After ridding a frontier town of a bandit problem, Serenity's crew are hailed as heroes by the townspeople and a celebration is thrown in their honour. When they leave the following morning, Mal discovers a stowaway; a young woman named Saffron, whom he'd unwittingly married the previous night. Unfortunately, one of the bandits they'd killed was the nephew of a prominent government official, preventing them from taking her back.
The first half of the episode is mostly comprised of comedic misunderstandings. The bulk of these stem from Mal trying to respect Saffron as a person, but her sheltered upbringing makes her all too eager to be a subservient housewife. This rubs off on the rest of the crew in various ways: it causes Wash and Zoe to argue; Inara becomes jealous, alluding to her suppressed romantic feelings for Mal; Book lectures Mal on "the special Hell" if he takes advantage of Saffron; Jayne wants Saffron for himself, even offering Mal his favourite gun (Vera) in trade.
Now, this kind of humour wouldn't carry an episode. Fortunately, it doesn't have to; the second half reveals that Saffron's naivete and subservience is merely a facade, and she has more nefarious plans for the crew. Even in the perilous moments, there is still some hilarious conversations. Plus another example of Book's "forbidden knowledge".
Just to recap on Book: he's proficient in hand-to-hand combat; he knows of Adelei Niska's infamous reputation; he can get medical treatment from the Alliance with no questions asked; now he seems to know about some of the hardware used by chop shop gangs in space (and it's not pleasant). Yeah, not the kind of things you'd get to know when sequestered in a monastery.
One notable absence is River. She's still on the ship, and appears in the background, but she doesn't have any lines. Although I have read that there was a scene where she asks Book to marry her to Simon, and she later hints at Saffron's true nature. Unfortunately, these scenes had to be cut due to time constraints.
Overall, the first half mostly plays like a romantic comedy (which may not be everybody's thing), but there's still a good perilous situation in the second act.
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