Waltz for Venus
Session 8
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Session 8 : Waltz for Venus

Cast (in order of appearance): Huey, Louie, and Dewey, Rocco Bonnaro, Spike Spiegel, Faye Valentine Jet Black, Ein, Stella Bonnaro, Piccaro Calvino.

PlotEdit

Spike and Faye take a commercial shuttle into Venus in order to catch a trio of small time hijackers in the act. As Huey, Louie and Dewey pull out their guns, Spike effortlessly trips them up while waking from a nap while Faye uses a stun perfume to knock out the third hijacker. They collect the bounty at the Venus spaceport, 1.5 million Woolong total, making it one of their most successful and profitable jobs in the series.

On board that same shuttle is Rocco Bonnaro who was impressed by Spike's fighting skills. Rocco begs Spike to show him his Judo and Kung-fu, and Spike eventually gives in. Spike says that his fighting ability comes not from excessive strength, but fluid motion that allows him to react without thought and channel the opponent's power to use against them.

A couple of thugs show up at the spaceport looking for Rocco. Before he runs off, Rocco hands Spike a package and asks him to meet the next day. Back on the Bebop Spike learns that the package contains a Grey Ash plant.

Jet discovers a bounty on Rocco and his gang leader, Piccaro Calvino, for stealing that Grey Ash plant. He says that these plants are worth tens of millions of Woolongs and are used in medicine to cure a blindness disease called Venus Sickness.

While Faye tries to find Piccaro, Spike flies off in his Swordfish II to find Rocco at a ruined shuttle in the desert. Spike finds Rocco's sister, Stella instead and learns that she has Venus Sickness and is completely blind.

She shows him a music box Rocco sent her and Spike finds Grey Ash seeds inside. He realizes Rocco only stole the plant to cure his sister's blindness.

Rocco is caught by Piccaro and his gang, beaten and burned with a cigar, but Rocco refuses to tell them about the Grey Ash plant. Meanwhile, Faye's attempt to track down Piccaro ends up being a wild goose chase.

Rocco and Spike meet at their arranged time and place, and Spike lets him know that he's a bounty hunter. Rocco draws his gun as a reaction but drops it when Spike then says he knows the plant is for Stella's blindness.

Piccaro's gang followed Rocco to the meeting place and surrounds Spike. When Rocco asks them to spare Spike's life, they refuse and Spike and Rocco get caught in a shootout.

Rocco runs for cover with the Grey Ash plant. Faye makes it to the meeting place in her Redtail zipcraft and fires on the gang members, knocking walls and pillars to the ground. Jet also joing the action in his Hammer Head ship.

One gang member takes Rocco on in hand-to-hand combat but Rocco uses fluid motion to evade the goon and knock him to the ground. Spike is impressed by Rocco's moves but watches in horror as Rocco is shot in the back and falls to the ground.

Faye corners Piccaro and forces him to surrender, and the shooting stops. Spike rushes over to Rocco but cannot do anything to save him. Before he dies, Rocco wonders if he and Spike could have been friends if they had met earlier.

After that night Spike goes to visit Stella in the hospital where she is about to undergo surgery to repair her eyesight. She is under the assumption that Rocco arranged the operation and will come visit her, until she learns from Spike's silence and facial features that Rocco has died. She asks Spike what Rocco was really like and Spike replies that she knows better than anyone: that he was a terrific guy.

Memorable QuotesEdit

Main article: Memorable Quotes from Cowboy Bebop#Waltz_for_Venus

[Rocco comes at Spike with a knife and Spike sends Rocco to the ground]

• Rocco: How did you do that?
• Spike: You’re tense, I’m calm. You apply excessive force; I control that force through fluid motion. That means relaxing the whole body so it can react instantly without resistance—no, without thought. Do you see now? It means becoming like clear water.
• Rocco: Water.
• Spike: Right. Water can take any form. It drifts without effort one moment, then pounds down in a torrent the very next.

[Stella points a gun at Spike who has trespassed onto her shuttle.]

• Stella: Hold it right there. Both hands up!
• Spike: I’m not a criminal. Woah, that makes me sound more like a criminal, doesn’t it.

[Rocco has been shot and is lying on the ground dying]

• Spike: Come on, hang in there, you hear me? Rocco!
• Rocco: Master, you see it? I was fluid like water.

[Spike visits Stella in the hospital and she learns from his silence that Rocco is dead]

• Stella: I never got to see Rocco once with my own eyes. Hey, what was he really like?
• Spike: You know better than anyone, without looking. He was a terrific guy. Exactly the person you thought he was.

Series ConnectionsEdit

• Venus: This episode takes place on the planet Venus, which has been terraformed to make human and vegetation life possible.

• No Smoking: Spike takes an elevator at the Venus spaceport that is a no smoking area, but Spike is seen with a cigarette in his mouth. Throughout the series characters attempt to smoke in no smoking areas (Honky Tonk Woman, Bohemian Rhapsody).

• Faye's Gambling: After collecting her share of the bounty, Faye goes off to a casino to try her luck at quick cash. Throughout the series Faye's gambling addiction becomes a central part of her character.

• Music box: Rocco sends Stella an old-fashioned music box. In Jupiter Jazz (Part 2) and Jupiter Jazz (Part 2) a character named Gren also has an old-fashioned music box instrument. This is one instance of digital technology being supplanted by analog technology.

Real-World ReferencesEdit

• Tom and Jerry is parodied during the in-flight movie on-board the shuttle to Venus.
• Middle Eastern-based architecture, dress, and writing language appear throughout the scenery of Venus, alongside the bazaar where Turkish store names are seen. In the fourteenth minute of the episode, a skyline of Venus is also shown where an architectural copy of the Sultanahmet Mosque of Turkey is placed. While not showing up in the dialog or storyline, it is possible that Venus has substantial Arab and Turkish communities.
• Huey, Dewey, and Louie are references to the three nephews of the Disney character, Donald Duck.
• The music-box plays the song The Singing Sea.
• The line"Spike: You’re tense, I’m calm. You apply excessive force; I control that force through fluid motion. That means relaxing the whole body so it can react instantly without resistance—no, without thought. Do you see now? It means becoming like clear water." is related to an interview Bruce Lee gave where he compared his fighting style to water.