Adieu
"Was it all just a dream?"
Is it not interesting that the series begins with what looks like the real ending? Watanabe makes us expect the worst and wonder when the big shootout is going to happen, and when Spike will meet that strange woman he bought flowers for. But then Bebop begins and it puzzles us. It doesn't seem to be leading up to anything major. It's absolutely enjoyable, though we wonder when the plot will actually kick in. And then they fool us again by making us think that, okay, all that gloomy stuff in the first episode was in the past, another lifetime, and Spike made it out of that alive, yay.
And then he messes with our heads again by telling us that - surprise! We were right all along. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.
I still think that the first episode was an absolute masterpiece in that, if you looked at it in the right way, it tells you everything you need to know about what will happen in Cowboy Bebop. It told me that Spike faked his death, and it told me of one of the many might-have-beens in his life. But let us put that aside for the moment. I've already talked the Asimov/Katrina vs. Spike/Julia parallel to death. Instead, let us jump to Ballad of Fallen Angels. This is the first episode that truly gives us an idea that there is an overarching plot. That Vicious is not your mere criminal-of-the-week bad guy is made clear straightaway, when Mao Yen Rai speaks Spike's name with his last dying breath, puzzling us with
"If Spike were here, you would never have done this."
"This" being murdering a rival syndicate leader right at the Red Dragons' door just after a peace agreement is signed and, of course, there's slitting Mao's throat from ear to ear (or having his minions to it for him).
Now what does this mean? Was Spike such a big deal in the syndicate? I think the answer is obviously yes, further supported by yet another man's dying words - Shin's in the last episode.
"I was waiting for you to come back and take over."
Which leads me to yet another wacky theory (I have plenty). We know why the Van wanted Vicious dead - because he wanted to throw a coup - but what did Spike and Julia have to do with it? Certainly, mere association was not enough - besides, they must have pretty poor spies to not know that Spike would never help Vicious with his plans. But perhaps things were not always so. It has been said (by Annie, somewhat indirectly) that Spike was very important to Mao Yen Rai, and was probably almost like a son, or someone he was training up along with Vicious.
"Begging doesn't work on you, remember? Even if it's coming from the man who took you in and made you what you are."
So sayeth Spike to Vicious in their first meeting after three years, suggesting that Mao Yen Rai did not just bring them into the syndicate - he also practically raised them. Now, Mao seems like a peace-loving, gentle man - for someone involved in a syndicate. Perhaps he was such an oddball mafia boss that the Van did not really want him. Had the three wrinkled old men really lamented his murder, they would have descended upon Vicious much sooner. Maybe they even agreed that Mao was a "snake that had lost its fangs." Whatever the case, Mao had "created" both Spike and Vicious, and both of them had the potential to be leaders. Indeed, it may be that Mao intended them as possible challengers to the current syndicate rule. (Again, refer to Shin's dying words; I doubt that he was the only one in the entire syndicate who thought that - it would make no sense.) This would also add another layer of meaning to Vicious' question of
"Are you going to betray me?"
Perhaps Vicious was not just talking about Spike stealing Julia away or Julia letting herself be stolen, but also of something much bigger. As I mentioned in Goodnight, Julia, Vicious may have been planning a take-over (perhaps not as bloody as his actual one) as early as his twenties. It would only have been reasonable for him to expect Spike and Julia to stand by his side (or at least behind him). Spike's desire to quit the Red Dragons would then have been a deeper betrayal than simply sleeping with his girl. In fact, it was a betrayal all around - to Vicious, to the Red Dragons, even to Mao Yen Rai (who fortunately - or perhaps unfortunately - actually cared for Spike as a person).
So Vicious eventually gets to throw his first party - er, I mean, bloodbath - and officially ensconces himself in headquarters as the glorious new leader of a Syndicate (what a grand achievement for all of mankind). However, in the chaos that preceded his mad scramble for the throne, Julia dies en route to the grand Vicious vs. Spike showdown. It is at this point that Spike begins to lose his grip on reality, and Julia does not help him by saying that it was all just a dream before she dies in his arms. Julia was his last anchor to this world - the one thing that made everything seem more real and that made him feel alive, and she actually had to say that. Once again, as with the years following his first "death," Spike sees life as a dream that he badly needs to wake up from. His life has to be validated somehow; he wants to know that everything that had happened so far was true, because the death of Julia washed emotion out of his world again. Maybe, in his strange way, that was Spike's only hope. He wants to be reassured that there's something better out there, something more real than what he has. So goes off to find Vicious and "wake up."
Like in all their previous meetings, the final battle between Spike and Vicious is far from straightforward. Like every good final boss, Vicious makes the hero battle through his scores of minions, scoring wounds along the way. This may have been to emphasize that Vicious was a dirty, cheating bastard, but more likely it was to underline the idea that only Vicious can kill Spike and vice versa. In a way, they're mirror images of each other. Once Vicious had achieved his goal, he was willing to go into an all-out fight with Spike, and once Spike's beloved Julia had died, he was willing to do the same. I think neither one of them cared about their own deaths at that point (there was no reason to keep living the dream) as long as they killed the other first.
They battle, each of them inflicting an equal number of wounds upon the other. Finally, Spike gets in a really good shot and Vicious falls at last.
Happy ending? I'm sorry but Bebop defies everything until the end. Though I definitely don't want it to be so, I have to accept the fact that Spike died (although Watanabe himself has refused to flat out confirm this). He goes down the steps of the headquarters (clutching his wounds) says one last word, "Bang," and falls down flat as the first strains of Blue begin to play, birds take flight, and a star winks out of existence (blatant symbolism here).
So Bebop ends, with one crew member permanently gone. However sad it may be, it really is the best ending for the anime. Anything else would just be too lame. The bright side is that at least Spike was free of a life that had become so marred with blood and strife that he would rather think of it as a terrible nightmare that refused to end. Spike's tragedy is that he was so caught up in his past that it bound him and prevented him from seeing that his life lay before him, open, and with plenty of possibilities for happiness. That the now was real and not a dream and it could be the only life he could ever live. Whatever answers he had been looking for, I fear he found them far too late at the blade of Vicious's sword.
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