A Cowboy Bebop Ranking

1. 20 "Pierrot le Fou": Part noir, part horror, all nightmare; welcome to the madhouse.
2. 18 "Speak Like a Child": A mediation on the image, analog, treasure, the past, and our characters. Plus, best pre-title-card sequence.
3. 06 "Sympathy for the Devil": Beyond life and death; the blues have rarely been blown stronger.
4. 25 "The Real Folk Blues (Part 1)": As lyrical as the beginning of the end can get.
5. 04 "Gateway Shuffle": The ideal for character dynamics, over the top bounty of the week, etc.
6. 05 "Ballad of Fallen Angels": Heroic bloodshed, with about as much sadness.
7. 14 "Bohemian Rhapsody": More than two people are playing in this chess game.
8. 26 "The Real Folk Blues (Part 1)": The end; if it pulls one too many punches, it does so gently.
9. 23 "Brain Scratch": Incredibly daring conceptually, and it pulls it off spectacularly.
10. 11 "Toys in the Attic": Endlessly amusing, and more than a little creepy.
11. 24 "Hard Luck Women": If this wasn't uneven this could be the best; pure bittersweet emotion with some of the best (vocal!) music choices.
12. 13 "Jupiter Jazz (Part 2)": An uncommon kind of humanism for Cowboy Bebop.
13. 03 "Honky Tonk Women": Pure flash and style.
14. 01 "Asteroid Blues": The first, and still one of the most iconic to me; doesn't hurt that it's genuinely emotional.
15. 02 "Stray Dog Strut": A great deal of fun, and Ein is extremely cute.
16. 12 "Jupiter Jazz (Part 1)": A tad bit too much setup but Gren might have been formative.
17. 10 "Ganymede Elegy": Moreso the blues, and all the better for it.
18. 21 "Boogie Woogie Feng Shui": Heady, but moving; also, Faye and Spike as fairy godparents.
19. 17 "Mushroom Samba": Too light but the hallucinations are among the best sequences in the show (and very cute Ein!)
20. 19 "Wild Horses": Not wild enough.
21. 16 "Black Dog Serenade": Somewhat scattered but haunting.
22. 15 "My Funny Valentine": It doesn't sing as much as it should have.
23. 09 "Jamming With Edward": A little uneven, but Ed is so fun.
24. 08 "Waltz For Venus": Rocco sorta gets on my nerves, but genuinely moving.
25. 22 "Cowboy Funk": Andy's lame.
26. 07 "Heavy Metal Queen": The first insubstantial episode, with too many lows.