To stall for time, Kenobi negotiates with Reva and deduces that she knows Vader's true identity as she witnessed his massacre at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant as a Youngling.
[4][5] Deborah Chow was hired to direct all episodes for the series by September 2019, while Joby Harold became the head writer and showrunner in April 2020 following Kennedy's disapproval with the scripts and subsequent rewrites.
[2][8][9] Chow also took inspirations from "gritty, poetic westerns" including The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), The Proposition (2005), and the works of Akira Kurosawa.
[12] The episode stars Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and features co-stars Indira Varma as Tala Durith, Vivien Lyra Blair as Princess Leia, Moses Ingram as Reva Sevander / Third Sister, and Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader.
[13] Principal photography began on May 4, 2021, on the annual Star Wars Day celebration, with Deborah Chow directing, and Chung-hoon Chung serving as cinematographer.
McGregor had relied upon his lightsaber training from Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) while filming the scene, and Christensen had also enjoyed it, saying it was "like time travel getting to do that flashback sequence".
[17] Visual effects for the episode were created by ILM, Hybride, Image Engine, Important Looking Pirates, Soho VFX, Wētā FX, Blind LTD, and ReDefine.
Composition was also required in order to "sell the energy and physicality of the cut, even though it occurs over just a few frames", with many "visual recipes" being tested to complement the look of the lightsaber and being applied to other scenes later on.
Furthermore, the team also had relative ease in executing the blaster shots, as they had prior experience in creating such effects with the studio's work on The Mandalorian (2019-present) and The Book of Boba Fett (2021).
The alumni, Trent Claus, had used his personal connections in order to hire the interns from UNL's Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts.
The site's critical consensus reads, "The Third Sister takes center stage and Obi-Wan Kenobi regains the high ground in an action-packed installment that achieves some of the epic heft befitting a Star Wars saga.
"[25] Giving the episode an A+ grade, Maggie Lovvit of Collider enjoyed the flashback scene, feeling that it characterized Anakin Skywalker's character well and it had helped developed the plot, further lauding Harold's writing and Chow's direction.
[26] Calling it the best episode in series up until then in a 4.5 out of 5 stars rating, Bradley Russell's review of Total Film began by concurring with Lovvit that the flashback sequence did a good job in characterizing Skywalker.
However, Russell labelled Tala's death as being "overt emotional manipulation" and later also praised Vader and Reva's duel, enjoying the storytelling by writing "it's deftly handled, with several significant character beats being communicated through their movements alone".
[27] Providing a 7 out of 10, Simon Cardy at IGN interpreted the episode as paying homage to Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), but criticized the production design of Jabiim.