[8.2/10] I was a little worried about the whole hunt for the magic sword. It honestly seemed weird that he would lose it and not recover it in the first place. I’m the type of person who’s willing to take most plot contrivances in stride, but it seemed like the show would have to really justify Jack losing his important familial weapon and never recovering it, only suddenly being able to do so now.
But i walked away from this one satisfied, because his reason for losing the sword is a psychological and spiritual one, not a matter of pure plot necessity. As Jack himself says at some point he realizes that he didn’t simply lose the sword, it left him, because of what was going on with him personally and internally, rather than due to external factors.
That’s why I like the vignette at the beginning that depicts what’s happened. There’s something cool about seeing Aku destroy the final time portal, taunt Jack over it once more,, and then set a bunch of goat monsters against him. It’s the kind of “Charlie Brown kicking the football” moment that we’ve seen from Jack a lot, but it has resonance for his breakdown here. The core of this one is Jack mastering his own anger and frustration, and that bears out in this scene.
It’s natural that he would be angry after trying so hard in this quest, only to have Aku come out on top every time. It makes sense that he would fight with an heretofore unknown fury after having his purposes so stymied over and over and over again. And it makes sense that he would lose hope after he takes innocent lives. There was something a little shocking when he draws blood from those goat men, especially when they revert to being adorable little goat babies. He has given into his anger, shed real blood, and seemingly lost his last chance to go back to the past. No wonder he seems so lost and faithless when we meet him again in the present. It’s not a story about the sword falling into a giant pit; it’s a story about Jack losing himself in this fight. The sword is just a symbol of that.
(Incidentally, I like how the show defines Jack partly by his kindness and consideration to animals. Part of why the goatlets dying resonates is that we see his kindness to sea serpents, giant birds, and other creatures that he treats with respect. That appreciation for life makes the bloodshed hit extra hard.)
I appreciate how from there, the episode diverts into two personal journeys. One is Jack’s spiritual quest to regain his sword, and one is Ashi’s more literal quest to protect Jack during his meditation, but also to face down her own demons.
The latter is where the action comes in here, and it’s nice to include that. Seeing Ashi fighting for good, fighting to save someone rather than kill someone, is encouraging. Granted, she kills a lot of people too, which the episode vaguely plays for laughs and which kind of undercuts a lot of the point here, but hey, she’s still learning. There’s a lot of cool moments that come from the well-animated fury of her high-energy defense in contrast to the stillness of Jack’s vision quest.
The meat of it, though, comes when Ahsi is confronted by the High Priestess. (I literally said “shit” out loud when the High Priestess showed up.) Much of Ashi’s story this season has centered on the notions of abuse and brainwashing. Now, Ashi finally has the chance to confront the avatar of all her pain and misguidance from the time she was a child. There’s a practical reason to do that here -- and Ashi’s duel with her surrogate (actual?) mother maintains all of the great action and tension the show’s known for. But there’s also a spiritual reason to do it, a means of rejecting all of her programming and exercising all of her abuse (for the moment at least), by rejecting the representative of it. There’s a great deal of power in that.
I also like Jack’s portion of the episode in a more spiritual realm. In truth, the theme of him needing to settle his anger in order to be worthy of his sword again is a little trite. One should never be consumed by anger, but man, Jack had good reason to be angry. Still, there’s a sense of purification, of renewal to all of this. Jack is cleansing himself of the anger, and it’s that which regains him his magic sword and restores him to the man he once was, rather than any sort of more literal obstacle course.
I love how quiet and tactile those scenes are. The steady images and sound design of Jack making the tea is beautiful, a nice reminder of the deliberateness, the solemness, of what Jack is pursuing here outside of his thrilling fisticuffs. His test by the Buddha figure is an intriguing one, particularly given the emotional challenges he faces. And it’s also nice to see the god figures we met in Aku’s origin story previously as the ones to restore Jack’s weapon to him once he’s quelled the anger that’s hampered him for so long.
In the end, we get the original Jack back, sans beard and mane, and with his trademark blade. With only three episodes to go, the quest and restoration of hope has only a bit more runway. But I’m glad that Samurai Jack spent this much time on dramatizing Jack and Ashi’s internal journeys, before turning to the external forces and challenges that lie ahead.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2020-05-16T22:58:26Z
[8.2/10] I was a little worried about the whole hunt for the magic sword. It honestly seemed weird that he would lose it and not recover it in the first place. I’m the type of person who’s willing to take most plot contrivances in stride, but it seemed like the show would have to really justify Jack losing his important familial weapon and never recovering it, only suddenly being able to do so now.
But i walked away from this one satisfied, because his reason for losing the sword is a psychological and spiritual one, not a matter of pure plot necessity. As Jack himself says at some point he realizes that he didn’t simply lose the sword, it left him, because of what was going on with him personally and internally, rather than due to external factors.
That’s why I like the vignette at the beginning that depicts what’s happened. There’s something cool about seeing Aku destroy the final time portal, taunt Jack over it once more,, and then set a bunch of goat monsters against him. It’s the kind of “Charlie Brown kicking the football” moment that we’ve seen from Jack a lot, but it has resonance for his breakdown here. The core of this one is Jack mastering his own anger and frustration, and that bears out in this scene.
It’s natural that he would be angry after trying so hard in this quest, only to have Aku come out on top every time. It makes sense that he would fight with an heretofore unknown fury after having his purposes so stymied over and over and over again. And it makes sense that he would lose hope after he takes innocent lives. There was something a little shocking when he draws blood from those goat men, especially when they revert to being adorable little goat babies. He has given into his anger, shed real blood, and seemingly lost his last chance to go back to the past. No wonder he seems so lost and faithless when we meet him again in the present. It’s not a story about the sword falling into a giant pit; it’s a story about Jack losing himself in this fight. The sword is just a symbol of that.
(Incidentally, I like how the show defines Jack partly by his kindness and consideration to animals. Part of why the goatlets dying resonates is that we see his kindness to sea serpents, giant birds, and other creatures that he treats with respect. That appreciation for life makes the bloodshed hit extra hard.)
I appreciate how from there, the episode diverts into two personal journeys. One is Jack’s spiritual quest to regain his sword, and one is Ashi’s more literal quest to protect Jack during his meditation, but also to face down her own demons.
The latter is where the action comes in here, and it’s nice to include that. Seeing Ashi fighting for good, fighting to save someone rather than kill someone, is encouraging. Granted, she kills a lot of people too, which the episode vaguely plays for laughs and which kind of undercuts a lot of the point here, but hey, she’s still learning. There’s a lot of cool moments that come from the well-animated fury of her high-energy defense in contrast to the stillness of Jack’s vision quest.
The meat of it, though, comes when Ahsi is confronted by the High Priestess. (I literally said “shit” out loud when the High Priestess showed up.) Much of Ashi’s story this season has centered on the notions of abuse and brainwashing. Now, Ashi finally has the chance to confront the avatar of all her pain and misguidance from the time she was a child. There’s a practical reason to do that here -- and Ashi’s duel with her surrogate (actual?) mother maintains all of the great action and tension the show’s known for. But there’s also a spiritual reason to do it, a means of rejecting all of her programming and exercising all of her abuse (for the moment at least), by rejecting the representative of it. There’s a great deal of power in that.
I also like Jack’s portion of the episode in a more spiritual realm. In truth, the theme of him needing to settle his anger in order to be worthy of his sword again is a little trite. One should never be consumed by anger, but man, Jack had good reason to be angry. Still, there’s a sense of purification, of renewal to all of this. Jack is cleansing himself of the anger, and it’s that which regains him his magic sword and restores him to the man he once was, rather than any sort of more literal obstacle course.
I love how quiet and tactile those scenes are. The steady images and sound design of Jack making the tea is beautiful, a nice reminder of the deliberateness, the solemness, of what Jack is pursuing here outside of his thrilling fisticuffs. His test by the Buddha figure is an intriguing one, particularly given the emotional challenges he faces. And it’s also nice to see the god figures we met in Aku’s origin story previously as the ones to restore Jack’s weapon to him once he’s quelled the anger that’s hampered him for so long.
In the end, we get the original Jack back, sans beard and mane, and with his trademark blade. With only three episodes to go, the quest and restoration of hope has only a bit more runway. But I’m glad that Samurai Jack spent this much time on dramatizing Jack and Ashi’s internal journeys, before turning to the external forces and challenges that lie ahead.