The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Shogun’ Finale Interview Special

Episode Date: April 24, 2024

Joanna is first joined by ‘Shogun’ cocreator Rachel Kondo and writer Caillin Puente to discuss writing the penultimate episode, Mariko’s fate, making Ochiba a more layered character than her book counterpart, why they decided to cut out the heir’s parentage as a plot point for the story, how Nagakado’s death came to fruition, and much more. Next, ‘Shogun’ writers Emily Yoshida and Maegan Houang talk to Jo about penning the script for the finale, the elderly Blackthorne sequences, what the final interaction between Toranaga and Yabushige says about the former, why the book’s ending was one of the toughest parts to adapt, and much more. Host: Joanna Robinson Guests: Rachel Kondo, Caillin Puente, Emily Yoshida, and Maegan Houang Producer: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on with Kate Middleton? Which cult is popping off right now? What the hell is a trad wife? And why are we so obsessed with them? I'm Jody Walker. And I'm Chelsea Stark Jones. And we're obsessed. Obsessed with all the pop culture happenings,

filling our group chats and 4U pages. And we want to talk about them with you. Our new show, We're Obsessed, is for all the things we're loving, buying, watching, listening to, and spiraling over right now. Follow the ringer dish feed on Spotify to listen to We're Obsessed every Friday. Hello, welcome back to the Presti-TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson.

We're here today with a very special Shogun interview episode, interview special. We've got four of the writers on this season of Shogun. We've got episode nine writers, Callan Puente and Rachel Condo. And then we've got episode 10 writers, Megan Wong and Emily Ishida. So we are going to start with Callan and... Rachel talking about episode nine and sort of broadly the season as a whole. And then we'll have a little break. And then we will go and talk to Megan and Emily about episode 10, the finale. So make sure you're up to date. I've watched all the way up through episode 10 because that is what we're covering today on these interviews. So let's go now to our conversation with Calum Puente and Rachel Condo about episode nine of Shooka. I'm so excited to talk to you guys about episode nine. It's such like it's a massive episode. of this season. So my first question is, how do you decide in the writer's room who gets to write episode nine? Oh, this is actually great because Rachel and I were just talking about this. I think

we had like a Mariko style secret long game for a really long time that we were angling for episode nine from the very beginning where I think I came on maybe a month after Justin and Rachel had started working on the book together as like a writer's assistant for maybe six months before the writer's room was hired. So we kind of had this this couple of month lead up where we would talk about the book every day and we got really involved in it. And this was the section of the book that spoke to us the most. And I think we just, you know, Rachel was saying like after hours, before hours, we would just always be talking about this part and got really kind of invested and pitched ourselves as Mariko and Achiba's number one fans. And I think tried to make it very clear that

this was the episode that we were angling to do together. Trying to make it very clear. that nobody else can write this episode. I love that. The death of Mariko is sort of like the moment of the story, your everything is leading up to this. Is that intimidating to consider as you're putting this episode together? And then can you sort of thread that back through, I don't know, the whole season leading up to it, knowing that you're aiming for this moment to land, Rachel, let's start with you. One blessing about being so immersed in this whole process is that you don't know what you don't know almost. And you are kind of just putting it down one word at a time and hoping it works out.

But I think, I mean, going into it, it felt very weighty, right? Like this is something that was possibly beyond our ken, possibly beyond maybe even our capabilities, we didn't really know. But what we did know was our affection for and interest in these two women and their relationship and their past and their histories and everything. And I think the most difficult thing was finding that way, we've talked about this before, Callen, but finding that sweet spot between it somehow surprising everybody, but also making it feel like this was an inevitability, right? And I don't, that's, that's the kind of stuff that you

just crossed your fingers for. Yeah, definitely. I think, yeah, that balance was, was really interesting to strike. And I think, like, getting to take it from the Yabushige and Blackthorn perspective, to remind ourselves as working through the episode, what is the outside perspective of what she's doing that we've been so set on for so long that to us feel so inevitable. And I think to a certain extent would feel inevitable to the audience, knowing that Mariko has been on this like path towards death, path towards vengeance and with her father's, the heavy weight of her father's legacy, like how do you kind of, yeah, make it satisfyingly surprising, whatever one kind of knows what feels like it should happen. Exactly. You've mentioned Oceba a couple times and something

Rob and I talked about in the main episode is this question of how different their relationship or how much more you invested in their relationship in the show than it is on the page and especially this stunning conversation in episode nine, which I think Rob said was the scene of the whole season for him. This is not in the book. This is something that maybe happens off screen perhaps in the book but doesn't really exist in the book. So when do you decide we have to see it?

And then how do you go about putting it together, Callan? Start with you. I can't remember the exact origin of it, but it felt like from the beginning, this was something we were so interested in. Like, as like, I think you'll appreciate this as a book reader. Like, there's moments of Oceba that are so rare and so interesting that I just wanted to know more about her. Like you see her through other people's perspectives and Tornaga and everyone's discussing what her machinations are and she's pulling the puppet strings. But then you see her and a lot of times we actually encounter her are these very gentle. interactions. So I think we always wanted to know more about what she was up to. And originally in episode six, we didn't have that flashback sequence about their childhood. We didn't have them being childhood friends. That kind of evolved after we were so committed to putting her more strongly

in episode nine. But I remember when Rachel and I were talking about the kind of battle of wills between Ishido and Mariko when she challenges him in front of everyone and tells him that she's leaving in episode nine, like, Ochiba has a very early interjection into the conversation that is very polite and short, but it's kind of just realizing what's going on and trying to shut it down in a way that Ishido doesn't realize he should have done sooner. And I think for us, that was like, oh, this is the other person who's playing at Rico's level. This is like, in this Battle of Manners, this woman who has had to wear a mask her whole life is the other person who understands the stakes they're playing with and the diplomatic crisis.

that could emerge from this. So it kind of in our heads is like, oh, Cheba needs to be the other person on side of this. And then that really, like, quickly, I think, evolved into what would their relationship have been like? And how can we make this, like, an emotional conflict between the two of them that became the scene that we see with Oceba and Mariko, kind of like ending up on opposite sides of this conflict, having fought very similar battles, but for different sides for so much of their life. This is something that we're so passionate about. There's, like, too much to say. It's fun to revisit it because it has been years.

Yes. It just, like Helen said, Ishido, he kind of comes across a little bit as a, not buffoon that's too strong, but, you know, he's, he's 10 steps behind, right? And he's, he's stuttering and he's a little blindsided. And that made a lot of sense because he doesn't know Mariko. He doesn't know her the way that.

Ochiba knows her. He doesn't understand how she thinks and and what is heavy on her heart. He doesn't understand any of that. He's just, he's coming at it very surfacy. And so that made a lot of sense. But what you're saying, Count, earlier about how we would always talk about these two women who had, I would say, in equal strengths of will, right, and equal capabilities. And just there, it was their loyalties that were different, right? I mean, Oteba had to have her loyalty to making sure her son survives. And then there's Mariko who is loyal to this idea of her father's legacy and making something out of it and where it was a stain, right?

And I don't know, it's just like hours of conversation about how, you know, we didn't want Ochiaba to come. across as mustache twirley, right? And, and this, she's, you know, evil and Mary goes good and this, this, this, it wasn't that. These are two women who are have the same circumstances and that their lives are completely structured by and, and ordered by men. And they just have two different expressions in their reaction to it. I was just thinking about one of your episode two moments where we have this like running theme obviously throughout the show of no one's ever alone and how like toronaga and like the seat of power everyone is like I mean very much in the the background of the show you see

everyone has ladies adleading and koshoes and samurai guards right behind them on sometimes on their side of the door but sometimes on the other side so there's this this element of never being alone that we explore with the warlords and we don't get to explore with the women I think until like maria go and shiba are just so famous in this world. They're so kind of notorious and getting to actually like examine it from their perspective was something that I think also was really interesting for us. The other time that that was fun, maybe it would have been fun to just do an entire show on this, but the scene where she's eating with Fuji before that dinner, you know,

they're slamming a rice because you have to so daintily consume your and barely consume your food in front of these men. Like, so much of their lives were behind the scenes or played out behind the scenes. And then performance on the other side of it. I love that you say that you did not want Ociba to come off as like an Ociba to come off as a sort of mustache-toiling villain because it's funny when I was first sort of starting research

for this podcast for the show and reading in the book. And then occasionally I would sort of wiki a name to just make sure that I knew what was going on. And when you, before the show premiered, the old wikis all had. to do with sort of the earlier miniseries or the book before they were sort of scrub cleaned and then like turned into FX wikis essentially. And for Ochi But it was like, you know, one of the main villains and like all this, you know, it was just like all talking about what a villain and a horrible, resentful person she was. And then that's just not at all sort of what we walk

away with around this character. One of the big changes and we can talk about it now because episode 10 is already out, people have already seen it, is deciding not to go down the path of the paternity of the air and her, you know, fear around discovery around who the real father of her son is, et cetera. Why did you decide that that was something, I like the decision. I'm just curious why you decided that was something you wanted to snip out. I'm going to toss this to Callan because I was so set on it happening that I can't remember. I think Justin just completely cut me out of the conversation because he's like, I can't. you're too passionate.

It's so funny. I was going to ask you to because we did shoot it. It's something that was taken out in post. Part of the reason that it worked for me seeing those early cuts and realizing it's not in there is, yeah, I think it does kind of paint her as a little bit more like Circey Lanister kind of vibes, which is nothing wrong with that. Like, she is this amazing maternal presence. But I think it was the same way with Mariko kind of fine-tuning her motivations and that like we realized in history. And in the flashback sequence, the involvement of Tornaga in her father's death and in convincing Mariko's father to rebel, which is kind of a theory of history that there's not a ton of evidence

for, but it is a bit compelling knowing Toguayatsu and Tornaga and the way they operated. I think it does make a lot of sense to me that Ochi Bo would credit Tornaga with her father's death. And like that would be enough motivation for her to have this grudge against him. whereas in the book, an element of it was she's secretly in love with him and all this other stuff that, like, I think got a bit fine-tuned as we were, like, working through their characters a bit more.

But, yeah, it was interesting to have that filmed. And I liked it because it showed us more sides of Oceba. Like, we kind of got a lot of things surrounding that with her relationship with Aileen, that, um, as fans of the podcast, like, listening to you guys, um, discuss, like, her relationship with I mean and stuff. And I think it, it does come across as, like, um, a bit mysterious now, which is also fun,

but there are scenes on the cutting room floor that I am a bit nostalgic for sometimes. Kind of jumping off of that. I should update what I was saying about the mustache twirling in the sense that I do think that Ochiba has moments of that. But she's not only that. Exactly. Yeah, I should just clarify

because that's the whole point of presenting many sides and dimensions of these women is that not just one-dimensionally villainous. Her getting to do her placing of Lord Edo on the councilor region is like the most massacch really one of her greatest moves. Yes. Well, in terms of the performance to the calibration of her voice, like when she uses the sort of like performance voice and when she doesn't is, again, that's just like peeling back

the layers of all the things she can be. And this is why we love talking to you is because, because this is a calibration. Like, you read as closely as you watch. And so few people kind of zero in on small, small calibrations like that. Oh, thank you for saying that. I think there are a few listeners who are like, we get it. You read the book.

I was like, well, but it's just like when you're doing an adaptation, the choices you make on what to change and what to keep and what to cut just teach us so much about what story you're really, want to tell here. That's like, it's so interesting to me. To that end, I wanted to ask you about another big change that results in sort of, again, a lot of your big changes are some of the juiciest stuff in this episode. Mariko and the Sepuku scene and Blackthorn being the one to step up for her, which just like made me cry. It was so beautiful and, um, romantic and not, you know, I mean, romantic is a word you could use, but just sort of like a just, just a beautiful gesture of someone who is like not understood someone and worked hard to understand them and put their own, you know, stubborn beliefs aside for the person that they admire or like, what was that choice like for you guys?

I think there was something interesting there, which I think you mentioned in your episode nine podcast, which is like in the book, Yabritschike does it or technically Mariko could ask someone else to do it, like one of the many. torn out of his guards were there, technically could have done it. But I think for our version of events, it was really important that she was making a statement that involved Kiama. And if he wasn't going to do it, to kind of communicate the gravity of what she was doing as a Christian,

to do it herself and make it actually suicide instead of being killed by someone else. So I think that decision was really important for us. And I'll just like my history note that I'll have to put as a footnote is our historian professor Frederick Crimes would kill me if I didn't mention it. But for women, it technically isn't Sepuku. It's suicide. It's only for the cipuku's the male sim line. So I'm like, I'll throw that in there. Yeah, and I think the Blackthor element of it is virtually, you'd probably be way more eloquent in describing this, but how to, yeah, get him more involved in the way that actually shows his progress as a character, how he's actually kind of coming to terms with what she's doing and finally understanding it, which I think was different. The pacing of our Blackthorn's journey was different than I was in the book. And having him, Like, I'm sure you got into this with episode 10 and, like, his suggested attempt at Sepuku, like, which happens so early in the novel and his understanding of what Sepu means, what he tries to do it himself.

I think, like, we were trying to think, like, what is our version of that that isn't culturally insensitive? It isn't the white guy barreling in and not understanding what's going on. It's him kind of observing how important this is to her. And it's him finally internalizing her motivations a bit and kind of making this big gesture. but yeah, Rachel, I'm curious, your take. No, I mean, I think you covered most of it, but I think everything surrounding Sepuku for us as a writer's room was very tricky.

We, it was, as we know, the novel had it happen very early on, and this is how he's kind of brought into the fold of the village and seen as more one of them, is this attempted Sepaku very early on that would have probably been around episode four, right? And for us, we as a writer's room, we just were like, oh my God, that's too.

Soon we ourselves don't feel like we have a grip on the, and I don't think we ever could quite have a grip on it. And so we just tabled it for a long time. I don't think we ever knew that if it had to convince us that it needed to come back versus us trying to find a place for it to come back. And ultimately, I think it just came in conversation, right? The Sepabu was seen for Mariko where I think we were just kind of throwing things out there.

And one of us says, what about Blackthorn? You know, it just, that's kind of how, like, nothing was planned. And it just kind of, it might have even been thrown out as like, well, what if Blackthorn did it as a, and then silence. Oh, yeah. which is exactly how the death of Nagakato came about. Matt Lambert, right of episode seven, he was making this like running joke for many weeks

because we all loved sweet, sweet Nagakado so much. And he just wants his father's approval so bad. And there's no one who's really teaching him, holding his hand and teaching him that this game he's playing is different from the game everyone else is playing. But we were just like so emotionally tied to him. And Matt would just continually joke like,

what if we killed Magikato? and then we got to episode seven and it kind of came this moment where we all just were shocked into silence when he suggested it and we realized he actually meant it this time and it actually made sense for the story and what it would give us to explore Toranaaga's

struggle a bit more in depth whereas he is obviously this like kind of opaque character and like to get that moment in episode 8 was obviously with Hiramatsu as well like how we can kind of like deepen Toranauga's struggle and externalize it a little bit for the audience with these

two massive losses. Like, I just remember so distinctly, I had an index card next to my desk where I counted how many times Matt joked that we should kill Nagakato. And then everyone's just like shocked when we were like, oh my God, he's right. We should kill Nagatana. This is horrible. And we loved him even pre-ponytail. Before we, it was cast, before we saw the ponytail, the smile, the, you know.

It was just so bouncy. It was just like the bouncyiest ponytail I've ever seen. I wanted to ask you about Nagacado and Hiramontz. So I love this, the choice you guys made to tally up these losses for Tornaga before we get to Mariko. And part of it has to do with sort of the way that, you know, with my 2024 brain reading the book, I'm like, oh, sure. The woman, the main female character sacrifices herself so that the guy, like, can win the day and her abusive husband survives and all this sort of stuff. But she dies. she's so special and she dies.

And so I think like two things, a couple things that you did. One is that, you know, sort of making sure that we fully appreciate Fuji, making sure that we fully appreciate Ojiba and like, you know, digging into these other women around Mariko. So she's not like, you know, Kiku and all of them. And then, yeah, a couple guys, you know, drop along the way too. So it's not just this like one sort of optically, we've seen this story before, uncomfortable moment. Was that on your mind at all? or am I just being linked to 2024 brain about it? You know, I feel silly saying this like I always knew this

because I don't know anything. And it took a long time to get to this place. But I didn't see it so much as, you know, we were losing America as much as it was. She got out of it, what she desired, you know. I was talking to Justin about this last night where there's the social structures that you're born into, right? there's the day and age you're born into. And in her time, she was considered a very ashamed woman,

a stained woman who comes from this treacherous line. But yet there is, you know, how did she pull off what she pulled off? And how was it that she was so effective? And I think it's because she carried with her a consciousness and a sense of purpose and how she remained. faithful to that and dignified in that pursuit was why she kind of transcended her the social strictures that she was kind of found by. And I don't know. I think it felt like a release in a way. Maybe just because we had been stewing over it for so long that that's what it felt like to me. But I do see the 2024 understanding of it and like receiving of it. But I don't know.

I think that's just my two sense, Callan. I'm not sure how you feel. I think there are moments when I think about it from like an anti-Toranaga perspective of like knowing that he, for his purposes, he was essentially using her as a pawn and I get very angry. But I think generally, yeah, she did accomplish exactly what she said out to. And I think you're totally right. I think, yeah, and I think Tornaaga basically announces to her,

I'm going to use you as a pawn, right? And she says, great, because I'm going to use the circumstance as the way in which I make meaning out of my life. So my life can finally say something. So, yeah, it doesn't feel like she was ever taken advantage of. It felt like they were mutually kind of agreeing that this is what we need to do. And to be clear, like, I don't think that that's, that's not how I read the story the way that you told it. I think in revisiting at least some of the scenes or impressions that I got from the original mini-series, I think it was told, with love and respect to that miniseries, which is iconic,

like in a bit more sort of a tropeier way than I think the way that you guys decided to tell it, which is just like a bit more nuanced. Again, with love and respect to the original miniseries. I wanted to ask about specific language that you got to use in episode nine, because you got to bring in from Hosokawa Gracia, the historical inspiration for Mariko, her actual death poem you include in this episode. Can you talk to me about your decision to do that?

Callen maybe starting with you. Yeah, we were just talking about this because we love it so much. Yeah, I think a lot of what we did was so research informed. And obviously the book was so well researched and so much of it was accurate. but it was also just accurate to its time. So the scholarship that James Coselle was using was written by European scholars. And he didn't have a lot of primary sources in Japanese. And obviously it was in the 70s.

So it is like a very specific kind of version of history that I think we had the benefit of getting all these primary sources and having our experts like in Japan. But this was even before this was before the historians like came on board and for our, who is like our guiding light for history. I'm so helpful in answering our 6 million questions. But this was like in the writing phase that I was just telling Rachel. I remember like a very distinct 3 a.m.

like reading and coming across that and being so excited that we got to take the poem and slightly like tweak our version of the translation a little bit to keep like her historical model kind of alive in the story. But the poetry was very tricky in terms of translation. And we either took directly from the book and kind of knew it was going to be wrong and then tweaked the Japanese translation of it or we would get a historical poem with the help of Frederick and then our translators and to kind of preserve the necessary meter for the type of poetry games they were playing.

It needed to be a very specific type of poem. And you can't really write a poem in English and expect it to translate into that exact meter. So, you know, we would borrow a little from the book and then a little from history and then kind of through the translation process. merge them together to our version of the poems. That was always fun. It's kind of a smaller version of what the whole production was. Like just kind of a little bit of this and a lot of that and everybody is paying in on how to blend it. My last question for you, I'm delighted that I get to talk to you about this sort of like a full week after episode nine hit. So you guys have seen sort of the range of reactions. I guess my question, my last question is, has any

surprise you either about the reaction specifically to episode 9 or about the reaction to the show in general? Surprised and delighted, surprised and slightly exasperated. Like, you know, any of that, what has been your reaction to the reaction to this episode

you put together? Justin introduced this thing to me where people are showing or are filming their reactions in real time. And so he brings them up for me to see. And I'm kind of shocked that it, you know, it has the effect that it does. Sometimes the effect is

deep anger. And then I am rattled for a long time because I feel worried. I feel a little bit guilty. These are like real emotions that are coming up from just reactions to the reactions. So, yeah, I think my main surprise, honestly, has been having folks from every walk of life. I mean, the foreman who's doing the renovation on our house to my parents, my parents who aren't avid TV watchers at all, you know, the postal guy in our local post office. Like, everybody has an opinion. And I think that's great. And I, that, you know, it's, it's very touching that people want to talk about it and share about it and think deeply about it. I'll go a little bit more lowbrow with memes.

Justin and I, like, every day with Moika, we're just so excited. We're like, we just can't wait for the Fuji memes. And I think I would have been heartbroken if they hadn't actually happened. But of course they did it because she's incredible. But it was in a lot of the scenes with Fuji where she is like sometimes the start of the scene, but she's just reacting. her coverage would be last of the day because she's not the one who has a lot of dialogue.

So we're spending all these takes and all this time on like in the dinner, what we used to call the dinner date from Hal scene with Boutaro and Mariko and Blackburn and boo-hmm. It's like so much time

and so much going on that we're covering everyone else. And then the last shot of the day is Moika's coverage and she's just doing the most incredible comedic work with her little glances. In one take.

In one take, yeah. And we would just be like holding our breath waiting for her coverage at the end of the day, like, yes, it's finally happening. We get to watch her. And I'm just so excited to see people have that exact reaction and fall in love with her. That was really satisfying. And then I think the other thing that stuck in my mind is very satisfying is I've seen, you guys have mentioned this, I think, and online of people characterizing Torinaga as committed to the bit, which I think is just like the most perfect

encapsulation of Toranauga. And there's like historical Easter eggs that like nobody could know existed in that like when we were talking about. talking about, and we're writing the kind of documents that the characters all have on screen. So much research goes into most of those and then you never actually see them. But Tornaga's resignation letter in episode three that Hiramatsu delivers so smugly and says like, I'm so sorry, you're down a member of the council. You can't actually vote. The resignation letter is essentially the same as like Pranaga's episode eight. I'm sick. I can't. I can't come. I'm so sorry, but I have to resign.

that is like a prime to begawa yatsu move in history that he used to do all the time and reading that and realizing like, oh, that's actually what he did. He would just pretend he was sick to get out of things and would win all these like amazing like political gains because he did that. So kind of having this like joke amongst us about him and then seeing seeing like people watching it have similar reactions has been really, really fun. Can I also add about going off of people people's deepening interests in these performances. That has been the most gratifying is that I had a conversation recently with somebody who was commenting about the character of Yavishige.

And the person I was speaking to said, you know, I think that Tadanovo Asano has a great future head of him. He's a great career. His career is going to explode from here on. out. And I gently had to say, well, actually, he's been exploded. He is. He is. Yeah. And it's just what's so gratifying is how everybody is discovering these incredible talents. And they're now, people are making these memes out of them. And they're, I don't know, it's kind of, it was the point of everything. My phone background is the picture of Fuji holding the

gun on Omi. And it has been for now years. I'm like, oh, yeah, wow, now people know what this is. That's so crazy. That's amazing. Thank you so much for the chat. I really appreciate. Congratulations on the incredible season and the incredible episode. And I just think you guys did an incredible, incredible job adapting this very challenging, very long story and just into 10 episodes. Really, really good job. So thank you. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigue. Ask your doctor about Zepbound, Terseptite, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zetbound is a prescription

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Call 1-800-545-99 or visit Zepbound.lily.com. All right, let's go now to our conversation with Megan Wong and Emily Yoshida about episode 10, the finale of Shogun. All right, well, I want to start with something that I am still trying to sort of break down how I interpret it and it's meaning. So I'm so glad to have you two here to explain it to me. The elderly sort of blackthorn sequences, which are not real question. Can you explain to me sort of like how you?

you interpret those, why you wanted to include it, what it means for you in this final chapter in the story? There are like a flash forward dream. Obviously, they're not real because he throws the cross away at the end of the episode. But I think what I enjoy in the episode is that they're used to different effect throughout. So at first, I think the first flesh word for me is like the way life flashes before your eyes of the things you want and the things you dream of. And kind of knowing that that's what Blackthorn maybe has hoped for all his life is to be an amazing, ambitious, successful explorer who goes back to England and lives in this beautiful manor house and lives so long he can see his grandchildren. And so to understand that that's almost like where I think we saw what he had desired

at the beginning of his journey. And of course, he's still holding on to Mariko in that vision of it. and then the transformation that he is ultimately going through to give up that ambition that he once had. I was just going to add on to that. Yeah, I think that it's almost like he's losing it. And I think that's also part of what, you know, we see him kind of splash back to it again when he's, you know, about to commit Sepaku

or have his Sepaku attempts. And I feel like that's something he lets go of in that moment. Like that's part of the ego death or whatever you want to call it in Western terminology that happens there. It's like this dream that he'd been hanging on to all the way up, probably until Mariko's death, he has to say goodbye to that as well. And there's a kind of grief in that. I love that. Okay.

I'm so glad he brought up the Sepaku scene because we had been talking sort of throughout the season. The book readers are like, where's the Sepaku scene? It happened so much earlier in the book. And Justin had sort of indicated that when we talked to him that two things. He said, one, it was a scene that he personally, who wasn't speaking for all the writers, but he personally was sort of like scared of or nervous about. And then the other thing he said was also he kind of thinks it comes to the wrong place in the book. So, you know, I'm curious if you agree with him on that or how you came to the decision to put it here in the finale.

I think we always sort of bumped against it coming. It comes about halfway through the book. It actually would have landed in the other episode. I co-wrote the fourth episode when he arrives in Adjido and is being asked to learn Japanese in a month or something like that, which is also its own kind of pushing credibility thing. I think we really try to keep it realistic. You know, even acknowledging the Blackthorn is this polyglot. He picks up a lot of languages. he's obviously really smart about all this stuff.

But I mean, like, Japanese is a completely different language than Portuguese and Dutch and all these things. And it's, it's, we wanted to keep that realistic because I think that makes him more empathetic in a way to me, to me, I think. It's debatable whether he like truly understands what he's doing in that scene. I think that's up for debate for, you know, if I read the book. But it still felt like it was, it was fast for him to actually go that far, whether he, He truly believed in this act and understood it on the same level that the Japanese characters did. Or if he was willing to even, you know, almost sacrifice himself in that way. And I think it just felt like it made more sense at the end of this journey.

Like, I feel personally like he learns so much from Mariko throughout the series, but especially in her death. And I think that's when it made the most sense. has had an epiphany from what he has seen in Osaka, and it just felt much more earned there. I think the other subtle thing is what I love about what we changed is in the book, he is threatening to commit Sapuku to save the villagers. And he's also doing that in this scene. But I think because it's after we've actually watched him go on a journey

where he's learned to value the villagers' life, I sort of see the scene as like the reflection of the gardener dying in 105. where he now deeply understands the extent to which his actions can affect others and that, you know, the gardener sacrifices his life to keep the peace among the village. And I think that's, it's through Mariko and also these other experiences that now he can finally say, okay, I think I'm, I get it. I'm willing to sacrifice myself for a greater, for something bigger than just myself. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's like another part of it that I think just plays better ultimately after we've watched him go on all these different journeys learning within Japan.

Rob's not here, but as, like, Yabushige's number one fan, he wanted me to ask you guys about this final interaction between Tauranauga and Yabu Shige, which is so important to everyone at home understanding who Tauranga is. Not to, like, constantly invoke the book, but this is like an internal monologue in the book. you know, it's almost like an if I did it moment for Tornaaga in the book. And here,

like that, obviously that's not going to work in the medium of television. So I'm curious why you decided that Yabashige should be the one to sort of receive this information and I don't know, what that says about Tornaaga in this moment,

Yabashige in this moment, and how you sort of handle, I guess, a mask drop moment like this in general. I think he does say some stuff to Yabu before he dies. I guess I'm using Yabu to refer to book Yabu because that's his name in the book. Yeah, I think the whole my plan, the Sekihakahara part of it, all of that is his internal musing. So yeah, it's a little hard to do that. I mean, in general, he gets incredibly gutsy to compress all of the stuff that everybody has wanted throughout the entire book and to basically like three pages at the end of the book and be like, that's it.

But I think on a narrative level, like maybe, yeah, not quite like on the Tornaga character level of why he decides to do it this way. But I think it's incredibly satisfying to have Yabusha, all people who just throughout the whole thing has been like, please tell me your plan. I just want me in on the plan. Yeah. And he gets it, you know, at the last possible moment. And there's a nice bit of dramatic irony, I think, there. I think that frankly the ending of this book is one of the hardest things that we faced in adapting the novel. I think it's what makes the finale a huge challenge too.

And I just think this is a hilarious tidbit that Justin's reference for it was the 25th hour. Yes. I forgot about that. Yeah. That's kind of what Emily and I were working off of when we were breaking it, was that Justin really wanted us to feel like the 25th hour. I just think that's a fun anecdote about how we were thinking. about it in the room. But we also always knew that we had to end the episode with Tornaaga alone. Something Emily and I really fought for was getting the scenes of Toranauga swimming and camping by

himself because it's this really small thing in the book that just stood out to both of us as just a way to show that he's really finally alone. Like when he lets Tetsuko go, it's kind of like he's embracing the fact that everyone is really his pawn. Everyone is his falcon. And that means like letting them fly. My interpretation throughout, and part of it is Hirouki Sonata's incredible performance, but part of it is also how you're writing the character, is that this version of Tornaga, the word I've been using is softening, but it's just more like it's a more empathetic where I feel like I have more access

to this version of Tornaga than the version of Tornaga in the book. And not just this is my plan, but sort of emotional access to him. So I was wondering, like, if when you were reading that character on the page, if you were like, this is a character where we want to maybe shift slightly for a more modern audience, or if that's something that you feel like, Hiroki himself, like, brought to it? Or what do you think about this version of Tornaga? I think in general, Tornaga is an incredibly hard character to adapt for all the reasons. We've just been talking about how much is internal, how much he, you know, keeps his plans

to himself, and that's, you know, that's how he wins. but we as the reader with the book are granted the privilege of seeing all of this. But not even all of it, because the revelation at the end of his plans is also a revelation to us. Like, we know, you know, his strategic moves and all of that, but even we as a reader as the kind of omniscient reader, don't really get all that. I think we really, like, with the swimming, all of that, we really did want to try to show that he is human on some level. And I think we do that a little bit with some of the relationships he has with people. But I think mostly there's just something about Heruki's performance where you can see how much work. Like mental and emotional work is going into all of these ruses, especially when it comes to the expense of people that he really cares for.

Right. Like, that it is not, he is not just this cold calculating monolith that he bleeds to. And I think that's all. And that's the performance there. One thing that has really struck me in watching the episodes as someone who wrote on the show is just how important it is that Sapuku seems so scary and so tense. And I think in reading the book, it kind of just feels like, okay, they did Sapukes. That's kind of how I felt reading the book. It doesn't feel as intimidating and awful.

And I think that... Well, it happens all the time. It happens. It happens all the time. Constantly. Because it's withheld more in the show and you see the performances, I think especially of Hiramatsu and Torinaga,

and then you see Mariko and Blackthorn. It gives what Torinaga is doing a human weight implicitly because he's watching these horrible things he doesn't necessarily want to happen. And I think we did a great job as a room. It's something I'm really proud of, of kind of shifting it to feel like Tornaga's carrying the weight of the future of Japan on his shoulders. So he's allowing these horrible things to do,

but, you know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And that's what he believes he's doing. And I think Hero really brings that out in his performance, in addition to, I think, just the way that things like that in the book, I don't think you can feel the gravitas and intensity of them to the extent that you can

when people actually do it on screen and other people watch. And I also think the direction for all the Japanese characters, you know, I think a thing I was very aware of from day one coming into the room was even in this for its time, very, you know, egalitarian

and empathetic portrayal of Japanese people at a time when, you know, a lot of Americans still weren't exposed to Japanese narratives. there was still sort of this fetishization of stoicism. Japanese society does that too. The whole Bushido thing is basically a myth that was built up, you know, both in the Tokugawa Shogunate and then also like, you know, in the more modern era, like this sort of,

it's the return with a V but of Japan, you know. And so, you know, there's a lot of that that's bullshit. And, you know, and that goes into this thing of, oh, well, they're just committing Sepuku all the time. Life is cheap to them. You know, they feel nothing. They're so, they're so zen that they, like, don't even feel any of it. And I think when you have an amazing cast like we do and directors who are choosing to show the humanity in these very extreme and scary acts, I think that's super important. Speaking of people just sort of, I don't know, either committing Sepuku or, in general, offering themselves left and right, I want to talk about Fuji.

ending here and how I almost threw my book in the trash when I got to Fuji's ending in the book. Where, I mean, you know, again, there's a road in the book towards understanding a different approach towards this idea of death and having control over her and what that means. But in the book, Fuji's like, I really want to die and target and it's going to let me die. And that's her victory. And here she gets to live. She gets to sort of say no to John in a really interesting. scene and then I was telling you guys before we started recording that I absolutely just like

dissolved into tears during the scene between John and Fuji out on the lake. Talk to me about Fuji, how you wanted her, our babe, our number one, we love her, how you want her story to end, and those two scenes in particular. I mean, well, first of all, I'm just so ecstatic that people love Fuji as much as we loved writing her as much as I loved writing her. I think I had one of the first episodes that really got a lot of Fuji in it. And so I think I spent a lot of time being like, you know, just trying to think about her not just as this tragic figure, but as a person with, you know, a stubbornness and this real kind of personality and strength to her that you wouldn't necessarily get at first glance. And I think, I think in some ways having her, even though, you know,

she like Mariko just wants to commit Sepuku and be allowed to do that at the end of her service to Tornaga, it would feel a little redundant, I think. And I also think that's just not the journey that Fuji's on in our story. You know, I think she and Mariko are on very parallel paths, and that's how they relate to one another. But I think their destinies are very different in our version. I mean, I think Emily just kind of sum that up perfectly, honestly. I also love the scene on the boat.

And I know that, you know, it was Rachel's pitch to have it come back of like, let your hands be the last to hold her. And I think it was really important to us in the room to depict all of the women in a different way and not sort of, you know, make it so simple that they all just kind of want the same ending, which is to die. I think, like, you know, side effect of all of that is it does a lot for Blackthorn as well. I think that showing how much she has grown to understand Fuji to really like her, um, aside from, oh, understanding her ways, understanding, you know, the, the, the struggle

that she's had. But just like her as a human being, I think that is such a. a journey for Blackthorn as well. When he's just like, Fuji, best none, I was like, good job, buddy, he did it. I think there's originally a line in it where he's like, I want Fuji to stay, like, whatever, in Japanese, like, and I think he does like the, it's more like, I command you as my, my, uh, consort too, but it's clearly like the still, still the set of it like, but I want, I'm going to miss you.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll all miss her. Yeah. On, okay, so on the subject of wanting to make sure that each woman in the story sort of has her a distinct path, I love the dramatic change around the Oceba character and particularly like the Oceba-Marico relationship, how that we were girls together, ideas so important to them. And the beautiful use of the poetry here in the finale, the, but thankfully, the wind, which just like I've been thinking about nonstop since I saw it. Talk to me about Achiba and Mariko and what you wanted to do there with that character. It's such a big turn that,

you know, I think we kind of had no choice but to emphasize the extent to which Mariko and Achiba had a bond, like really bring that out from the book. It's in the book, but as you know, it's like spare lines. It's not as developed. And you just won't believe, I don't think you can really believe that Oceba would find what Ishido did was so disgusting and so terrible that she's going to change sides unless she also has a personal emotional connection to Mariko. So that was just almost, I think, in a way, it's like dramatic necessity to make that end feel earned, in my opinion. Otherwise, I think you'd be wondering, like, why would she do such a thing? I think of so much of screenwriting and adaptation is, you know, finding wherever you can to make things personal.

And in history, the outrage over Hosecawa Garcia's death was because of her general reputation that she was just known as being a really smart, accomplished, like very, very admired person in Japanese society. That is not as personal as we grew up together. And so, and we are even like using the history as well, just giving. and who their fathers are, you know, it's a little bit of a stretch, but we're taking history as our, as our, um, inspiration or jumping off point, I guess. But I think anywhere that you can make a face to face meeting, um, have more weight, uh, have personal weight and not just political weight. Um, we just tried to do that wherever we could. I think that the wind, the use of like the idea of wind in this episode has been, was really just based on the idea of, again, some of the themes we have

throughout the entire show, which is control. And when she says, but the wind, it feels like the letting go of things fly off, things that you love, they go and carry on in some way. And then I'm like crying. That's embarrassing. No. But then it's like,

I just witnessed the wind. You know, like people think I control it. But in reality, I'm just kind of puppeteering everyone because I'm so observant. of who they are. So I just think that was like a really lovely way to integrate those ideas about bait and control. That's beautiful. I love that you're crying. I'm genuinely serious. I cry all the time. I love this. No, I watched the last two episodes because, you know, we've been doing these interviews for them. So I watched the nine and ten back to back. And I was like, how can I have

seen this before multiple times? I wrote it. I know what's happening and I'm still like bawling years. I know. It's a lot. I mean, I think that that's also just something I love so much in the book that I think we really did strive to capture on the show is just that Blackthorn, someone that came to Japan thinking he could control the pieces on the chessboard, and in the end, he's just a pawn. And my concern always was, are people going to watch this show and be so worried it's a white savior your story and not be into it and get frustrated by just the makeup of it. Right. Well, in reality, the end of it is the opposite.

It's actually saying, like, you're just a small person among, like, these giants, a country that you can't even bear to understand. So that's just something I feel really proud of that we were able to capture within the show because, you know, that was just always a concern I had. Like, well, people get to the end when they see that this isn't what, you know, it first appears to be. My reaction was less worry and more frustration. I was like frustrated by those takes at the beginning and I was just like, give it a beat. I'm like, do you really think FX and this team is going to give you that story right now? But anyway, I understand why people are, we've had so many versions of it

and we were also in the middle of having that exact same conversation around Dune 2. So it was just like in the water. I think both stories are really interrogating it though. Like I really, I'm a big fan of the dudes, especially the second one. And I think it feels like a good moment to do that. I just feel like, I feel like people are ready for that. And I think, you know, I don't even think that James Clavel went out to write a white savior story. I think he, from the beginning, like that that's not what the book is about. And unfortunately, you're not a control of how people, you know, it's a wildly popular book, like however many million people read it. And some of them are going to take the wrong thing away from it, but I don't think that that was ever the intent of the book to begin with.

I can't tell you the number of times I think about the fact that he was a Japanese prisoner of war, just in part because my grandfather was also a prisoner of war, but in Germany, but also just the idea that someone who was undeniably put through extreme torturous circumstances would then want to learn about that culture so deeply that he would spend years writing a book like this, it's just a really fascinating perspective that I just really value and I think it's so important to try and understand why you did it even with the flaws

that people who obviously analyze the book see but the spirit of it is just such deep empathy and curiosity for other people that it's really been amazing to see that people watching it are sort of getting that from the show they're engaging with the material I think the way that he intended for people to engage with it. Yabu, for me, like, one thing I really appreciated in his performance, Yabashige,

sorry, we just think of him as Yabu always, is just the way in which he really embodies, like, that sense of PTSD of just, he seems like a caged animal trying to break out all throughout this episode. And it was just hard for me to almost not feel that same reflection of James Clovell's experience in a way of like when you're just literally trapped. I mean, I've no idea what it was like for him, but I just found all of those ideas and themes almost like present within his performance specifically. And just, I don't know, I just, I, you know, Yabashige really broke my heart this episode in his performance and just everything that we were putting him through. It just was a lot.

Speaking about like having empathy for people who do a bad question. questionable thing. Talk to me about Buntaro's ending in this, in this episode or in the book and how you feel about it. I think it's, it's right straight from the book, no? I will admit, you've read the book far more recent than I have, and my copy is in Iowa right now, so I couldn't even look at it for reference. But yeah, I mean, I think, I think it's interesting to see both of these men who have been so profoundly impacted by Mariko from completely different angles as well find some sort of common ground

or almost just be just as lost at this point in the story. You know, I think we never want to excuse Buntado's behavior and treatment of Mariko ever, but he's been a very, you know, he has really been through it, let's just say, in our story.

Blackthorn's going to have a really hard time going forward until he becomes fluid in Japanese. I always watch Ted and I'm like, this panic sets in of like, he's just really on his own, just on a linguistic level alone. But there is something that he and Buntaro share

by the end that transcends language. And I don't even know if I could put that into words, But there's a reason that they gravitate together, share the sake. Like, they can't speak to one another. They can't have a conversation, but they understand something of what the other one is going through. I always felt like Buntaro is kind of on a journey of self-awareness. He's just so unable to understand and accept kind of his role, I think, in Mariko's misery. and I think at the end when he, it's almost like he can value something that she's able to see within himself that he can value something she valued and that's all he has left. So sort of a subtle thing. But that's sort of how I always interpreted the ability to go to someone he loathed. It transcends words, but it's also just feels like he can finally see himself a little bit and like what really mattered to him just for a moment. The last question I have for you, I love that. And the last question I have for you is also a wordless moment, which is

is this final look between Blackthorn and Toranauga before Tornaug, where you see Tornauga alone, as you mentioned, you want to end with Tornaga alone before that you get this sort of like nod recognition exchange. What in your mind is your interpretation of that moment? I mean, my interpretation, I think this is how we talked about in the room as well, is that on some level, Blackthorne knows. He knows how he's being used. And the thing, the growth moment is that he's okay with it, that he is going to be at peace with where he is right now, you know, watching the rocks grow

and not be struggling, not be Yabushige on the boat, ripping his shirt off and trying to, like, get out of whatever he's in. Like, that's such an interesting character beat that I don't think I've ever seen in anything else before. Kind of radical in a way to have your hero be like, I'm okay essentially being a caged tool who, like, on some level knows he's going to be rebuilding this boat forever. He's content being the pawn. He never thought he would be and never wanted to be. It's pretty, it is a very strange way to end, like a journey for a main character of a show, but that I love. I do remember that's always how Justin and Rachel wanted to end the show also. So that was something, that was a moment that we were always. working towards as a room, which I think just is a really good example of the incredible intent that

they had as the showrunner and creator of the show. So just kind of know our North Star, where are we going to for this whole season. There's also kind of the nice juxtaposition of Toranaaga having just delivered this entire monologue about the future, about, you know, all of his plans. and, you know, really able to get out of this conflict, this predicament he's just been in and start to plan for his legacy, essentially. And then you have Blackthorn who really is in the moment. He's been humbled to be in the moment and to be grateful for it. And so you have the future and you have the present sort of just like side by side like that.

Can I just bring up my other favorite look from the episode though, where I honestly audibly almost gasped because I was like, this is so brilliant. which is when Yabushige turns to look at Torunaga before he cuts off his head, I was like, this man will never change. It's almost like one last plea of like, look at me, maybe you won't kill me. I was just like this actor.

He is literally, I love Asana. I'm so obsessed with this son. I was like, that is so good. Thank you. Excellent. You just made.

Rob's entire life. He's going to be delighted. We ended with Yabushige celebration. Thank you both so much for this chat. I really appreciate it and for your amazing work on this show. I hope you're extremely proud of it. You should be. And I appreciate it. All right. That does it for this interview special of episode 9 and 10 of Shogun and for our Shogun coverage in general. It is over. I'm devastated. It's been such a fun time to talk every week with Rob Mahoney to have Kai Grady on producing the episodes. We've had a great time. We'll miss it. Elsewhere on the Prestige TV feed. Who's to say? Some stuff may or may not be coming. We'll see. But hopefully we'll be back again on a regular basis soon. And as always, the email inbox for

top knots and man funds at gmail.com is still open. And we'll see you soon. Bye.