[7.0/10] Spike maneuvering his mostly-adrift ship into the bed of the Columbia Space Shuttle is a bravura sequence. It’s hard to overstate how much more tension and excitement that moment has than anything else in the episode, but how it manages to elevate this one on the strength of that sequence alone. The pure artistry of watching the Swordfish catch fire and swing and land in the compartment does quite a bit on its own. But so do Spike’s peaceful attitude about this being the end, and Doohan’s willingness to bring an old relic back into service to help save a young protege.
It’s a long, semi-dull wind-up to get to that point though. I’ll admit, I didn’t really understand what was going on with the pirates. I get the basics. Jet wanted to lure them in for the bounty. The space pirates used some sort of harpoon-transmitted computer virus to disable our heroes’ ship. And Jet was out to return the favor. But from there it was really confusing as to how this all worked and what exactly our heroes were trying to accomplish.
There’s a little more juice to the Spike-focused section. I found the baseball obsessed assistant to Doohan pretty annoying. But there’s something to be said for a grizzled old vet who does things his own way, the old way, and still takes a liking to our lackadaisical and oft-reckless protagonist. Like most of the players on Cowboy Bebop, he’s more of an archetype than a character (with a strange Doc Brown and Marty McFly vibe with his assistant), but it works in these circumstances, especially when he puts money where his mouth is to rescue Spike under difficult circumstances.
Overall, this is a perfectly fine “regular” episode of the show, with one bravura sequence in the end that bumps it up.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2023-05-13T15:11:57Z
[7.0/10] Spike maneuvering his mostly-adrift ship into the bed of the Columbia Space Shuttle is a bravura sequence. It’s hard to overstate how much more tension and excitement that moment has than anything else in the episode, but how it manages to elevate this one on the strength of that sequence alone. The pure artistry of watching the Swordfish catch fire and swing and land in the compartment does quite a bit on its own. But so do Spike’s peaceful attitude about this being the end, and Doohan’s willingness to bring an old relic back into service to help save a young protege.
It’s a long, semi-dull wind-up to get to that point though. I’ll admit, I didn’t really understand what was going on with the pirates. I get the basics. Jet wanted to lure them in for the bounty. The space pirates used some sort of harpoon-transmitted computer virus to disable our heroes’ ship. And Jet was out to return the favor. But from there it was really confusing as to how this all worked and what exactly our heroes were trying to accomplish.
There’s a little more juice to the Spike-focused section. I found the baseball obsessed assistant to Doohan pretty annoying. But there’s something to be said for a grizzled old vet who does things his own way, the old way, and still takes a liking to our lackadaisical and oft-reckless protagonist. Like most of the players on Cowboy Bebop, he’s more of an archetype than a character (with a strange Doc Brown and Marty McFly vibe with his assistant), but it works in these circumstances, especially when he puts money where his mouth is to rescue Spike under difficult circumstances.
Overall, this is a perfectly fine “regular” episode of the show, with one bravura sequence in the end that bumps it up.