Contains Spoilers
This episode opens with time and space for Obi-Wan to process what he has learned from the previous episodes. Kneeling, speaking to Qui-Gon, Reva’s revelation echoes through him, interspersed with memories of his last moments with Anakin while the viewer gets a full view of Darth Vader connecting to his suit and the scars he still bears. Grief and anguish etch Obi-Wan’s face as he faces the choices he’s made.
Even amidst this despair, he still has time for Leia. She wants to learn more about the Force, and he describes it as a feeling of safety as he repairs Leia’s droid, Lola.
Though Phantom Menace first raised Anakin’s inclination for droids with the creation of Threepio, The Clone Wars animated series does even more to canonize his fondness and affections for droids, even beyond his feelings towards Artoo, whom he describes as more than a friend in “Duel of the Droids.” Padmé tells Anakin once that “Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve been playing with droids.” Anakin replies, “I used to put them together. Now, I only take them apart” (“Destroy Malevolence”). With this context, it’s easy to imagine Anakin repairing droids to feel closer to the Force, entering a nearly meditative state, similar to what he retreated to after slaughtering the sand people in Attack of the Clones when Padmé finds him fixing a shifter, because “life seems so much simpler when you’re fixing things.” That Obi-Wan does the same for Leia, Anakin’s daughter, forges a moment of intimacy between Anakin (who was), and Obi-Wan, a moment of loss for who they were, a moment of grief for what they have become to each other.
But their lives are not simple. Their relationship cannot be repaired like a droid’s mechanical workings.
As Obi-Wan grapples with the truth, they approach the planet of their destination, Mapuzo, a mining planet wrecked by the Empire. Obi-Wan is still distrustful, causing him to miss the rendezvous with Tala, an Imperial officer who defected. Obi-Wan’s distrust forces him and Leia to find their own way to the spaceport, where they meet Freck, whom Leia is willing to trust, despite Obi-Wan’s statement that not all people are good. Freck ultimately proves Obi-Wan’s reluctance right when he turns them over to a squadron of stormtroopers. Obi-Wan is forced to open fire, betraying their position to the Inquisitors. Yet, if he had only been willing to trust, or if Leia had not been so willing to trust, what came next may not have happened. There’s a sense of tragedy in such an innocuous choice: both were right, but if their decisions had happened at different points in the story, everything would have turned out fine.
Reva, by this point, has pinned her killing the Grand Inquisitor on Obi-Wan. Vader is all too anxious to tell Reva that the Grand Inquisitor means nothing, which must have been validating for Reva to hear after he told her she was the least of them. However, the political tug-of-war over who finds Obi-Wan first continues, even after Vader promises Reva the position of Grand Inquisitor after she succeeds in finding Obi-Wan for him.
If people were shocked at Darth Vader in Rogue One slicing rebel soldiers in half, it’s nothing compared to what he does on Mapuzo. He drags people from their homes with a Force grip at their throats, killing them at whim. It’s meant to hurt Obi-Wan, of course, who physically stumbles under the weight of Vader’s presence, a burden that grows as he witnesses the violence, so easy to contextualize as his fault, before asking Tala to ensure that Leia makes it safely to Alderaan, and as far away from Darth Vader as possible.
Earlier, Leia says she sometimes wonders what her father is like. The juxtaposition of what one can imagine a young child wondering about her lost father compared to the reality of her biological dad murdering innocents as he attempts to drive Obi-Wan out from hiding jars the viewer, but it’s not surprising. This is the same dad, after all, who did nothing to stop Tarkin from blowing up Alderaan a decade later. Though Obi-Wan again says he sees her mother in Leia, Anakin is there too, in the shadows of Leia’s single stray braid through the first half of the episode, so reminiscent of a padawan’s braid. Her longing for her home, for her family, is also very much in line with the driving forces that caused Anakin to fall. Even her fondness for droids is a reminder of Anakin.
Though I appreciated how bold Leia was in the previous two episodes, it is so good she is allowed to be vulnerable. Her voice shakes when she confesses she didn’t mean to run away, that it was for fun. She confesses she misses home, and Obi-Wan promises she will be home soon. That Kenobi invokes the inciting moments of New Hope with their roles reversed, with Leia bringing Obi-Wan to her home, to Alderaan, makes the knowledge of Alderaan’s eventual fate as inescapable and overwhelming as Darth Vader’s presence.
Home and family become closely connected themes. Leia realizes that Obi-Wan knew her real mother, and wonders if he is her father. He says he’s not, and then confesses he believes he has a brother he barely remembers. He casts the Jedi as his new family, just as hers is with the Organas. When Tala brings him to the safe point, he sees that many Jedi have been through there, even Quinlan Voss. Perhaps the Jedi are not as gone as he supposed.
Obi-Wan’s and Vader’s inevitable confrontation lacks the flash and vigor, though not the desperation, of their last duel in Revenge of the Sith. “What have you become,” Obi-Wan asks. “I am what you made me.”
The reply leaves Obi-Wan as breathless as Vader when he first senses him in the streets.
Vader wields his lightsaber with one hand, his strength bearing down on Obi-Wan who struggles to parry with his own blade held in both hands. It’s terrifying, and frightening, and Obi-Wan doesn’t hesitate to flee when he can, but Vader is right, he can’t run. When Vader catches up to Obi-Wan, he lights their path in flames with his lightsaber, casting Obi-Wan into the fire just as Obi-Wan abandoned him a decade ago to burn.
It’s difficult to watch. Vader has clearly been fantasizing about his revenge.
Tala, who leaves Leia to make her way to the ports and their rendezvous pilot alone, saves Obi-Wan with well placed blaster fire, only for Leia to run right into Reva. Though Leia clearly feels the danger Obi-Wan is in through the Force, and even though Tala went for Obi-Wan at Leia’s request, I do find leaving a child that young to navigate such dangerous paths a very questionable choice.
The episode, though heavy with emotional processing and callbacks to the original and prequel trilogies, is not entirely tragic. The moment Leia introduces Lola to NED-B is cute as heck, and even cuter when, after she learns he is not allowed to verbally communicate, she asks, “What if he has something to say?” The stormtroopers end up dismissing NED-B when they search for Obi-Wan. He doesn’t understand, they say, even as NED-B clutches a hammer behind his back, a promise that yes, he does understand, and there is no way they are going to get through him. Actions do speak louder than words, yet there is still that unspoken question Star Wars asks: how sentient are droids? Anakin refused to mind wipe Artoo, a security precaution necessary for machines, but a cruel thing to inflict upon someone with sentience. This can be seen when Threepio is also ordered to be mind wiped at the end of Revenge of the Sith. The moment is played out as humorous, but takes on an unsettling tinge the more sentient droids become in the Star Wars universe.
That said, Star Wars’ treatment of droids is of less concern than their treatment of their Black characters. Star Wars has always had a racism problem, and there are very few Black characters whose potential has not been wasted. Finn was sidelined in his own series, and the introduction of Jannah was tacked on at best.
The character of Reva is in a delicate position, especially now that she is in direct conflict with one of the fandom’s most beloved white characters. However, the viewer learns very little new of Reva that was not already revealed in the first two episodes, and that’s bad. Reva does have an intense, negative emotional reaction when she sees the Jedi symbol which seems to signify her relationship with the Jedi is more than just their hunter, and I am very interested in that, as it plays into the themes of family and loneliness that thread through this episode. I can only hope for more in the subsequent episodes, especially since this is the official halfway point of the season.
Overall, with its continued focus on the tragedy between Obi-Wan and Anakin, this episode packed one heck of an emotional wallop, and next Wednesday feels very far away.