Cowboy Bebop Sessions 12-13 (Part II) - WoooaOH, Livin' On A Prayer

Sessions 12-13 - Jupiter Jazz
Welcome back for part 2 of Jupiter Jazz!  Where were we?  Oh, right.

WHAT.
So much wtf going through my mind right now.  A quick recap to soothe the nerves?  Faye went and left the Bebop, taking all the money with her, but while searching for her, Spike heard mention of his girl from another lifetime, Julia.  Immediately going down to Callisto to investigate, he found Vicious again, this time smuggling Red Eye for a guy called Gren.  Though, "guy" maybe isn't the word to use, as Faye figured out the WHAT way.  Spike and Vicious were about to go at it, which seems to be all they have left to do with each other, but Vicious' eager henchmen Lin gets in the way.  Not wanting to shoot Lin gets Spike shot, and that's where we pick up...
Oh, wait, he's still sleeping.
Let's check in on Faye.
Gren explains how Vicious and he were comrades in some kind of war on Titan, and Vicious even saved his life, despite saying he didn't need any sort of comrades.  He only goes on to, as Gren heard, frame him as a spy which leads to an experimental drug being tested on him and... WHAT.
So you know what's so disappointing about this episode?  If you're gonna have just three stories featuring Vicious, why would you make it so him and Spike hardly even interact for one of them??  Not to spoil to much, but even the ending doesn't refer to Spike (most people think the "fallen warrior" is Lin or Gren).
There's a lot of bits and pieces of flashback in one part of the episode, and it's left up to the viewer to piece everything together, which I appreciate.  I myself hate it when a show has to spell out each and every last bit of metaphor or symbolism, like we're such dumbasses we can't sit and think what stuff means on our own.  And in a way that's what some works of fiction have trained us to do, just wait until the work itself comes out and explains everything plain as day.  Which is just another reason why Cowboy Bebop is so very refreshing and unique.  There's lines during this sequence about Julia spoken by Vicious, some that sound like conversations, one where Vicious seems to be threatening Julia, one where Spike says his eyes "are different colors", that his right eye sees the past (still fuzzy on all that now, but still glad they didn't come right out and explain exactly what happened).  Most important, is Spike saying he wants to leave the Syndicate, and wants to know if Julia will come with him.  All of this gets picked up (more or less) in the finale, but for now it's all foreshadowing.  Back to the present... Spike has woken up, and the "bullet" he was shot with turns out to be just a tranquilizer.  Jet has successfully found Gren's apartment, but he opens the door to find... Faye's ass-- I mean, Faye.  Gren's gone off to find out if Vicious really did betray him all that time ago.  Here we are again at the theme of dealing with the past.  Funny how this is never a cliche in the show's entirety, because everyone is handled so realistically and uniquely from one another.  No matter what anyone seems to do, their pasts ends up deciding their futures for them.  And so, Jet and Spike are all cool again; Spike is after Gren for his bounty and Vicious for his score that needs settled.  The Red Eye trade-off is arranged, but that sonofabitch Vicious still tries to kill someone.  The music box didn't get the job done, so he tries again with a bomb in the suitcase the Red Eye is traded for.  Lin dies protecting Vicious, the man who genuinely believes there is nothing to believe in.  Who then proceeds to try and shoot down Gren, when he's "in the way" of him and Spike's dogfight.  What an evil prick.  Gren planned ahead though, and the same music box Vicious booby-trapped and gave Gren ended up costing him the battle and the Red Eye.  And without even a follow-up to Vicious's condition, we go to Gren's ship, and a dying Gren.  Like I said, rather a disappointment that Spike and Vicious are in the episode together, and hardly do anything.

Gren wants Spike to set his controls for Titan, so even if he doesn't make it, "at least [he] was on the way,"  The final payoff: Gren finally realizes, this is Spike, the guy Julia talked about all the time, whose eyes were different colors.  "What a smile.  So sad... so beautiful..."  The less said in this case, the better, and somehow with very few words everything is explained that needs to be, in this scene, for the rest of the episode through everyone's interactions and the repeat of the beginning scene, and in the finer moments of the show period.