We’ve already reached the penultimate week of Maul – Shadow Lord, and this series just continues to fire on all cylinders.
Two more episodes released this week, with episodes 7 (“Call to Oblivion”) and 8 (“The Creeping Fear”), showing the Inquisitors closing in on Maul and the Jedi. In the process, we get a more in-depth glimpse into Maul’s psyche, making for one of the most character-driven stories about the former Sith Lord we’ve ever seen. It makes for two more great episodes, setting the stage for the season finale next week.
Let’s dive in to these two episodes, with a full spoiler discussion.
At the end of last week’s episode, Devon Izara and Rylee Lawson were pursued by the Imperial Inquisitor Marrok, but Maul arrived to help fight him off. Devon doesn’t trust him, but she and Rylee escape with Maul. They walk through the inactive train tunnels toward safety, and Devon tells Rylee not to trust anything Maul says – but she is ok following him, since that is their only hope of escaping the Inquisitor. I really like how this whole dynamic has been playing out this season, leading up to what I assume will be her joining forces with Maul by the end. She is very much not a fan and she rebuffs every offer he makes – yet at the same time, she is slowly being forced into joining forces and realizing that they share a common enemy.
This happens in a very significant way later in the episode. Devon pulls out her lightsaber on Maul, refusing to join him. The two duel, but an Imperial probe droid spots them – and within moments the Empire is upon them. Maul turns his attention away from Devon to help his forces fight off stormtroopers, leaving Devon free to flee with Rylee. In that moment, she is faced with a choice: leave with the boy she’s been tasked to protect, or fight the enemy she’s coming to hate. She deliberates for a moment… then jumps into action alongside Maul, fighting the Empire. Because she chose this, Rylee is captured and whisked away upon a gunship. It’s a rather innocent decision in the moment, because fighting the Empire is a noble task, but she chooses her anger toward an enemy rather than her task to protect Rylee. I love Devon and the way her story is being told, because she is slowly aligning with Maul – and it makes complete sense why she’d be doing so. She hates the Empire, and Maul makes his offer: he can give her a chance to destroy them.
In many ways, what Maul is doing with Devon is taking a page out of Darth Sidious’s playbook. Sidious was a master manipulator, willing to patiently play the long game to lure his new apprentice. That’s precisely what Maul is doing with Devon, and his patience might surprise those who only know him as the rage-filled monster from earlier stories. This is a more seasoned Maul in a brand new galaxy, and he’s letting things drag on. But make no mistake: Maul has an end-goal in mind. He wants her as his apprentice. As he takes Devon and Rylee to his base, he tells them they’re free to leave whenever they want… all the while he whispers to Rook Kast that they are not allowed to leave. That’s a fitting display of the game he’s playing: he has a goal, but he’s trying to gently push her there. Just like Sidious did with Anakin Skywalker. But Maul is no Sidious, and that shows by the cracks that come as he later lets out a burst of anger at Devon for how shortsighted she is not to join him.
In fact, that idea that Maul is not Sidious is a major theme in these two episodes. While some of the recent episodes focused more on the Jedi than on Maul, these episodes put him back front-and-center with some of the most character-focused Maul moments we’ve ever seen. After narrowly surviving his fight against the Inquisitors (more on that in a moment), Maul is haunted by visions of his younger self. This was actually an idea that Dave Filoni initially wanted to include in the Star Wars Rebels episode “Twin Suns”, but he cut the whole idea in order to save time. Maul first sees the reflection of his younger self in a puddle, but he splashes it away, saying, “I hate you”. Of course he does – he hates this younger version of himself, which is so weak and helpless. Maul’s entire goal – in The Clone Wars, and now in Shadow Lord – is to amass as much power as he can possibly get, so that he is able to enact revenge and restore what he had lost. He has no room for a version of himself that is weak, and that’s why he hates this younger self. He’s been trained to look out for himself and run after power. He can’t face a version of himself that is powerless. It is especially appropriate that this happens while Maul hobbles along with an injured leg, with his robotic leg having been sliced by the Inquisitor. In this moment, Maul is weak. And he hates it.
But his visions have only just begun. As he tries to move on a little bit more, he sees a vision of his younger self with Savage Oppress, his brother. Savage begs him not to go, as Darth Sidious lurks nearby. Maul goes with Sidious, and the rest is history. Maul doesn’t want his younger self to leave with Sidious, but he cannot change what happened. This happens in the context of the voice of Marrok ringing through his head: “The Emperor wants you dead.” But, Maul says, “Yes, yes. Yet I showed him loyalty.” He gave up everything to follow Sidious – leaving his brother behind – and this is how the Emperor repaid him? Maul was cast aside, and now hunted.
The next vision shows us how cruel Sidious was toward Maul. We see Maul as a child, training in a lightsaber duel with his master. Maul does what he is ordered, but Sidious calls him “pathetic” and blasts him with lightning anyway, as he screams. It’s a visible example of how harsh the Sith master was toward his apprentice. And it further reinforces the idea that Maul can’t stand being weak. He was at the mercy of Sidious and was abused and tormented. He was weak. And this leads to a series of quick visions of other moments Maul was weak. It transitions from Sidious shocking Maul with lightning to Obi-Wan Kenobi, as an apprentice, leaping toward Maul to slice him in half (as seen in The Phantom Menace). That then transitions into a glimpse of him on Lotho Minor, the trash planet where Savage found him in The Clone Wars, as spider-legs Maul screams in a state of insanity. The next glimpse is also from The Clone Wars, of Sidious stabbing Savage with lightsabers and killing him. Finally, there is a brief vision of Maul getting his robotic legs. All of these glimpses have something very important in common: they are moments where Maul felt weak. Tormented by Sidious. Cut in half by Kenobi. Driven insane on the trash planet. Watching his brother killed. Getting new legs, since his real ones are long gone. So much of Maul’s story is one of weakness, as he could not stop Sidious, could not save himself, could not save Savage. He is terrified of losing more – and is completely driven by it.
Realizing all that he has lost throughout his life, Maul comes once again to this conclusion: “Sidious. You did this to me.” And, of course, he’s right. It was Sidious’s fault. But the tragic irony of Maul is that while he is rightly angry with Sidious and rightly wanting to see Sidious destroyed, he can’t see any other way to do this but the dark side. It doesn’t lead him to the light, like it should, but to rage all the more in darkness. He is consumed by fear, anger, and hatred, and that means his existence is one of continual suffering. So all Maul knows is to keep trying to get more and more power, to be powerful enough to get revenge on those who have wronged him, and Sidious is at the top of the list. He’s doomed to fail, not just because we know where the story goes from here, but also because Maul’s whole approach is to try to overthrow Sidious by the very tools of the dark side that Sidious uses. It’s never going to work, but Maul can’t see that. His is a life of failure and suffering.
As Maul presses on further and further with his injured leg, it leads to one final vision. He again sees the reflection of his younger self, but this time, he doesn’t brush it away in hatred. This time, Maul actually sheds a tear. He softly tells his younger self, “It’s all right. It’s all right. I won’t let him do this to anyone else.” This is a terrific moment and provides some narrative framing around the other visions, as we’ve gone from Maul reacting in hatred to Maul reacting in tenderness – or, at least, as much tenderness as Maul can muster. He doesn’t want anyone else to have to go through what he did with Sidious. If this were another story, with another character, this might be the turning point of redemption. But, again, that isn’t Maul’s story. His is a tragedy, the story of someone who has been wronged greatly and suffered much, but who cannot let go of the hatred and darkness. So the only way he knows to try to keep Sidious from doing this to someone else is to rely on the dark side.
I do wonder if this could shape his approach toward Darth Vader. I’ve long been assuming that this series is leading to a confrontation between Maul and Vader, and I wonder if this newfound motivation to keep Sidious from doing this to anyone else might have Maul try to reason with Vader. It’s almost certain that Maul knows (or at least suspects) that Vader is Anakin Skywalker, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Maul tries to get Anakin to see that they’re a lot alike, both pawns who had been manipulated by the Sith master. This pleading won’t go anywhere, but, again, that’s Maul’s whole character – he never really wins. So it would fit.
As a contrast to this whole theme with Maul, who is bound by fear and anger, there’s Devon. She chose to fight the Empire rather than protect Rylee, so after Rylee is rescued, she apologizes to him. He has been interrogated by the Inquisitor and has PTSD from it, and she empathizes with him. She gives him a classic bit of Jedi wisdom: “Fear is natural. We just can’t allow it to control us.” She remains true to the Jedi ideals, and it serves as a foil to Maul – who is completely controlled by fear. He is right to see Sidious as an evil enemy, and he is even right to be fearful in the face of such evil. But Maul is consumed by fear, so he cannot possibly allow himself to feel, or even appear, weak. He must gain as much power as possible, so that he can get revenge. So that he can keep his allies from dying. So that Sidious won’t hurt anyone else.
But speaking of Maul’s allies… they’re dwindling. The Mandalorians are showing that they’re after money more than anything, and following Maul isn’t profitable any more. Rook Kast remains committed to the one she believes is the rightful ruler of Mandalore, but some of the others seize a chance to flee – only to be shot down by the Empire. And then there’s the nightbrother Scorn, who sacrifices himself to save Maul – making it yet another nightbrother who has died, in one sense, because of Maul. Things keep going from bad to worse for Maul, whose fears haunt him and whose power escapes him. But this week’s episodes end with a sliver of good news: Dryden Vos has made contact and wants to meet with Maul. Vos first appeared in Solo: A Star Wars Story as the leader of Crimson Dawn, but we learned later that the true leader was Maul, in the shadows. So the fact that Vos wants to meet with Maul is almost certainly to form an alliance – presumably because he’s hard about what Maul did to the Pykes and wants to avoid the same fate as Marg Krim. It’s a reminder that this won’t be the final chapter for Maul, who will keep rising to power only to keep falling from it.
It seems that this first season of Shadow Lord might actually end with Maul’s alliance with Crimson Dawn, which can set the stage for a second season where he pushes his influence with the crime syndicates. For now, though, he’s got the Inquisitors to deal with – and this show is single-handily redeeming whatever poor reputation the Inquisitors have developed. They had their moments in Rebels and Fallen Order, but it’s true that in many of the stories we’ve seen them in they are quite easily dispatched by the surviving Jedi. But Shadow Lord portrays them as a very real threat, and a terrifying foe. It’s terrific. Marrok (the First Brother) fought Maul and the Jedi last week, and this week more help arrives – in the form of Crow, the Eleventh Brother. His design is haunting, and together he and Marrok hunt Maul. They have an epic lightsaber duel that shows just how brilliant Lucasfilm Animation is, just how far they’ve come, and just how perfect of a medium animation is for telling these stories. Seeing three combatants all wielding double-bladed red lightsabers is just awesome, and the fights are some of the best we’ve ever seen. Maul barely escapes with his life, but the Inquisitors aren’t off the hunt. They just turn their attention to the Jedi, and the episodes end with the Jedi, the Lawsons, and Two Boots on the run with the Inquisitors in pursuit.
And yes, Two Boots is among them. Ever the stickler for the rules, he is learning the hard way that the Empire isn’t the “law and order” regime he thought them to be. When they capture Rylee Lawson and bring him in for interrogation, Two Boots protests that it isn’t protocol to do this for an underage suspect – comments that are readily ignored by Imperial leadership. Two Boos thought he was just following protocol by calling the Empire, but now the Empire doesn’t bother to follow those protocols. And that’s when he’s forced to choose: a kid he’s known and cared for, or protocols that the Empire defies. Even though we could pretty well guess what he was going to choose, it still makes for a great moment as Two Boots breaks Rylee out of prison – and then joins the heroes in their escape. I’m glad to have Two Boots back with Captain Lawson, as I love their dynamic and relationship.
With the droid now back with the heroes, the pieces are all moved into place. Maul is injured and on the run, with his allies trying to escape from the planet. The Jedi and the Lawsons are also trying to escape, but their one way off the planet – through Rheena, who even when compromised by the Empire fights back against them – is now destroyed. The Inquisitors are pressing in, and next week we’ll reach the season finale. It’ll be the Jedi and Maul against the Inquisitors, and who knows where it goes from there… perhaps to a confrontation with a certain Sith Lord?
We’ll find out next week. I’m sad we’re nearing the end of the season, because Maul – Shadow Lord is a truly terrific series.
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