Adios, Cowboy – Arc 1 – Day 13

Today we welcome the ides of April for 2018 and the second day of the Ontario Ice Storm of 2018. This leads me to believe that the date is not April 15th but rather February 74th. Without leaning too hard into the stereotype of Canadians always complaining about the weather, I will say this is getting a bit silly. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if ten days from now I were pissing and moaning about 100% humidity making it feel like it is 35°C.

Welcome to Canada: where we can always complain about the weather in at least two languages.

The review of episode six proved more interesting than I thought it would. After a second screening of Sympathy for the Devil, I found myself thinking about how a show that wants to reject conventions of space opera might not be beneath lying to its audience. What deeper game is the writing playing when it suddenly takes a turn toward the pointlessly expository? Then again, maybe there isn’t a game. Maybe it was just an experimental episode gone wrong. Time will tell.

Today I also learnt that calling a harmonica a “blues harp” is not an odd piece of translation on the part of Cowboy Bebop. The common “richter-tuned” harmonica is properly called a blues harp. This is apparently a known thing among those even remotely initiated into musical performance.

And now for something that is either going to make me seem like a genius or an over-reading idiot when the time comes.

Episode six gave me reason to suspect Spike is some sort of artificial person or Replicant a la Blade Runner. Episode seven introduces a bounty hunter called Decker. Perhaps this is an ironic reference to Commander Decker in Star Trek: TMP. Or maybe it’s a Blade Runner reference, as Decker sounds a lot like Deckard when said aloud. In such a circumstance, I may be on to something. I mean, probably not. But I’ll put this idea on the line as groundwork for what may prove to be a righteous invocation of the Homer Simpson, “I am so smart” gif.