With the arrival of the final episode of FX’s Shogun, the creators of the series revealed a major development regarding the last episode of the popular TV series.
The series, starring Hiroyuki Sanada, Anna Sawai and Cosmo Jarvis, became one of the most acclaimed TV series of 2024 with its spectacular scenes and taking the audience on a trip to feudal era of Japan centuries ago.
Speaking to Metro, the co-creators Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks said that the last episode had an alternate ending that was cut for being ‘false’.
Shogun ended with the final scene showing Lord Yoshii Toranaga played by Hiroyuki Sanada sharing some glances with John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) before looking out into the distance.
Justin Marks explained that the creators had planned to end the show with a Blackthorne scene, however, it was later repurposed. Another scene also featured Blachthorne in his old age.
The sequence was cut from the series altogether.
‘We tried a number of things, because the final episode deals with indeterminate futures. The book ends this way very beautifully in this ambiguity and almost like there’s an ambivalence towards the future, in every way,’ Marks said.
On Blackthorne, he said that the team shot several sequences when it came to the Shōgun finale.
‘One of the scenes is actually in the cut in the show, which was this beautiful moment of Blackthorne striding out into his garden, sitting down and meditating, which we originally intended to be several months after the events of the show,’ he added.
Blackthorne was featured in another alternate ending showing an older version of him looking out at the sea in the same spot where the story began in episode one.
However, the creators decided against using it in the show at all.
“I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the determinism of it. It felt ordained in some way and false,” Marks maintained.
