Serial Serenity: The Train Job

Original Air Date: 9-20-02
U-Day
As any good Western, The Train Job starts in a saloon. A belly dancer wanders through the crowd and stealthily hands a note to Mal who is seated at a table playing Chinese Checkers with Zoë and Jayne. A man at the bar proposes a toast on this special day, Unification Day, when the aligned planets ended the “scumbag Independents.” Mal, of course, picks a fight with the man, relegating the dirty work to Zoë who is very adept at using the butt of her shotgun. The hitch? This bar is an Alliance-friendly bar… a full-on brawl breaks out, Mal and Zoë against everyone else (Jayne didn’t fight in the war, so he decides to just watch).

At this point in the episode, we know we are not in a Western movie. Zoë and Mal get thrown out of the saloon’s holographic window with the backdrop of three moons in the sky. It is also important to note here that our heroes fight dirty. It is not above them to throw sand in the eyes of an opponent.

Cornered on the edge of a cliff, one of the U-Day celebrants pulls out a gun, which, according to Jayne who has since joined in the fight, is not “kosherized.” A very timely entrance by Serenity, piloted by Wash, saves their necks. On the bridge with Mal, Wash, and Kaylee, Zoë wonders aloud why they always seem to find themselves in an Alliance-friendly bar on U-Day. Mal laughs it off, because according to the note passed to him by the belly dancer, they got themselves a job.

Nightmare
In the medical bay, River is having a nightmare – a very X-File, probing kind of nightmare. She awakes screaming and Simon tries to calm her down. He says the more she can tell him about the Academy, the better he will be able to help her. Mal walks in, looking to bandage up his wounds from the fight. He reassures Simon that no Feds were involved. As Mal leaves, River notes that Mal means “bad” in Latin.

Mal runs into Book as he is walking to the engine room. Book asks why Mal, as anxious as he is to fly under alliance radar, has taken on Simon and River as passengers. Mal says “because it’s the right thing to do.” He then tells Book that he is welcome on the ship, but “God ain’t.”

Finding the engine room in complete disarray, Mal starts looking for Kaylee. She is on Inara’s shuttle getting her hair done. The two talk of Kaylee’s crush on Simon and about Inara’s job as a Registered Companion. Mal bursts in asking Kaylee what happened in the engine room (”we’re there Monkeys?” Kaylee explains that she has to do some re-wiring because Mal won’t buy a new compression coil. This is the second mention of the compression coil and it WILL come back to haunt them all.

[nms:Whedon Firefly,4,0]

Job Offer
In Inara’s shuttle, Mal tells her they have a new job from a man named Adelai Niska. He is a very bad man and Mal wants Inara to stay confined to the ship when the other’s meet with Niska.

On Niska’s ship, Mal, Zoë, and Jayne meet the famous Niska (Michael Fairman). He speaks of what reputation is: gossip. He says Mal has a reputation of getting jobs done. He says that he, himself, has a reputation of being a ruthless psychopath. He shows the three a man he has just killed to “make solid (his) reputation.” If Mal finishes the train job, his reputation will also be made “solid.” The job is to steal some Alliance merchandise off a train before it gets to the town of Paradiso.

On the train, Mal and Zoë, posing as a married couple, start walking back to the fifth car where the goods are stored. They are very surprised to see that a whole regiment of Alliance soldiers is packed onto the fourth car. As a side trivia note, the armor worn by the Alliance soldiers is from Starship Troopers.

The Train
Back on Serenity, Inara and Shepherd talk in the kitchen, Book asks her why she is on the ship. She explains that having a Registered Companion on board opens doors. Book mentions that he wishes he could be useful, to which Inara suggests he pray for Mal – she does.

On the train, Mal and Zoë calmly walk through the Alliance troops. Zoë is very nervous but Mal is excited because there is more risk. Zoë, in my favorite line of the episode, tells Mal that she thinks he has “a problem with (his) brain being missing.”

The Merchandise
In the cargo bay, Kaylee explains to Simon the heist. Jayne enters and says that he is in charge because Mal is gone. Kaylee hooks him up to a wench to be lowered onto the train.

Mal and Zoë make their way back to the fifth car, set a booby trap at the door, and ready the merchandise. Wash flies over the train, Jayne is lowered down, and they hook up the cargo. A soldier enters the car, setting off a smoke screen. He shoots Jayne as Wash pulls up and they flay away with the cargo but without Mal and Zoë.

Mal and Zoë make their way back to the passenger car and play dumb as the train pulls into Paradiso. As they disembark, they notice the majority of the people in town are very sick. They overhear that the merchandise they stole was medicine.

Confab
An Alliance cruiser gets word of the robbery, but decides to let the local officers take care of it.

Back on Serenity, Jayne wants to meet Niska’s goons at the rendezvous point, mostly out of fear. All the other members of the crew disagree and try to figure out how to rescue Mal and Zoë. River starts talking about “two by two, hands of blue.” Book asks about Niska (he seems to know him) and says that they best wait for Mal to return before they deal with Niska’s goons.

Interrogation
In Paradiso, Mal and Zoë wait to be questioned by Sheriff Bourne (the wonderful Gregg Henry from SLiTHER and The Riches). They tell him they are newlyweds looking for a job. Mal asks about the sickness. The Sheriff tells them about Boden’s Malady, a disease everyone on the planet has that is only treatable by the medicine that was stolen by someone off the train.

Rescue Plan
On the bridge, Jayne demands they leave Mal and Zoë to meet Niska’s men. He starts talking weird and passes out – Simon had doped him up. They set to devising a plan to get Mal and Zoë out of Paradiso.

Inara walks into the holding area on Paradiso. She tells the Sheriff that Mal is her indentured manservant and Zoë is married to another man. They emptied her accounts and ran away together. The Sheriff releases them to Inara’s care and lets them all go.

Back on Serenity, Mal and Zoë inform the crew that they are taking the merchandise back to Paradiso, just as Niska’s henchmen approach.

Good Samaritans
Mal tells the main henchman (Crow) that they are not comfortable with the deal and that they will give Niska’s money back. Crow informs them that this is not enough. Yet another fight starts (this time Mal takes a knife to the shoulder) but the crew of Serenity overcomes the henchmen.

Mal and Zoë unload the medicine just outside of town, intending to leave it there and notify the sheriff when they are in deep space. Sheriff Bourne walks out of the brush, surprised to see Mal again. They take the medicine and part on good terms.

No Thanks
Mal tells a tied up Crow to tell Niska that job didn’t work out. He tries to give the money back to Crow, but Crow gives a long “I’m gonna hunt you down to the ends of the universe” speech, setting up what we think is a series-long adversary. But, in a very Joss Whedon move, Mal kicks Crow into the engine. He goes to the next henchman, starting the same speech again, but this one smartly agrees.

In the medical bay, Simon sews up Mal as the camera moves to the quarters where River is again chanting about the Hands of Blue.

On the Alliance Cruiser, two men wearing blue gloves question the Alliance Captain about River.

My Two Cents
Joss Whedon and Tim Minear wrote The Train Job in one weekend under a gun aimed at them by Fox. The Powers That Be had seen Serenity Parts 1 & 2 and wanted a different episode to start the Firefly run. So Joss and Tim complied, producing a tighter episode that let the actions of the characters speak to their motivations, rather than expounding on their own personal histories. It is one of my favorite episodes, marrying the Old West with the Far East in front of a new backdrop: outer space. God bless ‘em.

Rachel Bishop, originally from Oregon and currently living in Arizona, is a grant writer and consultant for non-profit arts organizations. She hopes to one day renovate an old theatre somewhere and turn it into an art house cinema joint. Rachel has a BA in Theatre and Media Arts and an MFA in Arts Administration. She enjoys movies, writing, using her label-maker, guacamole, and the Oxford Comma. She has been married to a self-proclaimed Zombie Cinema expert for 6 years, and has been the mother to a self-proclaimed 2-year-old for, you guessed it, 2 years. You can visit Rachel at her MySpace page.

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Sources (besides my brain, I mean):

Firefly – The Complete Series

Fireflyfans.net

Internet Movie Database

Serenity Official Visual Companion

You Can’t Take the Sky: A Firefly Site

Whedonesque