Many Star Wars fans have waited for another stellar animated series to come out since the Clone Wars finished up. They have gotten what they wanted with this masterpiece of animation. When I saw the trailer for the first time, I knew it was going to be peak. Man was I was right.

The show follows the infamous Sith lord Darth Maul after the Clone Wars have ended, during the rise of the Galactic Empire. There’s three main parts of this story. One is Maul being a “shadow lord”, with a ragtag group of Mandalorians, their leader is Rook Kast, two brothers of his kind Icarus and Scorn, and his loyal droid Spybot. Maul’s group is called the Shadow Collective.

In the first couple episodes they go around the planet Janix taking down major crime syndicates like the Pyke Syndicate that distributes spice to the galaxy illegally. They also ally with Looti Vario’s syndicate that rivals with Nico Deemis’s syndicate. Vario kills Deemis, but his henchmen run into Maul, therefore, Vario gets taken by Maul and is forced to join him. The second side of this story is two jedi that have survived the genocide of the jedi which was Order 66. Devon Izara and Jedi master Eeko-Dio Daki are on Janix trying to lay low and keep away from the Empire.

However, Devon is caught stealing and is taken to jail. This is where we meet officer Brander Lawson, which leads us into the third part of this journey. He is doing his best job to hunt Maul down and get him off of Janix before the Empire is forced to intervene. Unfortunately, Lawson’s partner, droid cop Two Boots, follows protocol and alerts the Empire. Janix is officially shut down, and Master Daki and Devon are in serious trouble. However, Maul overtakes the police station and captures Devon. Maul has intentions of making her his apprentice. However, it’s hard to do that when the Empire is hot on his tail.

They send out Inquisitors which we’ve seen before in other Star Wars shows like Rebels for example. This Inquisitor is Marrok from the Ahsoka show. He was a little weak in that show, but not here. He looks extremely menacing and, in one scene, he fights Devon and Maul which is animated so perfectly. Another cool scene is when he interrogates Lawson; he comes out of the dark in the interrogation room and says, “Tell me everything.” However, Marrok can’t take on two jedi and Maul by himself, so the Empire sends another one. This one is the 11th Brother, but most Star Wars fans call him the Crow because of his mask. Scorn dies at the hands of the Crow as Maul is fighting them by himself. Running from the Crow and Marrok, they have to cross a river underground. However, it’s full of acid, so it takes them a while to cross. Marrok and the Crow catch up and this epic lightsaber duel happens between the five of them.

Then, one of the most tragic scenes in the show happens; Spybot gets sawed in half by a lightsaber throw from Marrok. A distorted cry of “Masterrrr!!!”, comes out as he collapses into the acid river. Icarus sacrifices himself by throwing his body at three Stormtroopers and taking all of them into the acid. They eventually escape Marrok and the Crow, but they’re headed straight towards the man, the myth, the legend: Darth Vader. He kills Rook Kast, the lead Mandalorian, and his entrance in the fog is great. In the final episode, a ton of lightsaber action happens.

We see Darth Vader at his peak, battling Daki, Devon, and Maul all at once. Vader’s toying with them, showing that there’s levels to lightsaber skills. Click this link to watch! Devon goes off on her own fighting Marrok and the Crow, while Daki and Maul hold off Vader. Maul then realizes he can’t defeat Vader and force pushes Daki into Vader, leading to his death. Maul then assists Devon and they escape. Now that Daki is dead, Devon has so much rage and wants revenge. Lawson also sacrifices himself at the end to save his son Rylee. At the conclusion, Devon says, “Alright, I’m ready” to Maul saying that she wants to be trained by him. Maul looks at her with seriousness, and that’s how the season ends. I know that’s a lot, but it was such a great journey with a lot of sadness and action.

One thing that stood out to me about the production of this series was all the different aspects of it, and how it had three storylines. In the end, the storylines blended so well. Also, we haven’t gotten a solo Maul show, so that was kind of cool to see. Another thing that was unique was the way they did Maul’s lightsaber sound. They blended in voice actor Sam Witwer’s screams into the sound which hasn’t been done before.

Sam Witwer has voiced Maul in all animated series including Clone Wars and Rebels as well as voicing him in the live action Solo movie where Maul makes a short cameo. He does an amazing job, expressing Maul’s pain in his voice. A pretty cool guy voices Daki: Allstate commercial guy Dennis Haysbert. He does a great job with his deep voice and has great quotes. Devon Izara, jedi padawan, is voiced by Gideon Adlon. This isn’t a typical role for her; however, she does a super job in portraying the character through her voice. Wagner Moura, Brazilian actor, voices Detective Lawson. He is acclaimed for many Netflix series like Narcos and The Secret Agent. He also has a deep voice that sounds so good for Lawson’s personality as a character.

All the other characters are great. The two droids, Two Boots and Spybot, are both amazing, with very different personalities. Rook Kast is your typical gung-ho Mandalorian with cool purple armor. Vario is a good character. He’s your stereotypical egotistical crime lord. He has great ties within syndicates and helps Maul side with Crimson Dawn and Dryden Voss towards the end.  Every character had a role and a purpose that fit the story so well.

Dave Filoni cooked with this series. He was the overall creator, and Brad Rau was the supervising director for all 10 episodes. There were four different directors for the individual episodes. Star Wars did this with other series too such as The Mandalorian. The main thing that stood out to me was the stellar animation. This series might have the best animated lightsaber duels I’ve ever seen on screen. The way they did the choreography was crazy good. All the blades clashing together, and Maul spinning around is perfect. For example, in this scene, Maul has a little training session with his lightsaber. You can see him perform all seven lightsaber forms in this 35 second clip. Watch here! The animation is a chef’s kiss.