"The Message" is the last episode of Firefly ever committed to film, a fact that lends an extra bit of gravity to its melancholy tone. Joss Whedon and Tim Minear were the two chiefly responsible for the episode and those two tend to make a pretty stunning team. Dramatically, it's the strongest episode in the series, giving at least one memorable scene to each of the principle players and showing just how tight Firefly's approach to episodic television could be. Not that many people got to see it the first time it went to air, getting stuffed into a slot in the middle of July long after the series had been canceled.

"The Message" opens with a classic space station scene that serves as a quick update of how the Serenity crew relate to one another at this point in the story. These little moments of awkwardness, comfort and joking around are essential to coaxing the subtleties out of the rest of the episode as the crew react to death, mourning and the sense of lost honor that hangs over so much of the series. At the space station Mal and Zoe receive a crate with an old war buddy named Tracey's corpse inside. En route to deliver his body to his family, the crew tell stories about him and linger over his coffin in contemplation. There's an especially good scene between Jayne and Book in this first half in which they discuss their resignation to the danger of their lifestyle and the value of spirituality in it.

Of course, there has to be a sci-fi twist in the middle. Tracey's not actually dead, he's just in a chemically-induced coma to cover his latest scam to smuggle stolen synthetic organs in his own body. When he wakes up, Tracey fits in well enough with the crew thanks to his amiable personality and lack of scruples. Guest star Jonathan Woodward, a Whedonverse favorite who featured in what was probably the best episode of the last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and in a key role on Angel, is a really likable actor who hasn't appeared in nearly as many things as he's had a right to. Woodward plays Tracey as a fundamentally good kid who never really came out of the Unification War. The lack of a real life after the war has backed him into one corner after another, driven by a nihilistic sense of disillusion that can only destroy him. He's the other end of the spectrum from Mal and Zoe who found a way to live beyond the battlefield, or at least continue it in a way that works for them. Without the support structure of their home on Serenity and the people who crew her, our veteran protagonists might end up just like Tracey. He panics when the men he stole from come looking for him and ends up getting shot by the only friends he ever had.

Tracey's funeral is the last scene ever shot for Firefly. Joss Whedon himself is among the mourners and everyone on the show was well aware that they were finished. The story would get one last hurrah in the film Serenity, though that movie is plenty funereal on its own.

Best Moment: Mal and Zoe telling the old war story about Tracey stealing his CO's mustache. Those mess hall scenes are some of the best, most naturalistic in the series.

Notes: Poor Kaylee. She's Firefly's requisite kid sister, always getting into trouble for the sake of the plot.

Episode Rating: 5/5- "The Message" is a nice, self-contained teleplay that hits a lot of the most important themes of Firefly. It's a good mix of drama and science fiction, driven by its characters and framed by its fancy.