Photo: Kumiko Tsuchiya/Max
“I want to report on what really happens. That’s it.”
That’s what Jake Adelstein told Samantha Porter in the first episode of Tokyo Vice. They were both cast as vintage Michael Mann protagonists, then — driven outsiders with an insatiable lust for greatness in a subterranean field. Navigating the complex underworld of Tokyo crime, politics, finance, and violence has brought its fair share of consequences to both of them. They’re both woven into a thicker, more intricate fabric of society now, just as the balance between Japan’s over- and underlords is about to see a huge upset. As Shinzo Tozawa’s plans to merge his newly acquired yakuza conglomerate with the highest levels of Japan’s legit government (including a newly minted Prime Minister in his pocket), our season-two finale serves up a lean, mean microcosm of Tokyo’s macro plots. The yakuza, police, newsroom, organized “crime” at the top levels of finance and government, all moving in byzantine sync toward a thrilling endgame.
So where do we start? With the Yoshino, of course. It’s always been about that damn boat. At the end of the last episode, Katagiri had just gotten word from Kazuko Tozawa (thanks to Misaki’s intel, given under duress) that her husband would keep any documentation of his FBI deal in one of two places: the safe in his suite, and a safe on board the Yoshino. Now, he and Nagata are planning a simultaneous raid on both locations — one last ride for Superintendent Nagata before she’s transferred somewhere less exciting.
The plan is to raid Tozawa’s suite and the Yoshino at once to avoid tipping him off. If they find what they’re looking for, Katagiri wants to give the evidence to Jake to run the story. But Tozawa will find a way to kill it like he always does, Nagata reminds him. “But if Tozawa’s enemies learned of his betrayals, they might exact revenge on their own.” Katagiri sees the wisdom of this pretty quickly, but he wants to give Jake a chance to wrap things up “properly” first. Plus, Katagiri’s going to need Jake’s help to get on the Yoshino.
Jake, meanwhile, is still hiding out with Misaki, Sam, and Sato, courtesy of Chihara-kai (one of the great joys of the last half of this season has been watching everyone’s reaction to Jake hooking up with Tozawa’s mistress). Sato’s getting antsy, to say the least, not sure how much longer they can hide before Tozawa’s men find them. Little do they know, all four of them are about to play major roles in the grander scheme to take Tozawa down. Get ready to chomp on your cigar and say through a toothy grin, “I love when a plan comes together.”
Anyway, Jake borrows Misaki’s phone and, against Sato’s demands for no phone usage in the hideout, calls Emi to dictate the FBI story. That’s when he finds out the story isn’t running, and Tin Tin’s in the hospital, stable but still in a bad way from his stabbing wounds. “I promise you,” Emi says over the phone, “I’ll find another home for the story.”
And find another home she does. Emi is the Obi-Wan of Meicho Shimbun reporters, the most well-rounded harbinger of her profession’s ideals, if not the highest-ranking one. Despite the disastrous events between her, brother Kei, and boyfriend Shingo (culminating in last Kei’s manic, failed soft-kidnapping event last episode), she knows she can take the story to Shingo to publish in his magazine. Shingo understands the stakes, but he’s not in a position to endanger his own staff and publish. “Are the lives of my reporters less valuable than yours?” he asks. (He’s also understandably stand-offish in the immediate aftermath of the ultimatum he dropped on Emi: I’m out, let me know when you figure shit out with your brother.)
So that’s on ice for now. Meanwhile, Jake’s stuck at the hideout with the news of Tin Tin’s stabbing and a head of racing thoughts, wondering “what the fuck is wrong” with him. “It was my fault. I pushed this story. I dragged everyone into it.” There’s some truth to that, but as Sato reminds him, this is also happening because Jake did his job. Not necessarily all in the bounds of his “official” job description, but his job as it’s needed in the greater Tokyo underground organism. “And when we do our jobs,” Sato says, “there are consequences.” Every move, no matter how critical or out of pocket, draws blood somewhere.
Our boy Sato’s already coming in full force with his hard-earned, reluctant oyabun’s wisdom. It hits with Jake enough to knock loose an idea. That’s right, partner, this ain’t exactly a Western you’re living in. You can’t just go charging in on enemy territory like Sonny Crockett, not even in a metaphorical reporter’s sense. This is Tokyo. Moving parts abound. Ripples in the fabric of society, not splashes. Time to call in your real partner in the job of Tokyo underground operator.
Sato gives up his phone and Jake gets Detective K on the line, let’s him know about Tin Tin’s stabbing. The story is shelved. Time for the Plan B (filed under “Breaking Bad”). Katagiri arrives at the hideout real quick, and the main players in the endgame are all lined up. From Misaki, the owner of the Yoshino on paper, Katagiri gets a signature to warrant a search of the yacht. And for Sato, a deal to do whatever Chiahara-kai sees fit with the FBI documents. Cool with Sato, who’s fixing to show the rest of the yakuza bosses proof that Tozawa was an FBI informant directly responsible for the yakuza busts in Hawaii and San Francisco. But why not take this to the newspaper or the police? “We are past that now,” Katagiri says.
With the warrant in hand, Katagiri sets off to search the Yoshino, with Jake riding shotgun (okay, maybe sometimes you can just straight up do Miami Vice on Tokyo Vice). At the same time, Nagata barges in on Tozawa’s suite with a warrant to search his safe. Hot off his official unveiling on the Suzaku Financial board and a new toy Prime Minister all but secured, Tozawa offers up his usual sinister-pleasant demeanor. Nagata finds nothing of consequence in the safe and bolts, then calls Katagiri to confirm. Once on board, Yoshino, Katagiri, and Jake find the safe already open and empty. The guy who grabbed the documents doesn’t get far, and they’re able to use him to call Tozawa and make him think the documents are safe.
“It would have been a great story,” says Jake, looking over the secured FBI documents. But wait, what’s this thing with Shigematsu’s signature on it? It looks like we have a story, after all. We’re minus a player, fallen in the line of duty, but we’re getting the newsroom band back together, baby. While Katagiri drops the FBI documents off to Sato, Jake meets up with Emi and Trendy with proof Shigematsu received big, otherwise unreported campaign donations from Tozawa. “Tokyo’s most notorious gangster tries to buy the next Prime Minister,” Jake lays out the headline. “We print this, Shigematsu’s done.” Trendy figures Meicho won’t print if they fear more attacks, but now that Emi’s confident Baku isn’t the mole in the newsroom, she will give him a chance to publish. “Write it. And give this bastard what he deserves,” Baku tells her after reviewing the documents.
Say, while we’re on the subject of who we can trust at Meicho, I can’t say the reveal of the Meicho arsonist was something I saw coming by a long shot. I suppose that, much like Emi, I was too involved in the action at hand to grasp the full institutional corruption at Meicho Shimbun.
“I destroyed that tape,” Ozaki tells Emi behind closed doors. “ If we had run a story about a minister involved in a sex cruise, the government would have frozen us out for years. No access to sources. No access to the truth.” There it is: the institutional version of “truth” corrupted on arrival, vested interest, and so forth. “How would that serve our readers?” For now, Ozaki aims, or at least says he aims to show the uncovered documents to “the right people,” Shigematsu will withdraw his name for consideration for P.M. “Justice will be served.”
Emi’s not buying it. No dangling of a promotion will get her to forget who she is and the fates of justice she serves. “If making such decisions is a prerequisite for sitting in your chair, then I do not want it.” The choice is clear but no less devastating. Rinko Kikuchi’s performance in this scene, particularly the incredible mix of resilience and heartache she expresses as she walks out of Ozaki’s office, is a hell of a reminder that Emi is the true heart and soul of the show.
Elsewhere, Samantha, Misaki, and the boys of Chihara-kai go to Club Polina to hide out. Good for Misaki that Sam is a bona fide expert at making B, C, and D plans under a tight deadline. They’ve just sat down in Sam’s office when Tozawa calls Misaki, demanding she come back to him, and bring “her gaijin” with her. “Him or your mother,” he says. “The choice is yours.” Sam advises to set the meeting at a fancy restaurant Tozawa used to take Misaki to, then calls Sato so he can arrange the simultaneous arrival of the yakuza party.
“I’m sick of discussing Tozawa,” one of the other bosses says in the emergency yakuza meeting. “We’ve all made our deals with him.” The tone is hostile at first, but the tune changes the moment Sato lays the FBI documents with Tozawa’s signature down in front of them. “He has lied to your face and stabbed you in the back,” Sato tells his elders. “He has no respect. I respect every man in this room.” Now’s the time to take down Tozawa, for which they all must play a part.
Under a bridge, tucked in the shadows, taking stock and gearing up for the final showdown, Katagiri lets Jake know he won’t be arresting Tozawa. He gave the contract to Sato, who will administer “a different kind of justice.” The right choice isn’t always the moral choice, and Katagiri waited till now to tell Jake to keep his partner’s hands from getting too dirty. A bit of a feeble gesture. Every player’s hands are getting dirty by the minute in this endgame. But it’s no less genuinely and deeply felt.
Once Jake gets the call from Samantha, our whole interconnected underworld gathers at the pivotal moment, having hit all the right pressure points at the right time to bring down a common enemy. Tozawa’s final shellacking is a still, yet fever-pitched climax to the central conflict that’s made up Tokyo Vice thus far. It would have been delicious enough to watch him verbally squirm around the proof of his betrayal, but the real chef’s kiss comes when Kazuko Tozawa comes through the door, leveling a room full of dick-swinging gangsters with her ultimate air of authority. She lays a beautiful dagger down before her husband. “You have become a liability to us all. So you will settle accounts, or we will settle them for you.” Shinzo’s cooked. And with her punk husband out of the picture, Kazuko gets one more icy line in on another young punk on the scene. “I gave you a chance to take care of things so it would not come to this,” she tells Jake. That’s right, Kazuko was the one who sent him the Yoshino tape. Exposing it would have checked Shinzo’s power much sooner. “But you let it slip through your fingers. I will not forget that.” Ooof. That’s when I’d be like, “Nice knowing ya, Tokyo, I gotta bounce.”
From there, things nicely wrap up to varying degrees on Tokyo Vice. (For everyone except Trendy, who ended up bearing the brunt of Jake’s inability to be a friend first and reporter second. Turns out, Jake couldn’t help but give up American embassy BF Jason’s name to Lynn Oberfeld. “From now on, stay away from me,” Trendy says. It’s a heartbreaking rift.) The Tozawa FBI informant story is published. Meanwhile, things are mostly looking up for Emi and Shingo (good for them). Samantha arranges a meeting with Kazuko and secures a hefty “finder’s fee” for some insider real estate investment info, courtesy of the late Masahiro Ohno. Sato is officially and ceremoniously instated as the oyabun of Chihara-kai. The job is looking good on our boy when Sam shows up at his door for a sultry see ya later. “I’m gonna recharge my batteries and do some thinking,” she says. “Then I’ll be back.” Something tells me this won’t be your typical white girl’s eat-pray-love trip.
And we can all breathe a sweet sigh of relief now that Misaki has broken up with Jake. Let’s be real: Who among us thought this would ever go anywhere serious? Misaki is ready for a boring, safe life away from the yakuza and the police. Jake is always going to have one foot in the danger that birthed their romantic dalliance to begin with. It’s not long-term partnership material. “You will do, daring, exciting things,” Misaki’s parting words. “And I will read all about them in the paper.”
So we close out the show (hopefully not forever, fingers crossed) nestled in the warmth of the show’s central bromance. Our true partners in Vice, Adelstein and Katagiri, nursing some whiskeys from the retired detective’s back porch. “I love doing nothing,” Katagiri says in response to Jake’s protest that he won’t stay retired. “It is you, Jake, who cannot do nothing.” There will always be another them to get, another case to crack. Peace isn’t an option, not even for a moment.
“I can do nothing better than you,” Jake retorts, insisting on a competitive game of count-to-ten. At the end of the day, Jake can’t meditate for ten seconds without having to take a leak, and Katagiri can’t do it without the infernal hum of Tokyo, in all its movement and machinations and people living and breathing and fighting and dying, bringing him back to earth. The city never sleeps, and neither do the reluctant harbingers of her rippling underground. Action, consequence, repeat.
