Matthew
Hello and welcome to this episode of the Star Wars Generations Podcast. Today we’re talking about Maul episodes 5 and 6. We are talking about Marrok making his second appearance, but first appearance chronologically. Marrok is the one in Rebels, right?
Alex
Marrok is the one.
Matthew
So let’s jump right into this. The Inquisitor who we get — who is never identified by name in the show, but the subtitles say he’s Marrok and he looks like him — he’s the same one who’s working with Elspeth in Ahsoka, the TV show. That’s who this guy is.
Alex
Really?
Matthew
Yeah. And we’ve learned in other places that he was a former Jedi Padawan who gets corrupted, like a lot of others. I think he may also appear in one of the video games, but he’s definitely the Marrok from the TV show Ahsoka. Here he is working as an Inquisitor.
Alex
I thought he looked familiar, but I couldn’t figure out where I had seen him.
Erin
That is one of the things I caught from the trailer — I saw him immediately. I was like, ooh, backstory. Because currently that’s a character I’m working on.
Alex
According to Wikipedia, he was at one time known as the First Brother, one of the earliest Inquisitors.
Matthew
Which I think may have changed somewhat. There’s a lot of things swirling around this character that were not in the show.
Alex
It literally says on Wikipedia, “known at one time.” So I guess it did change.
Matthew
Right. So let’s talk about this. For the first four episodes, we’ve had this ongoing debate between Lawson and Two Boots about whether to bring in the Empire. Two Boots is a narc. Two Boots is a snitch. If you go back and listen to last week’s episode, we get into that thrilling debate. But either way, the result is snitching. Anyway, the point being that the Empire is now here. Alex, what did you think watching the Empire show up on this planet?
Alex
Well, first of all, I did enjoy the classic sound of the alarms going off as they pulled up. Very classic Empire. It also reminded me a little bit of the Star Destroyer pulling up over Jedha City in Rogue One. Obviously very terrifying. And it’s scary to see them actually arrive because all the citizens who are just living their lives look up and it’s like, here’s the arrival of the authoritarian dictatorship just pulling up on our doorstep. I knew things were going to get hairy, but I was curious how it was all going to intersect — because every party involved, whether it was Lawson, Daki, Devin, or Maul — no one wanted the Empire there. It’s just because of Two Boots being a little rat that the Empire is even there. So I was curious how they were all going to react and intersect. I was not disappointed.
Matthew
Lieutenant Blake is the person who is representing the Empire. He’s kind of the main leader until Marrok shows up. The arrogance and condescension that grips from his voice — to me he is just the classic idea of middle management under fascism. He doesn’t really have that much power, but he’s been given a small little fiefdom and he’s going to make sure everyone around him knows that.
Alex
Very classic middle-manager Empire vibe. “I am in charge here.” But as soon as anyone above him would show up, he would just start cowering in fear.
Matthew
Now, Erin, did you at some point think that this planet was Coruscant?
Erin
Oh, for sure. In the previews, it was definitely giving underworld of Coruscant. I think it was maybe episode two where I kind of clocked it — I was like, okay, I’m not seeing any Coruscant underworld police, which are like the hallmark of Coruscant in the underworld. These police figures look nothing like the local Coruscant police. And then obviously they eventually brought up the planet and city name.
Matthew
And it was like, oh, okay. These episodes especially really made me feel like, no, this isn’t Coruscant. But it’s reminding us that this is what cities are like in this galaxy. It has a lot of those same hallmarks — the upper levels are really nice, and if you go down below, that’s where you start to find the criminal elements, places where the cops just don’t want to go. The little crime guy that Maul has captured talks about how he’s in the bowels of the city, and it’s not so bad if you don’t mind the snake in the darkness.
At first it felt like, oh, why are you giving me another Coruscant? But no, it’s not. As you pointed out, there are a lot of differences. I grew up in New York City and this might come as a huge shock to people, but people from New York City sometimes can be a bit parochial about how they see the rest of the world — like there is no real other city. I remember being surprised when I went to some other cities and thinking, oh, this is actually kind of like New York in some ways. I feel the same thing here. Coruscant is its own thing and it’s different. They talk about how this planet has forests — it’s not entirely urbanized. But the cities are cities, like a lot of these other places.
Alex
Classic New York, thinking it’s the center of the universe.
Matthew
I admitted it — we’re a little parochial.
Alex
We’re also great. But I also, like Erin, was convinced it was Coruscant even through the first episode until I was corrected. I was like, wait, it’s not Coruscant, but it looks just like Coruscant. Classic.
Erin
So I’ll be honest — I didn’t watch these episodes because I’ve been in a rough headspace lately and busy. But I just want to put in my two cents on last week’s episode and Two Boots. I don’t know if y’all ever listened to the rapper 21 Savage’s album Savage Mode 2 — he has a song called Snitches and Rats Interlude, which is a monologue performed by Morgan Freeman.
Alex
I listened to it all the time. Morgan Freeman does monologues throughout the album. He talks about how a snitch is someone minding other folks’ business — they’re just a snitch, not part of the criminal organization. But a rat is someone who betrays their family and their brothers. So I posit that Two Boots is a rat.
Erin
Because it seems like he and Lawson are really like best friends. It seems like Lawson really has no one else in his life. So that’s rat behavior to me.
Alex
So we all have a different name — snitch, narc, and rat. Love this.
Matthew
Right. I love that part of the analysis because these episodes throw in another little wrench: do you need to know that you’re a rat or a snitch or a narc to get that label? Because part of what we see in these episodes is that Two Boots is incredibly naive. He really is that person who thinks, well, a person of color is having a mental health episode in the middle of the street — what’s wrong with calling the cops? They’re going to be totally safe, right? That’s the level of naivete Two Boots has. He keeps saying, well, we called in the Empire — what’s the problem? He doesn’t understand why Lawson is so upset. And then later, when Lawson gets captured and being interrogated, his son shows up, and even then Two Boots is saying it’s just normal procedure, it’ll be fine. And in one of my favorite lines, he says at one point, “When and if your father is released, I’m sure everything will be okay.” And the son just gives that look — and Two Boots is like, “Just don’t worry about it.”
Alex
Until later when all the screens say that Lawson is now wanted. And then Blake looks down at Two Boots’s boots and says, “Those are not regulation — get rid of them.” And only then does Two Boots start to blink and realize, wait a minute, maybe Lawson was on to something here.
Erin
Funny how he only gets it when it affects him.
Alex
Erin basically just called Two Boots a white man.
Matthew
Two Boots was convinced that the leopards would eat his friends’ faces. Two Boots, what a dumbass. Let’s talk though about the other person who shows a lot of naivete, which is Lawson’s ex. And — someone remind me of the son’s name. Riley.
Erin
Okay, I need to back up a second. Riley Lawson, Lieutenant Blake — I know that we had Tim, who at least had a second M and we made a lot of fun of that. Have we just — has Star Wars decided it’s all going to have regular Americanized names?
Alex
I think part of the bit here is that they’re supposed to be like classic cops in this random world — a cop family. It feels like it’s a continuation of that bit. What is Daki’s full name? Ekko-Diko Daki?
Matthew
Yeah, there’s Devin, there’s Blake, there’s Lawson.
Alex
I can see a Devin cosplay in Erin’s future.
Erin
She’s a Twi’lek. Good chance. I mean, she’s an adolescent and I’m a tall woman, so I don’t know.
Alex
When she gets her lekku though, she’ll be an adult.
Matthew
Possible. Anything’s possible. Anyway, putting aside the names — the other really naive character we get is, I don’t think she’s named, but Riley’s mother, the former Mrs. Lawson perhaps — we don’t know what name she took. She hears that Lawson is being captured by the Empire and her response is: well, it’ll be fine. The Empire’s there to help. If the Empire is there, you have nothing to worry about. I really like how they’re setting this up — showing that what a lot of us see as fascism, rightly so, it’s really easy for people to be fooled and to allow themselves to be fooled. She has a job with the Empire. She’s committed herself to the Empire. And it’s horrifying, but it’s understandable and upsetting that she, like Two Boots, just believes the authorities. So what could be wrong?
Alex
Yeah, very much the attitude of: if they’re here, they’re doing the right thing. Just comply, it’ll all be fine. And then Lawson just looks at Riley and says the Empire’s not what you think it is. Don’t trust anything they say or do. And Riley is like, why are you shooting at the stormtroopers? And then Lawson kills a few more. Also — Daki and Devin did not hesitate to cut down stormtroopers. I thought that was interesting. Usually Jedi try to show a little restraint, except for Yoda in Episode III. But they were just going full lethal. When you’ve got to survive, you’ve got to survive.
Matthew
Yeah. I like what they’re doing with Daki. We have more to say about his naivete as well. He really has this pattern of: we shouldn’t fight, we shouldn’t fight — okay, kill everybody and everything that moves — but now we shouldn’t fight, we shouldn’t fight. He doesn’t want to fight, but if it is a fight, they’re not taking prisoners. So there are obviously some great discussions here between Devin and Daki. And it’s about Devin’s time with Maul. Erin, you were able to be on last week. Let’s start there. What did you think of Maul’s attempted recruitment and the way he’s putting these doubts in Devin’s mind?
Erin
Honestly, I thought it was really cool. I liked how he’s giving her feelings of independence. And eventually he does let her go and just takes his lightsaber back. But I think he only lets her go because she exhibited attacking him with anger. So he’s like, okay, I’ve got a foothold — something’s going on here. I think he’s really starting to get to her. And I wonder if the whole survive-versus-living thing will come back in some form.
And like you were saying earlier — her and Daki cutting down these stormtroopers, which goes against everything Daki’s been talking about, is very much about survival. I wouldn’t be surprised if that trend continues — if Devin starts to question the hypocrisy. He’s preaching no violence, keep a low profile, but when it comes down to survival, you still have to do the things you preach against. So if they were instead in a more stable situation where they weren’t constantly in fight-or-flight mode, maybe they wouldn’t have to compromise their morals like this.
Matthew
No, I think that’s really well put. She kind of pushes him on that, especially when he says they’ll just go run off to the forest and do their own thing. She’s really starting to push back. There’s one great exchange where I disagree with him, but I love this line. I’m not trying to recreate his voice, but it’s such an amazing all-State insurance voice. He says to Devin: “It is your voice that speaks, but it is Maul’s words that are here. Do not allow his poison to affect your mind.”
I was thinking at the beginning of this episode — we talked a couple episodes ago about when she gets captured by the police and he doesn’t interfere, he doesn’t try to save her, and then he has another chance to save her but instead chooses to save the people on that falling bridge. I was kind of expecting a lot of resentment and anger from her. And we didn’t get it. And I’m really glad for that. I think the show is being really subtle and trusting us as the audience — we don’t need it so in our face. Because she is having doubts. She is starting to question things. She pushes back and says, I know Maul is supposedly our enemy, but he’s right about the Empire. If the Empire is so strong, why don’t we ally with him? And Daki is just so focused on: but Maul only looks out for himself. I’m not saying Maul’s a good guy — Maul is a murderer, Maul is a slaughterer —
Alex
We do what we have to do to survive.
Matthew
The thing that kept coming to my mind is: should we ally with him against the Empire? Like, we beat the Nazis by allying with Stalin. And Stalin is not one of history’s good guys. But to take down the Nazis, you had to find your allies where you could.
Alex
Obi-Wan came up with some shady alliances on multiple occasions before someone turned good. And even Dooku and Obi-Wan joined forces to escape some pirates.
Matthew
Yeah. And what I kept hearing was: Devin is trying to take this nuanced view. She’s trying to see — yeah, Maul’s a bad guy, but does he have a point? And when Daki says Maul will never be their ally, he’s talking in absolutes.
Alex
You said “absolutes” — I just had to say it.
Matthew
I trust the audience to get it.
Alex
Matthew and Erin are giving me very judgmental looks right now. It’s okay.
Matthew
So what did you think, Alex, of the great fight scene where it’s Daki and Devin against Marrok — and then when Daki is down and it looks like Devin is about to be taken out, Maul jumps in, and we get Maul and Devin against Marrok?
Alex
It was super interesting. The fight starts in Lawson’s apartment because Marrok just comes in and basically burns it down. It’s interesting to see a fight in such close quarters, and then it breaks out onto the roof — very mobile. Daki has taken on the idea of protecting Lawson and Riley. He holds the line while Devin goes to take care of Riley. So Riley’s the innocent bystander and there’s a fight going on while they’re also protecting these civilians.
The most interesting part for me was on the train. Marrok corners Devin — there’s an epic battle on the platform and then on the moving train. Devin is almost beaten multiple times, and just before she’s about to get beaten for real, Maul steps in, calm and collected, and they start working together. That harkened back to Rebels, when Ahsoka, Kanan, Ezra, and Maul fight together at the Sith Temple. Yeah, Maul will help you against the Inquisitors — a common enemy — but as soon as that common enemy is out of the way, you have to remember he’s still only looking out for himself.
Devin was ready to fight Maul again at the end — she was like, let’s go right now. And he was just like, absolutely not. She lowered her lightsaber. And then his one line at the end: “Now you see the true face of your enemy.” I think Devin’s fall doesn’t feel like a classic dark side fall. It feels more like a Dooku fall — where she thinks Maul is ideologically right against the Empire, and her idealism is what’s going to end up being her downfall.
Matthew
One of the other lines I was most struck by: Master Daki says, “Tyranny is always defeated.” And I want to go full English nerd here — he’s talking in the passive voice. He doesn’t say people like us will always defeat tyranny. He says tyranny is always defeated. He’s assuming someone else is going to do it. His job and Devin’s job is just to go hide, and if they get other people in trouble like Lawson and Riley, then protect them. But he’s talking about some other thing, some other force. And it just reminded me of so many folks saying: don’t worry, Trump will be defeated, the Republicans will be defeated, fascism wherever it is around the world will be defeated. But who’s going to do it? It’s always the passive voice. It’s always assuming someone else is going to do it.
So Devin’s hearing her master speak in that passive voice, and she’s hearing Maul talk in the active voice: we can defeat the Empire, we can tear them down. And she says, we have these abilities — why shouldn’t we use them?
Alex
She’s just not looking at the big picture. It feels very common for young Jedi Padawans to have this mindset — why don’t we just go after them directly? They think very linearly, and the older Jedi masters say, okay, it’s more complex than that. She’s acting her age. She’s a teenager and very pliable. That’s why Anakin thought the way he did, but Palpatine was the louder voice over the Jedi. Ezra thought the same way. Even Rey thought the same way in the beginning. This is a common theme for Jedi Padawans throughout Star Wars. And Maul is such a convincing person. I mean, we kind of feel like we know Maul ended up winning out over Daki and getting into Devin’s heart.
Erin
Do we have official confirmation that that is Darth Talon?
Alex
No, but to me, that would be the greatest season in history if you put together the right color, the right species, the right everything — he wants her to be his Padawan. Everything leads to Darth Talon. And if they say nah, I’d be a little upset. And there’s a whole season two already planned. So what do you do for season two if not the Darth Talon line?
Erin
Yeah, I just — we’ll see. I don’t think she’s the right color for Talon to be honest. She’s pink. Talon is red. Pink and red — that’s different. Black tattoos are going to look different over pink skin versus red skin. I don’t know if they’re going to try to play it off as, well, as she ages her skin darkens or something like that. That’s not really something we’ve seen in Twi’lek biology in my understanding. But maybe. I kind of like that it’s not fully decided. Because it could be the biggest tease ever, and then season two, another character comes in and now Devin is trying to keep that character from falling. I don’t know. I’m a stickler for continuity, so it kind of bothers me that she is quite clearly pink, in my opinion.
Matthew
I’m so torn on this. If you want it to be Darth Talon, it seems really cool — it’d be fun to go in that direction, hopefully with some changes to how she’s often portrayed. The story of a master gets killed and the Padawan falls to the dark side is one we’ve seen a bunch of times and is kind of a cliché, not just in Star Wars but in other things. If we didn’t know the words Darth Talon were anywhere out there, I would think it might be a cool story if Devin gets killed and Daki is the one who turns to the dark side because of it. I don’t think the little lizard man is going to become Darth Talon as she’s typically been presented. But I think little lizard man could be an awesome Darth something — I’d be curious to see where that goes.
I don’t like when they create expectations like that, because I think you’re right — we sort of feel like of course they’re going to go to Darth Talon, and if they don’t, it’s going to feel weird. Right now Darth Talon is the thing, and so instead of it being, oh cool, lizard man’s becoming a dark side user, it’s: why is it not Darth Talon? That’s just as strange.
Alex
I think that is kind of one of the failings of the show — it’s a catch-22. If it ends up being Darth Talon, okay, that was expected the entire time and we kind of know how it’s ending. If it’s not Darth Talon, then why did you tease it for a year? The whole show would be like she’s going to be the princess — and then she’s not. I think then people were mad because they had expected that, or maybe some people were like, I don’t know. It just feels like you pigeonhole yourself a little bit when you raise that expectation so heavily.
Erin
Yeah, it’s definitely intentional to plant that expectation in the fans’ minds, because otherwise they could have just made her a Togruta or some other species. Yeah.
Matthew
This is the problem with early morning recording, folks, I’m sorry. But I was thinking something similar about it being Marrok — the Inquisitor who’s coming after them — because one of the problems with prequels is when you know characters have plot armor because they appear later in the story. We watch Obi-Wan and there’s a great fight between Obi-Wan and Vader, and we know neither one of them is going to die. Now, Marrok — you remember when we were watching Ahsoka and recording on it, we had this theory of: what if Marrok is just like a cloud of green gas and he’s one of the undead from the Nightsisters?
Erin
Yeah, like a Nightsister spell. The zombies.
Matthew
I think when he died we got that confirmed — it kind of was. So I think there’s a tiny chance that maybe Marrok could die in this, but I think he pretty much has plot armor because he is supposed to be alive roughly 25 to 27 years from now when he shows up in the Ahsoka show. I kind of wish they’d given us a totally new character.
Erin
I personally think it’s still very viable for him to die, especially with Wikipedia saying he was “once known as the First Brother.” If the First Brother dies, you’re going to assign a new First Brother.
Matthew
And also, when Marrok died in Ahsoka, he crumbled into nothingness — he turned into gas and disappeared.
Alex
If I’m remembering correctly, there was no body. So Erin, is your take here that he’s going to die and then be reincarnated in the Nightsister capacity we see in Ahsoka?
Erin
I think it’s absolutely a possibility. I wouldn’t say oh, he’s in Ahsoka so there’s no way he dies — because I think that could be a very interesting plot twist. If they’re thinking some fans maybe don’t know the lore very well or didn’t catch those nuances in the Ahsoka show, that could be an interesting plot twist if the character does die. I can see it. But I understand what you’re saying about the possibility of plot armor, because he’s very much fighting people in the Ahsoka TV show. That’s true.
Alex
And I’m going to throw something out. I just did a little Wikipedia search here. I didn’t know this — George Lucas originally planned to feature Maul and Talon as the main villains of the sequel trilogy. He was preparing those films before he sold Lucasfilm to Disney back in 2012. As he turned things over to Disney for Episode VII, they were trying to use some of his ideas, and originally kept this, but then J.J. Abrams started to work on the project and eventually got rid of Maul. It was still going to have Talon, and then eventually Talon actually turned into Kylo Ren in J.J.’s writing. So Talon being a villain alongside Maul had been on Lucas’s mind for a long time. And now Filoni — who was at the head of this and created the show — it would not surprise me if he really tried to push forward with that idea in some capacity. Which again makes me feel like this has to be Talon. But who knows, maybe they pull a fast one on us. It just feels like Filoni is always so loyal to Lucas’s vision that it would make sense to me.
Erin
I was going to say — Darth Talon in the comics has an older sister.
Alex
That would be crazy. What were you saying, Matthew?
Matthew
I was going to say: so you’re telling me there’s a world where we could have had Adam Driver in that tiny little Talon outfit and we didn’t get it? Cowards.
Anyway, I just want to close with one last moment that I don’t know how it hit you, but it hit me like a punch to the heart. Lawson the father is walking into his apartment and doing that nervous thing where he runs his hand down his hair to the back of his neck with his elbow out — and he turns the corner and sees his son doing that exact same nervous hand-on-the-back-of-the-neck gesture. And it just — that was such a beautiful moment of: look at how much these two are alike. Look at how Lawson immediately recognizes: oh my God, my son has the same kind of stress I have. That’s terrible. Why is that? It’s because my son took in Daki and Devin. All of that in one rush of thoughts that happens within like three seconds of animation. So brilliantly done.
Alex
It was very brilliantly done. I didn’t take it in as well as you did because I was more trying to understand why Daki and Devin decided — first of all, how they found Lawson’s apartment, and why they decided to take refuge at the police captain’s flat when all the heat is kind of on him too. That was a poor decision. So I didn’t process the moment the way you did, but you’re correct — it was a beautifully animated moment that connects the two of them. I just — my mind was on other things. I was like, why on earth would you go there?
Matthew
I think Daki is very good at reading people, and he knew that Lawson was kind of on their side, even if he didn’t want to be. That’s fair. All right, Alex, any last comments from you?
Alex
One more quick thing — I really enjoyed, and it was a brief moment, maybe a minute on screen — Maul practicing his lightsaber technique alone in the bowels of the city. Just going through all the motions. We rarely get to see a Sith really training like that. Seeing him without a master, having to train himself and practice his lightsaber technique. And then it harkened back — have we ever seen lightsaber staff versus lightsaber staff before?
Matthew
I don’t believe so.
Alex
That was the first time. And seeing Marrok — I know it’s not technically a staff because of the spins, but the double-bladed saber versus double-bladed saber — it was just a different form of lightsaber combat I had never seen before. And I really appreciated the gentle foreshadowing of Maul practicing single blade to double blade in the bowels and then doing the same thing against Marrok. Getting to see two-saber versus two-saber — I want to see more of that. That was very cool.
Erin
I’m excited to watch these episodes. That’s my closing remarks.
Matthew
That’s awesome. We’ll probably do a later-in-the-week episode and if you can jump on for that, great — if not, we’ll definitely get you in on more of your thoughts next week. And yeah, I had the same feeling. I love seeing the two-bladed duel. I love Marrok doing it and then Maul being like — oh, twinsies — and lighting up the other side of his saber. And also, I know some people after the Ahsoka show were a little bummed that we never saw them doing the helicopter trick, where you spin your double-bladed lightsaber above your head and it lifts you up. I understand why they didn’t do it, but it’s so awesome in Rebels and people wanted to see it. And they very intentionally had Marrok spin so fast that it creates that helicopter effect — the blades appear to move slowly again because they’re moving so fast. And to me, that signals: I think we might see Marrok fly like a helicopter. And I’d be very down for that. That’d be fun.
All right — that’s where we are. Fans, what do you all think? Let us know. You can write to Matthew at TheEthicalPanda.com. You can go to our webpage, TheEthicalPanda.com, and find all the different ways we’re talking about this on social media. You can also join our Discord. Let us know what you think. It’s been a great first week of feedback. Hope we can have some more later this week. Please keep tuning in, keep letting us know what you think, keep sharing the show with others so more people can join the conversation. And most importantly — live long and prosper.
