Episode 37: (21 BBY) Clone Wars Season 2 Ep 22, Season 3 Eps 5 and 6 Tales of the Jedi Ep 3

Fusion Vengeance. What?

Tea. Spice. Oh, spices.

I thought you said ISIS.

And I was like, whoa, slow down there, Jon.

ISIS. They have an abundance of kids.

In this episode,

Boba Fett pitches a Boba Fett,

Padme enjoys a spot of tea,

and Ahsoka gets quirky with Corky.

We'll discuss Clone Wars episodes 222, 3-5, and 3-6

in this edition of the 11 Parsecs Podcast.

Hello and welcome to episode 37 of the 11 Parsecs Podcast.

My name is Eric. I'm here with my good buddy Jon.

Hello.

And today we're going to be discussing a couple of Clone Wars episodes.

It's kind of weird these Clone Wars episodes we're going to be discussing

because they're kind of jumbled out of order,

but it does actually make sense once you watch them.

Before we jump into it, Jon, how are you doing?

I am doing well. How are you?

Do you have a brew?

Of course I have. I have a special.

Oh, tell me, tell me.

Well, special to me.

The fine folks at Three Taverns,

maybe it's not special to them,

but are you familiar with the beer A Night on Ponce?

Yes, I am. Very much.

This is not that beer.

Are you familiar with Bud Light?

Yeah, totally.

This is Big Night on Ponce.

It is an Imperial Hazy Eye beer.

Whoa, what's the percentage?

Oh yeah. It's just 9.

Just 9?

It's just 9. It's not a big deal.

We've had like 10, 12, 11.

We have. We've had some stronger beers.

I'm only drinking a... this one's low.

I think it's a... let's see here.

We're at 6.7.

I'm kind of low tonight, but it's good.

So, like I said, I've been saving off my beers.

I'll buy the four, five, six packs

and save one off, put it in the back of the fridge

with a little note card on it to make sure I don't drink it.

And I am drinking a New Orthodox India Pale Ale series

by Old Nation Brewing called M43.

I've actually already drank the other three of these,

and they're absolutely delicious.

I have had that, but it has been years.

You see it around here.

Yeah.

So yeah, no, that's a good... that's a primo.

Our usual haunt.

And yeah, it's really good.

Williamston, Michigan.

So I'm not drinking in-state.

You are drinking in-state tonight.

I keep it local, my friend.

Yeah, I know.

I should support the locals.

I choose to save the planet.

All right.

Save on that gas or that electricity.

Are you ready, Pop?

Yeah.

All right. Three, two, one.

Oh, yeah.

Tough game.

I've been saving this guy.

Like, I've been like looking at him some nights

and being like, should I drink him?

Should I not drink him?

It's a good sign when you immediately smell your beer.

Yes.

Like, it just wafts, just explodes out of the can.

I would think so.

Because you can smell night on pots just drinking it.

Like, that's a beer that I can honestly smell

and probably recognize.

This...

Are you familiar with the cleaner, like, orange glow?

Yeah.

Smells like that.

Okay.

That's a very weird thing to say.

Yeah, I was going to say,

you added that nice little thing at the end in a good way,

because I thought about it,

because I immediately recognized the scent.

I was like, oh, yeah, I know that scent.

And then you're like,

I don't associate that with beer usually, but, you know.

Next time you smell orange glow,

you might just be tempted to tip it out.

No, stop.

We are not Donald Trumping that.

No, I don't think the fine folks at Three Taverns

appreciate it being called orange glow.

They probably know, but it doesn't matter.

It has that character.

It has that smell profile.

Mm-hmm.

I think we call that a nose.

It has the nose.

You know, I never, you know,

as much as I got into beer brewing and all that kind of stuff,

I never got into the whole, like, mouthfeel and all that kind of stuff.

I just never, I don't know.

I just never, like, it seemed kind of, like, pompous to me a little bit.

You know what I mean?

Like the wine kind of crowd.

It always, you know, it always gets pompous.

That's why Untapped is really fun,

because you can give it the rating, right?

It's good. It's not good. It's good.

Yeah, it's really good.

One through five.

And then you,

and it pre-populates the pretentious little bubbles down there of,

you know, this has grapefruit and mouthfeel and boozy

and I just say, yep, yep, yep, yep.

I'm just totally going to call it pretentious bubbles now.

That's so good.

Because you're exactly right.

Because I see those things pop up and I'm just like, yeah,

I guess it's got mouthfeel.

I guess it's got a good smell profile.

I don't know.

You know, it's just like, I'm not, I don't know.

I'm not doing 45 minute YouTube videos on whiskey,

which I'm not knocking people to do.

I enjoy watching them sometimes.

I'm just saying that, like, I just can't, I don't,

I don't get that out of it.

I don't know.

Maybe it's just because it's beer.

I like being prompted.

Does this taste like grapefruit?

Yes, it does taste like grapefruit.

I'm not going to come up with that on my own.

I keep saying grapefruit because apparently this tastes like grapefruit.

Or orange glue or whatever you said.

Or soul glue.

Or grapefruit glue.

Soul glue?

Yeah.

Soul glue.

Soul glue.

Soul glue.

Map Village's map

If you remember with those we thought it was kind of funny. We thought they were really good graphics

They're really good, but the Mace Windu whole Jango Fett thing. This is the kind of last well

I guess I shouldn't say it's the last episode

But it's it's close to the last episode if you count the other two that we're gonna be reviewing tonight

about Jango Fett and Jango

Kind of get a little squirrely here in this episode like he doesn't like the fact that they've taken the prisoners

I

Have to admit if I was gonna end the season. I don't know that I've ended on this one. What did you think?

Well, I don't want to get to the ending quite yet. I want to start with Aurra Singh

That's her name right? Aurra Singh with the with the antenna

How she when when Jango refuses to execute the prisoner one of the prisoners to show how serious they are as

hostage takers

She now it's not shown on screen, but it's it's right there, then they cut then you hear the blast

Yeah, right. She executes him in the back of the head. Yeah point-blank ring brutal. It's a kid show

Yeah, yeah, you can't show this seriously. No it was I remember watch that be like oh man, and you even see

I think it was I think was obi-wan

This on the screen at the time and he just kind of grimaces a little bit. You're like oh golly

Like that's a little brutal. Yes, and

And then as a bonus after that you get to see his corpse floating away from the space. Yeah, and you know

This is we're sitting here talking about how brutal and gross it is

But what a shot bounce around in there like wouldn't go through the guy's head and then bounce around

Instead that little bit didn't penetrate his skull. I mean you don't see blaster fire like going through and through right?

I don't remember it hits the person and it stops and it's always been one of those caveats or not cover

It's conceits that

Again blaster fire is as lethal as it needs to be it can be you can wing a guy we have that happen

I think coming up

Is it the next episode?

Yeah

And like he gets winged in the shoulder and he shakes it off and then you have others that get winged in the shoulder and

They're dead instantly. Yeah. No, I agree with that. It's yeah, it's and I don't know if it's like a setting on the gun

Or what have you but uh, yeah, it's a setting on the writer, you know

Fair enough. Um, yeah, I don't know it was a

completely brutal thing and then you also see Jago kind of like waffling even before that and

And then cuz you remember they get a little weird our argument on the Holocron and all that kind of stuff and then it's like

Everybody's gonna like alright Jago

Yeah, I don't know. I just felt like it wasn't like an amazing episode to me

Like it didn't feel like the cap, you know what I mean the cap for the trilogy

Yeah, it just it just felt like okay. We kind of know what's gonna well

Yeah, you're you keep pushing me there

So I'm gonna have to say the ending is just abrupt as all get out just just yep, you know

Just cut just done

all them off now, so

I help me out here Slave One. Yeah

It goes over it goes over the horizons

You don't actually see it but is a big fireball when it crashes so it's destroyed is it?

No, well, obviously not and that's that's that's how does that work? I don't know

Yeah, it's I agree with you whenever I saw that I was just kind of like, okay

Are we repairing it or do you just buy it this is it like Air Force One?

We're like every ship that he buys is now gonna be slave. Oh, oh

Yeah, Slave One in honor of yeah, I'm just guessing I'm down with that. Yeah, I got a clue

But that's what I'm guessing. I mean, I don't know maybe it is maybe it isn't

That is that is a great explanation and I don't think I would have thought of that

Call it slave to

Harrison Ford whatever I thought you said that led me over to what was the movie with the

Reason there for someone is it called Air Force One get off my plane. What is it called? That was the movie called?

Are you joking? No, I'm not joking. I'm not joking with you. I'm really it's called air. It is called

Okay, I thought it was called Air Force One

Then I was like, I don't make that mistake on this podcast if I name it

Yeah, I thought it was there for it was one of the um president's plane. What is the Jack Ryan series authors?

Oh, what is this? Didn't he write that?

Air Force One. Yeah, what that written by the guy that wrote the Jack Ryan series

It's not based on a it's not based on a Clancy novel than I know of. Oh, I thought it was

We shall have to look this up. Yeah, if he wrote the screenplay or something, I am wholly unfamiliar. I always died

I always thought it was a yeah, I always thought it was a the Clancy thing

But maybe I went through a Clancy phase read a lot of Clancy

Don't yeah

I went from my goth phase to my Clancy phase

It was it now it's now it just comes across when I go back to the movie

nerd out

I can read some of them again.

It can be a little jingoistic.

Oh, rah rah.

Oh yeah, totally.

What there's yeah, there's and there's like I said, I think we've talked about on the podcast for maybe.

I love the Dragonlance books as a kid.

The TSR Dragonlance books, which is like a sub series of kind of its own world in the Dungeons and Dragons world.

And I went back a few years ago to try to reread one.

Oh boy.

No, no.

That's jingoistic too.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Well, yeah, they loved American.

I'm just kidding.

But yeah, no, it wasn't jingoistic.

But it was very like just brutal writing.

And I shouldn't say writing.

I don't want to disparage the authors in any way whatsoever, because it's good writing for I just remember it as a kid.

Just be like, this is amazing.

This is like Tolkien.

These are YA novels, right?

Yeah.

Young adult.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, well, there you go.

I mean, OK.

Well, I don't know if you call them young adults.

I don't know.

It was it was targeted toward young adult, but I don't think the young adult genre had taken off when I was a kid.

Like, I don't like I feel like, oh, what's the The Hunger Games was probably the first real young adult.

Targeted novels.

Do you agree with that?

I mean, did that not feel like the type?

OK, so what would you say?

What would you say?

Harry Potter's earlier than that.

And Harry Potter's not.

I mean, I'm sure there's something before that.

I just I can't think of it.

The Hardy Boys.

The Hardy Boys.

Nancy Drew.

I guess those are young adult.

I don't know.

It's not.

No, that's like kid run, Sam run.

That's like one step above that.

OK, they're readers.

You know, they're they're meant to get you into reading.

But I wouldn't call those young adult.

OK, OK.

Well, this is this is interesting.

They're like old kids.

Let's have a debate on the on when the young adult section of the library opened, because I feel like we didn't really have that as a kid.

But maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe I just didn't know.

I don't I don't I don't think we have that at all.

And man, young adult, just a tangent.

Some more dear listeners.

A young adult seems to be an area that is that is just full of controversy and backbiting and infighting and just nastiness.

Do you mean do you mean between the authors or do you mean between like the author?

The authors, the fans, you know, I've there have been so many controversies about an author says something, whatever.

And the fan base just I guess Rowling would be a biggest example of that.

But she's only one of many, many, many where the fan base just basically cancel her like, no, we're done.

You said a stupid thing.

We're done with you.

We now own your work.

You know, or or your work is banned.

Your work does not exist anymore.

Well, yeah, that's what I'm trying to figure out, because I'm trying to think of other young adult novels.

I think I've read.

Well, all right, we're getting off.

Let's go back to our episode.

We can talk about this during geek time.

All right.

Yeah.

So we're branching out here.

So so I don't know.

Do you do you think that was far enough off topic for?

No, no, no, no, no, no.

We can get way off topic if we want to.

But I want to I'll tell you what, I'll yank you back.

I'll give you whiplash.

So Costas, right.

Costas says, I'm done.

I'm out.

Yep.

Forget this.

How stupid do you have to be to be sitting?

What, 15 feet away from from our sing plotting to betray her?

Yeah.

On a microphone or on a saying it out loud on a video call.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's just wow.

I know why.

Again, I know why you do it.

I know it's done that way, but that's really he really was stupid.

Yeah, totally.

And also to like again, another brutal death.

Like it's like like cut through another brutal death.

That's right.

And then Plowcoon and Ahsoka go down to the underground and where they can

overhear drunk people confessing their crimes while they watch strippers

dance because it's good show.

Yeah, man.

It's underworld.

I mean, that's what I mean.

Everybody knows what the underworld does.

Do you remember Fred Flintstone and the Jetsons?

I mean, that was like especially Jetsons.

They had pole dancers.

Yeah.

Whenever the Jetsons like whatever George would kind of like, you know,

do his own thing and like kind of like float down to the bottom.

Stay out of cloud.

That's pole dancing.

Stay out of Cloud City.

He's going to go out of the ghetto down at the bottom.

Yeah, he'd live his life.

You know, I think I think I missed those episodes.

No, you didn't.

They were good.

You just don't remember.

OK, so so yeah, overall, I don't know.

We got to move on because we got three episodes to do.

I mean, like overall, like I think it was like it was it was a decent episode,

but it was a really crappy ender.

Yeah.

The abrupt ending.

I I did not really like it all that much.

It's just yeah, it's pretty thin.

It's a it's a they're advancing the plot in such a way that just things don't

really make sense.

You know, he that character wouldn't do so.

And so I don't I don't get the point.

Help me out here.

So Plowcoon lectures Ahsoka, you know, be subtle.

You need to be subtle, which is like this.

It was like the plot line of every single episode this season.

Yeah, sure.

And he goes up to the bar to talk to the bartender and plunks his lightsaber

on the bar and says, basically, tell me what I want to know or your

going to be in trouble.

That's subtle.

Yeah, not at all.

And also to like, I don't understand the whole Hondo.

I was like, I liked Honda was a character in this, but I didn't like agree with

that, but I didn't.

Did you feel like it was worth it?

It was.

within his character of what we've seen of him so far.

To be like, I'm not gonna help you.

You can go do whatever you want to do.

Yes, I accept.

I thought his character was pretty well done in this.

With one exception, when he tells Jango,

your father would want to tell where the hostages are

because that would be honorable.

What?

Yeah, that was weird.

Yeah, that was weird, I agree.

No, he wouldn't.

Yeah.

I don't, actually, here's a question I have for you.

So Jango, I said Jango earlier when I met Boba.

Yeah, that's fine.

This is Jango.

Yeah, so did Jango have any...

Scruples?

No.

No, no, no.

Did he have any affection, ties, feelings for the clone army?

Ooh, that's a good question.

If he did, I don't think we've seen any hint of that.

Good beer.

Yeah, no, now that you say that,

like the only interaction, you don't really ever see him

except when he's on, aw man, what's the ocean planet

where the clones were created?

Geonosis.

No, not Geonosis, that's the Robot Factory place.

That's the Robot Factory place, I knew that.

It's okay.

Hey, we're learning, this is...

Waterworld.

Yeah, this is, yeah, Waterworld.

So whenever the, with the really long, tall white guys.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So whenever he's...

Why you gotta go racist?

Stop it, stop it.

Whenever he goes down there and knocks on the door,

he says something to the effect of, my clones.

I remember being like, whoa.

You're right.

Does he think that these are his brothers?

Is there a familial tie with these clones?

I cannot imagine him having any feelings for them

because they are basically like, you know,

genetically modified, not lobotomized,

but you know, mentally conditioned, short lifespans.

He would rebel at the idea

that he has anything to do with that.

Let's be honest, he would treat them

like the Jedi treat them, expendable.

Sure.

Yeah, but that being said, do you think his feelings

got bumped with the addition of Jango?

Like, do you think that he can't not look at it,

he can't look at a clone?

Because they say that he wanted an unmodified clone.

That's Jango.

Oh, good call.

Unmodified.

They did say unmodified.

You're right, you're right, they did.

So he views him as a little bit a step above.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, no, good call.

I didn't think about that, but you're right.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah, that's, yeah, no, I don't think

that he had any scribbles whatsoever.

And I think that that line was out of nowhere for me.

Well, I shouldn't say out of nowhere,

because I think Hondo was saying it

just because he wants to gain an advantage somehow.

I don't know what the advantage is by helping the Jedi,

or maybe they'll remember it later on.

And I can accept that, that he's saying something

that he knows is just complete BS.

And it's a kid.

In order to produce a result.

Yeah, and it's a kid, and it's impressionable.

Yeah, I agree.

In order to gain some favor with Jedi.

That I buy, absolutely buy that, yes.

Okay, so let's take that as fact,

because I think that that's probably

what the writers were gunning for on that part.

But still, having them just haul it off at the end,

yeah, I agree.

It's just kind of like, okay, well,

we wrapped this up really quick.

This was really, like literally,

it's like a 25 minute story,

and then you had a five minute ending?

Like, that sounds weird to say it like that,

but I'm just saying that it's interesting.

But I'm just saying like, it's like,

you had, well, not a 25 minute story,

you had two 23, 22 minute episodes,

you know, that built up to this,

and then you end it so fast.

And then so fast, and you're just like, okay, well.

And then of course, you know,

when Jango's like walking away or whatever,

he's like, I'd still do it, you know, for Mace Windu.

I'd still try to kill Mace Windu,

but I'm sorry for what I'll have done.

I'm like, wait, are you, or like, I'm confused.

Is this just a death wish on Mace for your dad?

I mean, is it really just Mace,

or is it against everybody?

So I'm envisioning that they're gonna probably

expand his character, you know,

through season three, season four,

and we're gonna start to see a little bit more of him

expanding his hate, not just for Mace,

but for the entire Jedi Order.

But maybe that's me, I don't know.

Okay, so moving on, let's look at Episode five.

So we kind of jumped up a little bit,

and actually we watched a couple

of the first four episodes already,

because this is, again, our podcast is done by timeline.

We go by BBY, and the next sequential episode

is Corruption, which is Episode five.

So it's technically Episode five,

and it ships us right back to Mandalore.

And this was an interesting episode to me.

I just felt like the story was a little bit different

than we've seen in other things.

Like, this is more of like a political,

an internal political drama

that Padme just kind of happens on,

and the arguing, you know, and all that happens

between the High Council, or whatever it is on Mandalore.

She kind of, you think she's gonna step in

as like a kind of a political advisor,

but she really kind of doesn't.

She just kind of, is it long for the ride?

Did you catch that?

I mean, it was like-

What, no, she tries, and they make a very clear point

that the, what, the bureaucracy,

the, what are they, the ministers?

Well, she's-

The High Ministers. Yeah, the Council. Whatever you want to call it.

They're just way too into bickering with each other. That's driven home in that one scene.

To the point where you can't get anything done. And that's why you have all the corruption.

And then we have kind of a sickening of kids, which is always a good tug at the heart.

And it ends up being something along the lines of one of the Doc guys gets busted for letting...

What were those people called? The Moogons? The Moogans? Moogons?

Oh yeah, they did say that. I didn't catch their name.

I've never seen that race before.

No, they're the Snake Egyptians.

Oh, the Snake Egyptians. Okay, well yeah, fair enough.

The Pharaohs. The Pharaoh Snakes. The Cobras.

Yeah, so it's an interesting episode to me showing the kind of like...

Not just the corruption, but also the blatant corruption maybe is the best way to say it.

Like the Doc guy is just like, I don't care. He's just like, yeah, have my money for me, we're good.

And then it's so bad that it's like blatant. You know what I mean?

Like nobody cares. Everybody's like kind of like put it behind them.

They're not worried about it. It's just part of the job, part of the way you live your life.

And then, yeah, so we get these guys shipping in.

And I didn't really kind of understand exactly what was going on.

But basically we have this water that they're drinking for school. Or tea, sorry.

It was a tea that they're drinking for school lunch.

And they're diluting it, I believe, because they don't have the main chemical.

Which I don't understand why you can't just use water, but whatever.

They don't have the main chemical.

Yes, the Wikipedia entry, I think it was Wikipedia, was very not helpful.

It says that you use this substance to dilute and extend the tea.

And you have to get the dilution correct.

And I get like you wondering, well, can't you just use water?

Yeah.

What's so special about this stuff?

Maybe the Lord doesn't have water. I don't know. Maybe it's weird.

And so when they corner them, when they bust them in the warehouse,

at first that got really frustrating because you've got them cornered.

You can just roll a grenade right in there and you're done.

They don't do that.

No, Padme's got to be the hero.

Yeah, you have to.

And the way they go in with pushing that big block thing.

The barrier.

That was cool.

Yeah, it was. That was kind of cool.

And also, too, they had those cool looking shield things.

And I enjoyed seeing the armed forces for her protectionary guard.

And then I still don't understand necessarily why those people stayed on or in the factory.

You know what I mean?

Don't you just direct the people to dilute the tea and then leave so you're not there whenever the people bust in?

But anyway, whatever.

But they have to be.

I'm not a professional tea diluter, so I don't know.

But I'm just saying maybe you don't want to hang out at the place you're trying to rob.

But anyways, it goes all the way up the chain.

Is it being the high?

What was his name?

Previous Prius.

No idea.

Yeah, it ends up being.

Well, let's get to that in the next episode.

Yeah, so it ends up going up the chain.

They're trying to figure out what's going on.

Why are all these kids getting sick?

And I thought the hospital seats were kind of neat.

I mean, it really did show like people like double over in pain.

And it wasn't like everyone was dying, but it was also kind of like, OK, this is a real deal.

Like, what's the what's the what's the main circumstance or what's the common denominator between all these things?

And, you know, they go back to the school.

The guy's not honest with the school.

And he finally ends up saying, you know, I've been taking bribes from his place by shipping in this type of tea instead of the other type of tea.

Kids don't drink tea.

That's just the best way to say it.

I mean, yeah, I don't know.

This is really cool.

This is this is space tea.

It's space, non water based tea.

It's got to be cool.

I mean, I don't know.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's got some weird chemical in it that extends its life, which I don't know.

Does it go bad?

I don't know.

I mean, does it?

I mean, it probably didn't taste great for a while.

It doesn't go bad.

Right.

Anyways, welcome to our tea podcast.

Yeah.

Did you did you catch at the end after they take down the guys at the warehouse and all that and they kind of get back to the whatever it is, the council and you see them or they're talking to the bureaucrats and you see that nothing's going to really happen, at least not quickly because of the bureaucracy.

The bureaucracy is the problem.

Yeah, and this point, and to me, it was a big Echo of Episode one, right?

When Padme is speaking to the Senate and says, come help our planet.

And they say, well, we're going to kick this to subcommittee and like, no one's going to help us.

Well, it goes back to the Tales of the Jedi to the robot guarding the sun.

Like, he thinks he's going to make it.

We talked about this on the last podcast.

Like, he thinks he's going to make a difference.

He's like, I'm not going to be like that.

You know, like, I'm going to try to help these people.

But in the end, everyone's kind of like, well, you'll try and then you'll get sick of it.

And I think we discussed this on the last part, bit of the last podcast on 36 where we were just kind of like, yeah, he'll try.

But he probably won't.

He'll probably break down and, you know, it just won't happen.

It's they're showing very well why this master government concept is not working.

But that's not the...

Well, I take it back, this is Mandalore though, too.

This is a little bit different.

That's correct.

That's a local planet-wide, granted, but it's a far more local government than the Republic.

And so I think it speaks to the overall position in Star Wars, which is that it's anti-government.

Yeah, I agree with that.

Thus far, what we've seen, I completely agree with that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not...

Yeah, that's...

You know, it'd be interesting to really...

Yeah, I need to read up a little bit on Lucas's thinking whenever he was writing it.

Now, of course, he didn't write this stuff, but it carries all the same concepts.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know what to say.

He makes a pretty clear case in Phantom Menace, in the Ridgetridge and the prequel, Tridge.

That's a good name.

I've said that before, and you had the same reaction then.

Did I?

I don't remember you saying it.

Yeah, that's fun.

That's fun.

How long...

You gave me such credit for that.

I didn't come up with it at all, but you gave me such credit.

I'm like, okay, go ahead.

How many episodes back was that?

Oh, not long.

Oh, man, now you're making me feel bad.

Maybe you two.

I really don't remember you saying Ridgetridge.

Don't feel bad.

No, no, it's fine.

Okay, go ahead.

Ridgetridge is cool.

Ridgetridge is cool.

I think it's a really awesome word.

I think Lucas makes it very clear that he thinks that basically representative democracy is deeply flawed,

and a central dictator, the Emperor, he gets things done.

He does.

He gets things done, brutally.

It may be slaughtering a planet full of children, but they're not going to slaughter themselves.

Yeah, I mean, Greg, he's got to get the shades up for Luke.

I don't know what else to say about this episode.

It's just kind of like, oh.

There's not much.

It's developed more in the next episode.

This one was really very simple, straightforward.

Hey, they're corrupt from top to bottom.

It felt like a, that was my question.

Why are you showing me this?

What does this have to do with anything?

Yeah, no, I totally agree.

The next episode could have stood on its own, and you didn't need to tell me anything about this part.

Let me say that.

You need to set up what was actually happening and why this guy could be implicated,

but it wasn't that hard of a setup.

You could have done it in two minutes on the next show.

Oh, have Ahsoka given the assignment.

The Duchess reports there's corruption and she wants to root it out.

Go.

There you go.

That's a very quick setup.

Let's jump into episode six of the Academy.

Ahsoka's been asked to come teach these kids.

She comes down and starts discussing stuff.

And yeah, you're totally right.

They could have just explained the whole premise of what they're trying to look for at the beginning of the episode,

or she could have assigned it or whatever you want to call it.

But I hate that this kid's name.

Corky.

I don't know why I don't like the name Corky, but it bothers me every time I hear the word Corky.

I'm anti-Corky, but I don't know.

Better episode than the last episode.

It was okay.

What are your thoughts?

Better episode than the last episode.

You always have to appreciate a good.

I don't know what the name of the trope is, but the Academy kids having their first adventure kind of thing.

Going off on their own and trying to.

Is that a Harry Potter?

It predates Harry Potter.

I mean, I'm thinking of.

What am I thinking of?

Animal House?

It's more like Starfleet Academy kind of thing.

Red Dawn?

There was.

Red Dawn?

Well, Red Dawn.

Okay.

No?

No, wouldn't.

That's not.

No, not what I'm going for.

I was thinking more in terms of Star Trek, but.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Wow.

I am way off track now.

So, good episode.

You have all the tropes about, you know, they immediately and easily discover the secret meeting with the bad guys.

And they're standing right on top of them.

That's the best part.

Right on top of them.

Literally, there's like five kids on stage whispering.

Yeah.

Do you see them?

They're so corrupt.

You know, that kind of thing.

It's a trope.

It's, you know, it's passable.

And then someone knocks something over and they try to chase him down, that kind of thing.

All good stuff.

Barely escaped through the little door portal thing.

In the end, just, you know.

She was going to, didn't she like trigger the door closed or something?

She chopped that kid's leg off.

Yeah, seriously.

They weren't worried about Steve.

Yeah, Steve would have been, yeah, his leg's gone.

They're not, you know, they'll get him back to the medical.

They're not worried about it.

Yeah, throw him in the Bacta.

Yeah, it was.

Yeah, the whole setup for why are these guys bad?

How are we proving that they're bad?

Especially on top of that canister thing or on top of that shipping container or whatever it was.

I was just kind of like, eh, you know, this is okay.

But I think it got better.

I mean, so number one, you realize that it's Sabine's nephew, isn't that what?

Her nephew, isn't that what you call him?

Oh, yeah, this kid.

öken

gotta move along but like I felt like once Ahsoka got involved she's not like

hey you kids stand back I'll handle this she was like all right you're in this

let's go you know like like you guys are in this somebody may die get ready you

know it wasn't very well I don't know it felt like it felt like she didn't care

about the kids as much as getting the bottom of this of the of the problem

which well is if we could so leading up to that the Duchess really tells them

basically to shut the hell up and go away yeah she ignores him which was like

what is going on here and then Ahsoka tells him you know just forget it just

move on forget it that kind of thing which is like what what is going on

here so all that of course is to set up Ahsoka showing up you know to save the

day basically the next scene which is good that's cool and then you know she's

now she's involved she gets tied up and all that kind of stuff very good fight

to get free it was good it was good but to me that's all fine but to me I found

myself especially when they were when the kids were tracking down the original

like corruption scene you really you it raises vast and deep the vast and deep

issue of systemic corruption and how you would correct that in a society that is

not an easy topic no not at all yeah in in finding out that the person who's

reporting to you as Sabine is the one that is leaving it I mean it's not that

it's like well it's not that it's a lot of people the bottom of the chain it's

all the way up the chain at this point see this is where that's I think I

disagree with you because up to this point the prior episode and this episode

they make the point that it's corrupt up and down the chain everybody's corrupt

that's the that's the sense they give and so that's what led me to ponder how

would you quash corruption that is just pervasive in a society and they're

really there's an easy answer and that is where you have to produce abundance

because abundance leads to a sense of social stability you have hope of

advancement and and so you don't need to be corrupt but that's the easy way to

say something really difficult produce abundance have a have a thriving

abundant society that that's great yeah no I don't know I mean there's there's

really two answers to that there's the abundance solution and there's also the

revolution solution whereas you're really just hitting the reset button

it's gonna probably happen again but it's still hitting the reset button at

least yeah at least you get revolution at least you get a lifetime out of it or

changes the the color of the exactly coats yep yep you know that's that's not

solving anything well it gives it gives a small pause I mean I'm not advocating

for revolution what I'm saying it's not solving anything here but I'm just saying

that it's it's it's for the time that it takes to instantiate and ingrain that

corruption does take a little bit of time and you're granting the general

populace maybe a little bit of time to to be waylaid I guess or not waylaid to

be sidelined to where they're not worried about it as much that being said

though the abundance thing is very interesting because I agree with you but

I'm also at the same boat I think is what you're saying is that you just

can't magically produce that like that's like like well yeah if you could just

magically flip a switch and you have a thriving society who would not flip that

switch yeah yeah and I that that it to me that that's it's happens that's a

fascinating Tom yeah it's happens there's no way to predict it happens

yes I do well give me an example I think sociologists would disagree with you

they would say no there's a reason why you have an example of somebody that has

said okay we are so corrupt that we need to make everybody abundant let's kick it

in let's go you can't give you an example of that that's not that's not my

point wait my point is that if you could just be abundant you know have again

we're keep saying the word abundant word won't mean anything anymore but you you

can just have a thriving society it just doesn't work that way but it's not

happenstance it does happen for reasons those reasons may be varied and really

involved in lengthy and take place over certainly more than decades centuries

but it's not happenstance it's not they just happen to be you know a thriving

society just just roll the dice okay I'm gonna give you an example that I just

thought of in my head maybe this wasn't the way that it happened but this could

be the story

The way that it happened, I just don't know for sure.

The Gold Rush in like 49 or 47 or whatever the two main ones were.

There's one in California, one in Colorado.

You had these lawless towns.

Excuse me, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Why is the dome of the Georgia's capital covered in gold leaf?

I have no clue why.

No. Really?

I really don't know why.

You've never been to the mines?

Just north of where we are.

Oh, Dahlonega and like up there?

The first Gold Rush.

Georgia?

That's why it's covered in gold.

Gold! Because there was gold in there.

Learn something new every day.

Today I learned.

I can't give you the year, but it predates 49 or 47.

Like 20 years.

Anyways, lawless towns out west.

You have complete chaos.

I'm sure corruption. I don't know for a fact.

But I'm sure it's corrupt as corrupt can be because it's lawless.

Abundance got created in those towns from a natural resource.

It was happenstance in my opinion.

They just happened to find big chunks of whatever it was they were digging for.

Silver, gold, copper, whatever.

Not copper, but silver, gold.

Is that an example of what you're saying?

Because I don't think that the abundance created the fact that people weren't going to be scoundrels.

Because there was scoundrel all up and down the chain.

That's where I would say that's the missing element.

That is not an established society.

This is clearly an established society on Mandalore.

What's your definition of an established society though?

You just said they're lawless.

Just anything goes.

Who says this wasn't lawless before Sabine took over?

I don't know.

Was it, Eric?

I don't know. I really don't know.

I don't know the history of Mandalore.

I know that they were always in civil wars and all this other stuff going up until Sabine.

Well, let me think if I remember right because Sabine's sister is, I'm trying not to spoil anything for people that haven't seen Mandalorian,

but her sister is Bo-Kata.

There's a whole strategy, or not strategy, but there's a whole layer in there that's a little bit different.

I think that Sabine was supposed to have united parts of the clans of the Mandalore.

I don't know though.

Definitely not Death Watch because you've seen in the last two, three podcasts we've talked about Death Watch being these crazy guys.

They talk about Death Watch.

They think Death Watch is doing the tea thing, the tea poisoning.

Yeah, they think so, but then she's also kind of adamant about no.

Because it's a go-to villain.

Yeah, it's exactly right.

Boogie man.

Yeah, it's a boogie man, and they get together and say, oh, this must be a Death Watch plan.

In the end though, Sabine, I remember specifically the episode she talks about how she's like, this is not Death Watch.

This is something else.

Right.

This is corruption within my own government that I need to fix this problem.

Let's get back to this.

You think that it's fair to say that Mandalore, as presented in these episodes, is essentially the same as a far western frontier semi-town during the old rush?

I'm just saying Obi-Wan and Sabine, your queen, almost got blown up on a platform by Death Watch.

Does that happen every day?

Does that happen every day in a normal society?

I don't know that it does.

She was a duchess.

Oh, sorry, a duchess.

My bad.

My bad.

I mean, they call her duchess.

I don't even know.

Sorry.

The duchess and Obi-Wan almost get blown up by a saboteur who decides to kill himself.

One said there's no crime.

Okay.

No, one said there's no sabotage.

So it's not corruption.

It's just petty crime.

That's not corruption.

That's not corruption.

Oh, I don't know, man.

Death Watch seems like a pretty embedded-

That's not corruption.

They're up on the moon for armies.

We're talking about economic corruption.

The interruption of the normal flow of goods across or through a market.

That's that kind of corruption.

Don't twist my words.

Okay.

I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know what you would do if I were a duchess.

I don't know what I would do to cleanse the system.

I don't know that you can cleanse the system.

You probably can't.

I mean, you can get as much-

You start with the top and start knocking people down.

Does the pressure for giving money to the higher level from the lower levels,

can you just not control that?

I don't know.

You know what I mean?

It's like in an economic system that is completely corrupted,

except for one person at the top that maybe honestly has good ambitions,

you've got three vice admirals or you've got this counselor or whatever you have.

The next level down is the amount of money that is being pushed up from the corruption

enough to just overwhelm them and say,

Hey, what am I doing here?

Why not use my position?

I don't know.

It's a good question.

I don't know, frankly.

All right, let me ask you this.

What would you do if you were in Sabine's position?

I would simply not have corruption.

You'd simply not have corruption.

Okay.

So maybe a happenstance comes by and says there's no more corruption.

Everybody's just like, all right, cool, man.

We're going to do this.

We're good with it.

The reason I found this episode so... I can't think of the good word. It's not intriguing.

It sparks thought.

Yeah, yeah.

Philosophical.

I thought about this...

No, stop. What are you looking for? I'm trying to figure out what word.

I don't know if I knew the word I would say the word.

It's not intriguing.

It's thought provoking.

Thought provoking.

It's the word I'm trying to think of. But there's a word that means that. Anyway, I've

thought about this issue before. Several times before. Because we have societies here on

this planet that are essentially based on corruption. That everybody is corrupt and

it's always because of a lack of abundance.

And I often think...

Is it? I don't know if I agree with your statement there. I don't know if I agree with that.

Give me a society that is rife with corruption that is not dealing with scarcity.

I can't think of one.

Is not dealing with scarcity.

And I don't mean like the town constable is corrupt.

Yeah, yeah. I love you, Lawrence.

I mean up and down.

Yeah, I agree. I like to look at big things.

Yeah, I don't know.

All of the ones I can think of, they are dealing with. They are not first world thriving economies.

I'm not naming any specific countries.

But I'm saying...

Notice I'm not naming any specific countries either.

So are there places maybe in the Middle East where oil is in abundance but there is corruption

all the way up and down?

I don't actually know those societies well.

I don't either. And that's what I'm thinking. It may not be. It may be legitimate because

they're like, hey, we've got all this money. We can pay everybody.

I think that if someone says, oh God, they're corrupt, they're corrupt through and through.

The oil abundance in those societies is not pervasive. It is not spread across the society

as a whole. It is...

Locked away in layers.

Shepherded.

Yeah.

Yes, it is.

It's hoarded. That is not a free society.

I'm trying to think of other things in today's world where we have societies that have an

abundance of something that... and I don't know. I can't really think of anything other

than that. I mean, I can't... it always feels like every time I think of a country that

may have an abundance of something, they're lacking in something else. So it really doesn't

matter. You know what I mean?

Yes. That's where trade comes in. You can have an abundance of a thing, let's say rare

earth elements, and be lacking in almost everything else. But if you have...

A stranglehold on it.

If you have... no, if the societal structure spreads that abundance around, then you're

not going to have a corrupt system.

Yeah, fair enough.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm trying to think back through history or either anything, like any

times that... yeah, I mean, I'm trying to think of the big things that... oil, gunpowder,

like just stuff that's like the printing press, like just stuff that's like huge and ventuous.

What?

Tea. Spices.

Oh, spices. I thought you said ISIS, and I was like, whoa, slow down there, John.

ISIS. They have an abundance of goods.

Spices, yes. Spices, yeah. Spice. Totally agree with spices.

The East India Company, one of the most powerful companies on earth.

Well, I think railroads, too. Railroad had a lockdown on transportation.

No, you had horses and cows.

Yeah, but it was not the same level as a railroad. I mean, those type kids were like the... they

were the great... I mean, not the greats. They were the... how do you say it? They were

the...

They were the rubber bearers.

Yeah, the rubber bearers. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you're exactly right. It was what Elon aspires

to be. You can't even imagine.

Yes.

You can't even imagine.

The J. Paul Gettys and the Carnegies, they had power.

Vanderbilts.

They had wealth and power. You do not see that today.

It was so stratospherically bigger than what we see today, and the people that are at the

top of the chain. But even then, though, I don't know that... I mean, they had a lockdown

on transportation methods, but that didn't mean something couldn't come along, a happenstance,

and dismember that completely within like 10 years.

You know what came along and dismembered it?

The automobile?

Nope. Antitrust laws.

Oh, fair enough. Yeah, the government.

That's where those came from, because of the rubber bearers.

Well, here, that's... is that our example?

What?

The invocation of antitrust laws.

I would argue that the United States in that era...

Was that a... was that a... was that a Sabine clearing the house?

That... that... no.

No, you paused. You paused when you said that. You slowly said no.

I have to formulate an answer.

Our society supported that because we were an abundant, thriving society, and no one

was dependent on the corruption being in place.

Okay, no, yeah, yeah. You could...

Abundance comes into it.

Okay, fair enough.

the goods and services that were produced by it.

But you weren't actually dependent upon...

But you're tired of paying extortionate rates for rail miles.

Fair enough.

So, and we're getting really off topic here,

but if you were to choose something today,

would you say, and this just popped in my head,

would you say that this is along the same lines as, say,

internet access today?

What's a comparison that you could compare something today with it?

To the railroads?

No, well, to the hay day of the railroads or to a...

To the monopolies?

Yes, a specific monopoly that could be corrupted.

It could be. I'm not saying it is, but I'm just saying it could be.

A monopoly.

GPS?

Is that a monopoly?

Yeah, the US government owns it.

Well, I mean, it's a monopoly in the sense that our country owns it.

I mean, it provides it to everybody. Right?

Okay.

I did not know that. I think so. I think the US still...

There's no commercial solution to that?

Well, there is going to be soon with Elon, I think.

But I'm just saying, I think that, I believe,

and I'm not completely educated on this,

but I believe that the US government came up with GPS

and we decided to share that with everybody

because we saw it was such a tool, like Volvo and seatbelts.

I do know that they restrict the accuracy. I know that.

Yes. Yeah. And there's a strategic point in that.

And there may be other systems out there that are very similar to GPS

that I just don't know about. I mean, from other countries, I don't know.

No idea.

But I'm just saying that I feel like there's system level

or world level, global level tools that are out there that people have put out there.

I don't know. I'm just trying to think.

Yeah. For something that's a current day monopoly,

that's a good research topic.

Yeah. Yeah.

Not only for us, but for our dear listeners as well.

Yeah. Write in. Join the Discord.

Number 38. Absolutely. Number 38.

We can revisit the current day monopolies.

I'm not sure why are we doing that.

I don't know. We are so far off the branch right now.

Like we're on a twig sitting here discussing stuff.

But I liked it. It was good.

Overall, give me – here's my thing for today.

I want you to give me a score on one of the three episodes, your choice.

Well, the last episode definitely because it prompted this conversation,

which was preempted or – that's not the right word either.

That's where my brain was going while watching it.

And that's fun. When something sparks, you know, you to think about a broad issue

and sort of investigate a little bit, that's always fun.

Yeah. Fair enough. I agree with that, especially after this conversation.

So give me a score.

Oh.

I told you you get to choose the episode and then you get the score.

Oh, right. So this – okay. Oh, God.

So this episode, 3-6, a score.

I mean it's kind of good. It's kind of good.

It's not great. So probably an 83.

Okay, 83, low 80s. Okay. I was going to say 84, 85.

Not my favorite episode but not bad.

I mean it was – I did not get the thought provoking that you got.

But now that we've talked about it, I am rolling it around in my mind

and wondering why I didn't get it because it is pretty good.

So yeah, that's good. Yeah, I'd say 84. Yeah, probably 84 for me.

Which is not bad but not great either.

We've had some other episodes that were just gun blasting, you know,

fight scenes that were higher ranked I think.

But yeah, it was good. It was good.

Sure.

[♪ music playing ♪

All right, John, we've got five minutes.

What have you been watching? What have you been reading?

What have you been video gaming?

Five minutes. Yeah.

Are you familiar with the German series on Netflix called Dark?

So I have heard of it. I have not watched it.

I was in that same camp.

Everybody would refer to Dark like, oh, Dark is so cool.

And I feel like it was a couple years ago that people refer to it.

It's an older series, right?

Not that old but yeah.

Like two or three years. Like it was COVID. It was during COVID, right?

Was it during COVID? I don't – I thought it was just pre-COVID.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Okay, 2020. Okay, go ahead.

It's recent enough. It's a late model series.

Okay.

And I really didn't know what it was about and I didn't want to.

It was enough that people referred to it in glowing terms over and over and over again.

And I knew you would not be that familiar with it.

So I've been debating like how far do I go into this?

Because there's parts that I really want to talk about and I don't think it's spoilery.

It's general terms.

Yeah, general terms is fine.

It's three seasons.

General terms is fine.

Okay, three seasons.

Do you remember the show you watched with –

Oh, that – oh.

Jordan Jameson, Spider-Man, JK Simmons, where you kind of alluded to the show and then you didn't.

Yeah, what was that called?

The one where they go to the basement and they end up going to the other world.

Yeah, what was... Oh, that one. Oh, I was thinking about the other one.

Oh, no, no, no. Where he goes to a different world.

Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Where they go to like the basement of the house.

I don't know, this is a totally different series. They go to an alternate reality.

That was... What was that called?

Well, that was like one or two seasons.

Speak to me like you're speaking...

Because you did a very good job of not spoiling the show, but you still told me about the show and I'm fine with that.

Okay, so this is set in Germany and as you might imagine, everybody there is German.

And I flip back and forth between subtitled and dubbed, depending on how much attention I really want to pay at the moment.

And I recommend subtitled if you can, you know, have that attention.

Because I don't speak German, so you have to pay attention.

It started out good.

And then it kind of hits a phase of...

The characters are prolonging the mystery in an...

No one would... If you were a normal person in this circumstance, you would just say, like, here's what's going on.

But they can't because you're meant to be in this mystery.

And that gets a little frustrating.

Just tell him. Just tell him right now.

You would normally tell him what he needs to know right now.

But you're not because it's a mystery.

But it was still good. It was still good.

First two seasons good.

And then... Remember, it's three seasons.

And then... And this is not a spoiler. It's just something I think you probably need to be aware of.

When you go into the third season, for me it was...

Okay, you're wearing this carpet thin.

This is just... You're retreading and...

Get on with it because I don't need any more of this.

You're just making the same points.

But it ends pretty strong.

And what they do... There's a reason why season three ends the way it does.

You just, like, wrote off the whole season three and then saying it ends strong?

The beginning of season three is like, I mean, come on.

Just... I mean, really?

Where you're trying to add another layer and it's so transparent.

And it's the same crap.

And all you need to know is...

If you have the same... You may not have the same reaction.

But if you have the same reaction, just keep going.

It does end pretty strong.

And I see why people speak of it fondly.

It does kind of get you there towards the end.

Not for me, not amazingly.

But I get it. Good series.

Dark. On Netflix?

Yes, on Netflix.

Okay, I'll add it to the queue.

Like, I...

Your queue must be like a mile freaking long.

It is. It actually is.

So, what happens is you get these weird times like right now.

I have like five different shows I'm watching right now because they all hit at the same time.

Like shows that are weekly progression kind of shows.

And then I get to like the Doldrums, which is in like November, where there's just nothing to watch.

So that's when I usually hit back the queue.

So this show, three seasons, how many episodes per season?

Um... I don't know. Like ten? An hour apiece?

Yeah.

Alright, so this is three seasons at an hour apiece, ten shows. That's an investment.

You ask too much of me.

It's not like the Wire investment, but it's still an investment.

I still regret that because I need to revisit that.

I tried the Wire and I think I got like half an episode in.

I'm like, I don't care.

Speaking of Breaking Bad, I had to...

I think I took a break on that one.

Because again, it's not a fun watch.

No, it's not.

Well, certain episodes are.

Certain episodes are not.

Like watching chicks drown in their own vomit or something?

Well, I mean, you know, people burning people in bathtubs with acid.

Who am I to judge?

You know, it's like a...

It's not a fun series.

It's dark. It's dark.

I made a point to go back and finish it and I felt like I was doing like a job.

Yeah, so that's just good.

I would never do that.

It's good. It's well done.

Well, I'm glad I did because it is, I mean, come on.

It's very well done.

It's really just...

I'm so impressed with what they did.

But it's not a fun show.

It's just not.

It's kind of, you know, cringe and ooh and gore and bad people doing bad things.

It's not a fun show.

But anyway, so you said that you have a bunch of shows hitting.

What are you watching?

Oh, man.

Okay, so what I'm going through right now, and I'm trying to spread it out a little bit.

Last of Us, of course.

I haven't watched the last two episodes of Last of Us.

But enjoy Last of Us.

F1 Drive to Survive season 5 just came out.

Oh it did?

Yes, this is reviewing last season, which I watched a little bit more F1.

So usually I don't get up on Saturday and Sunday mornings to watch F1.

I'll watch it later on.

This last season I really didn't watch it as much as I thought I would.

Not live, but I would get up some mornings and watch it live.

And I watched a little bit more to kind of keep up with the story to see how that story that I watched

compared to the actual Drive to Survive story that they present.

Because I really like, over the years I felt like I watched the race,

but I don't keep up with any of the, I don't want to say characters,

I don't want to keep up with any of the drivers.

You know what I mean?

So it's like, I don't like, you see this stuff on Drive to Survive for the previous four seasons,

and you're like, oh okay, well this must be how it really is.

And then you see them all hugging backstage, having beers and stuff,

and you're just like, is it really like that?

So one of my focuses this season was I wanted to keep up with 2022 to actually see how the drivers did,

what the drama should have been, versus compared to what the show is.

And to be fair, I've only watched one episode, so I'm not totally into it completely yet.

But yeah, it's pretty good.

I mean, the format's wearing on me a little bit.

That sounds weird, but now they've got a Drive to Survive for golf.

Now they've got a Drive to Survive for football quarterbacks,

and a Drive to Survive for tennis people.

And like, is it over-dramatizing something that's really just a sport that people just go to play

and then go have beers in the clubhouse afterwards?

Well, you don't have to watch those.

I don't, but I do for F1. I do for F1!

No, for F1, sure, but you said the format's pretty much—

Oh no, I don't watch the golf. I don't watch the quarterback. I don't watch the NFL stuff.

I've never gotten into that. I've never gotten into that.

I want to say I could not care less, but if you described F1 to me before I watched it,

I probably would have said, I don't care about that.

And then you watch it.

I am always in awe about how they—you may think it's manipulation, and it is,

but I appreciate how they're able to craft that story.

Yeah, like, what that show has done for F1 in the U.S. is insane.

Absolutely insane.

And that's exactly why all these other sports are trying to remodel it

and make it for themselves, because it really did—I mean, it's a great show.

It was great editing. It was great photography. It was great everything about the show.

If you haven't watched it, I wouldn't say start with Season 1 because that's technically

five or four F1 seasons ago, which is kind of weird to watch something from four years ago.

But watch the last season, which was Season 4, which would have been 2021's races during COVID

and some of the lockdown stuff, some of the not-lockdown stuff.

It's good. It's a good show.

I'm not going to dwell on that one too much.

Clarkson's Farm Season 2 came out.

We are about halfway through that. It's really good.

And then Tournament of Champions, which is the one food show that I really, really watch all the time.

It's a Guy Fieri production, and you've got like 32 different chefs that do this bracket battle,

blind taste testing and all this stuff that gets down to these two.

And it's a guilty pleasure of mine.

I think I actually talked about it on a podcast last year because this would have been probably

Podcast 17 or 18 was when we were doing about a year ago, whenever TOC Season 3 came out.

And so Season 4 is out now, and we've been watching that week to week too.

So yeah, there's a lot of stuff on right now.

Like every night, so what we usually do, so I game a bunch too.

Lightfall just came out for Destiny 2.

Baldur's Gate 3, I've been playing a bunch lately.

And then another game called Hardscape, Shipbreaker, here lately.

And then, yeah, my TV time is like one show a night usually, like one episode.

Let me say that back, take that back, one episode a night.

So the wife usually comes down, we watch one episode of something,

and then I play video games for the rest of the night.

So it's a pretty good split.

I mean, it's not, yeah, a lot of stuff going on.

Oh, Bando 2, I watched Bando last night for the Episode 1 of Season 3, Episode 1.

That's a weekly release, right?

Yeah, weekly release.

Have you watched yet?

I'm really debating.

No, I'm debating whether to.

Yeah, it's, I'm not talking about the episode itself.

I'm just saying like the timing of that, it's one of those ones where I'm in the same bit I think as you,

where I'm just kind of like do I want to wait and watch like three of them in a row?

Yeah.

Or do I want to just go ahead and watch one per week and kind of remember what happened last week

or not kind of remember but like have to go like watch a preview to remember exactly, you know,

what went down last week and all the Easter eggs and all that kind of stuff.

So, yeah, I don't know.

I think that we're going to try to keep up with that weekly but we may just wait and let it all build up.

I'll probably break down and watch it.

I could not wait on Last of Us.

I had to go forward with that.

So, and that's proven to be awesome.

Did you play the game?

I knew you were, that's like the first thing you ask, right?

Yeah.

No, that's PlayStation exclusive and I've not had PlayStation for a long time.

I always ask you just because like it's pretty.

I watched my wife watching it and she's like Game of Thrones level like super focused on it.

I don't want to say that I know what's coming up next but I know the general feel.

It's like okay this is good.

Let me ask you this then because William had that question on Discord earlier and that is because he was planning to play the game.

I would not play the game after watching the show.

So you would do the game first?

Yeah I would do the game first for sure.

That was my advice based on nothing because I haven't played the game but it just seems like you're interactive with the game so you'd want to be interactive with something you don't know what's coming.

Exactly. You're totally right.

And then appreciate the show as you can.

Yeah there's a lot of people that are excited because I think the game is coming out on PC in the next month or so.

The PlayStation game is going to be coming out on PC and I don't know how I could go back and play that game after watching the show.

Right. Yeah.

There have been some movies that I've gone back and read the books. It's few and far between. Very few.

Oh that I do. That I have no problem with.

Do you? Okay.

Because there's usually such a separation between the movie and the show.

Alright so let me ask you this question.

Comparing the... how do I say this?

So there's books that are written before the movie.

So the movie is an adaptation of the book.

And then there's also things that are movie adaptations I guess you call them.

Like there's certain... like The Last Jedi is a great example.

The Last Jedi had after the movie came out you had six comics that came out that were adaptations of the movie in comic form.

And then you also actually had a book that came out that was based I think on the script from The Last Jedi.

Like what is your... would you ever go back and read the latter?

Like the ones that come out after the movie?

So I'm familiar with what you're talking about there.

I don't think I've ever read a novelization of an existing movie.

Okay. So it's only the ones that came out before the movie.

The ones that were the original manuscript or the original idea.

Yeah and the movie is the visual adaptation of the written word.

I really don't think I've ever read the other way around.

Okay. Well that makes sense.

I don't know that I can even go back.

So there's times that I've gone back and read the actual books.

But it's usually if there's a very wide gap in between when the book was written and when the movie came out.

Right. Yeah. And that's usually the case.

And it has to be obviously something that you're really into.

That you want to read more.

It could be a different sort of a different story if you think about it.

It ends up being a different story.

But it's still set in that world or with those characters or whatever hooked you.

So it's still enjoyable.

So let me ask you one more follow-up question.

So I see with Netflix.

There's a lot of movies that come out based on books that have happened in the last couple of years.

Because Netflix is trying to ride the wave of the book being popular.

Yeah. Snap it all.

Yeah. It happens all the time.

Okay. So old movies.

Like old movies. When I say old movies.

I mean like 10 years ago pre-Netflix.

Before streaming services.

A movie had to go to production.

It had to go to writing. It had to be approved.

It took years and years and years to make a movie.

So the ones that made it through seemed to be ones that were like.

Like the book was written like maybe in the 60s.

The 70s.

But now we've shrank that window down to like.

Oh, was it Nicky Jones and the Six?

There was some young adult book that came out.

That's about a band that's kind of like this kind of former Fleetwood Mac-ish kind of band.

And the book came out maybe three years ago.

And they're already making a movie about it.

Like they're already making a movie or a show.

I don't know what Netflix is doing.

Excuse me.

I don't know.

Actually, that happens enough recently that something, a movie will come out or a series will come out.

And everyone's raving about it.

And it turns out that it's based on a book that came out maybe two or three years ago.

And they snapped up the rights and filmed it right away.

And I've never heard of it.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah, no, no.

Well, that's my question though.

Is that like would you be more adamant.

I'm sorry, would you be more hesitant to go back and read those books because they just came out

versus something that came out like the 50s or 60s?

If I've seen the movie or the series, it is.

Well, I can't say it.

It's it's I think it's more unlikely that I'd go back to the source material.

One major exception to that would be actually two that I can think of.

Major exceptions to that would be Lord of the Rings.

Yeah, I was wholly unfamiliar with that IP when Fellowship came out.

Okay.

And everybody around me knew the story.

Yeah.

And I was like this we're watching the movie.

I'm like, this is great.

Wait, why is it over?

They're not there yet.

And they're like, go read the books.

Yeah, no, it's a class.

That's maybe the outlier just because of Tolkien influence.

Well, I don't know.

The other notable example would be Dunny. I never read that. It was really Dunny. It's about this desert planet with giant freaking worms on it.

Oh, Dunny. Okay, okay. Sorry.

No, I never read Dune until, I guess during COVID. It was during lockdown.

Interesting.

Never read it.

So did you read past the first bit for Dune?

I am currently, and this gets into more discussion than we probably have right now.

We can go to the next podcast.

Let's pick that up on the next podcast.

At least tell me what book you're on.

What book comes after Dunny?

You don't even know.

Children of Dune?

Nope. Messiah?

Yeah.

You don't even know. Listen to you. Listen to you, John.

Okay, so that's a great way to end the podcast. We'll have some more geek discussion on the next podcast about Dunay. What did you call it? Dunu?

Dunay.

Dunny. Okay, Dunny.

No, I'm not fancy like Applebee's.

Okay, so on the next podcast we're going to be doing episode, sorry, season three, episode seven, Assassin, episode three.

Okay, this is really weird. This is a really weird jump back.

So it looks like we're doing season three, episode seven, Assassin, and then season three, Episode two, Arc Troopers.

Which is, I mean, it's, you know, I trust the list. We follow the list.

Exactly.

But that's really weird that we jump back in time so much.

Anyways, and then we're also going to be reviewing Tales of the Jedi three? Yeah, three. The Chosen, I think is what it's called, with Mace Windu and some other stuff.

So it should be a good episode.

I don't know. My beer was good, John. How was yours?

Delicious. Thank you, Free Taverns.

Wait, I don't have to thank you. I gave you my beer.

Yeah, that's what I said. You paid them for the beer.

I paid them for that.

Because we live in abundance.

There's no crunch here whatsoever.

All right. Until next week, everybody stay safe. John, thanks for joining me.

Thank you. All right. See you guys next week.

This is the 11 Parsecs Podcast, episode 37.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please take a moment to subscribe and leave us a good review.

And be sure to check us out at 11parsecs.com and Discord.

I'm Jonathan Smith with the Spicy Eric Thompson. Thank you for joining us.