Serenity (Part 1 & 2)
Mal: Zoe! Tell the 82nd to—
Zoe: They’re not coming. Command says it’s too hot. They’re pulling out. We’re to lay down arms.
Six years later…
Zoe: I know something ain’t right.
Wash: Sweetie, we’re crooks. If everything were right we’d be in jail.
Zoe: Sir, we don’t want to deal with Patience again.
Mal: Why not?
Zoe: She shot you.
Mal: Well yeah, she did a bit. Still.
Zoe: Now we have a boatload of citizens right on top of our stolen cargo. That’s a fun mix.
Mal: Ain’t no way in the ‘Verse they could find that compartment. Even if they were lookin’ for it.
Zoe: Why not?
Mal: ‘Cause?
Zoe: Oh yeah, this is gonna go great.
Mal: If anyone gets nosy, you know, just… shoot ’em.
Zoe: Shoot ’em?
Mal: Politely.
Zoe: You let her die, you’ll never make it to the Feds.
Simon: She’ll still be dead.
Zoe: Wash, change course and go for hard burn. We’re runnin’.
Simon: I don’t understand.
Zoe: You’ve never heard of Reavers?
Simon: Well, campfire stories of men gone savage on the edge of space, killing and—
Zoe: They’re not stories.
Simon: What happens if they board us?
Zoe: If they take the ship, they’ll rape us to death, eat our flesh and sew our skins into their clothing. And if we’re very very lucky, they’ll do it in that order.
Wash: Didn’t expect to see them here.
Zoe: They’re pushing out further every year too.
Mal: Getting awful crowded in my sky.
Zoe: Nice place for an ambush.
Mal: That it is.
Mal: Well, you were right about this being a bad idea.
Zoe: Thanks for saying, sir.
The Train Job
Lund: The Independence were a bunch of cowardly, inbred piss-pots. Should have been killed off of every world that’s spinnin’.
Mal: Say that to my face.
Lund: I said, you’re a coward and a piss-pot. Now what are ya gonna do about it?
Mal: Nothing. I just wanted you to face me so she could get behind you. Zoe hits him from behind
Mal: This is why we lost, you know. Superior numbers.
Zoe: Thanks for the reenactment, sir.
Kaylee: So. What happened? Was there a terrible brawl?
Zoe: Oddly enough, there was.
Wash: Are you getting my wife into trouble?
Mal: Wha- ? I didn’t start it! Just wanted a quiet drink.
Zoe: Funny, sir, how you always seem to find yourself in an Alliance-friendly bar, come U-Day, lookin’ for a quiet drink.
Zoe: He’s a psycho, you know. Niska.
Mal: He’s not the first psycho to hire us. Nor the last. You think that’s a commentary on us?
Zoe: I just have an image in my head of a guy hanging from the ceiling.
Mal: I have an image of it not being me.
Zoe: Sir, is there some information we might be lacking as to why there’s an entire Fed squad sitting on this train?
Mal: It doesn’t concern us.
Zoe: It kind of concerns me.
Mal: I mean they’re not protecting the goods. If they were, they wouldn’t be letting people past them.
Zoe: You don’t think that changes the situation a bit?
Mal: I surely do. It makes it more fun.
Zoe: Sir, I think you have a problem with your brain being missing.
Mal: …Only now we do it under the noses of twenty trained Alliance Feds. And that makes them look all manner of stupid. Hell, this job I would pull for free.
Zoe: Then can I have your share?
Mal: No.
Zoe: If you die can I have your share?
Mal: Yes.
Bushwhacked
Zoe: Sir, I count six families signed on. Lifeboat wouldn’t hold a third of that.
Mal: I know.
Zoe about the goods: Sir, even on a lifeboat, you’d think those who escaped would find room for some of this.
Mal: Nobody escaped.
Zoe: Sir?
Mal: Nobody.
Alliance Commander: You fought with Captain Reynolds in the war?
Zoe: Fought with a lot of people in the war.
Alliance Commander: And your husband?
Zoe: Fought with him sometimes too.
Shindig
Mal: We sniff the air, we don’t kiss the dirt.
Zoe: I wasn’t planning on the dirt kissin’, sir.
Wash: I wouldn’t stand for it anyway, Captain. Jealous man like me.
Kaylee: Look at the pretties!
Wash: What am I looking at? The girls or the clothes?
Jayne: The girls.
Zoe: The clothes, please.
Kaylee: Say, look at the fluffy one!
Zoe: Too much foofarah. If I’m gonna wear a dress I want something with some slink.
Wash: You want a slinky dress? I can buy you a slinky dress. Captain, can I have money for a slinky dress?
Jayne: I’ll chip in.
Zoe: I can hurt you.
Wash: Don’t fall asleep now. Sleepiness is weakness of character. Ask anyone.
Zoe: It is not.
Wash: You are acting Captain. Know what happens if you fall asleep now?
Zoe: Jayne slits my throat and takes over.
Safe
Zoe: Next time we smuggle livestock let’s make it something smaller.
Wash: Yeah, we should start dealing in those black market beagles.
Mal: Well look at this. Seems we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?
Zoe: Big damn heroes, sir.
Our Mrs. Reynolds
Zoe: Really think you’re the one to talk to her, sir.
Mal: The way I see it me and her got one thing in common. We’re the only one’s that don’t think this is funny.
Jaynestown
Out of Gas
Mal: Ship like this will be with you ’til the day you die.
Zoe: That’s ’cause it’s a death trap.
Mal: Which one do you figure tracked us.
Zoe: The ugly one, sir.
Mal: nodding …Could you be more specific?
Zoe: Welcome back, sir.
Mal: Did I go someplace?
Book: Very nearly.
Ariel
War Stories
Zoe: Is there any way I’m gonna get out of this with honor and dignity?
Wash: You’re pretty much down to ritual suicide, Lamby Toes.
Zoe: Preacher, don’t the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killin’?
Book: Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.
Zoe: Jayne, this is something the captain has to do for himself.
Mal: No! No it’s not!
Zoe: Oh!
Trash
Saffron: See there. All you gotta do to be a rich woman, hon is, get over it.
Zoe: Hm. Okay. clocks Saffron. I’m in.
The Message
Simon: This may come as a shock but I’m actually not very good at talking to girls.
Zoe: Why? Is there someone you are good at talking to?
Battle of Du-khang
Tracey: Thanks. I didn’t know you were out there.
Zoe: Sort of the point. Stealth. You may have heard of it.
Tracey: I don’t think they covered that in Basic.
Zoe: Well at least they covered “Dropping your weapon so you can eat beans and get yourself shot.”
Tracey: Yeah, I got a badge in that. Won’t happen again.
Zoe: When it does I’m just gonna watch.
Zoe: First rule of battle, little one: Don’t ever let them know where you are.
Mal with guns blazing: I’m right here! I’m right here! You wanna come in? Yeah you do! C’mon! C’mon!
Zoe: Course there’s other schools of thought.
Mal: That was bracing! They don’t like it when you shoot at ’em. I worked that out myself.
Heart of Gold
Objects in Space
Wash: Little River just gets more colorful by the moment. What’ll she do next.
Zoe: Either blow us all up or rub soup in our hair. It’s a toss up.
Wash: I hope she does the soup thing. It’s always a hoot and we don’t all die from it.
Zoe: Where’s River at now?
Mal: In her room, which I’m thinking of bolting the outside from now on.
Wash: That’s a little extreme, isn’t it?
Jayne: Anybody remember her coming at me with a butcher’s knife?
Wash: Wacky fun.
Jayne: You want to go, little man?
Wash: Only if it’s someplace with candlelight.
Zoe: Sir, I know she’s unpredictable but I don’t think she’d harm anyone.
Jayne: Butcher’s knife!
Zoe: Anyone we can’t spare.
Mal: I don’t think she’s intuitive, Doctor. I think she’s a Reader.
Zoe: Psychic?
Wash: Is that even remotely possible?
Mal: You tell me. You’ve been studying what they’ve done to her.
Simon: They’ve, uh, they’ve definitely altered the way she reacts to things. Even the way she perceives. But I’m not—
Wash: Psychic, though? That sounds like something out of science fiction.
Zoe: You live on a space ship, dear.
Zoe: This is really not my area of expertise, Doctor. I tend to be putting these into people more than the other thing.
Wash: Can I mop your brow? I am at the ready with the fearsome brow-mop.