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The Legal Geeks
Review of Andor Arc 3: Messenger, Who Are You, and Welcome to the Rebellion.
Review of Andor, season two, episodes Messenger, Who Are You, and Welcome to the Rebellion.
No part of this recording should be considered legal advice.
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Hello everyone, my name is Joshua Gilliland, one of the founding attorneys of the Legal Geeks. We are here to discuss the third arc in Andor, season 2. With me on this adventure is Stephen Tollefield and retired New York judge Matthew Sciarino. Your Honor, how are you?
Speaker 2:Good, Good evening. Glad you're feeling better. Thank you me too.
Speaker 1:Thanks for taking lead last week. How are you doing tonight?
Speaker 3:My gosh. It was my pleasure and glad you're feeling better and I'm doing great thanks.
Speaker 1:Good, good. Well, let's dive into what continues to be this amazing season of Andor. Excellent arc, so many wonderful issues in this. So we're two years away from the Battle of Yavin. Episode seven is entitled the Messenger and your Honor. You identified a area, a topic that Stephen and I did not know because we're Californians. Can you tell us about unlicensed fortune tellers?
Speaker 2:Sure, cassian is having some discussions with what we guess is a low force user who is using her abilities to help wounded members of the Rebel Alliance, and she proceeds to kind of take a reading for him and give him his fortune.
Speaker 2:And his fortune is that he is a messenger and, as we all know from Rogue One, her prediction does in fact come quite true.
Speaker 2:That being said, in as much as the force does not seem to exist in our present day, in our present time, in our galaxy, new York does make it illegal to fortune tell.
Speaker 2:Under penal law, section 165.35, a person is guilty of fortune telling when for a fee or compensation. And here she wasn't charging a fee, so she technically would not have been guilty of violating this statute. But if you charge a fee for fortune telling which he or she directly or indirectly solicits or receives and claims or pretends to tell fortunes or holds himself out as being able, by claim or pretended use of occult powers, to answer questions or give advice on personal matters or to exercise etc. And I believe this kind of came out of Howard Houdini and he was very much against. During his time period there was a lot of occult and fortune telling and he kind of instigated some of these laws and I think that this came out of part of Houdini's instigations. And it's a class B, as in boy misdemeanor, which means it would be punishable up to three months in jail in New York.
Speaker 1:That awakens within me historical podcast and books.
Speaker 1:I've seen about the spiritualism that took place in the late 19th century, especially after the American Civil War, that everybody had at least one family member or friend who was killed, at least one family member or friend who was killed, and there was this huge push for things like spirit photography something that Mary Todd Lincoln did with like here's a picture of my dead husband next to me type of services that were being offered and you had a bunch of famous some would say fraudsters, some would say that they were, you know, actually had powers to contact the great beyond, of going out and giving people readings and putting on seances or, you know, speaking with a voice from the other side, and they were actually putting on a show.
Speaker 1:I remember those cases being more Midwest, new York, east Coast, as opposed to California, where again in California we have the new agey. I'm talking to my crystal crowd because that's how we are with this hang loose, welcome everybody, because we're Californians, that's how we roll. We don't have that history that the East Coast had and I think that's a large part because California was excluded from the Union draft during the American Civil War.
Speaker 2:And there is an exception to it, where, if you're doing it solely for the purpose of a show or an exhibition, or for entertainment or amusement, then that would not be illegal under this statute. So if you're a magician, or where it's part of your act, or a mentalist, you would not be subject to this statute.
Speaker 3:That seems like such a fine line, but I can't believe that Odomay Brown from Ghost would have been a criminal under this statute. I'm crushed. How dare you slander Odomay in this way? You're in danger. Girl, Get out of this state.
Speaker 1:Well played, well played. Yeah, there's a. Houdini was not cool with those guys so and went out to debunk them left and right. So, ok, that's fascinating and also a deep dive in, in fact I like history. So let's talk about strip mining, gorman. So which one of you brought up this topic of strip mining?
Speaker 2:as a potential item for discussion. In a lot of states that war strip mine, like Pennsylvania for their coal, various environmental groups have succeeded in passing federal regulations which does put heavy burdens on any kind of strip mining and you have to do certainly all kinds of environmental studies etc in it and, and for the most part at least in our country.
Speaker 3:There there does not seem to be the culture of strip mining anymore in some third world, moral of Gorman being potentially made uninhabitable by this imperial plan his background, his home world was kind of completely rendered virtually uninhabitable by imperial strip mining, which is kind of an interesting echo later on in the season two of the season of the first season which brings up the importance of state secrets and the mantra the mantra that loose lips sink ships.
Speaker 1:We have Deidre telling Cyril to go home and a potentially awkward kiss between the two of them, but it raises the specter of the issue. Did she violate any imperial law? Because her boss said don't tell Cyril, and she doesn't outright tell him, but she tells him to go home and we're going to be rewarded. Did she break protocol or any you know imperial ordinances at play? And Judge Cherino, you've done military law. What are your thoughts on this issue?
Speaker 2:I think she threaded the needle in enough of a manner that arguably, you know, she was just saying listen, pack, be ready, and didn't give any greater details. Whether Cyril, you know, would have taken that to mean the mission is wrapping up or something major is going to happen, which is probably likely, you know. So, between them it was probably too much of a warning for the Imperials to really like, but technically I don't know if they would have noticed it. Like, but technically I don't know if they would have noticed it.
Speaker 1:Good analysis. Yeah, it's like, is she spilling the beans too early here? Which then brings us to do our heroes go AWOL when they decide to go to Gorman on an assassination mission that William Wilman shows up on. Yavin doesn't check in, doesn't tell Cassian where he's been, but he says like hey, let's, this is Deidre, let's go kill her because she's out in the open on Gorman and she's the one who destroyed Ferrix. She's the one. Let's go kill her because she's out in the open on Gorman and she's the one who destroyed Ferex. She's the one who's caused all of our problems. She's a clear and present danger. Let's go kill her. First off, that's a conspiracy when you conspire with someone to go kill someone. Two, this is completely off-book, so there's no. Like the rebels actually have a command structure now, so they're ignoring that command structure in order for them to decide to go murder someone. Is this them going AWOL? Because they don't have a flight plan? Like they don't have approval, they're taking a U-Wing out for a spin to go kill somebody. Your Honor, your thoughts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at this point the Rebel Alliance has become a military organization with a military structure. It has uniforms, so it would qualify under all of the various things that make you into a military organization and as such there's a chain of command and they were violating the chain of command by following Lutheran's dictates, as opposed to the rebel structure. And they clearly take a U-Wing without any authorization to take it and go on this mission which leads to the next episode. So I don't think there's any defense, militarily wise, for them to have done what they did so that they would have been subject to discipline under whatever the Rebel Alliance uses as their uniform code of military justice. They certainly would have been subject to some kind of discipline loss of rank, expulsion, dishonorable discharge, various things that the military could have done. And this is a time of war, so those penalties can be quite severe depending on what the code of military justice for the rebels would have been at that particular time.
Speaker 2:But yeah they clearly were leaving without any permission to go on an unauthorized mission, so they would be subject to discipline.
Speaker 3:I was wondering if like because it's an alliance would be subject to discipline. I was wondering if, like because it's an alliance, I was thinking whether there was any sort of wiggle room for people to kind of still be permitted to do kind of missions that were specific to their kind of segment of that coalition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you can make an argument that Lutheran Soar and the other various chiefs of this alliance, you know, all kind of had their sphere of influence and their own chain of command. But I think the fact that they were using the property of the main rebel alliance and at that point I think we're operating under their chain of command, I think that they're stuck. But yeah, you know, if I'm the defense lawyer for at the court martial proceeding, my argument is going to be as Lutheran's, another general, and Lutheran gave me this order and that would absolutely be my defense to, to this, the, the stealing of the u-wing. You're going to lose and any way you slice it, but, um, but, but yeah, that would be my defense, that he's as big a chief as as in monmouth, as monmouth there is. Just, you know, he's one of the, the, the five families, so to speak I wonder is all the equipment from monmouth's like?
Speaker 1:did she bankroll this? Or is this from other sources that have been working together? I mean, that's a level of granularity that we probably won't see in the storytelling I mean you had a lot of money coming from Alderaan and the Queen.
Speaker 2:She funneled an enormous amount of money to the rebel alliance and you also had yeah, clearly you had the successful raid in the first season that stole a large amount of imperial credits. That was the foundation for a lot of what the rebels had and, yes, I think all of the various factions would have donated. But the bulk of the money did come from Mon Motha's foundation and from Alderaan. From what I've been able to gather from other sources and stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it seems like the members of the Alliance too had kind of varying degrees of their own equipment, because Maya Pei's people seem to be pretty dependent on other financial support. But um, but saw guerrera, um kind of on the other end of the spectrum, had like x-wings and lots of, lots of equipment. So, um, I wonder how much is just sort of contributed to the main goal from the from the members of the alliance too.
Speaker 1:It's interesting and like how are they making money? Because there's, you have the knuckleheads that kidnapped Patty Hearst, that wanted to be, you know, a serious liberation army, and like they had armament, but they were still knuckleheads. Like there was no secret army that they were raising. There was, you know, five knuckleheads. Like there was no secret army that they were raising.
Speaker 2:It was, you know, five knuckleheads which which is kind of in the beginning of this series, the, the guys that had cassian prisoner. You know you could get no more knuckleheads than those guys, but you know clearly that developed into something and if I remember correctly, there was a prequel novel to rogue, one which dealt with soar and and and and, uh.
Speaker 2:I now I forget her name um, was it a catalyst? Yeah, catalyst, and, and it dealt with, you know, some of the jobs that sword did, and and he, you know he, he did a lot of jobs in order to basically theft, uh, in order to fund his end of the, the rebel alliance. So he was doing jobs, as were, I'm sure, a lot of other ones of stealing payrolls, uh, precious metals, etc.
Speaker 2:Um, in order to uh in in the han solo movie, there's, there's, there's the coaxium right, the coaxium, the being stole by the, the nest and, and you know, it's being sold to help fund the Rebel Alliance. So I think you had a lot of that kind of Robin Hood mentality.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, they, they take a U-Wing for a spin. So there's, there's just no way around that. Let's pivot to who Are you? Episode 8. And so we have the issue of there's assassination and, because this is the Gorman Massacre and it's again, we have passionate young people who are going to get everybody killed. Now Luthans write that it's a fire that will burn brightly. You can say that they were expendable to the point of being able to unite a rebellion, but they were also used for that process in order to incite a rebellion against the Empire. I'm not saying that one's a better situation than the other, because the Empire was going to wipe them out regardless, but passive resistance would have been a better play as opposed to let's all go into the fish barrel and wait to die, which is what they did here. So Cassian goes to assassinate deidre who wants to talk about that, because this is this is murder like he's planning to kill her yeah, this is very premeditated.
Speaker 3:he's um, definitely, um, definitely got the tools. He's got the tools, he's got the cover story, he's got the opportunity and this is a politically motivated or militarily motivated attempted murder is every time he kind of sees her, she's turning around and walking away. Um, so, absent those kind of timing errors, he certainly would have, um, I think, taken the shot.
Speaker 1:you seem to be really into it, so which, no, there's more to unpack on whether or not I know that if deidre had been killed, would that have actually been a good thing, uh, or would that have been harmful for the future? So, but he's not able to kill her. But we have one of the issues that I saw with the right to assemble versus the right to keep order. So our First Amendment has several provisions to it five, and one of them is for peaceful assembly. You have the right to protest, which means there can be limitations, like time place manner, whether or not you could be using speakers, which again goes to time place manner.
Speaker 1:You can't just start blocking exits, blocking the freeways frowned upon, it tends to upset people. But like having a parade or picketing, you know you can march on the sidewalks. There's all kinds of rules that come into play with you have the right to peacefully assemble. You have a right to hang out with the groups that you want to hang out with. Deciding to eradicate said group is a problem. But also it goes to the issue of like you can't have the mob shut down the freeway, like.
Speaker 2:So again, there are limits on this and your Honor care to address the since you've dealt with some of these issues your thought please, and I think we all have to some extent. Yeah, From the various shutting downs of freeways In New York, we would get the Brooklyn Bridge frequently shut down by various groups. They would then be given an opportunity to disperse and if they did not disperse, then the police would begin to arrest to get the traffic moving again. As a general rule in New York, if you were able to get a permit, you were allowed to have various parades, even if they did shut down traffic, but you know they would be limited in their scope and where you were allowed to go traffic, but you know they would be limited in their scope and where you were allowed to go. And it would also be done so that there wasn't too many conflicting groups and parades, because one of the real dangerous things that can happen is if you have two groups that are very much against each other and having their confrontation in the same space, that could end up being a very bad situation. So there are really good reasons why there are reasonable restrictions put on public demonstrations that the public clearly has the right to do, but it also can't impede on everyone else's rights to go about their regular day. So it is a very hard balance.
Speaker 2:The Empire clearly was not interested in the protection of the people that were demonstrating. They were more interested in kind of riling them up so that they would be able to put them down, and I know some people say that that, you know, is the same of any police department in every city. I personally, you know, I was involved with a lot of the Occupy Wall Street matters and I saw hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of videotapes of various demonstrations and I saw cops that were very, very reasonable in their attempts to address the situation and I also saw police officers pick up people and body slam them to the ground in very violent manners and you know. So you certainly have good cop, bad cop, and overwhelmingly I think the police in New York was trying to be reasonable, but there were certain members of that force that were quite unreasonable in the videos that I saw.
Speaker 3:I almost I narrowly escaped arrest, not at the Occupy Wall Street protest, but when I this is back in the day there was a big Matthew Shepard demonstration that turned into that.
Speaker 3:We were attending kind of a demonstration near Central Park and then it got too big and people started spilling out into the streets and that's when sort of the police officers started moving in to arrest people and then it turned into a march and we were marching through the city, um.
Speaker 3:But that um, that was a um in a situation where it's sort of um, an event had kind of grew beyond its um, uh, sort of pre-planned boundaries, um, and got to a place where the police officers were provoked into sort of making arrests.
Speaker 3:But it struck me that in this Gorman situation that they're kind of in a classic town square, like they're in the place where the First Amendment kind of has its greatest power in protecting people's right to assemble, because they're at a monument, they're there to address, to air grievances against the government that is situated right there. You know, at the same time there's countervailing, as you said, judge the balance of striking security when there's government entities involved. But that's where people commonly assemble to address their grievances. It wouldn't be effective to kind of cordon off people into very remote areas when they're trying to address the government. So yeah, so I think it was a really interesting way of portraying kind of nonviolent protest, although the people in the front had kind of brought weapons to the event, which is not great, but but most of the people there were just kind of singing and and kind of chanting and doing kind of very core protected First Amendment activities, which is really interesting.
Speaker 2:And you do find that there are. You know whether they're professional instigators or just very zealous instigators, but there was a lot of times a small core that then led the group to overreach what would have been considered a normal demonstration, like in New York. It's Foley Square it's right outside a couple of the main courthouses in Manhattan is kind of the public square for demonstrations and a lot of them start there and then they'll go off and march to various locations at various times and for the most part, as long as they stayed on the sidewalk and they kind of went where there was enough of a police presence that everyone felt comfortable, there would never be any real problems. When it then started to impede traffic or impede in other ways, or if there was any violence of any nature where if a police officer was hit with a rock or something along those lines and clearly here you know much like the Boston Massacre a shot rings out and then it's all bets are off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know the past seven years we've seen some horrific and insane. You know events go out of control quickly, whether it's the police being overzealous out of the gate or an event that escalates. And again over the last 25 years, I did a continuing legal education event in San Francisco in 2002, 2003, before the Gulf War II kicked off, and there was a protest in San Francisco that cut off access to all the freeways. So the event ended and I had no way to get home. It took like five hours to get out of san francisco to get home. That annoyed me. It's just, I'm all for your right to peacefully assemble, but when you start cutting off it's like access that's, that's a problem. Um, how you lose the room. So, yes, but this is, but that doesn't mean open fire on the protesters, which is what the empire does, and they shoot one of their own guys to kick off the Boston Massacre type melee that follows, where people just get slaughtered, and they use that, as it looks pretextual, to route the city. And how many other you know? Cities, provinces within gorman get overrun because of that. Is this a reason to ethnically cleanse an entire planet that seems to be of eight capital cities with 800,000 people in it, single economy planet. So, uh, I did a tiktok about this.
Speaker 1:Is, uh, is deidre a war criminal? Did she commit a crime against humanity? I think the answer is yes, because she understood the intent was to remove the gore from Gorman, which you have to have intent. She knew of the plan, she was part of making the plan. She's on comms with her boss when she tells the shock trooper captain to proceed. She looks shaken when she does so, which I think is she shows an understanding of what's being asked of her to do. So she's fully aware of what she's doing is not okay.
Speaker 1:I think what makes Deidre a sympathetic and compelling character is she's one of those Imperials that wanted stability and order. You know, grew up in a time of uncertainty and now things the economy's good, everything's okay and you know I don't want terrorists blowing up, you know ships. I don't want terrorists blowing up, you know ships. I don't want people getting shot at. So the idea of ethnically cleansing an entire population clearly bothers her and she's aware of what she's doing when she gives that order, which does nothing to negate the intent. It only makes it worse because it shows, yeah, she's following orders, but she's giving an order. Even though she's the middleman in this process, she's just as culpable for ordering a crime against humanity and which means she'd be a great mock trial in the future because we could actually since she, we think, survives the end of shaku, that's somebody that we could do a mock trial about her yes, she would be picked up at some point from that facility, so, uh, could be a great mock trial.
Speaker 2:I you know one of the one of the things that came to my mind when she gave that order because the the fact that you know she had to give that final order to, to, to, to the, the shock trooper, to basically go out and and start wiping out the the gorman. I got um, I thought back to um, the, the animated series dealing with the, uh, the kimono, the, the kimono, the clone planet, um, you know, and and the admiral who gave the order to basically open fire, and they leveled that planet and all its, its its occupants, to the sea.
Speaker 2:and then, when it blew up in the emperor's face, they had this scapegoat of the admiral who did that order. So you know, to me this was the empire creating a scapegoat if it were to need it at a later date, by making sure that someone gave that order to the troops she.
Speaker 1:So the captain was kaida. Uh was the shock trooper captain who was like, this was his specialty, that uh, uh, like he could say I'm following orders, but he knew what the heck he was doing. And for those keeping score, crime against humanity is one of the acts listed when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, persecution on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious or gender lines, and knowledge is required. She knew, she knew, knew there was absolute knowledge there. And, uh, this is extermination at worst, you know, at best it's uh deportation like she.
Speaker 3:She knows what she's doing in in giving this order yeah, and I also wonder I'm not sure that she feels remorse for giving the order too because I sort of read her sort of reaction to the unfolding situation on Gorman as kind of a PTSD sort of reaction after being injured on Ferrix and sort of her feeling like that sort of explosive amount of violence was. She was kind of feeling unsafe, um, and unworried about her saving her own skin because she was, she gave, she gave that order to cyril to be ready to get out of there and I, I wondered it, I I sort of read that as her being kind of more self-preservation than kind of feeling bad about hurting people. I don't know, maybe I think I don't give her enough credit, maybe, but if she's evil as far as I'm concerned well, she is evil, I mean she's fine torturing someone.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I mean like, but again, I think that's different than it's one thing to go'm going to go do an enhanced interrogation that's going to violate civil rights, to let's go wipe these people out Like that.
Speaker 3:That that turns the dial up significantly it does, but it comes from the same sort of dehumanization, of sort of the enemy, I think.
Speaker 1:Agreed. I mean, like you open the door when you realize, look at what you did and look at where you are now, like is this the person you want to be? Because it's one thing to go. I don't want the atomic bomb, the dirty bomb, going off. So therefore I can convince myself it's okay to break this guy's arm to get that intel to stop this terrorist plot that we think is going to happen. You can lie to yourself about that. It's then another to go let's use chemical weapons on the city and wipe them out. That's a different escalation and it's one thing to go.
Speaker 1:Hey, I thought I was saving people and now we're exterminating them. And I think she crosses the line into oh hell, I'm exterminating a group of people, when I thought I was the good guy trying to stop bad things from happening. So I I think, uh, it's weird that I'm defending the Imperial, because normally they're incompetent boobs that can't shoot straight and our heroes beat them easily. She's highly effective. Like it's a very different bad guy because you actually are interested in her. And Cyril, I don't normally think, god, I hope those kids are okay and they make it work. These are the bad guys that we hope they have a good relationship. That's weird. That's how effective Tony Gilroy is in writing them of going.
Speaker 2:I hope those crazy kids make it happen I do have her in my evil hall of fame shelf over there so did. You is back behind me I do too like I have a cassian as well.
Speaker 1:But, uh, I would like a pentagas, you know, because what did? Again, effective bad guys? Because the 70, we didn't see that, you know. I mean, we get it with beers, but you know, normally it's Vader force choking an admiral to death. I digress there, but it raises some other questions as we look at this and getting to well, we get some domestic violence. This is probably one of the second most uncomfortable scenes that we have, because it's one thing for Cyril to go confront Deidre with what have you done? I get that. That's another thing. He takes her by the throat. This is a level of domestic violence that is super uncomfortable to watch. It's the second instance of domestic violent or assault on a woman that we see. And, uh, your honor, uh, I have a feeling you, you put this analysis down, so would would you like to explain this more?
Speaker 2:bit of a situation which was falling through the cracks, dealing with choking, like was done in this case by Cyril to Deborah, where the putting of, you know, the hands around the neck and pressing doesn't always leave a permanent injury. So you were getting acquittals or dismissals, even on assaults, because there was no serious physical injury or physical injury of a permanent nature with these chokes. So New York and I would imagine other states created a statute. In New York it's Penal Law, section 121.11, criminal obstruction of breathing or blood circulation, where you're guilty if you, with intent to impede the normal breathing or circulation of the blood of another person, you apply pressure on the throat or neck or if you block the nose or mouth of such person. And there are different degrees. This one is the basic one, which is an amyosdemeanor. If you cause greater injury to a person, it does rise to the felony level.
Speaker 2:I don't think that was the case in, in, in Sarah and and and Deidre Cause I think you just had this. You know this choke and clearly that you know you saw her almost lose consciousness and generally, when, when, when the the victim is on the stand, that is what she would be testifying to. You know he put his, his, his, his, the pressure to my neck and I blacked out for, you know, a few seconds and that's enough to to to have someone convicted of this thing. So I wanted to highlight this because it really is a common situation in domestic violence situations and this is the way New York addressed it by this statute which is probably only about a dozen years old.
Speaker 3:So interesting that it's so specific to address that.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting, yeah, and it's because there were so many of those cases that just didn't make the threshold of assault but clearly was a physical harm to another individual, and the legislature, as part of a host of domestic violence initiatives, passed this statute and some other statutes.
Speaker 1:It's terrifying that it had to be made a law that people would be so callous about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I mean, as far as I know, kind of California just sort of addresses it just as a regular battery, although there's there are statutes, specifically there's. It's more of a like a punishment thing, it's like the penalties where it comes in when it's someone that you're in a domestic relationship with that you're in a domestic relationship with.
Speaker 2:Well, all that said, let's talk. And police officers in domestic violence units started taking pictures at the scene of because a lot of times you'd have those bruises that would go away in a day or two. So they started taking pictures when they would arrive at a domestic violence incident of you know. A lot of times it's literally almost fingerprints around the neck or black and blues, because in a day or two those injuries kind of go away day or two, those, those injuries kind of go away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, cool. My mother testified in a dv case. That was in the late 80s and she didn't talk about it, but after she passed I found the report that she did and it was something that she held on to. I was impressed with how detailed the notes that she had. And it was, and she was a paramedic and so responding to a call, the victim didn't want to press charges and my mother wasn't, as a paramedic didn't want the paramedic, other paramedics and police to leave out of fear for the safety of the victim. Something had to have happened where the guy ended up getting charged because my mother ended up testifying um, and thus we did have the refresher recollection, I guess, from those records being saved. All of that's horrible, uh, and we have laws to in place to protect people, we. So there's In this riot that happens in Murderfest. Cyril finally catches up with Cassian and they have a huge fight and at one point Cassian's on the ground.
Speaker 1:Cyril has a blaster aimed at Cassian. Cassian asks who are you? Cyril lowers the blaster and it looks like he's about to say something, so the weapon's no longer pointed. The body language changes and then Cyril gets shot in the back of the head. This is a very interesting defensive others case, Because if the blaster was still pointed at Cassian no doubt that it's defensive others Because there's a threat to Cassian's life it would be justified for Cassian to shoot Cyril at that point in time. I think this is a very close question on whether or not it was proper for the Burgermeister to shoot Cassian in the back of the head. Was this a revenge killing or was this actual defense of others? I lean a little bit more towards revenge killing because Cyril might've been turning he because of what was happening in that riot. Did either of you have a reaction to that and whether or not one, this is legitimate defense of others. And two, what was Cyr's intent? I mean, steven, why don't you go first?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think you're right, it's kind of murky, um, but I think he um it's. It seems like if you were walking into a situation where there's weapons and there's a lot of violence happening and you know that one person is getting attacked or has recently been attacked by someone, I think you you probably have a pretty good argument that you could anticipate that that other person is about to affect immediate harm on the other person, even if their weapon has been lowered momentarily, you know. On the other hand, as you said, it could be an indication that there's some cooling off happening and maybe that level of violence is not warranted. But at the same time, I'm trying to remember how much did. Did the gorman people understand that that cyril at that point had been a double agent? Did they realize that he was, that he had been?
Speaker 1:no, but the, the, the leader you know, was the one who confronted him and said what kind of you know being are you? Yeah, yeah, so you know, the, again the mayor bergermeister is putting a huge amount of blame on cyril yeah so might not be thinking he's a double agent, but he's blaming cyril for everything that happened.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Your.
Speaker 3:Honor it's a very convenient excuse, for sure yeah.
Speaker 2:I think, first of all, that in the top five moments of this series was when Cassian says who the hell are you? Basically, that was such a brilliant moment, I think, in the show because Cyril really has devoted his entire life towards Cassian and Cassian basically to say like who are you just was brilliant. I think anyone walking on that scene kind of would have thought that they were justified to protect Cassian in what was clearly a fight that, although at that point in time might have ended, was one where Cassian's life was in danger. But you know, clearly he shot from behind. Clearly, as you said, the gun was being lowered behind. Clearly, as you said, the gun was being lowered.
Speaker 2:You know so it would be a tough call and you know he would have to prove he was justified. That would be also a very tough burden to do, you know so it's one of those things. You know, it's one of these cases that under that fact situation that might have to go to trial, because it's like one of those things that there's. You know you need those judges of the facts, those peers, those jurors to make that final call.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what was in his heart? Did he reasonably believe that Cassian's life was in danger, or did he take the shot at the guy who he's blaming caused all of this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably be, but but a good defense lawyer would would certainly do his or her darndest to make. Make it into scenario A.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you don't want the you know like he'll have to testify, but you don't want the witness doing like he'll have to testify, but you don't want the witness doing the you know a time to kill of yeah, I did it and I hope he burns in hell, like you don't want that to happen on the stand. Uh, just just no. Uh. A final note we have propaganda. So, uh, deidre highlighted that propaganda only gets you so far. It gets you across the finish line after all of this, because it shows the pretext of you have people just buying into it's Gorman's fault that all these imperial heroes have died because of these nasty gormen, and uh, uh, so yeah, we, we just it's propaganda at its finest and another aspect of just brilliant writing.
Speaker 2:You know the the the person who I dislike the most on this show, I think Cyril's mother. You really felt for her in those scenes where she was being fed this imperial propaganda about the imperial martyrs of Gorman, of which her son is now one of the imperial martyrs of Gorman, and when you saw the tears it was very, very well done.
Speaker 1:Oh, this is Emmy worthy, like there are multiple moments here that are Emmy worthy throughout the season. And you know, there's the joke that Andor ruins Star Wars because it's good. It's good Like this is New, new bar, meet this. So we get to welcome to the rebellion which is the aftermath, and a bunch of us uh issues did some issue spotting here. So, your honor, do you want to take the listening devices in Senate offices?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was imperial listening devices. Odds are in as much as it was the government doing this. They would have had some kind of process to get that listening device inserted. So they would have probably had to have gone to an imperial judge to get a warrant Probably not a difficult thing in the empire. So that was probably. And she was engaging, as far as the empire is concerned, in treasonous behavior and breaking the laws of the empire. So from the empire's perspective they would be justified to put a listening device in her office and in her car and anywhere else that they were able to get such permission. And generally the way it works is you have to go before a judge and make out probable cause as to criminal activity and why you need the listening device or the wiretap or the seizure of their cell records. All of those things would have to be put forth to a judge who would review and then, if there was reasonable grounds to grant that warrant, would do so. So probably that was done through legitimate imperial means.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but there's a counterpoint to that you can't do that for every senator.
Speaker 3:Or can you? I was wondering if they just bugged all the senators' offices.
Speaker 2:More than likely they did, but we don't know that that's the case or not, or if they only did it to the senators that they had a probable cause belief that they were committing treason. But odds are, from just the look of the room where they were acquiring all of this listening evidence, they were bugging a lot.
Speaker 1:So when I interned at the state capitol between my second to third year, first and second year of law school, uh, the, I clerked for, uh, the taxation and revenue committee and worked for the vice chair, who was a republican. The republicans were in the minority, and this was after willie brown was the speaker of the assembly so he's now mayor but at the time when he was the speaker, where the republicans caucused, they had microphones put in, allegedly at the request of speaker brown, so he could listen to the Republicans caucus. They weren't happy about that and they cut the mics and then were criticized for destruction of state property. It's like, oh, no, no, like that's not how this is going to work. And and so there were some very intense feelings about microphones and offices to listen to what opposition you know could be saying. If that was the intent, the guys I worked for were pretty fired up still, even though it was a couple of years later, as they told the story. So I'm having flashbacks to hearing stories about, you know, a political caucus getting getting miked by the opposition, as Mothma is finding a listening device, that's that's hidden. But the nefariousness of this is it's like 1930s Germany and and and taking out political opponents who don't agree with what der fuhrer wants and and like we're not going to have opposition, we'll get rid of the opposition.
Speaker 1:Um, which raises an interesting question about, uh, the speech and debate privilege that as a senator or a congressman, you know they have, their protected speech and being able to speak on the floor and raise issues of concern. There are historical examples of when things get that deteriorates, that deteriorates. Charles Sumner got caned by Congressman Preston Brooks, pre-civil War, because Brooks didn't like what the senator said and caned him into a coma. And the good people of the senator's home state re-elected him in a coma and by the people, the legislature, they like two steps, uh, but again, debate and speech on a congressional floor is protected because you want to have that robust discussion. If that's your grounds for you're a traitor and I'm going to mic your office, there's some serious problems with that. But we then get into private spying. So, your Honor, do you want to talk about Luthan having Mon Mothma's assistant spy on her?
Speaker 2:Clearly Senator Mothma is very popular. You know she's not only being spied on by the Empire, she's being spied on by her ally Luthan, by her assistant. And clearly you know the assistant is supposed to be loyal to his or her employer, especially in the legislature where you're an at-will confidential employee so that you can basically share all of those things that the office is working on and you're supposed to keep those secrets within that office and that chamber. So what the assistant was doing, I'll bet you know. Lutheran's heart, I think, was in the right spot and I think the assistant's heart was in the right spot. What they were doing was certainly disloyal to Mon Martha, even if it was being done for her benefit, which I think they both think they were doing. Giving Lutheran state secrets, he would probably be subject to not only being fired but various criminal penalties as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a huge invasion. Mon Mothma just must feel like she has no privacy left. Her rights of privacy are completely illusory. She doesn't have anyone to trust. Everything she does is known by someone, so sort of no wonder she just like flees and tries to get away from that sort of scrutiny that she's facing in the Senate.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about her speech and then resignation by running for her life. Uh, so again, that should be protected. Uh, there's the mantra from shakespeare that if you uh, you know, shoot the king, kill him. Uh, type logic that if you're going to take that kind of shot, don't miss. And uh, she, she does use the moment effectively for galvanizing, uh, the early republic rebellion. Uh, and that should be protected. However, the response is like we'll shut down cnn will and arrest her for having the audacity to say it. Like that's not, that's not causing sedition out of the gate, type behavior that made John Adams a one-term president by trying to shut down criticism. So we've seen historical comparisons with force of law. That doesn't work in this country. Your Honor.
Speaker 2:Did you want to add anything to the senator's speech? The you know, unfortunately, I think you know the alien sedition and John Adams is becoming relevant again. I just finished reading a biography of Thomas Jefferson earlier this week and so some of that is quite fresh in my mind this week, and so some of that is quite fresh in my mind. There's also a senator not a senator, a congresswoman from South Carolina who decided that the best place to sexual assault and other actions against her was on the floor of Congress, and part of you know I'm a bit cynical and part of my thought process is that she did it there so that she would be protected from lawsuit from her ex-husband and her ex-husband's friends who she made these allegations against.
Speaker 2:And you know clearly Maude Martha was giving a relevant speech in her role as senator. I think that Bail Organa did a phenomenal job of making sure that they couldn't shut down the broadcast and that it would air in as many places as possible, and we know from the animated series that it did get out there to the masses her speech before they were able to shut it down, so it was effective at that level. So it was quite interesting and, like Star Wars was a bit of an analogy to various times in United States foreign policy and history. I think that you know that's where science fiction is at its best, where it's talking about places that are different but yet the same.
Speaker 1:Stephen, anything to add?
Speaker 3:Yeah, all of that, yeah, I think that this, that her speech about you know the when the gap between what is true and what is false, when that becomes eradicated, then we're just kind of doomed and I think it speaks. So it's the, the writers talking about you know the, the age of misinformation and AI, deep fakes and the, how susceptible we are to lies um, just outright lies by people in power. I think it's a really interesting comment on where we are, very scary.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is. They did a brilliant job of connecting Mon Mothma's speech to Star Wars Rebels, because in the animated they make mention that they want her to give the speech again. Because when we see the speech in the animated series she's not wearing her cloak, her jacket, it's just the white out outfit and so the senate, she has the cloak and then ditches that and it's just the she's in the white for for the remainder, well, cassian shacket and then uh, but it ties together nicely. It's like that's really clever writing. They're not ignoring the animated series, they're making it work, complete with gold squadron to escort her in. I was like rock on guys like that is give the y-wing some love I'm so sad thomas is in here, because that was I.
Speaker 3:That was the first person I thought of when I when I heard gold squadron, me, me too, and and you know to me.
Speaker 2:this is why you know dave filani, and I'm guessing that he had a lot to do with this. Uh, you know that, that that care towards keeping you know the stories in contact with each other, from the animated series to the books, to the comics, to the movies, and clearly you know everyone's not going to get these little tidbits, because not everyone watches the animated series or reads the books or does all of those things like some sicko like myself, or does all of those things like some sicko like myself. For those of us that do, the fact that they care about that, I think, is very, very important. It doesn't you know someone that's just sees the live action? Wouldn't that remark about gold squadron wouldn't matter in the least, it wouldn't distract from the story. But it does give just a wonderful Easter egg to those of us that watch the animated series and were watching to see how these things would interconnect. And it was done really really well.
Speaker 1:I was wondering if we were going to get a Hera appearance in some way.
Speaker 2:I thought that I was wondering that as well. We do in Rogue one where we get the, the general sedalia. You know, come to the office, uh issue, but uh, and you see chopper there in in the background.
Speaker 1:But yeah, no, I was kind of hoping for a chopper moment yeah, it's, we got a lot, so like I am absolutely not complaining about all the the Easter eggs that we got in the show.
Speaker 2:And we might see it in some deleted scene down the road. You know when they release some extras, so you never know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like they could have been like yeah, we couldn't squeeze everything in for you nerds, but you kids got a lot.
Speaker 2:So it's nice that they. It's nice that they care about the legal geeks and the geeks and the nerds yeah, they do.
Speaker 1:It's nice that they care about the legal geeks and the geeks and the nerds? Yeah, they do. It's a love letter to us and we appreciate that They'll get Christmas cards. So here's a fascinating question. But Cassian, like this, turns into pure spymaster storytelling with get the senator out of the Senate so she doesn't get murdered or arrested and blow the cover of the entire rebel alliance on a tuesday and, uh, cassian has to shoot several, two people, so two isb agents get, get shot.
Speaker 1:In this you can argue defense of others and self-defense, but it like when you're doing that against the state, it gets weird. Which is why this is more the spy story at that point, which makes it okay, as opposed to because you're not supposed to say I did self-defense against the clothed police officer, no, you didn't Like we, no, that's a bad argument. Uh, as opposed to, you know like, hey, we got her and he shoots the driver. Like that's from a spy story, makes absolute sense from a legal analysis, way murky and difficult and looks more on the lines of murder. Uh, either of you want to highlight that?
Speaker 2:you know, clearly, from from the imperial perspective, he there's no way that justification could be shown. Uh, you know the the best defense that you have is we're at war and this is an act of war and I'm defending my ally, but it's very specious. And the fact of the matter is is he was killing people to escape and was breaking the laws to do this. And while you know, from the good versus evil perspective and from the rebel perspective, he might be considered a hero for doing these things, clearly, from the state perspective, he was committing crimes, including murder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a problem. It's a problem. So with that, this might be the best arc. I mean, I like all of these arcs, but this one is exceptional. I like the last one a lot. We'll talk more about that, but there's, this is a spy story at its best.
Speaker 3:Yeah, finally seeing the Gorman massacre and Mon Mothma's escape from the senate, like all those things that have been referred to in other things, and finally seeing it portrayed was really, really cool and it hats off to genevieve o'reilly, for, one, the way she gave the speech, but two, the look of shock on her face each time Cassian shoots someone.
Speaker 2:Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. She really, you know, from start to finish, played the role incredibly well. And yeah, it's the greatest thing I think about Star Wars is, you know, in the original movie, where you just get this line, you know I fought with your dad in the Clone Wars and you know, you just don't even think about it and then you did the amount, see that flushed out. The way it was done is incredible. And in Rogue One, where we first meet K2, to bring to the last issue of this arc we now know where K2 came from and why K2 is the way he is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he got run over like that's kind of like a droid napping and chopped in half. Yeah, yeah like there some assembly was required and and he comes out with a personality. Now they joked at celebration. You get to see k2 be born and it's like, yeah, we did. Like it's weird, uh, we got to see him come into existence in a very you know, frankenstein like manner of life. Life, my creature life, uh, but yeah, so very, very frankenstein, and it's.
Speaker 2:It's funny, you know, when you say about the personality in the droid depot in in the various galaxies and edges on on my coast and your coast, they now have personality chips that you can purchase to add to your, your, your droid uh, you know it's to to change their personality imperial.
Speaker 1:Do you want a smuggler? Like what do you? Uh, you know there's a variety of them, like three or four. Um, I got one uh uh for for r26b1, my proportionality droid, and uh, a little bit of every humor, uh. But yeah, this is all good stuff. Uh, love the show. I'm glad they did them in three episode arcs. It makes analysis a lot harder, but uh, it was like a movie a week and I'm all for that, and I think the stories go better when you watch them together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they broke these down well, I think the way that you know, each was a mini trilogy that made a movie and we got you know several really really good movies, which was a real treat, I think, to the fandom.
Speaker 1:And just so well acted I mean everyone's. And just so well acted, I mean everyone's compelling in their roles, like that's phenomenal to see this level of attention.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hope that those that you know make the decisions with. I'm sure they, you know, are going to submit for Emmys, but, you know, I hope people don't the people that vote on these things. Oh, it's Star Wars. I hope they really watch it because you really have acting that's incredibly good and incredibly real and some very dramatic, well-acted scenes in this series and I hope it gets. You know, there certainly could be stuff that's better, but it's certainly worthy and I hope it gets a, you know, a real look at.
Speaker 3:A real look to God's ears.
Speaker 1:Yeah no, I hope so. Didn't Sir Alec Dennis get nominated for a new hope? Yeah, yeah, okay. So I mean, like there's a precedent for because, again, o'reilly should get one, I think she, she should get one. Uh, there are others who are contenders, but I, I think she, I think she's has the most, uh, uh, the strongest chance of pulling it off. Um, anyway, that's outside of legal analysis. Uh, all of that said, uh, anything else for the good of the order, all right. Well, we'll be back next week to cover more Everyone. Thanks for tuning in. Wherever you are, stay safe, stay healthy and stay geeky.
