Late to the Party Recap: Firefly Episode 7, “Jaynestown”
Please tell me they don't put Jayne in charge of a whole town.
The episode starts with Kaylee and Simon chatting on the ship. For all the ways that Simon seems to have annoyed her in the last few episodes, Kaylee is finding it hard to believe that Simon swears “like anybody else.” She tells Inara to “Have good sex!” as Inara leaves to go have sex. It clearly makes Simon uncomfortable.
The rest of the crew is probably not going to have sex, and is instead ready embark on some heist on the moon Canton. It seems Jayne has some history with Canton and is hesitant to go.
When they get to Cantor the team has one of those moments in an RPG where you have to divide your party into two teams. Mal, Wash, Jayne, Kaylee, and Simon go off to find the person they’re supposed to meet for crime reasons, while, Zoe, Book, and River hang back on Serenity. I expect some Book/River antics at some point, episode. Don’t let me down.
Mal and Wash make fun of Jayne’s disguise, which I didn’t realize he was wearing until now. He just has a hood up and some goggles. He doesn’t want to be recognized for whatever reasons, but as it turns out, he really has left a rather lasting impression.
I guess there have been statues of worse people.
The dialog in Firefly, as with any Joss Whedon project, is witty and well-written. The characters are clever and funny. Simon paying off the argument about whether or not he swears by saying “Son of a bitch,” just as the show cut to the theme song got an audible laugh out of me that was loud enough to startle my dog.
This is my dog Elvis Costello.
No one seems to know why there’s a statue of Jayne in this place, least of all me. Mal tries to get an explanation out of Jayne, who doesn’t seem to know. He mentions something about what he did when he was here a few years ago, but I completely missed it because I couldn’t stop staring at Simon, trying to figure out what the hell he’s doing with his finger.
Seriously. He stays like that for about a minute.
After rewinding a bit, Jayne tells Mal that he got into some trouble while stealing from a magistrate and had to leave town in a rush. Maybe everyone hated the magistrate? Jayne seems pretty afraid of the guy. Hopefully none of the other characters about to show up at the magistrate’s door to have sex with him.
Wonder what Inara is up to.
Magistrate Higgins, and the back of Inara’s head.
Magistrate Higgins tells Inara she’ll need all her art to deal with “this particular problem” and now I’m worried something real gross is going to go down later.
As I hoped, the Book/River C-story is shaping up into some good old fashioned shenanigans. River is “fixing” Book’s Bible by crossing out all the “contradictions” and “false logistics.” Book’s surprisingly patient with the young woman tearing up his Bible. River might be my new favorite.
Back on the moon, the main crew is drinking in a dive bar and learning about the history of beer on “Earth that was” from Simon. They’re soon joined by another man who tells them the guy they’re looking for ran into some trouble with the law. He’d have come himself, but he doesn’t have hands or feet anymore, and he got thrown into a swamp. The goods they’re after are still around though, so that’s good news. Just not for the guy without hands or feet.
We learn what the statue was all about IN SONG FORM! This place has songs about Jayne! What madness is this!?
It’s kind of a catchy tune.
It turns out that when Jayne was on the run from the magistrate, he got hit and had to dump the stolen cash in order to get away. The workers found the money, and Jayne earned himself a Robin Hood legend.
Meanwhile, Book scares the hell out of River with his impression of black Einstein.
Not to be confused with Blackenstein.
Jayne’s been recognized and the townspeople are going bananas for him.
Higgins makes his way to Inara’s shuttle for what I assumed was sex for him, but it turns out is really for his son. Not to get all cultural normative on you here, future world, but gross. Higgins is being pushy and gross about getting his son and Inara together, so she kicks the creep out. I’m glad the “problem” Higgins was talking about isn’t something disgusting, and instead is just a mildly off-putting sense that his son needs to be be with a woman to be a man.
Everyone’s drunk back the bar, and Kaylee and Simon are having a moment.
River is hiding in a panel of Serenity because she’s afraid of Book’s Einstein hair. I know I said I don’t think Netflix should give Firefly another season, but seriously, if they wanted to give Book and River a sitcom spin-off they’d have my ringing endorsement.
When the magistrate finds out Jayne is back he goes to his weird box-prison and releases…
Shaggy Harrison Ford?
It’s actually Jayne’s old partner who got left behind when Jayne fled. He’s been in a box for four years. He’s not happy about the box-situation, and the magistrate just gave him a gun. I have a hard time believing Boxie doesn’t shoot the magistrate, who tries to blame the whole thing on Jayne. I’m willing to believe Boxie is more angry with Jayne, but unless his gun only has one bullet it’s not like he has to pick who to kill.
Mal’s dealing with the aftermath of everyone’s night of drinking. Jayne’s still wasted. Simon’s hungover, and Kaylee is pissed after Simon implied he never sleep with her.
Inara did her job with the young Mr. Higgins, and I’m starting to wonder what this has to do with the episode. It’s more of a look into Inara’s professional life than we’ve seen so far, and I’m not sure what it brings to the plot. Young Mr. Higgins has been called away, and explains to Inara that his father wants him attend a criminal hearing. He begins telling her the story of Jayne, but she thinks he’s talking about Mal because she totally loves Mal.
We find out from Fess that the Serenity has a lock on it that will keep it from taking off, and that the authorities, and probably that crazy guy from the box, will be waiting for Jayne when he gets back.
Boxie the One-Eyed Bandit tracks Simon down in the bar where everyone was partying, and demands Simon bring him to Jayne. Since it wouldn’t be an episode of Firefly without someone punching Simon in the face, Boxie lays into him pretty hard.
Boxie, and Simon crash the Jayne Day Celebration, and it seems that Boxie’s real name is Stitch. I like Boxie better. Not surprisingly, they’re not super happy to see each other. Boxiestitch tries telling the workers the truth about Jayne’s “heroic” deeds, but when he tries to shoot the “Hero of Canton”, one of the mudders takes the bullet for him.
Jayne doesn’t take it well, and he knocks over his own statue in a moment of feels.
As Serenity tries to leave, they realize they’re land-locked and Wash can’t take off. Inara enters the cockpit to see if there’s a problem even though she knows there’s a problem, since Fess told her about it. Then, suddenly, the land-lock is lifted. Inara smiles, and suddenly the whole subplot with Fess Higgins makes sense and I see how it fits. He went over his father’s head and had the land-lock lifted.
Fess Higgins is finally a man.
(Images via Firefly except for the one of my dog)
- Firefly Online was teased at SDCC a few months ago
- We started recapping Firefly on its 11th anniversary
- Last week I watched “Our Mrs. Reynolds”
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