Obi Wan Kenobi, Episode 3/Part 3, has been watched and thoughts are ready to be shared with everyone!
As a reminder, all of my Kenobi posts WILL have spoilers! If you wish to avoid that, please refrain from reading OR, better idea, read AFTER you’ve watched the episode!
This episode continues with Obi Wan and Leia on a mission to get back to Alderaan and to get the witty and sassy princess back to her parents. They land on a planet that basically looks like a hilly desert, which leaves me wondering if there are planets in the galaxy that are NOT desert or snow planets LOL.
The episode focuses on Obi Wan’s desire to get Leia home and the obstacles they face on the way. They received intel from Haja, a character played by Kumail Nanjani, in the previous episode but things don’t go as planned and they end up on a transport with a huge fan of the Empire and a handful of Stormtroopers. Things seem like they might be okay until they reach a checkpoint with Stormtroopers and all hell breaks loose. They are saved by Tala (played by the AMAZING Indira Varma), a woman who is works for the Empire but helps to smuggle Jedi and Force Sensitive people to safety. She is the intel previously mentioned and is the one to help Leia and Obi Wan get to Alderaan.
Of course, that doesn’t happen. Reva shows up on the planet, with a ton of Stormtroopers in tow, and…oh yeah, Darth Vader himself, who is quite adamant about finding Obi Wan and dealing with him himself. A slow chase ensues and the tension is…TOUGH. We’ve seen these two fight before. There is the first real lightsaber battle we ever got was between these two in a New Hope and it was amazing but simple and only a fraction of what was capable. Then we got one of the best fight scenes I’ve ever seen, when the two of them battled it out in Revenge of the Sith. The battle between these two here…was so sad. It was heartbreaking to watch.
This is Darth Vader at his worst, long past the boy from Tattooine and far from the regretful father in Return of the Jedi. Pair that with the fact that Obi Wan is a mere shadow of his former self, a shell, no longer the great Jedi that he was before. The fight between them is just…heartbreaking. It’s sad and hard to watch. Part of you is excited at the prospect of seeing the two of them together again. Part of you is excited that Obi Wan has pulled out his lightsaber for the first time in the series. But a huge part of you is like…this is so different than the fight in Revenge of the Sith. That fight was so emotional because of the love the two had for each other. This was was just pure hatred and revenge against pure regret and sorrow and it was – excuse my language – fucking brutal. I almost couldn’t even really enjoy Vader’s return (the first time we’ve seen him since Rogue One) because my emotions were too caught up.
While this is happening, Leia is running through a secret tunnel, toward the pilot that is going to transport her to Alderaan. Of course, Reva, who is a villain I’m already super enjoying (and seriously, side note, fuck all the racism the wonderful actress, Moses Ingram. WHAT THE FUCK GUYS?!) figures out where the secret operation is coming from and tracks down Leia. The episode ends with Leia running into her, not knowing if she’s friend or foe.
After all of the excitement of the first two episodes and the surprise appearance of Leia, this episode felt much darker and less happy to me but I feel like that is a lot because I’m biased and really love Leia. I’m sure my sister, Dink (follow her YouTube channel here!) really enjoyed it because she is seriously a huge Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader fan. I found this episode to be just so difficult because it was SO emotional and while we were SO aware of Darth’s return, I didn’t expect it like this and it was heartbreaking. If that was what they were going for, then damn, they fully accomplished that. I felt so…empty once this episode was over.
I’m still absolutely loving Vivien Lyra Blair as young Leia. I think it feels like Carrie Fisher’s version was just aged down and brought to life on screen. She captures everything that I’ve loved about that character since I was a small child and I’m just in love with her portrayal. Her wit, her sarcasm, her intelligence, her sass, and her maturity – its so believable that this child becomes the teenager that joins the Rebellion and takes down the Empire. There’s been a lot of hate online for her and it just makes me so angry. We’ve seen all these male characters in so many different versions – Luke, Obi Wan, Han, and so on – but throw a small Leia on screen and the sexist assholes come out in droves. Frankly, I feel if you don’t like young Leia in this show, you don’t like the character at all, because Vivien is a perfect younger version of Carrie and I enjoy every moment she’s on screen and I want more.
I am a little concerned about the repetitive nature of a main adult character paired with a child character – i.e. Mandalorian – but I love Leia so much that my reservations are kind of easy to ignore because I just love Leia so much. I think I started this show off wanting to see young Luke interact with Obi Wan aka Ben Kenobi to see what sort of relationship they had prior to A New Hope but I’m really enjoying the Obi Wan/Leia dynamic a lot and I’m always here for more female character love.
I am SO excited to see what happens next in next week’s episode and super excited because next week we’ll get episode 4 of this series AND episode one of Ms Marvel so it’ll be QUITE the busy day for this girl.
