Firefly Episode 5: Safe
Written by Matt Briner Thursday, 15 October 2009 23:52
The BIFLI Chronicles--Firefly, Episode 5: "Safe"
FOX-Televised Chronological Spot: Episode 7
Intended Chronological Spot: Episode 5
Oh, man...that was, without a doubt, the BIGGEST crap I have ever taken. How long have I been in there? Let me check my trusty calendy-alender here...
*flip flip flip*
THREE MONTHS?!?!? Let me look online--what have I missed?
*typity typity typity*
Billy Mays?!?
*typity typity typity*
Michael Jackson?!?!?
*typity typity typity*
...DJ AM?!?!?!?
......My world has fallen away.
............Oh, yeah, the show.
We start this episode right out of the gate eleven years ago. A young Simon Tam is trying to do his geniusy homework. His little sister, River, is just being fucking creepy. In other words, she's being a preteen girl. She starts pestering him, so he just puts his work down and decides to humor her. At that point, their father comes in (bearing a small resemblance to Alfred Molina--now THERE'S a guest spot I wouldn't have minded seeing) and...does nothing much but talk. Really, this is just to set up a basic background--the Tam kids were spoiled, but mature and brilliant enough to realize it.
We cut into present day, when River is screaming up a shitstorm on Serenity. She's fed the fuck up with Simon's frequent testing, so he closes the infirmary doors and promises her that he won't do anything today.
[Oh, sure, the doctor says that...then five minutes later, you're in tears with your pants pulled down and a Styrofoam unicorn on your forehead screaming "But I don't want to" while the doctor's behind you naked.]
...o_0.
[......You...you don't remember that?]
...Nnoooooo.
[......Uh-hhhhuh.]
...Moving along.
Simon goes to his med pack to get somethign that he promises River will calm River down--
[Uh-huh! UH-HUH! SEE?! SEE!! The doctor just SAYS that...!]
Dude, keep it to yourse--um...ourself. You have your erotic fantasies, I have mine.
She takes the med pack out of his hands and chucks it at the wall, close to an arriving Mal, who's come down to find out just what's with all the ruckus. He notes that her usual random fuck insanity now includes cursing and chucking things; Simon chalks it up to a bad day. A bad day, defined by Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, is when the screaming of a 17-18-year-old-I-don't-care-because-in-this-state-they're-both-legal girl spooks a bunch of cattle in his cargo hold. He tells Simon to keep her calm, lest they want to see a mess of cattle stampede with no place to run (not good, apparently).
Mal: As soon as we unload, she can holler until our ears bleed, although I would take it as a kindness if she didn't.
River: *to herself* The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds, given adequate vacuuming systems.
Mal: See, morbid and creepifying, I got no problem with, long as she does it quiet-like.
Simon indirectly asks for a little leeway--after all, government scientists tinkered with River's brain like a bunch of reckless eight-year-olds with an Erektor Set. Mal says that he can't care about that, retelling him to keep her quiet in any way he can until the cattle is off the ship. As Serenity lands on their target planet, a group of poachers watches. The lead hyena says that a ship like that doesn't come to this planet unless they have something to sell. Since they don't have any money on their person, he says as he finishes skinning his rabbit dinner, they'll just have to take it free of charge.
One killer theme song later and our heroes lead the cattle off the ship, getting their boots as non-cow-shit-brown as they can (Simon immediately fails that challenge). Mal informs Jayne that he could just lead the cattle off the ship instead of using the whip he's got, but hell, telling Jayne to not use the object in his hand as a weapon is like telling the Cleveland Browns not to suck--you're wasting your breath. Zoe wants the cattle to be smaller next time they gotta smuggle it. Wash suggests beagles 'cause, after all, who wouldn't want a gaggle of Snoopies on a spaceship? I'm sure that coversation has come up at NASA once or twice.
And hell, let's throw a Riverism into the mix...
River: *to cow...well, AT cow* Little soul...big world...eat, sleep, and eat...many souls...
Mal: Cattle on the ship three weeks, she don't go near 'em--suddenly, we're on Jiangyin and she's got a driving need to communicate with the beasts.
River: They weren't cows inside. They were waiting to be, but they forgot. Now they see sky and they remember what they are.
Mal: Is it bad that what she said made perfect sense to me?
Mal doesn't want a false move by River spooking the cows and such, much less scaring off any potential byers (what with her only fluent in Crazy), so he tells Simon to take her for a walk.
Meanwhile, Inara and JEWEL STAITE! are in a pawn shop looking at standard border planet fare. They make fun of a wooden swan sculpture, but Kaylee seems to like a piece of decorative china and asks if it would make a nice gift for someone-who-defintely-positively-isn't-Simon. Inara, Mistress of the Obvious that she is, informs Kaylee that she doesn't do a very good job of hiding her interest in the good doc.
Before Kaylee can get too far into the girl talk, Simon and River (thankfully) come into the shop. The older brother won't even let her sister touch a postholer (a device to, say it with me, dig holes for posts), he's so paranoid. After patronizing the same piece of china Kaylee was thinking of boying for him (which is why it's hard to buy gifts for people, yet it doesn't stop me from being awesome at it), Kaylee hides her disappointment and tells him that it's good that he's getting off the ship. It'd give him the chance to have some fun.
Simon: Fun? Right. I, uh...I consider this fun. *takes something out of River's hand and puts it back* It's FUN being forced to the ass-end of the galaxy, to get to live on a piece of le se wreck and eat molded protien, and be bullied around by our [more Chinese that not even Wikiquote could help me with] of a captain. That's fun.
Kaylee: ...Le se?
Oh, you dumb fuck. Calling Serenity "le se", verbally acknowledging how much donkey ass you think this lifestyle sucks...all you needed to do left was call Kaylee's mom a filthy slut. She tells him down and walks out of the shop. Simon's problems escalate when he discovers that, during his scolding, River wandered away.
Back at Serenity, Mal laments his cargo hold's new poop-colored carpeting. Back toward their makeshift corral, Mal meets up with the Grange brothers. Of course, the Granges talk some smack about the cows to try to get the price down from 30 to 20 (not once in the entire series is the question "30 to 20 what?" answered), saying that three weeks on a ship has left them scrawny. Of course, these nitwits don't realize that Mal understands the concept of natural tenderization, and he wants the price they discussed with Badger. Shepherd Book is concerned that there's a problem with the deal. Mal tells him to stay calm--the bargaining game will get them to meet in the middle. Book is skeptical about these men, what with them going to draw their guns at the snap of a nearby twig.
Of course, the parties agree at 25, but just at this moment, some deputies come by to arrest the Grages for the murder of some big-and-high muckity-muck. Mal and Jayne make a mental note: "Jiangyin sucks."
Simon goes searching for River through some huts and tents before finally finding her approaching a small dance festival by some townspeople. River is fascinated and enthralled by the people and the music. She watches them dance, then immediately dances in perfect step with them. God bless Summer Glau and her dance training.
Back at the corral, the head deputy asks Mal if the cattle belong to him, but the buck of passed to the brothers who just bought it.
[That's our Mal! *canned laughter*]
The head deputy asks the Granges for some paperwork on that cattle. The Granges pull a gun from one of the lawmen and a fight ensues, with some sharpshooters on a nearby ridge getting in some shots. Mal and Jayne kiss dirt and crawl for the cash, Mal grumbling about how none of his deals never just go smooth. I mean, really, how hard could this have been? "'Want some shit?' 'Yeah, I want some shit.' 'Got money?' 'Yeah, here's some money.' 'Goodbye.' 'Thanks for the shit.'" Why can't everything just happen that way?!
So, River's dancing and guns blazing...hmm, I wonder if something's going to happen. Naw, nothing's gonna happen--there's no reason for this footage in any way whatsoevaw, fuck, Book just got shot. At this point, River stops dancing and looks scared. Simon wonders what's goingAND THERE GOES SIMON GETTING ALL KIDNAPPED.
Mal goes to the fallen shepherd, who is getting delirious.
Book: *softly and pained* That's...that's quite a lot of blood, isn't it?
Mal: It just means y'ain't dead.
Book: 'Fraid I might be needin' a preacher.
Mal: That's good--you lie there and be ironical.
Mal begs for the medical attention that is so obviously needed, but guess the fuck what? Yep, the lawmen take the lone living Grange brother and head back to town without so much as a "Sorry for leaving your friend for fucking dead." Jayne asks Mal if he got the cash. Mal glares at him.
They carry Shepherd Book back to Serenity and, obviously, everyone's concerned. They get even more concerned when they get to the infirmary and realize that they don't even have a gorram doctor. As Mal looks for something to stop the bleeding and Zoe takes a look at the wound, Kaylee tries to calm Book down by tellign him that this is familiar territory for the two of them, since they were in a war and all. Of course, he can't hear her, what with the being unconscious and on the brink of death and, oh, the bout of shock he just went through and all. Mal gives him a tranquilizer and puts him to sleep.
Simon is being dragged through the wood, trying to figure out where in the fucking hell--
[*sigh* Why fight it?]
--they're taking him. They don't seem to like a hostage that, well, talks, so they punch him in the face once he asks about his sister.
We flash back an indeterminate amount of time to the Tam Estate. Simon, fully-grown, is trying to explain to his parents that River is in deep shit at the academy. He can tell by the letters--they sound nothing like how River speaks, not to mention the flagrant spelling errors which are suspicious since she's been correcting Simon's spelling since she was three years old. The parents, astronomical dipshits that they are, just think that Simon misses his sister.
Simon then asks them if they enjoyed the Darbanvilles' ball this year. They don't know anybody named Darbanville, but apparently, River thoguht their ball this year was quite dull. A mentally-deficient platypus could tell that something was extraordinarily wrong here, but the elder Tams are either just too damn stupid or just too damn lazy to even think that River's in any kind of danger. They tell him that he's being paranoid and, if he talked like this at work, it would affect his entire future. His mother tells him that, one day, "you'll turn around and there she'll be."
Hey, guess the fuck what? Back in present day, who finds Simon and his captors? Hell, let's make it a game.
Simon tries to get her to run, but hell if she didn't pick up some deficience from her folks. The poachers take her with them.
Back on Serenity, everyone is concerned when Wash returns to the ship empty-handed after looking for Dr. Tam. Wash figures it to be the work of some settlers who kidnap tradesmen because......I guess somebody has to. Mal reasons that he has no choice--he closes the door and tells Wash to take off. Kaylee is pissed, but by Mal's logic, the Tams are lost. He will now focus his attention on getting Shepherd Book patched up.
Simon and River look up to see Serenity take off and leave them. Like Mal at the Battle of Serenity Valley, they watch in horror as their hope disintegrates and their world fades away.
Shepherd Book is conscious, but the wound is still bad and not even Zoe's experience from the Unification War is helping matters. Still, she does the old "lie to make you feel better" thing that doctors do. Book can see right through it, but he doesn't let on. In the flight deck, Mal and Wash are trying to find a suitable place to go to get Book the help he needs, but he needs it quick--not even Greenleaf, a ten-hour trip, will do. Inara comes up and tells Mal that he knows where to find a doctor. Mal tells her that even if they went back to Jiangyin, there's no guarantee they'd find Simon.
Inara, however, wasn't talking about Simon--Shepherd Book needs professional care from a proper medical facility, and that means asking the Alliance for help. Mal immediately shuts her down because he'd rather stick his dick in a rusty meat grinder than ask for Alliance assistance. Unfortunately for his logic, while he doesn't have mangled genitals, Book has a potentially mortal gunshot wound. There isn't much other option.
The poaching group have brought Simon and River to the unpolished turd they claim is their town. They yell out, so that all the villagers can hear, that they've brought back a doctor. The villagers are thankful, even though they're creeping closer and stalking him as if they've been injected with Las Plagas.
Back in the former Tam bunk on the ship, Jayne is going through their bags and such because...well, he's Jayne. He's mostly looking for cash and stuff they can pawn. He finds Simon's journal.
Jayne: *opens and "reads"* "Dear Diary: Today, I was pompous and my sister was crazy." *turns page* "Today, we were kidnapped by hill folk, never to be seen again. It was the best day ever."
Book has slipped back into unconsciousness in the infirmary. As Zoe watches over him, Kaylee comes in to see him. She reminisces back to when Book stood over her just like this when she got all shot. Zoe is just as concerned as Kaylee. She's no doctor, after all. She tells Kaylee that the captain will come up with a plan to get Book help. Kaylee starts to think that's good; Zoe reminds her that it was one of Mal's plans, which are usually hit-or-miss.
Serenity approaches Magellan, an Alliance cruiser. Mal is about fourteen different types of reluctant about this, but what choice does he have?
Simon and River are taken to a small makeshift hospital in the town. When Simon is announced as a doctor, the head nurse welcomes him with open arms. Simon thinks that this town may have an epidemic or that there may have been a tragedy; the nurse responds in the negative--while most people heal from sickness or injuries on their own, sometimes it's just too much and a doctor is needed. Simon lets instinct take over and he looks over his new patients.
Serenity docks on Magellan.
Zoe: You sanguine about teh kind of reception we're apt to receive on an Alliance ship, captain?
Mal: Absolutely. What's "sanguine" mean?
Zoe: "Sanguine": "hopeful". Plus--point of interest--it also means "bloody".
Mal: That pretty much covers all the options, don't it?
Mal and Jayne stretcher the shepherd to the forefront of the cargo bay as an Alliance commander comes in...with reinforcements. A cadre of Alliance soldiers comes in and gives the room and once-over. The crew of Serenity are trying to be as nice as possible, but damned if they're not talking to a veritable dickhead. They oint to the guy four feet away with an extra hole in his chest, but the commander doesn't really give much of a shit--they're not in the business of helping the lesser people they attempt to govern. Book, however, slips out of his consciousness just long enough to point to his pocket and tell them to look at his identification card. The commander takes one glance at it and orders his men to get the shepherd onto their ship right damn now for medical assistance. Like wet kittens in a toaster oven, Mal and Zoe are shocked.
[Dude, animal cruelty.]
Proverbial wet kittens!
[Still...dude.]
Aw, c'mon, dude.
[Dude!]
...Dude!
[Dude!]
Dude! [DUDE!]
O_O!
[Duuude...]
.........Well, I guess you got a point there.
River goes over to a little girl; they spend the next several minutes staring at each other. The head nurse (she's never named, so let's call her "Carla") asks Simon what's wrong with her; he just tells her she's been through a traumatic episode. Carla tells Simon that the littlegirl River's looking at is mute--two years ago, she just up and stopped talking. She tells him that this town might be a good place for a girl in River's shoes--the town is quiet, safe, the villagers take care of each other, and every Wednesday is Rib Night at Jolly's down by the lagoon. Simon brings up the whole "your villagers yoinked us off the street against our will to bring us here in the first fucking place" thing. Carla goes into some psychoemotional "it's not the destination, it's the journey" blah-dee-blah that ends with a question: if this place isn't the Tams' home, where is it?
Now we go to the Magellan, where our three main characters watch as Shepherd Book is being attended to in the infirmary. Mal and Zoe wonder what Book's relationship with the Alliance could possibly be. Most people don't just whip out an ident car and get immediate care from the Alliance, after all. This, Jayne muses, is why he doesn't like picking up tourists.
River and the girl (Ruby) have disappeared. Carla checks out back while Simon checks out a side door. Ah, there she is, carrying a bunch of hodgeberries she picked. Even in her condition, she still remembered how much Simon loves them. How sweet is that? Turns out, not getting tested has done wonders for her sanity, which has snuck its way back in just long enough for her to calmly tell Simon that she remembers everything and more--things that have happened to her, things that haven't happened to her, things taht defy any and all logical rules...and certain secrets. She also says that she's sorry that she had Simon ruin his future to get her out of the academy. Simon assures her that, if given the same option, he'd do it all over again. She feeds him a berry and tells him that they won't be here long: "Daddy wil come and take us home." He looks concerned and sits down. She then tells him teh berries are poison. He spits them out, causing her to laugh at his gullibility.
Yeah, she's a little sister all right.
Carla returns with Ruby. She tells Simon that they have a house for him; they've been looking for a doctor for a while, so it's all furnished and ready for living-in. River then blurts out that Ruby watched as her mother went fucknuts and killed Ruby's sister, failing to kill Ruby herself. Carla notes that Ruby must have told this to River, but River brings up something interesting--Ruby didn't say a word; her voice got "scared away", implying that he's actually physically mute. Carla backs away.
Carla: "And they shall be among the people.
Uh-oh.
Carla: "And they shall speak truths and whisper secrets. And you will know them by their crafts."
Oh, shit.
[Uh, Simon? River?]
Oh, shitty shittyshit.
[Abort...abort!]
Carla: ..."Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!"
RETREAT!!! RUN LIKE HELL!!! BITCH, ZOMBIES IN DA ROOM!!! HIS AXE IS ON FIYAH!!! HE KILLED YO PARENTS!!! SHOOT 'IM IN DA HEAD!!! SHOOT 'IM IN DA HEEEEEEAD!!!
Another flashback--Simon's father is bailing him out of an Alliance prison. Simon was caught trying to get River out, but he didn't get deep enough to warrant much of an indictment. Dear ol' dad is more concerned by the fact that he had to leave a dinner party to bail him out. Just walking through the prison's front door goes on the elder Tam's permanent profile. He asks Simon if he's actively trying to destroy the family name. Simon's response: "I didn't realize it woudl be so easy." Dad has reached the end of his tether--if Simon tries any of this shit again, he's cut off.
Carla rings the town bell. Simon is trying to talk some sense into her--like a good little imbecile, she refuses to even give him her attention. As everyone wakes up and heads for the center of the town, the town patron approaches Carla.
Mrs. Wolowitz: WHO'S RINGING THE TOWN BELL AT THIS UNGAWDLY HOUR!!??!!
Howard: IT'S CARLA!!!!
Mrs. Wolowitz: ASK HER WHY SHE'S RINGING THE TOWN BELL AT THIS UNGAWDLY HOUR!!!![*THONK!!*
[OW!!! OW!!! Jesus, Myself & Irene, GodDAMNIT, THAT HURTS!!!]
What the hell did you do?
[FUCK-ALL!! I saw him slap her and I just got this...this urge to OW!!! Now I know why you did it.]
You OK?
[NO, I'M NOT OK!!! I just ran headlong into a seemingly-indestructible television set, you dumb wanker!]
Well, you rest a bit then.
[Oh, well, gee, thanks a bunch-a-doodle! Here, I was gonna continue thinking with the hunk of borscht that is now my brain!]
Oh, waa.
Anyway, the patron declares River to be a witch pretty damn immediately. And how does he choose to deal with this tiny little hiccup in his town? Well, duh--kill it! Kill it with fire! River, upon hearing the word "fire", goes ballistic.
As Serenity leaves Magellan, Mal is in the infirmary, where the newly-reborn Shepherd Book is resting. Book doesn't remember the Alliance coming in, but Mal tells him of it, and he's quite curious as to whose dick Book at one point had to suck in order for even the crew of Serenity to get such a big free pass. Book explains it away as people liking men of God. Mal counterpoints him--men of God invoke mostly guilt. Mal asks Book if he'd like to explain himself. Book's reply is basically "yes", followed by nothing. Before drifting into sleep, he exclaims, "It's good to be home."
As Jayne polishes their money (yes, I said that), Zoe arrives and says that Badger is getting antsy--he wants his share of the cattle job. He wants them to drop it off at a fed base; normally a problem, but without the "two most wanted on board", as Jayne puts it, it'll be easier than peeing. Mal agrees that it would indeed be simpler.
Whelp, time to say goodbye to River Tam; the townsfolk are doing a darn good job setting up her funeral pyre. It was fun knowing you, girl--I will regret never having fucked you. BUT WAIT! Simon makes one more impassioned attempt to save her, fighting off the executioners, then trying to talk some sense into the villagers. The patron actually smirks at him as he tries to pound logic into their heads. Simon sees that there is no hope, so he steps up onto the podium with River. After River identifies what they've tied her to--a postholer--Simon orders them to continue. River says that it's "time to go." Before the pyre can be lit, who should show up but Serenity? They fly low, allowing Jayne to point a gun at the townspeople from the cargo dock while Zoe and Mal approach from the ground.
Daddy's come to pick them up.
Mal: Well, look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time! What does that make us?
Zoe: Big damn heroes, sir!
Mal: Ain't, we, just?
Mal says that they've come to take back what's theirs. The patron tells them that this cleansing is God's will, and that they cannot thwart it. Mal points to the gruff guy pointing the BFG at them; perhaps it's HIS will you shouldn't thwart, dumdum.
Mal: Cut her down.
Patron: The girl is a witch.
Mal: Yeah, but she's our witch. *cocks gun and points it at the patron* So cut her the hell down.
Jayne hustles to put all of the Tams' items back in their original place (which is to say their dorm, on their bed in a big pile). Simon has moved Shepherd Book back to his own bunk to rest. He asks Mal why he came back for them. Mal's response: "You're on my crew." But, Simon retorts, he doesn't even like Simon. So, again, why? "You're on my crew--why're we still talkin' 'bout this?"
Credits roll.
Mucho thanks to Coldguy for giving me a crash course in HTML so I can start submitting my articles properly from now on.
Comments (10)
Just close the quote tag after the cow insanity, and you should be fine. Anyway, these are getting better and better!
I've been waiting forever for a new entry in this series. Very entertaining as always, Matt.
Yay a new review of one of the best shows ever, at long last!!
Great review!!
Wow,I'm glad I tried one of your review "I,m not really the reading type".But when I saw Firefly,I said to myself.Well lets just see what this guy have to say about this show!And the result....
OMG not only you made me laugh so many time "guess who show up-lets make it a game" (wow genius!).And on top of that,you have perfectly shared whit us the highlights of this episodes.Thus giving us a very accurate reviews!All of this to say good job and keep up the good work.Now im going to read your other stuff and will probably get my Firefly boxset out,and start it over.Yes just reading quote from crazy River,make me want to "experience them again first hand".
Farewell!! 2by2 hands of blue!!!
About time you came back with another review. And an excellent one it was too. Was rather surprised, but happy, to see 'Firefly' in the articles list.
Hopefully, the next one won't take as long.
Great review. I think it's sad that we never really find out what Shepherd Book's background actually was before he became a priest. As knowledgeable as he was for all things Alliance, and criminal it must've been pretty sensational. This was the only problem I had with the Serenity movie-killing off Book and Wash. I wanted them to live and the tv series be resurrected back into full production, but NOOOOOOOOOOO! Stupid brain dead assholes at FOX-I could happily trap those FOX bastards in the hatch like Mal did to Jayne at the end of the episode "Ariel" and let them be decompressed into space as Serenity leaves atmo. That'd be shiny. I'm loving these reviews. Peace.
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