The Acolyte – S01E07 – Choice

[00:00:01] Okay, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side. Green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life. So, we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to, like, pick sides and fight and stuff.

[00:00:24] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod. But we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show. The politics, the drama, the lore. It was made for The Lorehounds. And since we just finished recapping season one,

[00:00:38] we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the Dance of the Dragons. And with the season pass option in Supercast, listeners can get early ad-free access to each weekly scene-by-scene deep dive, plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections.

[00:00:53] See you in The Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragonfire hot, but probably positive, takes. The Lorehounds' House of the Dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a hardened conflict with itself,

[00:01:06] and an inescapable urge to read the book Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning. Well, hello there. Editor Alicia checking in from after this recording with a little update to set expectations up front.

[00:01:20] This week you are getting two episodes breaking down the Acolyte. We had so much interesting feedback and got so deep into the weeds in the episode itself while recording that we decided to spin off the feedback section to another episode this week,

[00:01:34] which will be coming to all the feeds this weekend. So watch out for that for a dive into new theories and overall lore questions like what is the Jedi Code? Where does it come from? And what exactly does it say about attachment?

[00:01:47] In the meantime, enjoy this walkthrough the episode itself. And yes, it includes a good deep look at what exactly vergences are and what that might mean for this story. Happy listening. Welcome to the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast. And the Lorehounds Star Wars podcast. I'm John.

[00:02:22] And I'm Alicia. And today we're looking hard at that choice Sol made to scale a mountain rather than knock on a front door in the seventh episode of the Disney Plus Star Wars series, The Acolyte. Was that the choice? I'm not so sure about that.

[00:02:35] Let's get into it in a minute. The Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast rules for spoilers still apply, which means we are looking at this story from the point of view of the characters we're talking about. We know the past.

[00:02:46] We don't know the future that we might have some force visions. I see a midi glory in Jesus being born in the next age, but I don't know what happens to him after that. I like that. We got lots more great feedback about that

[00:03:01] and new thoughts and theories about the episode. We're going to be talking through in the back half. We'll wrap it all up with a look at what's ahead on the Lorehounds network as Hot Lore Summer continues to heat up.

[00:03:11] Check that link tree in the show notes for links to all the podcasts we host. Plus our Discord where the Acolyte discussion is going strong. For the record, this conversation was recorded July 11th, 2024. Before we get deeper, we mentioned the Discord.

[00:03:28] I just want to say our Discord is popping with Acolyte discussion and it is the least toxic Star Wars discussion I've ever witnessed. I'm very proud of that and I hope more people will join. If you bring the toxicity, you're out. It's refugees from the social media toxicity.

[00:03:46] Now proceed after I gush about our own Discord. Before we get into the discussion of the current Acolyte episode, I wanted to talk about something else, something structural to the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast up front. That is the flashback episodes.

[00:04:03] For anyone who's just listening on one of the Lorehounds feeds and isn't familiar with this, the way that the Canon Timeline podcast is structured is that when you look at the episode list, the public episode list, it always is in timeline order.

[00:04:16] That means I'm backdating some episodes to fill into the right spots. I did an experiment with this last week. I released an episode set near the beginning of the timeline called Canon Ancient Myths of Batuu.

[00:04:29] These are myths set 30,000 years or more before the original Star Wars movie set. The thing is, I realized that a lot of podcast players don't work the way that mine does. I use Podcast Addict. If anyone's on Android, I recommend it. I don't think it's available on Apple.

[00:04:49] People aren't getting notifications. It sounds like it's kind of annoying for people to go back and find the episode. I did intentionally schedule a couple tests to do while we were doing this Acolyte run. I'm going to try things a different way when I release

[00:05:04] another backdated episode next week. John, I'm going to try things mostly the way that you suggested. Me? I don't want responsibility for anything. I just say random stuff and sometimes people listen. You suggested that why don't I release it on the current timeline

[00:05:23] and then I've decided after a week is probably enough time, then I'll put it back to where it belongs on the actual timeline. I'll do the flashback dating. Next week, in addition to the Acolyte breakdown, there will also be an episode talking about five episodes

[00:05:40] of Star Wars Visions, which is an animated anthology series. It's considered legends, but it's great Star Wars television and we're going to be talking about Sith Legends of the Old Republic. At the end of the pod, I'll say which episodes we're going to be

[00:05:55] talking about for anyone who wants to watch along. Thank you everyone who let me know about the functionality of this last attempt and I would love to hear again whether this works better for you this way. All right, let's get into the episode at hand.

[00:06:10] John, what did you think? I thought it was great. I thought we finally got answers. It's funny, I had to watch the episode a little later. I had to run some errands that night and I just had to watch it a couple hours later

[00:06:22] and I kept seeing things pop up because I have to follow the channel so that I can do the schedule for the week. So I see things popping up there like, wow, a lot of answers and I'm like, shit, I got to watch this before I get spoiled.

[00:06:33] So I get in and it is answering a lot of things. I was really pleased by how balanced these answers felt though because it wasn't like, okay, Sol was a genocidal maniac who just is suddenly a chill guy later. Sol had very understandable character flaws.

[00:06:55] And he made mistakes that perhaps in part, and I don't think fully but in part caused the death of these witches. And that's a very cool thing and that's a very cool examination of how the Jedi Code maybe does work sometimes

[00:07:13] because the Jedi Code, the council told Sol, hey, leave them alone, leave their people be. There's no reason to separate these girls from their family. And they actually didn't, they were not going in there to try to take these girls. It was only Sol who was doing that.

[00:07:30] And that's a really interesting concept is he might have had good intentions or maybe not, right? Maybe he's really into attachments. But in the end, it resulted in a lot of death. And then you have this other aspect that he was really hungry

[00:07:46] for an apprentice and who have we heard that from this season is Chimera, right? What do you want an apprentice? And I feel like Sol hears that and it's like, oh, this is where I was going with that.

[00:07:59] Yeah, it does seem like the way that May and OSHA are mirrors of each other in this show. It seems like Sol and Chimera are meant to be mirrors of each other in a way. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right.

[00:08:12] These are the angel and demon on the on a say a sister shoulders. Yeah. Yeah. We got a voicemail from David about this episode. Shall we give that a listen? See what he thought. Oh, sure. He's busy today and he couldn't join, but he had thoughts

[00:08:29] that he had to share. So I'm very curious. Hey, good morning. Just a quick couple of thoughts off the top of my head. Unfortunately, I can't join today. I've got too much summertime hot lore summer activities happening at home, but I watched the episode the other night.

[00:08:46] I really enjoyed the episode. I was excited for Alicia, more witch lore and some cool fight scenes. So the show is very entertaining. I know it cuts deep into the lore of things, but this is still a Saturday morning bowl of cereal show for me. Boo.

[00:09:10] The season feels a little wobbly at times. There is some really great stuff and some cool characters. And then other times it's just really a little pulpy and people making silly decisions. I can't take the time to tell you exactly what you need to know

[00:09:26] because it would take too much time, but I'm going to explain that I can't do the time. Let's go here. No, we have to go back. Let's go here. Let's go. Like that stuff drives me crazy from a plot standpoint.

[00:09:37] And there's a bunch of it or like some silly decisions to cliffhanger, you know, come close to what our cliffhangers on on certain episodes. So there's some weird pacing and some construction stuff. I do love the Rashomon style. I do love the saber fights.

[00:09:55] I think all of the characters are really interesting and I think it's a fun bucket of lore and I'm glad the show is out there and I'm glad that they took a swing. I'm glad that Headland has been able to navigate herself through

[00:10:11] the waters of Star Trek, which are Star Trek, sorry, Star Wars, which is very, very tricky from a studio standpoint. So I think this is a great groundbreaking or icebreaking sort of thing. And I would have loved it if this show had a little bit tighter

[00:10:28] construction, but the overall story and the way that they're telling the story is cool. So yeah, those are my thoughts. I think we've got one more episode to go. I'm looking forward to it and yeah, I'm glad that we got a cool episode.

[00:10:45] I really enjoyed this the heck out of this episode, even though I have some problems with the character arcs and some of the construction of it, but good stuff so far. Talk to you later. Bye.

[00:10:57] Wow. I agree with all of the good things he said and disagree with all of the bad things. I would. I would. Yes, you're here. You're here. Can I just say I don't want to go over every point David made, but Star Wars is seasoned with pulp.

[00:11:14] It's a feature, not a bug. Right, right. That's my my overall take on that. Yeah. Well, so I have a I have someone Simon Young on Twitter. He responded to our last episode and so I this seemed relevant.

[00:11:27] I pulled it up front and it turns out it's extra relevant now that we've heard what David said. Okay. He responded to your conversation between you and David about about the serial nature of this and he said, I found the comments about the Saturday morning serial really interesting

[00:11:42] to me. All of Star Wars is Saturday morning serial and deeply profound. It's at its best when I'm able to take it in like a child, like all truly profound things. That was beautiful. Yeah, that's a spicy, beautiful take.

[00:11:58] I like it. I like it. That's hot, hotter than hot Lord Summer. Do you have the sound bite? Oh yeah, I do. So we've heard from many people. What are your takes? Yeah, I liked this episode. I was I mean, I've been looking forward to this.

[00:12:15] I've known that this must be the other flashback episode for, you know, host a season. So I was really looking forward to more answers. And and I think the thing is, like, I always want more, but that's not, you know, I can't, of course I agree with everyone.

[00:12:29] Like I want longer episodes, longer seasons, but this is not realistic for me to ask because the reality is there's going to be a limited budget. So maybe, I don't know. I don't think that they're going to change the format for next season,

[00:12:45] but I think they spend a lot of money doing this on location. They made it look phenomenal to me. And I'm satisfied with the format. I just, you know, I want more because I like it so much.

[00:12:58] Yeah, I, I, you know, I notably did not like the way that they were cutting up some episodes into two, but that's such a small criticism of this season. And I think this is, again, something that is not even going to matter

[00:13:11] after the season. Right. Because we could all binge it and just have it all together. I do think that sometimes it's hard to decide when to begin and end things. And I don't, I don't think they always made the right decision this season to get the

[00:13:24] maximum impact out of everything. But I thought that this episode had a perfectly fine arc. I don't think I didn't have any complaints about how this episode was cut. This you know, I, I, I think of things like, you know,

[00:13:36] David was saying, you know, people can't finish their thoughts. People have to go over here, over there. Sure. At the same time, I think, I think that only happened with Saul. Yeah. Yeah. That it only happened with soul,

[00:13:48] but also think about how many other great shows are just like, yeah, yeah. I'll tell you later. Right. Like we literally, even in house of the dragon, we have this, this, this, you know, things keep getting in the way of talking about things. And I don't know,

[00:14:03] there's, there's something about star Wars that I think makes people go, this is, this is going to be a good season. I think that that's just like a feature. No, no. I think, I think because, I mean, we see the same thing with Marvel for instance, you know,

[00:14:15] because it's so big and such. So dominates the culture that people feel it's easier to like throw stones at it. And I think that's also why sometimes I feel like, I feel like I'm not getting the same feedback as I would like to get from

[00:14:30] people. I don't know. I don't know if I'm getting the same feedback as I would like to get from people. I don't know. It's easier to like throw stones at it. And I think that's also why sometimes I get more impatient with certain

[00:14:41] adaptation choices in like say house of the dragon, because it's just so present, you know, I spent a lot of time thinking about it because you know, it's always there. Yeah. The bigger the property, the more likely people are going to criticize it. Right. Yeah.

[00:14:56] Fair enough. And star Wars, you can't get much bigger than star Wars. You just can't. Yeah. True. So speaking of the, the breadth of star Wars, so you brought up a quote from George Lucas last time that had me going down a rabbit hole. And what was it?

[00:15:14] The quote was something like the light side is balanced or something. Yeah. I don't know the exact wording, but I think, I believe you said at some point, you know, the light side is balanced. You know, the presence of the dark side is unbalanced, something like that.

[00:15:27] That was at least the implication of it. And you have undermined this quote. Well, I mean, so I went down a rabbit hole because I was like, this just doesn't track with everything I know about star Wars. And so I found multiple people who were saying,

[00:15:40] apparently this quote, he said it once in an interview and I don't know if he was misquoted or if he was just in having a moment. But then other people pulled together other quotes that he said that directly

[00:15:54] contradict this and talk about the force in the way that I understand it to be. So I'm going to just name a couple that were quoted by observer on the star Wars Reddit. So, okay.

[00:16:05] He says the overriding philosophy in all of the star Wars movies is the balance between good and evil. Another quote in each of us, we have to balance these emotions. And in the star Wars saga, the most important point is balance balance between everything. Next quote,

[00:16:20] the idea of positive and negative, that there are two sides to an entity, a push and a pull a yin and a yang. And the struggle between the two sides are issues of nature that I wanted to include in the film. I'm talking about the original, another quote,

[00:16:34] the force has two sides light and dark. It is not an inherently malevolent or benevolent thing. It has a bad side to it involving hate and fear and has a good side and involving love charity, fairness, and hope. Last quote.

[00:16:47] I wanted to have this mythological footing because I was basing the films on the idea that the force has two sides, the good side, the evil side, and they both need to be there. Most religions are built on that.

[00:16:57] Whether it's called yin and yang God and the devil, everything is built on the push pull tension created by two sides of the equation right from the very beginning. That was the key issue in star Wars.

[00:17:08] Yeah. I, I am glad you pulled these because what I've always said, cause I've known about this quote that I brought up for a while, what I've always said is George Lucas doesn't understand what he created.

[00:17:21] And I think, I think that's still true in a lot of ways. Like he, I do think that he's, he's a genius in the way that he can create things, but he's not much of a self critic, right?

[00:17:31] Like he just doesn't really know how to evaluate his own work. Like I've always said, the best thing you could do with George Lucas is just lock him in a room and make sure he has a deadline every month to give you a new planet. Right?

[00:17:43] Like just, just make him go design. Hand the pen to Tony Gilroy. Right. Right. Well, anybody, you know, I think there's plenty of people, you know, Leslie Heavlin is doing a really great job writing a story. I think there's plenty of people who could tell a good story,

[00:17:55] but I think George Lucas is just, you know, the world builder of our generation or is he of our generation? I don't know. He might be of the previous generation at this point. I think he's a boomer. Yeah.

[00:18:06] Yeah. He's, he's straight up boomer energy. I think, you know, Tolkien Tolkien, great world builder, Martin, great world builder, Lucas, great world builder. One of those three can't write. I mean, yeah. I think he writes concepts well, better than dialogue. Sure. Sure. Yeah. But even, even like,

[00:18:26] I think his plots lack a little bit and I think that this is the thing that bothers me about the current state of star Wars discourse is that I think that the accolade and other modern star Wars have had much better plot lines than

[00:18:39] even the original trilogy, the original trilogy. I mean, guys, we had a second copy of the death star. That was the twist in the third movie. I mean, come on. Yeah. Don't pretend. Let's not pretend like this was always like a really plot driven franchise.

[00:18:54] This was always a world. Wars is like poetry. It rhymes. If anyone doesn't know, that's his most famous quote. Star Wars is like poetry and rounds explains why plots get repeated. George ran out of ideas for the pot there. Okay. Let's just be honest.

[00:19:06] Yeah. I just think in general, you know, storytelling has developed over the decades. Like they just, the depth and the like I talked about before, we often look more at gray morality, more realistic morality models than, than the black and white that used to be the thing. Yeah.

[00:19:26] Yeah. I mean, look, we game of Thrones, we root for people who kick kids out of windows, you know, you just, you just you get to that point where we're just all defending horrible things. So yeah, by the way, I just wanted to bring up,

[00:19:39] this is not about the acolyte, but this is about another short story that's set at this point in the timeline. I did bring it up in the hyper public overview episode on the Canon timeline

[00:19:47] podcast. But I just wanted to point out since we did this flashback episode this week, that two years after these flashbacks to Brendock are set, there's a story officially pinned to the to the year one 46 BBY on the Star Wars

[00:20:02] timelines in that book. And it's called a recipe for death. And I bring it up because it's set during this time, but also it is coincidentally also a murder mystery. But this one is set in the castle of Maz Kanata,

[00:20:19] who is an important character in the sequel trilogy. She's already alive during this time. I talked about her in previous episodes. But yeah, I just, it's, it's a kind of a delightful story where a murder gets solved and a

[00:20:30] cookoff and it's kind of surprisingly gory in some moments for Star Wars. But if you're curious to read it yourself, it's in a book called a collection of short stories called tales from a galaxy far, far away aliens volume one, which was released in 2016.

[00:20:47] So it is official Canon. And if you are wondering what the rest of the tales from a galaxy far, far away series is I'm sorry to disappoint you. It doesn't exist. There is not even an alien story. It doesn't exist. There is not even an aliens volume two.

[00:21:01] Why? I don't know, but this was, it's delightful. I found it online. I could borrow it from free from an online library. So if anyone wants to find it a recipe for death, it's the management of this franchise is bizarre. Absolutely bizarre to me.

[00:21:18] I don't know if that title was like meant to be a joke or if they really had plans and then we're like, nah, look, I'm not somebody who's going to be like Kathleen Kennedy destroyed star wars, but there are some decisions that completely baffle me.

[00:21:33] And that's one of them. I mean, at least it's better than, Oh wait, no, that wasn't on the desk. I was talking on another discord about Zaslav. I just, yeah. I'd rather be in the Disney mess than the HBO than the HBO discovery mess or whatever. Warner Brothers.

[00:21:50] Yeah. That does seem like a whole thing over there too. By the way, also speaking of discord, I have to thank Ian on our discord. Um, they shared a, an article from Nerdist, an interview with the show runner Leslie Headland, uh, about the new episode.

[00:22:06] So I'm going to bring it up a few times quotes from it as we go through the episode. But I wanted to start with two that were very interesting. One is she says my backstory to the witches of Brenda and where they are is

[00:22:19] that Corbin mentions it's an old mining company. So I sort of imagined that it's a little like John Carpenter's the thing, right? There are all these miners there. They were drilling, they found something and then everybody was gone. And the next thing you know,

[00:22:32] 50, 60, a hundred years later, this coven moves in a couple of years after that, the Jedi start to move there. It's almost like a magnet that's pulling these characters toward it. I really liked that. I really liked that. I think, uh, like I said on the discord,

[00:22:47] I need you to explain virgins is to me for about 20 minutes. We're going to have a section on virgins is for sure. But yeah, I really like this cause that's, that's the thing we see, right?

[00:22:57] Is that the Jedi are always like, I sense a disturbance in the forest. How, how many times have we heard that with, you know, from the original trilogy? Yeah. Well, we won saying that and that's always been a thing.

[00:23:06] And so even when they're not aware of it, having them be drawn to it, I just actually was reading, uh, into the dark. I think it's called the, I can't keep track of these titles. I'm reading these books and I can't remember the titles because there's so

[00:23:19] many. I can't remember the titles. Yeah. It's set like right for into a, what light of the Jedi. Yeah. All the titles. I think it is it after I think, I think it's concurrent and after. Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. Cause they mentioned,

[00:23:33] they mentioned that there was a hyperspace disaster and they mentioned yeah. Yeah. I guess it's concurrent. Yeah. They're both basically tied to the hyperspace disaster, which we're also going to talk about today. Right. Well, also the point. Oh yeah.

[00:23:45] I liked, I was going to mention that. That was, that was a good call. Yeah. That was my, my pointing. Yeah. Um, but anyway, my point in the book is that there's this whole thing where there are these relics that they think are, you know, dark side relics.

[00:23:59] And then they bring them back out. I think they bring them to chorus on right. And they're like, all right, let's definitely get all the dark side of this. And then they're like, wait, there's no dark side in here. They were keeping the dark side trapped there.

[00:24:10] And that's so, so that's an interesting thing to me is that the Jedi can sense there is a significant force occurrence happening, but they don't always get it right. What it is. Right. Yeah. Because it's yeah, there's different ways.

[00:24:25] We're going to talk about the different types of force. Um, yeah. So I have two questions about the, yeah. First of all, is, is basically, it's something like the thing, what did they unleash? What is in that hole that they,

[00:24:36] that we see the witches kind of praying to in a way. And then my second question is mine. What kind of mine? Are they mining there? Cortosis. So, sis, what's your focus? I don't know. I'm trying to do saying that. Cortosis would be explosive because of the way,

[00:24:56] because of the way that it dissipates like not dissipates energy, but disperses energy. So if you have like a concentration of it, it can be volatile. Right. It could be kryptonite too. We don't know. We do know. We do know it's not kryptonite. All right.

[00:25:14] So the other quote I wanted to bring up from Leslie Headland upfront is she said, I think Anastasia not unlike for Nesta, they are these very compelling leaders that have very intense senses of foresight. And Anastasia was always thought of as this religious figure that

[00:25:29] gained followers more and more as she moved out into the world. So for her, I think she always sort of knew that she needed to settle somewhere in order to bring to fruition, not a grand scheme,

[00:25:39] but what the next step of her journey would have been the height of her powers. And I think she also knew that at some point in utilizing the extent of her powers, that her destruction would come pretty soon after that.

[00:25:52] For Nesta is having a similar experience of something will tip the scale. She's understanding they have this destiny. They believe that they have the destination spiritually for Nesta is putting the pieces together for herself, that this is it. This is what's coming.

[00:26:07] Not unlike Anastasia what's coming is going to be the fulfillment of that particular destiny. So super interesting. She compares these two characters, but I guess it makes sense. Right? Right. You know, the most curious I am about things is if this is one consciousness split into

[00:26:26] two, which seems to be what they're pointing to here, is this Anastasia's consciousness because didn't, didn't may start to dissolve a little bit just like Anastasia when she started doing it. I think, I wonder if that is because may is the one who got through the Ascension

[00:26:43] ceremony and got like the spiral connecting to her mother. Yeah, that could be. But I'm, I also wonder if like they're part of the same force. I mean, part of the scene we all are, but yeah, but you don't, I mean, I mean I take it as,

[00:27:00] I take it as they there was a consciousness like a child and they split the child in two for some reason because of the power of two. But there is something about the power of two in star Wars that you know,

[00:27:14] this is why the Sith had the rule of two. This is what the force diets we've talked about. That's what that's about. So yeah, I think, I think that like there was just one Osh May and she harnessed the virgins,

[00:27:31] the power of the virgins to split them for some reason because that would, and then they were going to pass on. Yeah. They're like tie them somehow the consciousnesses of the witches and the children. Yeah. Still needs some clarification, but it's promised. The question is, I guess,

[00:27:49] is one side the dark side child and it's the other one, the light side child, or are we being pulled into this as fools? I think, yeah, I think people are looking for that, but I think that that's not the case. I think it's, it's,

[00:28:02] it's about balance where they are different and they compliment each other, but it's not that one is evil and one is good. Yeah. It's interesting. Interesting. I also want to point out what, so David said the word Rashomon.

[00:28:19] I've said the word Rashomon a lot and every single official release from star wars about this episode says the word Rashomon. So just in case anyone doesn't know yet or needs a reminder, this is the name of a Kurosawa film from the fifties that is famous for showing

[00:28:35] a, an event from different points of view, the same way that we have gotten with flashbacks to Brenda. I'm so glad you explained because I've, I've just been too afraid to ask. It's one of those terms that gets thrown around and you're like,

[00:28:53] I feel like I should know what this means. And I, I kind of got the meeting from context, but I, I've never used the term because I'm like, I don't have the full context and I just don't want to use it. Right. It's my favorite kind of storytelling.

[00:29:07] And that's one of the reasons why I like this series so much. But, um, as some people are struggling with it, it seems just the, I like it. Yeah. I think, I think withholding information from your audience to make it interesting is cool.

[00:29:22] Yeah. And I think what I like about Rashomon style storytelling is also, it's has an inherent empathy where you are looking at things from a certain perspective and then you see the same things from a different perspective and it helps you understand better that like, wow,

[00:29:37] people can really misinterpret each other. Yeah. Uh, I completely agree. I think it's, it's, um, it's interesting to see how a perspective on a story can shape your whole life. Look at Ocean May. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. All right. Should we get into the episode itself?

[00:29:57] I think so. Let's do it. All right. So episode seven choice. So you were right. They, they like the single words. It's not free will its choice. Yeah. They, they want it. They want it to be nice and neat. I get it. It's marketing, right?

[00:30:10] Nice clean one word. So the writers credited for this episode where Charmaine de Gretzay, who was also a writer in episode two, uh, Jasmine Flournoy, who was also a writer on episode three, the other flashback and Jen Richards, who is,

[00:30:27] I actually know Jen Richards more in front of the camera. So she's a writer, actor and trans activist, but, um, I've seen her, she plays a character in Mayfair witches, which is part of the interview of the vampire universe. Uh,

[00:30:40] and she's also like did produced all of her story and has also been like tales of city, Mrs. Fletcher, a bunch of other stuff. Nice. So yeah, I had no idea. I saw like who it was. I was like, Oh, okay. I didn't know she wrote too. Yeah.

[00:30:54] And the director is Kogan Nada, who also directed episode three and again is a director of movies like Columbus and after Yang. Okay. Nice. Okay. So we start with the Brendach mission. So, uh, just kind of quoting starwars.com for the most part for these recaps

[00:31:10] in a return to the past events on Brendach master Indara, her Padawan Torben and the Wookiee master Kalnaka and Jedi Knight Saul are on a mission to locate a virgins in the force. And, uh, yeah, we all, we know they're all younger because they have bangs.

[00:31:27] But may I just say it is just a joy to see science fiction royalty carry a moss yet again on my screen. Yes. Glad to have her back more flashbacks. You know what I really love about her being back though, is that the whole season everyone's like, Oh,

[00:31:43] and Dara's the master in Dara's the evil one. And really what we see here is Indara is an institutionalist who shows us that sometimes it's important to have institutions. Right? Yeah. I still have my suspicions of her,

[00:32:02] but we'll talk about that later. But I actually, I went, I was like everyone, Oh, we were also wrong about Indara. And I wasn't even like the one who was super suspecting her in the first place. But then after rewatching this episode, some things I'm like, Hmm,

[00:32:17] why do you want to do everything by yourself? Indara? Right. Right. That is suspicious. We don't see the call to the council. And then when Sol says, well, let me talk to him. She goes, it doesn't matter. Don't do it.

[00:32:27] And then when Sol's like, look, we should be honest with the council. She's like, no, otherwise they're going to like, it's pretty, it's pretty forceful implication that you're going to get disciplined and not get a Padawan if you tell them what you did. Right.

[00:32:44] I don't know if that's true. I mean, I don't know, maybe it is. That was shady. But then also even stuff like I noticed in my rewatch when they went to the compound the first night, she said, Oh, let me go in by myself.

[00:32:57] It'll be better that way. And so like, I'm going in with her and I just noticed, yeah, that the whole thing with the call with the Jedi is one of most suspicious of she just was on her own a lot.

[00:33:07] And maybe we'll get maybe next season a flashback from her perspective. Yeah. Yeah. I hope so. Although I almost kind of feel like it would be nice to put this night behind us after this season.

[00:33:19] I think that it's going to get a little tired if we stretched out next season. I don't know. It depends what they do with it. I still have more questions that I don't necessarily think will be answered this

[00:33:30] season, although I think the main ones will be. Okay. Fair enough. I liked, I thought the person who played younger best was Lee Jung Jae as Sol. I thought he had, he was much more awkward physically. Like he's much more graceful. The older version of himself.

[00:33:48] His accent seemed a little stronger, which made me wonder if they filmed this first because again, he learned English for this role. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Can I, can I also say about his young self? Kel Naka makes Nuna legs, right? And Torben's like, Oh, Nuna legs again.

[00:34:04] And then you have soul without, like, they don't point any attention to this, but this guy is devouring these Nuna legs. He is like, give me more, give me more Kel Naka. I love this shit. He's got like teenage boy vibes in this, in the fashion.

[00:34:19] I know. I know. He's just like going to town on these Nuna legs. It was killing me. All right. So I guess we, we need to talk about virgins. Don't we? Yeah. I would love for you to explain virgins to me because I don't fully understand

[00:34:32] them. I have a general sense, but I need you to tell me the lore. Okay. So virgins is also called force Nexus or Loki. Um, L O C I that is as in Lucas anyway. Uh, so we hear in this episode, Torben asks what a virgin says.

[00:34:48] And Indara says a concentration of force energy centered around a location and Saul adds a virgin's could quickly become a virgin's. Could create life like what we see on this planet. It's a power that should be studied, protected. Nothing could be more important to the Jedi.

[00:35:01] So in Brendach, this is clearly that hole in the mountain we see the witches seem to be worshiping and whatever chased the miners away. Apparently. Um, this is probably also the reason why when they do wide shots of the planet,

[00:35:13] if you look closely, you can see those Neolithic style sites, you know, that are in the mountains. And so it's like, I don't know if you've ever seen a Neolithic site in the mountains, but you can see those Neolithic style sites, you know, like a ruins of,

[00:35:28] um, also our temples and what virgins are in general. This just to quote Yoda, which this comes from one of the star Wars comics. Um, he says locations exist where the force is more sharply focused, but dangerous. These places can be virgin. I say,

[00:35:44] but dangerous these places can be virgins as they are called and should not be explored without training and permission. The Jedi temple on Coruscant has one such the living sea of guys, the N another Jetta as well.

[00:35:58] So we've talked about Jetta is a planet that had a civil war during the high Republic, but it was, um, a planet that had hosted a lot of different types of force users. And that's because there's a virgins there. We also see in the original trilogy,

[00:36:15] there's that cave on Dagobah, uh, which is a virgins. You got to say it like teenage Mark Hamill, though the Dagobah system, you know, he's very, he's very American. But yeah, you can have light side virgins, his dark side virgins or neutral virgins.

[00:36:36] And I don't, I think they're trying to make this one look ominous, but I wonder because if it's creating all this lush green life like that, is that really, that doesn't feel like dark side.

[00:36:47] I agree with that. But again, can you have the dark side without the light? Right. It's a, it could be neutral. Yeah. Look, I, I'm just saying all of us talk about creating life. I have an inkling or maybe a schminkling.

[00:37:02] You know where I'm going with that or am I going to a schmee inkling? Oh, what a, oh, I mean, okay. So yeah, there is only, so there's more I want to say about virgins is,

[00:37:15] but I will say really quick that there is one person who has been described as a virgin. So only once in star Wars lore, as far as I know, please somebody correct me if I'm missed something.

[00:37:28] But only one time I know of that a person has been described as a virgin. And that is our dear middle chlorine Jesus, who will be dropping Jedi jaws in the fourth era. I thought you said virgin and not virgins. And that's why I was like,

[00:37:41] was that word used ever? I don't, I don't remember. I think she, me, the mother of said virgins. I think she, I hope she, well, we know later on, well, I don't want to spoil that, but I hope she got some action before

[00:37:56] the virgin virgins. We'll see. We'll see. But yeah. So the virgins is they, there's could be two possible sources of them in star Wars lore. One is one that we've talked about a lot called Mortis. Mortis is also known as the fulcrum of the galaxy. And it's like,

[00:38:12] it's maybe a planet, it's maybe another dimension. It's where the celestials, the father, the daughter and the son are. And yeah, we discussed that, especially in the dawn of the Jedi episodes. And then the other one is there's another planet sometimes called the fourth

[00:38:28] planet, other times called the wellspring of life. And that's where middle Koreans come from. And this is also where there are, there are forced priestesses, which I can already tell you we'll meet them in the clone Wars.

[00:38:41] Well, we hear all about this weird lore stuff more in the clone War series. It's like what a weird venue for that lore to be kept in, right? Like this is, this is supposed to be the action series for kids. Yeah.

[00:38:53] And then all of a sudden you get these episodes and you're like, yeah. And then all of a sudden you get these episodes that are like huge, huge pots of lore. Yeah. Well, the thing about the cone war series is that it bridged the re canonization and

[00:39:08] it was other than the movies, it was the one thing it was in progress at the time. And they were like, okay, everything that's in clone Wars. Now it's Canon still too. And so clone Wars was, you know,

[00:39:21] like these episodes that I'm talking about with mortis and the wellspring of life. I, I think that they actually aired before the re canonization. So they're just kind of pulling stuff directly from legends, you know? And they're like, well, here's part of this legend story on screen.

[00:39:35] And then, you know, the gate got closed behind them and it was like, well, you're through, but the stories that you pulled that from are not right. Even, even Baines in that, in that whole arc.

[00:39:44] And you're like, is Bane Canon then? I think, I think, I think so. Right. Like, yeah, he's Canon, but then the, but they can, you know, change up the details of the story. It's the same deal as thrown, right? Like the character is still Canon,

[00:39:58] but the stories that were told about him in legends are not necessarily. Right. Yeah. So they, they've written a whole new series of books about thrown now same author. But can I just say, Magnum Opus, we loved what you did. You created this whole extended universe, you know,

[00:40:18] you were the legends guy. Can you do it again for us? And it can't be the same. You can't rely on anything that you did before. I need, we need you to do it again. But they are pulling through like more and more,

[00:40:28] at least giving nods to more aspects of those original books. So yeah, we'll talk about that more when we talk about thrown, but yeah. If we see that happening also with all this, this weird force stuff too. Right. So the force has four aspects.

[00:40:48] So the four aspects of the force, one is the unifying force, which is, yeah, that's basically it's thought to be, I'm just taking a quote here. The unifying force is thought to be present in all shining stars surrounding and penetrating them. That's connecting all universal things.

[00:41:05] The important thing to know about the unifying force is that if a virgin is tied to the unifying force, then it can blur time and space. And this is a place where people can get visions of the future. You also have the living force, which, you know,

[00:41:20] with the fact that this planet is all green, I would almost kind of think that this could be a living force thing. Living forces connected to the middle Koreans. So that might also explain the girls high M count.

[00:41:32] So that would be my guess. There's also the cosmic force, which is the other, the living force and the cosmic force are the two versions people talk about most. And the cosmic force is what happens when like Jedi's die and they become

[00:41:45] force ghosts. They are going from the living force to the cosmic force. And also the cosmic force virgins is tied to that. It can be visions of the past. Right? Right. And the cosmic force health aspect of it is person soup, right?

[00:42:01] Like it's living for soup, but then sometimes people can, you know, great people can figure out how to individualize themselves within it. Right? Yeah. It seems to be there were skills about becoming force ghosts and then they're

[00:42:15] lost for a while and then maybe somebody will figure it out again. You know, what's funny is, is it reminds me of disc world. Have you, have you read the death series in disc world? Not all of them.

[00:42:27] There's that whole idea that like everybody gets exactly what they think their afterlife is going to be. Okay. There's no like, there's no predetermined afterlife. It's like whatever your religion is, whatever your belief is, the afterlife, that's what you get.

[00:42:39] Well, that's like Marvel. Is it? Yeah, pretty much. It's what it seems to be. But yeah, I was wondering the cosmic force. I was wondering if that could be tied to psychometry, what we saw Vernestra doing last season where you just kind of forget these

[00:42:52] force echoes of events in its particular place because Vernestra has a lot of talents in the high Republic books, but I don't think we've seen her do psychometry. So maybe that's why I, and it's not that, you know, Jed,

[00:43:06] I can learn new skills, especially a hundred years later. Um, but maybe that was helping her. And then the other, uh, the fourth type of force is the physical force, which is basically where they get their telekinesis powers. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's funny. I was,

[00:43:21] I was speaking with new better do better yesterday about the same million and we're talking about Finn Rod and how he's kind of like, you know, all around good guy, super cool dude. I feel like Vernestra what you're telling me,

[00:43:33] cause I haven't met her in the books yet really, uh, at least much. And she sounds like a very like, Oh, she could do anything. She's just super cool over there. And that just makes me more suspicious of her in star Wars.

[00:43:44] I can talk and that can exist. I don't think that can exist in the star Wars. It's not the same kind of work. Well, the thing about Vanessa is she goes through a lot of trauma because, uh, in the, you know, in the, sorry,

[00:43:57] first going into the third phase, which are actually back to back chronologically. Get it together. Yeah. I don't know why the high Republic, uh, published in that order, but anyway, um, yeah, she goes through a lot of trauma and she becomes a way seeker as I talked about.

[00:44:15] So someone who goes to the council and says like, I can't be your Jedi right now. I have to go do my own thing for a while and figure things out. And the council's like, okay, go do your own thing. Um,

[00:44:27] so it is interesting now that, you know, so in she eventually, she comes back, she finds her Padawan that Emery come Taurus that we talked about, uh, last week because her ship is named after him. Um,

[00:44:39] she ends up finding him and knighting him and she's like returning to course on, and we don't know what happens after that at this point yet, but it's just interesting that she was like more independently minded.

[00:44:49] And now maybe it's like the shift from her not wanting to take orders from someone else to now being the one in charge. Yeah, maybe, maybe it's a, it's hard to be hard to be a rogue agent who becomes an institutionalist, right? Yeah.

[00:45:09] You, you become the bureaucracy you once hated. Exactly, exactly what I see happening with her. Um, but anyway, so yeah, back to virgins is, uh, so another quote from Headland is talking about the whole, you know,

[00:45:20] the com a lot of people are comparing whatever is going on with, uh, with the twins and their weird, unnatural birth with the middle glory in Jesus we keep referring to. And, um, Hedlund said this about it. She said,

[00:45:35] this was very important to me, Dave Filoni and a Pablo Hidalgo, who again is like the law keeper, um, that the girls are not a virgins. The girls themselves are not a virgin in the forest. They needed again, however they got here,

[00:45:47] the act of creating them was going to need amplification. Therefore we came around to the decision that the virgins was on Brendock and that it would remain mysterious. So that way if we went back there in the future tellings of the story,

[00:46:00] we could uncover a little bit more about what is actually there. It was important that this type of virgins were not a virgin in the forest. It was important that this type of virgins was a natural one as opposed to within a human being or an alien.

[00:46:13] Yeah, I, uh, I really liked that. I, I think that we could use more exploration of physical virgins is because clearly, you know, I'm pretty tuned into star Wars. I'm like, I'm more tuned in than the average fan and I did not know much about this at

[00:46:26] all. Right. And so I appreciate that you do it. Uh, and it, and it's cool to see this kind of thing really brought front, you know, really brought forward by a bunch of Jedi, uh, in a mainstream star Wars project. Yeah, no, I like that. Um, that's what,

[00:46:44] that's what I went from Star Wars at this point. I mean, I love lore and I know that that's not what everyone watches for, but like, well, but I think even if you're not, sorry, go ahead and finish your thought.

[00:46:54] No, I was just going to say, I think what you were about to say is that, um, that you don't have, even if you're not as tuned into the lore, it doesn't take anything away from you, but it's there for those who want it. And it's just,

[00:47:04] and it's also just when you in general, like the best fiction writers, um, especially science fiction and fantasy writers, when you do a lot of world building, you build these entire worlds and you don't describe every single detail about them on the page,

[00:47:18] but just having that cohesive structure there, just having that lore behind it, um, makes it feel more alive and real. Right. It's, it's, uh, it's Tolkien saying, yeah, back in the first stage feign or had a similar situation to this. And you're like the what? Like, uh,

[00:47:35] when you're reading the Lord of the Rings before the Silver Millions published. Right. But, uh, it actually, what I was going to say was not that. So I'm glad that you brought it up. All I was going to say was,

[00:47:45] I think that we have had nine main movies plus two spinoffs and many animated series, all based on the same few bits of lore. And that story has been told like, I I'm sorry, but I don't need another story about the rise and fall of an empire. Right.

[00:48:03] What, what I want is to have a new story in this same vast universe, which is not a genre, but it is a universe that relies on new lore because the lore can be, you know, the lore can act as a device to excite characters,

[00:48:18] to explore new things, to have new arcs, to tell new stories. And that's, what's exciting to me about the acolytes. I feel like it's finally doing that on, on. And like, again, they're not, it's not like they haven't been doing this.

[00:48:29] It's that they haven't been doing this on live action screens. Right. Yeah. No, I'm glad they're doing this too. And, uh, and for anyone who's worried, she also said in this interview, uh, so she was asked, how were the twins created? And she said, tune in next week.

[00:48:44] We definitely aren't going to leave you hanging. You do a show like this. You take a lot of risks. You don't really save a lot of those types of questions for season two. There are a lot of things you do save for a season two,

[00:48:56] but that kind of question is not one of them. Well, that's a relief genuinely. Cause I was like, Oh, how much are we going to leave for season two? Cause I'm sorry, but Leslie Headland, I like a lot of things you're doing.

[00:49:06] I don't love your cliffhanger sometimes. So let's not do a season. I don't understand why people suddenly dislike cliffhangers. Like, cause this was one of the things where it's also interesting to me with the Renaissance of, you know, X-Men 97,

[00:49:19] bringing back the old X-Men 90 animated series from the nineties. Um, one of the things that made it special new and fresh was that it was serialized storytelling with cliffhangers. And now it's like, let's just, let's just come on. Let's just say that on a podcast that has ads,

[00:49:36] but, uh, unless you're on the Patreon, which you can get on for three bucks a month. Uh, anyway, the point is, well until the end of the month, until the end of the month. Yeah. But yeah, my point is just, I think that, and I've, I've,

[00:49:49] I've passed this out with you already, so I don't want to belabor it, but just the kinds of cliffhangers are what I get up in arms about and not even up in arms. Just like, I didn't love that. Okay.

[00:50:00] I mean, this one didn't have a cliffhanger, did it? No, I thought this was great. This was great. You know why? Because I don't know the implication of a lot of things and that's a great kind of cliffhanger for

[00:50:12] me. It's not that I don't know, did may fall or not? You know what I mean? Like it's not like they, like some of the earlier cliffhangers felt like it would have been soul holding both up looking to both and then cut to black.

[00:50:24] And that is the kind that I just will not stand. But that didn't actually happen. So I don't know. I can't agree with you on that, but okay. All right. That's fine. But yeah, we both,

[00:50:34] we both did Leo pointing meme when they and Dara mentions that the planet was assumed dead basically because a hundred years ago there was a hyperspace disaster. Well, well, what? So in the high Republic books, this is one of the,

[00:50:51] this is the first major plot point in the beginning of the phase one. So which is actually the middle phase chronologically. And that is set 100 years before the accolade as she said.

[00:51:02] And so it's set in two 32 BBY and I did talk about this in more detail in the hyper public overview episodes. So check that out if you want some more information by the, that means that's Brenda is probably in the Hertzel system which is where the

[00:51:18] most damage was done from this hyperspace disaster. And how would you describe the hyperspace disaster briefly? Somebody throws things into hyperspace lanes and people crash and there's a lot of unhappiness. Yeah. Basically those, those Nile evil space pirates were at it again.

[00:51:34] I shouldn't say evil chaotic space pirates. They do quite a lot of evil stuff. Like more, more than most. Like if anyone's evil in this world, I think it's like the sip is on one end. The Nile is not far beyond that.

[00:51:47] Right. It's just, it's just, they're not for sensitive. So we don't see them as one of the major adversaries of this world. But in the higher public, they were the ones doing the most damage. I would say more damage than the Sith outwardly.

[00:52:00] Well, they get their hands on, on tools that really help them to devastate things. And yeah. And one of the things that they do that they do some devastating, they're the cause of several devastating events. And one of them is the great hyperspace disaster.

[00:52:13] Yeah. And just to be clear, like they kill like what billions of people, they say, yeah. So billions of people with this it's, it's, if there, if that's not evil, I don't know what it is, what is, you know?

[00:52:23] So there's this crash in hyperspace and it ends up tearing apart. Well, this like old ship tries to maneuver to get away from it, ends up tearing itself apart. And then all of these chunks of the ship start emerging in various parts of the

[00:52:38] outer rim, but mostly in the Hertzel system from hyperspace engine. Just like I think they wiped out a couple of moons slammed in some planets. Some yeah. It would just cause disaster all over the sector of the outer rim.

[00:52:52] And, and there was a whole thing where the pilot of, or the captain of the ship that was trying to get away from the, the obstruction was trying to maneuver around. So, and she knew that they were going to crash. So she locked all of the,

[00:53:09] you know, she sealed off all the compartments. So there were living people used as missiles to go kill other planets, kill the people of other planets. I'm like, man, that is dark. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's one of the, there's definitely one of the darkest things.

[00:53:23] And that's one thing that I love about the, and we're not advertising for the high Republic spokes on purpose. But one of the things that I love about them is that, you know, the SIF are undercover.

[00:53:34] They're quietly doing the rule of two in the background. They're not like, they're not making themselves noticed at all. And so we get to encounter all totally new types of enemies in the high Republic. Yeah, I think that's right. And it's,

[00:53:48] it's interesting to see the Jedi face a not force sensitive enemy. Right. Because the SIF feel like the natural counterparty to the Jedi, but this is something completely new. And that's the most interesting thing. I mean, they warred with the, they warred with like the Mandalorians a lot.

[00:54:04] And they, I mean, yeah, but then mostly like another one we get another reference to another one of their classic enemies, which is the night sisters and they are force users also. But I did like how they poked fun. Right. They were like,

[00:54:16] I think Torben goes, well, are they the night sisters? And Indara straight up goes, let's not make assumptions. And I'm like, it looks to the camera, you know, make assumptions. That's what this whole show is about. Right. Oh, by the way. So you mentioned that,

[00:54:34] that Saul was doubting the Nuna legs. He loves them. That's like his favorite food. I've never seen him so happy. So Nuna legs, Nuna, they're little animals. They're called like swamp turkeys and they're definitely a type of bird, but they also kind of look like frogs to me.

[00:54:49] They've like got two meaty little legs and they're green. But yeah. What would you eat them? Poultry is poultry. Hmm. You know, that's how I feel. No, if you're, if you're going to eat turkey, you could eat swamp turkeys. Yeah. When I gave up eating meat,

[00:55:08] poultry was the hardest thing for me to give up eating that and pepperoni. Good choices. Especially chicken wings. Yeah. But you know what? If you cook cauliflower the right way, perfection. Cauliflower wings are lit as the kids say. Mm hmm. AF.

[00:55:29] So Torben, who's much younger than us, he just wants to go home. They've been there seven weeks and he wants to know there's meaning in the grunt work. And I love Andara's advice to him,

[00:55:40] which I could have used people saying to me when I was in my early twenties, do not center yourself around your anxieties. Why not? What else am I supposed to use as an identity? Oh yeah.

[00:55:53] My life got a lot better once I realized that like my anxiety is a separate entity that I should observe like a distant, like an outsider. Yeah. And Torben, I don't think not, not just anxiety but like the anxiety of like the anxiety of like the

[00:56:07] brain is about to get that fixed up. And he can be like, Hey, I'm tired. Let me sleep. I'm tired. I just want to go home. And because he wants to go home so desperately, he's able to fall into this. Yeah. Trap. Yeah.

[00:56:25] And Andara says she does not tell Torben the answers. He's asking to ease his mind, but rather she wants him to seek the answers for himself and yeah, apparently just give his Padawan the answers, and she says that's why you don't have a Padawan.

[00:56:38] But do you think Indara could've said more or done something more to stop Torben from going down this path in this episode? There's perhaps a balance to the method, right? Like it's, wasn't there a thing, Odin Greatstorm, Loden Greatstorm, sorry. He had a Padawan, Bell, who was like,

[00:57:01] yeah, you know, every time that anything has to be done, he wants me to figure it out for myself. And it does get a little frustrating sometimes. Yeah, yeah, different styles of teaching for sure, yeah. And those two characters show up in Young Jedi Adventures. Oh, do they?

[00:57:16] I didn't know that. Yeah. That's fun. And we also learn about Torben that he is the son of Poppers from the planet Bonadon, which is, the planet Bonadon is originally from legend. It's been confirmed in canon before this. But interestingly, it is located in the corpse sect,

[00:57:32] so the corporate sector, which is where we saw, where we first met Osha in episode one with the Nemoidians. So, and we found out that the Nemoidians were, you know, they wanted to suddenly have their shield generators working, although they never used them before.

[00:57:48] Bonadon is right next to, it's the chief port of that sector because it's next to an important hyper route into the core called the Hydean Way. And so the surface of the planet has basically been ruined by industrialization. So there was a whole bunch of exotic species

[00:58:05] that are, you know, I don't think doing too well. And most people are stuck there in corporate servitude, except the wealthy ones could get off the planet. So you can imagine when this Jedi opportunity came along for someone like Torben, he was like,

[00:58:20] yes, please take me to the capital city and away from, you know, the yellow dust. Right. Well, you know what's interesting to me though, is that immediate reaction to Sol saying, I want to take Osha is, oh, she's way too old. And so this was something that people

[00:58:35] were talking about early on is like, why was she able to go? Because another character they've made a big deal about we've seen on screen. And the question was, and this was later in the timeline. So the question was, did something change?

[00:58:50] And something I was thinking about was, did something change because of what we're gonna see in this series? Right. Right. No, I mean- But I don't think so. Yeah, no, they were already taking kids at quite a young age because they wanna indoctrinate them.

[00:59:06] Whatever way they might've been exonerated this episode, the Jedi do like to indoctrinate their child soldiers still. Let's not forget that. Yep, yep, for sure. All right, well, shall we take a quick break? And then when we come back, we can talk about where things go wrong. Yes.

[00:59:24] All right, here we go. See you on the other side. All right, and we're back. Let's continue. Upon discovering the young twin sisters, Osha and May, and their coven of witches, Sol is compelled to intervene. He fears for the safety of the children,

[00:59:57] especially after the ascension ceremony leaves May with a mysterious mark on her forehead. So yeah, Sol escalated real fast from spotting the girls under the bunta tree to climbing the fucking mountain to break in. I was like, see, I thought he was gonna do a force jump.

[01:00:15] And then he's just like, no, I'm just gonna parkour it. It's a whole mountain to climb. Yeah, but you'd think he'd be able to do a jump, go an eighth up the mountain, just do like eight force jumps. Yeah. But no, he's like, nah, I'm just gonna climb.

[01:00:33] But you can see if you think of yourself as some mythical savior, and then you see Coral looks kind of scary with her horns, and she's got an intense personality, and maybe the defense lessons looked a little brutal once he broke in, but from his perspective,

[01:00:47] he's the knight coming to slay the dragon or save the children from the witches. Right. And speaking of witches, yeah, you mentioned the Nightsisters. And so we get, I mean, we already knew that it wasn't the Nightsisters, but I know a lot of people are wondering

[01:01:06] because the Nightsisters are the most famous witches in Star Wars lore, and these are something different. They're not the only other witches. Indeed, yeah, the Nightsisters. And Dara says she doesn't think they're Nightsisters because the Nightsisters do not raise younglings or train them. And they look different.

[01:01:23] We've talked about the Nightsisters use green magic. We see them using some sort of purple thing. And also, so Leslie Hedlund, she's a huge fan of the Nightsisters herself. And she said this, she said, I think that the Nightsisters are a bit more mercenary than these witches.

[01:01:39] The Acolytes witches, I think, basically want to stay out of everyone's way and aren't grasping for any sort of power. They're not getting involved in any kind of political or any political skirmish or any war movement. That would be the last thing they would want to do.

[01:01:52] So very different, but still echoing and calling back to the influences that those characters had on me. The Nightsisters utilize magic exclusively, which is basically that green force power. With my witches, it's a bit of a hybrid. They're definitely dabbling in the Jedi version of the Force,

[01:02:10] calling the Force by a different name. They're trying to cultivate their sensitivity to it without having to be trained by the Jedi. Is that even possible? But I also think in the Ascension ceremony, you see how they're utilizing, not just wherever the virgins may be physically

[01:02:25] on the planet, but the eclipse. These powerful movements of heavenly bodies and whatever's under the earth, that type of thing. Yeah, as above, below, in the girl's rhyme, that's Alicia interjecting. She says what is meant to be expressed there is that they are drawing their power

[01:02:42] from nature, magic, and the Force. To me, it felt more interesting to show a group of people, a group of witches, having abilities that the Jedi could not pinpoint, that the Jedi weren't going, oh, well, that's magic. Oh, well, that's the Force.

[01:02:54] That's one of the reasons they get so thrown off by what they're seeing. It's so unpredictable, and it's difficult for them to categorize and report back to the Council. So it's interesting because also that's a thing with Chimere that is so unnerving to them

[01:03:07] is that his fighting style, his movements are also unpredictable. Right, yeah, they are, and yeah, they're, what's the type of fighting that he's using? The Tarkata, Tarkata. Right, oh man, I'm never gonna say that one. I'm just gonna make you say it for me every time.

[01:03:24] Yeah, I think it certainly has the same vibe as somebody just becoming a shadow to get in between people. I'm still very curious what, what Anasea was doing there. Like, what was the goal of that? Was it to possess somebody? Was it to like sneak behind and kill?

[01:03:49] Right. With her dissipation, you mean? Yeah. I mean, I don't think it was the latter because we see Korra do it later, and we never see her reappear. We'll talk about that when we get to it because Let's See had a quote about that too. Okay.

[01:04:07] But yeah, so I have a, I mean, it's interesting to look at this. I make all these jokes about that Saul should've just knocked on the door and blah, blah, blah. And you know, part of me thinks to myself,

[01:04:17] like maybe he should've just come back in the morning like a regular person and been like, hey, can I talk to you about virgences? But at the same time, the fact that they went at night like that, they did it in an underhanded way, you know, breaking in,

[01:04:32] which obviously makes them immediately look like adversaries. But if they hadn't shown up, Osha would've been not forced to do something she didn't wanna do, but she would've gone through with something she clearly did not want to do. So she was kind of saved by them that night,

[01:04:49] only at the expense of her entire family. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Mae, should I still do Mae Didn't Start the Fire? Should I still? Mae did start the fire, but it was totally an accident for her. Yeah, I've already done a Hot Loris Summer song.

[01:05:10] I'm thinking, do I have the thoughts left to do a whole We Didn't Start the Fire parody? I guess you have to wait till the season ends to see if there's anymore. Master Solandara, Kelnaka, and Torbin, they didn't start the fire. I think actually there's in the feedback

[01:05:30] a request for you to make such a thing. There is, I've seen it already. I saw it coming. So do you think, are there 50 witches on site? I was trying to count. I got to like, sightless and faint. You counted? Yeah, when they were gathered to possess Kelnaka.

[01:05:46] Yeah, yeah. But I don't know if that's not everybody or if Sol was exaggerating. Yeah, I don't know. I'll take them at their word for this. Yeah, what did you think about the possession of Torbin scene that we got a new instance of?

[01:06:03] Yeah, I like that we finally got to see what May, or what I think Osha said it. What Osha said of, oh yeah, my mom could get inside people's head. Yeah. Yeah, and I wonder if that's- Is that something that Anaseya did to her daughters?

[01:06:16] Like, that's kind of terrifying. Like, mom can't, mom's gonna come into your head if you lie to her. Like, what? I don't know, but I wonder if that's what Chimere did to Yord when he was guarding his daughter.

[01:06:29] Did to Yord when he was guarding his apothecary on Alega. Clean your room, did you? In the beginning, in the first episodes. Clean your room, did you? Yeah. I see a desire to play with your toys and not do your chores. Kneel! Kneel, Osha!

[01:06:51] But I wonder, like, so the whole possessing thing, it was basically to scare off the Jedi, to be like, okay, go away now. Let me show you what we can do. Yeah, like, you don't understand this, yeah. But do you think that she made it worse

[01:07:05] because she made him more desperate to leave and so he started acting more rashly? I think so. I think so, I think she miscalculated. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Did you notice also, speaking of Torben, that he was nicer to Mei when it came to the blood testing with Osha?

[01:07:24] Where, like, with Mei, he's like, oh, yeah, can I do, I'm gonna take a little blood test, blah, blah, blah. And with Osha, he just jabs her in the arm. He was tired, he already did one. He's like, ah. He already did one, that was too much work.

[01:07:33] Maybe he forgot I was a different person because they look the same. Yeah, he's like, what, we already did this. He's like, I already explained this. Yeah, and then we get the, so we know Andara's against taking the twins very much.

[01:07:47] She says they're too old, as you pointed out. But then we also get this, like, interesting conversation with Mei about, Mei says that she's gonna lead, she and her sister are meant to lead the coven. Like, how can children lead a coven? Which does sound suspicious,

[01:08:04] and I'm like, what is this linking thing that they were doing? Mm-hmm. And then, but then this is clearly a misunderstanding. She says to the Jedi, my mother says everyone must sacrifice themselves to fulfill their destiny. But what Ana Seya actually said in episode three

[01:08:21] is everyone must sacrifice a part of themselves, which is an important distinction. Yeah, and you know, Davy Mac literally just wrote this in our Discord. Oh yeah? I just saw it pop up out of the corner of my eye. Of course, it's still up in the air

[01:08:34] as to exactly what she meant by a part of yourself, but given what assuming, given what the Jedi were surmising about the twins being two parts of the same whole. Yeah, that is interesting. Yeah, mm, oh. So you think one of, mm, I don't know.

[01:08:47] Then I wonder about that whole Knights of Ren thing where you have to sacrifice someone you love, and are one of the twins gonna be asked to sacrifice the other if this is a Knights of Ren origin story? Right. Good question.

[01:09:01] And so Indara also, I like that she cautions Sol not to mistake his desires for what Osha wants. And it turns out it is what Osha wants, but she has a point. Yeah, yeah. That he was deciding what she wanted before even,

[01:09:16] and he twice in this show has mistaken May for Osha. So he doesn't maybe have the bond that he thinks he does. Like there's love. Yeah, yeah. That's true too, but then again, if he's determining who people are by their Force signature,

[01:09:37] it seems like they have very similar Force signatures. The same apparently, yeah. Torben says that, yeah, they have the unusually high M count so they're very Force sensitive, but he says they're not actually twins because they have the exact same symbionts, which is like the symbionts are like

[01:09:53] how the midichlorians interact with your being I suppose. There hasn't been a better explanation than that. But basically it's like a fingerprint. Even identical twins have different fingerprints. And this is like your Force fingerprint. So even identical twins should have some differences. So this is why they conclude

[01:10:13] that the twins must have been artificially created by tapping into that virgin's power and splitting one consciousness into two bodies. I like it, I like it. Give me the answer, Leslie. And when I was doing the rewatch, I noticed in the recap that they do

[01:10:30] at the start of the episode, in episode three, they showed again that Koral said to Anasea, and what happens when the Jedi discover how you created them? Yeah. Which is why we've been assuming that it was a dark side power and just also the unnatural creation of life

[01:10:44] is a dark side thing pretty much. Right, but again, they're not gonna like kill me and Osha. I think, I guess they could be worried about like are we gonna get arrested? Things like that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that that was intended

[01:10:58] to sound shadier than it was actually meant. But yeah, they're still leaving questions. So we're definitely gonna get those answers next week. I'm glad to have that assurance from the showrunner. Cloning is legal at this point, right? In the Republic? Yeah, you asked about that before,

[01:11:14] but has it ever been illegal? Later. Well, I mean, okay. But no, I mean, cloning is not even like a thing that they're thinking about. Like they haven't, later they meet a planet that's particularly good at it called Kamino. Right. And the Kaminoans are particularly skilled at it.

[01:11:33] And there are other, in Legends, there are other groups like the Colmites who were cloners. And that's actually, we do see some other groups in the new canon too. So it's around. It's not as prevalent as it becomes by the time we get to obviously the Clone Wars.

[01:11:52] Yeah, yeah. It definitely is just not as prominent. My question is, were there, because we know that the Clone Wars, cloning was happening under very specific circumstances and very sanctioned by the government, right? So my question is, was cloning- But who's to say it wasn't happening elsewhere?

[01:12:08] Sure, right. I'm just saying, was there a Republic law saying like no unsanctioned cloning? Like do we know anything about that in canon? That's my question. No, not that we're aware of. Okay, all right. I would say a pretty confident no to that,

[01:12:24] but if anyone knows better, please tell me. All right, fair enough. Okay, so then we get to the disastrous intervention. And just to recap this last part of the episode, a shocking discovery about the twins' bloodline, that they're not sisters in the usual sense,

[01:12:39] but the same person on a biological level, a consciousness shared in two separate corporal beings. And again, this is the official recap from StarWars.com. This spurs a series of events that will change the course of each life on Bren Dock that night.

[01:12:54] Convinced that the twins are his ticket home, Torben succumbs to his own anxieties and rushes back to the fortress for further proof of their unique connection, putting the witches on the defense. The coven has been wrestling with Osha's desire

[01:13:07] to leave them and the implications on their own future. While they scramble to hold their coven together and protect the children, May sets off the blaze and a battle breaks out that pits Jedi against Jedi, leaving Torben disfigured. The fire is already threatening to consume them all,

[01:13:24] but it's May rushing in, pleading for help that tips the scales, mistaking her for Osha and grossly misunderstanding Anasea's stunning maternal act of protection, morphing into a cloud of smoke to envelop her daughter in a mystical embrace. Sol makes a fatal error that will haunt him

[01:13:41] for the next 16 years. The carnage ends with most of the witches, including Mother Anasea, dead, and the Jedi are left with a terrible secret. So we see those evaporations. We see first Anasea tried to do it, and then it seems she's taking May with her,

[01:14:00] and then Sol, in a panic, he thinks it's Osha, by the way, that she's taking with him. In a panic, he stabs Anasea and kills her. And yeah, Anasea says in her dying breath that before that we see she chose to be a mother

[01:14:17] over being a leader, and she says, despite saying that Osha would be raised by an institution instead of a family if she's with the Jedi, she says that she was gonna let Osha go. It's what she wants. She chose you are her dying words,

[01:14:32] which is so sad for a mother to say in her last breath. Yeah. One other thing she says, which obviously is very prescient, someday these noble intentions you all have, as in the Jedi, will destroy every Jedi in the galaxy. Dun dun dun! Foreshadowing report. Yeah, yeah. Wafo.

[01:14:57] Wafo indeed. We've been trying to figure out what you can say to say we can't say that yet. Yeah, in Twitter of time it's Wafo. Yeah, or Wafo, right? Watch and find out. It's Wafo and then we're making it Wafo? Well, I mean, we already say Wafo

[01:15:13] about the Wheel of Time TV show. So Wafo stands- Well, I'm not on Twitter much. Oh, sorry. Wafo stands for watch and find out, and it's because the author of the Wheel of Time books, Robert Jordan, he always used to say Wafo, as in read and find out.

[01:15:25] Right, right. That makes sense. Well, Wafo indeed. Yeah. Well, so Headlands says about the materialization, dematerialization of Anasea, though why is the first thing that Jodi and I, Jodi being the actress who plays her, talked about in seeding the character.

[01:15:44] What she's doing is what Jeki says in episode four, that it's an honor to see anyone transform into the Force. I believe that Anasea is transforming herself and Mei into the Force in a way that doesn't kill them. Yeah, I think that's right.

[01:16:00] I, yeah, I don't know what that means, but, and she says about, so then later we see Koril do this and Koril's successful in it. And we know it doesn't kill Koril because we hear her voice after that taunting Saul in the Jedi, but Headlands says Koril

[01:16:16] and Chimera do not know each other, so she's not possessing Chimera apparently. Yeah, yeah, okay. She says, but what I will say as a tease, if we are able to explore this story more, her species will tell you a little bit about where she ends up.

[01:16:31] So that we're not gonna get the answer of where Koril is this season that tells me, but I don't know her species. So she's a Zabrak, so does that mean she's, so we know a bunch of Zabrak are from Dathmir where the Nightsisters are from,

[01:16:45] but usually the females with horns are said to be from Iridonia. So yeah, I don't know if that's what she means or something else, I don't know. I don't know. I will say, I don't love that she's giving straight up lore explanations outside of the show.

[01:17:04] But she didn't explain that. She didn't explain that though. She said that, she basically said that that would be explained next season. Okay, okay, I meant in the earlier one just about like, I believe she's transforming herself into the force in a way that doesn't kill them.

[01:17:22] I was like, that's not exactly what you told me on screen. And I don't like you telling me that as a showrunner this is your relief because that's like, is that canon, is that not? You know, I just wish that she would put it in the show.

[01:17:34] What did you see? How did you interpret it when you saw it? See, I was interpreting it as if they are all one being, if the three of them, if really. My theory for a while now has been, and I'm not completely dissuaded from it yet,

[01:17:49] is that Mae and Osha are a divided clone of Mother Anasea. Okay, I think that they are, I think that they've told us over and over that they are a divided consciousness, but not of Anasea, although she may have like contributed to them

[01:18:14] in a motherly way, I don't know. But that is something that we're gonna get answered next week, so. Okay, again though, I just wish these showrunners, and it's not just her, it's happening in House of the Dragon too. It's like all these showrunners keep coming out

[01:18:26] and being like, let me clarify what was in the episode. I'm like, put it in the episode! Well, please studios, give them more run time to put it in the episode. Fair enough, but I do think in general,

[01:18:38] if you can't tell a story within the time you have, don't tell that story, tell a different story. I mean, I don't think that we're, I think we're lacking the explanation of how the babies were created, but we know that the season's not over

[01:18:52] and we've gotten assurances we're getting that next week. So I don't think there's anything missing. I like the show, I'm not complaining a lot. I just, this is a general pattern that's been growing with showrunners in general that they're like, I need to go on podcasts

[01:19:06] and over explain what happened instead of just letting the show speak for itself. And I prefer the other way because guess what? You already have podcasters to overanalyze what you're doing. You don't need to do it about yourself. Okay, well, yeah, I really like when the,

[01:19:24] I completely disagree. I just like it when they weigh in on that. I mean, not that they should have to explain everything, but they can add, you know, like she did say, by the way, in this interview, she confirmed that the witches indeed died.

[01:19:36] And I'm like, you know what? That's fine, just tell me that and then I'll stop speculating about that. Disagree, disagree. I think let's put a gag order on her and Ryan Condal for the next month. All right, well, please, please no. But yeah, so we did see that

[01:19:55] we got the explanation for the fire in May. We saw she started the fire accidentally. She was just trying to light the notebook on fire to burn where her sister was drawing the Jedi symbol. Didn't want her sister to go. But we also saw that Coral

[01:20:09] was like using some dark side style manipulation on her. Like you don't want your sister to go, you lock her in, you give into your anger, use it. Yeah, I didn't love that. I didn't love that. Mother Coral certainly is not my favorite character.

[01:20:23] I mean, she's an interesting character, but I certainly can't root for her is what I'm saying. No, no, yeah, it's a shame. Obviously it's a tragedy she's the one who survived because she's, yeah, seems like the lesser mother to me. I was unsure after the first time.

[01:20:37] I thought they might be painting her a certain way, but after seeing this, I'm like, no, she's bad news. Bad news, bad mama. It's like if Matilda ended up with Miss Trunchbull instead of Miss Honey, right? Come on, let's not go there.

[01:20:47] Yeah, and yeah, so Coral pushed May to lock them in. So Sol assumed it was like the Coven's fault, but it was mostly May with Coral egging her on. So he's like, gotta rescue them from something one of them did themselves. But anyway, what did you think

[01:21:05] of the possession of Kalnaka scene? Ooh, I really liked it. I really liked it. It's a great explanation for why we see more Jedi and Jedi action, and I'm all for that because it was just super interesting.

[01:21:17] I also really enjoyed that Sol had to go hand to hand, no lightsabers with a Wookiee. That's pretty cool. And the fact that he survived and didn't get his arms ripped off is pretty impressive. Yeah, for me, the one maybe not fully believable thing

[01:21:33] this episode is that Torben held him off as much as he did. Oh yeah, I think Torben would have been... Although maybe we can argue that when he's under possession he doesn't have his full training, right? Mother Anastasia... But he's still a Wookiee, he just has brute strength.

[01:21:52] Sure, sure, I just mean perhaps strength and speed are both advantages, right? And I think probably Torben's a little faster and maybe he understands like if I could just not let him out maneuver me, then maybe I can hold him off for a little bit.

[01:22:07] If Mother Anastasia is controlling him, then perhaps... But it was... I'm sorry, when the Witches are controlling him. Yeah, sure, if the Witches are controlling him, do they have access to all of his training? Are they able to use it the right way?

[01:22:22] And when you have all these different people involved in controlling him, is there any kind of like conflict between like, if I want his arm to go right and you want his arm to go left, is that gonna, what's gonna happen?

[01:22:32] I mean, I guess they probably collective consciousness that the power of many. Yeah, yeah, my point is, I am doubtful that we were seeing Kalnaka in all his glory. Right. I don't think that was all of his skill. The one moment, because he does like claw Torben's face

[01:22:50] and we see that scar on Torben later. Torben aged badly over 16 years, by the way. Sure did. He looks a lot older than he is. Sure did. He's 30 when he's... Anyway, but yeah, so Kalnaka claws his face, which by the way, it's just like the Tarkata,

[01:23:06] that style of turning your lightsaber on and off to be tricksy with it that Chimera was using. Just as that is looked down upon, a Wookiee using their claws to fight is looked down upon and you're called a mad claw if you do it.

[01:23:19] And you know, you're sort of an outcast for being mad. Yeah, so maybe that's just not Kalnaka's mind being used. Right? Just his body. Right, I think it's just his body, yeah. But there was one point where like, after Kalnaka scratched his face

[01:23:35] and he has him up against the wall and Torben's just like, he's obviously using everything he has and the force to boot to hold Kalnaka's lightsaber away. But I just really feel like Kalnaka would have had the upper hand on the strength.

[01:23:46] But then Sol comes in and distracts him and then Endara comes in and kind of knocks him out and then knocks all the witches out, only it turns out that they were dead. Yeah, so what's your take on that?

[01:23:58] Do you think that they could be trapped in Kalnaka's mind? That would explain why he was doing like all the, I mean it could just be guilt, but all the spirals he was drawing when he was on Kofar. Well, the interesting thing about the mind transfer stuff,

[01:24:10] and this is again from Legends, but I think it's pretty much in, like there is mind transfer stuff in canon anyway, but I'm wondering how much of the Legends mechanics of it are in canon. Yeah. But when Bane fails to take over his apprentice,

[01:24:27] they basically say he gets trapped in the back of the mind, in the subconscious, right? So it's not like he can ever win out over her. It's just that he's gonna be trapped forever, like there's no chance he comes out.

[01:24:38] So I wonder if he might have a little awareness, Kalnaka might have a little awareness of the witches in the back of his mind, but there's no way they could take over. But I wonder if because they are a coven that practices mind control,

[01:24:52] maybe they can be more effective and maybe they could at least torment him a little more, like have a bunch of voices in his head. Mm-hmm. No, yeah, I wonder if, yeah, because I think, I mean, I kind of hope they got trapped in his head

[01:25:05] just because it's interesting, but I don't know. It could just be that he's like ridden by guilt. Yeah. But then I still wonder, like so it took, it was six years after this that Torben took the Barash Vow and Kalnaka and the others seem to have gone on.

[01:25:22] I wonder if like something happened later that kind of dug in the guilt on this, like they learned that May was alive or something like that. That's a good question, that's a good question. I wonder though, do you think that,

[01:25:36] like I said, they seem to be more practiced than the average Sith at mind games. Do you think maybe they did start to take over at one point and he's like, all right, I don't wanna commit suicide, but I'm gonna move to a really remote area

[01:25:51] where I can't do much harm? Yeah, I mean he was sent there on a mission, but maybe he volunteered. Right. And then they did say that he stopped responding to their messages seemingly before he died even. Right, so that's a good question.

[01:26:10] Yeah, so what did you think about, did you notice that Sol, he tried to save both sisters and then at some point it was like he made a conscious decision. He's like, nope, the Osha One is mine and he let May go. Well, I think the decision was

[01:26:25] I don't have enough strength to save them both, so what do I do? Yeah. And he chose, unfortunately, that's the choice. Hey, that's the name of the show. Yeah, that's the choice probably. And he and Indara, when he gets back to the ship,

[01:26:42] they physically go at each other. That was, I mean, especially, they go from buddies at the beginning of the episode to coming to blows, which is very young Jedi-like behavior. Yeah, it is, it is. And man, it's really heartbreaking to see them kind of have their friend breakup.

[01:27:00] Yeah. Friend breakups are something that nobody ever talks about. Everybody's all hung up on romantic breakups, but friend breakups are hard. Friend breakups are sometimes even harder. Yeah, yeah. Because they're supposed to be the people you can rely on in the romantic breakup.

[01:27:15] Right, but then she smooths it over by manipulating Sol and she's like, no, we shouldn't tell them the truth truth, we should tell them the quote, air quote truth. Because think about Osha, lie for Osha. I know. Really, again, pleased to the attachment. I'm suspicious.

[01:27:34] Now, you've convinced me to become more suspicious of Indara again. Well, I just feel like there's more, I wanna see what was happening in those moments when she was alone. I wanna know if she had anything to do with that eventual explosion.

[01:27:48] Did it really, did the explosion really come from Mae accidentally lighting that one fuse box on fire? Did that really, I don't know. And also- Mae didn't start. Yeah, she started the fire, but maybe she didn't like- Well, she started a fire. Yeah, a fire.

[01:28:05] The question is if she started the fire. And we also don't know why Indara has one dot next to her eye in the flashbacks and she had two dots next to her eye in the present timeline. There's more, we need more info about Indara.

[01:28:18] I think, assuming there's a season two and I have a good feeling we'll get it, I think that they will probably bring her back. I bet you that dot, those dots track how many witch covets you've gotten rid of. Oh no, what was the first one? Great question.

[01:28:35] That's season two. We're gonna do them in the same order as the High Republic novels, right? We're just gonna go back and then we're gonna go back forward because nobody had any foresight and it's gonna be a great time. It's gonna be a great time.

[01:28:47] I mean, you know how Star Wars is. They're always just filling in random moments in the timeline. Yeah, what is with that? Why do we do that? Yeah, because that's how it started and now they're just like, ooh, over here. Because they all have ADHD basically.

[01:29:03] They're like, ooh, I wanna know more about this. Don't we all. Do you think Brendok could be the unknown planet where Chimera was if what they were mining was cortosis? We haven't seen any cortosis there and it looks different because it's not,

[01:29:18] but it could be a different part of the same planet. Yeah, it could be. I wouldn't be shocked if it was. Maybe he was, you know what, here's the deal. I wonder if he was pulled to it as the other Force users were pulled to it

[01:29:32] with the Virgins and then he found May there shortly after she got abandoned. Yeah, that's what I'm, yeah, I need to see. Hopefully next episode we see how they met. I think so, I hope so. And how she survived. That or the cold open to season two,

[01:29:46] I can see it from that, right? Yeah, and I need to see how she survived too. But that might be a season two thing. Well, we know she's really good at pushing. Maybe she just did a push to the ground right before she hit.

[01:29:59] I don't know, and then how did she get out before that explosion? I don't know. Questions, questions still to be had. What did you think of the song at the closing credits? It's called The Power of Two by Victoria Monet written for this show. I skipped the credits.

[01:30:17] I was so excited they finally let the credits play. I think it was just late at night and I was like, I gotta go to bed after I finished the episode. But now I'll go back, now that you're asking me about it.

[01:30:29] I'll go back, I'll report back next week. Well, it was controversial to some people because there are a lot of people who just don't want any modern music attached to Star Wars. I'm like, it's an end credit song, I'm fine with it. Guys, George called it jizz.

[01:30:44] He called it jizz. Just come on, come on. Don't take the music too seriously in Star Wars. And like the cantina scene, you're gonna tell me that it's very alien to have literally a jazz band going on in the corner?

[01:31:00] Yeah, somebody said that that was the most modern music that Star Wars should have. Like, I don't know, I disagree. Like, I also, I'm one who, I liked that I was listening to like kind of punk music in the Ahsoka TV show, later in the timeline.

[01:31:16] Yeah, I'm good with that. I'm totally good with that. Give me all the jizz you can. Yeah. Take that one out of context. All right, so just a couple little bits of finale speculation, just skip forward about a minute if you don't wanna hear it.

[01:31:34] But well, first of all, this one is kind of safe. How do you think May will react to Sol? So this, presumably this episode was Sol telling May his story. How do you think she's gonna react? I don't know, because I think if this was the telling,

[01:31:50] and I'm not so sold on that yet, I'm not so sure. But if this was the telling, then Sol was ostensibly honest that he chose to save Osha over her. And in a way, I almost feel like May would respect the honesty with that.

[01:32:05] Because really, there's nothing vile that any of the Jedi did. There's nothing pure evil. It was a lot of mistakes, and I think mistakes were made on both sides. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think it's easier to forgive the mistakes if she hadn't literally seen Sol

[01:32:23] stab her mother in the stomach. That's true too. That's true too, but maybe understanding why it happened and hearing him say, I regret it, I'm really sorry, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, regretting it. Yeah, I think that maybe gets a little bit of points.

[01:32:37] Whereas I don't think anybody was ever gonna apologize for taking over Torben. Yeah. I just don't know May well enough. I feel like we haven't gotten in her head enough. Whereas I think we have gotten more in Osha's head. Right, I think they did that on purpose

[01:32:52] because they wanted to let people think that she was the bad one from Osha's perspective. And then flip it up and be like, you know what? Osha's got some darkness in her and May's also got some earnestness in her. Right. So for the finale title,

[01:33:11] so Fur Lisa said that her TV app for this week said that the title was Accept Slash Honesty, which was obviously incorrect because the title this week was clearly choice. So I wonder if Accept Slash Honesty could be the finale title or if they're just making stuff up.

[01:33:29] But I also read somewhere else that the finale title was going to be Doom. So I don't know if either of them are real, but they are kind of like opposite vibes. Right. I don't know now. Now that's pretty cool. Yeah. And about the season finale,

[01:33:48] the last quote from Leslie Hedlund for this week said, will we learn whether Chimere is truly a Sith or not in the season finale? What I will say is you don't hear it from his mouth, but there are a couple small things that happen

[01:34:00] that intimate the answer to that question. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. All right, should we jump into the feedback? See what the members of the community thought. Let's pause for a second. Okay. Okay, so John and I just took a little pause and had a little discussion

[01:34:30] and we're running short on time due to personal commitments today. So we've decided that we're going to do what John and David have been doing with the House of the Dragon episodes. And we're just, for this week at least, we're going to spin off the feedback section.

[01:34:47] So we're going to release a separate episode this weekend with all of your feedback. Thank you for that. There's, yeah, if there's anything else profound you want to add to the pile, now have a couple extra days to add it.

[01:35:01] And yeah, we'll just wrap things up here for now. So again, just repeating on the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast feed, go back and look back in the first era and you'll see a new second episode in the first era, which is the canon myths of ancient Batuu.

[01:35:18] That was a really fun, interesting episode. Also more insights into the force there. And for anyone who wants to watch ahead for the next flashback episode we're going to do. So next week before the next Acolyte episode, I'm releasing an episodes about Star Wars visions,

[01:35:36] Sith legends of the old Republic. And I'm going to be doing that with Shafi and Marchim, which regular listeners, you guys have heard them elsewhere. And they're basically two of my best friends for the past decade. So that's kind of the vibe.

[01:35:48] If anyone wants to watch along, there's five episodes. They're about 15 to 20 minutes each. So it's about an hour and a half runtime in total. And the episodes are one episode from the first season, episode seven, The Elder. And from the second season, there are four episodes,

[01:36:03] episode one, Sith, episode two, Screechers Reach, episode five, Journey to the Dark Head, and episode nine, Owl's Song. And you'll find all those episode numbers also in the show notes. And there's a link to, you know, where you can have the overview of all the episodes

[01:36:19] from the podcast with what's covered where. And of course there's also the Patreon and Supercast for Lorehounds, where you can get early ad-free episodes and other benefits. And the Star Wars Canon Timeline version of it is called the Canon Padawan Supercast.

[01:36:33] So you'll find all those links in the show notes as well. And yeah, we discussed a season wrap up plans, didn't we? Yeah, we did. And I'm excited because every time I end up on one of those format shows with you,

[01:36:46] and I want you to be the one to be able to describe the format, because you're better at it and it's your idea. But every time I end up on one of those, I have a blast. Yeah, so I think we're gonna probably do something similar

[01:36:57] to what we did with Silo for anyone who followed my Silo coverage on Wolveshift Dust, where at the end of the season, we did like a sort of kind of game show format. So we're gonna do that. It's gonna be a public episode in the Lorehounds feed,

[01:37:11] so everyone can listen to it for free in the Lorehounds feed. And I'm also just gonna add it to the Canon Padawan Timeline feed just for people to have access to it who join the Supercast later. And we're gonna invite a couple other hosts

[01:37:26] who have been engaged in the season. We haven't mentioned it to them yet as of this recording, but we're gonna see if they're available and we're gonna lift all spoiler restrictions and just like have a little fun looking back at the season. Nice. I'm excited. I'm very excited.

[01:37:42] Those game shows are always a lot of fun. Yeah, I get to use my sound effects again, hopefully. Oh, you know what? You have new sound effects too. That's true, that's true. Oh, but then I still have to go through them all. That was quite a rich batch.

[01:37:57] Yeah. A rich tapestry, as David would say. Yeah, there's a bunch of video game sounds on there too. Oh, cool. All right, I'm gonna check them all out. So what else do we have going on in the network this week? Plenty of stuff, of course.

[01:38:12] You and Aaron on your two other feeds, Wolveship Dust and Radioactive Ramblings, those are on break as well as Properly Howard movie review. They finished their season, so they're on break, but plenty of other stuff going on on the network.

[01:38:26] I was just on Rings and Rituals talking with Marilyn about the music of Rings of Power. And may I say, I didn't listen to this since we recorded it in February and when I was editing and then after it came out,

[01:38:38] I listened to it, I was like, this is some good stuff. Like this is a good conversation. So go check it out. We talk a lot about leitmotifs and Wagner even and all the different influences on Rings of Power and Bear McCreary and all that.

[01:38:51] So that was a lot of fun. Also on the Lorehounds feed itself, plenty of stuff going on. House of the Dragon, we've got three podcasts coming out a week if you're a Supercast or Patreon subscriber. For the public, we have the regular breakdown, we have the feedback episode

[01:39:07] and then for the premium subscribers, we have a hot take every Sunday night. We are going after the show to talk about it for just like 10 minutes, 15 minutes and that's been a lot of fun. Just get some feelings out right after the episode airs.

[01:39:23] Then we have, well you already talked about the Acolyte and oh, I scrolled up too early. I scrolled up too early and I was gonna tell you about things last week but now I can tell you about this week. You did the interview with a vampire

[01:39:37] and I guess that's it for this week. Well, that's the interview with the vampire. Check it out even if you haven't watched the series, the first part of the episode is completely spoiler free, just kind of laying out what it is

[01:39:51] and to help you decide whether it might be something for you or not. And yeah, John, you listened to at least the first part and you haven't watched. I thought the podcast was fabulous. I listened to it, I was like, I wanna hear more from this duo

[01:40:05] and again, yeah, like you said, I did not watch it beforehand. So you pitched me on the show. I've decided I am going to watch the show whenever my life comes down a little bit after Hot Lore Summer. Right, well yeah, it's a good one

[01:40:17] to wean you off of House of the Dragon. It's definitely one that will appeal to House of the Dragon fans. It's got some similar strengths. That's good, that's good because I do love the politics. Yes, yeah, well yeah, there's, it's more on the interpersonal side

[01:40:35] but there are politics. There's like coven politics and there's something bigger going on by the end of season two. And season three is confirmed, yay. That's great. Yeah. That's great, I like when we get the renewals. You know, go finish your stories, folks.

[01:40:49] Yeah, yeah, I'm hoping for like eight seasons of this but we'll see. Yeah, we'll see. I remember we were talking to David Goyer last year about Foundation and he's like, yeah, I wanna do eight seasons and I was like, what? I mean, in this case, you know,

[01:41:04] this is based on a series of, there's a lot of these books so, but they're all- Oh, I mean, the same deal with Foundation, right? Yeah, that's true, that's true but I think they're sticking closer even though people, they've diverged from the Vampire Chronicles books

[01:41:18] but they're still much closer, I think, than Foundation. Yeah, I mean, to be clear, I trust David Goyer to go forward with that many seasons but unfortunately he's not the showrunner anymore so we'll see what happens with that. Right, yeah.

[01:41:31] All right, do you wanna shout out thank yous? I brought up some music. I have no idea what this is gonna be because I just added it now so show me, roll the dice. Let's do it, let's do it. What is it? Dobby Andi, Sotobia, Sagan.

[01:41:43] Yeah, I'm impressed. That's a Wheel of Time reference for anyone. Oh! Oh my God. Oh, okay, that's intense. Keep it in, keep it in, keep it in. It's gone, it's gone. All right, let's try this one. Oh, it's just as epic. All right, go ahead.

[01:42:02] Discord server boosters, Gnarls, Aaron K., Diller the Thriller, Dork of the Ninjas, Doove71, CaptainGinji56, and Athena A., Loremasters, Samarshan, Michael G., Nichelle E., David W., Brian P., S.C., Peter O.H., Bettina W., Adam S., Nancy M., Doove71, Brian8063.

[01:42:32] Give me some more, I need a different vibe now. I know, I know. All right, wait, we gotta pull up another one. Ooh, Enemy. Frederick H., Sarah L., Gareth C., Eric F., Matthew M., DJ Miwa, Sarah M., Andra B., Huang Yu, DeadEyeJediBob, Nathan T., Alex V.,

[01:42:58] Aaron T., SubZeroAaronK, Dally V., Mothership61, Gnarls, Kathy W., Stuart B., and the Arch Enemy. Perfect timing. All right, well, thank you so much for sticking with us today, and watch out for that feedback episode to come this weekend. There is a lot of interesting feedback,

[01:43:27] including we got a good voicemail in, and I'm also gonna do a dive into the Jedi code and attachment, because we've gotten some questions about that. Rules around attachment. So yeah, look forward to that this weekend, and yeah, see you in a few days. I'm excited.

[01:43:46] The Lorehounds Podcast is produced and published by the Lorehounds. You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com slash contact. Get early and ad-free access to all Lorehounds podcasts at patreon.com slash thelorehounds, and connect with us on Twitter at the Lorehounds.

[01:44:06] Any opinions stated are ours personally, and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. Thanks for listening. Okay, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side, green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn.

[01:44:36] I am black for life. So we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to pick sides and fight and stuff. Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod, but we seem to agree on one thing.

[01:44:49] We both really like this show. The politics, the drama, the lore. It was made for the Lorehounds. And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the Dance of the Dragons. And with the season pass option in Supercast,

[01:45:04] listeners can get early ad-free access to each weekly scene by scene deep dive, plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragon fire hot, but probably positive, takes. The Lorehounds House of the Dragon coverage

[01:45:21] is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a hardened conflict with itself, and an inescapable urge to read the book Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning.