Summer Glau credited as playing...
River
- [last lines]
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: [with River as his copilot] You know what the first rule of flying is? Well, I suppose you do, since you already know what I'm about to say.
- River Tam: I do. But I like to hear you say it.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Love. You can learn all the math in the 'Verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she ought'a fall down. Tells you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her a home.
- River Tam: Storm's getting worse.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: We'll pass through it soon enough...
- [after the hovercraft makes a crash landing in the hanger of Serenity. Simon runs to his sister]
- Dr. Simon Tam: River?
- River Tam: I swallowed a bug.
- River Tam: [seeing visions of dead bodies on Miranda] Run-tse duh shang-dee, ching dai-wuhtzo... make them stop! They're everywhere. Every city, every... every house, every room; they're all inside me! I can hear them all and they're saying... NOTHING! GET UP! Please, get up! Wuo-shang mayer, maysheen byen shr-to. Please God, make me a stone.
- Dr. Simon Tam: [deciding to leave the ship] River, do you want to stay with them?
- River Tam: It isn't safe.
- Dr. Simon Tam: No. I fear it isn't safe any more.
- [walks away]
- River Tam: [quietly] For them.
- Dr. Simon Tam: But I think when they triggered you, it somehow brought this up. This memory.
- River Tam: It isn't mine. The memory, it isn't mine. And I shouldn't have to carry it. It isn't mine. Don't make me sleep again.
- Dr. Simon Tam: I won't. I won't.
- River Tam: Put a bullet to me. Bullet in the brain pan. Squish.
- Dr. Simon Tam: Don't say that! Not ever. We'll get through this.
- River Tam: Things are going to get much, much worse.
- River Tam: You take care of me, Simon. You've always taken care of me. My turn.
- [she dives through the closing doors, grabs the medikit, and throws it to Simon just before the doors close]
- [preparing for heist]
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Hey, little one. Understand your part in all this?
- River Tam: Do you?
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: It's what I do, darlin'.
- [River walks away]
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: It's what I do.
- Mr. Universe: [Watching the video feed of River fighting in the Maidenhead] And, she falls asleep. Which, she would be sleepy.
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Can you go back? See if anybody spoke with her before she acted up... made any kind of contact with her.
- River Tam: [On video] Miranda...
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Miranda? Go back further.
- Mr. Universe: [Watching Oaty Bar commercial] No...
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Uh... please?
- Mr. Universe: Oh, Mal, you're very smart. Someone is talking to her.
- Hoban 'Wash' Washburn: The Oaty Bar?
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Subliminal. It's a subliminal message, broadwaved to trigger her.
- Mr. Universe: I've been seeing this code pop up all over, the last few weeks. It's Alliance, and it's high military.
- [pause]
- Mr. Universe: They have gone to enormous trouble to find your little friend... and found her they have. Do you all know what it is you're carrying?
- [chased by a Reaver aircraft]
- Jayne Cobb: How come they ain't blowin' us out the air?
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: They wanna run us down. The up-close kill.
- River Tam: They want us alive when they eat us.
- River Tam: I had to show them. l didn't know if you were going to make me sleep.
- Dr. Simon Tam: [hoarse whisper] You could have asked...
- [River looks away guiltily]