Firefly: Ranking Episodes From Worst To Best

13. Episode 5: Safe

Mal: "Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?"

Zoe: "Big gorram heroes, sir."

Mal: "Ain't we just!"

What begins with a delivery of a herd of cows to their buyer ends with Book getting shot and Simon and River kidnapped.

Just an ordinary day for the crew of Serenity.

Back-story is the strength of this episode, as we see a scene of River and Simon as children (young Simon played by Zac Efron, long before his High School Musical days) and then watch them grow up, Simon becoming a brilliant doctor and River entering the government academy as a child prodigy. With Simon portrayed up to this point in the show as being rather stiff and closed-off, it does wonders for his character to see how much he loves his sister and how much he has sacrificed to save her from the academy that tortured her and experimented on her mind. The most striking moment comes near the end of the episode, when River is about to be burned as a witch by the ignorant townspeople. After trying and failing to stop them, Simon steps up next to River on the pyre, puts his arms around her, and says, "Light it." Luckily Mal and the rest of the crew fly in to save the day, but in that moment we see that Simon would rather die than abandon River again.

This is not only a landmark episode for Simon, but for River as well; we see a different, more innocent side to her when she actually has fun dancing with the townsfolk in the square. We can also see more of her paranormal perceptions and psychic potential when she telepathically "reads" a mute girl and the town patron and when she senses that Book has been shot. Book is also given further character development when the captain of the Alliance cruiser agrees to have Book's wounds treated when he sees his IdentCard. Book's mysterious past is never fully explained in the show (although I believe it's chronicled in the graphic novel The Shepherd's Tale), but his connections with the Alliance make him a much more interesting figure.

It's also worth noting that, however Simon and Mal have butted heads in the past, this is the episode where Mal claims Simon and River as part of the crew.