"Toys In The Attic" is the eleventh session, or episode, of Cowboy Bebop.
Credits[]
Written by:
- Michiko Yokote
Cast:
Cast (uncredited):
Animation Director:
- Takuro Shinbo (Nakamura Production)
Mechanical Animation Director:
- Masami Goto
Plot[]
On the Bebop, something is crawling around the ship, unbeknownst to the crew. They are concerned about the present lack of any bounty heads to chase, meaning no money and no food. While Ein and Edward are sleeping, Jet and Faye are gambling and Spike is using a welder to cook a shish kabob. Jet has lost most of his things, including all his clothes except his underwear, to Faye in a dice game. He challenges her again but loses when Faye cheats using a device disguised as a bracelet around her leg. Spike enters the room with the shish kabob as Jet takes off the last thing he has – his underwear. Spike tells Jet that's why he never plays against her. Spike eats the shish kabob and seems to not like it.
The creature sees a rat and attacks it. The noise wakes Ein, who looks up at a vent and makes a worrisome noise. Jet, now cold and naked, enters the attic to get a blanket and sees a fridge in the back. He doesn't remember the fridge being back there. While he is looking at the fridge, the strange creature is zooming around.
Faye is sitting on the couch with all the stuff she won from Jet when Spike walks into the room brushing his teeth. Spike touches the device on her leg with his foot and says that she is lucky Jet didn't know about that. Spike asks her to return Jet's clothes, but she says she will rent them to him. Suddenly, an alarm goes off and Spike, Faye, and Ein rush over to the attic where Jet says he has been bitten by something. Ein starts to growl and a rat runs away. Jet says it wasn't a rat because there is a strange mark on his neck. Faye walks away saying it's a waste of time. Jet says that it happened near the fridge. Spike pauses in thought for a moment, then claims he doesn't remember a fridge. He dismisses Jet's claims and leaves.
Spike and Jet are back in the main room looking through medicine to use for Jet's bite mark. Spike holds out a dead lizard and says that if you smash it, boil it, then drink it, the wound should be gone. Jet asks if there is another option. Spike holds up a dead scorpion. Jet says he prefers the lizard. Spike gives Jet a glass filled with the medicine and Faye enters. She asks what the terrible smell is. Spike tells her it's the medicine Jet has to take. Spike and Faye discuss the awful things that it smells like. Jet becomes annoyed and tells them to stop because he has to drink it. He drinks it then passes out. While he is passed out, a large purple mark is visible on the back of his neck.
Jet, still unconscious, is put on a couch where Spike uses a computer to find out what is happening to him. It is revealed that Jet has some kind of unidentifiable poison in his body. Jet, who is awake again, is laying down with nervous looks on his face while Spike tries to compare it to other types of poisons, bacteria and viruses. It matches none of them. Spike and Faye hear Ein barking and tell him to keep quiet. Ed jumps out and claims Jet's injury might be a bite from an alien. Spike dismisses Ed's theory. He theorizes that it might have been a rat that went through a mutation. Faye tells them both that their theories are ridiculous and walks off.
Meanwhile, the creature is crawling through the vents above the bathroom. Faye is sitting in a bubble bath reading a book when the blob falls from the vent to the floor. Faye reacts as if she may have seen or heard something, but ignores it and continues reading. One of her legs dangles over the edge of the tub, leaving her vulnerable to the creature.
Spike gets the heat-sensing goggles ready and Ed, excited, tries her pair on, unwilling to stay still. As he puts his on, she runs away with Ein giggling. Oddly, he also sees a blob dash across the floor, but chalks it up to broken equipment. Faye suddenly comes out in a bathrobe and asks Spike what he thinks would happen if the mutant creature were to bite anyone. Spike says he don't know and Faye assumes it is death. She behaves melodramatically and drops to the floor, and just then Spike sees a purple mark on her leg similar to the one on Jet's neck.
Eyecatch
Ed and Ein are exploring deep in the ship, and Ed is having fun narrating her search. Spike is behind looking for them. Ein separates from Ed and is attacked by the creature. Spike hears Ein's cry and runs to him. He finds Ein passed out with the purple mark on his side. Spike, still wearing heat vision goggles, sees the creature slither across the hallway and then toward him. He grabs Ein and manages to escape it by climbing down a ladder.
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Spike then lays Ein down in the main room with Faye and Jet. He decides he has no choice and has to go after the creature. He arms himself and sets the auto-pilot to land on Mars as insurance in case anything happens to him.
While searching the ship, he finds the heat vision goggles Ed had been wearing and assumes the creature got her as well. As Spike creeps down a hall he gets a bit jittery as a bit of oil leaking from a pipe on the ceiling startles him. Starting to light a cigarette, the real creature drops behind him suddenly and attacks him. Spike throws gas grenades at it and quickly runs out and seals the room.
Spike tries to light his cigarette with the flamethrower, then opens the door again and the creature flies out. Spike shoots at it with a gun but isn't able to hit it. He switches to the flamethrower and finally manages to scorch the creature. Spike then realizes it smells familiar. He then remembers the fridge that Jet mentioned. A year ago, he got a hold of a rare Ganymede rock lobster and stored it in the fridge in the back of the attic so nobody could eat it. He had forgotten it was there. Spike opens the fridge to see what the thing looks like and is disturbed, as the entire fridge is filled with what looks like mutant fungal growth. Realizing he needs to get rid of it, he deactivates the artificial gravity and pushes the fridge toward the airlock. Before he can open the door, the creature revives and attacks him, getting him on the arm. Spike watches it go, opens the air hatch and pushes the fridge successfully into open space. As the fridge drifts in space, it rotates, leaving a bright, sparkling trail behind it as a section of Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers" plays.
Later, Ed is sleeping and wakes up briefly, having been spared a bite from the monster the entire time. The creature is moving down a passageway towards her. She suddenly grabs it with her hand, refers to the creature as "pudding" and eats it. She then goes back to sleep.
The Tchaikovsky montage plays as we see the crew in their deep slumber, until the Bebop presumably lands on Mars.
Quotes[]
- “LESSON 1: Humans were meant to work and sweat to earn a living. Those that try to get rich quick, or live at the expense of others, all get divine retribution somewhere along the line. That's the lesson. Unfortunately we quickly forget the lessons we've learned. And then we have to learn them. All over again.”
- — Jet Black
- “LESSON 2: 'Survival of the fittest' is the laws of nature. We deceive. Or we are deceived. Thus, we flourish. Or perish. Nothing good ever happened to me when I trusted others. That is the lesson.”
- — Faye Valentine
- “LESSON 3: Lesson, lesson. If you see a stranger, follow him.”
- — Edward
- “LESSON 4: And what was the real lesson? Don't leave things in the fridge.”
- — Spike Spiegel
Songs[]
- Tank! (TV Edit) – Opening titles
- The Real Man (Ambient Version) – [Unreleased] Jet collapses, Spike tries to identify the malaise
- Utrenja Part I: Złożenie Chrystusa do grobu - II. Pieśni Pochwalne – [Krzysztof Penderecki] Spike finds Ein collapsed in the corridor
- The Real Man (Ambient Version) – [Unreleased] Spike scours the ship for the invader
- Utrenja Part I: Złożenie Chrystusa do grobu - II. Pieśni Pochwalne – The Ganymede Rock-Lobster & The Fridge
- Waltz of the Flowers– [Tchaikovsky; unidentified recording] Edward eats the invader, and the Fridge waltzes away
- The Real Folk Blues – Closing titles
- Goodnight Julia (Solo Saxophone) – [Unreleased] Preview for Jupiter Jazz (Part 1)
Background[]
Homages and References[]
- The plot structure and atmosphere of this session, with an unseen alien monster attacking the crew, is an homage to the 1979 movie Alien.
- This session also bears a resemblance to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "The Alternate".
- Jet's opening monologue begins with the words "Space travel log 0968" which is a reference to the beginning of all of the Star Trek series that always have the captain for that particular series giving the Stardate in which the episode takes place. Also, some of the classic Star Trek bridge sounds can be heard when Spike is on Bebop's bridge
- The jettisoning of a container, the use of "Waltz of the Flowers", and the autopilot flying the ship while all of the passengers are incapacitated are a homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey
- The session's fridge monster might be a reference to the blob creature in John Carpenter's first film "Dark Star".
- The session's English title is a reference to the Aerosmith album of the same name.
- Route 66 is one of the first interstate roads to stretch the majority of the continental United States.
- Spike gearing up to fight the creature is similar to a scene from Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Commando".
Trivia[]
- The entire Bebop crew is completely fine the next episode with no symptoms, and while it is never explained how they all got better, midway through, Spike is seen setting the ship to "full autopilot" mode en route to Mars, so it can be presumed that Ed summoned help after landing. Ed states in the preview of the next episode that everyone died and she is now the star of the show called "Cowgirl Edward".
- In the anime Space Dandy, an appearance by the fridge monster is made towards the beginning of episode 8.
Gallery[]
