Marco Polo Recap 'Hashshashin'

Image from Marco Polo, streamed via Netflix

Season 1 Episode 5

'Their army hides behind walls for fear of extermination, a wall that has defied us for 70 years. Our men will die for no reason save the ego of the man ordering the breach. Ego, not armies, destroys empires.'

The fifth episode of Marco Polo may have focused on the ancient order of assassins that nearly killed Kublai Khan, but at its core, it was a tale of the slow horror of uncertainty when the head of a powerful empire was suddenly not around as the centre of its strength.

Within the walls of Cambulac were two very different servants. Ahmad was an advocate of war. He nearly derailed the parley instigated by the Dowager Empress by aggressively stating unreasonable demands. Whilst the Khan's life hang in the balance following the attack of three highly trained assassins, Ahmad kept trying to talk Prince Jingim into going to war with the Song. If it were not for Jingim's misgivings following his failure as a commander in Wuchang, Ahmad might have succeeded in pushing the prince into a conflict neither he nor his army were prepared to win.

Vice Regent Yusuf, on the other hand, horrifically tortured the surviving assassin for days. The man was clearly not going to talk, but Yusuf kept trying anyway, because he wanted to find even the smallest proof that could perhaps sway from the course of war Ahmad advocated. Yusuf did not want to attack the Song because he knew the Khan's army did not yet have the capability to break the Song's walls. An open war with the Song would lead to the destruction of the Khan's army.

Yusuf's instincts turned out to be correct. Jia Sidao had nothing to do with the attempt on the Khan's life. It was Hundred Eyes who recognised the unusual skill of the assassins. On his way to Cambulac, Marco heard allusions to the old man in the mountain, the leader of the Hashshashin believed to be dead. Prince Jingim dispatched Byamba and Marco to find the Hashshashin. Following a hallucinogenic trip, the old man gave Marco a parchment with a map of the Khan's private quarters. Whoever paid the assassins was so close to the Khan that they were able to detail a part of the palace few had access to.

Image from Marco Polo, streamed via Netflix

The Khan survived the assassination attempt. Kokachin, and later, Byamba, both told Marco that if the Khan died, he would lose his only advocate in Cambulac. With his father and uncle still in jail awaiting their fate, however, Marco did not dare leave, even when Byamba offered him the golden tablet that would have opened all doors to him throughout the Khan's massive realm. Marco gambled his life and won. Only he, Byamba, and the Khan now had knowledge of the disturbing clue to the identity of whoever paid the Hashshashin.

When Byamba was telling Marco about how he was the son of a consort, I was reminded once more of an observation I made when I first wrote about Marco Polo back in 2016, that Marco Polo wasn't bad as a lead, but he simply was not as compelling as the characters that surrounded him. Byamba, Yusuf, and especially Hundred Eyes -- they could tell a thousand tales in stillness. I sometimes wonder if this was done by design, if Marco was supposed to fade as the vibrant lives around him came to focus. But no, this does not appear to be so, at least not in the first season. Just as Cambulac did not trod on certain feet whilst the Khan was unwell, so did Marco Polo, because the show was centred on a character that grew dimmer the more we saw of him and the others around him. This creative misstep, however, allowed Marco Polo to be a true ensemble show. The weight of storytelling was carried by nearly everyone shown on screen, and with that we have a show that years after it was cancelled, would still be discovered and enjoyed by many.

Strays

■ The Khan was hit by a poisoned dart, and would have been hit more had it not been for Marco, who shielded him. There were only three assassins, but they wove through the Khan's guards as though they were untrained children. It was Byamba and Hundred Eyes would eventually killed two assassins and captured one alive for questioning.

■ Straight from my notes, about Hundred Eyes: There is poetry in the way his body moves when fighting. 

■ Marco's father and uncle were branded.

■ Jia Sidao presented the bodies of the ambassadors he had murdered to the Court, and seamlessly lied about how they were killed by the Mongol. Like Ahmad on his side of the world, Jia Sidao advocated for war.

■ Ahmad poured poison on Jingim's ears about Marco.

■ Marco recognised who may have made the map given to the Hashshashin.

Director: Daniel Minahan
Writer: Patrick Macmanus
Original Release Date: 12 December 2014