The first four episodes of Cowboy Bebop were pretty good. Not truly excellent, but they sure had their things going for them. Then episode five came around, and it's just on an entirely different level. This is, hands down, one of the best anime episodes I've ever seen. It can easily keep pace with a myriad of high-level Hollywood productions, with a fantastic direction, gorgeous visuals, a solid story, and a glorious soundtrack.
Thing is, it pretty much comes out of nothing. The series, at least so far, has anime-typical direction, but this one episode is true art. The previous episodes had a reasonable soundtrack (the opening theme is especially excellent), but they certainly didn't have multiple highly unique vocal tracks. The series had a bunch of pretty visuals, but definitely not these gorgeous set pieces.
I have no idea where it's coming from, why this fifth episode is an absolute work of art where the previous four episodes were "only" solid sci-fi.
And I genuinely can't get over the fact that this episode has both 'Rain' and 'Green Bird' as original soundtrack (never mind Schubert's 'Ave Maria'). Like, what is even going on here?