Synopsis

Mal struggles to his feet, bringing some kind of mechanical part with him. His left side is soaked with blood. He stumbles off into the body of the ship where laughter fills the air, as Serenity's entire crew is gathered for a light-hearted dinner. Wash returns from laying in a course that should keep them well away from Alliance patrols and any other signs of life, per Mal's orders for discretion, and Kaylee adds to the entertainment by producing a pseudo-cake, candles flickering, for a surprised Simon, who didn't know they knew his birthday. The lights suddenly die, then flicker back to life; River, staring at the candles, whispers "Fire." A few moments later, a gush of fire explodes through the hatchway. Zoe shoves Kaylee out of the way, taking the brunt of the explosion as more rock the ship. The crew springs into action, venting the fire out through the cargo bay and locking down the hatches; Simon is cut off from the medical supplies he needs to treat Zoe. Mal grimly watches the cargo bay doors close again....

Mal staggers through the darkened ship, one hand clutched to the bleeding wound in his side as he forces open the hatchway to the infirmary and Simon bursts through the hatchway, Wash and Jayne helping him carry Zoe into the infirmary. Simon begins treating her, but there are internal injuries. Mal orders a terrified Kaylee to the engine room and she goes, but things almost get ugly when Mal orders Wash to the bridge for damage control, and Wash refuses to leave his wife. Wash has to be slammed into a wall and yelled at before he gives in and stalks towards the bridge. Clad in a hideous Hawaiian shirt and a dreadful mustache, Wash levers his way out from under Serenity's less-than-pristine control banks, declaring his ability to make it work. He comes highly recommended for the job and Mal wants to hire him to complement their surfer-dude mechanic, but Zoe doesn't like him. It seems Wash bothers her for some reason. She goes into cardiac arrest as Simon works, finding a syringe of pure adrenaline and injecting it into her heart...

Mal screams as he ties off a bandage on his torso, then fumbles through the drawers to find a syringe of adrenaline. He braces himself, then screams again as he injects it into his heart, body shuddering in convulsions on the med table--

Kaylee looks soberly at Mal as he stands next to a med table. Her damage report is bad -- a crucial catalyzer blew and killed an engine, which took down main and auxiliary life support. And most of the oxygen was vented with the fire. The only air and heat they have left are what's currently in the ship's atmosphere. They have only a few hours of life left.

Inara checks in on Zoe, and winds up trying to comfort a freaked-out Simon; Book prays in his quarters and gets a freaky visit from River. Mal and Wash fight on the bridge about setting off a distress beacon, and getting it far enough for someone to hear -- the range being the trick, since they're as far away from life as they can get. They scream their way into a solution piggy-backed off the navigation signal, before Jayne tells them to stop using up oxygen and stalks away. As the computer gives life-support failure warnings, Mal staggers around the corner into the engine room and starts yelling for his mechanic, Bester. Seems Mal's waiting for the engines to get fixed, and Bester is a little behind. Like, a week. The reason for which becomes immediately obvious as he and the girl he was busy having sex with break apart and start trying to fix their clothing. Bester cheerfully tells him the engine can't be fixed; the grav boot's shot. The girl corrects him in Kaylee's cheerful voice, and proceeds to fix the problem in minutes. Completely impressed, Mal offers Kaylee Bester's job, and she gleefully heads off to ask her folks for permission. Mal leaves the gaping Bester behind and goes searching for Kaylee. She's slumped beside the engine hopelessly; there's nothing she can do to fix it without a new catalyzer, which doesn't fit where it needs to anymore. Mal stumbles into the engine room and struggles to fit the catalyzer he's been carrying around into place. His hands are shaking too badly and it clatters to the deck beneath the engine.

It's getting cold on Serenity as her crew gathers; time is running out, but Mal has a plan. He sends them off in Serenity's shuttles, four to a ship; the shuttles are short range, but have life-support. They'll go in opposite directions, and hope for a miracle; Mal is staying behind with the ship, in case their beacon gets a response. Inara tries to talk Mal out of staying, but he talks over her as he opens the hatch to her shuttle and escorts Inara inside. It's not much to look at, but Inara seems interested in renting. She lays down her rules -- total privacy, she doesn't service the crew, schedules get maintained, and she gets a discount on the rent; Mal accepts when she points out the business advantages of having a respectable companion onboard. But he gets even less happy about it when she tells him she supported Unification in the war. He refers to her as a whore, she warns him not to do it again, and a beautiful friendship is born as they prep the shuttle for departure, Mal still determined to stay. Wash has set up a beacon to call the shuttles back and the final preparations are made; Mal and Inara share one last look before the shuttles depart, leaving Mal alone on the bridge of his ship. He curls up in a blanket and waits, eventually falling asleep. The hailing signal almost doesn't wake him, but finally, he sees the signal from the huge ship that's followed Wash's beacon. Both sides are suspicious, but the Captain of the other ship finally agrees to come aboard with the catalyzer, as long as no one aboard Serenity tries anything. But when they board, they're the ones with the weapons .

Mal faces the weapons with his hands up as Jayne and two others keep their guns steady on Mal and Zoe, standing in Serenity's open cargo bay. Mal breaks the standoff by summing up his opponents and making Jayne a better job offer, including a higher percentage and his own quarters. After a thoughtful moment, Jayne accepts by shooting one of his current employer. Mal's hands stay up as he offers the captain whatever he wants of the cargo; the captain wants to salvage Serenity, and clears up ownership issues by shooting Mal. Then he makes the mistake of turning his back on him -- Mal comes up with a weapon of his own, leveling it at the pirates. They retreat, leaving the precious catalyzer behind. The cargo bay doors behind them, and Mal collapses to the deck. Working slowly and painstakingly, his hands bloody, Mal fits the catalyzer into place. He closes the switch, and the engine begins to turn, restoring power to Serenity. Mal stumbles back towards the bridge and the recall button, but falls unconscious to the deck, a few feet short of his goal...

A babble of voices and memories, and Mal emerges slowly back into consciousness, to find himself in the infirmary, his crew gathered around. Zoe is still in a bed, and Wash is hooked up to a transfusion system running into Mal. Seems Zoe recovered consciousness aboard the shuttle and ordered them back to pick up Mal, in time to save his life. He thanks them, then, after extracting a promise that they'll still be there, drifts back to sleep. A man in a white suit with a voice that screams "used car salesman" extols the virtue of a tall, yellow ship on his lot. "You buy this ship, treat her proper, she'll be with you for the rest of your life." Mal turns away, his attention caught by a battered freighter on the other side of the lot. Serenity sits alone, waiting for him....

Review

Relationships:
Yes, Inara and Mal have been vibing at each other from Day One. How terrifying.

Kaylee made Simon a birthday cake. How adorable is that?

Characters:
I can't say that anyone's introduction to the crew comes as much of a surprise (with the possible exception of Kaylee). I am so glad Wash shaved off whatever crawled on his lip and died (what is it with male facial hair that no makeup department in the known universe has ever made it look not-awful?), and vastly amused at Zoe being "bothered" by him. Wherein bothered = I find him irritating, yet strangely attractive, and I'd really rather not deal with the concept enough to even put it into coherent words. < snerk > I really hope we get more flashbacks on that courtship!

Overheard on the phone -- Chris: "So that's how Kaylee got her job. She boinked the guy who had it before her." Perri: "That's not how she got the job! That's how she got the interview." < snicker > After the first moment of blinking incredulity, it actually makes sense -- small-town girl, trained as a mechanic, wanting to get her hands on one of the big ships so bad she can taste it. But she doesn't have the formal training to get a job (she thinks), so she settles for glomming onto cute mechanics who do have the job. Naughty Kaylee, using poor Bester to get close to his engines. < g > Her seduction wardrobe needs help, though -- the flowery dress may have been her idea of "girl wear" but wow, was it unattractive in all possible ways. I'm sure Inara is working on the problem. And I hope we meet Kaylee's parents one of these days.

Mal really is an awesome captain, and he proved it here just by the way he dealt with the crisis. He dealt with Wash and Kaylee in totally different ways -- challenging Wash while gently, but firmly, coaxing Kaylee -- and gets the desired results from both of them. When neither of them can create a miracle, he came up with a plan to give as much of his crew as much of a chance as possible, and sends them off. To top it off, he works past being shot in the gut to get rid of the pirates and fix the ship, to bring them all home. I really, really love this man; no wonder Zoe refused to go anywhere without him.

I love the constantly conflicting attitudes we see towards Inara's profession, and how she deals with them. For society as a whole, a registered companion is respectability personified, and she uses that to her advantage. For individuals, like Mal and Jayne, the perception is still "whore". Mal, at least, is fighting his perception, dealing with the person instead of the profession as much as possible. Jayne just needs to be slapped multiple times until he learns to keep his mouth shut, because he's unlikely to ever change his view. Fortunately, Inara is more than capable of cutting anyone off at the knees -- with dignity and grace, of course. And I continue to drool over her wardrobe.

Simon really is going to do something nasty to Jayne one of these days, and Jayne's going to deserve it. It takes real skill or total indifference to any form of manners to insult Simon by cutting him off to go insult Inara. Btu Simon got distracted quickly, first by being an awesome doctor, then by having a quiet little freak-out -- the universe just keeps throwing things at the poor boy -- arrest warrants, injured crewmates, totaled life-support systems -- and he keeps scrambling to adapt.

Best Moments:
Were there any moments that didn't rock? Okay, seriously, Mal introducing Zoe to the ship was fun and cool, especially with the hallucination of the light on Mal's face as the doors open a few years ago.

All the stuff at dinner was neat -- it's good to see how the entire crew functions together, glitches (*cough*Jayne*cough*) and all. Plus, Zoe saving dinner for Wash was so cool and married of them.

River's perfect little-sister delivery of, "I didn't get you anything." had me rolling. Followed almost immediately by the "Fire." bit two seconds before the explosion... she's a creepy kid.

Zoe's "He bothers me.". Knowing what we do about their future, this is classic.God, I want to see that courtship.

Any time Mal and Kaylee were on screen. He's so good with her.

River's Wednesday Addams impersonation at Book about how they're going to die. Nice continuity on that relationship.

Wash and Mal's yelling face-off on the bridge. Wash, in particular, was priceless, and Jayne's "You're going to use up all the air!" was the perfect topper.

Meeting Kaylee. < snicker > That scene is just never going to stop being funny.

The long look between Mal and Inara as the shuttles about to leave. Yowsa. Chemistry much?

Meeting Jayne. Nothing surprising about it, but watching Mal fast-talk him was quite the entertaining experience.

Meeting Serenity. Gorgeous way to wrap back around to where we started.

Questions and Comments:
I had a nice formula for synopsizing -- one paragraph per act, short and simple. Except it would have been a crime to do that, here, and I'm not even sure it would be possible, given that I had to track three separate timelines. I'm not complaining, merely noting for the record.

Rating:
4.5 stars out of 5. I'd give it five, but there's a possibility they may manage to top this episode someday. But this is definitely the best episode the Firefly crew have put together yet. The three timelines flowed together seamlessly, the transitions were exceptionally well-done, the characterization and dialogue were dead-on right down the line. This is Firefly living up to its potential.