It’s always a good day when a new Star Wars show premieres.
The newest series from Lucasfilm Animation released today, and it’s all about the former Sith-turned-crime boss, Maul. The series, which will include ten episodes in its first season, has already been renewed for season two ahead of the premiere. Set after the events of The Clone Wars, Maul – Shadow Lord tells the tale of Maul seeking revenge while lurking in the shadows of the Empire’s rise.
Two episodes will release each week, so let’s dive in to these first two, titled “The Dark Revenge” and “Sinister Schemes”. Full spoilers are ahead.
The series wastes no time diving into the action, as it picks up on the city-world of Janix as Maul’s crew pulls off a heist, stealing credits and a droid and then fleeing through the skies as they’re pursued by police. It’s a fun sequence, establishing the other members of Maul’s crew – including a new droid named Spybot that I’m sure is going to become a favorite of mine. But it doesn’t take long for us to meet Maul himself, and learn more about his motivation.
Two things have driven him to Janix: the first being revenge, the second being purpose. He seeks revenge on those who betrayed him, while he also has had visions in the Force of a potential new apprentice. Both feel very true to Maul’s character, as pretty much everything he does is driven by a lust for revenge, and he’s had other Force visions before. We learn that the reason for stealing the droid was because Maul wants to pit two rival crime bosses against each other. He gets one of them, Nico Deemis, to suspect another, Looti Vario, and this leads to a meeting between the two of them. Both of these alien crime bosses were delightful designs, with Deemis a large Gran who reminds me of Kingpin, and Vario a tiny Aleena parading around in a massive robotic suit. Both of them are excellent additions to this story.
They’re both new characters, but apparently they have a history with Maul – specifically, of betraying Maul. This all seems to be referencing events covered in a comic mini-series, Son of Dathomir, which adapted one of Dave Filoni’s planned arcs for The Clone Wars. In this, after Maul escaped from the clutches of Darth Sidious following their confrontation on Mandalore, he tried to re-assemble his criminal organization, the Shadow Collective. This group was an unsteady alliance including the Pykes, Black Sun, Hutts, Crimson Dawn, and Death Watch, plus the Nightbrothers of Dathomir. Slowly but surely, after a number of defeats, the Shadow Collective dissipated and left Maul with a small remnant. It seems that by the time of this series, he wants revenge on all who betrayed him – and, apparently, Deemis and Vario were among them.
But instead of just jumping in and killing them, Maul plays with them. He pits them against each other, and lets them fight it out – with Vario killing Deemis. This actually feels like a pretty Sidious-like move for Maul: sitting in the shadows and manipulating two sides, only to take advantage of it in the end. He winds up taking Vario alive, but only because it will help him get revenge on the Pykes. Maul ambushes a Pyke shipment that Vario’s men was supposed to be covering, and Maul slaughters them all. He hopes this will draw out Marg Krim, leader of the Pykes, so he can get revenge on him too.
This theme of revenge is one that echoes throughout the episodes, and all throughout Maul’s story. His whole plan in The Clone Wars was to get revenge on Obi-Wan Kenobi, and on Darth Sidious. That’s the same in Rebels, with him being driven by revenge on Sidious and Darth Vader, before turning his attention to revenge on Kenobi upon learning he’s alive. This is completely his story, and that’s no different here. But I was glad that his focus is not just seeking revenge on the crime bosses, but ultimately, he says, on Darth Sidious. He has his sights set on his former master, the one who most egregiously betrayed him, the new Emperor of the galaxy. That’s a losing battle, but I like that he still has that as his ultimate goal. So focused is he that he doesn’t really seem to care about going after any Jedi. When Master Eeko-Dio Daki uses the Force to make Maul’s transport crash, in an attempt to rescue Devon (more on that in a moment), Maul doesn’t just go after him with lightsaber twirling in an unhindered rage. He might have done so in previous times, but this is a different time for Maul and the galaxy. He is still filled with hatred, but he seems rather indifferent toward the Jedi. Perhaps he has realized, like he did in the Siege of Mandalore arc of The Clone Wars, that the Jedi were pawns in Sidious’s game just like he was. That’s not to make Maul out to be a Jedi sympathizer, but the reality is at this point in the story the Jedi aren’t his focus.
So I loved his approach to getting out of the situation: he used the Force to cause a bridge collapse, endangering the lives of many civilians. In doing so, he basically forces Daki to choose between trying to save Devon or trying to save the civilians. And, as a reminder that the Jedi are the heroes of the galaxy, Daki uses the Force – risking outing himself in a galaxy that isn’t safe for Jedi – so that the people can be saved.
Plus, Maul chooses to remain in the shadows. I love how this is conveyed visually throughout the episodes, as several times a character is literally cast in Maul’s shadow – most notably when he meets Master Daki’s padawan, Devon Inzara, while she is imprisoned in the police station for stealing food. As he approaches her, she is entirely cast in his shadow. Years later, when Maul encounters the Inquisitors on Malachor in Rebels, they literally refer to him as “the shadow”. He chooses to operate largely in secret, so much so that at one point Rook Kast tells him that his actions could risk exposure. He isn’t ready for that yet, but it also makes me think that it probably isn’t well-known that he survived the War. The real question is whether Sidious knows that his former apprentice is still alive or not – but regardless, he’ll find out as this series goes on. We know the Imperial Inquisitors will get involved, and that will out Maul, in a sense.
Maul isn’t the only one who doesn’t want Imperial attention. The episode also introduces police captain Brandar Lawson, an upstanding cop trying to do the best he can on a crime-ridden world like Janix. He works to investigate these crimes alongside his trusty droid companion, Two-Boots, and I can already tell that their dynamic is going to be a hit. As they investigate, a facial recognition scan on Maul is flagged as classified by the Empire, with any sightings to be reported immediately. Two-Boots insists they must do this, since it is protocol, but defers to Lawson who doesn’t want to involve the Empire yet. Understandably so, since once the Empire moves in they don’t relinquish power (we saw that happen in Andor). Soon he won’t be able to stop it, as the Inquisitors will show up, but I like seeing the hesitance to get the higher authorities involved. Even here, in the early days of the Empire, there’s distrust.
On that note: my one minor quibble with these episodes pertain to the timeline. Star Wars has historically been wonderful at providing all sorts of other galaxy-expanding information that’s fun for the most hard-core fans, but that’s become less and less in recent years. That’s probably in part due to Lucasfilm’s desire to keep their options open in the Disney+ era, but undoubtedly Dave Filoni (and Jon Favreau) have been the worst at it. Information with their stories has been notoriously hard to pin down, such as timeline. In the first episode of this series, as Lawson sees a hologram of Maul wielding a lightsaber, he remarks that he hasn’t seen a lasersword since the Clone Wars ended. Which wasn’t that long ago, was it? This series takes place pretty early in the Emipre’s reign. It’s just a weird comment to make, given how close the series takes place to those events. It’s a pretty minor thing, and easily forgotten, but it was just strange.
Anyway, back to Lawson: one thing these episodes reminded me of a lot was Batman, particularly the Christopher Nolan Batman films. Brander Lawson definitely feels like a Jim Gordon type, a good cop just trying to bring justice in a city overrun with crime. That’s further highlighted by the fact that Janix feels a lot like Gotham city. And is it a coincidence that the series begins with a daring bank heist? It’s a lot like The Dark Knight… and, well, the episode title is “The Dark Revenge”. Interesting, huh? These similarities definitely feel intentional, and I love that. I also love all of the investigation stuff, as this series takes on a crime mystery flavor at times as Lawson tries to learn more about Maul and the Shadow Collective.
One of the pieces that confuses Lawson, and understandably so, is why Maul and his crew kidnapped Devon from the prison, and not just Vario. But we know: Maul had a vision of a potential new apprentice, and that’s Devon. She is a young Jedi padawan in a galaxy that has totally changed around her. She’s frustrated by the life she and her master live, begging for food, but Master Daki refuses to resort to stealing. Because, remember, the Jedi are the good guys. They won’t take from someone else even if it might be of personal benefit. But Devon does, and is caught for it. Master Daki urges her to go with the police officers, spending a night in prison, to avoid worse consequences.
That sets up an interesting contrast that emerges with Devon and Maul. He imprisons her, but urges her to escape. Her Jedi master encourages her to willingly be imprisoned briefly, while this potential new master urges her to be free. Free not just from this cell, but also from the indoctrination of the Jedi. In a sense, he tells her that she needs to unlearn what she has learned. All she has known is the Jedi way, but he tells her that she needs to see the galaxy differently. Maul wants an apprentice, but he doesn’t just come right out and say it to her. He goes a roundabout way, trying to get her to see the errors of her Jedi upbringing and see a larger perspective. Maul knows what it is like to grow up being taught something that he comes to leave, as he was cast out from the Sith, but it seems he overestimates just how far he has come. He doesn’t see the clearer, better picture, despite what he thinks. But his exhortation for Devon is nonetheless toward that end. She resists this, but by the end of the second episode, she does exactly what he has been telling her and escapes. It seems significant that both episodes end with a focus on her face, and her story will be a major focus this season.
In summary, these two episodes were terrific, and a great start to this new series. The animation is gorgeous, showing just how much Lucasfilm Animation keeps getting better and better. The new characters are instantly compelling, while the familiar ones – most notably, Maul – remain so. The action is great, and the series wastes very little time moving things along. The crime drama is a great plotline, and I’m really excited to see where things go from here. We’re just getting started, and what a start it was!
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