Warning: This review contains full spoilers for Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord Episodes 9 & 10!
If you judge the quality of your Star Wars projects by the number of lightsaber battles per minute, then Maul: Shadow Lord has to be way up at the top. The final two episodes of Season 1 unfold much as the previous few have, with our motley crew of heroes and villains fending off Stormtroopers, Inquisitors, and a certain Dark Lord of the Sith in their desperate bid for freedom. It’s a formula that doesn’t grow stale, particularly now with the series feeling free to kill off its supporting cast with surprising abandon. Not a bad way to cap off the season at all.
Kicking things off in Episode 9, we get the big meeting between Maul and Dryden Vos (with voice actor Scott Whyte taking over for Paul Bettany here). Here, the seeds are laid for Maul’s role as Crimson Dawn’s shadowy puppet master in Solo: A Star Wars Story. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I think this series would have made a mistake in focusing too much on Maul’s more straightforward criminal dealings, but it’s still nice to get some progress in that area before the end of the season.
From there, Episode 9 veers back into the high-stakes race against time, as Maul and company try to make their escape from Janix while First (A. J. LoCascio) and Eleventh Brother nip at their heels. There’s no shortage of memorable action here. We get to see Maul going to town on an Imperial Walker and watch a truly epic 3 vs. 2 lightsaber duel unfold. I still remember when The Clone Wars and its 2 vs. 1 battles felt like a real novelty. Say what you will about the Inquisitors, but they do come in handy in situations like this.
Again, it’s all more of the same, really, but the series avoids feeling stale or repetitive here. It helps that these final two episodes feel so free to sacrifice the supporting cast as a way of raising the stakes. This may ostensibly be Maul’s show, but Shadow Lord has done an excellent job of making us care for Devon (Gideon Adlon), the Lawsons (Wagner Moura & Charlie Bushnell), Vario (Chris Diamantopoulos), and even Maul’s team of mercenaries. So watching them get picked off one by one has the desired effect. I wasn’t ready to bid farewell to poor Spybot…
As enjoyably dramatic as Episode 9 is, it saves the best moment for last with the surprise introduction of Darth Vader himself. I almost wish the series dropped one episode per week, just so we could sit with that image of Vader strolling out of the fog for a while longer. In any case, Vader’s presence is the final dash of spice the finale needs to reach maximum tension. If Maul and company can barely handle two Inquisitors, how the heck are they supposed to make it out of this alive?
Vader is used sparingly but effectively here. He never speaks, which is almost a disappointment, but I’m hopeful the series is saving a Maul/Vader reunion for down the road where the two can properly converse and Maul can make his thoughts about Sidious more plain. Here, Vader is simply a superhuman force of nature – a Jason Voorhees-like boogeyman who constantly springs from the shadows to turn the screws on Maul, Devon, and Master Daki (Dennis Haysbert).
I appreciate how Vader is treated as the unstoppable boss character here, rather than the series try to argue that Maul is a proper match for the Dark Lord of the Sith. He has his limits, and it’s fitting that Maul survives more through a combination of cowardice and treachery than dueling prowess. That treachery fuels what is arguably the most pivotal moment in the finale (if not the entire season), when Devon sees her master fall gives in to the Dark Side. The wait was well worth it there.
Season 1 ultimately ends without a decisive victory for either side (clearly, we’ll have to wait longer to learn how Marrok meets his first death), but with a strong setup for Season 2. Maul has escaped Janix. He’s lost basically the entire remnant of his Mandalorian and Nightbrother alliance, but he has the new apprentice he so covets. And he’s taken a big step toward rebuilding his criminal empire. It’s a good thing Season 2 has already been confirmed, because I definitely want more after watching these first ten episodes.
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