Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord: Chapter 3: Whispers in the Unknown
What is it ? : Having escaped her cell Devon is confronted by Rook Kast who indicates a tunnel, so she heads down it to be meet Maul who offers to make her tea, as they talk she grabs his lightsaber from the table, but the room is plunged into darkness.
Meanwhile Captain Lawson is talking with Two Boots who reminds him that his son has a game, so he leaves the case to Two Boots while he attends the game.
Maul stalks Devon around the room, and he tells her they are similar because Sidious destroyed both of their lives, but she refuses his offers telling him that she knows what he's trying to do.
Two Boots attends a Pyke meeting, arresting the Pykes, but Root Kast and Mauls gang attack, leading to a police officer being injured.
At the game, Lawson urges on his son, but is met by Eeko-Dio Daki who he recognises as a Jedi, and they somewhat agree that the Empire is a threat to the planet, but they have the same enemy.
Devon tries to escape from the room, but she is confronted by Maul who spars with her with the other half of his lightsaber.
Lawson gets a call about the fight at the docks with Maul's gang, so rushes away from the game even as his son scores and notices his absence.
Retrieving Two Boots from the scene, Lawson tells him they don't want to get the Empire involved, but Two Boots argues they used to call in the Republic who would send a Jedi, but Lawson overrules him. But back at the station, Lawsons superior tells him that Two Boots tried to go over his head, requesting the Empire, leading to tension between Lawson and his partner.
Rook Kast lets Vario out of his cell, and gets him to communicate with the leader of the Pykes, Marg Krim to set up a meeting to make up for the loss of the previous shipment, and Krim warns Vario he'll suffer if this is a trick.
And Devon finds a way out, but Maul uses the force to grab his lightsaber back before he allows her to leave.
High Points : The animation remains absolutely fantastic, but it does seem more anime than Star Wars, for example the sports game Lawsons son is taking part in does seem to be held in a standard American Football style stadium, but an anime representation of it. And the fact that instead of skylanes like Coruscant, they have highways with speeders on them. But I do adore the way that the police speeder goes from flying overhead to merging into traffic on the highway.
Low Points : At least Devon recognises it, but Maul is so unconvincing in his arguments to sway her. He tells her the Jedi were hunting him, as if he was their victim, ignoring that he killed Qui-Gon Jinn. He tells her that both he and she are victims of Sidious, ignoring that he immediately worked against Sidious as he realised his existence broke the Rule of Two.
His efforts to get her angry do at least seem successful, but I've never been a fan of the conversion of Maul from the blunt weapon he is in The Phantom Menace, to the sly talking version he is in Clone Wars and Rebels.
So what do you really think ? : The pace of the series seems to slow down in this one, we're getting some world building going on, but it's so minor that the lack of story progression is painful. Lawson ignores his sons needs to focus on his job, but we saw that last episode. Two Boots follows the rules and doesn't like Lawson's rule breaking nature, but we saw that last episode. Maul is trying to convert Devon, but we saw that last episode. There's just nothing much going on.
Final Words : And they released two episodes again this week, which make me wonder if they were aware of the pacing issues, so give us two episodes to try to move things on more quickly.
Score : 8/10
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