Maul: Shadow Lord’s Biggest Casting Creates the Show’s Most Interesting New Character

Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord brings back one of the franchise’s most complex characters. While he was introduced as a one-off villain back in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Darth Maul has since returned and, from The Clone Wars to Rebels, been transformed into a figure of both great power and even greater tragedy. That’s what makes Shadow Lord such a fascinating prospect, as it puts the former Sith in the spotlight like never before, but he’s not the only compelling character in the series.

At least in the first couple of episodes, the most interesting newcomer to Star Wars in Maul – Shadow Lord is Brander Lawson, a police detective on the planet Janix (who was introduced in the Shadow of Maul prelude comics, but makes his TV debut here). He’s voiced by Wagner Moura, a casting that has proved to be perfectly timed: while he joined the show a while ago, it’s releasing after his acclaimed run and Oscar campaign for The Secret Agent, making him the biggest name in the show’s cast – and it’s a part he plays perfectly.

Wagner Moura’s Brander Lawson Ensures Shadow Lord Feels Different From Other Star Wars Shows

The basic setup of Shadow Lord is Maul looking to restore the Shadow Collective and reassert himself as the underworld’s #1 crime boss, which he’ll then use to take revenge upon Darth Sidious. So far, so good, though we’ve seen some of this with Maul before. But alongside the presence of Twi’lek Jedi Padawan, Devon Izara (Gideon Adlon), who may become his new apprentice, it’s Lawson who makes this feel like a really fresh story for the franchise.

He’s the kind of gumshoe who feels like he’s stepped out of a film noir and into a galaxy far, far away, and the cat-and-mouse game with Maul is the most compelling aspect of Shadow Lord in its early stages, giving it a different flavor than its predecessors. But Lawson seems like a fascinating character in his own right: there are hints of his personal life, with an ex-wife who works for the Empire, his comedic partnership with the goody Two-Boots, the mysterious history with the informant Rheena-Sul, and the fact that he straddles the line between upholding the law and refusing to call in the ISB for help, despite it breaking the rules.

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As Maul: Shadow Lord progresses, I’m excited to learn more about Lawson, and just how far he’ll go to stop Maul while also trying to prevent Imperial interference in his case. There’s also the potential for him to team up with Jedi Master Eeko-Dio-Daki, which could also be pretty great. With all of that, it makes sense they have Moura (who himself has played one of the most notorious criminals in real-life history, as Pablo Escobar in Narcos) playing someone shaping up to be a rich, nuanced character in the series.

Maul: Shadow Lord releases its next two episodes on Monday, April 13th on Disney+.

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