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Jake Adelstein isn’t even back in America a day when his mouth starts writing checks his ass can’t cash. He swears up and down that he’ll be there for his sister’s big journalism club Q&A. He tells his family he’ll involve them more in his life in Japan. And while this one is out of his direct control, he tells all the revelers at his dad’s 60th birthday party that in Tokyo, guns are “not a thing.” A whole bunch of people have occasion to learn otherwise before this week’s episode of Tokyo Vice, “The War at Home,” is through.
This installment splits its time between the Adelsteins’ in Missouri and the situation back in Tokyo. Somewhat to my surprise, the American material doesn’t feel like time wasted compared to the sumptuous unfamiliarity of the Tokyo underworld. In fact, it’s its very difference that makes it come alive. After all this time spent in the close quarters of Tokyo’s glass, concrete, and neon, seeing all those big trees, all those green lawns, all that open blue sky feels like entering another world.
Jake spends the episode reacclimating himself to the environment. His parents lay little (and in the case of his mother Willa, played by Jessica Hecht, not so little) guilt trips on him, and his dad Eddie (Danny Burstein) relays the upsetting news that sister Jessica (Sarah Sawyer) spent several weeks in an in-patient mental health program. Jake chafes both at being imposed upon and left out of the loop.
But he holds court at his dad’s 60th birthday barbecue like a born raconteur. He improvises a terrific toast when his old man freezes after a family slideshow. He’s even hinting about his relationship with Misako, the source he’s gotten too close to, and how he hopes to make it right.
You can see how it lulls Jake into a false sense of security about his own ability to put anything before his job. There’s more to it than that, of course — his job involves potentially putting away a murderous gangster and thus saving the life of his girlfriend — but Jake himself admits he loves his job with his “full heart,” as his dad taught him to do. So when Katagiri calls with the breakthrough intel that Tozawa was treated for his liver failure in Minnesota, off Jake goes to viciously blackmail the head hepatologist into confessing, and then back to Tokyo to continue the investigation with the evidence he digs up.
My favorite part of the episode, in terms of Brad Caleb Kane’s script, is how Jake breaks the news to Eddie that he’s skipping town. It’s done over the phone, but we only hear Eddie’s side of the conversation, not that of the main character of the show. This roots us in the experience of the disappointed dad, and allows us to imagine the self-serving excuses Jake’s offering up. It’s deftly done.
In Jake’s absence, things in Tokyo deteriorate considerably. Left in charge following Ishida’s death, a drunken Hayama declares war on Tozawa, whom he threatens in person. (Looks like I was wrong about them being in cahoots, unless Hayama is an exceptionally strong actor.) One of his lackeys overhears the skeptical Sato telling his kid brother Kaito that Hayama has no honor and narcs on him, leading to his beating and banishment. Now nothing stands in the way of Hayama for using Kaito as an assassin once again, a job at which he fails miserably. The final shot lingers on Kaito’s face as he finally realizes what kind of man he’d come to see as his mentor.
Hayama will no doubt put the squeeze on Samantha to punish Sato as well. The poor woman is already struggling to keep all her plates spinning after the attack on the club, the insurance money for which she won’t receive for months. Her reputation as yakuza moll precedes her, and a pack of rabid paparazzi are on her tail. Even Katagiri and Nagata seem more likely to bully her than help her.
But they have problems of their own. The hitman who links Tozawa to the Ishida assassination is assassinated in turn while being escorted to the courthouse by Katagiri and Nagata personally; the gunmen in turn are found dead. This means that even their elite unit has been compromised by Tozawa — much like the Meicho, where Emi and Tin Tin are forming an elite unit of their own to ferret out the corruption.
This may sound odd, but what you’re looking at here is the platonic ideal of episode seven out of a ten-episode prestige-TV season: a whole bunch of small plot movements across the board, plus a wild detour to shake things up — setting everything up for the final act.
Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.
