This is the one where a woman sneaks on board the ship, pretends to be from “primitive” society with simple rituals that mean she’s married to Mal, but it turns out she’s a femme fatale trying to steal the ship. The crew deal with that situation and the femme fatale, Saffron I believe, gets to be set up as a potential recurring character. I think she may actually come back before the show ends, but I can’t remember the details of that return.

Not much to report (apart from being disappointed that the idea of men wearing dresses is still meant to be funny in a future where humanity is spread over a bunch of worlds). One thing I did quite like was the idea of using a spacesuit to make sure a gun had oxygen so it could fire in a vacuum. I liked that.

I can’t think of much to say about this one. Another perfectly fine episode. I guess the most notable thing here is the flashbacks showing Simon and River’s relationship and how it all leads to him being willing to be burned at the stake alongside her. It’s all well and good.

There’s also the part where a job goes bad and Book gets shot and, without their doctor, the crew need to find a way to make him not die. There are hints at Book’s mysterious backstory, but that story is more about what Mal is willing to do for his crew. And he’s willing to do a lot, because it is his crew. He’s a possessive guy, which can make him a prick, but also can make him loyal. Lookit this complicated prick. He’s still a prick, though.

I will note that the episode picks up with the crew finishing a cattle smuggling job they got hired for last time. In my memory that subplot lasted longer, with maybe a whole episode taking place while they were in space with the cows. Maybe it was just the fact I liked that they had cows on the ship that made it stand out as something more in my mind. Because I did like that.

This is another one that starts with a bar fight. Sometime between when this show aired and when I’m watching it now I decided that I considered bar fights a hackneyed way to introduce characters. I haven’t held that against this show yet, but if it happens again I may reconsider. Another recurring element is how this one has a lot of Mal being rude to his friends. That guy needs therapy. At least this is an episode about how he’s rude to them, I guess, instead of him just being rude in an episode about something else.

We get a lot of planetside scenes here. The ones that are on a busy street, I liked. It’s clearly not a spectacularly huge set, but I think the design (and all the extras they cram into it) make it look like a busy, too-small street. It works for me. The set of the supposedly fancy ballroom is less impressive, but I bet I’d actually also be unimpressed with most real fancy ballrooms. But I can say this: Mal wonders why the rich people would have something as dumb as a hovering chandelier. I don’t disagree that that is extravagant, but, hey, Mal. Earlier in the episode you were playing pool on a table where instead of just having balls they have hologram balls that can malfunction. That is just as dumb, if not more so, you idiot.

Something show clearly understands is how Kaylee is so sweet that having anyone be rude to her will make us sad and having her achieve a victory will make us happy. I’m not saying this as a criticism. The show clearly knows what it has with her and is using it to their advantage. It’s also why she was the one in the pilot who got shot. She’s just inherently care-aboutable.

Final note: the line “That there, exactly the kind of diversion we coulda used.” made me laugh.

This was a relatively simple episode, and I think that’s what makes it work. They continue to build up the mystique of the Reavers, this time by showing us the aftermath of one of their attacks, but not showing the Reavers themselves. It’s wise, and it’s one of the reasons I do think the cancellation might have kept the show’s quality up. If they’d tried to keep the Reavers interesting for several seasons, it would likely have failed, but right now they are still seemingly dangerous killers who leave behind ghost ships and mentally-scarred survivors.

The episode also does a thing that shows do a lot where they have someone interviewing the group, one at a time, so we get different bits with the characters giving answers. I suppose that, as ways to get character exposition out go, it’s one of the more fun ways.

I don’t have many deeper thoughts about it, beyond thinking that the whole “ghost ship” narrative doesn’t really feel very Western, especially since I am trying not to think of the Reavers as Hollywood-style “Injuns” at this point, though I can definitely understand that reading.

I dunno, I thought it was a fine episode.

Just to make sure this Space Western is fully established as a Space Western, the second episode has the team rob a train, except instead of riding up on horses, they do it on a spaceship. Naturally it can’t all go smoothly, so the team gets separated, and also they find out that the goods they were hired to steal were medicines that are desperately needed by the innocent people.

The team actually avoid the authorities easily enough, but then it’s that moral quandary about the medicine that complicates thing. In spite of Mal spending most of the episode of the episode bickering with his crew, and with River reminding us that Mal means Bad in Latin, Mal makes the right choice and returns the medicine.

The crimeboss guy who hired them, Niska, does come back for revenge in a later episode I think, but near the end of this one they have one of the bits that made me a fan back in the day. Mal offers to return the money Niska gave them to Niska’s big muscle guy, but the big muscle swears revenge until Mal kicks him into the ship’s engine. Then Mal repeats the offer to another of Niska’s guys and that one immediately accepts.

But the most important thing is this: The episode opens with Mal starting a bar brawl on Unification Day. I have to wonder, is that day different on each planet, based on what day it was locally when they received word that the Alliance had won? Or is there meant to be some standard time and date that the Alliance uses? I doubt the relativistic effects of time during space travel will come up in the show, but I’m curious.