It’s often those you least expect—well, sort of.

When you delve deeper, the idea that “the founder of modern Japan’s police force” could be an “anti-samurai mastermind” starts to make sense. Throughout the series, we’ve witnessed the disdain many members of the new sociopolitical order harbor towards the shizoku, the new term for samurai. After the Tokugawa shogunate fell, these “ghosts” of the past, as they are referred to in the latest episode of Last Samurai Standing, were replaced by police officers donned in Western-style uniforms and equipped with Western weaponry. As we’ve seen in our own society, certain individuals derive satisfaction from kicking others when they’re already down.

More crucially, we’ve sensed the new regime’s fear, even from seemingly honorable officials like the Home Minister, Lord Okubo. For some time, he and his colleagues have suspected that the peculiar activities along Tokaido Road are not just about eliminating samurai but possibly uniting them. These are men with grudges against the government, and a “good” officer might feel compelled to take drastic actions against them.

Yet, Kawaji Toshiyoshi has not been depicted as particularly outstanding in the series. In a narrative filled with characters bearing monikers like the Manslayer, the Savage Slasher, and the Guardian God of the Court Nobles, the unassuming policeman with a lackluster mustache, scuttling at the Home Minister’s bidding, hardly screams formidable.

However, a glance at the real Kawaji’s Wikipedia page is enlightening. Once a samurai himself, he was also a military general with in-depth knowledge of foreign tactics and a pioneer of kendo. Suddenly, the notion of him as a Doctor Doom figure, conspiring with wealthy businessmen to eliminate the legendary defenders of old Japan, doesn’t seem so implausible, does it? Actor Hamada Gaku masterfully conceals this depth; if Last Samurai Standing’s Kawaji possesses formidable qualities, they only emerge when he chooses to reveal them.

The big reveal is fun in part because our heroes have spent the episode trying, and largely failing, to work their way up the food chain to whoever’s in charge of this sadistic game of Kodoku. While sitting in a lovely seaside cafe, with tasteful blue wallpaper and a wave motif in the architecture, Shujiro, Fubata, Iroha, and Kyojin discuss their next move. Looking around the room, they spot at least a couple of other contestants, and agree on Kyojin’s big plan. 

He’ll capture one of the contestants and hand them over to the cops while they still have their wooden tag on, to test whether the Kodoku organization will risk crossing the police to kill an eliminated player. The others, meanwhile, will try to track down where the Kodoku grunts have been disappearing all the dead bodies to — a process which indicates their reach and resources, and implies they have secret hideouts throughout the country.

But our master strategist didn’t plan on the two or three participants present in the restaurant to have paid off literally everyone else there to be a hired sword, taking the foursome down before they can set their plan in motion. A lengthy, energetic rumble ensues that’s as close to bloodless as you’re gonna get on this show, as Shujiro, Iroha, and Kyojin effortlessly deck dozens of hired lackeys on their way to killing the contestants (and a few other guys, y’know, shit happens).

Our heroes send the guy behind the would-be trap to the cops, but not before Kyojin claims his distinctive bowler hat and black business suit as his own. He also takes on the guy’s sidekick-slash-hostage, Shinnosuke Samaya (Jyo Kairi). Like Fubata, Shinnosuke is a non-fighter who joined the contest in hopes of saving his impoverished family, having no idea it would be, as he painfully puts it, “a killing game.” It’s nice to see the devil-may-care ninja take a shine to the kid. 

Once the initial hiccup of having to fight like 40 guys simultaneously is overcome, the foursome go their separate ways. Kyojin infiltrates the police station to find Kodoku agents have already assassinated the captive they handed over, proving they’re either willing to cross the cops or part of the police themselves. Shujiro plays dead and is brought to the Kodoku corpse depository — a branch of the Mitsui Bank, one of the four megacorps funding the game. 

Once there, however, he’s discovered and confronted by the game’s chief enforcer, Sakura. They were comrades at that final battle of the samurai, and Shujiro thought him dead until now. Whatever their onetime brotherhood might have been, Sakura is now more than willing — and, quite possibly, more than able — to kill Shujiro for threatening the operators of the game.

They’re more than willing to place their thumb on the scales of the thing to maximize entertainment value, by the way. Earlier in the episode, a thrilling showdown takes place between Kamuykocha, the gifted archer, and Bukotsu, the seemingly unstoppable engine of destruction. Like a D&D player using loaded dice, Bukatso keeps rolling D20 saving throws, either batting away Kamykocha’s arrows or taking them painfully but non-lethally in his arm.

But the last minute intervention of Sakura and his riflemen puts a stop to the battle and spares one (or both) of the men from the wrath of the other. The powers-that-be, he explains, are invested in these two contestants going the distance. With the police on the way, it simply wouldn’t do to have them arrested and eliminated. 

Bukotsu, it should be noted, is out to get Shujiro and Fubata. Gentosai, the towering old warrior-monk, is out to get Shurio and Iroha. Iroha, secretly working in concert with her fellow ex-student Sansuke. It was he who wooed her away from a shitty life as a traveling entertainer — he himself works as a rickshaw driver to support his family — in hopes that the martial-arts tournament would lead them and their fellow survivors to Gentosai, not the other way around. Only together, he says, can they hope to defeat him. So this is the secret purpose for which Iroha has Shujiro earmarked. 

As engaging as the little twists and turns of the game are, this show is as entertaining as it is because of the filmmaking and the fighting. The you-are-there camerawork of director Kento Yamaguchi weaves all around the restaurant during the rumble scene, much of which is shot in one continuous take to make it feel as though you your self are dodging punches and ducking for cover. The silver glow of Sakura and Shujiro’s crossed swords pops brightly after 45 minutes of the show’s usual thoughtfully muted color palate. All this gives the aquamarine of the puppet-masters’ secret base an even more opulent feeling. Last Samurai Standing is its own cohesive visual world, occasionally sliced open by a giant sword.

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.