You don't think the above interpretations aren't awfully convenient?

I think they are perfectly logical explainations for the characters as presented in previous episodes.

Do you really think that Kaylee, who had sex with a random moron just to get into Serenity's engine room, would "save herself" for Simon, especially considering she runs hot and cold on him?

Kaylee? She is smart enough to realize Simon is a bit conservative, and despite here "hot and cold" she does quite fancy him. She can get sex any planetfall more discretely and keep up the pretense in her relationship with the doctor.

You don't think it's possible for River to go out randomly seducing a boy (or girl), picking up and reflecting the minds she's reading?

While River could do those things, she hasn't been all that randomly sexual in prior episodes, so why now? Just because it's an episode about whores?

It would be more effective and unexpected in another episode.

For that matter, is there a logical reason why a religious person could not have sex no-strings? Knowing as little as we do of Book's religion (except that it's vaguely Christian)?

No reason at all, except that over the previous 13 or so episodes he has *not* been presented as being an openly sexual being.

Book specifically says (whitefonted for Objects in Space stuff) that his order didn't allow for sex, which means for me that other denominations/orders might (similar to the current different denominations of Christianity's rulings on their clergy's sex lives) .

For that matter, is there a logical reason why a religious person could not have sex no-strings? Knowing as little as we do of Book's religion (except that it's vaguely Christian)?

From Objects in Space:

BOOK
 Well, no. 


 JAYNE
 Not ever never? 


 BOOK
 Some orders allow Shepherds to marry, 
 but I follow a narrower path. 


 JAYNE
 But, I mean, you still got the urge. 
 They don't... cut it off, or nothin'? 


 BOOK
 Mm, no, I'm more or less intact. 
 I just... 


 BOOK sits down at the kitchen table. RIVER quietly enters the kitchen
area. 


 BOOK (cont'd)
 ...direct my energy elsewhere. 


 JAYNE
 You mean like masturbating? 


 BOOK
 I hope you're not thinking of taking 
 orders yourself. 

Huh -- I'd forgotten that part. Thanks for the correction.

Well, they could have had Inara/Nandi instead of Mal/Nandi. Two old friends getting together to talk about how things have changed--and Nandi trying to find out why Inara left, and Inara dancing around the subject--might have told us a lot more about Companions, and Inara's view of the role and herself, without hitting the cliche of Man Goes to Save Whorehouse, Gets Laid by Grateful Whore.

Nandi: (quiet, in the afterglow) I knew he was stuck on you, Inara. I didn't know it went both ways. (pause) I'm sorry.

Inara: (rolling over; view of her back) [whatsherpregnantname] needs help. (starts dressing)

--only, you know, with decent dialogue.

Actually, that would have been splendid.

But I honestly think that more TV shows would have gone for Mal stoically resisting temptation and not getting laid, because he's harbouring feelings for Inara. I'd have been far more irritated and incredulous if he'd not had The Sex.

I'm still stuck on the core/rim dichotomy in attitudes toward the companions. Wasn't whatever planet featured in Train Job on the rim? (All I recall is that it was dirt-poor and people were dying for the lack of medicine--sounds rim-y.) And didn't Inara kind of waltzed in and saved Mal and Zoe because she, as a companion, commanded respect?

I think the *idea* of having a class of well-educated prostitutes be considered respectable was an interesting one. I just wish the writers were consistent about it. Why not have them be respectable everywhere? I mean, if this is for the sake of keeping up Mal/Inara UST, they could have other, more interesting reason to keep them apart. Inara was pro-Alliance in the war, and Mal doesn't strike me as someone who would lightly regard ideological differences. They could have played with the class distinction angle, with Inara in a much loftier position than Mal in the social echelon. Anything but the whole "because you are a whore" thing, which just 1) makes nonsense of the entire premise about companionship, and 2) renders itself susceptible to annoying stereotyping.

Anyone want to deconstruct the gender issues surrounding the fact that when Mal gets some from Nandi and not Inara, his insinuated-by-plot soulmate, Nandi dies?

Don't forget to also deconstruct the fact that in essence Inara causes her death. That's got to mean something too.