Spike and Jet are attempting to track down their next bounty, a mad bomber dubbed the Teddy Bomber. But during a stake out, Spike is attacked by an assassin sent from the Syndicate. Worried that Vicious might know he's alive, he abandons the bounty hunt to look into things using his old connections, putting a strain on his partnership with Jet. Meanwhile Vicious gains the ire of the Elders who nearly force him to kill Julia and later indeed confirms Spike is still alive.
Tropes
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Gren, Annie (named Ana here), and the Elders make their first appearance.
- Adaptational Job Change: In the anime, Annie was just a simple convenience store clerk. He she runs a classy nightclub that likewise fronts for the Syndicate (Julia used to work there as a singer). Gren works there as a maitre d'.
- Adaptational Villainy: Teddy Bomber in the anime was less a terrorist than a rogue demolitionist: he went out of his way to make sure no one really got hurt by his bombs, and was attempting to warn of the evils of Conspicuous Consumption found in a late-stage capitalism — a Well-Intentioned Extremist at worst, an Anti-Villain at best. Here, he just bombs buildings For the Evulz because he likes the halo-like blast wave that goes off when he detonates his bombs.
- Artificial Gravity: The freighter has it but doesn't seem to have any rotating parts like the Bebop does.
- Assassination Attempt: Spike gets ambushed by an assassin in the bathroom while staking out for a bounty, leading into a fight and Spike killing him. This unfortunately prevents him from going to help Jet catch Teddy, which kicks off their argument through most of the episode.
- Awful Wedded Life: Julia is revealed to be married to Vicious, but it's obviously not a happy marriage: Vicious abuses her when she argues with him about how he handled things with the Elders.
- Bathroom Brawl: Spike gets into a fight with an assassin in a bathroom of a wedding he's staking out.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: The assassin at the start attempts to kill Spike with a blade hiding in his sleeve.
- Death by Adaptation: Teddy Bomber was merely knocked out and arrested at the end of his episode in the anime. Here, Spike kills him in self defense.
- Defiant to the End: The assassin that tries to kill Spike refuses to give him anything after Spike beats him and just laughs in his face before Spike shoots him dead.
- Escape Pod: Spike and Jet find one to get them off the freighter. They're implied to be standard on most ships.
- Failed a Spot Check: Spike and Jet argue over whether Teddy's spaceship has an Escape Pod, completely missing the large luminous sign saying ESCAPE POD.
- Friendship Moment: Even though there's no need, Spike takes Jet's place on the pressure-activated Booby Trap, to prove he really does care.
- From Bad to Worse: Jet and Spike board Teddy's spaceship only for it to take off, space debris to destroy the cockpit, Jet to step on a Booby Trap and Teddy to appear holding a radio detonator and shouting incoherently.
- A Glass in the Hand: Vicious crushes a glass in his hand after Shin and Lin inform him that Spike (or Fearless as he was called in the Syndicate) is alive as he was told in the previous episode.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: Played for Laughs when Spike and Jet go to a construction site to follow a lead on Teddy. When they start arguing, the foreman notes this.Foreman: (As Spike and Jet are arguing) Hey! Hey! HEY! (Whistles to get their attention) I've seen the good cop, bad cop routine. But never the dick cop, asshole cop.
- Hard-Work Montage: Subverted; we get a montage of Jet doing a chemical analysis, reading the bomber's manifesto and pruning his bonsai tree. Later we find out the ship's computer did the analysis, while Jet only skimmed the manifesto and actually spent most of the time on his bonsai.
- Land Mine Goes "Click!": Teddy booby traps his ship with landmines to take care of intruders. Jet nearly steps on one when they're looking for him and actually does when they reach the cockpit, then has to do a Desperate Object Catch of Teddy's remote detonator without taking his foot off it. In contrast to how this trope usually runs, one of them just leaves in the escape pod to get help rather than try to defuse it.
- Nothing Up My Sleeve: Spike has Five-Second Foreshadowing that the man in a white suit who followed him into the toilet is an assassin when he sees the tip of a knife sticking out of a sleeve when he goes to wash his hands.
- Off with His Head!: Spike kills Teddy by cutting off his head with an ax.
- The Unintelligible: Teddy tries to warn our heroes to get to the escape pod before he blows up his ship, only they can't understand him as he's wearing a huge Teddy bear mask on his head.
- Schmuck Bait: When Spike and Jet discover the man supplying explosive to construction sites is called Theodore (aka Teddy), they wonder if it really is that easy. Nope.
- Shout-Out: The Bathroom Brawl fight is likely one to Mission: Impossible – Fallout which had a similar style set up and fight (just with two-on-one there rather then one v one).
- Shoot the Messenger: Discussed when Shin and Lin contemplate getting someone else to deliver the bad news that Fearless is alive.
- Shoot Your Mate: The Elders of the Syndicate discover Vicious has been dealing Red Eye behind their backs, so give him a pistol and order him to shoot Julia as a test of loyalty, even though he begs to sacrifice a finger or a hand instead. The pistol turns out to be empty. Vicious claims afterwards that he knew that due to its weight, but Julia doesn't believe him and tells him to make sure it's loaded next time.
- Stock Scream: A Wilhelm scream can be heard shortly after the stuffed bear explodes in the "Big Shot" segment.
- That Man Is Dead: When Spike leaves to get back to Jet. Ana calls him by his Syndicate name, Fearless. He retorts he just goes by Spike Spiegel nowadays.
