1.09: Ariel

[Lonewolf89]

Discuss Ariel, airing 11/15/02. It looks like a really interesting episode.

[Tabitha]

From www.fox.com/firefly

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“Ariel”

1AGE08
Writer: Jose Molina
Director: Alan Kroaker
Airdate: 11/15/02

Serenity hurtles through space. On board, the crew mulls around while discussing Ariel, a core planet. Shepherd Book is not present, as he’s been dropped off to meditate at an Abbey. Zoe says she's not getting off the ship. Too many Feds. Mal says nobody's getting off the ship. They're dropping off Inara so she can renew her companion's license. Guild law requires an annual physical for all companions.

Cleaning his guns, Jayne spits on them. Simon asks him not to, but he does anyway. Suddenly, River picks up a butcher's knife and slashes Jayne across the chest. In the infirmary, as Simon is stitching him up, Jayne tells Mal the siblings have to go before she kills somebody. Mal refuses, but tells Simon that River is completely confined to her room.

Later, Mal and Jayne complain that they have no job to do while waiting on Inara. Simon says if the crew helps him get River into the hospital's diagnostic ward, he'll help them get into the hospital vault and tell them what medicines to steal (to later sell on the street for huge money). Simon wants to get River into a 3-D neuro-imager to find out what they did to her at the Academy.

Simon reveals his plan to sneak into the hospital unnoticed. Kaylee and Wash will build an ambulance ship from old scrap parts, and Mal, Zoe and Jayne will pose as medics. They'll be carrying Simon and River, who will be induced into unconsciousness to seem like corpses.

The ambulance touches down at the hospital and the plan is underway. Jayne assures Mal that he's okay with Simon's plan. The on-duty nurse sends our crew down to the morgue. Mal gives River and Simon an injection that will revive them in a few minutes, then he and Zoe depart for the vault. After a moment, Jayne walks down the hall to a telephone and calls the police. The officer asks if Jayne has the fugitives, Jayne asks if the officer has his reward.

Jayne heads back to the morgue, where River and Simon come to. Up in the hallways, Mal and Zoe are pushing their gurneys towards the vault when a doctor stops them, asking to see Mal's badge. Meanwhile, as Simon and Jayne wheel River through a patient wing, a patient begins having a heart attack. Simon jumps in and saves the man's life.

Back in the hallway, the doctor orders Mal and Zoe to follow him. He begins yelling at them, but Zoe shocks him with the paddles, knocking him out. They take off for the vault and get in using the doctor's ID card.

Simon lays River down in the neuro-imager and kicks it on. In the vault, Mal and Zoe begin cleaning house according to Simon's shopping list. They load up the gurneys, close the lids and take off.

Simon begins scanning River. A hologram of her brain appears over her. Simon is shocked by what he sees. He says they cut into her brain, over and over, removing the part that allows her to suppress feelings. Jayne tries to rush out the group. Simon says they have twenty more minutes, but Jayne says the plan changed while Simon was out. Captain's orders.

The group moves outside, where Federal marshals are waiting for them. Jayne asks the officer he spoke with how they want to handle things. The marshals arrest Jayne for aiding and abetting fugitives. Jayne asks about his money. The officer says it's his money now.

Mal and Zoe make it back to the ambulance. Mal wonders where the rest of the group is. Well, they're inside, being held by the marshals. Outside, Mal realizes something is up. He and Zoe arm themselves and looks for a way to sneak in the back.

The marshals transfer their captives into a holding room and Jayne goes on the attack. He knocks out one guard and kills another. Mal and Zoe hustle through the hospital. Kaylee and Wash radio directions to them.

Two sinister men, dressed in black suits, show up and interrogate the arresting officer. When the suited men find out the officer spoke with the captives, one of the men pulls a blue wand device out of his pocket and triggers it. The arresting officer begins to bleed from every orifice, as well as his fingernails.

Inside the holding room, Jayne, Simon and River hear the men screaming outside. The screaming continues until the suited men have killed all of the marshals. Our group takes off in the other direction. They're unsure of where they're going, but it's away from the screaming. The suited men find the guard that Jayne knocked unconscious and bleed him to death as well.

The trio finds a door, but it's locked. Jayne tries to blast it open, but his stolen weapon malfunctions. The suited men are rapidly approaching. Jayne tries to break the door open when the handle is blasted off from the other side. Mal and Zoe are standing there.

The ambulance arrives back on Serenity just in time to meet Inara, who has also returned. The entire crew is safe. Simon is optimistic about a possible treatment for River, based on the data he collected. Simon thanks Jayne for saving them. After the crew leaves, Mal and Jayne begins to unload the pilfered medicine. When Jayne turns around, Mal cracks him in the face with a wrench, knocking him out cold.

When Jayne comes to, he's locked in the cargo hold with a radio. From the other side, Mal opens the cargo bay door and asks Jayne why he went out the back. He knows Jayne called the Feds. Jayne denies it vehemently.

Mal says if Jayne turns on any of his crew, he turns on Mal. Worried that he's about to be sucked out the door when the ship pressurizes, Jayne asks Mal to not tell the crew what he did. Mal walks upstairs, but not before closing the cargo bay door. He leaves Jayne in the cargo hold to think about what he did.

River sits quietly drawing as Simon approaches to give her an injection. She asks if it’s time to go to sleep again. He smiles and says that it’s time to wake up.
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[Tabitha]

Poll added.

[marzipam]

Jayne is my favourite character from Firefly, but I was sad to see in this episode just how far he would go in betraying his companions.

His last words before probable death were amazing - "Just don't tell them what I did, make something up" (it has been a while since I saw it, so this may not be accurate, but you get the gist). Maybe he really does have a sense of honour buried in that mercenary mind of his somewhere.

I also wonder whether his mind was changed a little when he saw Simon save the patient at the hospital. More respect for the Doctor, maybe?

[Dave]

Sorry, but I was begining to like Jayne, not anymore.

This is our first look at a 'Core' Alliance planet. It seemed to be completely built up. The military was the usual autocratic authoritarian regime. The Doctors arrogant or incompetent, but the technology beyond anything on the outer rims.

The introduction of the psionic attacks by the men in black was interesting. We must be expected to assume that the experiments on River's brain were something to do with that. That's not a huge revelation. We already know that she has Clairvoyance and Precognition, so has she the inate ability to assault telepathically too?

If this series had been allowed a few seasons, I could really see great potential in this thread of the story.

[ray gower]

Some chickens coming home to roost in this episode as the nameless face of bureacracy catches them up in the shape of the chaps with blue hands, though they do not appear to be wildly proactive in chasing their fugitive.

I wondered how the 'Blue-hand' brothers dealt with the guards. But the implication that the Alliance consider River as a potentially serious threat is clear. I wonder when this story would really start to come into play?

Considering that Mal 'bought' Jayne as a way of getting out of trouble in the first place, perhaps Jayne's actions are not so surprising. We already know he was a mersanery SoB, his dislike of the Doctor was palpable and River's attack on him was not calculated to endear her to him. The Doctor's near hero worship afterwards was comic, considering.

[Brit Chick]

I too was beginning to like Jayne - OK I though he was a bit of a hulking thickie brute, but that didn't mean he couldn't be a nice guy and he has kind of been good to people now and again eh!

But not any more matey, what a complete and total tosser and stoooopid too, did he really think he'd be allowed to actually collect a reward, obviously the first thing the feds/police would try and do is kill him so they wouldn't have to pay any reward.

I reckon Mal should have just opened the bay door and blasted him out into space - but then I guess Joss was hoping to have another series or so and the Jayne character does add to the mix

On a lighter note, I laughed out loud when they got to the hospital with their carefully prepared phrases and then didn't need them - but Jayne said his anyway, it was like - I've learnt this and I am damn well gonna use it !!-

[Status]

Originally posted by Brit Chick
On a lighter note, I laughed out loud when they got to the hospital with their carefully prepared phrases and then didn't need them - but Jayne said his anyway, it was like - I've learnt this and I am damn well gonna use it !!-

I did to, think it was even funnier than them trying to learn it.

As for Jayne's actions, guess he proved me wrong in this one about the good in him. Maybe he doesn't have as much good in him as I thought.

Loved the human side of Mal, writing the drug names on his wrist. I think it would have been too unbelivable to have him remember them on his own too. It was a nice touch.

Simon sure showed his value to the crew in this one, even if he was doing it to get access to run a scan on River. You can't blame him for that one though.

Originally posted by ray gower
I wondered how the 'Blue-hand' brothers dealt with the guards. But the implication that the Alliance consider River as a potentially serious threat is clear.

I would agree here, I'm wondering if they might be a part of a secret orginization inside the system. I don't think they are part of the actual Feds group. All I can say about them is... I DON'T LIKE THEM!" But then, I don't think I was supposed to.

[Dave]

The first time around I didn't didn't notice the blue gloves, so all the talk about 'blue hand guys' had me confused.

They are definitely a sinister development, obviously more powerful than the Feds and the Alliance Navy, but we need to know much more about the Alliance political system to determine who the work for. All societies have layers of secret services but we cannot determine how high a level they are from this episode alone.

The hospital security officer was surprised at how fast they arrived. That means that either there is a lot more of them than he expects, or that they have been following Serenity.

They caused the brain haemorages using the long blue wand. This begs the question of what it is?

Is it a machine for causing the haemoraging, capable of use by anyone? Or, does it amplify their own psionic powers and they are possessed of the same powers as River?