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The Train Job

Transmitted 20/09/2002

Mal is enjoying a drink and a table game with his first mate, Zoë, and fellow crewman Jayne Cobb in a bar. An inebriated bar patron celebrates the "ass-picious" anniversary of "Unification Day", which motivates former rebel Mal to pick a fight. As the entire bar joins in, Mal radios his pilot, Wash, for a "grand entrance", and shortly Serenity, a Firefly-class bulk transport ship, dramatically backs up the hapless crew.  Back aboard Serenity, a young man, Dr. Simon Tam, tends to his mentally-disturbed sister River, who nevertheless shows a remarkable memory for factual data. Mal drops in on these two passengers, and he and Simon reveal a mutual desire to avoid Alliance attention, each for his own reasons. Book, a "shepherd" (preacher), who is also a passenger, probes Mal about his motivations for taking on passengers when he makes more money from smuggling. In a cosy living area inside one of Serenity's shuttles, we meet Inara Serra as she is brushing Kaylee Frye's hair. The former is revealed as a Companion, a licensed and well-respected courtesan, and the latter turns out to be the ship's mechanic, who is promptly booted back to the engine room by Mal's sudden command. Subsequent bickering between Mal and Inara demonstrate a sometimes playful, sometimes hard-edged tenseness in their relationship, with some apparent undertones of mutual (but unacknowledged) affection.  On a "Skyplex" (an orbiting space city), Mal, Zoë, and Jayne meet with a local crime lord, Adelei Niska, and his brutish lieutenant Crow. After Niska demonstrates a viciousness with people who fail him, he outlines a train heist that he wants Mal to execute, stealing an Alliance cargo of an unspecified nature between two towns along the route.  When Mal and Zoë board the train, they discover that an "entire regiment" of Alliance troops are also aboard. Mal reasons (to Zoë's alarm) that because the Feds are showing no interest in the cargo, they can not only pull off the job as planned but make the hated Alliance look "all manner of stupid" in the process. After they break into the locked train car and secure the cargo, Jayne is lowered on a winch from Serenity. While they attach the cargo to the winch, however, a curious Fed trips a smoke trap at the car door. In the resulting melee, a wounded Jayne is hoisted back to the ship, Mal knocks out the Fed before he sees what's happening, and he and Zoë use the smoke as cover to re-enter the passenger car.  On Serenity, Simon patches up Jayne's leg while the latter argues that they should leave Mal and Zoë behind to deliver the cargo to the dangerous Niska. As he tries to force Wash to take off, he suddenly gets loopy and falls over. Simon reveals that he had doped Jayne during his treatment.  Meanwhile, in Paradiso, Mal and Zoë are aghast to find that the cargo was critical medicine for this mining town, in which everyone is suffering from "Bowden's malady", a degenerative disease. Although Mal deftly deflects the suspicious sheriff's probing of their cover story (as newlywed settlers), it takes Companion Inara to free them from custody, claiming that Mal is her runaway "indentured man" and Zoë his thieving accomplice.  Back on the ship, as Mal announces that they will be returning the cargo, Crow arrives with a posse of Niska henchman to disagree. A violent fight ensues, showing off Zoë's combat skills, Mal's endurance and tenacity, Wash's ingenuity, and Jayne's shooting skill (even while still doped up). After the villains are secured, Mal and Zoë drive the cargo near the town, but the sheriff surprises them with his men. Realizing the cargo is intact, the sheriff decides to let them go, respecting their courage to do the right thing.  Outside Serenity, Mal returns the money to a trussed-up Crow. When Crow threatens to hunt him down wherever he goes, Mal calmly kicks him into Serenity's engine intake. When Mal starts with the next trussed-up henchman, the man quickly agrees to take the money back to Niska.  Back on the Alliance cruiser, two mysterious men in suits and wearing blue gloves inquire about a girl — and show the captain a photo of River Tam.

 

MY REVIEW:

The story opens with a fistfight in a bar, which Mal and co lose very well.  Then we move on to a dream, River is being experimented upon by evil scientists.  She wakes up with the ability to speak technobabble and starts talking about hands of blue.  Mal approves of this and goes on to tell Book that he’s letting them stay because he hates them both but he’s bigger than that, Book thinks Mal is a good man.  Mal and Zoe have a job to do for a rather nasty ruthless evil guy called Niska and surprise, surprise it involves a train, who didn’t see that one coming?  Of course the job goes wrong, Jayne steals the goods but his leg hits a bullet and Mal and Zoe are captured by the local sheriff pretending to be a married couple looking for work.  The others plan to find a way to rescue them, first thought Jayne gets to see twinkly little lights and falls down.  Inara is chosen to be Action Woman and save the day, by slapping Mal hard.  The group decide to return the stolen goods and save the sick townsfolk but Niska’s tattooed henchbeing turns up and there’s a rather badly directed gunfight, before the inevitable happy feel good ending, and Mal kicks tattoo guy into the ship's engine, before we see two strange men, with hands of blue.  Things are getting better, I give this episode a nice seven out of ten.

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