Corsetted Serenity - Spoilers up to OiS -- All Things Debatable on Firefly

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Date Posted: 10:52:54 12/24/02 Tue
Author: fresne
Subject: Corsetted Serenity - Spoilers up to OiS

Picture this. Women sitting on a hardwood dance floor between mad swirling dance sets. Their hoop skirts pooled around them in multi colored hues of silk and brocade.

And as they gently fan themselves with fragile bits of cloth and wood, the conversation turns as it always does to Joss. My housemate and I, in our incarnation as the Danger Twins, have long sought that mythic and fabled device, The Minionator, patent pending. Capable of turning all and sundry into our helpless minions. Mwa ha, ha, ha. Te he he. Ahem�

And as I sat there in our little tableau, I realized that Joss has already invented it. It�s embedded somewhere in Buffy and Angel and Firefly. I have been minionated, which explains why in this busy holiday season, my incessant desire to talk about the Master Joss and his works. It�s what drove me to write Fox. To write UPN � please buy the Master�s orphan child a home. To fill in the demographic survey at fireflysupport.com To fill in just plain petitions and write my UPN affiliate and and and�at this point it was important to pause, my corset�s busk was twisted and torturing. I learned a valuable lesson Saturday. Don�t drive while wearing a corset. They just aren�t made for it. Actually, it was a lesson that I already knew, but speaking of lessons that you have to learn and relearn in the course of a lifetime.

Fox, Fox, Fox�what can I say that others have not said in more succinct Anglo Saxon that I can achieve. That I didn�t say myself on Friday as a few of us gathered to watch the first. The last. The elegant. Why did Fox choose not to air Serenity as the pilot? Heck why did CBS decide to pass on that little show called Star Trek? I know they had Lost in Space, but come on. Why did NBC decide not to show the Cage or Where No Man Has Gone Before and instead aired The Man Trap as Star Trek�s pilot episode? Why do networks do the things they do?

When I was a child my mother and I had a joke. Well, not so much a joke as a knowledge. If we liked a show, it was sure to be canceled. While the terrible shows ruled the earth like great and annoying dinosaurs. In bland places called this Land. Inevitable in their plodding betrayal.

Alas, poor Firefly, I�haven�t given up on you yet. What kind of minion would I be if I did? However, it�s a sad thing when you realize that your Master is himself at the whim of blind gods and outrageous fortunes.

And yet after such a premiere. Such a finale. Such a mid point.

I mourn that I couldn�t come to this episode unspoiled. Not by spoilers. I read one scene that didn�t make it into the final cut and the t.v. guide description. No big.

No, I mean unspoiled by the series itself. Simon was genuinely creepy in that first seen moment. Actually, in context, Mal�s accusations to Simon are very interesting. That Simon killed his parents for their money. By this point, we know the reverse being virtually true. That Simon is planning on selling this naked frozen girl into prostitution. Ummm�no. Or perhaps it�s love. Well, yeah, but not the way you think. But why would Mal think it? He doesn�t believe in people. He is a mean old man.

Old. An odd description. Mal isn�t old. Except where it counts. He is crazy and psychotic and old. Withered. His spiritual garden has shrunk and only fierce plants grow there. Book on the other hand is aiming for some spiritual youngness. He denies the title grandpa, he never married. Never had children. A Shepherd, but not a father. Thought his clothes should give his nature away. Contrast his first and second reactions to being called grandpa. And at the opposite end of the spectrum we have (little) Lord Fauntleroy. Simon as a boy. Inara calls him a boy. Mal calls him a boy. Kaylee thinks he�s very young to be a surgeon.

Which doesn�t mean that Simon doesn�t have his scary. The moment when he decided not to help Kaylee. The boy made his choice. It�s one thing to know that he would fight to protect River from bounty hunters and officers of the law. But Kaylee. Dear sweet, fuzzy bears sewn onto her overalls crushing Kaylee. That�s the bitter point of resolve seen in Simon�s eyes. Having turned from family, friends, home, he makes a simple choice not to help. Against everything that being a doctor must mean for him. And to have, even for an un-real moment, such consequences. Kaylee dead. Joss is a cruel Master. Capricious. For a moment, even though I knew better, he sucked me in. Perhaps, I worship the god of Rat Bastards. Ours is a special level of hell, with hot tubs.

Without exploding into supernova, I�m not quite sure how to hit all of the things that interested, the shadings, the textures. However, I will attempt it. Ivan, River, Mal, the Reevers aren�t the only ones who are crazy. Perhaps, it�s a side effect of The Minionator, patent pending.

River went to school at age fourteen. How Slayer young. Wrote her brother. Insert the scene where he confronted their parents. From there, two years by and by. Imagine Simon earning obscene amounts of money. Focusing on something he could do. Saving lives. Home is the hospital. The fearless fool venturing into blacked out areas of the world of Osirus, Lord of the Dead. Seeking the path to his lost sister. I�m fascinated by the role reversals inherent in this brother sister pair. Simon as life bringer, care giver. River as, whatever it is that River is. Weapon. Goddess. Broken and lost.

Osirus locked in his box, frozen in that sleep of death. Washed by the lapping river Nile. Waiting for his sister, his wife, to wake him. To put his jigsawed broken apart life back together again. Waiting for Isis who searches and searches. As Demeter searched and searched for her stolen daughter Persephone. Letting the harvest and the hearth grow cold. Strawberries and fruit and grain ungrown. The earth dead in long winter.

Two years. Twice the traditional year and a day. River, who wrote her brother, and waited and waited. Gave up on waiting. Didn�t think he�d come for her. Gave up on the dream of Horus swooping down in rescue.

As Mal gave up. My God, the simple sweetness of that kiss of the cross. Mal had faith. He believed. Had hope. Held his troops together. Shot down that enemy ship. Believed that the sound that he heard was �their� angels coming to send the Alliance to the hot place. No wonder he wants no part of God or Shepherd�s faith. It is not that Mal does not believe that God exists. It�s worse than that. God chose Jacob and not Essau. Let the Alliance scorch the earth and boil the sea. Mal�s faith is broken. None of it matters now. How unutterably sad.

Denied heaven, Mal is trying to pull a limping Lucifer�s trick. Hoping to be alone in their section of the sky, grown crowded with ships and sharks. He isn�t a sergeant. He�s a feudal king. Ruling his ship rather than serving. That�s not us, not ever. Serenity is not a democracy. Don�t ever tell him what to do.

After WS, I wanted to parallel Mal and River, what with the torture and all, but now the impulse is stronger still. I want more data. Things that are broken apart are never quite the same. Osirus rules the dead because he is dead. Persephone eternally cycles into the earth.

Of course, a key difference is that River is a dummy. After all hope was lost, the top 3% Fool had a bit of luck. Simon said that he was lucky. Mal said that luck leaves you stranded. Maybe not. Simon may not be good with people, well he�s never had to be, he�s a trauma surgeon. His patients are unconscious. However, he is very lucky. And so very pretty. Look at that jaw take a hit. And another. And another.

And just how much money did he give that underground movement? No wonder he came up with that plan in Ariel. Reflecting back on that childhood scene in Safe, I wonder if in the Tam household everything came with a price. We�ll give you a better tech device, but you have to be the best doctor ever. As opposed to River, who was not just gifted, she was a gift.

The sheer complexity of the interactions laid out in Serenity have me in awe. See Jayne. See Jayne simmer. Jayne seems simple. Jayne isn�t.

Jayne, Jayne, Jayne. He makes me think of a little boy who attempts to show the little girl that he likes her by throwing dirt clods at her. Shut up, keep up, follow up. Jayne, who turned on his former comrades for a bigger cut. 10% of getting by. The captain slaps him down, the fraught aiming at Mal�s head during the goods exchange with Patience, the offer from the law. I agree that Jayne wouldn�t turn on his captain, but I wonder if either he or Mal know it. He somewhat makes me think of Bothari from the Vorkosigan books in that strange complexity. Except you know, not so much with the insane.

Jayne sure seems to peer in windows a lot. Crouched nearly fetal, watching Simon operate on Kaylee. Watching Book be operated on. Pleading with Mal not to tell the others what he did. On the outside looking in. Not even knowing why.

Wash and Zoe and Mal. The first rumblings of Wash not getting the whole veterans thing. Wash and Jayne snipping at each other. Dinosaur�s ruling the Land. In hindsight, the T-rex�s inevitable betrayal is quite the forshadowing. Wonder if I�d even would have noticed it if I hadn�t seen Ariel first. No I�m not bitter. Where was I?

Oh, Book. That�s it, Book is Brother Cadfael and that�s all there is to it. Warrior, who saw and did too much. Withdrew to his abbey to try the other thing. Gardening. Growing things. Fresh food. Growing faith. However, serenity in isolation is easy. Now he�s on walkabout. Two days out in the world and he�s amid thieves with a pit stop at iniquity. Hellfire and Lepers. Crazy Ivans and Reevers. No wonder he feels that he�s on the wrong ship. How fragile he must find his faith. He couldn�t even protect one man. Couldn�t make himself really want to do so. No wonder his platitudes come out like platitudes, he�s as lost as everyone else.

Reevers. Nicely done. Using something that H.P. Lovecraft used to good affect. The fearful thing as virtually unseen. Inexplicable. Unknowable. The seeing of which drives the sane mad. The description coming not from the seeing, but from the reactions of the characters. Jayne loading a single shotgun shell. Inara pulling out a suicide needle.

Yes, I�m in the suicide needle camp. Mainly because it adds further texture to the why the heck is Inara out there. I want to re-watch and examine those jump cuts within the scene with her young client as they discussed why anyone would leave home. A home where she grew up, not necessarily where she was trained. How she avoids a straight answer. However, other than a sorrowing Madonna/Magdalene visage, I�m not sure what re-watching could tell me. I can already see that Inara has some secret wound that is still bleeding.

Let�s review. We have seen her with four clients. Two were sons of wealth. One an annoying dilettante. One person with a definite job, the only woman. I wonder if Inara chooses clients based on people that she won�t connect to with into. Travels on a ship where the captain constantly reminds her of her status. Ridicules and strangely differentiates. The job he abhors. The woman he likes.

Then there�s her reaction to Simon and River. Threatening to leave Serenity if Mal casts them out. Knowing as we do that Inara loves Serenity, I wonder what line in Inara�s mental sand covers lost babes in the woods. There in her temple of lush fabric, so different from the rest of the ship, we see her act the priestess. First we have her introduction, sex, her profession. That young pup who goes from asking her to stay to awkwardly insulting her. Simon, to whom she offers what medical supplies, healing that she can give. Book. First he brings her food, fresh fruit in offering. Cain was a farmer. A wanderer. Marked. In this instance, Book has better fortune. That lovely snapshot as Inara offers Book spiritual guidance, absolution.

Underneath Inara�s soft, however, is a fighter. Compare Mal�s use of Inara�s profession to discomfit Book with Inara�s use of Simon�s presence, the cutting crudity of her words, to cut Mal. Pay attention to just how uncomfortable Simon is in that scene.

And her aim is true. No wonder Mal tells Simon that Kaylee is dead. His kingdom is in turmoil. The goddess of the eastern gate is thinking of leaving. Mal wants to strike out as deep as he can.

And I thought the characters on Buffy were messed up.

At the top of this board, there is a Joss quote. He wants to invade my dreams it seems. Invade seems the wrong word. That implies that I am not complicitous in this invasion. I am wholly complicitous. I sap my own walls that fall. I want dreams and stories that ravish the imagination.

When a woman wears a corset the reason that her breasts are referred to as heaving is because her rib cage is so constrained that she has to breath up instead of out. I want to breath out. Breath in. Fly. Not because my lungs lack oxygen, but because the wind carries me.

Whatever happens, blind bland gods not withstanding, keep flying.

Happy and safe holidays everyone.

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Replies:

and of course Spoilers for Serenity itself (NT) -- fresne, 10:55:16 12/24/02 Tue
Re: Corsetted Serenity - Spoilers up to OiS -- CW, 14:45:04 12/24/02 Tue
Re: Corsetted Serenity - Spoilers up to OiS -- Scroll, 23:42:33 12/26/02 Thu