Except for this character we'd never met and never really needed to meet, we knew all this stuff before.

And this is the point of the show, and the film: petty criminals or not, the men and women of Serenity, of all the worlds outside the Core Planets, are people, not extremes, not symbols, and they have to live somewhere on that spectrum [from the control of the Alliance to the chaos of the Reavers], which means they're fucked either way.

There's a cruelty that pertains to this, because Mathias can't be expected to understand or approach this situation from the Operative's highly-developed code of bushido or whatever, because of the sword slowly sliding through his guts and stuff, but it's essential to the Operative that he maintain his point of view regardless of what happens next. Compare the Mayor on Buffy, his often-hilarious obsession with etiquette and germophobia -- everybody builds these walls so they can live, but only heroes can see over them.

Mal, stricken, steps aside to let Simon investigate her. Outside, Jayne submits that if she "goes woolly again, we're gonna have to put a bullet to her." Split-screen Mal and River, both speaking the line: "It's crossed my mind." There's a significance to the Watcher/Slayer relationship here that brings the Gollum stuff back in, which is basically that she serves as an anima projection that carries the shadow. I promise that I won't bring up the Jung stuff after this, but it's another angle on the central conflict of the movie, which is that the violence of Mal's anger at the shackles of the Alliance is expressed wildly through the outward violence she implies, the "meddling" that she, and her brother Reavers, embody. Like Giles, he exists at cross-purposes to the prosperous governing body, the wizards, who only want to send her out like Ariel, lion of God, to do their bidding -- but he doesn't agree with that either. So what do you do with a tool you're bound to protect, if you can't use it the way you're supposed to? From the First Slayer on, it's the girl -- the super-powered girl -- that carries the demon, so that the Watcher doesn't have to. But if she becomes a danger to the society she exists to create/patrol, where does that leave the Watcher? He can't kill her -- she's part of his soul. She's the psyche, the butterfly. This is a story about how they're inextricably bound, and about how Mal has to protect her, without controlling her. To hold the butterfly in his hand without crushing it. Not because he hates the Alliance, but because he loves her. If he can make that work, he'll know salvation, but if he ever figures out that balance within himself, he will know grace.

Adama tells him it's a search and rescue, but as far as getting into a firefight, he should use his judgment: "This is your command." Adama jumps back and forth across that line so many times in this story, it's unbelievable. Or, I mean, it would be, except this is Adama we're talking about. I'm sure it all makes sense to him.