Cowboy Bebop Newbie Recap: “Cowboy Funk”

What on earth did I just watch?

Can I just jump around the plot instead of outlining everything that happened? We’ve all watched the episode right?

Quick rundown then:

• Teddy is the crew’s latest bounty, a man who stuffs explosives in teddy bears to send a message about capitalism.
• Spike, when trying to catch him, discovers Andy, a rogue cowboy who also bears a striking and odd resemblance both physically and in personality with Spike.
• This injures Spike’s pride, and he wants to go after him but is distracted by having to track Teddy down at a masquerade, leading to my favorite Jet look ever.
• Andy arrives, mayhem ensues, and Faye runs off with him to where he lives, in the most of over the top and gaudy looking apartment so far on this show.
• In a recurring joke, each time Spike and Andy try to chase down Teddy, they instead start fighting each other.
• Ends with Teddy in a police car, finally getting to tell someone why he was causing all the destruction. He’s a villain who got upstaged this week.

Okay, now that that’s over, there was lot to love about this episode, even if it threw caution to the wind with one of the more ludicrous episodes the show has done. Despite being a show called Cowboy Bebop, it’s still bizarre to see someone in full cowboy getup, riding a horse, with a whistling old Western theme playing him into a room. It’s just the right level of over the top, with other characters acknowledging it being ridiculous, so that it doesn’t simply turn into a self-parody.

I love that we got an actual space cowboy, named Andy, who is Spike’s doppleganger. Everything about Andy is just the right amount of obnoxious, making it clear just why Spike would be so annoyed by him, but also, why people would be able to see the two’s likeness. He takes Spike’s cocky attitude, his need to make an entrance, even the way he fights and takes them to the extremes. Spike and Andy are so similar that even when they’re both supposed to be chasing down their bounty, they instead get so frustrated with one another that they begin to fight. Even when hanging from the side of the building at the end, after Teddy’s plan is semi-successful, instead of trying to climb to safety by helping one another, they keep it as a competition, trying to best the other even when in life threatening situations.

The ending fight is superb visually, using the orange sky to distinguish the two characters as they stand off. Fight scenes on this show are always exciting, but they’re made even stronger when they have a dramatic background. When we look back at the episodes of the show, we think of scenes, or of images, such as Spike falling from the Gothic tower after fighting with Vicious, or the parade of soulless mechanical toys from a few episodes back. The show has never been shy about it’s love of atmosphere, and it’s a defining trait of the show. I don’t love the show because of the storylines (which probably annoys fans) but I love it because of the characters and because the world is so richly drawn, and so well built that we don’t question anything, we simply enjoy watching it roll out.

The end of the fight is also when we finally get a good look at what makes the two different, and that’s when Andy admits he’s lost.

I can’t say I could see Spike doing the same. Or am I crazy?

The rest of the gang sits most of this week’s episode out, even if all four get moments that shine. Faye getting the knockout punch with Teddy, Ed solving just about every question that needs answering, Jet dressed up in his hippie getup and, then the best small moment of the episode, Ein walking around the ship with Jet’s costume wig on. It’s great when the show uses these characters in smaller ways that aren’t integral to the plot, but standout in the episode still. They don’t take so much a backseat in the episodes as much as they decorate the side plots.

It was fun. Nothing all too substantial, not one of the shows best but certainly far, far away from one of the worst, it’s an entertaining, half-hour romp that allows Spike to be my favorite version of the character which is hotheaded and reckless. His calm under pressure attitude is such a constant, something that defines the character even (I mean, who else pauses mid battles to take a smoking break?), that it’s fun to see his natural calm shaken. If and when he usually looses his cool, it’s typically about something inconsequential, something related to his teammates but it rarely ever shows in his fighting. “Cowboy Funk” allows Spike to act purely on impulse, which isn’t great for him, but makes for some very enjoyable entertainment.

See You Space Samurai.

(PS….What on earth is going on in the next episode? “Brain Scratch” looks crazy.)

Allyson Johnson is a twenty something writer and a lover of film and all things pop-culture. She’s a film and television enthusiast and critic over at TheYoungFolks.com who spends too much of her free time on Netflix. Her idols are Jo March, Illana Glazer, and Amy Poehler. Check her out at her twitter @AllysonAJ or at The Young Folks. 

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