By George & Josh Bate
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Maul – Shadow Lord Chapters 9-10
The action-packed two-part finale of Maul – Shadow Lord‘s first season may make headlines for finally pitting Darth Vader and Maul against one another, but its tying up of loose ends introduced eight years ago in Solo: A Star Wars Story has us particularly interested.
After the tease at the end of Chapter 8 that Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany’s antagonist from Solo) would soon make an appearance, Chapter 9 kicked things off with Dryden proposing a deal to Maul: in exchange for helping the former Sith lord avoid the clutches of the Empire and flee Janix, Maul will kill the current leader of Crimson Dawn and install Dryden Vos as the crime syndicate’s new leader. The proposition clues us into the status of Crimson Dawn during this time in the galaxy and hints at how Maul eventually comes to control the organization.
The episode seems to suggest that Dryden Vos is currently second-in-command at Crimson Dawn and hopes to use Maul to usurp the present leader. Presumably, Maul will follow through on Dryden’s deal (at least in part) by killing the Crimson Dawn leader, but, instead of installing Dryden as the new head, crown himself king of the crime syndicate. As evidenced by these two episodes, however, the creative team behind the series are seemingly saving this plot for Season 2.
This information fills in important gaps that bridge the events of The Clone Wars, Maul – Shadow Lord, Solo, and Rebels. In the final season of The Clone Wars, Crimson Dawn is established as one of the crime syndicates united under Maul’s Shadow Collective. Like the Pykes and Vario, however, Crimson Dawn abandoned Maul at his time of greatest need, during the height of the Siege of Mandalore. As Maul seeks revenge against all those who wronged him, he presumably has Crimson Dawn in his crosshairs as well. But Dryden’s proposition aligns exactly with what Maul hopes to achieve.
Earlier in Season 1 of Maul – Shadow Lord, Maul killed Marg Krim, the leader of the Pykes, and installed his own surrogate leader of the criminal syndicate. Maul presumably wishes to do the same to other criminal syndicates that wronged him, including Crimson Dawn. And Dryden Vos, unbeknownst to him, and set Maul up perfectly for his plan to come to fruition.
In Season 2, we will likely see Maul fulfill his end of the bargain (at least, in part) by killing the current leader of Crimson Dawn. However, instead of installing Dryden Vos as the new leader, Maul will probably muscle his way to the top of the organization and place Dryden Vos in a key position of power below him. This aligns with what we see of Crimson Dawn in Solo: A Star Wars Story, as Dryden Vos reports to Maul.
Maul’s eventual departure from Crimson Dawn remains unclear, however. The comic book crossover event War of the Bounty Hunters revealed that Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke’s character from Solo) had taken over Crimson Dawn by the time of The Empire Strikes Back. Years earlier in the timeline, Solo concluded with Maul promoting Qi’ra within the organization and promising that they would work together closely. It’s difficult to conceive how Qi’ra, however cunning and intelligent she is, would be able to overthrow Maul from Crimson Dawn without some help, perhaps even by Maul himself. We know that, by the time of Rebels, Maul is trapped on the old Sith world of Malachor and has seemingly done away with his desires of ruling the criminal underworld, instead turning his sights to Obi-Wan Kenobi.
If Maul – Shadow Lord runs for more than two seasons (as we hope it does), the series will likely eventually answer this question and address how Maul became stranded on Malachor and how Qi’ra assumed control of Crimson Dawn. Until then, we can delight in knowing a bit more about Maul’s connection with and ties to Crimson Dawn, eight years after the crime syndicate was introduced in canon.