Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord Season 1, Episode 9
"Strange Allies"
Writer: Christopher Yost
Directors: Steward Lee
Cast: Voices of Sam Witwer, Wagner Moura, Dennis Haysbert, Vanessa Marshall, Chris Diamantopoulos, Gideon Adlon, Richard Ayoade
There's always a fun energy when a TV season starts to enter its endgame and things ramp up heading into the finale — the balls are all in play, the pieces in place, pick your metaphor, and now it's just time to strap in and watch it all unfold. This episode is that.
"These dreams go on when I close my eyes…"
With Janix City in full Imperial lockdown, Maul contacts Dryden Vos. A subordinate within the Crimson Dawn syndicate, he offers to get Maul off Janix in exchange for Maul taking out Vos' boss, Rintero, thereby putting Vos in charge. Maul agrees, and Vos sends him coordinates for a rendezvous, but warns the window to get offworld is limited. After the call, Rook Kast cautions Maul that the city is still under lockdown, but he believes that Lawson may help him out in two goals: getting out of the city, and helping him get his hooks further into Devon.
Not that he needs a tremendous amount of help in that area, as he uses the Force to reach out to Devon as she sleeps (which isn't at all creepy…) to plant an image of the city's Armistice Fountain in her mind. Daki suspects a trap, but Devon recognizes it as a chance to escape the city. Lawson cuts the debate short as he senses movement nearby, leading him, the Jedi and Rylee to abandon the warehouse where they've sheltered. They get out just as Marokk and the Eleventh Brother, acting creepily themselves, sweep into the warehouse.
Maul and his dwindling crew unite with the Lawson family, Two-Boots and the Jedi at Armistice Fountain, and both sides agree to a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of alliance that no one but Maul is entirely happy about. He offers the fugitives a spot on his escape shuttle if Lawson can help get them out of the city. Daki urges Lawson to accept, but warns him to be cautious of Maul.
Lawson does indeed know a route out of the city, through a power station built over an underground fissure. As they travel, Daki questions Devon's connection to Maul, saying he couldn't reach into her mind without one. Devon points out all the times that Maul has helped them; Daki rightly points out that Maul likely did so to further his own goals. As the group reaches the power station, they find it guarded by a squad of Stormtroopers with speeder bikes and an AT-AC. With time of the essence, Maul tells Spybot to jam their coms then launches into action, ultimately taking out the AT-AC with his lightsaber despite his bum leg. Even Rylee gets in on the action, stunning a Stormtrooper on a speeder bike in the ensuing melee.
Toxic Avengers
Inside the station, the group descends through the fissure into an underground tunnel which takes them to a lake composed of toxic waste, illegally dumped by the city. As the Inquisitors arrive on the scene and follow the fugitives through the fissures, Maul's group begins using a hover skiff propelled by Spybot to cross the acidic lake two people at a time. The Lawsons take this opportunity to have a conversation weighted with foreshadowing, suggesting one or the other will not make out of the season alive. They make it to the other side, followed by Vario and Two-Boots, but then the Inquisitors and more Stormtroopers arrive. Maul, Devon and Daki battle the Inquisitors as the rest of Maul's remaining Shadow Collective battle the Stormtroopers, with the Lawsons, Vario and Two-Boots providing covering fire from across the lake.
Maul orders Rook Kast across the lake, and she makes it along with another Mandalorian; the third is shot and falls into the lake. Maul tries to convince Marokk that he's merely a pawn of Darth Sidious who will cast him aside just as he did Maul, but Marokk responds by committing the worst murder of the series: he hurls his saber at Spybot and slices the droid in half. Daki tells Devon to make her way across the lake, and with the skiff stuck at the halfway point following Spybot's death, she two-hops it, leaping to the skiff and then quickly to the opposite shore, then using the Force to hold the skiff out of the toxic waste.
As the rest of the Mandalorians and Icarus are cut down (Icarus takes out three Stormtroopers as he goes, launching them along with himself into the ooze), Maul tells Daki to make the leap, then forces back the Inquisitors long enough to go himself. Marokk hurls his saber trying to take out Maul, but instead he destroys the skiff, trapping the Imperial forces on their side of the lake. Marokk ominously tells the Stormtrooper commander to inform "him" that the fugitives are heading his way.
Said fugitives emerge into the fog-shrouded forest on the outskirts of the city. Kast and the remaining Mandalorian run ahead to scout the path, but quickly run into opposition. Out of the fog Kast emerges, warning that someone is out there before being dragged back into the mist. Just then, the forest is filled with the sounds of mechanical breathing as Darth Vader emerges and activates his lightsaber.
Force Facts
- Scott Whyte, the voice of Dryden Vos in this episode, doesn't seem to be even trying to do a Paul Bettany impression.
- Rintero, the head of Crimson Dawn at this time, is a new character named here for the first time (though the fact that Vos wasn't the head of Crimson Dawn at this time was previously established.
- Maul continues to be held back by his ongoing issues with his mechanical legs.
- So, is Rook Kast just…dead? We don't see a body, for what it's worth. If she is dead, then I guess she's NOT the Mandalorian's Armorer.
- Vader's introduction here is very much in the vein of a classic horror monster, emerging from a mist-shrouded forest to menace the protagonists.
Maul/Vader Fight Probability Index: 99%
I mean, they haven't fought *yet*. It sure seems like they're gonna, but I'll hedge my bets.
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