After 10 episodes, FX’s Shōgun ends not with a violent bang, however with mournful contemplation.

Toda Mariko’s (Anna Sawai) loss of life has shaken all of Japan, turning the Council of Regents in opposition to Ishido Kazunari (Takehiro Hira) and priming Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) for a decisive rout on the upcoming Battle of Sekigahara. Nonetheless, identical to in James Clavell’s unique novel, Shōgun chooses to not concentrate on stated battle, solely displaying a snippet of Toranaga’s assured victory in a flash ahead.

As an alternative, the finale episode, titled “A Dream of a Dream,” focuses on the lingering emotional impression of Mariko’s passing. John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) and Usami Fuji (Moeka Hoshi) grieve her loss, releasing her ashes and rosary into the ocean. Kashigi Yabushige (Tadanobu Asano) seeks forgiveness for betraying her and pays along with his life within the course of. And Toranaga reveals that Crimson Sky, his much-hyped battle tactic to defeat Ishido, was none aside from Mariko’s arrival in and tried departure from Osaka.

“I despatched a girl to do what a military by no means might,” he tells Yabushige. He provides, disenchanted that Yabushige nonetheless believes Crimson Sky to be an action-heavy struggle plan: “I assumed you of all individuals would see.”

Shōgun‘s finale operates on an analogous degree to Toranaga’s Crimson Sky. Primarily based on audiences’ prior experiences with epic TV reveals, individuals might have anticipated a large navy set piece. Nonetheless, as Shōgun co-creators Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo emphasised in an interview with Mashable, this collection was by no means about Sekigahara. It was about Mariko, and now that she’s gone, the individuals in her orbit should course of her loss of life — and its aftermath.

All through our interview, Marks and Kondo mentioned their strategy to Sekigahara, ensuring Mariko felt current within the finale, and people fast flashes of an aged Blackthorne we glimpse all through the episode. The next interview has been edited and condensed for readability.

Tadanobu Asano and Hiroyuki Sanada in “Shōgun.”
Credit score: Katie Yu / FX

Mashable: I believe individuals usually anticipate large battle episodes from historic epics, however we do not get that right here or within the unique novel. As an alternative, we get fast descriptions of what’s going to occur on the Battle of Sekigahara, the place Toranaga will overcome Ishido. Have been there ever conversations about really attempting to place the Battle of Sekigahara on display?

Justin Marks, co-creator, showrunner, and government producer of Shōgun: There have been positively conversations. I really feel like whenever you say issues like “the Battle of Sekigahara on display,” I really feel it in my bones, how painful it could be to shoot that. We might nonetheless be capturing it!

However on the identical time, I get [the sense of wanting the battle to play out], and I really feel like typically possibly James Clavell felt that, too. We have been speaking to Michaela Clavell, his daughter and an government producer on the present, and she or he was saying, in her reminiscence, her father did wish to get the story there. Then he received so preoccupied and in love with the characters who have been already there, with Mariko particularly and Blackthorne, that he received to the tip and stated, “You realize what? The story is completed. I informed this story.”

Rachel Kondo, co-creator and government producer of Shōgun: Michaela stated that the battle stood earlier than him, and he thought, “I haven’t got one other two years to jot down this one battle.” So the story was delivered to completion.

It is at all times been about [Mariko].

JM: We additionally need to be trustworthy with ourselves and trustworthy with our story if we’ll inform an excellent one, and I felt like [including the Battle of Sekigahara] was somewhat dishonest to the story. As a result of what it could find yourself being could be numerous moments that will completely be within the trailer for this present. It could not be the place our coronary heart was and the place the viewers’s coronary heart was for the place the story must be. So we selected to honor that.

Even within the ebook, I used to be studying it and attending to the tip and questioning, “What number of pages are left? Are we actually going to overlook out on the battle?” After which there it’s: It is talked about within the final paragraph of the ultimate web page. You are identical to, “Oh,” and I believe that is what Clavell needs us to really feel. He needs us to suppose that we’re getting one thing in a sure manner, after which to comprehend on the finish that if we actually thought we have been getting that, we weren’t actually watching what was taking place. 

RK: We weren’t actually finding out Toranaga.

JM: Proper, and we weren’t actually finding out and understanding Mariko. It is at all times been about her. The one character who ever knew that was Toranaga, and the one character who learns it’s Blackthorne. That is it. That is our three characters, and that is the one factor that counts.

Such as you stated, it is a present about Mariko, and despite the fact that she’s not alive within the finale, she’s nonetheless very current. How did you go about writing her in methods the place she’s nonetheless current, despite the fact that she’s not bodily there?

RK: I at all times return to the scene within the tea home from episode 6. The younger apprentice Hana brings a brand new flask of sake, and as she removes the empty flask, Kiku asks her, “What do you see in that house?” She says, “I see nothing,” and Kiku responds, “Not nothing. It is the place the flask has been.” The explanation why I assumed it was vital to maintain that scene in there may be as a result of that was the foreshadowing of her absence. Mariko’s absence would say greater than her life itself, and that is the key weapon that Toranaga wields.

JM: There is a shot in episode 10 that director Fred Toye at all times had in his head. It is this shot of Fuji reuniting with Blackthorne of their house, and it is a callback to a shot that Fred and [cinematographer] Sam McCurdy shot in episode 4, the place Fuji, Blackthorne, and Mariko stare out on the rain of their backyard. We body that shot in the very same manner in episode 10, as if Mariko have been sitting there. She’s not, but you are feeling her presence in that backyard at all times. She’s the essential third leg of that stool for Fuji and Blackthorne, and with out her, they actually don’t have anything to say, as a result of they misplaced their translator. But they really feel at peace.

RK: They virtually needn’t say something as a result of they really feel the identical factor, which is a profound sense of loss. And alter is upon them due to this loss.

Mariko’s absence would say greater than her life itself, and that is the key weapon that Toranaga wields.

Cosmo Jarvis and Moeka Hoshi in “Shōgun.”
Credit score: Katie Yu / FX

JM: There was additionally this scene within the finale, of Blackthorne and Fuji within the rowboat, which isn’t within the ebook and which certainly one of our producers, Mako Kamitsuna, was actually essential in serving to us put collectively. Fuji and Blackthorne surrender Mariko’s ashes, which is that this preposterous course of from the place of a Japanese one who’s meant to carry on to those ashes and bury them within the household plot. However Blackthorne manages to steer her from the place of a sailor, saying, “That is the best way that I might do it if you wish to hold somebody with you eternally.”

Then when Blackthorne places Mariko’s cross within the water, Fuji says, “Let your fingers be the final to carry her,” which is a callback to what Mariko says to her when she says goodbye to her child within the first episode. That scene continues to interrupt me each time I watch it. That is my scene to cry about.

RK: I simply keep in mind in that scene, the impulse inside me — possibly it is a Western impulse, possibly it is a hoarder impulse — to suppose, “Do not let her rosary go! You may by no means have it once more, you will not keep in mind her by that.” However for some cause, it made sense to let the pouring of the ashes occur as a result of that is very acquainted.

JM: She’s not yours to recollect, I believe is the acknowledgement that Blackthorne additionally has to make right here. He would not personal that rosary. Mariko owns that rosary. It is like Toranaga returning his falcon Tetsuko to the sky, she is returned to the ocean.

On this case, I assume that is like Blackthorne dropping her into his lounge. [laughs] However the message stands.

If anything, what I hope episode 10 demonstrates when it comes to Clavell’s ebook and in addition what we as a writers’ room tried to do with the ebook is that Shōgun just isn’t actually a narrative about tradition. It is a story about loss of life and bargaining.

RK: And the life that precedes it and follows it.

Shōgun just isn’t actually a narrative about tradition. It is a story about loss of life and bargaining.

JM: It is these ruminations on loss of life that basically took us in from the primary episode: the totally different cultural understandings of it and our attempting to know one thing that we by no means might.

The opposite factor that the ebook does in a different way than we do is Blackthorne’s try and commit seppuku. Within the ebook it occurs within the house of chapter 31, which is episode 4. We selected to maneuver all of it the best way to the tip, not simply because it felt extra applicable there, but additionally as a result of we did not really feel prepared to know his selection at that time — not that we perceive the act of seppuku now.

RK: We did not purposefully try this, we simply did not embrace it earlier on as a result of we have been all feeling very fragile round it and never realizing how one can cope with it. We did in the end come again to it, however we did not got down to say, “Let’s simply cope with it in episode 10.” It was solely by sitting with it and having conversations with our Japanese consultants and studying about it that it felt somewhat extra applicable to convey it in.

Cosmo Jarvis and Hiroyuki Sanada in “Shōgun.”
Credit score: Katie Yu / FX

Staying with Blackthorne, the episode opens with a snippet of an older Blackthorne at house in England, being requested about his expertise with “savages.” That picture returns all through the episode. Inform me concerning the weight it carries and the choice to incorporate it as a type of framing system.

JM: We wished to do a misdirect. For a second you suppose we’re framing episode 10 as an previous man wanting again on his life full of remorse, solely to comprehend that no, you are a younger man wanting ahead to a doable future with remorse. It was a writers’ room invention and wasn’t really a part of the ebook, however it was one thing that we felt was true to the mythos of “a dream of a dream,” to cite the Taikō in episode 2.

We referred to as [old Blackthorne] Father Christmas due to how Cosmo appears to be like in it, however that model of him is a projection of his colonial self that he has to sever his path from in episode 10. That’s the last journey that I hope can be us as American or Hollywood filmmakers severing ourselves from these conversations, as a result of I believe it is type of boring these days to inform these tales. We actually wished to show our again on the “stranger in a wierd land” trope. And our model of Blackthorne right here — which I credit score Cosmo for his efficiency lots — was going for one thing totally different that did not simply say, “There isn’t any cause to inform these tales.” Clearly we have now a historical past and a legacy and it is price wanting again on, however possibly let’s look again on it by a brand new lens of claiming, “What new tales can we inform of these previous tales?” 

All episodes of Shōgun at the moment are streaming on Hulu.