I’d like to introduce Mrs. Know-It-All. It’s her first time on the channel. We got up early this morning because she wanted to watch Star Wars with me, we had some coffee, I got to use my lightsaber mug, and then we sat down and talked about Obi-Wan Kenobi, the new Disney+ series. I don’t know if it continues the story as much as it tells us what we missed. The first two episodes are appropriately titled Part I and Part II.

I was waiting a long time for this thing. One of the reasons she’s here is that Star Wars has always been much more her jam. Not that it’s not mine. I love Star Wars, and my Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett reviews are on the channel if you want to go look. It’s a different kind of sci-fi than Star Trek, which is my jam. It’s fantasy Star Trek, if you will. I’ve always loved the palate-cleansing aspect of it, and for the people who say you can only be a fan of one, Star Wars or Star Trek, my feeling’s always been: no. Seriously.

So this one’s a little different. Normally I’d do a full-blown recap, step by step. There’s a little bit of that here, but really we just talked.

Are They Going to Ruin It

That’s what everyone’s been asking. How do you fit another adventure into Obi-Wan’s life?

I like where it picks up, and so does she, because for the most part we don’t know much about him in this stretch. The last we saw of him was the end of Revenge of the Sith, on board the Organa ship, the Alderaanian ship, the same one you later see in A New Hope. They’ve delivered the baby Leia, and he says he’ll take the boy to his relatives on Tatooine.

The show doesn’t open there, though. It opens on younglings, the helmet, the whole bit, training in a room with an instructor who’s doing some cool little judo-looking moves. Then the doors open, clone troopers come in and start shooting, and we’re like, oh my gosh, Order 66. You get this really awesome rescue attempt, this Jedi trying to lead the younglings out, and she does a passable job getting them to one ramp, and that’s where she finally falls. There are four or five kids left asking what they do now. They run, and that’s where you’re left.

Even before that, we both really liked the “previously on.” When was the last time any of us sat down and watched the prequels? It’s been a minute for me, I’ll tell you that much. Mrs. Know-It-All liked it from the storyteller’s perspective, because those flashbacks were all Obi-Wan.

I think that’s something that came over from Marvel: the concept that every comic book, every story, every movie is someone’s first. I saw the original trilogy, Episodes IV, V and VI, way before the prequels ever came out. The prequels came out and a lot of people hated them, and now they’re kind of rewriting history and romanticizing them. I think they’re fine, storytelling-wise. But they’ve taken a page out of Marvel and said, okay, let’s assume this is someone’s first time sitting down to Star Wars.

The Future of Star Wars Is Serialized

As we’re recording this, Star Wars Celebration is in full swing and they’re making a lot of announcements about all the series that are coming, and all of it’s super exciting. There was also an article recently, and I should have saved it, where Disney and Kathleen Kennedy essentially said the future of Star Wars is most likely serialized. Series form.

Mrs. Know-It-All thinks that makes sense. There are so many characters they can build a series on, and there’s so much of a time gap in between each movie that everything just seems to fit when they do a series. She likes that they’re doing it and thinks they should keep doing it. I agree. You get to tell more of those stories.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still films. They’ve already said Taika Waititi is getting a Star Wars film. Rian Johnson’s trilogy is supposed to still be happening, technically, though based on my history in the film and television industry I believe it’s in limbo, meaning he got busy with all of his Knives Out Netflix stuff. Kathleen Kennedy said in that same article that yes, it’s still happening, it’s in some form of production.

Ten Years Later, and a Jedi Who Isn’t Quite a Hermit

After that quick opening, which I thought was very well placed, we jump ten years later. And for a guy named Obi-Wan, he doesn’t really show up in his own show until later. That’s okay. It needed to be that way.

When you do get to him, you finally understand a little bit about what he’s going through. A lot of people were worried the show would try to do what Rian Johnson did in The Last Jedi and give us an Obi-Wan who’s dejected and despondent. Everyone was worried he’s going to be a recluse, like they’re trying to associate him with Luke in the future, who’s a hermit. The truth is he is kind of a hermit, but he’s also not.

He works at the Tatooine equivalent of a meat packing plant. It’s a location with this giant rib cage thing, which might have been one of those worms, or a desert dragon like they call them. Every night he slices off a little piece for himself for dinner and rides home on his almost-camel, whatever that thing is.

There’s an encounter early on with a Jedi in hiding when the Inquisitors show up. The kid tracks Obi-Wan down and it’s “Master Kenobi, you’ve got to help.” And Obi-Wan tells him to do himself a favor: take that lightsaber, go out into the middle of the desert and bury it. The Jedi Order is dead.

Even though he says that, he still has a scene with Owen Lars, played by Joel Edgerton, who reprises his role from the prequels, where he says that at a certain age the boy has to be trained. So Obi-Wan hasn’t veered too far off course. Fear has crept in. He’s watched them get wiped out. It’s an interesting dichotomy, somewhere between commitment and duty on one side and everything he’s lost on the other. We’re not going to behave like Jedi anymore, but yes, I have to be here for the kid when he grows up. It’s a dual life. I’m glad they didn’t go much further with the recluse thing than that.

And there’s the moment where he’s talking to an empty room: Master Qui-Gon, I could totally use your help. Did you not think you were about to see the blue glow? They leaned really heavily into Qui-Gon in that “previously on.” I think we’re going to get it before it’s over.

Ten-Year-Old Leia Is a Pistol

I asked Mrs. Know-It-All what jumped out at her, and the thing she kept saying over and over was how they wrote ten-year-old Leia. She’s a pistol, just like she was a pistol later.

There’s an interrogation scene where this guy is talking to ten-year-old Leia, who’s strapped into a little chair. They’ve strapped her in like she’s dangerous. And she talks to him the way Leia would talk to Vader later on. She talks to him like he’s small. This is a grown man who has kidnapped her, and she tells him her father’s coming and he’s going to send an army.

I like that phrase, and here’s why. In the prequels, one of the things they said was that a single Jedi is worth an entire army, and in Episode I Qui-Gon says he wishes that were true. I don’t think she knew a Jedi was coming. But that’s still the sentiment, and it works. I guarantee you Bail Organa was thinking, I need to send an army, and his wife’s the one saying you’d better call Obi-Wan. You know his number. Call him.

Loved seeing Jimmy Smits back as Bail Organa. From L.A. Law, or Law & Order, one of those. He looks great. In general I’m a big fan of the casting. The little girl is channeling Leia’s attitude and personality, and you can totally see how this girl ends up being her.

I was so surprised by all of this, because of how they sold it. You see desert, you see mountains, you see him, so I literally thought this was Obi-Wan Kenobi tiptoeing around Luke while protecting him.

I thought about the two lives a lot. Luke is living the life of less, of very minimal things, and that serves the purpose of him being a Jedi one day, because Jedi are supposed to live meager lives. The Force gives them meaning and purpose and provides whatever they need. As far as Obi-Wan’s been told, Luke is the future, which is a bias, but who cares. Leia is off learning how to be a politician, learning how to be a leader, with all of the best and worst traits Padmé had. At one point she asks why he’s looking at her like that, and he says she reminds him of someone he used to know, a strong person. He’s talking about Padmé.

She’s grown up with privilege. I don’t mean like white privilege, I mean she’s grown up as royalty, literally in a palace. And what do politicians do? They assess things. They understand people, they talk to people, they negotiate. I believe those skills translate laterally. You look at somebody and ask what their intent is, you want to look inside them, and little by little you’re doing this mental thing without realizing that in the back of your mind the Force is reaching out. I feel like that’s been a type of training. She’s assessing the way she’d normally do it, and she doesn’t know where that assessment comes from.

“You Served My Father in the Clone Wars”

Mrs. Know-It-All had an at-home aha moment, and it’s about the hologram in A New Hope, Leia giving her message to R2. It never really crossed her mind to ask how Leia even knows Obi-Wan. She never asked it in her head until the show handed her the answer. And I’m like, oh, that’s a really great question.

That falls in line with what a lot of the fandom is always asking. Remember, I’m from Star Trek world. Trust me, we have canon arguments all the time. But Star Wars gets real visceral with its canon arguments. Everyone thought the prequels were the end of Star Wars. Everyone has also thought the sequels are the end of Star Wars. None of this stuff is killing anything. Things happen, you have bad days, stories ebb and flow. I think they’re working these details into the cracks, and I like it.

You know there are going to be a ton of people who troll this and say she doesn’t know him, she has to remind him, “you served my father in the Clone Wars,” which clearly means she’s never met him. No. That’s just a greeting. That’s an assumption on your part. She’s a princess, she’s undercover, and there’s nothing in her original hologram message that implies she doesn’t know him.

She’s ten years old here. I don’t think she’s thirty in Star Wars. I think she’s in her early twenties, probably twenty-four at the oldest, which puts that message fourteen-ish years in the future. I’m sure some Star Wars fan will tell me to go to the wiki and it’ll give me her exact age in A New Hope. I’m not going to do that, so I’m making some assumptions. There’s a lot of life young people live in that time. There are people Baby Know-It-All technically grew up with who she hasn’t seen in forever, and she still remembers them somewhat.

Now, when you make a massive adventure out of it like this series is doing, obviously there’s a big place in her heart for him. But I think she’s just reminding him: you served my father in the Clone Wars, well, he needs you again. And it’s because she’s the one making the call this time, not her dad. I think that’s a huge point.

Reva Is Personal

The Inquisitors showing up is where we meet Reva, played by Moses Ingram. Reva’s a cool character and I feel like there’s a deeper story to her.

Mrs. Know-It-All made some really astute observations here that I agree with. She said it wouldn’t surprise her if Reva and Obi-Wan end up having to pair up. Redemption arcs are very Star Wars. And as the Inquisitors were talking, she picked up that they were Jedi who turned on their own. A lot of them were former Padawans, people who were in training. Reva is young enough that she could have known him.

For those of you who watched Clone Wars, or rather Star Wars Rebels, you’re very familiar with the Inquisitors. I only know them from the d20 Star Wars roleplaying game I used to play a long time ago.

So Bail Organa calls, Obi-Wan tells him to go find someone else, and then he finally does set off, because they’ve managed to track the ship. He ends up on another planet, hears of a Jedi who helps people, and finds Kumail Nanjiani’s character, who’s really cool. We don’t know much about him. He’s a guy posing as a Jedi, and he gets an awesome turn once Reva tracks Obi-Wan there.

She puts a bounty on his head and his picture is suddenly everywhere. This goes past obsessed. It’s personal with her. A lot of people are going to say she just wants to impress Vader or get better placed, and that feels really hollow to me. In fact that’s what all the Inquisitors think. The Grand Inquisitor tells her that her ambition is getting dangerous. There’s a deeper thing going on here. My prediction is we’re going to find out Reva was a youngling.

She knows Anakin Skywalker is Vader. And we get the moment where Obi-Wan finds that out, and he sold it great. It messes with his head so hard.

Through all of this, he has his lightsaber and he does not ignite it. Not once in the first two episodes. He’s still fighting his nature, because he knows they’re coming down hard and killing everybody, and he realizes his life is for the kid. His life is for Luke at this point.

The One Moment That Took Me Out of It

Leia reads people, and I almost feel like they leaned a little into her already showing signs of having the Force. Most of the time I buy it.

Then there’s the moment where Obi-Wan, in a bit of personal doubt, lets his guard down. She basically peeps inside him and says, you think that if you don’t say anything you’re going to hide stuff, but not saying anything is making it even more clear there’s something you’re hiding. And then she flips to deciding her father didn’t send him at all, and she has this weird breakdown.

It’s a flip in logic that felt like lazy writing to me. Bro, you can’t show me this self-assured girl who reads into things correctly most of the time, and then the one time she doesn’t, it’s at an extraordinarily valuable moment for the plot. You don’t get to set her up to be brilliant and then have her be wrong right there. To me it was contrived tension that didn’t need to be contrived.

I asked Mrs. Know-It-All if there was anything she didn’t like, and she couldn’t say that there was. A lot of it was that she was just so amazed and excited about how they portrayed ten-year-old Leia.

My other note on the structure: Episodes 1 and 2 are two separate episodes, both up at once. It isn’t one solid two-hour thing, and I think it could have been. Episode 1 ends great. But you could have bumped them together, done the Star Wars wipe, and left it as a two-hour premiere.

There’s something much more cinematic about this than everything else so far, and by everything else I mean The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. It feels like a really long movie more than a Disney+ show, like they filmed it with cinematic intention. Don’t get me wrong, there are wonderful set pieces in Mandalorian. This one went a slightly different route, and I liked it.

The Verdict

Obi-Wan Kenobi Episodes 1 and 2 land at an 8 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index, for now, and that’s the two episodes combined.

Mrs. Know-It-All went first and she’s at an 8 too. She liked it, she was entertained, she liked what they did with Leia, and she can’t wait to see where it’s going.

When it started I was leaning toward a 6, mainly because I was like, guys, really, how long does it take to get anywhere? Give me something to latch on to other than the fact that I’m seeing Obi-Wan again for the first time in a long time. But as I started seeing where they were going it kept creeping up, and a lot of that has to do with how the ending hit.

Remember, he’s just learned that Anakin is Vader and Anakin’s alive. He thought Anakin died on Mustafar. As far as he knew, Vader was just another person who rose up, like the Inquisitors or anybody else. That’s a big revelation for him, and it shocks him so much that I think he inadvertently reached out and woke Anakin up. You see the eyes open in the tank, and you hear the breathing, and I’m like, oh yeah. I’m excited to see Hayden Christensen back as Vader. I think he’s going to do a really good job, and I think we’re going to get flashbacks in a way I’m here for.

Mrs. Know-It-All pointed out that Obi-Wan looked terrified when it set in. She also said that if we’d scored them separately, the first episode would have been a lot lower. She’s right. The second episode pulled it through.

I’ll be honest, the show’s already broken my idea of what it was going to be. I was worried that what we got in these two episodes was going to be almost the entire season. I didn’t think we’d see Vader until about Episode 3 or 4, and we still may not as a character, but I think there’s every possibility we get him sooner. They’re moving at a quicker clip than I thought they would, which tells me that for six episodes they’ve got a tight story packed with stuff they want to tell. It’s a tight limited series. I don’t believe we’ll get a Season 2. You can only squeeze so much out of his time on Tatooine.

Let me know what you thought of Parts I and II, and let me know what you think about having Mrs. Know-It-All on with me. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.