Miraculously, the show has returned after 11 years to finally conclude the story of Jack and Aku, and just like how the series was capable of defying expectations and re-inventing the genre back in 2001, Genndy Tartakovsky’s return to the series does so once more in new, exciting ways. The show is eager to throw archetypal samurai aesthetics in with classical storytelling, vibrant, electric new worlds, and a dry, absurd sense of humor that helps tie together the extreme balancing act of elements. Often the solutions to Jack’s obstacles are philosophical, scientific routes that highlight how brilliant of a thinker and strategist he is in addition to being a powerhouse of a warrior.

There was a certain simplicity to Samurai Jack’s animation during its first run, and while that’s still true to some degree, the advent of high definition has been good to this world. Everything pops likes crazy and is just so damn beautiful. Tartakovsky fills screens with flowing purple sunsets or lush forests that are nothing short of looking at a dream. Other moments, where Jack is lost in thought, see Tartakovsky going above and beyond to have his animation kick your ass just as hard as Jack is kicking robot butt. This show is simply too pretty at times.

There’s a very Mad Max infusion to Jack and his mission this time around, with this tonal shift feeling very appropriate for this final run of episodes. It does feel like all bets are off and that it’s the end of the road. Now that Tartakovsky finally gets to complete his vision, I wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to off Jack in the final episode. Such a conclusion wouldn’t be out of place with the grimmer aesthetic that the show is playing with now.

While the samurai supreme is clearly the show’s focal point, these episodes aren’t afraid to pull focus away from the show’s titular character. This season introduces a compelling storyline that brews in the background where a league of young female assassins, the Daughters of Aku, are being trained to become an unstoppable force that will ultimately be Jack’s undoing. Their intense training scenes definitely mirror Jack’s very own back in the show’s pilot. It’s nice to see the show splitting its narrative between Jack roaming the world and these new villains-in-training.

The second episode also delightfully gets into Aku’s routine and explores what he’s been up to during this 50-year absence rather than purely looking at Jack hacking and slashing his way to salvation. In one of my favorite scenes from the entire series, Aku laments to his therapist about his Jack killing woes and how he’d like to just move on from all of this, rather than still be caught up in some eternal struggle. Aku claims, “That was the old Aku. This is the new Aku and he really doesn’t care about that pathetic samurai,” but it’s hard to take him too seriously. If you squint real hard you can pick up a bit of commentary here on Tartakovsky saying that he’s relieved to finally get to wrap up Jack’s story and move on, rather than having Hotel Transylvania or Clone Wars interviews bombarded with, “Hey, is Samurai Jack going to return?” questions.