Blue Rose: a Cowboy Bebop Fansite

In my opinion, Jupiter Jazz parts one and two have much similarty to The Real Folk Blues parts one and two. There is some foreshadowing here, similarities are drawn between Spike and Gren, but there is also a turning point in the plot after Spike talks to Gren.

This story begins with Vicious before the elders, quite similar to the opening of The Real Folk Blues. They send him and Lin on a mission, but not before making a few comments into his character. "Your heart is colder than a snake's skin." And then they remind him, "A snake cannot eat a dragon." Already the elders know that Vicious is plotting against them, and are trying to keep what little power they hold over him. Vicious complies to their orders for the time.

Things on the Bebop are looking down. Faye took off with the money in the safe and emptied the ship of it's anti-freeze so the climate is now very hot. I find it interesting that they contrast the coldness of Blue Crow with the heat in the Bebop.

Ed looks for Faye, but finds out instead about a mission that is codename Julia. Spike flips out. He knows that he has to go look for her because he is driven by some inward force, which quite frankly led to his demise, and he should have just ignored it and moved on. But such is life, and letting go of the past, especially of a person than you loved, is much easier said than done. So Spike gets in his ship and tells Jet, "I'm gonna look for my woman. You look for the other woman."

Jet is upset that Spike is leaving. He overreacts and threatens not to let Spike back on the Bebop. Either Spike knew that Jet was just angry, or he thought that he would find Julia and did not really mind if he never saw Jet again. Personally, I think it was both. If Spike ever found Julia, he would leave Jet in a heartbeat and go off into a new life with her. But Spike was not abandoning Jet, he was leaving him with Faye, Ed, and Ein, and he knew that Jet would welcome his company if he were to come back. This scene foreshadows The Real Folk Blues when Spike goes off to search for Julia again and leaves Jet alone.

Meanwhile, Faye is sitting in a bar on Blue Crow and is listening to Gren play the saxophone. She sneezes, since she is obviously sick, and Gren tells her to take care. If someone doesn't say take care when you sneeze, he explains, they will turn into a fairy. "I'm already a fairy." Faye states plainly. She intrigues Gren, refusing his coat and help as she walks away. Later on in the street, Gren helps Faye escape from men that she wanted to beat up anyway. Gren was lonely, and knew he was going to die soon, and he wanted to help Faye and also help himself. I think they needed each other that night. Both of them were lonely. As they share vodka, she explains to him why she left her comrades. "I'm alone, I don't want comrades, and it's not worth having any...it's better to be alone in your solitude." Gren understood that she was afraid of them leaving her, so she left first. She pretended that was not the real reason she left, but they both knew it was true. All right, I stopped analyzing and starting summarizing there, but I really enjoy that scene. I think it also gives us insight into Faye's character. Faye has the misfortune of meeting men who always hurt her emotionally. She brushes it off, and acts tough in front of the world, but Gren was one of the few, if not the only, person who saw through her front. He saw that she was like him in some ways, in many ways, and he understood her need for a human connection.

At the end of the episode, Spike is shot by Lin, his once friend. I believe that they were friends because Lin once took orders from Spike. His loyalty lay with the syndicate, unfortunately. Spike hesitated to shoot Lin to get to Vicious. Spike should have, but then he would have taken an "innocent" life. Lin ended up making the first move, shooting him, and at the end of this episode the audience is left wondering if Spike is alive or not. TO BE CONTINUED.