Summary
Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord puts its title character on the back foot in “Call to Oblivion”, boasting more solid action but a bit less engaging character development.
Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord remains a rich bounty of fun lightsaber fights after recently getting in the mood, and Episode 7, “Call to Oblivion”, doubles down on the appeal by introducing yet another recognisable saber-wielding Force-user into the fray. Some character development is sacrificed on the altar of the action, granted, but a lot of the important work in that regard has already been done, leaving the final few outings to whip things up into a frenzy while working towards what will presumably be a satisfying but nonetheless inconclusive finale.
With that in mind, a lot of this instalment feels like it’s setting up things to come, starting with Rylee being kidnapped by the Empire. After the previous episode, Rylee and Devon are still following Maul through the bowels of Janix, heading towards a transport that can take them safely(ish) off-world. But that means both wading through a sea of Imperial Stormtroopers and putting aside their pretty worrying differences about whether Maul can be trusted, which he clearly can’t.
Or maybe he can? We’ve discussed this before, but while Maul definitely isn’t a good guy in any traditional sense of the term, he is opposed – and we’re reminded of that here – to the Big Bad of the entire franchise, and there’s an argument that an enemy of an enemy is indeed a friend. It’s an argument that Devon is more willing to consider than Rylee, but she ultimately settles on the idea of trying to escape with Rylee, not Maul, which backfires a bit when the Empire catches up.
The Empire is the least of Maul’s problems. There’s also dissension within his ranks, since the Mandalorian mercenaries are beginning to turn on him and Rook Kast when they have to leave their plunder behind during the escape. Maul is becoming somewhat fixated on the idea of Devon becoming his apprentice, largely because he’s thinking of the long game in taking on the Emperor. Mercenaries don’t tend to think that way, though, so the seeds are sown for a later double-cross. But more on that in a bit.
In the meantime, the Stormtroopers catch up, leading Devon to reluctantly team up with Maul again to fight them off. In the chaos, though, Rylee is snatched and taken aboard an Imperial dropship, and Devon, now left behind, makes her escape through a tunnel instead of remaining with Maul. She promptly meets up with Master Daki and Lawson, the latter of whom isn’t exactly thrilled to learn that his son is now an Imperial prisoner.
Lawson still potentially has an ally in the police HQ in the form of Two-Boots, but he’s struggling to operate under the watchful eyes of Lieutenant Blake, who has even made him remove his signature footwear for being in violation of Imperial protocol. I reckon the payoff to this is going to come later, since Lawson’s efforts to reach out to Two-Boots are unanswered for now, but we’re definitely approaching a great moment when the droid inevitably springs Rylee from captivity.
The bulk of Maul – Shadow Lord Episode 7 revolves, understandably, around Maul’s escape, especially given that Inquisitor Marrok now has a helping hand in the form of the Eleventh Brother, last seen in Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi. Power-scaling-wise, Maul is pretty famously among the best lightsaber combatants in the franchise, so it’s a bit difficult to build tension around his fights. This show’s solution to the problem is to outnumber him, as well as remind us constantly that his knee is on the fritz, so it’s then believable when he’s overwhelmed by two characters who, comparatively, he should be able to deal with fairly easily.
The closing set-piece of “Call to Oblivion” is pretty good across the board, because, as well as Maul fighting off Marrok and the Eleventh Brother, it also involves the inevitable betrayal by Kebris, the Mandalorian who was complaining to Rook Kast earlier. He tries to steal the dropship with a few loyalists and ends up getting fatally shot down, but his betrayal adds a little welcome complication to the pitched battle between the Shadow Collective and the Empire.
So, too, does one of the Nightbrothers attempting to help out Maul, leading to his unceremonious death. Granted, we don’t know or care about these identikit henchman characters, but the point is more about upping the tension by not having the Collective in general – and more importantly, Maul specifically – breeze through every engagement with little friction. For the first time, Maul is firmly on the back foot and has to surrender to the Inquisitors. Sure, he also uses the Force to pull the cave down on top of them all, but I’m sure he wouldn’t have done that if he had any other option. Everything is going in the Empire’s favour at the moment, so that should make it all the more satisfying when the tables eventually and inevitably turn.
