Tokyo Vice Is Back For Season 2
Tokyo Vice Season 2 drops tonight. Here's my six degrees of separation connection to the first season.
I just got the notification that the Max (it was HBO Max back then) original Tokyo Vice is back with its second season tonight.
The first two episodes are available now.
I'm excited to dig in.
I can feel the same pull as the main character, Jake Adelstein played by Ansel Elgort, while watching: Japan seems like the most awesome culture to get lost in.
In honor of the show, I'm re-upping this tweet of mine from when the first season was on. It's in praise of the little details that make a show feel real.
Incredible production quality in @hbomax @TokyoViceHBOMax. Elgort’s Jake Adelstein is from Columbia, MO. In Ep. 2, he receives a care package from home and it contains Show-Me BBQ Sauce. I wrote about the company when I was in grad school. #TOKYOVICE https://t.co/froFnD7Lco pic.twitter.com/KQFof74GSG
— Cary Littlejohn (@CaryLiljohn06) April 8, 2022
The real-life Jake Adelstein was from my very own Columbia, Missouri. When his family sends him a care package, I couldn't help but notice a familiar sight.
It was a bottle of Show Me Bar-B-Q sauce.
Back in the summer of 2018, I was a new graduate student at the University of Missouri's famed School of Journalism. I was prone to over-writing basic stories: lots of scene-setting details, lyrical language more than hard-hitting news facts, and as a result, one of my editors eyed me for a feature story idea he'd been given.
It was of this barbecue sauce, and how it was under new ownership. He thought it was a perfect story for me–with room for my particular style of writing and no risk that hard news was being missed in the process.
This is what I came back with.
The fact that the show had bothered to chase down such a tiny detail, which had to have come from Adelstein himself, told me everything I needed to know.