WhenSamurai Jackfirst aired on Cartoon Network back in 2001, it was immediately clear that this was a cartoon show unlike any other. To this day, the show stands out as one of the most visually creative and unique animated shows ever made, with an impressive 8 Emmy Awards, 4 of them from its final season. CreatorGenndy Tartakovskypushed the boundaries of visual storytelling, utilizing negative space and strong symbolic motifs to weave a compelling narrative around the titular character, Samurai Jack. In a battle with the evil entity known as Aku, the samurai warrior is flung far into the future where Aku’s power is too strong for him to defeat. Jack wields a magical katana, the only weapon that can vanquish Aku, and spends the series searching for a way back to the past.
The ground-breaking show captured the attention of a generation of kids who had never seen such strong visuals and unique presentation before. The show was canceled in 2004 without a resolution to Jack’s story. The following years, Tartakovsky would entertain the idea of finishing the tale with a movie, but it never happened. “As soon as we started developing it as a movie, they wanted to fit it into a box,” Tartakovsky would say in aninterviewwith IndieWeb. So, Tartakovsky waited, until he was presented with a chance to reboot the series, and the artistic freedom that he knew was necessary for a show of this kind.
Thirteen years later in 2017, the final season came out. Darker, bloodier, and with some sexual innuendos, it was clearly a show that had matured beyond its original audience. The final season is an absolute masterpiece, feeling both familiar and wonderfully fresh. It wraps up Jack’s story in a perfect yet tragic way.
So now that the tale is complete, what are the best episodes of the wonderfully artisticSamurai Jack?Spoilers ahead!
10S4/E1 - “Samurai vs. Ninja”
The very first episode of its last season, “Samurai vs. Ninja” is mostly unremarkable for the first half of the episode. Jack helps people and fights robots, which was formulaic for the show at the time. Yet he is pursued by a shadowy ninja warrior, who uses darkness to move and fight. In contrast, Jack clads himself in white and claims to use the light to fight instead, and thus begins an iconic fight reminiscent ofSpy vs Spy. The fight was a visual masterpiece, and fans still bring it up withTartakovskyto this day. As he would later say in aninterviewwith Nerdist, “Forget the episode; people refer to just that fight time and time again.”
Plagued by an endless stream of bounty hunters, Jack grows increasingly frustrated until his temper finally snaps at the same time as his sandal. Aku harnesses the energy behind Jack’s anger, turning it into a mirror image of Jack called “Mad Jack.” The two begin to fight, each growing more wild and furious, as a forest fire begins to rage around them. With wild hair and angry eyes, it becomes impossible to tell them apart - until Jack looks into the reflection of his sword and sees himself.
He recognizes the problem then, and stops fighting. A lovely visual of one of the red, burning trees appears on-screen, as blue color runs down the tree, cooling it. It is one of the best visual representations of anger, and the soothing and cooling down of anger, to ever be animated. The forest fire dissolves, as it was not real to begin with. Mad Jack charges at our hero, but the samurai replies that he has already won, because his antagonist was born out of a hatred that no longer exists. As Mad Jack disappears, defeated, the peaceful sounds of the forest return.
8S3/E12 - The Birth Of Evil: Part II
This episode is the second of a two-part story telling the tale of how Aku came to be, and how the legendary sword that can defeat him was made, as well. The first part is a beautifully done origin story, starting at the beginning of the universe. Moving through time, we see Aku land on Earth and grow into a dark, evil forest. One day, Jack’s father, the emperor of the local area, and a group of warriors set out to use an elixir on the forest to try and cure it before it envelops their homes.
Instead, the elixir creates Aku himself.
Part II starts with Aku attacking their town while Jack’s father is trapped. A giant, magical white horse appears, freeing him and bringing him to a temple in the sky, where he encounters the same three gods from Part I. Along with the help of some monks, the gods harness all the righteous and good energy within Jack’s father and turn it into the magical sword. The emperor then sets out on top of a flying cloud, to do battle with Aku. He defeats the evil entity in a grand battle, but not entirely, with Aku reforming into a deadly tower that will fester until Jack, who is born in the same moment that Aku is beaten, grows up.
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7S5/E2 - “XCIII”
The final season ofSamurai Jackis noteworthy in many ways, including the fact that it is set 50 years later (though Jack is immune to aging), and each episode is part of an over-arching story rather than stand-alone episodes like the previous 4 seasons. The titles of each episode don’t have names either. The first episode of the final season sets up a great path for the end of the show, but it’s the second episode where things really get moving. It starts with mirror images of Jack and a white wolf both walking through the woods, though they are not together. Jack and the wolf are stopped by deadly enemies, and two fights begin.
This episode is where we truly see the deadly force of the Daughters of Aku. They are terrifying villains, and Jack is nearly bested as he tries to fight, run, or hide. It doesn’t help that his legendary sword is gone. After an impressive and tense battle, he kills one of the assassins, and we see a bright red spray of blood - something the first seasons did not do. The show only gets darker from here, as Jack realizes two things at the same time: that this assassin is a human, not a robot, and that he has been stabbed and is badly wounded.
Jack falls into rushing water, setting off an explosion behind him and temporarily trapping the lethal and very human assassins. The episode ends with both him and the white wolf covered in blood and near death.
6S5/E9 - “C”
This penultimate episode of the last season starts off in a lighthearted way. Jack and Ashi, the assassin he had rescued before, have developed feelings for one another, kissing in the previous episode. Jack ends up leaving her behind, worried about losing her, but she finds him and insists that everything and everyone he has lost over time has led both of them to this moment, where they can defeat Aku together.
Then the demon himself appears, believing Jack has lost his sword and is powerless. The samurai reveals that he indeed has the sword, but as Aku turns to flee, he realizes that Ashi is his daughter. Aku begins to control her, forcing her to fight Jack against her will. Eventually he twists her into a dark entity, and Ashi seems to disappear. For a brief moment, Jack cuts at the entity and reveals Ashi’s face. She begs him to kill her, which is heart-wrenching and painful to see, considering how she started as a character. But Jack knows that he can’t, because he loves her. The episode ends with Jack giving up as Aku lifts the magical katana in triumph.
5S1/E7 - “Jack And The Three Blind Archers”
This early episode in the series was an immediate signal that this show was something unique, and is one of the most famous episodes of the show. It starts off with Jack hearing about a well that can grant any wish. He goes in search of it to try and wish himself home. He comes to a tower with three archers that are rapid and deadly with their aim, and he soon realizes that they are blind, and fire at him using their especially sensitive hearing.
Jack then flashes back to his training in the past, where he had to wear a blindfold and fight using his other senses. He meditates under a waterfall, then ties a blindfold around his eyes and taps into his other senses. Like Jack, the audience goes blind as the screen becomes black, until we hear a deer scraping and snow and eating grass - and the image of the deer appears on the black background. This kind of animation and use of the senses is genuinely amazing. We watch Jack rebuild the world around him using sound instead of sight.
By the time he makes another run for the tower, he can “see” as well as the archers, and defeats them. He’s about to use the wishing well when the archers, freed from their curse, tell him that using it will bind him to its power. Jack destroys it instead, and continues his search for a way home.
4S5/E3 - “XCIV”
This episode features some of the most creative use of negative space in the series, as well as excellent emotional development for Jack. It opens with a seriously wounded Jack floating through a river and escapes to a cave, where he comes close to death as he rests from his fight with the Daughters of Aku. He is deeply conflicted about killing a human, which he has never done before.
The white wolf from the previous episode appears at the mouth of the cave, covered in blood, just like Jack is, but still prepared to fight to survive. Jack relaxes, realizing it isn’t the assassins, and passes out. When he comes to, he and the wolf help each other regain their energy and heal from their serious wounds. The wolf even keeps Jack warm during the cold night, which is adorable and a bit reminiscent ofTartakovsky’s newest show,Primal.
Jack sees something of himself in the wolf and its warrior nature, and thinks back to a time when his father gave robbers a chance to run, or meet their fate. They chose the latter, and he killed them. His father’s sage advice once again surfaces: “The decisions you make, and the actions that follow, are a reflection of who you are. You cannot hide from yourself.” Jack is resolved to give these assassins one last chance to run, before killing them to defend himself.
He emerges from the cave healed both physically and mentally, though still wounded in both. What follows is one of the coolest fight scenes, with amazing choreography and visually gorgeous scenes, and a ton of blood and on-screen deaths.
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3S5/E7 - “XCVIII”
Having come through his despair and with renewed hope, Jack searches for his sword. He realizes that the sword left him intentionally because of his past actions, and he sits to meditate while Ashi waits. A stunningly gorgeous dream sequence begins, with Jack traveling through peaceful lands and then over water, until he comes to a monk who asks him to make tea. This sequence includes some of the most beautiful art and backdrops of the entire show.
While this is going on, an army marches onto their location intending to kill Jack. Ashi defends him while he is in his deep meditative state. In an emotional and powerful fight, Ashi fights and kills her own Mother, who raised and trained the Daughters of Aku.
Jack during this time goes through a calm, and peaceful tea ceremony, presenting the monk with tea that has all the right ingredients, but, like Jack, it lacks balance.The samurai then confronts his other self, the angry voice in his head that has been appearing in these episodes in an emotional and off-balance way. This voice was the source of his hatred and despair. “I’ve let you consume me for too long,” he says, and the other Jack disappears. The three god-like beings from Season 3’s two-part episode “The Birth of Evil” appear and grant the sword to Jack again, as they did to his father. His is transformed from the ragged-looking warrior into the Samurai Jack we recognize from before, and, sword in hand, he is now ready to defeat Aku.
2S5/E6 - “XCVII”
This episode is about the overwhelming nature of despair, and the quiet power of hope. Throughout this episode, Ashi is searching for Jack, who has disappeared. She is worried he needs her help, and he does. Along the way, she encounters many of the people Jack has helped over the years, and she realizes how much hope he has given this world and its people.
She eventually finds Jack in a graveyard, about to kill himself because of his shame and despair. After 50 years of failing in his quest, he has lost all hope, and he is surrounded by dark samurai ghosts encouraging him to commit the grave act. This is an especially heavy moment for the show to confront, but it is done exceptionally well.
Ashi runs to stop him, telling him that the children he thought were killed in a previous episode are alive, and that the hope he gave her has saved her life as well. One of the ghosts is about to strike Ashi down, when Jack appears to defend her, triumphant again. Like every great hero’s journey, he has come through his pit of despair with Ashi’s help, and at this moment he has won the most important victory - that of his own internal struggle. And now it is time to find his missing sword.
There are essential battles every hero must fight on their journey - the internal one, and the final external one. This episode shows how Jack begins to win the deep internal battle he has been struggling with for a long time.
1S5/E10 “CI”
This is the final episode of the entire show, and it is an exquisitely beautiful conclusion to everything that came before. It takes true mastery to complete a series so defined by beautiful art and a compelling and powerful story, and this episode shows that mastery on full display.
Jack is captured and defeated; Ashi is taken over by his evil influence, and Aku broadcasts his victory for the entire world to see. Ashi is about to deliver the final killing blow when an explosion announces the arrival of all of Jack’s friends from the past 5 seasons, who are there to help the warrior and fight Aku.
The cameos are fun and entertaining, showing us everyone from the Scotsman to the tiny talking dogs, all of them uniting in one last desperate battle. It is a great way to call back to other moments in the series as we are saying goodbye to it.
Jack battles Ashi for the sword. He manages to enter the blackness enclosing her and shout to her that he loves her. He is thrown outward, and she begins to choke him - but then stops as the real Ashi takes over and her normal face appears. She rejects Aku as her father and begins to fight him instead. Both Jack and Ashi realize that she shares Aku’s powers, and without further hesitation, Ashi creates a time portal and sends them both into the past - the very thing Jack has been trying to do for over 50 years.
Then the original scene from the first episode, where Jack is about to destroy Aku replays, tying the first and last episodes together in beautiful symmetry. Just as Aku sends the old Jack into the future, our Jack appears seconds later with Ashi, and they fight and defeat the demon entity once and for all.
The people of different lands celebrate, and we see Jack’s father and mother preparing him to marry Ashi. She walks down the aisle, but frowns and then collapses. Jack holds her as she tells him that without Aku she wouldn’t exist. She disappears in his arms, and he cries - along with much of the audience watching. Aku was defeated, but not without great cost.
The final scene shows Jack looking sad as he sits under a tree. Everything is gray and empty of color. A bright red ladybug appears and lands on his hand - which reminds him of Ashi because of her love for them. He smiles as the colorful bug flies off, and slowly, the grey scene blossoms into beautiful color again, the sun breaking through clouds. It is a heartbreaking and yet utterly beautiful end to such a moving and powerful series, showing us that even with the painful loss of a loved one, we can find color and light and beauty in the world.
