This is where it ends…
Shōgun’s 10th and final episode, A Dream of a Dream, starts with the flickering eyelids of an old man. His palm is open and within it is a silver cross pendant. It’s an Englishman; we know that because we hear a child call another Nigel — the most English of names…
We see that it’s a room with a fireplace… but then it shows a kabuto, a samurai’s helmet… and then an unsheathed katana on a sword stand.
We finally see the two children, who are looking up at the sword. The younger one asks, “Why is it chipped?”
The other replies, “Because Grandfather used it to fight off a whole army of Japanese assassins.”
I always have my captions turned on, so I know the old man is Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis). His grandchildren carefully approach him.
The older boy asks him, “Was it really given to you by a savage?”
Blackthorne doesn’t respond and looks as if he’s somewhere else in his head.
The Death of Lady Mariko
Then he sees Yabushige (Tadanobu Asano) urgently calling for him.
That’s when we are transported to the events right after the last episode. Anjin is on the ground and Yabushige is shaking him. Blackthorne gets up and crawls to where Mariko (Anna Sawai) is.
It’s his turn to shake her, but she’s not responding. He can only manage a short yell in his grief, before he starts praying to commend her soul. The other ladies realize that she’s dead. Even Yabushige, haphazardly standing somewhere else, shakes his head and asks for forgiveness under his breath.
The scene changes to Ajiro. After swimming, Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) starts a fire and gazes out to the water.
In Osaka Castle, we see several litters leaving, hostages no more.
The Council of Regents have convened in the aftermath of Mariko’s death.
Lord Kiyama (Hiromoto Ida) tells them, “All of this was tragic and avoidable. Osaka Castle isn’t as safe as we were led to believe — that much is clear.”
His fellow Christian daimyo, Lord Ohno (Takeshi Kurokawa) agrees, “Lady Mariko should have been allowed to leave without incident.”
No use crying over spilled milk, or the Japanese proverb for that is “Water spilled from tray never returns onto the tray again.” That’s how Lord Nobutatsu (Eita Okuno), Toranaga’s half-brother, feels.
He asks, “What does it matter now?”
Immediately after saying this, he walks on his knees in front of Ishido (Takehiro Hira). In case you’re wondering, what he’s doing is called shikkō, which is considered more polite than standing up from your sitting position.
He hands Ishido a letter of protest from Toranaga.
Nobutatsu explains, “The violent death of his prized vassal has left him shocked. He has fled Edo in secret and prepares for war.”
Ishido insists that Toranaga’s feelings or plans don’t matter. What matters is that the council is united. As he is in the middle of speaking, the camera panned to Lady Ochiba, then returns to him. A foreshadowing perhaps?
Kiyama says that the attack was dishonorable and for it to have been ordered by a council member… Ishido is quick to blame Toranaga for it, saying that he’s the only one of them who’s “conniving enough to pull it off.” He then tells the assembly that it’s their duty to end the threat he poses and its time for them to march.
However, Ohno insists that Mariko should be given a Christian burial first. Ishido refuses, using Mariko’s as the daughter of Akechi Jinsai, the man who killed Lady Ochiba’s (Fumi Nikaido) father.
If Ishido thought that Ochiba would agree, that her hatred of Akechi extends to his daughter, her childhood friend, he’s wrong. She insists that Mariko be generously honored. He has no choice but to agree. However, he still insists on going to war after.
The rest of the council agrees with Ishido when he says that since they have The Heir’s support, this makes their side lawful and Toranaga’s not. The Christian lords ask what happens to the heretic, Blackthorne. Ishido has no interest in him so the two can decide after. With that, he signs the war declaration, saying, “War is inevitable,” with the rest of the council echoing, “Inevitable.”
So is an earthquake, I suppose, because before Ishido could put whatever flourish he wanted on the document, the entire room shakes.
I thought, “It’s a sign.”
Kiyama agreed with me, saying, “This matter… Perhaps it requires a bit more debate.”
However, this doesn’t move Ishido. No more debates.
Elsewhere in Osaka Castle, Yabushige is zoned out and his old pal Ishido, fresh from declaring war, greets him with, “You look well.”
It seems the explosion did a number on Yabushige’s hearing as the Protector of Osaka Castle asks if it has improved.
Yabushige says out loud, “I thought Lady Mariko would only be captured.”
Ishido truly doesn’t care, but there’s something else on Yabushige’s mind.
“The strangest thing,” he begins.
“When the Taikō was about to go to war with Toranaga, he had all the votes until that earthquake hit,” he continues.
So it was a sign!
“It was a big one beneath Lake Biwa. His allies called it a bad omen. The Taikō was forced to forge a peace,” Yabushige concluded.
He doesn’t seem to be himself. He always seemed unhinge to me, but he head enough discipline to rein it in. Now, he’s jumping into shallow ponds and pointing at nonexistent catfish.
Ishido orders him to return to Izu to gather his army and await further orders. However, the vassal (not quite sure whose he is now) doesn’t hear this and continues to look for catfish. Ishido doesn’t look angry… just disappointed.
Back in Izu, we see Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) on his horse. He’s letting his falcon go. He exhorts her to bear many daughters.
We hear Latin singing and we’re back to old man Blackthorne, however, it’s only in the younger one’s dreams. He also dreams of Mariko. He’s then woken up and told that he’s been asleep for a long time and that Lady Mariko had been buried the other day.”
Lord Kiyama has asked for the Anjin. His soldiers — and may I just say, I love the design of their red keikogi and black hakama.
Blackthorne has learned to be fatalistic now. As soon as he faces them, he says, “Well, get it over with then.”
Surprisingly, the soldier responds in English (but Portuguese, really) as he hands over a piece of paper, “You have been permitted to return to Toranaga-sama’s galley. Here is your pass.”
Blackthorne asks, “Why am I receiving this permission from Lord Kiyama? Where is Yabushige-sama?”
Father Alvito (Tommy Bastow) makes his entrance and replies, “He’s preparing the galley in Osaka Bay. I have come to bring you to him.”
The two begin walking towards the port. They talk about Toranaga’s supposed surrender. Anjin thinks the Lord of Kantō would never do that. Alvito counters saying that Ishido has the agreement of the Council to go to war as well as Lady Ochiba’s pledge to use her son’s army. Blackthorne insists that that wouldn’t stop Toranaga.
He sits down to rest as he’s been limping since the explosion.
Blackthorne tells Alvito, “The hostages are free. Got just what he wanted. No dirty hands, no war. Just a woman. She can’t have heard me before she died. I spoke before God. Not your God or my God. Just God.Do you think it was acceptable?”
The priest assures him that she was sanctified as he heard her confession and absolved her. After a beat, he tells Anjin that Mariko would be pleased to see them being civil.
Blackthorne wants to believe it, but he remembers the last time he was led in these woods. Yabushige had ambushed him and taken him to Ajiro. He asks Alvito if this is where he will meet his end.
The priest responds, “I will not deny it. You were meant to die in these woods. But an arrangement was made. You will leave Osaka alive.”
Again, Blackthorne has every reason not to believe Alvito, but as they arrive at the port, the priest tells him that it was Mariko who asked the church to spare his life.
On the boat taking him and Yabushige to the galley, he tries to keep a stiff upper lip but breaks a little as he grieves.
As Yabushige and Blackthorne near the coast of Ajiro, the former starts becoming unhinged again. He strikes a conversation with Blackthorne in rapid-fire Japanese. The other doesn’t understand, but Yabushige starts stripping and Blackthorne sees that he’s asking him teach him how to dive the way he did Toranaga.
Blackthorne’s only response: Pull yourself together, man.
There’s no time to delve into Yabushige’s unhinged nature because they see the remains of the Erasmus sunk in the water.
As soon as Yabushige reaches the shore, he sees his nephew Omi (Hiroto Kanai). You can’t blame the man for wanting to see family, but he immediately gets detained by the soldiers.
Omi apologizes, “I’m sorry… Lord Yabushige. I’m instructed to ask for your swords.”
To his credit, he tells his retainer to surrender them. Omi then tells him that the men who are detaining him belong to Lord Toranaga, their liege lord. Is he reminding Yabushige of that?
Muraji (Yasunari Takeshima) tells Blackthorne, “Enemies slipped past our guards by cover of night. They knew exactly where to strike. Christians, we think.” I think this is a clever bit of dialogue. I don’t think Anjin’s Japanese has improved that much that he understood exactly what Muraji was saying. However, the ‘Christian’ bit would provide context to Yabushige’s detention as well as his ship being destroyed.
As both men walk back to the village, they see villagers being hauled away by soldiers. Muraji explains that until those who helped the Christian raiders are found, the villagers will not rest by Toranaga’s orders. However some have been sentenced to eternal rest as evidenced by four heads displayed on wooden shelves.
Yabushige is brought before Toranaga. The Lord of Kantō thanks him for returning his consorts and vassals. And then he tells Yabushige that he was seen allowing intruders into his quarters. One of Mariko’s ladies-in-waiting had witnessed it all and sent a letter to Omi.
Omi explains, “After Lady Mariko’s death, they say you were guilt-stricken and asked for forgiveness. I felt it was my duty to alert our lord.”
This guilt is what’s caused him to become unhinged.
Toranaga presses him, did he help the intruders attack them?
Knowing full well that he’s been effectively boxed in, Yabushige admits it.
Toranaga tells him that all his lands are forfeit and asks him to commit seppuku tomorrow at sunset. This does not sit well with Yabushige and he asks for a good death. He even gives suggestions such as being torn apart by cannon the way Nebara Jozen was or eaten alive by a school of angry fish. It’s a callback to when we first met him. He was introduced as the Lord of Ajiro, but also someone who was obsessed with death.
Toranaga humors Yabushige, but says that he doesn’t trust him and repeats his order.
Yabushige tells Toranaga, “Izu is the fief of the Kashigi clan. I declare Omi to be my heir, and request it be given to him.”
Toranaga doesn’t give him a direct answer, only another question as to who he wants as his second. Yabushige asks for Anjin, which Toranaga refuses.
While Toranaga didn’t allow this, I think it speaks to the strange bond that formed between Anjin and Yabushige. A second or kaishakunin is usually an individual’s trusted friend.
Which is why Yabushige asks that Toranaga stand as his second. The Lord agrees.
As Yabushige is taken away, he says, “May Fudō Myō’ō smile on tomorrow.”
In Shinto Buddhism, he is also called “the immovable or unshakable one.” He is one of five myo-o, or lords of light, whose threatening appearance guards the Law of Buddhism. He is said to guide the spiritual traveler past temptation on the path to enlightenment.
Blackthorne returns to his house. Fuji (Moeka Hoshi) is there and he greets her in his halting Japanese, “You look healthy and strong.”
She smiles at that and thanks him.
He tells her, still in Japanese, “No translator.” What he actually says is “Translator no more.”
We cut to Toranaga cradling his infant son. He thanks the two women for protecting his new son. Then his wife, Kiri no Kata, hands him a letter. She tells him that before they left Osaka Castle, this came in secret from Lady Ochiba.
I will never get tired of praising Hiroyuki Sanada’s acting. As he unfolds the letter, panel by panel, you can see the expression on his face change very subtly at every fold. He tries not to smile, but the corner of his mouth rises very quickly and then he covers it up while inhales sharply, eyes closed in relief.
You see him visibly relax and folds the paper close again. Toranaga then recites a haiku:
If I could use words
like scattering flowers and falling leaves,
what a bonfire my poems would make.
Obviously, this is the English translation, but it is a proper haiku as he says it in Japanese: three lines, the first and third have five syllables, and the second seven.
His wife tells him that “the words are too beautiful to belong to you.” He replies that they were Lady Mariko’s.
“Only her words remain with us now,” Toranaga adds.
He smiles — for the first time in a long while — when he continues, “But what a bonfire she made.”
Seeing as she died in the explosion, the bonfire bit is very literal.
At Blackthorne’s house again, he sees two boxes — one large and another small — and asks Fuji what they are. She tells him that they are the remains of her husband, Lord Tadayoshi, and her only son, Tsurumaru.
“I should bury them in the family temple, but I wish to be close to them. I’m not sure what to do…”
Fuji tells Blackthorne that she is leaving tomorrow and that Toranaga has given her permission to become a nun.
He tells her that he wishes her to stay. There’s a short back and forth between the two, but in the end Fuji stands her ground and Blackthorne acquiesces in halting Japanse, “Fuji, best nun.”
However, Fuji tells him that she’s worried about the villagers as they are being severely punished because of what happened to his ship. Blackthorne then asks her to prepare a message to Toranaga as he seeks an audience with him.
The next morning, Blackthorne and Fuji are on their way to see Toranaga. Omi stops them and asks for Anjin’s sword and gun. I think he looks a little surprised for two reasons: 1) Blackthorne surrenders them without a fight; and 2) he removed his weapons the way samurai do: in one smooth motion and presenting them to Omi with both hands, the sword with his right and the gun by the barrel with his left. Maybe it’s a bit of both.
Before Omi escorts him to Toranaga, Blackthorne turns back to Fuji and bows to her, which she also returns.
Muraji now serves as Anjin’s translator.
Toranaga tells him that he’s disgusted by the destruction of his ship and that his men will not rest until the saboteur is found.
Now in less halting Japanese, Anjin tells Toranaga that he apologizes for his disrespect when he surrendered to Nobutatsu. He begins in earnest to beg him to leave the villagers alone. An argument ensues between them. Toranaga refuses and Blackthorne continues to beg.
In the end, Anjin takes a page from Mariko’s book and threatens to commit seppuku. Toranaga initially finds this amusing, even saying to Muraji, “Who does he think he is? Does he really think that if he takes his own life I would stop searching for these traitors?”
Blackthorne is undeterred and moves to commit seppuku, but Toranaga stops him by shoving him aside.
As if talking to a child who just finished throwing a temper tantrum he tells Anjin, “If you’re finally done, rebuild that ship, and make me a fleet.”
It’s almost sunset and Yabushige is effectively giving Omi his last directives, a far cry from when he started with his retainer writing his will on parchment. He tells his nephew to find a good husband for his wife and to make sure that he’s not an idiot. And for Omi himself, Yabushige tells him that he’s always thought of him as the son he never had.
He hands Omi his death poem.
My dead body,
Don’t burn it, Don’t bury it
Just leave it in the field
·
·
·
And with it, fill the belly of some hungry dog
But he does have his final will, which he hands to his retainer. As farewell to his departing master he says, “Have a good death.”
On the cliffs, Toranaga and Yabushige have a lengthy conversation. While Toranaga is the protagonist in this story, this scene reminds me of the trope of the villain speech.
In action movies, the protagonist asks the villain about his plan. And the villain almost always obliges. In this scenario, it serves as an exposition to explain Toranaga’s strategy. He tells Yabushige that contrary to Blackthorne’s belief that Mariko had arranged for his ship to be burned, it was Toranaga himself who ordered it. He believes that Blackthorne is fated never to leave Japan.
Yabushige’s reckoning with the Shōgun
But Yabushige is more curious about how all of this fits into Toranaga’s plan to survive the war. He pleads to be told, at least before he dies, is it Crimson Sky?
Toranaga responds, “Yabushige. After all we’ve been through, I thought you of all people would see. Crimson Sky is already finished. With the Regents united, I could never send an army to Osaka. It would have meant certain death. So I sent a woman to do what an army never could. Don’t you see what’s coming next?”
As Toranaga tells Yabushige his plans, it’s interspersed with what he envisions would happen. He says that within a month, he will meet his enemies at Sekigahara.
Strategically, Sekigahara was the most advantageous location for Ishido’s army. It was in a mountainous valley with few major roads. However, with the Heir’s army pledged to Ishido, there was no way Toranaga would emerge victorious.
However, Toranaga’s ability in making allies switch allegiances was his greatest advantage. He explains that due to what Mariko did, Lady Ochiba has turned against Ishido and will keep the Heir’s army away from the battlefield.
“On that day, Ishido will have no banner. The regents will turn on him before a sword is drawn. Only then will my dream be realized. I will start it in Edo, my center of power. A nation without wars. An era of great peace. All of us have made this possible. You, me, Lady Mariko… even the barbarian who came out of the sea,” he concludes.
Toranaga tells Yabushige that he kept Anjin with him because he amuses him. And he also served as a distraction to his enemies.
This is probably the only time we see Yabushige become bitter. He castigates Toranaga for his hypocrisy, his search for victory while sacrificing the lives of lesser men.
Toranaga calls back to what Anjin answered when he told him that his fight with the Portuguese was pointless.
“Unless I win,” Yabushige finishes.
“If you win, anything is possible,” Toranaga agrees. This is at the heart of his strategy. He will take as many risks as he has to, if he sees a path to victory.
“Even Shōgun. It’s what you’ve always wanted isn’t it? You’re no better than us, in your secret heart,” Yabushige tells him.
He asks Toranaga to admit it and to tell him the rest of the plan. However, Toranga refuses and Yabushige proceeds to commit seppuku. Toranaga fulfills his duty as his second.
Fuji and Blackthorne share a moment in the middle of the sea. He wants her to scatter the ashes of her husband and son into the sea.
He tells her, “I’ve always been of the mind that a soul committed to the deep is a soul who, in some way, lives on forever within it.”
They pour their ashes into the sea together. Blackthorne takes out Mariko’s rosary.
Fuji says, “Let your hands be the last to hold her.”
And he consigns it to the deep as well. He bows to Fuji, both sharing in their loss.
Blackthorne is now in the process of trying to raise the Erasmus from her watery grave. Buntaro (Shinnosuke Abe) arrives and bows to Anjin before he takes hold of the rope to help, much to Blackthorne’s surprise.
He goes back to insulting the men in Portuguese, but stops Muraji from translating it to them. And the half of the Erashmus is out of the water before Blackthorne calls it a day.
He sees Toranaga on high ground. Their eyes meet in what Blackthorne believes is mutual understanding.
The scene ends with Toranaga looking out into the distance.
Just a few notes before we delve into this finale:
If you’re a little confused as to why there were scenes of an older Blackthorne seemingly on his deathbed back in England, I have a theory: it’s only a dream. At this point in the story, he still believes he’s going back. He’s been given permission to rebuild his ship, and even build Toranaga a fleet.
His historical counterpart, Miura Anjin (William Adams) never left Japan. He married a Japanese woman and had two children with her. He continued to serve Toranaga’s historical counterpart, Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Now on to the ending:
Some have said that it’s disappointing not to have seen the Battle of Sekigahara, one of the most important and decisive battles in Japanese history. However, it’s in keeping with the source material. In James Clavell’s novel, he doesn’t write about the battle in detail. I actually like how the series showed it as Toranaga’s daydream of sorts.
The point of Shōgun, this series, is not about the battle. It’s about the journey and what sacrifices it took to get there.
There are so many things I love about this series. You only have to read my nine previous reviews to know what they are. But for this final episode, my favorite has to be how well matched Hiroyuki Sanada and Tadanobu Asano are. I’m glad that they had that last conversation because it highlighted how impressive they are as actors. While I always enjoy seeing both of them in Hollywood projects, I always thought they were wasted in them.
We’ll see both of them soon in the upcoming Mortal Kombat sequel. Sanada is reprising his role as Hanzo Hasashi/Scorpion and Asano as Lord Raiden. However, I want to see them, both or individually, in projects that showcase their acting skills. With Shōgun, we now they have them in spades. Hopefully, the success of the shown will open even more doors for them in Hollywood as more than sword wielders.
If the show and its actors, particularly Sanada and Asano, aren’t nominated for Emmys and Golden Globes, I’ll be writing a not-mad-just-disappointed-haiku.
All 10 episodes of Shōgun are available on FX, Hulu and Disney+.
