FX and Hulu’s Shogun strikes an interesting tone. It places the morally gray playground of iconic shows like Breaking Bad and Succession in a historic political drama like The West Wing or The Great, then lets its characters loose. And like all of that company, Shogun deserves your attention. It’s never as action-packed as you think it’s supposed to be, but also not as talky or complicated as political dramas can be.
Where it falters for me, though, is in its have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too treatment of the show’s presumed main character, the English infiltrator John Blackthorne. Before digging into my gripe, I will say that I have not read the James Clavell novel, nor watched the Toshiro Mifune/Richard Chamberlain-starring original show. And so my criticism isn’t in service to liking how either of those handled the character better.
Blackthorne, as portrayed by relative newcomer Cosmo Jarvis, feels based on presumed audience acceptance. He’s the fish outta water. He’s the exceptional white guy. He’s gruff and judgmental, but seems open to cultural exchange, even after being treated horribly by his Japanese captors. He worries about the men under his command while the Japanese leadership appears eager to throw away the lives of their underlings. Unfortunately, for me, all of that feels like the writers trying to put the wrong kind of items in the plus column of a list titled “Why You Should Like John Blackthorne.”
John Blackthorne is the last reason I’ve been catching each episode on its release. First off, Jarvis’ performance feels like it belongs on the “We have X at home” meme, where X = Tom Hardy. Max Rockatansky is shaking right now. Jarvis squanders his naturally cool and gravelly timbre with line deliveries that make him sound like a failing teen begrudgingly asking his teacher for extra credit.
As a cypher for non-Japanese audiences to experience one of the most exciting periods in Japanese history, he misses the mark again. I get the sense that his stumbling through the dense political intrigue via culture shock and a massive language barrier is supposed to be a feature of the character, not a bug. But it ends up being an excuse to make him a Mary Sue. Blackthorne miraculously intuits complicated Japanese nuance through weak gesturing and unbelievably sharp perception. And since he seems to have a solution for every massive problem at the highest levels of Japanese government, the character dances right up to the White Savior trope. Were it not for a handhold in real history, that’s something I assume the novel and older show struggled with, as well.
Most importantly, as a member of an ensemble cast who all have their moments of empathy, inscrutable motivations, and dark or violent transgressions (seriously, one of the show’s most charismatic characters boils a victim alive who was already dying of starvation in the first episode), Blackthorne’s inconsistencies feel plain wrong. Compared to the dimensionality of the others, he is a plot twist waiting to be triggered.
An apparently patriotic Englishman, his disdain for the Spanish and Portuguese Catholics doesn’t jive with his readiness to go full weeb. His love interest, the Lady Mariko, herself is a devout Catholic. A trait that is on full display when they meet. In fact, she couldn’t serve as the interpretive lifeline Blackthorne needs if her priest hadn’t taught her his language. I keep waiting for this inconsistency to be addressed, and maybe it will be, but as things are now, the writers seem to be cherry picking in order to make Blackthorne a Good Guy.
If Blackthorne is meant to be an antihero, of course he needs a streak of empathy. After all, I think we’ve come to a point in prestige TV where audiences are exhausted with shows about horrible people. So, if trying to make Blackthorne easier to like is meant to be a corrective to that, fine. But I feel it’s being done at the cost of what could be a nuanced look at how real people do contain multitudes. Instead, we’re left with a hollow character, given a mediocre performance, whose requisite glimmer of goodness make him less interesting. As an adaptation, I’m sure the size and importance of Blackthorne’s role is set, but I wish the writers could sweep him aside like Piper was in Orange is The New Black.
Are you watching Shogun? How do you like Cosmo Jarvis as John Blackthorne? Give us your take in the comments or over at the Boss Rush Discord.
Featured Image: FX
The Boss Rush Podcast – The Boss Rush Podcast is the flagship podcast of Boss Rush Media and the Boss Rush Network. Each week, Corey, Stephanie, LeRon, and their friends from around the internet come together with other creators, developers, and industry veterans to talk about games they’ve been playing, discuss video game and entertainment based topics, and answer questions solicited on social media and the community Discord.
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