The world of Cowboy Bebop isn’t just criminals and bounty hunters. Most of what we have seen so far has shown us just enough of the rest of the solar system so that we know it exists. People eat in restaurants, gamble in casinos, and attend the opera. But most of these settings exist to provide a cool, noirish or western background for our heroes to chase their prey. With very few exceptions, all POV is from the Bebop crew or the criminals they are chasing. One thing “Heavy Metal Queens” does very well is to give POV scenes to an interplanetary trucker, known only as VT. Through her, we see a completely different industry: shipping.
Of course other institutions still exist in 2071. But we’ve never seen any up close before. That’s probably because, aside from the trucks now being interplanetary spaceships, not much has changed in the shipping industry. Truckers communicate via CB radio using call signs (VT’s being “Heavy Metal Queen”) and eat at greasy spoon diners. And while stereotypes about groups of people exist, everyone still has their own personality, which is shown through images of different truckers’ cabs. Each one decorates it differently, with one covering all the walls with porn, and another with stuffed animals. Decker, this week’s bounty head, is a trucker who painted his rig with an image of Saraswati.
Speaking of stereotypes of groups, VT believes in some negative ones about bounty hunters, many of which are confirmed at a scene in a truck stop. She walks past a group of bounty hunters in sombreros and ponchos, talking about some famous bounty hunter. This group follow her in and begin harassing a waitress. As evidence of just how much of a crapsack world the Bebop characters inhabit is, the bounty hunters actually commit battery against the poor waitress, pulling her into their laps, and the only person who does anything about it is VT. As far as we know, no one, not even the waitress’ coworkers, call the police. If the bounty hunters are doing the jobs of the police, tracking down criminals, what happens when they get out of hand?
VT holds her own in the fight, but one against three is a hard ratio against which to maintain the upper hand. Fortunately, she gets help from a hungover Spike after one of the rambunctious bounty hunters causes him to drop an egg yolk in his lap. (He was going to make a mixed drink out of the yolk to cure his hangover.)
Spike was in the diner hunting for Decker, but was not doing well. In addition to his hangover, the information the Bebop crew received turned out to be paltry. All they knew was that he was in the area and he has a dragon tattoo. Faye scopes out a nearby kiddie ice cream parlor, and has finally become part of the team. There are still some kinks the team needs to work out (she says at one point that she has first dibs on Decker, and Jet still complains about her whining, but Spike refers to Faye as his friend and when Faye calls in to Jet with information about Decker, he is not unhappy to hear from her). Faye also uses her femininity to lure in the man she believes to be Decker; I guess the guys finally realized that Faye can bring things to the hunt that they can’t. As it turns out though, the big muscly guy she suspects to be her target is just a red herring; the real Decker is a scrawny, nervous, Woody Allen lookalike who overhears Faye’s plans to capture Decker. Faye realizes her mistakes and ID’s Decker, but not before he can escape and toss a powerful explosive at the Redtail, preventing Faye from pursuing.
Spike and VT get along well, bonding over fighting off the bounty hunters and “prairie oysters,” the egg yolk counter-hangover drink. VT says that she only ever knew one other person who drank them, her late husband. Unfortunately, their bonding is cut short when Faye calls in to say she found Decker. Unfortunately, the other bounty hunters vandalized Swordfish, disabling it, forcing both Spike and Faye to hitch a ride with VT. When they get back to the Bebop, Jet grumbles that Spike and Faye wrecked both ships on the same day and expect him to repair them. Earlier, he tried to assuage Ein’s whining about only getting bean sprouts for dinner, first telling him that bean sprouts are healthy before conceding that they are all the crew can afford. This week marks the seventh consecutive week without turning in a bounty head, so it’s a wonder how they can still afford food and parts with which to repair the Bebop and the three smaller ships. I think we are meant to assume that the adventures we don’t see are more successful, but even so, the crew is not doing too well.
Fortunately, they get a second chance at Decker when a trucker puts out a bulletin on a space truck with the image of Saraswati on it; Decker was in such a hurry that he cut off another trucker, nearly causing an accident. VT overhears this and realizes it is Decker, after overhearing Faye telling Spike about him. VT tracks down Decker and calls the Bebop, offering them the opportunity to capture him.
This sets up a great climax that shows us just how brave/crazy Spike can be. Decker flees into a mining asteroid and tries to get rid of his pursuers by releasing explosives to close off the shaft. He succeeds, but also kills himself in the process. Spike, Faye, and VT decide to use another explosive to reopen the shaft, but they have no way of positioning it without sacrificing one of themselves. Spike decides to program part of Swordfish to fly toward the end of the shaft with an explosive in it, but in order to get out alive, he has to jump from his ship to VT’s without a suit. At this point, the rule of cool takes over; it’s certainly awesome to see him risk his life in open space unprotected and use his pistol to propel himself in the right direction. It’s just a tad unbelievable, but the visuals more than make up for it.
We don’t learn much about the character’s pasts here, but the episode does a good job fleshing out the world and updating us on the team dynamic. It also shows us that Spike, Jet, and Faye are different from many other bounty hunters in the world. They may see other humans as price tags, in the words of VT, but they have an honor about them that not all bounty hunters possess, and VT accepts that Spike is in fact a good person.
Up next: Music box music plays as Jet explains that sometimes he does the preview alone. He introduces himself and gives his age – 36 – and says that not everyone thinks he looks 36. But not everything is as it seems. The next episode will embody that idea, and will be a different kind of story, but one worth telling…
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