"Our Mrs. Reynolds" was the first episode of Firefly that really made me sit up and think that this show could be something very special.
It begins simply enough with a couple in a covered wagon being attacked by bandits on planet Little House on the Prairie. One of the bandits wants some "one on one time with the missus." Her husband asks him to reconsider as he "married me a pow'rful ugly creature." Indignant the missus reveals herself to be Malcolm Reynolds smuggler, pirate, corss-dressing do-gooder. He and Jayne get the drop on the bandits and he gives them a chance to surrender. One of the bandits decides to call Mal's bluff and gets a bullet in the chest from a Zoe, who has been hiding in the wagon. The bandits return fire but Mal, Jayne, and Zoe cut them to pieces.
That night there is quite a celebration in town. Mal jokes that enjoyed wearing the dress because of the airflow. One of the townspeople gives Jayne a "rain stick." While performing last rites for the bandits, Book watches as a pretty girl places a floral reef on Mal's head and invites him to dance. The next day, Mal says goodbye to the town elder who regrets that his town has so little to repay him with.
"You got a wife? All I got was that dumb-ass stick that sounds like its raining."
Jayne Cobb
After Serenity takes off, Mal discovers a stowaway who claims to be his wife. Apparently, "Saffron" is part of his payment for ridding the town of bandits. Mal is confused, Saffron is ashamed, and Zoe is anxious to have some fun at Mal's expense by calling the rest of the crew to the cargo bay to meet them. Book asks Simon for an encyclopedia while Wash informs Mal that one of the bandits had family ties -- they can't go back to the planet to straighten things out.
"How drunk was I last night?"
"I don't know. I passed out."
Mal and Jayne
By now Book has had time to look through Simon's encyclopedia and informs Mal of the townspeople's marriage ceremony. "The woman lays the reef upon her intended (which I do recall) which represents his sovereignty. 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 asks about divorce and Saffron runs out of the cargo bay in tears.
Mal goes to her and tries to talk to her. She's afraid he might kill her - in the "maiden's home" she heard talk of men killing their wives when they are displeased with them. Mal is appalled and tells her that "If someone ever tries to kill you. You try and kill 'em right back." He tells her that she has the same rights as anyone else to live and try to kill people. He talks about dropping her off at their next stop, Beaumont, where she can find work. But she continues to insist that she would make a good wife.
"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."
Book
Book talks with Mal about Saffron and gives him some rather stern advice. Saffron cooks dinner for Mal and Zoe and Wash have more fun at his expense. Saffron offers to wash Mal's feet when he is done. Mal tries to talk to Inara about Saffron. But she is upset, she finds the marriage to be degrading - which ironically is the same thing Saffron said about Inara's line of work.
"Well, my days of not takin' you seriously are certainly coming to a middle."
Mal to Jayne
Mal leaves Inara's shuttle and finds himself face to face with Jayne, whom is toting a rather nasty looking gun. "It's a Calahan Full-bore Auto-lock with a customized trigger and double cartridge thorough gauge. It is my very favorite gun." He offers it to Mal in exchange for Saffron. He insists that "Vera" is a more than worthy trade for Mal's wife, whose name Jayne hasn't yet bothered to learn. Mal is outraged and adamant that Saffron is not to be "bought nor borrowed or leant." He tells Jayne to go play with his rain stick and walks off.
Saffron pops up again and we found out that Mal grew up on a cattle ranch on Shadow. He was raised by his mother and about forty ranch hands. He gradually tells her more of his personal history and finds her easy to talk to. Meanwhile, two men on a remote space station are tracking Serenity. The leader is impressed, he likes Firefly class ships and tells his partner to "prep the nets." They intend to steal Serenity.
Zoe is bothered by Mal's behavior towards Saffron. When Wash tries to defend her, she gets angry at him. She goes to bed, alone.
Mal also goes to bed where Saffron is waiting for him. She's "made the bed warm" and made herself "ready" for him. She is both innocent and seductive (she's also naked throughout this scene) and at the same time. Mal raises some moral objections and Saffron gives him a few bible verses that read more like the Kama Sutra. "Whoa, good bible," replies a very overwhelmed Mal. He continues to object but Saffron continues to talk back to him, being vulnerable, innocent, and seductive all at the same time. Mal is only human and when she insists that he "let me have my wedding night," he caves and realizes that "I'm gonna go that the special hell." They share a kiss and Mal collapses. Saffron's entire demeanor changes in the time it takes him to hit the ground.
Saffron goes up to the cockpit to see Wash. He comments that his home planet was so polluted that it was impossible to see stars in the night sky and muses that perhaps he entered flight school just to see stars. Saffron locks the door of the cockpit and tells Wash of the myth of "Earth that was" and it is a very sensual myth. "Good myth" Wash replies. Saffron starts working innocent/sexy charm on him. But Wash is a married man. He tells her that he's madly in love with Zoe -- who can kill him with her pinky. He's quickly lost in talk of how much he loves her and of the time they met. Saffron rolls her eyes and kicks him in the head while his back is turned. She locks him out of the cockpit and begins rewiring Serenity's guidance computers and changes its course. She then uses a strip of explosive material to weld shut the doors of the cockpit.
Saffron rushes out of the cockpit to Serenity's spare shuttle where she runs straight into Inara. She goes into her innocent/sexy routine again. But Inara is suspicious. She realizes that something's wrong when Serenity's emergency klaxons begin to sound. Inara demands to know who Saffron really is - "Malcolm Reynolds' widow" is her reply. Saffron goes for the kick to the head but Inara dodges it in time. Saffron still manages to beat her to the shuttle and escapes the ship. Inara rushes to Mal, who is unconscious but alive. She's so elated that she kisses him and proceeds to collapse herself.
When Mal wakes up, Simon tells him that he was knocked out by a narcotic compound. It was apparently a popular way for robbing men on his planet - they called it the "Goodnight Kiss." Zoe proudly informs Mal that her husband did not fall for that "chiang wa" - but most of his head wishes he had. Inara insists that she fell and hit her head.
"But she was all naked, and all... articulate!"
"Everybody not talking about sex, in here! Everybody else, elsewhere."
Mal and Wash
When they finally open the cockpit doors, they find that Saffron has wrecked most of Serenity's flight equipment. She really knows her ships. Inara observes that she must have also had Companion training as well. Both Book and Inara are making fun of Mal's seduction. On the space station, everything is ready for capturing Serenity.
Having managed to undo part of Saffron's damage, Wash detects an unusual energy pattern. Mal and Book recognize that they are heading into a huge "net." It is being operated by a scrap shop or "carrion house." The net is meant to electrify the ship and burn the ship's crew from inside out. Book points out that "some of the newer ones will just hold you. And then the scrappers will override the airlocks, pull the O2, or just gas you. They're not looking to deal with survivors." Jayne wants to know how a preacher knows so much about crime.
"See Vera, dress yourself up and you get taken out somewhere fun."
Jayne
Mal tells Jayne to go get Vera. Jayne complains that Vera needs oxygen to fire. So they have to wrap it inside a space suit. Mal tells Jayne to aim for one of the six bright point on the net -- they should short it out. The special effects in this scene are excellent. The net floats silently in space. And Vera fires silent bullets through the space suit's helmet. The plan works, the net shorts out and the space station depressurizes, spacing the scrappers. Serenity flies through the net harmlessly.
Mal decides to pay the little lady a visit. Saffron puts up a fight but is no match for Mal. Apparently she's in it more for the challenge than for the money. Mal threatens to kill her if she ever pulls anything on him again. But he wants to know her real name. She refuses to tell him and he punches her out musing that she would have only lied anyway.
Back on Serenity, Mal pays Inara a visit. He notes that she's a very graceful woman. He doesn't believe that she just tripped and fell. He knows the truth. He knew she let Saffron kiss her. He walks away feeling very proud of himself.
While OMR was an amazing episode, it does have few logical and technical flaws. One them is named Saffron and the other is named Vera.
Saffron being a plant poses an uncomfortable problem for this episode. The society of the Triumph settlers as portrayed in this episode appears to be very closed and distrustful of outsiders. If this is correct than what are we to make of Saffron? It is difficult to believe that the settlers would allow an outsider to roam around during one of their celebrations and perform their wedding ceremony with an honored guest without comment. So this implies that the settlers might be in cahoots with the scrappers, which seems like a rather poor way of repaying the people who got rid of the bandits that were terrorizing your town.
But if (and this is a big "if") Saffron's stories are to be believed, the society Triumph settlers is also segregated along gender lines. If there is indeed a separate "maiden house" where unmarried women are kept, then the sight of strange young women coming out during celebrations to find a husband would probably be normal and unlikely to arouse suspicion. If this is so, then Saffron would have no trouble fitting in - the only people who would know she was a stranger, other women from the maiden house, would be strangers themselves and not trusted by the town elders.
Vera is a little more difficult to explain away. Firefly's guns are superficially very similar to today's guns and today's guns have little difficulty dealing with a lack of oxygen as their gun powder comes with its own oxidant. They can however, have problems with jamming up as the vacuum can interfere with their firing mechanisms. Perhaps this was what Jayne really meant when he suggested that Vera couldn't fire without oxygen - that Vera could only fire one shot and would jam up in a vacuum. But this wasn't made clearly and I think it's safe to assume that good people at ME (Mutant Enemy, Firefly's production company) messed up here.
The net was a pretty cool piece of technology. It appears to be Firefly's version of the standard scifi force field. It does a good job of showing the kind of brutal universe that Firefly exists in where you have to be ruthless to survive. The fact that Mal can be so ruthless and still retain and live by his little code of honor makes him a very compelling character.
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