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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fireflycast.png]]
2[[caption-width-right:350:From left: [[BoisterousBruiser Jayne]], [[WrenchWench Kaylee]], [[BadassPreacher Book]], [[TheMedic Simon]], [[HighClassCallGirl Inara]], [[TheCaptain Mal]], [[TheLancer Zoe]], [[AcePilot Wash]], and [[PsychicPowers River]]. Inside her boots: [[PrefersGoingBarefoot River's feet.]] In the background: ''[[CoolStarship Serenity]]''.]]
3
4->'''Inara:''' You're lost in the woods. We all are. Even the captain. The only difference is, he likes it that way.\
5'''Mal:''' No, the difference is, the woods are the only place I can see a clear path.
6-->-- "Serenity"
7
8If you're looking for ''actual'' fireflies, see LightingBug.
9
10''Firefly'' is a ScienceFiction SpaceWestern that ran on the Creator/{{FOX}} Network in the 2002-03 season. It was canceled after 14 episodes were produced, three of which didn't air until after the show's cancellation. Its quick cancellation helped give rise to TheFireflyEffect. A DVD box set was released in December 2003 and has sold briskly ever since.
11
12In the future, humanity has spread across the stars, terraforming planets for colonization and creating a new frontier reminiscent of the old Wild West. The dominant power in this time is the monolithic Alliance, whose iron grip on the 'verse has tightened after a failed rebellion by a group known as 'Independents' or 'Browncoats' (the latter having become the demonym for the franchise's fandom).
13
14Malcolm Reynolds is a former Browncoat who now captains a [[WhatAPieceOfJunk run-down tramp freighter]] called ''Serenity''. Working as an [[AntiHero amoral]] jack-of-all-trades, he tries to eke out a life for himself and his crew away from the reach of the Alliance. However, things change when he inadvertently lets a deadly Alliance secret board his ship: a MysteriousWaif who was subject to horrific experimentation aiming to turn her into a [[SuperSoldier living weapon]].
15
16The show was created by Creator/JossWhedon and Creator/TimMinear (Creator/MutantEnemy Productions), and [[SchizoTech combined]] science-fictional concepts (interplanetary travel, spaceships, {{terraform}}ing) with a Western setting (poor agricultural colonies where people ride horses, cattle ranching, cowboy slang). The ''Firefly'' universe contains [[AbsentAliens no non-human sapient beings]], and in fact no non-Earth-based life at all.
17
18[[AC: The cast included:]]
19* Creator/NathanFillion as [[AntiHero Malcolm Reynolds, disillusioned owner]] and [[TheCaptain captain]] of the ''Firefly''-class transport ''[[CoolStarship Serenity]]''.
20* Creator/GinaTorres as [[ActionGirl Zoe Alleyne Washburne]], his [[NumberTwo second-in-command]], gun-slinging badass and {{deadpan snarker}} among snarkers. She is {{happily married}} to...
21* Creator/AlanTudyk as [[AcePilot Hoban "Wash" Washburne, the pilot]] with [[NonActionGuy no fighting skills]].
22* Creator/AdamBaldwin as [[TheBigGuy Jayne Cobb]], [[TokenEvilTeammate the mercenary]]. A man with [[BoisterousBruiser less subtlety than a sledgehammer, and even fewer brains]]. [[HiddenDepths Maybe]].
23* Creator/JewelStaite as [[TheEngineer Kaywinnit Lee "Kaylee" Frye]], [[WrenchWench the mechanic]]. [[SunnySunflowerDisposition Her default mode is very happy]]. Famous enough to be referenced in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''. According to Creator/JossWhedon, when Kaylee smiles, everything suddenly becomes shiny.
24* Creator/SeanMaher as [[TheSmartGuy Simon Tam]], a promising young [[TheMedic doctor]] from a privileged family, now [[FishOutOfWater turned fugitive]]. Well-spoken but with an acerbic wit, and spends most of his time looking after...
25* Creator/SummerGlau as [[ChildSoldier River Tam]], aforementioned MysteriousWaif; Simon's [[MindRape mentally traumatized]] sister, whom he rescued from [[PlayingWithSyringes government experimentation]]. She is a little [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} whimsical in the brainpan]] and a [[WaifFu tiiiiiny bit]] [[AxCrazy dangerous]].
26* Creator/RonGlass as [[TheAtoner Shepherd Derrial Book]], a [[GoodShepherd preacher]] with a {{mysterious|Past}}, [[DarkAndTroubledPast dark, and troubled past]].
27* Creator/MorenaBaccarin as [[MsFanService Inara Serra]], a HighClassCallGirl who is a member of the [[BandOfBrothels Companion's Guild]]. Or, as [[BelligerentSexualTension Mal]] calls her, a "[[HookerWithAHeartOfGold whore]]".
28
29[[http://www.hulu.com/firefly/ Hulu]] has all 14 episodes of the series available for streaming [[NoExportForYou if you're in the US.]] It is also all up for instant stream on Amazon Prime (if you buy the series). Starting March 6th 2011, the show also began playing, in the correct order, on the Science Channel and in glorious HD. The show has a [[{{Recap/Firefly}} recap page here]].
30
31''Firefly'''s life story is an interesting one: despite its early cancellation, it became a runaway cult hit, the DVD series spawning media including a feature film titled ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' and various comics and books. A full list of media can be found on the [[Franchise/{{Firefly}} Franchise page]].
32
33There are also constant rumors about a second television series (Whedon and many of the principals have constantly said they would be willing to pick up the show, with Fillion going so far as to say he'd be willing to buy the rights from Fox), and the cult status the series has attained after its premature cancellation may have saved [[{{Series/Dollhouse}} a later Whedon work]] [[https://web.archive.org/web/20090815094939/http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/fox-execs-explain-why-the.php from a similar fate.]]
34
35In November 2012, the Science Channel aired a ''Firefly'' 10th anniversary special, titled "Browncoats Unite". It featured two of the main writers of the show, Jose Molina and Tim Minear, along with most of the cast, including Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin, Summer Glau, Alan Tudyk and Sean Maher, where they did a sort of retrospective of the show's history and its cult-classic status over the past ten years. In addition, Jewel Staite, Gina Torres and Morena Baccarin were interviewed separately and added their own comments on their involvement with the show. The forty-minute special culminated in the writers and actors taking the stage at their Comic-Con panel, which included Joss Whedon himself as well.
36
37In 2019, the rights to the franchise passed to Creator/{{Disney}} with their purchase of Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox, and in early 2021 rumors began circulating that Disney was developing a reboot of the series for its Creator/DisneyPlus streaming service.
38
39These rumors are at present not solidly confirmed.
40----
41!!This series provides examples of:
42
43[[foldercontrol]]
44
45[[folder:Tropes A-D]]
46* AbsentAliens: Although conspiracy theories still abound, and a fake alien (really a cow fetus) hangs in a civilian space station, purported to be a sign of alien life by a busker.
47* AbusiveParents: The Tams seem to have a pair. Although they were never physically abusive (that we know of), they tended to favor Simon, shipped River to the Academy and then didn't follow up on her well being even when her messages made less and less sense, threatened Simon with disownment if he attempted to aid River (and followed through on this threat), and have seemingly done little to aid their 'fugitive' children. Parents of the year, right there.
48* AccidentalAimingSkills: In "The Train Job", Jayne shoots an enemy right in the kneecap while still woozy from anesthetic. When complimented on it, he barely manages to slur "I was aimin' for his head." Made rather worrying by the fact that there were two or three people he could have hit if he had missed by that far in another direction.
49* AccidentalHero: In "Jaynestown", Jayne tells of how he was forced to dump a ton of money to escape from a job-gone-wrong. The money landed in a poverty-stricken village and the villagers convinced themselves he did it [[JustLikeRobinHood Robin-Hood-esque]]. In fact to underscore how Jayne is ''not'' a hero, he actually threw his partner out ''first''; this man survived the fall and comes looking for Jayne with a shotgun in hand. [[spoiler:Eventually the man reveals Jayne's dirty secret to the whole town and levels his shotgun at Jayne, but then a bystander [[TakingTheBullet jumps in front of him and takes the blast, saving Jayne's life]]. This event deeply affects even [[TokenEvilTeammate him]].]]
50* AccidentalMarriage: "Our Mrs. Reynolds". After a successful mission, Mal celebrates a little too much and does not realize his part in a bizarre wedding ritual. HilarityEnsues. Or not, if you're Mal. (This is also a possible aversion since it turns out the naive country waif is really a cold blooded hijacker who deliberately invoked the AccidentalMarriage trope as part of an elaborate con to have the entire crew mercilessly killed so their ship can be seized by scavengers.)
51* ActionDuo: From the start, there is a lot of tension and distrust between Mal and Simon. Despite the distrust, when Simon is about to let himself be killed for his sister in "Safe" Mal comes in leading the team in a rescue party, demanding they let the two go. When Mal is in danger in "War Stories" Simon's aim is too poor to be of any help but he still manages to survive.
52* ActionGirl:
53** Zoe, Mal's second-in-command since the civil war and a great fighter.
54** River can [[ImprobableAimingSkills shoot people with her eyes closed]] but [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity has gone insane]] because of it.
55** Saffron. See DarkActionGirl below.
56** Nandi from "Heart of Gold" is a badass lady. She is not afraid to fight when she needs to protect hers own.
57* ActuallyThatsMyAssistant: In "War Stories", Mal assumes that the bodyguard of one of Inara's clients is "The Councillor." Neither he, nor any of the others, was expecting a [[LesYay woman]].
58* AdmiringTheAbomination: The novel ''Generations'' basically makes this the reason [[spoiler:the Alliance never killed the out-of-control Silas, the first test subject of the program that gave River her psychic abilities; while Silas proved impossible to control, he was so exceptional that nobody could bring themselves to kill him]].
59* AerialCanyonChase: Subverted in the episode "The Message", when Wash tries to lose a pursuing ship by flying into a canyon. When this trope is attempted by ''Serenity'', the pursuing ship simply flies above the canyon, keeping the ship in view. And when the heroes try to hide, the pursuers flush them out with saturation bombing.
60* AffectionateNickname: Wash’s “Lambie toes” for Zoe and Simon’s “mei mei” (Mandarin for little sister” to River. Mal occasionally calls Inara “Nara”.
61* AfraidOfNeedles:
62** Jayne, the big baby. PlayedForLaughs.
63** River. Decidedly ''not'' played for laughs. She suffered horribly in the labs of the Alliance. Some of her flashbacks are really dreadful and scary.
64* AgonizingStomachWound: In the (out of order) pilot, Kaylee gets shot in the stomach, forcing the crew to afford newcomer Simon enough trust to perform surgery on her as he's the only doctor for millions of miles.
65* AllAmazonsWantHercules: Averted. The series devotes an entire episode to repeatedly demonstrating that Zoe is not, nor has she ever been, attracted to Mal. Or Jayne (as if that needed saying).
66* TheAllegedCar:
67** ''Serenity'', who was already old and sitting derelict (and planet-bound) in a junkyard when Mal bought her.
68---> '''Alliance Captain:''': Firefly? They still ''make'' those?
69** Book tells Kaylee that he once travelled in an "Aught-1" (''Serenity'' is an "Aught-3") Firefly long before she was even crawling, implying that the class was old even when he was young.
70** The movie later points out that bits frequently fall off the ship.
71** Zoe's first reaction upon being shown the ship in a flashback in "Out of Gas" was "[[DeadpanSnarker You bought this? On purpose?]]"
72-->'''Mal:''' I tell you, Zoe, we get a mechanic, get her up and running again, hire a good pilot, maybe a cook - Live like real people. A small crew - Them as feel the need to be free. Take jobs as they come. They never have to be under the heel of nobody ever again. No matter how long the arm of the Alliance might get... we'll just get ourselves a little further.\
73'''Zoe:''' "Get her running again?"\
74'''Mal:''' That's right.\
75'''Zoe:''' So not running now?\
76'''Mal:''' Not so much.
77** Discussed in "Our Mrs. Reynolds", in which some scavengers are discussing ''Serenity''. One observes that it is just a hunk of junk, and the other observes that put together, all that junk makes a Firefly, which will keep flying practically forever with even a halfway competent mechanic to keep it going.
78* AllPlanetsAreEarthlike: [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], as all visited planets and moons have explicitly been {{Terraform}}ed to one degree or another. It should be noted that the core planets, where the wealthy and powerful live and where the Alliance is concentrated, enjoy much more extensive terraforming than the outer worlds where the poorer folk live.
79* AlmostKiss: Simon and Kaylee in "Objects in Space".
80* AlmostOutOfOxygen: One of the several problems Mal has to solve in "Out of Gas".
81* TheAlternet: The Cortex spans the star system in which the franchise takes place. It's used for both video chat and browsing information in the series. RPG materials explain that access is cloud-based and pay-by-the-minute for private citizens unless they can afford a dedicated source box.
82* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Reavers. Introduced by Zoe in the pilot:
83--> '''Zoe''': If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing. And if we're very, ''very'' lucky, they'll do it {{in that order}}.
84* AlwaysSaveTheGirl
85* AmazingFreakingGrace: At the end of "Heart of Gold" when there is a funeral held for those who did not survive the fight.
86* AmazonChaser: Wash in "Bushwhacked": "Have you ever ''been'' with a warrior woman?"
87* {{Ambadassador}}: Inara is sometimes referred to as the ship's ambassador, mostly in the pilot.
88* AmbiguouslyBi: Kaylee is in love with Simon, but looks just as ecstatic as Jayne does when learning that Inara is bisexual.
89* AmbiguousSituation: Dobson's escape in the pilot. He offers Jayne a small fortune as a reward if he turns on Mal and helps him out, but we don't see Jayne's response. Jayne never openly betrays Mal in the episode, but how ''did'' Dobson get the shiv that he cut his bonds with? Slipping it to him would be a cunning XanatosGambit on Jayne's part. If Dobson escapes, Jayne possibly gets a reward for helping him, while if he fails and is caught, Jayne maintains plausible deniability (as when Mal questions him later). But we never find out for sure.
90* AnachronicOrder: The episode "Out of Gas," which starts InMediasRes and flashes back to both HowWeGotHere and EveryoneMeetsEveryone. This was inadvertently done to the series as a whole, as the episodes were aired out of order during their original run on {{Creator/FOX}}.
91* AngryCollarGrab: Mal to Wash, when Wash won’t leave the injured Zoe in “Out of Gas”. Mal understands Wash is scared for his wife, but he knows she’s got a good doctor treating her and he needs Wash as the pilot to help find the cause of the explosion and power loss before they all die.
92* AntiHero: The crew of ''Serenity'' are all criminals (except for Inara, who is a high-class prostitute, making her the most respectable member of the crew) and Mal and Zoe can be fairly ruthless. Jayne, a mercenary of minimal morality, zero delicacy, and inconsistent loyalties, takes this trope the furthest.
93* AnywhereButTheirLips: Jayne's policy, which he explains (to general horror) after Mal experiences the [[InstantSedation Goodnight Kiss]] in "Our Mrs. Reynolds".
94* ArbitrarySkepticism:
95--> '''Wash:''' Psychic, though? That sounds like something out of science fiction.\
96'''Zoe:''' You live in a spaceship, dear.\
97'''Wash:''' So?
98* ArcWords:
99** "Two by two, hands of blue..."
100** The [[MegaCorp Blue Sun corporation]] crops up a lot in logos, advertisements and billboards in the background, as well as one of Jayne's t-shirts; [[Creator/JossWhedon Whedon]] has said the show was cancelled before this could be explored.
101* ArmiesAreEvil: [[ObliviouslyEvil Alliance officers believe that they are genuinely trying to protect people and improve]] {{the Verse}}, whether that is actually true or not.
102* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking:
103** In "Our Mrs. Reynolds", Book mentions a "special hell" reserved for child molesters and people who talk in the theater.
104** Simon detailing what River is gifted at in the pilot episode "Serenity": math, theoretical physics, and... dance. (The character of River is played by actress Summer Glau who is, in fact, a trained dancer.)
105* AsiansEatPets: There is a solar system settled by an alliance of the Anglosphere and China. In "[[Recap/FireflyE01Serenity Serenity]]", a street food vendor is briefly shown with cuts of meat on a grill, with a sign above it reading "Good Dogs" in English and Mandarin.
106* AteHisGun: From "The Train Job":
107-->'''Sheriff:''' It's funny your uncle never went to mentioning the Bowden's problem. Or that Joey Bloggs ate his own gun, about eight months back.\
108'''Mal:''' Did he?\
109'''Sheriff:''' Yep. Blew the back of his head right off.\
110(''{{beat}}'')\
111'''Mal:''' So... [[ComicallyMissingThePoint would his job be open]]?
112* TheAtoner: Throughout the series, Book is implied to have a checkered and unsavory past. [[spoiler: Confirmed by the comic "A Shepherd's Tale".]]
113* AttackOnOneIsAnAttackOnAll: Mal makes this very clear when Jayne sells out the Tams in “Ariel”. Jayne is lucky to be alive.
114* AuthorTract: 80% of "Objects In Space" is Jubal Early echoing Creator/JossWhedon's existentialist views with Simon at gunpoint. The other 20%? Creator/SummerGlau's bare feet, and [[ShirtlessScene Sean Maher's bare torso]]. [[Creator/JossWhedon Joss]] goes into even greater detail in the solo commentary which accompanies the episode.
115* AwesomeAnachronisticApparel: It ''is'' a space western... with T-Shirts, corporate logos, the occasional mongol raider-style hat and space hookers. ''Of course'' everyone looks awesome!
116** Even when wearing Cunning' hats.
117* AwesomenessByAnalysis: River is so quick with math, that in "War Stories", she only needed to glance at Niska's men for a second before killing all three of them in one shot each with her eyes closed. Kaylee remarks in "Objects in Space" that she just "did the math."
118* AxCrazy: River, though she has a reason for it.
119* BadGuysPlayPool: "Shindig" starts with slavers chatting over a game of holographic billiards.
120* BadassAdorable: River.
121* BadassBookworm: Simon.
122** River qualifies as well since she's supposed to have been even smarter than Simon before the Alliance's horrific experiments. Not that the experiments have stopped her from having moments of clarity, revealing said intellect in the process.
123* BadassCrew: The crew of ''Serenity'' consists of two war veterans from the losing side of a civil war, a mercenary with a WallOfWeapons, a preacher with a MysteriousPast, a HookerWithAHeartOfGold who is also a LadyOfWar, a mechanic with an innate understanding of machinery who can fix problems by analysis, an AcePilot, a BadassBookworm doctor with shades of TheStrategist in him, and a WaifFu [[TheOphelia Opehlia]] with ImprobableAimingSkills.
124* BadassDriver: Wash. He's an ace of a pilot and can pull off several very dangerous maneuvers.
125* BadassLongcoat: Mal and Zoe in their browncoats look this way.
126* BadassPreacher: Book. Unsurprising given his implied past as an independent {{Mole}} in the Alliance. He proves a capable fighter in one episode.
127* BadassBoast
128-->'''Mal''': Now you can luxuriate in a nice jail cell, but if your hand touches metal, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
129** Mal is good for these, but one of the best actually comes from NonActionGuy Wash:
130--->'''Wash:''' ''(referring to Mal)'' Niska's gonna kill him.
131--->'''Zoe:''' He's gonna want to make it last as long as he can. Days if possible.
132--->'''Wash:''' ''(pushes himself to his feet, a look of grim determination on his face)'' Bastard's not gonna get days.
133** Inverted when Simon is introducing himself. He speaks at length about how smart and gifted he is...only to reveal that he only did so to emphasize how far above him River is.
134*** Simon later gets to play it straight with Jayne when the latter is temporarily paralyzed to prevent him aggravating a bad bruise to his spine. Simon points out the many ways it would be comically easy for him, as the ship's doctor, to kill Jayne and get away with it, only to end with saying that he simply doesn't want to do that and hopes Jayne will just leave him alone. Jayne listens to all of this in comically appalled horror.
135* BadBoss: Adelai Niska, who regularly tortures people for minor, minor details. Like talking at a wedding.
136* BaitAndSwitch: Skillfully done in the pilot. [[spoiler:Simon is introduced with ominous music, ScaryShinyGlasses and an unsmiling, formal demeanor, seemingly marking him as a villain. Dobson, meanwhile, is in the background of almost every scene and is treated like an extra. This makes TheReveal that Dobson is TheMole as much a surprise to the audience as to the characters.]]
137* BaitAndSwitchComparison: Wash's reaction to the preserved mutant cow fetus in "The Message". (Simon is standing nearby, just after having angered Kaylee... again.)
138-->'''Wash''': Oh my god, '''it's grotesque!''' Oh, and there's something in a jar.
139* BalladOfX:
140** "The Ballad of Jayne Cobb"
141** "The Ballad of Serenity"
142* BandOfBrothels: The Guild of Companions.
143* BarBrawl: A constant among ''Serenity'''s crew.
144* BatmanGambit:
145** River in "Objects in Space". Though she probably should have known what the reaction of Simon, who gave up everything to keep her from the Alliance, was going to be, with a plan that involves her saying she was going to give herself up.
146** The whole crew in "Trash". This one also counts as a XanatosGambit, since the crew would have gotten away with it whether [[IHaveManyNames YoSaffBridge]] had turned on Mal or not.
147* BeautifulCondemnedBuilding: Mal has this immediate reaction to Serenity.
148* BehindTheBlack: An absolutely hilarious example in "Objects in Space" where [[spoiler: Jubal Early steps out into an empty hallway and looks one direction; he then turns to look the other way as the camera pans to show a very confused Mal staring blankly at the intruder.]]
149** There's also the end of Shindig where Mal and Inara are talking in the cargo bay, and then the camera moves back a few dozen feet to show a herd of cows, all mooing noisily the moment the audience can see them
150%%* BeingGoodSucks
151* BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil: One of the Reavers' most sadistic tricks. Sometimes, when they take a ship, they leave one person alive and ''[[ForcedToWatch make them watch]]''. The one time we saw this in-series ("Bushwhacked") it resulted in the unfortunate victim trying to become a pseudo-Reaver himself as a coping mechanism.
152* BeleagueredChildhoodFriend: Featured in "Heart of Gold", Nandi is this for Inara.
153* BelligerentSexualTension: Between Mal and Inara, and Mal and Saffron to a degree. Done [[WordOfGod deliberately]] with [[HoYay Jayne and Simon]].
154* BerserkButton: A handy list of things that will make you want to leave this room:
155** Do not insult ''Serenity'' in front of Kaylee. Just don't. She's her mechanic and doesn't take it well.
156** River has her own almost literal BerserkButton, but she can't control it and it's made her insane. [[spoiler: Until the end of Serenity, at least.]]
157** Jubal Early does not like it when you visit his intentions.
158** From the pilot, do ''not'' imply you believe that Mal [[NotSoDifferentRemark is anything like the Alliance]]. Simon got decked for it.
159--> '''Jayne:''' Saw that comin'.
160* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: In "The Message", [[spoiler:Tracy does make it to his homeworld for a proper funeral, as requested by him in his fake - later real - will.]]
161* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: Basically applies in ''Life Signs''; [[spoiler:despite Zoe knowing that Ornery Annie was trying to kill her for her deception, she lets Annie live because she recognises that some part of Annie wants to be better than the criminal who was sent to Atata]].
162* BecomingTheMask: [[spoiler: Creator/JossWhedon [[WordOfGod let it slip in an interview]] that Derrial Book was not Shepherd's real name, but rather he had taken the identity of a man he had killed]]. [[http://www.serenitystuff.com/2007/12/12/ron-glass-announces-a-shepherds-tale-comic/ They go into detail in the comic]].
163* TheBeforetimes: People in the 'verse often have fond memories of EarthThatWas, back when things like fruit and other real food was readily available.
164* BestHerToBedHer: [[spoiler:Saffron]] briefly pretends to be one of these at the end of "Our Mrs Reynolds" -- it does not work. Tries again in "Trash", for about 30 seconds -- also doesn't work.
165* BewareTheNiceOnes
166** River: No power in the 'verse can stop her. Also, she can kill you with her brain.
167** Simon has also shown the capability of fucking you up... politely.
168** Mal qualifies, as generally he's affable, decent, and polite. It takes a lot to push him over the edge, but once he's there, there's pretty much nothing he won't do, or do to you, to get revenge.
169* Literature/TheBible: River tries to "fix" Book's copy in "Jaynestown".
170* BigBrotherIsWatching: The Alliance, at least on the Core Worlds, has a widespread surveillance system, which is why Zoe is reluctant to leave the ship while on Core Worlds. Dialogue between Simon and his father in a flashback in "Safe" suggests that the Alliance keeps a record of certain places you have been; when Simon's father walked into a jail to pick him up, it was apparently recorded on his permanent profile.
171* BigBrotherInstinct: Simon has this for River, and everyone has this for Kaylee.
172* BigBrotherWorship: As a result of the above, River adores her brother.
173* BigBadassBattleSequence: The first episode shows the tail-end of the Serenity Valley battle, while "The Message" explores one small part of an earlier campaign.
174* BigDamnHeroes: The trope name comes from dialogue near the end of the episode "Safe". The awesomeness is emphasized further by Zoe and Mal having to shout over the engine noise of ''Serenity'' hovering above them.
175-->'''Mal:''' Well, look at this! Seems like we got here just in the nick of time. And what does that make us?
176-->'''Zoe:''' [[TropeNamer Big Damn Heroes]], sir!
177-->'''Mal:''' [[PunctuatedForEmphasis Ain't. We. Just?]]
178* BilingualBonus: The Chinese curses, which according to [[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Firefly_%28TV_series%29#Chinese_translations the show's Wikiquotes page]] mean things like "frog-humping son-of-a-bitch" and "holy mother of God and all her wacky nephews." The phrases themselves [[ShownTheirWork are (mostly) accurate Mandarin Chinese]], but the actors' pronunciation was often so poor as to be incomprehensible.
179* BiologicalWeaponsSolveEverything: An erstwhile Alliance officer made his fortune using biological weapons to depopulate communities, then he looted their untouched valuables. [[spoiler:Maybe. The only evidence comes from a pathological liar]].
180* BitchInSheepsClothing: [[spoiler:Atherton]] of "Shindig", who loves Inara in his own sick, twisted, possessive, misogynistic, cruel way. At first, he's a well-mannered gentleman, but at the slightest hint of Mal trying to help Inara, he's throwing her off him and attempting to kill Mal.
181** [[spoiler:Tracy]] of "The Message", who tricks his old war buddies to both take the fall for, and avoid, dirty business he got into in the first place, nearly getting them killed, and when confronted over it, takes Kaylee hostage and gloats about tricking said war buddies, calling them "saps", saying he specifically chose them because he knew they'd get all emotional and willing to help out an "old friend". [[spoiler:When he's mortally wounded by Mal, he realizes just how far he's fallen.]]
182** [[spoiler:Saffron's]] M.O.
183* BittersweetEnding / DistantFinale: The short story "Take the Sky" included in the ''Firefly: Still Flying'' companion book. Set 20 years after ''Film/{{Serenity}}'', whether it leans towards bitter or sweet depends on which character you focus on. Of course, there is always the chance that [[spoiler: it [[AllJustADream all takes place in Mal's head]] in a split second before he faces the Operative for the final time]], but it is ambiguous enough to speculate on. And there might be foreshadowing.
184* BlackMarketProduce: Shown in the pilot episode, with Kaylee enjoying a strawberry and the crew getting excited about fresh vegetables and herbs.
185* BlackTieInfiltration: In "[[Recap/FireflyE04Shindig Shindig]]", Mal and Kaylee infiltrate a ball on Persephone, with Kaylee--correction, ''Miss Kaywinnit Lee Frye''--playing the role of a debutante so that Mal can get in touch with an aristocratic contact for a smuggling job.
186-->'''Kaylee:''' These girls have the most beautiful dresses. ''(gestures at her dress)'' And so do I! How about that?\
187'''Mal:''' Yeah, well, just be careful. We cheated Badger out of good money to buy that frippery, and you're supposed to make ''me'' look respectable.
188* BlahBlahBlah: Mal's "jabber, jabber, jabber".
189* BlatantLies: Inara in "Our Mrs. Reynolds" trying to cover up why she was knocked out.
190* BlessedWithSuck: River.
191* BloodFromEveryOrifice: The Hands of Blue kill people using a small pen-shaped ultrasonic weapon that causes bleeding from he eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and even the finger nails. It looks extremely painful.
192* BoisterousBruiser:
193** Jayne Cobb.
194** Monty from "Trash".
195* BoomHeadshot: Goodbye, Dobson. [[spoiler:He survives in the comics, though. Not that it helps him any when Mal pulls this off a ''second time'', with much more fatal results... and then shoots him ''again'' just to make sure.]]
196* BornUnlucky: Mal. This and ASimplePlan have forced him to become a master of the IndyPloy.
197* BountyHunter: Jubal Early from "Objects in Space." Very much the evil sadist version.
198* BreakTheCutie:
199** In this case, comes conveniently ''pre-''broken. There are [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5Wq4AOP-FU the R. Tam Sessions]] that were released as a lead-in to the movie, and several flashbacks to see her being broken.
200** Jubal is breaking Kaylee in "Objects in Space". [[spoiler: River helps fix her.]]
201** [[spoiler: Wash]] in the episode "War Stories", for a bit.
202* BreakThemByTalking: Inverted, when River gives one to Badger in "Shindig" and later to Jubal Early in "Objects in Space".
203* BrickJoke: Combined with PrecisionFStrike in "Jaynestown". At the start of the episode, Kaylee and Simon are arguing about whether or not Simon uses swear words. Simon says he swears "when it's appropriate." After arriving on Higgins' Moon and discovering a statue of Jayne in the town square, Simon lets out a dumbfounded "Son of a ''bitch''!"
204* BuffySpeak: ...well, it ''is'' a Creator/JossWhedon show.
205* BuildingIsWelding: Kaylee is welding the Ambulance in "Ariel."
206* BulletProofVest:
207** Zoe's is dented in the pilot.
208** Jubal Early is seen wearing what is referred to as 'armor' in "Objects in Space". Given the outfit's resemblance to that of the Operative and the Operative's armor's resemblance to the vests worn by Alliance federals and soldiers, this might indicate a consistent design in 26th century armor.
209** Wash also very cheerfully suggests a subversion:
210--> '''Wash:''' What about his face? Is his face wearing armor?
211* BurnTheWitch: River almost has this done to her in "Safe."
212* BuryMeNotOnTheLonePrairie: "The Message."
213* BuyThemOff: In "War Stories", Zoe tries this to get Mal and Wash back from Niska. When Niska only consents to let one of them go and tries to give Zoe a SadisticChoice, she doesn't hesitate to choose her husband. Of course, Niska then says it also buys a piece of Mal...namely his ear.
214* {{Calvinball}}:
215** Tall Card, the card game played during "Shindig." The actors insisted that the writer create actual rules for the game, which she dutifully did, so that they would have proper motivation. It is still incomprehensible to the audience.
216*** This was later (in 2015) made into a real game.
217** The "hoop-ball" game they play at the start of "Bushwhacked," which even Simon says is not being played according to any rules that he can discern. It may be called "Spaceball," based on a soundtrack title.
218* CannibalClan: The Reavers, inspired by the legendary Sawney Bean clan.
219* CannibalLarder: In "Bushwhacked", the Reavers left one of those in a spaceship they, well, bushwhacked.
220* CannotTellAJoke: In "Out of Gas", Simon is apparently bad at telling funny stories about working at hospitals, not that Jayne gives him much of a chance. "Objects In Space" either shows that he can if he is given a chance, or else [[CharacterDevelopment he just got better]]. When he tries to make a wry observation to Kaylee in "The Message," it goes very badly.
221* CannotSpitItOut: Played straight with Mal and Inara. Subverted, with [[spoiler: Simon and Kaylee. He tells her she's pretty, [[UnkemptBeauty even -- ''especially'' -- when she's covered in engine grease]] and later tells her his politeness (stiffness, in her book) is just his way of showing her he likes her]]. Of course, he still bungles [[MomentKiller the flirting after that pretty badly anyway]].
222* CantGetInTroubleForNuthin: Invoked in the novel ''Life Signs''; when Simon has to join others in infiltrating a prison planet, Mal observes that Simon is too clearly not the type of person who would normally commit a crime serious enough to be sent to this planet, so Simon's story is that he was framed for embezzlement.
223* TheCaper: "The Train Job," "Ariel," and "Trash." Also, the beginning of the BigDamnMovie.
224* CaperCrew: Usually Mal as the Master Mind, Zoe as the Partner In Crime, both of them as the Burglars, Jayne as the Muscle, Wash as the Driver, Kaylee as the Gadget Girl and Coordinator.
225* CarFu: The Mule, done by Wash in "The Train Job", and later used in "War Stories" as well.
226* TheCaretaker: Simon, for River.
227* CasualDangerDialogue: When Mal and Wash are being [[ElectricTorture tortured]] by Niska, they argue about whether Mal ever slept with Zoe. Mal [[JustifiedTrope is doing this deliberately]] to keep Wash's mind active so he doesn't succumb to the torture. Later, after Wash is somewhat recovered, he realizes what Mal was doing with obvious gratitude.
228* CasualInterplanetaryTravel: TheVerse is confirmed to take place in a massive five-star system: one giant star in the center and four smaller stars orbiting it, with each star having its own sub-system of planets and moons and even a couple dwarf stars. [[https://web.archive.org/web/20170823101801/http://i.picresize.com/images/2013/02/06/BMhCv.jpg (Seen here.)]]
229* CatharticExhalation: Wash and Mal share in some heavy breathing after the Reavers don't attack them.
230* CeilingCorpse: In episode Bushwacked,(nearly) the whole crew of a derelict cargo vessel strung upside down on the ceiling awaiting discovery by River long after the others had entered and explored the rest of the ship looking for them.
231* ChainPain: Mentioned in the show; from "The Train Job":
232-->'''Jayne''': You know what the chain of command is? [[LiteralMetaphor It's the chain I go get and beat you with]] 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here.
233* TheChainsOfCommanding: "Just... tell me when we get there."
234* TheChampion: Simon to River.
235* ChanceMeetingBetweenAntagonists: The episode "Trash" has Mal run into [[TheVamp Saffron]] his ex-wife, who tried to get him and his crew killed on some backwater moon. As soon as they see each other they draw guns on each other.
236* ChekhovsGun:
237** The port compression coil. Mentioned back in episode one ("Serenity"). Becomes very important in episode 8 ("Out of Gas").
238** Chronologically speaking, Kaylee telling Mal how the coil fits in the drive is a ChekhovsGun, given that he remembers it after [[spoiler:he is shot in the stomach and manages to install the coil even as he is bleeding.]] The same part then shows up at the dump on Ariel, only to be tossed aside by Wash. You'd think he'd want to keep a spare after what happened. Though Wash probably didn't know what it was; we see Kaylee find one in the Reaver wreckage and keep it.
239** In "Our Mrs. Reynolds," Jayne shows off [[ICallItVera Vera]], then uses it at the end of the episode to disable an electricity net.
240* ChekhovsGunman: Fess Higgins in "Jaynestown", who seems to be in an unimportant C plot with Inara...until he releases his father's land-lock on ''Serenity''.
241* {{Chiaroscuro}}: Used throughout the series, most often on the actual ship but also in other locations--for example, Badger's den on Persephone, and any of the border planets at night.
242* ChildAbuseIsASpecialKindOfEvil: In "Our Mrs. Reynolds", Book mentions a "special hell" reserved for child molesters ([[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and people who talk in the theater]]).
243* ChinaTakesOverTheWorld: Or more accurately, China takes over ''half'' the world ([[WeCanRuleTogether and shares power with the United States]]).
244* ChronicHeroSyndrome: Mal suffers a vicious case of it.
245* CloningBodyParts: Possible but illegal because, according to Simon, "the technology's not ready yet." Nevertheless, in "The Message" Mal and Zoe's war buddy Tracy is being used to smuggle cloned organs.
246* ClosestThingWeGot: In the novel ''Life Signs'', news of Inara's terminal illness, Khiel's Myeloma, prompt Book and Simon to recall Esau Weng, a doctor who was working on an experimental treatment to deal with diseases like Inara's. While both of them make it clear that Weng never officially published anything on his work and his progress is unknown, the crew all recognise that this is their best chance to save Inara's life.
247* CloudCuckooLander: River Tam as a result of her psychosis.
248** Jubal Early. Full stop.
249* CloudcuckoolandersMinder: Simon.
250* CocaPepsiInc: The Alliance, which started out as an alliance between the United States and China. Unproduced scripts name it the "Anglo-Sino Alliance," but "Ariel" titles it the "Union of Allied Planets."
251* ColdBloodedTorture: Mal and Wash are tortured by Niska in "War Stories."
252** For extra brutality, Niska tortures Mal to death, then resuscitates him so he can torture him to death a second time.
253* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: The Alliance wears primarily blue and grey to match all their shiny tech. A slur for them is "purple-belly," which refers to the purple-tinged armor seen on the footsoldiers. The Browncoats wear (obviously) brown, red, yellow, and orange, which goes with the Wild West setting. [[RedOniBlueOni This symbolizes the Alliance's cold modernism versus the Browncoats' heart]]. The black-and-grey uniforms of anyone shown manning an Alliance ship are also pleasantly reminiscent of the crew (not the soldiers) of the [[Franchise/StarWars Death Star]], whose uniforms were, themselves, based of those of the Nazis.
254* CombatMedic: Simon, when pressed. Zoe also has some experience with this, as seen briefly in "Safe"; although she has some trouble removing a bullet from Simon's leg at the end of "Objects in Space".
255* CombatPragmatist: A number of characters -- particularly Mal -- are willing to fight dirty. The only instance of anyone fighting ''clean'' on the show was Mal's duel with Atherton Wing in "Shindig". It ''started'' clean but, Atherton being a JerkAss and Mal being Mal, did not stay that way.
256** Best exemplified in "The Train Job":
257--> '''Mal''': Say that to my face?
258--> '''Bar fly''': I said you were a coward... and a pisspot. Now what are you going to do about it?
259--> '''Mal''': Nothing. I just wanted you to face me so ''she'' could get behind you.
260--> Whereupon the bar fly turns, just in time for his jaw to meet Zoe's shotgun butt.
261* CommandRoster:
262** TheCaptain: Mal
263** NumberTwo: Zoe
264** Security Officer: Jayne
265** WrenchWench: Kaylee
266** AcePilot: Wash
267** TheMedic: Simon
268** TheHeart: Inara and Kaylee trade it
269** TheMentor: Book
270* CompanionCube: "I call it Vera."
271* CompanyTown: Canton, the ceramics workers' town on Higgins' Moon in the episode "Jaynestown", is explicitly called one by Jayne. Magistrate Higgins pays the workers almost nothing so he can get rich, the place is a mess, and the workers are mostly indentured so they can't quit. The RPG rulebook notes, however, that Higgins' son has been working to improve conditions since the episode. It is also implied that not just Canton, but the entire ''moon'' that the episode is set on, is owned by Higgins, going by the fact that the moon is named after him, or at least his family.
272* ConspicuousInTheCrowd: In the episode "[[Recap/FireflyE07Jaynestown Jaynestown]]", this happens twice in a short span of time.
273** The crew go into a local dive bar for the [[IndenturedServitude dirt poor workers]] of the CompanyTown, where they plan to meet their smuggling contact Kessler. Kessler doesn't show up, however, and instead Mal spots a suspiciously well-dressed man walking around and looking very out of place. Soon after the man approaches them and reveals that he was Kessler's boss, but the local "[[CorruptCorporateExecutive magistrate]]" learned that Kessler was part of a smuggling operation and had Kessler killed for it.
274** Shortly afterwards, when the local musician starts playing [[BalladOfX The Ballad of Jayne]], the camera twice briefly lingers on a handsome local man who is a bit cleaner and better dressed than most of the other workers. He turns out to be a MauveShirt for the episode and in the climax, [[spoiler:he ends up TakingTheBullet for Jayne.]]
275* ContinuityNod: Starting in the pilot, every time Kaylee has occasion to talk to Mal about the engine, she's likely to bring up the port compression coil. [[TemptingFate Guess what blows]] in "Out of Gas"... and, in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it ChekhovsGun that shows up again ''after'' it's been fired, Wash finds and chucks a port compression coil in the junkyard in "Ariel."
276* ConvenientlyClosePlanet: The planets in the setting are all located within a five-star system, allowing for them to be reached without faster than light travel. [[note]] It was once thought that the orbital mechanics of such a system are very unlikely; a planetary system with multiple suns being thought unstable; however, ScienceMarchesOn and real-life examples of multi-star planetary systems have been detected. Multiple different orbital arrangements are possible beyond the unlikely situation of a planet orbiting two stars at once - for example, planets orbiting single individual stars, which in turn orbit each other, can be perfectly stable.[[/note]] However, this can be subverted by unscrupulous types trying to stay off the radar, thus why blowing up in "Out of Gas" becomes so dire: There isn't likely to be another ship for days.
277* ConvenientlyCoherentThoughts: "Objects In Space." When River is shown reading the minds of the rest of the crew, their thoughts come in the form of clear sentences. However, in most cases they are non-sequiturs or irrelevant to the current situation or conversation. Except for the thoughts River gets when [[DirtyMindReading Zoe and Wash are making out]]; those actually come in the form of crashing ocean waves and other ''sensations'' that cause River to sway and stumble.
278* CoolOldGuy: Book.
279** One rescues Kaylee from the AlphaBitch in "Shindig." His name, only mentioned in the credits, is Murphy.
280-->''"What a vision you are in your fine dress -- it must have taken a dozen slaves a dozen days to get you into that getup. 'Course, your daddy tells me it takes the space of a schoolboy's wink to get you out of it again..."''
281* CoolPeopleRebelAgainstAuthority
282* CoolStarship:
283** ''Serenity'' is one of the "[[TheAllegedCar rustbucket]]" variety.
284** The gigantic flying wrecks of the Reaver ships are also... quite a sight to behold.
285** Nothing says hubris like the Alliance's "flying city block" design.
286** Several of Wash's old ships in the ''Float Out'' one-off comic count, as do the [[spoiler: Reaver ship -- with other ships welded to it for added coolness --]] and the shiny new Firefly-class.
287* CorralledCosmos: Enforced by Reaver territory.
288* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Blue Sun is hinted at being behind the Academy. The fandom's view of Fox actively invokes this, as well.
289* [[TheInternetIsForPorn The Cortex Is For Porn]]: According to Simon and River's father in "Safe", who therefore refuses to allow a Dedicated Sourcebox in his house. But, his wife already ordered one for Simon, so he might as well give up the fantasy that this is his house.
290* CovertPervert: Both Kaylee and River like to watch. River even participates, [[PsychicPowers after a fashion]]. [[spoiler: At the end of the movie, she DOES watch... Kaylee and her brother, which spawned at least two fanfics.]]
291* CrapsaccharineWorld: On the surface, the Alliance is a highly advanced democratic civilization. Start digging deeper and you have oppression and abuse perpetrated in the name of [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans making them all Better Worlds]]. Such abuse includes kidnapping a teenage girl and screwing with her brain to make her into a weapon and [[spoiler: a behavioral modification experiment that results in the unintentional extermination of an entire population and the creation of the Reavers]]. Throughout the series, we see that life is good if you're rich - but heaven help you if you're on one of the worlds subject to half-assed terraforming, needing a vital medicine that's being withheld to up the profits of the manufacturers, or an indebted slave collecting mud for rich owners. Hell, they don't even get folk heroes swooping down to save them... there ain't people like that.
292* CrazyCulturalComparison: In the episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds," Mal accidentally gets ''married'' because what he thought were general celebrations on some backwater planet actually included a wedding ritual. [[spoiler: Thankfully for Mal's romantic life, [[TheVamp Saffron's]] actual [[TheCon plans]] include stealing his ship, and preclude any long-term relationship.]]
293--> '''Wash:''' Some people juggle geese!
294* CreepyChild: River, one of the rare heroic examples.
295* CreepySouvenir: Reavers take people's skins as trophies, cover their spaceships with blood and they tie whole corpses to the front of their ships.
296* TheCrimeJob: "The Train Job".
297* [[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass Crouching Crazy, Hidden Badass]]: River.
298%% All CrowningMomentOfX entries go on the respective subpages. Stop adding them here!
299* CrusadingWidow: Maude Reynolds, Mal's mom. She got mad at the Alliance stealing stuff from her, then her husband died and her ranch was burned. She's intent on sticking it to the Alliance whether Mal joins her or not.
300* CultureChopSuey: Due to its backstory of America and China being the two first superpowers to colonize space, the Verse is a mishmash of Western and Eastern cultures.
301** In "Ariel", Mal says that Book is probably contemplating a rock garden while visiting an abbey. Rock gardens are more characteristic of Eastern religions, especially Zen Buddhism. Mal may have simply been making a joke, but this suggests the Christianity that Book follows has incorporated some elements of Buddhism as well.
302** The [[spoiler: funeral]] at the end of "Heart of Gold" suggests a Christian/Buddhist fusion, including both a cross and Eastern-style incense bowls.
303* CulturedBadass: Inara.
304* CurseOfTheAncients: All the swearing that is not done in "Mandarin"(-ish) has an Old West feel to it. Gorramit.
305* TheCutie: Kaylee and River.
306* {{Cyborg}}: Boss Moon is shown to be one in the comics and there are hints about the operatives being cyborgs as well.
307* DamselInDistress: River, constantly, as well as Kaylee. Creator/JossWhedon was [[WordOfGod once heard to say]] that [[ChandlersLaw whenever they felt they needed to up the drama]], they would just have someone hold the [[WrenchWench cute engineer]] at gunpoint.
308
309* DangerDeadpan: Wash is a completely different character when flying the ship: normally he is loud and panicky, but at the helm, he is completely calm and collected, no matter what imminent doom might be following him. Well, [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness it started out this way]], he got a bit more excitable while flying later on in the series, particularly in "The Message". On the DVD commentary Joss states it was due to the influence of playing an Xbox another cast member gave him.
310* DangerousPhlebotinumInteraction: In "Ariel" an undercover Simon Tam saves a patient from cardiac arrest, then tears the patient's doctor a new one for causing it. The doctor had made the mistake of giving his patient a painkiller that, when combined with a standard prep drug used for the patient's procedure, reacts to form a vasoconstrictor.
311* DarkActionGirl: Saffron. She's introduced in "Our Mrs. Reynolds" as an innocent girl from a backwater NoWomansLand planet who was sold into marriage with Mal as payment for a job. In reality, she's actually an incredibly skilled con artist with ChronicBackstabbingDisorder, typically seducing men ([[DepravedBisexual and women]], if Inara's any indication) and then stealing from them and leaving them for dead. Both of her appearances show she is plenty capable of kicking ass as well, especially in hand-to-hand combat.
312* DarkReprise: "Jaynestown" ends with a redux of "The Ballad of Jayne Cobb".
313* DashinglyDapperDerby[=/=]DastardlyDapperDerby: Badger's "very fine hat".
314* DataPad: A deleted scene from the pilot has Simon looking up the origin of the ship's name on a voice-activated tablet. A brief scene from the movie also has Mal looking at what appears to be a video postcard of Inara moving out of her shuttle. Badger's "paper" with the headline of the heist is also one of these.
315* DeadManWriting:
316** Mr. Universe's [[spoiler:Sex Bot]] in the movie.
317* DeadlyEuphemism: A clever one in "Heart of Gold".
318--> '''Mal:''' Where's he at now?\
319'''[[HookerWithAHeartOfGold Nandi]]:''' Let's just say he ain't [[ItMakesSenseInContext playin' the dulcimer]] anymore either.
320* DeadlyEnvironmentPrison: In the novel ''Life Signs'', the crew have to infiltrate the prison planet Atata, an ice world where terraforming didn't take properly and the prisoners basically have to work to sustain themselves because the Alliance couldn't be bothered actually stationing guards on the planet (although it is patrolled by at least four ships from space).
321* DeadlyNosebleed: And eyes, ears and fingernails bleed. This is the first indication that the implement held by the Blue Hands is deadly.
322* DeadpanSnarker: Everyone. Yes, even Jayne. Everyone also has at least one moment of [[SarcasmFailure Snark Fail]], often just as funny.
323* DeadPersonImpersonation: [[spoiler:Shepherd Book]].
324** Invoked in the Pilot when Mal rips the authorization code off a fallen comrade and then tells one of his squaddies "''You're Lieutenant Baker''" so they can order air support.
325* DeathGlare
326** Hell, Zoe does it a lot. Zoe to Niska in "War Stories". Zoe to Mal in "Shindig". Zoe to Wash... frequently.
327** Mal's glare can probably blow up a Reaver ship.
328** Jayne during the interrogation scene in "Bushwacked". [[PlayedForLaughs Played for laughs.]]
329** Simon does not need to look formidable. His eyes are scary enough.
330** From the movie:
331--->'''Simon:''' This isn't fear, this is anger.
332--->'''Mal:''' Face like yours, it's hard to tell.
333--->'''Simon:''' I imagine if it was fear, my eyes would be wider.
334* DeathRay: The Hands of Blue's [[BrownNote creepy ultrasonic weapon]].
335* DeconstructedCharacterArchetype: The episode "Trash" is a notable deconstruction of TheVamp (in the person of "[=YoSaffBridge=]"), showing how depressing and dehumanizing it can really be to be one, and how psychologically messed up someone would have to be to ''want'' to be one. Saff has completely mastered the art of seduction, but at the cost of any chance of ever having a meaningful relationship with another human being. After years of getting ahead through lying and manipulation, she's left a trail of abandoned identities behind her--to the point that even ''she'' barely knows who she is anymore--and a long line of men that she abandoned soon after marrying them for profit. At the end of the episode, Mal outright dismantles her whole M.O. in a well-timed TheReasonYouSuckSpeech, where he points out that people like him will always trump people like her--because unlike her, he has a devoted crew of TrueCompanions that will always have his back. In a pinch, well-earned loyalty always trumps cheap manipulation.
336* DefeatAsBackstory: Mal, Zoe, and other Browncoats fought on the losing side in a war that ended six years before the series takes place. Their ship, ''Serenity'', is named after the last battle in that war.
337* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: Jayne in “Out of Gas”
338-->'''Jayne:''' Not as deceiving as a low down dirty... deceiver!
339* DerelictGraveyard: The Reaver ships around Miranda, as well as the ruined ships in the first comic series.
340* DescriptionPorn: Jayne gets this way about Vera, his favorite gun, in "Our Mrs. Reynolds".
341-->'''Jayne:''' Six men came to kill me one time; the best of 'em carried this. It's a Callahan full-bore auto-lock. Customized trigger, double cartridge thorough gauge... it is my very favorite gun.
342* DespairEventHorizon: Mal crosses this at the battle of Serenity Valley, not even blinking when his comrade is blown away beside him when he realizes that the Independents have lost. River's dialogue indicates that she crossed it at some point during her time at the Academy.
343** The Battle of Serenity Valley is also the moment Mal loses his faith. If you look carefully, you'll notice he's wearing a crucifix during that scene. From that point on, he's openly antagonistic to any display of religion.
344** While never mentioned in-series, it was likely compounded by the fact that during the same timeframe, the Alliance orbitally bombarded Mal's homeworld of Shadow so intensely that it was rendered ''uninhabitable'' afterwards.
345* {{Determinator}}
346** Mal, who does not let little things like swords in his stomach ("Shindig") or being tortured to death ("War Stories") get in the way. This, combined with his [[CombatPragmatist Combat Pragmatism,]] is why he wins fights with opponents much more skilled and better-equipped. If he's breathing, he is never, ''ever'' beaten.
347*** And even if he's ''not'' breathing. After the aforementioned torturers kill him, they shock him back to life. ''And then he proceeds to lay a beatdown on them both.'' The man is practically [[MadeOfIron Made of Iron.]]
348*** The RPG [[RememberWhenYouBlewUpASun gives a continuity nod]] to this sequence, describing it as an "Incredible" Discipline skill check. For reference, that's 6/8 possible difficulty levels, and they don't necessarily scale linearly.
349** Simon has more than a little of this in him. Nothing -- not even a bullet in the leg ("Objects in Space") -- is going to keep him from protecting and caring for his baby sister.
350* DifferentlyPoweredIndividual: Psychics are informally referred to as "readers".
351* DisappearedDad:
352** Mal himself is described as being raised by his mother and "about forty hands". No mention of a father til the comics, which showed that he was killed during fights between the Alliance and farmers over a terraforming failure buyout attempt.
353** Averted in the case of Jayne; even though he sends money back to his mother and ailing sibling, Mr. Cobb is mentioned in Mom's letters as having been laid off again, but, she says, since "nobody welds like a Cobb" he'll soon be back on his feet.
354** Emma [[spoiler:Washburne]] has this as well now that [[spoiler:her father has passed on]].
355* DisproportionateRetribution: In ''Life Signs'', the crew learn that Doctor Esau Weng had to escape from local 'ruler' Mr O'Bannon simply because he legitimately couldn't cure the man's pancreatic cancer.
356* DisruptingTheTheater: In the "Our Mrs. Reynolds" episode, Shepherd Book has the following to say about Mal's wife from an AccidentalMarriage:
357--> '''Shepherd Book''': If you take sexual advantage of her, you're going to burn in a very special level of Hell. A level they reserve for child molesters... and people who talk at the theater.
358* {{Dissimile}}:
359** From "The Train Job":
360-->'''Mal''': We're not thieves... but we are thieves. The point is we're not taking what's his.
361** From "Jaynestown":
362-->'''Simon''': (to Jayne) You're like a trained ape! Without the training!
363* DissonantLaughter: The thoroughly evil and worldly Jubal Early is thoroughly creeped out by River giggling while "possessing" ''Serenity''.
364* DisturbingStatistic: From "Safe":
365-->'''River''': The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
366-->'''Mal''': See, morbid and [[{{Buffyspeak}} creepifying]] I don't have a problem with. Long as she does it quiet-like.
367* DontThinkFeel: When the crew invades a skyplex to rescue TheCaptain in "War Stories", secondary defense of the ship relies on [[PreacherMan a shepherd]], [[TheMedic a doctor]], [[WrenchWench a mechanic]] and a [[MindRape mentally traumatised]] [[WaifFu young girl]]. At the time, Book is the only with ''known'' combat training. Although Simon does try hard to help, Book ends up having to advise him that he's [[DontThinkFeel thinking too much]] and should just go with the shot. In the end, it doesn't help. Simon still can't hit the broad side of a barn. [[spoiler: His sister, on the other hand... [[PsychicPowers ''does'' feel it]].]]
368** When Kaylee asks how a client is chosen, Inara tries to explain that it's a process of feeling out a client through compatibility of spirit rather than actually thinking logically and carefully about it. Mal doesn't believe a word of it.
369* DoomedDefeatist: The opening scene for the series is a flashback to the Unification War. Mal Reynolds is leading a group that's holding ground against a numerically larger opponent. One of his soldiers, Private Bendis, says they're going to die. Mal tells him reinforcements on on their way and they'll be okay. Instead it's the enemy that gets reinforced and Bendis is killed while standing next to Mal.
370* DoomedHometown: Mal's homeworld was "Shadow", a major Browncoat holdout from Unification, which the Alliance orbitally bombarded so much that the whole ''moon'' was rendered uninhabitable afterwards.
371* DoubleCaper: "The Train Job".
372* DramaticSpaceDrifting:
373** During the episode "Objects in Space", in which [[spoiler:Jubal Early is spaced and left to die]]. Played for comedic value at the end of the episode, where even Jubal recognizes he is performing some excellent DramaticSpaceDrifting. "Well... here I am."
374** In "Bushwhacked", when ''Serenity'' encounters a derelict ship and then a dead body smacks into the cockpit windshield, startling Wash (and the audience).
375* TheDreaded: The Reavers.
376* DreamWalker: River in “Ghost Machine” as she tries to wake everyone up before the ship crashes. She fails with everyone but Mal, who she stabs with a knife to finally wake him. Everyone else wakes when Mal destroys the titular machine.
377* DruggedLipstick: [[spoiler:Saffron.]]
378* DudleyDoRightStopsToHelp: Simon Tam saves a man's life from his incompetent doctor while breaking into an Alliance hospital to check on his sister's condition.
379* DuelOfSeduction: [[spoiler:Saffron]] and Inara. Inara wins (at least, she recognizes the game).
380* DullSurprise: Mal reacts this way at times. In the pilot episode "Serenity", he reacts to opening Simon's box and seeing River with a dazed stare and simply muttering, "Huh." Happens again in "War Stories" when he meets Inara's guest the Councillor, who is revealed to be a woman and not the male assistant who first entered ''Serenity''.
381* DumbStruck: A girl in the village of the people that kidnap Simon and River.
382* TheDungAges: Some of the outer planets are... backwards in terms of technology and cleanliness. A particular example is Higgin's Moon, where the filthy, impoverished slaves are constantly covered in dirt and mud because they literally ''are'' farming mud (or rather, the materials used to make high-quality ceramics).
383* DutchAngle / HitlerCam: How the power members are often shot when they're being BigDamnHeroes.
384* DyingAlone: From "Out of Gas".
385--> '''Inara:''' Mal, you don't have to die alone.\
386'''Mal:''' Everybody dies alone.
387* DynamicEntry: "Serenity" (pilot episode): "Anyone so much as moves--" [headshot] Bonus points to Mal for pulling this off against a man holding a hostage without so much as ''breaking his stride'': the unholstering and execution happen as casually as breathing.
388[[/folder]]
389
390[[folder:Tropes E-H]]
391* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: In the pilot episode Inara is referred to as "the ambassador" by several characters in multiple situations, which Mal explains is because her status as a Companion often helps them gain access to worlds they would normally be barred from. Though they continue to exploit her high society contacts throughout the series, her nickname never appears after the first episode. On a more fundamental level, Wash's character evolved over the series as he progressed from a [[DangerDeadpan very reserved pilot]] when in danger in the first episode to an excitable and loud pilot in "The Message".
392** Also, Book shows some nervousness in the pilot when he's around Inara, although this may be lingering embarrassment on his part that the "Ambassador" nickname led him to believe she was a state official before Mal tells him her real profession.
393* EarnYourHappyEnding: It says something when this series' ending is one of the more ''positive'' ones Joss Whedon wrote.
394* EarthThatWas: The TropeNamer.
395* EloquentInMyNativeTongue: Although (according to the DVD) a translator worked hard to get Chinese slang correct, and the actors studied recordings, it was still mangled in pronunciation.
396* EmergencyCargoDump: In episode "Jaynestown", Jayne explains that he once pulled a heist on Higgins' Moon, but then had to dump the cargo to stay airborne after he got hit by anti-aircraft fire, and the strongbox inadvertently landed in the indentured workers' Company Town causing Jayne to become a local hero. He neglects to mention he pushed his partner Stitch Hessian out first, and Magistrate Higgins sends the vengeful Stitch after him.
397* EnemyMine: In ''Generations'', [[spoiler:Simon briefly convinces the Hands of Blue to spare him by offering to help them find the just-released Silas]].
398* EnigmaticInstitute: River decided to go to a government sponsored academy that had a challenging course program that was suited to her extremely high intelligence. Unfortunately, it's a front for some kind of project that resulted in her being experimented on, specifically her brain, in a top-secret lab somewhere.
399* EnvironmentalSymbolism
400* EpicHail:
401** The button in "Out of Gas". Subverted in that it was never actually used.
402** In the ''Firefly'' 10th anniversary special "Browncoats Unite", Alan Tudyk recalls sending the button from this episode to Joss Whedon with a note quoting his line (paraphrased): "When your miracle gets here, just push this button to call us back." It turned out that this happened while Joss was fighting for ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' to get the green light.
403* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Jayne's "cunning" hat (and the letter accompanying it, revealing that he sends money to his family).
404* EvenEvilHasStandards:
405** Depends on the extent to which Jayne can be considered "evil", but while he doesn't get along with the Tams [[spoiler: to the point he tries to sell them back to the Alliance,]] even he is visibly shocked to hear the extent to which the Academy screwed with River's brain. [[spoiler: So much so that he tries to get them out as fast as possible, so as to escape the Alliance guards he called.]] In the movie, he lists out various things that he'll kill a man for, but eating people alive? Where's that get fun?
406** Niska demonstrates an interesting sense of pragmatism in the spin-off novel ''The Ghost Machine''. At the start of the novel, Niska has paid Badger to acquire the titular machine for him when he hears reports that it basically traps those exposed to it in a hallucination of their best lives, but Niska later learns that the 'dreams' generated by the Machine can become nightmares which either kill the subject or leave them in a rage after waking up. Reasoning that the risk of the machine backfiring is too great, Niska contacts Badger to inform him that he has changed his mind about wanting the machine, but allows Badger to keep the money he already paid as he reasons that Badger hasn't failed him and in fact kept up his end of the deal.
407* EveryoneCanSeeIt: Mal and Inara are fooling exactly '''no one'''. Inara gets away with it a little more than Mal (even her friend Nandi initially doesn't realize Inara has feelings for him, though she does eventually), but Shepherd Book figures it out within a day of being on the ship.
408* EroticEating: Kaylee with the strawberries. Particularly in the unaired pilot version.
409* EveryonesBabySister: Though nearly all of the main characters were gravely injured in one way or another over the course of the series, Kaylee's injury was made, by far, the most personal for the rest of the characters, to the point where Mal was ready to throw Simon out of the airlock.
410* EvilBrit: The only characters with British accents are LondonGangster Badger and {{Jerkass}} Atherton Wing, who both appear in the episode "Shindig". And, of course, the Operative in TheMovie.
411* EvilCannotComprehendGood: In ''Generations'' [[spoiler:Silas is incapable of understanding River's bond with the crew of ''Serenity'', believing that she should favour him over these others who cannot understand her true potential]].
412* EvilLaugh: In the pilot episode "Serenity" Wash, while playing with toy dinosaurs, proclaims that the Allosaurus has "an evil laugh" when it betrays the Stegosaurus.
413* EvilRedhead: [[spoiler: Saffron.]]
414* ExactWords: Point of interest, seems 'understand', according to Merriam Webster, means "To grasp the meaning/reasonableness of", whereas 'comprehend' means "to grasp the nature/significance of". Take this into consideration as you rewatch "Objects In Space," [[spoiler: River was trying to explain to Mal that she understands that guns are bad, but that she wasn't perceiving what she was holding to be a gun at all (the audience could see she thought she was holding a tree branch).]]
415* ExpandedUniverse: TheMovie, the novels, comics, online clips and games.
416* ExtremeMeleeRevenge: Episode 10, "War Stories". Mal is captured by the elderly and sadistic Niska, is brutally tortured via electric shock, has his ear cut off, and is then killed painfully only to be resuscitated for further torture. When Mal's crew stages a rescue, Mal overcomes the guard and gives Niska a huge beatdown.
417* EyepatchOfPower: Dobson, in ''Those Left Behind''.
418* EyeScream:
419** River Tam had this happen to her with needles at one point during her time at the Academy, though we only see flashes of this from a nightmare in "The Train Job". Later in "Safe", she rails at Simon during one of her crazy fits that "You can't just stick needles in my eyes and ask me what I see!"
420** "Jaynestown": Jayne's former partner Stitch who was imprisoned in the town lost an eye in the (in)famous incident when Jayne threw him out of their plane. When Stitch comes into town looking for Jayne to get his revenge, he finds Simon in the local pub. Simon is not as cooperative as Stitch would like him to be, and threatens that it will cost him his eyeball. With a really big knife in his hand.
421** In the comics, [[spoiler: Book]] has an eye surgically removed and replaced with a camera before the war. This allows his Independent superiors to keep an eye on him while he infiltrates the Alliance military.
422** In the comics, Dobson from the pilot episode appears again. He did not die and he holds a grudge about our intrepid crew because he lost his eye in his encounter with them.
423* FakeBrit: InvokedTrope. River's mimicry of Badger's accent in "Shindig".
424* FantasyConflictCounterpart: According to Joss Whedon the setting was partially inspired by journals of Confederate soldiers on the frontier from UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, and the Unification War and aftermath has its similarities (Alliance occupation troops in the series' present = Union occupation troops during Reconstruction, for instance). However the comparison isn't perfect, as the Independent Faction started out independent instead of trying to secede and failing.
425* FantasticShipPrefix: Alliance ship names are preceded by I.A.V. (possibly Interstellar/Interplanetary Alliance Vessel).
426* FarmBoy: Mal is a Farm Boy, having been raised by his mother and forty hands on a ranch back on his homeworld, Shadow. He spoke about it only once.
427* FasterThanLightTravel: Averted; Joss Whedon mentioned there is no faster than light travel in the Firefly-verse and supplemental materials indicate ships in the verse only get up to about 1/3 of light speed through inertial screening and gravity manipulation.
428* FateWorseThanDeath: There's a reason Jubal's threat to [[BreakTheCutie Kaylee]] in "Objects in Space" isn't a death threat.
429* FatherIWantToMarryMyBrother: In a deleted scene for "Our Mrs. Reynolds", River tries to convince Shepherd Book to marry her and Simon, although this can be easily interpreted as her unstable mental condition.
430* FauxAffablyEvil:
431** Jubal Early from "Objects in Space".
432** Adelai Niska, as seen in his introduction in "The Train Job".
433--->'''Niska:''' You do not like I kill this man?
434--->'''Mal:''' No, I'm sure he was a... very bad person.
435--->'''Niska:''' My wife's nephew. ''(waves dismissively)'' At dinner I am getting earful.
436* FauxDeath:
437** River and Simon in "Ariel".
438** Tracy in "The Message". In fact, he was put under by the same drug as the Tam siblings.
439* FavouritismFlipFlop: In "Heart of Gold":
440-->'''Jayne:''' Don't know these folks, don't much care to.
441-->'''Mal:''' They're whores.
442-->'''Jayne:''' I'm in.
443* FetalPositionRebirth: River.
444* FeudalFuture: There are a few Feudal Lords (barons, dukes, etc.) on different planets in ''Firefly''.
445** In "Shindig", Mal goes to a party full of aristocrats and winds up fighting one of them in an old-fashioned sword duel.
446** "Jaynestown" features a moon ruled by (and named after) an aristocrat.
447* FinaglesLaw: In the Serenity RPG, the name of the complication is "Things Don't go Smooth", taken from a line in "Safe". The description is basically this trope. As should be obvious, Mal canonically has the Major version of this complication listed on his character sheet.
448--> '''Mal:''' It never goes smooth. Why don't it ever go smooth?
449* FireForgedFriends:
450** Mal and Zoe, to a PlatonicLifePartners level. We don't see the exact moment of forging; rather, the war they were in together seems to have been a protracted forging process.
451** In the pilot episode Mal and Simon start off as rivals because of the clash of their respective PapaWolf instincts. At the end of the Pilot they learn to respect each other; Mal can think of many unkind things to say about Simon, but he recognizes he ain't weak.
452** In "Trash", Saffron observes that Mal and Monty may have this in their past.
453* FirstBlood: "Out of Gas".
454* TheFirstSuperheroes: River Tam is most likely the first really powerful psychic in the Verse, since she's a unique prototype SuperSoldier who escaped from a top secret lab. Too bad that the technology for training PsychicPowers is still very crude and involves brain surgery and other cruel and invasive experimentation resulting in madness.
455* FishOutOfWater: Simon is nervous and uncomfortable and damned near useless most of the time, so it is surprising when he has a complete personality flip and is suddenly the person with all the knowledge and confidence whenever there is a medical emergency.
456* {{Floating Continent}}s: The estates on Bellerophon, seen in "Trash".
457* FluffyTheTerrible: The two most dangerous crew members of Serenity are named [[TheBigGuy Jayne]] and [[WaifFu River]].
458* FlyingCutlerySpaceship: The Reaver ships in both the series and [[Film/{{Serenity}} the film]] are covered in jagged metal spikes, looking like they were slapped together from scrap metal. The Reavers also enjoy splattering blood like paint on their hulls and stringing half-eaten corpses to their bows.
459* FoeTossingCharge: In "Safe", Simon does this to three men while trying to protect River from being burned at the stake. He ultimately fails to save River, but it's still an [[{{Determinator}} impressive]] attempt.
460* FoodPills: The ration bars from the "Serenity" pilot episode.
461* AFoolAndHisNewMoneyAreSoonParted: The best description of Jayne's fate in ''Carnival''; [[spoiler:he accompanies River and Wash to a casino, but after River wins sixty-five thousand in platinum, Mal gives most of it away to help the local sheriff deal with the corruption in his department, only letting Jayne keep a thousand of it]].
462* TheFourGods: The five suns of the verse have both English and Chinese names: Blue Sun/Qing Long, Red Sun/Zhu Qe, White Sun/Bai Hu, Georgia/Huang Long and Kalidasa/Xuan Wu.
463* ForeignCussWord: The Mangled Mandarin swearing.
464* {{Foreshadowing}}: In the pilot:
465-->'''Mal''': How come you didn't turn on me, Jayne?
466-->'''Jayne''': Money wasn't good enough.
467-->'''Mal''': What happens when it is?
468-->'''Jayne''': Well, that'll be an interestin' day.
469** A very subtle one in "Our Mrs. Reynolds": the music that plays while Mal is unknowingly getting married follows the famous chord structure of Pachelbel's Canon, a very popular wedding song.
470** Kaylee mentions in the first episode that they need a new compression coil, or else the ship will not work. Unfortunately, Mal does not listen and that is exactly what causes the problem in "Out of Gas".
471** A good one in "Trash" when Simon confronts Jayne about his betrayal on Ariel. After Simon leaves, River, in a seemingly funny and CloudCuckooLander statement, says "Also, I can kill you with my brain". The significance of this statement is revealed in "Objects in Space" where River's intelligence, creativity and strategising comes together to defeat Jubal.
472** A major example when the crew encounters Reavers in the pilot, which becomes important in the movie when they need [[spoiler:some 'backup' against the Alliance fleet]]:
473--> '''Mal''': If we run, they have to chase us. It's their way.
474** The first thing we see of Wash is him playing with toy dinosaurs, acting out a scenario where one suddenly but inevitably betrays the other, who responds by cursing him and trying to kill him. [[spoiler:Later on, Jayne betrays Simon and River, and by extension Mal. Mal nearly kills him over it.]]
475** The novels love it. The Magnificent Nine novel, with Zoe saying Wash is her anchor and she doesn’t know what she’d do without him. Way to smack us with foreshadowing and/or irony, author. Another has Wash thinking he hopes he goes first because he couldn’t live without Zoe.
476* FormerTeenRebel: Book. [[spoiler: He eventually became a preacher, but he started out as a petty teenage criminal then became a spy during the war]].
477* FreudianTrio
478** TheId: Jayne
479** TheEgo: Mal
480** TheSuperego: Zoe
481* AFriendInNeed: Mal dislikes Simon, pretty much from the get-go because of the heat he brings down on the ship, and because he lied about his fugitive status until he was already on board. However, by the time things really get bad, Simon has agreed to be the ship's doctor, making him an official part of the crew. Mal and company help keep Simon and River hidden from the Alliance until the coast is clear, leading Simon to wonder out loud why Mal would help him if he doesn't even like him. Mal's answer is simply, "You're on my crew." This attitude is present in pretty much everyone on the ship (except maybe Jayne...) to the point where they more resemble a family than a crew on a ship, and frequently risk their own safety for each other when necessary.
482* FromCamouflageToCriminal: Both Mal and Zoe were soldiers for the Independents who have since turned to being somewhat minor criminals. Their past as soldiers does come in handy during confrontations and fights, however, as they and the crew often overcome better armed foes who have numbers on their side.
483* FromTheLatinIntroDucere: In "The Train Job", River comments on Mal's name, saying: "Mal. Bad. In the Latin."
484* FullFrontalAssault: Tracey in "The Message". He's unaware at the time, but after:
485-->'''Tracey''': Sarge?
486-->'''Mal''': What?
487-->'''Tracey''': I think I'm nekkid.
488* FumblingTheGauntlet: Mal to Atherton Wing in "Shindig".
489* FunTShirt: Jayne has loads of them.
490* FutureFoodIsArtificial: The processed protein which the crew largely subsists on fits this trope. Averted by Shepherd, who gives the crew strawberries, tomatoes and other fresh food when he first boards ''Serenity''.
491* FutureSlang: Many of the characters curse in Chinese, the explanation being that China was one of the biggest contributors to the colonization of the galaxy, and therefore many people speak at least a little bit of the language because of that influence.
492* GangOfBullies: Kaylee experiences some harassment at an upper-class party from a quartet of female attendees in "Shindig".
493* GeekyTurnOn:
494** Kaylee in "Shindig", managing to woo several gentlemen with her tech savvy.
495** Kaylee's introduction in "Out of Gas", which reveals that engines make her hot.
496** Simon in "Jaynestown", while in an advanced state of inebriation, reveals that he finds Kaylee ''especially'' pretty when she's covered in engine grease.
497* GenderBlenderName: Because "The Hero of Canton, the man they call Fred" just would not have the same zing.
498** River comments on this in "Trash":
499-->'''Jayne:''' Well, as a rule, I say girl-folk ain't to be trusted.\
500'''River''': Jayne is a girl's name. \
501'''Jayne''': Well, Jayne ain't a girl! If she starts in on that girl's name thing, I'll show her good and all I got man parts. (''shoves his hand in his pants for emphasis'')\
502'''Simon''': I'm trying to think of a way for you to be cruder. I just... It's not coming.
503* GenericanEmpire: "Union of Allied Planets" often shortened to just "The Alliance". Unproduced scripts actually named it the "Anglo-Sino Alliance," reflecting its nature as a merger between the United States and China prior to the final abandonment of EarthThatWas, but this never made it into the final production.
504* GentlemanSnarker: Simon. From a flashback in "Safe":
505--> '''Simon:''' I'm sorry, Dad. I would never have tried to save River's life if I had known there was a dinner party at risk.
506** Also, the elderly gentleman who rescued Kaylee from the AlphaBitch in "Shindig".
507--> '''Gentleman:''' 'Why, Banning Miller! What a vision you are in your fine dress. It must have taken a dozen slaves a dozen days just to get you into that get-up. 'Course, your daddy tells me it takes the space of a school-boy's wink to get you out of it again.'
508* GenreThrowback: To {{western}}s and {{space opera}}s, [[SpaceWestern at the same time]].
509* GetIntoJailFree: In ''Life Signs'', Mal, Zoe, Jayne and Simon are smuggled onto the prison planet Atata to find a doctor who may be able to treat Inara's terminal illness.
510* GetItOverWith: Atherton and the spectators after Mal wins the duel in "Shindig".
511* GhostShip: "Bushwhacked".
512* GirlOnGirlIsHot:
513** Five words: "I'll be in my bunk." Inara and the ambassador turned Jayne on.
514** Mal (incorrectly) guesses that Inara kissed [[spoiler:Saffron]] in "Our Mrs. Reynolds", which knocked her out, as did Mal, by way of a poisoned kiss. He giddily grins at Inara's "affirmation" and walks off, leaving behind a very confused and very annoyed Inara.
515* GiveMeASword
516* GiveMeBackMyWallet: Near the beginning of the episode "The Message".
517* GogglesDoSomethingUnusual: It's not remarked upon in the series, but in the comic miniseries ''Better Days'', it's mentioned that the sunglasses Simon is wearing in the pilot hide his eyes from retina scanners.
518* GoodFeelsGood: Jayne learns this due to his HundredPercentHeroismRating in Canton. However, it doesn't end well.
519* GoodIsNotDumb: In the episode "Trash," [[spoiler:Saffron]] assumes Mal is an idiot because he is being kind and compassionate to her. Then she walks headlong into his XanatosGambit when it turns out he expected her sudden but inevitable betrayal, and Inara beats her to the drop point.
520* GoodIsNotNice: Mal and most of the rest of the crew of ''Serenity'' are generally altruistic. That does not make them ''nice'' guys, however, as fellows like Crow ("The Train Job") and Atherton Wing ("Shindig") would attest.
521--> '''Mal:''' Mercy is the mark of a great man. ''[stabs Atherton]'' Guess I'm just a good man. ''[stabs Atherton again]'' Well, I'm alright.
522* GoodIsNotSoft: In "The Train Job", the juxtaposition between Mal and Crow is really good at demonstrating the page quote for good an evil men. Crow gloats, and Mal just says 'Darn.' [[spoiler: Mal then kicks Crow into ''Serenity's'' engine air intake.]]
523* GoodOldFisticuffs: Subverted, in that every time Mal goes up against a competent enemy, he loses. Except the swordfight in "Shindig", but he was not using fisticuffs, he was using [[CombatPragmatist whatever he could]].
524** Said swordfight was also a match he lost, at first.
525* GoodShepherd: Who will shoot you in the kneecaps and chop off your killer robots' heads with a giant curved machete.
526%%* TheGovernment: Alliance.
527* GovernmentConspiracy: Hands of Blue -- [[AllThereInTheManual possibly]] a private sector conspiracy by Blue Sun, but with definite government involvement.
528* GratuitousForeignLanguage: The Mandarin-ish phrases scattered through the dialogue, often as [[UnusualEuphemism family-friendly swearwords]]. Doubles as a BilingualBonus. As the DVD set shows, they used actual Mandarin phrases, and some of them are absolutely hilarious in English.
529* GreatOffscreenWar: The Unification War, except for the final battle and a few flashbacks.
530* GreenEyedMonster: In "War Stories", Wash and Zoe are having a lover's spat, as Wash is very suspicious of Mal always, always bringing Zoe along on missions and laughing it up with old war stories. He finally demands that ''he'' go so that Zoe is away from Mal, and so ''he'' can do something fun and exciting, and as the mission drags on, accuses Mal of being in love with Zoe. [[spoiler:The mission nearly gets them both killed, traumatizes Wash, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking leads to Mal and Zoe pranking Wash at the end of the episode by mockingly attempting to consummate their "relationship".]]]] Mal actually invokes it to keep Wash [[spoiler:alive and focused during the torture.]]
531** Atherton, towards... well, anyone near Inara.
532* TheGreatRepair: "Out of Gas".
533* GunsAkimbo: Zoe and Jayne in "War Stories".
534* GunshipRescue: Repeatedly.
535** {{Subverted}}: ''Serenity'' doesn't have any guns. Although on one occasion ("Safe"), she ''did'' have a [[SociopathicHero big scary man with a gun]] hanging out of her.
536** At the beginning of "The Train Job" Wash helps Mal, Zoe and Jayne escape from a bar brawl by threatening to start shooting. When everyone is onboard he laughs. "Transport ships don't have guns."
537--> '''Wash:''' (''speaking from inside Serenity'') Every man there, go back inside, or we will blow a new crater in this little moon.\
538'''Jayne:''' (''after the three of them have boarded'') Damn yokels can't even tell transport ships don't have no guns on it! "Blow a new crater in this moon..." (''laughs'')
539%%* HackerCave: Mister Universe's home in the movie.
540* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: In "War Stories" after the [[spoiler: torturer]] is shot, repeatedly, he falls onto some machinery, and gets cut in half.
541* HandCannon:
542** Mal's trusty service pistol fires .303 rifle rounds.
543** Zoe favors a hogleg (a.k.a. mare's leg), a cut-down 1892 Winchester carbine worn in a hip holster.
544** Jayne's better known for Vera, but he's hardly lacking in the handgun department. His main sidearm is a [=LeMat=], a nine-chamber revolver with a second barrel for buckshot. That's right, tropers: a pistol ''and'' a shotgun.
545** There's also a bunch of one-shot characters with large handguns. One is reminded of one of Dobson's semiautomatics in "Serenity", and Stitch Hessian's sawed-off shotgun in "Jaynestown".
546* HandicappedBadass: The novel ''Coup de Grace'' features Annie Roberts, a teenager who lost one arm as a child but is a deadly enough shot that Mal initially assumed her targets had been shot by Zoe rather than Annie.
547%%* HappilyMarried: Zoe and Wash.
548* HarmfulToMinors: River had been recruited by a ''prestigious school'' because she was ''gifted''. Why? So she could be abused, tortured, and experimented on. It gets worse... she was regularly sending back perfectly innocent and happy letters in her own handwriting so all this happens ''without you ever suspecting a thing''.
549%%* HearingVoices: River.
550* HelpingAnotherSaveFace: "Shindig", when a wealthy RichBitch demeans Kaylee, one of the older gentleman there turns it back on her.
551--> ''What a vision you are in your fine dress ? it must have taken a dozen slaves a dozen days to get you into that getup. 'Course, your daddy tells me it takes the space of a schoolboy's wink to get you out of it again.''
552* HelplessWithLaughter: In "Trash", everyone has a different reaction to Mal strutting onto Serenity naked. Wash's is to laugh so hard he can't talk.
553* HeroicBSOD: A good number, including River throughout most of the series, and Mal is still recovering from the one at the end of the battle for Serenity Valley. On a lighter note, however, is the absolutely hilarious look of shock on his face right before the title sequence in "Our Mrs. Reynolds," after Saffron explains the situation to him.
554* HeroicSacrifice: Played straight with Simon in what amounts to a lingering HeroicSacrifice through the entire series and movie when he gives up status and fortune and lives with outlaws, so he can rescue and comfort his sister.
555%% All "Hey, It's That Guy" entries go on the Trivia page. Please don't add them to this page. %%
556* HeroismIncentive: Mal and Zoe offer Jayne better pay and his own quarters in exchange for dumping a weaksauce crew that gave him little money and no respect. The fact that this deal also kept him from killing them was an added bonus.
557** Also, the FavouritismFlipFlop in "Heart of Gold":
558-->'''Jayne''': Don't know these folks, don't much care to.
559-->'''Mal''': They're whores.
560-->'''Jayne''': I'm in.
561* HiddenDepths:
562** Jayne Cobb, who is just about the last person on ''Serenity's'' crew that you would expect to play guitar or send money to his momma. He's visibly affected when one of the Jaynetown villagers [[TakingTheBullet takes a shot intended for him]]. He's also the first one to join Book in saying grace. In the ''Firefly'' 10th anniversary special "Browncoats Unite", Creator/AdamBaldwin confirms that he portrayed Jayne as being a man of God.
563** Similarly, you would not count on Simon being a criminal mastermind ("Ariel"),
564** Book a {{badass preacher}},
565** Mal [[OverlyLongGag having read]] [[WarriorPoet a poem]] (the movie), or being able to dance ("Shindig"), for that matter.
566*** [[AllThereInTheManual According to supplemental material]], he was the son of a wealthy rancher and his mother insisted on him having a classical education.
567* HighClassCallGirl: Inara.
568* HolierThanThou: Shepherd Book was deliberately designed as a subversion of this trope.
569* HonorAmongThieves: Amongst Mal's crew, anyway. Many of the other criminals in the series do not share this trait.
570* HonorBeforeReason: The show practically ''runs'' on this, although Jayne often plays a Sancho Panza role, sometimes to an extreme degree.
571* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Inara is a subversion. She does have a heart of gold, but she doesn't actually want to be rescued from her career. Mal and Kaylee seem to think that she's better than what she does and should want to be rescued.
572* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: In a flashback in "Out of Gas", Zoe says of one of the possible candidates for the pilot of ''Serenity'', a moustachioed, laid-back, strange little geek with a fondness for Hawaiian shirts: "I don't like him." [[spoiler:Said geek is Wash. The man, y'know, she ended up marrying.]]
573* HospitalSurprise: In the episode ''Out of Gas'', Mal passes out from blood loss and oxygen deprivation just as he restarts the engine, but before he can give the signal for his crew to return to Serenity. He wakes up in the medical facility, with the rest of his crew around him, being treated by Simon. It turns out that Zoe, who had last been seen unconscious and severely injured from an explosion, ordered the crew to go back for Mal, without waiting for his signal.
574* HowWeGotHere: "Out of Gas" on two levels: one showing how Mal came to be the captain of ''Serenity'', and the other showing how the ship got, well, [[TitleDrop out of gas]]. The R. Tam Sessions show several of the steps in River's descent into madness, and "Trash" is often referred to as "How Mal Got Naked".
575* HugAndComment: In a touching scene in "War Stories", Simon hugs River:
576-->'''River:''' (''sobbing'') Bits... fluids... What am I?\
577'''Simon''': You are my beautiful sister.\
578'''River''': I threw up on your bed.\
579'''Simon''': ''({{Beat}})'' Yep. Definitely my sister.
580* HumanMail: Tracey mails himself to Mal and Zoe in "The Message".
581* HumanShield: Bluntly subverted by Mal in the pilot episode.
582* HumansAreFlawed
583* HumansAreWhite: In a heavily [[FarEast East Asian influenced]] universe, supposedly resulting from a merger of the United States and China on EarthThatWas, where non-Chinese people scatter Mandarin phrases in their English conversation, ''none'' of the main cast members is Asian. The only Asian actors to get any lines in the ''entire series'' play bit parts: a prostitute and a Shadow Play presenter in "Heart Of Gold", a crime boss in "War Stories" and a bridge officer in "the Train Job". The AuthorsSavingThrow from the DVD commentary is that character names like Tam and Wing suggest some Asian ancestry, and according to WordOfGod, the part of Kaylee was originally written to be an actress of Asian descent, but Joss and company were impressed enough with Jewel Staite's audition that she got the part instead.
584%
585%% For the love of whatever pantheon you follow, PLEASE do not add anything further to this particular entry. This is a sensitive issue, and it draws natter and edit wars like lit torches draw moths. If you really feel the need to make changes or discuss this, take it to the discussion page.
586%
587* {{Hypocrite}}: In ''Life Signs'', [[spoiler:Meadowlarke Deane is confronted with the fact that she's basically this, as she claims that she only kills liars and deceivers but Zoe points out that she lies all the time]].
588[[/folder]]
589
590[[folder:Tropes I-L]]
591* ICallItVera: A funny scene with Jayne and Mal in "Our Mrs. Reynolds" is the TropeNamer, where Jayne attempts to trade his favorite gun "Vera" for Mal's accidental wife Saffron.
592* ICantDance: Just barely averted in the episode "Shindig" because {{real life writes the plot}}. The actors spent so much time rehearsing the "Mal can't dance" scene that Nathan Fillion actually learned to perform the choreography very well, so after recording the scene they had to dub in a line where Mal remarks that this is one dance he actually knows.
593* IconicOutfit: Jayne's knitted hat.
594* IfIDoNotReturn: Subverted in [[TheMovie The Big Damn Movie]]:
595-->'''Mal:''' Zoe, ship is yours. Remember, if anything happens to me, or if you don't hear from me within the hour, you take this ship... and ''you come rescue me''.
596-->'''Zoe:''' What? And risk my ship?
597-->'''Mal:''' I mean it! It's cold out there, and I don't wanna get left!
598* IfYouDieICallYourStuff: In some CasualDangerDialogue in "The Train Job":
599--> '''Mal:''' I'd do this job for free!
600--> '''Zoe:''' Does that mean I get your share?
601--> '''Mal:''' No.
602--> '''Zoe:''' If you die do I get your share?
603--> '''Mal:''' Yes.
604** In "Safe" Jayne doesn't even bother to call dibs. As soon as Simon and River get unintentionally marooned, he goes to Simon's cabin and starts looting the place.
605--> '''Jayne''' ''(checking one of Simon's shirts to see if it would fit):'' Amazing we kept 'em ''this'' long.
606* IHaveManyNames: [=YoSaffBridge=], [[spoiler:"Saffron"'s]] nickname during "Trash", as a result of her using many, many names whenever she's seducing men - be it [[spoiler:Saffron]], Yolanda, or Bridget.
607* IJustShotMarvinInTheFace: Kaylee getting shot by Dobson in the pilot.
608* IJustWantToBeNormal: River.
609* IKnowWhatWeCanDoCut: For team heists.
610* IllBeInMyBunk: The trope name comes from a line spoken by Jayne in "War Stories" which becomes a bit of a RunningGag on and off screen.
611* ImAHumanitarian: One of the things the Reavers do to their victims, according to Zoe in the pilot. If you are very, very lucky, [[FateWorseThanDeath they will wait until after they rape you to death]].
612* ImColdSoCold: Subverted, where Kaylee says something like this after being shot, but she recovers without complication. She says it not because of impending death, but because she's going in to shock from the traumatic injury.
613* ImGoingToHellForThis: In "Our Mrs. Reynolds", this is what Shepherd Book promises will happen to Mal if he takes advantage of his [[AccidentalMarriage accidental wife]], Saffron.
614-->'''Book:''' If you take sexual advantage of her, you're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking people who talk at the theater. ]]
615** She then tries to seduce him:
616--->'''Mal:''' Oh, I'm going to the special hell.
617* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: Depending on the episode, mooks can be hilariously incompetent or amazingly adept. For example, in the pilot's final shoot-out, Mal and Zoe are standing in the open, with no cover, against a numerically superior enemy force. Zoe gets hit dead center in the chest as a signal the fight has started, but for the rest of the fight, no-one can do anything but clip Mal, even though he's standing only a dozen yards away and only moving slowly. Zoe, on the other hand, brings down one of the bad guys, without even getting back up off the floor. Though to be fair, Jayne was listening in from a sniper's nest, and possibly took out the only mook acknowledged to have any skill gunslinging.
618** Subverted in "War Stories". When [[TrueCompanions the gang]] invades Niska's [[SpaceBase sky complex]] to rescue [[TheCaptain Mal]] and get through largely unscathed (even when Zoe stops bothering to use cover), it looks like a straight example of [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy this trope]]. However, after it's all over, the ensuing conversation reveals it wasn't just the bad guys who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn... [[TheMedic Simon]] couldn't either.
619-->'''Mal:''' So, I hear you all took up arms in that little piece of action back there... how you faring with that, doctor?
620-->'''Simon:''' I don’t know... I... er... yeah, I never shot anyone before.
621-->'''Book:''' I was there, son. I’m fair sure you haven’t shot anyone yet.
622* ImprobableAimingSkills: "Serenity" (pilot episode): Did Mal just stroll into the ship while pulling a ''perfect headshot'' -- on someone ''with a hostage?!'' Earlier in the same episode: Did Zoe just shoot a man off a ''moving'' horse... while ''still lying down'' from getting shot?
623** "Safe": Did Zoe just shoot a man's gun out of his hand... from a hundred meters off... ''from the hip?''?
624** "Our Mrs. Reynolds": Did Zoe just hit two mooks on horses while diving sideways into a river?
625** "War Stories": Did River just peek around the corner and then ''kill three guys perfectly without looking?''?
626*** Of course, it's Justified with [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity River]].
627* ImprobablePilotingSkills: "War Stories": Did Wash just perfectly hit a skyplex docking seal with a powered down Firefly from 6000 miles away? Yes, I believe that's exactly what he just did.
628--> '''Zoe:''' It's like throwing a dart, Jayne... and hitting a bulls-eye 6000 miles away. That's my man.
629* InconvenientHippocraticOath: Simon, in "Ariel", responding to a Code Blue that occurs right in front of him, despite his fugitive status, and therefore giving us a rare moment of seeing him as he truly is rather than the FishOutOfWater he often is when on ''Serenity''. It also reinforces the strong suggestion in the pilot that he was only bluffing when he claimed he would let Kaylee die if they didn't run from the Alliance (a bluff that was revealed at the time because as soon as Mal gave the order, Simon helped Kaylee -- reacting faster to Mal's words than even Zoe did, which means he didn't bother waiting to see if Mal was bluffing or if any of the crew would actually carry out the order).
630* IndenturedServitude: Present as part of the setting's massive SchizoTech.
631** In "The Train Job" Inara extricates Mal and Zoe from the local sheriff by claiming he's a runaway indentured man whom she located after he embezzled money from her accounts.
632** On Higgins' Moon ("Jaynestown") most of the ceramics workforce is indentured, which allows the magistrate owning their contracts to get filthy rich by keeping conditions in the CompanyTown as cheap and crappy as possible and paying them as little as possible. The RPG says his son has been working to improve things since the episode, though.
633* IndustrialWorld: The show [[ScrewedByTheNetwork never got time to say so]], but supplemental material stated that the planet Wash was from was heavily industrialized and so polluted that it was impossible to see the sky.
634%%* IndyPloy
635* INeverSaidItWasPoison: When the Alliance boards Serenity in the episode "Bushwhacked" after finding them engaged in illegal salvaging, the officer in charge mentions having received an alert about a fugitive "brother and sister" escaping on a ship matching their description. Mal inverts the trope by pretending to assume he means a pair of children. The officer seems annoyed to have to correct him that they are interested in a pair of adult siblings but quickly lets the subject drop.
636** Invoked in "Trash", when Mal finds out YoSaffBridge has married his old friend Monty and they draw down on each other. After Mal tells Monty what happened with "Saffron" on his ship, she says "You're a liar, Malcolm Reynolds." Monty then notes that he never told her his name.
637* INeverToldYouMyName: In "Trash," Mal is introduced to an old war buddy's new wife- who is a con artist that Mal has previously had a rather severe run-in with. They commence fighting, Mal shouts accusations at her, to which she responds "You're a liar, Malcolm Reynolds!" His friend had never told her Mal's full name.
638* InMediasRes: The pilot episode begins right at the end of the Battle of Serenity Valley, one of the key turning points in the Unification War. "Out of Gas" begins towards the climax of that episode's story. "Trash" begins with Mal sitting naked in the desert, then goes on to explain how this came about.
639* InnocentInnuendo: From "Shindig":
640-->'''Wash:''' I like our party better. The dress code is easier, and I know all the steps!\
641'''Zoe:''' ''[contented sigh]'' I'd say you do at that.
642* InsaneEqualsViolent: The Reavers. River averts it, though the crew thinks this is the case when she slashes Jayne (really going after the Blue Sun logo on his T-shirt). Her sudden assassin-ness in the bar in ''[[Film/{{Serenity}} Serenity]]'' is due to her government conditioning, not her insanity.
643* InsistentTerminology: Inara's repeated claim that she "hit her head" after she was knocked out from kissing Mal, unaware that the drug that rendered him unconscious was on his lips.
644** In a more straight-up and realistic application of this trope, in "Bushwhacked", Inara corrects an interrogation officer who calls the ship "the Serenity". It should be simply referred to as ''Serenity''.
645* InstantSedation: The Goodnight Kiss does this, as Mal discovers. It takes a bit longer to work on Inara - several seconds instead of just one or two.
646** In "The Train Job", it takes several minutes for the drug to knock out Jayne, but it still occurred faster than it would in real life and Simon indicated it acted on Jayne slower than it would normally affect most other people.
647* InsultToRocks: From "Shindig":
648--> '''Sir Warrick''': I know [Badger], and I think he's a psychotic lowlife.
649--> '''Mal''': And I think calling him that is an insult to the psychotic lowlife community.
650* IntrepidMerchant: Mal and his crew have elements of this, though profit seems hard to come by.
651* InvulnerableKnuckles: Played straight throughout most of the series, but averted in the BarBrawl that opens "The Train Job". After the fight, which was solidly composed of GoodOldFisticuffs, Mal goes to the infirmary to mend his split knuckles and even admits to Simon that you are never supposed to hit somebody in the head with a closed fist because of the damage you will do to your own hand.
652--> '''Mal:''' You know they tell ya, never hit a man with a closed fist, but [[RuleOfFunny it is, on occasion, hilarious.]]
653* IronicEcho : In the episode "War Stories", Kaylee to River, after playfully wrestling an apple from her, and then River to Kaylee after killing three men:
654--> "No power in the 'verse can stop me."
655** Also in the same episode, when he's about to torture Mal, Niska apparently wants to meet "the real [Mal]". Once Mal incapacitates his torturer and sees Niska scurrying helplessly away, Mal angrily shouts, "You wanna meet the real me?"
656** Tracy's message in, well, "The Message" is repeated [[spoiler:after he's ''actually'' dead. Tracy himself even lampshades it a little as he's dying.]]
657* ISOStandardHumanSpaceship: While most ships in the 'verse seem to follow this trope, the Alliance cruisers ''strongly'' avert it, appearing as a series of pyramidal towers of varying sizes attached by sky-bridges and sharing a common base.
658* IWillFindYou: Simon finding River.
659* ItAlwaysRainsAtFunerals: At the end of "The Message" Tracy's funeral occurs while it's snowing. Then again, the way he specifically states he wants to take his family somewhere warmer would suggest that it just snows a lot on that planet.
660* ItBeganWithATwistOfFate: It was shear serendipity that Simon, River and Book got on Serenity. The rest of the series descends from that one choice by people with no prior connection to each other whatsoever.
661* ItMeantSomethingToMe:
662** Subtle version in "Heart of Gold". Mal and Inara dress up and pretend to be a couple to go stake out the villain of the week together at a theater. No big deal is made of this. Mal agrees to help a friend of Inara fight against the villain, one thing leads to another, Inara [[LoveHurts finds out]].
663** Mal gets some of this in "Objects in Space", as when River reads his thoughts, he's trying to convince himself their relationship doesn't mean anything.
664* ItOnlyWorksOnce: At the end of ''Life Signs'', [[spoiler:Simon has been provided with a small sample of Doctor Esau Weng's medical nanites, but there's so little of them that he knows he'll only be able to cure Inara of her illness with them and that would exhaust everything they have. Even then, Simon had to spend the better part of a week working with River in a highly advanced medical laboratory to assure himself that they were programmed correctly to treat Inara's illness]].
665* JerkassHasAPoint: Simon accusing Mal of being willing to sell him and River to the Alliance. Out of line? Not when you remember that Mal's first words to Dobson after TheReveal were "Say, is there a reward?"
666** Jayne also has a tendency to invoke this trope, particularly when clashing with Mal on Simon and River. Mal seems to realize it, too.
667* {{Jittercam}}: Including CGI scenes. Zoic, who did the CGI scenes, would go on to use the same techniques in ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}''.
668** And also put [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQMHQjaxfpE Serenity herself]] in BSG.
669* KarmaHoudini: Adelai Niska from "War Stories", who was apparently spared after [[ColdBloodedTorture torturing]] Wash and Mal for hours, actually killing and then resurrecting Mal to continue to torture him. Probably would have been averted had the series not ended so abruptly.
670* KarmicThief: The crew of ''Serenity'' participates in several heists, but they are only willing to steal from the rich, and corrupt, especially those associate with the Alliance. After one heist ("The Train Job"), they end up returning the stolen goods when they find out that ordinary people have been put in danger by their theft.
671* KickTheDog: Jayne delivers a truly epic one in "Bushwhacked" to Simon after finding out he's scared of getting into spacesuits. He claims that Mal needs him to go over to the derelict ship, so he nervously suits up and does so... and then finds they already had life support working. But what makes it a truly KickTheDog moment is that as the laughter dies down, Kaylee realizes Simon had the suit on wrong... meaning that if Jayne had been serious, Simon would have died.
672* TheKirk: Mal, who often ended up having to choose between [[strike:nearly]] irreconcilably different options.
673* KilledMidSentence: Mal does this to Dobson in the pilot.
674* KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter:
675** Handheld lasers exist, but are very expensive and only in use by the Alliance and extremely wealthy private citizens.
676** In the case of Rance Burgess in "Heart of Gold", his laser pistol gets off at least 3 shots before it displays a "Check Battery" warning light.
677** Alliance guards use sonic disruptors which are quite effective, but deal absolutely no collateral damage, which throws off Mal and Jayne several times when they try to use them to blast open doors.
678* KissingUnderTheInfluence: In "Jaynestown", Simon and Kaylee get very drunk, which drops Simon's inhibitions enough for him to actively hit on her. They stay at the bar and in the morning are found wrapped in each others arms, with Kaylee sprawled across Simon's chest. Simon insists to Mal that absolutely nothing untoward happened between them and that he wouldn't dream of behaving in a disrespectful manner where Kaylee is concerned... although she doesn't find his attempt to protect her honour quite so flattering. Later on, when the pair of them are alone together, it's confirmed that nothing happened between them... much to her obvious frustration.
679--> '''Kaylee:''' Well, you confound me some, is all. I mean, you like me well enough, and we get along. And then you go all stiff.\
680'''Simon:''' I... I'm not, um... I didn't...\
681'''Kaylee:''' See? You're doing it right now! What's so damn important about being proper? It don't mean nothing out here in the black.\
682'''Simon:''' It means more out here. It's all I have. I mean, my way of being polite, or however, it's... Well, it's the only way I have of showing you that I like you. ''[Kaylee smiles slightly]'' I'm showing respect.\
683'''Kaylee:''' So when we made love last night...\
684'''Simon:''' When we what!?\
685'''Kaylee:''' ''[laughs]'' You really are such an easy mark.
686* {{Kneecapping}}: Book does it in "War Stories", leading to this exchange:
687-->'''Zoe:''' Preacher, don't the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killin'?\
688'''Book:''' Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.
689* KnightErrant: Mal.
690* KnightInSourArmor: Also Mal.
691* LadyOfWar: Inara, in the movie. And Nandi in "Heart of Gold".
692* LampshadeHanging[=/=]LeaningOnTheFourthWall: From "Objects in Space":
693-->'''Wash''': Psychic, though? That sounds like something out of science fiction!
694-->'''Zoe''': We live on a spaceship, dear.
695-->'''Wash''': So?
696* LaResistance: The Browncoats.
697* LargeHam: Niska + scenery = [[ChewingTheScenery nom nom nom...]]
698* TheLastThingYouEverSee: Very, ''very'' subverted in "The Train Job". Magnificently so. "Darn."
699* LawmanGoneBad: The novel ''Carnival'' features [[spoiler:a Companion version of this, when the crew discover that a Guild house on the planet Bethel is actually run by a former Companion who was sacked from the Guild over a decade ago. Her House is designed like a standard Guild house, but she recruits underage girls through drugs and other methods that would never be used by true Companions. Fortunately, the sheriff of this town proves to be a good man who was only unable to take action because the House Mistress was too connected for him to stop her by himself]].
700* LaymansTerms: From "Out of Gas":
701-->'''Mal:''' I need that in Captain Dummy Talk, Kaylee.
702** From "Objects in Space", when Simon attempts to explain why River's condition doesn't seem to have improved much since Ariel:
703-->'''Mal''': When I want medical jargon I'll talk to a doctor.\
704'''Simon''': ...You ''are'' talking to a doctor.
705* LeaveNoWitnesses: As seen in "Ariel", the blue-hand agents are disconcerted to hear that Alliance police ''spoke'' to River Tam. Well, they can fix that.
706* LensFlare: Intentionally on Whedon's part.
707* LetsGetDangerous: River in particular, but others have their moments, too.
708* LibertariansInSpace: Only in a vague, romantic sense. The outer frontier worlds, as versus the more crowded Alliance core worlds where the Alliance had a firmer grip on the populace. The rebellion of the Browncoats against the Alliance in the backstory was about defending independence in the frontier against the oppressive Alliance government, from the Browncoat point of view - the Independents fought for Independence. Note that many of the horrors in the series are the result of a for-profit, free-market, dog-eat-dog, Wild West society.
709* LibertyOverProsperity: Mal and his crew choose to live hand-to-mouth as far from the PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny as they can get to avoid the government after having lost the war.
710* LikeBrotherAndSister: Zoe and Mal. Would be PlatonicLifePartners, but Zoe [[spoiler: definitively chooses her relationship with Wash over Mal]] in "War Stories". Although it's worth noting that she specifically needed Wash's piloting skills to pull off a rescue plan; her choice was pragmatic as well as emotional.
711** Mal repeatedly acts the part of an older brother to Kaylee, particularly apparent in "Shindig". In the movie, he invokes BrainBleach when Kaylee mentions having to rely on batteries to get her needs met for a year. Though, to be fair, almost everyone treats Kaylee like a little sister, but it's usually more Mal and, to an extent, Inara.
712--> '''Mal''': Oh GOD, I can't know that!
713--> '''Jayne''': I could stand to hear more.
714** Significantly, Mal calls Kaylee "Mei-mei", Mandarin for "little sister", just as Simon calls River and Nandi calls Inara.
715* LivingEmotionalCrutch: Simon to River is the obvious example.
716** When listening to how Creator/JossWhedon envisaged this show, Mal is also this for River, especially in the film.
717** Every person on Serenity to Mal. They each represent some emotional aspect or part of his life he's become dissociated from. This idea is somewhat validated by Nathan Fillion in the ''Firefly'' 10th anniversary special "Browncoats Unite".
718--> '''Nathan Fillion:''' The reason Captain Malcolm keeps these people so close is because they all are an aspect of himself that he's lost. In Wash, a sense of humor. In Jayne, a selfishness--\
719'''Adam Baldwin:''' Brawn.\
720'''Nathan:''' Whoa! (''laughs'') That's fair, that's fair. In Gina's character, Zoe, there's a capacity for love. In Book, he had his faith. Just things that he lost within himself that he can still have around him in his life, so it became very, very important to him.
721* LivingLegend: From the episode "Jaynestown": Jaaaaayne. The man they call Jaaaaayne.
722--> '''Jayne:''' Eggs! The LivingLegend needs eggs!
723* {{Lobotomy}}: River Tam had parts of her brain removed, though it was not her frontal lobe they messed up with. The operation removed her ability to suppress her emotions.
724* LondonGangster: Badger, an east-end gangster {{In Space}}!!
725* LotusEaterMachine: The novel ''Ghost Machine'' sees the titular machine trap Mal, Zoe, Jayne, Kaylee, Wash and Simon in their perfect worlds (Book and Inara are not presently on board and River's abilities let her resist the machine), with the unfortunate twist that it will corrupt those dreams into nightmares and drive them to heart failure if they don't regain consciousness in time. Depicted fantasies include;
726** Mal and Inara are married with two children, before their home is attacked by Reavers.
727** The Independents won the war and Zoe is working as a bounty hunter tracking Alliance war criminals, but is betrayed by Mal to 'the Butcher of Bixley', a version of Book who abandoned any notion of goodness.
728** Jayne has returned to the family ranch and his little brother has recovered from the 'damplung', but the range is attacked by a vast crew of cattle-rustlers who start to cut his brother up before he wakes up.
729** Kaylee is working in her father's engineering shop, but when she befriends a rich client, she learns that he smuggles in people from distant planets to harness their organs for transplants, which her father knew because he had a heart transplant because of the man's work.
730** Wash is married to Zoe and is the head of a major shipping company, but learns that Zoe is actually an agent of Blue Sun who has been manipulating him just to put Blue Sun in a position to take a third of his company's profits.
731** Simon is still working in the hospital with a sane River and involved with Kaylee, but his class-fixated family try to force him to kill Kaylee so that he will adhere to their preconceptions of what his life should be like.
732* LoveableRogue: Mal qualifies for this or AntiHero, though he certainly has traits of both. Ultimately, it is probably his code of honor that pushes him into the LoveableRogue territory. Jayne's more of a WildCard, though he grows more loyal to the crew as the series goes on. By the time of the movie he comes to accept [[TeethClenchedTeamwork Simon]] and River enough that he even shares a drink with Simon during Mal's "I aim to misbehave" speech as a show of solidarity.
733* [[spoiler:LoveInterestTraitor: An episode has Mal being (unintentionally) married to a young woman for a reward. But she turns out to be a con artist, intent on killing the crew (by leaving them to die) and selling their ship. Her appearance in a later episode reveals this to be her standard operating procedure: seduce, steal, leave 'em for dead, repeat...]]
734[[/folder]]
735
736[[folder:Tropes M-P]]
737* MachineEmpathy:
738** Kaylee can instinctively know just by looking, hearing or feeling what ''Serenity'' is doing and what is wrong with her. Kaylee also noticeably acts incredibly lost and helpless when ''Serenity'' suffers a breakdown in "Out Of Gas".
739** River's psychic abilities give her a more general empathy toward the ship and the crew, to the point where Simon notes that she considers it her first real "home". She can also pick out some issues with machinery even before they happen, such as the engine explosion in "Out of Gas."
740* MadeFromRealGirlScouts: A fast food stand in the intended-pilot "Serenity" is selling "good dogs" -- they are not pork sausages in a finger roll with optional onions and mustard.
741* MadnessMantra: "Two by two, hands of blue..."
742* TheMafiya: Niska.
743* TheMagnificentSevenSamurai: The Firefly crew finish up one of these plans [[InMediasRes at the beginning]] of "Our Mrs. Reynolds", and does it as the focus of the episode in "Heart of Gold".
744** TheHero: Mal
745** TheLancer: Zoey
746** TheBigGuy: Jayne
747** TheSmartGuy: Kaylee
748** TheMentor: Book
749** NaiveNewcomer: Simon
750** TheFunnyGuy: Wash
751* MakeRoomForTheNewPlot: In the first episode (the last one actually aired), the overriding conflict of "what do we do with the captured lawman" is abruptly solved [[spoiler:via a bullet through the eyes]] when the Reavers, a substantially more dangerous issue, arise.
752* ManchurianAgent: River.
753* ManipulativeBastard: Jubal Early in "Objects in Space".
754* MarryingTheMark: This is con artist and spaceship thief Saffron's modus operandi; at least twice during the show, she and Mal encounter her ex-"husbands".
755* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: In "Safe" while Kaylee and Simon are arguing in the store, you can see River silently sneaking away.
756** At the beginning of "The Message," when Tracy sits down to eat the beans you see the Alliance soldier sneaking up. Also in "The Message", just after Tracy regains consciousness and Kaylee enters the infirmary. The focus is on Tracy in the foreground as [[HeldGaze his eyes meet Kaylee's]]. However, Simon's still in the background monitoring his heart. As a result, the entire room can hear his heart speed up in response to Kaylee... and the camera angle on Tracy makes sure Simon's reaction to this is visible in the background. ''Ouch.''
757* MeaningfulName: Everybody calls Malcolm Reynolds "Mal". River points out that in [[SpellMyNameWithAThe The Latin]], Mal means "Bad."
758** Shepherd [[Literature/TheBible Book]].
759* [[TheMenInBlack Men In Black]]: The Blue Hands have this going.
760* MercyKill:
761** Mal suggests this for a "survivor" of a Reaver raid in "Bushwhacked". And plays this trope straight with one of the hapless victims of a raid in the movie, whom he shoots before the Reavers can do anything, and after which they let the body go.
762** ''Life Signs'' ends with [[spoiler:Mr O'Bannon being killed by his former second, Ornery Annie, as she recognises that his death of pancreatic cancer is now inevitable and this way she gets to more cleanly take over his operation and keep the prison under control]].
763* MexicanStandoff: A regular feature. The pilot alone has multiple examples... including several '''in the same scene'''.
764* AMindIsATerribleThingToRead: River has some bad problems with hearing everyone's thoughts, more explicitly in "Objects in Space".
765* MindRape: Whatever the Academy did to River, she did not turn out very well.
766** The sole survivor of a Reaver attack in "Bushwhacked" inevitably goes insane as a result of what he witnessed.
767* MissionControl: Wash and Kaylee as well as River in "Objects in Space".
768%% Moe has been moved to the YMMV tab. Please don't add it back here.
769* MomentKiller: Simon and Kaylee suffer from this repeatedly. Sometimes Simon accidentally does it himself.
770** In the commentary for "Objects in Space", Joss yells at Book for interrupting their AlmostKiss.
771* MoodDissonance: In "War Stories", Mal and Wash have an enormous row about shipboard relationships and Zoe, while being tortured. Wash later realizes this is deliberate on Mal's part, to keep Wash from breaking.
772* MoodLighting: "Out of Gas" flashbacks.
773* MoodWhiplash: In the pilot. "That man is psychotic!"
774** In "Heart of Gold", we go from Mal trying to make excuses when Inara catches him coming out of Nandi's room, to Jayne sleeping next to one of the prostitutes, to Inara crying.
775* MookFaceTurn: How Jayne was recruited, as seen in "Out of Gas".
776* MoralityPet: Kaylee to Mal and Jayne.
777* MortonsFork: Discussed in ''Life Signs'' when the crew have to track down a missing doctor who may have done work on a means of curing the rare cancer that is currently killing Inara. While finding his lab and trying to access his research is an option, since the doctor apparently destroyed his work before he was arrested there is no guarantee that such an approach would be successful, but the alternative is to break into a prison planet where the population is left in a frozen wasteland and there's no guarantee that the doctor's still alive there. The crew ultimately choose to investigate the planet as even if they could find the doctor's work Simon estimates it would take him months to understand it and they don't have that kind of time, whereas if they can find the doctor he may be able to share the data with them directly.
778* TheMovie: ''Film/{{Serenity}}'', the BigDamnMovie.
779* MrViceGuy: Mal. According to him in the movie, he's "a fan of all seven".
780* MundaneDogmatic No FTL? Check. No aliens? Check. No AlternateUniverse? Check. No FunctionalMagic? Check, unless you count [[spoiler: River's PsychicPowers]]. No TimeTravel? Check. No teleporters? Check. No instances of ArtisticLicenseSpace? Check. Just goes to show you don't need all those fancy trappings to make a good SciFi show.
781* MyBiologicalClockIsTicking: Zoe and Wash have a spat over having a baby in "Heart of Gold", as one of the prostitutes is pregnant (and the primary reason why the whorehouse is soon to be assaulted by angry men). Zoe wants it for this reason, while Wash is hesitant. Oddly it’s flip-flopped in the comic “The Sting” with a whole subplot where ''Zoe'' is reluctant. No explanation for the flip has been given. [[spoiler: Wash is killed in the movie, and comics set later reveal that Zoe is in fact carrying his child.]]
782* MyFistForgivesYou: Zoe to [[spoiler:Saffron]] in "Trash".
783* MyGreatestFailure: Before "A Shepherd's Tale" came out, Joss hinted that Book was known for his greatest failure. The comic shows that [[spoiler: this might actually be his greatest success, depending on how you look at it.]]
784* {{Mysterious Mercenary Pursuer}}s: The Hands of Blue.
785* MysteriousWaif: River.
786* MysteriousPast: Book, and to a lesser extent River.
787* NakedOnArrival: River, in the pilot.
788* NakedPeopleAreFunny: One hilarious scene in "Trash" with Mal - ''Serenity'' comes to pick him up after [=YoSaffBridge=] double-crosses him and leaves him naked in the middle of nowhere. Not embarrassed in the least, he banters with Inara, struts on board, barks a few orders, and stands there admiring the view before saying, "Good day!"
789* TheNapoleon: Badger
790* NasalTrauma:
791** Wash's nose is broken courtesy of a gun butt to the face in the book “Generations”. He says it’s been broken before, too.
792** Mal does it to the Reaver victim in "Bushwhacked."
793** Jayne does this to a Fed in "Ariel".
794* NayTheist: Mal, after the events of Serenity Valley completely shattered his faith in God. More precisely, he didn't lose his belief in [[GodIsDead God's existence,]] but in God's ''[[GodIsGood goodness.]]''
795* NerdsAreSexy: Both Simon and Kaylee.
796* NeverTrustATrailer: One of the early ads for the show tried to play up the comedy aspect. While there certainly is some to be found, that really isn't the main point of the show.
797* NoGravityForYou: One villain with fantastic combat skills [[spoiler: (Jubal Early from "Objects in Space")]] is defeated when [[spoiler: River tricks him into coming outside of the spaceship,]] where Mal promptly punches him into the infinity of space.
798* NoHelpIsComing: In the prologue, Mal has a [[YouAreInCommandNow newly-minted lieutenant]] call for help, and they seemingly arrive. He soon realizes that the descending ships are actually the enemy, and his high command has surrendered.
799* NobleFugitive: Simon and River.
800* NobodyPoops: Averted. Mal is shown having a toilet in his cabin.
801* NominalHero: Jayne.
802* NonSequiturThud: A truly epic one from Jayne in "The Train Job".
803--> '''Jayne:''' Now we're finishing this deal, and then maybe, maybe we'll come back for those morons... got themselves caught... and you can't change that by getting all... bendy.\
804'''Wash:''' All what?\
805'''Jayne:''' You got the light... from the console to keep you... lifting you up... they shine like... (''starts grabbing at the air'') little angels...\
806''*THUD*''\
807'''Wash:''' Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?
808* NoodleIncident:
809** Wash's story in "Our Mrs. Reynolds" about spending six weeks on a moon where the idea of recreation was juggling baby geese.
810** A lot of incompletely told stories come up in the dinner scene in "Out of Gas" before the engine malfunction.
811** Mal and Zoe mention several war stories in... well "War Stories".
812** Jubal Early in "Objects in Space" gives us this gem:
813-->'''Early:''' You know, with the exception of one deadly and unpredictable midget, this girl is the smallest cargo I've ever had to transport, yet by far the most troublesome.\
814'''Simon:''' What did he do?\
815'''Early:''' Who?\
816'''Simon:''' The midget.\
817'''Early:''' Arson. [[{{Pyromaniac}} Little man loved fire]].
818* NothingIsScarier: Holy shit yes the Reavers. This is taken up to eleven in "Bushwhacked" which relies explicitly on the horror of the aftermath of a Reaver-attack.
819* NoWomansLand: Saffron tells a not-very-kind story of her upbringing and future prospects on Triumph in "Our Mrs. Reynolds".
820** The planet Nandi's brothel is located on
821* NoYay: InUniverse example. At the end of ''War Stories'', Mal and Zoe "flirt" in an astoundingly deadpan manner just to mess with Wash. Jayne happens by just as they're about to "kiss":
822--> '''Zoe:''' (''in a deadpan tone'') Take me, sir. Take me hard.\
823'''Jayne''': Now, somethin' 'bout that is just downright unsettlin'.
824* ObliviousGuiltSlinging: Simon to Jayne at the end of "Ariel," to the extent that it borders on hero-worship - not knowing that [[spoiler:Jayne had betrayed him and River to the feds]].
825* OddFriendship: Between Jayne, the TokenEvilTeammate, and Book, the GoodShepherd.
826* OffhandBackhand: River, in the comic.
827* TheOjou: Inara. While prostitutes are [[DisposableSexWorker looked down on]] in our culture, in TheVerse a Companion is socially high-status, to the point where her presence grants the crew some respectability. Her training taught her to be graceful, controlled, and untouchable -- most times, at least, but [[NotSoAboveItAll less so much with her friends]]. It's explained in some of the info accompanying the comics that the tradition of Companions started during the flight from Earth, which was several generations long. People needed a way to relieve pent-up stress...
828* OhCrap:
829** In "Shindig", Mal fails to understand that he has just challenged a man to a duel or what kind of duel it will be.
830--> '''Mal:''' Use of his sw-what?
831** Wash in the pilot during the dinosaur scene when he sees the Alliance cruiser. This happens just after the stegosaurus's "oh crap" after the sudden yet inevitable betrayal.
832** The whole crew gets one in the pilot when Mal announces that a Reaver ship is passing nearby. And Wash gets another when he sees that the Reavers followed them.
833** Done subtly in "Ariel" when River is having her scan in the background. Her brain-scan turns red and the information around it starts flashing rapidly. It's the first sign the Hands of Blue are arriving on the station (she then points this out to Jayne, but no-one understands her).
834** Niska gets one when he meets the real Mal in "War Stories". And with reason.
835---> '''Mal:''' [[PreAssKickingOneLiner You want to meet the ''real'' me?]]
836** In "Trash", [=YoSaffBridge=] has one, when Monty points out that she referred to Mal by name, when he hadn't ''introduced'' them yet.
837* OldFriend: Mal's pal Monty in "Trash", Inara's Companion companion Nandi in "Heart Of Gold".
838* OnceAnEpisode: A crew member getting either shot or stabbed. Mostly shot.
839* OneBigLie: The spaceships and terraformed moons have artificial gravity. Also, [[spoiler: PsychicPowers]].
840* OneWomanWail: A vaguely Indian version, at the beginning of "Our Mrs Reynolds" and "Heart of Gold". The one at the start of ''Heart of Gold'' is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5rvdZCTZB8&feature=related this one]]. It's actually in Punjabi.
841* OnlyAFleshWound: Generally averted.
842** Notably in "War Stories": Mal is able to fight Niska and one of his {{mooks}} even after being severely tortured and [[spoiler: losing an ear,]] but while he deals with Niska easily, Niska's a villainous NonActionGuy who borders on SissyVillain, while after jumping the mook, Mal ends up getting tossed around fairly easily and eventually needs Zoe, Wash, and Jayne to help.
843* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: You know Reavers are very very bad news when Jayne starts freaking out.
844* TheOphelia: River, of course. "''Two by two, hands of blue...''"
845* OrgasmicallyDelicious: As seen in the pilot episode "Serenity", Kaylee ''really'' likes strawberries.
846* OurFounder: The statue of Jayne Cobb in the episode "Jaynestown". Not quite the actual ''founder'', but similar in spirit.
847* OutGambitted: [[spoiler: [=YoSaffBridge=]]], in "Trash".
848** Jayne in "Ariel".
849* OutOfGenreExperience: The episode "Ariel" features a brief switch to medical drama, and is itself TheCaper rather than a SpaceWestern.
850* PapaWolf: Mal for the entire crew. Simon for River.
851** The novel ''Carnival'' shows that Mal will be this for others if required; when he learns that fourteen-year-old Ava was nearly sold into sexual slavery by her uncle (her aunt had died and her uncle didn't want to be bothered with a child he wasn't biologically related to), once the main crisis has been resolved, Mal flies over to Ava's old home and shoots her uncle dead.
852* ParrotExpowhat: In "Shindig".
853-->'''Gentleman''': Any of these gentlemen can lend you use of a sword.
854-->'''Mal''': Use of a sw-''what''?
855* PartingFromConsciousnessWords: Jayne has an amusing moment when he's drugged during the "The Train Job". It starts off as this trope and finally ends in a NonSequiturThud.
856** Mal in "Our Mrs. Reynolds" who says "Son of a--" as he passes out from Saffron's Goodnight Kiss. And later, Inara, who says "You stupid son of a--" as she passes out from kissing Mal on his lips.
857* PatchworkMap: Madcap, nicknamed "the crazy moon", in the spin-off comic ''Float Out''. Wash uses this [[ImprovisedWeapon as a weapon]].
858* ThePenIsMightier: From the R. Tam Sessions: "I'll have to write it down..."
859* ThePerfectCrime: "Ariel" and "Trash." They get away with it both times, despite complications in both.
860* PerpetualPoverty: {{Lampshaded}} in the second comic miniseries ("Better Days").
861* PetTheDog: Jayne has these moments, and while Mal starts off as a mean bastard in the pilot, by the end he is shown to be somewhat softer than he lets on.
862--> '''Simon:''' Are you always this sentimental?\
863'''Mal:''' I had a good day.
864* PhotographicMemory: River in general but especially in "War Stories."
865* PimpedOutDress: "Shindig" had plenty, including Kaylee's dress. Inara's was a more subdued and realistic fancy dress, but a lot of her outfits otherwise fit this trope.
866* PistolWhipping: Zoe seems to favor rifle-whipping. Mal reverses his grip on his pistol while doing his whipping.
867* PlanetBaron: The villain of "[[Recap/FireflyE13HeartOfGold Heart of Gold]]" is a wealthy rancher who uses his considerable wealth to control his local planet ("backwater moon") and appoints himself the local law enforcement, [[KnightTemplar executing anyone he finds unsavory]]. As the leader of the group standing up to him points out, he ''could'' use his wealth and position to invest in the colony and improve the lives of everyone there (and make himself richer), but he'd ''rather'' keep it small and poor so he can "play cowboy".
868* PlayfulPursuit: In the opening of the episode "War Stories", Kaylee chases River after the latter steals an apple from her. Considering that they had a whole shipment of apples to choose from, and yet River chooses to steal Kaylee's apple specifically, and Kaylee decides to try and get that specific apple back rather than simply getting another one, one might infer that there was some flirtation in their chase, especially when contrasted with a later scene where River violently kills Niska's men to protect Kaylee.
869%% * PlayingWithSyringes: River at the academy.
870* PleaseKeepYourHatOn: It's more like "please keep your ''hair tie'' on," but River gets ''very'' frightened when Shepherd Book lets out his CompressedHair in "Jaynestown". Even [[TheStoic Zoe]] admits that it's alarming.
871* ThePlotReaper: In "Heart of Gold," Mal makes Inara jealous by having sex with [[spoiler:Nandi]], but it is okay because the very next day [[spoiler:Nandi]] [[CleaningUpRomanticLooseEnds gets shot in the chest and dies]].
872* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Rance Burgess from "Heart of Gold" is the most obvious case, although there are others that arguably have shades of this.
873* PoorCommunicationKills: While Mal does listen to input from his crew, when he gives an order he expects it to be followed without hesitation or question. As such, his refusal to explain his decisions sometimes causes problems.
874** When Serenity is seized by an Alliance capital ship, he tells the crew to put all the cargo out in the open so as to avoid smuggling charges, then tells Simon to go and get his sister. Simon naturally assumes Mal wants to turn her over to the Alliance, and shouts, "They are not taking her and you are NOT giving her to them!" Mal doesn't explain himself, instead giving Simon a DeathGlare, and Book just says, "Don't be a fool, son. Do as the man says."
875** While the above example turned out alright, another one does not. Tracy walks in on Mal discussing the plan to land and let Womack board, he assumes they're going to turn him over. If Mal had simply explained the plan (to tell Womack where to stuff it, since he was out of his jurisdiction), the situation could have been de-escalated, but instead Tracy threatens Wash, Mal shoots him, he takes Kaylee hostage, pissing off the whole crew, and he gets killed.
876* ThePowerOfFriendship: Mal discusses it in his ShutUpHannibal to Saffron.
877-->"You've got all this fancy training and made me look the fool without trying, but I still got you at gunpoint. That's 'cause I got people with me. People that do for each other, and ain't always lookin' for the advantage."
878* ThePowerOfLegacy: At the end of "Ariel", Jayne begs Mal to use this trope, asking him not to tell that the reason Mal is [[spoiler: launching Jayne into space is because Jayne sold out Simon and River to the Alliance. Mal chooses to spare him.]]
879* ThePowerOfLove: The core of Simon and River's relationship. [[BigBrotherInstinct Simon's]] [[DeclarationOfProtection love]] for [[TheWoobie River]] is essentially the fuel that gives him the [[{{Determinator}} reserves of strength]] required to sustain his lingering HeroicSacrifice through the course of the series.
880* PowerOutagePlot: The episode "Out of Gas" sees Mal struggling to get ''Serenity'' up and running again after an explosion wipes out most of the ship's fuel supply.
881* PrecisionFStrike:
882** Simon in "Jaynestown", after seeing the statue of Jayne: "...son of a ''bitch''!"
883** A more subtle one with Book in "War Stories". Book never curses in Chinese like the rest of the crew does, except when he see's Mal's severed ear, and he goes off in a nasty-sounding tirade.
884* PrincessForADay: "Shindig." Kaylee was doing this from the beginning, and Mal went along once he saw Inara was there.
885* PrisonRape: In "The Message", a corrupt Alliance lawman intimidates a post official who is one of Mal's friends into betraying him by graphic threats of what he's going to face in prison.
886* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: Creator/JossWhedon has [[WordOfGod stated]] that the Alliance comes off as so domineering and oppressive because Mal is the star of the show and we are seeing the world from his perspective. He has a personal grudge against the government and, because he is a career criminal, only interacts with it when it is actively working against him; as such, Joss as has said he was not trying to put an anti-government message into the show, but that it emerged because of the characterizations of the cast. Had the show focused on a different individual, say someone living comfortably in the Core, there would have been a much heavier focus on the benevolent and beneficial aspects of government, like law and order and public works.
887* PsychicPowers: River. It takes a while for anybody to catch on, since - as far as anybody knows - she's the first.
888* PsychicRadar: River, natch. "Bushwhacked" sees her sensing the presence of the last surviving crew member on the Reaver-raided hulk ''Serenity'' finds floating past. Later, during "Ariel" she can clearly sense the closing presence of the Alliance's dubious hirelings. The movie has her going along with Mal on a bank robbery so she can point out anyone about to make a move on them.
889* PsychoForHire: Jubal Early from "Objects in Space".
890* PublicExecution: "Safe" has one of these of a BurnTheWitch style. It's interrupted due to the Trope-Naming BigDamnHeroes moment.
891* PunctuatedForEmphasis: "WHERE! IS MY! SPACESHIP!"
892** Also a slightly more subtle one in the aforementioned BigDamnHeroes moment, from Mal: "Ain't. We. Just?"
893* PunishmentBox: in "Jaynestown", Jayne's former partner is kept prisoner in solitary confinement, in a small (looks to be maybe 5 foot by 5 foot) box on stilts in the middle of a swamp.
894* PutDownYourGunAndStepAway: Awesomely subverted in the pilot episode "Serenity".
895* PuttingOnTheReich: An Alliance trooper present in a flashback in "The Message" appears to a helmet identical to those worn by German soldiers in World War II.
896** Alliance naval uniforms also qualify.
897** Lt. Womack wears a leather black trenchcoat and a shoulder harness similar to those used by SS officers. Appropriately enough, he's part of the "Allied Enforcement" police force.
898[[/folder]]
899
900[[folder:Tropes Q-T]]
901* QuoteOverdosed: It is ''very'' quotable. You can not stop with just one.
902** [[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_show) The Wikiquote page for this show]] (or any quote page, as a matter of fact) shows how easy this is; over half the spoken script of each episode (and the BigDamnMovie) is actually quoted on the page.
903* RadarIsUseless: Played with in ''Objects in Space''. Jubal Early manages to board ''Serenity'' and immobilize [[spoiler:most of]] the crew unnoticed, but Wash ''did'' detect his ship coming: [[JustifiedTrope he just didn't realize it]], because Early hid in a sensor blind spot so all Wash got was "a weird heat bounce off our wake" which he chalked up to a glitch.
904%%* RagtagBunchOfMisfits
905* RammingAlwaysWorks: Features twice in ''Life Signs''; not only does ''Serenity'' escape the Alliance ship ''Constant Vigilance'' by grazing against it, but [[spoiler:River later tricks ''Constant Vigilance'' into crashing into its fellow ship, ''Freedom to Choose'', when both are pursuing ''Serenity'']].
906* RapeDiscretionShot: In "Heart of Gold", Burgess is standing in front of a large crowd of men, making an angry speech about how women need to know their place, with the hooker, Chari, standing by him. He tells the crowd "Let us all remember, right here and now, what a woman is, to a man." Then he turns to Chari, says "Get on your knees," and the camera fades away as she starts kneeling.
907* RapePillageAndBurn: The Reavers. [[NightmareFuel Not necessarily in that order, either.]]
908* RationalizingTheOverkill: In "Shindig", Mal stabs Atherton Wing a couple times after disarming him. Wing had previously insulted Inara and injured Mal quite badly in the ensuing duel.
909-->'''Sir Warwick Harrow:''' You didn't have to wound that man.\
910'''Malcolm Reynolds:''' Yeah, I know, it was just funny.
911* ReactionlessDrive: In the sequence showing ''Serenity'' going to full burn, it does spew a little bit of exhaust, but this exhaust is extremely rarefied and appears static against the backdrop of interplanetary space. Given the spacecraft's lack of internal space for storing propellant, the exhaust may merely be the (unaccelerated) fuel expended to power the Reactionless Drive.
912** The jet turbines used for atmospheric operation, however, are clearly reaction drives.
913* ReadyForLovemaking: "Our Mrs. Reynolds."
914* RealityHasNoSubtitles: Happens when various Chinese curses are spoken, and you can tell that they're curses from the context.
915* RealMenWearPink: Mal is not the slightest bit uncomfortable about dressing as a woman to pose as bait for bandits.
916* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: The Sheriff in "The Train Job". When he catches Mal and Zoe trying to return the stolen medicine, he orders his men to take the medicine and let them go.
917-->'''Sheriff''': You were truthful back in town; these are tough times. A man can get a job, he might not look too close at what that job is. But a man learns all the details of a situation like ours... well, then he has a choice.\
918'''Mal''': I don't believe he does.
919* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech:
920** Badger gives Mal a villainous one when he backs out of a deal and leaves Mal holding the bag.
921--->'''Badger:''' What were you in the war, eh? That big war you failed to win. You were a sergeant, yeah? Balls and Bayonets Brigade. [[PunctuatedForEmphasis Big. Tough. Veteran.]] Now you got yourself a ship and you're a captain. Only I think you're still a sergeant, see? Still a soldier. Man of honor in a den of thieves. Well this is ''my gorram den,'' and I don't like the way you look down on me. I'm above you. ''Better than.'' Businessman, see? Roots in the community. You're just a scavenger.
922** In a later episode, River gives one back to Badger:
923--->'''Badger:''' Why ain't she talking? She got a secret?\
924'''River:''' ''[mimicking his Cockney accent]'' Sure, I got a secret. More 'n one. Don't seem likely I'd tell 'em to you now, do it? Anyone off Dyton Colony knows better 'n to talk to strangers. You're talking loud enough for the both of us though, ain'tcha? I've known a dozen like you. Skipped off-home early, running graft jobs here and there. Spent some time in the lockdown, but less than you claim. Now you're what? Petty thief with delusions of standing? Sad little king of a sad little hill.
925* RecruitedFromTheGutter: Jayne Cobb met [[TheHero Mal]] and [[TheLancer Zoe]] at gunpoint while robbing them. When Mal offers him a spot on his own team, a better salary, and his own bunk, Jayne immediately turns on his partners and joins the crew. Possibly a subversion, as the crew of ''Serenity'' spends most of the series in PerpetualPoverty themselves and Jayne is [[OnlyInItForTheMoney never the]] [[LeaderWannabe most]] [[TheStarscream stalwart ally]].
926* RedHerringMole: When first introduced to Simon, the "bad guy"-chord comes in as he's hovering menacingly around a large crate wearing scary glasses. He acts suspiciously by asking many questions, leading Mal to suspect that Simon is the mole that is giving the Alliance their location. Book steps in and says that Simon isn't the mole -- giving one the assumption that the mole might be him, until they turn to find the real culprit.
927* RecruitingTheCriminal: As seen in a flashback in "Out of Gas", Mal recruited Jayne while the guy was trying to rob him.
928* RedOniBlueOni: Creator/JossWhedon loves playing with this trope and stretching the boundaries of it as far as they can go, sometimes with mind-bending results as the show will explore one such dynamic and then suddenly turn it on its head. This trope exists in the show, but it's explored in different ways even between the same characters, let alone between different characters.
929* ReligiousBruiser:
930** Captain Malcolm Reynolds, [[NayTheist but only in flashbacks]], where he kisses a crucifix right before battle.
931** Jayne, TheBigGuy and resident PsychoForHire is also [[RealMenLoveJesus clearly a believer]], and is seen praying multiple times. Probably one of the reasons for his OddFriendship with Shephard Book (who also shoots people when there's no other option, but [[TechnicalPacifist non-]][[ThouShaltNotKill lethally]]).
932* TheRemnant: The Dust Devils in the comic book.
933* ResurrectionSickness: Happens to Simon and River in "Ariel" after they fake their deaths to get inside an Alliance hospital. Also happens to Tracey in "The Message", who used the same drug to fake his own death as well.
934* {{Retraux}}: Joss specifically asked for old camera lenses to use to add the "[[TheSeventies 70's]] {{Western}}" feel.
935* RetiredBadass: It's repeatedly implied, [[spoiler: and downright stated in the graphic novel]], that Shepherd Book, [[spoiler: born Henry Evans and who became a double agent working both the Alliance and the Independents]], was this.
936* RhetoricalQuestionBlunder:
937** In the movie, Mal asks Jayne "Do you want to run this ship?" Jayne simply says he does and it throws Mal completely off.
938** In the show proper:
939--->'''Tracy:''' Do you think I'm stupid?
940--->'''Mal:''' In every way possible.
941* RichInDollarsPoorInSense: Simon is this once or twice.
942* RockBeatsLaser: Not in a direct-opposition sense, but in terms of reliability, affordability and logistics. Laser and stun weapons exist, but bullets are generally preferred for practical reasons.
943* RomanticFalseLead: There are a couple of these littered through the series, mostly sympathetically portrayed but not always.
944** Atherton Wing in "Shindig", one of Inara's clients. Mal disrespects Inara's job, but not Inara. Upon realising that it's Inara, rather than the job, that Atherton disrespects, Mal steps up to the plate. Cue the main tension of the episode.
945** Tracey in "The Message" with Simon playing a rare, non-jealous role, in what amounts to a subtle comparison between Tracey's behaviour now and Simon's in "Bushwhacked" and the pilot. When expected to blindly trust Mal into letting his enemies onto the ship, Simon calms down and obeys whereas Tracey cracks and becomes violent. Tracey's threat of harm is real (he shoots and grazes Wash) whereas Simon's in the pilot was a bluff (he doesn't wait to confirm if Mal's order to run is a bluff or real, he acts to help Kaylee before Zoe has even responded to Mal). The episode ends with sense that Kaylee may not get pretty words from Simon, but he's solid, reliable and always there for her.
946** Nandi in "Heart of Gold", paired with Mal as a foil for Inara. Like Simon, Inara tries not to interfere and attempts to keep her feelings to herself as much as possible.
947* RoundhouseKick: Some antagonists do this. Jubal in "Objects in Space" even does one in the same move as recovering from a punch.
948* RousingSpeech:
949** Mal does these sometimes, when he doesn't fumble them or crack a joke and completely ruin the effect.
950** "Jaynestown" offers an incredibly weak one - but it's played straight, not as a subversion:
951--> '''Jayne:''' "Far as I see it, you people been given the shortest end of the stick ever been offered a human soul in this crap-heel 'verse. But you took that stick, and you -- well, you took it. And that's -- Well, I guess that's somethin'."
952* RunningGag:
953** Jayne being in his bunk and double entrendes to masturbation for much of War Stories.
954** Simon fumbling words with Kaylee during heart-to-heart conversations, who promptly leaves in an angry huff.
955%%* SacrificialLamb: Subverted.
956* SadisticChoice: Niska presents Zoe with one of these in ''War Stories''. However, Zoe chooses Wash before he can even finish, ruining the moment for him.
957--> '''Zoe''': ''(pointing at Wash)'' Him. ''(Off Niska's expression)'' I'm sorry. You were going to ask me to choose, right? Did you want to finish?
958* SarcasticDevotee: Jayne, Zoe.
959* SalvagePirates: In the episode "Out of Gas", ''Serenity'' suffers a PhlebotinumBreakdown and is left drifting in space with no power or life support. The crew of the salvage ship that seems to arrive in the nick of time decides there is more profit in shooting Mal and stealing his ship than in trading for the one part needed to fix the ship. In a couple of other episodes, notably "Bushwhacked", the crew of ''Serenity'' is accused of trying to pull this on other ships, but the crew never actually abandons anyone and ''does'' try to save the only survivor they find.
960* ScaryBlackMan: Jubal Early from "Objects in Space". Book is black and startles River with his hair down in "Jaynestown", but is otherwise not scary during the show. In "Shepherd's Tale" comic confirms that Book was scarier in his youth, when he was [[spoiler: an interrogator for the Alliance during the war]].
961* SceneryCensor: The ending to "Trash" with Mal strutting about ''naked'' in the cargo hold, along with Inara's sponge bath and River's emergence from the cryo box in the pilot.
962* SchizoTech: Justified; the just-settled Outer Planets have no infrastructures or industries built yet, forcing them to rely on horse-and-hatchet technology until roads can be paved and machinery imported. In "Heart of Gold", one planet, under the sway of Rance Burgess, is being purposefully suppressed; Rance has the resources to build a real city, but deliberately keeps the tech level down so that he can "play cowboy" and be the man with the best and biggest toys around.
963* SchoolForScheming: The Academy.
964* SchoolOfSeduction: The Companion temples.
965* ScienceFiction: It has spaceships and interplanetary travel and fuses it with Westerns.
966* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: Space is really big and empty, as noted on a number of occasions (most notably "Out of Gas", where it's a plot point). On the other hand, Serenity ''just happens'' to run into other ships quite frequently.
967* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: In the episode "The Train Job," the crew of ''Serenity'' are hired by Adelei Niska to steal from a train. However, when they discover that the items in question that they were hired to steal was in fact badly needed medicine for a degenerative disease, they promptly turn on Niska, return the money, and transport said medicine to its intended location.
968* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: Simon will do anything to save his sister. ''Even'' if "there is a dinner party at risk."
969* SdrawkcabAlias: Invoked in ''Life Signs''; when infiltrating a prison planet, Mal uses the alias of 'Captain Ray Malcolm'.
970* SealedEvilInACan: In ''Generations'', the crew discover the last of the generation ships that brought humanity to this system from Earth, which is also being used [[spoiler:as a 'prison' for Silas, the first test subject of the Academy program, locked up because he was impossible to control]].
971* SecretTestOfCharacter:
972** Mal does this to Simon in the pilot. He claims Kaylee died from her bullet wound to see if Simon would have really let her die.
973** The end of "Ariel," when Mal threatens to [[spoiler:throw Jayne]] [[ThrownOutTheAirlock out the airlock]]. The test was so secret it was even a surprise to Mal, who had every intention of going through with it. The reason for this is helpfully explained by Book at the beginning of the next episode, when quoting the words of WarriorPoet Xian Yu:
974--->'''Book''': Live with a man for forty years. Share his meals, and speak with him on every subject. Then, tie him up and hold him over the volcano's edge, and on that day, you will finally meet the man.
975* SeductionProofMarriage: In "[[Recap/FireflyE06OurMrsReynolds Our Mrs. Reynolds]]", Wash resists Saffron's advances due to this. Saffron eventually has to ''give up'' and go to her backup plan - a OneHitKO. Zoe is suitably impressed and pleased.
976--> '''Wash:''' ''Wuh duh ma huh tah duh fong kwong duh wai shung'',[[labelnote:trans.]]Holy mother of god and all her wacky nephews[[/labelnote]] do I wish I was somebody else right now. Somebody not... married, not ''madly'' [[AmazonChaser in love with a beautiful woman who can kill me with her pinkie!]]
977* SeeNoEvilHearNoEvil: At the end of "[[Recap/FireflyE04Shindig Shindig]]", Mal and Inara are sitting on the edge of the gangway over the main cargo area, seemingly alone. It is only when the camera shot changes to a view of the whole deck, that we see the cargo of cows, who are audibly mooing.
978* SelectiveObliviousness: "Our Mrs. Reynolds" -- "I knew you let her kiss you."
979* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: The greedy thug Jayne is hostile toward the classy doctor Simon. Their contrasting personalities are best seen in Jaynestown where Jayne feel comfortable in the rough, poor world and Simon clings to being proper. Their rivalry is best seen in Ariel when Jayne demands that Simon be left on the core planet after being stabbed by Simon's sister. Mal then deals with Jayne's defensiveness and Simon's concern for his sister.
980* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: River occasionally. Possibly Simon. Possibly Kaylee, too, with all her mechanic talk.
981* SettingAsACharacter: In "Objects in Space" when River [[spoiler:tricks the bounty hunter Jubal Early into believing that ''Serenity'', the ship which is constantly anthropomorphised throughout the series, is actually alive, and that she has become a part of it.]]
982** Played straight inasmuch as ''Serenity'' is often referred to as the 10th star of the show. (The 11th being River's feet.)
983* SettlingTheFrontier: The basic backstory, from the beginning of the movie: "Earth-that-Was got all used up, so we found a new solar system. Dozens of planets, hundreds of moons." Numerous examples of frontier planets appear in the show.
984* SexAsRiteOfPassage: Explored in "Jaynestown", where the town's greedy mayor fully believes in this trope, but his son does not. Neither does Inara, who he hired to have sex with his son. After the deed, said son says he doesn't feel any different, and Inara tells him that sex in itself doesn't automatically make him a man. In "Our Mrs. Reynolds", as Saffron says that she must bed with her newly-wedded husband to fully become a woman. [[spoiler:That is, of course, bullshit to get Mal to lower his defenses.]]
985* SexByProxy: Thanks to River's powers, she can feel it when people nearby are making out.
986* ShamefulStrip: In "Trash", [=YoSaffBridge=] forces Mal to strip before she abandons him in the desert. Subverted in that Mal isn't the least bit bothered by it.
987* ShapedLikeItself: From "Shindig:"
988--> '''Badger:''' You think you're better than other people.\
989'''Mal:''' Only the ones I'm better than.
990* SharpDressedMan: Simon Tam. Also see WaistcoatOfStyle. He does start wearing looser, more relaxed shirts later in the series though.
991* SheCleansUpNicely: Kaylee in "Shindig," not that she was not plenty nice before that. Heck, in "Jaynestown", Simon thought she ''dirtied up'' nicely, mentioning that she was at her most attractive [[UnkemptBeauty when covered in engine grease]].
992* S{{he Knows Too Much}}: The reason the Alliance is after River and Simon, and why the Hands of Blue kill anyone who knows about them - even Alliance personnel.
993* ShellShockedVeteran: Mal.
994* ShelteredAristocrat: Simon, who [[FishOutOfWater struggles]] to fit in with the crew for this reason. It's also the reason Kaylee struggles to understand him.
995* ShipperOnDeck: Most of the crew is gunning for Simon and Kaylee to get together. Especially Mal and Inara, who themselves get shipped by damn near everyone else in turn.
996* ShipTease:
997** In "Bushwacked" an Alliance officer interrogating Inara says "Do you love him?" Then the shot cuts away to reveal he was actually talking to Zoe and referring to Wash.
998** In "Ariel," when River wakes up behind Jayne, her first words are "Copper for a kiss?" There's a bunch of other little things in the series too, like Jayne calling River "cute" in the pilot, and the "man parts" commentary in "Trash".
999** According to the ''Serenity'' commentary, Jayne has no long-term love interests aside from a "lingering crush" on Kaylee. It explains some of his hostility and slight jealousy towards Simon.
1000** After Inara runs into Mal after he had slept with Nandi, she breaks down in tears in private, and Nandi confronts Mal over it - which would have been resolved, had the villain's goons not start their assault then.
1001* ShirtlessScene:
1002** Jayne gets shirtless at the beginning of "Jaynestown."
1003** Mal has a shirt-pants-shoes-and-sockless scene in "Trash". He's also shirtless in one scene in the movie, which acts as a stealth ContinuityNod: you can see the scars from all the wounds he'd gotten during the show.
1004** Simon in "Objects in Space."
1005* ShockParty: For poor Simon, in "Out Of Gas."
1006* ShootOutTheLock: Subverted in "Ariel," when Jayne tries to use the Alliance-issue stun rifle to try to blow out the lock to get himself and the Tams away from the [[spoiler:Hands of Blue]]. It isn't designed for this kind of thing, though [[spoiler:Mal's shotgun does a much better job]].
1007-->'''Jayne:''' ''Se-niou'' high-tech Alliance crap!
1008* ShootTheHostageTaker: An Alliance lawman takes River hostage at gunpoint and gets out about half a sentence of demands before Mal storms in and shoots him in the face.
1009* ShootTheRope: Jayne, saving Mal from being hanged in the novel “Big Damn Hero”. He completely misses and has to fire again to hit it.
1010* ShotToTheHeart: Done twice in the episode "Out Of Gas." Simon administers one to Zoe after she's injured in an explosion, and later Mal does it to himself to stay conscious after he is gut-shot.
1011* ShoutOut: See [[ShoutOut/{{Firefly}} here]].
1012* ShowerScene: Inara's sponge bath in the pilot episode "Serenity."
1013* ShownTheirWork:
1014** The show averts SpaceIsNoisy.
1015** The "official" astronomical name for the 'Verse's star system is "34 Tauri"; that name is available because it was incorrectly applied to what turned out to be the planet Uranus by astronomer John Flamsteed in 1690, ninety-one years before it was recognized as a planet.
1016** A rather obscure example: ''Serenity'' is rarely referred to as "the ''Serenity''", and when this occurs in "Bushwhacked" the character who says it is immediately corrected. In English, at least, it is actually incorrect to use "the" when stating a ships's name, as a ship's name is supposed to be treated as if it were a person's (the exception being if some other description is used when identifying the vessel. IE: "the ''Firefly''-class transport ''Serenity''" would be considered proper usage).
1017* ShroudedInMyth: Reavers [[spoiler: until the movie]].
1018* TheSiege: "Heart of Gold", against the goons of the local villainous magnate.
1019* SignatureHeadgear: Jayne and his “cunning” knit hat with ear flaps from his mom. It was only in one episode, but it’s still an iconic part of the character.
1020* ASimplePlan: Mal has these a lot. And they go wrong with [[FinaglesLaw alarming regularity]].
1021* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Zoe and Kaylee for Wash and Simon respectively.
1022* SinkingShipScenario: "Out of Gas".
1023* SlidingScaleOfContinuity: The episodes can pretty much stand on their own in a mostly arbitrary order, though this may largely be because it [[ScrewedByTheNetwork never got the chance to go anywhere with]] the hinted MythArc.
1024* SlidingScaleOfLawEnforcement: Police in the series run the gamut from honest to corrupt to incompetent to dangerously savvy.
1025* SlidingScaleOfShinyVersusGritty: Core worlds are ''very'' shiny, while outer worlds are ''very'' gritty.
1026* SlutShaming: Mal frequently calls Inara a "whore" for being a Companion. However, he himself has sex with Nandi, an "independent" sex worker, in "Heart of Gold". It's implied that he doesn't object to sex work, just the Companion Guild's affiliation with the Alliance.
1027* SmartGun: The technology for automatic target adjustments exists, it's just not as practical as a old fashioned firearm.
1028* SnarkingThanks: After a bar brawl, Mal and Zoe have this exchange after having been pushed back to the edge of a nearby cliff and are still facing numerous angry brawlers:
1029-->'''Mal:''' Whoa! There's just an acre of you fellas, ain't there? [to Zoe] This is why we lost [the war], you know. Superior numbers.\
1030'''Zoe:''' ''[very sarcastically]'' Thanks for the reenactment, sir.
1031* SniffSniffNom: Jubal Early in "Objects in Space" on ''Serenity''.
1032* SomeoneToRememberHimBy: As shown in one of the comics, [[spoiler:Zoe]] is pregnant with [[spoiler:Wash's daughter]].
1033* SonicStunner: Seen in "Ariel" and "Trash".
1034* SoundtrackDissonance: The shootout/dancing scene in "Safe".
1035* SociopathicHero: Jayne Cobb, who will gladly backstab his own for more cash. It's hinted at that he actually regrets this mindset when it gets him into trouble, though.
1036* SpaceCossacks: The ''[[WhatAPieceOfJunk Serenity's]]'' crew is a RagtagBunchOfMisfits trying to eke out a life for themselves by delivering both honest and smuggled cargo through the space, with planetary backwaters being their preferred routes. All of them seek cut ties with the Alliance for one reason or another, including having previously been abused by it or having belonged to the [[LaResistance Browncoats]] that opposes it. To complement it all, the setting has tints of SpaceWestern as well. The opening theme even {{lampshade|d}}s their nomadic, rebellious living style.
1037--> "...take me out to the Black, tell them I ain't coming back. Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me"
1038* SpaceFighter: The official term is ASREV[[note]]short for ''A''lliance ''S''hort ''R''ange ''E''nforcement ''V''essel[[/note]], but everyone calls them "gunships". [[AllThereInTheManual According to the RPG sourcebook]], they're atypical for this trope in that instead of being fighter jet-sized, they're roughly the same size as regional passenger jet (83 feet long). They carry a crew of up to four and often double as police squad cars [-[[JustForFun/RecycledInSpace IN SPACE!]]-]
1039* SpaceIsCold: Played straight, at least on the face of it: characters tend to talk about space as being cold, e.g. Book saying "As I understand it, it's awful cold outside" in the pilot. "Out of Gas" is where it gets less clear: River remarks that even with ''Serenity's'' life support dead, they won't suffocate because they'll freeze to death first. She might be right: assuming that ship architecture in the 'verse is anything like ours, ''Serenity'' would be designed to radiate ''all'' her waste heat and make herself livable with internal heaters (reference ''Apollo 13'' in real life).
1040* SpaceIsNoisy: Averted; any action outside the ships is totally quiet, with quick cuts to the inside of the receiving ship to show the result and get the noise. There are exceptions, but they only occur when there is enough of some kind of atmosphere (be it planetary or nebular) to reasonably carry sound.
1041* SpaceIsolationHorror: Played straight in the episode ''Out of Gas''. The titular gas is oxygen, and running low (with a ship that is dead in the water) means sitting around waiting for a slow and painful death or, in a degree of scary that is hard to argue whether is lesser or higher, risking whoever finds you decides murdering you is more profitable (or more ''fun'') than saving your life.
1042* SpacePirates
1043* SpacePolice: The Federal Marshals ("Feds") and the Interplanetary Police ("Interpol"). The [[AllThereInTheManual RPG sourcebook]] goes into more detail than the show had time to. Interpol concentrates on tracking suspects and investigating crimes (e.g. the Alliance cruiser ''Dortmunder'' alerts them to ''Serenity's'' illegal salvage operation in the pilot), while the Feds enforce Alliance national laws and pursue criminals across interplanetary borders (they're the cops hunting Simon and River).
1044* SpaceshipGirl: [[spoiler: Subverted by]] River in "Objects in Space".
1045* SpaceWestern: Complete with saloons, saloon fights, showdowns at high noon (albeit with swords), and horses.
1046* TheSpartanWay: Jubal in "Objects in Space" suggests surgeons shouldn't be allowed to practice until they themselves have first been cut on. Also a BrickJoke when he shoots Simon in the leg later and says, "Now you know what it's like."
1047* SpiceOfLife: {{Justified|Trope}} with actual spices (particularly in the RPG). The food that independent spacers (like the crew of ''Serenity'') stock the most of is packaged protein, because it's cheap and it keeps forever. It also doesn't taste like much of anything, making fresh produce, herbs and spices a welcome treat. Shepherd Book said it best in the pilot ("Serenity"):
1048--> '''Book:''' The important thing is the spices. A man can live on packaged food from here 'til Judgment Day if he's got enough rosemary.
1049* SpiritualSuccessor: Whedon's script for ''Film/AlienResurrection'' involved an amoral crew of mercenaries and a partially insane woman, subject of mysterious scientific experiments as part of a government weapons project, with preternatural abilities. Sound familiar?
1050* SpitShine: Jayne does this with a knife, combining this with LickingTheBlade. This...disconcerts the rest of the crew.
1051-->'''Simon''': Could you not do that while we're... ever?
1052* StaringKid: Jayne gets his own personal one in "Jaynestown."
1053* TheStarscream: Jayne definitely shows Starscream-like tendencies. Best exemplified by this quote from the movie:
1054-->'''Mal''': You wanna run this ship?!\
1055'''Jayne''': Yes!\
1056'''Mal''': ''[flustered]'' Well... you can't!
1057* StealthHiBye: River.
1058** Simon once or twice.
1059** Also Mal in "Objects in Space". Mr. Early looks to the right of a corridor. No one there. He looks to the left. No one there. He turns back to the right. Mal is there. Made hilarious in that Mal and Early have the exact same "Oh shit where did you come from?!" expression on their faces when they see each other.
1060* StealthInsult: Wash, on describing Jayne with his hat on in "The Message": "A man walks down the street in that hat..."
1061** Simon, after his father bails him out of prison in "Safe": "I'm sorry, Dad. I never would have tried to save River's life if I had known there was a dinner party at stake!"
1062* StealthPun[=/=]VisualPun: In "Safe", Theatre/{{River dance}}s.
1063* SteamPunk: While not ''strictly'' steampunk, the series does contain a lot of steampunk themes (mixing 19th century aesthetics with sci-fi elements and storylines) as well as steampunk character types such as the WrenchWench, and went a long way toward popularizing the genre.
1064* StillWearingTheOldColors: '''Browncoats''' were soldiers who fought for the Independents, who lost to the Alliance in the Unification War. They were named after the simple, brown leather trench coats they wore as uniforms. After the war's end, clothiers made good money dyeing brown coats blue or gray as folks wanted to forget the past and let the past forget them. Those that still 'wear the brown' do it on purpose, and are making a very pointed socio-political statement by doing so. Captain Malcolm Reynolds and Zoë Alleyne wear the signature brown coat. Even the fanbase calls itself "browncoats".
1065* StormingTheCastle: The assault on Niska's skyplex in "War Stories."
1066* TheStrategist:
1067** Simon in "Ariel", River in "Objects in Space".
1068--->'''River:''' I can kill you with my brain.
1069** Mal demonstrates this as well, successfully capturing an enemy gun turret and shooting down a skiff during the Battle of Serenity Valley, and figuring out ahead of time how Patience would betray him. His expertise seems to be in short-term planning, since anything he plans from beginning to end tends to go awry - as expressed in the movie:
1070--->'''Mal:''' Jayne, how many weapons you plan on bringing? You only got the two arms.\
1071'''Jayne:''' I just get excitable as to choice... like to have my options open.\
1072'''Mal:''' I don't plan on any shooting taking place during this job.\
1073'''Jayne:''' Well, what you plan and what takes place ain't ever exactly been similar.
1074* StrawmanPolitical: It is a credit to the writing on the show and the development of the universe that varying camps of fans can make convincing cases for The Alliance being a government of liberal ''or'' conservative {{Well Intentioned Extremist}}s. There's also some debate as to whether or not the whole show is a Deconstruction of Libertarian philosophy, with an idealized Libertarian WarriorPoet (Captain Mal) having to deal with the reality of a wild frontier with no strong government influence where corporate corruption, criminal activity and slavery are the rule. It actually fairly demonstrates both sides of the arguement. The Core Worlds are [[CrystalSpiresAndTogas peaceful and prosperous]], but the government can do damn near anything they want to their citizens as long as they can justify it -- such as cut up little girls' brains or [[spoiler:dose entire planets with mind control drugs]]. The Rim Worlds are anarchic and destitute, but [[ItsUpToYou you can always look your accuser in the eye and settle it one way or another]] -- or even [[TrainingThePeacefulVillagers round up a posse of fellow victims and exact some frontier justice]]. The argument seems to be that ''a healthy civilization needs both'' and any attempt to "rid the world of sin" will do nothing but harm in the long run.
1075* SubLightspeedSetting: ''Serenity'' and subsequent media clarify that the setting is a single multi-star system with dozens of terraformed planets, meaning that FTL travel is not necessary.
1076* SubspaceAnsible: Either that or whenever they're conferencing with someone over the cortex, they're close enough that there's no noticeable delay. The pilot episode does indicate that there's a range limit for communications.
1077* SuperSoldier: Implied with River, especially in "War Stories" and "Objects In Space." [[spoiler:Confirmed like Hell in the {{Big Damn Movie}}, although it's more Super Assassin-Spy-Soldier than just Super Soldier.]]
1078* SureLetsGoWithThat: Mal, to Inara when he apparently figures out how she passed out after Saffron takes over ''Serenity'' in "Our Mrs. Reynolds": "I knew you let her kiss you!"
1079* SurgeonsCanDoAutopsiesIfTheyWant: Simon's a trauma surgeon, but he is also apparently trained to handle autopsies to some degree, mentioning in "Bushwhacked" that he is familiar with handling corpses. This makes him the logical choice to handle the autopsy in "The Message."
1080** FridgeLogic kicks in when you realize that, as a med student, Simon was operating on cadavers, so is better trained than the crew at handling dead bodies.
1081* TakeAThirdOption: In "Trash", Simon finally learns the truth about "Ariel". The two options would seem to be either he bottles up the knowledge and keeps it to himself or he goes medieval on Jayne for the betrayal. He does neither. Instead he corners Jayne for a calm, rational discussion about the subject where he reveals that, as Jayne's medic, he'll never hurt Jayne and that he's freely going to put his trust in Jayne to do the right thing in future. It ''terrifies'' and confuses Jayne. River [[PlayedForLaughs playing the bad cop]] to Simon's good cop doesn't hurt, either.
1082* TakesALevelInBadass: [[spoiler: Petaline]] at the end of "Heart of Gold"
1083--> [[spoiler: '''Petaline:''' "Rance, this is Jonah. Jonah, say hi to your Daddy."]]
1084--> [[spoiler: (calmly puts a bullet through Rance's head)]]
1085--> [[spoiler: '''Petaline:''' "Say goodbye to Daddy, Jonah."]]
1086* TakingTheBullet: One of the mudders does this for Jayne in "Jaynestown".
1087* TastyGold: In the pilot episode "Serenity". What the [[TomatoSurprise audience thinks]] is gold is actually food in a gold wrapper, so biting into it to confirm its authenticity makes perfect sense.
1088* TalkativeLoon: River. Jubal Early from "Objects in Space" fits the trope as well.
1089* TalkingIsAFreeAction: Subverted by the CombatPragmatist Mal. He blows a lawman's head off mid-speech in the pilot. Subverted again in the movie.
1090* TalkToTheFist:
1091** In the pilot, Simon and Mal's argument ends with Mal punching Simon for accusing him of being an Alliance sell-out.
1092--->'''Mal:''' You don't want to go down this road with me, boy.\
1093'''Simon:''' Oh, you're not afraid of them [the Alliance]? I already know you'd sell me out to them for a pat on the head. Hell, you should probably be working for them. You certainly fit the prof--! ''[[UnsoundEffect *clobber*]]''\
1094'''Jayne:''' Saw that comin'.
1095** When Mal walks into a hostage situation in ''Serenity'', he doesn't bother listening to the man's demands and just shoots him before he has a chance to react.
1096* TapOnTheHead: At the end of "Ariel," Mal delivers one to [[spoiler:Jayne]]. With a wrench.
1097* TheTeam: The series maintained an ensemble cast that portrayed the nine crew members of the ship, ''Serenity''. The crew is driven by the need to secure enough income to keep their ship operational, set against their need to keep a low profile to avoid their adversaries.
1098* TechnicalPacifist: Book. From "War Stories":
1099-->'''Zoe''': Preacher, don't the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killing?\
1100'''Book''': Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.
1101* {{Telepathy}}: River. There's a hint that Jubal Early from "Objects in Space" may have at least a very rudimentary level, although not to River's degree.
1102* TerribleIntervieweesMontage: In "Bushwhacked," the crew is placed under arrest and subjected to interrogation. The resulting montage alternates between the serious (Mal, Book, Zoe, Inara) and the hilarious (Jayne, Kaylee, Wash).
1103* ThatCameOutWrong: When Badger is describing how to get into the party in "Shindig" he mentions that people couldn't buy an invite with a diamond the size of a testicle, but he had got his hands on a couple. Mal and Jayne immediately begin sniggering, and it takes Badger a few seconds to catch on.
1104** In "War Stories", right after Jayne says that [[IllBeInMyBunk he'll be in his bunk after seeing the ambassador]], the next line is: "Jayne, grab your weapon."
1105** In "Our Mrs. Reynolds" when Jayne tries to trade Vera for Saffron, Mal tells him to "go play with your rainstick" (to clarify, Jayne had earlier mentioned that he had picked up a rainstick (a type of hollow stick with beads that sounds like rain if you turn it upside down) at the same festival that Mal picked up Saffron).
1106* ThatWasntARequest:
1107** When Mal's team meets up with Badger in "Shindig", Badger says he thinks they might have a bit of a sit-down. When Mal tells him to piss off, Badger makes it clear it wasn't a request.
1108---> '''Badger''': I thought we might have a bit of a sit-down.\
1109'''Mal''': I'd prefer a bit of a piss off.\
1110'''Badger''': I'm very sorry, did I give you the impression I was askin'?
1111** In "Safe", Mal tells Simon to take his sister for a walk away from the ship while he does business and Simon comments that he doesn't think that's such a wise suggestion. Mal points out that it wasn't a suggestion.
1112** A more serious case occurs in "Out of Gas" when Mal orders Wash to check ''Serenity'' after an engine malfunction, while Zoe is unconscious from getting knocked out by the blast from the engine.
1113* {{Thememobile}}: The good ship ''Serenity''.
1114* ThickerThanWater: Behold, the Power of Brotherhood.
1115* ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself: Subverted hilariously at the end of "War Stories". Zoe tells Jayne and Wash not to shoot a man Mal is fighting, only for Mal, who is desperately trying not to be strangled, to quickly inform them that this is not the case, at which point they blow the guy away.
1116-->'''Zoe''': (''stops Jayne from shooting Niska's goon, who is engaged in a fistfight with Mal'') This is something the captain has to do for himself.\
1117'''Mal''': '''''NO!! NO IT'S NOT!!'''''\
1118'''Zoe''': (''surprised'') Oh.\
1119(''Zoe, Jayne, and Wash unload more ammo than is really necessary into said goon'')
1120* ThisPageWillSelfDestruct: In ''Life Signs'', [[spoiler:Doctor Esau Weng destroyed his laboratory and all his research notes to prevent the Blue Sun Corporation getting access to his work when they revealed their plans to use it for military purposes]].
1121* ThroughHisStomach: At the end of "War Stories": "Wife soup!" (Made ''by'', not ''of''...) Especially touching in this case, because Zoe previously expressed utter contempt for the idea of cooking for her husband.
1122* ThrownOutTheAirlock: Jayne almost suffers this fate in "Ariel."
1123* ThrowTheDogABone: It leads to some problems in the next episode ("War Stories"), but in "Ariel" the crew finally does pull off a complicated job and make out like bandits, pulling in quite a bit of money.
1124* ToThePain: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]]. In "Trash", Simon explains that he will ''never'' hurt Jayne. He just happens to say it in a tone [[ParentheticalSwearing usually reserved for death threats]]. River's addendum is a more straight-up version, said in a more casual tone: "Also? I can kill you with my brain."
1125* TokenEvilTeammate: Jayne Cobb. Jayne may not be actually "evil," though he is particularly greedy, violent, and self-serving, even considering he is on a crew of thieves and criminals, and [[spoiler:attempts to sell River and Simon to the Alliance for money.]]
1126* TragicRobot: Wash bot borderlines it. Meant as a trap bait for Zoe, it acted as Wash would since it was programmed with his personality and some memories. It protected her instead of getting her caught, taking damage in the process. Emma took a liking to it too. Now it’s just trying to find a place in the verse and Zoe doesn’t have any romantic feelings for it but she did tell it to stay alive because losing it would be too much like losing Wash again.
1127* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: The contents of Simon Tam's mysterious box in the pilot, which is also revealed in the ''opening credits'' for that episode, as well as the actual trailers. That opening also informs the audience that Simon and River are going to be permanent cast members.
1128** Of course, the credits also reveal that Book is a main cast member, which should make the identity of the ''real'' Alliance mole pretty obvious.
1129* TrainJob: The crew is hired to steal some Alliance cargo from a moving train. They're later horrified to realize that [[spoiler: the cargo was badly needed medicine headed for a poor mining town suffering from the spread of a degenerative disease. Despite the possibly lethal consequences, they go back on their deal with the man who hired them and return the medicine.]]
1130* TreasureChestCavity: In "The Message". But it turns out it's not gold: it's specifically grown organs for transplants.
1131* TriggerHappy: Jayne.
1132* TriggerPhrase: As seen in the movie, River, and '''how'''. To be more specific, a phrase makes her fall asleep. What turns her into an unstoppable killer, on the other hand, is a subliminal code embedded in an innocuous advertisement.
1133* TrojanPrisoner: "The Train Job."
1134* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: According to some illustrations in ''Still Flying'', young Jayne. In that at ten years old he was shooting spaceport varmints for the bounties, and using the money he earned to [[CrossesTheLineTwice bet on homeless gladiator blood sports]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and buy beer.]]
1135* TrueCompanions: Serenity's crew. Mal will protect everyone on his ship and will punish anyone on his ship for harming anyone else.
1136* TurbineBlender: To one of Niska's goons in "The Train Job".
1137* TykeBomb: River - all the candidates of the program that created her were ''children''.
1138[[/folder]]
1139
1140[[folder:Tropes U-Z]]
1141* UndergroundRailroad: Simon mentions in passing that such an organization helped him get River away from the Academy. Mal and his crew effectively fulfill this trope in practice, helping the Tams stay on the move to avoid capture.
1142* UnfazedEveryman: Although he ''did'' sign up for the crew of ''Serenity'', Wash is also a NonActionGuy who often finds the situations the ship gets into utterly confusing.
1143* UnhappyMedium: River.
1144* UnlimitedWardrobe: Or unlimited t-shirts.
1145** Subverted with most of the rest of the cast, who tend to wear the same clothes in multiple episodes. Zoe's leather vest, any of Mal's clothing... Kaylee even wears the same dress at one point that she was seen wearing in the ''flashback'' in "Out of Gas."
1146** Even [[SharpDressedMan Simon]] wears the same vest at least twice before playing the trope fairly straight with a different sweater for each episode after "Ariel".
1147* UnkemptBeauty: River Tam, natch. And Kaylee. ''Especially'' covered in engine grease.
1148* UnknownRival: A weapons designer in "Better Days," whom Mal humiliated by stealing the high-tech attack drone the designer was demonstrating to buyers. He swears revenge against Reynolds -- even before the product's failure gets him fired -- and attacks the crew out of nowhere later in the miniseries, without ever announcing why. After he's dead, Mal lampshades this with, "I guess we'll never know what his problem was."
1149* UnproblematicProstitution: While downplayed, the main reason why Inara did court Atherton was not have to keep traveling (and living on a squalid ship with someone who frustrates her to no end). It's stated in "Heart of Gold" that being a Companion requires a ''lot'' of skills, and, of course, there's the matter of the accidental pregnancy bringing the wrath of the local baron on Nandi's whorehouse. The Companions Guild is in practice something like a WeirdTradeUnion for {{High Class Call Girl}}s. It's very powerful in the core worlds and in high society on the border and outer planets, but it doesn't protect lower-class sex workers.
1150* UnresolvedSexualTension: No, it is not your imagination that whenever Mal and Inara get within a foot of each other, electricity shoots out of your screen. It is the UST trying to explode your television/computer. It's also present between Kaylee and Simon, who don't become an OfficialCouple until the movie, mostly because Simon is too focused on protecting River to respond to Kaylee's advances.
1151* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: Subverted/inverted in "Ariel". Mal, Zoe, and Jayne are given responses to three stock questions they will probably be asked when bringing Simon and River's "corpses" to the morgue. Instead of what you might expect (a question they had not planned for pops up), the woman who would have asked just waves them past. Jayne, who had struggled with the line he was given, refuses to let his hard work go to waste and just gives it anyway.
1152-->'''Jayne:''' We applied the cortical electrodes, but were unable to get a neural response from either patient!
1153* UnstoppableRage: Jayne briefly has one in "Jaynestown" when [[spoiler: the mudder takes a bullet for him.]]
1154* UnusualEuphemism: Between the Mildly Mandarin swearing, the use of archaic words like "quim", and various other slang such as "gorram" and "shiny", it is hard to find examples of ''usual'' euphemisms on this show.
1155** Lest we forget "sly," the Verse slang for homosexual men (and possibly women as well).
1156* UpgradeVsPrototypeFight: The novel ''Generations'' basically features this when [[spoiler:River discovers Silas, the first test subject of the Academy program River was subjected to, Silas possessing a wider range of abilities than River does but so dangerous that it made him uncontrollable]].
1157* UptightLovesWild: Simon and Kaylee.
1158** Inara and Mal are a milder example.
1159%%* UsedFuture: Justified.
1160* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: The Alliance's goal.
1161* TheVamp: Introduced in "Our Mrs. Reynolds", [[spoiler:Saffron.]]
1162* VehicleBasedCharacterization: The ship ''Serenity'' is battered and has seen better days, just like Mal, her broken-down ex-soldier captain.
1163* VictoriasSecretCompartment: Zoe and Inara, and apparently Saffron as well.
1164* VictorySex: [[AcePilot Wash's]] piloting skill and [[WrenchWench Kaylee's]] mechanical know-how allow the crew to evade a Reaver ship. Zoe is suitably impressed by her husband's abilities.
1165-->'''Zoe''': ''(to Mal)'' Sir, can you take the helm, please? I need this man to tear all my clothes off.
1166-->'''Wash''': [[SarcasmMode Work, work, work.]]
1167* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler:Saffron]] has a spectacular one near the end of "Trash."
1168* VirginShaming: {{Zigzagged}}. The magistrate in "Jaynestown" believes this so he hires Inara to take his son's virginity. During their time together, Inara explains to the magistrate's son that this is not true. But after losing his virginity to Inara, the son defies his father, saying that his time with Inara did in fact help him grow up. It may have been the sex, or it may have been because Inara gives really good pep talks, or it may have been both.
1169-->'''Fess''': You're the one who wanted me to become a man, Father. I guess it worked.
1170* WagonTrainToTheStars: A quite literal example.
1171* WaifFu: River.
1172* WaifProphet: River, who often spouts supposedly meaningless {{koan}}s.
1173* WaistcoatOfStyle: Simon in the early episodes.
1174* WallOfWeapons: Jayne's bunk.
1175* WalkingTheEarth: Or in this case, Flying the Space ... "It's enough."
1176* TheWarJustBefore: The Unification War, which ended in an Alliance victory only six years before the series begins. The two cast members who fought for the Independent Faction, Mal and Zoe, are still bitter about it, and the movie ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' and ExpandedUniverse material such as ''ComicBook/SerenityLeavesOnTheWind'' indicate that things may be building up to a revolution.
1177* WardrobeFlawOfCharacterization: In "Shindig," Kaylee's idea of fancy dress is a store-bought, ultra-frilly PimpedOutDress. She is mocked for her lack of class by the {{Rich Bitch}}es at the titular party, who favor custom-made and clearly expensive SimpleYetOpulent attire.
1178* WarriorPoet: In "War Stories", multiple characters discuss the fictional Shan Yu, who fancied ''himself'' quite the warrior poet.
1179* WeHaveToGetTheBulletOut: Several occasions ("Serenity", "Safe" and "Objects in Space", to name a few) see someone working to remove a bullet from a wound.
1180* WeldTheLock: In "Our Mrs. Reynolds," [[spoiler:Saffron]] uses [[{{Buffyspeak}} some sort of heating strip thing]] to weld shut the door to the cockpit.
1181* WellExcuseMePrincess: Mal and Inara trade roles in this frequently, sometimes ("Trash") even simultaneously.
1182* WellIntentionedExtremist: The Alliance. WordOfGod is that for the most part they are operating out of a genuine, if misguided or poorly executed sense of goodwill, when they're not staffed by greedy monsters or psychopaths.
1183* WeWillAllFlyInTheFuture: Well, not ''everyone''. On Ariel, or even Persephone, there are plenty of flying vehicles of all types weaving among the "crystal spires", including flying ambulances and flying police cars. On Bellerophon rich people have entire floating ''islands''. (Floating in mid-air, that is.) On the outer moons, not so much. (Rance Burgess does have a hovercraft; everyone else on his crappy moon is stuck with horses, or walking.)
1184* WeWillMeetAgain: So very subverted.
1185* WeWillSpendCreditsInTheFuture: The central planets do, anyway. Credits are primarily electronic currency (easy to track, hard to counterfeit), established by the RPG as having a 1:25 exchange rate with US dollars. The lower-tech outer planets favor precious metal coinage that has to be changed for credits to do (legitimate) business in the core.
1186* WhamLine: Many of them related to River, the resident BrokenBird.
1187** "[[BewareTheNiceOnes No power in the 'Verse can stop me!]]" It's less the line, but more [[DissonantSerenity the delivery]], as it's not even clear that River registers on an emotional level what she's just done.
1188** "I'm not on the ship. I'm in the ship. [[spoiler: I am the ship.]]"
1189** Followed [[MoodWhiplash soon after]] by: "You're not in my mind. [[spoiler: You're on my gorram ship!]]"
1190* WhatAPieceOfJunk: Kaylee's BerserkButton is people referring to ''Serenity'' as this. Even out of her earshot, a lot of other characters look down on ''Serenity'' as well.
1191--> '''Shepherd:''' She don't look like much.\
1192'''Kaylee:''' Oh, she'll fool ya.
1193* WhatDidIDoLastNight?: "Our Mrs. Reynolds" has a version of this. When Mal's accused of being married, he asks Jayne how drunk he got the night before. Jayne, however, had passed out so didn't know.
1194** Initially looks like it's averted in "Jaynestown" when Mal finds Simon and Kaylee fast asleep in a compromising position. Simon insists to Mal that nothing untoward happened between them, much to Kaylee's annoyance when he fumbles his words and says, "I would never... not with her". However, at the end of the episode, it would appear his memory of events is more shaky than he was letting on: Kaylee starts talking about them making love that night resulting in a startled "When we what...?!" exclamation from him... and then he realizes Kaylee's teasing him.
1195* WhatYouAreInTheDark: Nobody but Simon would have known if he had abandoned River. Not even River herself.
1196** [[spoiler:River can suss out who people are in the dark. Her brother, Simon, resents her for making him throw away his comfortable life and everyone he'd ever known to go on the run. Jayne is genuinely sorry for trying to sell her and Simon out to the Alliance. Inara just wants to be treated like a regular woman by Mal.]]
1197* WhenItAllBegan: The revolution, at least for Mal and Zoe.
1198* WhyAreYouLookingAtMeLikeThat: Subverted in "The Train Job". The crew mention they need to send someone respectable, and everyone looks at Simon, who seems nervous about it... cut to Inara, the ambassador of the ship, putting the plan into action.
1199* WidescreenShot: The whole series was filmed in widescreen.
1200%% The Woobie goes on the YMMV page. Check the tab at the top of the page.
1201* WorldOfSnark: In fine tradition for a Joss Whedon series.
1202* WorryingForTheWrongReason: When Serenity's engine breaks down, shutting down life-support, the crew worries that they'll suffocate. River informs them that they don't have to worry about that; they'll freeze to death long before the air runs out.
1203* WorthlessYellowRocks: Downplayed. The ''Serenity'' tabletop RPG establishes that while gold and silver aren't worthless in the 'Verse, they aren't worth a whole lot, either. Platinum is the currency of real business; gold and silver are pocket change.
1204* WouldHitAGirl: Mal knocks Saffron unconscious at the end of "Our Mrs. Reynolds." On meeting at the beginning of "Trash," they get into a knock-down-drag-out.
1205** Jayne knocks River down when she slashes his chest in ''[[Recap/FireflyE09Ariel Ariel]]'', but since this is a clear-cut case of self-defense and he visibly doesn't use deadlier means that were available to him, no one holds it against him. [[EverybodyHasStandards He may be reluctant to do this]] in less lethal circumstances, since he tries to restrain her with a bear hug instead when she goes berserk in the Maidenhead Bar in [[Film/{{Serenity}} the movie]].
1206* WrapItUp
1207* WrenchWench: Kaylee.
1208* WrenchWhack: Mal does this to [[spoiler:Jayne]] toward the end of "Ariel".
1209* WretchedHive: Persephone is a more subtle one than most, but it ''is'' a planet where heavily-armed thugs can stick up a man in broad daylight and everyone will just move along a little faster. In the prequel comics, ''Serenity's'' crew also has a shoot-out with Badger's thugs while at the docks, inside the cargo bay of their ship, with an open door behind them, and no one says anything.
1210* YesNoAnswerInterpretation: In [[Recap/FireflyE04Shindig "Shindig"]] one of Inara's rich clients offers her an opportunity to stay with him as his personal Companion.
1211--> '''Inara:''' You're a generous man.\
1212'''Atherton Wing:''' That is not a "yes".\
1213'''Inara:''' It's not a "no", either.
1214* YouAreTooLate: In "Trash", Saffron tells the gun's owner that he should have called the Feds the moment she showed up with Mal. Then he shows her the panic button built into a ring he's wearing, which he did, in fact, push when he saw her.
1215* YouCantGoHomeAgain: Simon and River are wanted fugitives, and the RPG sourcebook reveals that Mal's homeworld Shadow suffered [[ApocalypseHow total planetary extinction]] during the Unification War.
1216* YouHaveFailedMe: Niska likes to do this.
1217* YouMustBeCold: Monkeywrenched in the pilot.
1218* YouRebelScum: From most Alliance officials.
1219[[/folder]]
1220
1221----
1222-->''There's no place I can be\
1223Since I found serenity\
1224You can't take the sky from me...''

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