1x04 Waltz for Venus

[7.7/10] This is the most I’ve liked Spike so far in the show. Candidly, I’d kind of written him off as someone who’s effortlessly good at everything, with a stock slacker attitude to match. I don’t find that type of character particularly interesting, because there’s not much in the way of flaws or challenges for them to overcome.

But “Waltz for Venus” deepens him and accounts for that relaxed attitude despite life or death stakes. It’s a little bit window dressing, but the idea that his chill is practiced, one that he’s worked on so as to be relaxed and “like water” in combat so he can redirect energy and survive helps put a fig leaf on his lackadaisical attitude toward everything and ease in combat. It’s part of a philosophy, a style, and approach, one that he’s briefly able to teach to someone else.

That someone is Rocco, a low level hood who’s smuggling in a rare plant to help people who catch a trademark illness on Venus. What makes Rocco interesting is that he starts out as an annoying chump who’s pestering Spike for lessons on how to be a tough guy. He seems like any other wannabe that the Bebop crew has encountered thus far.

But the guy has a cause. He’s trying to save his sister, who went blind from the same Venus sickness the plant can help cure. He’s gotten mixed up with some bad dudes, but he has good intentions, which makes his bumbling efforts to get better at this endearing rather than annoying.

And for once, Spike seems like a stand-up guy. It’s a small decision point in the grand scheme of things, but Spike has the plant, and the seeds that are worth even more. He could take the money and run. He could leave Rocco to his fate. He could even let Rocco’s kind sister, who claims she even likes being a person with visual impairments given how it allows her to perceive the rest of the world more deeply, stay in that state while he trades the source of her cure for big bucks.

Instead, he keeps his discovery secret from Jet and Faye. He tries to help Rocco, even though he doesn’t have to, and watches in dismay as the poor sucker gets killed. Even as Rocco dies, he’s glad that he was able to use one of Spike’s moves, and dies at peace, or something like it, knowing that for once, he was a tough guy, and that his all-too-brief friendship with Spike will ensure that his sister is taken care of.

And she is. Whatever Spike’s other qualities, he gives up the money and the seeds so that she can recover and have enough money to start over. He tells her that Rocco was a good man who died doing the right thing. In short, he does a selfless act, one where he gives up the kind of cash that could change his life.

That's a big thing for the character, making him more than a dry cool badass with a mysterious backstory, the kind of protagonists that are a dime a dozen in genre fiction. Here, he shows that he cares about something more than money, and more than himself -- about doing good for others even when he could get away with not lifting a finger. It’s a depth I didn’t know the character had, and one that makes me more inclined to keep enjoying his adventures.