Cowboy Bebop – “Dog Star Swing” Recap and Review

Cowboy Bebop – “Dog Star Swing” Recap and Review

 

“Jet needs cash to buy his daughter a birthday present. To get it, he and Spike track a potential bounty to a brothel, but Spike has his own agenda.”

 

Opening up in a market, with a nice samba number, a revamp of a track from the original series. We get a musical shift after Spike goes to a sushi stall. He places a particular order and then gives a different phrase. The man running the stand is visible shook from and passes Spike a pair of chopsticks. Spike opens up the binding on the chopsticks to find 2 words: “Vicious knows.” Just confirming what we saw at the end of the last episode. Spike asks the vendor to get a bit more information, paying the man. The man responds that he'll get “fresh supplies” in a few hours, and that he'll find Spike.

 

After the intro, we see Jet pining after the doll his daughter Kimmie wants, a Walking Sally. Spike is plainly still waiting on the information. Jet is frustrated with the doll hunt and just wants to go. Spike thinks fast and manages to find a big bounty in their area, and just manages to persuade Jet to start going after it. Jet gets in touch with an old friend, Woodcock. The flirty older woman answers Jet's call. She and Jet plainly have a LONG relationship and she makes it clear she wants a dinner “date” with Jet for her cooperation. The pair start reviewing the footage and the combination of their skills show just what can make them a formidable pair. Jet goes for some old tech and a buddy, “Doc Holiday,” made to deal with thieves using the same tech. Jet knows where the tech came from and Spike knows the local places that would use it. Jet uses his scrambler and it does exactly what they wanted, disrupts the mask their target is using. The mark is caught while gassing up, and runs off, not even stopping the pump. We get back to Spike and Jet after that. Jet starts talking about Chalmers. Jet talks about his history with Chalmers to Spike after getting a message about Sally being in a blue nova. It is revealed here that Spike plainly knows what went down with Jet, about 5 lost years. Just after that, the “black-market santa” shows up with the doll. 35K later and Jet has it.

 

Inside the bar with Spike, we see someone come in, talking with the bartender about a face-changer, asking for Betty. Spike is just next to find and quickly pulls his gun on him, asking Hakim if he wants to do this the “easy way or the fun way.” Hakim quickly grabs and Spike's arm with another bar patron, putting Spike into the bar. The fun way it is. Time for a quick chase inside a brothel. Hakim gets to the roof and Spike follows him up. The two have a quick talk, a jazzy western number begins as the face changer stops, revealing the true face of Hakim. These two put each other through their paces for sure. Jet is running there, but bumps into someone before his Walking Sally flies out of his hands and gets run over by a car. Jet rushes to join Spike while Spike and Hakim fight on the rooftop. When Jet does make it to the rooftop, Hakim manages to knock Spike into a display on the side of the brothel we'd been seeing throughout the episode. While hanging upside down, Spike notices the sushi logo we saw at the start of the episode on a building across the river.

 

The scene jumps to Vicious, Lin, and Shin. They are talking about moving product and a temporary shutdown of their operations because of Vicious being discovered. Vicious makes his intentions clear about how he'll handle any disagreements about what is happening. We then see the Red Eye operation that Vicious and company are running. The people there making the drug naked with their eyes sewn shut. Vicious gives the order to kill the people making the drugs.

 

At the midpoint, we are back to Ana's. The scene reveals itself to be a flashback with Julia, then fades to present day. Ana compliments Julia on her singing from the past. Julia asks if they can talk in private and the pair head up to Ana's office. Ana and Julia are rehashing a conversation they've had before about Vicious's abuse. We get a quick scene in the fish supplier after that of the merchant seeing Vicious.

 

Things jump back to Spike and Jet then. Spike brings over the burnt and beat-up Walking Sally while Jet secures a fresh one from a shop somewhere in the city. Jet wants to cut losses but Spike is still waiting and wants to stay in the city. They go in to search Hakim's regular girl. The scene goes over to Hakim with a large number of dogs in crates, kennels, and cages, one of which opens itself. When Hakim looks, it's empty. He pulls a shotgun on a number of leashed and line-up dogs.

 

When we get back to Spike and Jet, they're getting told off for what they did in the brothel earlier. While Spike keeps Jet after Hakim, he also gets an answer to an earlier question. The vendor from earlier appears and Spike meets up with him, getting information he was after then asks for a package. Then we're inside the club from earlier, seeing a number of adult toys and clothing. They get a fresh lead and are off to find their mark again. The pair head to the atmo farms to track Hakim. A corgi greets them and then leads them right to Hakim. Hakim is now reveling the dogs he was going to murder. The story takes a twist when Hakim gets shot through the head by the ISSP. Jet quickly leads a now very angry Spike away so they can claim something better than a doll before the cops get it.

 

The episode begins to wrap with Jet driving up with a colorful box to a house and going inside with it. Jet greets a little girl, his daughter. Just before the contents of the present is revealed, the scene shifts with the opening to Spike in a sniper position, taking aim at Vicious. Spike tracking Vicious and Jet talking with his ex-wife inter-cut. Alisa, Jet's ex-wife tells Jet to just take the dog because she can't afford it (even with Jet chipping in). Vicious and Spike have a talk, Spike making it clear to just let him be. Jet leaves with Ein, having promised to let Bean call and talk with Ein.

Just reading the summary of the episode, the echoes of Episode 2 are going to be heard here. Spike does need to come clean before it gets revealed. That and from the start of this episode, I am hoping that Ein finally shows up. It took over the mid-point, but I got just that. At least it is alluded that the hyper-intelligent corgi is present. It took longer than that to see him. But the little guy did show up and was important to the plot. We just saw him somehow hack out of his secure carrier and vanish expertly in a very small window. Also, his name tag actually read “E 1 N” and not “E I N.” Easy to miss detail but does clue in the observant to the true nature of the adorable corgi. That and the pooch is one of the best behaved dogs seen. This is a dog I am looking forward to seeing throughout the rest of the show.

 

Musically, this show continues to deliver on par with the original. It drawing from, have Yoko Kanno on makes a huge difference. Also just that the music bleeds in so well from the opening scene into the title them is wonderful. Some of it did have a generic feel, but a few bars of something basic surrounded by majesty is very forgivable. Just western number while Spike and Hakim are fighting is a lot of fun to listen to. Then the whistling number as the Walking Sally falls to its destruction so Jet can save Spike. There were times during the episode I was reminded of Trigun because of the music. It is the western flair that was running throughout the whole of the episode that created that feeling. That or just the 70's Disco-era influence on it. Easily my favorite parts of the episode.

 

This is something wholly original to the live-action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop, seeing Jet really be a parent. There was just 1 episode we saw anything like that in the original show with Boogie Woogie Feng Shui. In that episode, he was helping an informants daughter track down what happened to her father. We also learn that Jet got set-up, by Chalmers, and got locked up for 5 years. That seems to have been what cost Jet his marriage. That determination that got Jet the nickname “Black Dog” show here a bit, but also a lot more cynicism. This episode is the first time we got to see his daughter, meet his wife, as well as his (treacherous) ex-partner. But we also see the strife between the pair of them. Alisa taking a very harsh and realistic view of what she and Chalmers can do for her daughter. Jet is still blocked out from being what he wants to be: a good father.

 

I really do wonder about the set-up in the world that has a tax on having pets. It does suck that the little girl can't have the dog her father wants to give her because of the cost. But then again: vet visits, leashes, collars, toys, it all adds up pretty fast. The terraforming and maintenance of human habitation on different planets seems like its more an on-going expense if they're taxing for pets!

 

The relationship between Jet and Spike is just going to keep getting more and more strained with the present status quo. Spike needs to break his silence about being part of the Syndicate in his past life as “Fearless.” Spike is far more independent in operations than Jet, working on a different set of rules. They both get the rules for collecting bounties (that they need the person alive but not unharmed). Also, just have to say, kinky. Spike had more interests than we knew about things. He was familiar enough with the Dom/Sub to know how to properly address a Dominatrix (and knew exactly what she was offering). He does seem to be letting the Julia thing lay at rest from Ana's word that she's happy. Spike only did what he did to Vicious to stop Vicious from coming for him more.

 

In regards to sources, this is something I don't get to talk about much. There is a big influence on the big fight of this episode, between Spike and Hakim. It calls back to the fight between Bruce Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Game of Death. It is a good movie to watch if you haven't seen it already. The fight itself between Spike and Hakim is a great show, drawing from the more modern school of martial arts movie using every last thing around very cinematically. Hakim's outfit is very much a throwback to the 1970's, when Game of Death came out. It does a good nod to the time but also the outfit from Stray Dog Strut, the episode that Hakim is from. Hakim, like the other bigger, bounties, has a backstory now. Hearing him talk about what happened to his family on Earth when the gate blew did set a different context to what happened. It remains that in the anime, the gate incident was long in the past while for the live-action series, it happened within almost everyone's lifetime. The biggest problem here is just how much time we see Hakim being presented as a white man. You'd think he'd be himself when he's at his hideout, but no. Outside of a few select scenes, he's presenting as that white guy. It is a bit tragic as well how things go for Hakim, with him just getting shot in the head at the end. Fits with the times that it was written though, sadly.

 

Finally, I should talk about the dynamic between Julia and Vicious. It definitely is not a healthy relationship. It really can be like Ana said, you survive it until you don't, but very much also like Julia say, that she can't just leave. This is beyond my experience, but it had to be brought up. Just know there are ways out of the isolation and ways to get away.

 

For an overall light-hearted episode with a lot of humor, there were some dark elements floating around in there. We finally got to see Spike and Vicious brush against each other. Even at a distance, it was clear the pair still have that long shared history together in the Syndicate. It does bring up more questions, but we'll see where this all goes over the remaining episodes of the series. Spike still needs to be more honest with Jet, returning the courtesy. Jet showed a lot of dedication to being a father. Vicious schemes were shown more plainly, as well as what has been happening with Julia.

 

 

See you later, Space Cowboy...


Comments (0)

New comments are currently disabled.


Subscribe to me on YouTubeFollow us on Twitter!
Join our Steam group!