| Episode No. | Firefly Season 1, Episode 9 |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Allan Kroeker |
| Written by | José Molina |
0:03 : Mal’s narration in this episode is the second version, heard last in Safe.
0:51 : The “Previously on Firefly“, is narrated by Ron Glass, his only contribution to this episode.
2:16 : Wash is trying to entice Zoe into some personal time, which he did in Serenity and Shindig.
2:44 : Ariel is a central planet in the Core, which means it’s rich, loaded with wealth, power and luxury. For Wash and Kaylee it’s something they’ve never seen and they’re fascinated, whereas Zoe doesn’t even want to set foot on it.
3:04 : Jayne is wearing his Blue Sun shirt again…
3:15 : Book has left the ship to explore the local Abbey.
4:06 : River slashes Jayne with a large knife. The crew assume it’s because Jayne’s being Jayne, but it’s the symbol on his shirt, just like on the food cans in Shindig, that she’s attacking.
5:20 : Mal warned Jayne as far back as Safe that the Tams were now officially part of his crew and their safety was not negotiable. He’s been expecting trouble with Jayne since Jaynestown and warns him again that he wants everything to run smooth between them.
7:35 : Ron Glass doesn’t appear in this episode.
9:23 : Simon outlines his plan to the crew so they can enter the hospital and steal the supplies, while he navigates River’s brain with a holo-imaging system. It’s easy to forget that Simon is very good at crime, as Mal will point out at the end of the episode, and as we’re reminded when we see him break River out of the Academy in the opening scene of the feature film.
10:46 : Kaylee is annoyed; her first trip to the Core and she’s digging for trash. She grumbles – until she gets excited like a puppy over a pile of junk she can salvage. She’s such a cutie! What’s also funny is Wash, picking up a catalyser and throwing it casually to one side – last episode’s explosion occurred because their catalyser had fallen into disrepair.
17:20 : In a great moment, Jayne has rehearsed his lines so much, he has to say them, annoyed that he’s gone to all that effort for nothing. It’s laugh-out loud hilarious.
18:40 : Agent McGinnis’s’ greeting is a simple ‘Hello?’
18:42 : Agent McGinnis is played by actor Blake Robbins, a regular on television, securing guest roles in everything from NCIS to The OC and, most recently, was in Marvel’s Wonder Man.
19:14 : When River wakes up, she says to Jayne, “Copper for a kiss.” This is usually a reference to the betrayal of Jesus Christ by Judas Iscariot, who was paid 30 pieces of silver. The copper River refers to is the ‘penny’ rather than the colour of the coin.
19:57 : Actor Tom Virtue plays the unnamed doctor who approaches Mal and Zoe. He was also Reverend Stone in The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008-2013).
20:28 : River predicts a patient will die and points to him, telling Simon that the doctor is administering the wrong medicine. Sure enough, the patient codes seconds later.
22:00 : Simon proves he still has the skills here: he moves, diagnoses the patient, corrects the problem, saves the patient’s life and gives him a better treatment plan, before berating the caregiver. Is this why Simon is kept alive? Could his brain be just as useful to the Alliance as his sister’s?
26:25 : At the academy, the scientists cut into River’s brain and removed her amygdala. This has made her hypersensitive in every way to every thing around her.
33:20 : River claimed ‘they’ would arrived from the black. ‘They’ emerge from a black space shuttle.
33:30 : Jayne kills the security guard for he and the Tams to escape. At the end of the episode Simon will thank him for risking his life for theirs, unaware that he’s betrayed them. He kills the guard, more than likely, because he knows he set up the Tams.
34:21 : River tells Simon and Jayne that it’s too late: “They’re here.” Her precognitive powers seem to get stronger as ‘they’ approach.
34:37 : And sure enough, shortly afterwards, the same Blue-Handed Men from The Train Job, with Jeff Ricketts and Dennis Cockrum reprising their roles, arrive at the hospital.
35:32 : River repeats her phrase from The Train Job: “Two by two, Hands of Blue.”
41:38 : Jayne, as we learned in Out of Gas and Jaynestown, tends to go with the money rather than anything else, and thought nothing of betraying his previous two partners in crime.
42:44 : Mal again tells Jayne that a betrayal to his crew is a betrayal to him and this time he’s not messing around. Jayne begs him to stop before he dies of asphyxiation or is blown out into space. He also begs Mal not to tell the others about his crimes. Mal lets him in due to his remorse, but River and Simon will confront Jayne in Trash. His words here about Jayne betraying him to his face, is similar to what he told Simon in the pilot: “If I shoot you, it’ll be when you’re armed and it’ll be to your face.”
42:44 : Translates as ‘little sister’.
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