Star Wars Maul: Shadow Lord – Inquisition review E5
Inquisition showed exactly why Lawson and Chief Klyce were so against the idea of calling in the Empire to deal with the mild crime outbreak plaguing Janix. Like Andor before it, Maul: Shadow Lord shows exactly how domineering a presence the Empire can be when they come to “save the day” and restore order.
Lt. Blake arrives happy to throw his Imperial weight around everyone, including Chief Klyce, who clearly looks like she’s going to the scapegoat for everything getting so out of control. While Two-Boots called the Empire in with good intentions that’s not a currency the Empire trades in, so everyone gets cashed out when they arrive. Blake is all set to begin the inquisition to find out what happened starting with Klyce, who gets permanently reassigned. That doesn’t sound good at all for her.
With the Imperial lockdown in full effect, two high valued factions react in different ways. Rook suggests they get out of Janix, but Maul has no intention of running from the Empire.
Not when he’s got a potential new apprentice so close to getting ensnared in his web. With such high tension playing out in Inquisition, Vario’s humor feels needlessly forced this episode.
Although Maul isn’t worried, some of his Mandalorian loyalists are concerned. Maul isn’t the typical bad guy leader. He doesn’t recklessly send his troops off to get killed and is more tactical with how he dispatches them into battle. While they might get killed, it’s not because he’s placed them in jeopardy, which theoretically should earn him a deeper level of loyalty from his troops.
Master Daki wants absolutely zero parts of this lockdown and tries to get Devon and himself out of Janix. It’s tough for Jedi to quickly flee a city in lockdown especially when they’re trying to keep a low profile.
Worse for Daki, Devon says Maul might have a point about aligning to take down the Empire. That little red devil on Devon’s shoulder is starting to get a lot louder. Despite the lockdown, Daki and Devon have no trouble avoiding the Imperial checkpoints. They’re just manned by Stormtroopers after all.
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Lawson can’t avoid the inquisition, and he gets the honor of having his done by Marrok. That’s some nice continuity with Ahsoka and establishes him as a serious threat for a long time. Back at the Lawson household, Rylee dials up his on the Imperial take mother, Drea, to give her a heads up on the situation in the city.
This is one of the rare times in a sci-fi setting where a mother won’t go to war against the authority to help her son out. She simply tells Rylee to go along with what the Imperial authorities say. The wild thing about this Inquisition scene is that kind of conversation is something a lot of black and Latino parents have to tell their children in the real world, especially their sons. That’s a nice blur between fiction and reality and certainly raises an interesting question if that was intentional.
Marrow investigates the site of the duel between the Jedi and Maul, which is not great for either party now that an Inquisitor knows there’s at the very least some Force users here in Janix.
Convinced he’s not in on any shenanigans, Blake thanks Lawson for his cooperation and lets him leave. That was an especially crazy day at work. Good thing Lawson can take it down a notch at home and just relax. Unless Rylee just happened to let the fugitive Jedi, Daki and Devon, crash in the living room….
Inquisition certainly raised the tension with the Empire’s arrival and how it sends most of the characters except the still calculating Maul in a mild panic. There are some very intriguing directions the rest of the season can go and everything is still refreshingly wide open.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Photo Credit: Disney
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