Book Review: Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Susan Bernofsky

Published: September 7, 2017 (originally published in German in 2015)
Publisher: Portobello Books
Received: purchased
Read from May 28 to June 23, 2022

Synopsis from Goodreads:

One of the great contemporary European writers takes on Europe's biggest issue.

Richard has spent his life as a university professor, immersed in the world of books and ideas, but now he is retired, his books remain in their packing boxes and he steps into the streets of his city, Berlin. Here, on Alexanderplatz, he discovers a new community -- a tent city, established by African asylum seekers. Hesitantly, getting to know the new arrivals, Richard finds his life changing, as he begins to question his own sense of belonging in a city that once divided its citizens into them and us.

At once a passionate contribution to the debate on race, privilege and nationality and a beautifully written examination of an ageing man's quest to find meaning in his life, Go, Went, Gone showcases one of the great contemporary European writers at the height of her powers.

Review:

I read Go, Went, Gone as part of the Branching Out Book Club. The book deals with the recent refugee crisis in Europe and follows an older German man named Richard as he gets to know a group of African refugees who are living in Berlin. While I read the book in English, it was originally written in German.

The book is a stream of consciousness novel, and there are no quotation marks around dialogue, which made it very difficult for me to follow what was happening. This is the first time in my memory that I've read a novel without them, and the experience really helped show me why quotation marks are a thing. It was hard to follow what was happening and who was saying what without the quotation marks, and I do think that affected my enjoyment of the book. The one benefit I can see to it is that it slows you down while reading because you're trying to figure out who said what. On the one hand, that may help you reflect more, but in my opinion, I think I was just spending more time trying to keep things straight.

I also had a hard time keeping track of the characters, particularly Richard's German friends. When it came to the primary refugee characters, I could remember who was who by about the halfway point of the book, but perhaps because Richard's German friends aren't quite as notable during the story, I had a much harder time with them. (Also, it's worth noting that Richard gives the refugees nicknames from Greek mythology at the beginning because he claims that he can't keep their names straight, which is problematic in and of itself, but ironically, those nicknames made it much harder for me to keep track of who was who at first because there were too many names being thrown around.) 

Throughout the novel, we were so in Richard's head that it created distance with every single other character, including the refugees, which felt somewhat counterintuitive considering what the book seemed to be attempting to do.

Unfortunately, I also found Richard a rather annoying character, so the fact that he was the only character that the book seemed to really connect with didn't do any favors for my enjoyment of the book. In some ways, I understand why he is the way he is. He's a product of his time, and there are others around him who are worse. He even distances himself from some of his long-time friends because of their attitudes. Yet there were just a number of things about his behavior that irked me. Was it believable? Yes. Did I enjoy being in his head? No.

There are other obvious drawbacks of having a story about African refugees told from the point of view of an older white man as well. I'm pretty sure it was an attempt to connect readers to the crisis from a familiar viewpoint, but that rests on the assumption that readers are all going to be white Germans (and fairly well off on top of that I think). Even as a white American, there were countless ways in which I didn't connect with Richard at all, so if Richard's character was supposed to be a bridge of sorts, then it didn't work for me anyway. The story would have felt far more personal coming from a refugee, but I also know that the author is white, which is another reason why she likely chose to write from the perspective of a white character.

Overall, I just didn't enjoy this book much. I did like how it showed the hypocrisy of certain people in Richard's circle, but that didn't do much to boost the book in the end. While many of the refugees had powerful stories, they didn't have quite the same impact when filtered though Richard's lens.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x08 "The Elysian Kingdom" Review

This episode sure was something. In many ways, the conflict in it wasn't as large as the conflict in other episodes, yet I have a lot to say about it.

M'Benga is once again reading a story to his daughter. We get a bit more of the story this time and hear about the Elysian Kingdom that the story is about. Rukiya says that she wants to change the ending. My first time watching this episode, their talk about how she could change the ending when she got older seemed to hint at her getting better, and I honestly thought that was what was going to happen in this episode. Boy was that wrong.

The first sign that there's a problem comes when Enterprise suddenly can't warp. When M'Benga goes to the bridge, he suddenly finds that everyone has become characters from the story he was reading to Rukiya.

At first, I thought he was hallucinating because of his experiments, as earlier it had blown up in his face. Turns out, that's not what's happening. Everything around them is real but the minds of the crew have been alterred, and even though the concept of the crew being stuck in the story is kind of funny, there are real life consequences. (Plus, the idea of messing with people's minds that much is also straight up creepy. The entity is ultimately portrayed as a good entity, but if you think too much about what she did, then it gets really creepy really fast.)

The characters each of the crew members becomes have little to do with their actual personality, so it was pretty amusing to see them in character. La'an as Thalia was the most hilarious. It's probably a good thing that none of the crew (except M'Benga) remembers what happened because I'm pretty sure La'an would be mortified about it.

Pike was also hilarious because of how his character contrasted with his real personality, and Spock was another favorite.

It turns out that Hemmer is the only person besides M'Benga who hasn't been affected by the entity, so he and M'Benga work together to figure out what's going on. As far as I can remember, this episode marks the first time we've seen the two of them interact much, and I enjoyed it, especially how sympathetic Hemmer was about Rukiya. As a character, he's a little standoffish at first, and it's nice to see moments like this where he bonds with his crewmates and we can see that he does care.

M'Benga and Hemmer figure out that there's a consciousness who's doing all of this, and it seems like the consciousness is using Rukiya somehow, as the story is following the ending that she wanted. Unfortunately, Spock overhears this and comes to believe that Rukiya is the mercury stone, which is supposed to be a powerful weapon.

When M'Benga and Hemmer do find Rukiya, she says that she's playing with her friend, who turns out to be the entity controlling everything. Honestly, thinking too hard about the entity and how it got there is rather terrifying. I'm not a huge fan of those implications, but at least this one seems to be friendly? But then she's also manipulating the entire crew, so...

The entity ends up speaking through Hemmer and saves Rukiya's consciousness even though her body dies. Except it doesn't really. Her body kind of just disappears, and she's able to reappear as if she's older a few moments later, which kind of implies that her body is living on in someway. After all, the entity couldn't form a body herself and had to speak through Hemmer. If Rukiya doesn't have a body anymore, it's also odd that she would have aged at all even if time had passed. Theoretically, she would probably appear at the same age that she always was if she was going to reappear in a body at all. But I also get that her reappearing was more about assuring M'Benga that she was fine and showing us as an audience that time had passed for her.

Rukiya dying did surprise me a bit because other hints so far had given me hope that she'd survive, but I also wasn't incredibly shocked when she died instead. Still, it was very sad, and I was tearing up at the ending.

Overall, this episode was a fun one despite having a sad ending. I enjoyed seeing everyone out of character.

Obi-Wan Kenobi Part VI Review

This finally definitely didn't let me down. I have such a soft spot for endings, and this one hit all the right points for me.

Reva does end up going to Tatooine to look for Owen and Luke. Beru refuses to leave their home when they learn that Reva is coming, so they end up fighting her. We saw very little of Beru in the series, but I absolutely loved her in this episode. I wish we'd gotten more of her and also of Owen and Luke. Leia was such a great character, and it would have been great to spend that much time with little Luke too.

Meanwhile, Darth Vader is still trying to get to Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan offers to give himself up in order to protect the others. This leads to an emotional goodbye with Leia, and Leia ends up giving him Lola after him joking about needing to borrow her, which was absolutely adorable.

Obi-Wan's final fight with Darth Vader was extremely powerful. There are some incredible quotes in this scene, including "Anakin is gone. I am what remains." and "You didn't kill Anakin Skywalker. I did." Those lines along with Darth Vader's mask being partially destroyed, allowing Obi-Wan to see his face, were very powerful.

Reva's attempt to kill Luke is almost as powerful. She comes close, but in the end, she can't do it. The scene where she asks Obi-Wan if this makes her like Vader really got to me. I would love to see more of Reva's story and what happens to her after this.

At the end of the episode, we get to see Darth Vader talking to the Emperor, which I should have expected. It's honestly impressive how many appearances we got in this.

Leia continues to be amazing right through to the end. She wears the holster that Obi-Wan gave her once back home and tells her dad that, "If I'm going to do this, I'm going to want to change a few things." Honestly, I could watch a whole show about little Leia too. Seriously. I want spin offs about little Leia, little Luke, and Reva now.

When Obi-Wan first started trying to talk to Qui-Gon Jinn, I wondered if we were going to see him, and lo and behold, he does make a cameo at the very end. I was pretty much expected that at that point, but it was still cool to see.

I really enjoyed this series. I'm sad it's over, but I also think part of the reason why it was so good was precisely because it's a limited series, so I'm not sure I'd want another season. I'm just thankful for what we got.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x07 "The Serene Squall" Review

I'm getting more and more into Strange New Worlds with each episode. It's interesting because I don't typically like episodic shows that much, but I am enjoying this one.

When T'Pring was first introduced, I never expected that we'd see so much of her. I thought she'd pop up for a couple episodes at most, but she's also in this one. We see her at a rehabilitation center for criminals where she's working. We also find out that she's learning about humans in order to connect with Spock.

Each time we see her, I like T'Pring more. While she seemed very dismissive of Spock's human heritage in past episodes, I like that she's making an effort to learn about it now. She also mentions the onus being on her to learn about humans, and that combined with how much she trusts Spock in this episode really makes me respect her.

We also meet a new character in this episode: Aspen. Or Captain Angel, as he later learn their name actually is. I loved Aspen/Angel! They were such an intriguing character when they were pretending to be Aspen, and they were even more so when it turned out that it had all been a trick. I love how "Aspen" questioning Spock not trusting his emotions led to the reveal that Angel's husband is a Vulcan who rejected rationality.

In an attempt to rescue colonists, Enterprise goes into non-Federation space, but they fall into a Serene Squall trap and lose control of Enterprise.

"Aspen" tells Spock that their husband was a Vulcan and died. It's a very compelling story that ends up being at least partially a lie as "Aspen" is actually Angel and their husband was actually imprisoned by Vulcans because he rejected logic. Angel calls their husband Xaverius, but Spock believes that Xaverius is actually an assumed name of his half brother.

The only information I know about Spock's half brother is stuff I've googled, but I'm curious about where this is going. I get the feeling we'll be seeing him. Considering everything that happened with Michael and Spock in Discovery, seeing Spock's brother in Strange New Worlds will be even more interesting. I'm curious about what he knew about Michael and if she'll come up.

I also wonder if T'Pring, when she was preparing to hand over the prisoner, knew that it was Spock's brother.

At the end of the episode, Spock "pretends" to be having an affair with Chapel to give T'Pring a reason not to release the prisoner. T'Pring doesn't believe it though and trusts Spock, which makes me admire her even more as a character.

I'm enjoying this love triangle because it's one where I genuinely like all of the characters involved, and none of them are doing anything that massively annoy me like often happens with love triangles.

Right now, I think the love triangle is what I'm most curious about in the immediate future.

Obi-Wan Kenobi Part V Review

This episode had me on the edge of my seat. It was probably my favorite so far.

We get flashbacks to Obi-Wan and Anakin training in this episode, which means that we do actually get to see Hayden's face beyond previous footage. It's a little funny because they're both obviously older despite when the clips are meant to take place, but that's much preferable to the CGI they've been using to recreate younger versions of characters recently.

Aside from those flashbacks, this episode suffers from the problem that it's so dark that I could hardly see what was happening on the screen, even when I brightened it. That's starting to become my pet peeve in TV shows and movies.

This episode focuses a lot on Reva, who becomes an even more interesting character as we learn about her backstory and motivations. We learn that she was a youngling, which isn't terribly surprising considering the comments about her powers earlier in the series. I suspected there was more to that than just her being Force-sensitive. Still, I enjoyed the depth her story gave her character, and I wasn't really expecting her to be trying to kill Darth Vader. That was a great twist.

Obi-Wan ends up surrendering to her and telling her that he wants to work together to defeat Vader.

The droid from earlier sacrifices itself to save Tala, who then also sacrifices herself by throwing a grenade. I enjoyed how emotionally powerful that scene was.

In happier news, Lola is okay! After me being so worried that she'd have to be destroyed or something last time, Leia fixes her pretty quickly. It almost seemed to be too quick. If it was that easy to pull the thing off, then Reva seemed a little too confident that her plan would work last episode. But, at any rate, I'm glad that Lola seems okay again.

At the end of the episode, Reva attacks Vader once the others have gotten away, but he reveals that he knows who she is. I really loved this whole scene and how it played out. We also see Reva find Bail's message where he mentions Luke, which makes me incredibly curious about what's going to happen in the next episode.

The ship they're trying to escape on also doesn't have a working hyperdrive, yet they're being tailed, so it looks likely that we'll get another confrontation, possibly between Obi-Wan and Anakin, in the next episode.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how this series wraps up in the next episode.

Obi-Wan Kenobi Part IV Review

I'm really enjoying this series so far. I'm impressed with how each episode keeps increasing the tension, and after each episode, I'm incredibly eager to see what happens next.

There's a cool scene towards the beginning of the episode where we go back and forth between both Obi-Wan and Darth Vader in bacta tanks, interspersed with their memories. It's a really great scene.

Tala, Obi-Wan, and some allies head to Vader's system where Leia is being held by Reva. Them breaking into the compound and moving around takes up most of the episode. What got me was the way they're communicating. There's a moment where stormtroopers hear Tala speak to Obi-Wan, but Tala is also there whispering to Obi-Wan when other people are in the room, yet apparently no one can hear her. If it was a loud room, that would make sense, but considering how quiet it was, I don't get how no one heard what they were talking about.

Leia being interrogated and still refusing to tell them anything was heartbreaking. The actress who plays Leia is doing such an amazing job despite how young she is. I'm really impressed.

It turns out that there's also a whole hall of dead Jedi on display in the building, which was incredibly eerie.

Obi-Wan reaches Leia, and the group almost manages to escape. But Reva finds them at the last minute. After a confrontation, they still manage to escape, but when Darth Vader questions Reva, she says that she's managed to put a tracker on their ship.

It turns out that that tracker is Lola, which no one has noticed yet. That hurts my heart because I'm worried that it means Lola will be destroyed for good, and that's going to make my heart break for Leia. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they'll be able to disable the tracker and fix Lola though.

I'm really excited to see what happens next.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x06 "Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach" Review

A lot of heavy stuff happened in this episode, so there's no shortage of things to talk about.

After the Enterprise gets fired at, they end up rescuing three people from a shuttle. One of them, Alora, is someone who Pike knew in the past, and it's clear right off the bat that they have feelings for each other.

Alora wasn't as interesting to me in that first scene as the man, who we later learn is named Gamal, and child were. When asked, the man says that he's the father's child but only in the biological sense, which immediately made me want to know more. It turns out that the child is the First Servant, which is meant to be a holy figure within their culture. Upon hearing that, I kind of expected the kid to be annoying, but he was a really great kid surprisingly, which only made what happens in the episode even sadder.

At first, Gamal actually comes across as far more arrogant than the child. He is dismissive of Enterprise's medical equipment and claims that they don't have any disease on Majalis, which is certainly a pretty big revelation. They don't share that technology with outsiders though, which is probably good from a storytelling standpoint considering what having no disease would do to the entire universe.

It's something he admits rather easily though considering what could easily happen to their planet if a lot of people knew they had that technology. Surely, someone would attack in order to get it.

One of the subplots in the episode is that Uhura is on rotation and learning about security with La'an. While there were jokes about La'an not being "fun" in recent episodes, it was great seeing her and Uhura forming something like a friendship. Uhura definitely seems to have impressed La'an, which seems difficult to do. I'm looking forward to seeing how their relationship develops over the series.

Uhura ends up matching the data chips that La'an got from the crash site to the Prospect 7 colony, and she also figures out that they speak a language related to Majalis, meaning that the two people on the two planets are probably related.

It turns out that the First Servant's role is being hooked up to a machine that requires the life force of a child. Something about this machine makes it necessary for Majalis to continue surviving, though I'm not clear on what exactly the machine is doing. While Ahora says they've made attempt to find a different way to power the machine over the years, they haven't been able to. She seems scarily okay with the fact that her ancestors chose to power a machine that way even though she admits that they don't know why they did it. It's a very half-hearted attempt at knowing it's bad. At the same time, she rationalizes it in a way that makes it very realistic, especially when she compares the way Majalis reveres the children to how impoverished children are treated on Earth.

At the end of the episode, Gamal offers to show M'Benga a possible treatment for his daughter's illness. He stresses that it's not a cure, but it's still something. I'm hopeful that this means we'll get to see his daughter healthy soon.

Overall, this was one of my favorite episodes so far. I'm intrigued by Majalis, and it's yet again something that I would have liked to learn more about. It raises so many questions about what daily life is like on the planet that I wouldn't mind seeing explored. And I'm also excited to see what this episode means for M'Benga's daughter.

Book Review: The Shadow of Kyoshi by F.C. Yee

Published: July 21, 2020
Publisher: Amulet Books
Received: purchased
Read from February 11 to June 4, 2022

Synopsis from Goodreads:

The epic, can’t-miss follow-up to the New York Times bestselling Avatar, The Last Airbender:The Rise of Kyoshi

Kyoshi’s place as the true Avatar has finally been cemented—but at a heavy cost. With her mentors gone, Kyoshi voyages across the Four Nations, struggling to keep the peace. But while her reputation grows, a mysterious threat emerges from the Spirit World. To stop it, Kyoshi, Rangi, and their reluctant allies must join forces before the Four Nations are destroyed irreparably. This thrilling follow-up continues Kyoshi’s journey from a girl of humble origins to the merciless pursuer of justice still feared and admired centuries after becoming the Avatar.

Review:

The Shadow of Kyoshi is the sequel to The Rise of Kyoshi, the second novel about Avatar Kyoshi. Unless something changes, I also think it's the last. Interestingly, even though the books are a duology, the story itself feels more like its own thing than a direct continuation of the story from the first book.

It's definitely not a standalone. There are a lot of aspects of the plot that would be incredibly confusing if you hadn't read The Rise of Kyoshi, but while the plot is connected to what happened in the last book, the villain and a lot of Kyoshi's biggest challenges have changed.

In this book, Yun becomes the villain of the story after unexpectedly appearing at the end of the last novel. I have complicated feelings about Yun as a character. It feels like we didn't get to know him all that much in the first novel, so I didn't feel the sense of former fondness for him that Kyoshi did. I really just found him annoying in the last novel, so his switch to being a villain didn't bother me all that much.

Another way this book felt quite different from the last one is that Kyoshi has different companions except for Rangi. We don't see much of the Flying Opera Company this time around, which was a huge shame. While I enjoyed many of the new characters we got to meet, especially Jinpa, I have to admit that I missed the characters from the last book quite a bit and would have appreciated seeing more of them.

I'm not sure if Zoryu counts as an Avatar companion exactly, but he's another new character in this book who Kyoshi tries to work with, so it feels like he counts at least a little bit. And he's by far the character that I have the most complicated feelings about.

At first, I liked him, and I was excited about the possibility of him and Kyoshi becoming friends. So it was disappointing that my feelings towards him had soured towards the end of the book. I won't get into all the details of why in order to avoid big spoilers, but I was disappointed in his decisions. Honestly, I found the way his story went hard to believe. I feel like such a character change could have been explained, but it wasn't really in the story we got.

With that being said, I liked how the change in Kyoshi's companions was paralleled with Kuruk as we learn about more of his former companions in this book. We also learn some interesting tidbits about Yangchen.

Overall, I didn't enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed the first one, though there were certain parts I liked, particularly Kyoshi and Rangi's relationship. If there was going to be a third Kyoshi book,  I would still happily read it. While it doesn't seem like there's going to be, there is going to be a Yangchen book released this year, and after the things we learn about Yangchen in The Shadow of Kyoshi, I am looking forward to that at least.

Obi-Wan Kenobi Part III Review

I'm back to talk about Part III. A lot happened in this episode, and we finally got to see Darth Vader, which is probably what I was anticipating the most.

At the start of the episode, Obi-Wan tries to meditate and communicate with Qui-Gon, but it doesn't work. I'm wondering if we're going to end up seeing Qui-Gon in a future episode or not because that would certainly be interesting.

Obi-Wan fixed Lola which led to what's probably the cutest moment in the episode.

When they arrive on Mapuzo, Obi-Wan has a vision of Anakin. They take a ride with a bunch of stormtroopers. He mentions seeing her mother's face on Leia, which leads her to realizes that he knew her mom. She talks about trying to imagine her dad. It's a heavy scene.

They're found out, but an imperial officer helps them escape. It turns out that she's part of the "Path," where they help people who are Force-sensitive escape from the Empire, which is something I feel like a lot of interesting stories could come from that.

Eventually, Darth Vader arrives, and engages Obi-Wan. They don't fight that much because Obi-Wan is able to escape, but it definitely increased the tension and made me excited to see what happens next.

The tunnels used in this episode confused me as I'm not quite sure how the imperial woman escaped to go find Obi-Wan without meeting Reva while Reva met Leia. I'm guessing that Reva actually went in from the other side of the tunnel, but I didn't realize that at first and so was very confused by the whole thing.

Overall, I did enjoy this episode, and I'm curious to see what it's building towards next.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x05 "Spock Amok" Review

This was a fun episode.

At the start of the episode, Spock has a dream that he's marrying T'Pring, but she has him fight a Vulcan version of himself because she thinks he's too human. That was a good indicator of what the episode was going to deal with, and I like the way they showed Spock's difficulty with being half Vulcan and half human, especially when it comes to his and T'Pring's relationship.

We quickly find out that T'Pring is actually visiting as well while the Enterprise is docked at a space station. She's not even there for five minutes before she criticizes Spock's quarters as being too human, so I can easily imagine where Spock's anxieties come from. Considering what he's dealt with from other Vulcans while growing up, I really wonder how he ended up betrothed to someone who would also make comments about it honestly. That only becomes more true when she makes a comment about Starfleet making him act too much like a human.

The crew gets shore leave in this episode. There's a scene with Ortegas, M'Benga, and Chapel as they're preparing to leave the ship that may be my favorite in the episode because it's hilarious. I love getting to see little moments like that which expand on all the different relationships between the crew members.

While everyone else is having fun, La'an and Una find out about the bingo game and try to play with together to find out why it's fun. This was a subplot that I expected to enjoy more than I did. I find out La'an and Una to be interesting characters, but for some reason, I just didn't get into that story that much.

Chapel and Spock have a couple heart-to-hearts in this episode where she gives him relationship advice. The advice she gives him does seem to actually help his relationship with T'Pring in the end, but at the same time, it seems like Chapel is developing feelings for him. Her conversation with Ortegas at the end of the episode strongly hints at it too. I'm curious to see what comes of that.

In an effort to understand each other better, Spock and T'Pring go through a Vulcan ritual, but it ends with them switching bodies. This is such a popular fanfiction trope that it almost makes me laugh when I see it play out in media, but it undoubtedly led to a lot of comedy in this episode. I think this is one of the funniest episodes of Strange New Worlds yet mostly because of the body swap.

Somehow, they have a medical way of helping them switch back, so everything ends fine. I'm not sure how much they've actually learned about each other though, to be honest. While that was supposedly what was happening, it doesn't really seem to have happened.

Of course, things work out with the R'ongovians in the end because Pike figures it out. To be completely honest, Pike is probably my least favorite character on the show so far, which I more or less expected from his appearance on Discovery. I have nothing against him, but I'm far less interested in him than the others. And him figuring out things like how to negotiate with the R'ongovians and just going with it without talking to anyone else and in a way that feels a little too good to be true kind of irks me a bit. But it's also more or less what I expected to happen, so... I don't know.

Overall, I did think this was a fun episode. I just didn't care all that much for the ending.

Obi-Wan Kenobi Part II Review

Here I am with my review for Part II when Part III has already aired. Whoops. I really enjoyed this episode and have a lot to say about it though. So let's get to it so that I can go watch Part III.

Obi-Wan ends up on Daiyu where the kidnappers have taken Leia. This series is the first time we've ever seen the planet, and I'm very curious about the place. It's definitely different from Tatooine. There are a number of interesting characters there, including a clone veteran who's begging for money. That's not something I remember seeing in Star Wars before, so it was an interesting detail.

A kid on the planet offers to take Obi-Wan to a "Jedi," but Obi-Wan quickly figures out that the Jedi in question is a fraud. The son of the woman he's helping is implied to have the Force though, so I really hope that kid's okay. It's implied that the fake Jedi did actually help them get off the planet, and it's that detail and the fact that he helps Obi-Wan later that makes him so intriguing. It feels like something significant happened to him, and I'd really like to know what it was.

The fake Jedi is able to give him information, and Obi-Wan finds where Leia is being kept. There's a moment where the kidnappers think they've tricked him, but Obi-Wand gets free and manages to find Leia.

Leia is excellent in this episode! She immediately attacks Obi-Wan when he enters her cell, and she tries hard to escape when she thinks she can't trust him. She also has some fantastic lines. My favorite was probably, "This would've been easier with the army." The fact that she's still carrying Lola around is also adorable. I really hope we get to see Lola fixed and working again before the end of the series.

There's also a heart-breaking moment where Obi-Wan tells Leia that she reminds him of someone, and of course he means Padme even though he doesn't say her name.

Not long after Reva arrives in Daiyu, the other inquisitors show up as well, and they're not happy about Reva's actions even though she has (kind of) been able to locate Obi-Wan. Her interactions with the other inquisitors make me curious about her backstory. The Grand Inquisitor makes a comment about her only getting the position because of her powers. We know that she can use the Force, but I wonder if there's more to it than that. Obi-Wan mentions that many inquisitors are former Jedi, so I wonder if Reva is particularly powerful with the Force and that's why she was made an inquisitor. I also wonder what made her so intent on finding Obi-Wan above everything else.

When Reva does find Obi-Wan, she reveals to him that Anakin is alive. To be honest, I didn't really consider Obi-Wan not knowing that at this point, so it took me a second to realize that it was the first time he'd heard that. Still, it's a heart-breaking scene.

The episode ends with a glimpse of Darth Vader in what I assume is a bacta tank. I hope that means we'll see more of him in the next episode. I'm genuinely very curious how that will go!