Tag Archives: JackisBack

XCIV

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“Sometimes we have to be willing to die in order to begin living again.”

It’s one thing for a show to be better than you remembered it being…it’s another thing entirely for it to be actually true. This episode to me was about someone facing his past in order to overcome his present, to help him cope with his future. Is a person defined by what motivates him, by what actions he takes, by what choices he makes? For the first five minutes we see Jack losing a lot of blood. This was borderline hard to watch, especially when he pulled the knife (finally) from his abdomen once he found shelter in a cave. To have a situation not only challenge you but take everything out of you…The feeling of being physically exhausted, the feeling of being mentally spent, the feeling of your spirit being drained. While most of us (hopefully) haven’t been left covered in red, I feel that all of us have experienced a moment of weakness where we simply could not recover instantaneously. For Jack, he did something he never has done before but there is so much more to it than that.

I really want to talk about Jack’s interaction with a more “twisted” version of his former self. This was a great follow-up to the exchange he had before. The last semblance of Jack was one of desperation, of fear even. This one however had a much more insidious nature to him. This was evident by his facial expressions (maniacal as they were), and even his movements. Despite being very brief, we learn that Jack has never killed a human being up till this point. Also, something that wasn’t lost on me was the fact that Jack was in a bad way obviously, but like “Ghost Jack” said, he’s survived worse. So once again this situation is happening due to the attack not on Jack’s body but his psyche. Personally, this relates to me because it’s easy to just let you body forge ahead and go. The mind is so important that conversely trying to put too much on it will have you doubting and questioning yourself. Oh, and the delight in “Ghost Jack’s” face when realizing that a being of flesh and blood fell at the hands of the Samurai. Have you ever done something that may or may not have some moral ramifications but yet took some delight in it? People in our lives talk about us, put us down, demean us, get in our way, wrong us and not once has the thought of retribution or revenge entered in our heads for some degree of satisfaction? My grandma used to tell me to be careful what roads you choose to travel down because some of them you have to stay on until the next intersection. It’s important that regardless of what decisions we make, regardless of what alignment they happen to fall under, we as people are willing to accept the results and fallout of whatever they may bring us. To bring the two hallucination moments full circle, the thought of suicide is redirected into a question of whether or not Jack can continue down this path or is he purposely trying to create his own destruction…to which Jack shutters, “No.”

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Last episode’s allegory with the wolf who was basically going through a similar conundrum with these lion-like beast as Jack was with the Seven Daughters actually had some follow up because the same wolf who too was bloody found Jack in the cave. This leads to one of the cutest and funniest moments as Jack and the Wolf basically had a “boy and his dog” moment. The wolf finding food, sharing with Jack and he in turn sharing it back. Jack stitching up his wound and the wolf cleaning the blood off himself and doing the same for Jack. Jack trying to do the same for the wolf with water and the wolf getting mad. Jack freezing watching the wolf sleep…then waking up realizing the wolf wrapped around him like a blanket keeping him warm so he could sleep. All of this made me want a dog in my life!

The more important moment was before this sequence happened, Jack has a flashback of basically witnessing his father kill, but not before giving a warning to his aggressors and resolving to his beliefs of Bushido (now the Samurai in Jack has a bit more substance). We actually see the blood stain young Jack’s face from the battle his father had to finish. His father explains to the boy that we can not hide from ourselves and that our choices and actions are reflections of who we are. I can admit that I’ve done things in my life that I’m not particularly proud of. I’ve been willing to do things that are uncharacteristic and to show sides of my personality that aren’t exactly flattering. But I own and accept everything that I do and everything I am, good and bad. To do otherwise makes us incomplete, unfinished. Once upon a time, I let my line of work completely dictate what kind of person I was, to the point that I could no longer recognize myself. To the point where I was broken and didn’t know if I’d ever be able to reassemble. Leaving everything behind was not going to provide a solution to my problem, I had to go back and rewrite how my story was going to end. I was willing to do whatever necessarily and committed myself to what it was going to take to do so regardless of what choices I had to make. Jack in his own way realized this and watching Jack go up against the remaining Daughters meant so much beyond how visually it was portrayed.

Much like his father, Jack gives a warning to the persistent six as they have been tracking him down the entire episode. I mentioned earlier about the ‘Bushido’ that Jack’s father was acting upon. A warrior archtype like the samurai needs some balance and the honor that the Bushido code provides does just that. It gives greater subtext to things that are about to take place that on their own would just paint Jack as a mindless killer. Two moves, both with the spear, takes out two of the six Daughters (and when I say take out, I mean killed). What proceeds is basically Jack systematically dismantling the Daughters of Aku in brutal fashion I might add. The last of which being truly symbolic when Jack has one of them dangling over the cliff by way of the chain that was being used to attack him. The look on Jack’s face before he simply let go of the chain as this woman was berating him and telling him he would die; we’ve all been at the place where we just look at life and shake our head, no. There are moments where nothing else matters, where you can look into the blazing fire and not only be able to walk towards it but know that you are going to come out the other side. This was Jack being Jack. He will not be afraid to take your existence in order to keep his if that is the choice that you make.

Why are you not watching this show? Whether for long-time fans, fans of visually stimulating art or thematically, Samurai Jack is hitting all the right notes. However, Jack also fell down, down down…but we’ll have to wait to find out what’s next.

#JackIsBack

XCIII

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Are you looking for a show that deals with subject matter such as psychosis, depression and suicide? Then why are you not watching Samurai Jack!

Sometimes a person can only hope that what they watch on television actually makes them think a little bit. It’s even more a rarity when a show starts to challenge you on a deeper level. In this episode we finally get to see Aku and it’s a sight to see let me tell you. Seeing the main antagonist like this was a bit jarring but it was so hilarious to watch. Aku, reduced to lying down as he explains his troubles to his “doctor”…resigning himself to the fact that the Samurai will never go away. (Oh but this is a safe place, so we don’t say his name here.) Points for Aku calling Jack’s beard “stupid” and for literally sinking into his sorrows. It’s not as if Aku had a plan. By his own admission, he figured he wait it out after destroying all of the time portals but all it did was give the Samurai inadvertent immortality (at least from aging). Don’t worry, we’ll get there…we see later that Jack is anything but.

I enjoyed seeing Jack basically being caught off guard and paying for it. It’s good to have your heroes overcome an obstacle so they come off as sympathetic and don’t look like the bad guy. After disposing of another robot, Jack is jumped by the Seven Daughters of Aku and they just go in. They attack with such force that Jack loses his protective armor, his handgun and his motorcycle…all destroyed. His sonic dagger (that he obtained from last episode) is taken from him (remember this) and when he has his “Rambo” moment with his semi-automatic, all it takes is a chain to relieve him of his weapon, and then they bash it to bits with mace-like bat. So after he uses a smokescreen by throwing a pack of grenades to give him cover, we get the (in my opinion) the best scene of the entire episode.

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Before I get into this…as far as how the rest of the episode plays out; the Seven chase Jack into this temple where they try (and I do mean try) to kill him. The use of shadows in these exchanges highlighted by the green firefly that provided the only source of flashing light at certain moments was an excellent use of visuals. Jack gets stabbed by one of the daughters but he manages to cut her throat, realizing that it was not a robot but an actual human being laid waste by his hand. He retrieves the sonic blade from earlier (and if you remember its destructive power from the first episode) uses it to bring down the entire temple as he falls into the river, blood staining its waters.

Now before all that, Jack is hiding inside this robot beetle and he is confronted with the one thing that all of us must face at some point…our mortality. I have always been a person who fought for every inch, fought for what I believe in. But I remember a point in my life where I was tired of fighting, I was just tired of everything. What was the use of going on day after day when things just seemed to never get any better? I’m sure you out there have experienced this feeling at one moment in time or another. Jack’s hallucinations from the previous episode came from people he felt he let down, his family. Now this on the other hand is the Jack of old, the Jack that all of us had followed, seemingly distraught with this life with no end in sight. It’s a difficult and maddening thing to face yourself and try to maintain your resolve when there’s a part of you that’s just done. Jack has to face his own doubts and remain steadfast in the belief that he will as he says, “find a way.” Important to note, Jack has been battling machines this whole time before we get introduced to the Seven. Also, Aku hasn’t revealed himself, (at least to Jack) in years but he doesn’t know Jack is without his sword. To the seriousness of this moment, suicide is not an easy thing to talk about, address or even deal with. Just the fact that is was only “alluded” to is kind of tough to watch. Jack’s past telling him that there is no more honor and that the only honorable thing left to do is…before our hero tells him to be quiet and the emotion, the desperation coming from Jack here is so chilling. There is clearly a part of him that does not want to be stuck in a time that he doesn’t belong to for the rest of forever. The thoughts of suicide were on full display here, trying to convince with rationality, with emotion, with the anger of not continuing with how things presently are. That’s all real. I know exactly what that feels like and the most impressive thing through all of it was Jack keeping himself together and not surrendering to his innermost madness.

Sometimes all we have left is hope and faith and that may have to be enough in order for us to get to the next day. But we will and a new day gives new opportunities to try and to go forward. Seriously, check out Samurai Jack. I think it’s better than it was before and that’s hard for a preexisting property to achieve.

#JackIsBack

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

XCII

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“Gotta get back, back to the past…Samurai Jack.”

It was surreal hearing the signature theme coming from a monologue by Jack himself. Fifty years have gone by and our hero has yet to return. I could give a rundown of the episode proper, but I want to share my thoughts on how I felt as I watched.

We’ve seen characters before return from a long hiatus with a rugged look but the way they didn’t reveal Jack until midway through the battle with those cybernetic spiders really added to the direction this show is going to take. The sounds were so crisp from the mother and daughter resigning their selves to fate through use of their antennae to when the spikes of the motorcycle (yes you heard that right) protruded out to cut down the array of spider-bots. It was as if Jack saw a situation, handled it and rode off into the distance…like a dystopian outlaw.

I love Jack’s battle with the pied-piper inspired Scaramouch the Merciless; who he says is the favorite assassin of Aku (who we do not see this episode). Reminded me a lot of Bebop from the Nickelodeon Ninja Turtles series, Scaramouch presents himself as a real threat through his conjuring of stone monsters and his sword play. Speaking of which, seeing Jack resort to battle armor indicative of the time period, electric-ended staff and automatic weapons we’ll say…is a far cry from his katana (which we see in a flashback, he loses some time ago). Also the violence that Jack displays from both this and his earlier battle visually make you see the desperation in Jack’s psyche.

Oh and what a job did this episode do in visually putting us inside the mind of Samurai Jack. The torment that this man is going through…one leaf falls and another, each symbolizes his family, wondering what has happened to him, why hasn’t he returned? Then when all the leaves fall into the river and a sea of zombified people in agony saying that Jack has forgotten about them, has failed them…I could just feel his pain coming through the television. Even the campfire scene where Jack sees his father amidst the flames condemning him, saying that he has lost his purpose. Have you ever had a moment where you felt trapped inside your own mind, haunted by the memories and demons of your past? I even thought the emotion from the seven daughters of Aku was pretty captivating. Especially the moment where one of them was bout to fall to her death and the headmistress literally had the end of her staff pressing down on the hand being used to hang on the ledge, screaming repeatedly, “Are you weak!?”

This show was always a treat to watch but now it seems that we are going to look at a narrative which gives us distinct and emotional reasons to care about these characters. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Jack’s nightmares but he at least commandeered a blade after his battle. This is a new Samurai Jack. One who has become a byproduct of his time even though he has not aged, parts of his mind are starting to take a toll on his resolve. And what of the Seven? I assume at least one will stand out from the rest considering their mission is to put an end to our hero.

Tell a friend…Jack is Back.

 

justTerry