Just finished the live-action Cowboy Bebop. Hooooo, boy. Everything was going well enough until the last episode. Season 2 was definitely teased, but.. not in the way I wanted it to go down. I need to talk about it lol but I'll briefly sum up my thoughts here.
This is a retelling. The studio and their writers have taken a few creative liberties and made a few changes. Some of it makes a good amount of sense and adds a little original flair to the story. But there will be times when it's hit or miss. Thaaaat's it. If you vibe with it, you vibe with it. If not, then there's the anime to fall back on.
Spoiler rant on the last episode of Netflix's Cowboy Bebop.
So.. Everything so far was building up to the lonely climactic ending we were familiar with. In the episode before this, it was a full flashback showing all the events that happened in the past in order. I thought it was great! Episode 10 must be the ending of the whole show then?
The climax.. takes a weird turn. In the anime, the gang starts disbanding knowing things get hectic with the Syndicate, but here? It's an awkward breakup of our crew that lasts for a 10-15 minutes, but there's a bitterness behind it that feels wrong given that the crew feels even more like a family here.
The final showdown here takes a lot of liberties on the cathedral shootout scene in the anime. Julia's character as a whole has been changed a lot so far, but this episode takes it way too far. In a weird twist, she decides to want to take over the Syndicate?? It honestly comes out of nowhere. With the episode almost ending, Faye left to find her hometown, Julia's the new head, Jet refuses to be Spike's partner again after it's revealed that he used to be in the Syndicate.
And then the literal final scene, Spike's barely conscious and Ed finally shows up. Ed was mentioned in a previous episode before, but this time they showed up. Yayyyy.. This scene teases a season 2. The casting for Ed is.. passable.. for the 2 minutes we see them. The voice and performance is there, but it's as weird as you'd expect to see played by a human.. so it's hard to tell if it's purposefully weird or not. Could just be the shot they chose to film with. Either way, the timing of Ed's appearance felt missplaced. I think this should have been a post-credits scene if anything.
SO YEAH. It's an honestly baffling showcase of the studio trying to wrap things up and leave it open-ended enough for a continuation. Almost like they couldn't commit to ending it or prolonging it. I don't think they succeeded at either tbh. 8/10 adaptation, 4/10 ending of the season. Do I want that second season now? Ehhhhhh.. hard sell lol they were so close to greatness! 
