Cult-TV Blogging: Firefly: "Jaynestown" (November 1, 2002)

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”