Thanks, Wearia!
Two things about this episode that somewhat puzzled me.
a. If they can take a beat up dead ambulance and turn it into a working flying vehicle, then they could make more money legally taking junkers, fixing them up and selling them on the Rim where high tech is needed.
b. The bad guys who are after River -- what's with the rod weapons? Just how stealthy is it to use weapons that cause people to shriek in pain as they expire and leave big pools of blood everywhere? OK, we know they're bad guys -- we get it.
a. Maybe it costs more to fix than they can get for it on the poor worlds who don’t have, say, aviation gasoline.
Maybe it’s too much like work.
Maybe it has something to do with the cube ship Enterprise has.
Or maybe it’s TV.
OK, I admit I was wandering in and out of the room a bit but I don’t get that “Jayne hurried up the Doc to avoid the Feds.” It read more to me that Jayne hurried up the Doc straight into the arms of the Feds. The sequence was 1) Doc does brain scan. 2) Jayne interrupts brain scan (just as it was getting interesting…notice the wild colors in the scan just as it ended). 3) Jayne leads River and the Doc to the Feds out the back door. 4) Jayne asks for his reward and gets arrested (and for whatever reason Jayne got “arrested” instead of “bound by law” which leads me to wonder if there’s some difference or the writer was just sloppy). 5) Jayne figures out that he should escape the Feds and River and Simon come along for the escape. Jayne lets them come along maybe because he feels guilty or maybe because he can’t think of a reason to leave them or maybe so he can sell them out again later.
I don’t think Jayne was embarrassed at all or the least bit remorseful about what he did. He was embarrassed about being caught and ashamed to die in a way he considers unmanly.
I wonder, does Mal consider Jayne to be part of his crew, the way he considers Simon or Kaylee to be part of his crew? Jayne is very much a hired hand and Mal knew when he hired him that he was for sale to the highest bidder and he told Inara in “Out of Gas” that Jayne can’t be trusted.
Why, BTW, is FOX airing the episodes out of order?
I really thought that Jayne changed his mind after hearing Simon describe how the Alliance cut up River’s head and altered her brain. Jayne got very thoughtful, peering at the display, and suddenly decided that they should leave immediately.
There was no reason to rush in order to bring Simon and River to the feds, they were on their way, and knew exactly where everyone was.
The real test is to see if Jayne changes his attitude towards River or not. I would expect that he stops calling her crazy, and shows her more compassion.
Mal is just ‘managing’ Jayne. He has never trusted him. A couple of episodes ago when Mal left someone else in charge, his last words were, “And NEVER trust Jayne.”
He knows exactly what kind of guy Jayne is. After all, he picked him up by getting him to betray his current partner. But he needs Jayne, or someone like him. The guy is a supreme badass, and that’s a pretty important asset to have in their line of work.
I agree that the apparently sincere line from Jayne about not wanting the others to know what he did was what caused Mal to change his mind. It showed that Jayne cares what the other members of the crew think of him, which to Mal means he can keep him under control.
Loved the last line of the show - “Mal? Can I come in now?”
Perhaps you forget, Otto, that my cat is smarter than Jayne.
I too think he was trying to get them out before the Feds arrived.
Why else did he decide to leave early?
Re: Wild colors in the scan: A response to Jayne thinkng about the feds, a response to the nearby feds themselves, or had Simon just discovered the really nasty part of what the academy did?
Anyway, I think these first few episodes are essentially there to establish the bonds of loyalty between the crew, so that we’ll care more about them in the future. Last night may have been the point at which Jayne ‘joined up’. Last episode we learned how devoted Simon was to River. And we’ve learned how much Kaylee wants’ to be aboard.
The episode before that, we had Inara’s moment of doubt, and she decided to stay on Firefly. And the Preacher’s life was saved at great risk.
The next episode to air is called “War Stories”. Zoe is the one character we don’t know much about so far, and we know she served with Mal in the war. So I’m guess the next episode will establish her character and show how closely attached she is to Mal.
I think Whedon’s plan all along was to use the first half of the season to very carefully lay out the world and establish the connections between all the characters so they would all be fully fleshed out and not just some cardboard caricatures. It would be a damned shame if we got to see all this preparation and then the series was cancelled before got a chance to start through the major story arcs.
Oh, and it’s been established that river has some ESP-type ability, right?
Wouldn’t that be why she sliced Jayne at the beginning of the show? She knew what he was going to do, or at least sensed that he was planning to do something that would harm them.
BTW, I just checked the overnight Neilsons, and Firefly finished dead last in its time period again with a 2.9 - essentially the same ratings its gotten all season. I can’t undertstand why this show isn’t picking up an audience.
I thought he sold them out because of the cut and the money.
There isn’t enough female flesh and cheap laughs. Sorbo’s comment about Andromeda: “(viewers)…will want to sleep with the characters on this show.” Hercules In Space.
This and John Doe are the only Fox programs I watch. Aren’t they mostly sit coms and jiggle shows?
Yes, particularly a mixed bunch like this. I doubt that Jayne will change a lot–and I wouldn’t want him to–but he should know better now what he can and can’t get away with in regard to Mal.
On another note:
Does the amygdala in our brains really allow us to filter our feelings? Does anyone know?
Because that’s when the feds would be there. To give himself twenty minutes to dump them and get back to meet Mal and Zoe. I just re-watched the scenes in question and IMHO anyone who thinks Jayne changed his mind at the hospital is fooling him/herself.
The amygdala’s part of the limbic system ,which are the parts of the brain that are involved in the basic, “lower-order” activities (as opposed to higher functions, like thought and planning). From what I understand, the amygdala has many different functions. It help us read body language and facial expressions (so we know when someone is angry or sad), and make other social judgments. Damage to the amygdala can make people and animals more socially uninhibited (I guess stabbing your crewmates would fall under this category). It is also associated with the emotional aspects of memory - we use the amygdala when we access emotionally arousing memories… Which strikes me as odd, because I would think River’s lesions would make it harder for her to associate her memories of the Academy with the feelings they produce, rather than easier… For more info, see this page, from the New York Academy of Sciences .
Of course, who knows what new things they might learn about the amygdala, given a few thousand years. The Egyptians thought the brain’s main function was cooling blood, after all.
__
So I thought this was an amazing episode. We learned a lot more about Jayne, and I personally thought his betrayal, and Mal’s response to it, were quite cleverly done. I think the turnaround point for Jayne was when Mal explained that an attack on his crew was a personal attack on HIM. Jayne thinks in very straight lines, and I doubt it ever would have occurred to him that ratting out Simon and River would affect anyone but them. When he realized that it was tantamount to stabbing Mal in the back, that was when it hit him that he’d screwed up. So very cool.
And that nasty little rod-weapon thing was extremely gross. I guess it helped establish the Blue-Gloves Guys as especially evil, but… Yuck.
Damn ratings for being so low! Maybe if Fox ever ADVERTIZED the bleeping show. Oh, am I asking too much? Sorry.
Love, Kn*ckers
All right, who the hell are you and what have you done with kn*ckers?
And the really great part about it was that we, the audience, truly did not know whether Mal would kill him or not. Joss has shown he’s willing to kill off a character, and Mal’s character is certainly ruthless enough… It was a truly tense moment. That’s rare on TV, where you can usually see what’s coming a mile away.
Anyway, most of my thoughts have already been covered, but I really loved this episode. Best so far, IMO.
Oh, my thoughts on the evil blue-hand guys and their overly horrific weapons: Perhaps they actually wipe their victim’s memory or something; destroy brain tissue so memories can’t be recovered by some high-tech post-mortem scans. (Just a theory…)
I don’t care.
I want one.
Cool.
Who was Ariel? I should think that Jayne would have been Caliban, but who is analogous to the spirit Ariel?
Ariel was the name of the planet.
Best episode so far.
I’m writing to Fox right now.
Anyone who hasn’t yet, shame on you (–wagging finger–). “Firefly” isn’t just the best new show of the season; it’s one of the five best shows on TV right now, period. I also think it’s a classic in the making, if it can just hang on.
Dammit.
I thought we had a Shakespearean reference.
Why doesn’t that weapon affect the blue hands?