a blast. Had an absolute blast. One of my favorite shows to rewatch. I never tire of it.

I always love anytime we have something new in the canon, like we've seen Ahsoka in live action now in Mando and Boba, and revisiting these prior moments with a slightly new light. It'll be so fun after this first season of Ahsoka to go back and watch it all again. So I'd just like to apologize for how I sound today. I guess I should say that at the top too. I'm a little bit of a scratchy throat here on the mend, but everything is fine. You sound like a dream. And the restorative balm of talking about

One of my favorite things in the world. Star Wars Rebels. The Clone Wars with...

One of my favorite people in the world, Joanna Robinson, is all I need. All I need to heal. That's the force healing for me. Jo, let's quickly explain what approach we're taking today and why. Because there are a number of different ways that we could have theoretically tackled a watch list. And frankly, most of them would have netted out in us talking about something between 75 and 180 episodes of television. I just want to, just in advance, a round of applause to Mallory Rubin for her extraordinary restraint

In the watch list that she put together for this episode, Mallory volunteered as tribute to pick and choose the episodes that we were going to talk about today. She did an excellent job. And when we were first planning, she was like, five, five, ten episodes per character? What are we, you know? She kept it largely to one with some bonuses, et cetera, et cetera. I'm really proud of you, Mal. Thanks, Mal. We wanted the, not to speak for Mallory, but I will, the episode she chose...

are not even necessarily like, they're definitely not as, like if someone asks us, what are the best Rebel episodes overall? These are not the ones we necessarily would have picked, though some of them are. Or is this the best episode that has this character in it? Also not necessarily. But what you picked are stories that really drill down into the essence of a character or key facets of a character that will help you if you're on a rewatch or maybe you're just zooming through for the first time.

And you're just hopping around to give you just a little time spent with these characters before we're going to see them in live action. Yeah. Did that do it? Yeah. And I think, like, what I felt...

finalizing the list of episodes was that almost all of these would, I think, appear on the list of, hey, what are the couple dozen or so best episodes from the animated verse? But there are other episodes that would definitely be on those lists that aren't here. Like if we think of something like Twin Suns, a shared favorite of ours from Rebels, because that doesn't have a bearing. We don't think, we have no reason to think on what we are expecting to see in Ahsoka. So we're trying to show you something here about like,

The essence of each of these characters, right? I was just thinking about somehow Maul returned and how excited I would be. He's never gone away in your heart or mind. True. Because you love him and have a crush on him. In my dreams. Yeah, I do love him and I do have a crush on him. I would put these in my top 30. Yeah.

let's say. The top 30, and there's just like a few that are missing, yeah. Yeah, and again, we are going to hit more than one for Ahsoka, but just to reassure you, if you're like, how could you skip Thing X about Ahsoka's arc? How dare you? Like, frankly, how dare you? Don't worry, it's probably going to come up on the...

the next pod when we go through some of our favorite and the most essential moments from her canon. And the Ahsoka pod on Monday is similar to the one we did for like Obi-Wan where we're going through and just picking out, again, the moments that we find most illustrative or exciting about the character. So yeah. Can't wait. Let's talk a little bit more before we dive into the episodes about the canon that we are covering. Joanna.

I'm about to ask you to sum up 15 years of animated storytelling in just a couple moments, which frankly is the ambition of this podcast. So it's a good little micro exercise here at the top. Yeah. For anyone who might not know. Yeah. What is Star Wars The Clone Wars and what is Star Wars Rebels?

This is for some little inside baseball for listeners who don't like hang out in the halls of journalism. This podcast is what's called service journalism. We are trying to bring you information. So if you've never watched these animated shows or you just watch them a while ago and don't remember them or don't have time, whatever, we're just going to assume that if you're listening, maybe you haven't seen them. So here's, let's just, or you have, and you just love spending time with Ezra and Sabine and era and us, which is definitely possible. Um,

Star Wars Clone Wars ran from 2008 to 2020 because its final season came out much, much later. A movie plus seven seasons. Lucas is involved initially and then Filoni. Dave Filoni, who we've mentioned countless times as we cover Star Wars, is sort of the godfather, the overseer of the show thereafter.

It's a prequel series that establishes Ahsoka as Anakin Skywalker's Padawan. You're like, I've never heard of that in one of the live-action movies. But this is one of those examples of a story told in the margins of other stories that we talk about a lot, especially when it comes to Star Wars. So...

Ahsoka is this, as we learn in the Clone Wars, massive figure in the galactic history. And it fleshes out a lot of lore. We're going to talk about some of those lore pieces. We'll be talking about Ahsoka here in a little bit. And very chiefly really deepens our understanding of Anakin Skywalker as a character through the lens of his Padawan Ahsoka.

Star Wars Rebels. My absolutely favorite recurring interview line in recent Star Wars history is anytime Dave Filoni is talking about the creation of Ahsoka, he notes that one of the first things that he and the other assembled writers said was, Anakin doesn't have a Padawan. And paraphrasing here, George Lucas said, he does. It's just an iconic.

an iconic bit of George Lucas like does evolve in real time. And sometimes it works. It does. Star Wars Rebels. Yes.

and 2018 key show because it is the first thing that launched after the Disney acquisition of Lucasfilm. So it's key sort of proving ground for Disney-owned Star Wars four seasons. This end-to-end is a real Filoni joint, right? This is Dave flexing his skills. So Ahsoka is here as well. His beloved, his daughter, his prize creation, Ahsoka, is in Rebels, but she's not the core of Rebels. At the core of Rebels is

The way that Dave Filoni has described Rebels is as an A-team-like show. So what if in 5 BBY to 0 BBY, the events leading up to A New Hope, in the same era as Andor and Rogue One...

We had a scrappy ragtag team of Rebels. And what if we got to know them? We went on little missions with them every week and then had some big overarching themes as well. The Ghost Crew is our core crew in Rebels. Codenamed Spectres and eventually part of the Phoenix Squadron. And in a fun, like, real coherent branding. Ghost Crew. Yeah.

Spectres is their code name and their little shuttles are called the Phantoms, right? So like, they're like, we have a theme and we ran with it. We are ghosts. Sabine is just tagging the orange phoenix all over town. It's great. A group of archetypes. Would you say, Mallory Rubin?

Ruben? Yeah, this is one of the things that I think is really great about Rebels. It incorporates so many of the hallmarks of a Star Wars story. You've got your Jedi Master. You've got your Jedi Apprentice. You've got your Mandalorian. You've got your Star Rebel pilot. You've got your warrior. You've got your droid who's like

more human than the humans, isn't he? Chopper, I love you. But it all feels new because of the bond they build together. This is one of the great found family stories in Star Wars, and I think they could argue in sci-fi and fantasy. And...

It is also a really, really excellent, like I think top tier up there with Andor example of expanding Star Wars in a way that purely heightens and adds, does not compromise anything that we hold sacred and dear. And in fact, gives us that thing that we are so often talking about and longing for as Star Wars fans where we're saying, what

What's just out of view? What's just out of frame and just maybe a degree or two to the left of the thing we've all spent decades watching, thinking about, and talking about together? And when you see...

how the specters shaped the course of galactic history. It in no way diminishes the way you perceive or feel about what Luke does say in a new hope, right? It, it adds, it heightens, it enhances, it makes the galaxy feel bigger and fuller of people who are shaping events. It's wonderful. I think what's so enriching about rewatching and, and, and diving into rebels as we are about to do, um, in anticipation of Ahsoka is as we discussed, we were talking about Mandalorian season three, um,

Mando was like a Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni sort of joint creation, but really more Favreau's baby than it was Filoni's baby, you know? And then Filoni peeled off of season three to make Ahsoka because as we've already alluded to a number of times, Ahsoka is one of his most cherished creations. And so he is focusing on making this Ahsoka series. So he's not really that actively involved in season three is our understanding. And so...

if a lot of the va-va-va boom felt like it was out of missing from season three, that we hope is because Filoni was putting all of his vas and all of his booms into Ahsoka. And so examining what is of interest to Dave Filoni in Rebels will help us understand what is of interest to Dave Filoni in Ahsoka. And one of my favorite things on this rewatch was really thinking about the ways in which

A bit in Clone Wars and then so much more in Rebels. The idea of the Force is interrogated, examined, light side, dark side, sort of muddied and complicated and deepened. So we're going to talk about all of that. Yes. We will talk about a few Clone Wars episodes today as well. And obviously for Ahsoka's arc in particular, a lot more of it unfolds there than in Rebels, as you noted earlier.

We'll come back to some of that in our next pod in more detail. But the kind of confluence of those points and the Anakin of it all with Ahsoka and how that shapes...

The way that she thinks about the Jedi Order or, in general, structures of power, the halls of power. The way that she thinks about the nature of a relationship between a master and apprentice, a teacher and a learner. Like, so many, especially the second full trailer and then some of the more recent, like, shorter teasers for the Ahsoka run-up have really gone in hard on this Ahsoka-Sabine master-apprentice relationship.

And so we're going to talk about that on the Clone Wars front, like what Ahsoka and Anakin meant to each other, what was lost, how that has hung over and shaped a lot of the future for Ahsoka. We should say Sabine is not, to our knowledge in canon, a Force wielder. We'll talk about that more later. But one of the things that we both love so much and that so many Star Wars fans love so much about Ahsoka as a figure is that she defies power.

without undermining something that is kind of like foundational to Star Wars, right? Think about the number of times we talk about light side, dark side, balance in the force, this, that, a binary of some sort. When Ahsoka leaves the Jedi order, it's not to follow the dark side. It's not to become a Sith Lord. She's still fighting for good. In fact, doing so in a way that has those blades in those hands is...

In the course of history, I think in a way that very few characters can match, she's operating under the code name Fulcrum. She's working with Bail Organa to help shape the rebellion. She's syncing up with the Ghost Crew, as you noted, eventually over time. Dueling Ball before all that on Mandalore. Just wonderful stuff. She's everywhere. She's doing it in her way. And I think one of the real recurring through lines of our conversations about Star Wars is, why did Character X think this had to be the way that they made this decision? Why did Character X not see that...

This other person could do this thing without it compromising something sacred. Ahsoka challenges those conventions. And what I love, I mean, we're con we are constantly interrogating as we showed the Jedi order. Um, but even before we were doing that, Ahsoka was doing right. And so, and I think that,

There's something kind of metatextually interesting about Dave Filoni who grows up, who comes up as like George Lucas' Padawan, right? Like George Lucas is the master. Filoni is the Padawan. He has learned all the lessons of the lore. Like he knows it like no one else knows it. And then he's like, okay, but what can I do with it?

Right? That's a little different from your light side, dark side fable, which is captivating and we respect and we're not trying to undermine. But like, what if my creation, Ahsoka, has white sabers? You know, we're not in red or blue. The only pair in the galaxy. You know, like, what if that? And so I think we're really lucky to be in a space where there's someone who...

It is so rare. We see it time and time again of different filmmakers who grew up with the property, Star Wars especially, who grew up, a generation of people who grew up on Star Wars, became filmmakers, and then thought that they knew exactly what Star Wars was because of it. And we have our differing definitions of who does and who doesn't get it. But I think most people are united around the idea that Dave Filoni gets it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so what we see in a trailer or something like Balin and Shin with their orange sabers, right? We think, okay, well, how does what we know about Ahsoka...

maybe prep us for what we should anticipate on that front where they're clearly being positioned as the villains of the season in addition to a couple other figures we'll talk about today, but not with those

instantly recognizable. You can put it in this box or pyramid holocron, if you prefer, of what we think of with a red blade and a Sith or an Inquisitor that we do, of course, the Inquisitors in the trailer. So that's a very fun thing to think about. Okay, a couple other quick primers on some of the other characters before we dive into the episodes that we think sum up their essences. Of other villains. Speaking of delightfully fun villains, Thrawn. Our guy Thrawn is here, right? Red-eyed, blue skin, son of the Chiss's Odyssey.

Thrawn, we've talked about him a lot. He's got some novels you might want to read if you want to get really into him. But we're going to be talking about Thrawn. He's going on the list today of characters you want to check out. Tactical genius, an art lover, a martial artist, tank top wearer, incredible guy. One of the few, this doesn't always happen, but an example of a character who is voiced by someone, Lars Mikkelsen, in the animation, and they have tapped...

Good old Lars himself to play Thrawn in the live action as well. So excited. I am overjoyed. Thrawn, who was this iconic figure in Legends canon, was brought back into the new canon by Filoni and co. in Rebels in Season 3. So this feels like certainly the proper place for his introduction. And of course, we got to hear his name uttered aloud in the live action.

by Ahsoka in Dave Filoni's episode of season two of The Mandalorian, The Jedi. Thrilling. Can't wait. Rapid fire, Joe. Who is inside of the ghost throughout Rebels? Who are the key figures in the specters? Number one, Kanan Jarrus. He's not going to be in Ahsoka because here comes the biggest spoiler of them all. He's dead. Okay. Genuinely.

devastating and one of the saddest moments in Star Wars history without question. Terribly, I was just sobbing my way through this on my rewatch. Caleb Zoon is his original name, but he is Kanan Jarrus. If you're a Bad Batch watcher, you watched him escape Order 66 as a young Padawan. Yeah.

And he sort of has this crippling guilt about the way in which he ran away during Order 66. He starts out as this kind of roguish Han Solo-ish figure at the beginning, but really he is like the dad of the Ghost Crew. And he has a soft spot for Harris and Doola, who we're going to talk about next. But he also becomes Ezra Bridger's Jedi Master. Okay.

Yes, and it is an incredibly rewarding shared arc because he's not just teaching Ezra how to be a Jedi. Ezra is teaching him. They're all teaching each other all the time. They project so many of their fears and insecurities onto each other, all of them inside of the ghost, because that's how you know they're really like a true family, right? But Kanan is so afraid. Like when we meet him, he has his lightsaber broken in half and

hidden because he doesn't want anybody to know who he is. This is the peak Inquisitor era of hunting Force wielders. But also he doesn't trust himself to be the one who's teaching a new era of Jedi. And to watch him find that new purpose and confidence as he's instilling it in Ezra is just wonderful. There's an episode where they think

a Jedi is still alive and they're going to try to rescue them. And one of the reasons that Kanan is so excited is he's like, oh, you'll really learn now. Like this, this Jedi will teach you and you'll have a proper teacher. And then when they find out that it's, nope, it's just Kanan and Ezra, we go from there. So if Kanan Jarrus is the dad of the ghost crew, let's talk about mom, Harrison Doola. Hi,

They're all very hot. They are. Ace pilot. She's a Twi'lek and a child of Ryloth. And she and the droid Chopper go way back. I love Hera Syndulla. She's going to be played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead in the live action. We have seen her. She's mean green and ready to fly. Want to talk about Chop? Chop. He is in a long line of memorable characters.

distinct Star Wars droids. Truly a one of one. C-110P. He is the most curmudgeonly droid you will ever come across in your Star Wars viewing. Maybe other than AP-5, who he befriends along the way in Rebels. But,

But he is so fiercely loyal. He is there for Hera and there for the members of the ghost. He's like a bickering member of the family. They fight, they push each other around, they let each other down. And then they're always there when they need each other. And he is the best. I can't wait to be back with our beloved chop and,

He's a little psychotic. He murders, like, I mean, all of the members of the Ghost Crew murder a astonishing number of characters across their adventures. But, like, none of them have, like, chuckled gleefully and waved their little droid hands in the air when they've done it the way that Chopper has. Chopper is more than happy to blow up a large vessel full of a number, a number of Imperial workers and then just go about his day. Uh,

I guess we should mention, since we're spoiling everything, that Chop's not really the only kiddo from the Hera mom-dad crew who's around here. Because one of the things that we learned in the epilogue is that while Kanan may have perished, you know, there was some fucking going on aboard the ghost. The seed is strong. The seed is strong. So there's Kanan and Hera have a child, Jason. And will we see him in Ahsoka? Is he with a babysitter the entire time?

I think we will see. There's a shot in the trailer that it looks like he's sitting shotgun with Hera. I'm excited to see him. I imagine his screen time will be limited, but I'm excited for him to pop up. How about Zeb? Spectre 4. Zeb, my fave. Also hot. He is a Lissat. Former captain of Lissan Honor Guard. He's like... If you think about like...

Beast from X-Men, but less cerebral. That's Zeb. I absolutely adore him. He is so curmudgeonly. Initially does not want Ezra Bridger to join the crew. We'll talk about Ezra, of course, in a second. Definitely doesn't want to share a bunk with Ezra. You saw him in live action in The Mandalorian Season 3, very briefly. Still very skeptical about

well, skeptical of the Republic and its current existence is what we found. Skeptical of authority in general, I would say, is our guy Zeb. We don't know if

if Zeb is in Ahsoka. He has not been in any of the trailers, any of the promotional material. And I think increasingly maybe the reason we saw him in Mando is to account for his whereabouts because he's not in Ahsoka. But doesn't that seem sad? It feels like he absolutely has to show up at some point because all of our other pals are here. It seems so weird that they would go to all the trouble of designing this very good... But then

why show him in a trailer if he's in the show? That part is really strange. Maybe they'll keep us waiting for a bit and then he'll pop in and maybe Callus will be with him. My favorite reformed Star Wars fascist.

alexander callous i am like i love him i would be so upset if callous does not make a live action appearance i'm a big agent callous fan same um do you ship it are you a zeb callous shipper i i am long time long time shipper i'm into it i love it they had their great their own like beyond the wall uh episode it's great wonderful yeah do you want to talk about sabine ren mallory

Oh, boy. We're back, folks. We're back here on the House of R talking about wonderful Mandalorian figures. It's like we never left. A Mandalorian, a former Imperial cadet who abandoned the Empire, defects, twist, her family doesn't stand with her. We'll go through some of the reasons why later in the pod today. And...

It's one of the through lines. All of these characters have a trauma in their past, have someone or something that has not gone right. Somebody who has left, somebody who has not been there, and they have forged that presence and support with each other that was missing for them elsewhere. Sabine is a great representation of that. She's an extremely, in addition to being an extremely capable warrior, I love when Kanan has to acknowledge, like, yeah, she's actually, like, more capable than Esra. Yeah.

She is a kick-ass artist. She's spraying her graffiti paint

tagging all over town. And one of the things that's really fun, we mentioned Thrawn's affinity for art and for studying his foes by studying their art, learning about a culture. He loves Sabine. He's like, if I opened a gallery, which he basically has done in his office. That's what my office looks like. It's just full of Sabine's art. It's wonderful. Just chunks of wall that I've had people like

Import. Love to get a piece of retainer wall with the bright orange Phoenix there. I've considered getting that Sabine rendering of the Phoenix symbol as a tattoo. I think I might do it. I think it might be time. Would you do the one from Thrawn's office where it's the Phoenix squadron thing and then like a little loathcat?

That would be amazing. Maybe I should just do the full mural from the epilogue as like a whole, like a back piece. What do you think? Yes. Should I do it? Or like a lower back, like a tramp stamp, but it's the ghost crew. I'm going to, we're going to be together again soon. So maybe we can go do that together. We'll see. We'll see where the weekend takes us. I'll see you tomorrow. Tell us about Ezra. Well, just, you missed my favorite part about Sabine.

And you're like, I wouldn't say I've been missing it. No, the blowing shit up. Sabine has never met a thing she didn't want to blow up, but I love that about her. If you're talking about ships on the ship...

Right? Ezra Bridger ships himself with Sabine Wren. That is for sure true. He's smitten from the word go. A smitten kitten. He is, however, 14 when he joins the ghost. And Sabine is only like two years old. She's like 16. But there's a big gap between 14-year-old boy and 16-year-old girl. She does not see him that way. No. So it's a real like... It's a real...

Anakin Padme situation. Did anyone ever say, are you an angel? I'm trying to remember. Are you an angel? I think he muttered it. He thought it. Yeah, he thought it for sure. He's from Lothal, and Lothal is going to come up a lot in this conversation because it ends up being sort of the center location of the Rebels series. But he is strong when you meet him in the beginning of Rebels. Strong, Aladdin-coated, riffraff street rat guy.

He's a child of two people who were arrested for having been...

early proto-rebels as the Empire takes over. And so he grows up alone, an orphan on the streets of Lothal and has to fend for himself. And so as you imagine, he is slow to trust, very spiky, not a joiner, real like, it's all about me. He doesn't even have like a cute little monkey like Aladdin had. He's just all by himself, right? But then he joins this crew of the Ghosts

becomes Kanan Jarrus' Padawan. He didn't know he was Force-sensitive, finds out he's Force-sensitive, becomes Kanan's Padawan. Maul is also like, hey, do you want to be my Padawan? Maul just repeatedly calling Ezra my apprentice is one of my favorite things in Rebels. It's so funny. It's really funny. And when I think about Ezra, Ezra is a Jedi or, you know, is a Force wielder, but...

I always think he belongs in the Avatar universe. He has a very special force bond with animals. We've seen that with Grogu. This is something that is not unique to Ezra necessarily. But there's something about his connection to nature and the living world that's

That seems very like airbender-y to me. I've always felt that way. He also goes through in the fourth season of The Rebel, goes through a corruption arc where he feels a very strong pull to the dark side, like season three onward. And that's because, you know, he has his fear. He has his attachment. He has all this stuff around his family. So his found family on the ghost side.

One thing that's really fascinating about Ezra, Ezra is like the ostensible lead of Rebels. It's like sort of his story. We pick him up on Lothal.

He exits at the end of Rebels. That's the story. It's very key to know that he was born on Empire Day. So he's born on the very day that the Empire, like Order 66 happens and the Empire begins and so does Ezra Bridger. So as a child of this new empire, what sort of fate does he have? I just find him very fascinating. Yeah, he's one of my favorites. Yeah.

The first episode of Rebels is called The Spark or The Rebellion, and many people are sparks. There are many sparks to this rebellion, but Ezra Bridger is a major spark of the rebellion overall, and we'll talk about that a little bit later on. Yes.

Also, if you're doing the math and you're saying, wait a minute, does that mean that Ezra is the same age as Luke and Leia? The answer is yes. And again, these are like parallel paths. And, you know, we're going to talk a lot about like where we leave off in Rebels and like what happens in the epilogue that is basically the setup for this Ahsoka series. Ezra...

is responsible, he sacrifices himself to remove Thrawn, to save his friends, to save his planet, his home. And that's the search. That's the proposition. Where is Grand Admiral Thrawn? We heard Ahsoka say it, but where is Ezra Bridger? And that's the question that has haunted and consumed Sabine, Sabine most of all, but also, of course, we can assume Hera, et cetera. This is the search for Thrawn and Ezra.

We've seen Ezra Bridger in hologram form in the trailer, in the Ahsoka trailer. Sabine just sitting in his old hideout on Lothal watching his transmissions. Agonizing. Over and over.

And so I think it's, we don't know how much Ezra will be in this. Like, how long does it take to find Ezra? My theory is probably they're hiding the ball a bit and we will like see him in. I don't think they're going to, I don't think they're going to find him in like the finale. You know, I think. Interesting. Yeah. So you think he'll be back in the mix early? I'm, I'm sorry.

I'm starting to wonder. I would say mid. Mid. Mid would be great. I think that would be lovely. I am starting to wonder. On the one hand, I think most of what we've seen as is typically the case with like a Star Wars or a Marvel show or anything. We're just seeing stuff in the trailer that's from the first couple episodes. So who knows what happens after that? There's a part of me that wonders if

And I think this could also be true for Thrawn and that really like Morgan and Balan and Shin are the primary foes and opponents of the season and that Thrawn is as he has been in the Moff Gideon conversation with the Shadow Council and Ahsoka's hunting in Mando, et cetera. This like looming specter. Now, obviously we've seen Thrawn. We know he's going to be in the show, but like,

how much. I mean, our assumption is that he is going to be the primary antagonist of this new swath of stories in the Mandoverse building toward this Dave Filoni movie. So I'm wondering if we get maybe just like little parcels of Thrawn and similarly Ezra comes in later in the game and then like this season is more about the search and future seasons are more about

I hear you. I think if it were like a six episode season, maybe, but it's an eight episode season. So I just think that like, I do think we will get minimal Thrawn. I agree with you. Yes. I think we'll get very little Thrawn. I think we'll get a bit more Ezra than we will Thrawn. And I would say like,

It also feels like if Ezra's in the mix really early, it complicates this Ahsoka-Sabine thing they're trying to do a little bit. We also think there's a time jump of some kind, right? Because we get two very different Sabine haircuts in the trailer. So what time period does this take place in is a big question. That's another interesting question more broadly is like,

how often are we going to be in some sort of flashback? Because one of the more recent little teaser trailers they put out features new dialogue from Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker, because as we mentioned, Anakin was Ahsoka's master. She was his Padawan. So are those...

that we get to experience alongside Ahsoka as she is meditating, say, or in a Jedi temple, or when we actually see more frequently deployed flashbacks in the show in some capacity, I think that we can get really succinct flashbacks

nibbles of the past via like force vision and meditation and something like that. I wonder because we've never known exactly when the rebels epilogue is set and Filoni has always kind of leaned into this, like don't assume because we get this, this recap from Sabine through the events of, of Endor, right? And then it builds to Ahsoka showing up and they're setting off to go find Ezra. Don't assume that takes place like right after Endor. This is maybe X number of years in the future, but,

which would be in line with the Mando timeline. So like, is the long hair Sabine in the past and the short hair is just, we pick up right in that rebels epilogue looking at the mural. Yeah. I think one theory that I saw was that part of the, part of the show will take place before we meet Ahsoka in Mandalorian. So pre Mando season one and then post Mandalorian.

Mando, like what we've seen of Ahsoka and Mando. Anyway, you mentioned a few other characters like Morgan Elspeth, who we will talk about a little bit later on because we did meet her in a Mandalorian episode. Lothal as a location, Jedi temples as a concept, Mallory is a genius and pulled episodes for all of these things.

But characters that you've mentioned a couple times, Balan and Jashin, who are like the seeming darksiders that we've seen in the trailers, we've never met them before, so they're not covered here. They have no previous canon, so we don't have anything about them. We also don't have one for Anakin Skywalker because if you don't know who Anakin Skywalker is by now, I don't know what to tell you. And he's very present in a lot of the stuff we'll be talking about on Ahsoka Front. Yes. Yes.

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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. Should we do it? Should we dive in to our watch list? Let's go. Okay, Joe, we are going to start with the star of the new show. We're starting with Ahsoka. Just to say this one more time, we have three episodes here for Ahsoka because we feel that these like

effectively sum up some of the most monumental moments on her arc. This is far from the definitive account. We will be coming back not only to some of these episodes, but to many other moments from Ahsoka's canon in the next pod, the Ahsoka Top Moments pod that we'll be doing on the new house of our feed. Follow along on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts on Monday.

We're probably also going to keep this perhaps counterintuitively, given that she's the star of the new show, a little bit quicker than some of the other character sections, because again, we're going to talk about these moments more in a future pod. Okay, let's start, not with a Rebels episode, but with a Clone Wars episode. Season 3, Episode 16, Altar of Mortis. Steve? We are in the middle of something we don't truly understand.

We'd be wise to confer with the Father first. There's no time. This is what he wants. To divide us. It's my fault he took her! You must feel how strong this part of the planet is with the Dark Side. The Father will know what to do. He can't help us.

This is a doozy. This entire arc is just fantastic and worth watching at some point. This is the one episode that has the most like, holy shit, that's a wild thing that happened to this character. I bet that left a mark. It's a nice episode in general for understanding Ahsoka's ties to, like you just heard, Obi-Wan in addition to Anakin and this larger sprawling world of Star Wars canon. But it is very important for understanding Ahsoka's truly...

distinct relationship to the Force, specifically to the daughter, one of the Mortis gods. There's the daughter, the father, the son. These are the figures that you see in the mural in season four of Rebels on the Jedi Temple Wall, which we'll talk about a little bit more later. There's light.

The daughter, balance, the father, darkness, the son. And they are just these like astonishingly powerful force beings. And Mortis is so powerful that there's a lot of like theorizing about that as like a potential site of the origin of the force. This is like force HQ, what happens here, right? And it really lingers. The force magic in this episode, Joanna, take us through some of the things that happen to Ahsoka in this episode.

In this episode alone, she gets abducted by a figure that then bites her. And oops, it turns out that that was the son in disguise who like infects her with dark cidery by biting her, right? And so she gets to be like evil Ahsoka for a lot of this episode, which is quite fun for the voice actress, I think. And then she fully dies, right?

Just completely dies. Just is dead. And then in order to bring her back, they have to infuse her with the life source of the daughter who has sacrificed herself to save the father. The son-daughter-father stuff is very Shakespearean or very Thor if you prefer your Marvel associations. The imagery is very like world between the worlds sort of space that we're in. Yeah.

I love this. In the later episode of Rebels, it's titled The World Between the Worlds. They're talking about the Mortis gods and they say, now this genuinely got a laugh out loud for me.

This figure who's like a baddie scholar says, now these three figures appear throughout the Jedi's recorded history. And then Sabine goes, mm-hmm, they're archetypes. He's like, great stuff. Yes, precisely. Yes, precisely. They're sometimes referred to as the father, son, and daughter. Sabine, come on House of R. That's the kind of analysis we need. They're archetypes, buddy. Not that interesting either. I think it's worth noting, as you say, this will leave a mark.

Ahsoka dying. Yes. Is going to inform her life decisions going forward. But I think it's also interesting that she is not only infected by the sun, but then sort of like revived by the daughter. So like we talk a lot about like the daughter's life force being inside of Ahsoka, but I think it's worth mentioning that the sun was inside her as well. And so I think when we think again, to think about Ahsoka in the gray, um,

In the not, I mean, she's a light-sider, but she's not a Jedi. I'm not saying she's like a dark-sider at all, but I like to think of her as more agnostic than anything else because she sort of has both of these forces inside of her. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. That's one of my favorite things about the episode, both of those aspects being in Ahsoka, the fact that the father brought Ahsoka

Anakin and Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, two mortis in the first place because he basically wanted Anakin to replace him as the embodiment of balance. Right. But then one of the reasons you could have is, okay, well, the daughter in that moment of sacrifice putting her, like, her essence and she's like, my nature is to do what is selfless. That's one of her quotes in this episode figure. Right.

Then you associate Ahsoka with that goodness, and you associate Anakin, because of the parallels between him and the sun, with the sun and the dark side. So they're, like, not only a team and a unit and a family, but opposing forces who then together form balance. So there are all these different reads that you could put on. There's also this line, though, when the sun says, the chains are in here now, talking about Ahsoka's mind, which I find so interesting. So, like...

you know. And of course, Obi-Wan is the, oh, he's daddy. He's always daddy for us here at House of Rock. I should say, of course,

The little, the little owl like creature, the convoy more eye who you will see with Ahsoka throughout rebels. And then like what is what aired after, but is earlier in the Canon and the final season of clone wars. That is of course also a figure from the mural in, in rebels associated with the daughter and is less like a

a constant companion of Ahsoka's moving forward, like really reinforcing this idea that that essence of the daughter lingers on and is a part of her moving forward in a really cool way. I like to think of the

I love what you're sketching out about both of those aspects being inside of her. I like to think with the daughter in particular, when she says, like, my nature is to do it as selfless and pouring that into Ahsoka. Like, I like to think of that kind of like the super soldier serum in the MCU where it's like it amplifies what's already there. Right. Right. So...

Red Skull got the super serum, super soldier serum. And so did Steve Rogers. And the outcome was not the same because that good heart that Steve had and Ahsoka, even though she has left, uh,

the Order is pursuing something right. But it's never clean and easy because she has her own fear, and much of that ties to what has happened with Anakin and the failures of the Order overall. I think this is another great episode for understanding how important Ahsoka and Anakin are to each other in both ways from both of their perspectives. Because when Ahsoka is imprisoned by

and she's proudly boasting that she's a Jedi. That's like a good marker before she leaves the Order, right? She's saying, we don't give up easily. She's certain that Anakin will come for her. But then when she's under this pull of the sun, under this enchantment, she says to him, you don't believe in me. You don't trust me. And that's not just the sun. That's coming from somewhere. And

And it's also, he says, it's my fault he took her. Right? This, like, tremendous amount of guilt that Anakin feels. And then we're going to talk about Ahsoka's guilt, like, the parallel of Ahsoka's guilt later because there is a way in which Ahsoka feels like, it's my fault the Emperor took Anakin. Do you know? So, like, they're, you know.

I don't know if you've heard this before, but Star Wars, it rhymes. It's like poetry, it rhymes? A great rhyming episode for Anakin and Ahsoka. When you're watching this, it's very difficult not to think of like Anakin and Padme and the future fall into Vader because like Obi-Wan literally just says to him, we were Lord Hurt for a reason. We cannot get involved. We are going to die.

going to risk galaxy shattering repercussions if we do this thing that you want to do, which is, as we talked about at length with Obi-Wan, like one of his limitations, right? And then Anakin just says, I don't care.

He's too powerful for Ahsoka. I won't leave her alone. The things that he will do to save and protect the people that he loves. I mean, we even get a moment when we're thinking of the foreshadowing and the portents here for his fall where we hear the sun shout, I hate you. Like, they're paving the way in this arc. I hate you! I hate you! For Mustafar. But why does his son succeed there? He has the high ground. I think that...

What's really interesting in this episode as well is that thing we were talking about in terms of like

Filoni and Lucas or whoever deepening our, you call us forced HQ. The idea that they're like force gods, you know what I mean? Is, is, is new, new lore established here and carried throughout into rebels. I, and we, we think we've seen this in the trailer for Soko. So we think the Morris gods will come up again. There is this really interesting, like,

more so than we really understood before, sort of Christian, you know, father, son, not Holy Ghost, but daughter, but like that Holy Trinity of the Mortis gods. And...

When the daughter is dying, she says, do not hate him, father. It is his nature, which is a real father. Forgive them for they don't know what they're doing vibe from the daughter. So, you know, and I just want to shout out. I'm not going to derail us too much to talk about it. But if you enjoy TikTok, there's this user, Read Moon, who's at Moon's Rare Books, who has an original, original Star Wars script that

like older than the ones that people usually look at when they talk about old Star Wars scripts. And he did a dramatic reading from it on TikTok like yesterday. And it's talking about the origins, like the original ideas of the Force as these like, as a Trinity sort of thing. And George Lucas's original. And it is very, and like the 12 suns and like, it's very Judeo-Christian. So like I would recommend checking that out if you want to know more about this other idea of the Force.

Love it. Makes me think of our guy, Bendu. He's the one in the middle, Joe. I love to think about Bendu. Trinity's everywhere. Speaking of Trinity's, let's get to the second of our three Ahsoka episodes here. Another Clone Wars jam. This is one of the best episodes in the history of the Clone Wars and one of the best episodes in the history of Star Wars animated television. Season five, episode 20, The Wrong Jedi. Steve? Ahsoka, wait. Ahsoka, I need to talk to you.

Why are you doing this? The Council didn't trust me. So how can I trust myself? What about me? I believed in you. I stood by you. I know you believe in me, Anakin. And I'm grateful for that. But this isn't about you. I can't stay here any longer. Not now. The Jedi Order is your life. You can't just throw it away like this. Ahsoka, you are making a mistake. Maybe.

But I have to sort this out on my own, without the council and without you. Just a moment here to shout out Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka and Matt Lanter as Anakin across the animated verse there. Just fantastic. That's one of my favorite scenes in the history of Star Wars. Agreed. The walk away. Oh my God. A great episode. I think if your time is limited, you're curious, but you're not ready to fully commit,

You just want to dip a toe in before you take the deep dive. One episode, I think this is the one you have to watch for Ahsoka. It is the most essential decision that she makes and one of the most seismic decisions that any central character in Star Wars ever makes to leave the Jedi Order because this is a multi-episode arc. Um...

And she is framed for bombing the Jedi temple. And the bulk of the members of the Jedi council are like, yeah, this seems right. We will put you on trial, expel you. Then Anakin solves it. And they're like, guess what?

J.K., this was your trial. This was your trial. It kills me. Absolutely hysterical. Like, gaslighting. Like, absolutely embarrassing. Wild stuff from Mace Windu. Showing from these old men. Okay, a couple things I want to... And she's like, no, I'm done, right? And she's like, no. And Anakin's like, stay for me. And she's like, no. Um...

I want to shout out a couple things. Number one, Detective Anakin, right? Detective Anakin is on the case. We talk a lot about Detective Obi-Wan. This is a Detective Anakin story. And I believe in Ahsoka...

We're getting Detective Ahsoka, right? She's looking for Ezra Bridger, right? Absolutely. So, force user as detective is an interesting thing. The Jedi Order playing politics, right? Because it's not even that they all necessarily are sure that she did this. It's that they're getting political pressure to put her on trial. I was set up and deceived, she says, as you are being deceived now. I mean, this is another Palpatine...

manipulation that filters down through Tarkin. They think it's Ventress. It's eventually Barriss. There's another spoiler for you. But yeah, they're all caught in this web of a thing that they can't forget control. They can't even see. Yoda says, and in our decision, may the force guide us. But like, it's not the, it's like a really good story for like the corruption and of the Jedi Council. And then to your, to your point, Barriss,

Barris's speech, Barris Offey gives this great speech, shout out Merit Salinger, doing great voice acting, condemning the Jedi Council. And you're like sitting there being like, well, she's right. So that's interesting. You know, attack on what the Jedi have become, an army fighting for the dark side, fallen from the light, what we once held so dear. This Republic is failing. Correct. She's right.

But yeah, this is actually a great tile. Back into the order you may come is just like one of the most aggravating exchanges I've ever seen from like cherished characters we love like Yoda and Mace Windu. You know, Yoda and Mace, we love them. They make a lot of mistakes. We've got a lot of notes for our guys over the years of Star Wars canon. I think one of the really like monumental things about this episode, obviously Ahsoka is the one who walks away and leaves the

But for Anakin, too, like their perspective, faith in what like an official body, what the Jedi Order in particular, but more broadly, like the structures of power that they have put their trust in can change.

do, can achieve, can see clearly at all is irrevocably shaken by what happens here. And they branch out in different directions from that point. So for Ahsoka, it's this unbelievably meaningful thing for Star Wars fans. And one of the reasons she's so beloved is because again, she doesn't just become evil. She forges her own path. She is this fiercely independent figure who says, I don't have to do the thing that you told me I had to do.

I can go find my own thing, right? And the fact that she does something that is so rare and continues then to be a leader and a mentor and a guide and an ally and a rebel, but somebody who does that in a way that feels right to her is just a really exceedingly rare thing in Star Wars. Yeah. When Anakin has to confront...

This failure, though, like it is impossible, I think, after watching this episode to not have it in your mind when later in Revenge of the Sith, he's looking around and saying, like, well, what has happened to the Jedi Order really? And again, part of the tragedy of Anakin's arc is his desperate desire to control in a way that is unnatural. And part of it is the way that he, too, was manipulated by these forces, right?

One of my favorite things about this conversation, though, is what it shows us about not only priming us for that guilt, right, and the burden that they both carry forward, but what it shows us about how truly they understood each other. Because Anakin says to her, I understand more than you realize. I understand wanting to walk away from the Order. And when Ahsoka kind of looks back over her shoulder at him and says, I know, I think there's only one way to interpret that. She understands...

the pull of Padme. She understands that he has these other things in his life that are important to him and sacred to him that the Order is not going to make the room to allow. And, like, it's just so, so desperately sad because if they had been able to, like...

talk about that or help each other much like later when Obi-Wan comes into Anakin's room and like they're talking about Satine and they just can't push through. It's just, it's one of those moments where you think like, what could have been? And I think also what's really key about this episode is logistically what it instructs us about the way in which Dave Filoni dances around canon, right? Because like a real problem to the beginning when you said that,

Anakin doesn't have a Padawan and George Lucas is like, he does. Okay. But now we have to figure out why she wasn't there anywhere. Why they're not talking about her, why she was never mentioned, all sorts of stuff like that. And there's like a really boring way to handle that, which is we like kill her off or something like that. But there are ways in which they've played hide the ball with Ahsoka Tano again and again and again to explain why she's not in these like key battles and key moments and

that are creative and character-driven. And that's what I love about this. It's like, okay, we could have just trapped her somewhere for a really long time or killed her, which is, again, the really most boring way you could have done it. But they're like, instead, we're going to have her make this choice and it is going to be from her, her choice, her path to go off in this new direction. And I just think that that's something that's so admirable about the way in which they decided to tell this story. But yeah, the...

sort of earth-shaking realization that an institution you believed in could be so wrong. And it is a portent of what she'll have to go through when she understands what has become of Anakin. Which brings us to... Our third episode. And folks, it's a doozy. Rebels. Season two, episode 22. This is the second part of the two-part finale, Twilight of the Apprentice, part two.

It's what you heard at the opening today. We're going to hear another little snippet now. Steve? Ahsoka. Ahsoka. Anakin. I won't leave you. Not this time. Then you will die. Ahsoka.

I get chills every time I hear that or watch that, no matter how many times it's been. That sounds at all familiar to you. It's because they poached it for the best part of the Obi-Wan series that we got last year. But yeah, it's the same thing and it works both times. Unbelievable. This is my favorite episode. I love a lot of these, but this is my favorite one. I just...

I think it is like stunning. And a lot of the reasons why are Ezra reasons and Kanan reasons and Maul reasons. There's this larger story and like Sith holocron lore and Sith temples. And it's amazing on the mythology front. All of the characters are like stitched together so expertly. Just some astonishing work from your guy Maul in this episode who in his duper finale blinds Kanan Jarrus. Yeah. What we get between Anakin and Ahsoka in this episode is I think just like precious. It is a precious thing to,

for Star Wars fans who have invested a lot of time watching these characters and watching this journey. And like, one of my favorite things about Clone Wars overall and Ahsoka's character is that it's not an either or. Like we didn't, I love what, I love that you highlighted this point

frankly, like now bizarre absence from the prequel films because that could have been such a debacle, right? It just could have been a debacle. Yeah. But you have this character who, and it never comes at the expense of each other, is a fully formed, fully fleshed out,

cherished and adored character who is shaping the course of galactic history over eons of stories now. And you have a character in Ahsoka who is unlocking something fundamental about how we understand Anakin Skywalker, the central force in all of Star Wars stories. And it's not a trade-off. She's not just there to tell us something about Anakin. She's there to tell us something about herself, about how we think about power, about how we think about good and evil, et cetera. And all of that works in harmony. And so, yeah,

When you see this moment where we've gotten like these little tastes, right? We have like early in season two, like,

The pursuit of Vader and the tie. And he, he senses through the, Oh, this is wow. The, so the apprentice of Anakin Skywalker lives and Ahsoka is like not ready to face or admit what has happened here. And then you build toward actually an episode. We're going to talk about more later today, shroud of darkness, where you see where Ahsoka has the vision of Anakin, like asking why he left her. And then he turns into Vader. And this is where she has to confront defeat.

definitively, finally, and fully that her master and friend, Anakin Skywalker, became the Sith Lord Darth Vader. She slices open his helmet. This is so funny because there's like a vision and he's like definitely Vader and she's like, no! No!

It's a tough thing to have to admit to yourself. And not until she tears a hunk out of his mask with her lightsaber and sees his face. That is so brilliant because we get the glimpse of Anakin beneath the Vader mask. We can hear his voice for a second before that Vader, before the Vader tone like kicks back in. Just fantastic. Shout out to our girl Ahsoka. She goes head to head with Darth Vader.

And in her most emotionally compromised state, makes it out alive with some help. We'll talk about that in a second. But she's defeated Maul in single combat. She's beat down an Inquisitor in one blow. Took a chunk out of Darth Vader. So for the well-actually crowd, Ahsoka's a bamf, to be clear. She's a top tier. To be clear. Yeah, all...

Off of that Shroud of Darkness vision where she sees Anakin and he's like, why'd you leave me? Why'd you leave me? Why'd you leave me? Sort of thing, you know? And so in this episode, when that clip you heard, which is, I won't leave you, not this time, she is just absolutely riddled with guilt.

over what would have happened if I had stayed. If I had stayed, could I have saved Anakin from falling? Is this all because of me and the decision that I made for myself, you know, et cetera. And I think we have to hold on to that and think about that when we think about her drive to find Ezra Bridger and not leave someone.

uh, the way that she feels. And I don't think she should blame herself. And maybe that's something that she's going to have to like grapple with and purify herself of, but like, that's something that's driving her, um, in this Ezra Bridger search as well. And, and, and in, in, in terms of her, I do think it's notable that the moments we've gotten with Ahsoka so far are Thrawn centric. I, I of course assume she wants to find Ezra. We know from the rebels epilogue that they're setting off for Ezra, but I'm like, I'm,

I'm kind of wondering if we're going to get a little bit of Sabine's more focused on Ezra and Ahsoka's more focused on Thrawn. And I think that's like relevant here too, because that idea of like unchecked evil and who it can corrupt and taint, right? And part of the reason Thrawn's great, which we'll talk about more, is because he's, I think like,

doesn't fit quite as tidily into the like cartoon evil box as maybe some other characters. He's this like really fascinating figure who has his own reasons for doing things. He's not just working on Palpatine's behalf, but like the fact that this showdown on Malachor between Ahsoka and Vader is unresolved is,

There's no closure. Well, it is because it has to be. It's the same way it has to be with Obi-Wan in his own show because we know how Vader dies. And so, like, it has to just be this, like... Something big has to happen that, like, neither one wins if we're going to squeeze these fights into the margin. But whereas...

Rebels found a really smart way to do this in a way that I think is really brilliant to show us how this duel ends, which involves Ezra pulling her through time, which we'll talk about later. Obi-Wan just sort of whiffed it with that part of it. But the reason why I... I mean, we shall see. You and I shall see. But the reason why I don't think that she's solely or even primarily Thrawn-focused...

I don't think she's solely Thrawn focused. It is the promise she makes in A World Between Worlds, right? When you get back, come and find me. I will, I promise, is what she says to Ezra Bridger. So, like, I just, I think Thrawn, I think she's asking about Thrawn because she knows that, like, Morgan and those characters care about Thrawn. If she finds Thrawn, she finds Ezra.

But we shall see. I'm you. You have your I don't agree with you, but I like your face. So that's I think I might. My guess is that it's going to be both. I think that's ultimately more interesting. I think like if she is pulled to this, like this heir to the empire idea. Right. And this person who is going to work to rebuild some version of this imperial might in the

try to cut down the new republic then that threatens everything they have tried to build and like ahsoka as somebody who worked for the rebellion for a long time but left the order and had to think about like what does it mean to be somebody on the front lines of that kind of like you noted earlier like political aspect of like regime building or or toppling like

trying to make sure that Orger is preserved. I don't think she's uninterested in finding Ezra. I think that would be, frankly, like, bizarre. I can't imagine that that's the case. No, no, no, I didn't think you were thinking uninterested. But I think she'll have, like, more than one. And I think Sabine will, too. I think Sabine is also going to want to find Thrawn, and there's a lot of, like, really fascinating Thrawn-Sabine history that would make that rich, too. Like, are they even together anymore? We don't know, right? I guess it is interesting... I guess it is interesting...

To say what's the conflict between these two people who should be aligned in their quest to find the same thing. And especially if there's a time jump of some kind. Like if we see, if we think the long-haired and then the short-haired Sabine are two different time periods. Like what happens to pull Ahsoka and Sabine apart, etc. Like if there's a moment where they have to choose who do we go after here? I think that would be like... That is interesting.

riveting. That is interesting. I also, I love when we're, you know, we're talking about Ahsoka and Sabine now, so this idea of the apprentice, which is really fascinating to think about with the two of them and the way that they seem to be positioning the relationship for the show and the dynamic for the show. Twilight of the Apprentice, I mean, it's right there in the name and there are a lot of different figures in the episode who are an apprentice to somebody or have been an apprentice to somebody. Like,

We can never stop thinking for a moment about the fact that Ahsoka was the chosen one's apprentice. There's actually, they just put out recently, it's on the Star Wars YouTube channel, this little like making of feature ads called A New Star Wars Legacy. And Filoni has this quote in there.

This young teenage girl who was trained to be a keeper of the peace had to become a warrior worthy of standing next to the greatest Jedi of all time. Like Van makes the point a lot on Midnight Boys. I think it's a great one about how so many of these Jedi were turned into child soldiers when they just thought they would be there learning about everything.

the force and studying in the library. And for Ahsoka to have to do that next to the figure who was out on the front line of every key moment, like, you can walk away from that, but that doesn't leave you. That doesn't cease being a part of who you are. And so you get, like, it's not identical language, but if we think about an iconic Star Wars moment like Vader and...

in A New Hope. I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again at last. The circle is now complete. It's not an accident that it's very similar when Vader sees Ahsoka here. He says, it was foretold that you would be here. Our long-awaited meeting has come at last. Like, these are mirrors of each other to remind us of how these things recur over time. It rhymes. I think there's a couple things that are really interesting there. Number one is, like,

First of all, Toilet of the Impressed is a really good smuggle for an Ezra episode. It's a fantastic Ezra episode. And it really sets up a lot of Ezra's vulnerabilities to the dark side going forward because of the guilt that he carries out of this particular episode. So that's a really smart thing to talk about. Destiny is something that just came up in what you were talking about in terms of it was foretold. This question of how much does destiny...

exist? How much is your path locked down for you as you go forward, which I think is really interesting. And then also that question, which is worth asking about every single character we're about, well, maybe, maybe, maybe not Thrawn, but every single member on the ghost that we're about to talk about is like children of war. Yes. We don't have a Kanan section because Kanan's not going to be in the new show, but one of my favorite Kanan things is that he was like,

You know, he ran away Order 66. He had to, you know, like Ahsoka, he was a teen in the Clone Wars. All that is true for him as well. And there's a part where Hera wants to join the larger rebellion and Kanan is resistant because he's like, I don't want to fight in another war. I just...

survived a war. I don't want to do another one. And so this question of like, and we talked about this a lot when we talked about Andor, about the generations, who was born under the empire, who was, who remembers what it was like before the empire. That's really interesting to think about when we think about all of our characters. So yeah. I love like the episode where they bring Rex back into the fold at last. And Kanan is just like, I can't trust a

and then watching their relationship build over time is just...

It's great. Kanan getting over his clone bigotry is almost as big. It's more satisfying than Mando trying to get over his droid bigotry because there's some real backslides there. Mando has a few regressions. I'm glad you mentioned Mando though because I think that's the other thing that like this episode unlocks a lot in all directions if you watch it. So if you've seen Ahsoka in the live action in Mando like you have seen her refuse to train Grogu and talk about and say to Din like this fear I'm seeing

things that remind me of someone I used to know. And I'm scared and I don't want to go down that path because he makes her think of Anakin. And so... To the best of us is what she says about Anakin. I've seen what's happened to the best of us. Even the way that Vader is talking about killing Anakin Skywalker, he was weak and Ahsoka...

saying that she will avenge him, they have, like, opted in together to this shared fiction that they are different figures. I mean, in a way, you could say they are, but, like, obviously, it's the same. It's easier, in a way, to think of it that way. That was then, and this is now. And so, like, when Ahsoka... I think her most famous line is, I am no Jedi, and this is where she says it. I am no man. It's not just about all the other stuff we've talked about already, about, like...

independent path and not fitting into like a neat and tidy either or it's all of the things that she fears to return to again so like

How does that shape the decisions that she's going to make in her own show and the kinds of relationships that she builds and the position that she puts herself in? Does she want to be somebody's master? Does she want to have an apprentice? Like, there's a lot of shit there in her past. That's why I'm like kind of obsessed with this idea of the time jump split across the Mandalorian seasons.

Because what if she tries to train Sabine, it doesn't work out. And so when she's saying, I can't train Grogu, yes, we know she's talking about Anakin, but maybe she's also just thinking about, I just tried it with Sabine and it didn't work out. This episode is brought to you by Experian. I don't know if you've ever looked in your subscriptions on your phone and noticed that you...

had like four or five subscriptions, maybe you didn't realize you were still paying for, or maybe you got some email or something and you're like, "I thought I canceled that." Well, this is what happens. These days anyone could be missing out on savings from subscriptions they've totally forgotten about. It's not just the ones you forgot to get rid of, it's the ones that they have better deals.

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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, flavorful, anything but boring. Vitamin water injects a daily dose of vibrancy into a watered-down life. So grab some vitamin water today, NYC style. Vitamin water is a registered trademark of Glasso. Should we talk about Thrawn? Let's do it. Okay. Let's do it.

Our guy Thrawn, this is a thrilling time to be a Star Wars fan. We could have picked a number of different Rebels episodes. We will talk more about the Thrawn novels across the Ahsoka season, fear not. But we're going with Rebels Season 3, Episode 17, Through Imperial Eyes. Steve? Colonel Ularan, what do you think of this design? A beast of some kind.

Fantastic.

I love this Lars Mikkelsen performance. I'm so glad that he's going to be live action Thrawn. Joe. Yeah.

What do we learn about our guy Thrawn in this episode? Other than he looks great in a tank top, I'm so glad you asked me. He's shredded. I mean, he is just going toe-to-toe with assassin droids for fun. Also, his override code being Rook is just frankly iconic. Yeah, the Danish accent tinged performance in Lars Mikkelsen is just incredible. But like, I'm just gonna...

I'm going to spoil your own format and say you've got a little... For each of these sections, you've got a little smuggle. Your little smuggle here, season three, episode 10, and Inside Man, is essentially what I did as I rewatched them back to back. Season three, episode 10... They're basically like a spaced two-parter. Season three, episode 10, Inside Man, and season three, episode 17, Through Imperial Eyes. And you get Detective Thrawn here. And what I love about this is...

We talked a lot about Thrawn's appreciation for art, and this is a big part of what happens here, is that the reason he's... Agent... We should say that Agent Callas does an incredible job framing someone else to be the spy at the heart of this. It is an incredibly complex gambit, and we're like, it worked. And then...

Thrawn does a monologue and he's like, nope. Like I figured it out and I figured it out just because of this spray paint on the helmet that belongs to Ezra Bridger that I have deduced in that clip you heard. So using his appreciation for Sabine Wren and her art and his understanding of cultures and art, you have to understand your enemy in order to like defeat them, right? And so I think that...

This is just such a key, key example of his patience as well, right? Because there's the deduction, there's the artwork, there's the very sexily beating some assassin droids and surviving. There's all of that. But when he figures out that it's Agent Kallus who's Fulcrum, he doesn't go and grab Kallus.

He says, I believe Agent Fulcrum will prove far more useful to the Empire than Kallus ever was. So the long game. Thrawn only has one game and it's the long game and he's always playing it. Exactly. Perfectly put. I think that one of the reasons this is a great Thrawn starting point and emblematic of his essence is not just because of what we get to see about how he uses art and the tactical, strategic mind and

There's this really delicate high wire act that a Star Wars story like this has to be able to pull, which is get our heroes the win. Get them out of harm's way consistently and repeatedly without us watching seasons three and four of Rebels or watching the impending season of Ahsoka or reading the novels or anything and saying, wait, are we supposed to think that Thrawn is this like rarefied genius that we keep hearing about? So anyway,

this is such a great example of that because when our pals get away, when callous decides to stay, he thinks he can help them more from there. We believe. And crucially, they believe that they have won, that they have bested him again. And he knows that he has the upper hand and,

It's also just all building toward the true, true, true, true, true loss with Ezra in the finale as something that lands even more potently because we have seen the number of times that Thrawn is content to let them think they've beaten him in an instant so that he can win. It's the old battle war thing with our guy Thrawn.

Great one. It's also just really fun to see the office and all of the Easter eggs in there and all of the art that he's collected. I just love it. I love it. When Yalarin shows up, we heard him say, you know, we heard Yalarin in the opening clip, and Yalarin also showed up in Andor, and so it's just like a fun reminder when the ISB shows up, a fun reminder that we are in the exact same time period as Andor. This episode has real...

And or cloak and dagger frame people skulk around vibes. So I loved I loved hearing that Callus was his star ISB people.

This is officially a Kalos pod now. It's great. I mean, Kalos' facial hair alone is just absolutely iconic and incredible. I think if you made me say like, okay, what's your one? You can only pick one. What is your one favorite thing in Rebels? One. It's at the moment everyone finally is like, okay, Kalos, he's on the side of the rebellion. It's out in the open. His little like strand of hair flips forward. He's no longer got like the

The imperial cloth hair. He's like, I'm a rebel now. Exactly. Kills me. I love it. Let's talk about the star artist whose work Thrawn is collecting. Let's talk about our gal, Sabine Wren, your hair dye soulmate. I think it's safe to say. Love it.

We are going to talk about an episode right now that listeners of House of R have heard us talk about many times before. We talked about this a lot in the run-up to... I couldn't believe we were back. It feels good to be back, honestly. We talked about this a lot in the run-up to Season 3 of Mando and throughout Season 3 of Mando. We're talking about it today, though, for a little bit of a different reason. This is less Darksaber-centric and more Sabine's personal history and also some lightsaber training aspects. Season 3...

Episode 15, Trials of the Dark. Saber of your own, Steve. You're not fighting me. You're fighting yourself and losing. You're not committed to this. You should quit. I don't quit. I never quit. Really? That's not what it looks like.

You did run, didn't you? No! But that's what your people believe, isn't it? You ran from the Empire. You ran from your family. Lies! So what's the truth? Truth, is it? I left to save everyone. My mother! My father! My brother! Everything I did was for family! For Mandalore!

Great fucking episode of television. I just got like really emotional and I'm just, I'm suddenly blacked out and forgotten everything that happened with the dark saber, Amanda season three. And I'm just back. I'm back and I'm ready. They can never take this episode of television away from us. That's what we have to hold on to. Damn it.

This episode gives us one of the things that we love to talk about in Star Wars and love to get, which is the many different aspects of a person. Star Wars characters do not have to only be one thing. Grogu, for example, can be a Jedi and a Mandalorian. He doesn't have to opt into Luke's bullshit choice. Yeah, Luke. Sabine is a Mandalorian. The absolute thrill of

that she experiences when Fen'rao gives her the Mandalorian Vambraces, these other tools of war. What that unlocks for her about her warrior history and sense of self and that part of who she is. This ex-imperial, we talked about this already, fleeing the Academy after she saw the truth of what they were doing with this tool that she built, which will come up later in our smuggle here. A rebel...

a part of the Ghost Crew and this found family and forged family, and an apprentice because this is ultimately a lightsaber training episode. And there are some really fascinating aspects that feel now very germane for Ahsoka about like, well, what's the difference when you're training someone who's not wielding the Force? Now, we've talked about this a bit on other pods, but

I think we are 100% aligned on this and what we were hoping for. I think we're willing to certainly like remain open-minded and if it goes a different way and it's done well, cool. We are hoping that there's not going to be a Sabine is actually Force-sensitive reveal coming. I think it is more poetic for both characters, for Ahsoka and for Sabine, if...

Ahsoka doesn't think you need to be a Force wielder or a future Jedi to be trained by a Force wielder as an apprentice. That's just much more interesting. And for Sabine to be bringing the different aspects of who she is to this new phase of her life, I think would be thrilling. I saw someone ask or suggest that she have a connection to the Force similar to like the Chirrut character in Rogue One, where it's not like a Force wielder, but like someone who is

learns to harmonize with the Force and be guided by it, but not... I think there's groundwork for that in this very episode because, like, when Hera, just a legend as always, is calling Kanan out on his bullshit, and he's like, I literally says...

were you careful with Ezra? I don't remember him fighting with a stick, which is just like chef's kiss, no notes. Kanan needed to hear it, Joanna, and Hera made sure he did. And she later says, maybe because she doesn't have the Force, you don't believe she can do this. And Kanan says, no, the Force resides in all living things, but you have to be open to it. Sabine is blocked. So yeah, like everyone could tap

could tap into the Force in a certain way. Yeah, I love it. I want to talk really quickly about armor and Sabine because as we've discovered by watching The Mandalorian, etc., that

Different Mandalorians have different relationships with their armor. Sabine is absolutely not a helmet on all the time kind of Mandalorian. Not a style of the watch. Thank God. And her armor is, like, pretty light on... You know, she has, like, pieces of armor, not, like, a full suit necessarily. But she...

She does, in Rebel, she does hang out in it 24-7. Sometimes she even, like, sleeps in it. In the trailer for Ahsoka, she's not in her armor for the long-haired period, which I find really interesting. And...

To the long-haired question, something – so there's this like, you know, there's various pieces of canon all over the place that you can find. There's this Sabine Wren's sketchbook, My Rebel Sketchbook, that is a canon book that exists. And in it, Sabine says that she keeps her hair short because her scalp gets sweaty while wearing her helmet and having long hair makes it worse.

So I almost wonder if there's a section of this where she's just completely abandoned her Mandalorian identity. She's not wearing the armor. She's grown her hair long because she's not even wearing the helmet anymore, blah, blah, blah, in that first section when she's hanging out with all of that. And then later, with short hair, we see her back in the armor at another point in the Ahsoka trailer. So I like this idea of like,

Something's going on with her Mandalorian identity that she is just not interested in for a little while. And I'm interested to see what caused that for our darling Sabine. Yeah, I'm really interested to see that. And I hope it's like active text and not just, hey, we made like a different...

wardrobe choice here for a character who you have only seen wear one thing for seasons of TV. I mean, if it weren't Dave Filoni, maybe, but it's Dave Filoni. I don't think he's going to take a Mandalorian out of her armor and not talk about it. I like the idea because, like, the end note from Sabine is that she thought for so long she'd been thinking, like, what did Ezra... What was he counting on her to do? Right. And she thinks it was, like, to watch... Ezra leaves a message. Yeah. And he said it's her in person, too, in the dome before that, but, like, she thinks it's to...

protect Lothal in his stead, watch out for this home that had become home for all of them, as we'll talk about later, because he couldn't. And I don't think she would have to, like, leave the armor aside to do that, but this idea that she would be, like, moving into, again, this other aspect of her personhood and...

fully embracing what she felt like she needed to do in that stretch of her life and that stretch of the story and then like having a moment where she recognizes and embraces again that no all these things can work in concert and in fact that's what makes me who I am would be really cool because like

You know, her regrets and the way that her like pain, not only because of her family's betrayal, you know, I'm a disgrace to them as a traitor, but her own mistakes and the guilt and the shame that she feels like hang over her. She is a character who is riddled by guilt. So many of them are.

and is constantly asking herself, is it my fault that this thing happened to a person I love? And so for that to be hanging over her with Ezra and making her feel in some way maybe like less adept or less worthy and then have her work her way back from that. Like we love a character on an arc, Jo. We love it. Arcs within arcs. Something about her costuming that we see the non-armor costuming in the trailer is

looks to me similar to like what Hera wears, which is, you know, like bomber jacket, you know what I mean? Like, and so the, the Hera Sabine relationship is such a, such a tight one in this series. And, and one really worth thinking about as we know that they're both going to be in this new series and her relation. So, um,

She's only like two years old when the Empire takes over, right? She's two years older than Ezra. So like Ezra, she doesn't really know a time before the Empire. And like Ezra, you mentioned that like all of these characters who wind up on the Ghost have experienced some traumatic event. You already mentioned like her family rejects her. Yeah.

Ezra's parents get arrested, but like everyone has their different way in which they lost their family and are seeking found family. But I love this way that, that Sabine, um, like Ezra is prickly and, and standoffish as we, as we meet her at the beginning of rebels. And then as we watch the knots in this family tighten, um, by the time that we're done and by the time that Ezra leaves, um,

he is communicating wordlessly with her on his way out the door. And yeah, it's just beautiful stuff.

It is. When she says to Fen, I have a family, because he's trying to convince her to go become the ruler of Mandalore, and she's in very, like, Jon Snow, I don't want it mode. I don't want it. I don't want it. I have a family here on this ship. I don't need them. And, again, I think, like, there are these parallels and notes of symmetry, but it's not exactly the same, because, like...

Ezra gives Sabine a little bit of the Harry-Ron, like... At least you still have parents in this episode, which is, like... What a line. Brutal, but, like, fascinating. At least you have parents to go back to. They're pushing each other and challenging each other, and it's not always pleasant. And, like, if you've never met Kanan and you're listening to the clip we just played at the top of this episode, you'd be like, is Kanan, like, a piece of shit? And he's not, but he has...

he has shit he needs to work through too. And he doesn't always help other people get better in the best way. But also no more so than Yoda is a piece of shit. You know what I mean? When he's training Luke, he's, he's as harsh Luke, I would say. A proud Star Wars tradition. Lightsaber training and meditation in a Jedi temple are like two of the toughest therapy sessions you will ever have in your life. It's just real, real, real rough crash course in therapy.

I guess we should note that some of our extra credits and smuggles for Sabine are real, like, working through it in therapy-centric, too, because actually immediately after Trials of the Darksaber, she does go home to see Clan Wren, part of House Vizsla. I have to mention the Vizslas when we can in case Jomie's listening. But our extra credit episode, if you want more Sabine, is the start of Season 4. It's Heroes of Mandalore. I would say, in particular, Part 2, this is where you get a lot about the Duchess, named for the Duchess Satine.

Brutal. And this idea of turning your people's strength into their weakness, something that Thrawn gleefully identifies, right? And something that absolutely haunts and torments Sabine. So this is another great one to watch. It'll also give you some good Mando season three relevant canon on the book, Dan, and Darksaber front as well, if you can bring yourself to experience more of that. Should we talk about Hera?

I would love to talk about Hera. Good old Hera. The best. We're back in Rebels here, of course. We are in season three, episode five, Hera's Heroes. Steve? I'm sorry about the Kalakori, Hera. I thought I needed it to keep my mother's memory alive, but I have you. I have my father, and I'm surrounded by my family every day. As long as we hold on to that, she'll live on.

The Zeb chuckle in the background. Incredible to just hear that. It really stands out when it's audio only and you can't see the screen. Amazing. This is a really fun one. It's set on Ryloth, Hera's homeworld. Hera's family...

Father Chom is a figure across Clone Wars. Their family's in the Bad Batch. They recur. War on Ryloth recurs. You mentioned this, like, Forged in War idea earlier. This is very central to Hera overall and very present in this episode. There is a really wonderful stretch in an earlier episode, actually back in Season 2, Episode 7, when they're searching for this, like,

come on in and give us a ship that will help us actually win B-Wing. And Hera is chatting with Quarry about why she does this. And she says, I was a little girl when the Clone War came to Ryloth. My mother hid us below ground, but I'd peek out when the Republic ships flew over as they fought to liberate my world. I dreamt of nothing more than to be up there with them. And he says, so you left your family to fight? And she says, I left my family so I could fly. This is just like,

quintessential Anakin, Luke, Harry stuff with like the pull of flight, that pursuit of freedom, of moving beyond the thing that always felt like it trapped you there on the ground. Yes, and I love that. And I think what's also true is I don't know at that point that they had decided the nature of Hera's family and how, because it's not been covered yet when they get to that episode in Rebels, that Hera's family was,

are rebellious yes but they're rebellious only for Ryloth and she sees the larger picture of wanting to be part of a bigger rebellion and save the larger galaxy and not just keep it Ryloth centric Ryloth first sort of thing which is her dad's little approach when we first meet her dad which is not in this episode it is one of my favorite episodes for two reasons number one Kanan is so nervous to meet her

dad and it's one of the cutest fucking things in the whole world and then that's the first time we get her code switching into her family's accent because her

Her family is canonically French. They sound kind of like Quebecois, actually. And she does not speak with that accent, except in that episode when she loses her temper with her dad, she slips back into her accent. And in this episode, when she's trying to fool Thrawn, she adopts the accent. And it's just really funny. But to that whole Forged in War...

Thrawn says it literally to her when he has her, right? He says, war, it's all you've ever known, isn't it? You were so young when you survived the Clone War. No wonder you're as equipped in spirit to fight as well as you do. War is in your blood. I studied the art of war, worked to perfect it, but you, you are fortunate, molded by it. He doesn't say molded by it, but he does say he's forged by it.

This is another smuggle because this is a great Thrawn episode as well. And the art that he is studying here, the way that he is deducing who Hera really is, and this ruse that Hera and...

Ezra and Chopper running is the Calicoria, this Twi'lek family heirloom that is precious to Hera, was precious to her mother, precious to their family. And Thrawn deduces from a family portrait on the wall the fact that Hera has this Calicoria in her hands, something that, and we get to see this play out quite literally in this episode, no other

empire stooge would be able to deduce. We talk about this a lot, right? Like the more effective villains are the ones who pay attention to the things that others think are beneath their notice and their time. And so when Thrawn is learning about Ryloth, about Twi'leks, about customs, about culture, it allows him to figure out something that other people just would miss entirely and in fact do right in front of him. Hera, from her perspective...

And I love that you cited that distinction with Cham, her father, because she has her version of that here, right? Which is like, okay, the Empire moved into my home. This is a personal mission now. And so she says to her fellow Spectres, I can't let you take this risk for me. She doesn't want him to go with her. And Kanan says, do it for us. And that's like just the spirit of Rebels, right? That's like why this unit is...

has worked its way into our hearts so fully because they would all do it for each other and they do repeatedly time and again building toward everything on Lothal, Ezra's home and their adoptive home. So we get to see them embrace that collectively. It's not just Hera's, the house that she grew up in and this thing that they don't have in their world and don't understand. It's precious to her. It means something to her and so it means just as much to them and it builds toward Lothal

I mean, some of the most emotionally impactful stuff that we ever get in Rebels when the Calichori comes back into play in Season 4. I'm not ready to talk about Season 4 yet, so let me just say really quickly that I think also there's some really interesting stuff in here about House, Home, Family, and Found Family and the Force, right? Because... Yeah. Um...

They ask Kara, you're going to blow up your house? And she says, my home is my crew and my family, right? This is like totally of a piece with that Sabine quote that we just did. I have a family. And then when she says, I have my, you know, that quote we just heard, I need to keep my mother's memory alive, but I have you and my father and I'm surrounded by my family every day.

And it surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together. It's the Force, but it's also your family, your chosen family. It's so beautiful. And then before we move to season four, which we're going to talk about in a second in our Hera smuggle, I just want to say one more thing on the Thrawn beat.

Again, it seems like a loss for Thrawn, but he says, oh, not to worry, Captain. I found this whole experience to be very enlightening, right? He's learning from his losses all the time. And in that way, he never really categorizes it as a loss. It's data. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Our extra credit here for Hera is Rebels Season 4, Episode 10, Jedi Knight. Without question, one of the best episodes in the history of Rebels. Just harrowing. Absolutely devastating and astonishing. This is the episode where Kanan sacrifices himself for Hera.

For Ezra, for Sabine, for his fellow Spectres. There are so many things that are tragic about this. I think that the reason we went with Hera's heroes as the primary episode is because so much of her history, her family backstory, Ryloth, the Clone Wars, all of that, and how that shaped her and set her on her mission and her path is really foundational to understanding the way she lives her life.

But if you want the fucking... The feels. If you want it just right there in the heart, you gotta watch... You gotta watch Jedi Knight. It's brutal. This idea... This question of, like, so she... It's this very tragic but very classic Joss Whedon-esque poignant move in which...

She finally tells Kane and Jairus how she feels about him. They had just smooched. Apparently, they fucked as well because they have a kid, but, like, we didn't... It's still a kid's show. We didn't see it. I kind of love that. Like, that they were having sex but hadn't actually told each other truly, like, how they felt, even though they were showing each other constantly. Like, they hadn't gotten to the point where they could be that vulnerable and say, I love you. Right. She kisses him. Yeah. And then, yeah. So, he had asked her what she planned to do with her life when the rebellion ends.

And she says she hadn't really thought about it. That's just so sad. And then she says, I thought about it in her declaration right before he dies. I thought about it. You know, I'd love to have a life with you, blah, blah, blah. I also think it's very subtle, but...

So basically, over the arc of Rebels in season one, it's just the ghost crew with their contact, Fulcrum, who is Ahsoka. But the ghost crew is just working by themselves, really, on missions. And they really only join the larger rebellion more officially in season two. There's a difference between how Hera interacts with Ken in season one.

versus the rest of the show. She's much like warmer, more flirtatious with him in season one. And once they join the larger rebellion and she starts moving up the ranks and all that stuff like that, it's like, this is business time. We are at war. We are fighting. We are fighters. We are professionals. And so that sort of like calling him love

and like leaning into him and all sorts of stuff like that kind of goes away until right before he dies. So it's devastating to think about like what we sacrifice in the large scale of like losing people we love and all that sort of stuff like that, but also like what she suppressed for years and she has such regret over it, what she suppressed for years.

in order to serve the rebellion. On our Thrones pods, we often quote love as the death of duty, but also duty could be the death of love. It's tough out there in a rebellion, as Ezra knows. Should we talk about Jabba?

Good old Jabba. It's a great bit. I love when Cal is first as Jabba. Love it. As a Bridger's favorite fake name to give on a mission is Jabba. The best part of it, though, is that he doesn't just say Jabba. He'll actually say Jabba the Hutt. It's like, well, yeah, maybe we leave the Hutt part out. Okay, it's impossible to pick one episode that sums up everything for us, or he's the main character of a 75-episode television show. However...

If you're going to go to one place, the series finale, which is listed on episode guides as a two-parter, but if you're looking at Disney+, it's coded as one episode. Episode 15 of season four, Family Reunion and Farewell. Let's hear the very, very, very opening of this episode. Mom? Dad? I know what I have to do now, but I'm afraid.

Not for me, but for my friends. They fought so hard and given so much and helped me to understand why you stood up to the Empire and made the sacrifices you did. I wish you could meet them, my new family. So sad. This is a very sad episode of television, but a great one. And it's a great one to show us a lot of different aspects of who Ezra is.

how much he learned and changed over time. He starts off as this plucky kid, a thief who is surviving on his own. He becomes a training Jedi who is finally ready to admit that the thing he fears is being alone again to then a seasoned rebel who has to walk into that loneliness, put himself back in a place of isolation and separation in order to save the people that he loves. Like, it is...

Devastating. I think it's really interesting to note that like how it is. It is. I love that you pointed that out. It's so devastating. And I think Ezra's canonical significance in the rebellion is something that the show does a really good job of establishing because so in season one, episode 13 called action, he gives this transmission, this speech about hope that Ezra,

not only did like his parents here in jail before they died, which is devastating. But, you know, but they were, and they were so uplifted and so proud of him and stuff like that. But Leah says she heard and took, you know, inspiration from. And then in the 2015

novelization of Return of the Jedi, they have 3PO, and 3PO is, like, telling the Ewoks about the whole story of how everything happened. He says, one boy sent a message across the world that ignited a spark of rebellion. So, like, here is Ezra, one of the main sparks that we talk about when we talk about sparky rebellion starters. With apologies to Luke, Ezra was definitely the new hope first. And for longer. Luke's a new new hope. It's fine. It's fine.

A newer hope. Too new, too hope. Same as the old, oh no, the purgles took our new hope. Time to find a new new hope. I'm glad you mentioned the purgles. You mentioned the Avatar vibes for Ezra earlier. You can get a lot of that goodness here in this episode. You will see the depth of this animal bond, this force connection, the way that Ezra

taps into and uses the Force and connects to living things in a way that is pretty astounding. Same thing with the way he navigates temples, that he usually needs more help there, which is a fun thing too. It's all here on the Ezra front in the final episode, including a temptation. He passes this Palpatine test. I think the saddest part of this to me always, when Palpatine is basically like,

your parents, here they are. You can save them. They can be with you again. You can be with them. It's that they're just like in their kitchen. They're just like making breakfast going about their day. It's the most normal thing. The light is golden.

It is the truest temptation because it's just like what it would have been like to live a different life, what it would have been like to walk into a room in your home and see that in front of you. And it's on the heels of Ezra's temptation in World Between Worlds to pull Kanan back, to save Kanan, and Ahsoka explaining to him why that can't happen and how hard that is for him to reconcile that. It's just like a...

It's just a test that Ezra passes that Anakin can't, right? It's the save the people you love at the cost of everything test. And Ezra walks away. Why is Anakin, according to Dave Filoni and a lot of people, the world's best Jedi? Just like best fighter, I might accept. But like best Jedi, question mark? I'm not sure. Oh, man. But I do think the way in which he is so coded as Anakin, foil to Anakin in that character,

there. By the way, shout out to our guy Palpatine for disguising himself as a kindly angelic, like wonderful stuff town, like small village. Like mere episodes ago. I remember when I was running from your wrinkled, horrifying form in a world between worlds because it was mere episodes ago. He's like, no,

My hair is lovely. I'm very nice. Blah, blah. Also, we should point out that Ezra, though he's 14 when he starts at Rebels, gets a haircut and fills out a bit. So he's like 18, 19, I think, by the time it all finishes. But I think making him a mannequin foil, again, makes that Ahsoka's interest in him all the stickier. Also, you already mentioned the animal thing. We will move on, but I just want to say...

He loves a loath cat. He's a cat girly. When Sabine paints a mural of them on the wall, he's got a loath cat on his shoulders. So if you too are a cat girly, Ezra is the character for you. He's also got a big thing for wolves. We're just basically the same. He's like, cats and direwolves?

The Lothwolves? The Lothwolves are the most dire wolf thing I've ever seen in my entire life. More dire wolf-y than the dire wolves on the Game of Thrones TV show. Absolutely. Yeah, it's extremely my shit to see that done properly throughout the length of a television show's final season. It's almost like when you get to work in animation, you don't have to worry about how dumb giant wolves might look. Oh, man. Um...

You know, in addition to like the centrality and power of that found family idea, we get the, we talked about it with Sabine, we talked about it with Hera, we get Ezra's version here. I couldn't have wished for a better family. I can't wait to come home. That's what he says to them in that final transmission that he left for them because he knew what he was going to do. He had decided what choice to make to sacrifice himself as Kanan had for them. We really see so clearly in this episode, and we'll talk more about Lothal, but like how the characters think about rebellion. Zeb has this line that,

after they have once again blown up a structure full of just legions of living, breathing people, the dome gone, we took Lothal without them, meaning the rebel alliance who didn't come, who wouldn't come. We can keep it without them. They made the choice to

do this, to fight, to challenge Thrawn, to go for it without the support of the full rebellion around them because it was the thing that mattered most to them. It's the like, we talk about this in so many of our pods, right? Like show us, show us what they're trying to save. So we'll have a Lothal item coming up soon, but that's like very present here again at the end. Show us the middle run. Yeah. Love a middle run.

It's so sweet when Ezra says he left one for Hera, which is wonderful. There's some great Ezra Sabine stuff in this episode. You mentioned the kind of like wordless communication when they have that little nod and glance pass between them. And he's looking up into the vent and says, one last time, I just like dissolve into a puddle of tears because we're thinking of when he was that little street rat that you mentioned who couldn't wait to go into the vents. And then he's like, I don't do that anymore. And then he's like, here it is. We're back. One last time.

We're back. The lightsaber handoff happens here. Gives it to Chop, who gives it to Sabine. Real quick on Ezra's lightsaber, we should say, like, his first lightsaber is disguised as a blaster. I love it. Yeah. It was a blue blade. Very impressive. Yeah, you go very much like Luke himself goes from blue to green, but, like, he...

He's kind of cool. And it's like similar to Kanan. You know, they're Jedis in disguise, right? So you can disguise it as a blaster, but it's actually a lightsaber. But it's highly impractical in terms of it makes a huge target, right? And Vader takes it out. There's twice as much hilt, it turns out. There's twice as much to slice through. Just to absolutely demolish. But...

What I like is that his next lightsaber is a far more traditional lightsaber. And it's just sort of like, I like the blaster saber, but I also just like a like, okay, I'm really ready to be a Jedi now.

Yeah. I'm going to have a real lightsaber now. Absolutely. It's cool, too. Like we've seen Sabine use it. We see her use it briefly in this episode. We've seen her use it previously. Yeah. Back in the anytime you can take out a Saxon in any capacity and if you can do it with your your your mom, all the better. And that's clearly the one that she's holding because it's been with her the whole time. She's been she's been keeping it safe in the trailer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Some interesting Thrawn Ezra stuff in this episode. I think one thing that is worth calling out is that while Thrawn kind of reveres Hera and admires and respects Sabine, he does not feel that way about Ezra. And in fact, like mocks and belittles him at every turn. He, in particular, views as an object of derision Ezra's Jedi-esque appearance

moral compass. He says, you chose to be a Jedi. This is on the heels of saying you could have let all these people die. Predictable. You follow a long history written by the Jedi where they choose what they believe to be morally correct instead of what is strategically sound. This is a good snapshot of the distinction between these characters and how they think. And...

I, one of my favorite moments in this finale is when Thrawn says, I must admit the mysteries of the force are an enigma to me. He would very rarely say anything is an enigma to him that he then wouldn't lean into trying to understand in full, but for all those abilities, all the power, the Jedi lacked the vision for how to wield it. Now there's a part of you listening to that. That's like, that's correct. Right. That is, that is a good note. But then what Ezra says is also so right. Um,

The force isn't a weapon, but you'll never understand that. And I love that. Like, we're going to talk about temples in a little bit. But what I love about, like, any time that a Jedi goes into a temple of any kind, they're seeking knowledge. And any time a Sith or the Empire or whatever is trying to tap into a temple, they're trying to create a weapon. Power! Oh, power, but, like, specifically a weapon. That was a jump scare, Mallory, but, like, specifically a weapon, you know? Yeah.

I think it's also interesting. The Thrawn and Ezra of it all is so interesting because Ezra, yes, he's a, he's a light sider, but like,

And Ben, who says this thing about Ezra, Ezra knows how to think like a darksider, but not necessarily use the dark side himself. And so this is like a really... To go back to Ahsoka and infected by the dark side and sort of revived by the light side, this idea of Ezra, who has his temptation, survives the season three Sith Holocron, et cetera, temptation, and then also the finale temptation. But it's sort of...

It's like that idea of like understanding your enemy. That's very Thrawn, right? I study the dark side. What are you going to say, Mallory? It made me think just hearing you say that of like of Rings of Power. It's like that touch the darkness idea. Yeah. And like, but like understand it. Yeah. That idea of like can you only understand it if you have touched it and how like

Yeah, but don't- When so many of these Jedi are like, well, if you touch the darkness, you're done forever. Yeah, don't learn about it. Don't know about it. Don't look at it. What is Ezra's position to understand because of what he's been through? Exactly. I love a holocron, man. Yeah. I love it. One of my favorite things in the whole world is your pal and mine, Dave Gonzalez, anytime we're at an event and you see people gathered around him, he's likely giving a monologue about the Sith holocron. It's his favorite thing to monologue about it. I've seen him do it many times, so.

That's beautiful. I love Dave and I love holocrons. There you go. 10 out of 10, no notes. Anything else you want to say about the epilogue? We've talked about it a lot already today. Anything else that you want to mention here in terms of what we learn, where we leave off? Zeb takes Callus to meet the fam. So for the shippers, sure. Beautiful. There you go.

Chop covers his eyes and then shows him. Yeah. And he's like, we shall settle here and have a homestead. It's very like, you know, Battlestar Galactica. Okay, anyway. No, we talked about Jason Sandila. We talked about Sabine cuts her hair into a pixie cut. Looks great. Ahsoka shows up.

It's great stuff. They go off to find Ezra and Arthur on. Ahsoka in her Gandalf robes, which, of course, she's wearing in the live action already. And if you go to, like, Filoni's Instagram, you can see he likes to sketch them side by side. Ahsoka is his Gandalf figure. It's really... I adore it. Our extra credit for Ezra is an episode you've heard us mention a lot today already. Season 4, episode 13, A World Between Worlds. This is, like, a visually stunning, lore-tastic, absolutely mesmerizing episode.

of Rebels. This is a great one for the Ezra-Ahsoka bond and what they share, their, like, unique connection through the source, through the force and on, like, the kind of mystical, highly mystical front that is, if you have, if you have more time, it's a great episode and I think that that would be a useful primer heading into the search. And we should say really quickly, like, in the trailer, we see some imagery that, in the Ahsoka trailer, we see some imagery that might

be a World Between Worlds adjacent or something like that. And Filoni has said very firmly, just because you can like see different points in time or maybe different timelines in the World Between Worlds. Yeah, different gateways. We are not doing the multiverse is what he said. So do not worry. Ahsoka, the TV show, is not about to rewrite Star Wars history. That was like a big theory that was going around and Filoni's like, that's not

And in fact, in A World Between Worlds, he pulls Ahsoka out, but she puts herself back in the same point in time. You know what I mean? And says, like, you can't take Kanan out of his point in time. Like, you can't do this. He did it for her. It's why she survives. But like...

then she went right back to where she came from because we're not messing with time that way. So, yeah. I love it because there are so many moments in Rebels where we hear somebody engage with the idea of like the future being in motion in terms of like the time that destiny. That's what I'm talking about, destiny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Accepting what has happened in the past is like how you move forward. This is a real Doctor Who thing. There are certain fixed points in time that you cannot change. Rose Tyler's dad has to die. Poor Pete.

Kate and Jairus has to die. All right. Should we talk about Chop? Joe, quickly. Take us through Chop. Take us through a Chop banger. Oh, my gosh. Season 2, Episode 19, The Forgotten Droid. Steve Lee, play this clip, please. Your Y-Wing was shot down. Yes, they always were a bit buggy during atmospheric operations. How did you avoid the scrap heap? Rescued. No one rescues droids.

She must be very brave. You're fortunate to have someone who cares. Okay, Chop is a hard character to talk about because he is nonverbal, but Mallory picked a great clip where we get AP-5, which is this protocol droid, very unlikely droid, imperial droid that Chop makes friends with and he's left behind on a mission. Actor Stephen Stanton has, of course, said that he based this voice on Alan Rickman, but I think we all know that it's not Alan Rickman, it's Severus Snape. It's not...

Without question. It's not one of the, this is a Severus Snape impersonation that he's doing here. Without question. And it's a great one. It's a great one. The way I feel listening to any conversation with Chop, and this is a great example, is like how I feel talking to my cat, where I'm like, sure, only one of us is speaking English aloud, but we are, we both know what the other person has said. Chop is very expressive. It's just hard at a sound clip to capture that because it's a lot of limb flailing, like a lot of, uh,

you know, body language. He loves a flail. He's very active with his, with his upper appendages. Yeah. Like our friend, Rocky Raccoon though. He also loves, loves an appendage, you know, a new appendage. So this all happens because he's after a new leg. I'm going to get that leg. Essentially what Chop, Chop says in Beeps and Boops. Yeah. He's, he's, he's just like a, a freaking phenomenal droid. He has so much personality voiced by Dave Filoni. He's so fun. Yeah.

he wins over AP5 AP5 shows up later good old droid Severus Snape comes back later to help them because he gets you know converted by Chop recruited by Chop recruited by Chop um and then

And then, and then he has very close relationship with hair. Like he kind of fucking hates everyone except for Hera is kind of the thing. Like he, like on, they'll be on missions and chop will just not show up to pick them up. Like he's supposed to. And that's where it'll be like, maybe he forgot. And Katie's like, he did it. It's so funny. He's just leaving us to die. Cause he's chopper. Um,

I love this kid. I love this guy. He has his own full life, you know? Does he? I love... Yeah, he absolutely does. And you can... That's part of why I love this episode because it might seem odd to, like, pick a Chopper episode where he's not, other than in the opening stretch and via some comm link communication with the rest of the ghost crew. He's with AP-5 and kind of on a solo mission, but...

His ingenuity is on display. That devotion to Hera, like the thing you can't hear in that clip that we played is like that he's showing, he just activates this little hollow of Hera to illustrate to AP5 who saved him and how special she is. It's like so moving. In a very early episode of Rebels featuring one Lando Calrissian, I've never heard of him. Our beloved Rebels...

Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know what, I don't know how to consider Chopper a family member and then they're just like willy-nilly killing droids all over the place, the rebels. Hypocrisy, I say. A lot of B1 battle droids back in the Clone Wars who are going to stop saying Roger, Roger and start saying Joanna, Joanna after hearing that, you know? It's true. I'm a true leader. I love too, like, Chopper's relationship with other droids is always pretty, uh...

Friction-laden. And so it's kind of amazing in these really short episodes because these episodes are usually like 23, 24 minutes, including credits. So you're talking like, you know, 20 minutes of story and you build toward...

AP five saying I am choppers friend. And you're like, not only do I buy this, I feel this. The chopper doesn't have any friends reply leads him saying he most certainly does. Just as when he was rescued from that Y wing fighter, I am rescuing him now. Chopper helps me and I have chosen to help chopper and it's moving. It's impactful. It's also like

plot essential because they don't call it Chopper base for nothing. Chopper and AP5 are responsible for avoiding the Imperial trap and finding Adalon, which we wouldn't have gotten Bendu without them. But crucially, in season one, when they think about adding another droid to the ghost ship, Chopper just pushes him out

It's tough. Of a hatch. It's rough. He doesn't like the competition. And then laughs about it. He's positively giddy. Chuckles evilly. So that's chopper. Unlike the Lothcats who the droid fell on top of while they were just trying to nap in the blades of grass and the swaying wind. Extra credit. Joe, our extra credit here. Please tell us about the possibly most moving single frame in the history of Star Wars.

I was like ugly sobbing. Okay, so we already mentioned Jedi Knight is the episode where Kanan Jarrus sacrifices himself. This is not a finale. This is a sort of two-thirds of the way through a season situation ship. So we've got several episodes of Fallout, the first one being this one called Doom, season four, episode 11, in which poor Hera is going through it. And as she is going through it in a major way, Chop comes up and puts his little droid hand in hers. And it is just one of, again,

This is an evil, psychotic, chuckling over death's robot, but he does love Hera. And so he puts his little droid hand in hers. So sweet. And they stand there and it's so sad and so beautiful. And I also want to mention in the very next episode, when they're all going to the Jedi Temple together and they have to ride these giant little wolves. And one of them just like scoops Chop up in his mouth and Chop is like...

Indignant. It's great. Yeah, but he was indignant before that because he's like, what are you guys going to leave me here? You're going to leave me behind? I'm not using my thrusters to get across the planet. I got to be able to go through this magical portal with you, which brings us to our next episode, which is about Lothal. We've chatted about Lothal a lot. If you want to better understand the connection between these characters in this place, a great starting point is another season four banger. It's just the next one in the line that we've been mentioning, season four, episode 12, Wolves and the Door. If you're going to watch, sure.

sorry, Wolves in a Door. If you're going to watch anything, I think what we've deduced is like watch the final season of Rebels. Like it's a shorter season. It's a, the back half is all bangers. So if you're like, I have time for one complete season of television, season four of Rebels is what I would recommend to you, even though there's very little Ahsoka in it. That is true. That is true. I'm so sorry. Steve, will you play this clip for us? Ezra, how do they do that? I don't know.

Kanan said they're deeply connected to the Force. I'm just glad they're on our side. They're on Lothal's side. Is there a difference? Let's hope not. Incredible stretch. One of my favorite moments is...

Seb saying, I have no idea what just happened after they go through the Loth-Wolf portal. Another good reason to watch this episode is you get basically like recap montage as they're going through the Wolf portal. Like key quotes from earlier in Rebels. So that's handy. But like,

This is a great episode about the connection to Lothal. It's a great episode about the magic and power at the heart of Lothal that's fueling these Lothwolves. It's the connection to the Force, the connection to the Force wielders. I think this is a great...

soft sci-fi counter to some of the hard sci-fi midichlorian missteps elsewhere in Star Wars where like when Zeb says I have no idea what just happened you're not like how dare they not explain this to us in full it feels right because the the the wonder and the mystery is like part of the point that even the characters who are living it in real time are trying to understand how this thing could happen to them right then on this place they've known and lived and loved I love a

mural, which we get. We should say, like, Lothal... A couple things that are true about Lothal, like...

There was an Imperial Academy in Lothal. There is a Jedi Temple on Lothal. It is not just like this glimmering, beautiful city by the water, which it is. It's not just Ezra's hometown, but there's a lot of like Imperial activity here. But a reason why the Imperial activity continues to intensify, intensify, intensify here is because they identify it as

where these rebels will always come back to. So it's this sort of feedback loop of the Empire's interest in Lothal and the rebel activity on Lothal. Yeah, there's a lot of great stuff in the new canon Zahn novels about the mining on Lothal and what we see in Rebels 2, like the Thrawn-tied defender mission and everything that is happening there. Governor Price is a bigger character in the novels. But yeah, that connection...

The thing that they are trying to save is also like, and the fact that they are so committed to doing it is like part of what continues to imperil it. But I do feel like they do a really good job with the fallen rebels of like, we sometimes have these moments in Star Wars where we say, you know,

Does it make sense that like place X is presented as the most important spot in the galaxy so often? And like, I think they consistently do a good job of showing us why concretely Lothal matters to what is unfolding at that time in the canon. And then it's like heightened by the emotional connection. And the incredible thing about this temple, um,

I said that, you know, I said we're going to talk about Jedi temples right now. But like I said, the thing at the top, new problem, new door. The thing about this temple in Lothal is that it will open up in a different way depending on like when and who and how it is approached. So it is sort of like a never ending cave of wonders. All right. Before we get to temples, what's our Lothal smuggle? So.

It's funny.

No matter what happens, we always end up back here on Lothal. Well, Ezra has a strong connection to this place. It is his home. Before we knew Ezra, we were drawn here. The mission was here. There were a lot of missions in a lot of places, but we kept coming back. Are you saying we were meant to come here? Destiny. Should we talk about that Jedi temple and Jedi temples more broadly? Let's do it. There's a key one here on Lothal.

There are lots elsewhere. This temple spotlight that we have chosen, because we could have gone on a number of episodes here, is decided to mix it up on the season four front a bit. We're going with a season two banger. Season two, episode 18, Shroud of Darkness. Steve? Why did you leave? Where were you when I needed you? I made a choice. I couldn't stay. You were selfish. You abandoned me. You failed me.

Fucking great. And I just love that that's not the moment where Ahsoka decides once and for all that Anakin is Vader, right? Like...

Got to slice the helmet open sometimes and see it for yourself. Guess you do. Yes, we are counting not only Lothal the planet, but also Jedi temples as characters for the purposes of this podcast. And the way that the temples are deployed in the Filoni versus it's appropriate. There's a lot of Jedi temple action, a lot of Sith temple action across rebels, Lothal, Malachor. It's a real through line. And, you know, you mentioned earlier, Joe, like the speculation from the trailers about whether we're maybe glimpsing in certain snapshots. Could that be?

the World Between Worlds in Ahsoka, it seems... It seems very clear that we're looking at a lot of star maps and presumably a lot of Jedi temples or Sith temples. And so, like, that question of why, right? Well, like...

Are they trying... Are Balon and Shin and Morgan, Ahsoka, et cetera, are they trying to use the Starmax maps to fight a temple or use the temple to fight a map to get to Thrawn, to Ezra? Are they trying to access the world between worlds, any number of other things? Like,

regardless, something riveting will happen because this question that Rebels routinely asks is what happens when you find the temple? What led you to it in the first place? Where can it guide you next? What knowledge can you gain? But also like what horror might you confront? This, that clip we just heard, that vision, that force vision in the temple that Ahsoka has of Anakin turning into Vader. This is set in

in 3 BBY, this episode. That is 16 years. 16 years after Order 66 and Anakin's fall. But the power of the temple, the connection to the depth of the Force, and then what that brings to the fore for each individual person...

is so strong here that it's like not something you can deny anymore inside it. And so like, this is while there are a number of episodes where the characters are in a temple of some sort, this is a great one because it shows you like not only the power of the temple, but also like the power of the

but each character's unique interaction and experience inside of it. They start out, Kanan, Ezra, and Ahsoka sitting in a circle together meditating, and they each have their own experience. It's Kanan with our old pal, the Grand Inquisitor, who's a Jedi Temple Guard here. Yeah. Wonderful.

Ezra's back with Yoda. Ahsoka has this experience that we just heard with this vision of Anakin. And then there's this really interesting part at the end when the Inquisitors are coming to find them. And ultimately, at the end of the episode, the temple is in the Empire's hands, where...

The Grand Inquisitor temple guard tells them to go and they go like the forces inside of the temple attack the Inquisitors. Like this idea that the Jedi temple, the force has a will of its own is so palpable in this episode. It makes me really excited to see what they might do with, with other temples and other connections to the force, other fulcrums of the force. Other fulcrums. Again, again,

And Filoni is so interested in expanding our idea, our understanding of Force lore with Bendu and the Mortis gods and everything like that. So yeah, like the temple as a source of knowledge. And I think one of the key moments for me in this episode, other than like Ahsoka being in hard, hard denial about who Anakin is, is that Ezra and Yoda interaction.

First of all, it guides them to Malachor's setting of the Twilight of the Imprentice that we already talked about. But also, this is season two. We don't see the world between worlds until the end of season four. But Ezra's in a very world between worlds place when he's talking to Yoda here. And Yoda says this, you know how sometimes Yoda drops some just like mad wisdom and you're just like, Yoda, man, I'm going to think about this in every corner of my life.

He says something about how Jedi choose to win, which again is a very Thrawn concept. How do I define what, not like what is my method of winning, but what constitutes a win for me? How am I winning here? Is it brute strength might equals right in a battle? That's a definition, but it shouldn't be the definition. There are other ways to

To win, to not fight sometimes is to win. To do this or that or the other thing is to win. And so for Thrawn to constantly being like, this isn't a loss, this is a victory and here's why, you know what I mean? And that's the very idea that Jedi is trying to, that Yoda is trying to establish in Ezra here of like how Jedi choose to win is so key. I love that.

I feel like that idea of the pursuit of knowledge or wisdom, the pathway for each specific experience is different for the characters, but the shared thing is that they're all facing some sort of fear. And they can only do that in that space, right? Like, for Ezra, and this is our...

extra credit smuggle. It's when they find this temple, Rebel Season 1, Episode 10, Path of the Jedi, and this idea, this like magical idea that there could be this place, this thing nestled in your home world right there just out of reach the whole time. It's that concept we've been talking about a lot on our Doctor Who pods. Exactly.

Yeah, I loved rewatching that after we've been talking about that so much recently and seeing that here. Kanan's fear of not being able to teach Azura, Ahsoka's fear of what Anakin has become, they have to confront that in order to be able to assess that thing that you're raising. What does victory look like for you? You can't answer that if you don't know what you fear to lose. That's what they face inside of these temples. I also love the idea of these temples as living things because there's this great...

I was reading this description that Filoni gave of the Sith Temple in Malachor and how it has like the black rocks are lined in these sort of red veins. And so then when like the power comes into the temple, the entire structure seems to come to life. Like it's blood coursing through the veins of the Sith Temple. And, you know, similarly, the way in which the Grand Inquisitor –

you know, very much Anakin-like in his like former glory as a Jedi Knight is here as a living force inside of this holy temple. I think it's beautiful. I love the idea of the temples being alive. Like when you think

about to go back to to wolves in a door and then world between worlds like the way when they're looking at the mural and ezra and sabine are trying to figure out how to open it and the empire couldn't they can't figure it out they don't know how to access it even though palpatine desperately wants to and it's like a very thrawn-esque sabine studying the p the slab of stone oh i love it in the storm hat i love that the wolves gave them it's so good and then like

The mural comes to life, the wolves. And we think we just talked earlier to in today's pod about the ones, these mortis figures and guys, the daughter, the father and the son as these like inextricably linked to the, the force powers beyond even our grasp of comprehension. And then you have right there with them, the loaf wolves associated with this place, with Ezra, with Canaan, Kate doom, right? Canaan working through the wolves. Like,

It's so personal and intimate and specific to their experience in their world. And the wolves run right across the Mortis gods. And they're the ones who circle, who lead Ezra and circle and open that portal. Like it's all of those things at once. It's the grand and the vast. And then it's the specific and the thing that matters most to you. And it's like all there at the temple on the fall in rebels. Great show. Everyone should watch it.

We're going to talk now about a show that people probably listening to this pod half-watched, which is The Mandalorian. So we'll keep this one really quick. I think for two reasons. The one we just mentioned, and also because I have a feeling this episode's going to come up again on our next podcast. Yeah, we'll talk about it. Without question. We're going to talk more about all of the Ahsoka stuff in the next Ahsoka pod. But let's talk about...

Morgan Elspeth for a minute. Named after my sister. Yeah, exactly. Morgan, season two, episode five, chapter 13 of the Jedi. Steve, can you play the quote that we have read and cited multiple times today already? Now tell me, where is your master? Where is Grand Admiral Thrawn? The person on the receiving line of that inquiry, that demand is Morgan, who, so it gives us this nice Ahsoka smuggle, but like,

Morgan got a character poster. It's not just that Morgan's in the trailers. Like Morgan's one of six initial posters they released and

working in conjunction with Balin and Shin. If you go to the official Star Wars databank and you read the bios for Balin and Shin, they're like, they're identified as mercenaries who are working for Morgan. So if we pair all these little strands, because we don't know much about Morgan's backstory, except like the plundering of worlds to build the Imperial fleet. Anytime someone's associated with an, a fleet and Thrawn, you know, they're going to be pretty important in the Thrawn story. Um,

She, and this gets to your point, Jo, about where are we in time? She seems to be looking for Thrawn too. So she might not have the answer that Ahsoka is after. What else would you like to say about our Beskar spear-wielding pal, Morgan? Not much. I mean, we know from the trailer that she's associated with Baelin and Shin. They're listed as her mercenaries in the official Star Wars databanks. That's interesting. I've also heard some, like,

I've heard some questions like, is she associated with the Nightsisters? Like, that's a question, a theory that's been floating around. So I think it's a wait and see. There's not, you know, we only have this episode, so there's really not a ton I want to say about Morgan.

Should we talk about David Tennant? Let's do it. Okay. Let's do it. I can't wait. I can't wait to talk about our guy who we love to talk about every pod. All right. This is David Tennant, hot David Tennant summer here on House of R. We rarely go on an episode where we don't talk about him. You will hear his familiar Scottish accent as we talk about Hugh Yang. Did I get that right? I think I did. Clone Wars season five, episode seven, a test of strength. Steve, will you play this clip, please?

Many years I have been on this ship, teaching many a Jedi before you, and I will continue teaching many a Jedi after you. Call me what you want, but inside my memory banks, I contain a record of every lightsaber ever made, and the Jedi who fashioned them.

You've even heard this clip on a previous House of R episode when we talked about magical blades, magical weapons. We talked about this. Or maybe it was the Darksaber episode. Who knows? We've talked about this before, though. And I guess the accent isn't fully Scottish. It's pretty British. There's a little bit of broken there. But this is David Tennant playing a droid who has a character poster for Ahsoka who has showed up in trailers for Ahsoka. So

So is some sort of meaningful droid presence in Ahsoka. The best way to describe him, and Mallory's written it here in the notes, it's a galactic Ollivander, right? This is the droid that helps you pick your lightsaber, that helps you pick your wand, and helps you understand why this hilt and this kyber and this, all this together will be the weapon that is for you. Great lightsaber lore episode. Yeah.

What connects you, what connects with your force? I love that part. We talked about this a lot when we talked about this before. This idea of answering some call within, you know, the call of the blade or the call within you that echoes the call. Listen to that Tropes course episode. It's a really good one, I have to say. His design, the story's design is inspired by early Ralph McQuarrie concept art, which is some of our favorite reasons why things look the way they look in Star Wars. And samurai figures, the...

That's how David Tennant is going to continue to live on in this podcast into the fall. It's his year. We hear him in the trailer say, perhaps it is time to begin again. That's obviously fascinating to think of in light of everything we've discussed today about Ahsoka and how she thinks about what beginning looks like. About the idea of an again. And I like thinking of Huyang as, you know, because he has that that

encyclopedic knowledge is almost like a droid version of a holocron where like he is a resource. He knows history. Now maybe that manifests in some sort of really like practical, precise way. Like, okay, I could tell you who you're trying to figure out these orange lightsabers. That

That's not what they were like when when originally forged it. But let me tell you what what he did do and what we can learn from that. But there's maybe this like larger sense of the past and mistakes, but also opportunity. And I think that's also like another reason that it's worth even though this is about, you know, priming you on the front.

This gathering arc is wonderful and it's great for Ahsoka because like seeing her even back in Clone Wars Season 5 when she was still very much a Padawan taking the younglings to Ilum to find their kyber crystals. She's in the role of teacher here. She's in the role of guide. And so she and Huyang are working in tandem to help the next generation take their step into a larger world. The idea of him helping her do that again is like pretty exciting. Really cool.

Love The Gathering. Great stuff. We're going to end with Zeb because as mentioned earlier, we don't know if he's in the show, but it just seems impossible that he couldn't be. It's impossible. So we had to. Mallory, we can't say, you know, in a post-no-con vanth in season three of The Mandalorian, we cannot say so-and-so has to show up, but it would be so nice to see him. I love Zeb.

Zeb is the best. Our Zeb pick is, perhaps unsurprisingly, Rebels Season 2, Episode 17. The honorable ones. On Lhasaan, it wasn't supposed to be a massacre, but I realized the Empire wanted to make an example. I know before I took credit for it. What happened on Lhasaan? It's over for me. I've moved on. By the way, it's Zeb. My name is...

It's Zeb. Short for Gareth Zeb. I know. Love this episode. This is one of my absolute favorites. Call me Jamie. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great episode. Television. I think we have to redo... Unfortunately, I do think we have to redo the Enemies to Lovers Drogue Course episode. The entire thing. Because somehow I didn't talk about Zeb and Calus. Zeb and Calus. David Yellowwell. David Yellowwell giving like a surprise... Unbelievable. For like a...

For like a fairly prominent actor, it's, you know, because like Jason Isaacs will show up to do a season or whatever. But David Yelaw was like, I'm here for the whole thing, baby. Start to finish. Agent Kallus is here. Kallus is here for the whole haul. The whole thing. This is a great episode. Great. They're two enemies stranded on an icy moon waiting for rescue. Whose side will get there first? Well, what if they find something more meaningful than a rescue along the way, Jo? Yeah.

I mean, there's only one way to stay warm on an ice moon. You know what I mean? Exactly. Exactly. Baby. There it is. I want to say that much like Chop recruits droids over a Snape,

This episode is the one in which Zeb essentially recruits Kallus. It's when Kallus later reveals himself to be Fulcrum 2.0. Zeb is like, oh, my bad. I think I did that. I guess I recruited him. That's incredible.

Absolutely incredible. I love it. This is a great episode for... There's a lot of comedy. It's big for the surprising connection idea, and Star Wars is obviously huge for the Star Wars staple, the old redemption arc and how that can start. But also, I think not just the capacity to forgive, but we talk a lot about understanding and how you need to take the time to try to understand in order to even potentially reach that next step of forgiveness. Yeah.

And so it works in both ways between Callus and Zeb in this episode as they share things with each other about their experiences and their scars. And when Callus watches Zeb get back on the ghost and leave, and he's still holding that little meteor, that glowing meteor that Zeb gave him to keep warm in the night, and he goes back. Is that what they call it? Yeah. To that glowing meteor. And he goes back.

to his quarters, barely can earn a hello from that fucker Constantine, and he goes into his barren chambers and is sitting there realizing that he has nobody around him who would give him

a piece of what was waiting for Ezra. Like, that, it's just so amazing because it's not just that he starts to think about his regrets when Zeb challenges him to like, well, start asking questions. You didn't ask what happened on Geonosis. Maybe start or like, are you afraid of what you'll find? There's that active challenge. But,

But it's that thing we've been talking about all episode that found family that he sees that makes him think something else might be possible and that there would be something else worth fighting for. And so when he's got that moment with Price at the end of season four and he's like, the day that I started betraying your empire was the day I stopped betraying myself. It's just, it lands in a way that like, I mean, we love a Star Wars redemption arc, but this is really, it's high on the list of the most compelling ones. Did we do it?

I think we did it. I have one very last smuggable before we go, which is if I'm the off chance Rex is in Ahsoka. Yeah, that would be great. I would love that. Season two, episode three, The Lost Commanders, right? Great one. That one makes me upset because something that Adam and I like to track is like, when do creatures needlessly die in Star Wars? I'm thinking Bongo, just dead on the ground, meat rotting.

Why? You know, I'll ask about the droids, you ask about the creatures, and together we'll save the galaxy. I love it. All right. I mean, that's it. That's a wrap. We did it. Our last House of Art podcast on the Ringiverse feed. We're going to prep you for Ahsoka some more. Yeah, we should. Yeah, we are. Follow the new House of Art feed when it launches in a couple days. We will see you there. Remember, here on the Ringiverse, you can get some Blue Beetle.

goodness in the next few days you can get a button mash game swap you will of course get the midnight boys instant reaction to the two-part Ahsoka premiere we will be with you for our Ahsoka top moments countdown on Monday we will be with you next Friday for our deep dive into the two-part premiere thank you to our favorite force wielders Steve Allman for producing this episode Arjuna Ramgopal for his additional production work on this episode and Jomi Adeneron for his work on the social for this episode until then tell us

Where is your master? Where is House of R? The music goes right here. Paired with the sound of igniting lightsabers. This episode is brought to you by State Farm.

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