It’s time for the Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 6 review. If you’ve followed me over the past month, I’ve done a review of the entire season as well as recaps of the episodes. Now it’s the time to do the final review of the season finale of this series. Episode six marks the climactic finale for a great series. And while I’ve been demanding for this show, I think that the writers redeemed themselves. Albeit, they do have a few shortcomings which I will mention.
Obi-Wan Kenobi is a mini-series on Disney+ that takes place a decade after the events of Revenge of The Sith, here, Jedi Master in exile Obi-Wan is called upon by Bail Organa to rescue Leia from the Empire. Turns out that the Empire kidnapped Leia to lure Kenobi out of exile. Now, without further ado, let’s review this final installment.
Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 6 Review
The final episode of Kenobi starts like all of those episodes do, with a recap telling us where we are. Obi-Wan and Leia managed to escape —once again— from Vader and they’re on board an spaceship being chased by Vader and the Empire. Reva was left to die after Darth Vader stabbed her with the lightsaber —which went through her guts by the way! This would be the first time we see a survivor of that kind of injury in films, I don’t know about books because I’m not a fan of reading Star Wars books!
Reva Is Alive!
So, where are we? Turns out Reva is alive! As stated above, she managed to survive a lightsaber to the belly. And she traveled to Tatooine in search of Luke. How? Well, I’ll tell you how. Lazy scriptwriting. That’s how. But you can’t demand that much from these people who took us on a six-episode cat and mouse game, and who decided to make barbecue out of Kenobi, only to have a droid save him in front of Darth Vader.
Then, Reva tracks Owen and Luke, who are searching for spare parts at a repair shop. So, Owen goes to the farm with Aunt Beru and goes full-on guerrilla mode. He waits with Beru for Reva’s nighttime attack and hides Luke away. When it’s go-time. It’s lightsaber vs. hurling objects and punch time. So, Owen manages to hurt Reva, despite Reva having the power of the Force, which she has used in the past and won’t use this time? Once again, lazy scriptwriting, only to redeem her later. But we’ll get to that later.
Darth Vader vs. Kenobi
Obi-Wan escapes on a pod from the rebel spaceship and lures Vader into a planet where a ghastly lightsaber battle ensues at a weird rock planet. Here Obi-Wan is full-steroid-fueled force mode and Vader takes notice. But then, Vader digs a big hole and buries Kenobi in it. After that, Kenobi pops out of the hole and faces him once again. He hacks and slashes Darth Vader in his respirator and cuts a chunk out of his helmet, revealing Anakin’s burnt face. A dialogue ensues between the two, and Obi-Wan simply walks out leaving a scornful Vader grumbling “Obi-Wan”. Once again, lazy scriptwriting.
After that, Obi-Wan jumps in his spaceship and sets course for Tatooine. Meanwhile, in Tatooine, Reva finds Luke in a cave, pulls out her lightsaber, and when she’s ready to kill him, PTSD kicks and she can’t bring herself to do it. She has these flashbacks of Anakin killing all her friends at the Jedi Temple and she breaks. So, when Obi-Wan lands in Tatooine, Owen and Beru are looking for Luke and Reva delivers the boy sobbing.
On Reva’s Redemption: The Elephant In The Room
Reva was a good villain, don’t get me wrong, she epitomized the ultimate ideal of greatness at any cost that the Dark Side of the Force lives by. Still, the scriptwriters managed to spin that around by giving her redemption at the last minute. Her story arc would’ve concluded well when she had a change of heart in Jabiim and Vader killed her for it. Instead, these lazy, good-for-nothing scriptwriters decided to make her survive a fatal injury and have Obi-Wan go full Catholic priest on confessional mode absolving her for her sins.
On Betraying The Nature Of The Heroic
One of the fundamental things about being a hero is sacrifice. For Luke, the dude had to lose an arm, train like crazy, and even kill his own dad to reach greatness. But with the latest trilogy, we saw how the nature of the heroic goes to the trash, and we see a girl Jedi who out of nowhere goes full god-mode, she knows from the get-go how to wield a lightsaber and fly a spaceship.
Same thing with Reva. Now, they made it worse, Reva had her sacrifice for redemption, the essential price to pay in character development. But the scriptwriters had to cheat on the basic canons of drama —that go all the way back to Ancient Greece, by the way!— to give redemption to a character that was supposed to be the antagonist. Bad. Real bad. If the fight between good and evil is the canon of Star Wars, you’re not supposed to let evil take root by giving it another chance. Look at Teva, she gave it all for the cause. And her legacy lived on through her holster.
Building Up Leia’s Character
One of the good things that we can rescue from Obi-Wan Kenobi is how the series managed to build up Leia’s character for the future. I would dare to say that’s about the only good thing. We saw how Teva’s legacy lived on through her holster. Moreover, we see Leia evolve, and in the last part of seeing her dress up in combat boots, gloves, and holster pretty nicely. After that, we see how Obi-Wan and Leia have a very emotional dialogue that will build up into the call for help in Episode IV: A New Hope. Since not all about this series can be bad, this is the high point in the drama of this series for me.
Tatooine
When Obi-Wan returns to Tatooine, he packs up his things to go visit Owen one more time. He says he will keep his distance, and Owen has a change of heart, letting him meet the boy. Then, the Jedi Master goes back into his cave, only to be welcomed by a Qui-Gon Jinn who tells him that he’s been there all along. But he hasn’t been ready to see him. Concluding a long and tortuous miniseries on the Jedi Master.
The Verdict
I’m going to be very stern on Obi-Wan Kenobi, it’s not good. It has lazy scriptwriting, and it’s a cat-and-mouse game that could’ve concluded on the first two episodes if the scriptwriters had the nerve to stay faithful to the true nature of the Dark Side of the force. And for those who will say that if that were the case, then we would have no series, then why not write it better int he first place? If Obi-Wan Kenobi is about anything, is about adventure, learning and becoming. Instead, we got escapism, repetitiveness and failed botched redemption.
Good Villainy Turned Bad
If Reva was the high villain here, —and Kudos to Moses Ingram for her acting, she did the best she could with the really bad script that they gave her— her story arc was botched when she managed to survive and deliver a Luke that was never in danger. And if Obi-Wan Kenobi was supposed to tell us how his relationship built up Leia’s character into her adulthood, it could’ve done a way better job.
All in all, it’s yet another betrayal of a group of lazy scriptwriters who’re just milking that Star Wars cow over and over. But hell, at least you’ll —maybe— get an amusement park attraction out of it in the near future for Disney’s centennial. I won’t kneel to glorify Disney’s lazy half-ass job here. Look elsewhere in the competition for that. That’s all the time I have for this. May the Force be with you, because it sure as hell it wasn’t when they made this.
Also Read: Ms. Marvel Season 1 Episode 3 Review & Recap: Kamala Is A Djinn?
