Summary
The title character takes a back seat in “Inquisition”, allowing Lawson and the Jedi to take centre stage.
Based on the title alone, it isn’t difficult to guess what Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord is about. But one of the more surprising revelations of the Disney+ series has been that Maul, as great as Sam Witwer’s take on the character might be, is probably the least interesting thing about it. The procedural crime show starring Lawson and Two-Boots has been a more unexpectedly compelling proposition, and that’s good news for Episode 5, “Inquisition”, since it revolves around that aspect almost entirely. There’s a new complication stemming from the ending of the previous episode, though, which is that the Empire is in town.
Yes, thanks to Two-Boots being a rat, an Imperial Star Destroyer carrying Lieutenant Blake and a coterie of TK troopers has descended on Janix, throwing the planet into disarray. Off-world travel is halted, Rylee looks on nervously, and Master Daki immediately recognises that he and Devon need to get out of Dodge, posthaste. His theory is that the Empire will deal with the still-injured Maul, but as ever, that’s easier said than done.
Naturally, the Empire cracks down pretty much immediately. Blake takes over the operation, has Chief Klyce dragged away to an interrogation room, and mandatory ID checks are enforced across Janix City. Maul is forced to keep an eye on the situation from a distance via his Spybot, but even the Shadow Collective doesn’t love the idea of remaining on Janix and trying to operate under the Empire’s nose. Rook Kast and the Mandalorian mercs are becoming unsettled, and Vario is only sticking around because it’s too dangerous to leave.
But this bit of Shadow Collective deliberation gives Maul – Shadow Lord Episode 5 the room it needs to focus on things at the police HQ, since that’s the best way of exploring the Empire’s totalitarian grip on the galaxy at large. Klyce is disappeared from the interrogation room, leaving only a few scratch marks behind, and Lawson is next up for questioning. His interlocutor is Inquisitor Marrok, whom you might recall as the cool-looking fart gas guy from Ahsoka. Here, we get to see some of his time spent working directly for the Empire instead of as a Nightsister mercenary.
Even though Two-Boot’s programming can’t quite allow him to see the mistake he has made, I still wouldn’t say he’s necessarily a “villain” yet. It’s he who escorts Rylee out of the police department when he shows up asking questions about his father’s location, and I do imagine that further down the line, he will defy his programming to help Lawson. In the meantime, though, Lawson’s very much imperilled. Marrok is pretty suspicious about Lawson being the only survivor – more or less – of the raid on Maul’s hideout. While he can’t find anything untoward during his search of the place and lets Lawson go, it’s clear that he still suspects him and will likely continue to do so.
The rest of Maul – Shadow Lord Episode 5 finds Devon and Master Daki bickering about whether they’re “wasting their abilities” – Daki recognises that as Maul’s rhetoric, sceptical of how much Devon has been swayed by his point of view – and trying to slip through the Empire’s increasingly stringent security protocols. The only action in “Inquisition” comes when the two Jedi have to fight off some Stormtroopers at a train station, which is a nice sequence, but not the kind of thing you’d tell your friends about. Still, it’s more of a means to an end. With Daki injured, and nowhere else to go, the Jedi need to find shelter somewhere, and they choose the only viable option – Lawson’s place.
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