What a reveal…

It’s all come down to this. In a shocking finale that will likely be remembered as one of the best in television history, Shōgun revealed its true hand and the series’ true puppet master. It was a masterclass in pulling back the curtain. As both viewers and Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) dealt with the loss of Mariko (Anna Sawai) and the shift in power as Ishido made his move, they returned to Ajiro to find something that’s almost as shocking as their recent loss. Blackthorne’s ship, the Erasmus, was burnt to ruin, with Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) eventually demanding that his English captive build him a fleet of ships, taking away any hope of escape for both Blackthorne and the ever more desperate Yabushige (Tadanobu Asano). But Shōgun wasn’t done revealing its tantalizing secrets. Let’s break it down.

Who Won the Battle to be Shōgun?

Despite the fact that Shōgun is based on a book from 1975 and was previously adapted into a successful miniseries in the ’80s, the finale holds a massive surprise if you aren’t aware of how either of those stories end. Not only do we get confirmation that Mariko (Anna Sawai) did indeed sacrifice her life to save her loved ones including Blackthorne, but we also finally get to see who was really puppeteering the potential war and its players all along, which likely took most viewers by surprise. Instead of Ishido (Takehiro Hira) taking his victory alongside Lady Ochiba (Fumi Nikaido) as many expected, we get a shocking revelation as Toranaga reveals that it was in fact he who has been playing everyone all along. It was Toranaga who destroyed Blackthorne’s ship in order to keep him in Japan and make the Catholic council members join his side. He knew that Mariko would likely die but her sacrifice would mean that Ishido would lose his control of the Council of Regents and their families. He even revealed that Lady Ochiba had given up her quest for revenge — or picked the winning side — and agreed to keep the Heir’s army from fighting at Ishido’s side, meaning her (we assume formerly) betrothed has no authority in the wars to come.

In a change from the original book, we don’t learn this through Toranga’s inner monologue but instead through a powerful scene where Toranaga confesses to Yabushige, who is about to commit Seppuku for the betrayal of his one time lord that ultimately resulted in Lady Mariko’s death. As Toranaga quotes Blackthorne on the very first time they met, “It’s impossible… unless I win.” Yabushige realizes that anything is possible for Toranaga, even becoming Shōgun. It’s a fantastic reveal, especially as Sanada’s performance has been one of subtle control, making audiences believe that he had no interest in becoming Shōgun and instead was only worried about securing peace for Japan. It’s an impressive feat that, in a series based on real history and a bestselling book, this still feels like an epic reveal that changes everything we know about the season as we’ve watched it.

Will There be a Shogun Season 2?

The answer is a decisive no. While that is disappointing on the surface, it’s actually the right decision. Shōgun is a fantastic example of a true limited series done right. The creative team managed to adapt a 1152 page book into an incredible and dense 10 episode series. While there was a shift in perspective, the series stayed remarkably faithful to the book while expanding the purview of just who gets to be centered in stories like Shōgun.

There is no more story left to tell from Shōgun, other than one that would potentially continue the real historical events that continued after the book. But, for now, the creative team has said they don’t have any interest in doing that. Co-creator and showrunner Justin Marks told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this year. “We took the story to the end of the book and put a period at the end of that sentence,” he starts. “We love how the book ends; it was one of the reasons why we both knew we wanted to do it — and we ended in exactly that place.” As those who have seen the finale will likely agree, it’s a stunning and shocking ending that reframes the series and feels like a true ending, something we rarely get in the world of prestige TV, especially in one single season. In that way Shōgun sits alongside masterful TV like Watchmen and FX’s Devs, limited series that feel complete without the need to bridge out, as tempting as it may be with the massive success of the series.

With all of that said, there is the fact that James Clavell’s Shōgun was book one in his so called “Asia Series,” which focuses on a different region and era in each book. So there is a way that — with as much care and preparation as went into Shōgun — the right people could continue the series as an anthology that would be more of a spiritual sequel than anything else similar to Mike Flanagan’s Haunted series over on Netflix. But, in the later books in the series, there are more connecting characters and events, meaning that it could be adapted as more of a continual narrative depending on the success of later adaptations. Of course, all of that is completely hypothetical and now we can just be grateful for Shōgun and its masterful storytelling that have bought us an all-timer limited series just four months into 2024.