I'VE GOT A THEORY..

Tuesday, January 25, 2005 3:44:53 PM

Okay, I got a new theory. Wash threw the part in the junkyard on Ariel, cuz it reminded him of the trouble they had in Out of Gas. I'll leave the rest below untouched to show my stupidity, but I still think there's a connection between the prop used in one episode and the same looking prop used in a later episode. I just got them reversed.

...

I've got a theory. The explosion that happens in the episode "Out of Gas"? It was Wash's fault.

I've been rewatching the tv series Firefly again. Found something interesting that may or may not have been intended but it's a working explanation why the ship died in Out of Gas. Malcolm said something to the effect of, "it was the catalyzer. A nothing part until you ain't got one and then apparently it's everything." Kaylee wasn't able to fix it, because the problem with it was something inside the device which rarely ever blows up the way it did. We're led to believe most ships never have a problem. The captain of the ship that comes to Mal's 'rescue' after a fashion didn't readily believe that such a nothing part could be such a problem. That's because most ships don't have a catalyzer that's been thrown across a junkyard to bounce off a derelict ambulance shuttle.

In the episode "Ariel" there's a scene where Kaylee and Wash are digging around in the munincipal dump yard that Saint Mary's hospital uses for its mechanical waste disposal. Kaylee's picking up parts that she can use for their planned hospital robbery, but she's also no doubt looking for parts for Serenity herself. "Ooh! Synchronizers!"

That's where they find the ambulance shuttle. Wash finds it quite by accident. He picks up some random part, throws it across the junkyard and the thing bounces off the shuttle. Wash then looks back at Kaylee with a stupid grin on his face. We never see it, but it's perfectly plausible that Kaylee later picks up the same object Wash had already thrown, not knowing that its insides just took a tumble. I say this because if you freeze frame this scene in "Ariel," and look closely at the object in Wash's hands before he throws it? It's the same exact prop used in the episode "Out of Gas" when Kaylee is trying to explain to Malcolm why she can't fix the ship. It's the same prop Malcolm later removes to replace it with a new one. We can assume perhaps that a catalyzer can take a tumble down to the floor like the new one did, but a football-like toss across half a football field to slam into the metal hull of a shuttle?

Same catalyzer? I can't prove it, but it makes perfect sense. The reason why the ship fails in "Out of Gas" is because of a part that took just enough damage in that throw to be useful for a short time, blowing up a few weeks later long after they'd left Ariel. So the reason why they all almost died was inadvertently and indirectly because of Wash. This makes the shouting match scene between Mal and Wash in Out of Gas even more interesting. Could help to explain why Wash was more stressed out than usual, besides the obvious reasons of course. Although it's doubtful Wash was consciously aware it was all his fault, he may have had some sinking suspicion that he couldn't quanitify.

The more I watch this crazy show, the more I see. Lotsa fun on multiple viewings. =)