Summer of Firefly: "The Train Job"

Welcome back to another edition of the Summer of Firefly! Time for some thrilling heroics.

Episode 02: "The Train Job"

Directed by: Joss Whedon

Written by: Joss Whedon & Tim Minear

Original Air Date: 9/20/02

Plot Summary:

*If you've seen the episode recently or have a pretty good memory of what happens, skip this Plot Summary*

Before Malcolm Reynolds manages to get into a bar brawl, he obtains a contact for a job. After meeting with the man responsible for posting the job, Adelei Niska (a man of reputation), Malcolm agrees to a job involving the theft of Alliance goods aboard a moving train. The heist doesn't go as well as planned. The cargo they were responsibile for stealing is successfully taken from the train, but Mal and Zoe find themselves without an escape.

On Serenity, Jayne is adamant on delivering the goods to Niska as planned, but the rest of the crew thinks they should wait for Mal and Zoe before meeting with the man. Shepherd Book, in particular, gives the most convincing argument, stating that Niska would likely have Mal and Zoe killed if he thought they had been captured and hence in a position to rat him out.

Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe find themselves in Paradiso, the town which was supposed to receive the shipment they managed to lift from the train. Mal quickly learns that the shipment was actually medical supplies which the people in Paradiso so desperately needed. The Alliance is not too concerned with tracking down the thieves and moves on, leaving Paradiso's under-equipped local law enforcement to find the medicine.

Back on Serenity, Jayne loses his patience and attempts to commandeer the ship to the rendezvous point to meet with Niska's men. Fortunately for the crew, Simon drugs Jayne, keeping him from making any more trouble. Inara decides to use her respectability as a Companion to get Mal and Zoe out of whatever trouble they've found themselves in Paradiso.

Inara's plan is successful. Mal and Zoe find themselves back on Serenity where they both immediately proceed to return the medical supplies to the people of Paradiso, but not before they run into Niska's men. The crew manages to subdue Niska's men and return the supplies to the townspeople. Mal then returns the money he accepted for the train job to one of Niska's men, hoping that this settles whatever trouble Niska might have with their not coming through on the job.

As the episode concludes, we get a better look at the Alliance men in search of River Tam. "Two by two. Hands of blue."

Discussion:

Something I forgot to mention last time. The universe of Firefly has a fairly important element that I completely overlooked. Part of this vision for the future involves an eventual merging of two superpowers, namely American and China, whose merging will be known as The Alliance. As a result, Chinese culture can be found all over the place in the Firefly world. Not just Chinese clothing, housing, and food, but the language as well. It's not uncommon for somebody to use speak Chinese in the middle of an English sentence. The merging of Spanish and English is called Spanglish. I suppose that means people in Firefly speak Chinglish. There are other new words in the Firefly 'verse that you can hear from time to time. The first two that come to mind are "Rutting" and "Gorram," which are curse words. Another word commonly used by characters in the 'verse is "shiny," which is generally a good thing. Now that we've cleared that up, let's head back to "The Train Job."

When Fox refused to air the pilot episode "Serenity" Joss Whedon and Tim Minear (the Zoe to Joss' Malcolm Reynolds) had to write an episode that could work as a sort of pilot without repeating what had already happened. So, during the course of what must have been a very stressful weekend, they churned out "The Train Job." With a shorter runtime and an episode that had a very clear advertisable premise, Fox let this be the first episode of Firefly to make it on the air September 20, 2002. It wouldn't be the last time Joss Whedon had to write a script that could serve as being introductory to the Firefly ignorant without doing disservice to that which had come before (hint hint: The feature film Serenity).

Despite it's rushed origins, "The Train Job" is a worthy member of the Firefly episode family. The pre-titles opening serves as a way to convey information to those who were, through no fault of their own, unable to watch the pilot, but the information is told through us in completely different ways. In "Serenity" we learned of Mal's involvement in the war because we see him fight in it. In "The Train Job" we learn that same information through a discussion between himself and a man who's not burdened by an overabundance of schoolin'. If you see the pilot first, it just reinforces what you already know. If not, you have a chance to do some clever detectivin' as you figure out where everybody comes from.

In the pilot episode, we watched as Mal did whatever he had to do to keep Serenity flying, even dealing with a woman who had shot him on a previous occasion. In "The Train Job" we watch as Mal once again accepts a job rooted in seediness from a man who bears no remorse at killing his nephew and hanging him in a room adjacent to his office to make a point. Only, when Mr. Reynolds learns more about the details of this particular job, he makes the decision to reverse his dealings with Niska. As Malcolm Reynolds returns the supplies, he's stopped by the head law enforcement official in Paradiso who had been grilling him earlier when he had suspicions of Mal and Zoe. The man sympathizes with Mal noting that in times as bad as these a man can take a job without looking too closely at what that job is, but when he learns of a situation such as the people in Paradiso, then that man has a choice to do the right thing. Captain Malcolm Reynolds quickly replies, "I don't believe he does." If you asked me to point out the exact moment that I fell in love with this show, it would be those five words. If you asked me to point out another such moment, it would be when Mal kicks Crow into the engine.

There's also some seeding going on in this episode. Particularly with the River and Simon storyline. We learn that Jayne would love nothing more than to turn River and Simon in for some kind of reward money. He claims that it's also Mal's plan, but we don't see any evidence to that, except maybe River's line "Mal means bad in Latin." We also learn more about what was going on with River before Simon helped her escape as we get a glimpse into one of her nightmares. There's a lot more story to tell here.

Once more, instead of reciting a list of some of my favorite moments, I'll leave that to my readers to do.

That's it for this week (although I may post something later today). See you next time.