Session 14 - Bohemian Rhapsody
And now you're up to speed.
"Bohemian Rhapsody" is definitely one of the good episodes of Bebop... that is, there are pretty good episodes, then there are really, really good episodes (and then there's "Boogie Woogie Feng Shui"); "Bohemian Rhapsody" is a really good one. The premise is that small-time thugs have suddenly been committing very un-small-time theft, and they seem to be under the authority of a mysterious chessmaster... literally. All we see of him is a withered old hand moving chess pieces, and the only lead the Bebop crew picks up is a white king piece. Unless they nab the leader, all the bounties on the criminals they picked up so far are no-go. Ed figures out that the chess pieces are "tokens" for an online game of chess, which.... probably has something to do with.... something. Like the fact that, little does Team Bebop know, Ed's opponent is the mysterious old hand and his parrot. As you may have guessed, the theme here is games. Ed playing the mastermind in chess, the Gate Corporation using bounty hunters to cover their own asses, basically it's all one giant chess match. With more than two players. And no rules. And corrupt corporate scheming. And so, finally, the mysterious mastermind is given a name: Chessmater Hex, a "ghost from fifty years in the past." See, fifty years ago, Hex was a genius - and also a brilliant chess player - who worked on developing the hyperspace gates that are now used to link up the world of Bebop. But when the time came to implement them, he claimed there were still some defects which needed testing. So, of course, the Gate Corporation fired him and made the gates anyway. He's been missing since. So what does he want now, at nearly ninety-eight years old? His final revenge? The destruction of the gates? To make the Gate Corporation squirm? Once everyone figures out Hex is who Ed's been playing chess with all this time, they have a fairly easy time of tracking him down, and so they suspect a trap. Could it be something sinister awaits in this far, far-off space scrapyard??
Nah, all this guy wants is to play chess.
Yeahhhh, turns out, Hex is a biit senile. He totally just wanted to find a formidable opponent to play against, totally forgetting his intended revenge scheme which he set up fifty years earlier. Now he's just "an old man who like to play games." And I like how he and Ed were the only ones to latch onto this straight away (Hex's line about being "either and idiot or a genius" comes to mind), because of how unique both of their respective perspectives (ooh, that's fun to say!) are. Also, let me just say how this show has an uncanny ability to make me happy. Or make anything happy. Hex's *SPOILER* death comes as no big surprise, but the music, situation and heartfelt characters all come together to make this a surprisingly feel-good moment. The guy totes left the world content, despite being a little crazy by the end.
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| So nothing at all like King Bumi. |
Finally, let me take a moment to mention Spike's line during the space-flight: "Whatever happens, happens." This is pretty much Spike's mantra, and the fact that he says it so casually in the middle of the climax makes it a lot less obvious. But for all the time we know him, this is how Spike has lived. Whatever will be will be, whether this is the real life, or just fantasy.
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