[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 4, “Part IV.”]
Well, it looks like not all bacta tanks cause vivid flashbacks.
After his injury last week at Vader’s (Hayden Christensen) hands, Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) lands in a bacta tank to heal thanks to Tala (Indira Varma) and her group of rebels. Disappointingly, this does not result in live-action Clone Wars snippets, or anything involving Qui-Gon (Liam Neeson), or a live-action Satine Kryze. Instead, Obi-Wan climbs out of the tank to fulfill the same mission he’d been on in the first episode: getting Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair) back from the Empire.
Compared to last week’s Vader and Obi-Wan confrontation, “Part IV” feels slower. That’s not to say nothing happens in the fourth installment; there are explosions, more hints about Reva’s (Moses Ingram) backstory, which is probably being saved for a finale reveal, and a brief Vader appearance at the end. But compared to last week’s emotional highs, “Part IV” isn’t as memorable or resonant and it doesn’t take much time for character development. With only two episodes left, that’s a bummer. Here’s what happens.
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Obi-Wan, Tala, and a few friends make plans to infiltrate “Fortress Inquisitorious” to rescue Leia. Tala agrees to go with him, and they head for the water moon planet. Tala gets Obi-Wan inside by using her Empire cover to get in and overriding a security port, allowing him to enter from underwater (hello, Phantom Menace callbacks!). But that’s where their good luck ends; Tala’s found out for being at the wrong station, and Obi-Wan nearly runs into some Stormtroopers. Thankfully, they both deal with it and Tala’s back guiding him again. (It’s worth noting that Tala is never alone as she’s guiding Obi-Wan. Did none of the other Imperial officers wonder why she was talking to someone named Ben or obviously telling them how to get through the fortress? Unfortunately, it has the same clunkiness to it that the “chasing Leia” scene did in the premiere.)
As all of this has been happening, inside the fortress, Reva interrogates Leia for information about the Jedi underground rescue path Tala’s part of. Leia says she doesn’t know anything about it, but she does, and Reva knows it. She uses the Force to try to pull the info from Leia’s mind, but she resists. Reva then takes her to a different chamber, seemingly to kill her unless she gives up the information.
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Obi-Wan continues sneaking through the fortress, and he discovers what it’s hiding on its mysterious lower level — or, as he puts it, the place is “a tomb.” He finds bodies frozen in an amber substance of a variety of creatures, including a young Jedi padawan. Realizing this is about to happen to Leia, he tells Tala he needs a distraction, and fast. She figures something out, and just as harm’s about to come to the child, Reva’s pulled away by urgent business. Obi-Wan then takes out the Stormtroopers and rescues Leia, while Tala and Reva have a conversation.
Reva’s suspicious of Tala when she gives her the location of the people leading the Jedi path. She calls her a liar and tells the troopers to take her to interrogation, but a security alert sets off alarms at the fortress and she leaves. That gives Tala the opening she needs to escape, and she runs into Obi-Wan and Leia just as he’s taken down several Stormtroopers pursuing them. The blaster bolts partly shattered a window, and Obi-Wan tells Tala to take Leia and go. While he’s able to redirect the water, he can’t redirect an entire flooded room, and he barely manages to escape while Tala closes off the sector behind him.
They make it to the landing platform, where Reva and her squadron corner them. Thankfully, a few other members of Tala’s team arrive just in the nick of time, and, in their ships, they blast most of the room while allowing the trio to get on board. They lose one pilot, but they do manage to escape — and for that, Reva nearly loses her life.
“I told you what failure would bring,” Vader says, Force-choking her. She barely manages to gasp that she let them go, and Vader relents. She explains that she put a tracker on the ship, and it’ll soon lead them not only to Kenobi, but to the rebels, too. And as the episode ends, it’s revealed she was telling the truth: She appears to have turned Leia’s ladybug droid, Lola, into the tracker.
Obi-Wan Kenobi, Wednesdays, Disney+