“A surprisingly satisfying conclusion…”
Well, the final episode of Kenobi has come and pass. Before moving on to the next assembly line Disney “Star Wars” product, I suppose it’s time to give a few final quiet thoughts to Ewan McGregor’s return to that galaxy far, far away, and see from a bird’s eye view how it went, with some deeper discussion on the conclusion to Obi-Wan’s latest adventure across the stars.
While I know some Star Wars fans were unhappy with this show from start to finish, I honestly liked Part VI. It wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but you can tell, at least, the writers tried on this one. Obi-Wan was finally allowed to stand up and shine after many episodes of mostly being a pushover, attempts were made to patch up some of the plot holes in the Star Wars continuity made by pretty much everything that happened in the show, and Leia’s appearance was minimal and… tolerable. Reva was given a believable conclusion to her story arc that didn’t revolve around her being a Mary Sue, but instead just focused on her awakening once again as a fully fleshed out human being, stepping away, at last, from her one note anger and ambition seen throughout the rest of the series.
Honestly, I liked Part VI a lot, about as much as Part I, or maybe I’ve just convinced myself of that because of how bad the rest of the show is. My expectations were certainly pretty low going into the series conclusion. I doubt I would be as optimistic after a second watch, but, for now, I’m willing to give Part VI an honorable 8/10, tying it with my review of Part I. A lot of the show was spent giving us a proper lightsaber battle between Obi-Wan and a formidable Jedi of the Dark Side, with Obi-Wan actually being allowed to fight on a level worthy of his name and reputation for once, even if it didn’t 100% make sense for him to have gotten that strong (again) quite so suddenly.
There are still a lot of plot holes in this show, and even more created in “A New Hope” by this series even remotely being considered canon. Obi-Wan is portrayed here as being basically a second (or third?) father to Leia, when she didn’t seem to know him at all in Episode IV except secondhand from Bail Organa. Darth Vader’s line of now being the master when he meets Obi-Wan in the Death Star is more than a little screwed up by them having had multiple battles in this Disney+ series. Leia being a super genius on the level of Grand Admiral Thrawn makes no sense in comparison to her smart, but not Einstein-level, persona in the entire rest of the Star Wars continuity. There are various attempts in Part VI to fix some of these issues, which is appreciated, but the overall plot of the series has been crashed so haphazardly into Star Wars canon, it just can’t be patched completely no matter how hard the writers of the final episode may try. This show really doesn’t fit well with the original Star Wars trilogy. It can’t, without having a drastically different plot. The maker of “Obi-Wan Kenobi” admitted knowing nothing about Star Wars before creating this for Disney+ and it shows.
Overall, this is just another subpar Disney “Star Wars” show. Am I glad I saw it? I guess I am, even if most of the episodes were pretty far on the stupid side. It’s certainly far better than all of the Boba Fett episodes of that living nightmare put together. (I don’t really count Episodes 5 and 6 of Boba Fett as episodes of that show – they’re Mandalorian episodes in all but name.) If I average out my reviews of each individual episode of Kenobi, it comes to a respectable 7/10, which is probably a fair review of it as a whole… maybe more fair than the show deserves. For the sake of mercy, I’ll be nice, leave it at that, and move on with my life. As sad as it is to say, Kenobi isn’t really worth any more of my time. It honestly wasn’t even worth the time I spent watching it. My final thoughts on this episode and the show itself are below:
“Kenobi ends with a surprisingly satisfying conclusion, finally letting its title character shine and trying its best to patch up the countless plot holes created by the bad writing of its creators, albeit with mixed success. A final battle leaves the show on a high note, helping flush away the subpar tripe that was most of the rest of its episodes. While not as terrible as Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi was definitely a disappointment, just not from start to finish – some ideas were executed well enough to create a few smiles. Too bad my most common reaction to most episodes was indifference.”