While Spike and Jet are sitting in a bar, they're attacked in force by hitmen. Although Jet is wounded in the leg, they escape with the help of Shin, a disgruntled member of the Red Dragon Syndicate. Shin explains that Vicious attempted to usurp power from the leaders of the syndicate, and they're now purging all of his former associates. Meanwhile, Faye encounters Julia, Spike's old flame who is also being targeted by the syndicate. She asks Faye to relay a message to Spike, saying that she'll be waiting. As Spike and Julia reunite, Vicious escapes his execution and assassinates the Red Dragon's leaders, taking over the syndicate. After Julia is killed, Spike heads to the Red Dragon's headquarters for the final confrontation.
This episode finally reveals this mysterious part of Spike's backstory through flashbacks: Spike and Vicious were both enforcers for the Red Dragons. When Spike had an affair with Julia, who was in a relationship with Vicious, he wanted to elope with her and leave the syndicate. As the syndicates don't allow their members to leave, Spike got into a shootout at an old church, in which he faked his own death and planned to rendezvous with Julia afterwards. However, Julia never showed, as Vicious had learned of her plan and told her to kill Spike or else he'd kill them both, after which she went into hiding.
There's a lot of action in both parts. The first part has the aforementioned shootout in the bar, along with a car chase as Faye helps Julia elude her assassins, and a space battle pitting the Swordfish and Red Tail against syndicate gunships. The second act features Spike and Julia having a running gun battle across rooftops, before loading himself up with guns and explosives and storming the syndicate's headquarters.
In addition to the action, we also get a fair bit of drama, and not just through the flashbacks. My favourite scene takes place just before the final confrontation; Spike returns to the Bebop and re-unites with Jet, who cooks him a meal. Spike tells a fable, and claims he hates it because it features cats, and he and Jet share a laugh. It's one of the few times I've seen them do this, and there's the underlying fact that Spike's upcoming battle is his fight and he's doing it alone. It may be the last time they see each other again.
This is probably one of the strongest episodes in terms of drama, and a great ending.
Bang.
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