Anna Sawai

Shōgun – The Eightfold Fence / Broken to the Fist

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Shōgun – The Eightfold Fence / Broken to the Fist
  • IMDb: link | link

Shōgun - The Eightfold Fence / Broken to the Fist

“The Eightfold Fence” and “Broken to the Fist” focus on John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) teaching Lord Toranaga’s (Hiroyuki Sanada) soldiers while continuing to struggle with cultural nuance of the foreign land. Blackthorne and Mariko (Anna Sawai) are drawn closer together only to be pushed apart by the miraculous appearance of her douchebag of a husband Buntaro (Shinnosuke Abe) who continues to struggle with his wife earning greater favor with their lord. In a forceful display of power, the samurai forces Mariko to explain to Blackthorne her past and unfortunate familial ties. That, along with Buntaro beating his wife that night, nearly forces a deadly confrontation between Buntaro and Blackthorne (who does witness an example of the samurai’s skill with a bow).

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Monarch: Legacy of Monsters – Will the Real May Please Stand Up?

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters – Will the Real May Please Stand Up?
  • IMDb: link

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters - Will the Real May Please Stand Up?

From the episode’s title, you can probably guess that this is the episode the dives into May’s (Kiersey Clemons) past and explores what she’s been running from. Given the foreshadowing and build-up, the reveal is a bit underwhelming but how events of the episode unfold do have ripples across the MonsterVerse beyond just this series as it relates to Applied Experimental Technologies. Needing help finding the friend they basically already abandoned, Cate (Anna Sawai) and Kentaro (Ren Watabe) team up with Tim (Joe Tippett) eventually leading to Monarch stepping in and helping procure her release, allowing her to rejoin the halfsiblings in their search.

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Monarch: Legacy of Monsters – Terrifying Miracles

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters – Terrifying Miracles
  • IMDb: link

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters - Terrifying Miracles

After more of a concentration on current events and flashbacks into the pasts of Cate (Anna Sawai) and Kentaro (Ren Watabe), “Terrifying Miracles” brings back the 50s storyline with flashbacks that run through several import moments in Monarch history. We get a holiday party flashback to party in the 50s party which teases the romantic undercurrent between Keiko (Mari Yamamoto) and Lee (Wyatt Russell) which plays into a later flashback when Lee chooses Keiko over Monarch pushing control of the organization into the bigoted military officer played by Matthew MacCaull who doubts every aspect of it. The flashbacks also show the return of Godzilla, a secret Lee chooses to keep from the military given the shake-up within the organization.

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Monarch: Legacy of Monsters – The Way Out

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters – The Way Out – The Way Out
  • IMDb: link

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters - The Way Out

A bit of a transitionary episode, in which one of our characters will have to face the horrors of their past, “The Way Out” gives us Monarch releasing Cate (Anna Sawai), Kentaro (Ren Watabe), and May (Kiersey Clemons) who will make their way to San Fransisco hoping the illusive answers about Cate and Kentaro’s father not found in Japan may be found in the ruins of his other life. Monarch keeps ahold of Lee (Kurt Russell) hoping to find answers about what the former Monarch solider is after and why he chose the arrival of these three kids for his first escape attempt in years.

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Monarch: Legacy of Monsters – Parallels and Interiors

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters – Parallels and Interiors
  • IMDb: link

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters - Parallels and Interiors

“Parallels and Interiors” concludes the two-parter arc of Cate (Anna Sawai), Kentaro (Ren Watabe), and May (Kiersey Clemons) following Lee (Kurt Russell) to Alaska looking for answers about their father’s disappearance and presumed death. The episode is mostly about survival as the quartet fractures with Kentaro separating from the rest and looking for a structure he saw in the opposite direction the others plan to go.

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