Samurai Jack: XCIV
March 27, 2017 9:21 AM - Season 5, Episode 3 - Subscribe

Samurai Jack deals with internal conflict, external bleeding, and eventual fighting.
posted by filthy light thief (10 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Samurai Jack has always played with the strong contrast between placid serene contemplative scenes and yell and jump action violence. This season it's becoming a theme as well as a stylistic concern. Just how much can these two actually co-exist? Is violence ever principled?
posted by Paragon at 4:49 PM on March 27, 2017


Some notes:

The scene when Jack pulls out the dagger. When Phil Lamarr started screaming, it hurt to listen to him.

I hope they don't add a romance subplot to this season. The scene with the deer and the Daughters of Aku seem to foreshadow that.

I do like they have a nod to the fact that Jack has killed legions of robots, but no actual people.

I guess Jack's OK with killing people. Holy crap! Murder murder murder!
posted by zabuni at 8:17 PM on March 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


So I was wrong about just about everything in my last comment. Metaphor wolf is alive and doing whatever roving metaphor wolves do and Jack is perfectly capable of taking on the Daughters.

That said, I think this episode and the last episode taken together really highlight how good this show is at using visual style. Not just as a cool backdrop, but for flagging what's going on without dialogue. Jack starts out last episode using machines guns, his bike, he's covered in metal armor, when he's ambushed none of that works, he hides in maze like ruins, in a tomb for a king that apparently died on a throne, surrounded by coffins, holding an axe. Machines, confinement, darkness, power, all of this this is Aku's element, the daughter's element. This episode, Jack spends much of his time in a cave in a forest. He's down to a ragged loincloth and a dagger he pulled out of his own stomach. He fights in the open forest during a thick fog in a snowstorm. Nature, space, light, resilience, Jack's fighting in his element this episode.

And yeah, Jack may be late to the killing game, but he is making up for it with gusto. Apparently a knife to the gut, some delirium, and a cuddle with metaphor wolf are good for curing introspective crises. Though I kinda hope that when Jack figures out what exactly the daughter's upbringing was, he's going have another crisis. Talking about choice is a little hollow with brainwashed child soldiers.
posted by Grimgrin at 9:57 PM on March 27, 2017 [7 favorites]


My husband and I have been speculating that Jack needs to get the leader of the Daughters on his side. And now that it seems that all of them are dead except her (I'm betting that they're both going to survive that fall), it seems even more likely.

He seems to be back to his old self, without all the doubts. I noticed that the dream about his father was the first we've seen that wasn't devastating and horrible. I wonder if that had anything to do with it. That, and magic wolf.
posted by ceejaytee at 5:23 PM on March 28, 2017


The wolf lives! And it helps Jack!

A beautiful episode, akin to the Samurai Versus Ninja episode (Shinobi Shadow Warrior black and white fight scene).

On bit of nitpicking: didn't Jack also see men get cut down when he saw the Lone Wolf and Cub scene in Jack Remembers the Past? In fact, they also had the Tengai basket hats as the men who attacked his father, but unlike seeing his father cut down men in front of him, he was inspired by the Lone Wolf-type man to become a samurai (or at least a warrior).
posted by filthy light thief at 8:08 PM on March 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


I hope they don't add a romance subplot to this season. The scene with the deer and the Daughters of Aku seem to foreshadow that.

I don't see that happening - I saw the Daughters' comments on the weak doe and the powerful buck more about their broken understanding of power and social structure, not necessarily romance. To the Daughters, it seems that there are the strong and the dead, the weak have no place in the world. Jack, on the other hand, has been repeatedly the protector of the weaker. He is specifically fighting for others, to go back in time and prevent Aku from remaking the universe to his image, and enslaving planets to do his bidding. The daughters are fighting for another, Aku, but only to enable the continued enslavement of others.

I do like they have a nod to the fact that Jack has killed legions of robots, but no actual people.

I guess Jack's OK with killing people. Holy crap! Murder murder murder!


I feel like this season really amped up the robo-gore, while then strategically playing down his violence to the Daughters. Their deaths have not come from being cut in half, slashed to pieces, or beheaded - it's all single stab wounds, or falling to their death (if those were indeed fatal falls).

But yes, he transitioned from "oh shit, I just killed a person" to "you all made your choices, and now I will kill you all." But what is his reason for killing them outright, instead of wounding them? Because they stand in his way? Because they're going to kill him if he doesn't kill them first?
posted by filthy light thief at 12:49 PM on March 30, 2017


Because they're going to kill him if he doesn't kill them first?

Probably that. That the Daughters were an existential danger that couldn't be threatened away.

And yes...

Talking about choice is a little hollow with brainwashed child soldiers.

is pretty apt. Hopefully they'll explore that in the future.
posted by zabuni at 9:27 AM on March 31, 2017


The cinematography/animation in this show guys. I can't even.
posted by INFJ at 10:06 AM on March 31, 2017 [1 favorite]


I thought this one was a substantial improvement over the last. But Jack bled and bled so much, for so long, there was no way a mortal human could survive. I mean, he was filling that river with blood, for what seemed like miles! Did the time travel make him not just ageless, but unkillable too?
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:35 AM on April 1, 2017


I'd thought at first that perhaps the sword-wielding assassin would turn out to have Jack's sword, all unknowing, but nobody carried it over to this episode, so I suppose not.

(if those were indeed fatal falls)
At least one of them had her neck broken before she fell.
posted by Karmakaze at 10:44 AM on April 7, 2017


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