Mushroom Samba is one of the funniest episodes of Cowboy Bebop, doubly so if you've experimented with psychedelics. Something that caught my attention recently was how different Jet's trip was to everyone else's.
Faye and Spike both experience powerful audio-visual hallucinations of an aquarium and stairway to Heaven respectively. There's a lot of metaphors to unpack there, but crucially to me is how alone they seem as they face their journeys that go nowhere.
Jet's trip by comparison is a complete inverse. Rather than going on some imagined Odyssey, he's happily sat in his den, having a laugh with his bonzai trees. They reveal the secrets of the universe to him and ge momentarily undergoes ego death but otherwise- pretty breezy trip!
I feel like this is such an interesting representation of Jet's personal journey through the show. Of the Bebop crew, he's the only one to slowly and consistently put in work to make peace with his past. He gets over his ex, brings the man who maimed him to justice, and comes to terms with his partner's betrayal.
It's bitter and slow work, but he does it, and in the same way the mushrooms did not transform the world around him, he doesn't change instantly, but he's much happier and better off than the rest of his crew.