Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 5 Review: Top-Notch Star Wars TV

Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 5 is now streaming on Disney+, and after this one, there’s little to nothing for even the most stringent Star Wars fans to be mad about. “Part V” of Obi-Wan is nothing less than top-notch Star Wars TV on a lot of fronts – with some truly fun and thrilling nostalgia for fans of the Star Wars Prequels films. In fact, Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode V is so good, that it’s hard to imagine how showrunner Deborah Chow and her cast and crew will top it in Obi-Wan’s finale! 

WARNING: Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 5 SPOILERS Follow! 

Obi-Wan’s (Ewan McGregor) rescue of Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair) was actually a false-flag operation being run by the Inquisitor Reva (Moses Ingram), who bugged Leia’s droid with a tracker. Obi-Wan and Leia return with Tala (Indira Varma)  to the base of “The Path” smugglers network, with hopes of getting Leia home to Alderaan. Instead, The Path base is ambushed by Vader and the Empire, with Vader (Hayden Christensen) using the innocent bystanders as leverage to draw Obi-Wan out.

As stated, “Part V” of Obi-Wan is about as good as it get for Star Wars TV – or Star Wars in general. The framework of the episode (juxtaposing Vader and Obi-Wan’s cat-and-mouse game of seige with a flashback of padawan Anakin dueling Obi-Wan) was the kind of storytelling we love from Star Wars comics or animated shows, with their stories that bridge past and present events of the Star Wars Universe. Obi-Wan Part V not only deepens the story of Anakin and Obi-Wan from the Prequels – it’s also successfully reframing the events of Star Wars: A New Hope in a way that makes Obi-Wan’s final confrontation with Vader (and his choice not to win that fight with a lightsaber) seem exponentially more powerful in its meaning.

Speaking of creating more powerful meaning: Obi-Wan Part V has also done a pretty significant job of making those early critics of Moses Ingram’s Reva really eat their words. As we predicted, Reva’s origin is that she was a Jedi youngling that survived Order 66 – and was therefore one of the only people in the galaxy to witness Anakin Skywalker’s atrocities, which finally turned him into “Vader.” It’s a nice little twist in Obi-Wan’s story to find out that Reva isn’t the mindless angry wolf we thought – she’s a cunning wolf who has been after Vader this whole time. In that one monologue scene with Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan, Moses Ingram proves she has all the nuance and acting chops in the world – when the story finally calls for her to reveal it. We even got some corrected Star Wars Rebels continuity when Vader finally reveals that he – and the still-living Grand Inquisitor – had the upper-hand the whole time. 

Finally, Obi-Wan Episode V proves that Star Wars hasn’t lost a step when it comes to taking new and/or seemingly insignificant characters and making us love them. Path agent Tala (Indira Varma) and her droid cohort NED-B sacrificed themselves in fight against Reva and the Imperial forces – and it broke our collective hearts. The fact that they only existed in Star Wars for only a couple of weeks (and three episodes) makes it that much more telling that seeing them go hurt as much as it did. NED-B never even said a word, but somehow spoke to our hearts – right up until his final, touching, moment. 

Action, emotion, big twists, Star Wars spectacle we’ll never forget (Vader Force-holding a space shuttle???), and strong characters of both the hero and villain types? Yes, Obi-Wan Part V delivered it all – and may end up being the best of the series, like Episode V before it. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi is streaming on Disney+.