Warning: this article contains major spoilers for the first two episodes of OBi-Wan Kenobi! If you haven’t already, be sure to check out IGN’s review of the two-part premiere.
After years of waiting around like a desert hermit, Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi has finally debuted on Disney+. The new series has already managed to surprise fans and subvert expectations in its first two episodes, including the appearance of several familiar faces from the Star Wars movies.
But because the show is moving in unexpected directions, we also have a lot of questions about Obi-Wan’s latest adventure. Let’s break down the six most pressing, unanswered questions after the end of Chapter 2, from Reva’s inexplicable hatred of Obi-Wan to whether or not the Grand Inquisitor is actually dead.
Hayden Christensen’s Darth Vader only appears in one brief scene in these first two episodes, but the shadow of Anakin Skywalker looms large over the series. We learn two important details about the Anakin/Obi-Wan dynamic right out of the gate. One, Vader has been obsessively hunting Obi-Wan ever since their fateful duel on Mustafar ten years earlier. Two, Obi-Wan had no idea Anakin was still alive.
That’s a pretty surprising reversal, considering that the movies always suggested the opposite. We always pictured Obi-Wan quietly observing his fallen pupil’s crimes from afar and waiting for the day he could train Luke to confront Vader. Meanwhile, in Episode IV Vader behaves as if he’s surprised to see Obi-Wan alive. Though as we’ve covered in the past, this series promises to add some significant new wrinkles to the Vader/Obi-Wan relationship.
Why did Obi-Wan never connect the dots between Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker before Reva came along? Is he really that isolated from the Force that he can’t sense Anakin’s lifeforce? And what about Yoda? Is this news to him, too, or have Yoda and the spirit of Qui-Gon been keeping this knowledge to themselves? Neither option paints Yoda in a particularly flattering light.
The first two episodes make it clear Moses Ingram’s character Reva is an outcast among Darth Vader’s assassins, the Sith Inquisitorius. She has skills, to be sure, but her fellow Inquisitors view her as a low-born upstart who isn’t worthy to be among their ranks. She doesn’t exactly help her case when she betrays Rupert Friend’s character, the Grand Inquisitor, and impales him with her saber.
This betrayal raises some pretty significant questions about continuity. How can the Grand Inquisitor die in Obi-Wan Kenobi when he’s alive and well several years later during the events of Star Wars Rebels: Season 1?
There are several possible explanations here. One option is that this Grand Inquisitor isn’t the same character as the one in Rebels (which would also explain why Disney didn’t have Jason Isaacs reprise his voiceover role in live-action). But why have two Grand Inquisitors who look and sound almost exactly alike? Are they brothers?