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Originally posted by Evans:
Why does River say about the slashed Jayne, "He looks better in red"?

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Originally posted by kef:

It's obvious why the Alliance wants her. At least it would seem to be. But do they want to use her? Or destroy her powers? Or did they help create them? It would appear Simon interupted the proccess of what they were doing to her, one way or the other, when he originally rescued her.

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Originally posted by JaynesGirlfriend:
If they created the powers in her I can't imagine how they planned to use them after they've also taken her sanity.

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Originally posted by Evans:
Almost everything River says turns out to be significant. The writers are playing with OUR minds. What was all that about Christmas presents and not peeking in the closet? (other than the ho-yay factor). The black, coal, the closet. Hmm.

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Jayne's fight with the Fed, with both hands tied behind his back (!), was very good. No cables or somersaults through the air, no pause in the action for a beautiful pose.

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Originally posted by Mopbucket:
According to the show (and I'm not too sure how accurate the info is) they removed the Amygdala (sp?) or the "filter" for the brain. I think the idea is that those of us with special powers like River automatically shut down those powers as a coping mechanism. After all if we started hearing voices in our head wouldn't we want them to shut up? So, in order to bypass this sanity defense system they destroyed the Amygdala. Besides, I think in the West it's almost a paradigm that crazy people often have powers to see beyond the veil of reality. You can see numerous examples in stories, poems, movies, etc. Sorta like subconsciously we all believe that losing our inhibitions will allow us to see and feel more...but at the same time we can cross the line of sanity.

Anyhow, that's just my take. Anyone else?

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Jayne's simple brute overpowering of the guard fit in well with the show's "realism"

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"Hear the pretty music? It's a dirge I think... For your funeral... (a quizzical look) But it's not here..."

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DAWN: "The Key is not directly described in any known literature, but all research indicates an energy matrix vibrating at a dimensional frequency beyond normal human perception. Only those outside reality can see the Key's true nature." Outside reality? What's that mean?

SPIKE: Second sight blokes, maybe. Or even just your run-o'-the-mill lunatics.

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Originally posted by Delvo:
Remember that River's flashbacks seem to mostly pertain to medical procedures, and Simon said they'd done multiple procedures on her head. To me, that doesn't say that the Alliance people in charge knew what to do and how to do it and were targetting their efforts at a specific goal. It says "experimentation". They caught on that there was something special about her mind, and they were fiddling around with it to try to learn more about it and see what happened.

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Originally posted by Thegn:
That's the impression I get too.

As for Jayne I love him. He adds so much realism to the show. If there was no other reason to like this show he would be enough. And his fight with the Alliance dude looked so realistic it made me cringe. In most other shows, when the bad guy starts drawing blood that's generally a queue for the good guy to jump back with a quaint yelp to draw sympathy from the audience. But in reality, adrenaline usually mutes much of the pain one feels in fighting, especially if one is fighting for one's life, which is why fights can often become very bloody.

Jayne is one of the best rounded characters on the show. He is extremely arrogant, selfish, insensitive and even a little sadistic, yet at the same time we see him as one of most courageous and often practical members of the crew. He even possess some level of compassion and empathy, as we see in Ariel when he dismissed his plot to sell out River when he discovered how wrongly she had been treated. However, even Jayne's courage has limitations. This is why, despite his strength, he will never be a leader. It's obvious that he fears Mal. And this is actually very typical of domineering men. They very often avoid confrontation with similarly strong men, especially where they perceive those men as having a moral authority. Jayne can't understand why Mal is so protective of his crew, because in Jayne's mind this is a sign of weakness, yet obviously Mal is not weak. And this will forever baffle Jayne. This is the inferiority complex that comes from Jayne's deep-rooted self-consciousness. Almost in the same way wolves concede authority to the alpha male, Jayne concedes authority to Mal. Yet probably most interesting of all is the way Jayne so frequently comes across as the guy you want on your side. Despite his brutal criminal tendencies, his ability to willingly kill with his bare hands actually makes him a valuable asset. There's a very realistic dichotomy at work in here.

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He continued to purposely lead them into the place where he knew the Feds were waiting

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Originally posted by Thegn:
He even possess some level of compassion and empathy, as we see in Ariel when he dismissed his plot to sell out River when he discovered how wrongly she had been treated.

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Despite his brutal criminal tendencies, his ability to willingly kill with his bare hands actually makes him a valuable asset. There's a very realistic dichotomy at work in here.

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Originally posted by kef:
If he changed his mind about turned them over to the Feds, why did he continue to take them out "the back", where he knew the Feds were waiting, instead of taking them out "the front" as was Simon's/Mal's original plan? Mal and Zoe had just taken the drugs out "the front" and were waiting for them to come out the same way. All Jayne had to do was turn River's wheelchair around! Sorry, I don't buy it.

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Originally posted by Delvo:

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Originally posted by kef:
If he changed his mind about turned them over to the Feds, why did he continue to take them out "the back", where he knew the Feds were waiting, instead of taking them out "the front" as was Simon's/Mal's original plan? Mal and Zoe had just taken the drugs out "the front" and were waiting for them to come out the same way. All Jayne had to do was turn River's wheelchair around! Sorry, I don't buy it.

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I think you're getting the story mixed up. He took them out from the scanning room the way the plan was originally to be: the front. Simon was concerned only about the rush, not the changed route, because it wasn't changed. They hadn't gotten moving in time, so they got caught. After escaping, they had a scene in a hallway where Jayne was going to take them out the front again; he responded to Simon's objection that that way was guarded by saying that they already knew that way out and wouldn't get lost, implying that he figured he could get them through the guards. They only ended up going out the back because River ran off (seeming to know the way, or so one of the guys at least muttered he hoped was the case) and the guys followed her to avoid breaking up the group.

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What??? Are you watching the same show? Because I've rewatched it three times since last night (trying to pick up quotes) and your description of what happened when they left the diagnostic room is completely wrong!

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They didn't get caught because they took too long. Simon wanted to take longer but Jayne hurried them out of the diagnostic room.

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After leaving the diagnostic room, Simon specifically said: "You should have let me know when the plan changed." Because Jayne DID change the route.

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Furthermore, that's how Mal was able to figure out what Jayne did.
That entire area they were going through after they escaped- from where they were captured to were Mal found them- is "the back".

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Originally posted by Delvo:

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What??? Are you watching the same show? Because I've rewatched it three times since last night (trying to pick up quotes) and your description of what happened when they left the diagnostic room is completely wrong!

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We're talking abou the same thing here, you're just not reading what I said right...

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They didn't get caught because they took too long. Simon wanted to take longer but Jayne hurried them out of the diagnostic room.

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Right. Jayne wanted to get them out quicker. That's why I said it looks like this is when he's already un-betrayed them; there's no reason for him to be in a rush like that if he knows the officers are waiting for them anyway, or if they're coming to get them in the scanning room. Then he could just wait for them, or stick to the original plan and wait until Simon was finished to deliver them. Suddenly changing plans and being in a big hurry only makes sense if he's hoping to slip past the guards before they're in position. But he wasn't able to rush Simon out quick enough, so it didn't work.

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After leaving the diagnostic room, Simon specifically said: "You should have let me know when the plan changed." Because Jayne DID change the route.

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Listen to yourself there; he said "plan". A plan includes timing. That's all that changed. Simon wasn't complaining about the route, only how little time he'd gotten. That's the only thing he specified. The two of them had no argument about which way to go at this point.

And think about why Jayne would even want them to go out the back at all anyway; he wouldn't have arrangd a meeting with the officers in a specific location that was OFF of the planned route and therefor likely to arouse Simon's suspicion; he would have had them wait right where they were going to be anyway according to Simon's plan, or had them come to where they were sitting still in the scanner room.

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Furthermore, that's how Mal was able to figure out what Jayne did.
That entire area they were going through after they escaped- from where they were captured to were Mal found them- is "the back".

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Like I said, after they'd been caught and then escaped, they had to turn "back" because River ran that way while Jayne and Simon were trying to settle which way they should go. Jayne wanted to go out the way they'd come in, which was the front. Mal, meanwhile, knew that they were running away in an unplanned direction for one possible reason: because things hadn't gone smooth, and so he surmised that a betrayal by Jayne was the reason things hadn't gone smooth.

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Originally posted by Visionary:
Anyway....

Continuing the "River Theory" side of this:

I think they were trying to turn River into one of their agents. Those Blue Hand fellows have a creepy edge to them, they are impervious to the effects if their little device, and they knew exactly which way River, Simon and Jayne ran.

I think that the Blue Hands are the end result of the experiments conducted on River...she just wasn't far enough along when she was rescued (she's kind of "half-baked" if you will).

Obviously she was chosen because she has some ability in her in the first place, the experiments (at the Academy, remember, which implies training) are to amplify her skills and remove her ability to suprress them.

Book: Folks like a man of God.
Mal: No they don't! Men of God make everyone feel guilty and judged.

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Originally posted by Thegn:
He didn't lead Simon and River to the Feds. He attempted to lead them out before the Feds arrived after hearing what Simon had to say about River's condition, but unfortunately he didn't make it in time.

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Originally posted by Thegn:
He didn't lead Simon and River to the Feds. He attempted to lead them out before the Feds arrived after hearing what Simon had to say about River's condition, but unfortunately he didn't make it in time. It wasn't self preservation that made Jayne change his mind, although as Delvo pointed out, it may not have been compassion. Read Delvo's response above. He has explained it well.

Compassion was my first impression, but it may have been any number of things. Owing to Jayne's characteristic dislike of Simon and the fact that Simon has already proven his worth as a doctor on several occasions I doubt that it was a renewed faith in Simon or his expertise. However, it could have been a hatred of the Alliance. That is true. Though I think that might suggest compassion as well. If the Alliance represents, in Jayne's mind, an absolute wrong, an "evil" as it were, then could not his desire to save River from that evil be interpreted as compassion?

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Originally posted by Evans:
The Blue Gloves are the one sour note in this splendid series, for me. Too other-realmish, too Buffy or Angel for a show that wants to show real people's struggles in a different setting.

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Originally posted by Shiny:
I'm worried that plot-line will go down some drawn-out, unnecessarily complicated X-files-like conspiracy.

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Originally posted by Evans:

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Originally posted by Shiny:
I'm worried that plot-line will go down some drawn-out, unnecessarily complicated X-files-like conspiracy.

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I am tired, tired, tired of conspiracy theory TV shows.

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Originally posted by kef:
2) I just don't buy the motivation(s) for Jayne changing his mind in the exam room. It just doesn't ring true to me. (it's simply my opinion)

3) If Jayne had changed his mind in the exam room, it kind of takes a bit of wind out of the final scene between him and Mal. It's here at this point that I see, in Jayne's face, the change take place inside him. I didn't see that in the exam room.

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Originally posted by kef:
River, as she was being wheeled through the recovery room, said, "They're doing it backwards, walking up the down slide."

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Originally posted by Rhea:
I love Riverspeak. When all else fails, I can entertain myself by listening to what River says and trying to figure out what the hell it means.

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I don't believe he even felt bad about his treachery when Mal confronted him on Serenity. It seemed to me that after his initial panic, he accepted the fact that Mal had busted him, and accepted his fate. He just wanted Mal to preserve his sense of honour with the rest of the crew, which proved to Mal that he had a sense of honour, and thus Mal spared him. Course I would'a still flushed him!

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