Cowboy Bebop (2021)
We have reached the end of our time with "Cowboy Bebop," both the anime and the live-action. Every time to I watch the anime, I'm reminded why it is one of my favorites and I appreciate the attempt to translate it to live-action, even if it wasn't successful most of the time. I was never bored watching this adaptation. If you haven't watched this and you're a fan of the original anime, I'd say give it a shot. Even if you hate it, at least you can have an informed opinion on why you hate it. Let's get to these final two episodes.
"Session Nine: Blue Crow Waltz"
Vicious: "Hmmm. I can see the blade now. Steel glistening wet as it pulls across the flesh. Knowing that with a simple flick of the wrist... veins will open. Blood will flow. [shudders] It's ecstasy."
Spike Spiegel: "Let me get this straight, you let a woman shave your balls with a straight razor?"
Vicious: "I wasn't gonna let a man do it."
Spike Spiegel: "It wasn't really my point, but --"
Vicious: "You have to use a straight razor. Electrics are like bloody chainsaws. Who shaves you?"
Spike Spiegel: "This'll come as a shock to you, but most people don't like sharp blades near their dicks."
Vicious: "Tell me you trim, at least."
Spike Spiegel: "Please stop."
Vicious: "Oh, you savage."
Spike Spiegel: [laughing] "I prefer a more natural situation."
Vicious: "That's just uncivilized. At the very least, you could braid it."
Spike Spiegel: [chuckling] "Braid it!"
Vicious: "Although, they're not long enough."
We flash back to a time when Spike and Vicious are working for the Syndicate. Spike is consistently trying to stop Vicious from going off the rails because he feels like he owes him. Vicious is put in charge of making a deal with the Neptune Crime Syndicate, but instead Vicious murders the man he's supposed to make a deal with. Vicious's father, Caliban, marks Vicious for a hit and instructs Spike to take him out. All the while, Vicious and Spike are both vying for the affections of Julia.
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| Brothers? |
If you read any of my "Titans" recaps, then you know how I feel about most flashback episodes, but a flashback episode as the penultimate episode of the season? Seriously? I can kind of understand that choice if the flashbacks were Earth shattering, but nothing here is really that. Nothing is revealed in this episode that we didn't really already know. You should have momentum going in to a finale, but this episode robs the series of any momentum.
One of the problems that the live-action "Cowboy Bebop" was always going to face was fleshing out Vicious. I'm sure I've brought this up but Vicious works really well in the anime because he's barely in it. He is just this ominous presence. And when he is on screen, he lets his actions speak for him. He doesn't need to monologue. He doesn't need to speak. I get that doesn't really work for a live-action setting. They had to give him more than that. And they really could have done anything. They have could have made him even more menacing. Instead, they made him a walking man child with anger issues who just wants is daddy's approval.
This whole thing is so cliché. How many villains have we seen that act just like Vicious? Who have the same motivations? I don't necessarily have an issue with clichés, but I would at least like the media I'm consuming making use of them to try to change them up a little bit, but "Cowboy Bebop" doesn't do that. I'm not scared of Vicious at all. I don't understand how people would be. The show continuously has characters tell us that Vicious as terrifying. But they don't really show us. The stuff that Vicious does doesn't make him scary. It's just more of things we've seen a million times before.
I can forgive a lot when I'm watching something like this. But one thing that "Cowboy Bebop" has done that I just can't forgive is them trying to gaslight me into believe that Julia is this amazing singer. She's mid at best. The idea that all these people are captivated by her voice, that her voice is something that should be given as a prize or reward or is something hat is coveted? Really? I don't need Elena Satine to have the best singing voice in the entire world, but she has a mid singing voice and has zero stage presence at all. The entire scene where Julia sings for the first time and everyone stops and is taken in and Vicious and Spike seemingly fall in love with her right then? No. I'm sorry. She is fully dead behind the eyes. I kept the receipt because I'm returning it.
That leads me to the Spike/Julia romance. I feel like this episode should have convinced me that these two are so in love with each other, but it didn't. It happens so quickly. Julia and Vicious are in love. They are vibing. And then suddenly, Julia and Spike are doing the Jupiter Jig in one of the cringiest scenes of the series and they are falling in love. I could have gotten behind this if John Cho and Elena Satine had any sort of chemistry together, but they do not. See Elena Satine being consistently dead behind the eyes. Also, I'm not sure who made the decision to intermix Spike and Julia having sex for the first time with Vicious torturing Ka-Ching, but that was a terrible decision. It doesn't work and it is maybe the unsexiest sex scene I've seen since the beach bang in "Eternals."
There's not even a lot of action in this episode that could save it. I feel like the show cuts away when it might get good. I was excited to see Vicious, Spike and the Neptune Cartel face off, but we don't see it. We just hear about it after and how Vicious cut off the dudes hand. That would have been awesome to see. But instead we just have to hear about it. The action set piece of the episode is Spike singlehandedly taking out a warehouse full of Neptune Cartel members by himself and it is admittedly pretty bad ass. I am a sucker for a unbroken tracking shot, but it feels like I've seen it before and I've seen it done better. I still liked it, but I would have liked it more if there was something about it that made it more unique.
The last two episodes of "Cowboy Bebop" were such a high that this episode was a massive letdown. Let's see if the show can bring it on home for the series finale.
Grade: D
"Session Ten: Supernova Symphony"
Vicious: "You should see yourself. Do you have any idea what you look like right at this moment, Spike?"
Spike Spiegel: "What?"
Vicious: "A ravenous beast. The same blood runs through both of us. The blood of a beast that wanders, hunting for the blood of others."
Spike Spiegel: "I've bled all that kind of blood away."
Vicious: "THEN WHY ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?"
It's time for Spike Spiegel to have his final confrontation with Vicious. His past collides with his present as Jet's daughter, Kimmie, gets caught in the crossfire and it seemingly ends the friendship between Jet and Spike. Can Spike save Kimmie, stop Vicious, reunite with Julia and repair his relationship with Jet?
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| Hi Ed. Bye Ed. |
I would love to tell you that after an uneven first and only season that "Cowboy Bebop" was able to stick the landing. That it left you with something that would make you forget its many missteps but if I told you that then I would be a liar. The one good thing that I can say about this series finale is that it serves a solid series finale. At the end, it doesn't feel like there are a ton of loose ends dangling. It is kind of a downer ending, but honestly, that is kind of what this live-action "Cowboy Bebop" deserves.
Kimmie finally completes her transformation into walking, talking plot device in this finale. Even someone who is not as savvy as I am when it comes to the tropes that television provides could have guessed that Vicious was going to kidnap Kimmie. You knew it from the moment you first laid eyes on her. I honestly rolled my eyes so hard that you could only see the whites when it was revealed that Vicious had her. It was just a way to generate conflict that didn't feel legit.
I think it's wild that the show points out that its logic is flawed when Jet is going off on Spike for lying to him. It just doesn't make any sense. All season long, Jet has been going on and on about how they are all family. I understand that he would be upset that his plot device is in danger but wouldn't it make more sense to work with Spike to get her back? Rather than just handing Spike over to Vicious? Faye is absolutely in the right here when she calls Jet a jackass basically. The whole thing is extremely contrived and maybe Christopher Yost, who wrote this episode, thinks that pointing it out is clever, but I'm here to tell him that it definitely is not.
Julia continues to be the worst character on this show. She shows up at the tail end of Vicious and Spike's. "fight," and she wants to Spike to kill Vicious. When he refuses and offers to finally make good on his promise to take her out of this life, she reveals that she's ready to take over the Syndicate. Huh? What? Why? When? How? I just can't with this. In an episode full of stupidity, this is the stupidest thing of all. Then, when Spike refuses, she shoots him out of the window. This heel turn by Julia is ridiculous. I can't imagine thinking this was a good idea, but here we are.
This episode tries to recreate the famous cathedral battle from "Ballad of Fallen Angels." This should have been so cool. It should have made super fans of the anime cream their jeans. It should have made me forget all the other bad things about this episode. But, it doesn't. It takes one of the best action scenes from the entirety of the anime and makes it really, really lame. I don't think you can even call Vicious and Spike's showdown a fight. It's over so quickly. It's the definition of anticlimactic. I just kept waiting for more to happen, but nothing ever did.
All that being said, after the events of this series finale, I honestly think that everyone kind of gets what they deserve. Faye, who is criminally underused in this finale, leaves the Bebop to go find her family. That's the best possible outcome for her. She needs to get away from Spike and Jet. Jet hears his daughter call Chalmers "Daddy" and that is the last straw. But honestly, it seems like he's been a better dad to her than Jet ever was. But Jet kicks Spike off the team and tells him that if he sees him again, he'll kill him. Julia keeps Vicious alive and chained to a radiator while she takes over the Syndicate. She's apparently going to toy with him like he toyed with her. Spike gets wasted and ends up passed out in alley where he's accosted by Radical Edward who claims to have a bounty mission for Spike.
The only person that really gets a happy ending here is Julia which in a warped way makes sense. Why shouldn't the worst character on the show get the happy ending in this awful finale? And I guess Faye, too since she parts ways with this train wreck and hopefully reunites with people who are actually family to her. I've watched two series finales recently and am two for two in them just being fucking awful.
Grade: F
Series Grade: C-
Well, that's it. I'm going to keep this anime feature going and next time we are going to start season one of my favorite anime currently: Jujutsu Kaisen!!
What did you all think? Is there anyone out there who really liked this series? Who enjoyed this finale? Who wanted this to continue? I'd love to hear from you in the comments.
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