(no subject)

[weaktwos]

I am nearly complete in my rewatch of Whedon's "Firefly". I watched the final episode in the series, "Objects in Space".

I am hard pressed to pick a favorite firefly episode, but this ranks up there. It strikes me as Whedon's most artful, most cerebral episode.


The opening scene is just killer. It was laid out so well, and the insertion of River's perception of their thoughts. Simply beautiful. Everyone else had a different train of thought beneath their present conversation. In retrospect, Shepherd's "real thought" was quite fascinating. I'd hate to think he really thought that way. That combined with Early's comment, "He's no Shepherd" leaves us with such a juicy character that died before we got to know the skinny. No matter what Book's past was, he always seemed like a good an honorable man throughout this series.

But the picture we get of him in this episode adds something sinister and petty into the mix of possibilities. His character was the only one whose "internal comment" that River "perceived" was drastically different from the rest of his behavior.

In Serenity I lamented his death. It was clear that whatever power he had wasn't significant compared to the great River Tam cover-up.

Back to the first scene in Objects in Space. Zoe and Wash had no evil thoughts. That's probably because they were too busy.

Now, Early. I'm trying to think of a more deep and expeditious character development for a non-permanent cast member in the series. I'm at a loss. We get to know about Safran/Bridget/Whatever, but over two episodes. And even then, she's still a con lady. But Early. We get a lot of information about him and his creepy proclivities. Philosophical, sociopathological, sadistic. Yet, he's fairly honest. Early's character seems like a precursor to the Operative in Serenity the Movie. Although the difference there was that the Operative had a twisted sense of the "greater good".

And finally, this is the second glimpse we have of Summer's power. We know she can use guns if she needs to (from the episode with Nisca torturing Mal and Wash) and now we see she can resolve a confilct without guns.

After watching the episode normally, I viewed the commentary (which I don't think I watched before), and it's clear that Joss really loved this episode. It showed.

Again, it's a darn shame he wasn't allowed to continue this series as a television show.

Comments

[scarcrest.livejournal.com]

I liked the theory that Book WAS The Operative, and that if there had been a trilogy of films, we would have seen a bit of time travel near the very end.

[weaktwos.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard that theory. Then again, I haven't been listening to other people's theories.

And time travel? How so? Are you suggesting Book was an elderly verion of The Operative, and he killed his future self?

[scarcrest.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm implying -- The Operative ends up going back in time, reforming, and becoming the Shepherd. Then years later, his younger self kills his older self without realizing it.