1x12 Speak Like a Child

[8.1/10] I haven't really liked Fae much to this point, let alone related to her. She veers toward a heap of “Men writing women” tropes that chap my hide, and that's before you delve into her general self-centeredness and ready willingness to bail at a moment’s notice.

But this moved me. In an episode where Faye once again bails at the first sign of having to pay a debt, blows her money at the track, and comes crawling back once again, we get another glimpse as to why. We see someone who wants to be accepted, wants to be wanted, but is afraid of people shunning her or getting tired of her more difficult-to-take qualities, and so leaves preemptively so they don’t have the chance to banish her. We’ve witnessed that pattern multiple times with Faye, and it makes a certain amount of emotional sense. She's been through a lot.

This tape, though, tells us that it wasn’t always this way. Once upon a time, Faye Valentine was a young, shy, optimistic soul who loved herself rather than hated herself. In the depths of the magnetic tape in a betamax cassette rests the heart of a young girl, lost in the decades of abuse and deception, that gave us the Faye we know now.

I don’t know how this episode might have struck me when it aired, when I was closer in age to the young woman we see cheering her future self on in the static-y glimpse of the past. I think I might have written it off as cheesy or silly or overly sentimental.

But now, as someone closer in age to Jet, you feel the pangs of seeing flashes of your younger self, full of hope and self-love and optimism, before the complications of the world sanded you down. To hear from someone who doesn’t know their future, as none of us do, expressing that despite their problems they have a lot to give, their future self is valid and loved, and there rests a well of support and hope amid the rush of years, is poignant and piercing. The tragedy of growing up is not only losing that idealism, but also losing the appreciation for one’s own self, and faith in what we are capable and worthy of.

Faye doesn't remember any of that. It’s lost in the cryogenic wasteland from which she emerged. But she too seems pierced at the imagery of her younger self, hopeful and natural, sending her trust and support from across such a long stretch, It’s the emotional highpoint of the show so far.

And hey, even the parts of the episode that aren’t breaking my heart are still enjoyable. I can't explain why, but there’s something about Spike and Jet’s hunt for an old betamax player, their contretemps with an old 20th century tech collector, and even the jaunty score for them making their way from an Old Earth museum to locate their prize that is low-key delightful. This is more of a character piece episode, one focused on moods and a simple goal rather than some of the more convoluted or out there episodes the show’s done to date. It’s a mode that works well for Cowboy Bebop. I’d like to see more of it.

Overall, this is a high water mark for the show, with a profundity and a stirring emotional quality that the show’s struggled to generate in the past, centered on giving a thinner character more depth, with an amusing little sidequest to buoy the material along the way.