Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord: Chapter 8: The Creeping Fear
What is it ? : Continuing straight from last time, Maul pulls down the cave ceiling on the Inquisitors, and escapes by leaping down a deep crevasse.
Root Kast gathers her remaining forces, momentarily comforting the surviving Zabrak for the loss of his brother, heading for a rendezvous point to meet up with Maul if he's survived.
Maul awakens, injured in his fight, one of his cybernetic legs sparking and glitching, and he begins making his way out of the caves he finds himself in.
At police headquarters, Rylee is interrogated by one of the Inquisitors, while Lawson attempts to get in touch with Two Boots, who isn't answering. But he gets contacted by Reena Sul, his underworld contact who tells him she has arranged a ship off world for him.
Two Boots is told by another officer that their commander is dead, and spots Rylee being escorted. He answers Lawson's call, and they come up with a deal that Lawson will hand himself in if Two Boots ensures that Rylee is let go.
Lawson, Daki and Devon arrive outside the police headquarters, Lawson gives his comlink to Daki, asking him to ensure that Rylee gets on the ship off world, and Daki sends Devon to obtain a speeder for escape. And Two Boots rescues Rylee leading him through the police headquarters.
Maul as he staggers through the caves, sees visions of his life, of Sidious taking him from his home when he was young, with his brother begging him not to go. Of his first lessons with Sidious where he is tortured for poor performance, of Obi-Wan leaping at him and striking him. Of his brother rescuing him when he had the force constructed spider legs, and of Sidious striking down and killing his brother on Mandalore.
Maul nearly breaks, with the loss of his home and his brother, but keeps on going on, getting more angry at Sidious as he does, blaming him.
Devon finds a fast looking speeder, but it is guarded by some tough looking thugs, so she beats themTw and steals the speeder.
Two Boots and Rylee bluff their way to the exit, but two stormtroopers stop them leaving, so a gunfight breaks out, with Two Boots proving himself a capable combatant. They leave the building, and Lawson is ready to hand himself in, but Two Boots reveals their deal is off as more stormtroopers begin flooding out of the building. Devon arrives in the speeder, and they escape fleeing through the streets pursued by Speeder Bikes, and Devon shows that their speeder is faster. However LAAT/i's join the chase which are faster than their stolen speeder, but Daki uses the force to throw a pursuing speeder bike into the cockpit of a LAAT/i and they manage to lose their pursuit.
Maul continues through the tunnels of the undercity, collapsing from his wounds, and he cries as he sees a vision of his younger self in a puddle, not sure he can do this. But the vision fades, and he gets to his feet, his actual reflection giving him purpose, and he returns to his gang.
As they leave their stolen speeder, Devon apologises for not protecting Rylee, and Rylee reveals that although he didn't know anything, he thinks he would have told the Inquisitor everything when he was being interrogated. They enter an elevator to go to their escape ship, but Devon and Daki sense something, and ask Lawson to contact Reena Sul, who drops in a reference to their past that warns Lawson that she is leading them into danger. However the elevator controls are locked and they cannot stop it.
As the elevator comes down we see Imperial forces and one of the Inquisitors waiting for them, the elevator arrives and we see they've cut their way out through the roof. And Reena Sul grabs a blaster rifle, shooting the engines of the ship, causing them to explode.
Elsewhere, Maul and his forces arrive at the offices of Nico Deemis, Rook thinks the Empire will be there soon, but Looti tells her that the Empire will be searching his offices, but since he killed Nico no one will look here. Maul looks out over the city, and Looti gets a call on his comlink, revealing that it was Crimson Dawn, and Dryden Vos requests an audience with Maul. . . .
High Points : Well a lot happens in this one, as we move into the final acts of the season. The chase scene is one of the best we've ever seen, Lawson's relationships with Two Boots and Reena Sul make most of the key moments in the story.
We also get some moments of growth for Maul's character, when wounded he begins to fall back into the child he was when Sidious came for him and began to train him. A vulnerable child who wants his home and his brother, the loss of them drives him back into the anger and hatred, but for a moment he's actually an empathetic character, someone who has everything taken from him, weak and scared. While not fantastic, it's a good moment, showing us another side of Maul, a side we could get behind, not a cackling villain, not a manipulator, but an individual who sees those other personalities he puts up as the only way he's learned of protecting himself.
Low Points : There's not too much to dislike about this episode, the escape while action packed does seem a bit easy for the heroes to get away, they're pursued by multiple LAAT/i's, but taking down a single one means they can escape. They take down dozens of Stormtroopers, even taking the ones the Jedi take out from the numbers, a police captain and his droid sidekick are devastating to the military of the Empire. But that's a minor quibble with an enjoyable episode.
So what do you really think ? : They've stripped many of the key elements I liked about Lawson away from him so far, that he was a low level street cop, with decent contacts in the underworld who share a long history with him, that he's a single father balancing his job against his family. Which annoys me as they were the most interesting and innovative (for a Star Wars show) ideas that this series had to offer.
While I really liked us seeing another side of Maul, I think this might be the only glimpse we get of that side, and he'll just be the super competent murderer that he normally is from now on, and we've seen that, and it's just a little dull.
Final Words : So, only two episodes to go, Maul has a meeting with Dryden Vos, which I'm assuming will get him off Janix, but we see no such escape route for Devon, Daki, Lawson, Two Boots and Rylee, so that interests me the most, the path not obvious.
Score : 9/10
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