Let’s talk about the ending of Cowboy Bebop season 1
We finally know whether or not Ed is in the live-action Cowboy Bebop, and we also have a hint about the show’s potential second season
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[Note: The following contains spoilers for season one of Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop.]
In the lead-up to the release of Netflix’s live-action Cowboy Bebop adaptation, the streaming service was very cagey about whether or not the show would find a way to include ace hacker Radical Edward. In the anime, Ed is the fourth member of the core Bebop crew and the most explicitly silly and cartoony of the group. But while her backstory is no less tragic than that of her bounty hunter friends, the fact that she isn’t constantly weighed down by her past sets her apart from the others (and makes her eventual departure all the more heartbreaking, because it reveals that they needed her more than she needed them).
Call her the comic relief character or the heart of the show—or even an annoying sidekick who occasionally distracts from the cool sci-fi bounty hunter action, if you want to be a jerk about it—but it’s hard to imagine Cowboy Bebop without Edward. She’s as much a part of it as Spike and Jet and Faye and the jazz music.
That’s what made Netflix’s refusal to definitively say “yes, she’s in it” or “no, she’s not” so strange. She is, again, very silly and it’s hard to capture either her physical appearance or her wacky noodle-armed mannerisms in live-action, so Netflix would’ve at least had a viable excuse for leaving her out. But the streaming service never actually said she wouldn’t be in the show.
So, is Edward in the show?
Yes, though it takes a while for her to pop up. A hacker named “Radical Edward” is first name-checked by Mustafa Shakir’s Jet in the show’s sixth episode (the one inspired by the anime’s “Brain Scratch”) after feeding the Bebop crew some info on a bad guy, but that’s the only reference to her until the final moments of the season finale. After having his secret criminal past exposed to Jet and facing off against his nemesis Vicious (and another villain who reveals their true nature at the last second), John Cho’s battered and bloody Spike aimlessly walks around the streets of a city before collapsing in an alley.
But before he can black out, Spike is woken up by none other than Radical Edward, played by newcomer Eden Perkins (as announced on Twitter). She has big computer-y goggles, red hair, an aggressively zany attitude, and is not wearing any shoes. In other words, for better or worse, she looks and acts just like she does in the anime for the few seconds she’s onscreen—a departure from nearly every other character, most of whom were altered in some way in the transition to live-action.
How does Ed tease a potential season two?
During her brief appearance, Ed explains to Spike that she needs his help with a bounty-hunting job. She says there’s a terrorist named Vincent Volaju who is up to something nefarious, which anime fans will recognize as the plot of Cowboy Bebop: The Movie and an obvious tease to where Netflix hopes to take the show in a potential second season. Maybe… something about a deadly virus? And a giant sci-fi Halloween parade? A cool fight on a train? That’s what happens in the movie, at least.
Who’s the surprise villain?
None other than Spike’s long-lost love and Vicious’ wife Julia. She spends the season alternating between cowering in fear of Vicious and feeding his obsessive need for power. After Spike beats him in their climactic church battle, she decides that Spike should kill Vicious and replace him as the head of The Syndicate. Then they can be evil together! Because it turns out she’s evil!
Spike refuses, presumably because this side of her comes out of nowhere and completely upends everything that everyone (including the viewer) thought they knew about her, and so she—not Vicious—is the one who knocks him out of the big cathedral window (an iconic moment from the anime).
Julia will presumably be a full-on villain if there’s another season, secretly pulling Vicious’ strings as she sets him up to be the figurehead leader of The Syndicate. That’s assuming that a second season will even happen, which is no guarantee at this point.
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Just an FYI, the actor playing Ed uses they/them pronouns, so I’m guessing the character will too?
A reasonable guess, but the tweet below quotes Eden Perkins using she/her pronouns to refer to Ed:
Why would the character be they/them? It’s a character, not the person. What’s the point of acting if we expect them to not play other people? There’s an issue in expecting authenticity from a profession that’s all about lying. Now for the actor, of course they/them is completely respectful.
In the tweet following that one there’s a quote where they use “she”, so I’m guessing not. Also, shit, do not look at the replies.
Ed is like something out of an annoying parody of a Terry Gilliam film.
So like a recent Terry Gilliam film.
I’ve been watching and re-watching CB since it was first shown on AS, and this has always been an argument that will never be solved. First of all, it was never an issue before (who cares??), and Ed was always an ambiguous kid anyway. As long as they do pair up Ed with Ein in some future episode (fingers crossed for a second series), I’ll be happy.
a hint about the show’s second season potential is yet to be found
I was very much in camp wait-and-see on this show, and even got cautiously optimistic when the trailers hit. But the actual thing is low-energy in a way that tries for cool and mostly just ends up as “slow.” The cast does a really good job, but they can’t save the forced banter. It’s quite cheap in that distinctly Netflix way, though I made peace with that early on and even found it charming at points. And then that performance at the end…yeah…
I kind of just think Perkins has an unwinnable assignment here. I couldn’t conceive of a way to adapt Edward without it feeling like a cosplayer at Comic Con stopping to do a skit in the hallway. And unfortunately, it kiiiiinda seems like they couldn’t conceive of a way, either.
It reminds me a bit of Star Wars Episode 1 in that the cast and overall look is fine, but none of the writing or plot quite hit the mark and maybe there was too much green-screen used.
There’s a large segment of people on the internet that want to see some “thing” they enjoy adapted faithfully but also aren’t self-aware enough to realize that that may be a very bad idea.Unfortunately, they’re super loud and seem to be the audience that is being listened to (for the worst).
I yearn for the day when a thing’s audience becomes sophisticated enough to distinguish between “I want more of the thing” and “I want more things that make me feel like the thing made me feel”
Dude. This. Perfectly stated.
the audience that is being listened toFan chatter is sort of beside the point. All that the executives responsible for greenlighting these things care about is eyes on the screen/making money.Netflix’s only real requirement for “original” content is that it has to be melodramatic and repetitive enough that you can kind still follow the story when it’s playing on a tiny screen in the background of your kitchen or stoned off your gourd.
It’s because the episodes are too long. I don’t know why they decided that when the show has no plots that warrant episode lengths that long.
I hate myself for watching it but it’s one of those things that demands an autopsy.
I think they could have done if they toned the character down a little, keep them energetic bouncing all over the place and weird (from the little human contact growing up) but a little quieter and less scene stealing. The appearance in the final scene of the show as a bit too loud and in your face though and while she is gangly in the anime I feel they should have gone younger to emphasize their youth, someone who looks like a child not a teenager dressed like a child.
What struck me as odd, and a bit unfair, is almost every character in the show has been altered a bit to fit the sensibilities of western audiences, yet they leave the most difficult character to portray the same. Definitely an unwinnable task.
I still don’t know how they could take such an iconic scene with the Cathedral ending and just .. suck all the life out of it at the end.
“it’s hard to imagine Cowboy Bebop without Edward.”It’s not hard for everyone. That’s how I always tried to imagine it.
you know that saying “be careful for what you wish for?” Ive never seen it illustrated with such force as with this shit. At first I thought “they cant do it without Ed, right?” Then I saw the clip, and thought “OH MY GOD, THEY REALLY SHOULD’VE DONE IT WITHOUT ED.”
You know what would’ve been better than this? If they just put Ed from the cartoon RIGHT INTO THE SHOW, like Roger Rabbit style. That would be horrible. But it would be better than this.
Since I was into anime long before it was cool *hugs Queen Emeraldas figurine* I don’t have the same attachment to Cowboy Bebop that most here do since it didn’t take my weeb virginity.So while I’d like to say that I don’t have a dog in this fight, I do. It is a corgi named Ein.
Give me a live action Galaxy Express 999 and I’ll be happy.
Or more Alita. We could always use more Alita.
Mix this shit up, I‘m just here for the music.PS: I think Eden’s gonna do just fine. Ed was a piece of shit when she was introduced, and then she progressed to “smoke smoke, Faye Faye.”
Ed almost ruined the original Cowboy Bebop for me. I love them as a character (ambiguous gender presentation was always central to their characterization), and they have a really cool arc. But I absolutely could not stand how high pitched their voice was.I know a lot of anime involves cutesy, super high pitched voices for children and young women—it’s a big part of why I tend to avoid the art form for the most part. For what it’s worth, I am similarly allergic to the high pitched voices used in many other animated movies/series, including a lot of children’s movies.But it felt especially out of place in Cowboy Bebop. I guess that just reinforces the weird tonal shifts accompanying the introduction of Ed’s character, which this article touches on.
The entire adaptation is on the level of the live-action Death Note that Netflix did. It’s that bad. Sometimes worse, like what they did with Julia and Vicious. And the Ed reveal at the end? Words don’t exist for how bad it is.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending. I think it works well enough on its own, but even though I was able to mostly not compare it to the original throughout the rest of the series, this was both a weird cliffhanger and a bit of downer. I actually think Julia’s heel turn here was perfectly understandable, but it looks weird superimposed over possibly the most iconic fight of the entire anime. I’ve been against this whole project for over a decade, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t like seeing the buildup of that fight recreated. It’s fine that they changed it, it’s just very discordant for me. And maybe it was even the best decision, since now I’m really not sure what will happen in the (extremely likely, I’d say) second season, so I won’t have the same expectations for the end as I did here.
As for Ed, it reminds me a lot of the Carnage tease at the end of Venom. They’ll probably dial it back a bit next time, but honestly I kind of hope they don’t. It didn’t come off perfect, and that first shot looks like some sort of Dr Robotnik selfie, but I think I’d rather see an Ed that matches as far as they can conceivably take her, rather than some subdued version that acts more like a real person would. None of these characters are real! Ed is super weird even compared to other extremely weird characters in it! Just let it take off and see where it lands.
To me it felt like the little bit of Ed was testing the waters…
If they get a second season and everyone hates her, they can use her sparingly for the first episode or two until her deal is dealt with, then she can go back to just sending texts. If people seem to like what they see, they can make her more of a regular.
Or, if we want to be cynical about it, they included her as a “see, in live action, you end up with this weirdness. Aren’t you glad we skipped that?” and if they get a season two, they’ll just treat that as a hallucination of Spike’s.
Come to think of it, if they wanted to split the difference and wanted to give her multiple appearances but without actually hanging out on the ship, they could just have her having hacked Ein and make her show up as a holoprojection as needed.
I thought overall the show was fine. If it weren’t named Cowboy Bebop it’d probably be received far better. Although it still wasn’t good. The Vicious arc was just way too much and could really have just been fit into like 1 or 2 episodes. I could see the show improving in season 2 as they saw what worked and what didn’t.Instead they’re gonna ruin it with Ed.
I haven’t started watching this yet (so I probably have no reason to comment), but from the reviews I’ve read it sounds like the showrunners went with the angle I had feared, which is making all of the Vicious/Spike/Julia backstory a main focus and plotting it all out.
I’m a big believer that adaptations should be their own thing if they want and shouldn’t be shackled to the original inspiration, but a big draw of Bebop’s storytelling is that the whole series “is an epilogue for a story you haven’t seen,” (as I think a Kotaku writer put it). It’s cool they are trying something new with Julia, but idk if the story of “space gangster war and betrayal” is strong enough to stand on its own in Bebop.
The sooner this garbage is forgotten the better.
The character of Ed is a human child. An odd human child, but a child. She behaves in a distinctly anime way because she is an anime character. What is the point of making a live action version of an animated series and forcing your actors to behave like cartoons? I feel like they made that choice so if it didn’t work, they could say, “what? It’s exactly like the original, there’s no pleasing you nerds” which is way easier than writing a compelling role for a human child.
I mean, it probably would actually be incredibly difficult to write a compelling role for a child working as a bounty hunter alongside three adults. Especially since when she’s not helping by hacking something, she’s always acting like a weird kid, tumbling around, singing to herself or biting people. She 100% doesn’t belong in that environment. It would be like if the news were entirely like this:Given that the scenario can’t be made realistic, you might as well lean into the cartoon. If you try to make her more like a real human child you would lose what makes her Ed, and even then it wouldn’t make sense for her to be in the story.
I think I would describe the first half of the season as “comfy.” Like not bad, not amazing, but sometimes fun, and easy enough to watch. It had the same “late night sci-fi show” vibes I expect from Bebop. The second half…man, where did the music go? Not to mention the energy.
It is very, very comfy. It felt like slipping into an old pair of jeans that still fits.
Fuck, this show’s really a dream come true for Bebop fans. Well, fans who aren’t irrational purists, anyway.
Lmao it looks like the power rangers, incredible amounts of cope
because this side of her comes out of nowhere and completely upends everything that everyone (including the viewer) thought they knew about herWere you REALLY surprised by this? I saw this heel turn coming starting about halfway through the season, and I AM familiar with the anime. Even before it was clear she was going to plot with Mao to have Vicious killed, I said to myself, “I wonder if they’re setting this up for her to be the real Big Bad, or at least the big villain of S2.” And sure enough, here we are.
Didn’t this series just get released on like Friday? why do we need to talk about the season finale already
I feel like Ed’s introduction highlights the rhythm problems the show has. For something drawing so much from the anime and the music that inspired it, it really likes to come in a few beats too late. I don’t think it’s a bad show, but it needs to work on getting a little more lively and snappy.
Ed being a nearly 1:1 live action version of the anime character when there has been varying changes to all the others is a weird decision. It almost makes sense in a way, because it’s Ed, and it’s certainly true to Ed, but it really isn’t to this show’s benefit, and it has already been struggling.Part of me wonders if Ed’s live-action performance is exaggerated in Spike’s mind, like he’s a bit delirious from what just happened and while he’s hearing everything Ed is saying, it’s going through a delirium filter so Ed comes off like they do in the anime. At the very least this could be a handwavey explanation if they decide to change course with Ed for the next season and have them act a smidge less Ed-like once Spike regains consciousness.
As someone who is only half way through the original and monitoring the headlines, I have to say it’s confusing that we’re reviewing the ending but also still waiting for Ed.
Welp, they have a year or more to work-shop the character. Ed seemed to be partly on the autism spectrum, partly doing a Bobcat Goldthwaite impression (which might be the crazy sauce that could do the trick) and partly could be chalked up to Spike’s POV tripping on liquor and pain.Julia at the end of the anime was half compromised & halfway a villain too, so I’m not surprised how this shook out. I’d actually prefer this live-action version to steer away from Spike’s inevitable tragic ending. Does it have to be inevitable? Purists are gonna scream “Blasphemy” but they’re going to scream anyway.Gen X and Millennials need to brace for Gen Z kids saying – in a couple years – that all they know is the Netflix live action version, and they’ll watch the original anime someday… when they get around to it… if ever. With that mindset, I thought this show was pretty good. Cho was great (anyone else detect a similarity to Johnny Depp’s mid-career acting style?). Anime version or no, this is still one of the best theme song & intro sequences ever in the history of TV. That’s not nothing. It’s up there with Mission: Impossible and it goes a long way to making me hooked to watch the next episode.
I love how so many people are like “Ed is an essential part of Bebop!” when she doesn’t appear until episode 9 of the original show’s 23 episode run. Yes, Ed is wonderful and I think Eden did fine, if maybe a bit much, but I also think you have to lean into that.
Mostly, I think we needed less of Julia/Vicious in the season, and more of them on random bounty hunting gigs, but I understand why the changes were made.
Ed’s intro to the live action series was straight up painful to watch. It was excruciating and I barely made it through the 10 seconds of screen time they were on. When Netflix announced the live-action version got a green light, I was excited but very specifically worried about Radical Ed. Ed works in the original anime, but only just: I acknowledge they added some comic relief and some heart but more than anything it almost felt like the original creators were checking a box: “well, it’s an anime, we need a wacky child character”. And since it is an anime, they get away with it.But what I saw in the closing seconds of the first season… did not translate. The producers (who I blame, not the actor) need to retool because I don’t think I can sit through anymore of that shit.