Obi-Wan Kenobi: Part VI

Hello there!

Welcome to my weekly review of Obi-Wan Kenobi, where I will be walking us through each episode and giving my thoughts on the show. My reviews will follow my usual format: an overview of the plot (so be aware, there will be spoilers!), my review of the show, then a few “Moments in canon” – references that link to other media and the galaxy as a whole. Today, we’ll be looking at the finale, “Part VI”.

Plot Summary

Reva arrives on Tatooine and demands the locals direct her to a farmer named Owen.

Obi-Wan and the Path refugees are being pursued on their ship by Vader and the Grand Inquisitor in the Devastator. The ship is under turbolaser bombardment and the shields are just holding, but Roken reveals to Ben that they will not last much longer, making it unlikely they will reach Tessen.

Owen and Luke go shopping for parts for their speeder. They are found by one of the locals who Reva had spoken to, who warns Owen that Reva is after them.

Ben makes the decision to leave the ship, knowing that Vader will focus on him and allow the rest to escape. Many of the refugees are against this, but Ben convinces them, though Leia is upset. After agreeing with Ben to make sure Leia gets back to Alderaan, Haja speaks to her in private and makes her understand.

Owen and Luke arrive back at the Lars Homestead, where Owen warns Beru of the danger they are in. Owen plans for them to run, but Beru convinces him that they need to stay and fight. They prepare to defend, while hiding Luke under the pretense of a Tusken attack, telling him to run if things go wrong.

“I’m not putting anyone else in danger, Owen. We’re enough. You and me.”

Ben makes his farewells to Leia, during which he gives her Tala’s holster. Roken gives him one more chance to change his mind—which he doesn’t—and Roken realises that it’s not just about the refugees, but also Ben and Vader. As they say their farewells, Ben urges Roken to continue being a leader. Obi-Wan is ejected from the freighter in a smaller shuttle and flies off in the opposite direction to the freighter. On the bridge of the Devastator, The Grand Inquisitor tries convincing Vader to continue after the freighter, as hey have a chance to end the Path, but Vader orders the shuttle be pursued instead.

Ben lands on a barren moon. Vader has his shuttle prepared and lands on the planet. He and Ben soon find themselves facing off and they duel. Vader notes that Kenobi is stronger than last time they fought, but uses the Force to make the ground crumble beneath Kenobi, forcing him to stumble, before burying him under tons of rocks. Believing him dead, Vader tells his former master that he has failed, and begins making his way back to the shuttle.

Reva arrives at the homestead, where Owen and Beru attempt to ambush her. She fights her way through them, but Luke manages to escape into the desert before she can catch him.

Obi-Wan is still alive, having used the Force to just hold off all the rubble from crushing him. Thinking of the Skywalker twins, he blasts all the rubble off and chases after vader, engaging him again and beginning to land some hits, before eventually cutting through his helmet. Seeing the burned face of his former Padawan makes Obi-Wan hold back. Obi-Wan apologises to Anakin for everything, but Vader tells Obi-Wan that it was not Obi-Wan who killed Anakin, but Vader. Obi-Wan realises that his friend is truly dead and bids “Darth” goodbye, making his way back to the shuttle while the injured Vader can only call out to him.

Reva has tracked Luke to a nearby rocky landscape,where she uses the Force to drag him down from a higher ledge—Obi-Wan feels this and, realising that Luke is in danger, jumps to lightspeed to reach Tatooine. Finding herself stood over Luke’s unconscious body, Reva makes to strike him with her lightsaber, but her memories of Order 66, Vader stabbing her on Jabiim (and visions of her as a youngling in Luke’s place) stop her from striking.

“Who you become now, that is up to you.”

Obi-Wan lands at the Lars Homestead, where he finds Owen and Beru searching for Luke. Reva arrives, carrying Luke’s unconscious body. Owen and Beru take Luke inside to recover as Reva admits to Obi-Wan that she couldn’t do it. She feels that she has failed her fallen friends, but Obi-Wan tells her that by showing mercy she has given them all peace and honoured them, noting that she has chosen not to become like Vader, and that what she becomes now is up to her, as they are both free.

In his castle on Mustafar, Vader informs the Emperor that probes are searching for Kenobi, and that he and his forces will destroy everything in his path to find him. Palpatine questions if Vader’s feelings on Obi-Wan are clear, noting that Obi-Wan is nobody. Vader reiterates his devotion to Palpatine.

On Alderaan, Leia dresses herself for the new day. Breha arrives to take her to their duties and is initially shocked to see her wearing her gloves and a holster, but accepts it. They join Bail on the landing platform and watch as a shuttle lands, as Leia tells Bail that she is ready to help lead. The shuttle opens and Obi-Wan walks out, bringing back Lola—who Leia had snuck into his robes following an earlier conversation back on the freighter about how Lola was helping take the refugees mind off how scared they were. The Organas thank Obi-Wan for returning Leia, and Obi-Wan promises that he will be there if they ever need his help again. Obi-Wan admits to Leia that he knew her real parents, and though he can’t tell her who they are, he points out the features in her personality that she gets from each of them. The pair say their farewells and Obi-Wan returns to Tatooine.

Obi-Wan packs up and leaves his cave. He makes his way to the Lars Homestead, where he promises to Owen that he is giving the family space, as he has realised that Luke needs to experience just being a boy and the future will take care of himself. He notes that Owen and Beru are enough protection. As he goes to leave, Owen gives Ben the chance to be introduced to Ben, which he takes, giving Luke the toy T-16 that Owen had previously refused.

Making his way out beyond the Dune sea, Obi-Wan encounters Qui-Gon Jinn’s Force ghost. Qui-Gon tells Obi-Wan that he has always been there, but that Obi-Wan is only now ready to see. He leads Obi-Wan away for more training.

Review

OK, so it feels like we only just started and already we’re at the end. But what an ending it was! Much like Part V, I thought this was a really good episode, but I was left with some niggling issues.

But before I get onto them, I want to take a moment to mention the score. On the whole, it’s not really stood out to me through much of the series, but I have noticed myself enjoying it more in recent weeks and this time it really hit the mark as it brought in some of the music we are familiar with, as this week included the Force Theme, the Imperial March, and a much deeper cut with the music during the Devastator chase coming from The Empire Strikes Back (when the snowspeeders are looking for Luke and Han, and when the Falcon is going back for Luke and escaping Bespin) with an Imperial twist over the top. Oh and then lets not forget the duel which has a score that is reminiscent of The Battle of Heroes. It almost feels like the score has thematically matched Obi-Wan in going from this person we don’t recognise to a the figure we know and love.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Anakin. For all of it.”

“I am not your failure, Obi-Wan. You didn’t kill Anakin Skywalker. I did. The same way I will destroy you!”

“Then my friend is truly dead. Goodbye… Darth”

Now I mentioned it there with that duel, so how could I hold off any longer. While it was shorter than I perhaps expected for a climactic duel, but I absolutely loved it, with a great new environment (being able to see the nearby planet in the sky was beautiful), a wonderful score accenting it and fantastic choreography. This really was the highlight of the episode and certainly one of the high points of the series for me. This was Vader as we have never seen him duel before, and it was great to see him using the terrain (which he did a little against Luke in The Empire Strikes Back) to beat Obi-Wan, while seeing Obi-Wan come back in the second half of the fight with the Force truly with him. And then the ending, with the helmet being damaged, brought this all to an incredible end. Of course, it led to a moment similar to Rebels, but it worked for me, and was made even more beautiful by the use of lighting from the 2sabers, with Kenobi’s face bathed in blue during his emotional apology before going dark as he realises Anakin is gone, while Anakin’s face goes from dark to bathed in red light. Perhaps it leaves the line “Obi-Wan once thought as you do” about Anakin being able to return, but at least Obi-Wan’s use of Anakin’s name and emotional apology pushed towards this, while Vader’s insistence that he killed Anakin was (as in Rebels) punctuated perfectly by the combination of Hayden Christensen’s voice and Vader’s voice as we heard it both through the vocoder and the damaged helmet. I also thought that the decision to have Obi-Wan call Vader “Darth” as he leaves was a nice little nod to A New Hope as it now feels that Obi-Wan is deliberately using the title as a name or maybe even an insult, while of course back in the 70s “Darth” was just a name and not yet a title.

While this part of the episode was handled really well, I was a little disappointed by the Reva’s storyline. Once again it seems there is a little convenience that she managed to reach Tatooine so fast and also manage to find the fight location just from knowing the name Owen and his job as a farmer. I absolutely loved Owen and Beru’s argument and eventual decision to fight (they may have only had small roles in the series, but I really think that Joel Edgerton and Bonnie Piesse did such great work in the show that it will make the burning homestead scene in A New Hope even more emotional. Unfortunately, as much as I love them, they are not trained fighters, and Reva should have easily dealt with them despite her injury, so seeing them successfully hold her off long enough for Luke to escape semed odd, while I also don’t understand why she didn’t just use the Force to pull Luke back as he escaped, exactly as she ended up doing later in the chase. It was just another narrative decision that put creating a story before sense. And now we are left with a redeemed Reva, which I can accept despite not being my preference, but it now just feels like she has been redeemed and left alive just to set up a new Reva series.

Picking up on there points, I love how this series has teased the first steps of Leia’s growth from bored princess to future Rebel leader. And while I don’t understand how Roken and Obi-Wan managed to find Tala’s holster in perfect condition considering she blew herself up, I thought that it was a lovely touch in her growth, while also leading to a fun moment of Obi-Wan not being willing to give her a weapon to go in there yet. This has set Leia up nicely for wanting to do more to help those who need it in the galaxy, and as such it leads nicely into the novel Leia: Princess of Alderaan, as she enters politics but also comes across the Rebels and is willing to join.

A few final thoughts on the episode:

• While it was great to see the return of Qui-Gon Jinn as a Force ghost, I can’t help feel like it was just a tick box at the end, and feel that narratively it would have been better if they made their first connection either as Obi-Wan meditated just before leaving the freighter or in the moment when he was buried alive
• Would it have really been so hard for Imperial forces to split themselves in 2, with Vader going after Obi-Wan and the Grand Inquisitor going after the Path?
• While Reva seems the more likely spin-off, the final scene with Roken really feels like it’s setting up him making a return somewhere as part of the Rebellion. It would be easy enough to age O’Shea Jackson Jr. up by 5-9 years for a role in Andor…
• I loved Beru’s quick dig as Owen notes that Ben is gone. It certainly feels like she was more accomodating of Obi-Wan, and I’d have loved to see more of this trio together

Moments in Canon

• Luke can be seen playing with the toy T-16 skyhopper in A New Hope and also has a real T-16
• This is the first time that Obi-Wan has been able to communicate with Qui-Gon Jinn. Over the next 9 years, he will go through the training that will allow him to return as a Force ghost following his death

What did you think of the episode?

Thanks for reading. May the Force be with you….