branchandroot

When She Drives

The story of Spike, Julia and Vicious runs through the show intermittently, but the episodes that deal directly with them are some of the most powerful.

Freeze Frame

I’ve seen speculation about just what happened among them, but none of us are justified in saying we know much for sure. All we get are flashback scenes, most certainly not in chronological order. Let us go through this in detail. I will color code the scene descriptions to match the colors they’re given in memory, because I think those are significant. Bluish-gray is medium blue, purplish is purple, sepia is sepia, gray is gray (with occasional red items indicated in red) and the shots of Spike’s eye which are in normal color are left plain text.

As Spike falls through the window, in “Ballad of Fallen Angels” we get the following shots:

1. Grenade rolling on the floor

2. Vicious looking over shoulder, wide-eyed

3. Spike falling amid shards of window

4. Shards above him

5. His left eye

6. Julia in a window

7. Left eye

8. Julia in a kitchen with empty vase holder and fish sculpture at the window

9. Spike falling

10. Shards

11. Puddle reflecting Spike walking

12. A gun firing from a bunch of roses

13. A shootout in a cathedral

14. Eye

15. Shards

16. Gray rose in a puddle

17. Julia’s table: vase with roses, fish sculpture, bullet cases, detonators, blood

18. Fall

19. Cathedral shootout: guy falls by candles

20. Spike’s face lit by muzzle flash

21. Guns shooting

22. Shards

23. Eye

24. Cross without Vicious’ bird on it (previously shown perched there)

25. Hotel sign

26. Hands tearing up paper by the fish sculpture

27. Hotel sign and Spike’s head

28. Julia releasing paper scraps

29. Spike leaning on the wall under the sign

30. Paper scraps falling

31. Eye (reflecting shards that look a lot like scraps)

32. Shards (ditto)

33. Spike and Vicious back to back in a fight

34. Same setting: Spike and Vicious sharing a smile over their shoulders

35. Shards

36. A pool hall: Spike, some guy, Vicious shooting, Julia (in leather)

37. Same setting: Julia looking around

38. Rose in puddle

39. Eye

40. Spike leaning on wall, taking cigarette out

41. A gun held to Julia’s head

42. Spike’s feet walk away from lots of cigarette butts

43. Spike’s back, walking with a bunch of roses

44. Shards

45. Shootout, gunfire everywhere

46. A gun firing

47. Vicious sitting up in bed, looking at Julia lying next to him

48. Eye

49. Spike’s eye widens

50. Spike shot, blood showing through hand over his gut

51. Machine gun firing

52. Shards

53. Bloody hand primes grenade

54. Spike grins, blood running down his face

55. Rose in puddle (shot closing in on rose)

56. Eye

57. Cathedral window Spike has been shoved through explodes out

58. Shards

59. Window exploding

60. Eye

61. Fuzzy: viewpoint staggering down street, Julia comes out of door

62. Spike falling over on sidewalk, fade to black

63. Julia humming, Spike bandaged on bed, asks her to sing for him, she smiles

64. The same tune is being hummed; Spike comes out of black to find Faye beside him

Once it’s all color coded it kind of jumps out at you. Purple is Spike in the present. The blueish shots also appear to be present time, though I have no explanation for the difference in shading besides the fact that those shots are inside and therefore darker. Sepia marks the memories from Spike’s past that are particularly associated with either Vicious or Julia, positive ones for the most part: Spike fighting beside Vicious, playing pool with him, Julia’s apartment, Spike coming to or at least coming across Julia for help after he’s shot. Sepia also, of course, marks Vicious in bed with Julia and holding a gun on Julia, though we don’t find out until later that it’s him who’s holding it in that shot.

Conversely, while gray marks the shootout in the cathedral, it also marks Julia tearing up the note that we later find Spike gave her when he asked her to flee the syndicate with him. Gray, then, seems to be the color for extremely unpleasant memories or moments of despair. Note that Vicious being with Julia and even threatening Julia are not coded gray; that situation doesn’t go gray until it results in Julia tearing up Spike’s running-away offer. What, precisely, was horrible about the cathedral fight we never do find out. I can speculate a bit, though, based on the parallels we’re offered.

Vicious bids Spike to a cathedral to fetch Faye. In the process of their confrontation, Spike is shot in the gut, just as he was in the previous cathedral-fight. Also in both cases, Spike appears to end the match with a grenade. The falling shards of glass are visually paralleled with the shreds of the note Spike gave Julia. Even this early, we get the feeling that this represented her refusal of Spike (juxtaposed as it is with him walking away in the gray rain), and later this is confirmed; it is likewise confirmed that Vicious was the one who pressured her into this refusal. After both confrontations, Spike comes out of unconsciousness to see a woman sitting by him humming; in the first case it’s Julia, in the second it’s Faye. This is one of several instances in which Faye and Julia are paralleled.

From these I speculate that the cathedral was the same one in both cases. Further, the present day confrontation involves Spike being hunted by someone he once trusted and worked with. Note the lyric that Spike’s walk to the cathedral, present time, ends with: “Is it here that I belong?” I suggest that we are intended to draw the conclusion that the first confrontation involved something similar, possibly even something similarly arranged by Vicious using the lever of Spike’s woman-friend. Certainly, all these parallels imply that the first cathedral scene involved some element in Red Dragon coming after Spike. “The Real Folk Blues” supports this, as we finally get a whole scene memory from Julia of Vicious pointing the gun at her. She asks whether he intends to kill “him” (Spike) and Vicious answers that he does…with Julia’s hands, and lays the gun on her table. At the beginning of Part Two, Julia tells Spike “it was raining that day too. I was supposed to kill you that day.” This suggests that the day Vicious told Julia she could kill Spike or die with him, the day Julia tore up the note and the day Spike was shot in the cathedral may be the same. The color parallel between roses and blood indicates that the situation, whatever it was, touched something vital. Roses and blood are some of the strongest symbols (in Western culture, certainly, and I suspect in Asian culture if only by assimilation) of passion and life/death, respectively.

In crisis, in the midst of a desperate, gray situation, passion and death, life and death, become the same thing. Is it any wonder that Spike says, toward the end of everything, that he’s revisiting this conflict to see whether he’s still alive? More on that in The End: Luck of the Draw.

The Absent Presence

Given the authors’ taste for irony, I’m inclined to think that Spike’s greeting to Vicious on Callisto is loaded. “Are you dating Julia behind my back?” Spike says. The implication, of course, is that Vicious has been making use of Julia’s name without right. That tendency to irony inclines me to think that this is a reversal, possibly even a quote of something Vicious once said to Spike. On top of the shot from “Ballad” of Vicious and Julia in bed this gives us a hint, though no more than a hint, that Julia was initially Vicious’ lover. Regardless of how that shook down, though, we are left with the question: what kind of woman would get involved with both Vicious and Spike?

We see exceptionally little of Julia herself during this story. The only way to estimate her character at all is to triangulate between Spike and Vicious. “Ballad” and “Jupiter Jazz” are the episodes that show us the most about Vicious’ character.

Clearly, Vicious is both ambitious and ruthless. He kills Mao Yenrai, who from what Spike says is not simply his boss but someone who saved his life and possibly his sponsor, simply because the older man is relying on diplomacy and cooperation to promote Red Dragon instead of trying to kill anyone who gets in his way. Vicious says that Mao is “a beast who’s lost his teeth.” Vicious seems to put great store in teeth. Vicious is also a very good manipulator himself. “Ballad” is the place we first get the impression that Vicious, at least, is aware of Spike and knows that Spike is working as a bounty hunter. Jet points out that the bounty placed on Mao is obviously a trap since the man is dead already. Given that the explosion that kills the other syndicate head and thus sets this trap coincides with Vicious’ killing of Mao, I’d say the odds are good that Vicious set up the whole thing start to finish. So he has two agendas working at the same time here: kill the toothless, and get Spike. Specifically, get Spike to come to him in a very pissed off mood.

“Jupiter Jazz” shows Vicious continuing both of these agendas. He clearly wants to do away with the Van. He even feels Lin out about helping with a take over. He starts with the admonition, “If you want to survive you must betray me at times.” Vicious’ personal code, that. Lin insists, “No, never. That would go against the will of the Van.” Predictably Vicious snips “such old fashioned thinking makes me nauseated. Those damn corpses.” Here we have Vicious’ first hint that he considers the Van toothless and wants to get rid of them too. Lin plays dense: “I will protect you for the honor of the Red Dragon,” he declaims, totally avoiding the issue of leadership. “Honor hm?” Vicious asks, rather contemplatively. “Then it’s up to me to slaughter them all.” While Vicious is clearly setting up for his coup, though, he also seems to be continuing his game of luring Spike. Using Julia’s name as the code for his drug deal resembles the set up with a bounty on Mao–and one does have to wonder just how it happens that the Bebop crew always find themselves in possession of these leads.

I should point out that Lin is playing a pretty deep game of his own, here. I suspect he also knows Spike is alive, which may or may not indicate that he is or was one of Vicious’ party. But he certainly comes along on a deal set up to draw Spike in once again prepared with a trank gun. I read this as an effort to protect Spike while still fulfilling his duty to protect Vicious. You see, I don’t think Vicious knows that Lin shot Spike with a trank; Vicious certainly seems shocked when Spike overflies his little discussion with Gren. On the other hand, Spike is equally shocked when Lin, who sounds to have been one of Spike’s own back when, steps in front of his gun to shield Vicious. I think this double game is what Vicious means when he warns Shin not to follow in his brother’s footsteps (25).

Lin is the one who shows us that, not only does Vicious not feel any particular loyalty to others, he also denies that others should feel any loyalty to him. When Gren says that he believed in Vicious, Vicious tells him “There is nothing to believe; and there is no need to believe.” This seems to decide Gren, who fires on Vicious, leading to Lin throwing himself in front of Vicious again. This time he takes a fatal shot. As Spike interrupts, and Gren heads for his own flier, Vicious looks down at Lin’s body and says “In this world there is nothing to believe in.” When Spike yells that “Lin’s soul won’t be saved since he lost his life to protect someone like you,” Vicious shoots back “It wasn’t me he was protecting. He protected the rules!” Vicious seems rather uncomfortable with the idea that Lin would have died to protect him, personally.

Again, we can only speculate, but I believe that one reason for this is that Vicious did have a relationship of mutual loyalty in the past–with Spike. We have some indications to this effect in the flashbacks, both in “Ballad” and in “Jazz.” The flashbacks in “Jazz” also have voice overs (with a nice echo) to add an extra layer of meaning. While Spike is unconscious, this is what he recalls. (Color coding same as above, with a rather bilious green added for eye-installation scenes and a gray-green for the scenes which have not become sepia but have lightened from flat gray.)

Vicious: I’m the only one that can keep you alive. And I’m the only one that can kill you.

Rose in puddle

Julia’s table with rose, shells, blood

shoot out in cathedral as Spike is shot

Spike and Vicious back to back

Spike: I’m only watching a dream that I never awakened from.

bubbles

Julia in window

Julia: It’s like I am watching a dream.

Spike walking away from hotel in the rain with roses

Vicious: Be careful when you’re with that woman.

Vicious and Julia in bed

Julia in leather, turning

Julia: Women are all liars.

doctors leaning down

doctors working on Spike

Julia leaning over injured Spike

Spike: When this is over, I’m getting out of all this.

Town roof-scape, pan down to Spike leaning on hotel wall

Spike: And then…will you come with me?

Julia’s kitchen with glass fish and empty vase holder

Spike firing through roses in cathedral shoot out

Vicious: Are you going to betray me?

gun held to Julia’s head

hands tearing paper by glass fish

Julia: They’re going to kill you

Julia letting shreds of paper fall

Faye when Spike wakes at end of “Ballad” [color but faded]

Faye: Oh, you’re finally up. You’ve slept too much. It’s been three days.

Spike falling with cathedral window shards around him

Julia: Your left eye and right eye are different colors.

Spike: My left eye sees the past.

mechanical eye

rose in puddle

Julia: Then what about your right eye?

fade to black and open on Callisto (with right eye)

This sequence is a study in painful contrasts, starting with Vicious’ statement that he is the one who can both keep Spike alive and kill him. Vicious saying to be careful around Julia, Vicious and Julia in bed, and Julia turning from the table where Spike and Vicious are playing pool, Julia saying women are liars. The doctors leaning over Spike, and Julia leaning over Spike. Julia tearing up Spike’s note/invitation, and Faye being there when he wakes up. Spike asking Julia to run with him, and then Vicious asking whether an unspecified “you” will betray him.

This episode is also the one in which Vicious says that Spike was the one who left people out of the loop. Most people have concluded that these vignettes add up to Julia having been Vicious’ lover and then having been Spike’s, possibly without either of them pausing to inform Vicious of this development. With the addition of Spike’s sepia memory sequence as he flies off to his final confrontation with Vicious (Julia at the pool hall, Spike himself looking stunned by her, Spike and Vicious back to back, Spike in bed with Julia) I’m inclined to agree. The impression I get from these sequences, though, is not simply that Vicious felt Julia betrayed him. He seems to know she’s…volatile, and I assume that it’s Spike he’s warning to be careful when he’s with her. I suspect that he looked at the situation equally as one in which Spike betrayed him. Note that shots of Spike and Julia flank his question about betrayal. And, despite the fact that it’s Julia he asked that question of (25), it’s not Julia he’s spending all his energy trying to lure and fight with. It’s Spike. The fact that we don’t see Vicious definitely trying to kill Spike until Spike tries to leave the syndicate says to me that Vicious saw leaving as a more serious betrayal than sleeping with Julia. I just can’t believe the color coding of the scene of Vicious and Julia in bed was an accident: it’s sepia, the color of generally positive memories. Spike, at least, does not seem to have minded at any point that Vicious and Julia were lovers–no jealousy appears regarding her until “Jazz” when they snipe at each other about going behind each other’s backs. My somewhat loosely based intuition is that the friendship between Spike and Vicious would have stood any contention over Julia if Spike had not sought to leave–without Vicious. Then too, the vehemence with which Vicious has now denied loyalty and embraced betrayal as the ground state of humanity suggests to me that he once felt the opposite with equal passion.

In his own way, Spike has made an equally drastic alteration in himself. The End: Luck of the Draw talks about how he’s detached himself from his life in an effort to detach himself from his past, which nevertheless refuses to release him. In some ways that action strikes me as very similar to the about-face Vicious seems to have made. Vicious suggests, in “Ballad” that he and Spike are very much alike, both beasts, predators. The repeating shot of them back to back in a shoot out, and then turning identical grins over their shoulders at each other suggests that they have always been alike (happily so, as denoted by the sepia color).

So I would hazard that Julia is attracted to passion. Spike’s characterization of her as truly alive says to me that Julia is passionate herself, and the end of this story (see Luck of the Draw) equates life to action and a willingness to risk. Faye’s remark that she’s the kind of woman you can’t leave alone suggests that Julia has her own share of charisma. Faye also notes, though, that Julia is a beautiful but normal woman. She’s a good driver, a good shot, smart and clear-eyed enough to judge the people around her, witness her surety that Vicious put a transmitter in the music box he gave to Gren. She shares Spike’s belief in loyalty, witness her willingness to come with him and try to take down Vicious after Annie’s death. She’s cool-headed enough, apparently, to realize that Vicious will use her as a stalking horse and stay away from Spike even after she flees the syndicate herself. But she’s not a superwoman or some kind of siren.

What she is is remarkably like both Spike and Vicious.

No wonder they were all such trouble for each other.

The soundtrack for this page is off the album Labyrinth by Skyedance, a group of solo artists who all got together to do Gaelic stuff and do it exceedingly well.