Shōgun recap: What are the costs of loyalty?

The clear theme of this eighth episode of Shōgun is loyalty: Who is worthy of it? What function does it serve? Are there limitations to its usefulness? With tricksters like Toranaga-sama around, it’s hard to believe anyone would trust anything the guy does, at least as it applies to them personally. Is the justification for their devotion that the guy gets results? That he generally has good ideas and keeps the big picture in mind? That he’s (mostly) compassionate? Or is it just founded in the tradition of loyalty for loyalty’s sake?

We begin the episode with a caravan back to Edo, where Nagakado’s funeral will be held and Toranaga will go to mourn him for the customary 49 days. (After that, it’s off to the Regents with him for sentencing and such.) Toranaga is on horseback, visibly weakened and coughing away. Mariko gives Blackthorne back his journals and explains that Fuji will continue to manage his hatamoto house for now until he and the villagers decide what’s next. That seems to be it for these two. He’ll go back to Izu at some point (maybe with his men, who have been hanging out in Edo) to reclaim his ship; Mariko will continue to serve her lord as her “allegiance forbids [her] from doing anything else.”

Also on this little trip, we begin ore-acquainting ourselves with Yabushige’s whole deal. We’re reminded of his weird death voyeurism pastime as he ponders Nagakado’s end and tells an attendant, “Cracking his head on stone wasn’t a death I’d thought of. Be sure to record it in our book. I’d rank it lower than boiling, but higher than eaten by dogs.” Remember how he boiled that guy just to listen for the moment of death? Yeah. He’s still into that. He’s also still highly susceptible to flattery. All Anjin really has to say to get him to go along with his plan to continue fighting, whether or not Toranaga is down, is how impressed he was with his willingness to “take fate into his own hands” and commit seppuku as soon as it looked like he was about to die back at the cliff when they first met.

It quickly becomes clear that Yabushige will be something of a focus this episode—and that Blackthorne is probably playing him. Our Anjin is much more cunning than some have recognized and maintaining Yabushige’s impression of him as a bumbling, barbarian idiot seems to be by design. The way he repeats back the Japanese word for “ally” to Yabushige in such an exaggerated way at the end of the episode, when we’ve heard him explain to a villager, in perfectly fluid Japanese, that he wants charcoal rather than firewood because it gives off more heat, really makes this interpretation seem likely. He’s not actually that bad at the language; that’s just what he wants Yabushige to think. By the end of it, they’ve joined forces, at least temporarily, despite Omi’s protests on the grounds of loyalty to their lord.

Toranaga is really not down for fighting the Regents, by the way—or at least that’s what he would have everyone believe. When others draw his focus to his generals who wore armor to his son’s funeral in protest, or they suggest alliances, battle strategies, and rationales to him, he shuts it all down and claims that, “all [he wants] is a peaceful death,” from that cough of his. He goes even further: He demands Yabushige sail to Osaka to relinquish his weapons and that all of his men sign a pledge that they won’t get up to any shenanigans and will surrender as planned.

So at this point, these men are feeling like their loyalty to their lord has been for nothing and gotten them nowhere, and Omi doesn’t even know what he’s fighting for anymore (though Kiku, loyal to Gin, suggests he just look harder). But no one gets screwed over by a bond more than poor old Hiromatsu. He calls Toranaga out in front of all of his men and gives him a pretty brutal ultimatum: Either he reconsiders surrendering and fights instead or Hiromatsu commits seppuku right then and there. Ever the hard ass, Toranaga does not yield. It’s dramatic, too: Hiromatsu declares, “So you do believe in pointless death. Lord! Your vassal dies in vain!” then buries his blade in his gut and has his poor son Buntaro chop his head off. (It’s not a good day for Buntaro—he also made his wife Mariko a lovely cup of cha only to have her reject his offer to die with him.) Turns out Hiromatsu “knew his duty well” and anticipated that this move would only energize the men to fight on all the more. Toranaga needs Osaka to believe that he’s really done; having the men think it’s their idea to keep going, not his, is an important part of the plan. (He’s actually kind of puppet-mastering Anjin and Yabushige as well, calling them “goshawks, short-winged and predictable,” which is a sick 1600s burn, I guess.)

We end on Toranaga, dressed up and not coughing even a little bit past the palace walls, standing before his son’s ashes, thanking him for his sacrifice and saying “You earned me some time… Hiromatsu and you both. I will not waste it.” So wow, their loyalty has given their lord a huge gift. But what has it brought them? Maybe some honor, but mainly just death. The rest of Toranaga’s men will sail on with Anjin (and none of Blackthorne’s men, because their loyalty to him landed them stranded in Japan and mad at him). Mariko is going, too, in a signal to the guys that they must have their lord’s blessing, since he sent her. Man, if they weren’t dead, Hiromatsu and Nagakado would be so pumped.

Stray observations

• So Toranaga gets to mourn his kid for 49 days, huh? Not the case for the loved ones of any of these other dead guys. Must be nice to be a bushō.
• Omi ends up being the heart of this episode. He’s the only guy to stick up for Nagakado-sama when everyone shit-talks him after his death, the only one openly sobbing when Hiromatsu commits seppuku, and the one person who calls Yabushige out on his arrogance and susceptibility to flattery that compels him to go along with Anjin’s plan in the end. In a way, he has seemed to be a sweet, sensitive soul all along, and I appreciate him for that.
• So this grandbaby of Toranaga’s does exist. Mariko meets her. And this kid’s poor mom, Ochiba’s sister, seems pretty scared of her sis.
• On the subject of loyalty, I think Buntaro is up to some shit. Whether it’s some Romeo And Juliet thing with Mariko or following his father into death, he seems way too down to die. I think the dude survived in Osaka by some unscrupulous, traitorous means, and he’s been coasting since because he didn’t think Toranaga would last as long as he has after that.
• It’s pretty dang funny that Toranaga finally agreed to give Father Martín some land for that church of his right next to Gin’s promised tea house district. Haha! This hardcore holy man has sex workers for neighbors now.
• Hey, Blackthorne is all about baths now. After he encounters a former crewmate and they slug it out in an alley, he throws his jacket onto him and says “he’s goddamn filthy.” Wow! Judgmental guy!
• My favorite quote of the episode: When Mariko asks if Blackthorne wishes to sail for Yabushige, he says “I do not wish it. He is a shit-face. But he is a brave shit-face, and that is the truth.”
• In another matter of loyalty, a smitten/calculating Ishido offers his hand in marriage to Ochiba, and she doesn’t seem thrilled about it. Apparently, he’s been crushing on her ever since she was the Taikō’s most special consort lady. At the end of the episode, we see her approach him and genuflect. He smiles. Does this mean she accepts, even though the Taikō’s wife’s dying words to her were “Ishido comes from nothing and is nothing”?