PS (cold coffee) - Wash's death WAS random, cruel, pointless and heartbreaking. Just like in real life. I'm reminded of Joyce, Tara and Anya - the horror of death is that there's no rhyme or reason to it, and you can't usually see it coming - I hate those big dramatic deaths with the heroizing and dying speeches and what-not (speaking of which, Book's death blew for that very reason) - they're so goddamn fake. Wash's death to me was very realistic - just because they had landed without killing themselves didn't mean the danger was past. They relaxed for a second and BOOM, death caught up to them. And I'm sure (not having been in one myself) that in battle there isn't time for anything, just check that they're not breathing and move on to save the ones you still can. Like in triage. I don't know how anyone can do it, myself, but that's why I'm not a soldier or a trauma surgeon.

OK final ETA, I swear - I almost lost it when Wash died, but it was the pan over the dinosaurs in the cockpit that really got me. That and Zoe, keeping her shit together despite it all.

If the Reavers were created by a toxin, how does that jibe with them making more reavers just by being seen, as happened in Bushwhacked?

Do we know for certain that the guy who turned reaver was one of the settlers from the found ship? Everyone pretty much assumed this, myself included, but what if he were actually one of the reavers left behind? He could have just been slow with the self-mutilation. Not elegant, but could it work?

I've always wondered why the Reavers (apparently) don't turn on each other if they're uncontrollably and insanely hostile. Is it possible that there's some sort of Jasmine-y/Wraiths from Stargate Atlantis style mass mind thing going on, so that they recognize their own and only attack "other"? What if the Pax activated latent telepathy in a small percentage of the population, just strong enough for them to link up with each other and reinforce everyone's shared trauma and madness? Might not survivors/recruits like that kid in "Bushwhacked" be similar latent telepaths who could form a rapport with the group after sufficient exposure?

Just think about 30,000 people constantly earworming each other with "It's a Small World," and the homicidal/suicidal mania becomes very understandable.

I don't see why it doesn't jibe. The Reavers were created by the Pax. This guy became a Reaver because his mind couldn't cope with the horrors he was forced to watch and some creepy internal switch flipped. It's not as though it's impossible for both methods to work.

Some extraordinarily pretty pictures of the men of Firefly.

I'd like to thank Jesus, Buddha, Santa Claus, and Xenu the Clam Lord for those pictures of Sean Maher. Apparently I've been a very good girl this year.

My. Xenu loves us indeed.

More on Reavers: why is there this Reaver asteroid belt where they all hang out-- way too closely to one another, but anyway-- waiting to entrap some luckless, what, space tourists? (As I understand it, we were seeing and hearing the entrapment of other ships as Serenity passed through.) It'd be like coming across a web with thirty spiders in it. ETA: I mean, why would any ship come near there, ever?

It reminded me of the scene in Galaxy Quest where Sigourney Weaver and Tim Allen are running through a needlessly treacherous part of the ship:

Gwen DeMarco: What is this thing? I mean, it serves no useful purpose for there to be a bunch of chompy, crushy things in the middle of a hallway. No, I mean we shouldn't have to do this, it makes no logical sense, why is it here?

Yes. Good Lord that is a pretty, pretty boy.

Ron Glass is prettiest. He's the Legolas of the 'verse.

bon bon, I thought of that exact scene when Mal looks down below Mr. Universe's generator at the giant...spinny thing. Hee.