jedibuttercup (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jedibuttercup) wrote2005-11-02 03:16 am
jedibuttercup) wrote2005-11-02 03:16 am
Entry tags:
River Tam & Malcolm Reynolds
River Tam & Malcolm Reynolds:
Two Broken Halves, One Healed Whole
I was doing a little research instead of actively fic-writing the last couple of days, trying to fix some dialogue for an upcoming story-part, and ended up quite distracted and far down the path into River/Mal shipperness. This may or may not have direct implications for "Book's Legacy", and there will regardless be no serious new 'ship at all during that story (though I make no promises about the sequel), but anyway, I felt the need to share. Some of you may recognize the last part regarding the movie from a post a few weeks ago to the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
mal_river community, but it's been tweaked a little since then.
Commentary is WELCOME, especially if you remember something I missed, or think I'm really reaching on some of my conclusions. Oh-- and it contains SERENITY spoilers, surprise, surprise.
I watched SERENITY a total of eight times while it was in local theaters, and each of the Firefly episodes at least four times (counting the original run back on FOX in 2002). A non-fan might call that overkill. I call it spending quality time with some of my favorite fictional people, ever.
I adore the entire Firefly cast; each character has quirks and layers and history that are readily apparent from the first episode, and the way they interact with each other in a slowly building family-by-choice under challenging conditions is a treat to watch. Above all the others, however, I'd have to claim Serenity's Captain, Malcolm Reynolds, and the crazy teenage psychic River Tam as my favorites.
That's perhaps not a surprise, as what continuous plot threads were present in the truncated TV series revolved around one or the other of them, and those plot threads were picked up and run with in the movie. I'm a sucker for plot. However, until my first viewing of the movie, I never, ever once thought of matching my two favorites together in romantic scenarios without a shudder.
In fact, I found the very idea of Mal/River romance "morbid and creepifying". The age difference, the fact that she (like Kaylee) was a young woman under his protection... I just couldn't see it. A man of his honor code? Especially after the way he initially reacted to Saffron in the episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds"? He'd sooner put his own eye out than take advantage.
After the movie, however, I found my opinion totally reversed, an opinion that only strengthened with repeat viewings. I have become convinced that not only could a relationship between Mal and River work, she would be healthier for him in the long run than his ostensible love interest Inara Serra ever could be, no matter how much UST hangs in the air when the Companion and Captain are around each other.
Before I get into all of the Mal/River moments in SERENITY, however, I think it would be worthwhile to go back and shed new light on the way these characters interacted (with others as well as each other) in the series. Any Firefly/Serenity 'ship must take that foundation into account, and in the case of the Captain and his Albatross that foundation is complex and more solid than might be apparent at first glance.
SERENITY
I went into SERENITY the first time having recently re-watched the entire Firefly series on DVD. Because of that-- see my comments on "Safe" above-- I found it perfectly believable from the very beginning that Mal took River on the mission at the beginning of the movie fully certain that she could do it. It is easy to tell that the months between show and movie have been full of one hardship after another; this job cannot go south, and he is a man who uses every tool on hand to get the job done. Also one well-used to leading, and reading, people. He wouldn't have wanted to bring her along if he hadn't gotten used to differentiating her merely creepifying (and useful) states of being from the times when she was lost in the chaos of her own mind (which got fewer and farther between after Ariel anyway).
In short, he does not see her as a helpless little girl anymore; she has gained a measure of adult equality in his eyes, an important step toward making a relationship possible.
One symptom of this rise in apparent equality is that he talks directly to her most of the time; in the show he used to direct half his comments around her to Simon when she was having trouble communicating. Before the vault job in the movie, Mal asks River outright if she understands her part in the job; her response is: "Do you?" That's the beginning of her focus on him throughout the film, I think, and more than a bit foreshadow-y. Strangely enough, it's a bit that didn't make it into the novelization. Added late to the script to add to the Mal-River connection? I wonder.
During that job, when they're in the trading area above the vault and River's scanning over the people inside looking for trouble, there's a subtle murmur of voices as she looks over each one (as if she's hearing their thoughts). This is how she finds the one trying to pull the gun and points him out to Zoe. But the very first person she scans that way is actually Mal. And her world continues to revolve around him as the story continues. It isn't all one-sided, either; in many ways Mal returns the focus. In this case, though she's upstairs with Jayne when everything goes to hell, and theoretically Jayne should have been the one pulling her out the door while Zoë and Mal carried out the loot, when they run out of the trading post Mal is the one holding River's hand and boosting her into the mule. Curious.
After the job ends, at the end of the scene where Kaylee and Jayne are cleaning up the cargo bay, Kaylee says "Like to get addlepated ourselves, we stay on this boat much longer. Cap'n'll drive us all off, one by one. Just like Simon and River. Just like Inara..." As they talk, the camera pulls up to reveal River lying on a catwalk, her head toward the bottom of the screen, like an upside-down quote-mark. The cut to the next scene is not clean; for a moment, we see both River on the left, and Mal on the right, like the matching right-side-up quote-mark, as he sits there with Inara's picture. Kaylee's comment, and the capture Mal is watching, both point toward Mal's past relationship with Inara, the unsatisfactory way it ended without quite ever beginning, and the lingering negative effect it still has on his mood and interactions with others. But the art direction was very River/Mal, bookending them together, one small hint in a long trail of them.
Incidentally, Inara's line in the capture-photo--"That man doesn't know what he wants"--is probably actually quite true. His subconscious may know already, but he's not consciously admitting anything to himself. Thus, it makes sense that he's busily being visibly obsessed with Inara, and yet focusing most of his energy on River, without being contradictory about it.
When she is triggered in the Maidenhead, Fanty and Mingo ask if Mal knows her, and he says seriously, "I really don't", something which I see as another important step toward a relationship. He is being forced to re-evaluate his mental image of her again; any assumptions he may have previously made that slotted her into a "not-appropriate" category in his mind have an opportunity here to shatter.
He responds to River then, and later, more appropriately than anyone else does: he alerts Jayne to what is going on, but while Jayne decides to try to physically subdue her, Mal is more alert to the potential danger and goes instantly for his gun. I find what happens next fascinating, too: River is clearly using not only her trained physical talents in this scene, but her psychic ones also. She could probably have stolen a gun or throwable knife from any number of the patrons as she fought, but not until Mal is getting his gun does she actually pick one up; she is aware of what he's up to over everything else going on, and they aim at each other at almost the same moment. Mal pauses, very briefly-- he does not instantly pull the trigger-- and in that tiny pause Simon appears and is able to knock her out. Whereupon it is revealed that he and Mal are the ONLY people still standing that had remained in the club-- she had saved Mal for last. Unconsciously intentional or coincidental, you tell me. (I'd guess the former; after all, she didn't use lethal force on Jayne, despite the fact that he was peskier in his attempts to stop her than others whom she did kill).
Mal could have let Simon carry her out-- getting Simon's image tagged on the scanners instead of his-- but he does it himself anyway. Then Mal chains her up back aboard the ship, worried about whether River will wake up as girl or weapon and what that will mean. When she wakes (just as Mal says the words "We had a gorram time bomb living with us") she listens in to the crew gathered in the dining room discussing the situation, and she is still focused on Mal; though she can hear everyone, the film chooses to show her echoing only his words. When Jayne mentions the possible need to put a bullet in her, Mal says, "It's crossed my mind"-- and River mouths that phrase right along with him. (And it appears to cause her considerable anguish; she repeats the idea later to Simon, "bullet in the brainpain").
The crew's first visit to Haven comes right after that. When Mal walks off to talk with Book-- I noticed that while discussing the events with Book, he flashes back on the moment after he locked her to the deckplates in the storage room. He's all, "I had an out", but he can't stop thinking about the change in her and what it means. It occured to me, too, that the whole fight in the Maidenhead happens immediately after he tells Kaylee that "If I truly wanted someone bad enough, wouldn't be a thing in the 'verse could stop me from going to her." He is not thinking of River in that light at the time, but from that moment on he does a hell of a lot more than just "going" for River's sake, despite having half the 'verse thrown at him. He may claim his actions as mainly self-preservation, and later to give the dead a voice-- but River is the catalyst and the constant he keeps looking to every step along the way; he puts an amazing amount of trust in her, considering how gorram paranoid he is generally.
Another bookended scene transition occurs after the crew leaves Haven the first time, when Inara's call comes in. River wakes from a nightmare about her teacher telling the children in her imaginary class to lie down-- and we cut immediately to Mal waking to Wash paging him on the com. In the series and elsewhere in the movie, she sometimes reacts in concert with others either near her or not, so was she dragged out of her dream by Mal's startlement? Regardless, it's another excuse for the focus to go right from River to Mal while distracting the casual viewer with a Mal/Inara smokescreen.
The scene where she escapes confinement and gets to the bridge has its interesting moments. She had to have known Mal was coming after her the entire time; he had to have been wondering still whether it were girl or weapon he was dealing with. But he still approaches her with reason first instead of instant violence. He tells her, "The government's man, he says you're a danger to us. Not worth helping. Is he right? Are you anything but a weapon?" She's still tapping on the console at this point, but she gives this little look back over her shoulder when he asks the questions, like what Mal might be thinking about that really concerns her. Then he says: "I've staked my crew's life on the theory that you're a person, actual and whole." Her response, once she's finished meddling with the computer, is a pleading look and only one word-- one she knows will get his attention instantly-- "Miranda".
Just like that, the scene cuts to the entire crew up there. River is still free, she hasn't been locked back up; Mal seems to have instantly processed the whys of her actions, judged them justifiable, and is already plotting to follow the path she has pointed out.
After the events on Haven, when Book dies in his arms begging Mal to believe in something, that path crystallizes into a cause for him. That brown coat he wears is suddenly more than the shell of his old, dead faith; he is going back to war. And River is an inextricable part of that new cause. By virtue of this, he is bound to her now as much as she is to him, on a deeper level than he is connected to anyone else except (perhaps) Zoe.
Watch River's face in the scenes on Haven, after Book dies. He starts directing the crew to convert the ship, gives repugnant orders, pulls his gun, threatens to shoot the members of his pseudo family, and kills an Alliance officer without mercy right in front of them; I got the impression some of the others, especially Kaylee and Inara, were spooked a little. But River just watches him, with this intent look on her face. She follows him with her eyes; she's still entirely focused on him. Everything he's going through has its roots in the fact that he took her back in when he didn't have to, and she knows it's only going to get worse (she's told Simon so), and he's the only one that can get things moving to do anything about it-- she looks amazed, hopeful, and I don't know what all else. A distinctly positive reaction, counterbalancing the rest of the crew's opinions.
Mal doesn't lock River up again, despite the fact she is theoretically no less dangerous now than she was earlier. Further, he takes her on the mission on Miranda. Afterward, when they've all processed the horrors they find there and he makes his pitch for getting the signal out, she's sitting right there with the others. In fact, she's sitting at the head of the table, where he usually sits, practically in his lap when he walks up close. As he lays out his speech-- about how the Alliance wants to make people better, and how he doesn't hold to that, and how people need to be made aware-- the moment he says "make people... better", he pauses briefly and stares straight at River. What happened to her and Miranda are all tangled up in his mind.
There's not much individual interaction between them as the action flows forward again, but I noticed one more significant thing before the end scene. After the knock-down drag-out fight with The Operative down in the bowels of Mr. Universe's complex-- after he turns the tables on the Alliance's tool by destroying HIS world-view with a ring-side view of the filmed proof instead of the copout of killing him-- Mal limps back up and staggers out of the elevator. He takes in his sprawled, injured crew with a glance, demands that Zoe report-- then pauses-- then says quite distinctly, "River?" Significantly, that question does not show up in the novelization; it must have been added to the script later, intentionally.
As soon as Mal says this the blast doors open: there he is, staring down the hall, and there River is, staring back. She must have known the Alliance soldiers were congregated on the other side of the farthest wall and about to rip it down, given the fact that grappling hooks have already pierced it, but she is not facing that new threat; she is definitely looking to Mal across the expanse of dead Reavers and downed family. It took Simon's injury to snap her gifts from being drowned in the Reavers' rage to acting against it, but it is not Simon she is looking to in the aftermath.
Focus, focus, focus.
I'm sure many Mal-Inara shippers are squeeing over that important "I don't know" of her staying aboard Serenity, and all his comments of having gone to the training complex for her, and his statement that she fogs things up for him and always has, but whatever effect Inara has on him, whatever sparks they throw, I don't see it ever coming to anything in the long run. I remember reading in a fic somewhere the comment that Mal has only two ways of being with people, expecting nothing from them or expecting the 'verse, and it is so true. I see it applying as much to romance as to any other situation; he'd never be satisfied with sharing Inara with her clients, he'll never leave Serenity if she goes back to the training house, and her status as Companion is too important for her on both a deeply-trained personal level and on a professional-contacts level for her to ever plausibly abandon it. So where does that leave him?
It leaves him on a ship with three other women: his good right arm Zoë, newly greiving her husband, whom he's never seen in that light; his mei-mei of a mechanic, who is now rutting with the doctor; and River.
River, whom he calls "little albatross" now instead of "little girl". River, who is more deeply connected to his ship than any other of his crew. River, who is just as broken as he is, but also just as strong; who is bound to him by the events of the movie; with whom he discusses the importance of love in what they're doing. Who understands him effortlessly, but wants to hear him say things out loud anyway. Who may be half his age physically, but whose soul is far older.
They both seem, if not happy, then more whole in that end scene than either of them did at the beginning of the movie, and I see much potential there. I can't see her ever forming a significant relationship with any other man to equal the depth of what she's already found, on a non-sexual level even, with Mal. And I don't see any other woman ever being able to see and accept (and use!) the dark as well as the light in his character as well as she can. I think the movie clearly-- and almost deliberately-- highlighted these aspects of their interactions. Taking it further makes complete and perfect sense to me.
Love. You can learn all the math in the 'verse, but you take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurting 'fore she keens. Makes her a home.
Two Broken Halves, One Healed Whole
I was doing a little research instead of actively fic-writing the last couple of days, trying to fix some dialogue for an upcoming story-part, and ended up quite distracted and far down the path into River/Mal shipperness. This may or may not have direct implications for "Book's Legacy", and there will regardless be no serious new 'ship at all during that story (though I make no promises about the sequel), but anyway, I felt the need to share. Some of you may recognize the last part regarding the movie from a post a few weeks ago to the
mal_river community, but it's been tweaked a little since then.Commentary is WELCOME, especially if you remember something I missed, or think I'm really reaching on some of my conclusions. Oh-- and it contains SERENITY spoilers, surprise, surprise.
I watched SERENITY a total of eight times while it was in local theaters, and each of the Firefly episodes at least four times (counting the original run back on FOX in 2002). A non-fan might call that overkill. I call it spending quality time with some of my favorite fictional people, ever.
I adore the entire Firefly cast; each character has quirks and layers and history that are readily apparent from the first episode, and the way they interact with each other in a slowly building family-by-choice under challenging conditions is a treat to watch. Above all the others, however, I'd have to claim Serenity's Captain, Malcolm Reynolds, and the crazy teenage psychic River Tam as my favorites.
That's perhaps not a surprise, as what continuous plot threads were present in the truncated TV series revolved around one or the other of them, and those plot threads were picked up and run with in the movie. I'm a sucker for plot. However, until my first viewing of the movie, I never, ever once thought of matching my two favorites together in romantic scenarios without a shudder.
In fact, I found the very idea of Mal/River romance "morbid and creepifying". The age difference, the fact that she (like Kaylee) was a young woman under his protection... I just couldn't see it. A man of his honor code? Especially after the way he initially reacted to Saffron in the episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds"? He'd sooner put his own eye out than take advantage.
After the movie, however, I found my opinion totally reversed, an opinion that only strengthened with repeat viewings. I have become convinced that not only could a relationship between Mal and River work, she would be healthier for him in the long run than his ostensible love interest Inara Serra ever could be, no matter how much UST hangs in the air when the Companion and Captain are around each other.
Before I get into all of the Mal/River moments in SERENITY, however, I think it would be worthwhile to go back and shed new light on the way these characters interacted (with others as well as each other) in the series. Any Firefly/Serenity 'ship must take that foundation into account, and in the case of the Captain and his Albatross that foundation is complex and more solid than might be apparent at first glance.
- 1. & 2. The Girl In The Box
"Serenity" the pilot (Aired 11th & 12th by FOX)
Mal's first glimpse of River occurs in the midst of a very tense situation. Kaylee, the ship's mechanic whom he treats throughout the series as a little sister, has been shot by one of his passengers; the fault, as far as Mal is concerned, lies with Dr. Simon Tam, whom the Alliance agent was in pursuit of, and who had threatened to let Kaylee die if Mal didn't help him stay out of the Alliance's reach. Angered, he storms down to the cargo bay to see just what Dr. Tam is carrying: "Well, let's see what a man like you would kill for." Over Simon's protests, he opens the box... and finds a naked girl curled inside.
Various references throughout the series (especially the bar-fight at the beginning of "Shindig") hint strongly that Mal is not a fan of slavery, or those that traffic in it. Thus, it is not surprising that this sight only made Mal's mood worse. When Simon tried to get to River, wanting to check her for shock at her earlier-than-expected awakening, Mal's response was a furious, "The shock of what? Waking up? Finding out she's been sold to some borderworld baron? Or, I'm sorry -- was this one for you? "
The misapprehension was quickly corrected, but the damage was done. You know what they say about first impressions. Before River ever spoke a word, she was firmly placed in Mal's worldview as someone to be protected and defended.
Mal is a good man at heart, but ruthlessly practical most of the time. If it had been just Simon aboard with the Feds on their tails, the outcome might have been different. He may not have given Simon up, but I think there's a good chance he'd have left the Doctor on Whitefall after all, or another stop immediately after, writing him off as a risk they couldn't afford to take. But it wasn't just Simon. In the middle of this episode, with the Reavers chasing the ship and decisions still to be made, Mal goes into the infirmary and spends some time just staring at River before Kaylee wakes. Right after that, he plays a really cruel joke on Simon… but after that scene in the infirmary, he never again (in the series) mentions dumping the Tams anywhere. "You're probably safer on the move, and we never stop moving."- 3. Unstable Genius
"The Train Job" (Aired 1st by Fox)
The first thing River ever says aloud in Mal's hearing when she's fully conscious is, "Midbook Transport. Standard radion accelerator core. Class code 03-K64--Firefly." He responds, " Well, that's somethin'. I can't even remember all that." A scene later, Book asks him how River is doing, and he replies, "Just a little whimsical in the brainpan. Seems calm enough though."
It seems to me that though much is made of River's mentally instability from day one, this early scene also made Mal aware from the first of her intelligence as more than just a big brother's bragging about his little sister. It kind of reminds me how Mal is always needling Inara over her job, which he has no respect for, but otherwise has respect for the woman herself (he actually says this aloud in "Shindig"); he is able to separate River as a person from her instability in his mind, which affects the way he treats her pretty much from that day forward.
He's off ship for much of the rest of this episode, and misses her first two-by-two hands-of-blue speech. And when Book asks why Mal allowed the Tams to stay, he is unable to articulate a clear answer. But the foundations for his entire relationship with River have already been laid… save for one thing.- 4. Following the Voices
"Bushwhacked" (Aired 2nd by Fox)
It is in this episode that River first demonstrates hints of her psychic abilities in Mal's presence, the last significant piece of their later interaction to fall into place. When they first approach the ship that has been struck by Reavers, River hovers in the doorway to the bridge; "It's ghosts," she says.
Later, she sneaks onto the derelict ship and finds the room Mal and Zoë are investigating; just after Zoë says, "Sir. Even on a lifeboat, you'd think those who escaped would have found room for some of this," River steps in and looks up. Mal's next line is, "Nobody escaped," and he turns his flashlight up in the direction River is gazing. Immediately thereafter, when they run into Simon, River tells her brother in Mal's hearing, "I followed the voices." If they'd put any thought into it, they'd have known she couldn't have been talking about Mal's and Zoë's voices as they were not near the airlock and River was all the way in the other ship, but they were all busy and distracted at the time.
Seriously, those are some big clues. The light bulb may not have gone on in Mal's mind at that very moment, especially if Readers are (as seems likely) extremely rare or unheard of in their 'verse outside of fantasy tales; he'd be likely to dismiss the thought on such slim evidence, if it occurred to him then. But the seeds were nonetheless sown for his surety of her abilities later on in "Objects in Space", when everyone save Book (and possibly Simon, who was told she was psychic according to the events of the movie, but who apparently hadn't wanted to believe it) were still pretty clueless.- 5. Party Time
"Shindig" (Aired 6th by Fox)
Mal is off with Inara pretty much this entire episode, so he misses River's outburst tearing the Blue Sun logo off of the food packages, and also her little acting gig entertaining Badger in the guise of a girl from Dyton Colony.
We do however get a glimpse of what Mal values in a relationship: honesty. Which makes sense out of what some might see as a problem with his hate-Inara's-job stance, as compared to his behaviour with Inara's friend Nandi in "Heart of Gold". There was nothing but honesty in the room with Mal and Nandi when they spent the night together, but Inara consistently failed to offer him that all the way up until the very end of SERENITY, when he asked her if she was ready to leave the ship again, and she said "I don't know." Too little, too late? I can't help but think that a relationship between Mal and River would work extremely well on that account; Mal can't lie to her, as she's a Reader, and River can't pretend to be feeling anything but what she's actually feeling due to her missing amygdala, so they'd always know exactly where they stood with each other.- 6. She's Our Witch
"Safe" (Aired 7th by Fox)
This episode starts out with a bit of irritation on Mal's part. River is screaming and throwing things, and he's worried about the effect that'll have on the cattle. She yells right in his face, "You're not him? Liu koushui de biaozi he houzi de ben erzi [Stupid son of a drooling whore and a monkey.]" But when the volume goes down, he just says to Simon, "See, morbid and creepifying, I got no problem with, long as she does it quiet-like."
He's remarkably tolerant of her behavior, as long as it isn't negatively influencing anything he's doing. It's probably due to that occasional negative influence that he makes this oft-quoted statement: "She makes things not be smooth." Some have said that because of this scene, Mal's insistence on taking her along on the initial job in SERENITY runs against characterization--but that's not taking into account how early on in their acquaintance this episode took place. It was the 5th of 14/15 filmed episodes (depending on whether the pilot counts as one or two), never mind what order Fox aired them in; Simon hadn't yet been able to formulate medications to help her keep coherent most of the time, she hadn't demonstrated any of her martial skills, and she hadn't proven her psychic abilities to be more than strange luck. Mal was right to worry in this case that she might fly off the handle at an inopportune moment; by the time of SERENITY, however, he'd have been a lot more confident of how she would react in a job situation.
Mal also demonstrates in this episode that even when she's a little off, he's capable of understanding her. When she starts talking about the cows--"They weren't cows inside. They were waiting to be, but they forgot. Now they see the sky and they remember what they are"--he tells Jayne, "Is it bad that what she said makes perfect sense to me?" It's possible that his comprehension here is due to having grown up on a ranch, and that the others are clueless because they don't have the context for it, but this isn't the only time he picks up on her meaning when others don't. I think it's another example of his separating crazy from intelligent in his mind; he actually bothers to look for meaning in her nonsense when others just tune it all out as more gibberish.
This episode also gives us the Big Damn Heroes quote, and Mal's comment when the Patron tells him "That girl is a witch!"--Mal says, "Yeah, but she's our witch." Though the others seemed to think Mal was leaving the Tams on the planet for good, especially Jayne, and Zoe even counseled that Jayne was probably right about life being easier without the fugies on board, he still went back to fetch them. And it was at least as much for River's sake as Simon's, given that he refers to Simon as consistently useless (in Chinese) right after Book is shot.- 7. Strong Women
"Our Mrs. Reynolds" (Aired 3rd by Fox)
River is not present in this episode in the aired version, though there is a cut scene on the DVDs in which she claims to want to marry her brother. I'd hazard a guess that she was, in a way, jealous of Saffron's presence on the boat and reacting to that; not specifically because Saffron was stealing Mal (though that argument could probably be made) as River doesn't seem to be thinking about anything at all sexual here, but because of the belonging-to-someone and taking-care-of-one-another aspects of an ideal marriage. (Things she would definitely find with Mal, who has capital-I Issues about belonging in general and protecting his people in specific).
We also get more of an idea of Mal's opinions on women and his behavior in romantic contexts (beyond all the verbal sparring he does with Inara). He mentions his mother to Saffron, when he still thinks she's just his innocent accidental bride, and 40 ranch hands, but not his father; it seems likely that his mother raised him alone. This is likely at least part of the reason he is so offended by Saffron's apparent acceptance of the concept that she's a second-class citizen. One can't forget, also, that his best friend is Zoë Washburne! The Captain is quite used to strong women (one of which River definitely is, by the end of SERENITY) and he likes them that way.
He doesn't respond to Saffron's advances at all until she goes completely aggressive on him. She completely misjudged him at first, expecting him to react to her innocent-girl, teach-and-protect-me vibes as though it would make him more of a man to express his dominance over her weaker self. She literally has to strip herself naked, corner him in his bunk, quote sexual Scripture at him, and initiate a liplock before he even begins to let up on restraining himself from taking advantage.
This has direct implications for any future relationship he might have with River; she'll first of all have to remove herself, either directly or through passage of time, from the category of "helpless, to be protected"--which I'd argue has happened by the end of SERENITY. And secondly, River is still probably going to have to initiate any romance between them herself, because even if Mal does see her as adult and a legitimate source of romantic interest, he'll still be aware of the age gap and what others whose opinions matter to either Mal or River will think of it. But, thirdly, once she does--well, he's only human, he won't hold out on her forever. She'll just have to be stubborn about it!- 8. It's About Faith
"Jaynestown" (Aired 4th by FOX)
Again, River and Mal have very little direct interaction in this episode. (I'd forgotten how seldom they actually got face-time together on the show, after how thoroughly the movie centered on the pair of them!) There is, however, plenty of interesting Meta to be found.
When Book is "watching" River, she gets her hands on his Bible and begins tearing pages out and scribbling in the margins. When he discovers her doing so and gets upset, she explains that she's fixing it. "River! You don't fix the Bible! he protests. She replies, very sincerely, "It's broken. It doesn't make sense." He then tells her, "It's not about making sense. It's about believing in something, and letting that belief be real enough to change your life. It's about 'faith'. You don't fix faith, River. It fixes you."
This exchange reminded me of when she told Simon two episodes ago in "Safe"-- or, ah, three episodes into the future by FOX's reckoning-- that he'd given up everything, and found her broken. She seemed to find that very unfair to Simon. Being so brilliant from an early age, understanding how everything worked, probably behind on her socialization, I wouldn't be surprised if she still operated under the kind of black/white mindset where all broken things must be fixed, etc., and acting out on the Bible this way makes me wonder if she sees herself in similiar fashion. Broken. Needing to be fixed.
Keeping that thought in mind, remember now how much SERENITY focused on the importance of belief. The look on Mal's face when the operative told him he wasn't a Reaver, and all the dots connected in his mind. The look on River's face watching Mal give orders on Haven after the destruction. And the fact that both are, despite some horrific interludes, both apparently more whole at the end of the movie than at the beginning. I'm not going to posit any direct connections there, but flashing back to this made me go Hmmm.- 9. A Man and his Ship
"Out of Gas" (Aired 5th by FOX)
There's another minor prescient River moment in Mal's presence in this episode, when she panics about fire just before a firestorm roars up to the engine room. Besides that, however, this episode is basically all about Mal, his deep attachment to Serenity, and the varied means whereby he collected his motley family, I mean crew.
This episode is excellent in many, many ways; in fact, it's my favorite. Its implications for Mal's future romantic life are not so many, however, so I'll refrain from going on and on about unrelated aspects.
I will, however, say this: any woman in Mal's life is going to have to compete with Serenity for his attention. There'll be no settling down for this cowboy. Background material for the show indicates that Mal's homeworld, Shadow (briefly mentioned in "Our Mrs. Reynolds") was so thoroughly bombed by the Alliance during the war that it no longer supports life (hence the "burn the land, boil the sea" in the opening lyrics). I don't see him ever wanting to risk that, ever again; his boat is his home, it's the vehicle of his freedom, it gives the odd collection of people in his life a reason to stay with him, and beyond all that he just loves her for what she is.
There's a moment in this episode when everyone's bundled up in warm gear in the lounge and Mal's telling them how he'll be staying behind when they all leave, and he turns and looks up at the structure of his ship, patting a large whitish pipe that runs along the wall. I thought to myself: OMG, he's Captain Jack Sparrow of the 26th Century. And just like any Sparrow-romance must take into account his Black Pearl, so you have Mal's Serenity.
In their own ways, everyone else on the ship loves her, as well; some (Kaylee & Wash) obviously more than others. But River arguably knows the ship better than any of them can, especially after "Objects in Space" and SERENITY, and for various reasons (including the fact that she's a Reader) she's highly, highly unlikely to ever complain about Mal's attachment to his ship, his crew, and his lifestyle.
To be fair to Inara, she does care about the ship; she even says so aloud in this episode. She does other things in this episode, however, which speak more clearly to the futility of her pursuit of Mal. She definitely had his attention and interest from their very first meeting, but she also wielded her sexuality as a weapon ("You want me. *long pause* You want me on your ship.") despite having just declared herself off limits in that way to the crew, made a big deal out of their class differences (""I can bring [...] a certain respectability"), and then flaunted to his Independent face the fact that she supported Unification. She didn't really understand him then, of course, nor have any real reason to play straight with him instead of using her "wiles" (which probably come automatically to her much of the time, after all her training). Events throughout the course of the series and the movie show her opinion changing; should there be a second war, I wouldn't doubt that she'd be on the Browncoats' side of things. Unfortunately, however, her interactions with Mal don't similarly change; they never lose that sharp, often hurtful argumentative edge.
I don't think Inara and Mal even know how to be soft with each other. And while Mal certainly thrives in battle, the only time we've seen him physically love a woman ("Heart of Gold") was when he was able to relax with her in an atmosphere of honesty, equality, and respect. Some people get off on arguing. Mal, on the other hand, appears to care for Inara mostly despite their verbal jousting, not because of it. If he ever did get together with her, I think they'd certainly burn a lot hotter than he would with River, but the heat of a fire is not really a good indicator of how long it will last.- 10. Better In Red
"Ariel" (Aired 8th by FOX)
The episode opens with a scene wherein Jayne, wearing a Blue Sun t-shirt, gets sliced across the chest by a knife-wielding River, who claims he looks better in red. As this scene ends, Mal glances between them-- victim and aggressor-- taking in both Jayne's anger and River's surprise at the fuss. (The usual audience analysis is that either Jayne's logo-shirt set her off, much like the cans she de-labeled in "Shinding", or that she knew he was going to betray them, but Mal wouldn't have known of either possible cause, here. I'd bet good money, though, that he privately decided later it was the latter reason).
Next scene, Jayne is freaking out; he wants them off the boat. Mal refuses to agree with Jayne even the tiniest bit; he keeps saying "no one's getting left." It's not until Jayne leaves that he expresses his own concern to Simon; he suggests River be kept more to quarters, then says, in a serious, worried tone of voice, "She's getting worse, isn't she?"
The Tams had been on Mal's boat for several months by this point-- seven months or so by internal series time references (which by the way would put the movie closer to fifteen than eight months after the pilot). We haven't seen much of that. And River's been crazy most of that time. But it's clear, here, that he's attached to her regardless. Part sympathy for her Alliance-caused plight, part lingering first impression, I'm sure, but it's still there; his affection for her seems uncluttered to a degree that we only otherwise see from him toward Kaylee. Not at all romantic at this point, of course, but a foundation. And where he appears to have slotted Kaylee neatly into the mei-mei (sister) slot in his heart from pretty much day one, River has never needed him in any kind of brotherly capacity; she has Simon.
Mal and the rest of the crew also get a clearer idea of just how far the Alliance are willing to go to get River back in this episode. Not just the ruthlessness of the Blue Hands agents, also the information Simon retrieves about the damage they physically did to River's mind. (Simon must have been panicky, distracted, and completely River-focused during the events at the beginning of the movie to have forgotten the "neural stripping" comment, or the degree of shock he exhibits here would make little sense).
After "Ariel", and later "Objects in Space", the danger River poses to the crew and ship is very clear. But Mal still doesn't ever consider giving her up. Only Simon is more loyal to her. And after Simon's loyalties begin to split-- as they must, given the events of SERENITY-- River will need that in anyone she becomes romantically involved with.
(Which is why, BTW, I don't think I'll ever be able to write River/Jayne, though I sometimes enjoy reading it-- that subgenre of fic seems to be based mostly on the "she's a weapon, he loves weapons" axis rather than a deeper consideration of their incompatible personalities or the fact that he's actually twice tried to betray her ["Ariel", SERENITY], not to mention that such fic tends to severely woobify Jayne and make him less interesting).- 11. Functioning Like a Girl
"War Stories" (Aired 9th by FOX)
"Ah, the pitter patter of tiny feet in huge combat boots. SHUT UP!"
River's condition begins to significantly improve in this episode. The next one she has much of a part in is also the series' last, so we don't see much of the trending-saneward River. Maybe that's why I see a lot of people assuming that she stays bugfuck-crazy all the way up until the movie. But I tend to believe she had many more lucid periods, starting here, with fewer setbacks usually occuring around upheavals in her medication schedule.
Maybe I say this from the perspective of someone who also functions more consistently on a maintenance dose of a drug that affects the mind (not that I usually take it, as I value normative behavior less than a wild and fertile imagination, but I do have AD/HD) but just because she requires a little medical help to sort out her inner chaos from that of other minds around her, doesn't mean she's not capable of making her own decisions and expecting others to treat her as a functioning adult.
"Sun came out, and I walked on my feet and heard with my ears. I ate the bits, the bits stayed down, and I work. I function like I'm a girl. I hate it because I know it'll go away. The sun goes dark and chaos has come again. Bits. Fluids. What am I?!"
Mal spends most of this episode demonstrating that he has enough willpower for any ten lesser men in the process of surviving Niska's torture. He also finally spells out his opinion of shipboard romance: "I ain't against it as a rule... but in situations such as ours, it tends to cause problems. It splits loyalties." Reference to "Our Mrs. Reynolds" commentary above-- this is one problem Mal will have in any relationship, one that would manifest with River in that he'd worry what kind of turbulence it would cause with the rest of the crew-- complications galore. A legitimate worry, and one that would mean River will have to be determined and sure of what she wants before anything between them can progress.
Of course, any discussion of this episode would be remiss not to mention River's first real demonstration of her skill with weapons. Mal doesn't know about it for three more episodes (one by FOX's schedule) so I won't comment too much here, but she shoots three men dead without looking, and seems to expect Kaylee's reaction to being saved a positive one. I wonder, is her lack of concern about the deaths she caused more to do with the Alliance training she was given, or whether her conscience was damaged when they cut up her mind, or is it the fact that they were threats to Kaylee and that was all that mattered to her? Regardless, this scenelet is the foundation for many of the movie's plot points.- 12. She's a Liar
"Trash" (Never Aired by FOX)
River and Simon spend most of this episode in hiding, trying to stay away from Saffron so that she won't recognize their faces from the broadwaves and try to turn them in. They're thus uninvolved in the grand plot of Saffon trying to fool everybody, them trying to fool her right back, and the crew of Serenity just scraping out a win due to Inara's help.
River reveals to Simon in this episode Jayne's involvement with the excitement on Ariel. (One way you can tell a fic written before the DVDs came out from one written after, is whether Simon still thinks Jayne's hot stuff for 'rescuing' them.) This gives Simon a chance to play Bigger Man when Jayne gets injured and Simon has to treat him. His "I will never hurt you" speech is a bit upstaged by River, though, who pops her head in after Simon leaves and tells Jayne, "Also, I can kill you with my brain." I think it's meant to be a bit ambiguous whether she was telling the truth there, or lying for effect, or whether it was metaphorical for what her mental programming allows her to do (as in SERENITY). Something to think on, as it has implications for her character any way you look at it.
This episode also has some implications for Mal's character. Near the end, in the shuttle with Saffron, after she's broken down crying over having just robbed her "real" husband, Mal makes the bonehead mistake of sitting down right next to her where she has easy, easy access to his gun holster. Of course she steals it, then makes him strip naked and drops him off in the desert.
*staring off into space*
... Sorry, my brain went to the place of Naked Mal for a minute there. Anyway, on a recent repeat viewing this suddenly connected up with another thing that had previously puzzled me-- Mal leaving Jayne to watch over River and Simon at the hospital in Ariel, when he clearly knew that (1) Jayne was still upset over River cutting him, (2) Jayne had never really thought the pair of fugitives were worth keeping aboard in the first place, and (3) There were plenty of places out in the world that Jayne could use to contact the Feds in order to arrange a pickup for the Tams in a place and time where it wouldn't affect the rest of the crew (because that would be fouling his own nest). Mal would have to be plain stupid not to have noted that as a risk, and there's plenty of evidence in both show and movie that he's actually quite tactically brilliant-- just gorram unlucky, and prone to ignoring his own better judgement in favor of something he's of a mood to be stubborn about.
It occurs to me that Mal was so quick to use the wrench on Jayne and toss him out the airlock because not only had he seen the risk, he had judged the possible consequences and decided they wouldn't be impossible to recover from; maybe it really was the best use of Jayne's skills to have him in that position, but it had the added benefit of serving as a test of Jayne's loyalty. Why else would Mal have hired the guy in the first place (given what we see in "Out of Gas") and then kept him, if he didn't see potential in him? But Jayne hasn't learned as much as Mal hoped, and thus Mal's anger-- he's not just upset at what Jayne did, he's bitterly disappointed Jayne didn't live up to his expectations. And the same thing with Saffron-- knowing he had Inara as ace in the hole, he saw a small chance there that Saffron might learn from her mistakes and actually be human with him for a moment, and decided the risk was worth it; she'd be unlikely to kill him, whatever happened. Again, his small gamble failed while the overall caper succeeded.
And these aren't the only times he does that. In fact, he's quite prone to putting people in interesting situations that largely hinge on how much trust and loyalty are between him and the other person involved. In Tracey's case, that gets Tracey killed (in "The Message", next) because he seems to remember Tracey as being more loyal and trusting than the guy actually is, and Tracey doesn't go along easy. In Simon's case, Simon usually makes great big noise about it but ends up going along-- see "Bushwhacked", where Mal demands Simon get his sister after putting all their illegal cargo in plain sight for the Alliance to find, or "Jaynestown", where he makes an uncomfortable Simon pretend to be a buyer, as examples. It takes until "War Stories", I think, for Mal to really begin to warm up to Simon-- asking him if he was okay with shooting at people during their raid on Niska's, for example. But it does happen, and largely I think because Simon kept passing (by the skin of his teeth) his little tests, redeeming himself from that terrible first impression (threatening to let Kaylee die). Makes me wonder what happened between series and movie to get them both bristling at each other again!
Strange, considering all of this, that though Mal is sometimes wary of River, the trust issue never ever really comes up. (See "Objects in Space" for more on that). It's like those defenses don't exist for him where she's concerned, which has a real effect on how things between them may develop. He has Trust and Betrayal issues coming out the wa-zoo; all I can think is that he isn't worried she'll ever knowingly betray him, just whether the Alliance programming will cause problems, and I find that distinction very, very interesting.
(And look, I didn't say anything about Mal's initial-- and not even remotely possibly staged-- argument with Inara in this episode. The woman does not know how to have a civil conversation with him, I'm telling you. Goading him into asking "Are you saying I'm doing this deliberate on account of you? That there's some reason I, I want you off the job?" and then saying "Is there?" is not an appropriate, or likely-to-succeed, way of asking if he likes her!)- 13. You Know the Rest
"The Message" (Never Aired by FOX)
Not much River interaction with Mal this episode, though her oft-quoted line "My food is problematic" is a memorable moment here, as is the scene where she climbs atop Tracey's coffin and says, "I'm very comfortable here" (chanelling the medically comatose Tracey, most likely). Primarily, this episode highlights more of the war-bred side of Mal's nature, and (as mentioned under "Trash") has much to do with Mal's Trust Issues.
I don't think Mal would deliberately have ordered Wash to risk his life if he'd thought Tracey would actually carry through on his threat to shoot Wash if Wash called the cops on the radio. Still remembered Tracey too much as a soldier under his command, is all I can think of, and despite knowing Tracey was hip-deep in ugly business still thought the boy would demonstrate basic goodness when push came to shove. He didn't, though. Wash was wounded, and Zoë shot Tracey in return. Then the wounded Tracey, far from giving up, kidnapped Kaylee and still refused to be talked down. Then he admitted to leaving bodies of other helpers behind him. Mal couldn't give him anymore leeway; the risk to Kaylee was too high. This time, he gave Tracey a mortal wound as soon as he could arrange a (Jayne) distraction.
"When you can't run anymore, you crawl, and when you can't crawl, you find someone to carry you."
Tracey actually tells Mal before he dies that he chose Mal and Zoë to drag his mess down on because despite their reputations as stone killers, he remembered Mal as the Sarge with stories and homilies about glory and honor, and figured them for saps. Tracey only got it half-right. The way the war ended and its aftermath broke Mal in many ways, leaving him full of sharp cutting edges; the sap is still there, but not for public display anymore, and those edges aren't just for show, anything that threatens what he holds dear will feel them.
(Except, apparently, for River...)
Not surprising, between the events of this episode and the next, that Mal was thinking on mortality and if's and maybe's. He's considerate in this one, not wanting to put Inara in the way of trouble by using her contacts to fence the Lassiter; she's still frustrated with him. Her only gracious moment is not minding the ship interrupting her schedule by detouring for Tracey's funeral. Next episode... well.- 14. The Other Woman
"Heart of Gold" (Never Aired by FOX)
Also known as the episode in which Mal finally gets sexed, Inara threatens to leave, Wash and Zoe argue about theoretically having a baby, and the crew defends a whorehouse while Simon delivers an actual baby within.
I've mentioned Nandi before, under my comments for "Shindig" and "Out of Gas". She's honest with Mal, frankly admiring, "his kind of stupid" (i.e. stubborn about wanting to defend what's hers), and, whoops, an old friend of Inara's. Too bad she died; they had fun, even before they got to the sex part, and Mal seemed more relaxed than almost any other point in the show, except maybe the end of "Out of Gas" where he's all doped up and so glad to see his crew again after he nearly went down with his ship.
Amidst all the other conversational bits revolving around their night of hot sex we learn that (1) Mal hasn't had sex in a very long time, so nothing's been happening 'between scenes' on the show; (2) he admits to feeling something for Inara, but doesn't think she feels anything back; and (3) Inara, confronted by evidence of Mal having done something SHE does for a living with a consenting friend, resorts to verbal acid to his face before curling up to cry in a corner. None of this surprises me. And all of it, IMHO, highlights why Inara and Mal would make such a horrible couple. This isn't Beatrice and Benedick. She aims to wound with actual malice, and when hurt he tends to respond in kind.
Poor Mal. Two funerals in a row, both for people he cared about in different ways, and then... at the very end of this episode, Inara drops her bombshell. Nandi had given him a clue before she died that Inara cared after all, and something Inara said while talking about Nandi's death reminded him of that, and he decides to open himself up: "Inara, I ain't looking for anything from you. I'm just, uh, just feeling kind of truthsome right now. But, uh... Life is too damn short for ifs and maybes." Prelude to a declaration of his feelings, that's pretty damn clear. And she? Cuts him off, makes a long speech about love and family and getting tied to it and not wanting to break away, followed by, "There's something... There's something I should have done a long while ago. And I'm sorry -- for both of us -- that it took me this long. I'm leaving."
Kiss of death. That kind of connection scares her. And that kind of connection is what Mal badly needs, and is always testing for with people. Can he forge it (eventually) with River? I think so. She certainly understands undying bonds of that nature, given the presence of Simon in her life, and spends most of SERENITY practically attached to him at the hip, mentally.
River herself doesn't have much to actually do in this episode, though she spends a lot of time endlessly fascinated by watching Petaline give birth, wondering "who do you think is in there?" She and Simon must have been only children, and probably didn't have many other friends or much exposure to younger children given how their parents seemed to drive them academically.- 15. No Power in the 'Verse
"Objects in Space" (Aired 10th by FOX)
Much of the intro to this episode is done from River's point of view, as she wakes to indistinct voices, one of which says, "We're all just floating"-- presumably her clue that Jubel Early is on his way, and her warning to do what she does later in the episode. She then wanders the ship, Reading everyone she meets as she goes, picking up on Simon still missing Osiris, Jayne's guilt, Book's harsh past, Zoë and Wash having a passionate interlude, Inara futilely wishing Mal would feed her ego by begging her to stay, and Mal thinking, "None of it means a damn thing."
Then she finds a gun-- which she sees as a stick. An object. "It doesn't mean what you think." Predictably, everyone including Mal gets upset; Mal instantly concludes that she must not be 'on the mend' anymore, and starts worrying whether they need to do something about it-- lock her in her quarters, or something. It's like a stronger after-echo of the post-Jayne-wounding conversation Mal has in "Ariel" with Simon, and also a fore-runner of the "What are we going to find when she wakes up in there? The girl, or the weapon?" scene in SERENITY.
Kaylee reveals the River-shooting bit from the end of "War Stories", making everyone go Hm, and Simon disbelieving her, and Kaylee implying that she has trouble seeing River as a person anymore. Mal's declaration on the subject is, "What we got here to deal with is the larger issue. And that larger issue is we got someone on board this ship might be a danger to us. Ain't a question of whether we like her. Some of us have grown attached to River. Kaylee, I know you have or you would've spoken up sooner. Which, by the by, you should have. I find River pleasant enough myself. But she does have an oddness to her. And I ain't just talking about her proficiency with firearms. Girl knows things. Things she shouldn't. Things she couldn't."
He's been wondering about this for awhile now, apparently, only bringing it up once there appears to be a larger danger. He thinks she's a Reader, and says so. Book's the first to back him up; the others exhibit varying stages of disbelief, including Simon, who according to SERENITY was told outright by the doctor 'treating' her that she was psychic. (I fanwank that he was so fixated on getting River out, he wasn't paying much attention, and thought it all just Alliance fei-hua anyway). But Mal closes the conversation without even so much as suggesting they get off ship, says he'll think on the situation before making any decision. Attached to her? Um, yeah.
That night, the bounty hunter Jubel Early appears on ship. River sneaks out as he sneaks in; he knocks Mal out, flattens Book, locks the others in their bunks, ties up and threatens Kaylee, hits Inara, and drags Simon to the bridge to access the intercom. Meanwhile, River gets into Jubel's ship outside (unbeknownst to anyone else, includng the audience), hooks into Serenity's comms, and claims to have melted into and become Serenity since no-one really wanted her there. Jubel doesn't really believe her. Simon's a little flabbergasted. And meanwhile, behind the scenes, River's telling Kaylee and Mal what to do to shut Jubel down.
River doesn't even bother to explain to Mal how she's doing what she's doing, just tells him, "there isn't time, Captain. I need you to trust me." And amazingly, WTF, he does. He believes her, to the point of exiting his ship while the bounty hunter's still aboard. This, after all the freaking out about weapons and her being a Reader! It's like she has a magic get-past-Mal's-Issues-free card.
There's a very cute moment after Jubel's dealt with when River floats down in her spacesuit, smiling hugely, into Mal's waiting arms. He greats her with a wry, "You know, you ain't quite right." She says, in high spirits, "It's the popular theory." He grins back at her, then shoo's her inside the ship.
The show closes with Kaylee and River playing again, apparently back to being good friends. Oh, and another snippet of Mal reaching out to Inara and her pulling away.
Whatever relationship exists between Mal and River by the end of the series-- represented by this last episode-- is clearly not romantic, as he's still focused almost completely on Inara in that respect and River still behaves a bit too young for him to really notice that way, but what it is, is strange and meaningful and unlike his relationship with anyone else on the show, which I didn't fully realize until I went into the transcripts to do this research. It also has lots of interesting potential for growth, which the movie builds on spectacularly.
SERENITY
I went into SERENITY the first time having recently re-watched the entire Firefly series on DVD. Because of that-- see my comments on "Safe" above-- I found it perfectly believable from the very beginning that Mal took River on the mission at the beginning of the movie fully certain that she could do it. It is easy to tell that the months between show and movie have been full of one hardship after another; this job cannot go south, and he is a man who uses every tool on hand to get the job done. Also one well-used to leading, and reading, people. He wouldn't have wanted to bring her along if he hadn't gotten used to differentiating her merely creepifying (and useful) states of being from the times when she was lost in the chaos of her own mind (which got fewer and farther between after Ariel anyway).
In short, he does not see her as a helpless little girl anymore; she has gained a measure of adult equality in his eyes, an important step toward making a relationship possible.
One symptom of this rise in apparent equality is that he talks directly to her most of the time; in the show he used to direct half his comments around her to Simon when she was having trouble communicating. Before the vault job in the movie, Mal asks River outright if she understands her part in the job; her response is: "Do you?" That's the beginning of her focus on him throughout the film, I think, and more than a bit foreshadow-y. Strangely enough, it's a bit that didn't make it into the novelization. Added late to the script to add to the Mal-River connection? I wonder.
During that job, when they're in the trading area above the vault and River's scanning over the people inside looking for trouble, there's a subtle murmur of voices as she looks over each one (as if she's hearing their thoughts). This is how she finds the one trying to pull the gun and points him out to Zoe. But the very first person she scans that way is actually Mal. And her world continues to revolve around him as the story continues. It isn't all one-sided, either; in many ways Mal returns the focus. In this case, though she's upstairs with Jayne when everything goes to hell, and theoretically Jayne should have been the one pulling her out the door while Zoë and Mal carried out the loot, when they run out of the trading post Mal is the one holding River's hand and boosting her into the mule. Curious.
After the job ends, at the end of the scene where Kaylee and Jayne are cleaning up the cargo bay, Kaylee says "Like to get addlepated ourselves, we stay on this boat much longer. Cap'n'll drive us all off, one by one. Just like Simon and River. Just like Inara..." As they talk, the camera pulls up to reveal River lying on a catwalk, her head toward the bottom of the screen, like an upside-down quote-mark. The cut to the next scene is not clean; for a moment, we see both River on the left, and Mal on the right, like the matching right-side-up quote-mark, as he sits there with Inara's picture. Kaylee's comment, and the capture Mal is watching, both point toward Mal's past relationship with Inara, the unsatisfactory way it ended without quite ever beginning, and the lingering negative effect it still has on his mood and interactions with others. But the art direction was very River/Mal, bookending them together, one small hint in a long trail of them.
Incidentally, Inara's line in the capture-photo--"That man doesn't know what he wants"--is probably actually quite true. His subconscious may know already, but he's not consciously admitting anything to himself. Thus, it makes sense that he's busily being visibly obsessed with Inara, and yet focusing most of his energy on River, without being contradictory about it.
When she is triggered in the Maidenhead, Fanty and Mingo ask if Mal knows her, and he says seriously, "I really don't", something which I see as another important step toward a relationship. He is being forced to re-evaluate his mental image of her again; any assumptions he may have previously made that slotted her into a "not-appropriate" category in his mind have an opportunity here to shatter.
He responds to River then, and later, more appropriately than anyone else does: he alerts Jayne to what is going on, but while Jayne decides to try to physically subdue her, Mal is more alert to the potential danger and goes instantly for his gun. I find what happens next fascinating, too: River is clearly using not only her trained physical talents in this scene, but her psychic ones also. She could probably have stolen a gun or throwable knife from any number of the patrons as she fought, but not until Mal is getting his gun does she actually pick one up; she is aware of what he's up to over everything else going on, and they aim at each other at almost the same moment. Mal pauses, very briefly-- he does not instantly pull the trigger-- and in that tiny pause Simon appears and is able to knock her out. Whereupon it is revealed that he and Mal are the ONLY people still standing that had remained in the club-- she had saved Mal for last. Unconsciously intentional or coincidental, you tell me. (I'd guess the former; after all, she didn't use lethal force on Jayne, despite the fact that he was peskier in his attempts to stop her than others whom she did kill).
Mal could have let Simon carry her out-- getting Simon's image tagged on the scanners instead of his-- but he does it himself anyway. Then Mal chains her up back aboard the ship, worried about whether River will wake up as girl or weapon and what that will mean. When she wakes (just as Mal says the words "We had a gorram time bomb living with us") she listens in to the crew gathered in the dining room discussing the situation, and she is still focused on Mal; though she can hear everyone, the film chooses to show her echoing only his words. When Jayne mentions the possible need to put a bullet in her, Mal says, "It's crossed my mind"-- and River mouths that phrase right along with him. (And it appears to cause her considerable anguish; she repeats the idea later to Simon, "bullet in the brainpain").
The crew's first visit to Haven comes right after that. When Mal walks off to talk with Book-- I noticed that while discussing the events with Book, he flashes back on the moment after he locked her to the deckplates in the storage room. He's all, "I had an out", but he can't stop thinking about the change in her and what it means. It occured to me, too, that the whole fight in the Maidenhead happens immediately after he tells Kaylee that "If I truly wanted someone bad enough, wouldn't be a thing in the 'verse could stop me from going to her." He is not thinking of River in that light at the time, but from that moment on he does a hell of a lot more than just "going" for River's sake, despite having half the 'verse thrown at him. He may claim his actions as mainly self-preservation, and later to give the dead a voice-- but River is the catalyst and the constant he keeps looking to every step along the way; he puts an amazing amount of trust in her, considering how gorram paranoid he is generally.
Another bookended scene transition occurs after the crew leaves Haven the first time, when Inara's call comes in. River wakes from a nightmare about her teacher telling the children in her imaginary class to lie down-- and we cut immediately to Mal waking to Wash paging him on the com. In the series and elsewhere in the movie, she sometimes reacts in concert with others either near her or not, so was she dragged out of her dream by Mal's startlement? Regardless, it's another excuse for the focus to go right from River to Mal while distracting the casual viewer with a Mal/Inara smokescreen.
The scene where she escapes confinement and gets to the bridge has its interesting moments. She had to have known Mal was coming after her the entire time; he had to have been wondering still whether it were girl or weapon he was dealing with. But he still approaches her with reason first instead of instant violence. He tells her, "The government's man, he says you're a danger to us. Not worth helping. Is he right? Are you anything but a weapon?" She's still tapping on the console at this point, but she gives this little look back over her shoulder when he asks the questions, like what Mal might be thinking about that really concerns her. Then he says: "I've staked my crew's life on the theory that you're a person, actual and whole." Her response, once she's finished meddling with the computer, is a pleading look and only one word-- one she knows will get his attention instantly-- "Miranda".
Just like that, the scene cuts to the entire crew up there. River is still free, she hasn't been locked back up; Mal seems to have instantly processed the whys of her actions, judged them justifiable, and is already plotting to follow the path she has pointed out.
After the events on Haven, when Book dies in his arms begging Mal to believe in something, that path crystallizes into a cause for him. That brown coat he wears is suddenly more than the shell of his old, dead faith; he is going back to war. And River is an inextricable part of that new cause. By virtue of this, he is bound to her now as much as she is to him, on a deeper level than he is connected to anyone else except (perhaps) Zoe.
Watch River's face in the scenes on Haven, after Book dies. He starts directing the crew to convert the ship, gives repugnant orders, pulls his gun, threatens to shoot the members of his pseudo family, and kills an Alliance officer without mercy right in front of them; I got the impression some of the others, especially Kaylee and Inara, were spooked a little. But River just watches him, with this intent look on her face. She follows him with her eyes; she's still entirely focused on him. Everything he's going through has its roots in the fact that he took her back in when he didn't have to, and she knows it's only going to get worse (she's told Simon so), and he's the only one that can get things moving to do anything about it-- she looks amazed, hopeful, and I don't know what all else. A distinctly positive reaction, counterbalancing the rest of the crew's opinions.
Mal doesn't lock River up again, despite the fact she is theoretically no less dangerous now than she was earlier. Further, he takes her on the mission on Miranda. Afterward, when they've all processed the horrors they find there and he makes his pitch for getting the signal out, she's sitting right there with the others. In fact, she's sitting at the head of the table, where he usually sits, practically in his lap when he walks up close. As he lays out his speech-- about how the Alliance wants to make people better, and how he doesn't hold to that, and how people need to be made aware-- the moment he says "make people... better", he pauses briefly and stares straight at River. What happened to her and Miranda are all tangled up in his mind.
There's not much individual interaction between them as the action flows forward again, but I noticed one more significant thing before the end scene. After the knock-down drag-out fight with The Operative down in the bowels of Mr. Universe's complex-- after he turns the tables on the Alliance's tool by destroying HIS world-view with a ring-side view of the filmed proof instead of the copout of killing him-- Mal limps back up and staggers out of the elevator. He takes in his sprawled, injured crew with a glance, demands that Zoe report-- then pauses-- then says quite distinctly, "River?" Significantly, that question does not show up in the novelization; it must have been added to the script later, intentionally.
As soon as Mal says this the blast doors open: there he is, staring down the hall, and there River is, staring back. She must have known the Alliance soldiers were congregated on the other side of the farthest wall and about to rip it down, given the fact that grappling hooks have already pierced it, but she is not facing that new threat; she is definitely looking to Mal across the expanse of dead Reavers and downed family. It took Simon's injury to snap her gifts from being drowned in the Reavers' rage to acting against it, but it is not Simon she is looking to in the aftermath.
Focus, focus, focus.
I'm sure many Mal-Inara shippers are squeeing over that important "I don't know" of her staying aboard Serenity, and all his comments of having gone to the training complex for her, and his statement that she fogs things up for him and always has, but whatever effect Inara has on him, whatever sparks they throw, I don't see it ever coming to anything in the long run. I remember reading in a fic somewhere the comment that Mal has only two ways of being with people, expecting nothing from them or expecting the 'verse, and it is so true. I see it applying as much to romance as to any other situation; he'd never be satisfied with sharing Inara with her clients, he'll never leave Serenity if she goes back to the training house, and her status as Companion is too important for her on both a deeply-trained personal level and on a professional-contacts level for her to ever plausibly abandon it. So where does that leave him?
It leaves him on a ship with three other women: his good right arm Zoë, newly greiving her husband, whom he's never seen in that light; his mei-mei of a mechanic, who is now rutting with the doctor; and River.
River, whom he calls "little albatross" now instead of "little girl". River, who is more deeply connected to his ship than any other of his crew. River, who is just as broken as he is, but also just as strong; who is bound to him by the events of the movie; with whom he discusses the importance of love in what they're doing. Who understands him effortlessly, but wants to hear him say things out loud anyway. Who may be half his age physically, but whose soul is far older.
They both seem, if not happy, then more whole in that end scene than either of them did at the beginning of the movie, and I see much potential there. I can't see her ever forming a significant relationship with any other man to equal the depth of what she's already found, on a non-sexual level even, with Mal. And I don't see any other woman ever being able to see and accept (and use!) the dark as well as the light in his character as well as she can. I think the movie clearly-- and almost deliberately-- highlighted these aspects of their interactions. Taking it further makes complete and perfect sense to me.
Love. You can learn all the math in the 'verse, but you take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurting 'fore she keens. Makes her a home.