Tokyo Vice Recap: Specialized Access
In the penultimate episode of ‘Tokyo Vice,’ Jake and the Meicho team are hot on Tozawa’s trail, and there’s no going back now. Read more and discuss in this week’s recap.
“SHIGEMATSU LIKELY TO BE PRIME MINISTER.”
Jake Adelstein slams the paper down on a desk at Meicho Shimbun. The headline: his new death knell. “Tozawa owns this guy,” he tells Emi, Trendy, and Tin Tin in a closed-door meeting, “blackmailing him with the Yoshino videotape. Now he’s got the FBI in his pocket. If I didn’t hate that fucker so much, I’d be impressed.”
But to publish anything, Emi reminds him, they need evidence that Tozawa actually got the illegal liver transplant and a name who helped him do it. Jake’s got his sights set on Lynn Oberfeld, but would one FBI agent be able to instigate all this for Tozawa? That’s when Tin Tin comes in with the heater questions: “What if the FBI itself made it happen?”
Now we’re getting somewhere. The yakuza bust in Hawaii. Tozawa knows he is dying and he can’t get Shigematsu to take him off the no-fly list. So he contacts the FBI, offers them information on yakuza activity in America in exchange for his life. It’s still just a theory, but they might be able to confirm it with some help from a contact at the U.S. Embassy. So Trendy is reluctantly put on fact-finding duties with American hunk Jason, and Tin Tin will go to Tozawa’s doctor to get medical confirmation of their story, such as it is.
“You ever heard anything like this before?” Jake asks Katagiri in the detective’s car, nestled under a bridge in hiding. It turns out, there was talk years ago about another yakuza being an FBI informant. “Some claim to have seen his signature on an official FBI agreement.” Jake’s going to take this information back to the Meicho crew and see what, if anything, shakes out of it. Katagiri is notably more cautious, even downright fearful, than the day before, when he told Jake to swallow his own fear. “Last night we did not know what we do now,” Katagiri said. “There has never been a leader of this country beholden to yakuza before. So please, be careful.” The Tokyo Underground game board changed that fast. The faster the shift, the more dangerous for everyone involved.
Over lunch, Trendy brings up the story with Jason and asks him to confirm the FBI’s deal with Tozawa. The ask, as it plays out, is rather inelegant. Understandable under the circumstances, but the timing couldn’t be more personally detrimental. “Is that what I am to you? A source?” Jason asks. “You know what you mean to me,” Trendy replies. “If we do not print this story, my friend Jake could be killed. Please.” The severity of the situation gets Jason to agree to look into it for Trendy, but there’s a clear wedge of mistrust between these two star-crossed lovers now.
Meanwhile, Sato is pondering the next steps from behind the oyabun’s desk at Chihara-kai. It’s only been a day since our guy took Hayama out of the picture, and already a handful of men aren’t reporting in. And the ones who are there are just as nervous. Oyabun killed, war in the streets, and now they’re hearing about Tozawa going to the remaining gumis with his new-order proposal: join him or be killed.
With nothing but his instincts of temperate, thoughtful action to back him up, Sato visits the only other gumi, as far as he knows, not to be subsumed by “Tozawa Inc.” Sato argues that with an alliance between Ichikawa-gumi and Chihara-kai, there’s still a chance to resist Tozawa. “No one can stop Tozawa now,” Ichikawa replies. “Most gumis have already cut a deal with him. As have we.” The bigger stick always wins the fight. Better to join Tozawa and live than fight and die.
But the question remains: Does Shinzo Tozawa really hold the bigger stick? Or is it merely on loan from his wife’s family? And will he still be holding it in the final showdown? He certainly thinks so, and his hubris is on full display when Kazuko walks in on him shaving (naked, with a foreboding air of triumph). “You look the same as when I first met you,” she says, holding him close. “Let us start again. Let us be partners.” But Shinzo is way too far up his own, uh, plans to accept flattery. Once he is accepted onto the boards of the men who control Japan’s money, it’s only a matter of time before what’s theirs becomes his. “You want to be of use to me?” Shinzo retorts. “Raise my children, be a wife, and stay out of my way.” It’s always something of a thrill to watch an asshole like Tozawa blow his last chance without realizing it. “Very unwise of you,” Kazuko says with a concentrated, icy-hot smolder, “to make an enemy of me.”
Over a round of golf with some boys from Suzaku Financial, Tozawa moves full steam ahead with his plan to acquire influence. When the senior representative at tee-off brings up Kazuko’s family fortune and asks, with whom are we actually doing business here?, Tozawa confirms that his wife knows her place (which we all know is the last check Tozawa can really cash). As for his place in Suzaku Financial, Tozawa would like a seat on their board and 5 percent ownership. In exchange for the fortune their corporation will make via Tozawa’s influence with the new Prime Minister, of course.
Everything appears to be going according to plan until one of the other Suzaku Financial guys mentions he saw Tozawa’s “friend” Misaki at a party at the U.S. Embassy months ago. “Ravishing,” he says. “She was there with some tall gaijin. Journalist, I think.” Tozawa responds with a thinly veiled keep my GF’s name out of your f**king mouth type deal, and a confirmation to us that the target on Jake’s back is about to burn redder than ever before.
Not that it matters. Jake and the Meicho team are hot on Tozawa’s trail and there’s no going back now. Trendy gets a call from Jason, confirming that Tozawa’s been a criminal informant for the FBI for the last year and a half. His information has led to multiple major busts in the US. He won’t go on record, but he’s seen the FBI document that Tozawa signed. Knowing that the document exists is enough material for Jake to bluff his way through a final confrontation with Lynn Oberfeld, whose office Jake shows up to under the auspices of thanking her for her “help” with the case. Oh, and while he’s here, Jake has one follow-up question about the American citizen she claims had the liver transplant in Minnesota: How does a high-school English teacher afford a quarter million dollar watch to give his surgeon as a gift? “I know Shinzo Tozawa is an informant for the FBI,” he says, following it up with the key useful fib: “I’ve seen a copy of the agreement between Bureau and Tozawa.” After a quick verbal sparring match, Oberfeld agrees to confirm the Tozawa contract as an on-background source, as long as Jake gives her the name of his source.
With the FBI confirmation in tow, all they need to run the story is medical confirmation from Tozawa’s local physician. It’s Tin Tin’s time to shine here, and it’s incredibly satisfying to watch him shake down this shady yakuza doc with some hard-earned crack-reporter bravado. He gets the doctor to confirm he treated Tozawa for liver disease, as well as correspondence with Tozawa’s surgeon in Minnesota. It almost looks like the story will be published without a hitch when Tin Tin is shanked in the streets by a stealthy assailant.
Thankfully, our boy is rushed to the hospital straight away, and his condition is stable by the time Emi arrives. Baku is there as well, and his mere presence at this low point in the investigation is enough to spark a confrontation. “You’re the one, Baku-san, who has been obstructing this whole time,” she says when Baku threatens to shut down the story. “You’re the one who destroyed the ape. Am I wrong?”
“I’m not a perfect man,” Baku responds, “but I am not a corrupt man.” He seems genuinely distraught that Emi, whose opinion he clearly respects despite their differences, would think he was capable of such blatantly corrupt behavior. Looks like we’re several steps further from the identity of the Meicho arsonist.
As for the article itself, Jake is out of contact with his team and unaware of Tin Tin’s condition, hiding out with Chihara-kai so he can write the damn thing in relative safety. “Your article will help with our plans,” Sato says. “But it makes it harder for me to keep you safe.” Little does he know that Tozawa’s plan to eliminate him and what remains of Chihara-kai has been expedited. If “keeping Jake safe” already involves escaping the Chihara-kai building via a heavy shootout with Tozawa’s assassins and frantically moving to a safe house they aren’t even sure is “safe” yet, what’s it gonna be like when this level of “safety” is out of reach?
At Club Polina, Samantha’s mournfully packing things up when Misaki appears at her door, looking for her tall gaijin. Jake’s dropped his burner phone, and Misaki hasn’t been able to reach him all day. Sam takes Misaki to Jake’s apartment for one last try at the door, where they’re met on the street by Tozawa himself. Our gals get away on Sam’s bike, and with nowhere else to go, Sam calls Sato, asking for a place to hide out. Queue the impromptu lovers’ reunion between Jake and Misaki at the safe house, complete with looks around the room like, Wuh, you mean these two idiots have been banging this whole time?
For Katagiri, the penultimate episode of the season ends on a slightly less desperate note. After a real smooth interrogation of Funaki, who admits to being blackmailed by Tozawa and tipping him off to their witness’s transportation route, Katagiri and Nagata instigate an exceptionally clutch sting operation, giving Yabuki a false hotel address where he thinks Katagiri will be with his family. Yabuki goes for the gun Katagiri leaves on the hotel bed, hook, line, and sinker. Now his fingerprints are on the weapon used to murder Ohno at Club Polina. A deal is offered, but Yabuki doesn’t appear to be swayed. “Soon, my boss will be your boss,” Yabuki says. “I’ll be back on the street, and your family will be my first stop.”
The way things are going elsewhere, Yabuki’s threat still carries potency. But as always, the threats of Shinzo Tozawa become dwarfed under the institutional power of the real oyabun in town. “Detective Katagiri, a pleasure to finally meet you,” Kazuko says from the shadows of her town car. “I have something you want: Information that incriminates my husband.” Katagiri remains trepidatious. Why should he trust anything Mrs. Tozawa has to tell him?
That’s when Kazuko offers up the golden-goose lead Katagiri can’t turn away from. If Tozawa carries the paper trail leading to his U.S. surgery, it’ll be in one of two places. His hotel safe shouldn’t be difficult to breach. But to get onboard the Yoshino? “For that,” she says, “you will need more specialized access.”