This was the idea that made me decide I wanted to have a separate blog. Firefly is possibly my favorite show, but at the same time, it's not appropriate for the majority of my early readers. The last thing I want is one of my 13-year-old readers first hearing about it from me.
Anyway...
While I don't actually enjoy the episode of today's discussion, I think it's the best episode.
It's The Message.
Quick summary of the plot--Mal and Zoe get a package which turns out to be the body of their old war buddy... who turns out to be alive. But he's being chased by Alliance police. Mal tries to save his space ship, Serenity, and his friend, but it looks like he's going to have to give the friend up in order to save Serenity and the crew. The friend hears about this, starts shooting, gets shot, and eventually dies.
The name of the episode comes from a little recording device that the friend recorded for Mal and Zoe before he "died", and the message text says this:
... I'll spare you the boring details, falling in with untrustworthy folk, making a bunch of bad calls... All that matters is I expect to be shuffled off, and you two are the only people I trust to get me where I'm going. Which is home. ... We went to the war never looking to come back, but it's the real world I couldn't survive. You two carried me through that war. Now I need you to carry me just a little bit further. If you can. ... Ah. When you can't run anymore, you crawl, and when you can't do that... well, yeah, you know the rest. ...
That part at the end, in bold--I'll come back to that.
But first, a quick detour to another cinematic wonder, Rocky.
Growing up, Mom always told me this story about when Rocky first came out: that in the original script, Rocky was going to cheat and throw the fight to get a massive reward. Now, I couldn't find any article to back that up--the best I could find was this bit from a fandom wiki that said the original script did indeed have Rocky throwing the fight, but it was because he didn't want to be a professional boxer after all, not because of money, and this article that said Rocky was originally an anti-hero (rather than a hero). According to my mother, the 1970's were the age of the anti-hero, so having a movie with a real hero was a delightful change for her.
Which brings me back to that bolded part. "When you can't do that..." what? What happens when you've run, and crawled, and now can't do anything?
When I first heard that message, I legitimately thought it was, "You die." Very nihilistic.
And, in my defense, this is a pretty dark episode. The entire premise of Firefly is that Mal was once a believer in a cause--that being independence from the Alliance--but in the first episode of the series, the independence movement is destroyed, and Mal and his friends are left to scavenge the galaxy with no purpose besides survival. Then this guest character, Tracey, was in that exact same boat, but he couldn't even survive without resorting to dirty means. There's a scene where Tracey mocks Mal for the honor they used to believe in. Then there's the whole premise for Tracey being chased anyway--someone is growing human organs inside him, making him an incubator. An object. Removing his humanity and turning him into a tool. Pretty dark!
But when Zoe finally finishes that saying, it ends with, "You find someone to carry you."
That is so much less nihilistic than I thought it would be.
It's hopeful, redemptive, and rather peaceful. Now, given that the "carrying" only happens when this character is dead (or pretending to be dead), it's clear this is no happily-ever-after fairy-tale saying. This is a gritty saying that acknowledges tragedy. But even in the midst of tragedy and darkness, there is still hope--hope in your friends, in good people.
That very simple saying managed to encapsulate a sense of despair so profound that Game of Thrones couldn't reach, but also wrap in hope, comfort, and meaning. It's not snatching victory from the jaws of defeat--that isn't always possible--but it's showing that even in defeat, not all is lost.
