Obi Wan Kenobi “Part 5” Review
Obi Wan Kenobi “Part 5” is the fifth episode of the Disney Plus original Obi Wan Kenobi series. Obi Wan finds himself back at the safehouse after “escaping” the Empire at the end of episode 4. There’s a sense of urgency though as the power shuts down and the roof shuts (due to LOLA being overridden but they don’t know that.) Meanwhile we’re treated to clips of padawan Anakin and mullet Obi Wan training, with what Obi Wan is trying to teach Anakin reflecting what Obi Wan is witnessing now (his lack of patience.) Haja makes a quip about not being able to scuttle around in air vents to fix the roof so Leia volunteers. Obi Wan encourages it and she’s sent in to fix the breakers. Whilst all this is happening, Obi Wan has a talk to Reva through the door and here we get her life story, to absolutely nobody’s surprise she was one of the younglings who survived Order 66 pretending to be dead when Vader invaded. Obi Wan tries to use understanding as a weapon but she gets mad at that so she and her troops invade. She and her stormtroopers go on a murderous rampage through the tunnels before she’s stopped by Tala who sacrifices herself by blowing herself up and locking them all in. Just after that, Obi Wan is reminded of Anakin’s tendency to become very single minded and uses that against him, he surrenders himself to Reva making plans in secret to allow her to kill him and enact revenge as Vader would be to preoccupied with him. Obi Wan uses Vader’s lack of patience against him and tricks him by using a fake out ship to force him to use the force to stop it, whilst the real ship takes off and escapes whilst he’s exhausted. Reva sees this as her chance and goes to kill Vader, unfortunately for her he confirms that he always knew she was alive and one of the younglings and that he was just using her, after a small fight Vader stabs Reva. She lies dying, the Grand Inquisitor is confirmed to be still alive but as she’s left there she finds the comlink Obi Wan gave to Haja that Haja dropped. It’s broken but enough of the message gets through that there’s a boy on Tatooine. The episode ends with Obi Wan clearly sensing what’s going on and looking like he’s caught between a rock and a hard place, whilst we see a small clip of young Luke sleeping peacefully.
Review
This episode was leagues better than the first 4. On a purely fanservice note, we see Anakin and Obi Wan training, that alone was enjoyable but what really got me was how it seemed to predict and mirror where things were going to go until Vader pulls the reverse UNO on Reva, showing that he has learned patience. He played into Obi Wan’s hands at every turn knowing exactly what was going to happen. Which, I’m not gonna lie, is likely a retcon to excuse the dogshit writing of the previous episodes.
Reva was obviously kept alive so she can do a “turn about” for the last episode, she’ll go after Luke then become good… again. Honestly at this point the show runners could’ve killed off Reva, let this be the final episode and I would’ve been more than satisfied, I would’ve been thrilled but with one more episode to go I can’t shake the feeling that the show has likely peaked in this one. I’ll be thrilled if I’m wrong and I honestly want to be but I have a horrible feeling for the finale, this episode would’ve worked so much better as a final with a few scenes changed.
On the topic of Reva, she was so much better this episode! More personable and had much more reason to be the way she was. Yes her story was obvious but the way Moses Ingram delivered the lines about her having to lie amongst her friends bodies as they went cold whilst she played dead to survive was heart wrenching.
Episode to retcon or not, I enjoyed the episode and that’s all that really matters.
