3:00 : Gina Torres‘ Zoe is taken out of action early in the episode. This was to give the actress time off to get married.

5:08 : Book tells a story about a member of the Brethren at the monastery. It’s doesn’t seem like an outright lie and appears quite genuine. Might Book have spent time as a Shepherd without actually being one? The mystery of Book continues…

7:28 : We may have not heard from the Alliance in a few episodes, but they’re still actively looking for the Tams – they recently sent out an updated wanted file on them…

7:30 : …which, according to Mal, now includes their birthdays. Today is Simon’s.

10:10 : It’s at this point, flashbacking back to Mal alone on Serenity, that the shading of each scene becomes apparent: there’s a lighter filter on the flashback scenes that make them stand out from the dark, shadowy, lonely scenes on the ship.

11:41 : Wash’s angry retort translates as “Screw you,” which is understandable considering.

12:04 : During the filming of this scene, in response to Alan Tudyk‘s rather large moustache, he finished his cue only to hilariously look up and see his fellow cast members Nathan Fillion and Gina Torres sporting the same hideous feature!

12:33 : Zoe takes an instantly dislike to Wash, a cute in-joke since we know they end up married. She really didn’t like him!

12:55 : Bester, Serenity‘s original, and rather useless, mechanic, is introduced. He’s played by Dax Griffin, who would join the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a younger Hank Pym, as played by Michael Douglas in the Ant-Man movies. He was also on The Bold and the Beautiful.

14:17 : Mal asks Kaylee what happened to cause the explosion on the ship. She points towards the faulty compression coil – which she asked him to fix back in the pilot episode. She also warned what would happen if it wasn’t replaced, foreshadowing this episode right at the start of our journey. She also reminded him in ‘second pilot’ The Train Job.

16:53 : After their humorous exchange in the last episode concerning the Bible, River finds Book praying after learning their upcoming fate. She also hilariously tells him they’d freeze to death first. Note: she talks about it as if it’s a possibility and not a certainty. This is her precognitive ability again.

18:53 : The lingering tension between Wash and Mal, in particular regarding Zoe, has been an issue since Zoe needed permission to take a break in Serenity. It will all come to a head in the following episode, but it escalates here.

20:36 : Kaylee really is born to be a mechanic. She knows how to fix Serenity’s engine after it’s been parked on a moon for over a week. She identifies what’s broken, finds it, removes it, overrides it’s controls and bypasses the entire system in order to get the engine started in seconds – and has never even been in a Firefly-class ship before. Remarkable.

24:02 : The announcement voice warning Mal about his lack of air repeats continuously in the background in these scenes. It plays both in English and Mandarin.

25:47 : Just as he did when being pursued by Reavers in Serenity, Mal prepares to evacuate Serenity, using both of the shuttles. This time he does so.

26:42 : The first meeting between Inara, who is more like Saffron in this scene, and Mal. Even from the beginning, she has his measure and he’s into her. The sexual tension between the characters, as well as the chemistry between Fillion and Baccarin positively sizzles.

29:30 : Inara tells Mal that he will never refer to her as a ‘whore’ ever again. Of course, as we’ve already seen, he frequently uses it to describe her work, if not Inara herself.

30:37 : The red button is introduced. This button became a symbol to the fanbase as a ‘call-to-arms’ to resurrect the cancelled television series. Arguably, Serenity is the result. According to the DVD commentary, Alan Tudyk took the big red “recall” button from the Serenity set and presented it to Joss Whedon, telling him that if he managed to get the series renewed, he could press it to call the cast back.

33:13 : The unnamed Captain who hails Serenity and later shoots Mal, is played by Steven Flynn, who has appeared in Scandal and Bosch: Legacy.

35:39 : And finally, the last crew member we meet in flashback is Jayne who, as we learned in Jaynestown, was a mercenary four years before.

35:40 : Jayne doesn’t have much luck with partners does he? Here he betrays fellow merc Marco for Mal without any hesitation – simply because the money is better and he’d have his own room. Marco is played by Ilia Volok, who is perhaps better know to cult fans as Master Org, the arch villain of Power Rangers: Wild Force.

38:00 : The unnamed crewman who reports back to the captain when they find Mal, is played by Roderick McCarthy, who’s appeared on shows such as NCIS and Lucifer.

39:26: And now, here we are, back at the beginning of the episode as time catches up…

43:15 : Throughout this episode, despite it being shown in other episodes, Mal’s scar that he received from Crow in The Train Job isn’t seen on his chest.

43:40 : And then the twist; the boat seller isn’t talking about Serenity. The episode ends as Mal, silently and reverently, first spies the familiar ship in the distance.