This is easily the worst episode of the season so far! The first 3 episodes actually had a modicum of setup and took a minute to breathe, but in this one stuff just happened. To start, this episode was completely unnecessary as the trio of Kenobi, Leia and Tala should have escaped through the tunnel. This way, Vader never sees Kenobi. Also, Reva never actually saw Kenobi before this episode and had no confirmation that he was still alive, so they could very easily believe that he was actually dead, or at the very least he would have gotten away and they couldn't prove he was alive. But I digress. But for this episode, how did Tala, Robot, and Kenobi escape the mining planet when Reva killed their Pilot and ONLY means of escape? Did Reva just leave their escape ship there? Why didn't she destroy it, or better yet, why didn't she put the tracking device on THAT ship?
Why did the Path Network Leader guy just fold immediately after talking about his wife? Before that, he was dead set against helping Kenobi save Leia. What changed in the like 5 seconds that Kenobi said the Empire is bad? So the Path network just happens to have all the schematics to the Inquisitors' base? From this episode, it appears that this was Tala's first time on the base, so how did they get this information? Also, since you know where it is, why didn't you do a stealth attack before? You know where their base is, but they didn't know where yours was. AND somehow you know they don't have shields protecting the base, which is exactly why you would actually plan and execute a sneak attack on them. Destroy their base, get rid of all the Inquisitors, weaken Vader and the Empire's forces. Simple. Kenobi is not remotely healed from his burns, yet he seems OK the whole episode on the base. He's not wincing in pain or checking his burns. He actually swam underwater and was in open spaces around other people and from what I know, burn victims are very susceptible to infections unless they are confined. He's just good, apparently.
A big problem with this episode was Tala's part, not due to the acting because Indira Varma is one of the few actors actually doing acting, maybe even the only one at this point. The problem was in the writing. Tala was being incredibly suspect on the base and none of the Imperial officers realized this. First, she actually mentioned that she would report that security officer for his disrespect to the Grand Inquisitor. But isn't the GI dead? This should have raised a red flag immediately because the security guy should be asking why is she bringing up the GI when he's dead? And the new GI hasn't been decided yet as Reva and the Fifth Brother are competing for the position. Then when Tala is in the control center, she's talking to Kenobi on her portable comm, the officer next to her sees this, yet ignores it. Also, they should be suspicious as to why she's talking in a whisper and not out loud. Why the need to whisper if you're above board? Also, why didn't she sabotage the base before she left?
Then there were the interrogation scenes with Reva and Leia. These were awful. Moses Ingram is horrible as Reva. It's a combination of really bad writing and unconvincing acting. And Ingram is so bad that she dragged the Leia actress down with her in this one. A big reason Leia was better in the first 3 episodes is she didn't have an awful actor shouting and yelling at her and this allowed the young actress to have something resembling nuance and subtlety to play off of. But she was just as bad as Reva here. Speaking of bad acting, Ewan McGregor is starting to mail it in and also the Path Leader's line delivery was abysmal, reminding me of the bad actor posting the FugitiveJedi from Ep1.
Another huge problem with this episode was Reva's "plan" with the tracking device, which was based on a ridiculous amount of coincidences. Why was she wasting time interrogating Leia at all? Reva should know that Leia isn't in collusion with the network because REVA is the one who kidnapped Leia in the first place in order to snuff out Kenobi. So she had to know that Leia was just innocent collateral. As far as she knew, Kenobi was badly burned close to certain death, so how did she just randomly know that he would heal up fast enough to get a team together and save Leia? She was literally about to torture the girl to death. Just put the tracking device in Lola, keep Leia locked up in a cell until Kenobi shows up, then let them get away. Also, Reva had to know that Tala was a spy, so why didn't she just interrogate HER on the location of the network? Why would she think little Leia would know over an obvious Rebel spy? Is Reva's mind reading ability just a convenience for the writers to use when its suits the plot? She didn't use her mind reading ability on Owen in Ep1, used it on FakeJedi in Ep2, used it again on Leia in Ep3 when she knew the girl couldn't possibly know anything, but didn't use it on Tala to determine if she was lying or not. And it didn't matter whether or not Tala was lying about being a double agent, because if she weren't lying then that means that she just told Reva the location of the path network's secret base. And if she were lying, which she actually was, then Reva knows that Tala is the enemy and part of the path network AND knows the location of the secret base. Either way, Tala knew the location of the secret base! Reva doesn't have to let them get away since she has someone right in front of her who knew the location. Then in another stroke of "luck" for Reva, those 2 snow speeder pilots came in to save Kenobi, Tala and Leia just when her troops were about to kill them. How could Reva possibly know this would happen? Also, if Reva's "plan" were really to let them get away because of the tracking device, why did she waste time Force throwing that object at that one pilot to cause him to crash? Why not just let him get away too?
The fight scenes were terrible. Kenobi was surrounded by many Stormtroopers and they just kept aiming at his lightsaber instead of his legs or feet or head. And Kenobi was out of practice having not trained in 10 years. He should have been rusty, but he took down all of them without missing a beat. Reva impossibly blocking those snow speeder ship cannons looked hilariously bad. Then there was the ridiculous moment of Leia hiding under Kenobi's coat! Lol No one could see that EXCEPT of course the plot armored Reva. Finally, why did Vader just believe Reva about the tracker? She could have been lying to save her own skin. Also, why was Vader not aware of Reva's grand "plan" until after they got away? When did he care more about finding some tedious path network over getting his revenge on Obi-Wan? But at the end of the day, Reva even taking the time to put a tracker into Leia's toy robot makes almost no sense given that she couldn't possibly know there was a rescue mission and since Leia was saved, wouldn't the first place Kenobi would take her is Alderaan? What good is that tracking device then? Really bad episode where the writers once again need something to happen, so they make it so even if it doesn't make logical sense.
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