In “Jaynestown”
Serenity makes a stop at the “mudder” settlement on poverty-stricken
Canton.
There, Mal (Nathan
Fillion) and Jayne (Adam Baldwin) attempt to recover a long-lost loot, only to
discover that since his last visit there, Jayne has been deified as “the Hero
of Canton.” On his last visit, years
earlier, Jayne dropped his cargo -- money – on the mudder town, and so now
boasts a reputation as a kind of modern Robin Hood.
While Shepherd Book
(Ron Glass) cares for River (Summer Glau) and introduces her to the Bible, and
Inara (Morena Baccarin) sees the son of a wealthy client, Jayne comes to reckon
with what it really means to be a “hero.”
“Jaynestown”
concerns the Hero of Canton, Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin), and he even gets his
own theme song here.
I’ll
be honest: Jayne -- Serenity’s muscle -- is one of my favorite characters on
Firefly, and episodes such as “Jaynestown” and “Ariel” (coming up in a
few weeks), establish why. Jayne is most
definitely not a hero.
He’s not even a good
man, at least most of the time. He’s an
opportunist and a man who is interested in his own survival, first, second, and
last. “Out of Gas” reveals how Jayne
joined Serenity’s crew in the first place, switching to the highest bidder
during a confrontation. And “Ariel”
explores how he is willing to sell his shipmates out for a big pay-day.
But
Jayne is also funny as hell, and, most significantly, he does possess a
conscience, even if he doesn’t always choose to listen to it. In “Ariel,” after Mal learns of his sell-out,
Jayne accepts his own death, but pointedly asks the captain not to tell the
crew about his mis-deeds. He doesn’t
want to be remembered that way….as a rat.
That fact suggests that Jayne knows that he did wrong. A real monster, a real bad man, wouldn’t have
understood the error of his ways.
Likewise,
in “Jaynestown,” Jayne is bowled over by the fact that someone else would die
for him, as a young mudder does in the climactic battle.
Would
Jayne have died for that boy? Not bloody
likely.
Jayne
realizes this fact, and so the episode ends with him confused, and downright
contemplative; the most thoughtful we’ve ever seen Jayne, in fact. He can’t understand why his life would matter
to someone else, because most of the time the lives of others don’t really mean
much to Jayne. He is shamed by the fact
that someone better than he is died for him.
“Jaynestown”
is a strong episode of Firefly because it asks the viewer
to accept multiple and seemingly contradictory truths about Jayne, and what he
did on Canton.
On
one hand, we know that Jayne dumped the cash in the haste of a failed escaped,
and didn’t intend to do good at all.
On
the other hand, Jayne did (inadvertently) do good, in the final analysis. He
made a difference in the mudders’ lives, and now they veritably worship him as
a Robin Hood figure.
In
this situation, are Jayne’s intentions (or lack of intentions) important?
Or
are his deeds what truly matter?
In
studying that question, the episode examines how we can’t really know a “hero”
by his or her actions, and furthermore, explains that heroism is a matter of a
perception. As Mal says in the episode’s
coda: “It isn’t about you…It’s about what
they need.”
In
other words, the mudders find a purpose, unity, and even a meaningful life
“story” in Jayne’s actions, and that “myth” becomes infinitely more important
to them than the reality of Jayne’s intentions in one moment of time.
At
first, we want to laugh at the colonists for building this huge heroic
mythology around Jayne, a dunce and a scoundrel. But then we see how the “Hero of Canton” has
made their lives better; has rallied them.
That Jayne is a dunce and a scoundrel matters not a whit, really.
This
theme finds an interesting and meaningful reflection in Shepherd Book and
River’s sub-plot. There, Book introduces
River to the Bible, and she proceeds to tear it up. River starts scribbling in the book, and
tearing out pages. She says she can “fix
it” and that the Holy Book is “broken.”
Sherpherd Book tells her that you “don’t fix the Bible!” with a bit of
righteous indignation.
But
in this scenario, the Bible is, essentially, serving the same purpose as Jayne
does. It is a well-spring from which
many people have drawn inspiration, faith, and the strength to continue facing
the difficulties of life. The Bible may
not be “perfect” in some ways -- as Jayne isn’t perfect or even heroic -- but
so many people draw strength from its words and lessons. It has become more than a mere book, and an
integral part of a whole culture’s “life.” Yes, there are some aspects of the
Bible which might (arguably) be termed archaic today, as there are some
elements of Jayne that aren’t so great.
But
Jayne and the Bible have managed -- each in their own, very different ways --
to bring hope to the hopeless, and faith to the faithless. What “Jaynestown” seems to state most clearly
is that sometimes the messenger may be flawed or imperfect, but the message can
still be fruitful, and worth hearing.
Next
week, one of Firefly’s greatest episodes: “Out of Gas”
This is the episode that sold me on Firefly. My friend that introduced me to the series took me to an advanced screening of Serenity for my birthday. We all sang the Firefly theme and The Hero of Canton before the movie started. Everyone fumbled through the main verses, but we all did the chorus pretty well.
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