I'm sure I'll repeat what a number of others have already said but here goes.
Watching Ewan McGregor reprise his role as Obi-Wan is like comfort food, it just feels good. So that element right there puts a level of rose-tinted glasses over everything.
That said as usual I thought it was a typical mixed bag.
A quick summary would be that I loved Obi-Wan, Owen, Bail and young Leia. The fact that the story is centered around Leia at all was a Grogu level twist for me, which only worked because of how fantastically cast that actress was. I can't believe how well she looks and acts like how I would picture a young Carrie Fisher Leia to be in my mind.
I thought the Inquisitors were quite lame and just as I feared from the trailers Reva is quite possibly the worst villain in the history of Star Wars. She could singlehandedly destroy this entire show depending on how prominent they make her in future episodes.
I did like the overall vibe and aesthetic and changing locations and I thought that the expanded look at Alderaan was great.
The music was very mediocre despite JW's involvement.
I loved that Obi-Wan didn't come to Owen's aid. That was very "Jedi-like" and set the stage so nicely for Owen's attitude toward Obi-Wan and Luke following in his father's footsteps in ANH. That one scene was a perfect example of why he would have no love for the Jedi (they don't save you and only cause problems) and why he'd want Obi-Wan in particular to stay far away from his family (since Beru almost became a widow and Luke became fatherless right then and there.)
Unfortunately the flipside of that is the entire logic behind the Inquisitors' tactics. "The Jedi can't resist being who they are. They'll hunt themselves, expose themselves if you just give them a reason." Huh? Since when? Jedi were
always capable of being aloof and detached when the greater mission called for it. We saw countless examples of that in both the PT and TCW. Opportunities where they could free slaves, come to a certain planet's military aid, even help clones that they had become friends with, only to
refuse to give aid because doing so would create a greater problem. Hell as far back as ESB Yoda was urging Luke to not even help his
best friends.
Did the writers of this show learn nothing of the whole concept of "attachment is forbidden?" It's one of the primary criticisms against the Jedi and would be the opposite of a major weakness that enemies could potentially exploit.
Sure I could see Jedi helping people incognito but not out in the open like that one guy in the cantina at the beginning. Then the moron immediately flees and heads straight to Obi-Wan!
How the Inquisitors didn't think to just track him to Obi-Wan's lair I really don't know.
Which leads me to the Inquisitors themselves. Such wishy-washy third rate bad guys. The two male inquisitors were borderline good guys with the way they never wanted to shed innocent blood?? WTF? lol. Grand Inquisitor is always reprimanding Reva for basically acting like an evil murderer? Hello does he know what side he's on, lol. And then he lets the first Jedi flee and does
not tail him? That was it? Expose the guy and then let him go on his merry way, the end?
Yeah I know the guy later died and got strung up but I can't help but wonder if he simply got depressed that Obi-Wan wouldn't be his friend and just hanged himself, lol.
Death of Grand Inquisitor was very strange, did they just downgrade the entirety of Rebels to Legends status, lol.
Expanded Order 66 was super cool though I must say it felt weird watching a show open with gunmen charging into a children's classroom with a female teacher this week of all weeks.
At first I was totally distracted by the casting of Kumail Nanjiani but ended up finding his obvious improvs to be really entertaining. But the writing made very little sense. He went from swindler to full blown sacrificial hero in the span of 20 minutes? To the point where he was literally impersonating a Jedi face to face with a freaking Inquisitor?? And then not only does his character seem to do an immediate 180 Reva's persona
also does an immediate 180 by just roughing him up a bit and letting him live?
What??? This was a character who sliced off a woman's hand for talking back to her just a few scenes earlier and was constantly wanting to kill any and everybody who got in her way but now is apparently cool with a guy being bold/stupid enough to impersonate her arch-enemy, lie to her face, and he just gets a light shove into a wall? The whiplash over who did and didn't have plot armor from one moment to the next was making me sore, lol.
Also going back to Leia that light jog she did in the forest to evade the briskly walking bounty hunters was downright hilarious, lol. I love that they're setting the stage for how well TLJ Leia is able to slowly evade any and all pursuers, lol.
I thought that bit with Obi-Wan having compassion on the clone beggar was a nice little moment. I also really liked witnessing the moment that Obi-Wan realized that Anakin is still alive.
Like most I just want to see how things play out with the two of them. Continuing to focus on Reva will pretty much kill the show which would be one of the stupidest things that Disney has done with SW yet. Unfortunately I'm fully braced for that to occur.
That being said I'm still pretty pumped to see how things continue to unfold.
