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0:42

Hey Decoding TV listeners, it's David Chen.

0:44

It's the summer, which means there's travel

0:46

going on, there's people visiting, there's vacations

0:48

happening. And as a result,

0:50

Patrick Kleppig is off this week, and

0:53

he'll be off in a couple weeks as well. But

0:56

we did still manage to record a couple

0:58

of thoughts on the Bear Season 3 Episodes

1:01

1-3. I also was able

1:03

to get Dan Gavazna to join us

1:05

today to talk about the Acolyte Episode

1:07

6. So that's what today's episode's going

1:09

to be, is just those

1:11

two reviews. Coming up, I

1:13

can tell you for a fact we're going to

1:15

be covering the Acolyte Episodes 7 and 8 in

1:17

the next couple weeks. We'll also

1:19

be covering the rest of the Bear and also the

1:22

Presumed Innocent series on Apple TV+. But the schedule for

1:24

those is still in a little bit of flux. We'd

1:26

appreciate it if you folks could bear with me as

1:28

we work those things out. But in

1:31

the meantime, stay tuned for our coverage of the Bear

1:33

and the Acolyte, and we'll also be covering the Acolyte

1:35

to its conclusion in the next couple weeks. Anyway,

1:38

hope you enjoy these conversations and

1:40

hope everyone is having a lovely holiday

1:42

week. Bye!

2:00

That's how restaurants at the highest

2:02

level operate. Push boundaries. Constantly evolve

2:04

through creativity. Vibrant collaboration. That's demented.

2:07

These are non-negotiables. I can sense

2:09

the sarcasm. No, no, no. Not

2:12

sarcasm. Snark. Contempt

2:14

even. Welcome

2:17

to Decoding TV's conversation about The Bear.

2:19

I'm David Chen here with Patrick Kleppig.

2:22

So The Bear, season three. All episodes

2:25

are available now. Patrick Kleppig and I

2:27

have seen the first three. We're

2:29

going to start with some overall thoughts on

2:31

the show. And we will

2:33

be following it up later with a conversation

2:37

in a couple weeks about the entire

2:39

season of The Bear. But

2:41

let's start with overall thoughts on the

2:43

show so far. Patrick Kleppig, how do the

2:45

first three episodes of The Bear, season three,

2:48

strike you? Are they

2:50

a worthy follow-up to season two of the

2:53

show? I

2:55

don't know yet. Episode one is

2:57

one of those transfixing pieces of

2:59

drama I've probably ever witnessed on

3:01

television. And yet, three episodes in,

3:03

I don't know what

3:05

the plot of this season is yet. And

3:08

I worry with the rumors

3:10

that they shot two seasons back to back, there

3:13

is a bit of let's go over the

3:15

same trauma these characters have already been through before.

3:18

But man, is the music and editing and

3:20

everything beautiful. And it kind of papers over

3:22

what I worry might end up being a

3:25

slightly paper thin plotting, at least so far

3:28

this season. I

3:30

got to say, I feel

3:33

almost identically to everything you

3:35

just said. Like, episode one

3:37

of the show, season three,

3:39

is really good and worth

3:41

checking out. And we'll talk

3:43

about exactly what happens to

3:46

that episode momentarily. But

3:48

overall, I am

3:51

very concerned about the show, I would

3:54

say. I think

3:56

that the

3:58

show feels like it's... spinning its

4:00

wheels and is afraid

4:03

to make too many changes

4:05

to its formula, right? Like

4:08

we already kind of understand the milieu,

4:10

the vibes of the show. And

4:14

I feel like the show is terrified

4:18

of pushing these characters forward and

4:21

moving the plot forward in any significant way.

4:24

But that's just based off the first three episodes. You know,

4:26

maybe like the show is going to change dramatically.

4:28

What we've seen so far though, the

4:30

beats that we've seen from previous seasons

4:33

are just repeating over

4:35

and over again. And that's

4:37

not great. It's not

4:39

encouraging to me for a

4:41

show that I, who season two I loved, right?

4:43

And I assume you feel the same way, right?

4:45

Absolutely. Like this is one of the

4:48

best, like those two seasons together, some

4:50

of the highs are the highest highs I've

4:52

experienced watching television in recent years. And as

4:54

a collective, like seasons one and two are,

4:57

you know, like, I mean, honestly, masterpieces, um,

4:59

like I think, I mean, obviously they have

5:02

their faults, but just a broadly

5:04

wonderful show that I'm with you. I

5:06

worry is getting a little aimless as

5:08

it has to find

5:10

a path forward. And it seems,

5:13

it seems afraid to plot a course. So

5:17

let's talk about some of the stuff that

5:19

happens in these episodes. We're going to discuss

5:21

episodes one, two, and three in detail. Episode

5:23

one entitled tomorrow, episode two entitled next episode,

5:26

three entitled doors. I do have

5:28

to say I was a little bit surprised at

5:30

like how dependent, you

5:33

know, these episodes are on like the very,

5:35

uh, end

5:38

of the last season. Like they really want you

5:40

to have the confrontation that happened at the end

5:42

of last season, fresh in your mind to understand

5:44

like what the dynamics are. But

5:47

I mean, one of

5:49

the things about the show that continues to be great

5:51

is, as you said, Patrick, on

5:53

a technical level, the bear is very strong,

5:55

right? And episode one shows that

5:58

there is a lot of. shallow depth

6:00

of field, really beautiful

6:02

editing. In the case

6:04

of episode one, gorgeous music. I was

6:06

watching this episode, episode one tomorrow. And

6:12

I was thinking to myself, man, this

6:14

sounds a lot like Trent Reznor and

6:16

Atticus Ross' score from the social network.

6:18

Yeah. I was like, I'm getting some

6:20

social network tingles from this, and then of course,

6:22

in the end credits, music by Trent Reznor and

6:24

Atticus Ross. So there was

6:26

a reason why I felt that way. But

6:29

episode one is

6:31

essentially a tone poem where

6:35

it shows not only some events

6:37

from the aftermath of season two's

6:39

finale, but also many of the

6:41

events leading up to the events of season one

6:43

in the show, where

6:45

you learn about Karmi's history, his backstory,

6:48

some of the things that he had

6:50

gone through to become the chef

6:52

that he is today. And

6:57

when we texted about this, Patrick Leppig, in preparation for

6:59

this, you said, episode one is

7:01

basically an artistic experiment. And when I heard

7:03

that, I was like, this sounds like it

7:05

could be infuriating to me. And you're like,

7:07

no, no, no, no, it's beautiful. And

7:10

I watched it, and I at first was a little bit

7:12

frustrated by it, but then as it went on, firstly,

7:16

I was impressed with just logistics of it.

7:18

They got all the people

7:20

from last season to come back, or

7:22

if not, come back, because I don't know exactly

7:24

what the production schedule was, like do more scenes

7:26

than we saw in season two. Yeah,

7:29

it's unclear, like, are they being clever and

7:32

reusing is the wrong term, but repurposing footage that

7:34

would shot for those episodes in a way that

7:36

feels whatever the case may be, it's

7:40

really one of those shows. If you want

7:42

to understand what editing does to something, because

7:44

editing often is transparent. Like, you only notice

7:46

it when it's bad. You rarely really appreciate

7:48

it when it's good. And there's

7:51

obviously a lot that goes into making the

7:53

first episode, I think special and interesting, but

7:56

editing is the first part of that. Like, it

7:58

is just like a truly exceptional. in terms

8:01

of telling a narrative through editing. Yeah. So

8:06

we see like Olivia Coleman come back Academy Award

8:08

winner and Olivia Coleman. We see Will Poulter, Alan

8:10

Seppenwald, rollingstone.com did

8:12

a great article where he like literally run

8:14

down like what period of time every scene

8:16

is from so you can recognize because

8:20

it like cuts back and forth between all

8:22

these different moments in time. And

8:24

if you're not really caught up on like what.

8:28

What uniform he's wearing in each aspect of his life,

8:30

you might get lost in this. But regardless of whether

8:32

you can keep up or not, I think it's a

8:35

really effective episode. And the thing that really struck me

8:37

was like when you

8:39

go to a restaurant. You

8:43

eat a nice meal and what

8:45

you don't see you see what the chef puts in front

8:47

of you. What you don't

8:49

see is the thousands

8:51

of meals that the chef had to make

8:53

prior to that meal. Right. You

8:56

don't see all the work that that chef

8:58

put into honing their craft and making themselves

9:00

better and experimenting with things that failed and

9:02

so on and so forth. And

9:05

what episode one of the bear does

9:07

is it like helps to convey the

9:09

enormity of time to you like how

9:11

much time somebody needs to work all

9:13

the indignities they need to suffer the

9:15

injuries they need to suffer. I

9:18

felt like that's that's the thing that really

9:20

hit me about episode one and made episode one ultimately quite

9:22

powerful in my opinion. Patrick

9:25

any thoughts on how episode one

9:27

did its thing? Yeah, it's

9:29

it's fascinating because it in you know, in

9:33

some level it's emotionally situating you

9:35

with what happened the

9:37

previous season without previously on

9:39

the bear because it really

9:41

is a show about emotions

9:44

and and maybe

9:46

ultimately that will be part of the show's

9:49

downfall as it tries to balance between like

9:52

a traditional narrative structure that gives us

9:54

character arcs and like trying to convey

9:57

an emotion throughout a lot of its episodes.

10:00

and certainly cinematography, but I found

10:03

that emotional journey, like really once

10:05

you sit with, once you sort of understand

10:08

sort of what the episode is going for,

10:10

like it's not as simple as a clips

10:12

episode. It doesn't feel like it's recycling

10:15

what's come before, even though oddly

10:17

enough, where we get to as

10:21

the season progresses a bit, feels a bit

10:23

like we're recycling. So there's

10:25

an irony in, I will

10:27

defend that first episode for being an emotional expression

10:30

of a place in time, and

10:32

not just a clips episode, but where we get,

10:35

with the season feels more like

10:37

emotional clips as opposed to actual

10:40

progression of these characters and where they're at in their lives.

10:44

And really I just, I found myself really swept

10:46

up in an episode I think

10:48

is trying to encompass like the

10:51

emotional state of Karmi and what has

10:53

led him to this moment. And

10:56

my problem really with where it goes from

10:58

there is that feels like

11:00

a dot, dot, dot, but then where we get to

11:02

in the season is sort of like a period. Like,

11:04

nope, this is where we are. Nowhere

11:06

to go, nowhere to go from here. And

11:09

there's like a real journey that you go on

11:11

as the audience and you've watched the journey that

11:13

Karmi's gone on. But then it feels

11:16

kind of stuck in here once we get to

11:18

the actual season. Well, let's talk

11:20

about it, right? So like episode

11:22

one, a tone poem, an artistic experiment. It

11:24

doesn't really move the narrative along very much.

11:28

But neither do the first few

11:30

episodes as a whole. Okay,

11:33

slate.com had a piece by Jack Hamilton

11:35

entitled the bear is not a good

11:37

show. Okay, I saw that, refused to

11:40

click it. And I, Wow. I've

11:45

written bait before too, bud. Okay, well,

11:50

you know, Jack Hamilton makes some good points. I'm gonna read

11:52

a little bit from the article. I should point out,

11:56

I'm emotionally reacting to the framing of

11:58

the piece. Sure. any

12:00

actual criticism they're in. Right, the headline

12:03

is designed for maximum inflammatory potential. You're

12:05

less concerned with the actual insights or

12:07

critiques, more like the framing, right? Absolutely.

12:10

Because The Bear has had some good

12:12

episodes and arguably has in the past

12:14

been a great show. Yes.

12:16

Okay. The

12:19

Bear has now had 28 episodes or

12:21

roughly 14 hours of runtime over which

12:23

astonishingly little has happened. One

12:25

restaurant has closed, a new one has opened. People

12:27

yelled at each other, then made up, then yelled

12:29

at each other some more. Characters have been faced

12:31

with important decisions and have failed to make them.

12:35

A brother's death has been rehashed via flashback

12:38

more times than Thomas and Martha Waynes. Even

12:42

the show's acting, once such a strength,

12:44

now feels mostly lifeless in one note

12:46

and surely isn't helped by the writer's

12:48

steadfast refusal to develop the characters or

12:50

the show's over-reliance on frenetically edited close-ups

12:52

as a visual shorthand for emotional intensity.

12:54

Most glaring are the ways in which

12:56

the show's aimlessness has become purposefully embedded

12:59

into both its content and form. The

13:01

incessant use of flashbacks feels like a

13:03

crutch to avoid characters or the show

13:05

itself actually moving forward in any direction.

13:07

Dribbling out details of a character's past

13:10

like breadcrumbs is a hackish, intarsome device.

13:12

Filling in backstory shouldn't be confused with

13:14

character development. Multiple characters have become increasingly

13:17

defined by their inability to make decisions.

13:19

Leaving aside that this isn't a compelling

13:21

trait, it also conveniently gives the show

13:24

yet another way to avoid anything actually

13:26

happening." End quote. I

13:29

gotta say, I agree with you about the inflammatory

13:31

nature of the headline, but I agree with a lot of the insights

13:33

in the piece. I think it's a little bit

13:35

harsh, but... What

13:37

is extremely ironic about this season so far

13:41

is at the end of season

13:43

two, Karmy kind

13:46

of has a meltdown while in the freezer. And...

13:51

rather than realize, like, hey,

13:55

maybe being obsessed with all this restaurant work

13:58

to the exclusion of anything else... isn't

14:01

a good thing. Like, that's

14:03

not the realization he has. Instead, he's like,

14:05

you know, I never shouldn't even have attempted

14:07

to have a good balanced life. You know,

14:09

my whole relationship with Claire was a complete

14:11

waste of time. Like, that is the realization

14:13

he has. And

14:16

I think the audience is a little bit ahead of him

14:18

because he's clearly on

14:20

a bad path. In

14:22

the first few episodes, he's like, we're gonna do

14:24

all that we're gonna try new things. We can't

14:26

repeat things. I'm gonna scream at people like that's

14:28

the path he's on. And the audience, you

14:31

or me look at this and it's like, hey, that's

14:34

bad. Like, don't don't do those things. Like,

14:36

that's not that's not a healthy lifestyle. And

14:40

debatably, you should already know this after

14:42

all the events of the first two

14:44

seasons, right? Like, arguably,

14:48

I know humans are complex, and it's hard for them to change. But like,

14:51

we as the audience have now been through a lot with

14:53

these characters, theoretically, and and

14:55

know that that Carmi is on a bad path. But

14:58

what's so ironic about this season

15:01

is, Carmi has this whole list

15:03

of non negotiable. We are not

15:06

repeating the menu from night to night. There's

15:10

this obsession with not repeating yourself, but

15:12

there's massive costs that comes without repeating

15:14

himself logistically price, money wise.

15:18

And yet the show itself

15:21

seems to be repeating itself. Like the

15:23

show is going over beats that

15:25

we are. Carmi is mad at Richie. Okay,

15:27

like we already did this in season one. We already

15:29

did that we already had this whole dynamic. Like,

15:32

couldn't couldn't we deepen the relationship now that they're actually

15:34

on like way better terms? Nope, they're yelling at each

15:37

other again. And by the way, that's just not interesting

15:39

for me to watch in general, no matter how character

15:42

like develop how interesting it is from a

15:44

character to develop perspective, grown men

15:46

acting like children towards each other. That's just not like super

15:48

interesting to watch, in my opinion. There's

15:50

a reason most shows don't have that go on for an extended

15:52

period of time. It's because it sucks to watch. So

15:55

I just think there's like

15:57

this anxiety in the show about like repeating

15:59

yourself. And the show itself

16:01

is like, maybe the creators are like,

16:04

Oh, I can't repeat myself. But then they made the

16:06

show about that. And in doing so have ended up

16:08

repeating themselves. I don't know, Patrick, is there any of

16:10

this resonating? What do you think? No, it is.

16:13

And that's certainly how I've felt. And I

16:16

think part of what's happening in response to

16:18

this season is something I worried about at

16:20

the end of the second

16:22

season, which was, how long

16:25

can they keep this up? Which is like,

16:27

how long can you continue to find excuses

16:30

to keep people in

16:32

this restaurant in an unhealthy state

16:35

to in an unhealthy state. And

16:37

because it's an ensemble

16:39

show where like the best elements are often when

16:41

these characters are playing off one another, and

16:44

they can't seem to find a new note to

16:47

hit. And that's

16:49

fine if you conceived of it as a mini

16:51

series where it's like, we've got a story to

16:53

tell in its two seasons, it

16:55

feels like this show it didn't

16:57

have a long term story arc in

17:00

mind, there's a little bit of figuring

17:02

it out as we go along. And part of

17:04

the illusion I think that's breaking is that it

17:06

has such a strong look,

17:09

like the editing, the music, like

17:11

there's so much that grips you

17:14

in the moment. But

17:16

what's happening in season three is

17:18

that once that moment is

17:20

gone, you're not left with very

17:22

much. And I think you were

17:24

left with more alongside the transfixing

17:26

aesthetic of the show in seasons

17:28

one and two, and maybe people

17:30

feel that was more trick than

17:32

substance. I really

17:34

disagree. I think there was a lot of substance to

17:36

the show that was leveraging aesthetic

17:39

to tell a particular kind of story.

17:41

I don't think it was a broadly

17:44

an illusion across the entire series. But

17:47

I do feel like we're running into

17:49

that problem here where Karmy

17:51

is stuck in the same

17:53

gear. And I don't need him to become a

17:55

good person. But what I need

17:57

is if he's stuck, if he is unable

18:00

to progress or

18:02

even regress, the characters

18:04

around him should have a response to that.

18:06

And so far it feels like everyone is

18:09

just sort of going

18:11

along and that doesn't feel natural. It

18:14

doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like

18:17

it follows the path of the character arcs

18:19

that we were on in season two, Richie

18:21

especially. Like Richie went from a bit side

18:24

character, comedic relief, to one of the richest

18:26

characters in the show as a result of

18:29

like Forks, the episode from season two.

18:32

And it just feels like very little

18:34

of that has transferred over to

18:37

season three. The idea that all

18:39

of these characters would just not

18:41

push back against Karmie and these

18:43

clearly fucking insane ideas he

18:46

has to run the restaurant,

18:48

it doesn't strike me as

18:50

plausible. It feels deeply weird,

18:52

deeply repetitive, and there's only

18:55

so long- Karmie basically is becoming unraveled

18:58

in these first few episodes. He

19:01

is obsessed with like driving himself

19:03

further and higher in

19:05

these first few episodes. In

19:08

kind of a continue, like

19:10

basically Claire being there at

19:12

the end of the season two basically did nothing

19:14

to him so far. Now

19:17

maybe he's gonna realize by

19:20

the end of the season, oh, maybe I

19:22

shouldn't treat everyone like shit. But it's like,

19:25

we're already there. Patrick, you

19:27

and I, we're already there. Why are you treating

19:29

everyone like shit? It doesn't make any sense. It's

19:32

just weird that you'd have the season to

19:35

end with him being like,

19:38

oh, maybe I should be more obsessed

19:40

with cooking. And then having a

19:42

disastrous fallout from that happening. And

19:44

then in season three, his takeaway was I

19:47

was right to continue on the path that I was

19:49

on at the end of season two. That's just a

19:51

weird path for that

19:53

character to start. And it

19:55

feels like the where we're headed with this

19:58

season is him pushing everyone in his life.

20:00

to a breaking point where he is abandoned

20:02

by everyone around, like he was a very,

20:04

like Karmie is a likeable

20:07

asshole who is supremely talented. And that

20:10

is a toxic mixture

20:12

of a person, but it's

20:14

part of what made like

20:17

those seasons work. Like you understood that he was

20:19

a complete jerk, but also like there's so many

20:21

other parts of him and you understand why people

20:23

are magnetically kind of attracted

20:25

to be around him. That is, that was

20:27

increasingly less true by the end of season

20:29

two. And here, again, it

20:32

just strains credibility. It's very

20:34

unpleasant to be around him. It's unpleasant and

20:36

it's fine if he's, like it's okay for

20:38

him to be unpleasant. It's okay if Karmie

20:40

turns out to be like a bad person

20:42

who can't learn lessons, but A,

20:44

doesn't feel like that's the track we were on. I

20:47

don't think this is a, this is not a cynical

20:49

show. It's an intense show. It's

20:51

a show full of anxiety. It's a

20:53

show full of sadness, but I don't

20:56

think it's a particularly cynical show. And

20:58

so that's where it's like, it

21:01

just feels like we're elongating out an

21:03

inevitable crash where he loses everyone

21:05

around him and then it has to go through a redemption

21:08

arc. But we literally already

21:10

did this. I know, I know. Like

21:12

we've already done that arc already. But

21:15

Sid wants the Michelin star, sort

21:17

of. I mean, she's expressed that, but I don't

21:19

know, that's not enough to explain to me why

21:21

she's willing to put up with all

21:23

of this crap. And then she was

21:25

like. Arguably that was the arc of

21:28

season one of the show is the relationship between

21:30

Carmi and Sid and Carmi treating Sid like shit

21:32

and then eventually like coming back around. And it's

21:34

like, are they doomed to repeat this cycle forever?

21:37

But, and if so, that's fine. But like, I don't know

21:39

that it makes for particularly interesting watching. I

21:41

will say that episode three of the

21:44

show called Doors does

21:46

bring the goods in terms of making you stressed

21:48

out. Like it does show how

21:50

hard it is to run a restaurant and

21:52

all the difficult things that happen. And sometimes

21:54

the glass breaks or sometimes you can't, you

21:57

need to refire the steak that you made

21:59

and your third. minutes late. And sometimes you

22:01

know, like, and this hyper kinetic editing style

22:04

and you know, all this stuff, like the

22:06

show is operating at the top of its

22:08

game from a technical perspective. There

22:10

is no question about that. But let

22:15

me change the topic to one other thing, Patrick, which is,

22:17

I think another

22:19

thing that

22:21

I brought up in Decoding TV's review of season two

22:24

of the show, that I'm still

22:27

kind of confused by is to

22:30

what extent like what what is the

22:32

show's position on restaurant

22:35

work, right? Like, is

22:37

it that because

22:40

I think we are

22:42

meant to here's my current

22:44

read on it is that their

22:46

quest for the Michelin star we are meant to

22:49

root want to root for them to get that

22:53

without Karmi losing his

22:55

humanity like that. That's that's what I think

22:57

the show is setting up is like, hey, getting

23:01

the Michelin star is inherently good. And as

23:04

long as you're not treating everyone like

23:06

an asshole, we as the audience

23:08

should be on Karmi side and and

23:11

Sid side to like get this Michelin star, right?

23:14

That's fine. But if so, if that

23:16

is the message, that

23:19

is disappointing to me, because what

23:22

that leaves out is it doesn't interrogate

23:24

at all. For example,

23:27

the culture of restaurants, right? Like, and what

23:30

is it about restaurants that allow

23:32

people like Joel McHale's character, for

23:34

instance, to be extremely verbally abusive

23:36

and also wildly successful, right? In

23:39

the video game world, this would be like making

23:42

a show

23:46

about like a video game developer and

23:49

like not addressing crunch culture at all,

23:51

right? Or valorizing it saying

23:54

like actually, like crunch

23:56

is necessary to achieve greatness, which

23:59

was the ex explanation in

24:01

decades past for Why are you

24:03

not around your friends and family for the last 12

24:05

months of a video game project? Because in order for

24:07

because games don't come together into the last minute and

24:10

for order to be good You have to put in

24:12

the time and putting in the time is what makes

24:14

a masterpiece And I think you are absolutely right that

24:16

you can Credibly get to this point

24:18

in the show and not feel because

24:20

this is a show that you know Makes

24:24

food look extremely sexy. Yes, and it

24:26

loves yes food It loves like look

24:28

at the way it shoots

24:30

them cleaning up like the

24:33

kitchenware Yeah, and the place like the

24:35

way things are play I mean

24:37

it is obsessed with the aesthetics of

24:40

high class food culture and You

24:43

can I think I'm with you I think you can incredibly

24:45

get to this point and be like I

24:47

don't know What position the

24:49

show is taking on that and absent

24:51

it taking a position? I am left

24:53

to assume its position which might Could

24:56

be easily interpreted as this is all worth it

24:58

It is worth grinding yourself to the bone you

25:00

do have to be like a complete ass in

25:02

order to be this good and It's

25:06

like a pretty like crummy message to be

25:08

communicating in the show and it feels at

25:10

odds with all

25:13

the other storylines that are happening with the characters

25:15

that is about like how do you balance a

25:18

Talent and a passion with

25:21

existing in the real world is it possible? To

25:24

be that good and also be

25:26

a good person and I think that was the

25:30

central theme it was wrestling with for

25:32

two seasons and Now

25:35

I'm less sure if it understands right or

25:37

is it is attempting to like I

25:41

think the entire lack of an ability to

25:43

move the characters forward is Preventing the show

25:45

from interrogating that any further and a lack

25:47

of interrogation then comes across as an endorsement

25:50

right well because the entire mission

25:54

of the first two seasons is let's take this

25:56

uh subjoint

26:00

and make it into like a Michelin star restaurant, which like,

26:03

first of all, is like kind of a weird

26:05

mission to begin with. Like, that's just, it's like,

26:08

you know, restaurants are a function of restaurant

26:11

success is a function of demographics, and

26:14

which is like which area of the

26:16

city you're in, and the people that

26:18

frequent that area. And if there's a

26:20

place that serves like $15 hoagies, it's

26:23

not necessarily going to be successful. Once

26:26

you charge $180 for a meal, that's right. Right?

26:29

And so it's like, but the

26:31

show doesn't really delve into that, in

26:33

my opinion, it doesn't really like

26:35

dive into the complexities of that

26:37

choice. The show

26:40

also doesn't really depict

26:43

a highly functional positive work

26:45

environment. In general, the one

26:47

exception to this, I would say is like,

26:50

Richie's Forks restaurant

26:53

that he was stodging at in that episode.

26:56

That was probably like a quote unquote, best case scenario

26:58

where like, things seem to function fine, and no one

27:00

was like wildly angry at each other. But

27:03

that even in that scenario,

27:06

it was still a workplace that

27:08

required complete and total dedication, right

27:10

in a way that like, seemed

27:13

all consuming. And

27:15

so but I don't see the show like interrogating that

27:17

at all. Like, I think it's it's all very much

27:19

like that the Forks

27:21

restaurant where Richie's stodging up. That's like the

27:23

best case scenario that we are heading towards,

27:25

and there's nothing wrong with that. That's the

27:27

sense that I get, you know. And the

27:30

question is just whether Karmi can

27:32

achieve that, which is becoming a less and

27:34

less interesting question as the episodes go on.

27:37

So I don't know. What

27:40

do people think? Do people think like the show has a position

27:42

on this? Because in my

27:44

opinion, getting a Michelin star restaurant, making

27:47

an extremely successful high end restaurant, those

27:49

are not necessarily inherently noble things, in

27:51

my opinion, or

27:53

if you're thinking from a storytelling perspective, like

27:57

imagining the end of this show, whether it's season

27:59

three or four. And it's like

28:01

everybody, I don't know how you

28:03

get a Michelin star, I don't know how that, is that a

28:05

phone call? Do you get something in the mail? Does a person

28:07

come out? Imagining the end of

28:09

this show being like, and they

28:11

got a Michelin star, pan

28:14

out to everyone waving as a drone shot goes

28:16

away, the bear, the end. That

28:19

is profoundly

28:21

unsaid. That's not what got

28:23

me into this show. I'm not even

28:25

that much of a food

28:27

person. I can appreciate good food,

28:30

but it's not something I see.

28:33

I know that we're a little bit different in that regard. I

28:35

am a food person. And even I question

28:37

whether it's a good thing. Basically,

28:41

I love eating at restaurants like The Bear as

28:43

you think it is in 3. I've

28:46

done it very frequently. But

28:48

even I'm like, there's a lot of things

28:51

sick about restaurant culture that

28:54

the show doesn't really do that

28:56

much to interrogate. My

28:58

issue is when I even try and think through, the

29:01

show clearly didn't want to give up these

29:03

characters. But what

29:07

was the arc of this show if you look

29:09

back at the beginning? It was wrestling with the

29:12

unexpected death of a close family member.

29:14

And how do you extract closure

29:18

from that loss? We're

29:21

sort of well beyond that at this point. I'm

29:24

not saying they've necessarily resolved

29:26

all their feelings on how they should

29:29

have handled that, what the reactions to

29:31

that event were. But that was the

29:33

core emotional sort of

29:35

bomb of the show. It's like, this

29:37

guy dies, how do all these people

29:39

deal with it? They work through their

29:42

trauma and grief through

29:44

this restaurant. But now we

29:47

need a new goalpost. And I just don't think

29:49

the show has established.

29:52

What is that goal? Like, what are

29:54

we working? What is the storytelling going

29:56

in the direction? I mean, so far,

29:59

it feels like the Michelin star is

30:01

the goal. post right now. So far.

30:03

That's boring. Wow. First of all,

30:05

I think it's possible we'll get

30:07

to the end and they don't get the

30:09

Michelin star and Patrick Kleppig will find the

30:11

real Michelin star are the friends

30:13

we made along the way. And I mean, that has

30:15

been one of the show's strengths is depicting

30:18

the beauty and messiness

30:20

and richness of these kind of family

30:24

relationships, but also found family, right? That's, that's when

30:26

the show has operated at its highest and when

30:28

it's been the most moving. And

30:30

we'll probably get those things later on the season, right?

30:33

Like, so far, we haven't really because Richie and Carmi

30:35

are just screaming at each other all the time. Yeah,

30:37

but like, I assume they're gonna make up and then

30:39

we're gonna get that family stuff. And it's gonna hit

30:41

right in the fields again. But

30:44

yeah, and it wouldn't surprise

30:46

me if a show ended in that place of

30:48

like reaffirming, hey, boy, we've had some good times

30:50

here, haven't we? You know, like, we didn't get

30:52

the star, but boy, we've had some good times

30:54

here. I will say Patrick, that one of the

30:57

most disturbing aspects of the show, to

30:59

me, was the

31:01

very end of Episode Two. So

31:04

Episode Two is entitled Next. And

31:06

essentially, at the end

31:09

of episode, at the end

31:12

of season two, Marcus, the pastry

31:14

chef, he gets like his

31:17

cell phone starts blowing up. Because

31:20

I think it's his mother

31:22

that is in terrible

31:25

state. Yeah. And has

31:27

and has died by

31:29

the time season three begins.

31:34

And at the end of Episode Two, he

31:36

and Carmi have a talk and he says, Yeah, I

31:39

couldn't be there with my mom when she died. And

31:41

Carmi's like, I feel terrible about that. And then he

31:43

says, actually, she would have wanted it

31:45

this way. She wanted me to succeed and be with

31:47

my friends. And I mean, maybe

31:51

there's some people out there who like, that

31:54

really resonates with them. But like, for

31:57

me, that makes no goddamn sense. Like,

32:00

I'm just saying, you know, I don't feel

32:02

particularly sentimental about my parents or anything like

32:04

that. Like, there is many people

32:06

I know who have much warmer relationship with their

32:08

parents than than me. But

32:10

I would

32:14

not feel good

32:16

about being at work if

32:18

when my mom was dying, like that would just

32:21

that is not a story I could spin into

32:24

a positive way. And the way the show makes

32:27

that out of like, yeah, let's go get them, you know,

32:29

like, it's okay that I wasn't with

32:31

my mom when she died, because she would have wanted us to

32:33

get this Michelin star. I'm like, what what

32:35

is is this really the direction the show's heading?

32:37

Is this really where it wants to go? Patrick,

32:40

what did you think of that scene? Am I

32:43

like completely misreading this, right? Like, because I felt

32:45

like we're supposed to get behind Marcus and Carmi

32:47

and be like, yeah, go get like, we're not

32:49

supposed to find that incredibly disturbing what he says

32:51

in that scene. It's

32:53

that me because the show in the

32:55

previous season, like he's spending a lot

32:57

of time with her, right? Like part

32:59

of what's happening in season two is

33:01

the extraordinary

33:03

lengths he's going to

33:06

spend time doing essentially a long

33:08

goodbye to his mother, and

33:10

how much he is sacrificing to do

33:13

that long goodbye. And that's

33:15

a that's a balance between what is he offering his

33:18

mother and to try to provide like comfort

33:20

and dignity in her final moments. And

33:24

whatever closure that can help provide him as

33:27

he prepares for her to sort of pass

33:29

on. So I don't know, I didn't. I

33:32

don't. I see your response.

33:35

Yeah, to that. But you didn't you

33:37

didn't react in the same way. Yeah.

33:39

No, I could find

33:42

a I could

33:45

find a certain beauty in looking at

33:48

it that way as someone that has

33:51

kids had a parent pass, I wasn't present for

33:53

it. But I

33:56

don't know, I didn't take that as

33:59

cynically as But I also, you

34:02

could, I could change my

34:04

mind on that reading of

34:06

that scene, I think depending on where

34:08

this season goes. You know what I

34:10

mean? Like, how

34:12

does it depict this chase for

34:14

the Michelin star? Like, what does it end up endorsing along

34:16

the way? So I'm not quite that cynical

34:19

about that read yet, but I reserve the

34:21

right to change my mind and say retroactively

34:23

that was heinous. But in the moment, I

34:25

didn't find that reaction. I

34:29

just want to also clarify that I don't

34:31

think it's inherently wrong or implausible for like

34:33

a dying parent to want their child to

34:36

be self-actualized and to be doing the things

34:38

that make them happy and to

34:40

be where they want to be and spending time

34:42

with people they want to spend time with, even in

34:44

the absence of accompanying them as they journey on beyond

34:46

this life. Like, there's nothing

34:49

inherently wrong with that idea. It's just kind of

34:51

the way it played out in the show of

34:53

like, oh yeah, no, don't worry.

34:55

It's totally cool that I was here when

34:57

my mom was dying. That's

34:59

kind of how it came across in the show as opposed

35:01

to, and obviously they kind of like deal

35:03

with it in a more nuanced way

35:06

at the top of

35:08

episode three, where

35:10

they are at Marcus' mother's funeral and he gives

35:12

a little speak, and then

35:14

we get more time to like fully explore that concept,

35:17

his relationship to his mom. So, but

35:20

it just ties into this whole, like what is this show

35:22

trying to say about the workaholic culture

35:25

that is inherent in a lot of

35:27

high performing restaurants? Does the show have

35:29

anything interesting to say about it at all is my question, right? And I

35:31

don't know. Because my, like

35:33

I am allergic to a lot of the way

35:36

the show seems to tacitly endorse

35:38

the positives of workaholic culture as

35:40

somebody that I go,

35:44

I go wildly out of

35:46

my way, especially after I had kids,

35:48

to like maintain a certain

35:50

work-life balance where I want to be

35:52

happy in my creative and work pursuits

35:54

to the extent that I am capable

35:56

of pulling that off, but not at

35:58

the expense of. of spending

36:01

meaningful time with my family, and

36:03

that's really hard to do. And

36:06

if the show ends up

36:09

landing in a place where it's like, hey, in order to achieve

36:11

the, like there are things, there are things I sat, there are

36:13

things that I cannot do because I refuse to budge in that,

36:15

right? Like I've never written a book. I

36:17

turn down book offers. Like because the only free

36:19

time I have is my weekends. And I refuse

36:21

to give up my weekends to have the prestige

36:23

of writing a book. And maybe I can do

36:25

that later in life when my kids are older.

36:27

Right now I refuse to give up that time.

36:30

And I'm not sure that the show, it's

36:33

fine to, it's totally fine

36:35

to start on a place where like, hey, there are

36:37

certain things you can only achieve if

36:39

you give up things along the way. That's

36:41

accurate. That is correct. Like

36:44

I put a limit on what I'm

36:46

creatively able to achieve because I say

36:48

I'm done at 5.30 at night so

36:51

I can make dinner and spend time with my kids for the

36:53

rest of the evening. I get that I'm giving up those hours,

36:55

but I think the show,

36:57

again, increasingly, it feels without

37:00

a firmer handle on what

37:02

it's saying. It ends up endorsing it

37:04

in a really toxic way that is

37:07

aided by like how astonishing the cinematography

37:09

and editing and music selections are. Like

37:11

those all play a part in

37:14

making this look cool. It makes it very alluring, right?

37:17

It's like the whole, but it's kind of like the whole

37:19

Goodfellas thing of like, you know, is

37:21

Goodfellas endorsing a life of crime? Obviously not.

37:23

Where Henry Hill ends up is terrible. At

37:25

the same time, boy, does it make being

37:28

a mobster seem cool, in my opinion, right?

37:31

I think part of what you and I are

37:33

getting at though is I'm totally fine if the

37:35

show makes it seem like being a workaholic cook

37:38

is extremely sexy and cool. That's fine.

37:40

I don't need all

37:42

of my content, my

37:45

media to tell me, hey, do you know this is bad?

37:47

Like we need to tell you it's bad. I don't need

37:49

you to do that to me. The question that I think

37:51

you and I are getting at is, does

37:54

it have anything to say at all? It's fine

37:56

if it endorses that, even in

37:58

a toxic way. But I don't, I'm not even. even sure

38:00

the show, it seems like it's

38:02

happening by accident as opposed to with purpose.

38:05

I agree completely with what you're saying. And I

38:07

would say the most charitable way I would describe

38:09

what the show is saying is that greatness

38:12

comes with an intense

38:14

series of trade offs. That's the most

38:16

charitable way to describe it. And

38:19

that is very charitable in my opinion. I don't think a show

38:22

is doing a good job of saying that. But if I'm looking

38:25

at it and being like, okay, what's

38:27

the best thing I can take away from this?

38:29

It's like, hey, to be great, you need to

38:31

be incredibly well balanced. It's

38:33

extremely high skill level. And also

38:36

it will cost you a lot. And maybe

38:38

too much for some people. I don't know that the

38:44

show is doing that effectively, but I could

38:46

make the argument that that's what the show is trying to say. And

38:50

that's not a terrible... That

38:53

is not uninteresting. But we'll

38:55

see where the show ends up. So far,

38:57

though, I feel a little

39:00

bad because I think

39:02

we spent more time critiquing these first few episodes that

39:04

we have praising them. At the same time, what

39:07

is interesting is the reaction

39:09

to the show has been universally

39:11

beloved acclaim to

39:14

the show. It

39:16

has, I think, 90 plus percent in Rotten

39:18

Tomatoes. People love the show. So when

39:23

you tune into Decoding TV, you can get a different

39:25

opinion on it. My

39:27

expectations are sky high. That's part

39:29

of where this comes out. This

39:31

is different than when I'm sitting

39:33

down for another Disney plus Star Wars

39:36

show. I don't remember you talking about

39:38

Twisted Metal this way. Well,

39:42

I mean, next season is going to

39:44

have Calypso. So, you know, but it's

39:48

still an enjoyable show. It's

39:50

still a breeze to get through.

39:52

Oh, here's another thing positive thing I'll say about it is

39:57

there has been a lot of criticism. for

40:01

the show in doing

40:03

a binge release instead of releasing

40:06

episodically. I still think that that

40:08

was a mistake to do that for season two. I

40:10

agree. Because we could have been talking

40:12

about that show all summer last season, if

40:15

it had released episodically. However,

40:19

releasing binge does allow you to

40:21

do tone poem artistic exercises like

40:24

episode one and get away with it in

40:27

a way that you couldn't if you were releasing week

40:29

to week. Imagine if they just dropped that

40:32

episode one without the other episodes this season. Yeah.

40:34

That would be pretty irritating in my opinion. But

40:36

they could just do the Amazon approach. I feel

40:38

like Amazon kind of gets you away. Yeah, you

40:40

could do the first two or three. Yeah, if

40:43

the first three episodes came out, then

40:45

you're able to hand-weave that away. That

40:50

is the show using the form. TV

40:55

in its episodic form

40:57

should be an avenue for

41:00

experimentation like that. You tune in, you're like,

41:02

oh, wow, this is an episode that takes

41:04

place entirely from the ladybug's point of view

41:06

that was in the room. It's episodic. That

41:09

should be the beauty of the form. And

41:12

we don't get enough of that, frankly.

41:14

And so I'm with you that, yes,

41:16

that would have prompted some

41:18

pretty negative responses. But

41:21

I think there was a world where you could have your cake

41:23

and eat it too. And I have profoundly disagreed with the all-at-one

41:25

draw. Season

41:27

two was just so rich episode to episode.

41:30

Copenhagen, Fishes, Forks, I mean,

41:32

ah. But

41:36

the thing I think, though, is

41:38

the binge release does allow you

41:40

to take more chances, in my

41:42

opinion. I agree. Because then

41:44

it's like, oh, if the audience doesn't like

41:46

that episode, guess what? There's another episode, a

41:48

button click away. Oh,

41:50

you didn't like that one? Let's just move forward. Oh,

41:53

that one didn't advance the narrative at all? OK. The

41:56

next episode is right in the queue. So.

42:00

This season did give me a deeper

42:02

appreciation of that idea. And, and, and,

42:05

but also part of it's probably that not much has happened yet.

42:08

So I'm like, so I'm

42:10

like, you know, uh, if

42:12

they were releasing this week to week, I would like

42:14

imagine if we were having this conversation three weeks from

42:16

now about the first three episodes, I'd be like, wow,

42:19

not much has happened in the last three weeks

42:21

of watching this show. Yes. Yes. I agree. So

42:23

it, it, you know, it doesn't allow them to

42:25

be more deliberate in terms of the pacing, but

42:27

whether or not that's a good thing is up

42:29

to you. Any

42:31

other thoughts in the first three episodes of the show, Patrick

42:33

Lubbock? Uh, I'm

42:35

nervous. Um, you know, I, I,

42:37

it's, I, I

42:39

get, unfortunately it's confirming a lot of

42:41

my worries about continuing the

42:44

show at all past season two and not trying

42:46

to find some way to arrive at a more

42:49

meaningful conclusion, because it just

42:51

seemed like an impossible high

42:54

wire act to keep, to keep

42:56

doing. Like I just, it did

42:58

not seem like a show that had a three

43:01

to five season run in

43:03

it without profoundly shifting dynamics.

43:06

Okay. I mean, like I just didn't see

43:08

how they were going to find a nut and

43:11

that's, oh, like it's okay. Not every show has

43:13

to go on forever. And this

43:15

show is going to get a lot of

43:17

mileage out of just these people in a

43:19

room bouncing. Like there's a lot there to

43:21

like, even if it feels a little empty

43:24

calories by the time you're on the other side of

43:26

the episode, but that's

43:28

going to, you know, even that will run

43:30

its course eventually. So I'm, I'm

43:33

hopeful like this show, I, what I expect from the

43:35

rest of the season is to

43:37

be overall disappointed with the lack

43:39

of narrative momentum. And yet

43:42

my guess is there are going to be incredible highs,

43:45

like throughout the season that I'm like, well,

43:48

okay. I wish more had happened, but like

43:50

XYZ was worth this, you know, the season.

43:52

I expect that to be, that's my prediction

43:54

on where I'm going to end up on

43:56

this is that the season as a whole

43:58

is sort of kind of a wall.

44:00

But it manages to hit

44:02

incredible highs that make that journey worth

44:04

it. Yeah, I mean I think the car

44:06

me Richie relationship is

44:08

really like That's

44:10

when I really started to get concerned is

44:13

because it's like oh This is like we've

44:15

already done this dynamic like over and over

44:17

again. Yeah, you're yelling at each other, huh?

44:20

Yeah, and and and the thing is

44:23

I thought oh it's gonna last for like three minutes

44:25

And then they're gonna make up and then we're gonna

44:27

move forward from this point forward But it's like but

44:30

when they kept going I was oh you're oh

44:32

you're really doubling down on this again. You know

44:34

it's like That's

44:36

when I was like starting to be like what

44:39

what is the show gonna try to do this season, you know

44:43

So yeah, I

44:46

share your concern And

44:49

I feel like you that

44:51

there will be some some big highs, but I'm also

44:53

very worried But

44:56

the other thing I'll just say is no other show

44:58

is really doing this right now, right? No other show

45:00

is really putting you into the

45:03

into a kitchen of a high-performing restaurant

45:05

and like Experiencing what that's

45:07

like and the beauty and the agony of it

45:10

and There's a lot of things a lot of

45:12

ways the show does that effectively just with

45:14

its camerawork with its casting with its with

45:18

the way that you know set dressing is used

45:20

and so on and so It's

45:23

worth checking out for that reason alone, but will

45:25

it make a lot of movement will push things

45:28

forward Oh Patrick

45:30

something you said reminded me of another

45:32

show we talked about Called Barry

45:35

the HBO original series Something

45:37

that Bill Hader said about Barry was

45:40

one of the hardest things about that show so

45:43

for those who don't know Barry is a show on

45:45

HBO where Bill Hader plays

45:48

a hitman who also decides to take acting lessons

45:50

and get into acting Bill

45:52

Hader said one of the hardest things about

45:54

that show was figuring out a way to

45:56

keep his main character alive right

45:59

because The

46:01

things that he does in the show basically make him marked

46:03

for death. And so it's like, how do

46:05

you keep this character alive? Like, it's so hard to keep this

46:07

character alive after all these episodes. And

46:12

one thing I can very positively say about Barry

46:14

is they did not repeat the same beats over and

46:16

over again. They

46:18

took that show, arguably

46:21

they went too far in the other direction.

46:23

They went like... But I'd prefer that, right?

46:25

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I have very mixed feelings

46:27

about some of the creative choices in the

46:30

back half of that final season. It

46:32

is ambitious. It swings. There are swings.

46:34

And it feels like the

46:37

show is a little... The bear is a little

46:39

in love with itself and is being a little too precious

46:41

about the current

46:43

dynamic. Oh, I like it when Karmie and Richie

46:46

fight in makeup. I like it when Sid tries

46:48

to hold Karmie back and then it creates a

46:50

fight and then they make up. The

46:53

people making the show love those dynamics

46:55

too much. But

46:58

in the case of Barry, that show

47:01

is unrecognizable in its

47:03

final episodes from where it begins. Whereas

47:06

the bear right now is

47:08

extremely recognizable. And

47:11

the show needs to make a decision about where

47:13

it wants to end up and what it wants to end up trying to

47:15

do. All right. We'll

47:18

be back in a few weeks with a

47:20

further conversation about the show and where season

47:22

three ultimately ends. In the meantime, Patrick Leppak,

47:24

where can people find more of your work

47:26

on the Internet? You can

47:29

see me and listen to me talking

47:31

about video games over at remapradio.com. And

47:34

I run a parenting and gaming newsletter

47:36

called Crossplay, which you can sign up

47:38

for at crossplay.news. Patrick,

47:41

I hope you're having a lovely

47:43

vacation as we're recording this

47:45

episode right now and people are listening to

47:47

it. And Patrick will be

47:50

back next week for the full episode of Decoding

47:52

TV. Until then, we wish him well. is

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49:05

ACAST. They

49:09

were all killed by a lightsaber. What

49:11

does that tell you? Powerful

49:14

Jedi has fallen. You

49:17

don't think Master Sol was responsible?

49:21

That is quite the accusation. Who

49:24

else would possess the power to slay such a strong group?

49:30

Something to tip the scales. Welcome

49:33

to Decoding TV's coverage of the Acolyte

49:36

Episode 6 entitled Teach

49:38

slash Corrupt. I'm

49:40

David Chen joining me today for this

49:42

conversation. He is the co-host of

49:45

the amazing Spider Talk podcast. You've also heard him

49:47

here frequently on the Decoding

49:49

TV show. Dank, Voslin, welcome back

49:51

to Decoding TV. I

50:00

don't know how you feel about that

50:02

title, but here I am

50:05

to hopefully lean some insight

50:07

into Star Wars as I

50:10

am wont to do every now and again.

50:12

Awesome. You're the jeckey to my

50:14

Yord and likely both

50:16

of us will share the same fate as those characters in

50:18

this show. Anyway, we are going

50:20

to dive into episode six. We're going to

50:22

talk about our overall thoughts and

50:24

some of the specific stuff that happened this episode. If

50:27

you do any of that though, Danke Wozden, this is

50:29

your first time talking about the Acolyte

50:31

on Decoding TV. We're probably going to have you on again

50:34

to cover the finale of the show, but tell us a

50:36

little bit about what you think of the show so far.

50:39

Yeah, I mean, I've seen the internet like

50:41

on fire over this and I know you

50:43

guys have talked about the kind of like

50:46

strained reaction to the Acolyte.

50:48

I was really looking forward to the show.

50:51

I had heard a lot about it early

50:54

on that it was something to look forward to.

50:56

It was going to be, I guess,

50:58

similar enough to Andor, kind of

51:00

like playing down the

51:03

heavy use of the volume,

51:05

at least what I was told, and that it

51:07

was going to be representing a kind of bold

51:09

new direction for Star Wars in a different era.

51:12

I think that's really exciting. I

51:15

like many people are very eager to

51:17

get away from the Skywalker saga. I

51:22

think when we went to The Force

51:24

Awakens, it was a really big

51:26

opportunity for Disney, the

51:29

new owners of this franchise to do

51:31

something very distinct and different

51:33

with Star Wars and say, we're going

51:36

to come back after 30 years away

51:38

from these characters. How has the world

51:40

changed? And I'm

51:42

no fan of The Force Awakens. I think it

51:44

played it very safe. And so Disney

51:47

was getting another opportunity here by going to

51:49

the High Republic. And I know this isn't

51:51

the first High Republic story

51:54

told in the Star Wars universe. There's

51:56

comics and books, but it

51:58

was my first exposure to it. And so

52:00

I was really excited to see like, okay,

52:02

blank slate, ostensibly, like what

52:04

kind of like bold

52:06

new era are you going to enter us

52:08

into? And that was kind of like the

52:11

big, exciting appeal to me.

52:14

And I think there's a little

52:16

bit of that. Frankly, I

52:18

would have liked a lot more. Um,

52:21

I maybe I've been hurt one too many

52:23

times by Star Wars to really get so

52:26

upset about this. This is no

52:28

rise of Skywalker. It

52:30

has, I think a little bit

52:32

more of a reason to exist than Obi-Wan.

52:35

And I don't think it's as

52:37

baffling, bafflingly plotted as

52:39

a Boba Fett, which, you

52:42

know, was like a follow up on

52:44

a character that completely abandoned everything you

52:46

liked about that character. Um,

52:49

and so like, I'm kind of going into

52:51

this and I've been

52:53

remained like fairly intrigued throughout

52:56

about where it's going, if

52:58

not increasingly frustrated that it refuses

53:00

to go where it

53:02

once seemingly wants to go with

53:04

this series. Um, I am

53:08

really exhausted by the mystery box

53:10

format of this show and

53:12

of Disney Star Wars in general. And,

53:15

um, yeah, that's kind

53:17

of where I'm at right now. I'm like waiting

53:19

for the fireworks factory to show

53:22

up on the show. I thought

53:24

the episode five was going to be it.

53:26

And they took some bold choices

53:28

in episode five by killing off a bunch

53:30

of cast members. And so that

53:32

was exciting. And then I feel like

53:34

with this episode, we're kind of back in a holding

53:36

pattern. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was going

53:38

to ask you overall thoughts on this episode, but, um,

53:43

it honestly, I'm just going to say. It's, it's hard

53:45

for me to talk about this episode, uh, because it

53:48

feels like nothing,

53:50

like it feels like a nothing episode,

53:52

like so little

53:55

happens in this episode. Um, that

53:57

it's hard to even summarize. We'll try to talk about

53:59

some. of stuff that happens, but like this

54:02

is definitely an episode that

54:04

is people hanging

54:06

out until actual stuff happens. And

54:10

catching the audience up on stuff we

54:12

already know. Like that's one of the

54:14

biggest issues I have with the acolyte

54:16

is so many scenes in

54:18

the show are characters telling

54:20

each other things the audience already know. Like the

54:24

completely unnecessary scenes of characters explaining to

54:26

other characters what we already know. I'll

54:28

just give you one example from this

54:31

episode. Mog,

54:35

the character on Coruscant, like the Jedi

54:37

on Coruscant, telling Vernestra, oh hey,

54:40

like Sol was on, you know, like he

54:42

explains literally the scene we just watched of

54:44

like I was talking to Sol and then

54:46

the hollow communicator went out and now I

54:49

don't know what's going on. It's like we

54:51

literally just saw that we don't need to

54:53

see another character explaining that to someone else.

54:57

Other, this happens so often on the

54:59

show, just characters explaining to other characters things

55:01

we already knew. I

55:05

understand you need to show that the information is

55:07

passed on, but other shows have

55:09

a more elegant way of doing it than literally just

55:12

the character saying it. Well, the

55:14

way other shows do it is they

55:16

wrap it up in character, right? And

55:18

like what emotionally it feels like to

55:21

learn that new detail for that

55:23

particular character. And so many of

55:25

these characters, whether it's, you know,

55:27

they're lacking emotions because they're Jedi,

55:29

you know, which like, frankly,

55:32

I'm tired of that trope. Like it's

55:34

almost like leaning into the

55:36

faults of George Lucas as a director

55:39

and making that just a like understood

55:41

part of this world. You

55:45

know, but like nobody reacts to anything.

55:47

There's a scene in this episode where

55:49

a Jedi comes upon all

55:51

of their colleagues who have been

55:54

slaughtered and has no reaction and

55:56

just blandly reads off the evidence

55:58

that they see. in

56:01

the scene of what happened. There's

56:03

a scene in this too, which I

56:05

laughed out loud at, where one

56:08

of the Jedi's comments to who he thinks

56:10

is Osha, but

56:12

it's actually Mei, about how she

56:14

treats her droid.

56:17

You can love this thing even though it's

56:19

a robot and it doesn't have any emotions.

56:21

And it's like, is that

56:23

meant to be a metaphor for the Jedi?

56:25

Because these people do not emote.

56:28

They have no reaction to anything.

56:31

Yeah, yeah, well, I don't know, man. I

56:33

guess for them, they think it's a feature, not a

56:35

bug, Dan, but from a dramatic standpoint, I think we're

56:37

starting to see some of the limits of that. All

56:41

that said, there's

56:43

one last thing I wanted to mention. First of all, I

56:45

actually really liked the action from last episode. I don't know

56:47

if you enjoyed it, right? I think when

56:50

I talked to Patrick about it, it's like, we love the

56:52

action, the character stuff, not as good, right?

56:54

That was our reaction. How did you feel about it?

56:57

Yeah, I actually think the action in the

57:00

show is fantastic. It's like suddenly the B

57:02

team gets to direct a scene and

57:04

it comes to life. I think

57:07

you could even see this in the

57:09

prequels in the way that's like, oh,

57:11

clearly, pre-viz and special effects and the

57:14

choreographers took over now and suddenly this

57:16

whole show has come to life. The

57:18

B team? What do you mean by

57:21

that? Well, oftentimes, action is shot by

57:23

other people. It's usually shot

57:25

by the second unit director or something like that. Right,

57:27

yeah, that's what I mean to say. I

57:30

don't know that that's the fact here, but

57:32

that it suddenly becomes so much more alive

57:34

in terms of how it uses the camera,

57:36

how it stages the scene. Everything

57:39

in between is shot, reverse shot.

57:42

There's no grandeur or

57:44

unique visual idea, which

57:47

is something that Star Wars is almost

57:49

entirely, exists

57:52

on top of. And so

57:56

much of this to me feels like

57:58

I'm on a Disney theme park. ride

58:01

where it's like you can look but

58:03

don't touch and the camera kind

58:05

of has that approach to where it's like

58:09

I don't know if I'm being too harsh.

58:11

I would dispute the idea that like

58:14

the original trilogy let's

58:16

say was like super interesting

58:21

in terms of cinematic

58:24

choices like the the

58:27

shot composition was very interesting and very

58:29

beautiful but like Patrick Willems

58:31

for instance did a whole like visual

58:33

analysis of all the like

58:35

original trilogy and it's like most of them

58:37

are shot at like the same focal length

58:39

or you know a similar focal length and

58:41

like you know so I don't know that

58:43

this is visually worse than you know in

58:45

the non-action scenes than than any other Star

58:48

Wars movie but

58:50

I would agree with you that the show the

58:52

Acolyte really comes alive during the action scenes. Every

58:56

second of the show it feels like

58:59

everyone is working their hardest to make

59:01

a great Star Wars. Like

59:03

I don't doubt that for a second like

59:06

environments are like lush costumes

59:09

are designed within an inch of

59:11

their life it's like everybody is

59:13

giving it there a hundred percent

59:15

you know it

59:18

just feels a little like to me maybe overly

59:22

reverent of Star Wars

59:24

whereas like I watch something like Andor and

59:26

Tony Gilroy who is a

59:28

self profess not a fan of Star

59:31

Wars like there's something a little bit

59:34

riskier there that in a way brings life to

59:36

this that means all these other shows I don't

59:38

think have really yet to capture you know

59:41

there's some intangible thing I feel

59:44

like I can't really grasp and maybe

59:46

I'm me blaming it on X Y

59:48

and Z is not ever really getting there but

59:50

like I feel it it feels

59:53

hollow in some way. I

59:56

wanted to mention Cortosis

59:59

which is a Metal that is found

1:00:01

in the Star Wars universe that is

1:00:03

known for its extreme energy

1:00:06

absorption capacity and

1:00:08

this is something that the

1:00:11

master Fighting in

1:00:13

last week's episode used a lot like he was able

1:00:15

to short out lightsaber is using this and

1:00:18

it's What he's using in

1:00:20

his helmet and I think body armor or

1:00:22

something like that is cortosis That

1:00:24

is explicitly mentioned in this episode So

1:00:27

I just wanted to call that out because we

1:00:29

talked about it But we didn't ever say cortosis

1:00:31

and I think people had questions about like how

1:00:34

did he make the light sabers go out? And

1:00:36

it's like, you know, the the answer is Cortosis

1:00:39

which is an in-universe explanation for this kind of thing.

1:00:42

All right It's always nice when

1:00:44

there's some kind of like check on the

1:00:46

Jedi. I remember in the expanded universe There

1:00:48

were these I think they were

1:00:50

called like the yuzle muri or something where these

1:00:53

like yellow space slugs

1:00:55

that repelled the force and

1:00:58

You know, maybe it reduces force away

1:01:00

from the sort of like religious You

1:01:05

know mysticism of it all by giving it

1:01:07

hard rules But it

1:01:09

allows for fun things to happen other than

1:01:12

just people pushing each other away, right? I

1:01:14

mean a blade totally totally. All

1:01:16

right. So in this episode, there's basically

1:01:18

three plotlines that kind of converge. There's

1:01:21

OSHA And

1:01:23

chimer on this unknown planet there

1:01:26

is soul and may on the ship and

1:01:28

then there is Vernestra

1:01:32

and Mogg on Coruscant and they eventually

1:01:34

travel to Kofar So

1:01:37

OSHA wakes up in chimer's lair. She's

1:01:39

on some kind of water island on an unknown planet at

1:01:42

first I thought it was gonna be the

1:01:44

planet that Luke was on from Last

1:01:46

Jedi cuz like it looked like Structurally

1:01:49

very similar, but I don't think I don't think

1:01:51

that's what they're going I feel like we're meant

1:01:53

to at least begin to think that am I

1:01:55

wrong? Like I mean, it's so similar destruction,

1:02:00

like physical look of the island looks kind of

1:02:02

similar, but yeah, who knows? If

1:02:05

it's not it, it's at least meant

1:02:07

to like evoke the idea of like

1:02:10

remote Jedi training ground in the same

1:02:12

way that Luke had on that

1:02:14

planet. Yeah, Octo is the name of the

1:02:17

planet, by the way, in

1:02:19

The Last Jedi. But anyway, so

1:02:23

what happens with Kaimir and

1:02:27

Osha? Kaimir goes

1:02:29

to bathe, takes all his clothes off. I

1:02:32

gotta say, really disappointed we

1:02:34

didn't get some Manny Jacinto ass in

1:02:36

this episode. I want Star

1:02:38

Wars nudity. We got the F word in

1:02:40

Andor. Now I'm, now I want full frontal,

1:02:42

like bring on. I don't think we got

1:02:45

the F word. I'm pretty sure we did.

1:02:47

It's like, but it's like kind of half

1:02:49

muted. We got the S word. We got

1:02:51

the S word. Oh. And they

1:02:53

were gonna put the F word in, and then I

1:02:55

don't think they put it in. Maybe I'm mixing up

1:02:58

my stories. Because there is the S word. Okay.

1:03:00

But then, but then there is

1:03:02

a scene in Andor where

1:03:05

one of the characters is supposed to say

1:03:07

F the Empire, and instead they didn't use

1:03:09

the F word. They decided not to use

1:03:11

the F word. I felt like I saw

1:03:13

someone slow it down and it's still in

1:03:16

there, but maybe I'm wrong. Right. Maybe because

1:03:18

they probably dubbed it over, you know? Maybe.

1:03:21

It was replaced and

1:03:24

posed with something else. Anyway.

1:03:28

So, but I agree.

1:03:30

Like in Star Wars, there's very, there's no

1:03:32

nudity. There's no sex. It's all very chaste.

1:03:35

And I thought some Manny

1:03:38

Jacinto ass might, might

1:03:40

get us into some more

1:03:42

exciting territory. Whatever does it for you, David.

1:03:44

Sadly, it was not to be. I mean,

1:03:46

that is a good looking man in the show, I have to say.

1:03:48

Like he has hashtag, he has

1:03:51

hashtag arm goals. Well, I

1:03:53

mean, it's like he, he, he is

1:03:55

such armed goals that like his Sith

1:03:57

outfit has arms cut out of it.

1:04:01

Yeah, he could. The outfit

1:04:03

could not contain his arms,

1:04:05

right? He's in a robe,

1:04:08

but his arms are free

1:04:10

to enjoy themselves. Yeah, absolutely.

1:04:12

Yeah. So anyway, he

1:04:14

explains to Osha that he didn't kill

1:04:16

Solormay. And then the rest

1:04:19

of the episode is basically the two of them hanging

1:04:21

and chatting, you know, talking about like

1:04:24

what his deal is. There

1:04:27

are some cool quotes, actually. So I'm just

1:04:29

reading here from stuff I wrote down. The

1:04:32

Jedi teacher is only one way to access the

1:04:34

Force, and if you don't do it their way,

1:04:36

it fades. But there is another way. Below the

1:04:38

surface of consciousness are powerful emotions, anger,

1:04:41

fear, loss, desire. And

1:04:43

then she says, that's the path to the dark side. And he says,

1:04:46

semantics, which end quote, which I

1:04:48

thought that was like, that's a cool, cool

1:04:50

idea of like, it's all the

1:04:52

same thing. You know, it's it's kind of

1:04:55

a different way of describing the dark side that I thought was

1:04:57

kind of cool. You know? Yeah, I'm

1:04:59

OK with it. I feel like the

1:05:01

the words on the page are kind

1:05:03

of interesting. I just feel like the

1:05:05

way that it's delivered is like people

1:05:08

talking about like. Like

1:05:11

the Wikipedia entry or like an

1:05:13

IMDB quotes page, and

1:05:15

not to knock the actors, but like, you

1:05:17

know, I remember when like the

1:05:20

the the mantras of the Jedi or Sith

1:05:22

really carried like like power. And here it's

1:05:25

just rattling off, you know, like fear

1:05:27

leads to hate. Hate leads to anger,

1:05:30

whatever. I felt like it was very

1:05:32

like flatly delivered for someone that's really

1:05:34

trying to convince someone

1:05:36

of like this true

1:05:38

emotionally driving force that's pulling them

1:05:41

forward. I mean, they're talking about

1:05:43

it like they're talking about like

1:05:45

what's available for lunch in

1:05:47

the cafeteria today, basically. Right. Yeah. Instead

1:05:49

of like this, this is literally the

1:05:51

most important topic of my life is

1:05:54

kind of what you're right. Yeah,

1:05:56

but it's also I feel like it's

1:05:58

like kind of part of the whole

1:06:00

like superhero. a superheroification of Star Wars,

1:06:02

which is like the force is

1:06:04

not really a like religiously

1:06:07

inspired thing. It's just a bunch of

1:06:09

powers that you can tap into and

1:06:11

be a villain or a hero. And

1:06:15

you know, maybe there's some gray

1:06:17

ground in between. But I

1:06:19

feel like it's kind of lost like all of

1:06:21

its grandeur. And maybe that's like part of the

1:06:24

function. I think that's probably part of it. It's

1:06:26

probably to let the air out of that balloon

1:06:28

a little bit. So that said, you know, I

1:06:30

take your critique about the performance. I

1:06:33

just want them to go somewhere with it. Like if it's

1:06:36

to let the air out of the balloon, what are you

1:06:38

replacing it with? Like, and I feel

1:06:40

like this whole franchise has been dancing around

1:06:42

this thing, you know, the Last Jedi getting

1:06:45

into it the most, but like no one

1:06:47

really wants to get into like, the

1:06:50

real like, you know, ickiness of

1:06:52

like the force in any

1:06:54

kind of detail. And they we always revert

1:06:56

back to the norm. I mean, even here,

1:06:59

the episode is like a

1:07:01

flip, you know, everybody flip costumes, and

1:07:04

we're seemingly flipping allegiances, you know,

1:07:06

as Kaimir seems to be going

1:07:09

evil, you know, and we've

1:07:11

got the Sith guy that's, I think we're

1:07:13

meant to be, you're

1:07:15

attracted to him. But I mean, I

1:07:17

think we're also supposed to be attracted

1:07:19

to his, his like, the

1:07:22

words he's saying and how like, convincing

1:07:24

that is. But I

1:07:26

don't really know that I was, you know, I'm

1:07:30

seeing anything new by his pitch. Yes,

1:07:32

I mean, I would like to have

1:07:34

seen him bear from behind as well. But

1:07:36

you know, I can't

1:07:38

believe you're like making me defend the show. It's really

1:07:40

putting me in a tough spot then. But I mean,

1:07:42

this this is the time period of

1:07:44

Star Wars where the Jedi rule and it's

1:07:46

a it's a time of peace and prosperity.

1:07:48

And by

1:07:51

the time we it's like what 100 years between this

1:07:53

and Phantom Menace. So by the time we get to

1:07:55

Phantom Menace, like the Jedi have already started to decline.

1:07:57

And I

1:08:00

think we're meant to see like, oh, this is maybe

1:08:03

these events start to kind of rattle, you

1:08:05

know, the world the order as it's called

1:08:08

in the show. So I think that's 100%

1:08:10

right. Right. What is it you're asking? What

1:08:12

is it replaced with? It's like, oh, like

1:08:14

the chaos that comes, you

1:08:17

know, in the first six episodes of Star

1:08:19

Wars. I guess I

1:08:21

just feel like this territory has already been

1:08:23

mined by the prequels. And I think like

1:08:26

if you know, whatever critiques I have of

1:08:28

the prequels, I think it

1:08:30

nails this idea pretty solidly, which is

1:08:32

like, the Jedi make a

1:08:34

big mistake. Yeah. And it ends

1:08:37

up costing them in the form of

1:08:39

Anakin Skywalker. And here we're

1:08:41

kind of being told the same thing. Like

1:08:43

I didn't want to repress my emotions. I

1:08:45

could be a more full me, but the

1:08:47

Jedi wouldn't allow me to. And

1:08:50

I'm kind of hoping for, I

1:08:52

thought we would get something that may be

1:08:54

more distinct and new, like maybe even a

1:08:56

perspective that really frames the Jedi

1:08:58

as bad space cops. I think we're

1:09:01

meant to be somewhat sympathetic

1:09:03

to them, even if we recognize their

1:09:05

flaws from the prequels. Like, I

1:09:07

just think there's a more bold, like,

1:09:10

statement, especially if it's gonna birth the

1:09:12

Sith. Like, it should be something that

1:09:14

like we feel at the core of

1:09:16

the show is like, oh,

1:09:19

I get it. I really get why the

1:09:21

Sith exist in a new way than what

1:09:23

I already understood before from the prequel series.

1:09:25

Yeah, that's fair. I think the show is

1:09:28

delivering some of that, but I understand if

1:09:30

it's not sufficient. And certainly with

1:09:32

only two episodes left, I don't know how much territory

1:09:34

they are gonna cover. I think

1:09:36

we're gonna get there. Like, there's something about in

1:09:38

this episode, the power of two, the power of

1:09:41

two and like how that comes to be. And

1:09:43

like, there's something with Kaimir that we've

1:09:45

been told we need to know for

1:09:47

six episodes now. You know, so like,

1:09:49

maybe that will, yeah. So,

1:09:53

we learned that, you know, Kaimir

1:09:55

says, hey, like, don't you feel bad about

1:09:57

the fact that the Jedi kind of threw

1:09:59

you away. through you OSHA away. You

1:10:02

trained with them and then they threw you away and doesn't

1:10:04

that make you feel bad? He also reveals that he himself

1:10:06

was thrown away. He also trained

1:10:08

to be a Jedi and was likely rejected. So we

1:10:10

learned that about him and maybe we're going to learn

1:10:12

what his connection with some of the other Jedi on

1:10:14

the show are. But

1:10:17

he reveals what he wants, the power of two. Right?

1:10:23

This is something

1:10:25

that a lot of people have been speculating, which

1:10:29

is that there is a

1:10:31

Force Dyad on the show. Right? I'm

1:10:33

going to read here from Wookiepedia. A Force

1:10:36

Dyad, also known as Dyad in the

1:10:38

Force, was when two Force-sensitive beings had

1:10:40

a unique Force Bond that was unbreakable,

1:10:42

that made them one in the Force.

1:10:44

The power of a Dyad was as

1:10:46

strong as life itself, with the

1:10:49

individuals forming the Dyad sharing a connection that

1:10:51

spanned across time and space. Members

1:10:53

of a Dyad were attuned to each

1:10:55

other's senses completely, including what they saw,

1:10:58

heard, and felt. They possessed unique Force

1:11:00

powers, such as the ability to physically

1:11:02

interact across many light years in the

1:11:04

galaxy." So that's a little bit

1:11:06

of information about the Force Dyad. A lot of people have

1:11:08

been speculating that OSHA and Mei

1:11:10

are a Force Dyad. And

1:11:12

so when Khaimir says he wants the power of

1:11:14

two, maybe he wants control

1:11:17

over this Force Dyad, maybe

1:11:20

he sees himself as part of

1:11:22

a Force Dyad. Still unclear, but I

1:11:24

think the OSHA-Mai Force Dyad is the most likely

1:11:26

explanation there. I think that's

1:11:28

entirely possible. It seems like a lot of lifting

1:11:31

to do with two episodes

1:11:33

to explain what you

1:11:35

just explained in 30 seconds.

1:11:37

But I guess my read

1:11:40

on it without getting into

1:11:42

the Dyad thing was the

1:11:44

whole pre-established rule in

1:11:47

the Star Wars universe that with the Sith,

1:11:49

there's always two, the Master and the Apprentice,

1:11:51

as established by the Lucas and

1:11:56

Skywalker saga of

1:11:58

movies. And so my thought

1:12:00

was whatever reason why,

1:12:03

maybe it is the forced dyad thing, like

1:12:05

this is the birth of that system,

1:12:09

you know, as we see it

1:12:11

play out in the future films. So

1:12:15

that's basically what happens with Kaimir and Osha.

1:12:17

There is a scene where

1:12:19

Osha puts on Kaimir's

1:12:22

helmet and like learns it's a sensory

1:12:24

deprivation helmet. And that's kind of a cool

1:12:26

moment, you know, like she puts it on and I

1:12:29

don't think we've ever seen or we

1:12:31

rarely see from the inside of what those helmets are.

1:12:33

And yeah, it's not very exciting. But it's like, cool.

1:12:35

It's a cool way to end the episode with her

1:12:37

breathing and stuff like that in the in the audio.

1:12:39

And so I thought

1:12:42

that was neat little touch. But I've

1:12:44

always found the transition to credits at

1:12:46

the end of each of these episodes

1:12:48

really awkward. A lot of the times

1:12:51

are not like, I feel like they're

1:12:53

not really like strong cliffhangers or like

1:12:55

maybe it's just the like, the circular

1:12:58

like, you know, matting inward that I

1:13:00

find not quite

1:13:02

of hard cut enough. Right. Yeah,

1:13:04

that final beat. But I thought

1:13:07

this one actually worked. I found

1:13:09

it like not only visually, you

1:13:12

know, exciting for

1:13:14

its lack of anything, but

1:13:16

also the kind of like, you know, obviously

1:13:18

the allusion to Darth Vader with the heavy

1:13:20

breathing, you know,

1:13:22

that stuff was interesting. And, you

1:13:25

know, an evocative image to close out an

1:13:27

episode that I thought otherwise, you

1:13:30

know, had some, you know, nice, you

1:13:32

know, environmental stuff, but not as much

1:13:34

action, which is typically provided

1:13:36

the visual dynamism of the show

1:13:38

in previous episodes. Let's

1:13:42

talk about what happens on the ship.

1:13:45

So if you'll recall, Sol left

1:13:48

the planet with May,

1:13:51

who he thinks is OSHA. Right.

1:13:54

And Sol, you know, they're on the ship,

1:13:56

he's communicating with Coruscant. He's like, it's

1:13:59

time for him to face high council to

1:14:01

tell them everything that's been

1:14:03

going on. The

1:14:05

ship's power suddenly goes in the fritz and

1:14:07

then Pip and Basil realize that Mei

1:14:10

is Mei, like she's not OSHA and they try

1:14:12

to annoy her a little bit. Mei

1:14:15

then resets Pip to factory settings,

1:14:18

which is really violent. And

1:14:21

then uses Pip to run check

1:14:23

on the power system. And

1:14:26

so then Mei and Sol have a conversation

1:14:28

and Sol says like, you

1:14:30

know, he's really, he's really hard on himself. He's

1:14:32

like, how could I not have sensed that

1:14:34

Kaimir was Kaimir? He says to Mei

1:14:37

who he maybe does or does not know

1:14:39

is Mei at that moment. And

1:14:43

Mei says, you know, I think when you really want something,

1:14:45

it can cloud your mind, he fooled us all. And

1:14:49

so anyway, at that point,

1:14:52

Mei says, like, you can tell me what happened

1:14:54

on Brendan now, Sol, tell me everything. And then

1:14:56

literally, as he's about to say, like, I'm

1:15:02

very irritated at the show

1:15:04

for like, literally,

1:15:07

Sol has said, like, I'm gonna tell you

1:15:10

everything right now. And then like,

1:15:13

and then before he can say it, he, like

1:15:16

something interrupts them, that prevents him from

1:15:18

saying it. So that happens. I think

1:15:20

I can count it. But like, I

1:15:22

think it's no fewer than five times

1:15:25

in the course of the last like, four, like two

1:15:27

to three episodes, right? I was gonna say it happens

1:15:30

at least three times in this episode. Right, where he's

1:15:32

like, okay, I'm gonna tell and then the power comes

1:15:34

back on. And then at the very end, he's like,

1:15:36

all right, it's time to tell you and then cut

1:15:38

to the end of the show. You know, like, yeah,

1:15:40

it's just like, I

1:15:42

don't know if they're doing it comically to troll us.

1:15:45

But like, it is, it is very, very

1:15:48

annoying. And it's so clear to

1:15:50

me that they are stretching out

1:15:52

this reveal to the to

1:15:55

the breaking point to the point where it's like, it

1:15:58

just makes absolutely no sense that he wouldn't have said something. something

1:16:00

by this point. Yeah.

1:16:02

So that's really frustrating.

1:16:05

I mean, like, I don't know how

1:16:07

you guys felt about the chimer reveal,

1:16:09

but like, I found that really disappointing,

1:16:12

you know, because it's like, okay, it's

1:16:14

this guy, you know, it was

1:16:16

the least interesting reveal

1:16:18

that they could have had, like, you

1:16:21

know, we ran through some other possibilities on the on

1:16:23

the podcast, like, what if it was mother coral, you

1:16:26

know, like, that would have been like an interesting,

1:16:29

oh, okay, like, you can see why she would want to kill all

1:16:31

the gentlemen, you know, like, but this

1:16:33

guy, we barely know anything

1:16:35

about. So it's like, okay,

1:16:37

I guess. I mean, that's

1:16:40

their track record on reveals. And so like,

1:16:42

they're building this whole show on like,

1:16:45

you got to hang around for the

1:16:47

reveal. And it's like, do I like,

1:16:50

like, do I trust you that this

1:16:52

is going to be worth it? Yeah,

1:16:54

you know, I mean, I'm still

1:16:56

on board, but it is frustrating because

1:16:59

it's like, just say it, you know,

1:17:01

the show needs

1:17:03

to end with him getting killed right as

1:17:05

he's saying it, you know, so anyway, he's

1:17:08

like, May, the thing that happened

1:17:10

on Brenda was lightsaber

1:17:12

through the chest, you know, like, and then

1:17:14

you don't hear what he has to say.

1:17:17

Yeah. But anyway, soul knocks May out. And

1:17:19

he knows it's her. He's like, Hey, oh, may, you know,

1:17:21

he said he knows it's her. It

1:17:24

is unclear how soul realized that it

1:17:26

was may like it is heavily implied

1:17:29

that Basil told him the little tracking

1:17:31

creature, right? Because we see him right

1:17:33

behind soul right after that. You know

1:17:35

what I'm saying? Did you find it

1:17:37

impossible to follow whatever Basil

1:17:39

is doing in this show? Like, it's like

1:17:42

if you have this information, like at first

1:17:44

I thought he was like, trying

1:17:46

to sniff out follow his nose and

1:17:48

identify that Oh, the hell is different

1:17:50

between May and OSHA. It's someone in

1:17:52

disguise, but that doesn't really seem super

1:17:54

clear. And then there's like this pratfall

1:17:57

sequence. Yeah. And like, I'm just like

1:17:59

get to it why is he sneaking

1:18:01

around the ship it's his ship you

1:18:04

know like that he's a crew member on

1:18:06

like I'm just like what what is this

1:18:08

plot line you know I like I'm like

1:18:11

the thing that is really irritating not

1:18:13

not irritating but kind of yeah

1:18:16

no irritating I'm gonna say irritating is the

1:18:22

there's been a lot of chatter online

1:18:24

dang of Austin about how would soul

1:18:27

not realize that that's actually may you

1:18:29

know how would soul not recognize it

1:18:31

right away because doesn't soul have Jedi

1:18:33

force powers and I

1:18:35

think a lot of people have been quoting or

1:18:37

showing like hey I don't know if you went

1:18:39

back and watch the prequels but

1:18:42

there's like tons of scenes when Palpatine is

1:18:45

sitting among the Jedi and they don't realize

1:18:47

that it's you know it's Palpatine

1:18:49

right I mean it's made explicit right Yoda says

1:18:52

like you know the dark side of the force

1:18:54

as a way of clouding the

1:18:56

minds of you know of Jedi so it's so

1:18:58

I am NOT I am NOT bothered by that

1:19:00

at all no I'm not bothered by that at

1:19:02

all what I am bothered by is soul doesn't

1:19:05

seem to recognize that OSHA has

1:19:07

become a completely different person with a

1:19:09

different personality yes like you

1:19:11

don't need the force you don't need the

1:19:14

force to do that you just need to

1:19:16

be like a regular person with regular people

1:19:18

skills which you could argue that soul doesn't

1:19:20

have but like it's really tough

1:19:22

for the audience to be ahead of the

1:19:25

characters and in this case it's

1:19:27

like oh that's clearly that's clearly

1:19:29

made that's it's clearly not OSHA

1:19:31

anymore because OSHA looks and

1:19:33

sounds different even though it's played by the same actor in

1:19:35

the twins right like they they're

1:19:37

completely different characters and

1:19:40

the fact that soul doesn't realize

1:19:42

immediately that something is off it

1:19:44

just it doesn't

1:19:46

make you put a lot of faith in that character you know

1:19:48

I'm yeah but I also

1:19:50

think there's a lot of missed opportunity for

1:19:52

fun with that you know like if she

1:19:55

is able to like if the

1:19:57

characters felt more distinct from each other You

1:19:59

know, I mean, they're distinct enough that one

1:20:01

is like a little more brusque than the

1:20:03

other. But like, if you could

1:20:05

see her like, pretending to be your sister

1:20:07

and actively trying to hide it, like,

1:20:09

and she gives a slight little slip, then it

1:20:11

gets kind of fun. Right. We know that she

1:20:14

has some kind of like agenda. Like when we

1:20:16

first see her on the ship, she pulls out

1:20:18

one of her little knife things, which, you

1:20:20

know, we got Jedi being stabbed by

1:20:23

lightsabers, but apparently these knives can take

1:20:25

them down immediately. To be fair, to

1:20:27

be fair, Osha also had knife

1:20:29

that she was going to use on Kaimir on the

1:20:31

planet. Fair

1:20:33

enough. So, but anyway, she's

1:20:36

like sneaking through the ship with this knife,

1:20:38

you know, in her hand. And it's like,

1:20:40

oh, that's fun. Like she's going to try

1:20:42

to like, you know, hide the knife and

1:20:45

slip it out and hide it again

1:20:47

when she thinks no one's looking. But

1:20:49

it almost immediately abandons that idea and

1:20:52

just has her interacting in dialogue scenes.

1:20:54

And I just feel like it's a

1:20:56

missed opportunity for like the whole, you

1:20:58

know, Freaky Friday or whatever parent trap,

1:21:01

you know, fun of that scenario.

1:21:04

It doesn't really lean into it

1:21:06

all that much. And when

1:21:08

the, and like you said earlier, when it is

1:21:10

discovered that she's not who she

1:21:12

says she is, we don't really have a

1:21:14

clear indication of why or how that occurred,

1:21:16

which should be the entire like basis of

1:21:18

that plot line is, aha,

1:21:20

you know. I didn't, I didn't mind

1:21:23

that, you know, but, but it's just, I'm just mentioning that.

1:21:25

I don't think it was very clear. Anyway,

1:21:28

uh, may

1:21:30

get strapped down to this table and then

1:21:33

soul says, I'm finally going to tell you

1:21:35

what actually happened. And then we don't see

1:21:37

what it was. So at

1:21:40

first I'm going to fire this slow moving

1:21:42

laser. That's going to track up towards your

1:21:44

body. Yeah. I bet. Uh, next episode it's

1:21:46

going to just start and he's, and he's

1:21:48

going to finish telling the story. He's going

1:21:50

to start and he's going to be like,

1:21:52

and that's what happened on bread doc all

1:21:55

these years. You know, that would be, I

1:21:57

would rage throw something to get my TV.

1:22:00

I don't know how I would emotionally react to

1:22:02

that. All right, we

1:22:04

have one last segment to discuss. Before we do that though, Dan Gavas,

1:22:06

and thanks so much for joining us. You want to let people know

1:22:08

where they can find more of your work on the internet this week.

1:22:10

Sure, yeah. Every week I'm podcasting

1:22:12

on my own show, which is the

1:22:15

Amazing Spider Talk, where we talk about

1:22:17

all things Spider-Man. If you read Spider-Man

1:22:19

comics or just follow the movies and

1:22:21

want to learn more about the character,

1:22:24

we go through the history of the

1:22:26

character and review modern Spider-Man comics. It's

1:22:28

amazingspidertalk.com. Come check it out. I've

1:22:31

got Alan Sherstle guesting for

1:22:33

me right now. I'm actually moving

1:22:36

across the country. And so I

1:22:38

know our mutual friend, David,

1:22:41

Alan, is taking over the show. Alan, you used

1:22:43

to be film editor at Village Voice, if I'm

1:22:45

correct. Correct, yeah. Very talented

1:22:47

writer and editor. Check

1:22:50

out Dan's podcast, The Amazing Spider Talk, and

1:22:52

really appreciate Dan joining us to cover the

1:22:54

acolyte here on Decoding TV. Let's

1:22:57

talk about what's going on on Coruscant, Dan. There

1:23:00

is, Vernestra

1:23:03

is there along with the Jedi

1:23:05

named Mog. Mog has

1:23:07

received this transmission and Sol says, you know,

1:23:09

I didn't quite hear what Sol said, but

1:23:11

it sounded like he said the whole team

1:23:13

is dead, which

1:23:17

is obviously very concerning. So Vernestra says, we

1:23:20

gotta get out there and figure out what

1:23:22

is going on. So

1:23:25

Sol leaves the

1:23:27

planet right as Vernestra arrives. There's

1:23:30

literally ships passing in the night. On

1:23:35

the planet, locals say the Umbromoths might have caused all

1:23:37

the casualties. I guess they already came up with a

1:23:39

cover story for all the Jedi dying. It

1:23:43

was Antifa. Yeah, well,

1:23:45

this to me was kind of like, you

1:23:47

can imagine if the space cops arrive and then like

1:23:50

some other like new space cops arrive and they're

1:23:52

like, hey, how did all the old space cops

1:23:54

die? And it's like, oh, I don't know. Like

1:23:57

there was a swarm of moths. No,

1:23:59

no. need to look around any further for people living

1:24:01

in the woods that might be dangerous. They

1:24:05

know not to say anything to the Five-O. Anyway,

1:24:09

so, Vernestra, Mog, and other

1:24:11

Jedi head out in search of the other

1:24:14

Jedi that were there, and it turns out

1:24:16

all the Jedi are dead. They're

1:24:19

all dead. We see Jackie's lifeless

1:24:21

body on screen, and

1:24:24

Vernestra surveys the scene, and then there's

1:24:27

a moment where she uses a lightsaber

1:24:29

whip to kill

1:24:31

an Umbra moth that's about to descend upon

1:24:33

her. Gotta say

1:24:35

I'm a fan of the lightsaber whip, Dang

1:24:38

of Austin. This was used in the trailer,

1:24:41

and people were like, really had a lot

1:24:43

of conversations about this. I personally think it's

1:24:46

super cool. I do

1:24:48

think it's weird to use it in the

1:24:50

trailer if it's only going to be in

1:24:52

this one five-second clip. So

1:24:54

I'm assuming we'll see the lightsaber whip again. Any opinion

1:24:57

on the lightsaber whip, Dang of Austin? I

1:25:00

think it's a Pandora's box

1:25:02

to undoing what a lightsaber

1:25:04

is. You know what I

1:25:06

mean? Okay, tell me. I

1:25:09

don't feel very passionately about this, but

1:25:12

I'm going to make the case anyway. Once you

1:25:15

start bending the rules

1:25:17

of what the form of a

1:25:20

lightsaber is, you

1:25:22

potentially open the door

1:25:24

for it to be completely

1:25:27

watered down and lose its

1:25:29

iconography altogether. Maybe so

1:25:33

long as it remains medieval

1:25:35

weapons in the form

1:25:37

of lasers, I'm fine

1:25:39

with that. But I also know

1:25:42

that Disney is in charge of this, and if you

1:25:44

can sell a toy of it, they're going

1:25:47

to go there. I like

1:25:49

the lightsaber whip too.

1:25:51

I think it's cool

1:25:54

for sure. It is cool, but I

1:25:57

worry about what's going on. this

1:26:00

could mean like cut

1:26:02

to this clip 10 years from

1:26:04

now where we have like a

1:26:06

person wearing armor made of lightsaber

1:26:08

and so on so forth. I

1:26:10

just I just can't wait for the lightsaber mace

1:26:13

you know like that's gonna be amazing but

1:26:16

yeah you're worried that this is like

1:26:18

when we look back this was the

1:26:20

first crack in the armor when lightsaber

1:26:22

started to be using for be used

1:26:24

for other things right? Yeah

1:26:26

I mean like maybe they have

1:26:29

more restraint than I've realized like the minute

1:26:31

I saw a baby Yoda I was like

1:26:33

this is it we're getting babies of everything

1:26:35

or like we're gonna get the full backstory

1:26:37

of whatever creature Yoda is you know

1:26:41

and to my knowledge we've not

1:26:43

gotten that yet so like

1:26:45

maybe they're like gonna have fun

1:26:47

dipping their toes in and not

1:26:50

dive into it completely but you

1:26:52

know now that you said it lightsaber mace

1:26:54

it's out there and I'm I'm already starting

1:26:57

to imagine it which means like it's happening

1:26:59

whether you like it or not so now

1:27:01

I get to blame you David. Indeed

1:27:05

so anyway there is

1:27:08

a moment when Vrenestra

1:27:11

and Mog are surveying the scene and they're

1:27:13

trying to figure out who did all this

1:27:16

and she says something

1:27:19

to tip the scales right like what what

1:27:21

could have done all this something to tip

1:27:23

the scales that is a reference to a

1:27:25

line that she says in episode four where

1:27:28

I don't know if you recall Danko-Ozin there's

1:27:30

a scene where all

1:27:32

the Jedi are talking including Kiari

1:27:35

Mundi is there the guy with

1:27:37

the big head and Sol is there

1:27:40

and Vrenestra there and I actually

1:27:43

wrote down the quote the

1:27:47

Jedi are talking and then Vrenestra is quizzing Sol

1:27:49

about what happened and she's saying like why didn't

1:27:51

you tell me you know

1:27:53

this poor girl survived and Sol's like I saw

1:27:55

her die you know which

1:27:58

is like I

1:28:00

can't believe we still haven't resolved that by this point,

1:28:02

honestly, but hopefully next episode we'll get an answer on

1:28:04

what's going on there. Anyway.

1:28:08

Do you have any theories about what's going

1:28:10

on there? Yeah, well, I mean, I

1:28:13

think it's—let me just finish what I'm saying and then

1:28:15

let's talk about it. Sure. But anyway, Vernestra

1:28:18

says, I fear May is only a small part

1:28:20

of her master's larger plan, a plan that is

1:28:22

difficult to see, some sort of

1:28:24

shift, something to tip the scales,

1:28:27

end quote. Presumably something

1:28:29

to tip the scales against the Jedi, right? That

1:28:32

May is part of one

1:28:34

component of Khaimir's plan, and

1:28:36

potentially some people have

1:28:38

speculated Khaimir's associates plan to

1:28:41

tip the scales against the Jedi. So that's what that's a reference to

1:28:43

when she says something to tip the scales in this episode. What

1:28:47

that is? TBD, as

1:28:49

with everything else this episode. All right,

1:28:51

before we wrap up, Dangavasan, you're asking,

1:28:53

like, what's going on there? I think

1:28:55

the only thing we know for sure

1:28:57

is the flashback episode we got in,

1:28:59

I think, episode three, like, was not

1:29:01

an accurate representation of what actually happened,

1:29:03

right? And I'm really

1:29:05

just waiting for Sol to lay it out. It's

1:29:11

ridiculous that he has promised

1:29:13

to lay it out multiple times and then just

1:29:15

never gotten to it. So what do

1:29:17

you think it is? I have my theory, but

1:29:20

I'm curious to hear yours. That there

1:29:22

was some kind of mind— Given that he's definitely

1:29:24

going to lay it out next episode. Yeah, give

1:29:26

me—I think I already laid it out last Decoding

1:29:28

TV. So, like, what is—basically

1:29:31

they were mind-wiped, right? Like,

1:29:33

either the witches or the

1:29:35

Jedi did a mind wipe, and, you

1:29:37

know, in fact, May lays it out. She

1:29:40

says, like, they, the Jedi, brainwashed you, Osha.

1:29:42

That was her—what she speculates. And

1:29:44

I think that's probably true. Dangavasan, what do

1:29:47

you think? I mean, I think

1:29:49

that might be a part of it. My

1:29:51

suspicion—and I don't know if Disney's going to let

1:29:53

it kind of go this far, but I like—

1:29:56

My suspicion is there's some kind of, like, Jedi enforced, like, species

1:29:58

that are going to be like, face genocide going

1:30:01

on that like they're aware of

1:30:03

the Sith or the dark side

1:30:05

and or these force dyads as

1:30:07

you put it and they are

1:30:10

using executive force to prevent this

1:30:12

tipping of the scales from even

1:30:15

beginning and that might mean using

1:30:17

police force to travel to planets

1:30:20

and take children and

1:30:22

quietly dispose of the ones that

1:30:25

you know they suspect you know

1:30:27

are headed down that path and

1:30:30

so you have this you know

1:30:32

uh chimer who said he was

1:30:34

disposed of you know like somehow

1:30:37

they survived whatever this process is

1:30:39

by falling down chasms that no

1:30:41

one could survive falling down um

1:30:45

but um uh

1:30:47

yeah that's kind of what i think is

1:30:49

going on and i think that would actually

1:30:51

be fairly redemptive of

1:30:54

the show in that like that's

1:30:56

a bold yeah that'd be interesting

1:30:59

show the Jedi in that light um

1:31:03

uh so anyway that would be interesting and that's

1:31:05

kind of why i'm hanging around because i'm like

1:31:08

all right disney like you know show

1:31:10

some teeth you know like like tell

1:31:12

us something new about the

1:31:14

Jedi that we don't know yet

1:31:16

uh uh yeah that'd

1:31:20

be that's a pretty cool theory dang wasn't um

1:31:22

the idea being that like in

1:31:25

this case uh probably they tried

1:31:27

to kill me right they tried

1:31:29

to exterminate me and

1:31:31

failed right correct that's what

1:31:33

happened so like me wasn't guilty of

1:31:35

anything she was just like chilling doing

1:31:38

her thing and the Jedi tried to kill her and now she's

1:31:40

out for revenge right so and then they cover it up by

1:31:42

like setting the stone

1:31:44

on fire and yeah yada

1:31:47

yada yada it never existed and

1:31:49

um yeah except they weren't

1:31:51

counting on like a forced dyad or something

1:31:54

like that to kind of tip tip

1:31:56

the scales um you

1:31:58

know my my my big

1:32:00

lingering question is there's a Jedi

1:32:02

named Mog on this show. Is it

1:32:05

a direct reference to Spaceballs? Half

1:32:08

man, half dog, I'm my own best friend, making

1:32:12

its way. Has the snake truly

1:32:14

eaten its own tail here?

1:32:17

Yeah, lingering question. Absolutely.

1:32:20

I guess I'll rely on Wikipedia

1:32:22

to fill me in in the future. Indeed,

1:32:25

indeed. All right. Well, anyway, we'll see if

1:32:27

Dan Gavossa is right. I mean, the

1:32:29

thing is every time this show has had

1:32:32

a chance to take an interesting

1:32:34

path, it has generally

1:32:36

not taken that path. And

1:32:38

so I don't have, like

1:32:41

that's a cool theory you've outlined. I don't know. Maybe

1:32:44

it's true. I just

1:32:46

need a reason for the show

1:32:48

to exist. Like I felt like

1:32:50

Obi-Wan didn't really have a reason

1:32:52

to exist until its final episode.

1:32:54

And that line between Anakin and

1:32:56

Obi-Wan where Anakin says like, or

1:32:58

Darth Vader says, you know, I

1:33:00

killed Anakin, not you Obi-Wan.

1:33:02

And it's like, okay, I could see

1:33:05

why you greenlit it on that line.

1:33:07

You know? So like, I'm like, okay,

1:33:09

like, I don't yet know why this show was

1:33:11

something that had to be made. And I'm

1:33:15

hoping it's some bold reason that they're holding

1:33:17

off on repeatedly every

1:33:20

episode. All right.

1:33:23

Well, the other

1:33:25

thing to consider though, Dan, here's

1:33:27

why I think your theory is

1:33:29

not true is that it's very

1:33:31

clear from this episode that

1:33:33

Sol was acting in

1:33:36

a rogue fashion, right? Like he

1:33:39

keeps saying like, oh, it's finally time for me

1:33:41

to tell the high order what

1:33:43

I did as though like, like

1:33:47

if the Jedi were like out there

1:33:49

exterminating force dyads, you know, willy

1:33:52

nilly, like then Sol wouldn't need

1:33:54

to confess anything. Well, I

1:33:56

mean, it could still be like a SEAL team six

1:33:58

of Jedi, you know what I'm saying? There's just no

1:34:00

way. Like, there's no way

1:34:03

it's maybe Sol going rogue

1:34:05

and doing that on his own, but like

1:34:07

the idea that it's like an institutional initiative,

1:34:10

I don't know. I don't think that's it.

1:34:12

I mean, yeah, well, I don't know enough

1:34:14

to say one way or the other. I

1:34:16

just think there's something along those lines. I

1:34:20

was right. Those long-term listeners who've listened

1:34:22

to our coverage of Loki back in

1:34:24

the day, I did, you know, like

1:34:26

call the king of it all. So

1:34:29

like I'm hoping that I, you know,

1:34:31

I'm rolling, you know, the

1:34:33

right dice here. I've got, or in your

1:34:35

parlance, to have the right hand of cards,

1:34:37

you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.

1:34:39

Well, thank you, Dan Gavazen, for joining

1:34:42

us on Decoding TV to chat about

1:34:44

the Acolyte. We'll be back next week

1:34:46

with a conversation about the Acolyte episode

1:34:48

seven. And Dan Gavazen will join

1:34:50

us again in a couple weeks for our conversation

1:34:52

about the finale. Until

1:34:54

then, you're listening to Decoding TV. We'll see

1:34:56

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