The Ending Of Samurai Jack Finally Explained

Taking cues from the 1972 series "Kung Fu" starring David Carradine as well as countless samurai movies and fantasy franchises, "Samurai Jack" premiered in 2001 and ran for four seasons on Cartoon Network. The animated series told the story of a prince whose mystic sword grants him powers beyond those of ordinary men, which comes in handy when he needs to fight to free his people from the demonic Aku. Though his sword grants him the edge needed to defeat Aku, the villain is a master of trickery and deception, and he's able to thwart Jack's victory by transporting him into a future where Aku has already won. This leaves Jack fighting to return to his own time to prevent this reality from ever coming to pass.

With a premise like that, it might go without saying that this series is very awesome indeed—so awesome that got a reprisal. After unceremoniously drawing to a close in 2004, "Samurai Jack" returned 13 years later in 2017. This allowed the series to go out on its own terms, and the network shift from Cartoon Network to Adult Swim meant that the show could go all-out on the violence while also doubling down on some of the more philosophical or even heartbreaking themes of the premise. Coming in to close out what was already easily one of the most intriguing series in modern animated history, the fifth season of "Samurai Jack" remains a bit of a paradox, but that's just all the more reason why it's so great—and worthy of closer analysis. 

The fourth season ends on an open note, leading many to speculate that it was canceled. According to creator Genndy Tartakovsky, it was much more a matter of burnout after four full seasons of work than anything else. In an interview with NPR, Tartakovsky explained that the changing slate at Cartoon Network and the potential restriction of creative freedom alongside the tantalizing new offer to work on "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" series simply combined to make it the perfect time to leave the series. Being as "Clone Wars" is extremely great, even the most devoted "Samurai Jack" fan might agree that this is a pretty solid reason to depart.

However, due to the unplanned nature of the conclusion, it doesn't exactly conclude. The fourth season continued the premise described above that the first three seasons stuck to, but the influx of giant robot battles over cities and laser-shooting structures gave it an increasingly high-tech and post-apocalyptic feel. Likewise, Jack meets a number of interesting new characters in this season, with genre nods to everything from film noir to "Star Wars" along the way. The final episodes show Jack bonding with a kid he saves from ogres only to pass the infant back to his mother. This season is a ton of fun, but it's easy to understand why nobody seemed totally convinced that this was the actual ending of the "Samurai Jack" story.

This all brings us to 2017, when a network change to Adult Swim brought us the final 10 episodes of "Samurai Jack." Tonally, it's clear from the start that this is going to be a more intentional slow-burn that drops threads in the first episode that won't conclude until the final one airs, making it a slightly different ballpark from the beginning, even without the increased bloodshed that a more adult-oriented network and rating inherently bring. We discover that Jack no longer ages due to the effects of time travel, and so although 50 years have passed since the last episode, he remains physically much the same as last we saw him.

However, the years have had a grinding effect on him, and much of the season follows his attempts to reconcile this alongside his ongoing fight against evil. Even in the beginning, we see that Aku has essentially won, having destroyed all the time portals, but that Jack refuses to quit. Thereby, even as Aku mostly avoids him, Jack's war is nowhere close to complete. We also discover that Jack has lost his magical sword that kept Aku from engaging with him head-on for so long, but Aku doesn't know this. Inspiring many to take up the fight against Aku, Jack has achieved status as a legendary hero, but the emotional fallout from this has been extreme as we see him troubled by visions of destruction and death.

The themes of "Samurai Jack" might seem pretty basic at the outset, with a classic good versus evil dichotomy set up from the start that allows Jack to shine as a hero while constantly being undermined by a distant villain. Yet, as the series travels on throughout its five seasons, it becomes increasingly complex, as Jack's status as a hero is occasionally thwarted by unforeseen complications, such as the fourth season subplot in which he ingested a speck of Aku's illness and very nearly became an unstoppable force for evil himself if not for the help of a strong community that got him through it. Indeed, some of Jack's best moments show that the hero is only as strong as the people who surround him in his times of distress.

Likewise, while "Samurai Jack" begins as a top-notch action series, the 50-year time jump allows for greater commentary on the long-lasting effect so much death has had on Jack. The loneliness he feels due to his forced separation from his family never goes away, and while he is able to make new connections in this futuristic world, he's inherently emotionally distanced from them through the knowledge that his basic mission would ensure this version of the world would never come to pass. In the end, Jack is a deeply tragic figure, although well-intentioned and brave, and the final episodes deliver that message to viewers in no uncertain terms.

When Aku is amused by the activities of a cult that worships him, he grants the cult leader a small portion of his power, and she, in turn, gives birth to many daughters, known as the Daughters of Aku. These young women are trained from childhood to eventually slay Jack, which they very nearly succeed in doing when they cross paths with him while he is without his sword. He ends up killing one of them but is devastated to realize that they are human, and grapples with having killed, even if in self-defense. As for the Daughters, their life's purpose is thwarted in a truly epic fight scene in which Jack first offers them the chance to walk away, then, when they refuse, sets about his grim business of hunting and killing them one by one until they are all defeated.

All of them, that is, except Ashi, a particularly rowdy daughter who is not at all pleased to be taken captive by Jack, though she ultimately falls in love with him. Despite wanting him dead, she sees him happily playing with a ladybug, and it reminds her of a time when her mother squashed a ladybug in front of her only to prove a point, which softens Ashi. She goes on to be Jack's greatest friend and, ultimately, his fiancée. Though that doesn't end particularly well, it grants her a second life as a woman able to make her own choices outside of the evil intentions of her parents.

Jack's relationship with Ashi is a big part of what makes up the heart of the last season. Her training as a remorseless killer bent on causing his death and her anger at seeing him annihilate her sisters ultimately fade away when she realizes that her mother and father are both evil and Jack is ultimately good, even when he is forced to do horrible things. First, they work together to free a legion of possessed children, but when Jack believes that the children have actually died, he leaves her alone despite her epic about-face earlier that episode. Still, she is determined to follow a better path, and tracks Jack down, saving his life when he is on the verge of dying by suicide.

Attempting to help Jack retrieve his sword, she fights off an army single-handedly and kills her mother, having discovered the terrible truth of her desire to bring greater destruction upon the planet by helping Aku, as well as realizing how little she cared for her daughters outside of being pawns in Aku's games. The two bond, but Jack attempts to leave her behind, realizing how messy his final fight with Aku is about to get. She joins him regardless, and even when Aku uses his influence over her, she is able to overcome it with Jack's help. Though the great tragedy of this season is that even after they win, Ashi fades to nothingness due to Aku's demise uncreating her. Jack smiles in the end, remembering the ladybug that initially bonded them.

"Samurai Jack" may go down in history as one of animation's most surprising works, running the gamut from an enjoyable jaunt through martial arts action tropes to one of the most devastating studies of loss and loneliness to have ever graced the small screen. Yet Genndy Tartakovsky is nowhere near finished yet. While his follow-ups in film and TV have been plentiful, including work on megahits like "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" and the "Hotel Transylvania" franchise, perhaps the most striking spiritual successor to "Samurai Jack" is HBO Max's "Primal," which taps into his long-standing love of genre staples and the top-notch action of "Jack" while also delving into some of the emotional and philosophical themes "Jack" explored.

"Primal" tells its story completely without dialogue until a single word is spoken at the end of the first season, though the show might run for several episodes without viewers noticing it considering how well it uses the space left where exposition would usually be. Introducing us to a pair of lonely wanderers brought together by tragedy when their families are destroyed by ruthless predators, the series manages to communicate some of the major abstract themes of "Samurai Jack," such as grappling with isolation. One of the great feats of "Primal" is that it studies the fear of possibly pending extinction and obsolescence, making this prehistoric action-adventure one of the most surprisingly poignant shows to air in recent years. You know, kind of like "Samurai Jack" and its groundbreaking final season.