The tension escalates much earlier than anyone anticipated, catching viewers off guard.

On one end stands Ukyo Kikuomo, the refined and dignified Guardian God of the Court Nobles. Opposing him is Bukotsu Kanjiya, a ruthless and grim figure, notorious for his violent rampage through defenseless villages in search of Shujiro and Fubata, who narrowly escaped his grasp on horseback earlier in the episode. Their confrontation unfolds dramatically in a dusty street, reminiscent of a classic Western showdown, complete with a rolling tumbleweed.

Given that Ukyo and Bukotsu emerged as the most formidable survivors from the temple battle, apart from the main heroes, one would assume they would progress far in the competition. However, this early and unexpected clash between them signals to the audience that in this narrative, no one is safe, and anything can happen. In the world of professional wrestling, this tactic is known as “smart booking.”

Indeed, understanding the dynamics of professional wrestling can be quite enlightening for stories like this. The moment Ukyo and Bukotsu unsheathed their swords, it became clear that Bukotsu would likely emerge victorious. This is because the protagonist is typically portrayed as the hero or “face” in wrestling terms, while Bukotsu embodies the villain or “heel.” The heel’s advancement is necessary to set up a compelling challenge for the face protagonist.

To intensify Bukotsu’s menacing presence, his initial opponent is a highly respected and top-tier face. Nothing underscores Bukotsu’s threat more than defeating a renowned samurai among the 292 contestants. The heel’s victory—achieved in a brutal manner—is crucial, as it enhances his villainy. Bukotsu’s act of biting off his opponent’s thumb and then cruelly tossing the severed head to frightened villagers dramatically seals his role as a formidable adversary.

Of course, the other tip-off that Bukotsu would win is that we haven’t yet seen his backstory. We know Shujiro’s deal, obviously, and in this episode we find out what brought both his ward Fubata and Bukotsu’s opponent Ukyo to participate in the lethal game the unseen Organizer has dubbed “Kodoku.”

Once the most lethal and loyal servant of the nobility, Ukyo found himself and his whole family, which had served their lord for generations, unceremoniously tossed on their asses when the new anti-samurai and anti-sword laws went into effect. He promises his young acolytes that he will restore the Kiuomi family to greatness with the money he wins. I

It’s a tough flashback to watch, not only because we now know this will never happen, but because the harshness of the changeover to the new world is so vividly represented. We watch decent, loyal man in beautiful traditional garb get rejected by a bunch of gluttonous assholes in business suits. The difference between the romanticized Then and the harsh cold Now could not be any clearer.

Fubata, meanwhile, has a nearly identical origin story to Shujiro’s. She, too, is there to raise money to treat her cholera-stricken family — her mother, in this case, a religious woman who runs an orphanage turned cholera ward for children who lost their parents to the disease. And like Shujiro, it isn’t just her own family she’s concerned about, but everyone in her village. They are two similarly selfless people.

Is it possible they’ve met a third? Kyojin, your friendly neighborhood ninja, tracks them down at the inn after having saved their skins during the temple fight. He has a proposal for them: Join forces and help him uncover who’s really running this show, and for what purpose. (Back in Tokyo, the government’s starting its own investigation, implying the Organizer is an independent operator.) 

Granted, Kyojin threatens to kill Fubata if Shujiro betrays him, and reminds Shubata that he might have to kill Fubata himself in the end. But there are enough tags to go around to get all three of them through the final Tokyo checkpoint. He leaves them to think it over.

On their way out of town, Shujiro and Fubata encounter a group of survivors from the temple, all of whom are crippled with terror over what they’ve witnessed. They intend to take off their tags and quit the game…even though there’s a phalanx of armed soldiers on the ridge overlooking their camp. Yeah, it’s not a great plan, though I’ll cut the show some slack and say it’s making the point that they’re so badly in shock and so desperate to get out of the game that they’re no longer thinking rationally.

To Shujiro and Fubata’s horror, the gunmen mow the deserters down. The sight once again brings Shujiro back to the beach where the last samurai were massacred — only this time the panic clears, giving way to rage. How dare these swaggering bastards, with their uniforms and their rifles, treat those men so brutally? “You think you can do anything to the samurai because we are useless now?” he snarls.

At long last he draws his sword, and beheads an arrogant guard in slow motion. Despite the fact that he’s badly outnumbered and they all have firearms, he then slices through the entire squad.

Star Junichi Okada’s action choreography in both scenes is fist-pumpingly good, but in two totally different ways. Bukotsu and Ukyo fight in quick bursts, lashing out and then regrouping, before things break down as Bukotsu gets the upper hand. Their whole battle, which is intercut with Fubata and Shujiro’s storyline as well as Ukyo’s origin story throughout the episode, is filmed as it happens, with minimal camera trickery.

Shujiro’s killcrazy rampage through the game’s enforcers, by contrast, is a balletic, bullet-timed thing of beauty. Against a blue-gray sky tinted purple-pink by the spray of blood in the air, Shujiro moves in and out of regular speed, with the action slowing down to show us individual sword strikes and spectacular deaths and dismemberments. As Sakura, the top lieutenant with the gnarly scar, says from a safe distance, “Kokushu the Manslayer has awakened.”

All this, however, is cross-cut with Fubata’s horrified reaction to seeing the kind of man to whose fate she has staked her own. “This is who I used to be,” Shujiro tells her when the one-sided slaughter is concluded. “All I knew was how to kill people.” 

In that sense, it’s hard to weep for the way of the samurai. On the other hand, the system that replaced them shows no greater reverence for human life than did they. Underneath all the awesome action and badass characters is a deep, murky sadness, the sadness of living at a time when a bad system falls and an even worse one takes its place.

Fubata, I think, represents hope for the future. Not a warrior, her only swordplay is using her short blade in the ritual dance she performs by a torii gate in a nearby body of water. She’s shot against the dawn, the light clinging to actor Yumia Fujisaki’s face as she performs the ceremony. Shujiro looks at her and sees his own daughter. If Fubata survives with her soul intact, maybe the samurai aren’t useless after all.

Sean T. Collins (@seantcollins.com on Bluesky and theseantcollins on Patreon) has written about television for The New York Times, Vulture, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere. He is the author of Pain Don’t Hurt: Meditations on Road House. He lives with his family on Long Island.