transcript

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
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Speaker 3:
[01:02] Let us have our revenge.

Speaker 4:
[01:05] Is this what our future holds?

Speaker 1:
[01:06] Always running.

Speaker 3:
[01:08] Together, we can destroy the Empire. The Emperor wants you.

Speaker 5:
[01:22] This is Rebel Force Radio's Maul, Shadow Lord, After Show. All right.

Speaker 6:
[01:41] Here we go again, more Maul. Maul, Shadow Lord, Episodes 5 and 6 here on Rebel Force Radio. Thank you for joining us here on the Maul Shadow Lord After Show. Gonna warn you right now, there's lots of spoilers. So if you're not familiar with what we do here on the After Show, and there's new folks joining us each and every week, we love and we appreciate. Yeah, this is spoiler territory. None of this spoiler-free stuff. We're going to go deep and we're going to speculate, and we've really turned a corner. We're 60 percent through this. We've only got four episodes left. We've seen the first six obviously, and things are definitely heating up. I think the tenor of the show has changed with these episodes. It feels in some ways like it's a different show. I think the arrival of the Empire has a lot to do with that. I think having our ensemble on the run, on the go, that changes things. For a show called Maul Shadow Lord, there wasn't a whole lot of Maul in these last two episodes. But still lots of action, lots of things to break down. Character changes, character movement. We've got a droid, we've got a young man, both kind of re-educating, re-learning everything that they thought they knew about their world. So all kinds of compelling, interesting stuff here this week. So thanks for tuning in. As I said, we always love to have you here at Rebel Force Radio and by Rebel Force Radio, with introductions and order, I mean me. My name is Jason and with me, as always, my good friend and yours from Chicago, Jimmy Mac.

Speaker 5:
[03:30] Hey, Jason. Hey, Star Wars fans. Hey, Maul Rats. Yes, the Empire has arrived and so have we. I'm really excited to get under the hood of Maul, Shadow Lord, because the people were popping in today during the day job and they wanted to talk Maul with me and I refused. I wasn't going to blow my load on those guys. I was going to blow my load on you guys.

Speaker 6:
[03:58] You won't even blow your load with the Jedi Council. You go completely dark after you watch the Maul episodes and we hear nothing from you until after you've had a chance to have your say on the after show.

Speaker 5:
[04:13] That's right and I'm soaking in the new episodes all the way up till the last moment right before we go on the air. So I don't even have formulated answers to these questions I get asked because it requires scientific research on my part as a Star Wars super fan.

Speaker 6:
[04:34] Did you explain that to them when they come in and they want you to have these off the cuff answers to these questions as if it was that easy?

Speaker 5:
[04:44] I just say I don't know. I did tell somebody though about Maul and his status in the galaxy and everything at the start of the series. Because I don't feel like the series really set that up well enough. To a lot of people, Maul was done when he fell down that shaft. To Star Wars super fans who have been following it for as long as we have and as long as our audience has, we understand all the twists and turns that story has taken since his brother, Savagio Press, found him.

Speaker 6:
[05:26] Oh, come on.

Speaker 5:
[05:27] I was not prepared to go looking for my brother.

Speaker 6:
[05:30] Your what?

Speaker 5:
[05:33] My brother. Brother. Brother. Brother. Brother.

Speaker 7:
[05:37] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[05:40] Low, low, low, low, low.

Speaker 6:
[05:43] That's what I was looking for. Is that you?

Speaker 5:
[05:46] Is that you, brother?

Speaker 6:
[05:49] It never gets old.

Speaker 5:
[05:52] Boy.

Speaker 6:
[05:53] Now it's nostalgic.

Speaker 5:
[05:54] I got to remember to have all those presets in order before we start the show.

Speaker 6:
[05:58] You know what? I'm impressed. I thought you got it together very quickly.

Speaker 5:
[06:05] Thank you. Thank you, Jason. I have it together. I'm ready to talk Maul. I'm kind of bursting at the seams after these episodes. I thought there was some really cool character building and just evolution of not only the characters, but the story itself. And I love when the imperial oppression shows up and makes itself known to these unsuspecting citizens for some sadistic reason. I just love that moment of realization that the people among the galaxy have when the Empire shows up at their doorstep and takes over. Like when we saw outside of the stadium on Janix, and they were looking up and the Star Destroyer was dropping off gunships and shuttles, and they were scattering up across the sky over the city. And I was looking down as we all were. It was the perspective they were showing. And we're looking down and we see all of these colorful umbrellas and flags and signs outside the stadium. I predict as long as the Empire is going to stay in town, a lot of that color is going to be sucked out of the environment of Janix. And we'll be able to see it happen in real time. And the people at Janix, they won't even know what hit them. So yeah, I really enjoy that. And I don't, I can't... Good times, good times.

Speaker 6:
[07:43] Like, way do these people find out?

Speaker 5:
[07:46] It's just this swift kick of reality, right in the butt that these people get.

Speaker 6:
[07:52] Well, there's actually some dialogue in the background, particularly in episode five. There's quite a bit. And the transcript pulls it out, so it's kind of interesting because you hear some of the background chatter happening at the police station, like, it's highly irregular. Take it up with the Imperial Commander. Entrance to the records wing is denied. I can't process my cases. So you have all these detectives and these cops freaking out because the Empire's come in. They've completely shut everything down. They no longer have access to anything until they're deemed trustworthy or whatever that process is. They're going to, likely most of them will be interrogated. If not for this particular case that they're investigating with Maul, first off, they'll find some reason, you know? Everyone needs a good interrogation, whether they deserve it or not.

Speaker 5:
[08:48] But everyone deserves a good interrogation, whether they deserve it or not.

Speaker 6:
[08:56] Everyone needs one.

Speaker 5:
[08:58] Was that what they needed or not? Or what was that? I'm worried you'll have to replay the tape.

Speaker 6:
[09:03] Yeah, we'll have to replay the tape. I don't want to say it wrong. It was pure genius. But let's get into the tail of the tape here real quick, because yes, we are chomping at the bit to get into this episode. Both of these episodes here, original air date for both April 20th, 2026, runtime on each about 22 minutes. These were shorties. They really were shorties. And I haven't even backed out, you know, once we get through the helmets and the recap and all of that, I suspect when we do that, we're looking largely at about 19, 20 minutes of actual storytelling. So just for that. Chapter five, Inquisition, directed by Saul Ruiz, written by Tatiana Drury Carvin and Jennifer Corbett, followed by Night of the Hunted, written by Christopher Yost and directed by Stuart Lee. So it's always nice to give these hardworking creatives a little credit. You know, you always want to just make sure that as we sit around and we talk about this stuff, real human beings wrote it, they directed it, they animated it. So I do like to give that little nod to them because even if you don't like it, people are working hard on it. I was just going to say, even if it's not your thing, there's people, a lot of people working really hard on it.

Speaker 5:
[10:19] They sure are. And now with Kathleen Kennedy gone, we need to know who to blame.

Speaker 6:
[10:26] Right, and who's going to be fired or retired? You know, since she's gone, all right, well, who's fired next? Who's going to retire next? Because that was the speculation for a decade, was Kathy was gone. She was gone from the moment she showed up in some people's minds. But no Kathleen Kennedy here.

Speaker 5:
[10:47] We're talking about new Star Wars without the specter of Kathy Kennedy or Bob Iger hovering over everything. And that's interesting, I think. So who do we blame? Filoni. Poor Dave.

Speaker 6:
[11:04] Filoni.

Speaker 5:
[11:06] Poor Dave. Hey, you know what? I'll tell you what makes him perfect for the job. He's a goalie and he's used to getting slap shots headed right in his direction at 120 miles an hour.

Speaker 6:
[11:21] Well, then, nobody's better protected and better skilled to take all of the shots. And, you know, running Star Wars is no small thing. And so I definitely, you know, respect anybody who takes that kind of job and has to deal with that. But at the same time, it's got to run both ways. The fans have to be respected, both old, young and everything in between. So, and it's very early in Dave's tenure. Jury is still very much out on that. But I would say, if Maul is any indication, though, I would, you know, Maul has been in development, I'm sure, for at least three years. And I'm sure the conversations between Dave and Sam Witwer go back long before that. Yeah, if we ever get the time, we're gonna do a Maul series, you know? And as we've covered here on the after show and also talked about on the weekly podcast, that some of this is Dave recycling these ideas that his mentor, George Lucas, had intended for episode seven, eight and nine. So there might be a little bit of an agenda here from Dave Filoni to say, this idea is gonna get out there. It's gonna happen. And, you know, gosh.

Speaker 5:
[12:45] Just repurposed into the different timeline, a timeline that makes sense. I've heard this being referred to as the middle story for Darth Maul many times. Obviously, the first part of his story was told in the Phantom Menace and Clone Wars. And the last part of his story was told in Rebels. So there is a big blank spot in the middle of his biography that needs to be fleshed out a little bit. I think they're doing a great job with this show. Yeah. I mean, it's just getting a great buzz. We're hearing from people, Rebel Force Radio listeners, who haven't maybe been tuning in for the last few years. And then they're turned on by Maul. And they're like, well, geez, that's kind of tickling that Star Wars nerve again. Maybe those chuckle heads at Rebel Force Radio are still, oh my god, they're still at it. Well, let's see. Oh yeah, they still be doing this after all these, oh my god, there they are. There they are. And so we've been hearing from you guys, and we've been seeing your social media posts. But on top of that, also we've been hearing from younger fans, which is really cool. So maybe the Maul show is really appealing to younger fans, teenagers, and maybe guys in their early 20s and stuff, guys who are nostalgic for the Clone Wars. Yeah.

Speaker 6:
[14:17] Right. And we know that that Clone Wars nostalgia is big. Rebel's nostalgia is even getting there as well. And so this scratches a lot of itches because Maul was a pretty important character in the lives of our prequel heroes, as well as guys like Kanan and Ezra and those in Rebel. So yeah, it is a nice middle chapter that brings sort of both worlds together, I think, in a really great way. Jim, we were talking earlier about the Empire's arrival and what that means for the show. Do you feel that having the Empire there on Janix really ups the ante, or would you have rather spent a little bit more time living in this seedy underworld of Janix and watching Maul piece by piece rebuild his crime syndicate and all of that? Or is this too soon, you think?

Speaker 5:
[15:25] Too soon. Well, you said it yourself. We're 60% of the way through with this series. Maybe it is a little too soon.

Speaker 6:
[15:33] Well, the season. We know that we're getting at least one, maybe two in the season.

Speaker 5:
[15:37] Yeah, right, right. I'm sorry. That's what I meant. That's right. That's what I meant. But is it too soon? Well, they have a lot of imperial characters to burn through. We know at least of Maroc and the Crow.

Speaker 6:
[16:00] Yes.

Speaker 5:
[16:01] And we've yet to see the Crow even. So he has to make his big appearance. And I bet, you know, I'm still holding out hope we'll see Darth Vader apparently toward the end, maybe in the finale, the season finale. So, I don't know. I think, you know, with keeping those characters under consideration and wanting to give them ample time to appear and apply some substance to the story, I think it's a good time for the Empire to show up. I really do.

Speaker 6:
[16:36] I was surprised because we know that Maul has to really build up his status within the underworld. Now, there was kind of this feeling that there was finality. At one point, Vario says, You got what you started out to do. We got the pikes. You're running that. All's well, right? Am I free to go? I've done my part of the bargain. So I don't know. Do you get a sense that there's finality in Maul's underworld gangster quest at this point?

Speaker 5:
[17:16] Well, I guess so. I guess he's gone through who he needed to go through in the underworld who really did him wrong. I'm surprised the Hutts weren't somehow included in that, but I mean, we never saw any evidence of Maul working with the Hutts. We've only seen him working with the Pikes, the Mandalorians, and the Black Sun. I think that's it. Yeah. I don't recall any other criminal organizations being part of the Shadow Collective. But Maul really had it out for those Pikes, and he did a number on them. So I guess so. I guess his Tour of Vengeance has officially come to an end. You see Rootcast, she's got the t-shirt with all the tour dates on the back of it. Ending with Pike Massacre.

Speaker 6:
[18:14] Right, right.

Speaker 5:
[18:16] And yeah, so that's it. But yeah, he offers the little guy the opportunity to leave. And our guy, what's his name? Vario. He decides to stick around because he figures, hey, his odds are better with Maul than out there on his own facing down the Empire.

Speaker 6:
[18:36] Yeah, yeah. And you know what? We need his comic relief, you know, that he does break the tension in certain moments. Him and Spybot, both sort of fill that role.

Speaker 5:
[18:47] Yeah. Oh, another sassy droid in Star Wars. Here we go. Spybot. Oh, that's pretty good.

Speaker 6:
[18:57] Any impies shiny talking listening to this?

Speaker 5:
[19:01] Working on that one, huh?

Speaker 6:
[19:03] Well, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[19:04] That was good. That was good. I like Spybot when he's he's speaking garbled nonsense, droid nonsense. I don't I don't like when he's saying the goofy stuff he has to say. Like his baby talk? Yeah, the baby talk and the booshkidoo and all of that. I don't like that. Yeah, that's ridiculous. And we did make it through these two episodes with no booshkidoo business happening.

Speaker 6:
[19:33] No booshkidoo. But but but impie shinies, that made it.

Speaker 5:
[19:39] Yeah, yeah. He's saying smile when he's taking a picture. I mean, who cares what that thing.

Speaker 6:
[19:44] I think he's there for the kids.

Speaker 5:
[19:46] He's there for the kids.

Speaker 6:
[19:47] And there's nothing wrong with that. I actually kind of I find him kind of funny. I I I'm going to go on a limb here. I'll tell you what, I like him better than Chopper. I am not a Chopper fan, never was a Chopper fan.

Speaker 5:
[20:01] Yeah, he's basically Chopper.

Speaker 6:
[20:02] I found him way too obnoxious.

Speaker 5:
[20:04] He basically is Chopper.

Speaker 6:
[20:05] Yeah, not a Chopper fan. R2 he ain't. And I know what they were going for.

Speaker 5:
[20:10] R2 he ain't.

Speaker 6:
[20:12] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[20:13] Is that his official designation, droid designation? R2 he ain't. It's kind of cool. He's kind of cool. But yeah, he is basically Chopper 2.0 or 2.0.

Speaker 6:
[20:28] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[20:29] My decimal was off.

Speaker 6:
[20:31] They didn't really have Maul to lean on so much in these episodes. It seemed like in the last four, every time they needed it, they could just cut to like a looming shadow of Maul's horns, and he would appear, and they do the big close up. Maul is absent in this episode, and really this new ensemble steps forward of Devon, and Jedi Master Deku-Deku-Wikki-Wikki, Riley, and Lawson. I like the vibe that they have as a foursome, though I would just caution everybody to not get too comfortable in there, because I don't think by the end of this season, it's going to be that foursome. I feel like the first half of this show was establishing Lawson and his role there on Janix, throwing the sun in so we know what's going on with him, and then we've got the beginnings of The Temptation with Devon, and now we've kind of pivoted to this ensemble, these, really this kind of ensemble cast, and I feel like we're going to pivot into something else before the end of the season.

Speaker 5:
[21:54] Oh, pivot. I don't know, it's all been very clear and straightforward, the way that they're letting this story play out. There's no mystery box business or anything. I don't think Master Daki is going to make it to the end of the season. Why am I obsessed with this guy dying? I was wondering that during, while I was watching these episodes, he was left out, first they left him in the apartment with Maroc. I was like, oh, they're separated. He's going to get it for sure. And then she's up in the gunship, and he's left on the rooftop, still facing off against Maroc. Oh, she's going to see it from that gunship. She's going to have a clear vision, and she's going to be mad at herself for not taking action. But she did. She opened fire on Maroc a couple of times, missed, but still placed the gunship in position, so Master Daki could force jump his way into the boarding ramp and onboard the ship, and off they went. So it didn't happen. Was I disappointed? Maybe a little bit, because I was bracing myself.

Speaker 6:
[23:10] Mac has admitted to really enjoying watching Imperial tyranny and having it unfold on unsuspecting members of the galaxy, citizens of the galaxy. And he also lamented the fact that he didn't get to watch Master Daki die in this episode. So this is talk about turning to the dark side. I think Devon's not the only one that we need to worry about here.

Speaker 5:
[23:34] Oh, okay. I'm glad you're keeping score over there on my occasional morality slip-ups. But what happens is you brace yourself for these moments. And when they don't happen, there isn't maybe a sense of relief. Or you just feel a little deflated. Why? I got myself all excited and wound up for what? He jumped onto the gunship and it didn't happen. Dang, when is this guy? I even put in my notes. Let me find it. Let me scroll down here. There was just like some introspective moment I had about this. And what did I? I know I typed something specifically. Okay, Reena Soor. Why won't he die?

Speaker 6:
[24:22] I think that's what you typed.

Speaker 5:
[24:24] Okay. No, that's an interesting observation. No, I guess maybe I didn't commit this particular thought to paper. So if I come across it, I'll tell you as we're going through this. As I'm looking at my notes, I got a lot of good stuff. So we need to move forward here because I got some real revelations here that I'm going to wow you with.

Speaker 6:
[24:46] Yeah. So in thinking about, you know, who was really carrying these episodes, you know, as much as Lawson is clearly the protagonist of the show, he's the every man whose eyes we're watching this unfold through. I think he follows in the in the footsteps of Han Solo in that sense. It would not be right or accurate to say that this is Lawson's show. I don't think this is a show about Brander Lawson. The sense that I'm getting is this is Devon's story at the end of the day. I don't even think it's Maul's story so much as it's Devon's story.

Speaker 5:
[25:37] Well, yeah, I would see two different perspectives, hers of course and Lawson. As you clearly say, the show and the story thus far has been told largely from his perspective, almost exclusively. So, I would say that he is the guy really driving the train right now.

Speaker 6:
[25:58] Then Lawson is.

Speaker 5:
[26:00] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6:
[26:01] Really?

Speaker 5:
[26:01] I think, yeah, I see it because he presents, he's like the avatar for the audience there. He's the regular.

Speaker 6:
[26:11] Is it his show though?

Speaker 5:
[26:12] Everyday regular guy. Is it his show? No, no, you're right though. It does, you have to put the focus on Maul and if you're going to be doing that, you are looking at Maul through the perspective of Devon. So, yeah. Hard to say. It's a well-balanced ensemble with characters that are likable and characters that are easy to understand and follow. You're not questioning the motives of any of these people really. I think it's pretty clear why Devon is being tolerant of Maul and why she's interested in what he has to say, given the circumstances. And I think it's understandable on a human level to see what Lawson is going through. He's a family man, splintered family, but still a family man nonetheless, with a son that he struggles to find time to spend with and all the other things that people go through, you know? That's something we don't always get from Star Wars. And it's nice to be able to have that human level of relatability. Relatability. Thank you, Jason. Thank you. My tongue is swollen. My tongue.

Speaker 4:
[27:33] My tongue is swollen.

Speaker 5:
[27:35] Me too, thank you. My tongue. It's a Star Wars show, folks. We can be weird like that.

Speaker 6:
[27:44] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[27:45] Yeah.

Speaker 6:
[27:45] So one of the things that we're treated to, and this is becoming, I think, sort of a thing with these shows, whenever we meet a new Imperial officer, they try to make them each more disgusting and vile than the last one. We've seen some real peaches going back to the Mandalorian with, what was that guy's name that Bill Burr shoots at the table?

Speaker 5:
[28:13] Yes. Richard, Richard Break.

Speaker 6:
[28:17] Richard Break was the actor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was fantastic. Then, of course, we had the Imperial Officer that attempts to force himself on Vix in Andor. Now we've got Blake, Officer Lieutenant Blake. And boy, they even give him kind of bad skin and they really make this guy pretty repugnant from the very beginning. And he takes over and the very first casualty, I mean, I think we can kind of assume RIP. Chief Clice?

Speaker 5:
[28:59] Oh, of course. We're not going to be seeing her anymore. Chief Clice leaves to be interrogated, never to be seen again.

Speaker 6:
[29:05] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[29:06] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She's been, what did he say something along the lines of, she's been reassigned permanently.

Speaker 6:
[29:15] Right.

Speaker 5:
[29:16] Thanks, Blake. I love Lieutenant Blake. Freckle. He's the freckle-faced imp. You know, I think that's a first with the freckles. And I was wondering if his name, Lieutenant Blake, I wonder if that's a tribute to McLean Stevenson's MASH character, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake. So, I don't know. Probably not.

Speaker 6:
[29:39] But he was a good guy. I mean, this guy is no, he's no Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake.

Speaker 5:
[29:46] Yeah, he's no McLean Stevenson. But he takes charge of operations on Janix, the second he sets foot on that planet. And Kleiss disappears for good. She's been permanently reassigned. And Kleiss, that was an actress named Kako Agena, which I think would be a cool Star Wars name, actually, Kako Agena. But she's best known as Lane from the Gilmore Girls. So Lane from the Gilmore Girls. Very nice. Watch that show. That was Kleiss.

Speaker 6:
[30:23] Tanya in the chat just reminded us, she goes, maybe it's a tribute to our own Blake here at Rebel Force Radio.

Speaker 5:
[30:31] Kid Blake.

Speaker 6:
[30:31] I like that kid. I like that kid. No, it's crazy theories.

Speaker 5:
[30:35] It's a tribute to our Blake. Yeah, of course it is.

Speaker 8:
[30:40] Yeah.

Speaker 6:
[30:41] No McLean Stevenson here.

Speaker 5:
[30:44] Well, I just heard the lieutenant and I thought, oh, lieutenant, whatever. Okay. But she's right. I think Tanya's right.

Speaker 6:
[30:55] Yeah. So by removing Clice, obviously, that then puts Lawson right square in the crosshairs, and he's the next victim of this interrogation, which we'll talk about in just a moment. But now we got Daki and Devon. They're trying to get out of there. They're trying to hide. And Devon's frustrations that she has very much echo the kind of rhetoric that Maul has been spouting. And it worries Master Daki. Master Daki believes that Maul got into her head, and that is not something that he likes, and it's very concerning for him because you can imagine he's feeling like, you know, the dark side does what it does. It's very tempting, and it's very alluring. It seems probably more natural. Yoda calls it easier, quicker, and all of that. So what does he have to offer her other than just more running, more starving, more eking their way? I don't even think they really know what they're looking for. They're looking for a place to find a refuge. But Jim, at this point, I don't even think that the path exists. In fact, it might actually be this show and Master Daki, who could be one of the founders of the path.

Speaker 5:
[32:24] Ooh, good call. I like that. I like what you're thinking. Well, we see the origin of the Underground Railroad for Jedi, the path. That's very cool. I love that idea. But right now, they were just passing through Janix, these two, and they got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. If Maul didn't show up, they would have just found somewhere else to go. But Maul ruined everything for them. And it's because, potentially, it was Devon's presence that attracted Maul to the planet in the first place. So we've yet to see any evidence of that. Now, that prequel story is being told in Shadow Maul via Marvel Comics. But there are only two issues in. So we don't know exactly what draws Maul to Janix. But I think it is the visions. As a matter of fact, maybe we do know. Maybe there was some dialogue in an earlier episode where Maul does reveal that his quest for an apprentice is what drew him to Janix in the first place. But it's definitely what's...

Speaker 6:
[33:39] It's implied. He doesn't come right out and say it. It's just that he's having these visions. And...

Speaker 5:
[33:45] However...

Speaker 6:
[33:46] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[33:46] Yes. However, it is crystal clear that the reason he's staying on Janix is to acquire an apprentice. Because Rook Cast, he even confronts him... Oh, yeah... .at the beginning of episode five and says to him, you know, we should move operations to another system, largely due to the imperial presence on Janix. And Maul refused to leave. He says... And Rook says, hey, it's because of the girl, right? Yeah. And Maul... What is... She says, he tried to kill you. And he's like, yeah, that's what would make her a good apprentice.

Speaker 6:
[34:28] He says, an admirable attempt. She will make an excellent apprentice. And then he says something very interesting. He says, stick to the plan. Stick to the plan. What plan? Do we know what plan? And that's when Vario says to Maul, wait a minute, the Krim is dead, the Pikes are in your pocket. You got what you wanted. I made good on my end of the deal. What do I have to show for it? And Maul said, well, you live. So there's one thing that you have to show for it. But it does beg the question, the plan. What is the plan? Is the plan revenge? Is the plan a remounting of his status within the underworld? Is it an apprentice? He says, stick to the plan to root cast at, we have to assume, she knows what the plan is. But you're right to point out, this is the first time that she's shown any frustration with Maul's fascination with Devon. Even when Devon was in the underground with them and she was in the train car or whatever it was, subway car, she was stuck in, there was not just intolerance, but there was almost like Rootcast was kind of in with Maul on this. Like she was actually helping him with this and her. And I even brought it out on the show. I go, wait a minute, I'm surprised there's not some jealousy here at the very least or, you know, worry that she's going to get tossed aside for somebody newer. But that didn't seem to be the case up until now. And now with the Empire there, this is when Rootcast wants to pump the brakes and say, wait a minute, this isn't what, essentially what we bark in for here on Janix.

Speaker 5:
[36:14] Right. And this gets echoed from those Mando mercenaries that are with them and they're growing more impatient with everything due to the arrival of the Empire, apparently stifling intake of profit.

Speaker 6:
[36:29] Yeah. So we know now they're not mercenaries, Jim. These are not the Maul DeLorean's. These are not the people that were the Mando's that were loyal to Maul like that. These are just hired guns.

Speaker 5:
[36:41] I believe so. They have very as nondescript MandoLorean armor, right? Possibly have. It's it's not even shiny at all. I mean, they could they could shine it up a little. But whatever, they look terrible. And and they look identical too.

Speaker 6:
[37:00] Yeah, they really do.

Speaker 5:
[37:02] What are they actually even legitimate Mando's? Who knows? Maybe they just acquired this armor somehow. But these guys are mercenaries and they're in it for the dollar and they don't understand what's going on. So the plan apparently isn't crystal clear as far as making money goes. But yet Rue Castil tells them to go to their stations or whatever she tells them.

Speaker 6:
[37:27] Right, right. Get back to your posts.

Speaker 5:
[37:30] Yeah, right. But she obviously, but she's obviously she shares similar feelings and has a lack of confidence in where this whole thing is going with Maul right now. I don't think she sees it and I don't I don't know if she necessarily shares his desire to to take out Palpatine. I guess essentially that is what Maul wants to do. And it appears he's pivoting in that direction.

Speaker 6:
[38:01] Yeah, just David here on the chat is saying, yeah, Rook was a Death Watch Maul DeLorean. Yeah, we know about Rook. We're talking about these two guys who don't seem to be necessarily as loyal to Maul as as Rook is. So I think Jim raises a good question. Do we even do we even know these guys are Maul, you know, Mandalorians, although you might think that somebody like RootKast wouldn't take too kindly to imposters. You know, they don't like when somebody like you or me just throws on the Mandalorian armor. So she probably wouldn't tolerate that. But they certainly are not part of that Maul Mando cult that he that he had.

Speaker 5:
[38:42] So, yes, I wonder why these guys don't have the jet packs as well.

Speaker 6:
[38:50] Yeah, no jet packs anywhere. You got three Mandalorians and not a single jet pack to be found. Meanwhile, that that Zabrak has got, you know, that big infantry, you know, Gatling gun.

Speaker 5:
[39:04] Yes. Yes, he does, which is cool as hell.

Speaker 6:
[39:07] It is cool.

Speaker 5:
[39:08] So, yeah, but he doesn't have armor.

Speaker 6:
[39:12] You're right, he doesn't have armor.

Speaker 1:
[39:14] What happened to your face?

Speaker 4:
[39:15] I'm a kitty cat.

Speaker 3:
[39:17] Stupid face painters apparently never heard of Darth Maul.

Speaker 1:
[39:20] Rebel Force Radio. Rebel Force Radio is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.

Speaker 6:
[39:54] I want to talk a little bit about the re-education, because this happens, this isn't, not just going to single two boots out here, because Riley here also learns his own lessons, but the re-education of two boots. And he's so tickled by the fact that the Empire sent reinforcements, and they're so efficient, and he's just so naive. I was doubting whether or not he, well, I was sort of doubting his motives in the previous couple of episodes, thinking, okay, did some kind of Imperial ship that are installed in these police robots somehow get fired, and now two boots is kind of going off program or whatnot? Because, Jim, earlier when you said that you didn't feel necessarily that Maul's station in the galaxy was set up necessarily appropriately at the beginning of the series, I also don't feel like we spent enough time with Lawson and two boots to know how their relationship normally is. We meet at a very stressful, we meet them at a very stressful moment in their relationship. There's a lot of things we can assume. So I've been kind of guessing whether or not is two boots always this by the book? Is that sort of the way that they, their rapport that they have together, is Lawson's daring, he's going to take chances, and two boots is always there to remind him of all the protocols and all that sort of thing? Or was this kind of out of character for two boots? Because Clice was very alarmed, saying hey you got to bring your droid in here, pal.

Speaker 5:
[41:39] Okay. There's a lot to juggle here, but I don't think number one that these droids are programmed by the Empire or anything like that, but their original programming requires them to follow the letter of the law. And so they do that. They know the law, they're updated with everything that's happening as far as legal matters go throughout the galaxy and on the planet Janix. And they know that the Empire, while they have not established a presence on Janix, they're still in Imperial space. And they understand all the rules and regulations that are attached to that. So, I think that's just their natural programming. And yes, I bet they do have a history of two boots being very by the book and following all the rules and regulations, while Brander Lawson occasionally bends the law a little bit to get the job done. He's a good cop. He's a damn good cop. But sometimes, sometimes the situation calls for a little improvisation. Droids, machines, they aren't programmed for that. So, they get shut down sometimes. I got the feeling that's not the first time Lawson shut him down, was when he was trying to communicate with the Empire.

Speaker 6:
[43:15] I had that feeling, too, like this is something he's had to do before. And he's apologized for it before as well. But Two Boots education comes in multiple waves over these episodes. This is one of the first waves, which is where Lawson reminds him that even if they capture Maul, they're not going to just pack up and go away. They're going to stick around. And so there's that moment. There's the moment when Riley comes in and he's looking for his dad. And there's the moment when he realizes that Brander Lawson is now a fugitive. And it's not too soon after that that Blake, that Lieutenant Blake tells him to get rid of his Two Boots, which is his gimmick. It's his thing.

Speaker 5:
[44:11] I mean, that's his whole identity.

Speaker 6:
[44:12] His whole identity are those damn boots.

Speaker 5:
[44:14] Those moon boots he's wearing.

Speaker 6:
[44:18] So it'll be interesting to see, like, what's finally going to break this droid? Is it, were the boots, was it to Tim telling, being told to take the boots off? Was that the straw that breaks the droids back here? And he finally realizes, hey, maybe, maybe we're the baddies.

Speaker 5:
[44:35] Yeah, it's tough. It's tough for him as a droid to work around that programming though. And it is possible that they, you know, the Empire may sweep clean the memory banks of all those droids, and we might lose two boots forever. Not just, you know, his boots, but his whole personality gone.

Speaker 6:
[44:58] Yeah, it's definitely a possibility.

Speaker 5:
[45:01] There's those moon boots.

Speaker 6:
[45:02] There, there's those boots.

Speaker 5:
[45:03] I predict that's gonna happen. I predict that's gonna happen. He's gonna get his mind, his memory wiped.

Speaker 6:
[45:10] Oh, but he'll look down at the boots. He'll be like, something familiar.

Speaker 5:
[45:14] Yeah, then I'll go back to him.

Speaker 6:
[45:15] Or the boots will be on his desk when he gets back.

Speaker 5:
[45:19] Or he'll click the heels of the boots together three times and say, there's no place like home. There's no place like home.

Speaker 6:
[45:28] Well, I don't know about to getting the memory wiped. I do think that we are going to see at some point in the next couple of episodes, he is going to break protocol and he's probably going to do something to aid our runaways and throw the Empire off their scent at some point. I think he's going to do something heroic, which is going to be a big, big moment for him. And maybe, maybe that's when they get him. They find out that he was the one that did it and we got to get the droid's memory wiped. But I think he's going to have a heroic moment when he finally rids himself of that brainwashing. And I couldn't help but think that when, you know, that conversation between the two of them, between two boots and Lawson, it's like, how many times have you been in a conversation? There's just like, somebody who's just like such a company man or they're just so brainwashed. It's like, ah, you know, Lawson even says, oh, you just don't get it. It's wasting my breath trying to talk to you.

Speaker 5:
[46:26] Yeah, but they obviously have something beyond just a man working with a machine relationship. They have some kind of tightness because the kid says to Two Boots, I've known you my whole life.

Speaker 4:
[46:43] Yeah, right.

Speaker 5:
[46:44] And they're drinking coffee together and Two Boots doesn't drink coffee, obviously, but he appreciates the ritual of sitting there with Lawson and having heart-to-heart chats or heart-to-microchip chats. And so they've developed a rapport with each other. Now, my question is, we've seen what enforcer-type droids can do to the galaxy courtesy of the Trade Federation in recent history when it comes to Star Wars. Why would anyone entrust a droid to be in charge of any sort of security or law on any planet in Republic space, or an Imperial space?

Speaker 6:
[47:39] Especially when you see how outnumbered the humans are to the droids on this police force that we've noticed. That is a really good question because, like, haven't we seen how this story ends? When you put too many droids in charge.

Speaker 5:
[47:55] I would be once bit and twice shy. I would be woo her. Well, we don't serve their kind.

Speaker 6:
[48:00] That's exactly right. You see that prejudice show up with woo her. That's a galaxy that has learned its lesson. They don't trust the droids. They bring death and destruction. That's a really good point. Now, with the interrogations, we're going to talk a little bit about that of Brander Lawson. And I thought this was kind of a chilling thing where you saw the scratch marks on the table in that interrogation room. And Lawson notices them. So I don't think those were there before, you know, not that they never, you know, maybe tuned somebody up there when they're interrogating them in that police station, but not to this extent. And I think we're left to assume that these might have been the nail marks of one lieutenant or, excuse me, Chief Clice.

Speaker 5:
[48:54] Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 6:
[48:55] And so I don't think she just went, some people were like, oh, maybe she went to one of those prison planets. I don't think so. I don't think she went to no prison planet.

Speaker 5:
[49:05] I think Maroc ate her for dinner. Quite honestly, I think he put her on a spit, cooked her up, made burgers out of her. She's gone.

Speaker 6:
[49:14] Right.

Speaker 5:
[49:15] She's toast. And Maroc gets introduced.

Speaker 6:
[49:19] Yes.

Speaker 5:
[49:20] And he says, Tell me everything. You can do such a good spy bot voice. Can you do the Maroc voice? Him saying, Tell me everything.

Speaker 6:
[49:28] Oh, man.

Speaker 5:
[49:30] I know I'm putting you on the spot, but I was just so impressed.

Speaker 6:
[49:33] Hmm.

Speaker 3:
[49:33] Tell me everything.

Speaker 6:
[49:35] You know, something like that.

Speaker 5:
[49:37] Swank. Oh, the little hair standing up on my arm.

Speaker 6:
[49:41] Hey, is this not the most... The most. I think this is maybe not the most, but one of the most scary Inquisitors that we've met, despite the fact that we've seen Maroc before. We've seen a lot of Inquisitors. You know, we're up to how many brothers, how many sisters. But this show really does make this guy out to be a force to be reckoned with. He's got that sort of Michael Myers, you know, Jason Voorhees serial killer, horrors, villain thing, where he just is relentless and keeps coming and keeps coming and keeps coming. I thought this was the first time in a long time, if ever, I've ever actually felt kind of intimidation from an Inquisitor because they've become kind of a joke in the Star Wars universe.

Speaker 5:
[50:32] Well, they're so disposable.

Speaker 6:
[50:33] Right.

Speaker 5:
[50:34] And some of them go down without even a fight, it feels like. Yeah. But Marok, he's a good one. And he's much more intimidating in this show than he was in the Ahsoka show, where he came off as just sort of a dumb goon.

Speaker 6:
[50:51] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[50:51] In my opinion. Yeah. Just like this dumb goon in this show. He's cunning. He's evil. He's capable. He held his own against Darth Maul and Devon.

Speaker 6:
[51:05] Yes.

Speaker 5:
[51:05] So, you know, not the easiest thing to do. I would think Darth Maul would be able to handle any Inquisitor you throw at him. And I still feel that way. I still don't think that these Inquisitors pose a legitimate threat to him, but he still has to deal with them.

Speaker 6:
[51:23] Yeah. And do you feel like maybe this is a little bit of a reboot in some ways that maybe the creators are trying to do here? Maybe they realize that the Inquisitors are not the scary foes that they could be, and so they want to, you know, as viewers, to take them a lot more seriously.

Speaker 5:
[51:43] It's just interesting. Well, yes, I hope that's the case because we've been looking at him as merely disposable goons.

Speaker 6:
[51:50] Right.

Speaker 5:
[51:51] But Maroc is different in this case because we know he'll survive.

Speaker 6:
[51:55] Right.

Speaker 5:
[51:56] Or does he?

Speaker 6:
[51:57] Well, that's the question, right?

Speaker 5:
[51:59] Yeah. As far as we know, he doesn't have any sort of background with the Nightsisters. But what if he removes that mask and he is indeed a Zabrak from Dathomir? And he is imbued with some sort of Nightsister magic. Or he dies and Darth Maul uses Nightsister magic to bring him back to life as just like a tool, a dumb killing machine like he appears in the Ahsoka show.

Speaker 6:
[52:32] Well, the fact that he is... I'm sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 5:
[52:35] Well, let's keep talking about his character before I start laying some trivia.

Speaker 6:
[52:39] I wanted to say, so he's the first brother. So you would think that that would give him some sort of elevated position. So he may be one of the first Inquisitors recruited and trained and brought into the fold. We first see him canonically in Tales of the Empire. And he's pretty menacing in that as well. And then we see him at the end in Ahsoka. And that's when he turns into that infamous, you know, puff of green fart cloud that we joke about. And the assumption was, Jim, that Morgan Elsbeth likely reanimated him at some point. Because that's what we kind of saw with those troopers. And we sort of assumed that all of those troopers over there were reanimated to some degree. So Maul, this series is sort of the middle chapter for us and Maroc. But I can't help but think, you know, he's the first brother, that this gives him sort of an elevated position within all the Inquisitors, perhaps second only to the Grand Inquisitor. So this guy is, he's the OG, we might assume, when it comes to the Inquisitors.

Speaker 5:
[54:01] Yeah, yes, the first Inquisitor. Well, obviously Grand Inquisitor would be the first one, right? But you said that. So that would be the pecking order then, I guess, would go, Emperor, Vader, Grand Inquisitor and then Maroc. So I think that kind of narrows down the field when you look at who he's talking to, because they left that a mystery. I like that. That's kind of a cliffhanger sort of way of doing it.

Speaker 6:
[54:31] Well, you left out one other possibility, Jim. You got four. There's one other possibility, and that's the 11th brother. That is not Ghost Face, the Crow.

Speaker 5:
[54:44] Oh, the Crow.

Speaker 6:
[54:44] Because we know the Crow is going to show up. But I hope it's not the Crow, because that's an awful ominous cliffhanger to give us the Crow. We need a Palp or we need a Grand Inquisitor or a Vader for that, I think.

Speaker 5:
[55:01] Well, you would think this numbering system of first brother, fifth sister, that was like the pecking order. That was the hierarchy, okay? That was their military rank. So as Maroc is kneeling there, talking to the hologram, it looks like a cloak to me, like it would be Palpatine, but it could be Vader.

Speaker 6:
[55:25] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[55:26] And it could be the Grand Inquisitor. I know. I know. But as he's talking there, he says, my Lord.

Speaker 6:
[55:34] Yes.

Speaker 5:
[55:34] And I don't think first brother would talk to eleventh brother. I call you my Lord. He would be saying, he'd say, listen, Crow, get your ass out here to Janix now. I need some backup with this Maul psychopath.

Speaker 6:
[55:51] You're absolutely right.

Speaker 5:
[55:52] He's with the Jedi now. Now, come on.

Speaker 6:
[55:54] No, you're absolutely right. Crow is out.

Speaker 5:
[55:56] He says my Lord.

Speaker 6:
[55:57] My Lord. Yes. Good call.

Speaker 5:
[55:59] So and since we do know the Crow is eleventh brother, I think that Maroc clearly...

Speaker 6:
[56:05] Right. He would not be deference in any kind of deference to the Crow.

Speaker 5:
[56:10] I thought it was interesting that this is not the same Maroc voice actor from Ahsoka, that that guy's name was Paul Darnell and this guy's name is AJ. Locasio. That sounds familiar. And he's a voice actor.

Speaker 6:
[56:26] I feel like his name has come up in Star Wars voice acting before.

Speaker 5:
[56:31] He's the voice of Lego Han Solo.

Speaker 6:
[56:34] I think that's it. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[56:36] He's at well, at least one of the voices. He's done a lot of the most recent ones, including the big Skywalker Saga game that came out a few years ago.

Speaker 6:
[56:46] Okay.

Speaker 5:
[56:47] So he's been all about Lego, I think both on TV and video games.

Speaker 6:
[56:54] All right.

Speaker 5:
[56:54] Well, not the same actor from Ahsoka. That guy's name was Paul Darnell.

Speaker 6:
[56:59] All right. Well, let's let's talk a little bit about Devon, because there's obviously a lot of focus and attention on Devon, and people keep looking for signs that she's falling to the dark side. And I got to say, I don't necessarily find her particularly dark or evil or anything like that, which in some ways probably makes it all the more sinister, I guess, or or tempting, or certainly makes it a lot more interesting if she was just evil. I mean, even Anakin, we see him as this little cherub in episode one. And by the time we get to episode two, he's this impetuous, kind of arrogant teenager. So to me, he always, since episode two, had shades of dark in him, much more than what I see with Devon. Devon seems to me like a pretty honorable, maybe a little bit more pragmatic than her master, but an honorable Jedi that's trying to help the galaxy and help the people around her.

Speaker 5:
[58:31] Well, you know, George Lucas had a famous quote about his introduction of Anakin and how you say he was a little cherub face, little pixie. But he said, it's, a lot of people wanted me to introduce the character as like this evil kid who was like plucking the wings off of flies and just, you know, torturing animals, kicking dogs.

Speaker 6:
[58:58] Hitler as a baby or Jeffrey Dahmer or, yeah, yeah, right, right.

Speaker 5:
[59:03] But he said the more interesting story is to see how someone who is inherently nice and good gets twisted by the dark side and pulled, pulled in. It's like you get, you get sucked in.

Speaker 6:
[59:20] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[59:20] And then you can't get out. And that's kind of what's happening with Devon here, where she's she's afraid about being out on their own. She's she does not want to stifle her force power. So like Anakin, she feels like she's being held back. So there's a frustration element there. And these are the things that will eventually open up into her using her anger to tap into the force, which will fully open her up to the dark side. And the more that you travel down the path, the darker you get, the darker the path gets. So it's she's just starting all of that. And eventually, I hope the show makes her as evil as evil can be. I felt I feel like Star Wars animation had the chance to have Ezra get pulled in by the lure of the dark side. And and he skated around it a little bit. But I wanted to see him get on it, you know, all of his pads, grab that hockey stick and hit the rink and skate for real and and go dark side all the way. And they pulled back. They never tempted Rey with it. Well, maybe they did. Okay. But it never felt like she was being pulled. I think that was she had a vision and it just kind of came out of nowhere. And it was late in the game. And it just seemed like that's something that should have been maybe played up upon a little bit more. Is the dark side truly tempting Rey? Because I never felt any fear of her being pulled into the dark side. But with Devon, definitely.

Speaker 6:
[61:08] Her connection to Kylo Ren, that seemed to be pulling her towards the dark side, I think. And then just with Anakin, the one thing that I think George missed a bit was, unlike Devon, Anakin wasn't all that likable in episode two. And I don't know if that was George's intention or not. And that's what makes the Clone Wars and Matt Lanter's performance as Anakin Skywalker so epic and great, because it gave us the Anakin hero that we always wanted. But I feel like they're getting it right with Devon. That's why I'm bringing those other characters up, because she's very, very likable. You see her trying to protect Riley. She's just met this Riley guy. She's definitely trying to protect him. She's trying to care for her master, despite him kind of working against her in some cases. She wanted to rid Janix of Darth Maul. She felt that that was their duty as Jedi. Order 66 or no, that that was their duty. So everything that she's done so far, I feel like, has been for good reason. I know she's conflicted. She even says in the show that she's confused. But she doesn't strike me as dark or reckless at this point.

Speaker 5:
[62:29] She has the reputation as a thief on Janix.

Speaker 6:
[62:34] Now, Drew, yes.

Speaker 5:
[62:35] So she's a notorious fruit cart thief. And I mean, even at one point, Brander Lawson sort of rubs her nose in that a little bit at their apartment. When he sends Riley and her off to Riley's room so he can have a private moment with Master Daki, he says, don't let her, don't let her steal anything or something like that.

Speaker 6:
[63:02] Right.

Speaker 5:
[63:02] Keep your eye on her. Don't let her take anything.

Speaker 6:
[63:04] Then we get treated to this very awkward teenage moment with them both sitting on Riley's bed. And they're kind of comparing their lives in some ways. And I don't know, you know, I'm a hopeless romantic. I thought, well, maybe there could be, you know, something there between the two of them. Maybe they'll kind of fall for each other. They look like they're probably close to the same age. So, unknown at this point whether that might be something. Who knows? I mean, my gosh, look at Anakin. We were just talking about him. They talk about falling to the dark side. Falling in love with the wrong person can definitely make you turn and do all kinds of wacky things, even turn to the dark side. So that could be a device. If she develops any kind of affection for Riley, whether it be platonic or romantic, that could be something that Maul uses. I mean, it's just like Palpatine used Anakin's love for Padme.

Speaker 5:
[64:04] Right. Like she witnesses Maul beheading Riley. And that, she goes crazy deep into the dark side as a result. No, the show would never go that dark, and nor should it. But I could see a situation where Maul does manipulate her by putting Riley at risk somehow.

Speaker 6:
[64:29] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[64:29] You know, like... Tying him down to something like one of those old Batman traps that would always end the episode and they'd be tied down to something. And, you know.

Speaker 6:
[64:42] Well, the night I met you all.

Speaker 5:
[64:45] Same bad time.

Speaker 6:
[64:46] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[64:47] So, but, you know, I could see something along those lines happening where he puts Riley at risk. And then that way you're threatening both Devon, if she does indeed develop an attraction for him or some sort of... It appears that there is some bonding going on between the two of them. There are two moments in these two episodes that I can point at. This one where they kind of are sitting on the bed there and he's got the ball. And she's like, yeah, we definitely grew up very different lives. But then there's another part where they're alone and they're talking about Brander and stuff. I just got a sense that these two characters are bonding.

Speaker 6:
[65:32] Yeah, he doesn't want to leave her despite the fact that there's this Inquisitor coming after both of them. He's like, I can't leave you. And he does. I probably would have done the same thing. I'm like, well, she's got a lightsaber. It looks like she can handle herself pretty well. And then there's a couple of at least one, maybe two moments where she's force pushing him out of the way or something, trying to protect him during that incredible battle, which obviously we'll be talking about in just a bit. But I do really like that they're utilizing this character of Riley more than just making him a device to let us into Brander's world a little bit more. I like that Riley is stepping forward as an actual character, and it gives Devon somebody to play off of. And it's kind of funny where she says, let's go Riley and let the grownups talk. So despite the fact that she's probably seen all kinds of battles and you name it, she's still in her master's view a kid, just like Riley is a kid to Brander Lawson. And then the two grownups have their discussion. But I really loved all these moments between these two characters. I did, and it's great that neither one of them are annoying, right? They're not like know-it-alls or they're not... Sassy. Sassy, yeah, all the sass is spy bot. These characters are just likable people that you were like, yeah, I'd love to hang out with these people, I'd love to be in this universe and be part of this ensemble. Which is not always the case with Star Wars characters as of late.

Speaker 5:
[67:15] Right, they really have nailed a really nice mixture of quality storytelling, gimmick free thus far, we're not dealing with mystery box situations or any sort of non-linear nonsense. This is a very straightforward story being told here. And I think Star Wars has needed that for a little while. And I look forward to this series growing as it goes into other seasons. And I hope they keep it nice and locked in to this one pocket of the Star Wars timeline. Because I think there are a lot of great stories you can tell and continue to tell for a few years with these characters and these situations and Darth Maul.

Speaker 6:
[68:08] Yes, lots more to talk about, of course, as we work through these episodes. But I do want to take a moment to remind everybody watching and listening that this is a call-in show. We've got the phone lines open right now. 708-866-1737 is the number to call. We have our official call screener and program observer, Tyler Page. He's waiting to talk to you and talk about what you want to talk about here on the show. So please give us a call, 708-866-1737. We want to hear your theories, your likes, your dislikes, all of it. So please give us a call. There's a very lively chat going on right now. So take some of that conversation and put it on the phones, please. We appreciate it. I'm going to say that there is one sort of dark Devon moment. And I think it might actually be, it might be my favorite moment in these two episodes is when she chucks that pilot out of the cockpit. We're not dealing with these aren't clones. These aren't robot, they're droids. These are conscripted troops at this point. And we see her and Master Daki cutting through them like butter, which is interesting. But this whole sequence when she force, I don't wanna say pushes or pulls the pilot, but he reacts. He's almost like a little mini Wilhelm scream. He's like, ah, and she's on the windshield and seems to paralyze him, stops him from being able to really mount any defense, opens up the cockpit and chucks the guy right out into space and commandeers it. I mean, that is, well, at the very least, that's Anakin Skywalker kind of stuff that she's doing, which Anakin was always skating the lines, especially in the Clone Wars, skating the line between the good and maybe questionable. But I love this moment. This was ballsy, but at the same time, it was a little dark.

Speaker 5:
[70:21] There you go. You are sharing your dark sensibilities with us by highlighting this very moment.

Speaker 6:
[70:28] That's true.

Speaker 5:
[70:29] I'm saying that you like it. It was my favorite moment.

Speaker 6:
[70:31] No, Jimmy's not the only one. This show is all about dark side and temptation. We're certainly not impervious to all of that.

Speaker 5:
[70:39] That's right. We're embracing it. We're saying it loud. We're saying it proud. Dark side rules when it comes to breaking down these Maul episodes. But you're right. I like the fact that it's not making apologies for killing off these Imperials. We've been seeing it since 1977. And Han Solo was running around the Death Star corridor, yelling at the top of his lungs, shooting every white armored individual he saw. No problem. So, that's what I like about this show. It's brutal when it needs to be. When Brander Lawson is running for his life, and these TK Stormtroopers are on his tail, he's turning around and blasting them, and that blaster is not set to stun.

Speaker 6:
[71:26] No.

Speaker 5:
[71:27] I found that to be so terribly annoying and childish when a show like The Bad Batch was doing things like that. What do I care?

Speaker 6:
[71:39] Yeah, the stun bolts.

Speaker 5:
[71:40] These are cartoons. These are cartoons.

Speaker 6:
[71:42] Right.

Speaker 5:
[71:43] What do I care? Shoot them all. But, you know, again, that dark side sensibility is most important when we're talking about the Darth Maul show. But that's what I do like about it, and I noted that. They're not holding back. It's not being dumbed down. It's not being wussified. They're giving us balls out. Star Wars. And listen, I'm somebody. I don't care. I don't care for gun violence. I don't care. I'm not entertained by it. I'm not entertained by firearms at all, in any way, shape or form. I don't like gory stuff either with my entertainment. That's why I love Star Wars so much. It's laser guns. They're not guns. They're blasters, right? It's all make believe.

Speaker 6:
[72:32] It's make believe. It's a fairy tale. Yes.

Speaker 5:
[72:36] So if we're going to go there, let's go there. And to me, by displaying all of the lethal force necessary in situations like this, be it an animated show or live action, whatever it is, it raises the stakes so high on a dramatic level, at least in my opinion. So bring on the blaster fights and down with the stun bolts.

Speaker 6:
[73:06] Just some food for thought as you're thinking about calling into the show. Some of the questions, we'd love to hear your opinion on things like Devon, for example, is she, are we looking at a tragic fall to the dark side? Are we looking at a survivor here? Brander Lawson, does he emerge from these episodes as the true protagonist of at least the season? Merrick, we're talking about Merrick kind of having probably one of the better Inquisitor portrayals in quite a while. So what's your take on that? And two boots, is the order to get rid of those boots, is that the spark that's going to light the flame that, you know what I'm saying, against the Empire? And of course, the big cliffhanger at the end, the identity of that hologram on the other side of Merrick, we want to know who you think is over there and all that. 708-866-1737. Jim, Maul, there's not a lot of Maul in this episode. I do want to go back to his talking about sticking to the plan, because I don't think we ever got to the point where we speculated what the actual plan is. All we know about his plan is that he and Rootkast seem to be the only two that know what it is exactly. Vario doesn't know, and it certainly isn't what Vario threw out, which was overthrowing the Pikes and getting the criminal syndicate all wrapped up. There's something else.

Speaker 5:
[74:49] Yeah, the big question is if he's taking out vengeance on the Empire, right? I mean, where does that begin and where does that end? Because the Empire is massive and just taking Palpatine out doesn't change the nature of things in the galaxy. He believes he can walk in there into that throne room of the emperors, kill Palpatine and just sit down in the throne and everything is instantly his. Complete rule of the Empire and everything.

Speaker 6:
[75:21] Well, he watched the Book of Boba Fett and he saw that's how easy it is. You just walk in, you shoot him off the throne and you sit there and then you got your own TV show.

Speaker 5:
[75:32] And essentially he did the very same thing with the planet Mandalore during the Clone Wars to begin with.

Speaker 6:
[75:37] That's right.

Speaker 5:
[75:38] So he knows it can work that way. So I think that's his plan. And then he will run the galaxy as a criminal gangster, a gang lord with root cast at his side and all of the Imperial troops and their resources at his command. I think that's what Maul believes could ultimately... That would be the ultimate revenge. Or he just kills Palpatine and disappears. But I mean, what sort of plan is that? And who would be on board with that? Those Mando mercs aren't going to be making any money. That's for sure.

Speaker 6:
[76:18] Yeah, no, I think it's about power and control and making his enemies suffer. I think that's kind of what it comes down to. But he's not talking about his goal here. He's talking about the plan. So there is a real, whether it be completely insane or not, there's a real strategy here. There is an actual game plan that Maul has for this. And in fairness, I mean, to the writing and everything, it definitely looks calculated. Like everything we've seen from Maul up to this point has been extraordinarily calculated. The only time he wasn't was when he was complete lunatic and he had the spider legs or whatever it was. And then we kind of, then at the very end there in that, when he gets stabbed by Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine, he's definitely kind of, he's not playing with the full deck there. He's wandering around the desert, he's screaming and all that stuff. So Middle Maul is a pretty measured guy.

Speaker 5:
[77:27] I mean, he was just out in the desert. I think anybody would go nuts out there.

Speaker 6:
[77:32] Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 5:
[77:33] But I still have a feeling there's a little bit of that spider Maul insanity crawling around inside this guy's head. And I want to see that get accessed again. At some point, I want him to be, you know, drooling and yelling and screaming and just going nuts because there has to be that aspect of his personality still existing. But where do we where do we go from here? You know, with with where is the plan leading us to? Yeah, if any of our listeners, any of our viewers, we are streaming live, have any speculation they'd like to make about where this is heading for Darth Maul's grand master plan, let us know. Yeah. Give us a call. 708-866-1737.

Speaker 1:
[78:25] Rebel Force Radio.

Speaker 7:
[78:29] This is Sam Witwer and you're listening to Rebel Force Radio with Jason and Jimmy Mac, your source for the force.

Speaker 3:
[78:36] I have been waiting for you.

Speaker 6:
[78:40] Well, we're going to start with Patreon member. This is a, whoa. He goes back a long time with us here in our podcast Adventures. We've got Shaz Bazar on the line. Let's talk a little Merrick. Shaz, welcome back to the show.

Speaker 4:
[78:56] Hey, how are you doing?

Speaker 6:
[78:58] All right, man. All right. So Merrick, more than just a fart in the wind, eh? Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[79:06] Maybe by the time of Ahsoka, he's just witch-smoke, you know?

Speaker 6:
[79:10] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[79:10] But look at his helmet. It goes up really high and then out to the sides. That room for the horns in there makes sense that it would be another Zabrak. Yeah, that's what I was speculating. In revival season five, episode one, you got the smoke coming out of Sabaj's arm, smoke coming out of Maul's witch legs. I think it was Peter Weiser in the chat even said, maybe it's a Maul clone. But the witches are involved, definitely. And it'd be cool to see them unmasked and see what might be there.

Speaker 6:
[79:51] Well, we know that the witches have to be involved at some point because they, well, my assumption is that they reanimate him. But it's unclear to me how he would come into the fold of the Inquisitors being a Zabrak and coming out of the Nightsisters because once Mother Talzin gave up baby Maul, I would have thought that that was it. You think he kept going to that well? Or how would another Zabrak knight brother or whatever you want to call him, imbued with witch power, find its way back to Palpatine and that whole scene?

Speaker 4:
[80:48] Yeah, that's a good question, unless he cloned him.

Speaker 6:
[80:52] A clone?

Speaker 4:
[80:52] Unless Palpatine cloned him, I don't know.

Speaker 6:
[80:54] A clone of Maul. Now, that would be pretty interesting if there was a big reveal of that, where the helmet comes off. Yeah, again, we know that the Knight Sisters are involved at some point, but whether they're there from the beginning. I'm looking at a photo here, a screen cap, and I see what you're saying about the helmet. You could definitely get a Zabrak head inside there. I love the idea.

Speaker 5:
[81:20] I love it. Yeah, yeah, me too. And I brought that up earlier in the show. I was just gonna say.

Speaker 6:
[81:28] Jim, did you say that he might be a Zabrak earlier?

Speaker 5:
[81:31] Yes, I did earlier in the show.

Speaker 6:
[81:33] Oh, okay.

Speaker 5:
[81:33] I believe I did. I mean, I don't remember what I say, you know? But I'm pretty sure I did speculately say that.

Speaker 4:
[81:41] I must have missed the Zabrak comment, though.

Speaker 5:
[81:44] Maybe Jason cut me off before I said the good part.

Speaker 4:
[81:48] Probably.

Speaker 5:
[81:50] But, you know, and that's why I think they're showing us other Zabraks, too. But at this point in the timeline, I believe this is after General Grievous. It has to be because Grievous is no longer alive at this point in the timeline. Grievous went to Dathomir and massacred everyone there. So, I think that Night Sisters and Zabrak Night Brothers, they're scattered all over the galaxy, the few survivors. So, I like the idea of a clone Darth Maul.

Speaker 6:
[82:26] Yeah, I do, too. I do, too.

Speaker 5:
[82:29] I like that. That's pretty cool.

Speaker 4:
[82:31] Well, that's not me. That's Peter Beiser. He's nicer.

Speaker 5:
[82:35] He is nice. Nobody nicer than Peter Beiser.

Speaker 6:
[82:38] All right. Thanks, Chaz. Appreciate the call, buddy. And great theories. That's for sure.

Speaker 5:
[82:45] Chaz.

Speaker 6:
[82:46] Episode five really, I think, laid the most dialogue heavy stuff on us. There was a lot of character stuff. We got the moments between Brander and Master Daki. We got the moments between Riley and Devon. We got moments between Rook and Maul. Episode six, Night of the Hunted, man, like I said, I think probably when it's all said and done, about 18, 19 minutes of actual story, but a lot of action, a ton of action. And I'm going to say, Jim, I know we as Star Wars fans sometimes speak in hyperbole, and we like whatever the most recent thing is, but I don't think we've ever seen better animated lightsaber battles than what we're seeing in this show, ever.

Speaker 5:
[83:40] Yeah, no way. These guys are really raising the bar very high because there's a beautiful clarity to their work where you can make out exactly what's happening. There's no cross cuts in the closeups and faking you out, making the action seem more sped up than it actually is through cross cuts and editing. It's all being presented to you in a way where you're almost observing, like watching a documentary or something. And they just have a wide shot on a lot of these action sequences, especially the lightsaber dueling, and you can really make out and follow along with all of the fight choreography. So, it's great, and it's really a lot of it is rooted in legitimate martial arts as well, which I can appreciate.

Speaker 6:
[84:34] Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I mean, they're not taking any shortcuts with this. And the lightsaber battles, and it's great that they're borrowing some of the John Williams music, Duel of the Fates, Battle of Heroes, that's popping up into these. And I would say these lightsaber battles are worthy of those motifs, because they're really great narratives. They're really great stories that they're telling within these battles. It's not just clash, clash, clash, clash, clash, which we've seen a lot of. There's drama, there's great closeups on the faces of the characters. You see what they're going through, the struggles and all of it. In fact, there was even kind of a beauty in Maul's practicing at the top of episode six, where he's doing the training. Some say that that's a form of meditation, perhaps, within the, by doing all of those different moves in the training, but it looks like training to me.

Speaker 5:
[85:36] He was performing a kata, which is just going through the mechanics and shapes and forms.

Speaker 6:
[85:44] A kata, a mystic kata?

Speaker 5:
[85:46] K-A-T-A.

Speaker 6:
[85:47] Ah, okay.

Speaker 5:
[85:48] Okay, you get that, sweat hog?

Speaker 6:
[85:50] Yeah, I got it. I got it.

Speaker 5:
[85:52] So, kata.

Speaker 6:
[85:53] Ooh, ooh.

Speaker 5:
[85:55] Yeah, and it was cool to open the episode with that because we didn't see Maul ignite his lightsaber at all in episode five. And that's a rarity for this series. It did, I was like, wow, is that the first full episode we got with no lightsaber action from Maul? But I realize it's not true. In episode two, there wasn't any saber action with Maul. Which is strange. At least I don't think so. I scrubbed through it and I didn't see anything.

Speaker 6:
[86:24] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[86:25] There might have been.

Speaker 6:
[86:26] I mean, despite there, I mean, there was the great, there was a lot of really interesting stuff in episode five, but I never felt that it dragged. I'm not one of these people that needs a lightsaber battle every 15 minutes, every 10 minutes in Star Wars. I mean, you don't want to go too long without some of that, but I certainly don't, I certainly don't need it. I like that we got to spend time with these characters because then that made the stakes in episode six so much higher, because now, wow, I really feel like I know this character, and that's so important, especially with creating these likable characters.

Speaker 5:
[87:08] I'd like to welcome the great Stephen Stanton to the chat. Stephen has shown up in the chat. Star Wars voice actor extraordinaire, probably most famously known as Grand Moff Tarkin, or Admiral Tarkin, or any of the Tarkins, he was all of them, and of course, featured in Maul Shadow Lord as Krim, Marg Krim.

Speaker 6:
[87:33] RIP.

Speaker 5:
[87:33] And Stephen, we're a little disappointed you didn't go with the Marg Krim version, which was...

Speaker 3:
[87:45] Darth Maul.

Speaker 5:
[87:47] Mm.

Speaker 4:
[87:48] Such senseless violence.

Speaker 5:
[87:53] That's it.

Speaker 6:
[87:53] That's it.

Speaker 4:
[87:54] Okay.

Speaker 5:
[87:55] That's it. I'll show myself out. Okay.

Speaker 6:
[87:57] Alright.

Speaker 5:
[87:57] So, you do the show by yourself.

Speaker 6:
[88:00] Okay. That's fine. Me and the callers will do that.

Speaker 5:
[88:03] No, I'm staying. I'll stay. Just beat myself up over a terrible Marge Simpson impersonation.

Speaker 6:
[88:09] That phone number, if you would like to talk to Jimmy Mac about that impersonation is 708-866-1737. Alright. We've got the raid on the Lawson apartment. And this is really when things, you know, completely take off and there's no looking back from the moment that door gets sliced open. And I'll be honest, they had me. I didn't quite know who that was going to be behind the door. I thought it was possible that it was Maul. At this point, we do know that Spybot has been looking for Devon actively. And I think by this point, it's confirmed that Maul knows approximately her whereabouts. So this could have been Maul, but it wasn't. Obviously, it was Merrick and he slices into the door. And we have this incredible rooftop escape sequence, which was just awesome. But again, Jim, this is a very scary Inquisitor bursting through the door like this. And again, we're seeing it through the eyes of guys like Brander Lawson and Riley, whereas our Jedi just sort of jump into action right away. Saber's drawn, take care of this guy. But having these everyday people along for the ride really, I think, increases the scariness of the character.

Speaker 5:
[89:29] Oh, good lord. They did exactly what I would have done. Out the window. You do not want to be in that room. I mean, how easy would it be? It seemed like they just walked right through the saber duel, too. It's like, oh, jeez. Oh, oh, my goodness. There's a saber duel in our kitchen. Let's go out the window. What do you say? It was almost like 3PO and R2 walking in the Rebel blockade center at the beginning of the original Star Wars on New Hulk, and those blaster bolts are just zipping right by them, and they're just walking right through the corridor like nobody's business.

Speaker 6:
[90:07] And as I mentioned before, the drop ship attack and commandeering that Devon does is just, it's great. Is it a dark side thing? Is she showing her dark side? Give us a call. Let us know what you think. I think maybe it's the only shade of dark that we've seen from her so far for a character that's been so in the crosshairs of Darth Maul up to this point. Master Daki, I think he's proving to be very, very skilled, capable. He holds his own. We know he's old. In fact, there's, he says something to Devon. I think we got to go back to episode five for this. Um, it got me thinking about Jedi like Master Daki and Yoda, who are so long lived, because Daki says throughout my long life, I have seen the galaxy endure many changes. Tyranny is always defeated. And I'm just going to guess that for Master Daki to have seen Tyranny defeated across the galaxy, that he's been around a long time, because Tyranny is relatively new to the galaxy at this point. They had lived for a long time with quite a bit of peace. You know, the Jedi were the guardians of peace in the Republic. But to a character like Yoda and Daki, because they're long lived, he can talk about, we must remain hopeful. He has perspective and he has patience. And when you live to be, say, 800, 900 years old, what's a few years living hand to mouth? Whereas Devon is young. And as a Twi'lek, I'm going to assume not as long lived as a character like Daki. So you can see where the impatience might come from. She can't just disappear for 100 years like a Daki could or a Yoda could. So I think it's easier for these characters because of their perspective that their long lives give them than someone like Devon, where the dark side, that quick now kind of temptation is pretty hard to resist.

Speaker 5:
[92:40] Right. And she doesn't have all state insurance like Daki does. Are you in good hands?

Speaker 6:
[92:45] This is true.

Speaker 5:
[92:47] But the duel between Merrick and Daki on the rooftop, this is where in my notes I write, thought this would be it for Daki. Why do I sit on pins and needles waiting for this guy to kick the bucket? That's what I wrote. Because it's this anticipation I have. Anticipation of the inevitable and expecting it to happen at any moment. So I'm pretty much geared up and embracing myself for that big moment. So I'm saying that now. I hope a lot of our listeners and viewers think of me when Daki dies. I like to insert myself into this somehow. And with that little suggestion now, all of our listeners will be thinking of me. And I will take them out of that moment. And I want you all to report when it does happen. And let us know how I took you out of that moment. Just by this mere suggestion.

Speaker 6:
[93:49] 708-866-13737.

Speaker 5:
[93:53] It's a podcast experiment.

Speaker 6:
[93:55] Speaking of notes, I have to go back real quick here, because this is something I wanted to bring up. We saw what happened with Chief Clice. And we saw the same, what we can assume is the same ominous beginnings of the interrogation process between Merrick and Lawson. But somehow, someway, he gets let go. You're free to go. Not only that, but we're going to put your blaster that we confiscated from you right there on your desk. All right, trap? Set up anyone? I've seen some people say that they think that Dreah Lawson, the wife that we finally see in that hollow conversation with Riley, maybe she was the one to see to it that Brander was released. I don't see it that way. I think once Merak retraced the battle of, in that abandoned warehouse, and was seeing the force echoes of the lightsaber battle, he realized, wait a minute, we're not just dealing with Maul here. We're dealing with others that are wielding lightsabers. And I'm guessing that Lawson knows who they are. And if I watch him long enough, he's going to lead me right to them.

Speaker 5:
[95:26] Yeah.

Speaker 6:
[95:27] That's how I took it.

Speaker 5:
[95:28] Yeah, I believe that's the case. My first blush impression of Dreah Lawson, I wasn't under the impression that she was very high-ranking. She has no rank badges or little silver cylinder things or anything. She has none of the markings of an Imperial officer.

Speaker 6:
[95:58] Yeah, I noticed that. Yeah, she seems so, I mean, no insignia or anything. Unless we caught her, you know, in her home quarters. No, actually, she doesn't she say like, I'm at work. I think at one point. What are you bothering me for?

Speaker 5:
[96:14] Now, the Star wars.com data bank has been updated with Adrea Lawson entry. But it doesn't reveal at all what she actually does for the Empire. It just says she's employed by the Empire and committed to the Imperial rule of law.

Speaker 6:
[96:35] Yes. Yes.

Speaker 5:
[96:38] But it doesn't say it doesn't reveal a rank or or anything like that. And she could just be it.

Speaker 6:
[96:45] Oh, I'm glad you.

Speaker 5:
[96:46] She could like maybe she just does their social media. I don't know.

Speaker 6:
[96:50] But I'm glad you brought up that data bank because I'm, you know, after three weeks of this, I'm finally smart enough to look at that data bank. And I think what we have to do with that is take this stuff at face value because I see a lot of speculation about Drea that, oh, maybe she's working on the inside. You know, maybe she's like a Galen Erso type. No, the data bank says that she is, what was that, what was those words again, Jim? Dedicated.

Speaker 5:
[97:19] Employed by the Empire and committed to the Imperial Rule of Law.

Speaker 6:
[97:24] There you go. So save all your speculation about her being a double agent or a spy or anything like that because I really think when they put this stuff in the data bank that you can take it to the bank. And another data bank. Well, it wasn't a data bank entry. Something that has me a little bit puzzled is what we learned about Rena Saul.

Speaker 5:
[97:56] Oh, so yeah.

Speaker 6:
[97:58] So it turns out all Rena who's running the casino there on on Janix. We get confirmation through Riley that she's an informant. That's not unusual for law enforcement to have informants and things like that. But we also find out from the horse's mouth from Brander Lawson that she is a former bounty hunter. And we know because why? Because we read comic books and the Taddebank that Brander is a former bounty hunter. My question is this, how in the world did this not lead him to say when we were bounty hunters together or, you know, when I was a bounty hunter, but he's keeping this a secret from the characters in the show, yet we as the audience know this. So the question is, is this going to end up being relevant at all? I think not, because if it was, it would have been revealed here to our characters.

Speaker 5:
[99:02] Well, it is relevant in a couple of ways. Number one, it reveals their history together, their past, that they worked together as bounty hunters. Well, he doesn't say bounty hunter, but he says he used to travel around a lot with Sule. She was a bounty hunter, and they got into a scrape on a planet called Cattelure, and they saved each other's lives. So it establishes that she is capable. Like she's not just some rando lady of the night or casino manager or something, that she has a history where she's been placed in peril, she has to fight. She, it gives you some indication as to who we're dealing with here, what her capabilities are. So then when you see her fighting with those troopers, you understand where she's coming from and how she can handle herself in a fight because she has that background as a bounty hunter. So I think story wise, it establishes a few things. Whether or not it has an impact on the big picture story has yet to be seen. But I think as far as character development, it reveals a lot about her. She's more than what she appears to be.

Speaker 6:
[100:24] Rich Brendel agrees with that, Jimmy. Says he's got a crackpot theory. He says, she's Cyril's mom. Oh, wait a minute. No, that's the dancer is Cyril's mother. What the hell are you talking about, Rich?

Speaker 5:
[100:37] Cyril's mom?

Speaker 6:
[100:38] No, because I was, I thought what Rich, I was giving Rich too much credit. I thought what Rich was trying to say was that Reena was actually Riley's mom. And so, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[100:52] Yeah, that would be, that would be hard to do. That would be a messy situation.

Speaker 6:
[100:55] The dancer. I don't know what dancer. What the hell are you talking about? Thanks for the super chat anyway, Rich. Appreciate it.

Speaker 5:
[101:01] Well, there's, yeah, thanks, Rich. There's a few things going on in this scene with Reena Soule. Number one, just some trivia about the voice actress who plays Reena Soule. Her name is Pamela Adelon, and she's the mother of Devon voice actress Gideon Adelon.

Speaker 6:
[101:23] Oh, interesting. Okay, that's cool. Take your kid to work.

Speaker 5:
[101:27] Yeah, right. Well, apparently she comes from an acting family too. She has a long career with notable voice acting credits. Most famously, you'll like this. She was, and probably still is, I don't know if the show is still in production or not. I don't think it is, but she is the voice of Bobby Hill on King of the Hill.

Speaker 6:
[101:48] Oh, nice.

Speaker 5:
[101:49] So Bobby, you know, she's like, yeah. And, you know, Dave Filoni worked on King of the Hill before he worked on Clone Wars.

Speaker 6:
[101:56] That's right.

Speaker 5:
[101:57] So maybe that's where this connection was made.

Speaker 6:
[101:59] He did.

Speaker 5:
[102:00] And maybe that's how they discovered that Pamela's daughter Gideon would be perfect for Devon, maybe. So something else I want to point out going on in this casino is that there's an alien who observes or spies on Lawson and the crew at the casino. They zoom in on this alien. So, you know, it's somebody, it's a spy or an informant or somebody. And this this this alien is a Devlick who is exactly the same as Juan Sandage, Devlick pod racer from Star Wars Episode One, The Phantom Menace.

Speaker 6:
[102:42] I can't believe with that close up that we got, I must have rewound that beat with that character probably ten times. Yes, because I thought the same thing you were saying about, okay, why are they spending so much time on this character? Is it a spy? Is it? And at the end of the day, I don't think it is. I think they were just really proud of themselves for this character design. I see no narrative reason for that character to take up that much screen time in an 18 minute episode.

Speaker 5:
[103:13] Well, sure. So I mean, this character is obviously some sort of informant. And you think, oh, yeah, I think so. I definitely think so. I think this is a spy. And I think it may be Juan Sandage himself.

Speaker 6:
[103:28] Maybe it is.

Speaker 5:
[103:29] Well, because he is the splitting image or spitting image. Is it spitting or splitting? Spitting, spitting image. So but I think that might be him. This is the first time we're seeing that alien species in current canon.

Speaker 6:
[103:45] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[103:46] And Juan Sandage showed up in a couple of issues of the old Dark Horse Star Wars comic from the late 90s, I recall. But we've never seen him since. And so this could be Juan Sandage.

Speaker 6:
[104:00] I can't believe I didn't get a picture of that. I mean, like you said, I kept rewinding it. I'm like, no, this isn't relevant. This is just I'll look at our character to design.

Speaker 5:
[104:11] So when I was watching the show last night, I was like, well, there's that character. He was a pod racer. I know he was a pod racer. So I pull it out, go to the books. I'm pulling those out. Episode one thing. And I find his name, Juan Sandage. That's him. That's him. It looks exactly like him. And so I look it up on on Wookiepedia. And there's this great feature on Wookiepedia. Whenever you go to a character's page or whatever, it shows you all of the appearances of that character in canon.

Speaker 8:
[104:43] Right.

Speaker 5:
[104:43] You could look at either canon or expanded universe slash legends. And so I'm looking at the canon and I'm seeing this happen in real time, where somebody had put on the Juan Sandage page on Wookiepedia that at the bottom of the appearances of the character, it said, Maul Shadow Lord, Episode 6. And I was like, Oh, my God.

Speaker 8:
[105:09] Wow.

Speaker 5:
[105:09] Oh, my God. That is Juan Sandage. And so then I went to some other pages and I'm researching this and I'm typing notes and I'm fast and furious. I'm like, I can't believe it. I go back to the Wookiepedia page and one of their editors had deleted that. Oh, I'm seeing this happen in real time. Wow.

Speaker 6:
[105:30] I'm like real time Wookiepedia updates. You thought you had really discovered something with this. What is it? Watt Sandwich?

Speaker 5:
[105:41] Jason, if you're not going to take this seriously, I mean.

Speaker 3:
[105:47] To those who have betrayed me, die well.

Speaker 1:
[105:52] Rebel Force Radio.

Speaker 6:
[105:56] So we should probably go back to the phones because we want to talk to Brian from New York. Brian is also a RFR Patreon. Brian, you have something to say about Mrs. Lawson. I understand.

Speaker 8:
[106:11] Hey, Jimmy. Hey, Jason.

Speaker 6:
[106:13] Hey.

Speaker 8:
[106:16] I did want to mention something about the wife, but you guys covered that actually.

Speaker 6:
[106:21] Well, you cover it. What did we cover about Riley's mom, Dreya?

Speaker 8:
[106:29] Well, I was just wondering what roles she might play later on, throughout the story, because he works for the Empire. And now that they're on the hunt, now the Empire is on the hunt for his son and husband. I just wondered if she would play some role in the future as far as getting them out of a pinch or like?

Speaker 6:
[106:49] Well, I think she had her opportunity to do that here. Brian, I think she had an opportunity to do that here, and the evidence suggests that she didn't. So the question is, I suppose, as the show progresses, could Star wars.com go in, much like Wookiepedia, and edit these data bank entries? So if it would turn out that Dreya ends up helping her ex-husband and her son at some point, would you have to update that data bank entry to read that she's not loyal or dedicated or whatever the words that they used?

Speaker 8:
[107:31] Well, she could actually potentially even take the side of the empire against her husband depending on their relationship, I guess, or depending on what...

Speaker 6:
[107:42] Well, you know how divorces can be. I mean, you can imagine if she really wants to make him suffer.

Speaker 5:
[107:49] Hey, I don't think they are divorced. They're just separated. I don't think there's a divorce happening here.

Speaker 6:
[107:56] Are they Catholic? They can't get the divorce? They just have to separate?

Speaker 5:
[108:01] Maybe, maybe. But nobody has used that kind of terminology.

Speaker 6:
[108:07] No, they don't say it. They say, former wife. I believe that's how Two Boots describes her. I would say that means ex. Oh, he says former wife.

Speaker 5:
[108:19] Oh, now see, that's a little bit more of a very concrete kind of definition of what's going on there. Because the kid just says, my mom and dad, they're not together right now.

Speaker 6:
[108:35] So he's holding on. Does he put it that way?

Speaker 5:
[108:38] I think that's how he put it to Devon when they were sent to his room. Go to your room, take your little friend with you. But I think that's what he said. He said something like that. He noted it. I was like, wow, he must be holding out a sense of hope and optimism that his parents will reunite, which I think is fairly common amongst kids who...

Speaker 6:
[109:07] Even after divorce, you know?

Speaker 5:
[109:09] Yeah, after they see their parents go through that.

Speaker 6:
[109:12] Right.

Speaker 5:
[109:12] They hold out hope.

Speaker 8:
[109:14] Yeah.

Speaker 6:
[109:14] Now, Brian, since we kind of, you know, stole your thunder a little bit with the Lady Lawson thing, I understand you also want to talk about the fight on the train, on the subway train, which I'm glad you're bringing up, because obviously that is a huge moment on this show. And we were talking about the lightsaber battles in general in what we're seeing. But what in particular with this train duel did you want to mention?

Speaker 8:
[109:43] Uh, yeah, I was just wondering, is this the only time we've ever seen a Sith have a lightsaber fight with another Sith, other than when Savage and Darth Maul fought Sidious? Is this the only other time in canon, on live action or card animation, or of any kind, that we've seen two Sith battle in this way?

Speaker 6:
[110:05] The two red blades, that's unique. I mean, yes, we've seen it before, but it's rare to see the two red blades clashing like that between Maul and the Inquisitor. But I don't want to go on a limb and say it's the only time. Does Palpatine pull out the lightsaber in that fight?

Speaker 5:
[110:25] Oh yes, he pulls out two lightsabers when he's dueling with Savage. Yeah, he's dueling with Savage and Maul. Definitely, that's red on red. And here we have red on red. And I think our caller is right. I think those are the only two times in any sort of visual format of storytelling that we've seen Sith on Sith or Darkseid versus Darkseid with the red saber blades.

Speaker 6:
[110:53] Now, Brian, if you're looking for a first, this could be the first double bladed red on red fight scene we've seen.

Speaker 5:
[111:04] Wait a second.

Speaker 6:
[111:06] No?

Speaker 5:
[111:07] Wait a second. Well, I'm remembering that in Rebel Season 2, when Maul is confronted on Malachor by the ghost crew, the Inquisitors show up, and Maul does jump into the battle. But I can't remember if he's using his saber, the dark saber, a red saber. I can't remember. I'm pretty sure he's using a red saber at that moment. Anyone in the chat want to punch up Disney Plus and scrub through it and figure out if that is indeed correct? Benjamin Perry is saying, that's right. But I don't know if he's responding to me or what.

Speaker 6:
[111:57] More red on red actions as Asajj vs. Duku. Reva Invader.

Speaker 5:
[112:04] There. That's a good one. There's one.

Speaker 6:
[112:05] Red on red action.

Speaker 5:
[112:07] Red on red, baby. Yeah. Asajj vs. Duku. Right.

Speaker 6:
[112:15] I guess, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[112:16] All right. Well, there's apparently several different times. But this one sure seems notable because I was thinking the same thing. Oh, gosh. Is this the first time we've seen red on red action?

Speaker 6:
[112:29] It's never looked better. I'm going to say that than this lightsaber duel. So, Brian, thanks a lot for the call, buddy. Appreciate that. Yeah, this whole sequence was incredible. Again, the narrative that they're telling with the lightsaber battles and this one in particular was very, very cool. And, you know, Devon kind of held her own, but she was definitely tiring out. I mean, Maul showed up at the perfect time and it seemed like maybe he was sitting there waiting for his moment. I wouldn't be a bit surprised. And he chose it wisely. Right after Merrick says, Where is Maul?

Speaker 5:
[113:23] Okay, can we discuss this ability of Star Wars villains to just suddenly show up in places in the most improbable fashions? For example, how does Reva get to... She goes from one entrance of that underground tunnel, and then all of a sudden she's at the other end of that tunnel. It's impossible. And how do these characters just keep showing up out of nowhere? It's a boogeyman kind of vibe that I'm getting from these dark side villains in Star Wars, in modern Star Wars storytelling, I should say. I just don't understand how they have this ability. How does Merrick suddenly show up in the subway station? He just sort of strolls in. We're seeing more and more of that. We saw it in the Kenobi series. Darth Vader was in the village. He faced off against Obi-Wan Kenobi. Kenobi ran into that quarry, and all of a sudden Darth Vader is right there in the quarry with him.

Speaker 6:
[114:30] How does that happen? It does, it does. It's, well, they have a great sense of timing there, the Darksiders, I think. In this instance, since we saw Maul sort of creeping on Devon and using Spybot and all of that, and it did, I just assumed that he was there watching this unfold and waiting for the moment to jump in, and he needed, I think, to at least appear that he's saving Devon. I mean, he does save Devon. I think if that fight had gone on much longer, she would have been toast. She'd have been done. But Marek needed her because she could lead him to Maul potentially.

Speaker 5:
[115:20] Do we want to say that Spybot is so strong and powerful, he can lift up Maul and drop him off on that train?

Speaker 6:
[115:29] Oh, you're saying physically, how did he get there?

Speaker 5:
[115:32] How did he get there?

Speaker 8:
[115:33] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[115:34] How did Maul get on that train? It's the Boogeyman.

Speaker 8:
[115:40] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[115:40] That's what they do now. They did that with Kylo Ren in the Rise of Skywalker. When he's inside the Death Star, and then all of a sudden, he's right there facing down Daisy Ridley on the surface of the Death Star ruins. They just, with the snap of a finger, they're right there. How does that happen? Teleportation?

Speaker 4:
[116:02] Teleportation?

Speaker 5:
[116:04] Teleportation?

Speaker 4:
[116:06] Teleportation?

Speaker 5:
[116:07] Teleportation?

Speaker 6:
[116:08] At least with Vader and old Ben and a new hope, Ben came to Vader's pad. So, I mean, Vader makes sense for Vader to be there. And he's kind of like walking around the Death Star, sort of following his feelings. He's searching for Kenobi. He knows that he's here. He knows that he's there. So, yeah, he doesn't... There's no boogeyman with Vader. He doesn't just show up.

Speaker 5:
[116:32] Well, no. But he did in the Kenobi series. He had that ability to teleport himself.

Speaker 6:
[116:39] Yeah, Disney Vader. That Vader. Yeah, Disney Vader.

Speaker 5:
[116:43] He says, well, that's what I said, in modern Star Wars storytelling. I just wanted to be clear on that. And it's a device that we've been seeing get used a few times. Nobody questions it. I want to know how Maul ended up on that train. And you can't tell me he had a force vision of the exact train in which that duel would be taking place. And he would know the exact car to be on top of at the exact right time. It just doesn't add up. It's a real black hole in the storytelling. But again, people will just say, I'm nitpicking. But hey, we like to keep it real here and make sure the dominoes all fall in the correct order.

Speaker 6:
[117:28] I think it is a completely fair observation to make. It's one thing for the character to, through the force or whatever, know where to go. But physically getting there, especially when they're in that train tunnel, which with the trains moving at the speed they're likely moving and all of that. Yeah, it does. It's a little improbable. Here's a question. This moment, the strike that Devon does not take here upon Maul, is this it? Is this the big hinge moment? Is this the big decision point for Devon?

Speaker 5:
[118:15] No, no.

Speaker 6:
[118:16] This is not.

Speaker 5:
[118:17] They're still dancing the dance. The temptation is, you know, he's luring her in. It will have something to do with the downfall of Master Daki or that kid Riley will have something to do with her downfall. It has to be an element that's bigger than just Maul trash talking her into submission. It doesn't quite work that way. There has to be a tragedy involved with her sliding into the dark side, I think, for it to be effective. It can't just be trash talk. There's no way he could seduce her and lure her to the dark side by just merely trash talking her.

Speaker 6:
[119:00] Well, I wouldn't.

Speaker 5:
[119:01] It's got to be a stronger moment.

Speaker 6:
[119:02] I mean, there is some trash talk going on, but it's, he's being very persuasive. I think there's a lot of persuasion going on because of where she finds herself and what the alternative is. It's, in a way, it's like, Vario chooses to stay with Maul because he's, in some ways, he's a safer, at least they perceive him to be, a safer or a better alternative to taking their chances with the Empire. Vario and Devon are kind of similar in that way. I think that's how Devon is justifying it, a little bit.

Speaker 5:
[119:42] I think she's justifying it by looking at Maul as a means to destroy the Empire. Because she has a conversation with Daki. Oh, that's really big picture we're thinking. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[119:56] Oh, you think Devon is really that high up in her thinking?

Speaker 6:
[120:03] I believe she spells it out in a conversation with Daki, where she says that he's... Because they have that conversation at the beginning of episode six, where Devon... Or, I'm sorry, Daki says... He starts recognizing Maul's influence on Devon as she's questioning... She's like, is this what the future holds for us? Always on the run, always hiding out? It's a waste of our abilities, old man.

Speaker 1:
[120:38] Yes.

Speaker 6:
[120:39] And Daki's like, hey, that's Maul talk coming out of your mouth. He says the Empire may be our... She says something to him, like Maul is our best chance at destroying the Empire if we work with him. And Devon says the Empire may be our common enemy, but Maul can never be our ally.

Speaker 1:
[120:59] Right. Yes.

Speaker 6:
[121:02] I don't... What is it that she says to him in that moment about the Empire?

Speaker 1:
[121:06] I'm looking it up right now.

Speaker 6:
[121:07] By verbatim? I didn't... I did not take that quote down.

Speaker 1:
[121:13] Yes.

Speaker 6:
[121:14] But I thought it was pretty revealing.

Speaker 1:
[121:15] It is. It is. Is this what our future holds? Always running, hiding. If it means our survival, we do what we must. It just seems like a waste of our abilities. It's your voice that speaks, but it's Maul's words that I hear. Do not allow him to poison your mind. I know. I know, Master. I'm just confused. He's powerful. Together, we couldn't even defeat him, yet he made an offer for us to fight his allies. He seeks only to help himself. I dislike him as much as you, but he may have a point about the Empire. Isolated, none of us stand a chance against them. The Empire may be our common enemy, but Maul will never be our ally. So, isolated, none of us stand a chance against them. That's what Devon is saying. To your point about, hey, maybe this guy could help us. The enemy, you know, we've been saying it. It's a cliche, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Speaker 6:
[122:11] And she has aspirations to right the wrongs that the Empire has forced the galaxy into, and she wants to correct that. And she thinks maybe teaming up with Maul could actually give them some sort of power to destroy the Empire. Yeah, and she knows that's what Baal wants, and that's the plan for Maul.

Speaker 1:
[122:36] That is the plan. Yeah, I'm coming around to that.

Speaker 6:
[122:39] She recognizes it.

Speaker 1:
[122:40] Yeah, and so they're going to find out that his plan and her plan are the same, and I think that she... It's hard for me to imagine Devon going just primeval, so I think we're going to see a Devon that is, got a foot on both icebergs. I think she's going to, I think we're going to see a lot of rationalizing coming from Devon. I don't think she's just going to, all of a sudden, her eyes are going to turn red, and she's going to be a darksider, and she's going to start, you know, masquerading younglings. I think that it's going to be a slip, a long, slippery slope for her. And...

Speaker 6:
[123:29] Good, and they're doing it the right way.

Speaker 1:
[123:31] Right.

Speaker 6:
[123:32] They'll be actually doing it the right way, where we see legitimate evolution and transformation of the character that we can track along the way. And say, yep, this all adds up. The dominoes have fallen in the right direction. She actually is being affected by the experiences she's going through. You can't say that about Rey Skywalker, who is essentially the exact same character she was at the beginning of The Force Awakens, at the end of The Rise of Skywalker. She's the exact same character. She is the exact same character. She doesn't change at all. She's even wearing pretty much the exact same stuff, you know? She doesn't change at all. You can't track evolution of Rey. It's impossible because there is none. With Devon, they have great opportunity for her to slide into the dark side and become evil. And then how does she redeem herself? How does she dig herself out? Because Yoda said, once one travels down the dark side, never to return, will they? He didn't say it exactly that way.

Speaker 1:
[124:44] It's a good paraphrase.

Speaker 6:
[124:44] I forget what the quote is.

Speaker 1:
[124:45] All right.

Speaker 6:
[124:46] Yeah, it was a good paraphrase. I even tried to say it Yoda-like, even though I was butchering the dialogue.

Speaker 1:
[124:52] All right, we got Marty from Georgia. Another Patreon member wants to, he's got some Merrick theories he wants to lay down on us. Hey, Marty.

Speaker 2:
[125:02] Hey, TipTipFellas.

Speaker 1:
[125:03] Chut Chut.

Speaker 2:
[125:04] You guys talked a lot about Merrick, and the first call kind of saw my thunder a little bit by talking about Merrick being reanimated. But I can't want to pick up on his train of thought where I don't think Merrick is going to walk out of this season alive. I think he's going to meet his end. And then I think the Knight brothers and Maul are going to resurrect him and use him as pretty much a zombie slave for them. To fight for them. That's kind of why going off of what you guys said is why he seems so zombie like in the Ahsoka Show. And I think the carry on, like the common thread why how he gets to Ahsoka is Morgan Elsbeth. And she knows magic. She was a Knight sister. So that's just a common thread. I want to, I kind of think in my mind, Merrick is going to be a mind control puppet working for Maul in the end of this show before all is said and done. And it seems like a stretch, but it's just kind of a theory I had. I really like Merrick's design. I thought he looked super cool in Ahsoka, but then all that kind of went out the window like a fart cloud. And yeah.

Speaker 1:
[126:15] But I remember everybody called him Snake Eyes in Ahsoka. And they've kind of walked back to Snake Eyes. He did look like he did kind of look like that in the live action. He looks better animated.

Speaker 2:
[126:30] But in this show, he is scary. He is intimidating. You feel his presence in every scene he's in, even if it's just briefly, his voice is terrifying. I think he's a great character and I want to see him come back. And just keep coming back because I think he's a great character. And anyway, that's just my thoughts. I never really thought about him being a clone of Maul until you guys mentioned it. And I think that would be neat, but that gets in the whole, can you clone a Force user argument and all that, that I didn't feel like getting into.

Speaker 1:
[127:05] There are some complications with that theory, but.

Speaker 6:
[127:12] That's why they needed that baby Yoda blood, was to give them injections. And I think that was specifically a Moff Gideon experiment that was based on some of the stuff that Palpatine was doing even. Moff Gideon looked at Palpatine and said, God, we're trying to resurrect this old man. I'm going to take these are good ideas that I'm going to make work for myself. That's what I think Moff Gideon's main motivation was. It wasn't working to bring back Palpatine. He was working to create everlasting life for himself. But let me ask you this.

Speaker 1:
[127:50] Well, hold on real quick. I just want to throw this out. So Stephen Stanton, as Jim said, was in our chat, which is great. But when he left, he gave us a little clue. He says, it was great stopping by, got a run. But just so you know, the month of May is going to be very interesting this year. So stay tuned and may the force be with you always. So maybe the man, Stephen Stanton, was dropping some hints about what might be going on. We've got, of course, the big mall finale, May the 4th. So I wonder if it's that. Grand Moth might make an appearance or yeah, Mandalorian.

Speaker 6:
[128:25] Yeah, maybe Mandalorian and Grogu movie in May. Of course, RFR Live in Cleveland is happening in May. So of course, Stephen knows exactly what he's talking about. It's going to be huge. Tickets on sale now. Join us May 23rd in Cleveland, Downtown Cleveland for RFR Live, the Mandalorian and Grogu after show. Tickets available. Thanks, Marty. Tickets available. I think that was Marty.

Speaker 1:
[128:50] That was Marty.

Speaker 6:
[128:50] That was Marty. OK, good. Give me another one, Marty. Give me one more.

Speaker 1:
[128:56] Yeah, that was OK.

Speaker 6:
[128:57] Well, that works. I don't know what that was. I think that was a chut chut. It sounded a lot of fun. Sounded like a lot of fun. But here's my question about Merrick. You're doing great. Here's my question about Merrick. Do you think that we're actually going to see some of his story get filled in, some of those nagging blanks in his story? Like, how does he end up working with Balin Skull in Shenhati? Are they going to figure into the series somehow? I know it's way down in the timeline. So maybe a Balin Skull, maybe instead of a Shenhati, she would obviously be too young. But I think this guy has been running around with Balin Skull for decades, you know?

Speaker 2:
[129:42] In my mind, the common thread is the Nightsister magics. Like, if they bring him back with that, Morgan Elizabeth in my mind would be able to control him. And I think she brings him in and introduces him to Balin and Shenhati and Ahsoka. So that's in my mind how that connection would be made if it's going through with my theory. So that's in my mind, at least.

Speaker 1:
[130:08] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[130:10] That's a good one.

Speaker 1:
[130:11] Yeah, I mean, Morgan Elizabeth is the connection here, I believe, that connects these characters in this way. I think we gotta have Morgan show up. And maybe she will. We know they've got the animated model of Morgan from the Tales of series. So I think they could bring her in here somehow. But anyway, Marty, thanks so much, buddy. Thanks for the support. And thanks for the call and the great conversation. Appreciate it. We've got another caller here. This is Jojo from California. Hey, Jojo, thanks for waiting. You're on with Rebel Force Radio.

Speaker 3:
[130:52] Hello, guys. Can you hear me?

Speaker 1:
[130:53] Absolutely. Loud and clear.

Speaker 3:
[130:56] Hey, I've been just like really enjoying this show so far.

Speaker 1:
[131:00] Thank you.

Speaker 3:
[131:01] I think it's the best thing we've gotten for a while.

Speaker 1:
[131:04] Oh, I thought you were talking about our show. You're talking about Maul.

Speaker 3:
[131:07] I love both your show and Maul.

Speaker 1:
[131:12] Oh, that's very kind.

Speaker 3:
[131:15] And I had this thought in the back of my mind for the first four episodes, but it wasn't really till episode five, which really confirmed what I thought, which was that it seems like Rourke cast and the Mandalorians are going to either abandon or betray Maul at some point. There was that one scene where the Mandalorians are telling Rourke, like, we didn't sign up to fight the Empire, and there's like no way we'll be making credits in the process. I mean, and Rourke sort of admonishes them, but it doesn't seem like she's 100 percent confident in Maul either. She's like constantly questioning his decisions, especially his obsession with Devon. But to me, I think at the end, you know, before or after Maul loses to Vader, I think they're going to get out of the Maul business, and I think Crimson Dawn will...

Speaker 1:
[132:12] I like the way you've phrased that. They're getting out of the Maul. We're officially out of the Maul business.

Speaker 6:
[132:18] We're closing the Maul for good.

Speaker 3:
[132:23] Then I think, like, Crimson Dawn will sort of fill that void with Drive and Boss.

Speaker 1:
[132:28] So that's who he'll replace.

Speaker 3:
[132:30] Replacing Rook Cast.

Speaker 1:
[132:32] Yeah, by the way, I realized I've just been calling Rook Cast, I've been calling her Root with a T. Root, it's Rook Cast, Rook, Rook Cast, baby, Rook. Yeah, so I like that theory. I think the seeds of that are actually planted. We heard the mercenary, the Mando mercenaries talking. Rook just all of a sudden kind of is second-guessing Maul. With respect to Devon, we didn't see that in earlier episodes when he was talking about his visions when he had her essentially being held hostage. But the arrival of the Empire changes the game. So what might have been kind of an annoyance to Rook with Devon that she didn't really give voice to now that the Empire is on their heels. Yeah, and ain't nobody got time for this. You and your visions and your apprentice and all of that. I'm in it for the money. Hey, who's that sound like? I'm in it for the money. Well, JoJo, thanks a lot. I appreciate it. Love the thoughts for sure. And thanks for calling in. Jim, we got some scoop.

Speaker 6:
[133:43] Excuse me, I need to take a sip of my Rook beer.

Speaker 1:
[133:48] Oh, Rook beer. Oh, I get it. Like Rook beer.

Speaker 6:
[133:52] Get it?

Speaker 1:
[133:52] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 6:
[133:53] It wouldn't be root beer. It's Rook beer.

Speaker 1:
[133:57] Do you want to get through some of these super chats? You guys are so generous. Want to make sure we cover them all here. Here's our pal Eric from Phoenix says, traveling for work. Can't make the live stream. Wow. Two great episodes. Is Brander Lawson our first lefty in Star Wars? No clue why I noticed this, but I did. Is he shooting his blaster with his left hand?

Speaker 6:
[134:17] Huh.

Speaker 1:
[134:18] And is that a first? I don't know. As one lefty, I appreciate that. I tell you that.

Speaker 6:
[134:26] Really? I didn't know you're a lefty.

Speaker 1:
[134:27] I'm a lefty.

Speaker 6:
[134:28] That's crazy.

Speaker 1:
[134:28] Yeah. I'm like Ned Flanders. He creates the lefty store at the mall.

Speaker 6:
[134:35] The lefty Emporium.

Speaker 1:
[134:37] Yes.

Speaker 6:
[134:38] That's what I think you call it.

Speaker 1:
[134:39] WTPO says, great show, gents. Perhaps since Master Daki made it this far, he'll be captured. Then Maul will show Devon the path to the dark side. How can rescue him? Oh, Devon. So Daki gets captured maybe by the Empire. And Maul and Devon stage a rescue. And in the process, Maul shows her just how powerful the dark side actually is. That's interesting. Although, I don't know, you think they would waste their time just interrogating and keeping Daki captured? I think when it comes to the Jedi and these Inquisitors, they're out to kill. They're out to kill and take trophies. I don't think there's any taking any of these Jedi alive.

Speaker 6:
[135:33] No, not unless there is a specific command from the Emperor. Like with Luke Skywalker, he wanted Vader to bring Skywalker to him. Other than that, I think it's, yeah, seek and destroy when it comes to Jedi. I definitely think that.

Speaker 1:
[135:50] This is a good chicken or the egg question here from Majin. Is it Majin? I think Majin says, chat, chat guys, is two boots named that because he wears the boots or is his designation 2800T5 and they gave it. So what came first, the boots or the name? Does he wear the boots because that's his name or does he, is that his name because he wears the boots? Who knows?

Speaker 6:
[136:20] It reminds me of the calculator game where you would type out boobs with the 80085. You hold it upside down.

Speaker 1:
[136:32] I did that once or twice, I think. Jeff Hollins says, cheers to us all. Maul Rats, RFR number one. We love Jeff. Thanks, Jeff. 1138, appropriately enough there on that super chat. The Power Goat say, cheers from Hoth, Canada. Oh, gosh, I hope it's getting warmer there a little bit. Says, I'm so glad there's new, great new Star Wars that we can all get behind. Love you guys. Jamie Baca, well, thank you very much for that. Appreciate it. And I hope that it does warm up for you there. Does it warm up there? I don't know. Never. Never. Tanya says, what a time to be alive. Thanks for the live show, Jason, J Mac and Tyler. Looking forward to Cleveland. Cheers. Chat crew. RFR number one. Thank you, Tanya. Another great friend and supporter of the show. As Rich, I don't know who the dancer is. Rich, you're going to have to explain that one to us, my friend. The dancer. David says, Lawson and wife like John McClane and Holly Gennaro. Yeah, I could see that. Maybe he'll rescue her like John McClane did. And they'll get back together.

Speaker 6:
[137:43] Oh, gosh, I hope so.

Speaker 1:
[137:44] Wouldn't that be nice?

Speaker 6:
[137:46] Yeah. Yeah. But I don't think she, again, I want to reiterate this. I don't think she's an imperial of any consequence, you know. Drea.

Speaker 1:
[137:57] No. She is rank and file as it gets, man.

Speaker 6:
[138:01] Yeah, yeah. So I think looking for any sort of... Any way that she will figure into the plotline as far as being an imperial, I think is minimal. I think she will feature into the plotline as far as being Brander Lawson's wife, but not necessarily her imperial status will make her important to the story at all.

Speaker 1:
[138:28] The Empire is not going to give two you-know-whats that she's been loyal. When they find out that someone in their ranks has a strong connection to the guy they're hunting, yes, she's going to be bait.

Speaker 6:
[138:44] She's going to be bait. He's a wanted man. The Empire knows that they can get to him through her and they will.

Speaker 1:
[138:54] Yes.

Speaker 6:
[138:54] That's our prediction. Because our prediction last week for Dreia Lawson didn't quite pan out. She said 99 percent, we were sure, she was on board that Star Destroyer and she clearly is not.

Speaker 1:
[139:06] She is not. She is not.

Speaker 6:
[139:08] Well, at least we don't think so, just because... Oh, no, she said she was... Did she say she was on Coruscant?

Speaker 1:
[139:13] Yeah, she was on Coruscant, yeah.

Speaker 6:
[139:15] Was that said in the dialogue or is that said in the data bank? It gets so confusing.

Speaker 1:
[139:22] Hold on.

Speaker 6:
[139:23] But the data bank should be considered canon regardless, because it's on starwars.com.

Speaker 1:
[139:31] Hold on. Where is it? Okay. What's so urgent? Mom, I need you to come home. What's wrong? The Empire is here. I went looking for dad, but two boots said he was being interrogated. Blah, blah, blah. Oh, I love this. If troopers are there, son, it's to keep everyone safe. Whatever the reason, don't interfere. They ask you to do something, cooperate. But what about dad? Tell him to do the same. I'm sure he'll be back soon. I have to get back to work. Trust me, everything will be fine. I thought there was a poor kid. Reference too, but there's not.

Speaker 6:
[140:06] This poor kid, he's got two parents that I don't think they were ever married to each other. They seem to be married to their jobs and their jobs only. This poor kid is so neglected. I feel terrible for him. They got he as Bodakin, or Bodakin, or whatever it's called.

Speaker 1:
[140:27] This is a bit of a random question from Jamie Baca. Hey guys, how did Han get his blaster back in Return of the Jedi after Vader took it in Empire? Jim, we might want to take this and talk about it on the weekly RFR.

Speaker 6:
[140:42] Maybe.

Speaker 1:
[140:43] This week.

Speaker 6:
[140:45] I just thought he had many of them.

Speaker 1:
[140:47] Yeah, it's a DL-44. I mean, Luke had one in Empire at one point. I think it's kind of a common blaster. So I wish there was something more exciting, but I don't think that's the case. I don't think it's the same.

Speaker 6:
[141:02] Remember in the Force Awakens, he had that cupboard and it was filled with just random firearms.

Speaker 1:
[141:08] I'll tell you, if you ever go on a deep dive with these props and I'm doing a little 3D print project where I'm printing out a model of the DL-44 and you really have to like pick a scene that you want to model your version of it because that gun particularly looks different every time it appears on screen. Even in the same movies, it never looks the same. So yeah, that's just the nature of props, especially back then in the 70s and 80s.

Speaker 6:
[141:44] Yeah, nobody was counting on high definition.

Speaker 1:
[141:48] No way.

Speaker 6:
[141:49] Hitting this scene, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[141:50] No way.

Speaker 6:
[141:51] We thought, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[141:53] Oh, Rich is, he's clarifying here. He says he meant that casino worker, not the dancer. He said she just looks like a dancer. So everybody looks like a dancer to you, Rich. I think that's the...

Speaker 6:
[142:04] Sure, yeah, because he of all those clubs he goes to all the time.

Speaker 2:
[142:08] That's absolutely right.

Speaker 6:
[142:09] Rich is watching and going, Where's the poll? Rich is asking while he's watching.

Speaker 1:
[142:14] Where's the poll? That's Rich's first question he has when he goes into a joint. Oh, man. Well, this was a lot of fun this week, as it is each and every week here on the Maul Shadow Lord After Show. Thanks to everybody for hanging out with us. All your great calls, your chats, your super chats, all of it just means so much to us. And I hope you had a good time as well. We're 60% of the way through. We've got two more weeks of Maul, four more episodes. It's all going to culminate on May the 4th. So we're expecting a big finale, a big season finale. I know, you know, when they pick that date, Jim, nothing happens by accident. We know they pick that date for the finale and then work their way backwards to get the premiere date. So I think we're pretty safe in expecting something pretty exciting because the show has been delivering thus far. So why would they let us down on May the 4th?

Speaker 6:
[143:18] Absolutely. I think there's a huge purpose why they scheduled the release of this series to have its series or a season finale on May the 4th. I think there's a very specific reason. And I think that reason sounds like this. At least I hope so. So stay tuned.

Speaker 1:
[143:43] Strangely enough, we didn't get any calls speculating on who was on the other side of that hologram. If I had to put money on it right now, I'm going Palpatine. I think this is early in the time of the Inquisitors, and I'm not quite sure that Vader has been pulled in at this point. Because I believe in Tales of the Empire, we see the moment or close to the moment when Vader takes over the Inquisitors. Why do I feel like up to that point, Palpatine was calling the shots? I don't know, maybe that's just in my own head cannon or something I picked up somewhere, but I don't know.

Speaker 6:
[144:33] Well, I'll go team Vader.

Speaker 1:
[144:34] Team Vader, all right.

Speaker 6:
[144:35] I'll take team Vader on that one.

Speaker 1:
[144:36] And I'm going Palpatine. Hey, Tyler Page was here, and he was helping us out as he does each and every week as our call screen. So Tyler, thank you very much. Great calls this week. Anything we didn't get to that you'd like to mention? Anything you observed when you were watching the episodes?

Speaker 4:
[144:57] I'm not sure if you guys talked about it, but I think the Devon actress, just a little behind the scenes footage, note is that that scene where they were on the bed together, her and Riley, was their chemistry read. I know she posted that on Instagram, so that was kind of cool. Yeah, the roots are. Then I have another prediction, I think. I'm hoping that Two Boots ends up on Castle with the Pikes. I hope things go horribly awry for all of our heroes at the end of this. That he ends up there, because the theme of a humanizing robot obviously came up in this. Yes. So closely parallel to Solo, which this kind of touches in that same world. So I don't know, I just think it's going to happen.

Speaker 1:
[145:49] I want it to happen. Oh, interesting. All right. All right, buddy. Well, as always, we appreciate your help here on the after show. Looking forward to hanging out with you in person for the big Mandalorian and Grogu after show. So if you're watching this or listening to this, and you want to see this happen right in front of you in person, if you can do that, go to rebelforceradio.com May 23rd in Cleveland, Ohio. Jimmy Mac, 60% of the way through. Four more episodes left, episodes five and six. Final thoughts, please.

Speaker 6:
[146:22] Final thoughts on episodes five and six of Maul, Shadow Lord. I got a few of them. Just it's basically a lot of trivia I picked up throughout these episodes. Everyone notices that the former Republic gunships are back, but now in the employ of the Empire. We've seen this before in the Bad Batch, except they have an all gray paint scheme. And those ships were frequently employed by clone troopers during the Clone Wars. I read something interesting on starwars.com. The TK Stormtrooper that we see in these episodes, they're the same as the TK Stormtroopers we saw in the Bad Batch. And they're obviously inspired by Ralph McQuarrie's early concept design of a Stormtrooper. But now according to Canon, these were phase three clone trooper armor designs. They were intended for the clone troopers, but now they're being repurposed for the, the actual people, the humans that are now populating the Imperial Army as Stormtroopers. So I thought that was interesting that these are kind of like considered via Canon as clone wars leftovers. When do I always get leftovers? Why don't I ever get anything new? So Maul's Safe House, that's a new place too. It's deep in some chasm. It's some industrial facility. And it looks a little cooler than his original hang out in that abandoned railway platform. There was some great action in these episodes. We talked about the fight on the platform, but nobody mentioned when Daki places his walking stick underneath the TK Trooper's helmet and flips him with it. That was great. I really enjoyed that a lot. And the fight sequences overall are really, really good. Nice and clear. No crazed feats of wild and unbelievable athleticism. I'm looking at you, Sabine, from Rebels. I guess now that we know Sabine's a Force user, it makes it all a little more acceptable. Back in the day, we were thinking, why is she leaping around like Spider-Man in these scenes? We couldn't figure it out. And it sort of took some of the believability out of the room when it came to Star Wars Rebels. Maul seems to be a little more planted in a more realistic, well, as realistic as Star Wars is going to get. It's nothing really pushing the envelope too far as far as when we consider the abilities of these characters. Daki was kind of out of breath and he says to Devon that, he goes, I'm not dead yet. Clear foreshadowing of his upcoming demise, which I'm bracing myself for every time I see this character on screen. I hope they give us a really dramatic and huge death sequence for Daki because he'll have earned it by that point in time. These characters do seem like they're earning a lot of the things that are happening to them throughout this show. It makes it very easy for us to connect the dots and follow along and connect with these characters. The apartment that Riley and Brander live in, it reminds me of Cassian and Bix's safe house on Coruscant in a big way. Stephen Stanton was in the chat and he said it reminded him of something else. I can't remember what he said. So scroll through the chat and see what Stephen Stanton said about the apartment. Boy, that's some great reporting right there. When Lawson leaves the interrogation room, he asks for a calf and they show him drinking the calf. Then they cut to another scene and he's driving his speeder drinking from that mug of calf. And so naturally I'm saying, don't they have commuter mugs with lids on Janix? What's up with that? I don't know. I'd be nervous to do that. You'd spill the whole drink in your lap, potentially. I guess animated characters don't care about things like that. We had an ATCT, All-Terrain Cannon Walker, first seen in the Bad Batch episode, Plan 99 on the planet Ord Mantell. They're like taller prototype Scout Walkers. And we know that these things are going to feature in a later episode because we've seen footage of Maul taking one out with his lightsaber, slicing the leg of the walker in half. Rina says, the arrival of the Empire has stirred up the Cohoons' nest. I thought that was a good Easter egg. Cohoons were seen in Attack of the Clones in Padme's bedroom. The big fat caterpillars at Anakin sliced in half. And oh, Maul, boy, could he be verbose. I mean, this character, Rook questions the move, whether or not they should stay on Janix and continue this fight against the Empire and go to rescue Devon. And Maul says, without missing a beat, he says, the strongest metal is forged at the Crucible. Oh, okay, Shakespeare. What are you, a blacksmith now? I mean, really, how long have you been sitting on that phrase waiting to use it? Yeah, nobody just randomly says something like that. This Maul, he's a real wordsmith.

Speaker 1:
[152:10] You know, they all roll their eyes at him afterwards.

Speaker 6:
[152:13] God. Yeah. Can you believe the stuff coming out of this guy's mouth? Who does he think he is? Some wordsmith he is. All in all, these are great episodes. You know, I'm just goofing when I criticize things like the dialogue and stuff. I love just about everything about this show. And I'm really excited to see where it's going. Puff a pig, not in this episode.

Speaker 1:
[152:39] That'll do it for us. We will see you later this week on the Flagship Weekly RFR Show. That will be back and you'll have that on your feed at the end of the week. And of course, we'll be back next Tuesday night, 8 o'clock p.m. Eastern Time for the penultimate RFR after show for Maul Shadow Lord. So join us again. Won't you please? Until then, we'll see you next time. For Rebel Force Radio, I'm Jason.

Speaker 6:
[153:10] And I'm Jimmy Mac.

Speaker 2:
[153:11] And remember, the Force will be with you, always.