Overall: 8.8
This episode is a fan favorite for a reason: it is very funny.
Plot Synopsis:
After helping the people of Triumph get rid of a group of bandits, Mal and the others enjoy a celebration at the settlement. Mal, of course, gets quite smashed during these festivities, so he doesn't think it odd at all when a young girl crowns him with a floral wreath, shares her wine, and pulls him into a dance. Imagine Mal's shock, then, when he discovers upon departure that this girl has followed him onto Serenity and is claiming to be his wife!
The rest of the crew reacts to this news in different ways. Jayne immediately wants the girl, Saffron, for himself and even offers to trade his favorite gun for her (LOL!). Book warns Mal not to take advantage of Saffron, telling Mal that he will end up in the "special hell" if he lays a finger on her. Zoe is especially annoyed by Saffron's submissiveness and gets into a fight with Wash over it. And as for Mal himself? Well, he offers to get Saffron some honest work at the next stop.
Later, though, Mal finds Saffron naked in his quarters, and he finds he can't quite resist her seductive charms (though, to his credit, he does do his level best). Saffron and Mal kiss -- after which Mal keels over, drugged. Saffron, who is obviously not what she at first appeared to be, then heads to the cockpit, where she tries the same trick on Wash. Wash, however, resists Saffron out of fear of and love for his wife, so Saffron knocks him out the old fashioned way. She then rewires the ship to change its course and seals the cockpit shut. She rushes to one of Serenity's shuttles, but runs into Inara on the way. For a third time, Saffron attempts her seduction trick, but Inara recognizes at once what Saffron is doing and demands to know who she is. Presently, the warning klaxons sound, and Saffron flees in the empty shuttle.
When the others finally break open the cockpit, they find Wash unconscious and bleeding. Horrified, Inara rushes to Mal's quarters. Upon finding Mal laid out on the floor, she panics and kisses him. Evidently, some of Saffron's drug was still on Mal's lips, for Inara loses consciousness shortly after the kiss.
Later, after Mal, Inara, and Wash have recovered somewhat from Saffron's attack, the crew determines that the ship is bound for a criminal scrap yard. To escape from the scrappers' net, Jayne takes out "Vera" (the aforementioned favorite gun) and blows some holes in the net's power generators. Serenity escapes, and Wash and Kaylee are able to retake control.
At the end, Mal tracks down Saffron and roughs her up a bit for trying to take his ship.
Writing: 9.5
How many classic moments are in this script penned by Joss Whedon? Well, let's see: first we have Mal's swearing by his "pretty floral bonnet" in the teaser; then there's Mal's urging Saffron to try to kill people "right back" if they try to kill her, which is both sweet and funny; next there's Book's informing Mal of the existence of the "special hell"; and then there's Jayne's offering his gun - which, hilariously, he has named - for Saffron in trade. I could go on for a while here. Suffice it to say that this episode, in the first half at least, offers up a belly laugh a minute; it is just that hysterical.
By the way, Joss really knows how to write anti-heroes. I say this because I find myself developing an intense affection for Jayne the further we proceed in this re-watch. Yes, I know! He's a scoundrel - a walking id. I certainly would never consider dating him in real life. But his complete lack of refinement is, oddly, so pure and childlike that I can't help but love it. He's named his gun, for heaven's sake! How can that not make you smile in spite of yourself?
Acting: 9.0
I'm glad Christina Hendricks returns later, as I believe she fits well with the regular cast and does a great job playing both the innocent and the vixen.
Message: 8.0
Generally speaking, our popular culture portrays people as utterly unable to resist their biology. That is not the same message we get here. Sure, Mal does break down eventually and kisses Saffron, but if this were an ordinary, low-brow show, he would've been on her like white on rice with nary a thought regarding morality or hell. Then there's Wash, who, despite feeling a powerful temptation, successfully resists Saffron's wiles.
Also delightful is Mal's refusal to treat Saffron as a commodity to be traded. And that points to what many moderns would consider a paradox: as we saw in Shindig and as we see here, Mal has many quaint notions when it comes to protecting the womenfolk -- yet he treats women as if they were the spiritual equals of men. I'm sure this makes many feminists' heads explode. How could a practitioner of chivalry be so, well, egalitarian? Luckily, I'm an anti-feminist; since I'm of the firm opinion that women are frequently objectified and degraded more now than they ever were in the "bad old days," Mal's behavior here is not, for me, a mystery. It makes perfect sense to me that Mal would balk at treating women as things to be used. It makes perfect sense to me that the women on Mal's ship would be more free than many women in my own society. The old Christian notions, which hold women up as essentially different from men and therefore special, enable - not cripple - our freedom
A rather long highlights section can be found under the cut.
Highlights:
BANDIT: You gonna give us what due us, and every damn thing else on that boat. And I think maybe you're gonna give me a little one-on-one time with the missus.
JAYNE: Oh, I think you might wanna reconsider that last part. See, I married me a powerful ugly creature.
MAL: How can you say that? How can you shame me in front of new people?
JAYNE: If I could make you purtier, I would.
MAL: You are not the man I met a year ago.
(Mal and Jayne whip out their guns, and Mal pulls down his bonnet.)
MAL: Now think real hard. You been bird-dogging this township a while now. They wouldn't mind a corpse of you. Now you can luxuriate in a nice jail cell, but if your hand touches metal, I swear by my pretty flowered bonnet, I will end you. (ROTFL!)
MAL: Zoe, why do I have a wife?
JAYNE: You got a wife? All I got is that dumbass stick sounds like it's raining. How come you got a wife? (Heh.)
MAL: Zoe, would you get Wash?
ZOE: This is Zoe. We need all personnel in the cargo bay.
MAL: Whoa, whoa! I said Wash.
ZOE: Captain, everyone should have a chance to congratulate you on your day of bliss.
MAL: There's-there's no bliss! I don't know this girl!
JAYNE: Then can I know her?
ZOE: Jayne! (LOL!)
KAYLEE: (comforting Saffron) Hey, sweetie. Don't feel bad. He makes everybody cry. He's like a monster.
MAL: I'm not a monster!
MAL: (aside, to Jayne) How drunk was I last night?
JAYNE: Well I dunno. I passed out.
BOOK: It says here: "The woman lays a wreath upon her intended" -- which I do recall -- "which represents his sovereignty."
MAL: (to Saffron) That was you?
BOOK: And he drinks of her wine. And then there's a dance, with a joining of hands. The marriage ceremony of the Triumph settlers. You, sir, are a newlywed.
MAL: What's it say in there about divorce? (And there goes Mal, putting his foot in it again.)
SAFFRON: I thought last night during the ceremony that you were pleased.
MAL: Well, yeah, last night I was. Had some mulled wine, pretty girl gave me a hat made out of a tree. Nobody said I was signing up to have and to hold.
SAFFRON: Are you gonna kill me?
MAL: What?! What kind of crappy planet is that? (He scoffs) Kill you --
SAFFRON: In the maiden's home I heard talk of men who weren't pleased with their brides --
MAL: Well I ain't them! And don't you ever stand for that sort of thing. Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill 'em right back! (LOL!) Look, wife or no, you are no one's property to be tossed aside. You got the right same as anyone to live and try to kill people. I mean, you know... people that are... that's a dumb planet. (Nice.)
MAL: She's a nice girl.
BOOK: Seems very anxious to please you.
MAL: Well, that's their way, I guess.
BOOK: I suppose so. (Then he is suddenly serious) If you take sexual advantage of her, you're going to burn in a very special level of hell - a level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater. (Hee!)
ZOE: So, are you enjoying your own nubile little slave girl?
MAL: She wanted to make me dinner. At least she's not cryin'.
WASH: I might. Did she really make fresh bao? (off Zoe's look) Quaint!
ZOE: Remember that sex we were planning to have ever again? (LOL!)
MAL: You know what, you all are makin' a big deal. I would appreciate it if someone on this boat would not assume that I'm an evil lecherous hwin dan (asshole).
ZOE: Nobody's saying that, sir.
WASH: Yeah, we're pretty much just giving each other significant glances and laughing incessantly.
JAYNE: There's times I think you don't take me seriously. I think that ought to change.
MAL: Do you think it's likely to?
JAYNE: You got something you don't deserve.
MAL: And it's brought me a galaxy of fun, I'm here to tell ya.
JAYNE: Six men came to kill me one time. The best of 'em carried this. It's a Callahan full-bore autolock. Customized trigger, double-cartridge thorough gauge. It is my very favorite gun.
(He holds it out to Mal.)
MAL: Tse shr la doo tze! (Er, that basically means "shit.") You offering me a trade?!
JAYNE: A trade?! Hell, it's theft. It's the best damn gun made by man. It has extreme sentimental value. It's miles more worthy than what you got.
MAL: What I got? She has a name.
JAYNE: So does this. I call it Vera.
MAL: Well my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle.
JAYNE: Well, damnit Mal, I'd treat her okay.
MAL: She's not to be bought, nor bartered, or borrowed, or lent. She's a human woman doesn't know a damn thing about the world and needs our protection.
JAYNE: Well I'll protect her!
MAL: Jayne! (beat) Go play with your rain stick. (This scene is absolutely classic. LOL!)
MAL: You're, uh... uh... well, there you are.
SAFFRON: I've made the bed warm for you.
MAL: It looks, uh, warm.
SAFFRON: And I've made myself ready for you.
MAL: Let's ride right past the part where you explain exactly what that means. Didn't you see you got a room of your own?
SAFFRON: And I'm to sleep there?
MAL: That's the notion. Assuming you're... yeah. Sleepy.
SAFFRON: But we've been wed. Aren't we to become one flesh?
MAL: Well, no, uh... We're still two fleshes here, and I think that your flesh ought to sleep somewhere else.
SAFFRON: I'm sorry. When we talked I'd hoped, but I don't --
(She stands. Mal tries not to ogle at her naked body.)
MAL: Whoa, hey! Flesh... (beat) Listen, Saffron... it ain't a question of pleasing me. It's more a question of what's, um, of what's morally right.
SAFFRON: I do know my Bible, sir. "On the night of their betrothal the wife shall open to the man as the furrow to the plow. He shall work in her again and again, til she bring him to his full. And rest him then upon the sweat of her breast.
MAL: Whoa. Good Bible. (LOL!)
SAFFRON: I'm not skilled, sir. Nor a pleasure to look upon --
MAL: Saffron, you're pleasing. You're... yep, you're all kinds of pleasing, and uh, it's-it's been a while -- a long damn while -- since anybody but me took ahold of my plow, so don't think for a second that I ain't interested. But you and me, we ain't married. Just 'cause you got handed to me by some hwin dan couldn't pay off his debts don't make you beholden to me. I keep trying to explain --
SAFFRON: Let me explain. I lived my life in the maiden house waiting to be married off for trade. I seen my sisteren paired off with ugly men. Vicious or blubberous. Men with appetites too unseemly to speak on. And I've cried for those girls. But not half so hard as I cried the night they gave me to you.
MAL: Why? Is there blubber? (LOL!)
SAFFRON: I cried for I'd not dreamed to have a man so sweet. So kind and beautiful. Had I to dare to choose, I'd choose you from all the planets the night sky could show me. If I'm wed, I am a woman, and I'll take your leave to be bold. I want this. I swell to think of you in me. And I see that you do, too.
MAL: Oh. That's-that's just, um --
SAFFRON: Leave me at the nearest port. Never look upon me again. I'll make my way with the strength that you've taught me. Only let me have my wedding night.
MAL: Oh, I'm gonna go to the special hell... (She's certainly an accomplished seductress, isn't she, Mal?)
SAFFRON: Do you know the myth of Earth-that-was?
WASH: Not so much.
SAFFRON: That when she was born, she had no sky, and was open, inviting. And the stars would rush into her, through the skin of her. Making the oceans boil with sensation. And when she could endure no more ecstasy, she puffed up her cheeks and blew out the sky.
WASH: Whoa. Good myth.
SAFFRON: My whole life, I saw nothing but roofs and steeples and the cellar door. A few days I'll be back to that life and gone from yours. Make this night what it should be. Please? Show me the stars.\
WASH: Wuh duh ma huh ta duh fung-kwong duh wai-shung doh! (Holy mother of God and all her wacky nephews!) Do I wish I was somebody else right now. Somebody not... married, not madly in love with a beautiful woman who can kill me with her pinkie! (LOL!)
ZOE: So you two were kissin'?
BOOK: Well. Isn't that... special? (LOL!)
MAL: I'm glad you two are havin' a good time under there. Can we progress to the makin' it right?
WASH: That's not gonna happen for a long while, cap'n.
MAL: Well we don't have a good long while. We could be headin' straight into a nice big solid moon, for all we know. So, how's about we get to work?
KAYLEE: Hey. It was your big make-out session that got us into this, sir.
MAL: I was poisoned!
INARA: You were drugged.
JAYNE: That's why I never kiss 'em on the mouth. (LOL! Leave it to Jayne to pipe up with something inappropriate.)
BOOK: Our little Saffron's quite a wonder. I'm beginning to think she married beneath herself.
MAL: How do you know -- about the training?
INARA: She tried to seduce me, too.
MAL: Really? Did she... did you...
INARA: You don't play a player. It was sloppy of her to try it, but I think she was in a rush.
MAL: Yeah but she had professional... So in my case, it was really... (to Book) You woulda kissed her, too.
ZOE: Wash didn't.
MAL: But she was naked! And all... articulate!
WASH: Okay! Everybody not talking about sex, in here. Everybody else, elsewhere. (LOL!)
SAFFRON: You're quite a man, Malcolm Reynolds. I've been waiting a long time for someone good enough to take me down.
MAL: Saffron, you even think about playing me again, I will riddle you with holes.
SAFFRON: Everybody plays each other. That's all anybody ever does. We play parts.
MAL: You got all kinds of learnin' and you made me look the fool without tryin', and yet here I am with a gun to your head. That's 'cause I got people with me. People who trust each other, who do for each other, and ain't always lookin' for the advantage.
MAL: You're a very graceful woman, Inara.
INARA: (startled) I -- (beat) Thank you.
MAL: So here's where I'm fuzzy. You got by that girl, came and found me. And somehow you happened to just trip and fall.
INARA: What do you mean?
MAL: How's about we don't play. You didn't just trip, did you?
INARA: No.
(A long, tense moment passes.)
MAL: Isn't that something. (beat) I knew you let her kiss you! (LOL! Not quite, Mal.)
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