[7.1/10] I’m torn on this episode. It has some truly compelling ideas and set pieces at play on the one hand, and some baffling story choices and clunky sequences on the other. I’m not sure how it all comes in the wash.
So let’s start with the good stuff. The reveal that Reva is not, in fact, just an ambitious Inquisitor trying to rise to the top for the sake of personal success, but rather trying to get close to Vader to pay him back for slaughtering her fellow younglings, is a superb one. Her history with Anakin not only explains (sort of) how she knows his secret, but deepens her motivation and gives her common ground with Anakin. It’s the sort of layer the character’s been missing to this point, and the reveal makes “Part V” her best episode.
My only complaint is why did they have to wait to reveal this until now? Modern television shows, genre shows in particular, are near-obsessed with major twists and reveals. It’s all well and good to surprise the audience, but as with Reva, when you have to play the characters’ motivations so close to the vest, it flattens them until we see those hidden depths and complications. They could easily have revealed this in “Part III” and had the intrigue of Reva playing her own game that would have made her close calls with both Kenobi and Vader more interesting.
The interactions between Kenobi and Vader themselves are more interesting here, though. I’ll admit, it’s neat to see the two characters in their Episode II guises. The fact that we’ve entered an era of Prequel nostalgia is a little odd for someone my age, and yet, I’d be lying if it didn’t spark something to see McGregor and Christensen stepping into those roles and that time again.
The way that their sparring match in the past matches their broader tactics in the present is a touch on the nose given the editing, but still counts as clever. Anakin’s over-aggressiveness and need to win, matched with Obi-Wan’s famed willingness to find “alternatives to fighting” and deft bits of trickery to win the day plays out in both their saber duel and their chess match on Jabiim. Vader’s brute force attacks, paralleled with Obi-Wan using a decoy ship and siccing Reva on Anakin to secure an escape helps show that, however much has changed since those days, Anakin and his former master are still, deep down, the same people they were all those years ago.
Plus, once more, Darth Vader is a terrifying badass. Him almost casually pulling a spaceship back into dock is some near-Force Unleashed stuff. At the same time, the way he just toys with Reva when she attacks him displays the full force of his power. There’s no wasted movement from him, no grand efforts necessary to defeat her. It’s a fighting style vaguely in line with his battles in the Original Trilogy, but in a calm, steady way that contrasts with Reva’s overmatched fury. It’s the best fight in the show so far, one that's compelling despite, and in some ways because, of the ways in which the outcome is never much in doubt.
But man, some of the story choices are weak. So Vader and The Grand Inquisitor knew Reva was planning to betray them all along? To what end? Why did they allow this to go forward. If you want to read between the lines, you could suggest maybe they thought/foresaw that she would lead them to Obi-Wan, but neither of them ever seems to hint at that possibility in prior episodes, making this yet another important detail toward character motivation that's either hidden or just spackled on here, without the creative team letting it inform the characters’ choices in the moment. At worst, it just flat out doesn’t make sense, with it seeming as though both Anakin and The Grand Inquisitor would make different choices along the way if they had this information.
I also haaaaate that they don’t just kill her on Jabiim. You can rationalize it that they don’t just want to end her life; they want to make her suffer for treachery. But come on. How many times in Star Wars have we seen characters conspicuously left for dead without being firmly offed only for them to conveniently come back later in the narrative. The trope is incredibly hacky, and I’m tired of supposedly brutal villains doing stupid crap like this that will conveniently backfire in some way rather than finishing the job. Anything Reva does after the duel will inevitably play as unearned because it rests on Vader and The Grand Inquisitor both being stupid and not eliminating a clear threat.
I also just don’t care about Tala. The episode does its best here, showing “important” clips from prior episodes in the “Previously On” and giving her an awkward and writerly monologue about why she does this before the big battle goes down. But she’s barely been a character up to this point. She’s more of a backstory delivery mechanism and walking plot-advancer than a three-dimensional player. Honestly, I got more emotion out of the loader droid trying to shield her than anything involving her death and sacrifice.
What’s more, Leia helping to save the day, safely away from the fighting with the other refugees, in a space where only a child can go, scans as awfully convenient. There’s still some of the spunkiness in the kid, which helps, and getting Kumail Nanjiani back is a treat, but you can tell the show wasn’t one hundred percent sure what to do with her and them during all this.
On a less significant level, it’s not clear why the Imperials would pause to “talk” with Obi-Wan, or how, even fronted by a Jedi, the proto-rebels could withstand the stormtroopers in this outmanned and outgunned assault The mechanics of the stand-off don’t make sense, which isn’t the biggest sins given the usual conceits of Star Wars, but took me out of the moment since they didn’t even make intuitive sense.
Therein lies the yin and yang of “Part V”. So many of the practicalities of this skirmish don’t add up. The major death is a dud. And the villains’ choices don’t make much sense. But Vader is once again the imposing monster he should be. The connection between he and Kenobi’s past and present is commendable. And the reveal of the common ground between Obi-Wan and Reva, replete with a piercing guilt trip about how Kenobi wasn’t able to protect her, are all strong beats. The frustrating things about back half of this show is how the promising ideas and story points are surrounded by elements that weaken them, as the clear potential at play leads to excitement mingled with disappointment.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2022-06-16T05:31:42Z
[7.1/10] I’m torn on this episode. It has some truly compelling ideas and set pieces at play on the one hand, and some baffling story choices and clunky sequences on the other. I’m not sure how it all comes in the wash.
So let’s start with the good stuff. The reveal that Reva is not, in fact, just an ambitious Inquisitor trying to rise to the top for the sake of personal success, but rather trying to get close to Vader to pay him back for slaughtering her fellow younglings, is a superb one. Her history with Anakin not only explains (sort of) how she knows his secret, but deepens her motivation and gives her common ground with Anakin. It’s the sort of layer the character’s been missing to this point, and the reveal makes “Part V” her best episode.
My only complaint is why did they have to wait to reveal this until now? Modern television shows, genre shows in particular, are near-obsessed with major twists and reveals. It’s all well and good to surprise the audience, but as with Reva, when you have to play the characters’ motivations so close to the vest, it flattens them until we see those hidden depths and complications. They could easily have revealed this in “Part III” and had the intrigue of Reva playing her own game that would have made her close calls with both Kenobi and Vader more interesting.
The interactions between Kenobi and Vader themselves are more interesting here, though. I’ll admit, it’s neat to see the two characters in their Episode II guises. The fact that we’ve entered an era of Prequel nostalgia is a little odd for someone my age, and yet, I’d be lying if it didn’t spark something to see McGregor and Christensen stepping into those roles and that time again.
The way that their sparring match in the past matches their broader tactics in the present is a touch on the nose given the editing, but still counts as clever. Anakin’s over-aggressiveness and need to win, matched with Obi-Wan’s famed willingness to find “alternatives to fighting” and deft bits of trickery to win the day plays out in both their saber duel and their chess match on Jabiim. Vader’s brute force attacks, paralleled with Obi-Wan using a decoy ship and siccing Reva on Anakin to secure an escape helps show that, however much has changed since those days, Anakin and his former master are still, deep down, the same people they were all those years ago.
Plus, once more, Darth Vader is a terrifying badass. Him almost casually pulling a spaceship back into dock is some near-Force Unleashed stuff. At the same time, the way he just toys with Reva when she attacks him displays the full force of his power. There’s no wasted movement from him, no grand efforts necessary to defeat her. It’s a fighting style vaguely in line with his battles in the Original Trilogy, but in a calm, steady way that contrasts with Reva’s overmatched fury. It’s the best fight in the show so far, one that's compelling despite, and in some ways because, of the ways in which the outcome is never much in doubt.
But man, some of the story choices are weak. So Vader and The Grand Inquisitor knew Reva was planning to betray them all along? To what end? Why did they allow this to go forward. If you want to read between the lines, you could suggest maybe they thought/foresaw that she would lead them to Obi-Wan, but neither of them ever seems to hint at that possibility in prior episodes, making this yet another important detail toward character motivation that's either hidden or just spackled on here, without the creative team letting it inform the characters’ choices in the moment. At worst, it just flat out doesn’t make sense, with it seeming as though both Anakin and The Grand Inquisitor would make different choices along the way if they had this information.
I also haaaaate that they don’t just kill her on Jabiim. You can rationalize it that they don’t just want to end her life; they want to make her suffer for treachery. But come on. How many times in Star Wars have we seen characters conspicuously left for dead without being firmly offed only for them to conveniently come back later in the narrative. The trope is incredibly hacky, and I’m tired of supposedly brutal villains doing stupid crap like this that will conveniently backfire in some way rather than finishing the job. Anything Reva does after the duel will inevitably play as unearned because it rests on Vader and The Grand Inquisitor both being stupid and not eliminating a clear threat.
I also just don’t care about Tala. The episode does its best here, showing “important” clips from prior episodes in the “Previously On” and giving her an awkward and writerly monologue about why she does this before the big battle goes down. But she’s barely been a character up to this point. She’s more of a backstory delivery mechanism and walking plot-advancer than a three-dimensional player. Honestly, I got more emotion out of the loader droid trying to shield her than anything involving her death and sacrifice.
What’s more, Leia helping to save the day, safely away from the fighting with the other refugees, in a space where only a child can go, scans as awfully convenient. There’s still some of the spunkiness in the kid, which helps, and getting Kumail Nanjiani back is a treat, but you can tell the show wasn’t one hundred percent sure what to do with her and them during all this.
On a less significant level, it’s not clear why the Imperials would pause to “talk” with Obi-Wan, or how, even fronted by a Jedi, the proto-rebels could withstand the stormtroopers in this outmanned and outgunned assault The mechanics of the stand-off don’t make sense, which isn’t the biggest sins given the usual conceits of Star Wars, but took me out of the moment since they didn’t even make intuitive sense.
Therein lies the yin and yang of “Part V”. So many of the practicalities of this skirmish don’t add up. The major death is a dud. And the villains’ choices don’t make much sense. But Vader is once again the imposing monster he should be. The connection between he and Kenobi’s past and present is commendable. And the reveal of the common ground between Obi-Wan and Reva, replete with a piercing guilt trip about how Kenobi wasn’t able to protect her, are all strong beats. The frustrating things about back half of this show is how the promising ideas and story points are surrounded by elements that weaken them, as the clear potential at play leads to excitement mingled with disappointment.