As expected, Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop show can’t compete with the original
By Diana Nosa
Episode 5: “Darkside Tango”
There are only three words to say when it comes to the way Cowboy Bebop portrayed Jet Black in this episode: “I stand corrected”.
This Jet Black-centered episode undoes most of the mistakes from earlier in the series. Before, he was a grumpy man whose only conflict was whether he would secure a doll for his daughter. Now, he’s still a grumpy old man, only this time he’s given a story you simply can’t look away from.
We start the episode off with a flashback to Jet Black’s past. He and his then-ISSP partner were tracking down a wanted man named Udai Taxim. During this mission, one thing leads to another and Jet winds up losing his arm, his ISSP title, and his joy. We get a deeper look into his character and come to understand why he has been so desperate to make things right.
While Jet is confronting the ghosts of his past, Vicious and Julia finally meet up with the infamous Mao, only their meeting reveals much more about Julia than about this Elder member. And there are no complaints from me: Julia unexpectedly disobeying Vicious made up for the disappointment of not learning more about Mao and her role in the coup. And now we are inches from a climax, especially now that we know Julia knows that Spike is alive.
And as if Episode 5 didn’t bless us with enough intrigue, we also get to see Spike and Faye’s dynamic develop further, getting closer to what fans of the anime have always known it to be: an adorable game of cat and mouse.
The growing partnership between Faye and Spike, the betrayal and loss of Jet’s former partner, and the display of a power-hungry Vicious all helped to make this episode great. The only thing that may have made it better would have been our genius dog Ein having more of a role than Faye’s dance partner, but we’ll take what we can get.
Serving as the halfway point of the series, Episode 5 did its job of making audiences want to continue watching, and now sits at the top spot along with Episodes 1 and 4 as the most enjoyable episode of the series thus far. Will episode 6, “Binary Two-Step,” top this? We’ll see.
