Written by Phil Klemmer & Grainne Godfree
Directed by Kevin Tancharoen
Mick (to Amaya): "Told you ninjas were real."
Now this was heaps of fun. The joy having a show that explore history is actually seeing some of the characters show some joy at seeing it with their own eyes and Mick's unbridled glee about landing in Feudal Japan and eagerness to see ninjas had me grinning from ear to ear while watching this one.
It also helped that with Mick's enthusiasm, there was the counterbalance of Amaya's cynicism whom for a person who has just seen the possibility of time travellers seemed determined not to believe in the existence of ninjas, even with Sara more or less having to cite herself as an example of being one.
Speaking of Amaya, this episode opened up with her nearly taking out all of the crew on the misguided belief that Mick was responsible for Rex's death. Thankfully and because this episode had another major issue to work with, Amaya soon realised her mistake and grudgingly began to soften towards Mick as the episode progressed. The back and forth between Heatwave and Vixen was certainly one of the highlights of the episode.
The other of course being Sara. Seeing her as the leader of the gang not only feels right but she really does make it look effortless. While Rip was constantly being challenged by the lot of them, Sara seems to be running the Waverider unopposed and she had some nice bonding moments with Amaya in this episode when she wasn't fighting off and slaying assassin with her usual charm and bad ass skills. Her fight scenes with the Shogun's henchmen were some of the best scenes done on this show.
As for the main plot itself, trust the goofing around with Ray and Nate to land the gang in Feudal Japan. I like that the show didn't waste time in showcasing Nate's new powers and giving him the name Citizen Steel but at the same time, I noticed that tonally both Nate and Ray really aren't that dissimilar to each other. Their mutual desire to being a hero caused some conflict in this episode as well as some problems.
Nate constantly kept mouthing off to the baddies and nearly got himself killed and Ray got captured, tortured and had his suit stolen yet again (really, it's becoming a meme now) and it somewhat took until the last minute for the both of them to get their shit together and actually take down the shogun of this episode. As for the daughter and father that Nate befriended, their connection to a certain was a nice nod.
Last but not least, there was also Jax and Stein. While they were mostly ship bound, they weren't idle though. Jax discovered that Rip had a secret room with a lot of weapons and Stein realised that Barry left the former captain a message from 40 years in the future. On a frustrating but predictable note, both of them decided not to convey said message to Sara though.
- Mick and Nate were fairly throwing out the references tonight. Wookies, Yoda, Chuck Norris and so on.
- Barry's message seems like it will be more linked to the overall arc than the upcoming crossover episodes with Arrow, The Flash and Supergirl.
- This was the first episode not to feature Rip at all. We also didn't see Eobard but Sara showed an awareness that he's a problem though.
- Chronology: Feudal Japan this week for the majority of the episode.
Shogun certainly had it's moments. While I had some issues with the Nate/Ray bits at times, everything involved Sara, Mick and Amaya certainly made up for things though. Those three played off each other well enough and the main villain of the week was a step up from last week's hulking mess.
Rating: 7 out of 10
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