Constantinople

Security in King's Landing is the worst I've seen since every suspect in 24 managed to escape the perimeter.

One problem with portraying Cole as a dope is it's hard to credit him with having the cunning to think up the Arryk/Erryk scheme. It's true Colr was able to provoke Harwin into attacking Cole in S1E6, but that didn't make Cole look smart. It just made Harwin look like the bigger moron.

Having dragon dreams is all very well, but Heleana doesn't provide actionable intelligence

I was underwhelmed particularly by the killing of Jaehaerys. Looking back at Season 1 and Game of Thrones, I don't recall another child's death, or in the case of Bran, disablement, where we spent so little time with the victim and the perpetrators. As a result I didn't feel any emotional investment in it. Credit to Phia Saban for doing what she could to sell the scene.

Toranaga's goal is to become Shogun. You don't go to all of the effort Toranaga has done to become Shogun and then turnover power to someone else's son. So his goal to overthrow the revenge and the heir. As for Mariko, it's odd that she's seeking redemption for her and possibly her family while at the same time she's sleeping with Blackthorne in a castle controlled by Ishido. She has no idea who will see them together and what they'll do in response.

As Blackthorne is returning to the Ajiro from Osaka, he sees his burnt ship. Upon landing, Tonomoto Akinao, the spy, the explains that enemies, thought to be Christian, are responsible. As he walks through the village, Blackthorne sees several severed heads and a samurai beating up on a villager. Tonomoto Akinao, says Toranaga ordered it and there will be no rest in the village until they discover who aided the Christian raiders. Toranaga admits later to Yabushige that he, Toranaga was responsible for torching Blackthorne's ship. Toranaga doesn't need to justify torching Blackthorne's ship to any Japanese people, and Toranaga told Yabushige that Blackthorne wasn't important to keep alive. So there's no need to engage in the pantomime of offing a bunch of villagers as part of some ruse.

Shogun does well in small scenes such as those between Blackthorne and Fuji but too often the political machinatuons don't make sense. If the writers have time for dream sequences about the elderly Blacktorne's life back in England with his grandsons, the writers have time to give better political explanations. Toranaga is supposed to be a political mastermind yet he throws Hiromatsu's life away for nothing. No one was fooled by Toranaga pretending to give up except his own supporters and Father Alvito, the worst political pundit in history. Except the mask is off the moment Mariko tells Ishido she's taking two of the hostages with her. Now we find out Toranaga is killing villagers for shits and giggles. According to Toranaga, who has no reason to lie since he's talking to the soon to be headless Yabushige, Toranaga likes keeping Blackthorne around for the lulz. However Toranaga also says he had to pretend he wasn't responsible for burning Blackthorne's ships to "test" Blackthorne. Thus Toranaga kept executing innocent villagers. This makes no sense. Not only is Blackthorne in no position to defy Toranaga, just two episodes ago, after Toranaga sends Blackthorne and Yabushige to Osaka, Toranaga says Blackthorne and Yabushige are predictable. So killing innocent villagers in no way helps Toranaga. And this is the guy who allegedly wants peace. It's one thing to act ruthlessly to achieve your goals, but it's another to act pointlessly. Toranaga has no qualms sending people to their death if it helps achieve his ambitions, but unlike Yabushige, Toranaga doesn't kill people just to see how the victim will react to prospect of their death. I suppose it doesn't matter because, as they say in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is Shogun. An example of Ishido's incompetence is that he doesn't want to wait bury Mariko but because it will delay the war. How? You can't just instantly march to war. You can start preparations and bury Mariko at the same time. Yet we're supposed to believe that a man who rose from the peasantry to the regency is a total idiot. Nor can we explain any such delay on the 49 day rule. Toranaga got a 49 day breather because his son died. Mariko is not Toranaga's daughter. We're also supposed to believe it was a political masterstroke that Mariko's mission to Osaka forced Ishido to release the hostages because otherwise they'd be revealed as such. Except hostage taking was routine and would continue during the Tokugawa shoganate. Everybody knew the drill, which also eliminates Ishido's motive for killing Mariko. Even if Ishido didn't intend to kill Mariko, her mission isn't a threat and thus she isn't. For that matter, what was Mariko's end game other than doing her best to get herself killed? We're told, over and over, that her family name is under a cloud because her father killed Ochiba's father, the Taiko's predecessor. So how does Mariko finish her father's work, as Toranaga would say, by going to Osaka? The Taiko is already dead, so Mariko can't commit any act of vengeance against the man who killed her family. If Mariko is getting her revenge against the Taiko by undermining the regency and thus the Taiko's heir, she's no different than those who attribute her father's actions to her. And if she's trying to restore her family's name, why is she risk sleeping with the barbarian in Osaka of all places? Speaking of the regency, what's the point of having one if the Ochiba has her own army answerable to her on the grounds she's the mother of the heir? This was the first I've heard of that. It makes sense that she would have influence, at least among those who wish or expect the Taiko's heir to succeed the Taiko, but her own army? That should have been mentioned earlier. And why would Ochiba withdraw that army during a battle fought to determine whether the regents or Toranaga are in charge? Ochiba might be sick of Ishido, but siding with Toranaga is committing her son to political irrelevancy, at best. Nor can it be explained by Ochiba and Mariko's reconciliation. Putting the memory of her BFF before her own son would be House of the Dragon level stupidity. There were many good scenes such as those between Fuji and Blackthorne, Yabushige, Omi, etc. I even enjoyed the idea of Toranaga metaphorically spilling his guts out to Yabushige just before Yabushige literally spills his guts out, until Toranaga oddly decided to stop on the grounds that Yabushige was a dead man. But the politics was a mess.

After seeing this episode, Hiromatsu's death seems even more pointless. The only one buying Toranaga's ruse were his own men and Father Alvito. Even if Ishido briefly bought it, Toranaga's emissary Mariko may as well have said "It's on bro!" to Ishido when she was in Osaka. Toranaga already got a 49 day timeout thanks to Nagakado's slip and fall. He didn't get an extension for Hiromatsu's death. Pretending to give up only made his men muttinous, which led to the Hiromatsu debacle. But if Toranaga didn't pretend, or stopped pretending after he had the 49 days, his men wouldn't be multinous and there's no need to off Hiromatsu. Toranaga could just as easily used the 49 day timeout, not pretend to give up, send Mariko on her mission near the end of the 49 day period, and still have his righthand man. A righthand man he'll need very much in any upcoming battle.

Previously Ochiba said Toranaga was responsible for her father's assassination but never explained why. Ochiba had several scenes in this episode, including two with Mariko who is simultaneously Ochiba's former BFF, the daughter of the man who killed Ochiba's father, and the emissary of Toranaga. Yet there was still no explanation for why Ochiba suspects Toranaga conspired with Mariko's father, or manipulated Mariko's father, to kill Ochiba's father. It's disappointing.

Having someone chop your head off after you've mortally wounded yourself by intentional disembowelment isn't some Get of Hell Free Card, so I don't know what that was all about. I also don't know what the hell Blackthorne was thinking offering to be her second. Unless he had some serious beginner's luck, it likely would have been uglier than when young Toranaga served as the second for the opponent he defeated in battle. Did Blackthorne practice decapitating watermelons in between episodes? And if Mariko is concerned about her family's name or whatever, what in the hell is she doing sleeping with Blackthorne in Osaka? If that got out, the reaction would be "What do you expect from the daughter of a traitor?" And could Blackthorne put on some minimal game face when he meets with people like Ishido instead of looked by like dope all the time?

Absent a storm, Yabushige and Blackthorne will get to Osaka long before Toranaga and his army. If Y&B start blasting away at Obama's walls it will give the game away and they won't have enough men on the ship to take advantage of whatever damage the cannon causes because most of those men will be needed to sail the boat or fire the guns or both.

I guess we'll find out next week, but I'm not sure what the point of Toranaga's ruse is. The Information Superhighway tells me it's a little over 300 miles from Tokyo to Osaka. It's a bit difficult to sneak up to a place 300 miles away while you're accompanied by an army. I also don't understand how the extra time benefits Toranaga that much. It will help those injured by the earthquake, but for bless his brother really is working with Toranaga, it doesn't seem as if he'll have enough men unless (Game of Thrones spoiler)

I agree. I think the writers are relying too much on Toranaga's first scene in the first episode where he and his son are discussing the falcon. Toranaga remarked the falcon didn't just attack, but chose when to strike, and flew with the sun behind it so the falcon's enemies wouldn't see it. That scene is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Yet in the flashback Mariko says an alliance with the Toda clan is worthless and a joke.

Well that's how Blackthorne sold it to Yabushige. From Episode 4 Then Blackthorne gave a demonstration. And we know Mariko makes written reports to Toranaga about what Blackthorne says and does.