Spoilers about Serenity

[readsalot]

We get many more details about River's training and education, though not all--I'm still not clear on why the government wanted to train a bunch of bright children to be perfect weapons. The bad guy is convinced that protecting the government's secrets is The Right Thing To Do At All Costs, and I'm not sure why he thinks that. He kills lots of people because they might have sheltered Mal; that's brutal and terrifying, but if he's got the power, it's the correct thing for him to do, and I'm happy to see an antagonist who is willing to do smart but evil things, just because it's so rare. I really liked that no one did anything stupid, because, again, that's so rare. One of the people he kills is Book, who's now living in a colony of some sort where Serenity's crew is accepted as friends. There's a very moving scene where they get to that planet, and find all the dead people, and Book, who lives just long enough to die in Mal's arms and chide him gently about belief.

We find out where the Reavers really came from. (An experiment in using a drug to calm the population that backfired, causing most of the inhabitants of that planet to give up on doing anything, and a very few to become totally savage and depraved.) I do still wonder why they found so many clothed skeletons there--is 12 years enough for bodies to decay that much? Wouldn't the proto-Reavers have eaten them, and left things in a mess? If the Reavers are so savage, how do they manage to run spaceships?

There's a new character called Mr. Universe who's quite eccentric and can read what's happening on any network, anywhere. He can also broadcast to any network. After finding out about the Reavers, Mal contacts him about getting the news out to, well, the universe. Unfortunately, he's already been found by The Bad Guy, who kills him right after the call is over. When Our Heroes make it through a terrible battle with Reavers and Alliance ships to that planet, and finally land, a bunch of spikes come shooting through the cockpit, and one of them skewers Wash. He's dead immediately. I was sure for some time that that would be fixed, but no, Wash is really dead. Ok, that's a good dramatic thing, but, well, first, where the heck did those spikes come from (a defense? but Mr. Universe knew his friends were coming.), and second, there wasn't enough grief from anyone to make it seem real. Granted, they had no time, and Zoe's not one for histrionics, but they didn't let anyone cry.

In the resolution, Simon and Kaylee become lovers, and River's, well, not entirely fixed, but a lot better, and Mal and Inara seem to at least be talking to each other. These are all good things, but they're resolutions, and in my opinion, make it a lot harder for there to be any more movies or for the TV series to pick up again. (Also, no more Book! or Wash! sniffle.) On the other hand, it's not terribly likely that the TV series could be picked up again, or that there would be more movies (and yes, I heard that this was a 3-picture deal, but movies have to do really well for a studio to want to make a sequel, and I don't think that Serenity will compare with The X-Men in terms of box office.)

I also found the random kookiness of Mr. Universe to be a bit over-the-top. Now, maybe there were some more explanatory scenes there that were cut off, or maybe they needed some humor to lighten up the plot. I don't know.