The Train Job

Infobox Television episode
Colour = #fc9
Title = The Train Job
Series = Firefly


Caption = The characters Zoe, Malcolm and Jayne being rescued after a bar fight
Season = 1
Episode = 2
Airdate = 20 September 2002 (Fox)
Production = 1AGE01
Writer = Joss Whedon, Tim Minear
Director = Joss Whedon
Guests = Michael Fairman Andrew Bryniarski Gregg Henry Jeff Ricketts Dennis Cockrum
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Prev = Serenity
Next = Bushwhacked
Episode list = List of Firefly episodes

"The Train Job" is the second episode of US science-fiction television series "Firefly" created by Joss Whedon, although it was the first to be shown. (The pilot, "Serenity", was not shown until nine other episodes had been aired.) According to the DVD commentary, Whedon and Tim Minear had only two days to write the script.

The crew of "Serenity" take on a train heist commissioned by a sinister crime lord. The cargo they are after, however, is worth more than they know.

Synopsis

Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds, his first mate, Zoe, and fellow crewman Jayne Cobb are in a bar. An inebriated bar patron celebrates the anniversary of Unification Day, which motivates former rebel Mal to pick a fight. As the entire bar joins in, Mal radios his pilot, Wash, and shortly "Serenity" dramatically backs up the hapless crew. Through the ship's exterior speakers, Wash threatens to 'blow a new crater in this little moon'.

Back aboard "Serenity", a young man, Dr. Simon Tam, tends to his mentally-disturbed sister River, who nevertheless shows a remarkable memory for factual data. Mal drops in on these two passengers, and he and Simon reveal a mutual desire to avoid Alliance attention, each for his own reasons. Book, a "shepherd" (preacher), who is also a passenger, probes Mal about his motivations for taking on passengers when he makes more money from smuggling. The two proceed to Serenity's engine room, which is in a shambles. Hunting for his mechanic, he dismisses Book. In a cozy living area inside one of "Serenity's" shuttles, we meet Inara Serra as she is brushing Kaylee Frye's hair. The former is revealed as a Companion, a licensed and well-respected courtesan, and the latter turns out to be the ship's missing mechanic. Kaylee is promptly booted back to the engine room by Mal. Subsequent bickering between Mal and Inara demonstrate a sometimes playful, sometimes hard-edged tenseness in their relationship, with some apparent undertones of mutual affection.

On a "skyplex" (an orbiting space city), Mal, Zoe, and Jayne meet with a local crime lord, Adelei Niska, and his brutish lieutenant Crow. After Niska demonstrates a viciousness with people who fail him, he outlines a train heist that he wants Mal to execute, stealing an Alliance cargo of an unspecified nature between two towns, the latter being Paradiso, along the route.

When Mal and Zoe board the train, they discover that an "entire regiment" of Alliance troops are also aboard. Mal reasons that because the Feds are showing no interest in the cargo, they can not only pull off the job as planned but make the hated Alliance look "all manner of stupid" in the process, however Zoe is hesitant. After they break into the locked train car and secure the cargo, Jayne is lowered on a winch from "Serenity". While they attach the cargo to the winch, however, a curious Fed trips a smoke trap at the car door. In the resulting melee, a wounded Jayne is hoisted back to the ship, Mal knocks out the Fed before he sees what's happening, then Mal and Zoe use the smoke as cover to re-enter the passenger car.

On "Serenity", Simon patches up Jayne's leg while the latter argues that they should leave Mal and Zoe behind to deliver the cargo to the dangerous Niska. As Jayne tries to force Wash to take off, he suddenly gets loopy and falls over. Simon reveals that he had doped Jayne during his treatment so he would not take over.

Meanwhile, in Paradiso, Mal and Zoe are aghast to find that the cargo was critical medicine for this mining town, in which everyone is suffering from "Bowden's malady", a degenerative disease. Although Mal deflects the suspicious sheriff's probing of their cover story, it takes Companion Inara to free them from custody, claiming that Mal is her runaway "indentured man" and Zoe his thieving accomplice.

Back on the ship, as Mal announces that they will be returning the cargo, however Crow arrives with henchman. A violent fight ensues, showing off Zoe's combat skills, Mal's endurance and tenacity, Wash's ingenuity, and Jayne's shooting skill. After the villains are secured, Mal and Zoe drive the cargo near the town, but the sheriff surprises them. Realizing the cargo is intact, the sheriff decides to let them go, respecting their courage to do the right thing.

Outside "Serenity", Mal returns Niska's money to a trussed-up Crow, proposing that they will stay out of Niska's way from then on. When Crow rejects the offer and threatens to hunt him down wherever he goes, Mal casually kicks him into "Serenity"'s engine intake. Another trussed-up henchman is then brought before Mal —- who begins repeating his proposal —- but the second man quickly agrees to take the money back to Niska.

Back on the Alliance cruiser, two mysterious men in suits and wearing blue gloves inquire about a girl — and show the captain a photo of River Tam.

Allusions to earlier episodes

* Since this second episode was actually the first to be aired, writers Joss Whedon and Tim Minear had to introduce the characters to the new audience, even though many elements of these introductions were covered in the actual pilot, "Serenity". Quite a bit of the dialog alludes to information provided in the pilot.

* Kaylee claims that her messy rewiring in the engine room is required because "somebody won't replace that crappy compression coil", which she first brought up in "Serenity".

* Inara questions Mal walking into her shuttle "unannounced", just as she did in the pilot.

Foreshadowing

* Kaylee again (or, for the original broadcast audience, for the first time) refers to problems with "Serenity's" compression coil. In "Out of Gas", the catalyzer on the compression coil will be the source of the explosion that stops "Serenity" dead, just as she predicted in "Serenity".

* Niska warns Mal that "things between us [will be] not so solid" if Mal fails to bring him the cargo, and Zoe is perturbed by mental images of the dead man hanging from the ceiling (leading Mal to express a desire for it not to be him). Niska's lieutenant dies rather than accept Mal's returning of the money. Mal's thwarting of Niska's goal comes back to bite "Serenity's" crew in "War Stories".

* This is our introduction to the ominous "Hands of Blue", two men who are pursuing River, presumably to return her to the institution where Simon had her smuggled out of.

* As noted by Tim Minear in the DVD commentary , Book's knowledge of underworld dealings (particularly his theory of Niska's reaction to an incarcerated Mal and Zoe) is meant to reference his shady past.

External links

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* [http://www.fireflywiki.org/101.html Firefly Wiki - "The Train Job" script]