[9.7/10] This is, suffice it to say, a surreal episode to watch in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Seeing Aku hock a bit of expectorate for Jack to inhale, only for our hero to slowly but surely succumb to the condition, carries a kind of eeriness under present circumstances.
But it also works on multiple levels. One a pure story level, there’s something cool about literalizing the pernicious nature of Aku’s evil here. The notion of even the strong and devoted Jack being dragged down by Aku’s malevolent demeanor is a cool but scary thing to watch, as the show matches the oily black visuals of Aku’s takeover with a more internal one. Seeing Jack go from a shogunate version of Two-Face, to a broken man in a cloak who only peaks out with one eye, to the unwilling vessel of the master of darkness, is a cool transition.
On an of-the-moment level, it works as a metaphor for the way that this crisis has brought out the best in some people and the worst in others. I doubt it’s what the show’s writers intended, but there’s something very salient about how once Jack gets the condition, he’s suddenly lost his ever present care for his fellow man. He steals from some...Yiddish Eskimos(?), nearly lets a mountain climber fall to his death, and kills a bystander bot for basically no reason. To a modern eye, with runs on necessary supplies and certain self-serving obliviousness at play during this crisis, it’s not hard to see Jack’s malady and change as a representation of how the coronavirus has revealed a certain ugliness or callousness in many folks.
And yet, “The Aku Infection” is an optimistic episode, and one that works at a spiritual level. The episode gets its action and aesthetic quota in. There’s cool (and mildly distressing) slow motion sequences of Aku-qua-Jack cutting an offending robot or having his tears splash into a limpid pool. And the possessed Samurai also has a standard badass fight scene with the monks whom Aku’s trying to tear down.
But for the most part, the stirring thing about this episode is that it’s mainly an internal battle. The monks, once they realize the issue, cannot save Jack. As striking a visual as his four-limb tie up and sweating out the poison is, the moving part of it comes when we delve inside Jack’s psyche and watch his inner goodness prevail over Aku’s evil.
Those scenes, done with another arresting art shift, really hit me hard. There’s something powerful, as in multiple other episodes, of Jack feeling like he cannot go on, like he’s struggled so much and still failed. That just makes the vision of his parents reassuring him that Aku’s victories are not his failures all the more heartening. And the images of the people Jack’s helped and saved, standing behind him in spirit if not in presence, affirms the worth of his quest and sacrifices and gives him strength. The ensuing battle with the darkness within, a battle that Jack wins, naturally, may be the best in the series for that reason.
And maybe there’s hope for the rest of us too. As hard as it is to see people ignoring shelter-in-place orders right now, or deliberately coughing on others, or declaring the whole thing a hoax while people die, there are also people putting their lives on the line to help treat those in need, those donating their time and their talents to provide people what they need, and people supporting one another in more personal and spiritual ways in this time of crisis. On Samurai Jack, our hero is lifted by the belief that goodness can triumph over evil. We have to hope for the same in the real world too.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2020-04-02T02:26:28Z
[9.7/10] This is, suffice it to say, a surreal episode to watch in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Seeing Aku hock a bit of expectorate for Jack to inhale, only for our hero to slowly but surely succumb to the condition, carries a kind of eeriness under present circumstances.
But it also works on multiple levels. One a pure story level, there’s something cool about literalizing the pernicious nature of Aku’s evil here. The notion of even the strong and devoted Jack being dragged down by Aku’s malevolent demeanor is a cool but scary thing to watch, as the show matches the oily black visuals of Aku’s takeover with a more internal one. Seeing Jack go from a shogunate version of Two-Face, to a broken man in a cloak who only peaks out with one eye, to the unwilling vessel of the master of darkness, is a cool transition.
On an of-the-moment level, it works as a metaphor for the way that this crisis has brought out the best in some people and the worst in others. I doubt it’s what the show’s writers intended, but there’s something very salient about how once Jack gets the condition, he’s suddenly lost his ever present care for his fellow man. He steals from some...Yiddish Eskimos(?), nearly lets a mountain climber fall to his death, and kills a bystander bot for basically no reason. To a modern eye, with runs on necessary supplies and certain self-serving obliviousness at play during this crisis, it’s not hard to see Jack’s malady and change as a representation of how the coronavirus has revealed a certain ugliness or callousness in many folks.
And yet, “The Aku Infection” is an optimistic episode, and one that works at a spiritual level. The episode gets its action and aesthetic quota in. There’s cool (and mildly distressing) slow motion sequences of Aku-qua-Jack cutting an offending robot or having his tears splash into a limpid pool. And the possessed Samurai also has a standard badass fight scene with the monks whom Aku’s trying to tear down.
But for the most part, the stirring thing about this episode is that it’s mainly an internal battle. The monks, once they realize the issue, cannot save Jack. As striking a visual as his four-limb tie up and sweating out the poison is, the moving part of it comes when we delve inside Jack’s psyche and watch his inner goodness prevail over Aku’s evil.
Those scenes, done with another arresting art shift, really hit me hard. There’s something powerful, as in multiple other episodes, of Jack feeling like he cannot go on, like he’s struggled so much and still failed. That just makes the vision of his parents reassuring him that Aku’s victories are not his failures all the more heartening. And the images of the people Jack’s helped and saved, standing behind him in spirit if not in presence, affirms the worth of his quest and sacrifices and gives him strength. The ensuing battle with the darkness within, a battle that Jack wins, naturally, may be the best in the series for that reason.
And maybe there’s hope for the rest of us too. As hard as it is to see people ignoring shelter-in-place orders right now, or deliberately coughing on others, or declaring the whole thing a hoax while people die, there are also people putting their lives on the line to help treat those in need, those donating their time and their talents to provide people what they need, and people supporting one another in more personal and spiritual ways in this time of crisis. On Samurai Jack, our hero is lifted by the belief that goodness can triumph over evil. We have to hope for the same in the real world too.