‘Star Wars: Maul—Shadow Lord’ Check-in

Summary

House of R – ‘Star Wars: Maul—Shadow Lord’ Check-in

Podcast: House of R, The Ringer
Hosts: Mallory Rubin & Joanna Robinson
Date: April 7, 2026
Episode Theme:
A fast-paced, in-depth discussion of the two-part premiere of the new animated Star Wars series, Maul: Shadow Lord. Mallory and Joanna celebrate Maul’s role in Star Wars canon, examine his character evolution, the show’s premise, connections to existing Star Wars stories, and speculate about the series' trajectory—with their signature blend of enthusiastic nerdery, sharp analysis, and humor.

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Episode Overview

The hosts gather for a “mini Maul celebration” — a shorter-than-usual but characteristically deep and insightful exploration prompted by the Shadow Lord premiere, airing two episodes per week over a 5-week run. Though pressed for time due to personal schedules, both are eager to spotlight Maul’s enduring appeal and discuss how the new show builds on his mythos.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Why Maul? The Character’s Unique Appeal

(07:34, 09:20, 13:18)

• Joanna on Maul’s Character Roots:
  • Maul fits the archetype of “wounded, obsessive, ever-striving antihero”—grouped with Loki, Spike (Buffy), and Sawyer (Lost).
  • Unlike some, Maul isn’t a redemption story:

    “He’s a baddie. He stays a baddie… There’s so much nuance to the shape that his evil takes.” (09:20)

• Sam Witwer’s Influence:
  • Witwer (the main voice/creative force behind animated Maul) elevated Maul from a visually striking villain to a nuanced, fan-favorite presence:

    “To transform a character who showed up in The Phantom Menace and looked really cool, but… there’s not much there there besides the kicky flips… and become just an indispensable, compulsively watchable character. That’s what Sam has done for this role.” (11:29)

• Why Animated Star Wars Matters:
  • Animated series like Clone Wars and Rebels deeply expanded Maul’s story.
  • Star Wars’ willingness to revisit and reinterpret characters through animation keeps their arcs fresh and compelling.

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2. Where Does Shadow Lord Fit? Canon Connections and Timeline

(15:16, 16:51, 21:09, 24:46)

• Timeline Placement:
  • Set just after Order 66—around 18 BBY—placing it post-Clone Wars, contemporaneously with Bad Batch, and before Maul’s last stand in Rebels:

    “This show’s right after Order 66… so it’ll be telling the story alongside what Bad Batch just covered.” (15:16)

• Canon Touchpoints:
  • Maul’s life events: From his origin (Phantom Menace, 32 BBY), resurrection (Clone Wars season 4 onwards), role as Mandalorian ruler, and eventual fate in Rebels.
• Show Structure:
  • 10 episodes, aired in pairs for five weeks, finale landing on May 4th (“May the Fourth”).
  • Already renewed for Season 2.
  • Open to both longtime fans and newcomers:

    “You don’t need to do homework… You can just come in cold and start here.” (15:16)

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3. The Show’s Themes: Revenge, Identity, and the Master–Apprentice Dynamic

(21:09, 21:46, 22:15, 24:46, 31:33, 48:45, 53:46)

• Maul’s Defining Trait—Endless, Self-Destructive Revenge:
  • Perpetually cycling through vendettas against Palpatine, Obi-Wan, and other “betrayers”:

    “He’s so smart and persuasive… but it just gets away from him because of his obsessive need for revenge, his temper… blinded by vengeance.” (21:09)

• Endless Search for Belonging and Validation:
  • Maul’s tragic arc—promised greatness by Sidious, then discarded and left outside the new world order:

    “…To find yourself... at the dawn of this new era, all this stuff you worked for… but you have been left in the dust behind…” (24:46)

• Master–Apprentice, Seduction, and Loneliness:
  • The cycle of seeking and losing apprentices (Savage, Ezra, now possibly Devon) mirrors Maul’s own childhood indoctrination and abandonment.
  • Joanna:

    “He can command armies… but it’s not enough. He needs that one-on-one connection. You, me. You die for me…. He’s been alone—he’ll be alone again.” (61:30)

  • The show teases another of Maul’s attempts to gain an apprentice with Devon, a new Jedi survivor.

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4. Show Style, New Characters, and Artistic Direction

(36:16, 37:57, 39:07, 44:14)

• Visual Style & Atmosphere:

  • Jan X, the new crime-world hub, evokes Coruscant but leans into “rainbow-soaked noir” and Blade Runner vibes.
  • Noted influences:

    “The tone… is clear noir… cat and mouse game between [Inspector] Lawson… and Maul… with Blade Runner visuals… and artistic flourishes in the animation. It looks like a rainbow-soaked noir story.” (37:57)

  • Stylized lightsaber effects, watercolor backgrounds, and painted textures noted as a step forward for Star Wars animation.

• New Cast Additions:

  • Inspector Lawson (Wagner Moura): Shown as a flawed, “gumshoe” cop with a skeptical view of the Empire—compellingly anti-Empire and anti-syndicate.
  • Two Boots (Richard Ayoade): Droll droid partner to Lawson.
  • Rena Sewell (Pamela Adlon): Crime boss with a personal history with Lawson.
  • Devon (Gideon Adlon): Young Jedi, positioned as Maul’s apprentice target.
  • Daki (Dennis Haysbert): Devon’s mentor, a classic Jedi on the run.

• Spybot — The Scene Stealer:

  “His design… looks like he’s squinting, jaunty little hat, so much attitude, does the Nedry from Jurassic Park—if Spybot’s a fan of Jurassic Park, he’s cool with me.” (44:38)

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5. Foreshadowing, Fan Theories, and Literary/Mythic Connections

(08:13, 29:13, 41:18, 47:41, 53:46)

• Hints and Theories:
  • Potential “finale” title may have double-meaning or could be a placeholder.
  • Will Vader appear? Will we see Maul-Vader or more Obi-Wan crossovers?
• Deep Literary Roots:
  • Bard and Heat: Cat-and-mouse, Shakespearean “wounded bastard” archetypes.
  • Subtext: Maul as an Icarus figure—driven to ruin by hubris, craving to be chosen, always flying too close to the sun.
• Meta-canon and George Lucas’s Abandoned Plans:
  • Possible allusion to Lucas’s original sequel trilogy ideas: Maul seeking an apprentice like Darth Talon, with Devon perhaps serving as a spiritual successor.

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Notable Quotes & Segments

On Maul’s Nature:

“He’s a baddie. He stays a baddie. That’s the idea. But… there’s so much nuance to the shape that his evil takes.” — Joanna Robinson (09:20)

On Witwer’s Influence:

“…for Sam Witwer… to leverage the work he had already done… and be so good at what he does here that Maul becomes something they can’t resist bringing back again and again because he’s so fun to watch and to listen to.” — Joanna Robinson (11:29)

On Revenge as Fatal Flaw:

“When he decides to convince a whole crowd… or an individual person, he doesn’t always succeed… but it just gets away from him because of his… obsessive need for revenge.” — Joanna Robinson (21:09)

On Not Redeeming Maul:

“They have said very clearly in the show, we are not redeeming Maul in the show. That’s not something we’re interested in. He’s a baddie. He stays a baddie. That’s the idea.” — Joanna Robinson (09:20)

On the Show’s Visuals:

“It’s not in the realm of Spider-Verse necessarily, but it’s inching in that direction… rainbow-soaked noir.” — Joanna Robinson (37:57)

On Master/Apprentice Cycles:

“He can command armies… but it’s not enough. He needs that sort of like one-on-one connection. You, me, you die for me… because he’s been alone, and he will be alone again.” — Joanna Robinson (61:30)

On Star Wars Naming:

“Devin is… a very bad Star Wars name and I would like an upgrade for this young woman. Devon… Talon is better than Devon.” — Joanna Robinson (52:29)

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Timestamps for Major Topics

• [07:34] Why Maul is a Compelling Character, Witwer’s Role
• [09:20] Maul’s Archetype, No Redemption Arc
• [13:18] Maul’s Place in the Timeline, Canon Connections
• [15:16] Show’s Placement After Order 66, Accessibility
• [21:09] Revenge, Fatal Flaw, Lawless & Clone Wars
• [24:46] Maul’s Trauma, Outsider Status After Empire Rise
• [31:33] Maul’s Need for Apprentices, Parallels to Lucas “Darth Talon” Concepts
• [36:16] Jan X’s Setting, Noir Influences
• [39:07] Lightsaber Aesthetics and Visual Style
• [44:14] Voice Cast Shout-outs (Wagner Moura, Ayoade, Adlon), Spybot
• [48:45] Devon and Daki: Apprentices, Family, and Potential Paths
• [53:46] Speculation: Fate of Devon, Gendered Tropes, Redemption Blips
• [61:30] Shadow Collective, Maul’s Leadership/Isolation, Name Gags
• [66:34] Sam Witwer’s Big Maul Question: Why Didn’t Maul Expose Sidious?
• [68:54] Maul’s Seduction Tactics: “Challenge honestly in your mind”

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Funniest/Memorable Moments

• Animated Maul’s Sex Appeal:
  References to Maul as Joanna’s “animated boyfriend,” and his bare-chested, shirt-hating, “murder cloak” aesthetic.
• Maul’s “Pipe”:
  Playful speculations about Maul’s cybernetics and Mother Talzin’s thoroughness with his “restoration” —

  “When Mother Talzin… said, ‘I’m going to restore your body and also your mind… Did she think about his dick and what he’d be able to do?’” (57:14)

• Spybot Praise:
  Multiple shoutouts to the delightfully snarky Spybot droid, its design, and possible future House of R guest appearance.

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Final Thoughts & What’s Next

The hosts express excitement for the remaining eight episodes, noting how the show threads a deft line between new narrative ground and rich connection to established canon. The unique window between Order 66 and Maul’s Rebels demise provides fertile territory to explore revenge, trauma, identity, and the perpetual quest for belonging—a story with room for both old fans and newcomers.

The episode closes with typical House of R camaraderie and humor, promising upcoming deep dives on Buffy and Christopher Nolan’s Memento, and inviting listener feedback on all things Maul.

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For listeners who haven’t watched Maul: Shadow Lord yet:
This episode is a lively, affectionate, and accessible primer on both the show and the appeal of Maul as a Star Wars icon—balancing context for canon newcomers with expert-level speculation and in-jokes for longtime saga devotees.

Transcript

[Mallory Rubin]

Foreign. Welcome to House of R A Ringer Verse Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin and she is here. Real role reversal to talk about her animated boyfriend Mal. It's Joanna Robinson Ruben.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

I'm not sure it sounds the same

[Mallory Rubin]

as Kenobi in your best Kenobi voice. You tried, you tried, you tried. And Maul, a lot of his life is about effort and the hustle and trying. So I think he'd respect it. We are here to talk about the two part premiere of the newest Star wars show, Star Maul Shadow Lord. You've got a colon in there and a passion bear. It's all happening and we will get to it right after this.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

This episode is brought to you by TaxAct. Don't do your taxes alone. Join TaxAct's National Admin Night. Admin nights are social gatherings for getting through your to do list. So get ready for a night of fun, finding deductions and filing taxes with TaxAct where you can file your federal and state return for just $49 through April 8th. Let's get together and get them over with. Visit taxact.comadmin-knight for details.

[Mallory Rubin]

This episode is brought to you by Fandango. People say fans are too distracted these days, but the truth is when a great movie hits the screen, you show up. You stay glued, invested part of the story. And without fans like you, there'd be no cinema magic, no shared moments. So head to fandango.com to get tickets, stream or rent or buy top movies and series. Fandango loves fans. Okay, Joe, before we dive into today's mini mall celebration, a bite size quick one snack. You're packing up your life to move to a different city. I am heading to the airport and mere hours to go up to the Bay Area for rewatchables. But we love Maul. So even though this is going to be a little bit briefer than our typical dalliances with Sith Lords or otherwise, we wanted to spend a couple minutes here with one of our favorite Star wars baddies. And we've got some other stuff coming on the feed as well because we've already recorded the next pod. We did it yesterday. We did. It's going to run in a couple days. Look at that. We can say with utter and complete confidence that Buffy Stuff Season 4 Part 2 in the can be in your feeds on Thursday. Get excited and probably not going to be too long of a wait before we do Season five. We're excited to keep going with the Buffy rewatch that's been a blast. We will also be continuing our Chris Nolan rewatch on the journey, the path, the, the, the days, weeks toward the Odyssey. And up next is Memento. So that's exciting. Will you come to the studio covered head to foot in tattoos? Have you decided?

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

You know, he's not covered head to foot, but I might, I might, you know, thigh tap. I might, you know, unbutton the chest tap, show you a little chest hat. Yeah, why not?

[Mallory Rubin]

You, I mean, people are going to expect it now that you've said it.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

You know, I'll think about it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Your adoring public is going to wait with bated breath. Joanna, how can everybody follow along?

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Oh, what a great question. Listen, why don't you subscribe to the pod? That's a good idea. Follow us on Social. I'm just going to zoom through this. We don't have a lot of time here. Today it's Dall? E Social. You know where to find us. We're on Instagram, TikTok, etc. I was messing up our pod. Our own feed. What a, what a thrill. What a joy. Hobbitsanddragonsmail.com We've already gotten some of your Buffy responses, some of your memento anticipation. I want to hear your mall thoughts. I want to hear all about them. Oh, and also, if you're one of the many people who've been emailing us or commenting like, where are the other Daredevil episodes? We never said we were doing that show week to week. That was never a promise we made from us to you. So will we check back in? Probably. Hopefully. Maybe. But it was never our plan to go week to week on that show.

[Mallory Rubin]

So, yeah, there you go with love and respect. Love and respect to Matt Murdock, but not to Heather.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Never.

[Mallory Rubin]

Spoiler warning for today's pod. Obviously, the first two episodes of Shadowlord, chapters one and two, the Dark Revenge and Sinister Schemes. I'm loving these episode names. They're so moody.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Very good.

[Mallory Rubin]

But here's the thing. We're also gonna talk about other Maul canon today. We're gonna be dotting it in some memories, celebrating just some favorite moments that we consider crucial. We're not doing a deep dive of the first two episodes, but we're sort of like using the premiere of this show to talk about the premise of the show and why it's interesting, why it positions Maul as a character in an interesting moment of the Star wars timeline, but his timeline most of all, and how the framing of the story so far has pulled on some of our fondest ties to the character from either the past or future of the timeline. So if it's happened in the Clone wars or Rebels or Phantom Menace or Solo makes Solo 2 happen.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

You spent a lot of time on that hologram.

[Mallory Rubin]

I know you didn't doubt that I'd get hashtag makesolo to happen in there. And guess what? I did. It's been today.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

It's been 27 years of Darth Maul. There are so many Star wars fan for whom Maul has always been here.

[Mallory Rubin]

I know.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

That's really cool.

[Mallory Rubin]

What a cool character. Sometimes he's been Darth Maul, Sith Lord. Sometimes he's just tried really hard to pretend he's a Sith Lord. And sometimes he's just Maul. Sometimes he's a crime syndicate boss. Sometimes he's walking around like a metal spider on a trash planet.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Sometimes. Sometimes he's just half a guy.

[Mallory Rubin]

Always a full guy. That mall, he's the best. We are excited to just talk about why he's such a fun and interesting character and all of his many variations. So let's get to our mini mall dive.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Let's do it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay, Joanna. Season one of Shadowlord, the latest not just Star wars show, but animated Star wars show. And a lot of the great mall canon has existed and come to us in the animated form is to 10 episodes, but it's airing over five weeks. They're doing two a week. So we got two episodes already. The finale lines up quite nicely for May 4th. Maybe that's just a fun way to have a great Star wars moment. Maybe it means something is happening in that finale that will be a ooh, may 4th be with you. Big Star wars thing. On the connected canon front, who knows? But guess what question that we don't have to ask is, will the finale end by setting up the future of the story? Because they already renewed it. They renewed it for season two before season one even premiered. And season one is getting really good reviews. So people seem excited about the show. For Star wars animated enthusiasts or maybe for people who are just diving into the animated verse for the first time because they're interested in Maul or they want some good Star wars, this is a. A fun little moment. So let's start kind of just in the big picture sense. Like why do you love Maul as a character and what is your relationship to his animated canon in particular and to to Star wars animation as a way to explore character canon beyond what we get on in the live action

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

before I answer that question that you so beautifully put to me, and I will. Can I just say really quickly because now you have my, like, theory brain going. Yeah, I've only watched the first two episodes. They sent us a bunch of screeners. I only watched the first two episodes. Rare moment of restraint for me. But here are some of the other episode titles, right? Whispers in the Unknown, Pride and Vengeance, Inquisition. Night of the Hunted, Call to the Oblivion, the Creeping Fear, Strange Allies. And the finale is just called Finale, which is a really weird name for a finale of a show that's getting another season to just call it Finale. So is it a finale of what? You know, like, is There is a double meaning in that? I've also seen some theories, and again, I have not watched ahead to be

[Mallory Rubin]

announced title for that episode.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Possibly. Very possibly. I am willing to consider that.

[Mallory Rubin]

But it's not.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

It's not written that way because usually if that's the case, it would be like tbs, you know, so either it's like a fake title that they put out there or, you know, or it's like New Avengers and it will change or who knows?

[Mallory Rubin]

Whatever. Like, is there an *? Chapter 1, Thunderbolts.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Chapter 10. Vader's in this one. You know, like, who knows? Like, something like that. I know that that's something a lot of people are asking, like, will we see a Maul Vader fight? Because if they can, like, sneak a couple fights in for Obi Wan and Vader, why couldn't they do it for Maul and Vader? So something to think about. I don't know the answer. I'm just asking.

[Mallory Rubin]

I will be astonished if, over the course of this show, whether it's in season one. I don't know. Finale would be a great place. But over the course of this show, if Vader will be making more than one appearance. Because animated Vader is like a. I mean, obviously Vader is a Through line of Star wars more broadly. But Filoni loves to get. They have Vader into the.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

They have no chill when it comes to Vader.

[Mallory Rubin]

I respect it.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

That's where we are. Okay, so why. Why do I. Why do we love Maul? Or why do I love Maul? This is a really easy answer for me because, you know, we've been talking a lot about sports on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Maul really just fits into that sort of larger, sort of Loki, Sawyer, Spike, Jaime Lannister sort of archetype. For me, he's less on a redemption arc. And they have said Very clearly in the show, we are not redeeming Maul in the show. That's not something we're interested in. He's a baddie. He stays a baddie. That's the idea. But the thing about Maul is there's so much nuance to, you know, the shape that his evil takes. Yes. And like Spike and I think Spike and Loki, especially if his. If his cause aligns with your cause, he's gonna work with you and it's gonna be really fun and he's gonna be really good at it, and you're gonna be really happy to have him on his side. And then he's gonna be like, did you forget I was evil? Oops, I am so. You know, that's just the fun of Maul. I think Sam Witwer's performance is absolutely incredible to transform a character who showed up in the Phantom Menace and looked really cool, but was just kind of like, you know, with love and respect to Peter Serafinowitz, who did the voice for Maul in the Phantom Menace. Just not much there there besides the really cool look and the kicky flips and stuff like that. And so for Sam Witwer, a huge Star wars fan, to leverage the work he had already done in video games and animation for Star wars to get this gig, to then just like own this character and be so good at what he does here that they. That Maul becomes something they can't resist bringing back again and again and again because he's so fun to watch and to listen to. And then Sam Witmer becoming like already being this huge Star wars nerd, but becoming this, like, he likes. He's like, don't call me an encyclopedia. I'm a holocron. Like, he's just like this huge font of Star wars nerdery. So he's like excellent on the conventions circuit or on a podcast or whatever the case may be. He knows everything about Star wars. And so for him to have like a co creator credit on this show. So for this character that he took over, but then has really taken over, that's a really cool story too. It's a story again, I talk about a lot when we talk about Spike on Buffy of like an actor seeing an opportunity and just really giving something his all, all the juice that he has and becoming just an indispensable, undeniable, a compulsively watchable kind of character. And that's what Sam has done for this role. And I just, I admire him for that.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love it. I love it. He Went where Nerd King is just such a prominent part of our lives, consuming stories that we love in worlds we love for so long. You know, I've still got some notes for beloved Crashdown and BSG could have gone differently for him, but wonderful Sam performance. Aiden and Being Human, one of my favorites, obviously. But not just Mo, but his voice work and his performances across a number of different Star wars animated properties, live action central to video game canon, et cetera. He's just been such an inextricable part of the Star wars experience for fans for so long, and he's been embodying Maul for so long. We're into the second decade of it, and longer than that for the character, but just for Sam's connection to that role. And so for him to feel such a deep tie and investment and continue to explore Mal's story, and also, just to your point, like, to have that authorship and partnership with the creators is just a really cool thing, and we love the enthusiasm. And when that permeates into the quality of the story, that's always a rewarding thing. If you, as a fan, are invested in a character in the story, it's great.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

It's also. My approach to this show is so different from how I would usually feel about sort of like a. It's a sequel to a prequel to a. You know what I mean? Like, it's just one of those Star wars stories that's, like, really jammed in the middle of a bunch of other stuff. And, like, sometimes that could bear tremendous fruits. And then sometimes you're like, are you just doing this to do it? Or, like, I feel so hemmed in by what I already know about this world or this character or something like that. But hearing Sam Witwer talk about, like, the questions, the psychological, philosophical, emotional questions he has about Maul as a character and what he wants to explore with this show. It doesn't feel like we're doing it just to do it. It really feels like, you know, to go back to, like, Obi Wan, like, the Obi Wan show. I just don't really feel like they had some questions about Obi Wan they really wanted to answer. They were just sort of like, wouldn't it be cool if Obi Wan and little Leia, like, bopped around and all this other stuff happened? And sometimes it was, and sometimes it wasn't. But, like, I did not feel like they fundamentally had some, like, really cool questions and answers that they wanted to get through on that show.

[Mallory Rubin]

What about, wouldn't it be cool if Obi wan really sweaty slicing and the baking many suns. Disgusting.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

It doesn't smell good. Didn't smell great.

[Mallory Rubin]

It looked great.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

It looked great.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love this spike comp. Yeah, I think that's. I think the combination of the, the character archetype that you're identifying, which is so compelling, and the genuine, like, open set of questions for Amal in this slice of his life. Like, it is interesting. You know, one of the things that really everybody involved with the show witward, the creative team, the writers, the directors have been hammering is the idea that like, you don't need any to do any homework. You don't need to have read the Son of Dathomir comics. Though I'd recommend them.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

They're great.

[Mallory Rubin]

You don't need to have seen Clone wars or Rebels, though I'd recommend them. They're great. You can just come in cold and start here. One of the things that we obviously like to do on this podcast is talk about the connection to the stories and also that provide that context for viewers who might be coming in, but it doesn't. Even though it is positioned in such a fascinating spot in the timeline where there are simultaneously a lot of open room to play this show. We'll run through some of the timeline beats in a second here, but this show is right after set right after order 66. They haven't said like the exact. This is the exact date, but it basically said in 18 BBY order 60, 66, 19 BBY. And basically that means that this show is going to be telling story contemporaneously with what Bad Batch just covered. And as everyone will recall, when Bad Batch came out, one of the big talking points was like this is actually not of stretch of the canon timeline that there's a lot of locked in definitive story. And so in general, that seems like an interest right now is to flesh out that stretch of relatively speaking open world. But for Maul. And again, we issued the spoiler warning at the top, but we will be talking not only about things that happened to Mal before, but things that happen to Mall in the future. I think that's part of what makes this really fascinating. And this is not unique. In Star wars we know the end point like, so this is not going to be a redemption story. Note that you shared. How could it be like, I guess there could be a mini redemption and a back. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

And a backslide.

[Mallory Rubin]

A redemption. We do love a redemption blip and a backside. Very human. That would be interesting. But like, you know, we're. We know that that moment at the end of Solo is coming with Crimson dawn and the Crime Syndicate. We have Crime Syndicate canon in the past, but what we really know is coming is what happened in Rebels, right? Malach and being stranded on that planet for years and the state that Maul was in when he wound up with Ezra and Kanan and our beloved Rebels crew. And we know the end point, like, definitively for this character also in Rebels.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

So somehow Palpatine returned. So, like, you know, they could do anything they wanted, I guess, with Maul. But, like, his death scene in Rebels is so good that I would be quite angry. As much as I love Maul, I'd be quite angry if they figured,

[Mallory Rubin]

I think that you are wise, as always, to remind us that somehow Palpatine returned. We should never go too long without saying that out loud. But I think, like, they already did it with Maul. You know, the. Somehow Maul. This dude got cut in half, and somehow you returned, and somehow Maul returned. And that is, like, such a delight.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

And I. I don't.

[Mallory Rubin]

When you realize how he survived, but they. They did it with him already.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

I don't think Witwer would want to do that because I was actually just, like, watching some old interviews with him this morning, and there was one interview he gave where he was just sort of like, years ago talking about if Palpatine comes back, that ruins the fairy tale of the original trilogy. He's like, it ruins the fairy tale. And then he's like. And then later he was like, okay, they did it. That was someone else's fairy tale, I guess, and that's fine. But it's not the fairy tale that I. You know, he's a prequel defender, and I think a kind of a sequel hater, which, you know, makes sense for the camp that he falls into at Star Wars. But, yeah, I don't think he would want to do a Somehow Mal Returned. I think he would want to do something in the time period he reiterates again and again is like 15 unknown years scattered across Maul's lifetime. Where are we going to go? And he's like, this is the most important place to go because in 18 BBY. And I love that you're like, they

[Mallory Rubin]

didn't give us a date.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

They gave us a year. But she's like, what's the month?

[Mallory Rubin]

What's the day?

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

How many minutes?

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, they're doing a lot of, like, if you read the StarWars.com preview pieces and the way that they were kind of setting up the show, they were saying, like, A few years after his old master, Darth Sidious, succeeded in launching the Imperial Empire. That's a quote. And a few years into the creation of the Empire, shortly after the conclusion of the Clone wars, it's like, is it 17? Is it 16? 18 seems to be, like, where people have landed.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Sam has been saying about a year.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's what he's been saying.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

So about a year is as close as we're going to get.

[Mallory Rubin]

And so, obviously, like, part of what happens in the first two episodes is that we meet yet the latest, the newest. Okay, here's another master and apprentice who survived Order 66 on the Jedi.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Order 66. Biggest flop in all orders ever.

[Mallory Rubin]

Overrated, underrated, or properly rated? Order 66. It's overrated. Oh, deeply overrated.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

So many Jedi survived. Are you kidding me? What sloppy work, man.

[Mallory Rubin]

But, like, it's a great place to set it because so to very quickly run. So Phantom Menace 32 BBY. So that's in the past, right? Clone wars, when Maul comes back into the story and we realize that he has been living on this trash planet, his brother Savage Opress, who we'll hit a couple times today, quickly reunited the episode Brothers. The end of season four of Clone Wars. That's 20 BBY. So, like, there's a lot of Maul story that comes in Clone wars that happens actually in a very concentrated period of time, which is sort of interesting to go back and, like, reflect on. It feels like it's a much longer stretch than it is because it's over many seasons and many episodes of Clone Wars. The Lawless Season 4. 5. One of my favorite episodes of Star wars ever. 2019ish bby. That is the spoiler alert moment when Maul kills my beloved Satine and is working very hard not only to cement his control of Mandalore, but get revenge on Obi Wan. And so much of the story, Kenobi, is rooted in revenge. Revenge against Palpatine, revenge against Obi Wan, revenge against the characters who have hurt him directly or just abandoned him to some sort of fate of being forgotten.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

This is why Maul is so fun, because, like, he's so smart and he's so conniving and he's so persuasive and he's so good. And when he decides to, like, you know, convince a whole crowd of whoever it is that they want to follow him or an individual person, he doesn't always succeed on this apprentice hunt, obviously, but, like, you know, he's so convincing. He's so smart. He's so badass. And then it just gets away from him because of his, you know, his obsessive need for revenge, his temper. And so this, like, fatal flaw in this incredibly accomplished man is, you know, the being evil is also a flaw, I would say, but also, you know, just blinded by vengeance.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Also tough to get your job, to get the work done, you know?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. And, like, it's fascinating to find him in a few stretches of his story, but in this show, this is, like, going to clearly be a big thing. This is a big emphasis and how he is pitching Devin and his, like, hey, come be my apprentice. Recruitment framing is like, all right, I'm going to tell you why the Empire is bad. Fascinating. Right? Again, he just despises. Despises Palmer person.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

You know, makes a great point.

[Mallory Rubin]

But he's not like Team Jedi now. Right. He's also like, the Jedi are still a problem, too, and here's why. So he is operating from a position of. All of these other factions of power have either wronged me or are wrong or both.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

I am the one who can see it clearly. But in order to pursue my ends and these thoughts of fate and destiny, which, like, of course, if you were the chosen apprentice of palpy, Mr. Rule of two, you're gonna have a little bit of a God complex, and then it's gonna really you up. If you've been not just, like, figuratively, but literally left to rot on a trash planet while you are replaced more than once, that's gonna fuck with your head. And so one of the things we both really love, the stretch of season seven of Clone wars when, you know, we get the Ahsoka Maul duel. And also, like, Maul is with ahsoka. As Order 66 is unfolding at the end of Clone wars, it's not just the. It's what a great time everybody had. It's not just the, like, okay, we have clarified where he is at this key moment. It's the way he talks about Anakin and Palpatine's plots and what awaits and the great hands and tides of fate. And then you move into what we know awaits, because we've seen it already. Before we actually saw the end of Clone wars, we had seen Rebels. And we know that when he's dying in Obi Wan's arms, and that's in Twin Sons, the season three Rebels episode where Maul and Kenobi have their fateful duel in Tatooine, that's set in two bby. And Maul's like, you hear about the chosen one and like, that is what kind of gives him peace, even though he has lost to his greatest foe. So this story is set right after order 66. The solo glimpse that we got his call with, his hollow call with Kira10BBY and then his Rebels appearances. Twilight of the Apprentice, the season two finale, just iconic stretch of Star Wars. If you're like, I'm interested in the Star wars animation, it seems like a lot. What should I do? Just watch. Start with Twilight of Apprentice and then get back to us. That's three bby. That's the Ezra Apprenticeship recruitment. So that's like a really far in the future still. There's a lot to tell us about Maul and this crime syndicate path, especially because what we know from the solo moment is like, he's the Crimson dawn stretch of the story is like a dominant force in his life then. But by the time he's on Malachor in Rebels, he's a broken man. He's a husk. So it's got to go right and then it's got to go wrong. And that's the mall. So that's the mall story. Anything else we can learn about him? What a treat.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

I think also, just like emotionally, you touched on this, but like, emotionally, to have been told that you are a chosen one of some kind, you are stolen from your family when you're a child. Ain't that the way? And then groomed by Palpatine and told, you are, I am the one and you are number two, and we're gonna change this world. And so to find yourself in 18 BBY and the world has changed the way your master always said it was. But you have been left in the dust behind, you know, and. And you're at the dawn of this new era. All this stuff that you worked for that you were brought up to believe that you would be a part of, and you were just not a part of it. You were on the outside. And so in that way, he has, like, you know, his feeling about the Jedi Order, which has always been so sneering. But it's also like, what are you without the institution that raised you? And this is where he finds Devin, you know, like, this. This question of, like, what have you been groomed to be? What has let you down? How can you define how you go forward? If we're not exactly Sith, what are we? If we're not exactly Jedi, what are we? And are we that together? And, like, how can I? I just think this is so Fertile. Such fertile territory for this particular character to confront. All that he helped build and all that he is not a part of.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes, that's a fantastic way to put it. And I think the Crime Syndicate aspect of the story is an interesting offshoot then of his relationship to the Force and to the Sith Order and to combating the Jedi. Because on the one hand, I think inherently the Crime Syndicate stuff is a little less interesting, just as a core germ of Star wars story, than you were Palpatine's apprentice and then you were in Duel of Fates. Maul is a part of just such a seismic aspect of the story. This other stuff feels like, oh, and the other parts of Maul's life. But when it's done well, it can be not only refreshing in its variants.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

There are certainly going to be aspects of the story that are rooted in a Force user is seeking to become a master to an apprentice. That's clear. That's the role that Devon is going to play in this story. That is something that Maul is after. The way that he is talking in these first two episodes about to Rook cast one of his. Because the Mandalorian commandos are here as well. So he's like maintaining these different aspects of his identity. That's something else we love, obviously, is you lose a complete sense of yourself and then you're stitching it together from other parts of you. And when is that empowering and part of some sort of journey of self actualization and when is it something you're doing because you need to approximate the grasp of the thing you lost. And that's part of what is so interesting to me about the Crime Syndicate placement and positioning for Maul. It's cool to be on like a new planet like Jan X and be with some new characters like Lawson and see what the actual story inside of this season and maybe the show more broadly will be on the, you know, the path from Shadow Collective, which we've gotten a lot of canon about already, to the new era. Crimson dawn has been here. But the new era of Crimson dawn and what will Maul's role in all of that be? But the thing that's like most interesting to me about it is that he is just thinking of everything, including the syndicates, as a way to seek revenge. He talks about that constantly across these two episodes. Right.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Favorite topic.

[Mallory Rubin]

Demis, Vario, Crim. It's just a list of the fuckers who've wronged him. Who he's either grieved him or. Yeah, exactly. Who he's either gonna try to use for his ends or eliminate. And the fact that he's mixed up in this shadow collective in the first place sprung from Maul and Talzin trying to gain more galactic power to challenge Palpatine. So it's this. I think it's a really smart way to tell a Star wars story that threads the needle nicely of giving us a new lens for a new story, while connecting to the RO of what made this character a relevant part of our Star wars experience in the first place. Because for him, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, it all ties back to that place. It's not instead of. It's in addition to. And a path back to always.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

I think it's also really the potential here for Devon is a character I'm not like as interested in, obviously. Cause I don't have all this history with her. But there's potential here. But Devon as a potential stand in for. I don't know if this is apocryphal or not, though it has been reported, widely reported. And there claims to be sourcing with George Lucas. But like this idea that there was this whole. His whole plan for a sequel trilogy was for Maul to have an apprentice, a Twilight apprentice, Darth Talon, and that this was like a story that George wanted to tell. And so this seems to be part of. Among the many other things that Dave Filoni is up to at Lucasfilm. Part of it is sort of like reclaiming some of these George ideas and sort of like, how can we. So if we're not gonna put it in like exactly. The sequel series spot, where can we put a story of Maul and, you know, and a young woman who becomes his apprentice for a time until, you know, she doesn't. Because we know what is in the future for Maul. But like, what parallels can we build between the Anakin Ahsoka relationship and this potential Mal and Devon relationship if this does work out that way? I don't know. Again, I have not seen past first two episodes. So it's possible that Devon just like, no, I want to stay good. But I don't think that's what's going to happen because that would be very boring. And so like, what potential parallels are there for him? And how can. If he has all this resentment and this is potential rich text for the acolyte as well, a story that we're not going to get to follow forward. But given how angry he is at what happened to him. But then he's using the tools of the person who like stole him and groomed him to forge his path forward. And again, he has tried to make this connection with Ahsoka, has tried to make this connection with Ezra. We've seen him thirsting with his brother, seen him thirsting for another and another who will be loyal to him, who will not abandon him on a trash planet or anywhere else, but who will just be unquestionably loyal to him. Will he find it in this young woman here, or is it forever not available to him, you know, in this lifetime? I don't know.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love Maul's ceaseless, and that is one of the fun things. This is an area where I think knowing the future is actually really enriching for the character, because it's like he can't quit. He can't stop trying to center that relationship in his life. And sometimes it goes away because, you know, when he made his brother his apprentice, Savage, Palpatine killed him and then basically left Mall alive to, like, torment him. That. That duel of Maul and Savage versus Palpatine in the same stretch of story where Maul kills Satine, like, that is just such an incredibly harrowing stretch of. Of Maul's arc. The fact that he was weaned on the rule of two and then thinks about that kind of, like, master apprentice role, as many Sith, but also, of course, Jedi do, as this, like, sacred thing, a way to cement yourself in that dynamic, a path to power. Certainly for Maul, it's always, and I think most of all in the Ezra stretch in Rebels, when he is trying to woo Ezra Jabba to be his apprentice. Does he want the Sith holocron? Yeah. Like, is there a very practical reason he's trying to do that? Yes. Is it all leading him to try to find Kenobi? Yes. Does it go horribly wrong for him? Yes. But does he also want to be chosen and worthy? Yeah. And like, the way in Twilight of the Apprentice, he is not only relishing in the prospect of Ezra working with him and Maul leading Ezra to the dark side and being a figure whose tutelage can lead somebody to, in a very disturbing way, tap into a deeper, more fully realized sense of self. He's also like, this guy Kanan Jarrus. Pause. I'm gonna go blind him and just remind everybody of how superior you have been doing it.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Hashmark. But can we just, like, quickly go back and just say, like, he killed Satine?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

He blinded Kana Jarrus. What else is on his resume that we want to talk about? I mean, those are pretty Significant things.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think Qui Gon would love to

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

enter that Qui Gon would like to be involved, perhaps.

[Mallory Rubin]

He's done a lot. Maula's done a lot.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

There's also like, the role that Crimson dawn plays in the future in the Rebellion. Like Crimson, like his, as you said, Crimson dawn predates his control of it. But his, like, wrangling of Crimson Dawn. Crimson dawn then becomes integral to the Rebellion as part of the larger sprawling story of, of how the Death Star plans, the second Death Star plans make their way. So his fingerprints are consequentially all over everything. And again, there's just like he's done so much. Qui Gon being very important, Satine being very important to you personally, Kaden J. Being very important to Freddie Prinze Jr. But that I love Jaden, that there is no coming back from that. So instead, it can only just be fun to watch him. And also it's fun, but it's also emotionally compelling because he's so vulnerable, he's so wounded and he's so sad that, like, for me, that's just undeniably interesting to watch.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think I obviously normally would agree that there's no coming back for that. I think in Star wars there so consistently is that that's where it feels more like the fact that we just know that's not going to be the case for Maul is more clarifying than what would feel like ethically or moral. Like, Anakin is responsible for like in his final hours, like on here, on

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

the, on the way out, solo, a

[Mallory Rubin]

lot of like gas murderers who get their moment in the suns on the

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

way out for sure. On the way out.

[Mallory Rubin]

And Mal did get a very peaceful embrace at the end. So that's something. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company. No matter how you do game day on the couch, in the crowd or manning the snack table, Athletic Brewing fits right in with a full lineup of non alcoholic beer styles you can enjoy bold flavors all game long. No hangovers, no buzz, no subbing out for water in the second half. Stock the fridge for tip off with a variety of non alcoholic craft styles. Available at your local grocery store or online at athleticbrewing.com near Beer Fit for all times. How is Jan X working for you as a setting? Two episodes in this, this new planet, this kind of like hub of criminal syndicate activity, Mid Rim, you've got your city, you've got your surrounding jungles. You like a new planet?

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Sure. No, I mean, it's in its way, it's very Coruscant coded. You know, you've got levels and you know, there are some chases inside of this that could take place on Coruscant if you wanted them to. But like. The setting of the planet is less interesting to me than the tone of the world which is they're doing a clear like noir sort of storyline in that you've got this cat and mouse game between Lawson voiced by the incredible Wagner Mora.

[Mallory Rubin]

Amazing.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

And Mal. You've got moments in these two episodes where each of them sort of like stands and regards an image of the other and just really is like, who is that guy? You know, what's his deal? Very like Cyril Karn looking at Cassian andor Hollow at the beginning of Andor. So you know, and you get it on the soundtrack. You get this sort of like, you know, bluesy noir y horn music for Lawson as he's sort of stalking around the streets. It's very Blade Runner in that sense because it's just like the way this sort of like high tech noir look of everything and then just sort of the way in which they have artistically done it with like hand painting over some things and the mat work that they've done on the backgrounds just gives it a different energy than the other animated series that we've seen. And that is just like to put such an artistic stamp on something, you

[Mallory Rubin]

know, because there's been a lot of

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

critiques over the years of Star wars animation and and its look for a lot of people, they don't love how it looks and I think sometimes it can look amazing and sometimes I'm just sort of like this doesn't look that, you know, the way that like a spider verse movie or just sort of like I'm watching art, you know. And so I think this is like not in the realm of spider verse necessarily, but it's like inching in that direction where they're just like trying to take some artistic liberties with the watercolor bleed of the background. And all of that just makes it look to me like a rainbow soaked Noiri story. And that's really exciting to me.

[Mallory Rubin]

So I love that it does look very wet and not just because everybody wants to maul because he's hot. You know, though also for that reason. Sure. I love the, the ev tracking evolution of the and obviously we have things like visions that are definitionally distinct because animation studios are coming in to put their specific visual stamp on Star wars. But yeah, to track the evolution, you know, even inside of Clone wars and then from Clone wars to Rebels into bad batch. And this, I agree, really feels simultaneously like it gives you that, oh, we're

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

on a new planet.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay. Could it have been this other place Familiarity, but a really specific sense. And like, I think the styling of the lightsabers so far are reflective of that.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

That bleed. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes. And like. Cause you have, have, you know, Mal's double bladed saber. I loved getting to hear loss and say laser sword. Like fun little moments like that across these two episodes. But this is one of the most iconic things in Star Wars. And then to give it that, you know, we've seen things that look like this a little bit across the tails shorts, or even that really kind of like angry crackle of Kylo Ren's saber.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

I was thinking about Kylo. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

And the way that it's like, like the, you know, when you think about a bleeding kyber crystal and what that even is and what it tells you about the dark soul and the power that the character who's wielding that saber has willfully, intentionally unlocked to manifest that visually in this animation with like the, the, the paint style. But yeah, the sense that the, the. The evil is bleeding out, it can't be contained. Looks so cool. And you know, I love the kind of like Vader Rogue One esque dark hallway entrance against the pikes. The second episode

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

is calling it the Malway fight. No, but like his entrance in that first episode, I think that's one of the coolest entrances. Like murder cloak, saber out, you know, dismounting of the spaceship. I saw some like visual comps around the Internet of like comparing it to like Obi Wan on Mustafar. And in the way that it is like a face on sort of like descending of the stairs. Like I can see the comp to me and I went back and rewatched it. This is like so Kylo and the Force Awakens coded for me. And that's just like another Alzheimer entrance of a character. And so I was like, this is what, he deserves this. He's worthy of this. This is just like a really sick entrance. And he and I deserve it. And Sam Witwer deserves it.

[Mallory Rubin]

So. I really agree.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

You both deserve it.

[Mallory Rubin]

You do. Do you think the fact that everybody involved in the show keeps invoking Heat is how we're gonna finally get cr. Chris Ryan himself to watch some Star wars animation? You think, you think we can do it?

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

I just, I love Heat, obviously, and I get it. I would just like to say this dynamic existed before Heat and Heat didn't invent it. It might have Codified it for a certain generation. But, like, I was talking to. I was actually talking to Van and Rob about this the other day because, like, I was talking about the Scarlet Pimpernel, which is like, one of my favorite stories. Upset during the French Revolution, but that is like a cat and mouse sort of, you know, to two opposing forces and circling each other sort of story. And, you know, there's plenty of versions before that, like. But yeah, I get why heat is invoked. Like, it matters to a lot of people. Another. Another sort of, like, ancient kind of tale that we're really dealing with here is we're dealing with this sort of, like, Shakespearean archetype of the, like, wounded bastard who's been. Who feels overlooked and abandoned. If you want to talk about, like, Much Ado or Lear or whatever, like, this is a character that shows up again and again in Shakespeare. I've just sort of like, I'm not the chosen one. I have been cast out and abandoned and overlooked. And I think I deserve better. I am better than the chosen one over there. So, like, why did this happen to me? And how can I plot and plan and break everything down to have my vengeance? And so I just love that. Yeah, sure. We're dealing with heat. Yes. We're also dealing with Shakespeare, and we're dealing with a lot of things.

[Mallory Rubin]

Bard is always welcome.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Ciara. Watch this. Not in a million years. Nothing will ever induce him. Yeah, it's not.

[Mallory Rubin]

He's missing out. He's missing out on the cat and mouse front. Anything else about Lawson or that character set that you want to hit?

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

So Wagner Mora is so exciting to me because I, you know, I love him in general, but honestly, it wasn't narcos. The thing that he did that really, really got me was Puss in Boots, the Last Wish, where he played the wolf slash death, and is genuinely one of the best animation voice performances I've ever experienced in my entire life. It was scary. It was so good. And so I was, like, really excited to see that he was in the voice cast here. But Richard Ayoade is, like, one of my favorite guys of all time. He's already voiced a droid in Mandalorian. Like, he's, you know, but he is built to voice. And so I'm excited for him because I know he's a Star wars fan. So I hope that he enjoyed doing this. I just think he's so funny. He's one of the driest people alive. This is just kind of how he talks all the time. And so to get paid by Lucasfilm to do it. Great. I love that for him. But on a personal level, Richard Ayoade. I'm just like, this is for the, the, the Anglophiles who, who love him. So here he is.

[Mallory Rubin]

My favorite droid in the show so far through the. The two part premiere is Spy Bot. You're right, he's elite and iconic and hysterical. And the way that he talks shit to everybody that he's trying to best as he hacks into the systems is hysterical. But of course, the best moment was when he sort of like floated over to Mal who scratched him on the head like he was greeting his pet. I just can't wait for more Spy Bot. Delightful. But I think it's quite a bit

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

as well, the design on Spy Bot, which is like one, one light that looks like. Other eye looks like it's squinting and then his like disc looks like a jaunty little hat. And then he's just like so much attitude. I'm a huge fan of Spybot and he does a. He does that. He does the Nedry from Jurassic park, which, like, if Spybot's a fan of Jurassic park, he's cool with me. Oh, man.

[Mallory Rubin]

Jurassic park and a wig watch on a droid. I mean, extremely joke there.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Great shit.

[Mallory Rubin]

I am really enjoying the Two Boots energy as well. And I love just like, like, I'm interested so far in how quickly through these two episodes we've gotten to glimpse a lot of key Lawson dynamics. So, like Lawson and Two Boots as partners. You had the little moment like Two Boots bringing over the calf and Lawson's like, obviously guzzling caffeine. Couldn't be us. Right? And Two Boots is doing this just because it's part of the ritual. He's a droid. He's not drinking the coffee. But it's part of what they share. But we see already the seeds of disagreement between them. Because Two Boots more than once in this episode is like, shouldn't we call in the Empire? And Lawson's like, hit pause on that. When Lawson is talking to the Chief, he's like, we don't need to bring the Empire into this yet. So he seems, and this is great shorthand for us to be suspicious anti Empire, to be anti Empire, to not want the Empire on Jan X. And that of course, warms us to him. Well, immediately.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Yes. And there's also just like ways in which he is working outside the system of the institution that he belongs to. Right. And so, like, again, when it comes to a potential. We're not so different, you and I. Conversation between Lawson and Maul. These are some great early breadcrumbs for something like that.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Also some complicated family dynamics for Lawson, so that's another parallel. He has a son, Riley, who seems to be playing space lacrosse. They have said that this is called Bodican. Can't wait to learn more. We get the uniform, we get the ball, et cetera. But they're. Their moment is just like Lawson basically showing up, apologizing for not being around, promising to be around more soon and take some time, and then immediately failing to go back to work. And this family photo, which is very Ezra coded, this photo that is like following a character around in a Star wars animated story. Lawson has it on his desk. Riley's looking at it. The mob's not there, so we have more to learn there. And then there are vibes with Rena Sewell, this other crime figure, and the fact that we get not only the vibes between Rena and Lawson, like, the allusion to whatever their shared past is and something that has transpired between them. She is going to be connected not only to him on some personal level, it seems, but also has. He goes to her. He's like, what's the Shadow Collective? Have you heard of it? He doesn't. Have you heard of it, lad on the Shadow Collective? But literally, he's like, have you heard of it? I haven't. Can you fill me in a little bit here? And she's got intel, so. So we got to see a lot, actually, about, like, who is in Lawson's life and what that looks like as he attempts to find this person who's on an ISB must alert list.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

The photo is also. That photo also struck me as just, like, very noir. Quoted as well. Yeah. So Rina Sewell, as voiced by the icon Pamela Adlon. Her daughter. Gideon Adlon is the voice of Devin. So this is like, I love when Star wars does this, where they're like, get your mom in. Like, it'll be great. Gideon Adlon's really interesting because I. She was in this movie, Blockers, which I love, and I thought she was so good in that, and I have just wanted more for her, and I've been waiting for her to, like, really burst on the scene. So I'm not saying that, like, voicing a character where you don't get to see the actress's face is really going to do it, but, like, I'm. I'm excited to see her in the mix because there's, like, ways in Which Devin, like, both was and wasn't super interesting to me in these first two episodes. So I'm just, like, excited to see where this goes, because this is an actress that I really like, and so there's potential here, but, like, you have to start her from a place of, like, no, you're evil. You know, sort of thing. And then. And then we'll see where we go from there, so.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, so let's talk about the Apprentice. Search and Devon for another minute or two. Here we have Docky and Devon, and they're separated.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Use his full government name.

[Mallory Rubin]

I am going to call him Daki because I think ikudio Daki is. Though having Dennis Haysbert in Star wars is a thrill. This is a real treat. And that was instantly, like, he said half a word, and I was like, is that.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, my God. So that was fun.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

I texted you when Charlie Bushnell, who voiced Riley, who was in Percy Jackson, I was like, I know those weird, muddy consonants anywhere. I know. I know this voice. Yeah, yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's a great. It's really a great cast.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

And, you know, Chris Diamantopoulos, we were just referencing one of his most iconic performances in Silicon Valley with this guy Fox. So here he is again, like, just really doing it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Mario's been a riot so far. It's just. I liked when he was like, turn around to Demas, just so that he could look into his eyes as he killed him. That was some dark shit. That was really fun.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

The.

[Mallory Rubin]

The Search for the Apprentice. Maul can. He's not just like, okay, I've stumbled upon you, and this seems promising. It is. We. We are introduced to. To Daki and Devin. We see that they are not, like, totally in alignment, right?

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

She's like, we gotta eat, bro.

[Mallory Rubin]

And he's like, she's like, I'm gonna steal some fruit. And he's like, we can rely on the kindness of strangers. She gets taken into custody.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Maul. I've read Streetcar Name Desire. It doesn't turn out well for Blanche, actually, so I'm not gonna do that exactly.

[Mallory Rubin]

Maul is talking to Rook like, the one I seek is here. I see them the clearer, the closer I get something else. Our actions serve a greater purpose. Events are falling into place. She is a Jedi. I shall fashion her into a weapon which can help us destroy all those who have betrayed me, including Darth Sidious. He didn't need to say it. We knew. But it was helpful that he said it. So he feels this, like, magnetic, galactic pull to her and to power she recognizes him.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Him.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is fascinating when he opens her because she's like across in the cell, across from Vario. When he looks in and opens that door, she's like mall, yeah.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

She's like hot.

[Mallory Rubin]

The Legend of Maul and the Pull of Maul.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Do you think Maul like in like the Stranger and the Acolyte, do you think Maul will take a bath or can you do that with robot legs? I'm not sure, but like emerge from a pool, you know, just to dazzle his apprentice.

[Mallory Rubin]

This, it's entirely possible. I, I, you know, the, the, the back scar appreciation stretch of acolyte felt very specific to our experience with Manny. But you know, we, we love to

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

admire mom hates a shirt, so he does.

[Mallory Rubin]

He loves a murder cloak, but he hates a shirt. And part of the reason he loves a murder cloak is because it's helps to conceal his identity. And part of it is because it's just a real quick path to the open chest.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

It really is.

[Mallory Rubin]

You gotta respect it.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

This, you know, is this character of Devon going to be the Darth Talon apprentice figure from elsewhere in the Legends and this idea of calling her a weapon, right, for fashion her into a weapon, like a tal, like, this is my talon. This is my claw that I will use to sort of like scratch at the emperor of the empire. Thinking about like these great names like Mall and Savage and stuff like that, I just like, I'm excited. Devin cannot stay. Devon is like, is a, I think a very bad Star wars name and I would like an upgrade for this young woman. Devon.

[Mallory Rubin]

Do you want it to be Darth Talon?

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Yeah, I do want it to be talent. I think Talon is better than Devon.

[Mallory Rubin]

I, I, I am excited to see where the Devin stuff goes. And I think like, I agree with what you said earlier. It seems unlikely to me that she, that the way this story goes is that she's like, actually I have that it stays where it starts because, you know, we get this great line from Maul, which is part of the recruitment pitch to Devin, but is also sort of like the mission statement for not only why you do a mall show, but why Filoni and company are so interested in continuing to explore Mal in the first place. You're operating under the premise that I'm somehow the villain here. But it is not as simple as good and evil. Evil the way that Sam said evil. I couldn't even hope with a thousand tries to get even close to how he, how much sauce he put on evil. It was wonderful. So he's like, I can show you a pathway to the power that the Jedi didn't teach you. But he's also like, I'm not exactly who or what you think I am. And part of the way he frames that is everyone's bad on all sides. Right. So the idea that Devin starts by saying, I have this assumption of you and ends there seems very flat and stagnant and unlikely. And especially because not only are we meeting her and Daki on the run, but she is still with her former Master, moving away from the old and into the new and making that such an active choice. Like, yeah, she's on the run in an apparel of circumstance, but she does have somebody, the closest somebody. And if the way this goes is that she has to choose Doc Mall over Doy, that would be really interesting. And that would be devastating. Or maybe he's not going to make it. And then in that even more desperate straight, that's when she goes to Mall. I mean, who knows? But then, like, the question is, how? If they do end up as master and apprentice, how long does that last? Or is this another just. Does the failure for Mall come immediately or eventually?

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Is the question.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right, Right. Like, does he fail to actually win Devin to his cause? Or.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

I think.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think he's got to win her.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

I think he's got a win loser. And then someone Vader, who knows, kills her like that.

[Mallory Rubin]

So it's. It's going to be more of the Mall Savage. Yeah. Mold there where he made his brother his apprentice and then Palpatine killed his brother, and that was pretty rough. And that's the other thing. So lost Savage and Mother Tall, his brother, his mother, really recently in the canon. So he's, like, in even for Maul, a very raw and wounded place where he has kind of, like, reconnected to the actual family that he was stolen away from and then lost them, too.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

There's Aslanias.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Indoctrinated since you were a child. And it's just sort of like he's just talking about himself, which is, you

[Mallory Rubin]

know, we love a villain who projects.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

I mean, I'm not rooting for, like, a young woman character to show up, be lured to the dark side, and then die to motivate a male character for his ongoing ven. Vengeance. That's not my fave, obviously, but, like. No, I mean, is she gonna, like, be Lord to the dark side and then make a different choice and turn a different direction? Maybe. I don't know. That could be maybe a little bit more interesting. I Would like to go back on my. She's gonna die. I never. I never root for that.

[Mallory Rubin]

So who knows how many seasons she'll be around. She can make a different choice later. Is there anything else about either Maul's history as an apprentice with Palpatine and then a discarded apprentice, or his. His pursuit of his own apprentice, Savage Ezra, etc. Savage in the past, Ezra in the future that you. You want to note here in terms of how we should be thinking about Maul and Devon, or have we covered it all?

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

I just think, you know, it's always seduction with him and again, with love and respect to like, Iko Diodaki, like, who's, you know, you really are going

[Mallory Rubin]

to say it all every time. I admire it.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

I mean, that's a great Star wars name. Devon sucks as a Star wars name, so I'm gonna respect the effort. But if Iko Deodaki is just sort of like croning around with a bit of pipe, that is definitely also a lightsaber. You know what I mean? That's not. And then you're like, the other alternative is this hot, bare chested, horny guy

[Mallory Rubin]

also cronin around with a pipe, but in a different way. Am I right?

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

I wouldn't say he's croning, but he's dragging around some serious pipe and that's.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, God.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

How does it work down there? Cybernetic, I guess.

[Mallory Rubin]

Metal? Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Yeah. So, like, get some stuff done. Yeah. Is it like, articulated? What did his mom do for him down there?

[Mallory Rubin]

You know, it's a great question. When mother Talzin used her final burst of power before eventually being killed by Grievous to say, I'm going to restore your body and also your mind. Did she think about his dick and what he'd be able to do?

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

I'd like to think, you know, as a good mother should. I like to think that she gave him like, a significant piece of pipe that can move.

[Mallory Rubin]

She wanted, articulated her son to have a rich and full life, you know, so there's that. And to get revenge on Palpatine. Not sure if that's come up before.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

If she didn't and he's like, smooth like a Kendall down there, then, like, that might explain some of his ongoing frustrations in life as well.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, he's gone through a few different bottom halves over the years, so he's not like, bound to one forever. He switches it up. You think he ever goes back to the spider legs just for fun? It seems like a blast, you know,

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

on like a get to spice things up on a certain night. He's like, should he go full spider, baby?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

You know,

[Mallory Rubin]

the Syndicate.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Is there any way the social breakup from this episode is not us talking about Mall?

[Mallory Rubin]

Seems unlikely.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

It is created by seems unlikely. Okay, cool.

[Mallory Rubin]

Do you think that's what he meant when in Two Sons, he said to Obi Wan, tell me, is it the Chosen one?

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

My. My dad?

[Mallory Rubin]

His cyber dick? Yeah. Could be. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

He will avenge us, but, yeah, he meets.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, God, Maul and Mandalore. We've covered it a little bit in terms of, you know, Rook is a character in the other Commandos who are here. His history with Obi Wan, Satine.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

It's a dark saber.

[Mallory Rubin]

We love the Darksaber now and all. I do. As you know, I really. I still kind of can't get over how that. How that all went in Mando. Not over that yet.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

That's a. That's a.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's a deeply painful and traumatic thing for me to reflect on. Darksaber and animation has been consistently great.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

The

[Mallory Rubin]

Shadow Collective, which Lawson is trying to learn about. And we're getting some kind of helpful refresher exposition for people who aren't familiar with the canon inside of these two episodes. But I think one of the things that's just worth highlighting almost more conceptually, is that that, as Collective indicates, it is a collection of different factions. So you have Maul with his Night Brothers, Right? And we see, like, Icarus and some other Night Brothers in the cast here as well.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Scorn.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Great name again. Yeah, this is Maul. Scorn Terror.

[Mallory Rubin]

You're making the observation on the name. It's real. It's making me think of Kevin. Really? Kevin Lannister? Like, really? Tywin? Devin.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Kevin and Devin. It's a great note, but the Death Watch alliance and things go badly between Maul and Pre Vizsla, as they tend to go badly between either of those two characters and any other character. The Night Owls, the Super Commandos, Black Sun, Pike Hutts, Crimson dawn, eventually joining the fold the way that he now has still, like, strands of that. So does everybody who enters the story know the legend and lore and impact of the Shadow Collective? No. But are Maul's Mandalorian Commandos still with him? Yes. Are the Night Brothers still there? Yes. Is he hunting down Syndicate factions who have wronged him? Yes. Are the Pikes already back in the story? Yes. Is Crimson Dawn a part of the Maul story across the years? Yes. So, like, the idea of, okay, the one kind of holy. The ultimate, The Paragon. The ideal, the thing that he's chasing is the Apprentice. Let me surround myself with, like, half a dozen other groups who will say, I've chosen to follow you until I can get that other thing is such an interesting manifestation of Maul's kind of desperate need to be picked to be chosen.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Yeah, a real pick me energy for Mal. And like. Like, I think that his ability to sort of, like, whip up, you know, the Mandalorians, you know, in their revolution and all this sort of stuff like that is like, he can command armies, forces. During the Clone Wars, a shadow collective emerged, uniting much of the underworld. Imagine getting Black sun, the Pykes, and the Mandalorian Death Watch to work together without killing one another. Someone did. Someone is Maul. Like, he has this incredible ability, but it's not enough. He needs that sort of, like, one on one connection. You, me. You die for me. Like, that's. That's it. Because he's been alone, and he will be alone again, you know, so it's. You know, when you're raised from a small child, brainwashed by the Emperor, turns out it's not a great mentally healthy place to be.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's tough. Also, it's like, it doesn't. It's never sustainable. It's this kind of, like, amazing testament to his capacity. I am the person who could unite all those factions. And then a reminder, I think it's like. It's not subtle, but it is fitting that one of the Night Brothers who's in the story near him here is Icarus. Like, Maul is just always flying too close to the sun, and his wings are melting, and then he falls, or he gets cut in half and falls. So, like, are all of those factions meant to be aligned? There's a reason that he has to read through in this premiere here, the list of characters who have betrayed him. There's a certain aspect of it where it's like, you allowed that many people to be in a position to betray you. As the Empire has risen, we have all been made to suffer. Even the once mighty Jedi have fallen. But there are many who have prospered from my misfortune. The Pikes, Crimson Dawn, Vario. Soon they will all pay. Starting with Demas. He thought he could take what was mine. You bring people close, you make an arrangement. We learn about a truce in this episode, and then like. Like, you get to the point where those guys are sitting at the table, basically eating, like, chicken parm, it looked like. And they're like. It was probably mall. Huh?

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Delicious Intergalactic chicken parm. Oh, man, I don't want to know what those chickens look like. And. And the way in which his vengeance on the crime syndicate once again aligns him with Lawson, who wants to clean the crime syndicate out of the city. So, like, you know, how. What. In what ways can they work together and, you know, know. But I love how Lawson is this character who's like, a laser sword. Who's that? What's a Jedi? Like, okay, how. How sheltered is this, you know, gumshoe here?

[Mallory Rubin]

So, yeah, that's. That is one of the things I'm interested in about Jan X as a place in Lawson as a figure. Like, how distinct is he from the other people? Because, like, Rena and what she knows is that, like, just because she's in that world and has access information, are we supposed to be gleaning from that? That, like, this information hasn't reached this place because it is outside of the flow of events that have, like, defined the stretch of history? Or is Lawson a little bit like, oh, I'm a little, like, out of the. Out of the loop, out of the mix. What's been going on? Exactly. We know. We can tell from the way he talks about the Empire that he knows enough about what the Empire has quickly meant to be very wary. So I. Yeah, I'm interested to. To see how he kind of receives and processes what he learns over time and what that does.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

He's like, guys, I don't follow the news. I was a little too busy being a bad dad and probably fucking around with Rita and a number of other sources. What's going on?

[Mallory Rubin]

I know Two Boots brings me all of the coffees.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

But I still have to take the time to drink them, you know, he does.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

He's busy guy.

[Mallory Rubin]

He is anything.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Also, that. That, like, mustache won't maintain itself. You know what I mean? So great.

[Mallory Rubin]

How. How thrilled were they to be able to just slap on Academy Award nominee in the weeks leading up and the months leading up to this premiere? Great stuff. Anything we haven't hit Joe about these first two episodes about Maul's history, about the kind of, like, core dynamics, you know, we have Maul and his followers, Maul and his family, Maul and his nemesis, Maul and the idea of the master and apprentice as these kind of core framings that have defined the canon that we've already received and that is yet to come in the future, but we have also already received. It feels like we know a lot about how this guy thinks and operates and the mistakes he Tends to make and the desires that drive him, but also a lot to learn about what he's gonna do in these years.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

According to. You know, the way that Sam talks about it is he's like, the more we meet in Clone wars is not the mall. We meet in Rebels is not the mall. You know, like. Like that. These are very different iterations in his view and that, you know, and it's true, like, when he's abandoned on this planet or this planet, like, you know, and his horns grow unruly and stuff like that. Like, we're in a different. Different territory. But, like, the. The question that he likes to bring up in interviews, when he's asked, sort of like, what are you most interested in exploring? He's like, I have questions like,

[Mallory Rubin]

why,

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

if he's so angry at the Emperor, did Maul never reveal his identity to the Jedi? He's like, he could have called them up. He could have gotten into a space phone booth and called up the Jedi and been like, it's Palpatine.

[Mallory Rubin]

By.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

And he never, ever did. So why did he never narc on Palpatine, the man who was responsible for the death of his mother and his brother and all these other. You know, and, like, abandoned him and humiliated him and all this other stuff like, that. He know. He knows, and he could tell anyone, and he didn't. So why. And so, like, is that a. Is that a loyalty question? Is that, like, we're gonna learn so much more about, like, what it means to be loyal. Like, you could be resentful, but you have to stay loyal or. Or, you know, what's the answer to that? I don't know. But that's. That's a very interesting question, and I love that about Sam, that he's just sort of like, here's an inconsistency, seemingly to me. So how can we make. We can tighten, like, make this more watertight in terms of, like, who. The psychological profile of this character. So this decision seems incongruous with his other attitudes. So how can we make it feel true? Yeah, that's exciting.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love that he's thinking about it that way, and I'm eager to learn more about the answer to, like. I feel like there are kind of. I feel like it's likely there are a number of reasons, all of which feel like they are true to the spirit of Maul. On the one hand, I think that's why the really clear emphasis in these two episodes of, like. Like, I am after Sidious, fuck the Empire, but also the Jedi not super sorry that they're gone. And let me tell you, Devin, why that was never where you should have been in the first place and why you don't understand your power because you were indoctrinated by these losers. Mall's words, not mine. I don't think he wants the Jedi to win and to be victorious. There's that. But it's also like he needs to be the one to win. Some of it is probably about how he thinks about the Jedi, and some of it is about how he thinks about himself. One of the little aspects of the two part premiere that I really enjoyed that we haven't talked about yet actually was I love that because Devin is their prisoner and she says that and he's like, I'm gonna make this a test, but also an opportunity. If you think you're my prisoner, that's

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

disappointing because you can challenge only in your own mind.

[Mallory Rubin]

If you want to leave, go tap into your power. And like, it's so it's the story beats and the particulars are different. But it was so reminiscent to me of how he tried to corrupt and woo Ezra by allowing. By guiding Ezra to a place that suited Maul, but doing it in a way that was like. Like made Ezra think because it was actually happening. I am gaining a deeper understanding of my own ability. Whereas that understanding leading me, if I stick with Maul, not to a good place. But I can show you things.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

I can show you things those squares will never show you.

[Mallory Rubin]

Exactly. Including this triangular Sith hologram. Let's go.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

And I won't wear a shirt while I'm doing it. Think about it.

[Mallory Rubin]

No notes.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Just an awful lot.

[Mallory Rubin]

No notes. We have eight episodes left in season one. Four weeks. No promises on when we'll be checking back in, but I think our hope is to check in around the finale. We'll see. We'll see how the season unfolds and we'll see if maybe we can have a chat with someone involved.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Spybot. You're getting Spybot into the studio.

[Mallory Rubin]

Bring Spy Bot on House of R. What do you think Spy Bot would say on House of R? Would he just immediately break all of the equipment and take over Carlos's computer?

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

What if we could get both Spybot and Rocky in the studio at the same time for you?

[Mallory Rubin]

Talk about a crossover event. My God.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Stay tuned to find out.

[Mallory Rubin]

All right, we will be back in a couple days for Buffy Season four, Part two. Correct. And then we will be back next week to continue our Christopher Nolan rewatch. Memento is the plan after that, we'll see. Keep the emails coming. Let us know what you're thinking of. Mall Shadowlord. Thank you to you, Joanna, the biggest Mall animated Mall fan in the world. I didn't even tell you I wore my animated Obi Wan shirt because it's worth observing here at the end, I guess that you're great at animated love and my great animated love are sworn rivals. What do you think that double date would be like?

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

My real great animated love is. Is the Fox Robin Hood. So let's not get it twisted like that's established canon. That's just a fact.

[Mallory Rubin]

But Mall is your side piece.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Yeah. Yeah. You don't commit to mal.

[Mallory Rubin]

No, no, no, that's real. I really thought you were about to, like, quote Shoresy on me.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

No, no.

[Mallory Rubin]

You don't date sluts. You just take them down in case anyone has not seen. Shian is horrified. That's. That's a women talking about men. And it's a quote, Just FYI. Okay, thank yous. Thank you to Mall or Muse now and always. Can't wait to see what he gets up to in the next few weeks. Thank you to Carlos Chiraboga, Scott Lee, Jacob Cornette, ct, Arjuna Ramga Powell and Jomi Adenaron. The whole crew today. That's our shadow collective.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

Yeah, this.

[Mallory Rubin]

We will see you in a couple days for Buffy Season four, Part two. Bye. Expedia. You're here.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

But are you here? Here? You go to Hawaii in your head all the time. During meetings, in the car. Hawaii is on the mind. But when you're ready to go, there's Expedia. The one place you go to go places. Flights, hotels, vacation homes, cars. You can save when you bundle or book as you go and still save. So what are you waiting for?

[Mallory Rubin]

Expedia.

[Joanna Robinson Ruben]

The one place you go to go places. Members only. Savings vary.

[Mallory Rubin]

Hey, sorry to interrupt your playlist, but real quick. This might be better than music. Click. We're talking free stuff. Yep, actually free. Just download TikTok, search slash free. Pick items you want, share the link and watch the price drop to zero. Your song will be waiting. Your free items won't open TikTok and start slashing now.