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These are personal relationships that are being

1:22

conducted through political currency of threats

1:24

and information and all the rest

1:26

of it, but conducting your personal relationships

1:28

like that is costly and Dedra

1:30

may have established dominance here, but Dedra

1:32

is not a happy person. I'm Professor

1:34

Stephen Dyson and I'm Professor Jeff Dudis.

1:36

And we are two political science professors

1:39

and we have just watched the first

1:41

three episodes of And or season two.

1:43

We're going to react to them and

1:45

break down some of the political themes

1:47

that we found in them. Jeff, I

1:49

sort of have three political themes I'd

1:51

like to bring out over the course

1:53

of this video. One is to do

1:55

with the motives and aims of the

1:57

empire and the rebellion that are kind

1:59

of showcased in these. these three episodes.

2:01

The second is to do with the

2:03

problems of coordination that both sides face

2:05

and the third is to do with

2:07

what I've enigmatically called masks and double

2:09

talk. So let's get into it. Yeah,

2:11

let's go. Okay, so in terms of

2:13

motives and aims, there's kind of a

2:15

basket of issues that are revealed in

2:17

these three episodes that I've sort of

2:19

grouped under the rubric, the personal is

2:22

political. And I think that's something that's

2:24

going on in And or as a

2:26

series writ large, not just in these

2:28

three episodes that in contrast to... Certainly

2:30

the movies the Star Wars movies

2:32

which which are these grand sort

2:34

of operatic epic heroes journey type

2:36

stories you have ordinary people ordinary

2:38

people who were constitute a rebellion

2:40

and the ordinary kind of foot

2:42

soldiers of the empire and in

2:45

particular it's its political insecurity apparatus

2:47

and we're focusing in on what

2:49

it is they're trying to achieve

2:51

what motivates them and rather crucially

2:53

what sort of personal lives and

2:55

personal ends, they have not pursuing.

2:58

Yeah, and I think you're correct

3:00

in linking this theme of the

3:03

kind of the small-scale, ordinary, anodone

3:05

struggles of ordinary people who are

3:07

not yet heroes. I think you're

3:10

correct in linking that and identifying

3:12

it here, linking it back to

3:14

the previous season of Andor. It

3:17

also is the, in many ways,

3:19

it's the overriding theme of Rogue One

3:21

as well. Right. And so I think...

3:23

One of the things that I

3:25

think is beginning to happen in

3:28

season two is that the linkages

3:30

between And or season one and

3:32

rogue one are really starting to

3:34

come into focus now in a

3:36

way that's you know really interesting

3:38

and exciting But that overwhelming and

3:40

overriding theme that these are stories

3:42

These are this is a slice

3:45

of the Star Wars universe

3:47

that as you say is

3:49

distinct because it focuses upon

3:52

ordinary people and ordinary people

3:54

struggling within and against structures

3:56

of oppression. And we definitely

3:58

get that. Again as you say

4:01

on both sides of the equation here

4:03

in this first chunk of episodes both

4:05

when it comes to the rebellion and

4:07

when it comes to to the empire.

4:09

Yeah, absolutely. So we're on a we're

4:11

on a train hurtling I think now

4:13

towards Road One and I'm gonna I'm

4:16

gonna mix metaphors here because Rogue One

4:18

then becomes a kind of self self-disassembling

4:20

mechanism. So we know that all these

4:22

pieces that are put together to get

4:24

the train hurtling I'm not sure this

4:26

metaphor is working at all, but all

4:28

these pieces that get put together get

4:30

neatly kind of pulled out of this story,

4:33

the widest our story at the end of

4:35

Rogue One and never really heard of again.

4:37

how casting and or story ends, but there's

4:39

a ton of care and we know how

4:41

Monmont those story ends eventually, but there's a

4:43

ton of other really interesting characters that this

4:46

season is going to be really fast, so

4:48

you can see what happens to them, what's

4:50

going to happen to deadra, right, who doesn't

4:52

have a role in rogue one, right? Chronic

4:54

has a role, where is deadra? What's going

4:56

to happen to hurt, what's going to happen

4:59

to bigs, what's going to happen to happen

5:01

to these characters that the... and or spending

5:03

so much time developing and engaging. So I

5:05

want to talk about three scenes or groups

5:07

of scenes that kind of illustrate this

5:09

theme of the motives and aims of

5:11

the ordinary people in the story, and

5:13

in particular this kind of Uber theme

5:15

that I've... I've come up with of the

5:18

Personalist Political, which I think is what's

5:20

going on in these three episodes. First

5:22

of all, basically the first thing we

5:24

see, or one of the first things

5:26

we see in episode one, is Cassian,

5:28

who is now a sort of mature

5:31

member of the rebellion and sort of

5:33

self-confidence, and is in a position to

5:35

be counseling more junior members of the

5:37

rebellion as to not only what they're

5:39

doing but why they're doing it. And

5:41

we see a rather crucial scene with

5:44

Naya, I think she's called, who is

5:46

a young sort of employee of employee

5:48

of the... The Empire, she's stationed on

5:50

a test facility where they're developing what

5:52

I presume is a new

5:54

type of Thai fighter and Naya

5:57

has gotten Cassian access to

5:59

this place. and his counseling there,

6:01

and now he is understandably nervous. I

6:03

mean, these are obviously, you know, it's

6:05

obviously a hanging or whatever form of

6:08

execution that the empire would choose, a

6:10

hanging offense for her to be doing,

6:12

what she was doing. And she expresses

6:15

a series of motivations and doubts about

6:17

what she's doing, which she expresses a

6:19

series of motivations and doubts about what

6:22

she's doing, which she kind of looks

6:24

around, she says, I've had fun here, you know,

6:26

which I think is a recurrent

6:28

theme in these episodes. people seeking

6:30

moments of pleasure or life affirming

6:32

moments that are ultimately kind of

6:34

inauthentic and having to put them aside

6:37

in service of a larger goal. And this

6:39

of course is what Cassian counsels her about.

6:41

He says, I know you've had fun

6:43

here, but you're doing the right thing.

6:45

Yeah. Rather crucially, and I thought this

6:47

was good writing, he says you're coming

6:49

home to yourself. You're not betraying anyone.

6:51

Yeah. all the people that you are

6:53

betraying and not the people you should

6:55

be thinking about. You should be thinking

6:57

about the authenticity of the greater cause

6:59

because that's who you are truly,

7:01

you're coming home to yourself. And

7:03

he also says to her, you

7:05

are becoming more than your fear.

7:07

And in those moments, I think

7:09

you're exactly right, it's a far

7:11

more mature cast than we see

7:13

certainly at the beginning of the

7:15

series. But it's also right, I

7:17

mean, this is sort of, this

7:19

is the... long-standing counsel and influence

7:22

of Nemek from season one, right?

7:24

And it's, Nemek leaves his journal,

7:26

right? These kinds of, you know,

7:28

revolutionary writings to Cassian. And we

7:30

know that Cassian takes these, this

7:32

relationship that he has with Nemek

7:34

and the journal he takes them to

7:36

heart. And so those are, those are

7:38

Nemex words, right? It seems to

7:41

me coming out in Cassian's verbiage,

7:43

right? You are more than your

7:45

fear. your life now has meaning,

7:47

right? It's something larger than

7:49

you. And you're right,

7:51

it continues this theme

7:53

of focusing upon the

7:55

an anodyne ordinary stories

7:58

of people who would. In

8:00

previous Star Wars

8:02

iterations, be anonymous. It's

8:04

trying to understand how

8:07

people operate within these

8:09

larger structures of suffering

8:11

and oppression and power.

8:13

And it's really point in,

8:15

I think, that season two

8:17

begins with this kind

8:19

of role reversal where

8:21

Cassian has integrated parts

8:23

of Nemex's vision of

8:25

why all of this is important

8:27

and why it's all worth.

8:29

sacrificing yourself for. Yeah. Okay,

8:32

and another interaction that I

8:34

think illustrates this kind of

8:36

interweaving of personal and political

8:38

themes is the the simultaneously hilarious and

8:40

horrifying kind of house party that

8:42

who a Cyril puts on. That's

8:44

incredible scene. Yeah, where he has

8:46

two of the most fearsome women

8:49

here ever going to imagine who he

8:51

who Of which it is his great

8:53

fortune, misfortune that he's, you know, one

8:55

is his romantic partner and the other

8:57

is his mother. He hasn't seen his

9:00

mother for a little while, I guess,

9:02

or they've been putting off introducing themselves

9:04

as a couple. I think so, yes.

9:07

But the fateful moment arrives, Cyril's

9:09

mother turns up at the door.

9:11

It's, there are a couple of

9:13

things, so first of all, one

9:15

of the things is that is

9:17

subtly introduced, I think, by the

9:19

scope of Coruscant as a planet,

9:21

which we know. I mean, suppose

9:23

the entire thing is supposed to

9:25

be inhabited, but it's also in

9:27

a massive size. And so Cyril's

9:30

mother says, I've come a

9:32

long way. And I think

9:34

that's interesting. Like, it's interesting

9:37

to think about, like, where

9:39

does she live, right? And where

9:41

did Cyril live last season? You

9:43

know, what is that commute like?

9:45

I mean, we know that Dedra

9:47

lives, I mean, But it does

9:49

suggest sort of scope in a

9:51

way that is that is intriguing.

9:53

So there's two possibilities, I think. One is

9:56

it is actually a long way and she's

9:58

been sincere. The other is... is mourning

10:00

in the way that certain mothers

10:02

do about, you know, something that

10:04

she'd agitated to have, which was

10:07

clearly this meeting, but then it's

10:09

a huge imposition when it actually

10:11

happens and, you know, the kind

10:13

of martyrdom and all the rest

10:15

of it. Because of course, her

10:17

great sort of great sort of

10:19

game with regard to Cyril is

10:21

that he is, of course, the

10:23

apple of her eye and yet

10:25

everything he does is a tremendous

10:28

burden and disappointment. it takes the

10:30

opportunity to express that and

10:32

and it seems like if

10:34

it's in front of others all

10:36

the better all the better what

10:38

so that we have seen before

10:40

right we have seen season one

10:43

you know with some regularity would

10:45

display this relationship yeah what we

10:47

haven't seen is how deadra response

10:49

well I was in a situation

10:52

like this we know we've seen

10:54

a lot of deadra we've seen

10:56

a lot of deadra response to

10:58

either rebels or most frequently to

11:01

other members of the empire or to

11:03

other imperial officials. What we have

11:05

not seen before now is the

11:07

way that Deborah interacts with, I

11:10

don't know, ordinary people or kind

11:12

of unaffiliated people, people who don't

11:14

really have anything to do with her

11:16

job. Well, what I was going to

11:18

say is who was especially seen that

11:21

before, that tactic of... passive aggressive

11:23

or aggressive, disinformation and coercion campaigns

11:25

applied against by a stronger party

11:27

against a weaker party, is deadra.

11:30

She's seen his, Cyril's mother's behavior

11:32

before, maybe not in Cyril's mother

11:34

or in Mother's writ large, but

11:36

to an imperial security officer, they

11:39

are well-versed in the kind of

11:41

psychological warfare that Cyril's mother deploys

11:43

against. She immediately identifies it when

11:45

Cyril's out of the room as

11:48

a game. Yeah. And she says this game

11:50

is over. Right. So, and then... I mean,

11:52

Deadpool just completely demolishes and humiliates Cyril's mom.

11:54

Here is a new plan, and but by

11:56

saying plan, I don't want you to believe

11:59

that it's optional. or might not happen.

12:01

Just absolutely perfect. And then Cyril's mother

12:03

is also sort of no fool. She

12:05

knows, you know, she has, as these

12:07

kind of people, some guys do, there's

12:09

a lot of, I'm an old vague

12:11

person and I don't really know what

12:13

I'm saying. Well, she very quickly recognizes

12:15

an equal on the other side of

12:18

the table to whom she had best

12:20

accommodate herself. So I think there's two

12:22

things happening here and, or at least two

12:24

elements to what Debra is saying

12:26

to her. And the first is,

12:28

is playing on, on Cyril's mother's

12:30

desire to maintain contact with Cyril,

12:32

right? I will make sure that you

12:35

see him so long as you behave

12:37

yourself. Your level of contact

12:39

will be inversely proportional to

12:41

the, to-down-asurable that you cause

12:44

and in our relationship. But

12:46

I think, subtly, the thing

12:48

that she really says, right, is when

12:50

she then says, you keep talking about

12:53

your brother, Uncle Harlow, Uncle Harlow.

12:55

I have, I know who this

12:57

guy is, I have looked in

12:59

his security files, and you probably

13:01

don't want to advertise his virtues

13:03

anymore. And like, that's the moment

13:06

in the scene where everything flips,

13:08

right? Because it's not, it's not

13:10

just that Dedder is now

13:12

her equal. Like, Dedder establishes

13:15

herself as the superior person.

13:17

It's just in that relationship with

13:19

the mother, right? And all of

13:21

a sudden, everything changes, right. And

13:24

like, like, so... There are multiple

13:26

motivations, but it also it undercuts

13:28

again and sort of portrays Cyril's

13:30

mother's desire to see him as

13:32

sort of more selfish for her

13:35

than it is. You know, it's

13:37

because she likes seeing him so

13:39

that she can run him down.

13:41

Right, right. But when when threatened

13:44

with basically public exposure, right, like

13:46

she. she all of a sudden knows what's

13:48

happening, right? And she all of a sudden

13:50

realizes that she is in the subservient position.

13:52

Yeah, and I think it's another running theme

13:55

throughout this whole series, this whole thing though,

13:57

and or as a whole, but especially these

13:59

episodes is. There's a, these are personal

14:01

relationships that are being conducted through political

14:04

currency of threats and information and all

14:06

the rest of it, but conducting your

14:08

personal relationships like that is costly. And

14:11

DEDRA may have established dominance here, but

14:13

DEDRA is not a happy person. No.

14:15

Well, it's impossible to know, right? DEDRA

14:18

doesn't, we don't really get a great

14:20

sense of her interior. We do learn

14:22

more about DEDRA's background here than we

14:25

have ever known, right, that she's essentially,

14:27

she was an orphan. and that she

14:29

was brought up. I mean, and it

14:32

just sort of gets the sense that

14:34

it's like this kind of youth academy,

14:36

almost like a kind of Nazi youth,

14:39

you know, sort of academy. But even

14:41

then when Cyril's mother tries to sort

14:43

of use that as a cudgel, say,

14:46

well, you didn't have a mother's love,

14:48

Deirdre responds, well, we had everything we

14:50

needed. Right. So there's no, it's very

14:53

difficult to understand what's on the interior,

14:55

right with Deder. Maybe we'll learn. more,

14:57

I presume, throughout the season, but she

15:00

is in complete control of this scenario

15:02

as we saw her in almost always

15:04

in complete control in season one, except

15:07

for the final episode. Yeah, which it

15:09

turns out has been a big career

15:11

setback for her and a big sort

15:14

of problem. The third sort of scene

15:16

that I thought kind of exemplified this

15:18

kind of personal as political excavation of

15:21

the motives and aims of these people

15:23

is the the mothma wedding on the

15:25

mothma. estate which is this sort of

15:27

hellscape. It's a hellscape for Monmouthma herself.

15:30

But we should know it looks incredible.

15:32

Looks standard. The unusuals of these three

15:34

episodes are extraordinary and you can as

15:37

we talked about off-camera you can definitely

15:39

see where the budget. was placed. What

15:41

is a stunching here is this, or

15:44

what is very effective is this strict

15:46

position of high style and sort of

15:48

360 degree personal torment for Mon herself,

15:51

whose every relationship is colored by... the

15:53

sacrifices that she's having to make still

15:55

in secret for the for the rebellion

15:58

including her personal relationship with her daughter,

16:00

whom she keeps trying to maintain some

16:02

kind of authentic personal connection with, that's

16:05

separate and private for her from what's

16:07

going on with the rebellion. And actually

16:09

her daughter keeps kind of pushing that

16:12

away or keeps, you know, stepping forward

16:14

into a role Mon doesn't want to,

16:16

um, to play. The daughter's not unhappy

16:19

with this. I mean, this is what

16:21

she wanted. Right. Remember back to season

16:23

one. She wanted this kind of traditional

16:26

life and wedding. Right. You know. Mon

16:28

is highly ambivalent, if not just dismissive

16:30

of it altogether. We'll see what happens

16:33

to the daughter. Yeah, and throughout this,

16:35

this, what seems to be like a

16:37

multi-day, I mean, utterly exhausting. So three

16:40

days, so it's, it's very cleverly structured

16:42

again. So these three episodes take place

16:44

over the course of three days, right?

16:47

And each episode is a new day.

16:49

And so the wedding itself is this

16:51

three day ceremony kind of. Ockenol that

16:54

eventually ends, you know, as the chunk

16:56

of episodes end. Right, in this kind

16:58

of hellish sort of rave, surreal, with

17:01

this awful kind of pounding music, and

17:03

Mon Mothmer is forced to appear ecstatic

17:05

while in absolute despair internally. I read

17:08

that differently. I mean, she gets loaded

17:10

drunk. You know, and and I... Did

17:12

she look happy to you then? She

17:15

looks out of her mind, which I

17:17

think was the plan. Yeah, she looks,

17:19

it looks like a kind of psychosis-inducing

17:22

episode, I think. The other thing that

17:24

I thought was really striking, one of

17:26

the other things that was really striking

17:29

was going on in this wedding, which

17:31

incidentally would be utterly exhausting and hellish

17:33

even if you weren't planning a secret

17:36

rebellion against the totalitarian empire, just the

17:38

idea of that much wedding. I mean,

17:40

my goodness. But the other thing that's

17:43

going on is her husband gives this

17:45

sort of speech where he's trying to

17:47

counts. the young bride and groom as

17:50

to sort of a philosophy of life.

17:52

And he says, you know, anxiety and

17:54

trouble, the galaxy will always bring them

17:57

to your door. You don't have to

17:59

work. They'll come with a fair wind

18:01

behind them. You've got to search for

18:04

moments of joy and pleasure. Well, suffer,

18:06

I mean, it's even more than that,

18:08

right? And what he's saying is that

18:10

suffering is the normal state of affairs.

18:13

Right. Right. Not that they will show

18:15

up every once in a while. This

18:17

is what life. to hell with things.

18:20

You don't have to search for them,

18:22

you have to kind of cope with

18:24

them. The thing you have to search

18:27

for and kind of preserve and look

18:29

for it is moments of joy and

18:31

pleasure. Of which you would imagine one

18:34

would be for mon seeing her daughter

18:36

marry or her daughter getting married, but

18:38

actually these, even there, these are, artifices,

18:41

masks are being worn, there's a lot

18:43

of double talk, things are going on

18:45

for a different purpose and they're actually

18:48

kind of finding themselves in hell. Okay,

18:50

good. Shall we move to our second

18:52

kind of basket of issues? Yes. All

18:55

right. So the second sort of basket

18:57

of political issues that I thought were

18:59

brought up in these three episodes were

19:02

issues of coordination. And this has been

19:04

a, this was also a big theme

19:06

of Andor season one, that you had

19:09

these mirrored problems of two organizations, one

19:11

of which is a lot larger than

19:13

the other. You've got the, the empire

19:16

and the attempts to consolidate a strongly

19:18

autocratic, if not totalitarian. system and all

19:20

the problems that poses. And then you've

19:23

got the rebellion and the attempts to

19:25

kind of put that together. And both

19:27

sides are facing analogous problems, although they

19:30

manifest themselves in slightly different ways because

19:32

the structures of the situations. And the

19:34

empire struggles to achieve coordination because it's

19:37

just huge. Like space is massive. And

19:39

even for a highly technological organization with,

19:41

you know. enough people. There's just so

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20:53

right exactly so these worlds are not

20:56

kind of heavily policed and even when

20:58

the imperials do show up there's only

21:00

a few of them yeah and it

21:03

takes them forever yes to kind of

21:05

go all around the planet to the

21:07

point that that a viable escape plan

21:10

for Cassian's people is why don't we

21:12

just hop from like one settlement to

21:14

another and they can get chases chases

21:17

around and which shows the problem that

21:19

the empire is having that you know

21:21

the the the difficulty of discovering a

21:24

widespread yet very loosely coordinated And it's

21:26

a classic problem of governance over large

21:28

charities, often being said of the Russian

21:31

Empire in the past, that the, you

21:33

know, the great problem is, you know,

21:35

you're always a long way from Moscow

21:38

and it's very hard to enforce an

21:40

imperial will. The other problem of coordination

21:42

the empire is having is that the

21:45

Emperor is still having to operate somewhat

21:47

in secret as to what is, or

21:49

are largely in... secret as to what

21:52

his ultimate goals are. And you made

21:54

a good point, which maybe wasn't picked

21:56

upon immediately in the episode, which is

21:59

even in the inner sanctum of the

22:01

imperial security apparatus, the true goals of

22:03

things are not being stated. They don't

22:06

know. The only one who... So Krennic

22:08

is essentially like, well, it's half true

22:10

thing. So these are the people who

22:13

are brought. Gorman Project. Yeah, Gorman Project,

22:15

the people who are brought together, who

22:17

are high-ranking, people who are seriously officials,

22:20

and they're told you're being given a

22:22

special project to work. A special project,

22:24

and what they're told is that there's...

22:27

Calcite? Is that the name of it?

22:29

I think so. Yeah. Calite? There's this

22:31

mineral that is, you know, kind of

22:34

a wonder miracle and that is extremely

22:36

efficient, energy efficient. And they are told

22:38

that the emperor has a great desire

22:41

for this mineral because he wants energy

22:43

independence. Quote, quote, quote, now what he's

22:45

actually doing is he wants the energy

22:48

for the death star, right? And the

22:50

same, and, but that's not what people

22:52

are told and nobody, nobody really knows

22:55

that except for chronic who's directing the

22:57

entire project. It's the same sort of

22:59

thing that we saw in season one

23:02

when Cass is in prison and you

23:04

know they're all they're building the death

23:06

star but they don't know what they're

23:09

doing right no and and in fact

23:11

nobody knows what they're doing not even

23:13

the people who are in charge of

23:16

the prison know why they're doing what

23:18

they're doing and so it's this kind

23:20

of a need to know what the

23:23

point of it is, right? She thinks

23:25

it's what Krennic has told her. And

23:27

so it's these layers of obfuscation that

23:29

are interesting, perhaps ironic, given the desire

23:32

for total control that is sort of

23:34

the modus operandi of what the umpires

23:36

is doing. Right. And so that those

23:39

are the problems that the empire has.

23:41

The rebels also... have major problems of

23:43

coordination. And the big problem is that,

23:46

you know, to coordinate, you need to

23:48

communicate. And to communicate, you sort of

23:50

need to, like, literally break radio silence.

23:53

You need to be at least somewhat

23:55

out in the open. And Mon Mothma's

23:57

hell wedding, you know, Lutheran Real, is

24:00

there the whole time, kind of literally

24:02

enunciating to Mon, the stakes, which is

24:04

one part of the hell. But he

24:07

himself is in hell, because he's away

24:09

from his communications devices. time intelligence on

24:11

this crucial operation of stealing the tie

24:14

fight which Cassians do. That's exactly right.

24:16

But what we also know is that

24:18

Lucien is is not the leader of

24:21

the rebellion. He's got kind of one

24:23

splinter group that he's working with and

24:25

there are others, right? We were introduced

24:28

to Sagarara's group in season one. What

24:30

we, the people that we meet here

24:32

in this beginning of season two are

24:35

the Maya, the Maya pay. rebel splinter

24:37

group and none of them trust each

24:39

other. Some of them don't even know

24:42

who that there are other splinter groups

24:44

out there and they don't trust themselves

24:46

right so it's it is a matter

24:49

of communication but it's also as you

24:51

say it's a matter of coordination which

24:53

does not exist. Yeah. At the rebel

24:56

level, right? It's just a bunch of

24:58

splinter groups, all of whom hate the

25:00

empire, but are not working together and

25:03

most of whom seem to hate each

25:05

other. Right. So this is a group

25:07

that has kind of screwed up the

25:10

next pad in Cassian's plan. He was

25:12

supposed to kind of drop the shit.

25:14

There was another pile who was supposed

25:17

to meet. And when he gets there

25:19

and kind of lands a tie fighter,

25:21

there's all he's kind of, people start

25:24

shooting at him and eventually shooting him.

25:26

Not only if they screwed up a

25:28

much more important plan that's going on

25:31

to steal this advanced piece of enemy

25:33

technology, but they then immediately start fighting

25:35

amongst themselves. They start fighting amongst themselves.

25:38

They show no facility. for surviving in

25:40

this place. First thing that castee- Definitely

25:42

food. They have no food or water

25:45

and castee is like, there's a ton

25:47

of food and water out there. And

25:49

they won't go out because they're a

25:52

friend of this beast that they hear

25:54

at night, which, I mean, fair play,

25:56

but still, you know, you can make

25:59

some effort, but then- Like, we're thirsty

26:01

and he's like, it's raining. He's constantly

26:03

counseling them about what they should be

26:06

doing. He's their hostage. He's their prisoner.

26:08

And he's saying, you know, maybe you

26:10

want to create a perimeter. You know,

26:12

maybe you want to create a perimeter.

26:15

You know, maybe, oh, they're turning the,

26:17

you know, they're turning the, you know,

26:19

they're, they're turning the tie fighter around

26:22

to use its cannons on you. Maybe

26:24

you want to shoot at them for

26:26

a while to stop. But even then,

26:29

they're like, you know, they're moving like.

26:31

five millimeters. They can't do the math

26:33

like that. Does that? And Cassie and

26:36

someone says, yeah, so by midnight, they're

26:38

going to be shooting at us. Yeah,

26:40

and then the funniest thing, I mean,

26:43

I literally laughed out loud. I thought

26:45

it was so well judged as well,

26:47

and could have gone wrong. But the

26:50

rebel factions have decided to solve their

26:52

differences by playing rock paper scissors. But

26:54

while they're doing that, of course, Cassian

26:57

takes the opportunity to do it. Cassian

26:59

runs off in one direct. Giant beast

27:01

comes at you. And the giant... Of

27:04

course, not to like to hammer home

27:06

the obvious, but the giant beast, if

27:08

you're the rebel group, is probably the

27:11

empire, that if you keep messing around

27:13

like this, is actually going to come

27:15

and kill you all. So why not

27:18

get on the same pit? Exactly. Here

27:20

you are squabbling amongst yourselves, fighting, being

27:22

just generally incompetent and... while you're doing

27:25

that you're getting eaten or you're about

27:27

to get eaten. Yeah, absolutely. And the

27:29

one person who's sort of the most

27:32

competent and coordinated and confident, although there

27:34

are limits to this, but in these

27:36

three episodes, is Cassian. And I think...

27:39

One reason is that he's one of

27:41

the only people who's able to act

27:43

openly. Everyone else has an agenda that

27:46

they're having to hide from the people

27:48

around them immediately. But Cassian, rather crucially,

27:50

were introduced to him in the reintroduced

27:53

him in the first episode, not as

27:55

a furtive, deceptive person infiltrating the test

27:57

facility. That's already happened. We're introduced to

28:00

him as a confident, wise, and humane.

28:02

Rebel leader who's counseling a younger member

28:04

of the Alliance, a member of the

28:07

rebellion, sorry, as to how this all,

28:09

as to what this all means. And

28:11

that's a, his character has really moved

28:14

since the, since we were introduced. Yeah,

28:16

and it really starts in the back

28:18

half of season one. The last time

28:21

we see him play that kind of

28:23

role is when they break into the

28:25

armory and steal all the credits. And

28:28

I... There's something about how the immediate

28:30

arc afterwards is where he is misidentified

28:32

for someone else and put in prison,

28:35

right? Put in a labor prison, right?

28:37

And it feels like there's a way

28:39

in which he has learned the dangers

28:42

of posing or being misunderstood as something.

28:44

other than what you are. And that's

28:46

just not, he's not going to allow

28:49

that to happen anymore. Yeah, yeah. Okay,

28:51

we got to take a brief break,

28:53

but we'll be right back with our

28:55

final group of issues. And we are

28:58

back, and the third set of political

29:00

themes that I thought were detachable in

29:02

these first three episodes of season two

29:05

as Andor, I've sort of grouped under

29:07

the label of kind of masks and

29:09

double talk, I thought there were... There

29:12

was a lot of deception and kind

29:14

of trying to hide what's really happening

29:16

going on in these episodes and the

29:19

word. Some phrases, some uses of language

29:21

that I thought had deliberate double meanings

29:23

that were kind of interesting to kind

29:26

of talk about. I mean, first of

29:28

all, there's the Garmin thing, which is

29:30

a big point in kind of Star

29:33

Wars, canon or Star Wars law. It's

29:35

going to, I mean, it's a spoiler

29:37

alert, I guess, but in Star Wars

29:40

law, the kind of Garmin story has

29:42

an unhappy ending for the garments. I

29:44

think you can probably infer that from

29:47

what's what's being said. But the Empire's

29:49

approach is at this point not. not

29:51

head-on. You know the whole garment thing

29:54

is based upon disinformation and misinformation and

29:56

there's there's clearly several efforts are going

29:58

on to try to try and paint

30:01

the garments in a bad light for

30:03

public opinion to sort of paint them

30:05

as arrogant and and sort of non-patriotic

30:08

and if that would be the right

30:10

word. Jim up some some fake news

30:12

right about them. Right. And propaganda, as

30:15

Debra calls it. Yes. Although Debra rather

30:17

crucially says, and I thought this was

30:19

another really nice line, that you can't

30:22

trust that, that's not going to be

30:24

enough here, you need a... It'll go,

30:26

it'll only go so far. Only go

30:29

so far, and what you really need

30:31

are Garmin rebels you can trust to

30:33

do the wrong thing. Yes. Which indicates,

30:36

you know, what is a classic kind

30:38

of counterintelligence strategy, right? That the goal

30:40

here is going to be to try

30:43

and infiltrate and infiltrate. The rebellion yeah,

30:45

exactly and get get some people, you

30:47

know, maybe launch some operations that make

30:50

the rebellion look man and try and

30:52

blame them for stuff or just infiltrate

30:54

them to try and try and sort

30:57

of expose them And that's that's definitely

30:59

very far advanced when we get to

31:01

Andor because one of the first scenes

31:04

in in Andor the movie is a

31:06

kind of one. Excuse me. Yeah, in

31:08

rogue one the movie because one of

31:11

the one of the one of the

31:13

first scenes is Cassian meets a sort

31:15

of terrified agent of terrified agent of

31:18

the rebellion who just says look this

31:20

there's spies everywhere like this this whole

31:22

thing is hopelessly compromised and the the

31:25

level of fear has really reached fever

31:27

pitch. Yeah. Amongst the rebellion. I mean

31:29

you Gomene Douglas could just do the

31:31

the wrong thing. There was also a

31:34

series of really nice interactions between Padagat.

31:36

dead result boss who I think he

31:38

says I'm no longer really a your

31:41

boss he understands what's happened here right

31:43

is that she has chronic has put

31:45

her in charge of the gorman operation

31:48

and part of part of gosh realizes

31:50

without it having been you know this

31:52

is the kind of the double-talk and

31:55

evasion without anything having actually been said

31:57

it's going to appear he says like

31:59

a demotion to you Right people are

32:02

going to think you have been demoted

32:04

and kind of shuffled off to this

32:06

side project That's not important, but actually

32:09

what's happened is you have been put

32:11

in charge of this massive thing and

32:13

we now know who We now know

32:16

where each of us rank. Yeah, or

32:18

own it and win it, I think

32:20

he says, John, which maybe actually is

32:23

a clue to dead resultimate fit because

32:25

I think in Star Wars Law this,

32:27

this is not a successful misinformation. I

32:30

mean, the fist is had to be

32:32

used rather, rather more directly, I think,

32:34

than the Emperor intended. So if dead

32:37

owns that, she's got a big problem.

32:39

And we already know she has no

32:41

problem using the fist. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

32:44

And Padig has imparts imparts imparts about

32:46

the internal politics of intelligence operations and

32:48

he says, you know, you made a

32:51

big mistake not in chasing after access,

32:53

which we know is the kind of

32:55

material's name for Luther Real. Yeah, not

32:58

in chasing after him, but you were

33:00

too loud about it and you made

33:02

him out to be this, what he

33:05

actually is, which is this really, really

33:07

important kind of central figure to things.

33:09

The problem that you have is that

33:12

you didn't... get him. And here's what

33:14

you should do. First you catch them,

33:16

then you make them famous, right? Which

33:19

kind of has a number of implications,

33:21

which is if you catch them and

33:23

they weren't, actually that significant, it's actually

33:26

really in your interest to make out

33:28

like it was super, super significant. And

33:30

anyone who you can't catch was not

33:33

that important anyway. Which is really sort

33:35

of, again, this personal is political thing.

33:37

One of the problems the empire the

33:40

empire has is the structure incentives makes

33:42

it that achieving actual... goals is less

33:44

important than being seen to achieve actual

33:47

goals for personal advancement. And the Empire's

33:49

interests are not forefront in people's minds.

33:51

It's going to be their own personal

33:54

interests. Except maybe for Cyril. And this

33:56

is the tragedy of Cyril, right? He's

33:58

actually a true believer. I mean, he

34:01

really gets all this stuff. He gets

34:03

very excited by sort of quotidian things.

34:05

Yeah. And that's how he's gotten his

34:08

promotion. is that he found some kind

34:10

of like evidence of corruption and selling

34:12

of imperial parts internal. They had nothing

34:14

to do with the rebellion. Right. So

34:17

it's just Cyril's M.O. He zeros in

34:19

on what seems to be very minor

34:21

things and makes them out to be

34:24

very merger things. And sometimes he's right

34:26

about Cassian. And sometimes he's just like

34:28

a weird kind of... There's a phrase

34:31

in British circles that's used, which has

34:33

been a busy... And busy means you

34:35

kind of, you go over and above

34:38

what's required in a way that's actually

34:40

extremely irritating to all of your peers

34:42

and contemporaries because it makes them like

34:45

that. These days, I believe they call

34:47

that tri-hards. Tri-hards is the American, American

34:49

equivalent. Yeah, but he's a, Cyril is

34:52

a very busy man. And he says

34:54

this hilarious thing, which is, he's talking

34:56

to a new person at the Bureau

34:59

of Stan. And the setting is. is

35:01

very very funny because it's all these

35:03

awful like office space cubicles. But he

35:06

says we have great sincerity. There is

35:08

a future here for those who dare.

35:10

You know, and you think what is

35:13

daring in that particular situation? Well, the

35:15

future is his role, I guess. Right.

35:17

He gets to walk people around and

35:20

put them in new. That's dairy. Yes.

35:22

You know, if you can audit the

35:24

precise number of paper clips and reduce

35:27

the wastage there, then who dares wins.

35:29

Yes. So I thought that was love.

35:31

and it's another, that kind of juxtaposition

35:34

of scene and of visuals and language

35:36

was as funny to me as the

35:38

stupid rock purposes game and the giant

35:41

men stick coming in. Like they were

35:43

laugh out loud moments that really show,

35:45

you know, filmmakers who were in control

35:48

of the craft. I mean, it's a

35:50

high quality series. It really is. I

35:52

mean, Tony Goulroy is really excellent. The

35:55

monster, it's so well done because it

35:57

just kind of comes from out of

35:59

nowhere and then it's over. Yeah. But

36:02

it's been alluded to in the background

36:04

for the entire time. Right. And we

36:06

see the same thing, right? We return.

36:09

And as viewers, we remember this, the

36:11

Bureau of Standards from season one. And

36:13

we remember the kind of, you know,

36:16

hell that that that is, the soul

36:18

crushing hell that it is. to see

36:20

Cyril return to it with this triumphant

36:23

smug pride after having done everything you

36:25

could to get out of it. Yeah.

36:27

is very satisfied. The Bureau of Standards

36:30

is just this classic kind of bureaucratic

36:32

comedy, you know, it's very yes minister

36:34

or it's very, you know, the thick

36:37

of it or some of these class,

36:39

you know, the Department of Departments, the

36:41

Committee of Committees, you know, the Committee

36:44

of Committees, you know, the Committee of

36:46

Committees, you know, the Committee of Committee,

36:48

so anyway. It's the Committee on Committee,

36:51

excuse me, you know. Just to choose

36:53

an example at random. The last thing

36:55

I wanted to... there was a line

36:57

of dialogue that said by two different

37:00

characters in two different contexts that I

37:02

think kind of ties all this together

37:04

and shows this kind of personally as

37:07

political thing. In two different episodes a

37:09

character says a variant of see you

37:11

along the way I'll see you along

37:14

the road. The first is in the

37:16

first scene of the first episode Cassian

37:18

says this to Naya, I'll see you

37:21

along the road and it's a really

37:23

quite touching kind of promise. Covenants of

37:25

commorallion yeah of comradeship and of course

37:28

he be he may well be saying

37:30

it knowing that he that he actually

37:32

wants for all we know now he

37:35

is going to get executed for this

37:37

right she could he very easily be

37:39

fingered as very difficult to see how

37:42

she gets out of this yeah she

37:44

says I need 12 minutes and he's

37:46

like is that enough right so I

37:49

think he knows yeah see you see

37:51

you in the next life brother is

37:53

essentially what's being said there and then

37:56

I think in the second episode although

37:58

it's off, you know, horribly in the

38:00

third episode, the kind of slimy imperial

38:03

audit person who's eyeing up Bix the

38:05

whole time. Well, he's an immigration officer.

38:07

Yes, well, right. So this is another

38:10

big, you're absolutely right, this is another

38:12

big thing that's going on, is they're

38:14

checking visas, some people are illegal, some

38:17

people are legal, but of course it's

38:19

totally arbitrary and gracious. Bix and Will

38:21

and Brasso. Brasso, that's it. I was

38:24

calling on his name too. They're undocumented,

38:26

right? They're undocumented migrants, right? They don't

38:28

have the paperwork, right? They essentially are

38:31

refugees from Works Road. Yeah. Yeah, well

38:33

even if they did have the papers,

38:35

they've got a bigger problem, which is

38:38

their all part of the rebellion as

38:40

well. And the imperial officer of course

38:42

doesn't, is the classic personality type of,

38:45

given a little bit of power, is

38:47

now, you know, really enjoying it in

38:49

a sadistic way, and as unfortunately so

38:52

often happens, a sort of sexual way

38:54

as well. And does not actually care

38:56

about the empire. Couldn't care less. Could

38:59

not care less, right? This is an

39:01

opportunity for him to exert, as you

39:03

say, some kind of sadistic power over

39:06

somebody who he believes his power. Yeah,

39:08

and he starts with double-talk with Bix,

39:10

which is always your husband, you know,

39:13

and you can instantly see where this

39:15

is going. And then he says to

39:17

her in this kind of leering way

39:20

that's a threat. It's a threat, not

39:22

an aspiration. Yeah, he says, see you

39:24

along the way. And then he comes

39:27

back at the end, he comes back

39:29

at the end, he comes back at

39:31

the end, he comes back at the

39:34

end, he comes back at the end,

39:36

he comes back at the end, he

39:38

comes back at the end, he comes

39:40

back at the end, he comes back

39:43

at the end, he comes back at

39:45

the end, he comes back at the

39:47

end, he comes back at the end,

39:50

he comes back at the end, he

39:52

comes back at the end, he, he,

39:54

he comes back, he comes back, he,

39:57

Okay, there were the sort of major

39:59

political themes that I wanted us to

40:01

touch upon. I suppose we might say

40:04

a few words of wrap-up, we might

40:06

talk about general evaluation and maybe just

40:08

some nitpicking, some things that we thought

40:11

were less impressed. I mean, you know,

40:13

I remain incredibly impressed by this series,

40:15

which I think is a sort of

40:18

very high quality political thriller. You know,

40:20

I'm not saying, I don't think I'm

40:22

saying anything revolutionary all that we haven't

40:25

said before in different contexts, you know,

40:27

really out of line with what we

40:29

see. before from Star Wars, but in

40:32

a way that's really enriching and enlivening

40:34

to the text. And what I really

40:36

appreciate are the moments of high quality,

40:39

which are things like the cleverness we

40:41

alluded to with the monster coming from

40:43

nowhere, the cleverness of the dialogue, and

40:46

it's kind of multivalent meanings, and also

40:48

the extent to which... The audience is

40:50

trusted to infer what's going on. Like,

40:53

and I'm afraid I'm blocking on his

40:55

name, but the banker who's driven off

40:57

at the end, and the looks that

41:00

are, yeah, the looks that are exchanged

41:02

between Mon's sister and the woman who's

41:04

driving him off. And you know that

41:07

there's a very sinister, without being told.

41:09

Yeah, but there's also all that message

41:11

going on, yeah. Sure, right. But you

41:14

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41:16

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41:18

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even reach a real person when you

42:05

need to talk to someone. Like a

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good neighbor, State Farm is there. Even

42:10

the conversations between Monmontha and Tay, in

42:12

which he, I mean, he's essentially gonna

42:14

blackmail her, right? But it's only, it's

42:16

said in so many. words only and

42:19

and Luther saying you got to you

42:21

got to kill him but he doesn't

42:23

say you must kill him right it's

42:26

just like we must be safe and

42:28

what what the script allows and what

42:30

the direction allows for the actors to

42:33

do is for those emotions to play

42:35

across their face in real time and

42:37

so when when Mon realizes that what's

42:40

happening is that this you know, longtime

42:42

friend and someone that perhaps she's had

42:44

an affair with, that's sort of alluded

42:47

to, you don't know, when she realizes

42:49

that he's blackmailing her, that he's basically

42:51

betraying her, the look across her face,

42:54

right? The moments of realization that Wash

42:56

are, you know, are shocking, right? But

42:58

it goes to your point. The audience

43:01

is trusted, and the actors are trusted,

43:03

to be able to... to bring the

43:05

story to life in a way that

43:08

is not heavy-handed and doesn't feel like

43:10

you're force-feeding the audience. Yeah, and then

43:12

a nitpick for me, I thought rather

43:15

suddenly Cassian becomes really, really capable of

43:17

flying a tie fighter that he's made

43:19

a great deal of. He can't quite

43:22

fly it. And, you know, one thing

43:24

that often throws me out of dramas

43:26

and shows is... things that are done

43:29

very obviously to create and to close

43:31

a narrative article to move the platform

43:33

and you know you needed some way

43:36

to bring the Thai fighter into the

43:38

the other people's stories that are going

43:40

on. Yeah well and you had you

43:43

had to get you had to get

43:45

Cassian back too. Right. His people? And

43:47

so immediately he's able, once he realizes

43:50

his people are in danger, he's immediately

43:52

able to kind of fly the thing

43:54

through hyperspace precisely where he wants to

43:57

go, and with precision, mow down all

43:59

of the imperials and get the people

44:01

off the world. When he hasn't been

44:04

able to stop it crashing into Hangar

44:06

Bay walls or get it to lift

44:08

off in, you know, five minutes previously.

44:11

Yeah, no, I agree, and we had

44:13

talked a little about this off camera.

44:15

I think there is a potentially more

44:18

generous reading to this as well, which

44:20

to me highlights the capabilities of the

44:22

Thai fighter itself in a way that

44:25

I mean, the Thai fighter's been around

44:27

forever. I mean, it's in the very

44:29

first Star Wars movie, right? Thai fighters

44:32

are around forever. And this is the

44:34

first time that I can ever remember

44:36

the machine being portrayed with the kind

44:39

of lethality. and precision that it clearly

44:41

has. And so I think part of

44:43

what's happening is that Cassian, who we

44:46

know is is a quite talented, even

44:48

prodigal pilot. We've seen that in multiple

44:50

contexts from the previous season, is slowly

44:53

coming to the realization that this is

44:55

not a kind of mechanical. ship that

44:57

he's flying. It is a high precision

44:59

and he just needs to kind of

45:02

get out of the way. And that's

45:04

what's happening when he's targeting the the

45:06

Imperial convoy, right, towards the end of

45:09

the third episode and he's mowing them

45:11

all down. It's not him. It's the

45:13

system that's doing it all, right? He's

45:16

just pushing a button and it's doing

45:18

everything for him. So I, you know,

45:20

I think it's plausible that there, there's

45:23

a point at which he realizes that

45:25

he just needs to get out of

45:27

the way of the way of the

45:30

machine and let it, and let it

45:32

work. And it still might be the

45:34

case, as you say, that it's a

45:37

little implausible that he seems to kind

45:39

of master it so quickly. But I

45:41

think there's a way in which what

45:44

we're supposed to take from that is

45:46

not so much Cass's prodigy status as

45:48

a pilot, but just how terrifying the

45:51

Thai fighter is, right? And how it's

45:53

a category difference from what the rebellion

45:55

is used to seeing, right, in terms

45:58

of like war machines. Yeah, I like

46:00

that explanation. I'm definitely inclined to be

46:02

generous because I think the show is

46:05

so in control and is such high

46:07

quality. I'm definitely inclined to give the

46:09

show the benefit of the doubt on

46:12

that. And that is a very satisfying

46:14

explanation that he suddenly realised. as he's

46:16

not having to wrestle a piece of

46:19

machinery. It's actually almost an AI system

46:21

that he needs to let do its

46:23

thing. Because that ties thematically to what

46:26

was always portrayed as the difference between

46:28

the rebellion and the empire, which is

46:30

one is impersonal high-tech, gleaming metallic, and

46:33

the other is naturalistic, you know, and

46:35

lower tech, but of course has the...

46:37

the human spirit is, from which the

46:40

court, you know, I know they're not

46:42

all humans, but the quote unquote human

46:44

spirit is not being extinguished. And it's

46:47

worth, I mean, in that way, it's

46:49

also worth noting there's kind of, there's

46:51

a way in which Cassian's commission of

46:54

homicide is kind of shocking. Yeah. But

46:56

I mean, he, with no qualms, he

46:58

essentially murders what, a dozen people or

47:01

more, and doesn't think twice about it.

47:03

It sort of suggests the, again, the

47:05

kind of the impersonal, highly technical lethality

47:08

of the war machine that is being

47:10

built by the empire and which will

47:12

come eventually, of course, to its full

47:15

flower in the building of the Death

47:17

Star. Right. Do you have any final

47:19

points to make? A couple things. So

47:22

I alluded to this earlier, visually I

47:24

think the show looks amazing. Every one

47:26

of the set pieces. is really striking.

47:29

And it is so nice to watch

47:31

a science fiction slash kind of futuristic

47:33

product that is not overrun with CGI.

47:36

And you can tell, I mean, the

47:38

budget apparently for the show was enormous.

47:40

And it feels like they spent it

47:42

properly and they spent it well. And

47:45

it really gives an element of... Quality,

47:47

I suppose, right? Visual quality and character

47:49

to the text that is missing in

47:52

a lot of its peers. The second

47:54

thing I say, just as a nitpick,

47:56

I did find the first episode to

47:59

be kind of jank. with the integrate,

48:01

you know, with resetting the story along

48:03

these four different arcs, if there were

48:06

a lot of moments where I felt

48:08

like scenes were left very quickly and

48:10

transitioned to other scenes and, but then

48:13

I thought sort of once the scenes

48:15

were kind of set up and our

48:17

storylines were set up again after the

48:20

first episode, we had much better pacing

48:22

in the next two episodes, but again,

48:24

to me, these are pretty minor. Yeah,

48:27

absolutely, absolutely. So we will be back

48:29

sort of broadly this time next week

48:31

to discuss the second tranche of episodes,

48:34

but a real pleasure to have, I

48:36

know back, and Jeff, a real pleasure

48:38

to discuss it with you. I've loved

48:41

it. Okay, on that bombshell. Six

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