Hello there.

A lot of folks have been eagerly anticipating this – hoping that it would have engaging writing, artistic presentation, and respect for the audience. I think it met these expectations, and, in some cases, exceeded them. What I’m saying is that, yes, this article was worth the wait. I don’t like to toot my own horn, but this is going to absolutely shit on the zeitgeist.[1]

Oh, and the Obi-Wan show is pretty good, too. Let’s get into it.

The series is 100% going to return to the opening scene at the Jedi temple mid-Order 66. I also think it’ll reveal the reasons behind Inquisitor Reva’s hatred of Obi-Wan (which seems personal, as opposed to strictly professional). I’m pretty sure that one of the padawans shown in the first scene will end up being a younger Reva.

Speaking of Reva…wow. She’s an intimidating figure, both clever and borderline unhinged, and her dogged pursuit of Obi-Wan reminded me of The Terminator in a good way. Moses Ingram is a bona fide scene-stealer – and it’ll be interesting to see where her plotline goes from here. I guarantee she’ll do more space parkour (starkour?), though.

Sung Kang (who I didn’t recognize from the Fast and Furious franchise) plays the raspy, weird-hat-wearing Fifth Brother. He comes across as the most sympathetic of the Inquisitors that appeared in these instalments (which isn’t saying a whole lot), primarily due to the disparity between Reva’s impulsiveness and his own, more subdued personality. The pair make a decent good cop/bad cop duo (if both cops were space Nazis).

Rupert Friend’s Grand Inquisitor absolutely drips menace. Imagine the Grand Inquisitor from Star Wars Rebels, but dial the sinister factor up by twenty percent or so (and change the shape of his head).[2] And, of course, we know that the two Grand Inquisitors are different, because this one fucking dies. Considering that Rebels takes place later in the story’s timeline, and he also died in that…maybe Rebels’ Grand Inquisitor is the twin brother of the one who just got offed?

Joel Edgerton was surprisingly great as Owen Lars – not because Joel Edgerton is a bad actor (far from it), but he put a lot of depth into the character in just a couple of short scenes. The way he threw shade at Obi-Wan’s teaching abilities was absolutely savage, and I’m here for it.

Alderaan was nice to spend some time on; I can’t recall if we’d ever seen the surface of the planet in previous Star Wars movies and TV shows, but now I feel even worse about the Empire blowing it up. Would’ve made a hell of a place to take a space vacation. Although the set design leaned a bit too much into the “generic sci-fi utopia” school of design, the Alderaan scenes were still a good change of scenery (more on that below). We all know the real draw was Jimmy Smits (Bail Organa), though. What an absolute snack. 

The biggest surprise of the first two Parts was the appearance of a young Leia Organa, portrayed with aplomb by newcomer Vivien Lyra Blair.[3] Not only was her role in the story unexpected (by me, at least), but Blair’s performance is top-notch: you can see echoes of the Princess Leia portrayed by the late, great Carrie Fisher in the original trilogy (and, to an extent, the sequels). She’s precocious, but it never crosses the line into being a distraction – and the show is smart enough to poke fun at the idea, with Obi-Wan incredulously double-checking how old she is after his young charge hits him with some S-Tier commentary. Her interactions with Kenobi are a real highlight; their dialog is amusing, and Leia’s presence provides a lens into Obi-Wan’s changing mindset (as well as the impetus for it – for example, Leia falling off a building was the only reason ol’ Ben busted out the Force for the first time in a decade).

The planet Daiyu was a fun setting for the second instalment (although, much like Alderaan, not overly original from a visual standpoint) – sure, the alleyways could have used a little more grime, but it was extremely well executed in the context of a television show’s budget.[4] As a viewer, it was also great to get a break from Tatooine. Don’t get me wrong, I love sand – the grittiness, how it gets everywhere – but I was concerned that the Disney Star Wars shows would work themselves into a bit of a rut as far as settings were concerned. The Mandalorian already returned to the planet a few times, and Book of Boba Fett meandered in proverbial circles under the same twin suns for eight uninspired episodes. There’s a whole universe of planets out there to set Star Wars stories in! Do some crazy shit! Or, at the very least, cleanly deliver a cyberpunky future city bustling streets lit by multicolored neon signs.[5]

A cyberpunky setting requires the presence of clever criminals with murky moral compasses.[6] Here, the position is filled by Kumail Nanjiani, and he absolutely crushes the role. I’m inordinately pleased that his character is (probably) alive, and I’m hoping that he makes a reappearance in a later Part. (If he gets a guest role in Mandalorian and ends up in a scene with Bill Burr’s Mayfeld character, I can die a happy and fulfilled man.) Side note: I’m pretty sure that the only time in the first two Parts that Reva isn’t in full terminator mode is when she encounters Haja while he’s pretending to be a Jedi – she just looks hilariously confused, like she just saw someone wiping their bare ass on the ground like a dog.

When Reva called out Obi-Wan in the cargo hangar, I half-expected her to start clanking bottles together and say “…come out to playyyyayyy”.

Ewan McGregor does some phenomenal facial acting in Part 2, particularly when Obi-Wan is grappling with the realization that Anakin is still alive (and is, in fact, pretty pissed at him about the whole dismemberment thing). It’s a chills-inducing mix of fear, shock, and regret, all delivered wordlessly.

Director Deborah Chow returns to the Star Wars franchise after sitting out the second season of The Mandalorian (which was a shame – the two episodes of Mando’s first season that she directed were both very well done). If I’m not mistaken, she directed the entirety of the Kenobi series, which is a positive sign. Chow is certainly a talented director, and having a singular individual behind the camera for the entire series will help keep things consistent from a presentational standpoint.[7]

Random tidbits:

-Temuera Morrison knocks out his third consecutive appearance in a Star Wars TV show as a Clone Trooper veteran panhandling on the streets of Daiyu. Obi-Wan’s interaction with the clone, though brief, does an excellent job of reminding the audience of Obi-Wan’s complicated past with the clones without hammering us over the head with it.

-The Inquisitors’ armor design is nifty. Sleek and scary, just like the space fascists they are.[8]

-On a related note, does Obi-Wan only have, like, the one set of clothes? (You know, the ones he was wearing when he dismembered his friend and former apprentice.)

-Obi-Wan’s banter with the Jawa in the Part 1 was a lot of fun and breaks up the gloominess of Kenobi’s situation with an opportunity for McGregor to bust out some wry humor. Recent Star Wars media (well, the TV shows) have done a good job adding flavor to the Jawas[9] and turning them into more than just “those little scavengers with glowing eyes and robes”. Apparently, they’re furry! Not sure what I think of that, but it’s interesting.

-You know how I didn’t mention the Jedi from the first episode who got hunted down and strung up by the Inquisitors?[10] That’s because I fucking forgot about him until I’d already pretty much wrapped up the article. I can’t even remember his character’s name, and I watched Part 1, like, yesterday. My short-term memory is pretty lousy, but it’s not that bad, unless you’re inquiring about my internet history, in which case I remember nothing. No hate on the actor, of course – he did a good job playing a harried, hunted Jedi – but the character’s whole mini-arc was just boring to me. Everyone and their grandmother could tell that motherfucker was doomed from the jump. His death served a predictable combination of purposes: demonstrating the Inquisitors’ ruthless methods and making Obi-Wan feel even shittier about himself.

Predictions for next week:

• Darth Vader enters the equation. He also force-chokes the everloving shit out of someone. We’ll most likely get treated to an overlong scene of him getting dressed for the day, but after he gets decked out in his Vader swag, it’s breakfast time and telepathic strangulation is the only thing on the menu.[11] It wouldn’t really have the same oomph if he did it while he was, like, a torso.

• Obi-Wan goes back to Tatooine for some fucking reason (sigh).[12] I feel like Star Wars shows have a Tatooine appearance quota to meet every season, and Obi-Wan Kenobi is going to have to play some catch-up after a whole installment spent outside a desert hellscape.

• Leia continues to be likeable, especially when paired up with Obi-Wan (meaning she doesn’t pull any “dumb kid shit” just to get Obi-Wan in trouble, and her cleverness never gets so unrealistic that it distracts the audience).

• Obi-Wan and Leia go to Mapuzo. I think we’re meant to assume that Mapuzo is a location, but – just a guess – it will turn out to be something else, like an organization of kindhearted crooks akin to Haja (going out even further on an already precarious limb, this will turn out to be crucial to the founding of the Rebel Alliance).

• Reva covers up her betrayal of the Grand Inquisitor by putting the whole thing on Obi-Wan. Vader etc. are suspicious, but have no proof, and drop the subject (although there’s more inter-workplace sniping between Reva and Fifth Brother). We get a look at the Inquisitors’ home base, although not an extended one.

• There’s an unexpected cameo from a beloved character right before the credits roll that doesn’t do much of anything for the overall plot but will be notable enough to get people talking. My money’s on Salacious Crumb.[13]

Rating: 8/10 (+1/-1)

Adjusted for Sentimentality: 7/10 (+1/-1)

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[1] Does this line make sense? Absolutely not, but sometimes you gotta just drop your nuts on the table with a big word like “zeitgeist” in order to really let the audience know who’s boss.

[2] #Inquisitorheadgate is the biggest scandal since the Teapot Dome.

[3] I’m assuming she’s a newcomer. The kid is, like, 10. Her filmography can’t be that goddamn long.

[4] Albeit a television show with a $25 million per-episode budget.

[5] Unoriginality aside, this worked better at launch than Cyberpunk 2077, even if you can’t customize Obi-Wan’s pubes in character creation.

[6] It’s actually in the Constitution. No need to check, I looked it up.

[7] It can be jarring to move between directors episode-to-episode, you know? Even if they’re both really good directors, the contrast between their styles is sometimes distracting.

[8] Apart from the weird-ass hat donned by the Fifth Brother, touched upon previously. It’s like an umbrella growing out of his scalp: practical, maybe, but not very stylish. The guy looks like he’s wearing a tricorn hat that got crossed with a hammerhead shark and then assimilated by the Borg.

[9] Not literally. Can you imagine? How would you even prepare a Jawa? Chop it up and put it in a stew, or maybe turn it into some kind of…loaf? Please discuss the subject in an essay not less than three double-spaced pages.

[10] Quite the macabre display. You know if this was on HBO they’d have, like, cut the guy’s dick off or something, but Disney prefers to heavily imply that sort of thing, unless I’m severely misinterpreting a lot of shit.

[11] Yes, I know that “Vader swag” is not the proper technical name for his armor. Go on Wookiepedia and cry about it.

[12] Who knows, maybe he and Leia will stop by on the way to Mapuzo so Obi-Wan can dig up Anakin’s lightsaber or something.

[13] He’s my spirit animal.