Mal and Jayne are playing holographic pool in a bar on Santo with a slave trader. As Jayne shoots, Mal surreptitiously slips shocked spectator Inara a wad of money he lifted from the trader. The situation quickly devolves into the usual brawl, from which Mal quickly escorts Inara.

Back on Serenity, Wash brings the ship (a bit too quickly) in for a landing on Persephone (first seen in "Serenity"). In her shuttle quarters, Inara scans potential clients and chooses local aristocrat Atherton Wing, a regular customer. Mal enters (uninvited, as usual) to trade barbs about her profession and the upcoming society dance she plans to attend with Atherton, to which Inara responds by mocking the standards of his barroom-brawl "outings".

On Persephone, the crew enjoy the sights of the marketplace. Kaylee admires a ruffled dress in a store window, and Mal foolishly criticizes her practicality by comparing her to an upright sheep. As a crushed Kaylee, an irritated Zoë, and Wash leave, Mal and Jayne are again accosted by Badger, the Persephone fence who caused them difficulty on an earlier visit. This time, Badger needs Mal's help to move an illegal cargo for high-society local Warrick Harrow, who won't talk to the likes of Badger. He provides Mal with tickets to the very ball that Inara will be attending. Mal winds up having to go to a still-upset Kaylee for assistance.

At the ball, Inara delights in circulating among the glittering crowd, many of them old friends. Atherton asks her to be his personal Companion, but she diplomatically defers a decision. Atherton pushes his case by insulting Serenity as a "flying piece of go-se" and Inara chides his language. Suddenly, the arrival of "Miss Kaywinnit Lee Frye and escort" is announced. Inara sees her friend Kaylee, in the coveted ruffled dress, arrive on Mal's arm, which invokes her own use of the Chinese profanity.

Kaylee is enchanted by the glamorous setting. She wants to find Inara, but Mal is focused on finding his own potential client Harrow. Kaylee gets distracted by the promise of "real" food at the elegant buffet table and wanders off. Back on Serenity, Simon, Book, and Jayne play a card game, using ship chores as currency. River, experiencing another of her manic outbursts, frantically shreds the labels of their canned food supplies. Meanwhile, Wash and Zoë have their own private party in bed. Zoë finds herself sleepy after sex, so Wash mockingly regales her with poetry about her predicted death at the hands of "power-mad" Jayne.

At the ball, Kaylee's friendly attempt to mix with the debutantes crashes when they insult her naïveté and taste in clothing. She is rescued by an older gentleman who deftly puts down the rude women, then draws Kaylee back to the buffet table, where she enjoys a stimulating conversation with several mechanically minded men about the virtues and flaws of various machines. Meanwhile, Mal finds Sir Warrick, who is cool to any proposal that Badger is behind, despite Mal's professionalism. Just then, Atherton Wing, with Inara in tow, interrupts their conversation. After deliberately annoying Wing, Mal escorts Inara onto the dance floor. Mal expresses concern about Atherton's insincerity, to which Inara responds with the possibility of her staying on Persephone with him. When Atherton cuts in and insists on his right to take Inara away because "money changed hands", Mal punches him in the face. But he is astonished to find out that his action was an implicit challenge in this social circle, and that he is now committed to a duel by sword. Trouble is, Mal is no swordsman, and his opponent is an expert. Even as he faces this disaster, he uses Sir Warrick's amused respect to try to swing the cargo job. Sir Warrick does agree to be his second.

On Serenity, Badger arrives uninvited to explain the remaining crew that Mal will be participating in a duel. As the crew openly discusses how to rescue him, Badger disabuses them of this idea — he is here with his men to sit on them until the duel is finished.

Mal passes away the hours in a locked room (to prevent his fleeing) by ineptly practicing with a sword. Inara manages to sneak into his room to talk. She is confused by Mal's decision to punch Atherton because he insulted her, when Mal often does this himself. Mal replies that he merely insults her profession, whereas Wing insulted her, and has no true respect for her. When she unsuccessfully tries to convince him to escape with her assistance, he refuses. He counters by asking her to help him practice, but her efforts seem to meet with little success.

As Serenity's crew continue to quietly plot a diversion for an escape, River emerges in the cargo bay doorway, apparently unnoticed until then by Badger and his men. Simon fails to get her to leave before Badger takes an interest, but River surprises Badger by adopting his Colony accent and telling him about his life, apparently revealing a Holmesian power of deduction. Despite her insults and the uncomfortable revelations she makes, Badger is charmed by this taste of home, and leaves her alone. Jayne wryly observes their failure to capitalize on her unexpected diversion.

In the misty dawn, a confident Atherton Wing faces an absurdly cocky Mal, while Sir Warrick, Inara, and a crowd of spectators watch. Mal manages to get an insignificant stroke in, but Inara and Sir Warrick realize that Atherton is simply toying with him. After wounding Mal in the arm, Atherton invites an unsuspecting Mal to attack him, but tricks him with a backhanded thrust, stabbing Mal deeply in the stomach. Mal uneasily but energetically pushes back, only to have his sword broken. Standing over the kneeling captain, Atherton turns at a plea from Inara, who offers to stay with him if he'll only spare Mal's life. But the cunning smuggler uses this distraction to disarm the swordsman, deliver another punch to the face, and throw the man's own sword at him, stabbing him in the chest.

Mal stands over the wounded Wing, and Sir Warrick demands that he deliver the final blow, lest Atherton be humiliated. Mal, however, shows mercy — after getting in two more pokes. As Inara helps Mal off the field, Atherton calls out viciously to Inara and threatens to ruin her. Inara responds by informing him that he is now persona non grata in the Companion registry, implicitly ruining his standing. Entertained by Mal's trouncing of the conceited Wing, and impressed by his tenacity, Sir Warrick agrees to send his cargo with Mal. "Mighty fine shindig!" says Mal to Inara.

The as-yet-unbegun escape plan plotted by the Serenity crew is aborted by the return of Inara and Mal, who chases a pleased Badger off his ship. Later, Kaylee relaxes in her quarters, humming a waltz and admiring her fancy dress, enshrined on her wall. Inara and Mal share a moment on the cargo bay landing, watching over their cargo from Harrow — a bay full of cattle.

My Review:

Mal loves Inara, it’s so totally obvious and Shindig totally obviouses it up even more.  Right from the bar fight you can see it in Mal’s eyes, to Mal’s mocking of Inara’s choice of client.  There’s some other stuff happening in the story, the slow break down of the ship due to lack of money for repairs, Kaylee admiring a pretty floaty dress in a window (interestingly enough they don’t employ Autons in their windows) to old friend Badger turning up with his bowler hat and a possible job for the gang.  The focus then changes to that of the social ball with rich bitches in dish rags generally tarting it up, while Mal and Kaylee turn up to spoil Inara’s bored indifference.  Kaylee turns out to be the belle of the ball and she gets all the guys hanging on her every word.  Mal tries to get the business settled but first he has to punch Inara’s date to prove he’s not in love with her, which he is.  Then we go back 300 years on the social progress calendar for a sword fight and despite Inara giving Mal a couple of moves (with the sword) he still nearly loses, but he takes full advantage of Inara’s distraction to get the win and he gallantly refuses to kill his opponent, although he messes him up a bit just for fun (and to try and not show Inara how much he loves her).  Meanwhile Badger is babysitting the crew and despite a little psychoanalysis from River things are fairly dull and boring, although Jayne’s plan is nearly ready to be put in motion when Mal and Inara return with the good news, they’ve got the job, huzzah, and Mal and Inara then innocently toast the success of the mission and Mal tries to hide his total love for her and then we finally learn what the job is, herding cows from one planet to another!  I give it a pretty eight out of ten