This post contains spoilers.
A few months ago, I rewatched the
Firefly series (now I've seen it three times) so I could watch the movie for the first time. Recently though, I found myself thinking about Fess Higgins' posture near the end of "Jaynestown."
After having heard that Jayne's returned to the factory settlement of Canton, Magistrate Higgins puts a land-lock on
Serenity so that he can't leave Higgins's Moon. Years ago, Jayne stole "sixty thousand" from him (it's made clear that the "sixty thousand" is an amount of money, although the monetary unit is not really specified), and the magistrate wants him to run into his old partner, whom he (Jayne) had betrayed in the course of the robbery and whom the magistrate releases from prison in order to create a conflict. It's implied that Inara convinces Fess (the magistrate's son) to remove the land-lock, after he tells her about the "folk hero" and that he "sort of hate[s] the idea of his getting caught." Fess admires Jayne as folk hero because he stole from his father while Fess is still firmly under his control.
After
Serenity takes off at the end of the episode - without any trouble from port control - the scene cuts to Fess explaining to his father that he "sent an override to port control [and] lifted the land-lock on
Serenity." After the magistrate expresses his anger, Fess says (in something of a medium shot), "You wanted to make a man out of me, Dad."
Then the angle changes to see him sitting at a table before he says, "I guess it worked."
His posture here emphasizes what he says. It's almost comically large, and - as I learned from
a TED talk a few years ago - posture is related to confidence. It's subtle, but it's a detail that really helps to visually portray how Fess has changed.
