Cinepals - SHOGUN 1x7 "A Stick of Time" Reaction & Review!

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

Shōgun, a new and adapted historical drama series, has arrived, depicting war and power in 1600s Japan. Shōgun stars: Hiroyuki Sanada (The Wolverine, 47 Ronin, Bullet Train, Mortal Kombat (2021), & John Wick: Chapter 4), Cosmo Jarvis (Calm with Horses, Lady Macbeth, & Persuasion), Anna Sawai (F9: The Fast Saga, Pachinko, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters & Girl/Haji) & Tadanobu Asano (Thor, Battleship, & Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan)    Join our Patreon www.Patreon.com/JabyKoay for the full length reaction to this show and many others ans subscribe to our YouTube channel for the cutdowns www.youtube.com/@cinepals   SOCIAL MEDIA ~CinePals~ Twitter, Instagram, & TikTok: @TheCinePals ~Achara Kirk~ Twitter & Instagram: @AcharaKirk ~Jaby Koay~ Twitter & Instagram: @JabyKoay

Pals! I'm so excited to get back into this. We're watching Shogun episode 7, a stick of time. Here we go. What are you waiting for? You gonna do it or not? Oh my god! Oh shit! Are you fucking kidding me? Damn. Silly boy. Oh, shit.

Dang. They left us like that. What do you reckon? That changes everything. It's interesting that they left the rain sound. Yeah, I know. I'm like, I'm waiting for something else. It's because they're trying to allow you to, like, deal with that.

God. They definitely showed the ugliness of death in this episode. They were kind of setting us up with Toranaga's son. and his view of... Death being this beautiful thing, and then it turns out to be this really ugly, nasty thing. Exactly. Which is what the brother was like,

yo, I don't want that. Yeah, and also just like the reality of it, right? Because the legend is that Toronaga was this boy warlord and he was his enemy's second and he chopped his head off in one fell swoop. It became this legendary thing. Exactly. And the reality is it's not like that.

War is not like that. Death is not like that. It's not glorious. It's not beautiful. It's ugly. It's gross. It's ugly and it's nasty. And so they're about to embark on this journey. And now I think with the death of his son, I would imagine that would probably change everything. Yeah. Yeah. He's going to be enraged. Yeah. Yeah. There's going to be a battle now. He's going to have all mess of feelings inside of him on his father's, on his son's death upon learning about that, right? And I think that the next move, the next obvious move is conflict with his own brother and actually having a fight with him of some kind and reneging on what he agreed to. Yeah, maybe. I mean, technically his son was the one who made that decision to go after the uncle. And obviously, that's so in line with his character because it was the son who ordered the cannons, the guns to go off and kind of got them into that situation in the first place.

But it was interesting to me that in that scene at the banquet where he was very resigned to his fate, or at least outwardly seemed to be quite cool and collected. The only time he lost his cool was when his son was reaching for the order for Sapuku, and he yelled at him and was like, don't you take it? And then he like quickly went back behind his eightfold vents of like, I'm fine now. So clearly his son is a sensitive spot for him. I wouldn't call it an eightfold fence. His son wears his whole, his heart on his sleeve.

I'm not saying his son did. I'm saying the dad did, Taranaga. Oh, Taranaga, yeah, most certainly. But, I mean, his eightfold fence has been cracking this whole episode. Because even with Mariko, when she's like here and she offered the knife, he, get that thing out of my face. Like, he got mad there, too. He's been losing his cool in this episode. It's very uncharacteristic of him that we have seen up to now because he's like breaking

at, he's busting at the seams. His ability to deal with this situation is bursting at the seams, right? And so he's going to have to do something that is not. honorable, I guess, in order to keep moving forward and protect his people. Because if he gives in, all the people loyal to him also die. It's not just his head that's going to be chopped off. Right. The whole crux of the story, right, is leading up to him becoming Shogun. Because there was the Tycho before him and now there's like the Tyco's son or whatever. And I don't really understand a lot of the backstory and history. But what I glean from it is that he comes from a line

of warriors who were Shogun or like Shogun, and they just kind of gave up that title. But now it almost feels like fate is conspiring to make him take up that title again, to bring the people together and to save his people. So he's going to have to do the thing that he doesn't want to do. I'm working off the assumption that his son's death is going to motivate him to do a different move than he had planned.

Or we are going to learn he had other plans. his son just didn't know about it. The people just didn't know about it. I mean, which wouldn't be out of the ordinary for him, you know. He's always got extra stuff going on in his mind, extra plans going on. Like, this is on the surface. This is what everyone is supposed to see. But I actually have this ulterior thing going on or this alternate thing that I have ready to go. He had some letter about the cortisans and Edo. It was his will. Every time they're about to go into battle or something, they write a will. Right. So I don't know what the full details. of that will.

I just like, you know, whatever whatever they showed. Yeah, well, clearly whatever the courtesan said to him, it struck a chord and she made enough of an impression that he was like, okay, well, upon my death, she will be given some land

for her to do as she pleases. See, the show kind of like tricked me a little bit because I thought that she got into his head. And so some secretive plan was going to be executed on his order to take out his brother in his brother's unit and all that stuff. And then it turned out it was the son.

And I'm like, oh, shit. And so that really surprised me. And then it further surprised me when the sun slipped. But it's so real. It is. It's like, it was so wet out there. The sun has never seen battle before. Like, naturally, that could easily happen.

And he busts its head on the rock. He hesitated as well. Yeah. Like before he did that, it was kind of like this moment of like, oh, shit, I'm going to have to kill my uncle. And then he slips and hits his head. And it's like the most embarrassing, unceremonious. way to go.

Yeah. It's like, oh, whoops, I slipped and I fell. Yeah. Like, absolutely. It's terrible. Yeah. I will say the actor who played the young boy, he was really, really good because he aggravated the shit out of me.

He got emotions in me that I, it's like, I didn't like feeling, which is like, I just want to slap this kid so bad and put him in his place. But then in that scene with the dinner, when his dad was like, yo, he fell out of his eightfold fence for a second. He's like, don't accept that. The boy's perspective. perspective on everything changed radically after seeing the true colors of his uncle, right? And then he went from admiration and pleasure to anger, like seething rage that he had to hold back on

because he wanted to hurt his uncle now. And I thought it was cool to see that transition in his eyes. It almost makes me sad to see him go, but he was a punk. He was a punk. Yeah. I mean, if it wasn't now, he was probably going to go soon because he's reckless and irresponsible. He's not like his father who even when you watched him in the flashbacks he was just very calm always one one thing that kind of threw me though was when the boy when his son slipped and hit his head on the rock i'm like what happened to the other people that were with him because he wasn't alone like the uncle was vulnerable swordless he had no weapon on him right right and so someone else nearby could have in in that proximity could have killed him and they just left him alone or ran off

and did something else. That was very unclear. Yeah, who knows? It seems like potentially the type of idea that Yabushige's nephew probably would have, considering that he's really close to the courtesan, and maybe they came up with a plan to, you know, execute this thing. Who knows? It seems like the sort of thing that he and she might come up with. More and more, I'm finding that in the show, I'm so fascinated by the women and their stories. I thought that the scene with the elder courtesan was really, really interesting. And all the things that she was saying, my heart really went out to her.

To kind of be a young woman to be ambitious and build your future based off of the skills that you have, only to then lose it, I guess, when you become old, you know. It's not anything that you can control. And so you only have that power maybe for a certain amount of time or that fame for as long as your beauty lasts. And even what Toranaga's brother was saying about beauty, it's like beauty is fleeting and ephemeral. The way he said it was really poetic. The thing that sticks in my mind is like fucking a sunset, right? It's vulgar and gross, but also perfectly encapsulates that idea of like, you can't hold onto it.

Yeah. You know? I just felt my heart going out to this woman who, her beauty was her currency and it's no longer there. And she just wants to build a future for herself and women like her. Sure. And so I'm like, yeah, more power to you. Please make that happen. I wonder what the response is going to be to Blackthorn, you know, for.

being so disrespectful in that moment because he just he was like I'll screw all this you guys are stupid he's so frustrated with the situation but but he has every right to be frustrated as he is because he's promised these things and it's like these promises seem to keep getting pushed down the road or rescinded and it's like yo like I fulfilled my end of the bargain you're not fulfilling yours and you're expecting more and more patience out of me with like no end in sight to this right you know and then and now you're just going to submit yourself to this And then half your men got to die. Like, what happens to me?

Like, that's, you know, that's, that's a lot to put on him as well. Well, yeah. And I think it's just frustrating to him because he's like, I'm willing to fight. Like, I'm willing to use the things that I have at my disposal to help you in this fight. At least, like, let us die fighting instead of just surrendering and being like, okay, take my head now. He wanted to like, George Washington, that shit, man. He wanted to pop out of the woods and cut them down. While they're busy doing the honorable battle, he wanted to come out of him,

like barbarians you know yeah and more power to him i was like yo like you got a weapon there use him you know but uh tornaga is preoccupied with doing things the honorable way and like i guess in his mind his way while it would lead to the deaths of his men it would prevent the deaths of many more yeah ultimately i'm surprised he didn't try to negotiate at all but maybe it was a fruitless thing that my naive dumb brain is like oh but like his brother said i would like this land you know this would be kind of cool. And he didn't even try to offer that at all as a negotiating tactic. He's just like, all, all, I'll give in. Well, okay. So first of all, the land is already Yabushige's. But then again, it's not like

Torunaga hasn't decided to give something that was originally someone else's to someone else. Like he gave the cannon regiment to Yabushige's nephew, right? But I guess it's different when it is a piece of land. Maybe not. But also, it's like, come on now. Really, really, this sleepy little fishing village is going to be more enticing to your brother than the title of Regent. Right, no, you're right. Like, there's no competition.

I guess you're right. That would be a waste of time. Yeah, both for them and for the story. Yeah, you're right, that would be a waste of time. I don't know, I'm just grasping at straws because I'm like, do something. Yeah, it's frustrating because, like, you want him to win, you want him to be okay.

I mean, we've still got, like, a fair amount of episodes left. Two, according to that. I thought we have 10 in Toronto. I thought, too. I thought 10 as well, but it says episode 8 and 9, and that's it. There's no episode 10 in sight here. Okay, well, there's 10 episodes on IMD, so I don't know. Well, one can hope.

We all know this is moving towards war now. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a matter of when and how it's going to happen. I guess he's going to have to wrestle with the notion of, I'm speculating a lot, but he's going to have to wrestle with the notion that it, took his son giving his own life in the pursuit of taking out his uncle for him to realize the error of his own ways and what he should have been doing. That's crazy. Yeah, maybe. And we

don't know if he has any other children, but it would appear that maybe like that was his sole heir. And so now he has no son. You know, it was interesting though, because like leading up to the end of the episode, I was like, oh, I guess we're not getting too much action in this one. That's okay. It was interesting, nonetheless. And then suddenly, like, there's this attempted execution, there's attempted assassination. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, okay, it's getting nuts. And then it ends on a bang. I wish that I felt more empathy for the sun leading up to that moment, but he was just speaking so obsessively over the romanticized, how do you say that word? Romanticization. Yeah, romanticization of war. Like, he was so obsessed with it, it was hard for me to feel empathy for him.

It's like, I get that he's young, but God dang, like, he just wasn't listening. listening to his dad. He executed those people with the cannons. I'm like, it's like he kind of got what was coming to him. Do you think that if he had known the truth about his father's legend, it would have made him think twice

about what he did? No. No? No. He's so obsessed. He's so obsessed and gung-ho about this idea. If that was told to him, he'll be like, well, now's our opportunity

to correct your legacy. Like, he'll find a way, you know. Maybe. It's almost like dealing with a conspiracy theorist. Nothing you can do to, like, educate them out of their conspiracy theory. But could it not have scared him a little bit to be like, oh, shit. Like, my dad was just a kid. He did this thing, but it wasn't cool.

He's just a guy. His son would say, he's not the legend. His son would still say, well, at least you got to go to battle. At least you got to go to war. Like, he'll still find a way to romanticize it in his brain. I mean, that's my... Perhaps. It's a speculation.

Perhaps. That's my assumption about his character based on what we've seen of him throughout the Sure. Sure. So anyway, I enjoyed this episode. It was like, man. The ending. It's just so frustrating and so riveting. So you guys, thanks so much for hanging. I'm Jabby Koi. This is. Acharakook. Peace out.