Shogun S1E10: A Dream of a Dream
We opened these reviews comparing Shogun to Game of Thrones. They both have swords, castles, political intrigue, and characters with tragic backstories betraying each other as they scheme their way to power.
But the similarities are only on the surface. Shogun is a very different show, concerned far less with sex and violence than what drives its characters, and as a result, it rarely does what viewers of premium-cable dramas expect.
As such, there is no epic battle scene to end the series. No final shot of Toranaga triumphant, standing over the bodies of his enemies, or finally taking the throne as Shogun. Viewers who were angry over No Country For Old Men’s elliptical ending will no doubt be angry here as well. But viewers who understand Shogun understand that those things don’t matter.
We know Toranaga becomes Shogun, we’ve known it since the first episode. Seeing it happen would be a rote exercise unless it told us something about who Toranaga and the other characters are, and there are better ways to do that.
As such, this episode isn’t first and foremost about Toranaga and his ascent to the throne. It’s about Mariko.
After she narrowly avoided ritual suicide at the end of last week’s episodes, she ends up sacrificing herself anyway, as Ishido’s assassins close in. Her death drives a wedge between Ishido and the rest of the council, who know he’s responsible, even if they stop short of accusing it to his face. Her death sways Lady Ochiba, who prizes her old friend far more than her scheming husband-to-be.
And, of course, her death has a profound effect on everyone around her. So while plans for war are pushed very much to the background, we see Blackthorne come to terms with her death, and use his grief to better understand his life. We see Yabushige half-crazed, realizing what his endless scheming has led to. And we see Toranaga, coldly accepting another death as the cost of his ambitions, but also understanding fully how high that cost is.
There’s no action setpiece in this final episode. The two crucial scenes are simply long conversations between those three men. Blackthorne and Toranaga spar, indirectly, over Mariko’s death, while asserting that while each understands the other better, neither one understands the other that well, and likely never will. Then Yabushige and Toranaga meditate on death and life, as Toranaga reveals the Crimson Sky — his secret plan to invade Osaka — already happened. Mariko was his invasion, and fracturing Ishido’s tenuous alliances was the victory. “I sent a woman to do what an army never could.” Then he lays out his grand plans, not just for the battle we never see unfold, but for building a lasting peace afterwards; the dream of the title.
But there’s another dream as well, one Blackthorne has at the beginning of the episode and returns to throughout. He’s an old man, abed in England, as his grandchildren marvel over the samurai sword hung above the mantel. Is that a vision of how things end for our Anjin? Or a future he has to let go of to fully accept the life he’s made in Japan?
Those kind of questions are the heart of the episode and of this series. Loss, loyalty, sacrifice, love, respect, lives lost and lives spared. Fate, and how little control any of us have over ours. The heart of the episode isn’t a battle won or a fist raised in triumph, but Lady Ochiba’s mournful remembrance of her childhood friend, finishing the poem Mariko began writing last episode with the line, “Flowers are only flowers because they fall.”
Stray thoughts:
• This show rarely jokes, but a stone-faced Toranaga admitting he keeps Blackthorne around because, “he makes me laugh,” is one of the episode’s best lines.
• Fuji, Blackthrone’s consort, leaves to become a nun, but not before the two share a profound moment to reflect on their shared loss, and Blackthorne shows her the respect and care that was lacking in their early encounters.
• We only get one brief moment of grudging respect between Blackthrone and Buntaro. Last week Buntaro was reminded again that his wife didn’t love him, had to cut off his own father’s head, and then learned offscreen of his wife’s death, and the poor guy didn’t get a speaking role this week.
• One last shout-out to Emily Yoshida, who rose from the ranks of pop culture critics to co-create and write this show. You’ve given the rest of us TV critics high and unrealistic hopes!
• And that’s it for Shogun. While James Clavell’s novel that inspired the show was part of a six-book series, none of those other books are about these characters; they each tell the story of a different Englishman in Asia, in a different time period, the closest 240 years after the events of Shogun. History tells us that Toranaga’s dream does come true, as Tokugawa Ieyasu — the historical figure the character is based on — ushered in Japan’s Edo period, in which the shogunate ruled over 250 years of stability.
