This week on Tokyo Vice, Katagiri makes his first big yakuza bust with Superintendent Nagata. Their first target: Hishinuma-kai. A small clan low on funds. A perfect test case for the new no-balance approach.
“Many of you have been on yakuza raids with me before,†Katagiri tells the dozen or so men. “This one will be different.†He winces as Nagata explains the plan: Get a yakuza to put a hand on one of them so they can be charged with obstruction of police duty (a charge typically reserved for political protesters). “I will ensure that happens,†Nagata tells them. We’re playing dirty pool from here on out.
The raid goes pretty much according to plan. They raid Hishinuma-kai HQ, Nagata provokes one of Hishinuma’s guards to touch her shoulder, and the whole place goes down. The arrests please the prosecutors; the documents they seized will ensure the charges stick. Later on, around closing time at the police station, Nagata approaches Katagiri’s desk for a drink. “You don’t feel celebratory,†Nagata says. Katagiri’s reply: “Nothing comes without cost.†And that’s the real lynchpin line of the week, reverberating across the skyline and laying bare the immediate fate of everyone in our ragtag Vice crew.
Weighing the cost of everything (and the value of survival) is Samantha’s modus operandi. Still, the deck of problems in front of her is about to shuffle more quickly and thoroughly than she could’ve predicted. The mere presence of Hayama will do that.
That’s right, our newly minted Chihira-kai No. 2 is making a predictable ruckus in the club, and Sato can’t do anything about it. (Or won’t? A bit of both, really; you have to pick your battles in times like these.) Sam confronts Hayama only to be met with characteristic and blatant disrespect. She’s not one to take insults, but Ohno sends a bottle to Hayama’s table before things get too dicey. It’s a smooth move, made in earnest, but is Ohno fit enough to swim in these shark-infested waters?
Things also heat up for Sato and Erika but in a good way. Erika invites Sato up for some leftovers (to which his stomach growls in the affirmative; it’s kinda cute). He meets Erika’s kid, reads him bedtime stories, and gets a little taste of domestic tranquility. Erika walks him outside later on and sees him off with a kiss.
The emotional logic behind the connection brewing here is more than apparent. These are two lonely people, silently aching for more love, stability, and unencumbered family life than their worlds can offer. Sato, in particular, finds himself reaching for whatever bit of familial normalcy he can. Back on the Kaito front: The brothers’ online sneaker business is taking off. “I asked about you all the timeâ€: The words come pouring out of Kaito’s mouth the second his older brother praises his work. “But Mother said I couldn’t see you. Father wouldn’t let me say your name. All I wanted to do was be like you.â€
Exactly the heartbreaking line you want to hear when Hayama walks through the door. Sure enough, this psychotic asshole takes an immediate, disconcerting shine to Kaito. And Sato’s pleas only seem to motivate him further. “You have to respect your brother’s wishes,†Hayama says tauntingly. “But I know a gold mine when I meet one.†He wastes no time returning to Kaito’s pad without Sato and treating him to a night at Narishima Gaguken High. I don’t know enough about sex work in Japan to know what that even is, so … let’s move on.
At the start of the episode, we find Jake and Misaki right where we left them … horizontal (thank you, thank you). Only now, they’re at Jake’s place instead of hers, enjoying a postcoital viewing of Jake’s TV interview about the Boxozoku gangs. Jake’s pretty high on his own supply these days, which he announces in his insistence that they stop hiding and start going out in public as a couple. As Misaki points out, Jake knows it’s too dangerous. He’s being dumb, but not that kind of dumb. This is cowboy pathology 10 — “the action is the juice,†to borrow a quote from Heat. Jake’s made an occupational fetish of going where the danger is. With a trip home for his dad’s 60th looming on the horizon, he’s letting that fetish run his personal dalliances too — driven by something between a death wish and delusions of grandeur.
Things come to a head for Jake and Misaki at an event at the U.S. ambassador’s residence (complete with a performance from the cast of Rent — first time the vibes on Tokyo Vice have been obliterated, not going to lie). The Meicho crew is all there; Emi’s hard at work making contacts, Trendy’s getting hit on by this Embassy hunk named Jason (literally pulls the “Are you a model?†line, and it works), and Jake manages to convince Misaki to attend as his date. Their little lovers among the Tokyo elite fantasy is going well. Enough that Jake starts talking about their “future together†and pulls a garsh, you wouldn’t want to, like, go with me to Missouri and meet my family, would you? That is until Misaki spots an associate of Tozawa’s at the party.
Nothing comes without cost. The next morning, Jake wakes up to an incessant bang at his door. It’s Chika, Tats’s sister. It turns out that Tats was arrested. Sure, Jake didn’t give any names or even run the photos they took, but the article led to a harsher police crackdown on bike thieves, and Tats got caught in the crossfire. “I stole a bike, and I’m going to prison,†a bruised and battered Tats, head shaved and eyes distant, tells Jake from behind prison glass. “You helped me steal one. So why aren’t you? Look out for my sister. She’s got no one.â€
Jake tries in vain to get some help from Emi. Maybe if the newspaper sticks up for him, they can help him get into reform school, Jake thinks. But the charges are too steep. Reform school is off the table. And juvenile prisons can be worse than the adult ones in Japan. So Jake tracks down Sato to make up for their fight from last season, takes him out to dinner, and immediately hits him up for a favor. Though I do have to admit, before he does, it’s great to see the lads back together again, smirking and boy-crushing on each other just like the old days. From Sato, Jake is able to get confirmation that Tats will be looked after while he’s locked up and given a place in Chihara-kai once he’s out. Those are the cards on the table, the best possible cleanup job Jake can pull off once he’s reaped the human consequences of the “big story.â€
Back at Club Polina, Samantha’s starting to feel the cost of firing Claudine against Ishida’s wishes. Sato fills her in: Claudine was getting close to Ohno on Ishida’s behalf. Ohno is the chief designer of a new shopping center to be built on a railway station. Ishida wants to know which station before it’s public. The idea is to buy all the surrounding land before the announcement and reap the rewards of the prime real estate.
Samantha’s still thinking about the straightforward value of her business, like the game of capital is ever about the straightforward flow of person-to-person commerce. “The success of my place depends on discretion,†she says. Not a high-ranking concern in the face of this railway-station scam. And now that Claudine isn’t around to get information, it’s up to Sam to finish the job.
After a rocky night at work, the whole Club Polina crew hangs back and throws Sam a party. Thank-yous abound for the best job any one of them has ever had, and you can see in Sam’s eyes that she’s realized her vision of a well-cared-for surrogate family in the heart of after-hours Tokyo. Now she’s going to parlay her plight into a shot at securing the bag once and for all.
“The architect has taken me into his confidence. Invited me to his home. So I am in a position to help,†Samantha tells Ishida in their unscheduled one-on-one. She’ll infiltrate Ohno’s place and get Ishida the information he wants, but she knows the value of her target. She wants sole ownership of her club in return. And a promise that no member of Chihara-kai will ever enter again.
The absolute nerve, dude. Ishida digs it. He even keeps his cool when she counters his demand of 25 percent payments of profit for the next six months with a fucking two-month payoff. He agrees to three months. “You’re good at this,†he says. “You will do well in this world.â€
But will anyone do well in this world for long now that Tozawa’s back in town?
Off the Record
• This could be all the Miami Vice I’ve been mainlining on Tubi talking, but make no mistake: Tokyo Vice remains gloriously laced with Michael Mann-ness. For crying out loud, we’ve had a vaguely Marxist, Thief-style arc about teen biker gangs for the last two episodes. And that’s to say nothing of the neo-mythic tenor mixed with ultraviolent realism pulsating through each story line. Cops, criminals — their closed systems of wealth and power, and the various lonely professionals who move among them. It’s a Mannian piece for our times, through and through, only bolstered and expanded by J.T. Rogers and crew’s palpable confidence and vision for their creation.
• I’m sure I’m far from the only Vice fan who feels incredibly seen by Roxana Hadadi and Nicholas Quah for their words on vibing with Tokyo Vice. From the Michael Mann–style Lonely-man visuals to the laser-focused newsroom drama, anthropological tourism, and steady yakuza drip — there’s much to already be missing about a show whose odds of renewal “aren’t looking too hot. While the series has its admirers (there are dozens of us!), it doesn’t seem to be contributing much to Max’s streaming imperatives in an era of shrinking TV budgets.â€Â Nothing comes without cost.
• It’s a shame, too, ’cause in its third episode, Tokyo Vice is already answering the current unspoken market imperative to be “old†and “new†TV at once. Maybe not in terms of budgets and tax incentives. But in its pitch-perfect fusion of procedural TV tropes, serial genre entertainment, and all the essential “prestige TV†hallmarks, Tokyo Vice, at the very least, has announced itself as a serious contender for best currently airing series.
• The deeper ensemble building of the cast in season two is a godsend for many reasons (more of which we’ll get to as some of our supporting characters get deeper into their respective arcs). Among them, a successful soft-recharacterization of Jake Adelstein. “As depicted in the text, Jake Adelstein is kind of a smarmy doofus,†says Nicholas Quah. “Capable and probably gifted as a reporter, sure, but very much a cad — a white Japanophile unleashed.†It would be a tough break for any show to have controversy surround not only its star but then the real-life reporter on which his character is based (big question marks around the accuracy of Adelstein’s memoir popped up after its season-one premiere). But the Jake of season two almost feels capitulated to lean into the odor of his origins, and it works as a more even weave in the tapestry of the ensemble.