Maul: Shadow Lord

Last week on Star Wars Day, the season finale of Maul: Shadow Lord released on Disney+. Maul: Shadow Lord is a new Star Wars animated series that follows Maul as he works to rebuild his criminal empire on a world not under Imperial control. I love how the Star Wars team has made Maul a more prominent character, so I was very excited to see a whole show centered on him.

I thought that this was a great new Star Wars show. I have long wanted to see more stories heavily featuring Maul, and this show delivers on that. This show actually gives a little backstory on Maul as we see glimpses of his training with Darth Sidious. Maul: Shadow Lord does a great job of expanding and exploring the criminal underworld. We see Maul do a lot of behind-the-scenes work to get his previous criminal empire rebuilt. This show also ties in aspects from Solo, helping make the criminal underworld aspects of that story feel more relevant. This show brings in a lot of new and interesting characters to the world. We get two new Jedi characters, a police detective who brings a noir feel to the first few episodes of the season, and a former crime boss who helps Maul build his empire. All of these characters bring interesting concepts to the Star Wars world and feel relevant to Maul's story. Within the same boat, all of these characters get some sort of arc or throughline to their stories that closes out things for them at the end of the first season. Even the security droid, Two Boots, gets a little bit of an arc. Finally, you can't have a good Star Wars show without some lightsaber battles, and this show absolutely delivers. Each episode delivers at least one high-quality lightsaber battle, with them getting better and better as the season goes on, with the final episode being one of the best episodes of Star Wars I have seen in a while. I won't give specific spoilers, but this show answers decades-long fan debates about who would win in a fight.

While there is a lot to be positive about, I do have a few issues. The main issue I had was that the show didn't have enough focus on Maul. For being called "Maul: Shadow Lord," we spend a lot of time with the two Jedi and the police detective. I was fine with them being in the show, but it just needed to be a little more balanced with Maul taking more of the focus. I also didn't really care about Detective Lawson's family issues or his relationship with his son, and felt that could have been trimmed way down to give more time for Maul.

Overall, even with my minor issues, I think this is one of the best Star Wars animated shows outside of Rebels and Clone Wars, and I can't wait to see what they do in season 2.

Score: 8.5/10 Grade: A- Recommendation: This is a must-see show for Star Wars fans