WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Cowboy Bebop, now streaming on Netflix.
Spike Spiegel and Faye Valentine are hardly the best of friends in the original Cowboy Bebop anime. In fact, they barely get along during a job and rarely tolerate each other’s presence during their downtime. The live-action adaptation by Netflix continues this dynamic but presents their interaction in a humorous way that makes for a more entertaining relationship than what’s shown in the anime.
Spike and Faye meet each other in the first episode of the live-action Cowboy Bebop, “Cowboy Gospel.” Despite pursuing different bounties, they still cross paths thanks to their bounties knowing each other: Spike is pursuing the bounty on Asimov Solensan with Faye pursuing the one on his girlfriend, Katerina Montgomery, who happens to be the daughter of the wealthy Montgomery family.
At first, Faye has no intention of fighting Spike, hoping he’ll just comply and step away so she can collect the bounty on Katerina. Spike, of course, is completely unyielding and chooses to engage Faye in a fistfight instead. Despite being a highly-skilled fighter, Spike quickly learns Faye is no amateur and is a highly talented fighter in her own right.
While Spike and Faye try to best each other in combat, both Katerina and Asimov make their escape. Having let their bounties slip through their fingers, Spike ends up capturing Faye and locking her up in the Bebop’s lavatory, just like he does in the anime episode, “Honky Tonk Women.” Faye, of course, doesn’t stay locked up, as she manages to escape and later rejoins Spike and Jet in their second attempt to capture Asimov and Caterina. None of the bounty hunters walk away with their bounties alive.
The second time Spike, Faye and Jet encounter each other is in the live-action Cowboy Bebop‘s fourth episode, “Callisto Soul.” Coincidentally, the episode adapts the fourth episode of the anime, “Gateway Shuffle” — the same episode where the three bounty hunters also encounter each other again after their first meeting in “Honky Tonk Women.” The difference is Faye actively seeks help from Spike and Jet in capturing Maria Murdock in the live-action series whereas she unwittingly runs into them in the anime. However, just like her anime counterpart, Faye offers to split the bounty on Murdock with Spike and Jet, with her getting 60 percent.
For the remainder of the Cowboy Bebop episode, Spike is far from trusting Faye, though Jet is willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. With Faye being aware of Spike’s lack of trust in her, she playfully plays up to his suspicions by “borrowing” both his Swordfish and Ein (Jet’s Welsh Corgi) to locate her own ship that was stolen by Murdock’s followers. Spike and Jet track the Swordfish to reunite with Faye at Murdock’s location and proceed to sabotage Murdock’s plans. Spike and Jet are successful in their task but it is Faye who ends up risking her life and ship to sabotage Murdock’s final attempt at launching her plan. This renders Faye unconscious for a few days with Spike looking after her in a similar fashion to Faye looking after him in the anime episode “Ballad of Fallen Angels.”
Though they didn’t capture Maria Murdock, Jet still invites Faye to stay on his ship, finding value in her as a teammate. By Cowboy Bebop Episode 5, “Dark Side Tango,” Jet asks Faye to work with Spike on capturing some bounties while he leaves to take care of some personal business from his past. It is in this episode where Spike and Faye get to spend the most time with each other and work out their differences in a humorous fashion.
When deciding on which bounties to pursue, Spike and Faye’s different priorities come to the surface. Faye focuses on capturing the bounties with the biggest payouts, while Spike prefers going after bounties that won’t get them killed. They attempt to resolve their differences in several ways, including playing different variations of rock-paper-scissors. By the time they settle on a bounty, all of the available bounties have already been captured by other bounty hunters or eliminated.
After missing out on the day’s bounties, Spike begins to question Faye’s competence as a bounty hunter by asking for proof of her previously caught bounties. After comparing each other’s scars, Faye shares how she captured her most dangerous bounty by exploiting a known weakness he had and provided an official receipt of his capture. This is enough to impress Spike and afford her some level of respect. It’s not until he follows her advice on taking a Japanese-style bath that she earns his full respect when he realizes how relaxing it is. From there, they decide to share their first beer together.
Spike and Faye continue this dynamic throughout the remainder of Cowboy Bebop Season 1, with Faye even vouching for Spike when his past with the Syndicate is discovered by Jet. She even assists Spike in his deadly encounter with Vicious, indicating that she values his friendship and enjoys having him in her life.
To see Spike and Faye’s new dynamic, Cowboy Bebop Season 1 is now streaming on Netflix.
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