Obi-Wan Kenobi Part VI/Finale: BCTV Best Episodes of 2022

Let’s go back to May of 2005.  I was in a theater watching Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge Of The Sith and taking in all the melodrama George Lucas could muster as he laid out the violent dissent of Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader.  The film was fine, not up to the greatness of the original trilogy but certainly worlds better than the previous two entries of the divisive prequel trilogy.  This film felt more urgent and pointed, not just there to sell mountains of toys like Attack Of The Clones.  But even with the positives, there was just something that didn’t quite feel complete.  It was like eating something that was overall good tasting, but it just didn’t have that one element that made it great. That brings us to this year where, in the sixth and final episode of Disney Plus’ much-anticipated Obi-Wan Kenobi series, I finally got that elusive flavor I had been missing for 17 years.  The unidentifiable missing ingredient that kept Revenge Of The Sith from being great. And as it turns out, it was more complicated than just one thing.

As I took in an excellent climactic battle between Obi-Wan and Vader, with both unleashing levels of power we had yet to see on film from either character, I wondered if this was going to end as just a Jedi fistfight or if there would be a bit of more emotional heft?  As Obi-Wan again outsmarted and ultimately defeated his former padawan, I got what I wanted, and honestly, I wasn’t prepared for it.

As Vader looked up at Obi-Wan and we saw Anakin one more time inside the cracked-open helmet, we were given a moment of such emotion and sincerity between the two characters that I don’t think anyone was quite ready for it.  Obi-Wan again apologized for failing him and took responsibility for the outcome, but it was there that Vader did something we didn’t see coming: he absolved Obi-Wan of what had happened and took all of the responsibility onto himself.

It was at once both relieving for the hero but also all the more tragic for the villain as we learned from someone whom we believed was once good and led astray that he always had that darkness in him, and he simply allowed it to take hold.  The revelation was made all the more impactful by the wonderful lighting; whereas we thought we were hearing from the decent Anakin, he was illuminated in the blue by Obi-Wan’s lightsaber.  But as we learned about what was truly in his soul and again watched Anakin become Vader (albeit in a more condensed moment), that blue shifted to red across his face as he raised his own saber.  Not only had the evil taken over, but he was physically putting up that wall again.

Less is almost always more, and great dialogue and character work will always triumph over spectacle.  This accomplished more than the image of a burning Anakin screaming, “I hate you!”  It exposed these two men to each other, despite their assumptions that they knew each other inside and out, and squashed their shared obsessions.  I guess my favorite TV episode of 2022 wasn’t so much an episode but rather a scene.  A small part combined with others to create a greater piece.  An ingredient, one that I had been missing for 17 years and that I could now identify: catharsis.