Maul Shadow Lord Review: Closest Thing to Perfect Since Andor (Spoilers)

May the 4th to you all! It was an absolutely amazing May 4th for me, and it was made even better with the release of Episodes 9 and 10 of Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord. This series has been absolutely fantastic through 8 episodes, and I was eagerly awaiting these final 2 episodes to drop. I was thoroughly entertained and shocked at what these final two episodes offered to us.

Spoilers ahead for the entire series and especially episodes 9 & 10 that were released today.

Episode 9 continued the escape of Captain Lawson, Devon, Rylee, Master Daki, and Two-Boots, avoiding Marrok and the Eleven Brothers through the streets of Janix. Meanwhile, Maul sets up a shuttle with Dryden Vos of the Crimson Dawn to escape the planet, but Maul refuses to leave the planet without Devon by his side. The two sides come to an agreement and form an alliance for all parties to escape the planet with Crimson Dawn. They head down to the sewers and are pursued by Imperial forces. What follows is a great skirmish between our heroes/villains and the Imperial forces.

Maul loses plenty of his accomplices, such as his trusty Spy-bot, commandos, and his Dathomirian brother, but does manage to escape the pursuit along with our slate of heroes, or so they thought. The ending of episode 9 sends Rook Kast and a lowly commando into the jungle, only to be cut down by the man himself, Darth Vader.

Episode 10 sees our heroes attempting their final escape, fighting off imperial forces including Marrok, the Eleventh Brother, and Vader. The scheming Maul always has an ace up his sleeve, though, and escapes, forcing Master Daki to face Darth Vader on his own to regroup and finally push Devon over the edge towards the dark side.

Captain Lawson watches as Maul essentially sends Master Daki to his death and sacrifices himself seemingly to the imperial forces to allow Rylee and Two-Boots onto the ship with Dryden and co. Devon, by the end of the episode, has seemingly fully turned towards the dark side now that her master has died and Maul has saved her countless times throughout the series.

The writing of Maul and the voice acting of Sam Witwer have been phenomenal all season, but these last few episodes were some of the best in all of animated Star Wars content. The story was very simple, but it worked beautifully for this kind of series. We got to meet some new faces, and the redemption of characters like Two-Boots, the Spy-bot, and the sacrifices of Rook Kast and Master Daki made for some very emotional scenes with characters we haven't known for very long. Star Wars content has been very dry for the last few years, minus the excellence from Andor Season 2, but Maul - Shadow Lord has been fantastic and well worthy of a season renewal.

I am extremely excited for Season 2 in the future, as we never truly saw Captain Lawson, which gives way to a potential reunion with him and Rylee, as well as the ability to tell Devon what truly happened to her master. With Crimson Dawn now in the fold as well, there are plenty of routes Season 2 can take after an exciting and beautifully animated first season.