‘Tokyo Vice’ Season Finale Recap: Down and Out in Tokyo

Hmm. Hmmmm. Huh. Well. Okay. Um…hmmmm. Uhhh…yeah. Alright. Hmm.

What just happened?

Now, I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for the way Tokyo Vice’s series—or is that season?—finale went down. I’m sure there’s a reason why a show I’ve seen repeatedly described as a limited series ended its (initial?) eight-episode run not only on a down note for virtually every major character, but with so many dangling plot threads you could get caught in them like a spider’s web.

It could be that the “limited series” tag, which I’ve been unable to find in any official materials from HBO Max, was the result of a game of telephone. Maybe something got lost in translation, no pun intended. Maybe the original idea was for the show to be an ongoing one, but something—the trouble with leading man Ansel Elgort springs to mind, as does the pandemic—got in the way. Or maybe it hasn’t been decided one way or the other just yet, and there’s still a chance that the whole thing gets renewed.

Whatever the case, man, this is a bleak, bleak point at which to leave all the main characters behind. Let’s take it one at a time:

• Jake Adelstein gets the shit kicked out of him by Tozawa goons, and thinks very seriously about returning home to America. The only thing that holds him back is a video tape he receives of his and Samantha’s friend Polina seemingly getting killed on a Tozawa sex cruise boat.
• Samantha has her life savings stolen by Polina’s crooked host-club boyfriend Akira. In order to make up for the cash shortfall, she gets into business with yakuza boss Ishida, who fully plans to take her club over if it turns a tidy profit.
• Neither Jake nor Samantha are able to rescue Polina, for whom sexual slavery might well be the best-case scenario at this point, if she isn’t already dead.
• Tozawa, whose liver is failing, flies off for treatment in an unknown location, where his interlocutors apparently speak English. Along the way he punches his mistress Misaki in the face, then makes a veiled threat to her that he plans to live a lot longer.
• Tozawa kills Miyamoto, the crooked cop who comes clean to his counterpart Katagiri earlier in the episode.
• Tozawa threatens to kill Katagiri’s wife and children unless he backs off on all current and future investigations into Tozawa business.
• After setting one of his underlings free and letting Samantha know he’ll be Ishida’s point man at her club, at which point they end their romantic relationship, Ishida lieutenant Sato is stabbed repeatedly by a different underling, one he’d beaten up earlier in the season. His status, like that of Polina, is unknown by the time the credits roll.

See what I’m saying? Character after character after character winds up down on their luck, licking their wounds at best, succumbing to them at worst. The only character for whom things really look good at the moment is Tozawa, the biggest piece of shit of the bunch.

It’s not all a relentlessly grim drumbeat of doom, to be sure. There’s a funny and kind of thrilling sequence in which Jake and Samantha smoke meth in order to get information out of that meth-head yakuza fanzine reporter from a couple episodes back. Afterwards, the two gaijin kiss, and it’s sexy and sweet. Elgort and Keller have an endearing odd-couple chemistry, and (should the series continue, and should Sato survive his stabbing) there’s material to be mined from a love triangle.

And our heroes get rave reviews from the other characters. “I’m not sure if you’re completely insane or the most dedicated reporter I’ve ever worked with,” Emi tells Jake when she finds out why he’s shown up to work high as a kite. “You’re the only incorruptible man I’ve ever met,” Tozawa tells Katagiri; he kind of fouls the water by threatening to kill Katagiri’s family immediately afterwards, but still, a hell of a compliment, considering the source.

But if we are to take this as the final episode of Tokyo Vice, boy, it paints a dark picture, doesn’t it? Neither diligent reporting (Jake) nor honest policework (Katagiri) nor good old-fashioned work ethic (Samantha) are enough to keep the yakuza at bay or save the lives that need saving.

The question, I suppose, is this: Is it so bad that the show ends this way? If you were looking for a happy ending, then sure, it’s a bummer. But the counterargument, that individual virtue and skill are not enough to stem systemic injustices, is a strong one, and it’s powerfully made here. It may not be the ultimately upbeat tale of a cub reporter exposing wrongdoing that the show promised to be early on, but that may not be a bad thing in the end. After all, it’s the job of a journalist to tell the truth, and sometimes that truth is ugly indeed.

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.