Obi-Wan Kenobi episode 4

Our Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 4 recap takes a look at the latest developments in the hit Disney+ series and theorizes on what will happen next.

- I expected this episode to be filler, so it was nice to see that it provided some fun action … even if it didn’t really move the plot forward … and was essentially filler. He uses the Force to distract some guards and eventually pulls out his lightsaber to chop up anyone who steps in his path whilst running through the corridors of Disney’s Rise of the Resistance ride. Finally, 15 minutes into the fourth episode, Ben actually becomes Obi-Wan Kenobi and starts doing the kind of stuff we wanted to see him do from the beginning of the series. What are they keeping down there?” Is this the first time someone has mentioned God in Star Wars? Knowing Disney, they likely dropped in the reference to pave the way for a special appearance from God in later episodes before giving him his own spin-off series. Tala interrupts this exercise to tell Ben (and the audience) that he cares about Leia. Show, don’t tell Star Wars. Back with Ben and Tala, they converse with a man named Roken (now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time), played by O’Shea Jackson Jr., who, like every man in this show, has no desire to risk his life fighting against the Empire. “Get [Ben] on the first transport out of here,” he says, perhaps not knowing that Ben can hear him. Someone needs to remind him that he sent Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair) away with Tala before making a run for it in the previous episode. Ben makes his way inside the Fortress and immediately snaps a Stormtrooper’s neck. You’ll put us all in danger.” Ben steps in and says, “I need your help,” which prompts Roken to say, “So does every kid making a rock float from here to Coruscant.” Like Harrison Ford once said, “You can type this shit …” No one is coming for you,” which is enough to silence the child for the time being. We open with Ben still smarting from his red hot encounter with Darth Vader. He floats in a Bacta tank (i.e., Star Wars‘ solution to any problem) and reminisces about Anakin’s mutilated corpse. There’s not a ton to cover — it was essentially just 15 minutes of exposition followed by 15 minutes of action — but still plenty to enjoy.

A beautifully shot episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi takes the fight to the Inquisitors but doesn't quite stick the landing.

I’m thinking in particular of Leia comforting Luke after Ben’s own death in A New Hope, and the way Leia is never shown mourning her destroyed home planet. It’s fun to watch her use what the Empire taught her against it, though. This does circle back to my major let-down about this episode, though, with Leia taking Obi-Wan’s hand at the very end in one of those understated moments with which Star Wars tends to handle operatic grief. That The Mandalorian episode I mentioned earlier, “The Believer”? Forcing Din Djarin to take his helmet off near the end of that episode helped the emotional arc land. The one-off rebels are also fun, a diverse band that manage some characterization in a few lines. “Part 4” never quite returns to the potent mix of history, character, emotion and world-building provided by that opening bacta scene. Instead, Obi-Wan sees only a few rooms in the base and the inside of a bacta tank. Tala mentions that Obi-Wan might have to forget some of his past to get Leia out alive, but the specter of Vader never really comes back to haunt him. Leia has been captured by the Empire and brought to Fortress Inquisitorius, a name at least one person says with a very straight face. The water in this episode also looks great, full of greens and whites. After some empty-looking landscapes last week, Star Wars is back to thoroughly convincing science fiction hallways in “Part 4” of Obi-Wan Kenobi. The setting certainly helps add tension to an episode that fizzles a bit emotionally in the second half. Obi-Wan and Tala sneak into the fortress using her officer clearance codes.

Obi-Wan Kenobi's latest Leia rescue mission feels slightly repetitive, but episode 4 is a fun, emotional standalone Star Wars adventure nonetheless.

The episode’s use of a “deus ex machina” ending is pretty disappointing. But these little inconsistencies are more than forgivable, because in the context of this story, Obi-Wan’s growing bond with Leia is giving the series a compelling, heartfelt emotional throughline. The ominous red glow of her Stormtrooper guards is disrupted by Obi-Wan gloriously igniting his blue lightsaber, illuminating his own thrilling return to action. The fourth episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi is essentially a Mandalorian-style standalone adventure. “Part IV” maintains the series’ tricky tonal balance between telling a fun-filled space adventure story and exploring a darker, more grizzled Kenobi. There are some truly powerful, poignant moments in this episode. At this point in most Star Wars or Marvel-based Disney+ shows, there have usually been a couple of duds that let down the consistency of the story.

Episode Four of 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' shows a meandering rescue mission, making us wonder where exactly the series is going.

It makes you wonder where Obi-Wan Kenobi is going, or even what the show's raison d'etre is in the first place. How about The Mandalorian 's Season Two finale, literally titled, "The Rescue?" Or Season One's "The Prisoner?" Is it too much to ask for more than a mandatory rescue mission capsule episode per season of a Star Wars show? After a third episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi that actually dared to tease, you know, ramifications from the Anakin Skywalker and Kenobi battle that wrecked the former's life and inspired hundreds of thousands of memes in the process, we're left with somewhat of a filler episode.

BIO-DROID THREAT: Years before the Clone Wars animated series chronicled Obi-Wan's. AN OLD FLAME: The Star Wars movies tend to depict Obi-Wan as a.

The final reveal of Lola now functioning as a tracker for the Inquisition also promises something more explosive on the horizon. The simplicity of the situation also means there’s little of interest for Obi-Wan, Tala, or Leia to do; a few blaster bolt deflections is as good as it gets. Mercifully the shortest of the run so far, episode four is the season’s first misstep. A key issue here is that there are no genuine stakes, the classic problem suffered by prequels. Kenobi sneaks through identical, often perilless corridors in search of his ward, with little more than a blast of water offering any kind of interesting hazard on his journey. This would add uncertainty to a story with an otherwise obviously successful outcome.

From mouse droids to famous vehicles you recognize from other movies, there's a lot to dig into with the new episode. The Disney+ series Obi-Wan has been a ...

While Obi-Wan is trying to escape the fury of the Storm Troopers, we see a Purge Trooper. If you've played Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, you're well-familiar with these troops. Obi-Wan comes across the Jedi tombs, one of which was for a youngling. The fortress is used to train Inquisitors and interrogate Jedi. It's not a good place if you're not working with the Empire. Obi-Wan finds himself on Jabiim. This is an outer rim planet, and this is the first time in live-action we're seeing it. We've seen the Bacta Tank many times before, most recently in The Book of Boba Fett. Luke Skywalker notably spent some time in one after a battle himself in the original trilogy. The Episodes 1 and 2 opening was the biggest opening for any original series to date.

Andy Silva breaks down the fourth episode of the Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney+ which dropped on Wednesday.

I still assume that we will get a flashback featuring Obi-Wan and Anakin because it makes little sense to bring back Hayden Christensen back otherwise, but it remains to be seen how we get there. - I truly enjoyed the moment that Reva, with mock sincerity, promised Leia on her word that no one would be hurt while Leia pretended to be contemplating cooperation. We got plenty of bacta time in The Book of Boba Fett and I had assumed that perhaps this would be the device the show would use to provide a flashback. Obi-Wan is able to deflect a blaster bolt, shutting the blast doors to keep an oncoming Imperial squad at bay, but at the same time the glass is about to give. Tala had questioned what they were keeping there earlier in the episode and Obi-Wan discovers the truth — it is a tomb filled with what appear to be Jedi captured by the Inquisitors. This obviously raises the question of what they are doing there. Is this part of Palpatine’s cloning program, harvesting blood filled with Midichlorians (also seemingly the reason for the hunt for Grogu in The Mandalorian)? We’ll have to wait for answers to that question, as Obi-Wan hears Leia pleading for help as she is put into a torture chamber and he asks Tala to create a distraction. Shockingly, Tala says of course she’s a spy, a double agent that has been undercover for two years and that she had to help Kenobi and Leia so she wouldn’t be killed. Tala does this by urgently summoning Reva and claiming to have information about the Path that she discovered on her post on Mapuzo. Reva is leery, outright asking Tala if she is a spy. - This was the shortest episode of the series thus far and thus there is very little fat here. For the second time in this series Leia is told no one is coming to rescue her (apparently, this is absolutely never true throughout the history of Star Wars). Leia resists Reva’s attempt to use the Force to get information about the Path from her, but Reva intercepts Lola when Leia attempts to use her trusty droid. Luckily for him, Tala says she will go with him, using her Imperial credentials to help (assuming, of course, that her cover was not blown in the prior episode). As I noted above, Kenobi is in dire straits when we catch up with him, taken to Jabiim by Tala and he takes a dip in some bacta.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi" Episode 4 pulls top-notch performances from Moses Ingram, Indira Varma, and Vivien Lyra Blair in an otherwise slow episode.

For 10 years Obi-Wan looked back at his relationship with a Skywalker as folly and weakness, but this is the beginning of a time when it will prove to be his greatest strength. She’s cool as a cucumber, fabricating backstory on the fly, and commanding others aboard the ship with palpable authority. Usually, when a character is in such high-stakes situations, they visibly balk in ways that should give up the whole operation, but get a pass because they cue in the audience to how the character feels. There is no Good Cop/Bad Cop strategy in Reva’s playbook; There is only a cop, and whomever she’s talking to is a criminal. The original Star Wars films reveal this in “Empire Strikes Back,” but the majority of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s history has been built retroactively by George Lucas and Dave Filoni. The “Chapter 4” opening cuts between Obi-Wan healing in a bacta tank and Vader doing the same — another twisted bond between the two of them, like the burns now scarring Obi-Wan’s back. Seeing the pint-sized future Senator Organa in handcuffs sends up a thrill of pure dread, because whatever is about to happen has to directly inform how she acts aboard the Death Star years later.

Darth Vader is back on the fourth episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Image: Lucasfilm. Princess Leia has been captured. She's aboard an impenetrable structure run ...

She calls them out and is ready to make good on her promise to Lord Vader about bringing in the Jedi when, out of nowhere, a pair of ships arrive and start firing. There’s also the fact the episode really locks in the trust and bond between Obi-Wan and Leia which plays out in A New Hope. On the flip side, we’ve now seen four episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi and two of them are about him rescuing Leia from being kidnapped. And where do things leave off between Kenobi and Vader in a way that sends the Jedi back to Tatooine to watch over Luke? We’ll find out soon. Again, this whole conceit of Leia being captured, interrogated, rescued, and the heroes have to fight their way out is pure A New Hope. And the idea of a Jedi infiltrating the Fortress to help Jedi at large is very Fallen Order. A nice blend of the new school and old school. Obi-Wan and Leia reunite with Tala and have one more room to traverse in order to escape: the hangar bay, which is bustling with Imperial activity. However, though you can feel free to correct us in the comments, the only recognizable person we saw looks like Jedi Master Tera Sinube, first introduced in The Clone Wars. That, and a Youngling, which says everything we need to know about the Inquisitors. In fact, she messes with Reva and fights her attempts to use the Force to suck the information out, both of which almost gain Leia Reva’s respect (or so I read from Ingram’s performance, which is taken up a further notch in this episode, and remains a consistent highlight of the show). Eventually, though, Reva has had it, and decides it’s time to get the information the old fashion way: torture. But it’s all cut short: just as Reva is about to mess Tala up, the alarms sound. Seriously I just wanted her to stop walking through the hangar so I could explore the frame and see all the bells and whistles. That sentiment lasts all but two seconds though as Roken quickly agrees to help Kenobi. He reveals Leia’s most likely location is the Fortress Inquisitorius on Nur, which this band of would-be Rebels has an awfully impressive amount of information on (they know Vader is on his ship? Frankly, it could be either, which was one of the cooler aspects of the fourth and latest episode of Disney+’s new Star Wars show. He can’t stop thinking about Anakin when, like a person who leaves the house without their wallet, he finally realizes he’s missing something: Leia. Tala introduces him to a new character named Roken (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) who is not happy Kenobi is there.

The exiled Jedi flees Darth Vader's wrath, but Leia finds herself in Reva's clutches.

The Bad Batch's first season (which takes place 10 years before Obi-Wan) and The Mandalorian (which occurs around 18 years after this show) allude to Palpatine's attempts to use science to extend his own life indefinitely. This bath also presented the perfect opportunity for a delightful flashback -- just ask Boba Fett, that fella loved his snoozy recollections -- to Obi-Wan and Anakin being super Jedi best friends and leaping about in their cool armor during the Clone Wars, but that doesn't happen. Fortress Inquisitorius was previously seen in 2019 video game Jedi: Fallen Order, in which Cal Kestis infiltrates it for the final mission (the game takes place five years before this show). Which is still pretty cool, and better for pacing than hopping back further in the chronology. Some fans might recognize a Cosian that looks like Jedi Master Tera Sinube among the entombed. I guess the events of this show taught her that lesson the hard way.

Four episodes in, I think it's pretty clear that Obi-Wan Kenobi is not the top-shelf Star Wars material we might have hoped for.

That scene was already burdened by the filmmakers decision to wedge in a new face-to-face between the two old frenemies that had little of the mythic power of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s confrontation on Mustafar in Revenge of the Sith or their final battle on the Death Star in A New Hope. Now, its one moment of real urgency, Vader using the Force to push Obi-Wan into a fire so as to mimic Vader’s own injuries, gets brushed away with a quick dunk in a bacta tank. Take that confrontation between Vader and Obi-Wan in the previous episode. All in all, it’s a brisk little episode that reminds me of nothing so much as a cut-scene sequence from a Star Wars video game like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. (It doesn’t hurt that the game features a Fortress Inqusitorius break-in/break-out sequence of its own.) It utilizes the spartan Imperial aesthetic to create an illusion of impregnability, then shows our characters shattering that illusion. Not on the ship literally, but in it—specifically in Leia’s pet droid LOLA. That’s gonna be a bummer for Leia to discover. Fortunately a pair of Path members zoom in and start blasting away, rescuing our heroes at the expense of one of their own lives. Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 4 clocks in at a tight 35 minutes or so minus the opening “previously on” and the closing credits, and in this ep Obi-Wan and his newfound ally Tala, a rogue Imperial officer, infiltrate the Fortress Inquisitorius, home of the Empire’s Jedi-hunting cadres.

Fans theorize the Cosian Jedi Master in the Inquisitor tomb is Tera Sinube, a Jedi Master who appeared in The Clone Wars as a mentor to Ahsoka. Although he ...

Obi-Wan distracts some stormtroopers in the fortress by using the Force to make a sound in the opposite direction. Regular humans were introduced in later as the Empire phased the Grand Army of the Republic out. It is yet another desert planet in the Outer Rim. If that’s him in the amber, Rancisis marks another Jedi Council member snatched up by the Empire. This Thisspiasian is easily recognizable by his long beard. Sinube appears briefly in a tie-in comic for the game, Dark Temple. Jedi Fallen Order, like Obi-Wan Kenobi, relies heavily on the Inquisitors as villains. Of course, it’s possible the bodies in the tomb simply look similar to characters we’ve seen before in the Prequel Trilogy and The Clone Wars. Either way, prepare to be heartbroken…

The Midnight Boys discuss the high jinks that went down at the Inquisitors' base and whether Obi-Wan is getting his groove back with the Force.

Episode 4 of Obi-Wan Kenobi features a daring rescue mission that sees the Jedi master rediscover his power. It's classic Star Wars stuff, done well.

Early on in the episode he struggles to move a tool across a table; by the end of the episode he’s holding back a tidal wave. The escape that follows is chaotic, which ups the stakes as a pair of Rebel pilots come in to rescue Tala, Obi-Wan, and Leia at the cost of one of their lives. The scenes where Obi-Wan and the young princess are caught in a hallway with stormtroopers on both sides and Obi-Wan has to rely on using his sensitivity to the Force in order to deflect laser fire from every direction were easily some of my favorite scenes that McGregor has had this season. Is there a reason the bodies of these people are held in some kind of stasis that never lets them decompose, as opposed to just being incinerated? - The only real nitpick I had with this episode is how much Tala talks on her comm to Obi-Wan while sitting only two seats away from other Imperial officers. One of the most common complaints I’ve seen for this show is that Obi-Wan is too “weak” compared to how he was in Revenge of the Sith or A New Hope. This has bugged me, because that’s kind of the entire point of his arc in this limited series. He effectively sells the idea that Obi-Wan is reconnecting with a primal part of himself ; there are a few blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments where he deflects a bolt speeding toward his back and then almost looks surprised. We saw in the premiere that he went so far as to bury his lightsaber out in the desert, and it’s become clear as the show has gone on that he hasn’t been using the Force during his self-imposed exile, both out of disillusionment and fear of exposing himself to the Empire. Yes, Obi-Wan is weaker in this series; he’s supposed to be. Tala and Obi-Wan’s efforts to infiltrate the Imperial base are a highlight of the episode. It’s hard to believe, but we’re already past the halfway point in Obi-Wan Kenobi. After a rough couple of opening episodes, it feels like this limited series really hit its stride last week with the climactic showdown on Mapuzo. “Part IV” takes the multiple cliffhangers from that episode and runs with them. This is familiar territory for any Star Wars fan; who can even keep track of the amount of times an Imperial base has been infiltrated to save someone? We get some scenes where Reva tries to interrogate young Leia and we see more of the young Princess’ personality as she refuses to out the Path to the Empire.

Obi-Wan Kenobi isn't hanging around. Fresh from a beating (and a burning) at the hands of Darth Vader, the defeated Jedi is put on the Bacta Tank Treatment Plan ...

The Empire – backed by Vader’s fury – promises a more vicious response next time around and should make for a stronger episode. Vader does, however, swoop in and provide the episode with a much-needed jolt of energy. When looking at The Mandalorian and even the cinematic quality of the Andor trailer, it stings to see Obi-Wan occasionally feel like a B-tier show when it should be the main event. Obi-Wan’s discovery of the Jedi tomb – a twisted monument to Order 66 – also brings in a deep cut Clone Wars character. The moxie of Leia (“Is this a staring contest?” she quips) proves to be one of the episode’s highlights, though there are just one too many scenes of Reva – supposedly the Inquisitors’ shining light – trying and failing to get information from a ten-year-old for these scenes to really hold much weight. With just six episodes in the series, it’s a move that could be seen as surgical – a swiping cut that does away with any bloat.

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"As you know, we would never break canon," the screenwriter responded. Pat R writes in that "On the speculation that Reva was a padawan before her time with the Empire, I believe I have more backup. I believe this is another sign that Reva was trained by the Jedi, she stuck out her fighting style with what she was taught before the Inquisitorius Program."