Pierrot Le Fou

Bloodshot brown eyes, possibly a mark of his Red Eye dependency, sit above a full dirty-gray beard that matches his unkempt hair. His wardrobe shifts across the story: he first appears bound in a strait-jacket, then dons a brown trench coat over gray clothes with jet-fitted boots, and finally, upon reaching Earthland, assembles a black pinstriped suit and top hat, painting his face with white makeup and black mascara. A magnetic bulletproof vest completes the ensemble.

He keeps the frenzied, giggling, childlike madness of his animated predecessor, but the adaptation flips his defining phobia: where the original recoiled from cats, this version is consumed by hatred and terror of dogs.

At Cherious Medical, the scientist Godard is forced at gunpoint to lead Vicious, Lin, and Shin to Le Fou's cell. Godard begs them to leave him locked away, warning that Le Fou was deliberately made addicted to Red Eye as a leash and that his time on Titan rendered him uncontrollable, but Vicious insists. Once released, the killer introduces himself as Le Fou, Pierrot Le Fou. The facility's caged dogs erupt in barking, jolting him into flashbacks of Godard's experiments. Vicious guns Godard down, earns Le Fou's thanks, and offers him all the Red Eye he wants in exchange for one job: killing Spike Spiegel.

Le Fou ambushes Spike and Jet in an alley after their trip to a bowling alley, throwing open his coat at the stroke of the thirteenth hour to reveal a hidden armory. Their bullets glance off his invisible shield as he dual-wields a shotgun and an SMG, then a grenade blows up the car they hide behind. He overpowers Spike and sets his arm ablaze with a blow torch before Jet intervenes, and only Ein's barking breaks his focus long enough for the group to slip away. Aboard the Bebop, Jet learns from Woodcock that every trace of Le Fou has been scrubbed, hinting at a powerful backer. Meanwhile Le Fou, seized by a panic attack recalling Godard's neuro-linked tests, retreats to Earthland, a place from his childhood. He hijacks Ein as a holographic projector to deliver an ultimatum: meet within two hours or he destroys the ship and its crew.

Before the showdown, Le Fou recovers Tongpu's outfit and murmurs a shortened version of Roy Batty's Tears in Rain speech from Blade Runner. Spike rides his Swordfish II to Earthland after uploading a virus that shuts down the Bebop, and the amusement park roars to life as the two clash. Spike relies on hit-and-run tactics, disarming the killer's rifle atop a merry-go-round and slicing open his suit, though Le Fou answers with a grenade launcher. Cornered in a shooting-range booth with a lone knife, Spike grabs a mechanical toy dog to rattle him and drives the blade into his leg. As Le Fou wails for his mommy, Spike triggers his jet boots and hurls him skyward, where his grenade belt slips free and detonates on the ground while Spike dives clear.