Serenity: Better Days Issue #3 Wednesday 5/14/2008 Told ya it was a Firefly/Serenity episode! Here be SPOILERS!
POSTED BY: Anonymous1
UPDATED: Friday, August 22, 2008 03:05
VIEWED: 19851
PAGE 4 of 8
I've skimmed this thread and there are so many spoilers that I'm not sure who's saying what anymore... but I just finished re-reading the miniseries in it's entirety and here's my take on things:
Somebody screwed up. Could be Joss and Brett. Could be the artist. Could be whoever edited. But somebody screwed SOMETHING up.
By the way, I'm referring here to the whole "How and why did the money disappear?" debate.
There are a few things about it that are pretty clear to me, but at least one pivotal thing that's not.
First, what I'm pretty sure of:
1) Mal is responsible for the money going away.
Inara calls him on it and he does nothing to deny it or mislead her. Sure, he COULD just be going along with what she's saying, but the fact that this is the final scene gives it weight in a story sense. This is the period that punctuates the sentence of the story, and it tells us that in order to keep is family together, Mal is willing to shaft his family.
2) Ephraim doesn't back down out of any sense of honor or mutual respect. He backs down because he's outnumbered.
When the situation begins, he has two soldiers for back-up (possibly three... more on this below) and a shiny spaceship with a bunch of armanent. He is ostensibly facing "just Zoe" and has Mal as his prisoner.
Cut to a few pages later. His ship has been blown up, one of his men is dead, and he and his remaining man are injured. Instead of "just Zoe," he's now facing four opponents (Zoe, Mal, Wash, and Book), with the sniper who killed his man (Jayne) still in hiding and able to attack.
Not a good situation for Mister Sanda, and he's smart enough to know it.
Ephraim says nothing to indicate that he gets "paid by the head", so there's no reason for him to risk death in gunning for Zoe. When he explains his job to Inara, it sounds like he does this as a regular thing, and when he talks to his men in issue 2, it seems like he's not doing this for the money, but because he believes in it (shades of both Mal and The Operative here).
Now, let's get into a little bit of speculation.
3) Did Mal and Emphraim cut a deal?
The disappearance of the money would seem to indicate that they did BUT the dialogue doesn't bear this out.
While Joss does not make things easy for the audience, he rarely if ever "cheats", and I can't see any line or moment that would cue us in to a deal between Mal and Ephraim. Indeed, when Mal is being tortured by Emprhaim he says nothing, and there's very little in the dialogue during the fight that seems to be meant to be taken in more than one way.
Joss and Brett are both better writers than that, so if the intention WAS that a deal was struck between Mal and Ephraim, it's a little disappointing that there's not one line, one moment, that the reader can point to and say "Ah, yes, I thought that meant something different, but now I understand that this was where the writers clued us in a little bit."
4) Where was the Fifth Man?
So if Mal and Sanda didn't strike a deal, what happened? Not sure, and not willing to say that they didn't... just that if they did, it was sloppily written or edited.
I can think of a few possible scenarios, and a lot of it depends on the location of The Fifth Man.
In issue 2, we see Sanda prepping four fellow soldiers: a bald man, a black man, and two men with military haircuts (brown and red). During the operation in issue 3, the bald man is sent to Serenity, and the black man and one of the military-haircut guys (impossible to tell which, due to inconsistent coloring) are with Ephraim.
So where is The Fifth Man? I suggest that there are at least three possible locations for him, and each presents it's own set of problems.
SCENARIO A: The Fifth Man is with the bald man, at Serenity. This seems to be the simplest--and perhaps likeliest--scenario. We see two men driving
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I do need to reread all three issues, and then reread this thread before I'll feel ready to comment here....
but it does my heart good to see such a lively thread about our BDC (big damn comics)
New Firefly fans should check this out: http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=15816
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Originally posted by GWEK:
His ship has been blown up, one of his men is dead, and he and his remaining man are injured. Instead of "just Zoe," he's now facing four opponents (Zoe, Mal, Wash, and Book), with the sniper who killed his man (Jayne) still in hiding and able to attack.
Yes! Mister Sanda had another reason to let Zoe go. Outnumbered. Hadn't thought of that one. I'm sure he knew about the sniper. He could tell someone was shooting at the scar guy's ship.
Jayne killed no one in Serenity: Better Days. Darn, there are no page numbers. Jayne says "That weren't me!". Scar man with fingers on the two triggers. Two streams of bullets hitting the ground. One stream killed one of Mister Sanda's men.
One shell pops out of Jayne's gun. Jayne says "That thing's hide is too thick..." He was shooting at the ship.
Thought of another reason for letting Zoe go. Mister Sanda said "It baffles me how a lady of Inara's standing came to associate with one of these war criminals." Maybe he is not so baffled now after fighting along side Zoe and Mal. He also said "one".
Is Inara's standing simply that she is a companion? Hmmm.
The fourth man is piloting the ship and manning the guns. Don't see him, can't really tell from the shadow in the cockpit, but Mister Sanda
says "Perhaps if you had a ship with guns". So I think he would have left one man at the controls and not given up that advantage and he was informing Zoe by saying that. Ship also had missles. Very useful to take out a sniper. Epecially if a spotter told you where the sniper was.
The fifth man is the spotter with Book.
The robber on the ship is not part of Mister Sanda's team.
I've got proof.
The ear pieces.
The spotter has one. All of Mister Sanda's team have one.
The robber doesn't have one.
Then that made me think what if the robber was really one of Mister Sanda's special Ops team and took off his ear piece because he was betraying Mister Sanda. Could Zoe have arranged for Book to "distract" the spotter with a boatload of cash. She paid off Niska. Then I dismissed that idea because these are Special Ops AND I REALLY BELIEVE RIVER DID IT. The Special Ops team still use codes from the war. Zoe and Book or even Mal couldn't count on the spotter or any of the Special Ops team being bribed by money. Wonder what Book did to distract the spotter.
Wish the robber's flak jacket and outfit didn't look so much like the Special Ops team. Army surplus store? Mister Sanda said to Inara, "Our uniforms and pride replaced with suits and lies. Does suits mean jump suits? The special ops team carries very large guns. Even when strapped to the back, you can see the gun butt over the shoulder. You can't see that on the robber even though you see a strap across his chest.
Still no ear piece. If he was part of the Special Ops team on a mission for Mister Sanda, he would have had his ear piece on. Amd if he was betraying Mister Sanda, you would think he would still have his ear piece on so he would know what was going on.
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GWEK wrote:
Somebody screwed up. Could be Joss and Brett. Could be the artist. Could be whoever edited. But somebody screwed SOMETHING up.
That does seem to be the case. Unless we all are somehow missing the bigger picture.
As for Mal getting someone else (a third/4th/5th party) to rob the crew, the trouble for me is less his motivation, more him allowing others on his boat.
Mal is truly capable of screwing anyone over, but is he capable of allowing unsupervised access to his ship?
As for the captors letting them go because they were out gunned, they did not seem to show any hard feelings. no "I'll get you next time". No "Drat's" or any other saying typical from any evil body. (yes I am exaggerating a little, but they seemed a little too comfortable with letting them go).
As for Jayne not trusting anyone to do the job for him because of what he learnt on Ariel... What he learnt on Ariel was that he cannot trust the Feds. Can't rule him out totally, or any other member of crew. Even Zoe or Book. Actually, Book leads to interesting questions... because it easy to see him as the thinking type...
(as for my "position", I do not buy that Mal did it out of just greed. After whodunnit is open for consideration for everyone. All 9 members of the crew.)
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Jayne killed no one in Serenity: Better Days. Darn, there are no page numbers. Jayne says "That weren't me!".
You're right. My mistake. I was doing a LOT of flipping and re-reading as I posted.
Still doesn't change the fact that I think Sanda's reason for standing down was being outnumbered.
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Thought of another reason for letting Zoe go. Mister Sanda said "It baffles me how a lady of Inara's standing came to associate with one of these war criminals." Maybe he is not so baffled now after fighting along side Zoe and Mal. He also said "one".
Is Inara's standing simply that she is a companion? Hmmm.
So are you implying that he lets them go because he sees them (Zoe) as more than war criminals? While that's POSSIBLE, this seems to be very similar to the "He now respects them" angle and there is, unfortunately, no evidence to support that.
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The fourth man is piloting the ship and manning the guns. Don't see him, can't really tell from the shadow in the cockpit, but Mister Sanda says "Perhaps if you had a ship with guns". So I think he would have left one man at the controls and not given up that advantage and he was informing Zoe by saying that. Ship also had missles. Very useful to take out a sniper. Epecially if a spotter told you where the sniper was.
I agree that this seems quite possible, but we see evidence to definitively confirm this one way or another.
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The fifth man is the spotter with Book.
Possible, but as I said before, the spotter does not look like any of Ephraim's men from issue 2. Poor art? Quite possibly.
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The robber on the ship is not part of Mister Sanda's team. I've got proof. The ear pieces. The spotter has one. All of Mister Sanda's team have one. The robber doesn't have one.
I respectfully disagree on multiple counts.
First: I think to call him "the robber" is already drawing a conclusion. Let's call him "the intruder."
Second, while the intruder does, indeed, not have a headset, he looks IDENITICAL to one of Sanda's men. If he's supposed to NOT be Sanda's bald man, this is an incredibly poor artistic choice.
Third: Missing an earpiece? Big deal. So he wasn't wearing it because he was in a stealth situation. Also, consider that no matter what scenario we look at, there appears to be at least one panel of inconsistent art. Seems more likely to me that the artist forget the earpiece rather than intentially drawing two different characters (a "robber" and a "soldier") as visually identical.
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Then that made me think what if the robber was really one of Mister Sanda's special Ops team and took off his ear piece because he was betraying Mister Sanda. Could Zoe have arranged for Book to "distract" the spotter with a boatload of cash. She paid off Niska. Then I dismissed that idea because these are Special Ops AND I REALLY BELIEVE RIVER DID IT. The Special Ops team still use codes from the war. Zoe and Book or even Mal couldn't count on the spotter or any of the Special Ops team being bribed by money. Wonder what Book did to distract the spotter.
This seems to be getting way to complicated!
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Wish the robber's flak jacket and outfit didn't look so much like the Special Ops team.
But it's not just the outfit. Look at the FACE. Look at the haircut. This is one of Sanda's men OR very poor art. The artist clearly thought it was one of Sanda's men, at least. That, I'm positive of.
www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."
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Unless we all are somehow missing the bigger picture.
I freely admit that we might all be missing something... but given the number of people who are looking at this closely, I don't know how likely that is... Usually, SOMEONE catches something.
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As for Mal getting someone else (a third/4th/5th party) to rob the crew, the trouble for me is less his motivation, more him allowing others on his boat.
I understand what you're saying, but consider the two scenarios:
1) Mal let's robbers he has likely cut a solid deal with on his ship with the crew NOT there, potentially endangering the ship, but keeping the crew safe.
2) Mal cuts a deal with some military guys he can't trust and who he knows will likely abduct Zoe so that said military folks are quite possibly on the ship at the same time as the crew, thus endangering crew members.
A deal with Sanda seems more troubling and out of character to me.
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Mal is truly capable of screwing anyone over, but is he capable of allowing unsupervised access to his ship?
Consider that it's quite possible that the access WASN'T supposed to be unsupervised. If he hired a third party, I suspect it was done sometime before "the Shepherd's dream" in issue 2, which means it was BEFORE he knew Sanda was even involved. At that point, he could have controlled the situation and might even have planned to be onboard himself.
(Just playing Devil's advocate here.)
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As for the captors letting them go because they were out gunned, they did not seem to show any hard feelings. no "I'll get you next time". No "Drat's" or any other saying typical from any evil body. (yes I am exaggerating a little, but they seemed a little too comfortable with letting them go).
Why are you saying Sanda's evil? He's just doing his job. Sure, he's failed at his job, but not necessarily because of Mal so much as the scarred man. There's really no REASON for him to hold a grudge, is there?
I think you're attributing "typical villain" motivation to a guy who is not a typical villain.
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As for Jayne not trusting anyone to do the job for him because of what he learnt on Ariel... What he learnt on Ariel was that he cannot trust the Feds. Can't rule him out totally, or any other member of crew. Even Zoe or Book. Actually, Book leads to interesting questions... because it easy to see him as the thinking type...
(as for my "position", I do not buy that Mal did it out of just greed. After whodunnit is open for consideration for everyone. All 9 members of the crew.)
Not quite sure what you're getting at here, but if we deconstruct the episode from a writing point of view, it seems pretty clear to me that Joss and Brett intented for Mal to be responsible for the theft of the money. The METHOD that this plays out is unclear, but if it were anyone other than Mal, the episode (because that's what the 3-issue miniseries really is) would have been written differently.
Looking at things from a writer's perspective, we can rule out as a suspsect anyone who's "real" fantasy we saw, because they have a stake in the money staying. That cuts out Kaylee, Wash, and Jayne right off the bat, leaving Mal, Inara, Simon, River, Book, and Zoe.
There is not enough dramatic focus on River, Simon, or Book for them to be such an important part of the story. These characters are not prime movers in the story in any way. Also, we DO see fantasies from them, even if they are suspect, and this is, to some extent, the writers' way of exhonerating them.
That leaves Zoe, Mal, and Inara, who happen to be the characters the story focuses on.
If Zoe were the culprit, there would definitely be a Zoe-Mal scene (sort of a "I did it for you, Captain" moment). Now, personally, I think that would have been an AWESOME twist (that Zoe is willing to endanger her future with Wash for the good of the crew and the captain), but if that were Joss's intention, we would have known.
Now, we come down to Mal and Inara, who are the characters the final scene is a
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Why are you saying Sanda's evil? He's just doing his job. Sure, he's failed at his job, but not necessarily because of Mal so much as the scarred man. There's really no REASON for him to hold a grudge, is there?
Call it my style of humour. (afaik, I am the only person in the world that "gets it" - in this scenario Sanda is evil "from the point of the crew". Using relativity to describe an absolute. or mincing my words. take your pick.)
But then again, he was beating on Mal beforehand instead of just keeping him in custody, so there may be a grudge somewhere.
When you compare the two deals, yeah it does seem more like the former (maybe that is why the guy was heading up - looking for the "no show" Mal?). Still don't buy it, but it fits a little more.
Thing is, none of the robbery had any context. It just happened.
The Jayne bit is more or less linked another poster who suggested that it was not Jayne as he had learnt not to trust others from Ariel. I just pointed out that he learnt not to trust Feds from there, not not to trust in general, which I think is his default disposition. (another thing ruling Jayne out is that we know h stays with the ship even when the going gets tougher - "Those Left behind" and the start of the BDM would be good points for him to get out without getting too much suspicion.)
As for Inara/Simon, I agree. But there is something there. some dealings either as a doctor/patient or on some other level.
Going back a little... let's assume it WAS Mal. This also brings up the question of the Lassiter. Was he really struggling with selling it, or was he also play acting?
Secondly, he got someone to steal the money. Now what? Would he let them keep it all? have a share/secret stash for rainy days? Not many people would just let it all go. Would he?
or does he have secret casino gambling debts?
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I know I'm late to the party, and as fascinating as this thread is... has anyone considered that Sanda has figured out (much like, the Operative, Nandi, Mal's crew, Inara's students, the viewers, my cat) that Inara and Mal have feelings for each other that go beyond traditional tenet and landlord relations? And since Sanda paid for sexual services, from Inara, he my hold a more personal grudge against Mal and use that knowledge as blackmail that could endanger her standing with the Guild. Hence, hush money.
My #3 is in the mail, but this was my initial impression as a possible scenario from reading #1 and #2. As much as Mal hates Inara’s work, his choices are always based on protecting and defending her, as hers are for him. And the both of them rationalize each other’s negative behavior away because their communication is seriously lacking any real honesty so they keep misfiring and skirting the real relationship issues that are obvious to the rest of us, that what they really WANT is each other. And, that has nothing to do with money or a grand fortune.
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I will need to have a look again, but did Inara really have a client on this occasion?
(Unless the Sanda engagement is from before...)
and Spoiler for Platonist or anyone who has not yet read Issue 3:
Select to view spoiler:
In an Inara scene what was she doing with the buttons? was that sending a communication or just prepping for takeoff?
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Sanda is Inara's client from #1 and schedules a second engagement in #2. At which point, I thought that she may have taken him out herself, as she surmises that the Dust Devil, of which he speaks of, is someone on Serenity.
I see this episode as Zoe taking responsibility for her previous actions and staying loyal to Mal, and Mal protecting Inara's reputation, and Inara protecting her family, as best she can before she has to leave because she has so blatantly lost her professional objectivity because of her feelings for the Captain. As War Stories is a Mal/Zoe/Wash episode, to me, this one is a Zoe/Inara/Mal episode.
Am I completely off base?
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