Simon gives the Serenity crew a job: a break-in to a medical centre where they can steal some medicines and he can seek help for River's condition.

Once again we've got a situation where a few things a re revealed, but nothing that will completely give the game away. As such this episode provides a lot of suggestions and hints but very little in the way of a comprehensive explanation. We discover that River has been operated on so that she feels everything from everyone around her, but we don't know why, how, or the reason this seems to give her some kind of telepathic power. The problem is that the episode mainly involves a bunch of wandering up and down hospital corridors in search of an exit rather than anything much approaching a clever plot.

The reason this scores as well as a three is simply that there is a hope of moving the River plot along a bit now with the information Simon has acquired, and because of the mysterious illness that seems to afflict those who've had some kind of contact with River, something that for some reason doesn't affect the Serenity crew. It provides a more sinister edge to the proceedings, which is also helped by Jayne double crossing his crewmates and trying to give them over to the Alliance. It works because it's just how you'd expect a mercenary to behave, yet we've fallen into thinking that Jayne is better than that, and it's good to see that Simon proving what a good doctor he is isn't enough to change Jayne's mind. It's good to see that Jayne isn't a particularly good man, but even better to see Mal realize what's happened and threaten to throw Jayne out of an airlock. It's the fact that he's so believable when he's trying it that makes the whole scene work so well, as you're not entirely sure he won't.

Overall then, some interesting ideas and plot points, but it's not the most enthralling of episodes.

***

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