In Episode 2 of
Firefly, we see the dark side of life in space. Ironically, though (and perhaps intentionally), the episode opens very light-heartedly, with the crew playing a ball game in the ship’s main hold. It’s a great opportunity for Kaylee to flirt a bit with Dr Simon, and for Jayne to tease her about it.
Wash: Oh my god. What can it be? We're all doomed! Who's flying this thing!? Oh right, that would be me. Back to work. Kaylee: So I guess that makes us one man short.Jayne: Little Kaylee's always one man short. The ship’s sensors interrupt the game, and Wash reports that they’re approaching a ship. This starts a nightmare of epic proportions.
Bounty
I don’t know about you, but if I find something in space that doesn’t talk back to me, and crazy girl in the back is yammering on about ghosts, I’m hightailing it to the nearest outpost and heading for the saloon. Drink me some beers.
This is why I’m not the captain of
Serenity.
Once Mal and crew determine that the stricken vessel is 100% dead, they do what they do best: salvage. It’s interesting to see that they’re not after your traditional treasures: gold, silver, etc. They’re after things that are actually useful on the frontier: survival kits, food stores, and medical supplies. When you’re living life on ‘the edge’, your priorities are all messed up.
The saying
‘too good to be true’ is probably quite applicable here, because the horrors that Mal and crew discover aboard are not worth any amount of money. We don’t get many details of what happened to the crew, but we don’t want any details, do we?
Please, no details…
The Reaver Man
Mal: Reavers ain't men — or they forgot how to be. The most interesting thing about this particular Reaver is the fact that he
became a Reaver. He was just an ordinary guy, who got turned ugly by other Reavers. This is the ultimate truth of Reaverdom: Reavers are regular people, who have been
broken.
This opens up an interesting question: surely they all
became Reavers? We never really think about that much, but they surely must have started out normal, and then twisted. It's easier to just think of them as some sort of pure evil, demonic creature, but the hard, cold truth of it is: they were once just like us.
Mal offers this by way of explanation:
Mal: That poor bastard you took off my ship. He looked right into the face of it — was made to stare. Harken: "It"? Mal: The darkness. Kind of darkness you can't even imagine. Blacker than the space it moves through. Reavers, in the words of Nietzche, found the abyss staring back at them:
"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." (Friedrich Nietzsche) Reavers are not animals, let’s get that straight. Animals do not do that. Reavers are men, completely and utterly human. They are our worst selves, magnified, and multiplied. They are our Jungian shadows, and we can’t escape their reality for long.
Mercy
Survivor: No mercy. No mercy... Mal: We got lots of mercy. Lots... Mercy is a dangerous trait to have in the
Firefly Verse. Despite this, we see it popping up, time and again. Mal is the usual conduit for this strange mercy: he takes River and Simon on board, he returned the medicine in episode 1, and now he takes this survivor on board.
This human essence is what
Firefly is all about. It’s also Mal’s weakness, and it may well destroy him.
Ghosts
See what I mean about River freaking you out? If she were just some mad, raving looney, you’d not give her one second’s notice; but she’s not, she’s River: highly intelligent, somewhat psychic, and freaky as all hell. If she says there’re ghosts on that ship, there’re ghosts.
Not that that stops her from traipsing around the dark, forbidding, haunted belly of the ship. River’s enthusiasm will always override her fear. The neat little juxtaposition of her and her brother hiding outside the craft in space suits shows just how those two differ: River’s looking out, to the stars, and Simon’s looking in, towards safety.
How fast was I going, Officer?
The crew of Serenity have many good reasons to steer clear of Alliance cruisers. For one, there’s the whole ‘We’re harboring fugitives’ angle. Then there’s the fact that their papers are all incorrect. However, I think the main reason for Serenity to stay away from the Alliance is that every time they go near them, they end up
in a fight. Thankfully, they’re on the right side of this week’s fight.
Alliance Commander: Seems odd you'd name your ship after a battle you were on the wrong side of.Mal: May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.
Jayne Moment of the Week
There are always a few classic Jayne moments. His tricking on Simon into wearing the space suit is a particularly funny moment. However, nothing beats his steely, stubborn silence in the interrogation room of the alliance cruiser.
They’ll never crack our Jayne!
Next week:
Mal finds himself in the middle of a duel (yes, with swords) after he defends the honour of the one person he hardly ever defends: Inara. Kaylee also gets to wear a frilly dress.
* Thanks to Tsukiko-chan for inspiring most of these thoughts. Watching Firefly is a team sport; remember that.**(Firefly is on Action-X at 19h00 on Wednesdays - repeated at 18h00 on Tuesdays and 16h00 on Sundays).***(All quotes reproduced from WikiQuote (Firefly) under the GNU PL - this quote site contains spoilers).