Jet tells the audience that this episode will be depressing and heavy-handed. He advises that children, women, and young guys shouldn’t watch it.
Session #16: Black Dog Serenade
Original Airdate: February 13, 1999
Written by: Michiko Yokote
Title Card Song: Bebopedia says that “Space Time” is playing at this point the episode, but it sounds more like ambient travel noise to me, granted “Space Time” is a very sparse track.
Jet’s nickname and the title for this episode come from a Led Zeppelin song. The prisoners hijacking their transport ship is an homage to Con Air. More than “Ganymede Elegy,” this episode is about the past Jet hasn’t left behind.
We open to two as of yet unnamed prisoners in a hallway littered with corpses. There’s a little something to note from last episode. Whitney Haggis Matsumoto claimed the bar code on his neck was a common identifier for people in the future, but we hadn’t seen those before last episode. In “Black Dog Serenade,” we see that the prisoners all have similar bar codes tattooed on them.
The ship itself is interesting to me. It looks like a gun with a drum magazine.
Udai is, for my money, one of the three most intimidating bad guys in the series. He’s an assassin for the European Syndicate, and he’s Batman villain levels of cold and ruthless.
When Fad and Jet meet for the first time in the episode, Fad starts the interaction off by pointing a gun at Jet. It’s played as a joke, but later in the episode when Fad’s betrayal is revealed, it has a lot more weight. Jet was relaxing, expecting to meet with an old friend, and he was blindsided by the gun.
When Jet is getting ready to leave the Bebop, Ed asks him for a souvenir. Jet tells Ed to water the bonsai if he doesn’t come back. If we couldn’t tell how seriously Jet takes this mission before, it should be clear now. Jet is prepared to die to keep Udai off the streets.
This story is the most clear example of film noir-style storytelling in Bebop. Elements of that style are apparent throughout the series, but this episode is film noir concentrate.
Udai, Jet and Fad are all framed as being old-fashioned, to the point that maybe they don’t belong in the present world. Udai isn’t welcome in the crime syndicate he left when he went to prison. Jet has left the police behind for bounty hunting. Fad, in particular, dresses himself up as an old-fashioned law man. Fad carries a six shooter, and his attempts to quit smoking, claiming that it’s not a time for smokers anymore, ultimately fail.
Early in the episode, Jet doesn’t notice when his cigarette burns to a nub between the fingers of his prosthetic hand. This sets up nicely for when Jet is able to painlessly deflect a bullet with the same arm, the replacement for the arm he lost to a bullet in the past.
Jet’s real conflict here seems to be embracing that he still really does believe in justice and honor. Fad tells him that cops who believe that die young or give up, and Fad says that Jet gave up. But that’s not the Jet we see. Jet likes to pretend he gave up, but when put to the test, he’s still the Black Dog who bites and won’t let go.
Fad, for his part, seems to be on a mission for redemption. I think his plan was to help Jet put Udai down and die in the fire fight. Fad doesn’t feel like he belongs in this world anymore either, and he’s set himself up to be at a disadvantage in the conflict.
This is one episode I feel like I could dig into again down the road and probably find a lot that I missed or misunderstood, but for now that’s a wrap. SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY.
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