Episode 45: ( 20 BBY ) The Clone Wars Season 3 Ep 15, 16, and 17

This was a nipple pasties?

Tassels. Little tassels that you can sling around.

Doesn't have to have a tassel. Fine, make it fancy.

I don't know where you're going for pasties, John.

In this episode, Dooku seeks a new apprentice.

Everybody starts kung fu fighting.

And then Star Wars rewrites itself.

We'll discuss Clone Wars Episodes 3, 13, 14, and 15 in this edition of the 11 Parsecs Podcast.

Hello and welcome to Podcast Episode 45 of the 11 Parsecs Podcast.

My name's Eric, I'm here with my good buddy John.

Hello!

And tonight we are still in the sea of Clone Wars episodes.

We're working our way through Season 3.

And we're going to be reviewing...

Well, let's dive into these Clone Wars episodes, because I have a lot to talk about with these guys.

Oh yeah.

Alright, so as we do always, what beer are you drinking, John?

Tonight I am having, from our friends Sierra Nevada, I think we were discussing them somewhat recently.

We were.

This is a Hot Bullet.

And I've had Hot Bullet before.

But this is Magnum Edition.

Wait, wait, wait. Magnum?

Magnum.

As in extra large?

It's a large can.

No, I'm kidding.

It's a regular can.

But it does say Magnum Edition, Imperial IPA, 9.5%.

So yeah, I'm excited.

Yeah, that's pretty hefty, the Magnums.

Actually, I don't know that I've heard of a Magnum.

I think about it from Sierra Nevada.

I have no idea what this is talking about, Magnum Edition.

I think that's probably just marketing.

No, no, no. I think there are Magnum Hops.

I'm not a brewer.

Oh, oh, oh.

So you're like, okay, I'm betrayed.

Thank you for telling everyone on the podcast.

I don't know what I'm talking about.

Because that makes perfect sense.

It's a Magnum Hop.

Well, I think it's a play on words.

It's the heavy, big beer.

What other meaning could they possibly have?

I'm moving on to my beer.

So I'm drinking from right down the road, actually, in Johns Creek.

Six Bridges Brewing, Medlock, the double dry hop in the IBO.

We've had this before.

It's a good beer. It's a local beer.

But I don't know that I've ever actually bought it in a can.

So I was kind of excited when I picked this up today.

Shall we pop the tops?

We should. We shall.

Three, two, one.

I was worried because I just got mine out of the fridge

that it was going to be like crazy, but it's not.

Now let's see if I can actually pour it into a glass without it being...

That is a good skill to have.

Doing all right, doing all right, doing all right.

Yeah, I'm okay.

That's about a good two fingers.

Yeah, mine's okay.

Just okay. I could have done better.

All right.

Cheers.

Cheers.

I can't drink mine for about five minutes.

Ooh, that is good.

I drink mine and it's delicious.

Okay, so...

All right, so if you're unfamiliar with the podcast,

we're going through all the Star Wars New Canon books,

movies, games, comics, everything,

starting with 42 BBY, I think is where we started.

Right now we're at 21 BBY,

BBY being Before The Battle of Yavin,

which is kind of a nomenclature that everybody uses

for the timeline of Star Wars.

And we are in The Clone Wars.

Clone Wars were a series of animated shows

that lasted, I think, nine seasons.

And some of them were pretty big.

During the middle of them,

I think they got to almost 20, 24 episodes apiece,

we're in the middle of season three.

And I have to say that one of the episodes tonight

is probably the best one that we've watched so far.

And the other two are pretty high up there.

I'm not going to say which one.

Let's dive into them.

Let's dive into them and see if we're both in agreement here.

No, I've been looking forward to this podcast

since watching the episodes.

There's something.

There's something special.

So let's jump into the first episode that we're reviewing.

We're reviewing three tonight.

And they're actually in order.

This is the neat thing.

So since we're going in chronological order,

sometimes when we watch Clone Wars episodes,

they're not always in order.

These three happen to be in order.

We were watching Monsters, Witches of the Mist, and Overlords.

And it's funny because a lot of times,

or especially before Ahsoka and some of the other stuff,

I saw a bunch of listicles that kind of came out on the net

that were like, you need to watch these 10 episodes

of these shows before you watch Ahsoka

to know what's going on.

And Overlords and Witches of the Mist were on most of those lists.

So they're definitely highly rated.

But let's start off with Monster.

So Doku's dead, quote-unquote dead at this point.

And Asajj Ventress has been framed, almost murdered, by Doku.

Doku doesn't want her anymore.

He's an apprentice.

And he's looking for a new apprentice.

So he goes to the witches and says,

Hey, I need somebody that's just like you.

Just as bad as Maul was. I mean, I want to be a that, you know, somebody that I'm not worried about. He's gonna be my top assassin. He's gonna do the dirty work for me whenever I need it. And this episode was, was, I knew it was coming just because I knew this character. But I thought it was very dark episode. I thought it was a very like, this ain't a kid show. I mean, we've left the kid show behind, in my opinion.

Oh, oh, my. So the first thing I want to say is, when, especially, especially when she headed out to go find, you know, her warrior guy. Yeah. Among the males. That's when I thought, man, this is, this is, this is getting far enough away from the whole Skywalker thing. It feels like they're really breaking new ground. And I was totally into it.

Yeah, totally. I completely agree. It was, um, it was very woman dominated culture. They chose the males, the Zabrak, I think is the name of the species. They chose the Zabrak males specifically for mating purposes. I mean, the women run this planet, it seems like. And what was interesting to me was that Doku doesn't know it, but the person choosing his assassin is Asajj Ventress, who he kicked to the curb.

So it's like, it's a neat kind of like, like, she's, she wants somebody that she knows, in the end, they can trust to kill Doku, or at least help.

Wheels, wheels within wheels.

It is. It's really, it was really good. And then I like the way that that she, you know, she just glides over to her little glider out to the male part of town, which is really weird to me. I don't know. And, and they're all fighting in the courtyard, and she just starts putting them through the tests and stuff and finally ends up picking one. And the one that she picked, kind of ended up doing a little Hunger Games kind of thing really, where like, he didn't want his brother to go. So he kind of sacrificed himself to go, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

And you see where that's going. And that's, that was my second note is this, man, this show, this show. Yeah, this is a kid show. Yeah, seriously, man. So you have Darth Maul and in his lineage is also, and I love the way it's so I've always read it as savage oppressed, but it's Savage oppressed.

So it's, it's a little bit of like, like, like, like fancier, Savage oppressed. And then they also have another brother named Feral. And Feral and Savage, I don't know that they know that that Maul's dead or not, or what happened, you know, during The Clone Wars Episode two, or sorry, the movie Episode two, but basically, they're still training because they want to be the best that they can for the witches.

And, you know, they get she gathers like six, Savage Ventress gathers like six different people to battle it out, because she needs to choose the best fighter. And he ends up leaving Feral behind and kind of puts himself as tribute to go train.

Was what I found curious was none of them seem like they were really all that good. No, not compared to her. Not not impressive, not not impressive at all. And then she picks him takes him back. And they do witchcraft. And then suddenly he's like, amazing.

Well, suddenly, it's like another like foot tall. He's got he's like, he's got the Maul eyes, like he's got that red, yellow eyes, you know, and he's possessed pretty much. And I like the fact that they just give a bonk on the head. You know, it's a yellow. Yeah, just remember who you are. That's me. You're serving me. And yeah, it was the ritual was kind of cool. I thought the ritual was neat. You know, he comes out looking slightly like Maul, but also a lot more bulkier and bigger. And then

bigger, bunch bigger.

And then the, the head, which gives him this magical weapon, you know, that she just kind of conjures out of thin air, that's really cool looking. And they sent him off to Doku. But wait, they don't send him off to Doku.

Right, hold on. So they did they give him? They had to have given him The Force sensitivity, right?

I believe so. I believe that's what they were doing during that.

There's no other explanation for it.

Well, we're just, we're just, I took it almost as like, they're making sure that he's going to be under their control when they need him. And that's what that kind of, and don't get me wrong, they still beefed him up a little bit. And you know, he is, his strength and dexterity went up in the D&D skill. But I think that he still, part of that was to be able to do the boink on the head and be like, Hey, we're sending you to Doku to serve Doku.

Part of that, but The Force part of it had to have been the real reason that they do the ceremony, make him strong and force capable.

Okay, yeah.

And controllable.

And to withstand Doku's training, which he may not have been able to do. I mean, Asajj Ventress is whipping his butt. So it's not like he's got, you know what I mean? He's not, he doesn't have like tons of stamina or anything like that. Okay, so they whip him into shape, he becomes this monster that comes out. And then this, by far the darkest part of the series so far for me.

Well, that's what I was alluding to earlier. Yes, we haven't actually said it yet.

Say it.

So they bring in his brother. The reason that he's trapped in this situation in the first place was trying to save his brother. And of course, tell him to kill his brother.

And he does.

There's not really hesitation per se, it's just, he doesn't say, no I can't, I can't, it's just he doesn't act immediately, and they say, no really, kill your brother, okay, snap, snaps his neck.

There was a very bit, a little bit of, I don't know what to say, was on his face, that the artist did a really good job with.

It was very passive, yeah, there was a little flicker there, but not the thing that you would expect of, I can't kill my brother, I won't kill my brother,

there wasn't any of that, it was very nicely, you're right, hidden behind the eyes.

Yeah, and it was good, I mean he was good, I mean he literally grabs his brother and snaps his neck.

I mean it's just like, the guy that he literally was protecting a week ago, or I don't know how long it took for them to get back or whatever.

Yeah, that was brutal man, that was poor Feral.

Did you notice, did you notice that he shoves his brother just up out of frame, and you hear the snap, so you don't actually see him,

because I was thinking, are they really going to show him snapping his brother's neck on screen in a kid's show?

They don't, they don't, they get away with it, he lifts him up out of frame and you hear the snap and that's it.

Yeah, but you know, everybody knows, kids know.

Of course you know, of course you know.

It's, it's, what do you call it, it's, what are they, when they put the cups on the nipples, you know, like when they just do little pasties on the nipples.

Oh, okay.

I was about to say tassels.

That's basically what it is, this was a nipple pasties.

Tassels, little tassels that sling around.

Doesn't have to have a tassel, fine, make it fancy.

I don't know where you're going for pasties, John, but mine all have tassels.

So, okay, so anyways, he goes to Doku, Doku comes, picks him up, and, and Doku's like, hello, you're my new apprentice, you're my new assassin.

I'm going to teach you great things in the dark arts of The Force, because not only are you going to be an assassin, but you are now, you know, part of the Sith, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And so I was just like, yeah, definitely, man, I'm good for this.

But then there's a brutality with Doku in this, that like, like Doku just like keeps on shocking the dude.

Like he can't get anything right to begin with.

And Doku is just a brutal, brutal teacher.

I mean, just absolutely brutal.

It's beyond, you know, throwing someone in the deep end of the pool, it's way beyond that.

It's, I'm going to kick you in the face and keep kicking you, maybe you'll survive.

Which is wild when you think about like Qui-Gon Jinn and him teaching, like he was, Qui-Gon Jinn was his Padawan.

And it's like, I don't know, it just seems like two sides of the coin.

It almost shows, you know, how far Doku's come to where he doesn't care.

Oh, so far, yes, so far.

So anyways, Doku sends him off to the Temple of Edith.

This is like his first mission.

Basically, this is a, the Trade Federation needs to capture this, I guess this one temple on this planet.

Because the Jedi and Stormtroopers have been defending it.

And he steps in right in the middle of the battle.

Clone troopers.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Clone troopers.

Sorry, the clone troopers.

And the clone troopers are going at him and he just walks straight up and just demolishes like five in a row.

So he just mows down those five guys.

And then he's walking up and it's Master Halsey is the Jedi.

And his Padawan's name is Nox.

And they don't last a second.

This is a Jedi Master too.

You know they're doomed.

I mean, from the setup of the situation, you know they're doomed.

I actually had in my notes that these are the red shirts for this episode.

Right.

But little did I know that we had heard Master Halsey's name before.

So it's not like he's an unknown Jedi.

It's just one of those background Jedis.

But to be fair, this guy's a Jedi Master.

I mean, you expect a fight, you know?

I mean, nothing.

Nothing.

No, I thought it was going to be a little more and maybe What's-His-Face would win in the end.

But he would just barely win.

No, he just wiped him out.

He wipes him out super quick.

Nox, his Padawan, is like, no!

And rushes him.

And you're just like, oh, this is not going to go well.

And it didn't.

It just immediately was done.

And you're like, this was like 20 seconds of a kid show.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe I'm wrong on the clone.

But he literally just took out a Jedi Master and his Padawan in 20 seconds.

And it's brutal.

I mean, it's absolutely brutal.

And that's where it starts the Jedi CSI part of the episode.

Where they're trying to figure out who did this.

You know, what power can do this to a Jedi Master.

Yeah, I'm very glad that we watched this episode, the first episode of these three.

Because it definitely sets the stage.

And it definitely makes you...

If this guy can come up and become this so quickly, like, why are there not more guys like him?

You know what I mean?

That's a fair question.

If the Nightsisters can do this, why is Doku not giving them whatever they want?

And just be like, give me a team of six of these guys, and we're good to go.

I don't have to teach them as apprentices.

I just want them as bloodthirsty assassins.

Because, I mean, isn't that the whole thing about the Sith limiting to two?

You're going to raise an army that wipes you out.

They're going to turn against you, right?

But right, but I'm not saying train them in the use of the use of the dark art. I mean, the dark arts, I'm not saying train them in the use of the dark side of The Force. I'm just saying, have them as people on your team.

Because they're just I would still I think the answer stands that he would think, I mean, I'm not stupid. I'm not going to train an army that can take me out. Yeah, no, thank you. Yeah, fair enough. I'm going to be more surgical than that.

But this was the first time too, that I got caught Wind of Doku talking about Sidious and wanting to usurp Sidious. Because I don't know if you I don't know if you noticed that, but there was a line and there's like, if you stay with me, we're so powerful that we can take over Sidious. And I don't know that I've ever seen him.

I mean, even with Asajj, I don't ever remember an episode where they're plotting to overtake Sidious. You know, he's always been the head guy. And then now Doku is just like, I'm done. I don't we're, we're, we're going all in.

And maybe he yeah, maybe he sees something with Sauvage that he thinks could lead to that. Whereas he did not see that with Ventress.

Is there is there a is there a cologne or perfume called Sauvage? I feel like there's like the Johnny Depp one. I don't know which one he does.

So I can tell you that there's a wine. There's a Chardonnay called Cuvée Sauvage. Sauvage in French means dry. So and Cuvée means batch. So it means dry batch.

Oh, listen to you. Wine connoisseur. You're a wonderful Chardonnay. Cork dork over here.

We call them we call ourselves wainophiles. Thank you very much.

Wainophiles. Sorry about that. But uh, but no, I mean, it's Yeah, I feel like there is I feel like I've heard the name or the term Sauvage somewhere else. I feel like it's one of it's it's like a it's like a cologne or something. I don't know.

Have you been in France? Maybe you were in France.

Maybe I was. Maybe I was.

They say nothing else over there. Sauvage.

It's filthy American Sauvage. Fromage Sauvage.

All right. So I'm not going to ask you for scores on this episode. But let's go ahead and lead into the next.

Oh, I was expecting you to ask me and I didn't prep. It's not hard in the sense that it's higher than it's higher than than just any other I can think of. So it's way up there.

Yeah, I if I was going to give you a one through 100 knowing the other episodes we're going to review tonight, I'd probably put it at about a 94 or 93 somewhere in there.

Is that I was thinking 93. I was thinking 93.

Okay, there we go. So we're on the same page here. I mean, this is um, this is a this is good. This is good. Okay, so let's lead into the next episode, which is

Yeah, it's only it's only going to be surpassed with the next one.

Witches of the Mist. This episode is, again, like I said, the Jedi CSI kind of thing where they're trying to figure out who killed Master Runaan or who killed the Master Halsey and Nox.

And what could have destroyed this whole army of clone troopers or this whole contingent of clone troopers at this battle so quickly?

Like, how did the tides turn so quickly?

And so one thing we talked about about what we're talking about in the last episode, but where Doku is just such a brutal, brutal trainer, like he's literally just like force

lightening him over and over and over and over. And I thought that it was really interesting, because at that there's one point where a press is like, lifting these two, like, what do you call those like oblique type situation things?

And and Doku knows that he can do it. Doku knows that he can do it. And he's like, what you ask is impossible. And I think that that mirrors the line from Luke's training.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course. It's meant to mirror that.

Yeah. So it's like, it's a very good, like, kind of like comparison, juxtaposition, I guess, between the two different teachers and stuff. I just thought that was really interesting. I had that in my notes.

But anyways, Doku asked Savage to now go kill the king of Tordaria. I forget the king, King Cthulhu, I think is his name, which is, for those that don't remember Tordaria, Tordaria is the people like Watto in Watto's Junkyard.

The Force does not work on Tordarians, that kind of situation.

And I love saying that. It's like one of my favorite sayings in all Star Wars, I think. But anyways, so Anakin and Obi-Wan come and figure out that, or actually they visit the witches, the witches are like, oh, he's on the planet of Tordaria.

So they go to Tordaria. And this is right as Opressus is going to kill, sorry, going to capture, that's the one thing that I should note, is Doku asked him to bring him back alive. That was the that was the main point. We need the king alive, bring him back.

Bring him back. And Opressus just goes off the rails. And Savage just is Savage. I mean, he just, he kills the Tordarian King super quick, drags the body back.

Well, no, no, no, he only kills the king after.

Luke and Obi-Wan? I'm sorry, Anakin and Obi-Wan? Yeah, that's true. Sorry, Ned.

Yeah, it was, he basically was like, screw this. And just, you know, yeah, snaps him, snaps the neck. And yeah, yeah, I'm getting out of here. Screw this. He doesn't need to be alive.

And he brings him back. And of course, Doku's a bit pissed.

Of course. And Doku's not pissed. Doku's like, well, that's that's you. You're dead. You defied me.

And then there's a really interesting scene where at that exact moment.

Ventress walks in and is like, all right, now's our time and kind of shows Doku that a press was

working with them, mostly. I wish that they had shown Ventress in the hallway, you know,

outside waiting, just waiting for like three hours for that moment to happen, so that she

could dramatically open the door. I wish they'd shown that part. I don't understand how Doku

doesn't know. He was her charge for, she was his charge for like, what, years at this point,

and he doesn't detect that she's right outside the door?

Uh, yeah, because she had the cloak of plot armor.

I guess so, because it just, that was the part that I was like, okay, whatever, we'll take it,

take it with the plot. But, you know, oh, she opens the door, perfect timing,

hands Savage his dual wield lightsaber, and yeah, they both start to fight Doku,

which was kind of neat. It was a neat idea. I mean, you're literally watching,

um, you know, three red lightsabers battle each other almost pretty much.

And also too, there's a little bit of, um, oh, four, sorry.

Five.

Five.

Eight.

Eight.

Where are you getting the five and the four from?

You're just saying numbers.

Where are you just getting, where are you getting the four and five from?

Well, Ventress is a dual wielder.

Oh, that's true. Yeah. And then you got the dual-

Savage is a double ender.

Right. And these are technical Star Wars terms, people.

And, and Doku is, you know, Doku. So that's five.

Yeah, you're right.

Fair enough, fair enough, fair enough. And at the beginning of the fight, again,

I know they don't kill him, but I was thinking, I mean, come on, this has got to be enough.

This has got to be enough to take him out.

No.

Even though you know it's not going to be.

So, okay. And then just to continue this episode, uh, at the very end is kind of an

interesting thing because, uh, Opress gets his butt kicked pretty bad,

ends up coming back to the witches.

And then the Nightsisters show him.

And this was, this was, this must've been a huge reveal at the time.

Because this was, this was well before Solo.

So you didn't know it in Solo, but you find out that, um, Maul is actually alive.

And he's on the outer rim. I think she said he's on the outer rim being held captive.

And Opress can be trained further in the dark arts from him or the dark side of The Force.

Why do I keep saying dark arts? It's like Harry Potter.

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know where you're going.

Anyways. But he can be trained further in the dark side of The Force by Maul.

He's just got to get to him. He's got to find him.

And, um, I thought it was interesting that they talk about how he's on the outer rim.

Uh, which, which, you know, sounds like crazy to get to, but we do have stories up till now

that have shown that people, you know, travel somewhat to the outer rim.

It's a, it's a, it's a merciless place, the outer rim.

But, uh, you know, isn't that where Tatooine is?

Is Tatooine in the outer rim?

Yeah, I guess it is. Yeah, that's true.

So, so travel's common. He's just got to go find him.

Yeah. So, so he can, he can be gotten to and if, as long as he goes and rescues him.

And I think that's what the Nightsisters are setting up is they're trying to bring

Maul back into the fold. Um, and I, I don't know how Maul's body got, yeah.

Anyways. I mean, we don't really know that much in Solo either.

I mean, there's, there's really no, um, explanation.

Right. At this point.

And yes, this, this, this moment, and I put in my notes, dun, dun, dun, right.

This moment was completely ruined by me just not knowing

any of this, but having seen Solo and yeah, so it was completely just whatever.

Yeah. I know Maul's though.

This had to be like a massive, massive, like what?

Whenever people were watching this back then.

Yeah.

I kind of miss, hate that I missed that or we missed that, but we did.

Um, yeah, another good episode.

I don't know that I'd rank this one as high as I would the first one that we watched.

You're kidding me.

You're kidding me.

No, I'm not kidding you.

This was great.

This was, this was,

this was great.

This, uh, yeah, this was like, what a show.

What a show.

So I, I would, I would still say in the nineties, but I probably put it like a 91.

No, I'd go the other way.

I, um, you made me want to not say a 94, 95 now.

So I guess I'll just say 94, but I, I, I think this one was,

and it's because it's following on the prior episode.

It is the culmination of, well, for now the culmination of, of the plot of the story.

So I was in, I was into it.

Oh, I'm not saying I wasn't into it.

You gotta remember all the stuff that we've rated up until now,

especially in season three and season two was at best mid eighties, I think maybe.

So this is high seventies, low eighties.

Yeah. This is still a very big step up.

I completely agree with that.

It's a very good episode.

I just think that I liked the previous episode better.

Uh, fine.

That's, that's fine.

I appreciated the things like, um, how they split up the battle.

Once, uh, Obi-Wan and Anakin showed up, you know, Dooku does his little,

his little hatch escape.

They look, they love their little escape hatches.

They do.

So, yeah.

Cause there's multiple.

So, uh, that, that takes Dooku and Ventress down into a separate area.

So they do their battle while, you know, we have the battle of, of everyone, uh,

with Savage and Obi-Wan and Anakin and then the battle droids and all that.

So it was a nice, um,

It is a contrivance, but it made sense.

That is something Dooku would do, he's like, I'm outmatched, I'm out of here.

And it also makes sense that Ventress would know he would do that, so she would follow him really quickly.

Yes!

Whereas Savage would not have any clue.

That being said though, I was kind of surprised at the power of, against Anakin and Obi-Wan, of Savage.

Like you know he's the strong guy.

Well, he's had years, years of training.

That's my point, yeah. But he does, he puts a little bit of a hurt on him at first.

That's one of those things you just have to accept, because he's been training.

It's a lot like talking about echoing Luke on Dagobah.

It echoes that because dude's been training for like three days.

Yeah.

Right?

Like Luke really didn't have enough time to train on Dagobah.

And there are all kinds of explanations about that.

But in the film, it really seems like he was training for maybe a week.

And yet he's had huge progress.

So same thing here.

It's like how did you get so powerful?

How did you unlock all these abilities so quickly?

Well with Luke though, I mean you look at it like it's a natural ability being unlocked.

Whereas Savage is kind of like...

He's been juiced!

I know, yeah. Yeah, he's rooted up. He's ready to go.

He's like... and he does, he grunts like a bull a lot of times.

Like I don't know if you noticed that.

Yeah, right. Everything about him is meant to be just brute.

He's a brute. He's a monster.

There's no finesse.

And Dogu even says that when he's training him.

He literally says, I don't know that he uses the word finesse, but he's just like...

I think he mentions that there's no patience.

But yeah, good episode. I enjoyed it.

I'm kind of surprised that you ranked this one over the last one.

But let's get to the third episode.

A very different episode.

It is. This was a wild episode.

This is called Overlords. It's Season 3, Episode 12.

This is the last of the three that we watched for this podcast.

And this dove deep.

This was a very neat episode to me.

This was, whatever I was talking earlier in the podcast, this was my favorite of the three.

I would say so, yes.

But with the caveat that you could...

It depends entirely on how you want to approach this episode.

It is either opening doorways in your mind to possibilities,

or I could see someone saying, this came out of left field.

What was that about?

I was about to actually... I said that in my notes.

I was like, if you didn't know any of this,

like any of the stuff that we...

Which I don't.

No, no, I'm just saying like the stuff that we've watched lately

with Ahsoka and that kind of stuff.

Even then, you would have no...

This would be like, Felonious lost his mind.

He's gone off the rocker.

What is this?

You would be like, what on earth is...

I mean, this is writing the history of the Jedi into these three characters.

And we got 30 minutes?

Yeah.

And you're just like, whoa.

But I think going back a little bit, I kind of get some of it.

And I knew of these three characters,

but I didn't know how they would be introduced to Anakin.

And I love the fact that Anakin's so starly about it.

He's still just an absolute dick almost.

I mean, he's just like, yeah, what are we here for, lady?

Like, what are you doing?

And she's like, you can't touch me.

I'm trying to save your life.

It's like...

Well, he has to be that way because of where the episode ends up with him walking away.

Right.

So what I needed to hear is what did you know when you came into this episode?

What do you know about these entities?

So I knew that these three entities existed,

that they are older than anything Jedi Sith whatsoever,

and that the two kids represent the light and the dark.

And then I didn't know too much about the father.

But also, too, there's stuff that's going to come up,

and I don't want to ruin it for you,

but, like, there's stuff that comes up that represents maybe the daughter

and represents the son.

And you see that stuff in further episodes.

Okay.

And you may have even seen it on screen already.

And to me, of course, right, all of this was completely out of left field.

Oh, yeah.

I completely get it.

Daughter, son, what?

I wish I could go back and look at the comments section of some bulletin board somewhere

for when this episode came out.

Because I think that people were just like,

this is the complete lore and history of everything beyond Jedi.

This is like the concrete fundamentals of the galaxy represented in these three people.

Well, what is the core, one of the core things about the Skywalker saga?

It is the prophecy.

He is the chosen one.

Right.

He will bring balance to The Force.

This completely rewrites that.

It could, yeah.

It is not, well, yeah.

No, it does.

His bringing balance to The Force, well actually I guess I'll make it a question, isn't the prophecy really that he should have brought balance to The Force by staying and replacing the father?

That's, that's, I don't know, I have that in my notes.

Instead of going to the dark side and then in the end throwing the Emperor over the railing, or at least a clone of the Emperor, thank you very much, sequels, and bringing balance to The Force that way,

isn't it, isn't this episode saying, no no no, he betrayed his Destiny, he should have stayed in the tetrahedron thing, and brought balance, whatever that means, with these two entities.

But I mean, it implies that there's galaxy-wide implications to this.

It implies that there's stuff way beyond the Jedi.

And that's what I think that most hardcore Star Wars fans, when they watch this episode, had to be like, I was betrayed almost when he threw the Emperor over.

Like that was, up until this moment, what everybody thought was the balance of The Force.

Right.

And you're telling me that he still went through all that, and there may be more to come, because of the fact that he didn't make this decision with this guy, to take over his job.

He walked away from the prophecy, from his Destiny, right here in this episode.

Yeah, and that to me is like, absolutely landmark.

And also the fact that too, up until now, I'm speaking for myself too, maybe other people knew other things that I didn't, but you always thought that the prophecy related to the Jedi and the Sith.

Like, it was not greater forces of dark and light.

Right.

The boundaries were the Jedi and the Sith, and that this person was going to bring balance to those two warring parties and bring harmony.

But it's not. It's bigger than that.

It's The Force that holds everything together.

And not just that, but the people, the three people that are holding that force together, know Anakin.

They know of him.

And this guy's asking him to take his job from him.

It moves Anakin's character from, I don't know, something to a god.

Space Jesus?

Yeah, it's like, whoa, wait a minute.

I had this all wrong.

This is not something that's going to last for thousands of years because he was here.

This is something that's like millennia.

This has been going on forever.

And that to me...

They were using a 2,000 year old code, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And that was a really interesting part too.

It went over my head at the time.

I barely paid any attention.

Yeah, you wouldn't think about it.

Somebody just picked up a code and bring it or whatever.

It's an old code, but it works, sir.

Yeah, exactly.

And then the whole part where they get there and Rex and them aren't there and they get sucked into the...

I guess it was like a traveling holocron.

I don't even know what this thing is at this point.

What's interesting to me too is having watched Ahsoka is not really putting all that together, I guess is what I'm saying.

And maybe that's future Clone Wars episodes and that's what we'll learn, the ways between worlds and all that.

Maybe these people are the ones that help do it or something.

I don't know.

I really honestly don't know just because I haven't watched it.

But this was a neat step in the Star Wars universe to me.

It really was.

I think to me it shows that everything's bigger than you even imagine.

Yes.

And to bring it back down a little bit, the father at one point mentions Balance of the Fours, creation and destruction.

And that's something that has always...

I feel like 99% of Star Wars fans just blow right past.

Oh yeah.

It's all about the Jedi and being good and...

Wait a minute.

No, it's not.

It's about being good and bad.

It's both together in Balance.

And that means that you cook a meal for the poor person and then kill his family.

Jon, you should have been a Jedi Sage.

I mean, your analogies are perfect.

It's exactly what Yoda would have wanted.

He won't say it, but that's exactly what he wanted.

Well, no.

Maybe Yoda would want the Balance of the Fours and he wouldn't be able to provide that last step.

But again, that proves my point.

There's so much of this that is glossed over.

But it's not about being the hero.

If you listen to what they're actually saying about the Fours, the Balance of the Fours,

it's about being the hero and the villain.

Hand in hand.

This episode really, really, really, and I thought about this for a while after I watched it,

really makes me so much more intrigued by Balin's character on Ahsoka.

Because he is the embodiment of that.

He wants to destroy it all.

He wants to start fresh.

I had not thought about it in those terms.

He is the ultimate grey character to me.

Because he doesn't have, or at least I can't tell from the Ahsoka Season 1,

he has no ties to anybody.

He's no longer Jedi.

He helps out the Sith.

But he has a plan for himself.

And he talks about it.

He's like, I want to wipe slate clean.

You know, I want to kill them all. You know, I want to start fresh. And I'm kind of like, that's kind of where this dude in the middle is going, the father, you know what I mean? He's like, I got two kids. I got to keep them, keep them, you know, separate. I'm the only one that can control them. Besides you now, Anakin. And, and the light can't be too powerful, the dark can't be too powerful either. So it's like, I don't know, I think it intrigues me a lot more about Balin's character.

I love that you brought that up because there is a rich vein of storytelling to be mined by a capable storyteller here. And it could, it could be really, really, really something, but it really leaves behind. That's why you got to think that Lucas didn't really know what he was doing when he said things like balance of The Force. It's like, I don't think I understand what that means, dude.

It was so simplistic. It was to him. It was a hero's journey. Yeah, exactly. Hero's journey. But you're saying that that's only half the story.

Yeah, no, I completely agree with you. It takes, it has been people critically writing reports and documents and stories about a sentence, you know, and it's like, it's really cool that it's gotten here. And I have a feeling that people are gonna listen to this podcast that are Star Wars, big Star Wars fans be like, dude, just wait.

Like, you know, like it, it's stuff gets explained later on, but I'm just as someone that doesn't know what's coming up past this, I'm very excited. And I hope that this gets touched on a lot more because this to me is like the heart of it. Like this is really, really just like on the borderline of mind blowing to me. And I, I didn't know this before, you know, we watched the episode. I was just like, this episode is amazing. TV, absolutely amazing TV.

You know what I found to be mind blowing? What Darth Maul's return may not have been a surprise, but Qui-Gon. Yes, see that. Didn't see that coming. Two things that I noted in this episode, whenever I was watching it. Number one, that is Liam Neeson talking. I had to look that up. That is his voice. That is his voice. He's talking there's more and there's more. And there's more.

Yes. Shmi, that is actually Shmi, the actress that I know. How cool is that? It's beyond awesome. And I right when I right when I heard that, I had to write that down. I was just like, this is this is so cool because you don't hear him. And I guess we do get a little bit of him at the end of Obi-Wan, the live action series. But yeah, I was like, Liam Neeson. I was like, that's awesome. That's so awesome to me. And I was just like, oh, this is great. And then I had to look up who the son and the daughter was. And they were actually from they've done a lot of Star Wars voice work.

But they are both from Star Wars Force Unleashed, which was a video game that was out about this time, which was a great game. I enjoyed it a lot on the 360. But they were both in that. But there they are. They're not playing those characters in the game, but they are, you know, in the show.

Yeah, I loved this episode. This is this is the one that I'm putting in about a 97 for me. It's not a perfect episode, but it's good. It's darn good. And for like the lore aspect of it, it's it's is really like I wish I would have been a follower of The Clone Wars at the time this came out, because I would have been on message boards.

Yeah, I think I was. I don't even know if I was really. No, I was. I guess I was aware that this existed at the time. And the little tiny three second snippets I may have seen, I wrote it off completely as a stupid kid show.

Yeah, and I think that's the that was the biggest draw or knock for me from ever watching in the beginning. And I watched a couple of episodes here and there just to just see what was going on and see what people were talking about. If they had put the the brother neck snapping in the in the commercials, right? I would have been I would have been all over it. I would have been all over it. I mean, I would have been like, oh, my gosh, this is gonna be dark. This is an animated series. That means that they can move the story along pretty quickly. Yeah, I totally would have been all over it. Yeah, I really would have. I would have been like, this is gonna be awesome. This is gonna be great.

I really would have. I would have been like, this is gonna be awesome. This is gonna be absolutely awesome. So you mentioned dark. We're about to transition as soon as you wrap up here to, you know, other media. Yeah. And there's something I there's one little thing I got to talk about. So let's go.

It's we need like a we need like a it's like a like some kind of like, I don't know. We got it. We got to figure that part out. Now it's time for nerd out. Yeah, that's pretty good. I like that. That's actually pretty good. Yeah. So, okay.

Yeah, so, okay. Geek read. So for those who don't listen to the podcast, maybe this is the first time listening to the podcast. Usually half the podcast is us talking about Star Wars. The other half is us talking about just geeky things. So usually we just kind of go down like a list that we've prepared. I have not prepared anything, but I've got tons to talk about. John, do you want to start off with your dark?

I do because you said dark. Okay, good. Um, where, where are you with The Bad Batch?

Yeah, I watched it. Zero episode Zero.

I know that I mentioned it before and prior. Oh, you promised me you'd watch him. You absolutely love it. And I'm tempted to.

to watch it now, but I'm also kind of like...

Well, it's done, right? Season 3's out. That's it. It's done.

No, no, not in this time. I'm talking about in the time sequence of our show, of the podcast.

Oh, wow, wow, wow.

Because it's got to be coming up after Clone Wars, right? Or is there a pretty big gap?

No, it's after... it's, I guess, technically in the last third of... and then after episode 3, Revenge of the Sith.

Oh, okay.

466.

Well, then maybe I will. Maybe I will sit down to watch it then.

It's a ways off.

It's a ways off. With our podcast, we set a flag in the sand almost four years ago, right?

When COVID started, right? When COVID started.

Here's our list. Anything that gets added past this on the list is free game for us to watch, you know, at home

and talk about it on Geekery and stuff like that.

But also, too, we're not going to watch it in order.

And I just happened to think that it was going to lay in pretty well with Clone Wars.

So I was kind of saving it, but I probably will start watching it.

But regardless, please talk to me.

So, yeah, so they just came out recently with season 3 and that's it.

I have only watched one episode of season 3. I just started this.

Normally, I would keep my mouth shut, but I've got to tell you something.

And I won't... this is not spoiling.

Season 1 was fine. Season 2, I thought, was pretty good.

I was about to say, season 2 was the one you told me about. You were very high on season 2.

Season 3, episode 1, that is a masterful episode.

It is up there with the prison episode of Andor.

Whoa, high praise.

I am not kidding you. I was blown away.

It is so well done. So well done.

Atmospheric, heart-wrenching, so good. So good.

Wow. How long is the show? Is it 30 minutes or an hour?

That's a really good question.

It felt like a full hour show, so it would be really fun to see that it's not.

It probably isn't. They're probably half hours.

But, yeah, it felt like a full show, full episode, whatever that means to you.

And that's all I want to say about it, but you have to get into that show,

because if that's an indication of where season 3 is going, okay, good job.

All right, I may start watching it later on this week.

Because, yeah, for some reason, like I said, I was thinking it was right after Clone Wars,

but if it's not, then I'm just going to start watching it.

This is... I think there was, what, eight episodes per season? Is that something right?

It's like with Ahsoka. It's 8 or 10. It's something like that.

Somewhere in there. Somewhere in there.

But, okay, yeah, so are you planning on watching the next one, like tonight?

I mean, it sounds like you were so high on this episode 1.

Yeah, and it's usual, I'll have to decide, do I want to kind of parcel them out and savor,

or do I want to just binge them like a box of chocolates?

Binge them. Binge them. Binge them.

Consume!

Consume, Jon.

I probably will have to watch at least one more, and if it's at that level of quality,

then at that point I'd probably stop.

But the whole series is out right now.

That's my understanding. It came out like two months ago, I think, or something like that.

Okay.

So, yeah, I think it's done.

So what else have you been watching?

So what I have first on my list, and this is going to be fun,

did you watch What If? Season 1?

No, I did not.

Do you watch television? What do you do with your time?

I try to, man. I try to.

No, I did not watch What If?

Okay, well then I watched, I loved What If? Season 1.

Oh, that's the same one that just came out, right?

Yes, so I watched What If? Season 2, and I could not have a discussion with you about that whatsoever.

I don't remember a damn thing.

Really?

Total cotton candy.

That bad?

No, no, no, I enjoyed it.

Oh, you enjoyed it.

It was great.

Oh, okay, okay, I'm sorry.

But it's cotton candy.

Okay, got you.

So it's just like kind of the War of the Worlds kind of mind-numbing entertainment.

I would have to look up a summary, a synopsis.

It was like, oh, yeah.

I don't remember a single thing that happened.

So those guys are not canon, but I do remember somebody saying something about after Season 1,

an element of the show actually became canon just because of the way that the kind of the worlds lined up, I guess.

Is that right?

What was it?

Okay, I'm sure.

Oh, no, no, no, I think I know what it was.

I feel like I remember somebody talking about how there was something in What If that – and I think it may be – oh, what's Peggy Carter?

She becomes like Captain America almost.

Captain Great – What If?

is her name. Captain, Captain UK. I can't remember her name.

Captain Confederated States. Yeah. Yes, Captain, everyone's

happy. The Yeah, it was the Yeah, I think maybe that's what it

was. It was something to the it lended itself to the fact that

there was something in season one of what if that actually was in

that scene with with all The X-Men, everybody that Wanda

comes in in Doctor Strange two, and just starts like melting

everybody's brains and just like killing everyone. And I feel

like there was something and everybody was like, Wait a

minute, this was in what if or something like that? Oh, yeah,

you're you're, you're right. I just took that for granted at

the time. But you're correct. That's right. Yeah, it was

never Captain. What is her name? It's gonna drive me nuts.

Britannia. I was making stuff up now. I have no clue. I'm

from Britannia. Captain croissant. No, that's French.

Captain's tea and biscuits. Captain Sauvage. How many

countries am I going to tick off in this one? But I know

seriously, we're, we're, we're racking them up here. Yeah, our

Spotify numbers are gonna be like, UK Zero. There's usually

so many. So yeah, anyways. Yes, I don't know that. That's the

one thing somebody pointed it out. They were like, Oh, this

this actually happened. And what if and that was kind of like,

well, is, is that the ultimate joke? Are they going to actually

kind of like, have different pairings of things that

actually happened? And what if in the movies and be like, Yeah,

we didn't, we didn't, we said what if and yeah, if it

happened, you know, like, you know, that was gonna be the

running joke. But anyways, sorry, I didn't mean to I it's

coming across like, I don't care for the series or something. I

am a big fan of Yeah, go off cannon. Play with the

multiverse. What if this crazy thing happened? Run with it?

Show me what what that means. I love it. I love it. Problem is

that it is just, it ends up being cotton candy, because it

doesn't mean anything.

So you don't want to talk to me about what you can you can talk

about? I mean, I'm fine talking about it. I can't talk about it.

I don't remember anything about it. It was a season. It was

after season one. And I watched it. So we still need to go back

and watch vision season two.

Oh, right. We plan on that like four or five podcasts gonna be

like, hey, let's watch one person. So I'm gonna I'm gonna

make a list of what we're watching for 46. And we are

definitely gonna watch season two of vision. Because I feel

like that's a very parallel kind of vibe, I guess you'd say from

the Star Wars side of things for the what if stuff, it's not

canon. It's in the same universe.

It's a different take on it. Because what if still posits a

starting situation that you know, whereas visions is just, I

mean, rando, you shake up the boggle machine, and outcomes

Jedi samurai, that kind of thing. You know, you don't mean

it's playing with absolutely no, no foundations.

Well, also to most of the creators for visions, I believe

were not all of them, but most of them were anime people to

that wanted to have a take on Star Wars, which is you don't

say, yeah, which is, yeah, which is definitely different than the

what ifs. So I haven't, the TV that I have been watching has

been a lot of cooking stuff. And I know I talked about this on

like, like podcasts, like 25 or 26. We are like huge fans of

Tournament of Champions. Do you know what that is? I do not.

Okay, so I think I explained this last podcast too, which

makes sense. So so basically, Guy Fieri, this is gonna sound

so like weird. Guy Fieri, it's not weird. It's great. But Guy

Fieri gets together like 32, just top level chefs, I'm

talking like, all these people own like four or five different

restaurants. You know, they're the head chef, the executive

chef of all of them. I mean, they're like top of their game.

And they all come together and they come together at this one

place. And it's, it's one of the shows that like they do it

where they're like, and last week, what happened when they

just did the previous episode, like four hours ago, you know,

it's not like it's like, they probably only all get together

for like a week.

Wait, wait, are you saying that this reality TV show is not

entirely based on reality?

That is correct. They do not adhere to time and space as we

do. It's almost like they're a bit like The X-Men and a bit

like Marvel's doing now like they like they pick and choose

where they want to do stuff. But so so anyways, Guy Fieri has

this thing where he pairs them up. And it's it's literally like

a like an NCAA board, like a March Madness thing. And they're

all paired up. There's 32 different things. And then they

also do them by like East Coast versus West Coast. So it's a

pretty good representation of people all around the US. It's

not like, you know, half the people are from New York, half

the people from LA. And that's it. But you get people from

Oklahoma, you get people from like, South Carolina, people

that live in like North Carolina, like, I'm not sure

who lives in North Carolina, but like, like, there are chefs up

there. And they, yeah, they all compete. And it's really good,

because you get to see different styles. But also to the really

cool thing is, is that sorry, the really cool thing about it

is that there's two things that I really like about it. Number

one, you don't know who you're up going up against till it

happens. And you get like 30 minutes to cook. So it's super

quick cooking. But they have this thing called the

randomizer. And basically, it's like a protein, vegetable, a

a method of cooking, and then also a device of cooking, and then a random ingredient.

So basically, he spins this wheel, it looks like a Price is Right wheel, you know, because it sticks down,

and it lands on one of these things for all of them, and there's like five different things on each wheel,

and those cooks have to do what it says, and then they do a blind tasting of the two dishes,

and the winner goes on, and the loser goes home. I mean, it's just like, well, it's a one-out.

I mean, you lose, you go home, and it's really interesting because, like, you see these people

that are, like, brilliant, brilliant chefs, and they make stuff that you're just like,

because they have to use stuff, like, just random stuff, like squid ink, or like, like sauerkraut,

like just stuff that you don't find in what the other things that they get on the randomizer need

to fit into. And it's pretty impressive. It's a neat show. I don't know if you like cooking shows

or cooking competitions. I don't really enjoy cooking shows. I enjoy cooking competition shows.

So this was a, this is like a must watch for me and my wife, like, every single year. Like,

this is, like, a big deal to us. And, and surprise, I've got another podcast coming out.

No, I'm just kidding. Tournament of Championes. No, but it is, it is really good. It's a good show.

Tournament of, Tournament of Mushrooms?

Yeah. It's like, wait, what?

Getting back to French.

Tournament de Sauvage.

Sauvage. Tournament de Sauvage. But, but regardless, we've been watching that lately,

and catching up on it. It's really, really good. So that's one of the only things I've.

No, I get it. I get, I used to, you know, before I got streaming services, I used to watch a lot of,

like, cooking competition stuff. Now I'm much more into, with, with the exception of certain

documentaries, like The Drive to Survive. Yeah. I'm pretty much almost exclusively fiction at

this point.

All right, John, we'll continue the geekery next week. I know that we had a lot to talk about with

The Clone Wars episodes, and we're watching two more next week. And I, based on the names,

I'm thinking that these are all actually going to be continuations of the one, The Overlords,

one that we watched tonight, but I don't know for sure. But for 46, I have us watching season

three, episode 16 and 17, Altar of Mortis and Ghosts of Mortis. So I think we're going to

continue this storyline. And then also, as we discussed tonight, let's try to watch season two,

Episode one of Visions.

Okay.

And let's, let's, let's get a kickback. And I like doing that too, because it gives us a little bit

more kind of a variety on stuff we get to talk about.

Yeah, you got to mix it up, yeah.

Yeah, a little potpourri, a little potpourri for everybody.

Put a little turd in the bunch bowl.

Have a little candy bar in the pool. Let's see what everybody does. All right. So, so guys,

thanks for joining us. John, I appreciate it. Did you finish your beer?

Thank you.

I didn't finish my beer.

Oh, I just now finished. It was delicious.

I know, like we were talking, so we were so into those episodes that I neglected my cold beer.

But, all right, so we've got two episodes for next week on Podcast 46. So until then,

John, thanks for joining me.

Thank you.

We'll see you guys next time. Stay safe.

This is the 11 Parsecs Podcast, episode 45. 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 Deputy Mayor of Flavortown, Eric Thompson. Thank you for joining us.

Now it's time for Nerd Out!