1. On the Run
“Stray Dog Strut” finds Spike and Jet tracking down Abdul Hakim, who’s stolen a briefcase from an illegal research facility. It contains a small dog, whose DNA has been stored with all this data from said facility. Naturally, the errant scientists want the dog back, while Hakim wants to get off Mars, and the crew of the Bebop want to catch Hakim.
Of Cowboy Bebop’s many modes — action spectacle, philosophical ennui, tragic reckoning with the past — perhaps the one that goes most unnoticed is when it goes full farce. Yet, that brings out some of the most flat-out enjoyable sessions of the series. “Stray Dog Strut” is far more congenial than “Asteroid Blues.” There’s not a lot in terms of Jet or Spike or Cowboy Bebop’s history being explored here; instead we’re given a series of escalating circumstances which lead to some great chases and fun set pieces. It leans heavily on clever staging, funky music, the perfectly timed punchline, and an over-the-top approach.
2. “Don’t Get too Hot Headed”
This episode has, like, three different chases, and almost all of them are done on foot, but they all feel different and independent of each other. Watanabe, Sunrise, and the rest of the crew have a blast in adding more and more elements into the mix. Take a look at the center chase, when Spike finally IDs Hakim (at the animal seller’s, a character I sort of love?) and chases him through the Mars canals, dodging traffic and trying to figure out what’s going on. We saw a similar scene eight years later in Mission: Impossible III, but it didn’t have the sheer layering and stacking in the blocking Watanabe brings here. And, like the later scene where all the dogs in town are chasing after a van, it works because it’s there’s a pull back, reveal, pull back further, reveal more structure to the sequence. It’s playful and funny and exciting. It’s willing to show Cowboy Bebop isn’t afraid of being silly or goofy, and the characters are malleable enough that you could stick them in numerous situations with profound effect.
3. Identity Crisis
Of course, “Stray Dog Strut” does touch on some of Bebop’s biggest themes: namely, new identities. To one degree or another, every character in the show is trying to run from their past and past choices. The most obvious one in this session is Abdul Hakim, who undergoes reconstructive surgery (a la Jack Nicholson’s Joker) to help him escape with the data dog. This is played mostly for laughs, with Hakim going from a scrawny white guy to a dude looking like he just stepped out of Game of Death. The hidden identity angles are played as jokes here, especially for Spike narrowly missing Hakim on a few occasions, but it does lay out the groundwork for what the series wants to explore.
And that’s kind of the Bebop conceit, isn’t it? Introducing something as a joke but then doubling down on a deeper meaning. I’m sure we’ll see more of that in the upcoming sessions.
4. “Shucks, Howdy!”
We’re given another Bebop mainstay with the introduction of Big Shot, the show-within-a-show that runs down various bounties in the solar system. What I’ve liked about this is how Watanabe and crew use Big Shot to both romanticize the bounty hunter business and yet sell the reality of it. Here we have two characters dressed up in stereotypical Wild West garb, running down a list of the latest bounties across the solar system. It seems all glamorous and fun, with catchy music, lots of flashing lights, and good looking people hosting it, but the sets are cheap, the presentation is tacky, and, as we learn, they’re serving “300,000 bounty hunters across the star system,” so the competition is high. Like, you can only delude yourself for so long.
5. Enter Ein
With “Stray Dog Strut,” Cowboy Bebop begins filling out more of its crew. Spike complains about not wanting to work with “women, children, or animals,” which seems like some callus chauvinism, but — and spoiler alert for later episodes of the series — it comes more from not wanting to get too attached to anything else. Jet and Spike literally complain about Ein’s presence as they snap the dog collar around his neck and find him a place on the ship. In no time at all, they’re building attachments and potentially risking more of themselves for the benefit of another figure, which is what they both wanted to avoid.
So again, we have something that seems silly and played for laughs come around to add to the arc for the Bebop crew.
That’s all for today, folks. Sound off on your thoughts, reactions, and connections in the comments! And see you next week as we meet a “Honky Tonk Woman.”
