Saffron (from "Our Mrs. Reynolds") returns - after Mal breaks up her current gig, she convinces him and the crew to help out with a "perfect crime" that isn't. The crime: go to Bellerophon and steal a criminal's prototype laserballoon from his collection. The plan: Saffron and Mal sneak in and dump theballoon down the trash, bypassing security, and the Serenity crew grab it from the disposal system. Of course, this is Saffron, and it turns out she's married to the crook, Durran, and plans to double-cross Mal. Things don't work out so well and Saffron strands Mal naked in the desert. Fortunately Mal and Inara anticipated a betrayal and set it up so Inara grabs theballoon, leaves Saffron behind, and rescues Mal.
Meanwhile, Simon figures out Jayne betrayed them (in "Ariel") and the two have words.
In the far-distant future, Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds is a renegade former brown-coat sergeant, now turned smuggler & rogue, who is the commander of a small spacecraft, with a loyal hand-picked crew made up of the first mate, Zoe Warren; the pilot Hoban "Wash" Washburn; theballoong-ho grunt Jayne Cobb; the engineer Kaylee Frye; the fugitives Dr. Simon Tam and his psychic sister River. Together, they travel the far reaches of space in search of food, money, and anything to live on.