Maul leads Devon and Rylee to his hideout and plans to escape, but the Empire has other ideas.

It’s never a good sign when you need to look up who a pivotal character is this far into a show. I had to do that three times in this episode.

We get yet more Inquisitor work, with the first character I had to look up, The Crow, making his appearance. He has a cool mask and a lightsaber which somehow makes him even less distinctive in this show. He first appeared in Tales of the Jedi and meets his end in the first season of Ahsoka. There he was voiced by Clancy Brown but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. There, now you know everything about him that I do and the only two of those facts I got from the show were the cool mask and the lightsaber.

I’m bored and annoyed by this element not just of Shadow Lord but of Star Wars as a whole right now. Marvel has taken a lot of thoroughly deserved flak for some of its narrative choices recently but the use of the Inquisitor characters here feels at least as tiresome. I don’t want to have to do homework (a charge always levelled at Marvel, often without warrant) to understand who villains written so thinly they’re translucent are. This is the second time this show has asked that of its viewers in three episodes and it’s to the detriment of everything, audience, show and characters. These aren’t characters they’re Wookipedia entries and if you don’t read Wookiepedia they’re going to feel like they’re wasting your time because honestly they are.

They aren’t alone either. The two Night Brothers who’ve been present but, I’m pretty sure, not even named in every Maul scene so far get some action this time. One of them doesn’t make it. I had to look their names up too, as well as one of the players in the left field Mandalorian betrayal plot that’s all but set up and paid off in one episode. Asking your audience to do this once is a lot. Basing an entire episode on nothing but a fight with these characters? Come ON. Marvel on their worst day got close to this but this is banging action figures together and telling me it’s a story I should care about, and it just isn’t.

I think a lot of my frustration is also seated in the face this episode is circular. Devon and Rylee bounce between threats and captors like a pinball and there’s precious little chance for anyone to actually do anything besides react. A single, interesting Lawson and Two Boots moment gets mostly lost and the closing fight, while really fun, is just another Jedi duel. Something we’ve had in very nearly episode of the show so far and which comes to about the same conclusion.

Verdict: I’m dunking on this one a lot, which presents, I know, as being unfair. The action is enjoyable and the animation is great but without hours of homework, this just isn’t a complete story and I can’t get past or forgive that. 6/10

Alasdair Stuart