"Jupiter Jazz (Part 2)" is the thirteenth session, or episode, of Cowboy Bebop.
Credits[]
Written by:
Cast:
Cast (uncredited):
Animation Director:
- Takahiro Komori
Mechanical Animation Director:
- Masami Goto
Plot[]
Gren tells Faye his story, a war story about his time on Titan with Vicious. While in a World War I style trench Gren finds Vicious listening to a music box playing the song Julia. Gren asks if he could play the song on his saxophone after the war and Vicious hands him the music box without saying a word. He gets up to go but swings around with his knife and stabs a scorpion that was about to sting Gren. Then, he walks away.
Gren explains to Faye that when he came back from the war, he was imprisoned on suspicion of espionage, testified against by Vicious. He was enraged and became insane, then was subject to an experimental drug which caused his hormones to become imbalanced. Now, Gren intends to meet Vicious to learn if he really had framed him. Faye says Vicious will kill him, but Gren says that doesn't scare him. Faye declares he's lying and asks why he brought her there. Gren supposes he just wanted to be with someone before his task, which prompts Faye to confront him with his selfish act of bringing someone home to be with only to go off and die. She opens fire on Gren but he darts sideways behind a pillar and manages to disarm and handcuff her.
Meanwhile, Jet walks into the Rester House and shows a picture of Faye to the bartender, who confirms that she was at the bar last night. He said she reminded him of Julia, who used to sit at the same bar stool two years ago.
Spike watches moments from his past while asleep. The first is of the red rose in the rain, then a bouquet of roses by the window next to an opened vial of Red Eye. Then Spike and Vicious are in a shootout as partners. Other images include Julia at the window, Vicious in bed with Julia, and Spike on an operating table receiving his transplant eye.
In the flashback Spike talks about quitting the syndicate, and he asks Julia to run away with him. He shoots at gangsters with a machine gun hidden inside a bouquet of roses. Julia is seen at the window ripping up a piece of paper. Vicious is heard asking if someone is going to betray him. Julia is heard saying someone is going to kill someone else. Then Spike remembers the more recent past, of Faye by his side after he fell from the cathedral. He recalls a conversation with Julia in which he explained that his eyes were different colors because his left eye saw into the past.
Spike wakes up to see a crow on his chest. He struggles to stand up and realizes he was tranquilized by Lin, and interprets it as mocking.
Jet asks a man (the same man intending to beat up Spike earlier) for the Orlando Apartments, a blue building. He says he doesn't want anything to do with foreigners and walks away. Then Jet looks up and sees the building he's looking for. He finds Gren’s apartment and, with gun ready, finds Faye on the bed—handcuffed and groggy.
Spike has made it back to his Swordfish II and tries to find Vicious, but only sees he's using an ancient code. Then, he gets a call from Jet who says he'd let Spike back on the crew if he helps to get Gren.
Meanwhile, the deal is starting. Gren, disguised as a woman in a burka, makes his way to the drug deal with Vicious on the roof of an abandoned skyscraper on the outskirts of town.
Jet observes that Faye didn't sabotage the Swordfish and Hammer Head, suggesting she wanted them to find her. She dismisses this, and also says there was only 20,000 Woolongs in the ship's safe, which Jet was surprised to hear.
Eyecatch
On the Bebop, Ed is playing with Ein and wondering where her souvenirs are.
On the rooftop, Gren drops a bag of red eye vials and backs away. Lin carefully approaches and inspects them, using a potency reader to confirm that the red eye is X Plus, indicating it's real. Vicious tells Lin to give the disguised Gren a suitcase containing the Titan Opal that was requested. As Lin walks back, Gren reveals himself, kicking the suitcase back towards Vicious and shooting it, revealing an activated bomb. The bomb explodes but only Lin is injured. From a distance, Spike sees the explosion in the distance and gets in his ship.
Gren explains to Vicious how Julia found the solar transmitter inside the music box. He confronts Vicious, asking if he is trying to kill him again and recounting how they fought the war together and how they were comrades, how he had looked up to Vicious. Vicious coldly states that there's no need to believe in anything, signaling he's only out for himself. Gren starts firing, and Lin jumps in the line of fire and takes a bullet for him.
Gren escapes in his ship when he sees Spike overhead. Vicious takes the Red Eye and leaves Lin behind, dying on the ground. Spike goes after Vicious in his racer and engages in a 2-on-1 dogfight and confronting him in his disregard for Lin's life. Vicious states Lin wasn't protecting him, but rather, the order (of the Red Dragon). Vicious prepares to shoot Spike when Gren cuts him off. With Gren in the way, Vicious fires missiles at Gren’s MONO craft and hits him, sending the ship to the ground. Spike saves Gren from a finishing missile and avoids two more using a building. Then, Vicious hears the tune of Julia played on the music box, realizing Gren hid it inside the bag of Red Eye. When the song ends, the solar transmitter activates and causes an explosion to destroy one of the wings. He barely manages to fly back to his Red Dragon ship.
Spike disengages and lands next to Gren’s wrecked craft. He asks Gren where to find Julia, but he spits up blood from an internal injury. Instead of trying to get an ambulance, Gren asks Spike to help him into his ship, so he can fly back to Titan – and try to see it one last time—before he dies. Spike obliges and puts him in the ship. Gren then realizes who Spike is, saying Julia talked about him often. Without an answer as to where she is now, Spike tows Gren’s ship into space. He cruises back to the Bebop and, after he tells Jet he isn't bringing in anything, Jet lets him inside.
On a canyon in the desert Laughing Bull and his son watch a shooting star in the sky. Bull tells the child that it is not an ordinary star, but the tear of a warrior who has finished his battle on this planet and could not find his way to the lofty realm where the great spirit awaits everyone.
Quotes[]
- “I was in the same squadron as Vicious on Titan. He said that you didn't need comrades, but I'm attracted to that word...to the point of tears. You see that's what we were on Titan, all comrades.”
- — Gren
- “When I came home from the war they put me in prison. They thought I was a spy. I heard it was Vicious that testified against me, I started to go crazy. So they gave me some new drug they were testing on prisoners. It was highly addictive, and the side effects? Well, my hormones went out of balance and this is what happened.”
- — Gren
- “I get it now. You’re the one, aren’t you? You’re Spike. Julia was always talking about you. Your eyes are different colors. I remember her saying that. Said you’d get a strange feeling if you’d keep looking into his eyes.”
- — Gren
Songs[]
- Tank! (TV Edit) – Opening titles
- Space Lion (Solo Saxophone) – [Unreleased] Part 1 recap [Note this is a Space Lion solo sax cue, not to be confused with the similar Goodnight Julia solo sax cues used in Part 1]
- Space Lion (Orgel Version) – Vicious and Gren each play the music box in the trench on Titan; diagetically, the song is known to the characters as "Julia"
- Words That We Couldn't Say – Spike talks to Jet from the Swordfish II, Gren and Vicious arrange a meet
- Vitamin "E" – Eyecatch card II
- Waste Land – Gren tries to take down Vicious
- Space Lion - Spike fulfills Gren's last wish; the gang back on the Bebop; and Laughing Bull paying tribute to a fallen warrior. The track continues through closing titles
- Space Lion – Closing titles
- The Egg and I – Preview for Bohemian Rhapsody
Background[]
Instead of the usual outro, a slow, musical tilt upwards from Laughing Bull and into the galaxy is accompanied by the card "DO YOU HAVE A COMRADE?"
Themes and Motifs[]
- Missed Bounty - This Session is an example of the Bebop crew failing to capture a wanted bounty head, Gren.
- Spike's Past - This Session gives insight into Spike's past.
Homages and References[]
- The War on Titan contains many similarities to World War I. In particular, both wars contain a combat strategy known as Trench Warfare where fortified positions made fighting lines static as a result of advances in fire power but not in mobility. In this way, battles were fought for every inch of ground.
Trivia[]
- The scene of Vicious' missile hitting a building was cut on [adult swim], due to worries it was too reminiscent of the then recent 9/11 attacks.
- At just over seven minutes, using Space Lion to encompass multiple scenes and the end credits, this episode has the longest single music cue of the series.
- Gren used a Heckler & Koch USP against Vicious.
Gallery[]
