Space☆Dandy Episode 8: The Lonely Pooch Planet, Baby [Recap]

The crew finds a dog, and the whole shebang starts out with an in depth look at our two favorite ne’er-do-wells, Dr. Gel and Bea, or is it Bee? Its Bea. You know, the evil space gorilla and his weird edamame looking crony, the two dudes who ride around in the ballgagged statue of liberty head space ship. I think they are part of the Gogol Empire. Also, there is one hell of a cameo. Things go from upbeat, to sad, to frantic. What is this madness? Oh right, it’s Space Dandy.

Things start out on a different note for this jam, instead of getting another look at Dandy and crew’s day to day aboard the Aloha Oe’, things get a bit more intimate on the Gogol side. The episode  opens up, with our bdsmed lady liberty drifting through the endless nothing of space. Then the scene moves into the confines of the kinky spaceship, where Dr. Gel (giant wig wearing space monkey) sits upon his golden throne, his green skinned sidekick telling him about their ships latest upgrades. A sick, intergalactic, beat playing, missile launching, turntable. Now, the turntable itself doesn’t fire the explosive projectiles, but instead launches the ship’s own salvo.

Gif by NintenDontDoDrugs/Tumblr

So, when Bea scratches one of his sick beats, the face of liberty splits open, revealing a set of highly explosive chompers that are sent streaking through the abyss. They explode, of course, in spectacular fashion. Dr. Gel starts freaking out, worrying about the collateral damage they may have caused, and the money it will cost the empire to pay the claims for said damages. Apparently, Admiral Perry is not a fan of frivolous spending. I must say, I found the interaction that followed, between Gel and the fiery floating skull of Admiral Perry to be quite delightful. Who would have thought that an overlord so seemingly evil, and powerful (He manages to spontaneously explode Gel’s ship on more than one occasion after all) would turn out to be so painfully frugal?  Not wanting to suffer the wrath of their master, Gel and Bea hit the warp drive, under the pretext of hunting Dandy and are quickly sucked through space time.

Enter the heroes, who are scouring the planet Machinia, which seems to be nothing more than a cosmic scrapheap. There seems to be little signs of alien life, registered or not, amidst the planet’s rusty terrain. But Meow can’t believe this result, quickly claiming that it was one of his free unregistered alien apps that lead him there. Despite the lack of extraterrestrial quarry, QT is overjoyed by their visit. Our lovably obsolete friend dives into the mountainous piles of junk that surround him, overjoyed by his finds. Meanwhile, Meow goes off on the hunt for food, only to find a lonely refrigerator amongst the piles of metallic waste.

Now, the show has already alluded to Space Dandy sharing the same universe as Shinichirō Watanabe's previous work, the much adored, Cowboy Bebop. Whether this is true or not, if the two series inhabit the same universe, means as much as a fart in the wind in the grand scheme of both animes. But hey, its fun to catch little easter eggs and possible connections between a director's works. And that fridge looks awfully familiar. Better yet is when our hungry feline freeloader opens the mysterious fridge and a crazy purple goo monster pops out and attacks him. Say whaaaat? That’s right. Purple. Goo. Monster.

Gif by LeSean Thomas/Tumblr

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of watching Cowboy Bebop, or just have not cared to, the purple goo monster thing makes an appearance in Bebop’s episode “Toys in The Attic”. It is the spawn of some leftover lobster that was cooked to shit and then forgotten for years inside a lonely refrigerator. Here is the breakdown. Spike cooks lobster with blowtorch. The lobster tastes like shit. Spike stuffs bad tasting lobster into the fridge. He forgets about the lobster. The lobster then spoils, and continued to spoil over years of space travel until it created some crazy alien hive thing inside the refrigerator. That hive spawned the purple goo monster, which then proceeds to terrorize the crew of the Bebop.  The purple goo goes around biting people, and poisoning them, until Spike, hero that he is, manages to roast it with his flamethrower and then  tosses the fridge out of an airlock and into the cold indiference of space. The episode then ends with Edward, crazy hacker child freeloader, eating one of, or the, not exactly sure how many there were, purple goo monster.

So yeah, Meow finds that fridge that Spike tossed out of an airlock, and is attacked by the purple goo monster. Then he eats it, to no ill effect.

The episode then turns to Dandy, who finds a dog. Not a space dog, like Meow being a beetlejuician but really a space cat, but a regular ass dog. He plays with the dog for a while, and just as he starts to warm up to the pooch, even giving it a name, Precious Upsidedown CoconutPie (Pup for short) the dog lays down. To DIE. That’s right, we are introduced to Pup only to have her die. But, before she buys the farm, Pup tells us the story of her sad existence. The loveable pooch was apparently banished from an entire world of humans, leaving her adrift in space to ponder the meaning of her lonely existence, and very much feeling like all of humanity hated her. However, she is happy she got to spend time with Dandy. Then she dies.

Our heroes are reduced to tears, and Dandy, being the dandy guy that he is, decides to build the beloved Pup a rocket coffin. That’s right. A rocket coffin. When the job is complete, they send Pup’s remains into space, paying their respects as they watch the makeshift sarcophagus ascend into the starry sky. As fitting as an end as that would have been, the episode goes on.

Gif by LeSean Thomas/Tumblr

You see, while all of this Pup drama was unfolding, there were two characters, making seemingly unrelated appearances in the episode. Two, flubber-ish looking dudes who kind of talk like generic native americans. At least, in the English Dub they do.

When we first meet the sickly green and translucent pair (we can see their bones and their heart), they are laying upon a grassy field, staring at the sun and talking about their land dying. Well, as it turns out, these dudes are space fleas. But not really. But yes really because they live on the dog. In the moment of Pup’s death, both space fleas make a jump onto Meow, and in this way, steal their way on board the Aloha Oe'. It’s not until they are aboard the Oe' that Meow manages to scratch them off. QT then catches a glimpse of them, and his alien scanner notices that they are a rare species of aliens called a graviton and gravitino, but they are known as the Le Flea brothers. Both of them end up dying, and as a result of their death, they cause the collapse of the planet Machinia.

This planetary collapse is of such great magnitude that it creates a black hole, which our heroes then try to escape. But trying gives way to simply doing, and by hitting the warp drive, our heroes manage to escape their once eminent doom.  

Gif by LeSean Thomas/Tumblr

Oh, and remember how the Gogol guys hit their warp drive earlier? Well, they finally show up, only to get sucked straight into the black hole. Talk about the crushing indifference of space. See you next week, baby.