While there are exactly zero bad episodes of Firefly in its astonishing 14 episode run,
there are of course, a handful that I would describe as you know...well...just pretty
all right.
Safe is our first real glimpse into the backstory of the Tams and the events leading up to Simon’s
rescue of his sister.
It’s an interesting episode with a handful of moments that make me smile and the usual
bevy of satisfying Firefly one-liners.
“Big damn heroes sir.”
“Ain’t we just?”
Or...two-liners.
It just also is an episode of the show that I...tend to forget about between runs, that’s
all.
It happens.
“This is the last time.
Last time with cows.”
We open on a flashback to the Tam household featuring a severely ADR’d River and a seriously
un-jacked Simon Effron.
Yoked Simon is my favorite Simon.
Baywatch Cut Simon asks his Dad for a better device to
write his essays on and his Dad says that if Simon had just any sourcebox he wanted
(which is presumably Firefly for internet connected device) Simon could listen to any
random and harmful and unfiltered messages from the verse he wanted to.
In the present, River no longer wants to tell Simon the things she sees when she closes
her eyes.
Mal requests that Simon keep River under control for the sake of their cargo.
M: “Ever see cattle stampede when they got no place to go?
It’s kind of like a meat grinder.”
Serenity lands on the colony of Jiangyin and some colonists see Serenity landing in a cute
little bit of world building I really enjoy.
Remember the strawberries that Book used to partially buy his passage with, making the
giant bowl of them commentary on opulence in Shindig?
Well…
“A fancy ship such as that only shows up with stuff to sell…”
...any world that considers a Firefly fancy has probably had it pretty rough.
The gang sets up the deal while River continues making vague-a-fied referentials to the themes
of the show.
6:15 “They weren’t cows inside.
They were waiting to be but they forgot.
Now they see skies and remember what they are.”
Something something identity from freedom something something.
“Is it bad that what she says made perfect sense to me?”
Mal sends everyone on a field trip so he can get to the clandestine dealings.
I love the dusty rundown feel of the local general store.
It's a hodge podge shop you might find at a dozen exits along a highway through some
landlocked state.
Feels nice and authentic here.
A great bit of set decorating.
And Kaylee’s expression of how fancy things are works as a nice piece of character building
the same way the men being impressed with Serenity did.
Simon puts his foot in his mouth with Kaylee as Inara, who unlike Simon can walk between
the different worlds of class easily, watches him learn his lesson.
River wanders off.
Simon finds her at a town dance and, in a scene that always puts a huge smile on my
face, joyfully and freely engages in it herself.
Parallel of Mal’s “dance” with River’s dance.
Full expression.
Mal is doing what he does.
Things with Mal’s deal don’t go smooth and Book pays the price.
The rabbit hunters grab Simon and River.
And Mal heads to an Alliance ship to save Book
“What about River and Simon?”
“Forget them.”
Michael Scott: “...No.
I don’t like THAT.”
I’m going to momentarily derail the summary section of the video in order to harp on what
might seem nit picky but it’s because much of the sense of jeopardy in this episode hinges
on this device...which...I kind of hate.
“I’m not losing another person today.”
All Mal had to say to Kaylee was: We'll come back.
But the line isn’t there so that we can build tension for Simon and River’s plight,
with the two of them and us the audience thinking Mal might've abandoned them.
But the complete inclusion of this scene makes Mal’s wording feel bizarre, unnecessarily
misleading, and even a little character breaking.
Why wouldn't he say to Kaylee: "We'll come back."
Even if the metaphorical hyper masucline ID side of Mal, did temporarily revel in the
Tam’s leaving, why the hell would he phrase this so poorly and cruelly, ESPECIALLY to
Kaylee.
It also feels contradictory because he so matter-of-fact’ly says to Simon later in
the episode.
Why’d you come back for us?
You’re on my crew.
I can only make up reasons.
MAYBE, given Jayne’s metaphorical relationship to him, Mal was internally conflicted about
whether he would come back or not.
Maybe he didn’t feel the need to explain his orders.
But, the net result of his omission of three words is Mal either looks like a terrible
captain, or the writing feels a little cheap and manipulative.
This same tension-escalating storytelling device was already in Bushwhacked except there
it’s accomplished with a cut.
“Bring your sister to the bridge.”
“Why so you can use us as bargaining chips?”
After a line or two then, the scene cuts away so the audience doesn’t see what Mal’s
actual plan for the Tams is which makes for an exciting reveal later in the sequence and
also avoids Mal having to utter a cryptic out-of-character line in order to fool the
audience.
“Forget them…”
Applying the simple fix of using a cut: Book gets shot.
The crew debates what to do.
Mal says, “I’ve got an idea.”
Cut to River and Simon watching the ship fly away.
Bob's your uncle.
Anything could’ve happened after the shot cut that we didn’t get to see.
Since we didn’t, we can simply feel Simon’s pain when the rabbit men taunt him about his
abandonment.
Aaaanyway, everyone thinks Mal abandoned the Tams, including Jayne who decides to rob them.
And, at this point the episode becomes a bit plotty.
Small town without hope and freedom leans on paranoia and myth instead, which doesn’t
go well when one of them sees that River has some powers.
There is some interesting structural parity in these two sequences relating to the title.
Mal and crew go to an unsafe place but Book, a religious man, has a secret identity that
saves them.
(Whatever that identity is should make for an interesting reveal later in the series.)
Simon and River are told where they’re going is safe before the hill people use the pretense
of religion to attack River because of her secret identity.
“Whole problem with picking up tourists.
Ain’t never what they claim to be.”
And the episode ends with Simon clutching at River about to be burned at the stake before
the crew rolls in like big damn heroes.
“Ain’t.
We. just?”
The writer of this one, Drew Greenberg, wrote several episodes of Buffy including...Entropy,
Him, and...Empty Places...and Smashed which I quite like.
‘Safe’ is a good episode.
Solid.
As with any Firefly episode nearly every scene is charged with wonderful little character
bits, too many to cover in a short video.
I particularly love Zoe’s way of being reassuring when Book asks where the doctor is.
21:54 We don’t make him hurry for the little stuff.
Or Jayne hastily giving the Tams back all their stuff.
Or Mal’s counter to the murdering town Patron.
40:00 Girl is a witch.
Yeah.
But she’s our witch.
And yet, parts of ‘Safe’ feel either off or curiously flat to me, especially due to
the inevitable and unenviable comparison to the rest of the series.
I think the problem lies with the fact that the episode has enough thematic ideas to power
an entire series, but never really bakes any single one of those ingredients into a satisfying
meal.
Concepts just feel...included, and without ever being fully developed never elevate ‘Safe’
beyond a gentle little adventure-of-the-week-type tale.
Even down to the name of the colony in the episode.
‘Jianying’ is an actual city in China whose name means ‘River Shade.’
Soooo...that’s clearly not an accident.
And yet, what is the thematic takeaway?
River’s mind is IN shade?
River casts shade on Simon’s life?
There is a whiff of commentary on propaganda and thought policing.
Even when the Tams were children the Alliance was at war with the Independence and Simon’s
father Gabriel resists getting Simon a new ‘sourcebox,’ because of all of the unfiltered
propaganda he would be able to hear.
Gabriel eventually relents and I think we’re intended to read Simon’s patriarchal rebellion
later in the episode as well as his plea to the town’s people as the result of his exposure
to a wider spectrum of free thought.
If she dies tonight, it won't be God's will that killed her, it'll be you!
Your lunacy!
Your ignorance!
There are also a handful of connections made between people and animals.
Mal tries to impress upon Simon the gravity of River potentially spooking and making the
cattle panic.
M: “Ever see cattle stampede when they got no place to go?
It’s kind of like a meat grinder.”
River links people to animals with her theme-ku shortly after and, in the end of the episode,
we see the trapped-on-the-planet, spooked human version of the behavior Mal warned Simon
of.
I like the metaphor.
It’s just that, again, I’m not sure what the episode wants us to make of it.
River shouldn’t talk?
People aren’t much better than cows?
But Simon says it’s the hill people’s ignorance driving them.
So...if we educated cows in math and science would they not spook?
Maybe the theme is something something patriarchy and religion something something?
(I know, I know.
It’s rich insights like those that are why you come to this channel.)
It’s just that...the episode doesn’t bother to complete the idea.
Of course, I am ALWAYS up for that I may have just missed what the episode was doing thematically.
The rest of the good stuff here centers around River and Simon.
Sean Maher and Summer Glau had notoriously good chemistry and it is fully on display
here in all their scenes with a gentle familial intimacy between them that is lovely.
Simon of Cyre...er...Serenity continues the broad strokes of his character arc, including
his gradual change in clothing reflecting his becoming more a part of Serenity.
Jayne: “Bout time you broke in those pretty shoes.”
His giving up everything for his sister…
...and his getting punched in the face.
Simon gets punched montage to Eine Kleine Nacht music
“Light it.”
And many of the details from Simon’s elegant speech in the mess from ‘Serenity’....
“River wasn’t just gifted...she was a gift.
Etc da ...are on display, including River’s gift
of step.
And my favorite moment in the episode other than that is River’s clearest expression
of self-awareness and empathy yet.
“You gave up everything for me…”
All right so, as much as I prefer not to spoil, at this point it seems unlikely that River
is just having regular coincidental freakouts to significant parallel events on the ship.
*coincidental-freakout-montage From her
reactions to things occurring in scenes she isn’t in, to now being able to communicate
with a mute or reading the mind of the Patron I think that…
“This girl reads minds and spins falsehoods!” ...no.
I think this episode makes the fact that River has been demonstrating clairvoyant abilities
of SOME kind, explicit.
As when she tells Simon…
“Time to go.”
And seconds later Serenity flies overhead.
The cold opening juxtaposes a flashback of young River sharing a “dream” she had
with her brother to River in current times not wanting to look inward anymore.
The proximity of the two scenes suggests that maybe there was more than just dreams in the
things child river was saying.
“We got cut off by our independent squad and we’re never going to make it back to
our platoon.
We need to resort to cannibalism.”
Sounds to me like she’s loosely describing the reavers here.
How did the independents overcome us?
They were using dinosaurs.
Wash: “I think we should call it your grave.
Now DIE.”
In her conversation with the Tams, Doralee, (‘Dora’, in its original Greek full form
meaning ‘God’s gift’ and ‘Lee’ meaning home or shelter) gives us her take on home.
Doralee: A place like this might be good for your sister.
Quiet.
Safe.
A place where folks take care of each other.
You were on a transport ship, right?
Taking a journey?
It's the way of life in my findings that journeys end when and where they want to, and that's
where you make your home.
SIMON This isn't our home.
DORALEE If it isn't here... where is it?
That’s one of those aphoristic bits of folksy nonsense that initially sounds wise and comforting
for being so folksy, but falls apart with any scrutiny.
Zuko: Ugh, what would Uncle say?...
Sometimes clouds have two sides, a dark and light, and a silver lining in between.
It's like a silver sandwich!
So when life seems hard, just take a bite out of the silver sandwich.
Her qualifications for home, quiet and safe, are significant given it’s the only time
the title of this episode makes an appearance in it.
And she suggests that home is found at the end of the journey.
For that safety and quiet, the Tam’s have had to give up their freedom of choice.
SIMON: We were brought here against our will.
If ‘Firefly’ the series can be read as an exploration of what makes a home, ‘Safes’
place in that examination might be to ask: what importance does family hold in that idea?
Two of the episode's three examples of family Doralees description: The first are the Tam’s,
safely surrounded by their electric fences.
But the cost of that safety is obedience to Gabriel, who demands that Simon give up his
sister in order to maintain his protection and status, or risk medical school and his
entire career.
Simon: “You think I care about that?”
Gabriel: “If this happens again, I won’t come for you.”
The village of hill people are a similar kind of family, one with their own patron Gabriel.
“This girl reads minds and…”
YEAH, we get it.
And River points out the last example of family, with a line that Simon dismisses as River-talk:
River: “Dad will come for us.”
This meaning of this line is masked by the episode's flashbacks but, knowing what we
know now about her abilities, it’s very likely that she’s talking about Mal coming
to save them, not Gabriel Tam.
River on the stake: “Time to go.”
*enter Serenity And in a nice bit of parity, the episode opens
with a shot of the Tams family home, safe inside its walls and closes with a lovely
moving shot of the chosen family on Serenity Shepard: “It’s good to be home.”
The difference between this and the rest is individual authenticity, something they were
always being asked to trade away from others.
Life onboard Serenity is neither quiet, safe, nor simple but it is the one each of them
chose freely.
Simon’s life could’ve had more simplicity, and more of the trappings of success were
it not for River, but it would’ve been in exchange for his integrity.
So he came and found her.
Jayne: “Life would look to be simpler us not carrying fugees.”
Mal: “Yeah.
Simpler.”
As Mal comes for River and Simon.
Not because of blood or codependence or anything like that.
But because...
“You’re on my crew.”
“But...you don’t even like me.”
“...You’re on my crew.
Why are we still talking about this?” ...because they’re family.
Not family hunkering down together at the end of their journey.
But family empowering each other during the voyage.
Because no destination is worth arriving at if we lose ourselves on the way.
Or, to put it another way...
“How come you don’t care where you’re going?”
“Cause how you get there is the worthier part.”