The Train Job

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Firefly episode
“The Train Job”

The characters Zoe, Malcolm and Jayne being rescued after a bar fight
Episode no. Season 1
Episode 02
Guest star(s) Michael Fairman
Andrew Bryniarski
Gregg Henry
Jeff Ricketts
Dennis Cockrum
Writer(s) Joss Whedon, Tim Minear
Director Joss Whedon
Production no. 1AGE01
Original airdate 20 September 2002 (Fox)
Episode chronology
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"Serenity" "Bushwhacked"

"The Train Job" is the second episode of science-fiction television series Firefly created by Joss Whedon, although it was actually the first to be shown. (The pilot, "Serenity", was not shown until nine other episodes had been aired.)

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.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

The opening scene of the show (and, to the original audience, the series) shows Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds enjoying a drink and a table game with his first mate, Zoe, and fellow crewman Jayne Cobb in a bar. An inebriated bar patron celebrates the "ass-picious" anniversary of "Unification Day", which motivates former rebel Mal to pick a fight. As the entire bar joins in, Mal radios his pilot, Wash, for a "grand entrance", and shortly Serenity, a Firefly-class bulk transport ship, dramatically backs up the hapless crew.

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 with a curt 'If I'm your mission, Shepherd, best give it up'. 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, who tells her 'I don't pay you t'get yer hair played at'. Subsequent bickering between Mal and Inara demonstrate a sometimes playful, sometimes hard-edged tenseness in their relationship, with some apparent undertones of mutual (but unacknowledged) 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 along the route.

When Mal and Zoe board the train, they discover that an "entire regiment" of Alliance troops are also aboard. Mal reasons (to Zoe's alarm) 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. Zoe is extremely hesitant, telling Mal that there's a 'problem with his brain being missing'. 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, and he 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 he tries to force Wash to take off, he suddenly gets loopy and falls over. Simon reveals that he had doped Jayne during his treatment.

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 deftly deflects the suspicious sheriff's probing of their cover story (as newlywed settlers), 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, Crow arrives with a passel of Niska henchman to disagree. A violent fight ensues, showing off Zoe's combat skills, Mal's endurance and tenacity, Wash's ingenuity, and Jayne's shooting skill (even while still doped up). After the villains are secured, Mal and Zoe drive the cargo near the town, but the sheriff surprises them with his men. Realizing the cargo is intact, the sheriff decides to let them go, respecting their courage to do the right thing.

Outside Serenity, Mal returns the money to a trussed-up Crow. When Crow threatens to hunt him down wherever he goes, Mal calmly kicks him into Serenity's engine intake. When Mal starts with the next trussed-up henchman, the 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Trivia

  • According to the DVD commentary, Joss Whedon and Tim Minear only had two days to write the script for this episode.
  • This episode opens "six years to the day" after the end of the Unification War. Inara has been leasing one of Serenity's shuttles from Mal for eight months.
  • River first utters her litany, "two by two, hands of blue...", in this episode.
  • The world featured in "The Train Job" is a "border planet".
  • As Zoe and Mal uncover the booty, we get a brief glimpse at the logo of the Alliance, the Chinese flag overlaid on the United States flag.
  • The Train car seen as Jayne is lowered bears the number "A1138," a reference to Pixar films (A113) and to THX 1138, which was George Lucas' first feature film.
  • According to the DVD commentary the uniforms the Alliance soilders are wearing were featured and rented from the producers of "Starship Troopers"
  • The t-shirt that Jayne wears during the episode contains the Chinese word yong, which means 'soldier' or more commonly 'brave'. This shirt also appears in the episodes; "Shindig", "Ariel" and "War Stories".

[edit] References and external links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
The Firefly series
Episodes Serenity • The Train Job • Bushwhacked • Shindig • Safe • Our Mrs. Reynolds • Jaynestown
Out of Gas • Ariel • War Stories • Trash • The Message • Heart of Gold • Objects in Space
Spin-offs R. Tam sessions • Serenity: Those Left Behind • Serenity
Characters Derrial Book • Jayne Cobb • Kaylee Frye • Malcolm Reynolds • Inara Serra
River Tam • Simon Tam • Hoban Washburne • Zoe Washburne • Minor characters
Terminology Moons and planets • The Alliance • Blue Sun • Unification War • Serenity
Reaver • Browncoat • Firefly slang • Companion
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