Serenity wasn’t enough of a high-value target for Whatshername to invest any of her valuable time, effort, or risk. Consider that the Lassiter had to be worth about a thousand times as much as Serenity, at least. I get the impression that, at the time of this episode, she was somewhat down on her luck, for whatever reason (a few scams more worthy of her abilities went belly-up, perhaps), and needed to stay low-key for a while and work back up. Staying in the maiden house might have been a good idea anyway, just to let the heat cool off a bit, and if she got a minor haul from it as well, so much the better.
No, I’m pretty sure he specifically said “yep, that’s the marriage ceremony of the [whatever planet’s people]”
The Triumph settlers, specifically:
*BOOK
(holding encyclopedia)
I believe you did. Last night.
Mal hesitates. As does everyone
MAL
(to Jayne, quiet)
How drunk was I last night?
JAYNE
I don’t know. I passed out.
BOOK
It says here, the woman lays the
wreath upon her intended - which I do
recall - which represents his
sovereignty.
MAL
(to Saffron)
That was you?
BOOK
And he drinks of her wine. This
represents his obeisance to the life -
giving blood of her – I’ll skip this
part and then there’s a dance, with
a joining of hands.
(closes book)
The marriage ceremony of the Triumph
settlers, been so over eighty years.
You, sir, are a newlywed.
*
As for the elder, he knew what was up and helped Saffron snag Mal:
*SAFFRON
I work with lots of folk. He’s
thrown me a few choice fish. What’ll
become of the dear Elder?
MAL
Oh, he’ll be laying eyes on me soon
enough. And to think I saved his
town from vicious bandits.
*
This is from the shooting script, found here, which also contains a creepifying scene which was cut, wherein River tries to convince Simon to marry her and even (very unconvincingly) fakes a pregnancy! She also calls Saffron a thief back when we still think she’s all innocent and stuff, but of course no one understands what she’s talking about.
That scene wasn’t cut, or at least not in the DVD release.
Stranger
I have no recollection of any such scene on the DVD. And the DVD version is all I’ve seen.
-FrL-
I thought there was a line explaining the Elder’s role! Thanks for that cite.
-FrL-
B’wah? Dude, can I come over and watch *your *DVD set, ‘cause it ain’t it mine! You musta gotten the super duper special Joss boot-lickin’ edition!
(Or could it possibly be an Easter Egg we missed?)
It’s not in the episode, but it is in the Deleted Scenes.
My bad. I just remember seeing it (River sticks a pillow under her shirt and proposes to Simon) so I knew it was filmed.
Stranger