Firefly Study Series – Episode 02 – The Train Job

Episode Guides:

The Train Job on Wikipedia

The Train Job on scifi.com

Matthew 21:28–32

‘What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” He answered, “I will not”; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, “I go, sir”; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?’ They said, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax-collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.

Synopsis:

The crew of the Serenity are hired by a man with a reputation as a killer and a not so forgiving employer to steal and smuggle a package back to him by a set time.

In the process of stealing the package the crew are unexpectedly caught by Alliance soldiers who shoot Jayne while escaping with the cargo and leaving Mal and Zoe stuck on the train with no escape plan. While pretending to be a married couple to avoid capture Mal and Zoe find out that the cargo they had stolen is medical supplies heading to a colony on the planet who desperately need it to help cure an illness caused by the environment.

Caught up with the knowledge that they’ve aided in stealing medical supplies, the realisation that they’d been used to steal supplies from poor people who desperately need it and with the added knowledge that if they don’t deliver the package to their employer they will be in severe trouble the team have to face up to an awkward choice, to do the right thing and give it back or to do the wrong thing…

Scenes of note:

a) Book and Mal have a conversation about why Mal takes on passengers when he makes more money from smuggling, and why he continues to harbour people that The Alliance is so obviously wanting to track down. Mal turns on Book telling him that “If I’m your mission Shepherd, best give it up.”

b) While Adelei Niska is interviewing Mal and his crew he enters into a discussion about “what is reputation.” Is reputation based on rumour or fact?

c) The dialogue between the Sheriff and Mal about the choices that a man might make in hard times between doing the right thing and doing the wrong thing, Mal ends the conversation with his statement of that there is really only one choice to make, and returning the supplies was his only choice.

For Discussion:

Why do we do what we do?

I love the conversation between Mal and Book at the beginning, it begs me to ask the question of “Why do we do what we do?” Why does Mal have the need for family on this ship, why does he take on passengers and look after them? Why does Book continue to have hope in Mal as a person? It also asks some questions about how we approach people who have said that they are not interested in faith or, more specifically our faith, Book treats Mal with respect and love, and sees much more in him that many of the others in the crew see, he sees a leader who has a heart for doing what is right.

Is it better…

Mal has me asking the question “Is it better to say you’re not going to do something and then do it, or to say you’re going to do something and not do it?” so often in this series we see Mal, a smuggler take on roles, jobs and responsibilities that you would not normally expect from a smuggler. We see him taking on two people needing shelter from the authorities, sometimes to the degree that they risk everything to do so, and in this episode we see him taking on the possibility of severe retribution from Adelei so that he can return the medical supplies to the people who so desperately need it. More to the point this episode makes me ask the question “Is it better to say you’ll do something bad and then decide not to do it even if it may cause you harm?”

Compassion In Hard Times:

Compassion is hard when you’re a thief… I regularly see in Mal and his crew a compassion for others and for each other that must be hard to keep in a world where doing the wrong thing comes so naturally, how do thieves and fugitives live as people who hope, love, care and look after one another? How do smugglers nurture compassion in such an environment? I guess it must be harder to care in their world than it might for others, but that’s not what we see, it’s Mal’s compassion that seems to be constant in the series, and in this episode, he has a clear sense of what is right and wrong and lives it out…

When Is Doing The Wrong Thing Actually The Right Thing?

Sometimes doing the wrong thing is actually necessary and good, here’s a similarity between Jesus and Mal. In Jesus’ life we see someone who seems to be doing wrong in the eyes of the politicians, the law and the religious leaders, yet we know by looking at it with our eyes that what we see is a revolutionary who was bringing about God’s reality in the world in which he lived. The trick is telling the difference between the two, and this is the conflict that I think Mal is faced with in this episode, he has to face up to the reality that what he has been asked to do is actually not in accordance to his own faith.

Volunteering for things we don’t understand…

There’s a lesson to be learnt here, that sometimes we need to ask some big questions before we take on tasks and jobs, can we live with the reality that our job pays well but kills animals, or can we handle the reality that our job pays well if it also produces weapons of war, or deforests miles upon miles of natural rain forest and trees? How often do we ask these types of questions too late, or in the case of Serenity in this episode only asking the questions after we’ve stolen the medical supplies…