This was the most enjoyable hour of television I have ever seen. I haven't laughed this much since I saw "Duck Soup," and I haven't wondered this much about what was going to happen since I saw "The Best of Both Worlds." This is a fantastic show.

Spoiler: [This text is here so the spoiler won't show up on "Last Day"]

The look on Inara's face at the end when Mal says, "I KNEW you kissed her" and walks away whistling was priceless.

Note: You can see the dinosaur from "Serenity" on the control console during Wash's "chat" with Saffron.


Anyone else think this is going to be a recurring character?

My only nit is that when she first comes aboard the ship, Saffron seems to have one blue eye and one green eye, but for the rest of the episode, they are both the same color.

I'm just mad about Saffron
Saffron's mad about me...

This was great! Very funny and good character moments.

The first 5 minutes of my tape recorded badly--were there any hints in that that Saffron was not quite the innocent she seemed?

Not that I could see.

Oh wow. My love of the humor of the series has slowly been growing, but I think this is the episode that cemented my love of Jayne's character, and my interest in seeing the upcoming Serenity film.

The opening bit with Mal as Jayne's wife, and Jayne's obliviousness to the offensiveness of his attempts to "buy" Saffron with his favorite gun were just priceless.

Mal: "She has a name."
Jayne: "So does she. I call her Vera."

But one thing I didn't understand was why Jayne had "Vera" in a spacesuit when shooting at the Net?

First, you need combustion for a bullet to fire. Can't have combustion without oxygen. Second, while I'm not sure if it'll be the same with firearms in five hundred years, current firearms can't handle the extreme temperatures of space.

Jayne said that you need oxygen to fire the gun, which is wrong because the gun powder has an oxydizer in it, same reason you can fire a gun under water. The extreme temperatures of space could be a problem. On the DVD commentary they talk about the fact that they were wrong about the oxygen thing.

Personally I'm a little disturbed by the end of this episode. Mal just lets her off with a punch to the face. I know this ep was great and funny for those of us at home but that woman did try to murder them by sending them toward the net. They can't really go to the authorities since they are criminals as well but what happens when she gets a new scam going? What happens to the next victems, heck what about all of the others that she has killed with this scam?

They're on their own. Mal can't be concerned about everyone else, because he simply can't afford to. Sure, some might think him right for killing her, but Mal is an honorable man and the series was often about his struggle to hold onto his pre-war ideals, even in his new life as a criminal.

Btw, given Saffron's ruse, would this mean that everyone in the village was in on the scam?

I saw an excerpt from the script that in the scripted ending she admits to Mal that the village elder sends marks her way from time to time and Mal responds with some line about "and to think we saved him and his people from bandits." Word is they cut it specifically so as not to establish that the village elders were in on it. The way that she bounces around she could have shown up in the village weeks or months prior with some sob story about running from an abusive husband a few towns over and just laid low until the next ship worth stealing came along.

GL: First, you need combustion for a bullet to fire. Can't have combustion without oxygen. Second, while I'm not sure if it'll be the same with firearms in five hundred years, current firearms can't handle the extreme temperatures of space.
Brian already touched on your first point, guns can fire without oxygen, but I believe the second was answered last year where when an astronaught fired a gun during a spacewalk. If that didn't actually happen, I see no reason it couldn't work unless residual moisture on the weapon froze some moving parts.

I thought this was a great ep! Vera, it's a pleasure to meet you

Hard to pick just one best line out of this gem:

Jayne: "See, I married me a powerful ugly creature."

Kaylee: "Don't feel bad. He makes everybody cry."

Book: "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."

Zoe: "Remember that sex we were planning to have, ever again?"

Mal: "But she was naked! And all... articulate."