Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Tokyo Vice Season 2 Episode 5.
As creator JT Rogers and his team of writers approached the end of the first half of season 2 of Tokyo Vice, they knew they had to go out with a bang — even if there’s only a week-long break before we dive into the second half. And they did.
Episode 5 was written by Adam Stein and directed by Takeshi Fukunaga, and though it felt like it was going in circles for a while, with some of the same plot developments that felt stalling and worthless from the previous episode, it all converged into a climactic finale.
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The heart of the episode is the loose end from the previous one: the subplot regarding Samantha, the architect, and Ishida. This has vast ramifications all across the character board, as we soon find out in the episode, though I’ll refrain from giving more details before we move into a spoiler-tagged conversation.
Jake gets relegated to a lesser role this week, though the highlight of his part of the episode for me was seeing his interaction (albeit small) with Katagiri (Ken Watanabe), an aspect of the show that I feel has been underdeveloped all around. There were a few episodes in the first season where it looked like it would be the primary relationship of Tokyo Vice (and parts of the marketing certainly reinforced that belief), but this certainly hasn’t been the case this season (Watanabe’s character has been, in general, not as present).
Before we go any further, let us raise a spoiler warning for those of our readers who maybe haven’t seen the episode yet. It is now available to stream on Max.
What Happens in Tokyo Vice Season 2 Episode 5
It’s hard to discuss this episode without addressing the elephant in the room first. Two masked guns for hire assaulted Samantha’s club and killed the architect and Ishida himself. I must admit I was a bit surprised to see either one killed, but both at the same time were a massive shock.
This was the point of convergence of two major storylines, and where they go from here is a big mystery to me. First, we finally got to see the payoff to the architect confronting Samantha over her opening the suitcase. Maybe I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t expect Samantha to fully confess to the whole thing right away, and it was already a nice change of pace to start the episode.
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They figure out how to spin the whole thing, and leak to Jake the information Ishida wanted out (which set up its own subplot). The crime lord was initially mad, but he agreed to an in-person meeting with the two of them, where they introduced plans for an even bigger enterprise. But it was all for nothing.
In the car, on their way to that meeting, Sato confessed to having lied to Ishida about the guns, which the oyabun took with grace. In return, he told Sato he was the chosen one to be his successor, something that the young thug certainly didn’t see coming. Is this a situation where he’ll dismantle the whole operation from within, or perhaps now that he’s about to get Emperor-like powers he’ll succumb to the dark side?
Given the police raids on the different yakuza factions, the criminal gangs are about to undergo a massive reorganization. Tozawa is now the leader of his group, but not the oyabun anymore: He’s now the President, a rebranding that he hopes will get the enterprise to the next level, getting their hands dirty with any significant transaction of money that takes place in Japan.
Taking down Tozawa is the overall goal of this season for everyone, so his becoming more unhinged than ever at the mid-season point is a sign of a solid narrative structure. I’m honestly lost as to where this goes from here, so if you have any theories, feel free to throw them our way! Samantha is about to visit a good psychologist, that’s for sure.
But how will Jake react to the news? The character has been a bit all over the place this season, though his colleague accusing him of purposely sabotaging his reporting was too stupid. It’s looking like he’ll be flying back to Missouri in the next episode. And what about Sato? I smell a big civil war against Naoki (Yosuke Kubozuka). Misaki (Ayumi Ito) will have to make hard decisions now that Tozawa is back and more determined than ever. What will happen on that weekend in the mountains?
About Tokyo Vice
Release Date: Feb. 8
Created by: J.T. Rogers
Executive producers: J.T. Rogers, Alan Poul, Alex Boden, Josef Kubota Wladyka, Brad Caleb Kane, Adam Stein, Ken Watanabe, Emily Gerson Saines, Ansel Elgort, Jake Adelstein, Kayo Washio, Destin Daniel Cretton, John Lesher, and Michael Mann
Distribution: Max
Cast: Ansel Elgort, Ken Watanabe, Rinko Kikuchi, Rachel Keller, Show Kasamatsu, Ayumi Ito, Yosuke Kubozuka, and Miki Maya.
Synopsis: Loosely inspired by American journalist Jake Adelstein’s first-hand account of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat, season two of the series, filmed on location in Tokyo, takes us deeper into the city’s criminal underworld as Adelstein (Ansel Elgort) comes to realize that his life, and the lives of those close to him, are in terrible danger.
We’ll find out about all of the questions above next week when the sixth episode of Tokyo Vice season 2 comes out. What did you think about episode 5? Were you as surprised as I was about some of the twists and turns? How do you think this season will pan out? Let me know your thoughts via Twitter or on our Discord server.
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