Firefly: 1x9 Full Reaction
Added 2025-11-01 02:20:11 +0000 UTC
Comments
I am pretty sure it is Scot free and not scotch free
Christopher Drakulich
2025-11-18 01:40:22 +0000 UTCFirst, yes Mal is my all-time top comfort character...without a close second. Now, about River slashing Jayne: There was a hidden reason River slashed Jayne. With the premature cancellation, major storylines could not be explored. The "Big Bad" in the Firefly 'Verse is the Blue Sun Corporation. Blue Sun is a mega-conglomerate that makes basically everything and has become more powerful than even the Alliance government (note how the "Hands of Blue" guys were unconcerned with killing government agents). You see their logos here and there around the show, usually in the background. For example, the "Cry Baby" coffee can in the original episode was labeled "Blue Sun". The show implies (e.g. "two by two, hands of blue") that the Blue Sun Corporation was behind River's torture at the Academy. So why did River slash Jayne? Look at the shirt he was wearing...it was a T-Shirt with the Blue Sun logo. Remember when River in "Shindig" episode was tearing off can food labels? The idea is that those were also labeled "Blue Sun". River was looking to get rid of the Blue Sun logo, it just happened to be on a shirt Jayne was wearing.
Eric H
2025-11-04 05:16:09 +0000 UTCcan't say i was surprised when jayne called the feds to betray simon and river, but i was thinking that he would change his mind and not go through with it, so i was surprised when he didnt and his plan just backfired instead.
Frelle
2025-11-01 21:52:27 +0000 UTCBTW, yeah one of those agents looked creepy AF.
Michael Labs
2025-11-01 18:20:23 +0000 UTCPlenty of other things covered and covered well... Couple of things in my mind, the weapons used by the Alliance version of the CIA were probably sound frequency related, and the agents likely had earplug implants to prevent it killing them. Not sure about the pain factor, I would think that hemorrhaging from every orifice would result in dizziness, unconsciousness, then death. Unless those were screams of terror or the weapon also attacked the nervous system... As to Mal, I believe he WAS going to kill Jayne until he showed shame over his betrayal... Mal is not known for idle threats regardless of his good/softer points. Short version, Jayne just got his first, last, and only warning.
Michael Labs
2025-11-01 18:19:00 +0000 UTCThe scene where Simon jumps in to save the patient is probably my favorite moment of the series, specifically River's smile. She's so proud of him! And she knows what he's given up for her ("It's where you should be.") When River talks about Christmas presents she's talking about Jayne. He expected a reward (presents), but he didn't get anything.
DanielOrme
2025-11-01 17:38:06 +0000 UTCI do love this episode; good heist fun combined with solid character work, plot advancement and some nightmarish teasing. I think the confrontation between Mal and Jayne at the end is definitely a top moment for me. The fact that Mal doesn't kill Jayne but came to the very brink of it sort of puts Mal's character in a nutshell: a man of honor in a den of thieves, a good man acting like he's always been a bad man, someone whose empathy trumps his sense of frontier justice. With River, my own theory is that the reason they tear away her ability to regulate her emotions is part of enabling her psychic abilities; heightening how naturally intuitive she is. We all have a certain level of intuition rooted in the empathy which allows us to feel for other people besides ourselves, and River's has been amped waaaaaaay up to eleven.
Jorgalorg
2025-11-01 14:44:42 +0000 UTCYou basically described the finale episode of season 4 Black Mirror with your doctor/pain idea, just an fyi if you wanna see that play out. ✨️
MaggieStormborn
2025-11-01 14:36:07 +0000 UTCOh yeah, we all have "comfort characters". Characters we've followed for so long -- and through so much -- that it's like visiting with an old friend when we see them again. Nathan Fillion (Mal) is actually Canadian, so he doesn't have a "southern" accent in his normal life. It's a deliberate accent that he's putting on for this role as part of the character's backstory as somebody who grew up on 'the frontier', away from civilization, and fought for the southern-analogue in the Civil War metaphor. When Kaylee and Wash are scrounging in the junkyard, the piece that Wash picks up and throws away is a compression coil. That is the part that broke down last episode. The 'ambulance' that they repair is actually a real-life helicopter body.
JBK405
2025-11-01 04:14:01 +0000 UTCAlso also, I have to give you The Fact(TM) for this episode that that part Wash threw at the junkyard was a catalyzer, the same one that Mal needed to fix Serenity in Out of Gas.
Test User
2025-11-01 03:54:57 +0000 UTCSo, it's not super well explained in the series as it came out, but there was this whole subplot about the Blue Sun Corporation that was working with the Alliance and a main player behind the Academy that River was sent to. Jayne's shirt had the logo which is what triggered her to slash him / at it. That's also what triggered River to rip the labels off the cans a few episodes back. (Blue Sun deals in, among other things, packaged foods.) Also, on the note of Mal being a comfort character, which I agree, isn't wild how we met that actor to begin with on Buffy as Caleb? Insane range.
Test User
2025-11-01 03:54:37 +0000 UTCThis is my favorite episode of Firefly. I really like the scene where Simon (who should be keeping his head down since he is on the run) intervenes with the patient whose doctor made an error. This feels like a heist movie mixed with 'The Fugitive' (a great film) with a dash of The X-Files.
James Smith
2025-11-01 03:26:21 +0000 UTCGreat episode, heist, mystery, betrayal and forgiveness. Bio-luminescent lakes would be like some kind of glowing algae, or glowing jelly fish or something (maybe a whole biome of glowy things. Jayne admits shame at the end which indicated he knows he was wrong which brings him a step closer to being an empathic part of the crew. Mal's empathy is sometimes abused but it is big part of why he can bring together such an eclectic group of people into a family. The "blue gloves guys" are not effected by their weapon, so maybe their brains have also been altered. River is maybe a prototype and/or an unfinished weapon as she was broken out by Simon at some point.
The Testimony of Mushroom
2025-11-01 03:18:33 +0000 UTC
