Obi-Wan Kenobi Spoiler Recap: Part V
I love being right. Not about the parts of this week’s episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi that I think most of us saw coming - which is not a knock on the show at all. Rather, I was right about one specific moment that came about partway through the episode. And then it really brought home a truth for me, and made me realize why I enjoy this show so much. Good storytelling doesn’t pull the rug out from under you and scream “surprise” while kicking you in the stomach. Tell your story right, and a savvy audience will be able to follow along and pick up what you’re putting down, if not right away then absolutely on a rewatch.
Part V of Obi-Wan Kenobi is an exercise in narrative genius in that it pays off everything the series has done thus far, while leaving things open for what I can only assume is going to be an emotionally devastating finale next week.
Does it sound a little strong to call it “genius” when all it does is pay off what it already planted? Perhaps. But as I said, I’m a little too used to having the rug yanked out from under me, or having the story veer in such a wild direction that I can see the scissor marks and corporate fingerprints all over it. Suffice it to say that this isn’t that. So let’s get into it.
The episode opens not on Jabiim, not on Mustafar, but on Coruscant. Specifically, the Jedi Temple on pre-Empire Coruscant, where Padawan Anakin Skywalker is waiting on a terrace for his Master Obi-Wan Kenobi to show up.
This is the good kind of kick to the stomach. The emotional kind. I thought if ever we were getting an Obi-Wan flashback in this show, it would be Revenge of the Sith-era Obi-Wan. I genuinely didn’t think we’d be getting the Attack of the Clones mullet back. But get it back we did. The master and apprentice circle one another, preparing for a sparring session.
I would just like to take the opportunity here to thank whoever made the call not to digitally de-age Hayden Christensen. No, he doesn’t look like the 20 year old he was when he first wore that costume, but in not hiding him behind a too-smooth CGI mask, it really let the audience see the range of his emotions play across his face each time we cut back to the flashback scene. We know it’s been 20 years, and are happy to suspend our disbelief if it means no creepy plastic-looking Anakin.
The moment we see Obi-Wan and Anakin begin their duel, the scene shifts to Darth Vader standing on board his ship where Reva has arrived to inform him that they’ve tracked Obi-Wan to Jabiim. Pleased with her progress, Vader promotes Reva to Grand Inquisitor on the spot.
On Jabiim, Roken plans to evacuate everyone within the next few hours, with Ben volunteering to help wherever he can. That statement is going to mean a lot more than he realizes very shortly, as Lola - still with the evil red eyes, slips out of Leia’s coat and into the vents to cut the wires and effectively lock everyone in.
Though Reva, still on Vader’s starship, points out that those trying to escape can survive for days inside the facility, he dismisses her and says that breaking them is not the point, he is only interested in breaking Obi-Wan.
What then begins is an episode-long mind game between the two men who used to call themselves Obi-Wan and Anakin. Through the attack on the facility on Jabiim, they spend half their time trying to outthink the other, using their old knowledge of the other to try and stay two steps ahead.
As troopers amass outside, Ben slips away to listen to a message from Bail Organa, who expresses concern that he has yet to hear from him about whether or not he’s found Leia. Bail then says that if he doesn’t hear back soon, he’ll head to Tatooine to help Owen with Luke, since Ben’s failure would possibly mean Vader learning about his children.
Tala interrupts Ben’s contemplation for a moment of empathy. She tells him that when she first began in Imperial service, she didn’t realize the depths of what she was being asked to do until she saw four families with Force-sensitive members slaughtered in front of her. Her life, from that point on, became about trying to make up for the wrongs she did. If that’s not a “I’m about to go out in a blaze of glory” speech, I don’t know what is.
In need of more time to get the door open - which Leia volunteers to fix by climing into the vents to take a look - Ben offers to go to the door and talk to Reva. What outwardly appears like an attempt to stall turns out to actually be Ben easing his own curiosity. Reva’s taunt about Anakin Skywalker still being alive has stayed with him, not because of the meaning behind it, but the words themselves. How would an Inquisitor be privy to the Empire’s biggest secret? Unless somehow she had the information before ever becoming an Inquisitor.
The show then confirms what most had guessed from Part I: Reva was one of the padawans in the opening scene. Not only that but, as she goes on to tell Ben, she saw Anakin enter the temple and kill her friends. She is suffering from the worst kind of survivors guilt, and blames herself for not being strong enough to stop him. Her comment about hiding among the bodies of her friends was particularly chilling for how true to life we know it to be (and I’m honestly surprised the episode didn’t come with some kind of content warning).
Reva tells Obi-Wan that she got away then, but now her mission has become to do what she couldn’t do then and to stop Vader. The pain Reva has carried with her for a decade comes through so clearly here, in how earnest she is with Ben. This is no mind game, but an angry young woman who cannot understand why someone like Obi-Wan Kenobi wasn’t there to stop Anakin. She challenges him with a furious “where were you?” (which is the specific prediction I was right about), and Ben has no good answer. He, Anakin and all the Jedi were cogs in Palpatine’s machine and fell right into the trap designed to catch them.
Furious, Reva forces the door open, and soldiers spill into the stronghold. Despite being a good fighter, Tala suffers a fatal shot to the stomach, and with her droid friend NED at her side sets off a thermal detonator to slow the troopers down and buy Ben some more time to get out. I know death in Star Wars doesn’t stick, but somehow I feel like she’s not coming back from this one.
While I am frustrated that one of our few female protagonists in this season - a woman of colour to boot - was killed off, I’d be lying if I said this came out of nowhere. The Ben we see in A New Hope feels utterly alone and without allies, and I can’t imagine Tala leaving him to his own devices no matter what he asked of her. Not only that, but her playing the double agent and nearly getting caught several times last week spelled doom for Tala in my mind.
My sole comfort is despite Tala feeling the need to redeem herself for her actions, this was not a “redemption through death” scene. This was not the one good thing she did before dying so that the writers didn’t have to deal with the moral ambiguity. This is a character who faced that moral ambiguity head on, and spent years of her life making things right. Her arc, cut tragically short as it was, at least felt complete.
Out of options and trapped, Ben tells Roken and Haja (who made it out OK!) that he is going to turn himself in and face Vader on his own. Before leaving, he entrusts Haja with his communicator, blaster and lightsaber, telling him there is more than one way to fight.
He turns himself in to Reva and coolly informs her that he isn’t there to face Vader himself, but is instead providing her with the opportunity for her revenge. He reasons that Vader will be so singularly focused on getting to him, he won’t see Reva’s attack coming. The tragedy of this moment, though, is that for all that Ben knows Vader needs to be stopped, he can’t do it himself. Ben needs Vader dead, but Obi-Wan still can’t fathom killing Anakin.
Vader arrives on Jabiim, and Reva tells him Obi-Wan is contained within the facility. He arrives in the hangar on time to see the ship taking off, and pulls it down using the Force, only to realize too late that that was a distraction, allowing the real ship to take off. Reva chooses this moment to try and end Vader once and for all, though he senses the attack coming and stops her.
On paper, this scene should lack tension. We know there’s no way Reva wins because we know Vader is going to live for another 15 years or so. But the whole thing still had me on the edge of my seat, worried for Reva. Too often, we see a villainous character display a shred of vulnerability only to pull back into cold, calculated evil. Not so with Reva.
Once her vulnerability is laid bare for Ben, there’s no going back. The toothpaste is not getting put back in the tube. She means to stop Vader and she means to stop him now.
But because he’s Darth Vader, and because a part of her is still the terrified padawan, he disarms her and separates her weapon into two separate lightsabers, challenging her to a duel. The two of them fight until he disarms her again and fights with both blades. Reva is stabbed in the gut and as she collapses the Grand Inquisitor makes his triumphant return, having used up all of his sick days. Revenge, he tells her, is a great motivation to live.
The episode ends with Reva, realizing that revenge is actually an excellent motivator for staying alive, finding Ben’s communicator and listening to a distorted version of Bail’s message. All she hears are mentions of children, Owen and Tatooine. Ben senses that something is up, but doesn’t want to alarm anyone. So it looks like we’re finally headed back to Tatooine for the finale!
For all that we spend weeks hoping for flashbacks of some kind, I think they were put to the best use possible in this episode. As great as a Clone Wars flashback would have been (and hope still springs eternal for another week), consistently cutting back to a single moment, a single lesson that Obi-Wan hoped to teach Anakin is a far stronger use of the device. It shows how well Ben and Vader still know each other to this day. It showed Anakin’s determination to win at all costs, Obi-Wan’s ability to fight without a weapon, and most importantly the fear and resentment taking root in their relationship.
I expect next week we’ll get that promised showdown between Vader and Ben, though how they’re going to do all that, and go to Tatooine, and get Leia home safe, and make sure that no one preemptively learns anything they’re not supposed to know is an absolute mystery to me. I have enough confidence in the show, however, that I feel comfortable going into the finale expecting a satisfying payoff.
What did you think? Did you freak out at the flashbacks? Were you furious when Tala died? Reva’s going to be fine, right? And what’s going to go down on Tatooine? Check back here every week for my Obi-Wan Kenobi recaps, and be sure to tune into Space Waffles for our series recap “This Fixation With Kenobi”!
