Who is Spike Spiegel? Over four episodes, we’ve gotten almost no information about who he was before he came to the Bebop, aside from a cryptic statement about being killed by a woman in the past and images of him in a firefight with a wide grin on his face. We know that not only is he an extremely competent fighter, but he also enjoys the act. Multiple times, we’ve seen his mood turn from annoyed or blasé to ecstatic when someone throws a punch at him. He is good at improvising in tough situations, and he tends to take indirect routes to his goals. He has well-developed senses and a sharp mind. And we know that for all his efforts to pass himself off as calm and collected, he can quickly lose his cool when taken out of a narrow comfort zone. A cheating blackjack dealer does nothing to remove the grin from his face, but a dog annoys him to no end. Who is this man?
“Ballad of Fallen Angels” begins with members of rival crime syndicates, the Red Dragons and the White Tigers, signing an alliance agreement with their blood. They comment on how things are different from how they were, and that, although they never thought they would be shaking hands with each other, they are both happy to put aside the cycle of endless violence that once dominated their lives. Unfortunately, this alliance isn’t to be, and the White Tigers’ plane explodes minutes after taking off from the Red Dragon headquarters. The Red Dragons’ leader, Mao Yenrai, looks on in horror before his bodyguards are brutally slaughtered. A man with flowing white hair and a pet raven draws a katana and slashes his throat. Mao’s dying words are “If Spike were here, you would never have done this,” and a smile draws across the white-haired man’s face, in a fashion identical to Spike’s in “Asteroid Blues.”
On the Bebop, Jet tries to talk Spike out of going after a 28 million wulong bounty. The target: Mao Yenrai. Jet quickly deduces that Spike knows Mao and other gangsters involved in putting up the bounty, but Spike doesn’t want to talk about his past. How much Jet knows about Spike’s life with the Red Dragons is unclear, but it seems like he knows little more than the fact that Spike was, at some time in his life, a criminal. With Jet being an ex-cop who maintains quid pro quo relationships with his former comrades, having as little knowledge as possible is probably for the best, and Spike isn’t forthcoming with information anyway. Nor is Jet too willing to talk about his own life, as Spike turns around his questions by asking Jet how he lost his arm. Their partnership is based on working together to catch bounty heads, and all that matters is what they bring to the table now. We learn here, and will learn again, that anything that disrupts this dynamic is unwelcome, and the past is extremely disruptive.
After Spike fails to convince Jet to help him with the Mao bounty by playing up the money aspect, Spike leaves to do the job himself, despite knowing he’ll be on his own. Spike pursues a lead by tracking down a woman who works at a convenience store. On his way, he displays more of his sleight of hand skills when he walks into a kid fleeing from the woman after stealing a dirty magazine. When the kid looks up, he sees the magazine in Spike’s hand, barely even realizing it was gone. The woman, Annie, expresses thanks to Spike until she sees to whom she’s talking. Seeing Spike gives her the clichéd “you look like you’ve seen a ghost” look, and she even comments that he’s come back from the dead. The two of them discuss the past, and Annie gets visibly shaken when talking about Mao. She begs Spike not to seek out Vicious, but sighs, knowing that Spike listens to no one when he has already made up his mind.
Faye seeks out Mao as well, thinking that she’ll get an easy payday. She needles Jet for info, then follows up on a lead meant for him after he storms out, still angry about Spike not listening to him. This brings us to one of two absolutely amazing scenes in this episode. Faye gets a tip on Mao and follows up on it at a beautiful opera house. Throughout the series so far, most of the locations we’ve seen have been in decay to some degree. But in this episode, we see places that look absolutely out of place in the Bebop universe. The Red Dragon’s tower was immaculate with a modern design, with lots of stainless steel and large windows, while the opera house is built to resemble an ornate European palace. We see a few interior shots of large chandeliers, lush carpets, and wooden staircases in which nothing happens. The show is merely lettings us drink in the beauty of the location. In addition, as the scene plays, an opera singer performs Ave Maria in an enormous hall. Faye herself is a sight to see in this scene, having put on a stunning evening dress. Unfortunately for her, things take a bad turn when Red Dragon goons take her hostage and force her to sit next to Mao’s corpse. The white-haired man appears and introduces himself, speaking in a raspy monotone. His name is Vicious.
Meanwhile, Jet complains about Faye and Spike doing whatever they want, then displays that he is a pretty competent hacker when he decrypts a file about Mao’s death. (Once again, this will be relevant to my feelings about a yet-to-be-introduced character.) When Spike returns to gather arms and explosives, Jet chastises him for not letting the past be. He tells Spike that his arm is a reminder of why you shouldn’t go rushing into situations without thinking them through. But he still doesn’t explain what exactly happened. Spike claims he has a debt to pay. The pair also discuss Faye. Spike simply refers to her as “the girl” and Jet dismisses her as having had a “lapse in sanity” upon seeing the bounty on Mao’s head, and is sure she is screwing up and getting in trouble. They still do not think very much of Faye and barely tolerate her presence. This scene, coupled with Jet’s interaction with her earlier makes one wonder why they simply haven’t kicked her out yet. We haven’t been led to believe she has anything to offer that they didn’t have before, except maybe repaying her debt to them. But if that’s all, they are at the back of a long line.
As if on cue, Faye calls asking for help, telling them to come to an old cathedral. She’s oddly calm about the whole ordeal, explaining that her life is in danger in a tone of voice that most people would use to ask their friends for a ride home. When Jet tells her to deal with it herself, she just whines that they are supposed to be partners, and this is the kind of thing partners do for each other. It’s not until Jet is about to hang up that she actually gets scared. Faye is certainly a tough woman, who can take most things in stride, but she certainly has limits. Fortunately for her, Spike agrees to come find her. He tells her that rescuing her won’t be his primary objective, but if he can find the time, he’ll help her out.
And so begins the second incredible sequence in the episode: the climax at the cathedral. It begins with Spike walking against a purple-hued city and sky in the background while a song heavily featuring a pipe organ begins. Like with the opera house, the cathedral is very ornate and we are shown numerous still images of the details, including the enormous rose window and statues of saints. The show lets Spike take his time to get to the cathedral, in order to eliminate dialogue and allow us to hear the lyrics of the song playing, which speak of not feeling a thing, not remembering, and wishing that life were a dream.
Eventually Spike arrives, and we are shown numerous long shots of Spike and close-ups of Vicious’ face. Spike is all alone, while Vicious has a small host of lieutenants with him, and has Faye as a hostage. The pair begin a battle of words, each using florid language. Spike refers to being stuck in a dream he can’t wake up from, and taunts his rival that it was he, Spike, that took in Vicious and made him the man he is today. Vicious responds, saying that man is dead and that the Spike we know now must die. To think that Spike was once as vicious as Vicious is disturbing, but it is not far-fetched. When one of Vicious’ goons appears with a gun at Faye’s head, demanding Spike throw away his pistol, Spike shoots the goon, even though he was much more likely to shoot Faye than her captor. Spike is a great shot, but it takes a kind of disconnect from empathy to take such a shot, knowing there is a large chance you’ll end up shooting an innocent.
Killing the mook begins a breathtaking firefight between Spike and Vicious’ men, and then a duel between Spike, with a pistol, and Vicious, with his katana. Spike is extremely nimble, and is able to shake off getting shot as if it were nothing. Spike and Vicious continue to speak about their past through their fighting, and Spike manages to get Vicious to raise his voice and add some emotion. They eventually get to a stalemate in front of the rose window, when they each have the other at gun/swordpoint, but both decide to attack at the exact same time. Spike gets thrown out the window, but throws a grenade back in the church, quickly removing the sick grin from Vicious’ face.
As Spike falls, a children’s choir begins singing, and we are shown close-ups of his eye interspersed with flashbacks of his time in the syndicate. He and Vicious fight back to back, and turn to smile at each other. Images from the prologue appear. We see Vicious in bed with someone, but don’t really see who. The back of a blonde woman’s head appears, then turns to face the camera for a brief moment, only to cut away to another shot of the back of her head, with a gun pointed at it. The song ends, and we hear a music box playing over a POV shot of someone stumbling and seeing a figure in the distance. As the ground starts to come up to meet the camera, we switch to third person and see that it’s Spike. He opens his eyes again to see himself in bandages and the blonde humming, then fades out again.
Back in the present, Spike is covered in bandages again and hears a woman humming. This time it’s Faye, showing a very motherly side to her personality that hasn’t even been hinted at before. She expresses worry for him, then tells him he should thank her. After he killed her captor, she was able to call Jet and get him to help them. Jet was at first reluctant, and angrily told Faye that Spike could go to hell, but he quickly, grudgingly, changed his mind. They might have very different philosophies on life and how to deal with their pasts, but deep down, Jet and Spike have some sparks of friendship. (We also saw Jet tending a bonsai tree… poorly. The man has refined tastes and a gentle soul, but sadly lacks a gentle touch.) Of course, Spike being Spike, he can’t help but kill the moment by pointing out that Faye is singing off-key, causing all her maternal feelings (or maybe even feelings of affection) to evaporate.
This is probably my favorite episode of Bebop. It contains two of my favorite sequences from the series and clues us in to the fact that there is a deeper story going on than just a weekly adventure to catch a new bounty head. (Five weeks without turning anybody in.) This show is very much about the characters. We learn about them principally through their present adventures, watching how they react to situations. But every now and then, the past catches up with them in unexpected ways. “Ballad of Fallen Angels” showed us just the tip of the iceberg in terms of Spike’s past and how Bebop would deal with the characters’ pasts. But what a tip it was.
Up next: Spike and Jet discuss the state of the world, while harmonica music plays. Spike complains that the world has lost its integrity, and begins speaking about the world the way a conspiracy theorist would. Jet is bewildered by Spike’s view, and tries to convince him that things aren’t so bad…
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