Review: ‘Maul-Shadow Lord’ Is the Best Maul

“Tell me…is he the chosen one? He will avenge us.”

-The final words of Maul

In the closing moments of a life of immense pain, betrayal, madness and loss, Maul’s final words secure his evolution from a silent, stalking slasher baddie into a truly archetypal tragic monster. Sleepy Sheev Palpatine identified Maul and his rage at a young age and saw in him the opportunity to shape him into a living weapon, a tool to destroy the Jedi. Shaped by Palpatine’s cruelty, Maul’s story is one not of success but of stolen potential, systemic abuse, and a total inability to escape his own nature. After being discarded by his former master, the tragedy of Maul took shape as he used the very tools of his tormentor to try to find freedom from who he had become. And in his final moments, dying in the arms of his great enemy, Maul realized that he had lived and died in the service of a cause that never gave him anything and took everything.

Saved from a disappointing abandonment after his apparent death in The Phantom Menace, Maul became an almost Shakespearean villain under the curation of Dave Filoni. Taken from a scrap heap–both in his fictional reality and in Lucasfilm’s meeting rooms–his appearances in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, where voice actor Sam Witwer gave him new life, excavated the depths of the former Sith lord and found an emotional core that was defined mostly by a broken nature and deep desire for vengeance. When we meet Maul again in his standalone series, Maul-Shadow Lord, his pathos is unchanged: he remains a lost child seeking revenge against all who have wronged him yet years away from the catharsis he would eventually find in his death at the hands of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

You may have forgotten me, but I will never forget you! You cannot imagine the depths I would go to to stay alive, fueled by my singular hatred for you!

-Maul

Styled as a neo-noir crime drama, Maul-Shadow Lord Season 1 begins to spin the tale of a new age of Maul, which, while still centered on his quest for vengeance, finds the most interesting villain in the galaxy far, far away monologuing on the nature of good and evil while continuing to battle the paranoia thought left behind. Meant to make good on George Lucas’ original wishes to see Maul become the godfather of crime, the series–which has already been renewed for a second season–gives the character another chance to succeed even though we all know he’s destined to fail. Driven by his quest to reclaim his Shadow Collective and by visions of an apprentice who can help him destroy the Sith, Maul gets to be exactly who we want him to be while allowing for some deep dives into the nature of the Force, right and wrong and all the rest of the things that have allowed Star Wars to endure for 50 years…and he might just be headed for the showdown fans have always wanted.

Set on Janix–which probably feels a bit less like a character than the creators had hoped–Shadow Lord allows Maul to continue carve out his own unique space as an agent of the Force and, in some ways, allow him to work on his sale’s pitch that he will eventually use on Ezra Bridger. Though the first eight episodes of the season Maul, with the help of his crew, has his sights set on those who betrayed their allegiance to him and making Jedi Padawan Devon Izara his apprentice–and it seems as though it is somehow the will of the Force to continue to put the two on convergent paths. Joining their story is savvy cop Brander Larsen, Devon’s Master Eeko-Dio Daki (who, like Maul, is a survivor) and weasly gangster Looti Vario. And in his way: the Empire and the Inquisitorious, represented by Marrok and Eleventh Brother.

Your passions give you strength and through strength you gain power. You have seen it, you feel it. You must break your chains.

-Maul

At times, Shadow Lord feels like an Elmore Leonard novel brought to life in a stylish animated splendor that the Dickens of Detroit would have loved both for its exploration of moral ambiguity and sensationalized action. It is, in the most incredible ways, a worthy successor to the journey undertaken by Maul in The Clone Wars, and an undeniably necessary chapter that bridges the gap not only to Solo but, more urgently and apparently, Rebels.

Sam Witwer‘s exquisite voice work drips with pulpy evil layered with subtextual anquish, making Maul-Shadow Lord not only best Maul to date but also continuing to establush Maul, the discarded son, as perhaps a true cornerstone character in the galaxy. Most interestingly, Maul’s evolution seems to have brought him aroud to an equal but opposite view of the Force as that held by Qui-Gon Jinn. One could make the argument that if the two met now, they might have a nice conversation over a cup of tea. Instead, Maul killed Jinn which was the first of many incidents that lead Anakin Skywalker to the side of Palpatine. From the scrap heap to leading what is sure to become the next truly great animated Star Wars series. If only his mom and brother could see him now.