Firefly: Trash

“I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!”

Bloody Hell, another great episode. They just keep on coming, don’t they? This had everything: wit, excitement, great little character scenes- I’m seriously in danger of taking all this superlative excellence for granted.

The opening shot is, in hindsight, very clever indeed, as the situation is not at all as we think it is, and this one little scene rather cleverly shapes our expectations as to how the story is going to develop and makers us believe that Mal is in more trouble than, in fact, he is. It’s a great pre-titles sequence as a whole, though, and it’s fantastic to see Saffron again. Both Christina Hendricks and the character as written are cool, charismatic, hugely entertaining and, er, hot. I for one would stand absolutely no chance against her.

It’s a bit of an eye-opener that six whole months have passed since Our Mrs. Reynolds, but Saffron and Mal have great chemistry; I love the bit where she sticks her tongue out! Pretty much all of their scenes together are a joy.

Saffron is clever, too, though, and she has a plan. Normally, Mal wouldn’t touch this sort of thing with a bargepole but, as Inara rather forcefully points out (and there’s another case of great chemistry), it’s about time they had another big payday. So, exciting heist story it is.

Saffron’s plan is to steal an ancient artifact from “Earth-that-was”- a fascinating phrase. It’s clear that Earth is somehow forever in the past and out of reach. The artifact is owned by some rich bloke who lives on a floating island, which as a concept is such a frivolous use of energy as to be decadence itself! We get a nice bit of ok CGI as we see loads of islands floating above the sea of whatever planet this is, but it’s not all glamour; the very, very clever Kaylee has come up with a plan to “chuck it in the garbage.” (I didn’t know they used “chuck”, meaning to throw, in North America?) Everyone agrees to the plan- they really, really need the money- but with doubts. Gina Torres is absolutely superb in her facial acting during this scene, showing us the nuances in what Zoe is thinking and feeling without saying a word. But if that’s not enough, the punch makes her feelings very clear indeed…

We get the excitement of the heist, but the presence of Saffron guarantees constant comedy gold. The dialogue between Saffron and Hamer, and Mal’s reaction towards it, is hilarious; so far, 100% of non-regular male characters have been husbands of her’s!

The plan seems to be on the verge of success, though, and Mal seems to have Saffron sussed; she thought of Hamer with genuine affection, she only pulled this trick as a desperate last resort, and she feels terrible for betraying him. But, as Mal says, she’ll shake this off and carry on as she was. Starting now, as she immediately double crosses him. We’re back at the start, with a naked Mal sitting in the middle of an alien desert that looks uncannily like Southern California.

Except… there’s a twist. This was always expected, and Inara is waiting at the pick-up point with a gun. Interesting; this is the first time we’ve seen her taking part in any crime.

There’s a nice little scene near the end where Simon makes clear to Jayne that he knows exactly what happened a couple of episodes ago, but he chooses to ignore it. I like River’s reaction better, though; “Also, I can kill you with my brain.” What sort of super-powers will she eventually end up with?”

But we end as we began, with naked Mal. How could we not…?

Firefly: Jaynestown

“You guys had a riot on account of me?”

It’s an odd one, this. It’s funny, the conceit is brilliant, there’s some great character stuff, but it never quite manages to take off. Still, we get to see River’s recovery taking another stage, some nice development of the cross-class relationship between Kaylee and Simon, and a fantastic comic performance from Adam Baldwin.

Before we get to Jayne, though, there are lots of other nice little moments here. Kaylee has a very romanticised view of Inara’s work as a companion (“Have good sex!”), which is immediately contrasted with a grubbier reality. But this grubby reality, interestingly, has nothing to do with the sex, or with her rather innocent twenty-six year old virgin client, but with having to deal with said client’s boorish, amoral and no doubt smelly father. There’s a nice little deconstruction of macho conceptions of “manhood” here, too; it’s not the “conquest” of women that makes one a man, and sex is not about notches on a bedpost. It’s about, you know, emotion, and relating to the other person as, well, a person, as sort of symbolised by the “sacred” tea ceremony. Having said that, though, this sequence isn’t anywhere as deep or as meaningful as it seems to think it is.

The scenes between River and Shepherd Book are fabulous. I love River’s overly literal theological ideas, which are funny but also reminds us that there’s a very clever girl underneath the craziness. But what exactly is wrong with us men with long hair? Grr!

Anyway… we have the latest in an already long line of poor, desperate planets where a few oligarchic bastards lord it over the oppressed majority, who in this case seem to have a particularly unpleasant existence as “mudders”. The foreman mentions to Simon that there are “two thousand workers, mainly indentured”, and that the costs saved in wages can be passed on to the customer. I think, to put it mildly, that some sort of trade union might be in order.

Oh yes, and the Kaylee / Simon shipping heats up a bit, give or take the odd moment where he offends her by being a bit of a stuck-up arse. She’s very forgiving of him, really. He can’t even hold his drink, for one thing. But things seem to be developing quite well between them. I expect a massive falling-out between them any episode now. This is a Joss Whedon show, after all.

And yes, I know, Jayne. Jayne the hero. Jayne the statue. That song. The hilarious contrast between the truth and the Robin Hood reputation. All this stuff is great, and gives us some top notch comedy moments but, well, it doesn’t go anywhere. Even the crudely tacked on moral at the end, as Mal tells Jayne that sometimes people need heroes, is basically saying little more that that the mudders have really crappy lives.

And their lives stay crappy. Even the magistrate doesn’t get any real comeuppance; he doesn’t get to capture the crew of Serenity, but that’s it. And this man is a real tyrant; he imprisons people for years in tiny boxes. But then again, this is the sort of society we’re seeing again and again in Firefly. The ‘verse isn’t very nice, which makes the contrast with the people of Serenity all the greater. Because they’re great characters, and that means this can be an uplifting and fun show in spite of it’s very, very bleak setting.