Short summary
Spike unwittingly becomes the target of a freakish and nigh-invincible killer called Mad Pierrot, who has been slaughtering ISSP officials.Long summary
The episode begins on an dark night as a shadowy figure flies over a city. Down below, a car pulls up loaded with bodyguards, as an official leaves a building. Then, a portly, bearded man, dressed in a fancy suit, top hat, and clown collar, while wielding a cane, suddenly lands in front of them with a Slasher Smile on his face. The guards arm themselves as he greets them with a sinister, yet oddly cheerful "Hello, gentlemen!" before stating that he journeyed there to take their lives.
We go to Spike, who is at a pool hall playing against one of the patrons. He makes the winning shot and salutes his opponent who heads off. Spike heads outside for a smoke and strolls through an alley, presumably on his way back to the Bebop, when by chance he comes across the portly man massacring the guards one by one, before eliminating the official in the car. Once done, the man spots Spike in the alley. He greets Spike with a "Hello, boy!" before opening fire on him. Spike dodges behind a trash can and returns fire but his bullets are stopped by a force field around the man. The lunatic floats over to Spike while engaging in close range combat, and matches Spike blow for blow, also juggling him in the air with kicks. He then points his gun cane at Spike, preparing to finish him off when the sound of a cat meowing is heard. The man is driven into a frenzy, trying to kill the cat (which gets away).
Spike uses the distraction to shove a conveniently placed gas canister towards the man, then shooting it. It explodes, throwing Spike into a wall, bruised but still going. A knife appears out of the blast and hits Spike's arm. The man emerges from the flames unharmed and opens his coat to reveal an arsenal of weaponry. Spike makes a run for it as the man picks a grenade launcher and fires it toward Spike. The blast hurls Spike into a nearby river. Before the man can continue his pursuit, he hears police sirens in the distance and disappears from the scene.
The next day, Jet meets up with his police contact, Bob, to discuss the event. Bob tries dissuade him from looking further into it but Jet persists. Bob eventually reveals that the man who attacked Spike is named "Mad Pierrot". Meanwhile on the Bebop, Spike has been patched up and is resting on the couch. Faye taunts him over his recklessness (which in this case wasn't his fault) before leaving him be. Back with Bob and Jet, Bob reveals that Pierrot has been targeting ISSP directors, the latest victim being the seventh one. Up until now all of Pierrot's targets have never escaped alive, and he won't quit until they're dead. As all this goes on, Pierrot goes after another ISSP director who has bodyguards flanking him. Pierrot dispatches them with ease before leaving the director's body embedded in a chain link fence.
Sometime later that night, Ed gets a message on the laptop intended for Spike. She shows it to Faye who realizes that it's challenge from Mad Pierrot, and she decides to try to keep it secret from him: She's sure that if he takes up the challenge in his current condition Spike will be killed. But Spike, surprisingly back on his feet, manages to snatch the laptop from Ed and reads the message. He decides to head to the destination listed, a amusement park named Space Land, despite Faye's attempt to dissuade him. The park is closed for the night and all of the attractions are shut down, but as soon as Spike sets foot in the park the lights turn on and everything springs to life. Standing on the top of the statue holding the park sign, Pierrot cheerfully greets Spike before opening fire on him. Spike manages to duck into a sled ride (with an annoying cherub hologram trying to usher him back out). Pierrot finds him easily, forcing Spike to dodge the sleds, then grenades, which blow the attraction sky high.
Meanwhile Jet contacts Ed and has her hack into the ISSP database to get info on Pierrot. We cut back and forth between her hacking and Spike trying his best to fight off Pierrot. The fight leads into a roller coaster, which ends with Spike being blown into the water below. Ed, after several dead ends, manages to find the file; Section 13. Through a flashback, we see the man who would become Pierrot going through experimentation. Over time his mind began to regress until he could barely think. The scientists canceled the experiment. As he was being led to his quarantine cell, Pierrot attacked and killed everyone in the facility before escaping. Jet, reading the file, notes that Pierrot's mind is still regressing and he's more like a child now then a man.
Spike manages to crawl his way out of the waterway but is instantly bombarded by explosives. Faye comes to the rescue in her ship (to Spike's chagrin) but is quickly knocked out of the sky when Pierrot fires a missile at her, hitting a statue and causing debris to fall on her ship (though she lands unscathed). Spike, leaping out of the way of the statue, is thrown into a souvenir shop. Pierrot lands in front of him laughing, but panics when a toy cat falls from the stall and starts meowing. This triggers Pierrot's memories of his experimentation: Cats are revealed to be a traumatic influence for him, as there was a distinctive looking cat with a red eye constantly watching during the experiments. Pierrot shoots at the toy to shut it up as Spike gets to his feet and returns fire. Pierrot is unaffected and floats in front of Spike, shooting the gun out of his hand.
The two stare down one another as the park's robotic parade makes its way near them. For a few tense seconds, neither side takes their eyes off one another. Spike silently reaches for the throwing knife he was hit with earlier, hidden in his belt. Just as Pierrot looks to shoot, a reflection from Spike's eye reminds Pierrot of the cat from the experiment. The memory of his trauma causes him to briefly hesitate, allowing Spike to pull out the knife and throw it. Pierrot fires, hitting Spike in the arm. Pierrot then notices the knife is embedded in his left leg. He suddenly breaks down in tears and crumbles to the ground, calling for his mother. Spike can only watch, not sure what to make of it, as the parade passes around Pierrot. One of the giant robots crushes Pierrot under its foot, killing him.
As Spike recovers, Jet calls him with the info. Spike cuts him off, saying he doesn't need it any more, and closes the episode stating how he hates amusement parks.
See You Space Cowboy...
Tropes:
- Amusement Park of Doom: Under Pierrot's control, it quickly becomes this.
- Annoying Video Game Helper: An In-Universe example— Spike encounters one at the theme park constantly shouting "It's dangerous in here".
- Beard of Evil: Pierrot
- Big Damn Heroes: Subverted: Faye arrives in her Redtail to help Spike and give him covering fire in the final battle against Pierrot. It doesn't work (Pierrot shoots her down) but at least she tried.
- Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Pierrot blast Spike's gun out of his hand which forces the latter to use his knife.
- Blood Bath Villain Origin: When Pierrot truly snapped and escaped from the ISSP prison, he murdered every other person in the building.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: Pierrot has Spike at gunpoint in the opening scene but waits long enough for a cat to interrupt the execution.
- Bottomless Magazines: Pierrot's cane-gun doesn't even seem to have a magazine at all, yet it seems to have unlimited bullets. Just one more thing that adds to the surreal horror nature of the episode.
- Cue the Billiard Shot: The second scene of Spike playing pool at a bar is kicked off with a billiard shot.
- Darker and Edgier: Even more so than the Vicious-centered episodes. Most of the episode has little to no music and Pierrot's origin is frightening.
- Deflector Shield: Pierrot has one that makes him Immune to Bullets but not throwing knives. It manifests as rippling green light.
- Drone of Dread: A loud, eerie drone starts playing half-way through Spike's initial encounter with Pierrot, which gets more overwhelming as the action escalates. The episode as a whole in fact uses little of the show's famous score, preferring diegetic sound and atonal droning "music", which adds to the surreal atmosphere of encounters with Pierrot.
- Evil Laugh/Laughing Mad: Pierrot has these in spades.
- First Injury Reaction: Due to Spike's eye giving Pierrot a flashback he fails to raise his shield in time to stop Spike's knife from hitting his leg, likely injuring him for the first time since the experiments and causing him to break down sobbing like a baby.
- Giant Foot of Stomping: Pierrot is killed when a giant robot in an oncoming parade steps on him.
- Gone Horribly Right: Pierrot was made to be the perfect killing machine. That was a little too successful.
- Hollywood Healing: While Spike still acts wounded when he arrives at the park, afterwards he does amazing feats for somebody as injured as himself.
- Homage: The entire Session is one for Batman; this makes sense, as some of the animation staff for this show also did work on Batman: The Animated Series.
- The villain is a combination of several classic Batman villains: He has the body shape and similar dress of The Penguin, the backstory (a prisoner subjected to painful experimentation resulting in his Super-Strength) of Bane, and the vicious psychopathy of The Joker.
- In the first fight, Pierrot opens his jacket to Spike to show the kind of arsenal he packs and his coat creates an unmistakable bat silhouette against the flames behind him.
- The final confrontation even takes place in an amusement park, one of Joker's favorite places to slug it out with ol' Batsy.
- Even the fact that bullets are shown to be useless against Pierrot may be an oblique reference to Batman's famous distaste for firearms.
- Hostile Animatronics: The giant mascot robots at Space World, activated by Pierrot, give off a definite Five Nights at Freddy's vibe. Interestingly, the animatronics in question are not actively malicious, or even sentient; the problem is that there's nothing in their programming that allows them to notice when someone is standing in the path of their parade.
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I Am Not Shazam: The titular psychopath of the episode is actually named Tongpu, alias Mad Pierrot. He is never referred to as Pierrot Le Fou ... which can be translated to "Pierrot the Mad". - Kids Are Cruel: As Jet notes, the regressed Pierrot is like a child, "And there's nothing more pure and cruel than a child."
- Minor Injury Overreaction: Downplayed in the sense that a knife in the leg is perhaps not a minor injury, but Pierrot goes all out on Inelegant Blubbering and screaming for his mother when he discovers it.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Pierrot delivers one to Spike at the opening of the episode.
- No-Sell: When Spike finally gets off a few shots on Pierrot at the beginning, they get stopped by a force field of some kind, and Pierrot just grins. Still.
- No OSHA Compliance: It's no wonder that the Space World amusement park got shut down, it seems to have absolutely no safety systems at all: there are no safety rails to prevent someone from walking onto the track of a roller coaster dark ride, and the mascot robot parade simply marches forward with no concerns about anything in its path, being quite capable of crushing anyone who doesn't get out of the way in time (as Pierrot found out).
- Not So Invincible After All: Pierrot's forcefield might make him impervious to bullets, but it turns out it has a Logical Weakness, namely that is made to stop anything moving with a greater-than sound speed, but conversely it will not stop an object moving slower than sound. Perriot finds this out the hard way, when Spike in a move of desperation throws a knife at his leg.
- Out of the Inferno: Pierrot emerges unharmed from the explosion Spike caused in the opening scene.
- Outrun the Fireball: Spike has to outrun the explosion he himself caused to kill Pierrot in the opening confrontation.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Pierrot is a deadly assassin with the mentality of a child.Jet: There is nothing as both pure and cruel as a child.
- Shout-Out:
- Pierrot le Fou is one of the films of French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard, whose gangster films, including the dystopian sci-fi noir Alphaville, were an acknowledged influence on Cowboy Bebop.
- The episode itself is largely an homage to Batman, with the villain borrowing traits from members of the Dark Knight's Rogues Gallery (namely, the appearance of The Penguin, the personality of The Joker, and the backstory of Bane), and the final fight takes place in an Amusement Park of Doom — a common setting in Batman stories featuring the Joker.
- Pierrot, the original Sad Clown, is a Stock Character from the Commedia dell'Arte.
- "Mad Pierrot" and "Tong Poo" are songs by the influential Japanese Synth-Pop band Yellow Magic Orchestra.
- The electronic music that plays during the flashback depicting Pierrot's horrific experimentation and eventual bloody escape is a pastiche of Pink Floyd's "On The Run."
- Slasher Smile: Take a wild guess who.
- The Unreveal: For Spike. Jet and Ed spend the episode uncovering Mad Pierrot's true identity and background story before finally attempting to relay it to Spike. But at this point Pierrot is dead, and so Spike no longer cares who or what he is and declines to find out.
- Unwanted Assistance: Spike is none too pleased that Faye showed up to help him, most likely because he doesn't want her to end up in the crossfire.
- Villainous Breakdown: Pierrot spends his last moments crying for his mother after being stabbed in the leg.
- Walking Arsenal: Pierrot's suit coat is wall-to-wall guns and grenades. On top of his cane rifle/jetpack dealie.
- Why Did It Have To Be Cats?: Mad Pierrot is ailurophobic, a result of a cat being present during his horrible experimentation at the lab. The cat also had heterochromia, and when he notices that Spike has two different-colored eyes, it causes him to freeze up, allowing Spike to take him down.
