S1E14
Heart of Gold
⚠ Spoiler alert This recap gives away what happens in this episode.
Episode Summary & Review
Summary
A Companion trained friend of Inara’s who runs a brothel on a remote planet calls for help from Serenity when a local bigwig reveals his intentions to take the baby from a woman he impregnated.
Our Take
A fairly standard siege story dressed up in Firefly clothes, and the villain is about as one-note as they come. What saves it is the character work, especially the fallout between Mal and Inara, which lands harder than you’d expect from a brothel-of-the-week setup. Not the show’s best hour, but the emotional ending makes it worth your time.