'Obi-Wan Kenobi' Season Finale is the Show We've Been Looking For
This story contains spoilers for the season finale of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
After wandering around in the desert for damn near five episodes, Obi-Wan Kenobi finally gave us the show we were looking for in its season finale. The 45-minute-long episode, which hit Disney+ Wednesday morning, offered up a new revelation from Darth Vader, two solid cameos, a very sweet lightsaber duel, and a hello there! for the ages. Ready to postgame! Let's get to it, dear Padawans.
Kenobi Gets His Swagger Back
Sure, it was inevitable that Obi-Wan Kenobi would suffer from major PTSD from the duel at Mustafar. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think many of us wanted to watch Kenobi mope around, bicker with little Leia, smuggle chunks of space meat, and leave his lightsaber buried in the sand for as long as we did. Once Kenobi finally displays the sort of character evolution we've wanted since The Revenge of the Sith wrapped all those years ago? It's brilliant. In Obi-Wan Kenobi's last act, McGregor managed to imbue Kenobi with the warm-hearted wisdom 0f Alec Guinness's performance, realizing that Anakin Skywalker is truly dead. Give it up for Hayden Christensen, too, who's entirely convincing as Anakin admits that he was the one who killed his former self, not Kenobi.
The shot of Darth Vader's mask, broken in half, with Anakin's pained face on one side, will surely live on as a Star Wars all-timer. And the last moment between Kenobi and Vader we see is precisely the show we were looking for—two men grappling with a broken friendship that also happened to have fatal implications for the entire galaxy.
The Reva of It All
After Obi-Wan Kenobi's penultimate episode, I wrote that Reva's story—which sees a Padawan who survived Order 66 devote her life to destroying Darth Vader—might've made for the better TV show. I stand by that, since Moses Ingram delivered a messy, complicated performance that makes for one of the best new Star Wars characters we've met in some time. Here's the problem, though: Obi-Wan Kenobi's finale gives Reva a postscript that sucks some of the drama from the Kenobi-Vader beefing.
The final episode repeatedly cuts away to Reva's mission to kill a young Luke Skywalker, finally avenging the deaths of her Padawan family. Which is understandable! We just... already know that Luke lives through the assassination attempt, which Reva eventually abandons. Sure, it's nice to see Owen and Beru get their hero moments. But every time the episode dips to yet another Skywalker dashing away from something, we lose that much more momentum. Maybe we'll see Reva truly take the spotlight someday.
One Note on Little Leia
As endearing as it was to see the young Vivien Lyra Blair channel the late, great Carrie Fisher, it's still unclear why Obi-Wan Kenobi needed a young Leia Organa. Did the series simply need a shortcut to get Kenobi back into Jedi mode? Was it another symptom of Star Wars's Skywalker Problem? Or did The Mandalorian instigate a babyfication of Star Wars characters that will simply never stop? You have to wonder what Obi-Wan Kenobi would've looked like had it been a Skywalker-less story. Maybe we'll get that next season. (More on that below.)
Palpatine!
Our old friend. He returns via space Zoom with Darth Vader. He's still evil, in case you were wondering. Not much to note here. Don't make me write about Grandaddy Palps from The Rise of Skywalker again.
To Infinity and Beyond (Tatooine)
I knew it was coming. You knew it was coming. We all knew it was coming. Liam Neeson reprising his role from The Phantom Menace as the Force ghost of Kenobi's master, Qui-Gon Jinn. At the end of the episode, Kenobi packs his belongings, moves out of his man cave, and rides to the valleys of Tatooine. Our favorite green lightsaber-wielder (yeah, I said it), quips to a bewildered Obi-Wan, “I was always here, Obi-Wan. You just were not ready to see. Come on, we’ve got a ways to go.”
It's funny—the implication that we may see a prime-ish Obi-Wan Kenobi embark on a quest beyond the reaches of Tatooine feels like the series fans wanted in the first place. Of course, the Star Wars fandom doesn't make the decisions at LucasFilm, except when it comes to anything involving the Frankensteining of their childhood hero. But maybe Kenobi, realizing his responsibility to train and protect the galaxy's remaining Jedi, searches the cosmos for new Padawans. So yes, the finale does give hope that we'd see an unburdened-by-the-Skywalkers adventure. As a certain princess once said? Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.
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