It was the 10th episode to premiere on Fox during the series' original broadcast and aired on Friday, December 13, 2002, one day after the network announced the show's cancellation.
Whedon expanded upon the suggestion and extrapolated it into the villain of this episode, the "preternaturally cool, nearly psychotic bounty hunter" Jubal Early.
River continues to wander the ship and is moved by the sound of ocean waves as Zoe and Wash passionately kiss on the nearby bridge.
Above the cargo bay, as Mal and Inara discuss her impending departure, River sees their unspoken frustrations over their unrealized relationship.
None of the people she encounters are aware of her presence - except when speaking directly to her - making it clear that this is River's mind "walking" telepathically through the ship.
The two men eventually reach the bridge, and Early, impatient and annoyed, threatens to shoot Simon if River doesn't give herself up.
In his essay We're All Just Floating in Space,[3] Lyle Zynda analyzes this episode's interpretation of existential meaninglessness, arguing that both River and Early perceive physical objects as divorced from the meanings with which others imbue them.
For example, when River picks up the gun, she sees it as a harmless branch—an object, as she says, that "doesn't mean what you think"—transformed by her perspective into a benign thing of beauty.
While moving through the ship, both River and Early seem to be acutely aware of and derive sensual pleasure from their environment, stroking the walls, conscious of the physicality of their surroundings.
Whedon notes in the DVD commentary that one of the ways he illustrated this quality was to keep camera focused on River's bare feet as she walked.
Early, admiring specifics of the ship's design, significantly echoes the episode's title when he says, "People don't appreciate the substance of things.
Early enacts one of Sartre's central ideas, the concept of "bad faith", when he denies his responsibility for his actions by claiming he is not free to do otherwise.