Shōgun finale: Life is but "A Dream Of A Dream"

Given the past few episodes, I was expecting more of a showstopper-style finale in which a bunch more characters would die, or maybe someone would seek some kind of retribution for Mariko’s death. But no. This is more of a denouement of an episode, a processing of things, and a subtle setting-up of the future to come for these characters. Oh, and Yabushige loses his goddamn mind—and head.

But first, we’re greeted with the face of an elderly Blackthorne, lying supine and grunting in a big, canopy bed, hair long and scraggly, eyes piercing blue and clouded by cataracts, Mariko’s rosary resting in his quivering hand. His grandchildren marvel at the Japanese battle gear he has displayed in his chambers: a katana they notice is chipped, a cool samurai helmet. They ask him directly, admiring the sword, “Was it really given to you by a savage?” And this, for Blackthorne, seems to be the guiding question of this episode: How does he view these people he has encountered and grown to know these past several months? As savage?

He’s roused from this dream, before he can answer, by Yabushige yelling at him: We’re still in the aftermath of the explosion here. Mariko (somehow not in pieces?) lies lifeless on the ground. Her anjin crawls to her, cradles her body in his arms, wails at first, then prays: “We commit to you your loyal servant Mariko-sama. Mariko-sama. Mariko-sama.” And each time he repeats her name, the loss registers all the more for him (and for us, the viewers.) He’s alone now. He has not only lost his beloved companion, but his lone point of access in this world: his translator.

So what’s to become of Blackthorne? His usefulness to the cause has already been up for debate prior to this event, and he knows it. Kiyama’s men meet him at the gates to Osaka Castle and address him in Portuguese to let him know that the hostages are free and that he must now return to Izu with Yabushige. He’s sure he’s a goner. Still, when Father Martín arrives to escort him to the ship, he goes willingly. Once in the woods together, they talk about Mariko and imagine how she would have enjoyed witnessing their civility. (Look at my boys getting along!) They even talk about god, how Blackthorne prayed to the god, not inherently Catholic nor Protestant, when he held Mariko that day. This is a significant development for these two religious foes. In fact, as they speak Blackthorne wonders why he hasn’t been ambushed yet (he has been on previous forest strolls), but Martín lets him know an arrangement has been made—by “Lady Maria.” While receiving absolution from Martín, Mariko made a deal with the church to let Blackthorne live. And so he does.

Now, let’s examine this act of mercy for a minute from the reference point of Fuji and Mariko. When their respective families were killed, each was spared—and each resented it. But they were also reassured that their survival carried a deeper purpose for those they had lost and for themselves. (On that note, we learn that Fuji has been relieved of her consort duties and will become a nun.) We get an idea of what Mariko deemed her anjin’s purpose to be, and it sure as hell wasn’t going home to England. We see this clearly when Yabu’s boat floats past the charred remains of the Erasmus. So that was the deal with the church! Or was it? It turns out Toranaga was also involved, and he plans to keep Blackthorne in a loop of rebuilding his destroyed vessel in perpetuity (so never leaving Japan). It advantaged him as much as the church guys to torch the anjin’s precious boat.

Speaking of Yabu, and him going nuts, this guy is really not doing great this episode. As soon as Mariko’s death sinks in for him, he knows he’s finished. In a private, pond-side conversation, he tells Ishido he was cool with Mariko being captured but didn’t want her to die—that hadn’t been their plan. Ishido is kind of like, yeah, that was her own fault, and assures him he’ll be made a Regent as soon as Toranaga is gone. (Nope! That was never gonna happen.) When the council voted moments earlier to go to war with Toranaga, there had been a little earthquake, and in this current conversation Yabushige is at least with it enough to remind Ishido that the last time someone (the Taikō) was about to declare war on Toranaga, there had also been an earthquake—a bad omen—and all agreed to scrap the plan. Ishido doesn’t much care. He’s a little more concerned with the fact that, as Yabushige is recounting this, he’s standing in the garden pond, swatting at the water, trying to catch non-existent catfish with his hands.

So yeah, Yabushige dies in this one. It seems like it could happen any kind of way, especially when we see him desperately strip down to leap from his boat, begging Anjin-sama to recreate the charming diving lesson he had with Toranaga in happier times. But you know what? As much as he would rather be blown apart by cannons or eaten by “angry fish,” he’s sentenced to boring old seppuku for his treachery. And he isn’t even allowed to have Anjin second him. (He probably asked because he knows that he at least sucks with a sword.) Toranaga is his next choice, and the big man accepts.

This ends up being a pretty brilliant device: When the two men are cliffside, spending Yabushige’s final moments together, it gives Toranaga-sama a chance to privately reveal his plans, in near entirety, to his dear old frenemy. (He doesn’t tell him everything: his last words to him are something akin to why tell the future to a dead man?) It gives us the chance to see a sort of dreamy-looking fast-forward to the moment of war, when the armies will stand, awaiting battle, only for Ishido to receive word that the heir has now given his blessing to Toranaga instead of him. (Ochiba has turned on him for killing her friend.) Ishido, left with no further credibility, must concede. We can assume this all comes to pass, too, as the action in Shōgun mirrors the real-life establishment of the rule of the Tokugawa Shogunate and ushering in of the Edo Period of Japanese history. Also, everything seems to end up working out for Toranaga-sama in this show.

While Mariko-sama would have us believe that death is no big deal in Japanese culture (“We live and we die”), we are shown that no such monolith exists here. Each character has their own relationship to it. Mariko herself spends her life seeking a meaningful death and has been personally defined by her father’s demise. Meanwhile, the death of her father has left Lady Ochiba on a lifelong quest for revenge. That little freak Yabushige is obsessed with death: He studies the moment of it, loves imagining how gruesome it can get, and routinely dictates a new will to his scribe in the event that he should perish. Toranaga-sama is less concerned with his own fate and more concerned with how death can be used as a political tool, be it with his loyal general Hiromatsu, his faithful vassal Mariko, and his own son Nagakado. This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t revere their sacrifices and lament these losses in his own way, but these deaths were each crucial to his personal success, and he’s keenly aware of it.

Blackthorne’s relationship to death, and to self, has evolved as well over the course of his arc. When he comes to Toranaga to beg him to stop killing villagers in his efforts to find the arsonists who set fire to the Erasmus (he knew damn well who they were—this was all a manipulation), he attempts a brand new strategy: to threaten to stab himself in his own belly. Clearly drawing inspiration from his love Mariko, he declares that he will die in protest of Toranaga’s actions in the village. He admits here that he has been the enemy among them all along (using the Japanese word for it—a callback to the first two installments of the series), pursuing his own selfish aims and intending to exploit them. Now, he wants to use his death to protest further harm to the good people of the village. He has seen that death can be meaningful, and he embraces that his life is no more important than those of his fellow community members. (Toranaga stops him; this was all just a test of Blackthorne’s commitment anyway.)

And by the end of this episode, Blackthorne and Fuji-sama seem to emerge aligned in their view of death as well, at least as it relates to grief and loss. They have a moving conversation in which she seems entirely at peace, having found new purpose as a nun. “Fuji-sama best nun,” Blackthorne says to her in his broken Japanese. His last act of kindness towards her, before she goes, is to take her out for a little boat ride so that they can release the remains of their loved ones to the ocean together. She pours her family’s ashes into the water; he relinquishes Mariko’s rosary to it. There’s a beautiful callback to the moment before her son died as well. Fuji comforts her friend as he hesitates to drop the symbol of his love into the sea saying, “let your hands be the last to hold her,” echoing Mariko’s words to her in her life’s worst moment.

Mariko’s words, in the end, echo for everyone in some way. They are all that remains of her. Ochiba and her son finish her “leafless branch” poem; Toranaga receives the very last poem she wrote and recites her words aloud, and the things she said to Blackthorne haunt his dreams. Yabushige hopes his will resonate, too, as he leaves a poem and shares his sincere feelings with Omi before he departs. This says something of legacy, something Shōgun recognizes well. And with its words, conveyed by its incredible cast and all involved in its production, the show sets its own legacy, too.

Stray observations

• Yabushige’s face once he has pierced himself with the sword is priceless. He turns to Toranaga looking absolutely elated to know at last what it feels like to be dying. It’s… sweet?
• We know it was just a dream, but it would be fun to really dig into the symbolic significance of everything in the bedroom of elderly John Blackthorne.
• We have to wonder if having Mariko and Blackthorne fall for each other was part of Toranaga’s plan. It seems likely that he used their bond to meet his own ends, especially with this whole ship thing. Now, I don’t think Mariko was in on that; her feelings seemed genuine, and it’s not really Toranaga’s style to reveal his schemes, unless a guy is dying. He just sort of predicts behavior correctly in many cases by really getting to know the people involved. What do you think?
• Speaking of Mariko, how nice was it to see Buntaro and Blackthorne getting along there at the end? He helps the anjin pull his ship out of the water! They’re gonna be buddies!
• And I guess I stand (a little bit) corrected. Buntaro wasn’t up to anything. That was a red herring. He still mostly sucks, though. Maybe now that Mariko’s gone, he can find someone else and do better.
• Thank you all for going on this journey with me. I ended up really loving this show, each episode topping the last in my esteem. I’m genuinely looking forward to reading your insights. Get to it!