Cowboy Bebop, Part 2

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Strap in for a deep dive into the cosmos as we explore the final thirteen episodes of Cowboy Bebop, one of anime's most celebrated masterpieces. What begins as casual appreciation quickly transforms into profound admiration as we unpack the layers of this 1998 phenomenon that continues to captivate audiences decades later.

The second half of Cowboy Bebop reveals the complex pasts of our favorite space cowboys. Faye Valentine emerges as a woman literally out of time—cryogenically frozen and awakened 50 years later with no memory of her former life. Jet Black's story unfolds in "Black Dog Serenade," showing us the incorruptible cop whose moral compass never wavers despite betrayal. And of course, Spike Spiegel's mysterious connection to the Red Dragon Syndicate and his lost love Julia finally comes to its inevitable, bittersweet conclusion.

Beyond the captivating narratives, we marvel at the show's production values. Taking approximately two years to animate at a staggering cost of $300,000-$500,000 per episode (considerably higher than its contemporaries), Cowboy Bebop represents the pinnacle of hand-drawn animation. Each frame feels deliberate, each scene meticulously crafted without the shortcuts common in animated series of that era. The legendary soundtrack by Yoko Kanno doesn't merely accompany the action—it becomes an essential character in the storytelling, with jazz compositions that somehow feel both period-appropriate and timeless.

Whether you're a longtime fan or have yet to experience this groundbreaking series, our discussion highlights why Cowboy Bebop transcends the anime genre to stand as one of television's greatest achievements. So pour yourself something smooth, hit play, and see why you're gonna carry that weight. And after you've listened, we'd love to hear your thoughts on which character's story resonated most with you.

Twitter handles:
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Anthony's Twitter: https://twitter.com/odysseyswow
Dakota's Twitter: https://twitter.com/geekritique_dak

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Geekritique (Dakota):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBwciIqOoHwIx_uXtYTSEbA

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, three, two, one , let's jam.
Welcome to episode 122 ofProject Geekology, and this week
we are covering the last halfof Cowboy Bebop, so from
episodes 14 to 26.
I am one third of your host,anthony, and joining me, as

(00:21):
always, is Dakota and I thatintro three, two, one, let's jam
good.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Good job with that one.
And yeah, we're joined, asalways, with.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Rich super excited to talk about the second half of
Cowboy Bebop this week, guyshonestly, this show is
tremendous.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Like I would gladly pick up like a Cowboy Bebop like
podcast and just listen episodeby episode.
Like people who like know theshow in and out, I'd love to
like hear all that they have tosay about it.
Because as I'm watching it,like the further I got into the
season, the more I startedloving the show.
Like every episode was startingto get incredibly good and I

(01:01):
wonder, if I go back, will Ienjoy the episodes even more?
Like starting from scratchagain and I'm debating it
because it's really tremendous.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
It's really spectacular show.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
That's why, like I mean, you see why I go back
periodically to watch it it'sfunny that you say that, dakota,
that you said that because I Iwould say that like I started to
like it way more the secondhalf of last I'll say last
week's episode.
So I don't know, let's saystarting maybe episode five, six

(01:31):
, you know, like it startedsounding a build for me and then
I really liked this second halfagain.
I don't know if that's the oldman in me that needs to watch
everything twice to enjoy itmore, because I'm kind of
unpacking things and and hearingreferences to things and
whatever, but maybe it's becausethey had a beta max and this
half of the season that happenedto be my favorite episode,

(01:53):
actually you know, I, I really,and I also liked finding about
more about the characters.
I think it was less flashbackyand more showing it to me like
look is a video of your pastflashing back, yes, but at least
I can.
I feel like it's in the momentstill in some weird way.
So Because it's new.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
It's new to the character?
Yes, but you know what?
We'll get into all of that andmore.
I'm glad you liked it, rich, Iloved it.
And Anthony, we know you'veseen it before a couple of times
.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, man, you like it, it's in, like my top man,
it's one of my favorites.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Let's jump into what we've been up to this past week.
Rich, I'm going to head it toyou, whoa?

Speaker 3 (02:31):
I mean, it's terrible .
The Mets have been home for9,000 days, so I've been going
to about 9,000 games.
No, they have a really longhomestand, which isn't often the
case.
Let's just put it this way.
In the last my I just looked atmy apple watch I got an update
that my steps for this lastmonth have dramatically
increased.
And uh, my friend, I actuallygot some messages this week

(02:55):
about some people saying likewhoa, you've really been walking
a lot and exercising.
And I'm like no, I just am toocheap to park in the parking lot
and and I park a mile away.
It's been fun going there,school's kind of like, in this
weird wind down mode, so it'slike you show up to be there,
but it's a little bit of a slogas the kids see daylight.

(03:16):
So just kind of been doing that, still been grinding MLB the
show to the point where I thinkI'm almost a little bored.
I think it needs a little bitsomething, or maybe I need a
little bit of a break.
I think I think I'm gettingcloser and closer to either
restarting Red Dead.
I've been looking at some.
I don't know how, but I mean Iknow how Facebook knows I like

(03:36):
Red Dead.
So now I just get these randomposts from groups that I'm not
in about Red Dead Redemption 2.
It's just like this is a greatspot to find a quail.
You know.
Just be there at six in themorning and all this talk about
hunting has gotten my manlyblood up and boiling.
I need to kill some things andskin them and bring them to the
guy who buys this stuff.
I forgot the name because I seeit in Spanish, so I don't see

(03:59):
it in English the fur trapper.
I guess I'm forgetting.
It's pelilletera in Spanish, soI play with the game in Spanish
, which makes it that muchharder to find things.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Wait, do you actually ?
You play in Spanish.
My PlayStation is in Spanish.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
So, yeah, everything, everything is in Spanish.
My PlayStation, yeah.
I mean, the only time I've everreally taken it off of Spanish
is that Fallout, all right.
So, because of the way spanishworks, trying to buy things in
fallout in terms of, like theupgraded armor for the I forget
what the names of the suits are,now the I can't remember the

(04:35):
suits the power armor, powerarmors, right.
When it's the way it's, it'swritten in spanish.
It's impossible to go throughthe list.
It's really hard becauseeverything's backwards, so like
nor normally the, the, like thedescriptors in front, and it
makes more sense.
It's like at the end of the ofthe item.
So it's a little bit moreconfusing.

(04:55):
But, yeah, I try to do itbecause that way I'll I'm gonna
say this weird thing and I'llpass it off to anthony.
Basically, I've learned so muchSpanish playing Skyrim and
Fallout because I've learned thenames of things that I would
have never even thought to lookup.
But now I found out because I,you know, I know I learned more
fruits and vegetables, the namesfor monsters and things and

(05:20):
swords and different implements,and it's definitely, I think, a
more enjoyable way of learningthe language for me.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
I like that a lot.
I had never considered doingsomething like that.
You know, I've considered likereading books in Spanish, but I
think that's too heavy, tooquick and it's not engaging
enough for someone who doesn'tknow Spanish.
Well, I can hear Spanish and Ican understand it, but yeah, I
think if I had to play a game,an immersive game, like you know

(05:49):
a whole world, like that, thatwould help.
I'm telling you, man, teachSpanish.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah, it's interesting Phone watch,
PlayStation.
The only thing I really don'thave in Spanish is my computer,
just because, for work purposesand needing to get grading done
or whatever, I keep that one inenglish, but it's a lifestyle
choice.
Oh, I forgot the most excitingnews of the week, guys.
So I'm scrolling on instagramand there's this coffee mug,

(06:14):
slash water bottle and it'scalled the loud cup.
I'm like, why would it becalled the loud cup?
well, I don't know it has abuilt-in like fog horn, like a
voo-voo zella type horn.
Whoa right.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Why would anyone need that?
Uh, so let's say you're.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
You know you're at your local sporting event and
you know you want to root yourteam on and you want to make
sure everyone hears you.
But you know you're far away,you know, so you're just like,
and I I bought that to work.
I bought that to work.
Today I started every class byblowing the horn.
I went into people's classrooms, I stopped, stopped by admin,
the main office, and I wouldjust stop in front of people and

(06:49):
just go man, I'm really thirstyand then take a sip and then
switch it to the other side andthen blow the horn.
It was, honestly, this soundsdumb, but it's one of the most
fun days I think I've had atwork the entire year.
It had nothing to do withteaching or it just was
disrupting.
At one point Jen came aroundthe corner and said I knew you
were in the hallway because Iheard you randomly blow the horn

(07:11):
.
Kids were just jumping becausethey were like what is going on?
It looks like I'm just drinkingwater and then you just hear a
horn out of nowhere.
So they don't even know it's me.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
That's a good way to stay hydrated too.
You're going to have fun and,you know, retain water.
That's excellent, we're notsponsored.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
We're not sponsored by Loud Cup, but I will tell you
, if you just like having fun,it's like under $20 or something
.
It's the best purchase I'vemade, probably in the last 10
years.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Wonderful.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
Anthony, let's head it off to you, for me it really
hasn't been any craziness, or Ihaven't really had much going on
, except for, like this week atwork.
We went through like thatmerger, like it's been that
first week, and so on Monday,when the the merger like
officially like kicked off, soon Monday, when the merger
officially kicked off, it wasokay.
But on Tuesday, well, monday,because most of the bank was
closed, the only people thatwere there were the techs and

(08:14):
then all the new people comingon to the bank.
But then Tuesday, when the restof the bank started working, it
was like all hell broke loose,dude, it was insane.
So yeah, tuesday was crazy, butthe past couple days it kind of
mellowed out and today wasn't sobad.
But yeah, man, it was for for agood, like you know, day and a

(08:35):
half work was like pretty insane.
I ended up that day I stayedlike an hour extra helping knock
out, like extra, you know,incidents that needed to be
helped with.
So yeah, man, that was a bitcrazy.
Other than that, man, well, I Ihave been kind of going through
some anime that have been on mylist or started, but like I

(08:58):
never finished, and one of thoseis kaiju number eight.
Dude, it's so good.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Kaiju number eight so good, I actually wanted to
watch that it's really good isit like a one one season show?

Speaker 1 (09:11):
well, there's only one season right now, but there
is a second season.
I don't think it's.
No, it's not out yet, but it ison the way but, yeah, it's
really good.
I've been enjoying that a lot.
I'm caught up on my hero,academia vigilantes, and you
know, I mean obviously cowboybebop, but yeah, it's been, yeah

(09:32):
, a lot of like anime watching.
And yeah, man, how about you,dakota?
What have you been up to?

Speaker 2 (09:38):
I have gotten like a lot of like personal projects
done, you know just random stuffaround the house and other
obligations that I've, you know,been keeping up with and I've
basically got to a point whereit's like all out of the way at
this point.
So it's kind of like a stress,a bunch of stress off of my
shoulders.
So I feel really good right now.

(09:59):
But as far as geeky stuff thatI did this week or at least it
can count as geeky stuff I sawthe new Lilo and Stitch live
action remake and that wasbetter than I thought it was
going to be.
You know a lot of people weredogging it online.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
What.
For certain choices Wait peopleon the internet didn't like it.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yeah, the internet is a divisive place these days.
So weird, did so weird.
You could never reallyanticipate you know how it could
be the best movie in the worldand then you see something
online that says, actually,you're a monster if you like
this movie.
There was a lot of that onlineand it wasn't half as bad as

(10:42):
people are making it out to be.
They do change one particularthing that might.
I'm not going to spoil it, butthey do change one particular
thing about the way the movieresolves itself.
If you haven't seen the movieand you don't know the context

(11:03):
and you don't know how itactually resolves or if it's a
happy ending or not, you caninterpret that as this is the
live action.
It happened to be the bestpossible resolution to

(11:28):
everything that they hadintroduced.
So that's what I'll say aboutthat.
I liked the movie.
I thought it was cute.
It was exactly like theoriginal movie, sans a couple
characters, and they gave alittle bit more clarification to
some scenes and stuff.
There was some really touchingmoments, like really heartfelt
moments that well, I mean, wesaw it opening weekend, so there

(11:51):
was a lot of families out andthere's one scene where it looks
like a character's gonna die.
You know, they the there's ascene that it looks like a
character's gonna die and therewas a kid crying hysterically
right behind us and the parentswere like no, no, no, it's, it's
a kid's movie, it's going to beokay, kid was inconsolable soft

(12:12):
my generation.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
We went to go see bambi.
Spoiler alert baby's dad diesin the first and his mom dies in
the first 10 minutes.
So you were, you were born inthe 40s well, no, the the.
I mean it must have been like88, 89, the re-release.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
It was my first movie ever oh, okay, and I, I didn't
know I did in fact cryimmediately, like I was, like
well, that's like the first fiveminutes of it.
It's, it's a really it's.
You know it's traumatic.
I haven't seen that movie sinceI was a kid.
But yeah, lilo and Stitch goodtime.
I recommend it if you areopen-minded, I guess, to the

(12:52):
possibility of a potentiallygood live-action Disney movie,
because there's a lot of moviesthat I don't think deserve or
need a live-action remake andwe've covered a couple of them
on the show.
You know I don't think Aladdinneeded on the show.
You know I don't think aladdinneeded to be remade, I don't
think mulan mulan.
Yeah, mulan's a strong case fornot needing to be adapted.

(13:13):
It's a very unmemorable moviebecause I don't even remember
most of the live action remake.
The lion king was almostverbatim.
The original lion king that onewasn't good, it's I didn't like
even live action.
It's.
It's not even live action, it'sjust, it's an animated movie.
It just looks straight up cgyeah, but I would say that this
is probably one of the better ofthe live action disney remakes

(13:36):
up there for me, with beauty andthe beast.
Beauty and the beast is one ofmy favorite disney movies, like
the original animate animatedfilm, but the Beauty and the
Beast live action added certainsongs that enhance the story and
I thought that that was reallyimpressive.
Some of my favorite Beauty andthe Beast songs are from the
live action.
Evermore and Days in the Sunand Evermore are like top tier

(14:00):
Disney songs and they are from alive action movie.
Yeah, so anyway, I think Beautyand the Beast dropped the ball,
I mean.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
I'm not sure if you guys know top tier disney songs,
and they are from a live actionmovie.
Yeah, so anyway I think uh bsdropped the ball.
I mean I'm not sure if you guysknow this, but I was chip in
the christmas play in seventhgrade and they could have cast
me in that role again and theydropped the ball.
I'm not sure it's like me.
And then jonathan taylor thomasare just the most well-known
actors for that role for thatrole.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yeah, I was rooting for you.
I didn't.
I don't think I knew you at thetime, but I saw your name on
like the list of likepossibilities and I was just
like this guy's got the chops,literally the year before I was
aladdin.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
So I mean, I was just a disney guy, you know you were
that guy.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
You were that guy.
Crazy thought guys, should wejump into cowboy bebop?

Speaker 1 (14:41):
should we I.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
I don't think I had anything else like going on this
past week.
If I did, I do not remember.
But yeah, let's do it.
Let's jump into the discussion.
Rich, I want to tee back towhat you were saying earlier.
You kind of mentioned that bythe second half of the show you
had gone beyond just liking it.

(15:03):
You started to really lovecertain aspects of it.
How do you feel about theseason as a whole, and do you
think you'll have to go back toit to fully grasp the whole of
it?

Speaker 3 (15:14):
I guess I think I'll have to go back.
I mean, it's just, I think thatthere's something that I love
about introductory pilotepisodes to shows.
You know where they're, justwhere you, you are a little like
.
I'm okay with exposition in myfirst couple of episodes so that

(15:36):
I connect and then I'm able togrow or experience the rest of
the narrative alongside of thecharacters, if that kind of
makes sense.
And I've always I'm not sayingalways my experience with some
anime so far has been that itkind of just hits the ball
rolling and then, like, we'llcatch you up as we go along and

(15:58):
I feel very disoriented and Ican't, I don't like I remember
not.
I, I remember not.
I didn't care about Jet, Ididn't care about Spike.
The person who I was first mostinterested in was Faye
Valentine, but it's because wemet her, I was getting more
information about her.
It just was presented in a waythat I like to digest stories,

(16:20):
where I Look just look Rich.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
We all had, at one point in our lives, had some
sort of interest towards faye.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
You know mine was, you know a younger age, but you
know she was, you know she isdefinitely created with fan
service in mind but she doeshave, like you know, an
interesting story though yeah,yeah, it's, I think, from in
terms of like finding out aboutthe characters.
Obviously we do get more aboutjet and edward here and we get

(16:54):
more about spike, but I thinkthat she was like the first
character that we got some morelike it's like it made me want
to scratch the surface more,like what's going on there,
what's with this character,where the other two I just kind
of felt lost because I didn'tfeel like I was really
introduced to them, so like Iwon't and it's interesting I
won't say that then edward's mysecond favorite, right, it's not

(17:18):
because edward then comes inlater when introduced.
I actually would say, if I'mranking the characters, I'm
putting fey and then then jet,second actually for me by the
end of black dog syndicate, theepisode where he he's with his
old partner.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
I think it's black dog yeah that, oh, that was such
a good episode.
Forget the name of the episode.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
We should pull up the episode list, just for the
pretty sure it's like black dogsyndicate or something maybe I'm
confusing that with the reddawn?
I don't know red dawns, I'mcrossing my wires.
I think that's han solo.
But yeah, as you look that up,I just found black dog, black
dog serenade.
There we go.
I knew it was an s sound, yeah,so it's just.
I think, like that episode gaveme a lot about his character and

(18:01):
I just love the way it was laidout.
I mean, I don't know if I'mnaive, but I didn't see that his
partner was at play the entiretime and they know he was
playing him and and he was theoriginal like.
I should have seen that coming,you know, like, but I just
enjoyed it so much that I kindof lost the ability to

(18:21):
analytically analyze storystructure, which is what I do
for a living, and that's when Iknow I like something right,
when I stop analyzing it forlike, oh, this is going to, this
has to happen next.
You know, I'm that guy who,when han was killed by kylo ren,
I gasped in the middle of thetheater and I remember my friend

(18:43):
looked at me and said how areyou surprised about this
development?
And I had tears streaming downmy face, you know.
So by the end of this I waslike when, when Ed and Ian walk
away.
I was like what is this forreal?
Like I was getting, you know, Ithink as the series ended I was

(19:03):
kind of really sad that therewasn't more to it.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Like you could tell that it was winding down, like
it felt like everything wascoming to a head, like it was
like a lot of signs werepointing there.
There was a lot of you know theyou know bounty of the week
still kind of going on, butthere was still you know
underlying things that were kindof at work, that they were kind

(19:28):
of building up, and what werey'all's thoughts about you know
fay?
Fay is pretty much like a womanout of time.
You know.
She's like captain america.
She was frozen.
That's a good way.
Yeah, yeah I.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah, I mean, for me I think that that was the point
in the show that it all reallyclicked for me was learning
about her origin, like waking up50 years later, and I really
liked the.
I mean, as a timeline geek, Iimmediately like, okay, all

(20:03):
right, now I know where we arein the scheme of things.
You know, like I've seen dateslike you know, like this
character was born in 2030, orsomething like that, but it
wasn't until they mentioned thatshe woke up in 2068.
And this was now three yearslater.
So the show takes place in 2071.
And, yeah, I thought that thatwas a.
Really it helped me just startpinpointing like, okay, now, 50

(20:26):
years ago, so we're in 2071.
So 50 years ago, 2021 or 2022,the moon for some reason
collapses and destroys Earth andeverything's changed ever since
.
You know, now Earth is justsurrounded by asteroids and
stuff like that, droids andstuff like that.

(20:47):
So just that little bit ofFaye's backstory helped me kind
of piece out the timeline orparse out the timeline, I should
say, in my head, and I likedthat.
I liked it a lot.
It was really cool.
And, yeah, knowing that shewasn't always this like cold,
heartless bounty hunter isinteresting because what
happened in those three yearsthat you know?

(21:07):
She has decided that, like thisis the person that she has to
be, because she doesn't rememberthe person that she was.
I thought that was fascinating.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
Would you have hated it if the show started with her
on Earth right and then, liketime, jumped to her in the
present?

Speaker 2 (21:25):
but then we find the video later I don't know that I
would have hated it, but I likethe presentation the way that it
is because every character ismysterious as we first meet them
.
You know, like every characterhas a mysterious background that
we don't fully understand untilpretty much the end of the
season and I feel like theywould have been giving too much

(21:45):
right away yeah, even, even ifnot much was said.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
I think giving that would have been giving a little
bit too much and I think thatthat would have shifted like
maybe this, I guess, the setupof the show and it probably
would have still come out well,but maybe not as well as it did.
You know the fact that, likedakota said, like you know what
kind of keeps you going, is thatmystique?

(22:09):
But then you're like, okay,well, I know that she's from
earth and you know it was verymuch obvious that, like when she
was on earth and the, when yousaw that beta max, that you know
the earth, it didn't seem hightech as the world of Cowboy
Bebop does.
So it's like, okay, well,something happened.

(22:30):
But yeah, I agree with Dakota,the way that it was presented as
is, I prefer it that way.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
The show's presentation is a particularly
interesting one in the sensethat it almost follows the same
logic that the first two Witchernovels employ.
Where the first two Witchernovels are just collections of
short stories that aren't inchronological order, they give
you a random short story with amoral, you know, backbone and

(23:02):
there's a little bit of acharacter arc that you can start
to piece together.
Okay, this is kind of wherethis character is coming from,
this is where they, this istheir goal, this is where
they're headed and there's alittle bit of foreshadowing as
to what's to come.
And that's that's what happensin the first two short story
collections for the Witcher.
For all intents and purposes,those are my favorite Witcher

(23:23):
stories bar none.
As soon as it gets into, likethe long novels where Geralt
actually meets up with Yenneferand they start taking Ciri on,
it loses me because the mystiqueis gone and it's just narrative
storytelling.
At that point, and with CowboyBebop it never gets there
Because every episode isbasically a short story.

(23:43):
It's a little bottle episodethat gives you a piece of the
puzzle, and while it seems to beall in chronological order, it
doesn't necessarily need to beLike.
You could rearrange a couple ofthese episodes and you wouldn't
know that you wouldn't be anythe wiser.
You know, and I think thatthat's a really cool method of
telling this story andultimately, like thinking back

(24:06):
on everything as a whole, nowthat we've gotten all these
little pieces to the puzzle.
I think it's genius, Likewhoever wrote this, whoever you
know spent the time and money toproduce this.
Absolutely genius Like.
This was a really strong watch.
I'm really happy we did this.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
Rich.
What do you think?
So I mean, I think you're right.
I think a part of me, it's justthe way I like to consume
narratives or stories.
I'm very much of a you knowkind of more linear, with like
fewer flashbacks.
You know like I love lord of therings.
There's almost nothing thereand I know we know there are
references and things, butoverall it's kind of just

(24:46):
straightforward.
I think I kind of like that alittle bit more sometimes and I
think, just as a reader, as awatcher, the mysterious kind of
reveal along the way issomething that's kind of.
I mean, we talked about it whenwe watched rings of power.
You know like I enjoyed it somuch more when I knew who
everyone was, and it wasn't the.
You know the stranger is thisguy and you know hal brand is

(25:09):
this guy, and I think it's justthat.
That's probably just something.
That's probably a gripe I'mjust gonna have when we go over
something and there's kind ofthis shroud of mystery on people
it's harder to get into, that'sfor sure, and and we were
experiencing that last week Likewe didn't know, what to think.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
I recognize that this was art, but I didn't connect
with it fully last week.
I feel like if I dive into thismore, I could become even a
bigger fan of whatever's goingon with this show, because the
level of artistry on display,both in the writing, the
animation, the music choice, thesound choices and even just

(25:44):
like the pacing of how theyintroduce concepts and ideas to
you while also giving you veryheavy sci fi concepts along with
it like there's a whole episodewhere you know downloading
one's consciousness into adigital world and how that was
causing like a mass suicidespike.
Fascinating concept and you knowI've seen similar stuff in sci

(26:05):
fi before.
It's not an entirely newconcept, but the way that it
incorporates into this universeis just so fun or maybe not fun
Fun's not probably the rightword, but it's realistic and you
can feel that this is somethingthat could happen in this
universe.
So, rich, you were mentioningearlier about the flashback to

(26:26):
the beta deck and the tape thatFaye is delivered.
Do you find that that's aflashback or is it just that
she's experiencing this as newinformation in the moment?

Speaker 3 (26:38):
I know it's a narrative conceit and I know
it's still a flashback, but itmakes it feel like less like a
flashback.
It's something about you knowthe footage being seen.
We're seeing it at the sametime.
That didn't bother like I.
I liked it.
I giggled when they first tookthe you know the beta, beta
cassette out.
I remember looking at it and Iimmediately said that's not a

(27:00):
vhs, just from the kind of theoutside box, like the, the front
of it it's smaller, it's justlike a little more square, yeah,
so I was like I love that hewas just ripping I know I was I
was like cringing inside, likeno, don't do that I was dying.
Also, the gag that if they hadjust like stayed put they would
have gotten the betamax playeris unbelievable.

(27:23):
Chef's kiss, just really goodstuff I just enjoyed.
So when I realized it was abetamax, I immediately giggled
because I was like good luckfinding something to play that
on.
You know like, and I know it'ssupposed to be really far in the
future, but you know, I thinkeven now it's way easier to find
a vhs player if you wanted to,than a betamac.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
Oh, yeah, so, yeah, they exist, yeah, so, but so,
yeah, so when you were sayingthat I honestly I don't see this
moment as a flashback.
When I think of like aflashback, usually it's like a
complete cut or it's likesomebody thinking back on that
moment, you know.
But the way that it waspresented was that it was

(28:04):
presented like you know, kind oflike in that video format, and
it was being presented as newinformation, whereas for me it
didn't feel so much as like aflashback in like the
traditional sense of a flashback.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
Fair.
I think that what I dislikesometimes is when flashback is
used for character development,whereas I'd rather the character
develop in front of me.
His or her current actions willthen dictate who they are.
It doesn't always have to bewhat came before, but I think

(28:43):
that if I had known more aboutthe other characters or like
overall, not knowing fey and herbeing mysterious, would have
been okay with me.
Know that it probably shouldn'tstart very linearly, but I
think I would have kind of likedto see that.
I just like to see how it wouldplay out if it was rolled out

(29:03):
that way, if faye was, say, theonly one who was really
mysterious.
Even jet we don't find outabout his arm.
Until what is that?

Speaker 2 (29:13):
episode 21, 19 like it's yeah, it's, it's the black
Dog, sarah episode.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
So it's just there are all these important things.
And then the jump in technology, right, I mean, I imagine, yeah
, I guess, if I looked at mediafrom 70 years ago, well, she's
no, I guess it would have been60 years ago, right.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
Yeah, so 60 years ago yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
And this is probably being picky, right, you know,
but I mean I wouldn't, I don'tknow.
Maybe my son, if he grabbed aneight track, would be like you
know what is and rolling thestuff out of it.
You know, I mean, spike is alittle bit absent-minded and
kind of does some boneheadthings along the way, so I guess
it's not completely out ofcharacter for him to immediately
destroy something before havingany idea of what it is, you

(30:04):
know that's like in like moviesor tv shows, where they're
reading a comic book, and likethey'll like fold back the pages
and they'll just like flop itaround and it's like in my head

Speaker 2 (30:14):
I'm like no, you're gonna crease it.
What are you doing?
Yes I I have owned hundreds ofcomic books.
I do not crease anything Likeit's very, except for like the
first couple of things I readwhen I was a kid are like
damaged.
But I can't throw them outbecause you know sentimental
value.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
My wife bought me Hulk 181, the first appearance
of Wolverine.
I know if you're listeningyou're probably like well,
actually he appeared in the lastpanels of Hulk 180.
And you would be correct.
But his first full appearancewas 181.
And we went to Comic-Con oneyear and she picked it up for me
and I brought it home and Icould tell she was waiting for
me to take it out and read itright.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Was it graded?

Speaker 3 (30:58):
Yeah, well, it's not in the, it wasn't, it wasn't
slabbed, no, it wasn't graded,but I still.
I went and I downloaded itdigitally and I started reading
it and she's like what are youdoing?
and I'm like what's I can't open, that I was like that's like
the ark of the covenant, likethat thing is staying there.
I have every issue from, likeyou know, that first appearance

(31:21):
to the entire first run ofwolverine, and then volume two,
volume three, volume four, likebasically up until the volumes
that just came out three yearsago.
I had every single issue and Ihave them hermetically sealed
and I'll never open them.
You know so that would be me.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
That would be me if I had like an action comics
number one in front of me likeI'd be like I'm not even like,
I'm not even like going to likeglance at this thing.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
It might burst into flames yeah, well, we were sorry
, I derailed that conversation,oh it came.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
It derailed from the beta max.
That uh yeah, that uh spikedestroyed.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
How we treat analog content and I like that they do
separate the current time of2071 from the more analog time
of, like the early 21st century.
And yeah, it's.
I think that the progression oftechnology is probably a little

(32:20):
bit crazier than will actuallyexist in our timeline, but I do
like the vision, like the ideaof how life is going to be like.
I mean, even if we watch likeblade runner in 2019, la looks
like the most crazy, likefuturistic society, but
obviously 2019 la just lookslike la.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
Right.
Same thing could be said aboutBack to the Future 2015.
Back to the Future 2.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
Oh, I was like wait Back to the Future, 2015.
What?

Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah, yeah, like how they made 2015 look super
futuristic.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
Oh, that's what you meant, yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
None of that technology exists.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yes, that was a good point.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
Shoot even Space Odyssey 2001.
That's a good one too.
Yeah, so I mean thetechnological creep isn't as
years ago didn't expect us to beas technologically savvy with

(33:27):
stuff like smartphones andcomputers and stuff like that no
, no, yeah, I didn't like, evenlike a lot of them had like
video calling, but it looked soold school, like the depiction
of like a futuristic like videocalling, except except for maybe
Star Wars, whereas they havethe holograms.
We have not really made it tothat point yet.

(33:50):
I mean, holograms kind of exist, but it's really an illusion
type thing, not where it'ssomething that's really being
projected right in front of us.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
So, anthony, we heard Rich's favorite characters
ranked.
How do you rank the characters,or at least their backstories?

Speaker 1 (34:08):
So, as far as the backstories, I mean, I like Jet
a lot.
I really feel like he's got alot of heart.
You know he's that.
He's that character that, likeyou know, he'll say, like you
know, go do what you want, Idon't care, but then he'll have
their backs, you know.
And so I really like him a lot.
I would say that honestly, tellyou truth, like, oh man,

(34:30):
backstory wise, maybe like jet,you know, jet face spike and
edward.
But then, like, if I saidlikability, I would say I would
say edward, jet and spike andfay, like live on that same line
because they're practically twosides of the same coin wait,

(34:51):
what do you mean?

Speaker 2 (34:51):
like?
In likability, like you knowlike they're all the same or
what do you mean?

Speaker 1 (34:56):
no, I'm saying likability, like that.
You like them, you know likeyeah you enjoy them.
That's what I mean.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
So how would you rank them on a basis of like, liking
them?

Speaker 1 (35:06):
That's what I Edward.
So Edward, jet, and then Fayeand Spike are on the same line
because they're like the sameperson.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
That's what I was saying oh okay, I see what
you're saying.
Oh okay, all right, gotcha,gotcha, gotcha, yeah Okay.
So you're a big Ed fan.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, well, I guess Ed and Jet are interchangeable
for me Because they're reallylike you know, they have lovable
personalities and Ed kind ofinjects that childlike humor
into it.
I really enjoyed the wholechess episode.
Was that last week, or was thatthis set of episodes?

(35:43):
I don't remember the chessepisode.
Yeah, no week, or is that thisset?

Speaker 2 (35:46):
of episodes I don't remember.
Was it both?
The chess episode?

Speaker 1 (35:47):
yeah no, it was this week.
Yeah, but I think it was.
Was it bohemian rhapsody that?
Yes, so it was the firstepisode that we, yes, watch yeah
, so I really liked that onethat they had, like that chess
master and like ed was playinglike the same game for like that
entire time.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
It was for such a long time and I like that.
The chess master was, just likethis guy's, either a genius or
an idiot.
Yeah, yeah, I love that andit's probably a bit of both.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yeah, I know absolutely, but yeah, no, I
would say like ed and jed arelike interchangeable, whereas
fey and spike are like kind ofthe same because they get on
each other's nerves.
But I think that's becausethey're very similar right.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
I liked the ed episode mushroom samba because
it was mostly an ed and einepisode there wasn't much going
on with the other charactersbesides, like they were hungry,
but for the most part it wasjust ed and ein on an adventure
and I was laughing my butt off.
Yeah, me too like yeah some ofthe animations they like
whenever they had Ed running andshe's just like flailing her

(36:47):
arms in the background.
It's such a funny idea.
It's like I forget the name ofthose monkeys, but like if you
ever see like certain like lankymonkeys run.
They keep their hands in theair because their arms are too
long and they would hit theground.
It looked like that was reallyfun.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
I like that episode too.
That one was hilarious thenlike the whole like train
sequence was like hilarious withthem yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
And again, it's just beautiful animation throughout,
like they don't skimp on it everin this show, and even like
smaller scale episodes like thisone feel impactful and feel
worthy of your time and I thinkthat that's.
That's really fun.
Were there any episodes?
Really quick, rich.
We were talking about certainepisodes that we liked about Ayn

(37:36):
, specifically like the BohemianRhapsody episode with the chess
master, as well as the mushroomepisode with Ayn and Ed.
What are your thoughts on thoseso?

Speaker 3 (37:48):
the Bohemian Rhapsody .
I really enjoyed that one, butI think that for me, the
mushroom one was oh, it'sperfect.
I don't know if it's so.
We know he eats the mushroomand he starts hopping right away
.
You know, that's where we get alittle bit more of Ed here as
well.
Just how the three of them are,you know, jet, spike and Faye

(38:10):
are just all tripping out on theoh my gosh, that was so funny.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
The idea of just pretending, or like thinking,
that he's going up these stairsthat are like never ending is
such a funny visual and theyactually visualize like he's
just slightly stepping up anddown on the same step.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
but I think my favorite, and it's because I've
seen people come to theconclusion that they've solved
the mysteries of life, you know,so what?

Speaker 2 (38:37):
oh, my favorite line.

Speaker 3 (38:38):
Honestly, it was jet sitting there going oh that's it
, I figured it out, figure whatlife's all about.
And I've heard people in thesame state say the same exact
sentence.
You know, like, yeah, you knowwe broke the code.
You know, and I'm like, yeah,yeah, you broke the code.
So when I heard him say it,I'll just say that it felt like

(38:59):
they definitely consulted withsomeone on that episode, right,
who had taken some kind of magicmushrooms, I think, and they
were like I wouldn't doubt thewriters of the show to have, you
know, gone on that tripthemselves.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
Because the thing with good science fiction that
you don't see a lot today islife experience.
And I think that when you like,just using Star Trek as an
example, you have classic StarTrek.
You know the 60s stuff, butspecifically the stuff in the
80s and 90s felt very grounded.

(39:33):
Every episode had a purpose,every episode had a morality and
it felt like the writers hadlived experience.
The writers had livedexperience.
Fast forward to Picard andDiscovery, like the newer Star
Trek shows.
I'm not saying that they're bad.
Well, I am saying Picard is bad, but I'm not saying that the
other shows are bad.

(39:53):
Picard was terrible.
I quit YouTube for three monthsafter Picard.
I was in such a depressionbecause he's my favorite
character Anyway.
But you just don't have thesame lived experience in writers
these days and sometimes itreally shows.
And I think with a show likeCowboy Bebop, I'm not saying

(40:13):
that they, you know, had gangaffiliations or they were in
shootouts constantly, but thelevel of writing indicated that
they were world weary people.
They had experience that theywanted to impart onto viewers.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
So I think that that's something I take away
from at least the mushroomepisode I mean, you can also
tell that, like you know justwatching this from beginning to
end, that this anime wasexpensive yeah, the level of
animation.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
You could just you see it in every episode.
It's just like this was made inthe 90s.
Everything was made by hand.
There was no computergeneration here there was a
little bit of computergeneration, but it was like you
could see when it was computergenerated.
But what I mean is like, likeyou're saying, anthony,
everything was hand drawn and ittook time.
Yeah, yeah, well, and then thatthat's why, like you're saying,
Anthony, everything washand-drawn and it took time.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
Yeah, yeah, well, and then that that's why, like you
know, last week I was kind ofsaying that, like you know,
there's aspects of it that youcan tell that it's a 90s anime,
but there's also a lot of itthat makes it look different
than the rest of what came outduring that time.
You know, you can compare theanimation of, like Dragon Ball Z

(41:24):
and you know, sailor Moon with,maybe like Yu Yu Hakusho, but
you can't compare the animationof Dragon Ball Z and Cowboy
Bebop because they lookdifferent.
You know that it's anime and itdoes have like the vibes of a
90s anime, but it looks waybetter than anything that came
out or very I would say it'slike one of the top things that

(41:46):
came out around that time as faras animation and especially
writing yeah rich.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Did you find anything like uh impressive about the
animation style or anything thatstood out to you about that?

Speaker 3 (42:01):
granted, it was produced a lot, you know, many
years ago, even just uh, it'sit's not as crisp, obviously, as
things that come out now.
But I think I mentioned thislast episode as well.
I really appreciate that.
I don't think there's any.
They don't take any of thoseanimation shortcuts where you
know they're walking down asimilar hallway or they're

(42:21):
running in the same way oranything like that, like even
when they when they reuse thesame locales, or you know, even
on the bebop or anything likethat.
To my knowledge I don't thinkthere's any kind of similarity
at all, almost in.
They don't take any of thoseshortcuts where it just seems

(42:42):
like it's like that stock sceneor whatever that they can kind
of keep dropping into everyepisode, and I thought that
that's something yeah, that's,it's.
It's not spider-man swinging,but like next to the same
buildings constantly you know,and I I definitely experienced
lots of animation, and not justanime, right, just lots of
animation that was lazy likethat, you know, and it would

(43:04):
reuse things over and over again.
I mean he-man, the master'suniverse, right, it's like, or
even like thundercats were twoprime examples of shows that
just re wildly popular but justreused the same stills probably
like 17, 18 times throughout theseason, and I really appreciate
that Kobo Ibibop didn't do that.

(43:25):
The music is definitelyobviously a special part of it
and I think that I don't reallyhave an appreciation for that
style of music, but I think thatthe way they chose it, the
songs they chose and theirplacement was excellently done
and what I find interesting isthat the music didn't feel dated

(43:49):
.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
You know, sometimes you listen to 90s music and it
sounds like 90s music, you knowyeah there's a lot of music in
this that I'd be like.
This sounds contemporary.
I don't understand how all ofthese I mean mean some of the
more jazzy tunes, like the songat the end.
What's it called?
The song that's at the end ofevery episode, the real?

Speaker 1 (44:09):
folk blues.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
It's probably the most dated sounding of them
because of the way that it'ssung.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
It's so good, though For the most part no it's been
stuck in my head all week week.
But yeah, I'm looking at howlong it took to animate this and
how expensive it was it was,and the the thing that I love
that they did was because thatoutro track, the real folk blues
that's how they named the lasttwo episodes of the series that

(44:40):
same and I was like dude it justand they they actually fit it
in during, uh, one of theepisodes and I saw that, yeah,
it was.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
It was awesome.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
They definitely did and like, dude, like how insane
was it was like fey and spikewere like in the middle of like
a space battle and they had thisbeautiful music playing on the
backdrop and it just it fit sowell in that moment, like it was
music that wouldn't normallyfit within a, you know, a battle
like that, but it fit so wellwith the theme of that show,

(45:09):
like you're so used to watchingthe show and how they fit this
music in that it just felt sonatural in that moment that's a
really good point and I thatthat harkens back to like what I
was trying to get at last week.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
Even there's scenes where it has a juxtaposition
between action and very mellow,I should say, or melodic music
that you wouldn't necessarilyput on something like that.
A lot of times you would putsomething a little bit more
energetic, but it almost causesyou to like hold your breath

(45:43):
because it's it's sounds likesomething's about to happen and
it's a it's a real, justgenuinely cool way to
incorporate music into it.
So really quick.
Anthony, you said that it wasexpensive and that you know it
must have taken a long time.
It took about two years toanimate this season, which is a
very long time for you knowanime for because an episode's

(46:06):
usually like four weeks alltogether and usually they're not
four weeks consecutively.
You know like they'reoverlapped.
You know like you havedifferent teams working on
different animations, but theestimated cost at the time was
around 300 to 500 000 us dollars, and the average at the time,
you know, for other anime thatinflated was no, that's that's.

(46:28):
That's the average cost.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
The time 300 000 to 500 000 that's a lot of money
for the 90s dude.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
So I can imagine inflated.
Most anime in that era costsabout 100 to 250 per episode,
250 000 per episode.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
So this is what almost half a million gets you
as far as animation in that timeperiod.
And it shows yeah yeah, thatwould.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
It would be like well over a million in today's
buckaroos, but yeah, I loved itguys.
Yeah, this was a really likeincredible show so.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
So yeah, in the first part of the, in part one, we
get a little bit of a.
You know, we talked a littlebit of the standoff between
Spike and Vicious, whereas inthis one we finally get like
that last standoff between Spikeand Vicious.
What were y'all's thought aboutthat?
You know, spike finally gotjulia, came back into his life

(47:26):
and then he lost her.
And you know, was it buddy?
It was a gin gin's brother.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
It was like lynn's brother chin.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
Yes, I think that's what it was um you know he, you
know he got gunned down right infront of him like all these
people were getting gunned downright in front of him, like all
these people were getting gunneddown right in front of him.
And yeah, he finally like getsthat last standoff with Vicious.
I want to know what y'allthought about that.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
The idea of the Red Serpent Centicate is touched
upon earlier in the season.
We kind of get the idea thatJet, or Spike rather, has
absolved himself of thatlifestyle.
He's no longer doing that.
He's a bounty hunter now.
But we, you know, last week wetalked about he has a past with
this girl, julia.
He has a past with this guy,vicious.

(48:12):
We're not really sure what thepast is and I think I still need
to rewatch it to fully graspwhat is their past, because
again, it's given to us infragmented roles and we're only
told part of the story.
I think.
You know, I think we're meantto be a little bit in the dark
as to what happened betweenpoints a, b, c through z, you

(48:33):
know, like I think they give usjust enough so that we're coming
into the movie halfway.
And that was probably mybiggest gripe last week was that
I want to know more about Spike.
He seems like he's the maincharacter, at least in the first
half of the show.
He seems like he's the primarycharacter and all of these other
characters just kind of revolvearound him.

(48:54):
But it kind of got to the pointwhere each episode revolved
around a different character,you know, by the second half of
the show.
You had a couple EPs for Ed,you had a couple EPs for Faye,
you had a couple EPs for Jet andSpike actually probably had the
least episodes in the last half, except for, you know, the

(49:15):
finale was all about him.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
Yeah, they capped it off with him.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
So to you know my roundabout way of saying I think
I really liked the amount thatwe are given and it makes me
want to go back to see if Imissed something, because I'm
sure I missed something.
I wasn't fully emotionallyinvested into the story, enough
for me to grasp every singlenuanced line or flashback image

(49:41):
or whatever.
But now that I know that thebasic gist is spike used to work
for the red serpent syndicate.
He broke it off when he foundjulia.
He he loved julia.
He was somehow found by viciousand you know they rekindled old
hatreds or something andspike's just kind of been aloof

(50:08):
and on the run from thesyndicate ever since and he's
just trying to steer clear ofthem and now it's too late
because of the coup and viciousclearly wants everyone dead so
he also.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
He faked his.
If I remember correctly, he hadfaked his death spike.
Yeah, he fakes his.
If I remember correctly, he hadfaked his death Spike.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah, he fakes his death.
I think it's that scene.

Speaker 3 (50:28):
I remember him being at the store earlier, maybe in
the second or third, like veryearly on, where he's talking to
like a shopkeeper who says, likeyou know now, basically they're
going to know that you're alivenow.
I think that's how he getsdiscovered.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
Am I right?
They're gonna know that you'realive now.
I think that's how he getsdiscovered, am I right?
Anthony was it?
Yeah, he does.
He did fake his death.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
He made that promise to julia that he's pretty much
done with the syndicate and butjulia's in the syndicate too.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
She's interpreting her, her, her like relationship
is kind of complicated in thesense that like she's kind of
straddled between spike andvicious, but not like romantic.
It's just weird how she's kindof wedged in there.
He's like she's like thebecause he asks her.

Speaker 3 (51:14):
He confronts her, he's like the.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
He's like the obstacle between the syndicate
life and then like the life thathe wants to live with julia.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
But julia obviously like she's kind of ingrained a
little bit into that because of,you know, spike's previous life
yeah, they don't give us enoughinformation about how she was
specifically involved in thesyndicate, but at some point I
don't know if there was like abonnie and clyde moment with
spike and her, where they wereboth in the syndicate briefly or

(51:45):
, you know, if she did smugglingruns or something we don't, we
kind of reminds me of Kira fromSolo where we just have that gap
and that lack of information.

Speaker 3 (51:59):
I'm not sure about you, but like I wanted to know
what happened to Kira in thattime, it would have made a
little bit more sense how shewent from being caught by the
Imperials.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
Yeah, I know there's certain things that were, you
know kind of, I guess, left outfor interpretation in a way fair
.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
I, you know, I've I've kind of said it before,
it's just I like to know, I liketo for lack of a better term I
like to download all theinformation I can on everybody
and look, it's an authorialchoice, right?
Or director's choice, whateverthe creator's choice how much
information they give us about acharacter.
You know and I think I'm justgreedy I just always want more,

(52:41):
more and more.
It did.
I'm not sure if this is wheredakota was going with it, but it
did feel a little bit like hewasn't the main and it was
almost.
I don't want to say it was outof place that the last two
episodes were so centered onSpike.
But I'm not sure and, like Isaid, maybe I agree with Dakota,
maybe I have to go back andrewatch it and then kind of

(53:03):
piece it together a little bitmore, but he always felt like
the main, but he did feel likethe character that we had the
least amount of informationabout, and I don't want to say
that I didn't believe his lovefor Julia, but I don't know how
to put this if he's supposed tobe the main character he's like
a pseudo main character.

(53:24):
Yeah I don't know why.
I don't know why he loves juliaother than she's a pretty
blonde girl I think itrepresented normalcy for him.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
I think it represented a normal life, and
the idea of her was what kepthim going, because one day he
wanted to settle down and yeah,and a lot of times, like in the
last couple episodes, theymentioned something along the
lines of let's just run away and, you know, stop all this yeah

(53:53):
but obviously you can't run awayfrom your past, not when your
past is the red serpent,syndicate and vicious, you know,
trying to kill you yeah, andthen what I thought it was so
crazy also with the whole setup,that vicious did, like you know
, kind of like taking down thoselike heads with um yeah, that
was interesting.
Yeah, that was kind of coolthat bird that he usually would

(54:15):
have with them like kind ofsecretly like, or had it had
like explosives and then droppeddown like smoke bombs.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
That was insane man what did you guys think of ein
leaving or ein and ed?

Speaker 3 (54:28):
I should say I mean so ed was so close to reuniting
with her father and I'm not sureif we're supposed to understand
that ed is going to find herfather.
I don't think that was the case.
It seemed like just wanted tobreak out on her own.
I guess I get I'm wanting to gowith her, but it did feel like

(54:52):
it was all.
I mean, that felt like theunwinding, the, uh, the what is
it?
There's the line from greekaspie.
It was like the end of theconvent, canvasary or something
like that, and it's kind of likethe wheels are falling off
right and like everyone'ssplitting town and I guess I get
it, but I I thought there wasmore.

(55:12):
I don't want to call them acrew, like a, like a spaceship
crew, for sure, but I thoughtthey were more of a team than
like these, just basically Irishgoodbyes.
You know, like all right, I'mout, like I know that that's
kind of part of Faye's characterwhere she has this idea that
I'm not sure if it's attentionseeking in terms of like she

(55:34):
wants to see if they care.
So she's like I'm gonna leaveand see if anybody notices or if
you know, she's kind of tryingto get ahead of them, not
wanting her around anymore, likepsychologically.
I don't know where I fall onher motivations for that, but ed
leaving was just as mysteriousas ed joining, almost like you

(55:55):
know it's like what you're gonehe was just there for the
rockers.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
I keep saying he.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
Well then, at the end of the show then but then the
father is talking about his son,so I think ed is supposed to be
non-binary androgynous yesnon-binary right, like it's not
surprising that ed's fatherwould not acknowledge Ed's
non-binary-ness for lack of abetter term Existence.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
Yeah, I think Ed is a biological girl, because the
name that his father gives heris I forget the name, but it was
female Francois.
Was it Francois?

Speaker 3 (56:34):
Francois, yeah, was it.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
Francois.
Yeah, it was Francois yeah, wasit Francois.
I would say that's feminine.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
Well, it's French, so I just could you know.
Yeah, I'm not sure, actuallyI'd have to look that up,
francois, it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
Yeah, but the name Francois is primarily a female
name a French origin.

Speaker 3 (56:52):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
But you're right, he wasn't sure if it was a son or a
daughter, but I took, Iinterpreted that not as a gender
affirming thing, one way or theother.
I just think that he was soaloof and in his own head that
the fact that he forgot his youknow daughter existed for like
years is proof that, like thiswasn't a good father ever, you
know, like he, he didn't careone way or the other well, I

(57:16):
mean, you saw how he like tookoff, just like right then, and
there oh yeah, without, withouta thought in his head.
You know, like work called andhe was off, so I don't think
that ed was going to visit herfather, but I think that ed's
time with the crew had ended.
You know, it was almost like ahitchhiker and they were back

(57:39):
home, but I was a little bithurt when I left.
I was just like no, no, no, goback.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
There's food there yeah, well, I mean, like over
time it kind of you saw thatbond between ed and I kind of
develop and nobody else likereally cared for for Ein except
for maybe Jet.
Jet made sure that that Ein waslike fed.

(58:05):
But I mean you know that wholeinstance of and it was in the
episodes from last week whereFaye goes in the fridge and
takes the dog food and like eatsthe dog food.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
That's a good point, yeah, so I will say that I'm
happy that Ed is not alone.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
Ed has a friend.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
Yes, that was cool.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Anything else we want to bring up before we bring
this to a close.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
I think we're pretty good, you know.
I think that with pretty muchthe information that's presented
in Cowboy Bebop is.
You know, there's a lot morethat could be broken down, but
like we would have to turn intoa cowboy bebop podcast, and
really dive into that weliterally could do an episode on

(58:52):
each of the episodes.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
Just that's how much is present within the show, but
obviously we got bigger fish tofry, my friends yeah, just go
over to geek critique and dakotawill set up a timeline for
cowboy bebop.
Y'all can head that way I got abunch of timelines on the
docket I I did consider itbriefly, I was just like okay I
figured it out, I can make this.

(59:13):
And then I realized I was gonnabe a 20 30 minute video, maybe
one day.
But before we close, I just youmeant you guys were mentioning
Jet and I don't think I got aword in on on Jet's backstory.
I just love the idea that he'slike he was always too good,
even for the police.
You know, he was an IS, issp orsomething like that yeah, issp,

(59:36):
and he was too good for theforce, and he was an ISSP or
something like that, yeah, issp,and he was too good for the
force and he was the only onewho was uncorruptible.
But he's the one that left theforce and you know he's seen as
like a vigilante, almost slash,bounty hunter, that like kind of
plays outside the rules.
But he's still the one with themoral compass and I think that
at the end, the fact that hispartner was the one with the

(59:56):
moral compass and I think thatat the end, the fact that his
partner was the one who betrayedhim and even almost tried
killing him at the end to getrid of the evidence I'm assuming
yeah and it seemed as if hewasn't going to tell the issp
what really went down.
He was just gonna take that tothe grave.
You know, like this guy had hisnoble ends and that's it, you

(01:00:18):
know yeah, he was the wholereason why jet lost his arm too
I know, yeah, what a jerk, butjets, jets, the real one.
Guys, thank you so much forlistening to us here for our
122nd episode.
Yes, 122nd episode.
What are we covering next week?

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
That's a good question.
Like Spike viewers, this willremain a mystery.
You'll have to tune in nextweek to find out.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
I actually Would you guys want to do the new Captain
America movie that's on Disney.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
Plus now, yeah, I'll totally do that?

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
Yeah, we could do that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
I think it would be kind of brave I haven't seen it,
it would be brave of us to doso all right, guys, next week
we're gonna do somethingextremely brave.
We're covering captain america4 quattro.
Brave new world, previouslyknown as new world order.
I get the names confused allthe time online.
It's just stuck in my head asCaptain America New World Order.

(01:01:18):
But yeah, we're gonna coverBrave New World for episode 123
of Project Ecology.
So be there or be square Guys.
If you liked what you heardtoday and you haven't already
given us a review, please besure to make it juicy, kind of
like those mushrooms that theywere eating that, like you know,

(01:01:39):
just opened their mind.
I want, I want you to open ourmind with your juicy comments.
Please review us a nice fivestar, juicy review.
And yeah, if you want to checkout any of our socials, be sure
to click down into the shownotes and you will find us there
.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
Any last thoughts on cowboy bebop gentlemen if y'all
have not seenbop, you need towatch it right now.
Stop what you are doing and gowatch it right now.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
And if you have, we spoiled everything but watch it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
Yes, yeah, I mean.
Look, you could still enjoy iteven with everything we talked
about.
And if you have seen it and youhaven't seen it in a while go
back and watch it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
This is your wake-up call.
Go watch cowboy view up again,or for the first time, rich.

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
Last thoughts you guys done it again.
You took a genre that Ipreviously did not dip my toe
into and you found somethingthat I can honestly say.
If you guys are not normallyfans of anime, this is something
different and it is somethingyou should take a look at, and I

(01:02:45):
think that you will enjoy.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
You heard it here first, folks.
Actually, you've probably heardit elsewhere before.
But you've heard it here thirdor fourth Tune in next week for
Captain America Brave New Worldand we'll hear from you next
week you're gonna carry thatweight see you space samurai.