The preview for this episode is narrated by Spike and Jet. It’s constructed as conversation where Jet is complaining about everything wrong with the world that he’s read about in the news. The preview sets up the threat for this episode a lot more specifically than the previous episodes.
Session #4: Gateway Shuffle
Original Airdate: November 14, 1998
Written by: Sadayuki Murai
Title Card Song: “Sax Quartet” – This track was released in the Cowboy Bebop Boxed Set, a four CD set that came with a 52-page booklet in 2002.
We open to Faye stranded in space. Her ship is out of fuel, and she’s out of food. When a ship passes her by, Faye notices another ship adrift nearby. It’s a pretty familiar “stranded on the side of the road” opening, but it’s translated really carefully to the sci-fi setting.
Elsewhere, Jet explains the history of the now endangered searats of Ganymede. They were originally a staple food for settlers, but as things settled down, consumption went down. An ad campaign was started to make searat into high cuisine. It’s trendy, but Jet says it’s actually disgusting. Spike orders the lobster miso instead. Lobster had a very similar history on, originally consumed as a cheap staple food and then turned into a gourmet item when consumption declined.
Ganymede has water in the form of ice, and its atmosphere appears to be oxygen-based. There may actually be a Ganymede Sea underneath the ice crust.
Twinkle Maria Murdock and the Space Warriors all have vegetarian dishes of some kind. We jump to them in mid-conversation so we only catch a bit about a ship blown to pieces and one lost ampule.
By the time Faye and Murdock are both aboard the Bebop, we’ve been given enough clues to figure out that the device Faye got from the dying pilot is a container for the virus. Spike seems to pick this up from Jet’s intel and by observing Murdock’s reaction to him trying to open it.
Unlike the previous three episodes, the references aren’t stacked as thickly. The terrorist plot is pretty standard fair, but this is the first time we see Faye work with the crew of the Bebop. This episode also ends with her joining the crew.
I do find the quick shots we get of the surface of Ganymede to be cool. The setting of Bebop isn’t thoroughly explored, and it’s not like there’s a tabletop setting book hiding out there for it so all the touches of worldbuilding that get handled simply by backdrop are really interesting to me.
Twinkle Maria Murdock is an interesting combination of standard villain types. In addition to being an extremist, she’s a classic mother crime boss. Crime boss moms aren’t the most common of villain tropes, but they’re not exactly unheard of. Other examples are Disney’s Ma Beagle and Mama Fratelli from Goonies. They’re all likely inspired by Ma Barker, alleged leader of the Barker gang in the early 1900s. Murdock is also the most profitable bounty they’ve tried to capture so far in the show at a whopping 25 million Woolongs.
SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY.
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