SPOILERS AHEAD for Maul's established Star Wars timeline
Star Wars has finally released the first substantial trailer for Maul: Shadow Lord, and the upcoming animated series looks even better than I possibly could have imagined. While what's been shown looks to suggest a high-stakes storyline for Sam Witwer's title character, the problem is that Star Wars has already answered one of the biggest implied questions from the trailer. The answer came almost a decade ago. Maul's debut happened in 1999's The Phantom Menace. His epic character design and game-changing dual-bladed lightsaber made him an immediate hit with fans.
However, the Sith of few words was only properly fleshed out as a character when he made an unexpected return in 2012. The Clone Wars resurrected the tattooed villain after his apparent death in The Phantom Menace. He's since been worked even more heavily into the saga, and Shadow Lord is the latest extension of that. Although it's great that the character is finally getting his own spinoff, his popularity in years gone by has actually had a negative side effect.
Star Wars Rebels already showed us how and when Maul dies
Star Wars Rebels season 3 Episode 20, "Twin Suns," first aired in March 2017. When Shadow Lord arrives, the installment will be nine years old, which means the reveal of how Maul meets his end is already old news. While the character is one of the most skilled fighters in the franchise, the Shadow Lord trailer suggests his combat abilities will be pushed to their limits. Given the forces he's going up against, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that the show would eventually feature his death.
"Twin Suns" prevents that potential twist. Instead, Maul will have a healthy layer of plot armor throughout the show. So, any kind of suggestion or hint that Maul has just fallen to the power and skill of his opponents will definitely be a fake-out. This isn't the first time Star Wars has faced this issue. That said, it is the first time the franchise has built a show around an already-beloved figure who has had most of his story play out in relatively obscure Star Wars projects. In other words, if someone has only seen Maul in The Phantom Menace and picks up with Shadow Lord, they'll have no idea his ending is already set in stone.
Shadow Lord has found a workaround for knowing Maul survives the show
Witwer's character won't die in Shadow Lord, that much is clear. That said, even though he'll unquestionably remain the show's focus throughout, the trailer also unveils new characters who will serve as Maul's opponents and allies as the story unfolds. What makes Maul so appealing is his gray morals. So, even though he's easy to root for, he can just as easily be rooted against when he embraces the Dark Side.
A natural extension of this trait is that characters connected to Maul will also be tricky to nail down when it comes to whether they're heroes or villains. Shadow Lord already looks to be making use of this ambiguity. This means the audience can choose whether or not to support Shadow Lord's supporting characters or pray for their downfall. Either way, nothing is stopping those characters from meeting their respective ends in the upcoming Disney+ show.
So, even though Maul's safety is assured, the same can't be said for any of the franchise's animated newcomers. If done right, their potential deaths could be equally devastating. Dave Filoni's animated shows, of which Shadow Lord is one, have a long history of introducing characters that are immediate hits. The new show could easily follow in its predecessor's footsteps, and those fresh heroes and/or villains could die in Shadow Lord.
The biggest reason to be excited for Maul: Shadow Lord
As heavily covered as Maul's timeline has been in various Star Wars movies and TV shows, there are still huge gaps that are unaccounted for. One of the most notable periods is the time between his escape at the end of The Clone Wars season 7 and his return in the Star Wars Rebels two-parter, "Twilight of the Apprentice." Between these two events, Maul's crime syndicate, Crimson Dawn, rises to the top of the underworld.
By the time of his Rebels debut, he's lost all that influence. Shadow Lord is finally letting us see what happened for everything to go so right, and then so wrong. The only confirmed glimpse we have of these years is that infamous 2018 cameo at the end of Solo. Who knows, maybe we'll even get to see what that was all about! Given Maul: Shadow Lord's place in the timeline, I'd say it's an inevitability.
Maul: Shadow Lord kicks off on Disney+ with a double-episode premiere on April 6, 2026. Season 1 will conclude its 10-episode run with two installments on May 4, 2026.