Maul – Shadow Lord is an incredible show that just keeps getting better and better each week.
The two latest episodes premiered today on Disney+, taking us past the halfway point of the show’s first season – and raising the stakes considerably, with the arrival of the Empire. We’re allowed to feel the building tension, but once the spark is lit Shadow Lord doesn’t let up even for a moment.
Let’s dive in to these two episodes, “Inquisition” and “Night of the Hunted”, and beware: full spoilers lie ahead.
Episode four ended on an ominous note, with the arrival of an Imperial Star Destroyer over Janix. The next episode picks up right where that left off, and we see the Empire almost immediately take over the planet. Two things really stand out from these episodes: first, that the Empire is a very real threat, and second, that the Empire is very bad.
The Empire is a very real threat, something Star Wars has done a particularly great job at highlighting recently. That was most evident in Andor, but the same feel is given here. Under the command of Lieutenant Blake, the Empire takes over the planet in almost no time. So fast is their takeover that the Jedi, Master Eeko-Dio Daki and his apprentice Devon Izara, can’t even get out of the city before it’s locked down. The Imperial occupation makes life quite cumbersome for the average citizens, who are subjected to searches and ID checks, but it’s even worse for those in law enforcement. Blake apparently knows that the sighting of Maul wasn’t reported right away, which leads to Chief Klyce being taken away for interrogation. We don’t see what happens to her, but it is certainly implied that the Empire killed her: Blake says she has been permanently re-assigned, and in the interrogation room, horrifically, are claw marks on the table suggesting some form of torture took place.
The interrogations are done by an Imperial Inquisitor, Marrok – otherwise known as the First Brother. He is a man of few words, which makes him even more menacing. This is, without a doubt, one of the most intimidating portrayals of an Inquisitor in Star Wars. Though there have been times where this group of Jedi hunters have really shone (like the Grand Inquisitor in Rebels or the Third Sister in Jedi: Fallen Order), they haven’t always felt like the greatest of threats. Here, though, Marrok feels terrifying – and I love that we get to see him actually hunting the Jedi. He doesn’t just show up for a fight; he shows up for a hunt. He interrogates Klyce (off-screen) and Captain Lawson (on-screen), looking for Maul’s whereabouts. Having ascertained the location of the previous episode’s showdown from Lawson, Marrok goes to investigate. He walks through the fortress and makes use of a Force ability known as psychometry to learn what happened. Psychometry was a skill that Jedi like Quinlan Vos, Cal Kestis, Ahsoka Tano, and Rey Skywalker were known to use, which allows a person to sense an echo through the Force associated with an object. By touching an object, a person can learn about what happened to a person, or what event took place, connected with it. Marrok makes use of this by rubbing his hand on lightsaber scars on walls to realize there are Jedi on the planet. He tracks them to Lawson’s apartment, and the fight begins.
We’ll get to that fight in a moment, but my point is that it was really cool to see Marrok actually hunting the Jedi – not to mention his more than holding his own in combat. It all makes the Empire feel particularly strong, and that makes the stakes feel so much higher. They have the heroes continually on the run. One other moment, albeit small, drives this reality home: as Daki and Devon try to evade the stormtroopers, Daki uses a Jedi mind trick to convince the stormtrooper to let them pass. Almost immediately afterward, another trooper asks why they were allowed to go, and the pursuit continues. We’ve seen Jedi use these mind tricks before, but here, the Empire catches it right away. It helps to underscore the desperate situation these Jedi are in – not even a Jedi mind trick can buy them time to escape.
That is why Master Daki’s entire goal is simply to survive. Devon still wants to fight Maul and bring him to justice, but Daki says the goal is simply to survive. He says that he’s been around long enough to have seen tyranny rise over and over again, and it’s always defeated. So they will simply survive, waiting, buying time. The goal is to stay alive. Which makes perfect sense. That’s exactly what the Jedi have been forced into during this period, after the Purge. But at the same time, that’s pretty close to what Maul told Devon last week when pressed about killing people: he has done what he needed to in order to survive. The Jedi haven’t resorted to that, but it’s not hard to see how Devon could begin to grow more and more sympathetic to Maul’s perspective. We know, of course, that Daki and Maul mean totally different things by surviving, and even their motivations are different – Maul’s to protect himself, Daki’s to protect Devon. Unlike Maul, Daki’s desire to survive isn’t self-seeking. But though we see that, Devon is a young Jedi in a galaxy that has completely changed on her, and it’s easy to see how some of Maul’s twisted statements could resonate.
Because she knows Maul is right on one thing: the Empire is not to be trusted. These episodes show the real threat of the Empire, but also just how evil it is. I think this is best seen through the eyes of two characters: Rylee Lawson and Two-Boots. Rylee, Brander Lawson’s son, gets caught up in the mix of the action this week. He knows that his dad is in trouble, but he doesn’t understand why the Empire showing up is so bad. He contacts his mom, who works for the Empire, and she assures him that he should just do whatever they say. She believes the Empire is there to help, and he believes her… for a moment. I’m glad that the show didn’t really waste much time on him believing that. It’s not long before they’re being hunted by the Empire, and his dad is killing stormtroopers. Rylee is shocked by this, but he gets a crash course on what the Empire can do. His dad tells him that the Empire isn’t what he thinks. All of this further solidifies my theory that the reason Brander and his wife are separated is their differing views on the Empire. If so, that would be a really interesting story dynamic that we have rarely seen: what the rise of the Empire did to families who didn’t see eye-to-eye on what was happening.
While Rylee quickly sees the dark side of the Empire, Two-Boots is having a slower learning process. The droid went from incredibly likable to incredibly annoying overnight, but it’s not his fault: he’s just following programming. He believes the Empire is good, and he’s just following orders. This leads to a humorous moment where the droid is telling another officer that he’s sure Captain Lawson will realize how good it is that the Empire has arrived, at which point a news bulletin immediately comes across about how Lawson is wanted by the Empire. Before Two-Boots has a chance to really even respond to this, Lieutenant Blake reprimands him for wearing boots that are not standard issue.That’s the last we see Two-Boots in these episodes, but it really seems like he’s contemplating all that’s happening. He’s too likable of a character to remain in the mindset that the Empire is doing the right thing, and I’m thinking it will be sooner rather than later that he’ll come to Lawson’s aid.
But the interaction between Two-Boots and Blake also highlights the nature of Imperial rule: they demand conformity, wanting to remove any semblance of individuality. While the name Two-Boots comes from the droid’s designation (2B0T), it doesn’t seem like a stretch to see the two boots he wears as being a part of his personality, part of what makes Two-Boots Two-Boots. The Empire wants to remove that. They want him to just be a police droid, and nothing else. This is their M.O. It’s why when clone troopers transitioned to serving the Empire, any color markings or other distinctions were removed, replaced with all-white armor. It’s why stormtroopers all look exactly the same. The Empire demands conformity. Two-Boots is learning that the hard way.
While the droid is learning, Lawson is forced on the run. The Jedi, having nowhere else to turn, show up at his home. It’s a move of desperation, but then again they’re just trying to survive. While Devon and Rylee talk, Daki takes the time to fill Lawson in on just how bad things are for the Jedi: he and his apprentice are among the few survivors of a Purge. Their very survival is threatened. Lawson is sympathetic to them, but he also has Rylee to think about. While they talk, the conversation between the two younger members – Devon and Rylee – exposes how vastly different their upbringings were. Rylee shows off some of his equipment from his sports, which leads Devon to conclude their background is nothing alike. That’s further highlighted as they go on the run from the Empire: Rylee is just a normal kid, but Devon is a child soldier. She got thrust into the midst of a galactic-wide war and now is forced to fight just to survive. It is sometimes easy to forget just how young some of these Jedi padawans were during the Clone Wars, and it’s only when compared to others like Rylee that it becomes evident.
These conversations only last so long, however, before Marrok arrives, having deduced the Jedi’s location. The rest of the episode is a nearly non-stop chase through the city, full of tons of fighting. I’ve just got to say: the animation of all of this is absolutely gorgeous. It’s the best Star Wars animation has ever looked, and these lightsaber duels were breathtaking. I really hope they keep putting more and more effort into telling stories in this medium, because it looks tremendous. These fights were some of the best stuff we’ve seen from Star Wars, animated or live-action, in a long time. Lawson and Daki make quite the team, fighting off stormtroopers with blaster and lightsaber working in tandem. I’m surprised that we’re seeing Lawson full-on fight the Empire this early in the show, and for that matter I’m kind of surprised Daki is still alive this far into the show. But getting to see the two of them work together is great. Devon also gets time to shine, fighting off stormtroopers and commandeering an Imperial gunship to help the heroes escape.
And then there’s Marrok. Daki holds him off long enough for the others to escape from the Lawson apartment, but later, at the train station, it’s Devon’s turn to try to hold him off. This duel is, again, simply stunning animation, but it’s also of great interest to Maul. He takes a backseat in these episodes, but his criminal enterprise is on shaky foundations. The Empire has arrived, which is bad for business, and some of the Mandalorians are getting second thoughts about how worthwhile their partnership with Maul is. It’s interesting to see how Maul’s team is splintering, but Rook Kast remains committed. She wants to try to leave the planet for refuge elsewhere, but Maul won’t leave without Devon – the girl he believes to be his apprentice, thanks to a vision in the Force. So Spybot keeps track of the fights and alerts Maul to Devon’s location. As Marrok fights her on the train and asks where Maul is, the former Sith reveals himself and gets involved. Devon reluctantly joins forces with him, and together they fight Marrok until Devon severs the train car, stranding the Inquisitor behind. This team-up reminds us of something Daki told her earlier: that they might share a common enemy with Maul, but he will never be their ally. Devon teams up with him to face a common enemy, but she still doesn’t trust him – and the episode ends with her, lightsaber raised, with a look of anger on her face toward Maul.
These fights are so good that it’s hard to put into words how impressive it all is. And these episodes – especially “Night of the Hunted” – were practically perfect, amounting to a non-stop thrill ride. We’re over halfway through the first season of Maul – Shadow Lord, and we’ve seen most of what was in the trailers. Which, of course, means that we don’t really have any idea where things will go from here.
Well, we do have some idea. The final scene of the episode is Marrok reporting to someone via hologram, telling “my lord” that Maul lives, is stronger than they thought, and is allied with Jedi. This is almost certainly Darth Vader. They wouldn’t refer to the Grand Inquisitor as “my lord”, and it wouldn’t make a ton of sense to keep his identity a secret either. While it’s possible it’s Palpatine, it makes more sense for the Inquisitor to report directly to Vader – which furthers my belief that we’re heading toward the long-awaited Vader versus Maul showdown this season. We’ll see if that transpires, but what we do know from the trailers is that there will be another Inquisitor joining Marrok before that. I’m guessing that will happen next week. For now, though, these episodes were stunningly brilliant. This show is so good.
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