Firefly Flashback: Heart of Gold

Well, some episode of Firefly has to be the "worst" one. Sorry, Heart of Gold, but you're it. You're not a "bad" episode. You have plenty of good jokes, an interesting guest character (Inara's friend), and a couple of solid scenes that give insight into the main characters. It's just that your premise is kind of goofy (our heroes defend a frontier whore house? really?), and things don't quite gel the way they usually do on your show.

Here's what really does work for me in this episode:

This is our longest look at Jayne "in his element." And I don't just mean whoring himself senseless (though that applies too). This episode is all about a prolonged gunfight against a foe who can't be negotiated with or tricked. Jayne lives for this stuff, and this episode is the most use he ever gets of his extensive gun collection.

It's a great episode for the Inara/Mal relationship. We see that as good as Inara is at constructing and presenting a mask, it's still a mask with real feelings hidden behind it. She gets her heart broken in this episode, and announces her plans to leave Serenity as a result. (One has to imagine what would have changed her mind, had the show continued. Instead, she follows through on her threat/plan.)

There's a fantastic scene where Wash and Zoe discuss having children, and the extra complications that come with that because of the life they lead. And it's an especially melancholy scene to watch if you've seen the movie.

But here's what doesn't work for me in this episode:

The friction over the difference between a "companion" and a "whore" doesn't really play. I can buy off on the concept; I just don't think the writing does justice to Inara's character here.

The villain of the episode is a bit too cartoonish. He doesn't actually have a mustache to twirl, but when he's threatening to rip a baby out of its mother's womb, he might as well.

Several guest characters in the episode die in the climactic battle, and much is made of their deaths. There's even a funeral scene near the end to go with it. But it all feels a bit hollow compared to the far more effective death in the immediately preceding episode, The Message.

If there's a silver lining in the cancellation of Firefly (and it's damn hard to find one), it might be that this episode is as bad as the show ever got. Like I said, it's really not bad -- a B in my judgment. Many TV shows, even a few TV shows I watch on a weekly basis, manage about this level of quality on average; for Firefly, this was "bottom of the barrel." That's pretty gorram good.