"Tokyo Vice."

The HBO Max series undergoes the Two Episode Test.

“Tokyo Vice” came out in April of this year and I can’t say that any of my concurrent viewing habits dragged its name or concept in front of me — the eternal story of the Great Miss of the streaming age. Or, translated: there’s a lot of TV, so that shit happens a lot.

Shows go poof.

Did “Tokyo Vice” come up in various comments here on the Bastard Machine content train? It did. As one does, I added it to the list. As you know, that list keeps growing longer the more you add to it and the less time you have to watch because you’re trying to, kinda-sorta, stay caught up. (I have just very simply explained the difficult task of competing in the Peak TV era).

If you prefer a reference to a show some of us have been watching (or rewatching of late), sometimes it’s more difficult than it seem to get something from A to B. You’d be surprised, in fact.

HBO Max was supposed to get “Tokyo Vice” from, well, their hype machine or at least their deep bench and deliver it to my eyeballs somehow, likely an algorithm, where I would then make a note of its existence and decide what to do about it.

Didn’t happen.

But that’s cool. April became Aug. 1. Maybe you’ve had “Tokyo Vice” on your long list of series to watch….someday. As we roll into August, I’m going to say that, for the sake of argument in the Peak TV era, “Tokyo Vice” should be considered “current.” I mean, anything in the last six months should. And if we’ve learned nothing here at Bastard Machine headquarters, it’s to not feel bad about not being up to date on literally every new release. You have a life to live. Do that — the TV shows will still be here. It’s part of our mantra.

Onward:

I had almost no information about “Tokyo Vice” (that I could recall) except for my partner — who snuck in some episodes while I was in Portland — saying Rachel Keller from FX’s “Legion,” who I quite like, was in it and apparently does an admiral job with speaking Japanese in the show. “And the guy from Baby Driver, too” (Ansel Elgort).

Me: Ansel Elgort speaks Japanese in this, too? Her: “Yep. He’s a journalist.” Me: He’s a journalist? Why is it called “Tokyo Vice” then? She started to explain and we defaulted to our normal, “oh, just watch” thing once the premise feels too complicated to tell in a truncated fashion and/or if you start dropping spoilers in the telling of it.

So, I just watched.