4D Chess
Episode 5 of “Obi-Wan Kenobi” begins with a flashback to a training session between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Sprinkled throughout the episode, these two trade lightsaber blows and go all out for victory. ..
In the last episode of the show, Reva was promoted to Grand Inquisitor for her good work in defeating Kenobi and playing 4D chess. Now, Obi-Wan and the others are heading to Jabiim, where they touch down and begin to make plans to evacuate.
A large vent in the ceiling of the hangar opens, and a lone figure, Lola, scrambles up inside. She quickly shuts off the power to the hangar doors, trapping everyone inside. ..
Leia decides to head off and try to fix this, with Haja on babysitting duties. Hold up, couldn’t Leia get electrocuted doing this? Anyway, that’s not important right now. ..
With the empire on their doorstep, the rebels are forced to take refuge in the ship’s hangar. Obi-Wan gives a stirring speech and gives Roken an hour to fix the ship’s electrical system before they are all fried. ..
Reva and the others are trying to open the hangar door, but it’s being held shut by a force field. Lola suggests using her powers to scramble the wiring, which will open the door. However, this is only an idea; they don’t know if it will work or not. They need to focus on fighting the force field instead. ..
Obi-Wan approaches the door, just as Reva does too. She senses Obi-Wan on the other side, although that contradicts earlier in the season when she couldn’t find him hiding nearby. ..
In a flashback at the start of episode 1, Obi-Wan realizes that one of the younglings from inside the temple when Order 66 was enacted was his daughter, Anakin. This is significant because it means that she is still alive and well and can potentially help him in his fight against the Empire.
Reva tells the story of how she hid from the empire among the cold bodies, playing possum. She realized that Obi-Wan was never the target, and apparently Vader was. She’s been waiting for the right time to strike, and Don’t worry, we’ll circle back to this nugget later on!
Obi-Wan encourages Reva to work with him to try and stop Vader, but she’s having none of it. With her spinning lightsaber, she breaks into the hangar bay door by slicing it open. The doors open, revealing a group of stormtroopers. A game of laser tag ensues as everyone trades blaster shots. ..
In a dramatic and powerful scene, Obi-Wan watches as Tala sacrifices herself, blowing up the tunnel with her grenade that miraculously doesn’t send the whole thing tumbling down around her. Tala’s sacrifice ensures that all of the other droids are safe and unharmed, even as Obi-Wan is forced to watch in horror.
With all hope lost, Obi-Wan decides to give up and surrender to Reva. He believes he can get through to Reva and use her to turn on Vader. Surrendering, he’s led out to the main bay where he makes his pleas. Reva decides to bring him back inside again, guarded by two stormtroopers which obviously doesn’t work, as Vader touches down and goes after Obi-Wan, who has managed to get onboard the freighter.
While this is happening, Leia fixes the electrics and the hangar doors reopen. Everyone scrambles aboard the ship. Vader uses his force powers to knock the ship back down. It crashes into the hangar bay, Vader rips open the hull of the ship and all hope looks lost… but wait! Another ship was perfectly placed right next to that one and takes off. ..
The ship is not actually a droid, but the crew is not sure who it is. Vader used his force powers right then and they don’t know how he did it. There’s more drama ensuing here.
Vader is attacked from behind by Reva, but he uses his force powers to stop her. He barely breaks a sweat as Reva uses her twirling lightsaber to try and take him out. It doesn’t work and eventually Vader bests her, taking both halves of the lightsaber for himself. ..
Remember when Vader just mercilessly snapped someone’s neck outside? Anyway, he stabs Reva through the stomach but leaves her “to die”, as the Grand Inquisitor arrives, absolutely fine as before. “You are of no further use.” He says, as they all walk away.
As the others leave, there’s a problem. Haja has left the comms device Obi-Wan gave him earlier in the episode on the floor. Reva crawls over and sees the message about Tatooine and “the boy”, which is obviously Luke Skywalker, thus setting up a big finale to come.
The Episode Review
Disney+ has been trying to create a new Star Wars story line for years now, but it seems like they’re not really focusing on anything. The legacy characters are just a way to reel people in and not really what these stories are truly about. Here, we have Obi-Wan used as said legacy character when really the story is centered around Reva. While her arc sounds good on paper, it also raises all sorts of questions when you actually stop to dissect it.
Reva was there and saw Anakin enact Order 66. After playing dead, she decided to join the dark side, hunting down the very Jedi that could have helped launch a counter-offensive against Vader, happily torturing innocent people, even hanging a Jedi in the middle of the street because she’s “angry at Obi-Wan.” But… not really.
This was all a ploy to get revenge on Vader by…killing Jedi? Becoming Grand Inquisitor, finding The Path and then turning on him. You see, when you break it down like this, the motivations are skewed. ..
The reveal that Vader is seemingly aware of Leia’s age and has been playing her for years has left many questions unanswered. Why did he make her Grand Inquisitor in the first place? Why not kill her after finding out about the tracker last episode?
The whole siege on the base is a nice idea, with the interspersed “Member Berries” for the fight between Obi Wan and Anakin nicely implemented. But then, why have we waited five episodes for this? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to include it in the opening episode so we get a sense of Obi-Wan’s confliction?
The biggest disappointment here is that Obi-Wan has not progressed at all in the last 10 years. He’s still a down-trodden guy who helps Princess Leia, but he’s not the best person to do this because he’s never been near electrics.
Although this episode was better than what we’ve been served before, Disney has spent $25 million an episode on the show, so I can’t help but feel we deserve better when it comes to storytelling and directing. ..
