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.