Obi-Wan Kenobi Spoiler Recap: Part III
Raise your hand if you’re not OK after that. Yeah, me too. I guess we should have seen it coming, with only 6 episodes in what is (for now) a limited series they could either drag out the big stuff and cram it into the finale or space it out and keep us guessing. Given how the first two episodes far exceeded my expectations, I don’t know why I’m surprised this one absolutely blew me away. It was one of the finest, most emotional hours of Star Wars television I have ever seen, and we are beyond lucky to have Deborah Chow at the helm.
The episode opens with Obi-Wan and Leia still onboard the freight transport. The last day or two have been too much for Obi-Wan to handle and he finds himself once again meditating and calling out for Qui-Gon to speak to him. The realization that Anakin has been alive all this time has really thrown him for a loop and he needs guidance.
Instead, all he hears are his tortured memories of Reva’s taunts, and of the day he lost Anakin. The whole sequence is intercut with a montage of Vader dressing after soaking in his bacta tank, and I don’t think any moment up until now has driven home just how much machine he really is, though I suppose on some level we always knew. I must also give credit to the way the scene is shot, with both Vader and Obi-Wan looking into the camera, showing the way they’re still connected after all this time. It’s very basic film language, yes, but sometimes the basics are the most effective way to communicate a point.
In Vader’s castle, Reva updates Vader on the search for Kenobi, and we see that he is every bit as obsessed as she is with tracking down the former Jedi. Arguably more so, because while we suspect it’s personal for Reva, we know it’s personal for Vader. He promises her a promotion to Grand Inquisitor if she should succeed in tracking Kenobi down and maybe it’s just me, but she didn’t seem as keen as someone in line for a promotion would usually be. It’s pure speculation but I suspect she’s more enticed by how this authority will help with the current investigation rather than in what she might have down the line.
This suspicion is further driven when she returns to the Inquisitorius headquarters and Fifth Brother is furious that Reva jumped the chain of command and went to Lord Vader directly. He sees this as her vying for a title that he believes is his by right, but Reva doesn’t respond to that particular allegation. When Fifth Brother storms off telling her that she’s going to get what she deserves, she quietly agrees with a very cryptic “I certainly hope so”. If this was just about the power struggle, Reva wouldn’t keep her cards so close to her chest. But to paraphrase what Leia said last week, the less Reva says, the more she gives away — to the audience at least.
Back aboard the freighter, a sad and beaten Obi-Wan repairs Lola for Leia, and answers her questions about what the Force feels like. His analogy, that the Force feels like turning on a light when you’re afraid of the dark was beautiful, and such a succinct description. It’s less about what the Force is, as we see in Luke’s lesson to Rey, and more about how the Force feels. The prequel era hasn’t really given us the same kind of visuals the High Republic does in terms of how the Jedi percieve the Force, but I’d like to think now that Obi-Wan’s perception is like a light against darkness. A light he has left dim for too long, but has now fainly begun to glow again.
As viewers, we missed out on seeing Obi-Wan’s early years with Anakin at that same age, so it’s beautiful and bittersweet that we get to see him develop this rapport with Anakin’s daughter. It’s easy to imagine what things were like between him and Anakin in the early days, particularly as Anakin adjusted to Jedi life. Obi-Wan has always been a good teacher, and it really shows, even if Leia isn’t his student per se.
The two of them arrive on the mining world of Mapuzo, a desolate landscape that according to Obi-Wan used to be full of families until the Empire began ravaging things. This was a really cool callback, in my opinion, to all the stories set in this era where we see the Empire strip every world under their power for the sake of the Death Star, and its own enrichment. Leia is confused at the sentiment, since she is under the impression the Empire was meant to help its citizens. Obi-Wan assures her that while some are doing their best — a hint that he knows about Bail’s involvement in the proto-Rebellion movement with Padmé perhaps? — the same cannot be said for the vast majority of people working for the Imperials.
The fact that he even has faith in Bail at all is oddly reassuring, because Obi-Wan in this episode is about as low and hopeless as we’ve ever seen him. Removed from his day-to-day Tatooine bubble, he is forced to confront just how wrong the galaxy has gotten in the last ten years. When there is no one on Mapuzo to meet them, he assumes Haja lied to them and snaps at Leia that people aren’t always good. That people lie. He is brought face to face not only with his hopelessness but his guilt as well when on their way to the main road, he sees a cloaked figure in the distance, which turns out to be a ghost or a memory of the Jedi Anakin Skywalker used to be.
Still leaning into the father-and-daughter farmer ruse, Leia and Obi-Wan hitch a ride to town with an Imperial-sympathizing being named Freck who’s one of those perfectly charming people with perfectly horrifying politics that every single one of us knows. If Freck had survived to the establishment of the New Republic I get the feeling we would have seen him at some kind of…rally on Chandrila or Hosnian Prime.
Their tense ride into town is interrupted when Freck picks up a few Stormtroopers in need of a lift. Obi-Wan nearly blows their cover story — that he brought his daughter Luma here to see the spot where he met her mother — by scolding Leia by using her real name. The two of them only realize what when wrong when a trooper calls them on it, becuase Leia was too busy arguing with Obi-Wan to catch the mistake.
Though he quickly lies and says he used her mother’s name, his comment that when he looks at her he can see her mother’s face was 100% true and 100% devastating. Leia catches the truth of the sentiment and once the Stormtroopers leave she asks if he knew her birth mother, and quickly follows that by asking if he himself is her “real” father.
The Obidala crumbs this show gave us with his response of “I wish I could say I was” was truly something to behold. Yes, I understand the intent behind the writing was both that Obi-Wan has grown attached to little Leia, and also him being her father is a far less painful truth than the reality of the situation. And while I do love my Obi-Wan/Satine ship, there is a small part of me — and of him, I’m sure — that wonders what might have been if the Senator had fallen for the master rather than the apprentice.
Because you cannot tell me that Obi-Wan didn’t love Padmé, even if it wasn’t a romantic love. I would argue that after losing Anakin on Mustafar, despite doing his best to save him, Obi-Wan had mentally prepared himself to help Padmé and the baby in any way he could. He did what he could to ensure Anakin didn’t fall to the dark side, but was only so powerful against Palpatine’s influence. Obi-Wan walked away from that fight on Mustafar thinking Anakin was dead, but feeling that what had happened to him was better than the alternative of living as a weapon of the Dark Side.
But then for Padmé to slip right through his fingers, the last remaining vestige of a time in his life when he was actually happy, and knowing as she faded away that there was not a damn thing he could do about it? Hers is a loss that eats away at him, and one he is only truly beginning to process now that he is face to face with a child who is so much like her.
In a quiet moment, Obi-Wan tells Leia about his own family before the Jedi, and how he can baely remember them save for a few fleeting images. One such image is that of a baby, which he thinks is his younger brother. It’s somewhat well-known that in the novelization of Return of the Jedi Obi-Wan tells Luke that he left him in the care of his own brother Owen Lars, something which didn’t make the final cut of the film. Obviously following Attack of the Clones this changed to Owen being Anakin’s stepbrother, though the Jedi Apprentice books focused around teenage Obi-Wan still mention that he also has a brother named Owen. What I’m trying to say is: welcome back to canon, Little Brother Kenobi.
They pull over for what is allegedly a routine traffic stop, but is obviously part of Reva’s plan to root out Obi-Wan with the help of probe droids. He manages to destroy the probe and kill the troopers, but a new contingent of them arrive shortly after, with an Imperial officer in tow. It turns out the officer, Tala, was the appointed contact who was meant to meet them. She got waylaid by the new protocols meant to find Obi-Wan, but now that she has them she wastes no time in taking them to a safehouse in town where they can wait for the transport to get them offworld.
Tala is part of a network called The Path — which absolutely set my High Republic brain on fire — and is one of many Imperials who joined up in search of something better but quickly grew disillusioned when she realized what it was they were fighting for. Her involvement with the rebels, in this case getting people to the safe haven of Jabiim, is her way of making up for her mistakes. Between this conversation, and Bail’s claim last time that all of them made mistakes and they need to learn to move past them fills me with hope that this series will focus on redemption and making right one’s wrongs.
Side note: one of the Jedi who passed through the safehouse was Quinlan Vos. He of Dark Disciple fame. Will he be popping up? Who’s to say, but honestly just knowing he’s alive and around is extremely exciting.
With the probe having successfully identified Obi-Wan, it’s not long before the Inquisitors show up, along with Darth Vader himself. While many have said, and will probably continue to say, that the Rogue One hallway scene was peak Vader, I’d argue the scene in the town is infinitely more terrifying. It’s some of the most brutal violence I think we’ve ever seen in Star Wars, with targeted attacks on innocent civilians, made all the worse by the fact that Vader doesn’t really care what he’s doing to them.
He chokes a man, snaps the man’s son’s neck without hesitation, and drags a screaming individual through the square. He could take or leave harming them, but he is banking on their suffering drawing Obi-Wan out of hiding, or at the very least upsetting him enough to throw him off his Jedi compassion game. The ploy works, because while Tala takes Leia to go meet the pilot, Obi-Wan pursues Vader into the darkness.
His reluctance to fight his former apprentice is apparent. In the moment, Obi-Wan’s lone interests are keeping Vader away from Leia and perhaps seeing for himself what Anakin has become. When Vader draws his lightsaber and ignites it, Obi-Wan avoids doing the same until he has no choice and must draw his weapon in self defense.
The fight between these two was pitched as some kind of epic death match, and granted this might not be the last confrontation we see between them. I’d actually be surprised if it was. But if that were to be the case, I must applaud their restraint. There is no meaning or emotion to be had in a pew-pew laser sword brawl. Instead, the short but tense face-off, where Vader first disarms Obi-Wan, then slowly drags him across flaming coals to make him feel everything Vader himself felt on Mustafar is better than anything I could have hoped for.
This is ten years of anger distilled into one moment. This is pain, and resentment, and fury unresolved. This is Vader wanting the closest thing he had to a father and later a brother to feel every bit of pain he once had to go through and still goes through to this day. “I am what you made me,” he tells Obi-Wan, and the statement is more a painful admission of hurt than a flippant quip.
I’m reminded of the line from Matthew Stover’s Revenge of the Sith novelization: “It was Anakin against Obi-Wan. Personally. Just the two of them, and the damage they had done to each other.” The series thrives because it doesn’t draw on a specific nostalgic subset, even if the prequel generation (myself included) is currently crowing loudly about every crumb we’re thrown. The writers have drawn on the story moments and the story potential that best serves the characters onscreen, not the audience at home, which does wonders to elevate the material.
The episode ends with Tala leaving Leia to find the pilot on her own, and running to save Obi-Wan, which she just manages to do by causing a distraction. Unfortunately leaving Leia alone means making her susceptible to being grabbed by Reva, and it is on that cliffhanger that we are left until next week.
A final note on Reva, shortly before she kills the pilot and attempts to grab Leia is that on her way into the tunnel she lingers by the carved Jedi symbol on the wall. She reaches out but doesn’t quite touch it. If this doesn’t turn out to be confirmation that she was one of the kids at the beginning of Part I then I don’t know what is.
The strength of Obi-Wan Kenobi continues to stem entirely from its characters and the way they inhabit their story. A Padmé reference is nothing without the emotion and character significance to really make it land. Ewan McGregor and Vivien Lyra Blair make a fantastic duo as Obi-Wan and Leia, at times partners in their endeavour, while at other moments leaning fully into the pseudo student-apprentice dynamic Obi-Wan probably had with young Anakin.
Speaking of Anakin, I am in shock that we got two seconds of actual face time this week. I knew they wouldn’t have brought Hayden back for nothing. I now remain more hopeful than ever that we’ll see him playing Anakin properly, and soon — in flashback perhaps?
Indeera Varma is a very welcome addition to the cast, playing an Imperial who wants to make right her wrongs. I am a big fan of living redemption, and characters helping to fix their mistakes, and it is an encouraging sign that we have one such character front and center in live action. As always, Moses Ingram turns in a delightfully understated performance, with a thousand emotions barely concealed beneath the surface. Reva is obviously someone who feels very keenly, and is a dam just waiting to burst. I just hope that when she does, she isn’t punished for her fury.
What did you think? Hard to believe we’re already halfway there. Are you as in your feels as I am? Have you stopped crying yet? Did you enjoy the Obidala crumbs? Check back here every week for my Obi-Wan Kenobi recaps, and be sure to tune into Space Waffles for our recaps coming soon!
