‘Shōgun’ Finale: Anna Sawai Explains Mariko’s Last Act of Love for Blackthorne
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[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Shōgun Episode 10, “A Dream of a Dream.”]
Anna Sawai‘s Mariko was the savior of Shōgun in more ways than one. In the pivotal, riveting, and ultimately heartbreaking Shōgun Episode 9, “Crimson Sky,” her actions in Osaka ended up becoming the climactic confrontation of the entire limited series. Mariko was lost in the final moments of “Crimson Sky,” but the Shōgun Episode 10 finale, “A Dream of a Dream,” revealed that Mariko took secret efforts to save her lover, Cosmo Jarvis‘ John Blackthorne.
Blackthorne was apprehended by the Portuguese Christians, led by Father Martin Alvito (Tommy Bastow), in Osaka after the ambush that killed Mariko. Separated from Yabushige (Tadanobu Asano), Blackthorne was defenseless as Alvito and a band of soldiers walked him through the woods beyond Osaka castle. Blackthorne had just awoken from a days-long sleep triggered by the blast that killed Mariko; he missed her burial because of it.
The Anjin was still reeling from the loss of his lover when Alvito took him through the woods, a cold realization washing over him as he made sense of Toranaga’s (Hiroyuki Sanada) plan. Mariko, he realized, singlehandedly secured Toranaga’s victory over Lord Ishido (Takehiro Hira). Blackthorne was resigned to death after this tragic turn of events. He wryly laughed when Alvito said Mariko would be happy to see them being civil to each other.
“It’s only a shame that day will never come. Will it, Father?” Blackthorne asks. “Is this where I’m to be ambushed like the last time I tried to leave? No longer protected. Is that how I finally meet my end?”
“I will not deny it. You were meant to die in these woods,” Alvito replies. “But an arrangement was made. You will leave Osaka alive.”
Alvito later reveals that it was Mariko who arranged Blackthorne’s safe passage. “She asked the church to spare your life before she died,” he tells Blackthorne before he leaves for Edo. “And now I have. I have kept my word to her.”
Sawai tells TV Insider that Mariko felt it was her duty to protect Blackthorne, not because Lord Toranaga assigned her to be his guide through their language and culture, but because of her love for him.
“It’s because she cares for him,” Sawai explains. “It’s just what she believes will better his life. And without her, he could be in the wrong hands. And so I think that she felt like it was a responsibility before she took off.”
Mariko was never in denial about her feelings for Blackthorne; she just rarely prioritized them. But neither of them could put off their love any longer after Mariko nearly died through seppuku in Episode 9. They slept together that night after Blackthorne stepped in as her second, a selfless act that Sawai previously told TV Insider was the moment Mariko truly let herself love him.
That was the “moment she realizes that what they share is much deeper than what she had anticipated,” Sawai said. “That’s the gesture that changes everything.”
Mariko spent some of her final moments reciprocating that love. Back in Edo, he cast Mariko’s rosary (his only remaining piece of her) into the bay in her memory, saying that as long as he was by that water, he’d be with her forever. Blackthorne never left Japan.
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