Cowboy Bebop Session 11 - Livin' In The Fridge (I apologize in advance...)

Session 11 - Toys In The Attic

Ohhh, this one's great.  It's so spooky, so unusual, so strange, so funny, there's really not another episode of Bebop like it.  It has the distinction of being the only episode to be divided into "lessons", the only episode where (spoilers) everyone dies by the end; it just seems so out-of-place, which is why I love the brilliance that is Toys In The Attic so much.  (edit: Dear god I must be tired; I didn't even realize how completely retarted I was writing until I looked over it again... meh it's kinda like this episode: weird and blessed with the inability to focus on one thing.)
Credits roll, duhDUN duhDUN duhDUN duh duhhhh..., Predator-vision of something beastly crawling around in some sort of ventilation tunnels.  What could this be??  You have me mildly interested, plot...  Meanwhile, on the Bebop, Ed is sleeping and, prepare yourself for this one, Jet and Faye are gambling for each other's clothes, and Jet is losing, little does he know Faye is cheating.  Done laughing?  Meanwhile, somewhere else, Spike is cooking shish kebabs with an effing flamethrower.
Where are we going with this?
In addition, something thrown in for this episode and this episode only are "lessons" from each crew member.  Basically these serve as words of advice that separate up the episode into parts.  Jet's lesson, appropriately, was that not having money can lead to a person foolishly getting some through desperate measures.  Aaand Spike getting boxers tossed in his face.  Later, the spooky vent monster is still on the prowl, killing rats and growling a bunch.  Ein's Corgi-Sense starts tingling!  And that's when Jet notices...
THE FRIDGE.
Faye is still taking inventory of everything she swindled when we learn Lesson 2, cheat or be cheated, kill or be killed.  Oh hey, speaking of, what's that sloshy, growly noise slowly closing in from behind Faye- oh wait it's Spike brushing his teeth.  See, now this bit I didn't even notice the first time through.  It's all about the rewatch, as I've come to learn.  Especially with
OH GOD ALARMS NOW EVERYONE'S RUNNING
When Faye, Spike and Ein look to see what caused the alarm, they find Jet was bitten by the thing in the vents.  They're leery to believe him though, thinking it was just a rat.  When Jet says how it happened near
THE FRIDGE.
Spike seems to recall something, but doesn't feel like thinking hard enough to remember it fully.  Whatever bit Jet leaves a nasty purple welt where it attacked, and Spike is forced to call upon his sage experience as a connoisseur of medicines.  So now Spike is brewing up lizards, and Jet is drinking the lizards, and Faye is being critical of everyone, and Ein is flipping his shit, and Ed... is still fast asleep.  Nice.  But then Jet collapses.  The bite would seem to have been more serious than anyone thought.  Too baaad, Jet has ebola.

Ed is several steps ahead of everyone else despite having just woken up and tells them all the thing is an alien, but they just don't listen.  Later, Faye gets in the bath, because nothing bad ever came from a female character taking a shower in the middle of an alien/monster/killer pudding incursion.  While nothing terrible or bitey is happening there, Ed and Spike try to find the creature with Slow-Down-VLC-Player-Vision.  Lesson, lesson: if you see a stranger, follow him.  Once again, things sorta just happen with no one really contributing to the outcome at all.  Ein smells the creature and Ed chases after him WAIT EIN NO dammit he got bit too.  Now they all have ebola and only Spike is left!!!  Here we be at the climax, and it's down to the chase, Spike and the monster, mano e pudding.  Prepare for the final lesson.  Spike tries everything to kill the black blobby thing: shooting it, trapping it with a net, smoking it out, burning it, but it can't be stopped.  At this point I would have been totally content with the alien explanation, but this being Cowboy Bebop, we're thrown one last twist.  The thing that's stalking the ship grew forth from
THE FRIDGE.
The story is, one year ago, on a full blood moon, Spike bought a cursed Ganymede rock lobster from a guy off the street, and stored it in this fridge so no one else would eat it.  But there was something... wrong with this lobster, it craved sustenance so it could please its lord and dark master Satan.  And the fridge it was being stored in just so happened to be in a cold spot in the thirteenth room of the thirteenth floor of the Bebop, and this room had six-hundred and sixty-six cracks in the walls.  And so it began to feed, and all because Spike forgot about it in the fridge.  Actually, just thought this was interesting, the fact that Spike says he hid the lobster from other people one year ago suggests the Bebop crew have actually been together for quite a bit longer than it would seem just by watching the episodes.  That completely tonally jarring fan theory out of the way, the ebola pudding lobster and its fridge dwelling are ejected into space like the unholy abominations they are, but not before it kills everyone.  And what an avant garde ending!  Edward is the lone survivor, and she gets her own show from this point on.  Next session, "Ed Rides Again!"