Summary
Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord continues to weave its story strands together in “Whispers in the Unknown”, finally delivering a cool lightsaber duel, but also a lot more texture besides.
Well, it took until Episode 3, but Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord finally included a lightsaber duel. And it was fine! Not a patch on the franchise’s best, obviously, in animation or live-action, but that’s not really the point, since part of what works about this show thus far – unexpectedly, really, given the origins of its title character – is how it roots everything, including that duel, in a bedrock of shifting allegiances and fluid morality that is a bit more interesting than the typically binary good versus evil dichotomy that has underpinned so much of the franchise.
In other words, Maul is interesting because he’s a bad guy, but he doesn’t like the Big Bad, so he might be a good guy, and Devon Izara has to figure that out along with us.
Devon isn’t much of a character yet, but she shows some spirit in “Whispers in the Unknown”, which picks up where the previous episode left off, with her having escaped her cell in the Shadow Collective hideout. But being out of the cell and being free isn’t the same thing, and Maul himself sits between her current predicament and whatever future she chooses for herself. As a result, then, a good chunk of this instalment finds Maul and Devon getting the measure of one another, first in dialogue and then in action.
Maul’s point is, in large part, that the enemy of his enemy is his friend. But his secondary argument is that part of breaking free of the shackles of his former master is realising that the galaxy is a much more complicated place than how the Jedi and the Sith tend to characterise it. It’s this angle that he thinks might sway Devon, who, thanks to Order 66, has been thrust from her comfortable circumstances in the Jedi Order and forced to navigate a hardscrabble world of totalitarian oppression that doesn’t exactly jive with the tenets she had previously devoted her life to.
For the time being, Devon is fairly steadfast in her existing view of Maul and people who wield red lightsabers in general, even if she’s willing to nick half of his to fight him off on her way to the exit. But it’s pretty clear even now that his words are going to resonate, and that his offer to train her as his apprentice to defend against the Inquisitorius and take the fight to the Emperor is going to become increasingly compelling. For what it’s worth, Maul’s patience here adds some layers to his character, not just playing up his physical prowess – the duel ends up being a bit more even than I expected, actually – but also his intelligence.
Elsewhere in Maul – Shadow Lord Episode 3, Lawson and Two-Boots continue to work the case. Their next angle is to question the members of local smuggling rings, which, of course, puts them at cross-purposes with the Shadow Collective, since Rook is pumping Vario for information on the next Pyke shipment. Maul trying to antagonise the Pykes is simultaneously destroying the evidence that Lawson might have used to track them down. I quite like how “Whispers in the Unknown” begins really knitting together the procedural elements and Maul’s personal mission.
There’s also some helpful texture for Lawson, who continues to struggle to be there for Rylee while also juggling the case and enigmatic warnings from Eeko-Dio Daki. He also clashes with Two-Boots about keeping the investigation from the Empire, at least in part because his ex-wife, Rylee’s mother, now works for the Empire in some capacity. Two-Boots ends up going over Lawson’s head, but Chief Klyce demotes him to give Lawson more time. I particularly enjoy how the personal and professional elements are coming together here, but my concern would be whether such a limited run will have time to really delve into it. Maybe in Season 2.
If nothing else, it still looks great though.
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