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Season 1, Episode 12
Written by Ben Edlund and José
Molina
Directed by Vern Gillum
Original Airdate: 21 July 2003
"Captain says you're to stay put. Doesn't want you
to run afoul of his blushing psychotic bride. If she figures out who you
are, she'll turn you in before you can say "Don't...turn me in...lady.""
Jayne
REGULAR CAST
GUEST CAST
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Christina Hendricks as
'Saffron'
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Franc Ross as
Monty Reynolds
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Dwier Brown as
Durran Heymer
CO-STARRING
SYNOPSIS
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Mal is naked and alone in a desert. Flashback 72
hours earlier to Mal running into an old acquaintance named Monty as
they were both part of a smuggling run. Monty is eager to introduce Mal
to his new wife Bridget. But when she appears she recognizes Mal and he
recognizes her as Saffron and the two pull guns on each other. They end
up fighting as Monty looks on confused and shouting till he physically
breaks the fight up. Mal tells Monty that this woman isn’t his wife
because she’s his wife too. When “Saffron” goes to deny this allegation,
she calls Mal by his full name, which Monty hadn’t told her yet so Monty
leaves her there in the middle of nowhere on this planet with Mal (who
is waiting for his crew to return). Mal is very weary of her and tells
her to just start walking, but she begs him for a ride because she would
die if she were left alone there. As he continues to aim a gun at her
she beings to walk a little and tells him of a perfect heist she has
lined up. He is persistent that she keeps walking and she is persistent
that he hears about this heist idea.
Serenity lands to pick up Mal, who walks on board, looking beat
up and unhappy. The crew is a bit confused. He is told that Inara wants
to see him. After cleaning himself up a bit from the fighting he goes to
Inara’s shuttle. She offers him a seat and tea, but he is still skittish
about womanly wiles after running back into Saffron. He keeps his space
and tells her to talk plainly. She does as he suggests and gets to the
point. She is wondering why they haven’t been anywhere recently where
she could find work. Mal asks if she is accusing him of intentionally
sabotaging her finding clients. As usual he ends up calling her a whore
and she points out the lack of good jobs Mal has acquired recently which
results in her calling him a petty thief, which she seems regretful of.
He leaves her shuttle and goes down to the crates the crew had loaded
when they picked up Mal. He opens one that is holding Saffron and shows
interest to her in her heist plot.
The crew, minus River, Simon and Inara, are assembled around the dinner
table to hear Saffron’s plan. The heist mark is named Durran Heymer. He
is a collector of “Earth-that-was” artefacts. The piece she is going
after is an original hand laser gun known as the Lassiter. She also
tells the crew of Durran’s past; he did dirt work for the Alliance which
is how he made his wealth and now is living on his own floating island
home on Bellerophon. They can get on his island and Saffron has the
access codes to the house. The trouble is in getting the stuff out of
the house because all of it is tagged so that if it goes out the door
alarms will be set off. Inara walks in to get something from the kitchen
and is warning them not to listen to Saffron because she will only trick
them in the end. But Mal explains that this is the only non-petty crime
that he could get so he doesn’t have much choice. Zoë is also weary, but
after slapping Saffron (who had made a play for Wash and knocked him out
when he resisted) she is on board for the heist.
Jayne is packing in a room with River and Simon and reminding the pair
to stay out of sight of Saffron because she would turn them right on in
to the feds. After some conversation between River and Jayne about liars
and girl’s names, Jayne leaves the room. River then tells Simon that
Jayne is afraid, and has been ever since Ariel, that they will know what
he did. Simon realizes it was Jayne who tipped off the feds when they
were at the hospital on Ariel and nearly got them killed.
Saffron listens to a conversation between Zoë and Inara. Inara tells Zoë
that she has some work lined up where they are going and whenever Zoë
begins to mention something about the heist Inara stops her, insisting
that she doesn’t want to know. Inara expresses her concern once again
about Saffron before they go on their separate ways.
Back around the table, Wash explains to the crew how Mal and Saffron
will go to Durran’s floating island home and easily blend in with the
help that is there preparing for a function. Saffron uses her codes to
get in the house itself. Kaylee came up with the plan to get the
Lassiter out: throw it in the garbage shoot. This leads to a bin that is
taken away, at the push of a button, by a drone. Kaylee with have the
drone reprogrammed to take the bin, not to be incinerated, but to a
deserted area where they can easily go pick it up.
Mal and Saffron make their way to the Lassiter with ease and Mal is
working on bypassing the direct security on the object. Tethered Kaylee
and Jayne are outside of the refuge bin trying to reprogram it. She
gives him the board to put into the bin to set the coordinates and it
has some “dyna-ram” on it to cause a little explosion. Jayne doesn’t get
it put on time and it zaps him so that he falls, unconscious, on
Serenity's hull.
Inside Durran’s house, Mal is still trying to not set off anything when
he removes the Lassiter from its stand. Then someone enters the room;
it’s Durran himself. When he sees “Saffron” he hugs her, starting to
thank Mal for bringing his Yolanda back to him.
Book and Zoë help get an unconscious Jayne inside Serenity and
deliver him to Simon to care for and he promises that he will.
Durran and “Yolanda” have been talking about how he didn’t know if he
would see her again. He didn’t know what to think when Heinrich went
missing too, but then they found him dead, and the pair go on about how
they missed each other. Durran leaves the room to get Mal some reward
for bringing her back. Mal goes back to trying to free the Lassiter as
he tells Saffron he is not surprised so much by this development as he
is by the fact that she actually seems to care what this guy thinks and
that she didn’t kill him. He frees the Lassiter as Saffron pulls a gun
on him (he aims one right back) and Durran walks in. “Yolanda” backs
down upset that Durran is seeing this and Mal explains to Durran that
they were there to steal the Lassiter, nothing more. Durran is somewhat
appreciative of Mal’s honesty and is more concerned with dealing with
his wife. The two have a discussion as Mal slips the laser gun into the
trash shoot.
Kaylee is back outside the bin with Zoë. She gets the new reprogrammed
coordinates in the bin just in time as the collector drone comes in. Now
the bin with the gun is headed for a particular isolated desert area.
Mal pulls out one of his guns and aims it at “Yolanda” and gets her to
drop her gun. She continues to talk to Durran; he tells her how he feels
sorry for her, but she points out she’s not the one being robbed and
that he should have called the feds as soon as he saw her. He replies
that he did, as sirens approach. He tells her he loves her, but he isn’t
stupid enough to think she was there for him and he wants her to get
help. She knocks him out. Mal and Saffron make a run for it as the feds
make it into the house. With little direct confrontation with the feds
they get into their shuttle and take off. During the flight, the two sit
and talk. She tells Mal that she really did try to make things work with
Durran, though she also thinks she should have killed him back there.
Mal figures she isn’t a great and moral person, but she doesn’t kill
regularly, only leaves people in situations where it’s easy to die. He
also thinks Durran was the only guy who didn’t deserve to be killed by
her. She tears up and Mal comments that he’s seen her without clothes,
but not naked before. He moves to sit next to her with somewhat
comforting, though honest, words. She asks if he won’t mention that she
broke down a little and in return she won’t tell how she easily got his
gun from him while he was sitting next to her. She stands, aims it at
him, thanks him for the inspiring words and orders him to remove his
clothes.
On Serenity, Wash, Zoë and Kaylee find that Saffron rigged it so
they can’t turn and they are forced to land, delaying them from making
it to the goods. Meanwhile Saffron has left a naked Mal somewhere in the
desert and she has gone to look through the trash bin to find the
Lassiter. She is having no luck as she goes through the bin. She looks
up to find Inara, well dressed and sitting, aiming the Lassiter at her
to try it out. She finds it doesn’t work, but she has her own gun, and
she pulls it on her. Inara tells Saffron that the crew had been playing
her all along. Inara then closes the lid to the trash bin, trapping
Saffron inside to wait for the authorities to find her.
Jayne wakes up in the infirmary. He finds, at Simon’s prompting, that he
can’t move his legs. Simon explains that he gave him medicine to do this
so he wouldn’t strain anything and actually permanently harm his spine,
which will be fine. Simon continues to talk, asking Jayne how much he
was offered on Ariel to turn him and his sister in, letting Jayne know
that he knows now. He also lets Jayne know that he is safe on his
medical table and that he will act responsibly as his medic and
otherwise. He suggests Jayne behaves as well because there are enough
problems out there for both of them to deal with already. Finally, Inara
and a naked Mal board Serenity, to the crew’s bewilderment, and
the crew heads off to fence the Lassiter.
TRIVIA
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This episode was originally unaired in the US, and
was aired first on the Sci-Fi Channel in the UK.
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Kaylee appears to be using Microsoft Windows while
reprogramming the garbage barge.
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Franc Ross played the demon Razor in Buffy's
Bargaining (Part I) and
Bargaining (Part II).
CONTINUITY
GOOFS
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The "electricity" Chinese character of the trash
bin's "Danger Electricity" is backwards.
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The door Mal and Saffron escape out of is
different on the inside than it is on the outside (notice the colour of
the door, the handle of the door, and the tall electronic/computer panel
that you can see from the inside when the guards are locked in but not
from the outside when Mal and Saffron first exit).
Serenity
(Part 1) | Serenity (Part 2) |
The Train Job |
Bushwhacked |
Shindig
Safe |
Our Mrs. Reynolds |
Jaynestown |
Out of Gas |
Ariel |
War Stories
Trash |
The Message |
Heart of Gold |
Objects in Space
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