Shōgun is a sequence filled with wily political operators, unpredictable struggle scenes, and the occasional devastating earthquake. But the largest impediment our characters have needed to face is none apart from a single gate main out of Osaka Citadel — a gate which turns into the main focus of two of Shōgun‘s finest scenes.

In episode 3, “Tomorrow Is Tomorrow,” Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) should go away Osaka with the intention to keep away from dying by the hands of Ishido Kazunari (Takehiro Hira) and the remainder of the Council of Regents. His plan to make it out of town performs like one thing out of a farce, full with faked labor pains and Toranaga switching locations along with his spouse Kiri No Kata (Yoriko Dōguchi). Ishido’s males nearly catch on to the ruse, however John Blackthorne’s (Cosmo Jarvis) improvised outrage on behalf of Kiri’s advantage manages to trigger sufficient chaos to throw them off the scent. Your entire sequence is an ideal balancing act of comedy and suspense, however the subsequent time Shōgun returns to the gate main out of Osaka Citadel, we’re in for a way more somber affair.

Anna Sawai in “Shōgun.”
Credit score: Katie Yu / FX

Flash-forward to “Crimson Sky,” Shōgun‘s ninth entry and its most heartbreaking to this point. The entire episode focuses on Toda Mariko (Anna Sawai) as she enacts the following levels of Toranaga’s plan for victory. She arrives in Osaka and requests that she go away the following day together with Kiri and Toranaga’s consort, Shizu No Kata (Mako Fujimoto). However that request, like so many parts of Shōgun, shouldn’t be so simple as it might appear. That is as a result of Ishido will not let any of the nobles staying in Osaka go away. Do not name them hostages, although! He’d choose you consider them as very safe visitors.

Mariko’s demand to depart locations Ishido in a decent spot. If he does not enable her to go, he is absolutely confirming that everybody in Osaka Citadel is a prisoner. But when he does let her go, that units a precedent for everybody else within the fortress to depart as nicely. He states that he and the Council will deliberate, to which Mariko retorts that if she is unable to depart the following morning, she’ll have didn’t do her obligation to Toranaga, and can subsequently need to commit seppuku.

That takes us to Shōgun‘s second iteration of the Osaka gate scene, a tense showdown throughout which a decided Mariko and her retinue advance by waves of guards and archers. Finally, she is unable to proceed and resigns herself to commit seppuku later that day.

With Mariko’s seemingly inevitable dying on the horizon, and with the gradual attrition of her forces grinding her to a halt, this Osaka gate scene could not really feel extra completely different than Toranaga’s madcap escape in episode 3. And but that first escape sequence is vital to understanding Mariko’s try to depart.

“Your job is to show the viewers the way to watch the present,” Shōgun showrunner, co-creator, and government producer Justin Marks informed Mashable. “Every thing in episode 3 is a setup for what occurs in episode 9.” Episode 3 establishes not solely the structure of Osaka Citadel — together with the structure of that particular gate — but in addition the diploma of problem it takes to flee.

Every thing in episode 3 is a setup for what occurs in episode 9.

“The actual focus of it’s that it took essentially the most highly effective man in Japan an unimaginable quantity of subterfuge to [leave Osaka],” Marks mentioned. “How is one lady going to stroll out? The purpose is, she’s not. It is theater, it is efficiency artwork. That is the important a part of this, which is to show all that [Ishido] will do to maintain her from going, however for her to maintain going anyway.”

Anna Sawai in “Shōgun.”
Credit score: Katie Yu / FX

Shōgun has all the time ready us for the chance that Mariko would possibly die, particularly since she’s requested for dying so many instances. But that chance really begins to really feel like a actuality throughout this gate sequence. One thing so simple as a personality attempting to go from Level A to Level B turns into a lethal act, as episodes’ price of context — together with the difficulties of Toranaga’s episode 3 escape — bear down on Mariko’s each footstep.

“Your entire season funnels to this one second the place a personality is strolling, attempting to move by a gate,” Shōgun co-creator and government producer Rachel Kondo informed Mashable. Kondo additionally wrote “Crimson Sky” together with Caillin Puente.

Your entire season funnels to this one second.

“The impression I obtained studying the e book [by James Clavell] was that the 50 toes to that gate is a journey that Mariko has been attempting to make for her whole life,” Marks added.

For Mariko, her try to depart Osaka and the following declaration of seppuku are essential providers she should carry out for Toranaga. However they’re additionally an opportunity for her dying to serve a better objective in a merciless world that generally treats folks as in the event that they’re disposable.

“She’s combating for extra than simply her personal sense of decision,” Kondo defined. “I believe she was combating for all the ladies who do not ever get the prospect for his or her deaths to imply one thing.”

Despite the fact that Mariko does not die on this second, “Crimson Sky” sees her face down dying time and time once more: First on the gate, then at her near-seppuku, then lastly in a brutal third-act assault that does take her life. The fixed proximity to dying prepares us for her eventual farewell, and although it might be tragic for the viewers and for the characters round her, Marks believes that survival previous this level would have crushed Mariko additional.

“She would hate victory over dying,” Marks mentioned. “What she may not stand was to suppress her personal desires in service of this world anymore. And he or she asserted that by a military attempting to cease her.”

He added, of the gate scene, that “it is the purpose the place there isn’t any going again for Mariko. You notice the entire present has been about her. And if you happen to thought it was about anybody else, you then most likely weren’t watching carefully sufficient.”

Shōgun is now streaming on Hulu, with the finale premiering April 23.