JeffJeff's Bizarre Adventure S03E13: You're gonna carry that weight

This is my Super Bowl :') Can't wait to hear how Jeff felt about that ending.

Obviously, huge spoilers.

I think that's the reason why the end is left unclear. He found out - but which way is up to how you felt about this whole thing. It poses the question for the viewer themselves. You're gonna carry that weight.

Bakalar and Lucy get this and Diamond is Unbreakable back to back.

Some really are actually blessed.

I appreciate the genuine discussions about the ending. I think the show's tragic themes naturally culminate to a fitting conclusion, but there is still space for personal interpretation. I like hearing about the meanings you took away from it. Jokes and tangents are fun, but deeper conversations are what makes this podcast more worthwhile for me.

I'm definitely with Jeff on the ending. I reject the thesis statement the conclusion the episode puts forward. There's no running from your past/there's no changing who you are isn't a fundamental truth. However, I've always felt that many shows can be exactly what the first 24 episodes of Cowboy Bebop are while going for a hopeful mindset instead and not losing/contradicting any of what those earlier episodes were about. A hopeful or tragic ending would have been equally valid but if you chose a tragic ending (for me) you need to earn it through each and every moment/episode. I want that perspective to be constantly validated through the tone and story. I wanted to understand anything about the syndicate or Vicious or Julia more than what they show here. But so much of it came at the show's 11th hour. Also, instead of the absence of the syndicate (Spike and friends fooling around) of much of the story being indicative/symbolic of him running away from his past it backfired and dissociated me from any of these plot elements being important or essential to understanding Spike as a character.

Even watching it a second time I struggle to make this connection even though I understand it with the perspective of knowing the end. The absence of "syndicate story" still doesn't positively translate to substance.

Also, I think I just want shows to be either episodic or serial. Trying to combine the two creates a fracture in my mind. I tend to enjoy/think about these two types of storytelling in ways that aren't always complimentary. So I just chose the type that Cowboy Bebop seemed to be mostly about: the non-syndicate episodic ones. Maybe if I could more easily digest this type of story structure I'd have a much easier time making the connection when it ended up transitioning hard into the serial storyline.

John is correct that Diamond is the best (or one of the best) JoJo arc.

I understand where Jeff's coming from. I was a bit bewildered by the ending when I first saw the show too, and it took a repeat viewing to properly process how fitted in with the overall story the show is telling (as Tam and Lucy touched on).

As Zeeman155 pointed out above, there is a noticeable gear shift between the Vicious and non-Vicious episodes. The former may be the foundation of the show, but it's the latter that makes it so memorable. Personally, I enjoy both aspects of it. It's part of why Cowboy Bebop feels so "complete" to me, for lack of a better term. You have characters jumping into new adventures while dealing with the consequences of old ones.

I've really enjoyed this side-arc! Looking forward to seeing what's up with Jojo Part 4.

I'm glad you guys finally finished this Gaiden. While I love Cowboy Bebop, at the pace of like one episode per week it felt like it went so slowly. I am a bit disappointed that there wasn't an episode for the movie, which is great.

When they talked about "surviving and living with your past/how that affects you going forward" and stuff like that as being a more interesting way to go than simply dying as a resolution to a character arc, for whatever reason, the first thing I thought of was Megalo Box. A show very much made as a sendup and homage to Ashita no Joe, a classic boxing manga/anime, where Joe, the protagonist, famously dies at the end. The entirety of Season 1 of Megalo Box is littered with red flags about how the main character (who's a nameless slum resident that adopts the name Joe) is heading straight to the grave with the path he's taking. They couldn't be more heavy handed with it. It even has Bebop-esque text at the end of each episode, with several of them saying "Not Dead Yet..." or "Still Not Dead..." or something along those lines. Yet, at the end of it, Joe doesn't die. It's not exactly a happy ending, but it's so much more optimistic than the series had been leading you to believe it was going to be.

Cut to the beginning of season 2: Joe's lost contact with everyone he knew from season 1, is addicted to really low quality painkillers, is boxing on an underground circuit to no fans (after reaching the height of the sport in season 1) and is in general just a complete disaster. The first few episodes are about getting him back to a place where he can go back and face the people he left behind and resolve everything that happened between seasons, and I really loved it how it handled "life moves on" as a theme. Season 1 of Megalo Box is... fine. It's got a fun mini-arc in the middle about a former student of Joe's current second, but the main thrust of the plot at the start and end is a little middling, and felt kind of rushed. But season 2 wouldn't be nearly as good as it is if season 1 didn't happen and if it didn't end the way it did.

Anyway, Cowboy Bebop is great. It's basically Spike's season 2, in the best way.