I didn't realize season 2 was still airing when I started watching. I finished episode 8 a couple days ago, there was no next episode to watch, and I thought that was the end of the season. I love being wrong about stuff like this!

If you took a shot every time someone lit up a cigarette...you would be dead.

Ha! If you smoked a cigarette every time someone smoked a cigarette, you might be dead.

So if your are Chihara Kai and on the run from the rival gang killing off your associates is it wise to keep running around in the same matching track suits? They kind of stick out like a sore thumb.

Teddy Perkins said:

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Best episode of the entire series!!! Unfortunately it's looking very much like this is likely the last season.

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I'm a little over halfway through, and this is one of those episodes where it's so damn good, and so tense, that I had to pause it, gather myself, and pop in the thread just to echo how phenomenal it is so far.

Yeah, that was easily the best episode of the series, and maybe the best episode of television I've seen since the Severance finale. Just an incredible setup for the end game next week.

Speaking of, while I think we're definitely about to see the end of Tozawa's story, I still don't think that has to mean the end of the series. As long the core four (Jake, Hiroto, Sato, and Samantha) are still alive, they could easily bring in a new threat/big bad next season and keep it all going. With, say, Jake as a renowned, hot shot reporter now, Hiroto as police commissioner (?), Sato as the new Obayun, Samantha doing whatever… there's still plenty of interesting story left in these characters' plights.

Now, whether Max thinks it's worth it is another story, of course…

Unfortunately, True Detective has a bigger audience, but I just checked and Tokyo Vice is currently #6 in Max's Top 10, which surely has to count for something.

I thankfully got the timing wrong, though, because what's come after has been straight fire.

TCTTS said:

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I thankfully got the timing wrong, though, because what's come after has been straight fire.

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Ha! I bet you were so embarrassed...

Sex Panther said:

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TCTTS said:

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I thankfully got the timing wrong, though, because what's come after has been straight fire.

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Ha! I bet you were so embarrassed...

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TCTTS said:

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It's also crazy how the two best shows this year - Tokyo Vice and Shogun - are both set and Japan, are both airing simultaneously, and both have me reading more subtitles for Japanese than I ever thought possible.

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And it just so happens I'm going to Japan this year. Is this all because of me? We can't say for certain… but yes

Nice! I'm so jealous.

Thanks for at least making all this happen before you go.

TCTTS said:

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It's also crazy how the two best shows this year - Tokyo Vice and Shogun - are both set and Japan, are both airing simultaneously, and both have me reading more subtitles for Japanese than I ever thought possible.

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Sucks that Shogun is on Hulu. I have YouTube TV and love it and don't want a sub to Hulu for a few shows.

Hulu with ads is $7.99/month. Hulu without ads is $10/month. You wouldn't spend $16 to $20 for even a couple of months, to knock out a few series over that span of time? Heck, Shogun ends toward the end of April. Next month, you wouldn't spend even $7.99 to binge it over a few days? That's ten hours of content for less than the price of a movie ticket.

And the way all those plots came together in the second half of this episode was just incredible. It was almost like a magic trick.

TCTTS said:

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Hulu with ads is $7.99/month. Hulu without ads is $10/month. You wouldn't spend $16 to $20 for even a couple of months, to knock out a few series over that span of time? Heck, Shogun ends toward the end of April. Next month, you wouldn't spend even $7.99 to binge it over a few days? That's ten hours of content for less than the price of a movie ticket.

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Hulu is only $10 a month? When I had it before it was $50 with Ads. Do you get all of the channels with the Hulu sub?

bonfarr said:

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TCTTS said:

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Hulu with ads is $7.99/month. Hulu without ads is $10/month. You wouldn't spend $16 to $20 for even a couple of months, to knock out a few series over that span of time? Heck, Shogun ends toward the end of April. Next month, you wouldn't spend even $7.99 to binge it over a few days? That's ten hours of content for less than the price of a movie ticket.

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Hulu is only $10 a month? When I had it before it was $50 with Ads. Do you get all of the channels with the Hulu sub?

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Ohhh, there's this issue.

Think of Hulu as two different services...

1) There's just "Hulu," and that's the streaming app with ONLY Hulu/ABC/20th Century Fox/FX shows and movies. There's no "Live TV" element. And that's only $7.99-$10/month. It's no different than Netflix or Max or any other standard streaming app with all kinds of content and no "Live TV" add on.

2) But then there's the above, that also includes the linear TV service that's a YouTubeTV competitor, basically the digital version of cable, that offers a ton of channels, DVR access, etc. That's called "Hulu + Live TV." And yeah, it's something like $50+/month.

Does that make sense?

bonfarr said:

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TCTTS said:

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It's also crazy how the two best shows this year - Tokyo Vice and Shogun - are both set and Japan, are both airing simultaneously, and both have me reading more subtitles for Japanese than I ever thought possible.

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Sucks that Shogun is on Hulu. I have YouTube TV and love it and don't want a sub to Hulu for a few shows.

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Isn't Shogun also on FX? Why can't you just watch it through YTTV?

Good point.

After this latest episode I'm afraid you guys are right and this season is it. But I feel like we're just now really getting to know and experience this yakuza world. So much wasted potential for some really interesting stories in a completely new and unexplored world.

Again, they're almost assuredly ending the Tozawa arc next week, and have likely written the season two finale to serve as a series finale as well, should they not get renewed. But I seriously doubt any concrete decisions have been made yet. If the viewership is there, and the creatives have more story to tell, just because the Tozawa story ends doesn't mean there can't be an all new case/threat/big bad next season, with the same core four as the leads. Heck, they could even write off Samantha and bring in a new female lead if need be, seeing as Samantha's story, IMO, is the only that feels like it's maybe run its course.

TCTTS said:

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Again, they're almost assuredly ending the Tozawa arc next week, and have likely written the season two finale to serve as a series finale as well, should they not get renewed. But I seriously doubt any concrete decisions have been made yet. If the viewership is there, and the creatives have more story to tell, just because the Tozawa story ends doesn't mean there can't be an all new case/threat/big bad next season, with the same core four as the leads. Heck, you they could even write off Samantha and bring in a new female lead if need be, seeing as Samantha's story, IMO, is the only that feels like it's maybe run its course.

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I missed your earlier post about the potential being there to continue the story post-Tozawa, but I completely agree.

And yeah, the Samantha story never quite grabbed me. She had her useful purposes every now and then for advancing the main storyline, but overall she bores me and she's really not that sympathetic of a character. I'd be fine seeing her written off.

This show is so great, repeat ad infinitum after every episode ends

Phenomenal season and episode 9 was incredible, but one decision the writers made that was baffling to me was having Tozawa's number 2 be the one to attempt to kill Katagiri's family.

This entire season we've seen Tozawa utilize numerous expendables to perform hits, but then suddenly we have the number 2 guy showing up by himself with just a knife to take out a police officer's family. In an otherwise phenomenal series, this felt a bit too contrived for my taste.

Maybe had they just prefaced it with a conversation between him and Tozawa regarding why it had to be him to do it.

How ‘Tokyo Vice’ Captured More of Japan’s Capital City on Camera Than Any TV Show Has Before https://t.co/5ZwjLjP6X1

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) March 31, 2024

Finished S1 last night. It took me like 3-4 episodes to get hooked, but I'm all in now.

Lot of unexpected twists in the finale. Excited to jump into S2 today.

Finale is up and there is some more behind the scenes info and interviews after the episode if you are so inclined. I think they did a good job of wrapping things up. A couple of eh moments and a few things done off screen that I think should have been done on screen to increase tension. Overall I think they stuck the landing fairly well.

Agreed. All things considered, I don't think we could have asked for a more satisfying ending.

If that's all we get, what an incredible show. I know it's cliched to say, but that really did play like one, long (18-hour) movie, with a damn near perfect beginning, middle, and end, some phenomenal characters, a great villain, and such a unique, authentic story.

We'll see if Shogun can stick the landing as well, but right now, for me, they're neck and neck for the best show of the year, with Tokyo Vice currently in the one spot.

If anything, in the last week or so, it finally feels like it's caught on/hit the mainstream. I've seen numerous tweets enthusiastically praising the show, from big accounts, while The Watch podcast was effusive about it earlier today, and they even mentioned the newfound buzz as well. That, and it's still in the Top Ten on Max.

I just hope it's not all too little too late. Fingers crossed...

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J.T., will there be a third season? And if so, what might it look like, since it seems like you've tied the first two seasons up in a bloody bow?

ROGERS: Well, we would love to make a season three. As you know, we have to see how all the tea leaves play out and all of that. I have a whole story ready to go and other than it being called Tokyo Vice, I'm not going to tell you anything. (Laughs.) I'm not going to give myself away. But it will be full of twists and turns.

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'Tokyo Vice' Bosses on That Violent Ending and Having an Idea for Season 3 https://t.co/O069CJ135c

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) April 4, 2024

Totally satisfied with how this season (possibly the series) ended, but that said this world they created is so rich and ripe to continue with other just as interesting storylines. I for one would love to see Sato settling in as the leader of his clan while watching Tozawa's widow running his former clan from the shadows (I'm assuming a woman wouldn't be allowed to openly run it). Now that Samantha is gone they don't have to waste time on her boring storyline and can just focus on the Yakuza world and Jake dancing around the fringes of it (as well as his friendship with Sato) as a reporter.