![]() ![]() One wouldn’t mistake this for a subtle scene.Įven as his outward wounds heal, Obi-Wan’s spirit is tortured, though now his nightmares of Anakin feature recent events. They’re both grievously wounded in more than one way, and they’re both suspended in prisons partly of their own making. In case those allusions weren’t obvious enough, we observe Vader in the present, marinating in his bacta tank as Obi-Wan thrashes in his. ![]() We linger on his charred skin-unlike Vader or Monty Python’s Black Knight, his physical complaints really are limited to just flesh wounds-and we see through his unfocused eyes as he stares upward, mimicking the POV shot from Episode III in which Vader watches his mask descend for the first time. We see Obi-Wan being carried on a stretcher, looking like the supine Vader as he was escorted to surgery in Revenge of the Sith. The beginning of the episode, like the end of Part 2 and the start of Part 3, employs visual parallels between Obi-Wan and Vader. ( They rhyme.) But before he can get down to the daring rescue, Obi-Wan has to heal, at least a little bit. If Part 3 was an homage to the Cloud City lightsaber battle from The Empire Strikes Back, Part 4 almost too faithfully echoes the Death Star escape in Episode IV. Good thing the Force is with him, as are Tala and a trio of new allies. Obi-Wan’s gotta get back on his feet, infiltrate the fortress, liberate Leia-proving for the second time in this series that he can save a Skywalker-and escape, all in roughly 30 minutes of screen time. Leia isn’t as lucky: Despite the world-class sprinting skills she showed off in the first two episodes, she can’t outrun Reva, who holds her captive at Inquisitor HQ. Allowed to escape by a bored Sith lord who’d hoped his prey would provide more of a challenge, he’s spirited to Jabiim, the last stop on the Path that ferries Force sensitives to safety. When we left Ben, he was burned inside and out by his ineffectual fight with his former apprentice. “We’re wasting time,” Tala barks early in the episode, setting the tone for a chapter that moves at a much more hurried pace than Part 1’s leisurely look at Kenobi’s incognito routine on Tatooine. The machinations needed to set up the next traumatic run-in places extra pressure on the shortest episode of the series so far, and its storytelling-like the windows on the detention level of Fortress Inquisitorius-springs some leaks. The latest episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi boasts its entertaining set pieces, movie references, and emotional moments too, but the obligatory reset shifts focus away from the broken bond between Kenobi and Vader, which has driven the narrative ever since Reva notified the former that the latter was alive. That clash can’t come for another week or two, though, which puts Part 4 in the thankless position of being a bridge between climaxes. ![]() So how does Part 4 follow that up? By laying the groundwork for the next confrontation, of course-the one that will double the duel count as it stood before this series. Last week’s episode upped that total by 50 percent, which automatically made it momentous for fans of the first two trilogies. Until Part 3 of Obi-Wan Kenobi, the vast Star Wars corpus contained only two encounters between Kenobi and Darth Vader, counting the one in which Obi-Wan wound up with the high ground. ![]()
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