The preview for this episode isn’t narrated by one of the main characters. I haven’t been able to find a credit for this bit of narration, but it’s a riff on classic sci-fi horror movie trailers.
Session #11: Toys in the Attic
Original Airdate: January 2, 1999
Written by: Michiko Yokote
Title Card Song: This episode doesn’t have title card music.
This episode is a dog pile of references. The English title is a reference to an Aerosmith album. The Japanese title actually translates to Heavy Rock in the Dark Night. This is the first episode to have a completely different title in English. The plot is a direct parody of Alien.
We open to a first-person crawl through a dark, red lens. Jet starts the episode off with a Star Trek style captain’s log. In case you were fooled into thinking this was a serious episode, Spike cooking with a flamethrower, and Faye cheating Jet out of everything right down to his boxers should clear that up. I love the subtle cues that Faye’s ankle bracelet allows her to control the dice followed by Spike revealing it.
Despite the parody aspect, this episode really does make great use of some suspense techniques. Ein noticing the monster and the camera lingering on the vent still starts to get me tense. Then, after we get a first person perspective of the monster sneaking up on Jet, we jump to Spike’s perspective behind Faye. The touch that Spike is brushing his teeth and that mimicking the sounds we hear from the monster’s perspective cracks me up.
Spike filling the first aid box with weird herbal medicine cures like dried out lizards and scorpions also gets me every time. The episode does seem like it might make a turn for the serious when Jet first passes out, but this turns around as soon as we see Spike trying to identify the poison or disease and Jet’s reactions to his guesses.
The ambient noise on this episode is really well put together. When Spike is on the bridge, they actually use the bridge noises from Star Trek. I’m pretty sure the ship’s voice is provided by Wendee Lee or Mary Elizabeth McGlynn. It’s only fitting that Bebop would take Route 66 to Mars.
During Spike’s suit up sequence, I can’t help but wonder why the crew has so many fencing foils stashed on the ship.
There’s another great detail that may have been apparent in earlier episodes, but it really sticks out to me in this one. When seen from one side of the hatch, there’s a curving hallway that seems to be rotating at all times. When you see the hatch from inside the hallway, it looks like the wall the hatch is on is actually rotating. I haven’t been able to find any, but I would love to see schematics for the Bebop.
The Ganymede Rock Lobster is a reference to the B-52 song “Rock Lobster.” The inside of that fridge looks like something from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
Spike’s efforts to get the container out of the ship are really well done, parody or no. This is a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
This is the first episode to use music not created specifically for the show. The use of Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers” is part of the homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Less recognized is “Ultrenja” by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. Kubrick used selections from “Ultrenja” in The Shining. Composed and premiered in 1970 and 1971, “Ultrenja” is a controversial two part composition focused on the death and resurrection of Christ. For the purposes of Kubrick and Watanabe, it is tension made audible, and it is quite effective.
Ed’s part in this episode is also really well-constructed. She starts the episode asleep and dreaming about eating. When Ein is attacked by the creature, the audience is supposed to follow Spike’s lead and assume that Ed is incapacitated, too. Instead, Ed was just elsewhere on the ship asleep, and when the monster shows up to attack her, she lives out her dream and eats it.
With the crew incapacitated and the ship on autopilot to Mars, the episode ends with “THE END” instead of the normal ending card.
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