The fourth episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi dropped this week and, although Star Wars fans are somewhat divided about the latest episode — with its apparent plot hole involving Third Sister, Reva (Moses Ingram) — the series overall has been well-received by the often fickle fan community.
Vivian Lyra Blair, who is portraying 10-year-old Princess Leia Organa, has been a particularly big hit. The young actress is a dead ringer for Carrie Fisher in her youth, making her portrayal of the precocious little royal even more believable.
The installment gives Star Wars fans a glimpse into exactly what Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen) and his Inquisitors have been doing to surviving Jedi following the execution of Order 66 eight years earlier, and it isn’t pleasant. Kenobi discovers a hall of tombs where various Jedi Knights, including Sera Tinube and Coleman Acaj, are encased.
On the heels of this intense episode, Obi-Wan Kenobi writer Joby Harold has let fans into the show’s connection to Kylo Ren — the alter ego of Princess Leia and Han Solo’s son, Ben Solo (Adam Driver). Ren, of course, is the primary antagonist in Disney’s Star Wars sequel trilogy.
Harold provided The Hollywood Reporter with a lengthy explanation of how he views Kenobi’s connection to Leia, and subsequently to her son:
“It was very helpful to know where they were going because it answers the question of, ‘Why him?’ So, ‘Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope,’ feels less arbitrary as a choice and a decision now that we know the depth of the history they have together. The context within which Leia says that in A New Hope is now canon, and it’s clear. So it will be articulated as the show continues, but I liked the fact that it helped reinforce and better articulate a little piece of the jigsaw that is already in place.”
“If you watch all of the Star Wars stories in a row right now, you’d be like, ‘Of course, she’s going to go to Obi-Wan.’ She also ends up naming her son, Ben. So I liked the fact that he was a big component in her life, as much as he was in Luke’s life up until now. It felt right after everything that happened with Anakin and those two children that he would be there for both children, to the degree he now has been in canon.”
The troubled young man’s relationship with his parents is strained, at best, in adulthood. He kills his father, Han Solo (Harrison Ford), in The Force Awakens and his mother, the Princess General, gives the last of her life force in a bid to save him in The Rise of Skywalker.
Leia sensed the duel between Rey and Kylo Ren on Kef Bir and she used the Force to reach out to her son to call him by his real name –Ben. Her sacrifice, fortunately, was not in vain. When the new Supreme Leader heard his mother, it lit the spark that led to him becoming Ben Solo again and completing his redemption arc.
Solo’s future in the Star Wars galaxy is unknown at this time — Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard has expressed interest in playing a young version of the character in a potential Jedi Academy series that would further detail what took place between Solo and his uncle, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) before the teen burned the Academy to the ground, leading to Skywalker’s self-imposed exile on Ahch-To.
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Credit: Lucasfilm
