When we last left off, “Tokyo Vice” teased almost an explosive showdown, with all the usual suspects congregating in one single location and with the noose tightening. Credit goes to creator JT Rogers for ensuring that the overall resolutions of the major character arcs do not end or progress along the expected route but also don’t veer so far off that the characters come off as unrecognizable.
Tokyo Vice (Season 2) Finale Episode 10 “Endgame” Recap:
What are the pieces to the story?
Katagiri and Nagata plan to make one last stand against Tozawa, especially considering Nagata will be transferred within a few hours. Acting on Katagiri’s information about Yoshino, which had been obtained in the previous episode, both Nagata and Katagiri decide that once they attain the incriminating documents against Tozawa, they will let the punishment fit the crime—letting the yakuza deal with one of their own, as Jake’s story not being published isn’t an unfamiliar notion. But Katagiri wants to play it out and give Jake the chance to fulfill it on his end.
At Sato’s safe house, both he and Samantha are arguing about the dangers posed by Misaki’s presence at the moment. Especially considering Jake’s relationship with Misaki, which through the entirety of the season has evolved for both Jake and Misaki beyond physical attraction, But Misaki also realizes that Jake stealthily enjoys having Tozawa blindsided by the revelation of Misaki’s relationship with Jake.
He believes that it is perfectly primed for Jake to publish his story, and he uses Misaki’s phone to call Maruyama, but his hopes are dashed, not just because Tintin is currently in the hospital but also because Baku has shut the story down. She does promise to find a new home for the story to be published, which we later see she takes to Shingo’s magazine but is rejected because Shingo is unwilling to risk his reporters’ lives, repeating the similar predicaments currently faced by Maruyama.
Meanwhile, Tozawa is flabbergasted at the failure of his team of soldiers to locate Misaki. He doesn’t have time to delve too much into the proceedings, choosing to delegate the legal workings of Yabuki’s freedom to Shigematsu while he takes the board seat of Shizaku Holdings, giving further foothold to legitimacy. Meanwhile, Jake is frustrated with the roadblocks and the dangers his impulsive nature faces. Sato reminds him that they are men devoted to and proficient in their work, a profession that has major consequences, but they go ahead and execute it anyway. Sato is regretful as well, considering that Tozawa would locate them quite easily. But Jake suddenly realizes that he has a way out. He calls Katagiri and fills him in on the proceedings, and Katagiri finally snaps up the chance to execute his plan.
He brings to the safe house a search warrant for Misaki to sign (followed by a Tozawa stooge, unbeknownst to Katagiri and under Tozawa’s orders). Furthermore, he explains that since the Yoshino paperwork listed her as the owner (to avoid legal issues in an ironic twist of fate), they needed her permission to conduct a search warrant, with her cooperation being marked as important.
Once Misaki signs the search warrant, Katagiri clears the room and has a private conversation with Sato, where he informs her that once they locate the incriminating documents, he will hand over the documents to Sato, letting him use the information in whatever way he chooses, which Sato agrees to. With the plans being set, Katagiri leaves, but not before agreeing to take Jake with him to Yoshino. Unfortunately, Tozawa’s soldier notices Jake with Tozawa but, more importantly, locates Misaki and informs Tozawa. Meanwhile, Sato leaves to prepare for what will eventually be revealed as a meeting of the family heads.
What do the raids reveal?
Nagata bursts into Tozawa’s hotel with a search warrant to search for the contents of his safe, to which Tozawa agrees with a smug nonchalance. Nagata is unable to locate the documents, and as she walks out of the hotel, she calls Katagiri, who has reached the shipyard with his trusted subordinates and Jake. Meanwhile, in the hotel room, Tozawa calls up one of the crewmen of the Yoshino and instructs him to take the documents out of the safe for safekeeping.
Both actions—Katagiri bursting into the yacht with a search warrant as well as the crewmen escaping with the documents—occur simultaneously. As Katagiri and his officers chase after the escaping crewman, Jake searches around the office and finally locates the room where Shigematsu had been recorded as complicit in the murder of Polina that opened the second season.
Tozawa gets a call from the crewman, informing him that he has retrieved the documents, much to his pleasure. As it turns out, that was a ruse by Katagiri, lulling Tozawa into a false sense of security. Katagiri had obtained the documents, and both he and Jake went through their contents. They locate the document containing Tozawa’s signature on the FBI witness agreement, incriminating him.
While Jake mourns for not being able to publish this story, he finds a new angle upon seeing receipts of donations to Shigematsu by Tozawa. As it turns out, these donations, usually comprised of large amounts and mostly unreported, are illegal. This is the story Jake and the Meicho can follow up on to force Shigematsu to resign and maybe get Tozawa indirectly. Meanwhile, Tozawa’s goons raid Sato’s safe house, and only under Samantha’s calm countenance and leadership could she escape along with Misaki and the rest of the Chihara-Kai soldiers. We see them hole up in Samantha’s club while waiting for Sato to arrive.
Does Tozawa get his comeuppance?
Maruyama, upon receiving Jake’s details of the story, takes it to Baku, who finally sheds his hesitation and gives her the go-ahead to write the story about financial fraud. It proved to Maruyama that her suspicions about Baku’s complicity regarding the tape had been unfounded. However, she is shocked at the revelation that the chief editor, Ozaki, who had assigned her to investigate secretly, had been responsible for burning the tape.
In a move that could only be described as prescient, Ozaki reveals that he had burned the tape for the same reason that he wouldn’t run Maruyama’s story—it would risk access to the Meicho within the government. On Maruyama’s protests, Ozaki informs her that once she is promoted and sitting in his chair, she will have to make such hard decisions.
Maruyama emphatically refuses, choosing to stick with her morals rather than climb up the ladder. Later in the episode, we see her taking the story to Shingo, who agrees to publish it only if Maruyama leaves her job and works with him for the sake of fairness so that she can maintain her byline. They leave the door open for solving their issues in the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, at Samantha’s club, Misaki gets a call from her mother, where Tozawa reveals himself on the other end of the line, threatening to hand over Jake to him in exchange for her mother. Samantha, realizing that time is running out, calls Sato to keep him abreast of the situation, who thanks her, having already obtained the documents from Katagiri.
Meanwhile, Jake catches up with Katagiri and wonders when the police move in to arrest Tozawa, to which Katagiri replies negatively. He reveals his plans with Sato, realizing that this is the only way for Tozawa to receive any form of justice without investigators like Jake and Katagiri getting stuck in the hurdles of bureaucracy. Jake asks why Katagiri hadn’t informed him, to which Katagiri replies that he wanted to keep Jake’s hands clean of the muck. Jake calls Misaki to check up on her, only to learn to meet her at a restaurant.
Meanwhile, Sato meets with the heads of the different gumis and convinces them that Tozawa had laid in bed with the FBI, which cuts a deeper gash of betrayal than anyone could stand. Ichikawa agrees to deal with Tozawa and the rest of the yakuza with the aid of someone else. As Tozawa drives up to the restaurant to meet with Jake, he feels like he is on top of the world. He walks up to confront the gaijin in the corner room, only to find that it’s a trap. Misaki walks out of the room as Tozawa finds himself in an intervention with the rest of the Yakuza gumis.
Tozawa tries to brush off the accusations of his dealings with the FBI, chalking them up to runors as well as refusing to take Sato’s claims seriously until he realizes that the rest of the Yakuza clans are all behind Sato. Pivoting, he tries to buy them out by convincing them that joining hands with him would stave off the loss of hundreds of millions, putting his wife as the guarantor.
Tozawa’s final gambit fails as his wife walks into the room, revealing that she is against her husband and will be withdrawing her support. She places a tanto (small knife) on the table and informs him that this is the only acceptable form of punishment that would ensure Tozawa keeps his dignity intact. As the yakuza leaves the room, Tozawa starts opening his vest and loosening his tie before sitting on his knees and taking the knife to cut his veins.
Outside the restaurant, we see Misaki reuniting with her mother and driving away in a police escort vehicle. Jake arrives and waits for Sato and the rest of the clan to come out, along with Samantha and Katagiri. As he witnesses the heads of the clans leave, Tozawa’s wife walks up to Jake and voices her disappointment in his lack of skills. She reveals that she had been the one who had sent Jake towards the trail of the tape and that she would remember his failure before bad-mouthing Katagiri a final goodbye.
When the usual suspects have finally left, Katagiri and Jake are informed of a dead body in the back room of the restaurant. They enter to find the bled-out body of Tozawa. As Jake starts taking pictures of the scene of the crime, Katagiri reminds him that there are always two stories: the story that he has lived through and the story that he would have written. It would be good if Jake realized that difference.
Tokyo Vice (Season 2) Finale Episode 10 “Endgame” Ending Explained:
Where are the characters at the end of this season?
Jake visits the wounded, undertreated Tintin, who wakes up and has a heartwarming reconciliation with Jake, reforming their friendship. However, Jake is unlucky because of the choices he makes, which causes a divide between Trendy and Jake. As it turns out, Jason, Trendy’s love interest, would be transferred back to the US because, as part of the deal with Oberfeld to obtain the confirmation, Jake revealed his source, betraying a crucial tenet of journalism that the pilot had opened with.
Jake also loses another relationship he had inculcated throughout this season. As if echoing his parents’ fears, Misaki reveals that Tozawa’s death frees her up for an unexciting life away from the yakuza and the police, which she knows that Jake would never be happy to continue with. They thus terminated their relationship. Meanwhile, Samantha makes a business deal to the tune of 10 million yen with Tozawa’s life, informing her of the same land development planning that the architect Ohno had been planning for Ishida in exchange for their lives. Meanwhile, we see Sato, via ceremony, rise to the leadership role of the Chihara-Kai, a role that Samantha remarks suits him. She kisses him goodbye, promising to keep in touch while she leaves the city for a minute.
The episode finally ends with Jake and Katagiri sharing a drink outside Katagiri’s home, with Jake teasing Katagiri about his retirement and its futility. Katagiri retorts, reminding him that it is Jake who is unable to sit still, and challenges him to try a meditation exercise. Jake accepts the challenge but is unable to sit for 10 minutes before getting up to pee, challenging Katagiri to do it better. Katagiri tries to sit still, only to realize that he is unable to either, which makes him laugh as the show presumably ends.
Tokyo Vice (Season 2) Review:
Truly, the series of 2024 that no one had actually been watching, of the controversies surrounding the lead actor as well as the general lack of marketing around the show, “Tokyo Vice” season 2 not only maintains the quality of the preceding season but in some instances surpasses it. Choosing to broaden its focus on the ensemble rather than Ansel Elgort’s Jake Adelstein, this expansion of stories contributes both to its positives and to its detriments.
On the one hand, the most interesting characters of the show, Katagiri and Sato, easily get the best character arcs and plot elements that are afforded a satisfactory closure. On the other hand, the negative aspects, notably Samantha’s subplot, ultimately go nowhere throughout the season. She begins the season as a character unmoored from her station in life before rising as a club owner, only to end the season armed with cash but still in a similar dilemma of finding herself.
Adelstein, portrayed by Ansel Elgort, has never been the most interesting character in his show, but Elgort does very well in giving Jake a cypher-like quality. His actions act as the domino, giving rise to a deeper exploration of the Yakuza’s political machinations and the intricate connections the underworld has with the city at large. Conversely, the show devotes less time to the offices of the Meicho, choosing instead to focus on Maruyama’s familial strife. Considering the caliber of Rinko Kikuchi as an actress, the storyline she had been saddled with required a bit more meat. Elgort, on the other hand, gets one episode to shine, giving Jake a single episode to explore his familial distance and how it shapes and molds him.
Tokyo Vice” owes its aesthetic as well as its style of realism not just to the memoirs of Jake Adelstein but also to the works of executive producer Michael Mann. While Mann isn’t intimately involved, creator JT Rogers uses a lot of familiar tropes and characteristics of Michael Mann to enhance the world as well as the characters within that world of “Tokyo Vice.” There is a stylishness within the muted color palette of “Tokyo Vice,” heightening the danger and dread the show carries throughout.
Rogers and his writing team also manage to keep the plot moving at a steady pace without telegraphing the plot twists so overtly. Thus, when a key event occurs in Episode 4, we already have an inkling of that event occurring within this season, but when placed within the larger tapestry of storylines that season 2 juggles, the compression is praiseworthy. There is an undeniable consistency to the show. While it ends satisfactorily, the show leaves just enough wiggle room for a future season, which I wouldn’t mind seeing more of.
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