That big cameo in Solo caught us completely off-guard… for many reasons. What the heck is going on with the Star Wars timeline?

Significant spoilers for Solo below.

There was a surprisingly small amount of character cameos in Solo (although there were some important actor reappearances), especially considering how the Star Wars franchise loves bringing back familiar characters as a nod to the fandom.

But, perhaps refreshingly, most of what we saw in Solo was brand new. Which gave a lot of weight to the sudden appearance of a familiar figure at the end of the film: Darth Maul.

We were taken aback. Was this just another Dathomirian Zabrak who happened to have risen to power? Was this a wannabe-Maul? As if to prove that it was him, he drew his famous double-sided lightsaber, and revealed mechanical legs beneath his cloak.

So, yeah, according to Solo, Darth Maul is the mysterious leader that Crimson Dawn is so afraid of, and constantly mentions throughout the film. Qi’ra quickly aligns herself with him after killing Dryden Vos, indicating that they will be working together in the future.

All of this would have been a truly ominous moment if we hadn’t all just been really, really confused about how Maul survived in the first place. For moviegoers, Maul died in Phantom Menace, many, many years before, when Anakin Skywalker was still a child. So how could he be alive now? We saw Obi-Wan Kenobi slice him in half, and watched him fall down a shaft to his death.

The answer lies in The Clone Wars, the animated TV series. There, Maul is revealed to have survived the fall and procured for himself robotic legs — although before he got around to human-like legs, he had spider legs(!!). Through a series of alliances and an intense thirst for vengeance, he manages to become a crime lord, leading the Shadow Collective… which, as Solo has shown us, includes Pyke Syndicate and Crimson Dawn, among other dark organizations.

Maul does look older in this movie, at least, which clued non-Clone Wars-watchers in to the fact that this wasn’t some terrible mistake in the timeline. He’s also still played by the same actor, Ray Park, and still looks as scary as ever.

It seems that Star Wars is fully bringing Clone Wars — and Star Wars: Rebels, which continues to expand Maul’s history — into its film canon, which is a sensible idea but also one that brings about complications. Few people who are going to see Solo in theaters are loyal followers of the Star Wars TV spinoffs, so for most viewers Maul’s appearance will just be really confusing. Writers will have to make a point of offering up a little more backstory so as to avoid people leaving the theater more puzzled than elated.

It’s obvious now that we’ll be seeing Maul return later on. If a Bobba Fett spinoff is in the works (and probably many more movies), it’s inevitable that Maul will be brought in to be a villain once more. And of course he would: he was awesome to watch in Phantom Menace — one of the most memorable villains of all time.

But do we want to see him resuscitated in the films? That remains to be seen.