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"War Stories" is the tenth episode of science-fiction television series Firefly created by Joss Whedon.

Angered at Zoë's unshakable war connection to Mal, Wash demands a shot at a field assignment. Unfortunately, crime lord Niska chooses this moment to exact a brutal vengeance for Mal's failure to complete an earlier job.

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Synopsis

On Serenity, as Simon reviews the data he collected on River from the 3-D neuro-scanner in "Ariel", Shepherd Book looks over his shoulder, musing about a "warrior-poet" Shan Yu (who Simon refers to as a "psychotic dictator"). Book cites a Shan Yu quote that suggests that the way to truly learn about someone is to torture them, and wonders if this was the purpose behind the brain surgery done on River. Simon disagrees, believing there was a specific goal the unknown surgeons were hoping to achieve. Elsewhere, crime lord Adelei Niska (last seen in "The Train Job") is having another betrayer tortured, also alluding to Shan Yu. His new lieutenant, Victor, interrupts him to announce a nearby Firefly-class ship that might belong to Malcolm Reynolds, the man who abrogated a business arrangement with Niska, and whose reputation is "not so good" anymore. A delighted Niska orders his man to fetch the culprit, then goes back to his learning experience.

Back on Serenity, Kaylee playfully chases River around the cargo bay, after the girl "took my apple", despite Jayne's having contributed a crate's worth to the ship's stores. Amid the noise, Inara urges Mal to respect the privacy of her imminently arriving client, a councillor of some political importance. Mal reassures her that he won't cause a scene like the earlier one ("Shindig") that nearly got him killed. Inara is also concerned about the other crew "ogling" her client. When Kaylee finally catches River and regains her apple, she holds it high and proclaims that "no power in the 'verse can stop me".

Later, Zoë and Wash puzzle over Jayne's generosity as they munch on the apples. Kaylee asks why Zoë and Mal always cut up their apples, and Zoë (and Mal, who joins them) tell a war story about "griswalds", tiny pressure-sensitive grenades that were embedded explosives in apples by Alliance troops, who offered them to starving Independence troops with horrific results. Wash sardonically embellishes on the story, annoyed at the frequent references to his wife's long history with the captain. Mal vetoes Wash's idea to improve their profit from the medicine sales by bypassing the local middlemen. Wash is surprised by this, because Zoë had told him that she hadn't run it by the captain.

On the bridge later, Zoë admits to Wash that she had mentioned it, he disagreed, she accepted it without arguing, and then she lied to Wash so as not to upset him. This makes Wash all the more upset because of her casual deference to Mal and dishonesty with him. When she sarcastically says that "what this marriage needs is one more shouting match", he replies "what this marriage needs is one less husband, right now it's a little crowded".

In the Tams' quarters, River is suffering from the effects of Simon's treatment. She fondly reminisces about her fun with Kaylee, but her chaotic thoughts intrude on her still. Clearly, Simon's work is far from done. In the common room, which overlooks the cargo hold, Book chides Kaylee and Jayne for trying to steal a peek at Inara's arriving client. In the bay, accompanied by Inara's rolling eyes, Mal introduces himself to the well-dressed man who enters, but the man ignores him and signals to the councillor that "we're all clear here". In walks a gorgeous woman in an elegant gown, who Inara warmly greets and walks off with. The rest of the crew is agog at the variance from their expectations. While Kaylee babbles her admiration of Inara's female client, Jayne quickly departs, needlessly announcing that "I'll be in my bunk".

Preparing the unused shuttle for their business rendezvous, Zoë and Mal discover that it's been sabotaged. Wash, the saboteur, enters to demand that he go with Mal to the meeting, jealously wanting to take Zoë's place at Mal's side, so she and he don't bring back yet another tale of adventure-laden bonding. An annoyed Zoë happily leaves the boys to their mission, and Mal reluctantly agrees, more concerned about getting underway on what should be a "milk run".

In her quarters, Inara massages the councillor, who tells her that she need not be so accommodating, that she can relax. Inara remarks that when she chooses her rare female clients, she does so because they are extraordinary in some way, and hints that the councillor's gift is allowing Inara herself to relax and serve her own needs as well as the councillor's. They embrace and kiss deeply.

Meanwhile, Wash comically defends his assumption of Zoë's role to Mal, and winds up hauling the merchandise to the meeting. As the "milk run" deal goes down, however, the middlemen are killed by men who suddenly arise from the sand and capture Mal and Wash.

Later, as Inara tenderly bids goodbye to her client, Jayne starts off again for his bunk, but Zoë intercepts him, wanting to find out what happened to their missing crewmates. Book volunteers to accompany them, and at the deserted meeting site, shrewdly determines the weaponry used to take their people, intriguing Jayne. Zoë notices the abandoned supplies and ultimately adds up the evidence that points out that it's not robbery that the assailants have in mind, thus guessing that Niska is behind the kidnapping.

On Niska's skyplex, the blindfolded and tied-up kidnappees bicker, with Wash becoming increasingly incensed about both the danger that Mal regularly exposes Zoë to, and that she gladly obeys Mal. Wash questions Mal's assertion that his first mate doesn't blindly obey him, but Mal backs it up by claiming he told her not to marry Wash. Niska finally reveals himself to the men and begins his Shan Yu-inspired torture, but Wash and Mal spend the entire time they're being electrically shocked by continuing their bickering, all the while refusing to ackowledge the torture. Mal notices that Wash's anger keeps him from collapsing, so he hints about a sexual history with Zoë. Wash, however, is sure this never happened, and claims that Mal should sleep with her, just so his wife could get past what Wash feels is a fixation on her captain. Mal frantically tries to keep the fading Wash conscious by accepting the challenge.

Meanwhile, Zoë collects all the funds remaining from the Ariel job in order to pay off Niska to release her shipmates, counting on his perverse code to treat this as a business transaction. She turns out to be partly correct, because the sadistic criminal whimsically offers to release only one of the two men for the price she offers. He was expecting to be entertained to see Zoë's dilemma, but this was spoiled when she without batting an eyelid nor any hesitation chooses her husband. An annoyed Niska gets a parting revenge for his thwarted fun by giving her "change" — Mal's severed ear. Zoe helps the weakened and shell-shocked Wash stagger out of the room against a chilling backdrop of agonized screaming from the abandoned Mal.

By the time Zoë gets the brutalized Wash back to the shuttle, he uses his newfound respect for Mal to rally himself for a rescue mission. He takes the unpowered Serenity in for a precision stealth breeching, allowing the crew to board the station before the defenders can respond. As Zoë leads Jayne and Wash toward the torture room, Book, Simon, and Kaylee stay behind to prevent the station personnel from taking the shuttle. (Inara is elsewhere in the ship, unsuccessfully attempting to get help from the councillor.) Simon makes awkward attempts to shoot at the oncoming troops, but Book expertly shoots the men's legs (the Bible being against killing, but "somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps") and easily dodges incoming fire. Innocent Kaylee, finding in herself an inability to participate in lethal gunplay, retreats in fright from three troops approaching the breached dock from cover. River arrives, peeks around the cargo bay wall at the enemy, takes Kaylee's weapon, and with her eyes closed and facing away from the dock, takes one shot each at three different positions. The enemy gunfire is silenced, and the men lie dead. River turns to Kaylee, smiling, and echoes the engineer's earlier proclamation: "No power in the 'verse can stop me."

Deep inside the skyplex, the intrusion alarm distracts Niska. Mal uses the distraction to take out the torturer with one of Niska's special torture devices. As Mal starts to beat on the retreating Niska, the torturer recovers, giving his boss a chance to escape. The rescuers arrive to find Mal being throttled by the torturer with a whip used on a hapless victim in a previous scene. Zoë solemnly suggests that Mal must face his torturer alone, presumably to regain his self-respect. Mal quickly dashes that noble but impractical idea, and the three shipmates expend their weapons into yet another ill-fated Niska lieutenant.

Later, as Serenity rests in a desert, Mal joins the crew in the cargo hold, where he "fiddles" with his reattached ear, courtesy of equipment supplied by Inara's well-connected councillor client. Professional healer Simon expresses discomfort at having shot at people, but Book reassures him that it's unlikely that the ersatz gunfighter actually hit anyone. Kaylee has a difficult time making eye contact with River. In the dining room, in a Saffron-like display of marital devotion, Zoë serves her recuperating husband some soup. Mal enters to remind Wash of the agreement they made during the torture. To Wash's sputtering objections, he explains to Zoë about their mutual "burning sexual tension". Zoë plays along, and the war veterans awkwardly move to embrace each other. Jayne walks in, just after Zoë said: "Take me sir, take me hard", and comments that something about that was just wrong, an irate Wash finally gets up, drags his wife off, and announces that "we'll be in our bunk". Naturally, Jayne eats the abandoned soup.

Allusions to earlier episodes

• The opening scene, where Simon is prodding through River's brain scans and Book speaks of Simon's great heist, refers to the entirety of the previous episode, "Ariel". Also, Jayne's uncharacteristic contribution of fresh fruit to the ship's supplies appears to be an attempt at atonement for his misdeed in "Ariel", presumably directed at Mal, since neither man seems to have let on that Jayne was the traitor.

• While assuring Inara that no trouble will come when her new client boards the ship, Mal says "Don't worry, I'm not gonna start any sword fights. I'm over that phase", alluding to "Shindig", in which he faced a duel with one of her clients, a renowned swordsman.

• Crime lord Adelei Niska grabs and tortures Mal and Wash for their failure to complete the eponymous "Train Job".

• Zoë's making soup for her husband Wash suggests a connection to "Our Mrs. Reynolds", where Wash marvelled at Saffron doing this for Mal.

Foreshadowing

• River's newly discovered sharpshooting skill, witnessed by Kaylee, will become a point of contention in the episode "Objects in Space" as well as the feature movie Serenity. Together with other incidents, this incident provides further proof as to River's unpredictable nature being a danger to the crew.

Trivia

• Docked at the station is a Talaxian ship from Star Trek: Voyager.

• River demonstrates yet another phenomenal talent by calmly and precisely shooting three men, without looking, apparently from her memory of their locations.

• Inara is willing to have female as well as male clients. Whether this plot point was intended to demonstrate the open mindedness of the future or merely titilate the typically male audience of a sci-fi series is open to debate. The dialogue between Inara and her female client about how women can never really be themselves in the company of men may relate thematically to the speeches about Shan Yu as well as Niska's line, "Now we meet the real you."

• In the DVD audio commentary Alan Tudyk reveals that Wash served as a pilot in the Unification War, but which faction he served under, or if he was a freelance pilot, is unknown. He was also captured early on in the war, after flying a single mission, and spent most of it as a POW. It is not clear whether this is merely Tudyk's own conception of Wash's history or something that the series might have eventually acknowledged and made canon. The revelation that he spent the majority of his time in the POW camp performing shadow puppets lends credit to the idea that this is a personal opinion rather than canon, though Wash's personality certainly makes it a legitimate possiblity. The shadow puppets in the POW camp would be very obviously inspired by the Chinese film To Live.

• Jayne wears two different t-shirts during the episode. The first contains the Chinese word yong, which means 'soldier' or more commonly 'brave'. This shirt also appears in the episodes; "The Train Job", "Shindig" and "Ariel". The second t-shirt with the '28' on it said zhandou de xiaojingling, which means 'the fighting/militant elves.' This shirt was also seen in; "Safe" and "Out of Gas".

• The Star Wars Expanded Universe ship known as the Starlight Intruder appears in this episode. It is seen flying past Niska's space station; however, it is moving backwards while all the other ships flying about in that shot are moving forward.

• The fictitious tyrant "Shan Yu" quoted in the opening sequence is named after the villain of Mulan, Shan Yu. Whedon is reportedly a fan of the animated Disney film.

References and external links

• Firefly — The Complete Series DVD set (ISBN 6308024716 )
• "Firefly" War Stories at IMDb
• TV.com: "War Stories"
• Firefly Wiki - "War Stories" script
• Kevin M. Sullivan, 'Chinese Words in the 'Verse' in Jane Epenson (ed), Finding Serenity: Anti-heroes, Lost Shepherds and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon's Firefly, (BenBella Books, Texas: 2004)

• Firefly episodes