Obi-Wan Kenobi episode 6!

Obi-Wan and ex-Anakin finally get the lightsaber duel (and closure) they've been brooding about for a decade. A recap of “Part VI,” the sixth episode and ...

There’s a bit more of this matching game later in the episode, as Obi-Wan agrees to take a more hands-off “here if you need me” approach to his watching over Luke, tacitly explaining why a teenage Luke is familiar with “crazy old Ben” rather than “the cool lightsaber-wielding guy who’s always watching our backs.” It helps Obi-Wan’s case that he’s not the one who saves Luke from Reva, who knocks him down from an embankment and approaches his unconscious body, ready to strike. I understand that the funky-alien-diner vibe was ultimately not the goal of this relatively somber character piece, but if Obi-Wan pulls a classic prestige TV and does follow up its “limited series” with a second season, I dearly hope it will leave room for some more Lucas-style whimsy. • The petty question that always lingers with me when a cinematic event or character makes the jump to TV is this: Did this need to be a series? (It seems like Vader would have the resources to pursue Obi-Wan while sending the rest of the Empire after the others, but never mind.) Here is the actual lightsaber battle, that “rematch of the century” that can’t really hope to live up to the operatic intensity of characters battling it out on an erupting lava planet. Obi-Wan Kenobi started out feeling like a sequel to a prequel; it ended up feeling like a prequel to itself. That’s doubly true of Obi-Wan’s crushing rejection of Vader’s vow for revenge: “Good-bye,” he says, before adding an uneasy “Darth.” Obi-Wan has never really talked about attempting to bring Anakin back from the dark side; the futile hope and subsequent sad reality of the situation are all allowed to live in McGregor’s performance. (“The weakness still remains … which is why you will always lose!” isn’t worlds away from Darth Helmet’s “Evil will always triumph over good … because good is dumb.”) As directed by Deborah Chow, the fight feels like it has its own visual identity, using her favored (and, let’s be frank, probably cost-effective) lightsabers-as-lanterns technique and the landscape’s roughness to stage something scrappier and less elegant than the Revenge of the Sith face-off. For a few minutes, the show, too, gets to pierce through all of that heavy helmet iconography and look for a human who might be able to meet Obi-Wan’s gaze. As the entertaining and satisfying “Part VI” opens, the Empire is hot on the heels of the transport carrying various Force-adjacent refugees, and while Roken (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) tries to keep hope alive among his passengers, he quietly confides to Obi-Wan that they’re basically screwed. (Doesn’t he also … want to save everyone?) Okay, fine, you want to make it clear that Obi-Wan is actually ready to stop avoiding the big Darth, but boy, it would have been cool if Roken felt like an actual character and not just the person who spouts off contradictory assertions to gin up nominal conflict. Gleaming, menacing helmets have become a major part of the Star Wars iconography, to the point where they’ve come to symbolize a kind of originalist traditionalism in the series. Yet the movie is prescient about one aspect of Star Wars movies that had not yet been produced back in 1987: Underneath the gleaming, menacing dark helmet is a whiny, insecure human being — whether it’s Rick Moranis or Hayden Christensen.

Yes, that's Liam Neeson as the Force ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn, returned from the dead at long last to help guide his former student Obi-Wan Kenobi. Based on the ...

It doesn’t do this work with nearly the brio of, say, Rogue One, an interquel that took real tonal risks and neatly tied itself off at the end (to the detriment of any characters you might have wanted to see live to fight another day, but still). Obi-Wan is clearly designed to be open-ended, as everything from Reva’s survival to the climactic appearance of Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn’s Force ghost makes clear. Bonnie Piesse is good as his wife Beru (a role originated by Shelagh Fraser), too, but Edgerton really feels like the gruff, protective, no-bullshit man played by Phil Brown whom we meet in A New Hope. Edgerton is as good at this in his own way as Ewan McGregor is in capturing some of the vocal mannerisms of Alec Guinness. He knows that the age situation between himself and Guinness really can’t be explained away, so he spent the whole series going hard on Obi-Wan’s overall sense of loss, failure, weariness, aging himself before his time. I even enjoyed Obi-Wan’s parting shot of calling Anakin “Darth,” which is not a name but an honorific, and which he will do again on the Death Star years later. (This is why stuff like “Why didn’t he just kill him when he had the chance?” is popping up in my mind—not because I’m some CinemaSins-style pedant, but because the project’s overall sense of mild aimlessness gave my brain a chance to question plot holes I’d otherwise overlook.) And finally, he and Qui-Gon ride off into the distance, to watch and wait and prepare for that one final mission. In order to save the refugees from the Jedi/Force-sensitive relocation program called the Path from the Darth Vader–helmed Star Destroyer that’s firing on them, Obi-Wan jets off on his own and lures Vader into battle.

Readers of my previous Obi-Wan Kenobi reviews know that I have been a pretty harsh critic of the latest live-action Star Wars show on Disney+.

I can’t think of a single tune, whereas I still get The Mandalorian’s theme stuck in my head randomly. - Leia using the holster Ben gave her as a pouch for Lola the droid is adorable. This, again, reminded me too much of the lousy slow chase in The Last Jedi and I find it beyond silly to watch Vader’s Star Destroyer unsuccessfully chase one single transport ship that’s not even a fast or exciting ship like the Millennium Falcon. I also find myself more annoyed with Leia than anything during all of her scenes. He’s off on a new adventure when the credits roll, lending some credence to the idea that a second season could, indeed, happen. But given that Obi-Wan is a Jedi with knowledge of the Sith, he knows that this is not a name, not something you’d call anyone. Owen and Beru put up a fine defense—it goes better than when the Stormtroopers attack nine years later—but ultimately Luke has to flee into the desert where Reva tracks him down and knocks him unconscious. If he’s accepted that this isn’t his former friend and pupil, that he is now a killer and a monster and a clear and present danger to Luke, Leia and the fledgling rebellion (not to mention himself) why not just end the bastard now? Elsewhere in the show we get the Reva storyline’s resolution. But just in terms of the story in this show, in isolation, why doesn’t he kill him? And the first showdown between Darth Vader and our titular hero was pretty bad, to say the least. The ensuing dialogue between Anakin and Obi-Wan is also quite good. The problems up to this point have been manifold.

As Obi-Wan Kenobi prepares for a showdown with Darth Vader, someone else's revenge plan may destroy the future of the galaxy.

After a tense reunion with Obi-Wan, Owen and Beru prepare to search for Luke before Reva returns with the boy in her arms. Days later, Obi-Wan arrives on Alderaan to say goodbye to Leia. Obi-Wan also returns home and packs his things before reconciling with Owen. In return, Owen allows Obi-Wan and Luke to meet for the first time. In the ensuing rematch, Vader’s mask is broken and he speaks as both Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. Although Vader is too weak to continue the fight, he tells Obi-Wan that he killed Anakin Skywalker. Obi-Wan reluctantly accepts this and leaves his injured nemesis behind. Obi-Wan receives flashes of Reva’s attack on Owen, Beru, and Luke before he races to Tatooine. However, Reva’s head start insurmountable. When Reva attacks, her weakened state gives Owen and Beru the chance to defeat her. While the Empire chases Obi-Wan and The Path refugees through space, Reva is already on Tatooine and asking questions about Owen. Darth Vader refuses to let up on his former friend and mentor, so Obi-Wan decides to leave his new friends and give them the best chance to escape.