The penultimate episode of "Samurai Jack" is full of surprises

The end is near, but things aren't looking good for Samurai Jack.

The final season of Samurai Jack has been full of surprises. But before this, its 100th episode, a somewhat clear vision of resolution had begun to emerge: Jack, along with the now romantically-linked Ashi, would return to the time portal whose guardian had violently forbidden Jack's entry in the original series. Jack was not yet worthy of entering the portal then, but the guardian did not kill him because the portal itself hinted that Jack would one day be worthy. After Jack's struggle this season, it seemed like he was finally ready. So, with Ashi's help, and perhaps that of the various friends and allies Jack has accumulated over the course of his quest, he would defeat the guardian (and also Aku, in the present), and then return to the past, and "undo the future that is Aku"--i.e., the entirety of the show.* It was a straightforward, simple, happy ending, with the only potential for sadness coming from Jack and Ashi never having met.

Was this how the show would end? I thought so. 

This week made it clear that this is not going to happen.** We pick up right where Jack and Ashi left off last week, still locked in romantic embrace, and get a half episode's worth of some more awkward romantic interactions (as well as some cool nature-and-seasons-based visuals). But these quickly take a back seat to Jack's inner drama. As I wrote last week, Jack is not well-suited to romance, both from temperament (being a stoic loner) and from experience (the last woman he even came close to loving was Aku in disguise). This episode added another explanation for Jack's emotional distance: fear of loss. Aku's evil "has taken everything I have ever loved. All I have left are memories," Jack says. "I do not want you [Ashi] to become a memory." Ashi tries to convince him otherwise, arguing that "everything that has happened in our lives has brought us right here. Right now. Together. And together we will defeat Aku."

Jack remembers the autumns of his childhood. 

Things are a bit more complicated than that, as it turns out. For the first time this season, Jack and Aku (who is very darkly funny in this episode) face one another in the present. Aku was following a tip given to him by Scaramouche, who claimed that Jack was sword-less; when Aku's eyes catch the gleam of Jack's blade, Scaramouche, who bet his life on his claim, finds himself at the wrong end of an Aku eye beam. Aku, surprisingly, even politely, is about to leave Jack with his "lady friend," when he discovers something: Ashi is, literally, a Daughter of Aku. The graphic births of Ashi we saw at the beginning of the season were the product of a sort of mystical insemination by Aku himself.

Ashi's "conception." 

This makes Aku Ashi's actual father, and grants him a control over her that he takes full advantage of, forcing an at first outwardly-unwilling Ashi to fight Jack, against her wishes and Jack's urging to fight Aku's control*** (Aku soon gives Ashi a more fitting makeover, in his image). Once again, it seems, Jack has fallen for Aku in disguise. But this time, the hurt is even more profound, for him and for us. We had seen Ashi grow (albeit in somewhat rushed fashion) from homicidal monomaniac to a strong force for good. When she briefly regains control of herself, she begs Jack to kill her and destroy Aku, but he cannot. We had also seen Jack grow out of his rut, escape from ultimate despair, and renew his commitment to his quest. But seeing one of the only people he has ever loved revert to a slave of Aku is the injustice that (seemingly) breaks him. The episode ends with a still-frame (clipped above) of Aku holding Jack's sword, and Jack bowing in despair before him and the transformed Ashi.

Ashi, under Aku's control. 

This is shocking. With only one 22-minute episode to go, Jack is as badly off as he has ever been, at a position of maximum weakness. He is swordless, friendless, and broken once more. Just as the show's conclusion was starting to come into focus, it has destroyed all of the predictable paths of denouement. What this means for the show's end is beyond me. But what this means for the quality of Samurai Jack's final season is that it has retained a relentless capacity to surprise and entertain to the very end. Whatever surprises next week holds, Samurai Jack has already thoroughly justified its return.

*Despite having time travel baked into its premise, Samurai Jack has not yet made clear what form of time travel logic it would subscribe to. That is, would Jack defeating Aku in the past reset the timeline? Create an alternate universe? Have no effect, because changing the past is impossible?
**I had long assumed the exact opposite. The easiest prediction to make for this season was that, at some point, a wise, mature Jack would re-encounter the guardian who kept him out of the portal in the original series and finally earn entry. Not only did this not happen, but also the portal and the guardian himself seem to have been destroyed, presumably by Aku's mission to destroy all extant time portals.
***Jack has some experience of fighting Aku's control; Aku briefly took over his body in Season 4's "The Aku Infection."