“Samurai Jack” has finally returned to Adult Swim for one final season, over ten years of hiatus later. Season five of the show will have 10 episodes, compared to the last four seasons’ 13 episodes. The first four seasons of the show aired from 2001-2004, when animated television was different from how it currently is. Television shows now are able to show more violence than they ever were in the past, and in the first three episodes that have aired in the new season, they’ve already used the new weapons of the medium in ways that the previous seasons never could. I am now going to talk about spoilers for the brand new season of Samurai Jack. If you haven’t seen the new episodes yet (and I highly recommend you watch them), proceed with caution.
The main premise of the new season is that it has been 50 years since season four, but Jack has not aged at all. This is the side effect of Aku, the villain of the show, destroying all of the time portals, Jack’s only means of getting home. Also, Jack has lost his magic sword, leading him to lose a part of himself.
So far, the first three episodes of the season have been amazing. The quality displayed in these episodes alone is stunning. First, the visuals are stunning. The original seasons of “Samurai Jack” already looked great, but this new season puts them to shame in terms of visual design alone. This may just be because of the 13-year difference, but it looks remarkable nonetheless.
The character development has also been great. The main character, Jack, has always been a sort of loner, being a samurai and all, but he has never really seemed more alone than in this new season. This fact is intensified by the continuing conversations that he has with himself in this season. There have been two separate occasions where Jack has been by himself, and has started talking to a version of himself that isn’t really there. One of these times he contemplates suicide, and in another he thinks about the first time he actually killed a real person, because he had only killed robots before.
This new season of “Samurai Jack” has been amazing to say the least. The visuals look gorgeous, Jack as a character is intriguing to watch, especially as you see him go through his struggle and it’s exciting to see how the story will finally unfold after 13 years of suspense. “Samurai Jack” has been my favorite television show of 2017, and I look forward to the last seven episodes.
