'Samurai Jack' season 5: The reason behind the first episode title 'XCII'

After more than a decade, “Samurai Jack” will be returning to television screens with its fifth and final season. But the Cartoon Network hero will not be the usual clean, tidy and honour-driven samurai that he once was.

In the fifth season, time will be fast-forwarded to 50 years for the time-displaced hero. Years have not gone too well for Jack either. This brings viewers a darker and more mature samurai warrior.

Aku, the main antagonist in the show, has destroyed every time portal known. Since all portals have been destroyed, Jack (“MadTV's” Phil LLamar) has stopped aging as a side effect of his time travel. Jack seems to be cursed to roam the lands for all eternity. To keep him company, a cult of assassins that has dedicated their life to killing him is on his tail.

Creator Genndy Tartakovsky has revealed that his vision for the character will reach its conclusion with the final 10 episodes. He confirmed that he has been deciding on it for years.

The 50-year time jump

Tartakovsky explained the reason why Jack had speedily matured in season 5. He said that this decision of making the first episode of the show as episode 93 instead of 53 is in lieu of the character's time passage.

He realised that it felt wrong to have it as episode 53, which just carries on from the last episode of the fourth season. Tartakovsky and his team wanted time passage for Jack in order to create a more mature version of him. They decided that the most natural thing to do is to have the show fast forward to that exact time of the hero's transformation.

Tartakovsky also confessed that his maturity has also developed along with the show. “We’re better storytellers. I’m a better filmmaker than I was 12 years ago and I’ve learned a lot,” the director said in an interview with Coming Soon.

The director also hinted on what fans can expect from the final season. He said that the show will focus more on Jack and how he manages to strive against his archnemesis Aku at the same time grow in maturity. There will be lesser environmental changes in the show as well, bringing more focus on the main character.

Genndy Tartakovsky’s animated hero will return with its fifth and final season on March 11 at 11:00 p.m. ET/PT in the US. “Samurai Jack” will be the concluding story of Jack and his goal of defeating Aku. As of the moment, there is no news as to when the show will be released in Australia.