We open with another flashback involving Mariko, this one taking us back 14 years.

It adds another layer of tragedy to her story, as we learn that she was pregnant and suicidal at the time.

But it also reveals the beginnings of her greatest strengths -- her resilience and her facility with language.

Blackthorne and Yabushige decide to continue their alliance without the help of Mariko's translation skills -- but their communications, and their trust fior one another, are less than perfect.

Mariko shocks Ishido and his men by revealing that she intends to leave Osaka with Toranaga's consort and new grandson in her retinue.

He objects, but she stands her ground.

When she later attempts to leave the grounds, she's confronted by armed guards.

There's a bloody conflict, and Mariko takes up weapons herself. She gives up against impossible odds and declares her intention to take her own life at sunset.

Mariko prepares to do exactly that -- with Blackthorne as her second -- but her life is seemingly spared at the last second when Ishido grants her a permit to leave.

That night, however, assassins enter the castle and try, at Ishido's behest, to kill Mariko.

Trapped with those she was sworn to protect, Mariko goes out in a blaze of self-sacrifice.

A shocking death for a beloved character.