[7.1/10] This is the point in Cowboy Bebop where I admit that I’m lost. I can appreciate most episodes of the show well enough on the basis of “the vibes”, as the kids say. And I can do the same here to some extent. There’s an air of melancholy that hangs over this frozen Jupiter locale, of people who seem lost or desperate huddling together. The slow saxophone and frigid landscape come together to give you the sense of something and someone lost.
But I have very little clue what’s going on here. I thought Vicious died? But I guess maybe he and Spike can't die? And we get more hints as to Spike’s past and his beef with Vicious and his lost love, but there’s also a byzantine crime syndicate hierarchy that the characters are navigating. Oh, and his lost love might also have had some kind of gender reassignment surgery?
Hoo boy, I’m not sure what to expect there. This is a show that, in this very episode, expressed revulsion at cross-dressing sex workers, and all but leered at Faye through the camera. I don’t really trust Cowboy Bebop to treat the idea of a transgender individual with any sensitivity, especially in 1998. But I guess we’ll see, and I have to admit. The fact that Grim, the crime lord Vicious is looking for, may turn out to be the Julia that Spike is looking for, is at least one hell of a twist.
And hey, vague doesn’t have to be bad. I don’t need a ton of exposition about what vicious’ connection to Red Dragon, the mysterious triumvirate of crime baddies Vicious interacts with is. The suggestion of some deeper connection there is enough. But everyone in the episode talks in purple prose and double speak, which makes it harder to connect with the characters as people and not just figures to be moved around the board.
Case in point, we get two pretty big schisms here. One is Faye leaving the Bebop crew, which is plausible enough, but also feels kind of random in how it’s treated. There’s some decent enough psychology when Grim suggests that she was insecure about being rejected and so walked away first. But she’s ever felt especially close to the rest of the crew, or they her, so the whole thing seems odd.
Likewise, it’s not clear to me why Spike going to look for Julia is the final straw for his partnership with Jet. They’ve both done more random and reckless things than that, so it seems awfully convenient that this is the thing that supposedly breaks them up. My biggest gripe with Cowboy Bebop is that the character relationships don’t really make sense to me. I don’t really buy the bond or tension among most of the recurring characters (oddly, they do better with one-offs), so it makes moments like these fail to land for me.
That said, the fight scenes continue to be good, and there’s at least a certain mood to all of this that I can appreciate. I just wish I had a better sense for what the hell was going on.
Episode 18
(Episodes all out of order)
This should be episode 12
Shout by FLYVIP 2BlockedParent2022-01-07T23:14:36Z
18.Speak Like a Child (in case the order changes again)
Another hilarious episode. Spike's reaction to unknown old technology, from unrolling the tape to just kicking stuff in the shop, is just perfect. The whole hunt for the BetaMax player in the museum is probably the most adventure-like part of the show, fun, and perfectly tuned to one of the show's most iconic music.
As a complement, the sweet emotional moment of seeing young Faye on the tape, combined with the bitter realization that she still doesn't remember anything is the perfect touch to add some depth to this mostly funny episode.