Summary
Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord makes up for an absence of recent action with several great set-pieces in “Night of the Hunted”.
If you were a bit dismayed about the relative lack of action in the previous instalment of Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord, Episode 6, “Night of the Hunted”, has you more than covered. It’s almost like it’s making amends, which is weird since the lower-key drama was solid and necessary, but the impressive lightsaber action that bookends the episode is difficult to argue with, especially now we’re so much more invested in the characters.
As in the previous episode, Maul also takes something of a backseat in this one, at least until he doesn’t. But we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves, since we pick up where we left off, more or less, with Master Daki and Devon taking shelter in Lawson’s apartment. He’s understandably less than thrilled to see them, giving all the pretty serious implications their presence has if the Empire discovers them, and it admittedly seems a bit uncharacteristic of the Jedi to put Lawson and Rylee in such an obviously detrimental position. But needs must.
All Daki wants from Lawson is a way off-world, perhaps through his contacts in the underworld, but that’s easier said than done, given the present circumstances, especially since Lawson’s ex, Rylee’s mother, works for the Empire, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Devon. Lawson isn’t inclined to risk his son’s life by helping Daki and Devon, but he isn’t given much choice, since Marrok promptly arrives and starts slicing his way through the apartment. Cue our first great action sequence of the episode, as Daki and Devon have to fight off Marrok while making their way, with Lawson and Rylee, to the roof of the apartment building. A hijacked dropship later, and the heroes are able to escape, but not for long, since the Empire can track the vessel.
After some brief deviations back at Janix police headquarters, where Lawson is declared a fugitive for treason and Two-Boots begins to realise he might have made a minor miscalibration in tipping off the Empire, Lawson takes Rylee and the Jedi to his associate, Rheena Sul. Some backstory here helps to clarify the relationship between Sul and Lawson, which helps to explain why she’d risk her own safety to go to bat for him, which she does immediately when Imperial forces arrive at her casino. Cue the second major action sequence of Maul – Shadow Lord Episode 5, which takes us through the remainder of the runtime.
In a slightly contrived turn of events, Lawson and Daki are forced to separate from Devon and Rylee. This allows the youngsters to get ahead while the other two take their time battling through really well-choreographed fights with Stormtroopers. Star Wars animation has consistently improved in this area since the halcyon Clone Wars days, and delivered a bunch of fun sequences like this in The Bad Batch and elsewhere. This franchise’s action used to be judged exclusively on the balletic quality of its saber duels, but “Night of the Hunted” proves it can do chases and shootouts as well as anything else.
Things with Devon and Rylee are a bit more traditional since Marrok catches up with them. Devon is able to fight him off for a little while to give Rylee the chance to leap aboard a passing train, but the fight quickly follows him. Luckily, earlier in the episode, Maul had decided to rescue Devon to further cultivate her as his apprentice, so he arrives in the nick of time for a cool showdown with Marrok. The fight ends in a stalemate, but that’s not really the point. Devon is coming around to Maul’s way of thinking, and even though he’s technically on the right side of this fight, he’s far from being a good guy.
But he’s not as bad as the bad guys, obviously. We get a glimpse of another of those at the end of the episode, when Marrok calls in to report that Maul is working with two Jedi. As far as I understand it, the Inquisitorius are answerable to Vader, but the holographic image that Marrok is communicating with seems to be Palpatine himself. Given that Palpatine has long been aware of Maul’s crusade against him, I think it’s pretty likely that Marrok has been given specific instructions by him directly to deal with Maul above any other consideration. The lockdown of Janix is just a pretext for that.
Either way, this show continues to impress with its visuals, action, and character beats, all of which are on full display here. If things keep going in this direction, Maul – Shadow Lord could end up being one of the franchise’s truly stand-out animated offerings.
