Firefly Wednesday: War Stories

[osprey_archer]

"War Stories," otherwise known as "the episode where Wash acts like a bratty five-year-old, seriously, my opinion of Wash has gone way down in this rewatch." As my already-high opinion of Zoe has only gone higher, this makes them seem far less well-suited for each other, which is so sad because I loved Zoe & Wash the first time around.

But it's hard not to feel that Zoe could do better than a guy who reroutes the shuttle's ignition sequence so he can strong-arm Mal into taking him on the mission rather than Zoe, because he's jealous of Zoe's friendship with Mal.

And I do think it is and always has been just friendship: they just don't seem like exes to me, although I'm not wedded to this interpretation. I could see them having a "we're going to die in this miserable rebellion!" fling, but I don't think they ever dated. If Mal treats all women he finds attractive like he treats Inara, doubtless Zoe wanted no part of that.

Mal does not interact with Inara at all in this episode, and thus continues the "being likable and menschly" trend that he started in "Out of Gas." I have concluded that Mal simply does not know how to interact with women whom he finds attractive and tries to compensate for this fact by being totally jerktastic in the hopes that this will convince them never to like him back, thus solving the whole "but if I have an actual relationship with a human being, will I be cheating on my spaceship?" problem for him.

And now I really want some Zoe backstory. How did she become so badass? What led her to join the rebellion? Why does she seem so much less crushed by its failure than Mal? I think perhaps Zoe is loyal to people rather than causes, and therefore found the rebellion's failure less devastating than Mal did because, after all, Mal survived, and he's the one who is important to her.

Still curious why she joined in the first place. Maybe she just wanted to see the world and have some adventures? That's a surprisingly common reason for American soldiers in WWI - they're like, "Either I could stay down on the farm forever OR I could go see Paris and possibly get shot. *eyes endless wheat fields shimmering in the heat* Paris and possible death it is!"

***

(I didn't post about "Ariel" last week because I didn't have much to say about "Ariel." Except that if I was Mal, I totally would have left Jayne to be sucked out of the airlock into space.)

Comments

[silverusagi]

Is this the episode that has the:
"This is something the captain has to do for himself."
"No, it's not!"
"Oh." *opens fire*

Great subversion of that trope.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's the one! Sadly he doesn't manage to kill Niska, which I suspect would have come back to haunt them if the show got more seasons.

I keep looking at Netflix's continuation of Arrested Development and thinking "Maybe Firefly could be next!"...but I think maybe it's been too long. Or it would be too expensive.

[surexit.livejournal.com]

Zoeeeeee. Yes, I think she was loyal to Mal rather than the cause, and your idea about why she joined is intriguing.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Zoe has become an unexpected favorite on this rewatch. I always liked her, but she has all this unexplored potential that I didn't notice before.

Do we learn anything more about Zoe's pre-Mal days? Is "Zoe was a farm girl who left the farm for Adventure" a credible backstory? I could see her rustling castle, but I think the episode with the actual cows might contradict that.

[surexit.livejournal.com]

I can't remember anything that contradicts that idea! Maybe there is, but Zoe's pre-Mal days are definitely blank in my head.

[anactoria.livejournal.com]

You thoughts on Wash/Zoe and this episode are mine, pretty much. I'm kind of ambivalent about it, because on the one hand I love Zoe here -- the way she just cuts Niska down to size and shows everybody else up by having her practical head on -- but the jealousy is really uncomfortable to watch. As it is, I still quite like Wash by the end of the series, but I feel like if it had gone on much longer (and, er, he hadn't died, obviously) he might've become the show's Xander for me: a nice guy who isn't all that nice when you look at him closely.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yes, I feel like this is something Wash needed to deal with better before they got married. Because Zoe has always been close to Mal, and she's always been the one who goes on away missions, so it's not like anything has changed on him... which makes it really hard to be sympathetic to his jealousy.

This is one of the reasons why I'm ambivalent about the idea that Firefly might get a continuation (I don't think there are any plans for this, but my RL friends have been talking about it because of the Netflix's new season of Arrested Development). Although obviously we don't need to worry about Wash becoming that not-nice nice guy anymore *sob* I would worry about what might terrible character development roads the other characters might go down.

[anactoria.livejournal.com]

My main fear with a continuation would be the inevitable Mal/Inara, I think. Because ugh.

Yes, I feel like this is something Wash needed to deal with better before they got married. Because Zoe has always been close to Mal, and she's always been the one who goes on away missions, so it's not like anything has changed on him... which makes it really hard to be sympathetic to his jealousy.

Yes, exactly. It's not like this is a new close relationship that's threatening the importance of their marriage to her. He comes over as really unreasonable here.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

My main fear with a continuation would be the inevitable Mal/Inara, I think. Because ugh.

Yes, that too! How could I forget to mention that? I have to fight the urge to hide under a pillow every time Mal and Inara have a scene together, because I always want to throttle him because argh argh argh.