“Trash”

I once said that Firefly didn’t seem to have a filler episode due to the fact that the very nature of the show is too anthology based.

However “Trash” is one that seems to me to be an episode to declare filler. That doesn’t mean bad however, it just seems, par for the course.

The episode starts out alright (not eating for once!) with Mal meeting up with an old war buddy. Things heat up awful quick when he introduces his wife Bridget…

or should we say Saffron.

Soon enough Monty leaves her behind and she tries her wiles with Mal, but that ship already sailed a long time ago. Then she tries logic and finally offers a deal. She knows where they can make a HUGE score, but she needs help.

Mal makes it back to the ship and it seems as if he made her walk off on her lonesome. When Mal does make it back, Inara tries to talk to him. Inara seems to believe that Mal is avoiding big planets to keep her away from her Companioning. Of course Mal rejects that notion, but there’s enough nuggets of truth there, for the audience to pick up on.

Inara goes over the line though when she calls Mal a petty thief, hitting pretty close to the mark that they haven’t had a big shipment in awhile, causing Mal to think over Saffron’s deal.

Quickly we see that Mal is a softy after all and can’t leave her to die, so he packed her away in one of the crates. Of course convincing the crew is difficult, but money talks. Inara storms off in a huff, not believing they are trusting her.

Ocean’s 11 comes to mind for the next part, again except that we hear the plan being developed while we watch the crew implement it.

Par for the course, YoSaffBridg betrays Mal again after we learn that the mark is yet ANOTHER one of her husbands.

However as she leaves Mal behind…naked… YoSaffBridg didn’t count on one thing. Inara. It turns out, they played her…and Inara was the last piece. She had pretended to walk out in a huff, when really she was the backup.

One important sidebar is that River senses the guilt that Jayne is feeling for Ariel, and tells Simon why. When Jayne comes back hurt, Simon keeps him so he’s unable to move. Simon tells him directly that he has nothing to fear from him, because Jayne is one of his crew, but that the only way they can work together is if they trust each other.

I wasn’t a big fan of this revelation, as it seemed to me as if it would be more dramatic if they had extended it out longer. If they had let Jayne live with the guilt, afraid of them finding out. They missed out on some good drama by going this way….a rare misstep.

And we end on a typical humorous Firefly note. Naked Captain Mal looking out over the world as his ship takes off.

Not a bad episode, but not one of their best.

C+

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