Little Pieces of Serenity

Seeing as this was my second viewing of Serenity, I've decided to use this post as a catalogue of less obvious (but still awesome) occurrences that stuck out to me. The first of these, and quite possibly my favorite, is the "priceless treasure" that Shepherd Book shows Kaylee after she asks him if he has money to pay for his fare. The viewer is not, at first, allowed to see what the Shepherd's mysterious wooden box contains and is forced to imagine for themselves the value of its contents based solely on Kaylee's joyous reaction. Is it full of diamonds? Highly valued space currency? Nobody is sure, until the scene where we are presented with Kaylee's ecstatic bite into a juicy strawberry. Then it hits you like a train. On the space frontier, fresh fruit (heck, fresh anything) is treasure of inestimable value. Now that's pretty cool. Next time I eat a strawberry, I may not look at it the same way...

This one definitely can't top the strawberries, but I also like how Mal's trick on Simon garners exactly the same reaction from both a total stranger and the members of his crew. Simon pronounces his "doctor's diagnosis" of the captain, declaring him "psychotic," while, at almost the exact same time, Serenity's crew, in the midst of laughing uproariously at their captain's joke, also declare him psychotic (I think it was Wash who actually says it out loud, but its fairly obvious that there is a general consensus). The loyal crew member and the unwelcome stowaway are worlds apart from each other in terms of closeness to Mal and that fact does absolutely nothing to change their reaction to his antics. The captain is crazy. End of story.

Finally, we come to a scene that is, in my opinion, notable because of its extreme awkwardness/ wrongness/ confusedness/ I'm going to run out of adjectives to describe this. Its weird. The viewer is treated to a kneeling Shepherd Book, at the feet of the resident whore (sorry, had to use Mal language for the proper effect), almost in tears because he "believes he's on the wrong ship." A touching scene, I'll grant you, and I don't want to take away from that in any way. Its really a tribute to the complexities of this show's characters. However, I don't think I will ever be able to comfortably sit back and watch the priest confess his sins to the prostitute. And yet, as I have already mentioned, the "confession," despite its strangeness, retains a certain sentimentality that is truly touching to witness. It leaves you with the sense that we're all humans and able to lend each other a helping hand, regardless of of our background, job, etc.

I could say more, but I have a paper to write. Firefly forever.