In This Episode
On this episode of X-Ray Vision, Jason Concepcion, Rosie Knight, and Jason Mantzoukas apologize to Axe Woves! In the Airlock (1:45), Jason, Rosie, and Jason dive deep (deeep) into the season 3 finale of The Mandalorian, recapping and discussing apologies, the power of puppets, what might come next, and more. Then in the Hive Mind (1:10:42) Jason Mantzoukas sticks around for a classic Comics Corner, including what everyone is reading right now and some favorite Lone Wolf and Cub style comics. Then in Nerd Out (1:26:38) a listener pitches the Star Wars sequels.
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TRANSCRIPT
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Jason Concepcion Warning. This podcast contains spoilers for the Season three finale of The Mandalorian on Disney Plus. Hello, my name is Jason Conception.
Rosie Knight And I’m Rosie Knight.
Jason Concepcion And welcome to X-ray Vision, the Crooked Podcast, where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture.
Rosie Knight In this episode in The Airlock, we’re recapping the Season three finale of The Mandalorian and what a lovely finale it was with our lovely friend Jason Mantzoukas. Yes, in The Hivemind, more Mantzoukas for Comics Corner, where we talk about all the books we have been reading. What we can’t wait for, and what you should be reading. And in Nerd Out, it’s a Star Wars pitch from listener Marcus.
Jason Concepcion Up next, The Airlock. Stepping out of The Airlock and into a galaxy far, far away to discuss The Mandalorian Season three finale alongside friend of the Pod, Jason Mantzoukas, co-host of How Did This Get Made? Jason, thank you so much for joining us.
Jason Mantzoukas Thrilled to be here, guys. This is the way.
Rosie Knight This is the way.
Jason Concepcion This is the way.
Jason Mantzoukas This is the way it should be done all the time.
Rosie Knight This is the way.
Jason Concepcion Absolutely. Let’s talk about season three, Episode eight, Chapter 24, The Return, directed by Rick Famuyiwa, written by Jon Favreau. We pick up right after the events of the previous episode. First off, on behalf of X-ray Vision, I would like to apologize to Axe Woves, who is not a spy, and also whose jetpack can absolutely get him into orbit up to the spacecraft, which.
Jason Mantzoukas Crazy.
Rosie Knight Cannon.
Jason Mantzoukas Crazy. Who, I mean, we just only a few episodes ago saw the mandalorians in the covert run out of gas chasing a bird.
Jason Concepcion Thank you
Rosie Knight How did Paz Vizsla manage to run out of gas? But Axe Woves can fly into space.
Jason Mantzoukas Axe Woves can basically has a hyperdrive on his back. I don’t know what’s going on. My guy’s like up in the atmosphere and the rest of the covert couldn’t even chase the bird when when it when it captured Ragnar.
Rosie Knight And it had eaten many children at that point like more than it’s stolen more than one child. So this actually could have been more useful.
Jason Concepcion Well I think there’s I have two possible theories. One is that Axe and his crew, they kept it tight. They were active mercenaries. They were working out in the world doing stuff for cash. And they had to be ready for game time in a way that pause and the rest of them read Nicking around by Crocodile Lake, We’re not like. And then the second theory is that Paz is just a deadbeat dad who never who was just irresponsible, number one. And you can see that by the fact that he did have his jetpack gassed up. And the number two, I kind of think that the reason that he was like, you know what, I’m going to hold off the dark troopers, you guys get out here is just he didn’t want to raise his kid.
Jason Mantzoukas Wow. I mean, I.
Rosie Knight Bleak. Bleak
Jason Mantzoukas I mean, that is brutal. You know what? That is like a brutal take on our guy, Paz Vizsla.
Rosie Knight He sacrificed himself, the three pretorian guys to save the mandalorians. But you’re saying not because he didn’t want to pay. Charles is not.
Jason Concepcion Even a word for his son. Not even to tell my son. Not even how to tell Ragnar.
Jason Mantzoukas I love him.
Jason Concepcion Tell him. Tell Ragnar I love him. And tell him what a hero. He’s just like that.
Rosie Knight He’s like, I’m out.
Jason Concepcion I’ll take them. You guys, get out of here.
Jason Mantzoukas It was That was. There has been some wild, wild day. I did. You guys also feel like I got so pregnant with the idea that Axe Woves was a spy or.
Jason Concepcion What it is? Yeah.
Rosie Knight Yeah, we were invested.
Jason Mantzoukas But I had a hard time believing he was saving the day, which unquestionably, he was doing. He is a hero.
Jason Concepcion Unquestionably.
Jason Mantzoukas On Mandalore. And the entire time I was like, this fucking guy.
Rosie Knight Yeah, Yeah, I was. I was like, Oh, getting all the mandalorians to leave the ship.
Jason Concepcion That suspicion and the way the captain of the ship gives him, like, a double take look, like, really like we were already out. I was like, Oh, here it comes, here comes the next like shoot them all in the back. And it just never happenned. Axe Woves stand up guy to the end. My apologies.
Jason Mantzoukas Oh, yeah. We’re going to hand out a lot of apologies today.
Jason Concepcion Absolutely.
Jason Mantzoukas I have to say, unfortunately, unfortunately, we are going to hand out a lot of apologies because, boy, what I like, what I have loved for one of these things to have been proven true for one of these people to have been duplicitous.
Jason Concepcion Yes. Back on the planet, Bo is leading the survivors out of Moff Gideon Space. She radios to the very, very loyal Axe Woves before he’s cut off by the atmosphere to say, Hey, okay, use the capital ship as a decoy. Get all the warriors off the ships and down to the surface. I’ll talk to you later. Then she has to use a thermal detonator to collapse the tunnel because the dark trooper armor is really, really good. Back somewhere else in the base, din breaks free from his captors. You got to have more guys on din.
Rosie Knight Truly, this is an absolute strategical mistake. Do you have Mandalorian armor guest who knows how to use it but a Mandalorian by every time. And also he has a force sensitive baby who’s midichlorians are so strong you were trying to steal them.
Jason Concepcion And Moff, what are you saving them for? You got so many guys.
Rosie Knight And you got a baby. So what do you need? You don’t need him.
Jason Concepcion Just throw two more guys.
Jason Mantzoukas I was also confused throughout both last week at the end of last week and this week. I couldn’t believe Moff Gideon was not intrigued or interested at all that Grogu was there. I like the dude spent the first entire season chasing grow goo for his blood. They bring Grogu to his cloning base. He doesn’t. He? He’s full on playing hard to get. He’s ignoring Grogu you?
Rosie Knight No, not even like a you again. Yeah, like, just like an it. Now. Is it him? It’s Grogu in a mech.
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah.
Rosie Knight This is like not an easy thing to just ignore.
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah. Like, how is there not a scene where where Moff Gideon is like, is that Grogu in a mech?
Rosie Knight If you put that baby in a gun.
Jason Mantzoukas I would love it. I would love it if. If Werner Herzog came in and it was like, I would like to see the mech baby.
Jason Concepcion Let me see the mech.
Jason Mantzoukas Let me see the mech baby.
Jason Concepcion So Din takes out these dark troopers and then who arrives to kind of save the day when Dean is about to get choked out and then Shepard comes up, says, no, no, no, crushes the pistol and then. Is he what is he spraying on his dad? Is that like fire extinguisher fluid or mangosuthu?
Jason Mantzoukas It was backed.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, I think it.
Jason Mantzoukas Was like the same way that IG-11 did. Sorry, Rosie.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rosie Knight Yeah. I was going to say, I think he did it because that was heat and fire. But yeah, it’s, it was definitely back to Right. It was really funny because didn’t like please stop.
Jason Mantzoukas Oh but it was that’s sweet because Grogu, who’s trying to rescue his dad and his dad’s like, I’m okay. I’m okay. I should at this point apologize for bringing you into an active war zone. My child. Is Ragnar here? No.
Jason Concepcion But then, then Din says GrowGen. I’m going to need you to be brave for me. Because if we don’t take out Moff Gideon, this will never end. Are you with me? And of course, baby Grogu who is like you. And I just love that Din is like, Listen, we got to murder this guy.
Rosie Knight Yeah, Din is like, Are you with me? My child, my small baby, who can’t talk.
Jason Concepcion We got to fucking kill this guy.
Rosie Knight You’re going to kill him? And the baby is like, yeah.
Jason Concepcion Love it.
Jason Mantzoukas You’re going to have to. You’re going to have to be brave, Grogu. Because today we murder.
Jason Concepcion It’s going to happen now. Din then radios Bo with the update, he and the baby are going to kill Moff. Gideon Bow and the fighters escape to the surface. They head to one of the Night Owls hideouts. And it is at that moment that the Thai forces, the Thai fighters and the bombers scream into the sky to attack the capital ship. Din radios R5. He’s like, I need you, buddy. We need you to scomp Did anybody, did anybody track?
Jason Mantzoukas I wrote it down.
Jason Concepcion Scomp.
Jason Mantzoukas I wrote it in my notes. I was like, What the what?
Jason Concepcion A new verb. We’re going to need you to scomp into the base and get me the location of Moff Gideon’s command center.
Jason Mantzoukas Is that?
Rosie Knight Is scomping what we call when the droids do that little jetpacks and fly places. Is that a specific
Jason Concepcion Uniquely a droid word.
Jason Mantzoukas Interesting. interesting. That might be true. I took it to mean like, hack, I’m going to need you to hack.
Rosie Knight Oh yeah, you.
Jason Mantzoukas Hack into the system and blah, blah, blah, whatever he said. I can’t remember what he said to do, but, you know, that’s what I assumed it was. But it’s such a weird word.
Rosie Knight It’s so awesome. Like, I feel like we still have never tapped in, you know, decades later to the absolute amount of gadgets that the R units have.
Jason Concepcion It’s fantastic.
Rosie Knight They just always have what you need, whether it’s a tiny little hand to electrocute something, a hacking it, it’s almost like be an agreement and you have infinite willpower.
Jason Concepcion And shouts to R5 for having the appropriate amount of gas in his jet booster. And yeah.
Rosie Knight At all times. He’s not making that mistake.
Jason Concepcion Like daddy Vizsla. So R5 using his little jets, he floats down from the surface to the base and begins looking for the nearest port data port that he can use to scoop into the system. If that is the creepy thing. Like it acts gets through the gets through the clouds, he makes it to the ships. He tells all the mandalorians okay, get out of here.
Rosie Knight Suspicious.
Jason Concepcion Head to the dropship and.
Rosie Knight Suspicious.
Jason Concepcion I will pilot the capital ship. And there’s all these really cool like scenes of the Mandalorian like skidding onto the ramp of the ship. I just want.
Rosie Knight To say as well, I feel like they were looking at a lot of eighties Iron Man comics because while these mandalorians are flying, there is so much time that it looks like Irom Man armor.
Jason Concepcion I wondered if they used like Iron Man assets.
Jason Mantzoukas That’s what I.
Jason Concepcion See from that.
Jason Mantzoukas Same thought. Yes.
Jason Concepcion I bet you they did. Yeah, right. They had to. It just so much easier.
Rosie Knight So clean. Yeah. Like this does not look rushed. This looks like you literally are seeing tens of people flying through and they don’t have very recognizable suit.
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah, they don’t have a lot of flying from past seasons. That’s a brand new thing. So but they have a ton of metal suited character flying through the air. So. Yeah, yeah, sure.
Rosie Knight Some of this is in a very similar position to that kind of Superman.
Jason Concepcion I bet you it’s Iron Man three assets fight and fight where Tony’s fighting like all the suit.
Rosie Knight In my multiple Iron Man’s.
Jason Mantzoukas We cracked it, guys. We cracked it.
Jason Concepcion We did. We figured it out.
Rosie Knight That is true fact, cannon. And absolutely happened.
Jason Concepcion So the the mandalorians are heading towards the planet and just then the T.I.E. bomber’s T.I.E. fighters come up and they start attacking the ship. We’re ax Wolves is heroically piloting the ship without any kind of ulterior motive.
Rosie Knight Hold of energy as he’s going to do it, he gonna crash.
Jason Concepcion It. He is absolutely loyal to the cause. And again, I’m so sorry Axe WOves.
Jason Mantzoukas Honestly. Axe Wolves. Thank you for your service.
Rosie Knight Actually, we apologize, but I would like to put the blame for our suspect. Like suspecting you very directly on whoever chose to name the last episode, Despise. Just saying
Jason Concepcion Wait. So I guess let’s talk about this. So what were the spies then? Are five. And Jessica, I.
Rosie Knight Wonder if the spies are like the Imperial remnant who are still, you know, the Zoom call. Okay. The Imperials Zoom. I wonder if it was them?
Jason Mantzoukas That I think it’s I mean, it doesn’t it doesn’t add up because I mean, because I feel like we all have spent so much time theorizing in and trying to figure it out and came up with. And we we owe also an apology to the Night Owls and.
Jason Concepcion Yeah.
Rosie Knight Very true. Very true.
Jason Mantzoukas AS oh, well, don’t they know exactly what trap to bring everybody in doing all right but you know everybody’s like.
Rosie Knight Apologize to The Armorer. She was up there.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, she was on to something.
Rosie Knight She literally committed her whole life to rebuilding the Mandalorian. And we were like, Oh, guess who knows how to make beskar armor.
Jason Mantzoukas Yes.
Rosie Knight That would be useful for Gideon.
Jason Mantzoukas Guess who’s selling out our people? The Armorer. But I will say once again, and I. Listen. I love this show. This is like one of my show of lovely show, But I would have liked for one of these things to be true because I would have liked one more layer of double crosses or all that. Just surprises. That’s what I was looking for.
Jason Concepcion And make it the Night Owls. I say. Because Axe, I get it. Like he’s almost too suspicious of the Night Owls. We just met these guys. That’s fine. Yeah. Yeah.
Rosie Knight Also as well, you would have had a definite narrative satisfaction to show how Axe was really heroic and then pull the rug from underneath you and go oh actually, it wsa them.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, it would have been fun, but that’s okay. Back at the base, there’s some really classic Star Wars stuff happening now. You got Dean and Grogu sneaking around an imperial base. It’s just like the old days. You have an R unit hacking in guiding them along the way. They come to this. The tunnel that we saw Moff Gideon emerge from when he went to go take that zoom call, which is protected by a series of laser shields which are five needs to open one at a time. And it’s and it’s the fight that unfurls here where, you know, din has to be like, okay, now open the next gate where he and and then he’s going to fight two dark troopers there and then open in the next one. He’s going to fight two dark troops, very reminiscent of the Jinn Obi-Wan Maul duel from the Phantom Menace. At least the visual.
Jason Mantzoukas Using those shields.
Rosie Knight Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I feel like the Reds, I feel like this again is feeling very Last Jedi. I feel like there was a lot of Last Jedi echoes here with the obviously the Pretorian guards and everything, but the reds and the kind of like you got to fight a couple of troopers in this very dynamic way. I was a fan of this fight. It was a cool idea.
Jason Mantzoukas I liked a lot of the fights I like. Yeah, this this episode I thought had good a good variety of fire, huh? You know, Big Sky, we like dogfight stuff. Yeah. Practical on the ground, hand-to-hand, the Bo-Katan fight with the darksaber and and whatever Moff Gideon’s staff is called, I’m not sure, but, you know, I really liked the variety of stuff that this episode.
Jason Concepcion And everybody got to watch a little ass. And like, whenever we went back to The Armorerin the sky, just molly wopping Dark Troopers, I was like, Wow, that was that’s really cool. And I love.
Jason Mantzoukas That. Armor is never like, you know what? For this, give me a hammer and tongs.
Rosie Knight That’s not happening.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, yeah. Give me the barbecue. The barbecue tools, and I’m going to town.
Rosie Knight It’s also nice that they built up this idea of these Mandalorian partially Mandalorian armored troopers and then actually showed us them using their Mandalorian armor and mandalorian weapons. That could have been very easy to skip over. But we really got that in Din with, like, the little lessoons that shoot out and everything, that was very fun.
Jason Mantzoukas Oh, yeah. And Moff Gideon had like the rockets that shoot out of his head, the classic the Whispering Angels or whatever. Not with Oh, my God, Pleas, that’s the Rose. That’s the Rose. Please make it those. What were they called? The whispering Birds. What were they?
Jason Concepcion The whispering birds, right? Yeah, Whispering birds.
Jason Mantzoukas Something like that. Man, I wish it was called Whispering Angels. And they just had.
Rosie Knight That would be really sick.
Jason Mantzoukas A delightful little sip of rosé that came along with them.
Jason Concepcion Meanwhile, our five has to escape a gang of mouse droids who.
Rosie Knight Loved that moment.
Jason Concepcion Getting in his face because he likes.
Jason Mantzoukas Police sirens on them.
Rosie Knight Yeah. I like that. Like a one came up and he shocked me that this came up and he was just like, I need backup. And he just flew up scomped away.
Jason Concepcion Inside the command center, Dina nd Grogu find all of Gideon’s clones. He’s been cloning himself, apparently to give himself versions of himself the force.
Rosie Knight Yes, he really wants the force.
Jason Concepcion One of them.
Rosie Knight Session.
Jason Concepcion Gives poor baby Grogu a mighty scare. And this was.
Rosie Knight Classic eye opening scare, looking in the tank, boom.
Jason Concepcion And so Din is like, Fuck these clones. They all got to die, and he just kills them all.
Rosie Knight How dare you scare my son?
Jason Concepcion . The Night Owls then lead who again? Hearty apology. I’m sorry. Then lead Bo
Jason Mantzoukas Then can I interrupt you? I’m so sorry,Jason.
Jason Concepcion Please.
Jason Mantzoukas I like you question only because I feel like this beat where we see the Moff Gideon’s clone process. All of the tanks are full of moff Gideon clones, right? And so I feel like this is a real change from what I have thought we’ve been building towards all this time, which is Moff. Gideon wanted Grogu’s blood so that he could participate in the making of Snoke, and then ultimately a force sensitive Palpatine. Yeah, but this seems to say no, that is not the case. He was using Pershing to use Grogu’s blood to make for sensitive Moff Gideon’s.
Jason Concepcion I think that’s right.
Rosie Knight True.
Jason Concepcion Yeah.
Rosie Knight I do not think it takes away from. It’s just a little bit of a diversion. I believe the people who are Project Necromancer, who he has been hiding this from will inevitably find out he did this and the technology will be used.
Jason Mantzoukas But it just pushes it back a little. Yeah, pushes it back a little. They’re going to take all this and then use it to make exactly that.
Jason Concepcion That is it. That feels right. And I also say on that Zoom call, they kind of get in Moff Gideon’s ass for like using Pershing for stuff that is not related to Snoke. And later on Palpatine. It feels like because it’s like you you took Pershing and you were doing all this weird stuff, and.
Rosie Knight He’s like, I don’t even like cloning. And that’s why you’re crazy.
Jason Concepcion Clone guy after you just walked.
Jason Mantzoukas Through a room of cloning. Like, he’s like, what? Cloning? What are you talking about?
Rosie Knight My favorite thing about this is like, I get it. It is almost too big to just immediately commit to kind of retconning And expanding on the sequel trilogies as we thought it was going to most directly do. But it is actually a very hilarious motivation when you really think about is just some guy who was like, Well, I just want some force sensitive clone versions of myself to make an army of me’s. And everyone’s like, What would this doesn’t have anything to do with Palpatine? And he’s like, Just some more sensitive Moff Gideon.
Jason Concepcion Can I ask one more question? Obviously, like, his plan was to create an army of clones. Are all the guys in the dark trooper him? It’s like all the all the dark trooper dudes. Moff Gideon.
Jason Mantzoukas I don’t. I mean, you mean non force sensitive Moff Gideon Yeah.
Rosie Knight I would say since he stayed sedated.
Jason Mantzoukas In making clones, right? But they’re just regular clones, right?
Jason Concepcion These are the beta clones. Non force version
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah, that would be interesting. My guess is they’re just storm troopers who are loyal to him, although he does mention well, but I was surprised by is that he said this is the new evolution of the dark trooper. And the dark troopers were robots, right? They were droids. Yeah. So but these are definitely people in suits, for sure. Yeah.
Jason Concepcion These are guys for sure. A lot of a lot to think about. And it’s it is funny that you bring it up Jason, because he’s that he directly says, well, you’re the one obsessed with cloning. Yeah hold on Now it emerges that you were just like cloning yourself.
Jason Mantzoukas It’s like a classic neg. He’s blown.
Rosie Knight Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas He’s negging the shadow council.
Jason Concepcion It’s great. X-ray Vision. We’ll be back.
Speaker 3 <AD>
Jason Concepcion And we’re back. So the Night Owls lead Bo and the Warriors to these garden caves that they’ve beautiful living and beautiful teeming with plant life. And again, we’re sorry to them. These guys have been living in caves, eating moss.
Jason Mantzoukas And I’m.
Jason Concepcion Doubting them.
Rosie Knight How is this going to go bad? Yeah. I’m like, Oh, this cave looks really small. Hard to fight your way out of that when they inevitably turn on you.
Jason Concepcion So The Armorer radios in and she’s like, okay, guess what? The cavalry’s here. We’re here. Let’s do this and Bo is like, let’s take back our planet. Love it. They all scream for Moff Gideon And then we get this delirious airborne battle that may or may not be taken from assets from Iron Man three. And I have to say, this is I’m sitting here watching this, and it is it looks great. It looks amazing. All like The Armorerswinging away, like, Bo with the dark saber out. We’ve never actually seen anything like thisin Star Wars, like jetpack to jetpack battling, certainly not on this scale. Yeah, not at this scale.
Rosie Knight This definitely makes me believe we were talking about the likelihood of which Star Wars projects would go on to become real. That this sequence and the amount that they committed to The Armorer and the Iron Man three assets makes me think that the like allegedly the Dave Filoni wrap up of this live action kind of Mando versus Ahsoka verse, this really upped my expectation of actually making it to the big screen.
Jason Mantzoukas Oh, I’m on board for that 100%. Like yeah I mean imagine imagine a big huge dogfight space battle or sky battle between ships and mandalorians in the sky.
Rosie Knight Landing on the ships.
Jason Mantzoukas Puts Sabine Wren in there. Let’s go. Please. Put theGhost in there. Let’s go. Come on.
Rosie Knight I’d love to see it.
Jason Concepcion So Din and Grogu find Gideon and Gideon is whining about his fucking clone.
Rosie Knight The clone he doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about, By the way.
Jason Concepcion My clone, my fucking clones. You swallow them before they could take their first bite. Shut up.
Rosie Knight No one cares bro.
Jason Concepcion I have one geography question here. So didn’t grow Go They get the location to the command center. They go through the laser guarded hallway to get to it and then they find Gideon standing on what is basically we later find out. Right. Because as the fight unfolds, Bo looks down and sees them fighting. They end up like on the spaceport, you know, on the side of the chasm. It’s open to the air. Why did we have to? Why didn’t Din just fly down there?
Jason Concepcion Is that like.
Rosie Knight Maybe he’d run out of gas?
Jason Mantzoukas I, I fully agree. The other thing, there’s a little bit of confusion there, too, which is he’s they get the information from R5. We got to find Moff Gideon’s office. Right, right, right. Bang! Here it is. We’re going to. We’re on our way. They go through the gates and everything. Moff Gideon we’ve seen in his office, he looks at a thing where Grogu and the Madalorian who have who have individual dots on the thing.
Jason Concepcion One with a blue and blue and green. Yeah. Beautiful.
Jason Mantzoukas I love that they have the ability to have a green and a red dot on screen moving exactly when they move. But there’s no video surveillance in the entire base.
Rosie Knight Yes. Yes. That’s the one of the best.
Jason Mantzoukas But most thing Moff Gideon leaves his eye and he’s like, Don’t worry, I’ll deal with them. He likes his office.
Jason Concepcion He does. Where’s the office, guys? Anyway
Rosie Knight Which part is the actual office?
Jason Concepcion So then we get this big fight between Moff Gideon and Din, and I have to. I have to hand it to Moff. Gideon Moff. Gideon can ball, man. Moff Gideon gives Din everything he can handle, and then is, like, so confident that he just throws Din over to the pretorians and is like, you take it. I’m not even going to get my sweat up because I can so easily kick this guy’s ass.
Rosie Knight Yeah, I mean, the suit definitely has hydraulics in it or something, right? He gets it. So it’s an extreme version of anything that we’ve seen before.
Jason Mantzoukas I felt like they purposefully put in like these servo engines in the sounds of his suit is like has more strength than just for sure. Yeah. It’s not him powering the suit. It’s the suit has power of its own. That’s why he’s so easily able to wipe the floor with Din Djarin and Bo-katan, unfortunately.
Jason Concepcion And Grogu, who, of course, cannot stand the sight of his dad getting about to get executed by these pretorians, which is when Grogu cries, it is visceral and it hits me so deeply.
Rosie Knight Give that Foley artist some serious money.
Jason Concepcion It’s unbelievable. I just find myself being like, How do they make this sound? What? How do they make his eyes so wet?
Rosie Knight He’s in a place inside you, a feral protective place.
Jason Mantzoukas Well, then it does.
Jason Concepcion It’s amazing .
Jason Mantzoukas Trigger a response in me, which is. Oh, no. Why is he here?
Jason Concepcion Yeah, why.
Rosie Knight Everytime. I also feel like we are going to cover that? And even more excited that of this leaves me with more questions about Dean’s parenting skills. But yet, why is he there?
Jason Concepcion Because they have to take Moff Gideon.
Rosie Knight That he’s dead, just like the baby in The Armorer’s. He can handle it inside out.
Jason Concepcion He’s worth too much money. Hw can handle himself.
Jason Mantzoukas Send him up to the ship with the traitor, Axe Woves. Yes.
Rosie Knight In a little Baby Bjorn, Axe will look after him.
Jason Concepcion So Grogu, tries to intervene. But then the pretorians are like, Oh, this guy’s washed. Let’s kill the baby first, because we can come back to this. Yeah. And they pursue Grogu who is recoiling and afraid. And it is so heart wrenching to like the side room and now Din seeing this happens like, oh my God, like, no, this can’t happen. Gideon is shooting him in the back, lasoing him around the neck. And as all of this is happening, Din is powerless to watch. The blast doors close with the three pretorians in there with this little baby son. But Grogu, again, made it. I don’t. I wouldn’t do it this way, but maybe didn’t knows what he’s doing. Grogu can handle himself. He flips out of the IG mech, which is getting cut to pieces.
Rosie Knight I also love that they were like throughout this season we were like, Wow, we need a count of how many times this baby flips because they are like establishing that the baby can flip. And when they go to this episode where he flipped himself on to like the lighting rig, I was like, Oh, that’s why they kept reminding us he could flip.
Jason Concepcion He can flip baby.
Jason Mantzoukas They got. It’s a that’s another they’ve got it’s control option F and it just it just inserts a flip.
Jason Concepcion But meanwhile Bo who is fighting up in that you know, all the dark troopers up in the sky looks down sees Moff Gideon down there fighting Din, you know, and it’s like, oh, there’s Moff Gideon office. And she flies down to join the fray. Now it’s Gideon with verse bow. And again you have to say it, have to hand it to Gideon. Nobody can take him. He then wipes the floor with Bo, and all I have to say is we need the Mandalorians need to study what Moff Gideon did with The Armorer.
Rosie Knight I’m saying, out of all of the technology, look, we know that this technology is going to end up in the imperial hands, and we’re going to get somehow Palpatine returned. But what I want to know is, why didn’t anyone take the technology of the suit? Because we have never seen anything like this in Star Wars.
Jason Concepcion Maybe it’s against their religion to, like, mess, augment the strength with this.
Rosie Knight Yeah, but like the empire anyways.
Jason Mantzoukas That Finn wearing one of these suits.
Rosie Knight Thank you. Thank you.
Jason Mantzoukas Thank, you. Know, like, why aren’t you. Why aren’t the stormtroopers of the new Era New Order? Is that what the FirstOorder. First Order, yeah. The first are why aren’t. The first thing. It’s not the band New Order.
Rosie Knight That’s what I.
Jason Mantzoukas Mean.
Jason Concepcion Why was it? Why was Captain Phasma so easy to take down? You know, it.
Rosie Knight Seems like a prime example. The suit is very Phasma evocative.
Jason Concepcion So in the side room now, because Bo is taking.
Rosie Knight The side office.
Jason Concepcion The side office, because Bo is getting her ass whooped by Moff, Gideon, Dean and Grogan to team up to stomp out the Pretorians Grogu’s force abilities are really, really evolved now. Also, he’s quite nimble. Yes, he does.
Rosie Knight We see a Kermit the Frog.
Jason Concepcion Running, running across the lighting fixtures there.
Rosie Knight Okay, so I want to ask you guys a question. Yeah. His force has evolved. But. I’m guessing. What do you think? What? He doesn’t choke anyone out. He used to be just.
Jason Concepcion Throwing people around.
Rosie Knight Now he’s kind of moving people with the force. Do you think that’s because he studied with the Jedi? Like he learned not to use the dark side?
Jason Concepcion They were like, Yeah, that’s dark. That’s dark material. Lightning and chokes. Please don’t do lightning or choke because he needs to be a.
Rosie Knight Powerful force choker.
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah, well, he was just. I felt like in the past, he was operating from just instinct. He was he was operating just from emotion, rather. I think he was just things were happening around him and he was just reactive. But now he’s been you know, what did Favreau say that that two years. Yeah, he was with Luke for two years or something like that.
Rosie Knight He’s harnessed the force now
Jason Mantzoukas So he’s done some Yeah, he’s done more. And what we get out of it is he can move stuff with the force and flip and I.
Rosie Knight Recall running my little Muppet Running?
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah. Oh, my God. The little. The little. Little Kermit feeling really great.
Rosie Knight Makes me so happy when I see a puppet with legs.
Jason Concepcion I absolutely love it. So they they take out the Pretorians and then go to.
Jason Mantzoukas By the way, love seeing the Pretorians.
Rosie Knight It was really cool, very exciting.
Jason Concepcion They can absolutely handle themselves.
Rosie Knight One of the best contemporary Star Wars visualizations and creations that really scary and their weapons are so cool.
Jason Concepcion They’re really, really cool.
Jason Mantzoukas And also a great evolution of of something that in the in those in the old movies was just.
Jason Concepcion There just.
Jason Mantzoukas Isn’t that cool Those guys are red. Oh, isn’t that neat. What a great I had the figurine. What a great figure. What a great name, what a great Kenner figurine or whatever I had. And then the boom.
Rosie Knight It’s the Boba Fett, It looks like a cool design, but what is it?
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah. And then in In Last Jedi, they come in and are just so that scene is maybe my.
Rosie Knight Favorite station is one of my all time favorite.
Jason Mantzoukas One of my fave. Yeah.
Rosie Knight It’s such a great contemporary reintroduction. And to get to see them here again and showcase that brutality and that fight is just so good.
Jason Concepcion I wonder if it the ornamental nature of the Pretorians in the original trilogy isn’t just because Palpatine was such a bad as he didn’t really need them. It was like, Just get me any guy. Well, he was so.
Rosie Knight Powerful with the force. Like nobody even knew that he was up to that bodyguard.
Jason Concepcion Like, who’s getting into this room anyway? So then they go to they go to help Bo, Moff Gideon fighting Bo, has her at his mercy, crushes the darksaber in his mighty armored up hand, which is here’s a thousands of years old artifact, one of the most important objects in Star Wars history. I think you could fairly say legendary.
Rosie Knight And one of the most powerful artifacts in the canon.
Jason Concepcion If they got to fix it. Right.
Rosie Knight I’m like, Was that a fake? Did she show me?
Jason Concepcion Because it was it had to have it had the heaviness to it. It had that runkiness that it’s got to be real.
Rosie Knight It was almost like he crushed the blade, which I just can’t sort of comprehend how he’d even be able to do it.
Jason Mantzoukas I was surprised again because I felt like the story had been telling me, He wants this blade back bad
Jason Concepcion Yeah, right.
Jason Mantzoukas It meant it meant something to him that he had it. It meant something to him, that he wanted it back and that it seemed so easy for him to just crush it and be like the darksaber is broken. Yeah.
Rosie Knight It’s so true. Because if we think about it, he kept talking in the last episode about how he wanted to be the leader of my.
Jason Concepcion Give me the dark saber.
Give me the Darksaber. I can lead Mandalore I’ve made these Nightmare Mandolore Iron Man suit. So let’s do it. Let’s see what that was. And he just. He just crushed it.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, I know. That was until his favorite clones. Yeah. Got trash, got thrown in the trash.
Rosie Knight Like this is a temper tantrum. Yes, He’s smashing his toys. I mean.
Jason Concepcion The way he says my clones. He’s so mad about it.
Jason Mantzoukas What’s interesting, I mean, is Jedi, I feel like throughout their history are constantly losing breaking lightsabers all the time and then are having to go and remake a new one, get another kyber crystal, you know, build their lights so that you get all these different light sabers that different people are carrying. But it seems as though the legend of the Darksaber is this is the one.
Jason Concepcion That’s.
Rosie Knight Highlander rule. It can be any one. Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah. This is the single one that’s been going for, I don’t know, thousands of years. It’s it’s a visual, right? Yes, it’s, it’s Yeah. Okay.
Rosie Knight But you, you might be on to something actually, because a lot of what we’ve talked about with the show is how we feel like with Grogu and Din, it’s this idea of like the Jedi and the Mandalorian coming together in these two schools of thought. Maybe because Bo’s always kind of been a rebel. Maybe we will see how go on a journey to rebuild the Darksaber.
Jason Concepcion I think that.
Rosie Knight And create a new version or a new version.
Jason Mantzoukas So I think so just because it’s cool, I think it’s cool. And I think I think I think they didn’t do anything to in breaking it. They didn’t do anything to me that didn’t feel like, oh, it can be repaired and it still has meaning.
Rosie Knight And you know, you still have like the handle. Yeah. So you got something to go on from the original.
Jason Concepcion So the darksaber is gone. Bo’s helmetless, Moff Gideon punches it across the room. Meanwhile, Axe Woves is radioing in and he’s like, guys, I’m about to 9/11 the base. Okay, I’m coming in. I’m coming in hot. There’s flames coming with this capitol ship. I’m aiming it straight to the base. So now there’s a clock ticking on this little fight here.
Rosie Knight Also can I ask you, is that the ship, the at least 25,000 people spent a ton of paint on painting that bloody.
Jason Concepcion 500 million gallons of paint.
Rosie Knight Do not tell anyone who’s who. Three generations of theirt family spent painting that.
Jason Mantzoukas I think it’s a it took it took 30 years to paint that.
Rosie Knight Literally.
Jason Mantzoukas And it also makes it impossible to use that ship covertly.
Rosie Knight Yeah. You always know who’s coming.
Jason Mantzoukas Oh, that’s an imperial ship. You can’t sneak in anywhere. It’s like, Oh, it’s the Imperial. Oh, wait. No, it’s the Mandalorian.
Jason Concepcion Oh, it’s the Mandalorian. We had the big.
Rosie Knight Somebody had, like, force sensitivity that was letting them know the future. And they were like, Oh, the ship’s only going to last like, two weeks after we finished painting it. So let’s just go ham.
Jason Concepcion So Moff Gideon After crushing the dark terrorist Mandalorians are weak, once they lose their trinkets and Bo says, No, no, no, mainlanders are stronger together and here comes din and grogu to help out. But I mean, I got to say it again, even they altogether are really struggling to handle Gideon who is like throwing them around eating blaster shots to the face Grogu who is like pushing him with the force. He’s still hanging on. It’s very, very tough.
Rosie Knight Grogu needed to be a little bit more rough here with his forces. That’s my feeling.
Jason Concepcion It is only the devastating impact of the Capitol ship, followed by what could only what I only imagine is a massive nuclear explosion that finally takes down Moff Gideon. But you wonder, what about our heroes? What happened to them? Well, and in what can only be described as a impressive.
Rosie Knight Even saving infinite.
Jason Concepcion Force display, Grogu, who has kept them safe inside this force bubble as the nuclear fires swirl all around them. The good guys. When Jason, you were saying.
Jason Mantzoukas Oh, no, I was just saying it. I feel like they are powering and powering grow goo throughout the series.
Rosie Knight Very much.
Jason Mantzoukas You know, in the sense that like in season one, he can literally freeze a mud horn in midair that is fully charging forward. And here he can’t seem to knock Moff Gideon off of a ledge. You know what I mean? And that’s that’s a bit it’s there’s a bit of confusion for me there as to how strong is he and when does he decide to exhibit it. And obviously this you’re right, there takes a profound amount of force to hold them safe in a bubble while the fire rages around them. But, you know, I was also like, this is a wild this is wild.
Jason Concepcion What’s happening? Let me give let me proffer a theory here. We what we just mentioned, how instinctively Grogu was force choking folks. And his push is certainly or quite powerful, but certainly not powerful enough to move Moff Gideon, what if what if Luke’s whole thing was like, okay, you know, light side of the force? It’s defensive mainly, yes. So when he’s strongest, when he is defending the people he loves.
Rosie Knight Because that’s what he’s been trained as. I just want to say this sums up the problem for me, and I have just want to say I have a rebellion, too. I love Jedi. I grew up in stars, but I have issues with the Jedi culture, right? Like and the way that they like, train children for war, etc.. But like this to me is a problem. You spend two years with one of the most famous Jedi in the world and he basically de powers you because like of the right way to use the force. This is why I know it’s not kind of but gray Jedi That space where you can play with both sides I think is so powerful. I think that you are probably right and that Luke taught Grogu to harness it for defensiveness. But I feel like protecting his dad, he still has that love for him and that power. I feel like I was expecting to see him do more. I love to see him do a little.
Jason Concepcion So it was it was very, very cool. You know, Kane and Jarrus could never. And also so. All right.
Jason Mantzoukas Ri.I.P. allegedly.
Jason Concepcion I don’t know why I said that, I’m so sorry to Kanan. You’re like.
Jason Mantzoukas How dare you?. How dare you?
Jason Concepcion YIt felt bad as it came out of my mouth.
Jason Mantzoukas How dare you malign Caleb Doom.
Jason Concepcion I know? Sorry, sorry, sorry. But I will say one thing like. Then the bubble, like he brings it down after the 30 seconds. There’s no way that you could bring it down after. You’d probably be in there for like 30 minutes.
Jason Mantzoukas He’s way more.
Rosie Knight Way more oxygen in the air would be burning him up.
Jason Concepcion The radioactive debris. Like everything.
Rosie Knight I did, I did love one of my favorite moments. Like, visually, it’s such a good, funny little gag is like bow trying to protect them with that tiny shield and just like, oh, I like good for you, Bow. But it was never going to happen. No, definitely not safe. Unless Kroger is like force filtering the air.
Jason Concepcion I mean, it was definitely like 30 seconds and he was like, Oh, we can separate the.
Jason Mantzoukas Light cruiser.
Rosie Knight Literally.
Jason Mantzoukas Crashes into.
Jason Concepcion Ten feet away from them.
Jason Mantzoukas Yes, they can. See. See, that’s the thing is if they were in Moff Gideon’s office, like tucked in, tucked into the mountain somewhere, I’d be like, okay, the blast, they could shield themselves from the blast, but they are watching the light cruiser descend in front of them. It’s cool. Yeah. It makes no sense that they are left not just alive, but fully unscathed.
Jason Concepcion Later on, The Armorerblesses in a new generation over at the living quarters. That includes our friend Grogu.
Rosie Knight Who was that Raganar? Who she was blessing yes, that is right.
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah, it was. She was
Rosie Knight She has a story about your dad.
Jason Mantzoukas Never. Never. Yeah, it’s Ragnar, but I know both because of his helmet and also because I watch everything with closed captioning. And. And when he spoke. When he spoke, he was credited.
Rosie Knight Because I was like, Oh I see. So they’re like, well, your dad’s dead, so now you’re going to get adopted into the Mandalorian. This is the way you also. Sorry, I just, this is actually from last episode, but I do need to say this because it relates to them adopting babies. What happened to the bird dragons Because they did eat them right? One of our amazing Discord users found a screengrab of them roasting the baby bird dragon things that Bo saved when she was like, I’ve got found wings. So I guess if you’re tasty, I don’t know.
Jason Concepcion A humanoid that night that everybody that night that all the tribes got together and they were like, Hey, we got we’ll make you dinner. It was the, they ate the babies.
Jason Mantzoukas It’s it’s it’s it’s either got to be that that would be incredible that would be so incredible. You know it would be incredible is if next season because we all were like, you know what? Guess what these mandalorians are going to be riding.
Rosie Knight These are going.
Jason Concepcion The birds are going to be wearing cool helmets.
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah, these these are going to be their mounts for when they retake mandalore and blah blah, blah. And wouldn’t it be funny if they did do that next season? But there was only two. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They, they just ate the one.
Rosie Knight I guess Ragnar should be feeling lucky that they didn’t just eat and when bombastic.
Jason Concepcion So din din steps up and is like okay my my foundling grow I think you know we he beat moff Gideon saved Bo and put.
Rosie Knight Him in.
Jason Concepcion My lives. Yeah. Let’s, let’s make him a true apprentice now and baptize him in and then in what can only be described as an ablest policy. But The Armorer is like, Well, he can’t speak so terrible.
Rosie Knight That’s a logical cyber.
Jason Concepcion Although I will say it from a positive point of view. It is also clear to me from the armors of voice performance and excellent voice performance, that what The Armorerwas trying to do was to get Din to formally adopt Grogu.
Rosie Knight And it is also, I think like a a matter of consent. She doesn’t want someone to just be born into the Mandalorian faction who can’t agree that he wants to be there, though it’s very clear that Grogu I mean, his.
Jason Concepcion The way his face falls when it’s like, Sorry, you can’t speak. He’s just like, Oh, I was like, Come on, let him.
Rosie Knight I was like, I was like, is he going to, like, do the Creed and Yoda speak? Like, is he going to do it back? Are we going to see the baby talk? I didn’t see where it was going.
Jason Mantzoukas Rosie, I thought I had at one point they at one point close up on him right when he it’s right when it’s right when normally he would talk the way because they’re saying he can’t talk. You can’t talk, he can’t talk. And then they close up on him and I was like, ah, is he about to talk about if he talks, I’m going to fucking flip.
Jason Concepcion If he says.
Jason Mantzoukas You know.
Rosie Knight The way this is. Yeah. He says.
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah, oh my God I, I’m curious what you, what you both think. I do not want grogu to talk period.
Jason Concepcion I think that I right now know and I think obviously, you know, like the Yoda was 900, so we got actually 50 years before.
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah. I was going to say and groggily is what now when they say he was 50 when they got him. So now he’s 52, 53 years old. Okay. So you think in the last three years he’s had.
Rosie Knight Exactly, you know.
Jason Mantzoukas For a being related to 900?
Rosie Knight He’s he’s the baby. We love the baby also as well. That can be something they can wake up to. Any inevitably shows up in the Rey movie as one of her Jedi students. Like somewhere down the line, we maybe.
Jason Mantzoukas To be clear, I have no problem.
Jason Concepcion You know I mean I’m fine.
Rosie Knight Keep it. I’m fine. It. Keep it, the baby.
Jason Concepcion So Grogu is rechristened Din, Grogu, a Madolorian, a Mandalorian apprentice now Din and Din Jr as part of the apprenticeship have to travel the space race together as as din Djarin shows his newly adopted son din. The ways of the Mandalorian so that he can become a full fledged Mandalorian. And as this is happening, the missus saw, which is slumbering below the waters, opens its eyes. There’s this wonderfully emotional moment where Bo relates the great forge in The Mandalorian to that great big cheer. Led by Axe Woves. We’re sorry we ever doubted you
Rosie Knight Okay, So. So when the baby just before the Mythosaur wakes up, the baby looks into the water and almost like touches it with the force, like he knows the mythosaur’s down there.
Jason Mantzoukas He can sense. He can sense the mythosaur down there. And I think that’s why the mythosaur opens its eyes as if it is right. I don’t know. He or sent.
Rosie Knight The baby something.
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah. Yes. So should we presume? Although, I guess Grogu, who has had has had contact with other animals. Some sort of like. So that maybe he has a the force allows him to connect with this mythosaur. And I did really think we would get more mythosaur.
Jason Concepcion I was surprised.
Rosie Knight I thought that the Mandalorian being back on Mandalore, I thought we would see Bo on the myth, the saw with the Darksaber fighting. I feel.
Jason Mantzoukas Like the same and I feel like all of you know, all of the chatter around the watching of the show successfully wrote a shadow version of the season that I’m very intrigued by where The Armorer or Axe Woves are duplicitous double agents, where the minute the sword comes out and Bo-katan gets to write it like all this stuff that I’m like, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rosie Knight Time to team up for our fanfic.
Jason Concepcion I will say that it’s the, you know, a lot probably happens off screen, obviously, but it does also seem as if. Either A) Bo is not really shared, the myths are news or B), the mandalorians are just kind of underwhelmed about the mythosaur is back like I. Can we talk about this?
Rosie Knight Yeah, my gut says I believe the shadow version of this was at least probably kicked about at least the bit about the mythical being in the final episode. Now we know that there’s going to be a movie. I think you save that for the movie. Who’s going to ride the myth this or is it going to be both? I think Grogu is rising up the mythosaur riding ranks now that he’s.
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah, I agree. And you also have to figure the mythosaur done right? That’s a very expensive VFX.
Rosie Knight Oh, exactly. Very, very. And it’s like something that canon and wise and the amount of time that we’ve heard about it but never seen it to really have the reveal is huge. And even though a finale of a big TV show like this would be a great place, I can understand why they’d want people to see that on IMAX in the most expensive way.
Jason Mantzoukas Honestly, maybe why we didn’t see those birds again is because they are. Yeah, they’re absolutely digital. And if they’re not doing something integral to what’s going on, then why are we going away? Why burn the money on them?
Jason Concepcion Mm hmm. Now, you could potentially take some of the Scott Lang Giant Man assets from, you know, no?.
Jason Mantzoukas From Quantum Mania?
Jason Concepcion From Quantum Mania or from the from Endgame. Okay.
Rosie Knight So I was going to say.
Jason Concepcion And reskinned it for Mythosaur.
Rosie Knight Yeah, I think that’ll be really easy. No, no Harm said. I have no idea. Okay, so what about this, then? If we’re talking about reusing assets, will the asset of grow go saving them in? Moff Gideon office. Is that going to be used when we first sees the storm? It will just be the same bubble.
Jason Concepcion Oh, wow.
Rosie Knight That’s like the trade back.
Jason Mantzoukas And that would be great. Yeah, let’s do it. They are.
Rosie Knight Definitely. They’re definitely testing out how to do the Fantastic Four powers in these in these movies and shows.
Jason Concepcion I will say I did sense small moments where you could kind of put your finger on a moment where it’s like, okay, here is where they tried to save money. You know, like when Bo is leading the charge, she ignites the Darksaber has it out. They only showed like her hand and about an inch of the handle like that, which is a weird shot, right? To not show.
Rosie Knight Like an Arthurian style moment where they just go.
Jason Concepcion Hey, save us five grand and don’t show the whole world.
Rosie Knight Get to go home on time today. Just. Just to blow by the sword.
Jason Concepcion So then didn’t go good. Go and visit our good friend, Captain Teva.
Rosie Knight Love to see him.
Jason Concepcion Love to see him at the tropical New World.
Jason Mantzoukas But boy, did I want to Zeb there. I knew when I.
Rosie Knight Brought you already down your.
Jason Mantzoukas Way. All I wanted, I’d like screamed. Please let Zeb meet Grogu all I want.
Jason Concepcion Oh, my God.
Jason Mantzoukas I wanted was for Zeb to meet Grogu in the bar. Please.
Rosie Knight Just give him a little, like, nod while the baby’s, like, eating his snacks or something.
Jason Concepcion So The New Republic is, of course, stoked that the Mando’s took out Gideon. And for free, like the cost them zero credits for this. And then Mando pitches a captain on it to even.
Rosie Knight Don’t even get me started.
Jason Concepcion He basically says, Listen, Grogu and I will hunt Imperials right off the books. Okay? This is not a New Republic operation, just you and me talking. You slide us some credits under the table. We’ll take care
Jason Mantzoukas We’ll do the wet work with me and my child. You’ll be assassins.
Jason Concepcion My baby will.
Rosie Knight I just want to say he pinches it as he says to him. I’ve got a baby now. I’ve got a son. I’ve got to do something. He’s like, I can’t be doing that dangerous stuff. I’m just going to become an assassin for Imperial, Imperial remnants and bring my child is more dangerous than being a bounty hunter.
Jason Concepcion Now, I wonder if what he was saying was, I can’t be doing this immoral bounty hunting anymore. It’s just like I’m bringing everybody in. I’m bringing everybody in droids.
Rosie Knight Yeah.
Jason Concepcion Different kind of aliens.
Rosie Knight They want to see just closeness and of the legitimacy of people.
Jason Concepcion That just, like, didn’t pay their parking tickets. Like, now what have I just go after people who are probably bad? I mean, they were talking about Imperial.
Jason Mantzoukas Yes. No, I think that’s funny because doesn’t he say something like, I want it? I can’t go back to being just a bounty hunter. It needs to matter or something like that. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Concepcion So and he says, listen, you can, you can in terms of payment which you are going to pay us because we are going to work for this, but you can give us an advance and that advances that age ahead that my son just spotted above your car, which is, by the way, quite horrific. Yeah, just have a droid anyway, and then closing the loop on the memory ship plotline.
Rosie Knight When we convert, let’s give an apology to Din because we really thought he was distracted.
Jason Concepcion We thought that they just had forgotten about the memory chip. But it’s back, back on Nevarro Greef, our good friend. Hi Magistrate Greef Karga gives Mando the keys and the deed to his beautiful new is really the piece of land. And by the way, with all the mandalorians back on Mandalore he now has like this.
Jason Mantzoukas That’s what I was wondering. Did he get the whole land that green right? Because that was such a weird moment in the in the season where they, they, they rescue or they save. Nevarro The Mandalorians intercede in Nevarro with the pirates. They are awarded this enormous piece of land and they immediately depart. They they’re given they’re given a
Rosie Knight Real estate and.
Jason Mantzoukas They’re given a home area to make their to make themselves at home. And they immediately go to retake Mandalore totally fine. But when they came back, did that where Din Djarin is or did did it was it was Greef cargo like, I’m so sorry, man. After you guys left, I gave that away. So I yeah, I’ve just got that little chasm right.
Jason Concepcion That was a deal for the existing Mandalorian people. Yeah, I’m sure you understand. Like, I have.
Rosie Knight Like, a thousand square feet.
Jason Concepcion I had to take some of that back, but no, I think that is all. I think that was a great deal of their land.
Rosie Knight I think it was. It does look like very barren in a bad way. But like, chill. That’s Spock.
Jason Mantzoukas Well, it’s very much like the end of a Western, you know, like it was very much like out on the plains. He kicks up his feet. He’s there’s even like, there’s even, like, you know, posts in front of the house that you would attach your horse
Rosie Knight And they do the the little face or the circle.
Jason Concepcion Circle thing. So then Mando says, Well, Greef, guess what? I have a gift for you. Check this out. And next thing we know, we see a refurbished IG 11.
Jason Mantzoukas First we see.
Rosie Knight The new Red paint.
Jason Mantzoukas First we see the Anzellons.
Jason Concepcion Anzellons, as you were, you know, worked very hard on this. Right. And here we see a refurbished IG 11 walking up saying, good evening, citizens. I am IG 11, your new marshal. I am here to serve and protect the city citizenry and the crowd goes wild. Greef Karga is cheering. And i just have to say what we’ve talked a lot about, the kind of questionable politics around droids here in this world. It is very funny to me that everybody is like we’ve lobotomized another droid, folks. He will only follow orders. This droid no longer has any free will, and everybody is just like, Yeah.
Rosie Knight Yeah, it’s especially fucked up because like Din literally was like, That’s my friend. That’s the only droid I trust. I need his memory chip back because I trust him. And then he was like, No, I don’t need him. Actually, you guys have him. He can just be all like, Please seven.
Jason Concepcion And he very specifically says, and I forget what the exact wording is, but IG11 basically says, Listen, I will just follow orders now. Yeah, I am not going to go and do weird things and bounty hunt on the side. I am just strictly the marshal and it’s great to see you. Big cheers from everybody. And listen, I guess we until more information emerges and we know exactly what was done with IG 11, we can’t really say. But it did feel a little weird.
Rosie Knight You know, they brought him back from the dead.
Jason Mantzoukas Well, it’s not a. Right? That’s what I couldn’t figure out was, though, like I didn’t need IG 11 to come back. Like I wasn’t frankly, I to me I that moment where IG 11 sacrifices himself so that they can escape the lava flow, etc., etc., I loved and was such an incredibly moving impact. So the idea that, oh, now we have to bring him back but not bring him back as the character we loved, but bring him back as a mind wiped like automaton. I was like, Yeah, I don’t quite get I feel like this also because it’s the last beat. I feel like we’re supposed to be like, Yeah, my guy, you know? And I was like, Yeah, why exactly.
Rosie Knight Is is especially weird because I didn’t even says to Teva, he says, you know, Oh, that reminds me of someone he used to. No. Yeah. So he even has that emotional thing. But then they just turn him into like, they is like, also. Wouldn’t you need a certain amount of sentience to be a marshal? That is not like a.
Jason Concepcion I mean, listen, we just watched two episodes of Grogu riding around in the carcass of Din’s professed friend.
Rosie Knight I’m telling you in his corpse, in his corpse, doing comedy beats for the soundboard. Yes, Yes. Yes. Yes. No.
Jason Mantzoukas How great would it have been if like IG 11 is there? Like I’m your new marshal? Well, thank you. People are whatever. And Grogu, who’s just killing at his chest, trying to get in, he.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, let me get let me in.
Rosie Knight He just pops out of the chest and he’s like, Yes, yes, yes. And it’s great, great.
Jason Concepcion Look, do get him a new little mech, because he really seemed to enjoy it and he took to it.
Rosie Knight Loved that mech.
Jason Concepcion He was very good at piling in it. And then we get to the end where, you know, obviously a very a wonderful Western beat. There’s so much classic Star Wars stuff here with, you know, all the kind of thematic beats. And then here leaning into the Western themes that have always been there, President of Star Wars we see at Home on the Range. Jason mentioned the post where you would tie up your horse.
Jason Mantzoukas Your blyrg. Tie up your blyrg.
Jason Concepcion Yeah. I ever blyrg.
Rosie Knight Grogu’s playing with a little frog in the creek. Definitely.
Jason Concepcion And then Din, you know, kicking up his feet, taking much needed rest and relaxation. And it felt like a very a hard and definitive end.
Rosie Knight I’m telling you, that’s how it felt to me.
Jason Concepcion This chapter of The Mandalorian. Who knows what comes after.
Jason Mantzoukas Well.
Jason Concepcion What do you think? Yeah, What do you think?
Jason Mantzoukas Well, I think you know, I think that, you know, this season and, you know, frankly and I love again, I love this show. I’ve loved spending all of this time, both watching these episodes, waiting until midnight every Tuesday night and and just rushing these episodes and being really engaged and delighted by so much of what they’ve done, confused and confounded at some of the other things that were done. Yes. But I definitely think that’s a lot of the kind of unevenness or or any of the kind of stuff that people have been confused by or or weren’t quite tracking were part and parcel of a much different version of the show this season. This season was definitively a heavily serialized narrative with one thrust of a story with lots of characters. And I feel like at the end when when The Armorer is like, now you have to The Armorer basically says, Now next season you can go on your adventures.
Rosie Knight Exactly.
Jason Mantzoukas And that’s what it is.
Rosie Knight You can have a villain of the week.
Jason Mantzoukas And I don’t think so. I think the set up is now they’re going to now they’re looking out. They don’t we’re not going to be like with them on Mandalore. We’re not going to be inside of that story anymore. I think that chapter is done and the next chapter will open up probably as it relates to them. My guess is Din and Grogu will be enlisted in the Asoka Rebels Live Action Rebels crew Thrawn narrative. Right? They’re going to somehow be sucked into that story that is the result of whatever happens in Ahsoka. That’s my hope.
Rosie Knight At least I think that’s true. So do you think and this is for both of you, like, do you think we’ll ever get another season called The Mandalorian? Because that’s not that’s well, I’m not sure if I think we’ll get Ahsoka I think this will tie in to it but you know is it going to be like Din and the baby? Is it going to be like Grogu? Is it?
Jason Mantzoukas I think just for marketing.
Rosie Knight Feels like the end.
Jason Mantzoukas I think just on a craven business level, The Mandalorian is too big a property like Yes, comparatively The Mandalorian is enormous and their flagship and is huge for them. Yeah. Versus a show that I know we all just were obsessed with. Andor my understanding is under-performed for them. So.
Rosie Knight Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas I think. They will keep putting they’ll make a Mandalorian show, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a season like this season at some point where a Mandalorian season is where Din and Grogu who are side characters again.
Rosie Knight Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see them, you know, rebuilding of Mandalore. Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas Or you see them inside of the Rebels crew doing something that they’re, you know, they’ve signed on to do with them. You know, they, they could be, they could both be, which I like. And this makes it a very creatively interesting show, which is you can tell individual stories. You can tell a case of the week, Monster of the Week stories for all. But then you can also make ensemble based shows in which Din and Grogu who are just part of a larger ensemble and that I love.
Rosie Knight Yeah.
Jason Concepcion Do we later find out that Din and Grogu were around for the big battles in the most recent Star Wars trilogy. How do they how do they eat, in your mind? Theorizing now, how do they explain away the lack of attendance in the big, big fight scenes from Grogu and Din?.
Rosie Knight I wonder if they build in some kind of story.
Jason Concepcion Because I ask because I. I was a little bit worried they were going to kill Din at the end.
Rosie Knight Me too
Jason Mantzoukas Oh, wow.
Jason Concepcion I was non zero worried.
Rosie Knight Like I had the fear just also as well. Like Pedro’s busy.
Jason Concepcion The comments about the comments from the showrunners about this is actually an excuse about how well this is The Mandalorian refers to.
Rosie Knight Bo or The Mandalore.
Jason Concepcion Is not just. So I was kinda worried.
Jason Mantzoukas It’s also notable.
Jason Concepcion That you see Din.
Jason Mantzoukas Pedro’s in no live action. He’s not he The helmet doesn’t come off at all.
Rosie Knight Exactly.
Jason Mantzoukas And that’s that’s a first. This season is the first time we, right? Because, yeah, at the end of the season you see his face.
Rosie Knight So I think that was a lot of people even wondering what that meant on a business level of being a leading person who doesn’t have your face shown at any point in any episode of a season. So it’s definitely interesting stuff. I think that they will probably do a story B that says Grogu is the future of the force. Grogu is the most powerful omega level mutant, and we have to hide him from Palpatine, from everyone else under him, and then him and Din will be hidden somewhere off on a moon or something. And that’s why they went there. But also, you could imagine him being kind of retroactively. It’s like, Oh, he was behind a tree, like doing some force stuff.
Jason Mantzoukas That someone I mean, you also it also opens up the question to where why isn’t Ezra part of. Yeah, part of Rey’s.
Rosie Knight Big, Big question.
Jason Mantzoukas Ezra, part of Rey’s story. He would truly be like a senior force user, you know?
Jason Concepcion Yes.
Jason Mantzoukas My hope is that there are very cool, very creative ways to tell those stories. Wouldn’t it be? What if the reason that they’re not is because Ezra and Grogu who are what? What if Grogu who becomes like Ezra’s Padawan and they go on it?
Rosie Knight Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. No, no, I love the idea. And now that we’re in this outer rim space and this wider ideas of the galaxy, there are multiple different conflicts happening. It’s not just what we know from the main timeline and the main, the main trilogy. So I think there’s definitely a space and we’ve been saying it’s one of the best things. We all love the animated stuff that’s starting to do with these live action shows. What they’ve always done with animation, which is expand on and add context to these moments that make you say, Oh, why did that happen? Or Why wasn’t so-and-so there? So I think in a soccer especially and probably further seasons of The Mandalorian, we will get those answers. Where was Ezra? Where was Grogu? Who? How do these things tie in and why weren’t they a part of these stories that came after?
Jason Mantzoukas Wow. Huge. Huge.
Jason Concepcion Any final thoughts?
Jason Mantzoukas My final thoughts are I really enjoyed it. I thought, you know, again, this is one of my favorite shows. I would I would cut off my arm to be on this show. I would I would I want to I would love to be Star Wars is my stories. You know, like this is I’m I’m 50 I grew up on these movies from the time they were coming out in theaters, the original trilogy. These are my movies. These are my stories. This is what I’m this is a world that I love being inside.
Jason Concepcion It feels like it’ll happen.
Rosie Knight Yeah, right. I was going to say, I hope so. I mean, it’s inevitable.
Jason Concepcion I mean, the amount of improv world people that have already appeared on the show is quite notable.
Rosie Knight It is
Jason Mantzoukas Oh, yeah. Oh, no.
Jason Concepcion Amazing. Awesome. Bobby Moynihan.
Jason Mantzoukas Kevin Dorf.
Rosie Knight Character. Kevin Dorf. If they came to you and said, Who do you want to play? And you get to pick, Oh wow, I like.
Jason Mantzoukas What you know, what would that be? You know what I would love to play is there are characters that I would love to play, but I would love to play someone in like the acolyte or someone. Yes, I would like to play someone in the High Republic era or someone in this James Mangold movie, if that ever gets made. I had to play a character who’s an unknown that I that he is, you know, that is able to be defined by the performance rather than wouldn’t it be cool to be Quinland Vos Oh, wouldn’t it be cool to do Dark Disciple and be Quinland Vos? You know, No, it would be. But, you know, like, I don’t think that’s ever going.
Rosie Knight To originate a character in that world.
Jason Mantzoukas These are my stories. This is what I love. So any time that I can spend with characters in this world and then also consuming all the podcasts and all this stuff, just during the time that this season has aired, I’ve been so excited and having so much fun inside Star Wars. I’ve rewatched Rebels again and I’ve rewatched the last three seasons of Clone Wars again, just because I was having so much fun being inside Star Wars stories. So I had a great time, even though I did genuinely feel like the season was a little uneven for me.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, I my thought would be I understand the and somewhat share the criticism of being on I considering the ambitions that they had, which was to kind of like tie up these final Moff Gideon threads and tie down the. Be taking a mandalore kind of plotlines, I guess. There was almost no way to do it without it feeling like a Lumpur show. And it certainly feels like there is. There’s also a in true Dave Filoni style, a kind of larger mission to tie in to the most recent trilogy and shore up some of the, you know, for lack of a better word, weak spots in the trilogy. That’s what I think my my main note is that, like, I am shocked still at the power that this puppet has over me. Every time they do a one shot, a wonder of this of this puppet’s face, every time it makes some sort of cooing sound or presses the button to say yes or no, it is. I could watch that for 2 hours. I could just watch it cooing and making facial making different faces. It’s still the emotion that this fucking puppet Carrie.
Jason Mantzoukas Is and and the emotion that it can elicit. You know, it is. It’s incredible at conveying. It’s an it’s an incredible job. They do emoting. It’s an it’s an incredible performance, literally. Yes. From the from the puppet and the VFX operators. And it’s incredible. But then it makes me like when Goku is, you know, storming everybody in the invisible shield, I’m, like, crying.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, I think it’s amazing.
Jason Mantzoukas His mom and dad, he’s crying. You know, it’s it’s very emotional.
Rosie Knight It’s really is. I’m grateful every day. The phone has called them cowards and told them to use the puppet because truly, we need more puppets in our life. Yeah, I agree with both of you. I think you covered it up very well. I will say I am a huge fan of the Saturday morning adventure aspect of sci fi, of Star Wars, of the things that shaped George Lucas in making this the trilogy originally. So for me, I actually enjoy the wild romp adventures and the side quests and the Plaza 15, so it’s easier for me to feel. That I can I can stand out the unevenness because I like when it goes back to that.
Jason Concepcion One more question. Are we going to. Are we going to tie up the G68 loose ends and the amnesty program, the very clear, you know, neo imperial plot that is slowly unfurling there on Coruscant, which is probably the project to create Snoke and bring back Palpatine like further down the road.
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah. Well, do you think that. Well, let me ask you this. Do you think that. Do you think Moff Gideon is dead?
Jason Concepcion Dead. Dead?
Rosie Knight Yeah, I. I wasn’t sure. I thought, you know, we know nobody really dies. We saw Joff More die. What happened there, Spider? You know, but I actually do think the explosion was big enough that he is. I’m like 90% on the dead side, 10% on a, like, general grievous situation. Oh, interesting. The only way. Okay.
Jason Mantzoukas Well, because, like, we’ve invested so much time in his spy network, you know, it’s his spies that got that are inside the New Republic. It’s his spies that get to Pershing in the mind. Flayer. Like all of that stuff. If he’s gone, did that spy network just go to someone else or. Yeah. To your point, will we never see them again? Because I. We don’t have to.
Rosie Knight I think that. Gee, I think Jessica Alba, I think she is actually going to be like a very big connecting thread between all of these stories as basically the representative of the imperial remnants. So if that spy network goes to anyone, I think it’s her and I think she keeps it alive. I love that performance that Kate O’Brian did. She’s so nefarious and so villainous.
Jason Mantzoukas I would also love to see her as a Thrawn spy.
Rosie Knight Yes.
Jason Mantzoukas I would love it if she if Thrawn saw in her. This is. This is someone I can use to my advantage.
Rosie Knight That would be so, you.
Jason Mantzoukas Know, and that would be great if basically Thrawn enters and just takes over the vacuum left by Moff Gideon’s death. That’s interesting to me.
Rosie Knight That makes a lot of sense. And also Moff was outspokenly against Thrawn and constantly presented himself as a better option or suggested that were better options. And Thrawn is very egotistical person. So I think that taking over from Moff Gideon, who didn’t survive. And also if we look at the mall situation, that could also sap something very cool if ten years down the line, they actually wanted to bring Moff back and it’s him and Thrawn in that kind of competition.
Jason Concepcion I will say that I believe that Moff Gideon is dead dead only because it was, you know, a feat of the force, right? That Palpatine was able to take his consciousness at the moment of death and move it to, you know, like beam it over wi fi to his to his clone. And I would assume that that is not something that Gideon has either the the wherewithal to do through the force certainly was had not completed his project and it.
Rosie Knight Seemed like the creations were made for his only clones. Right.
Jason Concepcion His only force experiments anyway. And that in terms of the technology required to move his mind at the moment of death to a place, I would assume that he’s not capable of doing that. That’s not something that he would be able to do. So I think that he is. For real dead. And I agree with you. I think that the spy network. I wonder if Thrawn takes it over at this point. And that becomes the Snoke project. Well, it was wonderful to talk Star Wars.
Rosie Knight Yes, it was so fun.
Jason Mantzoukas Loved it. Loved every minute.
Rosie Knight I loved it.
Jason Concepcion Up next, Comics Corner.
Speaker 3 <AD>
Jason Concepcion Welcome to the Hive Mind, where we explore a topic in more detail with the help of expert guests this week. Jason Mantzoukas tells us what he’s reading. So I will just say, off rip that I am behind. But Jason, you’re such a well-read person. What are you reading right now?
Jason Mantzoukas You know? You know, I’m also behind, I will admit. And it’s it is you know, as a comics reader, I’m sure you, comics readers, you both understand that feeling when you look over where your comics are and suddenly, suddenly, somehow there’s piles of stuff and you’re like, Oh, God, what is this? And it’s interesting what I choose to read, what I choose to keep going with. And a lot of that tells you, like, what I’m loving, you know? And so, like, I will still I’ve been a, a a completist on Hellboy stories from from the beginning, basically. And so those are books I always read, partially because they usually come in digestible stories. Mm hmm. Single one shots, Two shots or four four issues. Max. Tell a story in Hellboy. And so I keep up with that. I love that. The what was the Cliff Chang Catwoman book that came out?
Jason Concepcion Oh, yeah, exactly.
Jason Mantzoukas Is it called Lonely City? No.
Jason Concepcion It’s called City something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rosie Knight Lonely CIty. You were right.
Jason Mantzoukas I thought that was fantastic. I love Cliff Chiang, so I thought that was just fantastic.
Rosie Knight The art was so beautiful.
Jason Mantzoukas Beautiful, beautiful. Another one of the artists that I really like, Declan Shalvey, has a new book out right now called I think, Old Man. The Old, The Old Man, maybe it’s called. I can’t remember. There’s only been a couple of issues so far, and I read that, which I really liked.
Jason Concepcion Rosie, what about you? What are you reading right now?
Rosie Knight Okay, so yesterday was I’m also behind on the the weekly single issues. It’s hard to keep up. There’s so many great comics. But yesterday it was the 85th anniversary of Superman’s first appearance and Lois Lane’s first appearance. And DC released this absolutely gorgeous Lois Lane graphic novel called Girl Taking Over is by Arielle Jovellanos and Sarah Kuhn, who is so such a brilliant writer. And together, it’s just unbelievable. It’s got Gorgeous Colors by Olivia Puccini. It’s got Melanie Fujimori did the letters, which is super dynamic. And it’s basically Lois Lane. And she’s Asian American and she’s going to National City to start her dream internship. And it is this coming of age journalism kind of mystery, but it’s so vibrant and so colorful. I love those DC Y.A. graphic novels, and this is one of the best that they’ve done. And it’s a great thing to read because this 85 years of Lois Lane. So that’s been a big one for me, as always. Reading a lot of reading, a lot of manga. I recently read sticking on the DC, I recently reread Rachel Pollock’s Doom Patrol. We’re on. We sadly lost Rachel recently really trailblazing Trans creator. Her Doom Patrol run that she took over from Grant Morrison is so good and they really did it for the first time. Oh, it’s unbelievable. If you love Doom Patrol, if you love Grant Morrison, you got to read it. She takes over with Richard Case. The series Pencil Stam walks on there and it is just so subversive and a truly great follow up to Morrison’s Doom Patrol, which is one of the greatest of all time.
Jason Mantzoukas Oh, that’s great, because, like, that’s a Doom Patrol, a book I have almost zero knowledge of like DC in general. I’m very ignorant of it, so much so that I would love it. And I don’t want to put you on the spot, but if you have any recommendations. I’ve recently watched a ton of.
Rosie Knight My dream question.
Jason Mantzoukas DC animated, a ton of the DC animated movies, right? Yeah. Which which I had only seen a couple of here and there, and I just watched a whole bunch of them that were all about John Constantine.
Rosie Knight Oh.
Jason Mantzoukas Well, another character that I’m woefully ignorant of. So if you have like, runs or, you know, this writer or this era or whatever , I want to hear it.
Rosie Knight You’re going to be very happy because Constantine was created by Alan Moore. So you’re in a good place. Oh, yeah. The brilliant space, I would say the old school Vertigo Hellblazer, which is what his story was, is one of the best places to go. They actually recently did a really incredible John Constantine. Why a graphic novel in that series, which is a really good jumping off point that I adored. And it has really, really beautiful arc. There’s so many good ones. I love Mike Carey. He did a great Hellblazer run, so greatly blessed because John Constantine basically that’s true. Good stuff. It’s just such a great character. I love him so much. Also, I would say if you want to watch more John Constantine, they did the version that Matt Ryan did in Legends of Tomorrow you can just skip to when he joins. It’s like, I love all of legends, but it’s so good. Oh, okay. It’s like an incredible John Constantine. And he actually ended up voicing him in some of those later movies, too.
Jason Mantzoukas Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah, I’ve watched none of that show. Yeah, okay. Very cool
Rosie Knight It’s a joyous, queer superhero romp through space. Very, very Star Wars in that way. Like Villain of the Week.
Jason Mantzoukas Have you guys ever read Jonna the Chris Samnee book?
Rosie Knight I love that book.
Jason Mantzoukas That book is absolutely fantastic and all an incredible all ages book that I cannot recommend, especially if you have a young person in your life who you want to read comics or who does read comics. Chris Omni may be one of my favorite artists right now.
Rosie Knight I love Chris.
Jason Concepcion I love Chris.
Rosie Knight Okay, well then I’m going to actually one of the other books I was going to recommend, which you will definitely love if you love that comic. There’s this great new publisher called Saturday AM that’s trying to like replicate kind of the Shonen Jump, like Manga magazine. They have this book called Gun held by Fred Tornager. And I love this book. It’s like a girl. She’s its all ages comic. It feels very much in that same vein. And it’s about a girl who’s like a 12 year old who lives in a world of Norse gods. And it’s kind of like feels a bit like fantasy sports and a bear, but it’s just a really great all ages kind of romp through this fantastical world with this really dynamic, beautiful art. It’s so great, so good. I’m a huge fan. I think that they just collected it in print recently.
Jason Concepcion I have one thing to recommend, even though I am behind and this is an older, not older, but a recent book. But it’s the run is finished. And this is The Good Asian. Yes which is now come.
Jason Mantzoukas Oh incredible book
Jason Concepcion Incredible book and.
Rosie Knight About to be adapted too, by James Wong production company.
Jason Concepcion By Pornsak Pichetshote and Alexander Tefenkgi. Beautiful, gritty pulpy art. Stunning really really cool story about a Chinese American detective on the trail of a killer during the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Just really, really great. A wonderful read. And it’s a finished story. If you want to pick something up that you can just be done with the definitive ending. It’s available there in trade paperback, multiple volume three.
Jason Mantzoukas I’ll throw in another recommendation because it’s a mash up of two things that I really love, which is the I’m a fan of. I really was the the very into the Kirkman Walking Dead books as they were coming out very into The Walking Dead. I never really converted into a TV show watcher, but I loved that comics run. And but one of my favorite comics writer and artists, Tillie Walden, has done has done now a story. And now a second one is coming out set in that world called Clementine.
Rosie Knight Unbelievable.
Jason Mantzoukas Tillie Walden. Incredible. Has has put out a number of truly incredible on a sunbeam spinning graphic novels that are just.
Rosie Knight One of the best cartoonists working at the moment. Without question.
Jason Mantzoukas Are You Listening? Is another one of hers that are just really fantastic?
Rosie Knight Yeah, I love Clementine. It also has a it’s got a disabled protagonist because it’s Clementine from The Walking Dead Games. It’s amazing. It’s an Amish country, which is something I feel like I’ve never really seen in comics. I loved that comic so much. I actually tried to tell you about it. Polygon was just a really great interview. Cool. Tillie was recently made the Comics Loriat of Vermont.
Jason Concepcion Oh, wow.
Jason Mantzoukas Oh, really?
Rosie Knight Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas That’s rad.
Rosie Knight Yeah, Those Clementine comics are really fucking rad. And you know what? A lot of fans did not approach them in a supportive way, because as we know, some top fandoms can be quite toxic. So I just say go out and read those.
Jason Mantzoukas Wait, really?
Rosie Knight Oh, yeah.
Jason Concepcion Yeah. That is a thing unfortunately.
Jason Mantzoukas But Rosie certainly not comics.
Rosie Knight Can you imagine?
Jason Concepcion Unfortunately, that is the case is let’s see, since we spend a lot of time talking about the Mandalorian in this episode, and that is, you know, on some level inspired by the classic Wolf and Cub comics. You know, any time you have a older warrior with a baby, the baby can only be inspired by Wolf and Cub. Any particular favorite Wolf and Cub stories for either you, Rosie?
Rosie Knight Well, I would say if you haven’t read it, go and read Lone Wolf and Cub. Dark Horse has multiple collections of them. It’s like one of the most influential comics ever made is the right areas. Kazuo Koike. And then the artist was Goseki Kojima. And these are just some of the most astonishingly brilliant comics. They have played a huge influence. Frank Miller For example, no matter how you feel about him, that is someone who deeply took from those comics. I would say that’s the place to go, especially as we’re about to watch, you know, Grogun and Din go on this journey. They became assassins this episode. So it’s very so I would say the classic lone wolf and cub. There are so many collections that brilliant, you can probably get them from the library. It’s this beautiful samurai story, one of the most famous manga of all time also. I’ll put out that just any Wolverine stories with the kid days.
Jason Concepcion Days of future past.
Rosie Knight To me, Wolverine is the ultimate like good lone wolf and cub. Yeah.
Jason Mantzoukas And mainstream. Yeah he really like as a reader of the time to it like Wolverine really became the one of my favorites when he would get paired with Jubilee.
Rosie Knight Exactly.
Jason Mantzoukas When you know, when they would go on an adventure together. That was that’s the balance that you want. You know, I.
Rosie Knight Really hope they keep that whenever they whoever they cast as Wolverine, by the way, now I’m like, are they going to cast Pedro as Wolverine? Like, is that happening? Because this really feels like they’re setting him up for it. But yeah, I hope they keep that because I think that’s one of my favorite Western iterations in comics is Wolverine as the kind of he knows he’s the cranky dad.
Jason Concepcion Yeah.
Rosie Knight And it’s like he has to look after all these annoying mutant kids and it’s like he doesn’t want to do it, but he really loves to do it. But he can still kill you with his adamantium claws.
Jason Concepcion That’s why one of my favorite recent comics run is over now. But Wolverine in the X-Men, when Wolverine was basically the headmaster of the school for a period of time.
Jason Mantzoukas It was great.
Jason Concepcion Was it was great. So fun because it was fun. It was. That was like prime cranky dad in charge of like all these pre-teen and teenage kids who are just like you, old man, old timer.
Rosie Knight He’s refereeing the baseball games
Jason Concepcion Is absolutely fun. Any any final Lone Wolf and Cub comics, Jason?
Jason Mantzoukas You know I’m I’m not I’m having trouble coming up with other comics because I’m stuck on like, Oh, yeah. Like True Grit falls in like that. Like, exactly. That’s a great lone wolf story type story. Yeah. The Sam Mendez movie. What’s the movie with Tom Hanks where he’s got his son in there?
Jason Concepcion Road to Perdition.
Jason Mantzoukas Thank you.
Rosie Knight Oh, yeah. That’s based on a comic.
Jason Concepcion Based on a comic.
Jason Mantzoukas Oh, that’s right. Yeah, that’s right. I never read it, though. I don’t. I didn’t process it that way. But you’re right.
Rosie Knight You’ll you’ll be you’ll be okay with it. But Lone Wolf and Cub, I will also say brilliant movies. So if you want more of that to see where that influence came from, you can really get to enjoy that kind of stuff.
Jason Mantzoukas It really is. It’s the Batman and Robin, you know, like when.
Rosie Knight Exactly.
Jason Mantzoukas When they’ve really leaned into it, you know, like the you know, they Frank Frank Miller’s done it like when they really lean into it. Those the Batman and Robin relationship when Robin especially isn’t Damian Wayne you know like Damian Wayne is not is not a cub like he’s not even.
Rosie Knight No Damian Wayne is a stone cold killer.
Jason Mantzoukas He’s an assassin.
Rosie Knight Yeah, you’re right. The Dark Knight returns like Carrie Kelley.
Jason Mantzoukas Exactly. That’s what I was thinking.
Rosie Knight That’s very Lone WOlf and Cub. Frank was hugely influenced by these, right?
Jason Mantzoukas Because he can’t he kind of can’t shake her. He kind of is. She is. You know, there is an element of it. There’s a reluctant dad element to, too, that I think is part and parcel of this. It’s not his child. He just has to take care.
Rosie Knight To deal with. Know. Yeah, no, I love that. Also, I went when the Batman came out, I went to Warner Brothers and I saw it and Robert Pattinson was there and he said something I’ve never forgotten where somebody was like, you know, would you do a Robin? And he was like, Only if the only if Robin is like 11 and I want to see it so badly. I’m like, that is how weird it needs to be. And that is that Lone Wolf and Cub thing. Like why do you have a child with you? Just like we ask, why is Din taking the baby everwhere.
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah, I would love that. I think would be.
Rosie Knight So good.
Jason Mantzoukas Rad. And so upsetting in a way that, you know, in a way that I feel like they’re interested in. Like I feel like that that Matt Reeves Batman universe is interested in him, in him making mistakes and him and him, you know, taking L’s LS And that that would mainly be one, you know.
Jason Concepcion Well, Jason, it’s been so delightful to have you on the program.
Jason Mantzoukas Thrilled to be here.
Rosie Knight Yes. Such a wonderful. Thank you
Jason Concepcion Please comeback. Anything to plug?
Jason Mantzoukas Oh, I will plug. Well, you were kind enough to mention the How Did This Get Made podcast that I do.
Jason Concepcion Wonderful podcast.
Rosie Knight Just so much fun.
Jason Mantzoukas Oh, thanks. With Paul Scheer and June Diane Rayfield, where we talk about terrible movies and subject ourselves to watching them, it’s really it’s been going on for 14 or 13 years and it’s deeply upsetting. I’ll also throw out the recommendation for something that I think you’re especially fans of the show will like, which is I’m one of the voices on Star Trek Prodigy.
Rosie Knight Yes.
Jason Mantzoukas Which is a fantastic Star Trek animated show that is geared towards young people. It is. It’s the first Star Trek story that takes place primarily with young adults, with with it’s a group. It’s a found family. It’s a it’s a, you know, a group of kids who are basically trapped on a slave planet where they’re, you know, they they manage to steal a ship and escape. And and they go on like truly just like adventures all all throughout Star Trek lore and canon. And it’s fantastic.
Rosie Knight JANEWAY Supremacy.
Jason Mantzoukas I was just going to say.
Rosie Knight Voyager Janeway show like that could not say no to that.
Jason Mantzoukas It really is so fun and so beautiful and it feels very. And I hope this is okay to say, but it to me feels very similar to a Clone Wars or a Rebels in the sense of it is.
Rosie Knight I think that’s what they are going.
Jason Mantzoukas Yeah, it is young protagonists and it is adventure based and it’s a blast. And I play, you know, as always, a 16 year old, which is.
Rosie Knight Typecasting.
Jason Concepcion Typecast Yet again.
Jason Mantzoukas But please, everybody watch Star Trek Prodigy, show it to your kids. It’s it’s incredible. Hard Star Trek sci fi. It’s a blast. And you know, if you don’t mind, it’s on Paramount Plus, set it up to auto play the whole series. We really.
Jason Concepcion Do it while you’re working, while you’re chilling.
Jason Mantzoukas I love that completion rate, guys. I love it.
Rosie Knight Hey.
Jason Concepcion Thank you so much, Jason.
Jason Mantzoukas Absolutely. Thank you.
Jason Concepcion Up next, Nerd Out.
Rosie Knight In today’s Nerd Out, where you tell us what you love and why or a theory you’re excited to share. Marcus pictures us from the Star Wars sequel trilogies in the wake of Star Wars celebration 2023 and specifically on the fantastic Daisy Ridley as Rey.
Marcus Hey, Jason and Rosie. First time long time. This week on the Nerd Out, I’m pitching a small series of independent films, better known as the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Ever heard of it? I’m a lifelong Star Wars fan who grew up with the prequels and never, ever expected we would get a sequel trilogy. But I always dreamed of one. So to get a trilogy starring an actress as talented as Daisy Ridley was a dream fulfilled. Look, the trilogy is not perfect and its flaws are often overexaggerated because of the perverse incentives of social media. But that’s a nerd out for another time. Rey is quite simply one of the most compelling characters in all of Star Wars, and that’s a testament to Daisy Ridley’s incredible performances. As amazing as it was to see Han Way and Luke on screen once more. It’s Rey, whose arc the trilogy is rightfully centered upon, and she is more than up for shouldering that responsibility. The Rocket’s reaction in London when Lucasfilm announced Ridley was returning to the role is only a small testament to that fact. With the rise of Skywalker in the rearview mirror and the New Jedi Order on the horizon, there’s really no better time to dive deep into Rey’s arc, with fresh eyes unburdened by theories about her lineage and poisonous online discourse. Look, I can’t wait to see her pass on which she has learned not only from her predecessors, but her sequel trilogy peers to a new generation. After all, the force is about much more than lifting rocks.
Rosie Knight Thanks, Marcus. If you have theories and passions that you want to share, hit us up at xray@crooked.com. Instructions, as always, in the show notes. And we also want to thank everyone for sending so many brilliant Mandalorian fan theories in. We love featuring a bunch on the pod and reading them over email. Apologies for not being able to include them all, but thank you for sending them and keep them coming.
Jason Concepcion That’s it for us. A big thank you to Jason Mantzoukas. Rosie. Plugs, plugs, plugs, plugs, plugs.
Rosie Knight Read all those great comics that we talked about on the old podcast. Also, remember that May 6th is Free Comic Book Day. Yes, that’s a really special day where you can go to your local comic shop and you can get free comics. I will be doing a signing at Jeffrey’s Comics, a wonderful comic shop that I love in the South Bay with a bunch of other Godzilla fans and cool rad local creators. So come and visit us there. And as always, you can find me here twice a week doing this RAD podcast.
Jason Concepcion May 19th on Amazon Prime slash Amazon Freevee. Watch Primo May 19th. May 19th. Just search Primo Shae TV show in your Amazon Prime box and the program will come up. Hit the plus symbol to add it to your watch list. You’re good to go and then you just log on May 19th. You watch it. Quick note, quick housekeeping note. X ray vision will be taking both episodes off next week for a little break, a little R&R. That means no new episodes of the Pod on Wednesday, April 26, or Friday, April 28. We’ll be back to our regular scheduled programing Wednesday, May 3rd.
Rosie Knight And if you missed us and you want to watch old episodes or watch new episodes, subscribe on YouTube where you can watch full episodes of our show. Plus follow us, @XRVPod on Twitter and check out the Discord to meet and hang with tons of amazing fans, listeners, rad people who love rad stuff and me and Jason.
Jason Concepcion Five star ratings. Five star reviews. We need them. We got to have them. You got to give them to us. Here’s one from JohnnyBlaz. Fantastic. Jason and Rosie are very well-researched and hilarious. Love this podcast. Their love of comics has introduced me and threw me my children to a wonderful world of comics. Thank you so very much. Thank you JohnnyBlaz.
Rosie Knight That’s the best news. Read Comics. We love That.
Jason Concepcion X-ray Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Saul Ruben. The show is executive produced by myself and Sandy Girard. Our editing and sound design is by Vasilis Fotopoulos. Delon Villanueva and Matt DeGroot Provide video production support. Alex Reliford handles social media. Thank you Brian Vasquez for our music. See you next time.
Rosie Knight Bye.
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