This is my least favorite episode and the only one that I’ve only watched once (and that was enough). I think the setting might have killed it for me because after “Out of Gas” I really came to think of Serenity as an important character on the show.
I’m already dreading the “Objects in Space” thread.
On a side note, I’m thinking of taking a two hour lunch at work on September 30 so I can see Serenity as soon as possible. The only problem is I won’t feel like going back to work when the movie is over.
My least favourite too - I put up with it for the character moments, that form part of the Big Picture. Stuff like Zoe and Wash’s convo, Inara’s leaving.
Inara’s crying scene damn near moved me to tears too.
What I don’t like:
The balcony scene - c’mon, we know he’s a bad man, we don’t need to see him force a woman to give him a public BJ. Mostly because this takes us away from the crew for an unneccesary scene.
Nandi dying - Joss, king of “overturn the cliche”, goes for a cliche “kill the hero’s new woman” - much more dramatic to keep her alive “back there” to increase tension between Mal and Inara.
I guess the whole thing felt too ordinary or pedestrian in the writing. But that still makes it the 14th-best TV episode ever, mind you.
I get the impression the network had been really uncomfortable with the cliché-tweaking, and that Joss & Co, in their naive good faith, were trying to work with them. The commentary for “The Train Job” notes that the character of Niska was introduced because the network wanted a clear, over-the-top villain, instead of these shades-of-gray types like Badger in the unaired pilot. And by the time they got to “Heart of Gold,” I wouldn’t be surprised if they were trying to prove to the network that they could deliver a straight-up, self-contained adventure, dressed up with some Whedony goodness. That explains the overtly slimy bad guy, the clichéd death of the new girlfriend, the rather formulaic action-story structure, and so on. It also makes sense that they would be trying to offer a fairly straightforward episode to build some goodwill they could use to sell the rather outré installment to follow.
Of course, not like it mattered in the end. :mad:
Anyway— another good thing about this episode is that part of the plan doesn’t work, i.e. Wash and Kaylee going to retrieve the spaceship, but getting ambushed by thugs. The true cliché would have had them executing their plan to trap the thugs in the center corridor, but making sure to put Wash in the cockpit so they could show up at the nick of time, rather than inadvertently stranding himself in the engine room.
I like this more than The Message, but I can’t really defend it against any of the other episodes. It has a lot of great moments and positives in general, but everyone who says it is lacking some small part of what makes the series so great is exactly right.
Also my least-favorite episode, for reasons noted already.
My impression is that Jayne’s actually kind of sweet once he picks out a whore. Enthusiastic, anyway.
If I recall, the whorehouse is covered with what looks like aluminum foil, and we’re told it’s for solar power. That doesn’t make sense; solar power panels are black, not reflective.
Worth noting is that this is, I think, the only episode that shows a depiction of Earth. Anybody else notice that?
I think Jayne’s character development is one of the redeeming qualities of this ep and of The Message (Jayne has a Mom?). He’s actually kind of an affectionate guy, just not where and how you’d expect it. (Took me a couple of viewings to notice the hair-braiding BayleDomon; love that too.)
Cervaise, good theory about why this ep is relatively un-Firefly-like. There are so many aspects where (to me) it feels like they’re trying to create a more conventional program. But they don’t fully succeed, which is what makes it good. (How’s that for irony?)
It is a nice thing to see of Jayne, that he treats the girl well. He’s obviously a very down-to-earth guy; very realistic, doesn’t hold any noble ideals about the world. He accepts the practice of buying people (in Our Mrs. Reynolds), selling people out (in Ariel), and is completely unashamed to have fun in a whorehouse.
Despite him accepting what ‘decent folk’ would look down on, though, he’s not portrayed as a bad guy. I get the feeling he meant what he said when he told Mal he’d treat Saffron right, and it’s apparent that he doesn’t abuse his role with Helen.
Jayne’s crass and crude, but he’s a worthy guy to have on board the ship. I’m sure Mal saw some of that, else he’d’ve booted Jayne off on the next world they landed on after recruiting him.
As to the play, yes, that’s intended to be Earth-That-Was. The Chinese the man is speaking translates as “Swollen of her, they left,” referring to everyone leaving when the Earth’s resources got used up. (The link doesn’t go directly to the phrase, but to the episode’s section.)
Not much I can add to this thread, other than to generally agree with everyone else.
I’ve seen this episode at least three times, yet I don’t recall this scene with Jayne braiding someone’s hair. Great! Now I have to watch it again, even closer.
The bad guy was too much. OK, I get it. He’s evil. I didn’t need to see the balcony scene. OK! I get it! He’s evil!!! Why not just have him pulling the legs off puppies?
His attitude towards women just seemed out of place in this future Firefly 'verse. People are still capable of being dirty, rotten, lying, cheating, murdering scoundrels, but at the same time, you don’t see men and women thinking of each other as anything other than equals. That idea always seemed to be a silly concept that went extinct a few hundred years ago. Even Jayne, as crude as he is, you never get the idea from him that women in general are anything other than people. Except he’s smart enough that he “don’t kiss 'em on the mouth.”
That aluminum foil insulation stuff on the house was just ugly & silly.
This episode is my main case-in-point that Joss Whedon is sometimes way too heavy handed in his bid for feminist credentials. Central to every other theme that you could pick out of the episode is the issue of sexuality as power. This is a theme that has come up before in Firefly in much subtler ways – Inara, the whore, is a member of a guild that, as pointed out in Shindig guarantees her power over her own sexuality. Power in a woman, as Wash points out in Bushwacked, is sexy. The issue in Heart of Gold is who has control of the power that is female sexuality? And importantly, does a woman own her own power of reproduction?
The antagonist is a cartoony Snidely Whiplash caricature of a chauvanist who explains the premise of the episode directly to the audience in actual dialogue – he wants men to have control over female sexuality and reproduction. Then, just in case you missed the point that he just explicitly delivered, he whips it out and demands to get sucked off right then and there. And it’s not just the character guilty of shrill exploitation here. Feel free to argue, of course, but I took this scene as the writer saying, “You betrayed the sisterhood. Choke on cock, bitch!”
This ep’s definitely the most (a) ordinary, and (b) cliched, of the series, for the reasons everyone else has listed. Especially Nandi getting killed - it’s as if they had to kill off the woman who kept Mal from being true to Inara. Clunk.
And after the way Inara was making eyes at Mal in “The Message”, it was of course time for him to go to bed with another woman who was of far less importance to him. Clunk. And time for Inara to leave Serenity right after, seemingly as a consequence. Triple clunk, side retired.
Ah well, the other 13 episodes were damned good. I can forgive Joss one so-so ep.
OK, just got done rewatching it. Again. I finally caught the part with Jayne brushing the one whore’s hair.
Something I don’t quite get. Why was Inara so upset about Mal’s sleeping with Nandi? It’s kinda like when Mal told Saffron he’d seen her undressed, but never thought he’d see her naked.
Inara is a Companion. Sex is just sex. Mal had sex. It’s not like Mal professed any feelings for Nandi other than general respect. He’s not in love with her. What’s Inara got to be upset about?
I got the feeling at the end, when Inara said, “there’s something I should have done a long time ago. I’m leaving,” those were two separate things. There’s something she has to do, and because of that, she’s leaving. Not, “leaving is something she should have done a long time ago.”
Maybe the thing Inara realized she should have done a long time ago is go back to the House and officially resign her Companion status, so she can return to that “strength & love that you get tied to, you can’t break away from, and you never want to.” I assume by that she meant Mal and the crew of Serenity.
Or, Nandi was right and Inara runs away from “complications.”
Might be something to do with the way Mal’s always calling her a whore and disrespecting her career, but doesn’t hesitate to jump into bed with the first prostitute he meets who isn’t Inara.
