No way.
Did he kill Buffy? Well, she got better.
I was debating whether or not to put this here, since it’s a little off the topic, but with Raguleader’s post, I figure what the heck. 
I actually see some very strong familial relationships between the crew, and while the commentary for Serenity does note Jayne has a crush on Kaylee from the start, IIRC, I see a different interpretation, especially as the show progresses and the crew’s relationships mature.
Mal: The dad. No question here. It’s his house, and he keeps it going.
Inara: The mother. While Zoe’s second in command, Inara provides compassion and maternal affection for the rest of the crew, particularly Kaylee.
Wash: The goofy uncle all the kids love. There’s an underlying notion that he’s one of the ‘authority’ figures on the boat, possibly best shown when he and Simon are chatting while Mal, Zoe, and Jayne are meeting with Patience.
Zoe: Zoe’s actually a little tougher to define, but I would peg her as the aunt. She’s Wash’s husband and arguably Mal’s ‘sister’.
Book: The grandfather. 'Nuff said.
Kaylee: The baby daughter. Mal treats her like one, and her playfulness and constant good mood give her that youthful air.
Jayne: The bigger brother. The rebellious teen type, who Mal has to keep a firm hand on. It could be argued that his concern over Kaylee isn’t necessarily a crush, but brotherly behavior. He teases her mercilessly, but when it’s serious he’s there for her.
Simon and River: Adopted brother and sister. Mal treats Simon partially like a son, though there’s a detachment; he and River aren’t fully accepted into the crew just yet. This would also explain Jayne’s attitude toward them: he’s jealous of the suddenly divided attention. Before it was him and Kaylee, and now there’s four of them. It’s the same kind of attitude a lot of kids go through when a new baby is brought into the family.
I know, some of it’s a stretch, but the attitudes are there. I just had to get that out, I’d been thinking it over for a while now.
But… he never married! 
I’ll be in my bunk.
Okay, I finally got off my ass and watched the episode. Or rather, got on my ass and watched the episode.
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Naked Mal.
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I love Mal and Inara’s scene in the shuttle. “Oh no. You’re using your wiles!” “My what?” “Your wiles!” Mal and Inara are very Pride and Prejudice, aren’t they? Mal is Elizabeth and Inara is Mr. Darcy. I expect if the show had gone on long enough, Inara’s aunt would have shown up and told Mal that she was far too good for him. They even have a dancing-and-talking scene, back in “Shindig”.
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I think Jayne was faking how dumb he is when Saffron explains the scheme. They were all in it from the beginning, after all.
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Love, love, love the looks Jayne makes while Simon is working on him. Hi-larious.
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Mal’s behavior while Saffron is lying her ass off to her husband. He chews his fingernails, makes faces, rolls his eyes at her outrageous lies, it’s all quite funny.
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Did I mention naked Mal? Yeah, that.
Favorite line from this watching? “I’m sorry to interrupt your CRAZY TIME…” Ahhh, YoSaffBridge. I hope she turns up again in some future incarnation of Firefly. She’s so delightfully off her nut.
This was at least partly intentional- in the commentary for “Shindig,” Jane Espenson states that she viewed the dance as her chance to write a Jane Austen scene for Firefly.
Hmm… it’s possible, but I don’t think so. Judging from his inability to keep a straight face throughout the scene, Jayne (the character, not Adam Baldwin) is a pretty bad actor, and his expression of smugness at his “brilliant” question is just* too* real. 
“Unh. 'Pine okay?”
Bump because I’m seeing this for the first time (on SciFi).
Wow. I thought last week was the best episode yet. This one is even better. I’m getting why people are so pissed that it was canceled.
Other than that, ditto to most of the comments already made.
Just saw this one for the first time too. I had forgotten about “Ariel” so I didn’t get all the nuanced conflict between Simon and Jayne up until the very end.
I also thought it would have been the simplest thing in the world for Mal to have taken Saf’s gun away at the end. The gun’s barely a foot away and it’s not like she was intimately paying attention to where it was aimed 100% of the time. Of course, you wouldn’t get the Inara rescue and the understanding that it was a doublecross of a doublecross. Oh well.
Overall a really good episode. I laughed for a good ten seconds over “I can kill you with my brain.”
Ah, thread resurrection! I just watched this again tonight with my girlfriend (newbie). I loved the crew’s (especially Wash’s and Zoe’s) reactions to naked Mal. Just barely able to maintain . I also loved Wash’s pantomimed musing over Mal’s bloody, be-tissued nose.
I don’t think they’d let Jayne in on a double cross. There’s really no need for it, and as noted, he’s not the greatest actor. Better to keep him in the dark.
I wanted to know where they got GI-NORMOUS bouquets of fresh flowers in the middle of outerspace. I mean, they’re thrilled with an apple.
Unless it turns out he was in on it, in which case he’s the best actor of any of them. I agree with you though.
After I saw this ep for the first time, on repeated viewings I started to notice behavior that hints at them playing out their parts. At the table, Zoe looks away near the beginning of the briefing as if she’s trying to avoid giving away an expression on her face. Similarly, when Wash starts ranting, Kaylee starts giggling and looks away herself. Wash is definitely a funny guy, but if the crew really were puzzled at Saffron being on board, Kaylee might find it a little less amusing.
Bellerophon’s an inner sphere planet where aesthetic luxuries are much easier to come by. It probably wasn’t too hard to swing by a florist shop before heading to the estate. After all, in Ariel they’re able to procure an ambulance and EMT uniforms; why not flowers? It’s only the outer rim planets that don’t have the time or resources for fripperies.
Hey, I saw this for the first time on Friday too. If I had known they brought back Saffron, I would have watched it sooner. Actually, the description on my Tivo said “Saffron returns to steal a precious weapon” or something like that, and I was certain she was going to steal Jayne’s gun Vera. Oh well.
I didn’t really get the blurred nudity. What what were they planning to do for the first-run, if it had been shown? Blurring is lame.
I’m also a fairly new fan of this show. When it was on the first time, they just put it in the wrong timeslot for me…and it was in my pre-Tivo days.
How many episodes are there total? And I’m hoping the movie does well enough that Sci-Fi will pick up the series. After a rough start, they did ok with Stargate: SG1
The nets aren’t afraid to show a guy’s butt from time to time. I assume the scene would have run unblurred. (As it does on the DVD’s.)
–Cliffy
Yeah, but what really makes it worth buying the DVD set is all those excised scenes: the nude pillow fight between Inara, Kaylie and River; that communal shower scene (steamy hot in more than one way); the extended version of the scene where Wash drags Zoe off to their bunk…
Can’t wait to see what goodies will be added to the Serenity DVD.
Shhhhh! All’s fair in love and war, right? And I’m in love with this universe. So we want them to sell LOTS of copies and make lots of money, yes?
Funny, I remember it much more often being Zoe dragging Wash off to their bunk… Remember, Wash likes women who can beat him up using only the little finger of their off hand.
“Captain, you have the helm. I need this man to rip off all of my clothes.”
“Work, work.”