Hello There!
The penultimate episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi aired 15th June and throughout this post we’re going to look at all the easter eggs, hidden details, and things you missed. I also want to discuss the series as a whole and my general reaction to it – but we’ll go over that towards the end of the post.
Heavy Spoilers from here on out so if you haven’t watched the episode yet then click away!
Episode 4 had Obi-Wan launching an attack on Fortress Inquisitorius in order to rescue Princess Leia. Vader was p***ed at Reva for letting him get away however she had a new hope (see what we did there!) in the fact she’d placed a tracking device aboard the milleni…Lola.
Her name was Lola she was a probe droid and she’s now given them a way to track the group.
Flashbacks and foreshadowing
We start off on Coruscant with a Flash bacta the time of the clone wars without the bacta tank. In the same place that we saw the Younglings training in episode 1, we watch Anakin and Obi-Wan duel it out. This is back when they were both mates around the time of Attack of the Clones which we can tell due to the hairstyles that the pair have. Anakin is still an apprentice, hence the ponytail, and it’s one of Vader’s fondest memories.
Throughout this episode, we get several flashes of it and it appears several times showing Vader’s impatience and anger, and showcasing the differences between the two characters. This battle of course holds more meaning now that they are enemies. It’s filled with lots of foreshadowing of the fights they’d later have. The combat style is also more like the prequels and we’ve watched through the show how Vader adopted a different style of fighting in episode 3 that was more in line with what he had later on.
We get two versions of him in flashbacks throughout the episode; when he’s still a Jedi and later on when he becomes a Sith. He almost beats Obi-Wan but this episode shows there are other ways to fight and Anakin actually learns this as we get further into it. He knocks Obi-Wans weapon out his hand and we also get this line from Anakin:
“Your weapon’s gone. It’s over.”
To which Obi-Wan responds: “your need for victory, Anakin, it blinds you.”
Later on Obi-Wan hands over his weapon and he theorises that Vader will be unable to see his plan with Reva because he’s blinded by his need to win.
Vader and Reva
We cut to the bridge of his Star Destroyer to see him gazing out into the galaxy. This is a motif that’s popped up several times in the saga and it’s not only where we last saw him in Revenge Of The Sith but it’s also a stance he took after beating Luke in Empire.
This is Devastator class and it’s one of the most iconic ships in the Star Wars universe. This has appeared a number of times throughout the saga and the first time it showed up in the timeline was during the battle of Scariff in Rogue One when Vader arrived. It later appeared at the start of a New Hope and then at the beginning of the Battle Of Hoth, all of which were considered victories for the Empire.
Enter Reva, who informs him they’re just arriving to Jabiim. This was the planet that we saw last time and it has a number of things that have happened there in the expanded lore. After Order 66 this planet because the final sanctuary for the Path and it’s where the Force-sensitive people who made it there received new identities. It was also a planet that fell under the control of the First Order and using Wookiee slaves they mined the planet.
Reva is told to kneel and she’s given the position of Grand Inquisitor, making her Vader’s right hand…ey, bit of a joke because his right hand got cut off… never mind. Must be nice being assistant to the Regional Sith Lord. We later learn that this is all part of the plan and that she’s actually hunting Vader for what he did in the Jedi Temple.
Obi-Wan and Leia
Obi-Wan arrives to find that Haja is now there and we discover after the end of Episode 2 that he became wanted by the Empire.
Roken talks about how the people there have all been waiting for a transport to leave and typically those here would be sent on secret trade routes through the Galaxy. These were unmonitored by the Empire and they allowed characters like Han Solo to carry out smuggling jobs.
Lola goes into one of the service tunnels and we saw something similar in the Mandalorian when Grogu attempted to fix the Razor Crest at the start of the Ahsoka episode.
The droid ends up sealing them inside, in order to attempt to get them to surrender which is what the main focus of this episode centres around.
On the wall, Obi-Wan sees the names of Jedi along with the crest in the middle. This is of course similar to the underground railroad walls in episode 3.
Next to it is a box of lightsabers and as we know these are all personally built by the Jedi. I actually went through a guide of lightsaber handles that have appeared in the saga and tried to match them up but there weren’t really that many I could line up. The second from the left actually looks like Quinlan Vos’ who we know travelled the Path. He was a rebellious badass Jedi that was name-dropped in episode 3 and it seems like this belongs to him. Let me know below if you know the others as well. There’s also a robe alongside it and this brings back memories of the Order to Obi-Wan
Vader sends in two landing ships and these look like the precursors to the ones from the start of The Force Awakens. There are several aliens in the hanger including Trandoshans who put their heads together. These are the same species as Boskk and it really shows the despair they have.
Outside, the Stormtroopers arrive with Reva and along with a repeating blaster we can also catch Purge Troopers. These were actually the personal forces of The Inquisitors and they were adept soldiers, promoted for their ability to track and kill Jedi.
They manage to keep it pretty tense even though it’s mostly them just standing outside the door constantly shooting for ages, like 20 minutes.
Unable to get the hanger open they end up sending Leia into the vents to do a Die Hard on her white gown and Obi-Wan ends up pulling his holoprojector out of his pocket. This was a tool the Jedi often carried with them alongside their commlink and he opens it to a message from Bail Organa. He says he’s gonna go to Tattooine to protect the boy and we get lots of beard-stroking from Obi-Wan. This is something that he adopted throughout the saga and it’s also a gesture he did at the end of Revenge of the Sith.
Tala goes to meet him and you might recognise this room as where he recovered in the bacta tank last week. She brings up the planet Garel, a rocky, desert planet located in the outer rim. As she says this was controlled by the Empire but a rebel group known as the Phoenix Cell rose up there. Though she doesn’t bring it up it’s likely that Tala was instrumental in the fractures of the group starting because of what they witnessed. The Inquisitors ruthlessly wiped out several families in front of her and her squadron which caused dissent. We see that she’s knocked up tally marks on her blaster holster which as we learned is located on the opposite side of how it’s normally worn so that she is a quicker draw.
I counted 14 and this mirrors the fact that she says 14 people died there because of the Inquisitors.
Roken calls them out and we see an astromech droid at this point. Now, this could be R2D2 however, we know from the first episode that he was alongside C3PO on Alderaan so I don’t know if he would end up here.
Reva’s Revenge
Obi-Wan wants to communicate with Reva and he brings up the point that she knew Vader was Anakin which as we theorised, means that she met him during Order 66. See I told you it was worth sitting through all those theory times!
Anakin arrived hood-up like how he did in Revenge of The Sith and he mercilessly cut down the other Younglings in front of her. At the start of Episode 1 there were 5 Younglings so there being just 3 here shows the other two were wiped out in the skirmish. In the background we also catch a downed Jedi beside a trooper from the 501st, possibly hinting at them dying in order to protect the Younglings. The 501st was also the unit that we saw the markings of on the homeless trooper in Episode 2, showing the complete disregard the Imperials had for the clones after the Order.
Though we only get a split-second shot of one of the Younglings getting cut down, I believe that this is the same one we saw in the tomb last week. Huge shoutouts to Jeff Halm on Twitter for pointing this out on our last breakdown and due to them still being in their training gear they likely would’ve been snatched right away after the attack played out.
Huge shoutouts to Ricky Kail for pointing out there’s also this figure in robes and they do look somewhat similar to Palpatine’s assistant Janus Greegatus. The timeline is off for this with it happening before Jedi but the robes look very similar. So it’s likely that they come from the same order and might even be a relative or something.
It’s also possible that they’re one of the witches of Dathomir, Force-sensitive mystics that have acted as both allies and antagonists in the Star Wars saga. If you’ve played Fallen Order then you’ll remember that they popped up in that and they were also mentioned in Book of Boba Fett as being Rancor Riders. I think that’s the more likely option and it paints the picture that this facility is experimenting on the corpses of the Force-sensitive beings here.
We know that Palpatine was in the process of attempting to clone not only himself but also Snoke. I think this will basically be the next step up from the cloning facility on Kamino and we’ll learn that this was the first step in trying to take the Midichlorians from others so that they can be placed into a clone body. This was something that the Imperials were seemingly attempting to do to Grogu as well and potentially we’ll learn more about this next week. Though don’t count on it cos they’ve been just laying the breadcrumbs for this forever.
Reva says she thought Anakin was there to help but all he wanted to do was kill Younglings. This is likely where she gained her distrust for the Jedi and she played dead. We discover Vader stabbed her in the stomach and she laid with the other bodies in order to avoid detection.
We also learn Reva’s true motives and as we also talked about in an earlier video. Can’t remember who said it exactly but shoutouts them again for saying that Reva was trying to gain a private audience with Vader so that she could kill him and by taking Obi-Wan to the villain she would gain his trust. She doesn’t believe Obi-Wan will actually kill him and as we saw in Revenge, he left him for dead rather than finishing the job.
She blames him for not helping the Younglings and this was also something we discussed in previous videos. If you cast your mind back to Revenge you’ll remember that he and Yoda went to the Temple, watched the CCTV tapes and Obi-Wan ended up venturing to Mustafar rather than staying to search for survivors.
He likely would’ve helped out others and this would’ve stopped Reva going to the Imperials. Again, theory time!
She slices open the blast door in a move that’s similar to Qui-Gon cutting through it in Phantom Menace.
Could’ve done this way earlier and saved everyone some time, but it leads to a big shootout. We see that Roken carries a bowcaster and which was also the preferred weapon of Chewbacca.
Obi-Wan breaks out the blocks like I do when I get anyone who says ‘this review is crap mate’ and they really show Stromtroopers can’t shoot for s**t cos they’re right in front of them.
Tala is shot, as is Ned and they cut the sound out and play emotional music over the top similar to the ending of Rogue One. This reminded me a lot of K2SO’s death but she goes the extra mile by setting off a thermal detonator. This was something Leia threatened to do in Return of the Jedi and we see the full effects of this play out whereas Jabba de-escalated the situation.
Vader orders Reva to stand down as he believes that Obi-Wan will do anything to protect the people and that this includes surrendering. In episode 1 we saw Nari refuse to let others get hurt and this is of course ingrained into the Jedi code. Obi-Wan refused to do this in episode 1 so it shows he’s slowly going back to his old ways. He hands over his gear and we see that it’s all part of his plan to try and get Reva to work with him in taking down the villain.
He pleas to her using the same things that Tala witnessed, bringing up families and sort of doing a Kylo Ren and Rey in how they took down Snoke.
Leia finds a restraining bolt on Lola in the vents and she removes this. This was something that was also placed on R2D2 and C3PO by the Jawas and it allows them to control droids if needs be.
Leia opens up the hanger doors and Vader marches in and attempts to pull down the transport using the Force. This is something that we’ve seen at multiple points in the franchise and not only did Rey do it in Rise of Skywalker but we also saw Star Killer in the Force Awakens bring down an entire Star Destroyer. It’s a bait-and-switch and the real transport manages to make it out. Vader was seemingly blinded by his victory of taking down the transport he missed the other. However, he does sus things out so perhaps this was part of his own plan to sniff out Revas true intentions.
In the wide shot of the hanger we can also catch the T-47 airspeeders that they used to launch the rescue mission last week.
Haja also leaves the holoprojector and we get a flashback in which Obi-Wan beats Anakin, who was constantly trying to prove himself but it was his undoing.
Reva goes to attack however he catches the blade using the Force and easily beats her without even busting out his blade. We see the quadruple styles of the Inquisitor Lightsaber and this includes the single blade, double, spinning one and then dual. Vader ends up going toe-to-toe with her using the other one and much in the same way that Obi-Wan beat him stealing his blade, Darth does the same thing. This is probably the standout scene in the series for me and we get flashes of her childhood as he walks toward hers. The stabbing in her youth is also the same as what happens here and she ends up surviving it cos, yeah should’ve killed her mate.
Return of the Grand Inquisitor
Basically, it turns out Obi-Wan and Reva’s theory time was wrong and we also get the return of the Grand Inquisitor who likely told Vader the truth.
Now he is a character we’ve talked and talked and talked about every week and we did bring up several times how we thought he was still alive. This was actually somewhat spoiled last week when Rupert Friend who played the character appeared on Jimmy Kimmell.
They brought up the fact that he got stabbed in the stomach and Friend added that he only got stabbed in one of them.
If you’ve been watching them then you’ll know how we had someone on Twitter called Kylo_Xen 
reach out to us to talk about the novel The Last Shot. This discussed how Pau’un males had two stomachs and we theorised that this could be how he survived…eating a Balti from Kens Super Hot Indians down the road from me.
Vader also calls her Youngling, further calling back to her past to belittle her.
Reva finds the holoprojector and the message from Bail lets her know about Tattooine. Now she likely feels abandoned by Obi-Wan once more and sees this as her being left to be stabbed so that he can get away once more. I do think that it’ll all go down on Tattooine but I think when she discovers that he is protecting a child she will see she had the wrong impression of him and that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Judging by Obi-Wans expression at the end it seems like he’s surprised his plan didn’t work and he knew he’d be abandoning Reva to go toe-to-toe with Vader. Makes it seem like he didn’t really care about her and this is why the ending is so worrying as she likely wants revenge.
Series Overview
Now that’s my thoughts on the episode and for the next part of the post, I thought I’d go over my general thoughts for the series so far. I did a big Twitter thread about this last week and I think my main issue over the Disney shows in general is that most of them are written like six-hour movies rather than what they are which is a tv show. The six-hour movie thing is something that you constantly hear popping up whenever they talk in interviews and I think that has its pros and cons.
The majority of TV shows in general tend to have almost sort of self-contained episodes where there’s a sort of mini-adventure with the characters and then you might get something at the end that teases the greater plot. This is seen in things like Rick and Morty, Star Trek, well the earlier stuff, Quantum Leap, X-Files, Agents of Shield, The Mandalorian, Heroes and so on and so forth. This isn’t across the board but on the whole, this is a format that writers tend to adopt.
Now, these long-form movie formats for shows often work but they tend to bring in a lot of characters so that things don’t get stale. You see this in stuff like Stranger Things where it feels very cinematic and it isn’t exactly standalone but you have so many characters in it that it doesn’t get boring. I think the main issue I have with Obi-Wan is that we have the Leia rescue mission but it’s being dragged out for hours and hours and hours with very few characters so it feels a bit unnecessary. Remember this is pretty much the same storyline as A New Hope but that had way more going on with it in way less time.
When coming into the show I thought it would be a sort of Adventures of Obi-Wan type thing where he’d be on Tattooine, maybe he’d come across a character that was down on their luck, help them out and pop back to Luke to make sure he’s ok. This is a format we saw in the comics and it allowed Obi-Wan to have run-ins with Black Krrsantan, Jabba the Hutt and so on.
Maybe I had the wrong expectations for it but I thought we’d get an almost Incredible Hulk type of show where Obi-Wan would wander into town, he’d help someone out, this would make him bust out a lightsaber, it would alert the empire and he’d have to flee before Vader showed up. Again this is all my opinion but with there being rumours that we’re getting a second season I hope they go that route instead of the way they are with these 6 hour long simplistic stories.
I am still enjoying the series I just think that they should maybe do longer series where they have like 8-10 episodes with more self-contained ones rather than what we have. I know it’s super difficult for Lucasfilm as well as they have so many toxic opinions to deal with too so it’s probably difficult for them to actually figure out what critiques to listen to and what ones to ignore.
Also, we have all the marketing and interviews with Hayden and Ewan McGregor that made it seem like they were gonna be the two main characters but yeah, Vader’s role isn’t that big which, I feel is a bit of a missed opportunity.
Anyway, that’s our thoughts and all the easter eggs we could find on the series. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the episode and if we missed anything then make sure you comment below and let us know.
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