Synopsis

Aboard the small ship, a scarily-intense guy studies data and pictures, mostly of River. Wash picks up the ship's echo, but gets distracted by Mal bawling out Jayne for leaving guns laying around, which Jayne denies. River is confined to quarters, but Zoe protests that River isn't dangerous, probably hasn't ever picked up a gun before. That's when Kaylee has to spill about the incident on the space station, and River's easy expertise. As the pilot from the other ship makes his way through vacuum, unseen, onto Serenity's hull, Kaylee tells her story at a group meeting, and everyone winds up stunned, Simon most of all. The freaking commences; River listens in from below the common area (and the intruder listens from outside) as Mal tries to decide what he's going to do about the danger River represents. He's finally figured out that River is 'a reader', a psychic, and they don't know why the Alliance would have done that to her (although assassin is a popular theory). Mal puts the decision off, and they scatter; Kaylee chases Simon down. He's not mad, but he's scared of being forced to leave, for River's sake. Kaylee pointedly asks if there's anything he'd miss, anything he's glad of. Book comes through just in time to break up a potential kiss, and everyone heads out, leaving the ship quiet. Until the airlock opens, letting the intruder inside.

The heavily-armed intruder makes his way through the ship, and runs right into Mal. Mal comes out on the losing end of a vicious fight, and gets locked, unconscious, in his quarters. No one else wakes, even when the intruder sabotages the locks on the crew quarters. Kaylee is still in the engine room when she's ambushed; the intruder terrifies her with rape threats into telling him where River sleeps, before tying her up and leaving her helpless. He leaves Book unconscious in his path, but the ruckus rouses Simon, who finds River's room empty before he is attacked from above by the intruder. The intruder, Early, forces/talks Simon into helping him search for River, on the off-chance that he might be able to escape/attack in the process, and with the added threat of Kaylee's safety. They search with no success, Early rambling as he goes, but totally on guard; Inara's shuttle yields a terrified Companion, but no River. Inara gets hit for talking too much, and sealed in as they leave. They wind up on the bridge, and Early gives up on hide-and-seek; he calls River out over the intercom by threatening to kill Simon. River's voice echoes back, waking Zoe and Wash, and Mal: "River's not on the ship. They didn't want her here, but she couldn't make herself leave, so she melted. Melted away." It's all just spooky enough to make it believable that she's not on the ship -- she's in the ship. She is the ship.

As the disembodied voice bends itself to freaking Early (he's not quite buying it, but freaked nonetheless), it's busy talking to Kaylee in the engine room, getting the terrified girl to cut herself loose with a tool. Then she goes back to freaking Early by tossing out his full name, and talking about his mother, among other things, while getting Mal back on his feet and moving. She has a plan... Kaylee creeps around to disable the locks, as River keeps Zoe and Wash in their quarters, and goes back to freaking Early with his own past, and more about his mother - how she knew Early was bent, and cleaned up after what he did to the animals. So clean... Early suddenly realizes that she's not in his mind -- she's in his ship. River laughs from his cockpit in her vacuum suit. Early tries to get her to leave his ship alone, but river's got him over a barrel. She promises she'll leave with him if he'll leave the others alone -- they don't want her on Serenity anyway. Simon protests, but Early's good with the plan. Until Simon jumps him as he turns to leave, and gets shot. River screams.

it's a leg wound, but it drops Simon -- for a moment. Then he's back on Early until the bounty hunter finally shakes him off and makes it to the airlock. As he leaves Serenity, he starts for his ship -- and finds a vacuum-suited Mal behind him. One shove, and Early is suddenly an object in space, flying away into nothing. River floats down into Mal's arms, and asks for permission to come aboard. It's granted happily, and she goes off to yell at Simon for messing up her plan. Said brother directs Zoe through operating on his leg, as Mal checks on Inara, Jayne and Book trade complaints and lies about the action they missed, and Kaylee and River peacefully play jacks and have some girl talk, and Early drifts deeper into space....

Perri's Review

The crew has concluded that River is a "reader", a telepath, but nobody's even talking about kicking her off ship anymore.

Relationships:
Kaylee and Simon continue to dance around, but almost managed a kiss.

Characters:
River continues to be incredibly cool for a character who had the potential to be the Mary Sue from Hell. The entire opening sequence was a very effective look inside her head, which is an interesting place to visit, but I sure wouldn't want to live there. And the emphasis on the difference between understanding and comprehending was also very interesting -- she understands what she sees, but since it's different than what everyone else sees, comprehending what she's looking at is an issue. Or something like that. Her lightning shifts between being crazy, being supremely competent, and being a total little sister are fascinating to watch, and I love her interactions, not just with Simon, but with Mal and Kaylee as well. But everyone's going to have to work a little more at integrating "the crazy girl" into the crew -- that speech about fading away may have been aimed at making Early believe, but she couldn't have said something like that unless she believed a lot of it.

Mal works so hard at being a good captain, it's almost painful sometimes. He's got a kind of affection for Simon and River despite himself -- not the total big brother thing he's got going with Kaylee (how cute are those two? Seriously?), but a definite affection, along with growing respect for Simon. More important, he's taken responsibility for them, so how hard must it have been to even think about turning his back on that responsibility to protect the rest of his crew? Half of his greeting to River when she returned from Early's ship was relief that everyone was all right -- the rest was total glee that River had proven she wasn't a threat, so he could not only let her stay, but be happy about it.

I just feel so sorry for Simon every time I hear his reminiscing about his days Before Running. Not a lot sorry, because I know he's getting happier and happier on Serenity, and that he'd do it all again to save River, but he gave up so much to do it. All that training, all those skills, and he's ship's doctor with a crew of nine to look after. Mind you, the fact that he has that training, and can therefore help his sister, borders on predestination, but it's still depressing. He and Kaylee are definitely buds now, though, which gives him something besides River to hold onto, and who knows where that's going? Like River, he's avoiding Gary Stu-ness quite adeptly; he continues to balance being a dedicated doctor and brother with a very snarky sense of humor that keeps coming out at totally inappropriate times. Watching him take Early on -- verbally and physically -- rocked. And did I mention the man is cut? Yowsa.

Richard Brooks as a villain is a little weird, but masterfully done -- I'll never be able to watch those Law and Order reruns the same way again. Early was very creepy, with that strange total cold logic mixed with his inability to follow a train of thought, and his occasional weird interpretations of what he heard. Someone suggested to me a few weeks ago (BK the Irregular, I believe), that River's 'alterations' could, as Zoe suggested, be making her into an assassin. I rejected the idea, since I felt River was being changed to feel more, not less, which wouldn't be ideal for an assassin IMO, but there were some very strong resemblances between her and Early, too many to dismiss the idea entirely.

Kaylee is tougher than she gives herself credit for, I think. She couldn't shoot anyone to protect herself or the ship, and she couldn't fight Early one-on-one, but given an opportunity to help, even utterly terrified, she did it. I respect that -- in the long run, she was more effective that she would have been if she'd tried to take him on, and gotten hurt or killed, which she would have.

Not a great episode for anyone else -- everyone got a fun bit here and there (Wash continues to delight), and Book got knocked out again. Nobody on ship takes as much punishment as that poor preacher does. But Early's dismissal of him as a shepard, along with River's brief flash, continues to build a picture of what book used to be -- my money's still on Alliance Special Forces. Everyone seemed to be having fun at Jayne's expense, which is just never bad.

Best Moments:
Kaylee and Simon sprawled together telling the silly story. I just love these two, as friends or romantically involved. I'm not fussy.

But the silliness made the abrupt jump into River's flashes all the more powerful. I particularly loved the flashes of Jayne and Book.

The abrupt jump from River's vision to everyone yelling about the gun was nicely done, too.

Mal's delivery, telling Kaylee he's glad she couldn't kill anyone.

Inara busting in and telling everyone to stop joking. I enjoy the joking, but Inara is just cool. Actually, the entire meeting was very well done; great performances all around -- Wash and Zoe holding hands when Niska is mentioned, Simon trying desperately to deal, Mal being worried and stern.... Very cool.

Kaylee and Simon in the corridor. Too poignant and too sweet. And funny, with the space bugs.

Simon an Early, any time. Early is fabulous all the way through, but when faced with Simon (either of the Tam siblings, actually) he's just great.

River pretending to be the ship. Brilliant and highly creepy.

Jayne rolling over and going back to sleep. Just when you think he's finally going to be helpful....

The quick flashes of Early being crazy were really, really effective.

River's goodbye speech. Even knowing she wouldn't leave, knowing she was planning something, it was really sad.

"He takes so much looking after." < giggle >

The last shot of Early. Yay.

Questions and Comments:
We never get a good explanation of what that gun was doing on the cargo bay floor. Either Jayne is lying about not tracking his weapons, which I highly doubt, or the bounty hunter slipped on and left it, for no reason that I can come up with.

Sometimes, it's incredibly obvious Summer Glau is a dancer; the way she bent all the way forward at the waist picking up the branch, and her amazing stance on the railings to eavesdrop -- it's cool, and Joss is using it effectively.

Oh, yay, Joss is reading reviews -- nice to know that the only kind of bullets Jayne carries are soft lead that can't pierce the hull. It'd be even nicer if I believed it. Jayne's a hardware kind of guy -- if he's not carrying around armor-piercing bullets, or the rough equivalent, I will be very surprised. But if he refrains from loading them aboard ship, I'll snark less about projectile weapons in space. (Never mind that the ship is still and enclosed, self-contained environment with lots of delicate, life-preserving equipment -- what load did he have on Vera to blow up the gravity web thingy in Our Mrs. Reynolds (which had to have been shielded or any passing bit of space debris could total it, thus proving my point)? Gee, guess the snarking will continue.)

Rating:
5 stars out of 5. This. Rocked. With every episode, Firefly gets stronger -- characterization, dialogue, plot, it's all there -- thus making me look really hard at Fox executives to try and figure out if they really are that dumb.