‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Recap: “Part I”

Well hello there. Lucasfilm’s latest Star Wars series, Obi-Wan Kenobi, is finally here. Following a recap of the events of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Obi-Wan Kenobi opens with a tense, emotional reminder of when Order 66 was carried out. And then we flash forward to 10 years later …

The Inquisitors arrive on Tatooine

A ship arrives carrying Inquistors, Jedi hunters, and the residents of Tatooine nervously watch them walk through the streets. They make their way into a saloon in search of their quarry. The Jedi eventually reveals himself after the Grand Inquisitor begins to taunt the patrons, telling them that they’ll never find all of Jedi. He escapes. We learn that one of the hunters, Third Sister, has a fixation on finding Obi-Wan Kenobi.

A simple life

The man in question happens to be working a laborious job processing meat for meager pay and living in a cave. A Jawa, Teeka, arrives to sell him wares — including a part that it stole from Obi-Wan to purposely force him to buy it back. Teeka shows him a belt savaged from a Jedi’s ship, and Obi-Wan seems contemplative as he turns it over in his hands. Later that night, Obi-Wan has nightmares of his past. He wakes up and calls out for Qui-Gon, but his deceased Master does not reply.

The time of the Jedi is over

Obi-Wan ventures out across the sands of Tatooine and perches atop a rock to covertly check in on the young Luke Skywalker, who is in the care of Owen and Beru. After night falls, he leaves a gift for Luke: a toy that he obtained from the Jawa. The Jedi that escaped from the Inquisitors, Nari, finds Obi-Wan crossing the sands. The Jedi Master initially tries to brush off him off by claiming his name is Ben, but Nari pesists, so he steps down off of the eopie and tells him he must leave. He advises him to bury his lightsaber in the desert and stay hidden. As for the fight? It’s done. The Jedi lost.

Leia Organa

Meanwhile, on Alderaan, we see a girl being dressed by servants. Breha Organa enters the room, confused to find that the child standing there isn’t her daughter. Elsewhere, a mischievous young Leia Organa is off running through the woods. Breha and the guards fetch her, and an ominous figure watches off in the distance.

Owen’s warning

As Obi-Wan returns to his eopie after another day of work, Owen finds him and tosses the toy that he left for Luke at his feet. He wants him to stay away from the boy. Obi-Wan asks Owen if he’s okay, but the other man sees through the questioning — the Jedi wants to know if the boy has shown signs of being Force sensitive yet. He reminds Owen that when the time comes, Luke is to be trained. Owen comes back with a low blow: “Like you trained his father? Anakin is dead, Ben, and I won’t let you make the same mistake twice.”

The Inquisitors continue their search to find the Jedi on Tatooine, trying to scare the townsfolk into submission — Reva even cuts off a woman’s hand. She turns her attention to Owen, who’s trying to appear inconspicuous. Reva demands that the crowd tell her where the Jedi is, or Owen and his family will die. Obi-Wan watches from a distance as Reva holds her ligthsaber to his neck, but Fifth Brother tells her to stand down. He chides her for her recklessness in her continued search for Obi-Wan, who they have spent 10 years searching for.

A kidnapping

After being shepherded inside to actually get dressed, Leia then joins Breha and Bail to greet their family as they arrive on the planet. Her cousin mocks her for not being a “real” Organa, but Leia has no issues standing up for herself and putting the boy in his place. Later, Bail firmly tells Leia that she’s an Organa in every way as he talks about her future as a senator. Though their talk seemingly went well, ending with instructions for Leia to apologize to her cousin for the way that she spoke to him, Leia opts for adventure and goes running off into the woods again instead. She runs into a man named Vect, who’s flanked by two others. They chase after Leia and capture her. The kidnapping was orchestrated by Reva, who anticipated that kidnapping Leia would Obi-Wan out of hiding.

Back on Tattooine, a device inside of Obi-Wan’s cave beeps. It contains a hologram from Bail and Breha, who inform him that Leia has been kidnapped. Obi-Wan declines to help them; he can’t leave, because his duty is to Luke.

Digging up an old memory

Obi-Wan finishes another day of work to find Nari dead and strung up in the middle of town for all to see, and then he goes home to his cave to find Bail waiting for him. Bail tells him that Leia is headed for Daiyu. Obi-Wan reminds him again that he’s not the man that he used to be, but Bail manages to convince him to help. Obi-Wan makes a journey out into the sands to dig up an old memory … a box that contains his and Anakin’s lightsabers. He then boards a ship to leave Tattooine.

Episodes 1 and 2 of Obi-Wan Kenobi are now streaming exclusively on Disney+. The next episode will premiere Wednesday, June 1. Stay tuned for all of our coverage on the series, including episodic recaps and more.