Obi-Wan is not haunted by ghosts, despite his nightmares.
He is dead.
Kenobi opens with a recap, reminding viewers what occurred in the prequel trilogies, specifically Obi-Wan’s role in training Anakin and his eventual fall to Darth Vader. “Gone he is,” Yoda says, even as Obi-Wan refuses to kill Anakin, crying out that he was his brother. Obi-Wan leaves Anakin to burn instead of killing him outright. It’s clear Obi-Wan fully believes Anakin died as he walked away to bring Leia to the Organas and Luke to the Lars.
In another decade, old Ben Kenobi will tell Luke that Darth Vader murdered and killed Anakin Skywalker, his father.
It’s true, from a certain point of view, just as Obi-Wan’s death into Ben Kenobi is true–from a certain point of view.
Throughout the first episode, Kenobi is insistent, first to the hunted Jedi who seeks his help, and second to his friend, Bail Organa, that he is not the same man anymore. The Jedi are dead, he iterates, almost as a chant, even as one appears before him.
The Jedi are dead.
One wonders, as the Third Sister threatens Owen Lars, long after the viewer knows that Reva will do whatever she needs to do, if Obi-Wan would have stepped in if the other inquisitors had not stopped her.
But Obi-Wan is dead.
He died with Anakin on Mustafar, and Tatooine turns him into an old fossil with its sand and its twin suns. This Kenobi carries a blaster, a weapon for an uncivilized age. He places his lightsaber, side by side with Anakin’s, in a coffin he buries in the sand.
Perhaps the most subtle, unexpected thing Kenobi did (for someone who didn’t keep up with spoilers, at least) was the subtle bait and switch from Luke to Leia. Leia, playing tricks on Breha, identifying ships, not wanting to be a senator–perhaps harboring a suspicion of politicians from her father before her. Leia, foreshadowing the plea she would send via an R2 unit another decade later: Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.
Leia’s kidnapping, a plot brewed by Reva, sparks Ben to find the tattered remains of Obi-Wan, to leave his hiding place on Tatooine to find her. Once there, he all but admits to Leia that she reminds him of someone, a leader. He refers to Padmé, but it’s fitting that rescuing Leia from bounty hunters causes him to cross paths more directly with Reva, who has no qualms informing him that Anakin Skywalker is alive–as Darth Vader.
The two sides of despair and hope gently pull and tug at each other in these opening episodes. Ben finds little hope in Luke, especially when Owen isn’t afraid to throw his failure with Anakin in his face, a verbal slap meant to keep him away. When Obi-Wan meets Leia though, for the first time after her birth, when he sees Anakin and Padmé alive in her, it’s easy to understand why the show’s tagline is Hope Survives, and how Obi-Wan, like Anakin, may not be as dead as they might think themselves to be.
Perhaps the most unlikely source of hope was the presence of the conman, Haja, who pretends to be a Jedi for credits. When the Third Sister places the bounty on Obi-Wan’s head, it’s easy to assume he’s in it only for the money. But he gives himself to Reva, claiming to be a Jedi, though he knows the dangers.
Like its predecessors, Kenobi adds depth and life to Tatooine. Though viewers don’t meet more sand people as before with the Book of Boba Fett, Kenobi follows The Mandalorian’s footsteps and features the longest one-on-one conversation with a jawa who sells toys to Ben, along with an attempt to resell Ben’s stolen equipment back.
It also nods to the clone soldiers, betrayed by the Republic, nearly forgotten and abandoned by the Empire, on the streets of Daiyu, when Kenobi is possibly feeling more like Obi-Wan than Ben.
Obi-Wan’s antagonist is Reva, the Third Sister. Aside from being one of the few inquisitors known by her actual name, she mirrors pivotal figures in both the sequel and prequel trilogies. The Grand Inquisitor says Reva is the least of them, that she came to them from the gutter. Many of the protagonists in Star Wars came out of the gutter: Luke Skywalker, a farm boy on Tatooine, Anakin Skywalker, a slave, Jyn Erso, a criminal, Han Solo a smuggler, Finn a stormtrooper, and Rey, another desert orphan. The dawns of hope in this galaxy far, far away, have frequently come from the gutters, and the stories of the named Inquisitors have always been more than just the antagonist rising against the protagonist.
Reva wishes to earn favor with Darth Vader by capturing Obi-Wan. It’s easy to see how she is cast aside even by the Inquisitors. Based on the history of prior Inquisitors, it’s likely she was once cast aside by the Jedi too. One sees a loneliness that was also in Anakin, now in Obi-Wan. I hope that Kenobi does more with Reva than make a villain out of her.
Is there not a little good in every one? All one has to do is act on it.
Overall, within the glaring expanse of the Tatooine desert, foiled by the neon glow of Daiyu, Kenobi presents a broken heart that greets the viewer with a soft, gentle, “Hello there.”