‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Finale Recap: Finishing and Cameos Defined

Obi-Wan Kenobi got here to an finish on Wednesday, with episode 6 — the season finale — of the live-action Superstar Wars miniseries hitting Disney Plus. We stuck up with exiled Jedi Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor), little Princess Leia Organa (Vivien Lyra Blair) and a number of refugees after they fled from Darth Vader (previously Anakin Skywalker, performed via Hayden Christensen and voiced via James Earl Jones) in episode 5.

Sadly, their break out might not be so easy. Anti-Imperial community chief Roken (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), who is been serving to Jedi and Power sensitives break out the Empire by means of an underground railroad referred to as the Trail, finds that their send’s hyperdrive is damaged and the Empire is in scorching pursuit.

Former Imperial Inquisitor Reva (Moses Ingram) was once left for useless via Vader after she attempted to strike the Sith Lord down. She’s too indignant to die despite the fact that and reputedly discovered that 10-year-old Luke Skywalker (Grant Feely) is Vader’s secret son and dwelling in hiding on Tatooine. 

Obi-Wan sensed the chance to Luke in the course of the Power, so I suppose he’s going to need to get again to the wasteland international to confront Reva. No less than nobody discovered that Leia is Vader’s different secret kid.

It is time to draw deeply upon the Power and sense some SPOILERS for the finale. This sequence takes position round 10 years after Revenge of the Sith and 9 years ahead of A New Hope.

The grasp returns

With Vader defeated and Reva having deserted her quest for vengeance via sparing younger Luke, Obi-Wan has opened himself as much as the Power once more. He leaves his dingy Tatooine cave, paying a temporary discuss with to the Lars domicile. 

Uncle Owen (Joel Edgerton) to begin with regards the Jedi along with his same old suspicion however warms to him when Obi-Wan recognizes that Luke “simply must be a boy” and that the Lars’ coverage is the entire younger fella wishes. Is not that great? It is so great, if truth be told, that Owen permits Obi-Wan to satisfy Luke.

“Hi there,” he says to his long term apprentice, breaking out his signature greeting as a result of Lucasfilm could not face up to and all of us had to pay attention it — I definitely really feel higher.

Obi-Wan continues his trek to his new house within the Dune Sea, the place we will to find him in A New Hope, however encounters one remaining particular person on his method — the Power ghost of his past due grasp, Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson).

“Smartly, took you lengthy sufficient,” Qui-Gon says.

The spectral Jedi means that his former Padawan having minimize himself off from the Power was once the rationale he hadn’t proven up quicker.

“I used to be all the time right here, Obi-Wan. You simply weren’t able to peer,” he says. “Come on, we now have were given far to head.”

Qui-Gon was once impaled via Darth Maul in 1999 prequel trilogy opener The Phantom Threat and was once the primary Jedi ever to grow to be a Power ghost and information his allies within the subject material realm.. He in the past taught Yoda to do the similar in The Clone Wars season 6, the place he was once additionally voiced via Neeson. Those reasonably trippy (however wonderful) episodes disclose that Qui-Gon discovered the power from mysterious Power priestesses.

Over the following decade, main into the Authentic Trilogy, Qui-Gon will educate this talent to Obi-Wan. This permits Obi-Wan and Yoda to supply Luke suggest after their deaths. As soon as he is redeemed in Go back of the Jedi, Anakin will achieve this energy, whilst Luke and Leia will accomplish that after their deaths in The Ultimate Jedi and The Upward thrust of Skywalker.

The opposite grasp

Realizing Obi-Wan remains to be available in the market, Vader is throwing a bit hissy are compatible in his fort at the ugly volcano planet Mustafar. Chatting with a holographic projection of his grasp, Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid, who is performed the nature since 1983’s Go back of the Jedi), Vader vows to make a large mess of the galaxy in his hunt for the Jedi.

“I ponder whether your ideas in this are transparent, Lord Vader,” Palpatine says. “Possibly your emotions to your previous grasp have left you weakened. In case your previous can’t be conquer…”

It is extra of that vintage Palps manipulation, since he desires his Sith apprentice taken with galactic domination quite than revenge.The jab/refined risk obviously leaves Vader staken.

“Kenobi method not anything,” he says. “I serve handiest you, my grasp.”

The Imperial March performs as we depart Vader, suggesting that he is 100% Empire. Move group Sith.

Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious, is obsessive about dishonest loss of life, however his use of the darkish facet of the Power method he can not succeed in immortality via turning into a Power ghost. He tries to take action the usage of darkish science and creates a cloned frame for his spirit to retreat to after Vader kills him in Go back of the Jedi, however it is all yucky (as observed in The Upward thrust of Skywalker).

The rematch of the century

The center-piece of the episode is the actual struggle between Vader and Obi-Wan, on a desolate moon that the Jedi has lured his former apprentice to so as to draw the Imperials clear of their pursuit of the refugees. Vader asks if Obi-Wan has come to smash him.

“I can do what I will have to,” Obi-Wan says, echoing his line from the beginning in their duel Go back of the Sith he adopts his vintage prequel-era pose.

It is somewhat a distinction with the 3rd episode, the place Obi-Wan was once tremendous rusty and were given battered via Vader. He has his groove again right here, and it is a lovely epic struggle.

“Your energy has returned, however the weak spot stays,” says Vader, cracking the bottom with the Power and burying Obi-Wan alive. “And because of this you are going to all the time lose.”

Vader additionally has the prime flooring right here — Obi-Wan will have to have recognized he was once in bother.

The Jedi escapes and assaults Vader once more, the usage of a mixture of lightsaber assaults and Power projectiles to break the Sith Lord’s go well with. He in the end slashes open the left facet of Vader’s helmet, in part revealing Anakin’s burnt face.

“Anakin is long gone. I’m what stays,” he says, his James Earl Jones tone diminished to a reasonably digitized model of Hayden Christensen’s voice.

An emotional Obi-Wan apologizes for what Anakin has grow to be. 

“I’m really not your failure Obi-Wan,” Vader responds. “You did not kill Anakin Skywalker, I did. The similar method I can smash you.”

This makes Obi-Wan settle for that his good friend and previous apprentice is long gone. He walks clear of the defeated Sith Lord, leaving Vader to impotely scream his enemy’s identify.

We now have in the past observed Vader’s cracked helmet within the epic season 2 finale of CGI animated sequence Rebels (which takes position a couple of years after this display). Anakin’s former apprentice Ahsoka Tano slashes open the suitable facet of Vader’s masks, exposing a part of the fallen Jedi’s face.

Like Obi-Wan, Ahsoka turns out to get thru to Vader’s former self momentarily. Alternatively, his rage and bitterness temporarily overcomes the relationship, and he tries to assault his one-time good friend.

It is telling that neither Ahsoka nor Obi-Wan, two of the folks Anakin was once closest to in his previous lifestyles, can convey him again. Handiest Luke Skywalker’s love and religion can redeem his father, inflicting the Sith Lord to resign evil and sacrifice his lifestyles to slay Palpatine in Go back of the Jedi, 13 years after the occasions of the Obi-Wan sequence.

The redeemed Anakin asks Luke to take away his helmet altogether, revealing his face totally ahead of he dies. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka forcefully crack open his helmet to get to the gooey Anakin heart and handiest see a part of his options, suggesting he is not prepared to reveal his disgrace and guilt to them.

Vengeance on Tatooine

Talking of Luke, Reva comes to a decision to seek down the younger fella on Tatooine. Aunt Beru (Bonnie Piesse) tells Owen they’re going to protect their nephew on the domicile and pulls out a cache of blasters that they had able for this state of affairs. 

It is cool to peer prequel trilogy actors Edgerton and Piesse getting some motion, however they are no fit for the extremely skilled Reva (even if the previous Inquisitor’s accidents and self-doubt are more than likely slowing her down).

This series comes inside of a hair of breaking continuity, since Luke nearly sees Reva’s lightsaber and she or he assaults him with the Power — two issues his 19-year-old self has no familiarity with when Obi-Wan explains them in A New Hope. Given how disorienting being chased will have to be, it is simple to believe he forgot a lot of this.

Reva in the end catches up with him however can not kill the subconscious boy as she sees her younger self in him. Obi-Wan arrives simply as she brings Luke house safely. She wonders if searching a kid has made her grow to be as unhealthy as Vader. 

“No, you may have selected to not,” Obi-Wan assures her. “Who you grow to be now, this is as much as you.”

Reva tosses her lightsaber within the sand, suggesting that she’s renouncing violence. It is unclear what occurs to her after this, for the reason that persona hasn’t ever seemed out of doors this display. 

Reva’s survival and redemption is the some of the few sides that does not really feel like a closed loop in relation to storytelling. Lots of the different Inquisitors meet grisly results in Rebels and online game Jedi: Fallen Order, so it is cool to grasp there is a minimum of one wandering the galaxy.

The idea that of a dismal Power person attacking the Lars domicile is harking back to the non-canon shaggy dog story Previous Wounds, which is to be had within the 2005 graphic novel Superstar Wars: Visionaries. 

It sees Darth Maul (carrying bionic legs a number of years ahead of he’d do in canon in The Clone Wars) coming after younger Luke to attract out his previous adversary Obi-Wan. It ends with Owen capturing Maul within the head, and Obi-Wan burns the previous Sith Lord’s frame within the wasteland.

Calm on Alderaan

With Leia safely again together with her foster folks on Alderaan, Obi-Wan visits as he promised to. He additionally tells her concerning the qualities she inherited from her past due organic mom Padmé Amidala and her lately evil dad Anakin.

“You might be smart, discerned, kind-hearted. Those are qualities that got here out of your mom,” he says. “However you’re additionally passionate and fearless, forthright. And those are presents out of your father.”

Secondary accounts may sorta provide an explanation for why Leia recalls her mom as “very stunning, form, however unhappy” in Go back of the Jedi. Since Padmé died simply after Leia and Luke had been born, there is not any method Leia in truth recalls her.

Obi-servations and Easter eggs

• Neeson will play Qui-Gon once more in CGI animated sequence Stories of the Jedi, which hits Disney Plus this autumn. The actor’s son will voice a more youthful model of the nature.
• Reva turns out to get from Jabiim to Tatooine tremendous temporarily. The timing of occasions on this episode makes extra sense when you paintings beneath the belief that Reva’s scenes happen after the Obi-Wan/Vader struggle, quite than concurrently.
• Ian McDiarmid’s Palpatine make-up is nearer to his Go back of the Jedi glance than we noticed in Revenge of the Sith and The Upward thrust of Skywalker; I all the time were given the sense that Lucasfilm struggled to duplicate that authentic glance within the persona’s next appearances.
• Obi-Wan’s outfit within the ultimate Tatooine scenes is very similar to Sideshow’s Mythos determine, which was once according to a creative interpretation of his glance between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope ahead of this display was once introduced.
• I suppose the relationship Leia and Obi-Wan forge on this sequence is the rationale she’ll identify her and Han Solo’s son after him (smartly, his Tatooine alias). No less than Ben Solo seems alright after all.
• Bonnie Piesse and her husband had been contributors of the NXIVM cult, however left the crowd in 2017 and spoke out towards it. That is documented in HBO sequence The Vow.
• If you wish to have extra Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan or Obi-Wan and Anakin adventures, take a look at the 2019 novel Grasp & Apprentice or this yr’s Brotherhood.

That is it for Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney Plus, however Superstar Wars will go back to Disney Plus on Aug. 31 within the type of be Andor, a Rogue One prequel sequence taken with insurrection undercover agent Cassian Andor.