In the third-to-last episode of Shogun, the drama intensifies, but at this point, like Toronaga’s vassals, we are insisting that his redemption can only be a farce. And the price of this strategy has never been so high and personal for him.

What is loyalty

Throughout the series, Mariko tries to teach Blackthorne what loyalty really means, but the pilot has a view that it has to be a two-way street, not the unrestricted submission that she has witnessed. No one is buying Toronaga’s redemption and with that, to be convincing, he is sacrificing the people he loves most.

After Nagakado’s unexpected death, we follow the sadness of the caravan returning to Edo instead of going straight to Osaka. It is because in Japanese tradition, mourning must be respected without restriction and it “usually” takes 49 days. At the end of this period, he must present himself to the Council and be sentenced to death. Toronaga is more than emotionally shaken, he is clearly weakened and coughing a lot.

Blackthorne, who is already irritated by the Samurai’s lack of reaction, who in his opinion fell into the trap and condemned everyone who follows him, is surprised by the total dismissal of his “services”. Mariko returns his diaries and explains that Fuji will continue running his hatamoto house until everyone’s fate is decided. He is free to go and recover his ship. He tries to convince her to join him, but Mariko will continue to serve Toronaga because “her loyalty prohibits her from doing anything else.”

The price of being faithful to Toronaga costs the life of another important ally: Hiromatsu. His general is unhappy and leads the movement that demands a response of resistance from Toronaga, who insists that he is not playing any game. The impasse escalates so much that Hiromatsu gives him an ultimatum to reconsider surrendering and fight or he commits seppuku in front of everyone. We know what Toronaga is like. He loses his oldest and most faithful ally.

Tests and failures

Of course, Toronaga never thought about surrendering, he is biding his time, but he needs to be convincing and he knew in advance that both Blackthorne and Yabushige would “fail”. They are more practical men and deal with the immediate, they don’t think about legacies. The only one who has any access to his plans is Mariko, who does not betray herself at any point.

He knew that the Englishman would seek some kind of alliance from the unstable samurai (they are hawks that fly low to catch their game) and he plants the translator among them. At the moment, given the public deaths of Nagakado and Hiromatsu due to Toronaga’s stubbornness, it appears that the shogun’s determination is unshakable. His plan is working. I mean, is he really there?

Blackthorne is now fluent in Japanese and pretends to Yabushige that he is still the same clumsy foreigner. He may be locked in with Toronaga and playing his role, instinctively or not. He certainly doesn’t trust or depend on Yabushige as he intends. Not even Omi, the nephew who now resents having influenced Nagakado and leading him to a pointless death, seems to be understanding their agreement. Ostensibly, they are together, but to what extent is uncertain.

Before “allying” with Yabushige and heading to Osaka to submit Toronaga’s men and weapons to the Council, we see that Blackthorne is in limbo. He does not embrace Japanese culture, which still has many obstacles to its understanding, but neither does he fit in with the men he sailed with before arriving in the East.

He tries to reconnect with the crew but finds drunk, abusive, smelly, and violent men, an uncomfortable contrast to how he acted until recently. Blackthorne has a plan, we don’t know exactly what it is, but his goal is to get out alive from the civil war in which he is both a witness and a soldier, even if alone.

Female resentment has a lot of influence

Toronaga now knows that Ochiba is on Ishido’s side (who asks her to marry him) and that it is her hatred for him that is generating all the conflict. He claims he can’t change feelings, only deal with the facts. Everyone believes that Ochiba is under Ishido’s influence, but only Mariko and Toronaga realize that it is the other way around.

Mariko, as a woman, understands well what it is like to hold hatred in your heart and maintain a cold appearance. After years of abuse in an unhappy marriage with Buntaro, she knows she needs to obey him, but it doesn’t ease anything when her husband tries to “redeem himself”.

The samurai, who is in love with his wife and suffers from her coldness, says he will authorize her to finally take her own life, to die with him. Mariko’s response is worse than any sword blow: the only meaning she saw in seppuku was to “get rid of Buntaro”, not to be with him in eternity. Mariko will not surrender, nor will Ochiba do so for Toronaga. She agrees to marry Ishido and the clash will certainly be violent. Toronaga still has more than 40 days to organize itself, placing Mariko on the heels of Blackthorne and Yabushige on the trip to Osaka, also signaling that it is distributing its pieces on the board. Who will win?

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