Ariel

_****½

Simon hires the crew of the Serenity to help him break into an Alliance hospital in an effort to get a complete diagnostic of River's condition with the hope of understanding exactly what was done to her when she was sent away from home.

The review for "Out of Gas" can be read here.

Brought on board as the physician, Simon (Sean Maher) has remained largely removed from Serenity's business dealings, but here he is the sole reason that they leave the ship. It should come as no surprise that he's something of a criminal mastermind, considering he managed to rescue his sister River (Summer Glau) from a facility of incredibly high security, and it brings into question why he isn't in charge of formulating all of Mal's (Nathan Fillion) plans. What's most interesting here is that, on mission, he is the most at ease, blending in far more easily than the others, when, in the past, it was the opposite that was true.

It's always nice to see Simon taking advantage of a situation, and here he hires the crew in part because he knows how desperate they are for employment, but also because he understands that River's condition is soon going to worsen beyond his control, and this may be his last opportunity to help her get better. Not only does Simon conceive of a plan that's incredibly involved, but he has everything thought down to the second, every detail mapped out very specifically, because this is the only thing he can think to do to save his sister, a mission that he's been thinking on for the last few years now. Despite River's intense fear of returning to the hospital she allows herself to be put to sleep because she understands that she needs to go through with this, if not for herself then for her brother, and as she stops her struggle a single tear rolls down her face, because she knows that there's a good chance she's just signed her own death warrant. The relationship between the Tam siblings is one of give and take, and River hasn't been in a position to give anything back to her brother for some time now. The two of them mean so much to each other, and while River hasn't been the person that Simon remembers for quite some time now, he can't give up on her because he's holding out hope that he can make her better, that she'll someday be able to reveal what was done to her and allow both of them to return to their previous life.

Jayne's (Adam Baldwin) loyalty is frequently called into question, not because he's inherently an evil person, but because there are so few people aboard the ship that he feels genuinely connected with, which makes his interactions with most of the crew somewhat tenuous. While his opinion of River has always been unfavorable, here he feels genuine empathy for her on hearing that her brain had been cut into multiple times. Having gotten an understanding of why she acts out so frequently, of why she's so constantly in a state of panic, Jayne's sympathy toward the Tam's situation increases, feeling more and more guilty as Simon repeatedly thanks him for fighting the feds who take them into custody. Jayne comes to a turning point in his own mind where he realizes exactly what he's done, where he becomes something of a genuine ally to Simon and River, and makes the decision to work toward saving them in an attempt to nullify the fact that he had been the one to report them. On making it back to Serenity, Jayne tries to cover up the fact that he had betrayed Simon and River, but Mal, having worked with Jayne for so long now, is easily able to identify the truth, threatening him that if "[Jayne] turn[s] on any of [his] crew [...he] turns on [Mal,]" relenting only as Jayne pleads with him not to tell the others what he did, to make something up so that they'll think of him as something of a good man. Seeing that the others do mean something to him, that he feels genuine guilt about his actions, Mal allows him to live, knowing now that he'll be more loyal than he ever was to begin with.

At one point River takes a nice and slices into Jayne's chest, stating that "he looks better in red," and causing the rest of the crew to panic and restrain her. This action is later explained as Simon reveals that the doctors at the Academy had lobotomized her repeatedly, ripping through her amygdala so that she is currently unable to control her emotions, instead feeling everything at once. Perhaps intended to excuse her earlier behavior, instead it only calls it into question, as she surely should have felt some form of guilt over her actions, but instead was very casual about having stabbed someone. It seems as though it was a plot point written to show how dangerous she could become without medical intervention, but isn't necessarily the most sensible device through which to have shown that.

One would imagine that, in the event you were planning on betraying certain members of your crew, that you would also have thought out the excuse you would use for why you, too, had not been captured. Instead, Jayne seems to be flying by the seat of his pants, and is completely caught off guard when the police that he calls then turn around and betray him. Perhaps he was simply planning on taking the money and running, never to see the crew of the Serenity again, but it still seems prudent to think of an excuse should events cause Jayne to run into Mal before escaping the hospital.

It's nice to see Glau given an opportunity to display her talent here, as she so often is written out of the bulk of the stories as her character has little to do with the missions at-hand, much like both Morena Baccarin and Ron Glass (Inara and Book, respectively) were written out of this episode. Baldwin proves capable of subtle emotion here, and Fillion does well to display Mal's righteous fury.

There are a lot of things to like about Allan Kroeker's direction of this episode, starting with his choice to use a handheld camera during the scenes where Simon explains his plan to the others, the shakiness of the frame imitating the nervousness of everyone involved. Upon waking, River sits up on the gurney much like a vampires in Whedon's Buffy, perhaps to signify the rebirth of her former self that Simon is so hoping for, and her brain activity later spiking as she recognizes Jayne's attempt to lie is subtle enough to pass largely unnoticed, but a good indication that she may, in fact, be developing some kind of psychic powers as has been previously hinted. At one point Simon abandons River and Jayne in order to save a coding patient from a doctor's incompetence, berating the surgeon in the process; while he runs the severe risk of exposing himself and River, he can't stand back and watch as someone dies, proving that working in the medical field is his calling, his passion, and underlining how big a step it must have been for him to give all of that up in order to save a sister that may not, for all he knew, have needed his help. The use of Simon and River's coffins to carry the medical supplies back to the ship was a clever use of props, and the device that made everyone bleed from every available orifice was sufficiently creepy. Kroeker's episode hits every beat just as it should, and there really is little to nothing to complain about during this hour of television.

Jose Molina is adept at inserting small character moments into his script, beginning with Wash's (Alan Tudyk) desperation for shore leave and his many attempts to convince his bullheaded wife Zoë (Gina Torres) to leave the ship. Inara's status as an official companion, stating that guild law requires her to undergo a physical once a year in order to renew her license, manages to be informative without overtaking anything in regards to the actual plot, and also serves to very stealthily write her out of the rest of the story. On entering the hospital, and having repeatedly practices their scripts, Mal is surprised when the nurses wait for nothing beyond "two D.O.A.s" before telling him to take them to the morgue, and Jayne's frustration forcing him to spout off his line anyway is a nice touch. Equally good is Mal's belief that everyone on the core planets smiles at each other, leading to him smiling at a doctor which is, in the end, the thing that sets he and Zoë apart and gets them caught.

There will finally be some answers as to what was done to River, with the smaller moments hinting toward some kind of psychic experimentation. The status of Jayne's loyalty to Mal and his crew is likely to be a touchy subject between he and his captain in the near future, though, after the events of this episode, he is unlikely to stray again any time soon.

The review for "War Stories" can be read here.