[psmith2.0]

Decent episode, #4...

...albeit a bit short (39 minutes) and pretty much a rescue/escape episode. And its share of narrative or stylistic WTF?!-isms, perhaps a bit more than the other three? - Obi-Wan partially heals from his wounds in a bacta tank, but he (and Vader) both have images and disturbances as they're in their respective tanks. Nice cross-cutting scene of both of them kinda freaking out underwater, remembering back to their skirmish on the mining planet. - Speaking of water, the bulk of the episode is set on that Imperial facility on the water/ocean planet, which, as it turns out, is a moon of Mustafar. The lady from last week, Tala, uses her security clearance/role as an officer to get Obi-Wan into the facility. Nice underwater shot of Obi-Wan swimming, with a breather, to access the joint from under the waves. - Lots of Reva in this episode, with her interrogating little Leia. Leia tells them nothing, and royally pisses Reva off as the episode progresses - Snowspeeders! Haven't seen them since 1980, and we get two on a rescue mission! Cool shot to see them come roaring out of the sky and blowing shit up. A proper Star Wars Moment™, for sure. Two things: a) they seemed a bit small or oddly-scaled, and b) I had no idea they could stop and hover, mid-air, like that. We didn’t see that on Hoth. - Obi-Wan goes to work with his lightsaber a good bit...offing stormtroopers directly, or, as shown many times in the prequels, deftly deflecting their blaster bolts back to them and killing them with their own weapon firing. And he does that little wrist spin/twirl move at one point. The nostalgia. - Vader appears briefly at the very end. He's huge...that scene where he walks up to Reva, he looms over her (and she doesn't strike me as particularly short). Great visual. He's fed up with everyone under his command. - Lots of great visuals of that Imperial facility, especially the underwater parts (seeing the ocean life in the greenish windows in the background). That, contrasted with all the glossy black walls and floors with the little stabs of red lighting all made for a cool look. - The "basement" of that facility, with all the entombed, on-display bodies...WTF?! I suppose I should know/recognize some of them? Or were they just random people the Empire has made examples of/collected? There was a helmeted youngling among them, and you can tell it affected Obi-Wan to see that. I didn't recognize any of the 4-5 others shown, but that's not saying much...my only real Star Wars knowledge centers around the feature films. I know nothing of the novels, comics, video games, etc. Were these prominent Jedi and/or Rebels (although the Rebel Alliance wasn't fully a thing at this timeframe, right? But the seeds were in place). Once again, this is me saying “Capella would know”. - We’ve seen, twice now, TIE fighters hanging in the ceiling of that pyramid Imperial base in the ocean. Weird that they weren’t scrambled to engage/pursue the snowspeeders. Are they just there for for show/hangar decoration? Were all the pilots just sitting around, smoking and watching TV? “You people have one job…when other ships come out of the sky and attack us, you - all of you! - are supposed to get in your ships and go pew-pew-pew at them for a while! You’ve never seen a Star Wars movie? WTF are we paying you for?!” - Some genuinely tense moments (Tala making her way through security, not fully knowing if her cover has been blown or not, Obi-Wan sneaking around the facility looking for Leia). Very reminiscent of A New Hope...detention areas, Obi-Wan sneaking around, having to put on Imperial uniforms for disguise, etc. This might be as close as we get to 709's desire to see the Death Star (unless it appears in the next two, final episodes). But it's a very close stand-in and gives off the same type of vibe. It’s about as Empire-y as a place can be, mouse droids and all. I’d wager there’s a trash compactor somewhere, along with impossibly high walkways with zero railing! - I realize she’s precocious and all, but WTF is a 10-year-old little girl going to know about pathways, underground networks, pockets of resistance or any other anti-Empire groups, movements, facilities, operations, etc.? What was Reva truly expecting to extract from her? “The girl gave us everything, Lord Vader.” I highly doubt it. - The stage is now set for the final two installments. Obi-Wan retrieved Leia and they're on their way back(?), but they're not out of the woods yet. There was a reason Reva was shown holding Lola...and it's the one thing that saved her life from Vader's anger. You'll see. - Great shot of Obi-Wan offing the two Stormtroopers guarding Leia...totally dark room (he killed the lights) and then you see that blue saber igniting out of nowhere, twice. The look on Leia’s face when she sees him (after she’d been told by Reva that he was dead and that nobody was coming for her) was great. He’s her hero, for sure. - Not a bad episode at all, but a bit by-the-numbers and lean, I thought. Primarily a single location after the first five minutes or so, and basically a "sneak around and rescue someone" mission. But some good tension/nailbiting in a few spots. - We know Stormtroopers are lousy shots. We now know it’s because they’re blind! How did those two, in a straight, unobstructed hallway, not see Obi-Wan duck out of sight, just 30 feet in front of them? He was right there! I can suspend my disbelief with the best of them, but sometimes shit’s gotta make some level of realistic sense. Could they not have been standing still, facing the other direction? But now everything re: their marksmanship is made clear…they’re actually blind! That explains so much in the OT. - I think if you put those three main inquisitors in a room together, there would soon be three dead people. I've never seen co-workers/people on the same side who hate each other so much! - Reva is very smart, and scary. And it pretty much confirms that was her in the opening minutes of the first episode, that child. Not blatantly, but she talks a bit about her childhood to Leia and you're meant to put that together, I think. I can't get a read on her. She's mean as hell, but there's something there. I think she's re-evaluating her current gig (and the low-lifes she hangs out with/answers to). Hey, we've all been there! But she holds the screen when she's on it. She's like no other SW character I've seen...deliciously hateful and bossy, but cool and calculating and changes on a dime, her demeanor. You never know quite what to expect, or how she's going to respond. She kinda scares me. But I also think she's a bundle of raw nerves and not entirely sure of her place or actions. She's been the second best part of the show, IMO, after Obi-Wan himself. Sometimes her acting is a bit broad and jarring, but, when she's on the screen, I'm kinda transfixed. It's different. It's like they took someone from Philadelphia or Cleveland and dropped them into Star Wars (not a slam at all, just an honest, “that’s a different tone/approach we’ve not really seen” observation). So much Star Wars villainy is seething and coiled (Vader, Maul, Palpatine, Tarkin, Boba and Jango, Krennic), while she's more on the outwardly angry/yelling side of the scale, which is a departure. It reminds me of a performance/role from Forrest Whittaker some years back, and I can’t recall the movie. But he baited/toyed with with people to unsettle/confuse them, then exploded into such volume and rage. And also a bit of Tom Cruise’s hitman character from Collateral…ruthless, always in charge, no qualms/hesitation re: violence. Sometimes it veers into cringe-y (when she Batman-growls an order), but often I'm just like "damn, she's absolutely had it with everyone and is about to lose her shit; give her what she wants so she doesn't cut off your head…you know she’ll do it!" It's been interesting, overall. She makes a good villain, even though it's a bit of a departure from the norm. I would not want to wind up on her bad side; she seems to constantly be looking for an excuse to ignite her saber and use it! That makes her scary/dangerous. Hell, I thought she was going to personally start laying a beating on Leia...the little princess was working her last nerve! - Beautifully shot, as always. Just a bit short and not particularly memorable or revelatory aside from 1-2 moments. But it definitely tees up the next two installments. One final thing: as much as I do enjoy this show (and that's 95% Ewan McGregor, why lie?), it feels a bit loose and undercooked, and inconsistent in places. I'm wondering if the writers know as much as they should? And, at its worst (which still isn't bad), it almost feels a bit "gotcha"...we're going off on this big four-episode detour of Star Wars Greatest Hits, vs. the small, tight show, set on Tatooine, that I'd hoped for. I've enjoyed it far more than The Book of Boba Fett, but I would've done about six things differently. For a show called Obi-Wan Kenobi, I've been surprised, at times, just how little he sometimes shows up or factors in. They've felt the need to put in all these other characters and sub-plots - Tala, Leia, Reva - at the expense of a full-on Obi-Wan and Vader/Anakin thing, which I bet most folks were expecting/hoping for. That's my only real beef...it just seems to have wandered off a bit from its implied premise. Still fun to watch, but there's nowhere near the pure Obi-Wan/Vader angle I was expecting (and, frankly, we were kinda led to believe in some of the lead-up interviews and marketing). Maybe this has all been needed setup, and we'll get that payoff in the final two episodes. And, you know...some sort of involvement from Liam Neeson?