Maul: Shadow Lord Praises 5 & 6

Another fantastic week of Maul Shadow Lord, with Star Wars characters and complex plots that just keep getting better! Enjoy!!

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Transcript

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I have a message from the Village Jedi. Max Rebo hit it. Happy Friday, everyone. This is a Nerdy View brought to you by the local Village Jedi. My name is Marina, and if you're new here, welcome. If you're not, welcome back. We are stepping into another week of our mall era. There are exciting times ahead with May the 4th, just around the corner. But first, a few behind the scenes on how we run the place. We do this every episode. If you're interested in joining the discussion, please follow me on TikTok or Instagram or send me an email that I will read and discuss live at tvjpod at gmail.com. We have one read, one email to read this week, which I'm excited to dive into. We'll do those at the end of the episode. And also going along with sending in an email, um, I am using the platform BuzzSprout. They host my RSS feed, um, which is basically just a nice way of saying like they hold my podcast information and then send it to all the other platforms like Spotify, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts. But Buzz Sprout is who like takes care of my podcast. And they have this feature called fan mail, which I hadn't really ever looked at before, but I'm trying it out. And so if you scroll down on the show notes, it'll say something like send a message to the Village Jedi. If you tap on that link, I guess you can send like a voicemail or a message or something. I don't know. So I'm still trying to figure that out. Um, but that's a long-winded way of saying that that is another way that you can join in on the discussion that we have here. Uh, as far as a couple announcements, the new set design, I'm hoping to debut for the May the 4th bonus episode. And one of the things that we will have, if you're watching on YouTube, my friend is out of state for a few months, so he's letting me borrow his Galaxy's Ed, his Galaxy Edge droid that he constructed. Um, so everybody, welcome. This is SP1K3, aka Spike, and he is very sweet. He comes with this remote controller, so I've been having fun just like cruising around the house. But during the episodes, he's just gonna sit here and give me some company. Um, and so I also got like a few shelves that I liked on Facebook Marketplace. My husband and I were doing kind of some mock-up sketches for what we're gonna do with our office space so that we can really just get the most out of a Star Wars Central set, especially because I have so many books and different toys and things like that. So I don't know. I just really want to make the best of it. We've been doing this for almost three months now, which is crazy, but it has just been so much fun. And so I'm hoping to kind of take that next step further for the YouTube listeners just making a more um professional looking recording environment. So that's exciting. Also, an announcement as far as I said about the May 4th bonus episode. The response on my social media post has been pretty overwhelming. Um, I gave the listeners three options over there who follow me of what kind of episode to do as a May the 4th bonus. And everyone's saying trivia. So I'm gonna scour the internet and find a quiz that I like. Maybe if you find one that you like, feel free to send it to me and I'll check it out. But it'll just be a fun way for us to spend a bonus episode together that week and see how many questions I get right, see how much Star Wars knowledge I don't know. And if you want to keep track, you can tell me how well you do, and it'll just be a nice way for us to spend a little bit of time together um twice that week. Like I said, it'll be a bonus episode because the mall finale or the mall shadow lord finale is coming out that week as well. And who else, who who knows what else? It's May the 4th, so anything can happen. We'll see. So that will be exciting. Um, I also I say this at the end of the episode, if you stay that long. Um, if you enjoyed what you heard, please leave a review. But for everything that I've been reading, I I guess I'm supposed to say that more. Like, I guess reviews really help. So if you would not mind leaving me a review, I would really appreciate that. So that is kind of all the announcements I have to get out of the way. We're gonna go ahead and take a brief ad break now and then dive right into why you're really here. Hello there. If you're looking to build your collection, the Village Jedi is now collaborating with Sabermasters to offer you$20 off your first combat ready laser sword. You heard that correctly, Combat Ready. The team at Sabermasters makes it their personal mission to create lightsabers built to last using lightweight polycarbonate blades with customizable settings and simple navigation. Sabre Masters has really crafted the ultimate experience. Sabermasters is always offering a great deal for force users everywhere, but with my code TVJ20, you can save an extra$20 at checkout. Simply type in the code at the checkout screen, TVJ20, and you're done. Link will be in the show notes. Okay, we have a lot to yap about. Um, I wanted to start by saying I posted a video where I essentially said that Maul in 1999, when the Phantom Menace came out, a wave of fans gravitated toward him because of how cool his character design was. He had the double blade, and no one had really seen a Zabrak before, and he just looked really cool with this makeup, and Ray Park did a phenomenal job with sort of the choreography of the fight. It just was a cool character and short-lived. And then we got this whole new wave of fans during Clone Wars and Rebels who fell in love with him because of the depth of his character. You know, obviously he was brought back and we kind of explored his int his intellect and what he had to offer the Star Wars world at that time. And so I was saying, I think it's so cool that we're also getting this whole new wave of fans because of Maul Shadow Lord, who are now deciding this is my favorite character. I just love that for him. Then in 1999, Darth Maul, done, over, out. Well, that was nice. But now here we are in 2026, 27 years later, and he is a rock star. He is beloved, he's getting his own show, he is the moment, and I think that that's really, really cool. So if you're out there and you're listening and you're a Star Wars fan, maybe a new fan or an older fan, and you're thinking, I think Darth Maul is my favorite character, valid. Valid. And I just love that for him. So I just had to say that before we just dive right into the yap. The village Jedi Yap. Typical. It's a Friday. Let's get into it. Chapter five. Last week we left off on a cliffhanger. We saw the haunting silhouette shadow of a Star Destroyer hovering over Janix. And this week we just dove right back into the action. Uh, chapter five is called Inquisition, Inquisitorious, Inquire. What are your questions? What's the vibes? We are ready. We're ready. Um, I saw someone online mention that Barris Affie. We see her Inquisitor mask in the pre-show intro, just kind of showing um, you know, the different kind of masks. And someone threw out there, like, what if we saw Barris Offie at some point in the show? The timeline would work. I would love that. We see her kind of Inquisitor journey in Tales of the Empire. If you haven't watched that, go check it out. Um, she doesn't stay an Inquisitor, spoiler, but the time that she is an Inquisitor gives you a real idea of kind of like how the training works. It's very cutthroat and how like the ranking system works. It's very interesting. And so the fact that we see her in kind of the intro show with her Inquisitor mask, that would be kind of cool if we saw her. I think. I think it would be awesome. So, anyways, Star Destroyer hauntingly hovering over the city in these cruisers' land, we meet our new local imperial officer, Mr. Lieutenant Blake. He's blonde with ice blue eyes, little freckles, and I don't know. I told my husband, I'm like, you seen one, you seen them all. Honestly, I wrote that down. Because these characters are so similar. Anytime you see an imperial officer, you you're you can clock them immediately. They're they all have a some sort of like inflated ego. They're on this power trip. They need to prove everyone in the room that they're the smartest person there. It's low-key embarrassing. I don't know. So they're here for Maul. Um, our two Jedi's, they're trapped, and they have this new plan that they somehow need to get off world now. Like they know that the um the Empire is here for Maul. At least that's kind of what they're thinking, but they don't totally know. They just know that we need to get out of here. So we pan through, we see some stormtrooper designs which echo those Rolf Macquarie drawings that we see in Rebels. I love this. I think they look incredible, and I think it is just so kind to do to the Rebels fans because if you don't like Rebels or you haven't seen it or you refuse to watch it, a lot of the complaints are typically like the animation is horrible. It's for kids. Bruh. Like, give it a chance. Give it a chance. I will say the first season is a little rough, but that's just because they didn't know what they had until they had it, and then they locked in. They locked in. And that's how it is with Clone Wars. That's how it kind of was for Bad Batch. Like, they did not know what kind of show they wanted to make, and then once they did, they turned it on and it was incredible. So go watch Rebels. Anyways, I was kind of watching this show, and I really tried to put myself in the Jane X people's frame of mind here. You look up in the sky and you see this giant ship. Some of them maybe have never seen a Star Destroyer before in their life. So they're like, what is that? You can hear the blaring alarm, then these other ships kind of start departing the ship, and now we've got stormtroopers everywhere. So if I was on Janix as just a humble woman making my way through the galaxy, I'd be like, okay, why is the Empire here? There hasn't really been any outright terrorist attacks to warrant this kind of attention. Because when you think about it, Mall is operating everything he's doing underground. He's not trying to get imperial attention. So the people were probably confused and frightened. And so that's where Lawson is coming from. Like when you put yourself in that frame of mind, it helps us better understand why he's so anti-empire. Because he's like, this is just gonna cause a lot of attention. Like, we we don't need to be doing this. Like it's just going to cause more problems for the people that we are claiming to protect. So the stormtroopers, they're pretty scary. If you've never seen one before, they look a little intimidating, and now they're just coming in legions. They're coming to take over, and I would be pretty terrified. And that's exactly what happens. Blake steps in, he takes over, and he begins his own investigation. He's like, We are here for Maul, but how did it get to this point? I need to interview every loser in this room and figure out where you messed up, why you guys are horrible at your job, why you shouldn't have even tried. Like, don't worry. I'm here and I will take care of everything. And maybe if I'm really good, I'll get a promotion. Like, they're so they're so relentless and they're insufferable. But whatever. Basically, his whole power trip I wrote down is like, okay, I need to figure out who's at fault, who knows something, and who can I punish. Like, that's very much the ice cold vibe that you get from all of these imperial officers. Because when you think about it, the Empire, it is a ladder chain. They're cutthroat, they all have like this selfish gain. It's just an environment built on trying to be better than the guy sitting next to you. And so, Blake, he has that and that comes across in his character. He just wants to succeed so badly. He wants to prove himself, he wants this mission to go flawlessly, he wants a promotion. So he's not afraid to just absolutely disrespect the local law enforcement because he feels like they're incapable and don't worry, we're here, we're gonna take care of everything. And if I look good while doing it, well, that's just a slay on me. Like, I hate them, they're all conceited. So then we cut to Maul's hideout, spybot reports, and rooks suggest that they relocate to another system. Like, this is not the kind of attention we wanted, we need to get out of here. But Maul is determined to see his vision through in regards to Devin. Which I was thinking, like, why? Like, if we take a step back to really think about why is he so driven by what he thinks is the right path, because he doesn't even know. Like, he he says, like, oh, it's becoming more clear. He said that in the first few episodes that my my soon-to-be apprentice is here, but he doesn't totally know what the plan is, besides that she's just gonna make a really good tool in my fight against the empire, in my fight to get revenge on the syndicates. So I can see why Rook would be like, Are you serious? Like, dude, you are a high-level target from the Empire, and you're just you're just gonna like throw yourself into danger over this this girl that we met once, and her whole time she was here, she was disrespectful to you. She had no idea how dangerous you were, and she just wanted to get out of here and go crawling back to her master. Absolutely not. What are you thinking? But she's smarter than that, she just you know, she's like, whatever. She does raise some objections though. She says, Well, she tried to kill you. And Maul says, It's an admiral attempt, and she will make an excellent apprentice. Like, this is what I'm gonna do, this is the plan, lock in, we're doing it, we're gunning for her. I'm not leaving without her. So I was thinking during this whole scene, I wrote down that Moll talks a lot like Sherlock. He's very to the point. If anyone watched the BBC adaptation of Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch, uh, he is very much Sherlock, like, especially when he's talking to Vario. And Vario's like, are you serious? Are you serious? Like, you took out the pikes and I helped you. Like, what do I get? What do I have to show for it? And Maul's just like, you live, like he's very to the voice. Like, I do not have time for stupid questions. I don't have time for dumb conversations. Can everybody just get out of the room so I can go to my mind palace? Like, that is the vibes that Maul gives throughout this whole show. And I never caught on until this episode, this point. Um, Vario actually ends up deciding, even though Maul dismissed him, that it might be safer to stick with him. So we'll probably be seeing him a little bit more as the show goes on. Later, we cut to Rook meeting up with two Mandalorian soldiers. One of them specifically is questioning Maul. He doesn't think this is a good idea. He didn't know the Empire would be involved. The other one is just kind of in it for money, and they know better than to question him to his face. So they signaled Rook, hey, meet us in the supply closet. Like, we're gonna form our own little rebellion here if he starts being crazy. And Rook is basically like, stand down. No, you're not, you're gonna keep doing what you're told, and I'm in charge. And when I'm not in charge, you're listening to him to a T. Quit making things weird, get back to work. And this kind of raised a new thought for me. I was having this conversation with Grant because I had never thought about this. Obviously, that's what a new thought is. Mall and women. So stick stay with me. Rookcast is his number one. He tried to recruit Ahsoka, he was almost successful if she would have believed him. Now he's recruiting Devin. Later we see him with Kira in the Crimson Dawn as his right hand. He also tried to recruit Sateen before realizing that her Prime Minister Albeck would be more cooperative. If you think about it for a second, it's just an interesting facet of his character that I never really noticed. How he works well with women. Who to call. Like he's he just it was something I was thinking of. And I don't even know how I want to like articulate this correctly because, like I said, it is kind of a new thought. It is something I want to mull over as I continue to think about his journey as a character as a whole, but really just this common theme. And I started thinking about it like it low-key makes sense because all the men he's worked with, like pre-Vizla, Savage, um, later All Mech, like these men that he's worked with, and even the Pike Syndicate and the other syndicates he aligned himself with were all run by men, and they were all, each one of them had in common that they were not really afraid of him to a degree. Like they secretly were thinking, like, I'm only with you to serve my own needs. Like, as soon as I decide I don't need you, I'm gonna start plotting on how to get rid of you, how to overthrow you, how to be stronger than you, how to betray you, and pot to pull the rug out from under you. So, but none of the women that he's aligned himself with have done that. And so, you know, I'm not saying it's anything crazy, I'm not trying to get, you know, men versus women, whatever. I just, it's something I hadn't noticed before, and now that I realize it's a common thread, I do want to think about it more in terms of his intellect. Because Grant was trying to say he's like, well, he's just manipulating them. And I'm like, I mean, yeah, I guess, but I also think the majority of these women, like, he's not trying to tell them what they what they think. You know what I mean? Like, he's not trying to tell them, here's what I think, and here's why you need to think it too. It's more of, hey, here's what I think, wouldn't you agree that that makes sense? Like, he's not trying to force his thoughts on them as much as he's helping them try to come to their own conclusions that just happen to be the conclusions he's come to as well. And so that is manipulating, but not in a way that feels malicious, if that makes sense. So I don't know, that's a whole nother tangent. Maybe I'll do an episode on that after the show's over, but it was just something I had noticed and I hadn't really thought about until this little exchange. So then we cut back to the police office, Imperials, they've completely taken over their run in the place. Lawson gets pulled back for questioning, which quickly turns into a terrifying interrogation. And he notices these claw marks on the table. And I wrote down that, like, since they're officers and detectives, they're local law enforcement, that room was there before it started getting used by them. So what did they use it for? They probably used it for their own interrogations. So he's looking at the claw marks, and like it's implied that it was his chief's nails because she got interrogated first and he didn't see her afterward. But I almost wonder, like, how long have those been there? Like, is it from past criminals being questioned? Like, it just was a kind of like a haunting moment for him that he was realizing instead of being on the other side of the table, he's in the chair. And I just really liked that. I thought it was cool. But then it gets scary. We see the scene from um the trailer where Maroc Merrick, I don't know how to pronounce his name. I'm sorry, please tell me, educate me. I I enjoy being educated. He puts his hands on his shoulders and he just says, tell me everything, which I've already seen some memes from that part, which are hilarious. Um, but I started thinking, like, if she was ha like if those are her nails, did he try to like search her mind using the force interrogation tactics? Like, what happened here? Because clearly she didn't give up the information he wanted. Um I also had this theory that Merrick could be a Zabrak, um, especially because in the Ahsoka show we see when she kills him, he's got kind of like the same green like dust or whatever smoke you want to call it that leaves him that also happened whenever Savage got killed or injured. So I don't know. I think maybe he could be a Zabrak with this cool like night helmet. I don't know. Like that that was just something I wanted to throw in there. Just we'll see what happens. Um we cut now to Dockie and Devin. Like I said, they're trying to get off world. We see this scene in the trailer as well, where Devin is kind of bringing up, hey, Maul might be right. She says that he was suggesting that we work together as allies. This just seems like a waste of our abilities. Kind of all these things, as I was saying earlier, that Maul didn't necessarily plant in her head, but was more so just like drawing out within her. Like, I know you're already thinking these things, let's think about them a little deeper. In the context of your current situation. And so that's exactly what's happening. Um, I wrote down the quote there too. He's she says, He's powerful, and together we could defeat him. We couldn't defeat him, yet he offered to work together as allies. And Jockie's like, No, no, like I hear your voice, but I know it's Maul's words. Like, girly, put that out of your head immediately. But honestly, she's right, like the true enemy is the empire here, and if we're going to get out of here, maybe we should work with Maul. And Jockie's like, you're crazy. So this leads to a little bit of a discussion on the Jedi's fate, which I wanted, I wanted to write and talk about. Because when you think about it, it's very similar to the clone soldiers. They were engineered to fight a war, and once the war was over, now what? Like what's our purpose? What's the vibe? And same with the Jedi, they're no longer keepers of the peace. So now what? What is their role in the galaxy? They have these strong abilities that they used to help people. And even though they weren't trying to have like power and rule over planets, they also weren't oppressed to the point of genocide. So it's just interesting the huge shift that happened for them as a society. Where do we fit in this world right now? And how Palpatine wants them to believe you don't have a place. You don't belong. You're nothing. You're useless. You deserve to die. So I just appreciate that they're showing that side of Devin's thought process is like, wait a second, this does seem backwards. Like maybe Maul does have a point. And again, it doesn't come across as malicious. It does not come across like he's trying to use her in a way that she does not want to do. It feels more like he's offering her an opportunity that aligns with the injustices that she is already upset about. So it's just a very complicated, complex situation that makes me love and respect this show so much is we're able to have these intellectual conversations and it helps us appreciate characters more. So I don't know. I like that. Um, it also, I wrote down that Dockie, he's like, well, we need to remain hopeful. And yet again, the theme of hope, we see that throughout the entire Star Wars, everything. Every Star Wars story is built on hope because rebellions are built on hope, and Star Wars is always dealing with some type of rebellion, whether it be as an organization or whether it just be within your own family, within your job. Like there's always a rebel story to tell, and that's what I love about Star Wars because the the thread that they all have in common is they have some sort of hope that they are holding on to that is motivating their risky actions. So yeah. We have no allies. How are we getting off worlds? And Dockie's like, Well, we only need one ally, which I didn't even put together that they were gonna go to Lawson's apartment. We find that out later at the end of the episode. But watching this currently, I totally forgot about them. I was like, They're going to Lawson's apartment? That's crazy. Like, I didn't even piece that together at all. The first watch. The second watch seems more obvious, but the first watch, I was shocked when Riley slid that door open and you could see him sitting on the couch. I was like, bruh, this is crazy. This audio is so wild. And it does. And it does. So now we cut to Merrick. He's slowly investigating Maul's abandoned hideout that obviously Lawson gave to him. He gave him that information. And I really do need to say that I love this character design. I love it. I don't feel like I fully appreciated it during the Ahsoka Live Action show, but I love it here. He sort of had this has this dark medieval night vibe with the helmet and the half-shoulder cape and the way he carries himself, the way he struts around, like he's just wearing this suit of metal armor. He's about to engage in a joust, so to speak. Like, I don't know. It's a vibe, it's a vibe. During his investigation in later scenes, also, I noticed, you know, he he notices these like laser sword marks. And it's possible, I wrote down that he used force echo, which is an ability that we only see in the Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order game, where essentially you interact with an object or a location and the force will reveal a brief vision depicting what happened. So he touches the lightsaber slash marks and sort of kind of gets an idea of what happened, what transpired. And so I'm curious if that's what happened, because it also would make sense why he's able to discover that there are two other force users. It's possible that Captain Lawson divulged that information, but it's more fun to think that he used force echo to put two and two together. Very interesting, very interesting. Some very complex themes and choices in this show that make it so incredibly entertaining. So then we meet Riley's mother. She works for the Empire. We don't know her lore. We just see her on a holo call where Riley's kind of given her the rundown. Does she genuinely believe what the Empire believes and is stands for, or is it just for a check? Because those are the type of complex stories that I love seeing in Star Wars. That's why I loved Andor so much, is it gave you kind of this backdoor view of the Empire that sometimes good people work for it with the best of intentions, not knowing that it's actually a corrupt government, it is a belly of the beast, like it is not a good place to be, but you don't realize that until you're too deep in. And if you don't tread lightly, you'll get killed. So they're kind of having this conversation. I wrote down it would be kind of a cool level to her character if we found out find out later that she's working on the Death Star program with Krennick. Later she actually works on the Death Star. Like that would be kind of a cool layer. Um I don't know. We don't know how she ended up on the M, like on the Empire Imperial side of things, but we do know that she's the wife of a cop, of an investigator. I was thinking because she says, what did he do now? When Riley kind of tells her like dad's in trouble, maybe she worked as a cop too and then got this promotion opportunity. Who knows? So I'm hoping they kind of go into that a little bit more because that is an interesting dynamic that I would like to learn about. Um, then we cut to Rook informing Moll, who's, you know, he's getting some work done. He's getting his leg worked on because Dockie did a number on him. That Rook tells him that the Jedi, they're still on worlds, they weren't able to leave once the Imperial occupation came. And Maul is like, oh, oh, this is actually incredible. How fortuitous. Oh man, wow, okay, so I was right. I was right to listen to the force. I was right to stay right where I am. I was right to remain seated because greatness is about to transpire. Like he you can tell that the the cogs are spinning. He's like, okay, Slay. Um yikes. Anyways, sometimes I say stuff and I'll like catch my like out of my peripheral. I'll look at the camera and I'll see, like, it's it's uh, I don't know. Whatever. Sometimes I cringe myself, but to be cringe is to be free, am I right? Shout it from the rooftops. Um, this tells me, because Spybot is the one who finds Devin eventually, that Moll has been looking for them, specifically Devin. And so Rook tells him, like, okay, you were right, she hadn't left the city. And Maul's like, okay, cool, now we go to phase two. Lawson is released, he goes home and he sees Devin and Dockie are in his house. He's stressed because this is like literally the worst Monday ever, but somehow it continues to get more complicated and eventually gets dangerous. And we will see that in our next episode, which you all know. I clicked play immediately. There were no bathroom breaks, there were no refillings of the popcorn. It was just straight to business. Chapter six. Night of the hunted. Merrick is hunting Lawson, Riley, Maul, Devin, and Dockie. Maul is hunting Devin, and Lawson is literally just trying to hunt down a quiet night and a cup of calf. Like, the poor guy. We just dive right in. Maul is in training, and Google, I pulled this up, I thought you guys would enjoy it because I know I did. Google says that in Maul Shadow Lord Chapter 6, Maul utilizes Juyo. I really hope I'm pronouncing that wrong again. Well, I don't hope I'm pronouncing it wrong. I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly, and if I'm not, please educate me in the comments. It is form seven, and he's using it as his primary aggressive style, characterized by chaotic, ferocity-driven movements and relentless pressure. He pairs this with Neiman, Form 6, to handle his double-bladed lightsaber, which allows for fluid transitions and engagements against multiple opponents, demonstrating a hybrid, high pressure fighting style. So that was where very very wordy way to say that he knows what he's doing and he's doing it well. So Form 7 is known as ferocity form. It is used by Maul to channel rage and negative emotions, prioritizing offensive and overwhelming speed. It's renowned as the most aggressive and chaotic lightsaber combat style, characterized by intense rage, erratic movement, and malignant grace. As discussed on Wikipedia, it is considered the most demanding form, requiring users to channel their dark side emotions into unstoppable offense. So it makes sense why he's training, why he's practicing, because this is a very complicated form of fighting, and he is an experienced soldier. He knows his way around a lightsaber, he knows his way around an opponent, and he's not gonna be cut in half again. The legs were too expensive. Um, we continue on here. Um, it is frequently incorporated in his technique. This form aids in managing his double-bladed weapon with wide arcs and constant movement, supporting his, as described by NSabre's, adaptable and relentless approach. Form 7 is also known as the Way of the Rancor or the Diplomats form. It's a balanced, versatile combat style that Darthmall utilizes to master his double-bladed lightsaber, allowing him to bridge the gap between aggressive strikes and multiple varied opponents. So again, a very calculated way of fighting, and it's intentional. It's been practiced. This is a form of fighting that he has perfected. It's how he's been able to live so long, it's how he's been able to lead and gain respect, channel respect, take respect, and it looks flawless. He doesn't know exactly what he's preparing for, but he is fully trusting in his vision. He is leaning fully into the force. And I wrote down a note here. I would have loved, absolutely loved, and I know there's some fans out there, hopefully, if you're listening, this has reached the correct audience, who uh uh girly, I would have loved to see this version of Maul visit with Qui-Gon Jin. Obviously, this is years later, he's older, he is more um, what's oh girl, what's the word? More mature, thank you very much. And so if this version of Maul would have met the Phantom Menace version of Qui-Gon, who also is renowned for like leaning into the force, trusting in the prophecies, trusting his gut, kinda not really vibing with the council because the council is slowly cutting themselves off from the force. Like, I would have loved to see these two characters interact because that's exactly what Maul is doing. He's a Sith, but just because he's a bad guy doesn't mean he's not trusting the force. So, just a very interesting window into how he is viewing the world right now and why he's been able to live as long as he's been able to live. So Rook goes on to show a holler of Merrick, and Maul gets this like disgusted glare. And this is where my previous theory kind of came to fruition that Merrick could be a Zabrak. Obviously, he's mad about the Empire sending an Inquisitor after him, but maybe he also knows Merrick. Maybe he knows that he's a Zabrak working, you know, from the Night Sisters or whatever, and it's possible that he knows him. So I don't know. Very interesting, would be very cool to see if that ended up being reality. This episode, though, is gonna be intense. Like you can just tell by how fast the action is, how intense the music is. We're just getting right back into it. We cut back to Lawson's house. He has these unwanted guests at his residence. Um, Doki asks him for help finding a contact who can get them off worlds. And in these quiet moments, I the 16-year-old fangirl who has been dwelling within um was able to come out of her hiding place yet again and ship Riley and Devin. Um, their interactions are so cute. Like he just gets all awkward and she's like rolling her eyes, you know, she's just like this angsty teen and he's like all into his sports. Like, I don't know. I loved them together this whole episode. Um, but Lawson makes this funny point to Docie. He's like, Do you know what the Empire would do to me or what they would do to Riley if they found out I was even talking to you? Like, what are you doing here? And Dockey's like, um, I imagine that it wouldn't be so different as to what they would actually do to Devin or myself. Um, because, you know, we're Jedi. Let me explain that. Let me let me break it down for you. We are Jedi, and we survived Order 66, which was the great Jedi purge, because we're Jedi, and the Emperor hates Jedi, and we're Jedi. Like, Docky's not afraid to be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm worried about you, but like low-key, I'm terrified for myself and and my my Padawan as well. This isn't about you, Lawson. This isn't about you. Sit down in your own house. Oh, so, anyways, Lawson, he's trying really hard to get rid of them though. He's like, I'm too old for this. I don't got time for this. I got a kid, I just want to go to bed. Today's been really hard. But before he can even, you know, get them out the door, Merrick shows up. And now we've got this 2v1 duel. They completely trashed the place, and so now we got all four of them on the run. And this sequence is really nothing but non-stop action. It is so fast-paced in this confined quarters, and I was convinced that Dockie was gonna die. Not just this time, probably like three times this episode. There were times where I was like, oh no, oh, oh, oh no, what? Oh, oh me. Oh, you know, like there were times where I was just like, Are you kidding? But okay, slay, slay, slay. He ate. Devin ends up hijacking a gunship, and I really just have this feeling that the ghost crew would absolutely love her. She would fit right in. If we have any Rebels fans out there, Devin belongs with the ghost crew. For sure. Somebody draw that. But after they are successfully shot down, Lawson calls on Rena Sol again, which we know um now I looked up on Wikipedia. She is a species called Padlum. And this is a new Star Wars species. We don't even know what planet they're from. She's the first one we've seen. We don't know anything about their culture, so I'm excited to learn more because as you guys heard on my episode one and two praises episode, I love Rena Sol. I think she her character design is so cool. I love her voice actress. She's a vibe, so I hope that we get to meet more padlums. Um, we get a look kind of instead of oh wait, wait. What did I say? Girl back up. Okay. So we're looking now instead of just Docky and Devin, this party of four, once off world. We recruited Riley and Lawson to our cause of being um uh enemies of the Empire. So welcome to the club. There's four of us. Five if you count Maul, six if you count Rook. Slay, Sly, Slay. Um Rena, she kind of runs this casino. She takes them upstairs to talk. Eventually, the Empire finds them because they get ratted out. But while the Empire has been looking for them, Maul is also looking for them. So they're on the run again. The team splits up. We got the cutie kids and the single dads. Um, the cutie kids, Riley and Devin, they run into Merrick, of course, obviously, because the single dads, you know, why not? Devin actually does kind of okay on this fight. Um, I wouldn't say by any means that she would have won, but I do think that she held her own enough until Maul got there. So I'm sure she was relieved when she sensed that he was there. Um, but yeah. She was relieved, and we all were the crowd was silent um because he just commanded the room. And then we all went wild when Devin and Maul started fighting together. Together, together. Which, if there's any nerds out there and you listen, you've seen Sordar online, it's an anime. Um, they have sword fighting techniques in that show, and the two main characters, Kirito and Asana, they fight together. And so you see their dynamic as swordsmen and they use the word switch. So, like, one will be in the front, and then they'll drop back so that the next the next one can switch and they start fighting. And so I was going feral during the scene when the switching was happening. Because like Maul would go and then jump back so that Devin could jump up, like they would switch. Oh, it was so good. It it was so good. I also wanted to bring out the look on Maul's face when he sees the spinning Inquisitor blade. It's just so hilarious. Like the time and energy that he had to spend learning how to properly handle a dual-bladed lightsaber so that he wouldn't hurt himself. And now, like, the the Palpatine releases this model. Are you serious? Like, you could just tell that man was eye rolling. He could not believe what his eyes just saw. He's like, Are you serious? Is that what I think it is? I just know he hates them. He hates them. And I I would love to know what his first thought was when he saw them spinning around as helicopters. You just know mom was like, How did you do that? Are you serious? He's so for real. We have lost the plot. But Loki, where do I get one? Oh, it's just so funny. He would never, he would never. They're tacky. He thinks they're tacky, guaranteed. Um we cut to the train pin getting, you know, Devin gets rid of it. So Merrick gets left behind, and their train keeps going with Maul, Riley, and Devin on it. And Devin turns around and she gets like this this angsty look on her face. She's like, Okay, alright, your turn. Like, girly, you did not win that fight. You did not even come close to winning that fight. And now you're gonna turn around and have the audacity to be like, okay, you next. You next. You see what I did to him. I'm gonna do it to you. And so Maul just gives her this look. He deactivates his like saber. He's like, girl, we ain't got time for this. And so she deactivates hers and she's like, Yeah, you look you right. So the episode ends um in that area. That scene ends with Moll saying, Now you have seen the face of your true enemy. Like, I know you've been after me, but I've been after him. So how about you start connecting the dots, honey, and work with me? And she doesn't even try to dispute it. She's like, he's right, he's right. Then we cut to the final scene of this episode and of this week where Merrick kneels before a hologram figure. We don't see who it is, but he just addresses them as my lord. Maul is much more powerful than we thought. He has the help of two Jedi, and we don't hear anything from whoever the figure is, so we don't know for sure who it is. The fact, though, that he even addresses him as my lord, as we see in Rebels and the Kenobi Show, that is not a term typically used for the Grand Inquisitor. Like the brothers and sisters do not look to the Grand Inquisitor and call him my lord. That title is specifically re r reserved for the leader of the Inquisitors. Which is Vader? So the way the hierarchy works is you've got Sidious, and he's in charge of Vader, and Vader is in charge of the Grand Inquisitor, and the Grand Inquisitor is in charge of all the brothers and sisters inquisitors. But my lord is reserved for Vader or for Sidious. I wrote down that I don't think it would be Sidious because he really shouldn't be bothered by calls like this. But also, Maul is a number one top-tier target of the Emperor, so I really don't know. My vet right now, as it stands, is that he is talking to Vader. But if it's Sidious, I won't be shocked. I'll be a little shocked, but not super shocked, because I really do think it's Vader. Especially in Rebels when Maul is terrified of Vader talking to Ezra and he's like, I can't defeat Vader alone. So at some point, hopefully, we see them fight because we need some sort of confirmation that Maul can indeed not fight Vader on his own. So very interesting way to end the episode. Let's go ahead and transition now to reading letters. I got an email that I would love to read with you guys. Okay, this one was very interesting, and I was excited to read it. It is from Aubrey again. She wrote last week, so we will continue the discussion here. Aubrey says, Let me bow it up here. Okay. Hi Marina, me again, lol. So I just finished watching the fourth episode of Maul. I know I'm one of the few people who didn't binge these live latest two episodes all at once. I know I must be in the minority, but so far I'm not completely psyched about it. I think it's just me and my dislike for dark things in general, as well as the idea of this show glorified one of the baddies. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the show isn't really doing that, and maybe it's a show more about Devin. I certainly hope so. I definitely like her character and think it's about time we got a Jedi Twilight, and bonus points for being a girl. I cosplay as a Jedi Twilight myself. I have two Leku. One is the Hera model without the markings but still green, the other is blue. So I was pretty psyched to see her character from the beginning. I'm still gonna watch this show to the finish, of course, but when I think back or compare it to my my in in my mind to Rebels, it's just not my cup of tea, mall reference intended. Compared to lighter animation like the Clone Wars or Rebels. I know I've told you before that Rebels is my fave, mostly because of how it was done as a found family and their various adventures. It just really resonates with me as an older OT fan who saw the original Star Wars back in 77. It was called Star Wars back then, not a new hope as it is now. It's funny, I can't even get myself to say this title. I will still call it the original Star Wars when I bring it up in conversations like. So that's it. Let's see how I feel by the end of the show. I just want to chime in as someone who's not going crazy for the show, but is pretty hopeful about Devin. I'm especially hopeful it's turning out to be a show about her in disguise, but we shall see. Hope you had a good weekend, Aubrey. Thank you so much, Aubrey, for writing in. I'm excited to break this down. Um, I sent her a response like, I love these takes. Do I have permission to read this on the pod? She's like, yes, absolutely. So let's let's go over this a little bit. Um, I can totally see where you're coming from. I appreciate that she recognizes that it is a good show, but I also respect her for saying that it is not one that she's super psyched about. Like it's not really a show for her because she knows what she likes. You love Rebels, Aubrey. You love Clone Wars, and that's great. You love the found family trope. That I I agree is very much what the OT is um circled around, especially Star Wars slash a new hope. So I like this. I like this because that is the point of Star Wars. If we just have every single Star Wars fan saying, I love this, I love this, it's so amazing, I love this, I love this, it's so amazing. Okay, that's not why Star Wars is Star Wars, though. Star Wars is Star Wars, at least in my opinion, because there's something for everyone, not everything for everyone. So the fact that you are, you know yourself as a fan, you know what you like, you know what you don't like, and you're like, you know what? I don't think this show is for me, I don't think I'm the target audience, but I do respect that it is well done. I love that. That is a healthy mentality to have as a Star Wars fan that I think needs to be in the fandom more. When I come across fans on social media, especially now that I'm on it more trying to promote the show and whatever, and I post something, sometimes I get scared because I don't want it to fall in the wrong hands. These people can be absolutely relentless. It's like, guys, if you don't like it, scroll. And if you feel so strongly about it, then start your own podcast or send me an email or something like you don't need to comment something that's like passive, aggressive, or mean. Like I delete mean comments. I'm not afraid to say that because it's my page. So the fact that you are able to say, this isn't for me, I'm not the target audience. I love that. I think there should be more of that, and I really appreciate you writing in. And I think more fans should be like you, Aubrey. So thank you for sharing that. You're a queen, and I would love to see your Twilight Cosplays. Feel free to send me photos. I'd love to see that. So now we will go ahead and get into our nerdy intro. This is where the fun ends. My only hope is you enjoyed, and I will yap at you again next Friday. This has been The Village Jedi. Thank you so much for listening. To support this show, please leave a rating or review wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Go check out the YouTube channel or send me an email to be read and discussed on air. You can also tell a fellow nerd to build the community. I mean this in the nerdiest way possible. May the force be with you.