Since the beginning of the series, Jet Black has had a mechanical arm and metal plates on his face. We have never been told why, and it has only been brought up twice; the first time was when Spike sarcastically asked him about his arm as a way to deflect an unwanted question, and the second was a comment by Faye to Spike. The characters don’t talk about it because there is no reason to do so, aside from audience exposition. As Jet once said, a man’s past is his business. But now, Jet’s past has caught up with him.
On a prison ship, a riot has left the ship in the prisoners’ control. One prisoner, in a jovial mood, offers champagne to another. The latter is thin, stone-faced, and speaks in a monotone. A pan shot over the ship’s hallway suggests that the latter prisoner was solely responsible for killing multiple guards. The first prisoner slowly grows scared, as he realizes he is speaking with Udai Taxim, one of the solar system’s most dangerous syndicate assassins. He is also the man Jet was chasing when he lost his arm. Udai was Jet’s final target before leaving the I.S.S.P., and just when he thought he’d captured him, Jet learned that he’d been set up. And then he only had one arm.
Jet gets drawn back into the hunt for Udai when Fad, his last police partner before retiring, asks Jet to help capture the prisoners. The thought of finally getting closure gives Jet some pause and causes him to lose focus on his present. Like before, when returning to Ganymede, the thought of being confronted with his past is quite disturbing to Jet. This time, he zones out while holding a cigarette, letting it burn down to his hand. Faye snaps him back to reality, asking him if he can feel the cigarette burn his prosthetic. She points out that biologic replacements are available, but Jet snaps back, saying that he doesn’t need instruction from anyone but himself.
The rest of the episode focuses on Jet and Fad’s mission, and serves to highlight Jet’s skills as a detective and explore some of the failings of the I.S.S.P. As Jet and Fad try to track down the ship, Jet uses his knowledge of Udai’s past and his thought processes to correctly determine where the ship is going. Meanwhile, on the ship, it turns out that one of the prisoners used to be a captain with the I.S.S.P. The other prisoners are surprised that he could fall to the temptation of crime, but he responds that he’s just as human as they are.
And then the bombshell reveal of the episode comes along and calls all of Jet’s theories about the honor of men into question. The person who set up Jet was Fad, his partner. He was on the Syndicate’s payroll, and they ordered him to take out Jet, who was getting too close to the Syndicate higher-ups. Fad tells Jet that he could never “play the game,” and that kind of person either gave up, like Jet did, or died young. In an honorable world, Jet would never have given up to take the job of bounty hunter. He would have kept going, even when the world was against him. He wouldn’t have had to put up with corrupt cops like Fad or the ex-captain on the prison ship. And as for Fad specifically, what does that fact that one of Jet’s closest male friends turned out to be corrupt say about Jet’s “men live by iron codes of honor” belief?
But things aren’t so bad. Jet finally gets his man, and Fad really does care about Jet, in a sick, twisted way that would allow for him to take his arm. He asks Jet to come back to the force, and he seems to truly want him to, especially after seeing him track Udai and the ship. And when Fad thinks he’ll have to confront Jet about his betrayal, he loads a single bullet into his six-shooter and uses it to kill Udai. Jet makes it clear that what he did is unforgivable, so Fad raises his gun on Jet, knowing that Jet will defend himself. Fad knew that he would have no chance against him now that he’s out of bullets, but he goes to his death willingly. The world is complicated, much more so that Jet would like to believe.
Up next: Funky disco music plays as characters that seem to be from a Blaxploitation film play. The three old men narrate the segment, but spend so much time bickering that they don’t say anything about “Mushroom Samba.”
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