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By Shack

Just then, Sydney's Nemesis kicks a few local-color asses out the door of the bar, and fisticuffs ensue. And thankfully, this all looks like a real fight that real people might have, and not the "if it looks cool in Tekken, wouldn't it look cooler if we did it live?" stuntwork we get on Buffy and Angel. Captain Johnny kicks a guy in the knee. Sydney's Nemesis throws dirt in a guy's eyes. Uh, what happened to Sydney's Nemesis's gun? Jayne, I guess, couldn't let the opportunity to hurt people pass, so he knocks a few guys out the front door of the bar with a stool and joins the fray. Unfortunately, our would-be intrepid anti-heroes find themselves outnumbered and backed up to the edge of a conveniently nearby cliff. Captain Johnny jokes to Sydney's Nemesis that this is why they lost the war in the first place. Sydney's Nemesis deadpans, "Thanks for the reenactment, sir." Opening Conflict Guy and two other fellows draw guns on our would-be intrepid anti-heroes. He suggests that the three of them need to be "put down." Captain Johnny responds, "I'm thinking we'll rise again." Do you get it? Do you? Do you? They'll rise again? Like the South? After the Civil War?

Before Opening Conflict Guy can call Captain Johnny's bluff, Wash arrives with the requested grand entrance. A spaceship the size of a large yacht rises up (get it?) from beneath the lip of the cliff to stare the gathered Alliance rednecks in the face. Over a speaker, Wash warns the men to go back in the bar or he'll "blow a new crater in this little moon." Having served their function, Opening Conflict Guy and his fellow conflicteers turn tail and return to the bar. The Fiddle Of Beating The Western Theme Into Our Heads plays as our trio of would-be intrepid anti-heroes jump onto a loading ramp and head into a storage bay. Jayne mocks the yokels because they don't know that their transport ship is totally unarmed. If the dumb, poor yokels support the Alliance, then who the hell were the Independents, other than these folks? The inside of this ship, by the way, is as dirty, rusty, and brown as the inside of the bar they just left.

Captain Johnny and Sydney's Nemesis head up some stairs to the "bridge" -- which looks more like an extra-large cockpit -- to thank Wash for the save. Wash is played by Alan Tudyk, an actor so Nordically pale that he probably glows in the dark. Captain Johnny asks after the other passengers, prompting a young woman to pull herself out from under a console she is repairing to tell him they're fine. This girl is a "Hollywood Geek" -- a pretty, pretty girl who is stuck into lumpy clothing, given an unflattering hairstyle, and denied make-up, all to try to convince us that she's not a pretty, pretty girl. Then, of course, she'll get all "gussied up" for some reason or another and knock everybody's socks off. Everybody, that is, who isn't already aware that this is already a pretty, pretty girl. And since this nonsense has been already been mocked in awful "comedies" like Not Another Teen Movie, I don't know why we're being dragged down this damned road yet again. Pretty Geek Girl asks what happened and whether there was a big brawl. There was. Wash asks if Captain Johnny is getting Wash's wife (meaning Sydney's Nemesis) into trouble again. Captain Johnny insists that he didn't start it. Sydney's Nemesis points out that they always seem to end up in an Alliance-friendly bar on Unification Day. Captain Johnny jokingly accuses Sydney's Nemesis of developing "space dementia" and paranoia. Pretty Geek Girl laughs, because she wants to be in with the cool kids. And finally they get to the point of this entire opening scene: that little note that was passed to Captain Johnny. He tells them all that he got them a job, and orders Wash to take them off-world: "We got us some crime to be done." The Banjo Of Shack Dreading The Pending Opening Theme Song plays as we end the intro with a shot of the ship flying off away from the planet, a wake of green vapors trailing behind it.