- NOTE: This article is about the incarnation of Vicious from the 2021 live-action Cowboy Bebop series. The mainstream version can be found here: Vicious (Cowboy Bebop).
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Vicious is the main antagonist of the 2021 Netflix live-action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop. Like the original incarnation, he was a powerful figure within the Red Dragon Crime Syndicate that sought to assassinate the ruling cabal, the Van, and the former best friend and now archenemy of the series' protagonist, Spike Spiegel. Unlike the original anime, this version is also the son of one of the Elders, Caliban, and is married to Julia, and is much more hot-headed and impulsive, but remains no less dangerous.
He is portrayed by Alex Hassell.
Personality[]
Vicious is cruel, egotistical and has childish tendencies. He is used to having things handed to him - for example he only got to a high ranking position thanks to his father's connections.
He is also abusive to his wife, Julia, and his maltreatment of her seems to be what inspired her to betray him and have an affair with Spike, as well as overthrow the Syndicate with her as the leader.
Biography[]
"Vicious" is the son of Caliban, one of the three de-facto rulers of the Red Dragon Syndicate. He and and his mother were abused by his father, to which Vicious breaks down having to live up to his father's insanely high expectations who demanded nothing but perfection and chastising him for showing weakness, as Caliban intends to make him just as ruthless and vile as he is. Caliban even sends the dude to the Pits where young children are forced to fight each other for food and shelter, with Caliban's partner Lucky shocked Caliban would send his so to a place that resulted in several bodies of young boys. This is where he met Fearless, who became his blood brother and best friend, and the pitbulls began Vicious' fall into a ruthless sociopath. What cemented his fall to the dark side was when Caliban forced him to watch his mother jump off a rooftop to her death and being mocked by him as a weakling when he cries witnessing it, having obviously missed his mother that he is still visibly shaken by it when he meets her in another plane of existence.
Eventually wanting to join the Red Dragon Syndicate with Fearless, unaware his father was one of its leaders, they becomes "janitors" cleaning up Syndicate crime and murder scenes and placed under the care of a secretly treacherous capo called Dodd, who will want Vicious dead for vengeance against Caliban for killing his son to deal with a rival gang. Vicious eventually finds out his father is the head of the Syndicate, after dealing and finishing off Dodd, goes under the care of Stax for his rise and earn the approval of his father, and whose hotheaded nature also puts him at odds in rising. Under his time under Stax on a bar where he met Julia and start dating her. However, love for Julia is superficial and distant.
Stax then wants Vicious and Fearless to deal with a negotiation with the Neptune Cartel, which broke down when Vicious felt one of the cartle members insults him and the Syndicate. Prefers drowning in his sorrows rather than dancing with her unlike Fearless, how distant Vicious is can be seen. He then sees the member of the Neptune cartle member that insulted him, having him tortured in the most gruesome of ways before setting him on fire, nearly triggering a gang war as a result. Knowing a hit would be ordered on him as a result of this, he opens up to Fearless on seeing his mother's suicide and how this was all similar to this, to which Fearless covers his back by wiping out the Neptune Cartel. When Caliban sees Vicious in the morning and showers him with fraise for it, Vicious falsely tries to take credit for it to which Caliban immediately chastises him for being a liar as he reveals Fearless and Julia's affair and he has to prove himself by punishing them. And that he does by tracking down Fearless and seemingly kill him while keeping Julia for himself, forcing her to an unhappy marriage and regularly abuse her. Eventually, as the Syndicate decides to open a floodgate of Red Eye, Vicious intends to start an entire Red Eye trafficking system behind the Syndicate's back.
Vicious makes his formal debut having been informed that Fearless is alive and killed most of the mercenaries sent to deal with Asimov Solensan, to which Vicious kills the mook who informed him. His Red Eye operation was found out, so he has to be delivered to the Van for his punishment to which he was ordered by to pull the trigger on Julia, which he follows through despite initial hesitations. As it turns out the gun was unloaded, Caliban assures the gun will be loaded the next time. Julia was upset by this while Vicious tries justifying it, to which he chokes her for calling him out for not being man enough to stand up for himself, Vicious decides to deal with the Red Eye factory manufacturing the drug for his operations, closing it temporarily by killing off all the workers. As he exits the factory, he then gets a call from Fearless, now called Spike Spiegal, who shoots him past the window of his bullet-proof car, much to his anger.
He then plans for to overthrow his father and the Van, offering a proposition to Mao Yenrai on giving her 2% extra power as the new members of the Van along with Santiago who demanded 3%. Vicious' pride and frustrations nearly break down the deal both times, but he keeps enough of a control to be able to conspire with them on a plot to have Mao set up a fake accusation of treason and Santiago delivering him with breakable shackles to get close enough to kill the Van. Vicious however anticipated betrayal, as Julia nearly uses Mao to betray and kill Vicious, to which he ends up forcing Santiago to take his place while posing as him instead to slaughter through the entire room, delivering a final killing blow against Caliban to take claim over the Syndicate for good before he kills Mao.
And then, he decides to deal with Julia. Revealing that he knows she betrayed him he reveals his plans to torture her for days on end until she begs for death, to which he will torture her for even more, with Spike's lifeless head accompanying her through the entire ordeal. Intending to lure Spike for the final confrontation in the church, he kidnaps the daughter of Spike's bounty hunting partner, Jet Black, threatening her life to have Spike delivered to him. Even regardless, he decides to go against his word trying to have her killed. But Faye arrives on time to incapacitate all of Vicious' nearby goons as she helps Faye, Jet and his daughter escape, while Spike deals with Vicious. As they fight, Julia comes in and shoots, having gotten back at Vicious and having him tied up and imprisoned as she usurps his position instead.
Differences[]
Vicious has many differences from his 80's counterpart:
- In the original anime, Vicious was more cunning and stoic, unlike the live-action version, where he acts childish and enjoys gloating.
- Vicious was a cold blooded and skilled assassin in the original anime but here he lacks any sort of physical skill.
- In the live-action version he learned Russian and speaks it because it is Julia's native language. However in the anime this is never shown, nor is Julia's nationality specified.
- He speaks with a British accent. In the English dub of the 80s anime his accent is American and he was voiced by Skip Stellrecht.
- Vicious hair is less unkempt in the anime.
- More of Vicious' backstory is shown here, including his family life.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Following the series, Vicious' faith remains unknown although it probably would have been like in the anime series.
External Link[]
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The Syndicate Others | ||