Cowboy Bebop Session #3: Honky-Tonk Women

Session 3: Honky-Tonk Women

In appearance and attitude, Faye Valentine represents the classic noir style femme fatale character. Perhaps take out the parts where she's kept in suspended animation for a few decades and where she's, you know, in outer-space (and I guess the purple hair as well), and she'd fit right into a Dashiell Hammett or Mickey Spillane story. She's as alluring as she is strong-willed, and seems to personify trouble. Later on in the series, she'll actually more play the role of the redeemer character--another archetype for female characters used in a lot of films in the noir period--the character who tries to save the protagonist from being destroyed by the true femme fatale character. That all comes later though. We see her from the ground up, starting with her big white boots, as she walks into a shop on Mars, apparently getting tailed by three guys. She pulls a sub-machine gun out of a grocery bag and opens fire. "The first rule of combat is to shoot them before they shoot you," she explains. She doesn't get shot, but she gets caught as a bunch more people show up. We get our title card, and the next time we see Faye, she's back out in space on a floating casino in handcuffs. She's speaking to a man who refers to her as "Lady Luck", "Poker Alice", and the "Queen of Hearts" (red!). He apparently offers her an ultimatum to keep her from being turned over to the police--the details of which we're not privvy to at the moment--and with a flick of his wrist produces an Ace of Hearts (also red!)

Spike and Jet are also in the casino, on an elevator talking about a dream that Jet had. They hit the casino floor, and after a brief stop off with the three old codgers who we first saw in Asteroid Blues and who will pop up from time to time throughout the series, we see Faye again, now dealing at a blackjack table. She produces a blackjack hand with the Queen of Diamonds and the Ace of Hearts, two red cards. Spike starts playing at her table, and starts winning. We get something of a dream sequence as Spike gazes at her and we flip between a bunch of quick shots of slot reels and roulette wheels spinning. We then flashback to Faye's meeting with the mysterious well-dressed man. He explains that all she has to do is wait for her "target" to arrive, who will lose all of his chips and give his last one to her as a tip, which she is to deliver to this man. Spike ends up losing everything he's won except his last chip, and decides to "keep it as a souvenir." Thinking him to be the target going back on the deal, Faye runs off after him. The actual target, not sure what just happens, runs off as well. While leaving, Spike turns around to see someone winning a slots jackpot, and runs into the target, causing both of them to drop their chips. They end up picking up each other's chips. Faye finds Spike and tells him that he's ruining the deal. Spike reveals that he noticed she was cheating the entire game, and swallows his (or actually the target's chip). Spike gets into a tussle with a bunch of security guards, much to the chagrin of Jet, while Faye remotely activates her ship. The casino execs put a price on Faye's head, as Faye gets captured by Spike and Jet on her way out and they lock her up in the Bebop's bathroom.

Jet analyzes Spike's chip and finds that there's a chip (the computer kind) hidden within the chip (the poker kind). This leads us in to another exciting episode of "Big Shots: The Bounty Hunters!" Faye managed to get herself on the show. Faye contacts Gordon--the head casino guy--with some sort of transmitter disguised as a lip gloss container and tells him that her captors have the chip. Spike and Jet decide that they're doing to turn in Faye for the 6 million wulong reward, which Faye decides is somewhat low-balling her worth. Gordon contacts Jet, and Jet reveals that he knows the chip-within-a-chip is a sort of master decryption key that the police misplaced some time ago and have been looking for ever since. Spike gets into a space suit, with boots that can apparently latch onto the side of a ship at the push of a button, and in a cool little sequence floats his way over to the ship with the casino brass. The deal is that Spike is going to flip them the chip at the same time they're going to flip a briefcase full of 30 million wulongs to Spike. Unsurprisingly, this is not actually how they're planning on having it go down in reality. A casino lackey opens fire on Spike, but mistimes it so his shots hit a rotating mechanism going around the outside of the ship. By the time its rotated past them again, Spike is gone floating upwards again. Faye meanwhile has picked her locks and escapes in her ship. Spike catches the chip, while Faye snatches the briefcase with a detachable claw. Team Casino opens file on Faye, but come closer to shooting Spike than her ship and end up getting blown up with one of their own missiles. At the end of the episode, Spike and Jet are walking into the casino again, musing that all the chip is good for now is one bet. Its another ending where the Bebop crew are surviving, but not thriving, such is their plight. Spike turns around watches Faye zoom off in the distance, looking from far away a bit like a shooting star.

The main purpose of this episode is to introduce Faye as the female lead of the series, but its a fun episode on its own merits. The shootout in space is a creative twist on your standard wild west-style showdown. Up next, we meet the eco-terrorists led by a crazy woman who reminds me vaguely of Mom from Futurama in Gateway Shuffle.