Maul - Shadow Lord Finale Pays Off A Decade-Old Moment From Star Wars Rebels

This article contains spoilers for the "Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord" Season 1 finale.

On March 30, 2016, Maul (voiced by Sam Witwer) appeared in "Twilight of the Apprentice," the two-part finale of the second season of "Star Wars Rebels," which was the first "Star Wars" TV series that Lucasfilm produced after being sold to Disney. No one was exactly expecting Maul to show up at all, let alone be stranded on the planet Malachor. Nonetheless, he was there, asking "Rebels" leads Ezra Bridger (Taylor Gray) and Kanan Jarrus (Freddie Prinze Jr.), along with their light side-wielding ally Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein), to enter into an alliance with him in order to defeat the Sith.

Maul's desire for revenge against his former master, Darth Sidious, had already been established on the pre-Disney animated show "Star Wars: The Clone Wars." There, we saw how Sidious had treated Maul, having even gone so far as to kill Maul's brother, Savage Opress (Clancy Brown). At the same time, there was one exchange from "Twilight of the Apprentice" that spoke to a history we hadn't yet seen on screen.

After Maul helps the heroes on "Rebels" deal with some Inquisitors, he explains that these dark side users will certainly call Darth Vader, adding that he will be unable to stop their combined might. He then proceeds to offer Ezra and the others his help, at which point Ahsoka asks him point blank, "Why are you working so hard to keep us here?" In response, Maul explains, "I cannot defeat Vader alone," and his frankness takes on a whole lot more gravitas in the wake of his fight with Vader in the "Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord" Season 1 finale.

This moment in "Star Wars Rebels" implied that there was a time where Maul had faced off against Vader but was unable to defeat him, and fans have been clamoring to see this showdown ever since. That's finally changed with "Maul — Shadow Lord" Season 1, Episode 9, "Strange Allies," which ends with Vader arriving on the planet Janix as his Inquisitors herd Maul and his new allies into a trap, as if Vader had seen a vision of just how the events before him would play out. This set the stage for the Season 1 finale, "The Dark Lord," in which Sidious' first apprentice (at least the first we know of) faces off with his final one in a lightsaber duel.

The battle itself is brutal, and Vader — without so much as speaking a word — tears into Maul with his weapon, more often than not wielding it with just one hand as though Maul were nothing more than a plaything. Vader exploits every weakness, cutting into Maul's mechanical legs to make him less agile and forcing him to make sudden, difficult decisions, including sacrificing his new associates to Vader's crimson blade. Maul has a proper Jedi master and a competent Jedi Padawan by his side in the forms of Eeko-Dio Daki (Dennis Haysbert) and Devon Izara (Gideon Adlon), yet he still can't defeat Vader and is only able to escape by the skin of his teeth and the strength of his wits. It's no wonder Maul wanted extra reinforcements ahead of Vader's arrival in "Twilight of the Apprentice."

Maul escapes at the end of "The Dark Lord," and we know that he goes on to fight another day. What's more, "Maul — Shadow Lord" has already been greenlit for another season and set the stage for Maul's rise to power through Crimson Dawn, which we previously got a glimpse of in "Solo: A Star Wars Story."

All the same, there's still a lot of story left to tell between now, then, and Maul being stranded on Malachor in "Star Wars Rebels." On top of that, Maul has gained a new apprentice in Devon, who hopes to get her own revenge in the wake of her master Daki's death at Vader's hands. That means Devon is fueled by more or less the same hatred that Maul was when Sidious first abandoned him years earlier after the events of "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace."

There's still roughly a decade between the "Maul — Shadow Lord" Season 1 finale and Maul's shadowy cameo in "Solo," with "Rebels" taking place just a few years after that. That also leaves plenty of time for Vader and Sidious' former apprentice to have a rematch. For Maul's sake, if they do have another lightsaber duel, let's hope he's better prepared ... even though we know he's doomed to lose in some respect.

The entire first season of "Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord" is currently streaming on Disney+. Season 2 has been announced, but it has yet to receive a premiere date.