List of Firefly (TV series) characters

Malcolm Reynolds ("Mal"), played by Nathan Fillion, is owner and captain of the Firefly-class spaceship Serenity, and was a volunteer in the war between the Alliance and the Independents (aka "Browncoats").

Though Mal usually seems more practical than intellectual, he occasionally surprises his friends by displaying familiarity with disparate literature varying from the works of Xiang Yu to poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, though he has no idea "who" Mona Lisa is.

In the DVD commentary for the episode "Shindig", costume designer Shawna Trpcic mentions that the leather necklace Zoë always wears is a symbol of her marriage bond.

The prop used as her weapon of choice, a Mare's Leg lever-action pistol, was originally used in the series The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.[2] Hoban "Wash" Washburne is played by Alan Tudyk.

A laid-back guy with a dry and occasionally laconic sense of humor, Wash tends to represent the pragmatic, cut-and-run opinion in any shipboard debate, and often serves as the calming influence in heated arguments.

Tudyk also jokes that Wash's ship was shot down after a single flight and he was put in a POW camp, where he spent the remainder of the war entertaining the other prisoners with shadow puppets.

These sources suggest that the extensive Companion training begins either in childhood or young adulthood and includes social and physical grace, self-defense, at least some performing arts, and psychology.

Comments made by Inara suggest that she is displeased with alterations to the traditional training she underwent, which is resulting in less-experienced novices being introduced to certain aspects of the profession prematurely instead of when she feels they would be ready.

The events of the No Power in the 'Verse follow-up comic elaborate on this; while working in House Madrassa, Inara took on a high-ranking Independent commander as a client who revealed details of an imminent attack on Alliance interests.

Disturbed by this, Inara broke the Companion Guild's strict confidentiality rules and reported what she had heard including the location of Fiddlers Green, a secret Independent military base.

[8][9] In the same Special, show writer Tim Minear explained Inara's mysterious syringe, saying that it contained a drug that would cause the death of her rapists in case she were to be raped.

Minear also said that if the show had not been cancelled, a future episode might have involved Inara being abducted and raped by numerous Reavers, all of whom Mal found dead due to the effects of the drug.

Adam Baldwin auctioned the original hat from the show for the charity Marine Corps–Law Enforcement Foundation for US$4,707.57[14] and Fox asserts intellectual property rights in the burgeoning replica market.

In "The Message" he is noticeably upset while seeing a family receive their dead son and in "Jaynestown" when a young man saves his life by jumping in front of a shotgun blast meant for him.

Originally a member of a gang that ambushes Malcolm and Zoe, Jayne switches allegiances and joins them after Mal offers him a larger share of the take from heists and his own cabin.

Jayne keeps a large arsenal of weapons in his cabin on Serenity, the largest and most powerful being a firearm (specifically, a "Callahan full-bore auto-lock with a customized trigger, double cartridge and thorough gauge") nicknamed Vera, which he attempts to trade with Mal for his "wife" Saffron in "Our Mrs. Reynolds".

[25] Although most notable in the episode "Shindig"—when he insulted her desire to purchase an elaborate dress on the grounds that she could only wear it in the engine room, making it as useful as "a sheep walkin' on its hind legs"—this recurs throughout the series.

[26] However, when Bester incorrectly informed Mal that the ship could not be fixed, Kaylee quickly proved him wrong by diagnosing the problem and repairing the grounded Serenity virtually on the spot.

While her parents and Simon believed the Academy was a private school meant to nurture the gifts of the most academically talented children in the Alliance, it was in fact a cover for a government experiment in creating the perfect assassin.

He has a mysterious past, and on numerous occasions has demonstrated a depth of knowledge in a number of fields incongruous with the clergy: including space travel, firearms, hand-to-hand combat, and criminal activity.

At some point before the events of Firefly (as shown in a flashback in "Out of Gas"), Malcolm Reynolds caught him having sex with a local girl, soon identified as Kaylee Frye, in the engine room.

Malcolm Reynolds and his crew lay out the defense of the Heart of Gold and defend the brothel when Burgess and his men attack to try and take the son he begat on one of the prostitutes, Petaline.

The manner in which Reynolds handles himself in the time leading up to and during the duel convinces Harrow of Mal's character and he decides to trust him with his "property", finally revealed to be a herd of cattle.

He treats his workers, known as mudders, harshly, almost as slaves, and metes out strict punishment to any who cross him, as evidenced by the confinement cage in which he imprisons Stitch Hessian after he and Jayne Cobb robbed him.

He is killed by the Operative, but set plans in motion for Malcolm Reynolds to broadcast a report from Dr. Caron that reveals the origins of the Reavers, leaving the message with his Gynoid bride before he dies.

When Petaline, one of her girls, becomes pregnant with the son of a local landowner, the richest, most powerful man on the small planet, she calls Inara to see if the crew of Serenity can help against the baby's father, Rance Burgess.

He often tries to paralyze his targets by taking out a nerve cluster near the waist, and then stabs them; on some occasions, he has his enemies fall forward onto his sword, much like disgraced Roman generals used to do.

He then causes the Operative to doubt his mission by forcing him to watch a report by Dr. Caron, revealing that the Alliance itself was responsible for accidentally creating the Reavers in the course of mass mind control experiments on the planet Miranda.

When Mal broadcasts this secret to the universe, the Operative admits defeat and decides to leave the Alliance, calling off the search for River and helping the crew piece Serenity back together after the damage sustained in the crash.

Patience, an elderly woman, is the leader of the backwater moon Whitefall and notorious in the backstory of the crew of Serenity for having previously shot Mal due to what he describes as a "perfectly legitimate conflict of interests".