diff --git a/kittens/ssh/main.py b/kittens/ssh/main.py
index d85171458..9d92d88d5 100644
--- a/kittens/ssh/main.py
+++ b/kittens/ssh/main.py
@@ -396,12 +396,12 @@ def get_remote_command(
     interpreter: str = 'sh',
     ssh_opts_dict: Dict[str, Dict[str, Any]] = {}
 ) -> List[str]:
-    is_python = 'python' in interpreter.lower()
+    q = os.path.basename(interpreter).lower()
+    is_python = 'python' in q
     sh_script = bootstrap_script(
         script_type='py' if is_python else 'sh', remote_args=remote_args, ssh_opts_dict=ssh_opts_dict,
         cli_hostname=cli_hostname, cli_uname=cli_uname)
-    q = os.path.basename(interpreter).lower()
-    if 'python' in q:
+    if is_python:
         es = standard_b64encode(sh_script.encode('utf-8')).decode('ascii')
         return [interpreter, '-c', '''"import base64, sys; eval(compile(base64.standard_b64decode(sys.argv[-1]), 'bootstrap.py', 'exec'))"''', es]
     return [interpreter, '-c', shlex.quote(sh_script)]  # sshd concats args with a space and passes them to login-shell -c