‘Shōgun’ Episode 9 Recap: “Crimson Sky”

When Toda “Iron Fist” Hiromatsu committed seppuku in Episode 8 of Shōgun, it was the old general doing his best buddy and liege lord the ultimate solid. He died with honor, for the greater cause of Toranaga’s vision of stability, and on the right side of karma. But where are the karma police now? Because with the heavy duty happenings of Episode 9 (“Crimson Sky”), it’s Lady Mariko who’s given all she can. The show’s coolest character, one of its smartest, and definitely its most formidable – a masterful communicator, political operator, and when things get nuts, samurai warrior – Mariko has always been Toranaga’s most powerful weapon against machinations of Lady Ochiba, her puppet Ishido, and the regent council. But when she told her lord she was ready to do her duty, it felt laden with the promise of some kind of courtly end-around. It felt like an agreement between lord and lady to destroy Osaka Palace from the inside. And in some ways, that’s what happens. But as it turns out, Mariko’s duty to Toranaga and Crimson Sky becomes much, much more explosive. 

With their ship’s arrival in Osaka, Mariko, Yabushige, and the Anjin enter a castle on lockdown. Toranaga’s wife Lady Kiri, his consort Shizu (Mako Fujimoto) with her infant son, and all of the other regents’ family members – everyone is a guest without privileges, Ishido’s hostages against any kind of aggression. In their audience with the bushō, Ochiba, and the young heir, Yobushige initially makes a play to retain his head, saying he was deceived into aiding Toranaga and offering up Blackthorne’s maritime skills as collateral. But this exchange is only the opening act. When Mariko speaks, her instructions from Toranaga become clear. Together with Kiri and Shizu, she will depart Osaka Castle for Edo, where her lord still mourns his dead son. Naturally, Ishido shoots down this intention. But if they can’t leave, then does that mean they’re prisoners? Mariko, and by extension Toranaga, have turned the regent council’s posturing in on itself. Ishido can’t maintain his facade of decorum without admitting that this whole thing is a hostage situation. And Mariko’s response is full of the power and respect she embodies, plus a sweet zinger that highlights Ishido’s low-born heritage.

 Blackthorne remains ignorant of the deeper forces at work in Japanese society, and still sees all of this as a sequence of called bluffs. She made her point – why not let things rest? But she tells him again not to interfere, for the sake of everything they’ve been through together. And she’s by no means through making her point. The following day, as Mariko, Toranaga’s ladies, and their samurai guard prepare to leave the castle, they are impeded by Ishido’s men. Words are exchanged. Swords are drawn. Archers knock their arrows. The demands of two lords, one present and one in Edo, clash in real time. And when the guards won’t clear a path, Mariko and her samurai make them. 

This tense, ultimately bloody encounter is still something Toranaga would have foreseen, still part of his orders to Mariko. But as Blackthorne, Yabushige, the Christian regents, and Lady Ochiba look on from above the courtyard, the brutal certainty of her sworn duty is affirmed. “These men have prevented me from doing my duty to my liege lord, and I cannot live with the offense. I will take my life at sunset.” Ochiba no Kata knew she wasn’t bluffing. “It is her vengeance,” she says of the woman she once knew as a sister. “On fate. On all of us. All of Osaka will be disgraced for letting her die.”

In the hours before her declared act of public suicide, Mariko visits Ochiba. “Aren’t you tired of all this?” she asks, echoing the dying words of the nun Daiyoin. “Only you can end the games you accuse me of playing.” And there are tears from both women as they recall the allyship of their childhood together. But ultimately, we can’t know if Ochiba and Ishido would have let Mariko commit seppuku. Clad in a pristine white kimono, and after tearing the crucifix from around her neck – suicide is a mortal sin, after all – as Mariko prepares to plunge her blade into her belly with Blackthorne as her second, Ishido arrives with a whole lot of face-saving spite and the eleventh hour departure permits. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Casks of sake are broken out in their part of the castle. And Blackthorne slips into Mariko’s chamber, where they kiss passionately before making love for the second time. 

And that’s when the Amida arrive, masked up and swords drawn. All season long, Yabushige has been angling for his own ends. Not only did Toranaga know this, but he let it happen, seeing the mouthy and violent samurai as a useful tool. But even with all the moves the Lord of the Kantō foresaw, it’s not clear he saw this one coming. In exchange for what he believes will be a berth with the winning side, Yabu enables Ishido’s throng of secret assassins to enter the compound, where they murder basically everyone before cornering Mariko, Blackthorne, Kiri, and Shizu with orders to kidnap them. This is Ishido reaffirming his control. But while Yabushige ingratiates himself with the little group, and they barricade themselves behind a pair of stout doors, the Amida prepare to blast them out, which informs Mariko’s final, fatal duty to her lord. Stay away, she urges Blackthorne as she plasters herself against the door. Even Yabu, the sellout, seems startled by what she’s preparing to do.   

Damn. No Team Tora trickery here. No sudden feints or wild bits of palace intrigue. In one moment full of professed, heartbreaking honor, panicked onlookers, and pulverized wood doors, Shōgun really did kill off its most compelling character. “Accepting death isn’t surrender,” Mariko earlier told Ochiba. “Flowers are only flowers because they fall.” But even if this ultimate sacrifice, however it ultimately came about, really was what Toranaga asked of Mariko, that doesn’t make it any less of a shock. There is only one episode of Shōgun left. Will the chosen death of his most loyal vassal be the karmic linchpin to Toranaga’s ascension as sole ruler of a country on the brink?     

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.