OVERVIEW
Taking place around one year after Ahsoka Tano drove him from Mandalore and Order 66 scattered what remained of the Jedi, Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord finds Maul on Janix, a planet untouched by the Empire, where he is rebuilding his syndicate and sizing up a Padawan as his next apprentice.
BACKGROUND
Introduced in The Phantom Menace (1999) as a near-silent Sith enforcer and killed off in that same film, Darth Maul was later resurrected in The Clone Wars and given far more dimension. At first, I will admit, there was something a little absurd about seeing him come back with spider legs, but by the time that series reached its spectacular finale, Maul had become one of its most compelling characters. Since then, he popped up for a few seconds in Solo as a hook for a continuation that never happened, and later turned up again in Rebels, which takes place decades after this series. In classic Star Wars fashion, Dave Filoni created Shadow Lord to fill in one more gap, this time between Maul’s final Clone Wars arcs and that brief Solo appearance. The series reunites much of the core team behind those earlier animated shows, and its 10 episodes are rolling out across April, with two episodes every Monday until the final pair arrives on May 4. A second season is already in the works.
REVIEW
Obs: This review covers episodes 1–8 and will be updated once episodes 9 and 10 become available.
I was admittedly a little cautious going into the series, not really sure if the show would have enough to stand on its own. We already know where the character is headed, and seeing Maul rebuild his syndicate while avenging old scores with the criminal underworld was not exactly the Star Wars story I was most eager to see. Going from the end of Clone Wars into his Solo appearance does feel jarring and justifies an expansion, but between his later Clone Wars arcs and his short but memorable Rebels appearance, I wondered how much more there was left to say about the character. Add to that how both The Bad Batch and the later Tales series, enjoyable as they were, felt more like welcome extras than essential Star Wars, and I half-expected this to land in the same category. Shadow Lord, to its credit, eventually proves that instinct wrong.
Those early doubts do not disappear with the first episode. After Maul’s chill-inducing opening appearance, majestically accompanied by a short snippet of John Williams’ “Duel of Fates” (the only Williams quote in Kiner’s otherwise appropriate but anonymous score), the series quickly loses the momentum that comes with having one of the franchise’s coolest characters in the lead. These Star Wars series have always struggled in their pilots, The Bad Batch being the notable exception, and this is no different. Filoni and co. work to establish a noir-style investigation subplot to set the show apart, but gangster backstabbing and introductions to a new planet and characters that feel very standard for the franchise’s animated catalog left me rather cold. The action scenes are impressive, especially the pursuit at the climax of the pilot, and the animation is delightful throughout, with occasional flashes of shockingly brutal kills. If having Maul as the main character raised any doubt, this is not a show for children.
Fortunately, after three or so fairly predictable episodes, the show finds its footing in the fourth, where it grows darker and far more interesting. As the story grows larger, the pacing tightens, and the stakes rise. Characters stop feeling safe, and Maul himself turns out to be considerably more conflicted than the early episodes suggest.
The best character, however, is Brander Lawson, who starts on the more generic side as a good-natured detective who wants to keep the planet at peace without Imperial involvement, but his everyman quality is precisely what makes his arc grow more interesting (there are a few pointed parallels between his character and the protagonist Wagner Moura played in The Secret Agent). His subplot grows more compelling than expected and offers a way to explore themes Andor examines, namely how fascism sneaks in, handled here in a more accessible yet still intelligent manner. His droid Two-Boots provides a welcome balance, with some well-executed jokes that bring levity. The show does not shy away from upsetting events, though, and when they come, the impact on the planet and the people in it feels appropriately tragic.
Devon Izara starts way too close to Ahsoka for my liking, sharing not just the attitude but the archetype: the defiant young Force user certain of her convictions and impatient with everything else. It takes some patience. But that certainty, the way she holds to her beliefs with a conviction that feels genuine rather than performed, is precisely what ends up making her dynamic with Maul so compelling. Their scenes together are among the season’s most satisfying, and the friction between his cynicism and her idealism gives the show something it could not have had with a more conventional apprentice.
As in The Bad Batch, the most interesting material centers outside the lead character, and Maul’s own arc, particularly the gangster power struggles and his later difficulty holding his team together, occasionally risks becoming the least compelling thread in his own show. But Shadow Lord does something The Bad Batch did not always manage: it links the hurt in the city directly to what Maul has gone through, and when that parallel lands, the season more than justifies its existence. Sam Witwer maintains the high bar he set across the previous series, continuing to develop a complex, tragic character we feel sorry for despite knowing how dangerous he is and the harm he has caused. At first I thought I had seen all I needed to see of this character. Eight episodes in, I was proven wrong.
Every pair of episodes has been better than the one before, and I hope the series finishes as strongly.
AFTERTASTE
Coming soon, after the season ends.