Tallguy's Firefly - Safe

By this time next week, we'll be done. Again.

And the Tams were Safe. Welcome to the Tallguy Firefly recap. Airdate November 8th, 2002. Incidentally, Objects in Space, the last chronological episode aired December 13th, 2002, five years ago yesterday. So I've really kind of blown this. But it'll be a busy week.

We open with a flashback. We're getting deep into the River / Simon story here. I think this episode works fine right where it is. None of this would have touched me if the only thing I had seen of River was in the previous four episodes. She's not in Serenity or Train Job much. She's just strange in Bushwhacked. Since she's used so sparingly, we need all the River we can get before we get here.

We see that the Tams were happy. And their parents were loving but indifferent. I guess it's tough to cram "idyllic gifted childhood" into a minute and a half. I might have liked to have seen more with Mr. and Mrs. Tam in later seasons.

There's a lot of "built up to" in this episode. You get the notion that Mal and the crew have been dealing with River's shenanigans for a while now. Not just four episodes. And Simon is finally starting to see the life that he's living in comparison with the life he traded. Enough that he can be a little mean to Kaylee. (And they have this fight a lot, remember?)

Also another piece in the puzzle of Shepard Book, Man of Terrible Mystery. I'm not sure they had really made up their minds on this one. Either that or they weren't as good at switching back and forth as they should have been. Some things unsettle the good preacher that shouldn't have if he was really Man of Terrible Mystery. OR we just really don't know what his story was, and it all would have made sense later. I
mean, this isn't Ron Moore we're dealing with here.

My biggest argument for Safe being where it is is that when River breaks into dance with the locals (cause Summer's all trained ballet dancer, right?) it just breaks your heart. Because you've seen how broken and how damaged she is. Like Simon will say later "She just wants to be a kid." If I didn't know River at this point, I wouldn't have seen that. (There's a similar scene for Mal in Serenity. I'll talk about that next Thursday.)

I tend to dismiss this episode as one of my less favorite. (It's got a teeny bit of religious bigotry, but it is after all television.) Then I watch it and it's got many of my favorite bits. Lots of this beats in this episode made it into the movie. Mal saying who is and who isn't part of his crew, and what that means. It also taught me sanguine means bloody. Educational Firefly!

"See, morbid and creepifiying, I got no problem with..."

"Black market beagles"

And of course: "BIG DAMN HEROES, Sir!" "Ain't. We. Just!"

It's still got cows. And it ends at the table. All in all a great episode, really. It sums up a lot of the "western in space" feel that Joss and Tim wanted. And Fox didn't. So MOVE it.

Next up, back to the sanctified "intended" order with Ariel.