Serenity Now

After finishing Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Adam and I started rewatching Firefly. He had only seen the canceled way too soon show maybe once or twice and wanted to revisit the show. Firefly has just the right amount of seriousness and humor to lighten up an evening. Sometimes, we haven’t been up for new shows as much as we usually are.

This is one of my favorite TV shows. I was devastated when Fox axed the show after one season. What did they execs really expect when they put the show on Fridays at eight? The target demographic wasn’t sitting in front of the TV! Well, I was most of the time, but I didn’t have a raging social life back then. Or now…anyway, not the point.

This is going to hurt to type. But, the best Firefly episode is “Out of Gas.” Yep. Ouch. I should be making that assertion about “Shindig.” And, from a gushy standpoint. A superficial perspective, it is. Come on—Kaylee’s dress. Inara’s dress. Captain Tightpants. From a cinematic one, however, “Out of Gas” outshines all the rest.

The episode begins in the middle of the action without any explanation or preamble. The opening scene tinged all in a foggy blue haze. From the onset, you know shit has hit the fan in a big way. Mal falling into the cold grate signals distress far better than Morse code ever could.

This lonely, nigh deathly moment is juxtaposed against a bright, albeit green-tinged flashback. Mal introducing Zoe to Serenity for the first time. If this was text, the moment in the episode might be set in a pair of parentheses. Letting the audience get a glimpse into the relationship between Mal and Zoe. She is someone to be reckoned with. She is very much his partner, obviously, in a platonic way.

Set in this quaint aside, the audience sees a hopeful Mal trying to reclaim some of what he’s lost. At this moment, he has already invested what little he has of that emotion into the ship itself. Serenity’s name tagged on the side of the boat being a last-ditch effort to win the freedom he had fought so hard for.

And then just like that, we are at a gathering in the mess hall. Everyone is laughing. The lights cast a warm yellow hue over the preceding. As an audience, we are lulled into a false sense of security during this sortie from the usual drama.

That is until we get to witness Zoe sacrificing herself to save Kaylee. In one breath, someone might argue this moment was because Zoe is the physically stronger person. Kaylee is, by almost every measure, the softer, more feminine character.

Yet, this sacrifice- this moment, isn’t about a physically stronger character protecting a weaker one. Zoe’s move to protect the mechanic on Serenity is an effort to protect the entire crew. Her strength was going to be of little value in the strife the crew was about to find themselves. So, in that instant, she decided to take the brunt of the explosion for the greater good.

In this vignette, the audience sees the life Mal has imbued into the ship. Here, viewers see the life breathed into an otherwise cold, lifeless environment.

The episode continues to oscillate between the green flashbacks, the dull blue current state of Serenity, and the warmer scenes leading up to the distress. As Serenity’s plight becomes more real for the crew, the color physically drains out of the scene. The only warmth found in the shots is in what the characters are wearing. Even Inara swaps her usual reds for a soft, silky peach dress. This visualization underlines the slow decay of the crew’s oxygen supply and the dwindling collective hope.

As the timelines merge, blue obviously dominates the ship’s landscape. All of the life has been sucked, literally, out of the bay doors. Laughter is replaced with silence. The exception being the red emergency lights flashing, usually just off-camera. Red flashes stain the walls intermittently as Mal drags himself around the boat. While the pop of color warms the shots, the splashes of color are standing in for blood and the waining life in the ship-Mal’s life.

On a surface level, this is a race against time to save Serenity and, by extension, Mal’s life. But really, the episode is the struggle of Mal to keep his crew alive. Even if that means sacrificing his own life. Although the consequences of that sacrifice would mean a dissolution of the family, he’s created.

The scene in the infirmary, where Wash wants nothing more than to stay by his wife’s side, shows a lot about the ship’s power dynamic. If I asked you who were the two alphas on Serenity, I’d wager Mal and Jayne would be the most common responses.

In “Out of Gas,” we see that’s not the case. As Mal attempts to push Wash to get to the bridge, Jayne steps well aside from the fight brewing. As physically strong as Jayne is, he does not carry enough weight to genuinely challenge the Captain. Nor do I think he wants to. Jayne is very much a survivalist. And Mal survives.

The episode builds the tension necessary between Mal and Wash for subsequent events. But here, this shows who is vital to their survival when the engine isn’t spinning. Mal is willing to anger Wash, even to the point of physical retaliation, because he is driven to save his crew. As angry and possibly resentful as Wash is, by the end of the episode, Wash is donating blood to the Captain to facilitate his recovery.

“Out of Gas” manages to be sentimental without losing any of the show’s usual adventure. The episode highlights the kind of man Mal really is, which is always present in the other episodes. Still, here it is on full display for everyone to witness. The possible loss of his ship makes him extremely vulnerable. The showrunners did an excellent job of visualizing that about Mal. Even at the end, we get one final flashback, only this one doesn’t have that green haze around it. Mal seeing Serenity for the first time is shown in crystal clarity. The show ends with the ship being a beacon-Mal’s guiding light.